My Blog

Gates counters rival with $3 software

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 05:40:05 GMT

Microsoft promises cheap student software as charity set to ship five million Linux-based laptops to developing world.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article1676934.ece

In July the non-profit One Laptop Per Child will begin shipping 5 million laptops, priced at $100 each. Designed for developing countries, the machine – dubbed XO – can be recharged by hand. Crucially, for Microsoft, they run on the rival Linux operating system.

Microsoft has stressed that its efforts in this area are not philanthropic, but motivated by commercial reasons.

The $3 software bundle, which will be released in the second half of this year, will include the Windows XP Starter Edition operating system and Microsoft Office Home, a package that includes applications such as Word.

A Microsoft spokesman said the scheme was designed to “help close the digital divide” and “bring social and economic opportunity to the estimated 5 billion people who are not yet realising the benefits of technology.” It will also seed a working knowledge of Microsoft software systems, which account for as much as 90 per cent of the market, in a new generation.

The developing world is seen as key for technology groups faced with saturated Western markets. Mobile phone companies, for instance, are tailoring basic, rugged handsets with long battery life, designed to be shared among communities in Africa.

Koichiro Matsuura, the director general of Unesco, said he welcomed partnerships with private groups to counter a “drastic shortage of trained teachers, which constitutes one of the major obstacles in achieving education for all".

Analysts regard cooperation between the public and private sector as key to rolling out technology in the developing world.

Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates, said: "Strategies with the greatest potential will involve collaboration among many players, including governments, NGOs, commercial carriers, financing entities, local providers, services organisations, and hardware and software vendors.”

CK Prahalad, a professor at the University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business, said: "Computers and connectivity are still too expensive for private ownership by the poor, and applications as well as information resources that are appropriate to this group have been slow to emerge, in part because the poor themselves have not been involved in creating them."

Gates launches developing world tech initiative

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 05:16:13 GMT

IDG News Service 4/19/07

http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/070419gatestech/

Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service, Beijing Bureau

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates launched an initiative in Beijing Thursday aimed at bridging the digital divide between technologically advanced and developing countries.

The initiative, an expansion of Microsoft's "Unlimited Potential" strategy, involves offering governments a US$3 software package called the Student Innovation Suite. It includes Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Math 3.0, Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office, and Windows Live Mail desktop.

The suite will be available by the end of this year to qualifying governments that are working to supply PCs to students to promote technology skills. In 2008, Microsoft will extend its availability to all countries with economies defined as low- or middle-income by the The World Bank.

"In each country it is tailored to the interests of the government and citizens, but it's about innovation, it's about integration, and it's about creating jobs in those regions," Gates said, speaking at the conclusion of the two-day Microsoft Government Leaders Forum Asia in Beijing.

Gates emphasized the role of technology in education, and said the software would be a first step towards offering children in the developing world greater access to computing. He referred to "my favorite Windows product, the Windows tablet," and said that tablet PCs could eventually replace paper in schools.

"Over time, students won't need to have textbooks. The cost of [the tablet] will be less than buying textbooks, and yet the experience of using it is dramatically superior than what you would have had with a paper-based experience," Gates said.

While Gates has always been a proponent of using technology to solve social, economic and health problems worldwide, this latest move is not purely altruistic, one industry analyst said.

"You'll find that Microsoft would be fairly open if pushed that they don't go into a market for philanthropic reasons," said Clive Longbottom, founder and analyst of Quocirca, a technology research firm in London.

Microsoft has to find more creative ways to distribute its software in emerging markets, where open-source software and Linux have a foothold, he said. Partnering with local governments and global organizations to reach students and developers is a good way to do that, he said.

Microsoft's Windows-based approached differs from other developing-world computing initiatives such as the One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC), which makes use of an open-source Linux operating system, combined with an Advanced Micro Devices Inc. microprocessor, and powered by a hand crank. OLPC has targeted a price for its laptop at $100 per unit by 2008, although Libya, Nigeria, Egypt, Rwanda, and Ethiopia ordered units priced at $150 earlier this year.

Libya has committed to providing 1.2 million laptops within a year, and Rwanda will offer 2 million laptops to schoolchildren within five years, according to the OLPC. The OLPC effort has been led by Nicholas Negroponte, the co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab.

Technology's role in improving education is already established, according to Gates. He referred to a distance-learning experiment where the results of a class that experienced live instruction was compared to a remote education class. The latter received the lecture on DVD, and stopped the presentation every 15 minutes. The remote group could stop and discuss things wherever they wanted. Because it was start and stop, that was the group that did the best."

Microsoft and others needed to begin reaching out to the developing world through existing, lower-cost technologies such as cell phones and television to provide basic computing and educational opportunities, according to Gates.

(Elizabeth Montalbano in New York contributed to this report.)
Steven Schwankert is Asia desk editor for the IDG News Service.

Sahana in the Philippine

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:57:00 GMT

Sahana Disaster Management System is a FOSS application that help disaster centers to manage their resources such as volunteers, logistics, supplies and many other things. Sahana is important to make all the resources distributed in the right way and efficient.

Sahana is a web based collaboration tool that addresses the common coordination problems during a disaster from finding missing people, managing aid, managing volunteers, tracking camps effectively between Government groups, the civil society (NGOs) and the victims themselves.

Bluepoint Foundation, in cooperation with the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), will be holding the Philippine Sahana Initiative (PSI) on April 24, 2007 at the Discovery Suites in Ortigas. Ravindra De Silva and Mifan Carem, the originators of Sahana will be coming over to Manila for the event organized by Marie Grace Gaffud-Antonio of Bluepoint with details at http://bluepoint.com.ph/

Sahana received its biggest award so far, the Free Software Foundation's award for Social Benefit an initiative for FOSS developer. Four members of the Sahana team attended the awards ceremony at the annual FSF meeting, held at MIT in USA last March 2007, where they received the award from the founder of the FSF, Richard Stallman. The award, which is only one of two awards given by the FSF each year, was inspired by Sahana a year ago. The recipient of last year's award was Wikipedia, and Sahana follows in its footsteps this year.

See more details at http://www.fsf.org/social-benefit-award-2006

Few people intend to upgrade to Vista

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 11:39:00 GMT

Posted on April 4th, 2007 by John Pospisil

A recent Harris Poll has found that while most online computers users are aware of Microsoft’s Windows Vista, few are intending to switch over to the new operating system anytime soon.

http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/04/04/

The Harris Poll of 2223 US online adults in early March found that 87% were aware of Vista. Unfortunately for Microsoft, only 12% of Vista-aware respondents were intending to upgrade to Vista in the next 12 months.

The poll revealed that 39% of those intending to move over to Vista planned to upgrade their existing computer so it would meet Vista requirements, 35% planned to buy a new computer with Vista preinstalled, 17% planned to purchase a new “Vista-ready” computer, and 8% said that they would install Vista on their existing computer without any upgrade.

A similar Harris Poll in December 2006, just one month before Vista’s consumer launch, found that 47% of those online were aware of Vista, and that 20% intended to upgrade in the coming year. It seems that while Microsoft’s “Wow Starts Now” marketing campaign has boosted awareness of Vista, it hasn’t substantially increased the total number of people planning to upgrade.

