Highest Paid Executives in US

Recently Associated Press published a list of 500 highest-paid public company executives. A few from them are:

1. Larry Ellison, Oracle Corp. (ORCL), $84.6 mln
2. John Thain, Merrill Lynch & Co. (MERPO), $83.1 mln
3. Leslie Moonves, CBS Corp. (CBS), $67.6 mln
4. Richard Adkerson, Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc., $65.3 mln
5. Bob Simpson, XTO Energy Inc. (XTO), $56.6 mln
6. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), $53.9 mln
7. Kenneth Chenault, American Express Co. (AXP), $51.7 mln
8. Eugene Isenberg, Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR), $44.6 mln
9. John Mack, Morgan Stanley (MS), $41.7 mln
10. Glenn Murphy, Gap Inc. (GPS), $39.1 mln

They are basically US based public company executives.

Highly superior gifts for the Linux geek

1. Lockpick Tool Set - I’m not giving you any suggestions for how this might come in handy.
2. Ubuntu with Support - If you’re a true believer, and money is no object, you not only can give a copy of Ubuntu to friends or family, but spring $250 for a year’s desktop support to completely win them over.
3. Daisy MP3 Player Kit - It’s Cracked Open before we crack it open!
4. Giant penguin - I think this is self-explanatory.
5. Star Theater 2 - Creates a home planetarium on your walls and ceiling. BABE MAGNET.
6. Storm Hawk - PDA-based real-time weather forecasting and monitoring system that delivers weather info for your surrounding (250 miles) area. Expensive, but very handy — it could even be a lifesaver — and super-geeky.
7. The Design of Future Things - Donald A. Norman, a Computer Science prof at Northwestern University has written this new book about what’s wrong with the design of emerging products like “smart” cars.
8. Basic Black Tee - It’s very slimming.
9. Screaming Monkey Slingshot - I like the looks of this little guy. It makes annoying sounds and is capable of flinging random objects at The Man…or maybe just your coworkers.
10. USB Mini Lava Lamp - It’s a lava lamp — and it plugs into your computer! Awesome.

Setting up a BBPress dev environment with XAMPP

I’m just lazy so when it comes to my personal Web sites I tend not to do the right thing and set up a dev environment first. Instead I just deploy stuff and work on the templates directly in my live Web site. I do keep copies of the templates locally before I go messing around so I figure the worst that can happen is the pages on my site will go down briefly if I accidentally put in a syntax error. I can back it out pretty quickly and restore the site, so why bother with a dev or test environment first?

Recently though I wanted to upgrade the software on my OraclePortalSucks.com site to the most recent release. And when the upgrade process failed utterly I realized I would need to go ahead and revert the entire site to the original templates, then set up a dev environment somewhere so I could test out the upgrade and figure out what I did wrong.

Now this was a site I slapped together one January afternoon last year, when I was banging my head against yet another weird set of bugs in the Oracle Portal. I got so frustrated I had to find some avenue to vent so I registered the domain, and since I already had a hosting plan I was able to get the site online within a few hours of registering it. I uploaded BBPress, which is a powerful yet easy to manage bulletin board system from some of the same folks who created WordPress. But then I haven’t really touched the site since. It was the attempt to upgrade BBPress to the latest version that blew up for me.

So first step was to set up a local development environment to support BBPress. That means Apache, MySQL, and PHP. I really like the way XAMPP rolls all those into a single ZIP file, and wraps a simple GUI around the whole package to let you start and stop the various components. Plus it’s great because it doesn’t have to be installed — you can run it immediately after un-zipping the whole mess as long as you unzip into the root directory of your hard drive with the \xampp folder. So I downloaded the latest version and unzipped it onto the C drive, thus it’s in C:\xampp.

Inside that xampp directory you should see a file called xampp-control.exe. Double click that to launch the administration utility:

I don’t use the options to install and set up the components as services, because I don’t use this all the time. I just click Start next to the components I need. In this particular case you’ll need both Apache and MySql, so start both of those.

Now launch a browser and go to the http://localhost address. You should see the XAMPP Web site.

In the left-hand menu bar, scroll down until you see the Tools section. Click on phpMyAdmin.

From the phpMyAdmin page, click the Privileges link and then click on the Add a New User link. Here I created a database and user to match the configuration used in my existing OraclePortalSucks BBPress setup. Of course you can create whatever name and database you like, just jot it down because you’ll need the info to edit the config.php later. Then scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Go button.

