Look at what Google and Amazon are doing with databases: That's your future
"The era of the one-size-fits-all database is over. It used to be when I grew up as a developer that for the architect in the project, when it came to choosing the bottom layer of the stack — the persistence layer — the choice was Microsoft, or IBM, or Oracle, or Sybase. It was a vendor choice," he said. "They were all the same type of database. But that era has gone forever and it will never come back because data is just so big and so irregularly shaped now that you're always going to be able to get a hundred times improvement, a thousand times improvement, a million times improvement if you get a data technology that is shaped like the shape of your data.
It’s Not HR’s Job to Be Strategic
Companies will really start feeling the consequences over the next decade. Millennial Branding and Monster.com found that one-third of Millennials rank training and development opportunities as a prospective employer’s top benefit. Cutting corners in this area may jeopardize employee engagement and retention in a demographic that will represent 75% of the U.S. labor force by 2025. A centralized HR department is ill equipped to address this. But embedding learning and development — along with talent acquisition — within each business function can solve the problem because it will shift the focus from cost reduction to value creation.
When It’s Sink or Swim
Walking away from a two-year project that’s at 200% of budget, yet seems 2% away from the finish line, is a tough call to make and is no small admission of misspent resources. But, even worse, what if the new approach were to fail at its own 95% point? What then? The company weighed the risk factors of each choice, gave us leash to further prove our new technology stack, and made the decision to switch platforms. Ultimately, time was the enemy posing the greatest threat, and they had to stand up a robust product soon. Fast-forward eight weeks and finally they had their “Netflix” platform, a stable, fully functioning health information exchange.
Where the data science jobs are, by sector and by state
The data science meme has been trending for several years now. Nearly everyone wants to be a data scientist, talk to a data scientist, hire a data scientist or invest in a data science startup. But where are all those data scientists working? And what are they working on? A good place to get a handle on the data science sector is Data Science Central, one of the industry’s leading data science community sites and blogs. It’s the online watering hole for data scientists and its edited and run by Vincent Granville.
8 Strategies to Fund Your New Business
As many first-time entrepreneurs know, or have found out, getting a traditional bank or even an SBA loan to start a new business isn't easy. So where else can you go to fund your dream? Fortunately, today entrepreneurs have many options than ever when it comes to funding their new business or business idea, many of which are less difficult to obtain and less expensive than a bank loan. Here are eight strategies for financing a new business, product or service.
Your 2015 IT Security Plan: What You Need to Know
Over 80 percent answered that IT departments actually felt secure with the technology that they had in place, but they feared what end users might do, either intentionally (example: Edward Snowden) or unintentionally (example: CryptoLocker). The response was that, although IT departments are the focus of where to combat the new threats, it’s the actions of end users that are often the root cause of the problem. Despite the great innovation in newer security products, the industry itself is still in a reactionary mode, responding to modern threats rather than being a step ahead. Therefore, while the technology is important, other areas of the business need to be addressed in order to make a company more secure.
Does the internet need rebooting?
Perrig has now developed a network architecture with his team that may enable all these drawbacks to be remedied. This concept, called Scion, is not only supposed to make the internet safer, but also more straightforward and efficient. The central idea is to divide the internet into several independent units, so-called “isolation domains”. In every domain, the autonomous systems themselves control the paths along which they exchange data. Therefore, autonomous systems in Domain 1 no longer have an influence on the data traffic in Domain 2 and vice versa. Of course, a global data exchange is also possible with this new structure – via so-called edge routers at the boundaries of the individual domains.
Data retention won't catch terrorists without big data strategy
The real crux of big data analysis is to look for patterns and for testing hypotheses. We should also remember that predictive analytics techniques are not perfect by definition, i.e. they have to be coupled with other intelligence and research. Finally, it's a hard sell to believe a tech-savvy terrorist would use the same IP address or the same mobile phone that they used a year ago. Once people learn about the legislation, it won't be difficult for them to bypass the system. A better solution would be for the federal government to work with telcos and ISPs on real-time anomaly data detection techniques by enabling/funding them to deploy big data techniques within their firms.
The Ethics of Data, Visualized [INFOGRAPHIC]
In all, the biggest problem with data collection for most people is this: they didn't know it was happening. For better or worse, understanding around what type of data is being collected and how it is being used is relatively low. And, because of this, many companies easily sneak data collection methods into Terms of Service agreements most users never read, or wouldn't fully understand if they did. What we are lacking here in transparency and accountability in data collection and use. And this is a big deal, because much of this data is personal, non-anonymous and can be hacked, stolen or used to discriminate against particular groups or segments.
What's new with Java
Unsigned applets run in a Java sandbox, walled off from the host system. Although the sandbox is far from perfect, reasonable people might consider applets confined to a sandbox safer. Oracle considers them more dangerous. In my opinion, they are placing way too much faith in the Certificate Authority system. Nonetheless, because Oracle thinks they are a greater security risk, they make it harder to run an unsigned applet than a signed one. The other big factor in running applets is the Java security level. Java 7 has three security levels, Java 8 (as of Update 20) has only the two highest levels from Java 7. Both versions of Java default to the second highest level, which Oracle calls "high".
