When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us. –Alexander Graham Bell
Think as you work, for in the final analysis, your worth to your company comes not only in solving problems, but also in anticipating them. –Tom Lehrer
Thought not committed to action is like a sun that never shines. –Thomas D. Willhite
Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you're doing the impossible. –St. Francis of Assisi
To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all. –Peter McWilliams, Life 101
An MIT researching is embarking on a long-term study of whether or not IT
initiatives and tools make people more productive or not. This article gives an overview of the
planned review.
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=8800547
Many organizations talk a lot about how business and IT strategies are
aligned and they do much planning to ensure that. However, following up and verifying that alignment continues is
more difficult.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article.jhtml?id=r00520030120gcn01.htm
A new Cutter Consortium study shows that most data warehouse projects
either fail to meet expectations or are abandoned before completion. Both process and technology maturity were
identified as leading factors for failure.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20030109S0010
This site has a wonderful collection of quotes from the “heavyweights” of
the history of software development (Dijkstra, Ritchie, Stroustrup, et. al.),
as well as some less well-known figures.
Most of the quotes are insightful and motivating.
http://www.softwarequotes.com/
This article is packed with good advice on getting a project that is out
of control back on track. It includes
five salient points to consider in gaining control.
http://www.techrepublic.com/printerfriendly.jhtml?id=r00620020423tb01.htm
Schedule overruns are more common than meeting projected dates. What can
be done to improve? Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt provides insight as to how a great
amount of schedule safety is incorporated into project plans, yet teams succeed
in wasting the safety until they experience schedule overrun. By eliminating or
minimizing the causes of schedule waste, the probability of achieving the
originally planned project completion date increases.
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2001/jan/perkins.asp
This article discusses one of the primary conundrums of software testing: When are we done? It also examines the importance of doing a variety of testing types to ensure the best quality.
http://www.itworldcanada.com/portals/portalDisplay.cfm?oid=BC189170-8144-4764-9A4011324B4BD49D
A good reference to terminology used in software testing culled from a variety of well-known and respected sources.
http://www.geocities.com/xtremetesting/TestingDictionary.html
Mainstream media review of problems with defect-laden software, particularly in embedded applications, such as ATMs. Lack of testing is cited as major cause for problems.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/04/27/buggy.software.ap/index.html
This eight-part tutorial on Unix is an excellent introduction (or
refresher!) for those who have little or no Unix experience. The tutorial starts out with comparisons of
commands between DOS (or the Windows command prompt) as a gentle start.
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/
This article gives a nice overview of Dr. E. F. Codd’s development of the
relational model for data
and some non-technical tips for how to think of data relationally.
http://builder.com.com/article.jhtml?id=u00320030402ssh01.htm
Although the name belies the fact, this is not one of those sites that
promises to fix all of the problems with your system automatically. Instead, this site has some excellent
tutorials about a variety of topics related to the inner workings of PCs and
networks. The articles are well
organized and approachable without (needlessly) getting too technical. Some topics include an overview of the basic
components of all PCs, how the modern GUIs are designed/implemented, and an
introduction to TCP/IP.
Formally known as Federal Standard 1037, this site includes the full FCC
glossary of telecom terms. A good
primary reference for telecommunications technology information.
http://ntia.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/
Tek-Tips is an excellent site for all topics about software development
technologies and processes and networking.
Site includes a variety of forums and what sets this one apart from the
plethora of others is that most of the forums stay on-topic and the enquirer
receives succinct responses quite quickly.
(Site requires free registration to post.)
