An evaluation form read: "On a scale of 1 to 5, please rate the following statements about the IBM Networking Hardware Division and Data Communications Editor's Day." I'll bet "Good Food" and "Free t-shirts were nice" both got a "5."

"Fritz: Wall Data recently briefed you on its new Cyberprise masterbrand strategy. The following description highlights the products we would like to discuss with Network Magazine." OK, go ahead, but talk really slooooooow.

In a Microsoft posting on its daily news Web site: "Redmond, Wash.--The best things in life are free. Consider Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0. Internet Computing magazine just rated the integrated Web server of Microsoft Windows NT Server the best enterprise Web server.... Network Computing appreciated the many features of IIS... " Maybe one day, Microsoft. Maybe one day.

The understandable "insert publication name here" faux pas aside, these things bother me because we're not all the same (lest you forget). What's worse, the mistakes other publications make often penalize Network Computing. Cisco refused to be part of our Radius Server review (coming in July) partly because it felt one magazine had botched a recent review. Xcert initially was afraid to let us test Sentry CA last year because one magazine claimed it didn't issue certificates. WheelGroup was burned by a publication that wanted to test its security-assessment product among a bunch of firewalls.

So pardon me if being lumped in with all the others drives me to drink.

I just read that one of our competitors is having a contest where it sends one of its contributors to the winner's site, and he buys them pizza and then presents a topic of his choice for an hour.

I'm sure you're nice, but do you really want me to meet you? I just want to be your IT magazine of choice. Research tells us that you have two main sources of information for making purchasing decisions: publications and peers. Because we test in environments like yours and because our editors have extensive IT backgrounds, we like to think of ourselves as both.

But judge for yourselves. We have an unbelievable lineup this issue, starting with our feature on Java middleware (page 56). We kick off the reviews section with fingerprint authentication devices (page 84) and an accompanying workshop on biometric authentication (page 122). I intercepted an early test plan for the review which read--no lie--"Cut off section editor's finger, authenticate with it." I wonder if our editors have taken to writing these things after a few shots during happy hour.

We continue with a comparison of NFS gateways (page 98) written by Jeff Ballard, who sent the following message, which we happened to intercept: "Thanks to everyone who showed up last night. I'm not exactly sure who came up with the part about doing as many shots as your age, but I made it through all of them. Boy, I sure feel good now."

Yeah, me too. And don't forget the (hiccup) Mount Rack Server review on page 106.