74008
submission
lizzyben writes:
Baseline is running a long piece about the inner workings of MySpace.com. The story chronicles how the social networking site has continuously upgraded its technology infrastructure — not entirely systematically — to accommodate more than 26 million accounts. It was a rocky road and there are still hiccups, several of which writer David F. Carr details here.
In many ways, the success of MySpace is counterintuitive. From the story: "MySpace.com's continued growth flies in the face of much of what Web experts have told us for years about how to succeed on the Internet. It's buggy, often responding to basic user requests with the dreaded "Unexpected Error" screen, and stocked with thousands of pages that violate all sorts of conventional Web design standards with their wild colors and confusing background images. And yet, it succeeds anyway."
69130
submission
lizzyben writes:
The history of software development is marked by missed deadlines, blown budgets and broken promises. Author Scott Rosenberg, founding editor of Salon discusses this dysfunctional culture, and why it persists.
From the interview: "Software is basically entirely abstract, except for the screens, and the screens are what business people always end up focusing on. The insubstantiality of the product promotes the idea that, hey, why should it take so long? There's nothing there."
50760
submission
lizzyben writes:
Baseline magazine interviewed CIOs and IT consultants to get their take on Microsoft's Vista and is reporting that "Most big companies will wait at least a year before deploying Vista to make sure the operating system is stable and that third-party applications work well with it, the beta testers say."
More from the story: "...relatively few users have had a chance to test Vista's security features in the environments where its flaws would be most costly. 'I have a trust-but-verify posture," says Matt Miszewski, chief information officer for the state of Wisconsin, who oversees 64,000 desktop systems. He says it would be a mistake to believe Microsoft has solved all of its security problems.'
Then there's BitLocker: The security component which encrypts the contents of a hard drive so that a stolen laptop can't become a source of pilfered intellectual property. "Erik Schmidt, a technical manager at the University of Florida, which has been evaluating Vista on more than 50 PCs as part of Microsoft's Technology Adoption Program...says BitLocker 'is a very good idea, but it can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.'"
38002
submission
lizzyben writes:
Baseline has a story about a major IT disaster in the UK: "In 2002, the English government embarked on a $12 billion effort to transform its health-care system with information technology. But the country's oversight agency now puts that figure at $24 billion, and two Members of Parliament say the project is "sleepwalking toward disaster."
More from the story: "In scale, the project, called the National Program for Information Technology (NPfIT), is overwhelming. Initiated in 2002, the NPfIT is a 10-year project to build new computer systems that would connect more than 100,000 doctors, 380,000 nurses and 50,000 other health-care professionals; allow for the electronic storage and retrieval of patient medical records; permit patients to set up appointments via their computers; and let doctors electronically transmit prescriptions to local pharmacies."
http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1540,2058194 ,00.asp
13521
submission
lizzyben writes:
to mention an interview with Robert Scoble on cioinsight.com. 'By blogging for the world's largest software company, Scoble changed the way companies communicate with the world and became an industry celebrity in the process.' He talks about MS culture, senior management and the benefits of blogging from inside the belly of the software beast.
