Gartner Identifies Top Ten Disruptive Technologies for 2008 to 2012

Gartner Identifies Top Ten Disruptive Technologies for 2008 to 2012


Gartner Identifies Top Ten Disruptive Technologies for 2008 to 2012

MELBOURNE, Australia, May 28, 2008 — Social networking technologies, web mashups, multicore and hybrid processors and cloud computing are amongst the ten most disruptive technologies[1] that will shape the information technology (IT) landscape over the next five years, according to research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc.

Speaking at the Gartner Emerging Trends and Technologies Roadshow in Melbourne today, Gartner Fellow David Cearley said that business IT applications will start to mirror the features found in popular consumer social software, such as Facebook and MySpace, as organisations look to improve employee collaboration and harness the community feedback of customers.

“Social software provides a platform that encourages participation and feedback from employees and customers alike,” he said. “The added value for businesses is being able to collect this feedback into a single point that reflects collective attitudes, which can help shape a business strategy.”

Multicore processors are expanding the horizons of what’s possible with software, but single-threaded applications won't be able to take advantage of their power, Cearley said. Enterprises should therefore “perform an audit to identify applications that will need remediation to continue to meet service-level requirements in the multicore era.”

By 2010, Gartner predicts that web mashups, which mix content from publicly available sources, will be the dominant model (80 percent) for the creation of new enterprise applications.

“Because mashups can be created quickly and easily, they create possibilities for a new class of short-term or disposable applications that would not normally attract development dollars,” said Mr Cearley. “The ability to combine information into a common dashboard or visualise it using geo-location or mapping software is extremely powerful.”

According to Gartner, within the next five years, information will be presented via new user interfaces such as organic light-emitting displays, digital paper and billboards, holographic and 3D imaging and smart fabric.

By 2010, it will cost less than US$1 to add a three-axis accelerometer – which allows a device, such as Nintendo's Wii controller, to sense when and how it is being moved – to a piece of electronic equipment. “Acceleration and attitude (tilt) can be combined with technologies such as wireless to perform functions such as ‘touch to exchange business cards,’” said Mr Cearley.

According to Mr Cearley, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) who see their jobs as “keeping the data centre running, business continuity planning and finding new technology toys to show to people” will not survive. Instead, they will have to think beyond the constraints of conventional, in order to identify the technologies that might be in widespread use a few years from now.

Gartner recommends that CIOs establish a formal mechanism for evaluating emerging trends and technologies, set up virtual teams of their best staff, and give them time to spend researching new ideas and innovations, especially those that are being driven by consumer and Web 2.0 technologies.

“The CIO then needs to act as a conduit from the business to the technology. He or she needs to see how it might be possible to use these technologies to solve a problem the business has identified,” Mr Cearley said.

Gartner’s top 10 disruptive technologies 2008-2012:

• Multicore and hybrid processors
• Virtualisation and fabric computing
• Social networks and social software
• Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
• Web mashups
• User Interface
• Ubiquitous computing
• Contextual computing
• Augmented reality
• Semantics

Gartner’s Emerging Trends and Technologies Roadshow continues in Perth on Friday 30 May, Singapore on Tuesday 3 June and Hong Kong on Thursday 5 June 2008.

Members of the media can register by contacting Susan Moore at susan.moore@gartner.com

Help for LaTeX

Help for LaTeX

Latex Tricks

While writing my thesis, I did experience quite a few problems when typesetting the manuscript with LaTeX. A plain search on latex will usually return a couple of thousands of answers ranging from outdated pages, undocumented packages, as well as latex items you might not be looking for... Therefore, I decided to sumarize some information I collected that could be useful for other people.

1- Usefull websites

2- Usefull sofware

3- Documentation available on this server

4- Packages I used

5- Creating a PDF file with LaTeX

1- Usefull websites http://www-h.eng.cam.ac.uk/help/tpl/textprocessing/, Text Processing using LaTeX at the Department of Enginering of the University of Cambridge. Very good source of information, documentation on hundreds of packages, well-organized, and well maintained... http://www.giss.nasa.gov/latex/, Latex manual. Contains manuals and lists of LaTeX commands. Pretty useful if you need to refresh your memory. These help files are meant to provide reference information for those with some familiarity with LaTeX. They are not an introduction or tutorial. I do have a mirror here http://www.tug.org/applications/hyperref/manual.html, Documentation for the hyperref package. http://www.physics.otago.ac.nz/bec2/bmcd/pdf/, PDF Output from LaTeX.

