November, 2007

Deep computing

Tonight’s post shares awareness of an upcoming manifestation of the computerized society. The related ‘Read more’ links include an interview with the VP of Deep Computing at IBM, David Turek. Also in the links, a chief architect (Catherine Crawford) at IBM explores the need for next-generation software that can take advantage of multi-core supercomputers like RoadRunner. Perhaps something related that you will be involved in, will help you ensure greater viip in your steps and the steps of others.

Flash, Unification, Docs

This post shares awareness of a few of today’s manifestations of the computerized society that ideally help in some way to beam bits of viip in your step and the steps of others. Put the three words of the title of this post together and you may even come up with an idea to help continually produce greater and greater levels of inherent quality simplicity for all, for everyone.

Webinar: Leveraging the power of Adobe Flash in embedded devices. As you would expect, both presenters are experienced and have good education (for example from a Computer Science perspective, one earned his Masters from the Technical University of Nova Scotia which is now part of Dalhousie University). You can register here, and do a system setup and compatibility check here.

Online presentation: Enterprise Data Unification with SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management.

ITKE Blog: Google Docs.

Manifestations of the computerized society

Looking through a few books of team member Michael Sharkey I came across a piece of history: Dr. Dobb’s Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia, Running Light Without Overbyte, Volume One, 1976, People’s Computer Company, A Reference Journal for Users of Home Computers. In it on page 155, I came across Volume 1, Number 6, Page 7, which featured a story about an attorney who built his first computer, an IMSAI. The attorney in his opening paragraph stated that even his life was not un-touched by some of the “manifestations of the computerized society”. Since 1976, Dr. Dobb’s has come a long way and now of course software, technology and information touch virtually everyone. I hope you enjoy IQS; the words below are from the front cover.

For executives, professionals and all who produce, help create, purchase and see that their quality of life is touched, improved or impacted by software, technology and information.The world has been evolving since the beginning of time. As a result quality today is more so inherent. In the centuries of the future this will increasingly be the case. Related discoveries will continue to produce higher and higher levels of value, excellence and simplicity.

IQS

IQS is now available! Here also is a related press release. Sincere thanks to all contributors and purchasers.

Thanks also to medical staff in Windsor, Ontario who recently saved a family member (niece, Jessica Richard); three weeks ago she went into a diabetic coma after her insulin pump failed. She is now out of the hospital and back to university and seems to be doing well thanks to help from Dietitian and Doctors; may she and all in our world be blest this coming Christmas and forevermore in the new years to follow.

A new age of growth is progressively emerging

Software, Technology and Information can enable growth in many ways; and progressively the Internet is sharing related opportunities. For example imagine traditional farming. Now imagine new ways to farm (e.g., after talking to a member of my team today, Derek, I dug up these examples: via a tractor that largely steers itself or via farming at night; or as mentioned way back in 2004 in a Geek.Com post, via use of a pocket PC device). Now imagine other examples of how a new age of growth is progressively emerging.

Surpass your goals. Connect, dream, invent and deliver while inherently having a bit of fun and beaming viip into your steps and the steps of others. Start thinking now about perfect vision leap year 2020 and beyond! Help enable unimagined goodness, peace, love and joy for all, for everyone.

Within the sea, sky and interconnected universe

It can be said: the search for life in space begins on the ocean floor; and that intelligence may be hidden behind small gestures, old habits and practiced rituals when one enters environments and situations where prior successes and current good intentions can vanish when one important item is overlooked; and that advances in software, technology and information can remove fear and enable growth in many ways including relative to increased paradigm shifts, innovation, demand, and profit. To help embed positive energy to enable increased attention on prevention (so inner peace is pervasively associated with your IT, corporate or other initiatives), consider the involvement of someone who lives in the mystery of intelligent fear (e.g., someone who exercises regular risk management such as perhaps relating to 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on as one can quickly find thanks to the sea, sky, and interconnected universe of consciousness and enrichment that is progressively manifesting itself inherent to the Internet and educational programming).

Mentoring and Sharing

One way to send others Joy is through Mentoring. Today I observed a group mentoring session that went very well. The session leader (Mike) reviewed a few key object-oriented architectural points on a whiteboard and then using a projector began working through a real coding example. The attendees learned and contributed as the group worked to inherently ensure greater levels of happy code or joy within the code such as by enhancing related simplicity, beauty and reusability. Near the end of the session an attendee (Jeff) was given a chance to demonstrate the effectiveness of the session. Quickly he connected his machine to the projector and reapplied the code changes from scratch in front of the group. Next week a Computer Science graduate from the local university will have an opportunity to work for at least a couple of weeks with the newly formed AYR SWAT. While embedded within the SWAT he will be mentored by Jeff in various regards including with respect to CSS. This leads me into mentioning another way to send Joy, by Sharing. Jeff and the local computer science university grad will be sharing a few tasks and applying aspects of XP as they do so. At this juncture this post also shares awareness of a couple of CSS sites (i.e., 1, 2). By the way, the mentoring session noted above was productive in more ways than one as it concurrently ensured various changes were implemented for a client. You might say the session contained bits of viip (value-inherent, intrinsic and pervasive) as the client received in the process new functionality, visual site enhancements and innately cleaner code. Much thanks to the team for innovatively combining education, fun and productivity. I take no credit however, the accomplishment was self-directed by the team. On a closing note for this post, it is important to share that one means of ensuring greater inherent quality simplicity is having professional software engineers who are responsible and accountable for the processes and code they produce and use to deliver services that meet or exceed the requirements and expectations of their clients.

Joy

Send it [joy] to others (e.g.).

