Archive for May, 2007
A good friend of mine recently received this email from a recruiter/headhunter:
[Name,]
My firm has been contracted by Google to help build their emerging enterprise application sales force. Based on your experience and past success, I thought this compelling sales opportunity might appeal to you. Google has an immediate need for someone in your area to fill a growth position. This position offers a highly lucrative compensation package with significant stock options available.
[… Some fluff about Google’s size and success removed for brevity …]
Here is an opportunity to become a ground floor participant in a high-visibility, fast-growth organization with a start-up mentality within one of the largest software companies in the world. Google Enterprise has already signed Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Salesforce.com, and others… Check out http://www.google.com/a/enterprise/ for details…
He wanted my opinion an advice on the subject of Google Apps which now I share with you:
Google Apps has the potential to become the Saleforce.com of office productivity apps such as email, calendaring, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, wikis, blogs, and integration to internal enterprise systems (such as LDAP, etc.). It’s aggressively priced as a hosted service for $50/user/year. This should be immediately attractive to the mid-sector, but there could very well be larger enterprises that would want to take aadvantage of this service as it’s alot cheaper than Microsoft Exchange/Outlook. It’s still early in the game, Google Apps is still in its infancy and the marketplace needs to be educated as to the benefits of such a service. Clearly, like in Open Source, the future looks promising. There’s probably good money to be made here but beware of MSFT as they’re bound to enter this space as well.
On a more personal note, I’ve been playing around with the free version of Google Apps for a little while and it certainly shows promise, but there are plenty of things missing especially in the realm of calendar synchronization with devices and desktops as well as offline email which is crucial for the mobile professional. Zimbra has addressed both of those issues, so it’s only a matter of time before Google catches up.
Do you agree? Disagree? Have any feedback?
Leave a comment…
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> Alfresco + Liferay: West Coast Community Meetup
> Join us on July 18th, 2007 in Ontario, California for our first CMS and Portal community event. Learn more at: http://alfrescoliferay.osmeet.com
May 31st, 2007
Session Announcement:
Earlier this week, I received confirmation that Reuven Cohen (or possibly on of his cohorts at enomaly) will be leading a discussion on creating a global Content Delivery Network (CDN) with Alfresco. Reuven and his team have been very active in the Xen virtualization and Amazon EC2 space (also based on Xen). This promises to be a very interesting discussion that deals with massive scalability and leveraging virtualization to achieve such scalability in a cost-effective fashion.
New Members:
I’d like to welcome the new members of our little Alfresco + Liferay Meetup and would like to encourage you to RSVP to the July, 18th event as soon as your schedule permits.
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Alfresco + Liferay: West Coast Community Meetup Join us on July 18th, 2007 in Ontario, California for our first CMS and Portal community event. Learn more at: http://alfrescoliferay.osmeet.com
May 31st, 2007
I’m out in Mexico City training our new partner, Buserdi, who specializes in document imaging but is exploring how to expand their market by adopting Alfresco and applying it to many different types of customers.
I’m continously impressed by several things:
- Work Ethic: Simply put, these guys work longer and harder than I’ve ever seen. This not only applies to the guys here at Buserdi, but to the people of Mexico as well. The professionalism and pride in their job (whether they’re busboys or executives) is very impressive.
- Aptitude: Their chief architect is sharp, sharp, sharp and has taught me a few things about my own product that I didn’t know. This may not speak well for me, but he deserves the recognition.
- Lunch: I haven’t quite figured this out but these guys don’t actually have lunch until about 3-4pm and they return to work afterwards. This late lunch doesn’t take the place of dinner at around 7pm or so. They do have a light snack at around noon time.
If you’re in Mexico or Latin America, I suggest you give these guys a call (and treat them to a big “lunch” at 4pm).
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Alfresco + Liferay: West Coast Community Meetup
Join us on July 18th, 2007 in Ontario, California for our first CMS and Portal community event. Learn more at: http://alfrescoliferay.osmeet.com
May 30th, 2007
Come one, come all to the Alfresco + Liferay: CMS and Portal meetup!
We’re hosting interactive round-table discussions on subjects such as best practices, integration, roadmap, case studies and much more!