Left headings Right headings Sumaries Side captions Figures side by side

2- Usefull sofware Emacs... Does everything, edit LaTeX file, spellchecking, coffee... Flyspell: on the fly spellchecking for emacs: extremely useful. Kile: LaTeX source editor - TeX shell - Gnuplot front end for KDE 3. I did not use this software to write my thesis because I discovered it very late in the process of writing. However, I have used it since and I find it more convenient than emacs, and you DO keep control on the LaTeX source. Xmgrace: WYSIWYG 2D plotting tool for the X Window System and M*tif. That's what I use for all my plots. By the way, it runs on windows as well (it's part of cygwin). Xfig: I use this figures. It's basic but it works and figures are clean. It's also part of cygwin on M$ windows. Jabref: graphical frontend to manage BibTeX databases. I find it great, no need to dig into BibTeX files, it does a very good job at maintaining a database, searching... It's in java so it should work on any platform.

10 ways to give a bad presentation

Public speaking often appears on the top ten list of fears. It’s not as if speaking will put you at risk for poison like a snake or spider could. But seriously, fear is the least of your problems when you follow these 10 rules:

1. Put all the words of your presentation on the slides. If they don’t fit, just make the font size smaller — after all, you’re using less paper! If that’s still not enough space, remember you still have #7. You could add more slides, but then you kill more electricity and trees (if you print the slides).
2. Read everything on the slides. Sure, throw in a few useless comments here and there. No one in the audience can read besides you want them to look at you not the words on the slides. Saying them aloud makes them look at you (and roll their eyes).
3. Say, “Um” and “Uh” often. That will send your audience crawling up the walls. They love the sounds they make.
4. Skip checking the equipment before the presentation. It’ll work. Technology never fails. Besides, you have a print out of your presentation and notes. Just read them if the overhead dies.
5. Use many colors. Pink, purple, blue, yellow — especially yellow, and green reminds the audience of the ’60s and should relax them in no time. Peace, man.
6. Capitalize everything. That’s right. Sentences Should Be Like Book Titles. BETTER YET, DO THIS AND CAPITALIZE EVERY LETTER. That should drill your words into the audience’s heads.
7. Write down your entire speech and read it. Word. For. Word. That way you never have to look up and at the audience. They don’t want to connect with you and looking up will let that happen.
8. Keep your hands in your pockets at all times. If you have coins in your pocket, jiggle them for a little background music. No pockets? Just sit stiffly in the same spot behind the platform and fidget so you can burn extra calories.
9. Don’t waste time rehearsing. This is a speech not a play. It’s not as if we can’t have our script in front of us like actors. See #7 again. Besides, who has time to rehearse?
10. Speak for as long as you want. The audience will leave whenever they need to. So don’t worry about them. Just say everything you can think of so you can show the audience how knowledgeable you are about the subject. Besides, who wants to have time left for questions? The audience only asks stupid questions.

If people leave before you finish or fall asleep, then you’ve done your job. Give yourself applause.

KnowHR presents Unbelievably Bad Presentations complete with video from Howard Dean and many links to resources on bad presentations including true stories.

These don’t work for you? Maybe you’d rather give a pull together a strong presentation using a story to make it more captivating. Members can access to Quick Start BBP Story templates to get going.

15 Useful Project Management Tools | Developer's Toolbox | Smashing Magazine

15 Useful Project Management Tools | Developer's Toolbox | Smashing Magazine

There is a huge variety of project management applications out there. Most are general purpose apps, not aimed at any one industry. But there is a growing number of project management apps aimed specifically at one industry or another. Applications geared to creative types are becoming more readily available, and some of the offerings are really quite good.

