At Shedding Some Light, Rick Schummer blogs “Then it hits me. They finally fixed this little useful tool after it was broken for a long time. Now I know how a couple of the ViewEditor alpha testers felt last week when I finally tracked down and fixed the sorting bug in the list of tables and views when picking columns to be copied to the clipboard. Finally!“
Archive | August, 2005
What’s the point of IT Certifications?
Slashdot posts What’s the Point of IT Certifications?. erica_ann asks: “Fact: You can have the knowledge without having to pay to be Certified when it comes to computers. Another fact: Just because you have the certification does not mean you actually know the material as well as someone who is not certified. You might just be good at taking tests. So what is the point of getting IT Certifications? To have a piece of paper?”
Always a good question. A couple easy answers come to mind:
1. Marketing: for SMB, having a logo on your business card or website implies *something*. That you made the effort to show your abilities. That you want to be recognized for your achievements. Or that you’re trying to bluff your way into something you’re not qualified to do.
2. Self-education. As I mentioned, I pass the MySQL Core Certification last week. As part of six or eight weeks of evening studying for the exam, I ran across little niches of information about MySQL I hadn’t had a need to learn up to that point. So I know more now.
3. Passing the HR filter: As some posters in the Slashdot article mention, there are HR departments that separate resumes into degreed/certified and not. The “not” basket is circular. I’m not saying this is the right thing to do (I don’t think it is in most cases), but it is the reality of the business.
4. Qualifications: Some day, legislators are going to get sick of IS screw-ups and require licensing of computer professionals (maybe). Engineers, lawyers, doctors, plumbers, electricians, beauticians and automobile drivers all have to get licensed. A computer professional with a string of certs is more likely to get grandfathered in or earn some sort of partial credit for the credentials. I hope.
A number of folks seem to react over-defensively to testing, and there are a lot of good reasons to do so. Any program can be corrupted. Some people test more poorly than others, but may be very skilled at their jobs. Most tests test how well you can take a test, and only reflect to some extent how well you can do the job the test is supposedly for. Certificates should be viewed as only one aspect of many in determining the competence of a professional. Remember, “What do they call the guy who graduates at the bottom of his med school class?”
“Doctor.”
Struggling with HP OfficeJet d145
I use an HP OfficeJet d145 for very rare color printing: ERDs, business cards, the occasional map. When I do, invariably, the magenta ink irregular, leaving a green cast to the pictures. Using the supplied HP utilities to print a couple of test pages, print head alignment tests and inkjet purges, I can get great results, but at the cost of 10% of the $40 cartridge. Pretty expensive printing.
To save the costs, I’m looking at less expensive ink refill kits. Any advice or observations would be appreciated. Here’s a few links I’ve spotted:
Resetting Your Hewlett Packard Printer’s Estimated Ink Level http://www.cartridgerefills.co.nz/ink_cartridge/tech_support.php#b6
HP OfficeJet d145 Printer Ink Cartridges HP OfficeJet d145 ink refills kits discount http://www.ask4ink.com/printers.asp?PrinterID=987
THE FIRST GUIDE IN TAKING BACK YOUR HP OFFICEJET! http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/27744
Lazy is a compliment to programmers, dumb can be, too…
Joho the Blog posts “Lazy, dumb programmers that are nothing of the sort. Philip Lenssen explains why programmers should be lazy and dumb, although of course he doesn’t mean either of those terms in the way we usually do….
BSD Certification Roadmap
Slashdot notes BSD Certification Group Releases Roadmap. Jeremy C. Reed writes “The BSD Certification Group announced on Thursday the release of their certification program roadmap. This publication introduces the Group’s planned BSD system administrator certifications and the construction of the certification program. The press release is available, as well as the certification roadmap.”
I’ve been a big fan of certification for a long time, as I think it shows a sincere interest in professional credentialling. There will always be “paper CNEs” — fakers who memorize questions and answers and squeak through the exams, so the credential should never be considered alone.
I hope that certification will eventually lead to professional licensing of software developers and other IT professionals. While many see the downside of getting state regulatory agencies involved in the process of determining computer competency, there’s an upside I hadn’t considered. I was chatting about certification recently with a Professional Engineer. He explained that a P.E. receives a license from the state in recognition of study, practice and exam performance, and is required to maintain current licensure by documenting ongoing education. If accused in court, a P.E. is more likely presumed by professional standing to have performed correctly, and the burden of proof is on the other party to prove negligence, incompetence or malpractice. Compared to the current situation in software development, this would be a desirable stance.
