About Duffbert...

Duffbert's Random Musings is a weblog semi/sorta related to IBM/Lotus Notes & Domino software, but I don't let that be a limiting criteria. I'm Thomas Duff, and you can find out more about me here...

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09/06/2008

And if all goes well, the next blog post will be coming to you from the Boardwalk at Walt Disney World!

Category WDW

M-I-C....  See you real soon!

K-E-Y....  Why?  Because I'm too addicted to blogging to take a full week off, that's why!

M...O...U...S...EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Posted by Tom Duff At 3:24 PM Location Portland, Oregon | | Comments (0)

09/06/2008

Book Review - Intellectual Property and Open Source: A Practical Guide to Protecting Code by Van Lindberg

Category Book Review Van Lindberg Intellectual Property and Open Source: A Practical Guide to Protecting Code

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As a software developer, it's almost a certainty that you either participate in or use open source software somewhere in your computing environment.  But even though you may have the source code sitting in front of you, it doesn't mean you can anything you darn well please with it.  Van Lindberg's book Intellectual Property and Open Source: A Practical Guide to Protecting Code does a very good job in presenting the intricacies of open source licensing in a way that won't automatically put a developer to sleep.  Granted, there's still a lot of legal concepts to wade through, but in my opinion he hit the right mix between legalities and practicalities.

Contents: The Economic and Legal Foundations of Intellectual Property; The Patent Document; The Patent System; Copyright; Trademarks; Trade Secrets; Contracts and Licenses; The Economic and Legal Foundations of Open Source Software; So I Have An Idea...; Choosing A License; Accepting Patches and Contributions; Working With The GPL; Reverse Engineering; Incorporating As A Non-Profit
Appendices: Sample Proprietary Information Agreement (PIA); Open Source License List; Free Software License List; Fedora License List and GPL Compatibility; Public Domain Declaration; The Simplified BSD License; The Apache License, Version 2.0; The Mozilla Public License, Version 1.1; The GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 2.1; The GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 3; The GNU General Public License, Version 2, June 1991; The GNU General Public License, Version 3, June 2007; The Open Software License, Version 3.0
Index

Lindberg accomplishes a couple of purposes in this book.  The first few chapters trace the history and general concepts of intellectual property law, such as patents and trade secrets.  This is necessary, in that it lays the groundwork to be able to understand what part of your work may or may not be covered by intellectual property laws.  While there are plenty of legal concepts and examples cited, he doesn't get so far down into the weeds as to make the material irrelevant to the target audience...  technology professionals.  The last half of the book then uses that foundation to talk specifically about open source software, licenses, and legal issues being faced today.  And really, it's more complex than you'd think (but isn't *anything* legal overly complex?)  Each of the licenses he covers has certain advantages and disadvantages that can make a significant impact on how you and others can use your software going forward.  For instance, one license may allow the user to use it in any way they see fit, including using it in their own non-open source software.  Other licenses actually force any software project using the open source code to also be bound by the same license, meaning that your work has to be made available in open source form to others.  Based on what you plan on building and how you want to market it, this could make the difference between a thriving business or a ruinous lawsuit.  And again, the writing is appropriate for the technology professional, not four year law students looking to become a partner and retire by the age of 40.

For anyone involved in creating an open-source project (or what they *think* an open source project should be), this should be essential reading.  And if you've ever downloaded something from Sourceforge to include in one of your own projects, you also need to read this to clearly understand your rights and obligations.  I know we techies would prefer to let other people figure out the legal stuff, but it's not worth it to have your next killer application idea bankrupt you in court...

Posted by Tom Duff At 2:52 PM Location Portland, Oregon | | Comments (0)

09/06/2008

I posted my session abstract idea over at IdeaJam...

Category lotusphere2009 ideajam

Why don't you?

Posted by Tom Duff At 12:36 PM Location Portland, Oregon | | Comments (1)

09/06/2008

Book Review - The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith

Category Book Review Alexander McCall Smith The Careful Use of Compliments

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I picked up The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith a short time back at the library.  I had read the previous three Isabel Dalhousie novels while on a cruise last year, and although the pace was "leisurely", I was curious as to what Dalhousie's pregnancy would mean to her relationship with Jamie.  I now know, and I don't think I'll be reading any more of the series.  The pace is getting to be a bit too slow, and I have far too many other books I should be reading...

