Wouldn’t a t-shirt (perhaps with a camo pattern) saying “Team Alpha Super Awesome Cool Dynamite Wolf Squadron” be neat? That’s, of course, from the Dreamworks movie “Shrek the Third,” where some of the magical creatures are plotting: Donkey: Alright people, let’s do this thing. Go Team Dynamite! Pinocchio: But I thought we agreed we’d go […]
I’ve received several inquires about the deadlines for the 2008 SD Times 100. That’s the newspaper’s annual recognition of the top innovators and leaders in the software development industry. Winners of the SD Times 100 can include commercial companies, open-source projects and individuals. Leadership doesn’t just mean market share, though that is certainly is an […]
Maybe we’re ready to move beyond the “Revenge of the Sock Puppet” phase of anti-branding.That’s what Ted Bahr, the “B” of BZ Media, writes in his new blog on Foliomag.com. In “Maybe Branding Isn’t Dead,” Ted ponders a possible backlash against the it-must-generate-sales-leads, it-must-be-digital, it-must-be-measurable obsession of Internet advertising. How are you supposed to generate […]
Why settle for 320GB sometime in the indeterminate future, when you can have 450GB right now? Western Digital has repeatedly pushed back shipment of its 320GB 2.5-inch notebook hard drive. When the company announced the WD3200BEVT drive a month ago, they said it was shipping immediately. Then it would be shipping in a week, and […]
The Capability Immaturity Model was described today in an article by Mike Bohlmann (pictured). In “Best Practices: Are Your Company’s Processes Mature,” he writes, In the CIMM, there are four levels in which an organization can fail at establishing processes both passively and actively. These may help you in identifying and communicating just what keeps […]
As most of my friends and colleagues know, I’m an e-mail person. In the time it takes me to listen to one voicemail message, I can delete dozens of e-mails. Maybe hundreds. When you receive as many messages as I do (and as many people in the media do), efficiency is everything. The most time-wasting […]
I’m embarrassed that I never wrote about Alexa’s new CD, “Vagabundeo,” which came out over the summer. (I previously blogged her first disc, Jazzmérica.) Here’s the review I wrote for it on Amazon: This CD is wonderful. Even more than her first CD, Jazzmerica, it shows how comfortable Alexa is singing in a wide variety […]
I am consistently amazed at how comfortable my Steelcase Think office chair is. For years, my back had been sore and stiff if I sat in front of my computer for more than an hour or so. In early 2005, I mentioned that to a friend, and he said, duh, buy a better chair. I […]
So, let’s start at the foundational level: 100% code coverage is a fallacious goal. Unit testing is designed to provide two principal benefits: 1) validate the operation of code; 2) create sensors that can detect when code operation has changed, thereby identifying unanticipated effects of code changes. There is no point in writing tests that […]
A friend received this curious phishing message, reproduced below verbatim. Subject: END OF YEAR AWARD 2007 PUBLICATION RESULT BONAZAA! FROM STAATSLOTERIJ INTERNATIONAL B.V AWARD DEPARTMENT. MAARSHOF,3064HA,HILVERSUM,THE NETHERLANDS. This email is to notify you that your Email Address attached to a Number(106912) has won an Award Sum of $1,000.000.00) (One Milliom Dollears) In an E-mail Sweepstakes […]
Right after EclipseWorld 2007, my newsreader pulled down a story by Darryl K. Taft, a reporter for eWeek, who covered the Total Eclipse panel in a Nov. 7 story. This panel had some great conversation and insights from Eclipse Foundation’s Mike Milinkovich, Object Mentor’s Bob Martin, and CodeGear’s David Intersimone. I blogged Darryl’s story on […]
I was recently asked to advise local lay leaders about the sorts of things that a church or synagogue should have on its Web site. Here’s a short essay written in response. I hope this is interesting for other local-area non-profits as well. 1. Broad buy-in and lots of contributors — not just from techie […]
It’s hard to believe that it’s been two months since we announced FutureTest 2008. That’s our thought-provoking symposium for senior leaders in enterprise test/QA, as well as top executives in test/QA product and service companies. We have an incredible group of nine keynote speakers: • Security in an Insecure World, by Gary McGraw• Analyze the […]
I think the One Laptop Per Child nitiative is a great idea. I just hope it survives. The idea of a $100-or-so laptop for the developing world is important. Nicholas Negroponte is a brilliant visionary. He demonstrated that time and again at the MIT Media Lab, and he demonstrated it against with the OLPC initiative. […]
Why would you embed a video in a Web page that’s been reformatted for printing? You need rich text, certainly. Ads and graphics, yes, that makes sense too. How about an embedded video playback window? That’s just stupid. But that’s what The Wall Street Journal does. I acme across an interesting article on wsj.com about […]
