Fractals of Change: There Won’t Be Any Landlines in 2013
Ummm...It is called BPL - you'll have copper in the house a lot longer than 2013- cheap to install, easy to manage, infrastructure is all over and DSL will likely fall to BPL if folks can get past the idea of plugging their modems into the wall for connection and power - which isn't a big leap. Rural areas already suffer from bad cellular and frankly even major centers suffer. Almost everyone, however, has a connection to the power grid. Small infrastructure changes make it so homes could easily plug in and go. (Sprint tried something similar with the ION concept some time ago and it failed because they couldn't clean the lines up.) If the consumer does not need to make huge changes and the industry simply makes a new connection (and new revenue stream for power companies) they will make the leap to BPL. Cellular companies have no incentive to connect all of the US via cellular, the majority of the users are in cities that can they can continue to throw towers at. They will put some towers in heavily travelled areas of Montana or Iowa, but rural US - limited and small use. India has a better infrastructure than America does as their focus has been quickly put something up and they have found cells to be the easiest implementation. It is my opinon that Wi-Fi hotspots and misc junk should be thougt of as ancillary connection points not primary connection.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
ENT News Online | News: Company Says .NET Violates Its Patent
ENT News Online News: Company Says .NET Violates Its Patent
How does the song go? "Money for nothing and your chicks for free." I can't imagine that MS will take this lying down. I am especially pissed about the fact that our government would allow a description of a patent as obscure as the one filed by Vertical.
I am now convinced that passing the LSAT, going to law school and passing the bar would be in the best interest of all IT folks that want to step on the next stone.
How does the song go? "Money for nothing and your chicks for free." I can't imagine that MS will take this lying down. I am especially pissed about the fact that our government would allow a description of a patent as obscure as the one filed by Vertical.
I am now convinced that passing the LSAT, going to law school and passing the bar would be in the best interest of all IT folks that want to step on the next stone.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Microsoft Silverlight
Microsoft Silverlight
WOW! This is beautiful. I am now wondering how this integrates into the expression studio mix from MS. This is head-to-head with Adobe purchase of Macromedia and the tools and products they deliver. Bad news for us is that now we will have that many more standards to manage over multiple forms. Presentation of FLV, SWF, MWV, etc. Hopefully someone will bend and give us a standard on these formats that is usable.
WOW! This is beautiful. I am now wondering how this integrates into the expression studio mix from MS. This is head-to-head with Adobe purchase of Macromedia and the tools and products they deliver. Bad news for us is that now we will have that many more standards to manage over multiple forms. Presentation of FLV, SWF, MWV, etc. Hopefully someone will bend and give us a standard on these formats that is usable.
Boing Boing: Billy Bragg gets MySpace's terms of service changed
Boing Boing: Billy Bragg gets MySpace's terms of service changed
Not only is he a great singer and activist for unions he is also a champion for eliminating non-sense EULA's. Now if we could only get him to get on the GPL 3-0 proposals.
Not only is he a great singer and activist for unions he is also a champion for eliminating non-sense EULA's. Now if we could only get him to get on the GPL 3-0 proposals.
Porn Found On One In Four Corporate PCs -- Business Pornography -- InformationWeek
Porn Found On One In Four Corporate PCs -- Business Pornography -- InformationWeek
Surprised? I see this content still sitting with dates of years ago on machines. Businesses need to also thing about turn over and the legal impact of a new user or casual passer-by walking past these images. Can you imagine the lawsuit in HR for something like this?
Surprised? I see this content still sitting with dates of years ago on machines. Businesses need to also thing about turn over and the legal impact of a new user or casual passer-by walking past these images. Can you imagine the lawsuit in HR for something like this?