In the last novel of the series, Isabel announces to Jamie (her young lover) that she's pregnant.  This novel starts out with her and the baby living in Isabel's house, and Jamie still maintaining a separate residence.  He proposes to Isabel, but she's not sure she wants him to feel forced into a marriage so soon.  He *does* love the baby and spends a great deal of time at Isabel's place, but Isabel's ever-churning philosophical mind comes up with a thousand reasons why she shouldn't accept the proposal.  The general plot that drives this installment is Isabel's curiosity over whether two paintings by an artist thought to be dead are real or forgeries.  She can't resist her urge to dig into the situation, and ends up battling some philosophical issues when he uncovers the real story.  The secondary plot involves her job as editor for an ethics journal.  She's been ousted from the position by two members of the editorial board, and she's less than thrilled to lose the job in that particular fashion.  The question becomes what will she do about it, and will she be able to ethically reconcile her actions in her own mind.

To be fair, I knew what I'd be getting when I started reading.  The Dalhousie series travels at a very "relaxed" pace, and there are constant interjections of ethics and philosophy over even the smallest things.  If it hadn't been for the straight readthrough of the previous three at one time, I'm not sure I would have kept going to the end.  This installment, read after nearly a year's separation from the first three, tended to drag out more than I liked.  I still like the 44 Scotland Street series, and I'm not soured on Smith as an author.  I just don't think this series is quite my cup of tea...

Posted by Tom Duff At 10:04 AM Location Portland, Oregon | | Comments (0)

09/06/2008

Woopra real-time web analytics... REALLY cool!

Category Woopra

About a month ago, I read a blog entry on a new beta web analytics program called Woopra.  They were going by invite only, so you signed up and waited...  and waited...  and waited.  I had nearly forgotten about it until today when I got the acceptance email.  I signed on to the site, got the small JavaScript code snippet (placed it in one of the Blogsphere sidebar sections) and I was done.  

The client is a real feast for the eyes...

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When I hit my blog, about two seconds later the client updates with all the information you see above.  I can imagine the page would look like fireworks went off if you had a high-traffic site like vowe.net or edbrill.com.

I'm looking forward to playing with this more in the next few days to see how it behaves.  But so far, I'm very impressed.

Posted by Tom Duff At 9:49 AM Location Portland, Oregon | | Comments (1)

09/04/2008

Book Review - IT Disaster Recovery Planning for Dummies by Peter Gregory

Category Book Review Peter Gregory IT Disaster Recovery Planning for Dummies

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It would be tempting to make all sorts of snide comments about a Dummies book that wants to take a serious look at disaster recovery of your IT area.  But this is a Dummies title that you'll actually go back to a number of times if you're responsible for making sure your organization survives a disaster...  IT Disaster Recovery Planning for Dummies by Peter Gregory.  It's actually the first book on the subject that I found interesting *and* readable to an average computer professional.

Contents:
Part 1 - Getting Started with Disaster Recovery: Understanding Disaster Recovery; Bootstrapping the DR Plan Effort; Developing and Using a Business Impact Analysis
Part 2 - Building Technology Recovery Plans: Mapping Business Functions to Infrastructure; Planning User Recovery; Planning Facilities Protection and Recovery; Planning System and Network Recovery; Planning Data Recovery; Writing the Disaster Recovery Plans
Part 3 - Managing Recovery Plans: Testing the Recovery Plans; Keeping DR Plans and Staff Current; Understanding the Role of Prevention; Planning for Various Disaster Scenarios
Part 4 - The Part of Tens: Ten Disaster Recovery Planning Tools; Eleven Disaster Recovery Planning Web Sites; Ten Essentials for Disaster Planning Success; Ten Benefits of DR Planning
Index

