Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

January 10, 2013

Making Yourself a CEO
Being CEO requires lots of unnatural motion. From an anthropological standpoint, it is natural to do things that make people like you. It enhances your chances for survival. Yet to be a good CEO, in order to be liked in the long run, you must do many things that will upset people in the short run. Unnatural things.

Questions for an Enterprise Architect
Erik Dörnenburg, Head of Technology Europe at ThoughtWorks answers: What is Enterprise and Evolutionary Architecture?, discussing 4 issues: Turning strategy into execution, Ensuring conformance, Where do the architects sit? Buying or building?

Eric Ries On How To Make Any Company Move Like A Lean Startup
"It's like an alternate reality," Eric Ries says. The entrepreneur-turned-author whose Lean Startup--the book, then the movement--infused the Valley/Alley lexicon with now-ubiquitous terms like "pivot" and "minimum viable product," is now boldly going where few startup guys have gone before: corporate America.

Analysis of Rails XML Parameter Parsing Vulnerability
The root cause of the vulnerability is Rails handling of formatted parameters. In addition to standard GET and POST parameter formats, Rails can handle multiple different data encodings inside the body of POST requests. By default JSON and XML are supported. While support for JSON is widely used in production, the XML functionality does not seem to be known by many Rails developers.

Azure DataMarket + BigML = Powerful Insights
BigML has made the process of creating a predictive model from a dataset one-click easy. For example, a store owner can use her sales data to predict the optimal inventory levels given the time of year. But what if you have an idea for a model, for example predicting the unemployment rate for London Boroughs based on demographic information, but you don’t have the data? While it is trivial to build this model with BigML once you have data, where do you get it and how do you know if the data is from a reliable source?

EU hopes to impose data restrictions on Internet firms
According to Reuters, Internet companies including social networking site Facebook and search engine giant Google may have to get additional permission from their users before selling or using data in the future if the European Union gets its way. The EU wants to give consumers an additional layer of data protection by imposing harsher regulations on firms with an online presence, giving users more control over their personal data as well as limiting what firms can do with data they gather.

NSTIC set to fire up more identity pilots
The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) pilots are meant to cultivate ideas that will anchor an online "identity ecosystem" to be built and managed by the private sector. The idea is that the programs will build and test technology, identity models and frameworks to support a standards-based identity infrastructure.

4 Common Project Budgeting Mistakes
This month here at ProjectManagement.com we are looking at everything to do with resolutions and plans for the coming year. Here are 4 common project budgeting mistakes – how many of these will you be avoiding during 2013?

The lifecycle of your enterprise cloud adoption strategy
This excerpt from Chapter 3 of Is Your Company Ready for Cloud? Choosing the Best Cloud Adoption Strategy for Your Business, by Pamela Isom and Kerrie Holley, examines how an enterprise should strategically plan its cloud adoption, taking into consideration specific business goals, cloud standards, best practices and current and future use.

The Impact of the SaaS, Cloud Evolution on ISVs
The SaaS business model enables ISVs to reduce costs, enter new market, and launch and run a future-oriented SaaS business in the cloud. But transforming an existing on-premises application into reliable, scalable software capable of supporting many customers simultaneously is not a small thing – and the business changes are harder and still ongoing. In essence, the delivery method has changed, and therefore the business model of selling SaaS and cloud services needs to change as well.

Quote for the day:

"The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way." -- Henry Miller

January 09, 2013

Five Types of Bad Chief Architect Characters – We Have The Whole List!
The Open Group: We have looked at some of the extreme personality types of chief architects to provide some hints on how to deal with them. Below is a list of five Enterprise Architecture characters we have unfortunately encountered in the real world with a few tips on how these characters can be managed.

Extending Spring MVC with Spring Mobile and JavaScript
Craig Walls Senior Engineer with SpringSource and Roy Clarkson currently working as an engineer with SpringSource explain how to extend Spring MVC to mobile devices with Spring Mobile and popular JavaScript frameworks.

10 More New T-SQL Functions
SQL Server 2012 was released last April, making it the 11th major release of the product. Every new version has delivered new functionality that should excite developers, and this release is no different. With the latest release of SQL Server, Microsoft produced 14 new T-SQL functions.The first part of this article detailed four new T-SQL functions available in SQL Server 2012. This article demonstrates 10 additional functions. Dig in!

