Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

December 17, 2012

10 skills for developers to focus on in 2013
Software development had a few years of relative calm. But now the rollercoaster is back on track and it’s picking up speed, as HTML5 gains a foothold and Windows 8 threatens to significantly change the Windows development landscape. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you should consider learning at least a few of these 10 software development skills.

Public Cloud Services Will Gain New Momentum in 2013
Over the 2012–2016 forecast reporting period, IDC believes that public IT cloud services will enjoy a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.4 percent, that's five times the traditional IT industry, as more business leaders accelerate their shift to the cloud services model for IT applications.

Last chapter for e-readers?
Analysts are sounding a proverbial death knell for e-readers, which have declined 36% in 2012 as buyers turned instead to multi-use tablets. Both IHS Suppli and IDC recently issued dire warnings, if not obituaries, for e-readers. IHS said Monday that e-readers will see a 36% drop in shipments to retailers in 2012 over last year, and another 27% contraction in 2013.

Financial Platform Hits 500,000 Transactions Per Second
The platform uses ”in memory” matching atop of GigaSpaces’ XAP solution, running the application in a pure data and compute GigaSpaces grid with no database attached. The tests were conducted with Intel Xeon Processor E7 family, at Intel’s Computing lab in Reading, United Kingdom

Is the cloud the right place for your data warehouse?
Forward-looking businesses that have already embraced Amazon's cloud may move more quickly to the cloud for services like data warehousing, whereas larger enterprises that have been slow to jump into the public cloud may test the service on a use-case basis to see if it's the right fit for them.

SaaS integration costly and challenging
Sabharinath Bala, research manager of enterprise applications at IDC Asia-Pacific, said companies increasingly prefer a hybrid IT environment which combines existing on-premise software withSaaS applications. To facilitate integration, these SaaS vendors would offer a number of connectors or adaptors in their software to traditional applications, he noted.

Four Lessons From the Best Bosses I Ever Had
Guide your people's passion and get out of the way: the autonomy and freedom I was given to create and do my job exponentially increased my passion, excitement and success. ... Many companies treat their employees as employees — nicely and kindly, even generously — but not as humans.

A List of Data Science and Machine Learning Resources
Every now and then Matt get asked for some help or for some pointers on a machine learning/data science topic. He use to respond with links to resources by folks that I consider to be experts in the topic area. Over time his list has gotten a little larger so he decided to put it all together in a blog post. I am sure this will be of use for many of you.

FortiGuard Labs’ 2013 Top Threat Predictions
Fortinet, a high-performance network security player revealed FortiGuard Labs’ 2013 threat predictions, highlighting six threats to watch out for next year.

ReactiveUI 4.2 is Released!
In ReactiveUI 4.2, View Bindings automatically support conversions between types. This feature is analagous to the IValueConverter class in XAML bindings.These converters are registered using Service Location (RxApp.Register), and custom ones can be easily registered as well. In WPF, theTypeConverter framework is used to convert between many common types.

Quote for the day:

"The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all - doing nothing." -- Ben Franklin

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 15, 2012

Official document reveals the rules of Oracle's cloud
Customers should be mindful of other policies, such as one that allows Oracle to turn off access to accounts in the event of a dispute or account violation. "Customers may want to get clarity on the type of incidents that would result in a temporary turn-off of service," Wang said.

A decision maker's guide to organizational records management strategy
In the past, unless you were being sued or were part of some niche industry, records management strategy was often left on the back burner. ... "A lot of organizations don't do a very good job of it, if they do anything at all," said Jim Just, a partner at Imerge Consulting Inc., about the lack of respect for records management. "They just sort of let it roll along at its own impetus. They need to get control of it, and they are starting to realize it."

Computing and the Law: The America Invents Act
The twelfth in a series of articles in Computer magazine provides basic information on legal issues facing people and businesses that operate in computing-related markets discusses employment law issues faced by new companies.

SMS stealing apps uploaded to Google Play by Carberp banking malware gang
Several malicious Android apps designed to steal mobile transaction authentication numbers (mTANs) sent by banks to their customers over SMS (Short Message Service) were found on Google Play by researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab.

