Group items tagged

"By combining unified communications, IM, SharePoint, and blogs and wikis while protecting its IP, Monsanto is advancing teamwork." InformationWeek has posted a number of technology innovation-implementation profiles. Monsanto is one of the best "collaborative" examples, although it's very similar to the model GE presented at Office 2.0. These colalborative concepts go back 1998, and the early work Ars Digita was doing with the first "Knowledgeware" - wiki applications. The first "use case" to be published was that of the global electronics giant, Siemanns. Notice the SharePoint - MSOffice integration as a key element in the Monsanto collaboration strategy. That connection "forced" Monsanto to rebuild their document databases and portals using SharePoint and SQL Server.

Must read: "This blog post is part of a new, semi-regular series called Fixing the Web. The goal is to highlight these issues, identify potential solutions, and have a dialogue. I don't claim to have the answers for the situation we are in. However, I do know this -- if there is any community that potentially has what it takes to solve these issues I believe it's the Ajax and JavaScript communities, which is why this is a perfect place to have these discussions. To start, I see four areas that are broken that must be fixed: ..... "

Also see post from Savio Rodgriguez. PhoneGap is funded by a grant from MIT. Open source. "PhoneGaps lets developers wrap web applications inside a native application using WebKit, making development easier for those who aren't familiar with Objective-C and Cocoa. In fact, the framework even includes a tool for easily doing this type of "native web app" packaging. And if a native web app wrapper sounds like it would be right up your alley, you can download PhoneGap for free and give it a whirl."

"...some browsers and plug-ins were adopting storage-related API's that are a part of the new HTML5 draft specification. While Gears, Opera and Webkit have implemented structured storage API's, the remainder of the HTML5 spec currently remains mostly unimplemented and also in a state of flux. HTML5 is a super-sized effort to bring all the browsers under a single, standard markup language and set of API's - but with Microsoft, Adobe and others racing ahead with their own next-gen web technologies, will we ever see a real HTML5 standard?" This article was posted in August of 2008, before the surprise release of the WebKit based "Google Chrome" .... the WebKit RiA alternative to Adobe AiR and Microsoft Silverlight

the obvious conflict of interest between the standards-based web and proprietary platforms advanced by Microsoft, and the rationales for keeping the web's client-side programming language small while the proprietary platforms rapidly evolve support for large languages, does not help maintain the fiction that only clashing high-level philosophies are involved here. Readers may not know that Ecma has no provision for "minor releases" of its standards, so any ES3.1 that was approved by TG1 would inevitably be given a whole edition number, presumably becoming the 4th Edition of ECMAScript. This is obviously contentious given all the years that the majority of TG1, sometimes even apparently including Microsoft representatives, has worked on ES4, and the developer expectations set by this long-standing effort. A history of Microsoft's post-ES3 involvement in the ECMAScript standard group, leading up to the overt split in TG1 in March, is summarized here. The history of ECMAScript since its beginnings in November 1996 shows that when Microsoft was behind in the market (against Netscape in 1996-1997), it moved aggressively in the standards body to evolve standards starting with ES1 through ES3. Once Microsoft dominated the market, the last edition of the standard was left to rot -- ES3 was finished in 1999 -- and even easy-to-fix standards conformance bugs in IE JScript went unfixed for eight years (so three years to go from Edition 1 to 3, then over eight to approach Edition 4). Now that the proposed 4th edition looks like a competitive threat, the world suddenly hears in detail about all those bugs, spun as differences afflicting "JavaScript" that should inform a new standard.

Interesting SaaS. Social Helpdesk? Folks post gripes about companies or products. Many companies have assigned folks to respond. E.g., Comcast has 9 staffers responding to customer support issues. Some start-ups are using the service as their only customer support web presence. If we view IT support on a continuum, we begin with in-house call centers, move to newsgroups and outsourced call centers, etc. Now a SaaS in the cloud for many companies' customer support? The company has a great (short) slideshow at . It has a fantastic punchline.