Thanks again Michael R. Wood for your words below (from Gantt Head, “Building a Framework for Quality”).

The best general definition of quality that I could find comes from http://inherentquality.com/ and states:“Simply stated [quality] is joy associated with a mindset that seeks to embed value and excellence within people, processes and products.”

Comment

This is the 100th VIIP post. It is simply a question. Comment and your answer may be shared here; and perhaps even your dream will come true.

By the year 2020 (and thanks in part to people, software, technology and information), what giant leap will be enabled for the world?

Compose

When you are earning points (e.g. on ITKE), you may like to enjoy listening to music (e.g., these sounds by a famous Canadian composer, tribute here) as you compose your questions, answers and discussion items. Thank you again for your contributions to help others.

Earn points

I twisted a knee yesterday (a sign of good luck perhaps), so today I was giving the leg rest while recharging in general from many months (years in fact) of steady long hours any day of the week. To staff at AYR, I hope you had a productive day. I will see you again tomorrow.

On a separate note, today I logged-in to Skype to call a friend to ask a favor. I wanted my friend to take a moment to run a few unplanned tests on a beta product. I used Skype for the call. There were 10,214,000+ online.

IT Knowledge Exchange… Get answers. Share knowledge. Collaborate with peers. Earn points. Grow and help others to grow along with you.

Grow

This post earlier in the month mentioned Skype. At the time well over eight million were online. Today there was well over nine million online. Software, Technology and Information are changing the world. The interconnected universe of IT Pros and the general public, that is continually being shaped by the same, is enabling (and continually will enable) rapid upward and inward growth. In the process of change and growth, all can contribute to increasingly making the world a better place. Please help to do so. Thank you in advance for your on-going contributions to increasingly beam viip (value-inherent, intrinsic and pervasive) throughout the world for all, for everyone. Grow and help all others to grow along with you.

Change

Think about perfect vision leap year 2020 and beyond. For example watch this interesting 2007 video and ponder things like transparency, dependence, rise of the machines and fact that we are changing the world, while ideally helping to make it better.

Services

To increasingly ensure greater levels of inherent quality simplicity you may determine it is at times necessary to emphasize (perhaps like an old album) tragedies that can be inherent in conflicts. You may determine it is necessary to reflect and learn from the past, to practice dreaming and planning for the future, and to live in and enjoy the moment as when more do this the positive energy amplifies and enables increasing creativity, opportunity and success from many perspectives. You may determine that it is essential to increasingly build positive energy, such as around the idea of progressively finding new ways to make things better. For example such as to find innovative ways to build service or to architect processes and technologies for greater orientation towards achieving higher levels of excellence in service. For your organization work in this direction may mean such things as creating: a Project Control Office, a Service Work-order Action Team (SWAT), and a Change Control Board. As you journey to ensure greater joy [quality] and love [e.g. leadership, optimization, validation and excitement] this may also mean striving to find more effective blends of rigor and agility, including perhaps implementing in the process some form of daily scrum where resources come together to quickly convey and display what is hot and what the score is and what the commitment is from particular resources in terms of what they commit to completing before the next day’s team session. For some, related efforts may mean testing out a few changes before making sales and service more so one such as by having both exist on and report to the same side of the business, or such as by continual inherent improvements from a technology perspective to increasingly ensure technology and process are architected to help ensure greater levels of service and related customer empowerment. On this day in 1965 the Soviet Union launched the Venera 3 space probe which became the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet. On this day thirty years ago in 1977, Close Encounters of the Third Kind opened in theaters. On this day in 2007 you may have applied a security update [for example… “RealNetworks has identified a security risk in RealPlayer that may make your computer vulnerable to viruses and malware. RealNetworks has issued a fix and it is highly recommended that you download it at this time. The vulnerability has been identified as a malicious Web page which affects the import method of an Active X control to cause a stack overflow in the RealPlayer. CVE-2007-5601. This posting is applicable to versions of the product downloaded before October 25th, 2007.”] On this day in 2007 you may have also taken a few minutes to explore a new site [for example… This is a site of one of my team members, Thien Nguyen. It was developed with AJAX and PHP. BTW, have a listen to this album on the site, I am enjoying doing so as I type. Feel free to also explore the more than 7000 titles on the site.] On this day in 2007 you may have also participated in a beta product review. Also you may have participated in group brainstorming sessions and asked for input from a customer concerning things that may help your organization ensure progressively greater levels of automation and accountability and other things that instill higher levels of inherent quality simplicity within your processes, products, people and services. On this day in 2007 you may have given freely of yourself in efforts for others to more comfortably achieve and surpass goals, while generating a bit more positive energy and having a bit more fun in the process of the provision and continual improvement of services.

Time for some simplicity

To achieve increasing levels of inherent quality simplicity it is important to keep a watch on the amount of necessary overtime (e.g.), to give recognition for jobs well done, and to share awareness of ideas. For example below is an idea (a term) shared in February 2005, that was thought of by a guy named Garrett when he realized the need for a shorthand term to represent the suite of technologies he was proposing to a client.

Text in italics is from the following essay. It is about Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX).

Ajax isn’t a technology. It’s really several technologies, each flourishing in its own right, coming together in powerful new ways.

The article goes on to indicate that Ajax incorporates standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS; dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model; data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT; asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest; and JavaScript binding everything together.

In the spirit of it being time for some simplicity including practicing the importance of giving recognition for extra efforts, this post is a thank you to my entire Production team at AYR. In particular at this juncture I mention Amanda, Derek and those chosen by their peers as stars of recent weeks: Tracy, Mike, Kevin, Trevor, Trever and Kenneth.