It’s official. Over the next few weeks I will be transitioning my day time job from Avanade to my own company White Peak Software Inc and I will be 100% focused on White Peak starting Monday, August 16. This is a very exciting time for me as I move to the world of independent consulting and it is something I could not do without the love and support of my wonderful wife Melanie.
American Ski Company finally gets it. They are offering low cost season passes for those people who wish to buy their passes early. These are All for One passes with access to Killington, Pico, Mount Snow, Sugarloaf, Sunday River, and Attitash Bear Peak for as low as $349. Quantities are limited so act now.
I received my new Dell Latitude 600 today. Sweet machine but now it’s time to set it up to my liking. My plan going into it is to setup the host OS with the general tools I need each day such as Eudora Pro, Office 2003, iTunes, and so on. I will use either VMWare or Virtual PC to host guest OS for my development environments. I plan to setup the primary user account for each OS with minimum privileges to force me to become even more security minded.
I’m still not convinced that hosting my development environment in a guest OS is the right choice but I do like the idea of creating a new development environment in a matter of minutes instead of hours. The big decision I have to make though is whether to use VMWare or Virtual PC. I have been a VMWare user for some time now but there are some cost benefits for using Virtual PC. Post a reply if you have an opinion on VMWare versus Virtual. Meanwhile I’ll post more about my setup and configuration experience as I go through the process.
Reported by the The New York Times, “Delta Air Lines said yesterday that it planned to use disposable radio tags to track all luggage it handles at domestic airports.”
Congratulations to Dave and Lexi on their recent marriage. Melanie and I are looking forward to the reception in October.
“This is a warning for any creator of computer programs: that software quality matters, that applications must be foolproof, and that-whether embedded in the engine of a car, a robotic arm in a factory or a healing device in a hospital-poorly deployed code can kill.”
This quote comes from an article my friend Matt pointed to me from Base Line Magazine titled Why Software Quality Matters.
This article really illustrates the importance of software quality. As more software is used in the daily lives of people the importance of quality software increases. Recently I read in Consumer Reports that a particular model of luxury car is being recalled due to a problem related to a transmission controller chip. The software in this chip can cause the car moving forward to shift into reverse. Imagine the pileup that could be caused by a car suddenly shifting into reverse as it and other drivers speed down the NJ Turnpike during rush hour.
Many programmers like me can and have argued that our business applications pose no threat to human life. But does this mean we can set quality levels for our work to a lower standard? Does it mean we can intentionally deploy poorly written applications? I say absolutely not! Software developers must start accepting the responsibility of writing high quality code and they should be held accountable for any code not adhering to a high standard of quality.
I was a grumbling VB developer for a number of years. At the time Delphi was my language of choice but in the part of the country I lived customer work using it was almost non-existent. In the summer of 2000 at PDC, a friend of mine from Microsoft showed me the .NET Framework and C#. I was instantly drawn to C# because it reminded me of Delphi, which is no surprise for those who know their C#/Delphi history.
Over the last month a lot of my time has been spent focusing on security as I design a security framework and strategy for a customer. One comment I hear often is “we don’t need to worry about internal security threats” or “internal security threats are minor and represent a low priority”. I couldn’t disagree more and have been repeatedly emphasizing the importance of protecting ones assets from internal attacks, which for some companies is a greater threat.
Yesterday’s report of an AOL software engineer being arrested for stealing 92 million customer screen names proves my point. Some people will do crazy things when offered enough money. And companies that believe “it won’t happen here” or “our employees would never do such a thing” are fooling themselves. Why risk it? Invest in reducing security threats, both external and internal.
I thought Microsoft’s patent on //TODO was silly but Microsoft’s patent for using human skin as a power conduit tops it. Actually this patent sounds interesting. I can see how wearable devices can benefit from a personal area network.
My friend Phil was in town this week which means one thing. Time for BenZona to rock Luna Lounge. They had a great gig last night and it was good to see Phil, Keith and others again. We also stuck around to hear San Francisco based Candy From Strangers who I definitely got into.