With JOBS Act, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance likely won't get easier
With the arrival of the JOBS Act, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance requirements are bound to change, or are they? As with many compliance questions, the answer is, “It depends.” In this tip, we'll first take a look at the general provisions of SOX as they apply to IT controls, and then, in that context, discuss the impact of the JOBS Act.

Cybersecurity firm identifies ‘credible threat’ to 30 U.S. banks
The report, scheduled to be released Thursday by McAfee Labs, warns the financial industry to be wary of software that creates fraudulent online banking transactions. Hackers could create fake bank transactions, or skim a portion of high-dollar bank transfers, the report said.

Dell software aims to automate mobile device management
The Dell KACE K3000 Mobile Management Appliance combines the new software with a rack-mounted Dell server. The K3000 appliance handles jobs such as over-the-air provisioning of iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, enforcing through user profiles a range of security and management policies, tracking hardware software inventories and managing distribution of enterprise mobile apps.

Why You Must Develop the Right Talent Channels
At an early stage company, hiring is the CEO’s job. It should not be outsourced, delegated or de-prioritized. The assumption is that the CEO has defined company culture and is hiring within that cultural norm. As Brad Feld wrote, focusing on cultural fit is a must. ... The CEO probably should be spending between 40% and 70% of their time hiring in the early stages.

The role of software-defined networks in cloud computing
Given the elasticity of views about what a software-defined network is, it's hardly surprising that SDN's specific role in the cloud is elusive. There are two software-defined networking models and two different SDN missions in cloud computing. Since networks create the cloud, managing the interplay between these two factors could be the key to cloud efficiency and success.

IT Outsourcing Hits Nine-Year Low In Q3
The U.K.-based research group pegged the total contract value of deals signed worldwide during the period at $18.9 billion, down 33% from the same time a year ago.The analyst blamed the tech services downturn on the weak global economy. Looking to the fourth quarter, "There will need to be a significant upturn in both TCV and deal volume if last year's performance is to be matched," said Thomas.

Quote for the day:

"It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time." -- Winston Churchill

December 14, 2012

Examining Some Networking-Virtualization Chimeras
The blog author has been thinking more about some of these networking-virtualization chimeras, and thought it might be interesting to talk about them, if for no other reason than to encourage the RSGs to correct me and help everyone understand a little better.

Update: Apple's iPhone found to infringe Sony, Nokia patents
The jury found that the iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4 directly infringed claims in U.S. patent 6,070,068, which was issued to Sony and covers a method for controlling the connecting state of a call, U.S. patent 6,253,075, issued to Nokia and which covers call rejection, and U.S. patent 6,427,078, also issued to Nokia and which covers a data processing device.

Generating .NET POCO Classes for SQL Query Results
Note that the code generated from Object Relational Mapping (ORM) tools such as Entity Framework, LINQ to SQL’s SQLMetal, NHibernate and SubSonic generate code for the schema objects contained with the database--not the results of queries. Regenerating the code due to a database schema change can overwrite your customizations if you're not careful. Managing a custom POCO class can be a better option.

What You Need to Know about Open Source BI
Do companies understand all the factors involved and what they’re really getting when they select an open source business intelligence platform? Analyst Lyndsay Wise, author of the new book “Using Open Source Platforms for Business Intelligence: Avoid Pitfalls and Maximize ROI,” believes that people get caught up in the advantages of open source over proprietary software, often without evaluating whether the platform will fully meet their needs.

Q&A: The True Cost of the Cloud
Another recent "Ah ha!" for many CIOs is the cloud service invoice. Some are surprised at how many services are spun up and left running and surprised at the resulting high cost. Many are beginning to realize cloud resources left on are significantly more expensive than managing resources themselves -- even if they are calculating people costs.

Rejection Breeds Creativity
New research from Johns Hopkins University suggests that having our ideas rejected tends to boost our creativity output. Sharon Kim and her colleagues found that when most of us experience rejection, it can actually enhance our creativity, depending on how we respond to it.

Nine Ways Successful People Defeat Stress
This is life in the modern workplace. It is more or less impossible to be any kind of professional these days and not experience frequent bouts of intense stress. The difference between those who are successful and those who aren't is not whether or not you suffer from stress, but how you deal with it when you do.

