Sunday, November 13, 2011

Summary of Oracle Day Lithuania 2011


First of all, I would like to say a big thank you for all of you that came to my presentation. The audience hall wasn't big, maybe that was the reason why it was full. :)
Thus, following such a nice day, for those that were not able to come or chose alternative Oracle session, I would like to summarize the whole presentation in three schemes here.

1. The Hype Cycle
You have probably seen this picture before, nevertheless, I just want to point here out that we are still on the top of the hill of enthusiastic expectations about Cloud Computing. So, just please ignore all the hype about that, be patient until it stabilizes (same as SOA did).



2. The Service Scaling
Based on book “Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise, A Step-By- Step Guide" by David S. Linthicum, I have presented a recommended path for diving into the Cloud having a stable enterprise architecture on SOA background.
So, as you see in a picture below, David Linthicum first of all recommends identifying the services that could be deployed outside the enterprise firewalls and only after then deciding the exact plan for Cloud deployment.


For more information on this, you can read here.

3. The architecture level scaling
Going deeper into this subject and trying to find another option for Cloud, I have figured out that Cloud could be reached, as well, with an architecture layer scaling (my thoughts are presented more precisely in the picture below).


As you see, this is another option for safe (or with a small step-by-step) switch to the Cloud that could be accomplished through an architecture presentation layer scaling. This is not the best way for going to the Cloud but it is worth considering, especially when your architecture has a clear division among the architecture layers.

During the presentation I have also stated that Oracle is not yet ready for Public Cloud, analogical thought was stated a few days ago by Vesterli as well.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

SOA Cloud Architecture - Oracle Day Vilnius 2011


When I have received it from Oracle it sounded to me like “An old buzz, a new buzz, and something technical” and only after a few lonely evenings of contemplation have I managed to form some tough thoughts into one short presentation. It is hard to find the main thoughts from a very big perspective of a wide terminology but time is the winner here. If you don't mind looking again at this sophisticated title, you will see that it coined from three big words. Willing to analyze each of them you could spend at least half a life, e.g. “Democracy within China history”.

Nevertheless, I started word by word and finally I could say that you are more than welcome at “Vilnius - Oracle Day 2011” on 27th October from 2.25 to 3.05 p.m. .

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Anonymity? Internet Users Need It


Yesterday I read a very good article where the author summarizes Chris Poole's opinion about anonymity and identity. Finally, I have found Chris Poole a strong and experienced IT personality, who expressed the whole Facebook and anonymity misapprehension. That is why I don’t have Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.

“We all have multiple identities. It’s part of being human. We’re all multi-faceted people.”

Monday, September 26, 2011

To Run or not to Run Without Measuring?


Before making a significant change it would be worthwhile to describe the final state of that change (How will you feel when you get there?) in case the change takes too long without giving a measurable result. Or, in other words, name your PKI's before you go live with your goals.

I had the same thoughts before starting regular jogging last summer. I thought that I wouldn't need to measure the obvious things, but what if the obvious is not the obvious?

Thus, the detailed question was: “How could I measure my jogging without interrupting the jogging?”

The answer came when I googled some modern jogging pages. Having read a few articles, I have chosen an all-inclusive, private “e-coach” package, with the following list of tools:
1. The mobile phone with GPS → the winner is “Samsung Galaxy i900”
2. The e-coach software → the winner is “Endomondo Pro
3. The hardware for heart rate measure → the winner is “Zephyr bluetooth



Pros:
1. Finally, I have found the motivation for buying a smart phone with Android :) Earlier on I was happy enough to use Nokia E51 (BTW, my new Samsung still spends in a drawer more time than in my pocket)
2. I was highly motivated for jogging during the first months
3. I measured my real physical condition
4. I have become very impressed about the e-sports market and the potential it has

Cons:
1. Now, jogging requires at least 5 minutes more to start :) The whole package of tools (including Samsung smartphone and Zypher) equals the whole package of questions: “Is it working?”

