This week I had to present our latest features to a group of IBMers from tech sales and services divisions. Those are the guys working with clients to get the stuff to work - in form of demos or production systems with a defined, often customized, architecture.
They asked clearly to get as few charts as possible, so quickly I had my decision - I would make this presentation without slides. I would make it a speech. And discussion. Not a slide-based presentation, in any case.
So I just stood in front those people, and at the beginning that was a bit unusual, but as I came into the topic, two things struck me:
- People were looking at me, not the charts. They were actually listening, and I could clearly see that they weren't struggling understanding the charts - there were none. Instead, I got a bunch of questions, and we got in a deep discussion about the topic. Which was very useful for them to understand well the new features and their impact.
- You avoid the usual question: "Can I get those charts?", "what does this chart means?". Instead, the whole discussion was based on what I spoke about. Much better.
Looking backward, I see other fantastic advantages to not use any charts at all:
- It is much more flexible. If a question comes in that may influence further points, just go to those directly. You are not a slave of the chart ordering anymore. Because a presentation rarely runs as intended.
- It saves a lot of time! How many hours did you spend in your last presentation? Was it really worth it? Think about it. Getting this cool picture from a colleague, and then adapting the whole style, readapting the template. Should I mention the colleague in chart 12? etc etc, you know what I mean. Without slides, you just have to prepare yourself an outline on a few post-it. 15-20 min of work max. Mastering the topic is quite more work - but you'd have to master it as well if you use slides, wouldn't you?
- It is so much reliable! You don't need to care anymore if there is a VGA cable, or if the resolution is fine, if you have backups, etc. You only need to care not to faint, but that is also the case if you use a
slideshow ;)
Of course I am not arguing that you should never use charts. They are sometimes useful. But do you need slides for all your presentation, or are they oy needed for that for showing some particular point at one or two moments in the presentation? Try it!
Showing posts with label english. Show all posts
Showing posts with label english. Show all posts
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Twitter and 140 characters. It's not about content.
The idea I want to expose is probably nothing new, but still I think worth to explain again - in a different light given the recent moves from Facebook and Google+.
In this post I argue that the 140 character limit has not so much to do with the fact that such short texts are fast and easy to read. Neither that it limits "chatty" comments. Rather, I think it has all to do with the visual flow. 140 characters allow to display content in boxes of very similar and regular size, and it allows to display a flow even on smaller mobile devices.
So let's discuss first how I discount the importance of text size:
- To get around the short size, people are using all kinds of hashtags, using lots of abbreviations, squeezing punctuations. That makes tweets actually hard to read. For a matter of facts, I often see people not familiar with Twitter looking at my timeline and saying "I don't understand what they write". The keyword here is obfuscation. Sure, when you're using Twitter a lot, that helps, but for the average user, that makes tweets no faster to read that longer, but clearer ones.
- Is 140 character a sanity limit against too chatty people? Probably not, they write just much more tweets to compensate (You're probably in the 10% if you know that story from 2009).
So now why has Twitter been so successful? I'll argue that its decisive advantage against Facebook and MySpace is the visual design. More specifically, it's table design. In short, Twitter is like Excel. And it's no coincidence that Excel is still one of the most popular software out there.
Table are quick to proceed, and an extremely efficient way to navigate through information - even if it's text. You can also see that with the popularity of the table in HTML since it's early days. If tag clouds were more efficient to parse, they would have dominate the web. But they are not efficient, so they stay as a neat gadget out here.
In current visual design, grids are everything. And are the base for visual consitency. The iPhone resolution is based on the grid that widgets based on. So it's really rooted into the device.
So now take a look at those screen captures:
This is Google Plus. I can only see one and a half post, and those are relatively small ones. Some post may cover many screens. Also the bottom bar is taking up more space.
This is Twitter. Despite two posts being very near 140 characters, 4 tweets are fitting on one screen. There is a difference in height between a one liner and a full 140 characters tweet, but it's not that big.
So if your goal is to follow quite a big quantity of different sources, Twitter is definitely more efficient, because it enables such a fast raster between tweets. Google is more seeking depth and content richness, which is fully ok, but in my opinion the reason Twitter is not going to disappear yet.
In this post I argue that the 140 character limit has not so much to do with the fact that such short texts are fast and easy to read. Neither that it limits "chatty" comments. Rather, I think it has all to do with the visual flow. 140 characters allow to display content in boxes of very similar and regular size, and it allows to display a flow even on smaller mobile devices.
