CONCEPT AND BACKGROUND TO PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP (PPP) / PRIVATE FINANCE INITIATIVE (PFI)

PFI (Private Finance Initiative) is a public service delivery type of PPP (Public Private Partnership) where the responsibility for providing public services is transferred from the public to the private sector for a considerable period of time.

In PFI projects, the private sector develops, finances and maintains an asset used in the delivery of public services. In return, the public sector pays a monthly charge that covers both the repayment of the capital investment and the ongoing service costs. This transforms government departments from being owners and operators of assets into the purchasers of services from the private sector. The key principles of PFI are:

• Purchase services not assets

• Value for money to the public sector

• Project risk management between public and private sectors

• Utilizing and incorporating private sector know-how and expertise; and

• Incorporating whole life-cycle costing in infrastructure projects

The PFI market is limited to large size contractors. In PFI projects, design and construction become fully integrated up-front with operations and asset management. Ongoing service delivery, operational, maintenance and refurbishment costs become a single party’s responsibility for the length of the concession period; PFI projects typically comprise three main parties, as follows:

• The Awarding Authority: this is the public sector client responsible for procuring the project. It may be a central government department, local authority, or government agency.

• The Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV): A limited company (i.e. the project consortia) that is set up for the sole purpose of delivering the PFI project. It is responsible for the project from the start to the end of the contract, which normally spans more than twenty years. It acts as the management and operating company for the project, and is the legal owner of the concession that is granted by the public sector.

• Third-party funders: such as equity, bank loans, or bonds.

In PFI procurement, it is a fundamental requirement that appropriate risks are transferred to the private sector, or allocated to the party that is best able to manage the risk in a cost effective manner.

The path to healthy data governance

By: JORGE GARCIA On: 10 Jan 2012 For: CIO Canada

Planning and executing a strategy around the quality and assurance of information requires a lot of effort. An analyst from TEC discusses everything you need to know to get started

Modern organizations recognize that data volumes are increasing. More importantly, they have come to realize that the complexity of processing this data has also grown in exponential ways, and it’s still growing. Many companies are finally treating their data with all the necessary data quality processes. But they also need to align their data with a more complex and complete corporate view. The processing of information needs to conform to a number of essential factors that drive better execution, higher performance, and increased profit.

In our modern corporate reality, information drives business. Information is the essential element for making decisions at all levels (executive, strategic, and operational). When a company executes projects devoted to maintaining its security, ensuring its reliability, and keeping it up to date, we consider the company to have a data management strategy.

One of the essential features of data management is the deployment of data quality processes to ensure data has the necessary integrity to be used with confidence by an organization. So, from a data management perspective, data quality comprises all the necessary features required by all data to enable the satisfaction of a specific purpose. To guarantee data quality we use a data quality management strategy, which draws on processes, technology, and, of course, human and material resources. To put it in basic terms, data quality processes must ensure that data is:

- accurate—data correctly reflects the business object or transaction it describes.

- reliable—data is consistent within multiple transactions.

- complete—all the necessary data for a specific task is ready to be used.

- appropriate—data is relevant to its purpose.

- on time—information is available when it’s required.

- credible—data provides valuable insights.

Planning and executing a successful data quality strategy requires significant effort and the application of the right technology and methodology. With regard to data quality assurance organizations can be at different levels of maturity. There are several ways to assess maturity, but a basic data quality maturity model describes the following stages (figure 1):

- Data quality as required—Organizations solve data quality problems incidentally, that is, as they appear.

- Basic data analysis—Organizations have basic strategies to collect, clean, transform, and load data to specific storage targets. Data quality is managed with specific processes.

- Addressing root causes—Organizations are working to solve data quality issues from the source systems.

- Proactive prevention—Organizations have a corporate strategy in place that addresses data quality initiatives.

- Optimization—Organizations have mature data quality processes that involve continuous improvement to those processes.

Based on these points, you can conduct an initial self-assessment of your organization’s data quality maturity level.

Figure 1. Common data quality maturity phases

A great percentage of organizations are still at the stages of limited data analysis and working on addressing root causes. But a small number of organizations have passed to proactive prevention or optimization. One of the main reasons for the delay in development is that organizations realize that when evolving from one phase to the next, the overall management process increases in complexity. The need to manage data, and related security issues, involves more people and increases activity throughout the organization.

From Management to Governance

The data quality process involves a management process. This is often part of a corporate data management strategy, which, in general, encompasses the necessary elements to ensure data has the proper quality. But along the way in the evolution of an organization’s data quality initiative, the process gains in complexity, because of more intense interaction between data users and business units, along with the increase of security issues based on the need for moving data and sharing it among various stakeholders. So, as the Data Governance Institute mentions,

Governance comes into play when individual managers find that they cannot—or should not—make independent decisions.

