Oracle gives OpenOffice.org to Apache

According to a June 1 post on ZD Net by David Meyer, "Oracle has ceded control of the OpenOffice.org code base to the Apache Software Foundation Incubator project." This opens up some interesting possibilities for universities and others looking to reduce their dependence on proprietary software. According to Meyer:

OpenOffice.org is the most popular free productivity suite, and a major rival to Microsoft Office. The software giant said it was 'donating' the open-source code so as to "demonstrate its commitment to the developer and open source communities".

If folks look at OpenOffice.org they may find it offers all the features they need without having to deal with licensing fees and complex activation schemes.

Adobe CS5 is coming, you should be there

Monday is the launch for Adobe's new version of creative suite; CS5. This is way more exciting to me than the launch of a new Apple or Microsoft Operating System. Here is a page where you can register for the Monday launch event and learn about new features in CS5.

IBM sent letter regarding purchase of SPSS

Dear SPSS Customer:
We are pleased to announce that IBM has completed the acquisition of SPSS Inc. As we mark this milestone, we would like to confirm our continued commitment to your success, and to highlight the benefits resulting from this acquisition.

SPSS will become part of IBM’s Business Analytics and Process Optimization organization. Your current SPSS account and support teams will continue to serve you. SPSS business partners will also continue to serve your needs through consultation, implementation, fulfillment and support, and will be invited to join the IBM Business Partner program.

For decades, IBM has been focused on providing the underlying information infrastructure to support business intelligence and performance management solutions. This includes databases and data warehouses to manage data, information integration and master data management to establish accurate and trusted information, as well as various analytic capabilities. With the addition of SPSS, IBM intends to further help customers solve new business challenges and meet the demand for more sophisticated, real-time uses of information.

SPSS provides a comprehensive predictive analytics portfolio that includes data collection, text and data mining, and advanced statistical analysis and predictive solutions, helping customers predict future events and proactively act upon insight to drive better business outcomes.

IBM intends to support your investments in SPSS by leveraging IBM’s world-class technology resources to deliver innovative solutions and expanded value. Building on a tradition of client success and satisfaction, IBM plans to leverage its extensive global resources to enhance and expand your service and support offerings, both directly and through business partners.

We’re very excited about the future of this important new relationship, and we look forward to continuing to provide innovative products and services for your business. For more information, please visit IBM online.

Sincerely,

Jack Noonan, CEO, SPSS Inc.

Deepak Advani, Vice President, Predictive Analytics, IBM Business Analytics & Process Optimization

Windows Seven Review

Network World has posted a good Windows 7 Review by Harry Mccracken, PC World. Mccracken said:

Windows 7 is hardly flawless. Some features feel unfinished; others won't realize their potential without heavy lifting by third parties. And some long-standing annoyances remain intact. But overall, the final shipping version I test-drove appears to be the worthy successor to Windows XP that Vista never was.

Faculty and staff who are on the SJSU wired network and who are interested in trying Microsoft Windows 7 should contact their desktop support team. If you do not know how to do that create a ticket and we will give you information at the San Jose State University Help Desk.

SPSS not currently supported on Snow Leapord

Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" (the just released current version) does not support SPSS 17.1 (the current version we have at SJSU.) SPSS has been renamed PASW Statistics. Reportedly, SPSS/PASW Statistics is not scheduled to be supported in Snow Leopard until PASW Statistics 18 is released. I don't anticipate we will have PASW Statistics 18 until sometime in Spring 2010, if past precedent holds. SPSS/PASW Statistics system requirements are pretty well spelled out. We get new versions of SPSS/PASW Statistics well after they are released. SPSS shipped SPSS 17 to SJSU less than 6 months ago.

We do ask our customers to check the system requirements of the software, which we show them in writing, before we sell them install media. We will try to be even more vigilant about doing this.

This is not unusual. SPSS/PASW Statistics is not usually quick to support new operating systems, and PASW Statistics is not big enough for Apple to tailor its OS software to work with it.

