Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

August 12, 2012

Amazon launches social game development studios
"Amazon Game Studios is exactly what it sounds like: a new team at Amazon that's focused on creating innovative, fun and well-crafted games," the Amazon Games Studios team said in a company blog post today.

10 Programming Languages That Can Redefine IT
Here are 10 latest programming languages which approach the art of software development from a fresh perspective, tackling a specific problem or a unique shortcoming of today's more popular languages. Many of them are capable of changing programming in subsequent years.

New BI Demands Pushing Data Architecture Limits
change is both constant and fast-paced. Don't get left behind: With "big data" increasingly taking hold, the five-year future is going to bring major transformation in the way information systems are built to support business intelligence (BI) and analytics applications.

How to Create High Impact Leadership
Delegating is the path to exponential impact, seizing opportunities, flattening organizations, and leadership development. Why do so many find delegating so difficult?

Canvas Control Library & New Forms Based System for building Web Pages & Websites
Canvas Control Library with all the common controls and advanced ones like TreeView which due to the nature of canvas allow for great control over the graphical presentation of the controls and their item contents.

The 7 Traits of Great Sellers
Competition is intense, and if you don't take a leadership role in producing results for your clients, someone else will. In Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way, Ron Karr outlines a repeatable process based on the powerful idea that great sellers lead relationships in the same way that great leaders sell ideas.

The one-minute entrepreneur
If you're the kind of person who prefers to sit back and think about stuff, entrepreneurship will be quite a challenge. The default in the world of... humans... is that nothing happens. It takes hard work, energy, focus, determination, impatience, in short, an urge to make things happen right now, to make anything at all happen.

Protocols and Metaprotocols: What is a Personal Event Network?
This blog post sets forth several important naming conventions for personal event networks and also motivates and explains them.

Interview on Rust, a Systems Programming Language Developed by Mozilla
Rust is a systems language for writing high performance applications that are usually written in C or C++ but it was developed to prevent some of the problems related to invalid memory accesses that generate segmentation faults.

The Tactical and Strategic Art of Economic Models
Don Reinertsen outlines the need for using an economic model for development, explaining what that is emphasizing the cost of delay, how an economic model looks like, how to build and use one.

Quote for the day:

"A pessimist is somebody who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks." --Oscar Wilde

August 11, 2012

6 Things Hiring Managers Don’t Get About Recruiting
You could have had great success in finding candidates but could have encountered many obstacles in trying to place those candidates because often many hiring managers mismanage the hiring process. Read on to know the five issues hiring managers must consider when trying to fill their open positions with superstar candidates.

The A/B Test: Inside the Technology That’s Changing the Rules of Business
One consequence of this data-driven revolution is that the whole attitude toward writing software, or even imagining it, becomes subtly constrained.

The Biggest Cloud Computing Security Risk Is Impossible to Eliminate
Despite all that noise, it's odd to realize that the incident with the greatest potential to cause a change in attitude among users and IT is the hack of a single reporter's backup account on Apple's consumer-oriented iCloud storage service.

Social still can't beat search in online shopping
Although the amount of site traffic generated by social media has more than doubled, it's still no match for search engines or e-mail referrals.

Enterprise Architecture – How a lack of planning can trip up your business
Without a clear view of an ideal future state of the enterprise, it becomes easy for businesses to fall into the trap of implementing disparate business capabilities, applications and infrastructure components which do not optimally relate to each other.

The Future of HTTP and the Controversy over SPDY
IETF has discussed the future of HTTP, and the next version is to be using SPDY as a starting point. There is a controversy though: Microsoft claims SPDY is no better than HTTP/1.1 with all optimizations turned on, while SPDY’s inventor says Microsoft’s tests actually confirm SPDY’s advantage in a real world scenario.

Google Open Sources Leak Finder, a JavaScript Tool for Detecting Memory Leaks
Currently, Leak Finder works with Closures but it can be configured to work with other libraries. Closures is an open source JavaScript library containing widgets, an event framework, tools for DOM manipulation, a unit testing framework, animation tools, and other components, being used extensively across Google services such as GMail, GDocs, GMaps and others.