The Man Looking to Turn Samsung into a Silicon Valley Trendsetter
Leading this effort is Young Sohn, who started at Samsung in August as president and chief strategy officer. He has spent a long career leading several successful Silicon Valley semiconductor and storage companies after founding Intel’s PC chipset business and running its joint venture with Samsung in the 1980s. MIT Technology Review business editor Jessica Leber sat down with Sohn in his office in Menlo Park, California, to talk about his new mandate.

China investigating Amazon's e-book business
A Sohu IT report Friday said the General Administration of Press and Publication of China (GAPP) has launched an investigation looking into Amazon and its Chinese partner, Chineseall.com, and whether they have violated regulations in selling digital publications.

Enterprise tech biz leaders debate where the market is headed in 2013
With the end of 2012 just around the corner, plenty of trend predictions are trickling out left and right as everyone wants to predict the future. The enterprise technology world is no exception, and a group of CEOs of some of the fastest-growing businesses in this segment gathered for a roundtable discussion on Thursday morning to discuss the near future of computing.

Quote for the day:

"The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their troubles." -- William Penn

December 13, 2012

Future of Data Management
According to a recent Enterprise Management Associates end user research survey on Big Data, the future of data management platforms is with multi-structured data sets and flexible data schemas spread across multiple platforms.

Implementing IT Balanced Scorecard
The Balanced Scorecard as it has evolved over a period of time is being looked at not just as a performance measurement tool, but as a strategic planning and management system. This is because, the Balanced Scorecards can be cascaded down smaller business units including IT and aggregated upwards to the higher-level.

Working as a Software Developer
Henrik Warne gives his views on the main differences between professional software development and programming for a university course as part of his talk for the engineering students. Henrik talks about challenges with large-scale software development, several development practices used to cope with these challenges, ways to become a better programmer, and some fun facts from work.

Google has 'no plans' to build apps for Windows 8, Windows Phone 8
Speaking to V3, Google Apps product management director Clay Bavor said the firm has, "no plans to build out Windows 8 apps." Google already has a search application for the Windows 8 platform -- which it released just before the Windows 8 launch in October -- but will retain its focus on the iOS and Android platforms

Oracle Rolls Out New Database Security Package
The offering, Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall, provides both network traffic sniffing for security threats and audit data analysis. It also adds the ability to audit OSes, directories and other sources, beyond Oracle's database and third-party database systems, according to the company.

The Importance of Character and Presence
Two aspects of our work contribute to our success as change professionals: What We Do—the concepts, frameworks, processes, and techniques used when engaged with clients; Who We Are—our true nature…the substance of what we have to offer as human beings

Deep Dive: What's New in Hyper-V, Part 1
Windows Server 2012 brings so many changes to so many areas that it'll take months before we see how it all plays out in the marketplace. One thing is clear, however, with the new Hyper-V: Microsoft is taking on the competition head on. No longer content with being "good enough", they have leapfrogged VMware in several areas.

U.S. sees tech's 'center of gravity' shifting to Asia
By 2030, Asia "will have surpassed the North America and Europe combined in terms of global power, based upon GDP, population size, military spending and technological investment, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence report said. "China alone will probably have the largest economy, surpassing that of the United States a few years before 2030," the report said.

London buses to accept contactless NFC payment
The BBC reports that the Big Smoke’s 8,500 buses will be accepting payments through near field communication (NFC) technology, so passengers can swipe a debit or credit card to pay, as well as use a charge card through a mobile NFC reader.

Dell commits to open-source software for its future clouds
The company said its upcoming public and private cloud products will be built around OpenStack, a package of software for running clouds that has received broad backing from the technology industry from companies such as HP, Cisco, IBM, Red Hat and Intel.

Quote for the day:

"You must be single minded. Drive for the one thing on which you have decided." -- General George S. Patton

December 12, 2012

The scariest software project horror stories of 2012
Though plenty of enterprise software projects go just fine, unfortunately, some still end up in ruins, leaving customers out huge sums of money, churning up lawsuits, damaging careers and destroying relationships. On the bright side, when examined these failures can reflect some important lessons for both vendors and customers to take to heart. Here's a look at some of 2012's scariest software project disasters.

