SBCTC to spend $10+ Million on Server Migration.

“ Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
-Robert J. Hanlon

As most of my friends would tell you, it's very rare that I get truly angry about anything. But as I write this, I find that I am unbelievably outraged. What has me so worked up? How does the idea of $10 Million in work being shipped out of State, and out of Country for that matter, sound to you? How about the thought of $1.7 Million, with an additional $350,000 per year, being unnecessarily spent on Software that we don't need to buy? Well, thats exactly what the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges is planning on doing.

Since early this year, I have been following the SBCTC's attempt to migrate from their old HP3000 servers to a new system. The servers in question are used for storing and maintaining data regarding financial aid, registration, personnel/payroll and other critical information for each of Washington State's 34 community and technical colleges, and they have been trying to get the system migrated since 2005. It's no wonder they're 3 months behind on financial aid, they're using 30+ year old Mini-Computers.

But what has me outraged is not the Project's goal, or even so much the amount to be spent. What has me irritated are the decisions that the SBCTC has made during the whole process, and more importantly their most recent decision as to which Vendors will be awarded the contract. On Tuesday, September 2nd 2009, SBCTC passed Resolution 09-09-20, which names Hewlett-Packard and Speedware LTD.(based out of California and Quebec, respectively) as the Vendors that will be responsible for the migration. Out of a budget of US $10 Million, Speedware is to be paid $4.4 Million, while HP stands to make money not only on Hardware, but also the Software.

According the Agenda from their Sept. 2nd conference, in addition to Hardware costs, HP will be paid an initial $1.7 Million in licensing fees for the use of HP UNIX, COBOL, and HP Eloquence, with an additional $350,000 to be paid annually for continued licensing. If the new servers are to be used for the same length of time as the old system, that will amount to at least $10.5 Million more that they will be paid, just for permission to continue using their Software.

But the real icing on the cake is that SBCTC has not even attempted to take bids on this project. They have been haggling with and cajoling HP to finish this project since 2005, and now they intend to allow them to continue wasting our tax dollars. This decision is based partially on the recommendations of Collegiate Project Services, a consulting firm that was contracted for an undisclosed amount, and whom also (erroneously) advised SBCTC that an Open Source(e.g. Free Software) solution would be one of the most expensive and high risk options. Although to their credit, Collegiate did advise that an Open Source project, called Kuali Student, would be one of the best options for them, however, as they also mentioned it wouldn't be “ready” for implementation for at least 5 years.

And how will the job market will be effected by this decision? As stated earlier, the SBCTC agenda names Speedware LTD., of Quebec, as the contractor for the job, for which they will receive the amount of $4.4 Million. Their responsibilities are to include setting up the new systems, and the migration of the old applications and data to the new system. Why, when we live in a world center of the Computer Industry, would you need to send this contract out of state? Especially when we currently face record unemployment rates. The answer is that there is no sufficiently good reason for our appointed officials having made a decision that will deprive Washington residents of exactly $4.4 Million in jobs, far more than we can afford right now.

Recent estimates have stated that we currently face an $8 - 9 Billion deficit in the 2009-2011 budget. How much of that, I wonder, is due to ongoing licensing fees? Software that is selected by any State agency should be done so based on it's own merit and part of that evaluation should be a factual estimation of a solution's Total Cost of Ownership. In my honest opinion, software with steep yearly licensing fees should be disqualified. They should be disqualified not only because of cost, but because the terms of such a “purchase” do not constitute Ownership, but Rental. Do you want your tax dollars you be used to “ Rent” a computer system from HP or anyone else for that matter? Neither do I. But whats the alternative? Patience gentle reader, we'll get to that next time.

Whats the Bottom Line?

So far, this project has been horribly mis-managed by both SBCTC and Hewlett-Packard, and frankly I don't think that HP should be allowed to continue their involvement in this project. Furthermore, Speedware LTD. shouldn't be awarded the contract for the project without first having to bid on it against Washington based Vendors. It is vital to our State economy that we not let practices of this kind continue. If a private Company wants to make poor choices, its their right to do so, but our public departments should be held accountable for poorly made, uninformed decisions that have such a huge financial impact on the residents of Washington.

Going back to the quote at the beginning of the article; “ Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” I try to follow this rule whenever possible, and I'd be more than happy to explain this away as such. But there are so many holes in the information that it readily available that I am unable to say definitely that this is the case. In any event, I think that SBCTC should be compelled to offer the contract up for bid, and if they are either unwilling or unable to do this, then they need to be replaced.