Achieving True Business Analysis Competency
Want to improve business analysis competency but don’t know where to start? Need a way to make sure management will support the effort? This offering from DEA can help. Many forward-thinking organizations have begun dedicated efforts to increase business analysis competency. But getting started is one of the biggest challenges these efforts face. Success requires an understanding of current business analysis practices, careful planning, and clear measureable goals against which progress and success can be gauged. Without a solid business case to support the effort, work can lose momentum, focus and management backing.

Inline MSIL in C# and Generic Pointers
The following article discusses how to achieve inline CIL (MSIL/IL) into the C# language. Using said implementation, we can achieve things that the compiler usually prevents us from doing due to type-safety and other safety-checks. One of these things is generic pointer types which can be very useful.

Quote for the day:
"In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield." ~Warren Buffett

August 10, 2012

For Sales Forces, Big Data May Be Overhyped
We commonly see new technologies overhyped; their capabilities are promoted beyond their potential. Is big data your goldmine? Or is it a mirage that always appears a few more million dollars and months away? It depends on how you go about it. Doing it is not enough. You have to do it right.

The Open Cloud Company: A Day In The Life [Video]
To herald the era of Fanatical Support on the open cloud, Rackspace producer and video storyteller Dave Sims captured it all as part of his “Day In The Life” video series; short films shot and edited in a single day that illustrate what’s happening here at Rackspace.
Does 'shadow IT' lurk in your company?
Business divisions are bypassing the IT department, making their own decisions to buy cloud-based application services or use mobile devices, raising the specter of so-called "shadow IT" that's outside the knowledge or control of the CIO and the IT staff.

Nation-backed surveillance malware monitors Middle East bank accounts
A sophisticated cyber surveillance tool that monitors financial transactions with Middle Eastern banks was probably built by or under the auspices of a government, security researchers said today.

Apache Cassandra database upgrade due this fall
Version 1.2 of Cassandra, eyed for an October release, is slated to offer concurrent schema change and virtual node capabilities as well as JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) deployment support, Ellis said. With concurrent schema changes, multiple clients can issue schema changes at the same time and they will be merged across a cluster safely.

10 practices of highly ineffective software developers
The developer's worst enemy is really the eager technical manager who tries to deliver a project faster than possible and pushes developers to engage into ill-advised practices. In high-end enterprise and Web-scale projects in particular, that can result in wholesale disaster.

Virtual Panel: NoSQL Database Patterns and Polyglot Persistence
NoSQL database space has different databases that support different data storage patterns. InfoQ spoke with four panelists about the current state of NoSQL adoption, architecture patterns supported by different NoSQL databases, and security aspects when using NoSQL databases.

Presentation: Progressive Architectures at the Royal Bank of Scotland
In their presentation posted at InfoQ systems and data architects Ben Stopford, Farzad Pezeshkpour and Mark Atwell show how RBS leveraged new technologies in their architectures while facing difficult challenges such as regulation, competition and tighter budgets. They also need to cope with stringent technical challenges including efficiency and scalability.

The Management Upside of Mistakes
From misspeaking to making a decision that turns out wrong to a million other areas to show off your humanness, mistakes are part of the learning to lead process. How you choose to deal with your mistakes will help determine people’s perception of you and speak volumes about your leadership character.

Nimbula Adds Hadoop to Private Cloud
The private cloud operating system provider today said it is combining its Nimbula Director platform with MapR Technologies' M3 and M5 Hadoop distributions. The combined offering will lets organizations process and analyze large volumes of unstructured Big Data in private clouds.

The Mechanics of Contracting
Contracting should be pursued within a fluid context with principles, not by following inflexible rules. That said, having a framework to follow is an equally important element to success. Structure without principles is a formula for installed results, but principles without a structure usually generates more rhetoric than realization.

Quote for the day:
"Close scrutiny will show that most "crisis situations" are opportunities to either advance, or stay where you are." - Maxwell Maltz

August 09, 2012

The Superhero in a CIO
Apparently, movies such as The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers provide valuable insights on leadership traits that CIOs can borrow and implement them in order to tackle the complications in their everyday operations.

