Posted by dj as Commentary at 11:59 PM PST []
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November 30th, 2009
Protected: Type Daddy’s Name 5
I Have Never Forgotten You
This is a moving documentary about Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. Before the war he was an architect, with good graphic design skills and a sense of humor. When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, they would not let him work in his chosen profession, live where wanted or practice his religion. During the war he survived several concentration camps with brutal working conditions on projects designed to break people. Near death, he was liberated at Mauthausen by the US Army in 1945. He helped Allied forces gather and organize detailed documentation and witnesses to bring Nazis to justice in the Nuremburg war crime trials.
He is most famous for helping capture Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. I’ve often wondered what Eichmann was thinking. Was his job just a career move with some collateral damage? Did he think that if he moved far enough away that his crimes would go away? Did he think destroying the lives of others was without consequence? Did he think those who barely survived would not come looking for him? It took twenty years, but he was brought to trial in Israel.
Another case was camp guard Hermine Braunsteiner, who moved to suburban America and tried hide what she had done. She thought it was over and she was safe. Wiesenthal was patient and someone talked, as they always do. Now it was her turn for that knock on the door, that tap on the shoulder. When cornered by New York Times reporter Joe Lilyveld she astoundingly played the victim, saying “This is never going to end.” A woman who had been wrong about everything was for once right about that. She did not feel it necessary to apologize. The court showed more mercy than she ever gave. She was deported and sent to a West German jail.
Mrs. Wiesenthal said being married to her husband was like being married to millions of dead people who fought to be remembered. The bad guys tried to drive him from his home, his office, from public life. He would not be intimidated. He just dug in and kept going. He said “A soldier stays on the battlefield.” Expected to die in middle age by the Nazis, he was driven to remind the world of what had happened and died in his nineties.
Today the defense of human rights and prosecution of genocide owes a great deal to Simon Wiesenthal.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
November 29th, 2009
Nov. 29, 2009 Blumbers
Dubious Dubai Debt
There’s been a market crash in Dubai. Gee, pouring money into islands shaped like palm trees and ski resorts in the desert didn’t seem like a good idea? Pardon my schadenfreude.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Posted by dj as Blumbers, Commentary at 4:56 PM PST []
November 28th, 2009
The Men Who Stare At Goats
By Jon Ronson
Brought to you by a man who stares at media. I read the silly book and saw the goofy movie about the US Army’s attempts at psychic warfare over the past thirty years. I don’t know what to believe but it was a wild ride. George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Ewan McGregor give broad performances that cannot help but make you laugh.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
November 27th, 2009
Scrappy Information Security
The Easy Way To Keep The Cyberwolves At Bay
By Michael Seese
This is a sensible Ohio man who decided there would always be work in computer security. I don’t want to give anything away, but there are whole sections dealing with Microsoft Windows and very few for Apple Macintoshes.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
November 26th, 2009
Nov. 26, 2009 Thanksgiving
I’m having the typical 21st century Thanksgiving dinner of curry, burritos, tofu, ribs and turkey and organic local fruits and vegetables. May you have a happy holiday.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Posted by dj as Commentary at 4:52 PM PST []
November 25th, 2009
The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind
Creating Currents Of Electricity And Hope
By William Kawkwamba and Bryan Mealer
A poor kid grows up in Malawi village hunting and farming without plumbing or electricity. He is curious about technology but does not have access to good schools. His country is beset with drought, famine, floods, disease and political corruption. As his family slowly starves to death he comes up with an idea that saves them all. He goes to a library, studies pictures in science books and figures out out how to make a windmill that generates electricity.
I read this book and knew that somebody somewhere in the world will find solutions to the problems we face. They will need access to information. They need an education. This is an inspiring story that should be told far and wide. Highly recommended.
