ITtoolbox Blogs

Sometimes the spin makes me dizzy. Take, for instance, an incident which occurred in the U.K. recently.

When reviewing potential software suppliers, many companies tend to focus only on the potential product’s functionality and cost.

My Pet Peeve of the Week is "The Blame Game" - blaming the President for everything.

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES, CULTURE AND CONTEXT DIAGRAM Description Section 2.1 of the Enterprise Model and Requirements Report. Present and explain the Business Context Diagram, describe the principal objectives, products and/or services of the business...

It is that time again where I go ahead and share with you folks the weekly progress report. This time around from Week 36, which marks a new milestone on my quest to giving up on corporate e-mail: NINE months without using e-mail! Yay!! At the same time I have put together a couple of interesting links which I am sure you will enjoy reading, specially since they would provide you with some sound advice

One of the good things I like about windows (now don't be shocked :) is their active directory. They make it easy to group people into little boxes and specify rights of where they can and cannot go. Of course you can do the same thing with *nix based systems as well but, many client computers do not use *nix type operating system. Why? I really do not know. Maybe people like spending useless money

3. Infrastructure 3.1 Introduction       The Enterprise-Wide Architecture Strategy project team is recommending a service-based approach to the technical architecture. Each of these services have common features and functions. ...

To define the core requirements of the system, considering both functional and technical requirements. Through definition of the package solution requirements, the subject matter and the boundaries of the system are defined. Specifically, these requi...

RFIDs have been in the hype cycle for so long that they have cobwebs! It appears that the Cost factor has not come down that much for its use with Toilet paper! Yet!

One of my favorites comes directly from SAP themselves. “We will review all planned investments in IT equipment, hardware, software, facilities, and company cars, as well as internal IT projects,” the co-CEOs wrote in the email. “Do not order any new equipment at this time.” Somehow, I doubt they are giving the same advice to their clients.

A few weeks back Dave Snowden, as well as a couple of other folks I respect and admire, put together a blog post where he was questioning the ethical validity of the contents

If we want our IT to consist only of strictly independent systems, what would our design principles be

So here are some of the future blog topics that I will start covering in 2009 once I get rolling:

I was at the park early this week to watch a few games.  In fact, I saw a team that, without a doubt, will cause us some serious challenges.  I have a couple of weeks to prepare, so hopefully, we'll be ready. Win or Lose - that's what...

LewisC's An Expert's Guide to Oracle Technology This continues the post begun a few days ago. I will wrap this up with a part 3 that I will post in a few days. Partition Types Oracle offers 6 major types of partitions and a set of composite partitio...

I have a two-phase weekly kickoff that, when followed, helps my week go more smoothly.  This week I didn't really follow up and so this morning I am playing a little catch up. It's pretty simple and goes something like this: Sunday afternoo...

If you are a person, or know one, hungry for knowledge and continuing education for your own pleasure (an erudite) I have a magazine to recommend. The name of the magazine is "BBC Knowledge" and it is in its second issue. Officially magazine is about science, nature and history, but sub-topics are often broader than that.

Pinch a penny, stoke an ego, be the hero, etc. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen development efforts try and build a better mouse trap. Now don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of slick and smart developers out there—I even consider myself one at times. But part of being a good developer or supplying the best solution is putting aside ego and intelligently visiting the dreaded build .vs. buy question.

Enterprise System Journal ran an interesting article by CA's Chris O'Malley (he's executive vice president and general manager of the Mainframe Business Unit) called Seven Mainframe Myths No IT Decision-Maker Should Believe. It's at http://www.esj.com/enterprise/article.aspx?EditorialsID=3351&pg=1, if you want to read the original.

Whether we like it or not there comes a time when we have to deal with the human side of computers. Just about everyone in this field at one time or another has to go through the "trenches" and provide support for the users of the computers that we maintain. It is for the most part a thankless job and the people who call us wanting to know why their internet is not working when they click on the