Collaboration 101
Unfortunately, most CEOs/ CXOs think that if they just buy collaboration technology, a miracle will happen, and they will become collaborative organizations and CEOs/ CXOs think that ensuring collaboration in an organization is the responsibility of the CIO.

Intel Invests into Motion-Sensing Technology Developer.
Movea, a leading designer of motion-sensing technologies, has received funding in the amount of €6.5 million ($8.044 million) led by Intel Capital, together with existing Investors iSource and GIMV. Movea develops motion sensing intelligence designed for software, embedded and semiconductor solutions that are used inside the consumer electronic products and applications geared towards sports, fitness and health. Eventually, Movea's technologies may find themselves inside Intel's own solutions.

Approach Virtualization Management Platform Selection With Careful Eye
In a fairly recent blog, I was asked to clarify what I meant by a "careful eye" in the evaluation and selection of virtualization management platforms. (Thanks, Laurie Head, vice president, AIS Network Cloud Hosting.) A "careful eye" means buying software, not services; walking before running; documenting requirements; and taking advantage of how the software industry has changed for the better.

Little girl gets new arms from a 3-D printer
What makes this plastic version of WREX useful for kids is that it’s light, made from the same plastic that LEGO bricks are made from, and it’s easy to produce a custom model. SImply design, and print. And replacement parts are no problem, so as the child grows, new pieces can be printed to fit their bodies.

Does your email address say you're a rube?
Opinions are often formed by many subtle factors. A social media manager has to be well-connected, and certainly seem current on all the new technologies and trends. You might have a good Klout rating, you might have a lot of Facebook friends, and you might even have four or five digits worth of Twitter followers.

Microsoft to sell police analytics toolkit, with New York taking 30pc cut
The software giant has co-developed a 'Domain Awareness System' alongside New York law enforcement and counterterrorism authorities, and intends to sell it to cities around the world

Microsoft opens Office and Sharepoint up to web developers
With the next release of Office and SharePoint, developers can build add-ons that run in Windows Azure (or Amazon, or other clouds.) A bigger question is when Office and SharePoint themselves will make the transition into Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar cloud. Microsoft still isn’t saying.

Wearable technology market to exceed $6B by 2016
In four years, the market for wearable wireless devices is expected to achieve minimum revenues of $6 billion, according to new research from IHS iSuppli subsidiary IMS Research.

Mobile computing and the demise of the desktop
Patrick Gray discusses some factors that might spell the end of the desktop as we know it. Do you think tablets will eventually replace the traditional desktop?

Quote for the day:
"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." ~John Quincy Adams

August 08, 2012

Agile development costly, confusing: Report
A report by Voke Inc. found that companies do not understand costs of rework and cannot identify clear benefits of agile. But an agile consultant says the study shows a "fundamental misunderstanding" of what agile is

Do procurement processes allow Agile software delivery?
Longer projects run, higher likelihood of project failure. One of the moves in recent times to reduce complexity in software development is to adopt Agile delivery approaches. The desire to build confidence and leave tangible benefits even if projects are cancelled has provided further impetus to adoption of Agile practices.

Plextor M5 Pro solid-state drive
CNET Review says: Fast and compatible with all systems, the Plextor M5 Pro would be a great solid-state drive for anyone who can afford it

How to Be a More Reliable Professional
Unreliability was recently identified as the number one career-limiting habit and it’s no surprise. After all, if the people you work for (and with) can’t depend on you, what purpose do you serve?Truth be told, unreliable people are actually dangerous to the success of the entire team.

Forrester: Bump the HTML5 effort; this isn't 2011 anymore
We're not living in 2011 anymore. This is 2012, where HTML5 can spread its wings and stretch out, thinks Forrester

New Healthcare Ecosystem Requires New Collaboration Approaches
In reading a recent article published by PharmaExec on Innovative Contracting, it was encouraging to see continued discussion within Life Sciences arena that strives to address the needs of their customers, the payers and providers.

Google spreadsheets gains lockdown feature
Google has added a new feature to its spreadsheet product that enables users to lock down particular sections. According to Google, the feature, called Protected Ranges, is intended to stop cells being modified accidentally when several users are working on the same spreadsheet.

