maakusan

The Professionals...

2011-04-06T22:22:00.001+01:00

...government IT professionals. Following on from my blog posts last week on mentoring and how good mentoring can only improve your professionalism, the theme for this week's blog posts is Government IT Professionalism.

On Thursday 27 January 2011, the Home Office Government IT Profession facilitated a Focus Session entitled "Government IT Profession as a Key Resource" by Kate Silver, Deputy Director of the Government IT Profession. The Government IT Profession is a team in the Cabinet Office responsible for leading government IT as a profession. Kate was keen to stress at the outset of the session that the "key resource" is not the Government IT Profession team themselves but the people who are IT professionals in government.

So, dear Reader, what is driving the government it profession and makes that resource so key in the first place? Well, there is a strong push in the current climate to achieve "Better for Less". Not more, better. There is also the need for transparency and open information management. And finally I should mention that good government IT professionals are key to putting pressure on suppliers in order for government to deliver better for less and be as transparent as possible.

Supplier pressure has seen 800m pounds shaved off contracts already. This is principly achieved by leveraging Crown buying power, delivering shared services in a more service oriented way, such as G-Cloud, and reducing reliance on external resource; consultants/contractors/interims.

Reliance on external resource has been brought before parliamentary committees by Sir Gus O'Donnell and Ian Watmore. 1bn pounds was spent on consultants/contractors/interims in the financisal year 2009/10. 60% of that, up from 50% the previous year, was spent on IT and Project and Programme Management (PPM). 4 out of every 10 pounds in the Home Office is spent on IT and PPM. So, dear Reader, you can see the importance of good government IT professionals as a key resource.

There are 7 government professions; IT, HR, PPM, Procurement, Comms, Analysts (statisticians and economists), and Knowledge & Information Management (KIM). Each of these are important in there own fields but you can see the importance of a strong government IT profession. It is possible to change profession in your career or even be dual profession.

If the government IT profession is a key resource then what is being done to make it as strong as possible?
The Government IT Profession, centrally from within the Cabinet Office, provides government IT professionals with a toolkit to enable them to progress and strengthen their career. This toolkit consts of; Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), qualifications framework, role profiles, redeployment service, knowledge bank, job space. In addition, the team are also responsible for the Technology in Business Fast Stream (TiB).

SFIA helps us to map out the skills we have and the skills we need and the qualifications framework helps to accredited those skills gained from professional experience. These both feed into the role profiles that describe the ideal model for staff to fulfil a position appropriately.

Once government has ideally skilled and qualified staff in the appropriate roles, then we need to ensure that this expertise is shared across and held within government. This is where the redeployment service, knoweldge bank, and job space come in. These are hosted on the Government IT Profession website http://it.civilservice.gov.uk

Government needs a strong resource of IT professionals and the Government IT Profession has provided a toolkit to enable those professionals to strengthen their careers. So what can government IT professionals do to help? What can we do to put ourselves in a position to go forward?

Firstly, know your skillset from:
- your current role
- your previous roles
- where these fit to SFIA
- your 10 strongest skills

Secondly, know your core competencies that can be evidenced from actiivities outside work or previous work.

Finally, take responsibility for your career. Know your current situation, the opportunities and threats. Keep your head up - do some horizon scanning and see where the business is going - sign up for Computer Weekly, it's FREE!. Invest now in your future career - don't expect to stay in the same department.

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Ask yourself a question...

2011-03-29T22:31:00.001+01:00

While I am on the subject of mentoring, here are a few choice questions and techniques for you to take a look at your situation and progress your career.

What do you want people to say about you?
What do you not want people to say about you?

meetings with your mentor; first inrtoductions, second boundary setting, third objective setting (what do you both want from the relationship), fourth initial feedback.

Do a career decision tree
Work backwards from a possible and desirable future. Hypothesise; future, present, past - especially if you are unhappy with your current situation.
Reflect on not just why you went to your new job but also why you left your old job. This will stop you being confined by what you may have perceived at the time as one-way gates.

Who is your ideal mentor?
Who can you grow with, develop with, understand and relate to?

What do you want to get from your mentor?
Once you have identified the answer to this question, let your mentor know what you want to achieve.

Can you get everything you need from just one person?
Multiple mentors can be useful.
It is IMPORTANT that your mentors are in a position to observe you.

Should your coach or mentor be male or female?
What is stopping you from contacting them right now?

Find yourself a mentor, establish how you want to present yourself, develop your emotional intelligence, build relationships, build networks, do a career decision tree.

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The Importance of Being Mentored

2011-03-29T22:17:00.001+01:00

At the Home Office they have allocated all of the Technology in Business Fast Streamers a mentor each. Six months ago I didn't appreciate the significance of this and today, dear Reader, I was clearly shown the reason why it is important to have a mentor, especially in the early stages of your career.

I was approached by my professional development manager, who asked me if I would like a mentor. I immediately jumped at the chance because I had been hunting for a mentor. I needed an insight into the advanced levels of my career and knew that a mentor could help show me more.

There is a big difference between Coaching and Mentoring, which I found out at an IntellectUK event on Wednesday 8 December 2010 with Jackie Elliott and Marina McGoldrick. Coaching is goal driven, whereas Mentoring should be mututally beneficial for both the mentor and the mentee. Mentoring is an open engagement that is usually industry, knowledge or skills specific and is relationship focused as opposed to being focused on outcomes of the relationship. This is where I have been extremely lucky. Purely by chance I met a manager who gave me some small tasks to do on the side of my main work. I was happy to help out and she seemed pleased with the first drafts of my work. When I was approached to become a mentee, I was really pleased when I was told that my mentor would be that enthusiastic manager.

Now, dear Reader, people who look for coaching are already confident & successful even before they are coached. Coaching is not remedial but accesses your strengths and develops self-awareness. However, mentoring is a soundboard for your reputation.

My first meeting with my mentor was focused on introductions and boundary setting for the relationship. What we could say to each other, what we couldn't disclose outside the relationship. What I could expect from and what I could offer to my mentor.

