keeping the community informed

Thanks to you, our members, DaniWeb continues to go from strength to strength. But have you ever stopped and wondered just where it all began? As the name suggests, it all started with Dani Horowitz, the Queen of DaniWeb. She began developing the site during her junior year of college at Hofstra University, while she was working towards her B.S. in Computer Science with a minor in Business Computer Information Systems. As often happens, great ideas are born out of necessity. It just so happened that the university's CSC department did not provide the free tutoring that other degree courses on campus had. So Dani, and her friend Dan, thought it might just be a good idea to provide an online resource to allow computer students to share their knowledge and help each other. "I decided to open up a site called TechTalk Forums" Dani recalls "It grew into a close knit community of members." The first tutorials that appeared were actually class notes from Dani's first year of her computer science degree! The following year, Dani moved the community to vBulletin and relaunched it as DaniWeb. The web development forums were born at the same time, and the site quickly became known as the really friendly place to come for really good advice regarding IT. The rest, as they say, is history. And you, my friend, are a part of it…

did you know?

As we go to press there are some 398,090 members of the DaniWeb community who have, between them, contributed some 664,440 forum postings, 2112 blog postings, 883 code snippets and 568 directory links. Perhaps most interesting of all, the most users ever online simultaneously was on the August 30, 2008 when some 8552 of you were all here at once!

every month one member makes the DaniWeb hall of fame…

Please welcome our newest member of the DaniWeb hall of fame, EddieC who is another recent recruit to the DaniWeb staff writing team. One of our professional bloggers bringing you all the latest IT news and analysis, Eddie is also the editor of Software Test & Performance magazine as well as writing the weekly Test & QA Report newsletter. His News & Views blog here at DaniWeb has covered everything from why Microsoft Photosynth will fail to problems with Apple MobileMe. Although primarily a DaniWeb news writer, Eddie does occasionally pop up in the Geeks' Lounge and Windows forums. Here's what we discovered about our latest proud recipient of the Featured Blogger badge when we decided to probe that little bit deeper…

What is your favorite computer and why?

You might think this a cop-out, but my favorite computer is one that doesn't crash. I can be equally productive on Windows as on Mac OS; I have not used Unix or Linux PCs for daily productivity. I am partial to Apple hardware. So if money was no object, I suppose I would want a MacBook Air, but would want it to run Mac OS X and Windows simultaneously.

What makes you stay at DaniWeb?

I like DaniWeb because my posts get a lot of views and the potential for linkbacks and comments. It's nice to write to a large, active audience. I don't get much feedback from readers of the magazine or my newsletters.

How long do you spend on DaniWeb, on an average day, and what is your favorite forum?

I spend about 1 to 2 hours on DaniWeb a day. I try to file at least one article per day, on average. I'm still learning the ropes so I don't really have a favourite forum yet.

What are your interests outside of IT and outside of DaniWeb?

I have a wife and two kids, and I like to spend time biking, camping and canoeing. I also like movies and enjoy gardening and working on my house (good thing too, 'cause there's never a shortage). I also like off-road motocross, and hope to return to it when my kids are older.

Any fascinating facts about yourself that you would like to share with the DaniWeb
community?

There's really nothing fascinating about me, except perhaps that I've been to Portugal, Spain, Greece, Morocco, Tahiti, Canada and Mexico as well as about 20 U.S. states.

by Brian.oco

In the words of the immortal Chris Farley . . . “Holy Shnikey’s!”

That was my reaction after watching Dell’s stock tank after what pundits are billing as an “underwhelming” second quarter earnings performance.

Investors seemed to agree on Thursday, as Dell stock fell 13% to under $22 per share (off its 2008 high of $30 per share). Perhaps the most worrisome sign from Dell was its pronouncement that worldwide wide technology spending was veering downward for the rest of 2008.

I saw the Dell numbers before everything hit the fan. My takeaway was “okay . . . not bad”. After all, Dell had been beating analyst’s expectations by about $400 million per quarter. In Q1, the stock shot up after Dell announced its financial numbers and the landscape looked like a rosy one.

What seems to be bothering investors and analysts now is Dell’s profit margin picture. The company has been slashing its computer prices, in part to keep up with the lower cost models rolling out of HP and IBM. Dell has been releasing its computers to Wal-Mart and Best Buy knowing full well that the retailers would cut the cost of its computers significantly. Consequently, Dell’s gross profit margin decreased from 20% to 17.2% from Q1 to Q2. Net income dropped as well – to $616 million in Q2.

Analysts were quick to pounce. JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz labeled the margin drop "a stunner”. BMO Capital Markets analyst Keith Bachman labeled Dell's second quarter " a big step back."

Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell evidently realizes he’s made a mistake. In a conference call with analysts on Thursday he admitted that Dell has been “overzealous” in slashing prices not just in the U.S., but also in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Too little, too late, it seems. Friedman Billings Ramsey analyst Clay Sumner predicted it will be several quarters until Dell compensates for the deferral of revenue on some European maintenance contracts and he thinks the company's "aggressive pricing" may again offset favorable component costs, especially in notebook computers.

Hey, I’m an Apple guy, and there’s a good reason why Apple has doubled its market share in personal computers in the past two years – it makes a product people really want (call it “destination” computing). Dell, who is overly reliant on Microsoft’s Jurassic-era technology, has got caught in Apple’s wake, to some degree. That, and the fact that it has slashed prices by too much, are the reasons why Dell is in dire straights this week.