P.S. Is you ever wonder if illustrations in technical documentation are important, this book drives it home. I regularly meet people from other countries who are happy I’ve put graphics in my documentation. Hire an illustrator, it might make a difference in someone’s life.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
November 24th, 2009
Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do
And What it Says About Us
By Tom Vanderbilt
If you spend your life in traffic, read this book, just not while you are driving. If you took every car off the road, there would still be traffic. Ask anyone on a crowded subway. It is not the mode of transportation, it is the sheer number of people using a limited space that creates congestion. The problem is that we are driving very large vehicles at speeds faster than our senses can accurately depend on. Without radar or robotic controls we are at the mercy of everyone else’s driving skills. Vanderbilt argues that in some ways engineers have made driving so easy that drivers think they can use their phones or even text. Slow down and pay attention. I highly recommend this book.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
November 23rd, 2009
Nov. 19, 2009 Astia Awards
On November 19, 2009 at the Presidio Golden Gate Club in San Francisco, Astia presented the Fifth Annual Astia Global Awards sponsored by Fenwick & West LLP and Deloitte. They honored Venrock, Index Ventures and Quaker BioVentures for their investment in exceptional women innovators, their investors and mentors.
Kara Swisher, Wall Street Journal and D: All Things Digital, was master of ceremonies.
The Diversified Portfolio Award went to firm with the greatest percentage of investments in woman CEOs or founders: US Firm – Quaker Bioventures.
The Shattered Glass Award and Breaking The Barriers Award went to the US firm with the greatest number of investments in female CEO’s: Venrock. “Venrock collaborates with high quality entrepreneurs whose breakthrough ideas have the ability to charter new advancements in technology, healthcare, digital media and energy, “ said Venrock partner, Ray Rothrock. “We are honored and delighted to be presented with two Astia Awards for Venrock’s investment in pioneering women who have built top-notch companies, including Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Apoptos , BlogHer, Boston Power, Celladon, CrossLoop and Slideshare.”
The Technology Innovators Award went to Eva Chen, CEO and Co-founder, Trend Micro nominated by Diane Greene, Founder of VMWare.
Life Science Innovators Award went to Chris Meda, CEO and President, Arcxis Biotechnologies nominated by Dr. Anula Jayasuriya of Evolvence India Life Sciences Fund.
Clean Tech Innovators Award went to Kelly Smith, CTO and Co-founder, Pasteuria Bioscience nominated by Pam Marrone of Marrone Bio Innovations.
Deloitte Leadership in Mentoring Award went to Anula Jayasuriya MD, PhD, MBA, Managing Director, Evolvence India Life Sciences Fund and Astia Board of Trustees.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Posted by dj as Commentary at 12:45 PM PST []
November 22nd, 2009
Nov. 22, 2009 Blumbers
Going Mobile
I’ve been putting this off, but it is time to consider a redesign of this site. In particular because so many readers are viewing it through iPhones and other mobile devices. Thinking about how a website appears on different browsers now must be also be balanced with different devices. I’d love to hear from anyone who has done this successfully..
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Posted by dj as Blumbers, Commentary at 4:55 PM PST []
November 21st, 2009
Housepix3
Many people are having trouble selling their homes online. I think some of it may be the pictures they use. Here are some more examples people send to me.
Black Leather
To paraphrase Eric Clapton “In the white room with black leather at the station…” Obviously this is one guy who got the house after the divorce. I like the large black rear projection television which sits like the monolith in Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Fern Corner
Nothing stages a room better than houseplants, except this lonely fern which looks like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.
Wall Piano
I’m not sure, but is that some kind of piano themed clock hanging on the wall? Do you get a little sonata chime every hour?
Plywood Windows
I have to admit while those plywood windows keep out sunlight they also keep out attacking zombies. As long as the aren’t zombie termites… with chainsaws. RRrrrRRRR…
Spiral Staircase
A spiral staircase takes up less space but a fireman’s pole would take up even less. Besides you get dizzy sliding down the bannister.
It’s nice to see the water heater is in the kitchen, but shouldn’t it be closer to the sink than the stove?
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Posted by dj as Humor at 6:10 PM PST []
November 20th, 2009
Cheverolet Corvair Sighting
I was stuck in traffic last week and saw this parked in front of me. It looks like a 1963 Corvair. The engine is in the back like VW Beetle. This was the car featured in Ralph Nader’s book “Unsafe At Any Speed”. It was odd to see such a car still on the road when General Motors may be gone soon. Anyone who can correctly identify the year of the vehicle can contact me.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Posted by dj as Commentary at 4:48 PM PST []
November 19th, 2009
Clouds, Castles And Making the Call
Computer Castles
Some people dream of castles in the clouds and others live in them. Smart people rent.
