 |
privacy |
||||||
|
Hangout for experimental confirmation and demonstration of software, computing, and networking. The exercises don't always work out. The professor is a bumbler and the laboratory assistant is a skanky dufus.
Blog Feed Recent Items 
The nfoCentrale Blog Conclave nfoCentrale Associated Sites |
2008-02-20DMware: Documents as EvidenceTechnorati Tags: DMware AIIM C22 Standards "Evidentiary Support" "Records Management" Over the years, the AIIM International sponsorship of standards has included fostering of committee C22 on Evidentiary Support for Electronic Information. I just learned that C22, which is tied to ISO TC171/SC3, is being rebooted. I confess that I lost track of this work and I'm heartened to see announcement of its rejuvenation:
For further information and general interest in the focus of AIIM-supported standards activity, visit the AIIM Standards page. There is also an AIIM Standards Watch blog. Although the evidentiary nature and use of electronic information, including documents and source code, is not the most exciting thing for Information Technology organizations to be concerned about, understanding the importance and the risks of how electronic information is managed is becoming increasingly important. It occurs to me that the folks who object to the ISO Standardization of DIS 29500 (Office Open XML) would place a different spin on the invitation's headline. I think the spirit of this announcement is clear even if the headline is a little over the top. I also think work to make the legal implications of IT policies and practices around electronic information more understandable is very important. It is one of those odd situations where it is desirable to make discovery (and auditing) more efficient because of the burdensome cost that it can involve, while also making sure that electronic information is destroyed at appropriate times to avoid the secondary burden of witch-hunting by discovery. C22 is a forum where knowledgeable people worry about that tension and how to delimit it. [Cross posted on Professor von Clueless in the Blunder Dome and Orcmid's Lair because of overlapping communities of interest.] 2008-02-19VC++ Novice: DreamSpark for StudentsTechnorati Tags: VC++ novice, cybersmith, student programming, computer enthusiasts, DreamSpark, self-directed learning
Yesterday, Bill Gates spoke about the DreamSpark program to put Microsoft's professional developer tools into the hands of students at no charge. There is an exciting list of available tools, including Visual Studio 2008 Professional and the complete Expression Studio. The initiative is now available in eleven countries around the world. Within those countries, you must be a student at one of the recognized institutions or other recognized student organization. Your student status will be verified with the appropriate organization, and it must be reviewed every 12 months. The program will rapidly expand to more educational institutions and countries. For now, students must be enrolled in a recognized post-secondary (after high-school) program. The program will be extended to high-school students at a later time. DreamSpark software is downloaded directly by the students, rather having to be obtained through academic departments and campus book stores. This should make the packages more-consistently available. There are some restrictions. I also have some concerns. RestrictionsFirst, the software is only available for academic use. From the FAQ for Students:
Secondly, the software is only available to use so long as student status is maintained. From the FAQ for Administrators:
Not being a verifiable student, I am unable to look at the complete license and explore the download process. You will need to find broadband access and be able to download and record CD-ROM and DVD-ROM images. You should also explore any restrictions on redistribution and on distribution of software that you produce. ConcernsIf the DreamSpark idea appeals to you and you are a qualified student, remember that these products are designed for professionals. There is no provision of tutorials or introductory materials for learning how to use the various programming languages and other resources. You will need to invest in separate books and resources beginning with these tools. It may also be difficult to find a community of other students and beginners who are also learning to work with these tools. I suspect that there will be more material and more community as time goes on. If you are a beginner and are not taking courses or using books you already have for the fundamentals, I recommend that you look at one of the Express Editions and use that to calibrate whether you are prepared to take on the additional features and capabilities of the professional tools without considerable assistance. This is also a good place to start until you are prepared to declare yourself to be an advanced student. I don't want to discourage you; this is a great offer. But you should qualify your expectations. Mastery of these tools is not something that happens overnight or even in a single university term. If you want to use these tools for self-directed learning separate from your course work, it is even more important for you to understand the investment of personal time that will be needed. My recommendation: Go for Expression Studio and Windows Live. Use the Express Editions for everything else until you are prepared to step up to Visual Studio 2008 Professional. What Others Are Saying
As a side matter, it is interesting that Shibboleth and Information Card (they say Cardspace) Identity Providers are supported in the verifying institutions. [update 2008-02-20: Alfred Thompson's post adds information beyond the basic "hooray" posts and I linked to it. I stick by my recommendation, especially for those who want to learn non-.NET fundamentals.] 2008-02-18DMware: ODMA Futures RoadmapAfter taking some time to envision what might be possible for an ODMA64 implementation of an Open Document Management API [2], I began to look at further details for a roadmap that could end there. At this point, it looks like there are four overlapping and mutually-supporting stages:
