Big Egos and Greed. These are cardinal sins of people, and especially of CEOs.

Which brings the question - would you rather have CEOs who are greedy — well at least if it means that this CEO is focused on earning more money for himself and shareholders, or would you rather have a CEO who will spend your company’s money on creating empires, and building expensive edifices and monuments to their rule?

Here is something I caught in Time’s Quotes of the Day:

” Hope is not a strategy. “  This was uttered by Senator Hillary Clinton to General John Abizaid, top commander of US forces in Iraq during his testimony before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committee.

“Senator, I agree with you - and I would also say that despair is not a method. ” replied General Abizaid.

Small Business Unplugged: Reading vs. Posting on Blogs In Canada

Recent Environics Research and Environics Communications surveys reveal that one-third (32 per cent) of all Canadians who are online have read blogs in the past three months. British Columbia is the most active blog market, with 42 per cent reading blogs.

By 2009, China will have more developers than Japan.

The CIO Weblog: 17 Million Developers by 2009 - Evans Data Corp

he projected global software developer population will exceed 17 million by 2009. Evans Data Corp is projecting a 46 percent growth between 2005 and 2009 in the worldwide developer population.

APAC region will overtake the EMEA region in 2007

By 2009 four out of every ten developers will be found in the APAC region - 81% increase from 2005 compared to just a 15% in North America for the same period

Brought the whole family to see this movie. Superbly entertaining, plus some lessons in life. Mumble, the hero does not know how to sing, and is practically booed out of a normal life for lack of that talent in spite of his strength elsewhere.

He goes on to show he is made of sterner stuff with determination, and finally achieves his objectives. Great sideshow on the awareness of preserving the environment, and understanding the damage we do to our ecology. Great choice of songs, and well developed storyline and choreography. Also some original and funny wisecracks.  My six year old enjoyed it and I enjoyed it.
Five stars out of five.

How to be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary

To be a good programmer is difficult and noble. The hardest part of making real a collective vision of a software project is dealing with one’s coworkers and customers. Writing computer programs is important and takes great intelligence and skill. But it is really child’s play compared to everything else that a good programmer must do to make a software system that succeeds for both the customer and myriad colleagues for whom she is partially responsible.

At the end, whatever you say, that you have a good product it sells by itself, money spent on advertising and promotion still wins.

According to the statistics of this month’s US elections, the average House winner burned $1 million on the stump - and 90% of those that spent more won.  A notable example - Hillary Clinton of New YOrk was reportedly said to have spent $35.9 million.

If skyscrapers are symbols of prosperity, Shanghai is charging ahead,

Research Profile | Features

Shanghai, the financial hub of China for foreign investors and multinational companies, has more skyscrapers than any other city in the world, including New York City.

Prof Jeff Cornwall blogs how small companies are not using technologies or are late adopters in the United States. Its even worse elsewhere.

In our country, the pHilippines, we have about 1,000 companies that are considered large.  We have about 5,000 to 10,000 companies that are considered medium.  We have about 1,000,000 businesses that are considered small or micro.

As a technology provider, we can say that almost all computer companies consider only the top 10,000 companies as meaningful customers who adopt some kind of technology to manage the business.

In this age of global competition, what scares me, ( and probably this goes for many SMEs in developing countries), is that one million businesses ( or 99.9% of all businesses) are not using technology to any degree that gives them business competitiveness.

That is what I see as also a digital divide — so many number of small businesses who still have no inkling on how to use technology in their operations.

This is a good read on understanding Microsoft’s latest OS.

Vista Mythbusters | Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise |

Over at ZDNet, I’ve been publishing a series called Vista Mythbusters. The goal is to debunk some of the nonsense (both from Microsoft and from its many detractors) that has been written about Windows Vista in the past few months. Here’s a summary of what I’ve published so far. Be sure to follow the links to read the full story behind each myth.