Two Leadership Models
In leadership, there are two distinct organizational models. Since few things are quite so black-and-white, we might consider them to be two ends of a continuium, with a virtually limitless number of stops between the two

Google’s self-driving car: A long road, but now 300,000 miles shorter
Google’s self-driving car may have sounded like the stuff of fantasy and The Jetsons not so long ago, but the company is famed for getting its teeth into a number of frankly odd and fun projects. The new car is no exception — and it seems Google’s engineers aren’t doing too bad a job either.

On learning enterprise-architecture
How someone can become a consummate generalist without getting insane as there is lot out there to learn because EA is the architecture of the enterprise? How do someone bring focus(Focus to not to focus on particular thing)? How do I create a specialist in me who is generalist?

Quote for the day:

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." ~Mark Twain

August 07, 2012

Offshoring: Why it’s an opportunity, not a threat
IT industry experts in the UK argue that offshoring shouldn’t be viewed simply as a threat to domestic jobs but as an opportunity to join a global workforce.

Over 150% performance improvement in unified threat management
As next-generation UTMs, the New WatchGuard XTM 5 Series sports the fastest throughput in its price class without sacrificing security efficacy, manageability and ease of use.

ROI Calculator : Multi-tenant Maturity Model 2 & 4, with and without celloSaaS
On a specific request from one of our customers, we recently did a detailed analaysis of the various alternatives of building and migrating a SaaS application on .NET, their relative costs and TCO.

Enterprise Mobility is Driving a Lot of Change in the Enterprise
Enterprise mobility acts as strategic information and is driving a lot of change in the enterprise kind of converging in what consumers use and what the enterprise use from the mobility perspective.

The Dictatorship of BYOD
In response to the question "What causes data leaks onto public clouds," the answer was a predictable, "BYOD and personal decision-making by employees." It should be noted that not a single person checked off the box for "There is no data leakage onto public clouds.

Is Working From Home Right for You?
Wondering if you fit the profile of a work-at-home entrepreneur? Think you’d be able to survive the days of unstructured time and day-long freedom? This quick self-assessment should help guide your decision on whether working from home is right for you.

Beyond passwords: Biometrics continue to evolve
The second issue is that while it’s hard to reproduce your fingerprint or your iris, it’s not impossible. Many researchers over the years have shown various ways to bypass some of the biometrics used in security systems, whether it’s by creating fake hands using a mold, or tricking iris scans.

Beyond the smartphone: Emerging platforms that developers should target next
From the car to the living room, technologies and markets are quickly evolving to offer lucrative possibilities for programming pioneers

Big Data Point Counterpoint II
Consultants/pundits Marc Demarest and Mark Madsen squared off as the disciple and the bomb tosser to big data’s business reality check, a mock trial of legitimacy full of hyperbole meant to entertain more than to define either man’s belief system (which they did eventually get around to).

Amazon: UK now buying more e-books than print books
Two years after the Kindle was launched in the UK, Amazon's customers there are now buying more e-books than printed books. In the US, the distance between the Kindle release and that milestone was four years

Cisco Linksys EA4500 review
With its novel cloud-based configuration and app platform, Cisco's EA4500 is an interesting experiment, but the hardware itself fails to excite.

Quote for the day:
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” ~Winston Churchill

August 06, 2012

eBay puts OpenStack to work
eBay goes public about its first implementation of OpenStack along with Nicira network virtualization, hinting at broader adoption to come

Android application architecture.
A four part series of blog posts by Vlad Nevzorov on Android Application Architecture. Through part I of this series the author gives you a bit of history and the three distinctively different and very much separated architectural layers.

IT execs explain their moves to solid-state storage
Fred Abounader, a performance systems engineer at chip maker AMD, recently deployed a 3TB all-NAND flash storage array into a virtual server test environment. The result, he said, was astounding.

iCloud breach highlights some hard truths about the consumer cloud
The hard truth for consumers is that using cloud services means they’re often at the mercy of their cloud providers’ security practices, perhaps even their HR practices. However, unless they’re willing to abstain from the cloud altogether, trusting their providers is often all consumers can do.

