joapen projects

Innovation, improvement culture

2012-01-20T23:56:00.000+01:00

For the customer I work, innovation is more related to an “improvement culture” than other thing. If the its IT environment is improving, they say we are doing daily innovation.

They believe that new ideas come from the work on the ground, people doing daily activities and thinking about how to improve the applications, some functionalities and speeding up details. There is a lot of value there and they appreciate it.

We have been talking about continuous improvement and how an incremental innovation is a valid parallel concept. It's a pleasure to share ideas and concepts.

If you pay peanuts you get monkeys

2012-01-18T19:49:00.000+01:00

Services work with the same rule: services should not offer more value than is being paid for.

There is SLAs that measure all the variables your service is measured. The rest is added value you have to play with.

To play with them?

Right, there are services with the unique objective of provide the outputs for what they are created for. If the customer wants more, they have to pay more and cannot be discussion about it.

But there are other services that enables you to generate other type of value for your business and that generates ineterest for other business initiatives that could fit with your service model.

What type of services have you in your portfolio? do you have clear what are the services that provides more value to your customer? Are they well delivered?

SOPA & PIPA

2012-01-18T14:06:00.005+01:00

SOPA and PIPA represent two bills in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate respectively.

SOPA is short for the "Stop Online Piracy Act," and PIPA is an acronym for the "Protect IP Act." ("IP" stands for "intellectual property.")

In short, these bills are efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites, but, in Wikipedia opinion, they do so in a way that actually infringes free expression while harming the Internet.

Some companies are planning a 24 hours blackout on the English version of the Wikipedia.

Interesting, we have in Spain a law commonly named "ley Sinde" that really is a copyright protection law that facilitates the close of web pages. This law is so unpopular because the law would overtly skirt due process, violate personal privacy, and limit freedom of expression.

The "web life" is changing and the way we live Today is not going to be there for so much time.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

FEL phase, assessment exercise, project initiation

2012-01-17T19:48:00.000+01:00

Some ones call it project initiation, some others assessment exercise or project, some others FEL phase. In any case it's related to the study, analysis of a business initiative that wants to be translated to IT activities, organizational actions, investment with the purpose of obtaining business value.

Since 2 years ago I have been hardly participating and proposing some of these exercises, in fact now I'm facing 2 more of them.

These exercises are very different: their nature, their size, the organization, the activities.

With respect the nature.

Some of them comes from a new business process generated internally in the department and that turns into a proven process that requires to be supported by an IT system because the manual work is not enough.
Some others comes because the platform where these processes are implemented are obsolete or they are going to reach the end of the lifecycle.
The third source of these FEL-phases (I have one of them now) is related to the environment for small data size was Ok, but there is new data volumes coming and the existing architecture is not able to gather all these new volumes. This is easy in some way because the functionality is clear.

With respect the size, as it's my reality.

Big size, they take 2 or 3 months to complete the complete set of activities. In our case there is a extreme big implication of the customer.
Medium size, they take around 4 to 6 weeks: prepare workshops, celebrate them, gather requirements make decisions and complete the documentation. Decisions come later.
Small size, 2 weeks of work for an specific part of a major assessment managed by the customer and participating in a bigger project team providing specific expertise.

Major activities we use to perform during these assessments:

Organize the project team
Prepare a proof of concept or a pilot
Gather requirements (functional and non-functional)
Define statements of work for the solutions
Do a benchmark study with some proven tools, doing a SWOT analysis and/or establishing relationship about how they fit into the requirements
Analyse specific products
Propose solution alternatives
Write down a project definition with the detailed efforts for the project.

I love this type of activities because they are so creative exercises; and at the same way I hate these activities because there is so much pressure on them to obtain the project behind them. That's life!!

(Sierra Grazalema)

Joomla versions roadmap

2012-01-09T22:37:00.002+01:00

I have to make some decisions about the joomla portals I have. Both are in 1.5 and new long term versions are coming.

The main reasons to migrate them are easy:

Joomla 1.5 reaches its end of life in April 2012. After this point, no more security releases for Joomla 1.5 will be available.
The new extensions are less and less developed on 1.5, and the extensions are from my point of view one of the Joomla key strengths, and I don't want to loose this strengths.

So first step is to know the roadmap Joomla is going to take.

1.- This video is key to understand it: The interesting point is the explanation about how they are going to move from a release based lifecycle to a date based lifecycle (18 months for long term releases).

2.- This other link mentions other important things:

Some kind of method will be available to move from 1.5 to 2.5
Take care with 3rd party extensions containing lots of data.

3.- Features in Joomla! 2.5, here.

El libro rojo de las marcas

2012-01-03T16:42:00.000+01:00

Lectura navideña recomendada por Michele.

Tal y como Luis Bassat describe en su Web: "253 páginas repletas de verdades sobre cómo construir marcas que funcionen".

Yo añadiría que es un libro muy bien escrito que explica las ideas de una manera clara y que viene acompañado de ejemplos y vivencias que no se olvidan.

Sierra de Grazalema

2011-12-26T12:31:00.004+01:00

During these 2 weeks in Cádiz my main activity has been work, work and work. Finally on 24th I had the chance to a trip: My friends were going to explore with the mountain bikes around Grazalema, so I thought it was a good chance to do a trip running and walking.

To run alone on the mountains is special by so many reasons and in this case I know very well this place. The round was like this.

From El Boyar to Benaocaz, 1:15, around 9 kms.
From Benaocaz to Casa Dornajo, 1:05, around 6 kms.
From Casa Dornajo to Charca verde: 1:00. Just around 2 kms, the climb part was here and some difficult parts.
From Charca verde to El Endrinal, 50 minutes around 3 kms.
From Endrinal to Camping Grazalema, 10 minutes, 1 km.
From Camping Grazalema to El Boyar, 20 minutes, 2,6 km.

Total, around 24 kms and 4:40.

Closing the year

2011-12-23T17:48:00.002+01:00

2011 is finishing. It's the first time in 7 years that I stay in the same position during 2 years. It has been important to be here for 2 years, this last one is very challenging and I required time to achieve it well.

New challenges are coming, I have to think about them during Christmas vacations. As usual, so many doubts, so many questions, so many things in my mind.

This challenge is not just a job change, it goes with personal changes and this add complexity to the decision.

Let's see how it works.

By the moment, time to be busy doing other things:

Basic portfolio principle

2011-12-20T22:21:00.000+01:00

Home in a community:

Your home can be customized within boundaries (local / community regulations). All homeowners must use standardized services (local roads, utilities, etc.).

This is a basic civic principle.

Project in a portfolio:

Projects can be customized within boundaries (standards). All core and core/dependent projects will leverage standard processes, architecture and infrastructure and organization, but will allow individual flexibility and choices.

This is a basic portfolio principle.

What is a software solution?

2011-12-20T22:14:00.000+01:00

A try, a solution in a nutshell:

It's a capability you can execute; you can identify on it processes, data, automation, technologies, methodologies and organizational structures.

From the postion #246 in google

2011-12-18T22:13:00.002+01:00

Are you more lost than an entry that is shown in the position #246 in google?

If you are there, from my honest oppinion, you are an anonymous person in this great world, and the words you write are not identified as useful by a search engine.

Congratulations, you are different!!!

Joomla extensions

2011-12-18T17:45:00.007+01:00

Some Joomla extensions I'm using:

1.- Simple Picture Slideshow:

http://www.bretteleben.de/lang-en/joomla/simple-picture-slideshow.html

         Installed and used: very simple and with a lot of parameters to custom it.

2.- Canonical URL Module

http://www.bretteleben.de/lang-en/joomla/canonical-url-modul.html

                I have to review it

3.- Search Engine Site Verification Plugin for Google/Yahoo/Live.com

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/site-management/seo-a-metadata/8739

From: http://joomlafare.com/

               Installed and used

4.- Google Plus One Button

http://rndm-snippets.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-add-google-plus-one-button-to.html

               Downloaded and using it.

5.- ShowPlus

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/photos-a-images/images-slideshow/image-mootools-slideshow/15727

                   Downloaded and not used.

