tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27693683850108278312024-03-17T22:02:59.173-05:00Cloud ChampInformation about various cloud technologies and announcements as well as code snippets.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-36255654963099129682013-12-20T09:20:00.002-05:002013-12-20T09:20:48.852-05:00Merry Christmas<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/OWebeod2CfA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com112tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-49008828938033757372013-07-08T20:38:00.001-05:002013-07-08T20:39:23.637-05:00Project Glass Explorer Program Pickup<style type="text/css">
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It all started with a invitation from Google to post on Google+ or on Twitter how you would use Glass if you had the opportunity to get a pair from Google. It was a great way for Google to judge the demand that they had for the wearable device long before it was released and even before many knew anything about it. I had only seen one video and a couple of pictures taken by employees at Google. The video that I saw was this one:<br />
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All that was asked what that you post with the hashtag #ifihadglass. I didn't waste anytime at all and quickly thought about things that I would do. The obvious choice for me was something on the DigitalChalk platform. Here is what I responded with:<br />
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After that, I really forgot about it until the Twitter account of Project Glass (@projectglass) responded to me a little over a month later letting me know that I was chosen to be a part of the program.<br />
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I was certainly excited to see that and then the wait began. I waited for 3 months before hearing from Project Glass again. I started to wonder if maybe they had eliminated me as a participant or even forgot about some. Then, on June 21st I got a direct message from them that invited me to schedule my pickup in New York City. That night I went online, ordered Glass and booked my plane tickets.<br />
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This past weekend, I flew to New York to pick them up. We were able to invite one person to go with us to the pickup and I asked my brother-in-law to go since he lives in New York near the city. We met at Starbucks across the street in Chelsea Market and then walked over the Google offices where the pickup for Project Glass was located. We were greeted as soon as we got off of the elevator by two people in reception wearing Glass and they checked us in and gave us guest badges marked with Explorer Edition.<br />
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After a very brief wait, we were met by our Glass Guide, Sunil who was awesome. He took us back to his station and then let us try on all of the different colors of Glass. Even though I had specified the color online when I purchased them, he asked if I would like to switch.<br />
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I chose to stick with Shale and by the time we got back from the fitting station, someone had brought a new box to the desk with a Shale pair of Glass. After a quick chat, I proceeded with the unboxing and Sunil let me through fitting them to my face and then through the basic setup of connecting them to my phone and to the wireless network. The phone is connected through Bluetooth pairing and connecting to the wireless network was made easy by inputing the connection information in my glass profile online and then scanning a QR code with my Glass to configure them.<br />
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Sunil then let me up on to a platform overlooking the New York City skyline, complete with the Freedom Tower in the distance. Here he taught me how to take pictures and video in different ways and how to perform a Google search with Glass.<br />
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We then returned to our station and Sunil answered a few more questions and showed me how to make phone calls and share activity from Glass. The entire appointment only lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes but a lot of ground was covered. It was time to return our badges and hit the streets of New York with them on.</div>
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It was odd leaving the building with this device on my head, but it quickly became less and less noticeable to me. I have had them for two days now and have worn them to church and to work. One of the great things about wearing them around is letting kids try them out when they ask. The excitement on their faces is so evident. They almost always start laughing and smiling. It is great to watch and be a part of opening up a whole new world to them. I think this will certainly be a part of their future. There are not that many applications right now written for them, but as they become available, the use for Glass will only grow and become more embedded in our lives. I feel fortunate to have the ability to be one of the few able to test these out and write some applications for Glass. If you would like to follow me on Google+, that is where I will most likely be sharing most of the pictures and videos that I take with Glass, you can do so here: </div>
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I can't wait to see what the future holds!