I’ve just gone through several days of cloud training and I am trying to get some perspective on it. I’m always looking for the story, the analogy, the metaphor to explain this to outsiders. To paraphrase Quentin Tarentino’s film Pulp Fiction, I thought I would go all medieval on it. It is a story of control and commerce.
Fifty years ago computer information was protected and available to very few. You went to an engineer in a machine room with a mainframe. There was an elaborate ceremony where you had to ask the right question the right way and even then you weren’t sure you had the right answer. It was expensive and slow. To me, these were the days of the priesthood and the castle. Outside the safe walls were chaos and ignorance.
Twenty five years ago personal computers were available to more people. You could get limited answers on limited machines using limited operating systems. Moving information was difficult and expensive. I think of this as the late middle ages. Castles provided areas of safety and trading fairs sprang up. The fairs gave way to permanent towns outside castles.
Now the web and cloud computing provide easy and cheap access to storage and processing. You can get virtually any information anywhere and anytime you want. To me this is the Renaissance. There is such a need for information and commerce that the walls (firewalls?) around the towns (datacenters?) must simply come down. City walls are no longer practical to protect your valuable information. You can keep something really valuable encrypted in the equivalent of a safe, but mostly you will be out in the world with a bag of coins purchasing what you need to run your business. In order to reach your customers you must get out of your castle.
Making the Call
Here is another analogy. A hundred years ago you had to have a human operator to make a physical switch to complete a phone call. It was expensive and slow. Fifty years ago phone companies began automating switching and you could dial direct without an operator. You had to dial a bunch of numbers and it was still somewhat expensive. Today the communication process is so automated you can call someone by clicking on one button. You can find out things with a phone you could not dream of a hundred years ago. Cloud computing automates things to the point where you do not have to have a team of system administrators or rooms of servers at your company.
Who is going to succeed in this new environment? The people who tear down their institutional walls the fastest and get the most business. The ones that can cut their expenses and communicate directly with their customers. Clouds can do that. You can do that.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Posted by dj as Commentary at 4:26 PM PST []
November 18th, 2009
Nov. 18, 2009 HyperStratus Rightscale Cloud Class
On November 16, 2009 in Fremont at Unitek College, HyperStratus Stratos Learning held “Workshop on Cloud Computing” with Hyperstratus CTO Jorge Noa enlightening Bill Bucci of Berico Technologies, Ron Rose of Point of Presence, John Souchak and Chris Fowler of Rightscale. I’ve now got a documentation as thick as a phone book and a 2GB flash drive full of information about cloud computing. As long as you have a browser, a good internet connection and a valid credit card, you can set up an account with Amazon Web Service (AWS).
In the back of the lab is a bank of routers and servers like most companies have. Soon companies won’t have to buy lots of hardware because the cloud doesn’t need much for interface. Today I saw Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) running on old Pentium desktops, a ThinkPad, a Dell laptop and Macbook. I thought I’d put the theory to the ultimate test and asked Chris Fowler of Rightscale if he could access it on his Motorola Verizon cell phone. Sure enough, he showed me it could be done in less than five minutes (see pictures below). John Souchak said he could do it on his Apple iPhone. They keep laptops in their car trunks as a backup. The world of cloud mobility is here.
This course will be offered again in Fremont at Unitek College from February 1, 2010 through February 4, 2010. If you are an IT professional, system administrator or just plain cloud curious I recommend this course.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
November 17th, 2009
Nov. 16, 2009 SDF VINASA Vietnam
On November 16, 2009 in San Francisco, SDForum hosted VINASA – Vietnam Software Association. “Beyond the Usual Suspects: Vietnam’s Emergence as Asia’s next Software Powerhouse” Panelists included Mr. Nguyen Minh Hong of the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), Mr. Pham Tan Cong of VINASA, Ms. Eileen Boerger of Agilis Solutions and Mr. Paul Smith of Harvey Nash.