So let's discuss first how I discount the importance of text size:
- To get around the short size, people are using all kinds of hashtags, using lots of abbreviations, squeezing punctuations. That makes tweets actually hard to read. For a matter of facts, I often see people not familiar with Twitter looking at my timeline and saying "I don't understand what they write". The keyword here is obfuscation. Sure, when you're using Twitter a lot, that helps, but for the average user, that makes tweets no faster to read that longer, but clearer ones.
- Is 140 character a sanity limit against too chatty people? Probably not, they write just much more tweets to compensate (You're probably in the 10% if you know that story from 2009).
So now why has Twitter been so successful? I'll argue that its decisive advantage against Facebook and MySpace is the visual design. More specifically, it's table design. In short, Twitter is like Excel. And it's no coincidence that Excel is still one of the most popular software out there.
Table are quick to proceed, and an extremely efficient way to navigate through information - even if it's text. You can also see that with the popularity of the table in HTML since it's early days. If tag clouds were more efficient to parse, they would have dominate the web. But they are not efficient, so they stay as a neat gadget out here.
In current visual design, grids are everything. And are the base for visual consitency. The iPhone resolution is based on the grid that widgets based on. So it's really rooted into the device.
So now take a look at those screen captures:
This is Google Plus. I can only see one and a half post, and those are relatively small ones. Some post may cover many screens. Also the bottom bar is taking up more space.
This is Twitter. Despite two posts being very near 140 characters, 4 tweets are fitting on one screen. There is a difference in height between a one liner and a full 140 characters tweet, but it's not that big.
So if your goal is to follow quite a big quantity of different sources, Twitter is definitely more efficient, because it enables such a fast raster between tweets. Google is more seeking depth and content richness, which is fully ok, but in my opinion the reason Twitter is not going to disappear yet.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
My IAA Report
This post comes a bit late as I have been kept quite busy lately by private stuff... So finally here it is, with a few weeks delay:
So again this time, I went to the IAA in Frankfurt. This is the biggest motor show in the world, so I thought it would be worth getting there again. And of course, I'm interested in cars, so I wanted to see the last developments.
There's a lot to report about. And I didn't try that hard to seek information. So I'll go over a few different aspects of the show.
General
Like last time, I was impressed by the sheer size of the marketing involved. Millions invested in making huge boots, with huge screens, loud music, and all the like. Well, this time again. I'll describe that in the booth section. Going there a Friday, I was surprised of the crowded attendance. It seem to have been quite a successful year for the show. So let's begin with the report:
Booths
Some things have changed obviously since two years ago. Going by some brands, my impressions:
- Audi got outside with a mega-booth that was quite impressive from an architectural view. They have an integrated driving circuit in the building, which has its effect, but the expo space inside was quite limited. It was incredibly crowded, so it was hard to even see entire cars. Two years ago, it was almost quiet at the Audi booth.
- Mercedes had a HUGE booth. It's gigantic. Very impressive scenery, actually mimicking their Stuttgart Museum. Lots of people there, but enough space to enjoy the models and go into the cars:
- BMW presented something similar to two years ago, slightly modified. They seem to still run on the investment they made two years ago - also on the environment side. No big new things there.
- Porsche had a booth open to everyone - in contrast to other luxury & sport brands like Ferrari or Aston Martin. You may argue that those are more luxurious, I think partly this has to do with the desire from Porsche to be in the hearts of the nation. They're proud to be considered a popular car maker. I was told by friends "you can drive to work with a Porsche, not with a Ferrari". So kudos to Porsche on that. I could step in a Panamera by the way, where the brown leather on the console was quite blending the outside view. Better take that boring black, it's mostly used for a reason!
- Renault had a quite laid back, well organized booth. And it was full of elegance. Simple but beautiful cars, with original but very trendy colours. Also they have a lot going on on the green side. More on the next section. What I also really liked on their booth is both their attention to design, with quite a few concept cars that are much more original than the German ones, as well as their attention to the past. Mercedes used the history trick in the former IAA, Renault presented a fantastic R4 this year:
There were not many breaking new designs to see. One effect I could notice is that corners are now a property of very expensive cars. May there be Lamborghinis, Rolls Royce, or Mercedes.
