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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 49 declined, 23 accepted (72 total, 31.94% accepted)

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Google

Submission + - Lefty activists want to manipulate search engines

Submitted by bfwebster
bfwebster writes: Over at the Daily Kos, Chris Bowers lays out the groundwork for Grassroots SEO, with the up-front goal "to get as many undecided voters as possible to read the most damaging news article about the Republican candidate for Congress in their district" via "search engine optimization". He lays out the plan, then says, "Once we get the articles we can start working to push them up search engine rankings. We need to launch the campaign early next week, so let’s gather these articles as quickly as we can."
HP

Submission + - HP hardware problems with Windows 7? (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by bfwebster
bfwebster writes: Since November of 2009, I have bought three multi-core 64-bit systems with Windows Home Premium (64-bit) preinstalled: an HP Pavilion desktop (model e9237c, bought 11/09); an HP Pavilion Entertainment laptop (model dv7, bought 03/10); and a Gateway desktop (model SX2802, bought 04/10). All three were upgraded to Windows 7 Professional at the end of May. During the time I have had these systems, I have had dozens of blue-scree-of-death (BSOD) crashes on the HP desktop; hundreds of BSODs on the HP laptop (which I suspect are related to the wireless adapter, since they mostly go away if I disable it), including multiple BSODs that occur at the log-in screen with no-one touching the laptop; and exactly zero (0) BSODs on the Gateway desktop. I am curious if others have noted similar problems on HP systems or lack thereof on Gateway systems. (Yes, I'm planning a factory restore and, if necessary, a return of the laptop; I've been on the road heavily since the end of March and haven't been able to lose use of the laptop until now.) More details here.
The Courts

Submission + - Does cheap technology undermine this court ruling? (volokh.com)

Submitted by bfwebster
bfwebster writes: Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor who focuses on legal issues regarding information technology (I own a copy of his book "Computer Crime Law") raises an interesting issue about a 2001 Supreme Court decision (Kyllo v. United States) that prohibited police from using a thermal imaging device on a private home without a warrant. (The police were trying to detect excess heat coming from the roof of a garage, as an indication of lamps being used to grow marijuana inside.) The Court made its decision back in 2001 because thermal imaging devices were "not in general use" and therefore represented a technology that required a warrant. However, Kerr points out that anyone can now buy such thermal imaging devices for $50 to $150 from Amazon, and that they're advertised as a means of detecting thermal leakage from your home. In light of that, Kerr asks, is the Supreme Court's ruling still sound?
IT

Submission + - An analytical critique of the Sessions paper (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by bfwebster
bfwebster writes: Roger Sessions released a white paper in which he claims that annual IT failure costs amount to $6.2 trillion. However, his reading of information sources and his resulting estimates are profoundly flawed. For starters, he misreads the US Federal Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Analytical Perspective document from which he extrapolates so much and ends up nearly an order of magnitude off in his estimate of the percentage of the US Federal IT budget that is "at risk" (his term, not the government's). Likewise, his estimate of a 65% failure rate for government IT projects is not supported anywhere in the document he cites and is, in fact, contradicted by it. The flaws in his extrapolation from the US Federal Government to the rest of the world merely compound the errors.
Google

Submission + - Google autosuggest blocking 'climategate'

Submitted by bfwebster
bfwebster writes: Despite the fact that a Google search on 'climategate' now yields over 10 million hits, the Google autosuggest feature appears to be deliberately ignoring 'climategate'. If you type 'climategate' in, letter by letter, you never get it as a suggestion, even when you've typed in 'climategat' (or, for that matter, 'climategate'). What you get instead is "climate guatemala". Bing, by contrast, autosuggests 'climategate' as soon as you type in 'cli'.
Games

Submission + - Video games: threat to the great outdoors (eurekalert.org) 1

Submitted by bfwebster
bfwebster writes: Randall Parker, over at the always informative FuturePundit, calls attention to a study that claims that video games are a threat to support for the conservation of nature. The argument goes like this: people who play video games are less likely to be involved in outdoor activities, such as camping, hiking, and so forth; most support for conservation comes from people who are heavily involved in said outdoor activities; therefore, the more people who play video games, the fewer people who will support conservation. QED. Logical fallacies are left as an exercise to the Slashdot reader.
Government

