Fact of the Day - July 24, 2009

Wind accounted for 40% of the nation's new energy generating capacity in 2008.

Love him or hate him, T. Boone Pickens is fighting for a cause. He wants Americans free from not only the control of foreign governments for our energy supply, but also free from the devastating effects of our addiction to burning fossil fuels.  And he is recruiting an army to help him bring the message of how we can accomplish the above objectives to fight the battle with our government and corporations.

Do the residents of Long Beach believe the breakwater issue is important?

Ryan ZumMallen, Managing Editor of the Long Beach Post (LB Post) kept the city informed with a constant stream of "Tweets" during the entire proceeding of the Long Beach City Council meeting last evening, 27 July 2009.  City council members had already received hundreds of letters and messages from residents giving their opinions on the break water issue, and now the council was about to be presented with a detailed Long Beach Breakwater Reconnaissance Study offered by Russell H. Boudreau,  principle coastal engineer for a local engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol.

From Ryan ZumMallen's Tweets (@lbpostdotcom):

On 21 July 2009 The Orange County Access Executive Network (AccessEN) sponsored a program entitled "A Panel on Building and Expanding Business with Social Media."

Many of us old folks have looked at Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIN as interesting, but not essential components of a modern business plan.  The panel,

• Rebekah King, Chief Media Maven, Rebiz Works
• Gabrielle Pascoe, Director of New Media, Dr. Phil & The Doctors
• Vicki Tortorelli, Co-founder, System Solutions Inc.

Had very detailed discussions on how their businesses provide consulting to many different companies on how to best use all three of the above sites for promoting their business, as well as providing various levels of customer support and customer service.

The south facing beaches in LA and Orange Counties are enjoying an amazing swell of high surf.

A HIGH SURF ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM PDT SATURDAY. LONG PERIOD SOUTH SWELL WILL BRING HIGH SURF CONDITIONS THROUGH AT LEAST SATURDAY EVENING...GENERATING STRONG RIP CURRENTS. THE HIGH SURF ADVISORY MAY NEED TO BE EXTENDED INTO SUNDAY.

THE HIGHEST SURF WILL OCCUR TONIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY EVENING... WHERE SURF BETWEEN 5 AND 7 FEET WITH MAX SETS UP TO 9 FEET ARE EXPECTED ALONG THE EXPOSED SOUTH AND SOUTHWEST FACING BEACHES...... The Weather Channel

Over the years I have learned as much hanging around the office coffee pot as I have learned in most formal adult and professional education courses.  The coffee pot and break room is a place where anybody in the office can mingle in a neutral location, and talk about almost anything that enters their mind, as long as the topic remains mostly appropriate to the surroundings.

Recently we've talked a lot about television.  Whether it is ripping the media circus surrounding Michael Jackson, the death of Walter Cronkite, or the last episode of "I Love Lucy" playing on the "Archive Channel," everybody has an opinion on what television is, was, and should be.

Television has changed a lot over the past few years.  Much like print news media, which has always heavily depended on advertising to both define the layouts of press - as well as subsidize and make the actual money for news papers (subscriptions have never made any money for the press), television has traditionally segmented programming around advertising.

"By painting your rooftop white, you can save anywhere from 5, to 15, to 20% on your air conditioning bill" said Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (21 July 2009).  In a rare moment without a snappy comment, Jon Stewart encouraged Steven Chu to continue. "If we start the transition to white rooftops and white pavement, (we could make) a profound effect on the climate."

The concept is pretty simple.  If we spend less on energy, the requirement to produce energy is reduced, and we create less carbon dioxide.

In addition, Chu mentioned that if we painted the rooftops of our houses and buildings white, and the roadways to white or a lighter color, it would have the (one time) effect of taking 1 billion automobiles off the road for 11 years (from a study by Art Rosenfeld, California Energy Commission).

"So Lee, do you think it would make your life easier if you were able to remove individual Microsoft Office and Outlook applications from desktop computers, and spend your time supporting a virtual desktop application managed on servers?"

Lee Morris, IT Manager at CoreSite answered (emotionally), "Oh god yes...  That would make my life so much easier.  I spend more than 30% of my day simply helping people correct configuration errors and application conflicts on their computers.  Managing a central image would free me to do far more valuable work for our company."

We talk about cloud computing, VoIP, social networking, and instant messaging, but perhaps the most important application is silently approaching at a rate that will change our approach to the desktop computer within a very short number of years. 

Since Michael Jackson died on June 25^th, the news has dedicated hours of broadcast time to his life, his death, his children, his addictions, and his quirks.

During 2009 more than 100 American servicemen have been killed in action in Iraq, with more than 4300 since the conflict started.

Silently on the 17^th of June another true American hero died.

Just 18 months ago the concept of cloud computing was still an abstract to most in the IT and data center community.  In fact, those who had even heard of cloud computing were a tiny minority of IT professionals.

This morning, 17 July 2009, Google listed 177 news stories with the topic or subject of cloud computing posted within the past 24 hours.  Whether you believe the cloud computing story is real or not, hype or reality, a larvae of technical reality, you cannot escape the excitement cloud computing is bringing to the technical community.

Even the Wall Street Journal is now devoting a fair amount of space to the topic, with recent stories highlighting projects including Microsoft initiatives, Larry Ellison (Oracle), Google, and HP.  It seems that every company that has any vision or feels they need some quick PR is launching a story or press release on cloud computing.  The past 24 hours present a roll call of cloud talk (from a query on Google News) including:

Recently I had the annoying problem of a failed laptop battery. Computer worked fine, but as a road warrior, without a strong battery the laptop was of little use. Because I needed to hit the road again the next morning, I had the option of living without a laptop, buying a laptop, or finding some alternative.

A frenzied trip to the local big-box computer store, a look at the price of acceptable laptops, momentary depression, and suddenly a revelation. While wandering around the computer aisle I stumbled upon a row of NetBooks. A variety of vendors, including HP, Dell, Toshiba, and ASUS.

In the past I have scoffed at the idea of buying a NetBook, thinking it was only useful as a tool for sales people to send email messages. As a power-user bigot, anything other than the most powerful computer was nothing but a passing amusement. I mean really, how is it possible to run those complex and cool programs us operations and engineering people need to run every day while on the road?