Linux as THE choice for enterprise software development

Doc Searls, "Welcome to GhandiCon 4": Perhaps we'll remember March 18, 2003, as E-Day. That was the day when Evans Data Corp. delivered hard numbers to substantiate what most of us already sensed in our bones: Linux was now clearly on its way to becoming the majority target platform for enterprise software development.

Al-Jazeera, DDoS, and bandwidth utilization

On the same day that stories are running about Al-Jazeera being the victim of DDoS attacks, LinuxJournal runs a piece on how to stop them. 

From a technical standpoint, the most interesting thing in the story is that the Al-Jazeera sites typically receive traffic "in the range of 50 or 60 Mbps."   If you skimmed over those numbers, you shouldn't.  Ladies and gentleman, that is some serious traffic, and I say that having watched the MRTG graphs at some pretty big media web sites.  If you ever wondered if Al-Jazeera was for real or not, there's your answer.

Preparing for InfoWorld's CTO Forum

This week, I'm spending a lot of time preparing for two panel discussions at InfoWorld's CTO Forum conference running March 31-April 2 in Boston.  While doing these panels requires a lot more upfront preparation that audiences might realize, it's always a rewarding and educational experience engaging with people who are very often much smarter than you are.  Expect to see some dispatches from there next week (the full agenda is here).

The first panel on April 1 from 2-3pm is "Redefining the Supply Chain: Market-Makers, Standards, and Web Services," which includes Justin Abel (Head of Americas Development for Reuters), Jean Paoli (XML Architect for Microsoft), George Rimnac (CTO at WW Grainger), and Kaj van de Loo (Director of Product Strategy at SAP).   The second panel ("Business Process Integration") is on April 2 from 1:15-2pm and includes Curtis Brown (CTO of Princeton Review), Herve Gallaire (CTO of Xerox), Phyllis Michealides (CTO of Textron), and Phil Wiser (CTO of Sony Music Entertainment). 

I hope to see some of you there.

Yay for wireless

Three cheers to T-Mobile for providing me with an 802.11 hotspot while I sit waiting for five hours for delayed United flight 61 to from SFO to Honolulu.   I started out as a MobileStar user before they were purchased by T-Mobile, and for once, my account has been handled better after a merger.  Tonight, my account had been made inactive due to an expired credit card, so I called the Customer Service number and they had me up and running in minutes.  I was half expecting the "sorry, we're only open 9-5," but I got a person within a minute of calling.  Not only that, but the first thing they asked me was for my cell phone number "in case we get disconnected."  That's smart customer service!

Along the same lines, what is it going to take to get in-flight wireless service?  If only the airlines would allow a wireless geek corps to mount some Pringles cans on the side of a few planes.  If you can now have free wireless for an hour at McDonald's just for buying a $3.99 value meal, a $300+ coach seat should be afforded the same opportunity -- the technology exists (NYT -- registration required).  

For those of you in desktop support, I bet you can't wait to clean french fry grease out of your mobile workers' laptops.

Commuting to the second shift

A busy time here at InfoWorld, which has taken a beating on my fledgling effort here in blogspace.  I'm about to be on a serious traveling spell through several time zones, so I've been making sure that I have all my tools in order to keep up with things back at the office.  When you get down to it, "place" doesn't really matter that much anymore, especially if you do software development.  If you're not in management and the tasks you have to perform every day are well-defined and relatively stable, I don't know why anyone should come into an office every day. 

The reservation agents at JetBlue aren't coming in -- they use VOIP phones to handle incoming reservation calls.  I've been a JetBlue flyer since their first week in business and I have yet to hear a dog barking or baby crying in the background.  I don't know why more businesses don't embrace this sort of model, at least with some types of employees.  Instead, we cram onto trains, burn gasoline in our cars, and engage in a frustrating commute, all to get to the office that our companies pay a pretty penny for.  The coder in me just thinks "inefficent!"

When a lot of work needs to be done, I've always enjoyed working the "second shift" -- that glorious time between after dinner and midnight where my thinking is clearest and the distractions are few.