Hello There LinkedIn, It’s Been a While
Attending an enterprisey conference means exchanging and collecting lots of business cards. I usually carry stickers, but somehow they’re not in my laptop bag anymore.
Anyway, one guy I met decided to connect to me on LinkedIn, a brilliant reminder of that professional network that I’ve neglected over the last half decade. I’m really glad he did because I was then reminded that most of the people giving me business cards, also are on LinkedIn.
So, I’ve been building my professional network like a boss.
Interestingly, like Facebook, LinkedIn’s search leaves much to be desired; it’s great if you’re within two hops of the person, but if not, good luck to you.
Google, however, is really good at searching LinkedIn, which tells you a lot about why Twitter decided not to renew their search agreement. On the one hand, you could argue that allowing Google to index your content brings people to your site, makes you relevant, etc. If you go this route, why even have search at all?
On the other, if Google decides to tweak (ahem, socialize) its algorithm, then your results could suffer. Most services offer search, but why does it have to be so bad? I wonder if LinkedIn has hidden some results based on the degrees of separation. They do try to upsell you when you try to connect to people outside your immediate network.
Anyway, search always needs to be better. My LinkedIn profile needs more attention, etc.
Thoughts?
Where’s the Halo Exactly?
Apple’s earnings noted a halo effect, a.k.a. as the iPhone as a gateway drug.
Enterprise iPhone 4S activations spike, highlight Apple’s halo effect | ZDNet
Since its release in 2007, the iPhone has served as the perfect gateway drug to other Apple products in the home. Apple is now seeing this among enterprise buyers too.
I spend a fair amount of time attending enterprisey gatherings, so I get a nice sample of the hardware people rock for work. Years ago, I was among the very small number using a Mac. That has changed, but PCs still dominate these gatherings, by a large margin.
I see a ton of iPhones, like 95%, and iPads are very common too. Macs, not so much though, maybe 10-25% depending on the attendees.
So, if there’s a halo, I’m not seeing much of it.
I also get the sense that very few people BYOD, at least to conferences, e.g. many of the Macs I see have corporate inventory tags on them.
You? Comments?
SunSpace Moves to WebCenter
Over on the WebCenter (@oraclewebcenter) blog, Peter (@peterreiser) has a detailed look at the migration of SunSpace to WebCenter, definitely worth a look if you’re interested in what WebCenter can do.
He even includes pictures of SunSpace communities on Chris’ (@cbales) Spaces iPhone app, which I personally love both as a go-to app and as a case study for WebCenter’s REST APIs, which I’ve been pumping up to user group leaders all week at the IOUC leader summit (@iouc_conference).
Anyway, check out Peter’s post and follow him for updates on the newly-migrated communities and for WebCenter tips and tricks.
Do More with Oracle WebCenter
Last week, our own Christian Finn (@cfinn) gave a webcast called “Do More with Oracle WebCenter,” but if you missed it, don’t fret, there’s a recording.
Check out the recap on the official WebCenter (@oraclewebcenter) blog:
Do More with Oracle WebCenter: Expand Beyond Portals – Webcast Q
WebCenter Resources in the Wild
Aside from the official WebCenter blog (@oraclewebcenter), Peter’s blog (@peterreiser) and sometimes Matthias’ blog (@mprove), there are a bunch people out there in intertubes land writing about WebCenter.
Here are a few good voices I’ve read recently, along with some that I’ve been reading for a while in no particular order:
- Yannick Ongena (@yannick_ongena)
- Andrejus Baranovskis (@andrejusb)
- WebCenter Architecture Team, a.k.a. the A-Team
- John Sim (@JRSim_UIX) and Fishbowl Solutions (@fishbowle20)
- Bex Huff (@bex)
- Billy Cripe (@billycripe)
So, if you want to learn more about WebCenter, how people use it, tips and tricks, experiences, all that, add these people to your favorite feed reader and to the Twitters, if you’re into that.
Did I miss anyone? Find the comments and educate me.
Update: I’ve promoted John Brunswick‘s (@johnbrunswick) work here before, but yeah, you should read his stuff too.
In Defense of the Logitech Revue Remote
Here I am defending the Google TV remote again.
To be clear, I’m talking about the Logitech Revue remote:
The Logitech Revue remote
Not the Sony one:
The Sony Internet TV remote
First off, I have a Logitech Revue, which Google sent me after Google IO 2010. I like the idea of Google TV, and the latest bump to Honeycomb has cleaned up the experience quite a bit. Protip: having Netflix makes Google TV awesome. Google needs to line up more content for Google TV, and I’m more bullish now than I was initially. Still, the device has an uphill journey.
Back to the remote, I read some criticism of the Sony remote coming out of CES, and it reminded me to write this post.
The Logitech remote looks bulky and inconvenient, but believe me when I say it’s awesome. I wish more remotes would follow in its path.
What do I like about:
- It’s starkly utilitarian and uncompromising, no bells or whistles or tiny keys.
- It’s a full-size keyboard (unlike the Sony remote) so typing is comfortable, and the keys are tactile, not rubber, which I prefer.
- It’s easy to learn how to use because it’s a known quantity, a keyboard. Look at your remotes and see how similar they are; you basically have to relearn the major functions for each remote.
