Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Novas edições de Informix: Saldos? [Verifique o novo artigo e nota final]

Hi. In the last IIUG conference I had the chance of talking to some Brazilian members of the Informix community and they gave me the idea that there is an high demand for Portuguese content. When I started the blog I decided to do it in English (and that was not an easy decision because I'm not that confident about my English) for two main reasons:
  • I wanted to reach a wider audience
  • I believe most Portuguese IT workers are used to read English, so it would not be hard for them to follow this (ignoring my English mistakes of course)
The last reason probably encloses two mistakes. The main one is that the Portuguese speaking audience is much bigger that Portugal (for those who don't know Portugal has around 10M people. Brazil is probably 20+ times this and then there are the African countries like Angola, Mozambique, Cabo Verde etc.). The other mistake may be that too many people in Portugal may care about this and may not want to read stuff in English. All this intro serves to say that I'll probably be doing some articles in Portuguese. I really haven't decided yet on how to do it (same article with two languages, or repeat the article. or create another blog...? For now and because I think this is a very important subject, I'll continue this article in Portguese to talk about the new Informix Editions.

----- Portuguese from here on.... -----------------------

Introdução:

Bom, para quem teve o trabalho de ler a introdução acima em Inglês por favor ignore este paràgrafo. Para os restantes basicamente a introdução serve para explicar que apesar de a lingua do blog ser o Inglês é provável que comece a publicar alguma informação em Português. A razão porque escolhi o Inglês para escrever o blog foi porque tenho a ideia que em Portugal a maioria das pessoas que trabalham em informática não se importam de ler Inglês e assim consegui uma audiência maior. Na conferência de utilizadores deste ano tive oportunidade de trocar impressões com membros Brasileiros da comunidade Informix e eles deram-me a ideia que há muita gente para quem este assunto não é indiferente e portanto existe muita gente que por um motivo ou outro preferem ou restringem-se aos conteúdos em Português. Assim, e porque o tema do último artigo é realmente muito importante, tomo-o como o ponto de partida para algumas entradas em Português no blog.

Novas edições do Informix

Como já terão tido oportunidade de ler ou ouvido comentar, a partir do dia 25 de maio de 2010 a IBM reformulou a oferta das várias edições do Informix.
Portanto algumas das edições a que estávamos habituados deixaram de estar disponíveis. Nomeadamente a Enterprise Edition e a Workgroup Edition foram descontinuadas. Como susbtituição foram introduzidas respectivamente a Ultimate Edition e a Growth Edition (ah... os nomes...). De forma muito resumida, a Ultimate Edition inclui tudo o que o Informix tem para oferecer com excepção da Storage Optimization Feature (compressão), e a Growth Edition exclui particionamento, funcionalidades de paralelismo, e compressão (inclui Enterprise Replication e clustering - até dois nós secundários em modo leitura/escrita - ) e está limitada a 4 sockets ou 16 cores e 16GB de RAM (soma do total de memória atribuída ao Informix em cada instalação).

Mas as grandes novidades são a introdução de duas novas edições: Innovator-C (disponível para todas as plataformas) e a Ultimate-C para Windows e MacOS. Mas o que têm de não diferente estas edições "-C"?:
  • Pode fazer o download, desenvolver e colocar em produção sem custos de licenciamento
  • Pode adquirir suporte
  • Apesar de terem limites nos recursos que podem utilizar, mas esses limites são razoáveis (certamente haverá opiniões contrárias)
Vamos examiná-las com mais detalhe. "-C" significa "Community". Comecemos pela Innovator-C:
  • Download livre e sem custos
  • Pode ser usada para desenvolvimento sem custos
  • Pode ser utilizada em produção
  • Está disponível para todas as plataformas suportadas pelo Informix
  • Limitada a 2GB de RAM (soma de toda a memória atribuída ao Informix por cada instalação), 1 socket ou 4 cores, sem limites de espaço usado em disco
  • Dois nós de Enterprise Replication
  • HDR (1 nó secundário em modo de leitura/escrita)
  • Funcionalidades não disponíveis: Compressão, Continuous Availability Feature ( CAF - shared disk secondaries - nós secundários com discos partilhados), particionamento, funcionalidades de paralelismo, Advanced Access Control (LBAC), Informix Warehouse e múltiplos nós secundários, encriptação de colunas, queries distríbuídas (I-Star) e outras funcionalidades (detalhes na licença)
  • Suporte opcional
E agora a Ultimate-C Edition para Windows e MacOS:
  • Download livre e sem custos
  • Pode ser usada para desenvolvimento sem custos
  • Pode ser utilizada em produção
  • Está disponível apenas para Windows e MacOS
  • Limitada a 16GB de RAM (soma de toda a memória atribuída ao Informix por cada instalação), 4 sockets ou 16 cores, sem limites de espaço usado em disco
  • Enterprise Replication totalmente funcional
  • HDR (1 nó secundário em modo de leitura/escrita)
  • Particionamento
  • Paralelismo
  • Nós secundários em modo leitura/escrita
  • Warehouse Feature (ETL)
  • Advanced Access Control (LBAC)
  • Informix Warehouse Tool (SQW)
  • Funcionalidades não disponíveis: Compressão, Continuous Availability Feature ( CAF - shared disk secondaries - nós secundários com discos partilhados)
  • Suporte opcional
NOTA: Estas edições não podem ser redistribuidas sem um acordo prévio com a IBM.

