The 3D Printing Revolution

So pretty much every day I'm reading another article about 3D printing.  For those not up to speed, it means you can print solid objects from a plastic like compound.

This used to be a very expensive exercise, but the price is tumbling as more players enter the market (competition) and we get more people wanting to buy the technology (scale).

I predict (actually, I predicted this about 10 years ago - check with my now-adult children...) that 3D printing would become fairly mainstream in most homes - and here's why.

A while back, a small plastic component in my fridge broke.  It was like a little bracket thingy that held up a shelf in the door.  Now I had 3 options (well 4 if you count "do nothing"):

1. Drive to the outlet where you can buy this component,
2. Ring up, order it by phone and pay for it to be delivered, or
3. Order it via their web site and pay for it to be delivered.

What if I could go to their web site and pay to download the component to my 3D printer?  Problem solved in a few minutes and for far less as I'm only paying for the "design" of the part - I'm providing the physical substance and there's no delivery fee.

OK, let's take a breath and start to continue this line of thinking...

What about all the "add on" products like smartphone cases, little clips, frames, hooks...

People can design things to be printed, then you pay to simply use this design to create the physical object.

Now at the moment, the size of the object is restricted to fairly small - but it is increasing slowly.

Let's start designing!

Low cost Tablet - Disruptive Pricing

With the announcement of the Aakash 2, we see the first usable super-low priced tablet running Android.  The tablet is sold commercially as Ubislate and here's a picture of it.

So it looks OK and has some reasonable grunt.  It has a processor as powerful as the first iPad and twice as much RAM memory. It uses Google’s Android operating system.

Pricing

The Ubislate comes in 4 flavours as shown in the table below:

To give you an idea of the price range, the low-end 7Ri model is about AU$60 and the high-end 7C+ is about AU$85.

There are options to upgrade the RAM if you need it.

So it's very important for companies to consider how they will leverage this type of opportunity.  One way is to be able to punch out app content quickly and securely - where you can control the speed at which the app is updated.

The LongRange product from LANSA looks a good bet.  You can build mobile apps that link back to your server infrastructure so that the server drives the mobile experience.  Instead of having to learn a plethora of new technologies and techniques, LongRange uses the languages on the server.  So for Windows and IBM i servers - you can create apps by using the LANSA development environment.  On the IBM i servers, you can also use RPG & COBOL which are widely used on this platform.

Organising Your Life With Evernote

When I first started to use Evernote I thought that it was a simple way to record notes - was I ever wrong!

Evernote has done a fantastic job of providing a ubiquitous platform for storing, organising and accessing information - the information you need to get things done (I've specifically chosen the last three words).

Some years ago, I read a great book by David Allen called "Getting Things Done".  The concepts in David's book just rang true to me and I implemented some of the advice in my work and private life.  But over the years, I started to drift away from these foundational practices as things got busy and a bit chaotic (circa 2009 GFC and other big life moments).

Recently I downloaded an eBook from the Kindle store called "Getting Things Done must read Summaries" by David Allen for my adult son so he could  learn the basics of GTD.  I read it too and it kindled (pun intended) a desire in me to see what solutions were around in the marketplace that would help me to pull together a GTD solution using today's technology.  I found another eBook from the Kindle store called "Evernote: The unofficial guide to capturing everything and getting things done." by Daniel E. Gold.  Now you can see where Evernote is coming into the fray...

One of the underpinning tenets of GTD is that you need a system (system means a set of processes, not necessarily a computer or application) to handle all of the things in your life.  Your work life, your personal life.  You need to handle what things to address now, what to file/store, what to get rid of.  By handling all of the calls on your time, and having a system on which you can rely, you free up your brain (both conscious and sub-conscious) to "flow like water".

Evernote runs just about everywhere - Windows, Mac, Android (Smartphone & tablet), iPhone & iPad, Blackberry (does anyone still use these?) and using a browser.  On Linux you can use an open source solution called Nixnote (used to be known as Nevernote).

OK, so it runs in a lot of places - that's good.  But what do you do with it? You store notes, files, pretty much anything that you can store on a computer.  Notes are stored in Notebooks.  Notebooks can be grouped in Stacks.  A note can have any number of tags (that you define).  When you install Evernote on Windows it has nifty integration features like browser add-ins that allow you to clip information on web pages.  There are several ways in which you can clip information on a web page; the URL, the whole page, a selection and the auto-select option.

Evernote also provides hooks in Outlook and in the right-click menu on files under the "Send to" option.

One feature I find particularly impressive is when you add an image as a note.  I've purchased a portable scanner so that I can scan items like receipts, warranties and other documents.  I then upload the image to Evernote as a new note - give it a title and tags.  But the clever stuff is that Evernote has automatically OCR'd the image and I can find the image based on its content.

Oh, did I say that Evernote is free?

I have chosen the premium edition (which provides some extra functionality and storage).  It's very cost-effective when you consider the benefits I am deriving from it.

Rediscovering the IBM i Platform

Back in 1988 IBM announced the OS/400 operating system that is now known as IBM i.  This operating system, running on the AS/400 hardware platform, provided a TCO (total cost of ownership) that, to this day is unrivaled (in the author's opinion).  For a brief history of this platform, click here.

Although today other platforms have pushed IBM i out of the spotlight, many companies running this platform continue to leverage their investment on a platform that offers tremendous scalability and stability.  It comes with the database "built-in".  Applications can be written in a variety of languages such as RPG, COBOL, LANSA and Java.

I have recently joined LANSA and I can see the tremendous opportunity for organisations running production applications on the IBM i to leverage a new technology that LANSA has brought to the table - LongRange.  LongRange allows programmers to use RPG, COBOL or LANSA on IBM i and build applications that connect and run on most of the popular mobile platforms such as Apple's iPhone and iPad as well as Android SmartPhones and tablets.

Up until now, to unlock the investment in IBM i applications, it was necessary to learn a number of new technologies such as Objective C, HTML, etc.  And the more mobile platforms you want to support, the greater the complexity of your solution which increases your TCO.  You also get the problem of "re-integrating" your technology "supply chain" when any of the components brings out a new release - more cost!

So LongRange is designed in keeping with IBM i's low TCO goal.  Code mobile apps in your native IBM i language once, then deploy it to all of the mobile platforms mentioned above.

I know that I have a vested interest in LongRange, but it resonates with so many of what I look for in a solution, that I believe it is something that all IBM i users should seriously consider.

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!

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!

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...