Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

September 01, 2012

Choose your target carefully
One often-overlooked part of data preparation is to clearly define the problem, and, in particular, the target variable. Often, a nominal definition of the target variable is given.

America's Economy Has Split Into Two Different Worlds, And One's About To Die Out
What used to require some intelligence at the brick and mortar work place has been seeded and ceded into the cloud. Every smart company wants to become smarter and the way to do that is not by asking their employees to communicate orally or in writing to management; it's by automating everything.

Audit Analytics 101: Bridging the Data Integration and Business Intelligence Gap
The data gap isn’t new, but it is certainly getting worse. It’s partly due to the limitations of spreadsheets and traditional business intelligence platforms, which were designed back in the 1980s and 1990s when data wasn’t quite so big or varied or fast moving.

Three Tips for Leaders About to Miss Their Forecasts
It's a scary moment when a company realizes that the goals it has set for a quarter or a year are simply not attainable. And yet in today's continually choppy environment, leaders are encountering that moment with increased frequency.

The Top 10 Audio Books That Every Entrepreneur Must Listen To
With a million and one things on an entrepreneur’s agenda, it is almost next to impossible to find the time to read a book from front to back. Well what if we told you that you don’t have to push hours aside and that you can even soak in all the knowledge of a wonderful read while you walk the dog, go for a jog or drive to work? Well now you can with these downloadable audio books that come highly recommend for any entrepreneur looking at expanding their knowledge and taking their life and

Turning Big Data Into Big Dollars to Grow Revenue
“If you aren’t efficient you won’t be able to stay in business,” said Ted Luchsinger, financial services industry principal at SAP, an IT company in Waldorf, Germany. “The future is around the flow of data and using it to drive operational responses.”

Quote for the day:

"You get the best efforts from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within." --Bob Nelson

August 31, 2012

Understanding Change Appetite in Organizations
The word change is the operative word. A Project Manager is responsible for delivering the outputs that will enable the desired business change to take place – within the tolerances afforded to him in the areas of – timeline, cost, scope, quality, risk and benefits. Are all organizations equal in their ability to accept change? How does it impact project management?

Improving PPM Maturity: Resource Leveling
The reality is that resource leveling needs to take multiple factors into account and can be anything but simple. And, like anything else that’s really complicated, most of us are looking for better tools to help us accomplish the task. That’s when the question about automatic resource leveling comes up.

Oracle's emergency Java patch blocks zero-day exploits, researchers confirm
"It appears that it's effective in blocking the exploit," Tod Beardsley, the engineering manager for Metasploit, said early Thursday. "We just finished testing it 10 minutes ago."

Google adds enterprise social networking features to Google+
On Wednesday, the company released in preview mode the first Google+ features tailored specifically for workplace use, aimed at Google Apps, the cloud email and collaboration suite for schools, companies and government agencies.

The White House BYOD toolkit is a great resource for federal agencies and businesses alike
The move is part of a larger digital strategy push by the Obama administration to modernize technology and increase the use of mobile technologies throughout the federal government.

The Problem with Projects [Infographic]
So whether you are a Project Manager looking for that extra career boost, or a business in dire need of project help, PMPs are the way to go. Check out the infographic below presented by Villanova University to learn more.

Three tips to escape the tyranny of IT metrics
IT metrics can be a curse against innovation and becoming a strategic partner with the business. Here are steps you can take to escape the tyranny.

Think Small Data Before Big Data, Healthcare Gurus Argue
Observers of health IT argue that instead of succumbing to the siren song of big data analytics, providers should focus on using "small" data better. In other words, concentrate on the clinical data already available in digitized form and use only those health IT tools that are directly applicable to care management.

Quote for the day:

"A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier." --Tom Stoppard

August 30, 2012

Management reserves and contingency reserves: what’s the difference?
Do you have contingency on your project? In Eliyahu Goldratt’s book Critical Chain he calls it safety, but whatever name for it you use, most projects have an element of budget provision put aside in case of emergency.

The Four Kinds of Burning Platforms
Contrary to how some people relate to the term “burning platform,” I don’t see it as a story of disaster. To me it’s a tale of courage and tenacity that illustrates the commitment necessary to face the risk and uncertainty inherent in departing from the current state of affairs.