We do not currently support Snow Leopard at the SJSU help desk. We do not even have it yet. I anticipate we will be (officially) supporting Mac OS X 10.6 and Windows 7 in the Spring. But, that is not my decision to make!

BTW - I suggest folks not install new operating systems on production computers until they are at least 10.x.3 for Macs or SP 1 for Windows OS versions. Then, they should only install a new OS if they have a business need to, and they are sure their applications are compatible. IMHO the main use of an OS is to allow users to access applications and applications to efficiently access system resources, the rest is fluff. The best thing an OS can do, in my opinion, is to get out of my way! (But then, I liked the spartan Windows 2000 interface.)

BTW #2 - I am going to be out of the office until September 8. If help desk clients want issues addressed as quickly as possible, please do one of the following:

• Call us at (408) 924-2377 during our normal business hours. Our business hours are the only times we are open and/or are able to address issues. Our business hours are here.
  
• Or, go to our ticket portal and submit an incident ticket into our ticketing system. Our ticket portal is here.
  

Have a great holiday weekend:
~Steve

Technorati Tags: Apple, SPSS, ssloansjca

Free VM Ware?

Do you want to run Windows on your Mac but don't want to buy Parallels or VMWare Fusion? There is a free program called VirtualBox that is Open Source that reportedly does the same thing. According to their Web site:

VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction.

It is on my list of things to try out. As companies lay off talented programmers expected that pool of talent to find expression supporting Open Source projects like this.

Technorati Tags: VirtualBox, Open Source, Apple, ssloansjca

Easy Wi-Fi for SJSU Wireless

A company called Devicescape has created an iPhone application that is really, really cool. It is called Easy Wi-Fi and it works great on our not so easy SJSU wireless network. UPDATE --> This program is also available for Macs and PCs!

What does this program do?
Simple, think about how you have to log onto the campus network. Assuming your computer finds the SJSU wireless network you then have to open your iPhone web browser. Then, you enter in your SJSUOne user name and password user credentials. It is that part that is the pain, because with a hand held device like an iPhone you have to do the two finger zoom thing and then type in your user credentials. That is a real annoyance.

To add to this annoyance if you make a mistake, your log-in session times out, your device goes to sleep and/or you roam to another wireless access point you have to repeat the process. This where Devicescape's Easy Wi-Fi comes in.

This little three dollar iPhone app has settings for tons of wireless networks in the country including SJSU's.

UPDATE --> This program is also available free for Macs and PCs and costs $1.99 for iPhone and iPodtouch! (That is cheap and well worth it. It works great @ SJSU.)

Here is how it works. You enter in your user credentials into the application then it, and not your web browser, logs onto the SJSU wireless network. (Yes, you will have to change your password in Devicescape's Easy Wi-Fi software when you change your SJSUOne password.)

It just works! It makes it look like our wireless network is an open network. It transparently mymicks how a Web browser works and it is very cool. The most publicized use for this product is using it for logging onto ATT Wi-Fi at Starbuck's. This is fine but I am at work a lot more than I am at Starbucks!

This is the first iPhone app I paid money for. They have versions for PC's, and Macs available as well. I have not tested these. UPDATE ---> I have tested it on Macs and it works great!

More is on their Web site. This could make a lot of people at SJSU's lives easier. UPDATE --->This will make a lot of people at SJSU's lives easier.

This is a killer app!!!!

Technorati Tags: iphone, sjsu, San Jose State University, devicescape, Easy Wi-Fi, Apple, ssloansjca

Microsoft Windows Azure

Microsoft's new OS for cloud computing

According to Wikipedia, "Windows Azure is the name of the upcoming cloud-based operating system ("cloud" is a metaphor for the Internet) being developed by Microsoft, announced by Ray Ozzie at the Microsoft PDC on October 27, 2008.