Fun with PowerShell's Out-GridView

Even though Windows PowerShell is primarily a console-based management engine, there are a few GUI bits you might want to take advantage of. One of them, which we've had since PowerShell 2 is Out-Gridview. As the name implies, this is a cmdlet that you pipe objects "out" to - What you get is a graphical display of the default view

IT Salary Survey 2012: GRC professionals looking for a challenge
New and expanding regulatory compliance rules, coupled with incessant IT security threats, are influencing operations in virtually all industries. That puts an inordinate amount of pressure on governance, risk and compliance professionals as they strive to protect company assets and follow federal rules to a T.

Application Integration: Infrastructure basics for real-world integrations
Read this expert e-guide to explore study results indicating how your peers are creating seamless interoperability within their extended IT environments. Also, discover recommendations from the analysts at Gartner and other leading firms regarding best practices for modern application integration. - Requires registration to download.

Avoid Making the Cloud Your Next Legacy System
Glenn Donovan writes: It’s taken me some time and effort to decode the cloud hype into a coherent value proposition for a business trying to use IT to accomplish business goals, as I’m sure many of you reading this article have had to do. Whether it’s SaaS, PaaS or IaaS, what is the opportunity for businesses? What gains can be made in the real world? Here’s how my analysis/thought process unfolded and perhaps some of you can relate.

Developer divide: 19 generations of computer programmers
If you're searching for a fountain of youth, the easiest way to get that feeling of continual rebirth is to hang around a few tech product launches. Every new rollout comes with the fresh, unabashed feeling that this has never been done before. Ever. But it has. Apple has been bringing us "one more thing" for more than 30 years. Even the iconic commercial introducing the Macintosh is nearing 29 years old. Newness has never been so old.

Technology Manager: Information and Technology Strategy Game
Technology Manager is an I.T management board game set in an economy similar to the real world of businesses, with different industry markets. Battle for winning clients, manage money, make deals, and band together to survive in the I.T industry. This game teaches “Information and Technology Processes” so you will learn different strategies and concepts of Managing an IT business and the issues involved so it makes an exciting adventure.

Naive Intervention – Part 1: From Antifragile to Models Behaving Badly
This three-post series by Max J. Pucher discusses why any approach that ignores real-world dynamics and complexity will eventually cause catastrophical failures. These books show that I am not alone with my opinions and proposals and that much of the BPM community is wearing blinders.

TLDR is for when you don't have time to read the whole article
TLDR is software that summarizes Web information automatically when you don't have time to read the whole story. It's available now as a plugin for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, but developers Stremor say the Android and iPhone apps have been submitted to the major app stores, so you'll be able to use it on your smartphone as early as this week.

Quote for the day:

"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival" -- W.Edwards Deming

January 08, 2013

Analytics ROI – Strategy to Execution
Over the next two years, executives say they will focus on supplementing standard historical reporting with emerging approaches that make information come alive. These include data visualization and process simulation, as well as text and voice analytics, social media analysis, and other predictive and prescriptive techniques.

CRM Watchlist 2013: It all starts...now. The Finalists
After a year of monitoring and five weeks of reviewing questionnaires, I'm ready to name the finalists for CRM Watchlist 2013. Remember, these aren't the winners. Each winner will get a review. This is just a list. There is SO much more analysis coming it will make your head spin.

Insight: Identity Management Will Take Off in 2013
The growing use of tablets, smart phones and cloud services is making it more complicated for IT organizations to manage user authentication and authorization to enterprise resources. Consequently, the market for technology that provides secure single sign-on is heating up. In recent weeks, a number of companies have moved to raise the IDMaaS ante including Centrify, Microsoft and Okta.

USB 3.0 standard will soon allow up to 10Gbps
An enhanced version of USB 3.0 will deliver up to 10Gbps, twice the data speed of current connections. The 10G bps SuperSpeed USB supplement to the existing USB 3.0 specification is expected to be completed by the middle of the year, the USB 3.0 Promoter Group said Sunday at the International CES trade show in Las Vegas

M2M makes sense for DBS Bank
In an interview with ZDNet Asia, Gledhill said the number of mobile devices used to interact with the bank has "exploded". People ... now use their mobile devices and social media accounts to engage with the bank too, he noted. "The prize now is to understand what's going on across all of these touchpoints and, help us improve our services, get to know the customer better, and allow us to sell our products in a timely way," he said.