[Welcome to the website of Horizon 2020 - the future Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. The proposed Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, which will be introduced post-2013, will build upon the successes of the current Framework Programme for Research (FP7), the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). ...]

[.... What is tagging? Why is it important? Tags allow information from around the community to be aggregated together. They are labels that can be added to forum posts or Wiki articles to tie pieces of content together to make relevant information easier to find. ...]

Amazing must read!  BackBlaze offers unlimited cloud storage/backup for $5 per month.  Now they are releasing the "storage" aspect of their service as an open source design.  The discussion introducing the design is simple to read and follow - which in itself is an achievement.   They held back on open sourcing the BackBlaze Cloud software system, which is understandable.  But they do disclose a Debian Linux OS running Tomcat over Apache Server 5.4 with JFS and HTTPS access.  This is exciting stuff.  I hope the CAR MLS-Cloud guys take notice.  Intro: At Backblaze, we provide unlimited storage to our customers for only $5 per month, so we had to figure out how to store hundreds of petabytes of customer data in a reliable, scalable way-and keep our costs low. After looking at several overpriced commercial solutions, we decided to build our own custom Backblaze Storage Pods: 67 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867. In this post, we'll share how to make one of these storage pods, and you're welcome to use this design. Our hope is that by sharing, others can benefit and, ultimately, refine this concept and send improvements back to us. Evolving and lowering costs is critical to our continuing success at Backblaze.

.... "I recently described how Google's Wave, a collaboration tool based on the new HTML 5 standard, demonstrated the potential for Web applications to unglue Microsoft's hold on customers. My post quoted Gary Edwards, the former president of the Open Document Foundation, a first-hand witness to the failed attempt by Massachusetts to dump Microsoft and as experienced a hand at Microsoft-tilting as anyone I know......"

Sun takes on the problem of interoperability and portability of applications in a world where there will be many many clouds. At the roll out of the Sun Cloud, key executives explain Sun's implementation of Open Cloud API's and what they see as a pressing need for management tools that will allow some standardization across clouds.

Sun's Open Cloud API plan is a clean reuse of existing Open Web API's.

"..... The underpinning of the Open Cloud Platform that Sun will be pitching to developers is a set of cloud APIs, the creation of which is focused under Project Kenai and which has been released under a Community Commons open source license. Sun wants lots of feedback on the APIs and wants these APIs to become a standard too, hence the open license. These APIs describes how virtual elements in a cloud are created, started, stopped, and hibernated using HTTP commands such as GET, PUT, and POST...."

"...... The upshot is that these APIs will allow programmatic access to virtual infrastructure from Java, PHP, Python, and Ruby and that means system admins can script how virtual resources are deployed. The APIs, as co-creator Tim Bray explains in his blog, are written in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), not XML. The Q-Layer software is a graphical representation of what is going on down in the APIs, and you can moving virtual resources into the cloud with a click of a mouse using the dashboard or programmatically using the APIs from those four programming languages listed above. (PHP support is not yet available, but will be)....."

I can see why Sun picked those four languages first. Can I assume that with a bit of work, this API will be usable from any language with a C "foreign function interface", such as Perl, Common Lisp, Bourne shell, Squeak Smalltalk, and others that your server application might be written in?

I read this comment that largely answers my question at: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2009/03/16/Sun-Cloud "So right now JSON out of a shell tool is not so good. More things like this will create pressure for development of tools to change that, but years of widespread XML/HTML deployment have only produced a few oddly maintained tools. Perhaps that's because you can scrape quite a bit of the web with a couple sed passes, and if I were to have to deal with the mentioned tools, that's probably the route I'd take." (seth w. klein) In other words, with a bit of work, _anything_ that can talk text over HTTP can do this with a bit of work, but an object-oriented is likely to be more at home with JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)

[A post from CNET's Greg Sandoval reports that United States ISPs and top content providers are "closer than ever" to a regimen for punishing ISP subscribers who engage in illegal file sharing. The story suggests that AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, the Recording Industry Association of America, and the Motion Picture Association of America are key negotiators. The White House is also involved in the discussions. Ars has been able to confirm the discussions with an industry source. ...]

