My Z Trek blog is a “business blog,” because it’s (sometimes) involved with what I do for a living, and because I (sometimes) do my blogging during working hours. However, many of my favorite bloggers do so on their own time, to talk about their non-commercial interests. Let’s say that their blogs generate a fair […]
I thought we’d see some SCOs, some Microsofts, some Oracles. Nope. Not a single nomination in the SD Times’ newest award, THE WORST OF 2007. Lots of clicks on the nomination form, but nobody submitted. What a disappointment!
I thought we’d see some SCOs, some Microsofts, some Oracles, maybe even an IBM, a Red Hat, a Free Software Foundation, an Apple. Nope. Not a single nomination in the SD Times’ newest award, THE WORST OF 2007. Lots of clicks on the nomination form, but nobody submitted. What a disappointment! Z Trek Copyright (c) […]
Sometimes a press release just makes you scratch your head, like this one from MKS on Friday morning. It’s a customer-win press release, which doesn’t name the customer. (Actually, it’s not even a customer win: The release talks about an unnamed existing customer who agrees to buy more stuff.) Here’s the release: MKS Announces Enterprise-Wide […]
In case you’re wondering where booth bunnies come from, here’s an e-mail I received from “Barbie” at The Élan Agency. It came because we’re exhibiting at the Interop (not “Interopt”) conference at the end of April in Las Vegas. Have fun checking out their model search engine: They have men, women and children, all available […]
A principle of user interface design is that, as much as possible, the user should be in charge of the user experience. Menu options, if visible, should work. The user should be able to start or stop actions, or guide the course of actions. The user interface designers should focus on the needs and desires […]
Are all of your computers, applications and devices ready for tonight’s Daylight Savings Time changeover? If you’re in the United States, the answer probably is “no.” In its infinite wisdom, the U.S. government changed the rules for Daylight Savings Time in 2005, to take effect in 2007. Most modern software systems have been updated, but […]
Our flagship publication, SD Times, was listed in the February 2008 issue of Media Business Magazine as having increased from 649.8 advertising pages in 2006 to 730.7 in 2007 – the largest increase of any print publication in the information-technology market. Wa-hoo!!! The year-on-year increase of +80.9 advertising pages was based on data provided to […]
I can only imagine the headache that Ziff Davis Media’s announcement of bankruptcy is causing for Ziff Davis Enterprise — an entirely different company. Ziff Davis Media, whose bankruptcy I noted last week, publishes PC Magazine and several other magazines and Web sites. Ziff Davis Media is a subsidiary of Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings, which […]
I found this story from ComputerWorld, “Dell pointed out Microsoft’s Vista mistakes, internal docs show,” to be disturbing. Gregg Keizer’s Feb. 29 story said that, “Last-minute changes to Windows Vista broke drivers, forcing key hardware vendors to “limp out with issues” when the operating system launched last year, according to a presentation by Dell Inc. […]
Jon Erickson, editor-in-chief of Dr. Dobb’s Journal, totally stumped me yesterday. He asked me how many companies had published DDJ, and I guessed four. The correct answer is five. Dr. Dobb’s was founded by 1. People’s Computing Company (PCC) which sold DDJ to 2. M&T Publishing, the U.S. subsidiary of the German media giant Markt […]
It’s ironic (but coincidental) that we’re making the big shift in our staff to support our major launch of Systems Management News, only a few days after CMP Media broke up into four businesses, and the same week that Ziff Davis Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. On Friday, Feb. 29, United Business Media announced […]
Everyone at BZ Media is amped for the launch of Systems Management News, which will debut on April 15. Systems Management News (SMN) is a newspaper very similar to SD Times in format and appearance. Its will provide timely news and analysis to IT systems managers — your colleagues who manage data centers, database administrators, […]
My colleague Edward Correia, editor of Software Test & Performance Magazine, wrote a great report on the FutureTest 2008 conference. The story, entitled ‘Testers are Idiots,” talks about the challenges that many professional testers have within their organizations, where developers are often considered to be higher-status than members of the test/QA team. If you don’t […]
Talk about weird: On the recommendation of a friend, we rented The Fifth Element from Netflix, and watched it last night. What a bizarre movie! It’s a 1997 sci-fi action/comedy, starring Bruce Willis as a 23rd-century flying taxi driver, Gary Oldman as a corrupt businessman, Ian Holm as a priest, Chris Tucker as a talk-show […]
