Patrick O'Beirne's blog

PraxIS April 2008

April 2008

1) IT news
Heathrow Terminal 5
Irish Microsoft Technology Conference

2) Software Testing
SQC Dublin conference
SoftTest Ireland events

3) Spreadsheets
Presentation

4) Off Topic
The Voice of the Tube

18 Web links in this newsletter

Praxis March 2008 newsletter

http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0803.htm

1) Risk & Security
     171,324 Irish blood donor records stolen
     Followup to l'affaire Kerviel
2) Quality
     Software & Systems Quality Conferences Dublin, 5th March 2008
     SoftTest Ireland events April 1,2,3 
3) Spreadsheets
     Jim Kaplan's�AuditNet newsletter features spreadsheet tools
     OSU Spinoff RedRover launches its Excel audit product
4) Off Topic
     Interesting Photos of the day 
13 Web links in this newsletter

171,324 Irish blood donor records stolen

There has been plenty of coverage of this data loss, but most have focused on the claims of strong encryption. Only a few professionals have asked why data to be used for software testing was not anonymised. Daragh O'Brien of the IAIDQ comments on his blog: http://obriend.info/2008/02/21/more-thoughts-on-the-ibts-data-breach/ "Your unencrypted, non-anonymised data could have been on the laptop when it was stolen."

How timely: http://www.issaireland.org/meetings Irish Chapter of the Information Systems Security Association Next meeting will be held on Friday Feburary 22nd and all are welcome to attend: Security Breach Reporting and Impact February 22nd, Ballsbridge Court (formerly the Berkeley Court), 12 noon

Software & Systems Quality Conferences Dublin, 5th March 2008

http://www.sqs-conferences.com/ire/program/programme.htm

9.00 - 9.45 Conference opening by: Tom Kitt TD Government Chief Whip and Information Society Minister

9.45 - 10.30 KEYNOTE The Quality Ecosystem Colm Butler Department of AnTaoiseach, Information Policy Unit

11.15 - 12.00 Testing During The Development Phase Using OpenSource Tools Richard Thompson Liberty IT

The Quality Challenge for joined up Government - A Criminal Justice Case Study Mary Scullion Northern Ireland Civil Service

Performance Testing - From Best Efforts to Best Practice Patricia Costelloe AIB

From The Trenches: A Microsoft Testing Perspective Martha Rotter Microsoft Share DSI's Experience of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition Peter Buckley DeCare Systems Ireland

12.00 - 12.45 Panel Discussion "Software Testers: Perceptions and Professionalism" Mary Cleary Irish Computer Society iCS

Test-Driven Development: Ensuring Quality From a Developer Perspective Jedidja Bourgeois Microsoft

Performance Stress Testing: Activity Profiling Fergal Downey/ Emer McVeigh HBOS

An intensive case study of test offshoring Paul Cronin SQS

12.45 - 1.45 LUNCH

Automation strategies for different lifecycle approaches Ken Brennock Insight

The Practitioner's View of Test Automation Jiri Machala QASight/Moravia IT

1.45 - 2.30 KEYNOTE Formula One is a Sport which Revolves around Testing and Quality Mark Gallagher Eddie Jordan's Formula One Team

2.30 - 3.00 COFFEE BREAK

The Application Performance Lifecycle Elma Cusack Hewlett-Packard

3.00 - 3.45 Testing in a Service Oriented Architecture Dave Rigler SQS

Making Sure Information Quality Matches Software Quality Daragh O'Brien International Association for Information & Data Quality (IAIDQ)

End-User Computing: Risks in Spreadsheets Patrick O'Beirne SoftTest Ireland

(repeats) From The Trenches: Share DSI's Experience of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition

3.45 - 4.30 The Truth about Outsourcing Looking Forward to Outsourcing 2.0 Arpit Kaushik Crystals Design Limited

Green Testing: The Race Against Waste Joan Jordan o2

Virtualisation of Test Environments Mark Scully/ Sean O'Sullivan Irish Stock Exchange

Caught In The Middle Testing - the 'No Mans Land' between Systems Test and UAT on Vendor-supplied software Adrienne Reddan Delphi Technologies

4.30 - 5.15 Successful Fusion of Tailored Process Improvement and Capability Building Oliver Lawrence British Energy

Running a centralised Performance testing service in an Ecommerce World Peter Pinto Friends Provident

SQuaRE standard Michael O'Duffy The Centre for Software Engineering

Requirements-Driven Testing: The Clear Solution for Improving Application Quality Fergal McGovern Compuware

New Yahoogroup subscription hijack

I'm a moderator for a few Yahoogroups and I've noticed on one particular group that a new pattern has emerged. I get a subscription to approve, and the email address looks genuine. But it is accompanied by an automatic reply email from the address with an "I'm out of the office" message.

Obviously spammers have realised that these addresses are genuine and can be used for a week or two, until the person returns, to attempt to get access to other lists of email addresses such as Yahoogroups.

On the other hand, unless they also have access to that email address to pick up the confirmation from YG, I don't see how they can access the group or retrieve any challenge email from the moderator - unless there's a way to sign in on the web using just an email address.

