We first heard rumors of this policy change a couple of months ago, but now it’s made the papers: the Financial Times is reporting that Google is phasing out the use of Windows internally, as employees are migrated to either Linux or Mac OS X on machine turnovers or new hires. The policy change was precipitated in large part by the security breach attributed to Chinese hackers; Google’s IT leaders apparently feel that Microsoft’s OS represents too great a risk across the enterprise to leave it in place.

Personally, I stay as technology-agnostic as I can, at least in the professional arena. If a Windows-based solution is the right choice for a company, that’s what I recommend — and, there are many situations (more than most) where it is the right choice. But, on a purely personal level, my inner child does a little jig of joy when it hears that someone else is getting fed up with poor software. Seeing Google add their voice to the many companies pushing-back against Vista is a good thing.

I still need to look into the “right” e-commerce solution, but so far it appears Instinct’s WP e-Commerce plugin is the winner. It’s a solid, mature platform and with a few of the add-ons you can build some really fantastic one-click or one-drag shopping experiences. IconDock has one of the best examples — not that I’m leaning toward that experience for Hyrax, but it is pretty slick.

Shopify is probably the runner up. It’s feature rich and has the added marketability of Pixar and C-net endorsement. It’s also got a rich feature set, but doesn’t have the robustness and sheer number of options and add-ons that Instinct’s product has. Both are widely used though, so it’s really a matter of doing the technical due diligence to figure out which one is the best fit.

Unemployment figures are largely calculated from claims against unemployment insurance, for example, when you file a claim with the EDD. But this is a narrow view, avoiding the overall “employment health” of the country. Even so, we must recognize that unemployment figures have been calculated in this way for a very long time. This means it is a sound relative measure — that is, since we are calculating it essentially the same way we did in years past, we can measure overall health as a comparison to other years. We know that 10% is horrible. The last time we saw unemployment this high was entering into the great depression, when it rose to 23.6% in 1933. So while it may not be accurate, it does give us a solid indication that our economy is in very, very bad shape.

This, according to 52 Weeks of UX. Stated another way, “This is the first rule of UX. Everything a designer does affects the user experience,” a message that can’t be emphasized enough.

Anyhow, buy The Oatmeal a cup of coffee. (Coffee gives me amazing powers too!)

The article was about how India is now outsourcing to Mexico, apparently because India is becoming as expensive as the United States (or at least, approaching those rates). But seriously… Grammar, anyone?

Open source to the rescue, at least so it seems. This article offers a look at how Hudson and Selenium can provide a powerful and fully automated regression testing platform. In fact, working together these two systems provide more automation than QTP alone can hope to achieve.

There is a cost though: As is often the nature of open source projects, setup and configuration is more involved than QTP installation. While the latter is a Windows program that you can have up-and-running within minutes, a Hudson/Selenium platform will involve programming resources and a stronger technical know-how. Personally, I favor using both: QTP provides an excellent, traditional “point-and-click” regression testing platform, while Hudson/Selenium can augment that process dramatically with integrated, build-level regression testing.

How

Well, if I can’t get an iPhone while I’m there, maybe LG’s new Vu would be a good alternative. It certainly looks sexy…

Is this attitude regarding education part-and-parcel of the declining attitude toward education in the United States? More to the point, how will organizations continue to function if they curtail strategic learning initiatives? People don’t “just know” how to apply complicated concepts. They need training, particularly in areas such as software quality assurance, safety & reliability, validation & verification, and the basics of leadership, mentoring, and working as a team (including formal process education). And I haven’t even touched on morale issues, upward mobility and challenging our employees to aspire to improve their career path.

The fact of the matter is, in today’s economy we should be pressing for more education not less. This is called “recession proofing your organization.” Inevitable pressures to reduce staffing means fewer employees will need to do more, do it more effectively and take on new challenges they’ve never faced before. How about preparing them for it?

So, in an environment that doesn’t support training, how can organizations find educational funding?

Recognizing that training is not a wasted expense is probably number one. This needs to happen with management, but it doesn’t need to begin there. Training programs that are relevant to your work and beneficial to your employer are clear wins. Document the benefit of offering greater cross-functional capability within your team, of improving your efficiency, and reducing mistakes. Put together a training plan that demonstrates how the organization will benefit before you take a training request to your manager.

Consolidating training is also a huge win in most cases. For example, if you send five people to training courses around the country you’ll likely spend at least $15,000 (assuming the course costs $2,000 and then factoring in reasonable travel costs for each person). Consider bringing training on-site instead. Most programs that are available in public classes can also be delivered at your organization, and tailored to your specific needs. You get better, more relevant training and comparative costs are low. (An on-site, four-day training program with STI costs about $13,000 and becomes more cost-effective with more employees).

Use digital learning tools to reduce training costs as well. In particularly tight times, many web-based training programs exist. While not as effective as on-site, person-to-person training with an expert they can still provide a huge benefit to the student.

Focus on internal cost savings as well, and justify how the saved costs should at least in part be translated into better organization capability through training. For example, if you have more than one document repository (a problem many organizations suffer from) implement a single, consolidated document management system to improve efficiency and lower licensing costs.

One final idea that might find some traction: Audit your internal learning requirements and processes. Put together an analysis that demonstrates organization weaknesses and tie those weaknesses to actual issues the organization has experienced. Document the costs of handling those problems in retrospect and show how improved capability and efficiency would have avoided the problems—and will likely avoid future problems.