- It’s wireless so unlike most remotes, there’s not IR line-of-sight limitation, which is a nice feature.
- It’s size makes it much harder to lose, a common remote problem. It’s lightweight and thin so you can operate it with one hand, but its dimensions keep it from sinking into the couch.
It’s not just me either. My wife loves this remote too. I was actually shocked when she told me this because generally, she dislikes learning new gadgets.
Logitech got it right with this remote, whereas I’m not so sure about the Sony version.
Anyway, the point here is that utility trumps beauty in everyday devices.
Anyone out there have a Google TV? Care to comment?
The History of SunSpace
Peter (@peterreiser), one of my fellow WebCenter evangelists, shares the history of SunSpace, Sun’s internal community/Enterprise 2.0/social site, over on his blog.
Sun was an early social adopter, and SunSpace was/is a very active community. I first met Peter a shortly after the Sun acquisition was announced. As social community managers, we shared tips and tricks, and we talked about adding his Community Equity layer to Connect. That never happened, since Connect has been a side project for several years, but Peter and I kept in touch.
I’m stoked to be working on the same team with Peter now, where we can pool our collective experiences with social in the enterprise and apply our knowledge to WebCenter.
Anyway, check out Peter’s tribute to SunSpace, and stay tuned for updates on how the community is progressing with WebCenter.
WebCenter Tips and Tricks, Part 3
Editor’s note: Here’s the third installment of WebCenter tips and tricks from Matthias Müller-Prove (@mprove). Check out the first two here.
Tips’n'Tricks for WebCenter #3: How to display custom page titles in Spaces
by Matthias Müller-Prove
If people don’t know where they are in the web, they tend to get lost in cyberspace. This can be prevented by displaying the page title for your pages in Oracle #WebCenter Portal Spaces. (At least they won’t get lost in your WebCenter space.) All you have to do is to create a custom page template and use it as default in your space. Its head section will contain a few code snippets to display the title. Add an HTML box and enter e.g.<h1>#pageDocBean.title</h1>:
That’s it. That is the basic idea.
Caveat: This does not work for wiki pages and HTML pages because they do not have a specific title in WebCenter. #pageDocBean.title will just return ‘Wiki’ or ‘Resource’.
Now let’s get a little bit more sophisticated. A space has a title as well. So let’s use it:
<h1>#spaceContext.currentSpace.metadata.displayName – #pageDocBean.title</h1>
Are you ready for level 3? Now I want to add more styling, and I want to have a special treatment for the home page to display the tagline for the space. Here is a preview of the final result, first the home page, then any other page in the space:
To accomplish this behavior, I have to use a conditional statement #{ BOOL ? CASE1 : CASE2 }. WebCenter’s expressions cannot be nested, hence the conditions will be tested several times to get the desired result:
<h1 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span style="color: #9a9a9a; font-size: 80%;">
#{pageDocBean.title != 'Home' ? spaceContext.currentSpace.metadata.displayName : ''}
</span>
<span style="color: #9a9a9a;">
#{pageDocBean.title == 'Home' ? spaceContext.currentSpace.metadata.displayName : ''}
</span>
<br />
#{pageDocBean.title != ‘Home’ ? pageDocBean.title : ”}
<span style=”font-size: 80%;”>
#{pageDocBean.title == ‘Home’ ? ‘Information Matters’ : ”}
</span>
</h1>
- First I apply an inline style for h1 to remove some space above and below the heading.
- Then I ask for the page title, and if it is not ‘Home’ (every page but the home page) then I display the space name at size 80% and gray.
- Just for the home page I display the space name in size 100%.
- New line for the page title.
- Now the same distinction fot the page name. For every page but the home page I display the page title.
- If this code is executed on the home page then I display ‘Information Matters’ – the tag line for the space – instead of the page title.
Yes, you are correct. Thanks for paying attention. The image of the lady is missing in my code example.
A WebCenter VM, Revisited
A couple years ago, I took on a geeky project, creating a WebCenter VM. The goal was to get WebCenter running so I could kick the tires and build something.
It didn’t end well, thanks to a variety of factors, but one good thing that came of the effort was a conversation with Justin (@oracletechnet) about how valuable a WebCenter VM would be to the Oracle community. He agreed, apparently, because last year, a WebCenter 11g Patchset 3 VM appeared on OTN.
Update: Turns out Christina Kolotouros and Pieter Humphrey actually built the WebCenter VM for the virtual developer day series for OTN. Kudos to them.
My new role as an evangelist/advocate for WebCenter has brought my back to the same place I was in 2009, in need of a good VM. This time, however, I want a VM that’s also convenient for developers. We want people to try out WebCenter, and the easier I can make that process, the better.
Talking to friend of the ‘Lab Bex Huff (@bex) recently, the idea of achieving productivity in 30 minutes with any new product came up as a bar to use for success. I like this because it’s measurable and catchy. So, my goal for the WebCenter VM will be to see how close we can get to 30 minutes to productivity.
I describe the entire adventure below, but if you’re interested in the executive summary, I was able to fit the entire, decompressed OTN WebCenter 11g Patchset 3 VM onto a 32 GB thumb drive. And, more importantly, it’s actually possible to run the VM from the thumb drive, a la Ubuntu Live CD.