Resume:
I expect that one day the mobile technology will help us to live more pleasant life, and as we can see, this time is approaching, but for now, I prefer jogging then measuring along with jogging :)
I feel a real pleasure of jogging without extra tools.

Recommended solution:
Do jogging without extra tools each day and measure the progress only once per month.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Longer Means Longer

No matter what your religion is and what methodology you practice, this sentence is true for ever “longer means more time than normal” :)
I would like to dedicate this particular phrase to “Oracle SOA Suite” installation process on two different OS platforms. It sounds sophisticated, but who cares, dedication is still dedication.

I heard about a new SOA Suite 11.1.1.5 release of a version previously, and moreover, I had to check one issue with the Oracle Human Workflow engine (the SOA Suite component). So, the time for a new (renew) SOA installation has come :)

This time, as usual, I have started from making/copying the OS background. Here I don't have a full stop thinking process. The answer is rather standard: “VirtualBox+Ubuntu”.

There are many references “how to install particular SOA Suite on a particular platform”, so it is easy to find it on the Internet (BTW, it is a good practice to have the installation guide, or some white-paper called “step-by-step” that helps to avoid stupid mistakes).
Nevertheless, an interesting part of this story has begun at a place where I have never thought before it could, or more precisely, with installation of “Oracle XE DB Universe” (BTW, the recommended DB version for small deployment instances). It took me (as never before) an hour to make it stable. I will repeat that sentence: “the whole long hour”, and only after that I was able to move to the main SOA Suite installation steps (WebLogic, RCU, etc.) An interesting (thriller) story continues. After those SOA installation steps, my virtualbox has started to throw errors suddenly “Read-only file system”.

I have spent the next hour with this unstable virtualbox (it had the virtual disk error, etc.). Anyway, the result is that I have decided to give up and to switch to an old package of mine which is still worth trying to use when I get nervous: “Vmware Player and Windows 2003 Server”.

Oh yes, .... Windows :)

And then, based on Oracle recommended “Quick Start Guide for SOA Suite”, I took a very quick tour with SOA installation on Windows. It went without a single error, and it took me … not more that an hour.

Resume (2h>1h)
Longer means longer, no matter what your OS religion is :) When time is an issue, there is no time for religion :)

So, the very last recommendation:
When you have to install some proof of concept platform for just one test and you are not sure about the installation process, make use of Windows OS. It has more users so it should be tested widely. Shorter means shorter, popular solutions has more testers :)

And what about production environment?
Hmmm, the answer is simple: "it depends" or in other words: "make a new decision" ;)

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Some Thoughts on IdM, SSO, SAML and CAS

We are having a hot summer time here, so sharing clever thoughts has become challenging for me. Nevertheless, I would like to write some words here, in short: "Identity Management".

Based on my last experience from diving into the world of unknown, or in other words: "the experience from hardening my knowledge base", I'm starting to redefine my learning principles. Earlier I had an opinion that the best, yet structured, way to learn something big and new is to find a new book (bible) and just to read it from cover to cover. And only after such a hard reading, with hands-on exercises, one could be able to form some conclusions and feel more comfortable in that new area.

I followed this path last time as well and I have read the whole book: "Identity Management: Concepts, Technologies, and Systems".



And ... I don't feel much more clever now :)

The fact is, the book offers an in-depth understanding of how to design, deploy and assess identity management solutions. It provides a comprehensive overview of current trends and future directions in identity management, including best practices, the standardization landscape, and the latest research finding.

But this book is to much theoretical and overly one-concept-oriented. Note that reading this book sooner or later you will punch the head against the wall called: "SAML" :)

I'm not saying that SAML is bad or even that it is not worth reading about, etc, I'm just saying that the book, the concept of IdM, has to narrow description (you could learn even more about SAML from wikipedia and its references).