6.- Twitter feed

http://gammablue.com/twitter-feed

                   Downloaded and not used

7.- ARI Image Slider (a place with nice templates)

http://www.joomspirit.com

Actions to do:

Install ShowPlus
Upgrade to 2.5

A good example of a letter

2011-12-10T17:25:00.001+01:00

I have read and re-read this letter a couple of times. For sure to understand it you should have some knowlede about NBA.

By the way, 2 days later NBA commisioner denied the trade because "sport reasons"

“Commissioner,

It would be a travesty to allow the Lakers to acquire Chris Paul in the apparent trade being discussed.
This trade should go to a vote of the 29 owners of the Hornets.

Over the next three seasons this deal would save the Lakers approximately $20 million in salaries and approximately $21 million in luxury taxes. That $21 million goes to non-taxpaying teams and to fund revenue sharing.

I cannot remember ever seeing a trade where a team got by far the best player in the trade and saved over $40 million in the process. And it doesn’t appear that they would give up any draft picks, which might allow to later make a trade for Dwight Howard. (They would also get a large trade exception that would help them improve their team and/or eventually trade for Howard.) When the Lakers got Pau Gasol (at the time considered an extremely lopsided trade) they took on tens of millions in additional salary and luxury tax and they gave up a number of prospects (one in Marc Gasol who may become a max-salary player).

I just don’t see how we can allow this trade to happen.

I know the vast majority of owners feel the same way that I do.

When will we just change the name of 25 of the 30 teams to the Washington Generals?

Please advise….
Dan G.”

- Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert in an email to NBA Commissioner David Stern regarding the proposed trade that would send PG Chris Paul to the LA Lakers.

Six Sigma templates

2011-12-06T19:25:00.002+01:00

These templates are basic, but they are a good starting point and they are built on Excel, so good for me!

http://www.dmaictools.com/excel-templates

Sacred hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior

2011-12-06T09:54:00.000+01:00

It took some weeks to complete this book, what is not usual for a slow reader like me.

The immediate feelings after reading it: I miss play basketball and I would like to find other book as interesting as this.

Any suggestion?

Learning on SAP upgrades

2011-11-29T12:56:00.000+01:00

This is what I was doing some months ago.

I was working on a proposal related to a SAP technical upgrade and depending of the person I talk to, a different tools are recommended to me. This is just an initial opinion, probably when I gain more visibility it will be different, but by the moment this was a fanny situation.

For the technical upgrade:

Panaya: this is a tool that takes care so much about the look and feel. It provides reports (that can be done during the evolution of the ABAP remediation) showing information about the % of programs, functions... that requires remediation. The people that used it commented that they are happy of doing it: the client see how much effort is needed to test 100% of the application and really understand that we are not over-budgeting the project. For the IT people it does not provide any value.
Smartshift: the same concept than Panaya, but in addition enables you to correct different programs, replace obsolete functions and they guarantee that the 99% of the ABAP remediation can be done in a month.

For the functional remediation:

EMC Intelligent Cloning for SAP: enables you to copy data from an environment to other. This is very useful to perform the functional tests with the right data, you save time and some dollars.
Accenture Clon-Test: it's mainly the same concept.

"Just google it" is not enough

2011-11-24T11:00:00.000+01:00

Last months I'm detecting an interesting trend from some of the young people of the team, and even from support team of a vendor. The issue is with regards to the approach used for solving support problems.

In a nutshell, they receive a problem, they look in google or other forums for a solution and if there is not a clear solution or a clear direction to the issue, they stay paralysed: they don't know what else to do!!!

I was involved in deep in a stopping issue and when I was doing questions about the investigations done, I was so surprised about how limited was the approach used to find a solution to the problem.

There were not try error approach, there were not imaginative ideas to try to isolate the error ruling out sources of the error...

When I started to suggest tests to be able to see where was the root cause of the problem, people started to doubt about it, but suddenly the partial conclusions where ruling out causes and they were suggesting more alternatives. At the end of 3 hours meeting we found the root cause (not the solution) but it was a very positive session.

I'm probably getting older, when I worked providing service support we had not google and we the amount of information available was so limited. It made me to think and invent alternatives to isolate problems and look for solutions. It's a natural approach for me, but for some young people the approach seems to be different

Application Lifecycle Management in SharePoint 2010

2011-11-22T20:55:00.000+01:00

This document is a must read to understand how to work with MOSS 2010.

Interesting points for me:

1.- The complete picture of the ALM process.

2. - Release/upgrade versions process.

To reinforce these processes with the team, we will try some of these SharePoint templates.

Sunset Park

2011-11-20T00:37:00.002+01:00

Other Paul Auster's book I have read.

In my oppinion it's not the best one, but I have enjoyed it.

Service Management challenges

2011-11-08T23:48:00.000+01:00

For the renewal discussions it's important to review the basic concepts of each application support.

Just 4 main items:

The nature of the business/application output,
The real demand done to the application in terms of processes and technology.
The high/low level of contacts with the customer.
The changing nature of demand (financial closing periods, end month, application changes...).

There are other challenges (from a different perspective):

Availability,
Capacity,
Continuity,
Security.

Customer value according to ITIL v3

2011-11-07T23:44:00.001+01:00

I'm reviewing ITIL concepts, and I found this picture I want to remind,

Password Strength, check it

2011-11-05T18:49:00.001+01:00

Do you leave your door opened?
Why cars have keys?

There are so many ways to check how secure is your password, for instance this:

http://www.passwordmeter.com/

Just do it,

Conversations between to old bankers

2011-11-04T18:56:00.000+01:00

Some day like Today,

Banker 1: what is that "Cloud computing" stuff?
Banker 2: it's a new place where you move your information managing it with a better conditions. You don't have to know where this places really is but it's there.
Banker 1: Ah!! so this is like the Cayman Island: it exist in the account books but physically there is nothing there.
Banker 2: well something like this, but not as beneficial as Cayman Island.
Banker 1: So IT guys took 50 years more than us to create Cayman Island concept,
Banker 2: correct.
Banker 1: Oh, poor guys.

It has been done in this way since so many years!

2011-11-03T22:12:00.000+01:00

I have listened this sentence so much times and each time I do, immediately I think:

1.- Eureka, I found the gap!!
2.- This guy does not know what is in his hands.

Unfortunately 80% of the times, I'm right.

Embed a Part of a YouTube Video

2011-10-31T19:58:00.003+01:00

Interesting note about YouTube videos that I didn't know:

If you want to embed a YouTube video that starts to become interesting somewhere in the middle, there's a simple way to skip the boring part. YouTube's embedded player has a parameter that lets you specify the number of seconds that should be skipped before starting to play the video. Here's how you should edit the code: append &start=[number of seconds from the start of the video] to both URLs.

Sueños Robados, El baloncesto yugoslavo

2011-10-31T11:28:00.000+01:00

Que gran descubrimiento este libro. Para mi, que jugé a este deporte durante mucho tiempo y que tuve la oportunidad de ver a algunos de estos equipos en directo.

Me ha encantando poder entender algunas de las razones por las que se dió este fenómeno deportivo, social, demográfico y político; y de como una serie de personas que tenían en sus mentes una visión e intenciones claras de lo que querían hacer.

Tratar de resumir este libro de 500 páginas es una tarea que han hecho y publicado otros, yo solo quiero dejar este mensaje para mi recuerdo.

Leer libros de novela en general es siempre gratificante, pero leer literatura alrededor del baloncesto donde se mencionan todas los comportamientos de los grupos y personalidades de los equipos es más divertido aun, siempre que el libro sea bueno, claro.

Vitality forever

2011-10-29T22:08:00.000+01:00

There are people that cannot stop learning, for example, see the e-mail I received Today:

"tell me again how to copy and paste and I will give it a try. Control C and then highlight and then control V?? That didn't seem to work."

I love her, she is the best learning with the computer and with the iPad she is the one who teachs her friends to use all its features. She is 70 and she cannot stop learning.

I want to be like her if I arrive to 70.

Who is Who?

2011-10-28T19:50:00.000+01:00

I work in a place where there are so much people working with different projects technologies, industries...

