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Show of 6-16-2012

Email and Forum Questions

  • Facebook post from Kenneth C. Hutchison: About the first email question on today’s show: Last year I wanted to buy an external case for an old hard drive so I could transfer the files. The drive measures about 4″ by 6,” and the stores don’t sell cases for drives that big any more. I searched for a big enough case online, and I found something better: a “Sabrent USB 2.0 to IDE/SATA Cable for 2.5-Inch/ 3.5-Inch / 5.25-Inch Drive with Power Adapter.” Since it uses USB, I did not have to open the case and connect and install the old drive, and I didn’t have to worry about drive compatibility. The price was about $23 plus shipping from Tiger Direct, a little more than half the price Dr. Shurtz said a case would cost.
  • Tech Talk Responds: Thanks for the feedback. I did not check for the most recent prices for these cases. Great information.
  • Facebook post from Cathie Skoog: Since David Burd frequently stops by the studio I suggest you add his photo to the Tech Talk photo album. I enjoy when he pops “in” and provides his two cents. Also, that was a cool story about the microwave!
  • Tech Talk Responds: The next time David shows up, we will take his picture (assuming he will let us). Glad to enjoyed the microwave story.
  • Email from listener in Bethesda: Dear DOC, in my first career I worked as a law librarian in the area of intellectual property. We had annual subscriptions to fee-based information products like Westlaw/Lexis/Nexis/DIALOG, etc. I used these high end information products daily and found fantastic, spot-on answers.
  • Now I work in IT as a Business Analyst where my primary responsibility to gather and document report generating and Business intelligence software requirements.
  • I’d like to find a accurate, reputable source for how best to write software requirements that will be given to a developer team. Everyone here believes we only need to do a Google search. This is NOT correct. Fee-based information vendors should have superior information.
  • Two resources I use are Wikipedia and Safari Books online. Wondering if you can make any recommendation on reputable, established sources. Would someone with a Business Intelligence degree help? Thanks, A Sat 9AM weekly listener in Bethesda
  • Tech Talk Responds: I would go to the refereed journals, like the International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining. Goggling will help you locate whitepapers which are published by companies in the BI field. I find these very useful.
  • You must remember that being a Business Analysis requires strong communication skills and well honed interrogation techniques. I would recommend that you hone your BA skill by reading books, Business Analysis Body of Knowledge, or  or Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis. The second one is an easier read.
  • Email from Alex: Dear Tech Talk. I have a teenage son who loves computers and programming, but does not like school. He would rather just sit and code all day.
  • Would you say that I should just go with my gut feeling and let him do this or should I make his study all subjects (which will be a battle)?  Thanks Alex.
  • Tech Talk Responds: As much as it’s tempting to let him do only coding, the fact is that the real world needs more. When he gets into a real job, he will have to communicate with co-workers. He will need the ability to analyze requirements and create assessment tools. He will need to manage projects and stay within budgets. In short, he will need many soft skills in order to be an effective programmer.
  • He needs English, Math, Psychology, and Science. Maybe even a Business Course. The ability to analyze a problem and develop requirements requires critical thinking skills. Analyzing literature uses those skills. Performing scientific experiments uses those skills. You then must communication your requirements succinctly. English and Speech develop those skills. Coding is important, but it is only part of the answer.
  • So hang tough and make your son study all of his subjects. He will thank many time over later in life.
  • Email from Tung in Ohio: Dear Tech Talk, I would like to communicate with my colleagues at work using Facebook. The problem is that my sisters and high school friends post so many comments that I really don’t like to share with work. What should I do? Thanks Tung.
  • Facebook responds: You have discovered the danger of social networking.  I would suggest that you set up two Facebook accounts, one professional and one personal. You might set the privacy of your accounts so that only friends can see your profile. Then carefully screen who you be-friend.
  • Personally I don’t like Facebook for business. You might use LinkedIn for your business network tool. You might consider Yammer, which is an enterprise social networking tool for business enterprises. This would require that you convince everyone at work to join Yammer or LinkedIn.
  • Email from Leslie: I have heard so much about security breaches with sites like LinkedIn. I am told to have a good password. What does this mean? Thanks, Leslie.
  • Tech Talk Responds: Hackers are getting better at cracking encrypted password hashes that have been compromised. In the past an password was recommended to be at least 8 characters long. Now the experts are recommending a 12 character password. In security, longer is always better. Use a combination of upper and lowercase letters and digits. Consider padding the password with a random character to make it longer.
  • Website store passwords in a hash table. Security breaches have made these file available to hackers. Longer passwords are needed because processing power is increasing and hash tables can be cracked faster. Salted hash tables (with some random characters added prior to encryption) are more difficult to crack, but not all website use them.

