These Easter holidays I spent in Tunisia (soon to tell the experience as always ) Have helped me to finish reading a book (actually two) that I had choked a little, The Myth of motivation, how to escape a dead end , Reinhard K. Sprenge. I started it in December but halfway I felt a little heavy, which then changes and becomes much more bearable because the book is really interesting and recommended reading to anyone responsible people.

Reinhard, from his experience in many companies, clearly difference between motivation and manipulation, demystifying any incentive system, read by objectives, benefits pay, commissions ... For him any of these systems are the answer to the action demotivating of a manager who knows how to bring back to his people after having caused unwittingly living situation.

At one point in the book, Reinhard says something,

If our employees are adult people with mortgages, children who raise and educate, couples that fight ... Why should we think that in his professional life someone has to treat them like kids at all times telling them what to do and cutting his initiative?

Our employees are people with knowledges, skills and experience and do not want a puppet work, they want challenges, tackle problems and make decisions, but if someone is permanently responsible decisions without allowing others to take the initiative and demonstrate their worth to us planted in what is known as "motivation". Who is to blame then?

Trying to motivate is absurd and impossible once has fallen demotivation. For many attempts are made to get it, usually based on financial incentives, its success will be only fleeting because money is valued and enjoy at first, being forgotten or customary practice in the following.

The truth is that in the book there is not anything that, from the perspective of those of us below, we have not always seen as "drawer", but it seems that many people who have never had this point of view and you have to show it.

A book that all managers and managers should read to understand many of the things happening around him.

Reading today an article of the series of The Lattice Stories Macluskey an old computer I learn something that is virtually unknown to most current computer. It turns out that back in 1971 was opened in Spain the first network of global data transmission using packet switching (like today makes Internet): RETD (Special Red Data Transmission), which would eventually be IBERPAC. In this other link you can find the history of this landmark of telecommunications in our country, highly recommended reading. It was not until 1978 when another similar network appears, the famous French Transpac.

The story is really exciting.

Macluskey mind that in those years (late 60's) began to implement the first online systems in Spanish banking, the most interested in those years throughout the computing and communications in general and who were those who began using the first networks to connect with the central branch. Banesto was the first bank to have systems connected all its offices.

From the Telephone of those years began working on a system that would reliably, fast and cheap these connections and, unknowingly, came to the same solution that the people at MIT was working for what would ARPANET, the beginnings of the Internet, but as it was a secret project of the U.S. government did not know anything: the packet commutation.

It is shame to you read the story, sometimes here too we innovate .

Also recommend the full series of articles "Story of an old computer", will give a point of view that we have those who are dedicated to this today in addition to knowing the prehistory of our profession from a more practical point of view that theoretical .

And another one on AIR. To see if it is the end of the series . The last few days I've been fighting with the signing AIR applications, did not understand much how it worked and I was surprised that, despite always having to sign an application with an SSL certificate, I always went to install "Publisher: UNKNOWN", which that gives very bad image. Now I have it clear, confused the terms sign and trust. If you do not want to leave the message in question will have to purchase a software signing certificate issued by a valid certificate authority (Thawte), a firm confidence. The downside is that its price is around 300 euros, nothing more and nothing less. Personally I think they have blown a bit but if you do not sign your potential users will have a sense of insecurity, your applications will be signed but not trusted them.

A second option is to create your own certificate authority (CA) and sign your applications yourself. The downside of doing this is that users will be required to install a CA certificate (the usual default ones in the browser). As the application I'm working on will be used in a specific and defined, I can use this system and save me some money. Also, my potential users have already installed the certificate from our CA as it will be the same we use to generate SSL certificates client / server . If I sign the AIR application with the same authority you'll be fine.

In that article we saw how to generate your own certificate authority, the method remains the same. Only need OpenSSL :

We created a couple of files to maintain database of certificates issued:

Let's see how we generate the certificate for the software company. It is not easy to know all the options necessary to then run the firm, it's best to put them all in a configuration file, openssl.cnf:

You may have to change some files path to your CA. There are many options, but you need not know the details. Now generate our certificate:

When you ask for the certificate data, very important: those relating to the organization name, city, province and country have to be the same as the CA can generate it or not, put exactly the same data. In the Common Name must put the name you want to appear instead of one "UNKNOWN", can be yours or that of your company.

If you come here we can only sign the certificate with the CA.

How we saw with client certificates, the certificate generated will not help us much, we export it to a standard format:

We're done. Copy the file air_key.pfx to your workstation and export your AIR project with this certificate. If no problems strangers have your signed application. Let's try it:

Wow, does not work. What happened? Simple, what I was saying at first, your system does not have the CA certificate thus not trust your application. Installation is very simple. Import the cacert.pem file in the list of "Trusted Issuers" of your web browser.

Let's see what happens if we now try to install the application signed with our certificate:

Works!

How my environment is limited and already have my CA I can easily sign my applications myself, in a real environment more generally not be possible and would be paid by the trust.

A very important aspect about signing AIR applications and keep in mind is that you should always sign the same certificate, each release must be signed with the same certificate that you used the priemra time or your clients can not upgrade from one version to another as the security mechanism detects that the certificate is different and can be a security breach.

I hope I have shed some light on the world of firms and trusts in AIR.