I'm just asking myself silently, where are more chapters about SSO, IdM solutions, protocols, e.g.: CAS, JOSSO, Athens, OpenAM? ;)

After finishing this book I was still hungry for knowledge about the IdM (especially about the SSO solutions), so I went googling for more. I was more than happy about the results finally. I have found plenty of articles about CAS usage and what is more interesting, I have come across the "CAS and APEX integration" tutorial.

I have done the whole example and I must say that CAS integrates smoothly with APEX. Moreover the author gives more good advices for APEX, open web solutions, hardening, e.g. using ModSecurity.

Resume:
Never stop searching :) and nevertheless the bad experience from the last book, next time I will try to
search for better "bible" ;)

P.S. If you can do something with APEX smoothly (in this case CAS integration) you will be able to do it with Java and so on.

Disclaimer: I did not get paid to review this book, and I do not stand to gain anything if you buy the book. I have no relationship with the publisher or the author.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Even the Content Has the Strategy

I read Janus Boye's blog regularly (BTW he is a very good writer)  and I have recently come across an interesting article "10 European content strategists to watch" which made me interested in "Content Strategy" and I have decided to read a recommended book there "Content Strategy for the Web".

After reading this book, I don't feel like an expert on "Content Strategy" but I will try to introduce this concept for you in short sentences.

Thus, the best way to start a clever explanation of the subject is to use Wikipedia-based sentences.
So, Wiki says: .... Content Strategy is "the practice of planning the content creation, delivery, and governance" and "a repeatable system that defines the entire editorial content development process for a website development project."

It would be clever enough to stop here, after a few words "... content creation, delivery and governance" ;) but if you are still interested in this topic and don't have time to study the whole book, you could only read a short article called "The Discipline of Content Strategy" written by the same author.



Still hungry for getting to know the Content Strategy?
OK, you could go and read the whole book, it is really worth reading. The language is simple and yet the author has this cosy humour. The only minor disadvantage which I have found there is missing chapter numbers (I like mapping logical structure and it is easier to do it with logical numbers).

During the journey into the knowledge world of content strategy, please note the main steps for the Content Strategy process:

  • Audit (What content do we have?; Is it useful?), 
  • Analysis (Objectives, assumptions, risks, success factors)
  • Strategy (
    • What content do we need to create? Why? 
    • How will the content be structured?
    • How will users find the content?
    • How will we get from here to launch?
    • What's next once the content is "out there"?).

Disclaimer: I did not get paid to review this book, and I do not stand to gain anything if you buy the book. I have no relationship with the publisher or the author.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Too Much Functionality Could Kill You

Over time almost all the software products get extra features. With each new version they grow with at least 5% of the new lines of code, I assume. New modules appear in the light of the day, everything is getting bigger and bigger (sometimes even slower and slower, and then it is optimized with the next release over and over again).
It is a usual practice, and it is inevitable even in the majority of cases, I predict, because customers generally look to get most for their money.

Bang for the Buck

I may say: 'Oh, what a wonderful world of the software applications with the never ending story where more features mean more work to do/upgrade!' :)
Comparing the other worlds e.g. cars or mobile phones we see many similarities.

Who uses more than five features of their phones? ;)

I'm not going to criticize it, or even I may argue that it can be fully acceptable in case the new options are simply manageable, 'turn on/off', e.g. Firefox has add-ons.

Thus, the main question is:
Should the core functionality of the systems be simply manageable as well?

The answer is as always the same: 'It depends ...'

OK, ok, ok. But, why am I bothering about that now? :)

Yesterday I read an interesting post '8 CMS features customers want but never use' and I found this list a little bit surprising. The 8 CMS features (see below) are really common in the RFP (Request for Proposal) which I regularly encounter at my work and I have always been sure that those features are MUST BE not NICE TO HAVE for the CMS customers. I will now have to look at them from the different perspective.