I’m a huge Carlos Santana fan, and have nearly all of his albums. So, when Arista Records announced yet another collection – Ultimate Santana – it barely registered on my radar. Why buy a collection when you’ve got the albums? Tina Turner. That’s why. One of my favorite recent Santana songs is “The Game of […]
I was rather dismayed by a story on CNN.com this week. Mary Lorenz wrote a story in its “career” section that excused flaky employees as free spirits with untapped creativity to contribute. Well, perhaps I’m too corporate, but that’s new-age nonsense. The article, “Are you the flaky employee?,” defines flaky people as those who have […]
According to a spokesperson for Western Digital, the new 2.5-inch 320GB hard drives — which I wrote about on Nov. 2 — will be available the last week of November. This is a delay from the announcement on Oct. 31, when the company said the drives were available immediately in Western Digital’s online store. >> […]
It wasn’t the easiest of births, but this week, CodeGear — the tools division of Borland — turned one year old. Borland had been flailing around. One minute their execs were saying that tools were important, the next minute they were irrelevant. One day they were spinning off their tools because they were a distraction, […]
I’m delighted to announce a major new launch for BZ Media: Systems Management News, which will debut in April 2008. If you’re familiar with BZ Media’s SD Times, then you’re already familiar with our flavor of management-level news and news analysis. But where SD Times is written for software development managers, Systems Management News will […]
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the “One Laptop Per Child” program has a short-time offer: Donate one of their XO laptops to a needy child, and get one for yourself, for $399. Normally the devices are intended purely for donation, but for us technical folks, there’s a definite benefit to seeing and […]
My antivirus software blocked this malware carrier’s payload, but I enjoyed reading the message. You think they’d at least run spellcheck. Dear Bzmedia Member, We have temporarily suspended your email account. This might be due to either of the following reasons: 1. A recent change in your personal information (i.e. change of address). 2. Submiting […]
I bought the black version of the “No, I will not fix your computer” T-shirt from ThinkGeek over the summer, and wore it on my most recent visit to BZ Media’s NY headquarters office. I’m not sure if my point got across, but at least it generated a few laughs. The shirt’s next appearances will […]
I fought the hackers, and the hackers won. Here’s the story: One of our employees had a nice Dell Latitude D610 laptop, and it was totally messed up – running super-slow, lots of crashes, adware popups in the browser, and so-on. Because this was a huge productivity problem for a key employee, we solved it […]
Here’s the opening of a public relations pitch that I received a few moments ago: Hi Alan, Your publication is dedicated to providing readers with engaging and timely information about technology advances that can increase efficiencies throughout their enterprise and supply chain. I was wondering if you would be interested in the attached press release […]
I can’t let the approval of the National Information Standards Organization’s Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative by the American National Standards Institute pass without playing with the acronyms. To put it more succinctly, ANSI loves NISO SUSHI. SUSHI is described as defining “an automated request and response model for the harvesting of electronic resource usage […]
Darryl Taft, a reporter for eWeek.com, wrote a very nice summary of the Total Eclipse panel at EclipseWorld 2007. The panel, which had Eclipse Foundation’s Mike Milinkovich, Object Mentor’s Bob Martin, and CodeGear’s David Intersimone, was on Tuesday evening, Nov. 6. I have only two minor quibbles with Darryl’s otherwise great story. • Darryl (pictured) […]
Greetings from EclipseWorld 2007. I’m delighted that the conference gets better every year. If you’re here, of course, you know what I’m talking about. If you weren’t able to make it, all I can say is: Bummer. Mark your calendar now for EclipseWorld 2008, Oct. 28-30, in Reston, Va. Earlier this week, International Data Corp. […]
The BBC News runs the most wonderful stories. I’d have thought the following to be urban legends, were it not for today’s BBC News story “UK chooses ‘most ludicrous laws’ ” where I learned: • It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.• Only a clerk in a tropical fish store has permission […]
Here I am at EclipseWorld, staying in the Hyatt Regency Reston, just outside Washington, D.C. It’s a giant 15-storey hotel, very posh, very nice. Last week I stayed at two smaller hotels, a Fairfield Inn by Marriott and a Homewood Suites by Hilton. There are things that I like betters about big, modern hotels, and […]