People and Technology

Joel Spolsky is flying in to Dublin next Wednesday to give the keynote speech at the Irish Java Technologies Conference. Mark 7.45pm on Nov 7th in your Diaries folks - Jake has the offical announcement and ask him in person for the full story. In case you don’t know who he is, Joel was one of the early Microsoft employees, one of the first bloggers (since 2000) and is an expert on management and Java software development projects based in New York (possibly due to his stock of stories from Israeli Military Service).

So how did Joel make me a Java Techie? You know Excel, that Spreadsheet thing you use everyday. Part of the reason it’s so flexible is because of Joel’s work back in the early days at Microsoft- he was program manager for the team at that created Excel Macros, which eventually morphed into Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). A long time ago when I was still a business person I got involved in automating manual tasks using these Microsoft Office tools. From there, every job got more and more techie until it reached the stage where I must blog about Java every day. It’s all Joel’s fault.

Tickets at the door cost €245.Booking here costs €189. Joining the DubJug (Dublin Java Users Group) for free before booking gets you a further discount.

Flew Dublin - Heathrow again last week - this time with BMI (British Midland International). It’s what all Java consultants do - pop on the plane to London to see a client. Now I like BMI, not least because they provide a bit of competition for Aer Lingus. I like Web Checkin. A lot. See my post on how to use Web Checkin to solve Dublin Airport’s problems. But BMI have a (bad) secret about their online check-in that they don’t tell you until after you have paid for your flight.

Online or Web checkin means you print your boarding card before you leave home. It means you arrive at the airport , walk straight through security and enjoy a coffee while waiting for your flight to board. For Aer Lingus it’s great on a day trip; print both boarding cards the night before you leave. For BMI there’s a glitch; you cannot print your return boarding card until after you arrive in London.

What? On your busy-day-with-client-not-one-second-to-spare you are expected to start printing pieces of paper. What is worse, you only find this out after you pay your money. Called the Flight Helpdesk ‘we have a lot of people complaining about that Sir’. Mail to BMI customer service, no reply.

The moral of this story is not to complain about BMI (although here’s my Ajax related Rant about Scandanavian Airlines if that’s your thing , or Mulley’s lost baggage saga if you prefer). And yes, I should be glad of a choice of flights to Heathrow (see Limerick Bloggerand Bock the Robber)

No, the moral of the story is that IT systems (yes the geeky bits) can have a huge impact on customers in traditional business (you know, the ones that pay you money). Being the helpful people we are, we’ll even show BMI how to fix this using Business Rules. Somewhere, deep in the bowels of the BMI system code, Someone, a long long time again decided ‘no one will ever want to check in before they leave’ . And now that it’s spaghetti code, it can’t be fixed, leaving a lot of unhappy customers.

I’ve recently got a new laptop (more on that in another post) and have to install the usual selection of software to get productive with it.

As an experiment / not having enough time I’ve decided to go without installing Microsoft Office. I do , however have the excellent (and free) OpenOffice installed, and use Google Documents and Spreadsheets on a regular basis.

Why would I do this?

• It’s not about the money (as I have a copy of the Office disks paid for).
• It’s not about the money (2) as I’ll also happily pay for something that gives me value over the free version (e.g. my subscription to LinkedIn).
• It’s not really about getting locked into one supplier who can manipulate me at will (see the Microsoft Word 2007 File Format Conversion post) however annoying that may be.

No, it’s more about the features; with OpenOffice, I can save Word documents as a PDF , which (in my option) looks far more professional when sending to a (prospective) client.

Another reason is that as an (IT) consultant, I tend to ‘deploy’ on client sites on a regular basis, often with a bare machine to start with. Open software means that I have a ‘toolbox’ I can use to get up and running quickly , no fuss needed to raise purchase orders to buy software.

If you’re interested in this approach, the Open Source Alternative site is worth checking out. It’s not dogmatic; in fact it’s pretty even handed, listing commercial and open software for pretty much everything that you might need to do with a PC or Mac (business ,communications, graphics, security etc). That’s on top of the alternatives to Word, Excel , Powerpoint and Outlook.

It’s all about choice. Some are better , some or worse ; It’s up to you to decide which one works best for you. You’re a mug if you don’t know what the choice is.

Update 26th August: I lasted just over two weeks without installing Microsoft Office. Nothing bad with Open Office, just Microsoft playing around with Office 2007 file format. I have an important client that sent me something in Word 2007. The sort of client that I can’t (yet) ask to save in a different format and resend. Open Office does not (yet) open Office 2007 files, so I had to drop back to the Microsoft version (and install some filters) to be able to read it.

Here’s the good news - Microsoft is using a new file format for Office 2007 , which is due out shortly. It’s fairly simple - just text with tags (aka XML), zipped up to make it smaller. For example a 5Mb Word file shrinks down to 10% of it’s size in the old format.

