This is one of the more interesting Slashdot stories in a while. I can put myself in your position and feel you emotions on this potential theft. It looks as if IBM is claiming they've made a substantial enough modification to the code/process/design to warrant a patent for them. As far as the USPTO lately, ever since the patented '1 click checkout' , the office has been suspect in my eye. I wonder how big of a potential market this patent has? One thought that I haven't seen mentioned is that, while this might be the more evil of two evils, you could contact the companies/people that are buying companies just for their patents. If this patent had enough value this might be a place to obtain some backing, again the value of this patent is unknown to me. Other than that it's more of a personal pride and justice argument, in these days of the Mortgage crisis and unbridled greed, with seemingly absolutely no consequences, there seems to be no honor, even among thieves anymore. Best of luck. look forward to a future post about the outcome.
The SD crowd has clearly expresses it's love of PGP, and I have lot's of love for it too. But from a business perspective this is a much larger question. From a tech side there are other products such as Microsoft Right's Manager and Adobe's Policy Server. http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/rightsmanagement/ I'm not endorsing either of these products (so save the flame wars), but identifying that this market is much larger than PGP. There also add a lot of other features, like restricting printing, restricting how long a file can be accessed, multi-factor authentication etc.
As for sending the data that you mentioned (SS#, DOB etc) this is a fine marriage of technology AND company policy, along with state, local, federal and national laws. For example the EU laws are very strict about sending this information and you need to be familiar with each nations requirements. Additionally, sending sensitive data across borders is a concern. As an example, a client could NOT outsource certain HR functions because of these laws. And when overseas certain HR develoment was done a thorough cleansing of the data needed to happen before it was either accessed or sent out of country (e.g. removing SS#'s Dob etc.)
In a nutshell you need your business to define what the security policies are, then use technology to the best you can to implement the policies. This is critical for SOX compliance and legal ramifications. Having the policy is almost, if not more important than the implementation often.
Desktop support, IMHO, is not an 'IT' job, just like changing the oil in a car is not a 'mechanics' job. The point is that it's the reduction of skilled and unskilled workers needed within a corporate IT department. I've been through 3 outsourcings and there is very little 'IT' left in these companies. Avg. of 80% of the 'IT' dept. is gone. (Note: if you develop code for say Blizzard or MS, this is not support 'IT')
IT will continue to get more complex and more simple at the same time, this is one example.
Who didn't want to be a guitar hero as a kid???? What's up with all the negativity?? Guitar Hero is NOT a game to learn to play guitar. It's to get together with your friends and have a blast with the crowd going wild when you hit the notes and to feel bad when the crowed boos you off the stage when you don't. I play guitar, (Gibson SG, Gibson Les Paul), and the songs that I know on the guitar are harder to play on Guitar Hero than on the actual thing! The games a blast, a different game than all the FPS and strategy games that are often played with a group. What other good music games are out there??
My friends and I end up playing this game, with it's silly little plastic guitar - outfitted with a whammy bar - all night. And the hard level is HARD. (Bark at the moon solo anyone?) I love that the virtual artists actually move their hands and body language like they are playing the song. All I want is an OPEN API so I can plug in my own songs, or other songs from my favorite bands (copyright issues) Star Power baby!!
The holy grail of 'network computing', and while it's not fully there yet, there are pieces and it's getting closer to reality everyday. Cost, maintenance, upgrading and managing desktops is very costly for corporations, there has to be a better way. Another way to look at this, is you want to be able to launch your web browser, point to a location, enter a userid and password and PRESTO you get your entire desktop, applications, data available to you and that performs like your current PC and works over WAN/dialup connections. If there's no connection, then you get a 'cached' version and when you reconnect to your network it sync's back up with the server. Different approaches are:
1. Thin client. Great when your in the office, great for light work (e.g. word processing) not great for CAD and intensive graphics apps, or when you travel. (who doesn't use a laptop nowadays? - Gartner predicts that corporations will be buying laptops for most of the organization 80% chance, in the next few years)
2. Citrix. Very nice solution, but there are printing issues, application packaging/publishing issues and forget about graphic intensive work. Again, must be on the network. Plus the added cost of Citrix and server infrastructure.
