Mr. Aggarwal

Well, it’s clear, JSF has a long way to go before it gets to the look-and-feel capabilities of ASP.NET 2.0 and 3.0.  Interestingly, I don’t feel this is a function of the implementation of the frameworks, but instead of the marketing and the pure power-house ASP.NET has been when it comes to sucking in software vendors as partners.  You can buy a junk-load of Visual Studio IDE plug-ins (add-ons) to easily configure your .NET components for a brain-dead, easy development experience and a lovely end-user experience.  Three important notes here:

1. You have to BUY the components – software for money is expected in the Microsoft community, yet shunned in the Java community (which is the enterprise language of choice for the up-and-coming “open-sorcerers” — yes I just thought up of that and coined the term — don’t steal it)

2. Brain-dead, easy development – brain-dead easy development is expected in the Microsoft community, yet shunned in the Java community (why do they put themselves through so much Struts — said fast, that is pronounced S-T-R-E-S-S)

3. Lovely end-user experience – a lovely end user-experience is expected in the Microsoft community, yet shunned in the Java community (okay, it is not “shunned”, but the components made for ASP.NET simply blow away the ones on the market for Java)

Yes, I can hear all my Java developers outside my house chanting “come out so we can beat you up” as they keep warm around the bonfire which used to be my car.  But the ones that REALLY know me, know I am not really a completely die-hard Microsoft fan, nor do I hate coffee.  Okay, I hate coffee, but I don’t hate Java.

I would like to see the software vendors of the world not only begin creating beautiful components for Java and JSF, but have a real economic reason to do so.  I’m not talking about the big players like Oracle, but instead the small ones, like Ashok’s Software and Taco Shop — hey, if you recognized it, it wouldn’t be a small player.  I think JSF opens the windows to this.  There are many, many developers and some great companies embracing Java/JSF, but it has got to be a really strong push to catch up with the components out there for .NET.  If it can be done with free or even open-source software, then I’m even happier, but I think some of that ideology might have to swing just a slight bit more towards capitalism to see it take off.

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. – Phyllis Diller

“The web” is only getting bigger….

And how does the web get bigger?  With more content.

And what kinds of companies win when more and more content needs to be delivered?  Companies who focus on getting content delivered effectively and efficiently.

And what are two of those companies that I have been tracking?  Akamai (AKAM) and InterNAP (INAP).

Read about them.  Yes, they have both had growth — Akamai in particular has had some explosive growth — but perhaps not at the rate of growth that rich content is being delivered on the web.

Disclaimer: I do not buy/sell stocks for a living and my opinions, although I think they’re good, should not be used as the sole criteria for investing (or not investing) in a company.  Bottom line — I’m not responsible for what you do in case that needed to be said.

I watched the finale of the Bachelor tonight.  Yes, I predicated that he would not pick Sadie (I think that was easy to see on their last date), but that is beside the point.

I don’t know why I can’t seem to get over the fact that this particular show absolutely exploits the women that are on it.

They are put into a controlled environment, where roles are well defined, and true feelings (in the case of the Bachelor himself) are required to be kept secret until the end.  I think it would be fair to assume that each person is guided into acting in certain ways; and if that’s not fair, then the camera magic can arrange it the way they want anyways.  Can you say unethical experiment?

Related to the “controlled environment” scenario, I’ve got to believe that any sociologist would agree without a doubt that putting 25 women fighting for the same man will automatically make each women want that man even more than if it were just a one-on-one meeting.  End result: these are not realistic feelings.  The controlled situation makes the man more attractive psychologically to the women than he really is.  I think the fact that very few of these couples (on any reality show for that matter) actually stay together.  But, yes, the structure of the Bachelor in particular really bothers me.

Their families are involved and roped into the whole mess.  That is REALLY unfair.  If my siblings (or children) were to go on a show like that and I was expected to show up, I would be really annoyed (of course, you would have to go to support them), but these women really don’t realize they are signing up more than themselves to go on an incredibly scary roller coaster ride.

I actually feel that reality shows like the Bachelor should be outlawed.  This is classic situational versus dispositional attribution, and although it happens daily in our society naturally, nobody should be put into an environment that is created around them by people looking to conduct semi-private scientific experiments that can benefit society greatly in the long run, let alone by people to profit and entertainment the World.

To take it further, this not even executed by putting on display the sincere [and coached] reactions of these people for viewers watch to judge for themselves, but instead, selectively choosing what is displayed to and having control over the way in which the public will view these folks after the experiment is over. 

