There is an evil trend that has taken over the good judgment of people all across our great country. It is the idea that if something bad happens to you – that you find someone to blame and make them pay you money. This idea really makes my blood boil.

Case in point – this article explains how the parents of a boy who was killed by a line drive in a baseball game sued the manufacturer of the bat for “not provid[ing] proper warning about the dangers of using aluminum bats.” Are you kidding me?

Now I realize it would be terrible to lose a child, a pain that I don’t wish upon anyone. This is of course the saddest part of the story. However, this doesn’t justify placing the blame on someone (or in this case – something) for what was probably just a freak accident. I mean come on – have we as a society lost our common sense? Are we indicating that our lives are lived out by other people’s decisions?

I guess it just comes down to this – life isn’t fair. Accidents happen – to both good people and bad. Sometimes there is someone to blame – and sometimes there isn’t. Our response shouldn’t be “who can I blame and how much can I get?”

Don’t you agree?

*My point is confirmed by a rather funny Weird Al song – check it out – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfO9JUNXN7U

For those that don’t remember, Moore’s law states that the number of  transistors that can be placed into an integrated circuit doubles every 2 years. While the original definition ended there, the law has shown to apply to a wide variety of electronic devices, such as processors, memory, pixels in digital cameras, etc.

During the summer of 2007, I finally made the transition from only using a laptop to building a desktop. At the time, it had relatively new components, a Gigabyte P35 motherboard, an Intel e6550, a NVIDIA 8800GTS 320MB graphics card, and 2GB of DDR2 memory at 800mhz. The total system (including hard drive, power supply, monitor) came to roughly $1200.

In the current market, a substantially faster machine could be procured for roughly the same dollar. However, as an IT professional, am I required to “keep up with the Jones’s” as it were? Can someone be technologically “with it” without having it? Does the mantra of an IT guy require the latest and greatest in order to be considered an IT guy?

I think this depends on your attitude. I have witnessed many technologists that didn’t want to evolve because of fear of the unknown. They were complacent with the current system and adhered to the adage “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” A professor of mine in an Operating Systems class once indicated that in 5 years, everything we learned would be obsolete. To stay an IT professional, it would require the lifelong pursuit of knowledge – and couldn’t thrive on anything less.

However – I’m sure there are many who are just like me – too broke to advance. As you can imagine – I’m pretty ok with this group. At least until I can convince my wife we need the newest flavor.

Until then – its vanilla for me.

Last week we had a demo with WebEx – who was recently purchased by Cisco. WebEx is a collaboration tool that enables users to virtually attend meetings and share voice, documents, files, video, etc.

Part of this demo included a marketing pitch that indicated many universities (such as BYU) had switched classes from being held in lecture halls to being held virtually.

Cisco WebEx isn’t the only player in this market. Many have probably seen the recent advertisements on TV for GoToMeeting. Another relatively new one is Yugma. The premise for each is simple – you can save money, time, and travel by virtually holding meetings – while still accomplishing what you need to.

It seems this trend is following that of social networking. You no longer have to stop by and sit down in someone’s living room to find out how they’re doing. All that’s required now is a text, a quick look at their facebook profile, or even a glance at their twitter status. While I agree – the more collaboration the better – I wonder where the line is drawn.

Can a student honestly learn (to the same degree) thru a computer screen as they could in a classroom? Can all meetings accomplish the same thing without having to be in the same physical space at once?

Maybe it’s just me – but I think there’s a difference between productivity and connectivity. To connect with someone requires more than pixels of data.

Changing directions – as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – I attend a 3 hour block of worship services every Sunday. I wonder how things would change if all the meetings became virtual. Would this improve the meetings?

Obviously Web 2.0 is here to stay – sometimes I just wonder at what cost.

One of the classes I took (and was required to) in my study of Information Technology here at BYU was Human Computer Interfacing. This was a study of the interactions between users and technology – and specifically how technology can (and should) be designed to help users accomplish what they need to – faster, easier, and smarter.

But where does one draw the line between designing something user-friendly but also secure?

A prime example of this is the User Account Control (UAC) feature that was implemented in Windows Vista. I’m sure the reasoning Microsoft had was to try and educate, as well as warn users, when potentially harmful activity was occurring. This feature would literally pester the user – constantly. While I skipped the Vista flavor of Windows (I recently moved from XP to Windows 7 and love it), I can recall countless times that users would turn off the function – or simply click Ok without a seconds hesitation. Truly convenience of getting on with whatever the user was trying to do outweighed the warning. (Granted – Windows implementation of this feature wasn’t the greatest…I’m just using it to prove a point. )

Passwords are another point of concern on this topic. I believe it was one of the temps from “The Office” that indicated the only thing she learned was that half the employees used “password” as their password. While this is just a TV show – it’s probably more true than not in the actual workplace. A secure password could be defined as one that is changed every 30-45 days, does not contain family names or words found in a dictionary. It also contains uppercase, lowercase, symbols, numbers, and should range from 8 characters to 16 characters. This seems to be a daunting task for any user – let alone your average Joe.

Recently some changes have been made to the wireless on BYU campus. A secure SSID that implemented WPA or WPA2 and required the user to pass a scanning process that ensured the user was up-to-date with Windows patches and had installed a up-to-date antivirus program. While this added 10-20 seconds more time (after the initial setup) from the previous process – the end result was far more secure than the previous implementation (no security, no scanning). According to the network security team, the amount of viruses, attacks, and malicious activity on the network dropped to rates not before seen. So in reality – not only was the network more secure, but performed better. So a win for the user? No – a number of users were annoyed at the extra time this “inconvenience” caused. I even heard complaints that it was an invasion of privacy – that the network team had no right to know what was on a users computer. Sometimes you just have to sigh.

I think this will continue to be a struggle – until users have a deep enough understanding as to why administrators seem to cause so much “inconvenience.”

Until then…I’m not even sure.

Since I’ve been attending BYU, they have issued decals to be able to park in various lots. There are Y lots (Undergraduate Students), A lots (Faculty/Staff), G lots (Graduate Students), and C lots (on-campus housing). The members of University Police that enforce these lots have been much like the post office – they are out there rain, snow, or shine.

There are also two gates that lead to on-campus driveways – roads that are only accessible to full-time staff. Cars would have to get a little RFID that would open the gate when the antenna came in range of the gate.

Recently, BYU has decided to switch over to a system that uses license plate recognition in lieu of parking stickers or gate openers. It’s a pretty novel concept – instead of issuing stickers or passes, students and faculty merely register their license plates online. Parking lots are now enforced by a car that drives around with a camera on it’s roof that reads license plates to verify parking entitlement. Additionally, cameras were installed by the gates that lead on to campus so that when a car pulls up to the gate, it reads the plate and opens it.

Awesome – no more stickers, no more passes, and no more officers having to be out in the cold during the dead of winter…now only if it worked.

Unfortunately, of the 5 times I’ve had to use the gates on campus – it’s worked for me once. After being instructed to contact parking services – I was told that the system “has issues” and that they’re “working on it.”

Luckily for me I only have to use the gate a couple times a week – I can’t imagine the annoyance daily users must encounter. Perhaps they need to upgrade their new system, because systems are available that “can scan number plates at around one per second on cars traveling up to 100 mph.”

Perhaps BYU employees just need to slow down.