The survey does indicate, however, that the release of the new operating system has affected the timing of the purchase of a new computer for 40% of the respondents who were aware of Vista: one in five said they had delayed the purchase of a new computer, and one in five said they would bring forward the purchase of a new computer.

According to Milton Ellis, Vice President of Harris Interactive’s Technology Group, said Microsoft has some way to go to convert the awareness of Vista into sales.

“In order to generate that ‘WOW’ factor, Microsoft will have to put forth a value proposition that will move the majority to the upgrade category in the years ahead. Vista promised better performance, reliability, security, and a revolutionary user interface - but it appears consumers looking to upgrade are not ready to buy into the promise whereas new computer buyers will want the latest and greatest,” said Ellis.

“Microsoft has faced this challenge before with operating system upgrades. Consumers tend to wait until a few service packs have been released to fix real or perceived problems. No doubt, Microsoft understands these issues and will proceed accordingly.”

EU Rejects Microsoft Royalty Proposal

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 11:34:00 GMT

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday April 05, @01:36AM

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/05/0249223&from=rss

pallmall1 writes
According to MSNBC, The Financial Times has reported that the EU is going to drastically reduce or even eliminate Microsoft's proposed royalties on interoperability information required to be released by the EU's antitrust ruling issued three years ago.

According to a confidential EU document, "Microsoft will be forced to hand over to rivals what the group claims is sensitive and valuable technical information about its Windows operating system for next to no compensation...".

Even Neil Barrett, the expert picked by both Microsoft and the EU to oversee Microsoft's compliance with the 2004 ruling, says a zero percent royalty would be 'better.

Moving the FOSS Agenda for Health

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:42:00 GMT

Setting the Framework for Interoperability

Venue: Federal Hotel, Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Date: May 8-11, 2007

[In conjunction with the OPEN SOURCE HEALTH CARE ALLIANCE (OSHCA)
CONFERENCE 2007]

Who Should Attend:

Developers (FOSS or non-FOSS) willing to enhance their skills in FOSS health applications and implementation of interoperability.

Conference-Workshop Overview:

The International Open Source Network (IOSN) and InWEnt Capacity Building International- Germany, are inviting developers in the health sector to participate in a conference-workshop on FOSS health application development. The event is organized and managed by the Open Source Health Care Alliance (OSHCA). IOSN and the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through InWEnt Germany are sponsoring the conference-workshop.

This four-day conference-workshop will consist of an intensive training in Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) applications in healthcare, its updates and the use of FOSS technologies. It is aimed particularly at participants from developing countries of the Asia-Pacific region ( Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam). The target audience, in addition to the FOSS in Healthcare Community, will include interested persons from Ministries ofHealth and Private Health Care Facilities from this region.

The conference-workshop agenda will also include presentations and discussions on a variety of issues focusing on interoperability and data exchange. Major concerns are affordability and developing human capacity. The promotion, adoption and the use of FOSS applications will be discussed. Conference-workshop participants will be invited to participate in future collaborative projects to be jointly organized by IOSN and OSHCA.

Conference-workshop Objectives:

1. Share and review current FOSS applications and technologies in healthcare
2. Conceptualize and define role of OSCHA in managing collaborative FOSS services
3. Explore the role of open standards in facilitating interoperable health information communication and determine standards to be used in future projects
4. Promoting open source for health care applications, particularly to IT and healthcare communities in Asia-Pacific region
5. Promoting the advantages of using FOSS applications to managers of healthcare facilities in public and private sectors in the Asia-Pacific region
6. Train new developers from Asia on FOSS concepts and health data interoperability
7. Creation of collaborative projects for the creation of FOSS for health applications among participants

The conference-workshop will be held concurrently with the IOSN-sponsored Open Source Health Care Alliance conference where a global network of FOSS developers in health will be in attendance. Intensification of the regional collaboration will allow new FOSS developers to attend the conference and interact with this global network of experts. Public-private partnerships can be encouraged through the interaction of ASEAN SMEs/FOSS and European SME/FOSS health developers in attendance.

The conference will delve on the application of FOSS for health while the training conference-workshop is intended for participants who would like to learn more about health application development, and how to comply with international standards for health information interoperability.

Application:

Interested developers are invited to apply for participation by sending the attached application form to: asean3@iosn.net .

Application deadline is April 10, 2007 .

Participants are selected according to the following criteria:

- Work experience in a health environment for at least two years
- Experience administering a Linux PC
- Good command of English, including technical terms used in ICT
- Residency in one of the target countries [Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam]
- Ability to facilitate the adoption of FOSS based health applications in their organizations

Open Source Health Care Alliance (OSHCA)
OSHCA is a non-profit organisation that provides the collaborative platform and forum to promote and facilitate Free/Open Source Software in Health Care. OSHCA's membership comprises a community of people, civil societies and professional bodies in health care and informatics industries that promotes the Free/Open Source Software Concepts in Health Care. OSHCA helps policy makers, commercial enterprises, and users take advantage of the benefits of Free/Open Source Software. URL: http://oshca.org/

Some musical links

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:48:00 GMT

Me and my guitar
Ragtime music, the Scott Joplin story
Geef Mij Maar Nasi Goreng

Geef Mij Maar Nasi Goreng

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:01:00 GMT

Toen wij repatrieerden uit de gordel van smaragd
Dat Nederland zo koud was hadden wij toch nooit gedacht
Maar 't ergste was 't eten.
Nog erger dan op reis
Aardapp'len, vlees en groenten en suiker op de rijst

Geef mij maar nasi goreng met een gebakken ei
Wat sambal en wat kroepoek en een goed glas bier erbij
Geef mij maar nasi goreng met een gebakken ei
Wat sambal en wat kroepoek en een goed glas bier erbij

Geen lontong, sate babi, en niets smaakt hier pedis
Geen trassi, sroendeng, bandeng en geen tahoe petis
Kwee lapis, onde-onde, geen ketella of ba-pao
Geen ketan, geen goela-djawa, daarom ja, ik zeg nou

Ik ben nou wel gewend, ja aan die boerenkool met worst
Aan hutspot, pake klapperstuk, aan mellek voor de dorst
Aan stamppot met andijwie, aan spruitjes, erwtensoep
Maar 't lekkerst toch is rijst, ja en daarom steeds ik roep

http://lagujadul.multiply.com
Lyric http://lirama.net/artist/3010

Who moved my cheese

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 13:54:00 GMT

A book for all ages with insights that can last. Telling story of four characters who faced unexpected change during a life time and how to confront with that. Sniff, who knows change before; Scurry, who carries change into action; Hem, who opposes change as he feared; Haw, who learns to adapt change. Written by Dr Spencer Johnson, a psychology trainer and communication consultant. He co-authored "The One Minute Manager" with Dr Kenneth Blanchard.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/0399144463?&PID=30561

Synopsis:
From one of the world's most recognized experts on management comes a simple parable filled with insights designed to help readers manage change quickly and prevail in changing times. Written for all ages, the story takes less than an hour to read, but its unique insights can last for a lifetime.

Review by John-Paul, October 14, 2006

This has got to be the most over-hyped book in history. Why has it sold so many copies? Corporations buy it in bulk and hand out thousands of copies to employees because "Who Moved My Cheese?" tells employees to not question authority and happily accept any change that comes along.

