The Weekly Round-Up: 13.10.06

The Round-Up is sure we've all applied for jobs at one time or other and put checks in place to make sure our applications were all in order.

Covering letter? Check.

CV? Check.

Link to video of me doing kung-fu and lifting weights? Check.

This was quite possibly the mental process that one job candidate went through when emailing his job application to banking giant UBS recently.

The candidate, an interesting soul by the name of Aleksey Vayner, included a toe-curling, cringe-worthy, 'motivational video' in his application.

You can follow this link and watch the video for yourself... for once the Round-Up is fairly speechless.

Aleksey is, according to the video, "known as somebody who has studied the principles of personal development for some time". He is also "an inspiration to many".

Furthermore, his video claims he is a professional athlete (as well as a CEO).

We're not sure in which sport he is professional - the video includes him playing tennis, doing martial arts and dancing. Of those, we hear how he has "mastered" the game of tennis. And although he's not won Wimbledon or the US Open or the French Open or the Australian Open… or any competition of note that we could find... he does appear on the video playing tennis. So, consider it mastered.

Another question you may have, of course, is how have any of us come upon this video when it was part of a job application at UBS?

It seems somebody, somewhere along the line, decided it was so funny it had to be shared and the video toured the offices of many other Wall Street companies and also found itself posted on the newly Google-owned YouTube website (which is worth $1.6bn apparently... YouTube that is, not Aleksey's video... which of course is priceless).

UBS says it is investigating how this might have happened but hasn't confirmed whether the leak was internal - the probe continues.

Moving on to somebody with something of a more proven track record - even if it's not one without its own controversies.

Former US secretary of state, general Colin Powell, delivered the keynote address at a technology conference this week (a gig rumoured to worth around $150,000) and surprised many with his admissions of being 'always on' and very tech-savvy.

Powell told of his reaction to finding himself as one of the options on a poll on AOL's homepage challenging users to vote on which of five prominent figures was ageing most gracefully.

"I signed up another 30 screen names and sat up all night voting for myself," said Powell, putting the Round-Up in mind of his former boss' alleged recipe for electoral success.

"In the end I came second," he added. "Paul Newman was first and Robert Redford was third."

One of the silicon.com team was in the audience at the event and reports that Powell, when he isn't the meat in a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid sandwich, is also a big fan of Google.

"If I'm looking for a UN resolution I don't go onto my website or onto the UN website - I let Sergei and Larry find it," he said of Google's founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page.

Off the subject of technology, Powell stuck to hitting easy balls out of the park for the patriotic, largely American crowd, including a very unworthy use of the word 'commies' (fat men in ill-fitting suits, apparently) and an anecdote about the Japanese prime minister in which he even did a Japanese accent (you can take the man out of diplomacy, and all that).

However, he did criticise the US policy of isolationism and stringent immigration measures which are preventing larger numbers of skilled overseas workers and students from entering the US to study or work legally, which was refreshing.

Another speaker at the Salesforce.com Dreamforce event was Michael Dell who stole the thunder of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Dell was clearly intended to deliver a fairly standard 'we love what you guys are doing' kind of testimonial but instead decided to congratulate Benioff on the announcement of its Apex programming language, billed as the company's "most important release to date".

The only problem with this? Benioff hadn't yet made his big announcement. That was next on his keynote 'to do' list.

No matter, there are bigger headaches in the high-tech world. One in particular continues to show few signs of quietening down - and that's the small matter of HP accessing journalists' phone records and those of its own board members.

Patricia Dunn, until recently chairman of HP, was on television this week defending herself and denying she in any way condoned or ordered the dramatic spying measures.

"The idea that I supervised, orchestrated, approved all the ways in which this investigation occurred is just a complete myth," said Dunn.

Now the Round-Up can't help thinking that such a claim sounds a little like Dunn is trading an allegation of snooping for the admission that she'd lost control of her staff at a time when they clearly needed some strong leadership.

It's the lesser of two wrongs perhaps. Dunn was this week charged with felonies by California's attorney general - the latest twist in this tale. However, she said the fact she also happens to be ill - she is suffering from ovarian cancer - means the latter problem is keeping the former in perspective for her.

As for what the future might hold, Dunn said "the Golden Gate bridge is always out there", referring to San Francisco's famous suicide hotspot. We think she was joking.

Appearing on the same instalment of 60 Minutes (though it probably felt much longer for HP's marketing and PR departments) was former HP CEO Carly Fiorina.

Fiorina was discussing her departure from HP and the fact, in her opinion, there were "no normal business reasons" for her firing. "I can only conclude it was personal," she said.

But was sexism to blame?

Asked whether a male colleague would have been fired in her position, she said rather guardedly: "Somehow men understand other men's need for respect differently than they understand it for a woman. I'm disappointed to have to say that but I think it's undeniably true."

And finally, ending as we began with another example of somebody hitting send on an email before sanity-checking the content with somebody who had the implied and required level of sanity…

Security vendor Appsense is clearly desperate for some publicity (and if you, like the Round-Up, asked 'App... who?' you can probably see why)... but we doubt this is what they had in mind. This week Appsense thought it had come up with a great wheeze.

They decided to name the days of the week (which the Round-Up thought had already been done).

We'll let them explain, because frankly we're still baffled as to why anybody would do this and then share the idea with anybody outside of the pub in which it was (hopefully) conceived.

"Back in the mists of the past, people gave names to the days of the week," began the press release, sounding like a bad documentary on school television... "Some of these have survived in the names of our modern weekdays. Monday is Moon Day, Thursday is named after the Norse storm god Thor, and the Roman god Saturn is remembered every Saturday."

"We think this is a great idea and should be revived," it added, which left the Round-Up feeling very much like the rollercoaster had reached the top of the climb and things were about to go downhill very quickly...

The idea here is that we already have 'Patch Tuesday' - the day when security patches are issued and should be installed. And along this theme, the woefully misguided folks at Appsense drew up a whole new list of prefixes for the days of the week.

Apparently these days "are almost choosing themselves".

Hmmm. For example there is the catchy 'Worrying Monday' - worrying, because it's the day before Patch Tuesday, you see.

And then, after Patch Tuesday (or 'Crappy Press Release Tuesday' as it will now be known in Silicon Towers) comes 'Viral Wednesday' - when virus writers try to seize upon published vulnerabilities in the hope that many patches won't have been applied.

Then comes 'Vulnerable Thursday' and 'Rollback Friday' but by this stage the Round-Up really isn't going to spell out what those are all about.

Clearly Appsense either realised their own idea was a dud, ran out of things to write or doesn't think security is a seven days per week business, because there is no mention of Saturday or Sunday - leaving two of the most important days of the week unnamed.

Never one to shirk a challenge, the Round-Up therefore is going to allow itself the great honour of naming these two days.

So tomorrow, from now on, will be known as 'Don't forget to buy your lottery ticket because "It could be you" unless you've got better things to do such as going out for dinner, taking the kids to the park, washing the dog or perhaps some DIY if you're really unlucky Saturday'. And the following day will henceforth be recognised globally as 'Let's face it you're going to have to do some kind of chores which you just can't put off any longer but at least you may be able to look forward to falling asleep contentedly in front of the television after a nice roast dinner and a few glasses of wine Sunday'.

We can't see why those won't catch on... any less so than the old pony that Appsense served up.

Until next week, enjoy your newly renamed weekend.

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