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The News - February 1, 2009
“Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.” – Thomas Carlyle
"Be careful what you want, you may get it” – Unknown
Top Picks
The Year of the Ox will bring little prosperity for the Chinese
“Even before the global financial crisis, those in absolute poverty (earning less than US$1 a day) doubled in China over the past decade. More than 400 million had seen their net incomes decline over the same period despite record GDP growth. It is no wonder that domestic consumption growth has been slow and will not be able to take up the slack as the export sector suffers. Instead China must rely on state-led fixed investment to keep growth at 8 per cent, despite acknowledging that this strategy is becoming more inefficient and wasteful, and therefore increasingly unsustainable.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5586587.ece
[A very well thought out and written, not to mention troubling, article.]
Heartland Payment Systems: Breach Bad As Tylenol Poisonings?
“The data loss debacle at Heartland highlights the fact that information security will be the next major shareholder derivative and D&O liability issue, regulatory, consumer, and national security threat, and class-action litigation subject to impact our ailing economy.”
http://seekingalpha.com/article/116415-heartland-payment-systems-breach-bad-as-tylenol-poisonings
[The author eviscerates the response of Heartland executives to their data loss incident.]
Chinese state media goes global
“Even as the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is projecting hard power across the four corners of the earth, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is mapping out a multi-pronged strategy to publicize globally the apparent viability of the ‘China
Model’.”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KA30Ad01.html
[They are going for hearts and minds.]
Swinging the Axe
This is a good article talking about some of the decisions that are going on relative to cutting staff.
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/13046704/2/c_2984789?f=alerts
Book and Product Recommendations
The Billion Dollar Solution: Secrets of Prochain Project Management by Robert C. Newbold
Mr. Newbold covers the use of critical chain management in the Prochain project management approach. The book has been lauded by a number of experts including Dr. Holt at Washington State. The book is very easy to read and offers up some great examples.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1934979058?ie=UTF8&tag=georgespaffor-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1934979058
Read an interview of him at TOC Thinkers: http://www.tocthinkers.com/rob-newbold/
The website for the book with reviewer comments is at: http://billiondollarsolution.com/
IT Audit / Internal Audit / Compliance / Ethics
Qualys Has Free eBook for Download: PCI Compliance for Dummies
“Complying with the PCI Data Security Standard may seem like a daunting task for merchants. This book is a quick guide to understanding how to protect cardholder data and comply with the requirements of PCI - from surveying the standard's requirements to detailing steps for verifying compliance. PCI Compliance for Dummies arms you with the facts, in plain English, and shows you how to achieve PCI Compliance.”
http://www.qualys.com/forms/ebook/pcifordummies/
Cloud computing and compliance: Be careful up there
“Using the cloud for data processing and storage may have its advantages in terms of simplicity and cost, but ensuring regulatory compliance will not be nearly so simple. What it all comes down to, ultimately, is that the user organization is responsible for figuring out who is doing what to its data and requiring assurances about the data staying in compliance.”
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9126934&source=rss_news
Business ethics takes on greater import amid increasing scams
“Whatever happened to the golden rule of ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’? In the fast-paced, technology-driven, global world we live in, ethics in business has become a serious concern, reduced to ‘who do you trust?’”
http://www.centredaily.com/bussiness_local/story/1092863.html
IT Process Improvement / Quality Management
Gutting Costs Guts Viability
“When we are looking at organizations, we can classify their approaches as focusing on a spectrum of independent and/or dependent variables. The news reflects a current overemphasis on dependent variables. Yet, cost cutting is not a long term strategy. It is, at best, is a short term tactic. In observing behavior and outcomes we can class cost cutting as a dependent variable because there are limits to how much cost can be removed from a system and still be viable.”
http://www.cioupdate.com/features/article.php/3797311/Gutting-Costs-Guts-Viability.htm
Companies fail to go green on procurement
“Only three percent of UK organisations have a fully automated procurement process even though it would save money and offer a greener alternative to paper-based procurement. A survey by the National Computing Centre, in association with COA Software, also found that 69 percent of companies thought that moving to e-procurement would be more in line with their organisation's environmental policies, although only 25 percent had such a green procurement policy in place.”
