Planet BLUG

LiuZheng's OSS Blog: Do you like Chrome?

2008-09-05T05:10:15+00:00

Peoples always love whatever Google’s invention, I am using Gmail and GTalk every day too. But I think I couldn’t say I like google anytime. That’s just because Chrome. It was installed on my laptop yesterday. I’m trying it out when I access any of my google services (Gmail, Reader, Doc, etc…). There are some App shortcuts are already on my XP deskdtop. Base on one day experience of Chrome, I’d like to talk about reasons I don’t like Chrome. I has not tested it too much at present, just few comments below:

Chrome’s Name: I still do not figure out how to pronounce this word, someone says it sounds like a man perfume; I do thinks so. But it’s ok for a name of software, I don’t care about too much what it called. FireFox is cool name, everyone know it.

Crash Continually: It proved Chrome browser is on early stage. For me, I won’t any software on my laptop send out any piece of information which I don’t know or couldn’t understand. So, I will never turn on crash report option for any software. It is still crashing frequently, I might will not use it any more; or install it.

Bookmark on top: My laptop has supper wide screen, so all of bookmarks are listing on the left side of Firefox/IE. I like to access bookmark from left side of screen. It is on the top and just below the address bar, I have to close it.

ADs in Gmail/anywhere it could be: In Firefox, I get really few AD showed up. Nobody love ADs, but Google can not do with our AD.

Without Add-ons: It is so important for extending the usage of your browser. Add-on makes a browser to do more jobs as you wash for. I can list some add-ons of Firefox, they are very helpful and I must have all of them.

I thinks Google really good at marketing. it crashed into browser marketing, its ambition knows no limits. All in all, Chrome is not a good enough to be my default browser; Fixfox will keeping do this job for me. Chrome is a ok software, it is no offence to Googl’s fans.

Asteroid L: New Nintendo portable -- now on IGN

Hysterical Raisins — 2008-09-04T22:06:00+00:00

One more to agree with me :-) http://gear.ign.com/articles/907/907463p1.html?RSSwhen2008-09-04_103600&RSSid=907463

LiuZheng's OSS Blog: best of open source software [InfoWold OSS AWARRDS]

2008-09-04T08:13:52+00:00

Are you running a open source project? If so, you may wash for this awards. Have you every vote for some OSS on InfoWorld? After I check out all of those lists, I realized there are some great softwares I still don’t know. For sure you are leveraging oss power, you may go with some champion projects.

Best of open source productivity apps
The InfoWorld Test Center’s picks for the top free and open source productivity apps include office suite, Web browser, image …
August 4, 2008
Best of open source developer tools
The InfoWorld Test Center picks the top free and open source RIA platform, Ajax framework, business rule management system, …
August 4, 2008
Best of open source storage software
The InfoWorld Test Center turns up the top free and open source offering for network and online backup, network attached storage, …
August 4, 2008
Best of open source enterprise applications
InfoWorld Test Center picks the best free BPM, CRM, ERP, e-commerce, business intelligence, project management, application …
August 4, 2008
Best of open source for collaboration
The InfoWorld Test Center picks the best for social networking, wiki, blogging, and groupware
August 4, 2008
Best of open source in networking
The InfoWorld Test Center chooses its top picks for IP telephony, VoIP monitoring, log analysis, Wi-Fi scanning, server and …
August 4, 2008
Best of open source platforms and middleware
InfoWorld Test Center picks the top free and open source operating systems, desktop and server virtualization, database, …
August 4, 2008
Best of open source in security
The InfoWorld Test Center picks the top free and open source firewall, IPS, network gateway, password cracker, penetration …
August 4, 2008

Raccolta Online: “Free” Apple More Autocratic Than… Wait…

2008-09-02T05:30:59+00:00

Zhongnanhai?

Wait, so this doesn’t make sense: the company The Steve founded in 1984 (OK, 1976) to take Big Blue to task is now… less democratic than…?

OK, so Apple failed the Apple v Beijing test. Is it now time for Apple v Pyeongyang?

You tell me! @pdenlinger’s excellent article tells us the buck-naked truth. So here is “free” Apple, apparently thinking the PRC is “unfree”.

Internally, Steve, I wouldn’t be talking if I were you.

At least at BeiMac, we give everyone the mic.

looking east: Barcamp Bangkok 2

admin — 2008-09-01T04:07:39+00:00

Yay, I made it to Barcamp Bangkok 2! It was absolutely great, best barcamp ever: 400+ people, amazing talks and discussions, thai food, free beer, cool T-shirts, and funky stickers. Thank you so much to the organisers and sponsors for making this event happen.

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, so here just a few links:

LiuZheng's OSS Blog: Xen quick start guide on openSuSE Linux 10.3

2008-08-27T14:43:05+00:00

If you had installed VMWare workstation on any Linux, you may have kernel source problem. Because a default Linux installation do not include kernel source package. I’m just saying that you should always play with open source Virtualization, Xen or Virtial Box are all good stuff to run ;) . I got some screen-shots for you if you don’t have idea how do install Xen. The true is Xen is faster then VMWare on my laptop. I would not work with VMWare anymore.

My laptop is a DELL D630 with openSuSE Linux 10.3 and XP (just for work).

1) Install Xen packages via yast from DVD.

I just installed all of six Xen packages. openSuSE Linux 10.3 installation DVD has Xen version 3.18
Then Yast control center have one new group ‘Virtualization’

You should reboot machine, a new Xen section will be already in GRUB menu, after boot in Xen. Xen server will be started.

2)Create a new Virtual machine by clicking ‘create virtual machines’ icon

I select opensuse because I have only install DVD in my hand.

The new virtual machine has only one 4GB virtual HD as default, it is actually a file, for sure your physical HD have enough free space. You must add at least one CD-Rom, it map to a physical CD/DVD-ROM.

For configure network, you might read Xen use guide. I use bridge for this virtual machine.

Review all of settings, you can change anywhere at this window. Insert install DVD in DVD-ROM, and clicking Ok.

3)Inside a pop-up TightVNC window, Install Linux as normal

Notes:

You’d better have your host machine on the network, if eth0 is not up; the virtual machine can not connect with the host machine.
You may turn on the full Virtualization support in BIOS, in order to create a Windows virtual machine. It depends on CPU.

Chris Drumgoole: Post-Olympics and Toufu

Chris — 2008-08-25T02:49:09+00:00

Well, it’s Monday - the day after the Closing Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Things around the city seem to be pretty much the same - the car ban is still in effect and they still x-ray bags in the subway… I imagine these measures, and many more, will remain until at least the end of the Paralympic Games in September.

The question I have now, is whether our restaurant on the Siemens campus here has green beans (bian dou) and tofu (doufu). During the Olympics, these two items (and maybe more, I don’t know) were not available “due to the Olympics”. Don’t ask me where the logic is here…

I’ll check during lunch today if I can get some toufu. Let’s see if they try giving me the excuse “because of the Olympics” again - I’ll shoot back last night it ended. So where’s the toufu?

BTW, I am a bit late, we saw some more events since the baseball photos I uploaded last week. On Friday, we went to an Athletics event in the “birds nest” and Sunday, we went to the Men’s Volleyball final! That was an exciting match! Will upload photos in due time.

Asteroid L: Mental Exercise of the Day

Lalo Martins — 2008-08-24T02:30:12+00:00

(I'll be posting those more or less every day, until I grow tired of the idea.)

MEotD: can you conceive an universe with a different value of pi? How does that work?

The Downtown Diner: Me and My Hometown Hero

2008-08-23T16:34:52+00:00

I had to wait outside the stadium for two hours to get this one but here it is - me and my hometown hero Deontay Wilder. I finally got to meet him in person after his match Friday afternoon and he is a sweetheart. He did not win this last match (which I got to attend thanks to Deontay's awesome trainer Jay Deas, who snagged me a ticket at the last minute - thanks again Jay!) but he will go back to Tuscaloosa, Alabama with a bronze medal! Congratulations Deontay!!!

