AbTLinux - development plans for 2008

I have laid out some development plans over at our Trac site in the form of milestones, deadlines, and such for the versions up to 1.0. Basically I put a release on the schedule for every month, with plans to complete but a few issues in each period.

This is more to facilitate progress, something new every month, than to put pressure on myself. Again, the only developer so far is me!

I have on the schedule for the next release v0.3 two items:

1. provide for default configuration overriding
2. implement 10 new packages from our supported packages list

Turning your macbook into a router

Maybe there are more of you out there that have had some reason to need a home network that would work through your macbook, so here is my solution for creating your own home network through your macbook.

I recently moved, had problems with ISP's not delivering on their promises so that I was left with out an Internet connection. I was able to sort out a wireless connection through one of my new neighbors, so that was solved, but what about the rest of my network here at home? Since the macbook comes with a wireless connection and an ethernet port I see no reason not to use it as a temporary router until some ISP can hook up my house.

Once you have a connection over the wireless card on your macbook, you will need to adjust the System Preferences to allow your wired home network to connect over your macbook's ethernet connection as follows:

System Preferences -> Sharing -> Internet (tab) | Firewall (tab) | Services (tab)

Internet: within this tab you need to select the route you wish to share in your home network, in my case it is the wired Ethernet card so I chose Built-in Ethernet.

Firewall: within this tab you can select the ports or services you wish to allow through your macbook's firewall; I selected only Network Time and Remote Login - SSH.

Services: within this tab you set the services you wish to activate on your macbook, up to you what you want to open up here.

I stopped and started the Internet and Firewall services with the provided buttons and as long as the macbook is on, connected through both the wireless and wired Ethernet connections you should have a working home network.

Should you have any problems, try turning off the firewall as a test to whether the home network works at all. Most problems come from a firewall settings being too strict (no, I am not advocating dropping the use of a firewall, just simplifying your testing for you...).

Just for some fun, what my blog is worth

This was kinda funny, not sure what they base it on, but I would love to see who would want to pay for my blog (must have money to burn). Down side is that they would be paying in dollars, which ain't worth much anymore...

My blog is worth $4,516.32.
How much is your blog worth?

Empowering Full Scale Straight Through Processing with BPM

Last week I got the idea to try and get permission to submit a paper to BPM 2008 6th International Conference on Business Process Management. It took a trip to the Radboud University Nijmegen on Monday, where my co-author and I sorted out the details for a plan of attack.

I spent much of the next three days writing late into the night, but it is finally finished and submitted. Should it be accepted, then I am off to Milan, Italy later this year. If not, then we will target another venue as this is a rather interesting industry paper.

I will publish the paper at a later date should it get accepted, but the abstract will give you an idea of the contents. Fingers crossed!

Abstract:
As one of the larger Dutch financial institutions, SNS Bank in the Netherlands has made a strategic decision to empower her customers on-line by automating her business processes. The ability to facilitate the customer is achieved by applying BPM techniques in her existing selling channels. Both the publicly available and internal processes are being revamped to provide the customer with full scale Straight Through Processing (STP).

This paper takes a tour of the latest BPM project at SNS Bank, provides empirical evidence that this move has already allowed SNS Bank to reap the benefits of BPM, and discusses the remaining challenges for both business and IT.

No Internet from Abel

It has been a long time since I have had a chance to post anything, but I am about to tell you why... I have moved into a new house this month, which should not have had much effect with regards to my Internet access.

As you can imagine I started the Internet migration by selecting a new provider months ahead of the move and signed at the end of 2007. I received a letter dated Jan 2008 that the move would be competed on 5 March 2008. Great!

Later I received two more letter both stating that I have been assigned some user id and password, that the connection would be there in March, and basically that everything is in order. I am happy, all seems to be going well.

Then reality sets in, with the move taking place on the first of March, the telephone line being setup on 3 March, but on 5 March I have no Internet... uh oh...

A mail to the support address of Abel takes 5 days for a reply, but at 50 cents a minute for the support telephone line I am a bit hesitant to call for this. After a simple reply that they were working on it, I decided to call the support line. The date was 10 March, I was on hold for 20 minutes before hanging up. I am not sure if the line is full as you only have a voice saying everyone is busy, please wait. I try later in the afternoon and get the technical support after about 3 minutes of waiting; the problem is being worked on (the neighborhood telephone box is full says the KPN telephone company) and they will call me back today about it with an update.

After four days and no reply from Abel, my wife calls them at their local office number, same song and dance. I am again to be called, they are working on it.

Again, nothing...

Again, 3 days later....

I call them and hear that they can't deliver on the promised Internet, connection not possible, will refund your money, have a nice day. So. There you go...

It is 18 March and I am forced to try another provider. They say it will take 4-5 weeks to setup Internet. As you can imagine this might be a bit of a problem for me to post anything at all for some time. Wish me luck. :-(