PHP and SAP!

Many may not be aware but PHP together with SAP is one strong combination! To date the most widely used has been an Open Source connector which unfortunately the original author has not been able to maintain nor will be able in the future. Zend is now taking a look, and I for one am very happy they are taking an interest as are many of my colleagues.

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What will life be like in the Year 2008?

It's 8 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008, and you are headed for a business appointment 300 mil. away. You slide into your sleek, two-passenger air-cushion car, press a sequence of buttons and the national traffic computer notes your destination, figures out the current traffic situation and signals your car to slide out of the garage....

read more | digg story

Work Life Balance

Today I started a very long break from work, I'll be out until May first actually using up old vacation from last year that I never got to take.

It's a much needed rest and the main reason is so I can spend time with the family, which we are increasing this week. My wife is going into the hospital in less than 12 hours and then sometime on Friday she will deliver the newest member of our family, a baby boy. So while those two are in the hospital then me and our two year old will be doing the bachelor thing (we're taking bets on how much of the house we destroy).

The video here was my "attempt" and forcing more balance and here I am 6 hrs later wondering if my work email still works - an obvious sign I'm "too" connected I guess so therefore my decision has been to take a page from Luis. Not sure how successful I will be but we'll see in May when I get back.

I won't totally be offline, I do need my sanity check, but work will be far from my mind for the most part although a blog post or two might pop into the community, no promises.

Technorati Tags:
experience, experiment, worklife

Weekend coding, before the storm

As the days are counting down until baby number 2 arrives I'm finding I've less and less time to do any coding of any sort. Of course it was expected but still a bit depressing considering all the cool new things popping up lately.

The newest I've been playing around with and enjoying has been Piclens,

PicLens instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing images on the web. Photos will come to life via a cinematic presentation that goes well beyond the confines of the traditional browser window. With PicLens, browsing and viewing images on the web will never be the same again.

Granted not a "development" or "coding" thing, they do have a nice little "webmaster" (I thought that term was on the way out?) section.

I decided to give it a go, 3 simple steps was all the was needed for me to completely enable the @eventtrack photo galleries. The hardest part was generating the media feed but since it was basically the same as the normal RSS with a few alternations it didn't take long at all. I think I spent a whole of 10 mins on this one?

Technorati Tags:
development, eventtrack, experiment, piclens

Ein Ami comes to Lippstadt - now available!

It's been an adventure being here in Germany, as well as trying to decide what to add to this book. It's my first non technical book and I've decided to go the self publishing route as I thought it would be easier than the "publishing company" way - OK it wasn't in fact a bit harder but also a bit more fun.

Surprisingly it was more stressful as well as less stressful at the same time. I've been playing around with it for about two years now taking a few minutes here and there where as my last book I was done in a matter of months. Working when I want is nice but taking two years, well I feel bad about that I should have worked a but harder I think and dedicated more time. The original at the end of last year was probably 3 times the size but I felt it was too much and quite a bit of it more or less fit into a category by itself, so what is now available I hope is the highlights where as the rest is being added to 3 additional book projects I'm playing around with.

Will I publish again, maybe lots of it depends on the response from this book and others simply depend on whether or not I have the time and motivation (again feedback the positive kind does help in that area).

So without further ado, here it is - I'd appreciate any feedback (good or bad)!

• My book storefront
  
• Ein Ami comes to Lippstadt
  
• Preview
  

The prices in US Dollar (great for those of you in the EU) are $9.99 for the printed version and $6.25 for the eBook version.

As scary as it was when asked, yes I'll sign your copy if you and I are ever in the same space at the same time...

Ramsys Tech Takes » Craig Cmehil’s Take on Web 2.0 in the Enterprise

Time for one dem der vanity posts :-) Actually my reason for posting is that their are asking several folks so will be interesting to read all of the various responses.

"Craig has agreed to share his valuable insights on Web 2.0 in the Enterprise here."

(Via Ramsys Tech Takes » Craig Cmehil’s Take on Web 2.0 in the Enterprise.)

Technorati Tags:
Enterprise

A BIG Thank you!

Subscribers
Originally uploaded by Craig & Nicole

It's Sunday and we are just weeks away from our second child, my book is about to go public and so it's been an evening of reflecting and I came to realize that most of the things in my life would not nearly be as interesting and in many cases not even be happening if it was not for this blog.

I've been at it now since March of 2004 and I've written 438, this will be number 439 in that time, received lots of emails and comments and for that I am grateful to you my readers. The screen shot here is of my "subscribers" those of you who subscriber via RSS or email to what I write here and watching it steadily grow over the lifetime of this little home of mine has been and exciting thing!

