The itmWEB Information Technology Report

Sponsored by

http://mis.miningco.com
http://www.itmweb.com
http://www.montana.com/asc/

A monthly report featuring selected IT topics and time sensitive links.

Volume 2, Number 4, April 1, 1998

Welcome to the 16th distribution of the itmWEB Information Technology Report. This month's edition is being distributed worldwide to 928 IT professionals and associates. You are receiving this report because you either requested it from one of the sites above, or you have been added to the email list as having a potential interest. itmWEB's policy is not to SPAM. The itmWEB report is a non-commercial, professional resource, and care is taken to only send the report to interested readers.

Please find instructions for unsubscribing at the end of this report.

Please send comments or contributions to: feedback@itmweb.com

APRIL FOOL'S DAY EDITION

Whoops - Delivered on April 3rd!

CONTENTS:

1. The itmWEB Report
2. Product News
3. Jeff Gainer's Critical Path
4. IT Management Quickies
5. Year 2000 Software Problem Solved!
6. Selected IT Resources

This edition of the itmWEB Report is still packed with links, news, and features as usual. But before we get to that, let me take a few minutes to share some news with you from our three sponsor sites.

(Warning - this month's report is long - you might want to get some coffee before you start).

First, I am very pleased to let you know that Jeff Gainer will now have a regular column in the report. He is naming it "Critical Path". I hope you are as excited as I am to be able to benefit from his IT expertise on a regular basis. We will also continue to include other guest features as well (would you like to contribute? Just send us an email with your idea).

The itmWEB Site's home page has been recently enhanced based on the suggestions I have received from many of you. If you have not visited for some time, please take a moment to have a look around the updated home page:

http://www.itmweb.com

I feel that the page is better organized, and the news and features sections will now change daily. Stop by for a periodic IT news dose.

I would also like to share some traffic statistics with you. The itmWEB site is now getting about 900 site hits per day. This has been increasing due to recent links to the site from some of the top 20 technology sites. My hope is that this additional traffic will bring more bulletin board posts, site submissions, papers, and features which will benefit all of us. Overall, the site has gotten about 150,000 total hits since the beginning.

The Mining Company site is getting about 1,200 site hits per day. Some days it is closer to 3,000 hits. This number is increasing rapidly. My site now has highly visible links from Netcom, AT&T, Citibank, MSN, and Pointcast. The Mining Company overall is now number 68 for total traffic on the Internet. I predict we will be in the top 20 within a few months.

I was also very excited to receive an email from CIO magazine informing me that my site is now featured in their IT links section!

In addition, the Mining Company site now has some important new areas:

A new MIS Bulletin Board (Please stop in and post a message!)

http://mis.miningco.com/mpboards.htm

Chat Rooms

Both sites now have very powerful chat rooms from Parachat. Feel free to meet an associate in these room whenever you like. Jeff and I are planning to schedule a chat soon for the itmWEB subscribers. We have representatives from over 40 countries on this list, and we are trying to select a time when we can get as many international participants as possible. Watch for a special email announcement.

Here are links to the new chat rooms:

itmWEB Chat Room

http://www.geocities.com/~itmweb/chat.htm

The Mining Company MIS Chat Room

http://mis.miningco.com/mpchat.htm

Currently, the itmWEB Report subscriber count is just a little below 1,000. I have a bottle a champagne waiting to be opened when we get to this big milestone. Please forward the report to an associate who might have an interest in subscribing, and help us to reach this magic number - thanks :-)

Over at Jeff's site, he continues to work on his new book:

Lucid Code: Taming Software Development Chaos

http://www.montana.com/asc/lucid_code/lc_cover.html

You can keep up with his progress by checking the URL above for on-line postings of each chapter!

THE UP FRONT LINKS

A collection of time sensitive links covering current IT issues.

ZDNet has a great new area which is keeping up with the latest news about Windows 98:

http://www.zdnet.com/products/windows98/index.html

ZDNet has also created a great Windows 98 help site (for those of you who have been brave enough to load the Beta Version):

http://www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/win_help/win98_help.html

ZDNet also has a new Job listing site. Companies like Symantec, Sprint, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, American Express, and Raytheon are posting through this new service:

http://www.zdnet.com/chkpt/job080309/www.jobEngine.com

Important

In the US, the data encryption legislation now before Congress is now back on the fast track. One provision would require that IT managers be responsible for giving encryption keys to the government (if requested) for any messages originating from your company. As I see it - this could be quite an administrative challenge. Read about it here:

http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?/features/980323encryption.htm

http://www.techweb.com/news/story/TWB19980330S0012

If you are following the Sun - Microsoft battle over Java, here is a story which amazed me. How strange is this situation going to get?