In modern organizations, it is a fact of life that information is coming from more sources, is being shared by a greater number of people, and has special needs for storage and security as volume and sensitivity increases (figure 2).

Figure 2. From data quality to data governance

All levels of an organization have come to realize that data usage must be aligned with the business process in order to become an asset capable of bringing real value to an organization. The better we treat this data, the more value an organization will be able to get from it.

When an organization has reached the stage of aligning data quality with its business process, the people who use the data, and the technology involved in its management, mechanisms are created to govern all aspects of data from different perspectives: management, quality, usage, compliance, and, of course, security

A data governance strategy is the framework for establishing the necessary systems to administer, regulate, and secure the use of data within an organization. As the Data Governance Institute states,

Data Governance is a system of decision rights and accountabilities for information-related processes.

A data governance strategy goes beyond the use of an enterprise application such as a data warehouse or a change management system, or even an application to manage a data governance initiative; it involves the process of creating the necessary policies for information usage within an organization.

Deploying a data governance initiative requires the creation of policies that align all the necessary factors to make data a valuable corporate asset and exploit its usefulness (figure 3):

- Data quality, per data rules

- Business process, per business rules

- People, per the rules of engagement

Figure 3. The role of policy in data governance

Based on the stakeholders and users involved in the execution of the data governance initiative, policies can be put into effect through a so called data stewardship strategy: basically, assigning special functions and roles to key people—called data stewards—who will be in charge of defining, maintaining, and ensuring the execution of all policies.

A data stewardship strategy can be carried out by one or more key stakeholders within a company, but it is important to treat this as a core role within the organization, with the right authority and ability to make and execute decisions regarding data and its proper use, as the data stewardship role deals with key data security, quality, and sharing issues.

Some Insights on Data Governance adoption

Currently, organizations and decision makers are paying more attention to the importance of data quality and ways to improve data usage and administration according to comprehensive corporate principles.

According to TEC resources, organizations of all sizes consider data management issues to be the second most important issue to address, just below business performance—and both subject areas are closely related to the need for optimal data quality. Also, according to the Initiate Data Governance Survey Report, data quality programs or initiatives are core priorities forming the basis of a data governance strategy.

While large organizations are the ones adopting the majority of data governance strategies, especially in the financial services and manufacturing industries, interest in adopting this sort of initiative is growing among the small to medium segment—modern organizations in this segment are dealing with problems similar to those of larger companies, such as dealing with large amounts of data and adding complexity to their business processes.

Despite the fact that organizations are adopting data governance initiatives, the rate of adoption is slow, and the practice and execution of such initiatives is still in immature phases. But there are signs of growth, as business units, as opposed to IT departments, are becoming more involved in the processes concerning better use and maintenance of information.

Benefits, Challenges, and Opportunities

The Benefits

To take the best possible advantage of data, some of the general functions of a data governance initiative must include the following:

- Define and monitor how the data is managed

- Define all the necessary data requirements

- Determine the necessary cross-functional interactions

- Thoroughly document all data governance policies

The potential benefits derived from the deployment and execution of a governance initiative are several:

- Reduce the amount of time for the compilation of information

- Reduce data redundancy

- Promote responsible control of sensitive data and information assets

- Improve the process of managing and securing the use of information

- Improve the business decision-making process

- Increase trust in data

The Challenges

Deploying a data governance initiative can also be a challenging endeavour in terms of coordinating all its components—people, business processes, data, etc.—for maximum benefit. Some of the major challenges are as follows:

- Treating a data governance initiative as an ongoing, organization-wide program and not as an isolated project with a limited time frame.

- Encouraging commitment to keep the program alive and evolving

- Achieving effective collaboration between all users and stakeholders

- Achieving effective execution of the program that takes into account its complex and cross-functional nature

According to the Initiate Data Governance Survey Report, data governance programs are still perceived as programs with a high degree of inefficiency that fall short of effectively defining and executing data governance policies. Data governance programs can easily fall into a grey zone of corporate indifference if organizations are not able to define, deliver, and execute them efficiently.

The Opportunities

Organizations that have overcome the challenges in establishing data governance, where it operates with a reliable rate of efficiency, can realize a number of opportunities, Data governance can develop the ability to ensure data is not only reliable and based on operational facts, but also moved and managed according to general criteria agreed on by all levels of leadership. It also has the potential to improve organizational performance, by avoiding redundant communication and use of information, as well as compliance with business rules.

A call to action

Any organization can make a start on data governance:

- Prioritize a data governance initiative.

