Paul Olstad's Musings and Ruminations

Make your own Chipotle Burritos!

2009-09-17T11:31:00.007-05:00

The Marinade
1 (2 ounce) package dried ancho chiles
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons cumin powder
2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped
6 cloves garlic1/2 red onion, quartered
1/4 cup vegetable oil
4 Small Steaks or boneless chicken breasts

Soak dry chilies overnight in water, until soft. Remove seeds. Add all ingredients except meat in food processor. Puree until smooth.

Spread mixture over chicken, steak or carnitas and refrigerate at least one hour, up to 24 hours.

After marinating, heat grill to about 400 degrees F. Salt meat to taste (optional), and grill lightly, turning only once, until done to your preference.

The Rice
1 teaspoon vegetable oil or butter
2 tsp. fresh cilantro
2/3 cup white basmati rice
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Lime

In a 2-quart heavy saucepan, heat oil or butter over low heat, stirring occasionally until melted. Add rice and lime juice, stir for 1 minute. Add water and salt, bring to a full rolling boil. At boiling, cover, turn down to simmer over low heat until rice is tender and the water is absorbed, about 25 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork.

The Cheese
A blend of grated jack and white cheddar

Fresh Tomato Salsa
Red ripe sweet tomatoes, Red Onion, Jalepeno Peppers, Cilantro

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Ok - I could'nt resist. Found this cool new website called http://www.chipotlefan.com/ that I got these recipes from. Very cool for us Chipotle lovers.

The Juice of Sapho

2009-09-16T06:46:00.005-05:00

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion." - Piter De Vries (Dune 1984)

Yes, Yes I admit it. I like crazy, larger than life movies. I get enough drama in real life so I tend to prefer unreal things on the screen - Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Matrix, Dune, Lord of the Rings, etc.

The latest Star Trek movie - http://www.startrekmovie.com/ is my favorite "recent" movie. In my opinion is does a GREAT job as a prequel - really setting up the classic Star Trek characters that we know and love. If you get a chance rent it when it comes out on DVD.

ShareThis - Very Nice

2009-03-07T10:47:00.009-06:00

I recently added a little button to my blog and website to allow people to easily share my stuff out to social web - you know, Facebook, Yahoo Buzz, Digg, etc. It's called ShareThis and I couldn't believe how simple it was. I just registered on their website and they generated a small snippet of Javascript source for me. I recently learned of ShareThis at my company when our programmers were thinking of using it on our company website. It certainly makes it simple to add something like this to your website or blog.

Acoustic Family

2008-12-09T19:36:00.002-06:00

I'm so glad my kids are becoming fine musicians. We all appreciate many things in life, computers, programming, sports, social networking. But at the end of the day my family cherishes our instruments.

My son plays his violin with great skill - He's been playing for 7 years and sounds excellent. His intonation is perfect. I'm really looking forward to his Holiday concert!

My daughter started cello this year and is already learning many songs by ear. While she seems to be able to sight read fairly well, I'm teaching her that playing with her eyes closed is where the real magic is.

My youngest boy seems to be drawn toward percussion and drums - we'll see what that brings!

Of course, for me it's guitar. Seems I can hardly wait to get my fingers OFF the computer and ON my fretboard!!

Acid Rock

2008-04-03T20:11:00.000-05:00

I just can’t seem to shake Acid Rock. I’ve been using it for about 6 years now to produce my music and love it. Acid is not your traditional “midi based” recording software. Instead, Acid is “loop based” software that is perfect for guitarists. While I play all the instruments on my recordings, Acid allows me to create loops and repeat them. So for example, I may play a 12 bar progression and copy and paste it in the song wherever I need it. Then I loop the bass guitar, keyboards and drums and presto, I have a palette to lay down licks! Which is always my objective – selfish guitarist you know.

This is a song that I made last year called “The Funky Duck”. See if you can detect the looping, it’s all over the place.

Everything is edited in a simple multi track interface. You can even create folders and categorize the sounds in your song - cool. I love it since it makes it so easy to loop and layer sounds without ever interrupting the creative process. That’s always the problem that I’ve had with other recording software. I spend most of my time with my hands on the mouse instead of the fret board.

Here's a few more songs I did with Acid.