3. VMWare, hardware virtualization. Works well on servers and for specialized VMs, but not as your main desktop, unless you are a 'light' user (e.g. wordprocessing). And this still leaves you with having to manage a client OS whether it be Windows or Linux. I personally love VMWare and use it heavily on the desktop and server side (ESX) with over 100 ESX servers, with over 800 VMs on the ESX servers.
4. Softricity, Application virtualization technology company that was just bought by Microsoft. What a big miss for VMWare and Citrix (Softricity was started by ex-Citrix folks), they missed a huge, huge, huge opportunity to snap this company up. You sit down at your desk and PRESTO, you can access any application you need at the press of a button. (Security willing of course). The apps streams very fast, loads only critical components and can be taken 'off-line' for those laptop users. It's slightly painful across a slow remote link for the initial load, but feasible. Apps today, OSs tomorrow IMHO. Once they acheive the 'OS virtualization', where the OS can ride around with the app, then you have the holy grail. Linux desktop, thin client, mobile phone, PDA etc, and PRESTO, launch any app from any device and it works as it should - soup to nuts.
The components of the 'Ubiquitous Computing Stack (UBS)' are lining up. MS seems to have most of the pieces now. Remember, end-users want everything they have today, they don't want to settle for less: speed, anywhere access, ease of use, mobility, freedom, tons of storage etc. Without all of these, you just have point solutions.
If your a small fish, you probably won't get the service you think you deserve from Dell, that's my experience. Now that I spend a few million a year with Dell, while it may not be Dell's biggest account, we get some more attention.
I hope Dell's listening, because I've been buying Dell personally for a long time and my XP400 while a good machine, didn't come with a restore disk (lame) and had so much 'trialware' running it was killing my performance. I just had to wonder what a non technical person would do. Is it about the price or the customer? IMHO Dell's going to lose market share.
Here's a good war story, my 5160 laptop USB ports went dead, I think due to a power surge. I called and spoke to 'India' to a very very pleasent person, but couldn't do anything outside of the script. They finally agree to replace the motherboard (after having me check lots of things). I travel a lot, so the local VAR calls me and we make an appt. for 2 weeks out. He calls back and says that he had to return the part because the ticket was open to long per Dell. I had to call Dell support again, and again go through the script, and they wanted me to do every test again (30 minutes). I played along, because I needed my ports and there was that this guy was going to comprehend the situation. After both the Dell calls, they ask, would you talk to a supervisor about your experience. I did both times. But, the second time, I told them the story and I don't think it meant anything to the guy, because it probably didn't impact his pay. I got a 'ok thanks'. (No thank you)
So Dell had to take two calls at 30+ minutes a pop. Dell mailed the motherboard twice to the VAR and 1 time back to Dell. I had to sit on the Dell support line for an additional 30 minutes, but luckily they gave me another code, the VAR got the motherboard back and he fixed my laptop before I headed on another trip.
Did Dell save money on that transaction by outsourcing? Probably, but it's short term IMHO
For more discussion on Dell negativespace2005-Dell at yahoo dot com
"the solution therefore should be to hire more engineers, or artists, or designers, as the case may be."
Sounds like the SO should read these two titles.
And EA's right - put up or quit. That's everyone's magnificent right - quit. Can't quit? Why? Mortgage payment to much? Car payments that are astronomical? Well then suck it up and live within your means.
Now, if this situation is the norm at EA, then EA is foolish anyway, you really think they gained every extra hour of production out of the workers that they put in? I'm guessing they got 20% extra if you tallyed it all up. That's 8 extra hours a week, and that's probably a normal work week for most of us.
Sorry SO, I feel your pain and I've been on my share of death marches (12 hours shifs, 7 days a week for months) and not even for something as cool as a game, but some BS business software, but the reality is you and your SO have a choice.
I signed up with Vonage 3 months ago and am very pleased with the service.