So now I had to get the PHP templates and the database contents from my site. The PHP templates were easy, just FTP them into a local folder. I called the folder “portalsucks” and put it in the C:\xampp\htdocs directory. Then I edited the config.php file in that portalsucks directory. Since I had created a database and useraccount with the same name as in the actual site, I only had to change the host string:

define(’BBDB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);

I also changed the domain and path from the original settings:

$bb->domain = ‘http://www.oracleportalsucks.com’;

$bb->path = ‘/’;

To something appropriate for my local configuration:

$bb->domain = ‘http://localhost’;

$bb->path = ‘/portalsucks/’;

Last step was to download the database. Luckily my hosting company uses phpMyAdmin as well. So I selected the database and clicked the Export option. I just left all the default values and licked Go. That generated a textarea
that I cut-and-pasted into a local file. Which I could then import into my local phpMyAdmin.

Now since I had already created the database, I did have to edit the SQL to comment out the CREATE DATABASE command. Otherwise phpMyAdmin complains because you’re trying to create a database that already exists.

That’s it. I now have a fully functional development copy of my site. Now I just have to roll up the sleeves and figure out why my attempt to upgrade BBPress failed.

Zonbu: A simple computer for everyone

Recently, I was sent a box with a Zonbox inside. What is a Zonbox you ask? Simple: A Zonbox is a tiny form-factor PC (made by Zonbu) with no moving parts, no fans, no hard drive, and an open source operating system but with most of the bells and whistles people have come to expect from a computer…and more.

The company, Zonbu, started with the idea of making a “green” PC. What they created was a device that uses a fraction of the energy that regular PCs use (to the tune of nearly $10.00 per month savings) and is totally carbon-neutral.

As I said, the device is fanless so it’s absolutely silent. Getting rid of heat is taken care of by the heat-sink-style case enclosing all of the components. The case does get warm but not so warm that you could burn yourself.

But how does it perform?

I’ve put the little machine through some testing (no benchmarking because at this point in the game benchmarking is reserved for high-end server needs and gaming), but only taking this open source-based device through the paces of the average user. What can it do and what can’t it do?

Surf the Web: Check. The Firefox browser was set up out of the box with all necessary plug ins (why can’t distributions do this????).

Check email: Check. Evolution does the trick. The only thing necessary was to plug in the account details.

Office: Check, check, and check. Word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations all with Open Office, PDF with Scribus.

Graphics: Check and check. The Gimp and Mplayer do an outstanding job. Mplayer, unlike from most distributions, worked out of the box.

Audio: Banshee connects to your iPod without hassle. Biggest problem: no MP3 support. Problem is, I couldn’t install the needed plugin for MP3 support. Why? Because your apt-get is NOT FOUND!!!! Okay, so that’s a big limitation.

Games: There are some, but nothing astounding. We’re talking about your usual minesweeper flavor of games.

Networking: Networking came up without so much as doing a single configuration. I was even able to simply connect to my Samba network by entering the username/password and voila! More space to save files.

Breaking it down

This little gem of a PC is one of those items most would overlook. But the thing is, you shouldn’t. For the average user who only wants to surf the Web, check e-mail, and do the occasional document, this thing is perfect! The setup couldn’t be any easier. You plug it in, turn it on, and log on to your machine. That’s it. As soon as it’s done booting the user has nothing more to do than to enjoy the experience. And it’s tiny (about 4″X6″X2″)…and fairly powerful. Here are the specs:

• Intel-compatible ultra-low power CPU
• 512 MB RAM + 4GB flash-based local storage
• Graphics up to 2048 x 1536 (16 million colors, 75 Hz). Hardware graphics and MPEG2 acceleration
• PC-compatible ports for keyboard and mouse
• 6 USB ports to plug-and-play all standard USB accessories
• Broadband ready: 10/100 Mbps Ethernet built-in
• Wifi
• CF card reader
• 2 PS/2 ports

The price is fairly reasonable as well. What Zonbu has done is set up a system where you can do one of two things: Buy the machine outright for $249.00 for the device and then you can purchase one of four plans for your device:

• Free: Disaster proof storage. I believe this will back up your operating system only.
• $12.95 per month: 25 Gigs of storage, free automatic software updates, and a hardware rebate of $150.00.
• $14.95 per month: 50 Gigs of storage, free automatic software updates, a hardware rebate of $150.00, and Remote file access (from any machine, anywhere).
• $19.95 per month: 100 Gigs of storage, free automatic software updates, a hardware rebate of $150.00, and Remote file access (from any machine, anywhere), and overnight free hardware replacement limited warranty.