Outras edições permanecem como existiam: Developer Edition e Express Edition.
Portanto agora temos uma base de dados gratuita com algumas limitações, mas que se aplica a muitos cenários. Significará isto que a IBM perderá vendas? Não necessariamente. É claro que pode comprar-se suporte. Quem implementar soluções criticas sobre estas edições de gratuito irá provavelmente desejar ter suporte. Por outro lado isto deverá aumentar a penetração e reconhecimento do Informix no mercado. Estas edições poderão ser o par perfeito para a iniciativa de open source. Poderia falar de várias situações que levaram algumas empresas e usar mySQL ou Postgres simplesmente por causa do custo. Muitos destes cenários poderiam enquadrar-se nas possíveis utilizações destas versões. Isto torna a iniciativa de Open Source ainda mais relevante agora. As melhorias no Hibernate são um excelente sinal e depois de uma troca de impressões com um parceiro local penso que outros projectos Open Source deveriam receber atenção da iniciativa. Felizmente muitos deles já se encontram listados no website da iniciativa.

Outra boa melhoria (deveria chamar-lhe uma correcção) efectuada foi ao nível da usabilidade no website do Informix. Se aceder a http://ibm.com/software/data/informix, ou simplesmente http://ibm.com/informix ou até http://www.informix.com, irá ser redireccionado para uma página com uma ligação para "downloads". A partir daí pode navegar facilmente numa lista de downloads disponíveis.

Onde pode obter mais informação sobre este tema?:
Estas mudanças passa a ser efectivas na versão 11.50.xC7 fixpack.


NOTA [ 22 Julho de 2010]: Este artigo está desactualizado! As edições Ultimate-C para Windows e Mac foram retiradas. A versão Innovator-C ficará disponível para todas as plataformas e surge uma nova edição (Choice), com custos de licenciamento menores que a Growth Edition e com limites que se situam entre a Innovator-C e a Growth Edition.
Artigo com as últimas alterações:

http://vietnamtech.blogspot.com/2010/07/informix-editions-revisited-versoes.html


Cumprimentos
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Glance to the Rescue

While I have been using Glance for awhile now and tend to use it to do webinars, many of you may not know you can also use it to view and take control of your colleagues computer. Just this morning I was able to send my colleague a link and within seconds I was viewing their computer and able to help diagnose the problem he was having. The experience went very smoothly and it was as if I was sitting next to my colleague clicking their mouse and using their computer. While I was not able to initially solve my colleagues problem seeing what was happening allowed me to think about the issue and hopefully tomorrow morning I will get another chance to do a another session and resolve my colleagues issue. I will let you know what happens. But all in all Glance is a handy tool to have access to not only for webinars but for jumping in and doing technical support.

Postscript: This morning I took control of my colleagues computer and successfully resolved the issue, it took about 30 seconds- with tools like this, it makes me look good.
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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

New Informix editions: Bargain time? [ Please check end note and new article]

Again a non technical post. I'm really sorry about that... I still don't have enough free time and things are hapening that can't be ignored in this blog....
Before I start, a disclaimer: This post is by no means IBM official information. Please check the URLs given as reference and in case of doubt contact your local IBM sales representative.

So, you may have read it elsewhere, because it's all over the Informix related sites and forums: IBM did a total repackaging of the Informix product. That means that the different versions that we were used to have are gone (not all). Starting today there will be no more "enterprise edition" nor "workgroup edition". In their place there will be respectively the Ultimate Edition and the Growth Edition (oh... the names....). In very simple words, Ultimate Edition packs everything Informix has to offer except the Storage Optimization Feature (compression), and the Growth Edition excludes the partitioning, parallel features and compression (includes ER and clustering - up to two secondary nodes read/write - ) and is limited to 4 sockets or 16 cores and 16GB of RAM (sum of total memory allocated to Informix in a single install).

But the really great news are the introduction of two more editions: Innovator-C edition (available for all platforms) and Ultimate-C Edition for Windows and MacOS platforms. Now, what is so great about these "*-C" versions?:
  • You can download, develop and deploy without licensing costs
  • You can choose to buy support
  • Although there are resource limits these are reasonable (there will be other opinions....)
Let's see them in greater detail. "-C" stands for "Community" editions. Let's start by the Innovator-C edition:

  • Free to download
  • Free to develop
  • Free to deploy
  • Available generally for all platforms
  • Limited to 2GB of RAM (sum of total memory allocated to Informix in a single install), 1 socket or 4 cores, no storage limits
  • Enterprise replication (2 nodes)
  • HDR (1 secondary read/write)
  • Features not available: Compression, Continuous Availability Feature (CAF - Shared disks secondaries), partitioning, parallel features, Advanced Access Control (LBAC), Informix Warehouse, multiple secondaries, column encryption, distributed queries (I-Star) and some other functionality (check the details in the license)
  • Optional support
And now the Ultimate-C Edition for Windows and MacOS:
  • Free to download
  • Free to develop
  • Free to deploy
  • Available only on Windows and Mac OS
  • Limited to 16GB of RAM (sum of total memory allocated to Informix in a single install), 4 sockets or 16 cores
  • Full Enterprise Replication
  • HDR (1 secondary read/write)
  • Partitioning
  • Parallelism
  • Read/Write secondary nodes
  • Includes Informix Warehouse Feature
  • Advanced Access Control (LBAC)
  • Informix Warehouse Tool (SQW)
  • Features not available: Compression, Continuos Availability Feature (CAF - Shared disks secondaries)
  • Optional Support
NOTA: These editions cannot be re-distributed without an agreement with IBM

