Experimenting with the Kindle 3

Once I saw that the Kindle 3 with WiFi was launched for $139 dollars I had to get my hands on it to test it out. Early reviews of the Kindle 3 were stellar praising Amazon for the redesign and the feature set in such a  small and lightweight package. Many of the reviewers praised the new high contrast E ink screen as well as the sleek design. At 8.5 ounces the Kindle 3 can hold its charge for a month's time and store over 3,500 ebooks. Since the first Kindle was released I was impressed with the fact that it had built in text to speech capabilities which I thought would be a great reading tool for some of the students that I work with. Early on Amazon was challenged by a union of  professional narrators who felt that having text to speech capabilities in some way interfered with its members livelihood. Amazon did settle and gave publishers the right to have the speech disabled if they so desired. When you download books from Amazon you can see if the speech is enabled or disabled for a specific book title.

The experience of buying the Kindle 3 off of the Amazon website was fast and pleasant and I was offered the opportunity to apply for an Amazon credit card that when approved gave gave me credit to purchase the Kindle case. When my Kindle 3 arrived in the mail it was already registered and the screen prompted me to turn it on how to get started. There was even a personal note from Jeff Bezo's about my purchase and how I could provide feedback to Amazon about the Kindle 3. I used the Kindle for a couple of days and then realized that the power switch was defective. I called Amazon's Customer Service on a Thursday evening and explained what happened and by Saturday afternoon FedEx dropped off a new one. That was impressive service to say the least. Once my new Kindle 3 was turned on  I synced it with the Whispernet service and all of my books were downloaded and I was ready to enjoy reading. It is hard to believe just how thin and light weight the Kindle 3 is when you are holding it. Based on my experience of using the Kindle 2, the Kindle 3 definitely refreshes the pages much faster than the second generatoin Kindle and the screen is much brighter. Having the freedom to change the size of the font and spacing of text is a great feature and one that I have come to rely on. Turning on the text to speech is easy to do and you have access to male and female voice. You can adjust the speed that the text is being read and the page will automatically advance when it is being read. The speech engine is adequate for the job but is by no means a high quality speech engine experience.

The Kindle 3 does have a jack to plug in a headset or ear buds and there is a volume control rocker switch which makes it easy to adjust the volume level. Pausing the text to speech is easy enough by pressing on the Space key. The Kindle 3 is easy and enjoyable to use and for the price it is unmatched in terms of features and functionality. I for one am very impressed with the Kindle 3 and have enjoyed the experience of using it to read ebooks. It certainly gives those of us who work in the field of assistive technology another option when we are looking for tools with text to speech capabilities.

Panther: Installing.... / Panther: Instalando....

This article is written in English and Portuguese
Este artigo está escrito em Português e Inglês

English version:

Let's start the series by the beginning. The Informix installation method has been changing with some frequency. Panther is not an exception, at least under the covers. From a user perspective it didn't change too much... A bit of history: Why does IBM change this? Many old timers miss the days where we simply unpacked an archive into the destination folder and then run a shell script (Unix/Linux) and that was it. Of course in Windows it was different. And there was no MacOS version... And it was different if you were using version 7.31 or 9+... And some platforms used cpio, others tar (I believe I've seen a cpio with a tar file inside), others RPM.
Ok... Enough. I think I've made IBM point clear... But there's more... You could not choose what to install, or what not to install. And there was no option to automatically create an instance (or when it appeared we could not control it's configuration).

So, the goals of the new installation process are to provide the same feeling across platforms and offer flexibility at the same time, by allowing to customize the installation, choose what to install with greater granularity and allow the user to create a working database instance.
The version 11.1 and 11.5 install method already provided most of this, but people complained about several things. Most noticeable the fact that it used Java for the installation process and it was sensitive to which JRE your system was using. Specially in Linux systems it didn't like the OpenJDK that many of them use. There was an option to use a JRE included in the installer, but some times it was hard to force it to use that one.

All this and some internal presentations I've seen made me curious to test the new installer and I must say I'm pleased with it. It has one problem that I believe is the price to pay for the advantages: The installer takes a large amount of temporary space (~1GB). If this looks too much stay tuned because you can workaround it. Note that this space will be freed at the end of a successful installation. If something goes wrong it will leave info there (so a few unsuccessful installations may lead to lack of space pretty quickly).
The temporary space will be used inside /tmp (Unix and Linux). If it has not enough space it will try the user (who is installing) home directory. Be aware, that if you're running with root this may be the root filesystem which many times doesn't have too much free space. In any case, if you define an environment variable called IATEMPDIR (point it to some directory with enough free space and correct permissions), it will use that location. This is the safest and easiest way to control where it will put the temporary files needed during the installation.

Let's check the installation process:

The software comes in an archived format (.tar, .zip, ...?). So first we need to unpack it into any directory - an install base directory - . After that we need to run one script to install any of the included components (server, client sdk, connect and JDBC driver). We can choose to install in three ways:

1. Graphic mode
   ./ids_install -i swing
   
2. Console mode
   ./ids_install -i console
   
3. Silent mode
   ./ids_install -i silent-f PATH_TO_OPTIONS_FILE

For graphic and console mode you can ask the installer to save your options into a file that can later be used for silent installations. And this brings me to an important note: The option to record the options file is -r and it takes an absolute pathname as argument. A relative pathname will not work, and will not raise an error. It just ignores it. So don't forget this. Apparently this is a limitation of the software used to create the installer. Working with absolute pathnames is not a big issue, but the fact that it doesn't warn you if you try to use a relative one can really be annoying.