At first you may think this is a scam. But it’s not. I’ve tried the device and the plans. I’ve loaded files and downloaded files from various locations. The device works flawlessly (with the exception of MP3 support) and the remote access is superb. The OS is based on Ubuntu so it enjoys that same reliability.

I know there are plenty of naysayers out there who are probably thinking, “Why not just pay around $300.00 and get a standard desktop machine?” Simple: If you’re really looking to cut costs you can think outside the standard PC-Box and add in the energy savings you will enjoy with the Zonbu, as well as the added safety of suffering no-virus-no-malware-no-trojan-no-worms. You won’t be kicking yourself saying, “Dude, why’d I get a Dell?”

Of course it’s not for everyone. But who is it for:

• Students
• People on the go that need remote access to the their files but don’t want to lug a laptop around with them.
• Your grandparents.
• Your mom and dad.
• Temporary employees.
• Anyone on a low budget who needs a computer for the basics.

Because of its size, simplicity, and reliability this little machine could serve anyone who needed to handle basic computing tasks. It’s not perfect, but it’s as close to the pull it out, plug it in, and use it that PC manufacturers have been questing for all these years.

Where you most likely deploy a Zonbox?

• 
  At home for family use.
• 
  At work for certain departments.
• 
  At schools and internet cafes.
• 
  I wouldn’t deploy such a device.

Handling office politics from the outside

One of the reasons I became an independent consultant was to get away from the various interpersonal conflicts that recur in an office setting. Simply by putting my stakes down off the org chart, I avoid all manner of intrigue over power plays, office gossip, discontent with policies and procedures, and a whole host of other miscellaneous useless discussion that my regularly employed colleagues have to deal with on a regular basis. Even if I have an opinion on one of these topics, I think it prudent to remain silent unless asked to contribute — and even then to try to maintain as neutral a tone as possible.

But sometimes it’s not quite so easy to divide between “office politics” and the portion of my clients’ business strategies for which I bear some responsibility. The very fact that humans are involved means that many business problems cannot be separated from social problems. No matter how emotional the discussions, if the decisions that come out of them could impact the quality of the solution I’m attempting to help my client achieve, then I’m duty-bound to participate.

Some things to remember when jumping into the fray:

1. Business first. My client is in business to make money, not to run a social club, a forum, or a charity for its employees. My suggestions need to focus on what promotes business success. Employee satisfaction can be a big component of that, but it’s secondary.
2. Who’s your Daddy/Momma? Maybe most of the time my client’s company is one big happy family, but if it comes down to conflicts between various powerful people in the organization, then I must remain loyal to the person who controls my contract. If I disagree with them on an issue that has become inflammatory, then I’ll try to reason with them privately instead of adding fuel to the fire.
3. Be friendly to all sides of the argument. Don’t make things worse by acting in a partisan manner. Try to reconcile the different viewpoints, without belittling the importance of any argument. Being an outsider may help with the perception of disinterested objectivity.
4. Just add humor. Many times strong emotions can be diffused by revealing that the topic shouldn’t be taken too seriously. But sometimes that can backfire, so I have to choose my lines well. Best not to joke on the main source of contention, but rather on some aspect of it that everyone can find absurd.

I’d like to be more specific about the incident that sparked this post, but then I’d be violating rule #5:

5. Don’t blog about it. In fact, don’t discuss it with anyone outside the organization. I signed an NDA with my client, which means that they let me in on internal affairs that they don’t expect me to share. It’s not a matter of freedom of speech, it’s a matter of trust.


courtesy @TechRepublic

Find errors as early as possible on your project

Project teams generally use three types of quality management activities:

* Quality planning
* Quality control
* Quality assurance

The purpose of quality assurance is to prevent as many errors as possible by having sound processes in place to begin with. The purpose of quality control is to inspect or test the deliverables to find as many remaining errors as possible.

One important aspect of quality control is to find errors and defects as early in the project as possible. Therefore, a good quality control process will end up taking more effort hours and cost upfront. However, there will be a large payback as the project progresses.

For instance, it’s much better to spot problems with business requirements during the analysis phase of the project rather during the testing process. If you see the problem during the requirements gathering process it might just take a call to your client and the quick update of a Word document to fix it. On the other hand, if you discover this problem in the testing phase, it could impact the business requirements, the solution design, and some of the construct work. It will also require you to re-test the solution again. As you can see, this is a potentially huge impact to your project.

Likewise, if you were manufacturing a computer chip, it would be much cheaper to find a problem with a computer chip when the chip is manufactured, rather than have to replace it when a customer brings the computer in for service after a purchase. In fact, if the error isn’t caught until after the chip is sold to the customer, the cost to make the repair might cost more that the entire cost to manufacture the product to begin with.

