Monthly Archives: February 2007

Web 2.0 at Work

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I was reading my copy of Information Week yesterday, and the main focus of this issue is answering the question of what does web 2.0 look like in the enterprise. John Soat’s article, What Web 2.0 Will Mean For Workforce 2.0, is written with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek (as much of his writing is). The cover article, Most Business Tech Pros Wary About Web 2.0 Tools In Business, they outline 13 technologies that “that represent the shifting sands of business collaboration.”

Reading the issue started me thinking about how we use web 2.0 technologies at my company. Looking at their list, I think we use 5-6 of them in one form or another. Some of them 5-6 are not implemented company-wide, but are self chosen on a department level.

There is one department that I know of that uses instant messaging to do a lot of short, quick communication. I use it frequently with people in my department, and people in other departments that I routinely interface with.

However, I want to focus specifically on three of the technologies that we use in our office. Over the next short while I’ll be working on a small series about wikis, blogs among employees, and blogs with customers (and RSS). Be watching for them in the coming days.

Launchy in 3…2…1…

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I’m pretty sure people can already guess that I’m a fan of ways to avoid using the mouse. A long while ago I was on the lookout for a Windows-based keystroke application launcher, in the same vein as QuickSilver for MacOSX. I had started out with Colibri, but found myself not quite satisfied with it. That’s not to say that it’s a bad product, I think it is a good product. It just didn’t seem ideal to me.

My search continued until I came across Launchy. What I found was a very light weight, very quick keystroke application launcher that I’ve been using for over a year now. On my laptop with 1GB RAM it uses only 9MB. And when triggered, uses only 2% of the CPU to load the launcher, then returns to 0%.

As with any launcher it indexes your Start Menu programs folder, but it goes beyond that. You can choose to index as many folders as you’d like. For those folders you are indexing, you can choose what file types to index e.g. .lnk, .mp3, .exe, etc. There is also an extensive library of skins for further customizing Launchy.

The way I’ve chosen to customize my indexing was to create a special folder with links to my frequently used documents and Access databases. So rather than launching the desired application, then going through the process of locating the file I want to open, I initiate the launcher, start typing the name of the document and hit enter. Simple and clean, and saves me a bunch of time clicking through various menus and windows.

A feature that sets Launchy apart from other application launchers is that it’s portable. There is a setting on the Advanced Settings screen where you can mark it as an application on your USB drive. Love that capability.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part about Launchy. It’s released under the GPL.

Is This Make-or-Break Time For Linux?

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Frank Ohlhorst just asked if the penguin is listening. I haven’t thought much about Linux since I made my home computer switch to Mac about a year ago, but he poses some very good ideas.

The Mac guy, the PC guy and a penguin are all standing around having a conversation. The Mac guy, of course, would be pointing out the flaws of Vista, but there would be a twist, the Penguin would be asking, “Why do I have to buy a new computer to avoid all of those Vista problems?”

All fun aside, he gives a strong call to arms for the enterprise Linux distros:

Commercial Linux vendors need to pay attention. The year 2007 very likely will become the year of change on the desktop thanks to Vista and the next generation of the Mac OS, and if the commercial Linux vendors don’t seize the day, the future may very well become bleak for Linux on the desktop.

Vista is not the “minor” migration that going from Win2k to WinXP was. Vista is a major upgrade, albeit with minor benefits IMHO. I know my company is going to hold out until SP1 before taking a serious look at upgrading our systems. Who knows even if Vista will be the preferred OS among users.

For years people have been wondering if Apple can get out of the home and media markets, and into the “regular” business world. I think Apple is in position now to make that serious push, especially with OS 10.5 coming very soon.

Is Linux read to move out from the server and tech enthusiast markets, and into the Joe Average Home User and enterprise markets? That’s a murky question. I like Linux, but I fit into the tech enthusiast category (my favorite distro is Gentoo BTW). I know the kernel is ready, but are Gnome and KDE ready for the non-tech world?

Is there enough momentum left in the Linux machine to take advantage of this situation, or has the fruit-train stolen the proverbial thunder from the penguin?

via Linux Today

MindMeister

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Grigor at Behind the Glasses beat me to the punch, but I’ve got 20 invites up for the taking to the private beta of MindMeister. He’s got the added idea of starting right out on the collaboration aspect of MindMeister.

With the limited time I’ve spent on MindMeister so far it is a very nice mind mapping application. FreeMind is good, but it’s got it’s own quirks. MindManager is really nice, but it comes with a wallet thinning price tag. For the monthly cost of a single trip to Starbucks MindMeister gives you anywhere-in-the-world access to a very promising mind mapping application that allows for real-time collaboration and brainstorming.

I made the comment to Bren that MindMeister would fit nicely in with the recently announced Google Apps Premier Edition. Even without a presentation title, the combination of GMail, GCal, Docs, Spreadsheets, and MindMeister would be a very powerful office application suite. Hmmm (stares off to nowhere dreaming of the potential).

Let me know in the comments if you want an invite.

Google Apps Premier Edition

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Google — whether they admit it or not — is aiming directly at Microsoft’s hold on office suite software. They announced today that they will offer a “Premier Edition” of their Google Apps software to companies for an annual fee of $50 per seat.

