Related Articles
Ned's posterous
Right now is the only moment guaranteed to you. Right now is life. Don’t miss it.
September 2010
who are you becoming?
I JUST LEARNED HOW TO TEXT MESSAGE
Normalization Of Deviance
| It's not Rocket Science | |
| Written by James O. Westgard, PhD, and Sten Westgard http://www.westgard.com/guest25.htm |
| An updated version of this essay appears in the Nothing but the Truth book. The loss of the Columbia and Challenger Shuttles were not just technical failures - they were also a result of a culture at NASA that devalued safety. As we look at the Shuttle failures, how can we be sure that labs aren't doing the same thing? Lessons from the Columbia and Challenger Disasters
In a time of crisis and war, the disintegration of the Space Shuttle Columbia on February 1st, 2003, was yet another tragedy in a series of misfortunes that plagued the US. But even this horrible event was quickly overshadowed by the war in Iraq and the subsequent bloody occupation. Since that time, analysis of how and why the Shuttle failed has been lost in the shuffle, drowned about by stories of war, politics, budget shortfalls, and the usual celebrity nonsense that dominates the news. As a result the names of Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Ilan Romon are not likely to enter the public consciousness. The Columbia disaster not took the lives of seven individuals who had dedicated their lives to the space program and science, it may have brought an end to the aggressive US pursuit of manned space flight. In light of the problems revealed in NASA and the resources needed to fix it, the entire NASA program may wither on the vine due to lack of funds and political will. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board released its report on August 26th, 2003, This report is a document of extraordinary analysis and introspection. The investigatory board refused to confine their report to a single, simple failure. Instead, they conducted a thorough analysis of not only the technical flaws, but the organizational flaws that allowed the technical errors to occur. As it turns out, the management culture at NASA was as much to blame for the Shuttle loss as the actual foam strike that occurred 81.7 seconds after liftoff. Reading through the report, you can find disturbing similarities in the culture of NASA to the prevailing culture found in the healthcare industry. “Many accident investigations make the same mistake in defining causes. They identify the widget that broke or malfunctioned, then locate the person most closely connected with the technical failure: the engineer who miscalculated an analysis, the operator who missed signals or pulled the wrong switches, the supervisor who failed to listen, or the manager who made bad decisions. When causal chains are limited to technical flaws and individual failures, the ensuing responses aimed at preventing a similar event in the future are equally limited: they aim to fix the technical problem and replace or retrain the individual responsible. Such corrections lead to a misguided and potentially disastrous belief that the underlying problem has been solved.” [1] “It's not rocket science”, used to be a common phrase in our vernacular, as a way to note the amazing accomplishments of our space program -- while decrying the problems here on earth that have simpler solutions and yet are still unsolved. Now, unfortunately, it seems that even our rocket scientists aren't what they used to be. But now when we claim that our industry isn't rocket science, we may be trying to distance ourselves from their failures. But there are hard lessons to be learned in the Columbia disaster, not only for NASA, but for any industry. We in healthcare would do well to study the reasons for this failure and the implications for patient safety. We ignore it at our peril and the peril of the patients we serve. The simple cause On February 1st, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated in mid-air while attempting to land. The Columbia Accident Investigation Report, released on August 27th of the same year, detailed the specific causes of the accident: "The physical cause of the loss of Columbia and its crew was a breach in the Thermal Protection System on the leading edge of the left wing, caused by a piece of insulating foam which separated from the left bipod ramp section of the External Tank at 81.7 seconds after launch, and struck the wing in the vicinity of the lower half of Reinforced Carbon-Carbon panel number 8. During re-entry this breach in the Thermal Protection System allowed superheated air to penetrate through the leading edge insulation and progressively melt the aluminum structure of the left wing, resulting in a weakening of the structure until increasing aerodynamic forces caused loss of control, failure of the wing, and break-up of the Orbiter. This breakup occurred in a flight regime in which, given the current design of the Orbiter, there was no possibility for the crew to survive."[2] Seventeen years earlier, the space Shuttle Challenger blew up during launch due to the failure of O-ring seals on the joints of the booster rockets. From a simple technical perspective, the foam strike and the O-ring failure share few features. However, the context of the failures share much in common. Most strikingly, NASA was aware of both of these flaws well before the fatal flights of Challenger and Columbia. Before the Challenger explosion, there had been nine previous O-ring failures. Before the Columbia disaster, there had been at least seven previous foam strikes. [3] Yet despite knowledge of these flaws, in both cases, management continued to let the Shuttles fly. In fact, even after concern was raised about the foam strike on the last flight of the Columbia, management continued to believe that there was no threat to the safety of the mission. Budgetary and Schedule Pressures From 1992 to 2000, “Smaller, Faster, Cheaper” was the mantra espoused by NASA and its head administrator, Dan Goldin. While politicians hailed the success of the space program, they cut its budget by 40%[4] . Without a clear mandate, NASA had to rob from the Shuttle program to fund other projects like the International Space Station, even as the station required more Shuttle flights to build the station. Under funding pressure, NASA began out-sourcing much of its work to contractors, and simultaneously began to cut its safety program. It was assumed that safety could be reduced because the contractors would assume the responsibility for safety. Multiple job titles in the safety program were assigned to the same person. The remaining safety program employees found their salaries dependent upon the very programs they were supposed to oversee, leading to inevitable conflict of interest. In public, NASA officials declared over and over again the importance of safety. However, the board found that “personnel cutbacks sent other signals. Streamlining and downsizing, which scarcely go unnoticed by employees, convey a message that efficiency is an important goal….When paired with the ‘faster, better, cheaper‘ NASA motto of the 1990s and cuts that dramatically decreased safety personnel, efficiency becomes a strong signal and safety a weak one.” [5] Sally Ride, former astronaut and the first woman in space, participated in the Challenger and Columbia Accident investigations. About the budget pressures at NASA, she had this so say: “’Faster, better, cheaper’ when applied to the human space program, was not a productive concept. It was a false economy. Its very difficult to have all three simultaneously. Pick your favorite two. With human space flight, you’d better add the word ‘safety’ in there, too…” [6] Because of funding problems and the political pressure associated with funding, NASA had to continually demonstrate that it was delivering value for the investment. Launches became a concrete way of showing Congress that the billions spent on the space program were worthwhile. “NASA was transformed from a research and development agency to more of a business, with schedules, production pressures, deadlines, and cost efficiency goals elevated to the level of technical innovation and safety goals.“ [7] The top levels of NASA soon began to be occupied by business managers instead of technical engineers. The Shuttle had once been termed a “developmental” vehicle, which meant that it could fly but that it wasn’t quite ready for prime time. Under the new management culture, the Shuttle became an “operational” vehicle, which meant the goal was to squeeze out as much operation (i.e. launches) as possible. As a result, small flaws like o-ring erosion and foam hits were not seen as serious dangers to the Shuttle flight and were tolerated as part of routine operations. Since these things weren’t “serious“ flaws, and fixing them would delay flights, the Shuttle would fly with them. “Scarce resources went to problems that were defined as more serious, rather than to foam strikes or O-ring erosion” [8] Management fully intended to fix the minor flaws eventually, but only after the launch schedules were met. Again, Sally Ride provides insight: “….if upper management is going ‘faster, better, cheaper,’ that percolates down, and it puts the emphasis on meeting schedules and improving the way that you do things and on cost. And over the years, it provides the impression that budget and schedule are the most important things.” [9] It’s not rocket Science…
