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Robbo tips Ronaldo to stay

Former United captain Bryan Robson is convinced that Cristiano Ronaldo will remain at Old Trafford, despite Real Madrid's ongoing interest in the player.

Robson, now a club ambassador at Old Trafford, recalls a time in his own Reds career when he caught the eye of high-profile foreign clubs, and he expects Ronaldo to snub such overtures, just as he did.

"In 1983 I was wanted by three Italian clubs - AC Milan, Sampdoria and Juventus," Robson told the Daily Star. "Transfer fees weren't as high then but it would have been a world-record fee - only for United to price me out of a move.

"It was a similar situation to the one Cristiano is in now, in that United wouldn't let me go for what would have been a world-record fee.

"I was happy to stay and I think Ronaldo is happy at the club too. He might have small doubts but I think all the media hype and what has been coming out of Spain has really blown the situation out of proportion.

"And I see Ronaldo, once he is over his ankle operation, being part of the team."

United have continually insisted that Ronaldo will not be leaving Old Trafford, despite a summer of speculation over his future.

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Ronaldo: I'll miss 12 weeks

Cristiano Ronaldo expects to miss three months of action after undergoing ankle surgery.

The Portuguese winger insists the early stages of his rehabilitation are going well, but claims it will still be early October before he is back playing.

"It's confirmed I'll be out of action for up to 12 weeks but recovery is going well," Ronaldo told reporters in Portugal. "I must focus on my recovery. I'll be training with a ball in two months."

Ronaldo's timescale has not been verified by club medical staff. As per last week's statement, his progress will be reviewed by a specialist after one month, and a return date will be estimated then.

Whatever that date is, it seems almost certain that the winger will miss United's early-season games - including tricky trips to Liverpool and Chelsea.

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Ronaldo drops no hints

Cristiano Ronaldo faced the world’s media in Basel today, but gave no clues on where he’ll be playing his football in 2008/09.

Fronting the cameras ahead of Portugal’s quarter-final clash with Germany on Thursday, the United winger refused to be drawn on speculation surrounding his future.

“I’ve already made it clear that I don’t want to talk about my situation until after the European Championships,” Ronaldo said. “Right now I want to concentrate on the Germany game.

“I will talk about my future, but not until after this tournament.”

Spanish champions Real Madrid have made no secret of their desire to lure Ronaldo to the Bernabeau. In fact, their vigorous pursuit of a player who scored 42 times for United last season has upset Reds officials, who reported the Spanish club to FIFA on 9 June.

Football’s governing body have since announced, however, that no breach of contract appears to have occurred.

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Top Ten Worst Uses for Windows

After all these years I am willing to admit that Microsoft has won the desktop and server wars. Thanks to VMWare Windows is spreading throughout the datacenter. And, of course, there is only one operating system to use if you are dependent on Microsoft apps like Outlook, Word, and Excel. While I have joined the chorus of security folks who rail against the Microsoft Monoculture I still cannot believe some of the uses for Windows. Some of them are just downright silly, some you may claim are criminally negligent.

So here is the Top Ten List of Worst Uses for Windows:

1. To Display a Static Green Arrow Over the Open TSA Security Lanes at Detroit Metro

I kid you not, at the main security checkpoint to get into Detroit Metro there are monitors over each metal detector. The ONLY thing those monitors ever display is a big green arrow pointing down. Oh, occasionally they display a blue screen with a Windows error notice.

2. Ticket Scanner at Frankfurt Airport

Another example of too much horse power for a simplified task. In this case I saw a Windows boot up screen on the little laser scanner for checking people on to the plane. Why not program some stripped down embedded system for that task? IT would be open source most likely and would not need to be updated every month.

3. Gift Certificate Dispensing Kiosk

I am responsible for this one. Back before the turn of the century I needed to sell printed gift certificates from kiosks in downtown Birmingham, Michigan. All I could find was a manufacturer in Seattle who charged me $10,000 a piece including the touch screen and beautiful purple stand. The OS was Windows NT. It meant that twice a week I had to deploy a technician (me) to each kiosk to reboot them because they would freeze up due to memory leaks. Eventually the manufacturer came up with a fix. I downloaded a script to each machine that would reboot it automatically every day at midnight. It may be hard to comprehend today but Microsoft effectively trounced Sun, DEC, HP, and IBM in the enterprise with products that were so flawed that they needed to be rebooted every 24 hours. (That's scheduled downtime, not used in calculating five nines.)

4. Job Application Kiosk

Now we get into security. A little retailer in the Boston area used stand alone kiosks for presenting job application forms. Hackers found it convenient to compromise the Windows based machine and steal tens of millions of credit cards from the retailer. Yes, it was TJX.

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