Thank you all for sticking by me and making this such a wonderful experience!! I welcome your conversation, suggestions and recommendations!

Ein Ami comes to Lippstadt

IMG_8663
Originally uploaded by Craig & Nicole

It's here! The first printed copy is in my hands, this is the proof copy to ensure I didn't make any huge mistakes before making it available for purchase.

A bit hard to tell in the picture but the cover needs to be altered the top two images are to close to the spine and the edge of the book, I'm altering that now and then their are a couple of images in the book which bleed into the margin that I need to adjust once that is done the book will be available for purchase.

It's been a two year journey working through this, and it's based on five years of experience so I'm extremely excited and happy that it's complete and I think it gives a nice view into the idea of being an expat as well as an understanding of living abroad and of those who are doing so themselves.

My hope is that it helps to bridge some gaps in a humorous way and helps to encourage understanding and acceptance - the world is getting smaller and every day more and more people are beginning to pick up and move in search of new adventures - who knows the next one could be your new neighbour!

@eventtrack and the iPhone

I decided to try my hand at creating a nice little "webapp" for the iPhone and iPod Touch for @eventtrack. Turns out to be incredibly easy, a lot more so than I thought!

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch feel free to give it a go, it's still in Alpha so it could undergo some changes but once I feel it's at a comfortable level I'll add an easy link to the @eventtrack website as well.



Cool little icon, nice easy to use initial interface for the landing page.



Then finally the collective stream, including paging.

Technorati Tags:
development, eventtrack, iphone, ipod touch

Linpus Linux Lite

While at the CeBit I meet up with a friend, he's quite in tune with the "linux" world and CeBit is a perfect spot for finding out what is new and different. He promised to show me some of the more interesting things going on in the Linux Park. I didn't nearly have time to see everything he was talking about and wasn't even able to grab some of the newest versions out but one of the ones I did come across was Linpus, they've been in business for awhile and are probably the most popular version of Linux in the China area (unconfirmed rumor from guy working the booth).

After chatting for a bit the guy gave me a Live CD to try out their "lite" version, they apparently sell mainly to manufacturing but have a few options for end users to. So while on the train home I loaded up VMWare on the MAC and installed from the CD and gave it a go.

Nice large GUI interface quite ideal for touch screen devices and super easy to use,

Linpus Linux distribution is designed to run smoothly and reliably on a lower-end hardware with processing power as low as 500 MHz, 128MB of DRAM and 512MB of storage space. With Linpus Linux Lite, you can surf the web, edit documents and photos, read e-book and email, play the music and games, enjoy the GPS navigation and VoIP service, etc.

I'm going to have to find some time to dig into the attic and find my old Handheld computer I think...

Technorati Tags:
cebit, linux

Enterprise 2.0 and Acupuncture

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. Keynotes and best-practice talks cover the potentials corporation can realize using weblogs, wikis, social networks and other "socially" enhanced enterprise solutions.

The idea of the Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT is rather than theorizing about the potentials web 2.0 and social software are offering towards the corporations, the SUMMIT is presenting best-practices and practioneers with first experiences in stepping forward in the use of these new types of tools and techniques. The Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT will help participants in gaining new ideas and inspiration for their projects as well as learning about the real-life opportunities and challenges.

By a stroke of luck the stars fell into place and I was able to attend the CeBit as well as the Enterprise 2.0 Summit and my short answer on whether it was worth it or not: YES! The first day of the event was when I was there, they still have more going on but the first day for me was key for multiple reasons. There were people there I wanted to connect to as well as others I wanted to hear about their story down the Enterprise 2.0 path of winding roads.

For those who could not attend allow me a moment to "pimp" my own little side project, @eventtrack where you can follow the conversations, links and photos of the event.

There have been several great blogs already on this so I won't bore you my specific thoughts (many you can find viewing @eventtrack.) The biggest take away I can share is this: next year their will be a Enterprise 2.0 Summit at CeBit and this year in September there will be a one day German event on the same topic - take the time!

Now on to the good and bad, as a developer the food at the event of course is an important aspect, this was my lunch.



Notice the steam I was outside to eat this. OK no really it was my lunch but it was not that supplied by the KongressMedia folks they did a great job there unfortunately I had a couple of other meetings while there and I grabbed a bite at one of the snack bars between the buildings. Two of those meetings I'll blog about later.

So back to the real content here...

As more and more people begin to realize the benefits of the entire Web 2.0 concepts and ideas they begin to look for ways to bring those ideas to their jobs - it made their personal lives fuller, easier and more enjoyable on the web so why can't it help in the work place as well?



