Watching TV online

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Have you noticed that videos and streaming TV are getting more and more predominant on the Internet. It’s partly due to the fact that people have more bandwidth than they ever used to, and to the fact that the technology to make streams available is getting more and more common. This reduced barrier to entry results in the spread of this technology with more and more people getting comfortable and, dare I say, dependant on it.

Streaming services come in a variety of shapes and forms. Youtube for example, allows you to watch videos that people around the world create and upload. BBC’s iPlayer for example, lets you catch up with TV that you may have missed. A professional live video streaming service will allow you to publish a stream in real time, as soon as it happens; which is something quite powerful and useful.

When technology doesn’t work

Do you ever get the want to smash up your computer with one of those Adams golf irons? If that’s the case you’re not alone, but I’m finding that need is less prevalent nowadays. I wonder if it’s because people are more open to technology and change then they were 10-20 years ago, possibly because of the speed of what’s happening around them.

Who know? One thing is for sure, things are going to keep changing faster and faster.

Database Automation

If you work with databases on a daily basis you’ll know that there are certain tasks that you have to perform over and over again. This is where Database Automation comes in. Wikipedia defines it as “the automation of servers and databases respectively causing the reduction of database related tasks” which is pretty succinct and sums it up very well.

Activities like creating database, purging tables and running optimisation scripts can all the automated, but one must realise that this only reduces the amount of mundane, repetitive activities and does not eliminate the need for DBAs. The intention of DBA automation is to enable DBAs to focus on more proactive activities around database architecture and deployment.

7 pointers for IT departments

I came across a post on InfoWorld entitled 7 things IT should be doing which talks about a number of problems organisations face today and gives some advice as to how companies should be dealing with them. Here are the main points:

1. Follow your users: Find out what your users really do in their day job. Share their pain and let them help you tailor what you’re offering them.
2. Embrace Web 2.0: Your users have high standards as to what applications are supposed to do nowadays. Letting them down will alienate them.
3. Tame the data monster: Bad data means that people can’t do their job effectively. Make data cleansing one of your top priorities.
4. Flirt with disaster: Disaster planning is only the first step of making sure you can cope with foreseeable problems. Make sure they’re tested and up to date.
5. Capture old knowledge: Use toolkits like ITIL to capture and store old knowledge. ITIL Mangement will be a key differentiator for you in the future.
6. Plug data leaks: If you don’t have a data security policy and don’t police it, your data could end up in the wrong hands. Make sure you know what needs to be protected and what doesn’t.
7. Follow the money: Senior management in the IT department need to have more than a basic grasp of the business drivers of the company. This will help the whole department function effectively.

There’s some great stuff in there, ranging from technical issues to business issues, read the complete article here

WordPress Theme Directory

It looks like WordPress has decided to revamp their theme directory and turn it into a fully fledged source repository. This is a step in the right direction and a possible route to order in the previous anarchy that represented the theme market prior to this move.

So, where does this leave WordPress. Well, for a start they are now in a position to guarantee quality in the themes they represent. In the past themes were riddled with bugs, unimplemented features, encrypted sections and sponsored links, all of which reduced the confidence of people trying to use them. All these reflected badly on the underlying product and now WordPress has a way to control all this. Another change we are bound to see is the ability for WordPress to automatically notify a user when a new version of a theme is available, in the same way it currently does this with plugins.

With a change like this, there are bound to be people who are unhappy with the decision. A number of people run directories of templates, these are bound to fade away now that there’s a quality offering and WordPress can direct people in that direction. Theme designers who earn a fee for maliciously hiding sponsored links in themes will also suffer. I still think there’s a market for premium themes that have a cost attached to them, if they offer additional functionality and support that the free theme directory doesn’t offer, but that would be an honest transaction rather than persuading users they have a “free theme” that has dangerous bits attached to it.

The other interesting fact is that WordPress is not only pushing to increase the quality of their product, but also tying it it’s other assets (like Gravatar) and encouraging people to use them. It’s advice that any IT Service organisation should take on board and use their position to maximise their utility and return. That’s what strategic planning is all about.

Should be interesting, check out the theme directory