For those who don't know the history here I've been writing about my hometown hero Deontay for a while now but have never met him. A few readers left comments asking me when I was going to get my picture made with him and now I have finally come through for you guys! :)

LiuZheng's OSS Blog: Open Source Total IT management Solution

2008-08-23T15:17:05+00:00

在IT管理领域里，商业软件厂商中有自称Big 4的集团：CA，HP，BMC， IBM；在开源软件项目中也好像有自称“开源Big 4”的集团，他们是Groundwork、Hyperic、Qlusters和Zenoss公司。商业厂商向用户推出自己的产品的时候，往往都会打着一些比较大的概念和幌子，说“我们是IT管理的Total Solution”；潜台词是我们的产品非常多，可以满足您所有的需求，而且只要您选择了我们，我们能保证所有的产品模块之间是无缝集成的。事实上的确如此，商业厂商凭着后台开发团队的强大，还有本地服务商的支持，在解决方案的集成性上的确没有什么问题。对于开源软件来说，由于每个软件都在各自为政的状态下独立发展，即使是彼此之间的功能有着某种衔接和集成性，在多数的情况下也往往是各自独立发展；没有考虑到彼此的组合和集成。不过换一个角度看，既然是开源软件，人家把源代码都全开放出来了，如果你想做两个开源软件的集成的话，从技术的角度上说，没有任何障碍；对比商业的闭源软件产品来说，似乎他们又在这方面有着与生俱来的优势。

开源的IT管理软件中有非常多的种类，就拿网管软件来说吧。我的blog上介绍了很多，其中很多的软件都是功能非常重复，而各有千秋的。要想组合一个纯开源的整体IT管理解决方案不是不可能的，需要的是对一些比较精华的软件系统有所了解，并且了解他们之间集成的方式和实现功能。在此基础上做出合理的组合，方能搭建出一个整体的方案。

由于现在ITIL已经成为了大家耳熟能详的“GOOD PRACTICE”，这是08年V3之后的一个转变，V3提出之后，它就以一种亲民的身份，自称自己不再是“BEST PRACTICE”了。既然是要攒一个“开源IT管理整体解决方案”，同时为了保持本方案具有一定的理论高度选择ITIL作为理论依据当然是不会错了呵呵～～不好意思今天心情比较好，废话实在太多，抱歉，下面将开始方案书写了。

本方案将兼顾ITIL中的两大块：IT交付和IT支持。我所选取的是OpenNMS, Hyperic HQ 和 OTRS来分别支撑IT交付和IT支持者两个部分。OpenNMS和Hyperic HQ组合来完成网络和系统监控，它们为可用性管理、性能（容量）管理和服务水平管理提供支持和实现，注意这里说的是为这几个流程提供支持的工具，这些工具本身并不是流程工具。OTRS完成事件管理、问题管理、配置管理和服务水平管理等流程，OTRS本身是一个工单跟踪管理系统，他现在的ITSM模块以及发展到1.1的版本了，同时自称是ITIL兼容的软件。

IT Delivery

OpenNMS和Hyperic HQ的功能定位有所不同，在这里选择他们俩来作为监控网络和系统的平台由一下的一些理由。OpenNMS是agentless的监控软件，它的网络自动发现功能非常好使，而且现在能支持越来越多的网络设备，对于国内的华为等厂商的设备需要做一些定制后才能监控，否则只能看到标准的mib2的信息。最新的版本也能支持分布式的管理功能，也就是remote monitor的模块。我没有让Zenoss入选网络监控的一个重要原因是，OpenNMS是纯开源软件项目，它的所有功能都是可用的，而且它是Java程序，配置文件大多是xml文件。对支持非常大量的网络设备和端口，你需要有的是对Tomcat和Java应用的调优能力，和通过OpenNMS的邮件组来解决bug的能力。OpenNMS里面有非常好的告警事件管理功能，它本身是一个非常好的事件平台，事件升级、报警、过滤等功能都有。而且现在OpenNMS已经能和Hyperic HQ做事件集成，Hyperic HQ的报警事件能传递到OpenNMS中，这就意味着OpenNMS可以作为一个统一集成的事件管理平台，在这里对集中管理所有类型的告警事件。HQ是一种Agent based的监控软件，对于系统监控而言，很多商业厂商的软件功能都无法很好的做到单一代理的技术，当然我认为BMC的Patrol是例外，它的单一代理技术是我见到最好的。HQ的单一代理技术意味着，通过在一台服务器上部署一次代理程序后，其他的工作就都转到web console上了，在那里，你可以配置代理对各种资源的管理，它的代理能发现非常广泛的基础架构应用：Web， midtier, DB等。由于HQ是一个商业开源的软件，所以它对商业基础架构软件的平台支持的非常好，能支持目前流行的所有基础架构软件包括各种商业的操作系统、数据库、中间件；当然它对开源的软件也能够监控。监控参数很多，配置容易，有开放的接口提供功能扩展开发。从OpenNMS和HQ的各种图形上可以很好的评价和监控和各种IT服务的质量。OpenNMS中的界面中最多的就是对某个节点或者上面的某个服务可用性的计算。

OpenNMS和HQ实现和完成的功能能为IT交付中的：可用性管理、性能管理和服务水平管理提供实时的数据支持，OpenNMS作为总的事件平台，同时它还监控所有的网络设备。HQ用来监控所有重要业务服务器，那些边缘的非重要的业务服务器或者是客户端设备也可以交给OpenNMS来管理，它的无代理监控，对这些设备也能管理的不错。

IT Support

OTRS本身是一个非常不错的工单跟踪系统，它在加载了ITSM模块之后，就把ITIL的很多精髓理论做了很好的诠释和实现。对于很多大型企业用户而言可能会笑话OTRS的简陋，不过实施ITIL的过程，我觉得应该是：把当前的繁杂工作，按照ITIL的几个流程简化梳理的过程，每个流程完成比较单一而纯粹的目标；流程之间又能有一定的集成就可以了。对于OTRS的研究，我目前也处于安装和读管理员手册阶段，没时间细看。选择OTRS的一个最重要原因是，今年也开发了一个事件集成模块，它能通过这个模块与Nagios，openNMS，OpenView，Tivoli等监控产品做事件集成，也就是说告警事件能自动在OTRS中生成事件单，而OTRS的事件管理模块就负责吧入站的事件单自动化的分配给相关的技术支持人员受理解决。详情请参考Automated System Monitoring with OTRS Download这个白皮书是在OTRS.com的网站上下载的，我当初怀疑这个事件集成模块是否是开源的软件，所以在Christopher T. Kuhn 的Blog上问他了一下，他向我确认该模块是开源的，并提供了下载地址。从技术路线上来说OTRS是实现了服务台的功能，并且实现事件、问题、配置和SLA管理；从界面上看它对这些流程的支持是比较简洁的实现，你完全不能把它和商业的服务台软件来比较。不过实施ITIL的道路，我觉得应该是丰俭由人的，我相信一定会有人走简洁路线的。想想Apple的产品，它的设计无比的简洁，它简洁并不丑陋，而且还很cool，很流行。

由于这个方案攒的还是比较匆忙，而且技术上没有实际测试和验证，本文旨抛砖引玉的提出一些思路和想法，未经详细推敲，欢迎提出您的建议。

The Downtown Diner: Snack bars 加油!

2008-08-21T05:19:18+00:00

If you think it's easy to be a spectator at the Olympics, think again. You can work up a real appetite screaming "jia you!" ("Go! Hooray! Or some other kind of encouragement!") at the top of your lungs. Fortunately the Olympic snack bars are serving up a pretty healthy menu and the prices are cheap - about the same as in the grocery store.

Just check out these signs from the snack bars at the Marathon event this weekend. To get the price in US dollars you can just divide the RMB price by seven. Yes, you read that right, divide by seven. That means that one ice cream could cost as little as 30 cents. And at what sporting event would you expect to find boiled eggs at the snack bar?

If you want to learn how to pronounce "jia you" you've got to watch the Two Chinese Characters describe it, they're hilarious:

The Downtown Diner: It was just a trip to Starbucks

2008-08-20T07:53:22+00:00

Life in Beijing is so cool these days. Today I was going for a
decaf latte at Starbucks when I ran into the very polite and unassuming Nick Willis. He was there with his wife and they were looking for the Peninsula Hotel but didn't have the name in Chinese or the address. I pulled out my nifty iPhone and did a quick internet search for them. Okay not all that quick, as any iPhone user knows, but I did get them the info they needed and they went on their way to pick up tickets so Nick's wife could attend his medal ceremony.

Just last night Nick won the bronze medal in the men's 1500-meter final. It was the first time since 1984 that New Zealand had an athlete in the men's 1500m final and the first time since 1976 that they medaled. Congratulations Nick!!!