Cloud availability appears higher than enterprise data center uptime

While Amazon's cloud availability appears higher than that of enterprise data centers, a true comparison is tough to make as there don't appear to be statistically significant studies surrounding private enterprise data center availability, according to IDC's Villars.

Designing Next-Generation Massively Multithreaded Architectures for Irregular Applications
Current high-performance computing systems are designed to efficiently execute floating-pointintensive workloads. HPC systems are mainly built for scientific simulations, which are characterized by high computational density and locality, and regular, partitionable data structures. These application requirements are driving processor designs toward fast SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) arithmetic units, and deep cache hierarchies to reduce access latencies.

Honk if you love change. Quotes and resources on innovation.
“It’s human nature to love our own ideas. But sometimes that means that we hang on to them too long. Along the innovation journey, every innovator must ask: Are we making sufficient progress to believe that our original hypothesis is correct, or do we need to make a change?

Quick action pattern in Android and simple implemention.
Basically, it's a context menu that doesn't cover up the data that is being acted on. Implementiong this pattern might probably make your application more interactive and interesting. The QuickActions dialog is not included in standard Android SDK, so we have to create it manually.

3 Big UX Lessons Ripped from 2012 Tech Headlines
It’s fascinating how the Samsung QA team focused, like great QA teams do, on the little details that make a product frustrating. Each diagram shows how a certain S1 function works, pointing out exactly what needs to be done to make it better. The team held Apple’s design as the benchmark and the Galaxy S1 didn’t meet it. You can see the entire document here.

Quote for the day:

"Always mistrust a subordinate who never finds fault with his superior" -- J.C. Collins

January 07, 2013

A director's duties when negotiating IT contracts
Based on the NKF incident, key learning points for directors are: (a) Directors can be liable for failing in their duties to their companies/organizations. This can happen especially if there are ownership or organizational changes. (b) Being a volunteer does not absolve one from his duty. (c) Unfamiliarity with IT and legal issues should be addressed by getting the appropriate advice from in-house and external experts and asking the right questions. Departure from such advice must be carefully considered. ...

China’s Computing Giants Eyes Overseas Growth in 2013
Needless to say, the Chinese government is keen to keep pushing growth forward, and it has a plan to increase the country’s online population to 800 million by 2015, and to expand Web sales to reach to 18 trillion yuan ($2.9 trillion) by 2015—taking the top spot in global e-commerce. Gartner is predicting enterprise IT spending alone in China will grow from $117.8 billion in 2013 to $172.4 billion by 20160

Leap Motion gets $30M to change how you interact with computers
With a $30 million second round of funding, Leap plans to manufacture its peripheral device at scale. The funding round, led by Founders Fund with previous investor Highland Capital Partners participating, follows a $14.5 million Series A round. It will also support today’s second piece of news — namely that ASUS will bundle the Leap Motion device in with its all in one computers as well as select notebooks this year.

1/6/13: Leadership Reading to Start Your Week
Here are choice articles on hot leadership topics culled from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms, to start off your work week. I'm pointing you to articles about leadership, start-ups, Starbucks, the entrepreneurial Murphy clan, the sharing economy, the paper industry, and industrial excellence and American manufacturing, as well as surveys, studies, statistics, and lists. Be sure to look for dots that you can connect.

Don’t overlook your Big Data leadership and management
Although your strategy provides an essential component of leadership, it’s not enough to lead a Big Data team. And although you have competent management within your strategic business units, they may not be appropriate for your Big Data team. You must have management and leadership built within your Big Data team. Big Data capability is not built on data scientists alone; you must also build competence in dealing with change and complexity.

DirectX made simple
With Windows 8, WinRT, C++/Cx I think the time to write an elegant C# / XAML app using some DirectX rendering in C++ has finally come! Thanks WinRT! :-) Here the codeproject blogger just plan to describe my attempt at learning DirectX and C++ and integrate it nicely in a C# XAML app. Note this is a metro app. It requires VS2012 and Windows 8.

Architecture Definition - Requirements Report (Expanded)
The purpose of this document is to define the relevant operational, performance, user application, and architectural requirements of the system. Project Managers should be aware that there may be significant overlap between this document, the Current Situation and Requirements Report produced in the Systems Planning phase and the Functional Specification produced in the Analysis phase. Careful tailoring in the context of what has been produced, and what will be produced, is required.