1. My number was ready immediately after I signed up, so I had voice-mail etc. up an running 2. The phone 'box' came 3 days later (I'm east coast). I plugged it in the network, plugged my phone in and I was calling my home number for kicks in 2 minutes (took a minute to get a dial tone). 3. Use the 'virtual' number feature, so my friends/family have local calls (from CA), very nice. 4. I wish the box was smaller, becase I travel a lot and bring it with me when there's free high speed in the hotel! No more rip off hotel phone charges. 5.If I didn't have to worry about a power outage, I'd toss my landline now.
I'm worried about all the 'fees' being applied to the VOIP world, and these rates getting just as bad as the regular phone lines. We'll see if the big boys can play in this space when they release their service in the near future.
I don't know about the other services, but I'm happy with Vonage. Is there a good comparison site out there yet?
Definition of "To Live Decently in NYC on 52K a year"
1. You don't live in NYC. Your cardboard box on 131st & 5th doesn't count
2. You can't work more than 20 hours a week because your eating frugally (ie out of garbage cans and meals on wheels leftovers, and your customers refiges) and have prefected the art of chimping change from the "take a penny, leave a penny" jar.
3. You've mastered the art of "wow, this is a major problem, it's going to take ALLL night to fix" and convienently crash on the customers couch until morining.
Maybe I missed the key point in this quote and your "sharp tax advisor" means something I'm unfamiliar with and is the real key to your success.
Quote: "Do the math for a minute: Let's say you work 20 hours a week and charge $50 an hour. That's a $1000 a week. That's $52,000 a year. Now, you'll pay taxes out of that, perhaps up to 40% depending upon where you live, and your own insurance, and other costs, but it's still a respectable income. If you itemize your deductions and hire a sharp tax advisor, you can avoid an unnecessary tax burden. Even in New York City, one of the most expensive towns on the planet, you can live decently on that money."
This phrase... "Instead, the authors make the case for transforming IT into a âoevalue centerâ â" a mission-critical member of the business enterprise, managed as a strategic asset." is very interesting.
If the author gives clear concise examples of how to do this with FULL ROI models and detailed analysis, this book would be of a tremendous value for IT and business people. It seems that certain IT projects are more difficult to quantify in a P/L statement vs. a typical business project. Thus, IT is a difficult beast to get a handle on.
For instance, how do you value data security? We'll there's lot's of "ways" to do this, but a lot of the valuation is in the risk vs. cost. And cost many times is only valued IF something happens, such as a breach. (With certain laws, requirements are given - but this then falls into the cost section not the value-center) The point is that when running a business project, the costs (salary, overhead, materials, inventory, insurance, etc.) can be nailed down to the penny and the price can they be set to make a profit.
As for "strategic asset" is your network a strategic asset? Most likely not, it's like the buildings you work in, a requirement to do business. At least managers can see the building and space. Many have a tough time with the things you "can't see" like bandwidth. So, it would seem that IT is broken down into an "infrastructure" or cost area and a strategic area. A strategic area being something that can drive value (e.g. CRM, DataMining) and even these things have dubious ROI. Read CIO or any type mag and you have CIO's claming 110% return on investment. I've seen some of "ROIs" and they are more subjective and art rather than fact and science, between the NPV used to nailing down the true costs over time.
If there was a standard, consistant, true ROI model, then the author's can move towards the "value-center". If the author also goes into how to manage and IT portfolio, this is of value. If they haven't done either of these things, then it's still just piled higher and deeper. I'll reserve judgement until after reading the material.
It would be a benefit if you disclosed which school this is. The big problem with on-line edu is knowing whether you are getting what you paid for and the value of the education compared to a traditional method and there's going to be the wheat and the chaff, just a with schools, and separating the two is key.
Perhaps the experts can comment on this one, but isn't one correct way to implement the thread-safe singleton example in the article as such:
class SomeClass {
private Resource resource = null;
public synchronized Resource getResource() {
if (resource == null)
resource = new Resource();
return resource;
} }
On immutable objects (string vs. stringBuffer)
SUN itself claims that using StringBuffer is faster (e.g. http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/Tec hTips/1 998/tt0120.html). These 'benchmarks' are like that 'chart makers' that give you x and y percentages just to make their case look good. And in most instances, it's a specific situation that is being dealt with, which could be such a minutia element, but makes for a good razzle.