I would like to focus on 2 guys.

Both implement solutions with a well known platforms.

One of them is always advancing with respect the project plan, the other is always delay.
One of them does not invest any time on maintenance of the production place, the other typically invest 2 days after a wave on support activities.
One implements based in a clear object-based model with a clear MVC, the other implements clicking without know the architecture behind and the platform.
One implements independently of the end-user front-end (IE, firefox, mobile...), the other implements just for navigators.
One works without paying attention to the server, the other is always looking at the server performance.
One has the ability to access to a clear defined log and the other just receives a generic error on the console.

Do you want that I continue? Just one more:

One implements solutions with SalesForce and the other with Microsoft SharePoint. Just imagine who is who.

Linkedin changes

2011-10-27T19:19:00.002+01:00

Interesting change of direction given by Linkedin, well the right name now is: LinkedIn Corporation Class A Co. The name is not important, the matter is their change of direction.

This environment started as "the facebook for proffesional relationships" and now the it's becoming more a place for hunters, HR recruitment...

I imagine they were thinking: in Monster, Infojobs, jobsearch... you usually have the people who is looking for a job; in linkedin we have ALL the people independently of any other circumstance.

I don't know what they are offering to the HR departments of the big companies:

We have added specific skills,- we send you a daily, weekly e-mail with jobs.
You, my dear hunter, will have special panels for looking for specialists: BI tools, special search tool.
The people of my network will receive daily digests with positions with the same name that they are currently doing.
You will be close to them, they can be the "friend", "connection" or whatever of you: HR hunter of their company competence!

It's amazing, how they are changing the recruitment business: the old environments have to do something amazing because they are late.

For instance:

Pay preminum seeker service and you will have:

View Salary Information
Move to the Top of the List
Stand Out from the Crowd
Contact Hiring Managers
You have 1 month trial...

and more...

Record to Report Solutions (R2R)

2011-10-26T18:54:00.000+01:00

There is a type of applications for financial processes that is focused on closing period activities. To achieve it, companies invest a significant amount of time, energy and money into the process.

My client is one of them and we have provided some solutions that works in this direction: automate as much as possible.

Working continuously on the improvement of these tools, enable them to:

Improve their cycle times, focusing on more business critical activities during the financial close (financial analysis to be more competitive).
Fewer resources required to support the financial close and financial reporting.
A reduction in audit fees
Reduce or eliminate workload peaks during the financial close
Standardization of processes, reference data and compliance activities across the enterprise
Issue isolation and resolution
Better adaption to the changes
Fewer reporting errors

Service renewal battlecard

2011-10-25T19:17:00.001+01:00

During these months I face the service renewal activities.

This summary list just tries to review the concepts to be taken into account during these discussions.

A) In general take into account:

The previous year consumption.
The previous year major activities.

Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threads

The business challenges for next year.

B) Highlight added value,

Why is this service worth doing?
What are the consequences of not doing this service?
What are the major risks associated with doing the service?

C) The minimum conditions for a service,

In general the balance Service & Budget has to be feasible and affordable:

The services has to be sized in terms of:

Availability: 12 months,
Service Level Agreement,
Continuity,
Team behind the service has a minimum set of characteristics they have to achieve:

Functional knowledge,
Technical knowledge.
Real expected time response.

2010 SPS Farm Report

2011-10-25T17:44:00.000+01:00

A tool to remind, the 2010 SharePoint Server Farm Report tool provides you information available that helps you to understand the complete configuration of your farm.

http://spsfarmreport.codeplex.com/

From the link:

"This is a 64-bit executable that relies on .NET Framework 3.5. This assembly can only run on x64 Windows operating systems where SharePoint Foundation 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, and/or Project Server 2010 is installed and configured using psconfig."

"It references the 14.0.0.0 microsoft.sharepoint.dll and the powershell interface through system.management.automation.dll. It is recommended that you use IE to view the generated output and then optionally enable scripts."

Project checkpoint: 80% budget consumption

2011-10-22T19:46:00.000+01:00

One milestone that should be always be defined in a project from the control point of view is that Project Manager will notify the Client when the spend against budget reaches 80%. Doing an analysis about reasons that can make the project to be over budget at the end of the project.

One formal STOP for the project manager where s/he also have a milestone to see how things really go.

Sometimes the project manager is so busy in the weekly waves and have the hope that the time spent in the previous weeks is going to be recuperated.

I have worked in a project with this problem and one of the things makes me to detect the that the project was not going into the right direction was the ETC forecast was not always done in the right way, there were estimations that were clearly unrealistic.

Live is not perfect and there are so much projects that does not finish as you desire. This was one case more :-(

Chasing approvals

2011-10-18T19:08:00.000+01:00

Managing the contract renewal process of an applications portfolio means for me that I have to discuss with different portfolio managers from the customer.

The renewal process is done with customer portfolio leads, but the details are obtained from and with each one of the application lead.

Reach this point, there are 2 type of portfolio managers:

First group is composed by people who ask for information to each one of the application leads, organize it and comes back to me to discuss about portfolio budget.

Second group is composed by people who ask me to gather information to each one of the application leads, organize it and comes back to him/her to discuss about portfolio budget.

Which group is more effective?
Which group is more efficient?

Change, finally!

2011-10-18T17:47:00.002+01:00

I'm reading a book that talks about how the jobs we do today will disappear in 20 years or less; how this time is decreasing and how the change speed is increasing.

Some people find this as a terrible news, but I find it as a fantastic news. Nowadays I'm doing my current position for 2 years and I'm desiring to face new challenges.

SAP GRC

2011-10-18T16:23:00.000+01:00

SAP Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) solutions offer organizations with solutions that address risk management, corporate governance and regulatory compliance.

Key points to have in my mind:

Understand the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley
Control the type or nature of the risks and their volumes
International goods (purchase /sell)
Enable an approval chart that reply to your organization charts.
Keep an eye on the approval times: you cannot be competitive approving things in 3 weeks when you were doing in one day in the past.
Manage information flow in all directions.
Ensure that data is kept secret and private.
Implement your business strategy through the enablement of actions on GRC.

All these activities remind me some years ago when I worked in a project service for all the governance rules of the company I worked for. They had 101 rules at that moment to govern all the different aspects of the business in a risk controlled way. All these concepts, rules and mechanisms are the same here.

MSOCAF

2011-10-16T10:24:00.000+01:00

Microsoft provides the Microsoft SharePoint Online Code Analysis Framework (MSOCAF) to customers for use in analysing custom solutions, testing the deployment of the custom solutions, and submitting them for installation in the SharePoint Online environment.

What is your experience using it?
Which valuable information provides it to you?
Is there some negative aspect of using it?
Do you recommend to perform the code analysis for SharePoint applications installed out of Office-365?

Customization on SharePoint on Office 365

2011-10-14T15:59:00.001+01:00

Once that I have been involved in a SharePoint project and taking into account that my client is deploying a ~~BPOS-D~~ Office 365 environment, I'm learning about all application lifecycle for potential opportunities.

Before to design one SharePoint application to Office 365 there is a set of supported features that can determine that your application is supported by Office 365. All these features have to be taken into account during the initial stage of a project:

Supported Types of customizations,
Supported features
Supported Services

Related to the supported Types of Customizations, there is:

1.- Client-side customizations (no review required)

Customizations performed via the SharePoint UI (i.e. style sheets and web part pages)
Sandbox solutions
Customizations performed with an HTML editor like Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer (i.e. some master page changes or data view web parts)

2.- Server-side customizations (Customization review process required)

Customizations that require the development of server-side code and dependant files that must be deployed by the Microsoft Online operations team. This includes 3rd party web parts and custom developed solutions.

The application we can initially be deployed into Office 365, I'm in the process of trying that MS checks it using MSOCAF.