I was prompted to read this when a colleague of mine recently went through a fire at their company location.  For about a week, he lived through a nightmare of recovering data, setting up new workstations and servers, and fending off management who thought they had better ideas than everyone else on how to proceed.  A book like this would have, if taken seriously and methodically, helped him avoid much of the confusion and headache that went with getting things back to a stable condition.  Gregory presents a realistic view of what is needed to start preparing for a disaster that could cause your business to fold.  He doesn't assume that you have millions of dollars and unlimited staff resources at hand.  He advocates getting a basic plan in place along with reviews by the major players.  Once this outline is put down, then you can continue to build on it, going from scenario plan walkthroughs to full-blown hotsite cutovers that test the ability to bring your systems back up using all the processes you have in place.  He also doesn't just confine himself to the physical hardware/software elements.  You may have your system recovered fine in terms of the main computer, but if your users have no place to work or system connectivity is missing, then all your plans are for naught.  You will definitely get the full view of what needs to be taken into account for disaster planning, in a way that is approachable and doable without some expensive or complex methodology.

I would say there's a good chance that if you're part of a large organization, you probably (I hope!) already have DR plans in place.  But if you're a smaller organization, it's likely you've never given much thought to what would happen to your business if the building burned down or a hurricane flooded your office.  Some time spent with this book might well be the difference between emerging from a disaster ready for business or ready to file chapter 7.

Posted by Tom Duff At 7:21 PM Location Portland, Oregon | | Comments (0)

09/03/2008

Book Review - Executive Privilege by Phillip Margolin

Category Book Review Phillip Margolin Executive Privilege

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Phillip Margolin is one of my favorite crime novelists, partly due to the fact he lives in my hometown of Portland, Oregon and usually places his stories there.  I had the pleasure of finally getting to the top of the list at the library for his latest book Executive Privilege.  I personally feel this is one of his best novels.  It grabbed my attention and didn't let go until the final page.

The story starts out with private investigator Dana Cutler taking what appears to be a simple job from a high-powered attorney.  All she has to do is follow around a young college student and report on her whereabouts.  But the assignment, though odd, takes on a whole new level of danger when it leads Cutler to the doorsteps of the President in a wooded cabin, apparently the participant in a tryst with her target subject.  That's not the kind of information that keeps you healthy and alive for very long, and she has a past that brings back dark and unpleasant memories of trying to survive.  Meanwhile, Brad Miller, a young attorney just starting out at the bottom rung of a large legal firm, is asked to take a pro bono case for a death row appeal.  It's assumed that he'll go through the formalities and the appeal will be denied, but Miller turns up some evidence that would clear the convict of that particular murder (even though there are still others that the killer did confess to).  The head of the legal firm is not very happy with this turn of events, and tells Miller in no uncertain terms that he is to back off.  When Cutler tracks down Miller and starts comparing notes about their particular cases, the paths converge and appear to lead to murder committed and sanctioned by the highest office of government.  

Everything in this novel just worked for me...  the characters, plot, pacing.  I started reading one evening and had a horrible time trying to find a lull in the action to set it aside.  Needless to say, it was finished before I turned out the light the next evening.  With all the conspiracy theories and muckrakers these days, this seemed to be a plot that wouldn't have been horribly out of place on some websites and alternative media sources.  Bottom line is that it was an enjoyable read, and I'm looking forward to his next novel.

Posted by Tom Duff At 6:47 PM Location Portland, Oregon | | Comments (4)

09/02/2008

Book Review - Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties: And How to Build Them by D. C. Beard

Category Book Review D. C. Beard Shelters Shacks and Shanties: And How to Build Them

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My, how we've changed over the years.  In the classic book Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties: And How to Build Them, D. C. Beard covers the wide array of possibilities for building your own dwelling out of nothing but materials provided by nature.  This was originally published in 1914, and I think it's more interesting to observe the changes in culture than anything else.

Daniel Beard became fascinated with cabins and such in 1864 when he exhibited a saddleback cabin scaled down to size for him to carry to the fair.  He sold it for $7.50, which was a major disappointment to him, as he thought it worth much more.  That started him on his journey to sketch, document, and build just about any type of natural dwelling you can think of.  He starts out with how to make a soft sleeping platform using pine boughs.  From there, you have half-cave shelters, fallen tree shelters, and teepee-like structures.  By the end of the book, we're dealing with full-scale houses, obviously beyond the skills of the boy scouts he tends to target in the first half of the book.  But even then, the emphasis is on using logs and axes to accomplish most of the work.

