Viddler

I started uploading family movies at Google Video recently for my family to enjoy. One thing I hate about Google Video and YouTube is that there is no way to share video without the person watching the video to be bombarded by other video's and comments that are inappropriate for all eyes.

I was happy to discover Viddler today. I'm going to give it a try to see how well it works. Let me know if you've had any experience that would help me know if this is the online video panacea I've been searching for.

Disable the Windows Key

I have been using Parallels for some time now and one annoying thing I keep running into is that when I use cmd+tab or cmd+anything while Parallels is active, Windows thinks that I'm hitting their windows key and pops up my start menu.

Since I never use a hot key for the start menu, I started to look for a way to disable it. Sure enough, I found a way. I found this web site that shows you how to do it. Basically it's a registry hack. So I created a reg file that can be imported that does the trick. Create a file with a .reg extension. Then add the following lines:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,5B,E0,00,00,5C,E0,00,00,00,00

Save the file and then double-click it in Windows and, of course, reboot. I know this worked on Windows XP. I'm not sure if it will work on Vista.

New Look! New Feature!

I updated my blog today to show a new look and feel.  I also added a new feature that I love.  I started to use Google Reader as my RSS aggregator about 2 weeks ago.  I used to use iGoogle but I thought I would try a real reader for a while to see if I liked it.  The feature that I added to the blog is the Recent Articles of Interest.  This just shows articles from the "Shared" folder in Google Reader.  Very nice.

Worklight Puts Web 2.0 on Corporate Data

I stumbled upon a new product by Serendipity Technologies called Worklight.

Worklight is a secure and scalable server based software product that provides workers and consumers with 'Web 2.0-style' access to corporate data stored in enterprise information systems and applications... Worklight extracts information from enterprise applications and serves it in a secure and personalized fashion using a host of web 2.0 technologies, both inside and outside the firewall. Personnel are able to easily define their own application views, and then display them through tools like RSS aggregators, popular web based personalized homepages, or desktop gadgets.
(taken from the Worklight Product Sheet - registration is required to see the product sheet!)

The architecture is pretty simple and it's very close to my Event Based Reporting idea. Basically, you build a server product that aggregates snapshots of data from different data sources and applications. Then you feed those snapshots via RSS feeds, Web Services, and the like.

I really think this approach is the future of data delivery. Of course there will always be a need for printed reports, but actionable data needs to be delivered in more general and malleable forms so that tech-saavy managers can gain the competitive edge they need.

Looking for a new blog host

I'm looking for a new place to host my blog.  I'm really into free blogging and I love Blogger, but I can't find any nice free tools that I can use to post to the blog from OS X.  

I use Journler to write all of my blog posts, but it has stopped supporting Blogger.  The application recommends LiveJournal (or any other metaWeblog compatible site), but I have yet to see a LiveJournal blog that isn't exceptionally ugly.

Does anyone have any ideas or can point me in the right direction?

Automator Workflows for Rails Development

I have just put together two Automator workflows for loading my Rails environment for development. I did this because whenever I want to work on a rails application I have to do the same things: Load Textmate, Launch Lighttpd, and open the default location in Firefox. As I mentioned, I made two workflows, one for launching the environment from the right-click menu in Finder and the other one that I can launch via QuickSilver or by double-clicking.

The first lets me navigate to the root folder of my rails application in Finder, right-click, and choose Open in Rails under the Automator sub-menu. Just save the workflow as a Finder Plug-in and it will automagically show up in the menu. The meat of this workflow is the AppleScript:

on run {input, parameters}
set railspath to POSIX path of input as text
tell application "Terminal"
do script "cd " & railspath in window 1
do script "script/server" in window 1
set miniaturized of front window to true
end tell

do shell script "mate " & railspath
delay 5
tell application "Firefox"
OpenURL "http://localhost:3000"
end tell

return input
end run

The "delay 5" statement is to wait for lighttpd to load. The rest is pretty self explanatory.
Here is a picture of the workflow:

The second workflow allows me to choose the root folder of my Rails application. The AppleScript is the same, I just used a different workfow action. It looks like this:

Simple Things that Make a Day

My children really make my day sometimes. They do so much to brighten my day and make me feel very very happy. Last night as I was getting Nathan ready for bed he made my day. I was attempting to rock him to sleep. It was approaching 11:00 PM and I was really really tired. I was very anxious for him to sleep, but he just wouldn't cooperate. He just wanted to play. Finally I got him calmed down and as I rocked him, he was focusing on something on the wall behind me. I kept telling him, jokingly, "Nathan! Go to sleep!" Over and over again I would tell him. Well, being just over 3 months old, he obviously wasn't listening - or understanding. But you would never had guessed it by what he did next. Just as his eyes were starting to get heavy, he would look over at me and smile. It wasn't one of those casual smiles either, it was one of those "I'm playing with you dad" smiles. He would start to close his eyes and just as he would do so, he would smile and then open them really quickly. It was very funny and it only took about 3 rounds of this to have me laughing extatically. He eventually did fall asleep, but before doing so, he made my day!