Here’s the bad news - Microsoft is up to the same old tricks in the hope of forcing people to upgrade to a newer version of office. The new format cannot be read by the versions of Word, Excel or Powerpoint that most people have installed on their machines. By default , the new version of Office saves in the incompatible format, so eventually most people will be pestered into buying the new copy just to save them the embarassment of having to ask

Can you send that file again, but save it as the older version of Word?

Not a line that I’d want to say to important client. A friend of mine finds himself in that predicament. How do you convert Office 2007 files into ones that Word 2000 / Word 2003 can read. So far I’ve tried the following to help him out.

1. Used Google’s online Documents and Spreadsheets. No joy - which is surprising , given that the new format is (techically) easier to read. Perhaps something to do with software patents?
2. Tried the excellent (and free) Office clone - OpenOffice. No joy - even more surprising given that Microsoft seems to have ripped off the idea for the new format from OpenOffice in the first place.
3. I’m now trying the ‘Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack‘ which promises to solve the problem for older versions of Word.

Watch this space.

Update:

Number 3 (the pack from Microsoft) works. Even more importantly , it allows you to save into the new format. However , not everybody is going to know / be bothered to install this large (27mb) download.For a change this important, why isn’t it installed automatically as part of windows update?

I’ve only tried this for Microsoft Word, but it should be able to convert from Excel 2007 into Excel 2003 and Excel 2000 as well.

I expect OpenOffice and Google docs to catch up with this fairly shortly. That is , if they can get around the legal tricks that Microsoft are playing with the new format.

There are times when Web2, blogging , feedback from readers and the wisdom of crowds is great. And there are times that it’s extremely painful.

Like this Blogpost I wrote over on the O’Reilly site. Do Google Spreadsheets mean the end of Java?

I expected some people to disagree with me , but at least disagree for good reasons. The key point, that Web 2, it’s applications (of which Google spreadsheets is only ) and their API’s will fundamentally change the way we solve business problems using IT has been lost in the knee-jerk reaction.
Copy of the blog post here.

Or to be more accurate ‘Google Spreadsheets mean the end of Java as we know it’.

Think about this. Who pays your wages Mr Java-Developer-who-has-just-had-a-couple-of-years-at-the-top-of-the-pile? Clients, or if you’re in a larger organisation , the business folks (i.e.’internal’ clients). Do you think any of them care about Java? Do any of them know what Java is? All they want is to get things done, quickly , and with as few mistakes as possible.

These business people would be happy to run their organisations on Spreadsheets. Do you remember the cartoon where Dilbert convinced the pointy haired boss that he could fly the plane using Excel? There’s more than a element of truth to this. I know of at least one US Fortune 100 company that (until recently) conducted most of it’s operations on little more than Microsoft Office and duct-tape. It worked, not very well, but it worked.

Until now , the next line would be ‘Excel (or any other type of Spreadsheet) is not secure / scalable / sharable / not web friendly’. That was until Google launched their Docs and Speadsheets. It’s an online version of Office with some spreadsheet functionality. Play with it a bit and you’ll see that there’s plenty missing. But this being Google , I’m willing to put good money on

• (a) new features rolled out (think steamroller) and
• (b) These Spreadsheets being massivly scalable / secure / sharable.

This being Google, there is also an API (developer page here). It’s got massive holes in it (e.g. you can’t yet use it to create a new spreadsheet). But when Microsoft bring out their version of online spreadsheets (and they will) not only will they clone the Google API (to get market share), they’ll need to go one further and introduce new features / remove the usage restrictions in order to compete.

So, secure, scalable, sharble online spreadsheets are here to stay. So lets take a look at Mr. (or Ms.) Pointy haired boss thinking about their new project:

1. Hmm, I think we need to be able to gather which health plans our employees are enrolled in.
2. OK, I’ll throw together a spreadsheet to show people what I want
3. Before I’ll give to our friendly Java developer and let him ‘do’ a website from it.
   Soon I’ll just share this on Google.
4. Great , Loads of people are now using it, I’ll just the (Ruby / PHP / Insert other language here) guy to add one or two extra features.
5. Most Excellent. Why don’t we spin this off as a Web 2 company and sell it to EBay??

There you have it, Massively scalable , Highly secure websites (see Google Authentication API), without needing to know anything about EJB, JMX , JBoss, JDBC or any of the hard won knowledge that us Enterprise Java Developers have built up over the last 7-8 years. I’m exaggerating, but not much.

What do you think? Is Enterprise Java dead, or is Web 2 just another boost and a slightly different way of doing things for us Java people?

Other Java Posts from Technology in Plain English

Some other notes:

• Java is read once , run almost anywhere. The ‘Almost’ is because (for various technical reasons) the difficulty in getting reasonably priced web hosting. Have your tried getting some recently - impossible to find , or at least impossible to find at the prices PHP and Ruby guys can get theirs?
• Tim O’Reilly with was right with the notion of Web 2.0 and the network as a computer. We’ve also written about the notion of online software being at a tipping point.

