The Integrative Stream

TaskSwitchXP

Download of the Day: TaskSwitchXP (Windows)

Via LifeHacker.

This is a great utility; I installed it about fifteen minutes ago and already don’t know what I did without it. One of the great things about Mac OS X (and, apparently, Windows Vista) is toolset that allows you to easily deal with multiple windows. This tiny little utility gets you most of the way there without shelling out for the Windows upgrade (and the new computer that goes with it). When you hit Alt-Tab on keyboard rather than the unhelpful array of Windows icons you get little thumbnails and full window titles. If you have a lot of windows open, you can use the mouse to quickly select from the list. It seems to do some other things too, which I haven’t played with yet.

Programmers vs. Users

Almost every problem in software development can be traced to one of two sources: programmers and users. The post below, and the comments associated with it, do an excellent job illustrating the major sources of miscommunication between the two.

Some users want hand holding. A lot of it. And they expect the software (or the software developers) to somehow intuit exactly what they want to have happen. I used to call this the “magic button” syndrome, since there was really one thing these users wanted: a magic button on the middle of a web page that would do whatever needed to be done.

On the flip side, though, are programmers who expect users to think like programmers. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that techies and non-techies look at screens very differently. When I see a new screen, the first thing I do is look at every button, link and text box, and form a mental inventory of what I can do. Most programmers seem to do the same. Most users, however, don’t take an inventory approach: they decide what they want to do, and then hunt around until they find the option that does it. If there’s nothing on the screen that obviously solves the problem, mayhem may ensue.

The Bug is in the Details – The Daily WTF

Incidentally, I should go on record that in this particular example, the programmers were “right” – the end user demands are a bit naive. But I’ve seen worse. And most of the comments focus on issues like the difficulty of writing an email address parser that can say why an address isn’t valid. Yes, it’s hard to do. No, average non-programmer has no way of knowing that, other than intuition based on the fact that most software doesn’t do it.

Management in Software Companies

Those interested in starting or running software companies would do well to read Joel Spolsky’s essay on The Development Abstraction Layer and then think hard upon its meaning.

Spolsky’s an interesting character. He knows what he’s talking about from a software perspective. His writing appeals to developers and engineers, since, if you were to strip away everything except what he seems to care most about, you’re left with someone who cares about creating quality, usable software. From the perspective of cross-hallway evangelism (management to developers, developers to managers) he’s probably the best, or at least most consistent, person writing today.

Data Modeling

Shadid Shah’s blog has a reasonably technical article about data modeling for healthcare databases. The concept is important in other industries as well, but particularly helps to illustrate the challenges in building interoperable healthcare systems.

The Healthcare IT Guy » Guest Article: Beware of NULLs in healthcare databases

Moderation Patterns

I think patterns, whether in software development, architecture, or any other repeatable activity, are a very important thing. So much so that I wrote a book about them. So it’s interesting to watch the efforts at creating pattern languages for the social networking sphere. I’m particularly amazed that nobody has come up with a better web based group discussion system than the one I wrote back in 1995. Which was no different or better than the ones a lot of other people wrote at the same time.

Although I missed it, it appears that Clay Shirky gave an interesting talk on social networking patterns at the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies conference. Worth a read, and worth following the links.

Along the same lines, I’ve noticed a massive uptick in the comment spam on this blog over the last few days. Over 20 of them yesterday alone. I’ve closed off comments on some of the more popular posts, and will probably upgrade the blog software this weekend in an effort to cut them back further. Since I pre-moderate everything not posted by an approved user the spam doesn’t actually show up here.

McKinsey on in-house software development

McKinsey & Company has an interesting article on in-house software development. Some good points on the challenges of productizing in-house innovation.

Registration required, but it’s free for their web exclusive articles.

The McKinsey Quarterly: The next generation of in-house software development

IBM DB2 Promotion

Mark Whitehorn over at Reg Developer just wrote a column asking why IBM’s DB2 is so neglected. It is, after all, the best core database platform out there by almost universal acclamation. And it’s the most popular, too, given how well it handles the utterly massive databases required by a company like, say, UPS.