For the interactive methods, either in GUI or character mode, you'll be asked a few questions:

1. You must accept the license
2. If you want a "typical" or "custom" installation
3. What components you want to install if you choose "custom"
4. The install location (it will default to $INFORMIXDIR if that is defined in the environment)
5. If you want to do role separation (and the respective groups if you say yes...)
6. If you want to create an instance, and if the answer is yes, a few more questions to configure it (space, number of CPUVPs, type of instance - OLTP or DSS -, number of expected clients and a few more)
   

Then it verifies the free space and proceeds. Easy and quick as usual....
If you choose to install in text mode (-i console), and you choose the custom installation you'll have to choose the components to install. In text mode, this is done after the install present you a list of all the parts you can choose. Note that this list may possibly not fit on your console screen. Be prepared to scroll back (so your terminal program must have some sort of buffer).
Each item and sub-item has a number. To select it (which will turn it on or off depending on current state), you just have to include it's number in a comma separated list of components. This is as convenient as possible in a character mode interface. When you're done choosing the components you just ask it to advance and that's it.

Another option to install the software is to use what we call silent installation (-i silent -f path_name). This is a good way to install the software in big shops. You just setup the options file (or create one during an installation), and then re-use it as many times as you want. With a simple command (./ids_install -i silent -f pathname) you will get a similar installation every time. No questions, no answers, no delays.
You can create a customized version of the option file just by changing three entries in the example file (assuming you want a customized install, with no instance creation and no role separation). The entries you need to change are:

1. LICENSE_ACCEPTED=FALSE
   This must be changed to LICENSE_ACCEPTED=TRUE (which implies you read and agreed with all the licensing terms)
2. #USER_INSTALL_DIR=/opt/ibm/informix/11.70
   This one should be uncommented and changed. It will the be install directory (INFORMIXDIR) for the product.
3. CHOSEN_FEATURE_LIST=IDS,IDS-SVR,IDS-EXT,IDS-EXT-JAVA,IDS-EXT-OPT,IDS-EXT-CNV,IDS-EXT-XML,IDS-DEMO,IDS-ER,IDS-LOAD,IDS-LOAD-ONL,IDS-LOAD-DBL,IDS-LOAD-HPL,IDS-BAR,IDS-BAR-CHK,IDS-BAR-ONBAR,IDS-BAR-ISM,IDS-BAR-TSM,IDS-ADM,IDS-ADM-PERF,IDS-ADM-MON,IDS-ADM-ADT,IDS-ADM-IMPEXP,SDK,SDK-CPP,SDK-CPP-DEMO,SDK-ESQL,SDK-ESQL-DEMO,SDK-ESQL-ACM,SDK-LMI,SDK-ODBC,SDK-ODBC-DEMO,JDBC,GLS,GLS-WEURAM,GLS-EEUR,GLS-CHN,GLS-JPN,GLS-KOR,GLS-OTH
   Ok... I bet you loved this one... Each name separated by commas identifies a component that you can choose not to install. If you want to leave out one of them just remove it from the list. Some of them are easy to understand, but others not so. That's why it's easier to select them during an interactive installation (character or GUI) and save the preferences in a file by using the -r option.
   

There is one more way to install it, that is not evident from the documentation (although it is documented). If you've been working with Informix for some years you may remind that we used to be able to "install" the software as user informix and after that run a script as root (Unix and Linux). In some situations, where the use of root permissions is very strict you may want to use this method. Personally it's my favorite when I do not have root. This method is documented as a way to "extract" the files. The idea is that you can extract the files into a directory that is similar to the final INFORMIXDIR setup, with the exception that the ownership of the files and the file permissions is not set. It includes a script called RUNasroot.installserver that should be run by root (as the name suggests). This script will do all the necessary chown/chmod commands to correct the file permissions and ownerships. You can copy this full directory (or an archive of it) into other machines and run the mentioned script to complete the installation.
This is called the legacy installation and you can do it by running the command:

./ids_install -i swing|console -DLEGACY=TRUE

If you use this, please don't forget to run the RUNasroot.installserver script after. If you don't, the installation directory will not be a usable INFORMIXDIR. It should be highlighted that after the initial unpack of the files into a directory, you won't require any more temporary space for installation.

So, in short:

• Everything is installed with the command
  ids_install
• Can do a console (-i console), a graphical (-i swing) or a silent (-i silent) install
• Can save a preferences file during a console or graphical install using -r option (full pathname). Can then re-use that file in silent installations with the -f option (full or relative pathname)
• The install temporary directory is /tmp or the user home directory, but can (should?) be overridden by defining the variable IATEMPDIR (needs around 1GB)
• You can uncompress the files or install with a non-root user using the option -DLEGACY=TRUE
  After that you'll need to run the script RUNasroot.installserver (as root) to complete the installation (this step is documented, but the installer will not remind you about it...)

I had no issues with the installer and up to now, all the problems I've heard about were all related to installations in non-supported platforms. In many of these cases if the install would work, the product would fail...

I hope this time people will be happy with the install process. There are several options depending on your needs. It's easy for Informix newcomers, and old timers can run with -DLEGACY=TRUE.

If you need to sort all this, we can establish a sort of installation matrix trying to match installation processes with environment conditions:

• Silent install (-i silent)
  If you have a large number of machines and you want to install it the same way in every machine. Needs root privileges, but can easily be done by system administrators, as long as you provide them the options file
• Console install (-i console)
  If you don't have a graphical environment or simply prefer character mode interfaces
  Can be used by root or by informix. If run as informix needs that root runs RUNasroot.installserver script
• Gui install (-i swing)
  If you're new to Informix this is the ideal way. Again, can be used by informix or root.
• -DLEGACY=TRUE
  This option must be used in console or GUI installations if you're not running as root. You can use it to install the software (requiring RUNasroot.installserver) or simply to create an image of INFORMIXDIR, that can then be copied (simple OS copy) into other systems where you would then just need to run the script RUNasroot.installserver

This article does not cover the installation of other products included in version 11.70 of Informix like Optim Development Studio ou IBM Mashup Center. Hopefully I'll cover these in following articles.