You read that right. I was able to run the WebCenter VM off a 32 GB thumb drive.
This is kind of a big deal, given that a live CD/USB gives you the ability to test drive software without leaving any trace on your machine. No install, no configuration, no mess when you’re done.
Finally, it’s entirely possible to get a WebCenter VM up and running and more importantly achieve productivity within 30 minutes. There are some caveats, but this is also a big deal. Read on for the skinny.
Getting Started
Providing a way to test out new products is critical to success within a development community, and OTN has done a fantastic job of this for the Oracle community for a really long time. So, I began my second adventure with the OTN VM, rather than trying to roll my own, again. After all, they’ve done all the heavy lifting.
So, the WebCenter VM, it’s 22 files, totaling 14.5 GB. So yeah, it’s big. I set about downloading the files, which ultimately took me about three (3) hours over a 10 mbps connection.
Once I’d downloaded all the files, I moved on to decompressing them; OTN provides detailed instructions on the best way to do this, i.e. using 7-zip (Windows), p7zip (Linux) or 7zx (Mac). These tools reconstitute the compressed files into two .vmdk files, which can be imported into VirtualBox.
One protip here for Ubuntu users, like me. You can install p7zip directly from the Ubuntu repos like so:
sudo apt-get install p7zip-full
Anyway, regards of your host OS, when you’re done, you’ll have three files:
REAVDD-HOL-WC-disk1.vmdk
REAVDD-HOL-WC-disk2.vmdk
REAVDD-HOL-WC.ofv
Decompression took about 10-15 minutes. So, I’m at 195 minutes, if you’re scoring at home.
Once you have these three files, simply open the .ofv file in VirtualBox to import the VM. Import took me about 15 minutes, and the decompressed, imported VM came in at 28 GB.
By this point, I’ve invested 210 minutes, or 3.5 hours, but I’m hopeful I can cut this time dramatically using a flash drive.
Ideas
My idea is to put the decompressed VM on a flash drive and see if it will run from the flash drive, live USB style, just like Canonical offers with Ubuntu Live CD.
This is the best way to get developers to test your software because it leaves no lasting traces on their machines. No fuss, no mess. If they like it great, they can copy over the VM from VirtualBox and run it locally; if not, they have a nice flash drive keepsake from the WebCenter evangelism team.
Even if live USB won’t work, I’ll still be able to save some time, considering it took 210 minutes to download and decompress the files, then import the VM into VirtualBox.
So, I bought a 32 GB flash drive (this one) and set off to test my theories.
My first order of business was to reformat the drive. First, this removes the software that comes bundled with it, saving space, and second, I know I’ll need a cross-platform partition format in order to make the drive readable from Linux, Mac and Windows.
I decide to use exFAT because it fits the cross-platform bill, and unlike its cousin FAT32, it supports file sizes larger than 4 GB, which is a must for the WebCenter VM whose .vmdk files are 3.4 and 11.1 GB respectively.
ExFAT is relatively new, but it’s supported by many different OSes, including OS X 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) and 10.7 (Lion), Windows 7, and Windows XP (with an update, KB955704). With Linux, your mileage may vary, depending on the distro.
I run Ubuntu 11.10, and installing FUSE exFAT added the drivers I needed. See here and here for easy instructions.
Once I had the drive partitioned, which took maybe 5 minutes, I was able to copy the files without any hitches. That process took about 3 hours.
After the files copied, I had a ready-to-test thumb drive. Drum roll please.
Results
Initially, I was worried about running the VM at all, given the hefty hardware requirements listed on OTN:
- At least 3GB of RAM (recommended 6GB)
- At least 30GB of free disk space (Note: virtualization works best with contiguous space so if using Windows as the host operating system, it is a good idea to run a defragmenting program, and make sure you are using NTFS for your file system to handle large files)
- 2GHz processor
My hardware doesn’t come close to the recommendations, despite being pretty sweet. My Macbook Pro sports a 2GHz quad-core Intel i7 CPU and 4 GB of RAM, and my Dell running Ubuntu rocks a 2.4 GHz quad-core Intel i5 CPU and 4 GB of RAM.
The VM imported itself with a default setting of 2 GB of RAM, and I didn’t really expect it to run well, given previous experience with allocating 50% of the host’s RAM to a VM.
I was wrong.
The WebCenter VM boots up quickly and runs smoothly on the host. Plus, the VM includes handy scripts to start all the services required by WebCenter, as well as a hands-on lab, which helps get you on your way to productivity.
Services take about seven (7) minutes to start, but keep in mind, I’m starting a database instance, WebCenter Content (formerly UCM), and WebLogic Server, with only 2 GB of RAM. Once everything is running, you can open the Avitek sample portal and get started right away.
So, by my count, that’s less than 10 minutes from VM start to Avitek. Not too shabby.
OK, sure, you have to copy the files from the flash drive to your machine, which could take several hours, but this is an operation you can leave overnight, unlike downloading 22 files.
Just saying.
But what about running the VM directly from the flash drive as a live USB?
Turns out this is possible, but it takes patience.