The Normalization of Deviance Both the Challenger and Columbia accident investigation boards asked similar questions: Why did NASA continue to fly the Shuttle with known foam debris problems that dated back years before the fatal Columbia launch? And why did NASA continue to fly the Shuttle with known O-ring erosion problems that dated back years before the Challenger launch? The answer is that these errors had been “normalized” over many occurrences until managers and even the engineers themselves began to believe that these flaws were routine and acceptable. Diane Vaughan, in her exhaustive book, The Challenger Launch Decision (University of Chicago Press, 1996 ), coined a telling phrase for this behavior: the “Normalization of Deviance.” When the Shuttle was originally designed, no allowance was made for the possibility that foam debris could fall off the main tank and strike the wing. Nor was any allowance made for the possibility that in cold temperatures, the O-rings on the booster rockets would shrink and erode. When these events were first experienced, the design principles were therefore violated, “but in both cases after the first incident the engineering analysis concluded that the design could tolerate the damage. These engineers decided to implement a temporary fix and/or accept the risk, and fly. For both O-rings and foam, that first decision was a turning point. It established a precedent for accepting, rather than eliminating, these technical deviations.” [10] As further foam strikes occurred, engineers now accepted those problems as expected behavior of the Shuttle. The fact that the Shuttle kept flying was seen as further evidence that these errors were acceptable. If a foam strike occurred during a flight, that just proved it wasn’t a serious danger, since it didn’t bring down the Shuttle. So the errors were no longer even seen as errors. They had become “normalized” - a foam strike was now considered a normal part of a Shuttle lift-off. Over time, larger and larger foam strikes were tolerated, since previous strikes hadn’t caused a problem. So when the fatal piece of foam struck the left wing of the Colombia, it was dismissed as a minor issue that would be repaired once the Shuttle landed, despite the fact that it was one of the largest pieces yet to strike a Shuttle. In effect, the normalization of deviance broke the safety culture at NASA. They fell down the slippery slope, tolerating more and more errors, accepting more and more risk. If everything was tolerable, how did one object? Management began to demand proof that errors would bring down a Shuttle, instead of making the proper reverse demand: show proof that the Shuttle has NOT been harmed. Without the resources to test and prove that the Shuttle had indeed been harmed by the last foam strike, the remaining safety engineers at NASA were effectively silenced. During the Challenger investigation, Richard Feynman, the Nobel laureate, famously compared the launching of a Shuttle with a game of Russian Roullette. While that overstated the case, it was not far off the mark. Managers at NASA deliberately took a risk. They believed the risk was quite low or zero, but they had not even done the calculations to know how big the risk was. They pushed and pushed the limits without understanding what or where the limits really were. By relentlessly pushing the envelope, tragedy was almost inevitable. It’s not rocket science…
Lessons for the Laboratory: Is there a Columbia/Challenger in our future? “It is our view that complex systems almost always fail in complex ways, and we believe it would be wrong to reduce the complexities and weaknesses to some simple explanation. Too often, accident investigations blame a failure only on the last step in a complex process, when a more comprehensive understanding of that process could reveal that earlier steps might be equally or even more culpable. In this board’s opinion, unless the technical, organizational and cultural recommendations made in this report are implemented, little will have been accomplished to lessen the chance that another accident will follow.” [11] We in healthcare can pretend that what happened at NASA can't possibly happen to us. But the healthcare industry shares one core characteristic with NASA: safety. Although it often goes unstated or unsaid, the primary concern with both healthcare and manned space flight is safety. The very root of medicine, as codified in the ancient Hippocratic Oath, is to Do No Harm. Likewise, when President Kennedy set the supreme goal for NASA, it wasn't just to send a man to the moon, it was to send a man to the moon and return him home safely. This core concern for safety makes both NASA and healthcare unique among industries. Budgets and deadlines dominate every business, inescapably so, but the failure of most businesses is financial, not fatal. As we have forced the space program and healthcare into the usual business model, we squeezed out safety. Other businesses can “push the envelope” and fail without serious consequence - a product or service doesn't sell, they go out of business, employees and sometimes CEOs lose their jobs. Pushing the envelope in our field can maim or kill people. The fact still remains that laboratory medicine is not “rocket science,” but the technical sophistication and complexity of the instrumentation and testing processes are ever-increasing. And mounting pressure has been applied to laboratory medicine to produce cheaper and faster results in the guise of satisfying physician demands and patient needs. Shouldn’t correct results be a higher priority? Reading through the Accident Report, there are startling echoes of the cultural failures at NASA and the current trends and attitudes in healthcare. Surely the stakes for healthcare are just as high as for NASA. The Space Shuttle puts dozens of people into space in a year, while millions of people go through the healthcare system every day. As the IOM report warned, somewhere between 40,000 and 98,000 deaths can be attributed to the failures of the healthcare system. The Space Shuttle, as of 2003, had flown 112 missions. Two of those missions ended catastrophically. A gross calculation based on just those two numbers reveals a 1.7% error rate, or a Six Sigma metric of 3.7. We in the laboratory already know that some of our processes have Sigma metrics well below 3.7. That fact alone should give us pause. In healthcare, our failures are not so spectacular as Shuttle explosions, but they are much more prevalent and frequent. These failures occur over time, in circumstances that obscure and insulate the possible root causes of the failures, that distribute over large patient populations, and spread out the responsibilities across multiple healthcare professions. But undeniably, our failures impact and affect many, many people. We would do well to learn from the failures of our rocket scientists and make sure that our own practices don’t repeat those mistakes. References
|
-----------
Normalization of Deviance: A Formula for Predictable Surprise
Sep.04, 2008 in Project Managementhttp://www.planphoria.com/?p=310
Attending PMIWDC, I met former Astronaut and inductee into the International Hall of Fame, Colonel Mike Mullane. He is an author of “Riding Rockets“, and “Do your Ears Pop in Space“.