Amazon Web Services launches Redshift, datawarehousing as a service
"Large companies feel like they are paying too much. And small companies can't afford data warehousing solutions. As a result, they throw out some of their data," said Andy Jassy, senior vice president of AWS. Jassy made the comments at Amazon Web Services' inaugural re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. The powwow was designed to bring together developers and customers to talk cloud migration and other key topics.

SQL Indexing and Tuning e-Book
SQL indexing is the most effective SQL tuning method and requires the same care as schema design yet it is often neglected during development. Use The Index, Luke explains SQL indexing from the source code perspective—covering ORM tools like Hibernate and Doctrine. It's a living book—make sure to follow via RSS, Twitter or Facebook.

The State of Cloud Computing Around the World: India
The market for cloud computing within the country has already doubled between 2009 to 2012, thanks to large businesses making up the bulk of Indian cloud computing growth. Additionally, since these large businesses don’t have legacy infrastructure to transform, they are more agile and can adopt new strategies as they come.

Quote for the day:

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." -- Will Rogers

January 06, 2013

New Year, New You: The IT Manager's Revitalization Guide
As we say goodbye to 2012 and start looking forward to another exciting year in tech, it's a good time to pause and take stock of your professional and personal progress as an IT manager. Take a few moments to read through the best of Computerworld's management and career, or click a link below to skip directly to your chosen topic.

What should Kodak do?
Arsalan writes in his analysis of Kodak ... "Additionally I would like to open offices in new markets so that we do not surround ourselves with “yes” men only here in Rochester, NY. The new offices would be in India and China where not only that we will have marketing and sales offices but also research and development (R&D) offices."

AWS Needs To Figure Out Its Enterprise Plan
Rodney Rogers, chairman and CEO of Virtustream as he writes in this TechCrunch Article recommends AWS some professional tips highlighting areas where AWS need to pay attention to and work out an Enterprise Plan so that it can look forward to find a place in the fortune 500 down the line.

VTU partners iCMG to set up world’s largest center of excellence in Enterprise Architecture
Visveswaraya Technological University (India’s leading and largest technical Universities having 194 affiliated engineering colleges and over 3,50,000 students) in partnership with iCMG, a global leader in Enterprise Architecture, is setting up the Sir Visveswaraya Center for Excellence in Enterprise Architecture, which is expected to be the world’s largest center in this domain.

Who Owns CRM Data at Your Company?
In most enterprise IT systems, record ownership is about as controversial as a ham sandwich. Not so in CRM. In fact, it can become quite the political topic. Fortunately, good governance can solve most CRM data ownership problems.

The Psychology of Social Commerce [Infographic]
There are many social factors routed in psychology that make people want to part with their money, but how can you leverage them to make your landing pages convert? The infographic below explores the stats of psychological spending, looking at some common brain triggers. If you think you’ve been impervious to these subtle persuasions of the expert salesperson, then read on and learn how you’ve been coerced over the years without your brain even knowing it.

Domain-Driven Design at ZendCon 2012
A person practicing domain-driven design does not attempt to model reality. Instead, domain experts and software practitioners use a mental model as a tool for solving problems within a given domain. The domain experts and software practitioners collaborate to explore and develop this model. No software of any reasonable scope has just one model

The future of ‘Big Data’ is apps, not infrastructure
The current media hype around Big Data has clouded where the real opportunity is: software applications that exploit Big Data. The infrastructure and platform plays that are grabbing the headlines are critical, but they won’t create the same long-term value as those entrepreneurs who figure out how to apply Big Data to the task of disrupting or accelerating a market.

Enterprise Wide Problem Mapping: Step 2 in Enterprise Transformation
This post is focused on identifying and prioritizing constraints within an organization as part of the transformation process. It's important as leaders and knowledge workers that you take the problem solving step very seriously. After all problem solving is the intent for the majority of transformation efforts.

Six Ways to Find Your Future
The past is the future for most. Persistence and endurance assure continuity. But, more of the same won’t birth new futures. Looking back and holding on stagnates, solidifies, and congeals life like cold bacon grease. 99% of the conversations I have about the future are actually about the past. Creating the future is recreating “glory days,” for most. It’s foolish and futile.