A mentoring relationship is heavily reliant upon the power of connections, business connections and personal connections. I am able to offer my mentor contacts and information from my network that she may not have direct access to and my mentor can offer me feedback.

Feedback is important because you MUST connect with people on a deeper level than just simple contact engagement. Just trading business cards or email addresses is not enough. You need to be able to open-up and be able to show your vulnerability, not just pay lip service to your mentor, your team, your colleagues.

The most recent meeting with my mentor has been an eye opener that I was not totally prepared for. We had built up a relatively firm relationship over four months or so. She had never been my line manager over that time but we had met up at work before and after the New Year in between our busy schedules.

So, after the IntellectUK Young Professionals Network event, "Mentoring and Coaching - why all the fuss?", and also a WIG Graduate Network event in January, I asked my mentor for feedback and I was instead given a double-edged question: What do you want people to think of you? What do you not want people to say about you?

It made me look at myself in a different way, through the eyes of my team and colleagues. Why is that important, dear Reader? Without fully appreciating how my team sees me, I can lose their respect for me. The team falters as a result and the project is less successful.

And that, dear Reader; is what happened to me today. I asked a team manager on my project what I thought to be a minor question. It must have been the way I said it or the timing but it was not received very well. I asked why we were doing something; why we were releasing something in a certain way. The question annoyed the team manager, who was clearly busy, and she told me as much.

This is the importance of being mentored. I considered how the team would see me as I reacted to this situation. I could feel adrenaline pounding through me has my pulse started to rise. I was ready to fight my point but knew that to "flip my lid" and let my brain become overloaded would be a very unprofessional thing to do.

I identified the emotion, gave it a name; anger. I calmed down and re-assessed the situation.

I don't want to be seen as hot-headed and unapproachable. I don't want to be seen as emotional and irrational. For a moment, while I tried to explain myself differently but failed, I lost the respect of my team. I could feel it. But I did not lose my cool.

You may not be able to see this connection, dear Reader. It did all happen in a flash and I did not pass the team feedback forms after the event to see how they matched up to my ideal model that I would like to present to my mentor.

Somehow pieces of the relationship that I have with my mentor and the lessons I am learning through professional seminars after work are making their way into my professional day and that for me, dear Reader, is The Importance Of Being Mentored.

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StorageOptions Scroll - review of an Android tablet

2010-12-29T03:26:00.001Z

The surprise present this Christmas was an Android tablet, StorageOptions (SO) Scroll tablet PC. Here's a review if you have been considering one of these.

The SO Scroll is a 7" tablet with a touch screen that runs the Android operating system. It is a convenient size, about the same size as a diary, which is very unobtrusive. I've already used it as a handy cocktail recipe reference. It was just as convenient as a hardcopy cocktail recipe book and did not get in the way like a laptop might.

The desire for an unlimited cocktail recipe reference that can be dynamically updated online was, dear Reader, not actually the main reason for my brother to get me a tablet PC this Christmas. It was a quick conversation that we had when I mentioned that I had 5 hours of spare time per day on my train commute to and from work when I could be doing something productive, like writing blog posts.

Besides making better use of my time, I also need to communicate better with friends and colleagues. My mobile handset uses a Symbian UIQ operating system and I have not found any good Twitter or Facebook clients for it. This has caused me to miss last minute messages with details to meet up with friends.

Missing these sorts of messages prevents me from targeting influencers with engaging assets to access platforms for conversation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUNntV8jdqM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

How does the SO Scroll match up to these needs, I hear you ask, dear Reader? Does it enable me to recover my brand reach through dynamic reactive organic engagement?

It has five key disadvantages that I have found over the last 3 days
1. Wifi only
The SO Scroll is wi-fi only so you can only access the Internet and run those all important Twitter and Facebook clients when you are at a wi-fi hotspot. More expensive tablet PCs (iPad or Samsung Tab) can access the Internet over a 3G mobile connection.

2. Resistive touch screen, rather than capacitive
The SO Scroll has a touch screen (YES! Love touch screens. So useful when you have a mouse and sometimes handy even when you do) that uses resitive, rather than capacitive. Resistive means you have to push on it pretty decisively. This is the same tech used on my Sony Ericsson w960 mobile phone that can be a frustration sometimes. More expensive touch screens use capactive tech, like on the iPhone, that can support multi-touch pinch zoom etc.

3. No Java support
The SO Scroll has no Java support so some software and websites will not operate as they were designed.

4. Android 2.1, unupgradable, so no Flash support
The SO Scroll runs the 2.1 version of Android that does not fully support Flash. This means that you won't be able to use it to play the miriad of free online Flash games. The SO Scroll website FAQ makes it clear that it will not be possible to upgrade it to v2.2 Android. I must be very clear about Flash support. The packaging states Flash as a feature but I think this is only for FLV movies played from memory. Several websites that use Flash (such as BBC News) do not open correctly on the SO Scroll.

5. 800Mhz ARM11 processor
The SO Scroll uses an 800Mhz processor, which is a similar speed to the CPU that can be found in the Sony Ericsson Xperia x10 Mini. This means that it can be a little unresponsive when running a Twitter client, Facebook client, Yahoo client, Last.fm client streaming music, Blogger client, and web browser.

Having highlighted these cons, I have to say that the SO Scroll is impressive for an Android tablet available at under 150 pounds.

The SO Scroll can stream music online from Last.fm and write a blog post while running Twitter and Yahoo clients and receiving alerts. That stretches it and it crashes a few times but it can still be done.

The touch screen can be annoying, like any resistive touch screen. However, I cannot stand typing on touch screens and StorageOptions has a leather-look case cover accessory that has a keyboard, which uses the mini-USB on the Scroll. This is a really big advantage for the Scroll, in my opinion. The keyboard case makes the Scroll soooo easy to use!

Here are six good advantages
1. Photo and video camera
The SO Scroll comes with a camera for photos and video. This should be suitable as a QR Reader and also for some low quality video blogging on YouTube but I have not had chance to test it for that yet.