FTPOnline registration
I attempted to create an account on the Fawcette Technical Publications online (FTPOnline.com) web site to get a link to pass on about a recent editorial in Visual Studio Magazine. It prompted for the usual email address, password twice routine. I used my usual password technique, a scrambling of the site with punctuation and letters. It rejected my attempt with a little message "Password must be between 4 and 10 characters" — okay, mine was eleven or twelve. I slimmed it down to nine, and .. "Password must be between 4 and 10 characters" — now I eliminated all the numbers. Still… "Password must be between 4 and 10 characters" . Finally, I just made it a simple obscenity in all lowercase alphabetic characters. That it took. What kind of security does a site offer when you are limited to alpha-only entry? A simple dictionary attack (limited to 4 to 10 characters, of course) will crack this site. Why don’t they bother to tell you what they require for password? They ought to be embarassed. And why do they do this? Is it harder to store a number than a letter? Does an exclamation take more storage than an alpha? Bozos!
Can a Virtual Server be Vaporware?
Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley notes “Virtual Server 2005 R2 Due By Year-End. Microsoft is now going to release Virtual Server 2005 R2 (the product formerly known as Virtual Server 2005 Service Pack 1) before the end of this year.”
Interesting that since Microsoft has gone to naming their software after calendar years (Windows 95, SQL Server 2005, etc.) that they can’t release a DotFive version. So what do they do? Anything they want, as the joke goes. Windows 98 had a “Second Edition,” Windows XP had a major makeover disguised as “Service Pack 2” and now we have the “R2” version of “Virtual Server 2005.” Next, I hear VB.NET will be renamed “Visual Basic 9.0” dropping the pejorative DotNet and implying that you must have missed versions 7 and 8 as they built upon the success of 6.0, their most successful product ever discontinued, with which this language shares very little in common. What’s in a name?
Introductory Python course in Merrimack NH
At last night’s PySIG meeting at the Amoskeag Business Incubator, Kent Johnson announced that he’ll be teaching a course on Programming in Python for beginning programmers for the Merrimack Schools Adult Ed program. At $120 for 10 nights of two hours each, it sounds like a bargain. Unfortunately, I’ll be teaching LAMP at the NHTI Center for Training and Business Development, otherwise, I might attend myself.
SOX #1, but consultants make the top 5
(InfoWorld) – IBM Corp. users expect compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley rules governing U.S. public companies to prove to be the least effective or the most wasteful use of their IT resources, according to the results of an online poll of Share members released late Monday.
Share, the oldest independent IBM user group, which is celebrating its 50th birthday this month, polled individuals between Aug. 4 and 15, who were preregistering for its Boston conference. The organization received 444 responses to a short online survey containing five questions. The conference is taking place in Boston through Friday Aug. 26.
One of the survey’s questions asked respondents to imagine themselves being transported to 2015 and then looking back at 2005 and what they thought in retrospect would prove to be either an ineffective or wasteful use of their IT time. Twenty-eight percent of those polled cited Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, followed by deployment of unproven technologies (23 percent), purchase of unneeded technologies (19 percent), and continuing support for outdated technologies (17 percent). The fifth-rated bugbear cited by 10 percent of respondents was external consultants, with software upgrades only distressing one percent of those polled.
Read the entire article: Sarbanes-Oxley seen as biggest IT time waster.
Linux Use in SMB Servers 20% and growing!
IBM’s LinuxLine free newsletter, produced by Database Trends and Applications, reports: “Linux Use Among SMB Developers Exceeds Enterprise Use“.
The use of Linux is even stronger among developers working in small and mid-sized business than those working in larger enterprises, according to a new study by Evans Data Corp. In a survey of 500 SMB developers, the market researcher found that 19 percent have Linux running on their servers the majority of the time, compared to seven percent among enterprise developers. Twenty-seven percent of the developers in the SMB community anticipate running Linux the majority of the time next year compared to 10 percent in the enterprise arena.
The numbers are higher than I would have expected, but the real kicker is the number they don’t point out: the self-predicted 30% growth year-over-year system admins are predicting in Linux adoption!