Microsoft's Web site for Azure says, "The Azure Services Platform provides a wide range of internet services that can be consumed from both on-premises environments or the internet."

Google, and the range of Google applications, have long pointed out that the future of software is the cloud. Empowered by always on portable connected devices, like the iPhone and the Android mobile device platform. Phones and portable computers are merging into a mobile computing platform that is neither a mere phone nor a laptop computer and is more than both. Wired together, using high speed telcom technologies like 3G, and using real-time Web technologies like Jabber and Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). The Web is becoming more synchronous and cloud computing is a huge part of that.

Installing software is increasingly becoming a thing of the past. There will be no need. Our applications will be in the cloud! All users will need to do is to be there. The good news is they will be. They already are.

It will be interesting to see where Microsoft goes with Azure. Educators need to watch this type of technology. It will likely be mainstream by the time today's freshmen graduate. If we are not there, where will our students be? We gotta get our heads beyond e-mail and Web pages and into and wrapped around; the cloud.

Technorati Tags: Windows, Microsoft, azure, android, iPhone, Cloud Computing, j-school, ssloansjca

SPSS at SJSU

Tech Tips: What is SPSS and how do I get it?

SPSS is a computer program used for statistical analysis. SPSS (originally, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is among the most widely used programs for statistical analysis in social science. It is used by market researchers, health researchers, survey companies, government, education researchers, marketing organizations and others. In addition to statistical analysis, data management (case selection, file reshaping, creating derived data) and data documentation (a metadata dictionary is stored with the data) are features of the base software. SPSS is developed by SPSS Inc. The latest release is 16.0 (Win), 16.0 (Mac), and 16.0 (Linux). It has a proprietary license.

SJSU has a site license for SPSS and all SJSU Faculty, Staff and Students can use it. Install media and activation codes are provided by the SJSU Help Desk for the latest Mac and Windows versions to university students, faculty and staff when they verify their standing with the university. There may be a modest cost for the installation media. For more details contact the University Help Desk at 408/924-2377 or by e-mail at helpdesk@sjsu.edu.

The SPSS Web site is:

http://www.spss.com

More information is here:

http://www.sjsu.edu/helpdesk/software/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPSS

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca

How we use Google Docs

Tech Tips: Google Docs and the Help Desk

About Google Docs
According to Wikipedia, "Google Docs is a free, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application offered by Google. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. Google Docs combines the features of two services, Writely and Spreadsheets, which were merged into a single product on October 10, 2006. A third product for presentations, incorporating technology designed by Tonic Systems, was released on September 17, 2007."

Google Apps @ SJSU
According to a Web page maintained by the SJSU Web Services team (at the time of this writing), "San Jose State University is in the early stages of using Google Apps Education Edition. Currently only faculty and staff are given access. We hope to include students at a later time, when technical challenges around associating student email addresses with Google Apps is resolved." Currently this is being called, "Google Apps @ SJSU".

Known Issues
There are issues using Google Docs if you are intending on inviting university employees into collaboration with people with non-sjsu.edu e-mail accounts. A person with an sjsu.edu e-mail account cannot be invited into collaboration using Google's own brand of Google Docs. We have found, at the help desk, that the best bet is for all parties involved in collaboration to have e-mail accounts that are not in the sjsu.edu domain. We have found, Gmail accounts work best. If you have an sjsu.edu e-mail address and you try to access Google's own Google Docs after being invited by a person not from an sjsu.edu account, you will be forced into an SJSUOne authentication. Even then, you will not be able to get to the document you have been invited to edit. The best bet is to stay off the reservation, for now!

Help Desk Google Docs Work Flow
At the university help desk we use Google Docs extensively for preparation of documentation. This way teams can collaborate on our documentation easily. Because we invite students to collaborate on our documentation we are using the Google's own version of Google Docs. Our work around has been to ask our help desk entire staff to get Google Gmail accounts and to issue invitations to the Google Gmail account for the users we wish to invite to collaborate on the document. We may, as an option, invite them via a seperate e-mail to their sjsu.edu or other e-mail address telling them, "please check your Gmail e-mail account for an invitation to collaborate on a Google Doc."

