Your "package"?

Not that one! I got an email today a job offer, I tend to get lots of those most are asking me if I know someone who might be interested in the job. Given my job with a large community those I sometimes pass along and sometimes I just ignore them.

Sometimes as I said they are actually addressing me, one of the ones I got today I just had to share. I won't share the whole thing but a couple of parts that made me chuckle.

Including in our offer will of course be a mobile telephone, a computer the latest in state of the art desktop PC's running the latest in Windows technology namely Excel!...

OK not funny by itself but combine that with this next part...

50% travel throughout Europe, direct contact with our customers

So what I need to lug the "state of the art desktop PC with it's Excel" around Europe or what? I of course did not bother to respond to them ;-)

What ever happened to a "cool" offer to get someone's attention?

• Latest in top of the Laptop's (PC or MAC - your choice)
  
• Blackberry, Treo or even an iPhone
  
• Yearly budget for the latest gadgets
  
• Travel miles available for personal use
  
• etc...
  

Instead it seems everyone wants to impress lately with the "latest software" or something like that - I have my software that I like to use, let me use that and just let me pick the machine, hardware and gadgets that will work best for me?

Has the head hunter/recruiting market been flooded with so many new agents that they don't bother to "try" anymore? I used to get really impressive emails and in the last year or so it's like the quality has degraded to well to spam! I mean I have a blog read it and try to at least sweet talk me by using my own interests against me!

Technorati Tags:
experience, life

SDK and API's - I like these things!

The other day in Twitter I saw Coté tweeting about a call with Appcelerator (no link or anything) and so I Google'd it and found them right off.

"The Appcelerator Platform is our flagship product. It's a next-generation, open source web platform that fundamentally changes the way rich Internet applications are developed. Here are some technical highlights about the Appcelerator Platform:"

(Via Appcelerator Platform RIA Developer Open Source Community.)

I then mentioned in Twitter how I was interested and Coty responded with a link to @jhaynie (founder/CEO) who promptly contacted me to let me know they are available if I have questions (I'd not even downloaded at this time).

Just checking out their site, this caught my eye "Since the Appcelerator Platform is message-based, you can create fully-functional RIAs without writing a single line of server code. This enables you to rapidly prototype new products and services and then use your prototype in the final product with 100% reusability (no throwaway code). Additionally, your Appcelerator Prototype will include the Messaging Interface required by your RIA, so service development will be a piece of cake."

Having it downloaded I decided to give it a look through, it's 1.8 MB on my disk a bit much, a closer look shows the "src" directory oh it's 1.8MB as well. Copy the directory to your server and run the "service tester" which quickly resulted in an immediate "I received your Hello World" - probably one of the first framework/kit or package that I was able run right off. No config, nice!

I played around for a few hours with it, building on top of a couple of test apps and such, it's quite impressive a bit complex but after some time as with most things I think it will work itself into the norm in terms of usage.

In terms of the options, amazing, great quality and a major time saver (once you get the hang of it) in building RIA applications on the web. The question of course is staying power, there are so many of these packages (although this one is truly unique I think) coming out how many are we going to see go under or fade out in the next 18 months?

This one has the entire messaging system which I think will be key to their survival, will be interesting to watch them!

Technorati Tags:
development, php, appcelerator

Second Life as a Platform for Augmented Reality

I've often found the idea of the 3D Web merging with the real world something out of the films but yet also something we would be seeing within the next 2 years or so.

I've been following virtual worlds and the ideas behind virtual for years now and have tried most environments that have been made available. Second Life is one of those environments that has captured my attention the longest because it's one of the most advanced publically available with a programming interface.

The goes in this video show what we are going to be seeing more and more of in the next 24 months!

Exploring Flex and "auto" DB applications

I'm still new to developing on Flex but I have to say the more I play the more I love it! Recently I decided to move from "playing" to building a real app.

OK no I'm not going to share my "app" at least not yet but I did want to share a nice cool little feature of Flex I found to be such a life saver it's not funny. I've spent lots of time trying out various different development languages and I often always end up reverting back to PHP, HTML and JavaScript not sure why that is but it just happens. Well with Flex and Actionscript I feel very comfortable and that comfort level is increasing day by day as I use it more.

Internally at my work I've created a few applications like this one, and since I am terrible at design I've always been on the lookout for a nice IDE that does the design/ui for me but gives me serious control of the coding. Flex Builder which I have in beta for the next 80 days or so gives me that, anyone at Adobe want to sport me a license? :-)

Anyway here I am sitting here and thinking how nice would it be to build a cool looking UI for some of the tasks that are associated with some of these internal apps I have? Well Flex Builder has a nice option about "create application from DB" which sounded just about right and it let's you create things with a PHP backend which was even nicer!









We are talking a basic application connected to my database in a matter of minutes with all the code available for me to begin enhancing and doing more of what I need! You gotta love it!



