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There is NO intelligence factor involved to decision if data is entered correctly. The programs that you use on a daily basis have been written to have as many checks and balances as possible to help make data entry easier and more precise. But, the programs will never catch all bad data coming into the system. The systems can be designed to validate entered data against formatting, length of field, character inclusion or exclusion, value of field, and much more. But, even then a value can pass the validation test and not be correct.
This can be very costly in the ACH or Credit Card networks. If you key in a credit to a routing number that is a valid number, but it is not your routing number, you could risk sending that money to an account that isn't yours and never get it back. There are literally hundreds of scenarios that I could run through that would be very costly to you.
So, remember, before you blame the computer for not giving you the answer you are looking for. Check your work and then re-check your work. Computers don't make the mistakes, humans do. Computers only do what they are told to do. Trust me, being a software engineer can be mind boggling at times, too. For instance, last week I miss-spelled a variable that I was using and the program wouldn't work the way I wanted it to. It works on both sides of the software, the Graphic User Interface that you see, and the code that I see. When you give systems garbage to interpret, the systems will give you garage back.
About 15 minutes into the drive, the three hunters yell "deer". I am patiently waiting at the other end for the deer to run right up to me. First the doe comes out; followed by the "Big Buck". The bucks are always bigger when you are the only one to get a good look at him. So, I put the crosshairs on the heart of the deer with my new rifle and pulled the trigger. The deer looked at me. I am sure he was laughing hysterically inside. He didn´t fall so I took another shot. He went down the bank of the creek. When the three hunters arrived we looked for the deer in the thick brush. All of a sudden the buck got up and started running in the bottom of the creek. He was heading back to where the three hunters had begun their walk. We got off one more shot, but missed. We always leave a hunter at the beginning of any walk, in case a deer goes back, except this one. We did not have a backup plan. Lessons were learned, and this time, unfortunately it was the hard way. Without a backup plan, we were unable to catch the deer that day.
Just like in hunting; in business you should have a "backup" plan for everything. If you are running a program that stores critical business data, back it up! If you cannot re-create something you are working on, back it up! Anything that would take you more than a day to fix, back it up! Any software or development tools downloaded off the internet should be backed up. As a developer, we use source control software to backup our projects. This ensures us that if we release code that is not perfect; we can roll it back to a version that worked. What a great backup plan that is! Oh, and we have used that plan a couple times before. Just yesterday an encryption key was returning credit card data to our users in unreadable formats. So, we rolled out our backup plan. We restored the data and the key from a backup device. And, "Voila", the data was back to normal. This allowed our credit card processing companies to accomplishmore and stressless. The stress level at my desk was a little higher than normal, but I was able to accomplishmore because we had a backup plan. Our backup plan didn´t allow for that "one to get away"! So, if you don´t want to re-key data tomorrow to get your systems current, backup your data. You will never know when a PC or server will fail you. To learn more about backups, here is a link to Microsoft´s Online Safety Data Protection page: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/data/backup/about.aspx
GIGO
by Greg Sagedahl (Software Engineer), Mar. 1, 2010 Garbage In, Garbage Out! This phrase can be used in a number of different fields. But, it shows up every day in the field where it was coined. Its' origins date back to the early days of computers. The phrase refers to the fact that computers will process data EXACTLY how the data was entered. If data is not entered correctly, the data won't be interpreted correctly.There is NO intelligence factor involved to decision if data is entered correctly. The programs that you use on a daily basis have been written to have as many checks and balances as possible to help make data entry easier and more precise. But, the programs will never catch all bad data coming into the system. The systems can be designed to validate entered data against formatting, length of field, character inclusion or exclusion, value of field, and much more. But, even then a value can pass the validation test and not be correct.
This can be very costly in the ACH or Credit Card networks. If you key in a credit to a routing number that is a valid number, but it is not your routing number, you could risk sending that money to an account that isn't yours and never get it back. There are literally hundreds of scenarios that I could run through that would be very costly to you.
So, remember, before you blame the computer for not giving you the answer you are looking for. Check your work and then re-check your work. Computers don't make the mistakes, humans do. Computers only do what they are told to do. Trust me, being a software engineer can be mind boggling at times, too. For instance, last week I miss-spelled a variable that I was using and the program wouldn't work the way I wanted it to. It works on both sides of the software, the Graphic User Interface that you see, and the code that I see. When you give systems garbage to interpret, the systems will give you garage back.
The one that got away!
by Greg Sagedahl (Software Engineer), Nov. 11, 2009 Last Saturday we were out trying to catch deer. We surrounded the creek bottom with hunters armed with rifles and a game plan, much the same way you fill your office with great employees, great hardware and software, and a great plan. We dropped three hunters off at the one end of the creek to walk the distance with hopes of kicking out a big deer or two.About 15 minutes into the drive, the three hunters yell "deer". I am patiently waiting at the other end for the deer to run right up to me. First the doe comes out; followed by the "Big Buck". The bucks are always bigger when you are the only one to get a good look at him. So, I put the crosshairs on the heart of the deer with my new rifle and pulled the trigger. The deer looked at me. I am sure he was laughing hysterically inside. He didn´t fall so I took another shot. He went down the bank of the creek. When the three hunters arrived we looked for the deer in the thick brush. All of a sudden the buck got up and started running in the bottom of the creek. He was heading back to where the three hunters had begun their walk. We got off one more shot, but missed. We always leave a hunter at the beginning of any walk, in case a deer goes back, except this one. We did not have a backup plan. Lessons were learned, and this time, unfortunately it was the hard way. Without a backup plan, we were unable to catch the deer that day.
Just like in hunting; in business you should have a "backup" plan for everything. If you are running a program that stores critical business data, back it up! If you cannot re-create something you are working on, back it up! Anything that would take you more than a day to fix, back it up! Any software or development tools downloaded off the internet should be backed up. As a developer, we use source control software to backup our projects. This ensures us that if we release code that is not perfect; we can roll it back to a version that worked. What a great backup plan that is! Oh, and we have used that plan a couple times before. Just yesterday an encryption key was returning credit card data to our users in unreadable formats. So, we rolled out our backup plan. We restored the data and the key from a backup device. And, "Voila", the data was back to normal. This allowed our credit card processing companies to accomplishmore and stressless. The stress level at my desk was a little higher than normal, but I was able to accomplishmore because we had a backup plan. Our backup plan didn´t allow for that "one to get away"! So, if you don´t want to re-key data tomorrow to get your systems current, backup your data. You will never know when a PC or server will fail you. To learn more about backups, here is a link to Microsoft´s Online Safety Data Protection page: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/data/backup/about.aspx