Agile motivation

Nice summary here:

• Upfront planning requires upfront knowledge
• Business does not need perfection, it wants action

New computer: software to add (updated)

Installing a new laptop today. Here's the software I put on it:

• MS Windows
• MS Office
• Firefox, with plugins
• SearchboxSync
• SearchboxWP
• AdBlock Plus
• Download Status Bar
• RESTClient
• IE Tab V2
• Windows Media Player
• xplorer2 lite: dual pane tabbed filebrowser.
• iTunes
• GreenShot screencapture tool
• IntelliJ IDEA (€), Netbeans
• Google Drive
• Digsby messenger 
• Enterprise Architect UML modeling (€) 
• IZarc compressor (warning: by default also installs Nitro PDF)
• notepad++
• + cream: notepad++ does not support large files
• winscp, putty
• Windows Live Essentials (will be retired)
• Paint.Net

Amazon: The e-book library

Amazon advertizes itself as a book shop. That's correct for hard copies.
For e-books it's different: you can only borrow them.
Amazon is an e-book library.
And they can take back your books as they see fit.
Without warning, without explanation, without an independent judge.
Here's the story about a customer who had her kindle e-reader books removed,
because Amazon linked her account to another account that was closed for abuse of policy.
The customer asked:

1. How my account is linked to the blocked account
2. The name/id of the related blocked account
3. What policy that was violated

She never got an answer.

We run on any Java EE Server ...

... except JBoss, WebLogic and WebSphere.

My colleague, Romain, found this beauty in the features supported by Magnolia CMS Community Edition:

Feature	Description	CE	EE Std	EE Pro
100% Java/J2EE compliance	Magnolia is developed in Java and runs on any J2EE compliant application server.	✔	✔	✔
Compatibility with Tomcat	All editions of Magnolia are compatible with Tomcat application server.	✔	✔	✔
Compatibility with JBoss	Standard and Pro versions of Enterprise Edition are compatible with JBoss application server.		✔	✔
Compatibility with Websphere, Weblogic	Only the Pro version of Magnolia Enterprise Edition can be deployed on Websphere or Weblogic application server.			✔

SHA-3 secure hash standard selected

NIST has selected Keccak as the new SHA-3 cryptographic hash standard.
Keccak was designed by Guido Bertoni (Italy),Joan Daemen (Belgium), Michaël Peeters (Belgium) and Gilles Van Assche (Belgium).
Joan Daemen previously co-designed Rijndael, which was selected as the AES symmetrical cipher standard in 2001.

The Object Relational Gap (updated)

The Object	Relational Gap
transient	persistent
classes	tables
inheritance
attributes	columns
objects	rows
instance attribute implicity ID: reference	field explicit ID: primary key
relations	relations
references unidirectional  ordered (lists)	foreign keys bidirectional
behaviour centric	data centric
navigate to object behaviour based partitioning methods	operate on set relation based partitioning stored procedures
tight behaviour-data coupling	triggers, constraints
data hiding, encapsulation
	Permissions

Spam assasin

This is the most aggressive scam i received until now.
Similar to this report.
________________________________________
From: Hakeem Mohammad [Hakeem@killer.pk]
Sent: monday 1 october 2012 16:55
To: Recipients
Subject: Reply Me Immediately

To your attention

I want you to read this message very carefully and that you keep the secret until further notice. You do not need to know or who I am or where I come from. I was paid an advance of $50,000 to eliminate you. My sponsors one of which is what we can call a friend gave me the reasons I noted. I am more than ten days and now I know that you are innocent of what you are accused. Do not try to warn or send this message to the FBI or the police because I know that I'll have to do the job for which I was paid. Note that this is the first time that I betrayed my employer.

Look, I'll do everything I can so that we can meet before but I need $20,000. You have nothing to afraid of me, I can come see you in your office or home, it is up to you to decide. Never attempt recording or filming our upcoming meeting. It will pay $20,000 to the account I will tell you, this before our first meeting. Once payment is made, I will give you the file that contains the names and queries sponsors. This is a good evidence that can be used to sue if you wish. The balance of the payment will be settled later. For the moment this is not the trouble I give you my phone number because you will cooperate. I have your picture and other important information about you. I was involved with my team in the Yemen
Arab Republic. You must not ask me any questions.

Quickly confirm for your good.