What a giggle, public spying on NSA and its contractors using Big Data. The interactive network graph with its sidebar display of relevant data derived from LinkedIn profiles is just too delightful. 

"Facebook has never had much of a reputation for letting users hide their identities online. But now the world's least anonymous website has just joined the Web's most anonymous network." [# ! Just a #PR #Campaign… # ! … as, You'll learn soon… TOR IS THE NSA Posted Jul 9, 2008 21:13 UTC (Wed) by dulles (guest, #45450) Parent article: GNU/Linux free software tools to preserve your online privacy, anonymity and security (FSM) # ! Anyway, since long ago, You Must Know that there is no privacy in # ! a Network built by others -Governments and Big Companies # ! among 'em. # ! Don' come to The Web expecting privacy, as You won't look for # ! intimacy in a Stadium Full of Pe@ple… # ! … but meet the places You get in.]

"Facebook has never had much of a reputation for letting users hide their identities online. But now the world's least anonymous website has just joined the Web's most anonymous network."

Seems that the FBI overlooked a few clues before it told Obama to go ahead and declare war against North Korea. 

"With the rise of different mobile platforms and content ecosystems over the past decade, the technology world is becoming increasingly fragmented. Fifteen years ago, there were only a handful of platforms that mattered -- Windows PCs, Macs, and perhaps Linux on the desktop, and primarily BlackBerry in the mobile space. Today, the number is far greater -- Windows (further divided into the pre- and post-Windows 8 offerings), OS X, Linux, Chrome OS, Android (in many varying incarnations), iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Amazon's Kindle and Fire products, to name the most common. Each of these platforms has become increasingly insular, making lock-in to a specific vendor, device, or OS much more common.  Featured Resource Presented by Citrix Systems 10 essential elements for a secure enterprise mobility strategy Best practices for protecting sensitive business information while making people productive from LEARN MORE Although it is possible to switch from an iPhone to Android, or from Windows to Mac, there is often a trade-off in making the switch. Apps, music, ebooks, and other content may need to be re-purchased. There will likely be some learning curve. The offerings in the new ecosystem -- apps or content -- may not match the experience to which we've become accustomed, and some may not be available at all.  Here's some guidance on how to switch platforms."

"Posted Jul 9, 2008 21:13 UTC (Wed) by dulles (guest, #45450) Parent article: GNU/Linux free software tools to preserve your online privacy, anonymity and security (FSM)"

"On mobile devices, the Web hasn't lived up to its promise of a universal programming foundation. Google is trying to change that." Android hogged the spotlight at Google I/O, but performance improvements in Google's Chrome browser show that the company hasn't given up on trying to advance its other programming foundation -- the Web. The mobile version of Chrome has become much more responsive since 2013, said Paul Irish, a developer advocate on the Chrome team, speaking at the San Francisco conference. "We've improved the speed of animation by 75 percent and of scrolling 35 percent," Irish told developers Thursday. "We're committed to getting you 60 frames per second on the mobile Web." That performance is crucial for persuading people to use Web sites rather than native apps for things like posting on social networks, reading news, and playing games. It's also key to getting programmers to take the Web path when so many today focus on native apps written directly for Google's Android operating system and Apple's iOS competitor. The 60 frames-per-second rate refers to how fast the screen redraws when elements are in motion, either during games or when people are doing things like swiping among pages and dragging icons. The 60fps threshold is the minimum that game developers strive for, and to achieve it with no distracting stutters, a device must calculate how to update its entire screen every 16.7 milliseconds. Google, whose Android operating system initially lagged Apple's rival iOS significantly in this domain of responsiveness, has made great strides in improving its OS and its apps. But the mobile Web hasn't kept pace, and that means programmers have been more likely to aim for native apps rather than Web-based apps that can run on any device. ............................ Good review focused on the growing threat that native "paltform specific" apps are replacing Web apps as the developer's best choice. Florian thinks that native apps will win