Microsoft infiltrates Java Lobby at the JavaOne conference:

http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?980324.ehlobby.htm

Senator Orrin Hatch and the US Senate Judiciary Committee have begun the next phase of their investigation of Microsoft:

Orrin Hatch's Clarifying Letter Request:

http://mis.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa032698.htm

Some analysis:

http://www.techweb.com/news/story/TWB19980327S0010

http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2553499398-915

The Senate Judiciary Committee is now stating that their investigation will also encompass Windows 98:

http://www2.computerworld.com/home/online9697.nsf/CWFlash/980327senate1DFB6

PC Magazine covered Java in great detail in a recent issue. This one took me several days to read:

http://www.zdnet.com/chkpt/pcma980327/www.pcmag.com/features/java98/index.html

Do you keep hearing about LINUX and wonder "what the heck is this stuff?". Here is a good overview from PC Magazine:

http://www.zdnet.com/chkpt/pcma980327/www.pcmag.com/pctech/content/16/13/os1613.001.html

Quote of the week:

General Motors Locomotive Group awarded CSC a five-year contract worth at least $85 million. Dana Deasy, CIO at the Locomotive Group, stated that CSC scored highest because "they listened and asked for clarification and always made sure they were providing solutions we were looking for."

Bad news of the month:

A new virus capable of spreading through Microsoft Access databases has been discovered:

http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2553407836-acb

A good feature about controlling your Web site contractor:

http://www2.computerworld.com/home/features.nsf/CWFlashWeekly/980330careers

Microsoft has been ordered to remove Sun's Java-compatible logo from its products until a lawsuit between the two companies is settled:

http://www2.computerworld.com/home/online9697.nsf/CWFlash/980325judge1DE26

CIO Magazine looks at some lessons from the US Central Intelligence Agency:

http://www.cio.com/archive/031598_cia.html

IBM and Sun To Introduce JavaOS:

http://www.techweb.com/news/story/TWB19980331S0015

My Mining Company feature on the same subject (which has more info than the TechWeb story - Scott Winters spoke about the project at a recent Austin AITP Meeting - it even has pictures!):

http://mis.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa031098.htm

Netscape has gone through with their promise to give away the Communicator source code. Here is the announcement:

http://www.techweb.com/news/story/TWB19980331S0001

This is old news for itmWEB readers since the URL for the code was published in last month's newsletter:

http://www.mozilla.org/

John Dvorak discusses the looming battle between Microsoft and 3Com in the hand-held PC market space:

http://www.pcmag.com/insites/dvorak/jd.htm

PC Magazine reviews Palm Computing's PALM III hand-held computer, the successor to the PalmPilot:

http://www.pcmag.com/firstlooks/9803/f980309a.htm

PC Magazine gives the technical details behind NT 5.0's new features:

http://www.pcmag.com/pctech/17/07/tf1707.001

Best Practices: Informal, Effective Process Improvement

By Jeff Gainer

Most software development organizations have continued to build software products the same way for years without turning a critical eye toward their management processes. Sometimes this assessment doesn't seem necessary until some key people leave--taking with them the qualities that made previous software development efforts a success. The time to assess an organization's capabilities and processes is before such a crisis, and preserve the knowledge of the key people in the organization.

Process improvement is typically associated with "top-down" management methods (such as standards, procedures, and methodologies), which are handed down from management to front-line developers.

A different, "bottom-up" approach to process improvement is to identify the "best practices" in an organization and promote their use, while simultaneously identifying counterproductive practices and removing them. The concept of best practices encourages learning from within an organization, by documenting and promoting the practices that work well, thus preserving and passing on key knowledge.

The concept of best practices was developed by the Airlie Council, a task force of influential industry thinkers appointed by the US Department of Defense’s Software Program Manager’s Network. <http://www.spmn.com> The Airlie Council has identified and
recommended over 170 "best practices" for software development organizations connected to the US military. The nine "Principal Best Practices" <http://www.spmn.com/best_practices.html> are
recommended to nearly all DOD software projects. But while the concept of best practices has gained acceptance in the government sector, many private sector firms are ignorant of the concept.