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca

Practice, practice, practice; preach

I urge my students to find some way to apply their software talents in order to keep them and hone them. I try to practice as well as preach that. I do a monthly newsletter for my bicycle club, the Almaden Cycle Touring Club.

Here is the April Issue of the Black and Blue Bottom, the ACTC Newsletter. I hope you like it (Note: The web server the club uses has been having problems, so if this download fails, that is why.)

• On line version for viewing and reading.
• The special full-sheet version that goes to the printer for production of the bike club newsletter.

Technorati Tags: ssloansjca, j-school

Microsoft Live Spaces Beta

Microsoft Live Spaces Beta
I use Google Docs, but sometimes it isn't enough. I need to be able to share presentations, documents and spread sheets with students and colleagues regularly. If like me, you want the power, elegance and off-line usability of genuine Microsoft Office product documents plus the online storage and collaboration capability of Google Docs, but do not have a Microsoft SharePoint Server, the new Microsoft Live Spaces (currently in Beta) may be an answer for you and those you wish to share with. The Live Spaces development team has a blog and Scoble recently did a podcast about it. I signed up for the Beta, I can't wait to try it!

Technorati Tags: Kirk Gregeresen, Product Management, Eric Gilmore, MS Office, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Office Live, Scoble, ssloansjca

Can we trust Web apps for Education?

Google was down today
For about an hour today Google was down. We could not access anything Google, not Blogger, not Gmail, not anything. This is finals week. There is a lot of talk about using Google apps for class work. I have even been interviewed by a local TV station on the subject. I started thinking, what if I had depended on it for my final? There are so many links from the lab where my students take their exams to Google and there are so many possible points of failure. So many things can break at the worst possible time. Backhoe disconnects, firewall problems, and many other network and server issues far from my classroom can cause my students to not be able to accomplish a critical task at a critical time. Today it was an inconvenience. If it had happened in the middle of an exam it would have been a disaster. It made me wonder, can we trust Web apps for Education?

Technorati Tags: Web Apps, Web 2.0, Google, ssloansjca

Leopard Favorites: Apple Mail

A lot to like in Leopard: Apple Mail
All in all my opinion of Mac OS X 10.5 is overwhelmingly positive. My first favorite is the new version of Apple Mail. Yes, I like the new stationary features, but most of all I like Apple Mail Leopard Editon's support of RSS. According to Apple, "Subscribe to an RSS feed in Mail and you’ll know the moment an article or blog post hits the wire. Even better, you can choose to have new articles appear in your inbox alongside your latest email messages. Sorting your news is easy, too. Use Smart Mailboxes to organize incoming news articles according to search terms that pique your interest. Mail shares its unread RSS feed count with Safari, so your reading list always stays in sync." I know Thunderbird can do it too, but I use Apple Mail and I think that is way cool!

Technorati Tags: Mac OS X, Leopard, Apple, ssloansjca

In Design User Group Meeting

In Design User Group Meeting, Wed., Nov. 14
The next meeting of the Bay Area InDesign User Group for Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 6:30pm, to be held at Adobe San Francisco, 601 Townsend St, at 7th St. .

Come join us in learning about InDesign's Transparency features!

InDesign CS3 introduces some powerful and innovative transparency features. Now you can apply transparency effects independently for an object's fill, stroke, content, and text and you can apply almost all Photoshop effects inside of InDesign. This presentation will show how to make these effects work and -- even more importantly -- how to get them to print successfully by following some important transparency best practices.

As always, the evening will conclude with the group's customary raffle of valuable software, books, and prizes.

I plan on going and welcome folks who may wish to carpool with me. To register, or for more information, go here.