Versão Portuguesa:

Vamos começar esta série de artigos pelo princíipio. O método de instalação do Informix tem mudado com alguma frequência. O Panther não é excepção, pelo menos internamente. Da perspectiva do utilizador não mudou assim tanto... Um pouco de história: Porque é que a IBM muda isto? Muitos dos utilizadores antigos certamente têm saudades dos dias em que simplesmente descompactavamos um arquivo para o directório de destino e depois corríamos um script SHELL (Unix/Linux) e já estava. Claro que no Windows era diferente. E não existia versão para MacOS... E era diferente conforme fosse versão 7.3x ou 9.x... E algumas plataformas usavam cpio, outras tar (creio que cheguei a ver um cpio com um tar lá dentro), outras RPM.
Ok.... Chega. Creio que já tornei a justificação da IBM suficientemente clara... Mas há mais... Não podíamos escolher o que instalar, ou o que não instalar. E não havia opção para criar uma instância automaticamente (ou quando apareceu, não tinhamos controlo sobre a sua configuração).

Portanto, em resumo, os objectivos do novo processo de instalação são fornecer a mesma sensação entre plataformas e oferecer flexibilidade ao mesmo tempo, permitindo que a instalação seja adaptada, escolher o que instalar com maior granularidade e permitir a criação de uma instância funcional de base de dados.
O programa de instalação da versão 11.1 e 11.5 já permitia a maior parte disto, mas os clientes queixavam-se de várias coisas. A mais frequente é que usava Java para o processo e era muito sensível ao JRE que o sistema estava a usar. Especialmente em sistemas Linux, não gostava do OpenJDK que muitos deles usam. Existia uma opção para usar o JRE inscluído no programa de instalação, mas algumas vezes era difícil forçar a sua utilização.

Tudo isto e algumas apresentações internas a que assisti deixaram-me curioso para testar o novo instalador e devo dizer que estou bastante satisfeito com ele. Tem um problema que acredito ser o preço a pagar pelas vantagens: O instalador consome um espaço temporário relativamente grande (~1GB). Se isto lhe parecer demasiado continue atento pois é possível contormar a questão. Note que este espaço será libertado no final de uma instalação bem sucedida. Se alguma coisa correr mal ele vai deixar informação lá (portanto uma sequência de instalações mal sucedidas podem levar a falta de espaço bastante rapidamente).
O espaço temporário será usado em /tmp (Unix e Linux). Se esta localização não tiver espaço suficiente tentará a home directory do utilizador que está a efectuar a instalação. Atenção que se estiver a fazer a instalação como root isto pode ser o root filesystem que muitas vezes não terá muito espaço disponível. Em qualquer caso, se definir uma variável de ambiente chamada IATEMPDIR (apontar para um directório com espaço livre suficiente e com permissões adequadas), o instalador usará essa localização. Esta é a forma mais segura e fácil de controlar onde é que são colocados os ficheiros temporários necessários durante a instalação.

Vejamos o processo de instalação:

O software vem num formato de arquivo (.tar, .zip, ...?). Por isso, primeiro temos de o descompactar para um qualquer directório - directório base de instalação -. Depois é necessário correr um script para instalar qualquer dos componentes incluídos (servidor, client sdk, connect e driver JDBC). Podemos escolher três formas de instalação:

1. Modo gráfico
   ./ids_install -i swing
   
2. Modo de consola
   ./ids_install -i console
   
3. Modo silencioso
   ./ids_install -i silent-f PATH_TO_OPTIONS_FILE

Para os modos gráfico e de consola podemos pedir ao instalador que grave as nossas opções para um ficheiro que pode depois ser usado para efectuar instalações em modo silencioso. E isto requer uma chamada de atenção muito importante: A opção que permite gravar as opções em ficheiro é a opção -r e requer como argumento um caminho absoluto para um ficheiro. Um caminho relativo não funcionará, e não gera nenhum erro. Apenas ignora a opção. Não se esqueça disto. Aparentemente isto é uma limitação no produto com o qual foi construido o instalador. Trabalhar com caminhos de ficheiro absolutos não será um grande problema, mas o facto de não ser gerado nenhum erro caso se use um caminho relativo pode ser realmente irritante.

Para os métodos interactivos, seja modo gráfico ou em consola, ser-lhe-ão feitas algumas perguntas:

1. Terá de aceitar a licença
2. Se quer uma instalação "típica" ou "personalizada"
3. Quais os componentes que quer instalar se escolheu "personalizada"
4. O directório de instalação (usará o que está na variável INFORMIXDIR se estiver definida)
5. Se quer configurar separação de funções (e caso queira, quais os respectivos grupos...)
6. Se quer criar uma instância, e caso a resposta seja sim mais umas questões para a configurar (espaço, número de CPUVPs, tipo de instância - OLTP ou DSS -, número esperado de clientes e mais alguns)
   

Depois verifica o espaço livre e prossegue. Fácil e rápido como habitualmente...
Se escolher o modo de consola (-i console), e escolher a instalação "personalizada", terá de escolher quais os componentes a instalar. Em modo de texto, isto é feito após o instalador apresentar uma lista de todos os elementos que pode escolher. Note que esta lista poderá não caber no écran. Esteja preparado para ter de fazer um pouco de scroll back (portanto o seu programa de terminal deve ter alguma capacidade de guardar as últimas linhas).
Cada item e sub-item tem um número. Para o seleccionar (o que irá activar ou desactivar dependendo do estado actual), terá de incluir o seu número numa lista de números separada por vírgulas.
Isto é tão conveniente quanto possível num interface em modo de caracter. Quando tiver concluído a seleccção basta pedir-lhe que avance e pronto.