The parallel between mice trapped in a maze and employees stuck in cubicles is striking. When change comes it's not anyone's fault, certainly not anyone in authority, so the best way of dealing with it, advises Dr. Johnson, is to look at the bright side, scurry off to find new cheese and - oh, yes - LAUGH at yourself.

So the next time downsizing leaves you demoted or out on the street, or a new and improved compensation plan requires more work for less pay, don't forget to laugh at yourself. Just the way management is laughing at you, little mouse.

Review by adeleye, November 27, 2006

Spencer Johnson is one of those few great achievers who make you feel they are just ordinary people like you and me. This is the second of his books that I am reading (the first being the One minute Manager).

Reading who moved my cheese was first an emotional experience... then intellectual, it came at a time when I had to deal with transition and deep loss. I recommend it to any one afraid of letting go of the known past for the uncertain present and future where we all must live, love and grow. It is a book of hope!

Ragtime music, the Scott Joplin story

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 11:03:00 GMT

http://www.wnur.org/jazz/styles/ragtime/ragtime-story.html

The history of ragtime is mirrored in the life and progress of Scott Joplin. This is not merely because Joplin was one of the great ragtime composers. The King of Ragtime experienced many of the elements whose confluence developed into those Euphonic Sounds which were the musical delight of America and even Europe at the turn of the century.

The birth of ragtime is commonly set by the date of the first published rag. In 1895, Ben Harney published his ragtime song You've Been a Good Old Wagon in Louisville. This was the man who, a year later, brought ragtime to popularity in New York City. The first instrumental ragtime was William Krell's Mississippi Rag in January, 1897. It was not until the end of 1897, however, that Negro instrumental ragtime made its way to the publishers' presses with Tom Turpin's Harlem Rag. Having already published marches and waltzes, Scott Joplin finally published Original Rags in 1899.

Like any musical style, ragtime had its roots in many predecessors. But even after ragtime developed into a recognizable style, publishers shyed away from the syncopated rhythms, afraid that sales would follow the Italian for syncopation, alla zoppa (limping), rather than the English colloquial driving notes. Eventually, syncopated notes drove sales for ragtime music so furiously that publishers labelled even unsyncopated music with the name to spur sales.

The musical roots of ragtime are tied to plantation life. One popular form of entertainment was the Cakewalk. Couples in fancy dress would promenade, and the best walkers would take the cake. The cakewalk eventually made its way to vaudeville, even to Europe.

Rhythms which were part of a musical heritage brought from Africa were incorporated into cakewalks, 'coon songs, and the music of jig bands which eventually developed into ragtime. The music, vitalized by the opposing rhythms common to African dance, was vibrant, enthusiastic, often extemporaneous.

Raised in a musical family, Joplin was familiar with this musical heritage. Giles Joplin played the violin and his wife, Florence Givens Joplin, sang and played banjo. Scott Joplin had three brothers and two sisters. Monroe was the eldest Joplin boy. Scott's younger brothers Will and Robert were singers; Will also played guitar and violin, and Robert composed popular songs. Myrtle and Ossie, Scott's sisters, were also undoubtedly involved with music. Scott himself began with the family guitar and also learned cornet. But his musical talent blossomed on a neighbor's piano, convincing his father to purchase an old piano. Giles wanted his son to learn a trade, but Scott's practiced talent was sufficient to keep him employed most of his life.

At eleven years young, Scott Joplin so impressed a local German piano teacher that he gave the young boy free lessons including elements of music theory. Joplin repaid this kindness by keeping in touch with him, sending money when his old teacher fell into poverty. Thus Joplin encountered the great European and American classics, from Johann Sebastian Bach to Louis Moreau Gottschalk. This marked another avenue for the entry of African elements into ragtime, as Gottschalk had incorporated African, Caribbean, and Creole rhythms and melodies into many of his works. Joplin was also exposed to opera, a bug which infected him more later in life as he strove to produce ragtime operas.

After the death of his mother in 1882, young Scott struck out on his own to make his fortune shaping America's music.

Visited links, April 2007

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 10:09:00 GMT

Following were mostly visited new links, sometimes more than once for the month. I put the links in case those are still needed for reference in the future.

http://www.delidn.ec.europa.eu
http://www.kunstderfuge.com/
http://www.whomovedmycheese.com/
http://www.fossnepal.org/
http://www.fullcirclemagazine.org

One Up on Wall Street

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 10:11:00 GMT

A difficult book, if not very, to read by Peter Lynch about investing in the stock market. Lynch is exceptional fund manager that gain multifolds from the stock exchange. In this book, Lynch tells about how to shop for stocks and gain from growing business at a bargain. Well at least these are my words. Lynch offers easy ways for determining company's potential, fast growers and other types of companies. I have only the condensed or digest form which is 160 pages from Simon & Schuster, 1989.

Review By Nick Kapur September 6, 2006

http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2006/09/06/foolish-book-review-quotone-up-on-wall-streetquot.aspx

As a rookie investor, I've had the following conversation with myself: "I want to put some money into the market, but where should I start?" With stocks, funds, options, bonds, and all sorts of other alternatives abounding, the view from the top of the investing mountain can be quite intimidating. If you ask Peter Lynch, the solution is quite simple. He'd recommend that you just jump in.

In his book, One Up on Wall Street, the philosophy is slightly more complex than that, but not much. Lynch believes that with a little research and steady discipline, a regular guy like me can sprint right past so-called investment gurus.

Don't listen to the hype
Lynch explains his investing style in an extended analogy to a cocktail party and the chatter that inevitably turns to the next hot stock. Depending on how the market is doing and a few other factors, the guest with the stock tip will either be the life of the party or the guy who gets pushed to the back near the vegetable platter. Either way, he says, most people take an irrational approach to investing.

People become interested when a given stock becomes the new, hot thing or is a player in the "now" industry. If companies like Celgene (Nasdaq: CELG) or RF Micro Devices (Nasdaq: RFMD) sound familiar, then pay attention. Like lemmings, people naturally get caught up in the crowd and lose sight of what's really important. Lynch stresses the basics.

If you find a company that's the new hot thing and, without bias, you can say that its numbers still look impressive, then go ahead and invest. You might still catch an impressive return on that investment, popularity aside.

But Lynch seemingly isn't concerned with the companies that people are talking about near the punch bowl, or with the tip he got about that new, amazing company that will change life as we know it on planet Earth. The best companies are most often right in front of your face. They're the ones you encounter on a daily basis and that you can easily understand.

Lynch loved eating tacos and other treats from fast-food mover Taco Bell, so he invested in Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM). Like many Americans, he was startled by the excessive amount of refuse produced by the average consumer, so he bought Waste Management (NYSE: WMI). Invest in what you know. With a little bit of fundamental research, the rest will take care of itself.

People don't care about garbage collection
We tend to disregard the everyday regulars as potential investments, because no one really wants to talk about them. They're not sexy, they're not hot, and they surely won't make you the center of attention in conversation. But boredom and disinterest are two critical elements in finding the next 10-, 30-, and 50-baggers - Lynch coined the term, after all.

