Over the past months I have really been asking myself where does my career and business go from here?  Obviously the software development arena is a good one but I have really be wanting to further focus my energies.  Since I launched Refocusing Technology I have wanted to find the answer to ‘How does technology truly advance business?’.

For the last decade, it’s all been about .Net development.  .Net is a great toolset and I enjoy it. While I won’t argue that Ruby on Rails, PHP, or Java can’t beat .Net in some avenues, I would argue that .Net definitely fits the bill when it comes to it’s focus – enterprise computing.  It is a great toolset and I have enjoyed utilizing it and will definitely continue utilizing it.

After doing some searching on where I want to go I really started looking into the concept of Predictive Analytics which lead me further into the general topic of Business Intelligence.  Learning more about this idea has caused me to really want to pursue additional knowledge and skill.

What is Business Intelligence you might ask?  Well, simply put, it’s the idea of using all that data you’ve collected to really help you make business decisions.  Obviously this concept has existed for decades… the difference in today’s world is where this is taking us going forward.

Instead of just printing a report and having to review it in order to make sure everything looked right… the system simply notifies you when something went wrong.  Intelligent alerts put the business rules into the system and then allow you to go about doing other things that reviewing reports all the time.

Or… what about implementing digital dashboards that act just like your car’s dashboard?  Instead of showing you each and every detail of what’s going on in the engine it shows you the specific things you need to know.

As part of this path, I have started a new educational voyage toward a Certificate in Business Intelligence.  I have taken the first course and am looking forward to moving into the additional courses.

I will go further in depth into this endeavor as time goes on…

From Jeremy: Here’s a guest post that discusses utilizing the BlackBerry Playbook2.  Food for thought in the tablet space.

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One of the highlights of the BlackBerry lineup is the underrated Playbook, RIM’s exemplary BlackBerry business services tablet. While the hardware’s remained unchanged, the operating system recently got a facelift on February 21, 2012, in the form of Playbook OS 2.0. Playbook OS 2.0 is a QNS-based mobile platform designed to up BlackBerry’s game when it comes to tablets. Here are a few of the most notable features of the latest tablet operating system from RIM.

A More Refined UI

While BlackBerry users tend to value functionality and performance over looks, an intuitive User Interface is important when it comes to getting the most out of a platform. Playbook OS 2.0 cleans up the screen a bit, and improves the App Dock by making it fully customizable. Users can easily add and remove application icons from the App Dock with a few long presses, which alleviates some of the frustration early adopters experienced with the first iteration of Playbook OS.

Email, Networking & Social Media

A common complaint among the BlackBerry faithful is that the original Playbook OS didn’t feature native, built-in applications for accessing email and messaging accounts. Playbook OS 2.0 rectifies the situation, offering a native rather web-based email client, support for calendar and contacts, support for HD multimedia playback and improved video chat capabilities. Playbook OS 2.0 places a renewed emphasis on social media with the integration of Gist into native applications.

BlackBerry Bridge Remote Control

The BlackBerry Bridge Remote Control feature allows users to tether a smart phone to their tablet via Bluetooth. Once set up, one can use their smart phone as a remote control for their BlackBerry tablet. It features support for PowerPoint, which means you can use your phone as a “clicker” for PowerPoint presentations. One of the niftiest built-in features of BlackBerry Bridge is its ability to allow users with physical keyboards on their phones to type up documents on their Playbook wirelessly.

Apps Interchangeability

Probably the most game-changing feature of Playbook OS 2.0 is its ability to run Android applications. Once users have upgraded to the new operating system, they can easily repackage Android apps to run on their Playbook. The early reviews from real users demonstrate that the technology works fairly well for porting applications from one platform to the other.

Closing Thoughts

The BlackBerry Playbook offers decent hardware specifications and a slick, seamless operating system to go with it. It’d be a mistake to write off the Playbook as an “also-ran” that’s not worthy of consideration. If you like the idea of an iPad but need something that’s more squarely focused on Business services, the Playbook might be the tablet for you.

From Jeremy: Interesting guest post about businesses utilizing Cloud Computing resources. I hope you find it interesting as well.

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As cloud computing’s popularity has surged for consumers, businesses have also started to take steps toward it. More and more, companies are deploying things such as cloud hosting and software-as-a-service (SaaS) in order to save money and decrease the amount of time it takes to upgrade or make changes to their computing systems.

While the cloud is convenient, it does present some questions for companies considering switching. One of these questions is whether the cloud is truly safe for companies to use. Reliability and security are two of the biggest concerns normally voiced by companies.

Reliability is one of the most frequent issues that businesses have to consider. After all, a business that uses cloud hosting is risking a lot more than an individual. While failure on the cloud for the consumer’s side of things means that a person might lose part of their iTunes library, failure on the cloud for a business means losing customer records or other important data. It means losing money.