[912, By Paul Olstad - 2005]
[Whiskey Junction, By Paul Olstad - 2001]
[I Remember, By Paul Olstad - 2000]
[W hat's A Man To Do? By Paul Olstad and Identity Crisis - 2000]

Fender vs. Marshall

2008-03-22T07:28:00.004-05:00

It's like pitting America vs. Britain. Fender... a proud American brand that great American guitarists used. Marshall... a wanna-be British amp that tried to emulate the Fender sound. Well that's what Marshall Amplification tried to do originally. However, over the years they've become the standard amp for many rockers. I've played guitar for almost 30 years. I usually use all Fender gear, American Standard Stratocaster, Cyber Deluxe amplifier, etc.

But recently I've had to play without a speaker cabinet and line straight into the sound system - a guitarists worst nightmare. To do this, I've been using the Line 6 Floor Pod Plus instead of my fender amp. This thing is totally unbelievable. It's actually an amp modeler that simulates the sound of hundreds of amp/speaker combos. While I love a Fender Blackface sound, I have to admit that the Marshall stack kills. That's what I've been gravitating towards lately - a Marshall 2X4 stack. I think it may be because I first played on a Fender Twin Reverb and never was able to try a Marshall. Not that I'm totally joining the dark side, but the Marshall sound is great!

But don't worry, I still play and American Standard Strat!

Web 2.0 - The Next Generation of the Internet

2007-01-31T17:05:00.000-06:00

Back in 1995 a couple of us UNIX administrators at Honeywell were fooling around with the first web server software called httpd – Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Daemon. With a name like that, we just had to play around with it. I mean “Hyper”? Anything hyper just had to be cool! It simply amazed us. We could share files much easier than before. Our imaginations ran wild thinking of new ways to allow people to share information seamlessly and access databases using a rich user interface. But as time went on it became evident that the Web would also have economic value. As a result of refocusing our efforts on e-commerce, the original vision of creating a rich user experience was changed and web pages became clunky and arduous. Have you ever been on the Internet and had to wait for a web page to load? That’s a dumb question, right? Everyone who uses the Internet experiences this all the time. This sort of “start-stop” nature of websites can be frustrating and has been labeled Web 1.0.

Web 2.0
The recent “buzz” in the industry that causing much discussion is “Web 2.0”. Actually, it was a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004 that refers to a supposed second-generation of Internet-based services. Services that facilitate social networking, wikis, better communication tools, RIAs, AJAX, etc. The emphasis of Web 2.0 more resembles the original vision of Tim Berners Lee - free collaboration and sharing among users.

AJAX and RIAs
Web 2.0 concepts involve something known as Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Asynchronous Javascript And XML or otherwise referred to as AJAX, is one of the building blocks of RIAs. Instead of needing to reload an entire web page, a developer can use AJAX techniques to update only part of a web page. These techniques are not new. In fact us web developers have been using similar techniques for years. But within the last few years it has become easier because Cascading Style Sheet, HTML, Javascript standards have improved. Also, a browser object called "XMLHttpRequest()" has been implemented in most popular browsers. This makes it possible to post data in the background and update the web page without refreshing the entire web page. Its event driven model makes it possible to provide true asynchronous behavior.

The Ajax technique uses a combination of:

XHTML (or HTML) and CSS, for marking up and styling information.
The DOM accessed with a client-side scripting language, especially ECMAScript implementations such as JavaScript and JScript, to dynamically display and interact with the information presented.
The XMLHttpRequest object is used to exchange data asynchronously with the web server. In some Ajax frameworks and in certain situations, an IFrame object is used instead of the XMLHttpRequest object to exchange data with the web server, and in other implementations, dynamically added <script> tags may be used.
XML is sometimes used as the format for transferring data between the server and client, although any format will work, including pre-formatted HTML, plain text, JSON and even EBML. These files may be created dynamically by some form of server-side scripting.

AJAX and RIAs are certainly the glue that's used to create and enable Web 2.0, but it doesn't define Web 2.0. Really, it's the way that the Internet is used by humans to socialize, share, collaborate and conduct day-to-day life.

A Social Revolution
Throughout the past decade, the Internet has begun to have a huge impact on the world from a social perspective. Web 2.0 encompasses a far reaching set of Internet based communication and collaboration capabilities that help facilitate social networking. Social Networking in short allows people of a common interest to easily connect and collaborate via the Internet. Many social networking web sites are also incorporate blogs, wikis, photo sharing, etc.

