Nominations are open for the fifth annual Testers Choice Awards, given out by Software Test & Performance Magazine.

The award comprises categories encompassing the range of tools designed to improve software quality.

The arbiters of excellence are Software Test & Performance subscribers, who vote on products in specific categories. The Testers Choice awards will consist of a winner and two finalists from each category as well as the year’s Grand Prize winner.

Here’s how the process works:

• Nominations opened on May 5, and close on June 13. There are no limits to the number of products that may be nominated, or on the number of categories into which a product may be nominated. There will be a processing fee for each nomination.

• Online voting opens on July 1, close on July 30. Only qualified subscribers to Software Test & Performance may vote.

• Winners will be announced at the Software Test & Performance Conference Fall 2008, Sept. 24-26, 2008, in Boston.

• The winners will be published in the Nov. 2008 issue of Software Test & Performance.

The Testers Choice Awards are the most trusted awards in software testing, performance management and software quality assurance. Submit your nominations today!

I’m delighted to unveil the SD Times Job Board, the newest feature of SDTimes.com.

• It’s difficult for companies to locate the right software developers and development managers.

• It’s hard for job-seekers to find the best opportunity to use their talents while leveraging their experience.

The new SD Times Job Board connects employers and potential employees to find the right career fit.

The SD Times Job Board includes a Job Alert system that notifies job seekers by e-mail of new job opportunities that match their search criteria and an Anonymous Resume Bank that lets job seekers list their experience and qualifications in a protected environment.

By giving both active and passive job seekers the ability to anonymously post their resumes, this service allows job seekers to stay connected to the employment market while maintaining full control of their confidential information. In return, employers have the option to pay only for the resumes that are a good fit for their job opportunity with the Pay-Per-Resume feature.

Check it out!

We still have some users on Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac. From time to time — generally after a restart or a fresh login — there’s a huge delay when launching Word.

The message that Word displays, in the splash graphic, is “Optimizing font menu performance…”

Depending on the speed of your machine’s processor, and the number of fonts installed, this can take literally four or five minutes on an older machine.

This is done because Word offers rich WYSIWYG font menus in the Formatting Palette, so you can see what fonts look like, as well as the font name. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Word 2004 reads and processes every installed font in order to pre-build that WYSIWIG menu upon startup. That can take a long time, and because that process is both CPU-intensive and I/O-intensive, many older Macs are rendered unusable while this happens.

Here’s how to eliminate that annoying delay:

• Make sure you have a document open
• Select Word -> Preferences…
• In the preferences pane, select General
• Uncheck the box marked “WYSIWYG font and style menus”
• Press OK

Now, Word 2004 will start almost instantly each time.

Have you noticed that United Airlines doesn’t use the “Friendly Skies” slogan any more? No wonder.

The company does a lot of things now that aren’t great for customers. For example, now you have to pay to get a seat with an extra couple of inches of legroom… at rates ranging from $14 to $109 or more, each way.

And now they’ve changed their frequent-flier program, called Mileage Plus, to take away some of the benefits of taking short flights. It used to be that you accrued miles on Mileage Plus based on how many miles each flight segment was… but if you had a short flight segment of less than 500 miles, they rounded it up to 500. So, if I flew from San Francisco to Los Angeles for a connection, that counted as a 500 mile trip.

AccruedMiles = Max(ActualMiles, 500)

As of July 1, that’s changing to

AccruedMiles = ActualMiles

Or as the company puts it,

To ensure that Mileage Plus miles earned toward elite status and award travel on United are aligned with actual miles flown, we are revising our base accrual policy. Beginning July 1, 2008, for flights of less than 500 miles, passengers will earn redeemable miles equal to the actual miles flown. Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) will also be awarded based on actual miles. Elite Qualifying Segments (EQS) are not affected.

This new mileage accrual structure will apply to travel on or after July 1, 2008, regardless of when the travel was ticketed. Flights of less than 500 miles flown on or before June 30, 2008, will accrue Mileage Plus miles under the previous policy of a minimum mileage accrual per individual segment flown.