Car-hacking: Bluetooth and other security issues
Out-of-control honking horns may be annoying, but other types of hacking, such as cutting the engine of unsuspecting drivers, could have deadly consequences. Although most experts agree there isn't an immediate risk, vehicle hacking is something that bears watching.

The Reverse Psychology of Temptation
There are two conditions necessary to make this an effective strategy and keep it good-natured: The commitment the person wants to make needs to be self-motivated and the person doing the ribbing needs to be a trusted friend who doesn't abuse positional power.

Envisioning emerging technology for 2012 and beyond
Looking at emerging trends and research, one can predict and draw conclusions about how the technological sphere is developing, and which technologies should become mainstream in the coming years. Envisioning technology is meant to facilitate these observations by taking a step back and seeing the wider context. By speculating about what lies beyond the horizon we can make better decisions of what to create today.

How to Stop so you can Start
Before you find your personal best, let go of your mediocrity. Determine what isn’t working and stop it.

Developer Break: Dart, DotTrace, Azure and YUI
Developer Break – catching the smaller but important changes and updates to tools and specifications, utilities and libraries:

Big data and transaction processing
Organizations need to compile and hold larger amounts of data. Many big data tools are useful when the goal is discovery and analysis of that data. What needs to be done if a transactional system needs access to a huge, rapidly changing data store.

Quote for the day:

"The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails." --John C. Maxwell

August 05, 2012

Build your leadership library
with these specials on over ~~225~~ 115 titles you may have missed. All titles are at least 40% off the list price and are available only in the quantities shown. These are new and not used books. More titles will be added as they come available.

Calculating Cloud ROI: From the Customer Perspective
Marketing hype claims that cloud computing can help any enterprise meet most IT service needs at a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and higher return on investment (ROI). ... To determine whether the cloud is a viable option, it is necessary to separate the hype from reality.

What will Facebook look like in 2022?
Facebook won’t always exist. Sure, a company named Facebook will exist and sure, it will have a social network that is hosted on Facebook.com. But Facebook as our go-to social network has a finite lifespan.

The Economist Examines Supply Chain Risk
If you are part of senior management in any company, you probably spend a lot your time mitigating risk. Is the economy going to help or hurt our bottom line? Is our turnover rate too high? Will our innovative new product ship on schedule?

Two Business "Mistakes" Every Company Should Make
Two of the seven “mistakes” John names are actually strategic weapons I’d suggest every company–especially in its early and growth stages–consider strongly.

The next chapter in the ultrabook saga: 'Haswell'
Haswell is probably the first mainstream PC-class chip from Intel designed with really thin, small PCs in mind from the get-go. It will also probably pack a mean graphics punch (i.e., bigger performance uptick than usual).

After defeat of Senate cybersecurity bill, Obama weighs executive-order option
Senate Republicans recently blocked cybersecurity legislation, but the issue might not be dead after all. The White House hasn't ruled out issuing an executive order to strengthen the nation's defenses against cyber attacks if Congress refuses to act.

The Next IT Revolution: Bring Your Own ID
Nearly everywhere, the network ID – from username and password to the security card – remains firmly under the control of central IT. Why, in the second decade of the 21st century, is this still the norm? And more importantly, is this status quo about to change?

Quote for the day:

"Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger." --Arnold Palmer

August 04, 2012

The Analytics Carnival
Ever notice how the personalities and dispositions of carnival performers often resemble coworkers in an organization? They come in all shapes and sizes. An organization’s pursuit of adopting business analytics and analytics-based enterprise performance management methodologies also involves personalities of all types.

RIM CEO Reveals A Switch to Android Was Seriously Considered
Heins openly admitted that RIM will not be able to keep up with Apple and Samsung with out outside help. ... Heins also admitted that the company was seriously considering switching to the Android platform. While they took it into consideration, they ultimately decided against it.

How NASA tests an against-all-odds Mars rover landing
The space agency has dubbed Curiosity's imminent landing "seven minutes of terror." And that's even after months of excruciating, exacting preparation.