The best interface is no interface
The author has tried to find out why and how the UI is a hindrance to the users and how to get away from it. Read on completely and I am sure, you will like it.

Hackers vow 'hellfire' in latest major data leak
A group of hackers has released a vast quantity of data from banks, government agencies, consulting firms and many others and promised more data leaks in the future.

Agile strategic planning and innovation at Pandora
Internet radio service Pandora’s CTO and VP Tom Conrad describes how the company’s agile strategic planning process diverged from the traditional, annual, all-hands product planning session.

Dell unveils XPS 10 tablet with ARM processor, Windows RT
The company's new tablet strategy revolves around Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 and RT operating systems. Also, with the consumerization of IT in the enterprise, Dell is also more on higher-margin mobile devices that can be used at work and home.

Innovation is the most abused word in tech
Most of what is called innovation today is mere distraction. But don’t take my word for it. Read this paper by Robert Gordon, written for the National Bureau of Economic Research. The Financial Times assesses it and has a link to the 25-page PDF.

Samsung introduces first Windows Phone 8 device
According to Microsoft's blog post, the AVIV S has a 4.8” HD Super AMOLED display made from Corning Gorilla Glass 2. Other Samsung ATIV S specs inlcude 1.5Ghz dual-core processor, 1GB of onboard RAM, 8MP autofocus rear camera and 1.9MP front-facing camera

10 Tips For Starting Up A Successful Solution Provider Business
Creating a business can be nerve-wracking, but it also can be rewarding, both financially and emotionally. Here are 10 tips from Next-Gen 250 entrepreneurs on how to reap more of the rewards, and less of the anxiety.

Intel Teases Tech for Using Laptop to Wirelessly Charge a Phone
Imagine being able to charge a nearly dead smartphone battery just by putting the phone next to a laptop. Well, it turns out that feature is on the drawing board. Intel said on Wednesday that it is working with fellow chipmaker Integrated Device Technology to bring wireless charging capabilities to future Ultrabook laptops.

Quote for the day:

"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle." --Kahlil Gibran

August 29, 2012

No need for UN to take over internet, says EU digital chief Kroes
Neelie Kroes has told ZDNet that she does not favour changing the way the internet is governed, although she added that there was a case for hearing out governments who want a greater say.

Midata project plan for compulsory customer data
"Midata will allow consumers greater insight into their everyday consumption and lifestyle habits by using applications and intermediaries to analyse their actual behaviours and thereby empower them to make better spending choices and secure the best deals.

Big data analytics to touch $680 mn by 2015: EMC
IT solutions provider EMC today said the big-data analytics market in India, which it expects to more than double to around USD 680 million by 2015 from USD 320 million last year, presents a huge opportunity for the company.

Podcast on the Enterprise Architecture profession–Interview with CIPS’s Stephen Ibaraki
Stephen Ibaraki, focuses much more on the growth and progress of the Enterprise Architecture profession itself. Specifically this podcast reflects upon some of the questions like the role of Business Architecture in Enterprise Architecture, the value proposition of the Enterprise Architect, etc.

Deconstruct Business Process Model using Zachman Framework Principles – 5 part videos
Check this out to see the answers with samples to the questions, what’s the difference between primitive and composite? Why do you need primitive models ? how these concepts are helpful in the context of business process modeling? How to use the primitive to create the target business process diagram? What are the limitations of the approach which doesn’t consider the concepts of primitive models ?

Orange and T-Mobile sign with MasterCard for NFC mobile payments
As the UK mobile industry's plans for a mobile payments joint venture continue to hang in limbo, Everything Everywhere has revealed an 'exclusive' partnership with MasterCard.

Going for Speed: Testing Against Performance Expectations
In this infoQ presentation, Jay Harris offers tips on using unit testing to improve the performance of applications.

The Pragmatic Architect - To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before
Many architects have technical knowledge that’s both impressive and sound, which is indeed an inevitable basis for design success. Yet, a lot of software projects fail or suffer due to severe challenges in their architecture. The key to mastery is how architects approach design, what they value, and where they focus their attention and work.

