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Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

July 21, 2010
3:02
Social Media: How to Make it NOT Useless
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pMany companies have been adopting Social Media and Enterprise 2.0... some of them because it sounds cool, some because they have money to burn, and others because they actually have a strategy. But eventually, the big boss will come around and ask, bWhat are we ireally/i getting out of all this time and energy? Let's calculate the ROI!/b/p pAt this point, you might want to brace yourself for disappointment.../p pI'm not saying this because most Social Media strategies I've seen are useless... just that they would be hard to justify if you break it down into black an white ROI. According to a recent a href=http://forrester.com/rb/Research/roi_of_social_media_marketing/q/id/57009/t/2report by Forrester research/a, the ROI calculations are fine, but they provide an incomplete picture./p pFor example, some online retailers found that if a product has online comments, that reduces the return-rate. Whether the comments are good or bad, it doesn't matter. People buy more of the good ones, and avoid the bad ones, which overall improves margins./p pHowever, there are other things that are more difficult to quantify... like has you brand improved among your audien/p ul liHas having a presence on Facebook and LinkedIn helped us recruit better candidates more quickly?/li liHas having a presence on Twitter enabled us to enhance our brand, and improve Google rank?/li liHas having a Blog enabled us to genuinely connect with our audience, helping us whether the publicity is good or bad?/li liHas our social media presence enhanced brand awareness and/or loyalty?/li /ul pIf you only use metrics that measure hard current ROI, then you might be neglecting the value of reducing future negative ROI./p pi(hat tip a href=http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/forrester_if_you_think_social_media_marketing_is_w.phpMike Melanson/a)/i/p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/07/social-media-how-to-make-it-not-useless target=_blankread more/a/p
June 24, 2010
19:10
Oracle 11g Webcast
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pIt's time again for the Oracle UCM Community Webcast... and this one will of course focus on what's new in 11g. I bstrongly/b encourage you all to attend this one, since you'll be able to get answers for all your burning questions about 11g that you have been afraid to ask... as well as the ones Oracle wasn't allowed to answer until after the release!/p pYou'll need to ba href=http://www.eventsvc.com/oracle/register for the event/a/b in order to attend. Be sure to log in with your company's email address so Oracle knows who you are!/p h3Americas / EMEA Web Cast/h3 ul libDate:/b June 30, 2010/li libTime:/b 9:00am US PDT / 12:00pm US EDT / 16:00 GMT/li libLength:/b 1 hour/li /ul h3Asia / Pacific Repeat Web Cast/h3 ul libDate:/b July 1, 2010/li libTime:/b 12:00pm Sydney AEST, 10:00am Singapore/li libLength:/b 1 hour/li /ul pSo... what questions do you plan on asking?/p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/06/oracle-11g-webcast target=_blankread more/a/p
June 23, 2010
23:03
Apache mod_rewrite for Oracle UCM Users
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pKyle had a a href=http://blogs.oracle.com/kyle/2009/09/friendly_urls_for_ucm.htmluseful tip/a a while back about a little-known feature in Oracle UCM: the bWebUrlMapPlugin/b which allows bfriendly URLs for Site Studio pages./b It's extensible, which means you can add your own friendly URLs to the map if you wish./p pFor example, you could make the URL bhttp://example.com/file/foo/b automatically redirect to the GET_FILE service to download the item with the content ID of foo. You set this by going to the page Administration Filter Administration Edit Web Map Urls, then assigning the prefix b/file/b to a map like this:/p prelt;!--$cgipath--gt;?IdcService=GET_FILEdDocName=lt;!--$suffix--gt;allowInterrupt=1 RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleasedRendition=webnoSaveAs=1/prep Looks a bit hairy... but those are all the parameters you need to run the service. You can see why some URL aliases come in handy! Kyle has some more suggestions on his blog post./p pThis is fine and good for internal UCM products... but it can be somewhat limited. This map looks like it supports IdocScript, but you actually only have very limited token replacement functionality.../p pbIf you are using Apache, a better option would be to use a href=http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.htmlmod_rewrite/a./b This is an extremely powerful add-on module to Apache that allows you to rewrite URLs to make friendly aliases. It's one of the few Apache modules so popular that it a href=http://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Guide-Apache-mod_rewrite/dp/1590595610has it's own book!