'Forcing indentation' is a crazy reason to pick a programming language. You use 8 spaces, I use 4, 1 tab, 2 tabs, 3 tabs a lady...... Any good IDE will format your code, not just the indentations the way you want. ie: for (....) { or for (....) { etc.
I'd like to propose that we need a new language right now! This language would be focused on presenting, managing, transforming, securing and storing data (PMTSS) in a completely integrated programming language/environment that is EASY to use. I've used C/C++, and Java, P/SQL, T/SQL, and Perl. In my humble opinion, they are horrible at data the entire PMTSS spectrum. What I mean by this is that in the majority of "business" programming that comprises PMTSS is not well represented by the languages today. And as the author states
"What's gross is a language that makes programmers do needless work. Wasting programmer time is the true inefficiency, not wasting machine time. This will become ever more clear as computers get faster."
I believe the MTSS portion of PMTSS needs the most work.
For example, in Java and CMP and BMP, Object to Relational "mapping" and XML descriptor files, for example, are poor methodologies or implementations for PMTSS. How many times have we seen poor EJB programming (not using facades, Session Bean wrappers etc) as the major culprit on poor performance? My guess, across every Java project in the world, it is > 50% of the time. The amount of effort to do PMTSS correctly in Java, I feel is a waste of a programmer's time.
SQL, while a fine language, seems to force you against the goal of Third Normal Form. Multiple INNER and OUTER joins in SQL statements that stretch on for pages is needless work.
Perl's DBI (database access) seems more like an add-on, than a core piece of the language.
Maybe it's the way the DB's force the storage and retrieval of data. I know there's "Object" databases and languages like COBOL, but with the amount of effort that goes into PMTSS, my guess is this is 80% of all development time, is work that should be unnecessary. If this estimate is correct, making improvements in this area could be HUGE gains in productivity and savings for companies.
What would this language look like? I honestly don't know yet. It might be a mix of perl-ish, cobol-ish, abap-ish (SAP) XML-ish languages; then again it might be completely new and never before imagined.
Do you feel you were treated unfairly??
on
Ask Kevin Mitnick
·
· Score: 1
I hope this question gets asked in 1 form or another.
Kevin, I followed you plight, mainly through the 2600 site and publication and it seems to me that the US "law" broke down in some areas, particularly the right to a speedy trial and ability for you to defend yourself. Along with this I read that you were treated rather poorly, if not cruelly while in prison. Can you let us know how you felt you were treated given the circumstances and now that you've had time to reflect and if the "law" was bent away from justice in your case? And, if you could elaborate on some of the injustices, if any, were done to you in prison.
This company, http://www.innovat.com (skip flash intro), innovation associates, has some cool technology that does this. For example, if the doctor mistakenly chooses pill A, instead of pill B, the machine will not dispense. Also, you can't fill the Tylenol Aspirin tray with anything but that. It uses some fancy recognition software; it can tell the difference between a skittle and and M&M, plus it won't dispense if pills are deformed (chiped etc.) cool stuff.
After reading the article from the link, I was miffed about what this "on-demand computing" was and if it was any different than what's available today. In the USA today (yep, consulting on the road) The explain it like so: (Using an ordering web site as the example) 1. Each division of the company has it's own computers 2. When the orders increase in unit X, the computers deflect some of the processing to the corporate data network. 3. The newtork finds computers in other parts of the company that have excess capacity at that moment and routes the processing to them.
Side notes: A. If the unit needs more processing than it can find inside the company, the data can be sent to other computers anywhere in the world, be processed and sent back. B. If the economy turns sour, the unit might cut staff and let and outsourcing company handle all the order processing. Because computers would run on common standards, the division could give its data to an outsourcing firm.
I'm still miffed myself. Will this save money for companies or provide value that is worth paying for? It comes down to this, HW/SW/People/Real-Estate/Power(Diesel Generators) costs money (that's why you don't build your own datacenter) and technolgy gets old fast. If you truley can harness the X% of "wasted" computer power, in a "utility" fashion, then a miracle has occured. The technology of all technologies XML must have been mentioned somewhere and I missed it.;)
Article also says "grid computing" is a pre-cursor to on-demand computing. Sounds like we go back to green screens and mainframes to me. Oh wait, isn't that what the web is, but with fancy windows?