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-59536882994533956582013-01-01T15:11:00.004-05:002013-01-01T15:12:24.016-05:00Happy New Year!<center>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com3Asheville, NC, USA35.6009452 -82.55401499999999335.1874772 -83.199462 36.0144132 -81.908567999999988tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-76429603024163188772012-12-25T16:04:00.000-05:002012-12-26T09:22:36.319-05:00Merry Christmas<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">POST /broadcast HTTP/1.1</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-13047319713959485142012-07-03T13:34:00.000-05:002012-07-03T13:35:13.103-05:00Happy 4th of July<div style="text-align: center;">
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Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. I can't help but smile and fill with pride when I see the red white and blue of the flag go up in store windows, street corners, and on the front porches of so many homes. It is a feeling of strength, of pride, of gratitude and humility all neatly wrapped into one. It is a feeling that warms the heart and the soul. It is hamburgers and hotdogs, fireworks and swimming pools, parades and homemade apple pie and ice cream. I am so grateful to live in this country and have the freedoms that we enjoy. I have such respect for every man and woman that has served in our armed forces and in the agencies that protect our freedoms. Everything that we enjoy is owed to the brave men and women who have fought and stood with unfailing courage against the enemies of the freedom we so cherish, many giving their own lives to protect the way we get to live. Thank you to my father and uncle for their valiant service in Vietnam and after. Thank you to my brother-in-law for his service in Iraq. <span style="background-color: white;">A huge thank you to all of you who have served - past and present heros. As I enjoy my traditional 4th of July pancake breakfast and family barbecue with fireworks, I will do so with smiles and laughter mingling in the air, pride in my heart and a lump in my throat - enjoying my family and the celebration and remembering the sacrifices that were made for what is truly special and uniquely American. Happy 4th of July!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-84489551460597096532012-06-27T09:07:00.003-05:002012-06-27T09:08:23.653-05:00Video Based Learning Now Available on the iPad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Mobile devices and mobile connectivity are such hot topics right now, so it is natural that enabling learning on these devices is a big subject as well. As I started research on what it would take to bring e-learning to mobile devices 2 years ago, the predictions were staggering - even back then. In the short time span from that point until now, the numbers continue to grow rapidly upwards on the number of devices, users, and the amount of bandwidth consumed on mobile platforms. It was certainly evident then that we had to address this demand and deliver DigitalChalk on tablet devices.<br />
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As simple as that might sound on the surface, it took a lot of careful thought and planning because we did not want to offer our customers any less of an experience on their iPad or tablet than we did on their laptops. One of the strengths of DigitalChalk is our ability to track the student's activity to a very detailed level. To meet the strictest requirement in the continuing education space, we had to maintain the ability to do that tracking, as well as prevent the student from fast forwarding through the course if the instructor had configured the course in that manner. (Some accrediting bodies require students to meet or exceed a specific amount of time in a course.) Simply enabling an HTML5 based delivery of our video and audio lessons was simply not enough. We started over a year ago converting our encoding and streaming infrastructures and the content our customers were pushing into the system to facilitate this move. Terabytes of video and audio were reprocessed and packaged and hundreds of CPU hours were consumed in preparation for extending full functionality to iPads and tablets.<br />
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I am certainly interested in hearing ideas from our customers on what enhancements that would like to see in the future. We are working on a couple of things to be released very soon that I think you will all enjoy and were direct requests from some of our customers.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com7Asheville, NC, USA35.6009452 -82.55401535.4976602 -82.7119435 35.7042302 -82.39608650000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-7883979017120862592011-12-19T13:26:00.002-05:002011-12-19T13:26:26.142-05:00DigitalChalk Rolls Out Enterprise e-Learning and Discounts<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Online training leader DigitalChalk introduces Enterprise features and shopping cart discount options in their latest release.</i></span></h2>