How to make sense of the big data universe
The best, simple definition of big data comes down to volume, velocity and variety. The volume aspect of big data is actually the one that is the least important. Big data is not about petabytes of data—it can be down to relatively small volumes that need to be dealt with in a manner that requires a big-data approach.

Structured Life, Structured Work, Structured Leadership
“Every company has two organizational structures: The formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday relationship of the men and women in the organization.”

Understanding and Implementing Bridge Pattern in C#
When we think about bridge pattern the first thing that come to our mind is "it is some kind of bridge between two different implementations". But this is not true. The above mentioned This is the task of Adapter pattern which is discussed here. But to talk about bridge, this pattern is designed specifically to let the abstraction and the implementation vary independently.

Look Before You Leap into Predictive Analytics
CFOs are keenly aware that while the popularity of the term “predictive analytics” is relatively new, the concept is really nothing revolutionary. Predictive analytics is often described as data mining or advanced analytics that, as a concept, has existed for a long time. The only difference now is the abundance of technologies, tools and applications in the marketplace to analyze the large amount of data available.

Enterprise Architecture in 3 minutes
Enterprise Architecture design for anyone, in a brief animated story.

Is 'Metro' now a banned word at Microsoft?
Why is Microsoft allegedly telling those inside and outside the company to stop playing up 'Metro' going forward when talking about the new wave of Microsoft products?

ID theft may cost IRS $21B over next five years
Identity thieves continue to profit from U.S. government coffers by filing bogus tax returns, according to a new audit

A Personality Test for Entrepreneurs
Once you know your dominant trait, you’ll learn how your profile may impact your business during its critical milestones from nurturing the first seeds of growth, to scaling it, to shifting strategy, to selling it. At these turning points, you’ll know which traits you should “dial up” or “dial down” and what kind of people you may need beside you.

Quote for the day:
"The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership." ~Harvey S. Firestone

August 03, 2012

Forecast for systems administrators: CloudyThe traditional sysadmin role is changing, thanks to cloud computing and virtualization. Here's how to ensure you have a job in 5 years.

“Big Data” Presents Big Opportunities for Firms and CFOs
Big Data has increased the demand for information management specialists, while dramatically increasing the potential for visionary professional growth and positioning. CPAs are perfectly suited to take a leadership role in deciphering and using Big Data to achieve strategic business goals.

Why Tax Directors’ Heads Should Be in the Cloud
So what’s the harm? “If the tax department isn’t involved early, an organization can end up creating substantial risk and missing out on tax-planning opportunities,” says Fortier. A change to a company’s cloud arrangement could make it ineligible for tax benefits, in particular, or it could very easily swing the return on investment of the whole project negative, he notes.

Huawei checking claims of flaws in its routers
Huawei Technologies said on Thursday it was verifying claims that its routers contained critical vulnerabilities, after security researchers disclosed alleged problems last weekend.

The robotic datacentre: Is this the future of the cloud?
Looking further ahead, Frankovsky imagines "a truly automated warehouse environment" where machines automatically service and swap out hardware. However Frankovsky said that this type of datacentre lies beyond 2020.

Sony Developing a Microsoft Surface-Inspired Tablet
The new device will also include a Tegra 3 Processor from NVIDIA, support Android 4.0 or a more recent iteration, come with a wide arrange of storage options (16GB, 32GB, or 64GB), contain 3G connectivity and offer 10 hours of Wi-Fi battery life.

100 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read
Reading these quintessential business books is going to be my MBA. So, not only should you read these books – you should take notes and execute as much of what you learn as you can.

Power Up Your Leadership Effectiveness With Skilled Decision Making
One thing is for sure – a leader’s decision-making impacts credibility. So, take a moment now to think about your decision-making. Why take a moment? Decision-making is so natural, so automatic many of us aren’t aware of our decision-making style let alone how skilled we may or may not be.

Revisiting Information’s ROI
One common measure of success in IT has been based on dollars spent and time to return on investment. That approach can bring some level of visibility to our spending effectiveness, especially on the cost reduction side in headcount and overhead. But that kind of return isn’t really based on the value of information.

Quote for the day:

"A leader is someone who can do everything him(her)self, but let's other people help him(her)."
-- Don Rittner