Branedy

One thing I’ve noticed about Twitter and Jaiku, is a common thread in IT, Scaleability! It’s an issue that I worked on in my days with AT&T Wireless. Mobile phone vendors have been dealing with SMS and voice connection transactions for many years and the volume of such transactions have only grown over the years since I had to deal with 25+ million transactions per day. If the current growing pains of these Web 2.0 social networking systems are projected, they are both headed for failure in the form of catastrophic system overload. While I admire innovative Ideas, like these services, their infrastructure does not appear well thought out. A bit more foundation in the infrastructure, and less optimism of the performance, should have been the first design requirement.

Being a database kind of guy, I can’t help but believe that a fundamental disconnect in the understanding of transactions utilized in these systems is the root cause here. I have yet to see a significant teaching or understanding of database issues in the current crop of programmers. There seems to be belief that data analysis is not a worth while task in current programming efforts. I see this in the form of articles detailing new ‘database’ products and methods, and new ‘lightweight’ database processes, etc. Mostly the requirements for ‘new’ DBMS and ‘Lightweight’ processes, is the underestimations of the data tasks of most modern IT functions. If you don’t know your own data, you don’t know anything. Any system that is not fundamentally tied in with a database system is merely a calculator.

More socializing going on at Jaiku . What can I say, I make this Haiku…

More exploring has brought me to Twitter . I am mostly interested in seeing what it’s like. Having no friends to speak of means very few social connections, but if Web 2 is a social internet, then you have to be out there to functionally operate in the Web 2 world. I will see what will happen, it can’t create more spam than I already get

One other outcome from the Lisbon ‘No’ vote is a general presumption of a vote of ‘No Confidence’ of Brian Cowan and his government. Having set as a principal goal of his administration, a ‘Yes’ Vote for the Lisbon Treaty. The utter failure to attain this goal constitutes a complete failure of Mr. Cowan’s leadership. Couple this with his inability to present this before the EU Commission as the definitive response of the Irish People, he now seeks to nullify the voice of his own people.

It’s time now to vote directly for a ‘No Confidence’ of Brian Cowan in the Dáil.

As things go a pair of old shoes are not long separated and the 62 year married couple which are my parents are reunited in death 15 days apart. So now the decision has to be made if I should make the journey back again, I’ve only just gotten back into the time zone here, and the prospect of another 24 hours trip, and another 6 hour shift in time is daunting. Being diabetic, the last trip, screwed up my blood sugar levels badly, I am neither rested, nor up for the passage. Being prepared means nothing here.

Louis C. “Lou” Jordan, 84, Juanita Ione (Morrow) Jordan (84)

Why did all the politicians believe that a constitution that had been voted down by the French, could be rename and sold to the Irish?

Why do Politicians now try to pass off the Irish No vote as not representative of the rest of the population of Europe who didn’t get to vote?

Why did the Politicians believe that a childish ‘Because it’s good for you‘ argument that doesn’t work on children, would work on the Irish Adult population?

Big questions. Questions that will never be answered by the current crop of Politicians because they don’t know any part of the Why in these questions.

I can think of a few, here’s one

A) It was only good for politicians

Even Linux gets into trouble, in this fuzzy photo of the AerLingus seatback entertainment screen shows, it is in a reboot just before my Plane left Chicago yesterday

If you have been reading this blog you will know I had a loss, as in life, the only thing you can’t avoid is Death and Taxes. Life is a terminal sentence, But let me add some other certainties in this cycle, family strife. Any simple (or complex) issue becomes Enormous . Trauma ensues and squabbles erupt. Loss takes many tolls, family unity often is the first.

At the memorial for my Father, a Poem from his Grandfather.

I am now at the end of the road to the west
Where quiet reigns and all is at rest;
Away from the dust and the noise of the town,
To the end of the road where the sun goes down.

So, along life’s road as we journey on
Let us meet all our trials with a laugh and a song;
Greet all with a smile and not a frown
As we come to the end when the Sun goes down.

Well, that day came on monday night, the call telling me my Dad passed away, the only small favor I managed was that my preparations of my mobile communications has worked out as planned. The Nokia 6300 on Vodafone.ie linked up with the AT&T network in Chicago and using the Palm T/X, I managed to connect to the Edge network on the Nokia to check flight changes, I also checked my email from my MacBook through the 6300 as well without having to pay for WiFi in the Airport. And when I had to make some phone number changes on the phone, the three (Palm/Mac/Nokia) synced up and shared the changes. Almost like they were made by the came company, standards, who knew, I suppose that’s why I don’t use Microsoft products. The only down side, the boss in Dublin knows my phone number, so if the shit hits the fan, I’m still on call.

Microsoft will NEVER be free from the support requirements of Windows XP, you know why? Take a look at the photo I took today;

If they can’t get VAR’s from using ancient Windows NT 4.0, they will never be rid of Windows XP

And if Microsoft wanted anyone else to buy Windows Vista, they shouldn’t have invoked The Osborne Effect when they started talking about Windows 7 There isn’t a major corporation that will install Vista now, not when Win-7 is right behind, which is more suited to a corporate deployment timeline.

I have monitored all the discussions of DRM with regards to Music and Movies, but until I started installing a Sybase ASE 15.0.1 installation, as a first stage to a Sybase 12.0 upgrade at the company which I work for, that I realized that Sybase must hate it’s own customers. I say this as that’s the only reason why they would use SYSAM and this draconian DRM license software in Version 15.xx. They want to put themselves out of business by pissing off their user base.

My company have a contract with Sybase Ireland and I am an honest DBA installing a new version of Sybase ASE exactly like the one it will replace. I’m not trying to steal from Sybase. But this DRM assumes that I am a thief, and that I cannot be trusted. Even when we as a company pay thousands per year for support we barely use (because Sybase is a solid product). I’m a thief by their own DRM definitions.

We will be moving to MySQL, as soon as we are able, Sybase will be loosing yet another customer because of their suicidal business plan.

And the GOP voters in the U.S. want this guy to be President?

The job of Javelin ‘Catch’ has always been a high risk job.

It’s amazing that when family matters start to stress you, everyday activities like blogging loose their appeal. Facing aging and dying parents and the unpredictability of their loss makes everything else pale to insignificance. But I’m more or less prepared, in part, ready to hop any flight, when my brothers tell me the end is near. I have managed to put in place as many mobile communication and messaging technologies as I could manage so as not to be burdened with packing a laptop and various other bits and bobs that might make flying more of a burden that it will be otherwise. I could probably makes the States with only carry on luggage, dispensing with check in issues and customs. These new toys consist of a new Tri-band Phone in the form of the Nokia 6300 and a Palm T/X for more of the heavy lifting email, and web communications issues. With the U.S. now searching all laptops and sucking off suspicious data from disk drives these devices should prove useful for quick passage.