There was a project early in my career that applied poor shortcuts to the development process. Since the programmers were under time pressure to complete their modules, they figured they would write the code and make sure it compiled cleanly. Then they would then call the module complete, with the attitude that they could “fix it in the testing phase.” They thought that they were just deferring their unit test time until later in the project. But by pushing these errors further downstream, it actually took much longer to fix the problems later - to the detriment to the overall project.

In Figure A, we see a traditional approach to finding errors.
Figure A


On many projects the team plans to find as many errors as possible during the testing process, with some errors not caught until support/maintenance.

In Figure B we see the better approach. It is much better to catch any errors that are introduced as quickly as possible. In other words, errors in the deliverable created in the Analysis Phase should be caught in the Analysis Phase; errors introduced in the Design Phase should be caught during the Design Phase, etc. This greatly minimizes the impact of correcting the errors.
Figure B

The bottom line is that the project team should try to maintain high quality and low defects during the deliverable creation processes, rather than hope to catch and fix problems during the testing phase at the end of the project (or worse, have the client find the problem after the project has been completed).

courtesy @TechRepublic

10 things to look for in a laptop

Laptops are all the rage. Once reserved for mobile professionals and elite executives, notebook PCs are replacing desktop computers in many organizations and homes. Driven by changing habits and the ease of locating and joining wireless networks, sales of laptop computers began exceeding those for desktop models in mid-year 2005. The trend shows no signs of easing.However, just buying a laptop doesn’t ensure you automatically become an effective mobile computer user. In fact, the odds are you’ll end up with a subpar PC if you purchase a model directly from many retailers’ shelves.

Due to competitive pressures, many office supply and electronics chains aggressively market very low prices for laptop computers. The problem is, because of cost constraints, many of those PCs aren’t well-equipped for most real-world computing. Here are 10 things to look for in your next laptop to help you choose a model that readily meets your needs.

#1: Operating system

Most PCs sold in office supply and major big box electronics stores come preloaded with Microsoft’s consumer operating system. Deploying PCs powered by Windows XP Home or Vista Home Basic might not appear problematic, at least at first. In many cases, it may even appear beneficial. Why pay for the more expensive business edition if all you really need to do is write documents, crunch spreadsheets, send and receive e-mail, and use the Internet?

As so many organizations and users have discovered in the real world, the business versions of Microsoft’s operating system offer many features that may well become necessities down the road. Many a client has found the migration from a workgroup environment to a client-server system complicated by the need to purchase new Windows XP Professional or Vista Business licenses (not too mention the time and cost associated with upgrading each user computer).

Microsoft’s consumer operating systems typically don’t support joining server domains. Nor have they readily enabled hosting remote desktop connections. For this reason, when purchasing a laptop PC, be sure it comes preloaded with the Microsoft operating system that will meet all your professional computing requirements.

#2: CPU

Laptop models advertised at attractive price points often don’t have potent CPUs. When selecting a portable computer, buy a model with a CPU tailored to the rigors of mobile computing. Fail to do so, and you could end up with a PC that takes seven to eight minutes to fully boot into Windows, provides minimal battery life, and can’t reasonably power the applications you use.

Intel’s new Core 2 Duo CPUs (Figure A) perform exceptionally well. In addition to packing considerable processing power, these chips use less energy (resulting in improved battery life) and generate less heat than previous Pentium CPUs. Laptops featuring these chips (2.0 GHz and higher) should meet most users’ computing needs for the next three or four years (the timeframe in which accountants amortize information technology assets).



Intel’s Core 2 Duo CPU is a potent CPU that’s the favorite of many road warriors.

#3: RAM

Many Windows Vista laptops are marketed as having a full 1 GB of RAM. While 1 GB of RAM works well for most Windows XP installations, it typically isn’t enough to enable a Vista system to work smoothly. Any users planning to run multiple applications simultaneously on a Windows Vista laptop should consider loading the notebook with 2 GB of RAM.

While most users don’t think of themselves as power users, 2 GB of RAM should be the norm for individuals planning to maintain multiple Office application windows while surfing the Internet and checking e-mail. Anyone planning to edit digital photographs or play more advanced games on a Vista system should also upgrade to 2 GB of RAM.

#4: Video card

Video performance is notoriously shortchanged on laptop computers. This is especially true for $500 notebooks frequently featured on the front covers of electronics and office supply store circulars.