Note: I recall watching a news special (like 60 minutes, but not 60 minutes) where one of the more athletic shows (like Fear Factor, but not Fear Factor) had a mishap during one of their under water stunts and the contestant claimed to have chronic health issues after the show since he was stuck under water for too long.  I recall him claiming that the show made them sign something that said they were not responsible for death, even if it is their fault, and they would not even release all of the footage of the show to determine what really happened, since I believe the guy went unconscious while underwater.

Well, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I guess the normal course of action would be to promote boycotting of reality TV.  But we’ll save discussing the effectiveness of that approach in another post.

Very interesting. 

Collaborate online with others.  Save as Word documents or Excel.  Heck, you can save documents as PDF.  Have your docs available online (all the time, from anywhere with a connection).  Okay, we can ask, what if we don’t have a connection?  Yes, I am more concerned about my ISP dropping a connection rather than Google’s servers.  But that is just something we need to get used to as more and more of what we do is done online, so no, that doesn’t yet seem to be a valid argument (and I’m sure they’ll end up with some sort of auto-save so you can work offline if needed — maybe that will be a feature they charge for).

Well, at least check it out:http://docs.google.com/

Did I mention it’s free?  Now you have no excuse.  Check it out and we’ll talk later.

Happy Thanksgiving 2006 to all my web log readers!  “Web log readers”…maybe that should be shortened to “blogders”.  I don’t consider myself a real American history expert, but I remember a little about Thanksgiving…

No, not that it was started by a huge celebration that occurred between the first American immigrants and the Native Americans.  Instead, that such a celebration never occurred.  So, it might be fun to just chalk up Thanksgiving to another one of Americans’ ways to incorrectly depict a rosier picture about the relationship between the Pilgrims and Natives.  However, in this case, I’m not sure that would be entirely accurate either.

The reality is that Europeans traveling to far away lands (not quite as far as “America”) were likely never welcomed with open arms.  Their reputation for unwavering colonization and ruthless conquering were preconceptions that the Native Americans were not privy to.  So, as it was, being invited to sit and eat at the same table by the Natives was something for the Pilgrims to certainly be thankful for.  I’m sure the dinners didn’t last too long as fighting ensued, but perhaps we can all remember the other side of Thanksgiving that had as much — if not more — to do with welcoming strangers (and those different from one another) with open arms as it did with getting together with friends and family.

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong. – Charles Wadsworth

I’m not even asking you to fight for the person who is has a different view, a different background, and/or is just plain different.  I’m just asking that you not fight against them. - Ashok Aggarwal

Of course the game is rigged. Don’t let that stop you–if you don’t play, you can’t win. – Robert Heinlein

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. – Elbert Hubbard

I’ve got to say that tag-based filtering of data on the web might just be near the top of the “next big thing” list.  I see people and websites leveraging it all over the place.  CompUSA now uses tag-based filtering on their site along with other big names.  I actually think it’s pretty cool and user-friendly……….or do I?

Cool? Yes.  User-friendly? At first it might seem as such, but when I really want to do something tag-based filtering won’t allow, I get very annoyed.  For example, let’s say I’m browsing laptops at CompUSA, and I want to pick any that have AMD processors as well as 15.4″ OR 17″ monitors.  Tag-based filtering will not allow this.  I pick 15.4″, and then I have to go back to pick and view the 17″ monitors separately. 

What happened to simple, tabular reporting with multi-select?  What was wrong with that?  I could pick whichever options I wanted, it took up less screen real estate, and it required much fewer clicks.  I’ve even played with tag-based filtering on a few web applications and web sites.  It is definitely cool and simple, and if you know that filtering will be a straightforward and easy task for your users, it might even be a good choice.  And, chances are, if you didn’t use any reasonable means of filtering data, tag-based might be a great way to go.  But, be weary that it might spark your users’ interest like it did mine and make them wonder why the filtering couldn’t be just as powerful and easy as it was in the “old” days.

Reporting and business intelligence is simply awesome.  I don’t care who you are; someone shown a nice report will be impressed/intrigued.  Yes, that’s an indrect challenge, and of course, I’d be happy to take you up on it if you are skeptic.  The most interesting findings we all love pondering and sharing with one another are based on statistics.  I know you have heard someone ask rhetorically with excitement this week “Did you know that X% of Americans do XYZ?”

Reporting, or knowing the results of a report makes us feel smart.  Better yet, coming up with a reason as to why a report yields specific results makes us feel even smarter.  But an interesting question arises…which one is more important in the enterprise: canned or ad-hoc reports?

