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Is Spring coming? Central
Florida is in the midst of a cold spell and I need to go
outside to see what plants I lost. I am a transplanted northerner, so I
don't have a bad attitude about the frosts. In fact, I welcome them every
year to clear out at least some of the plants . . . things just grow too
fast here.
If you've been looking for the new Web site, we've run into some problems.
And, like you, we're getting detailed explanations of what the problems are
and what needs to be done. And, like you, we don't necessarily care . . .
we're just looking forward to having the new site. We'll keep you posted.
We do have more on the Web 2.0 session, and are scheduling the Beta run. If
you're interested, check out the details in the Web 2.0 section below.
Here's the schedule (or you can view the complete Schedule
on our website).
CSTA Web sessions:
April 2, 3
May 7, 8
June 4, 5
CSTA Classroom session:
Atlanta - April
9
Chicago area -
April 16
DC area - May 14
UITJ (Understanding IT Jobs)
Web sessions:
March 6
May 8
TR Web sessions:
March 26
May 21
Keep in touch and keep up with technology!
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Current State of Wireless
We end up writing about wireless technology fairly often because there's
always something new on the horizon. At this point in time, it's really
worth looking more at 802.11, especially 802.11n, WiMax, and the new kids
on the block . . . ruBee, Wibree, and Zigbee
WiFi, specifically 802.11n
802.11 wireless connectivity, or WiFi, is all over. I took my car in for
service and the waiting room had its "Hotspot" sign. The last
time I flew I saw announcements that WiFi would soon be available on
flights, and we hear about cities going wireless (although there seem to be
some problems here). If you work a lot with wireless networks, you're
familiar with 802.11b which transfers data at of 11Mbps (million bytes per
second), and 802.11a and 802.11g which have transfer rates of 54Mbps. Well,
802.11n gets us to 600Mbps, although not immediately.
802.11n supports MIMO (Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output), which is
technology that uses multiple antennas at both the transmitter and the
receiver to improve communications. This is also referred to as SA (Smart
Antenna) technology. It also uses channel bonding (using two separate
channels at the same time) and packet aggregation (putting more information
into each packet). While the full specification is expected to be published
in April, 2009, products developed under the current draft 2 (published in
May, 2007) are delivering transmission rates of 100 to 140Mbps, at least
twice the speeds of 802.11g.
WiMax, or 802.16
Another specification that uses MIMO is WiMax, or 802.16, or WMan (Wireless
Metropolitan Area Network). WiMax is often referred to as a middleman, and
connects WiFi hotspots all over the Internet. It's also being used to
replace cable or DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) for that last mile of
connectivity. While WiFi is limited to 300 feet, WiMax covers up to 30
miles and people will indeed use their laptops on the beach! It was
initially approved in 2002, and the first products included base stations
and were certified in January, 2006. Sprint announced deployment of WiMax
over its networks in August, 2006, and WiMax could be installed in laptops
and PDAs much as WiFi is today. This one is definitely growing in
popularity.
When we're looking at short distances – 30 feet or less – the
technology used is Bluetooth, or 802.15. We're all used to Bluetooth, with
its most common use, connecting a cell phone to an ear phone. And many of
us (okay, some of us) have Bluetooth in our cars – putting the
technology in the dashboard so we can talk on our cell phones handsfree.
But Bluetooth has its rivals.
Wibree is also limited to 30
feet between devices, but it uses a fraction of the power Bluetooth
requires. Wibree probably won't replace Bluetooth in phones, but it will be
used for, e.g., wireless mice or health monitors, which might not be able
to use Bluetooth technology because of its power demands. Zigbee is another
standard based on Bluetooth. Its distances range from 10 to 100 meters,
depending on power output and environmental characteristics. The ZigBee
Alliance is a consortium of companies working together to enable reliable,
cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control
products based on an open global standard. ZigBee can coexist with both
BlueTooth and WiFi and, in fact, some devices successfully support both
standards. The ZigBee 2006 Specification was announced in September, 2006.
The last wireless technology you might be hearing about is RuBee (1902.1), which is somewhat
different in that it is an alternative to RFID (Radio Frequency
Identification), not voice or data communication. RuBee uses magnetic
signals rather than radio signals. Radio signals (thus RFID) have problems
in some environments, especially liquids and metals. RuBee's magnetic
signals are not affected, so it works in any environment including harsh
environments, and can handle networks of thousands of tags. These tags can
be low in cost, near credit card thin (1.5 mm), and fully programmable.
Despite their high functionality, RuBee tags have a proven battery life of
ten years or more using low-cost, coin-size lithium batteries. The RuBee
protocol works with both active tags and passive tags that have no battery.
RuBee was introduced early in 2007 and products are expected in 2008.
We all know that wireless is here to stay. In fact, we like that! There are
still a few things to settle out, but the above technologies, even though
fairly new, seem pretty stable.
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1. Have you ever ordered a Big Mac
from Colorado Springs?