  1. Workflow
  2. Color coding changes
  3. Microsoft Office integration
  4. Future preview
  5. Back-end analytics
  6. Advanced search
  7. A/B testing
  8. Frontpage editing

The above mentioned list was created at a meeting of the European CMS Expert Group, which meets regularly to share experiences and sets the agenda for the industry, thus, the list is supported statistically.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Short Book Review: Getting Started with Oracle BPM Suite 11g R1

Having prepared my 'mind organizing platform', I have shifted to the first practical challenge with a template of the mind map called: 'Reading journals'.


The book that I have had in my restless mind for a long time was Getting Started With Oracle BPM Suite 11g R1: A Hands-On Tutorial. I came it across accidentally while I was searching for the pre-installed Oracle BPM virtual box.
Moreover, I could also recommend this Oracle URL as a valuable starting point to the world of Oracle BPM. After completing the whole hands-on tutorial in that book on pre-installed virtual box, I can state now that you would deservedly feel as a marine that has just returned home from a lonely yet simple journey.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post I have 'packed' the whole book with XMind. And I must agree that it has fully confirmed my expectations. Below you can see the snapshot of the result (the snatch of my mind map from this reading).



As a short summary I will give some points about the following:

Disadvantages
  • The beginning of this book (especially the first three chapters) are full of sentences that sound like: 'Oracle solutions are the best so … '. Sorry, I don't like such sentences. Based on the content of the book, it is I think dedicated to IT specialists rather than to sales representatives, so, such sentences are worthless.

Advantages
  • It provides a short introduction to the major concepts of BPM
  • Consistent hands-on tutorial is examined throughout the whole book
  • There are many 'print screens' so you will not miss your way along that simple tutorial
  • Don't worry in case you are not sure about the result of the tutorial because the same example has already been completed on the Oracle BPM virtual box
  • It covers not only the BPM implementation along SOA platform but BAM and Business Rules usage as well

Least but not last, if you are still not sure where to BPEL and/or BPMN put in your SOA stack, you can get more information about that here.

Disclaimer: I did not get paid to review this book, and I do not stand to gain anything if you buy the book. I have no relationship with the publisher or the author.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Mastering your minds with minds management tools, e.g. XMind

I have recently noticed that the market of the personal mind managers software has been blooming as never before and a word 'mind' combined with extra words makes the following powerful coinages: 'mind organizer', 'mind manager', 'mind-notes', 'mind maps', etc.




Phase No1. The very first mind-mapping touch

Seven years ago I was a big fan of Tony Buzan ideas for a 'mind structure' called: 'mind-maps'. I read his all books then, moreover, it inspired me to go for more and I started 'speed-reading' courses on my own.
The result: each time I was learning or reading something bigger I always used to make mind-maps on a large sheet of paper with colourful pens. I used to like it very much, I can recall those drawings in my mind even now.
Now I'm asking myself; why have I stopped practising these two skills? The answers are:
1. The speed-reading
I have never reached satisfying results (1,000 words per minute with 50% comprehension or above). Additionally, I have noticed that it was adapted more to simple reading of the news rather than for intensive (learning) reading when the subject is difficult and requires many  'mind-breaks' for, e.g. exercises.
Moreover, I have read an article about this methodology weaknesses or even criticism and I have stopped using it at all.
2. The mind-maps
I haven't found a useful tool for organizing of mind maps. All the maps I have made are somewhere in the drawer, they are big and are not at one's elbow.



During those seven years I made a few attempts to return to mind-mapping. One of the returns closest to success was with a tool FreeMind. With that new tool I made approximately no more than five maps and I finally gave up. Don't ask me why it hasn't succeeded, I may only guess that probably it wasn't for me or maybe the user interface simple wasn't friendly enough.
Nevertheless, I had my favourite software for my minds management and quick noting all that time. That super tool doesn't have any particular name because it is a simple text editor. :)

Phase No2. Ever/Never note has come

A simple text editor for minds organizing has at least one tiny weakness, or speaking in general: it is a single, locally stored text file. Thus, to avoid that, I have installed Evernote, also known as NeverNote in Linux world (BTW, despite NeverNote has fewer functions than Evernote, in my opinion it is better to use a 'native' NeverNote for Linux than wine+Evernote).
The result: with this simple Evernote cloud service I have solved the problem of simple minds managing. The second problem was still opened because in my opinion NeverNote is to weak to manage a stream of minds that comes with every next page.

