July 31, 2006
Yahoo Messenger Webcam Shares with Mac and Windows
Experimenting with webcams this evening, always looking for some way to make TNJT something New! I kind of stumbled back into Yahoo! Messenger (Mac OS X V2.5.3) and found the Friends / Start My Webcam menu option..voila, my JVC Video Camera quickly Fire-wired in to the Mac and provided a stream of the video camera view finder (the camera doesn't have to be recording, but I think you can record the stream also...an added bonus). Very cool and easy.
Then I went over the Windows machine, fired up Yahoo! Messenger with Voice (7.5.0.814), logged into a second VO Yahoo! account, and both the Windows and Mac machines chirped acknowledgment of the arrival of buddy second VO. That's how it's supposed to work, but I'm always amazed when it does...computer's usually suck.
An invite back and forth, and as easy as pie, the Windows Yahoo! was streaming the webcam connected to the Mac Yahoo!. We even played with recording portions / entirety of the webcam as it was broadcasting. This looks pretty darn easy right now.
So...How many concurrent users can be viewing my webcam at the same time? Could an entire listening audience, if TNJT listeners were so inclined?
I've been looking for such an easy streaming webcam set-up for the show and this looks like something I could have fun with. Especially when I have the ability to record the stream as I'm also streaming it to the Internet. Excellent.
Now I'm off to swap webcams, with the JVC hooking up to the Windows machine and the Mac's iSight camera doing duties there. Testing my two camera set-up. Just in time for an in-studio performance by killer bassist Brian Bromberg thing coming Thursday on http://TheNewJazzThing.com.
February 26, 2006
Looks Like I Missed Some Good RSS Dirt While I Was Away...
Dave’s Wordpress Blog » Why the backchannel is bad for RSS
September 30, 2005
Programming Came Up Just The Other Day With My Kid
"KPL stands for Kid’s Programming Language. KPL makes it easy for kids to learn computer programming. KPL makes it fun, too, by making it especially easy to program computer games, with cool graphics and sound.
That's the opening for the Kid's intro to KPL. Here's something for us bigger kids.
Put Your Blogging Tool and RSS News Aggregator In Your Pocket
Desktop Pipeline | Take It All With You: Two 'Smart' USB Drives: This little hard drives folks carry around on their keychains and pockets (AKA thumb drives or dongles around these parts) are getting smarter. These new ones allow you to carry your data AND the programs (tools) you manipulate them with...plug in to any USB computer and you can work like you do you your home computer.
Imagine being able to take your favorite weblogging or writing software with you and being able to use it to publish from any machine you can find...Radio Userland, or OPML Editor, or NetNewswire, or MS Word. Or running an update of your RSS News Aggregator...Radio Userland, NetNewswire, etc....and then sticking it in your pocket to read wherever the next computer kiosk or friends home computer presents itself. Truly portable and transportable reporting. I think of also being able to plug this thing into a smart phone / networked PDA to enable extremely portable, fully networked access for the programs running on these drives.
Put a blogging, podcasting, aggregator app on these and I'll try one out...the U3 sounds especially appealing at 30 bucks to try out a 256 MB version....I'd probably start with the $100 1GB just to make it really usable as just a regular old dumb portable USB hard drive.
September 26, 2005
Web Forms vs. Web Apps
Forms vs. Applications (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
"...On balance, though, many user tasks are sufficiently complex that usability is enhanced when you abandon the old forms metaphor and give users the support of an interactive UI."
It will be interesting to see how business process management and the connected flow of work between entities will impact this view of a web-application. It seems like things are moving in the direction where as a workflow is more end-to-end, then the tasks for each stakeholder in the workflow become more consise and dialog-box / web-form / portal-channel like...you are providing the information needed to move the workflow along, which seems to indicate more web-form-like instead of a full-blown application GUI.
Shooting Into The Sun Does This For Me!
Crave privacy? New tech knocks out digital cameras | CNET News.com: Something senses a digital camera in action (wow!) and then shines a light their way to blur out the picture. I usually just shoot into the sun if I want a blurry picture!
September 20, 2005
Mac Safari and Flickr Not Playing Well Together
I'm not sure why this is happening, but my Mac Safari web browser is aborting on my http://Flickr.com pages. Which is kind of frustrating, since I was just posting some more trip details over at http://VinceOutlaw.com, fired up Flickr to get a picture to include in the post, and totally lost everything I had written...damn!