- Create awareness.

- Rally the support of and engage both business units and IT teams.

- Develop data governance expertise.

- Measure and plan carefully.

- Think big, but start small.

These steps will ensure 100 percent support from all levels of leadership and stakeholders. Note that the careful planning and charting of your program can be definitive in augmenting its chance of success. By addressing a set of small problems first, you can more reliably gauge the scope of your program.

A Final Word

I concur with the view of Data Management International—that the needs of business drive the needs for information; together they drive technological approaches and innovation and the appropriate adoption of technology. For a data governance initiative to be successful, it must be understood as a key business driver, not merely a technological enhancement. A data governance program is ruled by three main facets:

- Business—defining information needs and participating in data analysis

- Technology—executing the program with efficiency and compliance

- Information—in the form a data governance council established by an organization to define and execute the right policies for monitoring, managing, and measuring data quality and compliance, as well as to provide guidelines, standards, and documentation for data use

But even established data governance programs will have to address fresh issues. New technology platforms, such as cloud computing, as well as new approaches to managing and analyzing data, such as self-service features available with certain BI applications, will force pre-existing and new data governance initiatives to adapt to new ways of handling and securing data that moves in different ways, whether inside or outside an organization’s firewalls.

Any data governance initiative should be treated as a work in progress, requiring the evolving support of human and technological resources.

Open Source Software: Why Use Them?

By Joy Kumar Das

Open source software (OSS) is available in source code form. The source code and copyright of the OSS are provided under the software license, which allows their users to study, modify, improve, customize and distribute those software and applications. Till 1998, 'open source software' was known as 'free software', and it was renamed to dispel the ambiguity associated with the name 'free software'.

Needless to say, open source domain in the IT industry is a treasure trove of web applications and software. Magento, Joomla, osCommerce, Typo3, Drupal, SugarCRM, WordPress, etc. are some open source ecommerce web applications, while Linux, Apache Server, Thunderbird, Mozilla Firefox, TurboCash, and Open Office, besides Pain.net, Audacity, etc. are open source software and programs that are available free of cost.

Open source ecommerce web applications are well-suited to meet all the desired business needs and operational requirements. Customization of different business needs and their implementation are possible at low spending. On the other hand, Linux is an operating system available free of cost as the Apache Server, which works on Unix Systems added to Netware, Windows and other platforms and runs as an HTTP server. All these open source software and applications are obtainable without giving a penny. Most interestingly, they have all those functionalities that programmers and computer users look for.

Computer users and programmers are aware of the benefits that they can derive from using these open source software and web applications. For example, Linux is used as operating system while Apache Server for running HTTP server; Thunderbird used for email purposes; Mozilla Firefox as Internet browser; TurboCash for handling business accounting needs; Open Office for handling word processing, spreadsheet, slideshow and database needs; Paint.net for working with photos; Audacity for editing video and sound; and ecommerce open source web applications are used for customizing and implementing desired business needs and operational requirements.

The benefits of using open source software and web applications are better understood if the benefits of some ecommerce OSS and web applications are discussed.

Magento: This ecommerce shopping cart solution is used to create user-friendly features for websites. Magento has several versions. Among those versions, Community, Professional and Enterprise versions are popular among programmers. With using Magento OSS, programmers can create websites with multi store facilities that can be managed from one location in admin panel, with SEO friendly features, and with integrating major payment gateways. In addition to them, programmers can integrate third-party tools in accordance with API (Application Programming Interface).

Joomla: Joomla is a PHP-based (Server-side programming language used for creating dynamic web pages and services) Content Management System used for creating websites with complex web applications. This open source software and web application helps to manage site navigation and Meta contents, edit HTML, besides helping to create centralized CMS with different assigned users.

Drupal: Drupal is a content management system used for building dynamic websites with a wide array of features. From developing personal portals to developing enterprise websites, this open source software and web application is one of the most sought-after applications for programmers, web publishers, web developers, and also for SEO experts. This has become popular because of its flexible architecture. There are hordes of advantages available with Drupal CMS; for example, facility to categorize content through taxonomy system, facility to clean URL through apache 'mod_rewrite', and its use of top-notch CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) and JavaScript ensures speedier websites, among others.

WordPress: WordPress is an OSS script that is extensively used for building nice-looking websites and is perfect for creating blogs. Backed by PHP and MySQL, WordPress is customizable with hundreds of easy-to-tweak themes and plug-ins. For its user-friendly features and optimum flexibility, it is quite popular among common users and expert programmers.

