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iTWire: Q: When is a WiFi router not a router? A: When it’s a hard disk.

My first Windows Phone 8 app is in the app store: Speedo++

Actually, I cannot take full credit (even most credit). The app is a brand new Windows 8 Phone release of an existing Windows Phone 7 app by Long Zheng titled “Speedo Plus“. So, Speedo++ is Speedo Plus, plus a bit more

Long developed Speedo Plus to provide an aesthetic speedometer app for driving, bicycling, even walking I guess … anything that involves motion over distance. The app provides info on current speed, plus average and maximum speed (in this trip), along with a graph of speed over time.

Now, the trouble with Speedo Plus is it didn’t cater for new high-res Windows Phone 8 handsets and displays, but Long’s developer account had lapsed. He made the app available to the public for someone else to take on the app, which I gladly did.

This first build of Speedo++ is fundamentally Speedo Plus with little modification apart from support for higher-def 720p displays. However, I have future plans which include modernising it to use newer GPS/navigation APIs and the addition of new features.

iTWire: CodeWeavers announces it will give away CrossOver for Linux and MacOS for free over the course of a day if 100,000 eligible USA voters pledge to vote in the 2012 Presidential Election.

Hi friends! I am truly humbled to have been picked by RedGate Software as one of their five finalists for their Exceptional DBA contest.

I would be most grateful if you’d visit their site and cast your vote for me (David Williams – last one on the page). No signup or registration is necessary so you won’t need to worry about any advertising, but it is safe anyhow – RedGate Software is well known among database communities for being a reputable producer of quality tools.

Do read the page; you may find you prefer one of the other finalists and if so that’s fine, so long as the value a quality database administrator brings to enterprises is promoted.

Those of you who know me know I am passionate about technology, about information, about the quality and integrity of a company’s data. To me, business data is like blood pumping through a body. It must be safeguarded from corruption and it must be harnassed to keep a company healthy.

For my views on “good IT” check out my columns on iTWire; IT is not there to simply “keep the lights on” or to “make e-mail work” but to really deliver value to business. IT is there to bring competitive advantages, produce efficiencies, to exploit technology to further the company’s objectives, and to help staff be as productive as they can be in their own jobs.

At the heart of all business applications comes data. Without a skilled DBA caring for and nurturing this data it won’t be transformed into information. Without information management cannot run the business and staff cannot do their jobs.

I am passionate about data, about results, and about transforming organisations through technology.

Hug a DBA today and vote for me in the Red Gate Exceptional DBA contest – thank you !

iTWire: Previously I’ve mooted an obstacle preventing Linux adoption is the need for more big game titles, rather than productivity apps. This week, in the wake of its Humble Indie Bundle debut, Tim Schafer explains what porting Psychonauts to Linux was like.

iTWire: even rock star sysadmins need quality checking.

iTWire: Microsoft’s new enterprise grade security system learns a lot from Security Essentials.

iTWire: On the one hand, requesting help desk support should be a walk in the park. On the other hand, so many users are so bad at it yet wonder why they aren’t receiving support?

iTWire: You may be the technical guy but at the end of the day business is all about the bottom line.

iTWire: I am so disappointed that the hype and expectation of the Motorola Atrix was not met with its reality.