tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-210337702024-03-14T11:55:56.414+01:00transmissions from a free roaming agent of kaosAt the epicenter of technology, the Internet, and gambling.agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-82614439373886829522018-04-01T16:18:00.002+02:002018-08-08T18:09:09.192+02:00How to extract a contact list from BambooHR and import it into Google Contacts
BambooHR is an HR SaaS used to manage employees. It is typically used as a system of record for employee details. Unfortunately, BambooHR doesn't make it easy for your digital address book to use the contact information it contains. Two ways the product could be improved to help out its users in this respect are:
Offer CardDAV service. This is by far the best option.&agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-58770961865050124942014-09-08T16:28:00.001+02:002016-12-19T18:17:50.906+01:00Payday Loans, E-Commerce... and Internet Gambling?
TL;DR: In the future will an e-commerce user be able to take an immediate payday loan to buy something? If so, could they do the same to deposit on with an Internet gambling service?
Some weeks ago there was a segment on John Oliver's Last Week Tonight (US-based comedy/news TV show) on Payday Loans. I didn't know anything about them so other than the information from the agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-1859273483060864412014-02-19T23:38:00.000+01:002014-02-19T23:40:22.092+01:00Wordpress and slow http (wp_remote_get, ...)
Just a quickie: I had a serious performance problems using Wordpress's wp_remote_get(). It was very slow, 5+ seconds to return values that should take well under 1 second. Using curl and wget at the command line on the same machine using the same URL was sub 1 second.
Long story short, php5-curl wasn't installed on the Wordpress server. Installed it, restarted Apache, agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-56502462360616812932013-08-25T21:09:00.000+02:002014-03-08T16:04:22.600+01:00Replacing Big SaaS - How to cut the Google, Apple, Dropbox, Microsoft, ... cords
With a Prism and Snowden inspired kick in the backside I finally got around to establishing some autonomy from the Big Boys with respect to email, contacts, calendar, network storage/sync and other common personal use SaaSs. No rocket science here, just a consolidation of lots of "which one is best for me" research, "follow the tutorial" efforts and Google and log file problems/solutions agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-34898583349277210382013-08-23T15:02:00.002+02:002013-09-07T19:43:48.411+02:00Nipping at Dropbox's heels
There is a real resurgence of cloud storage taking place since Dropbox first launched some years ago and quickly rose above (and for the most part crushed) its competition at the time. I'm going to highlight what I thought was going on earlier in the year, what's happened since then, and then highlight two new services.
Earlier this year I wrote about p2p file sharing as a threat to agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-73929904009085177222013-03-25T02:12:00.002+01:002013-08-23T13:43:41.531+02:00Employee Contact, Profile and Directory Information (via Google Apps for Business)
After spending the usual unexpectedly long period of time to figure out the structure of Google Directory, Contact and Profile management for Google Apps for Business, I thought I'd share a summary of how it ties together. I also provide references to help you figure out synchronising contact info and a few thoughts about the risks of using Google Plus Profiles.
(Please note this blog agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-36197705838363209782013-02-05T13:45:00.000+01:002014-12-09T17:28:18.124+01:00People performance - key measurement points
I was recently asked how I measure the performance of people in IT. While there are many related aspects of people management (e.g., setting objectives and measuring progress, remuneration change process, conducting a formal evaluation, career planning, motivation, creating shared values/methods, leadership and non-tech attributes, work prioritisation, KPIs, ...), the following is agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-29208852857643298492013-02-04T09:45:00.001+01:002013-08-23T15:06:05.837+02:00A Closer Look at BitTorrent's SyncApp
A few hours after publishing my previous blog article on p2p File Sharing - a Dropbox Killer?, I was very proactively contacted by Kos Lissounov, in charge of development for BitTorrent Sync. I received a SyncApp tester invite and was able to test-run the product on three devices in a sync group (2x OS X, 1x Windows 7). Kos and I also had a good and professional back-and-forth of agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-15621888375390144252013-02-01T18:10:00.002+01:002013-08-23T15:06:49.604+02:00p2p File Sharing - a Dropbox Killer?