I have a feeling it has something to do with the the Flash applications that Flickr uses, since my web page has the Flickr Zeitgeist badge on it, but Safari also chokes when I go to Flickr and try to use the Organize page, which is a really big Flash app. It doesn't have any problem with the DHTML magic for deailing with individual pictures, so I'm kind of at a loss.
This also illustrates the sorry state of trying to edit weblogs right within the browser...there's no real method for that tried and true maxim, "Save Often", when you are typing into a web form. Looks like I'll have to get back to trying one of the weblogging tools like NetNewsWire, which allows saving and such.
Off to try again...
August 18, 2005
Blogger For MS Word
Blogger Help : About Blogger for Word: A new tool to enable publishing text in MS Word documents directly to a Blogger-enabled weblog. This might open up blogging to a whole new set of MS Office savvy folks.
I've tested it out a bit over at the old TNJT - The Audblog site, which is my Blogger playground site right now.
January 29, 2005
Delcious Library Test - Jazz Not Product Smart...Yet
Delicious Library is a mac-only (regrettable) piece of software that builds, in cool ways, and maintains a library of your Things. I'm looking for a way to quickly get information about the CD I've just chosen to play on the show out to listners of TNJT on whatever device is most convenient (car radio display, desktop web browser, hand-held / phone). Our CD players are not internet-enabled, so it's up to me to get the word out to listeners who continually tell us they want to know each tune we are playing...as they should with the richness and depth that is Jazz...and we should be able to give them more in this information-connected culture. So, link CD bar code to product info on the web and toss it out to an RSS 2.0 podcast enabled weblog, with the RSS news feed providing the information to where we want it. Now.
One of the cool ways is by reading the bar code on your CD, DVD, book, whatever (I guess) with your webcam..or at least the iSight camera, which I'm lucky enough to have. Once it reads the bar code, it goes out to some internet-based information source to pull in info like cover art, track names, title and adds it to your library. Less cool and more time consuming ways include manual entry...ugh.
Being able to hold the bar code up to the camera just right to get it recognized by the camera took more than a few tries, but 20 minutes tops to figure it out, but after that, it sailed. And the look up to wherever it's getting it's information (Amazon?) worked well...when the data was there.
But in over 50 percent of the cases where I had a bar-code I could read (promo CDs sometimes have the bar code purposely obscured...another part of the problem), there was no info to be obtained about it. I'm sure more checking could determine why this is, but it's definitely a problem that should be remedied: A central single place where information like this can be registered by artists or others putting out product. CDDB, for instance, has some of this information and I know for a fact that two of the CDs that Delicious couldn't find information for looked up just fine when iTunes looked it up on CDDB. Could Delicious use that as a source?
Quick wrap-up is that this idea of bar-code reading CDs to indicate which is being used is pretty right on, although actually doing it through the CD player would be more timely. But it all depends on the source for the data and if it's incomplete, being quick on the scan is all for naught. This is worth pursuing for me and TNJT listeners.
January 26, 2005
Recording Phone Interviews Digitally Using Skype and Other Mac Software
Glenn Fleishman, in MacDevCenter.com: How to Record a Podcast provides a really cool sounding, Mac-based software / hardware architecture for recording phone interviews directly to MP3, for potential usage in podcasted shows. Here's his business case,
"In my line of work as a freelance reporter in Seattle, I spend most of the time that I'm not testing hardware, software, or services -- or actually writing -- on the telephone, interviewing people from companies, fellow authors, folks deploying equipment, and analysts. I write most frequently about Wi-Fi and related wireless networking, and have found a pretty fervent interest in that industry.I decided that podcasting interviews and audio that helped elucidate about topics that I cover, in the first-person, direct from the source, would help my site better meet its audience's expectations.
Adding a pre-recorded interview component to my currently all-Live radio show would add a whole different to dimension. And would probably broaden the amount of interview content I could have on the show...but it would also mean more interviews to edit for radio broadcast, something I currently have very little time for.
December 21, 2004
Service: Upload Digital Photos for Prints and Next Day Pickup
Author note: I'm not sure where this post is going as far as EA is concerned...a service, a solution / application (or two, digital photo processing / shopping cart), some basic web-form thin-client-server technology pattern for uploading digital photo files (there's the main part of my information layer). In this 2005 direction, I suppose: VO's communication / weblog universe as prototype 'enterprise' to document on AboutEA using EA practices...name (potential): The VO Weblog Enterprise or VO Weblog Enterprises (an enterprise of enterprises).
I'm looking to print a bunch of photos for still-to-be-finalized gifts, so I thought I'd try out a few different photo services (Longs, Target, so far) using a couple of different methods (files on CD, internet upload / store pickup), to see what the services are like.