PraxIS Feb 2008

http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0802.htm

1) Risk & Security
    Societe Generale 
2) Bank Direct Debit fraud
    Jeremy Clarkson's challenge�taken up
3) Spreadsheets
    New certification on safe spreadsheeting being tested 
4) Off Topic
����Schadenfreude
15 Web links in this newsletter

PraxIS January 2008

1) IT Risk & Quality
Bad Health Informatics can Kill
HMRC manual on data protection was protected data
Frequently Avoided Questions about IT auditing
15th EuroSPI Conference, Dublin, Sep 2008

2) Euro Changeover
Cyprus and Malta switch to euro cash

3) Spreadsheets
Office 2003 update quietly zaps older file formats
Seattle Accountant offers free book on Excel for MBA
Dave Hawley's Golden Rules for Excel Development

4) Off Topic
My 2008 photo calendar

13 Web links in this newsletter

Christmas greetings

Have a peaceful Christmas season and success in 2008!

PraxIS Dec 2007

December 2007

1) Risk & Security
The biggest data loss in history ... so far
and more...

2) Quality
Software Test Process Improvement

3) Spreadsheets
Excel User Conference
Excel tips & tricks
Manager and Auditor perspectives

4) Off Topic
A friend passes away

14 Web links in this newsletter

Irish Java Technology Conference

There are now only two days remaining to IJTC day and lots of exciting news!
First you can avail of discount booking (189 instead of 245), offer by logging on to http://IJTC.FirstPort.ie/Book.aspx or calling +353 01 775 1700
Second, we are offering a late-student offer. Attend one or both conference days (Thu/Fri) for only 50 Euro - student ID required.
You probably already know about our competition to win a private, champagne audience with Joel Spolsky on Wednesday night at 30,000 feet over the Irish Sea. Everyone that registers is in with a chance to win.
Joel Spolsky is presenting the Keynote address. That's followed by a Panel Discussion on the "Future of Java", chaired by ENN's Ralph Averbuch and featuring James Strachan, CTO of IONA. Over 18 guest speakers, including Java stars from IONA, SUN, Apache, Red Hat, Interface21 and Microsoft will lecture on subjects ranging from Enterprise, Web, Desktop and Mobile Application Development to iPhone, SUN Spots and Robotics. A full list of speakers and lectures is available at the IJTC web site http://IJTC.FirstPort.ie
THE IJTC TEAM
IrishDev.com & DubJUG.org

PraxIS Nov. 2007

www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0711.htm

1) Risk & Security
     Standard of Good Practice for Information Security download
     Cyber Security Awareness Resource Center downloads 
     Pirate copies of books
     Audit Technology Conference, London 20-21 Nov
2) Irish news
     Ireland Corporate Enforcer impatience with compliance
     ICS Security Professionals' Network Seminar, 5 Nov
     SoftTest Ireland Presentation by O2 and AGM, 8 Nov
3) Spreadsheets
     Excel User Conference Cambridge, Nov 29 - Dec 1
     SPRIG sleepless at INFORMS, Seattle, 5 & 7 Nov
     Did you spot a spreadsheet error from a mile away?
     Excel oddities, annoyances, quirks
     ScanXLS continues to be enhanced
     VBA Code Quality - Project Analyser
4) Off Topic
     Giveaway of the day freeware
13 Web links in this newsletter

ISACA Ireland Conference 2007 Fri Nov 2, 2007

http://www.isaca.ie/

The ISACA Ireland Conference 2007 will be address the theme "Focus on Data Privacy: Threats, Enforcement and Opportunities"

Excel oddities

Some annoyances I came across in Excel and VBA:

Maximum application.statusbar message length is 255 characters. Setting it to a string of 256 or more characters long gives error 1004.
A Text formatted cell displays # characters to fill the cell (eg ##########) when the length of the text is between 256 and 1024 characters.
Excel 2007 with European regional Windows date settings cannot import dBase dbf file dates correctly. Although the data is stored in the record unambigously as YYYYMMDD, Excel 12 imports it as mm/dd/yyyy so dates with days above 12 appear as text. It imports correctly when the regional date format is mm/dd/yyyy.
Excel VBA once gave an error with a Double variable appearing as -1.#IND. In Microsoft C, that is an uninitialised variable, or Not a Number (NaN). I could not reproduce the error.

PraxIS October 2007

October 2007

1) Risk & Security
Nedap voting machines de-certified in The Netherlands
Phishy education

2) Testing
Holistic Test Analysis and Design
Software & Systems Quality Conferences in London and Dublin

3) Spreadsheets
65535 calculation bug in Excel 2007 cell display

4) Off Topic
Mnemonics and pangrams

21 Web links in this newsletter

Excel 2007 float bug at 65535

microsoft.public.excel is discussing this problem:

multiply 850 by 77.1 and Excel displays the result to be 100000

David Gainer's Excel blog says: The Problem
This issue was introduced when we were making changes to the Excel calculation logic in the Office 2007 time frame. Specifically, Excel incorrectly displays the result of a calculation in 12 very specific cases (outlined below). The key here is that the issue is actually not in the calculation itself (the result of the calculation stored in Excel�s memory is correct), but only in the result that is shown in the sheet. Said another way, =850*77.1 will display an incorrect value, but if you then multiply the result by 2, you will get the correct answer (i.e. if A1 contains �=850*77.1�, and A2 contains �=A1*2�, A2 will return the correct answer of 131,070).
So what, specifically, are the values that cause this display problem? Of the 9.214*10^18 different floating point numbers (floating point on wikipedia) that Excel 2007 can store, there are 6 floating point numbers (using binary representation) between 65534.99999999995 and 65535, and 6 between 65535.99999999995 and 65536 that cause this problem. You can�t actually enter these numbers into Excel directly (since Excel will round to 15 digits on entry), but any calculation returning one of those results will display this issue if the results of the calculation are displayed in a cell. All other calculation results are not affected.