Phase No3. The return of mind-mapping
 
One week ago I found a very good UML video course accidentally, and what is more interesting, the author has made his smooth mind presentation with a mind map tool XMind. WOW! I have never thought it was possible to do such a smooth and professional presentation only with mind mapping. I have already known that it is good for mind organizing but not for presentation (BTW, I'm going to try that presentation option in the near future).
The second very nice XMind feature, apart from the fact that it is free of charge for its basic version, it has  predefined templates. One of them is: 'Reading journals', or, in other words, the template that I have been searching for ages :)





Phase No4. The final mind-mapping package

Having installed Ever/NeverNote with XMind I feel that I finally have all the most necessary tools for a comfortable 'minds management'. NeverNote, with the cloud storage, has become my mind managing platform that can handle embedded mind maps from external, yet powerful XMind application.






P.S. For more interesting (basic level) reading about mind mapping please visit this page.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) and Workrave

One day, as usual, I was reading some post on the Internet. Oddly, I felt that my eyes started to be sore. This is certainly nothing serious to worry about, but I guess that it may be the impact of, e.g. very long autumn and winter reading nights. Nevertheless, I thought it was the high time I started thinking about something that would help my eyes to stay in a good condition.
Despite anything that is said about a good health condition, I think that eyes are one of the most important 'tools' of an IT specialist that are used in a very intensive mode. OK, other organs are also important too and they can have strain injury, or more precisely: 'Repetitive Strain Injury' but eyes must work harder than, e.g. hands ;)
Thus, I started to search for a particular application that would help me to organize my workspace automatically and would not be too much annoying. The googling result, or in other words '… and the Oscar goes to...', is Workrave.
Having completed a very quick installation with 'Umbutu Software Center', a new software was ready for use.

Some extra information.
Before you start using it, you could set the option for your specific needs. I have changed only 'Micro-break' and 'Rest break' options (see below):



I have turned off the 'Daily limit' because I don't want to have such a limitation yet ;)

The result?

Now, when I work on my laptop, after each ten minutes I see this picture which is a little bit annoying:


Seeing it, I close my tired eyes and I think about grass, green grass ;)

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

LibreOffice Update to version 3.3.1

The new version of LibreOffice has arrived. The first micro release improves the stability of the software and eliminates several bugs and crashes. LibreOffice 3.3.1 also brings new colourful icons based on The Document Foundation branding guidelines, and includes updates to several language versions.
Instead of going to the quick download section you could type just these two or three lines (the last line is optional, if you skip it, 'Update Manager' will do the rest):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libreoffice





After that Ubuntu will take care of the LibreOffice automatically each time a new version will arrive ;)

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

One Decade: it is Ages for Dot-Com World

Quiz question No1: When has NASDAQ reached its peak?
The answer: On March 10, 2000
Quiz question No2: When will be the next peak moment?
The answer: Hmm, it looks as if sooner than we expect?