Social media often conjures up thoughts of myspace.com. You know...a bunch of partying college friends spewing meaningless comments into Blogs that have seemingly no purpose. And that is largely what's fueled the Web 2.0 social revolution. But most technology is mis-used at first until it finds its true purpose. The social aspects of the Internet and Web 2.0 have a greater potential that’s creeping up on the world organically. Let’s face it, Internet-based social software is de-emphasizing the need for traditional forms of media…TV, telephone, newspapers, DVDs, etc. More people are viewing youtube.com that all 3 networks combined!

My point is that social forms of media are truly different because they allow disparate individuals to collaborate and share information…in real time. People are able to create online communities that never existed before, breaking down political barriers and spanning geographical gaps. For example, a person in Brazil can collaborate conveniently with someone in Russia because Social Media enables it.

Online Communities
A recent Web 2.0 phenomenon that’s getting a lot of attention is MySpace.com. The site enables people from anywhere in the world to create online communities with common interests. MySpace utilizes various Web 2.0 technologies like Blogs and photo sharing to enhance social networking. Communities become linked when trusted relationships are established. Over time, an entire network of communities is formed.

Blog
You may be wondering what a “Blog” is. Simply put, it is a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), and displayed in reverse chronological order. They often provide commentary on a particular subject regarding politics, news or personal diaries. Blogs are able to combine text, images and hyperlinks giving them richer content than the bulletin boards of the past. People reply to the postings and it becomes an online discussion about the given topic.

Wiki
Wiki is type of website that allows users to easily add, remove, or edit its content. “Wiki-wiki" means, "hurry quick" in Hawaiian. A wiki (originally called Quickweb) is an editable website that doesn’t require users to know HTML and they can quickly modify or add content. In fact, this definition was taken from Wikipedia.org, a sort of online encyclopedia created by thousands of people around the world.

Modern Development Methodology - MDM

2006-10-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

There's no shortage of philosophies about the software development lifecycle. There are numerous methodologies including traditional waterfall, eXtreme, RAD and Agile that are being used in development shops. I use elements from each and incorporate the iterative, customer-centric approach of Agile along with elements from traditional approaches. I like to call this Modern Development Methodology or "MDM". One of the key differences with this approach is that design and planning phases are highly iterative and usually involve prototyping.

But planning and traditional approaches are still used in MDM. If fact, it's still important to adequately plan and execute a project from start to finish. Lets face it, there still needs to be a certain amount of predictability in order to budget and staff accordingly.

INITIATION PHASE
Careful oversight is required to ensure projects support strategic business objectives and resources are effectively implemented into an organization's enterprise architecture. The initiation phase begins when an opportunity to add, improve, or correct a system is identified and formally requested through the presentation of a business case. The business case should, at a minimum, describe a proposal’s purpose, identify expected benefits, and explain how the proposed system supports one of the organization’s business strategies. The business case should also identify alternative solutions and detail as many informational, functional, and network requirements as possible.

Primary issues organizations should consider when compiling feasibility study support documentation include:

Business Considerations
Functional Requirements
Project Factors
Cost/Benefit Analysis

PLANNING PHASE
The planning phase is the most critical step in completing development, acquisition, and maintenance projects. Careful planning, particularly in the early stages of a project, is necessary to coordinate activities and manage project risks effectively. The depth and formality of project plans should be commensurate with the characteristics and risks of a given project.

Project plans refine the information gathered during the initiation phase by further identifying the specific activities and resources required to complete a project. A critical part of a project manager’s job is to coordinate discussions between user, audit, security, design, development, and network personnel to identify and document as many functional, security, and network requirements as possible.

Primary items organizations should address in formal project plans include:

Project Overview & Charter
Communication Plan
Defined Deliverables & High Level Requirements
Risk & Change Management
Development Standards
Documentation
Project Plan (Resource Scheduling, High Level)
Budget
Testing Plan
Support Plan

DESIGN PHASE
The design phase involves converting the informational, functional, and network requirements identified during the initiation and planning phases into unified design specifications that developers use to script programs during the development phase. Program designs are constructed in various ways. Using a top-down approach, designers first identify and link major program components and interfaces, then expand design layouts as they identify and link smaller subsystems and connections. Using a bottom-up approach, designers first identify and link minor program components and interfaces, then expand design layouts as they identify and link larger systems and connections.

The design techniques that I use in MDM often use prototyping tools that build mock-up designs of items such as application screens, database layouts, and system architectures. End users, designers, developers, database managers, and network administrators should review and refine the prototyped designs in an iterative process until they agree on an acceptable design. Audit, security, and quality assurance personnel should be involved in the review and approval process.