Other posts on that blog show how the value of 100000 can be propagated rather than just be a display problem.
Joel Spolsky gives his explanation at http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/09/26b.html

PraxIS newsletter Sep 2007

www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0709.htm

1) Irish Computer Society 50 years awards
Your vote is wanted!

2) prax0709.htm#Quality
Free Software Testing Seminars in Ireland

3) Spreadsheets
Apple Numbers introduced

4) Off Topic
Tech Gripes

5 Web links in this newsletter

Final days of August 2007 vacation in Alberta

Banff Centre for the Arts

We went to a couple of the concerts of the Banff International String Quartet Competition. Megan liked the Tin Alley quartet from Australia and indeed they were the winners on Sept 2nd. I find Bartok rather severe for my tastes, but John Largess, violist with the Miró Quartet (winners of BISQC 1998), provided a very good background to the music. You can listen to the performances on the CBC Concerts on Demand archive.

There were some fun events, such as an informal evening gig by the participants in the Richard Armstrong vocal workshop. We tried out some experiments at Look Again, a collaboration between the artists and the Science Communications people. I didn't enjoy the TV production which was a panel discussion. The chair did not pursue any points in depth, for example the comment by the sociologist - that calling for public debate about nanotechnology is little help because ordinary people are not up to speed with science - could have been taken up by the scientist on the panel, and the audience. A dancer described how a scientist helped her team incorporate dolphin movements into their repertoire; but the host then put her on the spot by asking her to do a dance about nanotechnology for the audience. She got the audience to make movements from large to small, which to my eyes looked like something from kindergarten. I suppose I was being too serious in expecting some audience interaction at a more cerebral level, such as taking part in the debate.

Calgary visit

The name 'Calgary' is said to mean 'clear running water' in Gaelic. In fact, according to a post to the Gaelic-L Archives :

However the correct Gaelic translation for the phrase would be 
*t-suthain shoilleir* or *uisge shoilleir*. 
Long before the formation of the NWMP, James Macleod had visited Calgary Bay
on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, where his sister's relatives through marriage
owned a small castle named Calgary House. 
The original name in Gaelic was *Cala-ghearridh*,
with the first part *Cala*, meaning "harbour" or "bay", and the second part,
*ghearridh*, meaning "preserved piece of pasture", "enclosed pature", or "farm".

Stayed in 5 Calgary Downtown Suites, very happy with them. Enjoyed a lunch with Guinness at the James Joyce Pub. The Calgary Tower is $12 each just to go 500 feet up. The vertigo-inducing glass floor is the only real attraction there, other office buildings must have similar views. Sundog Tours airport shuttle charges $15 each and takes 1 hour because they call to every hotel. A taxi costs $34 and takes 15 mins so is better for two people.

The Glenbow Museum had a good exhibition of Native Indian life, Niitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life in the Blackfoot Gallery. The exhibition Mavericks shows the life and times of famous Calgarians, almost all white. The original inhabitants had a panel on some walls saying how it looked from the their point of view.

Drumheller trip

We took a Hammerhead tour to the Badlands - Horshoe Canyon, the Hoodoos, Drumheller, the ferry, and the prairies. Very enjoyable.
Tyrrell Museum - a wonderful show of archaeology from the formation of life through to the dinosaurs and stopping just before humans appeared, very well curated, we took two hours to visit and didn't have time to walk in the badlands.

My Photos: Flickr.com/probeirne

My Videos: YouTube.com/probeirne

Creative Zen Missing Feature

MP3 concept of Albums

It's amazing that a modern MP3 player like the Creative Zen VPlus can't do what disk changers have been doing for decades, right up to CD changers.

They say to use playlists, but that only works from a collection on the PC to the Zen. It does not apply to a Zen which has been filled from different PCs or where I did not store the music on the PC. The Zen only lists music by artist, not album so I can't even copy it back to a PC with album integrity in order to create a playlist.

Playlists are also double work - I'd have to maintain the playlist everytime I add or delete an album on the player.

All we need is a simple option:

Continuous album play Y/N

BH200 Vista not working

Dell Bluetooth headset woes

I have a Inspiron E1405/640M with Vista Business Dell Truemobile 355 Bluetooth + EDR Driver date 21/06/2006 version 6.0.6000.16398 Bluetooth headset BH200

I've read various forums such as
http://www.notebookforums.com/thread178221.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=137370
and the Dell support troubleshooter: "Problems With the Dell� BH200 Bluetooth� 2.0 EDR Stereo Headset"

I posted that method to the Dellcommunity.com forum but my question is:

Why do I have to go through this rigmarole EVERY TIME I turn on the laptop? Surely once installed it should recognise the headset the next time I turn it on? Bluetooth was supposed to make interfacing easier. With the old plug-in mike+earpieces all I had to do was plug them in and they worked. Maybe I should go back to them.