United just gets less friendly every day. See my comments in February about the new carry-on luggage restrictions.

XBRL is one of the most interesting XML schemas, and the use of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language is probably going to become required by publicly traded companies.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is meeting today to discuss whether to mandate the use of XBRL to file their financial disclosures. This program has been going on, in a volunteer way, since April 2005.

The results of this trial have been outstanding: the reports are easier to file by companies, easier to interpret by the SEC, and easier to understand by analysts, regulators and shareholders.

For example, the SEC now has a “Financial Explorer” up on its Web site. According to the SEC, the application’s “interactive data pinpoints all of the facts and figures trapped inside dense financial documents. It allows you to immediately get the information you want, and instantly work with it. For example, you can compare this year’s information to performance in past years (both through raw numbers and visual diagrams) or drill down into how a company arrived at a given number – however you wish to slice and dice the data.”

Earlier this month, the SEC finalized its taxonomy for U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. With that done, today’s SEC meeting is set to discuss whether to require that companies file their financial statements using XBRL – and if so, what the schedule will be for implementing a transition to XBRL-only filings.

In their next meeting, on May 21, the SEC will consider whether mutual funds will have to file their risk/return summaries in XBRL as well.

If you work for a publicly traded company, and you’re not up to speed on XBRL – it’s time to hit the books.

As discussed yesterday (“HP may be buying EDS“), Hewlett-Packard has indeed entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Electronic Data Systems for $25/share, or $13.9 billion.

To quote from the official release,

HP intends to establish a new business group, to be branded EDS – an HP company, which will be headquartered at EDS’s existing executive offices in Plano, Texas. HP plans that EDS will continue to be led after the deal closes by EDS Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Ronald A. Rittenmeyer, who will join HP’s executive council and report to Mark Hurd, HP’s chairman and chief executive officer.

The goal, as discussed yesterday, is to help HP capture a larger share of services revenue than it gets already. Frankly, the company has been leaving a lot of money on the table — money, that in some cases, its partners and resellers have been picking up. More of that revenue will now accrue right to HP.

To quote from the release again,

Acquiring EDS advances HP’s stated objective of strengthening its services business. The specific service offerings delivered by the combined companies are: IT outsourcing, including data center services, workplace services, networking services and managed security; business process outsourcing, including health claims, financial processing, CRM and HR outsourcing; applications, including development, modernization and management; consulting and integration; and technology services. The combination will provide extensive experience in offering solutions to customers in the areas of government, healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, energy, transportation, communications, and consumer industries and retail.

With this deal, much comes down to execution. It’s clear that HP chief executive honcho Mark Hurd (pictured) is better at execution than his predecessor, Carly Fiorina. Let’s see if he can pull this one off. The market is clearly not optimistic: HP fell 5% yesterday on the rumor, and another 5% today.

Big Blue’s biggest weapon has long been its services arm. As the saying goes, when you buy enterprise “solutions” from IBM, the bulk of the sale is the van full of services folks with packed suitcases, ready to move into your office for good. Just hand over your checkbook. Good luck getting rid of the services squad.

IBM Global Services differentiates IBM from, say, Microsoft, which sells its software through the channel, leaving the lucrative services business for partners. In a few cases, as with its Avenade joint venture with Accenture, Microsoft does capture some of the revenue, but otherwise, Microsoft doesn’t play in that world.

Hewlett-Packard is another Big Blue competitor that just doesn’t measure up when it comes to services and service revenue. Eight years ago, HP almost bought Pricewaterhouse Coopers, but the deal fell though. (IBM snapped up PwC a couple of years later.)

Now, apparently, HP is ready to try again by buying EDS, as reported by Reuters and other sources. To quote from Reuters:

Hewlett-Packard Co is in talks to buy technology outsourcing company Electronic Data Systems Corp for $12 billion to $13 billion, seeking to better compete with the top computer services company, IBM.

The acquisition would be HP’s biggest since its $19 billion acquisition of Compaq in 2002. News of the talks, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, sent shares of EDS soaring nearly 28 percent, taking its market value to about $12 billion.