Quote for the day:

"Those who master the speaking game will always have a much better shot at wining the battle of ascendancy" -- Ganville N. Toogood, in his book The Articulate Executive

January 05, 2013

Understanding and Implementing Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines
It’ll take you about 30 minutes max to get a system running in the cloud, and since Microsoft is providing free evaluation of Azure VMs right now, it doesn’t cost anything nor is it difficult to setup at all. To create an Azure Virtual Machine, do the following:

4 Tips For Finding Great Career Mentors
Finding career mentors isn’t always easy and asking someone you don’t know to be your mentor can be intimidating. Obtain great mentors and overcome the ‘finding a mentor jitters’ by following these 4 tips:

Cisco and NXP invest in connected car technology company
Together Cisco, Cohda and NXP will develop applications that warn of hazards such as the potential of a collision ahead, alerting if a nearby vehicle is losing control, or of upcoming traffic congestion, they said on Friday. NXP and Cohda are far from new acquaintances; they have already developed a platform that combines radio technology from both companies for use in onboard car units.

Rogue Google SSL certificate not used for dishonest purposes, Turktrust says
On Thursday, Google, Mozilla and Microsoft announced that they are blacklisting two intermediate CA certificates that were mistakenly issued by Turktrust in August 2011 for two of its customers who should have received normal end-entity certificates for their respective domain names.

Improve Your Website: 3 Free Tools for 'Screencasting'
While a screenshot is a static image of a computer screen, screencasts essentially are short movies with narration that can show changes made to a site or page over time. They can be used to demonstrate how to use a new piece of software, to report problems with your site or to illustrate potential changes to your site through a redesign. All you need to create a screencast is a microphone and a service to capture the video. Here are three free tools that can help you get started on the right foot:

Achieving Greater Agility with Business Intelligence and Analytics

Join this TDWI Webinar and discover best practices and experience-based guidance for improving flexibility and speeding the delivery of value with BI and analytics. This Webinar is based on TDWI’s recently released Best Practices Report, Achieving Greater Agility with Business Intelligence and Analytics, which brings together insights from an extensive research survey and interviews with users and industry experts in agile development methods, cloud-based services, and cutting-edge BI and analytics technologies.

IE shocker: Microsoft's browser gains share in 2012
Net Applications, which tracks browser usage by monitoring unique visitors to customers' websites, said IE ended 2012 with a 54.8% share, up 2.9 percentage points from the start of the year. The uptick was in stark contrast to nearly a decade of decline. In each of the years from 2005 through 2011, IE lost major chunks of usage share, with several of those years recording decreases of seven or more percentage points.

Dutch Government Aims to Shape Ethical Hackers' Disclosure Practices
White-hat hackers and security researchers play an important role in securing IT systems by finding vulnerabilities, the NCSC said. However, the center maintained that security researchers are sometimes reluctant to disclose vulnerabilities to companies, instead using media outlets to announce vulnerabilities, which is an undesirable practice because it exposes a hole before it is fixed.

Meet 7 startups that could define the Chinese cloud
Because of cultural, regulatory and linguistic issues, private clouds are the hot topic while public cloud services (e.g., Amazon Web Services or any of the myriad SaaS startups in the United States) have little to no presence. This situation can make it tough for U.S. IT companies to make a strong cloud play in China, leaving the door open for Chinese startups to define the technologies

How Square's Transparent Office Culture Pays Dividends
What if you gave your newest employee access to the same information about your company as you do one of your VPs? That's the idea behind the inner-workings of Square, and one that is contributing to the mobile-payment company's success. "Whether it's your first day, or third year at the company, you're given the same amount of information and opportunity to contribute," Kyle Zink, director of experience at Square, told Mashable. "We want you to be as valuable and effective as you want to be, as soon as you're ready."

Quote for the day:

"Anger is never without a reason, but seldom a good one." -- Benjamin Franklin

January 04, 2013

Debating international cyberespionage, poor secure coding practices
In this video, conducted at the 2012 (ISC)2 Security Congress in Philadelphia, Schou discusses why international cyberespionage and corporate intelligence gathering are inextricably linked. Schou also discusses other secure coding practices and his concerns about cloud computing security, as well as why the security community must do a better job teaching the importance of secure software development practices.

Historians versus Futurists – Who is More Valuable?
Futurists enjoy taking out their crystal ball and projecting future innovations, but they are typically wrong. For example, George Orwell’s book, “1984,” which was published in 1949, did not come close with its projections. And in the 1960s, I recall a Walt Disney television show describing automobiles that required no driver and were guided by a magnet-like strip imbedded in the street’s or highway’s roadbed. Nice try.