I ran the live USB from my Mac, and the VM booted up quickly. I didn’t time it, but it felt like a couple minutes tops. Starting the services is where the patience begins. It took about 23 minutes to get the database instance, WebCenter Content, and WebLogic Server started.
After the services were started, opening Avitek took another five (5) minues, but once it was running, the response times were pretty snappy.
So, even running the live USB VM, you could get to productivity in about 30 minutes. Your mileage will definitely vary here, given your hardware specs. I suspect there are I/O constraints over USB 2.0 that would prevent times from ever reaching the direct I/O speeds you see off a hard drive.
Still, it’s possible.
Admit it, you’re surprised, and I am too. This is great news.
Final notes
So, what have I proved?
Well, primarily that it’s possible to get started with WebCenter in 30 minutes or less.
That’s a big deal. OTN has done a huge favor to the community by providing the WebCenter VM, and now, I want to go even further and save you that 210 minutes or so required to download, decompress and import the VM.
Why? Because we want you to try out WebCenter, silly. We know you’re busy, so let us do some legwork for you. I hope to get some flash drives produced with the OTN VM on them to hand out to interested people I meet at events. So, watch this space if you want to meet us, talk WebCenter and score on of those drives.
Or hey, if you’re really stoked to give it whirl, leave a comment, and we’ll talk.
Epilogue
I should mention that the OTN VM throws an error when it boots if you don’t have a specific Windows temp directory to map.
This is a Shared Folders setting, and all you need to do is delete that share to avoid the error, which is harmless anyway.
If it matters, I did my testing using the current version of VirtualBox, 4.1.8, and you’ll need to ensure you install the corresponding Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack for whichever version of VirtualBox you’re running.
Also, the VM includes an older version of the VirtualBox Guest Additions, which might matter to you. If so, check out Chet’s (@oraclenerd) post on how to install them on OEL.
So, that’s it. I finally got my WebCenter VM, and I hope this has been edifying for you. Next project: WebCenter Content on a stick.
Find the comments.
WebCenter Tips and Tricks: Parts 1 and 2
Editor’s note: New friend of the ‘Lab and former Sun guy Matthias Müller-Prove (@mprove) has posted the first two installments of his WebCenter Spaces tips and tricks.
He initially posted these internally to Connect, which he uses as his internal blog, an unintentional feature we created a long time ago. Not so long ago, the venerable SunSpace, which our own Peter Reiser (@peterreiser) created and oversees to this day, migrated off its old infrastructure to the internal instance of WebCenter 11g Patchset 4 we all use.
So, many of the content owners from Sun have become WebCenter experts overnight as their communities migrated to WebCenter.
Anyway, I convinced Matthias to share his tips and tricks with the outside world so that all the WebCenter users out there could benefit, and since we’re a WebCenter team, I’m reposting them here for your edification/education and for posterity’s sake. Thanks Matthias. Enjoy.
Tips’n'Tricks for WebCenter #1: How to apply custom resources in Spaces
by Matthias Müller-Prove
This is the beginning of a little series of tips’n'tricks for Oracle #WebCenter Portal Spaces. The background is our migration from Confluence – that we used at Sun – to WebCenter Spaces as a collaboration tool for the VDI engineering team. I want to share my insights so that other teams and users can get a smooth(er) start with WebCenter.
As a space owner and administrator you might have been to Pages and Spaces Actions > Manage > All Settings
… then opened the Resources tab, and skimmed through the lists of page templates, navigations, and skins. And you might have asked yourself, “which of these is actually used in my space?”
It took me quite some time to figure it out. And that’s the reason for this posting. You are looking at the wrong spot! You have to go to Pages and Spaces Actions > Manage > All Settings > General to look at the right column under Display Settings. This is the control area where you set the default Page Template, Skin, and Navigation for your space:
So in order to customize any of these for your space, you have to copy an existing resource, add your changes, save, go to the General tab and select your new Page Template, Skin, or Navigation. If you go now back to your space you can see the change in action, a new page template, an updated look and feel, or a new menu bar.
Tips’n'Tricks for WebCenter #2: How to create an Admin menu in Spaces and save a lot of time
by Matthias Müller-Prove
Objects in Oracle #WebCenter Portal have a visibility flag that is set to true or false. But you can also enter conditions. To make something visible just for moderators, you have to replace true by #{WCSecurityContext.userInScopedRole['Moderator']}
I use it to create an Admin menu. The visibility of the folder item in my custom navigation is specified as above. That means that all menu items under that new Admin menu are only visible for space moderators.
One candidate for such an Admin menu would be the Analytics menu item because it is not necessary to reveal it to all space members.
Another item that is extremely useful is a shortcut to Pages and Spaces Actions > Manage > All Settings. If you are a space admin you know how often you have to go there, and how difficult it is to navigate the mouse to the submenu item.
So under my new Admin menu I’ve added an item ‘All Settings’ with a link to http://YOURWEBCENTERDOMAIN/webcenter/spaces/YOURSPACE/admin.
You can get the link for your space via Pages and Spaces Actions > About > Share Link and append /admin. Note, that you have to check the Redirect flag under Options to avoid the frame-in-a-frame problem.
The following set of screenshot might guide you to create an Admin menu in your space.
