Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah: google

Showing posts with label google. Show all posts

December 24, 2012

Cloud-Powered GPS Chip Slashes Smartphone Power Consumption
A Microsoft Research project suggests that there’s a way for location chips inside smartphones to use far less power. Reducing the power consumption of GPS chips could not only extend the battery life of smartphones and tablets, it could also make it practical to add GPS functionality to more devices, including low-power remote sensors.

Excel: Data Model specification and limits
A data model is embedded data inside a workbook that powers data visualizations such as PivotTable, PivotChart, and Power View reports. This article documents the maximum and configurable limits for Excel workbooks that contain data models.

5 myths that hold back brainpower
Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi, explain that new discoveries and new thinking are helping people create a new “relationship” with their brains that help unveil new perceptions and new opportunities. In their latest book, Super Brain: Unleashing the Explosive Power of Your Mind to Maximize Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Well-Being, they explain that people need to acknowledge their roles as “leaders,” “inventors,” ‘teachers,” and “users” to their brains.

The Innovator's Straitjacket
A person in a straitjacket also loses the ability to do many other things, particularly creative tasks that require typing, drawing, manipulating objects, and so on. Even the sanest of companies can unintentionally put themselves in a straitjacket that makes it hard for them to create high-potential new growth opportunities. Here's how leaders unintentionally limit their innovation efforts.

Despite Apple, NFC is catching on -- just not for payments quite yet
Near Field Communication (NFC) is steadily making headway in the U.S. for sharing data and music among smartphones, but the technology faces years of slow growth as a replacement for physical wallets.

India's Lava aims for 100 mobile app patents
In an Economic Times report Sunday, SN Rai, the company's co-founder and director, said: "We have realized just by selling handsets it is not possible to maintain growth momentum. Innovation in product is key to survival. Our wishlist is to make a century of patents in the next 2 to 3 years."

4 Fantastic, Free Things Google Drive Will Now Do For You
Now, however, would be a good time to pay Drive some mind. Google has done impressive work making it easier to keep your files organized, share any file with anyone, and keep everything in your work life one search away. Very specifically, these are the things Drive can do for you at no cost, and requiring just enough effort to remember Drive can do that.

Splunktalk: Getting the Message from MOM
In many respects you can think of MOM as the glue that stitches heterogeneous enterprise computing environments together. Now why am I so interested in this ? Well, MOM and the messages transported represent a massive source of machine data that Splunk can index and resolve into operational visibility on many different levels..core operations , business analytics, transaction tracing etc..

Taking Healthcare IT Seriously Demands Culture Changes
Healthcare is moving cautiously into cloud computing, virtualization, BYOD and other IT innovations. And there's good reason for the caution. Until an organization's IT leaders take meaningful steps to change what's typically seen as a lackadaisical privacy and security culture, the risk of patient-information loss remains high and costly.

Boost up your serialization/deserialization similar to JSON

MessagePack is effectively JSON, but with efficient binary encoding. Like JSON, there is no type checking or schemas, which depending on your application can be either be a pro or a con. But, if you are already streaming JSON via an API or using it for storage, then MessagePack can be a drop-in replacement.

How Object Storage and Information Dispersal Address Big Data Challenges
Object-based storage offers an alternative approach that is ideally suited for storing massive amounts of unstructured data. Object-based storage systems are not organized hierarchically. Instead, an object is identified and located by its unique identifier. This enables the number of objects to grow substantially beyond the limitation of traditional file systems while still maintaining the integrity and consistency of the data

Quote for the day:

"The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows" -- Aristotle Onassis

December 16, 2012

Problems – An Opportunity for Radical Innovation
Rowan Gibson writes in his blog ... I see this same ‘problem as opportunity’ attitude when I talk to Indian companies of every stripe. When I asked one CEO recently about the impact of the weak Dollar on his business, his reply was stunningly upbeat. “Oh,” he said with a grin, “that really works in our favor. It’s going to make it much easier for us to expand in the U.S. market. Now we can buy up American companies at bargain basement prices”.

Why IBM and Intel Are Chasing the $100B Opportunity in Nanophotonics
The idea behind Nanophotonics (or Silicon Photonics) is actually quite simple: take the world’s fastest communication technology (light), and build it directly into semiconductor chips using well-known and massively scalable production processes.

Effective vs Ineffective Security Governance
Comparing and contrasting a set of behaviors and actions is useful to further illustrate effective versus ineffective security governance. Sometimes the absence of a quality, value, or cultural norm is a more revealing indicator than its presence.

Google Shuts Down Shopping Service for China
"Shopping in China was not providing businesses with the level of impact we had hoped, so we will be sunsetting it in order to focus on the products that do," the company said in a statement. Google will instead devote more resources to its advertising services for apps and search, and connecting Chinese suppliers with overseas customers with tools including its Global Market Finder.

Welcome to the Converged Future of Cloud
Disruption comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, you can't even see it. Regardless, a cool name doesn't hurt a disruptive force, and can actually enhance its impact. Such is the case with the mCloud Helix, a wild-sounding mechanism that offers a bold promise: private cloud in a box. Granted, the cloud is all about servers, so in-and-of-itself, this offer isn't terribly novel. But when you peek under the covers, coolness does appear.

The Rewards of Ignoring Data
Can you make smarter decisions by ignoring data? It certainly runs counter to our mission, and sounds a little like an Orwellean dystopia. But as we’re going to see, ignoring some of your data some of the time can be a very useful thing to do.

DotNetNuke 7 with Active Directory and SharePoint Lists
DotNetNuke 7 provides support for active directory authentication and includes a SharePoint connector which enables fast and secure publishing of SharePoint documents to websites, intranets and extranets. In an exclusive interview to InfoQ, Richard Dumas, Senior Director of Product Marketing, DotNetNuke Corp shares his views about the features included with the recent release.

Entity Framework 6: Alpha2 Now Available
The Entity Framework team recently announced the 2nd alpha release of EF6. The alpha 2 package is available for download from NuGet. Since this is a pre-release package make sure to select “Include Prereleases” in the NuGet package manager, or execute the following from the package manager console to install it:

So What If You Have Big Data? Without Data-Driven Processes And Products, It’s Useless
You don’t win gold medals just for having data. The real winners are those like Amazon and Netflix that find ways to leverage their data better than the competition. Without a game plan to turn your data into revenue, you may as well scrap your badass Hadoop cluster and the petabytes of data it contains.