I mentioned that he's unassuming. When I asked them what event they were in town for Nick just said "Athletics". He didn't mention that he was actually competing in Athletics. Or that he had just competed the night before in the Men's Finals. Or that he was on his way to get tickets for his own Medal Ceremony! His wife had to volunteer all that for me. If that was me I'd walk into Starbucks shouting, "I'm Olympic bronze medalist Melanie Gao and I need directions to a hotel." But not Nick, what a humble guy.

Here's Nick and me at Starbucks.

Beijing Analog to Digital: The problem with mobile phone app development

2008-08-20T05:12:16+00:00

I’ve spent the last five years of my life doing embedded software for mobile phones. So everyone assumes that NthCode specializes in mobile application development. We don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I considered it. But I just couldn’t figure out how to make money writing mobile apps.

Chris Drumgoole: Beijing Olympics - Baseball

Chris — 2008-08-20T03:27:03+00:00

On Saturday, we were lucky enough to be offered Baseball tickets (at face value) to the USA-Canada game.

At first, it looked as if Canada would beat the U.S., with a score of 0-4. But, they must have forgotten they were playing a game because they let the U.S. score 5 runs to win the game 5-4.

For more photos, check out my flickr set.

xuedi's Carpe Diem LOG: Linux Revolution in Hamburg!

2008-08-19T08:43:31+00:00

I remember the last years if i try to move people to try Linux there was a big blockade, nobody really know about Linux and what ‘it’ is …

Then i came back about a year later (4 weeks ago) and was a bit confused, it seems Linux is on the run (here in Hamburg, Germany) in all the book shops i count more Linux books then any other technical category, most of them are shiped with very actual distros (ubuntu 7.10 AND 8.04!). There must have been many books waiting/hold back for the last Ubuntu release to get published at the same time. Same in the newspaper shops, i count 11 different Linux Magazine from maybe 20 computer relates ones.

So impressed i went home, just to mention my discoverys about Linux to some friends and the reaction was amazing, i seems now everyone know Linux and even know that it is an free alternative to windows, and there where many many questions. So after talking and explain that there is an ‘open’-office solution, many games and usefull free software, what opensource means and some differences Linux is doing better/different, a friend really want to give Linux try.

Later on, on the phone i give him the suggest to start with wubi i told him i come by some days later to explain what an packet manager is and what else he might need and how to set up a nice system. Well 2 days later i meet him and was wondering as i saw him playing wesnoth with a also new Linux friend online, and he told me what he had to do to make mp3 play and so on … This guy was not a real geeky one, but he manage to ge all the information he need and don’t need any help at all.

So i would dare to say Linux is in my opinion really beginner friendly and with online help like ubuntuusers.de (German) even my mum managed to install everything she needs inclusive network printer and so on, i am still very amazed, LINUX finally spead itself!!

xuedi

Chris Drumgoole: Beijing Olympics - Beach Volleyball

Chris — 2008-08-19T03:57:11+00:00

Melanie and I went with some friends (C, H, B, and J) to Friday’s evening session of Women’s Beach Volleyball. It was fantastic!

The picture above is from the China v Cuba match. China was quite good (and they beat Cuba, too!).

We were lucky to all get tickets to this same event as both H and I applied using our own accounts for the tickets during round 1 of ticket sales way back in August of last year. (or whenever it was) Sure, we weren’t sitting next to each other, but we were close enough - for the later matches, we were able to consolidate.

We missed most of the first match (Germany v Austria) because H “couldn’t find a taxi”, but we made it in time for China v Cuba, so it was fine.

For more pictures, go to my flickr site.

The Downtown Diner: Deontay is an Olympic Medalist!

2008-08-18T14:05:43+00:00

Remember I told you about Deontay Wilder, the guy from my hometown who started boxing just 3 years ago and is at the Olympics this year? Last night he secured himself at least a bronze medal in the Heavyweight Division! He defeated Morocco's Mohammed Arjaoui in a very close match. In fact they were tied 10-10 at the end of the fourth round and the judges had to call it. My mom was there and she said it was so exciting. The judges consulted with each other for a few seconds, then the referee (umpire?) walked out to the ring, held each boxer by the hand and then raised the hand of the winner - Deontay!!!

He has two more fights and if he wins he could get the silver or gold medal. But at the very least he will go home with a bronze medal. I'm so impressed and so excited for him.

I met his mom last week and she told me about the day she took him to first grade. She dropped him off at school and drove back home and as soon as she walked in the door the phone rang. It was the principal asking her to come back and pick him up because Deontay had been fighting with another kid. I guess he was destined to be a fighter. :)

BTW speaking of his mom, here she is at his first Olympic match.

You gotta love those proud Southern moms. If I was in the Olympics my mom would be there with 20 flags on her head, though the world is never going to see that since there is no Olympic boxer hiding inside me anywhere.

If you have a second please leave Deontay some encouragement for his upcoming matches on his blog, "Determined not Destined". BTW his upcoming matches are August 20 and 23. (That's mostly for Christin's husband, who has been watching the Olympics real time and has earned himself the nickname "Beijing Time".)

Chris Drumgoole: Beijing Olympics - Boxing

Chris — 2008-08-18T07:13:25+00:00

On the evening of Thursday, August 14, Melanie and I went to a Boxing match, round of 16 Welter and Light Welter bouts. Many thanks to my old friend Mike (who was supposed to visit Beijing during the Olympics, but unfortunately could not) gave me his tickets (also to Rowing).

I’ve never seen boxing in real life before, so it was certainly interesting. Some of the bouts were a bit slow - lots of hugging and dancing around. Some of them, however, were quite exciting where one boxer it seemed would unleash a deadly series of punches - not really, but almost.

Thanks again, Mike!

See my photos on flickr.

Beijing Analog to Digital: Functional specifications in software development

2008-08-18T05:14:16+00:00

I don’t like specifications. They are not thought through when created, never up to date when needed, and get in the way of writing good code. So why write a spec? Well, the traditional reasons I was told are that it’s more efficient to figure out how to do something in a spec than to figure it out after you’ve written the code (true, but if the spec is hurried through, then the issue isn’t thought through) and that they help people come up to speed on your software when they are adde…

Beijing Analog to Digital: The future will be faked

2008-08-17T06:34:12+00:00

Okay, cool video of the day: Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene These researchers wrote software that analyzes moving video to reconstruct a 3D representation of a scene that they can then modify to increase fidelity, and remove and modify objects.

LiuZheng's OSS Blog: 配置管理中几个的误区

2008-08-15T14:24:25+00:00

配置管理的项目可以从CMDB的建设开始，也可以从配置管理的流程建设开始。我在一些配置管理的项目中发现了一些用户容易犯的错误有很多。先说说配置管理，做ITSM的项目，往往CMDB的建设，或者配置管理流程大多不会非常重视，往往作为一种辅助性的环节在项目中得到实施。例如ITSM项目一上来就做服务台，然后是变更管理流程和其他流程；在一些后续的资产管理的项目中CMDB的到重视并建设。其实配置管理流程和CMDB是ITSM项目中非常重要的一环，它建设的效果对整体效果有乘法放大的效果。CMDB的主要功能我认为有两点：

提供唯一、精确的配置信息库，让所有IT团队的人都明确IT管理配置项范围，有了它所有人都起码能清楚“我管理的东西是什么有哪些？”。都说ITIL的语言是IT管理的共同语言，那么配置信息就是这个语言的主语和宾语；从这里可以看到，如果我们没有这样一个准确的配置信息库，我们彼此之间的沟通会出现多大的误解和迷惑。我在用户现场做项目的时间比较多，耳闻目睹很多沟通障碍；这些障碍不是沟通方式和技术造成的，而是大家没有能从一开始就说清楚“谈论的CI对象到底是什么”
实现一定程度上的业务影响分析。往往都是有IT部门牵头做CMDB，后期也主要是IT部门用。有效的业务影响分析能力，可以彻底提高事件管理的有效性。一般用户可能会有一个集中Event Console，从这个console中事件一般是以生成的时间先后顺序查看和处理的。最差的事件管理方式就是这种“先进先出”的处理应对方式。如果你能说清楚，发生事件的对象（配置项）对业务系统的影响程度，那么你就能够做到按照这些事件的优先级别来处理；事件的优先级就是该事件对业务系统所造成的影响的严重程度。需要做到业务影响分析，就必须做业务模型梳理。每一个业务服务和业务流程也是配置项，IT的人也需要能理解业务。

