Tech Sensibility: February, 2014

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TECH SENSIBILITY: PRACTICAL STRATEGIES FOR A BALANCED LIFE

Use Technology to Your Advantage

A free newsletter discussing various approaches to making the most value of our daily usage of technology - everything from getting the most usability from our mobile devices to improving our personal lives through a better understanding of technical information.

Past copies are archived on our web site: http://www.galeasconsulting.com

Copyright 2014 Bruno Scap. All rights reserved.

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Feel free to share this newsletter with anyone who might find it beneficial.

Tech Sensibility is in three sections this month:

1. Technique

2. Slant: Non-IT executives making IT decisions

3. Element

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To learn more about how to leverage technology to improve core business performance, visit the online resources which include supporting articles and reports:

http://galeasconsulting.com/resources/

1. Technique

• Configure any and all software running on your computer - a web browser, e-mail client, music player, and/or business applications that you may use for work – for automatic software updates and upgrades. This will enable your computer programs to automatically check if there is a new software version available, in which case it will download it and ask you to install it. Software updates will help you keep your computer more secure and up-to-date with application fixes and new features.

• Before you sell or donate your computer, to help prevent identify theft, securely erase the contents of its hard disk to permanently remove all your data and make it unrecoverable. Skipping this method makes it relatively simple to recover deleted files from your computer's hard disk, even after you have deleted them. One application that does this is DBAN at http://dban.org. Running it with default options is sufficient in most cases.

• Do not clean your computer, laptop or TV screen with cleaning agents such as Windex. Modern displays have special coating on their surface that can be ruined by strong cleaners. Additionally, each display may be slightly different, and the best approach is to use the recommended method from your display owner's manual. Most manufacturers recommend cleaning their displays only with a cleaning cloth or a soft, lint-free cloth.

• Be careful about what information you give away to online web sites when you sign up for a service. For example, because phone numbers are not considered "sensitive" personally identifiable information, they are often collected by companies to verify a person's identify. If you do not think that a service requires your phone number, do not give it to them.

• If you use a laptop that is always plugged in, and your battery over time no longer holds charge – sometimes indicated by an amber battery light on your laptop, or a battery warning in software – you do not have to get a new battery. Your laptop will continue to work fine, as long as it is plugged in.

2. Slant

Implementing a structured DevOps environment

IT organizations must integrate their development and operations teams to stay competitive in today's business environment. In order to successfully implement a structured DevOps environment and use it to increase the flexibility and efficiency of the delivery and support of IT services, CIOs should strive to remove organizational silos to enable collaboration and effective use of their organization's capabilities and resources.

CIOs should embrace metrics that focus on measuring the customer satisfaction of continuous delivery of solutions and services instead of measuring the increased volume of deliveries. Similarly, instead of measuring the quality of software development by the number of software problems found, they should strive to improve the process by determining where in the development process was the software problem introduced.

CIOs should embrace the DevOps strategy that facilitates continuous service delivery and integration, and leverage the methodologies that expedite solutions from the development through operations stages.  They should concentrate their DevOps efforts on increasing the value of their production applications by improving the delivery of application solutions in ways that enhance the end user experience.

3. Element

• Stretching first thing in the morning releases stress and prepares you for the day by helping you to focus on taking better care of yourself. Stretching also loosens up tightened muscles, eliminates stiffness and improves your mobility throughout your day.

• When you are frustrated, remember Jefferson's observation: "In matters of taste, swim with the tide; in matters of principle, stand like a rock". Do not get frustrated over matters that do not impact your values, believes, integrity or ethics.

• There is no such thing as not having enough time. We all have the same amount of it; the distinction is how we decide to spend it. Managing time is about managing priorities- we choose to invest our time in activities that are important to us. So, when you do not have time to do something, you are actually choosing not to do it.