/a/p pThere are some good a href=http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/mod_rewrite-cheat-sheet/cheat sheets/a and a href=http://www.addedbytes.com/for-beginners/url-rewriting-for-beginners/beginners guides/a available for mod_rewrite... but lets' just dive in for a quick tour./p pTo get started, first we need to enable the module. This is almost always installed with Apache, so installation should be simple. Append the following code at the bottom of your bhttpd.conf/b Apache configuration file:/p pre # load the rewrite module, if its not already loaded lt;IfModule !rewrite_modulegt; LoadModule rewrite_module /usr/lib64/httpd/modules/mod_rewrite.so lt;/IfModulegt; # turn on rewrite debugging so we can figure out when redirects don't work RewriteLog /apache/logs/rewrite.log RewriteLogLevel 3 # turn it on RewriteEngine On /prep Now, mod_rewrite should be running... the next step is to create a bRewriteRule/b to match the pattern. The mod_rewrite module uses a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressionsRegular Expressions/a to match patterns in the incoming URLs. If a pattern matches, then the rule applies. The first part of the rule is the pattern to match, the second part of the rule is where to redirect the URL to. A very simple example would be this:/p pre RewriteRule /file/foo /bar /prep This rule would redirect all URLs that look like bhttp://example.com/file/foo/b to bhttp://example.com/bar/b. Once we add regular expressions, however, things get more interesting... instead of just matching the word foo, let's say we wanted to redirect ALL of the pages to bhttp://example.com/bar/b. The rule below would accomplish that:/p pre RewriteRule /file/.* /bar /prep The b./b character says any character, and the b*/b character says zero or more of the previous character. So, this rule will match everything under bhttp://example.com/file//b, and redirect it to bhttp://example.com/bar/b. Of course, this isn't terribly useful... so lets see if we can make the same file download URL as above./p pFirst, let's add some security... the global wildcard is usually discouraged, because it does actually grab beverything/b, and unless you breally/b know what you're doing it can be a security hole. A better option is to use a token for just characters valid for a content ID... Which means lowercase a through z, uppercase A through Z, the numbers 0 through 9, and the underscore and dash characters... so we do this:/p pre RewriteRule ^/file/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]*)$ /bar/$1 /prep Hopefully this doesn't look too alien... Firstly, the b^/b character represents the beginning, and the b$/b character represents the end of the URL. We then put the allowed characters in brackets [a-zA-Z0-9_-] and the * says zero or more of the characters in that range. We put this whole thing in parenthesis to turn it into an batom/b./p pOnce we match the pattern, we can re-use the atom in the subsequent redirect URL. The b$1/b token represents the first atom found in the pattern... so our URL above will redirect bhttp://example.com/file/foo/b to bhttp://example.com/bar/foo/b. For complex redirects, you can use multiple atoms in the same rewrite rule, which can be extremely handy for organizing quick links to content./p pFinally, we need to change b/bar/$1/b to something that will actually download the file... so we will redirect to a content server service instead, like so:/p pre RewriteRule ^/file/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]*)$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/idc/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILERevisionSelectionMethod=LatestdDocName=$1 /prep Ta da! Now the url bhttp://example.com/file/foo/b will redirect to bhttp://example.com/idc/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILEamp;RevisionSelectionMethod=Latestamp;dDocName=foo/b. /p pTo support URLs of the type bhttp://example.com/file/foo.txt/b, you'd modify it to look like this:/p pre RewriteRule ^/file/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]*)\.([a-zA-Z]*)$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/idc/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILERevisionSelectionMethod=LatestdDocName=$1 /prep This rewrite rule has two atoms, but we only need the first atom, so we just ignore the second. However, we could get clever and use a different rewrite rule depending on the file extension... or we can just ignore the extension since the content ID is all that matters./p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/06/apache-modrewrite-for-oracle-ucm-users target=_blankread more/a/p
June 08, 2010
14:42
Oracle UCM 11g Now Released!
