Updates

A few quick updates for keen readers: I know I haven’t been posting as regularly as I would like. There are a few things in the pipeline, but nothing brought to fruition as yet.

For those worried about whether or not my business case for multiple monitors was successful or not: it was indeed successful. My PC was swapped out and a second monitor installed on Thursday morning. So far, they are everything I hoped for and more.

I’m sure there is also great interest in how things are progressing with Phoenix, the idea of managing IT systems from cradle to cradle, rather than cradle to grave. Unfortunately, there has not been a great deal of activity on this front, but let me leave you with a qualification, a question, and the promise of more to come.

The qualification: Despite the reference to Cradle to Cradle, Phoenix isn’t about green IT systems – although they are very important. Instead, Phoenix is about how the information imbedded in one system survives the death of that system, and rebirth in another.

The question: if you’re developing new functionality with a system today, the odds are pretty good that XML is involved. Are we at the point where we have standardised building blocks for XML schemas? For example, physical mailing addresses: is there the one true XML schema for address information? Or are there a half a dozen competing standards, plus hundreds of unique implementations imbedded within larger frameworks?

The promise of more to come: there will be more to come.