But DB2 never caught on in the small to medium enterprise, even though Windows and Linux versions have been available for years. It’s not on the radar screen for most developers, who don’t need the massive capacity stretch. Oracle tends to win by default (in the Java world) by having better, or at least more visible, developer tools, and, of course, SQL Server does very well in Microsoft land.

It’s a head scratcher. IBM really should think about the DB2 advertising budget, and maybe start coming up with creative ways to get the database in the hands of smaller developers.

Ndiyo’s Low Cost Labs

I recently came across the web site for Ndiyo. This is very clever stuff. They’ve taken a very simple approach to building low cost computer labs for developing countries (or any cost sensitive group). Little boxes, not much more than a network connection and a monitor port, connect to a central computer running Linux. A $800 computer can provide services to six or seven terminals, running web browsers, office applications, or whatever. Their goal is to get the technology down to a level where the adapter box costs a few tens of dollars – or is built right into the monitor.

The opportunities in education are really interesting. At their current price point, each terminal could cost $250 or less, even with flat panel displays. That’s far and away the cheapest way to equip a classroom. And there are maintenance advantages. By having a single server the maintenance overhead falls dramatically. This is really important in small school districts without a lot of local IT support. Configurations could even be managed centrally for an entire district. No troubleshooting required for individual PCs.

Eight or nine years ago I wanted to get into the network computers for education market. I moved on to other things when the network appliances that Oracle and Sun were pushing turned out to be more expensive and less useful than they needed to be. Commodity computers (for use as servers) are cheap enough now that this model should be revisited. The cost of ownership benefits, along with the initial cost savings, could be considerable. I can’t wait to see how much traction these guys get.

Blog Content Marketplaces

The Boston Globe has an article about a local startup called gather.com, another entry into the social networking/blog content aggregation marketplace.

My initial problem with the concept: when I went to the site, I couldn’t immediately figure out what it was all about. Some exploration showed good stuff, like podcasts from American Public Media (the producers of Marketplace on NPR, among other things), but it wasn’t immediately evident how the site could be useful to me as an information consumer. Search, quite simply, is easier to manage than browsing a content hierarchy, and if I’m going to search, it will take a lot to pull me away from a classical search engine like Google. After all, if I’m doing research, why would I want to limit myself to just blog content?

There may be something here, and I’m going to look at it in more detail later, but on first brush I don’t think it’s a big deal.

Attack of the Suits

My friend David from MIT’s Center for Media Studies made an interesting post last week on Why It’s More Than Just Courteous to Play Nice With “The Suits. David covers the games industry, so that’s where his focus is, but the point is actually much broader. I’ve seen the exact same prejudices in enterprise software shops – and that boggles the mind.

Actually, the situation is a little different. Enterprise developers aren’t quite as likely to have an independent vision, but they’re just as likely to assume they understand the customer better than the “sales droids.” Sometimes the results are pretty comical – and sometimes the developers are right.

Coke-Pepsi-Google Test

Anyone with a marketing background (or who has taken a marketing course) should be familiar with the Coke-Pepsi taste test. I’m a rabid Diet Coke drinker myself, and loudly proclaim my dislike of Pepsi. When presented with the two drinks sans packaging, I can identify them about 50% of the time. The shape of the packaging affects the perception of the product.

So then with search engines. Seth Godin points out an informal study suggesting that, in a blind test, MSN, Yahoo and Google are pretty much even.

Just as everywhere else, a lot of perception is bound up in the branding. Some of this is legacy: when Google first came out, it really was the best search engine out there. Google’s success made the space competitive again, and the other vendors have had years to catch up. In many ways, Google is still coasting on a period of technical superiority that ended at least two years ago–showing how valuable such a lead can be, and how adroit management of consumer perceptions can extend its value.

