Technology In Business

User Interface By Crackheads

2007-12-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

I know it sounds mean but you have to wonder who is making these decisions sometimes. I went to register a free account with my local newspaper today and it prompted me that I need to have it the format YYYY-MM-DD. Now who would decide to force the user to have to use that format? Why? Were they too lazy to add a few lines of code to account for the very normal US approach of MM-DD-YYYY? Are they really letting their obscure database set up dictate how the users use the system?

Spokeo

2007-12-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

Finally something to help me track everything that my friends are up to on the internet.

http://www.spokeo.com/

Do you know how many of your friends blog on MySpace or upload photos to Flickr?
We don't think you do.

Spokeo searches popular networks for your friends' blogs, photos, videos and music.
We guarantee you'll learn something new about your friends.
Do you know how many of your friends blog on MySpace or upload photos to Flickr?
We don't think you do.

Spokeo searches popular networks for your friends' blogs, photos, videos and music.
We guarantee you'll learn something new about your friends

WiFi On Airplanes

2007-12-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

Just a note, the one WiFi enabled plane that JetBlue will only allow for some Blackberry functionality and Yahoo as those are the 2 sponsors.

On Tuesday, JetBlue Airways will begin offering a free e-mail and instant messaging service on one of its planes, while American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines plan to offer broader Web access in coming months, probably at a cost around $10 a flight.

A Quick Facebook Oberservation

2007-10-27T12:35:00.001-06:00

I'm getting more and more annoyed by Facebook. Adopt an alien, stalk a zombie, goose a vampire, save the shaven yak of mid-lower Mongolia. WHAT IS ALL THIS CRAP?!?!??!??? It's seeming that in trying to be nothing other than a conduit for other peoples stuff, Facebook is becoming closer and closer
to
being

...useless.

Shocking that in working toward doing nothing they'd become nothing, eh?

ColdFusion Datasources And SQL Server Express

2007-09-19T20:37:00.000-06:00

I recently got a cheap new laptop. So it was time to install some new tools including ColdFusion 8 Developer Edition and MS SQL Server Express. I've done this before with previous versions and didn't have any issues. This time I did.

After spending some time trying to figure out what it was, I did a quick Google search. I wish that I would've done that from the start. Matt Woodward's excellent entry on configuring MS SQL Server Express for ColdFusion clued me in on the issue, configuring MS SQL Server Express' settings. Thanks for the help, Matt!

Satellite Radio

2007-09-11T07:27:00.000-06:00

Having rented a car while driving out West the last few days I had plenty of time to listen to satellite radio. It hasn't changed my outlook on it; it has little to offer other than bandwidth. I enjoyed being able to listen to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me and some English Premier League games. And having both team's radio broadcasts to choose from for the football games was nice. Nevertheless, overall I didn't find it compelling. I would have been just as happy listening to my MP3 player for music and broadcasts. And other than the live NFL games, it would've been the same experience. The satellite radio companies offer a lot of bandwidth. But other than that, they don't have much to offer that the consumer doesn't already have.

Quick ColdFusion Project

2007-09-02T19:55:00.001-06:00

I've got some time on my hands. I'm going to start a quick ColdFusion project that will later grow into something larger. It should be a good exercise in building something small that later grows and grows beyond it's planned scope. That's something very common in business. More so for me to get some of my CFC, quasi-OO ColdFusion code out there and exposed for others to critique.

ColdFusion In The Mountains

2007-09-02T19:45:00.000-06:00

For those of you who find yourself saying "I'd love to live in the Mountains but I just can't find programming jobs there", now is your chance to step forward and snag one. It's for the Keystone Symposia which is in Silverthorne, Colorado. They're looking for a ColdFusion programmer. For those of you who don't know, there are 4 major ski resorts in the area (A-Basin, Copper Mtn, Breckenridge and Keystone). If you really want to give a go of living in the mountains, now's your chance.

Flex vs Ajax vs....

2007-07-14T17:59:00.000-06:00

http://blog.schematic.com.au/?p=46

Jeffrey Hammond of Forrester Research completely misses the mark with an article highlighting the pro’s and con’s of the Flex vs AJAX frameworks.