I still remember, or, I still 'hear' the last dot-com bubble explosion. It was so unusual to read in the newspapers about Internet companies disappearing every day.
One year before that I was a freshly-baked student, and I felt that this is the moment to start new life as an IT specialist. I had a dream. I felt that each new dot-com company can appear on the Internet as a rainbow after the rain and start a new challenging e-business.
Sadly that rainbow disappeared as quickly as it appeared, the same was true for many companies as well.
At that time I was a PL/SQL programmer who had one-year experience and was working for Clinika.pl (BTW: now I see that its WWW address is still active but the content is really different from that in year 2000) and Internet had 'only' 400 million unique users (now Facebook brags about 600 million).
Nowadays I read many posts about 'e-*', and for the last two months I have noticed that sentences about millions or even billions of dollar investments are flowing into the Internet market as fresh meat, e.g.:
1. 'Facebook Exploring Permitting a Tender Offer for $1 Billion of Employee Shares at $60 Billion Valuation'
2. Grupon Reached $15 Billion Valuation
3. Twitter Reached $10 Billion Valuation
4. Zynga the fast-growing social gaming company is close to completing a funding round of $500 million, valuing the company at $10 billion
5. LinkedIn's plan to go public this year ushers in a new era of Internet and social media companies floating on the stock market.
6. E-* company Reached $x Billion Valuation.
7. ?
8. ?
9. Dot-Com Bubble Exploded Again?
10. Have we learned our lesson?
11. Will we learn our lesson?

It may seem a little bit strange but we are probably in a boom phase again. The success of social media (Facebook in particular) and more recently social commerce (Groupon) has reminded people of how quickly large, profitable, valuable franchises can be built. As a result, there is once again a rush to invest. This will probably lead to many disappointments and the 'rainbow' will again disappear as fast as an decade ago.
OK, now it is a little bit different than a decade ago. The companies have the real business models, significant revenues, valuations are growing up and up, etc.

Maybe I'm too much pessimistic, but in my private opinion, that 'young bubble' finds the investors from the 'e-new school' hoping that a rainbow will be shining more than one short 'e-day' this time.
It even seems to me that I hear a sentence in their minds:
'Find a new promising dot-com business and invest as fast as possible' :) .

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Oracle Apex Asks: “Where is Tomcat?”

A few days ago I had to check one particular Apex plug-in for simple PDF printing. As you remember from my previous post, my newly installed laptop didn't have any Oracle DB sandbox, so I was 'forced' to make a quick decision: 'to do a full installation or to find some pre-installed Oracle virtual image'. I did some google search and the answer came sooner then I expected. The Oracle has a fully prepared DB environment and what is more interesting this DB image had 'Application Express 4.0.0.00.46' so I was really surprised.

To give more details, the following products are pre-installed and ready to go:

  • Oracle Enterprise Linux 5
  • Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition
  • Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database Cache
  • Oracle XML DB
  • Oracle SQL Developer
  • Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler
  • Oracle Application Express 4.0
  • Oracle JDeveloper
  • Hands-On-Labs (accessed via the Toolbar Menu in Firefox)

Thus, I started a very quick download (in fact it wasn't so quick because all packed files were up to 6 GB). Having completed all standard procedures (i.e. downloading, unpacking, running VB) I made two simple VirtualBox corrections. And only then had I a fully working Oracle DB sandbox.

Uf :). Where are these days when the preparation of Oracle sandbox took me long hours?

Having checked the Apex PDF plug-in, I went through the whole Oracle sandbox and I have found an interesting Apex 'add-on' called Tomcat. OK, this is not the add-on in a common sense but an additional option that Apex could run with, or, in other words, could be used for a web tier.
You may ask why I was so surprised? The answer is 'Oracle does not support this installation option', what is more, it suggests installing: GlassFish, WebLogic, OC4J instead. Moreover, as I remember, there were many discussions on Oracle forums about that unsupported issue. So, the questions stay open: 'Why does Oracle state that it is an unsupported option and meanwhile using it in its demo example?'.

Nevertheless, if you would like to see how 'originally' Apex works with Tomcat, you could run this VirtualBox and check Oracle's sandbox, a well-done package.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Liberty Stands Still

This post is not about the revolution ongoing in Egypt, or a film with Wesley Snipes. It is just about LibreOffice on a very new Ubuntu installation and a few thoughts about my silent dream called 'software solution independence'.

