Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

July 10, 2012

Design Your Company, Not Your Product
There's a new wave of entrepreneurs who believe the real key to long-term success comes from focusing on designing the company--not the product. That means establishing a solid company philosophy, fostering cooperation and friendliness among the staff ...

MData – Using interfaces as domain model
In MData, all entities in the domain are defined as interfaces. This means MData uses the ‘POCO principle’ by default. The advantage here is that the implementation of the actual properties/logic can be different in different layers of the domain.

Windows Server 2012 Release Preview: Compelling new features
Much easier DirectAccess deployment and a full-scale dynamic access control system are among the key benefits.

Information Technology Spending to Hit $3.6 Trillion in 2012, Report Says
Spending on public cloud services is expected to increase 20 percent, to $109 billion, from $91 billion in 2011. By 2016, Gartner said, this expenditure could nearly double, to $207 billion.

What a pitcher!’ How to turn failure into future success
So what is the purpose of failure? How can I learn from failure, instead of being wounded by it? And most importantly, what can I do about that yucky feeling in the pit of my stomach left behind by the failed pitch?

Venkat Subramaniam Thinks Functionally
In this .NET Rocks podcast, Venkat digs into the idea that functional programming is less about language and more about practice, exploring how C# can build functional code just as well as F#. The conversation also drills into the advantages of functional programming for parallelism ...

The Evolution of Targeted Attacks in a Web 3.0 World
Web 3.0 is the next stage of the internet. An internet for the machines where everything with an electric current running through it has an IP address and is communicating with other machines like it, without the need for human intervention. The machines will get to a point approaching artificial intelligence where they will learn about your likes, dislikes and needs, locations and associations and organize and present information to you from the web.

Feeling Blah About Work? Don't Blame Your Boss--Get Engaged
Show us a disengaged person, and we will show you lackluster performance, limited personal growth, and diminished rewards. Show us an engaged person, and it's just the opposite--high performance, accelerated personal growth, and inevitable success.

Level 3 London datacentre outage takes more than 50 businesses offline
A power failure in a Level 3 central London datacentre has knocked customers offline, including colocation provider Adapt

Big-data analytics – where next?
Companies that are able to effectively leverage big data will benefit from massive competitive advantages ... most are still struggling with collecting, analysing and interpreting traditional data, let alone big data ... Tesco was able to turn the data it collected into customer knowledge it could act on.

Quote of the day

"Data matures like wine, applications like fish" -- Andy Todd

July 09, 2012

Cell carriers see dramatic increase in surveillance requests
Wireless carriers say they received 1.3 million requests last year from law enforcement agencies for subscriber text messages, caller locations, and other information, reflecting a steady increase during the past five years

Finnish startup breathes new life into MeeGo
Jussi Hurmola, CEO of Jolla, said: "Nokia created something wonderful--the world's best smartphone product. It deserves to be continued, and we will do that together with all the bright and gifted people contributing to the MeeGo success story."

Thailand forms alliance to boost cloud development
The local daily said the alliance would be a channel for software vendors to host their software and applications. It will also help push the adoption of cloud services by the government and education sectors.

How to set up and use Google Docs offline
Google Drive now lets you access and edit documents when not connected to the Internet. See how to set up and use this new and useful feature.

The Company Chaos You Don't Know You're Creating
By reducing the organizational chaos that is completely within your control, you not only establish a solid foundation on which excellence can be built, but you also free up the psychic energy and resources you need to cope with the truly unforeseen circumstances that businesses must navigate from time to time.

6 Tips for Making It Work as a Part-Time Entrepreneur
While not ideal for every young trep -- jumping head first into the start-up pool can be a preferred route -- getting the business up and running before letting go of a regular paycheck may be the best course. Here are six ways to make the transition into entrepreneurship a smooth one:

User flows in web design
Creating user flows is a useful way to map how users may interact with your site or app. User flows have long been used in web design for figuring out information architecture and site structure. They are also useful for figuring out the purchase journey of an e-commerce platform.

Study of the Day: Why Crowded Coffee Shops Fire Up Your Creativity
Instead of burying oneself in a quiet room trying to figure out a solution, walking out of one's comfort zone and getting into a relatively noisy environment may trigger the brain to think abstractly, and thus generate creative ideas.

The Content Conundrum: To Create Or Automate?
When it comes to content creation--even in short bits and blasts on Twitter---the human touch is what will keep marketers relevant and real. A look at J.Crew, Wegmans, NASCAR, and other brands that are getting it right.

