I work in technology sector. And I do round a clock, not only from 9 to 5. It is my bread and butter, it is my hobby, it is the fascination of my life. And with the current rate of change particular in information technology (IT), there is always something new to learn, to try, to talk about. I often post news, thoughts, and reviews. And when I do, this is the category I use.
I came across an interesting paragraph in Wikipedia page on Pantone Inc.
Pantone asserts that their lists of color numbers and pigment values are the intellectual property of Pantone and free use of the list is not allowed. This is frequently held as a reason why Pantone colors cannot be supported in Open Source software such as GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) and are not often found in low-cost software.
The other day I got into an interesting discussion with dad about laptops. Â Specifically, about expensive laptops. Â Using Linux, enjoying a greater utilization of any resource, and being constantly broke, I am not very versed in expensive hardware, laptop or not. Â So I did a couple of Google searches to educate myself. Â Here is a good lineup of the world’s most expensive laptops for the year of 2011:
If you are somehow involved with online tools, publishing, or social networks, then you should definitely check out ifttt.  It is an abbreviation for “if this then that” and it is the best thing since the invention of sliced bread. ifttt is an extremely easy, or perhaps even trivial, tool that helps you to connect and integrate web services.  Say, for example, that you use Google Reader and you want to publish your shared items to Twitter and Facebook and save starred items to Evernote or Delicious.  Can you do it? Sure, the solutions are out there.  But you will be solving each problem separately.  And good luck with technical support.  How about email or SMS integration?  Or Foursquare check-ins to Google Calendar?  You probably haven’t even thought of that…
iffft has a tonne of ready made solutions. Â And even if there is something that you need which is not there, you have super easy tools to make it. Â All you need to do is basically choose a trigger, like a new post in the blog, a new check-in, or a new shared item, and then choose an action like publish to Twitter or Facebook. Â iffft will handle the gory technical details on its own. Â If there is a need to authenticate a service, you don’t have to worry about it – it is already implemented. Â If you don’t like some of the defaults, you can almost always change them – for example, how the descriptions of the Google Calendar events are formed from the Foursquare check-ins.
Emails, voice calls, and SMS are supported with loads of web services and notification systems. Â The interface is very clean and simple. Â And everything just works. Â It’s been a long while since I saw something so well designed and implemented. Â Give it a try, if not for the specific functionality, then just to have more experience with good systems.
Andrew Shen of Chrome Fans fame notified me of the new, very handy project – Search for Google+. Â I’ve tried it out and it, being Google’s own Custom Search Engine, works super well. Â The beauty of the whole thing is that it is available via web, Google Chrome and Firefox addons, as well as an Android app. Â The search can be limited to Google+ posts and profiles, Google Buzz, Google Reader, or a combined everything. Â Try it out – you won’t regret it, I promise.
In a Slashdot thread on the topic of the Programmer’s Day, I came across this insightful comment, with which, having been both a sysadmin and a programmer, I have to somewhat agree. No disrespect to any programmers intended, but sysadmins have it tougher. Â I wouldn’t go as far as to claim that Programmer’s Day is not deserved – we all work hard, but I agree that Sysadmin’s Day is deserved more.
Having been both a sysadmin and programmer, I have to honestly say that while sysadmin day is deserved, programming day isn’t. There’s just simply much more to sysadmins that are underappreciated when compared to programmers:
- Sysadmins setup routine systems that are built by programmers (who usually get the credit).
- Sysadmins only get (negative) attention when something goes awry.
- There’s usually no mention of sysadmins anywhere.
- Unless you are very technical, you probably don’t even know that sysadmins exist!
In contrast, programmers have it nice in the sense that when they do a good job, they are seen as the heroes who created the system. People go to programmers for feature requests in addition to bug reports. Their names are usually listed in an about dialog or readme file somewhere. Also, unless you are completely technically illiterate, you know that someone has to create the software.
The final bit: the infrastructure will crash and burn without sysadmins, but without programmers, it’ll just cease to advance.
Having a Programmer Day in addition to Sysadmin Day is like having an Executive Day in addition to Labor Day: unnecessary, unjustified. In both cases, the former already has the glory on a daily basis that the latter is hugely lacking.