下面列出一些常见错误，这些错误发生在企业做ITSM项目的前后都有可能，不过多是在实施ITSM项目之前，或者上CMDB工具之前，或者过程中。

1）目标不明确，实施结果无法衡量 Goal

所谓目标不明确，并不是说没有目标，而是说：目标定的不太合理。不合理的原因有一下几种：目标过大、目标过于模糊、过于教条、拘泥于ITIL的书本、和实际的工作联系不紧密、没有衡量和控制的方式。在一定的项目时间周期内，总结之前配置管理的问题，作出一个切实可行的配置管理数据库建立目标应该不难，主要以使用为主，不要拘泥于细节。

2）配置项信息混乱，信息结构无序 Scope

这里的“信息结构”是说CMDB的CI配置项信息查看应该是立体的有结构的很直观的数据信息。在访谈的过程中，有些用户在讨论过程中认为配置项组成的信息结构应该是网状的。其实现实中的IT基础架构组件的确是以网状的形式相关联的，这种想法非常实际。不过人们都太偏重IT了，遗忘了IT部门的最终使命“为企业交付各种业务服务”。业务服务就是CMDB数据金字塔的顶端部分。从IT部门提供的业务服务开始来梳理和建立CMDB配置库是一种“自顶向下”有效方式，是IT部门做CMDB配置管理过程中，与业务部门沟通的“翻译机”。自顶向下的方式需要业务部门的配合，或者IT部门内有精通业务的强人。通过这种方式做出了的CMDB，CI之间的构成方式，从宏观上看：屏幕的投影是树根型的，立体的看是金字塔形的，业务系统模型是树根的根部，是金字塔的顶端部分。微观上看，局部可能是网状的，或者是星型的。没有业务服务作为头部，很难说出CMDB的scope究竟是多大，很难说清楚哪些CI可能会在CMDB中出现。

3）配置信息随意堆积，纠缠于过多的CI属性 Level

每一个CI都可能具有非常多的属性，成功选择的标准是：够用就好，精简是王。很多用户都存在的误区就是“复杂比简单好，越复杂越放心”；大多数用户在项目初期的需求整理的时候都觉得，需求提的越全面，越好，越保险。这种心情是可以理解的，毕竟ITSM项目的周期和投入通常都是非常多的。不过对于配置管理来说却，万万不能有这种想法；否则，CMDB的维护和审计的工作量将非常巨大。一个信息量过载的CMDB，就是一个不可用的配置库。一个只有10个属性的CI和有50个属性的CI展现在你面前的时候；你找到你所关心的信息花的时间上看，前者是后者的1/5时间。属性一定要精简，特别是CMDB从零开始的用户。在设计的初期一定预留属性扩展的可能性。

4）疏于配置信息的准确性和实时性 update

CMDB一旦建立了之后，所有用户一定要对CMDB使用起来，要为CMDB提供反馈。最终使用配置信息的人，如果发现信息不准确，需要及时报告配置经理。配置经理需要及时维护。配置经理最重要的职责是，确保每一个大小变更实施完毕之后对要对相关CI做更新。你可以没有正规的变更流程系统去跑变更单，不过我所看到的是很多企业即使没有实施ITSM项目，其实他们手工变更单的流程跑的有板有眼，一点都不差。美中不足的是，变更后的结果没有地方更新和反馈。而CMDB就是这样一个变更结果反馈和汇集的目的地。在大家都频繁使用CMDB，并且每一个大小变更都更新CMDB的完美情况下，CMDB中的信息会随之时间的流逝，愈来愈精确，愈来愈完善。

5）拘泥于工具的功能，忽略了最终目标 Tool

我看到的最多的工具是MS Excel，也有使用自开发系统的，可有自开发系统最终丁不住在转向商业工具的无论何种工具，假如在一个正确的事实和使用的策略下，我觉得都是可以获得CMDB建设的成功的。一个好的工具还是有必要的。在选择一个成品工具或者开发一个CMDB工具时，需要考虑工具的几个方面。工具应该参考或者借鉴某种国际标准，这里的标准是指某种通用模型标准 Common Data Model (CDM)，例如DTMF的 Common Information Model (CIM),或者WMI等。好的工具需要能和其他ITSM流程紧密结合，特别是事件管理、问题管理和配置管理者三个流程。如果这三个流程是建立在某种工具平台之上的，那么CMDB的信息最好能无缝的整合的流程的处理过程中。

Asteroid L: Nintendo's next portable should be around soon

Hysterical Raisins — 2008-08-15T03:58:00+00:00

The Nintendo DS came out in 2004; the GBA, in 2001; the GBC, in 98. See a pattern? The next Nintendo portable should be around any time. My guess is, it probably was already designed by late last year, and they aborted the whole process, to incorporate what they learned from the Wii, and hopefully the iPhone.

Here is what I predict it will look like, in no particular order — I'm privately calling it the “Nintendo DT”.

Two screens, like the DS, but both multi-touch, either 512x320 (more likely — that's “computer widescreen”, 16x10) or 512x288 (“true” widescreen, 16x9, might be chosen in order to make the device just that little bit narrower).
No physical buttons, except for power, and possibly L/R. All controls are via touchscreen (and accelerometers). Or maybe it's too early for that, since haptic tactition emulation isn't usable yet; in that case it may keep controls similar to the DS Lite, making the bottom screen smaller (4x3 — 384x288). Possibly an analog nub. Two, if they really really feel like one-upping Sony.
Video codecs and player built-in so you can watch your movies on the go (a must with the widescreen).
Camera either built-in or sold as an add-on.
Probably no stylus at all.
Definitely no GBA compatibility. (But the homebrew scene will have an emulator — VBA probably — up in weeks.)
Better Wi-Fi; at least 802.11n. And Bluetooth.
Browser built-in.
More built-in storage, maybe an SSD or even HD (hope not); WiiWare is making a lot of money, and for watching movies you'll need space too. Maybe an SD or MicroSD slot?
Maybe music player software built-in as well. (Can anyone say MarioPod? Or is it PokéPod?)
I wouldn't be too surprised if it uses Cortex CPUs.
“Slave mode” where it basically becomes a souped-up controller (with extra display area) for the Wii. Hacked in two or three months to become a “slave” to a Linux machine; practical application for the hack doesn't arrive for a long time, if ever.

Oh, and I'll probably buy one, install some Free Software, and use it as my “netbook”. Sounds great for media and writing on the go ;-) Unless, of course, the Pandora arrives first...

Asteroid L: Olympics (and other sport nonsense) considered harmful

Hysterical Raisins — 2008-08-13T15:21:00+00:00

People who know me are often amazed at my lack of interest on sports, specially during the Olympics. The question of “why” does arise occasionally, although not as often as you'd think. So I figured, hmm, that's a reasonable topic for a blog post.

First, I don't like competitive sports.

The idea of physical activity for fun or pleasure, I can relate to. You feel exhilarated when you bike, hike, or row up a hill? Good for you.

And the concept of wanting to “improve” your body, stretch your limits, is to be commended. I think.

But competing for the feeling that you're “better” than your (often arbitrary) “adversary”, on account of some extremely abstract, and usually completely pointless accomplishment, like running a ball through a loop? That's just ridiculous. It's understandable, since it appeals to many of our baser instincts, but it's not the kind of behaviour I'd encourage.

In fact, maybe that's the point: encouraging. Many sports activities — in fact, generally the most popular ones — are really updated excuses to engage in many kinds of behaviour we really, really should be working harder on leaving behind. I'd even go so far as saying, in my opinion, the love for sports in our modern culture is one of the (admittedly many) roots of the predatory, every-man-for-himself mentality which is perhaps the greatest obstacle to our evolution into a fairer and, well, more reasonable society.

And there you go, we segue nicely into the Olympics. The whole thing is, as I see it, hugely hypocritical. Its proponents, like many supporters of sports all over the world, try to pass it as a symbol of union and brotherhood; but at the bottom line, it's all about “my” country getting more medals than yours. It's not only a barbaric competitive tribal war, it's also a reinforcement of nationalism, which is another thing we're overdue getting rid of.

Feel free, if you want, to invite me for a hike, or biking, golfing, or even, if I'm in the right mood, a baseball game. But please, please, don't invite me to watch sports; while I understand and share the pleasure of doing it, I really see no point in watching it. And above all, don't ask me about the Olympics, unless you really want to hear how strongly I don't care.