Best BYOD management: Containment is your friend
But there's a catch: Not all employees are comfortable with the prospect of having their personal phones locked down and controlled as tightly as the BlackBerries that Perkins would like to phase out. That's where the notion of containerization comes in.

WePay Launches Buttons To Allow Any Site To Accept In-Line Payments With Just A Line Of Code
For site owners, adding a WePay Payment Button is as easy as embedding a YouTube video — they merely add a small cut-and-paste piece of code to the site. Those buttons also enable site owners to take payments directly on a site, without redirecting to a third-party payments site like PayPal

Body Language Secrets: What Self-Image Are You Broadcasting?
This article discussed the impressions speakers create through their body language. In Part Two, I'll examine some specific gestures and the messages they, intentionally or not, seem to be sending.

Quote for the day:

If you're not occasionally failing, you're not trying hard enough - Arthur Sulzberger Jr

August 28, 2012

Intel partners with VMware on cloud security
Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) said its hardware-enhanced security capabilities integrated directly into the processor combined with vSphere 5.1 would provide a hardened and high-integrity platform to run business-critical applications in private and public cloud environments.

As Microsoft gains, VMware insists that it maintains the upper hand
“Everyone in this room knows you cannot compete against Microsoft on price,” VMware Chief Marketing Officer Rick Jackson said in a press conference. “They are the world’s most profitable for-free company ever. You compete against Microsoft on value.”

Predicting the future ... in four parts
A four part articles on predictive analytics as published by IBM. you will also find lots of other reference links to predictive analytics in this site.

Google Has Had Enough: Files Lawsuit To Ban Multiple Apple Products
But something has changed: Google now owns Motorola, and aren’t wasting any time in defending their new acquisition, as they are now seeking a sales ban on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac computers in the US. This time, it’s personal, and contains a twist that could make this particular lawsuit a very dangerous one for Apple.

More Flash Goodness: VFCache 1.5 update
One particular focus area that's drawing a lot of attention is server-side flash caching. Fusion IO got to market first, resulting in an increasingly familiar compare between what they're doing and what EMC is doing with VFCache.

The “appliance” approach to Big Data and Private Cloud
In the appliance model we recognize that not all of the machines in our big data cluster or private cloud need to have a direct network path to the outside world. Many of these machines are worker “nodes” holding and processing sensitive data, or virtual machines.

Future Big Data: Getting A Grip On The Big Data Explosion
Big data’s getting bigger by the day, and unless we can get a handle on what to do with it all, it’s going to cause some real headaches for those in the data storage business.

Building WPF Applications with Self-Tracking Entity Generator and Visual Studio 2012 - Data Validation
Find out how to do data validation with the Self-Tracking Entity Generator for WPF/Silverlight. The purpose of using data validation is to make sure that any data is validated before being stored in the database. It provides users with the necessary guidance during their data input tasks and is an important part of any WPF LOB application.

Enterprise Security: Being your own worst enemy
From what I heard confirmed today security is largely disconnected from the business, largely dependent on technology, and unable to be anything more than a cost center... and it seems like the more we rant and wave our arms the deeper the hole gets. Security's inability to go back to the roots of why IT is around, is what's hurting.

The Human Algorithm: Making Information Overload Work
From business to education to government and everything in between, without studying how the undercurrent of behavior is evolving, organizations cannot effectively adapt to new trends and opportunities. Change, though, cannot be undertaken simply because of pervasive data.

Quote for the day:

"I always try to go hard on the issue and soft on the person." -- Henry Cloud

August 27, 2012

Three IT Best Practices for Better BI Integration
What usually happens is integration is done on a project-by-project basis, but all you have to do is look at business intelligence and analytics projects for proof organizations could benefit from a more thoughtful approach to integration.

How CIOs at Microsoft and Cisco Realigned IT For A New Era
Larger corporations with multiple operating companies, business units, or brands must confront a debate about the merits of centralized vs. federated organizational structures. The rationale for the former is often the desire to set common standards, create efficiencies, and leverage economies of scale by purchasing software and vendor services globally rather than locally, where possible. The rationale for the latter is often to have IT closest to where the business is done, to increase flexibility, and to efficiently deliver capabilities based on the unique needs of each individual entity.