Irrespective of which kind of software you may need, chances are out there you can avail of some free, open source software and applications that will easily fulfill your needs. With devoting a bit of time for searching and downloading such software, you will be well on your way with having lost 'not-a-single-penny'.

Joy Kumar Das wields genuine command over the subjects like tours and travels, scientific discoveries, software development and website design and development industry, online marketing industry. and business promotion and advertisement management, among others. His writings express his thoughts which emanate from thorough analysis. This article is an outcome of his elaborate research.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joy_Kumar_Das

Sony to name Kazuo Hirai president: Nikkei

Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, presents the new Sony S tablet (R) and the P tablet during a news conference at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin August 31, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Tobias Schwarz

Fri Jan 6, 2012 12:38pm EST

(Reuters) - Japan's Sony Corp will promote Kazuo Hirai as president replacing Howard Stringer as early as April, the Nikkei business daily reported.

Stringer is expected to remain chairman and chief executive officer, the paper said.

Hirai, who is executive deputy president, currently heads the group's consumer businesses and helped turn its gaming business profitable, the paper said.

According to the report, Hirai's appointment is likely to be finalized as soon as next month at a board meeting.

5 major changes facing the Internet in 2012

Technical operations, policymaking could change significantly this year By Carolyn Duffy Marsan, Network World

2012 is poised to go down in Internet history as one of the most significant 12-month periods from both a technical and policy perspective since the late 1990s, when this network-of-networks stopped being a research project and became an engine of economic growth.

This year the Internet will face several milestones as it undergoes its biggest-ever technical upgrade, from Internet Protocol version 4 to version 6. In addition, key contracts that the U.S. federal government controls for Internet infrastructure and operations are being re-bid. Taken together, these events could result in monumental changes in both who operates the Internet infrastructure as well as how these operations are handled:

1. The root servers may have a new operator.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has overseen the operation of the Internet root servers since the non-profit was founded in 1998. However, ICANN's contract is due to expire in March, and a new U.S.-based organization could end up in charge of this critical technical function.

The Internet's 13 root server farms are at the top of the DNS hierarchy, which matches domain names with their corresponding IP addresses for looking up Web sites. The operation of the root server farms is overseen by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which reports to ICANN.

Instead of renewing ICANN's contract for the IANA function, the U.S. government has opened up the bid to other U.S.-based organizations. On Nov. 10, 2011, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued an open bid for the IANA function. Bids were due Dec. 12 and a contract is expected to be awarded in the first quarter of this year. The new contract for the IANA function will last from April 1, 2012 until March 31, 2015.

2. A new company could operate the .com registry.

Verisign has operated the .com domain since 1999. The .com domain is the Internet's most popular top-level domain, with about 100 million .com names registered as of last month. To put this figure in perspective, the Internet has a total of 220 million domain names registered in 280 top-level domains. The number of .com names dwarfs every other domain: It's more than five times greater than those registered in the second most popular extension, which is Germany's .de.

Verisign signed an agreement with ICANN on March 1, 2006 to operate .com, and that contract expires on Nov. 30, 2012.

One positive indicator for Verisign: Last June, ICANN renewed the company's contract to operate the .net registry, which has about 12 million registered names. Verisign will run the .net registry until 2017.

3. Up to 1,000 new top-level domains will start being introduced.

ICANN plans to launch a new program Jan. 12 to add hundreds of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) such as .hotel and .paris to the Internet. This controversial plan has been under discussion for six years, and it is finally scheduled to begin. ICANN's new gTLD programrepresents the biggest change to the Internet's naming system since 1998, when ICANN was formed.

ICANN has run two previous efforts to expand the Internet domain name space: once in 2000, when it added seven extensions including .biz and .info; and again in 2004, when it added eight more extensions such as .asia and .jobs. None of these new domain name extensions has been particularly successful.

However, if ICANN's latest attempt to expand the domain name space succeeds, it could fundamentally change the way domain names are used. Among the new categories of names that are expected to be approved include: internationalized domain names in non-English language scripts; geographically oriented domains for cities and regions; domain names tied to specific interests as well as domain names tied to individual companies and brands.

Read Network World's other predictions for 2012

4. An additional 10,000 Web sites will support IPv6.

Sept. 30, 2012 is the deadline for all U.S. federal government agencies to support IPv6 on their public-facing Web sites and Web services. An estimated 10,000 Web sites fall under this mandate, which could help drive IPv6 deployment in the United States during the next 12 months.

Established by the Obama Administration two years ago, the federal IPv6 mandate also requires agencies to upgrade internal client applications that communicate with public Internet servers to use native IPv6. But agencies have another two years - until September 2014 - to meet this second deadline. Federal agencies are required to designate an IPv6 transition manager and to purchase network hardware and software that complies with the federal government's IPv6 testing process.