Col. Mullane conveyed that the responsibility and duty all project team members must have to contribute to project success, regardless of their position. He discussed that Astronauts share credit for their success with their team, and despite being the most visible part of the mission, the NASA team extends to the people that man mission control, to the engineers that build the spacecraft, to the specialists that develop and configure human life support systems, to the nutritionists that prepare the meals for the voyage, to the janitors who sweep the floors. He describes that when it comes to preventing mission risk transforming into issues, the perception of ALL team members must be considered. This philosopy is fully amplified and fictionally illustrated by the “West Wing” character, Toby Ziegler, who when hearing that the shuttle mission on which his brother was a specialist had problems with the shuttle bay doors remarked, “Mr. President, thank you for your concern, however in space, there is no such thing as a small problem.”
To counter these effects, he described that his first act working with any member of a team is to assure that they understand what Normalization of Deviance, in addition to the consequences that occur. Normalization of Deviance was the primary contributing factor to creating both Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters. The technical reasons for both disasters are well documented and too lengthy to discuss here. Mike Mullane’s reasoning for why both shuttles experienced catastrophic failure, coincides with my own understanding of why projects fail. We seldom fail from the technical, we most always overlook management over the implementation. For the most part this is because the technology is sexy, and we lead ourselves to believe the fallacy that technology works automatically, that it has been tested to work, and should be trusted to always work without failure.This is certainly the case of the “unsinkable” HMS Titanic.
Within a PMI project management approach, one of the core activities to performing Risk Management is Risk Identification. I have been in organizations where Risk Identification was generally overlooked as a point of normalized deviance. The process requires that we perform a risk assessement, so we do. “We don’t have the time to get our technical staff involved, they will only slow us down to fill out our risk register.” How many times have you seen that? Why do a risk assessment this way? “We have to be prepared for the audit.” Who does the audit? Corporate Quality Assurance, who observes that indeed the risk register is up to date, and identified risks are being entered and monitored, and they checkmark the box. This is a failure waiting to happen from habitual deviance from core principals of the established standard, which enables an organization to place their full trust behind the process in place, with complete disregard to its consequence. Mike Mullane describes that the only result that comes from this practice is “Predictable Surprise”.
Col Mullane defines Normalization of Deviance as the working or mission environment created when established standards are subverted incrementally over time without consequence, by routinely rewarding shortcuts from the established norm. As team members continue this practice (normalization), it leads to “predictable surprise”, incursion of risk, technical failure, and in the worst cases complete and catastrophic failure and loss of property and life. To demonstrate his point, Col. Mullane provided the detailed insight of an astronaut and engineer to explain the failures that caused the Challenger disaster, citing specifically that NASA knew that the O-rings had a specific temperature tolerance, and that recovered solid booster rockets were being recovered with burnt interior O-ring walls, something that should never happen. He also described how after recovery of the cockpit, it was discovered that all the panels had their switches in emergency position, meaning that the crew was still alive immediately following the explosion. He also described that the space shuttle was the first NASA vehicle to not have an emergency egress, unlike former “rocket” style vehicles that had all had emergency capsule escape towers that would pull the capsule off the top of the rocket at nine G’s away from the catastrophic failure of the rest of the rocket. With the shuttle, this could not happen as it was not part of the shuttle design as any attempt to escape would cause the astronaut to get hit by the shuttle wing.
NASA Engineers began seeking a new way to egress, using rockets. NASA Engineers tested the “Emergency Egress Fixed Rocket Package” which pulls an astronaut from the shuttle by connecting a rocket, to a lanyard, to a parachute harness to the astronaut. This apparatus was designed to fire astronaut horizontally from the shuttle door. Engineers used rockets for this design because rockets HAD ALWAYS been used. It was a maddening and dangerous design. It took a flight surgeon, not an engineer, playing his role as part of the bigger team to suggest a telescoping firepole, a design that they use on the shuttle today.
This stressed to me the importance of maintaining one’s team presence. Col. Mullane distinguished the difference between team members who are team players, and those who have chosen to be passengers. He amplified this point by by describing one of his early flights over Vietnam where as a REO (TopGun “Goose” position) and he chose to remaining silent when his pilot called Bingo Fuel (point of safe return to base) and desired to continue to the next objective. Even as a rookie pilot, Col. Mullane knew this was a really bad idea, however he let his pilot’s longevity and experience influence his judgment, and by remaining silent, he chose to be a passenger and not a functioning member of the team. The consequence of this decision was a short landing where the pilot and REO ejected, and the plane crashed in pieces on the runway.
Col. Mullane helped me understand the relation between process and risk, to better understand the projects I manage, and reduce the potential for predictable surprise. He an excellent keynote speaker with a terrific mastery of his topic. Col. Mullane’s highly inspiring and educational presentation was worthy of the standing ovation that he received from PMI. He is clearly an accomplished deutrolearner (student and teacher within the same body), and explains the traits necessary to use these talents within ourselves to reach the stars. Within his presentation, he mixed autobiographical elements that demonstrated how we all have the capability to strive for the stars and how destiny was not the primary driver toward him becoming an astronaut. On this point he offered many self-deprecating examples from his high school yearbook where he showed what destiny had to work with. My favorite: the only autograph on the last page read, “You missed Korea, I hope you make Vietnam!”
