If you've been trying to phone us, you've probably run into problems. We've been working on this for a week now – and think we've almost resolved it, but aren't sure. You could be getting a busy signal, or "this line is temporarily unavailable please try again later" or just ringing and ringing. Believe me, I've gotten all of those as we've been testing and trying to get this taken care of. Please, if you encounter problems, send us an email – let us know.
Check out this month's schedule – both Networking and Web 2.0 are on it. As you know, these are the special sessions that we only schedule when someone asks for them. Once we put them on the schedule, they're open to everyone. Web 2.0 is so current. I'm actually adding a few things before it runs, that's how dynamic this area is!
Here's the schedule (or you can view the complete Schedule on our website).
CSTA Web sessions:
July 9, 10
August 6, 7
September 10, 11
October 8, 9
November 12, 13
December 10, 11
UITJ (Understanding IT Jobs) Web sessions:
July 10
September 11
December 13
Web 2.0 Web session:
July 21
Networking Web session:
July 21
TR Web sessions:
September 24
Keep in touch and keep up with technology!
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Agile Development
We keep hearing more and more about Agile development – with a capital "A." It actually grew from methodologies that were introduced in the late 1990s. There were a bunch of them, and they all include collaboration between the programmer team and business experts; face-to-face communication (as more efficient than written documentation); frequent delivery of new deployable business value; tight, self-organizing teams; and ways to craft the code and the team such that the inevitable requirements churn was not a crisis. This became the basis for any methodology that fell into the Agile camp. Interest and use has grown to the point that there now exists an Agile Alliance, an Agile magazine, multiple Agile user groups, many books and an annual Agile conference.
Whatever specific Agile methodology is used, the practices are the same: collaboration, refactoring, iteration, and user interaction.
Collaboration self explanatory! Agile development is based on development teams.
Refactoring refers to the process of changing software in a way that does not alter the external behavior of the program. It improves the internal structure of a program, and means cleaning up source code. This means the program(s) will be easier to maintain, will execute faster, and will interface better with other programs. There are many software tools available that can be used for refactoring, most of which work with Java, so Java becomes part of most Agile development environments.
Iteration builds software by starting the development with a base solution, then constantly enhancing the solution with additional functionality and/or revisions. Each step, or software release, in the process is a "build" and each build is a functional program which may or may not be released. The time for each iteration is usually one to four weeks, and each goes through the entire development cycle: analysis, design, programming, testing. Iterative development has been in use for decades, and is part of open source development which is considered by many to be Agile development.
User Interaction is too often ignored in standard development. The business people are the true owners of the system being developed, and they must take part in every phase of the development to ensure the system fills the business requirements.
While there is no one definition of how to conduct Agile development, and any methodology which uses the above practices can fit into the category, the defined methodologies include XP (eXtreme Programming), SCRUM, DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Method), and several "driven developments" – TDD (Test Driven Development), BDD (Behavior Driven Development), and FDD (Feature Driven Development).
Some thoughts on Agile. It's still controversial to many people because it stresses flexibility. And, it's recommended for use when the specifications are themselves flexible and subject to change. That's where it works best, as the iterative approach responds well to change. It's mostly used in Java environments, and is usually introduced to companies by the developers. They really like it! Is it taking over most development? No. Is it here to stay and growing? Yes.
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1. This one you can figure out – What's Vo-Fi?
2. How are pods used in IT?
3. Which of the following does not belong?
a. Laptop
b. Notebook
c. Flashtop
d. Notetop
4. Are there any open-source BI (Business Intelligence) tools?
5. What's the difference between force.com and salesforce.com?
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Do you know we – actually I – have a blog? We haven't said much about it, because, frankly, I haven't been too comfortable with it. Everyone (and those of you who've attended seminars I've taught probably know how fond I am of "everyone") says "you should blog." So, I started a blog. I actually did it when I was researching Web 2.0 technologies for inclusion in our seminars and in TechRef®, and it was one of my first experiences learning that this stuff isn't hard, but it's also not as easy, or as intuitive, as we're led to believe.
With all that, one of my biggest problems was the focus of my blog. I found that what I really wanted to share was tidbits of information I found while roaming the Web for current information about anything IT. I often found things that weren't completely IT, or they were surveys of the uses of technology, or just plain fun facts about what's going on in today's technical world. So, that's what I'm blogging on. Whenever I hit one of these things that I just want to share – it becomes a blog entry. I don't blog every day, and once I blogged twice in one day, so I never have to go search for something just to make a blog entry. I do so when I see it. Check out the blog, and if you want to subscribe just click on the RSS symbol (those of you up on Web 2.0 know what that is). And, here's a hint on this month's teaser – it's covered in a blog entry.