Even better if for some reason Zend was to throw me a license of Zend Studio (review purposes of course) then I'd have live PHP debugging - or at least this is what I've been told that it can be setup - anyone had success there?

Technorati Tags:
development, experience, flex, adobe

WikiPatterns - a review

I've read the book now 34 times, when I plan to do a review I like to be sure I fully digested the information. I received the book actually pre-release in agreement that I would blog about it, if I found it interesting.

So you've probably realized that since I am blogging it I found it interesting (understatement!).

The 4th time I read the book was actually today over the course of the last 45 minutes. I'm doing some research for a project I am on and I remembered something from WikiPatterns (the book and site) would help a lot. It also reminded me that I needed to go ahead and get this blog out and share with everyone. I just Tweeted that I was reading it and already got to responses back thanking me for the reference!

The book was written by Stewart Mader a Wiki Evangelist for Atlassian. Talk about combining a writing project with your hobby/job? Nicely done Stewart!

The book itself is hailed as "a practical guide to improving productivity and collaboration in your organization" and anyone who has read it will surely agree it's that and a whole lot more. It covers a lot of the basic ideas behind what a Wiki is but it also gives some very practical and sound advice about how to start and grow a wiki! I'm a huge consumer of the Wikipatterns.com site which the book has a lot of information found there but the book itself has become a reference manual for me in terms of the brilliant selection of case studies found in it - my favorite is the first one from Leap Frog. Each time I review that case study I am reenergized to continue my own quest for the ultimate "Inbox zero", the way that Leap Frog approached and has begun to utilize their wiki is nothing less of inspirational and is a driving force for me - work related I keep all papers, thoughts, ideas and such in my Wiki personal space and when I have flushed them out I make them public (still within my personal space) I've very rarely documents or such on my system unless I'm forced to, usually because the rest of the project members are simply not comfortable yet with a wiki environment!

I have hope and will continue to help push the concept, armed with my wikipatterns!

Technorati Tags:
collaboration, community, wiki, wikipatterns

Second Life Flight Booking Demonstration

I've had the pleasure this year of helping Bjoern work on his Thesis and this video here is some of the "visual" results of the work he has been doing - fantastic stuff and more will be coming down the road as he begins to wrap up his research!

20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life | Zen Habits

An excellent read for anyone, not just 18 year olds or someone just starting out but one for anyone. So many of these things I wish I had known years ago as well...

"However, there are a few things I wish I had known when I was graduating from high school and starting out as an adult in life.
Would I change things? I’m not so sure. I might never have gotten into a mountain of debt, but then I wouldn’t have learned the amazing satisfaction of getting out of it. I might have made better career choices, but then I wouldn’t have all the work experience that makes me the blogger and writer that I am today."

(Via 20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life | Zen Habits.)

I doubt very seriously though I would have done anything different, I truly live with no regrets and lots of experiences and memories I cherish every day.

Technorati Tags:
life, experience

Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT

So it's final, I will be attending the Enterprise 2.0 Summit in March (not just the CeBit), not really 100% sure what to expect but checking out the schedule and the speakers I have a very good feeling it's going to be a great event!

"The Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT is a one-day conference at the CeBIT 2008 about how corporations have to change their informational and organisational structures to be more innovative and competitive for their markets. With exclusive speakers and best-practices the Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT has a high-class conference program and is part of the CeBIT conferences."

(Via Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT: Homepage.)

I'm especially looking forward to this session:

11:50 - 12:35

How Web 2.0 Technologies revolutionize the Enterprise.

Dion Hinchcliffe, Hinchcliffe & Company

"Web 2.0 is a widely accepted Consumer Web phenomenon that is already causing an impact inside the Enterprise. Your co-workers are bringing these tools and techniques into your workplace. This keynote covers the opportunities that these new technologies bring as well as how they are changing the Enterprise."

Who else is going?

Technorati Tags:
Enterprise, e20summit, cebit, Enterprise Irregulars, Dion Hinchcliffe

@eventtrack - tracking people in the moment reporting

@eventtrack - tracking people in the moment-1
Originally uploaded by Craig & Nicole

I've been working on an idea around "subscribers" to @eventtrack, I mean anyone can start an event but what about those who really are starting an event I think the information I can provide them could be qute valuable to their future events. The screen shot is a sample of a report that I'm putting together along with notes and todos as I move forward. I currently have 4 users in beta test for this feature and hope to collect feedback from them soon!

No worries I'm not ready to give up my day job but I am having a lot of fun on this project and it's expanding quite a bit. I just expanded the entire FAQ section as well, check it out.

I'm also open to suggestions about other services, or if you have a service you want to integrate I'm eager and happy to work with everyone to find a possibility. For the most part I need a tag or keyword generated RSS or JSON feed and I am set to go.

