Interaction with students made me understand that computer science graduates need some guidance. Every teenager knows that an architect designs structures, a doctor heals people, and a professor teaches students. These jobs are easy to understand. Still, it’s not so obvious what a computer science graduate does. Sadly, many students remain pretty much confused about their mission, even after graduation.
This is the title of a famous book of Stephen Covey. In many online tests we use in the recruitment process we ask a simple question – “What’s the title of the best book you have ever read?”. Frankly, for me this would be a pretty difficult question, mostly because it’s quite impossible to flatten (I have a good definition of best) books based on topic. I can name a few very good books regarding engineering process, product management, architecture etc. But these books cannot compete with War and Peace, Karamazov Brothers, poesy or philosophy.
Everyone praises SJ for his technological achievements. Some say that he was the greatest CEO of our times. The saddest thing in death is that everyone seems to admire you after passing. 🙁
It’s not a secret that I am great admirer of SJ’s work, although I am not a Mac fan in particular. Steve did a lot for our industry. Not only did he bring technology closer to humans, but he simplified the life of many. He truly understood what people liked and how they want to feel. His vision was exceptional.
Today VoipNow is celebrating 5 years of existence. On May 30 2006, 4PSA was the first company in the world to introduce a communication platform that enabled service providers to offer affordable VoIP services, a state-of-the-art substitute for traditional PBX boxes.
You all know Newton’s second law of motion that says that F = m * a (Force equals mass times acceleration). This makes sports interesting, for example boxing. A heavy boxer will always punch with more force than a lightweight boxer. This is due to his high mass. Even if the lightweight boxer has more punch acceleration, it is almost impossible to achieve two times more acceleration than the heavy fighter to compensate for the extra mass. I don’t want to discuss about the energy spent on this, which is also an important parameter because it shows how much time he can deliver such punches.
Next week 4PSA will be introducing a new online presence, as well as redesigned back-end systems. One of the most important systems that has been completely renewed is the one used to provide technical support to our customers. The new facility, called Support Zone, is the result of an important development effort primarily focused on improving the satisfaction of our customers.
We wrote much of the material below in 2008 for a whitepaper, but things haven’t changed much. That’s why I want to give some advice to small companies that want to choose a hosted Unified Communications service; hopefully they will make a better choice.
The key is to always ask the service provider before taking any purchase decision. There is no perfect software or perfect solution, but the vendor must be aware of that and he must know how to get closer to perfection. Enjoy the following questions and do not hesitate to ask them before choosing a hosted service. Although they look quite simple, you might be surprised about what kind of answers you will get.
Some quick end of the week updates 🙂
1. We have published the roadmap of VoipNow Automation
Quickly after the first version, we released a new version that features extended compatibility. We got many requests from customers complaining that they run Plesk 8.6 and they are not able to use 4PSA OXtender. Starting with version 1.0.1, you can use OXtender with any Plesk version higher or equal to 8.3.0. We also fixed some minor bugs and introduced new functionality, maybe the most important being that the new version can work with email passwords that are encrypted in the Plesk database (it requires IMAP auth module on the Open-Xchange server).
Several months ago we announced a Plesk integration for Open-Xchange. Back then the integration was done with a command line script, which unfortunately didn’t simplify the administrator’s life enough to make it really easy to sell Open-Xchange. Additionally, the licensing terms for Open-Xchange were not too flexible to allow small Plesk based businesses to sell it.