I'm a tweenbot but you can call me Blanche DeBois!

If you are a robot lost in a big city, it helps to be small, vulnerable and cute as artist and student Kacie Kinzer discovered with her tweenbots experiment. Those lovable androids with only a “forward” setting were helped by passersby on their mission across Washington Square park in NY. I’m just an IT guy but I reckon there are some complex man/machine interactions in play here.

Just love the tweenbots! Even the music in the video will cheer you up.

Zappos (Spanish: Zapatos: Shoes) the online shoe company has a nice set of core values. In this time of global economic meltdowns and Malthusian information famines, it’s nice, (almost quaint) to see a set of core values that guide this organization.

From their website

1. Deliver WOW through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Have Fun and a Little Weirdnes
4. Be Adventurous, Creative and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More with Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

An excellent list – I especially like the “little weirdness” part. I reckon every day would be a bit David Lynch-ian around the water cooler. In a time of great cynicism, and surviving office workers portrayed as automatons in TV’s The Office, it’s nice to see this jaunty throwback to the dot com era and business school aphorisms.

While “yammer” has yet to take off here, Zappos staff are encouraged to twitter. Cool.

A rare week of few committee and management meetings has me thinking of ways of improving meeting effectiveness. As a CIO I am responsible for operations and projects that require considerable planning and consensus to succeed. This all translates to meetings. Lots of meetings. Ugh.

An article in the Gray Lady outlines some ways to improve the effectiveness of meetings include setting clear objectives on the purpose of the meeting. Agendas, minutes, actions should be mandatory. It’s amazing how many meetings I attend without those basics.

It is also important to think about the opportunity costs of the meeting. A large meeting with 20-40 people costs literally thousands of dollars an hour, for example. Keep those committees as small as collegially possible. And keep them short.

This saves time for the more important things in life, like food!

The Best Maple Syrup Balsamic Vinegar Salad!

Data centre coming to a town near you?

Exciting developments in our region as Q9 and EDS announce the creation of a new data centre in Kamloops, located on McGill Road near the campus. As this will store Government data, the ownership arrangement is such that the data won’t be subject to the Patriot Act.

The facility is planned to be 50,000 square feet on a six acre property. This is certainly good news and, as I’ve argued, the Kamloops region an ideal location because of a number of strategic advantages:

• Trained IT labour force;
• National fibre runs right through town;
• Dark-fibre infrastructure in place;
• Situation high above the floodplain;
• Low seismic activity; and,
• Opportunities for Free-Cooling.

In other news, cloud computing spotters will have also noticed this week that Google displayed one of it’s data centre servers. Instead of using brand name pizza boxes, Google apparently builds their own, with the innovation that includes on-board backup power.

Once a carefully guarded Google secret

Other interesting aspects of the Googleplex are that servers are stored in 250KW capacity containers. Each container can store 1,160 servers. Google also runs their data centre hot, apparently. More specs here.

Currently it’s all quiet on the Western front regarding the April 1st Conflicker virus but here’s a handy-dandy eye chart to determine if your machine has been infected.

TRU stakeholders can contact the service desk at itservicedesk@tru.ca or 250-852-6800 for further assistance.

Notes from our communiques on this virus

Conficker is a computer worm that has been spreading to Windows computers since November 2008, and security experts estimate that at least 10 million PCs are infected. This worm is one of the most significant malware threats to personal computer security to come along in the last few years. On April 1, 2009, or later, the Conficker C worm is scheduled to contact servers on the internet for additional instructions, and security experts don’t yet know what those instructions will be.  Most analysts do not expect anything dramatic to occur.  However, even if there is no disruptive attack on April 1, infected systems will continue to present a threat of attacking neighbours and strangers, stealing passwords and other data.

Preventing Infection – Microsoft released a patch to resolve the Windows vulnerability exploited by Conficker in October 2008. This patch has been distributed to all Windows computers in the TRU network.

Detecting and Removing – If you are unable to run Windows Update or reach some of the antivirus sites or security sites, such as www.mcafee.com or www.sophos.com/products/free-tools/conficker-removal-tool.html then the workstation may be infected. The latest versions of antivirus softwares are capable of detecting and blocking Conficker including Sophos, Symantec, and McAfee.

Always make sure your local antivirus software is up-to-date.

Tips for your home computer:

• We recommend that Windows Updates are run automatically.  If not, please run as soon as possible. http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us
• Other informative links are: http://windowssecrets.com/2009/01/22/02-Keep-the-latest-worm-infestation-off-your-PC
• Microsoft has a free tool you can download and run on your system: http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx and http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AD724AE0-E72D-4F54-9AB3-75B8EB148356&displaylang=en

btw happy April 1st.