IPv6 features an expanded addressing scheme that can support billions of devices connected directly to the Internet. But IPv6 is not backwards compatible with IPv4, which is running out of addresses. Network operators can either support both protocols in what's called dual-stack mode or translate between IPv4 and IPv6, which could add latency and overhead cost.

5. Europe will run out of IPv4 addresses.

The European regional Internet registry - RIPE - is expected to run out of IPv4 addresses in 2012. Geoff Huston, adjunct research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures at Swinburne University of Technology, estimates that RIPE will run out of its remaining IPv4 address space on July 22, 2012.

In April 2011, Asia depleted all of its IPv4 address space except a small fraction held in reserve for start-up network operators. The North American registry is expected to deplete its IPv4 address space in 2013.

The depletion of IPv4 addresses in various regions of the world will put more pressure on U.S. carriers and enterprises to begin transitioning their networks to IPv6. For example, Comcasthas said it will offer production-quality IPv6 services across its nationwide network in 2012.

(Source - http://www.networkworld.com)

Yahoo names PayPal’s Scott Thompson as CEO

Iconic internet company Yahoo has named a new CEO, former PayPal CEO Scott Thompson, the companyannounced today.

Yahoo fired its long-time CEO Carol Bartz in September after board members decided she wasn’t pushing the company forward. Yahoo CFO Tim Morse has been acting as interim CEO since then while the company boosted its efforts to find a replacement.

We’re pasting more from the official release below. Check back shortly for a more through report.

Yahoo! Inc., the premier digital media company, today announced the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer, effective January 9, 2012 , at which time Tim Morse will resume his role as Chief Financial Officer. Thompson has also been appointed to the Company’s Board of Directors, effective January 9, 2012.

Thompson served most recently as President of PayPal, a division of eBay, where he continued his established track record of growing businesses by driving customer engagement built on strong technology platforms. Under his leadership, PayPal solidified its lead as the global online payment service, expanding its user base from 50 million to more than 104 million active users in 190 countries worldwide, increasing the number of merchant partners to more than 8 million globally, and growing revenues from $1.8 billion to $4+ billion in 2011.

“Scott brings to Yahoo ! a proven record of building on a solid foundation of existing assets and resources to reignite innovation and drive growth, precisely the formula we need at Yahoo!,” said Roy Bostock , Chairman of the Yahoo ! Board. “His deep understanding of online businesses combined with his team building and operational capabilities will restore the energy, focus, and momentum necessary to grow the core business and deliver increased value for our shareholders. The search committee and the entire Board concluded that he is the right leader to return the core business to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation.”

“Yahoo! is an industry icon and I am very excited about the prospect of working with one of the great teams in the online world to deliver Yahoo!’s next era of success,” Mr. Thompson said. “Yahoo! has a rich history and a solid foundation to build on, and its continued user engagement is one of the many reasons for my enthusiasm. With the ultimate goal of delivering the value our shareholders expect, my immediate focus will be on getting to know the entire team and hearing more from all Yahoo!s, working closely with the engineers and product teams, and diving deeply into our products and services to learn more about what our more than 700 million users find most engaging and useful. I will also be working directly with our region leaders and sales teams globally to get a clearer understanding of the needs of our advertisers and publishers. Clearly, speed is important but we will attack both the opportunity ahead and the competitive challenges with an appropriate balance of urgency and thoughtfulness. I cannot wait to get started.”

“Scott’s primary focus will be on the core business, and as CEO and director, he will work closely with the Board as we continue the strategic review process to identify the best approaches for the Company and its shareholders. As part of this process, Yahoo ! is considering a wide range of opportunities for the Company’s business, as well as specific investments or dispositions of assets,” added Bostock.

“We are all grateful to Tim Morse for leading the company with a steady hand during the last several months. His deep understanding of the Company and his positive approach kept the company on course and we will continue to benefit from his exceptional capabilities as he returns to his Chief Financial Officer role,” Bostock concluded.

(Source - http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/04/yahoo-ceo-scott-thompson/)

Puasa Nabi Daud oleh Prof. Muhd. Kamil Ibrahim dari Madinah

Semalam saya menulis entri yang sengaja ditinggalkan.

“Selain belajar bahasa Arab, saya suka berbincang beberapa isu yang menarik perhatian. Memandangkan beliau seorang lulusan pengajian hadis maka saya gemar bertanya tentang kepakaran beliau.