Other editions stay as they were: Developer Edition and Express Edition.
So now we have a free (as in beer, not free as in speech) database with some limitations, but probably usefull for a lot of scenarios. Will this mean that IBM will loose revenue? Not necessarily. It's clear that you can buy support. If you implement some critical applications on these "freely downloadable" editions it's probable that you'll want support. On the other hand, this should increase Informix presence and awareness in the market. These versions may be a perfect match for the Open Source initiative. I could name a lot of situations where I saw companies use mySQL or Postgres simply for cost reasons. Many of those scenarios would fit the usage cases for these new editions. So the initiative gains a lot more relevance now. The improvements in Hibernate are a very good sign and after some talks with a local partner I think other open source projects should receive attention. Thankfully many of them are already listed in the Open Source Initiative website.

Another good improvement (I'd better call it a fix of course) was the usability of the Informix web home. If you access http://ibm.com/software/data/informix or simply http://www.informix.com, you're end up on a page with a link for "downloads". From there you can easily navigate to a new list of Informix available downloads.

Where can you gather more information?:
These changes will be available with 11.50.xC7 fixpack.

NOTE: [ July 22, 2010 ]: This article is outdated! The Ultimate-C editions for Windows and Mac OS were withdrawn. The Innovator-C will be available for all platforms and a new edition (Choice) will appear. This will have lower license costs than Growth Edition, and limits between the Innovator-C and the Growth Edition.
Article with the last changes:

http://vietnamtech.blogspot.com/2010/07/informix-editions-revisited-versoes.html


Regards
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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Moving from Mind Mapping to Knowledge Mapping

Much can be said about the benefits of using mind mapping software for the personal, academic, and business needs that many of us have. I know for myself that I greatly benefit from using mind mapping software on a daily basis to plan workshops, overview my content for courses, and for managing projects that I am working on. Using mind mapping software makes me more effective at the work I do and allows me to share information in a rich graphical way that resonates with my colleagues. For me, having access to the tools and techniques of mind mapping provides me a rich palette of tools to draw from when I am doing the work that I do. While using mind mapping software in traditional ways has been quite effective for me- my eyes were opened to a whole new way at looking at mind mapping when I learned about a product called Context Organizer about two years ago.

Context Organizer is a summarization tool that can extract summaries from PDF's, Word, and from URL's. With a click of the mouse I can have Context Organizer a MindManager add-in, build me a rich in information map. When I first tried Context Organizer I couldn't believe how fast I could produce my map filled with contextualized information, I was interested in researching. And so that was the "aha" moment for me going from "mind mapping" in a traditional sense to "knowledge mapping" with a click of the mouse. Going from a blank mind mapping canvas to a completed "knowledge map" was quite exciting to see. Imagine the power I felt having all this information in my map that I could organize and structure the way I wanted. This is the true power of knowledge mapping. The synergy between Context Organizer working within MindManager is exquisite giving the user the opportunity to reorganize information as they see fit. As a Professor of Education I am constantly doing research to keep abreast of new trends in special education and assistive technology and have come to rely on Context Organizer to comb the web looking for new information. Developing my own knowledge maps helps me to see the big picture and look at the current trends in the field and gives me a point of access to determine if I need to read the original articles.

Since the release of Context Organizer for MindManager, Context Organizer has evolved and now works in the cloud with an online mind mapping application called Comapping. Comapping works within the browser and the user with a annual subscription can access their maps and collaborate in real time with any browser and a connection to the web. This is a true paradigm shift and one that all of us are weighing as we begin to dip our toes into the cloud. For me having access to my maps whenever I am connected to the web is quite powerful and I have come to utilize Comapping more and more in the work that I do. But more importantly, I have been able to use Comapping with Context Organizer which has been seamlessly integrated into the application. Now I can attach Word and PDF files to my Comapping maps and have them summarized within seconds. An even more powerful feature is being able to attach a URL link to a branch on my map and have the entire contents of the website summarized. For researchers this is an incredible tool and one that you should take a look at. Now I can develop my personal "knowledge maps' that I can store online in a mapping tool that allows me to organize the information the way I want.




Looking ahead Context Organizer is moving to a soon to be announced portal that will enable users to type in a URL which will then return key words and a summary. This new tool called Web Summarizer will give you the capability to type a URL and have the information instantly summarized complete with key words. You will also be able to search your knowledge database to find links to the information you are interested in. With Web Summarizer you will be able to build you own knowledge databases and when you are done you will be able to export the summaries to your mind mapping application-creating the perfect repository for your information set.

So at least for myself, I am using a new term called "Knowledge Mapping" to share with you a new way to think about mind mapping and handling vast amounts of information that can be personalized to meet your needs. If you are interested in learning more how you can handle the information overload with these tools send me an email and I would be glad to share with you how your business or school could benefit from using "knowledge mapping." So happy "Knowlwdge Mapping."
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Thursday, May 20, 2010

Top eLearning Sites

I was asked what the biggest traffic sites are in eLearning that were not vendor specific sites. This was from a marketer trying to reach eLearning professionals.

My quick answer was that Jane Hart’s site, eLearning Learning and The eLearning Guild would be among the top. But I really didn’t/don’t know the answer. I did promise I’d do some research and post what I found.

I used Compete.com. It’s definitely not accurate as it way under reports traffic for eLearning Learning. However, after reading various sources that compared different traffic estimation tools, I was convinced that it was generally a decent indicator.