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pimg style=float:right;padding:2em src=http://bexhuff.com/files/images/bender-applause.jpg //p pGood news! The 11g version of Oracle UCM is a href=http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/content-management/ucm/index.htmlfinally available/a! This version is a bit of a re-write to run on top of the WebLogic application server. Oracle has been talking about this release for some time, so I'm glad to see it finally available./p pDespite the architecture change, the basic administration interface should be familiar to existing UCM customers. The install is a lot different, and you'll need to learn basic WebLogic application server administration. This isn't as tough as it sounds... you can refer to my presentation on a href=http://www.bexhuff.com/2010/04/the-top-10-things-oracle-ucm-users-need-to-know-about-weblogicthe top 10 things UCM admin need to know about WebLogic/a to get started. Once you wrap your head around the concepts of instances, servers, and domains, it's not too difficult./p pThere are a ton of new performance enhancements in this release... when using a half-rack Exadata Machine, they were able to get b180 million 100k document check-ins per day./b Note: these are full document check-ins; not merely lightweight object storage. Now that UCM is the repository for IPM, you can imagine how Exadata makes an excellent addition to a high-ingestion setup./p pDownload performance is pretty good as well... using the new Open WCM technologies, Oracle was getting about b120 Site Studio web page hits per second on commodity hardware.../b Is that a lot? Well, by way of comparison, Wikipedia has a farm of a href=http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_servers249 servers/a, and each node gets on average a href=http://www.nedworks.org/~mark/reqstats/reqstats-yearly.png80-200 hits per second per server/a... sometimes spiking to 250... and Wikipedia is using a very lightweight LAMP stack, as opposed to the full enterprise JEE stack that Oracle was using for their tests. I'm sure with a additional tuning (like a CDN) you could get more than 120 hits per second with UCM... but as a general rule, bif you need more than 120 hits per second, you really need more than one server!/b/p pYou can download the new software a href=http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/content-management/index.htmlin the usual place/a. The documentation is bundled with the rest of the a href=http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/ecm.htmOracle Fusion Middleware documentation/a, /p pSince 11g is so new... Oracle University doesn't have any training for it yet. Luckily, my company -- Bezzotech -- can do a href=http://bezzotech.com/services.htmlOracle UCM 11g training/a if you need it./p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/06/oracle-ucm-11g-now-released target=_blankread more/a/p
June 04, 2010
2:56
Oracle UCM jQuery Plugin
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pI recently put together a a href=http://jquery.com/jQuery/a plugin for Oracle UCM, and thought I'd share. This connector allows you to use jQuery to make UCM Service calls through AJAX, and easily display the results. This is b100% pure JavaScript,/b no Java, Idoc, or ADF required! You can a href=http://bezzotech.com/files/jquery-ucm-plugin-1.0.zipdownload the plugin/a from the a href=http://bezzotech.com/library.htmlBezzotech library page/a./p pbYou will need to be familiar with jQuery before you can use this plug-in./b You can start with the a href=http://www.w3schools.com/jquery/default.aspjQuery tutorial at W3Schools/a./p pThis plug-in is essentially a collection of wrappers around the ba href=http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.post/$.post()/a/b method in jQuery, to allow you to more easily make AJAX calls to Oracle UCM. For example, in order to make a Test Connection button to call the PING_SERVER service, and pop-up a status message, you'd use code like this:/p xmp script type=text/javascript src=http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js/script script type=text/javascript src=jquery.oracle-ucm-1.0.js/script form button id=pingServer name=pingServerTest Connection/button /form script $(document).ready(function(){ $(#pingServer).click(function(){ var testData = { IdcService : PING_SERVER }; $.ucm.executeService(testData, function(ucmResponse){ var msg = ucmResponse.getValue(StatusMessage); alert(msg); }); return false; }); }); /script /xmp pNotice how we have to pass bfunction(ucmResponse){}/b as a parameter to the bexecuteService/b method... and then fill that function with the code we want to run bafter/b the request completes. Also note that we are passing in functions as parameters to the button's bclick/b event, and to the document's bready/b