Category: General commentary

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What does “Enterprise ready” mean?

“Enterprise Ready” means, in the end, that you have a vendor to blame if something goes wrong.

Let’s assume I spend a million bucks of company money on software from major vendors and pay a few million more per year on maintenance and support. Now let’s assume something goes horribly, horribly wrong — we’re dead in the water for a day, for example, or our online stock trading application crashes at market open. I have spent millions of dollars on high end software from top tier vendors, who all work very hard to get us back up and running. Eventually it’s all sorted out, and everyone is satisfied. I keep my job, and when it’s time to renew the support contracts the vendors remind the senior execs about how they pulled our ass out of the fire. Total cost: Let’s snatch a number out of mid air and say $12MM annually on software and support, and a $6MM outage. $18MM total.

Now let’s assume we go another route. We use all free, open-source software and save millions of dollars.  The same “something” happens, but now there ARE no vendors to call. We, our loyal, courageous and highly skilled technical staff, work tirelessly to solve the problem. We’re up in HALF the time it would have taken the vendors to rescue us. Total cost: a $3MM outage, plus say the two mil I spent on consultants and contractors to implement everything. We just saved $13MM, woo-hoo!

All the blame for the outage now falls upon me, the hapless putz whose idea it was to use all this “home-brewed” hacker stuff the vendors warned our CEO, CIO, CFO and everyone else about. It matters not what happened, why it happened, nor how well we handled it. A few stockholders (who coincidentally also own stock in the software vendors) file a class action suit. Blame is assessed, disembodied heads demanded. I’m out on my ass, along with anyone associated with me, probably my boss and maybe his boss as well.  I can’t find another tech job because it’s all my fault my company took a three million dollar outage.

You think I’m making this up? Think again. There’s a reason big companies pay loads of money for next-to-useless support contracts from Red Hat and Novell to run SLES and RHEL, instead of using free Linux distros. And there’s a reason they spend tens of millions (in the case of a large company) for software and services from Microsoft, IBM, BMC, HP, BEA, EMC, Oracle and all the rest. And for the most part it’s got nothing to do with technical considerations.

It’s one of the lessons we learn when working in an “enterprise” environment.  Of course no one ever wants to talk about the real reasons; we talk about “value propositions” and “core competencies” instead.

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Addicted & obsessed

I’ve been completely absorbed in trying to get a new product finished. I’ve already pretty much committed to making it to Dayton this year with inventory to sell. I have all fo the basic stuff working, and quite a few of the “whiz-bang” new features that no one else has. I keep hammering at getting the code finished, or at least to the point where I feel comfortable to taking it to Dayton.

I have been hacking away at this code (which is now somewhere upwards of 7,000 lines of C) for months.  The last couple of weeks I’ve been doing that and virtually nothing else.  I can now copy a limited set of Morse characters at over 20 WPM, sometimes 30…  and I still have not been on the air in a couple of years.

So, if you know me, I apologize for being completely out of the loop.

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We’re paying for what??

As I suspected, it turns out that the cute little octuplets born in the People’s Republic of Kalifornia will be largely supported by tax money.

A lot has already been said, and will continue to be said.  I won’t beat it to death.  I will say this: The federal government and the state should both sue the doctors who agreed to do the in vitro fertilization to recover the entire cost of the delivery, neonatal care and tax dollar support until those kids turn 21.

I call this the “Michael Jackson Syndrome”.  Some people desperately need to have someone around them to say, “Look, this is a really bad idea.  You’re obviously not thinking straight — you just can’t do this.  It’s wrong, and it will also make you look like a nut case”.  Jackson has never had this, which is why he’s in the state he is.  Apparently neither has this woman.  You’d think a bunch of doctors would have the common sense, not to mention the social and medical responsibility, to do it for her — but, hey, this is Kali we’re talking about.

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I win!

I moderate every comment posted to this blog. All one of them, so far. I don’t do that to censor viewpoints with which I don’t agree (though I could). I do it to keep the spammers and other jackasses from polluting the pond here. Every once in a while I get a dozen or so bogus comments posted by lame-ass criminals trying to spread viruses, Trojan programs or porno ads. I just delete their sorry crap and go on with my life.

The Internet as we know it is under constant siege. Unfortunately most of the attacks come from outside the US, places where the local governments are unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Even more disturbing, I suspect the majority of these attacks are perpetrated by US residents, using crappy computers in crappy, backwards or unfriendly countries to avoid prosecution in the US.

The answer to this problem as it stands today is not more laws. The laws we have are easily (and universally) circumvented or ignored. The only answer I can offer up is frontier justice. In the mean time, I just play Whack-A-Mole with the spammers, thieves and other low-life scum. So far I win.

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Doobie Brothers at Stir Cove

Lisa & I saw the Doobie Brothers at Stir Cove (Harrah’s in Council Bluffs) on August 31st.  They rocked the joint!  I was a little surprised that they didn’t do a couple of songs, like Minute By Minute or What A Fool Believes, but they did spend a good hour and a half or so doing most of their really good material.  I could easily have stayed and listened another hour.

I like the venue, though now they have one of the sillier ordinances I’ve heard of lately.  You can’t smoke in this open-air venue now…  they have another area, no more than three steps outside the gate, where you can smoke.  Of course the smoke still drifts everywhere else – like I said, it’s just silly.  Further proof that professional politicians as legislators are probably not the best idea we’ve ever had.  What rational person would dream up such nonsense?