The answer is not straightforward.  Some of this depends on your organization, and some depends on your users.  But, for most organizations, I think the reality versus what is generally thought important can be flipped.  I find many organizations feel that ad-hoc reporting is the answer to their prayers, while those same organizations may want to take a harder look at their operational reporting strategy.  In some cases, people think they are using analytical/ad-hoc reporting, when they are actually just using an analystical reporting product to deviler sub-optimal canned reports.  There will be more on this in coming posts, but I wanted to get the brain wheels churning (and those hamsters off their lazy butts) to let you think about how your organization approaches its reporting strategy.

I don’t title this blog entry to literally compare social networking and reality television…we all know what they are.  I title this to compare the subtle differences between their explosive popularity, addiction induction capability, coolness factor, etc.
 

I don’t have any viewership/usage statistics (was trying to find some), but reality shows have been very popular — okay insanely popular — for years now.  I think it’s safe to say, at least as of today, people spend more of their leisurely time in front of their TV’s than in front of their computers.  And when people are watching TV, there’s a very good chance their watching a reality show.  Yes, I think that trend will shift to where people are spending more time in front of their computers.
 

For the people that “hang out” with their computers, I think many of them are likely gaming (the average age for gamers is much higher than you might expect), many of them are shopping, and many of them are just “surfing” for whatever they want.  I hate to say it, but I’m sure a fair number are looking at pornography as well, considering I heard it is an industry that brings in more than double Hollywood’s revenue.  But, social networking is really, REALLY popular.  And perhaps, more importantly, a few of the concepts are sure to only trend upwards exponentially since they are so addictive.  I think the addiction to social networking is similar to reality TV; people want to see, learn about, and “connect” with other real people.  And in social networking, everyone can be part of the show; everyone can have their own personal “place” on this massive beast we call the Internet.  So, what’s cooler in the end, watching the 0.01% of the population have their 15 minutes of fame or participating yourself?  I think social networking is here to stay — some say the bubble is bursting, will burst, or has already burst.  I think we will only find more and more people participating personally on the web, and I’d be surprised to find anyone who sincerely disagrees.  I do think, however, think that social networking will become even more personal and professional as more people become tech savvy, and pro blogging will become the norm rather than reserved for the more technically competent and/or serious — I’d like to see it take over social networking (since the tools that exist today have given themselves a connotation of fun and useless content).
 

By the way, I think the topic of ethics as it relates to these should get an honorable mention.  There is, and has been, much debate about ethics related to supporting television programming that profits from taking sincere people through emotional roller coasters.  (When I say “sincere”, that still includes those who intentionally join these shows just to give their film/acting/singing careers a boost.  In fact, I refused to watch the Bachelor for a while when it hit me how similar it was to the Zimbardo-like role-playing experiments (specifically, his famous Stanford prison experiment) which were considered unethical many years ago.  I could just see those 25 women getting wrapped up into the role they were expected to play for the bachelor.  Of course, with social networking, you have 1) the sick people that post crass content on the web, 2) the even sicker people that use social networks for stalking the people in category 1, and 3) the true “sickos” that use social networks to find people to commit crimes.  With the cult-like popularity of both of these, though, I think we really need to ask not “if”, but “how” exactly they are changing our society and they way we communicate with, feel about, and treat one another.

Wait.  Just so we can eliminate one of the variables. When it is working, it works. Right? – Colleague of Ashok Aggarwal

This is a classic that people in technology can appreciate.  While a developer I worked with was getting pushed into a corner about an issue by a group of business analysts, he actually stopped the meeting to make this exact clarification.  The part that might have been funnier is that I was the only one to start laughing at the pointlessness of the whole thing while the others just confirmed and kept moving along.  Yes, when I repeated it, everyone got it and had a good laugh.

I think there might have been a lesson to be learned though.  When it seems that everything you have done is wrong, say/do something right, anything, no matter how big or small…it might increase your credibility in the eyes of some people.

Okay, I don’t know what I’m asking, but what is your answer? – Classmate of Ashok Aggarwal

Of course, this one is a classic for my friends and me, especially when it is taken it out of context.  A student in my freshman Chemistry class asked this of our professor after having a frustrating time trying to get his question across clearly.  I don’t recall the response, but I’m sure it ended without much satisfaction or resolution from either side.  I can just imagine the professor saying politely, “why don’t you come see me after class, and we can discuss it further.”