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Collaboration
We hear so much about collaboration in today's IT. It's part of Agile development, as in this month's technical article. When I listed collaboration as one of the basic practices, I wrote that it was self-explanatory, but as I thought about it, that's not really true. There are all kinds of ways to collaborate, many different tools and techniques, and many more coming. So, this is going to be next month's technical article.
collaboration Communication systems that enable people from different locations to work together. Workers share data and post work to a central repository where it can be observed and even changed by other collaborators. Collaboration systems can work with messaging and eMail, but most include audio- and video-conferencing. eMail and groupware are sometimes included in this category.
contextual collaboration Communications. Collaboration software that combines document processing, instant messaging, word processing, shared calendars, and groupware under a unified user interface. When a user retrieves a document, the interface displays a list of people involved with the application and if the user has a question, he or she could see who was online, and send questions, comments, etc. This software includes:
• Presence technology, which shows when people are online and allows communication with them,
• Real-time communication, communication can be text or voice chat in real-time,
• Resource sharing, the user should be able to share any material on his or her computer with anyone in the system.
IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Lotus, and Oracle are among those currently building contextual collaboration capability into products.
email A communication system which concentrates on the creation and delivery of messages and even long documents from one terminal to another.
EMS (Electronic Meeting System) Communications. Groupware system. Manages a meeting where participants each have a workstation so they can participate both electronically and verbally. Electronic participation is anonymous, so electronic comments on ideas can be more forthcoming. Often part of groupware software, and referred to as using an electronic whiteboard. Often used in JAD (Joint Application Development).
groupware Software that takes common single-user functions such as calendars, word processors, databases, and notepads and incorporates them into a multi-user network. Typical functions would be entering a meeting date and time and letting participants check the system, thus eliminating a lot of telephone scheduling. Groupware also can include EMS (Electronic Meeting System) software and document workflow systems. Groupware systems can have an internal DBMS and/or provide interfaces to existing DBMSs. Also called workgroup software.
IM (Instant Messaging) Communication technology and service that allows users to see whether friends or co-workers are connected to the Internet and, if they are, to exchange messages with them. Provides for immediate exchange of messages and allows for a continued exchange which is available in a drop-down window. Users must subscribe to the service, and both must be online at the same time. Some IM systems are limited to text only while others include voice and file sharing. IM services and technologies include: JABBER, AOL, MSN Messaging, Yahoo Messaging, ICQ, and Google Talk.
social software Social software is collaboration software that supports group interaction. Online community applications, groupware, and various collaboration programs are all social software. Because it comprises all the complexities of group behavior, from collaboration to one-upmanship to backstabbing, designing social software is very different from designing single-user software. Wikis are an example of social software. Introduced in 2003.
swarming Communication technology. Collaboration technique in which large numbers of people from different locations work on a problem or opportunity. There is no central control of activity, or even of members - each can invite others to participate. Members of the "swarm" are various experts, and each contributes from his or her own knowledge. For example, for new product development artists can post images; content experts surf the Web in unison to find useful sites; researchers add pertinent files; copywriters type or edit documents together in real time; etc. I must admit this is an old definition and I haven't heard it used in years – but isn't it fun?
teamware Software developed to aid collaboration among workers. Allows workers to share and edit information, but does not offer full functionality of groupware. Unlike groupware which is set up and managed by IT professionals, teamware is controlled by the end-users.
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1. Vo-Fi stands for Voice over WiFi – the merging of VoIP and Wi-Fi. VoFi promises higher voice quality and more reliable coverage indoors than traditional cellular service and an alternative to mobile broadband data. Needs better routers than traditional WiFi routers (voice requires bandwidth – and there's more competition), but they're available. Note, you can include the hyphen (Vo-Fi) or leave it out (VoFi).
2. Pods are used to build portable data centers. Blue Pods are preconfigured building blocks of servers, storage arrays and software that provides a turnkey data center in a portable package. They're competitive with Sun's Blackbox, each of which includes up to 250 Sun Fire blade servers and up to 1.5 petabytes of disk storage, 2 petabytes of tape storage, and up to 7TB of random access memory. Rackable and Microsoft also have a portable data center called PMDC (Portable Modular Data Center).
3. Notetops don't belong, in fact as far as I know they don't exist. This was really a way of talking about flashtops. A flashtop is a notebook (or laptop) that uses a flash drive (or solid-state drive) instead of a hard disk. Flash storage is more durable than disk storage (no moving parts, which always means less to go wrong), but more expensive. Mulitple vendors are offering "flashtops" in 2008.
4. Look to JasperSoft. Their JasperSoft BI Suite includes tools for data access, analysis, and reporting. Modules include: JasperAnalysis (released July, 2006); JasperETL (released January, 2007); JasperReports (released April, 2005); and JasperServer (released April, 2006). This product is included in most lists of top BI products.
5. This is another of those confusing word situations. Force.com was introduced in the 4th quarter, 2007 and is called PaaS – Platform as a Service. It's a development and deployment product used to create application software. Salesforce.com is SaaS – Software as a Service. It's a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application that includes sales force automation and marketing automation applications.
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