Sunday, September 30, 2012

My Reading Highlights: 9/23/12 to 9/29/12



This weeks reading spanned big data to the American economy to how to handle email overload.   Oh and by the way, I added a great video on ping pong balls.  It's worth a watch.  Enjoy.

How "Big-Data-as-a-Service" Can Help Smaller Companies Compete

Great read from Brian Profitt in discussing the notion of a service model to providing analytics of Big Data to companies who cannot or should not invest in heavy IT infrastructure.   He offered up a great quote that sums up where we are all heading with analytics:
"Every time we perform a search, tweet, send an email, post a blog, comment on one, use a cell phone, shop online, update our profile on a social networking site, use a credit card, or even go to the gym, we leave behind a mountain of data, a digital footprint, that provides a treasure trove of information about our lifestyles, financial activities, health habits, social interactions, and much more," wrote former Tivoli CEO Frank Moss

IBM Readies “Project Sparta” Aimed at Simplifying Big Data

Looks like AllThingsD is reporting that IBM has an Oct 9th event planned to launch its new big data line and go head to head with Oracle.  I'm missing Oracle Open World this year but I'm sure the Oracle will announce improvements to their new Exadata line.

Treasure Data Launches Cloud-Based Data Warehouse With Investment From Ruby Creator Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto

Moving from IBM to Oracle, TechCrunch provides an overview of Treasure Data.  A cloud data warehouse environment that keeps users from making heavy capital investments in infrastructure.

Graph Databases: The New Way to Access Super Fast Social Data

Emil Eifrem provides an interesting discussion on the uses and benefits of Graph Databases.   As he puts it, "Graph databases, unlike their NOSQL and relational brethren, are designed for lightning-fast access to complex data found in social networks, recommendation engines and networked systems."  The article is worth a read and provides another approach beyond traditional relational databases.

Here's The Biggest Problem In The American Economy

Here is another interesting read from Henry Blodget on the problems with the American economy. He asserts new markets with cheaper labor, increased use of technology in production allowing companies to much more with fewer employees, tax policies, and a complete focus on shareholder value as the primary cause of the stagnant employment rate.

Liquid Nitrogen and 1500 Ping Pong Balls Video

I came across this YouTube video the other day.  It shows what happens when you mix liquid nitrogen in a bottle with 1500 ping pong balls.  I know but watch.  It is pretty cool.

How to Email Busy People


I learned a new acronym this week: TLTR = To Long To Read. This article was was very appropriately timed for this new bit of knowledge I just acquired. I'm not as bad as the guys they are talking about in this article; I'll receive on average 300+ emails a day. That said it is way too much to give each of them the attention the sender expects. The tips here are right on point. Get the subject line right on point and keep the body to 3 sentences max.

Monday, September 24, 2012

My Weekly Reading Highlights: 9/16 /12 to 9/22/12

I'm sure most people are now tired of the iPhone 5 reviews, comparisons, and tear-downs by now.  I know that I am.  Below are the most interesting article reads for me over the last week, excluding iPhone 5 ones.  
Joe Weisenthal provides a great description of the Bloomberg Spead Desk.  Here he describes it as a "a mindblowing operation that spits out real-time news headlines from all over the world, 24/7 to customers who rent their fabled terminals. 

3 Interview Tips for Hiring Outstanding Developers

Everyone who is trying to hire top notch SW developers knows it is extremely time consuming and a difficult task.  Chad Lilly lays out three interesting approaches in weeding out the best developers from the crowd of okay developers.  
At work we are all over mining data from twitter and other social media sources.  The Twitter firehose is a valuable source of information.  Now for the sports fans out there this is a perfect new source.  Ryan Kim describes the SportsCenter Feed as having over 1000 updates from ESPN per day.
During my work week I'm working with quite a few remote workers.  I see this trend increasing over time.  One of the challenges is how to virtually integrate these valuable contributors into the daily meeting, huddles, and discussions that occur throughout the day.  Vivian Giang and Max Nisen lay out three barriers we are working to address to success utilize remote workers today.
Anyone living in a large city knows the general hassles of movement from one point to another is a pain undertaking.  Jamillah provides an overview of the Digital Life Design conference in London where people are discussing improvements to what we refer to as "city habitats" through the use of data analysis or smart city initiatives.  
Derrick Harris provides a run down on the IE Group's Big Data Innovation event.  He provides five thoughts from the conference that resonates not only with him but me as well.
No weekend reading is complete without a good article on Data Science.  Clearly a hot field these days in the big data analytics area.  Derrick Harris reviews an approach on Overkill Analytics.