Removing an Old PostgreSQL From Ubuntu

November 2, 2008 by roland.

‘ve finally bitten the bullet and am porting an expense tracking system I use for taxes from Lotus Approach to a Qt program which runs under Ubuntu. I decided to use PostgreSQL for my database instead of XBASE file formats because it is easier to trap dependencies (expense category and payee) than with XBASE type files. Yes, it is far more convenient to keep everything for one tax year in one directory as I used to do with XBASE files, but not as reliable.

Because of several upgrades and installs, I had both PostgreSQL 8.2 and 8.3 installed. The standard package manager would not remove 8.2 because it was automatically started when the system booted. Rather than read through a lot of startup documentation and find the script to remove 8.2 startup, I found a command which would do everything for me.

sudo apt-get –purge remove postgresql-8.2
This command is smart enough to shut down the database server, then uninstall the product. Yes, I probably could have gotten the package manager to uninstall it once I shut it down, but when it comes to database administration, the less I have to dig, the better. Keep in mind that this database will rarely have more than 1000 records in it. It could have easily been dealt with using RMS files on OpenVMS, but I have a desire to learn a little more Qt programming before tackling a patch/fix to Konsole so it actually supports the keypad when in VT emulation mode.

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SDLC Doc and Penis Enlargement

November 2, 2008 by roland.

Over the past two years I have encountered companies which spent huge amounts of money purchasing SDLC templates and even larger amounts of money customizing those templates for their own location. Once they have their customized templates, they spend piles of money sending people suddenly titled “Business Analyst” to training on how to fill out the document templates for each project.

Why are they doing this? The root of this evil is Sarbanes-Oxley, but the vendors of SOX solutions have taken their marketing queue from penis enlargement commercials. “Get a big boost of confidence knowing your IT projects can no longer fail.” I have even been to sites that were stunned to find IT projects cratering. Managers were circling the wagons trying to figure out what part of the SDLC process the failed project skipped.

SDLC has a lot in common with “male enhancement” products. They both require you to believe and see what you wish to see. Where they differ is that investigators will have actual signatures on file when a project fails and someone tries to hide the cost in the books. SDLC documentation doesn’t ensure a project’s success, but it does identify who will go to prison when the failure is covered up.

Am I against SDLC doc? I am against many of the process steps imposed by commercially vended versions. Those vendors designed the SDLC so MBA’s could have input. They created a “Work Initiation” step which was more than a single line on a “to-do” list and less than a detailed analysis. The actual detailed analysis gets spread across three-four different documents, presumably to be filled out by three to four different people. Isn’t that just what you want on any project? Four different people all trying to steer the boat without any of them manning the sails. In actuality, this is exactly how the SDLC process is implemented at pretty much every client site I’ve been to that is SOX compliant. Guess what? If you aren’t publicly traded you don’t have to be SOX compliant.

To start with, no SDLC process can guaranty a project outcome. If any hint of that was in the sale pitch, you need to press criminal charges against the vendor. As currently implemented at most companies, an SDLC process serves only two purposes:

1)Turn tiny bug fix projects into massive things requiring sign off from many different people
2)Provide a predefined list of names to the criminal justice system.

You see, each and every SDLC process makes the grand assumption that “someone” working at your company actually knows what is going on. That assumption is the ultimate fraud. The process allows everyone who “thinks” they are in charge to feed their own ego by requiring them to sign off on various stages of the process. The process provides absolutely no defense from clueless ego feeders.

An even bigger threat for each and every SDLC process out there is that each person on the project will know only a little piece of the system you are working on. Each step in the SDLC process will pull the project in a different direction as each new player is encountered and your final system delivery won’t look anything like what was requested in the Work Initiation.

The most common train wreck every SDLC process creates is one which stems from piss poor management and scope narrowing. You have a system which has been in place for 20-30 years. It was originally purchased, then heavily customized. The only documentation which exists for it is the original system documentation, prior to modification. Other departments have taken over pieces of the system, rolling them into a new application by a new name. Some portions of the system are still using fixed width flat or indexed files for data storage. Other departments have written systems which makes use of the data at this stage, but they didn’t bother telling you. When you finally install your change in production, applications which haven’t been touched in over a decade suddenly fail and nobody has any idea how to recover them. All of your testing went perfectly, because you only tested for the couple of interfaces you knew about. There was no full scale production sized development system to run a complete production simulation, so you had to test only what you knew about.

