Best of the blogs: Perhaps it’s some sort of secret tribal curse cast upon him at his summer home off the Dark Continent, but Randall Kennedy has been to hell, and back, and most recently was struck by a vertigo of sorts. Thing is, we’re talking Windows here folks, not Mauritius natives, as in WGA hell, and then some. Specifically, he checked out some Knowledge Base articles and asked for the x64 version of a patch. “What happened next was straight out of the Twilight Zone,” he writes in this Enterprise Desktop post. That request for the hotfix, listed as available on the Web site, returned a cryptic message saying it’s not available and pointing Kennedy to paid support options. “Fortunately, I still have access to the Microsoft folks who developed the fix, and I will continue to harass them until the status of the hotfix is finally settled.” Columnist’s corner: It’s an all-too-familiar scenario for IT workers and one that occurs when they’re not even in the office. Are you the IT guy for family and friends? This could mean plugging in that wireless router that a home cleaning crew unplugged, thereby rendering the PC offline and flummoxing the household, or showing your uncle how to get e-mail on his newly-acquired handheld. “The hours spent aren’t really quality time and don’t really help advance your career. It’s inefficient time by definition — and life is too short,” David Margulius writes, and goes on to advise how you, as IT professional, can avoid wasting leisure time on the problems of others. “Start by evaluating resources and capabilities on a client-by-client basis.” Reality Check: Rather than debating whether Microsoft is playing catch-up with Windows Live or not, Ephraim Schwartz cuts to the far more practicable issue of installation. “I tried and found it quite confusing,” he admits. Installation difficulties with Windows Live: Is it just me? It seemed, for instance, that there was no choice but to add a Hotmail account just to get a user ID for Live. Who needs another email address, though, and what problems would that bring? “Like so many times before when a service or program has piqued my curiosity I ended up abandoning it, afraid of the consequences to my delicate system.” Green IT: The paperless office is becoming more of a reality, albeit not as quickly as I might like. For the time being, “a paperless world is a long way off, but many business are taking strides to at least create a less-paper world,” Ted Samson explains in Follow the paperless trail. Digital paper, you see, is proving its worth in the form of e-receipts, electronic tickets, among others. As is typically the case with green technologies and initiatives, it’s not necessarily inspired by the desire to be eco-friendly. “It’s a matter of boosting efficiency; making an easier-to-maintain paper trail; boosting continuity; and saving cash in the long term on costs associated with printing and mailing.” Software Development