Whilst on a training course this week, someone showed me a clip of a guy called Johan Lipowitz (David Armand) performing “Karaoke for the Deaf” to Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn. I don’t think I have laughed so much in a long time. If you haven’t seen this guy in action, check out the following (my favourites): Clip 1Clip 2 (including Natalie)Clip 3 Technorati Tags: mime, funny, youtube
As of 1st July, the no-smoking ban was introduced in England meaning that it is illegal to smoke in all public “enclosed” spaces. This is one of the best pieces of legislation brought in by the government. However, whilst I support this law (as a non-smoker), there is a fundamental flaw in the policy. What I now find is that all the people who were smoking in enclosed places now… Read More »England no-smoking law
Like Chris, I seem to be following in his footsteps by having recently joined Facebook in my post-30 era (only slightly over 30 i might add). However, my introduction to his fascinating site came from an invitation from none other than the infamous Pat Patterson. Obviously, I have heard of Facebook before but up until now have never got around to joining it to see what it is all about.… Read More »My new identities on Facebook and Spock
I saw in a press release today that Oracle has announced its intention to buy Bharosa. This is a company that specialises in fraud prevention and strong authentication security solutions. This will add the following capabilities to the IAM stack: Proactive real time risk-analysis Strong authentication Fraud prevention Working within Oracle’s Identity Management team, I see this as a really positive move for Oracle that will provide a real differentiator… Read More »Oracle on the acquisition train still
Over the past couple of weeks, the UK has faced some terrible flooding across, mainly, several parts of England. Apparently we have had the equivalent of 2 months rain within 2 days. In case you haven’t seen the pictures, click here. Fortunately, where I live hasn’t been directly affected. However, several towns close by have been including Doncaster, Sheffield and Hull. The worst hit seems to be Hull in which… Read More »View on the recent floods
Recently I posted a comment about open source software and how impressed I continue to be by it. It seems that, in a comment on that post, Farrin feels that “99% of all open-source software are blatant ripp-offs and cheap plagiarism”. I can only guess that their bias comes from the fact that they seems to work for a commercial vendor (MaxiVista) of the open-source software (Synergy) I was writing… Read More »Response to a comment I received
My two children continue to amaze me as they grow up, seeing how well they learn new things and take on information. Just last week my youngest daughter mastered riding a bike without stabilisers. Since she is only 3years and 4months old I think that is a great achievement. Technorati Tags: kids, achievements
I have just installed the most amazing piece of software on both my work laptop and my home PC. Whats makes this software even more impressive is that it is not just free, but also open source. The software I am referring to is Synergy. This fantastic piece of software allows multiple computers, each with their own display, to share a keyboard and mouse without needing any additional hardware as… Read More »Open source software never ceases to amaze me
I have just finished reading the autobiography of Duncan Bannatyne. Anyone who has seen Dragon’s Den on TV (not sure if its screened beyond the UK) will know who I am talking about. I’m not usually one for autobiographies but this book caught my eye. Its a very interesting read explaining how Duncan went from no money when he was 30 to being a millionaire within 5 years and on… Read More »Latest addition to the bookshelf
Recently I have been involved, at varying levels, in a number of projects centred around federation and primarily federated authentication. Whilst most of my work in the past has been working with the SAML specification, one of the recent projects focused around Shibboleth. There are a couple of observations I have made when speaking to people about federation. 1. Usually, during client meetings there are several comments about how the… Read More »Federation Observations