Web Site of Col. Mike Mullane: http://www.mikemullane.com/
-----------
Italian Sausage & Clam Soup
Italian Sausage & Clam Soup A great soup, made with spicy Italian sausage, clams, mushrooms, herbs and spices all in a tomato base. 1/3 cup olive oil
6 oz. Bulk spicy Italian sausage
1 medium onion
2 5 oz. Cans chopped clams
½ lb. Mushrooms sliced
3 cups tomato sauce
1 1/3 cup clam juice
1 tsp. Basil
2 tsp. Minced garlic
1 tbsp. Minced fresh parsley Saute sausage, onions, and garlic in oil, drain.
Add remaining ingredients except clams and simmer for 30 minutes.
Add clams and heat thoroughly.
Serve and enjoy! Makes 8 servings. -----------
6 oz. Bulk spicy Italian sausage
1 medium onion
2 5 oz. Cans chopped clams
½ lb. Mushrooms sliced
3 cups tomato sauce
1 1/3 cup clam juice
1 tsp. Basil
2 tsp. Minced garlic
1 tbsp. Minced fresh parsley Saute sausage, onions, and garlic in oil, drain.
Add remaining ingredients except clams and simmer for 30 minutes.
Add clams and heat thoroughly.
Serve and enjoy! Makes 8 servings. -----------
Coverage - 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games
2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games
http://usef.org/_IFrames/newsdisplay/viewPR.aspx?id=6197&star=true
To access free, LIVE coverage from
USEF, the National Governing Body for Equestrian Sport, visit:
Live streaming starts Saturday, September 25, and
...begins with the Reining Team Competition, followed by Opening
Ceremonies.
For the LIVE streaming subscription available for
purchase from UniversalSports.com, visit
www.UniversalSports.com/equestrian
A one-time subscription fee is available for only $29.99;
daily purchase options are available for only $12.99.
Live streaming begins with the dressage on Saturday, September 25.
Full replays of subscription content will be provided for on-demand viewing.
To view the complete television schedule, visit:
http://www.usef.org/documents/WEG/WEGTelevisionSchedule.pdf
NBC Sports will air 8 ½ hours of LIVE coverage on three consecutive weekends,
beginning Saturday at 12 Noon ET.
Universal Sports will show more than 15 hours LIVE, including the
majority of the show jumping competition, and will also air taped
broadcasts of the Reining Final, the Dressage Freestyle, the Driving
competition and the Vaulting Final. The joint effort will include more
than 30 hours of live and taped television coverage.
http://www.usefnetwork.com/weg2010/
http://www.usefnetwork.com/weg2010/
-----------
What are we working for, really?
What are we working for, really? What are we working for, really?I told the farmer I wanted a horse. Here are things I know about horses from the farmer’s response: 1. Horses are very cheap right now. It used to be that you could buy an estate, put horses on it, call it a horse farm, and take a tax deduction on all the land. But the US just banned slaughtering horses. I am not sure why. I think this is part of Obama’s attack on US subsidies to the rich. (Which, by the way, I support, and I am hoping he is so creative as this.) Anyway, now there are tons of people who want to get rid of horses. 2. Horses are a luxury to people who make a living from their farm. I will not get into the nuances of making a living vs. not making a living from a farm. But wait. I think I will. It’s complicated. For example, if your great-great-grandfather homesteaded land and consequently you inherited 2000 acres and you mortgage it to support your family, is the farm supporting you? And if you don’t mortgage it, but you live in poverty, is the farm supporting you? Stay tuned for posts when I answer these questions. Or just bitch about them. But anyway, horses are a luxury, according to the farmer, because they are a lot of work and they never make any money. (Well, except for the Amish, who still use horses to run farm equipment. But this will be in another post, too.) No. I think it will be in this post. Everything in this post, but in a minute. The issue is: what is making a living? And I actually do think I know the answer. The answer is if you are honestly making enough money to meet your needs. So, for example, take Melville. He’s hard for me to read because he was such a crappy provider for his wife and kids. I try to not think of that because my favorite character in all of literature is Ahab. And maybe it’s impossible to write that crazy a character who we will still all identify with unless the author is crazy himself. Because we all would like to do just what we love and not support ourselves, but most of us don’t indulge ourselves that way. I used to say that all anyone needed to earn was $40,000 a year. And, because I dedicated the last decade (perhaps inadvertently) to personally testing all the happiness research I read I can attest that when I made $300,000 a year in LA my happiness was the same as when I made $40,000 in NYC. And, in that time, the Big Happiness Number has become $75,000, but I think that how much money I made didn’t matter because my basic, underlying personal problems did not change. Not that I am sure what they are, by the way. I am pretty certain, though, they are something about feeling lonely, because I don’t read non-verbal cues well, and because I didn’t feel loved as a kid. But, here’s something else I learned from the happiness research: You will gain more from being my friend if I talk about happiness than if I talk about sadness. So, lucky for you, I am clearing the $75,000 mark nicely this year, and the farmer responded to my request for a horse. With a donkey. He said that I have to take care of the donkey each day and if I do that, then we can consider the horse. But the farmer doesn’t want to have a horse that he is taking care of. The farmer thinks that taking care of animals that we don’t provide financial gain in return is a petting zoo, not a working farm. This is probably true. And, speaking of petting zoo, we have about 15 baby cats.
Here is a cat story: I think all farms have some cats. Is that right? Cat science: Tomcats travel from farm to farm, and girl cats stay on one farm. Some farms are very organized and they spay two cats and shoot the rest. Other farms, like the farmer’s farm, let nature take its course. When the farmer lived alone, it was so hard for the babies to stay alive that it was a sort of Malthusian society where, by the end of the winter, he was always down to a manageable population of five or six. But then the kids and I moved in, and we started taking kittens to the vet. And then we started buying expensive, grocery store food for the cats instead of forcing them to fight for table scraps. The kittens started thriving, and things were going so well for the mom cats, that they were even getting pregnant twice in one summer. This was great news to me and the kids, because seeing one-day old cats is amazing—they fit in your hand. And taking care of them is great fun. But the farmer got worried. Side story to the cat story but essential information: One of the farmer’s friends, a dairy farmer, has a bunch of little girls, the demographic most likely to coddle kittens. After about three years of four girls, the friend’s farm had 150 cats. So the friend and his wife took their kids away for the day and he had three friends come with beer and shotguns and they turned the farm into a cat-killing video game. The cats with the red ribbons on their necks were the ones the family wanted to keep. So I guess we will have one summer of kitten glory and then I’ll pay to spay the cats. Which brings me to making a living on the farm. It’s always a debate. Is it making a living if you don’t have money to treat cats humanely? Because most farmers won’t spend the money to spay cats. Is it making a living if the wife works off-farm? Because most farm families today need someone working off-farm, at least for the health insurance. Sometimes, when I’m philosophizing about what making a living means, I think about lifestyle. Which brings me to the Amish. We live in a community where the Amish are buying a lot of land. They sell their land in Pennsylvania for $20,000 an acre and then move to our region of Wisconsin and buy land for $5000 an acre. So I’m living amongst the yuppie Amish.