Credit to the slide goes to Dion Hinchcliffe, fellow Irregular and someone I finally had a chance to meet during the event.

The slide represents the problem of bringing the Web 2.0 thinking to the Enterprise, Enterprise 2.0 has not caught up to the thinking of those already embracing Web 2.0. How can it with so much already in place? There are simply so many hurdles to overcome and the technology and services are simply moving to rapidly for the age old "best practice" of the Enterprise to come into play.

In a way the problem reminds of Acupuncture, this I think is what Enterprise needs to be able to embrace the concepts of Web 2.0 and utilize the best aspects to give the information worker and edge, and advantage to push further ahead successfully. Have I lost you yet?

OK, right now I am undergoing acupuncture treatment for a collapsed disc in my back, it happened a year ago and I've still got pain so I figured I give something different a shot, it can't hurt right? In a lot of ways that's how people get involved with the new web today. Upload and share my photos - why not try it and save sending everyone emails all the time. So I go to my doctor and he gives me a extensive list of questions to answer, these are for him to determine the proper treatment for me in regards to where the needles go. My first thought was "it's a back problem, should be specific enough?", I expect he got this question quite often as he immediately began to explain why he needed to know all these various and seemingly disconnected issues.

Each problem a person might have does have specific points that need to be addressed, however as each person is different there will be additional items that need to come into play n order to ensure proper success for the specific problem at hand. So I ended up with 3 needles in my back to address the specific problem, along with 2 in my hand, 1 in my leg and 1 in each foot. He told me another patient with a similar case might only get the 3 in the back and the 1 on the leg but they might also get one n the arm. The reason is, and I looked this up to ensure I understood correctly (it was in German)

The acupuncturist decides which points to treat by observing and questioning the patient in order to make a diagnosis according to the tradition which he or she utilizes. In TCM, there are four diagnostic methods: inspection, auscultation and olfaction, inquiring, and palpation

(Wikipedia)

It's all about bringing things into Harmony, it's still quite controversial today but many cases do show strong relationships between this form of treatment and the biomedical diagnoses. So if I haven't lost you yet give it a thought I might still lose you but I think if you consider this to the Enterprise environment you'll see many correlations. During the Summit I heard for the second time that you could consider "cave paintings" as one of the first forms of social media. Consider that to be the "traditional medicine" then consider the existing Enterprise environment as the "biomedical" one.

Enterprise today is overloaded with many one way communications, not so many "cave paintings" yet the new web, the area around Web 2.0 is filled with them from things like Jumpcut.com where you can actually remix and reproduce derivative works of other people's uploaded video to the various wiki platforms where you can with a simple click of a button can go in and edit, change and enhance what others before you have done. Very much like a cave painting I can go in now and draw where the herd is going based on what I've experienced or show that the last earthquake wiped out half of the forest or that there is a new lake now. The whole group can take advantage of that and learn from it. Now fast forward a really long time and you find your self in the the time when the King writes a decree on a piece of paper and sends it out to be read. Well once you've seen it you probably won't see it again BUT you are required to abide by it and like one of those corporate memo's you probably didn't bother to read it anyway.

So if we think about some of the main "issues" we have in the Enterprise it's often about open, rapid development and deployment, communication and accepting feedback from customers. We then take a look at the mass of Web 2.0 tools out there and most likely we signal out blogs and wikis simply because they seem to be the most popular right now. Often times I hear "just start blogging", what the conversations are supposed to flow automatically? This is where the idea behind acupuncture comes into play. Once I've determined my goal and chosen the "root" tools to use now it's time to to observe and question. It's time for you to sit back and determine the nature of the those you want to blog, what are their strong suits? Their weak ones? What style of blog? Should the blog but just a text one or should you employ rich media as well? Who should blog?

By asking these questions and looking closely at the whole one can determine the best and most appropriate path through the massiveness that is Web 2.0 and what it offers today. Blogging to Blog or using a wiki to say "we use a wiki" is like sticking a needle in my big toe - it might do something and it might not but it doesn't mean it's acupuncture! Tuesday we saw that first hand from many of those in attendance as they talked about their own experiences with the topic, at SAP we have our experiences as well but those are for another time.

Watch the Enterprise 2.0 website as they recorded the whole thing so I hope to see it online soon.

Disclaimer: My attendance at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit was covered, additional travel and expenses were not

Technorati Tags:
e20summit, Enterprise, experience

@eventtrack spreading...

My little side project has slowly been picking up steam, it's quite exciting!

To build something and see it grow and be used is a great feeling!

I've more planned but time is limited as I have a day job and all that.