Indian IT Outsourcing Firms Plan To Keep Staff With Double-Digit Salary Raises -- Outsourcing
Indian IT Outsourcing Firms Plan To Keep Staff With Double-Digit Salary Raises -- Outsourcing
$30K may be less than a US Tech worker would make, but still puts these folks in the lower-upper class of their economy. The average indian takes home $300/year, which call center folks taking home $3000 per year (http://www.webprowire.com/summaries/1512592.html). Compare that with the $30,000 an IT pro can make? There is no disparity like this in the western economy. An IT pro here may make $60K, but the helpdesk/call center guy down the way is making $35-40K, oh and the average American is making around $30K. The American GDP percapita is $43,000 vs. the Indian GDP percapita of just over $3,000 - some huge disparities. So when we compare the salaries we must also understand that part of that cost includes 15%-30% yoy increases in indian salaries. So that $30K resource today will quickly outstrip the american resource - which means that if the american salaries increase at 2.5% - which is agressive, the Indians will outpace salaries in 4 short years. 4 years in IT is an eternity, but lets face it - reduced skill, firing and moral issues in the us will impact our ability to control these costs longer term. Americans need to get serious about IT - realize that there is a cost to technology and apply it judiciously instead of willy-nilly. Stop stripping the buying power of highly educated and creative americans for off-shore mediocre work. Send the crappy support jobs out - spend time being innovative but don't kill the power of technology at home.
$30K may be less than a US Tech worker would make, but still puts these folks in the lower-upper class of their economy. The average indian takes home $300/year, which call center folks taking home $3000 per year (http://www.webprowire.com/summaries/1512592.html). Compare that with the $30,000 an IT pro can make? There is no disparity like this in the western economy. An IT pro here may make $60K, but the helpdesk/call center guy down the way is making $35-40K, oh and the average American is making around $30K. The American GDP percapita is $43,000 vs. the Indian GDP percapita of just over $3,000 - some huge disparities. So when we compare the salaries we must also understand that part of that cost includes 15%-30% yoy increases in indian salaries. So that $30K resource today will quickly outstrip the american resource - which means that if the american salaries increase at 2.5% - which is agressive, the Indians will outpace salaries in 4 short years. 4 years in IT is an eternity, but lets face it - reduced skill, firing and moral issues in the us will impact our ability to control these costs longer term. Americans need to get serious about IT - realize that there is a cost to technology and apply it judiciously instead of willy-nilly. Stop stripping the buying power of highly educated and creative americans for off-shore mediocre work. Send the crappy support jobs out - spend time being innovative but don't kill the power of technology at home.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Microsoft Watch - Vista - Stacking Vista Licenses Too High
Microsoft Watch - Vista - Stacking Vista Licenses Too High
From a personal stand point I am thinking MS is including all of their renewing EA customers as a "sold" license to bolster the claim. I continue to have problems with support in my organization as the core OS does not support even our simple requirements. Additionally add-ons like the Motorola devices do not have appropriate support and Adobe tools are hit or miss. Bad timing and not a complete plan for rolling this out will cause MS headaches for months.
From a personal stand point I am thinking MS is including all of their renewing EA customers as a "sold" license to bolster the claim. I continue to have problems with support in my organization as the core OS does not support even our simple requirements. Additionally add-ons like the Motorola devices do not have appropriate support and Adobe tools are hit or miss. Bad timing and not a complete plan for rolling this out will cause MS headaches for months.
Friday, March 23, 2007
The Digital Ice Age - Popular Mechanics
The Digital Ice Age - Popular Mechanics
This is all way to true. How much faith do we put in the media types we have used in the past. At least with film or with vinyl we have the chance to recover the information in a low-tech way. Something brings back to mind the LCD principles we learned in grade school about how we can find the most basic way to store and retrieve information. Anyone have 8 tracks? What ever happened to the great Journey songs that you wanted to get back, or what about images taken with a proprietary image format from older cameras...something to be said for getting these in a simple way.