(Margate, NJ)

Webnode, feelings

2011-10-11T09:59:00.001+01:00

I'm configuring the e-commerce solution, and these are my feelings:

The first steps are very easy and the user experience is quite good. You do not need to go to the help section.
To create/upload products is easy.
The FAQ provided by the vendor is not so much complete.
The way to link one domain to the store is not clear specified.
To buy a domain name is expensive. I had already the domain name in other hosting and the price was 50% cheap.
The forum is complete because people ask problems and they are answered. So many times by someone that belongs to the support team. This section is useful that the FAQ.
There is limitations at the time to pay using paypal.
There is no way to create an external link, I'm not kidding.
There is not inventory management: you can buy products with zero stock, you cannot configure the option to avoid it.

Working on Search engine optimization (SEO)

2011-10-09T19:21:00.013+01:00

I'm trying to work on the search engine optimization (SEO). I found 2 links and I have followed some of its recommendations. It has worked a lot, now google finds it with the main key words of the business.

Posicionar Web: http://www.posicionar-web.info/
Zona Libre: http://www.zonalibre.org/blog/salvaje/google.html

The activities I have done:

1.- Validate the URI. I started with 8 errors and now I obtain a green light: "This document was successfully checked as XHTML 1.0 Transitional!"

http://validator.w3.org/

2.- Add a sitemap.xml file. Before to do this I found the way to check that all links were properly included in this sitemap.

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

3.- Add a robots.txt file,

4.- Add the web to DMOZ directory: http://www.dmoz.org/

5.- ~~Add the web to google directory: http://www.google.com/intl/es/addurl.html~~ (it's no longer available, google closed it). But you can use this URL accesing from your gmail account, and then do a request to add it:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url

6.- Add your web site to bing:

https://ssl.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx

7.- Take care of all the metatags of the web.

8.- Check the quality of the page: http://www.seositecheckup.com/

9.- Check tool for keywords density: http://www.ongsono.com/keyword_density.htm

10.- Complete SEO Analysis Tool: http://www.reactionengine.com/

11.- Other good SEO analysis, screens, directories.... : http://www.sheerseo.com/

Let's try to work on this :-)

From Access to SharePoint

2011-10-06T20:03:00.012+01:00

Today I learnt you can move an Access database to SharePoint. You could do that since so much time ago!!! ... I'm sure... but I learnt it today.

SharePoint provides a service (named Access Service) that allow us to share and publish Access DBs in a web environment. This service is able to build a web site where:

The Access tables are converted in SharePoint lists.
The forms are converted in ASP.Net pages.
Macros are converted in JavaScript.
Access reports are converted in Sql Server Reporting Services.

The creation of databases is done through the publication process to SharePoint from Access 2010 client.

First, the SharePoint compatibility is checked (there is a compatibility check function)
Second, execute 'Publish Access Services' specifying the web site URL.
Third, the central SharePoint administration service is activated

Depending of the complexity of the data model, you can find performance issues with the proposed chosen architecture by SharePoint. In this case, you may want to consider the following approaches:

Use the SQL Server up-sizing wizard. The data will be moved into a SQL Server instance, and the front end will remain as an Access client. It can work very well depending on the specifics of the application.
You can try 'Access Services' in SharePoint (requires Enterprise Edition). SharePoint lists are very good for simple flat table structures, if your Access schema is more complicated, it is better to go down the SQL Server route. If you really want to use SharePoint for the front end, move the data into SQL Server then surface it using either BCS (Enterprise again) or custom Web Parts, Silverlight etc.

(Rio Celeste, Costa Rica)

Network tools

2011-10-05T18:14:00.000+01:00

I'm trying to configure a re-direction between to domains and this tool helped me a lot:

http://network-tools.com/

great tool to remind.

Let's see if my actions working with CNAME and things like that works properly.

Lesson 5, the limit between your application and the SharePoint product

2011-10-03T21:10:00.002+01:00

For sure you implement an E2E solution for your client but there is a limit in all of this.

For instance, we have faced infinite and recurring discussions about relative links.

In this project, the documentation stored in the solution has been linked with relative links, so once that it's exported and sent to auditors, they can work from there properly. In addition people accessing from windows explorer can also work with it.

The only problem is users accessing through WebApps: relative links does not work.

This fact has been seen by the client as an stopper for the good integration with the end-users.

You can explain that this is a limit of the SharePoint product, but again and again they will come back to you with phrases such: "...you have not the enough expertise...", "...this specific request is written in the project definition" (where??)....

A good thing is to open a ticket in Microsoft support. then they send you a signed report saying: "this is still not implemented", and then the complaints stop.

All the lessons learned about SharePoint does not try to complaint against this product. It is just my lack of knowledge what is making me to see it as something I have to really learn how to govern.

Lesson 4, build a pilot

2011-09-30T20:49:00.002+01:00

The curve of evolution of your final solution works very fast in the first month and you have the feeling that everything goes fast.

But suddenly the evolution stops and you find in the middle of thousand of adjustments that makes you think: "butterfly effect box" is the right name for SharePoint.

So build a quick pilot and give the customer the perspective and the feeling about what they are going to see at the end of the project is very useful in so much terms for the solution building.

Lesson 3, development no, implementation

2011-09-28T21:37:00.001+01:00

You cannot talk about development, just talk about implementation.

SharePoint consultants are mainly clicking and clicking tabs and configuring the black box in different ways.

Just one click in one place is going to completely change the behaviour of some aspect that you are going to hate it.

You will face things like: if we configure this parameter as "yes" 95% of the security is going to work. If you configure it as "no" this new requirement from the customer will be achieved but 50% of the security model will fail.

Isn't there a solution? no with SharePoint development tool: you have to customize it with Visual Studio or say the client we cannot do that for them.

So then you are in trouble... again.

Good SharePoint consultants looks finds work around for all these things, but they also have consequences on other areas.

In any case you have to achieve a degree of commitment.

The weird call of the week

2011-09-28T19:51:00.008+01:00

I have received a fun call Today:

Me: what can I do for you?
Other: I want to implement Reach on my client. Have you installed Reach on your client?
Me: no, I have not done it. What do you mean?
Other: someone told me you worked on Reach activities.
Me: That's true. But we have not implemented Reach on the client. We have helped them to adapt its processes and applications in order to be Reach compliance.
Other: so isn't it something published by European Union?
Me: Yes, what is published is a set of goals and deliverables that can be done by each company in the way they want.
Other: Then, is not Reach an SAP module?
Me: no it isn't.
Other: really? Then what is it?

I cannot continue...

At the end, the situation made sense. The customer is a mid-size company who has pre-register all their activities and that now is preparing the processes to arrive to the 10 Tons milestone in 2013.

Wabi sabi

2011-09-27T20:26:00.005+01:00

I have been some months working on this: http://www.wabisabi.com.es/

Finally I obtained the approval to move to production on 15 September. I write the date, because is something I want to remind, it will be useful for future.

What was the most difficult thing to achieve this web page?

To find a convenient hosting service?
To learn how to work with Joomla environment?
To work on security issues related to the hosting and Joomla?

No, the most difficult thing was to define the detailed requirements from my wife.

Site Map generation

2011-09-27T19:44:00.001+01:00

I have been reading how to improve the search of a web page and I found this that one of the points is to generate a site map file and publish it.

I have built the site map using this web tool: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Many thanks

La Torre de la Canal Parda (2350 m.)

2011-09-25T22:34:00.003+01:00

We climbed this mountain last on Sunday 25th September 2011. I need to remind the date.

Eight hours and a half walking to go and back to the bus. Thank you so much to Amador and the other guys from Torrecerredo who helped us to go and back.

This is the route we took to arrive to the peak:

Lesson 2, SharePoint is not Lotus Notes!

2011-09-25T17:43:00.003+01:00

Our customer comes from Lotus Notes, they still have it. They are used to have everything they want as they want: I want a button here,...I want an specific work-flow there, I want this specific security in this corner of the screen....

We agreed to do not use Visual Studio, just SharePoint developer. The budget constraints and the agreement was to implement a solution as standard as possible, and we have finished the project without any customization, but we have spend thousand and thousand of no profitable discussions with the customer explaining that we cannot help them with those specific requirements.

They have told us things like: "...you have not the enough expertise...", "...this specific request is written in the project definition" (where??).... just letting them knocking their heads the wall and get themselves convinced that they have not other option.