2. Long battery life
The SO Scroll has an impressive battery life that lasts at least 4 hours with several clients running simultaneously.

3. Headphone jack
The 3.5mm jack on the SO Scroll really makes it useful as an MP3 player.

4. Nice design
The SO Scroll is a very convenient size and good-looking design with good, intuitive hard buttons. It is easy to see it as a replacement for a diary and also as a digital photoframe.

5. Plenty of memory
The SO Scroll has 2Gb memory built-in plus microSD card slot expandable to 32Gb that is more than adequate for my music collection.

6. Responsive accelerometer
The SO Scroll responds quickly when it is rotated. I recently had a chance to try the latest Symbian 3 mobile handset, Nokia N9, and I am more impressed with the SO Scroll in this respect.

In conclusion, the StorageOptions Scroll is impressive for an Android tablet PC available at under 150 pounds but it is wi-fi only, has no Java support, and is only Android 2.1 that cannot fully support Flash plug-ins for webpages.

I have yet to try transfering videos and music from my PC onto the SO Scroll. I'm hoping it is simple but I'll update you, dear Reader, on how successful it is in due course.

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pushing the envelope

2010-12-28T02:08:00.001Z

Compared to last year, this Christmas sees a number of changes for me, both professional and personal, which necessitate me to "push the envelope".

At the moment at work we are being asked to provide better for less; better services and efficiency improvements whilst still delivering over 20% spending cuts. This makes us go to the limits of what is technologically and physically possible - pushing the envelope.

Technologically we are getting the most out of what we have and sharing services where appropriate, which is a slight departure from what I was doing at my previous job last year before the cuts, where we were delivering service improvements and business change but not always sharing services.

My job as a Technology in Business Fast Streamer is pushing the envelope for me physically. This Christmas I need to do coursework, revise for an exam, write an essay, and read technical material. The coursework is for the Postgraduate Certificate in I.T. Professional Practice through the Open University that is part of professional development at work. The exam is for PRINCE2 Practictioner certification that is also part of professional development at work. The essay and reading material are for projects that I'm involved with professionally. Fitting it all in will be a physical challenge for me, which is totally different compared to last year when I had a clear break from thinking about work.

So, dear Reader, how am I pushing the limits of what is technologically and physically possible in my personal lifestyle, I hear you ask? Well, last year I had a 25 minute walk to work in the morning. Now I am getting used to a two and a half hour commute, door-to-door, each way every weekday.

This is pushing the limit of what is physically possible for me. I am torn between working in London and living in my beachfront appartment. So, dear Reader, alas I must move to the Big Smoke because I would like to spend more time with friends and less time in a relationship with British Rail.

What is the technological limit for me personally? My PC at home is 8 years old and showing signs of strain as the minimum requirement of modern technology (not even the latest, state-of-the-art technology) passes beyond the capabilities of my ShuttlePC still running XP.

Meanwhile my mobile phone is over two years old. There have been a number of significant improvements to phone technology over that time. Where the need for always-on Internet connection in your contract and 3G connectivity was rare, it is now a commonplace necessity. Hand in hand with unlimited mobile Internet, social networking now also pervades mobile devices.

For one reason and another I have not upgraded my handset. I am still using a Sony Ericsson w960 with a Symbian UIQ3 operating system. All mobile operating systems (Apple, Android, Palm, and the latest Symbian operating system) all have App stores. There are some apps for UIQ but unfortunately the latest apps are not being developed on that platform.

This means that my mobile handset is showing the signs of strain as I push it to its technological limit before it crashes; run a Blogger client, download emails, surf the web, upload photos onto Flickr and Tumblr, check Facebook and Twitter to keep up with friends and colleagues.

To push the envelope I had two solutions in mind; to upgrade to a Sony Ericsson Xperia x10 Mini Pro android mobile handset (250 pounds), or to splash out on a Sony Vaio z13 in carbon fibre (2500 pounds). However, it seems my brother and father may have found a middle option... StorageOption Scroll. Expect a review coming very soon...

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Close up with the 9 o'clock Tar Barrel in the square at Ottery St Mary 2010

2010-11-06T11:14:00.003Z

I visited my cousin in Devon and we watched the Tar Barrels in Ottery St Mary. Here is a video of the 9 o'clock Tar Barrel 2010.

better connected

2010-09-06T21:37:00.008+01:00

Being as prolific on the Web as I am, it makes sense for me to type something once and for it to be syndicated everywhere. For example, I use Twitter as a single port of call to quickly update my status across a number of networks; Facebook, MySpace, YahooPulse, ICQ, and Tumblr

I am not going to try to convince you to use Twitter, dear Reader. I am going to tell you how you can make your online time more efficient by being better connected. You may be reading this note on Facebook but that is not where I wrote it. It is actually imported automatically from my blog. Simples.

I never really understood the use of this until Vodafone told me that I could tweet by text for free (to begin with). It was great because I didn't have unlimited fast Internet access on my mobile. That's how it started. I wanted to update my Facebook status because most of my friends are spread far and wide and I don't get to see them often. I was already sending mass texts to try to organise new year's parties etc, and as Facebook became more popular so it made sense for me to use it instead of texting. I connected my Twitter account to Facebook and this enabled me to send out quick news to a wider audience quickly and easily from anywhere. I asked a friend how he did it and I in turn have passed this on to another mate. So if you want to link Twitter to Facebook then check out the easy tutorial.
http://www.ajvaynerchuk.com/how-to-link-twitter-to-facebook-a-twitter-tutorial-3/

You can link a lot more things to each other. A friend of mine recently posted a youtube video to his Facebook wall. Go to YouTube, watch a funny video, then press the share button, choose Facebook, wait for the share window to open, choose a thumbnail, press share again...

so many clicks! and why must a share it to just Facebook? I have old friends on Bebo, American friends on MySpace, and industry friends on Twitter. I want to share it with all of them. I also want to share the music that I listen to and the photos that I take with all my mates, not necessarily only with the ones in a single network. I can only do all of this quickly and easily because I have authorised their official website applications to my Facebook wall and, dear Reader, you can too.