UPDATE: The method I described in my last post does not work any more. I downloaded what seems to be the latest patch, R140135, but when I run setup I get

 
---------------------------
Bluetooth Software
---------------------------
This installer be run on Windows Vista only.
---------------------------

If that message had 'Aaarrr' in front of it that would be talk-like-a-pirate software, but I presume the word 'must' is missing. Which is useless as I *am* running Vista Business.

I have an email into tech support, got the automated answer, still waiting for a specific answer.

Still waiting, 2 weeks later....

Google Desktop annoying beep

After a lot of searching on "why does my computer beep" This is a loud POST-type beep, not a normal Windows sound which can be suppressed by turning the volume down. My version of Google Desktop is 5.0.0611.10655-en-GB-pb Thanks to Gert http://www.vantslot.be/gertdotnet/ I found http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=58591 February 22, 2007 Google Desktop 4.5 (5.0.0702.07034) All Languages, Consumer and Enterprise Security update Fixed beeping issue related to PDF indexing

Frobisher: Three characters in search of an ending

I enjoyed the production of the new opera Frobisher by John Estacio & John Murrell produced by Kelly Robinson and the Calgary Opera at the Banff Centre for the Arts on Sunday 12 Aug 2007.

In the tradition of musicals about theatrical people, this Opera is based on movie people.

The theme is the American Dream, the belief in a new start, and a place to make it in.

Musically, it passed by without much sticking; unlike a musical, in opera there are no big tunes to go away humming. The rising tritone for 'Paradise' was pretty obviously taken from Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, maybe aimed at an audience raised on the 2001 movie.

The music sung was modern but accessible, reminding me of Britten. Estacio's musical language also depicted the Elizabethan court in a way that suggested the time without being a literal merry-down quotation. The chorus of unfortunate seamen had the simplest tune like a sea-shanty.

The performers' voices and diction were very able for this material, so I'd be quite happy to hear the Calgary Opera troupe again. If I saw this opera again, I'd like to pay more attention to the music. My main occupation the first time was catching the words. Although the diction was excellent, I still missed enough words to have to look up at the text display. If I waited until I knew I had missed something, looking up would be too late, it would have already moved on. So I took to glancing at it every few seconds to catch what was coming up. As I was in row C, third from the front, not only had I to crick my neck up quite a bit to see the text, but also the light for the conductor's podium was spilling into my eyes. So if you're going to the Eric Harvie Theatre, book well ahead to get the good seats.

The Wagmanites, the coterie of assistants to the film producer Wagman, was played as a tribute to big musical chorus numbers, entertaining, moving non-stop, very well staged. And ironically although the Elizabethan courtiers were just effete, the modern hangers-on chorus was given the job of stating the main principle of operation for all the characters: appeal to the heart, not the brain.

This key principle of salesmanship was used by Frobisher to get Good Queen Bess to open her purse and once again give the gold and the men for a speculative voyage. Frobisher pitched to Queen Elizabeth what she wanted � prestige, a way to China by the west. Michael projected his own dream on Frobisher, that of a new world where men (what, on their own?) could start again. Of course, we now know that if we humans did discover Paradise, we would be the serpent. He did capture Anna with this dream, though. Anna used the pitch to appeal to Wagman's vanity.

One line which drew a laugh from the audience which I am guessing would mainly consist of academics and Canadians is that of Anna's mother Jessica who said that Wagman would probably not know her because she was a teacher and Canadian. This reference to the self-deprecating Canadian character brought a chuckle.

The plot was fast moving and very well constructed � at no point were we confused between the then and the now, between Frobisher in the 1570s or his ghost� appearing to Anna now, and other cinematic cutaways in the plot.

Michael was dispatched from the story fairly quickly but not from the stage. He was portrayed as vain 'I have dreams to bestow on you, Anna', and self-centred, saying 'love you' (misremembered by Anna as 'I love you') while walking off leaving her alone, and foolish, going on his own without communications or distress signals.

The only moment that I wished would move on a bit was Anna's aria about her love for Michael. As his character had not been developed, except perhaps in the most unflattering way possible, we had no reason to see why she would feel that way for a guy like that. Unless, of course, we were meant to see that as her infatuation.

Anna was the romantic character, in love with an ideal. So was Michael and he projected that on to Frobisher, explaining his search for gold as a search for Eden.

The twist in the story was to offer us three endings.

The first was the classical tragedy, where the romantic heroine goes off to die in the snow pursuing a dream. In real life, anyone who did take off their clothes in the Arctic and lie on the ice would die in a few minutes anyway.

The second was the feel-good Wagman ending. Frobisher returns, apologies for not finding glory but Queen Bess decides that with his experience he's just the man to take on the Pope and the Spaniards in an Armada.

The third was the comforting ending where Anna was in fact alive. Unsaid, I assume that she was immediately rescued by the party of filmmakers, perhaps using modern technology. In older days, that scene would have to be shown, and would include her acceptance of her misguided adventure and her blindness, in true moral tale fashion.� Today's audience would be assumed to fill in that for themselves. The Candide-like ending showed her accepting that only in life can you dream, as her mother looked approvingly on.