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<img alt="Quote start" height="25" hspace="5" src="http://www.prweb.com/images/release-topquote.gif" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 20px;" width="29" /><span style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 20px;">With over 2,000 client organizations and nearly 6,000 courses being offered, DigitalChalk has become the clear leader in Cloud-based e-learning</span><img align="absmiddle" alt="Quote end" height="25" hspace="5" src="http://www.prweb.com/images/release-bottomquote.gif" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 20px;" width="29" /></div>
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Asheville, NC (<a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/DigitalChalk/Enterprise/prweb9048916.htm">PRWEB</a>) December 19, 2011</div>
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Online training software leader, <a href="http://www.digitalchalk.com/" style="color: #07689b; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;" title="DigitalChalk">DigitalChalk</a> announced today it's release of the winter 2012 "Newton" edition to it's Cloud-based training software as a service (SaaS) platform. This latest release includes features for both the professional trainers selling courses online as well as the Enterprise accounts. Current Professional and Business account customers have full access to the shopping cart discount features. Enterprise accounts now have an advanced rules engine for course registration.</div>
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The discount features introduced for <a href="http://www.digitalchalk.com/markets/businesses" style="color: #07689b; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;" title="Business Accounts">Professional and Business accounts</a> include options for course providers to offer coupon codes, combination course bundles and even advanced user matching options. Matching options only allow discounts to apply if the user meets criteria such as an email domain or geographic location match. Training providers can also create registration codes for bulk sales to business clients.</div>
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With the introduction of Enterprise accounts, DigitalChalk now provides advanced course delivery, tracking and reporting features along with full single sign-on capabilities to integrate the Cloud-based training services into corporate networks. This release includes an advanced course registration rules engine that allows training managers to set up rules to assign training courses to audiences based on geography, user rules, user profile data or keyword matching.</div>
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"The Enterprise edition released this year has had significant traction for both current clients and new customers who need to rapidly roll out online courses" said Tony McCune, VP Sales. "Clients now routinely sign up, publish courses and deliver training to thousands or more employees in less than a month. With over 2,000 client organizations and nearly 6,000 courses being offered, DigitalChalk has become the clear leader in Cloud-based e-learning," said McCune.</div>
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About DigitalChalk<br />DigitalChalk was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Asheville, NC. The SaaS training platform is available on a per-delivery fee basis for training professionals selling courses or a per-user basis for Business and Enterprise accounts. DigitalChalk is a full-service e-learning platform with course authoring, delivery and reporting included. DigitalChalk is the first and only online platform to provide <a href="http://www.digitalchalk.com/hdlearn" style="color: #07689b; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;" title="HDLearn Technology">HDLearn technology</a> for video streaming capabilities that include tracking, progress control and reporting in a video lesson.</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com41Asheville, NC, USA35.6009452 -82.55401535.4976602 -82.7119435 35.7042302 -82.39608650000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-87416725806874115052011-08-05T07:54:00.001-05:002011-08-05T07:54:37.214-05:00Asheville Cloud Computing DayOn August 10th, I will be speaking at an event in Asheville, North Carolina focused on Cloud Computing technology. If you are interested in learning about how you can use cloud computing in your business or seeing what the City of Asheville is doing with the technology, this event is free and open to the public. It is a very short mini-conference with a good line-up of speakers and we will also be hearing from Asheville's CIO, Jonathan Feldman. I hope to see you there!<br />
<hr/><b>City announces speaker lineup for Asheville Cloud Computing Day 2011</b><br />
<p>ASHEVILLE - The City of Asheville's Information Technology Services Department is sponsoring "Asheville Cloud Computing Day 2011", a mini-conference scheduled for 9 to 11:30 a.m. Aug. 10 in the Municipal Building (100 Court Plaza, 4th floor).</p><p>The event seeks to share cutting-edge ideas about cloud computing, a technology that promises to improve city government, as well as other organizations that adopt it.</p><p>The agenda and speaker lineup will include:<br />