Misalnya, saya pernah bertanya tentang hadis ini,

Rasulullah bersabda: “Puasa yang paling Allah cintai ialah puasa Nabi Daud, iaitu dia berpuasa satu hari dan berbuka satu hari. Solat yang paling Allah sukai ialah solat Nabi Daud, iaitu dia tidur hingga pertengahan malam lalu bangun mendirikan shalat pada sepertiga malam dan tidur lagi di akhir seperenam malamnya.” [Shahih al-Bukhari, no: 3167].

Soalan saya agak kritikal, kenapa agaknya Allah mencintai puasa nabi Daud? Ia mesti ada penjelasan yang boleh difikirkan.”

Ia perbincangan bersama Walid dan Hearsi, dua pemuda Somalia. Namun jauh di sudut hati saya ingin berdakwah kepada mereka berdua dengan cara yang cukup halus.

Hakikatnya, banyak soalan yang tidak mempunyai atau memerlukan jawapan. Lalu mungkin ada yang berkata ia perkara remeh-temeh. Ulamak tidak melihat ia isu besar yang perlu diperjelaskan.

Saya selalu terfikir, ilmu Allah ada pada setiap orang. Ia boleh berlaku kerana mereka ke sekolah atau universiti, menadah kitab, mendengar ceramah dan kuliah atau melalui pengalaman yang telah dilalui.

Malah ibu, ayah dan keluarga memberi ilmu yang tidak ternilai. Jika ia melalui pengalaman, maka ia menjadi milik mereka yang telah melalui pengalaman tersebut. Jika tidak dibukukan atau diceritakan, ilmu tersebut akan turut berkubur bersama mereka.

Benarlah firman Allah melalui surah al-Baqarah ayat 255 yang bermaksud,

”…….yang Mengetahui apa yang ada di hadapan mereka dan apa yang ada di belakang mereka, sedang mereka tidak mengetahui sesuatu pun dari (kandungan) ilmu Allah melainkan apa yang Allah kehendaki (memberitahu kepadanya) ……..”

Walid merenung saya. Tentu sekali beliau tidak menyangka saya bertanya soalan “bodoh” yang mungkin tidak ditanya oleh bijak pandai yang lain.

Adakah ia soal kuantiti? Tidak mungkin kerana Rasululullah SAW melarang mereka yang ingin berpuasa sepanjang masa. Akhirnya, saya bertanya beliau, “mahukah tuan memikirkan jawapan yang ingin saya sampaikan?”.

Walid dan Hearsi melihat dan mendengar hujah saya dengan tekun. Lalu saya mulakan dengan nada yang sangat berhati-hati,

“Ini kali kedua saya menyampaikan pendapat ini. Pertama kepada isteri saya dan kedua kepada tuan-tuan berdua. Saya fikir ada ilmu yang diperolehi melalui praktikal.

Allah cintakan puasa Nabi Daud yang selang sehari berpuasa. Tuan-tuan kena cuba dahulu berpuasa sebagaimana Nabi Daud berpuasa, InsyaAllah Dia akan bagi ilmu tersebut. Lakukan secara konsisten.

Ramai di antara kita belajar dan mengetahui tentang amalan ini. Saya bukan pakar hadis tetapi saya tahu amalan ini sejak empat tahun yang lepas. Namun jika orang bertanya soalan yang sama - pada ketika itu – sudah pasti saya tidak mampu menjawab.

Kini sudah sebulan lebih saya berpuasa selang sehari (nota: ampunkan saya ya Allah jika ia lahir dari rasa riyak takbur dan angkuh. Aku tidak mahu begitu ya Allah, aku mohon izin bercerita untuk menyampaikan sedikit ilmu yang Kau pinjamkan kepada daku).

Pernah dengar orang menulis, susah dan senang, sakit dan sihat, suka dan duka, cantik dan hodoh, kaya dan miskin serta pelbagai sifat yang berlawanan mempunyai nikmat yang sama?

Pada satu tahap, ia sesuatu yang sukar diterima. Apatah lagi untuk merasai perasaan tersebut. Mana mungkin lapar dan kenyang mempunyai nikmat yang sama.

Realitinya, bila manusia berduka, sakit, hodoh dan miskin maka ia lebih mudah untuk merayu dan merintih kepadaNya. Jika sifatnya berlawanan manusia akan lebih rileks, santai dan sedikit jauh daripada Allah SWT”.

Tentu sekali saya tidak menghadapi masalah untuk memahamkan mereka dengan hujah-hujah yang saya ingin kemukakan. Pertama saya berhadapan dengan ilmuan agama dan kedua dengan seorang jurutera yang mempunyai syarikat perniagaan sendiri.

Tinggal lagi mereka tidak pernah mencuba dengan apa yang dicintai Allah itu. Ia kelihatan sangat sukar.