PBJF Press Conference 2004: Herbie Hancock and Ron Dhanifu"
The first try before hoops practice this evening was physically taking a CD burned from a Mac iPhoto album, but this was somewhat thwarted by a too-smart file-finding mechanism on the kiosk that also found the same-named thumb-nails that iPhoto exports on the CD...and the regular and thumbnail photos are displayed the same size on the kiosk! I couldn't easily tell the difference and I was very time challenged. I ran to the van in the Longs parking lot, opened the laptop to do a quick iPhoto export and burn to run back in and try again with only the to-print pics on the CD...but the burn went on too long and I had 8 young hoopsters needing a full hour of drills and fun...so I let it burn as I headed back toward practice.
Anyway, so now at 11:00 pm both Longs and Target are closed, so we focus on the Upload services, hoping to be able to upload some pictures, get prints ordered, and have them ready to pick up when I need them tomorrow...hopefully in the morning...somewhere rationally between here and there...and maybe we'll try out the in-store digital photo services when we get there.
So lots of options, and I haven't even touched on just getting a better photo quality printer myself and printing at home. I just can't imagine the quality would be better at home than those big honker machines where they spit the prints out. Maybe I'm wrong. We'll pursue...Christmas gifts depend upon our perseverence on this one!
If I'm consistent at all, I'll update this with the results of picking up the order prints at Ritz and trying their in-store-order-from-CD service. If I'm not, you can just ask me how it came out! That's the kind of enterprise we run here!!
September 29, 2004
Embedding Live HTTP Data in Applications with LiveServer
Phil Windley in InfoWorld: LiveServer creates real-time Web:
LiveServer is middleware that supports real-time interapplication messaging via HTTP, using a publish-and-subscribe model. Applications, including Web browsers and spreadsheets, can use KnowNow-supplied components called connectors to publish to the server or subscribe to its message queues.
September 28, 2004
Webinar Blogged: The Race For Business Service Management
Sitting in and blogging a webinar:The Race for Business Service Management: Rev Up Your Mainframe
Business Service Management (BSR) is one of those many names tossed about but little understood...by me at least. So I'm going to sit in on this webinar and blog some of the more interesting bits...
Just logged on to the seminar and this one has a nice interface with the media player in a small box on the upper left and a big space on the right for the meeting deck (the currently hip term for the slides in a powerpoint presentation). We'll see how they use it.
The mainframe in the data center has reached a level of maturity of Operability, Reliability, and Cost Efficiency that distributed systems have not yet reached. Distributed is reaching that, but still not there to offer businesses those key factors. These two components of the data center are at different stages.
Data collection of components deployed on mainframes (and distributed architectures) needs to be focused on that data that can be used to monitor and adjust / re-allocate service resources.
Service management needs to tightly link business processes to the IT assets in order to be successful. It also requires lots of event data and configurable / automated systems.
BSM means monitoring all of the different components for those parameters that may indicate and drive change in configuration.
The business impact of the components running on the mainframe must be known and part of the equation that includes the monitoring data collected. Combined, then impact of changes to the service level of a component can be expressed in business impact terms (i.e., Business Analysts won't have data needed for this day if this job doesn't get done by HH:MM pm).
BMC Software has a BSM solution and a service organization to support.
September 01, 2004
InfoWorld Reviews Latest BPEL Tools from IBM and Oracle
In InfoWorld: Oracle and IBM move BPEL to the BPI forefront, James Borck installs, uses, and reviews (with comparison scoring) the latest business process integration tools from these vendors. IBM's is very closely integrated into Websphere Application Server while Oracle's BPEL-PM will work on top of any J2EE app server (like BEA's Weblogic?). There's lots more information, but here's the summary,
"Both products still have room to grow with regard to improving usability and mitigating complexity. This is an evolving science, to be sure. Yet many of these shortcomings stem from the complexity of XML and the still-ripening state of BPEL more than the underdeveloped status of these products. "I think that these are going to be products used by folks that already have the integrated parts in their environment, not the driver (yet) for putting those parts in your technical architecture.
August 20, 2004
Tripped Up On The Way To Long Term Benefits of XP SP2?
Mike Ricciuti : Stumbling over SP2 | Perspectives | CNET News.com
Did Microsoft bungle SP2's debut? With my columnist hat on, I can give you an unqualified yes. That's a shame, because by all accounts, SP2 is a fine update to Windows XP, which was already the best-ever version of Windows. And rest assured that Microsoft will work out the kinks--it has to.