How to Become a Morning Person
This is not like trying to become a professional basketball player if you are only 5'6" tall. This is more like trying to change a belief system and a set of habits. You can do it if you are intentional. “Morning people” tend to make more money, be more productive, be healthier and live longer and be more happy and satisfied in their lives.

Quotes for the day:

"Very few of the great leaders ever get through their careers without failing, sometimes dramatically." -- Philip Crosby

"Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence in how you react.If you're in control,they're in control" -- Tom Landry

December 09, 2012

Data Center Operations And Its 10 Biggest Mistakes
For better advantage, companies must ensure their data center operation programs are fully successful and functional. This should be done by using clearly articulated operational requirements and by using design maps that can provide benefits, depending upon the profile of the data center.

Pushing Nginx to its limit with Lua
Lua is a scripting language. Specifically, it is a full-featured multi-paradigm language with a simple syntax and semantics that resemble JavaScript or Scheme. Lua also has an interesting story to it, as it is one of the only languages from an emerging country that has had worldwide impact.

Calculating Metrics and Searching with a CodeDOM (Part 8)

This article is about basic analysis of code in a codeDOM, such as calculating metrics on it and searching it. Sources are included. This is Part 8 of a series on codeDOMs. In the previous parts, Ken has discussed “CodeDOMs”, provided a C# codeDOM, a WPF UI and IDE, a C# parser, solution/project codeDOM classes, covered loading type metadata, and handled resolving symbolic references in a codeDOM.

Futuristic handcuffs would administer shocks, drugs
A patent for next-generation handcuffs offers a future in which the detained can be zapped directly from their restraints, and even injected with a medication, sedative, irritant, paralytic, or other fine substance.

Measuring Performance of Enterprise Architecture
Going by the premise, what is not measured does not get managed, it is important to identify the measurable objectives for the Architecture function itself, so that it is well managed and its contribution to the success of the organization is established. While measurement of Architectural activities is difficult, COBIT suggests a set of measurable outcomes and performance measures

Architectural Decisions
For those aspiring to achieve the VCDX certification, the information in this section should help you fully understand & justify your decisions. Being able to justify your decisions is a critical component of creating solid architecture, and an important thing to remember for your VCDX preparation, and especially your defense!

'Eurograbber' Online Banking Scam Netted $47 Million
Over the past year, about 30,000 European banking customers were robbed of about 36 million euros -- that's about $47 million -- in an online banking scam that worked by exploiting mobile devices, according to security firms that stumbled into the operation.

Google Prepares To Bring Its Smart Assistant "Google Now" To Any Device
The move would make Googe Now, which is currently only available on Android phones using the Jelly Bean version of the operating system, more widely available, and could eventually succeed in changing the way people use Google.

Cloud Fabric From GreenButton, A Multi-Cloud Management Platform
The platform features multi-cloud management with a single tool set, known as Mission Control, and an easy to use software developer kit (SDK), including a development emulator for easy enablement of workloads. Mission Control includes commercial features around billing, reporting with organizational control and chargeback.

Try Meditation to Strengthen Your Resilience
Unless you find solid footing in your consistent, unshakable Self, you'll be thrown off balance and lose your way. You'll change your mind at the first resistance. You'll become overconfident when praise abounds. And you'll make poor decisions, just to feel better.

Quote for the day:

"Success is the result of good judgement, which is the result of experience & experience is often the result of bad judgement" --@tonyrobbins

December 07, 2012

Enterprise Data Governance: A Practical Approach to Information Quality Management
It becomes difficult to maintain and manage data without policies, strategies and dedicated efforts by the team across business functions. Data governance seeks to solve these problems, through information policies, data rules, guidelines for managing key data elements and assigning roles for accountabilities and responsibilities.

Finding The Right Blend: Sometimes Pure Agile Isn’t The Way To Go
Agile project managers need to be prepared to work in cooperation with non-Agile project managers, teams that employ traditional methods, and organizations that have resources scattered around the globe. ... Agile adoption doesn’t need to be an all-or-nothing, either-or scenario. The very incremental, iterative concepts that Agile project managers (PMs) apply to their projects can also be applied to Agile adoption.

Gary Hamel On Innovating Innovation

Any innovation effort that doesn’t start by acknowledging that innovation itself is deeply counter-cultural. We’re never going to build a truly innovative company without a gene-replacement therapy. Without that you’re going fail.

SwiftKey Flow review: The Android keyboard you've been waiting for
The new beta version of the popular SwiftKey keyboard released this morning. SwiftKey Flow adds support for gesture-based typing, which means you can type by sliding your finger from one key to another without lifting it off the screen.

Three Examples of New Process Strategy
There are three fundamental ways that companies can improve their processes in the coming decade: (1) expand the scope of work managed by a company to include customers, suppliers, and partners; (2) target the increasing amount of knowledge work; and (3) reduce cycle times to durations previously considered impossible

Telecom NZ trials 4G services
The company announced yesterday that there will be a trial of 4G in the 2.6GHz spectrum band with Huawei in the North Shore, Auckland, while Alcatel-Lucent will run a trial in Lower Hutt, Wellington, on the same spectrum band. In Hawke's Bay, Alcatel-Lucent will also conduct a trial of LTE in the 700MHz spectrum, and in Rotorua, Huawei will trial LTE in the 1800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum bands.

Don’t Let BYOD Backfire on Your Business
BYOD policies could easily backfire on businesses, unless closely monitored to maintain benefits for employees and the company. Jeff Jones recently wrote a 3-part series on the Microsoft Security Blog called Motivations, Risks and Rewards of the BYOD Trend that examined what the BYOD trend is and then looked at it from the perspective of employees and the perspective of organizations.

.NET 4.5 TypeInfo Reflection
The .NET 4.5 Framework includes some changes to the typical reflection use cases. Most importantly, the Type object has been split into two separate classes: Type and TypeInfo. A TypeInfo instance contains the definition for a Type, and a Type now contains only reference data.

Growth in Cloud Computing to Shape 2013 Security Trends
It's the time when predictions for the new year run high, and when it comes to IT security, Gartner analysts are predicting that 2013 is going to be about expansion of cloud computing and the struggle by the enterprise to achieve appropriate security for it.