Delegate companies were Elcom, Renovation Software JSC, Harmony Software Technologies JS, HPT Vietnam Corporation, VIET Intelligences, Quang Trung Software City Development Company, QTSC , The Applied Professional Training Corporation, Hong Co Informatics & Trading Company, MISA, NCS Corporation, and VietSoftware International Inc.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
November 16th, 2009
Nov. 16, 2009 HyperStratus Stratos Cloud Workshop
On November 16, 2009 in Fremont at Unitek College, HyperStratus Stratos Learning held “Workshop on Cloud Computing” with Bernard Golden. This the first time I’ve seen cloud computing taught in a classroom slash lab setting anywhere. Today we covered the introduction to cloud computing, its drivers, technologies and challenges. Right now I’m creating an action plan for my first cloud project. It is a very different and some ways simpler way of building an application. It is a neat way to pay as you go and still have access to lots of resources.
This course will be offered again in Fremont at Unitek College from February 1, 2010 through February 4, 2010.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
November 15th, 2009
Nov. 15, 2009 Blumbers
If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been very busy trying to be in several places at once. I regularly meet several hundred people a week. There is a lot happening and I hope all this excitement is turned into new opportunities for everyone.
One of the reasons I do all of this is because I am terrible with names and faces. I mangle spelling and pronunciation and need every tool available. Being able to pull up a captioned picture on this website helps enormously.
The system is not perfect. Proper names are notorious for unconventional spelling. I recently introduced someone I knew for over a decade and promptly mispronounced their name. Ugh! I need the equivalent of a child’s dinosaur book that that phonetically spells out names like “tyrannosaurus” (Tie-ran-oh-SORE-us).
Bear with me. If I don’t immediately recognize you, show me your picture on my site. :-)
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Posted by dj as Blumbers, Commentary at 4:53 PM PST []
November 14th, 2009
AT&T and Verizon Maps
There has been a lot of talk about the wireless coverage maps of AT&T and Verizon. My concern is that neither one of them have filled in every blank spot. Some people say who cares about coverage in North Dakota? They find out when their car is stuck in a blizzard. In the areas they do have coverage, it is ridiculously slow by current Asian or European standards. Both companies charge exorbitant prices for terrible service. A pox on both your stock options. I’ve added a third map of the coverage that is really needed in green.
This is tremendous business opportunity for some entrepreneur. If you can figure out a way around these dinosaurs and deliver high speed service at low cost you will consign their companies to the dustbin of history.
There is no point in having a fast car on bad roads.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Posted by dj as Commentary at 4:04 PM PST []
November 13th, 2009
Nov. 12, 2009 SDF Deep Web
On November 12, 2009 in Palo Alto at Cubberley Community Center, the SDForum Search SIG held “Google, Kosmix and the Exploration of the Deep Web” by Kosmix Co-Founder Dr. Anand Rajaraman and Dr. Alon Halevy of Google Labs. The Deep Web is the Internet not found by traditional search engines. This invisible web may be 500 times the size of what you see, made up of social networks, media-sharing sites for photos and videos, library catalogs, airline reservation systems, phone books, and scientific databases invisible to today’s search tools. Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter could provide whole new potentials for search. They think the Deep Web will change the business of search and discussed whether it will ever be fully exposed.
BTW: Mike Coop had a nice little Verizon Mi-Fi box that came in handy. His review can be seen at www.heycoop.com:
http://www.heycoop.com/2009/11/first-impressions-of-mifi.html
Thanks Coop!
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
November 12th, 2009
Nov. 11, 2009 ASAP Clouds
On November 11, 2009, in Sunnyvale at NetApp, the Asssociation of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) held this month’s event on Clouds.
Dave Nielsen of Platform D gave the keynote on what he thinks the cloud computing is. Basically it is a software service you pay for only when you use it. The old headaches of IT become irrelevant to users. Operating systems are less important as their installations are automated and becoming mere application dependencies. Virtualization provides new platforms in the cloud, sitting above physical servers but beneath operating systems and applications. These hypervisors will cause massive disruption as they run on easy-to-use, highly-scalable, commodity platforms. It will create new opportunities for those who figure out a smarter way to deliver services. It will also cause a slow and painful decline in market share for those who ignore it.
Randy Bias of Cloudscaling moderated panelists Nimma Bakshi of PwC, Wally MacDermid of NetApp and Mark Trang of Salesforce.com. They discussed whether the cloud was real, how it works, what the standards are, the market opportunities, who are the players, and how to make alliances. Learn the relationships between Web as a Service (WaaS), Software as a Service, (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Start now. Do your research and start with a small project. It should be something that you need but can’t get done internally through traditional channels. If it works, roll it out.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.