Technorati Tags:
collaboration, eventtrack

Twitter in Plain English

The folks at Common Craft have done it again, brilliant!



Do you Twitter?

Technorati Tags:
twitter

Arrived...CeBit and Enterprise 2.0 Summit

I'm always astounded at the size of this event and it's not easy to put into perspective for those who have never attended. I'll try though.

Been to the SAP TechEd, we would have used 2 halls here at the Hannover Messe I think, CeBit uses around 27. It runs a whole week because it's simply not possible to see everything in one day in the past I spent one day from around 8 in the morning to like 6 or 7 in the evening and I never left one particular hall other than to get food and visit the Nokia Club (wonder if they are here this year with the little issue recently in the news?)

There are maybe a dozen people in the Kongressmedia Forum 1 room in Hall 8 right now all of us waiting for the start of the Enterprise 2.0 Summit, I've not bothered to look for anyone yet but I did Tweet to everyone.

Things kick off at 11:40 (yes I am earlier than planned) with the Introduction from Simon Wardley then the keynote from Dion Hinchcliffe followed by presentations from BBC, IBM, Motorola, Fraport, Coremedia, Six Apart, SageNet, Vodafone, BTicino and Société Francaise de Radiotéléphone Service Client. It runs until about 18:45 with an evening get together and unfortunately I simply won't be able to stay the whole time I've only the one day here and I need to get over to the SAP booth as well and to one or two other booths for meetings.

Technorati Tags:
cebit, Dion Hinchcliffe, e20summit, Enterprise, cebit2008

TripIt Opps

TripIt Opps
Originally uploaded by Craig & Nicole

I'm really wanting to give this a go but it just doesn't understand my travel plans I send :-(

So still not a replacement for Dopplr which simply rocks! In fairness I will continue to try throughout the year my big travel time begins in September and goes through to December so will have plenty of chances to play and see if it works.

Update: the rest of this content below did not seem to get published when I hit submit originally.

The one thing I do like about TripIt is that it really does seem to be an entire "travel management" setup but is that overkill? Many I know are like me and use our corporate travel services and receive our agendas all nicely packaged up for us. So does such a service have an audience with folks like me? Dopplr excels and the "connections" which is something I find huge value in, TripIt has that but it seems to be a secondary focus to me so can they do something well if it's secondary?

Or does it matter if I'm not their audience?

The Hallway Conference

sapteched07bangalore 012
Originally uploaded by Durairaj Athavan Raja

On the eve of heading to the Enterprise 2.0 Summit taking place in Hannover tomorrow I'm reminded of the coolness of the "hallway demos", I've taken part, watched and done several demos in the hallways all over the world and I'm always amazed at how quickly you start to gather a group of onlookers and how how quickly the conversations turn into seriously cool discussions!

The photo there was taken in Bangalore during the SAP TechEd where I gave up my session slot for a group doing RIA dev stuff and ended up picking up several folks there to watch how I had Twitter working inside of NetWeaver.

Well I've a few items of interest on my Mac that I might give folks a peak at or maybe not we'll have to wait and see how the day goes but I'm totally stoked and looking forward to the coffee breaks ;-)

Technorati Tags:
Enterprise, e20summit, cebit

The new "in" thing to do...

Sam Lawrence did a little experiment using Many Eyes from the IBM Alpha Works, I've been playing around in Alpha Works for awhile now but it never dawned on me to do something like this. He did two experiments the first was with 10 guys and then 10 ladies.

So being curious about what my 2008 focus has been so far and too lazy to collect 2007 here's what mine looks like:



No real surprise that @eventtrack is dominant which includes event, events and twitter as they are all tied together. Community and Book seem to be large as well.

interesting, will have to do this again in a couple of months to compare my focus overall as well as perhaps March/April to Jan/Feb.

Technorati Tags:
sam lawrence, alpha works, many eyes, experiment, visualization

Pownce Desktop

Pownce Desktop
Originally uploaded by Craig & Nicole

Pownce has finally released their API or as they put it "Complete API" including authentication to give the user access to the private notes as well as posting.

I've been waiting for this so I can give Pownce users the ability to use @eventtrack as well!

But what I found quite humorous was when I went to their "tools" site where users can share the cool things they have built I saw this screen shot for the "Pownce Desktop" an Adobe Air app allowing a user to post and interact without going to the website - funny though the icon is for Twhirl a popular Twitter Air app, Twitter being probably the biggest competitor to Pownce either someone thought it would be funny or someone made a big mistake?

Update: Here's the link to the actual page.

Update: Within 24hrs the image was replaced, have not heard if it was a mistake, a goof or what.