Google kills off free Google Apps offering
In an announcement on the company's Google Enterprise blog today, Google Director of Product Management for Google Apps Clay Bavor said that businesses were too quickly outgrowing the free version of Google Apps, and asking for or moving to paid premium accounts. Instead of a free, limited-user version of Google Apps and the paid premium-based version, Google will now only offer the subscription version.

Quote for the day:

"Creativity is the greatest expression of liberty." -- Bryant H. McGill

November 26, 2012

Changing times for web developers – 6 Tips You Should Read to survive
If you haven't yet started mastering your art and adapting to the changing trends, you should start today. Think about crafting your web applications properly. Use commonsense to mix and match based on scenarios. Here we go with 6 Tips to be a responsible web developer, and to stay on top of what you do.

Panasas Gets Real About Hadoop
According to the Panasas CTO, the real reason the Hadoop community doesn’t like NAS is that they’ve had bad experiences. “They run big Hadoop workloads against an NFS filer and the filer just gets creamed so, of course, the job doesn’t go well.”

Google Adds Indoor Maps for Iphone, Ipad and Other Web Users

Google has added indoor floor plans to the Web version of its Maps service, allowing any device with a browser to show the way in airports, rail stations, shopping malls and museums in nine countries.

The Six Enemies of Greatness (and Happiness)
These six factors can erode the grandest of plans and the noblest of intentions. They can turn visionaries into paper-pushers and wide-eyed dreamers into shivering, weeping balls of regret. Beware!

Competition keeps SaaS profits artificially low
Sabharinath Bala, research manager of enterprise applications at IDC Asia-Pacific, pointed to the increasingly big traction for SaaS-based products in the market which has resulted in significant top-line growth for the vendors. This is especially so in the small and midsize business (SMB) segment which has enticed major players to plunge into this space, he said.

Managing Cloud for the Enterprise
Senior IT executives from enterprises adopting cloud technologies shared their experience and advice last week at a summit forum held by research and management consulting firm Saugatuck Technology.

Mouse Control via Webcam
This application uses emguCV, a .NET wrapper for openCV, to perform image processing, through which we try to recognize hand gestures and control mouse using these gestures. In this app, cursor movement is controlled by the movement of hand and click events are triggered using hand gestures.

Mozilla suspends work on 64-bit Firefox for Windows
The x64 edition of Firefox for Windows had been stalled in the build channel Mozilla calls "Nightlies," a label for the unpolished daily versions, for months. Mozilla maintains three general-public build channels -- Aurora, analogous to an alpha; Beta; and Release -- but the x64 browser never made it to Aurora, much less the more stable Beta or final code.

The Three Axioms of Application Delivery
Of late the term “application delivery” has been creeping up into the vernacular. That could be because cloud has pushed it to the fore, necessarily. Cloud purports to eliminate the “concern” of infrastructure and allows IT to focus on … you guessed it, the application.

Can SOA liberate the cloud?
Tom Nolle, president of CIMI Corporation, says it's high time for a new vision in the evolution of cloud computing. That is, to bring in the experience and sensibilities of service oriented architecture, essentially building a cloud architecture on what he calls "Distributed SOA."

Quotes for the day:

"Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be." -- Jack Welch

"Always acknowledge a fault. It throws those in authority off their guard and gives you an opportunity to commit more" -- M. Twain

November 06, 2012

How a NASA Open Source Startup Could Change the IT Universe
Chris Kemp, the first CTO of IT at NASA, helped to lead an effort at the U.S. space agency to create a cloud compute platform, known as Nova, which become the cornerstone of the OpenStack cloud project. ... In an exclusive interview with Internet News Kemp explained how the open source cloud effort came to be and how NASA is already reaping the rewards.

VMware Wields Many Cloud Weapons
VMware has plenty of weapons and ammo to take down both its competition and partners in the virtual and cloud worlds. But, would the company ever pull the trigger? Here's a look at its software arsenal

New ransomware attack hurts trustworthiness of Web
Last week, my company was paid a visit by some interesting malware. This time, it was ransomware: malicious software that disguises itself as "security software" but actually holds the system hostage to trick the user into paying money to the software's handlers.

The 5 R's For Building Lifelong Relationships With Employees
How can we, as employers, demonstrate that we are as dedicated to our employees as we hope they’ll be to us? Today I present to you a list of five “R’s” to cover the Requirements (sorry, I couldn’t resist) you can fulfill to give your employees a greater level of assurance about their commitment to stay. Here they are:

Hewlett-Packard’s Todd Bradley Talks Tablets in the Enterprise (Video)
HP’s play, Bradley tells Bartiromo, is to build tablets that appeal to the enterprise, with backward compatibility with all the applications they’re accustomed to running, and all the security and manageability features in Windows that tend to make CIOs comfortable. And he says that the company is prepping an ElitePad pilot program with 3,000 enterprise customers in the U.S.

Cloud Expert: 'There is no Cloud'
As for Power's assertion that there is no cloud, he explained that all the technologies that make up cloud -- virtualization, hosting, data center, storage, network, etc. -- have been around for years. "It's the same technology that's been taking care of them -- we're just providing it differently," he said.

Google unveils free Siri rival for iPhone, iPad
Hey, Siri, you better look behind you. Google on Tuesday upgraded its Google Search app for the iPhone and iPad, giving the feature a voice search functionality that poses a challenge to Apple's Siri.

DHS Official Suggests Sharing IT Resources to Survive Hacks
Groups of companies in the same industry could mitigate the effects of cyberattacks by pooling infrastructure resources and working together on security issues, a senior official in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has suggested.

Regulation, infrastructure hinder Myanmar's telecom ambitions
Myanmar may be one of the few relatively untapped telecommunications market left in the world and its once-reclusive government is now opening up the sector for foreign investments. However, telcos and service providers need to tread with care given the hazy regulatory framework and lack of infrastructure for foreign players to scale their operations.

On human ‘applications’ in EA models
Yet in this specific case – a ‘human application’ – most of our existing techniques and toolsetsactively get in the way of describing what actually happens in those applications. What I’m interested in here is how we can develop usable workarounds for this problem.

Quality-systems and enterprise-architecture
Most of what we do is about connecting-the-dots, wandering around, collecting and sharing ideas, talking with people, or getting other people to talk with each other – which is often a lot harder than that sounds… But when we stop and think about it, it’s actually much the same the research-lab: our real product is opinions. And if an opinion is a product, then all of the ISO-9000-type quality-system stuff should therefore apply. Yet how?