Unlike a typical conference where one person dictates to the crowd, we’re hosting small round-tables where YOU are in control of the discussion.
No sales or marketing hype here! Only grade A certified primo content for you portal and CMS lovers!
The meetup runs the whole day (9:00am - 4:30pm) and concludes with a FREE HAPPY HOUR at a local bar/restaurant.
There will be plenty opportunities to network, ask questions, and provide feedback that the Alfresco and Liferay communities will use to grow and improve.
This meetup is open to anyone and everyone who is interested in Alfresco, Liferay or content management and portals in general.
What: Alfresco + Liferay:West Coast CMS and Portal Meetup
When: Wednesday, July 18th 2007 from 9:00am - 4:30pm - Happy Hour Afterwards.
Where: Ontario, California (Visit Meetup Site for hotel and airport details.)
Who: Anyone and everyone who’s passionate about Content Management and Portals.
How Much: Free (You just need to get there and pay for a hotel if you need it…)
Learn More: http://www.alfrescoliferaymeetup.com
May 26th, 2007
For those wondering where I’ve been these last few months, I’ll summarize in two words: “new father”.
In lieu of a post on content management, open source, or anything else software-related. I figured I’d share some insight to a “hardware hack” I was playing around with not too long ago.
Late last year I had just returned from a trip to Las Vegas where I noted that the indoor flower exhibit in the Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens makes extensive use of a special type of fountain that leverages a principle called “laminar flow”. This principle is very similar to how lasers work. Basically, the goal is to design a nozzle that is capable of removing the turbulence in the water that exits it so that the water takes on a “glass-like” appearance. This is wondrous to watch and it takes me back to my first visit to Disney’s Epcot Center where the same types of nozzles used to make their “leap-frog fountains”.
Now, I wasn’t terribly scientific about the design, and I do plan on building another one and be a little more careful about taking specific measurements.
First, I followed the basic ideas presented in this discussion.
In addition to that I looked at the original patent for the Disney/Bellagio design to get a better picture of what the design should be like. To see the patent, go to http://www.uspto.gov and search for patent number 4,795,092.
Everything came from the local Home Depot. I used 4″ diameter pipes along with couplings to put the segments together… In hindsight, 6″ diameter pipes would have possibly worked better. The mesh was pretty standard fiberglass screening for windows and doors. The open cell foam came from a pond pump filter and the pump itself was a 600 GPH pump. I used 1,999 straws which I bought at the supermarket.
Since I was rather unscientific about things, I basically just started putting things together in layers from the bottom to the top. Remember the goal is to remove as much turbulence from the water as possible. To that end, the water was pumped at an 90 degree angle to the nozzle pipe. That was probably the biggest mistake I made. I had drilled a hole along the side of the pipe and fit a 3/4″ PVC pipe that would hook into the pump, but the seal wasn’t watertight. I therefore recommend that the water come in straight through the back instead.
So, the water enters the bottom and collects into a chamber of about 3″ in height. It then hits a 3″ segment of open-cell foam which helps remove turbulence from the water. The foam was cut slightly wider than the diameter of the nozzle pipe and was held in place with the screen.
After passing through the foam, the water enters another empty chamber before entering the approximately 6″ long straw chamber which were also held together with the screening (I had cut the straws down to size and packed them as tightly as possible. After exiting the straw chamber the water collects in the last chamber which has two screens separated from the straws by about 1″, they are also separated by about 1″ from each other and are finally separated from the end of the nozzle by about another 1″.
The end-cap that forms the nozzle was drilled with a drill-bit that could generate a “V” cut or knife-edge. Basically, the opening is wider on the outside than on the inside of the cap so the water exits without touching the edges of the hole. I had to look around for a special inset drill bit for this. I had tried two different hole diameters (1/4″ and 1/2″. Depending on the flow capacity of the water pump, I’d suggest you stick with no more than 1/4″.
The completed nozzle was glued together using standard PVC glue and stood at about 2 feet in height. I think I can re-design it to be about 1 1/2′ if I use a wider tube. Basically I would set it up so that it’s only as tall as the stacked couplings which hold together the different units.
That’s basically it. You can take a look at my Laminar Flow Nozzle Flickr Set to see more pictures.
May 26th, 2007