Today I was really struggling at work to stay focused. I was feeling tired and a little overwhelmed by my current project. I called home to talk to Sara about some things related to our new house and Abbie wanted to talk to me. She was very anxious so Sara put her on the phone. She was quiet at first, then I said "Hi Abbie". Her response was "Hi daddy! It's me, Abbie...." and off she went. I didn't understand much of anything else she said but Sara told me later that she was just telling me about her day. Hearing her call me daddy made me chuckle and even laugh right out loud. Abbie has always been such a sweetheart. She always seems to know exactly what to say or do to liven your day. Today, hearing, "Hi daddy! It's me. Abbie" made my day.

Make it a Success!

I've been trying to do some more reading lately on what's been going on in the BI Industry. I lost touch while I was in school finishing my Associates Degree in Business Management. Now that school is out of the way (for a little while anyway) I can begin catching up. One of my favorite magazines (Intelligent Enterprise) had a fantastic article entitled "7 Pillars for BI Success". When I finished the article I realized that we have already adopted many of these pillars into our BI strategy at Sento. We have seen success on many accounts and continue to do so as we enlarge our BI System.

Recently, Nortel Networks visited Sento and looked at what we are doing with the data that we get out of their Symposium (PBX) system. I can't speak for them, but I will say they were impressed. The system is very impressive. We have been able to take a very complex and confusing set of data and present it to the business in a way that allows them to get the information they need, when they want it. It also allows our users to build ad-hoc reports on the fly. Since the release of the system, requests for reports based on the Symposium system have decreased dramatically.

I mention this to point out that a projects success should be emphasized and reemphasized to the business. When propriety allows, I believe companies should seek industry recognition for the quality work they do. Many times in the aforementioned article it pointed out the 1-800 Contacts and Allstate had won awards for the work they had done for their business. This not only makes the company look good, but it instills in executives confidence for future projects. So make your project a real success by spreading the word. Let people know how great your work is! Your project is only a success if people view it as thus. Showing off your work is only wrong if you do it at the expense of others.

BI Megatrends

I just finished reading an article in Intelligent Enterprise about the latest trends in Business Intelligence. This was a very insightful article with some great points on how the BI industry will be focusing on over the next year. Neil Raden from Hired Brains touched on many of my own ideas for BI and data warehousing. Without laying the elephant on the table, he outlined that BI and DW vendors need to do more to incorporate new technology and to offer their solutions to more companies than those willing to fork out the big bucks. Here are a couple of comments that I found to be relevant to that topic specifically:

"Typically, BI has been a disconnected activity, with users unable to traverse the big gap between being informed and being able to do anything about it. Currently, stacks of BI functionality, such as reporting, ad hoc analysis and OLAP (online analytical processing), serve only a small fraction of the user community (as measured by licenses)--10 percent to 20 percent, according to most studies, though actual use is probably even lower. Although the tools generally require no programming and the basics can be taught in a couple of days, conceptually BI still demands a level of understanding about the data, data models and data manipulation processes beyond most knowledge worker's skills or patience. Consequently, the level of IT involvement in BI is still high, leading to reduced ROI and an overall lack of agility and timeliness, except for those few power users who invest the time and effort to develop proficiency."

"Three external factors will drive BI out of its comfort zone and into new modes of usefulness. The open-source movement is one of them. However, it remains to be seen whether open source's impact will be simply to drive down software costs or to start something bigger. Can the open-source community marshall its participants' creative resources to develop truly breakthrough products? Everyone knows about Linux, but BI software doesn't have a similarly vast number of interested parties behind it. On the other hand, the pressure might be a good influence on BI vendors, who might otherwise feel they can get away with mediocre software at exorbitant prices."

"The time has come to radically rethink BI's basic methodologies. Caching, virtual data warehousing, query federation, autonomous agents, real-time and direct access to operational data stores are all more feasible now and must be built into the new BI. Doing so will help companies alleviate the delays and rigidity that confound current approaches."

