Suzi Turner provides the Top 10 Tips to Keep that New Computer Spyware-free. This list focuses on computers that run Microsoft Windows. The list could have been reduced to suggesting that people keep their software updated, prefer Internet applications that are more secure, and enhance operating system security by modifying its default settings. It would have been great if Microsoft Windows was “Secure by Default“. A valuable suggestion from this article encourages people to practice safe hex and avoid contracting unwanted viruses.
After months of resistance, I decided to join the Ruby on Rails bandwagon and read up on Ruby at a brick and mortar bookstore. I was unable to find Programming Ruby, but I found Agile Web Development with Rails and was able to read Appendix A, which was an introduction to the Ruby programming language. Ruby is presented as a terse object-oriented programming language. People experienced in other popular object-oriented programming languages will be familiar with Ruby’s OOP features. Before jumping into Rails, it seems wise to develop some background with Ruby. So, I decided against purchasing Agile Web Development for now, and I settled for the first edition of Programming Ruby, which is available online.
The Website Development Process at pingmag.jp describes an iterative product development life cycle through a presentation that is “fun to look at.” The presentation focuses on the interaction between a web design firm and a client, but the interaction can be generalized to cover all product development efforts. This is a useful resource for introducing the development process to clients. It can also serve as a guide for developers who might need a refresher on the basics.
Jeff Wuorio’s 4 Ways Businesswomen Can Combat Bias discusses ways to fight detrimental views on female company representatives. Although it may be needed for a small company to fight these preconceptions through deception as Gini Dietrich of Arment Dietrich does, making a fictitious male entity the leader of a company that is headed by a woman simply reproduces discrimination against women in business interaction. Living in a time where widespread lack of progressive thinking makes notions of a female US president remarkable is unfortunate. Dietrich’s actions support the status quo. If potential clients are sensitive to doing business with a female business leader, then the performance of the business leader should be used to steer the prospect away from their preconceptions and persuade prospects into becoming clients. Supporting and increasing the success of businesses that discriminate against female business leaders helps discrimination persist in business settings. Female business leaders should use the talented knowledge workers that they have accumulated to help, through their business’s services, companies that are more interested in becoming more profitable and less fixated on extending sexual discrimination.
read more | digg story
A blog entry adds more insight to Jeremy Wright’s Web 2.0 Companies Need to Scale. As an IT administrator, I worry about the availability of Internet applications that run on the servers that I maintain. Perfection is something that I strive for personally, and I continually think about robust methods that will bring the availability of Web applications closer to 100%.
Although it would be ideal to deploy a high availability configuration, the cost of providing HA might be greater than what can be afforded by small companies. The benefit for small companies is most likely less than what would be gained from larger companies. The move to increase availability should be made after some analyses in a similar fashion that other business decisions should be made. A minimal analysis includes the costs incurred by adopting the move, the costs resulting from outages due to delaying the move, and the amount of change in the expected downtime of a service after the move is committed. Deploying high availability is an investment like any other. The potential gains from these investments should be evaluated before an investment is made.
The idea of waiting to deploy HA until the cost of deployment is less than the loss resulting for service outages is acceptable, but I disagree with the suggestion to wait for high availability to become an issue before giving it consideration. Unless it is cheaper to reimplement an application, scalability is something that must be considered early in the software development process. Although a highly available infrastructure might not be available at the same time that an application is deployed, the application should be engineered for easy introduction into a high availability configuration. Availability is a concern for all successful Internet applications. Developers, with their highly optimistic nature, should plan on their applications becoming successful.
read more | digg story