Outra opção para instalar o software é o modo silencioso (-i silent -f ficheiro). Esta forma de instalação é adequada a ambientes com muitas máquinas. Basta preparar o ficheiro de opções (ou criá-lo durante uma instalação), e depois re-utilizá-lo as vezes que se queira. Com um comando simples (./ids_install -i silent -f ficheiro) obter-se-á uma instalação semelhante em cada execução. Sem questões, sem respostas, sem demoras.
Pode criar-se uma versão personalizada do ficheiro de opções mudando três opções no ficheiro fornecido como exemplo (assumindo que se quer uma instalação personalizada, sem criação de instância e sem separação de funções). As entradas que é necessário modificar são:

1. LICENSE_ACCEPTED=FALSE
   Isto tem de ser modificado para LICENSE_ACCEPTED=TRUE (o que pressupõe que leu e concordou com os termos da licença)
2. #USER_INSTALL_DIR=/opt/ibm/informix/11.70
   Este deve der descomentado e modficado. Será o directório de instalação (INFORMIXDIR) para o produto
3. CHOSEN_FEATURE_LIST=IDS,IDS-SVR,IDS-EXT,IDS-EXT-JAVA,IDS-EXT-OPT,IDS-EXT-CNV,IDS-EXT-XML,IDS-DEMO,IDS-ER,IDS-LOAD,IDS-LOAD-ONL,IDS-LOAD-DBL,IDS-LOAD-HPL,IDS-BAR,IDS-BAR-CHK,IDS-BAR-ONBAR,IDS-BAR-ISM,IDS-BAR-TSM,IDS-ADM,IDS-ADM-PERF,IDS-ADM-MON,IDS-ADM-ADT,IDS-ADM-IMPEXP,SDK,SDK-CPP,SDK-CPP-DEMO,SDK-ESQL,SDK-ESQL-DEMO,SDK-ESQL-ACM,SDK-LMI,SDK-ODBC,SDK-ODBC-DEMO,JDBC,GLS,GLS-WEURAM,GLS-EEUR,GLS-CHN,GLS-JPN,GLS-KOR,GLS-OTH
   Ok... Calculo que tenha adorado esta... Cada nome separado por vírgulas identifica um componente que pode ser escolhido para instalar. Se não quiser instalar um deles basta removê-lo desta lista. Alguns são fáceis de decifrar mas outros nem tanto. É por isso que é mais fácil seleccioná-los durante uma instalação interactiva (modo caracter ou gráfico) e gravar as escolhas num ficheiro com a opção -r
   
   

Existe ainda outra forma de instalação que pode não ser evidente na documentação (apesar de estar lá referida). Se tem trabalhado com Informix há alguns anos, talvez se recorde que era habitual ou possível instalar o software com o utilizador informix e depois correr um script como root (Unix e Linux). Em alguns ambientes, onde o uso de permissões de root é muito restrito, talvez queira utilizar este método. Pessoalmente é o meu favorito quando não tenho acesso a root. Este método está documentado como uma forma de "extrair" os ficheiros. A ideia é que possa extrair os ficheiros para um directório que será semelhante ao INFORMIDIR final, com a excepção que as permissões e titularidade dos ficheiros não está devidamente estabelecida. Esses ficheiros incluém um script chamado RUNasroot.installserver que terá de ser executado como root (tal como o nome indica). Este script fará todos os chown/chmod necessários para corrigir a titularidade e permsissões dos ficheiros. Pode copiar-se este directório completo (ou um arquivo do mesmo) para outras máquinas e correr o script mencionado para completar a instalação.
Isto é a chamada instalação legacy e pode ser feita executando o comando:

./ids_install -i swing|console -DLEGACY=TRUE

Se usar este método não se esqueça de correr o script RUNasroot.installserver. Se não o fizer o directório de instalação não será um INFORMIXDIR válido. Saliente-se que após a colocação inicial dos ficheiros num directório não será mais necessário espaço temporário para a instalação.


Fazendo um resumo:

• Tudo é instalado com o comando:
  ids_install
• Pode fazer-se uma instalação em consola (-i console), em modo gráfico (-i swing) ou em modo silencioso (-i silent)
• Pode gravar-se um ficheiro de opções durante a instalação em consola ou modo gráfico usando a opção -r (caminho absoluto). Pode depois re-utilizar-se o ficheiro em instalações silenciosas com a opção -f (caminho absoluto ou relativo)
• O directório de instalação é /tmp ou a directoria base do utilizador que instala mas pode (deve-se?) sobrepor definindo a variável IATEMPDIR (precisa de cerca de 1GB)
• Pode descompactar-se os ficheiros ou instalar com um utilizador não root usando a opção
  -DLEGACY=TRUE
  Depois disto é necessário correr o script RUNasroot.installserver com o utilizador root para completar a instalação (este passo está documentado, mas o instalador não o irá lembrar disso...)

Não tive problemas com o instalador e até agora, todos os problemas que vi referenciados resultaram de tentativas de instalação em plataformas não suportadas. Nestes casos, mesmo que o instalador funcionasse o mais provável era existirem problemas com o produto propriamente dito.

Espero que desta vez as pessoas fiquem satisfeitas com o processo de instalação. Existem várias opções dependendo das suas necessidades. É fácil para recém chegados ao Informix e os utilizadores mais experientes podem sempre usar a opção -DLEGACY=TRUE.

Se precisar de ordenar ideias, podemos estabelecer uma espécie de matriz entre os métodos de instalação e as condições do ambiente:

• Modo silencioso (-i silent)
  Se tiver um grande número de máquinas e quiser instalar sempre da mesma forma em todas. Requer privilégios de root, mas pode facilmente ser executada pelos administradores de sistema desde que lhes forneça o ficheiro de opções
• Modo de consola (-i console)
  Se não tiver um ambiente gráfico disponível ou simplesmente se preferir um ambiente de texto
  Pode ser utilizado por root ou por informix. Se executar como informix necessita que o root corra o RUNasroot.installserver
• Modo gráfico (-i swing)
  Se é novo no Informix esta é a forma ideal. Tal como o anterior pode ser usado como informix ou como root.
• -DLEGACY=TRUE
  Esta opção pode ser usada em conjunto com os modos gráfico e de consola se não estiver a correr como root.
  Pode usar este formato para instalar o software (requer execução do RUNasroot.installserver) ou simplesmente para criar uma imagem do INFORMIXDIR, que poderá depois ser copiada (cópia simples de SO) para outrous sistemas onde apenas seria necessário executar o RUNasroot.installserver
  

Este artigo não cobre a instalação de outros produtos fornecidos com a versão 11.70 do Informix como sejam o Optim Development Studio ou o IBM Mashup Center. Espero poder falar disto em artigos seguintes.

