Archive for June, 2008

Women in IT: Really?! Where?

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Women's absence in information technology (IT) has always been the norm rather than the exception. The exact reason behind this situation is still eluding many of us: And teenage girls are less interested in computer science than they are in other scientific fields. Only 12% of the finalists in the 2005 ...

Turnitin.com: An excellent idea badly implemented

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

An acquaintance of mine from Santo Domingo recently came to RIT to pursue his masters degree in telecommunications engineering. Just as it happened to me during my first day of class, one of his professors outlined how he would be using Turnitin.com to deter plagiarism and crosscheck all papers submitted. ...

Firefox 3: Setting a world record can teach you a valuable lesson

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

The folks at the Mozilla Foundation, the organization behind the increasingly popular Firefox web browser, decided they would release the latest version of their hot application with an interesting goal in mind: break the world record for most downloads ever for any application in a day. Incredibly, before the 24-hour ...

Managing expectations

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

According to Information Technology Project Management - Providing Measurable Organizational Value, by author Jack T. Marchewka, one of the many factors impairing IT projects is unrealistic expectations. I absolutely agree with this proposition. A project manager must be particularly adept at aligning customers' anticipation with a realistic prospect of the ...

Design as the silver bullet

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

Frederick P. Brooks Jr's "No Silver Bullet" is a famous, widely discussed paper in software engineering fora around the world. One can clearly see why within seconds of reading a few lines: Of all the monsters that fill the nightmares of our folklore, none terrify more than werewolves, because they transform ...