Big Data Doesn’t Have to Cost Big Money
... a key cost factor is scalability — the ability to start at an affordable entry point and grow from there. To some degree, scalability leads to flexibility to spend budgetary resources on projects over time, as opposed to large amounts up front...

Fun with continued fractions
Continued fractions are of great importance in many aspects, as they have many implementations for real problems where you want to describe something with an approximate fraction, or you simply want to replace a decimal or double number with a fraction.

Quote for the day
"I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success." — Jack Welch

July 08, 2012

So what's the difference between a Custom Control and User Control?
Someone asked why should one use a Custom Control instead of a User Control? Hence, let's extend the series and discuss about that. I apologize for the delay of this post. I should have explained this at the start of the series, but actually my goal was to explain to you how to create and use a Custom Control in Silverlight. ...

Australia builds 100 petabyte storage cloud
These are the first of eight to ten nodes intended to underpin the national storage network, which by 2014 will offer Australian researchers access to around 100 petabytes of data collections.

Intel/McAfee: What's the Future of Security?
A lot of the advanced persistent threats [APTs] test the ability to detect them. When you sit above the operating system, the visibility is limited. But in Intel's chipset, you can detect malware and APTs in a different way. The first product we'll be coming out with is rootkit detection, at the end of the calendar year.

Nine Things Cloud ISVs Should Do Next
Different ISVs are in different business situations with respect to fully exploiting the cloud benefits. Based on observations so far, here are nine things ISVs can look at doing next.

Overhauling a UI Without Upsetting Current Users
The risks associated with not updating a UI outweigh those associated with an update. But a successful redesign absolutely requires the right product management and UX techniques to evolve the product carefully and avoid a user revolt.

The 5 traits of radically successful people
Success can come in different fields, but the principles behind it are one. From Sugar Ray Leonard chasing the school bus to Peter Guber’s corkboard, these stories show the unique personality traits that tipped the scales in favor of the world’s most successful people.

Twitter is a Corporate API
A lot has been written in the last week about Twitter's API and developer concerns that it would soon be closed to apps that are platform-specific clients. The discussion was started by a post by a Twitter manager, Michael Sippey, who was also one of the earliest bloggers.

Docomo, Omron Healthcare launch connected health venture in Japan
The venture also promises an unspecified “wide range of services to meet the needs of all lifestyles and the various stages of life by cooperating with various content providers, including companies in health-related fields,” according to a press release.

Quote for the day:

Delegation requires the willingness to pay for short term failures in order to gain long term competency. ~Dave Ramsey

July 07, 2012

Direct Database Updates – A Cause of Concern
Many organizations still have the practice of directly updating the production databases to fix data integrity issues. This shows that the one or more applications deployed on top of the database are not reliable enough to maintain the database integrity.

One day your iPhone and wallet will be one.
For years, there have been whispers that Apple is working on its own approach to reinventing mobile payments, including the possibility of a NFC-equipped iPhone.

Google Compute Engine – Not AWS Killer (yet)
GCE is missing a lot of what larger enterprises will need – monitoring, security certifications, integration with IAM systems, SLAs, etc. GCI also lacks some of the things that really got people excited about EC2 early on – like an AMI community, even the AMI model so I can create one from my own server image.

An inconvenient truth: Respect me
Yet what I am hearing from these key employees, most between the ages of 30 and 40, is that they absolutely demand to be treated with respect, have their opinions listened to, and stand as a peer with their leaders.

Top 5 wireless routers: Home-networking evolved
It was clear from CES that 2012 is going to be a year of many changes in home networking. To help you keep up with these changes, here's our list of the Top 5 networking products currently available.

Cloud Computing in Health Care to Reach $5.4 Billion by 2017: Report
Although regulatory and security concerns have held back the health care industry from widespread adoption of public clouds, the overall cloud computing market in health care will grow to $5.4 billion by 2017, according to a report by research firm MarketsandMarkets.

Avoiding Downtime When Cloud Services Fail
Another AWS outage hit several large websites and their services last week. What can be done to avoid downtime? Architect for failover not just for scale

Best Practices For Managing Big Data
What most people don’t know is that the vast majority of Big Data is either duplicated data or synthesized data. ... Now they must manage a total of over a petabyte of data, of which less than 150 terabytes is unique.