Talk about weird: On the recommendation of a friend, we rented The Fifth Element from Netflix, and watched it last night. What a bizarre movie! It’s a 1997 sci-fi action/comedy, starring Bruce Willis as a 23rd-century flying taxi driver, Gary Oldman as a corrupt businessman, Ian Holm as a priest, Chris Tucker as a talk-show […]
“Which development environment do you use?“ That’s one of the most eagerly awaited questions in BZ Research’s annual study into the use of Java within the enterprise and at ISVs. The top development environments, according to the December 2007, study are: Eclipse 62.7%Sun NetBeans 24.4%Oracle JDeveloper 20.4%IBM Rational Application Developer 19.4%IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer […]
FutureTest 2008 was unlike any conference I’ve seen for top software test managers — really dug into ways that we can transform software testing. From my perspective, the conference truly exceeded expectations, not only in the number of participants, but also in the quality of the dialog. I’d like to share just a few of […]
Last Friday, I was due to fly back to San Francisco from New York City. FutureTest 2008 was over, I’d spent a day in BZ East (our Huntington, N.Y. headquarters), and it was time to go home. My flight, United #5, was set to depart at 6:00am, and I arrived at JFK’s Terminal 7 around […]
As LCD screens showing advertisements become ubiquitous in our society, the quality of life goes down. I arrived this afternoon in Manhattan for FutureTest 2008. It started, as all thing New York begin, with the taxi ride from JFK to Midtown. In the seatback was an multifunction LCD screen that displayed ads, a real-time map, […]
We haven’t even held STPCon Spring 2008 yet, but we’re ready for speaker proposals for the fall conference! STPCon Fall 2008 will be Sept. 24-26 at the Marriott Boston Copley Hotel. That’s right: We’ve moved across the river from Cambridge, where we hosted the conference in 2006 and 2007. The Marriott Boston Copley is a […]
Last week we escaped up to beautiful Oregon. Most of our holiday was spent in the Redmond/Bend area, visiting with cousins in the shadow of the breathtaking Mount Bachelor volcanic chain. A nice, relaxing time was had by all. Pleasant though our Central Oregon sojourn was, the high point was catching the opening performance of […]
The Onion’s take on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is brilliant! They are indeed America’s finest news source. Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick
Today is the eighth anniversary of the launch of BZ Media’s SD Times. Hard to believe sometimes! The first issue of the newspaper was dated Feb. 23, 2000. It was followed by Mar. 15, then Apr. 1, and so-on; we’ve been on a first-and-fifteenth schedule ever since. Traditionally, we celebrate anniversaries with the Feb. 15th […]
We’re now accepting speaker proposals for EclipseWorld 2008 — the technical conference specially designed for enterprise IT staff and software developers using Eclipse-based tools and technologies. There’s a lot of excitement in the Eclipse ecosystem, particularly around the forthcoming Ganymede release train this summer. That’s one of the reasons why we hold EclipseWorld in the […]
Q: Who is buried in Grant’s tomb?A. Nobody is technically buried there, but Ulysses S. Grant is entombed above-ground in the monument’s mausoleum. Q: How often does Ziff Davis Enterprise publish eWeek?A: Thirty-nine times per year, at least for 2008. ZDE still refers to eWeek as an “IT newsweekly.” It used to be that an […]
I echo the comments by Tina Gasperson, in her post, “Linux distro for women? Thanks, but no thanks.” It reminds me of the tool kits for women you see in all the department stores, with pink-handled screwdrivers “just for her.” What, my wife can’t use our Craftsman screwdrivers or Black & Decker drills? We’re supposed […]
Roy Scheider, who played Dr. Heywood Floyd in the movie “2010” and Capt. Nathan Bridger in “SeaQuest DSV,” passed away yesterday at age 75. Oh, yeah, he did some other roles too, most notably Chief Martin Brody in Jaws. But for me, he’ll always be Doktor Floyd (said in Helen Mirren’s authentic Russian accent). (If […]
While I’m on the subject of air travel… it was really depressing, on a recent trip, to see the family ahead of me in the security line put a sealed six-pack of Gatorade into the recycle bin. What a waste. I don’t know about you, but the ban on liquids does not make me feel […]
Apropos to my posting a couple of weeks ago about the dangers of lost flash drives, New York Times columnist Randy Cohen tackles that issue in today”s paper. A reader asks Randy, At the end of a long flight, I gathered my children’s scattered belongings and scooped up someone’s lost flash drive, planning to mail […]