Many of these project management apps have built-in code repositories and subversion browsers (or are built around them). A few have built-in bug and issue tracking. Others include more than just basic project management. All of them can help you keep track of activities and team members. There are both free and paid options. Some have very slick interfaces, and some are modeled more after desktop applications. All are relatively easy to use and easy to set up.

Below are 15 useful project management applications, almost all of which are targeted directly at Web developers, designers (both Web and print) and other creative types. The last one is not geared specifically to creative types but is the most unique project management application I’ve found and is included on that basis as well as because of its potential usefulness for designers and developers.

Also consider our previous article:

• Web Applications: Improve Your Workflow

1. Basic Project Management Apps

These applications are marketed specifically for project management. Most include things like task-, team-, and goal-management features. Some include additional features such as time tracking and invoicing.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse is a bug- and issue-tracking app that tracks timelines and milestones, integrates with your email client and more. You can update tickets through your inbox, manage your beta testing (by making tickets and milestones public), integrate it with subversion and manage and prioritize your tickets.

Project creation is simple; only a project title and description is required. Once a project is created, tickets, messages and milestones can be entered. Ticket creation can be done by email (the email address to send tickets to is displayed on the “Tickets” page). You can show tickets based on a variety of criteria, including date, state (open or closed) and who is responsible for them. Message creation is easier than email, and you can attach files up to 50 MB in size. When you create a milestone you simply enter the title, the date it’s due and the goals or focus for that particular milestone. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Permissions are easy to set, and you can invite users by email. One of the best features of Lighthouse is its Beacon and API integration. With the API, you can customize tickets, projects, changesets, milestones, messages and more. Integrate it with other services (such as Google Calendar), or make desktop applications that use Lighthouse. The APIs make Lighthouse infinitely more useful, because you can really customize it to fit your current workflow.

Lighthouse is great for Web development teams (or individuals) and has a very easy-to-use interface. They have paid and free plans, all of which include unlimited open-source projects. The free plan lets you manage one private project with up to two people on the account. The paid plans range from $10 per month for the Personal plan (with up to 3 projects, 10 users and 100 MB of file upload storage space) to $120 per month for the Platinum plan (with unlimited projects, up to 50 public projects, unlimited users and 30 GB of file upload space).

When combined with a subversion app, Lighthouse provides a pretty complete project management app for developers. Subversion integration is pretty straightforward, and the help file provided gives complete step-by-step instructions for setup.

Springloops

Springloops is another subversion browser that integrates project management. It counts a unique AJAX code browser and Basecamp integration as among its features.

The Springloops interface is very intuitive and easy to use. Tabbed navigation provides access to the log, source and deployment information. Adding users is done via email, along with the ability to create usernames and passwords (making it easier and faster for them to get on board with a project). Creating new projects is simple, with a few different templates available (including a starter template). You can migrate an existing repository into Springloops as well (including plain text dumps). For added project management ability, Springloops can be integrated with Basecamp.

Springloops has a number of plans available, both paid and free. The free plan includes 25 MB of space, 3 projects, 3 deployments per day (using FTP or SFTP connections), roll-back capabilities, Basecamp integration, subversion and an unlimited number of users. The paid plans range from the “Flowerpot” plan at $9 per month (including 1 GB of space and 10 projects) to the “Forest” plan at $96 per month (including 18 GB of storage, unlimited projects, automatic deployment and secure SSL encryption). All of the paid plans include a free 30-day trial.

CreativePro Office

CreativePro Office offers complete office management tools. CreativePro Office is completely free, setting it apart from the other apps here.

CreativePro Office has the usual tabbed navigation, including tabs for clients, projects, time sheets, finances and team members. The dashboard presents a calendar with upcoming events, a list of your projects, outstanding invoices, notes and search functionality. Project creation is a bit more in-depth than with most other apps listed here, though only a client name and project name is required (you can also fill in a project URL, description or comments, category, date range, status, contacts and tags). Client tracking is integrated, making this handy for those who work with lots of different clients, and it could even serve as a simple CRM program, depending on your needs.

Integrated invoices and financial information is handy, and the finances page gives you options for viewing and creating invoices, expenses and reports.