Quote for the day
"If you put off everything till you're sure of it, you'll get nothing done." ~ Norman Vincent Peale

July 06, 2012

Federal appeals court raps U.S. bank over shoddy online security
In a significant twist, a three-judge federal appeals court panel found on Tuesday that Ocean Bank's online security measures were not "commercially reasonable," reversing a lower court ruling from May 2011.

BYOD: 10 reasons it won't work for your business
Letting your staff use their own smartphones, laptops and tablets can make them happier, more productive, cut business costs and even help attract new talent – but there are a potential disadvantages too.

Global summit on Enterprise & IT Architecture in Bangalore, 25-26 July

This premier conference will provide an opportunity to the CIOs, CTOs, Managers, architects etc. to share knowledge of Transformation and Planning, IT Landscape Rationalization, Architecture Governance, Best Green Architecture, Acquisition and Mergers, Business Process Management, etc.

Microsoft to patch under-attack XML bug next week
Microsoft today confirmed that it will patch a vulnerability in Windows next week that has been exploited by an increasing number of attacks.

The Open Source Balance at Banks
While many banks still ponder the benefits of using open source technology for their coding needs, nascent BankSimple has gone full steam ahead

Microsoft Readies Hadoop for Big Business
Yes, Hadoop will run natively on Windows and integrate with PDW. But Microsoft will also make available an ODBC driver for Hive, the data warehousing front-end for Hadoop developed by FaceBook.

Know more about fixing the DNS Changer malware
You’re looking for information on how to clean up or fix malicious software (“malware”) associated with DNS Changer. It’s possible that either your computer or your home router has been modified to use resources once controlled by criminals to redirect your traffic.

How to Inspire and Motivate High Performance Employees
HPO employees want to be inspired by their managers to continuously perform better and achieve extraordinary results. They want to be kept on their toes and be challenged. They continuously want to develop themselves, to achieve the best they can, and because of this, contribute to the success of the organization.

EU Court: Resale of Used Software Licenses is Legal, Even Online
The exclusive right of distribution of a copy of a computer program covered by such a licence is exhausted on its first sale, said the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This applies to downloaded software as well as that bought on CD or DVD.

Quote for the day:

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards."
--Vernon Sanders Law

July 05, 2012

Independence Isn’t Freedom
Independence isn’t freedom, or at least it’s not freedom from everything. Independence is the acceptance of a lot of responsibilities.

ACTA rejected by Europe, leaving copyright treaty near dead
The European Parliament has voted not to ratify the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, meaning the contentious copyright crackdown agreement cannot come into force in the EU

Evaluating the safety of the cloud
Cloud computing, as it becomes part and parcel of modern day business, consumer worries have surfaced over cloud computing. And, for some, these centre around its safety and reliability. So just how safe is the Cloud?

The state of Hadoop: Strong and poised to explode
As with any new technology, the big question surrounding Hadoop as a viable market is whether enterprises will adopt it. The answer seems to be a resounding “Yes.”

Cars should automatically call for help after crashes, EU says
By 2015, the European Parliament wants all new cars to automatically alert emergency services in case of a crash, a service known as eCall. The Parliament adopted a resolution to this effect in a show of hands on Tuesday, and urged the European Commission to make eCall law.

Win/Win Negotiating - How to Speak Assertively
Be confident without being "cocky". The best solutions come out of problems. It means both sides are passionate and want the best for the company. But in order to communicate effectively you must show confidence in yourself and your ideas.

Cloud Computing an Important Government Agenda: Kapil Sibal
In a bid towards building a progressive ecosystem for cloud services in India, the government is willing to collaborate with the industry and academia. This was stated by Shri Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology while inaugurating the Cloud Summit 2012 here today.

IT skills crisis? How coding and cool can crack it
The IT skills crisis is less to do with the quantity of candidates and more to do with the quality of their skills. That was the conclusion of a recent TechRepublic CIO Jury analysis, which highlighted how IT leaders are concerned about the lack of young candidates with an aptitude for technology.

Confronting the Pain of Innovation
Every organization I've observed that's serious about being innovative is filled with people in genuine pain — not just stress or anxiety or deadline pressure, and certainly not discomfort. Pain. This can be the physical strain of consecutive all-nighters to test every meaningful configuration of a website before it goes live, to the emotional pain of subordinating your vision of the innovation to the vicissitudes of customer taste.

Happy Leadership Interdependence!
Leading with interdependence means two or more people or things are mutually dependent upon each other. Interdependent leaders are stronger than independent ones because of the relationships built and maintained.