#1 – Add a folder to the customized navigation:
#2 – Set the Visibility to mods only:
#3 – Add links to the new Admin menu:
#4 – Set the target path to Manage All Settings, do not forget to check the Redirect option under the Options tab:
#5 – The customized navigation with the new Admin menu:
#6 – The customized menu applied to your space:
The Agony of Paying for Apps
Before the New Year, I ran across two separate posts about free apps, and as with many of my posts, this coincidence got me thinking and writing.
The first was by Dan Ariely (h/t Slashdot), who writes about economics and stuff, two of my favorite topics. Plus, he referenced a favorite Oatmeal comic of mine, which also conveys the angst I (and others apparently) feel about dropping a dollar or two to buy an app for our vastly more expensive devices.
I tried to find the right excerpt from Dan’s post, but I found myself copying half the post. Just go and read it.
His basic point is that Apple anchored the price at free (and populated the App Store with some pretty compelling apps at that price point), thereby creating a low price floor anchor that has affected all the apps that have followed.
A few days later, Simon Judge mused about a report that shows the App Store going the way of the Android Market, i.e. free apps growing at the expense of paid apps. The big question for iOS developers is why.
One question is why people won’t pay for apps. Alternatively, are developers at fault having lowered their prices to the point they have reached zero? I believe the main problem is that most apps actually have very little value. Most are ‘information’ apps that just provide a more convenient way of viewing things that are already available free via web sites. Dumbed down apps have resulted in dumbed down prices.
But what about apps that that do have substance? Examples are navigation, medical reference, office and substantial drawing apps. The problem is that these apps take a significant amount of development effort. Even at say 10x the price of a ‘dumb app’, it’s difficult for them to be financially viable. As most apps cost close to zero, many consumers think twice before purchasing the more expensive apps even though they are a bargain compared to their PC or Mac counterparts.
The second point is further bolstered by apps like Google Maps on Android, which is a full-blown, turn-by-turn navigation app and is one of the must-have/can’t-live-without features of Android. If you’re Garmin or Tom-Tom, why even bother to build an Android app? On iOS, maybe, but even there, some apps are well below you in price, including MapQuest which is free. So, even if you want to build a substantial app, you’ll most likely have competition.
Matt (@topperge) covered the topic of useless apps (a.k.a. apps of little value) years ago, and a quick look at the App Store confirms this hasn’t changed much. This observation bleeds over into two related ones: first, it’s too easy to create and distribute an mobile app, which drags overall quality down and second, the App Store and Android Market are both hot messes where you can’t find anything useful.
Anyway, lots of food for thought in there. I wonder when mobile apps will peter out due to all the above factors, or will Apple/Google figure out a way to alleviate these issues.
Find the comments.
Hello There 2012
Traditionally, I do end of the year and prediction posts.
This year, I just haven’t had the energy, and by now, I’ve read too many predictions posts (and so have you) to convince anyone that these are my own thoughts. The well is poisoned.
Predictions for 2012 tend to fall into either the can’t-miss or the can’t-hit-because-the-Mayans-were-right buckets, and it seems this year the biggest question is how to best combine the obvious trends (social, cloud and mobile) into a single unword.
SoCloMo? MoSoClo? CloMoSo?
Anyway, I’m doing something different for 2012. I’m listing areas that I’ll be watching with keen interest next year. So, expect to read more about this topics from me in the coming year.
3D printing
I’m astounded a how little coverage 3D Printing gets, given the amount of virtual ink spilled on the next iPhone and the cool, hip startup by this ex-Facebooker and that ex-Googler. Maybe I read the wrong things, but it finally caught my eye last year, after lingering on the margins for years.
Check out this National Geographic Known Universe segment if you need background.
This is real science fiction, a la the Star Trek replicator.
And just in time for 2012, Makerbot’s Thing-O-Matic went on sale for $999 for the kit, $2,000 assembled. Sure, that’s a hefty chunk of change. I’m sure the resin used to print objects ain’t cheap (that’s how they get you), but still, you could spend $999.99 on BarMax for your iOS device or a bit more than $2000 for an 80-inch TV.
The internet of things
Noel (@noelportugal) reminded us yesterday of how cool the internet of things can be, and it’s much more than cheerful holiday lights. Lots of everyday objects can now carry wifi adapters on board, and thanks to tiny Linux distros, they’re as smart as your iPhone and ready to be commanded.
The emergence of Siri as an interface has brought some interesting examples to light.
Years ago, the connected home meant doing a lot of hardcore hacking, maybe even to yourself, but now, thanks in large part to projects like Arduino and the maker community, it’s a snap. Plus, with the introduction of the Android ADK at Google IO last year, I’m expecting cool projects to begin appearing in 2012.
Sure, there are perils, but the promise is huge. I love reading about the projects that spring from the minds of makers.
Mobile payments
Despite the creepiness of Google Wallet, there’s something ultra-cool about waving your phone to pay for something, like a real Jedi boss. Way back in the day, when Bluetooth was initially released, one of the selling points was mobile commerce; that never happened, but as NFC-capable phones flood the market, it’s going to become reality very quickly.
I’m a huge fan of carrying less crap on my person. I keep my wallet as thin as possible (in more ways than one), and I love that my phone can replace the numerous other gadgets I used to travel with, like an iPod, wireless access point, camera, etc.