Submission + - HR 3200 considered as software (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "Independent of one's personal opinions regarding the desirability and forms of government-mandated health care reform, there exists the question of how well HR 3200 (or any other legislation) will actually achieve that end and what the unintended (or even intended) consequences may be. There are striking similarities between crafting software and creating legislation, including risks and pitfalls — except that those risks and pitfalls are greater in legislation. I've written an article (first of a three-part series) examining those parallels and how these apply to HR 3200."
The Internet

Submission + - Use a logo, get tagged as a phishing site (and-still-i-persist.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "I received a startling e-mail from my ISP this morning stating that my account for a dedicated server, from which I run several blogs, was going to be suspended because it had been "reported" as a phishing site for having four HSBC logos (JPEGs) present on the server. I immediately responded by noting that these logos were there because my co-blogger on one of my blogs wrote a post about HSBC's financial woes nearly two years ago and used one of the logos to head the article. My ISP claims that I not only need to remove the offending logos (which I did) but also conduct a security audit in case they were surreptitiously placed there (which they weren't). I asked just who had "reported" us as a phishing site and what the basis of their claim was beyond the mere presence of those JPEGs. I am waiting for a reply."
The Military

Submission + - Army studying soldier intuition in combat zones (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "The New York Times has a lengthy article about the use of hunches or intuition by soldiers in dangerous situations (possible registration required). This phenomenon — a soldier sensing that something is wrong or out of place before determining just what the threat is — is real enough that the Army has spent two years studying it. The article cites other studies, military and non-military, that have demonstrated that "as the brain tallies cues, big and small, consciously and not, it may send out an alarm before a person fully understands why." Two interesting points that may actually be the same: troops that think of themselves as predators tend to do better than those that see themselves as prey; and elite troops (e.g., Navy Seals) tend to do better than regular troops."
Patents

Submission + - Judge, Citing Bilski, Invalidates Software Patent (bfwa.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "US District Court Judge Andrew Gilford (Central District of California) granted a summary judgment motion in DealerTrack v. Huber et al., finding DealerTrack's patent (US 7,181,427) — for an automated credit application processing system — invalid due to the recent In re Bilski court decision that requires a patent to either involve "transformation" or "a specific machine". According to Judge Gilford's ruling, DealerTrack "appears to concede that the claims of the '427 Patent do not meet the 'transformation' prong of the Bilski test." He then applied the "specific machine" test and noted that, post-Bilski the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has ruled several times that "claims reciting the use of general purpose processors or computers do not satisfy the (Bilski) test." Judge Gilford analyzes the claims of the '427 patent, notes that they state that the "machine" involved could be a "dumb terminal" and a "personal computer", and then concludes: "None of the claims of the '427 Patent require the use of a 'particular machine,' and the patent is thus invalid under Bilski." DealerTrack apparently plans to appeal the ruling. Interesting times ahead."
Businesses

Submission + - Book Review: Why New Systems Fail (bfwa.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "Over the last forty years, a small set of classic works on risks and pitfalls in software engineering and IT project management have been published and remained in print. The authors are well known, or should be: Gerry Weinberg, Fred Brooks, Ed Yourdon, Capers Jones, Stephen Flowers, Robert Glass, Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister, Steve McConnell, Steve Maguire, and so on. These books all focus largely on projects where actual software development is going on. A new book by Phil Simon, Why New Systems Fail, is likewise a risks-and-pitfalls book, but Simon covers largely uncharted territory for the genre: selection and implementation of enterprise-level customizable off-the-shelf (COTS) software packages, such as accounting systems, human resource systems, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. As such, Simon's book is not only useful, it is important.

