First Impressions of Gmail

I have started using my new Google mail account. So far I like it. The interface is clean and simple. But the thing that impresses me the most is it's speed. It is very fast. Much faster than Yahoo, Faster than my corporate Notes client as well.
I like the label approach to filing things, rather than the folder concept.

Good work, Google.

Infopath and Sharepoint Portal Server

I have been experimenting with using Infopath and Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server. It has been fun, and I think it can be a very useful combination. The main problem with using it in our environment is that we have yet to deploy Office 2003 Professional throughout our organization. I am working on that.

Simple form design is very straightforward. Drag-n-drop form controls - very easy. When you want to publish the form to the SPS server, that too is very easy. It creates a portal page for the form with a simple click to fill out a form interface. The portal page can show any field values from the saved forms.

One aspect that I still need to work on to get it working the way I would like is the merging of multiple forms in order to aggregate the data into a single view.

Another area that I need to work on more is scripting.

I still exist

I haven't made any postings in a long time. Things just got too busy and to add to that, I am not sure anybody is reading this. All of my known readers were internal and got the things I needed to say directly.

Rich Internet Applications

Two years ago we did a prototype of a rich client application using SVG. It was crude, but demonstrated the idea fairly well. We never did much with it. We got reorg'd a couple of times and has now been all but forgotten.

Macromedia has been flogging their rich client technology. I have finally gotten around to taken a look at what they have to offer. If you have 15 minutes to invest, to a look at their web presentation entitled: Macromedia - The business impact of Rich Internet Applications.

Tom, if you don't even have that much to spare, take a look at the section that talks about the etrade stock quote application. It is about 9 minutes in.

Consider their Watergate Hotel example. What would that kind of approach do to a banking application. Bill payment on one screen? (By the way, I checked out the applicaton on the hotel's web site... They don't use the new flash based application, it is the old one. Wonder why?

Unicode and Character Sets

This article gives a very good overview on the topic of character encoding. Recommended reading for any and every programmer. Even if you only work in COBOL and IMS, there is a very good chance that your data will end up on a webpage.

A Pair of Interesting Articles

This first articles talks about a new IBM server platform, the x455 which will let customers configure a server with between 4 and 16 processors in a manner which reminds me of lego. Need more processing power? Slide in another group of processors.


CRN : Daily Archives : IBM Pushes Scalable Itanium Server : 4:36 PM EST Mon., Nov. 10, 2003

But this second article could add a really interesting twist to the above capability. VMware's new capability provides a huge degree of abstraction from the underlying hardware. Workload can be moved around using a drop-and-drop interface.

InformationWeek > Virtual Servers > Multiplying Virtual Servers With New VMware Tools > November 10, 2003

So if you need more horespower on a server, you could add more x455 units, or move a virtual server image to another physical server.

Sweet.

IBM's case for VoIP

Although a 240,000 user conversion to VoIP is a significant investment. IBM's existing Rolm based phone system is quite antique. It was pretty state-of-the-art at the time it was installed, but that is no longer true. By 2008 that will be overdue.

When examining the case for VoIP, it dosen't usually make sense to upgrade for the purpose of using the technology - there has to be some direct benefit to make it worthwhile. Otherwise you wait for your old equipment to age into obsolescence, or you acquire new premises.

SearchNetworking.com | Networking Decisions notebook: IBM's case for VoIP: "Johnny Barnes, IBM's vice president of global IT solutions and standards, told attendees that his company plans to migrate at least 80% of its more than 300,000 employees to voice over IP by 2008."

Acrobat and InfoPath

Jon Udell has an interesting commentary onAcrobat and InfoPath. When InfoPath was first announced, under the name of xDocs, there was much hubub about it being an Acrobat killer. There certainly is some competition between the two. This will be an interesting fight once it gets started.

A Conversation with Jim Gray

An excellent interview.

useit.com: Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design

I stumbled across this site on web usability. Something that gets left out of a lot of requirement specifications. Is usability a functional or non-functional requirement?

Perhaps they represent principles that drive out both requirement types.

Skype - VoIP Redux

So, FreeWorldDial work well from home, but not behind the corporate firewall. Today on /. I came across this new application (Skype) that combines instant messaging with VoIP. It is what msn could be, if they didn't require pay-for-use subscriptions. Software install was fine, but will it work well with firewalls and VPNs? I'll give it a try and let you know.

Update on VoIP

My original purpose for experimeting with VoIP was two-fold. 1) to talk to my daugther who just went off to college on the other side of the continent, and secondly to improve on my effectiveness while tele-commuting. The first objective looks like it will be a 'win' once she gets her high-speed (and always on) connectivity set-up.

The second objective was somewhat reliant on being able to tie into into the corporate VoIP phone network - over the VPN. This looks to be a challenge. It seems that so far, the best I will be able to achieve is Direct IP dialing. So does this put me any further ahead than using Sametime or Netmeeting? I think the answer is 'no'. To be practicable I would need to know the IP address of the recipient, that would likely be established via a sametime chat. It appears that I should focus on audio calls using sametime and getting everybody I know signed up for that.

Everyone Needs a Personal Server

So I saw this on slashdot "Everyone Needs a Personal Server". I was kind of upset with myself. A long time ago - about when we started developing cell phone applications, I thought that this might be the way to go.

My thinking at the time was that rather than trying to jami everything into one device, spread them out a little. A palm-like device for display, an ear bud for sound, a little black box that would provide compute power and communications (I was thinking bluetooth at the time), and disk storage. So this is kind of like that.

I am sure I was the only one who thought of that too! ;-)

Experimenting with Voice Over IP (VoIP)

Looking for ways to work better from remote locations, I have been exploring Voice Over IP solutions. So far I have signed up with Free World Dialup . I am phone number 57902 . It is a free service.

I have been using xten-lite as the softphone (SIP agent). It was very easy to install. The quality has been good so far with the biggest variable being the speakers and microphone used by the other end. Some feedback has occured with they are in close proximity.

The biggest limitation so far is that FreeWorldDialup is not useable from behind the corporate firewall - at least I haven't figured out a set of workable parameters as yet. Perhaps it won't be needed - that is if the new IP telephone system allows connectivity over the VPN from computer based softphones.

So if you want to play around, install a phone and sign up for FWD, and gve me a call - FWD# 57902.

GSM Security Cracked

News item at Yahoo News says that Israeli researchers have cracked the GSM protocol and can listen in on GSM phone calls, and can also impersonate other callers. Iur first major concern would be "What about our HDML applications? Are our customers exposed?" I think the answer is "no", primarily becuase we would still be running TLS encryption on top of GSM.

Secure Web Sites versus keystroke loggers

So how do you create a website that is safe from keystroke loggers and then like when the user may be using a public terminal and you can't secure the terminal. So far my bottom line conclusion is - you can't. (underlying assumption is that you don't wish to require millions of customers to buy special hardware like a security token). If any infiltrator can install a software keystroke logger, they could also install their own version of the browser, and with it any subversions they wish.

But what could be done to make things more difficult.
A virtual keyboard for entering a password (click keys with mouse)? This would help, unless the infiltrator is intercepting gui events and can dicipher what the mouse events correspond to. Also would be exposed to video camera over the shoulder.

One-time-passwords? Every time you logon you are provided with the password to use next time. Although that would work (mostly), it wouldn't be very popular - customers would forget.

Mouse based signatures. There is new research on this from the UK which suggests that mouse ballistics could work well as a 'signature'. Would have to devise a means to use it from a web application.


What do you think?