Some of Lynch's favorite (and most profitable) investments have come in the form of generally disagreeable industries, such as funeral home services and trash removal.

These aren't the companies that people secretly tell their best friend about when they owe them a favor (even though they probably should). In many cases, they're solidly run, with strong market share, great numbers, and little competition. Furthermore, few people pay them any attention until they've become the behemoths in their respective industries. And that's why anybody can get in on them.

Here are 13 questions that a "Lynchian" investor will ask about a company:

1. Does it sound dull or, even better, ridiculous?
2. Does it do something dull?
3. Does it do something disagreeable?
4. Is it a spinoff?
5. Is it disregarded and not owned by institutions/not followed by analysts?
6. Do rumors abound involving toxic waste and/or Mafia ownership?
7. Is there something depressing about it?
8. Is it a no-growth industry?
9. Has it got a niche?
10. Do people have to keep buying it?
11. Is it a user (not producer) of technology?
12. Are insiders buying it?
13. Is the company buying back shares?

If you answered yes to these questions, you might have found the next undervalued, underappreciated pick of the decade. While it may not be the be-all and end-all to investing, it may get you thinking about the right types of companies.

This one's a keeper
One Up on Wall Street was written in 1989, so don't expect to find any great stock tips from the investment master himself in there. The former Fidelity fund manager does, however, provide the reader with an investment approach that can last a lifetime.

His thesis is simple, logical, and easily replicated. Even if you don't agree with his philosophy, you should be able to draw some simple, yet important lessons from his advice on buying stocks. If you're an advanced investor savvy to the thrills and spills of the market, I still recommend this Foolish favorite. It might categorically change your investment strategy.

The Software Conspiracy

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 03:43:00 GMT

An old book of 2000 by Mike Minasi, now available for free download at http://www.softwareconspiracy.com/

Who among us hasn't been the victim of defective software? You type a report in your word processor, compose a bit of e-mail, or try to buy something over the Web in your favorite Web browser, and all of a sudden something goes wrong.

The program stops responding, or just disappears from the screen altogether, or maybe the whole system ignores your keystrokes and mouse clicks, forcing you to shut down the whole computer. Whatever caused it, the result is the same – you lost your ideas, your time, and squandered some creativity, perhaps never to get it back again.

The conspiracy isn’t evil, it’s just single-minded: profit is the sole goal, quality (or anything else) is irrelevant. The side effects, however, are not irrelevant. Software defects have killed millions of staff hours. They’ve killed some great writing, some great figuring, some great ideas. People killed 65 million hours in 1996 waiting on hold when calling software firms for assistance. A lost e-mail message could kill a deal. There’s even evidence that it could kill the current economic boom.

I see word processors, e-mail packages, spreadsheets, and Web browser software shipped by large, well-established software companies while those pieces of software are still riddled with defects. Products that literally cannot be made to work reliably. Software entrepreneurs making millions of dollars in profits but claiming that they don’t have the time and money to include quality in their design specifications. An industry where 15 percent of the software firms don’t even test their software before selling it to you.

Chapter 1 is a short overview of the rest of the book, the "executive summary" for those who don’t have the time to absorb the whole book all at once. Chapter 2 looks at bugs in detail, asking why software has defects and what the common defects are, and provides some sensible advice on how to cope with common bugs in the software you use. Chapter 3 explodes the myth that software firms want you to believe-the myth that "it’s impossible to write software without bugs."

Chapter 4 takes you into the world of software and the law, an area that’s become frightening recently with some proposed changes to U.S. laws-changes that would forever establish that it’s perfectly okay for software firms to sell you completely useless software and leave you no recourse whatsoever. Worse yet, those same software firms can show up at your door unannounced with a federal marshal and close down your business while ransacking your computers looking for software you didn’t pay for. Chapter 5 explains that bad software could have very large effects not just on each of us individually, but on the country as a whole. America essentially owns the software market, but if we’re not careful, we’ll lose it as we’ve lost so many others to our competitors across the seas.

And Chapter 6 offers very specific, simple, step-by-step things you can do to help solve the problem of buggy software-everyday things anyone can do. Finally, Chapter 7 puts the rest of the book in perspective by offering a view of the possible futures-both good and bad-that could arrive if something does or doesn’t happen to change the quality of commercial software.

How would you move mount Fuji?

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 03:20:00 GMT

A book about different techniques of interviewing job seekers and how to recruit best people with points to ponder. Tell stories about how Microsoft got their employees hired and somewhat psychological. People are hired based on how well they answer questions given by the recruiters. I don't think this book was written by Microsoft to give examples. This book is 288 pages thick by William Poundstone, 2003. Originally published by Little, Brown and Company, visit http://www.twbookmark.com

Subtitle: Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle — How the World's Smartest Companies Select the Most Creative Thinkers

Why are beer cans tapered on the ends? How many piano tuners are there in the world? Why does a mirror reverse right and left instead of up and down?

For years, Microsoft and other high-tech companies have been posing riddles and logic puzzles like these in their notoriously grueling job interviews. Now "puzzle interviews" have become a hot new trend in hiring. From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, employers are using tough and tricky questions to gauge job candidates' intelligence, imagination, and problem-solving ability-qualities needed to survive in today's hypercompetitive global marketplace.

For the first time, William Poundstone reveals the toughest questions used at Microsoft and other Fortune 500 companies—and supplies the answers. He traces the rise and controversial fall of employer-mandated IQ tests, the peculiar obsessions of Bill Gates (who plays jigsaw puzzles as a competitive sport), the sadistic mind games of Wall Street (which reportedly led one job seeker to smash a forty-third-story window), and the bizarre excesses of today's hiring managers (who may start off your interview with a box of Legos or a game of virtual Russian roulette).

Poundstone talked to various people who have been involved in Microsoft hiring, including those who were interviewed, and those who gave interviews (full disclosure: I worked at Microsoft for ten years and was one of the people he talked to). He includes a lengthy list of questions, and most interestingly for many people, he also includes answers.

http://books.slashdot.org/books/03/04/22/224224.shtml?tid=109&tid=127&tid=98

In the book, Poundstone traces the origins of this type of question, providing some fascinating information on the history of intelligence testing. He then chronicles how a certain type of puzzle interview caught on in the high-tech industry. Microsoft was not the first company to ask such questions, but it certainly popularized it.

Poundstone explains that responding to a problem you can't solve could be thought of as the fundamental problem in Artificial Intelligence (AI), and then continues, "The problems used in AI research have often been puzzles or games. These are simpler and more clearly defined than the complex problems of the real world. They too involve the elements of logic, insight, and intuition that pertain to real problems. Many of the people at Microsoft follow AI work closely, of course, and this may help to explain what must strike some readers as peculiar -their supreme confidence that silly little puzzles have a bearing on the real world."

It could be -or maybe Microsoft employees assume that since they were hired that way, it's a great way to hire (and complaints from those who were not hired are just sour grapes). Most developers I knew thought of AI as a pretty academic discipline, and were more concerned with putting a dialog box up at the right location on the screen than trying to pass the Turing Test.

Nevertheless, as companies seek to emulate Microsoft, the questions have caught on elsewhere. And as Poundstone put it, such questions have now "metastasized" to other industries, such as finance.