event. Passing around functions in this way looks quite odd if you're used to object-oriented languages like Java... but it's standard operating procedure for jQuery and AJAX./p pThe bucmResponse/b object is a standard a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSONJSON/a data object, with the following convenience functions added:/p ul libgetValue('value')/b looks in the LocalData and the ResultSets to get a value from the response./li libgetRow('resultSetName', index)/b gets the row in the specific ResultSet at the specific index as an associative array (hashtable) of name-value pairs./li libfindRowIndex('resultSetName', 'column', 'value')/b returns the first row index in the result set where the column equals the specified value./li /ul pThere are more examples and instructions in the a href=http://bezzotech.com/files/jquery-ucm-plugin-1.0.zipdownload/a. If you have any suggestions or requests, please leave a comment!/p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/06/oracle-ucm-jquery-plugin-for-ajax target=_blankread more/a/p
May 25, 2010
6:09
What Almost Everybody Gets Wrong About Collaboration
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pI've used dozens of collaboration systems... none of which really stood out to me. It wasn't that they were difficult to use, it's that none of them actually solved the human problems that limit our ability -- and our desire -- to actually collaborate./p pa href=http://www.schwimmerlegal.com/2006/09/note_to_dave_wi.htmlimg style=float:right;padding:2em src=http://bexhuff.com/files/images/ipod-monkey.jpg //a/p pIt wasn't until recently that I came across a talk from a href=http://www.shirky.com/weblog/Clay Shirky/a, which explained pretty well what was missing... Clay spoke about human nature and software and asked a very important question: bwhy do some kinds of sharing work well, while other fail?/b /p pWell... one reason is that according to anthropologists, bthere really is no one thing called sharing./b We humans -- like all primates -- have three distinct ways that we share... and our brains are wired to do different things based on what kinds of sharing we are doing./p pFor example... bI want you to imagine that a little old lady is walking up to you on the street./b She makes direct eye contact, and gestures that she has a question for you. I want you to take a deep breath and genuinely imagine that she asks you one of the following three things... and take note of your emotions:/p ol lishe asks you for money,/li lishe asks you to help her cross the street,/li lishe asks you for directions to the bus stop/li /ol pIf you are like most primates, your initial gut reaction to #1 is something like bNO! MINE!/b Your gut reaction to #2 is beh... OK.../b And your gut reaction to #3 is bAbsolutely! I'd be happy to!/b/p pWhy??? All three are sharing, aren't they? Not quite... millions of years of evolution have wired us to react differently to different kinds of sharing. The examples above each demonstrate one kind of sharing:/p ol libSharing Goods:/b the gut reaction it to feel bad when you give somebody else your goods... because then you can't use them anymore, and you might not be able to replenish them. Even generous people have this initial reaction./li libSharing Services:/b people are more generous with favors, because they don't lose anything physical... merely their time. However, before sharing your time, everybody does a little mental math. Do I have the time? Is this worth my time, or should I delegate to somebody else? Shouldn't I be compensated for my time?/li libSharing Information:/b people are bmost/b generous when it comes to sharing information... it takes little measurable time, it costs nothing, and bsharing information makes us ifeel good./i/b We feel good, because we feel like we've helped out one like us, and made the world a better, more knowledgeable place./li /ol pClay used the example of Napster to illustrate his point... it took a goods sharing problem (can I have your CD?) and a service sharing problem (can you make me a mix tape?) and turned it into an information sharing problem (can I download all your already ripped albums?). People were sharing their albums online bbecause it made them feel igood/i/b. /p pbLike monkeys with iPods.../b/p pThe problem with most collaboration software is that bcollaboration software relies too much on service sharing to get people to take action./b I post some information on a place for sharing and to make it better through input from others... but in order for that to happen, first you need to read it band/b understand it. That's sometimes not a big deal, but in many cases it's a significant time investment./p pTo make matters worse, some of these systems even make it difficult for you to do the mental math for you to determine whether