Near HD conversion for DVDs

Toshiba lost out on the high density video recording war to BlueRay. But they have now announced a device that up converts standard DVD to HD resolution of up to 1080p. This would not be quite like HD video recorded on a media that can store it(like Blue Ray for example) but is an improvement on the standard definition DVDs. Standard definition being 480i/p resolution. The device should do well considering the Blue Ray take over of the worls is going to take tiime and until the time HD recorded media are universally available this transition product should do well. At $150 it is cheap enough to tempt people and give their collected SD DVDs a second lease of life!

"Time Bomb" in Software

Release and management thereafter of software products has always been difficult. As size and complexity of the products grow this becomes even more complex. But then there are more reasons for being careful too. The latest problem report comes from one of today's hot products the VMware. The CEO had to publicly apologize on the company website for an oversight that caused quite a few users a lot of stress.

Apparently developers had left some so called "time bombs" in the code, usually done to set a time limit on beta testing for example. These would be/should be cleaned up prior to release but obviously some did not get cleaned up even legitimate users could not install their systems that were paid for and all that.

Also goes to indicate how people in the testing and QA as well as the developers them selves need to be careful about such issues besides the regular bug management issues!

Cottage Industry In The Digital Age

It is possible to collect a set of individuals today and form an enterprise. Unlike the cottage industry of yore these individuals can be anywhere, any part of the globe in fact. It is probably easier to co-ordinate their work except where time difference cause problems. I am in the process of setting up such a virtual enterprise. Who would have thought, even probably 5 years back, such a thing would be possible in India. It's not too difficult to find people with a PC and a internet connection at home who can take up work that can be done on such a combination.