I decided to resurrect my Linux workstation today. Upon powering it up I found that it just wasn't healthy anymore. So, I decided to rebuild it with Red Hat 9.0. Wow! What a leap forward from 7.3 that I had on it previously. Red Hat received a major facelift between 7.3 and 9.0. It was a much smoother install from what I remember. I would even go as far to say that the install process rivals Windows XP and Mac OS X in terms of user assistance and smoothness. The workstation will be used to develop and test some Java applications I'm working.
Doug has a great view on what utility computing is, why it exists, and what will be its ultimate demise. While I agree with his overall view, I think a lot will be learned about doing more with less on less expensive equipment while delivering high levels of service. These lessons will drive the next wave of architectural decisions in data centers.
More clues are popping up on Scripting News as to what Channel Z is. Here's another clue. Also popping up in the Scripting News RSS feed over the course of the day were demo entries for people like Steve Gillmor and Dave and Kevin at Sputnik. Dave is working his mojo.
Steve Pilgrim pointed me to a very simple process for expediting the whole root cause analysis process in this article. This is great! A simple, common sense approach to covering ground quickly when trying to determine the root cause of an incident.
I was combing through Scripting News today looking for hints and clues as to what Dave is up to with his new CMS (content management system), Channel Z. The best I could find is this post from last weekend. What gets me excited is that Dave mentions the primary authoring tool will eventually be almost any outliner. I'd love to be a beta tester (hint-hint). I'd also love to work on making Channel Z work with JOE.
What is the ultimate mobile setup for computing and communication for all aspects of your life; including work, play and hobbies? I've been working on this for years and seem to have come close to utopia, but the parameters keep changing as the technology changes. Given what is on the market today, what do you consider the ultimate mobile setup?
The trackback from lsefton led me to a great post on coming at root cause analysis from a TQM (total quality management) perspective. I hadn't thought about that before. I was looking for a cut and dry process that leads to definitive results. As I have found in the past few days, this thing is going to be much less cut and dry and very much bloody. It is going to be hard to find the root cause when the parties involved don't even want to discuss what happened but would rather fix the symptoms to a point that is acceptable and move on. I can't let this happen. We need to instill a culture in our organization that rewards openness and transparency. Let me be clear about this. No one's job is in jeopardy over this incident. It did not affect production and we have been able to recover the project schedule. Had this incident affected production, finding the root cause of the issue would have been even more important and probably even more elusive with the type of cooperation I am receiving for this almost benign incident.