Beijing Analog to Digital: The trouble with concept products

2008-08-13T03:02:57+00:00

Here’s a great article on Why Apple doesn’t do “Concept Products” Kontra talks about the endless product concepts put out by General Motors, Nokia, and the like that never go anywhere, and comes up with a new spin on one of Steve Jobs’ favorite sayings:

The Downtown Diner: My Hometown Hero

2008-08-12T16:28:59+00:00

In 2005 Deontay Wilder was not too different from most of the guys in my hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama - graduated from Central High School, had a girlfriend, had a steady job delivering beer for Greene Beverage. But in 2005 things started changing for him. That's when his daughter Naieya was born with spina bifida, a condition in which the spinal cord doesn't form properly while the baby is in utero. Before Naieya was born her doctors told Deontay that her condition was severe and that this baby was going to require a lot of surgeries and treatments if she was ever going to learn to walk. And naturally that meant Deontay was going to have to come up with a lot of money to pay for all the surgeries and treatments, and he knew that was going to be tough in his current job so he started searching for ways to earn a lot of money fast. One day when he was making a delivery to a local restaurant he saw Jay Deas' Skyy Boxing gym across the parking lot. He walked over to check it out, heard the sound of gloves hitting punching bags and said something inside him stirred. It was the first time he'd ever set foot in a boxing gym.

Okay, flash forward three years and Deontay is AT THE OLYMPICS!!! Can you believe that? In 2005 he strapped on a pair of boxing gloves for the very first time and now in 2008 he might very well win a gold medal in men's heavyweight boxing. I can't imagine the dedication and passion that has fueled his rapid ascent. I don't even know him but he's my latest hometown hero.

Deontay and Evander Holyfield

Deontay has his first fight tomorrow, August 13, so if you're watching TV or if you're lucky enough to be there, please cheer extra loud for him. I want him to win for his own sake and for the sake of his daughter.

If you want to give him personal props you can leave a comment on his blog, "Determined not Destined".

Go Deontay!!!

Chris Drumgoole: Beijing Olympics - Rowing

Chris — 2008-08-12T00:15:34+00:00

Melanie and I went to our first Olympic event on Saturday - Rowing. Specifically, we went to the first day of the event. I must thank my friend Mike, from High School, who was actually supposed to visit me here in Beijing during the Olympics, but couldn’t due to prior commitments. He was able to give me the tickets he purchased via proxy. Here are my flickr photos. Unfortunately, we didn’t think to bring Melanie’s good camera!

As you can see from the photo above, the weather was eh. I think it was fog ? But being there was certainly interesting - I’ve never seen a rowing event in person, and of course, this was my first Olympics. There was a sort of energy in the crowed when the rowers came by. My only complaint - the sport is a tad on the slow side. Our seats were very near the finish line (although not directly at the finish line) and because the track is 2km long, it taks about 5 or so minutes for the boats to get into view. Then another 2 minutes for them to pass in front and glide across the finish line. And because we weren’t directly in front of the finish line, we couldn’t tell who won!

But certainly an experience! Thanks Mike!

Oh, if you ever go to a rowing event, it’s way out in Shunyi - about 50+km from the city. We didn’t do our due diligence to find that there were free buses - we paid 150 RMB for a taxi out there! Ouch! We took the bus back, though.

Next up: Boxing!

Pollution-china.com - Blog: Ozone and PM2.5 data in Beijing?

2008-08-11T10:44:20+00:00

I blogged yesterday about how international pressure helps Beijing improving its air. Today I found this announcement : Beijing might start to monitor ozone and very fine particle matters (PM2.5) starting from next year.

Ozone is harmful for our health but there is no data available now. Having a daily monitoring of ozone would help people avoiding pollution peaks. It would also encourage Beijing municipality to take measures against ozone pollution.

Having PM2.5 data would also be interesting as particle matters are the main pollutants in Beijing. PM2.5 concentration is important as those fine particles are the most harmful for human health. Knowing both PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations would give us a more precise overview of the situation.

Let's hope Beijing officials will not forget this promise after August 24th!

Pollution-china.com - Blog: The green side of Olympics

2008-08-10T15:47:04+00:00

I usually see the dark side of air pollution in Beijing: the data! The reason is that air in Beijing is not good compared with international standards. It is a fact that on most days air in Beijing would be considered as bad in European cities.

However, if I step back and have a look at the general context I am impressed by the efforts Beijing made to curb the emissions and by its successes in controlling the pollution. It is amazing that with more than 10% yearly growth over the last 7 years, SO2 & CO levels have been significantly reduced and NO2 & particle concentrations have been stabilized.

The measures that have been taken are really bold and I am sure no developped country would have been able to implement them. As it might be hard to understand for people not living in China, here below are just few of the measures taken to modernize transportation:

Replacement of old and polluting taxis (77.5% of Beijing taxis in 2001),
Opening of 4 new subway lines in the last 10 months,
Drop of public transportation price in 2007 (33% to 60% drop on subway fare),
Replacement of many old buses by comfortable and ecological buses...

Thanks to these measures the use of public transportation is now cheap and comfortable. People can let their cars at home and commute with mass transport. It's good for our air and for the people!

For sure, air in Beijing is not good yet. But I think it would be much worse if the Olympics were not here: the international pressure helped Beijing to improve the environmental situation.

However, more efforts need to be made to achieve a good air quality and I hope the current momentum will be sufficient to stay on this positive trend.

LiuZheng's OSS Blog: one minute to build your wap version blog

2008-08-10T13:01:27+00:00

Wap version of my blog http://tinyurl.com/martinliu You could also build yours within one minute. I think it is worth to do, since more and more peoples are surfing from mobile device. You might get a wap link on your home page, I will do it after get this post publish out.

Now, it time to explain how to do a wap blog.

open Google Moblizer in your browser
enter your url of your blog, then click go button
google moblizer will adjust your blog page to flat wap version. only one font and same size, smaller pictures, white background; those are perfect to fit for more cell phones. it is also easy to read.
copy the current url into a text file, this url looks like ‘http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.martinliu.cn’
go to www.tinyurl.com; paste the url to make a tinyurl
finally, you get a tiny url for your wap version blog
enjoy

I’m using wordpress for my blog. Wordpress should have some sort of plugin to do this. If you know about it, please leve me a comment. Thanks!

LiuZheng's OSS Blog: 2008 Beijing Olympic Game introduce China to the world

2008-08-08T15:52:40+00:00

中午后去超市购物；超市的人可真多啊，大家都在采购备战晚上的奥运哈哈。我也买的毫不手软啊，西瓜、王老吉、可乐、牛肉、蔬菜等等！回家后，先炖上一锅牛腩萝卜汤，昨天立秋，今天贴贴秋膘有不迟。

准时5点就开始收获在电视机前。等待开幕式的开始。开幕式终于开始，虽然视觉上的冲击性不强，不过还是完美的展示了中华文化的精髓。通过四大发明的展示，以东方人含蓄和细腻的手法，把吾国浩浩汤汤2000多年的历史优美的展示与全球世人面前。地球村的创意我觉得非常好，最后刘欢站在最上方高歌一曲，挺好。兴致最好的时候牛腩汤经过几个小时的熬制，也香气扑鼻了，呵呵来上一碗，继续看

总之真个文艺演出，文化气息十足，可圈可点之处也很多；唯一担心的是怕老外们理解不了。现在终于看到中国代表队在姚明的带领下，正缓缓入场；中国体育健儿的队伍可真大啊！！！

中国加油!!!

哈哈忍不住了，我也在blog上喊一嗓子吧，明天奥运的战幕就缓缓拉开了，希望他们拿更多金牌为国争光。

现在中国队走到了中场，期待圣火点燃的那一刻吧。顺便说一句，有人说中国队的服装配色有点借鉴了‘西红柿炒鸡蛋’的色彩，呵呵有点象，的确有点象，而且那时我的拿手菜:) 今年北京的天气，好的是，天公作美，真的憋住，愣是没有下雨；不好的是，桑拿的程度太高了。场内入场的所有运动员，从电视上可以看出都已经是大汗淋漓了，都在等待圣火。烟火，有事一波烟火，整个鸟巢像是个火锅一样，再次沸腾一次。

中国画，由所有运动员参与绘制的一副巨画放到了场地中央，这幅画可谓整场的一个核心线索，这可能是老谋子的idea吧，和拍电影的道理一样，需要有一个线索贯穿始终，像是ice age2里的那颗坚果。不知道以后会把它放在那，细看这画很不错，写意，非常写意，还有点点现代气息。

刘淇开始讲话了。不禁回想起，我在看圣火采集实况转播时候的激动心情，他在希腊的采集圣火的神殿哪里也发言了。LP说他在这发言可谓捡了一个不小的便宜，前人种树后人乘凉啊!!

