Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Thursday, January 10, 2008 The Demise of IT? So What.  Here we go again with Nick Carr spraying his anti-IT bile around. This time it's in the form of a new book, arguing that IT departments and software developers will be extinct soon. Why does he matter? Because he's a so-called pundit, a Harvard-educated writer, who in 2003 wrote a scathing article in Harvard Business Review titled, "IT Doesn't Matter". It ruffled a few feathers back then, just as the industry was pulling itself out of the imploded tech fiasco. So he's back again, trumpeting his negativism about the software and the IT industry in general. Read a viewpoint here. I don't understand what Mr. Carr's point is? I mean besides creating controversy and pushing a few books in the process. He argues that IT and the software industry will go down the same road as the electric generation business went a century ago. Back then many factories had their own generators. Then the utility companies became efficient enough and the economies of scale replaced self-generation with buying service from a large utility company. First of all, is that a good thing? Today we are at the mercy of the monopolistic utility companies. They charge whatever they want, they ignore consumer pleas when their meters are faulty and they take their time restoring power when it goes out. So is this in the cards for the companies' IT infrastructure? Google or Amazon taking the helm and treat us as they please? Secondly, how much foresight does it take to predict big shifts in the IT industry? Every industry goes through changes, not just IT. So the PC might be dead in 20 years, big deal. Cars and clothes and MRI machines won't be the same either. Given long enough time, even Earth will look different than it does today. It's easy to prognosticate about the future. No one really knows how things will shake out 20 years from now. There are a million possibilities and we all know the future will be different than the present. If Mr. Carr had predicted the rise of Google, Amazon, and Facebook 20 years ago, I might have been impressed. But just looking at a slice of time today and extrapolating it into the future, a 9-year old could do it, and he'll probably be just as wrong as Mr. Carr is. Disclaimer: My opinions are based on material available in the media and Mr. Carr's Web site. I have not read nor am I planning to read his book. But if you want to buy it, be my guest. information technology,nick carr,software development,google,amazon Labels: amazon, google, technology <The Demise of IT? So What.> // posted by rh 0 comments Tuesday, October 23, 2007 Proxy Server Woes  Troubleshooting misbehaving Web applications is a part of my job at work. Most of the time it's some buggy code that I or someone in our team had written. But sometimes I get approached about system problems too, like when a browser is having connection issues and can't access Web sites. If you are in the help desk business you know how the question is posed, "Is the Internet down?". I've always been tempted to reply: "Why yes, it is down. All that redundancy worked into it back in the DARPA era was a pile of lies. The whole Internet is toast." Most of the time browser problems are not browser problems at all, they are network issues. The browser just gets the blame because it's front and center. A bad cable kicked once too many, an unplugged Wi-Fi access point, or a beleaguered DHCP server are the usual suspects. But the one that trips me most of the time is the proxy server setting. I've gotten better at it but I still occasionally miss this little item from my checklist. As you may know proxy servers are protocol-level servers (appliances) that work as brokers between clients and servers. The most commonly used is the Web (HTTP) proxy server. Traffic passing back and forth between browsers and servers is funneled through them. Why use them? A detailed discussion is too boring, but in a nutshell, they make network admins' lives easier (more granular control, central management, etc), and they can cache and compress data saving on bandwidth and thus speeding things along. Proxy servers are helpful, as long as one remembers that they're being used, especially when troubleshooting. Case in point, the other day I was working on a laptop connected to the Internet over Verizon Wireless broadband EVDO. No matter what I did I couldn't browse to the laptop's local Web server. Everything was fine when wireless was off, but as soon as I started it up, the local Web server would become inaccessible. What was happening? I could successfully ping my own server (duh), the Web service was running fine and listening on the local address, and there was no proxy server setting hidden in my browser (obvious place to look, but easily missed, specially when frantic). After hours of investigating, including recruiting assistance from a colleague, the issue was revealed, quite by accident. Verizon Wireless comes with an add-on product called Venturi (enabled by default), used for optimization and compression. Turns out Venturi was the cause of this issue. When disabled, everything began working as expected. Venturi inserts itself in the TCP/IP stack and reroutes Web requests to a proxy server. No wonder I couldn't browse to the local server, the external Venturi proxy server had no idea how to access it, nor anything else on the private LAN. The trouble with proxy servers is that it's hard to detect that your applications are using one, unless you pay attention to the telltale signs. First, with most applications, including browsers, you can check the network options and see if a proxy server address is configured. Next you can visit an IP address and header lookup page like whoami/My IP Address on this site, and check out the results. This page and the likes will display whatever information they can glean from your connection. Sometimes, but not always, proxy servers add headers such as "X-Forwarded-For" or "Via" to reveal the actual source of the request. You can also compare the shown source IP address to the IP address of your own machine. From the command line enter the "ipconfig" command (in Windows) which will display your