2. Which of the following does not belong?
a. Android
b. LiMo
c. Nehalem
d. R1
3. Do you have HD-DVDs? And are you regretting it?
4. What's the difference between MDM and RDM?
5. What's different about Ruby on Rails?
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Every month that goes by brings
more mentions of Web 2.0 sites, technologies, and development tools. And,
this is how we've organized the Web session. Here's a brief outline of the
session:
Web 2.0 sites
• Social networking
• Blogs
• Wikis
• Bookmarking and Tagging
Technologies
• P2P Networks
• Web feeds (RSS)
• SOA/Web Services
• APis
• Mashups
Web 2.0 Development
• RIA
• Widgets
• Basic languages and Tools
• Ajax
Tools (Flex, Flash, Air, Silverlight, Google Gears, Ruby/Ruby on Rails,
etc.)
If you've been working with any of these tools, or hearing these terms,
this session couldn't be more timely! Web 2.0 is on the top of everyone's
list of "need to knows," especially in terms of how the corporate
world is using Web 2.0 technologies. The Beta session will run on March
27th at 2:00pm ET. Plan for at least 45 minutes, but remember it's a beta
test! Please schedule an extra half hour. We'll ask for comments when the
session ends, and send you a simple form for more input. Space in the Beta
run is limited, so if you're interested in "right now," please
call us at 407.574.6759.
If you don't need this knowledge yet, or can't make it this time, we will
put Web 2.0 on the schedule starting in April.
This is fun stuff. And, I bet you're using some of it now without really
knowing it!
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Data
Quality
Data is a problem. We have too much of it. We don't know whether to trust
it or not. And we always want more. The more data we have, the harder it is
to know it's correct. Next month we're going to look at the issue of data
quality.
data accuracy Data aspect, or measure of data. Data, or information, must
be correct.
data assurance Data assurance
states that data must have consistency, accuracy, and currency. Some
definitions add the characteristics of validity and uniqueness. Data
assurance is also called data quality, and data quality assurance.
data cleansing See data scrubbing.
data consistency Measure of
the quality of data. All aspects of the data must be available to the right
people at the right time. This is also called completeness.
data currency Data aspect, or
measure of data. Information must be timely. This is often referred to as
data relevancy.
data integrity Term used to
describe the accuracy and completeness of data. Data integrity must be
considered during system development and is part of the responsibility of
security systems. For example, systems are built with checks and balances
to make sure that derived data (gross salary is derived from base salary +
overtime + commission) is correctly figured. And, security systems must
ensure that data cannot be altered except by authorized users.
data profiling Data
integration technique that examines a data store and collects statistics
and information including:
• A count and percent of null data
• A count and percent of unique data
• Maximum and minimum values
• Top and bottom values by frequency
• Ranking levels and count intervals.
Additional information collected includes pattern analysis, relationship
rules, and metadata validation.
data redundancy Information
technology terminology. Refers to the existence of the exact same data or
procedures in more than one place. If employee information such as address
and phone number appears in both the HR and payroll databases, this is
redundant data. Fields can be redundant, or entire records can be
redundant.
data scrubbing Data management
function. Validating data for accuracy. Includes eliminating duplicates and
inconsistencies. Often used with data warehousing, migrating legacy systems
to newer technologies. Estimates state that up to 70% of the cost of
implementing a data warehouse is eliminating "dirty data." Also
called data cleansing and data quality assurance.
data steward IT position. Job
that is responsible for establishing and maintaining the quality of data in
operational databases, data warehouses, and any data store. Responsible for
data content, not structure or architecture. Requires both technical and
business knowledge and can be held by either technical or non-technical
people.
data uniqueness Data
uniqueness requires that no duplicates are contained in the data.
data validity Measurement, or
aspect of data. States that information must be important to the business.
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1. You might have. McDonalds in Oregon and southeastern Washington
link to a call center in Colorado Springs.
The call taker enters your order into a computer and relays it back to the
home restaurant, where it pops up on a screen in the kitchen. A digital
camera photographs the car and the photo pops up on a separate screen next
to the order. Outsourcing is everywhere!
2. All odds words, but c) Nehalem does not belong. Nehalem is a computer
chip! The rest are all system platforms for smartphones. The whole idea of
a system platform, that is, software that could include an HTML Web
browser, middleware, SDK (Software Development Kit), applications, and
anything else the vendor thinks applicable. Android is from Google, LiMo
and R1 actually refer to the same software, an open source product from the
LiMo Foundation.
3. HD-DVD technology has lost the market for storing multimedia –
movies, music videos, etc. Blu-ray won the competition. Blu-ray can store
twice as much data as DVD because of the shorter wave length of blue light.
4. Nothing! MDM (Master Data Management) and RDM (Reference Data
Management) are the same thing: building a data layer for applications that
provides a single view of a body of data (such as customer data, product
data, etc.) that can integrate data from diverse sources.
5. Not much for long. Ruby on Rails is based on MVC (Model-View-Controller)
architecture. Rails is being joined however, by ASP.Net's next version
– it too will include some MVC functions. Use of Ruby/Ruby on Rails
increases daily, especially in the Web 2.0 arena.
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