Aloha, Milestones PM rewards for finding their flaws- a unique methodology !!!!

Force.com Labs announced that Milestones PM is now available as both an Unmanaged App and as a Managed Aloha App.  That’s right: Milestones PM is now available for professional edition and won’t count against your Objects, Apps and Tabs limits in other editions.

Secondly, till November 30 (aka Cloudforce NYC Day) {they announced a unique of UAt by actual users }, Salesforce Labs is pleased to announce we are offering a bug bounty on either Milestones PM package, version 1.55 (unmanaged) or 1.50 (managed) and later.  Submit a bug to our Github repo issues tracker, and, once we verify it,  we’ll send you a $10 Starbucks gift card.  

Milestones PM remains open source and — and I’m perhaps unreasonably excited about this — we use a single code base for both packages. 

Cool down the incentive for finding bugs is over but nevertheless  a unique approach to quality assurance kudos....

Why is the selection between Lookup and Master-detail relationship so crucial

Today as I was surfing through questions in the SF community , I came across a query which was related to the summary functions between two object linked with a lookup relationship. The query was simple all the respondent wanted to know was for:-
1. Two objects A and B linked with  lookup relationship how to find out the count of the object B linked to object A.
2. Also if it was possible to find sum of a particular currency field in B for all the instances of B linked to a particular instance of  A.
3. To do the same through configurations rather than any code
Some pro-s may say come on that is not possible for a "lookup" relationship!!! True  to achieve that one either :-
1. Needs to link the two objects with what we call the "Master-Detail" relationship.
2. Else if that is not feasible one may seek the intervention of code and a good old trigger will do the trick.
So very correct but this brings up the more basic question of :-
1. Planning - A product or project should be planned and designed very carefully and should undergo many iterations of brain storming before it actually goes under the hammer-specially when its ERD and database schema is being finalized.
2. Mapping of Objects and the relationships between them should be accorded utmost scrutiny and logical evaluation.
I remember during my early days with salesforce and managed package (remember it freezes the schema and makes any change very difficult and exhaustive process from the point of view of product maintenance) a small slip in the selection between a lookup and master-detail relationship compelled me to write a trigger which could otherwise would have been easily achieved with standard configurations.
Hence the time devoted to database design or in simpler terms "of deciding the way objects are linked with one-another" may appear irrelevant to some but its worth the trouble and will spare us from product maintenance nightmares.

Allaying apprehensions of Data Security w.r.t. Salesforce

One of the questions posed to all the business consultants showcasing the versatility of Salesforce CRM to prospective clients ,"is the concern of data security" and the traditional fear of keeping one's sensitive data in the custody of "Salesforce Servers". Assuring the client about the flawless of the security of data becomes a torturous exercise - walking the clients through:-
1. The "Trust Statements"
2. Certification of respective government
3. Global Audit compliance
The jargon involved in these documents is so complicated and lengthy that the actual intent {assuring about of safety of data} is lost on the audience.
My simple explanation to the business team {which occasionally directs the volley of these queries towards the technical team} is to explain the dynamics of "Data Safety" by way of a simple analogy. Here is how it goes - Whenever prospective clients or existing clients are showing their concern about safety of their data, ask them a simple question? Sir/Mam where do you keep your valuables or money, the obvious answer to this query would be a bank. (unless it is ill-gotten) Why do you keep it with bank? As you know your money is safer there and banks are better equipped and legally bound to protect your money and also replace it in case of theft. The same spirit applies to CRMs - they too are legally bound to safeguard the privacy and safety of your data. Since you would not keep your money at home and prefer a bank instead and will not be deterred by the logic that it implies entrusting a third party with your money (as you are assured of its safety) the same logic applies to your "data" by way of corollary when you store it on "salesforce servers". If you want more insight to this please go through:-
1. Safe Harbor statements provided here -http://trust.salesforce.com/trust/privacy/tools/
2. Also the most valuable testimony of our (salesforce crm's ) commitment to data security and  privacy can be provided by existing client base , refer to the link enclosed for more info. http://trust.salesforce.com.
3. Besides salesforce provides the option of trial runs , one can use the CRM on a trial basis from Appexchange and once assured you can go ahead and subscribe.
Hope this settles the noise around the data security debate vis-avis "The Cloud" (common name of salesforce).