You can explain all this stuff and they will agree with you, 10 minutes later they will call you back to you with the issue again.

If you are involve in a T&M project: add hours for this.

Lesson 1, how is SharePoint behaviour

2011-09-23T17:43:00.000+01:00

We received yesterday the acceptance of the first SharePoint project I have being involved with the customer I provide services.

It has been an important experience for me in all terms. I have a list of lessons learned in my mind that I cannot even write. But I will try to do a polite short list.

This is my personal point of view so I'm sure I'm wrong in some of the things shown here, so take care. It just focus on what is new for me: SharePoint. So...

Lesson 1, how is SharePoint behaviour.

In a nutshell I would say that SharePoint is a black box where you add things and provides the necessary response to the end users.

To keep the stability of the system you have to take care about all changes in its environment: a windows patch, a configuration change: everything that is linked directly or indirectly with the connections between the SQL server and the SharePoint server is something you have to attend as first priority.

One of the things that this project has failed is the fact that our customer didn't want to hire a service support for the SharePoint server. They have new servers and they decided that was better to have service at the end of the project. This has meant that several performance problems has been appearing again and again when the server has environmental factors affecting to it.

SAP technical upgrade

2011-09-23T15:10:00.000+01:00

Three weeks of fun working on a proposal for an assessment.

The work to be done was just to estimate how to assess a SAP instance for being upgraded from a very old version to ECC.6

There is people who do this job everyday but it is not my case.

So I'm happy to have learnt so many organizational aspects needed to have an upgrade done, how the functional test should be organized, how the test cases should be prioritized.

The way that these upgrades are done is so industrialized and the people who where defining all the activities were just identifying particular facts on the existing environment, that is where you can have the future bad news.

There is so much stuff around technology too, for sure, that taking into account that I don't know nothing about that, it was good to have a picture in my mind.

Other interesting point has been to work with automation tools that provides a lot of information for these assessment exercises. We have studied 2 tools where 2 specialist from the company helped us to understand the real added value behind the white papers, and the cost, always the cost of using them.

The proposal is sent and now, for some hours I'm a happy, tired person.

Vacations ended

2011-08-31T15:24:00.001+01:00

Every year when I come back to the office after vacations it takes me sometime to get my mind focused and working as expected.

I don't know way but this year it took me more time to have my mind again onboard.

have been these vacations better than other years? is it because I'm older?

I don't know, but it's nice to remind better times.

Someone said: the job is the vicious of the poor people. I agree.

Time to relax

2011-08-02T21:59:00.000+01:00

One conversation I had some months ago:

colleague: My son has painted my laptop
me: which one?
colleague:the one who is 4 years old,
me: really??
colleague: I asked him about it and he replied that his brother did it.
me: did you beleive him?
colleague: no, his brother is 6 months old

The proof:

Pirineos, a mountain bike week

2011-07-27T13:00:00.004+01:00

One week just with friends, waking up early to ride with the mountain bike, arriving to the camping, going to watch the Tour or going to the swimming pool and without mobile phone signal.

Painting Industry (OEMs)

2011-07-12T19:14:00.000+01:00

The industry of the paints is very specialized as all other industries.

The painting companies works as Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) distributing their products in different ways and clients.

One of the major portion is the set of paints done for big car manufacturers or other industries; where the amount of the purchase orders are typically high. There are different coating types that are classified with thousand of features. At the end of the day each car manufacturer works with the OEM on the specifications individually with a set of already defined coatings range.

The requirements definition, quality tests and the agreement of the final product is an interesting and complex process.

Car manufacturer uses the same coatings with different qualities and features so they can save money: it's not the same price for a high bake paint than a low bake paint, outdoor/indoor, insulated/non insulated, corrosion resistance... and the color! for sure.

The car manufacturer typically makes a lot of pressure to deliver the paints on time at one place. Just in time principles are easily applied to OEMs agreeing financial penalties if the manufacturer does not deliver (easy, isn't it).

For the manufacturing of paintings in small amounts the SLAs are less aggressive.

18ª Vuelta al Concejo de Gijón

2011-07-09T20:37:00.001+01:00

New edition of this fan race, 75 km and 2100 difference in height.

NBA lock out

2011-07-07T20:29:00.000+01:00

I played basketball for so many years and for sure I'm interested in almost all that happens around NBA.

Since 10 years ago, more or less, I think the quality of the game has decreased; the way they play the game is spectacular in the aesthetic point of view, but not in the basics, I like fundamentals and my honest opinion is that the game has lost a piece of that.

Probably I'm geting old.

Today I have been reading this fantastic article by Nate Silver of the New York Times about the NBA’s financial situation and why David Stern and the NBA might be lying.

List with latest major Versions

2011-07-05T11:10:00.003+01:00

We are working on SharePoint 2010 trying to provide a web part or a list to show only the latest major versions within a document set which is hosted within a document library.

For instance if you have this set of documents:

document.V.1.0
document.V.1.1
document.V.2.0
document.V.2.1

Then, just document.V.2.0 should be shown.

Do you know how it could be done?

Many thanks in advance.

The Jordan rules

2011-07-03T17:33:00.000+01:00

I played basketball for so many years, and this book remembered me these days on highschool watching NBA finals.

Very interesting book about the NBA backstage.

Audits are not billable for operations

2011-06-01T07:56:00.000+01:00

No, this is not billable work. Audits are not projects. They are included in the MSA. Audits are done every year.

If you need to do any preparation work yourself, then that is at your cost - the theory being that you should be able to be audited at any time without having to prepare for it. Normal operations should be audit compliant at all times.

The audit is just a check of this.

Configuring Reporting Services for SharePoint 2010 Integration

2011-05-31T15:43:00.001+01:00

This is the basic information to use the SSRS integrated in SharePoint, interesting reading for learning.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb326356.aspx

I have to ask about how the Report Server Database exactly works, there are so much things without answer in my mind.

Other important thing to be clarify: let's talk about performance!!

The business case I have on my desktop does not require so much reponse time because the reports can be calculated during the night, but for on demand reports I would like to know if someone has done something similar.

ForresterWave SAP Service Providers Q2, 2011

2011-05-25T15:19:00.001+01:00

The fact because some business are going to other place.

SharePoint, Business Data Connectivity

2011-05-18T09:10:00.000+01:00

Learning about SharePoint BDC, that is an standard functionality that is there in the server, but that the configuration and its start-up is not free in terms of effort.

1.- BDC service provides a means for storing and securing external content types and related objects. An external content type defines the following:

A set of fields of data, such as "building", "room", "connection"
The operations for interacting with the data's external system, such as read, write, and create. There are so much options here.
The connectivity information that lets solutions that use the external content type connect to the external system.

2.-External content types are stored in a dedicated database that is part of the BDC service.

3.- To guarantee a secure connection, credential sets for the external systems are created. These credential sets are associated with identities of individuals or with group identities. All these data is stored in a secure database that belongs formally to the Secure Store Service.

To have BDC enabled into your MOSS server, you have to:

Activate BDC
Grant Access to BDC
Define the External sources you want to connect
Define and create the external content type
Create the Connection to SQL-Server

Note: to be able to configure the BDC you need to be granted as SharePoint Farm Administrator.

These are the basics, I'm not an expert for sure, but I need to understand what is behind.

Chemical Industry Outlook - May 2011 (By Zacks Equity Research)

2011-05-17T15:13:00.001+01:00

I have these reports on my reader feed, they are so useful:

Share Chemicals are generally used to make a wide variety of consumer goods and are also used in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, and service industries. The chemical industry itself consumes 26% of its own output. Major industrial customers include rubber and plastic products, textiles, apparel, petroleum refining, pulp and paper, and primary metals.

The chemical industry has shown rapid growth for more than fifty years. The fastest-growing areas have involved the manufacture of synthetic organic polymers used as plastics, fibbers and elastomers. Globally, the chemical industry is mainly concentrated in three areas of the world: Western Europe, North America and Japan. The European community is the largest producer, followed by the U.S. and Japan.

Chemicals are a nearly $3 trillion global business, and the European Union (EU) and U.S. chemical companies are the world's largest producers.