Quote for the day:

"I am more afraid of an army of one hundred sheep led by a lion than an army of one hundred lions led by a sheep." -- Charles

October 31, 2012

A Detailed Look at The New File API in Java 7
This project provides a mechanism for managing file systems on remote computers. It supports operations such as navigation over the file system, and inspecting, renaming, copying or deleting files. Using the new I/O file allows us to extend the capabilities of the project to manipulate ZIP archives content and also watch for modifications.

3 health IT must-haves for natural disaster preparedness
As many healthcare centers employ a higher than average concentration of IT equipment, there are certain ways they can leverage them to cope with disasters- and things they must do to safeguard their technology as well. Mike Detjen of Arcadia Solutions speaks about some of the must-haves for HIT in disaster scenarios – ways it can be useful and things to be concerned about

ARM introduces 64-bit processors for phones, tablets and servers
The new ARM processors deliver 64-bit support, which enables a new range of hardware capabilities including more memory. The new processors also boast virtualization support, error correction, security capabilities and better floating point performance, Forsyth said.

Microsoft touts 4M Windows 8 upgrades
"In just the last three days, we have sold 4 million Windows 8 upgrades," Ballmer said during his early minutes on stage at Microsoft's BUILD Conference Tuesday. "The level of embrace from enthusiasts is very, very high.", Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said and later called the uptake "stunning."

Moving to the Cloud: Adoption, Impact, and What's Next
Clouds -- private, public, and hybrids -- have captured IT's attention. Saving data center costs is always attractive, but the technology isn't without risks. What do you need to know before you move to the cloud, and how with the technology impact your own data center? Where is the cloud headed?

MDM: It’s Not about One Version of the Truth
IT missed the point that the business wants data to support a system of engagement. The value of MDM is to be able to model and render a domain to fit a system of engagement. Until you understand and align to that, your MDM effort will not support the business and you won’t get the funding.

Google changes way emails are composed in Gmail
The new mechanism - currently available as a preview to some Gmail users - makes it easier to check previously sent or received messages while composing a new email. It also adds various other features, with more promised soon.

Indian IT companies shut offices temporarily due to Hurricane Sandy; Remain Unaffected
Several top companies such as Infosys, Cognizant, TCS, Mahindra Satyam, and HCL are closely monitoring the whole situation and working with local authorities to ensure the safety of their employees. Almost all the Indian IT companies, having operations in the Hurricane prone regions have a strong business contingency plan.

Good High-Level Enterprise Architecture Video
This animation shows the role of Enterprise Architecture starting from the perspective of a business user. That user has understandable wishes and requests, and the IT decisions made for him all make sense. But the result of all business users doing this independently is a 'hair ball architecture'. The role of Enterprise Architecture to prevent this from happening is illustrated.

DDoS Attacks Against Banks Raise Question: Is This Cyberwar?
Within the past month, crushing blasts of 65Gbps traffic, mainly from thousands of compromised Web servers, has targeted Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Sun Trust, PNC Financial Services, Regions Financial and Capital One. The attacks have effectively cut bank customers off from online services for extended periods.

Quote for the day:

"If you decide to go for it, do it with spirit: Sometimes success is due less to ability than to zeal. " -- Charles Buxton

October 27, 2012

Reducing Uncertainty in the Financial Evaluation of Technology Projects
It's not uncommon for new technology projects to have little short-term impact, while having a significant effect on long-term strategic goals. Due to the discounting of these long-term benefits, they become less significant in an economic evaluation. For example, how could Apple have known the future value of the iPad when it was in development? This uncertainty poses a major problem to funding projects that don't support current product lines or markets.

Amazon Outage, Complexity and Interdependence
Throughout the day, Amazon had availability, performance and connectivity issues with most services on one of their datacenters or, as they call them, availability zones. While some people may still take this opportunity to declaim the dangers and issues with cloud computing, it should be a well-known fact that cloud services suffer failures and outages.

Microsoft starts $40 Windows 8 upgrade sales
Microsoft will sell the Windows 8 Pro upgrade at the discounted price until Jan. 31, 2013. It's not entirely clear what the price will be after the offer expires, but several online retailers selling the $69.99 boxed copy show that price as marked down from a regular price of $199.99.

It's happening: Hadoop and SQL worlds are converging
The common thread of announcements is essentially, “We know that Hadoop is not known for performance, but we’re getting better at it, and we’re going to make it look more like SQL.” In essence, Hadoop and SQL worlds are converging, and you’re going to be able to perform interactive BI analytics on it.

Can Business Embed IT?
Organizations and their IT departments are struggling to keep pace with evolving business environments that have now added social, mobile, cloud and analytic forces to the competitive toolset. At Forrester Research’s latest Orlando conference, Kyle McNabb, VP and practice leader for application development and delivery, sat down to discuss how business outcomes – not technology – will prescribe the structures and tactics of IT support going forward.

The High Costs of Securing Identities: How to Fix the Problem Using the Cloud
The cloud serves as that mechanism to enable configuring as opposed to programmer-driven customization to provide each and every industry with a predictable cost, a predictable path (with a real light at the end of the tunnel!) and a predictable result for solving identity management problems.

Does the Rise of the CMO Threaten CIOs?
"Ten years ago, marketing was always at the bottom of IT's to-do list," says Kristin Hambelton, vice president of Marketing for Neolane , a marketing technology provider. "IT wasn't discriminating against marketing, but IT usually has five or 10 projects going at any one time, and marketing was always at the bottom of the list." As a result, marketing pros got tired of waiting and sidestepped IT.

Leadership Development - Effectively Influencing Decision Makers
The 11 guidelines listed below are intended to help you do a better job of influencing decision-makers. In some cases, these decision-makers may be immediate or upper managers—in other cases they may be peers or cross-organizational colleagues.

Google should worry less about iOS and more about Windows 8 tablets
Have you used a Windows 8 tablet yet? If Google wants enterprise traction for Android, it has more to learn from these devices than it does from iPhones and iPads.

Quotes for the day:

"A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune." -- Author Unknown

"Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming" -- John Wooden

October 23, 2012

HP offers new low-cost SaaS service desk
HP officials say its SaaS product includes new approaches to service desk management, including social media collaboration tools that are integrated into the problem solving processes. It is promising to shorten, overall, time to resolution of a problem.