I intend to continue investigating this situation and I will report any additional findings right here, so stay tuned. In the meantime, if you'd like to help keep State jobs in-state, and help contribute to the Well-being of our economy, you can contact your State Reps by following the link below. It will take you to the WA District finder, which you can use to determine your district, and allow you to contact your Reps and Senator. Let them know how you feel about practices like these that take away from Washington State residents.

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/

If you'd lik e to keep an eye on the SBCTC yourself, their website is at: http://www.sbctc.edu/index.aspx

You can also find additional information on the website of the Washington State Information Services Board, here: http://isb.wa.gov/index.aspx, just do a search using the keywords; SBCTC, re-hosting, & hp3000. Just remember that SBCTC is not the only State agency that has to migrate from the hp3000 systems, so there will be other, unrelated documents.

Well, that about wraps it up for this post. Stay tuned for updates, and until next time remember;Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.

UPDATE::I just located the Washington State ISB/DIS Guidelines for Competitive Solicitations (Located here) which states that “the sole source method” is one of the approved ways in which to contract IT related work. Take a look at the document for yourself. And if you do decide to contact your state Reps, make sure to mention this to them that this is a bad policy in it's current form and needs to be changed.

Just the Facts, mam.

“What are the facts? Again and again and again-what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”--what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”

-Robert A. Heinlein



I love science. No really, I do. I've enjoyed science since I was a little child. At first I was drawn to it by things that many children usually find cool. Dinosaurs and Astronauts and eventually Computers, which only a small percentage of children find any great interest in. I have to admit that I was drawn to computers because you could play games on them, but my desire to play games is what drove me to learn as much as I could about them. As I'm sure many of you remember, DOS was not always the most cooperative OS when it came to playing games. But I digress.

One thing that I was taught early on was that many of the scientific “truths” that we hold with are in fact theory, and that we accept them as plausible based on how well they fit the facts. If the facts change, that is, if new facts come to light, we change the theory as needed. One thing that has always bothered me though, is the willingness of many people to accept theory as fact, if for no other reason than it sounds good and it is easier than checking the facts themselves.

This, in and of itself, I don't usually allow to cause me any grief in my daily life. I've made it a point to not go out of my way to criticize people for their beliefs, after all, its their right to believe what they want. I just tend to group incorrect scientific “beliefs” along with religious beliefs that I don't happen to agree with, and go on about my business. But every so often, I get an email claiming this or that scientific “fact,” and oddly enough, it's normally from people that I would rank among the smartest that I know.

But more often than not, I find that the emails in question are filled with fallacious info. As an example, I received an email this morning from and individual whom I greatly respect, both for the work that she has done during her lifetime, as well as her mind. In this email(with which is included a power point presentation) it is claimed that on August 27th of this year (although it doesn't actually state what year it is referring to, it's only implied) that the planet Mars will pass closer to the Earth than it has in recorded history. It also states that this will not occur again until the year 2287. It punctuates these statements by closing with “NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN.”

Now I have to admit, I wasn't driven to check the facts in this particular situation because of an overwhelming since of duty to my peers, or to the scientific community, but rather, because I had a nagging gut feeling that this was incorrect. That, together with another fact that I will share below, started me on a web search(remember, Google is our friend) that revealed what I already knew. These statements are incorrect. This event will not be happening this year. The email is a HOAX*. Some of you are already aware of this because you've checked the facts. But how did I know that it was wrong before I did the research you ask?

The event that is described in the email did in fact happen, more or less the way that it is described above, but in August of 2003! I knew that the email was wrong, because I was (just like many others) an eye witness to the events described. I suppose that could be considered an unfair advantage, or that I can't take a very scientific position because I was too close to the event. Well, guess what, I'm not conducting a study! I'm just trying to make a point. Check the facts.

In the end, this specific case resulted in no loss of life, no casualties of any kind really, and wasted no funding. The only loss was time spent doing a Google search, and lets face it, that takes less than 5 minutes(which is why there is no excuse for not doing one!). So why have I decided to go on about something that is really a non issue. Well, as I said, the email just gave me a basis upon witch to make my case.

You see, in this case, the worse thing that can happen is that you can make an ass out of yourself, one way or the other. But in other scenarios, people can die. I recently watched a special on NASA, which include facts about both the Challenger and Discovery disasters. Both of which could have been averted had people been patient, and checked the facts. Instead they didn't, people lost their lives. So there you have it. Remember, check the facts, because the life, or even just the dignity, that you save could be your own, or that of someone close to you. ;-)

Well, thats one small Rant for me, and an even smaller group of Bytes for Human kind. My next post will most likely be on the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. It's been out for 4 years now, and I'm going to be taking a look at the state of software that is currently available for it, as well as possibly going into detail on some clever hacks for the device. Look for that in the next several weeks.