The US chemical industry produces 19% of the world's chemicals output, amounting to $689 billion. The industry directly employs over 800,000 people nationwide. A total of nearly 5.5 million additional jobs are supported by the purchasing activity of the chemical industry and by the subsequent expenditure-induced activity. In addition, the US chemical industry is responsible for 10% of US merchandise exports, totalling $145 billion annually, as well as 11% of all US patents.

Complete Report:

http://www.zacks.com/commentary/17726/Chemical+Industry+Outlook+-+May+2011

Occupational Health

2011-05-16T14:13:00.001+01:00

I assisted to a great session where the different processes related to Occupational Health were reviewed.

In summary, so much data to organize, the implementation of the processes depends on the product you choose.

In the business case we have for it, we have to cover Europe, a place where our customer is implementing all activities in different ways (mainly manually), so the consolidation of the processes is going to be a project itself.

The good thing for us is that they have clear in a business blueprint which processes they want to implement and this decision has come from the sponsor of the project. The position of the customer has been clear: you do this well, here you have the budget to implement a global solution for you and the others.

Things to read in deep:
- OH - Occupational Health
- IH - Industrial Hygiene
- IH&S - Industrial Hygiene & Safety

You requested a project not a simple technical action

2011-05-11T16:50:00.000+01:00

Looking into information about SharePoint My Sites I have found this excellent article that talks about the lack of understanding that some customers have about the meaning of the installation of a tool, a feature or the effort needed to have something done.

Implementing SharePoint MySites: A Project in Itself:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-collaboration/implementing-sharepoint-mysites-a-project-in-itself-009519.php

We have received this morning the same request :-)

SharePoint 2010, filtered view

2011-05-11T08:56:00.000+01:00

The aspect of the view is easy, there are a lot of options to enable the visualization in the right way.

The only problem I have faced is within the filtering. I have tried to use brackets to point to other fields (for instance: [field_A] ) with the purpose of showing just the documents where the approver is equal to the responsible.

Reading on the internet I have found that the right way to do it is not with the filter option of the view. The proposed solution I found is creating a calculated column on the view.

I have added this formula: =IF([Field_A]=[Field_B],"Is Equal","Is Different")

but this error is always shown:

Let's continue working on this funny activity,

ß = Alt + 225

2011-05-10T21:57:00.000+01:00

Jezt brauche Ich mein Deutch schreiben und für "Mit frenlichen Grüße" brauche Ich Ascii codes.

What is a REACH Only Representative?

2011-05-06T18:45:00.000+01:00

A Reach Only Representative is a legal entity established in the EU, nominated by natural or legal persons that manufacture substances, formulate preparations or produce articles outside the EU.

An OR should have sufficient background in the practical handling of substances and the information related to them to be able to fulfil the obligations of importers.

Non-EU company appoints an only representative,

Although companies from outside the EU cannot register substances themselves they can appoint an Only Representative.
It is important that the OR has the skills, resources and experience to do the job.
Companies that import from outside the EU become Downstream Users and need to work with the OR for those chemicals where one is appointed.

This case study is so much interesting:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/reach/casestudies/redflag.htm

MS-SharePoint - Default language for first-time user cannot be German?

2011-05-05T23:12:00.000+01:00

In the system we are developing, the default language for user which are using first time the system must be German.

At the moment it's English.

It looks that this can’t be modified through SharePoint (link). First SharePoint checks if the user already selected a preferred language, if not it is taking the preferred language out of the browser and at last it is taking the language settings out of the site collection.

Summary out of the link:

SharePoint Server 2010 selects the language in which to display pages of a site collection by using the first rule that applies from the following list:

Does the user have a preferred language for this site collection on this computer? If so, use the user's preferred language.
Is the language preference that is specified in the Web browser one of the supported languages for the page? If so, use the preferred language of the browser.
Otherwise, use the default, primary language for the site collection.

Definitely this is not fun,

:-(

Yahoo mail Beta

2011-05-04T08:31:00.000+01:00

Do you use Yahoo mail?

then you will be asked to move to a new faster and improved Yahoo email!!

please do not accept the change to Yahoo mail Beta,

it does not work :-(

I cannot reply an e-mail.
I cannot copy the body of the e-mail.
It's slower than the old one,
I cannot compose an e-mail.

Transition from project to operations

2011-04-26T18:12:00.000+01:00

We are preparing a service support contract to maintain the corrective, preventive and user activities of an application that is being developed now. This is a new type of application done with new technology, so it's not repeat the process we did for other applications.
Some key considerations we are trying to keep into account.

We are planning the support activities in "well in advance", this is necessary due to the slow customer decision process.
Set expectations of customer takes time, this is a new type of service support so they do not have experience on similar areas.
It's important the exercises we are doing with the client in order they understand the service we are going to deliver. This is key, customer assumes a lot of activities are not needed, so they do not want to pay for it :-)
Preparation of transition activities between teams is key: documentation, processes, training...; check that all project documents are completed and the quality of the content is aligned with service support requirements.
Perform the effort estimation is easy, to get paid for it is complex.
Track assumptions and decisions during the negotiations: "out of scope" has to be defined for all domains of change. RACI chart also helps to complete the responsibility of each piece of work.
Perform measures before to start the service support. Having data prepared is key to understand the use of the system by end-users, volumes...
Use readiness Metrics to go/no go decision making process (less emotional).
Communicate properly when the service support is going to start. Try to reinforce the importance of both teams (project and service) working at the same time for a short period of time.
Have the service support manager involved in the last activities of the project.

This exercise is being very interesting for me.

COTs 2011

2011-04-16T22:42:00.000+01:00

As COTs (Commercial Off-The-Shelf Technology) were listed for 2011, we have listed them and now we are enabling the activities related to the services we provide will be linked to the business goals our customer is looking for.

This is a funny exercise for me to design and forecast activities for incoming months.

To do this exercise is to ask the people about the same things they do but in a different way from the reporting point of view. This is sometimes something complex to do.

My strategy is simple: show the team what is shown to the customer.

Some of the business goals are clear, and the actions has a specific project for accomplish it, so is easy to perform the exercise.

For others, to enable clear actions for improvement is something complex. For instance, to reduce the % of high priority tickets, reduce the number of root cause analysis.... it means that people has to continue doing their job as usual, but to report all these activities, this means it requires to the service managers to gather and report a lot of data.

How to do it? month per month I ask for a piece more of data.... continuous improvement

Xerox DocuShare

2011-04-04T18:03:00.000+01:00

Learning about this product,

DocuShare is a content management system developed by Xerox Corporation. DocuShare makes use of open standards and allows for managing content, integrating it with other business systems, and developing customized and packaged software applications.

The DocuShare Content Management Platform includes three products:

DocuShare Express delivers content management tailored to SMBs, for managing digital documents and converting paper content to digital.
DocuShare provides document management, collaboration, image capture, and Web publishing capabilities to support information sharing in an enterprise or department.
DocuShare CPX meets enterprise content management (ECM) requirements for records management, sophisticated team collaboration, and automated business applications.

Developer tools: DocuShare Developer Environment – A J2EE SDK for integrating DocuShare with other business systems, and building content-centric applications.

Solutions: DocuShare Virtual Filing System – Combines software, hardware, and consulting services to convert paper-based filing into a digital content management system.

Hosted solutions: DocuShare is also available as a hosted offering by Xerox’s outsourced services business.

Customer satisfaction, some factors

2011-03-25T15:57:00.000+01:00

This exercise is so generic and just try to think a little bit about it. For sure it depends on so many variables: product, service, industry, target users...

Ok, let's try it, where does customer satisfaction comes from? Mainly it comes from:

Performance
Optics
Results

The relevance and the way it's seen each one of these aspects is different.

First feedbacks usually comes from optics aspects. For the other 2 sometimes it takes more time to receive feedback (depends on product/service complexity).

For complex systems the results usually takes too long to be understood by the majority of the users.

For old services/products, that are typically working fine, provoking no noise and providing a good value, the results and the performance are much appreciated.

They feel these products/services as a part of themselves and no firelights are required.