Mini is going bold with the new coupé serie. VW presented quite some interesting variations of the Up, but those are just artist works that will never land in a store.
Of course, everyone is doing a pitch on environment. Except maybe Rolls Royce. Still, I saw nothing completely new. On the evolution side though, there quite some changes to observe. For one, there were a whole hall reserved for alternative energies, said the entry panel at least (well actually, once I was in, there was only a half hall).
Personally, I think the big change now is that major cars company are now selling electric cars. Yes, Renault, I'm looking at you! Renault comes with 4 different models, some from scratch, other basing on existing traditional models. Not all are available now on the market, but should soon. Renault was by far the big company putting its electric strategy in the forefront, but Opel was there also with the Ampera, which is now available for sale, based on the Chevy Volt.
There are also some new accessories appearing: SolarWorld makes a product called the SunCarport, and as its name suggest it, it's a carport with a roof made of solar cells. So you can park your car under it, and the carport produces clean energy that can be either fed into the utilities or used to recharge the car. We'll see how that second use case goes as people usually drive away with their car at day.
Outside the "electric hall" there were a small fleet of e-cars for test drives. It struck me how silent those cars are, especially when driving slow. Sure additional sound will be needed to make them secure for pedestrians.
Actually, while there were not that much breaking news on the green side, for the me the great novelty was the explosion of driving assistants. Mercedes was doing a live demo with a full simulator to present its concept while showing a car driving on the highway.
What is very interesting here, is that a few companies now do have a technology for self driving car. Audi was mentioning the technology but I didn't see any demo.
IBM had a small booth around Smarter Transportation (disclaimer: I work there). I wonder why Google wasn't there with their self-driving technology. Tech is invading the real world. Actually, it is quite interesting that car makers are telling a lot "We're not taking you the control", because in many cases they have. Many of the tech presented on the show is actually very near self-driving tech. Audi lane assist, for example, was recently shown on TV more or less taking the car alone through a curve. We're going to see much more discussion around that in the next few years.
Also the cars do now have a very impressive connectivity. All kinds of players are connectible by default, many cars propose WLAN in the car, etc. The iPads and iPhones are invading the in-car electronics. How long before an entertainment system or even car information goes on the smartphones or tablets? Not long, I think. It's happening right now in the planes, but that's a topic for another post.
So again this time, I went to the IAA in Frankfurt. This is the biggest motor show in the world, so I thought it would be worth getting there again. And of course, I'm interested in cars, so I wanted to see the last developments.
There's a lot to report about. And I didn't try that hard to seek information. So I'll go over a few different aspects of the show.
General
Like last time, I was impressed by the sheer size of the marketing involved. Millions invested in making huge boots, with huge screens, loud music, and all the like. Well, this time again. I'll describe that in the booth section. Going there a Friday, I was surprised of the crowded attendance. It seem to have been quite a successful year for the show. So let's begin with the report:
Booths
Some things have changed obviously since two years ago. Going by some brands, my impressions:
- Audi got outside with a mega-booth that was quite impressive from an architectural view. They have an integrated driving circuit in the building, which has its effect, but the expo space inside was quite limited. It was incredibly crowded, so it was hard to even see entire cars. Two years ago, it was almost quiet at the Audi booth.
- Mercedes had a HUGE booth. It's gigantic. Very impressive scenery, actually mimicking their Stuttgart Museum. Lots of people there, but enough space to enjoy the models and go into the cars:
- BMW presented something similar to two years ago, slightly modified. They seem to still run on the investment they made two years ago - also on the environment side. No big new things there.
- Porsche had a booth open to everyone - in contrast to other luxury & sport brands like Ferrari or Aston Martin. You may argue that those are more luxurious, I think partly this has to do with the desire from Porsche to be in the hearts of the nation. They're proud to be considered a popular car maker. I was told by friends "you can drive to work with a Porsche, not with a Ferrari". So kudos to Porsche on that. I could step in a Panamera by the way, where the brown leather on the console was quite blending the outside view. Better take that boring black, it's mostly used for a reason!
- Renault had a quite laid back, well organized booth. And it was full of elegance. Simple but beautiful cars, with original but very trendy colours. Also they have a lot going on on the green side. More on the next section. What I also really liked on their booth is both their attention to design, with quite a few concept cars that are much more original than the German ones, as well as their attention to the past. Mercedes used the history trick in the former IAA, Renault presented a fantastic R4 this year:
Design
There were not many breaking new designs to see. One effect I could notice is that corners are now a property of very expensive cars. May there be Lamborghinis, Rolls Royce, or Mercedes.
