Business Analysis

Lately - a big part of my job has become Business Analysis for the software implementations that I am involved with. It was not until I saw a couple of projects have less than stellar outcomes - that I realized the importance of business analysis in an implementation project.

With many of the changes to the structure and processes at the company that I work for - one of these was a greater emphasis on utilizing project teaming - and dividing roles. The business analysis is like checking the depth of the pool before diving in. It sure is good to find out that the depth is 3 feet before you leap in.

Apple Memory upgrade...

I think that I am going to start a new business. Here is my plan:

• Buy a load of memory from a place like Crucial.com
• Sit outside the Apple store with my table that says - "Memory Upgrades - 10% to charity"
• Charge 1000.00 to max out memory in a MacBook Pro
• Make 800.00 per transaction, donate 80.00 to some charity, pocket the rest.

WHY would the Apple store website charge me 1000.00 to upgrade, when I can order the memory for 200.00. I even found another site that had the chips (without a brand name) for 77.00 each.

I think that if I choose to go to the Apple store and upgrade, I should get a MacMini free. :-)

Vista on the MacBook Pro

The other day, I realized that my MacBook Pro was sitting on the shelf gathering dust. I started work in mid September, and was given a Dell laptop to use for work. The Dell was not a bad machine, however the specs are meager when compared to that of the new MacBook Pro.

With some determination, I nuked the Mac, to re-install OSx. I did this because when I previously removed the Boot Camp partition, the Boot Camp wizard would not set up again. The re-installation went smooth, and I was happy with it.

The Vista installation went smooth. As soon as Vista installed, I used the CD that Boot Camp created to install all of the relevant drivers. Vista runs really well. Booting natively of course allows Vista to run at full speed. Compared to running in Parallels, we are talking tortoise vs. hare.

Only one thing that I would like to have is being able to tap the touch pad. Can't have everything though right?

OSx 10.5, Leopard just came out. Apparently, it has the final version of Boot Camp. I downloaded the latest beta version, and it seems to be working fine. So right now, I don't see any reason to upgrade to Leopard, as Vista is my primary operating system.

Mac Update

I thought that I would write an update on how the Mac experience thus far.

I have been using the MacBook Pro (MBP) every day at school. Here is the list of my observations so far:

• The space bar squeaks. No kidding. I generally type the space bar with my right thumb, and when I do, I get a squeak. Perhaps it needs some lube. I may take it down to the Mac store and see if I can get that taken care of. I mean, it has only been a week.
• As for performance, I have been quite happy with the speed. One of the key things that I was looking for here was the performance of the Parallels Virtual Machine. I have loaded up my Windows XP, giving it half of the 2GB memory. Most of the work that I do with windows does not need extreme graphics, and I found that going with 16MB graphics in parallels (the max is 64) I get better performance. Generally in XP, I have MS Outlook running in the background monitoring my school e-mail, and then running whatever application I need for school. Working with VS2005 and the NORMA tool, I have not noticed significant slow downs when building the application over my Thinkpad. I think that having the 2.4GHZ DUO processor makes up a bit. The Thinkpad was 2.16GHZ.
• I tried the Boot camp, which worked great. I was even able to VM boot from the Boot camp partition. This is great, however, I immediately noticed the loss of the suspend ability in Parallels. Well, that feature is important to me. I installed VISTA on the Bootcamp partition, loaded all the drivers and the speed seemed really good. However, the purpose of getting the MAC was to learn the OSx and UNIX environments, so I removed my Vista install, removed the Boot camp changes to the HD, and I will be sticking to the Parallels VM of XP that I have for now. When I am done with school, I might do a Vista in Parallels, although I have heard that performance is not good with Vista and Parallels.
• I had read some reviews regarding the heat issue and the MBP. The left side of the machine stays warm. I would say that it has only gotten HOT in a couple of instances where the machine was under a workload for an extended period of time. When I am at school, plugged in, I am working in FULL POWER settings. I notice that when I lower everything to conserve power, that it cools a lot.
• Software: I have found a world of software that was inaccessible to me before. Lots of shareware and freeware too. All of the apps that I have checked out have been from recommended lists and have been good. Perhaps I will make a list and blog it sometime in the future.
• I have found the OS x user interface to be quite easy to use. I like the expose features that make switching between programs pretty easy.

Overall, I am happy. I feel like I have a quality machine, which is in a nice package. Quite literally, the only disappointment is the keyboard squeak. Hopefully that can be fixed under the warranty.

Article: Five Cool future IT positons

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/050707-it-reorganization-five-new-it-jobs.html

I found this article to be quite interesting. The IT world seems under a constant state of evolution, and new positions are opening up all the time. As one who is entering the job market this is great news.

Software Developers!

Yesterday, I went through and updated my Facebook Profile. Then, to my amazement, I found that Facebook can now interface with my blog! (See previous post...) Obviously, I thought that this is way cool. Thanks to the software developers that implement features like that. :-) So, there may be more posts from me on my blog.

There was also a pretty good snow storm that rolled through the Salt Lake valley yesterday. It was not as bad where I am as what the weatherman said, but it was good. The forecasts also predicted that there would be snow today... however all that I am seeing outside is lots of sunshine!