Gartner: Cloud disillusions, NFC and big data to deliver on hype
‘Big data’ and mobile payments using NFC chips in smartphones are among the breaking technology set to deliver on their hype, while cloud computing is on “a path to disillusionment”, according to a study from Gartner.

A lesson in innovation from Apple's first interface trial
Apple last week won the first round of its patent fight against Samsung (and in the shadows, Google), and now the market questions whether there will be sufficient innovation in non-Apple mobile devices. Perhaps Apple's own history of innovation and legal fights over interface show that there are many ways to represent files and commands, and to do all the stuff we do.

Tapping into Consumer Sentiment on Social Networks
The basic technology employed for sentiment analysis, sometimes called opinion mining, is natural language processing, computational linguistics and text analytics. The idea is to both identify and extract subjective information from a variety of sources, including web pages, online news, internet discussion groups, online reviews, web blogs, and social media.

Java zero day allegedly spotted in the wild
Mushtaq was able to successfully test the exploit on a test machine running Firefox and the latest version of Java. He warned that it would be only a matter of time before a proof of concept was released for anyone to exploit the vulnerability, but it appears to have happened already.

OpenXava 4.5 Supports JPA Inheritance Mapping and Automated Business Logic
The latest version of OpenXava, a Java framework for rapid development of enterprise applications, supports all strategies of JPA inheritance mapping and the Automated Business Logic (ABL) library. OpenXava version 4.5 was released last month.

Do You Need a Chief Data Officer?
More organizations are selecting Chief Data Officers to help wrangle internal and external data. But is a CDO good for everyone?

12 IT Certifications That Deliver Career Advancement
In today's competitive IT job market having the right certification can help push your resume to the top of the stack or push you ahead of your colleagues when the opportunity for a promotion arises.

14 Things You Should Do at the Start of Every Work Day
“Having a good start to the day where you have greater control is critical in achieving better results, and ultimately greater career success,” says Lynn Taylor, a national workplace expert

Quote for the day:

"Success is one thing you can't pay for. You buy it on the installment plan and make payments every day." –-- ZigZiglar

August 26, 2012

Overview of 'Who is best to own the data?' podcast - Talking Big Data
In this “Talking Big Data” podcast, Tom Deutsch, program director of IBM's Big Data Portfolio, spoke with IBM's social media lead for big data, David Pittman, on the question: “Who is best to own the data?”

Big Data Is Important, but Open Data Is More Valuable: Gartner
Open data, according to the research firm, refers to the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other forms of control.

'Big Data' Becomes Big Tool For Democrats And Republicans In 2012 Presidential Race
The pace of e-politics is picking up, with both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney betting heavily on the Internet’s unprecedented power to capture voter eyeballs.

Top 5 Myths About Big Data
With the amount of hype around Big Data it’s easy to forget that we’re just in the first inning. More than three exabytes of new data are created each day, and market research firm IDC estimates that 1,200 exabytes of data will be generated this year alone.

The Future of Digital Analytics, 'Big Data' and Marketing
"71% of CMOs feel unprepared to deal with the data explosion over the next five years. 68% feel unprepared to deal with social media. 65% feel unprepared to deal with the growing number of channel and tech device choices."

The Future of Video from a Cloud Perspective
While TV-everywhere solutions may not explore the cloud as yet; monitoring solutions like surveillance, motion detection, medical or speciality care are good cloud use cases for streaming, video delivery and disaster management. Archiving and video data policy compliance are other viable cloud use cases for organizations.

The Venerable, Vulnerable Cloud
Certainly, a lot has been done to bolster cloud security, reduce the perceived risks associated with cloud deployments and even with security concerns, organizations are moving to the cloud for business reasons.

DevOps: The Changing Face of Application Engineering
The delays in software development lifecycles are causing pain. The result is reputation loss, erode market share and impact business. Fortunately, automation is emerging as a solution to the changing demands of application development and testing. Technologies such as cloud and virtualization are assisting organizations to embrace automation.