Slashdot Mirror
This post topic, while relevant, the actual contents hardly were. No rigor at all in the testing. No wonder I'm reading slashdot less and less.
This is one of the more interesting Slashdot stories in a while. I can put myself in your position and feel you emotions on this potential theft. It looks as if IBM is claiming they've made a substantial enough modification to the code/process/design to warrant a patent for them. As far as the USPTO lately, ever since the patented '1 click checkout' , the office has been suspect in my eye. I wonder how big of a potential market this patent has? One thought that I haven't seen mentioned is that, while this might be the more evil of two evils, you could contact the companies/people that are buying companies just for their patents. If this patent had enough value this might be a place to obtain some backing, again the value of this patent is unknown to me. Other than that it's more of a personal pride and justice argument, in these days of the Mortgage crisis and unbridled greed, with seemingly absolutely no consequences, there seems to be no honor, even among thieves anymore. Best of luck. look forward to a future post about the outcome.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/trolling-for-patents-to-fight-patent-trolls/
7 minute abs. "What if someone comes out with 6 minute abs?"
7 MINUTE ABS.
This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard or seen. This will go down as one of the most inane things the MS has done, and they've done a lot.
Dibs on the hack for this coming out before 7 is released.
The SD crowd has clearly expresses it's love of PGP, and I have lot's of love for it too. But from a business perspective this is a much larger question. From a tech side there are other products such as Microsoft Right's Manager and Adobe's Policy Server.
http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/rightsmanagement/
I'm not endorsing either of these products (so save the flame wars), but identifying that this market is much larger than PGP. There also add a lot of other features, like restricting printing, restricting how long a file can be accessed, multi-factor authentication etc.
As for sending the data that you mentioned (SS#, DOB etc) this is a fine marriage of technology AND company policy, along with state, local, federal and national laws. For example the EU laws are very strict about sending this information and you need to be familiar with each nations requirements. Additionally, sending sensitive data across borders is a concern. As an example, a client could NOT outsource certain HR functions because of these laws. And when overseas certain HR develoment was done a thorough cleansing of the data needed to happen before it was either accessed or sent out of country (e.g. removing SS#'s Dob etc.)
In a nutshell you need your business to define what the security policies are, then use technology to the best you can to implement the policies. This is critical for SOX compliance and legal ramifications. Having the policy is almost, if not more important than the implementation often.
Cheers.
Desktop support, IMHO, is not an 'IT' job, just like changing the oil in a car is not a 'mechanics' job. The point is that it's the reduction of skilled and unskilled workers needed within a corporate IT department. I've been through 3 outsourcings and there is very little 'IT' left in these companies. Avg. of 80% of the 'IT' dept. is gone. (Note: if you develop code for say Blizzard or MS, this is not support 'IT')
IT will continue to get more complex and more simple at the same time, this is one example.
Who didn't want to be a guitar hero as a kid???? What's up with all the negativity?? Guitar Hero is NOT a game to learn to play guitar. It's to get together with your friends and have a blast with the crowd going wild when you hit the notes and to feel bad when the crowed boos you off the stage when you don't. I play guitar, (Gibson SG, Gibson Les Paul), and the songs that I know on the guitar are harder to play on Guitar Hero than on the actual thing! The games a blast, a different game than all the FPS and strategy games that are often played with a group. What other good music games are out there??
My friends and I end up playing this game, with it's silly little plastic guitar - outfitted with a whammy bar - all night. And the hard level is HARD. (Bark at the moon solo anyone?) I love that the virtual artists actually move their hands and body language like they are playing the song. All I want is an OPEN API so I can plug in my own songs, or other songs from my favorite bands (copyright issues) Star Power baby!!