胡锦涛主席宣布“大会开始！！” 呵呵，有一波强烈烟火，太cool了！！奥运会旗入场了，八人举着会旗缓缓入场，8人都是奥运的元老人物。现在看到那些在场地周边，做分割线的MM们好像不用再跳跳跳的欢迎了，这些MM已经在入场式的时候跳了快2个小时了，体力不行还真去不了啊，辛苦辛苦了！哈哈！！护旗手开始升会旗，不得不说中国的护旗手世界上最cool，赞一个！！在赞一次天工吧，到现在为止，一滴雨都没下，真给面子啊！

张怡宁右手抓五环旗开始宣誓，她表现的很腼腆：）黄利庭代表裁判员宣誓，慷慨激扬，强！！

我看时间一定要拖到12点整了，不行我先把这个post发布一下啊，一定要讨到八月八的这个好彩头。发布ed

DONE继续，很大很强的一个烟火在鸟巢上空喷出，绚烂啊！！许海峰手持火炬入场，开幕式的最大悬念缓缓揭开了。啊！点燃了高敏的火炬～～～转给李小双，继续跑，传给第四个占旭刚，跑～～这第五个张军该是最后一个了吧，都快是最后一分钟了，我和LP都猜，最后一个是谁呢？刘翔？？第六位了陈中，跑～第七个了，孙晋芳，第八个该是最后一个吧？继续跑～过0点了。火炬在晚上看，真好看，最后一个李宁了，被吊起来到空中，很高，很高，继续升高～～OH my god ，升到最高处，绕嘴上圈，在空中跑，创意啊！！！赞！！！画卷在他下面缓缓打开，画卷始终在他身后，缓缓打开，太强了，弓虽！！！牛啊～～～李宁依然在空中认真的跑着，要绕场一周了，看来，不知主火炬到底在哪里啊？？到了，主火炬终于出现了，点ing。。点了一个导火索，导火索螺旋上升，圣火熊熊绽放在北京夜空～～全城烟火一起点燃，烟火到达等顶峰。一个五环的烟火呀！！我坐在家里可以听到隆隆的烟火声，家里的视野不好，无奈啥也看不到！

刚才急奔向楼顶，想看一眼最后的绚烂，可惜到了楼顶的门口发现，门已被锁，而且上了封条了。外面的烟火声还是有，心里一个字痒啊～～～不过无奈总是难免的，我的奥运开幕式实况转播也要结束了。

动态奥运奖牌榜

looking east: How to make money with FOSS?

admin — 2008-08-08T06:29:31+00:00

“What you say sounds great, but honestly, how can we make money with FOSS?” This is a question I have been frequently asked since I have come to China. It’s the kind of question which made think a lot about FOSS and it’s business model. It’s a question which seems crucial for China, and since I have been asked so many times, I have been trying to improve my answer by asking other people. However, none of these solutions seemed really satisfying, and whatever I said was met with strong resistance and further questions.

When reading the book Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, I found the following answer to the question by Robert Young:

“That question assumes that it is easy, or at least easier, to make money selling proprietary binary-only software.

This is a mistake. Most software ventures, whether based on free or proprietary software, fail. Given that until very recently all software ventures were of the proprietary binary-only kind, it is therefore safe to say that the IP (Intellectual Property) model of software development and marketing is a very difficult way to make a living. […]

No one expects it to be easy to make money in free software. While making money with free software is a challenge, the challenge is not necessarily greater than with proprietary software. In fact you make money in free software exactly the same way you do it in proprietary software: by building a great product, marketing it with skill and imagination, looking after your customers, and thereby building a brand that stands for quality and customer service.” (chapter 9)

The fact that it’s very difficult to make money with proprietary software is probably even more true for China. In a country in which nobody is actually willing to pay for software, the question should not be: “How can we make money with FOSS?”, but rather: “How can we make money with software?”. But let’s first continue looking at the original question. As Robert Young puts it, in some cases using FOSS can even be a competitive advantage:

“Marketing with skill and imagination, particularly in highly competitive markets, requires that you offer solutions to your customers that others cannot or will not match. To that end Open Source is not a liability but a competitive advantage. The Open Source development model produces software that is stable, flexible, and highly customizable. So the vendor of open-source software starts with a quality product. The trick is to devise an effective way to make money delivering the benefits of open-source software to you clients.” (chapter 9)

This is exactly what I tried to say when I tried to answer the question. I told them that FOSS allowed them to start off with a high-quality source base rather than reimplementing everything from scratch, that open source made it easier (and affordable) to build highly customised products, I mentioned that in the West many businesses have been created because of the relative low cost of building software on top of FOSS. However, all these explanations were countered with more questions and strange looks.

Today, I believe that Robert Young does successfully answer the question of how to make money with FOSS. I also think that my answers were not totally wrong, though I simply missed one important fact: That making money with FOSS doesn’t have to be harder than making money with proprietary software. And thanks to Robert Young, I believe that the real question should be “How can we make money with software?”, and more specifically, “How can we make money with software in China?”.

Beijing Analog to Digital: How many goats are you worth?

2008-08-08T02:36:42+00:00

Back before I ended up in China, I spent about two years of my life backpacking around Asia. Along the way, I met-up with an Argentinean, who’d spent time in Africa. He told me that while there, he ended up discussing with an African villager the cost of a wife in cows.

Yan Li's Words: Generating Gantt from Bugzilla Tasks by Using TaskJuggler

Yan Li — 2008-08-07T18:05:45+00:00

We've been using Bugzilla in various projects to track tasks' status and it turned out to be an excellent tool for collaboration and project management. Gantt is useful in various ways for project status checking and planning. Today I've spent some time to set up automatically generation of Gantt from Bugzilla tasks by using a combination of various tools.

TaskJuggler: excellent free software on task scheduling and report generation, with beautiful GUI and powerful command-line interface.

Bugzilla:TaskJugglerIntegration: export Bugzilla tasks to TaskJuggler project file.

The script bztotj.py from Bugzilla:TaskJugglerIntegration is easy to understand, and by changing the SQL in it you can export tasks from Bugzilla by arbitrary filters.

TaskJuggler's task is written in plain text so it's good for change management. It also features a nice GUI editor. You may need some time to learn to write project files but once you get it you can write versatile project files and, by writing scripts to manipulate them, implement complex project scheduling schema.

If you want to generate Gantt from TaskJuggler tasks without human interference, you can use this tool: http://blog.gustavobarbieri.com.br/2007/04/19/generating-gantt-graphs-from-taskjuggler-projects-without-using-its-ui/

Beijing Analog to Digital: Beijing Purchasing Big Iron for the Games

2008-08-07T07:07:12+00:00

Here’s one for the nerds: Olympics technology: Planners' heads are in the clouds Culture modifies perception, and, as a six-sigma trained nerd, I see the above as a good sign. Six-sigma? Wikipedia covers it. Anyway, I read this and immediately thought of the six-sigma DMAIC process -- Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. Buying the supercomputer should definitely help them with the ‘Measure’ and ‘Analyze’ part of the equation.

Chris Drumgoole: Day Before Olympic Opening - Air Not So Goo

Chris — 2008-08-07T03:06:02+00:00

Air not so clean with 1 day to go, eh?

Asteroid L: Sun-Chained-in-Ink

Lalo Martins — 2008-08-06T16:43:58+00:00

DC's Trinity #10 has a villain called "Sun-Chained-in-Ink". Pronounced "All reasonable names were taken". Come on, DC, really?

looking east: FOSS in China: Hypotheses

admin — 2008-08-06T11:13:14+00:00

I have spent a bit over three months in China, trying to find out how FOSS is organised and how it’s different in China from what we see the West. When I met Basile two weeks ago in Beijing, we have come up with the following hypotheses:

Language is an impediment. Most FOSS activities take place in English.
There is no culture of innovation in China.
The discussion culture in FOSS projects is too confrontational.
FOSS is still too young in China to be successful.
There is only little support for FOSS in the Chinese software industry. Piracy has a negative effect on the creation of a proper software industry in general. Customers are not willing to pay for software.
Students don’t learn about FOSS at universities and hence don’t know about it.
Individuals can’t make money with FOSS in China.
Chinese government policies are not favourable towards FOSS.

