Blog de Puree » IT

Using related links and content as you write: Check out Zemanta and 3DWriter

paul — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:32:48 +0000

A week ago, European startup Zemanta launched in Alpha with a product for blogs to suggest links, pictures and other related content and tags while you write blog posts. It uses a semantic analysis engine that serves up the relevant information in your Internet browser as you write.

According to TechCrunch, this type of application only exists in academic and enterprise content management systems, not for the blogosphere. Demos are available now for WordPress, Typepad and Blogger in a Firefox browser.

I haven’t tried Zemanta yet, but I immediately thought of a similar software company that my father-in-law started called 3DWriter for schools and students. The concept is similar in that it enables linking text to relevant websites and Internet sources. Much like many current systems, the act of linking is a manual process, however, and one needs to highlight text, find the relevant link, click the link icon and insert the URL. Just like I do on this blog.

Zemanta has taken this to a new level; it automatically culls the information for you, saving the manual legwork of finding the information yourself. As an oft-lazy blogger, I’m excited to see how it develops because linking is a great way to enhance the richness of information available for a blog post and it adds to one’s search engine optimization.

As for 3DWriter, at $249 a pop to license it for an entire school (Compared to the obscene prices for Microsoft academic licensing), it’s an absolute steal for a product that students can use to create robust reports and term papers that utilize basic Web technology and concepts while developing their writing skills. It also develops research competency using the Internet. Combine that with a teacher that knows how to bring technology into the classroom and you have a powerful and affordable teaching tool.

Blog de Puree gets another facelift

paul — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:22:14 +0000

We have a new look. Again.

I hope it’s not frustrating to our readers. The last design, while cool as hell had too many bugs that I was not able to fix.

This new design, called 3K2, is based off the original WordPress theme called Kubrick. We felt that this three-column design brought more information above the fold (old newspaper expression adopted for the web which designates how much information shows up before the bottom of the browser window before having to scroll down).

We do hope to make it a bit less, um, blue. So stay tuned!

Forget the morning paper, we read RSS feeds!

paul — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:45:19 +0000

Imagine that you subscribe to The Washington Post, The New York Times or The Boston Globe and one of those papers is delivered to your front door every morning. I congratulate you because you are seemingly and intelligent and informed person who stays up on the current, well-reported and important news. Or, are you?

Now imagine that you work in an industry that requires you to know about very specific and niche-like information from a number of different sectors, or that you’re just a well-rounded person with many different interests. Sure, you’ll get a basic overview of what may be happening in different sectors from any one of the aforementioned newspapers, but will you be getting the specific and timely information you need that covers more specific and first-person details from the front lines of those fields? Not likely.

In our house we used to get a daily paper. Not any more. Because of the rising costs of subscribing to a print newspaper subscription, as well as the lack of variety sources that we crave, we now subscribe to many RSS feeds published by our favorite websites, online newspapers, blogs, you name it. And we have our choice of any one we want, so that we can customize the the information that we read on any given day.

No more morning papers. It’s morning laptops with our coffee. We just have to be careful not to spill our drinks–newspapers and magazines don’t cost upwards of $700.

Does anyone still listen to podcasts?

paul — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:25:37 +0000

A former colleague, David Churbuck, recently asked the question whether people are still listening to podcasts, on his blog.

As usual, his timing for predicting or questioning Internet trends was dead on. I don’t see as much written about them by computer and technology experts. And these days, I really don’t listen to them as much as I used to. Mostly because my commute time to work has been mercifully cut to less than half of what it used to be.

Back in 2005 and 2006, when we were working together at CXO Media, he, Art Jahnke and I, together with some others dedicated to utilizing this relatively new form of audio media, produced a steady flow of podcasts aimed at sharing industry and expert information to marketing, IT and security executives. While the energy and demand for podcasts on the whole was huge back then, corporate executives—many of whom were older and not so quick to adopt newer trends—were not as enthusiastic as we had hoped. We only seemed to retain a small, and sometimes dedicated, audience that was interested in them.

Podcasts at CXO never did capture the audience and achieve the popularity we had hoped for, but it was a great learning experience into how to quickly harness a new online technology to attract a more focused or a wider audience, as well as put ourselves ahead of other online publishers.

Teaching myself how to easily work with audio on the Internet was also a great way to stand out from the online editor pack. At least with those who are in my age category or older. However, with younger online journalists and professionals, it was at least a way for me to keep up, as many of them have been using multi-media tools for years and doing so comes more naturally to them. But that’s often the case for the newer generation.

There are still a few podcasts that I subscribe to faithfully, even though I don’t always listen to every episode:

On Point with Tom Ashbrook on NPR
Pottercast from the Leaky Cauldron
Sierra Club Radio
The Web 2.0 show (Unfortunately, the frequency of their podcasts has drastically slowed)
AstronomyCast

If you have never listened to a podcast before, I would highly recommend them for their convenience, portability and extremely wide variety of topics. And the tools available today are really easy to use.

Announcing the The Northborough Group for your business information and Internet needs

paul — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:43:19 +0000

Chris Murray, an Internet colleague and great friend, has struck out on his own and started The Northborough Group, an information management consulting firm.

The Northborough Group’s mission is to provide services that help businesses manage information better and to use that information in ways that support their business goals. We also design and develop Internet and Intranet/Extranet platforms for publishing, communication, and fostering community.

Chris is a senior information technology professional with more than 12 years of systems and database design experience, and has worked within numerous IT and publishing companies. Having worked with him, I can highly recommend him as a the kind of person who takes a thoughtful and open-minded approach to any situation. He’s a great listener and takes the time to understand all the working components of a problem before deciding on a course of action. His great sense of humor and personable nature have turned priority and high-stress projects into pleasurable learning experiences with great results.