Working on end-user adoption

2011-03-24T17:29:00.000+01:00

We´re working on a project where a solution is implemented on SharePoint.

Last week I was on customer office assisting to the presentation of the solution.

Apart of the details related to the project, at the end of the meeting I had the opportunity to talk to them about the users and their feeling about the tool.

At this point they were seeing that the application still has some visual aspects to be improved, but in addition the usability seems to be one of the main concern. I was asking more about it and finally the main issue I see here with end-users is adoption.

I asked them: If this tool would be done in Lotus Notes, should we have any problem?

Answer: no, we have thousand LN applications, they know how to do it.

For me the obstacle is not the application, the obstacle is that this is the first SharePoint application for this 300 potential users.

Customer does not want to have thousand of help documents to introduce the application. I agree with them: they should not work on help documents to explain how to navigate on SharePoint and how to find the properties of a document, check out a document or other type of standard actions.

My recommendation was to work with the people to adopt the SharePoint environment before to start working with the application:

They should work on the SharePoint sandbox with users to get them used to the environment.
Do sessions to explain how documents are stored, approved.
Work in addition with people that has old version of MS-Office (they way to work in different).

In summary, make the users feel comfortable with the environment.

SharePoint: Convert Folder Structures to Metadata

2011-03-23T18:47:00.000+01:00

This fantastic link resolves one use case that we have with our current users.

The point is that this is our first project with MS-SharePoint 2010 and we still have to learn how to resolve non inmediate user problems.

Users are used to navigate on folders, and try that they look into 100.000 documents searching is not a real solution for them.

This article resolves this and the important thing is the team has understood that we just cannot wait to the customer say us what they want to have: we can know it before because we know how they are currently working.

With this easy solution we are answering to the expected user experience the client is asking.

BPOS and external sources

2011-03-23T15:18:00.001+01:00

By the moment, if you want to develop a MS-SharePoint application on BPOS environment you cannot perform connections with sources outside of the BPOS cloud.

Is it right??

New method for reading e-mails

2011-03-23T14:05:00.000+01:00

The other day I ping my boss via ST saying that he had a delay on an important sign off for one of my activities.

He literally told me:

"Send me an e-mail everyday till I reply you."

:D

After 8 days, the e-mail was replied.

Why Lotus Notes will die and Cobol will survey?

2011-03-15T21:44:00.000+01:00

Just some notes to be read on future.

Lotus Notes will die because:

The volumes capacities that the companies require cannot be stored by LN.
The workflows these applications manage are being moved
There are so much companies that are migrating to Exchange.
There are not big new customers on LN since some years.
What is IBM doing with LN?
Nobody invest on a non relational database.
Could is the natural solution for replacing the need of replica (LN is the only replica system that really works).

Cobol will survive becuase:

Cobol cannot be replaced in Banks. If you know a bank that replaced it, please let me know.
On the other industries, it will die, but I will focus on bank industry.
Some of the processes managed in a bank cannot be moved to other platforms: so much complex to be tested with real results, too expensive.
I know some banks that tried to get rid of Cobol, After some years and some million €, they decided to improve their Cobol environment.

Let's see if when I read this post in ten years I'm right or wrong

Test Strategy

2011-03-09T17:22:00.000+01:00

I have been doing a test strategy (or test plan) document for a project. It has been a funny exercise to help the project manager to do it.

I like project management activities and take care of things like this now that I do not manage projects officially is something that makes me be happy.

The main reasons to do it are:

Get deep understanding of the projects makes me to manage them in a more comfortable manner.
Help others to achieve their goals, collaborate with them help on the commitment of the people.

The final table of contents is something like this:
1. Background and Project Objectives
2. Testing Objectives
3. Scope
4. Test Environment
5. Approach
      5.1 Strategies
      5.2 General Test Objectives
      5.3 Application functionality
6. Testing Types
      6.1 Smoke Testing
      6.2 System/Application Testing
      6.3 Integration Testing
      6.4 Software Regression Testing
      6.5 Security and Access Control
      6.6 Performance Testing
7. Test Plan
8. Assumptions and Constraints
9. Test Responsibilities
10. Testing Entry and Exit Criteria
11. Results Monitoring and Verification
12. Bug Categorization and Life cycle
      12.1 Priority
      12.2 Severity
      12.3 Life Cycle
13. Deliverables

Business Needs, where are they?

2011-03-02T20:52:00.000+01:00

During these last 2 months I have done 5 proposals, 3 business cases, and some presentations to the customer attending some potential needs they have.

The result? Zero contracts.

Last week an old database were causing problems on production due to a change on the amount of redundant users they now are enabling. We have a contract. I did a business case some years ago, but no answer from client.

I'm not going to stop doing my business cases and the consequent proposals. They are the result of an strategy and later or soon they will work. When? when the business processes fail.

This customer behaviour is becoming more intense since the 2008 turmoil, where the IT budgets were cut and the only business strategy on IT is to reduce TCO.

Unfortunately the target of my business cases are legacy applications that are waiting for a big bunch of dollar that replace them. So I'm waiting they fail and then, make some improvement on them.

Judge people by their feet, not their mouth

2011-02-28T18:42:00.000+01:00

3M chief warns Obama over business regulation.

George Buckley, chief executive and chairman of 3M:

"judge people by their feet, not their mouth"

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bd9b4100-429b-11e0-8b34-00144feabdc0.html?referrer_id=yahoofinance&ft_ref=yahoo1&segid=03058#axzz1FFSfnQ3Y

Regulation on the chemical industry is business as usual. Depending of the type of measure, there are companies agreed with those initiatives, there are others than no.

For those they reject to the new conditions first move is threat: we are going to move the company production outside!!

The European Union, knowing this behaviour, based the Reach principles with a basic scope: it applies to the companies that commercialize their products in the EU area. Problem solved. :-)

Creating a value chain through the needs

2011-02-27T22:09:00.000+01:00

Client has needs, the most important thing is detect the ones that they really are willing to invest on them.

For sure I have not that all that information. But there are ways to work on this.

If you get the 100% of these "needs", the client is aware of some of them, but there are others that they are not aware.

Now I just want to focus on the "needs" they initially are not aware.

I work with the teams and the application owners of the client to understand how the things are going on, detect business improvements or productivity faults that could be improved.

Then I prepare a business case, trying to clarify the background and facts that make that the situation (~~is not right~~) could be improved. I know the minimum requirements they want for the E2E services they outsource, so to emphasize the need in these terms is not complicated. Try to demonstrate the ROI is sometimes complex, but at least I always add some figures in this area.

After a year in this position, I have done a dozen of these reports to the client. The result?

Direct benefits: poor, just 3 of them turned in new contract or a contract extension.
Indirect benefits: they are happy to see we take care of the situations, we point to the problems, and provide solutions in a pro-active way. They can make business decisions with this information or they can just wait for future when the problem really turn in a critical problem.

Help others sometimes has counterproductive effects

2011-02-27T21:46:00.001+01:00

I manage different teams and for me it's essential to understand the way the things happens on each project or service.

The reason is easy, later I have to go to the client and manage situations in the right way. To be in front of the client, understand the situation and be able to provide details that help to the understanding of the other side has been always a good approach with so many benefits.

The problem sometimes comes from the internal management of the team. Some people understand my approach on the help and they are happy to see my interest and the benefits of providing this information.

Others understand this way to the desire of control I have on their activities. They increase the volume of e-mails reporting about daily things I understand they do and I have not to take care of it.

One month ago I had to talk about this point and try to explain my approach in a clear way: I'm not here to control you, I'm here to understand some details of your service that help me to communicate the client in a manner that I can defend our position with the use of information that is useful for all of us; so thank you for all these reporting e-mails you send me but I don't need them. I know you do these things but I don't need evidences of it.

The guy got the message in a positive way. The fault was mine, I sometimes do not explain my intentions in the right way and there are misunderstandings. :-( This was explained too.

Now things works better.

(home, sweet home)

Business Intelligence Site in SharePoint 2010

2011-02-22T23:27:00.001+01:00

The BI site in SharePoint 2010 provides you reports, monitor key performance indicators and allows you to create dashboards that provide a consolidated view of business data.

