It would be fitting to, just a day after the United State’s Fourth of July celebration, to talk of independence. I'm referring a recent article from AmericanLeMans.Com which states quite boldly: "Energy Independence" message deliver. More than 100 VIPs at a gathering New York City Central Park heard from ALMS CEO Scott Atherton and EPIC Executive Tom Slunecka about the ALMS's desire to showcase its relevancy with automotive technology and consumers.

The gist of the program was that the ALMS is the first racing series to adopt multiple "street legal" fuels for all racecars and that the series is open to additional, alternative energy sources in the future. Atherton has stated before that the series is open to running any type of fuel that is available to the broad consumer market, even if that someday includes hybrid and hydrogen powered vehicles. All of this is done, of course, to maintain a close tie between the on track technology and the available vehicular product sitting on showroom floors.

I've often said that the perceived threat of "off shoring" technology jobs is over hyped. A recent article in the New York Times seems to agree in such that while global outsourcing is a fact of life, it does not necessarily mean that American workers can't compete or offer value to the practice. This particular example illustrates how members of an IBM technology service team do just that.

The trick for companies like I.B.M. is to figure out what work to do where, and, more important, to keep bringing in the kind of higher-end work that needs to be done in this country, competing on the basis of specialized expertise and not on price alone.

Interesting facts about this year's 24

The win by Audi was the teams 7th and further reinforced the career stats of two drivers.

Audi :
- 7th victory for Audi at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007)
- Audi ties Jaguar for number of overall victories

Franck Biela (42 ans)
5th victory in 8 years of competition (2000, 2001, 2002, 2006)

Emanuele Pirro (45 ans)
5th victory in 10 years of participation (2000, 2001, 2002, 2006)

I deal with system security on a daily basis and to be honest sometimes it can feel like an almost hopeless task. No sooner than you adequately secure your network or computer systems then a new threat will emerge. Over the years I've learned that you can never anticipate every attack, but you can take steps to make yourself a hard target. The following article from ZDNet illustrates some of those steps in what they deem the four things NOT to do. Enjoy!