1. Thin client. Great when your in the office, great for light work (e.g. word processing) not great for CAD and intensive graphics apps, or when you travel. (who doesn't use a laptop nowadays? - Gartner predicts that corporations will be buying laptops for most of the organization 80% chance, in the next few years)
2. Citrix. Very nice solution, but there are printing issues, application packaging/publishing issues and forget about graphic intensive work. Again, must be on the network. Plus the added cost of Citrix and server infrastructure.
3. VMWare, hardware virtualization. Works well on servers and for specialized VMs, but not as your main desktop, unless you are a 'light' user (e.g. wordprocessing). And this still leaves you with having to manage a client OS whether it be Windows or Linux. I personally love VMWare and use it heavily on the desktop and server side (ESX) with over 100 ESX servers, with over 800 VMs on the ESX servers.
4. Softricity, Application virtualization technology company that was just bought by Microsoft. What a big miss for VMWare and Citrix (Softricity was started by ex-Citrix folks), they missed a huge, huge, huge opportunity to snap this company up. You sit down at your desk and PRESTO, you can access any application you need at the press of a button. (Security willing of course). The apps streams very fast, loads only critical components and can be taken 'off-line' for those laptop users. It's slightly painful across a slow remote link for the initial load, but feasible. Apps today, OSs tomorrow IMHO. Once they acheive the 'OS virtualization', where the OS can ride around with the app, then you have the holy grail. Linux desktop, thin client, mobile phone, PDA etc, and PRESTO, launch any app from any device and it works as it should - soup to nuts.
The components of the 'Ubiquitous Computing Stack (UBS)' are lining up. MS seems to have most of the pieces now. Remember, end-users want everything they have today, they don't want to settle for less: speed, anywhere access, ease of use, mobility, freedom, tons of storage etc. Without all of these, you just have point solutions.
If your a small fish, you probably won't get the service you think you deserve from Dell, that's my experience. Now that I spend a few million a year with Dell, while it may not be Dell's biggest account, we get some more attention.
I hope Dell's listening, because I've been buying Dell personally for a long time and my XP400 while a good machine, didn't come with a restore disk (lame) and had so much 'trialware' running it was killing my performance. I just had to wonder what a non technical person would do. Is it about the price or the customer? IMHO Dell's going to lose market share.
Here's a good war story, my 5160 laptop USB ports went dead, I think due to a power surge. I called and spoke to 'India' to a very very pleasent person, but couldn't do anything outside of the script. They finally agree to replace the motherboard (after having me check lots of things). I travel a lot, so the local VAR calls me and we make an appt. for 2 weeks out. He calls back and says that he had to return the part because the ticket was open to long per Dell. I had to call Dell support again, and again go through the script, and they wanted me to do every test again (30 minutes). I played along, because I needed my ports and there was that this guy was going to comprehend the situation. After both the Dell calls, they ask, would you talk to a supervisor about your experience. I did both times. But, the second time, I told them the story and I don't think it meant anything to the guy, because it probably didn't impact his pay. I got a 'ok thanks'. (No thank you)
So Dell had to take two calls at 30+ minutes a pop. Dell mailed the motherboard twice to the VAR and 1 time back to Dell. I had to sit on the Dell support line for an additional 30 minutes, but luckily they gave me another code, the VAR got the motherboard back and he fixed my laptop before I headed on another trip.
Did Dell save money on that transaction by outsourcing? Probably, but it's short term IMHO
For more discussion on Dell negativespace2005-Dell at yahoo dot com
"the solution therefore should be to hire more engineers, or artists, or designers, as the case may be."
Sounds like the SO should read these two titles.
And EA's right - put up or quit. That's everyone's magnificent right - quit. Can't quit? Why? Mortgage payment to much? Car payments that are astronomical? Well then suck it up and live within your means.
Now, if this situation is the norm at EA, then EA is foolish anyway, you really think they gained every extra hour of production out of the workers that they put in? I'm guessing they got 20% extra if you tallyed it all up. That's 8 extra hours a week, and that's probably a normal work week for most of us.
Sorry SO, I feel your pain and I've been on my share of death marches (12 hours shifs, 7 days a week for months) and not even for something as cool as a game, but some BS business software, but the reality is you and your SO have a choice.