reading my document is worth your time... Is this for an important project? How important? Do you need my expertise for all of this, or just a few pages? Should I be charging your department for my time? Not only is this still a service sharing problem, but a pretty tough one at that.../p pIdeally, a good collaboration system would obey the b2 minute rule./b Getting information is still something of a service... but if it's a service that can be performed in under 2 minutes, it will probably feel more like an information problem... which makes it more likely to be done. If it takes more than 2 minutes, then it feels like a service problem, and then we're back to the mental math problem.../p pGetting down to the 2 minute rule is tricky... you could opt for a system like a href=http://vark.comAardvark/a, which tries to match simple questions with the right person to answer it... Alternatively, you could force people to jump through a few hoops first before asking a question; essentially making it easy for people to answer your question. If people can estimate the difficulty of the task band/b the value provided by the solution, then it's easier for them to do the mental math for the tougher problems./p pbNeither of these are new concepts... in fact bug tracking systems for successful open source projects use a blend of both./b They'd have to, or their entire model would collapse! Although I have yet to see any enterprise level collaboration system truly adopt these concepts... probably because the enterprise is something of a captive audience. If you're lucky youll have a system that focuses on ease-of-use and good training... but adapting to human behavior isn't always high on the list. bWould people still use your collaboration system if you didn't pay them?/b Probably not... which usually means a problem.../p pHopefully the big push to Enterprise 2.0 solutions will get more software companies thinking about making software that's a natural extension of human behavior... bMaybe in a few years we'll have Aardvark for the enterprise.../b but I'll take my standard curmudgeony wait and see attitude b;-)/b/p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/05/what-almost-everybody-gets-wrong-about-collaboration target=_blankread more/a/p
May 20, 2010
20:31
In Migration Mode...
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pYou might have noticed this site go away for a while yesterday... my ISP is migrating my site to the latest version of Drupal, and we hit a few snags when we tried to take it live.../p pWe're giving it another whirl today, and hopefully it will be good-to-go tomorrow. I have a new skin that I'll be showing off... as well as a few new features./p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/05/in-migration-mode target=_blankread more/a/p
May 06, 2010
3:44
The World's Oldest Computer
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

a href=http://bezzotech.comimg style=float:right;padding:2em src=http://bexhuff.com/files/images/bezzotech-logo.jpg/img/a pSometimes people ask me, what does your company's logo mean? When I founded Bezzotech 4 years back, I wanted a symbol that says high-tech and new, but also something that says old school rocks!/p pAfter a bit of thinking, I realized the answer was simple. There was only one appropriate symbol, bthe computer invented by the ancient Greeks:/b a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrolabethe astrolabe/a./p a href=http://www.astrolabepartners.com/the_astrolabe.htmimg style=float:right;padding:2em src=http://bexhuff.com/files/images/astrolabe.jpg/img/a pbAn astrolabe is essentially an analog calculator./b You would set it according to your latitude, and point the rule at a well known object in the sky: the sun, the moon, the north start, etc. Depending on what you picked, you could calculate the time of day, the time of year, or your location. It could be used for things as simple as calculating when to plant your crops, or as complex as a geographic survey of an entire city. Advanced ones had charts on the back to help with math calculations, and conversions./p pIt was originally invented in Greece in approximately 150 BC, and spread quickly through Europe and the Middle East... They aren't very common today, but 2000 years ago they had approximately the cool factor of the iPhone. One Persian astronomer wrote a book on the 1000 different uses of an Astrolabe. bTechnically, the astrolabe has more apps than the Google phone.../b/p pYou can make a simple astrolabe using paper or wood... but of course the most beautiful ones are made from brass. In the old days, an educated person would not only know how to use an astrolabe, but they could build one as well. This presentation from the TED conference covers how it was used, and how amazingly resourceful our predecessors were with