Google for Entrepreneurs: Bringing ideas together
The Google for Entrepreneurs site features a strong focus on helping businesses get off the ground in parts of the world which are still developing or are women/minority led. For instance, Women 2.0 focuses on female entrepreneurs, Eleven is oriented for Eastern Europe and the Arab Developer Network Initiative is geared towards Palestinians

Intel strives to develop tiny chips to run wearable computers
"Potentially, it could have graphics built in," he said. "Right now, it's early in the game so we're looking at what makes sense to put in there. You'd want to have some memory built in and maybe some graphics, because you'd want to have one chip ... maybe two chips, but size-wise you want to keep it small."

Online clues suggest a Skype surprise for Windows 8 and Surface
In all of this week's news about Microsoft's Surface with Windows RT, one app has gone practically unmentioned. Will a "modern UI" version of Skype play a starring role at next week's Windows 8 launch event?

Big data to create 1.9M IT jobs in U.S. by 2015, says Gartner
Big data, which refers to data collected and analyzed from every imaginable source, is becoming an engine of job creation as businesses discover ways to turn data into revenue, says Gartner. By 2015, it is expected to create 4.4 million IT jobs globally, of which 1.9 million will be in the U.S.

Facebook could become an enterprise ID system
Gartner analyst Earl Perkins noted that identities on the Web may be managed by Facebook. In retail, Facebook may be the ID gatekeeper. Perkins said that there's a socialization of identities and by the end of 2015, 30 percent of all new retail customer IDs will be based on social media.

Near Field Communication slips, slowly, into the mainstream
“Because Apple did not use NFC in the iPhone 5, phone makers such as Samsung, Nokia, Motorola and others are all doing a harder push for NFC,” he says. Indeed, a raft of new NFC phones are hitting the U.S. market, in phones that run on the Android and Microsoft operating systems.

How Enterprise Architecture helps SAP turn strategy into action
In 2009, SAP established the Enterprise Architecture (EA) function as part of the internal IT organization, bringing senior architects under a single leadership. At that time, IT investments were very tactical, and the IT organization was seen more as an order taker rather than a strategic value enabler.

How Strategic Planning relates to Enterprise Architecture
Strategic Planning means different things to different people. The one constant is its reference to Business Planning which usually occurs annually in most companies. One of the activities of this exercise is the consideration of the portfolio of projects for the following financial year, also referred to as Project Portfolio Management (PPM).

How to Rationalize Your Application Portfolio
A majority of enterprises have hundreds of applications deployed on their network, but most tend to actively use far fewer than that. This application bloat is a significant and growing problem that costs many organizations millions of dollars a year. Here's how to combat the application sprawl.

Brother’s All-in-One Printer Is a Small Idea
It claims to be the world’s smallest-depth all-in-one printer, copier and fax machine. The machine is 7.3 inches tall, 11.4 inches deep and 18.9 inches wide, weighing in at 20.5 pounds.

Quote for the day:

"As a leader, you're probably not doing a good job unless your employees can do a good impression of you when you're not around." -- Lencioni

October 10, 2012

Breaking Through Development Project Barriers
Barriers, real or imagined, are constructed and prevent progress toward solving problems. ... You can't always break down the barriers around you. But you can learn to recognize them and ask questions. The "5 Whys"technique can help get to the root cause, allowing you to solve the underlying problem(s) that created the barrier in the first place.

Analyst: Microsoft to price Surface RT tablet at $400 to $500
"With a launch set for later this month, speculation has intensified, with some sources stating a price less than $399 for the RT version. Let's get to a more educated estimate of the BOM cost and pricing for the Surface RT and Pro."

Google upgrades Search Appliance for enterprises
Google Search Appliance 7.0 was unveiled today and will be available Oct. 16 for sale or for customers to download. The new version would help employees in large enterprises find stored information whether they're using a desktop PC, a tablet or a smartphone.

Why Doesn’t Governance Lead to Data Freedom?
The business needs speed and agility and wants to get the job done. It does not want to be hampered by process, development timelines, and certainly does not want to hear “no.” Data governance needs to evolve to develop policies that are not just about what you can’t do, but what you can do.

Complex and non-transparent Oracle licensing costing firms millions
“We are seeing an increasing number of global customers failing to remain compliant with Oracle’s licensing schemes amid growing virtualisation and this is largely because of Oracle’s non-transparent and complicated licensing policy,” said Judica Krikke, solicitor at European law firm Stibbe, at the VMworld Europe 2012 event in Barcelona.

5 Leadership Approaches for Knowing, Being and Doing
Do my leadership practices include aligning people toward common goals, enlisting both their heads and their hearts, and then empowering them to act? If not, in what areas do I need to do better?

PC passwords exposed by flaw in Apple-owned fingerprint software
A security flaw in fingerprint reading software, now owned by Apple, which has the potential to leave millions of Windows PC users' passwords exposed, has been independently verified by security researchers.

Softbank to launch 110Mbps mobile router next week
The soap-bar size modem from Huawei provide download speeds of up to 110Mbps on its LTE network and can provide a Wi-Fi connection to up to 10 devices at the same time. It has a 3,000mAh battery and can also be used as a network drive via memory cards plugged into its microSD slot, which supports cards up to 64GB in size.

Procuring IT from startups offers benefits, but beware risks
Purchasing IT from startup vendors, instead of bigger and established companies, can allow access to benefits such as more innovative technologies and greater negotiating leverage. However, customers must note and prepare for risks such as the potential issues in scalability and support.

The Internet2 experiment goes global
The takeaway from keynote speakers Sam Pitroda and John Sexton is that we need global resources to solve local problems. Advanced networking infrastructure spreads intellectual capital and offers opportunities to improve quality of life;

Quote for the day:

"No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched." -- George Jean Nathan

October 04, 2012

3 Emerging Innovations for BI and Analytics
As 2013 gets closer, what are some of the more exciting and impactful technology innovations that we are likely to see? Here are three that are likely to capture your attention.

EMC CEO Defines “Killer App” for Cloud
Tucci said EMC believes the next big step in infrastructure and cloud computing is the “software defined data center,” which will bring what virtualization did for the server to the realms of storage and networking.

Google Maps to insert Street View into mobile Web app
In what will most likely attract iPhone users disgruntled with Apple's map app, the tech giant plans to announce this week the addition of Street View to its Google Maps Web app.

