Scattered Mind

New Way Of Work

Enabling informed and timely decision-making, and manage and protect critical information.

I’ve been spending most of my days the last week researching collaboration inside the corporate environment and found that Microsoft’s Sharepoint offerings are quite unique in some ways and one of the major advantages over any competitor(except paying quite alot) is that everything “just works” with no or little hassle – that is if everything if running within the Office Suite.

With Open Source solutions, you have to through 3 or 4 applications together to get the same functionality and still not be at the same milestone as what Sharepoint has set.

At the beginning it took me quite some time trying to get information out of the Microsoft sites like TechNet and all the others, as I’m not used to work in the Microsoft space that intensely, but after awhile it got quite an easy task finding the “right information” somewhere on one of the subsites etc. They also got some nice vids for the “NWOW”.

This is a totally new product for me and so far I’ve been more than impressed!

Last night I attended a webinar at Zend.com about Web Services and PHP. (had more than 500 people worldwide attending)

Although nothing new was learnt through the attending it was quite nice to see someone work in Zend Studio and see how this program works. Really looks impressive. I’ve been using a mix of PHPeclipse and SVN(for versioning) to develop my applications but Zend Studio combined with Zend Platform really looks impressive.

So actually the webinar was more of a promotional stunt than anything else.

Also something that was mentioned was coding standards, which in many PHP applications is non existent. The guy that presented the presentation showed some real examples of code etc, which was some really nice interface of classes etc. For example PHP5 ‘s very nice XML and atom classes etc.

PHP is maturning slowly but steadily.

Another EXCELLENT open source project…

This week I went on a expedition for a Microsoft Project alternative to manage project schedules and resources.

After Googling, Yahoo-ing abit I found the URL to this project from a member of SystemShock Forums.

Open Workbench

I downloaded it and quickly went through a 10 minutes into tutorial that I also downloaded from the site. It took me like another 10 minutes to draw up a 2 month project plan almost. Very nice features and very extensible and agile.

THe program works on a view-based system where you custom design your views with the varialbes of the project etc. Obviously the standard views are already there for you like Gantt charts etc.

Open Workbench is an open source desktop application that provides robust project scheduling and management functionality. Already the scheduling standard for more than 100,000 project managers worldwide, Open Workbench is a free and powerful alternative to Microsoft Project.

Released in December 2005, Open Workbench 1.1.4 provides significant new enhancements and bug fixes. For more information on version 1.1.4, please review the Open Workbench 1.1.4 Release Notes. The source code for Open Workbench 1.1.4 is also available on SourceForge.

Open Workbench provides all the functionality and benefits that project managers expect in a world-class scheduling application:

* Open Workbench can be used and distributed free of charge throughout an enterprise.
* Open Workbench is a stand-alone desktop application that provides robust project scheduling functionality.
* Open Workbench provides the unique ability to generate project schedules based on resource constraints.
* Open source developers will find a ready-made community of business users interested in their enhancements and extensions. The source code and other developer information are available on SourceForge.
* The open source distribution and community development model will now bring quality, innovation and cost advantages to the project management world.
* Open Workbench can also be used in a fully integrated fashion with CA’s Clarity solution. Please visit www.niku.com/go/owb for more details.

Open Workbench

Thats the way I feel about BlogMad .

I’ve been using BlogMad for the last couple of months since they started back in the day(actually a few months ago).

I was one of their first initial Beta Testers.

I’ve also posted about them here .

After a hickup here and there they are now full in swing and taking over the Blog Scene piece-by-piece.

For the few months they’ve been online and going they already have something like 2700 blogs registered on their site and more than 5400 users registered.

One advantage about BlogMad is that they have 1:1 ratio when browsing Blogs. So for every blog you visit, you get one visit back – fair deal – no strings attached.

They also hold special double point days or timeframes where if one browses blogs you get double credits etc.

I can’t wait for them to accept payments to buy credits etc..

If you guys wanna join BlogMad, please use this link so I can get some credits.

Gr8 stuff!!!

As I realized yesterday there is much more to Google search then meets the eye.

Usually I just type in what I wanna search and voila, I get it, but there are much more feature to Google Search then the standard search, like the Calculator function etc.

Here are a few examples:

Finding Pages:

Holiday Travel	The words Holiday and Travel
Bermuda OR Greece	either the word Bermuda or the word Greece
People Eating	The exact Phrase “People Eating“
Tango -dance	Search for Tango but NOT dance
define: protocol	Display definition of the word protocol

Calculator:
For this type in any arithmic calculation and see it calculate the answer for you.

Look at these examples:
12 + 34 – 56 * 7 / 8
45% of 39

Some nice conversion tools too
120 lbs in kg ,
300 Euros in USD

There is alot of features like stock price index etc. thats built into Google Search, but head on over to the help section to find out even MORE .

Google Search Help

Again, another innovation out of Googles’ camp,

Google Checkout

Google Checkout gives you the power to only have one login for all the shops where you shop(thats if they support Google Checkout). You can track orders from multiple shops in one interface. This brings everything together.

This is really a cool innovative idea. I just wish they would start supporting South Africa. Currently Google Checkout only supports US peeps. Paypal also does not support South African merchants.

Whats wrong with us(South Africa) !!!!!?
South Africa does have a stable economy, and one of the best investment oppurtunities in Africa, can’t these “giants” see that.

Haven’t you ever wished you could have one page where you could everything you need for PHP,

or busy in Debian but can’t remember the function(or what it starts with for that matter).

Ever wanted to do abit of database maintenance but do not know what function or utilities to use.

Then you need to get yourself a few Cheat Sheets .

Lets face it, unless you have a photographic memory, no developer can remember all the different functions, options, tags, etc. that exist. Documentation can be cumbersome at times, thats why I like cheat sheets. They are quick references that feature the most commonly forgotten things on a specific topic. You can print them out and hang them on your wall, or just keep them handy in your bookmarks for quick reference.

Over 30 Cheat Sheets for developers

Well, I’ve received an invitation to visit LugRadio Live this year. I’m very eager to go, as all my accomadation etc. is paid for, all I need to do is get the plane ticket.

At the moment, I’m just stuck on a project, and not just that, first need to sort out the companies’ tax stuff, well, at the moment there is 27 days left, so – hopefully I’ll make it, otherwise there’s always next year.

Though it would have been cool to watch Mark Shuttleworth speaking overseas…

At last, some good news. I heard tonight that my Ford Explorer sale went through and I will be getting my present in next week.

It is a 1994 Ford Explorer 4.0 litre V6 american beast. One of my dream cars, although with the current fuel prices I’m starting to wonder about this purchase, but for now it will only be my Sunday toy.

Pictures to follow as soon as it’s MINE – hahaha

My favourite editor for doing Java and PHP is Eclipse with the PHPeclipse plugin for the PHP stuff.

One thing that happens quite quickly when developing and using the wide array of tools, is the desktop getting cluttered very fast.

What I’ve acome up as a “sort-of” solution is making the Outline and Navigator panels hide when not using them. They call it “Fast View“. You just right click on the tab of the panel and select/deselect the “Fast View” option. When selected, it behaves by disappearing as soon as you type or click on the code page, thus giving you a full view of the code and not all the other stuff.

Panel Gone

Navigator showing

Outline showing