In this section you’ll find a variety of musings or perhaps, depending on your perspective, quaint notions. Because I grew up around computers and bled many a day with new technologies I’ve developed an aversion to bleeding and cast a critical eye on new technology. Rarely does it excite, and in only rare situations does the first few years of availability offer a better solution than whatever it was designed to replace. This often gets me into hot water with technology folks, but, as I said, I don’t like to bleed.

I have generally been the “lone voice in the wilderness” relative to the klunkiness of web-based applications, the performance issues related to n-tier architectures, and smart cards (with a distinctly US perspective, so apologies to much of the rest of the world). Thankfully, web applications are becoming quite good, but this is only happening about 7 or maybe 10 years after the promise. On the other hand, we’re not yet seeing a lot of discussion concerning the downsides (e.g. performance) around tiered architectures. Lastly, is the continued lamentation, protestation, or whatever, that smart cards are great for loyalty and a bunch of other things which nobody has been able to identify in about 15 years of trying. The majority of the musings on are or around these topics, but please browse the list, I might just skewer your favorite as well:

• Moving at the Speed of Marketing — A look at the "The List" of requirements for your next enhancement or next generation system and why you've already failed to create a system that can "move at the speed of marketing."
• Are Contactless Cards Just Smart Cards Part Deux? — Why it is that smart cards are very likely never the right solution for loyalty.
• Back to Block Mode and Loving It! — The interface is dead, long live the interface.
• Doing Less with More — Performance implications of tiered architectures and why Moore's law is a very good thing.