"Monolithic BI suites with expensive per-seat licenses will lose favor--as will BI and data warehousing "stacks" cobbled together from different generations of technology. Market advantage will go to newer, less comprehensive entrants. Even older applications that provide specific functionality, such as visualization, Monte Carlo simulation or other stochastic processes and industry-specific analytics will get a leg up."

What is really going on in Iraq?

Whether you agree with the war in Iraq or not, I think the American public needs to be informed about some of the good that is going on over there. I really liked this article written by James Q. Wilson at the Wall Street Journal. He believes, as do I, that President Bush needs to speak more specifically about the accomplishments that have been made. He writes a speech that he feels the President should make. Here is an excerpt:


My fellow Americans: We are winning, and winning decisively, in Iraq and the Middle East. We defeated Saddam Hussein's army in just a few weeks. None of the disasters that many feared would follow our invasion occurred. Our troops did not have to fight door to door to take Baghdad. The Iraqi oil fields were not set on fire. There was no civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites. There was no grave humanitarian crisis.

Saddam Hussein was captured and is awaiting trial. His two murderous sons are dead. Most of the leading members of Saddam's regime have been captured or killed. After our easy military victory, we found ourselves inadequately prepared to defeat the terrorist insurgents, but now we are prevailing.

BI Vendors Coming to an awful Realization

I read another news article about a story that I've been following for a couple of weeks now. Business Objects, one of the largest Business Intelligence (BI) vendors, has recently purchased Crystal Xcelsius to bring more analytic capabilities to, you guessed it, Microsoft Office products (Excel and Powerpoint). This is following a HUGE trend in the BI industry as vendors are learning the sad truth about their products - no one likes them or really uses them. Most data consumers are still just using BI tools to extract data for analysis in Excel.

Is this a dangerous move? Probably not for data consumers. This does pose serious problems for businesses that are serious about data governance and adherence to SEC regulations and legislation such as SOX. Because users have freedom to manipulate data any way they please, without regard to any change control, they pose a huge threat to their company.

I wish BI vendors would spend more time making their analytics tools more powerful and "Excel" like. BI tools have the ability to keep data authoritative so why not provide the flexibility to move data around, consolidate, and summarize as the user pleases. Oh, they'll claim they can do this, but of all the BI products I've seen (at least the key players anyway) they aren't even close.

Data Warehousing for Small Business

Recently, Tom Foydel responded on my post on Data Warehousing for the Rest of Us. He brings up a couple of ideas that I would like to respond to. First:

But if I am a small or medium sized business then I probably don't have the volume of transactions that make a Data Warehouse necessary. With my volume of transactions I ought to be able to use a business analytics tool that's part of my ERP/CRM system.

Tom, you have a great point here. I honestly believe that a business has to have a reason to build a data warehouse before building one. I know that sounds overly simple and ridiculous, but you see this mentality all the time in IT. If your ERP/CRM analytics tools are adequate for your business then there is no reason for having a data warehouse. I think that principle needs to be taught to most techies in general, if you don't need it - don't build/buy it.

On the other hand, there are many small to mid-sized businesses that do have the volume of transactions that warrant a data warehouse. But, it's not just volume that counts. As soon as the business needs to start performing analytics across multiple disparate data sources a data warehouse of some kind and size is probably going to be necessary. This is the area that I am referring to when I say that the big boys have left us out. There really isn't anything out there, that I have found, that addresses this problem.

My other comment is that large business that have data warehouses have not fared very well lately. Some smart people like Peter Drucker have noted that small and medium sized business are growing today, but large businesses are mostly stuck in neutral. Are data warehouses necessary? Do they really propel growth?

Another GREAT point. Yes, it is true that even the big boys have many data warehousing woes as well. It just goes to show how immature data warehousing still is. I believe the reason businesses question the value of warehouses is because of poor alignment between the business and the warehouse. Companies may spend millions trying to get a data warehouse together only to find that it doesn't bring any of the promised value.

I personally believe that data warehouses can propel growth. They can do this at the large scale and the small scale if they are built with properly aligned business objectives. Businesses that don't have any plans to utilize the analytics to make business decisions will just end up producing a bunch of "gee-wiz" reports that don't bring any business value. Companies that allow the reporting and analytics to drive decision making will be able to utilize the power of the data warehouse to propel growth.