I've been a big fan of Dropbox since it came out, even with the security ups and downs along the way. They offer plenty of storage for free and it Just Works. However, two recent announcements have got me thinking about how a competitor might go after Dropbox and other similar (mostly inferior!) products like Box.Net, Microsoft Skydrive and Google Drive.
Background - Some agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-68455836579035795272012-08-14T19:23:00.000+02:002012-11-13T15:35:26.473+01:00Dropbox Security, From TrueCrypt to BoxCryptor and 1Password
(If you want to skip the below and just get the recommended answer, go buy Boxcryptor and 1Password on all your platforms. Job done.)
When Dropbox had various security issues last year (the no passwords required for some hours was the kick I needed to sort my security out), I started using Truecrypt to contain all sensitive material I was keeping in Dropbox. Truecrypt felt good as agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-38757382743029382622012-06-10T18:46:00.000+02:002014-08-20T10:24:27.896+02:00The Changing Role of the Technology Leader
Infoworld has recently taken a view at How will the CIO's role change by 2020 which was followed up with discussion on linkedin. I found the article more focused on taking a guess at changing technologies more than changing roles so I decided to take a crack at how I see the role and related skills changing (or staying the same) over the next 5 or so years for technology leaders (CIOs, agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-44617100968146405792011-09-04T18:07:00.000+02:002012-10-07T19:11:11.386+02:00iPhoto and durable photo management
When managing your digital photos, there are three things you really should do:
Make backups of your backups of your backups. These are your photos, don't mess about here - make backups regularly and store one of your backups someplace remote.
Use JPG for your file formats. If you end up with a camera saving in some goofy format either convert to JPG or get a new camera. agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-74857378809481548682011-05-15T01:27:00.002+02:002012-06-10T23:16:54.607+02:00What does it mean to be a technologist?
At some point about half way through my career, 10 or so years ago, I started referring to myself as a technologist.
Sure, I got the usual "what a geek" comments early on - I was the guy that fixed friend's computers and saved up for a horrifically expensive mobile phone when they first came out. Yes, I found myself taking technology night classes at local Uni (pre-WWW, give me a break) agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-59545793260289042552011-04-03T12:00:00.004+02:002011-05-15T10:36:37.707+02:00From laptop to iPadA few weeks ago I decided to leave my Mac OS X laptop in the rucksack for a few days and just use an iPad for everyday use as a test of the iPad's viability for typical daily use. The work included some airplane travel and a visit to a remote office. I also had an external Bluetooth keyboard with me in case I had to do a lot of heads-down writing.
The following is an examination of agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-69143236555348288252011-03-19T18:21:00.004+01:002014-08-13T09:42:35.423+02:00Tightening the Definition of SaaS and Cloud
I've recently been exposed to two vendors offering "cloud" and "SaaS" options to replace two in-house legacy enterprise/corporate (not customer facing production) systems.
In this process, I connected some mental dots that there are really a few flavors of SaaS, and the distinction is quite important with respect to enterprise architecture.
The two service offerings can be roughly thoughtagentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-32288998517551108212011-03-18T13:45:00.003+01:002011-03-18T14:01:59.538+01:00Conclusions from Betfair's Outage
Niall Wass and Tony McAlister of betfair recently published a summary of betfair's 6 hour outage on 12 March 2011. What follows is a review of their analysis.
Most of betfair's customers will have no idea what Niall and Tony are talking about. "This [policy] should give maximum stability throughout a busy week that includes the Cheltenham Festival, cricket World Cup and Champions agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-63510265290424154072011-03-05T18:05:00.002+01:002011-03-05T18:22:49.880+01:00The Trial Environment - Innovation Infrastructure with an Enterprise wrapperIntroduction
A "trial" environment is a high risk production environment that sits within a low risk Enterprise environment.
Circumstances that might drive you to set up a trial environment:
Business has revenues derived from enterprise production systems it wants to protect through risk management, but...
Business wants to move fast and be innovative, and...