Having been thinking for a long time 'to buy or to upgrade my personal hardware', I have finally made a decision and I have bought a new Dell Vostro 3700 laptop, uff. There were many questions regarding the technical parameters, etc., having read some interesting articles, I simply found all answers. Generally speaking, all steps/issues of buying (apart from one) went smoothly, because, as you probably agree, it is a nice moment of IT life to buy a new technical thing. :)

Thus, returning to this 'thing' that was tasteless for me.
Having collected my chosen technical laptop parameters (called: 'must have options', e.g. matte LCD, Ubuntu/no operating system), I moved to the laptop market, or in others words, I started to search for e-shops having my ideal laptop.
As you probably know, the whole laptops' market is occupied by the vendor of one operating system – 'the winner takes all or at least 90%'. How do they do that? Maybe they just 'stick' the number of the licence on the laptop's bottom during transportation, and after that they say: 'ups, now you should sell only with this OS'. ;)

I have even seen one organisation 'Freedom for laptops' that is going to take care of this 'sticky business' in Poland. I do really hope they will succeed and make me at least 90% happier next time I will search for my new laptop.


The King is dead, long live the King!



Continuing this melody of hope, I have removed OpenOffice from my newly installed Ubuntu 10.10. Having done this, I'm not saying that I don't like OpenOffice, I just don't like red coloured Oracle logo on it. It reminds me of the 'sticky business' options that I don't accept.
The new software removal/installation on Ubuntu is as easy as a pie, so I have installed LibreOffice – Liberty Stands Still ;)

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Idea: Magic Toilet


The mobile, or mobility, or just a personal technology that lives near us.
We use it almost for everything. Almost?
Yes, almost, and in my personal opinion, we use it too little for our health purpose. If it is so close to our body, so why can't it monitor our health? Or at least integrate the whole house environment, e.g. a fridge, a floor, a bed, a toilet, and to do a very simple task: “to collect statistical data from my life and to send it to the dedicated server for the health analysis”. The most important thing from this visioned yet fully automatic environment is that it could collect data without our interference. You could live your normal life, without visits to the medicine specialist, and to wait for the system's alerts about the upcoming deviation from the level of your health.

For example. Would it be great to have a magic toilet that measures our temperature, weight, etc every morning? Or even better, it runs a simple test for our urine composition. It sounds a little bit too much sophisticated, but why not? We all know that it is better to prevent than to treat. So why don't we hire the mobile technology to do it?

Resume
I spent a long period of my IT career implementing the IT solutions for medicine. Thus, now I just wanted to share my hope about iMedicine, and about the bright future that it has.  
P.S. The image has been taken from here.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Virtual World with Ubuntu and VirtualBox 4.0

I have worked with VMware Player, Microsoft Virtual PC, VMware Workstation so far and I have finally stopped with Oracle VirtualBox 4.0, and it seems that I will stick with this product a little bit longer.
I'm not going to write about something that has already been written somewhere else on the Internet, such as the history of VirtualBox owners, the new features, etc. (BTW: a very good post about new VirtualBox 4 features could be found here).
I'm just going to express my personal opinion about VirtualBox and give you some good URLs that are worth seeing.

OK so let's start with the answer to the question: “Why have I switched from VMware to VirtualBox?”
All answer which written down are correct:
1. It is a free product without any extra charges
2. It allows to run as many virtual machines on your PC/Server as you want ;)
3. It seems to me that it is faster then VMware
4. It has commercial support
5. It is high time I learned the virtualization software option that Oracle supports for his licensing restrictions, or in other words, the virtual machine software where you can set as many CPUs as you want and you will be charged only for VirtualBox set CPU number, e.g. if you have one physical server with 2 CPUs but you have only one Oracle DB licence, you could use VirtualBox and install only this particular Oracle DB licence. Of course, technically you could do this almost with any virtualization software but only VirtualBox is compliant with Oracle terms and conditions ;)

Moreover, I have to say that there is one thing that I don't like about VirtualBox. In order to move/copy your virtual system to another PC/Server you have to perform the export and import task. VMware, for example, allows standard copy and paste function for a selected virtual system transfer.