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/012309-companies-fail-to-go-green.html?hpg1=bn
Measuring Data Center Energy Flow
“Power utilization effectiveness (PUE) can be a useful metric for determining the overall performance of a data center's electrical and mechanical systems--but the results also can be misconstrued.”
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/27/data-center-energy-technology-cio-network_0128_energy.html
Kurt’s Corner
News and views from Kurt Milne, the managing director of the ITPI. He can be reached at: kurt.milne@itpi.org.
Vision - Companies will be able to build scalable apps that are self-provisioning.
Sun cloud CTO Lew Tucker, explains that the 'the data center is the computer.' We see a future where there are a bunch of clouds, both public and private clouds, and companies will be able to build scalable apps that are self-provisioning. These apps will be able to scale up automatically where requesting resources will be done in a self-service fashion."
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/01/sun_cloud_cto_y.html
Practice - With some initiative mixed with proverbial duct tape and bailing wire, Amazon cloud tapped to pdf 11 million articles in 24 hours
Derek Gottfrid at NYTimes needed to pdf 11 million articles. His basic idea was to upload 4TB of source data into Amazon S3, write some code that would run on numerous Amazon EC2 instances to read the source data, create PDFs, and store the results back into S3. Read about how 100 E2C instances churned through all 11 million articles in just under 24 hours.
http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/self-service-prorated-super-computing-fun/
Vision and Practice - Good enough for the DoD
US Defense Department’s John Garing met Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. to learn about cloud computing, he liked what he saw. Enough to send him back to Washington ready to change how government technology works. “People make buying decisions on data processing and don’t want to build stuff they don’t have to build anymore,” he said. “You start adding all this together, do the calculus and soon it says, ‘Hello! Why aren’t we doing this?’” The government spent about $68.1 billion in the last fiscal year on technology, with almost a third devoted to infrastructure, according to White House estimates.
http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5158:us-defense-dept-mimics-google-microsoft-in-cloud-computing&catid=52:technology
Security and Risk Management
That's a Monster of a data breach
Monster.com gets hacked with data loss for the second time in 18 months. The author has snippets of numerous opinions about the breach.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/thats_a_monster_of_a_data_breach
Virus strikes 15 million PCs
“A virulent computer virus has infected more than 15 million computers around the world so far, British experts say. The Independent on Sunday reported that the worm -- known as Downadup, Conficker or Kido -- had contaminated 6 million PCs in the past three days alone.”
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/01/25/Virus_strikes_15_million_PCs/UPI-19421232924206/
Defense cybersecurity budget request likely a third more than reported
“A government research company estimates that about a third of the Defense Department's $4 billion request for spending on IT security is included in general spending on various departmental programs and not coded specifically as spent on information systems security, making it difficult to track the Pentagon's total cybersecurity spending, according to a report released on Monday.”
http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090126_2865.php
Security Control Threats in Tight IT Budgets
“For all the improvements companies have made to their IT security and control systems in the last five years, one menace still looms large these days: that layoffs will wreck the compliance system you’ve carefully crafted.”
http://www.complianceweek.com/article/5239/security-control-threats-in-tight-it-budgets
US officials investigate MP3 security blunder
“A New Zealand man who discovered US military files on an MP3 player has been visited by US officials about the matter.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/28/2476801.htm?section=world
New guide launched for security managers
“IT certifications organisation the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) today launched a guide designed to provide IT security chiefs with an independent framework to help manage their information security more effectively. An Introduction to the Business Model for Information Security explains the new business model, which is independent of any particular technology.”
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2235244/guide-launched-security
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/01/28/234471/firms-offered-free-enterprise-security-model.htm
The ISACA security page is at: http://www.isaca.org/Template.cfm?Section=Security&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=19&ContentID=29031
With Economic Slump, Concerns Rise Over Data Theft
“Is the worsening economic situation going to turn some employees into data thieves? That's a top concern amongst IT decision makers, many of whom say that laid-off employees are the biggest security threat created by the economic downturn. In a McAfee-sponsored worldwide survey (registration required) of 1,000 IT decision makers, the company found that 42 percent of respondents felt that the laid-off employees represented the biggest IT security threat caused by the recession.”
http://www.csoonline.com/article/478333/With_Economic_Slump_Concerns_Rise_Over_Data_Theft
Healthcare / Bio-Informatics / Care Delivery Organizations (CDOs)
Some fear window is narrow for healthcare overhaul
“Mindful of how delays sapped the political will to overhaul healthcare during the Clinton administration, health advocates hoped to get a major bill during the new administration's first 100 days. Now, it looks like it will take longer, and some observers fear that a historic opportunity could be missed.”