Ultimate guide to SSDs (plus reviews of 7 new drives!)
Many vendors sell SSDs, but the devices are far from equal. Flash memory and controller technology have both advanced so quickly that what was fast last year is now second-class. The drives you might find in the bargain bin will be faster than a consumer-grade mechanical hard drive, but they won't deliver the astounding performance boost you'll be looking for after you read this article.

Google must change search business practices after FTC decision
The Federal Trade Commission handed down a full bag of decisions in its antitrust investigation of Google during a press conference on Thursday. Essentially, Google is going to have to make a number of changes to its business practices -- especially regarding search.

Biggest concerns of cloud adopters
A study shows that enterprises are most concerned over vendor lock-in and portability. The study initiated by HP reveals that over 60% of senior business and technology executives surveyed are concerned about vendor lock-in when implementing cloud solutions, while 72% of respondents feel portability of workloads between cloud models is important when implementing cloud solutions.

Meaningful Use, Data Quality and Data Access – Three Sides of the Same Coin
Richard Cramer, Informatica's Chief Healthcare Strategist had the privilege to be invited to testify to the Health I.T. Policy Committee workgroup on the topic of data quality. Through this blog, he shares the testimony that he presented in which he raises questions about metrics & standards for data quality, the trustworthiness, completeness and accuracy of clinical DBs and how important is data quality for an attestation program.

‘Mere operational efficiency won’t cut it, IT needs to do more’
First, they needed IT to automate and streamline manual operations for improved efficiency. Now, they want it to drive business growth. A global survey of C-class executives and business managers has revealed businesses—while happy with the efficiency IT brings to their operations—want IT to help them identify new growth opportunities.

UK to launch public cyber security awareness campaign
Marking the strategy’s first anniversary last month, minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, said business and government needed to continue to educate customers so that everyone using the internet is better informed of the potential risks and how to protect themselves online. The new programme is aimed at raising public awareness about threats online and where to go for more information.

IDC Estimates Shed Light on Cloud Skills Gap for IT
According to an IDC (News - Alert) report sponsored by Microsoft Corp., through 2015, with as many as seven million cloud-related jobs available worldwide, the demand for cloud-ready IT workers will grow by 26 percent annually. Cloud computing has already begun changing how IT delivers economic value to countries, industries, and businesses although it is still emerging as a computing style.

Cloud financials and revenue management in 2013
This blog post is the first in a planned series covering various enterprise application categories. What follows below is an overview of the leading SaaS vendors in the category historically known as ERP. Prospective buyers may well use the term to describe what they're looking for. But in today's highly automated, ubiquitously connected business environment, they need much more than conventional ERP has ever delivered.

Quote for the day:

"Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius." -- An Wang

January 03, 2013

10 CIO considerations for disruptive trends in 2013
With predictions season well upon us, here are ten CIO considerations with regard to the disruptive IT trends in 2013. Rather than predictions per se, these are simply underlying considerations, and in some cases, challenges that CIOs might expect to encounter whilst continuing to leverage the disruptive trends for strategic business benefit across their organizations.

Roundup: high-speed 802.11ac Wi-Fi routers
The ratification process for the next-generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard is now up to Draft 4.0, but final approval is still some way off. However, vendors seem confident that no major bombshells will be dropped and that any minor tweaks in the final standard will be addressable by firmware upgrades. Here's a quick overview of three recent launches, all designed for cable/BT Infinity broadband services and based on the same Broadcom BCM4360 chip.

REST vs SOAP
This article is to compare REST vs SOAP. There is huge difference between REST and SOAP. Comparing SOAP and REST is not just right as they are different things. It is like comparing orangutan and octopus, I have high regard for both of them. But still, as it is a popular topic lets have a discussion on SOAP vs REST.

2012: The tech year in cartoons
From SOPA to the Petraeus affair, here's a look at some of the year's biggest IT stories from the pen of Computerworld's editorial cartoonist, John Klossner.

Can Extragalactic Data Be Standardized
According to the authors heading an initiative at TWEA-DC, “As part of the setup of a new Data Center in Taiwan we aim at designing an open-source, distributed solution to enhance data analysis capabilities.” This solution, if it is realized, would create a standardized astrophysical programming language designed specifically for handling vast amounts of other-worldly data.

MDM Does Not Equal The Single Source of Truth
IT missed the point that the business wants data to support a system of engagement. The value of MDM is to be able to model and render a domain to fit a system of engagement. Until you understand and align to that, your MDM effort will not support the business and you won’t get the funding. If you somehow do get the funding, you won’t be able to appropriately select the MDM tool that is right for the business need, thus wasting time, money, and resources.

