From the QWANtify Blogs
September 11, 2009· by Tammy Adler
This evening I had the pleasure of hanging out with a Sauk Prairie Memorial Hospital surgeon, his wife and son.
Filed in: Company Insight
The next time you take a minute to update your Facebook page, be careful! Most users know the difference between public and private information in their profiles, but making sensitive information private is not as safe as some users may think. Canada’s privacy commissioner has been the latest to put a spotlight on the numerous gaping holes in the security surrounding the most popular social-networking websites.
The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that almost a million Facebook developers around the globe have unrestricted access to all of the information in your profile. Regardless of the safeguards you think you’ve placed on your personal information, it is all visible and accessible to these users. Further, Facebook never deletes any of this information, even if you cancel your account. Thus, there is currently no way to eliminate the chance that someone could later dig up a potentially sensitive piece of information deleted by a user. Several other privacy risks are outlined in the article linked-to below.
This situation is a great example of how important and difficult it is to keep personal information personal. I had thought that I was being paranoid for not getting a Facebook account, but it turns out I was more right than I’d ever thought I would be. As a general rule, I recommend refraining from posting anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t want your mother — or your boss — to read.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/17/facebook-privacy-settlement.html
Filed in: Team Member Blog
A few years ago, I became involved with the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County by participating in their annual bike ride. Every year hundreds of people who work, live, and play in the Madison area recruit friends, form teams, raise money, and bike 10, 30 or 50 miles in support of the Boys and Girls Club. Not only is this great for each individual rider and the Boys and Girls Club, but it’s also great for the city of Madison and Madison area businesses.
It has been proven that businesses that actively participate and encourage their employees to get involved with corporate philanthropy and charitable giving opportunities in their company have better employee retention, an easier time recruiting new employees, reported growth in their business and have a higher employee work performance. How exciting is this! Read on for more……….
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Podcast Length
Recently, I have come across podcasts that are an hour long or longer! Most of the podcasts I subscribe too are 20 minutes or less. That is way to long. Now maybe if I was listening to podcasts for entertainment I would like them being longer, but I listen to podcasts mainly to keep up on developments in the programming world. Also most of those hour long podcasts feels like they are just trying to fill up time so their podcast is an hour long. If you want to see how a podcast should be done check outThe Rails Envy Podcasts. Those guys know what they are doing. Yes, their content can be immature at times, but there podcast packs a lot of good solid information. Unfortunately it sounds like the Rails Envy Podcasts may be coming to an end. I hope the will be continued in a different form. If you are developing screencasts than you should go look at Rails Casts. Yes these are both rails related and in my mind these are part of the reason the Rails community is doing so well.
-Kevin
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Today, after grocery shopping in Sauk City, I was the recipient of great customer service.
Filed in: Company Insight
This summer, once again, QWANtify is proud to sponsor the University of Wisconsin Whitewater’s CyberGirlz Technology Camp. This FREE Technology Camp for middle school girls is held
July 20 – 24, 2009.
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Programming Language Generations
What ever happened to program language generations? When I was going to school I always heard about how C and C++ were a Third Generation Programming languages and there were new Fourth Generation Programming Languages like Power Builder coming which would make programming SO much easier. Then Java came out and the focus on programming changed from Client Server or Desktop Applications to Web Apps. When that happened I stopped hearing people talk about programming language generations and instead focused on extending current languages with new APIs, specs and plugins. So what happened? People didn’t stop creating programming languages. In reality several great new languages have come out like Python and Ruby. Both are relatively new and are significantly faster to develop in.
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Each year, as the so-called ‘digital revolution’ picks up speed, greater numbers of markets have been transitioning to Internet based distribution. Music, film, journalism and telecommunications are just a few of the industries that have been strongly influenced by this trend. There have been some consumer complaints, but by far the loudest objections have come from the beneficiaries of aging business models.
While I’m an advocate of using the Internet as a distribution system, I’m not keen on the new standard for buying digital music that iTunes has established. I love having a high quality, tangible copy of the album I just bought, complete with cover art and liner notes. Sure, album artwork can be packaged with a purely digital copy in the form of a PDF or JPEG file, but in my opinion there’s still a certain sense of satisfaction missing from it. Additionally, the audio resolution of iTunes downloads is far lower than that of a CD, not to mention that of vinyl records.
That being said, I’ll admit that the digital distribution music model is remarkably efficient. For one thing, it simply has no packaging materials, construction, storage or shipping costs. Furthermore, there is never any waste to throw into a landfill, and very little energy is required to send a song through a computer network, making digital music a much greener alternative.
A hot topic of late has been whether digital distribution is sustainable in the long term. While it has been becoming an increasingly viable goal, it can only remain so if access to the Internet is extremely reliable. So especially since most consumers have come to expect immediate gratification and portability in media purchases, one thing to keep in mind is that it’s very important that we fortify our existing infrastructure if we continue to increase our reliance on computer networks for the consumption of day to day commodities.
Most large media firms have not adapted to these kinds of expectations, and their revenue has dropped as a result. A quick glance at the news shows that consumers will find ways to meet their own expectations, regardless of what the traditional corporate players have planned. Their market will definitely continue to evolve, but it’s becoming apparent that the power will likely change hands in the process, perhaps more than once.
Filed in: Team Member Blog