Firstly, let me say that i’m a big fan of Forrester. For the most part they provide unbiased, educated and valuable research on a wide range of subjects (including rich internet application technologies). Unfortunately, in this case, it appears as though Hammond misses the mark on a number of points in his article and, and in turn, shows his ignorance of the facts.

Lets have a look at where Hammond gets it wrong…

ColdFusion - Happy Birthday

2007-07-10T22:26:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday ColdFusion,
Happy Birthday to you!
12 years old today!

Yahoo!

2007-07-09T19:16:00.000-06:00

Am I the only person wondering if 1/2 the reason people don't use Yahoo! is that it is beyond a pain in the rear to log in if you forget your password? Or am I the only one who actually coughs up factual information for a free account?

Marketing + Technology

2007-07-04T19:21:00.000-06:00

It's frustrating to see that in 2007 people just don't quite get it when it comes to technology and how to make it user friendly. J.D Power sent out a postcard to people living in apartments. It included a URL and a pin number to enter. The two things that are frustrating about it are the URL and the PIN.

This really shouldn't be that complex of a thing. The URL should be something easy to type. But instead of giving users something simple for a url, such as "ApartmentSurveyOnline.com", they tell people to type "http://www.apartmentsurveyonline.com/main.php". There is no need for this. The first example will work. It's a lot less to type and leaves a lot less room for error.

The same with the PIN that was sent. Why force users to type "0037878G". Why doesn't "37878g" work? There is nothing to tell the user that it's case sensitive let alone the need for the leading zeroes. The reason I figured it out is that I saw it was php file and assumed it would be case sensitive. How many users tried it once and when it didn't work moved on to something else?

It may seem trite. However when you're trying to encourage people to donate their time to your for-profit venture, making it as easy as possible is important.

Lompoc's WiFi Brings Red Ink

2007-06-17T22:07:00.000-06:00

The frustrating thing is that we've seen communities do this before when it comes to building their own bandwidth. In this case it's just a new form of it.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,274728,00.html

A $3 million plan to blanket Lompoc, Calif., with a wireless Internet system promised a quantum leap for economic development: The remote community hit hard by cutbacks at nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base would join the 21st century with cheap and plentiful high-speed access.

Instead, nearly a year after its launch, Lompoc Net is limping along. The central California city of 42,000, surrounded by rolling hills, wineries and flower fields more than 17 miles from the nearest major highway, has only a few hundred subscribers.

That's far fewer than the 4,000 needed to start repaying loans from the city's utility coffers, potentially leaving smaller reserves to guard against electric rate increases.

Lompoc isn't alone. Across the United States, many cities are finding their Wi-Fi projects costing more and drawing less interest than expected, leading to worries that a number will fail, resulting in millions of dollars in wasted tax dollars or grants when there had been roads to build and crime to fight.

National What Safety Month?

2007-06-09T11:41:00.001-06:00

Yep, it's national internet safety month.

http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/06/06/do-obama-and-lieberman-think-the-internet-is-dangerous/

Does Joe Lieberman hate the internet? Is Barack Obama trying to scare you? Welcome to National Internet Safety Month. Its sole purpose? Reminding America how dangerous the internet is.

I’m not kidding. That’s the gist of an official resolution, quietly signed by 18 U.S. Senators in both parties at the end of May (including Senators Obama and Lieberman). Senate Resolution 207 specified that the month of June provides Americans an opportunity to “learn more about the dangers of the Internet.” Got anything positive to say about the net? Save it for July, pal. June is for commending organizations which “promote awareness of the dangers of the Internet.”

They might as well call it internet-is-dangerous month. But let’s look at some of their examples. What constitutes a danger? If someone puts a filter on your computer to censor it — it’s dangerous to disable it! You can say this about America’s youth — more than 3 out of 10 can de-activate censor-ware, according to the Senators’ own statistics. Congratulations, kids! Whoops, I’m sorry — I mean…danger!!