CreativePro Office is very robust for a completely free application and is definitely worth checking out before shelling out for an expensive paid solution.

Jumpchart

Jumpchart is a website planning application that allows you to plan the navigation of your website by creating, dragging and dropping pages into the plan. You can also add text and formatting to pages and then export your CSS files and site map when you’re finished.

This is a great planning app for Web designers, though it’s not strictly a project management application. You can add comments to each page, which could serve to keep track of tasks related to specific pages. More traditional project management functions could be kept track of in the text of each mockup page or through the comments. The mockup and planning capabilities of Jumpchart make it worth using, even if hacks are needed to make it more conducive to full project management.

The free Jumpchart plan offers 1 project with 1 MB of storage and a maximum of 10 pages and 2 users. The paid plans range from the Simple plan at $5 per month (including up to 5 projects, with 25 pages and 5 users per project, and 100 MB of storage) to the Deluxe plan at $50 per month (including up to 30 projects with unlimited pages and users and 5000 MB of storage).

No Kahuna

No Kahuna is a simple project management and issue-tracking platform. It’s very straightforward and easy to use, with an excellent user interface. Features include task and activity tracking and collaboration tools.

No Kahuna is excellent for basic project management and ticket tracking. There aren’t a ton of features, which can be a very good thing. It’s very quick to get started, also a big plus.

There are free accounts available that include unlimited projects and users. However, if your projects accumulate more than 30 open tasks, you will need to upgrade. Paid options are reasonably priced, ranging from 3 projects for $9 per month up to 100 projects for $99 per month. Open-source projects are always free, no matter how many open tasks you have.

Basecamp

Basecamp is often considered to be the best project management and collaboration platform out there. Its features are impressive: to-do lists, file sharing, message boards, milestones, time tracking, project overviews and commenting.

The user interface is definitely one of the best out there, and because of its popularity, tons of other companies are making products that integrate with Basecamp, extending its capabilities.

Pricing is reasonable, though it’s definitely not the cheapest solution out there. The Basic plan is only $24 per month and includes up to 15 active projects, 3 GB of file storage and unlimited clients and users. The Max plan is a hefty $149 per month, but includes unlimited projects, 50 GB of file storage, time tracking, SSL security and a free Campfire Premium account.

2. Wiki-Based Project Management

Wikis are another option for project management, whether you use one instead of a basic project management application or in addition to one. One of the solutions below is geared to complete project management and includes additional features, while the other is just a wiki and is suitable for project management and other uses.

Trac Project

Trac Project is a project management app that is based on wiki functionality. It also includes a subversion browser, a timeline, ticket tracking, a road map (showing milestones and the number of current open and closed tickets) and builds status tracking.

One of Trac’s best features is the range of plug-ins available for it. There are plug-ins for Web administration, authentication, code documentation, file management, ticketing, testing, user management and version control.

Another big advantage: Trac is free and licensed under a modified BSD license.

PBwiki

PBwiki is one of the easiest free wikis out there to use. You can share files with other users, set access controls for individual pages and folders, add other users to your wiki, monitor and track version changes and more.

Setup is quick and easy and can be done in less than a minute. The PBwiki interface is very intuitive, and there is virtually no learning curve. Creating folders and pages is straightforward, as is editing existing pages. You can also comment on each page, and get a printable version with a single click.

There are multiple themes you can choose from for the design, as well as templates for individual page content (or you can start from scratch). There are a few different plans available, both paid and free. The free plan allows from 1 to 3 users. Paid plans range from $4 per month per user (if you have more than 10,000 users) to $8 per month per user (for 4 to 999 users).

3. Bug and Ticket Tracking

Any time you work on a Web application or website, there are going to be bugs and issues that crop up. While some basic project management applications have built-in ticket tracking, others don’t, and sometimes the built-in solution doesn’t quite meet your needs (either because it’s too robust or is missing key features).

16bugs

16bugs is a very simple bug-tracking system. Its main advantage is the color-coding system used for different types of information (like updates, comments and closed tickets).

Setup is quick and easy. The user interface is easy to figure out. Creating bugs is easy, and the color-coded labels on the activity tab make it easy to see what’s going on at a glance.