From Livescribe Desktop to Evernote

Today I learned of an exciting synergy between Livescribe Desktop Software and Evernote. Ever since I got my iPad I find that I  been using Evernote more and more to store my notes and ideas. Working with the iPad makes you think about your workflow and having access to your notes and clipping wherever you may go. That is why I was so excited to learn about the ability of sending your Livescribe notes to Evernote from the Livescribe Desktop Software. So today I upgraded by Livescribe Desktop Software and gave it a try. The software worked as planned! Within minutes I was able to share my Livescribe notes and view them in my Evernote account. The the integration is seamless and easy to use. So give it a try and let me know what you think.

Panther: The beginning / Panther: O início

This article is written in English and Portuguese
Este artigo está escrito em Ingês e Português

English version:

Around 2007, after IBM launched the version 11.10 (Cheetah), I wrote a series of articles focusing on several new features. I called it "Chetah spot by spot: ...". I wanted to do the same for Panther, but I have a big problem: What is a Panther? Does it have spots?! Kate Tomchik (IIUG board member), asked about this in Jerry Keesee's (Informix development director) Facebook profile... For me a Panther is a black variant of several animals (leopard, jaguar and possibly a mountain lion or cougar). So, although it may have spots, they're not very visible... So, in short, I don't have a nice title for these articles... it's a shame, but I think we can all live with that :)
So, I took a look at the Panther release notes and looked at the new features... Too many! Too good. Since this is the first article, I'll try to group them (giving some highlights) following my personal view:

• Embeddability
  This version is the best Informix version ever in terms of ability to embed it into some controlled environment. Some features that contribute to this are: better install, several capabilities for cloning and deploying instances, more autonomic features, improved ability to control it in a programmable way (alarm codes, oninit return codes), storage provisioning etc.
  
• Grid
  Imagine you have a large number of instances. And you need to run something in all of them (or a subset). How do you do it? With scripts.... Yes... I've done it... But now you can do it with "grid functionality". You just define the grid nodes (add/delete) and then you connect to the grid, run you SQL, and voilá.... This requires a lot more explanation, but it's that simple.
  
• Performance
  As always, a new version is expected to run faster than it's predecessors. This can be done with code improvements and new features. Panther has both. To list a few, it has several Informix XPS features that were ported into Dynamic Server like XPS api (faster tables and indexes access times), Index Skip Scan, Multi Index Scan, improved light scans, push down hash joins (or Star joins), and a few others like Forest of Trees Indexes (FOT), DLL preload, improved name service connection time (NS_CACHE) etc.
  
• Warehousing
  Well... I named a few in the performance group. But there are others, like fragment level statistics, more fragmentation schemes (interval, list), online fragment attach/detach for interval fragmentation scheme
  
• Security
  This is one of my favorites... Users don't need to be recognized by the OS anymore, trusted context was ported from DB2 (change the authentication inside an already established session - perfect for application servers, and hopefully in the future for 4GL web services), and finally the ability to audit only specific tables (when using the RDRW, INRW, DLRW and UPRW mnemonics). This last one was the Achilles' heel of the Informix auditing facility
• Others
  It's weird to group such nice features into an "others" category, but I'll do it anyway for simplification: End of extent limit, online table reorg, WebSphere MQ datablade enhancements, OAT enhancements (too match all the relevant new features), DDL support for "CREATE/DROP ... IF [NOT] EXISTS", DDL on secondary nodes, Enterprise Replication without primary key, connection manager improvements, SPL debugging, Optim Development Studio and IBM Mashup Center 2.0 included, etc.

The next article will focus on the installation process. After that I'll proceed with several other features. Don't expect a specific order. I thought about going for the more important features first, but then I realized that there are excellent features in totally different areas. What can be fundamental to some people may as well be nearly useless to others... So, the order will not reflect the feature importance.


Versão Portuguesa:

Em 2007, após a IBM ter lançado a versão 11.10 (Cheetah), eu escrevi uma série de artigos que focavam várias funcionalidades novas. Na altura, só em Inglês, chamei-lhes "Chetah spot by spot: ..." que se poderiam traduzir por "Cheetah, mancha por mancha". Queria fazer algo semelhante para a nova versão com o nome de código "Panther" ou pantera mas deparei-me com um problema: O que é uma pantera? Tem manchas? A Kate Tomchik, perguntou sobre isto no profile do Jerry Keesee (director de desenvolvimento do Informix) no Facebook... Para mim, uma pantera é uma variante negra de vários animais (leopardo, jaguar e possivelmente leão da montanha ou puma). Portanto, embora possa ter manchas serão pouco visíveis.... Em resumo, não tenho um título sonante para estes artigos... é uma pena, mas penso que conseguimos viver sem isso :)

Continuando, dei uma vista de olhos nas release notes do Panther à procura das novas funcionalidades... Muitas e muito boas. Sendo este o primeiro artigo, vou tentar agrupá-las (salientando algumas) seguindo a minha visão pessoal:

• Embeddability
  Esta é a melhor versão Informix de sempre em termos de capacidade de embeber a base de dados num ambiente controlado. Algumas funcionalidades contribuem para isto: Melhor instalação, várias formas de clonar e "implantar" instâncias, mais funcionalidades autonomicas, melhoria nas possibilidades de controlar as instâncias de forma programática (códigos de alarme, códigos de retorno do oninit), aprovisionamento de espaço etc.
  