Quote for the day:
"Nothing is easier than saying words. Nothing is harder than living them day after day." -- Arthur Gordon
"The era of the one-size-fits-all database is over. It used to be when I grew up as a developer that for the architect in the project, when it came to choosing the bottom layer of the stack — the persistence layer — the choice was Microsoft, or IBM, or Oracle, or Sybase. It was a vendor choice," he said. "They were all the same type of database. But that era has gone forever and it will never come back because data is just so big and so irregularly shaped now that you're always going to be able to get a hundred times improvement, a thousand times improvement, a million times improvement if you get a data technology that is shaped like the shape of your data.
It’s Not HR’s Job to Be Strategic
Companies will really start feeling the consequences over the next decade. Millennial Branding and Monster.com found that one-third of Millennials rank training and development opportunities as a prospective employer’s top benefit. Cutting corners in this area may jeopardize employee engagement and retention in a demographic that will represent 75% of the U.S. labor force by 2025. A centralized HR department is ill equipped to address this. But embedding learning and development — along with talent acquisition — within each business function can solve the problem because it will shift the focus from cost reduction to value creation.
When It’s Sink or Swim
Walking away from a two-year project that’s at 200% of budget, yet seems 2% away from the finish line, is a tough call to make and is no small admission of misspent resources. But, even worse, what if the new approach were to fail at its own 95% point? What then? The company weighed the risk factors of each choice, gave us leash to further prove our new technology stack, and made the decision to switch platforms. Ultimately, time was the enemy posing the greatest threat, and they had to stand up a robust product soon. Fast-forward eight weeks and finally they had their “Netflix” platform, a stable, fully functioning health information exchange.
Where the data science jobs are, by sector and by state
The data science meme has been trending for several years now. Nearly everyone wants to be a data scientist, talk to a data scientist, hire a data scientist or invest in a data science startup. But where are all those data scientists working? And what are they working on? A good place to get a handle on the data science sector is Data Science Central, one of the industry’s leading data science community sites and blogs. It’s the online watering hole for data scientists and its edited and run by Vincent Granville.
8 Strategies to Fund Your New Business
As many first-time entrepreneurs know, or have found out, getting a traditional bank or even an SBA loan to start a new business isn't easy. So where else can you go to fund your dream? Fortunately, today entrepreneurs have many options than ever when it comes to funding their new business or business idea, many of which are less difficult to obtain and less expensive than a bank loan. Here are eight strategies for financing a new business, product or service.
Your 2015 IT Security Plan: What You Need to Know
Over 80 percent answered that IT departments actually felt secure with the technology that they had in place, but they feared what end users might do, either intentionally (example: Edward Snowden) or unintentionally (example: CryptoLocker). The response was that, although IT departments are the focus of where to combat the new threats, it’s the actions of end users that are often the root cause of the problem. Despite the great innovation in newer security products, the industry itself is still in a reactionary mode, responding to modern threats rather than being a step ahead. Therefore, while the technology is important, other areas of the business need to be addressed in order to make a company more secure.
Does the internet need rebooting?
Perrig has now developed a network architecture with his team that may enable all these drawbacks to be remedied. This concept, called Scion, is not only supposed to make the internet safer, but also more straightforward and efficient. The central idea is to divide the internet into several independent units, so-called “isolation domains”. In every domain, the autonomous systems themselves control the paths along which they exchange data. Therefore, autonomous systems in Domain 1 no longer have an influence on the data traffic in Domain 2 and vice versa. Of course, a global data exchange is also possible with this new structure – via so-called edge routers at the boundaries of the individual domains.
Data retention won't catch terrorists without big data strategy
The real crux of big data analysis is to look for patterns and for testing hypotheses. We should also remember that predictive analytics techniques are not perfect by definition, i.e. they have to be coupled with other intelligence and research. Finally, it's a hard sell to believe a tech-savvy terrorist would use the same IP address or the same mobile phone that they used a year ago. Once people learn about the legislation, it won't be difficult for them to bypass the system. A better solution would be for the federal government to work with telcos and ISPs on real-time anomaly data detection techniques by enabling/funding them to deploy big data techniques within their firms.
The Ethics of Data, Visualized [INFOGRAPHIC]
In all, the biggest problem with data collection for most people is this: they didn't know it was happening. For better or worse, understanding around what type of data is being collected and how it is being used is relatively low. And, because of this, many companies easily sneak data collection methods into Terms of Service agreements most users never read, or wouldn't fully understand if they did. What we are lacking here in transparency and accountability in data collection and use. And this is a big deal, because much of this data is personal, non-anonymous and can be hacked, stolen or used to discriminate against particular groups or segments.
What's new with Java
Unsigned applets run in a Java sandbox, walled off from the host system. Although the sandbox is far from perfect, reasonable people might consider applets confined to a sandbox safer. Oracle considers them more dangerous. In my opinion, they are placing way too much faith in the Certificate Authority system. Nonetheless, because Oracle thinks they are a greater security risk, they make it harder to run an unsigned applet than a signed one. The other big factor in running applets is the Java security level. Java 7 has three security levels, Java 8 (as of Update 20) has only the two highest levels from Java 7. Both versions of Java default to the second highest level, which Oracle calls "high".
Quote for the day:
"Nothing is easier than saying words. Nothing is harder than living them day after day." -- Arthur Gordon