Most of these skills are lost on 99% of Americans, and sending out a group of boys to build even the simplest of these structures would likely turn into a disaster.  But back when this was written, it was pretty much assumed that most boys had basic scouting skills and would be able to build some of these shelters in just a matter of hours, or at most a couple of days.  He even has them building hogan shelters built into the side of a hill and designed to last a considerable time.  These days, we'd likely freak out because the kids had an axe or a shovel in their hands...  And building a shelter covered by sod?  But what if it collapses???  Needless to say, we wouldn't fare well if forced to rely on our own skills to survive without our comfortable houses.

If you're an outdoors-type person and you want to work on survival skills, this would be an interesting way to start out.  Or if you're just looking for how much we've changed (or regressed) in the last 100 years, this'll point out many areas that fall into that category.

Posted by Tom Duff At 7:29 PM Location Portland, Oregon | | Comments (0)

09/01/2008

Making a difference in the lives of others... The September Campaign

Category The September Campaign

My good friend Paul Mooney turns another year older today, and instead of gifts he's asked for contributions to this...  The September Campaign.  Imagine what a difference one could make in the lives of others instead of just eating some cake and getting yet another expensive gadget for your birthday...

Posted by Tom Duff At 8:47 AM Location Portland, Oregon | | Comments (0)

08/31/2008

Book Review - The 51 Fatal Business Errors and How to Avoid Them by Jim Muehlhausen

Category Book Review Jim Muehlhausen The 51 Fatal Business Errors and How to Avoid Them

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Deciding what books to accept/read/review can be a rather eclectic process for me.  One of my genres is business books, and author Jim Muehlhausen offered me a review copy of his book The 51 Fatal Business Errors and How to Avoid Them.  Although I'm quite far behind in books to read and review, I accepted because it looked interesting and he also had the same last name of my sister-in-law.  Not too many Muehlhausens running around that I've seen.  Fortunately, my luck paid off, as 51 Fatal Errors is an excellent book filled with practical advice for the CEO of any small business.  He cuts through the conventional wisdom hype and the "fad d'jour" to offer up solid ways to keep yourself on track (and out of the bankruptcy courts).

Contents:
Introduction - Using the Gym Membership; Enter At Your Own Risk; What's Good for G.E. Isn't Always Good for G.E.; Is It Time to Fire Your C.E.O.? (Yes, I'm Talking About You); Best and Worst Practices; Mule-Kicks; What Now?

Muehlhausen is a business coach who has worked with thousands of people and groups to help them succeed in the business world.  From that experience, he's distilled 51 "fatal errors" that, if not caught and dealt with, could mean rough times for your organization.  For instance, right out of the gate we get Fatal Error #1 - Hiring Your Competitor's Rejects.  You may think that you'd never hire the worst people that your competitor let go.  But think about it.  For some reason, the previous employer didn't think this person was valuable enough to keep at any price.  Yes, there are people who are let go or who leave that are exceptions to the "reject" rule.  But the odds of you being able to deduce the exceptions from the rules every time are very small.  Do keep your eyes open for the stellar individual you might want to hire away or that left through no fault of their own.  But also pay attention to finding high-aptitude people who can be trained for a position, and that will become great.  Another one that was eye-opening was Fatal Error #14 - Paying Yourself Below Market Value.  Many small-business CEOs feel they can't take a salary out of the business as they need to plow all of the profits back into the business.  But realistically, that means you're giving the business an artificial subsidy that will never be paid back.  Paying yourself *some* level of salary avoids the temptation to view the business as more profitable that it actually is, and puts you in a more realistic mindset as to how the business is doing.

The format of each chapter (one fatal error per chapter) is concise and easy to follow.  There's the explanation of the error, a real-life example, a solution, a "mule-kick" (a jolt of reality), and a place to jot down notes.  There's also quite often a "bonus" which is a reference to his website for more information or actual forms/products to use.  Written in a blunt, no-nonsense style, it's nearly impossible not to find at least a handful of mistakes you're currently making.  Couple that with solutions that are also just about as blunt, and you have a guidebook that will serve you well as you try and become a success in the business world.  And trust me, you'll get a whole lot more out of this book than you will from some hot business guru who is touting their "fad d'jour"...

Posted by Tom Duff At 9:35 AM Location Portland, Oregon | | Comments (1)