There will be problems, certainly, but I’m stoked to watch this area evolve.
Personal privacy and security
The high profile hacks and data breaches of 2011 are bound to continue. People will finally have to take real care with their online privacy and security, and tools like 1Password, which I love, will benefit.
But username/password authentication is so out-dated and rife with issues. I keep waiting for a single identity solution to take off, and maybe this will be the year.
At some point, people have to rise up and take control of their data and identities, right?
Evolution of interfaces
I’ve watched touch interfaces evolve with great interest, and obviously that will continue. However, new interfaces are emerging, voice through Siri, smart mirrors, any surface interfaces, etc. It’s a brave new world, and designers are figuring out the best ways to interact with it.
This is both good and bad, but either way exciting.
Health + intertubes
Gadgets like Fitbit and the now-doomed Jawbone Up and services like RunKeeper and making fitness easier with automation and analytics. I bought my wife a Fitbit for Christmas, and she’s been marveling at how easy it is to use for tracking what she does and eats, her goals, her sleep, like a personal trainer following her around all day.
As our time is increasingly precious, tools like these are emerging to help remind you to stay in shape and, you know, eat something every once and a while. The analytics provided by these tools are probably the most valuable; there’s something gravitational about personal reports, like Nicholas Feltron’s annual reports. We love us some data, especially in bite-sized reports.
Automation via API
This last one is something recent that has caught my attention. Two services ifttt (if this, then that) and the Dropbox Automator both weave together the APIs of common services to do useful work for you like saving all your Instagram photos to Dropbox, copying photos you’re tagged in on Facebook to Picasa, sending you a text if it’s supposed to rain today, etc.
These are basically service mashups, and while they are risky to depend on, what with the dependencies on the beneficence of the API providers and the brokering of your credentials for multiple services, there is definite promise here.
I’m just at the beginning of my investigation here, but these feel a lot like OS X’s Automator, which is a highly useful little tool.
Happy New Year!
So, those are the topics I’ll be watching with interest. You may notice a common thread running through many of them, i.e. the combination of meat and byte life facilitated by the intertubes. I’m a sucker for that stuff.
What about you? What will you be watching with interest in 2012? Find the comments and share.
Socially Aware Christmas Lights
#cheerlights show me some purple
Hello. My name is Noel Portugal (@noelportugal) and this is my first official post on the theappslab. I’m an avid fan of all things connected to the Internet (aka the internet of things) and love hacking and tinkering away in my free time. This year I decided to join other folks in a social Christmas lights experiment called Cheerlights.
The project goal was to synchronize Christmas lights by checking Twitter mentions to #cheerlights or @cheerlights and the color desired (red,green,blue,cyan,white,warmwhite,purple,magenta,yellow,orange). The project provided an API powered by the thinkspeak.com platform that allowed users to subscribe to the latest color tweeted. The results were amazing; an android app that displayed the current color, an Ewok robot that reacted to color tweeted, a Chrome browser extension, a Twilio phone hotline, and other multiple light implementations.
arduino + xbee radio
I built my Cheerlights using the amazing and hackable GE Color Effects lights, an Arduino, an ioBridge module as an Internet getaway, and a couple xBee radios. Another geeky part of my implementation was that all my house Christmas lights (including the cheerlights) were scheduled by a cronjob! Yes, just as many of us use cronjob for every day automated tasks such as backups or cleanup, I was able to use a script to set start and stop times of my house lights.
Since I took some days away I also setup an IP webcam to check on my lights (and my house 
)
- *chrome extension on top right
Check my blog for more detailed info and pics. Maybe you can join me next year with your own Cheerlights project.
Happy New Year!
Types of Users Don’t Matter, What They Want to Do Does
I heard someone say today that such-and-such function was for a user with no technical competence.
This immediately struck me as odd, given that I thought we were talking about the persona often referred to as “the business user,” i.e. someone for whom writing code is not a job function that will be using your software. You may know this persona already, since much time and energy has unfortunately gone into writing software to convert this person into a developer.
I think the point was that the software was easy to use to perform a function that is generally considered an administrative one. Generalizing again, I consider an administrative function is anyone that the user either cannot perform on purpose because that was design or does not want to perform because the function is tedious, difficult, frustrating, dangerous, “not my job,” etc.
Still, it’s safe to assume that there are no users with no technical competence. Given the worldwide penetration of mobile phones, which has opened up the intertubes to billions, I’m willing to make that assumption. If someone has landed on your product, you go ahead and assume that person has some level of technical competence.
That said, I also agree with the myth of the sophisticated user.
Contradiction? Not really. I’m in favor of assuming users want to do something and building for those functions, rather than creating assumptions about their technical savvy or lack thereof. The results of the latter too often place no design importance on so-called power user/admin interfaces because fewer people will use them and the users will be sophisticated.
Sophisticated users appreciate design too, perhaps more so, given their experience.
Anyway, food for thought.
Find the comments.
Emerging Market for Orphaned Tablets?
Today brought news that RIM is slashing the price of its PlayBook tablet. There’s precedent for this move. HP almost immediately slashed the price of its TouchPad after the release did not go well; they did so again in December. December also brought news that Dell was killing off its Streak line of tablets.