Well, I need a new video card anyway. What are your opinions? I've read all the reviews at Ars etc. I'm looking at under $300.
I signed up with Vonage 3 months ago and am very pleased with the service.
1. My number was ready immediately after I signed up, so I had voice-mail etc. up an running
2. The phone 'box' came 3 days later (I'm east coast). I plugged it in the network, plugged my phone in and I was calling my home number for kicks in 2 minutes (took a minute to get a dial tone).
3. Use the 'virtual' number feature, so my friends/family have local calls (from CA), very nice.
4. I wish the box was smaller, becase I travel a lot and bring it with me when there's free high speed in the hotel! No more rip off hotel phone charges.
5.If I didn't have to worry about a power outage, I'd toss my landline now.
I'm worried about all the 'fees' being applied to the VOIP world, and these rates getting just as bad as the regular phone lines. We'll see if the big boys can play in this space when they release their service in the near future.
I don't know about the other services, but I'm happy with Vonage. Is there a good comparison site out there yet?
Definition of "To Live Decently in NYC on 52K a year"
1. You don't live in NYC. Your cardboard box on 131st & 5th doesn't count
2. You can't work more than 20 hours a week because your eating frugally (ie out of garbage cans and meals on wheels leftovers, and your customers refiges) and have prefected the art of chimping change from the "take a penny, leave a penny" jar.
3. You've mastered the art of "wow, this is a major problem, it's going to take ALLL night to fix" and convienently crash on the customers couch until morining.
Maybe I missed the key point in this quote and your "sharp tax advisor" means something I'm unfamiliar with and is the real key to your success.
Quote: "Do the math for a minute: Let's say you work 20 hours a week and charge $50 an hour. That's a $1000 a week. That's $52,000 a year. Now, you'll pay taxes out of that, perhaps up to 40% depending upon where you live, and your own insurance, and other costs, but it's still a respectable income. If you itemize your deductions and hire a sharp tax advisor, you can avoid an unnecessary tax burden. Even in New York City, one of the most expensive towns on the planet, you can live decently on that money."
This phrase ... "Instead, the authors make the case for transforming IT into a âoevalue centerâ â" a mission-critical member of the business enterprise, managed as a strategic asset." is very interesting.
If the author gives clear concise examples of how to do this with FULL ROI models and detailed analysis, this book would be of a tremendous value for IT and business people. It seems that certain IT projects are more difficult to quantify in a P/L statement vs. a typical business project. Thus, IT is a difficult beast to get a handle on.
For instance, how do you value data security? We'll there's lot's of "ways" to do this, but a lot of the valuation is in the risk vs. cost. And cost many times is only valued IF something happens, such as a breach. (With certain laws, requirements are given - but this then falls into the cost section not the value-center) The point is that when running a business project, the costs (salary, overhead, materials, inventory, insurance, etc.) can be nailed down to the penny and the price can they be set to make a profit.
As for "strategic asset" is your network a strategic asset? Most likely not, it's like the buildings you work in, a requirement to do business. At least managers can see the building and space. Many have a tough time with the things you "can't see" like bandwidth. So, it would seem that IT is broken down into an "infrastructure" or cost area and a strategic area. A strategic area being something that can drive value (e.g. CRM, DataMining) and even these things have dubious ROI. Read CIO or any type mag and you have CIO's claming 110% return on investment. I've seen some of "ROIs" and they are more subjective and art rather than fact and science, between the NPV used to nailing down the true costs over time.
If there was a standard, consistant, true ROI model, then the author's can move towards the "value-center". If the author also goes into how to manage and IT portfolio, this is of value. If they haven't done either of these things, then it's still just piled higher and deeper. I'll reserve judgement until after reading the material.
It would be a benefit if you disclosed which school this is. The big problem with on-line edu is knowing whether you are getting what you paid for and the value of the education compared to a traditional method and there's going to be the wheat and the chaff, just a with schools, and separating the two is key.