Politics

In the third, bourgeois, ending, Anna was now shown as a tame domesticated woman (making stew, however inexpertly) rather than the wild spirit she was before.

For an opera set in the Arctic there was no appearance of an Inuit character in a voice role. Only the sanitised 'ancient Inuit voices'. According to the programme, these were the unseen chorus doing the heavenly voices background. That may have been clear to Canadians who might recognise the language but it was not explicitly shown as such in the opera. I wonder why Inuit voices have to be 'ancient'. Maybe ancient voices are safer, unlike the contemporary more uncomfortable voices. In New Age terms, a romantic like Anna would want to hear voices of encouragement anyway, rather than the more realistic voices of real Inuits who would tell her to get back immediately before she froze to death.

Perhaps one could imagine other endings, which maybe is the point of the opera � to start us thinking and speculating.

Patrick O'Beirne, 13 Aug 2007

Link: http://www.banffcentre.ca/frobisher/

Banff music and dance

Some quick notes on other events we attended:

Sat 4 Aug, Young Dancers, an end-of-term presentation of what they could do in classical and jazz dance. Very impressive, especially as some were very young, aged 12 and 13. Only three male dancers.

Tue 7 Aug, Summer music in St. George's in the Pines, Banff. A nice mix of song and string quartet including an amusing piece "Don't let that horse eat that violin"

Wed 15 Aug, Mighty Popo. Blues, African singer, drummer, guitar. Easy listening for a summer evening, although described as 'acoustic' this was in fact heavily amplified.

Sat 18 Aug Banff Festival Orchestra conducted by Alain Trudel, with Anton Kuerti as soloist in Brahms' second piano concerto.
http://www.banffcentre.ca/media_room/Media_Releases/2007/0810_anton_kuerti.asp
The orchestra of young players was assembled for a four-week run. Alain Trudel looked to be just the kind of conductor I'd like to be in front of, economical and supportive. At this event, Anton Kuerti was awarded the Banff Centre's prestigious National Arts Award of a prize and a residency. The small orchestra, with reflecting sound panels behind them, was projected into a rather dry acoustic, and the piano also sounded lighter than expected. I am used to larger scale recordings of this piece with a heroic wash of sound, so it was like I was hearing the detail for the first time. The effect was that of a niche boutique wine rather than a heavy claret. The third movement was played almost like chamber music, in a contemplative manner.

The second piece was Shostakovich's 9th Symphony which gave individual members of the orchestra a chance to shine. They obviously relished the perky tune with a hint of the danse macabre.

Dance, Talks, and more at Banff Centre

Sun Aug 19 The Dance of Life - Keeping Pace

The Banff centre promotes artistic activity as an alternative to the hard-skills component of most management training centres. The marketing term they use is Leadership Development rather than the '80's Management Development. The programs are for corporate, government, Aboriginal, arts, and not-for-profit (NfP) sectors. The series on Leading Creatively included conversations on Leadership Jazz, Extreme Leadership, the Ecology of Business, Leading in a world of Climate Change, and the Dance workshop that we attended.

This was at the end of a weekend where about eight people worked with a dance company Motus O Dance to develop their attention to movement and body. The facilitator asked the audience to describe some situation they recently encountered on their way to Banff and the group improvised actions to illustrate it. They did well, and when I asked how they knew what to do together, one participant said that they had learned to pay deep attention to what was going on, and they expected the skills they learned here to be of use back in the workplace.

I asked a member of Motus O how they worked with engineers and IT people (think of Dilbert and Dance...) and he illustrated a way in which they elicited moves from a group recently that avoided embarrassment and withdrawal by playing back gestures natural to the people, actions which they were already able to own.

It was an interesting and enjoyable couple of hours.

Banff New Media Institute

The BNMI students and artists held open events as part of the Banff Summer Arts Festival in August 2007 to showcase some of their work. These are works in progress so we don't expect finished quality, more a demonstration of what is currently being explored.

Aug 9, Aboriginal Animation.

Videos created by First Nations people using the facilities of the BNMI. Some were simple drawings with a voice track, others more complete animations. I don't remember the details now but it provided an insight into their lives and stories.

It was followed by a three-dimensional simulation projection of a story about a Raven. Developed in Maya, it used all the techniques - 3D glasses, immersive projection on three walls, and the floor will be worked on next. The person interacting used the joystick to control navigation, similar to video games. Afterwards some kids enjoyed playing with it while I went backstage to have a look at the technology. They intend that this could be made available over ordinary broadband, which in Canada means a lot, as it's one of the most connected countries in the world.

Aug 16, Interactive Screen

1) "Chain Reaction" (c.15 minutes) a performance by Animals of Distinction.

The audience stood around two black-clad girls lying on the floor under a video projector. A black-and-white animation started like a fractal growth, a Monty Python ornament, or a continuously growing plant tendril. Loud music pounded from the speakers. The dancers leapt every few seconds around the floor but staying to the floor plane, a kind of horizontal ballet. Towards the end, a cartoon of a bear was briefly projected and then the tendril drawing resumed. It was described as "a real-time game of snakes and ladders ... unfolds between animation and performers". I was not aware of any game element and lost interest when there appeared to be little variation in activity after the first few minutes.

