mobrec

So
I find it fascinating (and a bit disappointing) that Gartner and others are just beginning to figure out that an effective Enterprise Architecture practice needs to start with an understanding of business strategy and direction and cannot (successfully) exist as a purely technical concern.

Perhaps this is because the early days of EA was really more of an application or technology architecture focus. The much lauded (and, in my opinion, over-rated) Zachman framework is really nothing more than a taxonomy as much as it wants to be sold as an 'architecture'. If you can fill out the top row of Zachman, you have probably exhausted its usefulness (and really gained nothing more that the Who? What? so on perspective that you learned in elementary school).

Spewak then came along with another view of EA that was heavily technology oriented. The thrust of this seemed to assert that if you had a complete inventory of your applications and their interactions you were doing EA. No, actually you were on your way to doing portfolio rationalization – a valuable EA service, but not EA in its entirety.

Maybe it was the recent addition of Business dimension to TOGAF in release 9 that caused these 'pundits' to finally come to there senses and realize what successful EA practitioners were doing all along.

It would seem that this technology-focused approach has been the seed corn for the old saw 'IT needs to align with the business'. I always thought it was odd that there was never an exhortation to have Accounting align with the business or Marketing align with the business. I believe that both parties are to blame here — the business needs to articulate a vision and plan that IT can understand and execute against. Without a clear plan from the business, IT more often than not will turn inward and focus on technology in a way that may or may not support business direction.

This disconnect on having business drive EA sort of reminds me of the strange looks that I would get about 10 years ago when I would try to explain that before an enterprise rush into slathering pointy brackets on their data and declaring that they are 'service oriented' that they should take the opportunity to make sure that there was a single enterprise definition of enterprise data and use services to expose them in a enterprise uniform way. 'That has nothing to do with SOA!' I was told. Tsk, tsk, that is data management, not SOA. Now, this 'insight' is all the rage, with every vendor and consulting firm thumping their chests and proclaiming that 'data comes first' and 'the importance of MDM' as a pre-cursor to SOA.

Similarly the same pundits thundered on that it was laughable that BPM be tied to SOA. Problem is that BPM has a certain amount of ambiguity around what the M in BPM means for any given speaker. Is it Modeling? Management? Monitoring? Mapping? So, yes, for all of the non-implementation aspects of BPM, the service orientation part is largely irrelevant. But for any business process implementation that has system touch points (nearly all non-trivial processes do), services are (or should) play a role in exposing the business functions in a consistent, re-usable manner within the enterprise.

So, yes, Enterprise Architecture should be business driven, not technology driven. MDM is a critical underpinning for successful SOA. And BPM is probably the most visible part of service orientation and SOA is key to BPM implementation. What next, governance is key to enterprise SOA success?

Technorati Tags: architecture, consulting, dubious, enterprisearchitecture, ideas, soa, technology

So
I have been reflecting recently on all of the manufactured outrage, fanned on by the right wing press and shout radio: gun toting jackasses at town hall meetings, scripted shouting at same, the 'controversy' over the President of the United States addressing school children and impressing on them the value of getting an education and working hard (subversive, I know).

Friday was the eighth anniversary of 9/11 and I remember where I was and what I was doing when that horror unfolded (a cliche I know, but true, nonetheless). The intersection of these two thoughts jarred me to a frightening realization — what if Obama had been President when the 9/11 attacks happened?

I don't think I can fully comprehend or imagine the overdrive that the media hate machine would shift into – however, I am confident that these would be the foundations of the 'coverage': Accusations that 'obviously' the closet Muslim/Socialist/Communist/etc was in cahoots with the terrorists and allowed this to happen. I mean, his middle hame is Hussein after all! The searing depths that racist extremist would go to blame all minorities and hold this up as proof of their 'inferiority' ('cuz it never would have happened with a white man in office'). The howls from the roof tops that this is proof that Democrats can't protect the country and that they are to blame for the attack. Contrast this with the free pass that the chickenhawk Republicans received. The cries that would accompany any follow up action he would take: if he acted aggressively, it would be labeled as a 'wag the dog' effort to deflect attention; if he chose a diplomatic response, ha!, further proof that he is just protecting his 'friends' the terrorists. And it would just spiral down from there.

I am sickened just thinking of how divisive an issue this would be hyped into; I am fairly confident that there would be open violence and destruction as the right wing hate machine would fan and even encourage that people take to the street and do their thuggish bidding for them.

So, yes, I am fairly confident that the softball whitewash that Bush got from the media would be turned on it's head and amplified beyond control had a Democrat been in office. Even more so, if it was the first mixed-race president. Sad that this is the state of the 'media' in the US.

Technorati Tags: dubious, history, news, politics, predictions, racism

So
After one short week of upgrading to Snow Leopard, all of the software that experienced issues after the SL upgrade have been updated to be compatible. Currently running updated versions of Menu Meters, Cyberduck, OxygenXML Editor and Mozy without issue.