Microsoft's Windows Server implementation of Hadoop is in private preview
Microsoft officials have been saying for a while that it wasn't just the Hadoop framework which Microsoft planned to support. There are lots of other related components in the works, like the Excel Hive Add-in, Sqoop, Apache Pig, Hive ODBC and more, as this slide notes.

How customer-centric project management processes evolved
Putting customers – and by that we mean internal colleagues or third party partners who take a service from another department – at the heart of how we work is a worthy aim. Companies spend a lot of time on focus groups and surveying end customers – consumers who buy products – but not a lot of time looking at how departments within the company serve each other.

7 Things Your Small Business Can Learn From Mythbusters
In each episode, five engineers (two lead engineers and three “junior” engineers) take on a common myth or urban legend and seek to either bust it or confirm it. What could your business possibly learn from a show about exploding cars, strange robots and electrical shocks? A lot actually.

Windows 8 's Rookie Security Mistake
While it sounds like Windows 8 has a lot going for it when it comes to securing your system, it's recently come to light that Microsoft has made the fatal error of storing login passwords in plain text. This news comes from security firm Passcape Software, a company knows a thing or two about retrieving passwords. And if stored in plain text form, the firm's job is that much easier

A boot camp for hacking electric vehicles
From altering the dashboard to breaking in, an EV electronics system is likely to be a prime target for hackers. Wired reports that recently, a team of cyber security experts tested an EV’s defenses — finding that it was easy to break in, eavesdrop on conversations, turn off the engine or cause havoc to the braking system.

Apple hunts for System-on-a-Chip Architect for A6 successor?
An Apple job posting gives us a tantalizing glimpse into what the Cupertino giant might have in the pipeline over the coming months and years. Is Apple planning to dump Intel? Are OS X tablets in the pipeline?

UK to spend £2m a year on advising other countries about cybersecurity
A UK-based cybersecurity 'centre of excellence' will help other countries defend themselves against cyber-attacks, according to foreign secretary William Hague, who also hinted at the establishment of 'hotlines' between rival countries to stop potential cyber-war situation getting out of hand.

28 Pieces of Computing Advice That Stand the Test of Time
Just because computers are one big exercise in evolutionary progress, that doesn't mean certain computing maxims ever go out of style. Take, for example, the nuggets of wisdom in the following list. All of these things are as true today as they were 2, 5, and in some cases even 10 or 20 years ago.

Quote for the day:

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." -- Thomas A. Edison

September 29, 2012

TDWI E-Book: Big Data Analytics
Download this TDWI E-Book to learn how to overcome obstacles, maximize business value, and get started with big data analytics. You’ll also read expert Q&A on misconceptions about big data analytics as well as a forecast of its future.

Is IT as a Service the Next Big Shake-up?
What AWS announced was its Reserved Instance Marketplace. In simplest terms, this marketplace is a secondary market for trading/selling/buying reserved instances of AWS’ Cloud-based IT services.

New Asus Transformer Pad combines LTE, quad-core processor
Asustek's latest Transformer Pad TF300TL has a quad-core processor and LTE capabilities to go along with a 10.1-inch screen, the company said on Friday.

Calif. law passed to halt employer snooping on social media
Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown took to social media today to announce that he signed two privacy laws protecting employees and students from bosses and universities wanting to snoop on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts.

Shape Strategy With Simple Rules, Not Complex Frameworks
Simple rules represent the beating heart of strategy. When applied to a critical bottleneck, carefully crafted, and used in a mindful manner, they can guide the activities that matter. In a world of hard trade-offs, they are one of the few ways managers can increase alignment, adaptation, and coordination all at once.

Twitter Helps Build Social Data Ecosystem
Twitter's Certified Products Program is a step in the right direction toward improving data quality, analysis, and social business decision making. Let's hope Facebook and LinkedIn follow suit.

BYOD in Health Care: A Unique Range of Risk
Failure to properly implement a BYOD program can be a costly error because the HITECH Act also put teeth into HIPAA enforcement efforts in the form of increased penalties for violations and expanded enforcement authority at both the federal and state levels.

Selected data modeling best practices
Many of these practices apply generally, but the list excludes some concerns specific to other data modeling efforts like enterprise, data warehouse, datamart, or other non-operational models. Also, the focus of these notes is on logical modeling.

Google's Sergey Brin: You'll ride in robot cars within 5 years
"You can count on one hand the number of years it will take before ordinary people can experience this," he said at the signing of SB 1298, which establishes safety and performance standards for cars operated by computers on California roads and highways.

Quote for the day:

"How we think shows through in how we act. Attitudes are mirrors of the mind." -- David Joseph Schwartz

September 27, 2012

Enterprise architecture in the age of cloud services
In reading this article, an IT architect will learn how to use EA notations and IBM Rational System Architect to communicate effectively with business users and other stakeholders, including the service provider.

What do cloud and cloud management mean for enterprise architecture?
The main question in enterprise IT is often whether to move to a cloud architecture at all. There is a lot of value in the work that has been done over time to build and adapt an IT environment to suit the business, and a corresponding reluctance to change anything too quickly.

Google Apps axes export support for .doc and other old Microsoft Office formats
The cloud-based office suite will, from 1 October, only be able to export to newer Office Open XML formats such as .docx. This will affect anyone collaborating with users of pre-2003 Office versions, although Microsoft does have a compatibility pack to help out users of some earlier iterations

High Performance Computing (HPC) in the Cloud
High performance computing is no longer limited to those who own supercomputers. HPC's democratization has been driven particularly by cloud computing, which has given scientists access to supercomputing-like features at the cost of a few dollars per hour.

Embracing the Engineering Side of Software Engineering
Drawing from 20 years of research and industrial experience, the author argues that now is the time to make software engineering a true engineering discipline. (with video extra)

Expectation is reality
We hear about perception being reality in service management space. When you are dealing with projects, expectation become the be all and and end all. How your project is perceived is proportional to the level of expectation about the outcomes that you have built.

Analytics Lead Insurance CIO Wish List
Given a $3 million-to-$5 million bump in budget, almost one-third of insurer CIOs would put the money toward analytics, despite already investing heavily in that area, according to “If I Had $5 Million… Where Insurer CIOs Would Spend Money They Don’t Have and Why,” a survey from Novarica.