Profiles in IT: David Oliver Sacks

  • David Oliver Sacks is founder and CEO of Geni and Yammer. He served as PayPal’s CEO from February 2002 until its acquisition by eBay.
  • David Oliver Sacks was born in 1973 in Cape Town, South Africa.
  • Sacks felt the best entrepreneurial role model was his grandfather, who immigrated to southern Africa from Lithuania in the 1920s and started a candy factory.
  • When Sacks was 5, his family moved to Tennessee, and later to Silicon Valley.
  • He earned BA in Economics from Stanford University in 1994 and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School in 1998.
  • He was a management consultant for McKinsey & Company from January through November 1999, when he left to join PayPal.
  • He served as PayPal’s CEO from February 2002 until its acquisition by eBay.
  • He was PayPal’s Chief Operating Officer and product leader, taking the company from startup to IPO and eventual sale to eBay for $1.5 billion.
  • In 2005, he produced and financed the hit movie Thank You For Smoking through his independent production company, Room 9 Entertainment.
  • In 2007, he founded Geni.com, a family tree building and networking website.
  • For Geni, he created an internal communication system to share information.
  • He liked the tool so much, he spun it off into a new company called Yammer.
  • In September 2008, Sacks launched Yammer at TechCrunch50.
  • The working name for Yammer (pre-launch) was Workfeed. Yammer was selected because it was memorable. The word yammer can mean persistent communication.
  • Yammer was built social from the ground up with Facebook DNA. Facebook’s Founding President, Sean Parker serves on Yammer’s Board of Directors.
  • Yammer and Facebook share the same first investor, Peter Thiel; backed by Social+Capital Partnership. Yammer is backed by $142M in VC funding.
  • Yammer, which is based in San Francisco, employs more than 200 people.
  • In February 2012, its software is used by more than 200,000 organizations, including eBay, Thomson Reuters, 7-Eleven, and, of course, Yammer.
  • Four out of the world’s top 10 companies by revenue are using the service.
  • His office takes up the second and third floor of an industrial building in SoMa.
  • The second floor is marketing and customer support. The third floor is sales, product development, and engineering. He has a corner office on both floors.
  • He spends Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on the second floor, and Tuesdays and Thursdays on the third floor.
  • He likes to manage by walking around—you get to see what’s going on.
  • In June 2012, Microsoft agreed to acquire Yammer for $1.2 billion, a move which is designed to help it compete with Google in cloud computer applications.
  • Sack plays poker a couple of times a month. Phil Hellmuth is in his poker group. He’s won the world championship and has 11 World Series of Poker bracelets.
  • He feels playing poker and running a start-up are similar in some ways. You have to be comfortable with ambiguity.
  • Sacks has a wife, Jacqueline; and two daughters, ages 4 and 2.
  • He likes to eat breakfast with his wife, Jacqueline, and two daughters. He usually arrives to work around 10.

AT&T: Data-only plans coming for phones in 2 years

  • The CEO of AT&T Inc. said Friday that cell phone plans that count only data usage are likely to come in the next two years.
  • In such a scenario, phone calls and texts would be considered as just another form of data.
  • Randall Stephenson didn’t say AT&T has such a plan in mind, but he suggested that someone in the industry will likely offer one.
  • “I’ll be surprised if, in the next 24 months, we don’t see people in the market place with data-only plans,”
  • Analysts see such plans as a logical extension of trends in wireless technology.
  • Smartphones with data service can already use it for Internet phone calls and texting through services such as Skype.
  • AT&T has been recording a decline in the average number of minutes used per month.
  • However, phone companies still make most of their money from calling plans and texting. That means phone companies would want to compensate for the revenue fall-off somehow, perhaps by raising data prices.
  • The switch would be complicated by the fact that phone companies charge each other to connect calls to phone numbers.
  • AT&T has also floated the idea of letting websites or video services pay for the data used to access them, instead of having the data count toward the visitors’ allowance.
  • Stephenson said he expects experimentation along those lines to begin in the next year.

82 London Underground Stations Get Free Wi-Fi

  • Virgin Media has begun rolling out its wireless network to the London Underground with Oxford Circus, Stratford, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street and Leicester Square being among the first stations to offer a Wi-Fi service to commuters.
  • The telco said that it planned to connect 82 stations on the Tube network by the end of July.
  • The remaining 38 stations earmarked for the wireless service are expected to be offering internet access at platform-only level by the end of the year.
  • The underground Wi-Fi network will be offered free during the London 2012 Olympics.
  • Once the games are over, Virgin Media customers will continue to get free access while waiting at a platform for the next tube to pull in.
  • But everyone else will have to pay.

High Tech (and Retro) Father Day Gifts

  • Fitness. Fitbit Wireless Activity Tracker ($100)
  • Any Nikon Camera. The J1 10MP is compact and easily transported. ($600)
  • Tablet: Acer Ikonia 7″ Tablet ($279) or iPad3 ($499 to $799). Ikonia has SD slot and USB port and all the Android apps. A good non-Apple alternative.
  • Starwars Edition X-Box ($299).
  • Jimmy Buffet Margaretville Drink Mixer ($219). Feel like you are on vacation everyday.
  • Denon DP200 USB Turntable ($249). Convert your records to MP3 or just listen to them through your computers audio system.
  • Dyson Air Mulitplier Desk Fan ($549). This bladeless fan is a real conversation starter.
  • SensoGlove ($89) The glove uses sensors to monitor a golfer’s grip and provides audio feedback to warn at the moment grip becomes too tight. Available from SensoGlove.com
  • The Geek Dad DIY manual.  Great for a dad raising his kids as engineers. It’s a gift that says “hey, dad, let’s do some cool DIY stuff together.” $6.90 on Amazon.

Asteroid Passed Near Earth

  • An asteroid the size of a city block discovered by astronomers in Canberra passed near Earth this week.
  • The “unusually large” asteroid was  not be visible to the naked eye but asteroid enthusiasts may watch it pass by during a live online broadcast.
  • NASA has already catalogued 9000 such Near-Earth Objects, but astronomers are always on the lookout for new ones.
  • The asteroid, named 2012 LZ1, is thought to be about 500 metres wide, and passed within 14 times the moon’s distance from the Earth.
  • The massive object was discovered recently by Scottish-Australian astronomer Rob McNaught and colleagues at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Australian National University.
  • The asteroid qualifies as a Near-Earth Object because of its size and proximity – more than 152 metres wide and within a distance of 7.5 million kilometres from Earth.
  • The asteroid’s fly-was covered in real time with footage from an observatory in the Canary Islands on Friday, June 15.