2) "Streaming Video" (8:00) and "Winterscape" (15:30) by Jim Bizzocchi Ambient video is designed to be as easy to ignore as to notice. These videos showed a pleasing sequence of cleverly masked dissolves among water landscape and winter scenes respectively, to a xylophone background. It's a kind of video Musak, suitable for wallpaper in visitor centres or shopping malls or TV intermissions. It was very pleasant although in the darkened projection room where we had to pay attention to it, it was somewhat like having to watch screensavers.

3) "The Subliminal Organism as a Limnological Feather Vane" (19:00) by Noel Begin A ground-pounding machine was shown in closeup (so close you could catch the dust in your throat) and slow-motion, with the sound slowed too. Plants from the Banff National Park, and extreme close ups of insects featured. The bizarre sound track featuring for example phone answering machine messages raised laughs from the audience. Nice photography, but I think it could be cut to one-half the length.

4) Another piece was inserted here featuring routine and excessively long shots of the Rockies with very prominent road noise. If the intention was to make the point that this nature park is a noisy place by the roadside, all I can say is "Yes, we know", and the point could have been made in 30 seconds rather than 15 minutes.

5) "I have seen the future" by Cam Christiansen (6:00)

A story of bored street kids taunting a father & son playing tennis, told from the son's point of view, who reflected on his own younger life. The video was computer generated including mouth animation matched to words. The words were heard in a song played live by a guitarist. This was introduced as "experimental", which is probably a euphemism for "we didn't bother rehearsing the sync", as a musician accompanying a silent movie is as old as film itself. Still, it was relief to see a video that actually told a story.

My own pictures and videos of our trip to Banff are amateur but just for interest they can be seen at Flickr and Youtube

PraxIS August 2007

1) IT Risk & Security
Risks from untested medical spreadsheets
Spreadsheets latest spam message carriers

2) Quality
Spreadsheet & Data Quality

3) Spreadsheets
Report from Eusprig 2007 conference
The Bug Hunt results

4) Off Topic
Spreadsheets considered harmful :-)
11 Web links in this newsletter

PraxIS July 07: Audit Guides, ISO 27K Guides, Automation, Chance, Eusprig 2007

1) Risk & Security
     Global Technology Audit Guide (GTAG)
     Guidance to ISO 27K Information Security Management Standards
2) Software Testing
     Automated Scripts push my buttons
3) Just read these a second time
     
4) Spreadsheets
     Eusprig 2007 in Greenwich July 11-13
5) Off Topic
     'Canada' explained to foreigners
10 Web links in this newsletter

ISSN 1649-2374 This issue online at http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0707.htm

PraxIS June 2007

ISSN 1649-2374 This issue online at http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0706.htm

1) Risk and Security
Quality Schadenfreude
Bogus reports of Canadian 'spy coin'
Ryanair check-in site exposes data
US Intelligence embeds spreadsheet in PPT

2) Software Testing
SoftTest Ireland member survey

3) Web Content
How does your site look to a spam sniffer?
What visitors to your web site care about

4) Spreadsheets
Tip: Converting text numbers to values
New companies in Spreadsheet Control market
Eusprig 8th Annual Conference
Excel User Conferences this Autumn (Fall)

5) Off Topic
How to write a scientific paper ( ...not)

PraxIS May 2007

ISSN 1649-2374 This issue online at http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0705.htm

1) IT Risk & Security
   Raising awareness of Information Risk
     Profile of a Fraudster
     Oxley Unhappy with SOX
     Hidden in plain sight
2) What does the data say?
     Social Statistics blogs
3) Ireland
     Irish Computing History: the Digital Media Archive
4) Spreadsheets
     MS Excel Quality Wish List
     On Error GoTo @##^! - sample chapter for VBA developers
     Training course, software, book
5) Off Topic
   Two stories of customer service
     19 Web links in this newsletter

PraxIS April 2007

1) Risk & Security
   Biggest credit card theft - so far
     Consequences - the stick
     Human Error

2) ScanXLS 2007
List all your spreadsheet files with an overview of their contents

3) Spreadsheet Best Practices training course
Learn how to detect and prevent errors

4) Spreadsheet news
New products, free downloads

5) Off Topic
Photos and short video clips from Iceland

20 Web links in this newsletter

Iceland photographs and movies

I have now uploaded my photographs of Iceland to Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/probeirne

and the videos to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/PROBeirne

PraxIS February 2007

ISSN 1649-2374 This issue online at http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0702.htm

1) Risk & Security
The ISSA / UCD Irish Cybercrime Survey
'Certified' Cheque Scams
DST March 11 = Y2.007K ?
2) Quality
Fourth Information Quality Forum, Dublin
3) ICS News
When Irish I.T.s are smiling
4) Spreadsheets
Free contributions to the Eusprig yahoogroup
5) Off Topic
Google Map Trek
Solzhenitsyn's advice for life
16 Web links in this newsletter

Seminar on Auditing Spreadsheets, Reykjavik

University of Iceland, Reykjavik, building VR-II - room 147 on the first floor. 16:00 on Thursday 22nd February, 2007.

This seminar is by kind invitation of Prof. Ebba Thora Hvannberg, Ph.D. of the Computer Science Department. I was introduced to her by Prof. Oddur Benediktsson , a frequent visitor to universities in Ireland. His course in the Personal Software Process (PSP) of Watts Humphrey started my interest in software quality and process improvement.