I also recommend reading his blog, which keeps you current with our projects and provides insight into industry trends, links to the gurus in the field, and even technical how-tos.

Chris can be contacted via email at cmurray@northboroughgroup.com, or by phone at 508.294.6732.

Full priced phones and lousy contracts? Apple, say it ain’t so!

paul — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:12:03 +0000

Please say our worst fears are not true. Please say we’re not going to going to have to pay full price for the iPhone and get saddled with a 2-year contract from an average cell phone company.

According to SciFi Tech columnist Adam Frucci, Apple had the chance to revolutionize the cell phone industry, but instead it seems the company may have taken the low road. Granted, Apple is a company and its business is to make money, like all businesses. And you can’t fault it for monetizing great products like the iPod and iTunes, but at least in that model, both consumers and industry businesses found a happy middle ground and everyone was generally satisfied.

Frucci hones in on the rebate factor within the cell phone industry, where American customers get phones for free and at supposedly less than half of “official” prices and lock themselves into 2 year contracts and pay hundreds of dollars in usage charges. He then notes that Apple knew that customers would have paid full price for the iPhone–from all the hype so far–and they could have sold the phones without attaching them to any particular cell phone carrier. Instead, Apple chose to to make a partnership with AT&T, and it seems that customers like us will have to pay full price for the iPhone and get saddled with a 2-year contract.

Not only that, is it possible that Apple will start a new trend where U.S. cell phone companies start charging full price for the phones AND require 2-year contracts?

Frucci writes, “The last thing we need is for one of the most blatantly anticonsumer industries in this country to start thinking they can rip us off even more. Thanks, Apple. Somehow we expected more from you.”

Maybe I’ll buy the Treo or a BlackBerry after all.

IT help desk for submariners

paul — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 01:34:32 +0000

Randye had a hell of an IT day today. A crack squad of suicide gremlins attacked her computer and the printer connection, delaying and lengthening her work day by about 3 and a half hours.

Here’s a quick synopsis of what happened.
Problem one: Randye’s Quark Xpress application, which she uses to create print page layouts, had a corrupted font file that kept screwing up the works every time she tried to create a PDF file to print. She called the Quark help desk earlier in the day and was able to fix that problem by doing some fancy footwork with a particular Courier font file.
Problem two: Every time Randye tried to print large color prints of magazine covers with her Epson printer to send to her clients for proofing purposes, it stopped dead in the middle of printing. The solution involved a team effort, of which I’m happy to relate.

By the time I got home from work, around 4:30, she was beside herself, but in good spirits, over the fact that she researched, troubleshot and almost solved the first problem herself. She was in the midst of trying to solve the second problem.

After I had finished taking care of a few odd chores around the house and squelching my enthusiasm over the fact that my new DeWalt drill/driver actually did drill into the concrete in the basement to allow me to patch some leaks with hydraulic cement (another story, another time), I came upstairs to find Randye about to wrap up her second help desk call, this time with Epson, the manufacturer of her color printer.

“Wait a minute,” she said to the phone. “My husband is here. I have a second pair of hands. Let’s continue with this call.”

Taking my cue, I stood at attention, front and center.

“Paul, I think I unplugged the computer’s power cord from the CPU by mistake. Can you crawl under the shelving unit and see what’s happening and plug it back in?”

“Roger,” I replied, and proceeded to crawl under the shelf and behind the CPU , which doesn’t come out fully because the cords are too short. I then discovered that I had successfully wedged myself in, under and behind the shelf, unable to come out, like a submarine sailor crawling under the floor grates in the engine room, frantically trying to stop the leak of sea water that threatened to drown the entire engine room crew that is trapped there. (Movies that come to mind are Das Boot and U571.)

I saw the problem. The cord had been detached somehow from the back of the CPU, and not from the plug in the power strip. I plugged it back in and there I stayed. Trapped. Awaiting my fate. A calm submariner resigned to a grisly end at the hands of thousands of pounds of pressure forcing salt water in at immeasurable speeds. That salt water, of course, being the sweat pouring off of me as I lay in the dark, dusty, and deathly hot corner under the shelf. Meanwhile, Randye calmly ran through the troubleshooting sequence to fix the printer issue with the IT help guy on the phone.

During a lull, as we waited for a sample to successfully print from the printer, I called out to her from my dark, hot corner to let her know that my new drill worked with the masonry drill bit.

“See my happy dance?” I asked, as I tried to wriggle my hips and legs that stuck out from under the shelf. She acknowledged with a smile and I was happy with that. Why? Because anyone who has ever dealt with a frantic woman, at her wit’s end with computer issues, especially when it may stop her from earning her salary, knows that the slightest positive look or comment that emanates from her tortured soul is to be cherished like the gift of fire from the gods.

Luckily for me, Davy Jones was not going to drag me to the deep, dark abyss of his oceanic locker. To my good fortune, there are two fans placed at the back of the CPU that help to cool the insides and all the computer technology that can run hot. Every couple of minutes they would turn on automatically and blow luke warm air on my face. A life-line from Apple computer.

About twenty minutes after I managed to wedge myself into my precarious spot, Randye and the help desk technician were able to sort things out. It turned out that the problem was that the cable to the printer needed to be plugged directly into the CPU, not to the old USB 1.0 hub that I gave her. (For those unfamiliar, a hub is plugged into the computer and all your peripheral tools like printers, scanners, etc. can then plug into the hub. It’s great for when you don’t have enough, well, plugs!)

And so, the call over, and everything sorted out, Randye declared she needed a drink. I managed to wriggle myself out from under the shelf and behind the computer, and I told Randye that I should have been a submariner, as I remained cool, calm and collected in such tight quarters during a crisis situation. Then, I went to cook dinner. She still had work to do.