Due to the prolonged recession, many IT workers have abandoned moving from job to job every few months or years. The increased stress is causing a likely long-term backlash due to stagnation.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20030319S0009
This series of articles gives an overview of each of the five core disciplines identified by Peter Senge in his seminal work on the “learning organization”, The Fifth Discipline: personal mastery, shared vision, mental models, team learning, and systems thinking. The articles focus on applications to project management.
http://builder.com.com/article.jhtml?id=u00420030303df01.htm
http://builder.com.com/article.jhtml?id=u00420030403df01.htm
Article discusses some of the backoffice system changes made by WilTel since coming out of bankruptcy. Specifically, discusses Open CI and Siebel.
http://telephonyonline.com/ar/telecom_wiltel_emergence_provides/index.htm
A prolific inventor of telecom technologies has a received a patent for technology that allows switching at Layer 1, which he claims provides promise for improved real-time video and high-performance data transmission.
http://telephonyonline.com/ar/telecom_inventor_patents_layer/index.htm
JBSQL is a light-weight, but feature-rich, replacement for Oracle’s SQL*Plus utility. JBSQL presents output of SELECT statements in an easy-to-read tabular format (similar to SQL Navigator) and provides table and column completion dropdown lists to save typing. [JBSQL requires version 8.1 of the Oracle client.]
http://users.pandora.be/jbosman/applications.html
Visual REGEXP is a “graphical explorer” for regular expressions (regexp). It allows you to build a regexp and immediately see it applied to a user-specified input example. The utility provides quick access to common regexp components and color highlighting for flexible feedback.
http://laurent.riesterer.free.fr/regexp/
Synergy is a utility that allows you to share a single keyboard and mouse on multiple computer systems, each of which has it’s own monitor/display, without extra hardware. It works by creating a “virtual desktop” comprised of all of the machines and then allows you to seamlessly drag your mouse from one desktop to another.
http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
Junction Link Magic (JLM) is a utility for any NTFS 5-based OS (Windows 2000 and Windows XP) that allows you to create symbolic links (called “junction points” in the MS vernacular) to another drive/volume as a directory on your local system. This essentially allows you to break the 26-drive-letter barrier on your system by mounting other drives as directories. JLM makes the task of defining these links simple.
http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm
The Recent Documents menu (Start à Documents) can be a real time saver in Windows 2000. By default, Windows puts that last 15 non-application documents accessed in this menu. However, using the Group Policy (GP) editor, you can increase (or decrease) this to any number that you want. Launch the GP editor by entering gpedit.msc in the Run dialog. In the Group Policy window, navigate to the User Configuration à Administrative Templates à Windows Components à Windows Explorer branch. Locate the “Maximum number of recent documents” Policy and change it to Enabled and specify the desired number of documents. Press OK and close the GP editor. [Note: You must be a local administrator to use the GP editor.]
In MS Excel, you can quickly navigate to the top or bottom of a column or row “section” (contiguous cells which have contents) by double-clicking on the appropriate edge of a cell. For example, if you double-click on the top edge of a cell, Excel will move the cell pointer to the top of the list of cells above the current cell. If you double-click on the edge of an empty cell, Excel move the cell pointer to the appropriate edge of the “empty” region (e.g., the “last” cell before a cell that has contents.)
If your company has a web/intranet address book or directory, you can set the default display of the MS Outlook Contacts folder to display this page. To do this:
Now, when you open the Contacts folder the address book web page will be displayed. To view the standard contacts list, choose View | Show Folder Home Page from the main menu in Outlook.
This site features a variety of classic arcade games programmed entirely in Macromedia Flash. Some of the games include Pacman, Zelda, Super Mario, and many more. Site is very well organized and games are small and easy to use.
http://w1.910.telia.com/~u91024173/examples.html
The Museum of Hoaxes presents their favorite 100 April Fool’s Day hoaxes foisted upon the public by a variety of otherwise reputable organizations.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/top100.html
This one is incredible! It’s a Flash-based miniature golf game, with all the realism of the real thing. Be careful; this one’s addictive!
http://web.mit.edu/wnellie/www/miniputt.swf
The Mental Floss (fantastic in it own right!) provides a daily trivia quiz on a wide range of topics. The quiz usually has a theme and the questions increase in difficulty. See how much you remember! (Archive of past quizzes is available, as well.)
http://www.mentalfloss.com/quiz.htm