It’s hard being a female programmer or software engineer. Of course, it’s hard for anyone to be a techie, male or female. You have to master a lot of arcane knowledge, and keep up with new developments. You have to be innately curious and inventive. You have to be driven, you have to be patient, […]
Neil Sedaka insists that breakin’ up is hard to do. Will that apply to the planned split of Hewlett-Packard into two companies? Let’s be clear: This split is a wonderful idea, and it’s long overdue. Once upon a time, HP was in three businesses: Electronics test equipment (like gas spectrometers); expensive, high-margin data center products […]
You’ve gotta read “Data Divination: Big Data Strategies,” Pam Baker’s new book about Big Data. Actually, let me change my recommendation. If you are a techie and you are looking for suggestions on how to configure your Hadoop installation or optimize the storage throughput in your NAS array, this isn’t the book for you. Rather, […]
Thirty seconds. That’s about how long a mobile user will spend with your game before deciding if he or she will continue using it. Thirty seconds. Maybe a minute. If you haven’t engaged the customer by then, forget it. That’s according to Graeme Warring, COO of 2XL Games LLC, a game startup based in Phoenix. […]
First Impressions of the Apple Watch: Surprised that it’s not called the iWatch. The user interface looks surprisingly cool. Distressed that the Apple Watch needs to be charged every day, but if the docking station is sufficiently easy to use, it shouldn’t be a deal breaker. The watches look like real watches, beautiful as well […]
Once upon a time, back when dinosaurs roamed the planet, I learned COBOL. While I never wrote any deployed applications in the language, I did use it to teach an undergraduate course in computer science for business majors, back in the early 1980s. Those poor students, who submitted their programs on punch cards for an […]
“My name is Patricia from the Bank of America fraud prevention department. This important message is for Mr. Alan Zeichick. We are calling to verify some potentially suspicious activity on your account. It is very important that we speak with you.” Tuesday’s voicemail from my bank was short and simple. Nobody had pilfered a credit-card receipt […]
Cloud-based development tools are great. Until they don’t work. I don’t know if you were affected by Microsoft’s Azure service outage on Thursday, August 14, 2014. As of my deadline, services had been offline for nearly six hours. On its status page, Microsoft was reporting: Visual Studio Online – Multi-Region – Full Service Interruption Starting 22:45 […]
We drove slightly more than 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers), my wife and I, during a weeklong holiday. We explored different states in the western United States: Arizona (where we live), Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. The Rocky Mountains are incredible. Most of our vacation was at altitudes above 6,000 feet (1,800 meters). Many of the […]
Where do your employees go to find shared data? If it’s external data, probably an external search engine, like Google (which apparently holds 67.6% of the U.S. market) or Bing (18.7%) or one of the niche players. What about internal corporate data? If your organization uses a platform like Microsoft’s SharePoint, that platform includes a […]
Microsoft has evolved considerably. It’s moved from its early days selling developer tools, or its era focusing on Windows and Office, or its run as a server software maker, or its first iteration as a cloud/online services company. Despite all the myriad changes, it’s always been true that Microsoft does not excel at innovation. In […]
If your developers aren’t enrolled in developer relations programs, they will grow old and stale. They will become moldy. They will pine for the Good Old Days and opine endlessly about the irrelevance of new tools, new platforms, new paradigms and new ideas. No matter their brilliance today, they will become obsolescent. You can’t let […]
GOOGLE I/O 2004, SAN FRANCISCO — What is Android? It’s hard to know these days, and I’m not sure if that’s good or not. We all know what happened when Microsoft began seeing Windows as a common operating system for everything from embedded systems to desktops to phones to servers. By trying to be reasonably […]
Are you covered by a non-compete agreement at your current employer? Are your workers covered by a non-compete? While non-competes may make your executives (and their attorneys) feel good, they may not be good for your company. Non-compete agreements restrict where you can work after you leave your current employer. They might lock you out […]
Two consulting projects this year have involved lots and lots of data. One was the migration of a very complex customer database and transaction logging system to a cloud-based CRM platform from a homegrown system. The other involved performing serious analytics on a non-profit’s membership system that had data spanning decades. Both projects required incredible […]
