HL Arledge

Public appearance this week, call the assassin

An invitation for you...

Central Valley Software Partnership

presents

A two-meeting showcase of innovation
in Fresno's software development industry

Participating companies include

July 10

• Argos Software
• Decade Software
• Decipher
• WatchDoit
• Yosemite Technologies

August 14

• Famous Software
• Galaxy IT
• SJV Technology Group
• Company TBD
• Company TBD

Who Can Attend:

Anyone with an interest in the growth and well being of Fresno, California's software development industry.

Why can't doctors afford software?

Did you see this report?

"Electronic health records, touted by the government as a way to reduce medical costs, are used by few doctors in the U.S. because they are too expensive for their practices, a Harvard University survey found.

The poll, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that just 4 percent of doctors use software that includes electronic prescriptions and drug-interaction warnings.

A larger group, 13 percent, opted for more basic software that only allowed them to enter notes and medical histories. Those who use the computer systems said they helped improve patient care."

Using computer records to lower cost and eliminate inefficiency has been a recurring theme among both major U.S. presidential candidates this year, and last week, the federal government offered $150 million in grants to promote use of electronic records among 1,200 doctors in 12 communities.

Perhaps, we should collect a fund—or maybe hold a telethon—to help starving doctors buy software and welcome them into the 21st century?

Everyone knows, they're not paid enough, and they are oh-so helpful when we visit.

This reminds me of a quote from Comedian Chris Rock...

"The last thing doctors cured was Polio, and that was back in the first season of I Love Lucy ...That's because when they cure you, they stop making money off you ...I've been watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon for more than 20 years now. Not one stitch of progress whatsoever. "

MySpace finally listened to me

After my many posts as well as others regarding the fallacies of building enterprise-level applications using ColdFusion and BlueDragon, rumor has it that MySpace has finally dumped them entirely.

Last year, the pulled sections of the flawed application, replacing it with a .Net application, announcing...

"...we wrote a custom configuration section that maps fuseaction URL parameters to ASPX extensions so that we'd maintain link integrity. The only place we aren't doing this is 'Browse' and certain other new features.

Meanwhile, the parts of the site that are running in Cold Fusion (CFML) are essentially doing so in ASP.NET 2.0 (via Blue Dragon)."

MySpace announced today that the all-new MySpace 2.0 will go online next Wednesday, but they are keeping hush-hush regarding the technologies they replaced and with what.

Most likely, their completely ASP.Net now, but we'll know more after Wednesday.

Axosoft OnTime does not support Scrum out of the box

In spite of what Axosoft's sales demo and their Google Ad says, Axosoft OnTime does not support Scrum out of the box, and according to the company's owner, they never intended for it to.

However, they do insinuate that OnTime can be easily configured to support Scrum.

This is not entirely a true statement. 

Since the last time I mentioned this, I've gotten several e-mails asking for clarification...

"How can one of the most successful Scrum shops out there, be using daily a product that doesn't support Scrum?"

What are all of the top programmers really working on?

My friend, Joel "On Software" Spolsky, is steaming mad this week, and frankly he has me concerned about all of the programmers the industry is losing to Microsoft and Google.

When we lost Erwien Saputra to the Borg a couple of years back, we thought he had gone to a better place, but Joel—who was once one of Microsoft's brightest stars—says that couldn't be farther from the truth...

"Why I really care is that Microsoft is vacuuming up way too many programmers. Between Microsoft, with their shady recruiters making unethical exploding offers to unsuspecting college students, and Google (you're on my radar) paying untenable salaries to kids with more ultimate Frisbee experience than Python, whose main job will be to play foosball in the Googleplex and walk around trying to get someone...anyone...to come see the demo code they've just written with their '20% time', doing some kind of, let me guess, cloud-based synchronization... between Microsoft and Google the starting salary for a smart CS grad is inching dangerously close to six figures and these smart kids, the cream of our universities, are working on hopeless and useless architecture astronomy because these companies are like cancers, driven to grow at all cost, even though they can't think of a single useful thing to build for us, but they need another 3000-4000 comp science grads next week. And damn-it, foosball doesn't play itself."