Mini is going bold with the new coupé serie. VW presented quite some interesting variations of the Up, but those are just artist works that will never land in a store.
Environment
Of course, everyone is doing a pitch on environment. Except maybe Rolls Royce. Still, I saw nothing completely new. On the evolution side though, there quite some changes to observe. For one, there were a whole hall reserved for alternative energies, said the entry panel at least (well actually, once I was in, there was only a half hall).
Personally, I think the big change now is that major cars company are now selling electric cars. Yes, Renault, I'm looking at you! Renault comes with 4 different models, some from scratch, other basing on existing traditional models. Not all are available now on the market, but should soon. Renault was by far the big company putting its electric strategy in the forefront, but Opel was there also with the Ampera, which is now available for sale, based on the Chevy Volt.
There are also some new accessories appearing: SolarWorld makes a product called the SunCarport, and as its name suggest it, it's a carport with a roof made of solar cells. So you can park your car under it, and the carport produces clean energy that can be either fed into the utilities or used to recharge the car. We'll see how that second use case goes as people usually drive away with their car at day.
Outside the "electric hall" there were a small fleet of e-cars for test drives. It struck me how silent those cars are, especially when driving slow. Sure additional sound will be needed to make them secure for pedestrians.
Tech
Actually, while there were not that much breaking news on the green side, for the me the great novelty was the explosion of driving assistants. Mercedes was doing a live demo with a full simulator to present its concept while showing a car driving on the highway.
What is very interesting here, is that a few companies now do have a technology for self driving car. Audi was mentioning the technology but I didn't see any demo.
IBM had a small booth around Smarter Transportation (disclaimer: I work there). I wonder why Google wasn't there with their self-driving technology. Tech is invading the real world. Actually, it is quite interesting that car makers are telling a lot "We're not taking you the control", because in many cases they have. Many of the tech presented on the show is actually very near self-driving tech. Audi lane assist, for example, was recently shown on TV more or less taking the car alone through a curve. We're going to see much more discussion around that in the next few years.
Also the cars do now have a very impressive connectivity. All kinds of players are connectible by default, many cars propose WLAN in the car, etc. The iPads and iPhones are invading the in-car electronics. How long before an entertainment system or even car information goes on the smartphones or tablets? Not long, I think. It's happening right now in the planes, but that's a topic for another post.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
You need to try out technologies...
... To understand what their ups and downs are. Yet another example came to me recently. I was just reading my iPad on my couch, with the iPad on my legs - I didn't hold it at all. Why should I hold it?
So I remembered that discussion I had a few months ago with a colleague about the iPad before I bought it. He said: "that's a cool gear, but it weight quite a lot and must be tiresome to hold a long time, for things like reading". Of course, when you read a pocket book, you have to hold it. It's not a real problem because it's light, but one of the biggest reason you hold the book is to keep it open. But you don't need to keep the iPad open. So holding it is unnecessary. But who would have thought to that without trying?
So I remembered that discussion I had a few months ago with a colleague about the iPad before I bought it. He said: "that's a cool gear, but it weight quite a lot and must be tiresome to hold a long time, for things like reading". Of course, when you read a pocket book, you have to hold it. It's not a real problem because it's light, but one of the biggest reason you hold the book is to keep it open. But you don't need to keep the iPad open. So holding it is unnecessary. But who would have thought to that without trying?
Sunday, March 21, 2010
New layout, comments working again
Today I finally repaired the blog comment links by putting a new layout template. It was about time, after all. The new template is slicker, the fonts a bit bigger, and think in overall the whole gives more accent on the content than before. Have fun reading & commenting!
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Facebook, privacy and information value
Now & then I see friends putting a false family name on their Facebook profile. While I respect that decision, I don't think it's really a productive idea. Maybe you can give me some hints I am missing.
My point in short:
Your family name isn't what's valuable to FB. What's valuable to them is what you write and who you connect with. If you don't want FB to spy you you shouldn't be here in the first place, because your data usage is what matters. By having all your communication, they know where you live, where you friends live, probably how old they are, what all of you are studying, who are you best friends,...