Check out the apps you have already authorised on Facebook. Here are some official ones...
Bebo
FriendFeed
Last.fm
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Twitter

Other than their Facebook app, there are a number of websites that allow you to connect your account with them to Facebook. Some of these include
I Move You account settings
ICQ Edit Profile - Settings - Feeds Settings
YahooPulse Settings - Manage my linked accounts
YouTube Account Settings - Activity Sharing
Disqus settings - connections
Digg settings - connections
Tumblr Account - preferences
MySpace Account - sync

So what are you thoughts? Is it a good idea to authorise website apps to access your account and post things for you automatically? Does it save time and effort having things connected automatically? Do you feel it is a risk opening your info to third party software agents that you do not know what they are doing? Or is it just dangerous... you accidentally share a video from YouTube that your boss sees from your Twitter feed but you really really should only have shared the video with your best friends? (but this cannot really happen if you have your settings right, especially with Flickr photo security - top notch)

Future savings

2010-08-31T20:42:00.007+01:00

Looking into the future I'm already thinking about Christmas and it is still August (just)!!

In the Spring I went to one wedding at a luxury resort and this summer I have been to 3 weddings in Scotland. I was talking to the bride and groom each time about the sacrifices they have made in order for them to organise and most importantly afford their big day. This rang true in my mind because their weddings have collectively become my summer holiday. I couldn't afford to travel to all their weddings, stag parties, buy presents, etc. and also afford for me to have a summer holiday.

So now I am looking to the future. I have been really busy each weekend over the summer with birthday parties, stag parties, and weddings. Apologies to anybody who has wanted to see me but I have inconvenienced you by already being booked solid for 3 months! Looking at my diary I have some big things coming up and I am starting to not just book out my time for them all but to also see the costs mounting up like a tsunami wave gathering pace mid-ocean of the future but heading for the beach that I am standing on in the present. Am I the only one feeling like this?

In the immediate future there is my birthday and leaving party. This will be an expensive outing starting immediately after work, including dinner, entry to a club and drinks while I'm there. Then in the near future I'll be moving to a new job. I'm considering the effect this will have on my life, how much it could cost for me to adjust to a totally new lifestyle commuting to London for two hours each morning and back again for two hours in the evening. Not to mention the cost of the commute itself too.

So this brings me to the next big things coming up into the Short term future. Family birthdays and Christmas. Individually they do not look like a lot but I am trying to budget for it to fit into my new salary along side the commuting and paying off my birthday shebang!

Adding up all of these small things also makes me consider that for the bigger things I will have to save for. Like in the Medium term, say three to five years, I will likely want to move house (deposit and solicitors fees), holiday to Australia (to see friends and relatives), wedding (Yeah I'm single right now but who knows in 5 years!!) and the honeymoon to go with it.

After all of these things I am also looking at where my career will go in the Long term, about seven years to ten years. I'm hoping it'll be good despite the likelihood of a double-dip recession. So I am hoping to be able to buy a brand new car. Mainly because I would like the registration plate SM17 HAM (Smitham - geddit!).

Bearing my new job in mind, where my career may go, my aspirations, hopes of a family life and paying tuition fees, etc. I am trying to see how this can fit into my salary. Where does the money come from for all of this?

Here is the point of this ramble, if you have followed me so far, dear Reader, then here is your reward...
Scale this problem up. Suppose I am not alone. Suppose that I am one example of say, ooo... about the entire UK population. Their money has got to come from somewhere... THE GOVERNMENT'S MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEWHERE!?!
So when I read today that Ed Balls (Labour leadership candidate) is proposing spending £12bn of money that technically doesn't exist!!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/31/ed-balls-affordable-homes

It is a difference in borrowing. The UK borrowed less than it thought it would. That's like me not maxing out my overdraft and then spending my overdraft to the max.

Someone tell me if I am alone in this. Am I going crazy? How does the government do it and can the same mechanisms work for me too so I can buy Christmas presents, move home, pay for my honeymoon, pay tuition fees, and buy a brand new car.

Just a quick courtesy call

2010-08-14T12:12:00.001+01:00

On Wednesday I went to an All You Can Eat Curry night at a local restaurant in Albert Road Southsea. I wasn't massively hungry so only had a starter, salad, and Chicken Tikka Massala (CTM) Britain's most popular food. There was a lot of tasty looking food that I had paid to try but just didn't want. My mobile provider called me the following day to see how I was enjoying my contract. Later that day in the office we were discussing the texts that we pay for but just don't use. It occurs to me that the mobile companies have managed to get us used to an All You Can Eat business model where we are not actually that hungry. So here I am on a train bound for London thinking of all the different business models I pay into but don't actually make the most of. My electricity supplier, for example, gets me to pay a large sum every month irrespective of my usage but an assumption that I will use more in the Winter without any clear understanding or estimate of how much I will actually use. Your thoughts?

Making the most of now

2010-04-09T09:33:00.000+01:00

Following yesterday's successful test to make the most of the capabilities of my current mobile despite being tempted to get a new one, today I have decided to try to publish to my blog directly from my mobile. So far it is turning out OK. It is handy to blog when I have more than 140 characters to say that won't fit into a twitter post. However, it is annoying trying to write significant musings into a blog when you only have a telephone keypad and predictive text, which cannot spell blog or twitter. All the more reason to get the new x10 you might think but... Sony are bringing out the new Vivaz pro with keyboard. It's also got the Symbian operating system so it should be similar to my current w960. I'll have to check the spec more closely. In the comments to this blog post, please tell me your thoughts on Symbian vs Android.

upgrading mobile handsets

2010-04-08T20:55:00.001+01:00

Thursday morning's commute
Originally uploaded by maakusan

OK, so I've had my eye on the new Sony Ercisson Xperia X10 for quite sometime. Great phone and it comes with Android operating system, 8megapixel camera that does automatic face recognitions so you don't need to tag people in your photos it does it itself, oh and it's also got a 1Ghz snapdragon processor so it's fast as the proverbial.