These hypotheses are an extension to the ones presented in an earlier entry I have posted in February. They are specifically applied to China (because that’s the country I am currently studying) rather than Asia in general, though I do think that most of them could be applied to other countries like Thailand too.

Despite the fact that these hypotheses are rather negative in their formulation and might have some other shortcomings, I believe that they provide a good basis for further discussions. Also, hypotheses are there to be proved or disproved, they don’t need to be valid in the first place.

Why am I posting this?

Because I would like to get some feedback. I would love to know if there is something completely wrong with them, if I have totally missed the point, if I have forgotten something important, or anything else you have thought of while reading them. Please let me know :).

looking east: About Modifiability

admin — 2008-08-06T09:56:56+00:00

Technical objects define in their configuration a certain partition of the physical and social world, they attribute roles to certain types of actors - humans and non-humans - and exclude others, they authorise certain modes of relations between these different actors […] in such a way that they participate as a whole to the construction of a culture in the anthropological sense of the term, and, at the same time, they become enforced mediators in all relations that we are maintaining with the “real”.

Madelaine Akrich, Comment décrire les objets techniques?

Later in her paper, Madelaine Akrich introduces the term “script” to refer to the behaviour of a technical object. The “script” is the program which the original developers write in order to define how the object can be used by its users.

For the purpose of studying FOSS in Asia, the technical object would be a piece of FOS software, its behaviour is defined by the source code, and the users are people who are using this software from within the borders of what is defined as Asia.

However, the scope of my master thesis as described above is not complete. FOS software has a specific characteristic which is related to it’s licensing terms. I don’t want to enter into FOSS licensing in detail, but I would like to emphasise one interesting aspect of open source software: modifiability. This means, we can take a piece of existing FOS software and tailor it to our needs. Going back to Madelaine Akrich’s definition of the “script”, this means that the “script” can be modified by its users. We are thus moving away from the traditional developer-user model to a more distributed open source community development model. In FOSS, users are not stuck with a pre-defined script, rather they are encouraged to change the script according to their needs. This in turn, forces users to think about the software in terms of its utility to an individual.

To be honest, the source code or “script” cannot be changed by any random user. Instead, this freedom is restricted to people who are familiar with computer programming. However, FOSS has made it easy for users to give feedback, propose new features, and report bugs. You don’t need to be a programmer to do this, though you still need to be able to use a computer and run the program.

Implementing modifiability into objects is not new, although the open source movement and its derivatives have been strongly promoted lately. In his book Two Bits, Kelty investigates the impact of modifiability on culture, he writes:

But what is the cultural significance of modifiability? What does it mean to plan in modifiability to culture, to music, to education and science? At a clerical level, such a question is obvious whenever a scholar cannot recover a document written in WordPerfect 2.0 or on a disk for which there are no longer disk drives, or when a library archive considers saving both the media and the machines that read that media. Modifiability is an imperative for building infrastructures that can last longer. However, it is not only a solution to a clerical problem: it creates new possibilities and new problems for long-settled practices like publication, or the goals and structure of intellectual-property systems, or the definition of the finality, lifetime, monumentality, and especially, the identity of a work. Long-settled, seemingly unassailable practices — like the authority of published books or the power of governments to control information—are suddenly confounded and denaturalized by the techniques of modifiability. (page 12)

Modifiability is at the core of FOSS. It’s one of the main reasons why FOSS communities have emerged. It’s at the base of almost all discussions on mailinglists, forums, IRC channels and FOSS events. The users and developers can decide the future of the software by participating in these discussions. The fact that a FOSS culture has emerged around open source software, proves Madelaine Akrich’s point that technical objetcts are important elements in the construction of cultures. And, of course, despite it’s modifiability, FOS software has a “script” which clearly defines how it’s supposed to be used

on safari: Tajikistan

admin — 2008-08-05T11:38:44+00:00

I have left Beijing a bit over two weeks ago because I couldn’t get a visa for the Olympics. I am currently staying in Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s pleasant capital city with plenty of green trees and blue sky. Green trees and blue skies might sound like pleonasm to you, but believe me after having stayed in Beijing for a while, I can tell the difference.

Last week I went on a field trip with Fabian to Dijik and Lyanga and I have discovered some of the most fantastic sceneries I have ever seen. Unfortunately internet here really sucks, so I only could upload very few pics.

Check out the full flickr foto set here.

The Downtown Diner: Another localized release - Communications Suite 6

2008-08-05T05:41:36+00:00

The English and localized versions of the Sun Java Communications Suite 6 have just been released! The single most important feature is Sun Convergence, which is the next generation unified communications client. If you want to see some screenshots of Convergence check out Jim Parkinson's blog.

For Comms 6 we did a 'sim ship', which means the localized versions shipped simultaneously with the English version. It's really difficult for both the development team and the localization team so hats off to everyone who pulled this off! There are seven localized versions of Comms 6: Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Spanish, German and French.

Why don't you take it for a spin?

Here's a cool graphic that Srinu generated using wordle.net, which lists all the members of the G11n team for this release. Congratulations everyone!!!

LiuZheng's OSS Blog: Systems Monitoring Shootout

2008-08-04T09:26:57+00:00

Please download it here A paper from Open Management Consortium

This is a paper from “2008 Ottawa Linux Symposium”. It will give you a nice insight about some great NSM projects. It is talking about OpenNMS, Zabix, Zenoss, GroundWorks and Hyperic, those might b the hottest projects around NMS field. If you are looking for a open source network and system monitoring solution, or you are testing one of them; you should check it out. I got this paper from Open Management Consortium.

Sometimes, people might spend too much time on testing different projects; I know this is a kind of fun. But eventually they only got lots of comments about manny project. They still did not realize the value of open source. The best way to adpat open source is that you just pick one nice project and keeping to use it for months at least. I have a net admin frind who I had since helped to setup Cacti for all of his network devices. He don’t know so many NSM projects, but he really engoy Cacti. With Cacti, he can do a easier and better job then before. So, are you going to still watching open source world? Let’s get start your real open source journey.

The Downtown Diner: Another localized Release - Identity Mgr. 8.0

2008-08-04T07:47:20+00:00

Sun Java System Identity Manager 8.0 is now available in eight languages: French, Spanish, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean. It can be downloaded here.

This localized release was brought to you by the incredibly dedicated and passionate IDM L10n team, including Anita Daley, Basha Chand, Vasek Novak, Shinichi Hanaki, Pavel Heimlich, Pierrot Berreur, Paty Rodriguez, Pedro Zeman, Sandy Cheng, May Zhang, Charles Liu, Jaro Sulc, Nicky Stastna, Misato Kabasawa and Ivy Zhang.

Congratulations everyone on a job well done!

Beijing Analog to Digital: I want my p2p TV

2008-08-04T06:34:23+00:00

Chinese audiences want to watch Lost and Prison Break and the latest Hollywood releases. And they want to watch them because those shows and movies are good, gripping entertainment. Unfortunately, those shows aren’t broadcast here -- even with subtitles. Why not? Two reasons: The powers that be don’t want foreigners dictating the message, and local producers want to keep their captive audiences.

