The Salty Korean

For most of us, springtime is exciting.  The warm weather and the sun puts us in a better mood and makes us want to venture out into the world.  But as I am so familiar with, many people out there reach a critical mass and enter an almost depressive state during springtime.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve had many (over 5) close friends reach out about the tough times they are going through.  Each one expressing a loss of self worth and value due to a failure in a relationship.  For some it was a poor parental figure, others a failed marriage, some a significant other who treated them poorly, and even some with a lack of a significant other or enough quality relationships.

But if there’s anything I want you, my friends and readers to know.

You are beautiful.  You have value.  You have worth.  You are loved.

With this, I leave you three videos (and if you’ve read any of my posts, you’ll know that I’m a music fanatic).  The first is a song that I hope will stir your heart.  The second explains the meaning and the reason the first song was created, and if you don’t know of what he’s talking of, please ask me.  The last and third video is a song that I hope builds you up. If you ever need encouragement or a friend to talk to, never hesitate to call me, it’s always good to have someone to talk to, take it from someone who’s been there .

Randy

read more

As most of you know, Microsoft gives MVP awardees access to some great benefits.  I’ll admit, this is the first time I’ve used it to have access to something fun and non-work related.  While I only had the opportunity to play it twice (it’s just hard to find the time to play games), the new Age of Empires Online game is quite interesting.  I was able to play it during it’s Alpha stage, and it’s now hit the closed Beta stage, which we’ve been encouraged to invite people to apply for.  http://www.ageofempiresonline.com/

If you get accepted, let me know what you think.

read more

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/lightswitch

Finally, I can blog about this interesting piece of technology from Microsoft.  For beginner to intermediate developers (1-4 years), this piece of technology will WOW you.  I’ll admit, how can you not be impressed by pointing to a database, saying “alakazam”, click a couple of buttons, and blammo, you have your own application!

But after having been around the block a few times, I’m actually a little critical of this tool (which is rare).  We’ve had and seen many tools like this over the years.  The most recent version being Microsoft Access (FoxPro – we know where that ended up, and even VB6 had some tools like this).  Experienced developers hate Access applications.  Personally I think they have their place and are a great fit for it’s audience, but LightSwitch seems to be a new flavor of Access, albeit better tooling.  It’s long term success will be dependant on it’s flexibility.  Because LightSwitch will fit 80%-90% of an applications needs out of the box, it’s that last 10% that will determine it’s usability.

Let’s take the following scenario.  I have an invoicing application.  Depending on the city and state, I could have hundreds of different taxes.  Some areas have a city, county, and state tax.  Others just have a state tax, etc.  Will I be able to take my LightSwitch application and customize it so it can properly calculate the taxes?

What’s worse is that a novice developer will use LightSwitch, and when the customer needs it to do more, the entire application will have to be rewritten from the ground up by experienced developers because of the template like nature of LightSwitch.  Hack and slash coding might develop, much the same way SharePoint and Reporting Services have been.

These are rudimentary scenarios and there are much more complex situations.  My hope is that LightSwitch will be a huge success, but with the last demos I saw, I was a bit disappointed the direction it was taking.  Only time will tell and I can’t wait to play with the Beta once released.  So this is a callout to all of the experienced developers to try it out.  Give as much candid feedback is possible and lets make sure this product is a huge success with long term benefits for developers of all levels.

I made a mental note from earlier in the year.  Microsoft literally buys computers by the truckload.  From what I understand, it’s a typical practice amongst large software vendors.  You plug a few wires in, you test it, and you instantly have mega tera tera flops (don’t hold me to that number).  Microsoft has been trying to plug away at their cloud services (named Azure).  Which, for the layman, means Microsoft runs your software on their computers, and as demand increases you can allocate more computing power on the fly.

With this in mind, it doesn’t surprise me that I was recently sent an executive email concerning Microsoft’s new technical computing initiative.  I find it to be a great marketing idea with actual substance behind their real work.  From the programmer academic perspective, in college we dreamed about this type of processing power.  This has decades of computer science theory behind it.

read more

http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/886099-264/skyriver_and_innovative_interfaces_file.html.csp

In the library world, OCLC controls the flow of information.  A non-profit organization, it is the center hub for libraries all over the world to share information and loan books to each other.  Think of it as a tollway for books.  When a Marc / metadata record is created (contains information like author, subject, copyright date, etc) libraries will upload that information to OCLC.  This Marc record will then be available to thousands of other libraries, who can use that record in their library system to help create their catalog of books.

You would think, great, fantastic … a non profit company for libraries to share information.  Information storage and retrieval is cheap and easy, yet they charge hefty prices for this.  In a typical corporate company the goal is to make money, but this is a non profit aimed at solely helping the libraries.

The bigger issue I have as a technologist, is the preventative nature of innovation.  Libraries are extremely lacking in technology.  It’s only been within the last 5 or so years that they’ve had windows applications for their catalogs.  There are only a couple of big players within library systems, each of them holding back technology for the masses.  These companies have a stranglehold on the libraries.  There needs to be a complete revision of the Marc record system, standardizing them so that new technology available in other industries can make use of it.  SOA – Service Oriented Architecture is a prime example, as well as having a review system for Marc records, and especially having a centralized database available to be consumed via web services.  There are so many technological growth areas for libraries, but the libraries are stuck because a few companies are using monopolistic tactics to make money.

It will be a big win for libraries and the general public if SkyRiver can successfully help change the library world with their lawsuit.  G’luck guys.

read more

As many of you know, I have a passion for music.  And after being gone 3 weeks, it’s nice to be home and discover the new music that has hit the scene over the past few weeks.  One song in particular struck a cord with me and in a matter of a few weeks while I was gone, it went from being unheard of to being ranked number 3.

So the chorus of the song is about “Can we pretend that airplanes, In the night sky, Are like shooting stars” so I can have all the wishes, as there are planes in the night sky.  But the point is, we can wish on those stars, but it’s the journey we are on that’s most important and what we do with that journey.  For one of the artists featured in the song, it took his tough life in Detroit, with all the rage and angst to make him into who he is today.  Whether you agree with his life or not, he’s worked hard and been enormously successful.  Something I give him credit for.

In my own personal life, a tough childhood, being adopted, with many parental figures and living in over 40+ houses (2 countries, 6+ states) in my lifetime, I have been able to take what I have and make something positive out of it (of course with God’s help).  Even when I quit college and the statistics of a good future were against me, I made something of it.  At times life has appeared to be easy (just ask my friends), but it’s because I chose to make my life that way.  I chose to work to live (not live to work) and the work hard play hard mentalities.  Fortunately things have worked out for me and am able to run my own business and live comfortably.

When I look at my own personal bucket list, I’m proud that it fits on one hand.  So for those of you living in your books, looking online about where you want to travel, the success you want to attain, the reputation and fame you’d like to have, the business you want to start, the MVP award you want, Just Do It!  When an opportunity has come across my plate, I dug in, I’ve traveled the world, started my businesses, achieved my own success, and had more than my 5 minutes of fame … so what will you do with your time on this earth?  As for me?  I plan on changing the world for my son in some way.

Airplanes Part I featuring Hayley Williams from Paramore (a Christian) - Video

Airplanes Part II featuring Eminem

(Addendum: this song is getting way too much airtime now and is starting to unnerve me)

read more