Europe ready to charge Microsoft over browser choice, eyes Google action
European antitrust commissioner Joaquín Almunia said in a speech today in Warsaw that both "world brands" were in the Commission's sights – Microsoft over its failure to properly offer users a choice of browser, Google over its fears it "had used its dominance in online search to foreclose advertisers and rivals".

How "Big-Data-as-a-Service" Can Help Smaller Companies Compete
The common perception of how big data is used centers around giant multi-national enterprises spending millions trying to fine tune their business strategies to eke out every last penny from their customers. But in reality, big data is worming its way into businesses large and small, often as a service instead of on-premises software.

Predictive Analytics: Classification Using Decision Trees
When assessing a candidate’s propensity to act in the desired manner, one can use the classification model to review the critical characteristics’ values to get a probability of achieving the desired result.

NetSuite talks 'Appstore' for everyone
Zach Nelson, CEO NetSuite was in London this week talking SuiteCommerce. Rebranded e-commerce or something new? E-commerce has been around for many years but in recent times, the market has become extremely complicated.

Quote for the day:

"Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all of your energies on a limited set of targets." - Nido Qubein

September 22, 2012

How to build a Roadmap – Define Current State
This post will provide a little more exposition and insight into one method, which if done well, can provide an honest and objective look in the mirror to successfully understand where we truly are as an organization and face the uncomfortable truth in some cases where we need to improve.

40 Percent of Insurers Suffered Security Breaches in Past Year
25 percent of financial institutions suffered a breach in 2011—within insurance, that percentage is even higher—making security is a top priority for the financial services industry, according to Deloitte’s “2012 Global Financial Services Industry Security Study.”

Cloud Computing - Governance Challenges
In today’s world, with increasing cloud adoption and outsourcing activities, we could see business organizations are in almost in the same state as it is described of DoD, i.e. System-of-Systems

Oracle's engineered systems focus: A cloud distraction?
Wall Street was expecting Oracle to deliver first quarter hardware revenue of $899 billion and got $779 million. In other words, the rate of decline in Oracle's hardware business is accelerating.

Small Business Strategies: How to handle that adrenaline
No wonder so many entrepreneurs suffer adrenaline addiction. We thrive on risk-taking and love challenges. We juggle many tasks at once. Heck, when things are really bad, we're able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

6 steps to embedding organizational culture
Changing a company's culture is a slow and difficult business, writes Mary Jo Asmus. It's important to start by thinking clearly about what sort of culture you want, and to communicate that vision clearly before starting to make big changes.

Meet the young boss with a digital & global mindset
"Born-digital, new-age leaders bring a global mindset and have an innate desire and ability to collaborate," says Lakshmi Narayanan, vice-chairman, Cognizant.

Why culture is more important than strategy
The most important thing about culture is that it's the only sustainable point of difference for any organisation. Anyone can copy your strategy, but nobody can copy your culture. So why would you leave it

PayPal chief scientist on cracking the code for big data analytics
In a wide-ranging SearchCIO.com Trailblazer interview, Oh talks about the state of big data analytics. He actually is trying to fathom the human subconscious by looking at who buys what, when and why.

Google Spans Entire Planet With GPS-Powered Database
According to Google, it’s the first database that can quickly store and retrieve information across a worldwide network of data centers while keeping that information “consistent” — meaning all users see the same collection of information at all times — and it’s been driving the company’s ad system and various other web services for years.

Quote for the day:

"The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers." - Brian Tracy

September 18, 2012

Twitter hires security expert Charlie Miller
Twitter is creating a security dream team. Charlie Miller, famous for his hacks on the iPhone and MacBook Air, finding holes in iOS and devising ways to hijack Android phones with NFC, will be starting his new job at the microblogging company next week.

Is Quality Job One? 3 COBIT quality processes make it so!
COBIT 5 says the quality management process is about defining and communicating quality requirements including controls, ongoing monitoring, and the use of practices and standards in continuous improvement of efficiency efforts. Please notice that quality is not just about testing. Pause and think about this.

Germany proposes ban on surveillance software exports to totalitarian regimes
Germany's foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has told a conference that the country hopes to ban the export of tools that could allow repressive regimes to monitor their own citizens.

Google pictures a better photo-tweaking tool with Snapseed
San Diego-based Nik Software, a 17-year-old developer of digital image editing tools, is now part of Google. The search giant did not reveal details of the acquisition, but the move is likely part of Google’s endeavors to make its Google+ social network more competitive with Facebook

Motorola announces RAZR i in the Europe
The RAZR i will be running on one of Intel's latest mobile chips (2GHz processor), differentiating it from what we saw from the Google-owned phone-maker a few weeks earlier.

5 ideas to help everyone make the most of big data
Although their use cases don’t always align with what more-traditional businesses are doing, they know enough about the science and technology to save big-data newcomers a lot of frustration.

Case study: ING Direct taps big data to understand customers
The bank has already invested heavily in data analys, and the next step is to implement a big-data strategy to speed up the process of understanding a torrent of customer data.

Identity is the new perimeter
While we cannot control the whole security stack for every SaaS application, we can leverage new identity standards to fill the gaps left by the disappearance of the traditional perimeter as we know it.

9 key career issues software developers face
Whether you're an independent contractor or a cubicle loyalist with a wandering eye, programming want ads abound, each stirring its own set of questions about how best to steer your career.

Microsoft confirms hackers exploiting critical IE bug, promises patch
Microsoft on Monday issued a security advisory that confirmed in-the-wild attacks are exploiting an unpatched bug in Internet Explorer. The software maker is working on a fix.

Quote for the day:

"It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure." --Bill Gates

August 21, 2012

Implementation options for Android ads in code or layouts
You can choose to set up the ad request in the layout files (XML), or you can implement the ads entirely in code. Each has advantages and disadvantages, so it might be appropriate to use one or the other in different situations.

India backtracks on domestic networking tech rule
The revised draft, which was completed on Aug. 3, was then updated to say India will "progressively develop indigenous capacity to manufacture electronic telecom equipment and software [to be] inducted into the network

HTC Signals Focus on Business Market with Investment in Enterprise App Provider
HTC announced the investment on Monday in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing, stating that the company was buying a 17.1 percent stake in the Silicon Valley-based Magnet Systems. "The investment will bring social, mobile, and cloud capabilities to HTC's portfolio of service offerings to its mobile enterprise customers," HTC said in its filing.

