Everyone knows that the economic conditions in the US are tough right now, and there are indications that conditions will further degrade before eventually improving. Most people and business have already adjusted their spending habits in order to ride out the economic storm. But, for some industries, just implementing the easy cost savings ideas may not be enough for them to make it through. I work for a company that relies heavily on the big US automakers. And, I conceive that even if the government rides in with bags of money for our sector, there will still be weak companies which will fail.
Will my company be one that fails? It’s hard to say. We are a private company, so the books are closed. There is no way to truly know what the company’s financial health is. But, since I rely on my income from this business, it is in my best interest to give every effort towards ensuring that the company does make it through. To that end, I have brainstormed ideas for cutting costs in IT (information technologies), and I have forwarded these on to our North American CIO. However, the headquarters for our company is in Germany and that is where the real technology decisions are made. And, they are generally less receptive to ideas that originate outside of Germany, especially when those ideas run counter to their existing strategy. I am afraid that the strategy, designed in good economic times, will only be modified once pain from the economic crisis increases in our sector. At that time it may be to late to implement these drastic ideas.
At work we are getting ready to bring one of our facilities into our global standard EDI system. I am not on the EDI team, but as a member of the Application Operations group I manage the rest of their system. This is a big first step for this facility. We will remove their old, ungainly EDI system with it’s maze of scripts and put them on a streamlined, reliable system. But, until we can get them into SAP they will still have an old VMS based ERP system, and on OnBase system that does all the things that their old ERP system can’t do.
Why do we still have people manually taking orders at fast food restaurants? It seems like the largest point of failure in the whole fast food experience. A person pulls up and says what they would like, the worker has to understand them and then correctly key in the correct order. Why couldn’t I just pull up and key in the order myself? I think that the cash registers at the major fast food chains have visual keyboards for entering the order information, why not just let the customer punch in their order themselves. Many people pay with credit cards now, and you don’t really need human intervention for that. One of the greatest conveniences at the gas station is being able to pay and pump all at the same spot. And, even major groceries and home stores allow people to do self check out. So, why not make fast food faster and eliminate the person who takes the orders.
While we are on the subject, couldn’t we have an express lane for people who send in their orders via text message or email? Think about it. A person orders ahead by sending a text message, and then they simply pull up to the express lane, pay, and drive away with their food.
That would be fast food.
Update: I use 1Password to keep track of passwords, and have for a long time now; this is a very old post. I have a Mac Tools page which shows the software that I currently use.
Since I purchased my iPhone a few months ago I have been continually trying to find ways to get more value out of it. They are fairly expensive devices, and I want to make sure that I get all that I can for my money. It obviously replace my old cell phone and to some extent my iPod, but the iPhone has also been a good substitute for the personal sub-compact laptop that I used to use. Now, there is only two electronic devices that I carry with me regularly, the iPhone and my memory stick.
After work today we had the opportunity to visit the Great Pyramid of Cholula, which is the largest pyramid and monument (by volume) in the world. The huge structure is actually 5 overlapping structures that were created over a period of 10 centuries. The pyramid looks rather unimpressive from the outside, it resembles one of the many other small mountains or hills in the area, but archeologists have excavated miles of tunnels into it. Discovered in 1910 during the construction of an insane asylum, local legends say that the pyramid was so sacred that the people covered it with dirt to protect it from the Spanish conquistadors. But, it was probably covered by dirt from neglect or volcanic eruptions long before the arrival of Cortés.
I don’t yet have an Apple computer to develop on, but when I get one I would like to write some applications for the iPhone. Maybe I could make some money off of them, but more importantly I could customize my own iPhone to do things that I want it to do in the manner in which I desire. Here are some of my ideas, I am sure many of them have already bee implemented in some form, but here is how I would like to see them work:
I am always trying to remember the exact format for querying active directory using T-SQL, so I decided to document it here for posterity’s sake. If any one else is interested in using this code, our domain is na.company.com, so you would just have to change the “DC=” statements to match your company’s domain.
Christopher
SELECT [name], company, department, mail
FROM OpenQuery( ADSI, 'SELECT name, company, department, mail, adsPath FROM ''LDAP://DC=na,DC=company,DC=com'' WHERE objectCategory=''Person'' AND objectClass=''user''')
WHERE department IS NOT NULL
ORDER BY name
Dear Chris Stoll,
CSME and ISEB hereby certify that you have participated in the examination:
Examination: ITIL
Student Name: Chris Stoll
Student Number: xxxxxxxx
Result: Pass