photo credit: 42N To the Amish, making a living is sustaining a family within a community, and there’s a great new book that describes why this formula leads to success in business: Success Made Simple: An Inside Look at Why Amish Businesses Thrive, by Erik Wesner. For the Amish, the community is first. They do not drive cars because driving does not promote community, but they can hire someone to drive them, because sometimes you need to do that, and anyway, the alternative of making everyone into crazy Luddites does not develop community either. The Amish are making me rethink why people work. And what supporting a family means. The Amish sense of community is incredible, and while we each think we are making a living by supporting the family unit, or supporting ourselves to create a world full of meaningful relationships, we are nothing like the Amish. We make so many choices based on our individual desires. For example, that I want a horse, or that the farmer wants to never leave the farm for a job that pays $75,000 a year. I am thinking that the research about what makes us happy always comes down to community, not money. You become more like your friends, meeting regularly with a group makes us happier, if we structure our lives around consistent relationships—including proximity—we are happier. So maybe Wener’s book on business is the most useful research about happiness, because how to be happy is about how to make a living in a way that enables you to provide something for a group rather than just for yourself. More Recent Articles |
-----------
I finally figured out ... the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.
Ned Snyder
-----------
32 Totally Essential (and Free) Apps for Every New PC
Published on Maximum PC (http://www.maximumpc.com)
The 32 Totally Essential (and Free) Apps for Every New PC
Created 02/19/2009 - 11:00am
The 32 Totally Essential (and Free) Apps for Every New PC
Posted 02/19/09 at 10:00:00 AM by The Maximum PC Staff
ByLine link:
author1 [1]
| 0diggsdigg |
You have to admit, Windows is a pretty barebones operating system, feature-wise. After a fresh install of XP or Vista (perhaps following a Clean Start [2]), you're faced with a barren Start Menu and an empty desktop that's beaming with limitless potential. The problem is that it's up to you to hunt and download those applications that you really need in your day-to-day computing experience. And chances are, it's often difficult to find good software that's also free. That's where this guide comes in.
We've put together a list of what we think are the most essential PC apps for every Maximum PC reader. These are all free programs (except one) that should be immediately installed after a fresh build or reformat; 32 indispensable programs and utilities that we couldn't imagine computing without. From the best IM client to FTP browser and Notepad replacement, these essentials truly enhance the Windows experience (much more so than Microsoft's own Windows LIVE Essentials). We're not saying you'd use all 32 entries in our list on a daily basis, but if you are at all serious about utilizing your PC, we promise our picks will not go unused.
And at the end of the feature, we'll even show you how to install these apps in one fell swoop with a special configuration file we've created. Because if it were up to us, this is software that should be bundled with every copy of Windows.
WinDirStat
Have you ever sorted a folder by file size, hoping to track down a hard disk hog, only to be frustrated by the fact that Windows doesn’t let you see the size of nested folders’ contents? So have we, and that’s why we make sure that we’ve always got WinDirStat close at hand.
WinDirStat [3], short for Windows Directory Statistics, is an application which analyzes the composition of your hard drive, allowing you to identify which files are eating up your disk space. It presents this information in a size-ordered directory view, or as a colorful treemap, making it a snap to see exactly what is using up your hard drive space. Once you’ve figured out which files are taking up more than their fair share of your drive, you can get rid of them with WinDirStat’s built-in cleanup operations.
AnyDVD
[4]
For hassle free rips of DVD, Blu-ray, and even HD-DVD content, there's no simpler app to use than AnyDVD [5]. Unlike more traditional DVD ripping tools, AnyDVD decrypts, unlocks the region code, and even removes annoying ads and that pesky FBI warning on the fly. It's not free, but it's well worth the cost for anyone who wants to exercise his fair use rights on Blu-ray or DVD discs. Your money is well spent, typically the brain trust at Slysoft manage to disable new copy protection tricks just a few short days after they go public, which is more than worth a few bucks a year. (standard version is 50EUR for 2 years, HD edition is 79EUR for 2 years)
Foxit PDF Reader
There are few things that can ruin your internet browsing groove like the painfully long wait you have to endure when opening an Adobe PDF file. Acrobat reader, as a program and browser plugin, is notoriously cumbersome and drains not only your time but gobs of memory as well. That's why we use Foxit Reader [6], a free lightweight application that weights in only at 3MB. The program launches with the speediness of a roadrunner, and gives you access to welcome features like text extraction and comment annotation. Just be careful when you install Foxit to uncheck the Ask.com toolbar and eBay icon options. A professional version of Foxit ($40), gives you advanced editing tools, but we're more than happy with the free offering.
VMWare Server
Virtualization isn't just one of the hot buzzwords in tech, it's a practical way to test software, patches, and operative systems. VMware [7]is our pick for a robust and easy-to-use virtualization option, and VMWare Server is the company's free product. It runs on top of a host Windows or Linux machine to deploy multiple virtual machines by provisioning your hardware resources. The only big limitation of VMWare Server is that it doesn't currently support 3D acceleration, not is it officially compatible with Vista 64-bit. Still, it's relatively the easiest way to create and run virtual machines, even those created by Microsoft Virtual PC.
Steam
[8]Remember when Steam [9]first launched with Half-Life 2, and trolls all over the internet complained about the service's mandatory online connection? What fools, we were. Today, we can't imagine gaming on our PCs without Steam. Valve's app isn't just an ultra-convenient online store, it's our preferred method of staying connected to fellow online gamers. Gabe Newell recently remarked that Steam is more than just about combating illegally downloaded content, the program is Valve's way of catching up to the convenience and instant-access appeal of piracy. We think it's doing a fine job.