Getting in on the Ground Floor

I just love the fact that the data warehousing and related industries are still in their infancy. What's that you say? Infancy? For an industry that is over 20 years old (and for computer technology that is a lot)? Yes, that's exactly what I mean - infancy. Take for example this article published by Bill Inmon, considered to be the father of data warehousing:The Importance of Customer Data Integration

He comes right out and says we aren't even close. I agree 100%! As I have stated before, data warehousing and customer data integration and related technologies are still virtually unavailable to the majority of the businesses out there that desperately need them. Business Analysis is still largely being done in spreadsheets for crying out loud!

To me, this infancy is the allure of this industry. It's like getting in on the ground floor of a promising company. Anyone with good ideas and a good work ethic can make a huge difference. I believe in that potential.

Data Warehousing for the Rest of Us

If you are part of a small to mid-sized company trying to implement a Data Warehouse or research whether Data Warehousing is right for your company, it probably wont take you long to discover that Data Warehousing is still for the BIG guys and not for the rest of us. Data Warehouse tools vendors cater to the big companies because they are the one's that bring in the big revenues. These vendors so proud of their "rocket science" that they can charge exorbitant amounts for their solutions and then wrap industry heavy weights such as Ralph Kimball and Bill Inmon around their products declaring best practices that are unreasonable and cost prohibitive.

I am sick of reading about "the ideal" data warehousing solution. I have been reading data warehousing and data management articles for about two years now and I firmly believe that these authors live in a dream world that only exists where there is an infinite amount of money and resources to go around.

I do give them credit, however, for promoting technology and practices that can, at least, get you off in the right direction; but in the same breath I blame them for the unbelievably high failure rates of data warehousing projects.

What I want is a Data Warehousing Methodology that doesn't fall on its face in the real world and doesn't cost my company a fortune to implement. Of course, I want my complex analytics, ad-hoc engines, and consolidated reporting tools too! And I also want it to have impeccable performance. Can I have my cake and eat it too?

I am currently working on a methodology that I hope will do just that. I don't have a name for it yet but I have some underlying principles laid out. My goal is to develop a methodology for building data warehouses for the rest of us. The core of my new methodology is centered on agility and speed. My hope is to have some time over the next couple of months to develop my ideas a little more and then post them here for comment. Any feedback is appreciated.

Ethics and Values

Last night I started the class that I have been dreading my entire college career, Ethics and Values. It’s not that I don’t believe in ethics or values… my main problem with the class (or I should say, the thought of the class) is that I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to respectfully respond to anyone challenging my idea of ethics and values.

Last night my view of the class changed. Not too surprisingly, the instructor seems reasonable and impartial. We also receive our first assignment, which I will be including as part of this post.

We watched a 30-minute interview with Bill Moyer and Michael Josephson that discussed ethics in America. Michael Josephson was a successful lawyer who gave up his practice and started his own institute that teaches ethics to businesses and anyone else that wants to learn. I was frankly delighted by the interview. Here are some of the main points that were discussed:

• Ethics is “Right” and “Wrong”
• Civilizations and History teach us that ethics build enlightened and prosperous civilizations
• Civilizations may not agree on what is “right” or “wrong”, but they do agree that it is important to know the difference
• We are too concerned, in America, with competing or winning
• “Shades of Gray” ethical decisions are based on our values and must be looked at by the situation
• Ethical behavior pays off in the long run although it may require immediate sacrifice
• Sub-cultures, such as gangs, find some success based on their own set of values temporarily. But the success is temporary and will give out to tried and true values in the long run
• It’s our responsibility to fix unethical conditions & circumstances
• We must reward the role-models that we believe in
• We need to have more role models that we can be proud of for standing up for what is right
• Constituents need to hold elected officials to high ethical standards
• Money drives politics in our day – we need to change this by electing individuals that are driven by ethics
• An ethical person should do more than is demanded and less than he is allowed
• Be proud of the people we are and the contribution that we’ve made to others
• Lying takes away another persons possibilities for input
• Self righteousness, a desire to make the world run how you think it should be run without regard for others, leads to unethical behavior

Michael Josephson makes some very good arguments as to why we should be less competitive and more ethical. I personally feel that seeking to do what is right, rather than convenient, offers more rewards than those that try to cheat or take advantage of others or their circumstances.

Impending Daylight Savings Change

I'm very surprised to not be hearing rumblings anywhere about the impending daylight savings change that is included in the Energy Bill that is expected to be signed into law soon (or may already have been). The bill extends daylight savings from mid March to mid November.