Most cloud service providers avoid this problem, though, by taking the data they store and backing it up at an off-site premise. This means that in the event the main storage facility fails, a backup is readily available. Businesses can also avoid this by keep local backups of their most important data, and only storing the data they can afford to lose on the cloud.

Security is the other major concern that comes up frequently when discussing the cloud. Whether or not a cloud vendor can be trusted to host sensitive data, such as patient records or employees’ private information, is a hot topic. Concerns are commonly raised over what employees at the cloud provider can access the data being stored there, and how easy it is to take in and out of the facility.

Resolving this issue is simply a matter of trust. For cloud computing to be safe for a business, a reputable provider needs to be chosen. Dell Cloud computing and other companies with solid reputations are already known to be trustworthy. Choosing a company that is well-known usually means they’ll have and enforce the proper security protocols.

The cloud is safe for businesses to use, at least for the most part. There are some risks with it, and not properly addressing them can be disastrous. However, there are risks with any traditional IT setup, as well. The best practice is for companies to move to the cloud if it makes sense, but still be aware of and address any concerns as they normally would.

photo credit: pasukaru76

Isn’t it interesting how quickly we become dependent on the technology that didn’t even exist just a few short years ago?

Just the other day, while working away… No Internet connection.  Make the phone call to hear “We are experiencing an outage in your area.”

The Good News: “We are working to resolve it with the next 4 HOURS”.  Seriously, 4 HOURS???

No Internet, no phone (provided via broadband), very spotty cell coverage (the femtocell doesn’t work without broadband).  It seemed like it was about time to start a fire and do some hunting with a spear.

It really pointed out a key question to consider… What is your backup plan?

Now, there are many kinds of failures that could occur.

• Hard drive fails
• Loss or Lack of Internet connection
• Mobile phone falls in the toilet
• Can’t retrieve the file for that big presentation
• Twitter displaying the “Fail Whale“

While chatting with a woman who does technology training for business of all sizes, she mentioned that the one thing most people don’t think about is “What are you going to do if something in your technology fails?”. You really need to know because technology will fail at some point when you really need it.

It’s best to have a backup plan.

So…What can I do?

For an Internet connection that might be: a local wifi hotspot (coffeeshop, library, McDonalds,etc), a mobile broadband option with one of the cellular providers, or maybe leech off a neighbors connection (better hope they don’t learn about WiFi security).

For files that you need with you: web share, email, usb drive, floppy disk (haha… just kidding)

photo credit: tmray02

File Backup

Of course another huge place for you to consider backups is the good ole file backup.  A neighbor of mine and I were just discussing the issues he was having. He used an external drive that had multiple drive redundancy for backups. Recently, the controller in the unit failed and he lost everything on it.  Even after trips to two support shops (one very reputable one)… nothing.

Here’s the rule: It’s not a matter of IF you need a backup solution… it’s a matter of WHEN.

Trust me you’ll be glad that you set it up.

There are many options out there. I would definitely recommend off-site, online backups for most personal and small business needs.  Most providers have good security and provide you with a peace of mind that you just can’t provide by yourself.

How does online backup work? Simple. You install the software on your computer. Then on regular intervals, the software will scan your machines for updated data. Once it figures out what needs to be backed up, it encrypts it and then uploads it to the company’s servers.

So there are a couple of options that I recommend to people:

• CrashPlan+ by CodeFourtyTwo Software
• Mozy

There are quite a few other options out there but I have had good luck with both these products.

What are your technology backup plans?  How will you keep operating when Murphy decides to come and visit you?

I’ve been following John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing for some time.  Many times John’s posts bring up tools that I should take a look at or new technologies that are interesting to follow up on. The article I read by John on the OPEN network was one of those types of articles.  Although I don’t have a Mac or an iPhone/iPad many of the apps are available on both platforms or have a PC/Android equivalent.  Hope you like the list.

John Jantsch: 10 Apps That Make Me More More Productive [OPEN Forum]

photo credit: laihiu

As I recently posted, I’ve decided to expand my skillset and learn about Android Development.

My first step was to chat with a friend of mine who has done some work in Android development just to figure out where to begin looking.  He graciously shared some resources that he used. Yes, he even told me that the “Android Development for Dummies” was a great resource. It’s always been hard for me to accept a “for Dummies” book as a resource… but I’ll give it a try.

So of course the next step is: Install the needed tools.

I found that the Android Developers site has a good outline of what you need to do in this article: Installing the SDK

The tools you need are pretty simple but the install takes a few steps.  You need the following tools:

• Java SDK
• Android SDK
• Eclipse IDE
• ADT Plug-in for Eclipse (optional)

The article does a great job of outlining how to set the environment up.