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/01/28/some_fear_window_is_narrow_for_healthcare_overhaul/
Web site offering health care data
“Health care consumers can shop around for routine medical procedures at hospitals and outpatient facilities using a new online tool launched by the state [Massachusetts] yesterday. The new Web site, billed as a consumer-friendly way of accessing cost and quality information about the state’s medical facilities, was designed to promote transparency in the health care industry, state health officials said.
http://www.telegram.com/article/20090131/NEWS/901310330/1002/BUSINESS
Disruptive Innovation, Applied to Health Care
“As the Obama administration tries to diagnose and treat what ails the system, however, reformers shouldn’t be worried only about how to pay for it. Instead, the country needs to innovate its way toward a new health care business model — one that reduces costs yet improves both quality and accessibility.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/business/01unbox.html?_r=1
Human Error / Safety / Environment
Chasing a fossil-fuel 'fugitive' to aid climate change fight
“Natural gas is often hailed as the clean fossil fuel because burning it produces about half the carbon dioxide as burning coal. That may be true, but factor in fugitive emissions and the emissions gap between the two begins to close. According to Environment Canada's national greenhouse-gas inventory report, fugitive emissions from the oil and natural gas sectors in 2006 amounted to the equivalent of about 60 megatonnes of carbon dioxide, up 65 per cent compared with 1990 levels.”
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/577109
Researcher turns up heat on global warming skeptics
“Doran's survey of nearly 3,200 such scientists around the world is the most comprehensive one ever completed. The only apparent doubters? Petroleum geologists: Just 47 percent of them agreed people have caused global warming.”
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/1397168,CST-NWS-warm26.article
Global warming could unleash ocean 'dead zones': study
“Under the worst scenario, warmer seas and a slowdown of ocean circulation would lower marine oxygen levels, creating ‘dead zones’ that could not support fish, shellfish and other higher forms of marine life -- and may not revive for 1,500 to 2,000 years.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hfAnfUGdNC8zDmDQuHpJJYZ95FyA
Global Warming Can Be Contained for $263 Billion, McKinsey Says
“The investment is needed to ensure that global temperatures don’t rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since industrialization, McKinsey said today in ‘Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy.’ Beyond that threshold, nations including European Union members say global warming will become dangerous.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aCfqwivcuA3Y&refer=australia
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2476663.htm
Geo-engineering 'useful' against climate change: study
“Massive, futuristic schemes to spur land and sea into sucking up greenhouse gases may help the fight against global warming but are no substitute for reducing the pollution itself, scientists said Wednesday.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5itCVurEC5IieqRzD3ccoqlsn9Gpw
[Australia] Seventy patients exposed to radiation overdose
“COFFS Coast cancer patients have been overdosing on radiation for more than a year, after a radiotherapy machine at Coffs Harbour Hospital was found to be calibrated incorrectly. … Human error has been identified as the cause of the incorrect calibration.”
http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/story/2009/01/31/70-patients-exposed-to-radiation-overdose/
Global News / Business / Economics
Global economy hit by massive wave of job cuts
“The world economy was hit by a massive wave of job cuts on Monday with companies announcing plans to lay off tens of thousands of workers as US President Barack Obama warned of a crisis that could become ‘dramatically worse.’ Dutch banking and insurance group ING announced 7,000 job cuts and a deal for the Dutch state to assume 80 percent of the risk on a 27.7-billion euro portfolio of troubled assets. But shares in British bank Barclays shot up by 75 percent on unexpectedly strong profit expectations.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gmRU92Pu4jSJ-zNhpA3MZXzOk8RQ
In Hong Kong and Japan, Grim Economic Expectations
“London-based accounting firm Grant Thornton International in January released the results of a survey of more than 7,200 corporate executives in 36 countries worldwide, asking them about their expectations for 2009 both in terms of the overall economy and their companies. When it comes to pessimism about the economy in the Year of the Ox, Hong Kong was No. 9, gloomier than the U.S. and Britain and only a bit better than Japan, the least upbeat of all.”