them:/p object width=446 height=326param name=movie value=http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf/paramparam name=allowFullScreen value=true /param name=allowScriptAccess value=always/param name=wmode value=transparent/paramparam name=bgColor value=#ffffff/param param name=flashvars value=vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/TomWujec_2009GU-medium.flvsu=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/TomWujec-2009G.embed_thumbnail.jpgvw=432vh=240ap=0ti=694introDuration=16500adDuration=4000postAdDuration=2000adKeys=talk=tom_wujec_demos_the_13th_century_astrolabe;year=2009;theme=the_creative_spark;theme=art_unusual;theme=tales_of_invention;theme=design_like_you_give_a_damn;theme=peering_into_space;theme=unconventional_explanations;theme=speaking_at_tedglobal2009;event=TEDGlobal+2009;preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288; /embed src=http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf pluginspace=http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer type=application/x-shockwave-flash wmode=transparent bgColor=#ffffff width=446 height=326 allowFullScreen=true allowScriptAccess=always flashvars=vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/TomWujec_2009GU-medium.flvsu=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/TomWujec-2009G.embed_thumbnail.jpgvw=432vh=240ap=0ti=694introDuration=16500adDuration=4000postAdDuration=2000adKeys=talk=tom_wujec_demos_the_13th_century_astrolabe;year=2009;theme=the_creative_spark;theme=art_unusual;theme=tales_of_invention;theme=design_like_you_give_a_damn;theme=peering_into_space;theme=unconventional_explanations;theme=speaking_at_tedglobal2009;event=TEDGlobal+2009;/embed/object pbSo what do you think?/b Does my logo look like an astrolabe, or is it just a cool gear thingie?/p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/05/the-worlds-oldest-computer target=_blankread more/a/p
April 29, 2010
20:28
Blog Year In Review
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pAs usual, I'm celebrating the end of my blog's fiscal year on April 29, 2010... because that's the day of my a href=first blog post/a. Also, I didn't want my end of year post to be drowned out by everybody else's end of year posts.../p pimg style=float:right;padding:2em src=http://bexhuff.com/files/images/happy-new-years-eve.jpg //p pAnyway, at the end of my blog's year, I do some analysis on what posts were the most popular. I use a href=https://www.google.com/analytics/Google Analytics/a on my blog to collect this info, ever since I found other engines to not be what I needed... see my post on a href=http://bexhuff.com/2008/04/how-many-hits-does-your-site-really-gethow many hits does your site ireally/i get/a for more info./p pOverall, the blog is still doing well... I got 182,364 page views, which is about 15% more traffic this year than last year... below are the btop posts of 2009/b, according to Google:/p ul liba href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/06/html-5-versus-flash-flexHTML 5 versus Flash and Flex:/a/b a post on the future of the web. I like Flash, but it is not the future, and anybody who builds upon it will be kicking themselves in 2 years. a href=http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/Steve Jobs agrees.../a (9342 views)/li liba href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/09/the-best-fairy-tale-everThe Best Fairy Tale EVER!:/a/b it made me believe in fairy tales...(4331 views)/li liba href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/04/the-bucket-listThe Bucket List:/a/b what do you want to do before you die? And... what on earth are you waiting for? By the way... a href=http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/30/florida-woman-reportedly-robs-bank-citing-bucket-list/don't rob a bank/a(2782 views)/li liba href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/07/how-to-make-a-decisionHow To Make A Decision:/a/b a look into the biology behind the decision making process in the brain, and how to hack your brain to make better decisions (1950 views)/li liba href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/04/scripting-oracle-ucm-with-jythonScripting Oracle UCM with Jython:/a/b want to whip out an administrative script for UCM, but with the power of CIS? Simple: use Jython and RIDC. (1538 views)/li liba href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/09/the-deep-dark-secret-origin-of-oracle-ucms-security-modelThe Deep Dark Secret of Oracle UCM's Security Model:/a/b A historical post about why UCM developers designed the security model they did. (1503 views)/li liba href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/10/oracle-ecm-rated-a-leader-in-gartner-magic-quadrantOracle UCM Rated a Leader in Gartner's Mystic Grid:/a/b Good news for the Oracle UCM team. Well done! (1314 views)/li liba href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/06/oracle-glassfish-now-supports-jython-and-djangoOracle Glassfish Supports Jython and Django:/a/b quick post on how Oracle is supporting open source frameworks (1076 views)/li liba href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/01/is-the-roth-ira-a-total-conIs the Roth IRA a Total Con?