Viruses: Genetic, Generated, and those sponsored by Microsoft

I've been out with the flu this week. I got sick last Friday, was better on Saturday and worse on Sunday. Weird stuff. Viruses are really different than they used to be.

This got me thinking: Computer viruses have mutated lately as well. Some are now sponsored by Microsoft.

Computer virus creators try and fool you into installing unwanted software that clutters up your computer and eats memory, launching various applications and processes without your consent.

Computer virus creators also change the name of the virus routinely in order to fool anti-virus software.

If you would like to see examples of these behaviors, install or try to uninstall Windows Search—formerly known as Windows Instant Search, Windows Desktop Search, MSN Desktop Search, and Windows Indexing Service Search.

Is Windows Vista another Windows ME or Microsoft Bob?

In February, I mentioned our concerns about running EnvisionConnect on Windows Vista. It seems that the makers of most enterprise-level applications are expressing the similar concerns, causing Microsoft to second-guess themselves.

Microsoft announced yesterday that they will reconsider their decision to stop selling Windows XP on June 30. At an event in Belgium, execs told reporters, "If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter," according to an Associated Press report.

In January, InfoWorld Magazine launched a campaign to convince Microsoft to keep Windows XP available to customers beyond June 30. Their Save XP petition today has nearly 200,000 signatures.

Windows Vista's new user interface, coupled with its new approach to security and the need for most users to get new hardware has caused many to avoid Vista in favor of Windows XP or other operating systems.

Previously, Microsoft decided to keep Windows XP available for cheap PCs and for PCs in developing nations, as Vista's hardware requirements were too high for such inexpensive PCs.

Is 'Cloud Computing' in Decade's future?

Since the advent of Web 2.0, all of the tech world has been buzzing about "cloud computing".

It seems every geek blogger I know has taken a stab a "clarifying the myths surrounding cloud computing"—so it seemed only fair that I should take my shot.

I am here to put a couple of myths to rest—here and now.

Cloud Computing was not—I repeat not—named for either Chief Red Cloud or Chief White Cloud. Shockingly, I discovered it was not named after any native American at all.

Cloud computing is a buzzword that attempts to simplify data centers by leveraging virtualization technologies to reduce complexity. This complexity is reduced by combining and reducing various environments.

Consumers of the "cloud" are more concerned with services it can perform than the underlying technologies used to achieve the requested function.

The tag tries to suggest that function comes from "the cloud"—an company intranet or the global Internet—rather than from a specific identifiable device.

Although related, cloud computing is not identical with the business model of software as a service or the usage model of utility computing. That is where most of the debate and confusion comes in.

Like other cutting-edge Microsoft partners, Decade Software will leverage the strengths of the cloud, but we'll wait until the storm settles first.

What you need is some Stack Overflow

Two of my favorite geeks have teamed up to produce a podcast.

I highly recommend that you checkout Stack Overflow, hosted by Jeff "Coding Horror" Atwood and Joel "On Software" Spolsky.

To be honest, I haven't listened yet, but considering the extensive knowledge and quirky personalities of these two computer gurus, there is no way this show won't be a winner!

Geeks Trapped in an Elevator on Earth Day

Bill Simser has challenged all "geek bloggers" to answer this question...

"If you had to be trapped in an elevator with two living geeks for 41 hours, who would you like those geeks to be—and why?"

In honor of Earth Day, I choose to be sealed in with our 21st Century Einstein, Professor Stephen Hawking and Nobel winner, Al Gore.

Gore is classified as a geek, not because of his fight against global warming, but because he was responsible for expanding the Internet into what it is today via the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991.

After Steve and Al work with in developing a strategy for saving the world, as my reward, Professor Hawking and I can iron out those last few kinks in Einstein's time travel theory, so that I can prevent the deaths of Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy.

Afterwards, I'll retire to the Alamo and die fighting alongside Davy Crockett—and if all of that's not possible, I have another reward in mind. They can lock me in an elevator for 41 hours with Angelina Jolie and Jenna Jameson.

Either way, I die happy.