MS For And Now Against Software Patents

2007-06-09T11:21:00.000-06:00

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/06/09/bill-gatess-flip-flop/

In today’s New York Times, I make the case against software patents, comparing a 1991 memo by Bill Gates to today’s battle between Verizon and Vonage:

[Microsoft general counsel Brad] Smith has argued that patents are essential to technological breakthroughs in software. Microsoft sang a very different tune in 1991. In a memo to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” Mr. Gates worried that “some large company will patent some obvious thing” and use the patent to “take as much of our profits as they want….”

It’s not surprising that Microsoft — now an entrenched incumbent — has had a change of heart. But Mr. Gates was right in 1991: patents are bad for the software industry. Nothing illustrates that better than the conflict between Verizon and Vonage.

Vonage developed one of the first Internet telephone services and has attracted more than two million customers. But last year, Verizon — one of Vonage’s biggest competitors — sued for patent infringement and won a verdict in its favor in March.

The Times has strict word-count limits, so I didn’t have the space to discuss some of the details of my argument. Here is an in-depth analysis of Verizon’s patents. And here is a longer discussion of Microsoft’s change of heart on software patents.

Southwest Airlines and Fuel Options

2007-05-28T13:16:00.000-06:00

Reporters and analysts aren't gods. They have their own prejudices, motivations and short comings. Often they provide great insight. Other times they leave me wondering if they know what they're talking about.

This last fall a bunch of business articles popped up in the news about Southwest Airlines and fuel hedging. It was frustrating reading some of them. I had looked into options trading as a means of getting decent returns when the stock market. I felt the basics were, well, pretty basic. Yet I would see articles that were clearly written by people who didn't know the basics of the trade. How do you report on news as a journalist when you don't understand what you're reporting on. You don't need to be an expert but surely one needs to know some of the fundamental ways in which it works. Some of the articles were written in a way that had it been about a murder case it appeared the reporter didn't understand that there were defense lawyers, the prosecution and a judge and/or jury.

Unfortunately I didn't tag any of those nor can find a good example of them right now. You will know them when you read them because they imply that an option is a fixed-price. That is, if I buy an option for fuel at $100 for 2008, I will have to buy it at that price when it's due. The problem is that options for commodities do not work like that. One should know that just by looking at SWA's annual report. As it stated in 2006, "The financial derivative instruments utilized by the Company primarily are a combination of collars, purchased call options, fixed price swap agreements."

How does one write about the company without looking at their financial reports? And at that without coming across that? If you did you would see that there are different types of financial derivative instruments.

I would define the main types this way :

Call options - The right to buy but not the obligation to buy (hence the name OPTION).
Fixed Swap - An obligation to buy at a fixed price.
Collar - A means to make money if there are large fluctuations in price up or down.

They're more complex than that and there are more specific options. For example flex price swaps don't have fixed price. But the point of this is not to get into the details of options but to point out that Southwest has various choices when it comes to options.

Gambling?

Once you better understand that there are different types of options that help address different situations, you can better understand what Southwest Airlines is doing. The problem is that even articles where they don't seem to understand what it is SWA is trying to do. An example is this column from the USA Today :

Hedging is a gamble; a hedged airline could pay more for fuel if prices drop, but I think Southwest is safe as the possibility of oil prices dropping below $40 or $50 a barrel is highly unlikely.

Hedging is a gamble? No, it is not. Go to dictionary.com and look the word up for yourself. Hedging is not a gamble. It is something you do to reduce risk. Which would you say "I went to Las Vegas to hedge" or "I hedged my bet..."? A hedged airline will have higher fuel costs than other airlines at some points in time. However, as I just pointed out it's not 100%. Not all of their options are an obligation to buy. If prices drop sharply enough, they will simply not exercise their options. They will have the cost of the fixed price swaps. But if that's only 30% of their fuel needs, than the other 70% will be at market costs + the price of the options. When I say the price of the options I mean the price of purchasing the contract itself. The contract will specify the cost and the time but there is also a cost to that contract. But in such a case where the market would unexpectedly swing in one direction, in this case prices drop much lower than anticipated, SWA also has it's collars to help take the sting out of the situation.