This article was originally published on the O’Reilly books OnJava Website.

Doing a lot of database work for a client right now so now it’s a good time to recap on where you can store your information. This might be basic stuff , but it’s essential basic stuff.

• Spreadsheets, of which Microsoft Excel is the most popular. How the PC and Microsoft began their 25 year reign. Ironically their availability online (care of Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets) threatens to end the PC era and usher in the Web 2.0 one.Spreadsheets are never secure. If I can get a copy of them (and letting me read one means that I have a copy) then I can read everything. Everything. Most Excel passwords can be cracked within seconds.
• Take a couple of spreadsheets, glue them together and put links between the sheets. Now you’ve more of less got an entry level database, such as Microsoft Access. It’s aimed at people who need more power than Excel, but are not developers.

  The trouble is that Access is not secure (see problem above) and that it doesn’t scale very well (for more than a couple of people using it at once). Both Access and Excel come with versions of Microsoft Office.

• So you have your information, and now you want to stick it on the web. MySql is the database of choice. Free, lightweight and with excellent tool support (e.g. phpMyAdmin), MySql is what powers this website. If you know what you’re doing (e.g. Google or Amazon) it will scale very very well.
• For most people , the next step up is to a serious Enterprise database. Oracle, MS Sql-Server and it’s cousin Sybase are the main contenders in this area. DB2 from IBM is a distant fourth place while Sybase is strong in financial institutions. While MySql is catching up in features, most companies chose one of the main three because of their track record, a long list of people and vendors that support them, and because of ‘lock-in’. Once you choose a database it’s very hard to change.

So there you have it. Don’t let me see you trying to run a company on Excel or Access again. Or at least, don’t complain to me when it falls over!

An Article in this weeks Economist shows how Microsoft’s core business is under threat from online software. This is on top of the threat from Open Software.

I’ve often been asked the question ‘What is Web 2.0′? Normally it’s followed quickly by the question ‘how do I make money out of it?’ Recently I’ve been thinking that Web 1.5 might be a better term (as it is an upgrade to the web , with a mix of shiny new and old but reliable techniques).

While there are many sites jumping on the Bandwagon and claiming the Web 2.0 Title, Tim Ziegler writing on Webmonkey gives a very good summary of what most Web 2.0 sites have in common. As always, you’ll be able to find true Web 2.0 companies that break these ‘rules’ , but it’s as good a place to start as any.

In Summary, Web 2.0 Sites / Companies / Products tend to:

• Build on the notion of ‘the long tail’ where niche demand meets niche supply , a cost-effective and profitable market due to lower transaction / search costs on the Web.
• Web as a platform. It doesn’t matter where you are , or what computing you use. As long as you have a web browser you can use these products.
• Ajax , a technique that combines the power to traditional Desktop Applications (like Word and Excel) , with the ‘use anywhere-ness’ of web pages.
• Smart Content Management. Create and publish a web page as easily as a Word Document. Forget needing to know FTP , HTML , CSS and other low level tools of a previous generation.
• Dashboard Views. Because Web pages are published in Machine as well as Human Readable format, it is easy to create summary, Dashboard views.
• Give it away to get more back

. It is alleged that in earlier days Microsoft was more willing to tolerate piracy of it’s office suite in order to get ‘critical mass’ - missing out on revenue initially, but growing the cake substantially in the process by becoming the de-facto standard. It may have worked for them but ‘give your product away to get a core of paying users’ won’t impress too many VC’s.

• Human Filters or Trust your users. Also known as ‘Many hands make light work’.
• Iterations , or many small releases (easy because the software runs in only one place) is better than one big bang.
• Simple is good. Forget feature overload - think iPod.

So that answers the ‘What is Web 2.0′ Question. Up to you to find out how to make money out of it.

More Web 2.0 Posts here.

And it’s not just blogs that waste time in your life. A colleague was good enough to pass on the handbook from a ‘more effective time management’ course he was on (and swears by). It was given by Priority Management , on Getting Smart with Outlook , but it’s applicable to whatever email client that you use.

Notes from the Handbook are here on the KnowledgeBase.

Before you yawn and click elsewhere , consider the remainder of your life as 1 page per day diary - no matter how long you have left , you have a finite amount of blank pages left. It’s up to you how you use them. The headlines are:

• Get yourself organised *before* you read your emails in the morning. This way you are working to your agenda, not somebody elses.
• Only check your email 4 times a day - constant interuptions means that a task can take up to 4 times longer to complete (as your brain needs time to focus back on the task each time).
• When you get an Email , do one of the 4 D’s
• Do it now
• Decide When to do it
• Delegate - give it to somebody else
• Dump (ie Delete it)

Yes, it’s very basic. But I just got asked ‘what’s a zip file?’ (and you’d be surprised by how many people are afraid to ask that question) . A good answer can be found here. In summary

• Zip files allow you to compress large files into a smaller space (e.g. to make them easier to email)
• Zip files can allow you to group files together, so they don’t get lost.
• You can also password protect zip files for greater security.