Does anyone else see a huge problem with this technologically speaking? How many programs and technologies do you use in a day that have algorithms to figure out daylight savings? I would venture to say that the majority of these algorithms will need to be changed in order to be compatible with the new schedule.

My gut tells me that this issue was grossly overlooked and this *could* (at most) turn out to be another Y2k to the industry. Do you think I'm blowing smoke? I would love to see your comments.

The Report Lifespan

It occurred to me today that reports have a lifespan. I don’t know why it has taken me so long to realize this, but I was in a meeting today where the thought came to me.

I have been an administrator of a reporting system for years. Something that I wish I had realized sooner is that reports have a lifespan. What I mean by “lifespan” is this: When a report is requested, it is usually based on some business objective that is underway. But what happens to the usefulness of the report once that business objective has either gone away or morphed into something else? The answer is that it sits in storage consuming IT resources and slowing down your Business Intelligence system. The lifespan of the report is essentially over.

In the ideal world of Business Intelligence, organizations come up with some objective that they want to accomplish in the organization. They then go to an IT department with an idea of how to track information that will drive their objective. IT then builds something – a system, a report, or whatever, to track the information that is wanted. Once the information is available, the business decision maker uses that information to make an informed decision.

Ad-hoc Reporting systems, such as Business Objects Web Intelligence or Micro Strategy, can be used more efficiently to create reports specific to business objectives. These reports are intentionally created to have a short lifespan. They are usually very specific and may contain non-standard reporting metrics. Because these reports are generally only viewable to a select audience and are stored as personal documents, the report consumer naturally cleans them up once the lifespan of the report has expired.

There is, and probably always will be, a need for standardized reports that are used across the organization or departments. These reports should be created with the “lifespan” concept in mind. By standardizing metrics across the viewable audience and including abilities to filter and drill, these reports can be consumed by many viewers for long periods of time. Problems arise when one-off reports begin to spawn for specific audiences that want to see the data tweaked for their need. As soon as this happens, the lifespan of the report dramatically shortens.

In my opinion, organizations that can embody ad-hoc reporting abilities instead of creating one-off reports can dramatically decrease the amount of stale reports in there systems. To do this, report consumers must be trained to go to the ad-hoc systems for their one-off needs, rather than requesting tweaks that are specialized just for them from existing reports. Implementing tools that monitor report usage can also help administrators cut down on stale reports piling up.

myTopo.com Launches New Website

One of my favorite web sites has a fresh new look. MyTopo is a fantastic site for building topo maps for your next backpacking / adventuring trip. I highly recommend it.

Customer Intelligence Links

Here are some links to information about Customer Intelligence.

http://www.charter-uk.com/customer_intelligence.htm

http://www.1to1.com/view.aspx?DocID=20703

http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleId=1023901

Summer Project

Now that I am out of school for the summer, I thought it would be fun to brush up on some web application skills that have been neglected in recent years. Why would I want to do web programming? Well, I firmly believe that the future of my participation in geekdom rests in my personal ability to throw together some kind of web application. To be a true geek, you must be able to program in some language. This is because geeks want their computer to do what they want, not what some other programmer thought would be cool or useful.

I used to fill this need using Delphi. I love using Delphi to this day; however, now that I have sworn off Windows for Mac OS X, I wanted to branch out and participate in something new and innovative. After hearing all the raves about Ruby on Rails, I decided to give it a try.

Ruby on Rails has several advantages for me. First, it is simple. That's good! I need something I can learn in about 6 weeks spending maybe 2 to 3 hours per week. Second, it's new and innovative. Based on the Ruby scripting language, Ruby on Rails provides a true Object Oriented language for web applications. This will also give me a refresher in OOP. Third, in about 2 hours, I was able to setup a full development environment on my Mac Mini. This was much easier than previous environments I've struggled with setting up (LAMP for example). So far the environment is running just fine with full connectivity to MySQL. (I will probably do another blog on how I got all of this setup later.)

So, what is my project? I have decided to pursue one of my programming dreams and build a Family History application. I have used Family History applications extensivly in my own research but I have not yet found one that I really liked. Believe it or not, I have put quite a bit of thought into designing such an application. My first phase requirements are pretty simple:

1) Build a ruby script that will import a GEDCOM file into a simple database.
2) Build another ruby script that will parse the GEDCOM database into a relational normalized database.
3) Build a simple UI using Ruby on Rails for navigating through the individuals in the database.

If I can accomplish that before school starts, I will be really pleased with myself.