LiuZheng's OSS Blog: This post is too later

2008-08-03T07:45:41+00:00

很久没有更新这个blog了，本来想保持每周一帖的频率，不过最近总被一些事情所耽误了。今天终于有空闲坐下来写点什么了。

昨晚无意间发现了这个叫做UnWakeAble的Theme，稍微看了一下马上就更换到这个主题了。这个主题有几个地方非常吸引我：它有自己的配置选项；能配置成2或者3栏的形式；提供3种内置的风格可以切换，这个太空船的黑色风格太吸引我了。我想在没有时间写正经post的时候，用有限的时间调整一下界面风格也不错呵呵，虽然之前曾经发誓，要把主要blog时间都放在提交高质量项目介绍和评论上，不过通过这个blog做适当的娱乐还是未尝不可的呵呵:) 可能是对Wordpress了解的很多了，用的也越来越多了，现在觉得它也可以作为一个公司内部的知识库来使用，知识库有可以说是一种特殊的CMS内容管理系统，它能方便用户查询和浏览相关的知识条目。昨天看了一下wordpress的roadmap，它以后可以提供更多的api，甚至于下离线的编辑内容的功能，我想这些都可以是外部系统和它集成的很好的接口。我说的外部系统可以是：IT管理的服务台系统，现在很多厂商的服务台都有现成的KB模块，不过把知识条目放到wordpress这样一个外部的系统中还是很有优势的。关于把wordpress用作CMS内容管理系统的一些考虑您可以看看这个post

今天去西四的广济寺，途中经过了潘家园市场、虹桥市场、天坛北门、天桥、西单等。途中的景色令我可以说是非常吃惊，奥运真的把北京改变了很多。潘家园门口兜售和田玉的巴郎子（新疆人对少数民族的一种称呼，其实是维吾尔语‘小青年’的意思）没有了，随处摆的地摊也没了，随处乱扔的白色快餐饭盒没了，在路边拉黑活的黑车也没有了。虹桥市场门口的路上以前总能看到的那些专门向老外乞讨的人也没有了。天坛北门的街道两旁真是很干净啊，垃圾、墙上的办证都没了。天桥哪里更是变化巨大，以前道路两边破烂的小卖部都没了。西单更是夸张啊：过街天桥附近打扫的人真多啊，而且以前扫大街的人都是自动化了；没人在骑着老式的保时捷垃圾车，取而代之的是等自动扫街的电瓶清洁车。北京变了，北京准备好了。呵呵我也喊两句口号吧！甚至于我在考虑，开幕式那天晚上，我去哪里看焰火。我里永定门的距离不算远，听说那是放烟火的中轴线上的最南点，暂时把这作为我的plan A了。

我也很想知道，你奥运期间如何度过呢？

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Asteroid L: Mass unblocking in the Great Firewall of China

Hysterical Raisins — 2008-08-02T14:13:00+00:00

Seems a batch of sites got unblocked. Wiki.edia (marvel as I blog in regular expressions) is accessible (again), Wikibooks, Reuters, CNN, and a lot more.

Still blocked: blogspot, livejournal, wordpress (no surprise here -- lots of political blogs), BBC, certainly more; most importantly, Sinfest and CRFH :-( (why the f* is CRFH blocked? Zombies? Satan?)

Also, the web feels slightly faster in general!

Beijing Analog to Digital: Advice for learning Chinese

2008-08-02T06:41:08+00:00

A buddy of mine recently relocated to Singapore and sent me an email asking for advice on learning Chinese. Here was my response: ---------- Well, I’m happy to share whatever I can here. I just hope it’s useful. Chinese dialects are about as distinct as individual European languages. So, while there is a shared writing system (and grammar) the pronunciations of the words can be completely different. Mandarin is the official language of mainland China. All state broadcasts, publ…

Utility Computing dot China: Criminal Negligence? Corporations serve your identity up on a silver platter.

2008-08-01T10:41:40+00:00

I am steaming. And as such I am blogging this because I know that through the links of planet aggregators throughout Linux land - this will be syndicated.

I won’t name names yet, I was advised by my lawyer not to. However after filling in an online application form for international “Expatriate Insurance” with a VERY well known and large international insurer - I was greeted back with correspondence emails that contained the answers in straight clear text about all the questions I had answered and provided to them via their SSL web form!

Now it would be bad enough if it was just my medical stuff, but it went much deeper. In plain to see ASCII code was the following information IN FULL. With no omissions, attempts at cover or concealment. Please read my latest email to them.

*************************

G’Day XXXXX,

Thank you for the reply.

Please advise me of what is/will be taking place with regards to this. As an expatriate it is very difficult and problematic to have to now change credit cards and multitude of prepayment services around the globe.

More seriously, I now have to ensure that none of my online accounts and identities with places like domain name registrars (multi million dollar business operations were placed at risk), ebay, pay pal, web banking and more - have not been compromised, especially since in one nice little package COMPANY-XXXX has managed to proffer (sic - my):

- Full Name and Initials
- Address
- Phone Number
- DOB
- CC #
- CCV # !!!!!
- CC Name
- CC Expiry
- CC Type
- Passport #

What else could an identify thief possibly require?

Regards,
Richard Ford.

**************************************

Here is a nice little list of “Prior Art” so to speak. You’d think that people would learn. I shan’t even go into the decrepit email system used by them…. Minus reverse DNS entries, lacking SPF - and lacking the Business Analyst or modeller to pick up on the UML strand or Action Language that stated:

“Dump contents of database and append to every email correspondence with applicant in full”

I wonder if their process modeller did this after he had finished the work on the SSL front end for the gathering of the data in the first place?

Or maybe he did it right after their indepth discussion of “Privacy Policy” and the explanation of what SSL is and how they “Really work hard to protect your private data”

Speechless.

I guess soon enough I can let the email headers and the full server logs do the talking.

Beijing Analog to Digital: That which doesn't kill us

2008-08-01T08:25:32+00:00

Julie Wainwright is the former CEO of Pets.com, a high-flying dot-com company that crashed and burned in 2001. Pets.com was a joke for years afterward. (I even laughed about their official mascot, the Pets.com sock puppet.) Julie wrote a great article, Five Life-Changing Mistakes and How I Moved On, about the experience, how it hurt her, and how it changed her.

Beijing Analog to Digital: Surf's Up!

2008-07-31T10:56:58+00:00

Ya know, when you’ve been sitting your butt in a chair staring at a screen for too long and dealing with more responsibility than you want, it’s not hard to think of going to a beach where no one wants or needs anything from you to just plain relax.

Chris Drumgoole: New Office

Chris — 2008-07-31T07:19:01+00:00

Our department moved back to the main campus of Siemens China today (after more than 4 years at an off-site building). I quite like being here, even though we’re only in our current building temporarily (~6 months) while our permanent building is being renovated. You could say we’re closer to the “action” (which makes sense as we’re a corporate department - most of the people we deal with are at this main compound).

Below is a photo of my new office - this older building on the compound doesn’t follow the open-plan that many offices these day follow - instead, the space is divided into separate offices, where my boss has his own, and I share with a colleague. I actually quite like this…

(I’m on the left)

Sadly, as a corporate department trying to save money, we won’t be able to enjoy the brand new tower, so we’ll be in the low rises next to the tower for the foreseeable future. Below is a picture of the view out my window. You can see (behind) the tower in the distance and the other low rises of the Siemens compound.

And here’s a picture of the (front of the) tower I took last year when I visited it under construction.

Beijing Analog to Digital: Nuclear Spaceships

2008-07-30T13:27:27+00:00

Fun article: Project Orion: space battleships that could have been And the comments at the bottom are great. Especially -- check out the photos people posting have attached to their comments. An example comment: “Now I’m thinking about those proposed 4th gen designs with Uranium impregnated liquid Sodium reactors. That would be awesome on a plane, just fly up using the reactor, dump all the reactor primary, and then dump the reactor, and then the shielding and fly back on conventional. R…

The Downtown Diner: The Value of Integration Testing

2008-07-30T07:40:16+00:00

This bunk bed - so cute!

This ceiling fan - so practical!

The room - 8'x10' - not very big!

My husband is a QE engineer and I'm a program manager. And yet it was only when the workers were there installing our ceiling fan that it suddenly clicked for us - this is not a good combination...

Beijing Analog to Digital: Is the Olympics Coming?

2008-07-29T14:47:14+00:00

I ... don’t ... watch ... sports. So, a week before the Olympic Games start in Beijing, I have no tickets. I don’t even know the schedule. In fact, the only arrangements I’ve made are to buy extra food, water, coffee and pre-paid utilities to minimize my inconvenience.

Asteroid L: Google mojo

Lalo Martins — 2008-07-28T22:40:52+00:00

So, while studying up on SEO, I decide to go take a look at the state of my own sites.

It seems Asteroid L ranks at #9 in a search for "sevensome hardcore sex".

Wow. Just wow.

What's the correct expression again? Oh yes. "Ur doin it rong."

(Yeah, I do know why, as does (probably) anyone who reads my blog. But it's funneh anyway that I'd rank so high. Guess there aren't enough sevensome pr0n sites out there.)

Beijing Analog to Digital: Accounting

2008-07-27T15:24:38+00:00

“Doesn’t your company have an accountant to handle that?” Actually, the company has three accountants. One is a part-time accountant here in Beijing who takes care of keeping the government tax (and other) offices happy. The second is the outside auditing firm we hire at year end to audit his work so that the Chinese government is satisfied that we have fulfilled our obligations. And the third is the outside auditing firm we hire at year end in Hong Kong to audit the Hong Kong mother…