Quote:
"If we do not learn to live together as friends, we will die apart as fools." - Martin Luther King

July 04, 2012

Researchers find new malware in Android Ice Cream Sandwich
A research team at North Carolina State University led by Professor Xuxian Jiang recently announced that a security flaw in Android Version 4.0.4 and below could exploited by a rootkit with relative ease, according to an official university research blog post.

Conflict Keeps Teams at the Top of Their Game
Teams composed of high-performing individuals are naturally subject to contradictory tensions, like cooperation and rivalry, trust and vigilance. These tensions should not be managed away — they are productive and can help teams perform better.

Driverless cars move closer in California
Driverless vehicles would be required to have a licensed driver behind the wheel and be ready to take over should a problem arise.

MySQL - Email Job Failures Report to DBA using PowerShell
There are three prominent weaknesses in MySQL Events as they currently exist. One is that they have no access to the host operating system. As a result, they cannot write files, run applications, or send out an email when something goes wrong. ...

3 Tips to Help SMBs Understand Data Recovery
Here are a few pointers for SMBs on what to do if they ever find themselves stuck with a dead hard drive or external storage drive.

Motivate Employees: 4 Techniques to Try
Saying hell to people is not the same as knowing them. It is a matter of knowing their likes and dislikes, and most importantly what gets them up in the morning.

Do Less - Why managers should stop micromanaging and trust their employees
“By doing less and less,” he adds, “you will have time to plan for the future.” Murnighan sums up his advice in what he calls his leadership law. “Think of the reactions you want first, then determine the actions that you should take to achieve them.”

Enterprise Architecture politics and their roots
The EA thinking is strategic in nature, a long term transformation accepted because of its strategy promise. But it may become a lip service alone, with its execution ever postponed so that the enterprise could cope with the never ending tactical crises.

Agile Enterprise Architecture eBook Available from MEGA
MEGA, noted industry leader in enterprise architecture (EA) has issued an eBook, 5 Keys to Agile EA, to help organizations develop and deploy an efficient, effective, and economical EA program. Using Agile EA adapted to a company’s specific environment and priorities can accelerate the EA program’s return on investment.

EA Case studies
Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a high level, strategic technique designed to help senior managers achieve business and organisational change (TechWatch 2009). The following case studies were funded by the JISC Flexible Service Delivery programme and helped to shape guidance on Enterprise Architecture (EA) which is available as part of the 'Improving Organisational Efficiency' infoKit.

Quote
"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great." -- John D. Rockefeller

July 03, 2012

IBM Tests 'Augmented Reality' Shopper App
The app, developed by IBM researchers in Haifa, Israel, "marries the wealth of information on the web so the shopping experience becomes more informative and personal to help them make better decisions," Mr. Kennedy said. "It opens questions about what can happen in the relationship between the retailer and shopper and ultimately the [brand] marketer."

How to Write a Mission Statement
The difference between a mission and a vision statement is a mission statement represents what a company does every day, and a vision statement represents what the company wants to become. The mission statement tells the world why the company exists and how it can guide company leaders, acting as a corporate compass.

Survival guide: Do's and don'ts for next-gen IT
"The first thing you need to realize is that your business customers can leave or go around you in any number of ways," says Singh. "If people have an iPhone, they're going to use that for work, whether you want them to or not.

New European Guidelines to Address Cloud Computing
The recommendations are expected to guide decisions on cloud computing by regulators in the 27 E.U. countries. The sellers of cloud services are hoping the new guidelines will improve their image in Europe, where concerns about privacy and fears that business secrets could be stolen in U.S.-based cloud centers have discouraged sales.

Google Jumps into IaaS Pool; Will It Swim with the Rest?
By launching an IaaS, Google is taking on some large players including Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, Verizon, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, which earlier this month launchedits long-anticipated IaaS services.

Researchers devise practical key recovery attack against smart cards, security tokens
A team of cryptographic researchers claim to have developed an attack method that can be used to recover secret keys in an acceptable time frame from cryptographic devices like smart cards, hardware security modules and USB security tokens.

RIM may abandon BlackBerry OS and standardize on Windows Phone
RIM is in such bad financial shape that it has considered abandoning its BlackBerry operating system and having new devices run Windows Phone instead. So reports Reuters. If true, it could be a big win for Microsoft.