And for those interested watch this space in the near future you're gonna have a chance to participate and win ;-)

@eventtrack meet Jaiku

@eventtrack my little side project that's been keeping me busy just hit a new level. @eventtrack so far has been able to track the various social objects such as photos, videos, blogs, links and most importantly the conversations around a single tag, a subject. The conversations as well as the events have been generated and gathered from Twitter to date but some users just aren't on Twitter and thus I was missing their collective input. To help overcome this I've now integrated the next of the micro-blogging platforms - Jaiku.

Jaiku - type your new Jaiku here

• Jaiku Join the eventtrack channel at eventtrack
  
• Jaiku send a message from your stream to #eventtrack @xxxx message where xxxxx is the keyword for your event e.g. #eventtrack @defrag this is a a test
  
• Jaiku from the eventtrack channel itself send a message (or comment) '@xxxxx message' where xxxxx is the keyword for your event e.g. @defrag this is a a test
  
• Here To follow everyone in the search enter xxxxx where xxxxx is the keyword for your event e.g. 'defrag'
  

(Via @eventtrack - tracking people in the moment.)

Of course as soon as I announced this in Twitter the following little conversation took place.

	ccmehil for Jaiku you can use the eventtrack channel and @ keyword for each entry or from your own channel # channel @ keyword message 24 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to for
	yellowpark @ccmehil you da man :D 26 minutes ago from web in reply to ccmehil
	yellowpark seeing someone start an event spreads to new followers, like the msft / yhoo http://tinyurl.com/2vc3wb/YHOO 27 minutes ago from web
	ccmehil @yellowpark start in either and both are informed 27 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to yellowpark
	yellowpark @ccmehil if you start in jaiku, do your twitter folowers see you started an event? 29 minutes ago from web in reply to ccmehil

As you can see I took things as far as I could to ensure that regardless of the platform people can take part! @eventtrack is all about enabling without making you change!

Technorati Tags:
collaboration, community, development, eventtrack, twitter, jaiku, chris dalby

The Grumpy Old Man

Finally!!! The "Grumpy Old Man" has hit the wide Blogosphere with a stunning post dealing with the topic of CSR!

"I’m not so keen on hypes. For me, a hype is when something regularly catches the attention of every day life media. Call me grumpy, but it gives me the creeps when I see what the media manages to make of the things that they cover. A perfect example of this is the coverage on the ecological footprint and the attention that this gets. Being a member of the environmental advisory body in my town and having tried to live as environmentally friendly as possible for a long time now (I didn’t need a formal next president for that) without turning into a freak, I’ve nothing against raising people’s consciousness about such things but I do have my doubts on the manner in which they try to make thing clear."

(Via From The Grumpy Old Man.)

Eddy is a long time blogger of the SAP Developer Network and has finally decided to jump to the outside world!

Technorati Tags:
bpx, community, sap, eddy de clercq, csr

SAP Community goes Animated!

SAP Business Process Expert Community goes animated thanks to http://www.toondoo.com! Come check out a fun way of understanding the world of business!

It was with great pleasure this morning I read this blog and saw something so cool, the BPX community is the community that sits next to the SDN community whichI am a Community Evangelist for. Now SDN has been around a bit longer and has done lots and lots of things so whenever some of the BPX folks start something interesting it's a blast to see it develop and this one is just awesome.

They posted about their "scripts" which are part of a community project they started and frankly I could not be bothered to read them I just couldn't find the time, desire, what have you and then this blog popped out and I tell you the most disappointing part was that it wasn't all of them - so I'm a subscriber and waiting for more :-)

I've found that I can absorb, digest and consume this format much easier I can the other - the other was too much like "work" for me and I have enough of that so they captured at least one new audience member - how about you?

Technorati Tags:
community, Enterprise, sap, bpx

read more | digg story

More on my side projects...

To continue my theme of "side projects" and what I have been so busy with lately, here is another piece of that puzzle.

"I've been rather quiet so far but I've not been without things to do. Recently, OK, yesterday one of those things was blogged about on ZDNet by Dennis Howlett also a blogger here on SDN and BPX and a fellow Irregular of mine. What he blogged about is a small application currently in a small pilot phase internally, I created the application out of the basic need for a Twitter like service but inside of hte firewall with a few additional features."

Read more Twitter and the Enterprise.

Technorati Tags:
dennis howlett, development, Enterprise, Enterprise Irregulars, sap, twitter

Persai Interest

Persai Interest
Originally uploaded by Craig & Nicole

I received my invite (it's still in private beta) and jumped right in. My most obvious comparison to start with was to "Google Alerts" so I recreated the two I have there inside of persai as my "interests".

persai wins hands down and it really does learn! I'm getting much better results than I actually hoped for and picking up on areas that I had not thought about before, based on a couple of items I rejected the latest two entries in one of my interests has been right on!

I check multiple times a day now to see if something new pops in and I've started to experiment with keywords and other interests!

Well done persai!!!!