NOTE: Issue that I ran into on this – when you attempt to install the ADT plug-in in Windows 7… make sure to run Eclipse as the Administrator.  Otherwise, I got an error that said something about the components not being available.

So, now that I have it installed… it’s time to actually start building something.  We’ll see.

For the past several years, the focus of my development learning has been completely focused in Microsoft’s .Net realm. It’s where I’ve worked for years and like most technologies there is always something new to learn.

This last week, I’ve been seriously considering what is next for me to learn.  There is plenty to learn on the Microsoft side of the house. Obviously there are a ton of other technologies out there as well.

My question was simple: “Where is technology headed?”.

I believe the answer to that question is quite simple: mobile. Everything is headed in that direction. Between mobile phones, tablets, and the like many applications are going to start being written in the mobile realm.  Even businesses are going to start asking that their business apps be created in the mobile space because they’ll want their employees to be able to access them while they’re on the road, at a client site, etc.

So, the next question is simply “What technology?”. In my mind there are two options: iOS or Android. Microsoft has been EXTREMELY slow to the party and I question whether they will have any success in this realm. So, to me this is a pretty easy decision based on three facts: 1. Most my work is PC based, 2. I own an Android phone, 3. I believe that Google/Android is exploding and growing at a much faster rate than iOS. That makes my decision quite obvious.

Recently it was also announced that Android will not only be the driver behind mobile phones and tablets but Google will actually release the next versions of Google TV running on Android. If I had to guess I would also wonder if Chrome OS and Android don’t end up being merged at some point. This would make Android an platform that can really run anywhere.

So, off I go a journey to start building a few Android apps. Obviously, I’ll still be writing C# and VB but I am very excited to see where this journey leads. I’ll be updating as I move forward.

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

Recently, I found a few new tools that I am learning to use.  There are so many add-ins out there that it’s hard to find the good ones some times.

I started using Boomerang for GMail (thanks to the AnywhereMan Dave Yankowiak’s podcast recommendation). The really useful part of Boomerang should even have to be a third party product, it should be a built in function of GMail which is scheduled email sending. Sometimes you just don’t want to send the email right away so it’s nice to have the option to schedule the send for later. Boomerang also gives the ability to “remind” you of emails that you need to do something with. I’ll be honest and say that I haven’t used that feature too much yet. Cool little utility though.

Second, I started using ActiveInbox for Gmail (again thanks to Dave). It’s a pretty neat tool for prioritizing and categorizing project emails. It can help you use your email almost like a task management type tool. I think if you sprung for the Pro version, you have an even better ability to manage tasks (it adds deadlines and other management features). Neat tool to check out!

Third, this one is more developer focused. It is the ext.net control set. This component suite is a .Net extebsion of the Sencha Ext JS project. It’s open source and has most of the controls that you would use in a project. The components are nice looking and pretty simple to work with. The documentation is lacking but I guess it is an open source community so that’s to be expected.

Take a look at the tools and see if they are helpful to you as well.  Also, send me some recommendations!!

The standard product cycle seems to show that the early adopters give way to the masses.  Part of this is just people hearing about and adjusting to new technologies.  I think the other part is the new technology maturing to a point where the masses can actually use it.

photo credit: William Hook

We’ve seen the cycle happen in the mobile field.  Smart phones have existed for years but only recently with the release of the iPhone and then the Android operating system have we seen the explosion of smart phones.  It seems like within the last year we’ve seen more innovation in this market than we’ve seen for the last 5 to 10 years.  It’s been amazing.

Following behind that is the tablet market.  It’s the next big thing.  The iPad 2 and the Xoom recently hit the market and there is a huge surge of tablet devices hitting the market in the next 6 to 12 months.

So… what’s the anchor??

Technology companies who either don’t think or don’t care about public perception.  Part of the process is for people to get comfortable and trust your product.  So what do the technology companies do?  Put their trust in question by tracking people’s locations.

Yes… I am talking about Google and Apple tracking the location data on phones and tablets.  They claim that they are using it for valid reasons which is probably true but do you consider what that information could potentially be used for?  With all the current issues with information theft and identity theft these companies should really consider their actions a little more closely.

I don’t know that I believe that either Google or Apple are being malicious with the data but it sure raises questions.  What would it take for marketers to buy this data for targeted text marketing, analysis and use by government for use in mileage taxation, or some criminal finding a way to exploit your movement information for gain?

I think the Google and Apple made a pretty big PR mistake in tracking people’s movement secretly.  It’s slightly ironic that the iconic commercial in 1984 about big brother was by a small computer company named Apple!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R706isyDrqI