Where in the world was this when I was studying chemistry?

Take a few minutes and play with this interactive table of the elements, and then pass it on to your kids to help them with their school work. My hat is off to PopSci contributing editor Theodore Gray, who spent four years assembling this masterpiece.

Thanks to Craig Burton for pointing this out in his blog.

Technorati Tags: Chemistry

Happy New Year!

This morning I received an email from an esteemed associate, Joan Gustafson, with sage advice about New Year’s resolutions. With her permission, may I share the advice with you, verbatim from her email:

“If you made and kept New Year’s resolutions last year, you are in the minority. Since most New Year’s resolutions are broken by February 1, I want you to have the following article that has been published in several newspapers and magazines since I wrote it.”

The following tips will help you to make and keep resolutions that will improve your life:

• Before making a resolution or setting a goal, think about what you really want in your life. Many of us make resolutions to do what we think we should do; however, we do not want the results enough to remain committed to the resolution.
• Ensure that your resolution is realistic and achievable. Many people give up on trying to keep their New Year’s resolutions, because they were hoping to achieve the impossible when they made the resolution.
• Write your resolution on paper, and keep this piece of paper in a place where you can look at it every day. Research shows that people with written goals are more likely to achieve these goals.
• Make a commitment to yourself to keep the resolution, ensuring that you understand the effort that will be involved in doing this.
• Visualize the end result. Close your eyes, and create a mental picture of how this will look. In this mental picture, visualize yourself as you enjoy these results. Repeat this visualization daily, picturing yourself as if you have already achieved your goal.
• Describe the benefits of your resolutions. It is best to do this on paper, so that you can read the benefits whenever you might struggle to keep the resolution.
• Develop and implement an action plan. Determine the steps that you will take in order to achieve your goal, and write these down. It is easier to work on one small step at a time than on a big goal.
• Reward yourself as you reach milestones along the way to achieving your goal. As we give recognition to ourselves for our accomplishments, we expand our enthusiasm and energy to accomplish more.
• If you make a mistake, give yourself permission to start again. We are all in a constant process of growth and development. We can use our mistakes as learning opportunities and become even stronger than we had been previously.

Joan Eleanor Gustafson is an award-winning professional speaker, leadership coach, and consultant. She is the author of seven books, which are available through her website (www.leaderdynamics.com), Amazon.com, and major bookstores. As president of Success and Leadership Dynamics and senior partner with Duffy Consulting Firm, Joan specializes in leadership development and organizational effectiveness.

Thank you, Joan, for sharing your great advice with us in this new year of 2007.

Technorati Tags: Joan Eleanor Gustafson,
Resolutions

A short time ago, I blogged about the Sun’s Security Adequacy Review process, focused on making sure that software developed and deployed for internal IT passes a rigorous review process before deployment. While further exploring that train of thought, I ran across an interesting article that addresses Sun’s philosoply for information security.

Glenn Brunette is a Sun Distinguished Engineer and Director of Security in Sun’s Global Sales and Services organization, who is “responsible for global security strategy and architecture as well as improving the quality and security of products and solutions delivered to Sun customers.”

Glenn proposes that, “security needs to be a pervasive quality that exists throughout IT — from architecture and policy, to education and awareness, to processes and technology.” To that end, he has been the leader in development and implementation of Sun Systemic Security program, “which includes architectural methodologies, design patterns, reference configurations, and recommended practices as well as products and services from both Sun and various partners.”

Not stopping here, Glenn is working on a system of Adaptive Security, “a concept whereby systems, devices, and services can automatically secure themselves based upon the environment into which they are being placed — as well as any policy or other constraints put upon them,” he explains. “Ideally, you should not have to go about securing each and every component individually. The systems, devices, and applications should be able to configure themselves and report on their current state.”

Wikipedia reports that “Information security is the protection of information from a wide range of threats in order to ensure business continuity, minimize business risk, and maximize return on investments and business opportunities” and points out that information can exist in many forms, printed, electronic, shown in films or spoken in conversation.” It is good to know that Sun takes a systemic and potentially adaptive approach to delivering information security.