*The email mentioned in the article can be viewed at: http://www.hoax-slayer.com/mars-earth-close.html

Flock Flash-Player Fiasco

I recently decided to try the Flock social networking web browser. I'll be posting a full review of the most recent version for Linux just as soon as I have finished my evaluation, but for now I would like to address an issue that I encountered, and that I found that others had encountered as well. Although flock browser is based on Firefox, some special care must be taken in order to convince flash to work.

--Flock for Windows--
Since the majority of users will be running Windows, and because it is a slightly easier fix, I will address the Windows version first. First you'll need to open the "My Computer" icon on the desktop, or in the start menu. Then double click on the icon market "C:\", then double click on Program Files, and then the folder marked Flock. Inside of this folder , you should find a file named "install_flash_player.exe", which seems to have been designed to install the flash player in Flock specifically. After first making sure that Flock is closed, double click the "install_flash_player.exe" and a quick installer should run. Once it is finished, just go to your favorite Flash video site(Youtube, etc.), and test it out. This should solve the problem, if not leave me a comment and I'll look into in further.

--Flock for Linux(Ubuntu)--
Next is the issue of the Linux version, which is almost as easy to correct. First download the flash plugin in Gzip format. It can be found here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/thankyou/?installer=Flash_Player_10_for_Linux_(.tar.gz) . Next, unzip the file and extract the file named "libflashplayer.so" into Flock's plugins folder. The location of this folder will vary depending on which distro you use, however, I installed it to my "home" folder to make things easier. After you have extracted the file, restart Flock and then test it out using the method detailed above. Once again, this solved the problem for me, but if it doesn't work for you, leave me a comment and I'll try to help you out.

Cheers,
-Will

Config Files and FTP

Just a quick heads up for those of you using the otherwise awesome FileZilla FTP client, it seems that by default, it filters out config files. If you are planning on transfering any dynamic content to a LAMP server, make sure to change this under View>Filename Filters. That is all.

STS119 & Spacevidcast.com

I had the pleasure of watching the launch of STS119 yesterday, and the launch was thankfully uneventful. Right now the mission is at T+23 hours and seems to be going well. My main reason for making this post is to let you guy's know about Spacevidcast.com, who's broadcast and commentary of the launch I watched yesterday. It was apparent to me that the folks who run the site, Ben and Cariann, really have a passion for space exploration. Props to you guys and keep up the good work.

Bringing Geeks Together

So, as I said in my previous post, I would post as soon as the second site was up, and guess what. It's up. It took a little longer than expected, as I not only had a project I was working on for a client, but I also made a trip to Cali. But upon my return I got to work finishing up the last steps needed to get the site up an operational. So now, without further hot air generation I present to you GeexUnite.com. Hope you like it. If you enjoy reading my ramblings then the site is made for people like you. And your friends, so make sure to invite them on board. And let me know what you think, input is always welcome.

Cheers!

Partly Cloudy.

Cloud computing offers certain advantages that can be very attractive to most users, from the casual user all the way to the alpha geek. Just as an example, I have been using Google calendar for the last 3-4 months together with Gmail as a replacement for Thunderbird. Just recently I was able to set up Gnome's the built in calendar(Evolution) to sync with my Google calendar so that I can simply click on the task bar clock and get a display of appointments and such. The advantages of this method, apart from convenience is that I can access my info from any location, without requiring a complicated setup. In addition, in the event that, in my (in)finite wisdom, I nuke my root partition, I still have a functional backup that I can access. So it's not the end of the world.

But what makes me nervous about the concept of cloud computing is instances where the box doesn't have so much as a basic word processor permanently installed. What this implicates to me is a situation where one might lose any and all connectivity at which point you have a rather costly paper weight. Now, for those of you who have read some of my past work know that I am an old school computer guy. I like command lines and I like to know how things work. I also like to have complete control over my computer and the apps I have installed(and some of my friends wonder what drew me to Open Source). The very idea of losing my Internet connectivity is a horrible thought as it is, but to not even be able to pass the time while I wait for it to return by writing poorly, or a game of Mahjongg is enough to drive someone over the edge.

So as a solution to this possible issue, I propose that systems that are designed to function primarily via the cloud should have some type of back up system. Like a set of small apps(for example, all of the apps included with DS Linux are less than 50MB, not counting the kernel) that would be available for use in such a situation, but would be unused the majority of the time. I could prevent a lot of really very angry customers. I still wouldn't buy one though, I'm just too old fashioned. ;)

Speaking of angry customer's, take a look at some of these stories of clueless Tech Support reps. These poor saps give the rest of us a bad name. And if you like these stories, check out the rest of the site, it's pretty good.