Free Soft

Today is the opening day of the MySQL User Conference - so I thought I'd describe a recent customer interaction related to the acquisition.

A few weeks ago, I was visiting the Chief Information Officer of a large commercial institution. He had with him the company's Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Security Officer (known as the "see-so"), and a series of lieutenants from various parts of their (large) development organization.

The Sun team had spent the day reviewing our progress together, and was finishing up with a product roadmap presentation. From what I sensed, it'd been a good day, so when I arrived, it was mostly to say thanks for the business, and ensure everyone had my contact info in the event I could help out going forward.

We had just closed the acquisition of MySQL, so before I wrapped up, I asked, "And would you like a quick update on the newest addition to our family, MySQL?"

The CIO responded categorically with "we don't run MySQL, we run [name withheld to protect the proprietary]." The CISO said, "We can't just let developers download software off the net, you know, we've got regulation and security to worry about." The CTO smiled. Everyone else appeared to be sitting on their hands. I was going to leave it at that. Thanks for the business.

Until a (diplomatically) assertive Sun sales rep piped up, "Um... no, I connected with a buddy of mine over at MySQL, and had him check - you've downloaded MySQL more than 1,300 times in the last twelve months."

After a profoundly awkward silence, one of the individuals from their internal development team piped up, "Actually, everybody uses it. Why bother hassling with license agreements when MySQL's got you covered. We're stoked you bought them."

Awkward silences aside, we've now got a very productive engagment with the customer around delivering commercial support on a global basis to what's turned out to be the most popular database inside their development shop. They're finding more and more applications for MySQL, and more ways to save significant time and money in moving toward the future.

And that experience - of a CIO not knowing how ubiquitous and valuable free software has become to their organization - isn't atypical. In fact, it's the norm, and a divide we're gently trying to bridge.

Opportunity's everywhere.

So is free and open software.

They might even travel in pairs.

Tagi: chief technology officer, awkward silences, awkward silence, sun team, sun sales, product roadmap, significant time, mths, security officer, lieutenants, engagment, sales rep, opening day, cto, license agreements, proprietary, developers, bas

So far I have (see title) NCK <=> IMEI combinations. I can't post them, since they are sensitive data of the people who were kind enough to extract their a.plist for me. I have learned that the German ones use "SP" instead of "NO". Also the two German NCK's I have both start with the number 3. Coincidence? Keep these a.plists flowing, could people please posts requests on their respective language iPhone forums? Also the algorithm used to verify the NCK on the phone is known and is not even close to reversible. Brute force is capable at 100,000 k/s, so the initial idea of finding a pattern in the NCK's is to lower the time required for that brute force.
Also my theoretical NCK generation system; this has no basis in anything anyone has discovered but... IMEI^d mod n, where d and n are relatively prime and n is similar in size to the IMEI. If Apple keeps d and n secret, they could generate NCK's given an IMEI when no one else could.

Tagi: pattern 6, initial idea, imei, sensitive data, brute force, phe, number 3, coincidence, algorithm, lt, nck, peoe, bas

Everyone is aware of the tough economic times we are currently in and there is no need to beat on that dead horse. We are all hoping things will get better and doing what we can to get by. On a positive note I did just filled the gas tank up for $1.69/gallon.

 

Like everything else new tool and equipment sales are down and most companies are running tight, trying to make do with what they have. When it is time to invest in new tools obviously we all still need professional grade tools but perhaps are doing a little more price shopping to find the best deals. Ohio Power Tool is doing what we can to help our customers in anyway possible. We sell new tools and try to get the best price out there we can. We are not the biggest so we limit the number of brands we carry which allows us to get the very best pricing on those lines we do stock and pass the savings on to the customers.

 

Ohio Power Tool also Repairs Tools and equipment in-house because sometimes tools don’t actually need replaced they just need a new switch and some other part to get them working again. Another service Ohio Power Tool offers customers is rental tools and equipment which we are currently in the process of expanding our inventory. Some customer will rent while their equipment is being repaired, while other customers will rent for specific jobs or until it makes sense for their business to buy a new piece of equipment. Checkout the New Rental Pages to see some of what we offer from Seesnakes to core drills to full hydraulic systems. Outside of Ohio you can rent this equipment on a weekly or monthly basis and have it shipped directly to you.

The good news is there is still a lot of work out there that needs to be done and things are going to improve. Whether you need new tools, repairs on your old ones or just need to rent something for a specific job Ohio Power Tool can help. Most of our staff has 10-20 years in the business and can answer all your questions so call us 800-242-4424.