<ul><li>“Servers are Software: The Advantages of Cloud Architecture” - Joe Emison, VP, Research & Development, BuildFax.</li>
<li>“How Citizens Can Use Open Data To Create New City Services” - Trevor Lohrbeer, CEO, Lab Escape.</li>
<li>“Beyond the server: the rise of cloud-based desktops” - Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, contributing editor, CBS News and ZDNet.</li>
<li>“The Playground of Today’s Tech Innovators: How Cloud Computing Changes The Game” - Troy Tolle, CTO, Digital Chalk.</li>
</ul></p><p>RSVPs from members of the community interested in attending the event are appreciated, but not necessary. RSVPs or questions about the event may be directed to @avlcio on Twitter, or <a href="mailto:jfeldman@ashevillenc.gov">jfeldman@ashevillenc.gov</a>.</p><p>For information about Asheville's Information Technology Services program, visit <a href="http://ashevillenc.gov/its">http://ashevillenc.gov/its</a>.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-54454233386514351762011-02-20T14:13:00.000-05:002011-02-20T14:13:05.487-05:00Save Time with Custom Search in Chrome & Firefox<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I am a fan of anything that can simplify and quickly make my life easier, no matter how small that thing might be. This week one of our talented developers (<a href="http://twitter.com/devewm">@devewm</a>) at DigitalChalk showed me something that will save me several minutes every single day. He introduced me to making your own custom searches in Chrome and Firefox. I wanted to share with you how it really simplified my day in hopes that you could apply it as well.<br />
At DigitalChalk, we use Edgewall's Trac to for our development wiki and issue tracking system. Every single day, I will be talking with someone in sales, support, development or operations and will inevitably get asked to go and view a certain ticket by its ticket number. While it is simple to use the search field within Trac itself, it would be nice to just navigate straight to the ticket from the browser. This is where a custom search shined for me. You can take any known url and insert your search text right from the browser bar. I used this to setup a custom DigitalChalk Trac search that would take me straight to the ticket I was looking for saving me a click everytime.<br />
Here is how you can set it up for yourself in Chrome:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fEBMRG2Tdng/TWFknQCpgaI/AAAAAAAAAqo/lPjiLSeb3jE/s1600/Chrome+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="123" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fEBMRG2Tdng/TWFknQCpgaI/AAAAAAAAAqo/lPjiLSeb3jE/s320/Chrome+1.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Open Chrome Preferences</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jvxusSANk6E/TWFkn3RkO0I/AAAAAAAAAqs/GqXZaIqdBIw/s1600/Chrome+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jvxusSANk6E/TWFkn3RkO0I/AAAAAAAAAqs/GqXZaIqdBIw/s320/Chrome+2.png" width="305" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Click on the Manage Button next to the Search drop-down</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z5KANI-C178/TWFkoQyExII/AAAAAAAAAqw/QBEr-4VcgVU/s1600/Chrome+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z5KANI-C178/TWFkoQyExII/AAAAAAAAAqw/QBEr-4VcgVU/s320/Chrome+3.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In the Search Engines dialog, click on the + button in the bottom left hand corner. The important things here are the keyword and the URL. You will notice that I am using a keyword of "!trac". This is what I will type in the browser bar and it will take whatever text I put next and place it in the URL where I have specified "%s". In the case above, the "%s" is at the end of the URL and will correspond to the ticket number I would like to display.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6R3eh5Wy-xQ/TWFkoqsPaeI/AAAAAAAAAq0/5imEzjBj7xQ/s1600/Chrome+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6R3eh5Wy-xQ/TWFkoqsPaeI/AAAAAAAAAq0/5imEzjBj7xQ/s1600/Chrome+4.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">After that, you are ready to use it. Just open up a new tab and type in your keyword.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M8CSEHEVPpw/TWFkpLdPZHI/AAAAAAAAAq4/qCtnW6IjvX0/s1600/Chrome+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="80" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M8CSEHEVPpw/TWFkpLdPZHI/AAAAAAAAAq4/qCtnW6IjvX0/s320/Chrome+5.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Chrome will resolve the keyword to your Search and then you can type in your search term. After you press enter, you will be taken directly to the page that you were targeting.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On Firefox, the same feature exist, but it is buried a little differently. You can accomplish what you want to do with Bookmarks.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Vk2ARRkRNXY/TWFkpT4PRoI/AAAAAAAAAq8/AgLh43J7l0Q/s1600/Firefox+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="87" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Vk2ARRkRNXY/TWFkpT4PRoI/AAAAAAAAAq8/AgLh43J7l0Q/s320/Firefox+1.