Some more interesting URLs:
1. If you wanted to download VirtualBox 4.0, just start here.
2. The installation instruction for Ubuntu is available here and here.
3. Some thoughts about “the best desktop virtualization software

Monday, January 10, 2011

alQis.com beggins

Having been semi-active on the Internet for a very long time being (I'm not even on Facebook), I have finally found my personal, short, and what is most important in this WWW world, a still free Internet domain name that I can use as my unique WWW name for my personal blog.

This may look as an easy task to achieve, because the Internet is huge, and everyone should be able to find his unique place/name for sharing thoughts, etc. Sadly, I have to admit that it doesn't go easy any more, as I remember it was much easier ten years ago, but as I have noticed it has dramatically changed in the past two years. Moreover, what may seem interesting, each day the Internet seems to be more and more 'full' but it has extra space for expanding :).

A few years ago, or more precisely at the beginning of year 2003, I was searching for a free name exactly matching my personal name, e.g. algis, algimantas, algimas, but as you probably may predict, it had already been taken by someone else.

Thus, finally, from now on I will be posting my IT thoughts here at alqis.com and my unique name may appear as 'alQis'.

But, why 'alQis / alqis'? Because it looks like and it sound as my name Algis :) (FYI: the second best option that I was thinking about, but I didn't take, was 'al9is').
The other thing that is good about the 'alQis' is that it sounds like 'hungry' in the Lithuanian pronunciation, so, I hope I will be hungry enough for sharing my thoughts here.

During the registration of alqis.com domain through the blogspot.com, I caught the feeling that it should still be very profitable business for doing this, especially when you have a monopoly. I have paid something about $10 per year, even though, I estimate that it should still be a good profit for this simple service called: 'mapping names with numbers' :)

Besides, after reading this post about Poland's domain registration dynamics, I see that even new EU member countries are capable of reaching two million '.pl' domains (now Poland is the fifth country in Europe that reached it). Moreover, according to its 23% domain registration dynamics, reached in 2010, and expected continuation of the growth level, it will soon be very hard to find a unique domain name even in the '.pl' domain group. So do not wait with your business ;)

Monday, January 3, 2011

iMedicine and “why not me?”

I don't want to say that I am a super clever or a super dump person (I hope that I am something like an average Central European intellectual :) ) but sometimes I feel that I “kill my ideas before they come true”, or in other words, I miss opportunities to implement something important, yet achievable for me. If I resample this situation correctly, I think that it may happen to me at least ten times per decade. OK, this is not a huge number but sometimes one good idea is enough :).
Even now, having seen the “ECG Device for iPhone” presentation, I scream to myself with a silent dissatisfaction: “This is my idea!”. OK, as I said, I am not a genius or something like that :) and probably at least 1000 people, during the last two years, were inspired by this (or analogical) “silent / individual, yet unique idea”, and, I assume, they were even in the production process, or, at least, they were thinking about possibilities of its realization, or etc. So, the question: “But why, why was not it me who has the final product?” should be asked by me in a silent mode :).

Thus, it is nothing new that one day “Telemedicine” will become something usual and natural for us as mobile phones these days. Everyone will be able to have some dedicated application that will monitor his health condition on-line and will assure the illness prevention. The potential sickness will be detected before it attacks with a full power.

But for now, I hope that maybe next time, after deep “intellectual” thoughts, I will go for its realization as fast as possible, and, then I hope I will be the one who offers the powerful and useful  telemedical innovation product. Moreover, the more important, I hope it would be something more clever than this “Stool Scanner” or “Lick Game” that iPhone user will use in this listed order ;).

Happy New Year, and I wish you as many impressive IT thoughts as it is possible to realize.