Sounds impossible? A larger file squeezed into a smaller space, without losing anything. Don’t ask , it’s very clever and it just works!

TechTarget is running it’s CRM predictions for 2006. Among the top predictions are:

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) will become less of a standalone function, and even more highly integrated with business process.
• SugarCRM (Open Software) will make it’s breakthrough into the mainstream (we told you so).
• SugarCRM will not only become a viable alternative to low-end Oracle and SAP , but also to online services , such as SalesForce.com
• Voice over Internet (VOIP - think Skype) will become increasingly important in the  call-center.

Like 99% of PC users, you probably have Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint installed on your PC. To get a copy of Microsoft Office you either:

• Paid about 400 Euro to get a legitimate copy.
• Got a copy from a ‘friend of a friend’.

While I’m no advocate of Microsoft, I think the 2nd option is wrong. It’s illegal and it’s theft by another name - either you want Microsoft Office enough to pay the money, however outrageous,
or you don’t and you have free choice to walk away. It’s also stupid, as there are good, low cost (or free) alternatives out there.

Some alternatives to Microsoft Office are listed below (and this ZDNet article lists some more). Given that most users only scratch the surface of available features, each of these is a ‘good enough’ replacement for Word, Excel , Powerpoint and in some cases , Access.

• StarOffice - from Sun Microsystems , available for about 50 Euro.
• OpenOffice - an open version of StarOffice , slightly more ‘techie’ but available for free.
• ThinkFree - an alternative to office that runs within your web browser (like Internet Explorer)

Why are these so much cheaper? It just shows how much profit Microsoft is making from it’s Office suite when products of a similar quality are available for a 10th of the price.

So should you switch? Realistically , you have 3 options:

1. If budget is important and you as a decision maker can push through the implementation, then go for either Star Office or Open Office. While these have every feature users need, they look just slightly different. If you can encourage users to give them a try for the first few days, then they’ll never want to go back.

   An example (heard 3rd hand) was a well known hospital in Dublin that tried , and failed to switch. The problem was that senior officers did not want to make the effort to change.

2. If budgets are not a problem or if you use the extremely advanced features like macros, then stick to Microsoft office. If you don’t know what a Macro is, then chances are that you are not using them.
3. Keep on using your illegal copy. You might have got away with it until now, but expect Microsoft to come after you as their (previously spectacular) revenue growth comes under pressure.

Go for either Option 1 or 2. For Option 3, expect Microsoft to offer increased incentives for employees to let the cat out of the bag, as well as new technical initiatives (building on the ‘Genuine Windows’ program to sniff you out. You have been warned.

When SAP announced that they were migrating their solution to a full J2EE server stack, I was initially sceptical. While it makes good business sense (after all Enterprise Java server’s are now effectively free), and complemented their decision to open source the SAP DB (now known as Max DB), there was still a niggling feeling at the back of my mind.

Why? Well over the years we’ve learnt a lot of lessons of how to build Scalable Java applications. Even then, some people can’t seem to get it right (No names , but you know who you are). How would SAP people (who I have a lot of respect for as you don’t get to the position SAP is within the industry without getting at least something right) react to this strange new Java world. Would they shed all past baggage and dive in with the enthusiasm of College Graduates? Or would they take a ‘not invented here’ attitude and hack together something in Java along the lines of what they were used to.

I suspected the latter , and fully expected to end up cleaning up some mess of a CRM or ERM system. However, I am pleasently surprised with SAP’s Java Website. On a pure Java level, it approaches the efforts from Oracle , IBM and BEA. If SAP are making this amount of effort to promote Java best practice, then there may be hope after all.

Final question: If this goes the way SAP is planning, at what point does it’s installed base get counted as part of the Market share of J2EE servers. What percentage of the market would it have? A healthy and very profitable 10%? Certainly the strategy (and the Market share) is very close to Oracle , which also bundles it’s (10g) App server with it’s main product (a Database rather than a CRM or ERP Solution).

Always take these things with a pinch of salt , but the latest ‘hot skills’ survey is available here.

It’s US Based and some of the ‘findings’ make sense (e.g. Websphere and Oracle coming from a large installed base, Project management due to cull of recent years , and above all security). Some others are a bit strange (e.g. Perl is ’stone-cold’ , yet I’m sure is in constant use behind the scenes). Others (like HTML skills) are also listed as stone cold - but anybody who has been trying to make a living as web designer knew this already.