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jan2009/gb20090126_557599.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_global+business
Indian economy to decelerate, but no need to press panic button
“This is still a significant deceleration but not a scary scenario. And things can only brighten if moderation in inflation and lower interest rate lead to a less than expected deceleration in private consumption. In that case we are looking at 7% plus growth rate in the next financial year.”
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Features/Investors_Guide/Indian_economy_to_decelerate_but_no_need_to_press_panic_button/articleshow/4031771.cms
China's clout grows as U.S. economy weakens
“When Chinese leaders talk about cashing in its almost one-half trillion in Treasury Bills, as they sometimes do, the financial markets in the U.S. shudder. Now China could stoke the U.S. recession, though it certainly does not want to do that. A more salient reality is that the U.S. needs more money, and China, which is sitting on nearly $2 trillion in foreign reserves, may be the only place to get it.”
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090128a2.html
Russia, China Slam U.S. Economic System, Blame Capitalism
“Speaking on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, they both urged more international cooperation to escape the downturn. They also talked up the abilities of their own economies to ride out the recession. Wen said he was 'confident' China would hit its 8 percent growth target for this year even though that was 'a tall order.'”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,484935,00.html
Chinese moves to influence investment decisions
“Asian equity fund managers favour Chinese infrastructure as the best investment of 2009, research from Standard & Poor's revealed.”
http://ftadviser.com/FinancialAdviser/Investments/Region/BRIC/China/News/article/20090129/70e80344-e7d4-11dd-bc23-00144f2af8e8/Chinese-moves-to-influence-investment-decisions.jsp?position=Other&otherText=consultant&x=18&y=11
How to Heal the Global Economy
“In a packed room for what has become an opening-day tradition, everybody agreed with Morgan Stanley Asia chairman Stephen Roach's grim assessment that ‘this will most likely be the first year since the end of World War II when world GDP actually contracts.’”
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1873191_1873190_1874753,00.html
Honda Swerves Into A Deep Ditch
“Honda Motor's quarterly results Friday signal that the automaker is set to suffer an operating loss of at least $3.7 billion from January to March. Vastly softer demand from the West, as well as a slowdown in Asia and Brazil and the yen's devastating surge, are threatening to drag Honda deep into the red.”
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/30/honda-loss-guidance-markets-equity-0130_markets03.html
US News / Business / Economics
Microsoft Postpones Iowa Data Center
“Microsoft will continue construction of its new data centers in Chicago and Dublin and open them based on the level of demand for its online services. The company will revisit its data center plans quarterly, wrote Arne Josefsberg, general manager of infrastructure services, and Michael Manos, general manager of data centers, in a Microsoft blog about its data center efforts.”
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/158265/microsoft_postpones_iowa_data_center.html
Slump Probably Deepened as Credit Froze: U.S. Economy Preview
“The worst credit crisis since the Great Depression sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin at the end of 2008 as consumers and businesses retrenched, reports this week may show. Gross domestic product contracted at a 5.5 percent annual rate from October through December, the biggest drop since 1982, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey ahead of Commerce Department figures due Jan. 30.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=ayFlXO6K.CSM&refer=home
Fed Keeps Rate Near Zero, Is Ready to Buy Treasuries
“The Federal Reserve left the benchmark interest rate as low as zero, said it’s prepared to purchase Treasury securities to resuscitate lending and warned inflation may recede too quickly.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aek1s.x4XxLs&refer=home
USPS may cut day of mail delivery
“The U.S. Postal Service may be forced to eliminate a day of mail service because the economic downturn has led to plummeting volume and revenue, the postmaster general said in Senate testimony Wednesday. Postmaster General John E. Potter told a U.S. Senate subcommittee he wanted to eliminate the requirement to deliver mail six days a week to every address in America.”