Technorati Tags: Information Security,
Sun Microsystems,

Sometimes my mind plays pleasant tricks on me. Early this morning, I awoke from a very realistic, though very odd dream where I was working for Dr. Amare Bose while he was building his first stereo loudspeaker. I never really worked for Dr. Bose, but enjoyed the dream. Of course, we know and love Dr. Bose for his innovative loudspeaker design and founding the Bose Corporation, whose noice-cancelling headphones have become the jewelry du jour of the first-class traveller set.

My dream triggered another pleasant memory – this one very real. In the fall of 1977, my wife and I attended an IEEE lecture on the campus of the University of Utah where Dr. Thomas Stockham demonstrated his digital recording techniques by playing a digital recording of the Boston Pops Orchestratra, which was very popular at the time. The lecture was held in a concert hall on the U of U campus. I remember the recording being so clear and vivid that when I closed my eyes, I could have sworn that the whole orchestra was on the stage in front of us. Dr. Stockham was the first to make a commercial digital recording. His pioneering work revolutionized the music industry.

Both of these audio pioneers stood on the virtual shoulders of Dr. Harvey Fletcher, who has been called, if somewhat inaccurately, the “Father of Stereophonic Sound.” I attended some of my very first engineering classes in the old Fletcher Building on the campus of Brigham Young University, where Dr. Fletcher was the Founding Dean of the BYU College of Engineering.

Dr. Fletcher was one of the first to investigate stereophonic sound recording and reproduction: “One of the techniques investigated was the ‘Wall of Sound,’ which used an enormous array of microphones hung in a line across the front of an orchestra. Up to eighty microphones were used, and each fed a corresponding loudspeaker, placed in an identical position, in a separate listening room.” A few years later, Alan Blumlein developed and patented the two channel stereophonic method used widely today.

So, whenever you crank up your iPod, just say a little prayer of thanks for these giants of innovation who paved the way to your current digital stereophonic enjoyment!

Technorati Tags: Stereophonic Sound,
Digital Recording

It has been a nostalgic evening for me. As my flight from Phoenix descended towards the San Jose airport, I finished reading “iWoz: from Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It“, an autobiographical memoir by Steve Wozniak, the brilliant engineer’s engineer who developed the Apple I and Apple II computers, which launched the personal computer industry.

I particularly enjoyed Steve’s recounting how he designed and built these first personal computers with an eye towards minimal chip count and elegant, efficient code. It brought back great memories of my own efforts way back in 1977, when, as a junior hardware design engineer, I developed a microprocessor-controlled color graphics display system to plot missile trajectories for a minuteman missile simulator on a modified Sony television screen.

My designs were not as elegant as Steve’s, and certainly not as revolutionary, but reading the book triggered nostalgic thoughts about that exciting time in my professional career.

To top it all off, I’m staying in the Stanford Park Hotel, where I stayed several times in the mid-1980’s, when the hotel was brand new, while I was leading a major manufacturing information management project for Apple.

Pleasant memories, for sure.

Technorati Tags: Steve Wozniak,
Apple Computer,
Stanford Park Hotel

Recently, James McGovern blogged about Sun Microsoft IT Security practices: “Sun’s SAR methodology is an approach to solving the age-old problem of secure coding practices and is in many ways better than Microsoft’s approach yet the world doesn’t even know about it.”

Raj Patel of the Sun IT Security Office provided this explanation of the Sun process:

“Sun Microsystems IT Security Office has developed and implemented SunSAR (Sun Security Adequacy Review) process and technology to ensure that the security provisioning for a given application system is sufficient to support our business model. It not only assesses and quantifies the current risk, but it also specifies the design requirements and security practices for mitigating the risk. Based on industry best practices and principles, the SunSAR implements the dynamic security model. It provides solutions that are both repeatable and deterministic. SunSAR works well for both homogeneous or hetrogeneous operating system environments.