There are a variety of account types available. The free account allows 1 project, 1 MB of storage and Basecamp imports. Starting at $8 per month, paid plans include more projects (3 with the Basic plan), 150 MB to 10 GB of storage, RSS and email notifications, Campfire notifications and SSL (starting with the $15-per-month Big plan).

JIRA

JIRA is issue- and bug-tracking software that includes a lot of great features. It has advanced reporting features, workflow mapping as well as issue and project organizing; it is also customizable.

JIRA also offers a number of plug-ins to extend its functionality, including Bamboo integration, charting, time tracking, project management, a calendar and more. By using plug-ins, you can customize JIRA to meet your exact project management and issue-tracking needs.

JIRA’s biggest drawback is its pricing; it’s not cheap. A hosted account starts at $299 per month for up to 25 users and goes up from there (250 users costs $599 per month). If you want to download JIRA and host it on your own server, it starts at $1200 for a single project team, and goes as high as $4800 for an entire organization. If you need an academic license, solutions start at only $600.

4. Collaboration and Conferencing

If you’re working with a remote team on your project, you’re probably going to need some online space to collaborate and meet, whether it’s to work on general concepts or to work out specific bugs. Here are three solutions to help you collaborate with those on your team or with your clients.

activeCollab

activeCollab is a project management and collaboration tool that lets you set up a collaboration area right on your website. You can have unlimited projects, organized into groups for easy management.

Collaboration features include file sharing, discussions (set up like an online forum), assignments, collaborative writing and reminders. Project management features include printing and exporting, time tracking, calendar and schedule functionality, ticket management and milestones. Plug-ins (modules) mean that activeCollab can be extended to suit your specific needs.

There are two pricing options available: Corporate and Small Business. The Small Business edition includes source-code browsing, plug-in support, themes, discussions, milestones, checklists, files, project templates, a mobile interface and localization support. It’s priced at $199, with support and upgrades being an additional $99 per year after the first year. The Corporate edition has all of the above features, plus the calendar, tickets, time tracking, pages (with collaborative writing and more), a project explorer, and status updates. Both packages include unlimited projects and users. You can also purchase a Copyright Removal license, which removes the “activeCollab Powered” graphic from the footer of each page, for an additional $199.

DimDim

DimDim is a Web-conferencing platform that provides collaboration tools for meeting online. It’s scalable, reliable and flexible, with both hosted and on-site versions available.

DimDim allows you to share your desktop with those you’re meeting with, as well as share and present documents (both PowerPoint and PDFs). You can also share Whiteboards, and it has built-in voice-over-IP and teleconferencing capabilities. There are public and private chat capabilities as well as annotation and markup tools.

There are free and paid plans available. The free plan offers the complete feature set, with support for meetings of up to 20 people. DimDim Pro offers the complete feature set, plus custom branding and up to 100 people in a meeting for only $99 per year. There is also an Enterprise-level package that includes all of the above but also allows simultaneous meetings with up to 1000 attendees for $1998 per year.

Vyew

Vyew is a browser-based Web presentation service that allows for custom branding and PowerPoint-like authoring. With Vyew, you can give a live presentation or just post a document for your colleagues to review at their convenience.

Features include real-time desktop sharing, whiteboarding and drawing tools, embedded comments, built-in voice over IP, free teleconferencing, built-in webcam video support, text chat, dedicated rooms and direct URLs and more. It’s a complete solution for Web conferencing.

Vyew has a number of plans available, including a free plan, which includes unlimited meetings, SSL secure log-in, up to 20 participants (all seeing ads) and up to 5 VyewBooks (presentations) with up to 50 pages each. There are two paid plans: Plus at $6.95 per month, which includes everything the free plan has plus up to 25 participants (or 5 with no ads), and up to 25 VyewBooks with up to 100 pages each, and Professional at $13.95 per month, which includes everything the Plus plan has, but with up to 45 participants (or 15 with no ads), and up to 100 VyewBooks with up to 300 pages each.

5. Invoicing

Unless you’re working on an internal project, chances are you’ll need to send out invoices. Having an invoice program that also does proposals is helpful, as is having one that integrates directly with your project management app.

