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The IBM Academy of Technology
I was talking to someone recently who had noticed that in my biography I mention the IBM Academy of Technology. He asked me what that was. After I was done giving a brief explanation I realized that this might be a good topic for a blog post. The IBM Academy of technology is one of IBM's key technology "think tank" initiatives and also something I am proud to be a member of. Rather than give my own lengthy explanation here, I am including a couple of links to sites that do a very good job of describing the Academy.
I hope this is of interest
Categories
: [ IBM-Academy ]
Sep 02 2008, 04:36:18 PM EDT
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Reflecting on a great week at SHARE
I had intended to post a few more times from SHARE in San Jose last week but I ended up getting so busy speaking to people and chairing sessions that I never managed to. I would like to thank all of the speakers that came and spoke as part of our SOA Project (track) for delivering what I think was as good a program of study as we have yet produced. I am also grateful to the many attendees that came to our sessions and helped make them both enjoyable and interactive. It was also great to see IBM's David Barnes get a "Distinguished Speaker" award from SHARE for his sessions on Web 2.0 at prior events.
On a personal note it was great for me to be back at an event I really care about alongside colleagues and friends that I have tremendous respect for. I missed the last two SHARE events due to the medical issues that I have documented in prior postings here and at my personal web site.
There is a lot more I could write about the week but I am now more than a bit busy trying to catch up from being away. I am really looking forward to the next SHARE which will be in my home town of Austin, Texas next March. Planning for that event is already well underway.
Maybe I'll see some of you there!
Categories
: [ conferences ]
Aug 17 2008, 10:22:31 PM EDT
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SHARE Update (Days 1 and 2)
I am out in San Jose, California at SHARE. As I mentioned in prior postings, I help run the SOA Project (SHARE speak for a track). I am right now sitting in the last session of the day for our track on Day 2 of the conference. We have had a great turnout for all of our sessions so far and we have had some great discussions on topics such as SOA, REST, Web 2.0, Web Services and the role of mainframe computers in a Web 2.0 World. Tonight, even though we are not even half way through the week, we begin our planning for the next SHARE, which will be held in Austin, Texas, the first week of March next year. It will be the first time that SHARE has been held in Austin since I moved there in 1995 so it will be great to be not just an attendee but also a host for the first time.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the week here in San Jose. We still have a lot of great sessions planned. I am also really happy that I am able to actually be here in person (I missed the last two SHARE events due to my medical woes). It is also great to be meeting so many long time friends again and also making some new ones.
Categories
: [ conferences ]
Aug 12 2008, 08:00:51 PM EDT
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Is system's programming a dying art?
I was talking to a long time friend and former OS/2 colleague today. We were reminiscing about the "old days" and I mentioned that it seemed to me that the art of system's programming is dying out. I was referring to the good old days of the early 1990's when while working on the internals of the OS/2 operating system it seemed that every single byte of memory was precious to us and we worked really hard to code up tight memory efficient routines. We had a pretty darn good release of OS/2 IMHO that ran just fine in 4mb of memory at one point (yes to all you folks too young to remember those days 4mb!!). These days, most computers come from the factory with at least one or two gigabytes as standard and a lot of people (myself included) carry 4gb (or more) in their pockets on USB memory sticks. We treat memory these days as plentiful and do not have the same respect for it we had just a decade or two ago. The problem as I see it is that a whole new generation of programmers has grown up coding Java, C# and other virtual machine based languages where you "let the system worry about cleaning up memory". Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking Java and C# as languages, in fact I like them both and I use them both. However, back in my OS/2 days when we coded mainly in C or i86 Assembler we had a maniacal focus (or so it seems to me looking back) on monitoring memory usage and tracking down and plugging memory leaks and, moreover, on writing memory efficient code in the first place. Maybe I am just old fashioned in my views but as I look at a lot of today's software I see hugely bloated install files and massive memory footprints once installed. Memory (and for that matter, disk space) may be plentiful but system performance really suffers if the underlying infrastructure that is running your code spends half its time cleaning up memory that is no longer needed after you. I am not saying you cannot write good code on a VM based language. Far from it in fact. I am just saying that what I regard as an "art" - the respectful use of systems resources to be precise - seems to be dying out.
Am I just getting old? What do you think?
Categories
: [ Programming ]
Aug 08 2008, 07:17:48 PM EDT
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Looking forward to SHARE
All being well I shall be speaking at SHARE in San Jose next week. I will be talking about subjects such as SOA, open standards and Web 2.0. I'm sitting at my desk right now putting the finishing touches to my slides. Due primarily to the medical issues that I have documented on my personal web site, this will be the first time I have actually been able to get back to SHARE since the Tampa meeting in early 2007. I am really looking forward to meeting a lot of old friends and to hopefully making a few new ones as well
Categories
: [ SOA | conferences | standards ]
Aug 04 2008, 02:51:16 PM EDT
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Top 10 portable gadgets I take with me when I travel
To provide further proof (as if proof were needed) of my "geek factor" and to complete this round of Top 10 lists, here is a list of 10 portable gadgets that I often take with me when I travel. If you are reading this, please feel free to suggest other cool gadgets I should be using by writing a comment.