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Under the "Bookmarks" menu item, go to "Show All Bookmarks"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G50ae0LJjCE/TWFkqod42-I/AAAAAAAAArA/5EzSCnr1gaY/s1600/Firefox+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G50ae0LJjCE/TWFkqod42-I/AAAAAAAAArA/5EzSCnr1gaY/s320/Firefox+2.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In the Bookmarks dialog, right-click on the "Bookmarks Menu" and choose "New Folder..." (You don't have to do this step, but it is easier to keep track of your custom searches this way). I names my folder "Search Helpers".</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gaQSg9GfU5s/TWFkq_0W6lI/AAAAAAAAArE/TGu9zbRXF1w/s1600/Firefox+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="123" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gaQSg9GfU5s/TWFkq_0W6lI/AAAAAAAAArE/TGu9zbRXF1w/s320/Firefox+3.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Right-click on the folder you just created and choose "New Bookmark..."</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ccDoZ0yQB64/TWFkrUMlHHI/AAAAAAAAArI/7TMlCbtH7CQ/s1600/Firefox+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ccDoZ0yQB64/TWFkrUMlHHI/AAAAAAAAArI/7TMlCbtH7CQ/s320/Firefox+4.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">You can fill out the form exactly as you did in Chrome</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4xhDieqskwc/TWFksOVbLII/AAAAAAAAArM/HThhByVHPkM/s1600/Firefox+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="73" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4xhDieqskwc/TWFksOVbLII/AAAAAAAAArM/HThhByVHPkM/s320/Firefox+5.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Use it the exact same way. Firefox will not autocomplete the keyword to your Search name, but it functions the same way.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I hope you can put this tip to good use and that it saves you some clicks along the way.</div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-48411450654925466242011-01-03T08:34:00.000-05:002011-01-03T08:34:18.422-05:00DigitalChalk with HDLearn Technology<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TSHPVdnYD1I/AAAAAAAAAnY/Juj6kUnQg0w/s1600/DigitalChalk_HDLearn.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="106" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TSHPVdnYD1I/AAAAAAAAAnY/Juj6kUnQg0w/s200/DigitalChalk_HDLearn.png" width="200" /></a></div>Today marks another release of DigitalChalk with an exciting update to our video capabilities. We have launched DigitalChalk with <a href="http://www.digitalchalk.com/hdlearn">HDLearn® Technology</a> today allowing you to encode and deliver your videos in extremely high quality. I first announced this capability when I spoke at the international cloud computing conference (<a href="http://www.icict.gov.eg/ICICT2010/index.html">ICICT 2010</a>) in Cairo, Egypt last month and it was received with a great response. If you were not able to see it at that time, I am sure that you will enjoy seeing it now. We have completely changed the encoding and streaming capabilities of our site with this release, taking all of the worry about what do when building your courses away. You will no longer have to choose what profiles you want to deliver to your students. Now, when you upload a video to DigitalChalk, we automatically encode it into several different profiles without you having to choose. We also have added technology to ensure the best delivery possible to your students. We are now able to detect the speed of your students connection and make choices in real-time on what the best quality video is that they can consume regardless of their bandwidth. With our new Pro+ and Business+ packages, your upload limit has increased to 1GB and it includes a encoding profile that is HD 720p. DigitalChalk is the first on-demand training platform on the web that will allow you to deliver true 720p video to your students, and we are thrilled to see how you use it!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-81286606242645630032010-12-03T12:51:00.000-05:002010-12-03T12:51:42.165-05:00Alerts for EC2 through CloudWatchMonitoring your applications running on Amazon's EC2 platform just got easier. Today, Amazon <a href="http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/12/new-features-for-amazon-cloudwatch.html">announced</a> the public availability of CloudWatch for EC2 with Alarms. Instead of having to poll and ask CloudWatch for the current status, you can actually have that information pushed to you instead. This is a much more efficient way to monitor you applications running in the Amazon cloud. Right now the only new alarm that is supported is for Amazon SNS, but this is a huge step forward. Before today, CloudWatch could still trigger an Auto Scaling policy, but with the addition of SNS the doors are really opening up. Using Amazon SNS, you can do almost any type of notification that you would like posting to HTTP/HTTPS, Email, JSON, or directly into SQS. This makes the service very flexible. You are able to monitor CPU Utilization, Average Disk Reads, Average Disk Writes and Network traffic in and out.<br />