This entire series of train wrecks gets even funnier when you toss in software development which is performed by illegal aliens who have no frame of reference when it comes to your business. They just code what they are told and don’t put up a fight like a seasoned professional would.

I don’t believe anyone reading this is willing to take before and after pictures using a ruler, and announce the “study” of a male enhancement product prior to some perceived “big boost of confidence”, which is why those products all promise they are shipped in a plain brown package without identifying markings. Did the SDLC product you purchased make the same promise?

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The Successor to Vista

October 29, 2008 by roland.

LOS ANGELES–Microsoft on Tuesday offered up far more details on Windows 7, successor to the company’s oft-maligned Windows Vista.

Apparently Microsoft doesn’t realize the industry has chosen a Vista successor and it is Ubuntu.

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Plausible Deniability or Just Plain Lazy?

October 27, 2008 by roland.

Years ago, pimps actually did a tiny bit of work for their massive margins. They actually read resumes rather than using a GREP utility searching for keywords. They also engaged in “creative writing” when they were low on placement quota. Of course this required that pimps be fluent in the native language of the country where they made money.

Today, most pimps are too lazy to even use a GREP utility. They go to on-line resume databases and let a search engine there find keywords. Most of them have some form of spider utility which goes to the N on-line resume databases they have subscribed to and returns the results to them in an email or some other document. Some have upgraded their spider utility so it automatically sends email to the matching candidates. Just a generic SPAM with which imports a text file of the job requirement.

Some of them actually have a template which includes a phrase much like the following:

“Please ensure the resume matches the opening exactly with the skills requirements highlighted at the very top”

Today’s pimps not only don’t speak the native language, they don’t even do their own creative writing. They send this SPAM out to force the candidate into committing wire fraud rather than the pimp committing it themselves. I guess enough of them have finally went to prison for it.

Remember how it used to work with pimps? They actually had someone who was technical talk to you on the phone to see if you had actually worked with the technology or just read a few buzzwords and added them to your resume. Today pimps don’t even bother keeping technical people around a the office. It’s not the client demanding skills certification tests, it’s the pimp. Usually a pimp which has already had several trips to the court room over forged resumes.

Like the Virginia Slims slogan says “You’ve come a long way baby.”

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You’re Losing Candidates and You Don’t Know Why?

October 26, 2008 by roland.

I hear this a lot lately. You see, the OpenVMS world is starting to hop contract wise. There are even new installations happening now and several more scheduled for next year. Unlike the PC world, when I talk about “installation” I’m not talking about one machine on a desk, I’m talking about large scale systems which are going to run a company for more than 20 years without significant modification. What companies have systems that stable? Manufacturing and health care. On the manufacturing side it is companies which need to keep production running at capacity 24 hours per day for years on end without a single interruption. Not only is an interruption measured at around a million dollars per minute, it can be measured in human lives. If a life is lost, not only is it tragic, you are shut down for close to a week while the investigation happens.

Of course, health care is cooking now for different reasons, and not the reasons you might expect. A lot of people are of the opinion that shortly after the upcoming election there will be sweeping changes in health care legislation. I have little doubt there will be sweeping changes proposed, and even less doubt those changes will be tied up in committee for months by lobbyist dollars.

The real reason health care is cooking now is failure. Some major companies had been banking on off-shore development of Java based systems running on AIX being able to replace the VAX/VMS systems which were currently running the company. They banked so heavily on these replacement systems that they sunk years into their development, putting little to no effort into maintaining the existing cash cow. In at least one case, more than four years. Their OpenVMS people mostly jumped ship when they were told just how heavily the company was banking on replacing the existing system.

How is it one finds out about such things? The contracts are posted all over the place. There aren’t a lot of seasoned OpenVMS professionals left out there, so we all get the phone calls from the pimps. When you are lucky enough to actually get a phone call from a pimp that speaks English, you get the story.

Besides OpenVMS, what do all of these positions have in common? Bad management. Oh, I’m not talking about the bad management which lead to the off-shoring fiasco in the first place. We all know that upper management will never be held accountable for such a disaster. I’m talking about the contracts themselves. I’m talking about the management which is managing the poster of the contract.

Over the past two months, all but one contract I have been called or emailed about has had the same management failure. The MBA managing the person posting the contract decided they were going to be an “affective” manager by mandating the person posting the contract couldn’t leave for vacation until they had all of the contracts posted. In only one case did the poster of the contract inform the pimp they were dealing with that they were hurling this contract out and leaving for a week’s vacation.

