Month: August 2006

Geotagging inside Flickr

Sudbury HallThe other week I wrote about third-party extension that utilized Flickr to provide geotagging support – well now it has been built into Flickr. Unfortunately the photos for my region of the world are terrible because they are using Yahoo maps, but at least it’s part of the product. They are supposed to be making them better. It still impresses me how seamlessly the web service providers can make these changes.

All I have to do now is work out the process for getting the geotags into Flickr in such a way that I can use any maps. The other great thing is to be able to see other people’s flicks taken at the same spot. I think it involves using the same old mechanism for tagging and then importing them into the Flickr capability.

If you want to see my map it’s here.

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Green IT

TramwayWe are continuing to see all sorts of movements in the Green IT’ arena. Over the weekend Greenpeace issued a report which positioned each of the top vendors and their ‘green’ credentials. Collaboration Loop commented:

Over the weekend, Greenpeace, which monitors such things, released a report that ranked the very devices we use every day for knowledge sharing and collaboration “on their use of toxic chemicals and electronic waste.” Greenpeace also ranked leading manufacturers’ decisions to actively recycle their products in a safe manner. The results, if accurate, were shocking. Using a scale of 0 to 10, no device maker ranked higher than 7. Nokia and Dell both received 7s, “barely acceptable,” based on the fact that both companies have decided to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals in their devices and also to publish a timeline for future reductions. Three major manufacturers, Apple, Lenovo, and Motorola, received failing grades.

This has provoked a lot of other comment.

There was also some interesting comment on the promotion of Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs at Wal-Mart which was started by Fact Company (via RPM)

Jonathan Schwartz has been banging the drum for some time. It does look, though, that Sun are starting to see some traction for their ability to deliver low-power equipment.

I have been involved in a number of evaluations of equipment and software and never have they directly considered power or toxic waste issues – it looks like that’s about to change. I was contacted today by a colleague who is interested in how we construct a desktop service that is ‘green’. There are a lot of interesting elements to that question, the starting point would appear to be power consumption.

One example is the impact of software on power usage. It’s one thing understand the power rating of a piece of equipment, it’s another understand the impact of piece of software or system. If a piece of software stresses the processor more than another then it uses more energy software should really come with a power rating too.

Another interesting thing is the cost of services like file services. Is it more power efficient to have a file server spinning fast disks all day for hundred of users, or to have a local hard-disk do that work.

And then there is the issue of power rating the whole, a desktop infrastructure doesn’t just have a desktop and a network, it has a directory and file services, and print services, and backup services, and management services.

There is also the issue of location. A desktop which pumps out heat in California needs to be cooled (most of the time), a desktop which pumps out heat in Scandinavia reduces the heating bill because it is warming the space. Using a PC as a heating device is not an efficient use of energy, but it’s certainly less of an issue that the cooling required in California. Thinking about it, why do we put data centres in warm parts of the world where it costs  more to cool them than it would in a cooler part of the world?

It’s certainly time to change the evaluation criteria.

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Bank Holiday and Head Ache

CottageThis weekend was a bank holiday in the UK. The Chastney family got together in Derbyshire. We had a good time visiting a few sites.

Driving home through the countryside took ages. The delays were only to be expected as it was a Bank Holiday and were trying to get through Buxton.

I started with a head-ache on the way home, this continued through Monday evening, Tuesday and is now only a dull thud (on Tuesday).

I’m back now though.

You're a Predator – You're Supposed to be Lazy

LionI’ve read a few posts recently (here and here) encouraging people to work to be lazy.

Some people seem to love being busy on repetitive tasks. This has always baffled me. Why do something more than once if you can automate it?

Ask me to do any tasks and my first question (normally only to myself) is ‘why?’ I want to know why because I want to link it to a reward.

These two needs (to automate and to see the reward) are deeply engrained within our predatory conscience.

Wildebeest start the day grazing, they spend the rest of the morning grazing, in the afternoon they do the same, and for evening relaxation they do a spot more grazing.

Lions start the day lazing around expending as little energy as possible waiting around for the food to come to them. If the food doesn’t come to them they form a plan to go and get some food. They could chase the first beast that they come across, but they normally don’t. They could repeat the task over and over again until they manage to catch something, but they don’t. They use their brains.

Eagles spend more time sat in trees than flying. They normally only fly to get food. They remember the good places to get food and visit those places more frequently.

For both the lion and the eagle the reward is directly linked to the effort. A wildebeest, however, follows the routine.

The lions use the wildebeest to do the repetitive task of converting grass into food. The wildebeest automates the task for the lion, all they have to do is catch the wildebeest which I am sure requires less effort than grazing all day, and is certainly more interesting.

I would much rather be a lion or an eagle than a wildebeest. I am a predator, I only want to expend effort when it is linked to a reward and that requires me to use my brain. If getting the reward requires something to be repeated I’d rather something else did it for me, I’ll make the most of their efforts.

The modern IT infrastructure has given us the ability to automate all sorts of repetitive tasks, but many of us haven’t used these capabilities to their full potential. It’s time to become more lazy and to get all of those repetitive tasks automated.

I believe that the next wave of IT will radically change the way that businesses work and reconnect many of us directly with the rewards. This reconnection with the rewards will directly influence the amount of repetitive tasks that we do because we will only do the ones that contribute to the reward. But we still need to go out and hunt the reward down. For those of us sat in corporate land hunting sounds scary, and that is the saddest part of all.