Place yourself as a car dealer. Does it really matters if your customer is named Smith or Johnson? Doesn't it matters more to know that he's a lawyer or that he's going to the Golf club? Now that may be some clue on how much he can invest on a car.
Well, you may fear that strangers try to sneak information about you that should stay in your friend circle, and you're probably right about that possibility. To protect yourself against such thinks, review carefully your privacy settings.
So if you fear Facebook spying on you or using your data, maybe you shouldn't go there at all - or at least reduce your usage to the minimum. And review your privacy settings, it can't hurt.
My point in short:
Your family name isn't what's valuable to FB. What's valuable to them is what you write and who you connect with. If you don't want FB to spy you you shouldn't be here in the first place, because your data usage is what matters. By having all your communication, they know where you live, where you friends live, probably how old they are, what all of you are studying, who are you best friends,...
Place yourself as a car dealer. Does it really matters if your customer is named Smith or Johnson? Doesn't it matters more to know that he's a lawyer or that he's going to the Golf club? Now that may be some clue on how much he can invest on a car.
Well, you may fear that strangers try to sneak information about you that should stay in your friend circle, and you're probably right about that possibility. To protect yourself against such thinks, review carefully your privacy settings.
So if you fear Facebook spying on you or using your data, maybe you shouldn't go there at all - or at least reduce your usage to the minimum. And review your privacy settings, it can't hurt.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Dojo tip for debugging partly "undefined" widgets
Yesterday I stumbled upon a common Dojo problem: Dojo is refusing to create twice a widget ending with undefined (result looked like widgettype0undefined). I ended up searching a long time what code I could have forgotten, what variable could have been missing in inherited classes,... I asked colleagues and the few ones who knew Dojo had no standard explanation for that problem. "Hard to find", "Search the call stack". All that brought nothing. The Dojo "call stack" just stays on the dojo.js file... very helpful.
Well, it turns out this "call stack" thing was the base for the solution. Thinking about templates and static programming, I began searching by making a dijit.byId(xxxx0undefined) in the Firebug console. From there, the solution was to walk up the nodes in the DOM model, and the parents a few levels up showed me what was missing. Some elements didn't have a name - because I selected the wrong NLS file. Bummer.
Well, Dojo experts probably know that already, but I think many developers are in need of such tricks. Hope it helps...
Well, it turns out this "call stack" thing was the base for the solution. Thinking about templates and static programming, I began searching by making a dijit.byId(xxxx0undefined) in the Firebug console. From there, the solution was to walk up the nodes in the DOM model, and the parents a few levels up showed me what was missing. Some elements didn't have a name - because I selected the wrong NLS file. Bummer.
Well, Dojo experts probably know that already, but I think many developers are in need of such tricks. Hope it helps...
Monday, April 27, 2009
Saving energy, is it that hard?
This evening, I finally got the courage to rethink my electric installation. I don't have that much, but TV and computer are stuck in the electricity outlet all the time.
A while ago, a friend told me about these Watt-meter to measure one's electrical consumption. I bought one of these devices a few month after - that was around three years ago (sick). All the time I sort of knew that I could do better, but didn't knew that would be that much.
So how did I decide to do that? This week-end, I received a paper from the mayor telling about a green event in the city hall. Each visitor would get a free outlet with switch, allowing to "save 40$ a year". Well, I already had some switch outlets at home that were plugged but never switched off, maybe I could combine them better I thought & save a bit that way.
After having to unplug all the electronics in the living room, I tested each single device, and that was quite impressing: DSL modem: 18 watts. Wifi router: 23 watts. Computer off: 33 watts. TV in Standby: 14 watts. That makes 88 watts! All this energy was burned useless. If I'm using this electronics 4 hours a day, then it's 1.7 kWh / day that just gets lost for nothing. Reported to the year, that makes 640 kWh! I was really surprised by this number, because this is not a negligible part of my energy consumption.
At 20 Euro cents per kWh, that would make a saving of 130 Euro over the year (170 $ at the current change rate). Of course, I'm at home the week-ends, and I have holidays,... so I don't expect the full saving, but 100 Euro should be possible per year. Let's see in 12 months ;)
The good thing with this saving? Well, I'm still having the same contract with monthly payments. That means that in one year, I should get a beautiful back-payment with the savings I made that way. If that is no motivation :)
A while ago, a friend told me about these Watt-meter to measure one's electrical consumption. I bought one of these devices a few month after - that was around three years ago (sick). All the time I sort of knew that I could do better, but didn't knew that would be that much.