Perhaps the experts can comment on this one, but isn't one correct way to implement the thread-safe singleton example in the article as such:
c hTips/1 998/tt0120.html). These 'benchmarks' are like that 'chart makers' that give you x and y percentages just to make their case look good. And in most instances, it's a specific situation that is being dealt with, which could be such a minutia element, but makes for a good razzle.
class SomeClass {
private Resource resource = null;
public synchronized Resource getResource() {
if (resource == null)
resource = new Resource();
return resource;
}
}
On immutable objects (string vs. stringBuffer)
SUN itself claims that using StringBuffer is faster (e.g.
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/Te
'Forcing indentation' is a crazy reason to pick a programming language. You use 8 spaces, I use 4, 1 tab, 2 tabs, 3 tabs a lady...... Any good IDE will format your code, not just the indentations the way you want. ie:
for (....) {
or
for (....)
{
etc.
I believe the MTSS portion of PMTSS needs the most work.
For example, in Java and CMP and BMP, Object to Relational "mapping" and XML descriptor files, for example, are poor methodologies or implementations for PMTSS. How many times have we seen poor EJB programming (not using facades, Session Bean wrappers etc) as the major culprit on poor performance? My guess, across every Java project in the world, it is > 50% of the time. The amount of effort to do PMTSS correctly in Java, I feel is a waste of a programmer's time.
SQL, while a fine language, seems to force you against the goal of Third Normal Form. Multiple INNER and OUTER joins in SQL statements that stretch on for pages is needless work.
Perl's DBI (database access) seems more like an add-on, than a core piece of the language.
Maybe it's the way the DB's force the storage and retrieval of data. I know there's "Object" databases and languages like COBOL, but with the amount of effort that goes into PMTSS, my guess is this is 80% of all development time, is work that should be unnecessary. If this estimate is correct, making improvements in this area could be HUGE gains in productivity and savings for companies.
What would this language look like? I honestly don't know yet. It might be a mix of perl-ish, cobol-ish, abap-ish (SAP) XML-ish languages; then again it might be completely new and never before imagined.
I hope this question gets asked in 1 form or another.
Kevin,
I followed you plight, mainly through the 2600 site and publication and it seems to me that the US "law" broke down in some areas, particularly the right to a speedy trial and ability for you to defend yourself. Along with this I read that you were treated rather poorly, if not cruelly while in prison. Can you let us know how you felt you were treated given the circumstances and now that you've had time to reflect and if the "law" was bent away from justice in your case? And, if you could elaborate on some of the injustices, if any, were done to you in prison.
Thanks!
- Ed
This company, http://www.innovat.com (skip flash intro), innovation associates, has some cool technology that does this. For example, if the doctor mistakenly chooses pill A, instead of pill B, the machine will not dispense. Also, you can't fill the Tylenol Aspirin tray with anything but that. It uses some fancy recognition software; it can tell the difference between a skittle and and M&M, plus it won't dispense if pills are deformed (chiped etc.) cool stuff.
After reading the article from the link, I was miffed about what this "on-demand computing" was and if it was any different than what's available today.
;)
In the USA today (yep, consulting on the road) The explain it like so: (Using an ordering web site as the example)
1. Each division of the company has it's own computers
2. When the orders increase in unit X, the computers deflect some of the processing to the corporate data network.
3. The newtork finds computers in other parts of the company that have excess capacity at that moment and routes the processing to them.
Side notes:
A. If the unit needs more processing than it can find inside the company, the data can be sent to other computers anywhere in the world, be processed and sent back.
B. If the economy turns sour, the unit might cut staff and let and outsourcing company handle all the order processing. Because computers would run on common standards, the division could give its data to an outsourcing firm.
I'm still miffed myself. Will this save money for companies or provide value that is worth paying for? It comes down to this, HW/SW/People/Real-Estate/Power(Diesel Generators) costs money (that's why you don't build your own datacenter) and technolgy gets old fast. If you truley can harness the X% of "wasted" computer power, in a "utility" fashion, then a miracle has occured. The technology of all technologies XML must have been mentioned somewhere and I missed it.
Article also says "grid computing" is a pre-cursor to on-demand computing. Sounds like we go back to green screens and mainframes to me. Oh wait, isn't that what the web is, but with fancy windows?