Dropbox
[10]Get this: a Windows app that "just works." Yes, we're being serious. Dropbox [11]came out of nowhere last year to stun us with its amazingly intuitive approach to online storage. The program creates a user folder that acts just like a folder on your hard drive. You can drag, drop, copy, and even save up to 2GB worth of files to the cloud ($100/year for 50GB), while the service works its magic and syncs up your documents in the background. The online interface lets you track your file transfer history and download any file remotely, as well as restore any files that may have been accidentally deleted. You can even create shared or public folders to pass files along to your friends and family. And you don't even have ot bear any online ads. Of course we're smitten.
Copernic Desktop Search
While we'll concede that both Google Desktop Search [12] and the Windows Search 4.0 [13] are both vast improvements over the default Windows XP search function (death to that useless dog!), we have to side with Copernic [14]when we want a powerful desktop search client. Copernic is not only comprehensive in its indexing -- it quickly searches emails, office documents, and web pages -- it also is light on system resources and processor utilization. We like its ability to sort, group, and refine searches, which is particularly useful for navigating through densely packed network drives. Our only gripe? The newest version of Copernic Free removes realtime results as you type -- a feature reserved for the $50 professional edition.
TrueCrypt
TrueCrypt [15] is an open source app which lets you create and mount an encrypted virtual drive. You can store whatever you want in this drive, and it will be completely inaccessible and invisible to anyone who doesn’t have the passphrase.
And even if you’re not an international man of mystery, you never know when you might want to encrypt something, like sensitive financial data, or a list of passwords. Since TrueCrypt is a tiny file (about 3 MB) that can be setup to run without installing anything, we feel very comfortable giving it a “download it, keep it on your disk, you never know when you might need it” recommendation.
Skype
Skype [16], like many of the apps on this list, is not here because it did something new, but because it did something better than anyone had done it before. Offering high quality, peer-to-peer VOIP with a convenient client and a bevy of features, Skype easily earns our recommendation for all your internet telephony needs. Skype also has video conferencing functionality, and allows for conference calls, a feature which we put to good use making our very own Maximum PC podcast [17].
Fraps
Like to play games on your PC? So do we. That's why one app we absolutely cannot live without is Fraps [18], a lightweight app that lets you benchmark your games to monitor graphical performance. When running, Fraps hides in your system tray, but runs a tiny numerical overlay on top of any DirectX and OpenGL game to show you your current framerate. You can also capture high quality screenshots and AVI videos (with sound) for Youtube posting. The free version has a limit on how long you can capture video, as well as watermarks your footage.
Firefox
There's not much we haven't said about Firefox [19], our current favorite internet browser. The sheer amount of useful plug-ins available make it a no-brainer for anyone who spends most of their day on the web. Firefox 3 amazed us with its smart search bar and it still remains the most secure browser we've ever tested. It might not be as fast as Google Chrome in rendering pages, but we'll take functionality and unobtrusive features (ahem Internet Explorer 8) over a minor speed difference any day.
CPU-Z
If you haven’t used CPU-Z [20], you’re not an enthusiast. This tiny CPU interrogator has become the standard tool of anyone who thinks they’re a PC expert and wants to, say, query your cousin’s PC to find out what the hell is actually installed in the machine. CPU Z will tell you the model, code name, process, core voltage, stepping and revision number as well as the core speed, FSB and multiplier the PC is running. You can also find out what speed your DRAM is running at and check the SPDs on some machines too.
GPU-Z
Sure, you know you have a GeForce 295 card, but what do you know about it? If you want something that’ll brace the card for all of its specs, GPU-Z [21] (no relation to CPU-Z) will do the dirty work for you. Offered for free by techpowerup.com, this handy utility will tell you the clocks, the card revision, the number of transistors on the card as well as the process technology used to build the card.
Media Player Classic + ffdshow-tryouts
[22]
There are lots of different ways to play videos on your PC, but the best performing, most compatible one-two punch we've tested is ffdshow-tryouts [23] and Media Player Classic [24]. There are literally hundreds of different codecs and container formats that the video you want to watch can be trapped inside, and while you could install a codec pack to get support for them, ffdshow-tryouts just looks better, performs better, and causes fewer problems than traditional codec packs. And, while ffdshow-tryouts enables video playback in a wide variety of apps, our favorite is Media Player Classic. This clone of Windows Media Player 6 features support for soft subtitles, alternate audio tracks, and other power user features. The fact that it's extremely lightweight just reinforces our admiration for the app.
Filezilla
Cloud storage may be the next hot thing, but we still like using FTP to back up files to our own home servers. And we've found no better way to utilize FTP than with Filezilla [25], an open source FTP client. Filezilla's site manager lets us bookmark and maintain connections to multiple servers, drag and drop our files from the desktop, and deftly handles large files and large numbers of files. Both client and server versions are offered free, distributed under GNU General Public License.
SyncBack Free
Though it may be hard to believe, a surprising majority of PC users still back up their files to CD and DVD media. As experienced users, we're a little smarter than that, so we recommend using SyncBack Freeware [26] to back up important documents to more reliable storage mediums like hard disks and network servers. The free version of SyncBack lets you automatically archive copies of your files to any destination (though it won't perform incremental backups), and then restore those files after any unforeseen disaster. A more functional SE version ($30 or 30-day trial) offers faster backup and versioning features, though the free counterpart should be more than enough for most users. And yes, it does back up to optical media as well.
IsoBurn
Burning ISO files is a native feature in the upcoming Windows 7, but XP and Vista users are forced to use third party apps if they want to mount a disc image on a CD or DVD. For this simple yet essential task, we prefer IsoBurn [27], a 50k (talk about lightweight) standalone executable that provides a no-nonsense interface to burning discs. You just pick the ISO file location, destination drive, and whether you want to burn as a CD or DVD. We still don't know why this feature isn't bundled in Windows.
KeePass
KeePass [28] is a password safe—a program that maintains a list of your passwords, strongly encrypted, with a single master passphrase/keyfile. The benefit to using a password safe is that you can use a different, secure password on every site you log in to, without having to write them all down or remember them all. This helps to protect you by making it so that if one of your passwords is compromised, (through a data breach at a website you have an account with, for instance) you don’t have to worry about that same password working on other sites you log into.
OpenOffice.org
We’ve long recommended OpenOffice's [29] suite of programs as one of the must-have open-source applications on your PC. Simply put, it’s as close to Microsoft’s Office suite as you’re going to get without plunking down a small fortune. It doesn’t contain any unpleasantries in design and functionality that the idea of a “free office suite” might conjure up. And its newest 3.0 incarnation—all of .6 somethings greater than the last full OpenOffice release—adds even more versatility to the suite.