So how did I decide to do that? This week-end, I received a paper from the mayor telling about a green event in the city hall. Each visitor would get a free outlet with switch, allowing to "save 40$ a year". Well, I already had some switch outlets at home that were plugged but never switched off, maybe I could combine them better I thought & save a bit that way.
After having to unplug all the electronics in the living room, I tested each single device, and that was quite impressing: DSL modem: 18 watts. Wifi router: 23 watts. Computer off: 33 watts. TV in Standby: 14 watts. That makes 88 watts! All this energy was burned useless. If I'm using this electronics 4 hours a day, then it's 1.7 kWh / day that just gets lost for nothing. Reported to the year, that makes 640 kWh! I was really surprised by this number, because this is not a negligible part of my energy consumption.
At 20 Euro cents per kWh, that would make a saving of 130 Euro over the year (170 $ at the current change rate). Of course, I'm at home the week-ends, and I have holidays,... so I don't expect the full saving, but 100 Euro should be possible per year. Let's see in 12 months ;)
The good thing with this saving? Well, I'm still having the same contract with monthly payments. That means that in one year, I should get a beautiful back-payment with the savings I made that way. If that is no motivation :)
Monday, March 02, 2009
3270 on the iPhone: experience report
Last week I finally decided to get an iPhone - and now I can already write I'm not disappointed of the investment! As I use Linux as my main OS, it was not completely easy to sync it with the iPhone, another post is following soon on that topic.
So I discovered that many colleagues were amazed or surprised by what I showed them today: a z/OS mainframe terminal on the iPhone, that's the perfect combination of legacy & newest technology. But was that going to work for me?
First, I was actually searching for UNIX terminals that would help me to manage my iPhone files. It exists, but you have to jailbreak your iPhone. But as the search in the Apple Store was showing me lots of SSH & Telnet UNIX terms, I found per chance a 3270 terminal. It's free, so let's try it! It's a 3270 terminal from MochaSoft. So I installed it quickly, but couldn't test it right away...
The actual problem was not getting the terminal to run, but to actually get connectivity with the host. How do I come to the host through WLAN? I manage to do that because the iPhone supports all our security settings - you have to try it yourself (& check if IT allow that of course) in your company. Once you can get a connection from the iPhone, the terminal app should access the host too. You have to enter a connection as usual. There are few possibilities to configure, but enough for me. It's easy to configure even for newcomers.
After I get my connection, first login try. There are five dark icons on the screen, the most important of them are the keyboard icons, which allow you to type in the input fields, the enter icon to submit the input, and the settings icon. The terminal screen looks similar to the one you get on your desktop, except you can scroll and zoom it like a map or, for the one that tried Safari on the iPhone, like a web site. Not bad after all. The PF keys are small buttons on the ISPF panels.
The whole is really funny, and impressing first. It cannot be used as a productive environment of course. For example my attempts to open 3.4 ended with an error message, telling me the size of the panel is not adequate. I should look deeper in that problem, maybe some configuration can solve it.
Another difficulty is to navigate between the input fields - often you have to zoom on the field first.
And before showing it to my colleagues, I locked the iPhone, which stopped my session, but kept me logged in for a while. That prevented me of course to login again, but if you're reading this part of the post, you already know that ;)
To summarize, a good, simple and funny 3270 application, that is still lacking some usability but proves that the mainframe is still modern :)
So I discovered that many colleagues were amazed or surprised by what I showed them today: a z/OS mainframe terminal on the iPhone, that's the perfect combination of legacy & newest technology. But was that going to work for me?
First, I was actually searching for UNIX terminals that would help me to manage my iPhone files. It exists, but you have to jailbreak your iPhone. But as the search in the Apple Store was showing me lots of SSH & Telnet UNIX terms, I found per chance a 3270 terminal. It's free, so let's try it! It's a 3270 terminal from MochaSoft. So I installed it quickly, but couldn't test it right away...
The actual problem was not getting the terminal to run, but to actually get connectivity with the host. How do I come to the host through WLAN? I manage to do that because the iPhone supports all our security settings - you have to try it yourself (& check if IT allow that of course) in your company. Once you can get a connection from the iPhone, the terminal app should access the host too. You have to enter a connection as usual. There are few possibilities to configure, but enough for me. It's easy to configure even for newcomers.