This makes the effectiveness of these questions an important issue. Poundstone first presents evidence that "Where do you see yourself in five years" and "What are you most proud of" are fairly pointless questions. In one experiment he describes, two trained interviewers conducted interviews with a group of volunteers. Their evaluations were compared to those of another group who saw a fifteen second video of the interview: the candidate entering the room, shaking hands, and sitting down.

The opinions correlated strongly; in other words, when you are sitting in an interview telling the interviewer what you do on your day off and what the last book you read was, the interviewer has already made up his or her mind, based on who knows what subjective criteria. As Poundstone laments, "This would be funny if it weren't tragic."

Puzzle interviews could hardly be worse than that, but it turns out the evidence that they are better is doubtful. Poundstone shows how intelligence tests are on very dubious scientific standing, and points out that Microsoft's interviews are a form of IQ test, even though Microsoft does not admit that publicly. In his 1972 book of puzzles Games for the Superintelligent, Mensa member James Fixx wrote, "If you don't particularly enjoy the kinds of puzzles and problems we're talking about here, that fact alone says nothing about your intelligence in general". Yet virtually every Microsoft employee accepts the "obvious" rationale, that only people who do well in logic puzzles will do well at Microsoft.

There is another important point about puzzle-based interviews: although you would think that they were naturally more objective than traditional interviews-more black or white, right or wrong, and therefore less subject to interpretation by the interviewer-in fact, interviewers' evaluation of answers can be extremely subjective. Once you have formed your impression of a candidate from the enter/handshake/sit-down routine at the start of the interview, it is easy to rationalize a candidate's performance in an interview, either positively or negatively. They needed a bunch of hints to get the answer? Sure, but they were just small hints and it's a tough problem. They got the correct answer right away? No fair, they must have seen it before.

Given the ease with which the answers to logic puzzles can be spun, it is highly probable that Microsoft interviewers are also making fifteen-second judgements of candidates, without even realizing it.

Three years ago Malcolm Gladwell wrote a New Yorker article about job interviews called The New-Boy Network. Gladwell quotes much of the same research as Poundstone, and relates the story of Nolan Myers, a Harvard senior who is being recruited by Tellme and Microsoft. He has done a one-hour interview with Hadi Partovi of Tellme, and spoken to Gladwell, the author, in a coffee shop for about ninety minutes. His initial interaction with Microsoft was much briefer: he asked Steve Ballmer a question during an on-campus event, which led to an exchange of emails.

As Gladwell writes, "What convinced Ballmer he wanted Myers? A glimpse! He caught a little slice of Nolan Myers in action and-just like that-the C.E.O. of a four-hundred-billion-dollar company was calling a college senior in his dorm room. Ballmer somehow knew he liked Myers, the same way Hadi Partovi knew, and the same way I knew after our little chat at Au Bon Pain." So Steve Ballmer, who obviously does not feel that he is choosing people based on traditional interviewing techniques, and in fact was one of the originators of the "Microsoft questions," is more prone to making fifteen-second judgements than he would probably admit.

The flaw, if any, may simply be in ascribing too much value to the puzzles themselves. The actual questions may be secondary: the company might do as well asking geek-centric trivia questions, like "What was the name of Lord Byron's niece?" That does not mean Microsoft is hiring the same people that an investment bank is going to hire. The cues they look for may be different: instead of a firm handshake and the right tie, they may be looking for intelligent eyes and fast speech, or whatever non-verbal cues ubergeeks throw off.

A Microsoft interview candidate will typically talk to four or five employees, and in general must get a "hire" recommendation from all of them. Even if the employees are actually basing their recommendations not on puzzle-solving ability but on a subconscious evaluation, it is unlikely that all of them will be subconsciously using the same criteria. Emitting the proper signals to satisfy four different Microsoft employees may be as good a judge of a candidate as any, and Microsoft may be good at interviewing simply because it tends to hire people that are similar in some unknown way to the current group of employees. If another company adopts puzzle interviews, they may discover that they are not hiring the smartest people, just the people most like themselves.

In the end, the best thing that can be said about puzzle interviews is that as a screening technique, they are no worse than traditional interviews. And there are some side effects: some candidates may be more prone to accept a job with Microsoft because of the interview style, and imparted wisdom about the technique may function as a useful pre-screening of prospective applicants.

And of course, employees may get a kick out of showing a candidate how smart they are, although this can have a downside: How Would You Move Mount Fuji? has several examples of interviewers who seemed more concerned with proving their intelligence than in gauging that of the candidate. One former Microsoftie admits they asked candidates a question they did not know the answer to, just to see what they would do.

Two chapters of the book, entitled "Embracing Cluelessness" and "How to Outsmart the Puzzle Interview," attempt to help interview candidates who are confronted with such puzzle questions. The official advice is scarce: Microsoft's Interview Tips page advises candidates "Be prepared to think," which isn't much help, since presumably nobody is advising the opposite. Some of the recruiters who go to college campuses have their own little tips; for example, one recruiter named Colleen offers a quote from Yoda: "Do or do not, there is no try." Other recruiter tips include "Stay awake" and "Always leave room for dessert." Luckily, Poundstone gives advice that is a bit more concrete than that.

Microsoft puzzles can be divided into two types: those where the methodology is more important than the answer, and those where only the answer matters. The "methodology" puzzles break into two classes, "design" puzzles "How would you design a particular product or service?" and "estimation" puzzles "How much of a certain object occupies a certain space?"-for example, "How much does the ice in a hockey rink weigh?"

Design questions exist because at Microsoft, responsibility for product development is split between two groups, the developers and the program managers. Developers write code: program managers design the user interface, trying to balance the needs of users with the technical constraints from developers. As Poundstone points out, while estimation questions and general logic puzzles are universal, the design questions are reserved for program managers.

The reason is that program management does not require the specific skills of development. Designing software is something any reasonably intelligent person can attempt, so the design questions are aimed at finding people who are really good at design. In fact one program manager I worked with told me that the best way to distinguish a potential program manager from a potential developer was to ask them to design a house: a developer would jump right in, while a program manager would step back and ask questions about the constraints on the house.

Developers, meanwhile, are usually asked to write code on the whiteboard, an experience that program management candidates are spared. Books exist that discuss coding problems in more detail, such as Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job by John Mongan and Noah Suojanen, which covers many standard programming questions and even includes answers to a few of the logic puzzles that Poundstone addresses.

Poundstone does include some of these design questions and provides sample answers. But the "answer" to these questions is really the process involved: ask questions, state assumptions, propose design. That's all you need to know about them. If you are wondering why Microsoft did not use this logical procedure when confronted with the question "Design a response to the open source movement," but instead seems to have spouted off the first five things that popped into its collective head-that's just more proof that performance in interviews is not necessarily a great indicator of future job performance.

Another recruiter, Stacey, gives the following interview tip: "The best interview tips I can give you are to relax and think for yourself. For a Microsoft interview, be prepared to answer both technical and problem solving questions. Ask clarifying questions and remember to think out loud. We are more interested in the way your are thinking through a problem then we are in your final answer!"