/a/b feeling cynical one day, I decided to do the math, and I could not justify the existence of the Roth IRA (873 views)/li liba href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/05/how-one-bad-business-process-doomed-gmHow One Bad Business Process Doomed GM:/a/b a lesson on the rule of unintended consequences... one business process that seemed good at the time was left unattended for too long, and probably doomed General Motors to bankruptcy. (847 views)/li /ul pSo.. although this may seem a bit early -- or a bit late -- bhappy new year!/b And hopefully you're following you a href=http://bexhuff.com/2009/12/top-10-new-years-resolutions-for-ecmnew years resolutions/a./p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/04/blog-year-in-review target=_blankread more/a/p
3:30
The Top 10 Things Oracle UCM Users Need To Know About WebLogic
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pAs promised, below is my presentation from IOUG Collaborate, 2010. It's an intro to WebLogic for people who know Oracle Universal Content Management:/p div style=width:425px id=__ss_3891961strong style=display:block;margin:12px 0 4pxa href=http://www.slideshare.net/bexmex/the-top-10-things-oracle-ucm-users-need-to-know-about-weblogic title=The Top 10 Things Oracle UCM Users Need To Know About WebLogicThe Top 10 Things Oracle UCM Users Need To Know About WebLogic/a/strongobject id=__sse3891961 width=425 height=355param name=movie value=http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=top-10-things-ucm-users-need-to-know-about-weblogic-v3-100428202127-phpapp01stripped_title=the-top-10-things-oracle-ucm-users-need-to-know-about-weblogic /param name=allowFullScreen value=true/param name=allowScriptAccess value=always/embed name=__sse3891961 src=http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=top-10-things-ucm-users-need-to-know-about-weblogic-v3-100428202127-phpapp01stripped_title=the-top-10-things-oracle-ucm-users-need-to-know-about-weblogic type=application/x-shockwave-flash allowscriptaccess=always allowfullscreen=true width=425 height=355/embed/objectdiv style=padding:5px 0 12pxView more a href=http://www.slideshare.net/presentations/a from a href=http://www.slideshare.net/bexmexBrian Huff/a./div/div pIn case you haven't heard, bthe 11g version of Oracle UCM will by default run on top of WebLogic/b. I have heard that support for other platforms are planned post-11g -- such as JBoss, WebSphere, and maybe even the old-fashioned stand-alone mode -- but it's still a good idea to become familiar with WebLogic. These concepts will be similar on JBoss and WebSphere... especially when it comes to the security and performance sections of my talk./p pbEnjoy!/b/p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/04/the-top-10-things-oracle-ucm-users-need-to-know-about-weblogic target=_blankread more/a/p
April 19, 2010
1:36
Bezzotech and IRA Merge Into One!
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pThis shouldn't come as a surprise to my clients, but it might to a lot of my readers.../p pAbout 6 months ago, Jason Clarkin (from a href=http://www.implementradvantage.com/about.htmlImpement R Advantage/a) and I had discussed joining forces. We talked a lot about the kind of firm we could build together, and what kind of new software we could create. We started working very closely together to make sure our business styles were similar, and that our skills complimented each other's well... /p pbOnce comfortable with that, we decided to pull the trigger an make it official. We are now one company!/b/p pWe decided to make the big splash at IOUG Collaborate... together, our company is giving a href=http://collaborate10.ioug.org/Education/EducationalSessionsbyTrack/ContentManagementSessions/tabid/145/Default.aspxthree UCM related talks/a this year:/p ul libSesion 418:/b The Top 10 Things Oracle UCM Customers Need To Know About WebLogic. Tuesday, April 20 3:15 p.m./li libSession 422:/b UCM as the Repository, Presentation Layer of Your Choice: The Future of WCM. Wednesday, April 21 8:00 a.m./li libSession 107:/b Impact of Oracle UCM on Organizations. Thursday, April 22, 11:00 a.m./li /ul pAlso, be sure to swing by our booth: b#1743/b. We're right by the big Oracle booth near a few other UCM vendors. See you there!/p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/04/bezzotech-and-ira-merge-into-one target=_blankread more/a/p
April 16, 2010
9:03
Twitter is Sooooooo 18th Century...
