Dirty little secrets of IT. In this week's InfoWorld column (jumping into the column in medias res): Because your servers are hidden away in a datacenter and software is just plain ephemeral, the dirty little secrets of your IT department generally remain hidden from view — but, oh, they can be ugly. [full story] I've shown… Continue reading Dirty little secrets of IT
Author: Vince Kimball
Dirty little IT secret #1
Dirty little IT secret #1. A CTO of a public company (who shall go unnamed for obvious reasons) wrote to me to note that a key system of his was running on a really old Sun box with a custom install of Oracle with no support, no documentation, and no root access. He took the… Continue reading Dirty little IT secret #1
Dirty little IT secret #2
Dirty little IT secret #2. Another response to my recent column, this one from a person I'll call “Bedeviled in the Basement”: First off, let me say I'm happy to have read your article. Now I know that my company isn't the only one who has Daily Prayer listed as one of our security measures… Continue reading Dirty little IT secret #2
Report Offered Bleak Outlook About Iraq Oil
Report Offered Bleak Outlook About Iraq Oil. The findings of a secret government task force established last fall contradicted the Bush administration's assertion that Iraq's oil wealth would pay rebuilding costs. By Jeff Gerth. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
War profiteering
War profiteering. Here's a Krugman column on the sordid war profiteering and cronyism in the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq construction. He compares and contrasts it with the reconstruction of Europe by the Marshall Plan. [Ceejbot]
Palast on the California recall
Palast on the California recall. Gregory Palast writes about the Ahnold/Enron connection that means that California would lose the $8 billion dollars that Enron & other energy companies stole from us if the recall succeeds and the Austrian bodybuilder is elected. I think Palast's writing style works against his points, and contributes to his journalism… Continue reading Palast on the California recall
Joe over at Microsoft Monitor weblogs talks about how Microsoft is missing the weblog product boat
Joe over at Microsoft Monitor weblogs talks about how Microsoft is missing the weblog product boat. Hey, I'm happy that we're missing that boat. I'd rather that Microsoft focus on making the best platform to build weblogging tools on top of! Why does Microsoft need to do everything? I'd like to see Microsoft do less… Continue reading Joe over at Microsoft Monitor weblogs talks about how Microsoft is missing the weblog product boat
You know, that was a big idea I just had. I think I'll tell the MSN team this:
Wanna build a great weblog service? Start a weblog first, put your plans up there, and then boot strap it. Explain your design choices to the world. Explain what your business goals are. Explain your assumptions.
Bootstrap the process! Don't play typical Microsoft and go off in a dark room, spend millions of dollars, come out with a “big product” like Microsoft Bob, and disappear into the black room again.
Start a weblog. Do the entire thing in public view. Help your customers design your software. Imagine that kind of world!
Then, when you launch, I bet you already will have hundreds of interesting, committed bloggers. Plus, you'll have a bug free product.
Could Microsoft design products like this in public view? I wonder. [The Scobleizer Weblog
You know, that was a big idea I just had. I think I'll tell the MSN team this: Wanna build a great weblog service? Start a weblog first, put your plans up there, and then boot strap it. Explain your design choices to the world. Explain what your business goals are. Explain your assumptions. Bootstrap… Continue reading
You know, that was a big idea I just had. I think I'll tell the MSN team this:
Wanna build a great weblog service? Start a weblog first, put your plans up there, and then boot strap it. Explain your design choices to the world. Explain what your business goals are. Explain your assumptions.
Bootstrap the process! Don't play typical Microsoft and go off in a dark room, spend millions of dollars, come out with a “big product” like Microsoft Bob, and disappear into the black room again.
Start a weblog. Do the entire thing in public view. Help your customers design your software. Imagine that kind of world!
Then, when you launch, I bet you already will have hundreds of interesting, committed bloggers. Plus, you'll have a bug free product.
Could Microsoft design products like this in public view? I wonder. [The Scobleizer Weblog
Principles Of XP
Principles Of XP. Every XP aficionado knows about the 4 values and 12 practices, but how many people know about the 15 principles? I'll confess I didn't when Kent talked about them at JAOO last week. After the talk I asked Kent about them: “were they in the White Book“. “Yes”, he replied, “cunningly hidden… Continue reading Principles Of XP
Bray on zombies
Bray on zombies. Bray on zombies: Hiawatha Bray has an overview of the current vulnerability of the entire net to compromised machines that can communicate with us: “Chris Wysopal, a research scientist at the Cambridge Internet security firm At Stake Inc., said a large and growing number of zombies reside in living rooms… Indeed, Julian said,… Continue reading Bray on zombies