Of the four concerts we have been to there (George Thorogood, Allman Brothers, Violent Femmes and Doobie Brothers) three were outstanding shows.

Thanks, Mom!  🙂

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Lovin’ my LG Dare

So a couple of weeks ago I traded my Motorola Razr for an LG Dare (VX9700).  Suh-weet.  It’s a touch screen phone with all the toys — micro SD card memory slot, 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus, video, flash (kind of), MP3 capability, full HTML web browser, accelerometer for detecting screen orientation, you name it.  Of course the coolest part is the whole touch screen thing; it’s nice having a huge LCD that for the most part does what you want it to do.  The fact that it’s supported by BitPim makes it even more usable.

It does have a few shortcomings, but they’re minor and geeky.  I can’t send a wallpaper as a pix message, for whatever stupid reason.  Handling of MP3 playlists — well, it’s buggy as a roach motel, and basically unusable with anything I’ve tried (Windows Media Player, Rhapsody, or just transferring files in USB mode).  The web browser is a little lacking, but usable for the occasional gotta-have access.  It’s got handwriting regocnition, but like the Palm you’ve got to learn the oddball way of entering text to use it — and no, of course it’s not the same method the Palm used.  Still, though, it’s really nice to be able to turn the sucker on its side and see the QWERTY keyboard pop up on the touch sensitive LCD!  I can even type with my thumbs, making text messaging super easy.

All in all, I’m happy with it.  I’m looking for hacks to be able to change the theme and do some of the other little things that you presently can’t do, for whatever reason.  Support on the web seems to be pretty good, and there are a lot of people hacking away at it — so I’m sure things will continue to get better.

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Damn monsoons, anyway…

So I’m down here in Charlotte…  again.  And, like it once did every time I came here, it’s been raining.  Not just an occasional rain, it’s been a pretty much constant downpour from Monday morning on.  I htink I’ve seen it stop twice, for no more than an hour or two each time.

Of course I remembered to bring my sunglasses, which are still in their case in my laptop bag.  Didn’t bring an umbrella, though.  There are 2 or 3 of them sitting at home; there may even be one in my truck.  Parked a the airport.

How wonderful.

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Am I still alive?

Well, yes, for the most part…  but I haven’t been blogging much.  Let’s do a quick recap…

The high school reunion went well.  It was really good to see some old friends, make a few new ones, and generally reconnect with people.  It’s too bad some weren’t able to make it, and even sadder that one died on the way up to attend.

Pete’s back in school, getting ready for football.

I got a new phone.  It’s an LG Dare, and it’s just…  well, it’s cool as hell.  Why not an iPhone, you may ask?  Well, let’s see.  The Dare isn’t WAY overpriced, it’s not tied to uber-sucky AT&T, it’s got the features I want, it’s hackable and not tied to Apple’s cash extraction machine…  in short, why would I even consider an iPhone?

We’ve been out on the bike a few times, but not nearly enough.  The seat came back from Mean City, and it’s much, much better now.  The lawn is surviving, no thanks to me.  Have not had the Vespa out at all this summer — I need to find some time to do some engine work, again.  I’m building a new replacement for our server, which has been running Fedora Core 3 (or is it 4?) for way too long.

There.  All caught up.

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The Great American Trailer Park Musical

The torrid tale of a group of trailer park neighbors whose lives are disrupted by a home-wrecking stripper, a big storm, a false pregnancy (or is it?), a crazed ex-boyfriend, a marginally functional electric chair…  did I miss anything?  This is high drama worthy of, well, at least Jerry Springer, and you’ll never look at your Magic Markers and Pam cooking spray the same way again.

OK, I admit it.  I usually only see community theater productions that my daughter Allison appears in.  Still, when I do go I’m usually really glad I did and enjoy them for the play or musical itself, not just seeing my daughter shine (which she always does).  Some of these productions are really, really good.  Das Barbecue was hilarious, as was Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Lucky Stiff and others.  I have to say that if you have never been to a production at Bellevue Little Theater, Omaha Community Playhouse or one of the others, you really should.  It’s not terribly expensive, the crowd is generally casual, and you’ll likely have a really good time.  Last night we attended a pre-opening night show of the latest show at the BLT,  The Great American Trailer Park Musical.  It was a hoot…  I got a decent workout just laughing.

Uniformity of talent is usually not the real strong point in these productions; some people are great actors and actresses, but so-so singers.  Some can dance like mad, but can’t act all that well; some can sing but can’t dance, etc.  (I say this with the disclaimer that I am good at NONE of these, and have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone who can get up on stage and do what these people do, and do it for free.)  In this case, the whole theme is cheesy enough that any variations in talent are immaterial – plus the cast are all pretty good to begin with!  The acting was good, with a couple of real standouts.  There was no one who couldn’t sing; the quality was pretty uniformly good with (of course) one clear standout.

I suspect the tech crew is still dialing in the audio details, and there was one place where stage hands making a scenery change kind of distracted from the tale.  Since it was pre-opening night (I think it was “tech night” or the final dress rehearsal), I would expect the actual public performances to go even better.

All in all, I would recommend this musical to anyone who appreciates comedy.   Call the theater, get your tickets, and prepare for an hour and 45 minutes (no intermission) of real, honest-to-goodness fun.