Although a few items are slated to commence in March 2008, most of the activity is without fixed calendar commitments and with no detailed deliverables. Here's the current level of thinking. 1. Enhancing ODMA EffectivenessThere are four critical features that have ODMA be effective in bridging desktop software products to document-management systems:
All future development is focused entirely on preserving and enhancing these four qualities. In many cases, it is a matter of providing improved guidance and documentation. Tutorials, supplemental utilities, reference implementations, improved samples, and implementation kits will also be provided over time. 2. Preserving the ODMA CoreThe ODMA SDK packages and other materials have become stale on the ODMA Interoperability Exchange site. As part of a general site repaving operation, the core materials of ODMA 1.0, ODMA 1.5, and ODMA 2.0 will be re-organized and preserved on the site and on an anniversary CD-ROM. The CD-ROM will be preserved at AIIM International as well, so that the historical materials are not lost. Along with preservation of the historical materials, the ODMA32 Core will also be supplemented [3]:
ODMA Core preservation activities will be initiated in March 2008, following the Public Beta release (0.60) of ODMJNI 1.0. The activity will be carried out in parallel with further ODMJNI releases as well as other ODMA32 2.5 integration activities. 3. ODMA32 2.5 IntegrationODMA32 2.5 is the achievement of supplemental integration layers surrounding ODMA32 2.0. The idea is to enhance the opportunities for ODMA integration with provisions of this kind:
ODMA32 2.5 developments are already underway. Beyond the delivery of the ODJNI 1.0 Public Beta release in March 2008, there is no fixed schedule. The further development and release of ODMA32 2.5 components will be leisurely, paced by ODMA Core continuation work. The ODMA32 2.5 supplements, along with maintenance updates to the ODMA Core and the ODMA Connection Manager, should continue to be available and usable so long as the Win32 platform remains in use on x86 architectures. No further development is expected for ODMA32 beyond 2.5. 4. ODMA64 3.0 InteroperabilityInitial thoughts toward a potential ODMA64 appeared in November 2007 [2]. I am now thinking that creation of ODMA64 for 64-bit platforms will mark the introduction of ODMA 3.0 [4]. ODMA 3.0 will only be supported on 64-bit processors. It will not be backward compatible with the ODMA 2.0, although there will be useful overlap with ODMA 2.5 provisions. Development of ODMA64 is not expected before 2010. Whenever development does occur, there are three key provisions:
I am still bemused that, 10 years after the AIIM ODMA Consortium shipped the last version of the ODMA Core components, based on the ODMA 2.0 specification, I am still supporting this long niche software and its integration model [1]. Not only that, I am now proposing further development in this interesting little middleware laboratory.
Cybersmith: Software Craftsmanship WikiFrom Sara Payton (via Tim O'Reilly) I learned of the forthcoming book, Software Craftsmanship: From Apprentice to Journeyman. This book is being developed on a Wiki and is a community effort in collaboration with the authors, Dave Hoover and Adewale Oshineye. I thought this would be really cool. I thought, maybe I won't have to invest so much in what I want to put here on "Professor von Clueless" and on nfoWare for encouraging novices and supporting advances in craftsmanship. Then I said, "Uh Oh." The terms and conditions for playing in the forum, whatever that is (I haven't gotten through to it yet) are 7 pages on my screen. This is discouraging. Since I always read the terms and conditions, and life is too short to dive into these, I have not registered. Also, I looked at the table of contents and a few chapters (one HTML page apiece, it seems) and I am not sure I care about this book. It is written as a form of pattern language. It also says some things that I am not sure I agree with. So, rather than sign up and chime in over there, I think I will stick to my guns and continue with VC++ Novice and Cybersmith postings right here (with backup material on the web site real soon now). You may find this more valuable than I did. I certainly like the idea. Please go visit and develop your own sense of the material that is posted so far. It is a work in progress and you might check back later to see how it becomes beefier. Since I started taking action on the nfoWorks idea, I find that I have trouble typing the correct one of the two terms nfoWorks and nfoWare. They are really different, even though connected. I will have to work at this. Since Harmony domains are unavailable, I will have to live with my too-similar choices. [update 2008-02-19-12:44 I am going crazy tagging. I used quotes instead of the comma-separated form required here in Windows Live Writer because I get confused about how de.licio.us uses space separate lists where I must use underscores versus my photo tagging tool which uses space-separated lists but quotes on multi-word-space-separated phrases. Sheesh. I also couldn't find any of my posts in Technorati, so I was looking for the culprit and ready to file bug reports when I noticed that there is this authority business and my personal settings for viewing tagged posts were set so high that my own posts weren't being reported to me. Urghh.] |
||||||
|
You are navigating Orcmid's Lair. |
template
created 2004-06-17-20:01 -0700 (pdt)
by orcmid |