That approach works for the "methodology" questions: design and estimation. What about the other kinds-the more traditional brainteasers? For those questions, forget your methodology. What Microsoft interviewers want is the right answer.

James Fixx, writing three years before Microsoft was founded, offers some advice that may hearten potential Microsoft recruits: "One way to improve one's ability to use one's mind is simply to see how very bright people use theirs." With that in mind, we can follow along with Poundstone as he explains the solutions to the puzzles that the very bright people at Microsoft ask during interviews. He certainly delivers the goods: 100 pages of answers. Unfortunately, it's not clear whether seeing those answers help you tune up your brain to answer problems that do not appear in the book.

In his book, Fixx spends some time trying to explain what, as he so delicately puts it, "the superintelligent do that's different from what ordinary people do." For example, trying to describe how a superintelligent person figures out the next letter in the sequence "O T T F F S S", he advises people to think hard: "Persistence alone will now bring its reward, and eventually a thought occurs to him." Talking about how to arrange four pennies so there are two straight lines with three pennies in each line, he writes "The true puzzler...gropes for some loophole, and, with luck, quickly finds it in the third dimension."

Further hints abound: "The intelligent person tries... not to impose unnecessary restrictions on his mind. The bright person has succeeded because he does not assume the problem cannot be solved simply because it cannot be solved in one way or even two ways he has tried." This advice sounds great in theory, but how do you apply it in practice? How do you make your mind think that way? As Poundstone quotes Louis Armstrong, "Man, if you have to ask 'What is it?' you ain't never goin' to know."

Poundstone recognizes that the flashes of insight that Fixx describes, and that Microsoft interviewers expect, are more of a hit-or-miss thing than the inevitable result of hard thinking by an intelligent person: "What is particularly troubling is how little 'logic' seems to be involved in some phases of problem solving. Difficult problems are often solved via a sudden, intuitive insight. One moment you're stuck; the next moment this insight has popped into your head, though not by any step-by-step logic that can be recounted."

During interview training I participated in when I worked there, Microsoft would emphasize four attributes that it was looking for when hiring: intelligence, hard work, ability to get things done, and vision. Intelligence was always #1, yet despite this, Poundstone says that the official Microsoft people he talked to would shy away from the word "intelligence", preferring to use terms like "bandwidth" and "inventiveness". Indeed Microsoft's Interview Tips web page says "We look for original, creative thinkers, and our interview process is designed to find those people." No mention of the word intelligence or any notion that interviews are some sort of intelligence test.

In fact, although I think that most Microsoft people would consider the puzzle tests to be mainly a test of intelligence, they may do better at testing some of the other desired attributes. Psychologist and personnel researcher Harry Hepner once said, "Creative thinkers make many false starts, and continually waver between unmanageable fantasies and systematic attack."

Poundstone explains that you have to figure out when your fantasies have become too unmanageable: "To deal effectively with puzzles (and with the bigger problems for which they may be a model), you must operate on two or more levels simultaneously. One thread of consciousness tackles the problem while another, higher-level thread monitors the progress. You need to keep asking yourself 'Is this approach working? How much time have I spent on this approach, and how likely is it to produce an answer soon? Is there something else I should be trying?'"

This is great advice, not just for a puzzle, but for a job, and life in general. So watching someone think through a puzzle might be a great way to see how they would tackle a tough problem at work-the "hard work" and "get things done" abilities that Microsoft is also looking for. As James Fixx writes in the sequel More Games for the Superintelligent, "While the less intelligent person, unsure of ever being able to solve a problem at all, is easily discouraged, the intelligent person is fairly sure of succeeding and therefore presses on, discouragements be damned."

Unfortunately, the typical Microsoft interviewer is not looking at the approach to puzzle questions as a test of perseverence. Someone who tries five different attempts might demonstrate more resourcefulness than someone who just "gets it"-but they would get turned down. Interviewers who ask puzzle questions are probing the "intelligence" category, and they want the right answer.

The last chapter of the book is titled "How Innovative Companies Ought to Interview" and deals with a soon-to-be-problem: How will the industry be affected by the publication of this book? Will interviews still work if everyone knows the secrets?

Knowledge of Microsoft-style questions is already out there on the Internet. Since the candidates who participate in the interviews do not sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement, they are free to tell others the questions they were asked, and from these reports databases of questions have been built up. Poundstone includes the URLs of several sites, including Kiran Bondalapati's "Interview Question Bank", Michael Pryor's "Techinterview", Chris Sells' "Interviewing at Microsoft", and William Wu's "Riddles". These sites generally don't include answers, but certainly knowing the types of questions to expect can be an advantage.

Microsoft employees are aware of such sites. Once, when I sent email describing the questions I had asked a Microsoft candidate, I got a nasty reply from someone else at the company: Didn't I know that the question I had asked was posted on a website of known Microsoft interview questions?

On the other hand, with no official internal Microsoft list of questions, some employees are undoubtedly using these sites to come up with material. Even within Microsoft there is debate about which questions are reasonable. In an unscientific survey I took of former Microsoft program managers, opinion was divided on the validity of some of the questions. A question described by one person as a good test of a candidate's ability was dismissed by another as foolish.

Poundstone does point out that some questions are silly and should not be asked ("Define the color green"), but he gives serious answers to others which I don't think are worthwhile either, including "If you could remove any of the fifty U.S. states, which would it be?" and "How do they make M&Ms?"

Furthermore, I would argue that if an entire class of questions can be "tainted" by How Would You Move Mount Fuji?, they don't deserve to be asked in the first place. Estimation questions might be invalidated by the revelation that the way to solve them was to multiply together a bunch of wild guesses.

The strategy of using a design question to to differentiate program management candidates from developer candidates might also go the way of the dodo. Is that necessarily a bad thing?

by ergo98 (9391) <dennis.forbes@gmail.com>
http://www.yafla.com/dforbes/ | Last Journal: Tuesday September 27, @10:43AM)

I wouldn't call it a "moronic question" whatsoever: Certainly no worse than pulling a "brainteaser for dummies" out of the net archives, which is what the majority of "clever" Microsoft-like questions are. It's like being the Jeopardy host and smirking in self-satisfaction because you know all the answers... because you have them in front of you.

Questions like "What is your greatest weakness" can show a tremendous amount about the applicant, and is more of a discussion starter than a literal questions. As far as how the applicant answers, I can see definite downsides to "I'm a perfectionist" (meaning: I never finish projects because I'm always working on "just one last issue") or "I work too hard" (meaning: I'm a martyr and will likely have a serious case of burn-out several months down the road, not to mention upsetting the work apple-cart).

Any question at an interview, asked and interpreted by someone with intelligence, is a powerful question. Do you eat lunch? What are your career goals? What is an optimal work day? All of these questions can give great insight into the honesty and character of the interviewee.

Personally I think the "Microsoft questions" are grossly overstated, and asking brainteasers most certainly didn't make Microsoft the success that it is (especially true to those that believe that Microsoft is more of a marketing success than a technical success. Personally I believe that they're a great technical success as well, but just pointing out the paradox).