Phil Simon has written a long-needed and long-overdue book. Most risks-and-pitfalls book in the IT category focus primarily on projects where actual software engineering is the principal activity. However, many of the large, expensive and often spectacular IT project failures over the past 20 years have little to do with software design and development. Instead, they involve a given organization selecting and implementing — or trying to implement — a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software package to replace existing legacy systems, either homegrown or also commercial. The reasons for such a move can be many: standardizing IT and data management across the enterprise, seeking new functionality, retiring systems that are no longer supported or supportable, and so on. By so doing, the firm (usually rightly) thinks to avoid the risks and expense of from-scratch custom software development. However, the firm (usually wrongly) thinks that such a project comprises nothing more than installing the software, training some users, converting some data, and turning a switch. A quick search on the terms "ERP" and "lawsuit" shows just how mistaken that idea can be.

Simon's book is far more informative and instructive than a Google search and should be required reading for all CIOs, IT project managers, and involved business managers prior to starting any such enterprise COTS project. He covers the complete lifecycle of such projects, starting with the typical expectations by upper management ("Fantasy World") and following it through system selection, implementation, and production, along with a final section on how to maximize the chances of success. Along the way, he uses several real-word case studies (with names changed), as well as a few hypothetical ones, to demonstrate just how such efforts go wrong.

What Simon writes is spot on. For roughly 15 years now, my primary professional focus has been on why IT projects fail. I do that both as a consultant (brought in to review troubled projects to get them back on track) and as a consulting or testifying expert (brought in to review troubled or failed projects now in litigation). I have reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of project documentation and communication; I have likewise traced or reconstructed project histories for many major IT projects, including enterprise COTS projects. It's clear that Simon knows exactly what he's talking about and knows where all the bodies are buried.

The book itself is very readable. Simon's tone is conversational and a bit humorous; he occasionally dives into technicalities that would be lost on upper management, but always comes back to basic principles. The real-world and hypothetical case studies will have those of us who have been on such projects nodding our heads even as we occasionally wince or shudder. His coverage is exhaustive (and at times a bit exhausting), but his goal appears to be to give those managing and overseeing such projects the information they need to navigate the shoals. He goes into detail about COTS pitfalls such as project estimation, vendor selection, use of consultants, group responsibility, integration with legacy systems, data conversion, and report generation.

The first section of the book covers how and why firms decide to initiate a major COTS project. Besides the "Fantasy World" section that compares management expectations to what really happens, the book also covers why firms hold onto legacy systems, why they buy new (replacement) systems, and how they can (or should) make the decision among building a custom system, buying a COTS system, and "renting" enterprise software via a web-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors such as Workday and Salesforce.

The second section covers COTS system selection. The book divides current ERP and COTS vendors into four different tiers based on company size and use (e.g., SAP, Oracle and BaaN are all Tier 1) and warns of the, ah, enthusiasm of vendor salespersons. (Old-but-still-timely joke: What's the difference between a used car salesman and a software salesman? The used car salesman knows how to use his own product and knows when he's lying.) The book then raises up front an issue often left (by customers) until much later: how will business processes change as a result of the COTS system we're acquiring? It then talks about selecting, if necessary, a consulting firm to help with the installation and project management.

The third section covers the actual COTS implementation process, including the overall strategy, roles and responsibilities, providing the necessary environments, data migration, testing, reports, and documentation. This section is a bit exhausting at times, but it is critical for exactly that reason: far too many firms launch into a major COTS acquisition without fully realizing just what it will take to get the system into production.

The fourth section briefly deals with life after implementation. In theory, one of the reasons a firm buys a COTS system is to avoid doing its own maintenance and support; the reality is that the firm often doesn't like paying those large annual maintenance fees and instead goes off on its own path, which is seldom a good idea.

The fifth and final section talks about how to maximize the chance of success in a large COTS implementation. This section builds upon the rest of the book, which has provided suggestions along the way. In particularly, it talks about how to deal with a troubled project mid-course in order to get it back on track.

Throughout the book, Simon puts a significant focus on human factors in project success and failure. He identifies issues such as internal politics, kingdom-building, reluctance to learn new systems, internal project sabotage, end-user resistance, and staff allocation. Simon divides firm personnel assigned to work on the COTS project into four groups — willing and able (WAA); willing but not able (WBNA); not willing but able (NWBA); and neither willing nor able (NWNA) — and talks about how each groups helps or hurts. Similarly, he identified four dangerous type of project managers: the Yes Man, the Micromanager, the Procrastinator, and the Know-It-All. Again, those of us who have been on major IT projects, particularly those involving COTS implementations, will recognize both sets of categorization and the risks they entail.