Thanks to Harold Jarche and Susan Lewis (via twitter) and Cathy Moore and Dennis Wilen (via Facebook) with help on this. Cathy pointed me to questions about Alexa (Wikipedia article). Susan pointed out that none of this accounts for RSS subscription. Of course, it also doesn’t count email subscribers or twitter. So, yes … This is only rough estimating.

Top Sites

Using it, I plugged a whole bunch of different sites into it and produced the following graph of some of what I perceive to be the top sites.

image

image

image

image

After doing this, I realized that eLearn Magazine don’t seem to have that much web traffic. In fact, according to Compete, eLearning Technology (this blog) and Stephen Downes’ Site come in higher that eLearn Magazine. Here’s a chart with those sources included:

image

image

Of course, Stephen covers more than eLearning. And there are sites like ASTD that go well outside the world of eLearning.

So to be clear, things I excluded:

  • Vendor specific sites, e.g., Skillsoft
  • Sites focused on broader topics like HR, Talent Management, Training, etc., e.g., ASTD (which has good traffic), CLO Media (which doesn’t seem to have good traffic volume)
  • Sites that I can’t get accurate numbers separate from the base site. Learning Circuits is part of ASTD.

Other Sites I tried but came out lower:

It’s a little bit of a surprise to me some of the traffic numbers.

Is this a surprise to you?

What sites did I miss here?

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Monday, May 17, 2010

Future of Virtual 3D Environments for Learning

Based on the recent Big Question - Learning Technology 2015 – I received an interesting question:

"Tony, what do you think of environments like Second Life? Do you think these have a great future in the world of learning for adults?"

This is a topic I’ve talked about a few times.  Probably before you begin to read my predictions, it’s worth looking at: Second Life Learning Videos where I’ve collected a few different examples of learning in Second Life.  You might also look at Second Life and Learning and Second Life as a Learning Tool.
There was a great recent article (found via  Gary Woodill) - Where Have All the Avatars Gone?  The basic point of the article is that despite not hearing as much about Second Life and other virtual worlds, a lot is happening where you can’t see it.  A couple of points from the article:
  • Over 2,000 global enterprises, 600 universities, 35 international governments, and several divisions of the U.S. federal government — including the Departments of State, Homeland Security, NOAA, NASA, Army, Navy and Air Force — now exploit Second Life technology to connect with stakeholders around the world, communicate complex ideas, train and collaborate.
  • In Second Life, the Michelin Group, for example, has an "extremely successful complex training program and interactive simulations for training worldwide employees in Enterprise Architecture.

My personal experience with Second Life is that there's something really compelling about conducting meetings and events in virtual worlds.  You really feel like you are more there.  I also think there are some incredible opportunities to use things like Second Life to create virtual learning experiences very much like the experience of visiting the Plymouth Plantation or Colonial Williamsburg – without travel or cost of the venue.  Forms of this are happening already.

But I also think that the current technical hurdles and learning curve is putting a damper on adoption.  It’s a bit like video conferencing systems.  If it’s not as easy as picking up a phone, then you need something pretty compelling to make it worth the headache.

So to answer the question directly:

  • Virtual worlds offer the possibility of creating some incredible learning experiences, however,
  • Current technical and learning curve adoption hurdles make it a niche technology, thus
  • If I’m creating a new company, product, etc., I’m pretty skeptical about basing it on these technologies.

What about by 2015 to go along with the big question?

My belief is that true 3D virtual worlds like Second Life will remain a bit more of a niche.  But I think there’s something that will come in from the back door that could cause significant adoption by 2015.

We’ve reached a tipping point for web conferencing where it’s equivalent too and often preferable to face-to-face (Learning from Others in the Room, Narrowing Gap between Face-to-Face and Online Presentations, New Presenter and Learner Skills and Methods).

I’ve predicted for a few years (Ten Predictions for eLearning 2008) that we would see adoption by mainstream web conferencing / video conferencing tools of something I would call a 2.5D environment.  Give people an avatar or picture.  Allow something along the lines of conference seating and break out rooms with separate voice streams in each.  But I’ve yet to see this materialize.  I think this changes the adoption dynamic entirely.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on where this is going and where we will really see adoption for the mainstream.

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Sunday, May 16, 2010

xPaper - Great Digital Pen Solution

I have been a long time user of digital pen technologies and am always amazed by its feature set and simplicity. At the core of digital pen technologies is Anoto functionality which gives software developers the tools to create innovative solutions. For the past several years I have been using a solution from Talario called xPaper. In it latest iteration xPaper, lets you print your forms on ordinary paper and write on the form with the digital pen. Once the pen is docked the ink is automatically downloaded to the form and within seconds you have a crystal clear PDF of your contents that you are ready to add to your work flow.

xPaper is comprised of several different components; the xPaper software, the xPaper printer driver, and a commercially licensed digital pen. Once you load the xPaper software and XPaper printer driver you are ready to get started. You simply open any form on your computer and using the xPaper printer driver you print the form on your color printer. Talario has a list of suggested and approved printers that can be used with their solution on their web site. Once the form is printed you will notice a light watermark dot pattern on your print out. These dots allow the digital pen, which has a camera at the base to know exactly where the ink is being written. It is quite ingenious to say the least. Now all you have to do is write on the paper and dock the pen to see the results. Within seconds the ink appears on the form and you are ready to add it to your work flow. Talario has a number of Connectors that let you decide what you would like to do with the form that is stored in the xPaper application. Using one of the connectors you could easily send the PDF to your Gmail account or FTP it to your server. In any case with a couple of clicks of the mouse you can transpose your form into a digital document and archive it.

