Change is in the Airwaves: A Documentary about the Philadelphia Wireless Initiative from George Rausch on Vimeo.

I may disagree on the photo comment. First of all, it’s really bad. Secondly, I’ve emailed responses to several of my readers’ comments and (much to my surprise) found they didn’t realize I was ‘a girl’. Shocking right? When they saw ‘Jennifer’ in my email signature they figured it out. So, I don’t know that the photo has any impact on readership, but I could be wrong. However, if you do read my blog because I’m female and you like the photo- I’m okay with that- you’ll still learn something ;)

Note to self: I definitely have to do something about that horrible photo! I’ve been procrastinating for a while and searching for a photographer and stylist to get some new ‘real’ head shots taken. I hate having my photo taken, so I’ll keep you posted on that.

Women in IT…

The timing of your post is amazing as well. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve received several emails from fellow women in IT who wanted to make a connection, swap stories and find a commerad-ess, or two, in the world. I’ve even received postcards and written notes from thoughtful ladies who found my information online. I guess I never realized what a struggle some women have in the ‘man’s world’ of IT. I’m starting to realize it more, as I meet new friends and hear their war stories of moving up and gaining respect in the industry.

I’ve been lucky- I grew up in the IT industry and somehow managed to circumvent a lot of the ‘gender issues’. When I was about 16, I developed and taught computer and Internet-related courseware, and had to teach it to adults (and yes, they’re actually worse than the 2nd graders!) Around that same time, I was sitting on a state agency board as a SME on web usage and development.

I was young and a female (and blonde), so I most certainly had to prove myself and establish a repertoire to gain the respect of my peers; mostly middle-aged and older men who had been in the industry longer than I’d been alive.

Knowing what you don’t know…

Getting thrown in early certainly taught me valuable lessons. I made sure I knew my stuff inside and out, and conversely, I made sure I was comfortable asking questions on topics I didn’t know about. Part of the respect comes from ‘knowing what you don’t know’ and being able to admit it. I think I’m pretty good at that and it’s carried me far. :)   Plus, I had two great role models to learn from.

However it happened- through some combination of luck and hard work- I’m happy to be where I am. Our customers, partners and colleagues look to me for answers and insight. I know they trust me and and that’s an amazing feeling. It’s also what drives me to be the best at what I do, and to keep learning, studying and working at it.

They’ve given me their trust, and I try really hard to give them something back that’s equally as important.

# # #

After three months of wrangling over prices, Oracle Corp. will acquire BEA Systems in a $8.5 billion deal.

This means that Oracle will now have an event processing platform, the Oracle WebLogic Event Server to compliment their product line.

Reference:  Oracle Strikes Deal to Buy BEA Systems for $8.5 Billion  (Wall Street Journal)

Oracle Corp. said it will acquire BEA Systems in a $8.5 billion deal three months after BEA slapped away an Oracle takeover offer as too low.

Oracle would pay $19.38 for each BEA share, a 24% premium to Tuesday’s close price of $15.58.

Oracle made an unsolicited $6.7 billion, or $17 a share, takeover proposal in October, but the company let it expire weeks later after BEA said the bid was unacceptable. At the same time, BEA added it was looking to start negotiations with interested parties willing to pay at least $21 a share.

“The addition of BEA products and technology will significantly enhance and extend Oracle’s Fusion middleware software suite,” said Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison. “Middleware” is a general term for any programming that serves to mediate between two separate and often already existing programs.

BEA Chairman and CEO Alfred Chuang called the deal the culmination of a “diligent and thoughtful process” to maximize stockholder value. The company’s largest shareholder, billionaire Carl Icahn, had called for an auction to sell the business-management-software firm.

BEA is one of the few independent, midsize software companies left in Silicon Valley as the technology industry consolidates. Oracle has for years eyed BEA as an acquisition target.

BEA has been battling Oracle, International Business Machines Corp. and others in the market for middleware. BEA, with a product called WebLogic, pioneered one category of middleware called application servers that are used to build Web services.

Oracle expects the buyout to boost earnings by one cent to two cents a share, excluding items, in the first year after the deal closes. That is slated to happen by midyear.

Shares of Oracle fell in premarket trading to $20.80 after closing Tuesday at $21.31.

The evolutionary primacy of the brain's fear circuitry makes it more powerful than the brain's reasoning faculties. The amygdala sprouts a profusion of connections to higher brain regions -- neurons that carry one-way traffic from amygdala to neocortex. Few connections run from the cortex to the amygdala, however. That allows the amygdala to override the products of the logical, thoughtful cortex, but not vice versa. So although it is sometimes possible to think yourself out of fear ("I know that dark shape in the alley is just a trash can"), it takes great effort and persistence. Instead, fear tends to overrule reason, as the amygdala hobbles our logic and reasoning circuits. That makes fear "far, far more powerful than reason," says neurobiologist Michael Fanselow of the University of California, Los Angeles. "It evolved as a mechanism to protect us from life-threatening situations, and from an evolutionary standpoint there's nothing more important than that."