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pa href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quincy_Adamsimg style=padding:2em;float:right src=http://bexhuff.com/files/images/john-quincy-adams.jpg //a/p pJust in case you think that Twitter is cutting edge, the good people at the a href=http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/04/13/twitter-updates-the-18th-century-edition/Wall Street Journal/a are here to set you straight... On their blog they interviewed Cornell professor Lee Humphreys, who did an analysis of the bstriking similarities between Twitter and 18th century diaries./b/p pPersonal journals were not always about writing long prose about everything you did that day... most of them contained very short one-sentence updates:/p pciteBefore the end of the 19th century, diaries weren’t considered private or introspective. Instead, bpeople wrote semi-public diaries that were often shared among faraway family members and others./b And space was at a premium; by the mid-1800s, popular “pocket diaries” were only about 2 inches by 4 inches and were intended to be more mobile than earlier books./cite/p pTake for example somebody I just started following recently: a href=http://twitter.com/JQAdams_MHSJohn Quincy Adams/a. Yep... son of John Adams and the sixth president of the USA, John Quincy is up on Twitter. The Massachusetts Historical Society is taking his personal diary bverbatim/b and placing it up on Twitter... 200 years to the day AFTER he originally wrote them, and most of them fit into the 140-character limit just fine! Call me nerdy, but that's pretty cool./p pOne of my favorite lines from the article is this:/p pciteDr. Humphreys said the research serves as a good reminder that not everything in new media is entirely new. It’s helpful to put things into historical context, Dr. Humphreys said. bIt’s amazing how much human nature hasn’t really changed all that much./b/cite/p pToo true... when Twitter first came out I thought it was a silly concept... why would I Tweet when I could Blog? The point it, despite the number of blogs out there, not many people enjoy writing... but everybody like keeping up-to-date with friends. /p pBut of course, that's what Facebook is for b;-)/b/p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/04/twitter-is-sooooooo-18th-century target=_blankread more/a/p
April 13, 2010
1:55
Almost Time For IOUG Collaborate 2010
» ‎ Bex Huff - blog about technology, lifehacks, and ecm

pa href=http://ioug.orgimg style=float:right;padding:2em; src=http://bexhuff.com/files/images/ioug-logo.gif //a/p pAnybody else jazzed that a href=http://collaborate10.ioug.org/IOUG Collaborate 2010/a starts in a week??? Hanging out with Oracle Nerds and talking technology may not be everybody's cup of tea... but it's bwaaaaaaaaaay/b more fun than most people realize... Honest! No foolin! /p p...or maybe I just have unusual tastes... /p pIn either case, I'm going... and I'll be giving my talk on ba href=http://coll10.mapyourshow.com/2_3/sessions/sessiondetails.cfm?ScheduledSessionID=1357The Top 10 Things Oracle UCM Customers Need To Know About WebLogic/a/b:/p pbDate:/b Tuesday, April 20, 2010br / bTime:/b 3:15:00 PM - 4:15:00 PMbr / bLocation:/b PALM D (wherever that is)/p pIn case you hadn't heard, both IPM 11g and IRM 11g now run on top of the WebLogic application server. The word is that bOracle UCM 11g will need WebLogic/b as well... No word yet if this will be a requirement, or if some kind of stand alone mode will also be supported. In any event, the go-forward strategy for pretty much all Oracle middleware products will center around WebLogic... so it's probably a good idea to get to know it sooner rather than later./p pI've used WebLogic for years, and recently I've been playing with a beta copy of UCM 11g on WebLogic. I thought I share my thoughts and help demystify what this WebLogic stuff means to UCM customers... bSpoiler alert: everything will be just fine./b/p pAnyway, bif you want to meet up at Collaborate, let me know!/b I'll be attending a few of the 15 sessions on UCM -- a shockingly number, IMHO -- and attending the a href=http://www.oracle.com/technology/community/oracle_ace/index.htmlOracle ACE/a dinner on Sunday... but my schedule is otherwise quite open.../p pHope to see you there!/p pa href=http://bexhuff.com/2010/04/almost-time-for-ioug-collaborate-2010 target=_blankread more/a/p

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