Windows Vista operating systems, in particular, require potent video cards to maximize the system’s many new features (including its resource-demanding Aero interface, translucent menus, and Flip 3D technologies). Windows XP computers that must power three-dimensional engineering and drafting programs also require strong video cards, as do gaming systems, regardless of OS.

When preparing to purchase a laptop computer, consider selecting a model with at least 128 MB of onboard RAM. If you plan to run drafting and engineering applications, video production software, or games, you should upgrade to video adapters with 256 MB of RAM.

#5: Ports

Many users assume that any modern laptop computer has numerous USB ports, as well as VGA, DVI, serial, and parallel ports. Those same users may learn a painful lesson; increasingly, in another effort at managing costs, laptop manufacturers are reducing the number of ports found on their PCs.

Budget notebook computers often ship with only a pair of USB ports, with no serial, parallel, or DVI ports and only a single VGA port (if a video port is even included). When purchasing a laptop, review the model’s technical specifications and make sure that the chassis includes the ports you require. While most PCs now include integrated wired NICs, they don’t always have PC Card slots, so that’s an additional factor to consider before purchasing a new unit.

#6: Screen size

Carefully review your monitor needs before ordering a new notebook. You may think that a 17-inch widescreen display is just what you need. Ultimately, that may prove to be too big.

How’s that?

Think about how you’ll be using the laptop. If the computer will truly be used most often on the road, placing the notebook in a protective case, lugging it onto a cramped airplane, removing it for baggage inspectors, carrying it into a meeting room, and transporting it wherever else you go is made exponentially more difficult for each inch of display size beyond 12 inches.

Models with 12-inch displays are much easier to carry through doorways, into tight airline seats, and in coffee shops. They’re also much lighter.

If your laptop will see only occasional travel, a larger model may be just what you need. But if not, consider purchasing a 12-inch model. You can always mate it to a 22-inch widescreen on your desk. Just be sure the laptop offers the correct ports to do so, as described in item #5.

#7: Integrated wireless

There should almost be a rule that any laptop sold today include an integrated 802.11g wireless (WiFi) adapter. But of course there is no rule, and not all models include one.

Make sure that the laptop you’re considering includes the WiFi technology you use. For many, that will soon mean that the laptop includes integrated 802.11n compatibility. Read specifications closely to verify that the model you’re buying provides the wireless connectivity you require.

#8: Integrated Bluetooth

Integrated Bluetooth technology used to be a luxury in laptops. Most users associate Bluetooth now with the wireless hands-free headsets used with cellular telephones, but Bluetooth is also growing in importance when it comes to connecting handheld devices to laptops.

Bluetooth technology enables synchronizing cell phone contacts, e-mail, calendars, and tasks lists wirelessly with a laptop. The same Bluetooth technology can also be used to add a wireless mouse to a notebook.

#9: Track pad

Most every laptop now comes equipped with a track pad mouse and corresponding click buttons. Some models include a simple track pad, while others include a track pad and an integrated pointer (usually nestled between the G and H keys). These so-called pencil-eraser pointers (Figure B) have long been popular, gracing everything from older Toshiba models to newer ThinkPads.



The “pencil-eraser” pointer (shown here in blue) is the favorite of many mobile users.

It’s not important to choose a laptop computer that includes a sophisticated track pad and pencil-eraser pointer. Just make sure you select a notebook PC that features the pointing device you prefer.

Some models permit scrolling pages when two fingers are used versus scrolling within the currently displayed page when a single finger is used (such as with Apple laptops). Other laptops feature track pads that contain two separate tracking areas, such as are found on Compaq Presarios, for scrolling entire pages versus the contents of those pages.

Review the model you’re preparing to buy to confirm you find its track pad agreeable. Even if you plan to use an external mouse, there are times when you’ll be without it and the track pad is all you’ll have.

#10: Battery life

Battery life is a critical consideration but not a deal breaker. When purchasing a laptop, if the only battery option doesn’t provide the lifespan you require, you can always buy a second battery.

Many users, however, don’t want the hassle that comes with carrying multiple batteries. In such cases, upgrade laptop orders to include 12-cell batteries (if available) instead of a standard six- or nine-cell battery. Bigger batteries almost always last longer, which is usually a key factor for mobile professionals traveling by air.

Just be aware that the larger cell batteries often have a greater footprint. In other words, they could violate a notebook’s aesthetic look. But no one ever said functionality doesn’t come at a price.

cheers Aurobindo..
Wish you a very good luck.. just buy your dream laptop!!!

courtesy @techrepublic