• Grid
  Imagine que tem um grande número de instâncias. E que necessita executar algo em todas elas (ou numa parte). Como é que o faz? Com scripts... sim... já o fiz... Mas agora pode fazê-lo com a funcionalidade "grid". Só tem de definir os nós do grid (adicionar/remover) e depois conectar-se à grid correr o SQL e voilá.... Isto requer muito mais explicações, mas é assim tão simples...
• Desempenho
  Como sempre, espera-se que uma nova versão seja mais rápida que as anteriores. Isto pode ser feito com melhorias no código ou novas funcionalidades. O Panther tem ambas. Só para listar algumas, tem várias funcionalidades que foram portadas do Informix XPS para o Dynamic Server como a XPS api (melhores tempos de acesso a tabelas e indíces), Index Skip Scan, Multi Index Scan, melhoria nos light scans, push down hash joins (ou Star Joins) e mais algumas como indíces Forest Of Trees (FOT), pré-carregamento de DLLs, melhores tempos do serviço de nomes (NS_CACHE) etc.
  
• Warehousing
  Bom.... Já mencionei algumas no grupo de desempenho. Mas existem outras, como estatisticas ao nível dos fragmentos (ou partições), mais formas de framentação/particionamento (intervalo, lista), attach/detach de fragmentos online para tabelas particionadas por intervalo
  
• Segurança
  Este é um dos meus favoritos.... Os utilizadores já não necessitam de ser reconhecidos pelo sistema operativo (note-se que a autenticação já podia ser feita externamente, mas os utilizadores tinham de ter a sua identidade - uid, home dir, group etc. - conhecido pelo SO), trusted context foi portado do DB2 (mudar a autenticação dentro de uma conexão já estabelecida - perfeito para servidores aplicacionais, e esperemos no futuro para os web services em 4GL), e finalmente a possibilidade de auditar tabelas específicas (quando se quer usar as menemónicas RDRW, INRW, DLRW e UPRW). Esta última era o calcanhar de Aquiles do sistema de auditing do Informix
• Outros
  É estranho agrupar estas funcionalidades tão interessantes numa categoria "Outros" mas faço-o para simplificar: Fim do limite de extents, reorganização (junção de extents) de tabelas online, melhorias no datablade WebSphere MQ, melhorias no Open Admin Tool (para acompanhar as novas funcionalidades do motor), suporte para a sintaxe "CREATE/DROP ... IF [NOT] EXISTS", DDL nos nós secundários, Enterprise Replication sem chave primária, melhorias no connection manager, depuramento de stored procedures SPL, Optim Development Studio e IBM Mashup Center 2.0 incluído etc.
  
  

O próximo artigo focará o processo de instalação. Depois prosseguirei com várias outras funcionalidades. Não espere uma ordem específica. Pensei em abordar primeiro as funcionalidades mais importantes, mas depois tomei consciência que há excelentes novidades em áreas completamente distintas. O que pode ser fundamental para um cliente pode ser praticamente inútil para outro. Assim a ordem não reflectirá a importância das funcionalidades

Open Source eLearning Tools

I was just asked about trends in open source for eLearning and particularly open source eLearning tools.  Probably one of the better sources on this is Jane Hart’s Instructional Tools Directory.  You can find a long list of tools broken into authoring tools, games/simulations, quiz/test tools, social media, delivery platforms, tracking and whether they support mobile.  In addition, she indicates if they are free or cost money – which is not quite the same thing as open source.

Beyond that, probably the best thing to do is to use eLearning Learning to go through it’s open source eLearning and open source eLearning Tools.  Here’s some of what I pulled out.  Of course, I’d recommend skimming through eLearning Learning to find the latest and greatest.

Open Source LMS

1. Other Open Source LMS Solutions- eLearning 24-7, April 14, 2010
2. Open Source life, LMSs beyond Moodle- Learning Rocks, December 18, 2008
3. Open Source LMS- eLearning Technology, December 10, 2009
4. The Real Cost of a Free (Open Source) LMS!- Upside Learning Blog, April 29, 2010
5. The Corporate Moodle: A Tipping Point?- Learning Visions, June 26, 2009
6. Concerning Open Source, LMSs and SCORM: Correcting Some Common Misconceptions- The E-Learning Curve, October 19, 2009
7. Open Source LMS Comparison- The Learned Man, April 27, 2007
8. Open Source vs Commercial LMS- Learning Next, April 18, 2007
9. Sakai: Open Source … Open Minds by Larissa Biggers- Learning Solutions Magazine, December 13, 2009
10. SharePoint and the LMS - Time to Converge?- Learning on the Leading Edge, February 9, 2009
11. Harold Jarche » Open Source LMS- Learning and Working on the Web, June 25, 2006
12. Selecting an Open-Source Online Course Development and Delivery Platform- Tony Karrer delicious links, February 16, 2010
13. Have LMSs Jumped The Shark?- eLearning Weekly, March 20, 2009
14. OLAT: Swiss Quality Open Source LMS by Joël Fisler- Learning Solutions Magazine, February 24, 2010
15. The Right Way To Go About Open Source LMS- Upside Learning Blog, October 23, 2009
16. Moodle Mayhem- eLearning 24-7, April 14, 2010
17. Discovery Through eLearning: Moodle Goes Corporate: Leveraging Open Source - Michelle Moore- Discovery Through eLearning, April 16, 2008
18. Response to Donald Clark: Moodle: e-learning’s Frankenstein- Learning Conversations, March 8, 2010
19. More Than One LMS Option- aLearning, February 14, 2010
20. The Revolution is Coming: Consumer Tablets and E-Learning- eLearning 24-7, June 25, 2010
21. More LMS Options for Associations on a Budget- aLearning, April 25, 2010
22. Moodle Pros and Cons Update- eLearning Blender, June 1, 2010
23. Open source e-learning development tools 22: Xerte Rapid E-Learning Suite- The E-Learning Curve, December 17, 2009
24. LMS & LCMS Directory- eLearning 24-7, July 8, 2010
25. How Big is Moodle?- MinuteBio, June 12, 2009