This past semester I was teaching a graduate course in Action Research and utilized xPaper to record my biweekly meetings with my students as I mentored them through the process. To get started, I printed my Conference Log Sheet with xPaper and once the students met with me I would record our session notes with the digital pen along with my expectations for our next meeting. When my student's left our meeting I would hand them the form as a review of the session for them as a take away and then I would dock my pen so that I had a record of the meeting. xPaper worked flawlessly and many of my students remarked at the end of the semester that having the progress notes really helped them to move through the process. Using xPaper saved me a great deal of time, energy, and paper. Having my students' archived notes on my computer that I could quickly access worked out extremely well for me as well. Now that we are in the process of accreditation it is great that I can archive this information.

If you are looking for ways to add digital pen and paper solutions to your work flow send me an email and I can share with you how you can use Xpaper in the work that you do to increase efficiency. xPaper is ideal for anyone who uses forms on a daily basis and needs a way to move them to the computer for backup and archival purposes.
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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Electrifying news?!

In the latest post of Guy Bowerman's blog I noticed a new case study about Informix. You can choose to read about it in the IBM website, or on the consulting company who did it website.
Hildebrand worked together with IBM labs (Hursley) in order to achieve real-time collection and analysis of detailed energy usage using commodity hardware.
This involves loading around 50000 events per second into the database. This is the estimate needed to support three million homes.
An innovative component of Informix was used: Timeseries Datablade
Timeseries is a datablade designed to load and handle massive amount of data which is time related. Any kind of repetitive measure along a timeline is what we're talking about, and apparently that was essential to this project. Datablades are pieces of software that work like plugins which extend the basic Informix functionality.
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Monday, May 10, 2010

Web Summarizer Takes to the Cloud

Over the past year I have watched Context Organizer morph into a truly powerful summarization tool that is ready for the big leagues. Starting out as a standalone application, Context Discovery proved to be a powerful tool for the desktop-able to summarize URL's, PDF, Word, and PowerPoint files. When Context Discovery saw the value of being able to quickly built information maps within a mind mapping application Context Discovery developed a MindManager Add-in which has received rave reviews from it users.

Just this past year Context Organizer was integrated into Comapping which showed the versatility of Context Organizer working in the cloud and being totally platform independent. With all these steps in place Context Organizer has moved to a new dimension being able to deliver summarization in the cloud by placing these tools in the hands of businesses and corporation that need to process large amount of data. Imagine being able to analyze and summarize large amount of URL's, RSS feeds, and News feeds on your own internal server. Web Summarizer has been optimized to be able to serve your corporate data needs and we are ready to work with you. Please see the video below to get an idea of what is possible with Web Summarizer. If information is power think about how you can take advantage of Web Summarizer to get ahead of your competition!

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Sunday, May 9, 2010

Write Online Adds a Mind Mapping Workspace

I have been impressed with Write Online from Crick Software since I first saw it, and initially remarked that this Web 2.0 application breaks new ground for assistive technology. Write Online provides the user with a rich feature set for writing that is accessible from any web browser. Just this past week John Crick alerted me to the addition of a mind mapping workspace to Write Online which I had a chance to use this past weekend.

When you open Write Online you will notice a Document and a Workspace tab. If you click on the Workspace Tab you will see that it puts you into a mind mapping mode that lets you do some quick brainstorming using a variety of different shapes to get your ideas down. Using some of the short cuts I was able to quickly prepare my mind map and link my ideas. You can see from the screenshot that you can add linking text to the ideas and add color to the various shapes that are provided. You will find it an easy to use addition to the program. Once you are done you can quickly transfer your mind map to an outline in the Document space- which is a great feature. But it even gets better than that! With one click you can create a Wordbar with the words you used to generate your mind map. Imagine all of the possibilities for having students create their own mind maps with the support of a customized Wordbar. Write Online continues to innovate and now provides a quick way for students to brainstorm using mind maps to do so. For more information about Write Online click here.
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Thursday, May 6, 2010

Beginning of Long Slow Death of Flash

Earlier this year I questioned why there was Still No Flash on the iPhone and iPad. It’s become quite clear that Apple (Steve Jobs) is going to block putting Flash on these platforms.

Today the big news is Scribd Switches to HTML5; Adobe To Make Tools for HTML5.

As a Part-Time CTO, I am continually making choices about what platforms to use, what do we build for, how do we integrate with social networks, etc. And just like a few years ago when it became clear that you shouldn’t build desktop applications anymore, I think we are hitting a tipping point where you have to question building anything that uses Flash as the delivery mechanism.

Scribd today announced that they are going to be changing their Flash player to be based on HTML5.

"We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash. Now any document can become a Web page," Scribd co-founder and CTO Jared Friedman told TechCrunch.

This comes at the same time as Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch: We’re Going To Make The Best Tools In The World For HTML5. Kevin doesn’t say that they are moving away from Flash – rather that they will support Flash and HTML5 as output. But it’s pretty clear that even Adobe sees the problem here.

What does this mean in practice? Well Captivate will produce HTML5 so that it can be run on an iPhone, iPad and everywhere else.

Right now, I believe this is a tipping point moment. It’s the beginning of the long slow death of Flash.

The only question is my mind is how long/slow it will be.

Oh and if I'm predicting relative to the big question this month: Learning Technology 2015 then my prediction is that we won't be building for Flash delivery in 2015.

