Does the new trend towards DevOps threaten the integrity of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)? The very nature of DevOps, which bridges the gap between development and operations through increased communication and continuous development cycles, would at first...
Engineering Operations
How Engineering Downtime can Cripple a Company
It is understandable and smart that companies try to gain cost savings wherever possible while continuing to be profitable and innovative. However, some so-called savings can actually cost more, even when considered over a short or medium term time period. Engineering...
Five Techniques to Resist Hiring Temptation
Here we go again; the economy is recovering and competition is heating up for your crucial technical staff. As you interview candidates there will be temptation to hire someone who may not seem “quite right”. In normal times you wouldn't hire such a person...but darn...
Why Leaving Systems and Application Management to Engineers Can Cause Trouble
How Economizing can Hurt your Business There is a saying in some parts, “I am too poor to buy cheaply.” At first it sounds contradictory, but anyone who has bought something cheaply (electrical goods, car parts, computer equipment or any kind of service) and then...
9 Ways To Repurpose an Underperforming Laptop
In a recent post, I discussed how to resolve 3 common (yet significant) issues with a broken laptop. Chances are, even if the issue is fixed, your computer may not run as well as it used to. But all hope is not lost. Say for instance you have an old 1.2ghz Celeron...
How to Resolve 3 Common Laptop Issues
For many of us, having old hardware laying around means clutter for the desk or maybe an investment that you're not quite ready to dispose of. Maybe you have a laptop that a child stepped on or was damaged when you "accidentally" dropped it. Whatever the reason, old...
How does the Windows Phone 8 Kool-Aid Taste?
I’m just going to come out and say it: I drank the Windows Phone 8 Kool-Aid. My coworkers mock me, and I accept this. But darn it, I want to believe! (and it tastes a lot better than what I was drinking before.) And it's certainly better than if I wandered over to the...
Netlist Flows between Mentor Graphics and Cadence Applications
Looking for a way to jump between applications? Here’s the first of many workflows I use for going between applications. I’ll continue this series with DxDesigner -> Allegro PCB Editor next week. DxDesigner -> PADS Layout Open your project. In this case, I’m...
5 Tools You Can Use to Eliminate Malware From Your Machine
One of the more common requests I receive from users is that their computer is running slowly, or even worse, they're getting a popup saying that their machine is infected with a virus and Extreme AntiVirus 2013 can remove that virus for the low low cost of $39.95!...
How PLM Enables Innovation Without Risking Compliance
As technology has advanced, it's become more complex -- and with complexity comes the issue of tracking and monitoring the different processes and their corresponding data. In non-critical applications, the extent of this reporting is often minimal. However, in...
10 Pitfalls That Can Impact VMWare Performance
Ensuring servers provide consistent performance is a primary goal for all infrastructure management services . A large portion of our servers are in a virtualized environment, and the additional complexity involved there can present some challenging performance...
Are you Paying too much for your Application Licenses?
Unfortunately, it is all too common for companies to overspend on their software licensing. It can be easily done, especially if licensing is handled in an ad-hoc or de-centralized manner. A license is need by one part of the business and so a bundle of licenses is...