“A primary objective of the SunIT security office (ITSO) is to establish information risk management as an integral part of Sun’s corporate culture and business risk management process. ITSO’s role in meeting this objective is to provide the business areas with tools that facilitate the identification of risks to corporate, customer, partner and employee information and the selection of appropriate controls to mitigate those risks.

“The ITSO has adopted the definitions of information risk and information risk evaluation put forward by the Information Security Forum (ISF) and has adopted a five phase process to support Sun Security Adequacy Review Evaluation:

“Phase I, SOP: SOP is a demographic profile of the application or system, and produces a Security Overview Profile.

“Phase II, BIA: BIA produces a Business Impact Assessment of worst-case situations due to absence/failure of security controls.

“Phase III, TIP: TIP produces a Security Technical Implementation Profile for the application system.

“Phase IV, TVCA: TVCA identifies threats and vulnerabilities that need countermeasure controls for situations with the highest probability of greatest business impact, and documents those countermeasures.

“Phase V, PTA: PTA identifies whether the security provisions implemented by Partners on its communication and computing infrastructure can be trusted.

The 247-page ISF Security Standard, upon which the SunSAR process is based, can be downloaded at no charge from the ISF Website. This authoritative volume addresses five key aspects of Information security:

• Security Management
• Critical Business Applications
• Computer Installations
• Networks
• Systems Development

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Sun Microsystems,
SunSAR,
ISF,
Information Security

I was first intrigued by the title and graphic on Sun’s home page, but was quickly drawn in by the compelling 12-minute video entitled “The Big Mashup.” This video features an interesting variety of new media personalities discussing “how the network is changing entertainment and news gathering in the Participation Age.” Hosted by Sun’s own CTO of Web 2.0 and Chief Gaming officer Chris Melissinos (gotta love that title), this little video shares a new perspective of how we all can participate in the modern news and entertainment industries. Well worth a few minutes to listen and learn.

Technorati Tags: Entertainment,
News,
Participation Age

I just got an interesting comment on my blog this morning, responding to my post about LinkedIn dated May 26, 2005 – the first month I began blogging. Dawn Mular posted a comment about her results from participation in the LinkedIn network. Her LinkedIn profile led me to her blog about the Helping Friends Career Network she founded.

I suppose there are a couple of lessons we can learn from this:

1. Your blog has a long shelf life – be sure what you post what you want people to read and remember for a long time.
2. Blogs and social networks really do work to connect people in this Participation Age!

Technorati Tags: LinkedIn,
Social Networks,
Participation Age,
Blogging

I’ve spent the latter half of this week at the Q Center in St. Charles, Illinois, participating in “Immersion Week,” an intense series of peer-led deep dive classes in Sun Microsystems products and technology. Besides the valuable technical knowledge I gained, I appreciated the opportunity to meet face-to-face with people I rarely see.

One of the most productive sessions I attended was an unscripted gathering of several members of the Architecture and Enablement services group to which I belong – a bunch of really smart people with deep knowledge of and experience with the Sun software products. But with that deep knowledge comes equally deep passion for their work. After some fairly benign discussion, one guy brought up the chronic reality that Sun has too many disjointed repositories of technical content that are difficult to use. How’s that for some dirty laundry? He talked on and on about how time-consuming it was to find what he needed to support his work and how we really needed a coherent strategy for capturing project artifacts and other re-usable IP for later access. Several others in the group chimed with similar thoughts.

But we know that deep passion will yield progress if focused productively. I challenged the person who started the discussion to join with another in the group who had similar feelings, together with a couple of others not in attendance we knew were thinking about the issue, to create an ad-hoc group focused on solving the problem for a small subset of our product line – to create a prototype solution that could provide a pattern for what we really need. They took the challenge. I have full confidence they will succeed.

Passion + Action = Progress.

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Sun Microsystems,
Passion