I have to assume that these tablets will eventually lose support, leaving their owners high and dry. Even at a reduced price, a tablet that gets no updates to its OS is just a fancy paperweight.
So, given the initial success of Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Android modding projects like Cyanogen, I wonder if there’s a business opportunity for these orphaned tablets.
I mention the Kindle Fire here for two reasons. First, it’s the most successful Android tablet to date, built on an older version of Android, maybe 2.2, maybe 2.3, it’s unclear and doesn’t seem to matter to consumers. The content and value proposition do. The value proposition could easily be recreated for older hardware.
Second, the Kindle Fire, although not actually a PlayBook clone as was initially rumored, is very similar to these other tablets in size and specs. Creating a mod for new hardware is by no means a simple task, but given that Amazon has already created a market segment for sub-iPads, it might be worth the investment to build mods for these depracated tablets.
Even a free, as-is mod might pay for itself with content purchased.
Anyway, for Amazon or someone else, there definitely seems to be a market emerging here. Call it the breathe-life-into-old-tablets market.
Thoughts?
Speaking at Kscope 12
I’ve been accepted to speak at Kscope 12, the big ODTUG (@odtug) user group conference which is in San Antonio, June 24-28.
My session is called Extend Oracle WebCenter to Infinity and Beyond, and yes, you can expect lots of Toy Story references. The session is scheduled for Monday, June 25 from 4:15 to 5:15, so I’ll need to do something entertaining to keep people’s attention off dinner and drinks.
I’m hoping to get Chris Bales (@cbales) involved to talk about the WebCenter Spaces iPhone app his team built on top of the WebCenter REST APIs. We’ll see, since I think I’ve ambushed him a bit. Expect to see Noel (@noelportugal) too.
I’ve never been to San Antonio, so that will be a first. I do, however, know the Mayor, so maybe I’ll swing by City Hall and name-drop. Or not.
One bummer is that this year’s Google IO conflicts with Kscope. Google pushed the show back about a month this year and added a day. It’s now June 27-29, so I should be able to make both.
If you’re heading to Kscope this year, stay tuned for details about my session and the other WebCenter content planned for the show.
Find the comments.
Seeing Santa Hacks
My daughter is about nine months old now, and she’s thoroughly enjoying all the hubbub of Christmas.
We’ve taken her to a nearby grower to cut down our tree, to the zoo to see all the lights, and of course, to sit on Santa’s lap. That last one was an adventure, one that could have been greatly improved with technology.
It took four tries to see Santa. In retrospect, I’m sure more experienced parents have this trick down pat, but given the lines, it looks like a lot of people are just suffering in line. An old friend used to call that “building character.” I’m not a fan.
Lucky for us, seeing Santa was a treat for parents, not for baby, otherwise it might have been even worse.
Here’s the problem. The lines to see mall Santas are longer than amusement park lines in mid-Summer, there doesn’t seem to be a pattern you can exploit, and no one has bothered to use technology to solve the issue.
First, we tried on Saturday evening, and unsurprisingly, the line was long, probably close to three hours.
No worries, we figured an evening during the week might be better. It was, but only barely, maybe a two-hour wait.
So, maybe first thing in the morning, right when the North Pole opens at 10 AM. Nope, fail. We arrived at 10 on the nose, and there was already a line of more than a hundred people queued up; I swear they camped out overnight.
In each case, there was no way we were waiting. My daughter wouldn’t have done well with a 30-minute wait, let alone a two-hour one. Besides, time is money.
By this time, I was already designing a solution in my head that would allow me to spy on the line from my mobile device. I can’t believe the company that does these Santa productions doesn’t have something like this already. After all, I doubt they like dealing with parents who’ve been subjected to several hours in line with kids.
Turns out one company does have a system in place to alleviate the waiting. One local mall has a virtual line that can send manage your place in line and send you texts when you near the front.
They also show how many people are already queued and how long the wait estimate is. And even though it’s about 45 minutes before they open, there are already nine people in line. That has doubled as I write this.
Insane.
Given the length of these lines, I wonder how well people who have waited hours would react when random people cruised up and jumped the line. This seems obvious to me, but of the local malls, only this one has any kind of virtual system in place. Seems it might be unique nationally too, since it made the WSJ yesterday.
Anyway, this was my Plan E, but happily, Plan D worked. We figured the downtown mall would be sparsely populated around quitting time, and definitely not full of suburban families who would have to drive through rush hour and park.
This assumption turned out to be correct, and we arrived to find a line with two families in it. Win.
So, alls well that ends well, at least this year. Frankly, I’ll bet the Santa we saw was much cheery than the ones in the suburban malls who have to see hundreds of kids in a day.
As a footnote, the photos we bought were delivered digitally, in addition to printed on site. The process for retrieving these images online was one of the most painful I’ve ever seen. It took about a dozen steps.
Why? The company tries very hard to get you to buy crap before delivering the images you already paid for; so the design is awful and convoluted on purpose. It’s anti-design.
The process was so frustrating and obviously on purpose that it actually made me less likely to give in to the upsell.
If only they had spent resources on making the line process smoother. I’ll bet investing in a system to speed the line with technology (cams, notifications, etc.) would produce happier customers who are more likely to buy additional schwag after the visit.
