April 2005 Archives
"The FTP site is like a Bar at 6:00pm on a Friday Night" said my wife about her company's internal FTP server that they use to share documents.
DSW Data Theft Much Larger Than Estimated - Yahoo! News Thieves who accessed a DSW Shoe Warehouse database obtained 1.4 million credit card numbers and the names on those accounts -- 10 times more than investigators estimated last month.It seems like almost every day now there is a story about a database being comprimised and personal financial information being stolen. Identities, Social Security Numbers, Credit Cards, you name it have all been hacked. I would love to say that the industry should self regulate and that the businesses involved should be responsible enough to protect against this themselves, but it is quite obvious that this is not the case. I used to work for a company that provided people locate and background searches for individuals and businesses. Let me tell you that it is scarry the kind of information about you that is floating arround the Ether and for sale. The government needs to regulate this information and protect the citizens of this country. When will enough be enough?
See: Derek's Rantings and Musings: MySQL Licensing Practices, Again
MySQL has had for a long time now a confusing license for their database software. The database is released under the GPL which means it is free software. But according to the MySQL docs, if you are producing any sort of commercial software or application, you cannot use MySQL unless you purchase a Commercial License. This isn't what the GPL says. The GPL allows you to do whatever you want with the software without restriction, the only provision is if you modify the source code that is licensed under the GPL you have to release those modifications back to the community. Running a database does not meet the requirements for source code modification.
MySQL Licensing Policy
- If you distribute a proprietary application in any way, and you are not licensing and distributing your source code under GPL, you need to purchase a commercial license of MySQL
- If you are unsure, we recommend that you buy our cost effective commercial licenses. That is the safest solution. Licensing questions can submitted online for our advice, and we encourage you to refer to the Free Software Foundation or a lawyer as appropriate.
It never ceases to amaze me how stupid some people are. Take this post on CraigsList: I need a hacker (seriously)
I am a nice girl who owes a little too much money to the university i attended. I don't want you to erase my debt, it's mine and I owe it, but because i owe them money, they won't release an official copy of my transcripts, so, I need you to allow an official copy to be mailed, if it's possible, so that I can submit it to another institution and finish my degree. Please let me know if this can be done, or if there are any other options outside of just paying off the $18,000.She obviously hasn't been paying attention to the news and missed this one: Altered Grades Lead to Student's Arrest
A UCSB student is being charged with four felonies after she allegedly stole the identity of two professors and used the information to change her own and several other students' grades, police said.I mean honestly, where do people come up with this stuff. "Umm I know it's against the law, but I will ask you really nice to do it anyways." No wonder you don't have your transcripts, you're obviously a moron.
It looks like I was right when I said that there was no way to save Star Trek Enterprise by paying for it (See: Fans Attempting to Pay for Enterprise).
STARTREK.COM We can not and will not be able to accept funds from viewers to produce Star Trek: Enterprise or any other series.The only way to save this show is to prove that it is viable for the advertisers who are purchasing commercial time on the program. Forget a letter writing campaign to Paramount, send your letters to the advertisers. Let them know you love the show, explain to them that their add dollars have gone to good use and that you are buying their products.
Service Pack 2 for Windows XP has been out and available for quite some time. In typical fashion people at large have put off installing the Service Pack out of fear that things would break. I fall into that category. This goes way back to Windows NT 4.0 days, we had a unwritten rule that we wouldn't install an odd number service pack from Microsoft, don't ask me why, things just ran better that way.
So here I am contimplating installing Windows XP Service Pack 2 on my laptop... Microsoft would say there is nothing wrong with this, but my better judgement seems to tell me otherwise.
The latest Service Pack for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) is all about security, and it's one of the most important service packs ever released. It provides better protection against viruses, hackers, and worms, and includes Windows Firewall, Pop-up Blocker for Internet Explorer, and the new Windows Security Center.I've been reading the success and horror stories trying to see if that will help my decision... But that hasn't seem to helped. So my question for the Ether... is this Service Pack worth installing? Sooner or later I will have to install it, should I be waiting for SP2.5?
A couple of years ago I was involved in a fairly large CRM deployment for a company I worked for. My step-brother was working for Siebel at the time and had some very wise words of wisdom for me...
The failure rate for CRM deployments increases proportional to the amount of customization performed.I have actually found this to be true of any large system deployment, be it CRM, ERP, Financials, HR, etc... What is interesting about this observation is that most large application suite comes 80-90% finished. The rest is left for the vendor/integrator/customer to customize for the specific installation. So does this mean that all installations have an automatic 10-20% failure rate? Not necessarily, you see every vendor and every software package comes with a pre-determined set of assumptions on how the package is going to be used. These assumptions are fundamental to the design of the system and based on how much deviation there is from these assumptions will dictate the failure rate. So with this in mind any company will be confronted with the first decision to make. Build or Buy? This question and decision is really comprised of a series of sub questions and decisions, i.e.:
- Ask yourself if given the specifics of your company and your needs for the application is there a vendor solution that matches exactly what you are looking for and how your business operates?
- If not, how different is the process workflows?
- How much would it cost to customize the application to mimic your organization's process workflow?