TOPICS
1. The risk to organisations from the uncontrolled use of spreadsheets;
2. Surveys, research, news of financial loss or embarrassment from spreadsheet errors;
3. Ways of assessing and mitigating risk;
4. Managing the spreadsheet development process, using a maturity model;
5. Advice on knowledge worker training, data quality control, testing, and model audit.

Auditing spreadsheets: Motivation and methodology - Fyrirlesari: Patrick O'Beirne FICS Systems Modelling Ltd, Fimmtudaginn 22. febr�ar kl. 16 � stofu 147 � VR-II
M�lstofa � t�lvunarfr��i
Allir velkomnir
Fjalla� ver�ur um endursko�un � t�flureiknum. Me�al efnis ver�ur �h�tta stofnana og fyrirt�kja af �v� a� nota t�flureikna sem ekki er st�rt. Kostna�ur vegna villna � t�flureikningum. Lei�ir til a� meta og minnka �h�ttu. Stj�rnun � �r�un t�flureikninga og h�fnisl�kan. R��gj�f um �j�lfun, g��astj�rnun gagna, pr�fanir og endursko�un.

Iceland Feb 2007

I visited the Hofdabrekka Hotel near the coastal village of Vik (pop:300) in Southern Iceland. Naturally I took the usual photographs such as the Reynisdrangar (Troll Rocks)

And icicles in the Kerlingardalur (Witch's Valley)

But to give the feel of the place when winter snow arrived on Feb 8, so you can compare it with your own snow on that day, here is a one-minute 360° panorama

24 MB MPEG Video

PraxIS January 2007

1) Risk & Security
   Resource websites on risk management
     The risk of not reading flight reservations closely
2) IT Tech
   Wireless Internet Connection Sharing
3) Europe
     Slovenia joins the Euro zone
     Bulgaria and Romania join the EU
4) Spreadsheets
     Data processing optimization
5) Off Topic
     Robert Fisk on the Middle East
11 Web links in this newsletter

PraxIS December 2006

1) Risk & Security
New vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word
UK NHS IT Plan: �12Bn at risk?
Creeping errors

2) IE7
Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

3) Marketing
Killer Web Content - new book
Social Networking websites questioned

4) Spreadsheets
Tip: Identify missing input values
The Long and Winding Formula
Yet more error reports in the news

5) Off Topic
Cartoon: when the only tool you have is a hammer....
18 Web links in this newsletter

Eusprig 11-13 July 2007 CfP : Spreadsheet Management

www.uwic.ac.uk/eusprig/2007
Announcing the 8th EuSpRIG Annual Conference
'Enterprise Spreadsheet Management: A Necessary Evil'
University of Greenwich, London UK
July 11-13 2007
Research has repeatedly shown that an alarming proportion of corporate spreadsheet models are not tested to the extent necessary to support Directors' fiduciary, reporting and compliance obligations. Uncontrolled and untested spreadsheet models therefore pose significant business risks.

These risks include:
Lost revenue & profits
Mispricing and poor decision making due to prevalent but undetected errors
Fraud due to malicious tampering
Difficulties in demonstrating fiduciary and regulatory compliance

These risks are ignored due to a widespread failure to inventory (keep records of), test, document, backup, archive and control the legions of spreadsheets that support critical corporate infrastructure.
To counter these risks and address the pertinent management issues, the European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group (EuSpRIG) will be holding their 8th annual conference at the University of Greenwich, London UK on July 11-13 2007.
This conference will provide attendees with an opportunity to share experiences with a broad range of researchers, practitioners and recognised leaders in the field of spreadsheet research.

Call for papers

EuSpRIG is issuing a Call for Papers for the 2007 conference on: enterprise spreadsheet management: A necessary evil . The programme will concentrate on all aspects of the management of spreadsheets.
Papers are welcomed on spreadsheet management issues covering all aspects of the life cycle but especially concerning:-

- awareness raising
- education and training
- development methods and good practice
- audit tools and associated methods
- working model controls, version control and secure archiving.

Academic papers and Management Summaries describing how organisations have implemented control over the development and use of spreadsheets will be particularly welcome.
We are seeking the following types of submission:
Full academic papers (up to 5000 words),
Management summaries (up to 2000 words).
We invite original papers from both new and established researchers within the academic and practitioner communities that present material related to the conference themes. The conference proceedings will be published by EuSpRIG.
It is expected that academics and students will contribute full papers which will be double-blind refereed by members of the programme committee. Management summaries are predominantly expected from business people and practising professionals such as spreadsheet users, developers, auditors and accountants - all who can contribute to the prevention, detection and correction of errors in spreadsheet models and applications and the management of risks associated with spreadsheet use. Such summaries will be reviewed by two referees.
Submissions to EuSpRIG 2007 may not have (already) been published in a journal or conference proceedings, nor presented at another conference. Moreover, they may not be currently under consideration for publication or presentation elsewhere. Only papers that are accepted and presented in person will be published.
For Author Guidelines and Submission Details see http://www.uwic.ac.uk/eusprig/2007/author_guidelines.htm
Students please note: EuSpRIG in association with ISACA (Northern England Chapter) has arranged for the creation of an annual prize to be awarded for the best EuSpRIG conference paper submitted by an undergraduate or masters postgraduate student. For further information see http://www.uwic.ac.uk/eusprig/2007/Student%20Prize.htm
Important Dates
Submission deadline for papers and management summaries: 28th February 2007
Acceptance notice: 30th March 2007
Final camera-ready copy: 30th of May 2007