Maybe this is why Google’s hiring practices focus so much on a visible intellectual elite. A company hiring all those PhDs must be using them for something.

Printed, Shipped and Ready to Go

I just got a FedEx package with my first author’s copy of Java Enterprise in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition. It should be in bookstores and shipping from Amazon soon. I’m very attached to this book, particularly since it was the first book I ever signed a writing contract for, back in December of 1997, almost eight years ago.

As I’ve said before, I think the third edition is a great book. It’s up to date on all the technologies and tools you need to do enterprise development well in Java. One stop shopping. Makes a great Christmas gift, too.

Full Circle on Web TV

Several outlets reported today on AOL’s investment in BrightCove. BrightCove is trying to build a business piping TV over the web. It’s not a bad business, particularly as PCs have started sprouting more A/V outputs and broadband penetration continues to go up.

What really struck me was the Wall Street Journal’s headline: “Diller’s IAC, AOL to Invest In Web-TV Company”. I immediately thought they were talking about the late, unlamented WebTV, which, as you may or may not recall, tried to do the exact opposite, allowing users to access the web on their TV sets (albeit poorly). I always thought WebTV was a dumb idea, but TV over the web isn’t. We’ve come full circle.

Customers are Good

Cory Doctorow has a nice roundup of posts and articles about Sony’s Digital Rights Management software. The phrase “anti-customer” has been bandied around a lot on this, and while the phrasing is a little harsh it’s fundamentally correct. I don’t know if I can put it any more simply: vandalizing your customer’s computers is a bad thing. Consumer oriented companies will not benefit from treating each customer like a potential criminal.

Boing Boing: Sony anti-customer technology roundup and time-line

Fixing Software Development (some more)

Interesting stuff from Alan Cooper, by way of Philip Greenspun. No need to read if you’re not in the software biz; otherwise, worth paying some attention to.

Can we fix the software development process with innovative management?

Java Enterprise Sample Chapter

There’s now a sample chapter from the third edition of Java Enterprise in a Nutshell up on the O’Reilly web site. It’s on the JUnit and Cactus testing frameworks for enterprise apps, and while it’s not one of the ones I wrote it’s nonetheless quite good.

You can get to it via the O’Reilly catalog page for the book:

oreilly.com — Online Catalog: Java Enterprise in a Nutshell, Third Edition

The book itself should be out sometime late this month or early December. I finished reading over the last author galleys a few weeks ago, and we just finalized the index. All that’s left is the editor’s final pass followed by a trip to the printer, after which this long-delayed and long-awaited (I hope) title will be in stores.

Game Tycoon

My friend David Edery, currently Associate Director at the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program, recently launched his blog covering the gaming industry and interactive media in general. This isn’t really my industry, but everything’s connected and David’s a smart guy:

Game Tycoon

RFID Passport Issues

A new article in Wired from security expert Bruce Schnier discusses one of the flaws in the reasoning behind RFID enabled passports.. If anything, he doesn’t hit all the points. The passive RFID technology envisioned for these passports is not appropriate for this application, as Dave Molnar points out on the PoliTech mailing list.

CFOs replacing CIOs?

John Norman, one of my esteemed co-authors on Java Enterprise in a Nutshell, pointed me towards an InfoWorld article from last week: Are CIOs headed for extinction? In short, Sarbanes Oxley compliance requirements have tied corporate IS departments closer to the finance functions. Some companies are eliminating the CIO post entirely and shifting responsibility to the CFO.

There was some discussion in the business press over the last year about the trend to shift the responsibilities of COOs to CFOs as well. So when is an empowered CFO not a CFO anymore?

Tablets and Keyboards

I just upgraded my laptop to a ThinkPad X41 Tablet. It’s too early to actually review it (and I’m still getting used to interacting with it in tablet mode). My initial impression is positive, though. The best thing about it, maybe a little oddly for a tablet PC, is the keyboard. I’d forgotten how good ThinkPad keyboards are, particularly compared to my old Dell.