HP shares fell nearly 5 percent amid some skepticism that slow-growing EDS would provide more than a one-time boost, and might not be worth a premium of as much as 37 percent.

HP admits, by the way, that it’s in talks with EDS:

HP today confirmed that it is engaged in advanced discussions with Electronic Data Systems Corporation regarding a possible business combination involving the two companies. There can be no assurances that an agreement will be reached or that a transaction will be consummated. HP does not intend to comment further until an agreement is reached or discussions are terminated.

To me, this doesn’t seem like a good deal. But then again, I’m skeptical about HP’s ability to full advantage of large acquisitions. HP never achieved the value it could have from the Compaq fiasco, and the jury is still out as to whether HP and Mercury Interactive are better off a single company. Certainly, Mercury’s competitors remain delighted about the acquisition — and the amount of business they picked up because of it.

Not.

A friend found this posting on San Francisco’s Craig’s List. I wonder which publishing company is advertising for someone to turn press release chutney into faux journalism, at $30 per “story.” I hope it’s nobody I know.

Headline: Re-writes of Press Releases into articles

We need someone to re-write about 30 press releases into short articles. Subject matter will be Enterprise Software Integration ie SOA, ESB, BPM, SOA Governance etc.

We will select the Press Releases – articles should be 300 words.

Please send note with experience and writing samples about Software Integration or related subjects.

How many of you were early adopters of the Mac? I came in on the second wave, with my first being the Mac SE, which came out in 1987 – three years after the original Macintosh release. It’s fun to look back at how the graphical user interface, called Finder, evolved.

At that time, there was no mainstream GUI for IBM PC compatibles, as what we now call Windows PCs were termed. (The fact the machines ceased being identified with IBM, and became identified instead with Microsoft, demonstrates how badly Big Blue botched the whole thing. (Today, of course, IBM doesn’t even sell Windows PCs, though they do make PowerPC-based IntelliStations, which offer “server-inspired performance in deskside workstations.”)

Although Windows 1.0 appeared in 1985, and the vastly better Windows 2.0 in 1987, DOS GUIs were niche products until Windows 3.1 came out in 1992, and then of course Windows 95 clinched the deal a few years later.

If you want to see how much different the Mac user interface is today from its forebears, check out Prince McLean’s article from Apple Insider, “The Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Finder 10.5.” The milestones he details were so important. MultiFinder was a biggie, as any Machead would remember.

My son, who adores everything Japanese, is particularly fond of the new flavor of A1 steak sauce, Kobe Sesame Teriyaki. When he emptied the bottle last week, my wife and I promised to get him another bottle.

Easier said than done, if you’d like the sauce to be within its sell-by date. That’s what we learned this afternoon, when we set off on the Great
Teriyaki Steak Sauce Hunt.

• The first grocery store we tried, a Mollie Stones in San Bruno, Calif., didn’t carry the sauce at all.

• Next, we visited a Safeway store in Millbrae, which had it listed on the shelf tag, but none in stock.

• We tried the Safeway in Burlingame. It had plenty of bottles… but they all expired in January 2008. We told a store clerk; he removed the bottles, and advised us to check back in a few days for fresh stock.

• Finally, we went to the Lucky store in Millbrae. They had lots of bottles, too — but the first few we saw had expired in October 2007. Then we found one that expired in June 2007! Behind all of them was a single bottle that was good through September 2008. We bought it. (We showed the expired bottles to the customer service manager, and she was livid and very apologetic.)

Amazing, eh? We find expired products in major grocery stores all the time, but this was quite a coincidence.

The moral of the story: Always check the expiration date of goods that you buy, every container, every time.

Update: I went to Kraft’s A1 Steak Sauce Web site, to link it to this post. Kraft doesn’t list the Kobe Sesame Teriyaki flavor. Maybe it’s been discontinued.

I like RFID. I don’t like that the new passports issued by the United States, the European Union and other countries have radio-frequency identification chips.