CQRS Guidance Project On MSDN
The project is built mainly on the .NET stack and uses various components of the Windows Azure platform. The walkthrough does go into details including various optimizations such as using snapshots, asynchronous calls, dynamic throttling of messages, filtering of messages, partitioning the service bus and selective caching of data.

Quote for the day:

"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen." -- Michael Jordan

August 25, 2012

Ucoming episodes of the Briefing Room
Check out these upcoming Briefing Room episodes to learn from veteran Analyst Rick Sherman how new database technologies can change the manner in which analytics are done, veteran Analyst Robin Bloor explain how data flows are changing rapidly these days, due to a number of technological advances and veteran analyst and practitioner Rick Sherman of Athena IT Solutions, who will explain how advances in data virtualization have opened up new ways of designing, building and maintaining analytic sandboxes

How Master Data Governance Is Evolving
Modern MDM has developed innovative concepts, methods and controls that are not routinely used by more generic Information Governance or Data Governance methodologies. Here are just a few examples illustrating the point

Social networking just got real
A company called Egobook will download the content from your Facebook profile and print a hardcover book called a Likebook.

When IT Meets Politics
Today, thanks (in part) to the success of films like The Bourne Trilogy and television series like Person of Interest they are being seen as either a threat to society or the "answer" to a whole range of problems facing central and local government government.

Make communication, purpose priorities in a data governance program
In this interview with SearchDataManagement.com, McGilvray offers advice on what to do -- and what not to do -- in setting up and leading a governance initiative. One of her top keys to success for data governance managers: making sure you know the reasons why your organization is looking to create a data governance process, so you can ensure that the program addresses those issues.

Will Nokia and Microsoft be the winners after Apple - Samsung verdict?
Apple won big over Samsung in the latest patent infringement case and if devices are pulled from shelves then Microsoft may be the big winner with Windows Phone 8 coming soon.

7 Frugal Startup Tips from Millionaire Entrepreneurs
You don't win in business by wasting money. Even the most successful entrepreneurs pinched pennies in the early days--and many still do. Here, several multimillionaires share their best cost-cutting tips when you're trying to get your startup off the ground.

Cloud BI: Why You Need It, Where It’s Going

Steve Dine, managing partner at Datasource Consulting LLC, discusses the benefits of cloud for BI and data warehousing, the validity of concerns around cloud and the synergy with big data and analytics with cloud.

Oracle broadens support for open-source R analytics
R has its roots in academia but has been subject to increased attention from enterprise tech vendors of late, even SAS Institute, which is known for its own widely used, proprietary statistical-analysis software.

Data Centers: a Crystal Ball for IT Market?
What is Happening? Buried in the somewhat disappointing financial reports from Dell and HP this week is something that Saugatuck sees as an indicator of a significant shift in how we see and measure IT markets.

Quote for the day:

"The only limits to the possibilities in your life tomorrow are the buts you use today." - Les Brown

August 24, 2012

IT managers are learning the art of fine-tuning the data centre to align it with business expansion
All IT managers are of the opinion that the data centre is not just expected to ensure availability or keep the lights on, but drive more business flexibility and reduce capital investments and ensure higher utilisation.

The State of Dashboards in 2012: Pathetic
The graphics have gotten better, and we can interact with charts in what is commonly called visual discovery so you can drill into and page through data to change its presentation. So some progress has been made, but the basic presentation of a number of charts on the screen has not improved significantly and worse yet neither has the usefulness of the charts

Amazon Web Services launches low-cost storage service
Areas that are a good fit for Glacier include media archives, financial and healthcare records, raw genomic sequence data, long-term database backups, and information that has to be retained for regulatory compliance, it said.

Building a Camera App in Mono for Android
The Android SDK provides the ability to use the built-in camera within your applications. Whether applying photo filters and creating the next Instagram, scanning QR codes, or simply allowing the user to share what they're seeing with friends, Android's camera API takes care of the hard work for you.

Hacking humans: Building a better you
Do you have a cochlear implant? An intraocular lens in your eye? A prosethetic leg with microservos? You may not realize it, but you're standing on the front line of a new age of medical augmentation, one that's raising a host of complex questions.