The business problem that my client requests me is to allow the end-user to provide feedback to the SQL database. There are about 50 fields that are updated from an external source, but around 20 has to be entered manually by the user.

We have found that with the Business Connectivity Services: External Lists - Enables accessing data (read/write) from external systems in the same way that SharePoint list data is accessed.

We have prepared a little demo with a dummy database of 5 fields and it works very well. We can configure the items available for editing and the non-editable.

It's challenging to learn a tool, find detailed solutions and keep the project on track , but is funny.

Smoke Computing?

2011-02-18T18:30:00.000+01:00

Cloud computing? smoke computing?

Take care, there are so much people selling smoke computing out there.

Danish EPA surveys chemicals in cleaning products

2011-02-14T21:21:00.001+01:00

The consequences of the Reach data analysis is starting to have benefits on the European citicens:

The Danish Environmental Protection Agency has published a survey of chemical substances in cleaning products for ovens, cookers and ceramic cooktops. The study determined the ingredients of 21 products and further analysed 14 to measure the level of organic solvents they contained. They also tested four products for the presence of PFOS compounds, but none were found.

The survey concluded that such consumer products do not present a critical health risk to consumers or the environment. However, it did find that some of the products contained organic solvents in concentrations that in certain circumstances may be harmful and therefore the use of such products should be minimised.

Source: http://chemicalwatch.com/6471?rss=news

ECHA Summary of Work Programme 2011

2011-02-14T18:50:00.000+01:00

A summary of key objectives for 2011.

ECHA key objectives:

First, the Agency needs to publish online the information from REACH registrations and CLP notifi cations. It is an enormous task to make scientifi c information as accessible as possible.
Second, ECHA will evaluate the quality of the data of at least 5% of the submitted REACH dossiers and all proposals for testing substances on animals.
Third, ECHA will provide two important reports to the European Commission: one on the operation of the REACH regulation which will contain proposals for improving its workability and a second on the status of implementation and use of non-animal test methods and testing strategies.
Fourth, is to address chemicals of concern through the authorisation process. As a follow up of the policy initiative of the European Commission, ECHA expects a larger number of Substances of Very High Concern to be added to the candidate and authorisation lists this year.

Manufacturers and importers of substances key objectives:

First, submit a registration dossier. Registrants of the same substance must share their data to avoid unnecessary animal testing. The Agency makes the non-confi dential information publicly available.
Second, on authorization, to ensure the appropriate control of the most hazardous substances, companies will increasingly need to get prior authorisation for their use.
Third, adoption of new proposals for restrictions will be made for the European Commission and, together with new proposals from Member States, submitted to the Risk Assessment Committee. They have to be adopted by the companies.
Fourth, companies have to evaluate their chemicals and communicate hazards on the package label. They also have to submit a notifi cation of the classification to ECHA for the public inventory.

Source:

http://echa.europa.eu/doc/work_programme/2011/summary_wp2011_en.pdf

The grand design

2011-02-12T21:40:00.000+01:00

By Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow.

I have been so much time without reading a book like this. I have enjoyed it a lot.

Next one, Sunset Park the last one of Paul Auster.

Aspose.Words for MS-Word

2011-02-07T20:34:00.001+01:00

Now I can read infinite proposals and project documents without losing my sight on kindle:

http://www.aspose.com/community/files/69/free-microsoft-office-add-ins/aspose.words-for-microsoft-word/entry194468.aspx

(Ellmau, Austria)

PHP, files permissions

2011-01-30T21:30:00.001+01:00

Sorry, I need to remind this information:

Read 4 - Allowed to read files
Write 2 - Allowed to write/modify files
eXecute 1 - Read/write/delete/modify/directory

user group world
7 5 5
r+w+x r+x r+x
6 4 4
r+w r r

These 2 sentences assign the security of the folders to 755 and files to 644:

find top/directory -type f -exec chmod 0644 '{}' \;
find top/directory -type d -exec chmod 0755 '{}' \;

I cannot enter these 2 sentences on my Direct Admin because I have not the console available in the hosting :-(

Interesting reading about .htaccess: http://www.dwdpa.com/content/view/26/73/

The art of the pre-emptive escalation

2011-01-28T20:19:00.002+01:00

This is really a tool, that used in a clever way can be a powerful tool. Some people use it in a way that could be considered art.

This has some basic rules to follow:

Do pre-emptive escalation is not always nice.
You have to announce a problem or situation that can "potentially" happen, but that it can also be something that could be done for nothing.
There are situations where you don't have other option, you have to do it.
Some other times it's a pain in the ash, for you and for the person who receives the news.
There are people who appreciate the anticipation so much, there are other that they hate these things.
The use is limited, you cannot abuse.

A dummy example:

A : "...I'm sorry, but next week this will fail..."
B: "...How can we avoid it?..."
A: "...there are these alternatives...but my suggestion is this: ..."
B: "...Ok, let's see what happens..."

It's just a tool you sometimes have to use it: Use it with caution.

(home, sweet home)

Rich Pictures of End User requirements

2011-01-28T19:20:00.002+01:00

Enable communication through pictures is one powerful tool I always use when I have the option.

I have found this site that has helped me to open my vision about what I can offer:

http://systems.open.ac.uk/materials/T552/

I'm now focused on end-user requirements, based in their challenges.

These pictures are helping me a lot for align client expectations.

Other place about User Experience to remind:

http://www.uxmatters.com/

Easy KTs, but incomplete KTs

2011-01-27T19:43:00.001+01:00

Dear folk,

This is our team,

Here is where is sited hour team,

This is my role,

These are my main responsibilities,

This is your role,

These are your main responsibilities,

This is your team,

Take your management style and apply it,

If you have any problem, let me know

thanks

Playing with Joomla

2011-01-23T11:14:00.001+01:00

Somethings to remind when using Joomla.

1.- problem: I want to hide some componets

The default login form in Joomla is managed through a built-in module called Login Form. To enable/disable this module, you have to go to the Joomla admin area > Extensions > Module Manager.

:-)

2.- problem: I cannot change global parameters of the articles.

The global parameter for article manager does not work properly, there is an iFrame that is opened in a wrong way and I cannot change the global parameters for the articles.

Then I have navigated till the SQL database, I have found that in table 'joom_components', the entry 'articles' contains the parameters with the different values.

Unfortunately it does not work.

:-(

3.- I need the site will show the information in a multilingual mode.

The most rated extension is: JoomFish.

http://www.joomfish.net/en/downloads/joomfish-core

When I have tried to install it some errors related to that the user cannot create a folder or move a file to a folder were returned during the installation.

So I did temporal security changes and finally I had problems with deletions, so I have completely un-installed it.

I have read that all folders required by Joomfish must be writable. I have changed it and now it's installed.

:-)

Educational behaviours

2011-01-15T20:34:00.003+01:00

In the education my parents gave me, I learnt to wait for compensation. This was the natural way to do it and I considered as a right to receive it without asking it.

To ask for a pride was not considered polite.

Then I went to live to this word where you have to ask for everything.

This fact stills makes me feel ashamed,

Kindle navigation from Spain

2011-01-14T18:24:00.001+01:00

Using my kindle, I tested if I could access to internet and it was a surprise when I was able to access to other sites apart of amazon (last time I tried it, I was not able to do that).

The reason was that I had just 3G connection, that just allows access to amazon, and now I have available a WIFI connection.

Ok, the navigator is still not excellent but I can handle it.

I accessed to some newspapers, e-mails... and suddenly facebook.

I was able to enter user/password. But then it showed me a message like this:

"you cannot access from this mobile/wireless device. Please enter in your account from a computer and check it"

This morning I accessed in my account, I was asked by my credentials and after that I was announced by an strange access was done from Seattle, WA, US !!!!!
I'm in Spain but I'm routed through Seattle???? :-(

(Sevilla, close to Plaza de la Encarnación)

Jorge Drexler song,

2011-01-02T19:27:00.000+01:00

Que cierto es la canción de Jorge Drexler que dice:

"...uno solo retiene lo que no amarra..."