Technorati Tags: apple, snowleopard, software, upgrade

So
I upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.8.4 this morning to avoid falling victim to a new exploit that has apparently already compromised a fair number of Wordpress-based blogs.

Yesterday a vulnerability was discovered: a specially crafted URL could be requested that would allow an attacker to bypass a security check to verify a user requested a password reset. As a result, the first account without a key in the database (usually the admin account) would have its password reset and a new password would be emailed to the account owner. This doesn’t allow remote access, but it is very annoying.

Once again, the one-click upgrade facility on dreamhost made this a quick and easy exercise.

Technorati Tags: blogging, security, upgrade, wordpress

So
This post was created on my Nokia N97 and posted to mobrec.com using the wordmobi app for S60.

Posted by Wordmobi

So
Upgraded my main system to Snow Leopard. Current casualties include:

Menu Meters Cyberduck Oxygen XML Editor Mozy Backup

Otherwise, it seems that most of the apps are holding their own. The new Quicktime looks sweet and plays AVIs natively (so no more dubious third-party plugins — maybe).

Overall, seems to be a bit snappier — which is always welcome.

Tried upgrading a second system and got the domain manager error when trying to run the install from the DVD. Booted from the DVD (by restarting and holding down C until you hear the DVD grind). This update is still running...

I'll update the post as new developments come to light.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, osx, snowleopard, upgrade

So
This morning we returned from an over night camping trip at the Roll In The Hay Scooter Rally organized by the Gem City Rollers of Dayton, Ohio. This is only the second rally that we have been to, and the first camping one. All I can say is, we'd do it again in a heartbeat.

The event started on Friday night, but we decided to join up on Saturday morning because we needed to drop off our daughter at a friend's house for a sleep over (she opted out of camping with us). We meet up with a few other folks that we had met from the WKRP rally earlier this year and headed north to the camp site near Spring Valley, Ohio.

After getting the tent setup and filled, we had time to walk around and take in the variety of scooters that arrived (and were still arriving) for the event. We went out for a group ride around Noon that took us through some fantastic back country in Warren county and ended in north Lebanon were we stopped for food. After lunch, there was another twisty not-so-direct trip back to the camp ground.

From there the afternoon/evening was filled with socializing, beer drinking, pulled pork eating, raffles, scooter driving/handling contests and devolved into karaoke, dancing. drinking and more socializing. We knocked off around 11PM and headed back to the tent for some relief from dry contact lenses and a chance for some shuteye. Others kept it going until around 3AM (and realistically, that's about the time that we actually got to sleep).

Morning came at 5:25AM for me – I was wide awake and couldn't sleep, so I stayed in the tent listening to the morning unfold. Around 6:30, we were both up and ready to get rolling. After whipping all of the heavy dew off the scoots and breaking down camp as quietly as we could, we were back on the road around 7AM, heading south, on our way home.

I put a few photos up on flickr.

Technorati Tags: fun, scootering

So
Tweeted about Granada Doaba earlier in the week, but thought it definitely worth another shout out because the more I listen to this album, the more I like it. Here is the NPR piece that introduced me to the music. One of the cool things about this album is that I have been lucky enough to have been to Granada and appreciate the music and vibe of the place first hand. But the coolest thing of all is that the entire album is available as a legal, free download. And no, I don't benefit from this in any way, just happy to share some creativity at the right price.

Technorati Tags: fun, international, music, world

So
I never knew that this actually had a name but certainly did partake of it when I was in elementary school at the time that affordable digital calculators began to appear on the scene. Beghilos is the term for creating 'words' using a digital calculator.

Kids have been playing with the word-creating possibilities of calculators since they started to appear in the 1970s. It didn’t take long to discover that 0.7734 upside down made hEllO. One of the earliest attested examples from this period is 5318008, which when turned over spells boobies. If your display is big enough, you can enter 53177187714, which makes hillbillies; mine has only ten digits so I get illbillies (sick goats?) and the longest word I can make is 378193771 (appropriately, illegible).

And, in my case, there is no denying the conclusion of the post:

To be 37819173 to play this game in the 1970s, you had to be young, geekish and slightly bored.

Technorati Tags: fun, gadgets, geeks, hacks, ideas, technology

So
Yet another effortless upgrade from Wordpress 2.8 to 2.8.3 (yes, I have been lazy about upgrading) courtesy of dreamhost's one click installer/updater. If you are interested in establishing your own blog or site on dreamhost, use my promo code of MREC50 and save $50 off your first year of hosting (or just follow this link and the discount will be applied without the promo code).

All I can say is that I am into my third year of hosting with dreamhost and have no complaints.

Technorati Tags: blogging, dreamhost, hosting, internet, webtools, wordpress