Notes from Nigeria - Ever get one of those emails from Nigeria informing you that someone wants to share a huge amount of money with you and all you have to do is give them your bank account number so that they can deposit the money in your account? Who are these criminals anyway! Who would fall for such a scam and why Nigeria? Meet Samuel. He's from Festac, a poor neighborhood in Nigeria. He's 19, handsome, bright, well-dressed and ambitious. He has a special flair for computers. Until he quit the game last year, he was one of Festac's best-known cyber-scam champions. Like nearly everyone here, he is desperate to escape the run-down, teeming streets, the grimy buildings, the broken refrigerators stacked outside, the strings of wet washing. It's the kind of place where plainclothes police prowl the streets extorting bribes, where mobs burn thieves to death for stealing a cellphone, and where some people paint "This House Is Not For Sale" in big letters on their homes, in case someone posing as the owner tries to put it on the market. It is where places like the Net Express cyber cafe thrive.

Weeding Out Defects in Software Development - We've all heard about how so many companies are sending software development work offshore to reduce costs. The Vanguard Group has not. Instead, they asked: "What if we take 65% of the capacity used to test and rework errors in software development, and use that to build new software?" They cited a survey that found about 30% of the work on projects goes toward testing and reworking software, which does not add any new functionality to the underlying code. They hoped that if they could bring that percentage down to 10%, they figured they could spend more time developing applications that benefit their business and customers and not need to send the work off-shore. So, how did they do?

David vs. Google - He is sitting in front of his computer, wearing shorts. A 54 year-old male with a little weight problem and straggly hair in his living room, in a big house under old oak trees at the end of a cul-de-sac, in a New Jersey suburb. Meet Apostolos Gerasoulis, the inventor of America's forth largest Internet search engine, Ask Jeeves. The corporate vision of Google, the number one search engine, is "to organize the world's information and make it generally available." Apostolos Gerasoulis' vision is to deliver better answers than Google. He believes that he could take market share from Google or might even end its dominance. So, is he making any headway?

The Key to Simplifying Software - Find out how you can ensure that your software project will be a success by studying the concept of Anthropology, yes, Anthropology. Come to our next free 90 minute "Taste of Success" seminar focused on High-Tech Anthropology. Our approach will show you techniques for creating the right software for the right application.  We encourage you to share your software development war stories so we can all learn from them.  See you on November 17!

Future Stock - Joanna Glasner, of Wired Magazine, takes a look at future trends in technology. Glasner writes that "taking a long-term view isn't easy nowadays. Even the recent past seems blurry at times. Google's just seven years old, but it's hard to imagine life before instant search. Broadband has been widely available for only a few years, but already dialup internet seems to high-speed users like a throwback to the Neanderthal era. In an age of rapid-fire change, contemplating the future is downright headache-inducing. Investors who plan strategies over multiple years or decades recognize that today's must-have technologies are probably destined for tomorrow's waste bins. But there's no scientific method for identifying their replacements. See if you can guess the top five trends in technology....according to the futurists.

No Longer Lost in Translation - Recently, a computer science graduate student, Stan Jou, from Carnegie Mellon University, stood before an audience with 11 tiny electrodes affixed to the muscles in his cheeks, neck and throat. The Taiwan native then mouthed -- without speaking aloud -- the following phrase in Mandarin Chinese: "Let me introduce our new prototype." The sensors captured electrical signals from Jou's facial muscles when they moved to form the silent Chinese words. In a matter of seconds, this information traveled to a computer that recognized the words and translated them into English and Spanish. The phrase was then displayed on a screen and spoken by the computer in both languages. This wasn't the only breakthrough in communication applications that day. There was a demonstration of "translation goggles" that displayed the words that were spoken on a miniature virtual screen, seen only by the wearer of these souped-up eyeglasses. The speech was translated from spoken English into Spanish text, almost like having automatic movie subtitles for the real world.

Where are you @? - Try this: Look at the @. What does it remind you of? Apparently it reminds a lot of people around the world of a lot of different things: A monkey with a long, curling tail; thus, their e-mail addresses might include variations of the word for monkey. Some people see a snail or a curled up cat or even a rolled-up pickled herring. How about a slice of strudel?

Smart ways to Spend a few Days this Fall   - The Menlo Fall 2005 class schedule is out.  Football season is here. So now is the time to sign up for a Menlo class. We'll provide the coffee and donuts. Now you have no excuse to learn the real secrets of software success. 

Need a Speaker for an Upcoming Event? - We love public speaking (Rich Sheridan is the best) and are happy to deliver inspiring messages focused on business success with information technology. Call us at (734) 665-1847 to schedule your next event. Look here for a list of some of the topics that we’ve spoken about in the past.