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Tuesday, May 4, 2010

OAT: One Admirable Tool

One first warning: I'm still lacking time to write the kind of articles I like, which are focused, technical and relatively deep.
Having said that I feel better proceeding with yet another "chat like" article. And in this I would like to write about Open Admin Tool, or simply OAT.

I had two great sessions in IIUG 2010 conference, which although not specifically about OAT, were somehow related to it. I'm talking about John Miller session about Auto Update Stats, and Hyun-Ju Vega session covering SQLTRACE. Unfortunately I had to miss the session about OAT itself from Erika Von Bargen (i was presenting at the same time). Now, why did I like this sessions so much? The speakers were great but they were not the reason. The reason is fairly simple: They changed the way I thought about some things and they made me look into OAT again. I don't recall having written many things about OAT, but to be honest I though it was nice, but maybe more directed to the new people starting with Informix. Long time Informix DBAs obviously have a pack of scripts for the trivial stuff: running update statistics (I wrote my own scripts based on previous work from Informix staff and obviously we all know dostats from Art Kagel), check some performance issues (sessions with more CPU usage, tables with full scans, tables with more read/writes etc.), historical data from the instance (profile counters, table access stats etc.).

So, a nice tool, much better than previous attempts like Informix Server Administrator (ISA), nice looking but maybe for "newbies". Honestly this was more or less in my mind, even though I did not have full conscience about it.

Then I assisted this two sessions. And during the sessions we were guided through lots of "accessories". John showed several tasks, the task scheduler, the intelligence behind the auto update stats, and eventually even without noticing it, he effectively showed the audience how easy it is to work with OAT. Then Hyun-Ju, guided us through a real case scenario where SQLTRACE was key to solve a customer issue. Again, OAT was not the main focus, but the ease of usage and how we can take advantage of SQLTRACE in OAT SQL Explorer again surprised me.

Then a real life scenario came... Today, while working on a customer, I was asked to help the DBA team to understand a big memory consumption from some sessions in a development instance. The developer team really didn't noticed anything strange, since the engine was doing what was expected. But the DBAs noticed some sessions occasionally grabbed around 8-10 times the maximum memory usually consumed by most of their sessions. The more or less strange thing was that the session allocated the memory but when we got to see that, the memory was mostly free (although still allocated to the session). So, no strange pool usage was evident. Since my job their is also to try to pass some knowledge, I showed them how to setup SQLTRACE for one specific user and we asked that user to run the job(s). After lunch we had everything explained in the SQLTRACE buffers. The onstat -g his could be used to get evidences, but I decided to give OAT a try. And there it was, in a graphical manner all the session steps. We noticed that they had a terrible amount of recursive procedures (actually proc_a calls proc_b and proc_b calls proc_a) inside a foreach loop. So a lot of stack was necessary to hold the context during execution and so the memory was allocated and then became free.

Could I have made this with other tools? Probably. Lots of onstats, scripts etc. Would it be so easy? Not even in my best dreams!

The true magic about OAT is not OAT itself. It's how OAT glues several new features and makes them usable. Think about some things we can do in OAT:
  1. Manage and use SQL history
  2. Manage all the engine programmable tasks
  3. Generate performance and usage reports
  4. Change the engine configuration
  5. Optimize storage
  6. Manage your cluster and replication
All these have something behind that you frequently see in the "new features" section of the release notes (using the same order as the previous list):

  1. SQLTRACE
  2. Database scheduler
  3. Automatic tasks and internal engine profiling
  4. SQL API
  5. Compression
  6. MACH 11
I could have made the list bigger. The point is that probably for the first time in Informix history we have a tool that matches the "features". This has always been one of the most criticized (what was probably fair) aspects of Informix. But since v11.10 and the beginning of OAT we see that OAT has been upgraded fixpack after fixpack to match the engine new functionalities. This shows it's not another tool that tries to keep critics away, but is in fact a fundamental piece of the engine. And it follows the engine "DNA": Simple to install, simple to use, reliable and light.

Is it perfect? Probably nothing is... I think one area or aspect could be improved. And here I'm just echoing a customer thoughts. OAT should be able to provide a view and working mode for enterprise wide environments. Meaning some of it's features should be aware of all the instances configured in a customer environment. Some simple examples:

  • A single alarm viewer page for all the instances (maybe "all belonging to one group")
  • The monitors could collect/centralize into a common repository
  • The monitors should have self conscience of the instances in a MACH-11 cluster
Some of these points and others I don't mention here could be provided by:
  • Replicate each instance captured data to a common repository (either by ER or simple tasks)
  • Create a plugin for showing data in that centralized repository
  • Change some of the monitors to INSERT also the server name and direct the data to the primary server (for read only secondaries) using for example the connection manager
So, this limitations can be solved by customers. But it would be nice to see some improvements in the future.
I'd like to end the article sending my compliments and appreciation to the OAT development team and leave here a few links to help you understand what's behind OAT:

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Ning Alternatives that Require Little to No Work?

I was hoping that Ning was going to come out with a inexpensive plan that would support the different Ning sites that I have a hand in.  They do have Ning Mini at $3/mo, but it only allows 150 members.  That’s not going to work for:

I’ve read a bit about alternatives, but each will require a bit of work.  Harold Jarche is trying to figure it out for the Work Literacy site.  I hope he comes up with a good answer and I can piggy back his efforts for the other two.

Suggestions?