but...

a friend of mine
http://www.myspace.com/162940578
when i got my current phone out he asked if it was mine. you see, it's black and he remembers me with my old white mobile.

the x10 comes in white

but...

only on Orange and they don't like me and I don't like them.

so while I am looking to import a white x10 handset from Japan I am trying to make the most of the phone that I have, my black sone ericsson w960i.

and i am actually really satisfied with how it is performing. this photo is A-MA-ZING! i took it with my phone while i was still sleepy on my commute to work. and it came out this good and i posted it straight online from the phone!

true, the x10 would have made it even easier for me to do all of this, would have automatically geo-tagged the photo too...
but look what my w960 managed! i'm chuffed to bits. it is making me think twice about forking out £500 for the new x10 in white. however, i am always reminded to get a new handset each time my w960 needs recharging, which is about 2, nearly 3, times a day now :(

could get a new battery instead but the new x10 is tempting.

in the comments to this blog post, please tell me of any experiences you may have had ever importing a handset from japan to the UK?

Yahoo! Webhosting limitations for CMS

2009-01-01T18:26:00.003Z

If you are trying to use Drupal on Yahoo! Webhosting, then I have some bad news for you.

The current versions of PHP and MySQL on Yahoo! Webhosting do not meet the required specification for many CMS.

I have checked the version information for MySQL and PHP on my maakusan.com domain on Yahoo! Webhosting :
PHP version 4.3.11
MySQL version 4.1.14

Drupal recommend :
PHP 5.2 or higher
MySQL 4.1 or higher for Drupal 6
MySQL 5.0 or higher for Drupal 7

Joomla recommend :
PHP
minimum version 4.3.x for Joomla v1.5
recommended version 4.4.7 for Joomla v1.5
optimum version 5.0.x series for Joomla v1.5

MySQL
minimum version 3.23.x or above for Joomla v1.5
recommended version 4.1.22 for Joomla v1.5
optimum version 5.0.x series for Joomla v1.5

CMSMadeSimple recommend :
PHP version 4.3+ (version 4.3.3+ required for pretty URL's)
MySQL versions 3.23 or higher

Yahoo! Small Business Support have informed me that they have no intention of upgrading the installations of PHP and MySQL on the server that hosts my domain. In addition, all of their servers are on the same versions of PHP and MySQL and therefore this problem cannot be overcome by moving my domain onto another server.

I also noted some key settings of the current PHP configuration directives on my Yahoo! Webhosting PHP installation :
register_globals: on;
session.save_handler: files
error_reporting set to 2036

This conflicts with the Drupal requirements :
register_globals: off;
session.save_handler: user
error_reporting set to E_ALL

Yahoo! Small Business Support have informed me that they cannot change these PHP configuration directive settings for individual accounts, which conflicts with some reports from other users.

In summary, you can bypass the Drupal 6 install script by resetting the register_globals directive but Yahoo! Webhosting does not meet the minimum requirements for Drupal 6 and above.

You can get Joomla v1.5 to run on Yahoo! Webhosting but it runs slow because Yahoo! Webhosting does not meet the recommended specification.

You can get CMSMadeSimple to run on Yahoo! Webhosting but only without pretty URL's.

I have been checking the requirements between Drupal, Joomla, and CMSMadeSimple because of the recent CMS Awards '08. I have been using CMSMadeSimple but I would like some additional features that means I need some quality hardcopy documentation, which is not available for CMSMadeSimple.

All of this means that I will now have to look into moving my domain from Yahoo! Webhosting onto a Drupal webhosting solution that will support the current and future versions of Drupal. I have already blogged further information about my experience installing CMSMadeSimple and trying to get it to use pretty URL's.

One final thing to mention is that Yahoo! Webhosting does not currently allow you to upload .htaccess files to your account, which unfortunately is one of the requirements of installing Drupal.

CMS Made Simple (CMSms) Pretty URLs

2008-05-30T17:18:00.007+01:00

I've finished and submitted my dissertation, completed my temporary contract at work, and started to set myself up as self-employed. All of these things mean that I have some time available to actually get to grips with CMSms and improve my online presence. Understandably this is a high priority for me now that I am self-employed. I will be able to use the Web as a marketing tool to potential clients.

Having successfully installed CMSms on my webhost's server there was some configuring that needed doing before I can get it going. Just like the installation process caused me problems on my Yahoo! server, so has the configuration steps.

All I wanted to do was have nice clean Web addresses (URL) for my pages. My dissertation project homepage should logically be
maakusan.com/msc
but the content management system that I have chosen turns out to churn out ugly URL. This is understandable given that it works from a MySQL database. If I create a new page, the database stores it away. When a Web browser goes for the page it has to wade through the database to find the page.
http://www.maakusan.com/index.php?page=msc

CMSms has two ways to clean the URL as explained in both the Installation/Optional Settings instructions and the Pretty URLs FAQ. mod_rewrite will make it look like
http://www.maakusan.com/msc/
BUT mod_rewrite requires the htaccess file to be edited on the web server. Yahoo does not allow clients to upload or edit their own htaccess file (Yahoo Small Business Help). So I can't use mod_rewrite.

The alternative way to clean up URL in CMSms is to use its internal mechanism. This does not need me to play with the htaccess file but only tidies the URL to look like
http://www.maakusan.com/index.php/msc

which is just not clean enough.

I have resolved to try to create redirect pages at clean URL that will point to the dirty URL.

In the meantime, if anybody does use CMSms on a Yahoo webhost package and they wish to try to have clean URL then you HAVE TO use the CMSms internal mechanism. Here are some steps to follow to make it happen.

