Thanks, Jay Dear, for pointing out this  bit of wisdom.  Sometimes I wish I could find someone who could tell me what I’m thinking, or, better yet, understand it.

Technorati Tags: Comic, Dilbert, Blogging

There has been a light-hearted little project on Twitter this morning challenging people to provide a “non-geek definition of Cloud Computing in 140 characters less.”  Launched by Chris Horak, SAP Platform Marketing Head in Germany, responses are compiled on Chris’ blog.

My first attempt was “Cloud computing provides application, database, platform, storage, and computing services in a virtualized utility to enable agile business.”

Chris thought that might be a bit too geeky, so I suggested, “Using computing services on demand, on a pay-as-you-go basis, like I buy electricity from my power utility.”

So, what do you think?  Send your 140 words (or less) to Chris (@choirshark).  Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Cloud Computing, Twitter

Today, Sun and Hewlett Packard announced an agreement for HP to distribute and support Sun’s Solaris 10 operating system on HP ProLiant server and blade platforms.  Jonathan Schwartz called it “the single biggest and most important OEM/distribution agreement Sun’s ever signed for the open source Solaris operating system.”

I first became involved with Hewlett Packard in 1977, when I took a computer architecture class in college and did an in-depth analysis of the HP1000 computer architecture for a class project. When I graduated from BYU in 1978, HP offered me digital design position in the desktop computer division in Fort Collins, Colorado.  I turned them down, in favor of staying with little Eyring Research Institute, in Provo, Utah, where I had been working for a year. In 1979, I led a project for Eyring that installed the first network of HP1000 computers at 3M company, in a magnetic tape manufacturing facility in Hutchinson, Minnesota.  That all goes to show how ancient I am and what amazing progress has been made by HP and the rest of the computer industry since then.

Now, these many years later, it is a pleasure to be at Sun and see a new partnership being forged by these two key industry players.

Congratulations to Sun and HP for linking up on this milestone relationship!

Technorati Tags: Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard, Solaris

Interesting short blog post from Waypoint exploring different methods of reaction and decision making:

X system thinkers react from the gut while C system thinkers generally engage their brains during the decision making process.  To relate the point some psychologists have characterized X system thinkers as Star Treks’ Dr. McCoy and C system thinkers as Spock.

The article has a fun little quiz at the end.  According to it, I am 2/3 Spock and 1/3 McCoy.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Psychology, Star Trek

I learned today that MySQL has been selected as the Database of the Year in the 2008 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards. Congratulations to the entire MySQL team!

Technorati Tags: MySQL, LinuxQuestions.org

This post on boston.com provides a series of 45 photographs of people at work, doing many different jobs and locations around the world.  I found it inspiring to consider my brothers and sisters in the human family going about their work, wherever they might be, to provide for their families and loved ones.
Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: people, work

After yesterday’s heartbreaking news about Amare Stoudemire’s eye surgery, my pessimistic vibes cast a dark shadow over the rest of the Phoenix Sun’s season.  It’s good thing the Suns believed in themselves more than all us doubtful folk.  Last night, Leandro Barbosa poured in a career-high 41 points and Jason Richardson added 34 to lead the Suns to their third straight game of scoring at least 140 points!

Go Suns!

Technorati Tags: Phoenix Suns, Leandro Barbosa, Basketball, Optimism

I stumbled across a wonderful bit of prose on the blogosphere today.  Jim Butler mused:

There’s a place where good acronyms go to die.  I call it the GAG (Good Acronym Graveyard).  It’s a dark foreboding place where over-hyped acronyms lie interred separated from their perfectly valid and useful living legacies.

Jim then went on to write an enjoyable piece about the burial of “AI” (Artificial Intelligence, not the movie) and the recent demise of “SOA”.  Commenting on AI’s passing, Jim wrote:

The principles and techniques of AI have been staggeringly successful, but the over-hyped term and its unreasonable expectations rest in peace in the GAG.

He then prefaced his remarks on the passing of SOA by quoting Anne Thomas Manes:

SOA met its demise on January 1, 2009, when it was wiped out by the catastrophic impact of the economic recession.  SOA is survived by its offspring: mashups, BPM, SaaS, Cloud Computing, and all other architectural approaches that depend on “services”.

I particularly enjoyed Jim’s final thoughts:

Requiem

And so we gather together on this cold day in January of 2009 to lay to rest the body of SOA, but not its spirit. We do not mourn this passing as untimely or empty. Rather we rejoice in the opportunity to move past empty promises and impossible expectations.

Perhaps now that the GAG is sporting yet another tombstone, we can attend to the real business of enterprise transformation through service orientation. Perhaps we can even throw in a little AI for good measure… D’OH!!!

So, what is TLA? “Three Letter Acronym,” of course. Should we carve a tombstone for it, as well?

Technorati Tags: Acronym, AI, SOA, TLA

Wednesday night I watched Amare Stoudemire score 42 points as the Suns scored 140 and 141 on successive nights against the hapless Clippers.  It seemed that the Suns might have a chance to climb back into the playoff picture after all, as they returned to their trademark uptempo style after changing coaches.

I was pleased that the Suns decided to keep Amare rather than trading him.  Then we learned today that he underwent surgery this morning for a partially detached retina, and will be unable to resume physical activity for about 8 weeks.  Arrgggh!

We do wish Amare a full recovery and will be interested so see what the Suns can do without him for the rest of the season.

Technorati Tags: PhoenixSuns, AmareStoudemire, Basketball

BBC News reported yesterday that police in the Irish Republic mistakenly established separate identities for over 50 individuals named Prawo Jazdy, seemingly a notoriously illusive violator of traffic laws, before anyone realized that “Prawo Jazdy” means “Drivers License” in Polish!  Thanks to @rjhorniii for sharing the article reference on Twitter.

Technorati Tags: Identity, Identity Management, Digital Identity