After I get my connection, first login try. There are five dark icons on the screen, the most important of them are the keyboard icons, which allow you to type in the input fields, the enter icon to submit the input, and the settings icon. The terminal screen looks similar to the one you get on your desktop, except you can scroll and zoom it like a map or, for the one that tried Safari on the iPhone, like a web site. Not bad after all. The PF keys are small buttons on the ISPF panels.
The whole is really funny, and impressing first. It cannot be used as a productive environment of course. For example my attempts to open 3.4 ended with an error message, telling me the size of the panel is not adequate. I should look deeper in that problem, maybe some configuration can solve it.
Another difficulty is to navigate between the input fields - often you have to zoom on the field first.
And before showing it to my colleagues, I locked the iPhone, which stopped my session, but kept me logged in for a while. That prevented me of course to login again, but if you're reading this part of the post, you already know that ;)
To summarize, a good, simple and funny 3270 application, that is still lacking some usability but proves that the mainframe is still modern :)
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Infrastructure renewal: what could it bring?
Originally, I just wanted to put a comment on a post of the blog A Smarter Planet.
Well, it didn't accept my comment. I got a pop up window with something like "We cannot accept your data". OK, then I'll blog about that :)
The post argues that it'll be a great opportunity to upgrade some of the US infrastructure. Not the roads, but rather "smart grids, healthcare and broadband" - because they are predicted to generate growth, and will help keep up against the international competition.
I think this is not wrong, except for one thing. This article is forgetting that the crisis is not only in the US. And so are governments stimulus. Germany, France, lots of countries in Europe are planning such actions too. So soon, it'll be just a question of keeping up with the Joneses. I'll concentrate on the broadband here.
What does that means? It means that if the US invest in broadband, some other countries will slip in the broadband ranking, and will have to invest heavily in it too. The winner? Surely the IT industry. The ones who will build the cable, but the ones that will build the software and hardware that will make use of these cables too.
I don't know what it could lead to - just thinking of media streaming now- but I think this is an interesting trend that could lead to big changes again in the Internet landscape. And you, what do you think?
Well, it didn't accept my comment. I got a pop up window with something like "We cannot accept your data". OK, then I'll blog about that :)
The post argues that it'll be a great opportunity to upgrade some of the US infrastructure. Not the roads, but rather "smart grids, healthcare and broadband" - because they are predicted to generate growth, and will help keep up against the international competition.
I think this is not wrong, except for one thing. This article is forgetting that the crisis is not only in the US. And so are governments stimulus. Germany, France, lots of countries in Europe are planning such actions too. So soon, it'll be just a question of keeping up with the Joneses. I'll concentrate on the broadband here.
What does that means? It means that if the US invest in broadband, some other countries will slip in the broadband ranking, and will have to invest heavily in it too. The winner? Surely the IT industry. The ones who will build the cable, but the ones that will build the software and hardware that will make use of these cables too.
I don't know what it could lead to - just thinking of media streaming now- but I think this is an interesting trend that could lead to big changes again in the Internet landscape. And you, what do you think?
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Back in Tuebingen
So I'm back from New York. It's sometimes hard to accept :)
I was one month there and it was an awesome experience. I met a lot of different, interesting and nice people (Aneel, Liz, Jesse, Suki, Chaz, Maria, Donna...), and saw a lot of places I'd wanted to see for so long: New York, Boston and the US East coast.
Want pictures? You can have a look at some of them on flickr. (shortened url)
Most of all, I've tried to avoid the tourist in New York cliche, by trying to meet New Yorkers (much more easy to do than most people think) and seeing a little behind the tourist books. Well, I just said I tried :) Beside this, it was nice to meet people from all the world (inclusive French, yes!) in the hostels too.
New York impressed me very much because of its dynamic and all the ambitious and interesting people there. Other things surprised me too. For example I would have believed the dominant colors were grey and blue, but it's more of blue and brown. And beside all this light and superficial stuff, I got a grasp of the finance crisis too; people in Europe are not taking seriously yet (is that good? or bad?).
During my long walkings, I saw lots of things on the street. A man proposing, another lying on the ground who had just been hit by a car.
My highlights in a few words, maybe? NYC Ballet, Blizzard, Christmas Eve... Although these are just a few samples.