Log into Yahoo Small Business.
Go to the Web Hosting Control Panel.
Go to the Manage tab.
Go to the File Manager.
Click on the edit button for the config.php file.
Scroll down the file to the URL Settings.
Change $config['internal_pretty_urls'] = false;
to read $config['internal_pretty_urls'] = true;
Press Save.
Log into your CMSms admin pages for your domain.
http://www.example.com/admin/
Go to Site Admin.
Go to Global Settings.
Next to Clear Cache:
press Clear.

That's it.

These 'simple' twelve steps took me too long to work out. I've spent three days trying to get this sorted. One major stumbling block was the fact that I deleted the index.php file.
DO NOT DELETE IT. You MUST KEEP the index.php provided with the CMSms installation. Otherwise none of your pages will be found. Dunno how it works. Don't ask. Just know that it will not work if you delete it. You can edit it from the original, but don't delete it. Even if you already have an index.html file setup and want to use that to start with... DON'T! Edit the DEFAULT Home page within CMSms to look like your index.html file.

In the meantime I did find out about Joomla and Drupal. These are two competitors to CMSms and to be honest I was very close to uninstalling the three installations that I have for CMSms and moving over to Joomla only because of the number of Joomla books that I found on Amazon.

If the redirect page idea does not work, then my last resort will have to be moving to Joomla.

Battlestar Galactica Card Game

2007-12-22T23:27:00.003Z

I had the bright idea of getting a Colonial deck of hexagonal cards as a Christmas present for a friend of mine. He's a fan of the latest Battlestar Galactica re-imagining (BSG-RDM) where the Viper pilot characters play a betting card game and it seemed like the perfect gift. However, it turns out there is no official product and the show's production team have not come up with any official rules for it. So I have done some research and have to blog it here before I forget. It is important to note that the card game in the original series (BSG-TOS) was called Pyramid but BSG-RDM has called it Triad. The names have been reversed with that of the basketball/rugby sport in the show.

There are two decks that purport to be Colonial cards. One of them is a replica of a licensed product and indicates the denominations of cards using the ancient Mayan numbering system with dots representing 1 and bars representing 5, as shown at Katarra8's ebay store. The other uses triangles only to indicate a hierarchy of cards, as shown on neweyestudio item BG-19. However, I have found evidence on Battlestar Wiki that the deck with Mayan numbering was actually used in a BSG-TOS Pyramid game. I have not found any evidence that the deck using the triangle numbering system is used in the show, BSG-TOS or BSG-RDM; again Battlestar Wiki has a screen capture of Helo, Starbuck, and Boomer playing Triad in BSG-RDM but this does not show the faces of the cards.

There are some rules online for the triangle numbering deck at battlestargalactica.com and wikipedia but the lack of hand possibilities does not correlate with the hands named in the show. The Mayan numbering deck comes with 5 card draw poker rules for use with the deck but 5 card does not sit well with the Colonial Battlestar Galactica atmosphere. 5 is a pentagon and the cards are hexagon, there are 12 colonies, pyramids and triangles - not base 5.

In conclusion, it is clear that the Battlestar Galactica card game, played by Starbuck, uses a Mayan numbering deck but it is not a variant of 5 card draw poker. Therefore it must be a variant of single deck six card one draw poker with 4 jokers and hands including straights of 3 and 5 cards, called '3 on a run' and '5 on a run'. I have taken the information about hand possibilities from BSG-TOS, BSG-RDM, battlestargalactica.com, wikipedia, and Katarra8 together with the probabilities of hand combinations from a Michael Keller review of Jeff Cross' six-card draw poker and applied them to a single Colonial deck of Mayan numbering hexagonal cards to come up with 'Rules For Triad: a re-imagining'.

I printed off a batch on 90gsm paper and cut the corners off and it looks great! Hopefully it plays well too, but the inclusion of '3 on a run' increases the hand possibilities and could make it daunting and cumbersome. However, I feel that herein lies the skill of a game requiring the nerves of steel that only Colonial Viper pilots have. Comments on these rules are always welcome, email me. I have noticed a few extra points that could do with adding, like the hand summary doesn't show those that are all the same Color, but such matters can be included in rule revisions as and when new features arise during the course of the show. Here's hoping that the BSG-RDM production team come up with some official rules and a licensed product (deck, cubits, glossy fan material) becomes available soon.

Screen-scraping vs Information Extraction

2007-12-14T16:34:00.000Z

There are many possible methods of text conversion and one such technique is screen-scraping. The primary use of screen-scraping software is migrating information from one computer system onto another by reading data from specific fields in the legacy system’s user interface and making the data available as objects.

It is possible to apply screen-scraping to Web documents, however its disadvantages make it useful only under specific circumstances. Screen-scraping techniques identify specific sections within single documents and extract the data contained within each section.

This is useful when the documents’ structure and layout are uniform and formally controlled, i.e. the sections are structured very clearly in a table, for example, and the layout of the table is controlled by a content management system that ensures each page is presented in a uniform style.

Cases where this would be of use are; extracting article headlines from a single newspaper’s homepage, or extracting book titles from individual item pages on a Web based bookstore, like Amazon.co.uk, because each item page is presented in a controlled uniform layout. However, the same techniques will not be portable onto another newspaper’s homepage where the headline sections may be structured differently and nor will they be applicable to any other online bookstore because the layout of item descriptions will not be the same as Amazon’s style.

This makes screen-scraping software portability more difficult because it necessitates modification for use with any documents other than the original design. Screen-scraping is also a high maintenance approach because it requires modification to cope with any changes to the original documents; if Amazon changes their presentation style then screen-scrapers targeting the original interface will have to be updated.

Although the content of academic staff homepages appears to be similar, and therefore must be governed by departmental guidelines, nevertheless it is empirically evident that their structure and layout is not uniform or formally controlled in the same way as the Web pages of their home institution. It is clear then that the domain of your project will affect your choice to implement a screen-scraping approach.

