Internet as a utility not a profitable service - I just saw a women presentation on this and I cannot agree more, it is simply a human need not a privledge. I wish I took more notes of who she was etc. but she is dam right!!

TNW2012 - Tech conferences serve a purpose. For me inspiration for the most as well as sadly getting vibe what what is new and up coming. This should be easy to do via following the speakers but it is consolidated, so like a once a year detox. there is a shift as the speakers seem to be moving forward so fast in an aggressive way under the flag of innovation, that it seems once again we are not fast enough, which says more about there fear then ours. the quote that sits with me most, was the older speaker from the WSJ Europe who said email is dead so twitter is best. really, if that is true I know allot of smart people who will be missed, and I blame the twitter client, not the twitter philosophy. I guess my other notion was the young startups who flock for funding, but I don't think they are there. It is a ego contest on the other big side.but with all that I think I can see what is coming and going. Amsterdam is cool as hell, kinda a mix between Germans and English if I may say without insult to anyone. ice again short beers? Tall people, but good weather and Amsterdam is true to itself.

When is it time to Scale?

When to Scale, is something most companies never think about in my experience, even though they are dreaming of massive sales and hits.  Scaling can be hard, if is not thought about from the beginning. Both vertical (most of time splitting the the app server from the db server and horizontal scaling (mostly preparing for load balancing) needs to be addressed from stage 1 of development. With proper virtual server setup from the beginning this can be done with low cost.

Open Source vs. Microsoft and a couple of Macs

I have been in IT for 15 years and this debate has always been on my mind. My current philosophy is LAMP are the backbone of the internet as well as the web developers platform of choice. They are stable and with good admin, hardening and securing, just let them go. But I have to say Microsoft server 2003/2008 Exchange 2003/2007 and Sharepoint 2003/2007 are great stable products, keeping them the backbone of the business network loaded with productivity features. Macs have found their way in as well and are my workstations of choice after years of going back and forth. There was a time in my youth where I could have been considered a Mac evangelist that I was willing to fight anyone on the point of why would you use windows. For this old IT guy I finally enjoy the debate as each has found a place in my working technical life. Now when will someone put out a great international multilingual server based accounting software and once that is solved lets move on to pay roll.

The state of the general office network

A general windows based network should work like the PBX system. With windows networks properly secured and setup at the server level (good Admin) , there should be minimum need for desktop support. Other then setup of new users and workstations IT help desk costs should costs should be minimum and mostly at the server level. 

no laptop needed?

The more I use my iPhone the less I need my laptop and it is weird as I have carried a laptop everywhere for over the last 10-15  years. I know this is not news but with Exchange and Sharepoint as the office back-end I can pretty much do everything via the phone, and it will only get worse once the iPhone as horizontal typing ability for every app.

Using the data-center as your machine room

Over the last few years we kept all our servers in-house, but now that Dell has D-Rack, great remote access tools, fast bandwidth and our data-center is now thinking green, Virtual Server now evolved, blade technology proving itself saving space. I have trouble thinking of a reason to keeping them in-house?