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Performance Support in 2015

The Big Question for May is Learning Technology 2015 – it asks what we expect workplace learning technologies to look like in 2015.  I definitely want to include Performance Support as part of the discussion. 

In a post on my CTO Blog, I talked about Match Performance Support,the performance support that goes along with many matching solutions such as in eHarmony. A lot of people miss that we are being tasked to do so many different kinds of things and are doing them infrequently so we basically are not very good at it.  Examples in matching were:

  • People to Projects
  • People to Jobs
  • Students to Tutors

In each of these, it has the classic characteristics that point to Performance Support:

  • Infrequent 
  • Complex
  • Important to get right

I would claim that as knowledge work becomes more complex and we move towards being concept workers, we are being asked to act like experts even though we aren’t experts.  See Does Deliberative Practice Lead to Quick Proficiency?

I think we are reaching a time when we are going to see an explosion of Performance Support.  You will get help when you:

  • Try to find the right project, start the project, perform the project, complete the project
  • Hire someone
  • Sell a house
  • Improve customer satisfaction (data driven).

This is going to first take the form of hundreds of thousands of different little applications that each provide performance support for particular tasks.  We are already seeing this in terms of lots of startups aimed at particular elements of knowledge work.  But these will be getting better.

I also think there’s a really interesting opportunity to create an online Performance Support builder that could make it easy to build out simple performance support tools.  Crowd source creation of the tools.  There’s a nice business there.

Anyone want to fund that business?

Let’s check back in five years and see how I did?

Please add your predictions to the big question.

Other posts (via eLearning Learning) on Performance Support:

  1. Performance Support- eLearning Technology, August 26, 2008
  2. About Declarative and Procedural Knowledge and the Expert-Novice Divide- ID Reflections, October 17, 2009
  3. Are Web 2.0 tools designed to support learning?- IDiot, January 27, 2009
  4. Harvesting Learning’s Fruit: A Downstream Training Investment- Living in Learning, September 4, 2009
  5. Conceptualizing the Performance Ecosystem- Learnlets, April 9, 2009
  6. 10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work (part 1), June 15, 2009
  7. Whatever Happened to Performance Support? — Informal Learning Blog, December 29, 2008
  8. A Better Learning to Performance Model and Job Aid, August 22, 2008
  9. Not by performance support alone, August 2, 2009
  10. Organizing for Performance Effectiveness, June 1, 2009
  11. Performance Support Lab - PS Links, July 11, 2009
  12. The Future of the Training Department, October 21, 2009
  13. Integrating Learning and Work, June 16, 2009
  14. It’s the performance, or, what every manager should know about Bob Mager, March 8, 2010
  15. Performer Support and the Moment of Change, September 18, 2009
  16. 7 Informal Learning Services for the Training Function, April 2, 2009
  17. The Science Behind Learning: Cognitive Tips and How Tos for Corporate Training, February 28, 2010
  18. On-job support is critical, December 19, 2008
  19. Upgrading - A PERFECT time for Performance Support, February 16, 2010
  20. Life Support Can Be Expensive- aLearning, March 27, 2010
  21. Work Context: The New Classroom- Living in Learning, March 22, 2010
  22. 21st Century Learning Strategies- Spark Your Interest, April 15, 2010
  23. PDR Design Model Supports Shift to Learning Design in the Work Context- Living in Learning, August 23, 2009
  24. When it's just so obvious NOT to train it's painful to watch it happen- Performance Learning Productivity, June 12, 2009
  25. New skills for learning professionals- Informal Learning, July 1, 2009
  26. Beyond the course- Learnlets, December 1, 2008
  27. Transfer of Learning - Theories and Implications- Designed for Learning, October 31, 2009
  28. Checklist of Social Learning Strategies- Engaged Learning, January 12, 2010
  29. Deeper Instructional Design- In the Middle of the Curve, November 13, 2008
  30. Scope of Learning Responsibility- The Learning Circuits Blog, March 3, 2008
  31. Pointing to the Five Moments of Learning Need- Integrated Learnings, July 25, 2009
  32. Content Organization Cheat Sheet- The eLearning Coach, November 30, 2009
  33. How not to train- Good Practice, July 28, 2009
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Adobe Announces eLearning Suite 2 & Captivate 5


SAN JOSE, Calif. - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe eLearning Suite 2, a significant upgrade to its tightly integrated, end-to-end solution for easily creating, reviewing and maintaining eLearning content. The suite, now natively compatible with Mac OS in addition to Windows, enables eLearning professionals, educators and trainers to turn creative ideas into dynamic eLearning materials that engage learners with multimedia and interactivity. eLearning Suite 2 - anchored by the new Adobe Captivate 5 - includes Adobe Flash Professional CS5, Adobe Dreamweaver CS5, Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended, Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, Adobe Presenter 7 and Adobe Soundbooth CS5.

"Today's educational and professional learning departments are under enormous pressure to deliver impactful content quickly and efficiently," said Naresh Gupta, senior vice president, Print and Publishing at Adobe. "eLearning Suite 2 is a major leap forward in eLearning content creation. It addresses the challenge with its tightly integrated toolset that allows content creators to develop powerful media-rich eLearning experiences without the time and expense of programming."

Adobe eLearning Suite 2 enhances productivity with smarter aggregation capabilities included in Adobe Captivate 5, eLearning extensions for Dreamweaver and Flash, and new application round tripping workflows between authoring and asset creation tools. For example, a course designer can now insert Adobe Photoshop CS5 (PSD) files as smart objects into an Adobe Captivate project and update the images with one click should the original files change without having to resave and reinsert images. Similar workflows exist between the other eLearning Suite components including Adobe Captivate, Soundbooth and Flash.