SAN FRANCISCO — I expected a new version of OS X, the operating system for Mac desktops and notebooks. I expected a new version of iOS, the operating system for iPhones and iPads. I did not expect a new programming language. Yet that’s what we got at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, held here this week. And […]
This is one of a series of articles I wrote for the monthly Bulletin of Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame, Calif. The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit, Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. — […]
There are lots of reasons to use Git as your source-code management system. Whether used as a primary system, or in conjunction with an existing legacy repository, I’m going to argue that if you’re not using Git now, you should be at least testing it out. Basics of Git: It is open source, and runs […]
With the May 20 introduction of the Surface Pro 3, Microsoft has unofficially withdrawn from the tablet market. If you’re looking for a tablet computer, your two main platform choices are now Android and iOS. The Surface Pro 3 isn not an Apple iPad competitor. It doesn’t go up against the Google Nexus family, or […]
South San Francisco, California — Writing software would be oh, so much simpler if we didn’t have all those darned choices. HTML5 or native apps? Windows Server in the data center or Windows Azure in the cloud? Which Linux distro? Java or C#? Continuous Integration? Continuous Delivery? Git or Subversion or both? NoSQL? Which APIs? […]
This is one of a series of articles I wrote for the monthly Bulletin of Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame, Calif. Mah tovu ohaleha, Yaakov, mishk’notecha Yisrael! Vaani b’rov chasd’cha, avo veitecha, eshtachaveh el heichal kodsh’cha b’yiratecha. How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel! I, through Your abundant love, enter Your house. I […]
Would you like a billion dollars? Software companies, both startups and established firms, are selling like hotcakes. Some are selling for millions of U.S. dollars. Some are selling for billions. While the bulk of the sales price often goes back to venture financiers, a sale can be sweet for equity-holding employees, and even for non-equity employees […]
This is one of a series of articles I wrote for the monthly Bulletin of Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame, Calif. Did you know that we are safeguarding a Holocaust Torah at Peninsula Temple Sholom? You can see the scroll in the Raiskin Torah Center building. It’s in the display case with the yellow Torah cover dedicated […]
This is one of a series of articles I wrote for the monthly Bulletin of Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame, Calif. The Torah is big on counting. Members of tribes, size of armies, measurements of the Ark of the Covenant. The fourth book of the Torah, B’midbar (also known as Numbers) starts out with a census. We […]
This is one of a series of articles I wrote for the monthly Bulletin of Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame, Calif. Happy New Year! While this is the February 2014 edition of the Bulletin, as I write it’s the last few days of December 2013. This time of year, the mind is seduced into retrospection and future […]
“I tried working for some tech companies like Microsoft, Tektronix, IBM, and Intel. What a fiasco. I can’t count how many young men with way less experience and skills than me snagged the good fun hands-on tech jobs, while I got stuck doing some kind of crap customer service job. I still remember this guy […]
Technology is a rewarding career track. It also can be an incredibly hostile career track, especially for the females of the species. Here are 13 links to what they’re saying about women in tech – plus a bonus off-topic one. If you’re a woman – you’ve gotta read this. If you’re not a woman – […]
We need all the technical talent we can get. Whether we are talking developers, architects, network staff, IT admins, managers, hardware, software or firmware, the more women in technology, the better. For everyone – for companies, for customers, for women and for men. I have recently started working with an organization called WITI – that’s […]
LAS VEGAS — If you are a geek, there are few events geekier than the huge Consumer Electronics Show, held here each January. Here is where you’ll find the latest toys, toys, toys, toys, toys and toys. Such as smart glasses, smart cars, shape-recognizing SDKs, robots with intelligent programmable faces, and so much more. Most […]
I’ve had the opportunity to meet and listen to Steve Wozniak several times over the years. He’s always funny and engaging, and his scriptless riffs get better all the time. With this one, he had me rolling in the aisle. The Woz’s hour-long talk (and Q&A session) covered familiar ground: His hacking the phone system with […]