actual IP address. If the lookup page is displaying the same IP address, chances are there is no proxy server in between, otherwise your traffic may be going through a proxy server and that would explain the irregularities of the sorts I was experiencing. proxy servers,verizon wireless,evdo,ip address,ipconfig,tcp/ip,networks,browsers,http Labels: networks, technology, web <Proxy Server Woes> // posted by rh 0 comments Monday, September 03, 2007 Google's GrandCentral  The other day I received an email from GrandCentral with the subject line: Invitation to sign up for GrandCentral. Like everyone else I receive plenty of bogus invitations to sign up for this or register for that. It smelled like spam. "Who the hell is GrandCentral?", I thought. But before clicking the spam button, I decided to check the email. It started: Good news! We are excited to announce that we are opening the GrandCentral private beta to some additional users and would like to extend you an invitation to sign up. Then I realized that back in June when the news of Google purchasing GrandCentral had hit the wires, I had added myself to their waiting list. So I proceeded with the registration and got my own number. This is a pretty neat concept. You get to choose a phone number and you can link it to several physical numbers. Then, depending on your choice, an incoming call will ring all or some or none of the numbers. It comes with voicemail, Caller ID, email forwarding and a number of other features. Most activities can be done online as well as over the phone. It's presence, call forwarding, and messaging all wrapped in one package. Best of all it's free, and you can keep the number for life. As things are with Google products, GrandCentral is in Beta and probably will be for years. It remains to be seen how Google will fully monetize GrandCentral. There are some paid features, I believe, but I assume the majority of users, myself included, will only use the free services. So I presume, like most Google properties, GrandCentral will come to rely on advertising for a big portion of its revenues. That will probably include text ads on the site, voice ads inserted before or after playing voicemails, or ad links included in notification emails. I wonder if GrandCentral future plans include free fax service. That would be a natural progression and it would position them against some long-established services like jConnect that offer free fax numbers and whom I have been a satisfied user for a number of years. grandcentral,google,fax,phone service,fax service,presence,voicemail,grand central,call forwarding,messaging Labels: google, technology, web <Google's GrandCentral> // posted by rh 2 comments Monday, July 09, 2007 Graphics Design Weekend  My graphics design knowledge doesn't extend much beyond Microsoft Paint and Picture Manager. I'm not very artistic but I've always wanted to learn a bit more about making simple art and manipulating photos on the computer. Photoshop is the tool of choice for professionals. We have some talented people in the art department where I work who can churn out fantastic material in little time. I've dabbled in Photoshop a bit in the past, but for my purposes it's just too daunting of a task to learn this advanced program. Besides at my level, it would be a waste of money. But a few days ago I discovered a free program online that actually captured my interest and kept me busy most of the weekend learning some graphics design skills. It's called Paint.NET and, according to its author, it's written entirely in .NET, mostly C# I believe. Paint.NET is certainly not an all-encompassing graphics design tool, but for an amateur like me, it has just enough features to keep me interested without frustrating me. A wonderful aspect for me is a recently introduced plug-in (currently in beta) that allows programmers to quickly prototype a desired effect in C# code and then produce a plug-in to use for themselves or share with others using Paint.NET. My appreciation to the makers(s) of Paint.NET for a great utility for newbies like me. Not only did I learn a number of terms and skills this past weekend, but I put some of that learning to actual use by creating this admittedly garish art. I call it the "planet of fire." graphics design,paint.net,photoshop,microsoft paint,computer art Labels: technology <Graphics Design Weekend> // posted by rh 1 comments Saturday, May 19, 2007 Yahoo Messenger  I guess this means I'm old and not with the current times, but I just don't get the lure of instant messaging (IM). The whole experience is so unsettling that a long time ago I vowed not to ever use it. What's the point? I have to be a super-typist to have a barely coherent conversation. Then there are all those typo-ridden acronyms (lol, rotfl, u2, b4, cu, wtf) to learn. And if there are more than two people chatting, forget about keeping track of who said what, responding to whom and to which comment. Who needs the hassle. If I need to send a message, I just use the good old-fashioned email. And for urgent cases, I just pick up the handset. I remember back when IRC chat rooms where in vogue. Out of curiosity, I peeked inside one of the rooms to see what the big deal was. After about two minutes of observing the volley of nonsense by purported teenagers, I had enough. That was my first and last time in an IRC chat room. So I didn't think I would ever use a messenger program, but surprisingly I have been a happy user of Yahoo Messenger for a couple of years now. No, I don’t use it for IM, voice, or webcam. But I do use it to listen to music, read RSS subscriptions, and check a list of stocks. Yahoo Messenger has become a useful tool for me to that end. Anyways, a few days ago I received this popup that alarmed me for a moment. I thought I had picked up a spyware or an adware. Turns out that it was just a system message from Yahoo Messenger. Right, I'm so glad that I can now save my chat logs on Yahoo's servers. Guess I won't be exceeding my storage quota any time soon. messenger,yahoo messenger,irc,irc chat,im,instant messaging Labels: im, instant messaging, irc chat, technology, web <Yahoo Messenger> // posted by rh 2 comments

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