Simply Invoices

Simply Invoices integrates with Basecamp, More Honey, Tick and Harvest to invoice based on time that you track with those programs. Features include invoice templates, unlimited invoices, the ability to save invoices as PDFs and invoice tracking.

There are a few different plans available, including a free plan that includes up to five invoice templates and SSL support. Paid plans start at $9 per month (which includes up to ten invoice templates, plus a custom logo and link-free invoices) and go up to $25 per month (which includes an unlimited number of templates).

Less Accounting

Less Accounting is a simple online accounting and invoicing program that is incredibly easy to use. Less Accounting has a variety of features, including proposal creation and tracking, mileage tracking, sales-lead management and expense tracking. You can import your existing Wesabe.com account, and you can even invite your CPA to look at your books. Less Accounting also sends a weekly email with an update on the status of your accounts.

There are a variety of account plans available, including a free plan. The free plan includes up to 5 invoices, expenses, sales notes, deposits, proposals, mileage logs each month, SSL encryption, reports and bank-account integration. The paid plans range from the Even Less plan at $12 per month (including invoicing, expenses, contacts, SSL encryption, technical support, deposits and reports) to the More plan at $24 per month (including everything in the Even Less plan, plus sales notes, bank accounts, proposals, mileage logs, bank reconciliation, support for multiple types of sales tax and more). A 30-day free trial is available for all plans.

6. Time Tracking

Whether you need to keep track of your time for billing purposes, for your boss, or just to measure your own productivity, chances are you’ll need a time-tracking application.

LiveTimer

LiveTimer is an easy-to-use time-tracking program that works on both your computer and iPhone. It can be used for billing purposes or simply to improve your productivity and accountability.

Features include a daily ledger, bulk time entry (by day or week), customizable classifications, multiple currencies, custom billing rates, intelligent report filters and a developer API. The iPhone integration makes it easy to track your time even if you’re not at your desk, making it more useful than many other Web-based time-tracking applications.

Pricing is cheap, at only $5 per active user per month. Qualifying non-profits get a 50% discount. There is a 30-day free trial available.

fourteenDayz

fourteenDayz is a time-tracking program specifically for teams. It features day-by-day time sheets, exportable reports (in both PDF and Excel formats), drag-and-drop categories and no user limit.

There are 6 different plans offered, including a free account (which includes up to 4 active projects/clients, 10 project categories, an unlimited number of users and reporting functions). The paid plans range from the Personal at $5 per month (which includes the free account features plus up to 7 active projects/clients, 15 project categories, 30 project subcategories and PDF reports) to the Platinum at $99 per month (which includes all the Personal features plus unlimited active projects/clients, unlimited project categories and subcategories, XLS/CSV exportability and SSL connections).

Further Resources

For more project management applications, check out:

• Simple Spark
  Directory of Web 2.0 applications, with a list of more than 300 project management apps.
• Listio
  Another directory of Web 2.0 applications, with a huge list of project management apps.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Google's SEO Starter Guide

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Google's SEO Starter Guide

This Blog

Google Blogs

Web

Blog

News

This Blog

Google Blogs

Web

Blog

News

Google's SEO Starter Guide

Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 11:55 AM

Webmasters often ask us at conferences or in the Webmaster Help Group, "What are some simple ways that I can improve my website's performance in Google?" There are lots of possible answers to this question, and a wealth of search engine optimization information on the web, so much that it can be intimidating for newer webmasters or those unfamiliar with the topic. We thought it'd be useful to create a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites' crawlability and indexing.

Our Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing. We felt that these areas (like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, and more) would apply to webmasters of all experience levels and sites of all sizes and types. Throughout the guide, we also worked in many illustrations, pitfalls to avoid, and links to other resources that help expand our explanation of the topics. We plan on updating the guide at regular intervals with new optimization suggestions and to keep the technical advice current.

So, the next time we get the question, "I'm new to SEO, how do I improve my site?", we can say, "Well, here's a list of best practices that we use inside Google that you might want to check out."

Written by Brandon Falls, Search Quality Team

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