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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Touchdown - Android Exchange support made easy

Connecting to Microsoft Exchange from Android

I was recently trying to connect to an Exchange server. I got mostly there, then I was told that my phone didn't support the security method required - blast!

I searched around the web a bit and found this to be a common problem.

Like a grizzly old prospector, I finally found that speck of gold at the bottom of the pan - and it's called Touchdown from Nitrodesk.





I installed the free version (30 day trial) to ensure it worked. If you have the required information; it is extremely easy to set up. Once I had it working, I upgraded to the paid version. It's a little pricey when you compare it to other Android apps, but it is a fully-featured product, not just a simple one-function tool.



Highly recommended!

Monday, May 9, 2011

Ubuntu 11.04 "natty narwhal" - my verdict


I'd have to say that upgrading from Maverick Meercat to Natty Narwhal has not been a delightful experience.

It's not because of the new Unity interface - on the usability side, it's because I think they took it out of the oven too early.

I have found at least 2 major shortcomings:

1. Unity window management stability is below par. Unity doesn't seem to work well with a number of Compiz settings. I have found odd behaviours such as the mouse-click not working intermittently; the top bar of windows disappearing altogether; etc. The advice is to restart Unity or restart Compiz - how about fixing it instead?

2. LibreOffice. Now you would have thought the LibreOffice team would like to have really shown up OpenOffice - particularly as Canonical now packages their suite instead of OpenOffice. However, if you edit the newer format Microsoft file formats such as .docx - then beware! I have found that LibreOffice is very limited in reproducing what the content looked like when open with the relevant Microsoft Office function.

There may be other limitations or improvements, but the above problems stand out for me in that what I have is a backwards experience when compared to the previous release.

What do I suggest?

If you want to stay on Natty, then simplify your Compiz settings. The next action is to remove LibreOffice and install OpenOffice. I strongly suggest you install OpenOffice by downloading the Deb package from here. Then follow the installation instructions from here. Although the installations instructions are for a previous release of OpenOffice - they still work fine with 3.3.

Let's hope Canonical addresses the Unity shortcomings quickly and that LibreOffice lifts their game!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Designing in Supportability

This post is a bit of a rant.


I'm not continually amazed by what I'm about to describe - because I have seen it too often.  What I find hard to understand is why corporations continue to fall into the same trap.


And what is the trap I'm talking about?


It's failing to cost for the non-functional or operational features of a solution.  Most IT projects are either building a solution, or customising a product, to meet some business requirements. Up front, someone has prepared some form of Business Case that has demonstrated that there will be a positive return on investment - maybe even fully costed it over say 5 years and calculated that the NPV (Nett Present Value) is greater than zero.


The trouble is, most of these business cases tend to not adequately cost in the non-functional aspects of operating the solution once it goes live.


Here are some of the things that are quite often underdone or totally overlooked:


General Housekeeping
This includes the cost of operators, backups (& restores), database reorganisations, patch management, upgrades (both software & hardware), data management (like archiving), etc.


Monitoring
The level of monitoring depends on how critical the solution is to the business.  A minimum level would be that the solution is running and producing the desired results.  This may be a simple checklist performed by someone in the company at a set interval.  More critical solutions may have multiple real-time points to ensure that users are receiving the service experience desired by the business.


Help Desk
Larger organisations may have a Help Desk or a Customer Service Desk whose goal is to receive calls about service anomalies and, where possible, either fix them during the call or ensure that they gather information and pass it on to the relevant area that will resolve the issue.  In order to perform this function well, the personnel on the Help Desk need adequate training and even a list of known problems and how they can be overcome.


Capacity, Performance, Availability
Like a stool needs three legs to provide a stable platform - so does an IT solution!


These three aspects of an IT solution are interlinked and need to be planned.  ITIL has the term "Patterns of Business Activity" or PBA.  This is where you capture the way in which the business intends to use the solution.  Different businesses will have different patterns such as:

  • daily usage profiles (peak and off-peak)
  • weekly usage profiles (weekday and weekend)
  • monthly usage profiles (start/end of month, special day of the month)
  • quarterly, half-yearly & yearly (end of calendar/tax year)

Apart from the above, you need to understand how the solution will be accessed by the intended users - local LAN, over the Internet, Mobile, etc.  What are the volumes by access method?  What response times do I require?  What are the expect transaction volume peaks?


Sometimes, the above information is not exact.  Whether it is, or is not known, prior to launching the solution for general use it is advisable to put it through a "break test".  This means you push transactions through the solution until it breaks.  Monitoring should be in place during a break test to determine where the solution will fail and what the lead indicators are.  This information is extremely useful in determining what needs to monitored to ensure the solution is operational.


WIth Capacity there are 3 main aspects to consider:

  1. BAU (Business As Usual) growth - meaning how the solution will grow in its use of IT resources without major change.  This should incorporate PBA information.
  2. IT Project growth - this may mean a once-off step change, or it may alter the BAU growth profile.
  3. Business Project growth - this is where the business runs a project without any of the IT components being changed.  A good example of such a project is where the business decides to run a marketing campaign to increase the number of applications for new accounts.

The solution's usage of the underlying IT infrastructure must be monitored and tracked, with predictive analysis ensuring that adequate resources will be in place.  The diagram below shows a simplistic view of how to calculate the predictive analysis horizon for a given resource.




There, I feel a bit better now - perhaps I'll add to this or write a supporting blog entry a bit later...







Saturday, January 1, 2011

Is 2011 the year of "Being Digital"?


Back in the mid-1990's, Nicholas Negroponte authored a book entitled "Being Digital" in which he discussed some of the challenges we will face when "virtually unlimited" bandwidth becomes widely available.

One of the points he put forward was how should we utilise this bandwidth. He argued that it would be better for us humans to pursue the holographic path and develop 3D personas through which information would be delivered. He (correctly) predicted that mankind would not take this path (initially), but instead push for the simpler achievement of higher and higher levels of picture definition/resolution. His reasoning for this is that the human brain "creates" a lot of what we think we see. Providing it with fantastic visual detail may not necessarily deliver a superior picture in our minds. This is also true for hearing.

Instead, Negroponte proposed we deliver holographic 3D images, because that is what human beings are best suited to interact with.

IBM Predictions
A recent news article here, provides IBM's view on the emerging capabilities we should expect to see over the near future. Sadly, they have omitted one of my favourite emerging technologies - racetrack memory.

In one of their predictions they talk about is holographic communications - hence the reference to "Being Digital". I think this is a great step forward because we humans work better in 3D (we were designed to work that way!) There is also a lot of work in being able to "interact" with 3D holographic objects. Have a look at this video clip - it's early days, but what does this mean? Interacting with characters whilst "watching" a DVD? Actually feel an object that comes out of a movie?

I'm going to add more to this post, but I thought I'd get what I've done so far up for people to read.