While Simon is himself a consultant, he is also quite frank about the role consultancies can play in COTS project failures. In particularly, he notes the tendency of consulting firms to underestimate project duration and cost in order to win business, as well as the frequent unwillingness to point out risks and pitfalls to the client, particularly if they represent something the client wants to do.

My few complaints with Why New Systems Fail are mostly production-related. Simon self-published the book; as such, the book's internal layout and graphic design leaves something to be desired. Likewise, his organization and prose could use a bit of editing in spots; he has a propensity for throwing in terms and abbreviations without clarification, and the technical level can vary within a given chapter. Almost all of his footnote references come from Wikipedia; his bibliography is small (just four books) and cites only Brooks from the cadre of authors listed above. None of this makes the book's content any less important or useful, but some of the very people who should be reading this book might well skip or skim it for those reasons. My understanding is that Simon is working on finding a publisher for the book, which will likely solve all those problems.

In the meantime, if you or someone you love is about to embark on an enterprise-level COTS project, get this book; I've added it to my own short-list of recommended readings in software engineering. ..bruce.."
Patents

Submission + - Supreme Court to review Bilski patent decision (bfwa.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "The US Federal Court of Appeals sent some shockwaves through the patent world last year with its decision in In re Bilski, establishing a "machine-or-[physical]-transformation" standard for patents. The losing party appealed to the US Supreme Court, and word came today that the Supreme Court will indeed review the Bilski decision. Here is a set of links to the various filings in the matter, most of which are 'friend of the court' filings by various parties in favor of overturning the Bilski decision; by contrast, here is the filing by the USDOJ and USPTO (PDF) in favor of keeping the current ruling in place."
Privacy

Submission + - Are you ready for road tolls anywhere? (and-still-i-persist.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "Here in Denver, we have E-470, a toll section of the 470 beltway that uses the usual transponder attached to your windshield. Fair enough, and I make use of it, particularly in driving to the airport. But they've just implemented new technology on E-470 that allows anyone to drive through the automated toll gates. If you don't have a transponder, it takes a photo of your license plate and sends a monthly bill to your house. As a result, the company that runs E-470 plans to close all human-staffed toll booths by mid-summer. And as an article in this morning's Rocky Mountain News notes, "Such a system could be deployed on other roads, including some that motorists now use free. The result: a new source of money for highways and bridges badly in need of repair." You can bet that legislators, mayors, and city councilpersons everywhere will see this as an even-better source of income than red-light cameras. You've been warned.""
Earth

Submission + - Did the Zipingpu Dam trigger the Sichuan 'quake? (and-still-i-persist.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "An article in the Telegraph (UK) raises an interesting question: was the massive (7.9) Sichuan earthquake that wracked China last year and left millions homeless caused by ground stresses following the completion of the Zipingpu dam? As the article reports (emphasis added), 'The 511ft-high Zipingpu dam holds 315 million tonnes of water and lies just 550 yards from the fault line, and three miles from the epicentre, of the Sichuan earthquake. Now scientists in China and the United States believe the weight of water, and the effect of it penetrating into the rock, could have affected the pressure on the fault line underneath, possibly unleashing a chain of ruptures that led to the quake.' Oops."
Patents

Submission + - The post-Bilski era gets underway (bfwa.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "A set of pharmaceutical process patents for "evaluating and improving the safety of immunization schedules" (Classen v. Biogen et al.; see US Patents 6,420,139; 6,638,379; 5,728,385; 5,723,283) were held to be invalid due to unpatentability. The decision was appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but was upheld with a terse citation to In re Bilksi. Here's the entire text of the appeals decision:

In light of our decision in In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc), we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment that these claims are invalid under 35 U.S.C. 101. Dr. Classen's claims are neither "tied to a particular machine or apparatus" nor do they "transform[] a particular article into a different state or thing." Bilski, 545 F.3d at 954. Therefore we affirm.

It will be interesting to see what happens when these same standards are applied to software-related patents."

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