Reading and Writing a Book With DNAHarvard University researchers converted a 53 000-word book into DNA and then read the DNA-encoded book using gene-sequencing technology, the researchers report this week in Science. The project is by far the largest demonstration of digital information storage in DNA and the densest consolidation of data in any medium, the authors say.

The No. 1 rule of business relationships
Unexpressed communication sinks into people like industrial dumping sinks into the dirt. It leeches into the groundwater, makes plants die and children get sick. Unexpressed communication withers relationships, builds up hostilities and finally erupts, often in a way that is almost never helpful.

California state legislature approves Location Privacy Act
California's state legislature passed the Location Privacy Act of 2012 (SB-1434) on Wednesday, which would make it mandatory for law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before gathering any GPS or other location-tracking data that a suspect's cell phone might be sending back to its carrier.

Chennai Angels Invest in an Online Learning Network Classle.net
The website is used by more than 45,000 students and professionals across the country and reputed engineering colleges like IIT Madras, IIT Patna and PSG college of Technology Coimbatore have been associated with the company.

Rackspace tool checks the health of clouds
Rackspace Cloud Monitoring, released on Wednesday, is designed to let businesses monitor their IT infrastructure "irrespective of where it's hosted", the company said. This infrastructure includes other clouds or even on-premises systems.

Quote for the day:

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

August 23, 2012

5 Open Source Softwares up-and-comers to watch
From open source management and Web application frameworks to big data and IT provisioning using the DevOps model, ZDNet Asia spotlights some of the hottest open source software entities in these spaces now.

5 Tips for Creating an EA Assessment Model Quickly
... what starts as a simple over-the-weekend project quickly becomes a frustrating struggle. The criteria pile up quickly – after all, EA does a lot of things. The granularity is inconsistent - one can measure a piece of a process or the larger process it belongs to.

EA Quick Start Guide (Part 4): "Application" - Reclaiming the Noun
... the layer in which we apply the components, systems and sources from our infrastructure layer to provide solutions to the needs we have articulated in our business layer. To properly understand this layer those of an IT bent must throw off their belief that an application is a piece of software.

Bill Gates Part of $12 Million Round for Satellite Mobile Broadband Start-Up
Kymeta’s technology uses something called “metamaterials,” artificial materials that can manipulate electromagnetic radiation that can steer a radio signal toward a satellite, thereby creating a continuous broadband link.

50 Wireless Quick Facts - US Wireless Industry
Here is a compilation of 50 quick facts all about the US Wireless industry.

How to be a Leader in a Crappy Culture
Most of the top companies, while not perfect, tend to have great hiring and promotional practices, and invest in succession planning and leadership development. If you somehow slipped through the dragnet and got hired or promoted as a lousy manager, the cultural antibodies would eventually find and dispose of you.

U.S. looks into claims of security flaw in Siemens gear
The U.S. government is looking into claims by a cyber security researcher that flaws in software for specialized networking equipment from Siemens could enable hackers to attack power plants and other critical systems.

Amazon Releases AWS Cloud Security Practices
That Amazon has made its security practices is significant in its own right. However the fact that Amazon did so in line with the CSA's detailed questionnaire and filed it in the registry could motivate numerous other holdouts to answer the same questions.
Download here: Amazon Web Services Overview of Security Processes whitepaper (pdf)

Can CIOs be Replaced?
With disruptive technologies on the fore, one can safely assume that a sound structured IT organization will be vital for the success of the business and that it will be imperative for CIOs to oil their network with C-suit peers on a regular basis.

'Talking' smart cars begin year-long test aimed at accident reduction
With the devices, drivers are alerted to potentially hazardous situations, such as a nearby vehicle unexpectedly braking, a sudden lane change or merging traffic, by a visual or audible warning in their vehicles.

The convergence of mobile and social: The next IT battleground
As smart mobile devices and social media have become first-order ways in which we interact with the world and each other, they are becoming intertwined in ways that will have far-reaching impact.

Quote for the day:

"Though bitter, good medicine cures illness. Though it may hurt, loyal criticism will have beneficial effects." - Sima Qian