Why would they use a financial instrument like a collar if they didn't think prices were going up very much or dropping very much? Because they don't approach their projections as absolutes. They know there are chances of them being wrong. They know about probabilities. They're using the collars as a way of insuring themselves in the event that they are very wrong either way.

Once you realize the different choices Southwest has and why they use things like collars, the light bulb should go off. They are in fact not hedging their fuel to make money off of the investments. They do it because they're hedging against the risk of fuel prices changing in ways that they don't foresee or aren't able to cope with. That is, it's an insurance policy. Just as we have insurance in case we cause a car accident or someone burglarized our home, Southwest uses this hedging as insurance for fuel prices.

Is ColdFusion Dying?

2007-05-26T10:11:00.001-06:00

Ben Forta has a nice response to an article in ComputerWorld that lumps ColdFusion in with Cobol and Netware. I think the best part of his response is simply thinking twice about even responding. This article looks as though it was written with little if any knowledge of programming languages. When that occurs you have to wonder if ComputerWorld is printing it because they think it's good journalism or simply that they're fishing for attention.

The problem I have is not the implication that ColdFusion is dying. As a contractor working with it, I've seen demand for it change over the last few years. It seems that companies aren't dropping it so much as avoiding it. And, this is just based on my experience, it seems as though demand is so-so but more so fueled by their being less and less ColdFusion developers in the market. I think some of the house cleaning is occurring because those using it actually expect people to have some skills resembling a software engineer (as they should). I don't think it's going to go away anytime soon. It's not dead but I wouldn't call it thriving.

My biggest beef is with this statement

This once-popular Web programming language -- released in the mid-1990s by Allaire Corp. (which was later purchased by Macromedia Inc., which itself was acquired by Adobe Systems Inc.) -- has since been superseded by other development platforms, including Microsoft Corp.'s Active Server Pages and .Net, as well as Java, Ruby on Rails, Python, PHP and other open-source languages.

Superseded? Superseded in what sense? Number of users that claim to use it? Number of developers who claim to be capable of writing in the language? Number of companies the language's proponents say use the language? No offense to RoR and Python but I fail to see how they've superseded ColdFusion in that sense. Ruby on Rails may do that at some point but isn't there now. For Python it's more that I'm baffled as to how it's being mentioned. I don't think most folks at this point would associate it with web applications. And in the case of Python, I'm not sure I've ever seen even on classified add looking for someone with that skill. I'm sure they're out there but even together they're just not in demand as a job skill as much as ColdFusion. And if they're not that, how is that they've superseded ColdFusion?

ColdFusion 8 - Scorpio

2007-04-24T22:29:00.000-06:00

If you're wondering about what some of the specific new capabilities that ColdFusion 8, Scorpio, will be giving developers Ben Forta's blog has a nice peak. Scorpio will open up some of the settings on a per application level instead of the current situation where to try to do so, you need to run separate instances of the CF application server. This should make it easier for developers working on applications where different users have different features available to them.

Goldman Sachs Pulls Out Of Real Salt Lake Deal

2007-03-18T10:53:00.000-06:00

As reported by the Deseret News, Goldman Sachs real estate investment arm Whitehall has pulled out of it's deal with Real Salt Lake. For their investment, they were going to own 50% of SCP Worldwide's Real Salt Lake. Typically these investment funds put their money into a project with a 3-5 year time horizon. Whitehall has over $30 billion in real estate investments and recently purchased the John Hancock tower in Chicago for over $300 million. What happened that caused Whitehall to pull out at the last minute?

Chelsea FC On YouTube

2007-02-17T09:34:00.000-07:00

I noticed the Guardian recently announced a deal with Chelsea FC to show news clips and archived footage on YouTube. It'll be co-branded and have it's own section. Could this be the sort of thing soccer fans in the States have been waiting for to keep tabs on their favorite team? As it is now they get some news from internet news sites and even less from channels like Fox Soccer Channel Gol TV, and Setanta. And if they want to watch a game from 5 years ago? Well, they're lucky if it's on DVD.