Intel Open Sources Tool for Rapid Big Data App Development
Currently in beta, GraphBuilder is designed "to help data scientists in industry and academia to rapidly develop new applications that draw insights from big data," said Connie Brown in an announcement on the Intel Web site. "Developed by Intel Labs, GraphBuilder is the first scalable open source library to take large data sets and construct them into 'Graphs,' web-like structures that outline relationships among data."

Agile Expressionism 101
It would be fun to talk about the kinds of expressions you hear in an agile environment. Mark polled the folks in his company, Asynchrony Solutions, and here's what they came up with. As is the case with most things agile, many of these are not new or unique to it. So here they are in no particular order and with no chance that this is an exhaustive list.

2013 GRC Trends
Performance gains, reduced costs, improved compliance, and other benefits have shown that GRC programs, and the technologies that support them, can move a company forward and sometimes even save the day. The question is what will be the course in 2013?

Emerging Enterprise Architecture Drives 10 Trends for 2013
This Research Alert is the first of a two-part series identifying the most impactful, emergent trends we see as clear and undeniable evidence of this transformation. Each is accompanied by a Saugatuck Strategic Planning Position (SPP) that lays out specific expectations regarding its relevant impact and timing.

New Guidance to Mitigate Determined Adversaries’ Favorite Attack: Pass-the-Hash
In a large number of the targeted attacks we have seen, attackers have attempted to use a “Pass-the-Hash” (PtH) technique to get access to credentials. Today, Microsoft is publishing a comprehensive whitepaper that contains mitigations and guidance called “Mitigating Pass-the-Hash (PtH) Attacks and Other Credential Theft Techniques.”

Will cloud computing kill the storage area network?
Everything you need is provided by the modular converged infrastructure, which is now a simple building block for the data center. Traditional storage only vendors have seen the light and are now joining forces with the major network vendors to create the modular building blocks (what I call PODs) which include the storage as a part of the building block.

Data Scientist Shortage: Split Role In Half
One possible solution to this staffing shortage is to split big data duties in two: data management specialist and data scientist. In a phone interview with InformationWeek, Datalink technology strategist and consulting principal Steve Bulmer said this division of labor would help IT organizations prepare for the coming "tidal wave" of data. "Advanced analytic capabilities are going to be in high demand and hard to find," said Bulmer.

By 2020, there will be 5,200 GB of data for every person on Earth
During the next eight years, the amount of digital data produced will exceed 40 zettabytes, which is the equivalent of 5,200 GB of data for every man, woman and child on Earth, according to an updated Digital Universe study released today. To put it in perspective, 40 zettabytes is 40 trillion gigabytes -- estimated to be 57 times the amount of all the grains of sand on all the beaches on earth.

The critical difference between leadership and motivation

Great leaders serve to bring out the inner wisdom and free will of those they serve. Instead of inducing people to view life situations a certain way (or their way), great leaders demonstrate that there are an infinite number of ways to view any life situation.

Quote for the day:

"Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken." -- Warren Buffett

December 11, 2012

Future Cloud is safe, agile and efficient
In five years, companies will operate in a converged IT world of cloud, virtualisation and mobile computing where clouds are safe. IT organizations will have better visibility, control and compliance across their private and public clouds. To get there, Symantec extends its security, data storage and information management expertise to help companies transition to safe clouds of the future.

With Zenprise, Citrix Tightens End-User Computing Strategy
Considering Citrix has been standardizing on Xen in most of its product names, the marketing department should be thrilled with this acquisition. There's more to that acquisition than just a cool marketing twist, of course. Citrix has become, in my opinion, the very first company to have an end-to-end end-user computing solution for the enterprise.

Tech World Discovers New Species: The Cloud Architect
Inextricably tied to the internet hype machine, cloud computing is a difficult concept to pin down. The term has come to mean almost anything. But there are cases where it represents a very real change not only in how computing power is accessed, but in how data center infrastructure is built.