Moodle

1. Open Source life, LMSs beyond Moodle- Learning Rocks, December 18, 2008  
2. Other Open Source LMS Solutions- eLearning 24-7, April 14, 2010
3. The Corporate Moodle: A Tipping Point?- Learning Visions, June 26, 2009
4. Yes, mobile moodle for iPhone is eminent, we will release open source code soon- Ignatia Webs, February 25, 2010

Open Source Authoring and Open Source eLearning Development

1. Course Content Authoring Tools – Open Source (Free)- eLearning 24-7, June 7, 2010
2. CCK08 Free and reliable open source software for YOU and all of us- Ignatia Webs, September 22, 2008
3. Open Source E-Learning Development 5: Media Capture- The E-Learning Curve, October 14, 2009
4. e-Learning Authoring Tools Crash Course -- Follow Up- Learning Visions, November 4, 2009
5. Open Source E-Learning Development 7: Freemind- The E-Learning Curve, October 26, 2009
6. e-Learning Authoring Tools Crash Course -- Follow Up- Learning Visions, November 4, 2009
7. Free Quiz and Test Maker Tools Plus My Top 3- eLearning 24-7, September 14, 2010
8. Open Source E-Learning Development 20: Reusable E-Learning Object Authoring & Delivery Suite- The E-Learning Curve, December 10, 2009
9. RapideL-i- Clive on Learning, December 28, 2007
10. Free-to-use e-learning development 15: Wink Screen Capture Tool- The E-Learning Curve, November 23, 2009
11. Rapid Content Authoring Tools: Market, Mayhem and Reality- eLearning 24-7, August 19, 2010
12. Tim Wang's eLearning Blog - Great Open Source eLearning Project Links- Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development, May 2, 2007
13. Selecting an Open-Source Online Course Development and Delivery Platform, February 16, 2010
14. Flash development with open source tools- The Knowledge Supply Chain, September 14, 2009
15. Celtx a free and open source software for developing eLearning storyboards- Ignatia Webs, June 9, 2008
16. Xerte - Free eLearning Development Tool- Learning Journeys, October 28, 2008

Audacity – open source audio editing

1. CCK08 Free and reliable open source software for YOU and all of us- Ignatia Webs, September 22, 2008
2. Course Content Authoring Tools – Open Source (Free)- eLearning 24-7, June 7, 2010
3. A few of my favorite things- Learning Next, June 14, 2008
4. Where are open source learning applications?- eLearning Technology, July 28, 2006

Scuttle – an open source social bookmarking tool

1. Corporate Social Bookmarking Tools- eLearning Technology, May 21, 2008
2. Web 2.0 Applications in Learning- eLearning Technology, March 3, 2008
3. Ten tips for choosing & using social software- Learning Conversations, February 23, 2009
4. Enterprise 2.0- eLearning Weekly, August 1, 2009 

MediaWiki and Twiki – Open Source Wikis

1. Test LMS- eLearning Technology, September 10, 2008
2. 10 Social Media Tools For Learning- The eLearning Coach, November 16, 2009
3. Web 2.0 Applications in Learning- eLearning Technology, March 3, 2008 
4. Have LMSs Jumped The Shark?- eLearning Weekly, March 20, 2009
5. 100+ More Wiki Tools and Resources, January 7, 2009

Joomla and Drupal – Open Source CMS

1. Other Open Source LMS Solutions- eLearning 24-7, April 14, 2010
2. Open Source E-Learning Development 10: Joomla! CMS- The E-Learning Curve, November 3, 2009
3. Open Source E-Learning Development 9: Drupal CMS- The E-Learning Curve, November 2, 2009
4. The Corporate Moodle: A Tipping Point?- Learning Visions, June 26, 2009

Other Top Posts Around Open Source

1. dimdim - World’s FREE Virtual Classroom (Open Source)!- ZaidLearn, December 26, 2007
2. Open Source Business Model- eLearning Technology, March 5, 2007
3. Open Source Web Conferencing Solutions – FREE- eLearning 24-7, July 27, 2010
4. A few of my favorite things- Learning Next, June 14, 2008
5. Open source instructional design- Clive on Learning, September 8, 2010
6. Open Source E-Learning Development 7: Freemind- The E-Learning Curve, October 26, 2009
7. To open source or not?- Learning Conversations, December 30, 2008
8. Why you should embrace open source- Informal Learning, February 14, 2009
9. Free, High Quality, Reusable Content- Daretoshare, August 22, 2009

Panther is out / Panther está disponível

This article is written in English and Portuguese
Este artigo está escrito em Inglês e Português

English version:

The new release of Informix (v11.70) is out and available on Passport Advantage. The announcement letter is here:

http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&appname=iSource&supplier=877&letternum=ENUSZP10-0472

Later I'll focus on the new features. For now you can read the announcement letter and check it on PA.

Versão Portuguesa:

A nova versão do Informix (v11.70) foi anunciada e está disponível no Passport Advantage. O anúncio oficial está aqui:

http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&appname=iSource&supplier=877&letternum=ENUSZP10-0472

Mais tarde irei abordar as novas funcionalidades. Por agora pode ler o anúncio e aceder ao produto no PA

Goals Accountability and Social Support for Big Impact

This month’s big question is Examples of Big Impact from Technology and I’ve taken it as an opportunity to go back and look at the elements of different projects that I’ve worked on over the years that have had a big impact.  In this post, I’m going to focus on a common model that has been part of several of the highest impact projects. 

At it’s core, the model is pretty simple:

• Guide through setting meaningful personal goals
• Teach how you can hold yourself accountable to those goals
• Help the user set up social support
• Teach the social supporters how they can help hold the personal accountable
• Send lots of reminders to the individual and the supporters

This approach has been used for loan officers, automotive sales, management development, retail store management, and in lots of other industries and jobs.  In fact, we’ve also used it as a means of some fairly generic goal setting processes. 

As a side note, I believe that there’s a REALLY great business to be created around this. 

Goal Setting and Making Plans

There’s a lot of content that already exists around the basics of goal setting, i.e., SMART goals:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

However, it’s far easier to teach someone about these than it is to help them create the goals themselves.