DEVELOPMENT PHASE
The development phase involves converting design specifications into executable programs. Effective development standards include requirements that programmers and other project participants discuss design specifications before programming begins. The procedures help ensure programmers clearly understand program designs and functional requirements.

Development Standards
Development standards should be in place to address the responsibilities of application and system programmers. Application programmers are responsible for developing and maintaining end-user applications. System programmers are responsible for developing and maintaining internal and open-source operating system programs that link application programs to system software and subsequently to hardware. Managers should thoroughly understand development and production environments to ensure they appropriately assign programmer responsibilities.

Common and Shared Libraries
Libraries are collections of stored documentation, programs, and data. Program libraries include reusable program routines or modules stored in source or object code formats. Program libraries allow programmers to access frequently used routines and add them to programs without having to rewrite the code. Dynamic link libraries include executable code programs can automatically run as part of larger applications.

TESTING PHASE
The testing phase requires organizations to complete various tests to ensure the accuracy of programmed code, the inclusion of expected functionality, and the interoperability of applications and other network components. Thorough testing is critical to ensuring systems meet organizational and end-user requirements. If organizations use effective project management techniques, they will complete test plans while developing applications, prior to entering the testing phase. The use of detailed test plans significantly increases the likelihood that testers will identify weaknesses before products are implemented.

Primary tests include:

Acceptance Testing
End-to-End Testing
Functional Testing
Integration Testing
Parallel Testing
Regression Testing
Stress Testing
System Testing
Unit Testing

IMPLEMENTATION PHASE
The implementation phase involves installing approved applications into production environments. Primary tasks include announcing the implementation schedule, training end users, and installing the product. Additionally, organizations should input and verify data, configure and test system and security parameters, and conduct post-implementation reviews. Management should circulate implementation schedules to all affected parties and should notify users of any implementation responsibilities.

After organizations install a product, pre-existing data is manually input or electronically transferred to a new system. Verifying the accuracy of the input data and security configurations is a critical part of the implementation process. Organizations often run a new system in parallel with an old system until they verify the accuracy and reliability of the new system. Employees should document any programming, procedural, or configuration changes made during the verification process.

MAINTENANCE PHASE
The maintenance phase involves making changes to hardware, software, and documentation to support its operational effectiveness. It includes making changes to improve a system’s performance, correct problems, enhance security, or address user requirements. To ensure modifications do not disrupt operations or degrade a system’s performance or security, organizations should establish appropriate change management standards and procedures.

Change management (sometimes referred to as configuration management) involves establishing baseline versions of products, services, and procedures and ensuring all changes are approved, documented, and disseminated. Change controls should address all aspects of an organization’s technology environment including software programs, hardware and software configurations, operational standards and procedures, and project management activities. Management should establish change controls that address major, routine, and emergency software modifications and software patches.

Web 2.0 in Healthcare (Mashups)

2006-10-10T12:42:00.000-05:00

With the recent hype surrounding 'Web 2.0', I'm surprised that there's hardly any mention of it in the Healthcare space. Let's consider the recent phenomenon of "mashups". A mashup is a website or Web 2.0 application that uses content from more than one source to create a completely new service. Content used in mashups is typically consumed from loosely coupled data like RSS, REST, XML or APIs.

For example, many mashups that use Google Maps are in use on the Internet. Google makes freely available access to its map engine through an API. Most people consider a Mashup a use of Google maps and another source of data - a good example is http://www.housingmaps.com/ where data from Google maps and data from Craigs List are put together in a "mashup" to create an entirely new site.

Healthcare Mashups
Consider for a moment that a patient has a chronic disease and would like to look at current news about her disease from WebMD but also view her health goals and other healthcare data within the same Web page. This could be achieved using a mashup of WebMD RSS Feeds and a REST service that gets data from an internal application.

Since most sites such as WebMD now offer RSS feeds this is very simple to achieve technically yet can have a huge impact when used in a mashup. When most people think about mashups they think of an extension of Google Maps. But Google is only setting the example of a mashup in Web 2.0.

It's up to our imaginations and creativity to implement mashups in other healthcare applications...

Web Oriented Architecture (WOA)

2006-09-23T19:36:00.001-05:00

Is Web Oriented Architecture (WOA) the pragmatic solution to SOA? It seems like technologies like RSS, REST, etc have become much more pervasive in software development. And it seems that SOA architectures that focus on WSDL/SOAP and ESBs were a product of academia for far too long.