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/28/news/economy/postal_service/
Poor infrastructure fails America, civil engineers report
“America's civil engineers think the nation's aging and rusty infrastructure is just not making the grade. The American Society of Civil Engineers issued an infrastructure report card Wednesday giving a bleak cumulative ranking of D.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/28/infrastructure.report.card/index.html
Exxon Mobil posts record $45.2 billion profit
“Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record for a U.S. company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent from a year ago. The previous record for annual profit was $40.6 billion, which the world's largest publicly traded oil company set in 2007.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28931011/
Stimulus bills have big bucks for ‘green’ IT programs
“Among the programs in the House bill, the Energy Department would be able to spend $2 billion for research and development, demonstration projects and deployment. A House report on the bill said these projects would cover biomass, geothermal and solar energy. The funds would also go toward accelerating research and development for advanced batteries necessary for conversion to electric vehicles and energy storage to increase the effectiveness of renewable energy projects, the report said.”
http://fcw.com/articles/2009/01/30/stimulus-bill.aspx
Technology & Science
Efficient architectures move sources closer to loads
“At the heart of the [data center power] problem is inefficient power delivery, specifically power conversion, memory leakage, cooling and distribution losses. In recognition of this, the world's top engineers have scrutinized everything from power distribution to server and point-of-load power supplies to minimize power waste. Their work has led to architectural breakthroughs that look to fundamentally change the face of power delivery for decades to come.”
http://www.eetimes.com/news/design/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212901943
Sun Focusing on Energy-Efficient Data Centers for Cuts In Cost, Carbon
“Remember the data center construction boom of the dotcom bubble? Well, the opposite trend — data center consolidation – is starting to take effect now that energy efficiency is becoming increasingly popular and the economy has hit the skids. Sun is announcing Monday that it has finished “the largest data center consolidation project undertaken in the company’s history,” with a new energy-efficient data center in Broomfield, Colo.”
http://earth2tech.com/2009/01/25/sun-focusing-on-energy-efficient-data-centers-for-cuts-in-cost-carbon/
Data centers transforming slowly
“Enterprises are more likely to invest in improving various aspects of their data centers but only a minority will contemplate going further, Hewlett Packard has found after contracting a third party firm to conduct an online survey of technology decision makers in 600 organizations in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Brazil, Japan and India.”
http://www.echannelline.com/usa/story.cfm?item=24150
[The consolidation numbers for HP are interesting. They have gone from 85 data centers to six and from 5,000 applications to roughly 1,500.]
Amazon's E-Book Reader About to Get Rekindled
“Amazon will host a media event in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City on Feb. 9. The timing and the venue strongly suggest that Amazon will use the event to announce Kindle 2.0, which industry watchers say will likely be a slimmer and better designed device, aimed at spurring adoption by more mainstream users.”
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/01/kindle-2-likely.html
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/books/2009-01-27-amazon-second-generation-kindle_N.htm
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/why-kindle-2-e-reader-rumors-make-sense
[I held off buying the first generation but definitely plan on buying a v2 a month or so after they come out. I figure they have improved the design and a short delay will give an opportunity to find out if there are problems with the new design.]
Sun Unveils Green Data Center
“Sun Microsystems says its just-opened Broomfield, Colo., data center saves a million kilowatt hours per month -- enough to power 1,000 Colorado homes -- and $1 million in energy bills per year without sacrificing performance. In fact, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based technology company says, the new green data center actually provides additional computing resources.”
http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/data-management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212902971
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/27/sun_broomfield_datacenter/
Google unveils tools that can show if your ISP is giving you what you paid for
“Want to know if you're actually getting what you're paying your Internet service provider for? If you are, join the club. The problem is that it it has been far from easy to get a handle on how your service provider deals with various kinds of traffic. That may become an easier job now that Google Inc. is launching what it calls Measurement Lab (M-Lab), an open system that researchers and consumers can use to access its new Internet performance measurement tools.”
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9126997&intsrc=hm_list
Mars rover may be feeling its age – finally
“Spirit, the aged and somewhat creaky Mars rover, is stalled on the Red Planet with a touch of bewilderment, but earthbound engineers are confident they'll get the mobile explorer up and running smoothly soon.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/29/MNN915JL6B.DTL
The Case Against Cloud Computing
“The five key impediments are: Current enterprise apps can't be migrated conveniently; Risk: Legal, regulatory, and business; Difficulty of managing cloud applications; Lack of SLA; Lack of cost advantage for cloud computing”
Part one: Current Enterprise apps can’t be migrated: http://www.cio.com/article/477473/The_Case_Against_Cloud_Computing_Part_One
Part two: Cloud Computing Imposes Legal, Regulatory, and Business Risk: http://www.cio.com/article/478419/The_Case_Against_Cloud_Computing_Part_Two
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