PraxIS Nov'06: Human Error, Information Quality, Software testing, Eusprig

http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0611.htm
1) Human Error
We don't make those kind of mistakes here
Book review: 'Human Error', James Reason
2) Information Quality
IRM UK Data Management and Information Quality conference
3) Software Testing
Testing Accessibility and Performance
4) Spreadsheets
Updates on the Eusprig web site
5) Off Topic
eVoting cartoon
18 Web links in this newsletter

SoftTest: Accessibility & Performance testing & AGM, Nov 7th 17:30-20:00

SoftTest Ireland quarterly meeting and networking session takes place in the Holiday Inn, Pearse St, Dublin on Tuesday 7 Nov registration at 5:30pm for a 6pm start.
Speakers:
Darren Pickering of Elemental Creative on "Accessibility Testing"
Dr. John Murphy from the Performance Engineering Laboratory on "Understanding Performance Engineering by means of Tools and Practical Exercises"

All members are encouraged to participate and new members are welcome! Please reply to admin at softtest.ie to register for this event.
Registration opens at 5.30pm and the event will be followed at 8pm by a drinks and networking reception. The event is FREE to paid-up members of SoftTest Ireland. There is a charge of 50 euro for non-members.
The evening will feature two presentations and a brief AGM to keep you informed of our progress.
(1) The first speaker is Darren Pickering of Elemental Creative. His topic is Accessibility Testing.
Contents:
Accessibility Testing- An Introduction
The problem with inaccessible websites
How users use the web
What are the W3C guidelines?
Manual and Automated Testing
What is 'bad' usability?
Benefits of Usability Testing
Case Study- O2
Case Study- Dergfinn Partnership
Case Study- The Blind Centre of Northern Ireland

Darren Pickering co-founded Elemental Creative Ltd in 2002, an IT consultancy that specialises in website usability and accessibility testing and online performance development.
An experienced senior web designer and website tester, Darren has been involved in the design, build and testing of web presences for many companies and has provided usability and accessibility consultancy for Sun Microsystems and O2, and has developed and implemented an accessibility lab for O2.
Elemental Creative Ltd is an independently owned, website usability testing, accessibility testing and Internet marketing agency based in Omagh, Co Tyrone.

=============================================
(2) Doctor John Murphy from the Performance Engineering Laboratory http://www.perfenglab.com
Title: "Understanding Performance Engineering by means of Tools and Practical Exercises"
Abstract:
Software Testers and IT specialists need to be educated with a basic degree of performance engineering knowledge, so they are aware of why and how certain design and development decisions can lead to poor performance of the resulting software systems. In this talk we document how performance engineering is introduced through practical exercises, and how these exercises relate to industry problems.
The talk will cover:
performance testing, tuning
Load/stress testing, profiling, capacity planning,
Flexible benchmark generation for:
Performance testing
Middleware infrastructure testing
Portable test-bed generator
Quick Ant-based generation
Functional testing: eliminate bad configurations

Bio:
Dr. Murphy is an IBM Faculty Fellow, a Senior Member of the IEEE, a Fellow and a Chartered Engineering with the IEI, a Fellow of the Irish Computer Society, as well as being a member of the ACM, IEE and a European Engineer with FEANI. Dr. Murphy is the author or co-author of over 100 technical papers on performance engineering.

PraxIS October 2006

Our free email newsletter "PraxIS" is distributed to the EuroIS YahooGroup

October 2006

1) Risk & Security
     Euro conversion looms again
     Testing software and electronic calculators
     Stock spam pays off if they're quick

2) Data Quality
Review: 'The Visual Display of Quantitative Information'
European DM+IQ conference, London, Oct 30-Nov 2

3) Spreadsheets
     Excel 2007 databars misrepresent zero
     More rave reviews and more downloads for 'Spreadsheet Check and Control'
     Free books on Excel

4) Off Topic
C More or Less

10 Web links in this newsletter

Free MIDI choral rehearsal parts

I'm singing tenor with the Wexford Festival Singers in the Karl Jenkins Armed Man on October 29th in Wexford.

I'm also in the Guinness Choir for their Mendelssohn St. Paul on Jan 28 2007 in Dublin.

I use CyberBass.com that provides free note-learning MIDI tutorial recordings for all the parts in some major choral works. As they say themselves, "CyberBass is not beautiful or artistic. It does not playback dynamics, vocal nuances, etc. It is basically a note bashing site. CyberBass generally does not play back orchestral accompaniment. Although you will find some pieces with accompaniment sequenced lightly in the background."

You can also buy readymade learning CDs from CyberBass, or make a contribution to help defray their costs.

I use the free Apple ITunes program version 4.9.0.17 to burn the midi files to an audio CD. I installed iTunes 5 when it came out but immediately reverted back to version 4 when I discovered that Apple had removed the ability to burn MIDI files to CD.

I also use Windows Media Player to play MIDI and MP3 files at half speed (and re-record as MP3 using OPD2D or Audacity) for those of us who find clusters of semiquavers difficult.