Understanding Stocks

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:56:00 GMT

Nice book about investing in the stock market by Michael Sincere, McGraw-Hill 2004. If you read and learn from this book then you know by then at least half of stock investing basics and strategies. Not only half, perhaps more knowledge that you can gain from this 196 pages book. Topics include:

What is a stock?
How to place a trade
Evaluating a stock
Knowing when to sell

The First Book for People Who Want to Make Serious Money In the Stock Market Without Becoming an Expert. History has proven that the surest road to long-term wealth is through investing in the stock market. And while you don't have to be a financial genius to invest well, you do have to care enough about your money to learn how the market works -what you must do to get started, when the best times are to invest your money, and what you must do to keep from being an easy mark for more sophisticated investors.

Understanding Stocks tells you what you need to know. More than 50 quick, easy, and entertaining lessons on stocks and investing give you the information you need to become a solid and knowledgeable investor. Look to this engaging and no-nonsense investors' rulebook to learn:

How to open an account, evaluate a stock, and place a trade
Strategies for making money slow or fast, with the advantages and dangers of each
Ten costly mistakes that are easy to make -and even easier to avoid

Money in the stock market flows to those who know what they are doing. Let Understanding Stocks put you on the right road to stock market wealth, and show you how to keep from losing your money before it's been given a chance to truly work for you.

Well written, easy reading book on the Stock Market., November 4, 2004

Reviewer: Michael Gerety "Nips" (CT, USA)

This book is a great book for beginning investors. Nearly every book I've read on the subject has been dry and boring, and I'd tend to retain little knowledge as I trudged my way through. Michael Sincere does an amazing job of covering a large amount of information in a format that's easy to read and understand.

Most books on stocks I've read are heavily biased towards fundamental or technical analysis, and do very little to explain both. This book covers both fundamental and technical analysis, and gives the pros and cons of each, suggesting that using both is best, and leaves it to the reader to decide what's best for them.

This book also does a very good job of pointing out the benefits of contrarian strategies, and defining the major pitfalls most beginning investors face, and how to overcome them to become a successful investor. Even though the book goes into advanced strategies, the author quite responsibly points out that they should be left to successful investors, but gives enough insight to allow for understanding, and even commonly suggests other readings for further study.

This is THE book to read for a beginning investor interested in the stock market, especially if other books have been too tedious or boring.

Great in really understanding stocks, August 10, 2005

Reviewer: Giovanna (New York, NY)

I never write reviews but this book deserves a best one: buy it now! It's simply written, full of useful information and the best book to start your trading education with. It will explain in simple language all the necessary concepts what other books only brush on without really explaining what they are talking about. The boook covers all the most important basics and you can immediately apply your knowledge and will understand what is going on on the market the next day. Brilliant!

Linux for Windows Administrators

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 11:18:00 GMT

by Mark Minasi http://www.minasi.com, John Wiley & Sons; 1st edition (November 26, 2002) "Linux for Windows NT/2000 Administrators, the secret decoder ring"

There was a time when people asked, “Windows or Linux?” Now it’s a question of how to make the most of both. Linux for Windows Administrators is an essential resource for anyone working in the real world of enterprise computing. Inside, renowned Windows expert Mark Minasi and Linux guru Dan York give you practical, in-depth Linux instruction that dovetails perfectly with what you already know about Windows. It’s the best way for you to give your organization the best of both worlds. Coverage includes:

Understanding Linux's strengths and weaknesses
Understanding Linux's differences from, and similarities to, Windows
Installing and configuring Linux
Administering Linux from the command line
Setting up Linux on minimal hardware -even a Pentium 100
Understanding how open source works
Using Samba to make a Linux box emulate an NT/2000 file server
Using NIS and NFS to create the Linux equivalent of an NT/2000 domain
Using Winbind to make Linux recognize Windows user accounts
Tapping the speed and reliability of sendmail
Configuring Linux GUIs: X Window, window managers, and desktop environments
Modifying and recompiling the Linux kernel

Comments:

'Good, Not Great', November 28, 2003
William Hefner (EUREKA, CA USA)

Most people reviewing this book either love it or hate it. I won't go to quite that extreme, but I do have to say that the book missed the mark in a number of areas.

While it is most certainly a matter of editorial discretion, the author seems to have a habit of giving some subjects hardly any mention at all, while providing us with pages of agonizing details on other subjects that most readers will simply want to skip over.

Probably the biggest lost opportunity in this book is the author's one sentence devoted to Webmin, which is unquestionably the single most useful tool for Windows admins transitioning over to Linux. There are entire books devoted to Webmin that will have most Windows admins running a Linux server in no time, and without having to learn any of the exhaustive command line skills that the author recommends.

For those who DO want to learn Linux from the inside out, there is an amazing lack of depth when it comes to basic command line skills. This book would have been immeasurably more useful if it devoted a chapter (or appendix) to explaining some of the more useful commands. I learned more about grep than I ever wanted to know, but there are dozens of just as useful commands that the author never touched upon. So, if you want to learn the most basic command line skills, you are going to need to buy another book.

As some of the other reviewers mentioned, the author comes off as being a bit snobbish when it comes to Linux; quick to complain, slow to compliment. I would rather have had the author use the space reserved for complaints and grumblings with some useful information. It does get a bit old after awhile.

That being said, the author does do a good job of keeping your attention and moves from chapter to chapter in a very logical manner. Unlike many Linux books, the chapters in this book do not seem thrown together at random. It's a book that you will most likely want to read from cover to cover, instead of just using as a reference.

Despite the author's occasional whining, I really enjoyed the book's flow and progression through various topics. The book must have been very up-to-date at the time, but is starting to show its age. The author bases all of his experience with RedHat, who is now dropping out of the "consumer" market, and only offering a very expensive server version now. Thus, RedHat is not the Linux distribution that most of you will want to start off with.

All in all, the book was well worth reading, despite its age and shortcomings. This would be a good first book for you to read if you are a Windows admin trying to learn Linux, but you will definitely need other books on the subject before even considering deploying a Linux server on your network.

'Skip first three or four chapters', August 23, 2003

Skip the first three chapters, 37 pages, you'll miss nothing except some bad info about Windows 2000.

If you can use Partition Magic to prepare your disk for installation and the nic was identified during setup, skip Chapter 4 and start at page 101. If you can make up your own mind on where to use Linux or NT (the author didn't understand 2000 Dir. Svcs. yet so he only compared Linux to NT), skip Chapter 10 and stop at page 471.

That leaves 370 pages of Linux info. provided by the co-authors. Browsing through these chapters, X seems to be an important feature. That matches with my limited understanding.

Lots of important topics are mentioned but none covered very deeply. The comparisons with Windows technology weren't that important or were just uninformed (DNS comparisons ignored services) and most features, RPM for instance, don't benefit from a Windows perspective. Too bad they wasted 200 pages on fluff. That's why it gets a three.

Don't pay retail for this book, it is already dated material and should be heavily discounted. As an MCSE Network Admin on NT & 2000, I saw 2000 and Server 2003 leave NT in the dust along with Linux. Directory Services and group policies are vital to distribution and central management. Linux has only SNMP so far. Soon Linux will be ready for [self-installing on] client desktops which may be it's future. Directory-based services and integrated business software (Exchange, CRM) will run on proprietary server OS's from IBM, Windows, and maybe Oracle OS in the future. Clients will stream XML of secure managed code from these servers and back via open protocols. JIT compilers and local code libraries will assemble client executables that use remote web services and data. Admins: read about web services and Mono on Linux.

