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December 28, 2005

Where is all of my data?

Just pondering a small question that may have an enormous impact to our lives in the future. Where is all of my data?

My Personal Laptop
Old Desktop Presented to my Seven Year Old Son
Online Web Site
This Blog
Work Computer
Cell Phone
Pager
Magnetic Stips on Cards
PDA (Very Old One)
5 Email Accounts
Digital Camera
Burned CD Backups
Printed Information Content Laying Around Everywhere
Business Partner Information Systems
Concise and Sub-Concise Brain Parts

More importantly, how will all of this content be integrated or will these islands of information stay separate? Several months ago, I arrived at the Airport and attempted to check in but I needed my frequent flyer number. I dug deep into the memory cells and the trash bin was empty. I opened my PDA and unfortunately the battery had gone dead. I could have opened the laptop or simply utilize my credit card which is cross indexed. While my information containers may not always be reliable, they do provide some relief due to their redundancy. Will this get worse as time moves on?

Posted by Todd at 6:01 PM | Comments (2)

December 23, 2005

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to Everyone...

Posted by Todd at 3:06 PM

December 20, 2005

Metadata's Annual Plan

Each year, Information Technology projects move from integration or implementation to was is called ongoing. However, ongoing does not mean a lack of innovation, integration or growth. The annual plan communicates to the leadership your plan of attack for the coming year.
Metadata's Annual Plan

Posted by Todd at 7:01 PM

December 19, 2005

Search Sucks

The localized search engine sucks on most web sites including my own. I want to find information my way, your way, our way, not the web designers way. Grrrrrrrrrr. On several occasions this weekend I was searching for products and couldn’t find anything with the poor excuse for a search engine. For example, I wanted to get on Realtor.com and locate land that’s for sale with 2 hours of our current residence. Sounds simple: Show me all of the land only sales within 120 miles of my zip code. Nope, if you can get the Land Only option to work, your required to key in the city. But I don’t care what city. Actually, the realtor search engine was the best on out there which isn’t saying much. The search community needs an enema.

Note to self: When your search engine does not work, your revenue will be impacted.... Negatively

Posted by Todd at 12:43 PM

December 13, 2005

Welcome to the New View of Metadata

Excellent article in the Business Integration Journal (November/December, 2005) by Michael Blechar. The title of the article is What Metadata is and why you should care. Michael is the Gartner expert that works on metadata and until this article mainly focused on the traditional view of metadata. However seems to have seen the light since he defines metadata as:

Metadata is information regarding the characteristics if any artifact, such as name, location, perceived importance, quality or value to the enterprise, and its relationships to the other artifacts that an enterprise has deemed worth managing.

Bravo, I could not have said it better…

Posted by Todd at 11:38 AM | Comments (2)

December 12, 2005

Poor Internet Search Engines

Not sure why, but I have been frustrated with online search engines. I did a search on the Microsoft product site looking for the Mapping Software called Streets and Trips. I tried Map, Maps, Street, Streets, and nothing seemed to work. I finally used the hierarchal listing of the software to locate what I was looking for. We are also struggling to get search right at work and something needs to be done on the poor metadata and or poor search engines used within the web applications.

Posted by Todd at 12:26 AM