What Hadoop Is. What Hadoop Isn’t.
Database vendors see it as a database and challenge it on those grounds. Data integration vendors see it as an ETL tool and challenge it on those grounds. Analytics vendors see it as a replacement for their engines and challenge it through that view. In doing so, each vendor community overestimates Hadoop’s potential for displacement of their product, while simultaneously underestimating the impact that it will have on the environment and architecture they operate in.

Transforming Three Vs of Big Data into Three Ws of Business Analytics
The three Ws are the What, which refers to the data and information itself; the So What, which refers to the analysis of the data or the process of deriving implications and meaning from the data; and the Now What, which refers to the decisions made from the data and the resulting actions.

Special Report: Amazon's billion-dollar tax shield
Amazon is channeling huge amounts of money through a small Luxembourg-based unit, largely to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. and European taxes, a Reuters report suggests. There's no commercial reason for the creative-but-legal accounting, which is attracting scrutiny from U.S. officials. "The IRS shouldn't be happy about this. It sounds like they're not," says tax expert Michael McIntyre.

The Future of Big Data

By 2020, the use of Big Data will improve the understanding of ourselves and the world; Nowcasting, real-time data analytics and pattern recognition will surely get better; Big Data has the potential for significant negative impact that may be impossible to avoid -- Check out the nice infographic for more.

PerfView Tutorial 3 - Resolving Symbols(Channel 9 Video)
The PerfView tool is a free Windows performance tool developed by the Microsoft .NET Runtime Performance team for investigating both managed can unmanaged performance problems. If you are having a performance problem, especially if it is a .NET application, it is hard to overestimate the value of this tool.

The first 100 days of a new CIO: Nine steps to success
“In the first 100 days, you have to make your mark. In that period, you also need to formulate a compelling vision, because if you want to lead, as opposed to executing the visions of others, you do need to come out quickly with a story that everybody can align around.”

Keynote: The New Governance
In this keynote presentation K. Scott Morrison, CTO and Chief Architect at Layer 7 Technologies anticipates the future of SOA governance in the enterprise starting from the observation that there are major technological changes in the enterprise today.

Quote for the day:

"Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn't go with it." -- Colin Powell

December 10, 2012

Defining CRM: Thoughts from three experts
Even between the story’s sources, there was no hard and fast definition. However, I thought it was also interesting to think about how different people define CRM, often depending on their role in a company or as a thought leader in the customer relationship management field.

Why C++ Is Not “Back”
It seems that many of the seasoned developers have forgotten why we stopped using C++ and moved on to Java, C# and other modern languages. Many younger or newer developers don’t really know the history and are getting confused by the current C++ message and resurgence.

Unit Testing Hadoop MapReduce Jobs With MRUnit, Mockito, & PowerMock

A map/reduce pair can be tested using MRUnit’s MapReduceDriver. A combiner can be tested using MapReduceDriver as well. A PipelineMapReduceDriver allows you to test a workflow of map/reduce jobs. Currently, partitioners do not have a test driver under MRUnit. MRUnit allows you to do TDD and write light-weight unit tests which accommodate Hadoop’s specific architecture and constructs.

Listening to Complainers Is Bad for Your Brain

Blake says. "Typically, people who are complaining don't want a solution; they just want you to join in the indignity of the whole thing. You can almost hear brains clink when six people get together and start saying, 'Isn't it terrible?' This will damage your brain even if you're just passively listening.

Java Send Mail Example
This sample illustrates how to send smtp emails using a simple Servlet-based Java webapp easily in Cloud Foundry using email providers like SendGrid and MailGun that both have free levels of service that allow you to send up to 200 emails per day and paid plans to do more. ... Note that on Cloud Foundry smtp outbound on port 25 is blocked. But other ports are open, such as the unsecured port 587 or secured port 465.

Struggling to Manage Knowledge Workers
Peter Drucker was understating the difficulty of the challenge. Into the 21st century, organizations are still trying to get a handle on the best methods of managing knowledge work. In fact, just trying to define the term “knowledge worker” can be difficult. Drucker defined such a worker as “someone who knows more about his or her job than anyone else in the organization” (Hammer, Leonard and Davenport, 2004).