'Good introductions for a Windows Admin', June 22, 2003

I know most of the people reviewing this book gave it glowing reviews but I just wasn't won over by it. I had high hopes as I am quite familiar with Minasi's writings and I've been curious about Linux for some time now. So I was hoping this book would really help me launch my Linux understanding.

The book does some things really well. For instance, Minasi repeatedly draws parallels between the Windows and Linux world to help the reader understand the Linux concepts. This is often effective.

My biggest gripe is I think the book is overly biased. I found that throughout the book Minasi was moaning about how hard it was to perform certain functions or how arcane the Linux lingo was. After a while, it just got tiring. I didn?t buy the book for his opinion on whether the OS was good or not; I simply wanted to learn about Linux from a perspective that was intuitive to me.

I give him credit for trying. It's probably the best book on the market for a Windows Admin who doesn't have any Linux experience. But the best on the market does not necessarily make for a good book.

Ultimately I felt like Minasi was trying to say, "Linux is a novelty. If you have the time, check it out; but it's really not worth your time." This got annoying after a while. I'm looking for another book now.

Book reviews

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 11:12:00 GMT

Following were books recently read or printed from the web. Most of my books were in english, I am trying to provide reviews and links for those books.

The Software Conspiracy
Linux for Windows Administrators
Understanding Stocks
How would you move mount Fuji?
One Up on Wall Street

First ever Open Source Camp in Bangladesh

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:29:00 GMT

The first ever Open Source Camp in Bangladesh will be held at SUST, Sylhet on 23-24th March 2007. CSE Soceity and SUST OSN are jointly organizing the event. Ankur and BdOSN will provide the support.

Mr Jamil Ahmed of Ankur will direct the camp. Students from SUST will be the main participants. However, students from other university like BRAC University will also attend the camp.

The 2 Day long camp will focus the capacity building of the students towards Open Source Software and Open Content Development. The camp will cover the hands on experience with GNU Linux, Open Office, Mozilla, LAMP/WAMP as well as Wikipedia.

http://www.iosn.net/Members/munirhasan/OS%20Camp

Contact Jamil Ahmed <itsjamil@gmail.com> for more information.

Making An RSS Feed

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 05:34:00 GMT

By Danny Sullivan, Editor-In-Chief

April 2, 2003

RSS is a method of distributing links to content in your web site that you'd like others to use. In other words, it's a mechanism to "syndicate" your content.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2175271

Making an RSS file is easy for many. If you understand HTML, you'll probably understand enough to do a cut-and-paste from someone else's RSS file to make your own file. Don't know HTML? Start a blog, because several blogging tools automatically generates RSS files.

As for those non-technical people using WYSIWYG page building tools or personal home page building systems, have faith. Even you can build an RSS file from scratch, as long as you dispense with some of the extra features you probably don't need.

To enter your item into the RSS file, you'll need three bits of information:

Title
Description
Link

The title and description of your item need not match exactly the HTML title tag of the web page that the item refers to, nor the meta description tag, assuming you use these (don't know what they are? See my How To Use HTML Tags article). You can write any title and description that you think will describe the page. However, using your page's title and meta description tag certainly makes it easy to copy and paste to build your RSS feed.

For your title, you need to start it with the <title> tag, then follow this with the text of the title, then end with the </title> tag.

For your description, you do the same, starting out with the opening <description> tag, then following with the actual description, then "closing" with the </description> tag.

Next, we add the link information, beginning with <link>, following with the actual hyperlink, then closing with </link>.

Now there's one more thing we need to do. We actually have to define all this information as forming a particular "item," which we do using a special item tag.

<item>

<title>Syndication via RSS</title>

<description>Syndication of web content via RSS is unlikely to make you rich. However, it can be an easy way to draw attention to your material, bringing you some traffic and perhaps a little net fame, depending on how good your information is. </description>

<link>http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html</link>

</item>

There's a bit more to do to finish our RSS file. First, what if we have other items we want to syndicate? Then we simply add more item elements, just as we did above. You can have up to 15 items. New items tend to be inserted at the top, with old items removed from the bottom, to make room for new stuff.

So far, everything we've done is compatible with UserLand's popular RSS 0.91 version. However, it also matches UserLand's latest RSS 2.0 version, as well, so we'll define the file as meeting that specification. This will allow us to add other neat features in the future, if we want.

Finally, after the RSS tag, we need to add an opening "channel" tag. That gives us this at the top of the file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>

At the bottom of the file, after all the items we want to syndicate, we have to insert a closing channel and RSS tag, in that order. Those look like this:

</channel>
</rss>

To make my own decision for Search Engine Watch, I decided to imitate what I saw out at UserLand, which promotes the RSS 2.0 standard that we used. UserLand's example feeds all ended .xml, so let's do the same. As for the first part, that really can be whatever you like. For our example, let's say we just call it feed.xml.

Now that our file is saved, we can place it anywhere we want on our web server. Let's say we put it in the root or home directory. Then the address to our RSS file would be:

http://yourdomain.com/feed.xml

Now our RSS file is done, but did we do it right? To find out, we need to validate it. Use the aptly named Feed Validator http://feedvalidator.org/ service. Simply enter the address to your RSS file, and you'll be told if everything is OK — or if there's something wrong you need to fix.

The service will also generate a JavaScript code that you can post on your site. Anyone copying the JavaScript can automatically have your feed syndicated into their pages — pretty neat!

You can link to your feed with an ordinary HTML link. However, many sites use a small orange XML icon to link to the feed. I've also seen some sites use blue RSS icon. I could find no standard about using these. So, to be safe, I did all three with Search Engine Watch. Look on the home page, and you'll see how it's done (and help yourself to the icons, if you need them).

Finally, it's good to "ping" one of the major services that track when web logs and RSS content changes. By doing this, you ensure that other sites that monitor these know to check back at your site for more content.

Dell may offer Linux as alternative to Windows

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 03:17:00 GMT

Wednesday March 7, 9:18 AM

BOSTON (Reuters) - Dell Inc. is considering offering the Linux operating system as an alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows on its personal computers, a Dell spokesman said on Tuesday. The PC maker said it received more than 100,000 customer requests for Linux in a "suggestion box" posted on Dell's Web site less than three weeks ago.

"We are listening to what customers are saying about Linux and taking it into consideration," said Dell spokesman David Lord. "We are going forward. Let's say, 'Certainly stay tuned."'

Linux is an open-source operating system that is generally available for free and can be used to run most computers, including Dell's PCs. Dell does not break out how much it charges for Windows when it calculates the cost of a computer system, but a basic upgrade version of the software generally retails for $99.

The only operating system that Dell currently offers on its PCs is Windows, with one exception, Lord said. It sells high-end Linux desktops designed specifically for use in oil and gas exploration, he said.

Making Linux available on other Dell PCs has been the top request since the Web site was launched on February 16, according to data posted on the site, as of Tuesday evening. The second most popular request was that Dell offer another popular free software title, OpenOffice, which competes with Microsoft Office programs including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.