Archive for technology
April 9, 2008 at 1:15 pm · Filed under technology
This morning I received an email from Dropbox that invited me to download and install its python-based desktop client for online storage. The client creates virtual folders that automatically sync to an Amazon S3-backed storage ‘facility’, what TechCrunch author Mark Hendrickson esoterically calls ‘the cloud’. It was his blog post last month that motivated me to register with Dropbox. In my first day using the app there are two things that I find really cool: (1) it is wicked fast and (2) the ability to upload a file to a public space and then right-click the file to get a public link is a simple way to share files with multiple machines or friends. In fact, the Dropbox image in the header of this post is hosted in a public Dropbox folder which can also be accessed here in a photo gallery format (Dropbox provided the three stock photos). It sure beats emailing files or uploading everything to my ahelms.com server.
February 22, 2008 at 9:34 am · Filed under technology
I had the privilege of spending three days at The Data Warehousing Institute’s (TDWI) 2008 World Conference in Las Vegas this week. The event runs Sunday to Friday; I attended Monday to Wednesday. TDWI puts on a first-class event. The main reason I went and what I most enjoyed about the three days was the opportunity to learn from experts in the courses that were offered. Read the rest of this entry »
January 30, 2008 at 6:41 pm · Filed under life, technology
I’ve been captivated by the presidential nomination process and have been consuming all the information I can handle relating to the debates, speeches, endorsements, posturing, etc. The polarizing, counter-productive nature of American politics bothers me but I make it a point to try to stay informed. So as not to alienate or terribly offend anyone, I subconsciously adopted a common, practically failsafe method of engaging in political conversations with co-workers and acquaintances: never take a side, always play the cynic. It’s really a cowardly, easy out. In Good Will Hunting, Sean (played by Robin Williams) confronts Will (played by Matt Damon) and his similar approach to women: “I think that’s a super philosophy, Will, that way you can go through your entire life without ever having to really know anybody.” Don’t worry, I’m not going to address my cowardice here.
CNN put together a cool tool called Political Market that is right up my alley. According to CNN, the “goal of CNN Political Market is to combine the opinions of a diverse group of people to try and predict the probability of an event occurring or the value of something”. I don’t have to take sides; I just have to predict outcomes. I created an account today and bought shares. A couple of widgets that track performance on the answer to a question I am particularly interested in are pasted below. If you’re inclined give it a shot.
December 20, 2007 at 9:31 am · Filed under technology
I really enjoy browsing Google’s annual Zeitgeist lists. What is a Zeitgeist list? Google’s explanation:
To get a glimpse of what’s been on our collective consciousness, we mined billions of search queries to discover what sorts of things rose to the top. We encourage you to check out our findings to see if you, too, reflect the zeitgeist — the spirit of the times.
With a brief glance at the list, I’m not sure it is obvious what is on our collective consciousness. I was excited because I was not familiar with a few of the terms and thought I was in for a cool, learning experience. The excitement was tempered, however, when I discovered that the 3rd fastest rising term tmz is a website that provides an inside look at the latest celebrity scandals. Blech. Read the rest of this entry »
December 19, 2007 at 1:48 pm · Filed under life, technology
Today Mark Cuban detailed his strategy for maintaining a manageable list of friends on facebook in his blog post My New Facebook Strategy and the FB Power Level. facebook’s 5000 friend limit strong-armed him into concocting a strategy. Peons like me do not have such problems, but if I did I imagine I would adopt a similar strategy. In paring down his list Cuban decided to keep and accept friends who fall into 3 groups: 1-real friends who he knows, 2-people with common interests or a business connection, and 3-the motivation behind this blog post, the “power layer” which is defined as “people who in whatever industry they are in, retain some level of power.” I left a semi-sarcastic comment saying that a new goal in my life is to make the power layer.
Friending is a topic that is discussed ad nauseum on blogs and in newspapers and magazines. The online space certainly adds a new dimension to relationships. I’m not so popular in the Robert Scoble, Mark Cuban sense that I have the problem of reaching limits. I would say that I value quality over quantity but frankly speaking most of my friends are of questionable quality.
December 3, 2007 at 12:35 am · Filed under technology
Thoughts on Systems Integration, Business Intelligence, & Operational Efficiencies
I’ve been reading quite a bit about enterprise architecture recently, specifically its role in systems integration. The proliferation of disparate enterprise systems at organizations of all sizes has resulted in the amassing of huge amounts of data that is not easily analyzed and thus leaves organizations without the ability to synthesize the data into intelligence and use it to inform strategy. Opportunities for operational efficiencies are also missed because these enterprise systems reside on islands with limited abilities to communicate with other systems. Data is defined inconsistently and housed redundantly, which increases costs and lowers margins.
There are myriad reasons why so many organizations are in this position: the migration to the digital age was/is an iterative process–cost often prohibits the implementation of more than one enterprise system concurrently; enterprise systems are often designed to streamline operations of a particular business unit without regard to how data will be pulled out of the system and without regard to how data will reconcile to existing systems; management by spreadsheets and other rudimentary tools is ingrained in the culture of organizations that are reticent to change what “works”.
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October 26, 2007 at 11:50 am · Filed under technology
A couple of years ago I was listening to an acquaintance who works for CNN speak about how what “news” is reported by mainstream media is driven by advertising revenue. It does not matter how trivial or trite the content may be, if it generates revenue it will take precedence over meaningful stories. In the last two years I’ve read The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. Friedman astutely and clairvoyantly predicted the democratization of media, which is to say that individuals will determine what is meaningful and what becomes “news”. One such tool that democratizes media at least in terms of online media and blogs is digg, which is a social bookmarking tool. del.icio.us is a similar tool. The way these tools work is quite simple.
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October 16, 2007 at 1:01 am · Filed under technology
Hi there - the slickr page is updated and now includes pictures from my trip to East Lansing for Michigan State’s homecoming. Enjoy
Note: in order for the slickr slideshow to properly display in Internet Explorer, click on the first photo twice to activate the control and then restart the show.
October 8, 2007 at 11:55 pm · Filed under technology, music
Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows will be available October 10. In a not entirely surprising move, unconventional Radiohead decided to let fans decide what to pay for its new album. Partially in response to Radiohead’s announcement, Tech Crunch founder Michael Arrington blogged about the Inevitable March of Recorded Music Towards Free based on economic theory. I’m no Econ scholar (one per family is probably one too many) so I’ll leave that discussion there, but the argument is compelling.
A discussion I’ve had with friends that’s more interesting to me started with the question, how much would you pay for your favorite album? or if it’s a Radiohead album, your favourite album?
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September 26, 2007 at 12:19 am · Filed under technology
I am constantly amazed at the innovative solutions that developers conceive to solve problems that should not exist. There is a hilarious, R-rated video on youtube that pokes fun at the proliferation of idiotic comments thanks to ignorant people, young people and quasi-malicious spammers. Due to the underwhelming popularity of ahelms.com, the problem I’ve most encountered with comments on this site is spam comments. While I do get some funny quotes from time to time, it is annoying and a waste of resources to read and store computer-generated comments.
In just five minutes I found a very simple, elegant solution to this problem. There are two attributes of the solution that make it incredibly attractive to me:
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