ShadowRAM: February 11, 2008

father & Son: True Blue Fans
• Sam Ruggeri went to his first Super Bowl 17 years ago to see his New York Giants play. Since then, the big game has become almost an annual tradition for Ruggeri, president of Advanced Vision Technology Group, a Hauppauge, N.Y.-based solution provider. He's been to all but two Super Bowls since 1991. This year, New York was back and so was Ruggeri, but it was a last-minute decision.

"We decided right after the field goal was kicked," Ruggeri said, referring to the overtime game-winner in the NFC Championship Game against the Green Bay Packers. "I kept refreshing my airline reservation page until the snap and pressed submit. The rest is great history with priceless memories." In the past, he's gone with friends on a well-planned-out vacation. This year, he took his son Sammy and they didn't arrive until Saturday night.

"My son took his LSAT that Saturday, so we couldn't leave until the night before the game. As soon as we landed we met another Giants fan, Stephen Alexander of Third Eye Technologies, and hit the roads to the Super Bowl parties," he said. Father and son watched the Giants beat the Patriots from upper-deck seats and then celebrated at a local restaurant with a lot of happy blue shirts.

Are We All Clear, Now?
• Just one week after Dell wrapped up its $1.4 billion acquisition of EqualLogic, few signs of the storage system maker's original identity were visible when the press was invited to EqualLogic's Nashua, N.H., headquarters for the debut of the Dell EqualLogic PS5000 Series.

Signs outside the building identified the occupant as Dell and the sign behind the receptionist's desk sported the familiar Dell logo. Dell execs were clearly in charge during the conference, but EqualLogic CEO Don Bulens was absent. Dell PR said he would spend the next three to six months with Dell in a consulting role and advising Greg Davis, channel vice president for the Americas, on strategy. But his long-term status remains murky.

As reporters waited in the lobby for the press conference to begin, the receptionist stepped away from the desk and a passing employee answered the phone with a "Thanks for calling EqualLogic" greeting. "You're fired," the returning receptionist joked. "We're Dell now, remember?"

SEEN AND HEARD
• Care to show your loved ones how little you like shopping? Dotster, a domain registration and Web hosting firm, issued a press release trying to take advantage of hopeless saps who are apparently new to the dating game by telling them to "show your loved one how much you care for them with a gift that can last a lifetime: A personalized domain name and e-mail address." Although we're suspicious that this nugget of "highly valued Internet real estate," which Dotster deems a "truly distinctive gift," won't go over as well as, say, a diamond or a MacBook Air, giving your girl a "truly romantic high-tech Valentine's Day" might be better than having forgotten the day altogether.

• Some eBay sellers apparently think it's good sport to bully buyers that give negative feedback. So much so that retaliatory feedback is the No. 1 reason buyers cited for decreasing or stopping their eBay online sales activity. Believe it or not, that feedback is viewed as a bigger problem by customers than not receiving shipment. EBay has responded by banning outright negative feedback concerning customers. You've got to wonder what these sellers are thinking. When did it become OK to publicly slap your customers? Maybe that's the reason why so many buyers still prefer to deal with a local solution provider when buying their latest and greatest technology products.