In addition, screen-scraping software does not include tasks such as co-reference recognition (CORC) that involves more sophisticated programming techniques, which make use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) practices to analyse document content and extract relevant information. CORC determines whether a piece of data refers to an item that has already been extracted. For example, screen-scraping software would not be able to determine that a professor named on his homepage is the same professor named on the homepage of a project that he is involved with. Such AI techniques are covered by Information Extraction (IE) that includes two traditions; Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Wrapper Induction (WI).

Example NLP approaches; GATE and Monrai Cypher.

Example WI approaches; WIEN, Stalker, RoadRunner, and BWI

Let Me Tell You A Story about a kid named Spidey

2007-12-11T13:35:00.002Z

Thanks to Facebook I was sent an update that my cousin has left a group "If 100,000 people join, my wife will let me name my second child Spiderpig". This turns out to be a practical joke by Oli Young and demonstrates the power of modern viral marketing.

read more | digg story

Signing up for more blogs

2007-12-08T21:18:00.000Z

So, the more I research my dissertation the more I find that the people I have emailed for information keep cropping up. I read more articles and the same names keep appearing. I find out about a conference and the delegates names ring so many bells, then it turns out that they are the same people that I emailed for information ages ago. It seems that the Semantic Web industry experts are a very small group of people - and I am trying to become one of them. Not a tall order at all, trying to get onto the same playing field as PhD graduates, university lecturers, company directors. Easy as pie.

I have found more ontologies that work with FOAF. One of which is BIO by Ian Davis and David Galbraith. Some more reading on Ian Davis led me to Technorati. Not sure whether Technorati is like linkedin or like blogger. We shall see by claiming this blog in the name of my Technorati Profile.

Open Source Content Management System (CMS)

2007-12-05T17:56:00.001Z

Now has come the time for me to extend my online presence. The development of my website has been sidelined as a hobby because I have been focussing on the graphics. Each time I have attempted to sit down and develop some sort of content for the site I am put off by the amount of work required to produce a new page in the same design. I am constantly asking myself questions about the design I hope to achieve and which computing language to learn and technology to implement in order to best achieve my design goals.

No longer need I be so worry. A friend has recommended me to use CMS Made Simple (CMSMS). I have used EasySite at work to manage the content of departmental webpages and I looked into purchasing a CMS, like RedDot, but these are both corporate solutions with a 5 figure pricetag. I needed a CMS to make it easy to generate new webpages and manage existing pages on my own site. Friends of mine have asked me to create websites for them in the past and I have been put off with the effort involved with initial design, HTML editing, and continual maintenance. With any luck, CMSMS will fit the bill - just design some graphics, settle on a stylesheet, arrange the layout, make a few templates - then hey presto! Instant website, as easy as posting to Blogger

I had a little bit of trouble setting it up on my Yahoo! Web Host using Dreamweaver MX to FTP it onto the site. I will post some info here in the hope that it will make the process easier for me in the future and also other CMSMS users uploading pages with Dreamweaver onto a Yahoo! server. These steps are taken from the CMSMS Quick Install via FTP documentation and I have included the solutions to the problems that I encountered.

Download the latest stable release.
No problem. Saved the zip file to my computer.
Unzip the file.
Unzip the file to the main folder of your website on your computer. You may already have some sub-folders with the same names as the CMSMS ones. I had to rename my 'images' folder as 'graphics' and then change the existing references in my index.html file.
Upload to your host.
- Open the 'index.html' file of your website. I have already setup Dreamweaver with the FTP settings to upload stuff to my Yahoo! Web Hosting service.
- Go to Window>Site and this opens a taskbar for FTP upload.
- Click on the 'Connect to remote host' button.
- Choose 'Local View' from the dropdown list. All of the unzipped CMSMS folders should be shown in the file list alongside any others of your website. If not, then you need to copy them into this folder.
- Choose the main folder in the list and press the Put File(s) button.
- A message will popup asking whether you are sure that you want to put the entire website. Say yes.
This took my Internet connection ages. I went away and made lunch, ate it, watched the BBC News, nipped out to the shops, talked to a friend on the phone, then came back and it was done.
FTP permissions
This was a tricky one. First of all, Dreamweaver MX does not have an easy facility to change the permissions on files via FTP. Quick point of note - Dreamweaver MX 2004 version 7 and above DO have an extension that allows you to do it, but I am running Dreamweaver MX 6, so I had to do it the hard way.
Make sure the 'Connect to remote host' button is still on (the little 'light' should be green and the cables plugged together) and go to the FTP Log. To find this, Go to Window>Results>FTP Log. To change the necessary file permissions you have to type the following script into the FTP Command one line at a time.
site chmod 775 /tmp/templates_c
site chmod 775 /tmp/cache
site chmod 775 /uploads
site chmod 775 /uploads/images
site chmod 775 /modules

After each line, press Return on your keyboard and the following message should appear in the box below the FTP Command:
site chmod 775 /tmp/templates_c
200 CHMOD command successful.
Config.php file
Go to Start>Programs>Accessories
Press Notepad.
Go to File>Save As...
Browse to the folder of your website on your computer.
Name the file config.php
Make sure the 'Save as type' dropdown list shows 'All Files'
Press OK.

Back in Dreamweaver with the 'Connect to remote host' button still on, go to the FTP upload task bar Window>Site.
Choose 'Local View' from the dropdown list.
Choose the config.php file that you have just saved.
Press the Put File(s) button.
Go to the FTP Log again.
Type this into the FTP Command
site chmod 666 /config.php

and you should see a message in the box below the FTP Command
site chmod 666 /config.php
200 CHMOD command successful.
PHP Database
Go to your Yahoo! Web Hosting Control Panel
Go to the Create&Update tab.
Click on the MySQLDatabase in the Other Site Building and Editing Tools section.
This will allow you to setup the MySQL database features of your Web Hosting. Then you will need to install the phpMyAdmin facility.
When prompted to do so, create a new directory to install the phpMyAdmin, this will make it easier for your to access the facility later.
Choose the username cms_user as in the CMSMS instructions.
Choose a memorable password. This does not have to be the same as in the CMSMS instructions, but you will need it later.
After it is installed it should log you in as cms_user automatically.
Click in the 'Create new database' box and type cms.
Press 'Create'. The dropdown list that says 'Collation', is not important.
In the frame on the left hand side there is a HOME button (looks like a house) that takes you back to the main phpMyAdmin page.
Click on 'Privileges'
There should now be two users; cms_user and yroot. Yroot is the default Yahoo! user that has full permissions. You need to give cms_user full permissions too.