Five things you should know about Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an advanced technology which can help you measure how your company’s online marketing and presence is working. It gathers vast amounts of data and can serve as an EKG for your website so you can skip the supernatural shenanigans and get right to the core of what’s successful and what isn’t. With that in mind, here are five important things to know about Google Analytics.

RiverMeadow Software(TM) Cloud Migration SaaS to Be Offered to VMware Service Providers
RiverMeadow Software™ Inc., developer of the RiverMeadow™ cloud migration SaaS, the world's only automated server migration solution developed specifically for Carrier and Service Provider Clouds, today announced it will offer its cloud migration SaaS to VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP) partners.

Advancing and assessing analytics maturity: part 2
Looking at any analytically-oriented organizational maturity chart it is immediately apparent that the levels are not defined using a uniform set of criteria. Usually classification systems shift definitional requirements when comparing lower levels to higher ones. Since SAS was the first to patent a five-tiered classification system called the Information Evolution Model), Phil Weiss extends that model by proposing these five stages of development:

Ubuntu Linux to run on Android handsets! Who saw that coming?
In surprising news from jolly old England, Canonical announces that Ubuntu has developed an Ubuntu for smartphones and tablets. We'll be able to switch out Android for Ubuntu on many existing devices and the company also hopes that manufactures will ship devices with it pre-installed.

Quote for the day:

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. " -- Eleanor Roosevelt

January 02, 2013

IBM DOVE: Big Blue enters the network virtualization battleground
IBM's virtual network overlay technology, called Distributed Overlay Virtual Ethernet(DOVE), will let engineers abstract the physical network infrastructure from hypervisor hosts, so they can make network changes in software rather than hardware. These network instances will better manage and support virtual machines as they migrate within and between data centers.

Big Data --- From Priests to Data Scientists and Back
If you were paying attention over the past few years to the book and subsequent Brad Pitt movie Moneyball and more recently to the Presidential Election in the USA there was a relatively new face in the crowd. That was the face of Nate Silver. He was the brains behind the FiveThirtyEight blog and was generally dismissed by many of the pundits. He proved all of them wrong by using data and his incisive mental skills to slice through the data and build accurate models of how the election work.

Innovation Is About Arguing, Not Brainstorming. Here’s How To Argue Productively
Turns out that brainstorming--that go-to approach to generating new ideas since the 1940s--isn’t the golden ticket to innovation after all. Both Jonah Lehrer, in a recent article in The New Yorker, and Susan Cain, in her new book Quiet, have asserted as much. Science shows that brainstorms can activate a neurological fear of rejection and that groups are not necessarily more creative than individuals. Brainstorming can actually be detrimental to good ideas.

How to Master a New Skill
We all want to be better at something. After all, self-improvement is necessary to getting ahead at work. But once you know what you want to be better at — be it public speaking, using social media, or analyzing data — how do you start? Of course, learning techniques will vary depending on the skill and the person, but there are some general rules you can follow.

Software-defined network technology interest now, future investment
While software-defined networking (SDN) technology seems to be on everyone's minds these days, vendors and customers have only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding how software-defined network technology will change the enterprise network.

Will Cisco’s Focus on the Internet of Things Unlock Value
Cisco recently announced that the company plans to double its revenue from software, which is currently at $6 billion. CEO John Chambers said the growth will be mostly organic but will include some acquisitions. Cisco’s original business of routers and switches currently generates almost half of its total revenue. Cisco has already entered in the areas of cloud computing, data centers and applications. The company is aiming for eventually transforming itself into an all-round IT player in the "Internet of Things".

Anonymous: 'Expect us' in 2013
Along with a statement released over the weekend, which stated that the world should "Expect us 2013," the hackers issued a video boasting of cyberattacks which took place last year -- including temporarily shutting down the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and attacks against the Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) web site in protest at the closure of file-hosting website MegaUpload.

Israel launches cyber warfare training program
According to The Jerusalem Post's report Wednesday, the program named "Magshimim Le'umit" has been in development for the past three years and targets outstanding pupils aged between 16 and 18 to join up. Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the country's computer systems are facing attacks from Iran and other countries, and such attacks are set to increase in the digital age. The goverment is also bolstering its ability to deal with these threats through the Israel National Cyber Bureau (INCB), he added.