Amazon has also enabled a new monitoring tab in the EC2 management console that will allow you to look at the graphs for these elements on each of your EC2 instances. The data only goes back to the 2nd of December since it was just released today, but this will be extremely useful for a quick read on how your instances are performing.<br />
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Amazon is certainly hitting things on my wishlist this year. Now if they would only enable CloudWatch and Alarms for metrics on <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/sqs">SQS</a>! Hopefully this is just around the corner. You can read more about the new features and the pricing of CloudWatch on EC2 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch">here</a>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com93tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-47870556606954316132010-11-24T18:03:00.002-05:002010-11-24T18:05:31.116-05:00Downloading EXE files from S3It is more than a little frustrating that Internet Explorer and Windows cannot do anything to match what the other major browsers and operating systems are doing, or so it seems. Internet Explorer has long been the browser that most developers hate to support. Today, I ran across something that wasn't HTML or CSS related but still caused issues on Windows using Internet Explorer.<br />
<div>As many of you know, I use Amazon Web Services to do much of my work and S3, Simple Storage Service, is a large part of what I work with. Today, I was made aware that someone could not download an EXE file from S3 onto their desktop. I tested it out, and it was fine for me. Classic developer response right? Turns out, it worked for me because I was using Chrome on my Mac. It didn't work quite right in Internet Explorer on Windows. The file would download, but it would not bring down the extension to the file. What I mean, is if the file was stored in S3 as "filename.exe", when it was downloaded to the Windows machine it would only be named "filename". I was encouraged by some people that I know to simply chalk it up to a security concern, and while I do not encourage anyone downloading random .exe files and installing them, I knew that this just couldn't be the case. As it turns out, Internet Explorer must be told the Content-Disposition of the file when it is an EXE or DLL. This is done in the headers when the file is requested. Luckily, S3 allows you to put metadata on a file that is passed down when the file is requested. To allow Internet Explorer to recognize and save the file with the .exe extension you will just need to add the Content-Disposition:attachment; filename=<filename.exe> header.</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TO2aMMm2YYI/AAAAAAAAAnI/brJaadSwaX4/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-11-24+at+6.04.58+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TO2aMMm2YYI/AAAAAAAAAnI/brJaadSwaX4/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-11-24+at+6.04.58+PM.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div>You can do this as metadata in S3 through the AWS console. Many of the software utilities that work with S3 also allow you to set this metadata programmatically when storing the objects.</div><div>I am used to all sorts of JavaScript, HTML, CSS problems when working with IE, but this one really threw me for a loop at first. I hope that this helps you.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-83609922882229520022010-11-19T16:45:00.000-05:002010-11-19T16:45:20.265-05:00DigitalChalk is a Gazelle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TObcHgmwcEI/AAAAAAAAAnA/xLbnCdeAm2A/s1600/wsj_starbucks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TObcHgmwcEI/AAAAAAAAAnA/xLbnCdeAm2A/s320/wsj_starbucks.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>It really has been a whirlwind of a morning. I woke up this morning and walked out the door to get a morning cup of coffee at the local Starbucks before heading into work. I grabbed the Wall Street Journal and started reading. That is when it really sank in. I was reading an <a href="http://j.mp/bmCb7i">article</a> about my company <a href="http://digitalchalk.com/">DigitalChalk.com</a> in the Wall Street Journal! This will be one of those days that you always remember when you look back at all of the things that happen as you start a company. It is certainly a highlight for me. This picture is one that I took sitting there near the fire reading the paper and enjoying my coffee.<br />
I was interviewed by Mark Whitehouse about 2 weeks ago while I was walking down the street in San Francisco, a long ways from our headquarters in Asheville, North Carolina but right in the heart of tech startup country. He told me he was trying to do some research on why it was hard for startups right now to get adequate funding. I was excited to share with him about DigitalChalk and the success that we have been blessed with in some really hard economic times. Our growth this year has been better than it ever has and there is really no end in sight! As I described this to Mark, he told me over and over that we had all the markings of a great story as a Gazelle. I really like that analogy. Gazelles are extremely fast and nimble animals and if you had the opportunity to meet the team at DigitalChalk, I think it describes us completely. I get to work with some of the smartest people with the agility to change and go from 0 to 100 at anytime.<br />