I've already written about this sort of thing.

Enjoying visualizing a better world, world peace and global cooling in my meditative serene holiday at Divana Nurture Spa, I could not help but transcend into thoughts about a recent post, Visualizations Update.

In his thoughtful post above, Marc Adler briefly mentions heatmaps and visualization in the context of event processing adapters, analytics, and the ecosystem in general.    

In an earlier post, I blogged about SL’s Architecture for CEP Visualization.  SL has been a friend of the CEP community for quite some time supporting TIBCO, Apama, StreamBase and more.  

Speaking to everyone interested in visualization, including blogosphere colleague Marc,  I kindly recommend you check out the very cool heatmap in this post, CEP Use Case: Stream Processing in Multiplayer Online Gaming.  

I thought that StreamBase, partnering with SL for visualization, did a fantastic job in their online gaming use case for Simultronics, demonstrating the event processing ecosystem that has Marc’s attention these days.

Happy New Year!

It is very important for us to be "laptop data aware" i.e. the categories of data it has and the consequences of lost data. A good practice is to treat your laptop like your wallet.

I found these 9 tips on Microsoft website. These tips are really thoughtful and well written and hence I like to repeat it below:

Use these 9 tips to learn how you can keep your laptop more secure when you're on the road.

1.	Avoid using computer bags. Computer bags can make it obvious that you're carrying a laptop. Instead, try toting your laptop in something more common like a padded briefcase or suitcase.
2.	Never leave access numbers or passwords in your carrying case. Keeping your password with your laptop is like keeping the keys in the car. Without your password or important access numbers it will be more difficult for a thief to access your personal and corporate information.
3.	Carry your laptop with you. Always take your laptop on the plane or train rather then checking it with your luggage. It's easy to lose luggage and it's just as easy to lose your laptop. If you're traveling by car, keep your laptop out of sight. For example, lock it in the trunk when you're not using it.
4.	Encrypt your data. If someone should get your laptop and gain access to your files, encryption can give you another layer of protection. With Windows XP and Windows Vista you can choose to encrypt files and folders. Then, even if someone gains access to an important file, they can't decrypt it and see your information. Learn more about how to encrypt your data with Windows XP or encrypt your data with Windows Vista.
5.	Keep your eye on your laptop. When you go through airport security don't lose sight of your bag. Hold your bag until the person in front of you has gone through the metal detector. Many bags look alike and yours can easily be lost in the shuffle.
6.	Avoid setting your laptop on the floor. Putting your laptop on the floor is an easy way to forget or lose track of it. If you have to set it down, try to place it between your feet or against your leg (so you're always aware it's there).
7.	Buy a laptop security device. If you need to leave your laptop in a room or at your desk, use a laptop security cable to securely attach it to a heavy chair, table, or desk. The cable makes it more difficult for someone to take your laptop. There are also programs that will report the location of a stolen laptop. They work when the laptop connects to the Internet, and can report the laptop's exact physical location. Some tracing programs include CyberAngel and ComputracePlus.
8.	Use a screen guard. These guards help prevent people from peeking over your shoulder as you work on sensitive information in a public place. This is especially helpful when you're traveling or need to work in a crowded area. This screen guard from Secure-It is just one example of a screen guard you could use.
9.	Try not to leave your laptop in your hotel room or with the front desk. Too many things have been lost in hotel rooms and may not be completely secure. If you must leave your laptop in your room, put the "do not disturb" sign on the door.

There are technical controls [tools such as Vontu] available to monitor deviant computer usage of employees of a company. It is extremely difficult to catch a smart-deviant employee. An intelligent alternative is to catch not-so-smart-deviant employee to trigger a warning message to smart-deviant employee - [smart-deviant employee could either become smarter or they could just shut up!]. Typical examples of not-so-smart-deviant employee behaviour are: 1. Sending confidential document to a competitior through an email attachment. 2. FTP'ing confidential document outside of the company. 3. Using webmail to send confidential document.

Mike Rothman's blog post about spammer's using encrypted zip files to tunnel thro' filters demonstrates the brilliance of smart hackers. It is well known truth that HTTP is known as UFBP (Universal Firewall Bypass Protocol). What if a hacker tunnels encrypted data thro' a SOAP container which uses HTTP? It would be extremely hard to catch those extreme cases with technical controls.

Jeremiah's thoughtful  blog post about  "How to check if your WebMail account has been hacked". A smart hacker who has hacked say your gmail account would not be dumb enough to open a spurious looking email in the first place, moreover they would get around by choosing the option of not displaying images!

Smart hackers get away most of the time. There is no point in spending cycles to catch them. Hope for the good by catching not-so-smart hackers! Do make sure when you catch not-so-smart, it leads to widespread educational opportunity.