Twitter

I tried it, but I came away less than impressed.

In particular, I found the "all or nothing" tweet privacy model unworkable. I also ran into a fair number of modality holes in the UI, where I couldn't return gracefully to previous areas, without resorting to clicking the browser's "Back" button, which felt unfinished or didn't work well.

I also gotta wonder how they're going to make on-going revenue from it?

I think Twitter is most useful to make others aware of breaking news, articles, books, links, insights, and stuff like that. But with regards to the trivia, nobody cares.

Quality time

OK, this isn't computing related. But as a father I found it inspiring, insightful, and worth sharing.

From Time's April 20 interview, with the champion swimmer Dana Torres:

Q: How did you juggle the demands of new parenthood with the intense training required to prepare for the Olympics?

DT: When I got back into swimming, I can't say it wasn't hard, because it was. I felt guilty. I would call the nanny every 10 minutes. What I do now is, I get my daughter involved in what I do. And that really helps out a lot.

Cloud Computing arrives

I first heard about Cloud Computing at the beginning of the year. At that time, CC was as nebulous as .NET when it first appeared on the scene. Sort of a technological mumbo-jumbo that was touted to become the next computing industry singularity.

After that, I saw how HP was packaging server blades in high-density, portable trailers to allow companies to expand services on demand.

Now, there are multiple cloud computing players, too. VMware has declared virtualization is the way, there are storage players, Cisco is selling computing solutions, and Oracle has snapped up Sun to position itself in the game.

Hmm. I'd say Cloud Computing is no longer just marketing; it's here and it's happening!

Testing Priorities for the new Web

In case it isn't already obvious, the future is Now. Web 2.0 is running in production at many sites; it's no longer sequestered just in research labs and academia.

Because of the increasing collaboration, social, and mash-up (uh, "syndication") features of Web 2.0, I think the following testing categories will gain in importance:

+ Performance (particularly scaling)
+ Security
+ Privacy

These categories will probably remain "about the same":

= Functionality
= Ease of Use
= Test automation

And finally, my intuition tells me that these categories will be "less emphasized":

- Cross-platform
- Multi-browser support
- Exhaustive test coverage

Netbooks: Really worth all the fuss?

They're trendy. Compact and able to surpass PDAs in a single bound. But some questions:

1. Do you have one?

2. Has it been a worthwhile investment?

3. How are you using it?

My assumption: If you're a frequent wireless Cafe visitor, then it's cool and probably indispensible. But personally, I'd rather have a five function PDA that will fit neatly in my pocket :)

iPhone++ (the hallmarks of the new device revolution)

The success of the iPhone shows how including API access for a consumer device will give it a long reach. An predecessor that also leveraged this approach was the original Palm Pilot (which enabled a basic five-function device to become much more).

Including compact database capability is also a compelling feature, since it allows storage of data sets and relational capabilities.

Network access is a "must have", too.

Bonus points: A virtual version of the device (allowing developers and testers to be productive without requiring actual hardware).

Conclusion: Look for devices that include network access, accessible APIs, compact database capability, and virtual simulation to go a long way.

Encrypted backups

A friend recently asked, "I want to copy my files for backup but encrypt them so if I happen to lose a CD, DVD, or USB key that contains personal info, I won't have to worry about it. How can I do this?"

I've found it kind of depends on how you’re doing the backup and the media type you’re storing the backup image to.

• If you want to back up just a few hundred folders and files, then Winzip works OK, and the most recent version includes AES encryption. The cost is $30.
• If you’re storing to a USB flash drive, Winzip will also work, or you can use the flash drive supplier’s vault software (if any). I’ve used the EncryptX software for securely storing a few data file and doc backups OK.
• For large partition image backups, the backup software (for example, Dantz Retrospect or Acronis True Image Home) often includes built-in support for password protection or encryption.

I haven’t used free PGP, full-featured commercial PGP, or Gnu PG for encrypting backup images, but I suppose they will work, too. It's probably worth checking out freshmeat.net for open source options, too.

Remember that encryption has the potential to throw a wrench in the works when attempting to access the file later. I’ve had issues with Windows Vista, and it’s possible on other platforms, too. So make sure you have a secure backup of the root encryption key or certificate for this reason. Most encryption software supports exporting the encryption key or certificate in some fashion. If you are using file and folder encryption on Windows, check out Microsoft's Best Practices article for useful tips.

Advanced Home Networking

I reconnected with a past engineering friend on LinkedIn this week, and found out that he received the 2007 "Best Overall Home Networking" award from Cisco Systems. Congratulations, Andrew!

Check out his Blog at http://westcoastsmarthome.com/blog/

Scrum

Scrum refers to an Agile product development methodology that was new to me, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and found a good background description there.

We were sort of doing Scrum at my last job intuitively, without knowing it, except the part for "standing up at Scrum meetings" to intentionally keep them short!

Biting off just what you can chew makes a lot of sense. And fixed, incremental cycles of chewing is one way to finish a meal gracefully or, in the case of Scrum, to keep product software moving forward without losing momentum.

Disk drive backup and management

What's your favorite way to manage and backup a Windows or Linux hard drive? Especially if you maintain a dual-boot system?

I've had generally good experience with Acronis True Image because it's flexible. I've also had some issues with it, like when I tried to restore a Linux backup on a dual boot system, and the boot path lost all notions of the Windows OS. In that case, I had to do some creative dancing, just to get the boot path into shape again. But it eventually worked, and all was happy again :)

BTW, I've seen mention that Acronis doesn't work well with the new solid state drives. So heads up there; your mileage may vary.