I first wrote about this in November 2006, and in “Passports in lead foil” recommended shielding such important documents in an RFID-blocking enclosure.

During the opening general session at this year’s JavaOne, James Gosling alluded to the problem very clearly. While praising how JavaOne uses RFID chips to count the attendees in crowded classrooms, he decried their use in passports: “Hi, I’m an American. Can you detonate the closest device?”

Thanks, James, for raising the visibility of this issue. Not that it’s going to do any good. RFID is undoubtedly here to stay.

Fortunately, RFID-shielded passport holders are now readily available. For example, here’s one on Amazon.com for only $19.99.

I’ve been sick as a dog since Wednesday night, and I think I know why. This disturbing message came in today from the JavaOne conference folks:

The JavaOne conference team has been notified by the San Francisco Department of Public Health about an identified outbreak of a virus in the San Francisco area. Testing is still underway to identify the specific virus in question, but they believe it to be the Norovirus, a common cause of the “stomach flu”, which can cause temporary flu-like symptoms for up to 48 hours. Part of the San Francisco area impacted includes the Moscone Center, the site of the JavaOne conference which is being held this week. We are working with the appropriate San Francisco Department of Public Health and Moscone representatives to mitigate the impact this will have on the conference and steps are being taken overnight to disinfect the facility. We have not received any indication that the show should end early, so will have the full schedule of events on Friday as planned. We hope to see you then.

Read the public health notice for people at Moscone Center, from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, dated May 8.

A lot of companies see the value of blogs to communicate with customers, with partners, with investors, with the media and with the world at large. At BZ Media, Ted Bahr and I both have blogs — his is on Folio, and of course, this is mine.

The most famous IT company with an executive blog is Sun Microsystems, where Jonathan Schwartz writes regularly. It’s fair to say that he’s breaking new ground in this area.

According to a story in Workforce Management’s May 2008 issue, about 11 percent of Fortune 500 companies have corporate blogs. By contrast, that was about 4 percent at the end of 2005.

How are companies handling blogs? The name of Workforce Management’s article makes it plain: “Chief Blogging Officer Title Catching On With Corporations.“

To quote from the story, it’s not about the title, it’s about what the blog says. And how it says it.

While the title of chief blogger is seductive, analysts and industry insiders said the title shouldn’t be the focus. What’s essential is the brand voice, whether it comes from one chief blogger (such as vice chairman Bob Lutz on General Motors’ FastLane Blog or CEO Jonathan Schwartz on Sun Microsystems’ Jonathan’s Blog) or a group working together, such as those on Southwest and Wal-Mart’s blogs.

No one is saying that a chief blogger or blog voice is right for all brands. Bloggers and analysts said companies that want to blog should identify a specific reason to do so, such as to humanize the company (like Microsoft), make the company more open (like Dell) or advance the fun-and-happy company image (like Southwest).

Transparency and open communications are good things. A customer-facing corporate blog can be wonderful, as long as it’s not just a way to distribute corporate speeches, canned marketing messages and press releases in a different format.

Adobe’s Photoshop Express service has been in beta for some time. I was surprised and delighted to see this email come in from Adobe yesterday afternoon, via its public relations agency, AR-Edelman. This type of candor is far too rare in our industry, and deserves to be praised:

I would like to provide you with the following statement from the Adobe Photoshop Express Team:

“As you know, we were preparing updates to the Photoshop Express beta on May 7th that added significant new functionality to the product. However, prior to going live, we discovered a bug that requires a fix. We’re committed to delivering a quality experience with Photoshop Express and don’t want to send out an update that isn’t ready for prime time. We’re working on a quick resolution. Stay tuned — we’ll have an exact time frame on when you can expect these new Photoshop Express features soon.”

— Adobe Photoshop Express Team

Thank you, Adobe, for being honest! Most companies would have just glossed over it.

>> Update 5/9: Adobe now reports: “We’re happy to report we have successfully fixed the bug that slightly delayed our newest feature update for the Photoshop Express beta. New updates are now publicly available.”