Frugal Innovation: Lessons from Carlos Ghosn, CEO, Renault-Nissan
In today's resource-constrained environment, Western firms are feeling the growing pressure to "do more with less" — that is, deliver more value to customers at less cost. CEOs of these firms can emulate four best practices initiated by Carlos Ghosn at Renault-Nissan

Stored procedures DO NOT increase performance
From 2005 onwards all SQL statements, irrespective it’s a SQL coming from inline code or stored procedures or from anywhere they are compiled and cached, that means, queries within stored procedures perform on par with in-line queries.

Quote

"Don't feel entitled to anything you didn't sweat and struggle for." --Marian Wright Edelman, African-American activist

July 02, 2012

Google Android 4.1 Jelly Bean review

You won't be left too far behind without it, but Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is a worthy update that brings improved voice search, notifications, and sharing.

Tips for Entrepreneurs Seeking the Next Big Thing
Every entrepreneur wishes that he could predict whether his idea could be the “next big thing,” before he spent his life savings and years of energy on it. Investors, on the other hand, typically don’t even look very hard at the product or service, but prefer to evaluate first the entrepreneur, and secondly the business plan.

Microsoft Cloud: Cooperating and Competing With Partners
“The question is… Is Microsoft a partner or a competitor in this space,” Staples said. “I want to answer that question honestly and directly…The answer is yes. Microsoft is a partner and a competitor in this space.”

Dave McCrory Unveils Initial Formula for Principle of Data Gravity
Data Gravity is a theory around which data has mass. As data (mass) accumulates, it begins to have gravity. This Data Gravity pulls services and applications closer to the data. This attraction (gravitational force) is caused by the need for services and applications to have higher bandwidth and/or lower latency access to the data.

IT firms face talent crunch in emerging business areas
"Analytics and big-data skills do not exist in adequate numbers in the industry right now," said Munshi, whose analytics institute in Bangalore boasts of having over 100 students, including several top-level executives. "Top IT firms are spending a lot of money and time on training employees on these skills. These areas are just beginning to boom."

Amazon Web Services: A guide to Amazon's cloud
ZDNet's complete guide to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its runaway cloud looks at how the company has built up a huge lead in its sector, from its hold over the modern developer-led web and how it applies its retail skills to the cloud arena. - Download requires free registration

10 Ways to Find Your Breakthrough
Breakthrough moments rise up and grip you by the throat. Resist them and you’re stuck. Navigate them and you’ll achieve new levels of success.

Agile and Offshoring - the Twain shall meet
There is enough evidence that Agile works … in most cases much better than waterfall. Even when you are working in an enterprise scale, distributed, multi-vendor and strong regulatory environment – agile works better than any other method.

Quote
"It's hard to do a really good job on anything you don't think about in the shower" -- Paul Graham

July 01, 2012

Metadata and the Stroop Effect
The most commonly used example is what is known as the Stroop Test, which compares the time needed to name colors when they are printed in an ink color that matches their name (e.g., green, yellow, red, blue, brown, purple) with the time needed to name the same colors when they are printed in an ink color that does not match their name (e.g., blue, red, purple, green, brown, yellow).

Google I/O photo gallery: A taste of geek paradise
Being at Google I/O is an experience like no other. It's a complete sensory overload: flashing lights, high-tech robotics, and Android imagery everywhere you look. As I said on Google+, this place is like Willy Wonka's for geeks; it's just absolutely mind-blowing.

Ford Opens Silicon Valley Lab to Mine Big Data
Ford officially opened its new Silicon Valley lab on Monday to help the company better tap into tech innovation. Part of the lab’s mission will be to look at how technologies like big data can leverage technologies embedded in cars to make better business decisions, from marketing campaigns to vehicle safety features.

Google's Risky Business

Google's demonstration of Project Glass, its augmented reality glasses, exemplifies its approach. In six weeks, the company conceived, coordinated, and executed an impressive stunt twice, flawlessly--skydivers wearing Project Glass prototypes jumped from an airship over San Francisco onto the roof of the Moscone West convention center while streaming video from their glasses to the conference.

Software Architecture Reviews
Review is a powerful technique that contributes to software quality. Various artifacts of the software development lifecycle are subject to review to ensure that any deficiencies could be spotted early on and addressed sooner, before letting it slip through further phases and in turn consuming more efforts than expected down the line.

Entrepreneurs Need Focus on Their Business Model
Many entrepreneurs work hard on the proof of concept (technical), but skip any proof of the business model (revenue flow). In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers.

Quote:
"Never mistake activity for achievement." - John Wooden