The best practices approach is a highly informal method of process improvement, and it is particularly well suited to smaller development organizations. If you want to adopt the philosophy of best practices in your organization, how and where do you begin?

Unfortunately, you can’t buy a set of best practices off the shelf. A caveat: remember that what works in somebody else’s environment won’t necessarily work in yours. If you’re looking for a starting point for ideas for best practices, you can consult the Software Program Manager’s Web site <http://www.spmn.com> and other sources
for ideas, but by its very nature, implementing any best practices program is a unique effort. Identifying best practices is first a process of listening and observing. And after every project, no matter how minor, you and your staff - not just management, but the entire staff - should pause to perform an informal "post-mortem" to identify processes or practices which worked well--and perhaps more importantly, to identify what didn’t work well. Be sure to ask not only what you would do again, but also what you would never do again. This way, you’ll learn from both your successes and your failures.

How to promote best practices? Identifying what works in your organization is only part of the effort. Next you’ll need to actively promote the use of your best practices. You can publish them on an intranet, distribute hard-copy newsletters, or exchange ideas in regular meetings. The method you choose to promote best practices may itself help you identify a best practice in your organization’s culture.

Next month in Critical Path:

I’ll discuss a more formal and very different approach to process improvement: The Capability Maturity Model.

Copyright 1998, Jeff Gainer, All Rights Reserved

Jeff Gainer, known is some circles as "Jeff the Evangelist," is a software management consultant and traveling IT evangelist. He has preached software development sermons at a number of organizations in both the United States and Russia. The author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, Mr. Gainer's current focus is his forthcoming process management book Lucid Code: Taming Software Development Chaos. You can visit Jeff’s company and read some of his articles on the Web at:

http://www.montana.com/asc/

So you don't think your company has a year 2000 problem? Read this feature to learn about the risks that desktop applications pose:

http://www.techweb.com/news/story/y2k/TWB19980330S0004

Here is another Y2K article about "The Ripple Effect"

http://www.cio.com/archive/040198_y2k.html

CIO magazine examines the Executive Sponsor's influence over the success or failure of an Information Technology project:

http://www.cio.com/archive/enterprise/031598_executive.html

IT staffing strategies which link your needs to the company's business goals:

http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStat.pl?sc?/careers/980309staff.htm

The 1997 CIO Executive Survey results:

http://www.cio.com/archive/030198_salary.html

Operating System Watch (1997 Sales):

NT Server licenses	1.3 million units
NetWare licenses	900,000 units
UNIX licenses	717,000 units
OS/2 licenses	226,000 units

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

APRIL 1, 1998

Calendar System Revised in Historic Vote

"It Wasn't Such a Big Deal," says Industry Expert

The Year 2000 software problem has been solved, says computer expert Peter de Jager. De Jager made the statement during an address to the United Nations General Assembly this morning. Prior to de Jager's address, the UN Security Council had voted unanimously to endorse de Jager's recommendation to adopt a different calendar system. "The Year 2000 software problem is not a technical problem at all," de Jager said in his address. "The problem is not in our computers, but in our calendars. The solution to this grave problem is a simple matter of restructuring our calendar system."

"Instead of the Gregorian year 1998, we are now in the Petrusian year 1398," said a jubilant UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, in a reference to Pope Gregory XIII's switch from the Julian to the current Gregorian date system in 1582. "Computer experts now have another 600 years to work on the problem. Now we feel confident that they can finish in time."

"This is a great boon to the world's economic well being," said Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. "Now we don't have to buy bigger computers." Greenspan and a number of notable economists had speculated on the possibility of dire economic consequences stemming from the software problem.

Economist Ed Yardini disagreed, stating "That's ridiculous. The Year 2000 software problem posed no economic risk at all. This is just a lot of hoopla about nothing."

Cutter Consortium Chairman Edward Yourdon agreed with Yardini, stating, "I don't know what all the fuss was about. It wasn't such a big deal heck, we could have fixed it over the weekend."

For the html version (including the important links):

http://www.montana.com/asc/Y2Ksolved.html

MIS Net Links:
http://mis.miningco.com/mlibrary.htm

MIS Benchmarks and Metrics Scoreboard: http://mis.miningco.com/blbench.htm

Job/Career Resource Center:
http://mis.miningco.com/msub31.htm

IT Forum:
http://mis.miningco.com/mpboards.htm

CASE Tools
http://www.geocities.com/~itmweb/case.htm

THIS MONTH'S PLUG:

Stonebridge Technologies

http://www.sbti.com/

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