The fee-based version, Google Apps Premier Edition, includes five times more e-mail storage — 10 gigabytes per e-mail box — as well as a guarantee that all services will be available 99.9 percent of the time with around-the-clock technical support. Google also is adding mobile access to e-mail accounts through the BlackBerry devices that tether workers to their offices.

I use GApps for my personal stuff. GMail offers to open .DOC and .XLS attachments in Google Docs, which I’m beginning to use that more and more instead of downloading and opening in Word or Excel. I’ve been amazed at the simplicity of the GApps interfaces, and that the applications are really full featured.

In an office/professional setting I don’t know if I’m sold on the idea. Part of me feels that I would miss the “functionality” that comes with MS Office. Although, I have a coworker that just recently switched to a MacBook Pro, and his one concern going in was that he would miss Outlook. He said he hasn’t even thought about it. Maybe this is the same type of thing, where I think I’d miss it (perhaps a little brainwashing on Microsoft’s part) but in actuality I wouldn’t even notice it because I’d be so happy with the new product.

What are your thoughts on this announcement? Is there a piece of software they are missing before this will become a really viable alternative to MS Office (I know, Presently has been rumored)?

EDIT – I completely overlooked the Blackberry bit from the quote above. For those working in SMBs, does the promise of mobile access (at a much reduced price) give serious traction to this when compared to the Exchange/Blackberry combination?

Be Nice To Your Programmers

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Brett over at Cranking Widgets wrote a great piece about how to talk to a programmer. This is my favorite section:

Don’t Demand Anything – Unless Fred reports directly to you, you’re not going to get anywhere if you crash into his Star-Wars-laden cubicle with guns drawn. The second you start getting pushy with old Fred, the second he’ll “suddenly realize” that your problem is going to take 2-3 days to resolve. So, in short, be nice to Fred and let him steer the conversation. After all, he knows how the system works and you need his help – if anything, bring an extra Mountain Dew along with you to help grease the wheels.

While I don’t have any Star Wars stuff in my office, let alone much in the way of any decorations*, the message rings pretty true. Thinking in a larger scale, Brett’s three truths are probably some good rules to follow in general when dealing with all coworkers, and not just programmers.

* I have a plant that I inherited from a previous employee, two family photos (one on my wall, one on my desk), and a Red Sox wall calendar. Oh, and the obligatory whiteboard. That’s about it, did you expect anything different?

Four Windows Key Uses

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There are four keystrokes that involve the Windows key that I use on a daily basis at work. A variety of tasks are completed with them, and I’m sure these are not the only four out there.

  • Windows-D minimizes all of your open application windows, showing the desktop.
  • Windows-R will pull up the Run Application launcher window. This is the same result as if you use your mouse to do Start > Run.
  • Windows-E will pull up the Windows Explorer.
  • Windows-L will lock your computer. I believe this was a new feature in WinXP.

I haven’t played with Vista yet, so I don’t know if any of these work on that platform. However, I would expect them to.

Do you have any favorite Windows Key based shortcuts?

MIT = Making Incredible Things

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When I hear the phrase “Researchers at MIT…” I know I’m about to read/hear about something that is potentially mind blowing. What I just saw at TreeHugger was along those lines.

Researchers at MIT are building a prototype of a lightweight electric vehicle that can be cheaply mass-produced, rented by commuters under a shared-use business model, and folded and stacked like grocery carts at subway stations or other central sites.

If I lived in a major metropolitan area like NYC, Boston, or DC I would be one of the first customers to sign-up for the envisioned rental service. As it is right now, I’d consider owning one of them. I’ve got a 5-10 minute drive to work, and fitting that in the garage would be a breeze (even with all the clutter). Futuristic cars are fun.

Use SHIFT for Reverse

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I vaguely remember when I learned this incredible trick in college, and it has saved me from reaching for the mouse any more than is absolutely necessary. If you can’t already tell, I’m a keystroke kinda guy. The mouse is great and all, I just prefer leaving my hands in one place where I can achieve the same result much faster.

I think everyone knows that TAB moves you through fields on a form. Did you know that SHIFT-TAB moves you through those same fields, but in reverse? No longer do you have to use the mouse to go back two fields, or heaven forbid you cycle completely through to get back there; just add a little SHIFT to your diet.

I hope everyone is familiar with the ALT-TAB (CMD-TAB on Mac) application switcher. If not, go ahead, give it a whirl. When you finish that exciting experience all you have to do is throw the SHIFT in there, to make ALT-SHIFT-TAB (CMD-SHIFT-TAB on Mac), and you cycle through the applications in reverse. I hated having to cycle through 20 application windows to get back to the one I really wanted, and now I don’t have to.

Crappy Monday

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As was noted in the comments over at SlackerManager, this site was down for the better part of today. There’s another blog on my web hosting account that I serve that has been hosing Apache for the entire server. I’ve been given a bit of a reprieve from the host, and I’ll be migrating all of my sites to a more stable environment over the next few days. I’m sure I’ll give the full story here at some point — at least my side of the story.

That said, there will probably be another bit of downtime as I go through the migration process. It’s not as painful as it once was, now that WordPress has a built in feature for importing/exporting WordPress content. I just migrated a friend’s blog to the new server, and it was a breeze. Tuesday is better than Monday, but it’s still not close enough to Friday for it to make a difference.