Anyone joining me on a hunting expedition?

Concept of the Day: Visual Illiteracy

Crozon ChurchIn a post about the use of PowerPoint during the Iraq War, Visual Beings used this term “Visual Illiteracy”.

Some days a phrase gets me thinking – Visual Illiteracy is a new one.

Visual Illiteracy is of course the opposite of Visual Literacy of which there seems to be a lot written.

There’s even an International Visual Literacy Association.

Take your pick of definitions, they all seem to be saying very similar things: the ability to communicate and understand visually rather than in words.

I suppose this fits into my brain series. The right-brained people seem to be the ones who are more likely to be visually literate. Visual literacy is going to be a skill which will be invaluable to people who are needing to be more creative and more conceptual. It seems to be something you can learn.

Having done a small amount of research I am staggered by how many words have been written about a topic that is all about visual. Apparently there is a taxonomy of visual literacy?

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ISS goes to IBM – more than a change of TLA?

War Bunker, Pointe de PenhirIBM sucks in ISS for $1.3bn (more here and here) to follow on from the acquisition of FileNet.

What I find most interesting about this deals is that it would appear to be a service purchase rather than a technology purchase. ISS will not go into IBM’s software division, it will go into global services.

Most analysts seem to agree that IBM has little new technology to gain from the purchase. ISS already does managed security services and that is what IBM are purchasing.

There is clearly more consolidation in the security market to come now that the likes of IBM, Microsoft, CA and Sun have their eyes fixed on it. Not sure where that leaves Symantec, McAfee, CheckPoint, etc.

IBM obviously expect the current levels of expenditure on security to carry on growing.

(TLA – Three Letter Acronym)

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One problem uncovers another

Crozon Market - a small biteI would hate to try to estimate how may times I have been in a problem solving situation where the resolution of one problem only lead to the discovery of another.

Today has been one of those days – two problems leading to another two different problems.

This happens so regularly that I wonder why I can’t change my mind to expect multiple problems. Whenever I launch into problem resolution mode I always expect there to be a single thing to change to get me to a resolution.

Does that make me an optimist or just naive?

The way we normally launch into problem resolution is to undertake an audit of everything within the sphere of the problem, trying to find anomalies. I call this the Sherlock Holmes approach:

“Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”

“It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Holmes was a great one for logic.

The way we normally apply this logic to IT systems is to parallel. We take system that is working fine and parallel it with the one that isn’t. It’s then a game of spot and correct the differences. The challenge here is understanding where a difference is trivial and where it is really contributing to a problem.

The skill in problem solving is knowing which are the important things that need to be changed. There are normally too many differences to change all of them.

I used to work with someone who’s approach to identifying the most important problem was to work on the most difficult to change. If it’s easy it can’t be important was his logic. His theory was, of course, completely illogical but he swore by it.

Back to our friend Sherlock Holmes:

Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.

So how do I decide what difference are important and which are not?

I have a method which I have built up over time. I’d like it to have some fancy name and be able to reference some fancy professor but I can’t. It’s simply the Graham Chastney method:

  1. Identify all of the elements in the system.
  2. More importantly identify all of the connections between the elements in the system.
  3. Do a quick health-check on each of the elements.
  4. Resolve obvious health issues.
  5. Identify the element where the problem is evident in a measurable way.
  6. Identify ‘anomalies’ on elements that are directly connected to the element that is exhibiting the problem.
  7. Resolve these ‘anomalies’ first, testing the impact on the problem measures as you go.
  8. Go next to the second tier of elements.
  9. And so on.

On the way through this process you may resolve many problems but not actually get to the problem which is causing the issue you are trying to resolve.

The true skill is understanding how the element are connected together. Quite often you find the answer to the problem their and then because you discover that two elements that are supposed to be connected aren’t.

Remembers: the connection is more important than the element. To rephrase Holmes:

Problems are common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the problem that you should dwell.

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Ricky Gervais – Microsoft 2

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=959125392868390030&hl=en
And part two

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Ricky Gervais – Microsoft 1

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=9076288729387457440&hl=en

I won’t be the first to post this. If you haven’t seen it then you are missing a real treat.

You have to give a lot of credit to a company that doesn’t take its recognition and rewards system too seriously.

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Count Your Blessings #79 – A Little Bit of Extra Freedom

Crepe in DinanTonight Sue and I went out to our local book shop and participated in the weekly quiz. Just the two of us.

Until recently this adventure would have required a specially choreographed dance involving a trusted baby-sitters and numerous conversations with Emily to reassure her that everything was going to be OK.

We are now fortunate enough to have a son who is old enough to look after his younger sister. Not only is he old enough, but the two of them get on well enough for us to be confident that there will be no blood on the carpet when we return.

Thanks kids.

Flickr Passed 10,000 Views

Mighty cliffsMy flickr site passed 10,000 views and I didn’t even notice.

The amazing thing is that the graffiti pictures continue to be the ones most viewed – but by whom?

For anyone who hadn’t noticed: All of the pictures I post here are hosted on flickr. If you click on the picture it will take you to the flickr page for that picture where you can perform all sorts of flickr goodness.

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Windows Live Writer – English Dictionary Please

La PaludI’m still using Windows Live Writer. Up until now it has done a number of things better than BlogJet, and the things it does worse are less important. I say up until now because the lack of a proper English dictionary is starting to bug me.

As a slight aside:

Why is is “emphasis” and “emphasize”?

English makes much more sense “emphasis” and “emphasise”.

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