Reading through the article, and seeing some of the accomplishments in print in the Wall Street Journal is both exciting and humbling, but most of all, it makes me thankful for the passion and the dedication to all the people who make up the DigitalChalk team. This is something we can all look back on and be proud of.<br />
Please check out the article: <a href="http://j.mp/bmCb7i">Shortage of Capital Costs Firm</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-3791100043862299162010-10-07T15:20:00.000-05:002010-10-07T15:20:43.531-05:00DigitalChalk takes SCORM to the Amazon Cloud<div class="releaseDateline"></div><h2 class="subtitle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">DigitalChalk, a learning management system serving the continuing education and professional training markets announces SCORM support on the Amazon Cloud. </span></span> </h2><br />
Infinity Learning Solutions, the parent company of <a href="http://www.digitalchalk.com/" title="DigitalChalk Online Training Software">DigitalChalk</a> announced today that they have successfully released the fall 2010 Aristotle 4 version with full SCORM 1.2 support. SCORM 1.2 compliant content is now available in all editions of DigitalChalk including Free, Pro, Business and School. DigitalChalk also added a checkpoint enhancement to the Chalkboard Editor, a browser based multimedia lesson studio that is included in DigitalChalk. The Checkpoint feature lets instructors insert interactive prompts and questions into a multimedia presentation through the browser. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TK4rOGRjFmI/AAAAAAAAAms/qLtUo-IYBFM/s1600/scormdc.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TK4rOGRjFmI/AAAAAAAAAms/qLtUo-IYBFM/s1600/scormdc.png" /></a></div>"Introducing SCORM support to DigitalChalk significantly expands the options our clients have for reusing existing content as well as broadening the range of compatible authoring tools we support," said Tony McCune, VP of Sales at ILS. "DigitalChalk is the first subscription based LMS that we are aware of running in the Amazon Cloud."<br />
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"Hosting a SCORM compliant system in an advanced cloud computing platform such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) poses some unique challenges. SCORM uses communication specifications that were originally designed before the cloud was invented. We took a system with it’s own personality and wove the SCORM specification into it," said Troy Tolle, Chief Technology Officer of ILS. "The team accomplished the task in an innovative and highly scalable fashion. There was no impact to the thousands of organizations currently delivering courses on DigitalChalk today."<br />
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The SCORM specification was originally created by the US Department of Defense. Introducing SCORM into DigitalChalk helps address the growing demand from the US federal government for scalable software as a service (SaaS) learning management systems on the Apps.gov cloud infrastructure, which is modeled after the AWS system. <br />
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"Not only is DigitalChalk an industry leader in delivery of online training and continuing education, DigitalChalk is the first Learning Management System to build a SCORM compliant system in the cloud using Amazon Web Services that we are aware of," said Wes Hester, CEO of Foxhole Technologies, a VA based federal IT services company. <br />
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To learn more about DigitalChalk, visit <a href="http://www.digitalchalk.com/">www.DigitalChalk.com</a> or call toll-free in the US at 877-321-2451. To learn more about Foxhole Technology and DigitalChalk in the Federal Market, please visit <a href="http://www.foxholetechnology.com/technology/cloud/digitalchalk.html">http://www.foxholetechnology.com/technology/cloud/digitalchalk.html</a>. GSA Schedule 70: GS-35F-0569V<br />
You can read more about the SCORM specification from Advanced Distributed Learning at <a href="http://www.adlnet.gov/">www.adlnet.gov</a>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-20984393455018763442010-08-09T15:33:00.000-05:002010-08-09T15:33:37.989-05:00Creating a Maven Web Project in EclipseMy development platform of choice has been Eclipse for many years now and, more recently, I have really started to enjoy the library management that Maven provides me in development, testing and production. Although there are very nice plugins available for integrating Maven and Eclipse together, it is not always the most straight forward process to setup a WTP project in Eclipse that can utilize Maven. I have also found that since creating new projects is not something that we do on a daily or even monthly basis, it can easily become a trial and error episode chewing up a couple of hours of precious development time. I hope that walking through it here will help save you some time on your next project.<br />