20 Must See CSS3 and jQuery Tutorials
Although, HTML5 will not be fully implanted until 2014 , many web designers/developers, companies and web enthusiasts are using HTML5 and CSS3 in their products and apps. In this post we are sharing 20 recent web design tutorials that explore the true potential of HTML5, CSS3 and with a mix of good old jQuery.

NetApp adds Flash server caching, forges Fusion-io partnership
According to Paul Feresten, senior product marketing manager of NetApp's intelligent caching products, the company's strategy is to bring end-to-end caching including server-level Flash. Moving to the server, NetApp argues that it can provide better performance and granularity to requirements and serve databases.

Compuverde pitches object storage at cloud, big data
The company's Linux-based gateway works as a network attached storage (NAS) head to expose CIFS, NFS, Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) and open source OpenStackinterfaces to the object storage software. The gateway can also host virtual machines (VMs) and cache data on solid-state drives and NVRAM.

Preparing your teams for software defined networking
SDN provides the means to automate networks to better support different workloads, but I&O professionals also need to understand how SDN can support turning networks into a virtual network infrastructure.

In India, a time of flux approaches
Two news items from the tech startup ecosystem broke through the clutter of politics, cricket, Bollywood, and more politics news in India earlier this month. The first was good. The second was just grim.

Communicating Cybersecurity Risk to Business Leaders
Communicating cybersecurity risk effectively to business leaders depends on your ability to answer the question "How much risk do we have?" with a credible financial metric familiar to risk management decision makers. Here is a webinar on the topic.

Automaticly localizing applications with Google Translate
Google does offer a web service that provides that ability to programmaticly translate strings, however this does require a purchase of a license where this application allows for the use of the web site for free.

Oracle pays $2 million SEC fine to settle India corruption case
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Oracle under the Foreign Corrupt Practices act for failing to keep its India subsidiary from creating a slush fund used to pay phony vendors.

Quote for the day:

"The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you're learning you're not old." - Rosalyn S. Yalow

August 08, 2012

Agile development costly, confusing: Report
A report by Voke Inc. found that companies do not understand costs of rework and cannot identify clear benefits of agile. But an agile consultant says the study shows a "fundamental misunderstanding" of what agile is

Do procurement processes allow Agile software delivery?
Longer projects run, higher likelihood of project failure. One of the moves in recent times to reduce complexity in software development is to adopt Agile delivery approaches. The desire to build confidence and leave tangible benefits even if projects are cancelled has provided further impetus to adoption of Agile practices.

Plextor M5 Pro solid-state drive
CNET Review says: Fast and compatible with all systems, the Plextor M5 Pro would be a great solid-state drive for anyone who can afford it

How to Be a More Reliable Professional
Unreliability was recently identified as the number one career-limiting habit and it’s no surprise. After all, if the people you work for (and with) can’t depend on you, what purpose do you serve?Truth be told, unreliable people are actually dangerous to the success of the entire team.

Forrester: Bump the HTML5 effort; this isn't 2011 anymore
We're not living in 2011 anymore. This is 2012, where HTML5 can spread its wings and stretch out, thinks Forrester

New Healthcare Ecosystem Requires New Collaboration Approaches
In reading a recent article published by PharmaExec on Innovative Contracting, it was encouraging to see continued discussion within Life Sciences arena that strives to address the needs of their customers, the payers and providers.

Google spreadsheets gains lockdown feature
Google has added a new feature to its spreadsheet product that enables users to lock down particular sections. According to Google, the feature, called Protected Ranges, is intended to stop cells being modified accidentally when several users are working on the same spreadsheet.

Two Leadership Models
In leadership, there are two distinct organizational models. Since few things are quite so black-and-white, we might consider them to be two ends of a continuium, with a virtually limitless number of stops between the two

Google’s self-driving car: A long road, but now 300,000 miles shorter
Google’s self-driving car may have sounded like the stuff of fantasy and The Jetsons not so long ago, but the company is famed for getting its teeth into a number of frankly odd and fun projects. The new car is no exception — and it seems Google’s engineers aren’t doing too bad a job either.

On learning enterprise-architecture
How someone can become a consummate generalist without getting insane as there is lot out there to learn because EA is the architecture of the enterprise? How do someone bring focus(Focus to not to focus on particular thing)? How do I create a specialist in me who is generalist?

Quote for the day:

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." ~Mark Twain

July 23, 2012

Applying 'Fail Fast' in development
This is a very good read for all developers and it is about how the 'fail fast' approach can help you produce reliable systems.

The 6 People You Need in Your Corner
Nothing incredible is accomplished alone. You need others to help you, and you need to help others. With the right team, you can form a web of connections to make the seemingly impossible practically inevitable.

The 11 Leadership Secrets You've Never Heard About
The old distinctions between leaders and followers are gone. Great followers follow by leading. Here’s 11 ways to make sure you do just that.

Google Glass controls and Artificial Intelligence detailed
Google’s cautious approach to allowing people to play with Project Glass means the UI of the wearable computer is something of a mystery, but a new patent application could spill some of the secrets.

The art of transparency
In a CGMA survey of CEOs from 21 countries, 87% of respondents said they view transparency as an opportunity. The CEOs sharing more information could help burnish a business’s reputation with customers, improve decision making and lead to greater innovation. Still 13% of CEOs said they view transparency as a threat.

Apple foe Proview finds itself sued by own legal counsel
Grandall Law Firm, which represented the Chinese company in its action over the iPad trademark, sues for its 4 percent of the $60 million settlement.

Multitasking's Real Victims
It's a well-cited observation that juggling two or more things at once depletes our health and harms our productivity. As we clock in more hours on smartphones and social networks, we've ushered in the "provisional conversation": a face-to-face discussion that falls apart as one or more participants default to checking their phones, only to restart as the handsets are put back away.

Rackspace: OpenStack could be the Linux of the cloud
OpenStack has the potential to become to the cloud what the LAMP stack is to servers, Rackspace's chief has said, while blasting VMware and Amazon for not participating in the scheme

Is ‘Big Data’ good or evil? New survey exposes growing debate
Tech experts believe the vast quantities of data — so-called “digital exhaust” — that humans and machines will be creating by the year 2020 could enhance productivity, improve organizational transparency, and expand the frontier of the “knowable future.”

Quote for the day:

"Lead and inspire people. Don't try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead." —-- Ross Perot