Could the next move be for YouTube to provide paid programming featuring current games?

US Oil Demand Drops Sharply During A Period Of Good Economic Growth

2007-01-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

Oil prices usually decline when there is a recession because demand drops. What's interesting is that in the US real GDP growth for 2005 was 3.6% and 2006's will likely turn out to be about the same. Yet use of oil in the US dropped 27% in 2006.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8MOESLG0.htm

In the U.S. -- still the world's largest energy consuming nation -- residual fuel oil deliveries experienced the steepest decline, falling nearly 27 percent to 673,000 barrels per day as industrial and electric utility facilities made major shifts to natural gas, the report said. Jet fuel demand declined by 2.8 percent to 1.6 million barrels a day, as airlines conserved fuel as best they could.

Browser Archive

2007-01-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

If you create web applications, one thing that can be handy is having different browsers for testing. Evolt.org has a wonderful browser archive. So if you're looking for an old version of Internet Explorer or Chimera this is the place. Please make sure to drop them a lil' donation.

Scanning Plates

2006-12-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

I couldn't find it but I've seen where Los Angeles was trying out some equipment on police squad cars that would automatically can license plates. The software looks to see if there are any warrant hits, etc for the cars owner. So it didn't surprise me to see that San Francisco was using the same technology to hunt down people with too many outstanding parking tickets.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/27/BAGRON6E411.DTL

MySpace's Blog Technology

2006-12-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know much about MySpace's blog technology? What are they running it on for servers? For coding? I'm curious since that component of MySpace seems to be where I have the most problems. I have quite a few errors but more often it has times when it runs incredibly slow and times out.

Bad, Bad H-P

2006-12-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd follow up yesterday's post scolding Yahoo for their sketchy if not nefarious actions with their IM update with a scolding of HP today. I already wasn't happy with them in regrads to my notebook computer I got 2 years ago. I had some bad experiences with their customer support due to their inability to communicate simple things with me such as not informing me that they were going to schedule a UPS pick-up time for the computer, let alone asking me if that would work for me.

I logged onto their online store because none of the stores in my area carry the 135W power supply that I need for my laptop. It was annoying that when rejecting my credit card they gave me an order number and told me to call their 888 number & customer service could give me no more detail than "bank rejected it; call your bank" when actually in double checking it I used the wrong experation date. But that can happen anywhere these days.

H-P's big no,no was the option for having them send you the email equivalent of the sunday insert for Hewlitt-Packard. It was a minor bad that they defaulted to checking yes for that. But what was extra bad and down right slimey was when I hoped into my account to edit it, they defaulted to checking it yet again! I had unchecked it originally and it had properly saved all my other preferences except that one. Come on H-P, show your customers respect. If I told you no the first time, don't try to sneak one past me.

Bad, Bad Yahoo Messenger

2006-12-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

I'm using Yahoo Messenger for IM at my current contract. It gets to send out quick messages to folks and works well. Our Exchange servers are 2/3 a continent away and email can sometimes take 5+ minutes to be sent. This morning when I logged in I was prompted by Yahoo to update it. Not a problem. the new version has a smaller footprint and the upgrade went smoothly. But they violated a couple cardinal laws, at least in the eyes of many people. They automatically changed my default browsers homepage to their own. And they added the Yahoo toolbar. I can understand doing this if my settings were that I was already using them. But I wasn't. I associate actions like this with seedy types. You know the websites that you stumble across when you mistype a URL; the ones that ask or even attempt without asking to change your homepage. Is this a sign of how desperate Yahoo is for our business?

Software Bugs Produce Viagra

2006-12-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

It's true. There was a bug in the software application that Scotland's health board uses. The e-Formulary system is meant to help doctors by selecting a list of most popular drugs when they write a prescription. But the system was selecting a generic version of Viagra instead of the anti-smoking drug that doctors intended to prescribe.