My thanks to cmsuser123 on the CMSMS Forums for the instructions on how to do this. Those refer to a problem in Step 10, but if you do this now, you will not have that problem.

In the phpMyAdmin Privileges page, on the same row as the yroot user, click on the symbol of a human with a pencil.
Scroll down and change the password to another memorable password. Keep this password for future reference.
Now log out of phpMyAdmin.
Log back in again, but this time with the username yroot.
Use the password that you just changed for yroot.
Go to the Privileges page.
On the same row as cms_user, click on the symbol of a human with a pencil.
In the 'Edit Privileges' section, Check All Global Privileges.
Press the Go button.
Go to www.yourwebsite.com/index.php
Begin to Install CMSMS
No problem. Everything was ticked so I pressed Continue.
Admin Account Information
Choose a username for you to access the editing side of CMSMS.
Enter your email address.
Choose another memorable password. This is not the same as your email password. Nor the cms_user password for phpMyAdmin. Nor the yroot password for phpMyAdmin.
Press Continue.
Database Information
This is the same information from cmsuser123 on the CMSMS Forums; the "Database Host Address" should be changed from "localhost" to "MySql".
Database name should be the one you made earlier, cms.
Username should be cms_user
Password should be the phpMyAdmin password you gave for cms_user.
Leave the other information as it is default and press Continue.
Installation Complete
Write down the CMS Document root, the path to the Document root and the Querystring.
Press Continue.
Config.php file security
Back in Dreamweaver with the 'Connect to remote host' button still on, go to the FTP Log again. Window>Results>FTP Log
Type this into the FTP Command
site chmod 444 /config.php

and you should see a message in the box below the FTP Command
site chmod 444 /config.php
200 CHMOD command successful.

Go to your Yahoo! Web Hosting Control Panel
Go to the Manage tab.
Click on the File Manager.
Click on the bin image for the install subfolder.
Confirm deletion.
_______________
***IMPORTANT***
DO NOT DELETE index.php
Installation complete!!
You can log into CMSMS from www.yourwebsite.com/admin/
The username is the Account Admin Username from Step 9.
The password is the one from Step 9.
These should both have been emailed to the address you gave in Step9.

This is as far as I have gotten with CMSMS. Fingers crossed that it meets my needs. I have to get my MSc project online as soon as possible.

Information Extraction (IE) implemented in Java

2007-12-05T13:06:00.000Z

I found two more articles regarding Information Extraction (IE) that look really useful
Sheffield University Natural Language Processing Group's Information Extraction User Guide (2nd Ed.)
and
Cowie J., Lehnert W., and Wilks Y.(1996), "Information Extraction", Communications of the ACM, Vol. 39, Iss. 1, pp.80-91

After I have gone through these I am also going to be looking at GATE as Graham Higgins suggested.

Previously I had discounted GATE because I felt it concentrated on Natural Language Processing (NLP) rather than Wrapper Induction (WI), but I need to look into this more. I had been looking into Jena, but it looks like Jena will only be able to deal with the Template Element (TE) production part of an IE system. I got this clarification from the Jena Development Group

More info on Jena can be found at
http://www.hpl.hp.com/semweb/tools.htm
and
href="http://jena.sourceforge.net/

More info on GATE can be found at
http://gate.ac.uk/
and
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gate

Weatherboy

2007-07-23T23:08:00.000+01:00

Holy moley!!!

Robin told me that he did a Google search for "glasgow weatherboy" and he found a piece they did killing off the weather-presenter-character I did on the University TV station, GUST!!

click here and check it out for yourselves

Honourable Ninja Farm

2007-07-11T00:15:00.001+01:00

I saw the 1st episode of Honourable Ninja Farm on Weebls Stuff. It reminded me of Brett and his honey bees.

It's a Weebl cartoon about the everyday tails of ordinary farming ninja folk.

Written by Bizunth, Weebl, Skoo
Animated by Drewmo, Peabo, WeeblSound by Weebl

I pressed the Digg It button again so you can read the digg story too.

RSS Feeds

2007-07-10T18:41:00.000+01:00

Now I've managed to setup syndication of this blog to Yahoo!360 and MSNSpaces. If only it were possible with all the other social networking sites I've signed up to. One blog syndicated everywhere else, that would be nice.

Blogging from Digg now too.

2007-06-25T14:14:00.001+01:00

This is a post to my blog from Digg. It means that I can find something on the web. "Digg" it, and keep a link to it, and make a note of why it's so essential - AND also keep all this info in one handy place on my blog. Although ideally after blogging it from digg, the post does need a touch of editing.

So, G put me onto this short animation, CSI:Pie-ami. It's a CSI spoof, Weebl and Bob take on a certain ginger.
intro music : Fat Girls - Debasser

Weebls Stuff is pretty good at the best of times, but this spoof of one of my favourite TV shows is absolutley OUTSTANDING! Makes me wanna buy the CSI:Miami soundtrack!

You can find more info about what people think of the animation from the digg story.

Flickr

2007-06-23T01:42:00.001+01:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

signing up for more and more blogs

2007-06-20T15:53:00.001+01:00

yet another blog for me to sign into.

no probs. makes it more exciting for people to chase out info about me.

for those people who have made it this far through the forest of blogs that i have, i will gift you with current info about where i am in my life and what i am doing with myself.

i am sitting at home trying to write my MSc project. i seem to have far too much reading material. it is getting harder and harder to string it all together into a coherent discussion that will lead to a software prototype.

as part of the research i pulled out a thesis by Ellen Spertus. a quick goggle search for her lead me to blogspot... hence my newest blog.