Business wants to work with third agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-74737589425320919902011-03-05T14:34:00.002+01:002011-03-05T14:46:45.681+01:00Pesky winmail.dat with Outlook, Apple Mac OS X Mail and me.com IMAP foldersI use me.com's IMAP folders to file email as part of an inbox zero policy I inflict on myself. I recently had to resume using Exchange 2010 based email, but unfortunately not (yet!) directly connected to Apple Mac OS X Mail. To access the Exchange mail, I've elected to use Outlook inside a Windows 7 VM. I then hooked in my me.com IMAP folders into Windows Outlook so the Exchangeagentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-78093564538755537382010-06-07T20:50:00.010+02:002011-03-05T15:33:22.238+01:00Enabling GNUPG (PGP) with Apple OS X mail.app(Postnote 2011-03-05: Don't waste your time on the below. Just go directly to gpgtools mail, read the instructions, and get on with it. It's been updated to work with OS X 10.6 and Mail 4.4. Just tested it, works great.)
I am so not an expert on PGP, GNUPG (GNU Privacy Guard) or OS X's mail.app. But what I can do is explain how I got the basics of PGP working with Mac agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-91761093951934092692010-06-06T15:28:00.003+02:002010-12-20T22:02:59.831+01:00Flapping Tell-tales: Over-Management of Products and PrioritiesIf you've ever sailed with a bit of curiosity, you've learned about tell-tales. Essentially they're the little flapping ribbons on a sail that help you know whether you're sail is working efficiently or not. If they're flapping about all different directions, you're sail isn't doing much for you.
Now imagine one sailing boat with one steering wheel, and 15 people tugging the wheel agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-78640105042133728202010-05-03T15:16:00.002+02:002012-04-10T14:48:52.076+02:00IT Hotsite Best Practices
Introduction
A "hotsite" is a general term for unplanned downtime - a failing site, product, or feature that is having significant impact on revenue generation. A problem is escalated to hotsite level when significant numbers of (potential) customers are affected and a business ability to earn money is significantly affected. Hotsite handling may or may not be used if the problem isagentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-22718908948955723922010-05-03T09:52:00.008+02:002010-05-14T15:48:55.649+02:00Using MobileMe's iDisk as an interim backup while travelingIntroduction
I use an Apple laptop hard disk as my primary (master) data storage device. To provide interim backups while traveling, I use Apple's MobileMe iDisk for network backups to supplement primary backups only available to me when I'm at home.
Having dabbled with iDisk for a few years, I have two key constraints for using iDisk:
I don't always have a lot of bandwidth availableagentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-57784260917649361262010-03-21T17:14:00.000+01:002010-03-21T17:14:39.634+01:00Using wget to ask jspwiki to re-index its search DBFor whatever reason, our installation of jspwiki (v2.8.2) decides to ignore or lose pages out of its index (hey, what do you want for free?!). With our jspwiki hitting 2000 pages, search is the main tool to find pages. Unfortunately, I've taken to keeping my own links page to important pages just so I don't lose them as the search indexing seems to break regularly. While a agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-66524646784593613862010-03-21T15:46:00.004+01:002010-03-21T16:30:59.130+01:00QCon London 2010 - Miscellaneous TopicsThere were no shortage of interesting topics at QCon London 2010. Although I'm writing in some depth about a few of them due to personal interest and/or applicability to Internet gambling, there are many others I'll highlight here briefly.
Shared nothing architecture
- Each node of a system is stand-alone and shares nothing with other nodes
- Great horizontal scalability
- Shared databasesagentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033770.post-60400788091257101482010-03-17T20:42:00.007+01:002010-05-03T15:29:33.318+02:00QCon London 2010 - Cloud ComputingCloud computing and virtualization was a popular topic at QCon London 2010.
Background/primer/proposition:Cloud marketing suggests that hardware and/or systems administration is now a commodity that you shouldn't have to think about too much and can safely outsource.
Just like TDD (Test Driven Development) decreases the need for QA, CI (Continuous Integration) with direct deployments agentofkaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01726092759041314700noreply@blogger.com0