- Blackberry 8800
- Pedometer
- Nintendo DS
- Sony PSP
- Palm Tungsten T5
- Canon 20D camera
- Canon Digital Elph camera
- Seagate FreeAgent Go 250gb USB drive
- Seagate 6gb Pocket Drive
- Garmin GPS III (it's old now but still a great device)
UPDATED: I should probably have included my Bose QC3 headphones in the list. Because of my ongoing medical issues I have not flown since March of 2007 so I have not needed the headphones lately and consequently they slipped my mind.
Categories
: [ Top_10 ]
Aug 01 2008, 12:42:59 PM EDT
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Top 10 programs I use on my Mac Book Pro all the time
Continuing with my theme of posting a few "Top 10" lists this week here is a list of the top 10 applications I find myself using all the time on my Apple Mac Book Pro. I bought the Mac Book (my first ever Apple computer) back in December of last year so that I had a "new toy" to play with while I was undergoing chemotherapy. I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but I have "fallen in love" with the reliability and simplicity of the Mac. It's also neat to have all of the UNIX features I knew so well back in my university days available in a 21st century laptop.
I did not include in this list the Terminal application which I use all the time to run the Bash shell (I love the tabbed terminal windows capability). I view Terminal as sort of built in to the Operating System. That said I did include TimeMachine in the list as it is a very simple and powerful backup tool with a unique (I think) interface.
- Mozilla Firefox 3
- Mozilla Thunderbird
- Lotus Notes & Lotus Mobile Connect (VPN client)
- Safari
- Time Machine (for backups)
- Text Wrangler (text editor)
- Adium (IM client)
- iTunes
- Neo Office
- VMWare Fusion
Any other Mac users reading this, what are your favorite apps? Are there some other apps I should be trying out?
Categories
: [ Mac | Top_10 ]
Jul 31 2008, 01:23:46 PM EDT
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Top 10 programs based on Open Source I use every day
Not only is this a list of the Top 10 programs I use every day that are based on Open Source, it is also pretty close to how the list would look even if I included proprietary applications. There would be a few changes, but not many. This says a lot about the quality, robustness and usefulness of standards based Open Source software. I am very grateful to all of the people that put so much effort into creating these applications. So, without further ado, here's the list:
- Mozilla Firefox
- Mozilla Thunderbird
- Vim and GVim (Great text editor that I use on the Mac and on Windows)
- CYGWIN (UNIX environment and command shell for Windows)
- Mozilla Sea Monkey (I mostly use Composer)
- IBM Lotus Symphony
- Open Office and Neo Office (a Mac port of OpenOffice)
- Perl
- Mozilla Sunbird
- Python
Categories
: [ 10's | OpenSource | Top ]
Jul 30 2008, 11:05:22 AM EDT
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Top 10 Web Based Applications I use every day
More and more I find myself "living on the web". Here is a list of some web based applications that I use every day and have probably become more than a bit dependent on:
- Google Search
- FaceBook
- Google Calendar
- Google Reader
- LinkedIn
- Yahoo! Mail
- Wikipedia
- Plaxo Pulse
- Google Gmail
- Google Maps
More top 10 lists coming soon!
Categories
: [ standards | web2.0 ]
Jul 29 2008, 11:49:49 AM EDT
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OASIS Web Services Secure Exchange (WSSX) Committee starts public review of new specs
The OASIS WS-SX Technical Committee (of which I am the co-chair), has just started a Public Review of it's latest specifications. If you care about key Web Services security standards I encourage you to read the new specifications and provide the committee any feedback you may have. The specifications out for review are:
The public review starts today, 24 July 2008, and ends 23 September 2008.
Categories
: [ security | standards | webservices ]
Jul 24 2008, 12:46:34 PM EDT
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Addicted to social networking
As I have mentioned in prior postings I use several of the social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to keep track of friends and colleagues around the World. For the last several hours I have been unable to log in to Facebook and see the latest updates as the site is apparently undergoing maintenance. I am noticing a definite sense of withdrawal - I think I may be a social computing addict!
Categories
: [ Social_networking | web_technology ]
Jul 23 2008, 01:09:18 PM EDT
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Colorado Software Summit 2008
I just got a brochure in the mail which reminded me I should post an entry about the Colorado Software Summit 2008. I have attended the conference multiple times, mostly as a speaker but also as an attendee. It is one of my favourite weeks of the year and I am really hoping (health permitting) that I can attend this year (I missed last year due to the same health issues). I am hoping to run a couple of BOFs this year around the subject of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and lightweight web based user interface design.
If you have not attended the conference before, I strongly encourage you to check out the web page and consider attending. It is more than a conference, it is a place to make friends and exchange ideas with people who are experts in their field that share your passion for the topics you care about.
The conference is held in Keystone, Colorado and this year begins on October 19th - maybe I'll see you there!
Categories
: [ Conferences ]
Jul 22 2008, 11:57:25 PM EDT
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I have turned comments back on
I have turned comments back on. Hopefully the new filters that are now in place will block the flood of offensive spam I was hit with a few months ago.
Categories
: [ blogging ]
Jul 20 2008, 01:43:08 PM EDT
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