Lalu saya sambung, “bila saya berpuasa selang-sehari, tiada lagi nilai kenyang dan lapar. Hari berpuasa dan tidak berpuasa mempunyai nilai yang sama dari sudut kenyang dan lapar. Tuan-tuan akan dianugerahkan perasaan dan nikmat tersebut.

Maksud saya, nilai kenyang dan lapar hilang sehingga wujud nilai baru yang terlalu abstrak.

Dan perasaan ini akan membawa kita melihat tentang kebesaran Allah. Perasaan cintakan Allah pada setiap waktu. Bagaimana? Entah. Berpuasalah dahulu… bukankah Allah paling mencintai puasa ini? Bukankah Allah mencintai orang yang cintakan Dia?

Bukankah selangkah kita hampir denganNya, beribu langkah Dia hampir dengan kita?”

“MasyaAllah… MasyaAllah… MasyaAllah…”

Saya memberi pendapat. Mereka lebih berilmu, bijak dan pandai daripada saya. Alhamdulillah, akhirnya saya bersyukur kerana Hearsi sudah memulakan puasa Nabi Daud selang sehari selepas perbincangan ini.

Ia tidak memerlukan modal yang besar.

NotaMKI: Begitulah…. jika kita masih tertanya-tanya bagaimana mahu solat malam… lakukan… lakukan dan rasailah nikmat tidak tidur yang sama manisnya dengan nikmat tidur. Ia hanya berlaku (mengikut aturannya) selepas melepasi tahap-tahap tertentu. Pastinya ia memerlukan langkah pertama sebelum ada langkah kedua.

(Prof. Muhd. Kamil ialah Profesor Perakaunan di Taibah Universiti Madinah, Arab Saudi. Nukilan beliau boleh dilayari di http://muhdkamil.org. Beliau juga pernah berkhidmat di UiTM dan memegang beberapa jawatan penting disepanjang berkhidmat di UiTM)

Stuxnet, Duqu Date Back To 2007, Researcher Says

Two pieces of malware likely were developed by the same team on the same platform along with similar variants, according to Kaspersky Lab.

By Elizabeth Montalbano InformationWeek
December 29, 2011 01:22 PM

The origins of the dangerous Stuxnet computer virus that targeted Iran's nuclear power program last year could date back as far as 2007, according to new research. Researchers have dubbed the platform "Tilded" because its authors tend to use file names which start with "~d," said Alexander Gostav, head of Kapersky's Global Research and Analysis Team, in a blog post

Stuxnet and the related Duqu virus discovered earlier this year share a similar architecture and may have been developed by the same team of developers--along with other pieces of malware--several years ago, according to a security researcher at Kapersky Lab.

"There were a number of projects involving programs based on the 'Tilded' platform throughout the period 2007-2011," Gostav said. "Stuxnet and Duqu are two of them--there could have been others, which for now remain unknown."

Researchers discovered the connections between the pieces of malware and their origins by examining their drivers, he said.

Gostav warned that the Tilded platform is continuing to develop and more modifications of the viruses are likely to be a threat in the future.

Stuxnet was first discovered in June 2010 when it attacked software and equipment used by various organizations facilitating and overseeing Iran's nuclear program.

The virus was especially worrisome for researchers because of its unprecedented complexity; it contains more than 4,000 functions, which is comparable to the code in some commercial software.

Researchers at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics' CrySyS lab discovered Duqu this past September, saying the malware appears to have been designed to steal industrial control design documents.

After examining Duqu, researchers at Symantec said it was nearly identical to Stuxnet. Both viruses attack Microsoft Windows systems using a zero-day vulnerability, which tries to exploit application vulnerabilities that haven't been discovered yet.

Superworms like Stuxnet and Duqu--which seem to have been created to target the critical infrastructure and control systems of particular countries--are of great concern for federal cybersecurity officials who are working to prevent such dangerous threats to the U.S. power grid and other essential facilities.

Role-based access control based on least user privilege is one of the most effective ways to prevent the compromise of corporate data. Our new report explains why proper provisioning is a growing challenge, due to the proliferation of "big data," NoSQL databases, and cloud-based data storage. Download the report now. (Free registration required.)

(Source - http://informationweek.com)

Richard Stallman Was Right All Along

by Thom Holwerda on Mon 2nd Jan 2012 19:12 UTC

Late last year, president Obama signed a law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without any form of trial or due process. Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities. Initiatives like SOPA promote diligent monitoring of communication channels. Thirty years ago, when Richard Stallman launched the GNU project, and during the three decades that followed, his sometimes extreme views and peculiar antics were ridiculed and disregarded as paranoia - but here we are, 2012, and his once paranoid what-ifs have become reality.