SPSS Codes are In at Help Desk

We have the new codes for SPSS for the PC and Mac. We do not yet have the new Version of SPSS, SPSS 16, that is reportedly PC Vista and Intel Mac compatible, but we expect to have that in early to mid-October.

Please contact the SJSU help desk and include your tower card number so we can validate your SJSU affiliation. The help desk can be reached by phone at (408) 924-2377 or via Email at helpdesk@sjsu.edu.

New Version of Office For Mac in Jan. 08?

According to Mac Mojo, the blog for Microsoft's Mac Group:

We announced today that Office 2008 for Mac will be released to manufacturing (“RTM”) this December, which will allow for retail availability in the US in mid-January (planning for Macworld), and allow us to deliver Office 2008 to our volume license customers and global customers in the first quarter of 2008.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Apple, ssloansjca

About upcoming version of SPSS

What I know so far about new SPSS 16 features:

• SPSS 16 will have a new Java interface that will be compatable with Windows XP and Vista equipped PCs as well as Intel processor equipped Macs that meet the "hardware requirements" for this software. Please note I am being vague here to CYA.
• Apple and PC versions of will be at the same level, but some functionality that is dependent on Microsoft Windows technology will not be available on the Mac version. It is not clear SPSS 16 will be able to, or be certified to, run on the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" that has not yet been released by Apple.
• Data files should remain backward compatable with previous versions. This new version will have more Unicode functions and a Unicode mode, so folks working and sharing information with downlevel (pre SPSS 16) users will need to be sure that data files are not saved in a format that includes these features.
• SPSS 16 output and modules will not be backward compatable. The new Java interface makes this even harder to achieve.
• SPSS 16 will support R algorithms. R is an open-source language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. R is similar to the S language and environment. There are some important differences, but much code written for S runs unaltered under R.
• SPSS 16 will reportedly feature powerful statistics, including a new Neural Networks add-on module, a new Partial Least Squares algorithm, a new Cox Regression for Complex Samples module, support for algorithms written in R and improvements to Generalized Linear Models and General Estimating Equations.
• SPSS 16 will reportedly feature Unicode support, import/export of Excel 2007 data, and an improved data editor.
• SPSS 16.0 will reportedly have improved programmability (more Python access.)
• SPSS 16 will reportedly feature more integration with SPSS’s other products (Predictive Enterprise Services).
• The next version of Amos will be Amos 16 to bring Amos version numbers in line with SPSS.

All for now!

Safari for Windows, Yawn

Safari for Windows?
Apple's recent release of a new version of the Safari browser for windows must give us pause, to wonder why. We already have a very nice cross platform browser for Windows and Mac OS. It is called Firefox. Since it is already my default browser on both the Macs and PCs I use I can't come up with a good reason to switch. Not one, zero, nada...

Technorati Tags: ssloansjca, Apple

InDesign User Group Meeting Next Week

There's still time to register for the next meeting of the Bay Area InDesign user group on May 16th, and we want to see you there!

We'll be welcoming InDesign CS3, with Lisa Forrester of Adobe Systems to introduce us to its exciting new features and its integration within Adobe Creative Suite 3. If you are interested in seeing the newest features, you won't want to miss this meeting. Among those that will be showcased are:

• Finer transparency controls
  
• Creative object effects, including feathered gradients
  
• Multi-file Place
  
• Faster frame fitting
  
• Placed InDesign documents
  
• Nested style looping
  
• Table and cell styles
  
• Text variables
  
• Expanded Quick Apply
  
• Advanced bullets and numbering
  
• Export to XHTML
  

Wednesday, May 16, 2007, 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM
Adobe Systems Inc. San Francisco, 601 Townsend St., at 7th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

(Plenty of public transit options and on-street parking.)

Agenda

• 6:30 - Check in, pizza, and socializing
• 6:45 - Announcements
• 7:00 - InDesign CS3
• 8:45 - Rafflemania
• 9:00 - Meeting adjourned

==========================
Please register to attend
==========================