Passwords and MySpace

2006-12-17T13:35:00.000-07:00

As you may know, MySpace was recently hacked. To be precise it was a phishing attack and they nabbed over 34,000 passwords. One of the good things about this is that the Bruce Schneier was able to get hold of the list. You can read more about it at WavLength. I just want to know how many people thought they were being clever using the password "blink182".

Skype, Skype, Skype Everywhere

2006-11-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

There's something simple about Skype that I really like. They're about providing free (cheap when that's not possible) voice, chat and video communications. They're not doing it using open standards like SIP and it's not something that a lot of other players in the market aren't doing too. But they seemed to recognize early on that going after the market in Western Europe was the to amass users. It makes sense. Western Europe embraced the cell phone much faster than the US did because of their heavily regulated and expensive traditional phone services.

A group of companies including Skype today announced that their services will be available for a flat flee. This shouldn't surprise anyone as the the mobile industry is maturing, companies are consolidating. The service is becoming a commodity. And Skype comes into play because it's cheaper to use 3G (or WiFi) to get access to the Internet and route voice traffic over that rather than more traditional phone networks.

As much as I like Skype's approach to the market and their business, I still don't understand how they fit in with eBay. How do they fit in? Freely connecting sellers and buyers for cheap phone calls? Really? By that logic eBay should be buying a shipping company like FedEx or DHL. I'm still not sure what their vision is. Maybe what Meg Whitman just doesn't want to tell us they did it as a investment for the company. I can't blame her. Other than Warren Buffet Wall Street hasn't been kind to companies that try to act as both a company and an investment vehicle.

Video, Video

2006-10-19T21:30:00.000-06:00

Looks like Microsoft is getting into serving up video on the internet with web site called SoapBox.

Home Energy

2006-10-09T11:29:00.000-06:00

Mile High Tech takes a nice look at some of the home energy choices we have these days.

Microsoft's Social Networking

2006-09-26T12:12:00.000-06:00

Social Networking Overload

I was suprised to see in the news today that Microsoft is rolling out a social networking web site called Wallop. I thought their stab in this arena was their MSN Spaces as part of their Windows Live push. I see it as a good move on their part. MSN Spaces is clunky. It has about as much sex appeal as a Ford Pinto. It may signal the importance they see in arena in having 2 different takes on the social networking site concept. Wallop so far is invite only. Although you can go to this site and email them asking them for an invitation.

Voice Over IP With Muni WiFi

2006-09-06T11:50:00.000-06:00

One of the services this company is saying they will offer with their Minneapolis WiFi is VOIP. I'm at a bit of a loss on how they'll pull that one off. Maybe there is something not being reported correctly by the media. Or maybe there is something about the technology that I don't understand. I just don't understand how they can provide VOIP on this municipal WiFi network. My experience in coffee shops using Skype is that if the shop is using 802.11b, the 11MBS max standard, the quality of the call is pretty patchy. That's because I'm likely getting an actual bit rate down around 6 MBS. When I first moved into my new place and I was using open WiFi networks in my building (I'm on the 10^th floor so it's unlikely to be from anywhere else), I couldn't use Skype with most of them. The signal was strong enough to slowly get some data but trying to have a phone conversation didn't work. That's why I'm wondering how much VOIP service and at that of what quality they'll be able to offer.

http://www.startribune.com/10048/story/657227.html

Q How fast will the Wi-Fi network be?

A The city contract says the Wi-Fi network speed must be 1 million bits (1 megabit) per second for uploads and downloads. But the company that will build and operate the network, US Internet of Minnetonka, says actual speeds will range from 1 to 3 megabits.

More On Minneapolis WiFi

2006-09-03T12:26:00.000-06:00

I don't understand why the politicos are gushing over WiFi. I don't think they understand the technology in relation to others. With the comments they are making, you would think they would pee their pants in shock if you told them that most all the cell phone providers off you the ability to wirelessly surf the internet from your lap top.

The article I'm refering to is here :
http://www.startribune.com/154/story/650966.html

Minneapolis WiFi

2006-09-01T21:21:00.001-06:00

http://www.startribune.com/154/story/651527.html