The Data Explosion: Big Data and Development

Despite all of these challenges, big data could possibly be very useful with its early awareness, real time data and lowered feedback gap. As Global Pulse states “the promise of Big Data for Development is, and will be, best fulfilled when its limitations, biases, and ultimately features, are adequately understood and taken into account when interpreting the data.”

WiX v3.7 - MSBuild, Self Update and Reference Counting
In addition to the creation of Windows installation packages, WiX toolset also includes several extensions which extend the functionality of the toolset such as ability to install IIS web sites, creation of SQL Server databases and register exceptions in the Windows Firewall. With the help of managed and native libraries included with WiX SDK, you will be able to write code that works with Windows installer in both C# and C++.

Quote for the day:

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." -- Henry David Thoreau

January 01, 2013

9 IT Career Resolutions for 2013
The New Year is almost here. 2012 proved to be a tumultuous year for IT pros and 2013 is looking to be just as challenging. However, the IT job market has been slowly gaining strength and as more companies start growing and adding staff, employees who have been waiting for this turnaround are getting ready to spring into action. Here's CIO.com list of nine career-related resolutions to make for 2013.

Technology teaser: Who will call it right in 2013?
The world didn't end, the turkey has reached the dubious curry stage of its lifecycle, and the the tree has dropped needles all over the shag pile. This can mean only one thing. It is time for part one of the traditional Technology of Business lookahead to what 2013 holds. So select the device of your choice and settle down to find out what our experts have to say.

Enterprise Architecture -- The Missing Ingredient for CIO Success?
The best road to being a successful CIO, in my opinion, is by being a successful enterprise architect. More attention needs to be paid to enterprise architecture by CIOs and those aspiring to be CIOs. Being a great business person, communicator and leader is far from being enough to be a successful and “highest performing” CIO. It is time to embrace enterprise architecture, including the critical role it has to play in IT modernization.

Automatic encryption of secure form field data
Karl Stoney shows a simple method of automatically encrypting hidden form fields that you don't want the user to be able to change, or know the value of. An extension to the HtmlHelper, a custom ModelBinder is used to handle the decryption and also Rijndael encryption is used to secure data . That this is simply one measure to ensure the security of data, and should always validate the action at the code and finally database level, to ensure a secure application!

Microsoft Industry Reference Architecture for Banking (MIRA-B)
MIRA-B, a development and delivery framework that provides clarity on technical capabilities and implementation approaches to support enterprise IT architecture planning, helps financial institutions modularize and align business and technology assets in a predictable way. MIRA-B outlines a roadmap for the future that provides the architectural flexibility to deliver industry solutions on-premise or in the cloud.

IBM’s Reference Architecture for Creating Cloud Environments [Updated]
IBM has recently submitted the IBM Cloud Computing Reference Architecture 2.0 (CC RA) (.doc) to the Cloud Architecture Project of the Open Group, a document based on “real-world input from many cloud implementations across IBM” meant to provide guidelines for creating a cloud environment. Update: interview with Heather Kreger, one of the authors of Cloud Computing Reference Architecture.

4 Reasons Why 2013 Will Be The Year of The Innovator
Times change. Innovation is ripe again. Here are four reasons, apart from competitive pressures, why 2013 will see a surge in intelligent, strong ROI-related innovation writing, thinking and action. It could be your opportunity, too.

Data Center Consolidation and Adopting Cloud Computing in 2013
Cloud computing and virtualization continue to have an impact on all consolidation discussions, not only from the standpoint of providing a much better model for managing physical assets, but also in the potential cloud offers to solve disaster recovery shortfalls, improve standardization, and encourage or enable development of service-oriented architectures.

10 Phrases That Can Resolve Any Conflict
One of the biggest mistakes small-business owners make is trying to avoid conflict. This is problematic because in any capitalistic economy, conflict is not only an inevitable but a necessary part of all business. Through the process of “productive conflict,” companies can grow and become more profitable. The key is to be able to resolve them effectively. Authors of Perfect Phrases for Conflict Resolution Lawrence Polsky and Antoine Gerschel describe the perfect phrases to resolve any conflict.

Defrag Tools: #21 - WinDbg - Memory User Mode
In this episode of Defrag Tools, Andrew Richards, Chad Beeder and Larry Larsen continue looking at the Debugging Tools for Windows (in particular WinDbg). WinDbg is a debugger that supports user mode debugging of a process, or kernel mode debugging of a computer.

Quote for the day:

"Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now" -- Alan Lakein