I'm planning on documenting a framework that we built for managing non-functional requirements. This is post #2 of the series. In Post #1, Last In - First Out: Building a Non-Functional Requ...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2020/12/building-non-functional-requirements_23.html
I'm planning on documenting a framework that we built for managing non-functional requirements. This is post #1 of the series. A pain point for our infrastructure and security teams was a lac...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2020/12/building-non-functional-requirements.html
After I was sidelined (Part 10) we had another leadership turnover. This time the turnover was welcome. I ended up in a leadership position under a new CIO. This allowed me to take advantage o...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2020/11/thirty-four-years-in-it-why-not-thirty.html
This post is the hardest one to write. I've been thinking about it for years without being able to put words to paper. With the COVID-19 stay-at-home directive, I can't procrastinate anymore, so ...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2020/04/thirty-four-years-in-it-leadership.html
The last half of 2011 was for me an my team a really, really tough time. As I hinted to in this post , by August 2011 we were buried in Oracle 11 & application performance problems. By the tim...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2020/01/thirty-four-years-application-that.html
For historical reasons, we were a strong VMS shop. Before they imploded, Digital Equipment treated EDU's very kindly, offering extremely good pricing on software in exchange for hardware adoption...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2020/01/thirty-four-years-in-it-swimming-with.html
In the 2008-2009 period, we finally started to seriously address application layer security in our development group. By that time is was clear that the threat to hosted applications had moved ...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2020/01/thirty-four-years-addressing.html
In the mid-2000's, our organization started to get serious about disaster recovery. By that time our core application was an e-learning application that was heavily used (a hundred thousand stud...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2019/07/thirty-four-years-building-out-disaster.html
As a side effect of building and running the backbone, I introduced UNIX systems into what was then a wholly VMS organization. We initially used Linux - roughly from 1994 - 1997, then over the n...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2019/07/thirty-four-years-system-administration.html
As a natural fit with running the network my team took on the task of securing the campuses and data centers, starting with firewalling the data centers from the rest of the network. We started ...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2019/07/thirty-four-years-security-and.html
Unfortunately nearly all the work we put into administrative and academic technology had to be abandoned. As a part of a larger initiative across the state, the various colleges and universities ...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2019/07/thirty-four-years-system-office-novell.html
At the college we were extremely fortunate to have a president who had a very forward looking view of technology. In the mid 1980s he was already using personal computers regularly and had writte...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2019/06/thirty-four-years-networking-and.html
As I've now ended 34+ years of public service, I'm going to burn a few posts on where I've been and what I've tried to accomplish. Like many people my age, my path toward a career in technology...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2019/06/thirty-four-years-instructor-machinist.html
I’m looking at an old (early 20th century) hand-crank record player that was handed down to me from my great-grandmother. It’s a simple wooden box with a spring & flywheel mechanism that spin...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2018/10/on-aging-software.html
This blog has been idle since 2012. Does anyone care? Like many, I let this blog die. I think that’s happened for a variety of reasons, both personal and professional. Relevance: Most of wh...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2015/11/blog-resurrect-or-die.html
> "The very four digits that Amazon considers unimportant enough to > display in the clear on the Web are precisely the same ones that > Apple considers secure enough ...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2012/08/the-very-four-digits-that-amazon.html
An e-mail from a vendor, somewhat anonymized: > From: **** > Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 08:22 AM > To: **** > Subject: MumbleWare Case 123456789 > > ...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2012/07/in-mumbleware-versions-82-and-below-sa.html
A couple of days ago myself and a colleague of mine ran into our Apple account exec. The conversation ended up in the security space, as is probably appropriate considering Apples recent perfor...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2012/05/letter-to-our-apple-account-exec.html
Aaron Smith posted this story about the kindness of an NYC cab driver. It's a good read, and it reminds me of something vaguely similar that happened to be a few decades ago. I had just move...
I've been hearing 'OS X is secure' for a decade now. For a decade, I've been challenging that assertion. The challenges to that assertion generally end up with a response of 'because it's Un...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2012/04/apple-joins-big-leagues.html
...and 5% of all enterprise 'assets' are infected. From Gunter Ollmann , VP of Research at Damballa in this post on CircleID : > "...on average, between 3-7% of assets within enterpris...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2012/03/twenty-percent-of-all-households-have.html
Microsoft press release on their Zeus botnet server seizure: "This disruption was made possible through a successful pleading before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2012/03/micrsoft-and-its-partners-seize-servers.html
…maybe not. I’m trying out the Collusion plugin for Firefox and the results are interesting. After a couple evenings of my normal surfing routine, the plugin looks like: Yuk. As expect...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2012/03/i-thought-i-had-this-privacy-thing.html
… are out there. Now I know. ---
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2012/02/ive-always-wondered-how-many-vulnerable.html
Oracle Support is upgrading their web interface from Flash to HTML5. I’m happy. I no longer have to twiddle my thumbs waiting for Flash to load: That was really annoying. The consolation pr...
https://blog.lastinfirstout.net/2012/01/oracle-support-portal-html-5-replaces.html