Most seasoned professionals have a rule, myself included. Unless you tell them up front the person needed to make the decision is out of the office, you get to present them for only one week. Imagine the pimp’s shock when you call them exactly one week later and tell them to withdraw your name. That’s exactly what has happened in each case, and it wasn’t just myself. Some of them volunteered they had lost other candidates for the same reason. It’s not that we aren’t interested in the contract any longer, it’s simply that a message must be sent. We aren’t magazines to be left on a shelf until someone decides they need reading material for the bathroom. Any company willing to do this with a posting is willing to treat people the same way once they start work. Seasoned professionals will not be treated like that.

So, if you posted a contract for five or more consultants and got a big pile of paper, don’t be surprised when you get done weeding through the chaff to find out the wheat you wanted to bring in has told the pimp to withdraw their name.

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Why I’m No Longer an IBPA/PMA Member

October 23, 2008 by roland.

I have been a member of PMA for several years. On the surface it looked like a good organization. Membership got you a newsletter, access to shipping discounts, and, in theory, some marketing help. Over the course of the past year the newsletter has turned into and endless stream of “Rah Rah Amazon” feces. And yes, feces is the correct word.

Doing business with Amazon is pretty much a recipe for starving to death on the street. It really pains me when supposedly knowledgeable publishing individuals spout things like “I have to do business with Amazon, because that’s where the customers are.” These individuals apparently have no access to traffic data reports. Very few customers are actually “at” Amazon. The traffic comes primarily from referral and shopping comparison sites. Amazon usually wins on the shopping comparison sites because it is willing to play the price whore game with your money.

Now, Amazon wants even more of your money. They are running around buying POD (Print on Demand) companies and starting to state they will only “stock” books from these companies. This pretty much puts 90% of your money in Amazon’s hands … and you thought flipping burgers at McDonald’s paid bad?

To start with, there are exactly two reasons to print with toner.
1)The book is part of your long tail, but you would like to keep it in print without actually doing another print run for it.
2)You want to print only 50 copies to pass out to people you meet so you can claim you are a published author.

No other reason is justifiable. No other reason has any business knowledge behind it. Printing with toner produces a really crappy book. Oh, yes, the POD companies will be all up in arms claiming they get no complaints about their print quality in a vain attempt to divert the conversation from the rest of the “product” they put out.

You can identify a toner printed book in under a second. Open it to any given page and drag your fingers down the paper. Feel the ridges from the toner? Good, you can now conduct the test that really matters. If you have an old tube type monitor, leave the book sitting on top of it all afternoon while using your computer. If you don’t have one of these old monitors, simply leave it on your car dash on a sunny day, or take it to the beach/pool with you during prime suntanning hours and leave it sitting on your towel. Put the book in a cool place, then try to read it the next day … assuming you can still get it open. Toner partially remelts under these conditions and leaves part of itself on the facing page. In extreme cases, the pages stick together and will rip when you try to separate them.

Why have I veered off on POD? Because the newsletter also contained articles spouting the virtues of this and LOTS of ads from POD companies. An organization which really is focusing on the betterment of small/independent publishers should be refusing all advertising from POD and not printing articles of “success” stories for POD companies.

P. T. Barnum was right. There is a sucker born every minute and Amazon is grabbing for them with both hands. Don’t get suckered.

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SOA Book Wins National Award

October 20, 2008 by roland.

The Minimum You Need to Know About Service Orieted Architecture by Roland Hughes

ISBN 0­9770866­6­6
ISBN­13 978­0­9770866­6­5

Award-Winner in the Business: Technology/Computers/Internet category of the National Best Books 2008 Awards, sponsored by USA Book News

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That Dog Won’t Hunt! Where’s the Press?

October 17, 2008 by roland.

On rare occasions it is a pleasure to be part of this big beautiful industry known as IT. Granted the pleasure no longer comes from the work, given the newer tools really suck and management is all gaga over having systems written with them not because they are good, but because they can get cheap labor, or so they think.

The past couple of weeks have been part of the new pleasure you get from working in IT. I was contacted by a pimp looking to send me to one of the south western states to do some OpenVMS development on a system I had worked on years ago. “Why?” I asked. “They had contracted with one of the largest computer companies on the planet to have a replacement system written in Java on AIX which would completely replace the OpenVMS system. That large computer company had given the project to their off-shore team so it was going to cost peanuts. I know this because I was told that four years ago when they were looking for someone to shepherd the OpenVMS system to the grave.”