- Would that customization cost more or less than building a system from scratch?
- How long would that customization/creation take, is it worth more given the timeline to go one direction vs. another?
What would be involved/what would the cost be to align the process workflow of the organization to the workflow inherent in the leading application suite? Is this cost less than the customization/creation of a system to match your organization?Any vendor worth evaluation for a project like this has done a significant amount of market research, and through this research and their previous deployments has identified the best practices for any particular workflow. So their application is going to be tailored and focused to these best practices, meaning that if you really have that much deviation you are pretty far away from what the best practice is... is that where you want your organization operating? Sooner or later you are going to have to adjust your business, why not sooner? More on this thought will follow...
This has to be a sick joke. Microsoft is going to force an installation of Service Pack 2? There is no way I can block it? People (like me) are going to be incredibly pissed off about this.
Starting next Tuesday, April 12, computers running Microsoft Windows XP without Service Packet 2 installed will not be able to block the upgrade.See: IT Observer - Service Pack 2 Downloads on April 12 Oh and in case you were wondering here is the list of software that Microsoft knows for a fact will not work properly after SP2 is installed.
While researching an application platform I stumbled across a new company (new to me at least) Force10 Networks. Force10 focuses on high density 1Gbit and 10Gbit applications for supercomputing and rendering. I want one of these switches so bad I can taste it. 196 Mpps, argughghagh.
Man, talk about shooting yourself in the foot...
KernelTrap has a lengthy article detailing BitMover's recent decision to drop support for its free version of BitKeeper. Linus Torvalds began using BitKeeper back in February of 2002, a decision that has resulted in frequent flamefests, but also in increased kernel development productivity. Evidently the recent decision was due to OSDL's decision to keep paying a developer who was working on reverse engineering BitKeeper... What tool Linus will move to is still being determined. (via Slashdot)I can't even being to say how much this pisses me off. Larry McVoy created a fantastic tool. One which he rightfully decided that he should make money with to support the people he hired to build it. The decision by BitMover to give this tool to the Linux developers for free, provided that no one took apart their software to figure out how it worked was a fantastic, extremely nice gesture. So what did Larry get in return for doing this? Hate mail. Yep that's right, it wasn't good enough that people could use this great software, he had to give it away to the world and give away his company in order for some people to respect what he did. So what ended up happening? The Linux kernel development community finally pushed him over the edge. Personally I am supprised that it took this long to happen. It's really hard to give someone a gift and be slapped in the face for it. So what happens now for Linux development? Well considering that there isn't an opensource/free tool available that does what BitKeeper does, chances are good that Linus will convert back to the development model that existed pre BitKeeper... and that's no source control, just flat files with patch based revisions. Linus has said for a long time, "build me a good tool and I will use it". For the past three years people have complained about the status-quo and haven't done anything about it. Well, you just got what you wanted. Enjoy.
I really need to lock myself in a room and force myself to program. My main problem is I am decent with Perl/PHP when I am working on a project. As soon as I finish the project and move on to the next thing it's like my brain reclaims the space for something else. I actually feel like Kelly Bundy from a Married With Children episode (where she is studing for a quiz and when she learns too much she forgets her name or something).
The truth of the matter is I have the utmost respect for programmers. Every time I write an application it is the coolest feeling creating something from literally nothing. Today most people take the applications that they use (Windows, Word, Excel, IE/FireFox, AIM, etc...) for granted. For all of you software developers out there, my hat's off to you.
I (like so many others) use Microsoft Outlook for my email, contacts, calendar and task management. Outlook is the killer application for my desktop. As I evaluate productivity applications (CRM, Sales and Marketing, Service Management, etc...) I am constantly looking for the deep integration with Outlook. Why is this important? Outlook provides a conduit for me to communicate with the outside world, organize and track my contacts, schedule and tasks. I use Outlook to sync to and from my Blackberry and my billing system. To put it simply, when my computer is running Outlook is running and I keep tabs on it.
There are some fantastic CRM and Service Management tools available today. While the open source community has some great applications, and there are some wonderful (relatively) inexpensive commercial applications, I have yet to find a tool which allows for the seamless two way communication that I need. Why is this important? Having the same or similar data in multiple places (Email, CRM, Accounting) to some degree is a fact of life with the SMB application suites. Being able to effectively view, understand, and act on this information is critical. The more information that you can evaluate in a shorter amount of time, the more effective you become.
More importantly, I'm fundamentally lazy. I want software and systems to make my life easier, so give me deep integration with Outlook.
Creative Thought
Founded in 2002, Creative Thought, Inc. is a leading provider of comprehensive IT solutions including, network architecture, network security, strategic planning and IT management. Creative Thought develops and manages infrastructure for companies to ensure performance, reliability, security and scalability. The innovative use of technology can help business drive top-line revenue and increase profitability. Creative Thought develops solutions based on real world business models, goals and requirements. We welcome every challenge as an opportunity to develop a new way of applying strategic thinking with creativity and technology to deliver an innovative and effective solution.I have been operating in a kind of stealth mode working hard to complete a series of projects. The relaunch of my businesses (Creative Thought) web site is my first step to announce what I have been working on.