    

Tagi: equipment checkout, grade tools, rental tools, core drills, gas tank, rsquo, hydraulic systems, dead horse, power tool, compas, new tools, best deals, nbsp, bas, stock, job, jobs, shopping, ohio power

When you search “home improvement,” chances are good that you’re looking for DIY or home repair information, not fan info on the popular Tim Allen TV show. Now you can get focused home repair and improvement search results from the best, most helpful sites on the Web by using the Home Improvement Search Engine, brought [...]

Tagi: tim allen, home improvement, diy, tv show, search engine

For as long as I've been a software developer and used bug tracking systems, we have struggled with the same fundamental problem in every single project we've worked on: how do you tell bugs from feature requests?

Sure, there are some obvious crashes that are clearly bugs. But that's maybe 10% of what you deal with on a daily basis, and the real killer showstopper bugs -- the ones that prevent normal usage of the system -- are eradicated quickly, lest the entire project fail. The rest of the entries in your bug tracking system, the vast majority, exist in an uncertain gray no-man's land. Did users report a bug? Not quite. Are users asking for a new or enhanced feature? Not quite. Well, which is it?

It's an insoluble problem. Furthermore, I think most bug tracking systems fail us because they make us ask the wrong questions. They force you to pick a side. Hatfields vs. McCoys. Coke vs. Pepsi. Bug vs. Feature Request. It's a painful and arbitrary decision, because most of the time, it's both. There's no difference between a bug and a feature request from the user's perspective. If you want to do something with an application (or website) and you can't do it because that feature isn't implemented -- how is that any different than not being able to do something due to an error message?

Consider an example: Visual Studio doesn't use the correct font when building Windows applications. Is this a bug or a feature request?

Personally, I consider this a bug. I guess Microsoft does too, at least in theory, because it's been in Microsoft's Connect bug tracking system for over four years now. When you build a Windows application, wouldn't you expect it to use the default font of the underlying operating system you're running it on, unless you've explicitly told it otherwise? Well, guess what happens when you create a new form in Visual Studio 2008 and instantiate a label control.

Party like it's 1996, folks, because you'll get MS Sans Serif, and you'll like it. That is the default for each new form. Never mind that every new application you build will look like -- let me put this as delicately as I can -- ass.

Here's a comparison of a label with the default font, versus one that was explicitly set to the default GUI font.

Judging by the applications I've used, most Windows developers couldn't care less about design. That's bad. What's even worse is learning that same design carelessness has shipped in the box with every copy of Visual Studio since 2002.

Of course, matters of design are so subjective. If only there were some definitive source we could refer to on the matter of proper Windows GUI font usage. Some sort of reference standard, as it were. Like, say, the top rules for Windows Vista User Experience from Microsoft:

1. Use the Aero Theme and System Font (Segoe UI)
2. Use common controls and common dialogs
3. Use the standard window frame, use glass judiciously

There are 12 rules in total, but the rule I'm looking for is right at the top -- applications should use the system font.

The hilarity of this list is already sort of self evident, given that I've written an entire post bemoaning the general lack of fit and finish in Windows Vista. I couldn't help but laugh at rule number 12: Reserve time for "fit and finish"! Now there's a rule Microsoft should have taken to heart while developing Windows Vista. Understand this is all coming from a guy who likes Vista.

But I digress.

Despite the windows forms font behavior in Visual Studio 2008 contradicting rule number one of Microsoft's own design guidelines, this "bug" has gone unfixed for over four years. It has been silently reclassified as a "feature request" and effectively ignored. Nothing's broken, after all: using the wrong font hasn't caused any application crashes or lost productivity. On the other hand, imagine how many BigCorpCo apps have been built since then that violate Microsoft's own design rules for their platform. Either because the developers didn't realize that the app font didn't match the operating system, or because they didn't have the time to write the workaround code necessary to make it do the right thing.

Yes, this is a small thing. And I'm sure fixing it wouldn't result in selling an additional umpteen thousand Visual Studio licenses to BigCorpCo, which is why it hasn't happened yet.

But the question remains: is this a bug, or a feature request?

One of my favorite things about UserVoice -- which we use for Stack Overflow -- is the way it intentionally blurs the line between bugs and feature requests. Users never understand the difference anyway, and what's worse, developers tend to use that division as a wedge against users. Nudge things you don't want to do into that "feature request" bucket, and proceed to ignore them forever. Argue strongly and loudly enough that something reported as a "bug" clearly isn't, and you may not have to to do any work to fix it. Stop dividing the world into Bugs and Feature Requests, and both of these project pathologies go away.

I wish we could, as an industry, spend less time fighting tooth and nail over definitions, painstakingly placing feedback in the "bug" or "feature request" buckets -- and more time doing something constructive with our users' feedback.

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Tagi: ms sans serif, insoluble problem, wrg, real killer, bug tracking system, fundamental problem, feature request, entire project, instantiate, deci, feature requests, software developer, pepsi, crashes, error message, coke, bugs, operating system, perspectiv