Speedfan
Most of your PC components include hardware monitoring chips that track the varying voltages, fan speeds, and temperatures inside your rig. Speedfan [30]gives you access to all of that information by tapping into the numerous digital temperature sensors of important parts like your CPU and GPU. This free app can also access SMART technology in hard drives to diagnose potential disk failures. And as the name implies, you can also adjust fan speeds for extra performance or reduced noise.
Handbrake
[31]
Handbrake [32]makes ripping DVDs a lead-pipe cinch, especially when paired with AnyDVD (or DVD43, a free, less awesome program that works similarly to AnyDVD [5], http://www.dvd43.com/ [33]). Whether you're ripping for archival storage and streaming to your living room, or simply want to watch Enchanted on your pink iPod Nano, Handbrake's excellent preset system makes ripping easy enough that anyone can do it. Just point Handbrake to your DVD drive and it scans the disc and automatically selects the settings necessary to ensure you get the best possible playback on the device you chose. Heck, it will even help you avoid potential pitfalls, like proper subtitle rendering. The next version will even include preliminary support for Blu-ray rips, so what's not to like!
Notepad++
Windows Notepad is competent as the most basic text editor, but if you're a programmer or even casual website designer, you'll be able to appreciate the vigorous language support of Notepad ++ [34]. From HTML to Java and over 40 other languages, Notepad++ makes parsing code easy with clear syntax highlighting and auto-completion intelligence. The program is compact, but has no-brainer features like tabbed documents and plug-in support. Think of it as the Firefox of text editors.
Digsby
First, there was instant messaging, and that was pretty cool. But before long before we started asking questions like “Why can we only talk with people using the same client?” and the first multi-platform clients (like Trillian) were born. And those were cool. But it wasn’t too long after that, we started to ask “Why can’t we use our IM client to check our email? And our Facebook account? And how come, if I log in on another computer, all my preferences don’t carry over?”
And then there was Digsby [35]. And it is very cool.
(However! Digsby loses big points for trying to sneak a bunch of crappy search bars onto your computer when it installs. If you make sure to hit “Decline” you can get away clean, but if you want to avoid the hassle, try Pidgin [36] instead.)
Avira AntiVir
At first glance, you might be inclined to dismiss Avira’s AntiVir [37] as nothing more than a run-of-the-mill virus scanner with a feature set that’s as meager as its price. The sparse interface certainly won’t wow any power users, but it would be a mistake to cast AntiVir aside based solely on appearance. A tiny checkbox in the upper-left corner of the configuration screen unlocks the program’s Expert mode, and with it a heap of options previously unavailable. You’re given enough control not to feel cheated, even for software you didn’t have to pay for. AntiVir’s biggest strength lies in its detection rate. It’s the only scanner in our AntiVirus roundup [38] to triumph with a near clean sweep during Virus Bulletin’s latest testing, and it did so without reporting any false positives. That’s impressive.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
For even the savviest of PC users, it’s a real challenge to go very long without picking up some sort of malware. A good antivirus program and firewall are important for keeping the baddies at bay, but for when you do happen to get an infection, it’s important to have a strong anti-malware program at hand. It’s a broad field, and (as we discuss in this article) a thorough sweep needs more than a single program, but for most simple cleaning tasks Malwarebytes Anti-malware [39] should be all you need.
uTorrent
Bittorrent may be the software pirate's preferred method of conducting illegal downloads, but the protocol also been adopted for legitimate software distribution, such as game patches and large open-source programs. When we need to tap into legal peer-to-peer downloads, we use uTorrent [40], a 250K application that lets you oversee bandwidth allocation, file selection, and peer/seeder connections with ease. You don't even need to install the program -- uTorrent runs right fine from its executable.
foobar2000
The days of Winamp are long past. For audiophiles with massive music libraries, foobar2000 [41]is our chosen alternative to the memory-intensive iTunes organizer. Created by a former Winamp developer, foobar2000 has won the hearts and minds of savvy album collectors with its highly customizable interface, comprehensive audio format support (including OGG, Flac, and AAC), and gapless playback. There's even a rich SDK for third party coders to tinker with to add more functionality. Sure beats sorting through all your music in long playlist.
Picasa
With disk storage space so cheap, no wonder it's so easy to amass gigabytes upon gigabytes of photos snapped from our camera phone and DSLR. But if you're like us, you don't want to sort through photos with Windows Explorer. Google's Picasa [42] 3 is an all-in-one monitoring service for your photo folders. It offers less overall editing functionality than alternatives like XnView, but comes packaged in a more elegant interface with additional options for Internet-related tasks. For example, you can add geotags to your photos via Google Earth and then have Picasa 3 automatically upload your shots to a Web album, FTP site, or straight to your Blogger blog. Picasa 3 also interfaces with online shops for easy photo printing, and can turn a batch of your images into collages, movies, and screensavers. Included backup functionality helps keep your precious photographic memories safe from an errant hard drive failure, provided you select an appropriate backup locale. But our favorite feature, by far, is Picasa's ability to search through your photographs by dominant color.
Secunia PSI
Every geek knows to make sure that the OS and browser is updated but what about the version of Flash, Java or QuickTime that you’re running? Not to mention the dozens of other applications that you have installed. Have no fear, Secunia.com’s Personal Software Inspector [43] tracks a massive amount of security exploits in applications and will monitor your PC for known exploits. If one is found, it will point you to any known patch. Even among our paranoid members we have yet to find a machine that PSI didn’t find something with an exploit. And like the other apps on this list, this app is free.
Audacity
Planning on recording your own podcast (and who isn't, these days?) or creating a customized ringtone from your favorite dance song? You'll need Audacity [44], the best free audio editor on the internet (we use it to edit the No BS Podcast). Audacity lets you drop in audio files of any format (or record from any hardware source) to cut, copy, and add to an unlimited number of tracks to mix. Built-in effects and pitch adjustment let you manipulate your samples, and you can output your compositions at up to 96kHz. Sounds good to us.
7-Zip
Just about any operating system nowadays comes with built-in support for the ZIP archive format, which has been around since the 80s and generally does a good enough job of making things smaller and tidier. So, do we really need an archiver program on this list?