"Timely, effective training on the use of our products is critical for us and our customers to meet compliance requirements," said Mary McGivern, Instructional Designer, Omnicell, a leading provider of comprehensive, technologically advanced automation that enables healthcare facilities to acquire, manage, dispense, and deliver medications and supplies more effectively. "The new user interface in Adobe Captivate 5 lets me work more efficiently and is now similar to other Adobe products. This will speed up my workflow and help me meet timelines more effectively."

Introducing Captivate 5

Adobe Captivate is the industry-leading, rapid authoring solution for developing demonstrations, application simulations and branching scenarios - without requiring programming expertise while not compromising quality. Version 5, which introduces the software to Mac OS, offers exciting new features that allow users to do more complex tasks faster such as enhanced importing and round tripping for Microsoft PowerPoint.

The new user interface - similar to the Dreamweaver CS5, Flash CS5 and Photoshop CS5 interfaces - lets users create and revise content faster and more easily than ever before by supporting multiple document editing and personalized workspaces. The Properties Inspector tool also boosts time-savings, as course authors can edit object properties in fewer steps. Additionally, eLearning professionals can leverage an expanded asset library and use customizable widgets to quickly create tables and design graphical buttons. Other major enhancements include support for rich animation effects, the ability to import videos in popular formats (AVI, MOV, FLV, MPEG) and synchronize video across multiple slides.

For more effective collaboration, Adobe Captivate 5 customers can upload, exchange and review content, as well as track and report learner scores by signing up for Adobe's online productivity software, Acrobat.com (available separately). Also, a new widget lets students and educators interact via Twitter, facilitating online Q&As and group discussion.

To ease the process of maintaining content, Adobe Captivate 5 introduces Object Style editing, which facilitates changes project-wide with just a few clicks, allowing content creators to easily define and modify the look and feel of buttons, text, images and other elements. eLearning designers can also create Master Slides with preset themes and styles for text, shapes and graphics. This accelerates authoring as contributors can focus on content rather than formatting details, and ensures that the look and feel of an organization's presentations are preserved. Once eLearning content is published, training and learning professionals can track and report key performance metrics via Acrobat.com or their own Web server.

Pricing and Availability

Adobe eLearning Suite 2 and Adobe Captivate 5 are expected to be available via Adobe Authorized Resellers and the Adobe Store at www.adobe.com/store in June. Customers can pre-order Adobe eLearning Suite 2 and Captivate 5 today. Estimated street price for the suite is US$1799; upgrade pricing starts at US$599. Estimated street price for Adobe Captivate 5 is US$799; upgrade pricing starts at US$299. Educational pricing is available for both products.

Both products are compatible with Mac OS X v10.5.7 or v10.6, Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (Service Pack 3 recommended), Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1 or Windows 7 (certified for 32-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7). The Mac OS version of eLearning Suite 2 does not contain Adobe Presenter.

Helpful Links

eLearning Suite 2 and Captivate 5 Customer Quote Sheet
eLearning Workflows in eLearning Suite 2
eLearning Suite 2 home page
What's new in eLearning Suite 2 (On-demand seminar)
Top new features in Captivate 5
Captivate 5 home page
What's new in Captivate 5 (On-demand seminar)

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information - anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

(c) 2010 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, eLearning Suite 2, Captivate, Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Acrobat and Soundbooth are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6275652&lang=en

Press/ Analyst Contacts
Adobe Systems Incorporated
Stefan Offermann, 408-536-4023
sofferma@adobe.com
or
A&R Edelman
Gina Pucci, 650-762-2897
gpucci@ar-edelman.com

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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Remote Printing from your BlackBerry with BreezyPrint

As I rely more and more on my BlackBerry Curve for the work that I do when I am not in my office I have found the need to be able to print my emails or attachments when they come in. When I heard about a new solution for printing on the BlackBerry I had to give it a try. BreezyPrint offers a unique and simple solution to printing from your BlackBerry to any printers that are connected to your computers. To get started you need to install the BreezyPrint application on your Windows based computer as well as the BreezyPrint application on your BlackBerry. After you have installed BreezyPrint to your computer you can select which printers you would like to give BrezzyPrint access to when printing from your BlackBerry. The set up was easy and intuitive. With the printer configured I turned to an email on my BlackBerry and pressed the Menu key to find the Print option. BreezyPrint will give you the option to print the body of the email or any attachments- select the option you want and then within seconds the list of installed printers pops up for you to choose. Since I configured my HP wireless printer I selected this as my option. BreezyPoint let me know that the attachment would be printed and within a minute my printer was printing the attachment. BreezyPrint sends your encrypted documents to the cloud where it gets processed and then gets sent back to your computer for printing the job.

I have found BreezyPoint a real time saver and great for remote printing documents that I receive on my BlackBerry. I often get emails from my students with attachments that need to be printed and with BreezyPrint I can direct them to print in my college office so that when I arrive I simply can pick them up. The remote printing option is a real time saver and one that has worked well for me. As long as you have the BreezyPrint software on your computer you can direct the print job to any of your configured printers that you have installed. Personal accounts start at $24.95 a year for access to the BreezyPrint service. So if you have a need for printing from your BlackBerry, BreezyPrint is a solid, reliable and easy to use solution. For more information go to BreezyPrint.
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