“Well” responded the pimp, “I don’t have all of the details, I only know that the Java/AIX system is no longer being worked on.”

Where are the stories in the press about off-shore project failures of this magnitude? If the trade press really employed journalists instead of paid typists for that marketing firm called Gartner, we would be reading about these failures. This phone call was not unique. I’ve been getting quite a few of them lately. Of course a lot of them come with a contract looking to pay illegal alien wages rather than U.S. citizen wages (see previous posts), but still, we should be seeing stories like this in the free weekly trade rags. Their biggest advertising clients are off-shoring projects which are dramatic, large scale failures, and we read nothing about it.

Oh! That’s right! They would never stoop to printing the truth about their advertisers.

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The Holiday Inn Express/Adobe Flash 9 Virus

October 13, 2008 by roland.

For a few days now, I have been running into what I call the Holiday Inn Express/Adobe Flash 9 virus. If you haven’t encountered this virus consider yourself lucky. It is a platform neutral virus and exists on Web sites which allow advertising using Adobe. I run into this a lot on RagingBull.com (or as it is known far and wide Raging Bullshit.com BTW, isn’t their new look about as appealing as a colonostomy?

This particular virus is something billed as “The Smart Show”. It sits their running in a little ad box just chewing up your bandwidth and CPU cycles like an ex-wife and her lawyer through your assets. The only “STOP” option is to click on the little camera icon in the lower left corner. This fools you by halting the stream and switching to a three or four second slide show display.

You can’t turn it off! You can’t block it because too many other losers used Flash Player 9 for their Web site creation. This is a virus of unparalleled magnitude. It looks like the only way to get rid of it is to never enable adobe again.

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This is How They Get Illegals In

October 12, 2008 by roland.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I subscribe to Indeed.com. Subscribe is probably not such a good word as I have a couple of search alerts set up which send email to me each day. For anyone who didn’t know how companies get away with bringing illegal aliens and other non-citizen workers into this country take a look at the following job opening. The billing rate being offered is less than 1/3 the standard consulting rate for the skills and years of experience they want. The ad will run for a few weeks, then you can bet your bottom dollar they will be bringing in someone on a vacation or H1 visa. There was no shortage of talent to fill this contract, just an unwillingness on the part of the company to pay prevailing wage. This is almost as bad as when Mastek got nailed for running an ad stating they wanted H1-B only.

http://www.smuz.com/jobs/JobSeeker/index.cfm?page=jobdetails&jobid=140286

Job Description
18 MONTH CONTRACT POSITION. $30.00 PER HOUR.

Job Description: This is a contract position and will run about 18 months. ESI would like to hire the individual, but it is not required. If an H1B Visa candidate fills the positions, the candidate will have to take 1 month off after the 18 months and then return. C2C is acceptable. It is also best to try and find someone close to St. Louis, MO, but is it not required for ESI. The candidate will have to come in for a face to face interview though if called.

Required Skills: (these are the skills that are specialized or an absolute must! Please include years of experience and version numbers required for each skill set.)

Technical:

*Minimum of seven years of programming experience on VAX/ALPHA machines.

*Minimum of five years experience with COBOL/OpenVMS.

*Must have hands-on experience in FMS, Datatrieve, CMS, COBOL, DCL, RMS and DecForms.

*Experience with usage of System Services and Run-time Library Functions on OpenVMS.

*Knowledge of “C” programming is a plus. CORBA experience is a plus.

*Experience with source management tools, preferably CMS/ MMS.

Analytical:

*Ability to partner with a lead analyst. The lead analyst will work with the business to determine requirements. The analyst may require that this individual:

- research and document existing processes,

- determine gaps between existing processes and requirements,

- assist in the solution design,

- develop, test, implement and support solution.

*Proven ability to work with minimal supervision and minimal documentation.

*Successful track record of participation in ALL phases of the Systems Development Life Cycle.

*Must have the ability to analyze source code to determine and understand current process.

Communication / Other:

*Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

*Willingness to participate in production support activities.

*Right to hire.

* Ability to work and succeed in a dynamic environment in which direction may change periodically.

The individual may also participate in multiple projects.

Potential for conversion: yes

Potential for overtime: yes

Potential for Travel: no

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