Of course we do. We’re PC users, gosh darnit, and that means that “good enough” is never good enough. We don’t just want ZIPs, we want RARs, CABs, JARs, DEBs and whatever else we can think up, and we want it all open source (as long as it’s not too inconvenient). And for all that, there’s 7-Zip [45]: an elegant, open source file archiver that can handle just about any compressed file you throw at it.
GIMP
When it comes to image manipulation, there’s really only two options right now: Photoshop and GIMP [46]. GIMP doesn’t quite capture the usability and polish of Adobe’s offering, but where it does beat Photoshop is in price—totally free and open source is a whole lot easier on the pocketbook than the $700 or so that a legal copy of Photoshop will run you. And even if it’s not totally perfect, GIMP is full-featured enough for almost any photo manipulation needs you might have.
Best of the Rest
Not satisfied with 32 apps? Here are 10 more programs that didn't make our "essentials" list, but are well worth your attention.
Synergy
A KVM switch (short for Keyboard, Video, Mouse) is a device that lets you control multiple computer with a single set of peripherals. And really, for the nerd elite, there’s no better way to show off than to use not just two monitors, but two whole computers at once. But KVM switches are sort of clunky, because not only do they add more clutter and cables to your setup, they require hitting some sort of switch to move between computers.
That’s where Synergy [47] comes in. It’s a software KVM switch, allowing you to connect two or more computers over a network, and control them with a single keyboard and mouse, even if they’re running different operating systems [48]. If you’ve got two computers running side by side (a big “if” that kept Synergy off our Essentials list), this app is an absolute must-have.
RipBot264
[49]
Ripping Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs used to be a perplexing affair, requiring multiple applications and hours upon hours of ripping, demuxing, transcoding, and remuxing before finally, often as not, you ended up with a file that was broken somehow. RipBot264 [50] has made the high-def ripping game much, much easier. Install the application, as well as the three helper apps it requires, and you'll be up and ripping your Blu-ray collection in no time flat. While it's not as easy to use as Handbrake, we've found you typically get better results because the app uses a more recent version of the X264 codec than Handbrake does. While it's definitely not perfect (RipBot264 lacks an easy way to convert on-disc subtitles to a format that works with ripped video), but it's the easiest Blu-ray ripping app we've tested.
Google Earth
It kills us to have to put Google Earth [51] on the “best of the rest” list, really it does. Sure, it’s not really essential—you can get all your mapping needs met at its web-based cousin maps.google.com, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of our very favorite apps. Does Google maps let you explore New York in glorious 3D [52]? Does it let you check out what it’s like at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? Does it have maps of Mars [53]?
We didn’t think so.
PuTTY
What is PuTTY [54]? Like so much in life, if you have to ask, you probably don’t need it. Still, we’ll fill you in: Putty is a multi-protocol client application which is our longtime favorite choice for all our SSH needs. To many PC power-users an SSH client is absolutely vital to their everyday operations, and PuTTY’s the most popular windows client for a reason.
Still, these days most people’s “SSH needs” are pretty nonexistent, so we’ve got to let PuTTY wallow here with the best of the rest.
VLC Player
Playing media files on your computer can be tricky business. There’s a huge number of codecs and containers, which can have any number of weird interactions, making a mess of the business of playing your HD media files. Fortunately, there’s VLC [55], an application which will play basically any file, and doesn’t rely on any external codecs. It’s a welcome breath of fresh air in a morass of formats and players.
So why isn’t it on the list? Even though it can be a little tough, once you do manage to get your codecs set up, we think that Media Player Classic provides a better experience and better reliability than VLC.
Thunderbird
We absolutely abhor the sluggishness of Microsoft Outlook. That's why we prefer web-based email clients, like Gmail. But when we want to manage multiple email accounts, including POP and Exchange, we turn to Thunderbird [56]. Mozilla's mail program gives us all the basic functions we want out of email, like fast searching and phishing protection. Like Firefox, Thunderbird can also be enhanced with an array of plug-ins, all including Mozilla's Lightning, which adds calendar and appointment management to the client.
Boxee
Here's one application, that just one week ago, would've made our Essentials list. Boxee [57](still in Alpha, with Windows version coming soon) is a slick internet video streaming frontend that taps into network feeds like CBS, ABC, and Comedy Central. It's great for watching video podcasts and youtube clips without bringing up a browser window, and features nifty social networking features so you can see what friends have been watching. Unfortunately, Boxee has just discontinued support for Hulu, their largest and most popular content provider. Until Hulu support comes back, we can't deem Boxee a must-have.
Virutaldub
Need to capture or process raw video from your digital camcorder? Virtualdub is the go-to application for converting AVI files into a large number of encoded formats and container packages. You won't be able to mix or significantly edit video files like you can with Adobe Premiere or even Windows Movie Maker, but for quick capture and encoding of your family vacation, look no further than Virtualdub [58].
TinySpell
Firefox already offers built-in spellcheck for text windows and forms, but what about every other Windows app? TinySpell [59]is a free spell checker that monitors your text input in any program (including any words copied to the clipboard), and gives you replacement suggestions from its database of 110,000 words. The free version, unfortunately, doesn't give you a visual indicator of your typos (like a red underline). Instead, your mistakes are pointed out with an audio cue, which we eventually found to be a bit too annoying to keep on a
James Corbett Car Part Sculptor
http://www.jamescorbettart.com/James, from Ningi, Queensland, Australia has been sculpting his incredibly life like pieces since early 1999, and since that time his unique works have found homes in all capital cities in Australia, also England, Switzerland, New Zealand, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and the U.S.A.
James discovered his talent for creating his amazing pieces of art whilst running an auto recycling business in Brisbane . His first piece was an off road race buggy, inspired by a sport James had participated in for some ten years. The response from friends and customers was so positive that he was encouraged to create more pieces; cars, bikes animals and birds, all of which sold readily. James likes to incorporate old and interesting car parts into his sculptures. Nothing is bent into shape; the original integrity of each car part is maintained. “The parts themselves are often interesting, some are as much as eighty years old”, says James.
Whether the purpose of the sculpture is for a private collection, public art, or simply a “must have”, James Corbett’s sculptures are undoubtedly some of the finest examples of assemblage art that you would be likely to encounter anywhere in the world.