May 12, 2004
What Matters? IT Implemetation Matters
Wired 12.05: Want to Piss Off a CEO?
Nicholas Carr, who wrote the much discussed "It Doesn't Matter" last year for the Harvard Business Review, is back again trying to further explain his thesis,
The IT industry is looking more and more like a traditional, mature manufacturing business. Plagued by undifferentiated products, global overcapacity, and falling prices, hardware and software companies are consolidating, shifting production offshore, and making money on maintenance and other fee-based services. They're competing on cost rather than innovation and features.
It's a good read for getting a well-rounded picture of how the focus in business-related hardware and software is shifting from the development of these tools (less innovation and features) to the alignment of the business goals with the IT tools to make those goals a reality (Enterprise Architecture, both the process and artifacts).
To me, IT is so much more than the products we buy and even the protocols and standards developed by some very intelligent people. IT is the actual process of putting the added-value technology in the right place at the right time. It's the implementation of these things and, more importantly, the business and technology savvy people in an organization that put these commodity software and hardware pieces togther to meet the expectations of the folks putting together the business plans and strategy.
April 16, 2004
BPEL Java Extensions May Reduce BPEL Portability
BEA Systems and IBM, meanwhile, have published a white paper on BPELJ, which enables Java and BPEL to be used together to build business process applications. Available at http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/bpel/index.jsp, the white paper outlines how BPELJ works, according to BEA.Web Services Business Process Execution Language, commonly referred to as BPEL, was proposed by IBM, Microsoft and BEA as a mechanism for orchestrating business processes in Web services environments. It currently is under jurisdiction of OASIS.
BPELJ has been submitted a proposed direction for Java Specification Request (JSR) 207, through the Java Community Process, according to BEA. JSR 207 is officially called Process Definition for Java, and is to feature an annotated Java syntax and APIs for programming business processes in Java.
Interesting in that I was under the impression that BPEL was a specification for a platform-independant, textual language describing a Business Process. So what's up with a language specific (Java) of BPEL?
Reading the link above, it seems like BPELJ will extend BPEL to not only orchestrate web services to complete Business Processes, but will allow orchestration of process steps that may not necessarily be available (or desired) via a web service because the resources needed are local and more efficiently accessed with local means. The articles uses files, queues, EJBs as examples of these local services that might be marshalled for a process but not necessarily available via web services. BPELJ will allow Java services to play in the BPEL game. But not without some cost in the portability of your BPEL code, as I read this quote from the article,
"BPELJ is a combination of BPEL with Java that allows these two programming languages to be used together to build complete business process applications. By enabling BPEL and Java to work together, BPELJ allows each language to do what it does best. Since BPELJ is implemented via extensions to the BPEL language, any BPEL process is also a valid, executable BPELJ process. By standardizing these extensions, BEA and IBM are working to ensure that real world automated business processes will be truly portable and interoperable across the J2EE platform."
I think the key here is "...across the J2EE platform". If you code the BPELJ extensions, then your BPEL may not be portable to other BPM platforms. I'm not sure that this is the right answer to pulling in local, non web-serviced, resources into business processes.
April 15, 2004
SAIC Scientist Uses MySQL for NASA
CRN : Daily Archives : MySQL Gets Ready For Its Close-Up : 7:58 AM EST Thurs., Apr. 15, 2004
John Sudderth, senior computer scientist at Scientific Applications International Corp. (SAIC), who was instrumental in moving parts of NASA off of Oracle onto MySQL is a big fan. "We've never had an outage. I attribute a lot of it to the fact that the open-source companies aren't competing in areas where they're trying to cripple each others' products. There's no finger pointing."Asked later if MySQL should be viewed as vying for IT budget dollars with Oracle databases, Sudderth said, "More all the time."
March 10, 2004
InfoWorld RSS Gets More Hits Than Home Page
Chad Dickerson: March 09, 2004 Archives: RSS Tipping Point
Ever since we began publishing RSS feeds at InfoWorld, the requests for our home page had always exceeded requests for our Top News RSS feed. Not any more. Over the past several weeks, requests for InfoWorld's Top News RSS feed have regularly exceeded the requests for our home page. This has been going on long enough now that we're certain that it's permanent. I think it's a big deal.
Remember, RSS is just like your News page, the content...the pages with the articles / stories / info...is still getting hit and probably more than ever because folks using RSS aggregators are now seeing their site when they may not have visited their News page before.
BTW...here's the URL for this site's RSS feed: http://aboutea.com/index.rdf. Subscribe today!