Up until relatively recently, it's been easy to dismiss Richard Stallman as a paranoid fanatic, someone who lost touch with reality long ago. A sort of perpetual computer hippie, the perfect personification of the archetype of the unworldly basement-dwelling computer nerd. His beard, his hair, his outfits - in our visual world, it's simply too easy to dismiss him.

His views have always been extreme. His only computer is a Lemote Yeelong netbook, because it's the only computer which uses only Free software - no firmware blobs, no proprietary BIOS; it's all Free. He also refuses to own a mobile phone, because they're too easy to track; until there's a mobile phone equivalent of the Yeelong, Stallman doesn't want one. Generally, all software should be Free. Or, as the Free Software Foundation puts it:

As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us.

I, too, disregarded Stallman as way too extreme. Free software to combat controlling and spying governments? Evil corporations out to take over the world? Software as a tool to monitor private communication channels? Right. Surely, Free and open source software is important, and I choose it whenever functional equivalence with proprietary solutions is reached, but that Stallman/FSF nonsense is way out there.

But here we are, at the start of 2012. Obama signed the NDAA for 2012, making it possible for American citizens to be detained indefinitely without any form of trial or due process, only because they are terrorist suspects. At the same time, we have SOPA, which, if passed, would enact a system in which websites can be taken off the web, again without any form of trial or due process, while also enabling the monitoring of internet traffic. Combine this with how the authorities labelled the Occupy movements - namely, as terrorists - and you can see where this is going.

In case all this reminds you of China and similarly totalitarian regimes, you're not alone. Even the Motion Picture Association of America, the MPAA, proudly proclaims that what works for China, Syria, Iran, and others, should work for the US. China's Great Firewall and similar filtering systems are glorified as workable solutions in what is supposed to be the free world.

The crux of the matter here is that unlike the days of yore, where repressive regimes needed elaborate networks of secret police and informants to monitor communication, all they need now is control over the software and hardware we use. Our desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and all manner of devices play a role in virtually all of our communication. Think you're in the clear when communicating face-to-face? Think again. How did you arrange the meet-up? Over the phone? The web? And what do you have in your pocket or bag, always connected to the network?

This is what Stallman has been warning us about all these years - and most of us, including myself, never really took him seriously. However, as the world changes, the importance of the ability to check what the code in your devices is doing - by someone else in case you lack the skills - becomes increasingly apparent. If we lose the ability to check what our own computers are doing, we're boned.

That's the very core of the Free Software Foundation's and Stallman's beliefs: that proprietary software takes control away from the user, which can lead to disastrous consequences, especially now that we rely on computers for virtually everything we do. The fact that Stallman foresaw this almost three decades ago is remarkable, and vindicates his activism. It justifies 30 years of Free Software Foundation.

And, in 2012, we're probably going to need Free and open source software more than ever before. At the Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin late last year, Cory Doctorow held a presentation titled "The Coming War on General Purpose Computation". In it, Doctorow warns that the general purpose computer, and more specifically, user control over general purpose computers, is perceived as a threat to the establishment. The copyright wars? Nothing but a prelude to the real war.

"As a member of the Walkman generation, I have made peace with the fact that I will require a hearing aid long before I die, and of course, it won't be a hearing aid, it will be a computer I put in my body," Doctorow explains, "So when I get into a car - a computer I put my body into - with my hearing aid - a computer I put inside my body - I want to know that these technologies are not designed to keep secrets from me, and to prevent me from terminating processes on them that work against my interests."

And this is really the gist of it all. With computers taking care of things like hearing, driving, and more, we really can't afford to be locked out of them. We need to be able to peek inside of them and see what they're doing, to ensure we're not being monitored, filtered, or whatever. Only a short while ago I would've declared this as pure paranoia - but with all that's been going on recently, it's no longer paranoia. It's reality.

"Freedom in the future will require us to have the capacity to monitor our devices and set meaningful policy on them, to examine and terminate the processes that run on them, to maintain them as honest servants to our will, and not as traitors and spies working for criminals, thugs, and control freaks," Doctorow warns, "And we haven't lost yet, but we have to win the copyright wars to keep the Internet and the PC free and open. Because these are the materiel in the wars that are to come, we won't be able to fight on without them."

This is why you should support Android (not Google, but Android), even if you prefer the iPhone. This is why you should support Linux, even if you use Windows. This is why you should support Apache, even if you run IIS. There's going to be a point where being Free/open is no longer a fun perk, but a necessity.

And that point is approaching fast.

(Source - http://www.osnews.com)