This is all way to true. How much faith do we put in the media types we have used in the past. At least with film or with vinyl we have the chance to recover the information in a low-tech way. Something brings back to mind the LCD principles we learned in grade school about how we can find the most basic way to store and retrieve information. Anyone have 8 tracks? What ever happened to the great Journey songs that you wanted to get back, or what about images taken with a proprietary image format from older cameras...something to be said for getting these in a simple way.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
JHOVE - JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment
JHOVE - JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment
This is a pretty interesting little tool to manage validation of digital repositories. Just starting to get a feel for the implementation, however it seems to be based on the OAI specs.
There are some nice links and it looks like this thing is attached to the LGPL which makes it very nice.
This is a pretty interesting little tool to manage validation of digital repositories. Just starting to get a feel for the implementation, however it seems to be based on the OAI specs.
There are some nice links and it looks like this thing is attached to the LGPL which makes it very nice.
Well, I didn't do such a good job blogging on-site. Most of my classes were away from the main wireless and I wasn't willing to pay the $19 to hit the public site.
All-in-all the conf was good.
The last keynote was not as inspiring as I would have hoped, although the manufacturing prototype has my mental gears turning
I found a nice new pen that my wife loves and plans to push at our school
The SQL and performance classes rocked
The project management classes, not so much
Sharepoint is not an operating system, however it is a platform
I would like to have spent time in the testing center and regret not making the effort.
For future reference (and not very important):
- Keynotes were ok.
- Comfort Inn was terrible
- You can hoof most anywhere in SD, however beware 6th below ash - not a friendly place at night
- Taxis are useless in the city - most of the cabbies were honest but some took round about paths to get from place to place.
- Shout is a great place and fun
All-in-all the conf was good.
The last keynote was not as inspiring as I would have hoped, although the manufacturing prototype has my mental gears turning
I found a nice new pen that my wife loves and plans to push at our school
The SQL and performance classes rocked
The project management classes, not so much
Sharepoint is not an operating system, however it is a platform
I would like to have spent time in the testing center and regret not making the effort.
For future reference (and not very important):
- Keynotes were ok.
- Comfort Inn was terrible
- You can hoof most anywhere in SD, however beware 6th below ash - not a friendly place at night
- Taxis are useless in the city - most of the cabbies were honest but some took round about paths to get from place to place.
- Shout is a great place and fun
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Looks like MS is clinginig tightly to dexterity. There does not look like a direct push to rool dex into the .NET platform. They will be supporting this until 2013 (tentatively.) I think they will need to move away from this quicker and maybe create a Dex.NET language or method to port dex code and create a road map for custom work.
Day 3 - sessions seem to be slow today. Interesting presenter in the morning session, Joel Barker, made a recommendation to make sure you checkout a site called http://www.implicationswheel.com. Also made a suggestion to look up a man by the name of Tor Dahl - you can find his home page here. http://www.tordahl.com/ Actually some nice articles on the site regarding productivity, you should go read them.
BTW:Food is very good here. Weather is wonderful - light breeze.
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BTW:Food is very good here. Weather is wonderful - light breeze.
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Sunday, March 11, 2007
Sitting at MS Convergence 2007
I am currently sitting in my first MS Convergence conference and learning that there is a lot of pain in using the MS tools on the convergence site. So far registration and transportation has been a snap.
Also learning that MS Commuities, esp. for SNAP does recognize that the www.gotdotnet.com website is going away, even though it holds all of the snap content. There was no real answer on how they will support this in the future, other than they will be rehosting this information elsewhere.
User group information is particularly helpful, but difficult to navigate.
Still trying to figure out how to complete evals on the sessions...
I am currently sitting in my first MS Convergence conference and learning that there is a lot of pain in using the MS tools on the convergence site. So far registration and transportation has been a snap.
Also learning that MS Commuities, esp. for SNAP does recognize that the www.gotdotnet.com website is going away, even though it holds all of the snap content. There was no real answer on how they will support this in the future, other than they will be rehosting this information elsewhere.
User group information is particularly helpful, but difficult to navigate.
Still trying to figure out how to complete evals on the sessions...
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