So, that’s my Santa ordeal. Luckily, I’ve learned some hacks to apply in future years.
Anyone out there have hacks or nightmares to share? Find the comments.
And enjoy the Holidays. You earned it.
Helvetica, the Documentary
I recently finished watching Gary Hustwit’s Helvetica. Yes, it’s a documentary about the ubiquitous typeface. Pretty sure I heard about it first from Paul (@ppedrazzi), which makes sense, given the content.
I like most documentaries, and this one appeals to the wannabe designer and font, erm typeface, nerd in me. It’s also an interesting historical study in the evolution of typefaces over the past 50 or so years.
Aside from the fascinating (at least to me) content, something struck me about all the typographers interviewed for the film. They are all very knowledgeable, not only about typography and its history, but also about related disciplines like industrial design and art history. I’ve noticed the same about designers in the past.
This type of cross-discipline and historical knowledge comes from classic education; it’s also the kind of knowledge base that made Steve Jobs so successful. He famously aimed for the intersection of technology and liberal arts, which is only possible with a broad base of knowledge.
At some point, the history of technology needs to creep into computer science curriculum. Knowing who came before you, what they accomplished, how they failed and rebounded, who invented what and how it all went down–these are all key to understanding the human side of technology.
For example, when a luminary like Dennis Ritchie passes, it’s important to understand the significance.
Maybe I’m alone here, but I think this is key to practicing a craft.
Update: I forgot to mention this wonderful documentary can be streamed from Netflix. Add it your instant queue right now.
Find the comments.
Clara Shih Joins the Starbucks Board Of Directors
If you doubted the power of social, this bit of news might serve as a wake-up call, or it might reenforce your beliefs.
Twenty-Nine-Year-Old Hearsay Social CEO Clara Shih Joins Starbucks Board Of Directors | TechCrunch
Back in 2007, Clara mashed up Salesforce and Facebook into an unofficial app called Faceforce. Creepy, yes, but very cutting edge and way ahead of its time. A mere four years later, and Clara is CEO of her own company and now on the Board of Starbucks.
So, I think she was on to something.
I actually met Clara briefly at some point, although I can’t recall exactly when. I’m thinking it was at Charlene Li’s (@charleneli) book signing at Web 2.0 Expo in 2008. Based on that brief conversation, I’m not at all surprised at Clara’s success.
And the move makes a ton of sense for Starbucks too. At Chirp last year, Starbucks, Brad Nelson specifically, was among the speakers; they were also one of the early adopters of Promoted Tweets. Starbucks realized early that social had legs and struck early to reach their core customers.
Anyway, congrats to both Clara and Starbucks. Like it (a pun!) or not, social is a juggernaut, just ask our own Peter Reiser (@peterreiser).\
Find the comments.
The Scoop on WebCenter Evangelism
Sometimes, I write about work stuff. This is one of those times.
You may have seen recently that Noel (@noelportugal) and I joined a brand-spanking, new team called WebCenter evangelism. You might also recall that the team’s mission is:
. . . to raise the profile of Oracle in all of the markets/conversations in which WebCenter competes—social business, collaboration, portals, Internet sites, and customer/audience engagement.
WebCenter has undergone a metamorphosis recently, and it now encompasses a much larger set of capabilities than it did years ago when I first joined the team.
From the source (@oraclewebcenter):
Oracle WebCenter is the user engagement platform for social business—connecting people and information. It brings together the most complete portfolio of portal, web experience management, content, social, and collaboration technologies into a single integrated product suite, and it provides the foundation for Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Fusion Applications to deliver a next-generation user experience.
Here’s a picture to help:
Not specific enough for you, check out this Q&A with Andy MacMillan (@apmacmillan), the head of WebCenter PM, and the WebCenter strategy and product roadmap shown at OpenWorld last year. Maybe you caught the keynote announcing Oracle Social Network at OpenWorld.
Did you know that OSN is a member of the WebCenter family? Did you notice the Fatwire acquisition back in June? That’s another WebCenter family member, now called WebCenter Sites.
So, yeah, a lot has changed.
What will this new evangelism team do?
Glad you asked. We will be everywhere talking about WebCenter, answering questions, extolling virtues, instructing, building cool stuff, propagating, enlightening, researching and listening. Noel P and I will be focused more on talking to developers, but for the most part, we’ll all be out there (and here) talking WebCenter. It’s that simple.
This is new territory for a development team and for each of us. So, it’s a bit of a moving target. No worries though, we’ll get it sorted as we go. The biggest piece of the puzzle is you.
As we spin up this new team, we’re looking for people outside Oracle who are interested in learning about WebCenter, testing and extending its capabilities, discovering its features. If that’s you, find the comments, hit us up on Twitter (@cfinn, @jkuramot, @noeljaffre, @noelportugal, @peterreiser, @theappslab), Facebook, G+ or email webcenter dash evangelism underscore ww at oracle dot com.
Or we’ll come to you. We’ll be at conferences like COLLABORATE, Kscope, and OpenWorld. So find us in person if you’re interested in conversating about WebCenter.
We’d love to chat with you. And watch this space for more about what we’re doing.
