Neither of these topics are particularly interesting in and of themselves, but in the current economic times they make all the difference in whether a government project will be funded.

First, there is the question of total cost of ownership. What does it take to get to this number? Many people would stop at the cost of licensing—especially if they have an old server lying around and the software in question is open source. After all, open source is free… right?

The notion of free software sounds great, but there is more to it than that as any proponent of open source software will tell you. Software takes support. Paid employees provide that support. So when figuring out cost of ownership, every manager should take a moment to figure out the cost of support.

Automation through technology is a wonderful thing, but while technology may drive down the costs of tasks that were formerly completed by people, the implementation and support of that technology will usually mean an increase in IT costs. Factoring IT costs into the cost of ownership is critical to knowing just how much you’ll spend over the life of the technology implemented.

Total costs for a typical open source IT project include infrastructure, implementation and support. Infrastructure is the hard costs of the servers, storage and power used by the software. Implementation is the people time it takes to get the solution in place—it sometimes takes years to pay off that initial cost if the software is difficult to implement or complex. Support is the time it takes to maintain a piece of software. Support starts out high, decreases as software becomes familiar to its users, and then increases as time passes and the software gets closer to retirement.

So, if you think that six year old piece of hardware slated for retirement is going to save you money… you might want to think again. That server is going to cost more to support. It will crash more; it will have more security issues; it will use more power. Just like our health care system, older things cost more to maintain and keep alive. Though there is something to be said for not having to spend the time in purchasing a new server—and no, my health metaphor doesn’t extend this far.

Another option to consider would be a software as a service solution (SaaS). SaaS solutions have the advantage of a larger customer base. The more customers to which you provide a service, the lower the cost. This is why a server at Amazon Web Services can cost so little per hour of use. Lots of server admins are using that service and driving down the costs of storage and power, which Amazon can pass on to us. SaaS can take the same savings a level deeper and provide a lower cost for providing a service that could be internally provided because of the scale of service.

What about return on investment? The project I was discussing with my colleague today was a chat server that ostensibly would reduce the call volume for his department. That same software would increase the options for citizens to use his service. It might have the reverse affect of increasing traffic because people would be more wiling to chat with an “operator” than to call them. In this latter scenario, it might mean increased costs for the investment—a negative ROI.

Would that negative ROI be acceptable if the public was happy with the increased service? Tough call.

In the end, I think this project shows a lot of promise. It really would have the potential for reducing call volume and increasing the number of citizens served by the same number of government employees. It is that sort of innovation that we need at times like these. We also need to be mindful of the total cost of innovation and what we are getting in return.

This year the season is hitting us particularly hard with pollen counts that are killing me. I am even giving up having more than a single beer—gasp—in an effort to keep myself from becoming a slobbery mess.

The problem is that I have absolutely no desire to stop getting outside and enjoying the weather despite the dusty yellow film that seems to coat everything—the car, the sidewalks, the dog (as if she wasn’t allergenic enough).

So in honor of spring, and Earth Day, I’d like to list a few recent outdoor conquests:

• Biked the kids to school… check
• Biked to work… lovin’ the Xtracycle still
• Walked into town for a nice lunch with the wife… check (excellent recuperation for her recent concussion)
• Walked the dog… not as often as I should
• Built garden beds… all done but the final layer of dirt and planting, which is planned for this weekend
• Helped out at a baseball practice… check
• Took my daughter on her first “park ride”… check

In honor of that last accomplishment, here are a couple of photos.

I want an iPhone just so that I can play with this. Nice.

Food worth writing about would come later when we finally arrived at my parents’ house in Smyrna, just outside of Nashville. Mom is a great cook and had a full meal of German noodles with pesto (fusion cooking at its best), oven-roasted vegetables, fried okra (damn, I love that stuff), and baked chicken. It is great to see my family after such a long time. We only get together a couple times a year at most. This is the first time in nearly four years that I have traveled here.

Day two, we rolled into in Jackson, Tennessee—the place of my birth. We are staying at a Holiday Inn where my dad’s side of the family has joined us.

Holiday Inns in the South don’t have the same amenities I have come to expect. Where the heck is the WiFi? And Diana and I are suffering through the lack of good coffee. We are kicking ourselves for not packing some Stumptown Hairbender.

Last night’s dinner was at a Ryan’s in Jackson. Nothing like a buffet restaurant to remind you of the weight problem that plagues the United States in general and the South in particular. All-you-can-eat is not a good idea people! I was also a little disturbed by the dental health of our waitresses—almost comically crooked and gold teeth abound. Really, it was weird. I’m not being mean; I was just freaked out by it.

Day three, we are going to my great-aunts 90th birthday party. This will give us a little more time with my aunts, uncles and cousins. It has been a little confusing and overwhelming for the kids. There are a lot of faces that they’ve never seen before. Not too mention the fact that some of my relatives talk a little “differently” than what my kids are accustomed to hearing.

Below is an example. Please note, this is not an actual relative. This guy works in the warehouse at the company where my dad works. I’m sure I have an uncle that has attempted something similar at sometime—it just hasn’t made it to YouTube yet. Enjoy!

YouTube – Grasshopper vs Redneck

Hey UplinkEarth, I know it can be hard work to provide good support for a cheap price, but what the heck! Today, I was treated to the following issues:

• The database does not reflect the data that was present as recently as last week. All event data is gone for the moment.
• The files seem to be at least a month old—I had recently updated a couple of files with new code, so I know what they should have looked like.
• Several files were not restored to their proper directory outside of the webroot (www). My site relied on that data as it was written in Coldfusion and used an application.cfm file, components, custom tags and a bit of magic to serve up a pretty decent custom app.
• Also the “shared” folder is no longer mapped to the shared SSL cert that was related to the authentication scripts on the site.

It has been a crazy first month at a company that is in the midst of some interesting changes and rapid growth. I’m really looking forward to the ride, though I can’t say I felt that way two weeks ago.

For those of you in the midst of change, give it a few weeks. It is amazing what you will learn if you allow yourself to go through at least one month worth of change with a group of people. I am really impressed with the team I am going to be working with. I can’t wait to see what we create.

Technically, the actual 2.5 upgrade went off without a hitch thanks to WordPress Automatic Upgrade. Everything in my template just worked, which I couldn’t say after the 2.3 upgrade earlier this year.

So what is my favorite new feature? Well, so far it has to be the automatic plugin upgrade, but I am looking forward to using some fo the media features and the media browser is a clear improvement.

My goal by the end of this summer is to have a highly productive front lawn. The first step in that plan is the walkway seen in this photo.

Next is a rock retaining wall so that I can level things out and start planting.

Now who’s going to import it? Clever Cylces? This seems right up their alley.

[via TreeHugger]