And if you are asked to create eLearning around goal setting, PLEASE DON’T GIVE THEM A BLANK TEXT ENTRY FIELD.  I’ve seen that in courses and in design specs many times, and it’s a HORRIBLE IDEA.  Yes, I’m yelling – it’s really that bad. 

Remember what it’s like when you set your own SMART goals.  It’s one thing when you provide a blank space to write your goals when you are in a classroom and there’s a teacher who can help you.  It’s quite something else when you are on a computer and you are likely not very good at this.  Actually, it’s rare to find people who really are good at setting SMART goals.  Setting SMART goals sounds so easy and takes real work.

I would claim that this is a perfect situation for Performance Support.

• Walk them through the process
• Focus the question
• Provide prompts or ideas that can spark specific goals
• Show lots of examples both of goals and of plans to attach the goals
• Give them criteria to evaluate the goal and plan – have them rework needed items

In my post Data Driven, we describe a use of this approach that helped retail store managers improve customer satisfaction.  Of course, improving customer satisfaction is a goal, but the system would drill down to specific issues such as knowledge of store layout.   We provide suggestions for particular interventions that have specific steps and particular associated goals.  In this case, the plan was as important as the goal.

Accountability, Follow-up and Social Support

Of course, what’s often much more important than setting goals and plans is having a game plan around accountability and follow-up.  Anyone who tries to lose weight, can tell you that it’s SO MUCH easier to talk about your goals and come up with specific plans than it is to follow-through on those plans. 

There is a ton of material on how you can be better at holding yourself accountable to goals.  I roughly boil this down to:

• Establish importance
• Take responsibility
• Track progress
• Overcome obstacles
• Have reward / punishment system in place
• Reminders

When you provide support for setting goals/plans, you need to be really careful to make sure that the person setting the goal actually believes in the importance of the goal and is taking responsibility for the goal/plan.  They can easily copy, paste and edit a goal/plan from one of the examples and have no real intent on implementing.  We always present why this is important and ask some questions around it.  One trick that we’ve used is to ask users to evaluate how likely they are to implement the plan.  If they don’t rate it really high, then go back to challenge the goal. 

Tracking progress can be implemented in a very complex way or in a very simple way.  I’ve worked on systems with both.  In some cases, have specific days on a schedule, checking off completed items, providing ratings to evaluate progress, etc. all make sense.  In other cases, having a very simple daily/weekly check in with a standard question or two can be effective.

When you do a check-in, there’s a great opportunity to provide support for overcoming obstacles.  I’ve see courses on goal setting that have lots of up-front content on overcoming obstacles (they also have blank boxes for inputting your goals).  The obvious place to put content around overcoming obstacles is when people run into obstacles.  For example, one model is that at each check-in, the user rates how well they’ve done on completing each goal.  If they rate themselves poorly, then the system can jump in and find out what the obstacles are that are preventing them from accomplishing the goal.  It can provide them some strategies.  It’s the learning opportunity that you look for.  And again, doing it as performance support makes a lot of sense.

I’ve not done this as much, but having in a way for people to setup rewards and punishments for accomplishing their plans and goals is a great idea.  I’ll treat myself to a massage if I do X is a great thing to have as part of the system.  Or an account that goes up and down.  For most of the systems that I’ve worked on, the assumption is that both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards are tied to accomplishing the goals.  For example, the games that teach associates about product location in stores are fun and it’s rewarding to see the employee growth and certainly as it improves customer satisfaction, the store manager gets greater compensation and opportunities.  For automotive sales associates, the rewards were prizes, trips, etc. 

And last, but certainly not least, definitely keep in mind the necessity of having lots of reminders.  Daily and weekly reminders are often really good and should have enough content to provide something of value.  Otherwise, it quickly becomes ignored.

Actually, all of this can become ignored unless we step it up one more notch …

Social Support

I don’t know quite what to call it when you enlist other people to help hold someone accountable for goals and plans.  In some context, you might call this a support network.  I’ve seen accountability partners.  I’m going to call it “Social Support” and the people doing it “Social Supporters.”  But if you know what I should call this please let me know.

The idea here is pretty simple and has been used in lots of tough behavior change situations: drugs, alcohol, weight loss, etc.  Enlist other people to help hold yourself accountable.

In corporate situations, the social supporters can be peers, colleagues or even your boss.  In the retail store manager example, district managers were a critical part of the system.  The retail store manager’s plan would be reviewed and approved by the district manager.  The district manager was responsible for checking in periodically and reviewing progress.  In other situations people have enlisted friends, family, etc. Most often they have some mutual interest in the outcome and willingness to accept responsibility to provide support.

Of course, just like most people are not very good at setting SMART goals and coming up with associated plans, most people (including district managers) are not very good at helping to hold people accountable to their goals / plans.

There’s a bit of training required to cover things like roles, alignment, how things work.  But the majority of the assistance for social supporters is best provided through performance support.  Send them periodic reminders that include specific performance suggestions based on the particular situation.  For example, “The person you are supporting just missed their check-in.  This might be a good time to jump remind them about the importance they’ve attached to the goal.  As an example – …”  In other words, here’s a template for a conversation (or email).

Big Impact

Certainly, it’s way easier to build some online training around all of this than to build a performance support solution that helps people set goals and plans, and setups up personal and social accountability.  So the question is whether it’s worth the effort.

Well in looking at the situations where I’ve been personally involved in big impact, really moving the needle on factors like sales, customer satisfaction, loyalty – this kind of approach was commonly used.  In several of these projects, we measured participants vs. non-participants and the impact was staggering.  Of course, there’s always lots of question of the specifics – did non-participants care less? – but my strong belief and I believe it’s backed up by my experience is that this kind of approach has a BIG IMPACT.

I would very much welcome thoughts around this.

 

More on this Topic

• EPSS and ePerformance
• E-Performance at Work: Self-Service Action and Development Planning
• Performance Support in 2015
• eFollow-Up
• Performance Support
• Performance Support