I've tweeted during the travel, so I'm not doing a big post here, but this travel has been really inspiring for me. Not only it was an occasion to get some rest (I'm not kidding! Alone having no computer there helped a lot for that) and walk a lot through the city, I got to think about my career and what I could do next year. So now the year already began, and it's time to go on!
See you soon!
Stephane
I was one month there and it was an awesome experience. I met a lot of different, interesting and nice people (Aneel, Liz, Jesse, Suki, Chaz, Maria, Donna...), and saw a lot of places I'd wanted to see for so long: New York, Boston and the US East coast.
Want pictures? You can have a look at some of them on flickr. (shortened url)
Most of all, I've tried to avoid the tourist in New York cliche, by trying to meet New Yorkers (much more easy to do than most people think) and seeing a little behind the tourist books. Well, I just said I tried :) Beside this, it was nice to meet people from all the world (inclusive French, yes!) in the hostels too.
New York impressed me very much because of its dynamic and all the ambitious and interesting people there. Other things surprised me too. For example I would have believed the dominant colors were grey and blue, but it's more of blue and brown. And beside all this light and superficial stuff, I got a grasp of the finance crisis too; people in Europe are not taking seriously yet (is that good? or bad?).
During my long walkings, I saw lots of things on the street. A man proposing, another lying on the ground who had just been hit by a car.
My highlights in a few words, maybe? NYC Ballet, Blizzard, Christmas Eve... Although these are just a few samples.
I've tweeted during the travel, so I'm not doing a big post here, but this travel has been really inspiring for me. Not only it was an occasion to get some rest (I'm not kidding! Alone having no computer there helped a lot for that) and walk a lot through the city, I got to think about my career and what I could do next year. So now the year already began, and it's time to go on!
See you soon!
Stephane
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Change! (& back here)
You can see there is a new design in here... I spent some time this week-end to renew my old blog template. I'll have to customize and polish this one for sure sometime soon, but at least it's motivating me for writing again on this blog. By the way, I'm pretty impressed by the new Blogger beta functions which are a great improvement. Blogger was not very dynamic before, but now it has all the functions I think I need. See you soon!
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Flight course #3
... learned to take-off and land. Stunning, simply stunning!
I'm going to my next course right now.
I'm going to my next course right now.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
The Airbus' problem
(photo picked on Wikipedia, see Airbus article)
There are a lot of things said about Airbus these times. A lot of wrong things. I don't work there but I'm just trying to make a short summary of the situation, because I hear so much shit in the medias.
There are 2 problems with Airbus these times.
1- The engineers of the Hamburg factory are using a non-integrated software for the whole cabling of the A380 cabins.
2- Airbus completely failed to see the A350 opportunity.
The media are saying everywhere "The Airbus production is too much dispatched". Really? I did work the last 30 years. And Boeing is now producing big parts of the 787 in Asia. So this must not be the (at least main) problem. I can only recommend you to read the linked article.
Problem 1: Why did the Hamburg engineers used 3D Digital Mock Up instead of Catia? I can't give the answer. But this is probably their biggest problem now. Integration is always a problem when we're speaking about IT. And people that don't know it learn it sooner or later.
With its A380, Airbus said to the airlines: "With the A380 we can make every wish comes true". The airlines heard it - they made very specific, unusual, complex requirements for the cabin interiors. This resulted in a very complex cabin cabling, which is completely different from one plane to another. Airbus failed to see the induced technological complexity of their marketing, and then installed unappropriated, non-integrated software solutions.
Problem 2: The A380 is actually a philosophy. The philosophy that the airline traffic will concentrate on a few big hubs, like in Europe London Healthrow or Frankfurt. The Boeing philosophy is exactly the contrary: The priority is to many direct connections joint by middle-sized aircrafts. An executive of Boeing explains it very well in his blog.
The A350 project was borned when Airbus saw that the airlines asked for such a plane. But again, they failed to see the opportunity. They just proposed an improved A330. The airlines had to ask for further modifications to the design. Airbus lost years and billions with this error. That's why (now former) Airbus CEO, Christian Streiff, said Airbus is a decade behind Boeing.
But 2 years ago, Boeing was way behind Airbus. Economy changes fast, and I don't doubt Airbus can adapt fast, as does Randy Baseler : "Yes, it's a tough time right now for EADS/Airbus. But they'll get through it. And we expect them to be strong competitors for a very long time."
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