Customer Service

 

Knowing who your customers are; understanding their priorities; and identifying ways and means to assist their profitability are skills practiced here. If you plan on going the extra mile on behalf of your business partners, it becomes second nature : a modus operandi.

 

 

Computer Hardware


An Apple computer is worth the premium you pay for it. We all have to thank Bill Gates and Microsoft for giving computer interoperability to the world. Without the windows operating system's intrusion onto all pc platforms, we'd be left with a plethora of computer operating systems that neither "talked to" or interfaced in any way with each other. Macs work well in pc networks and environments. They also shine on their own. A mac is worth having. Anything else is "just a computer".

Computer Operating System

Windows in all of its incarnations is a good example of the lowest common denominator of applications and functions that can be installed on, and function in, a personal computer. Mac OSX is a shining example of how "thinking different" and not "making do" will produce a superior computer Operating System that functions as an extension of the user's wishes instead of the other way around. Mac OSX has its roots in the NeXT Operating System which Steve Jobs breathed life into when Sculley ousted him from Apple. At that time, PC magazine reviewed the Next OS and said it was arguably the "best software on the Planet". It still is in its reincarnation as MAC OSX Panther and it Rocks! There's a unix kernel inside and so much polish on the outside that you never need to "look under the hood" unless you want to utilize the unix commands yourself. Good for Granny AND the nerds. Panther's predecessor was Jaguar and its successor (wait till you get a load of this!) is TIGER. Apple Computer "groks" Operating Systems. Now they've got a real Tiger by the tail.

Computer Database


Software AG of Darmstadt Germany markets the best data base in the world. Its called Adabas (pronounced ah-dah-bass). Note that there is NO E in the name Adabas! Rookies call it Adabase (usually head hunters that don't do their homework). Adabas scales readily to enterprise sized solutions or makes single purpose applications fly! It's not 100% SQL compliant... IT'S BETTER! Adabas allows for un-normalized data structures in its records which means you can get ALL the data you need for a single purpose in one request to the file system. Adabas administration is about 1/2 as onerous as that of Sybase. Sybase admin is about 1/2 as onerous as Oracle's. So you can guess what my feelings about Oracle are.

Adabas is simply the best DBMS there is. Software AG has re-branded themselves as "the XML Company", with offerings like Tamino, but they've not forgotten what brought them to prominence as a world class software producer : ADABAS, Natural, Predict, Construct, Entire-X and Complete.


Computer Application Development Environment


Once again, Apple and Software AG share the limelight here. Software AG's development language called "Natural" is the one I prefer to use to put more smiles per hour on user's faces. That's how success is measured here. Apple Computer has come out with a modern object oriented development environment with their newest OS release called Panther. It makes use of Java and/or Objective C (from NeXT Computer roots) language and an impressive development environment and set of frameworks within which to develop applications.

Dream Job


My dream job would be to modify and install the Adabas/Natural development environment onto the Mac platform. It is already on several other Unix platforms so this should be well within the "possible" range. Software AG has not yet seen the light regarding this port. There are 20 Million Mac users out there and over 6 million are on Mac OSX with more migrating every year. Macs are generally used more than pc's so a data base solution on a mac would be more popular per seat than in the PC environment. This should be a viable business case for the port of Adabas/ Natural to Mac OSX.

 

Consulting as a Profession

 

It takes all types to make a world, but only certain characteristics engender success as a computer consultant.

The successful consultant makes their manager successful to the point where rates are a non-issue.

The successful consultant fosters teamwork and then shares the limelight with the TEAM.

The successful consultant continuously eliminates the reasons for which he or she was hired.

The successful consultant has a mentor network and willingly mentors others.

The successful consultant knows their customer's needs, sets their expectations and over delivers whenever possible.

The successful consultant is responsible for all their actions.

Successful consultants think they're lucky.