U.S. Congress Passes Another Resolution Opposing U.N. Internet Takeover
The resolution was adopted by the House on Wednesday with a 397 - 0 vote, according to the House's website. The bill, passed by the U.S. Senate in September, emphasizes the importance of the Internet to the global economy, saying that "it is essential that the Internet remain stable, secure, and free from government control."

IT shops will become consultants instead of tech managers, says EMC's CIO
"IT almost plays a passive role rather than an active role in this," Mirchandani said. "The moment you expose the cost of services, the business will ask what's the most cost efficient. IT becomes a broker of services, not necessarily the author of all services. This phase allows business to build the widgets they want off that factory floor [the cloud service]."

A User’s Story: DubDubDeploy
When Donte Ormsby came to InfoQ, it was just a friendly letter to say that he found a great tool for simplifying website deployment using ASP.NET and thought the readers might find it useful. After talking a bit, InfoQ decided the best way to introduce DubDubDeploy to the readers would be for him to just tell his story.

Risk Management: A Process or a Way of Life?
The folks at Active Risk talk a lot about establishing an "Active Risk Culture" at your organization - really making risk management a way of life, rather than a set of sterile processes. As a concept that sounds interesting, but how does it really work? Loren Padelford, Executive Vice President & General Manager at Active Risk offers some clarification in his responses below.

Quotes for the day:

"Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it, and spend it rather than invest it." -- Jim Rohn

"We don't have as many managers as we should, but we would rather have too few than too many." -- Larry Page

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 08, 2012

Designing for High Availability in the Cloud
The topic of availability is typically broached only in discussions regarding DDOS attacks or Hackvitism. But more and more of the security professionals I have been talking to lately have been interested in topics related to reliability and availability; as their organizations adopt cloud services, more people seem to be interested in these topics.

What Leaders Must Do, Know & “Be”
One way to look at leadership is through a three-part frame: What leaders must Do, Know and Be. At the intersection of these three components, the shaded area, is excellence. It’s where action, feeling and thinking are aligned and integrated into a consistent whole.

The most practical, creative ways to use NFC with your Android device
If you think NFC (Near Field Communication) is only good for Google Wallet or MasterCard PayPass, think again. With the growing number of NFC-equipped phones, NFC tags are becoming an increasingly popular way to take advantage of this sprouting technology. Thing is, Android users aren't quite sure what to do with them.

Answer to six questions on Enterprise Disorders (videos)
Interestingly, “Enterprises” have existed much before the discovery of the framework. Zachman Framework of Enterprise Architecture, is bringing much-needed predictability in the creation, evolution and life cycle management of the “Enterprise.” That’s reason why Zachman Framework is also known as “Periodic Table for the Enterprise.”

Big Data, EHR Driving Healthcare IT Innovation
Gartner says that EHR adoption is a "trigger" for data analytics, improved care management and other innovations. However, these initiatives will take time, the analyst firm notes in a recent report, "Hype Cycle for Healthcare Provider Applications and Systems."

Drive More Value from Your IT Assets
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To Change the Culture, Stop Trying to "Change the Culture"
We've found that managers get better results when they start with a few smaller successes, which then provide a basis for expanding. Start with one problem — or a few. Get some people to plan a couple of modest experiments to make progress on that issue, with guidance on the kinds of innovation you'd like to see.

Integrate information governance policy for corporate strategy success
The further into the future an organization extends its strategic planning, the more unanticipated risks it's likely to encounter. That's why strategic planning and execution must be an exercise steeped in risk management, rather than tightly focused on activities: The more competence the organization builds in tracking assumptions and managing risk, the better it will execute its overarching strategy without unexpected speed bumps.

True Quality Assurance in an Agile World
Quality Assurance is not just about testing a system. The role of QA on an agile team is much greater than that, elevating the QA engineer to a god among men.

CIOs As Rainmakers: The New Meme, Deconstructed
Pundits called that practice "aligning IT with the business" until, starved for new material, they decided that this was no longer enough. Trust me: The "new rainmaker" will also fall out of fashion. But moving in concert with the business and helping sales, marketing and other departments achieve objectives like making money -- also known as helping the organization achieve critical goals -- will never fall out of fashion.

Quote for the day:

"Truly successful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking." -- Malcolm Gladwell