Let's assume a fresh install of Eclipse. I am using Eclipse 3.6 Helios for Java EE developers which you can download from <a href="http://eclipse.org/">eclipse.org</a>. You will also need to <a href="http://tomcat.apache.org/">download</a> and extract Apache Tomcat 6. We will point to this Tomcat directory later when we go to test our project setup.<br />
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Our fresh install of Eclipse does not come with the necessary Maven plugins, so we will need to install them first. In Eclipse, navigate to your Help menu and select "Install New Software...".<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TGBHM9xGf2I/AAAAAAAAAkc/ChT6fnhgUfo/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-08-09+at+2.20.39+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TGBHM9xGf2I/AAAAAAAAAkc/ChT6fnhgUfo/s320/Screen+shot+2010-08-09+at+2.20.39+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
In the top right hand corner, click on the "Add..." button and a dialog will appear that will allow you to add an new update site for the M2 Eclipse plugin. The Location is: http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e . You can name the site anything that you like, but you will want it to reflect the name so that you will recognize it later if you come back to scan through your plugins. I have named mine M2Eclipse.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TGBH9bDSViI/AAAAAAAAAkg/2c_HmH5HCwY/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-08-09+at+12.01.28+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TGBH9bDSViI/AAAAAAAAAkg/2c_HmH5HCwY/s400/Screen+shot+2010-08-09+at+12.01.28+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Clicking OK here will take you to a screen so that you can choose the pieces that you want to download. For this site, you only have one choice so it is easy. Check it and click finish and the plugin will start to install.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TGBJs_No8tI/AAAAAAAAAkk/Br2dwuP3jgo/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-08-09+at+12.01.53+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="103" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TGBJs_No8tI/AAAAAAAAAkk/Br2dwuP3jgo/s400/Screen+shot+2010-08-09+at+12.01.53+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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You will have to navigate and agree to the license. It will also ask you to restart eclipse after the install. You should go ahead and do this and return back to the "Install New Software..." screen after the restart. You will also need to install the M2 Eclipse Extras in the same way. The repository location for the extras is: http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e-extras<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TGBKQcRQVeI/AAAAAAAAAko/OFhIXWxrcuM/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-08-09+at+12.05.57+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TGBKQcRQVeI/AAAAAAAAAko/OFhIXWxrcuM/s400/Screen+shot+2010-08-09+at+12.05.57+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
This update site contains more than one item to install. You will not need to check the M2Eclipse Extensions Develop Support or the Project configurators for commonly used maven plugins. I do like to use Mylyn and the integration with CVS is nice to have, but they are not necessary. You can choose the ones that you feel you need for your development environment. The only one that you must pull down is the <b>Maven Integration for WTP</b>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TGBLZhdVxII/AAAAAAAAAks/RSH5pyaAQFM/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-08-09+at+12.07.35+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TGBLZhdVxII/AAAAAAAAAks/RSH5pyaAQFM/s400/Screen+shot+2010-08-09+at+12.07.35+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Clicking Finish here will take you through the license agreement again and then ask you to restart.<br />
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After restarting, let's continue by installing the Apache Tomcat runtime environment in Eclipse. Under Eclipse "Preferences..." navigate down to "Server > Runtime Environments". Click on "Add..." and select "Apache Tomcat v6.0" and click Next.<br />
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You will need to enter the Tomcat installation directory. This will be the directory where you extracted Tomcat. You can use "Browse..." to locate and populate that location.<br />
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We are now ready to create our Web project. Return to the Project Explorer in the Java EE perspective and choose File > New > Dynamic Web Project<br />
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Simply name your project and make sure that your Target runtime is set to Apache Tomcat 6.0 and your Dynamic web module version is 2.5<br />
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Click Next ><br />
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This screen will allow you to configure your folders for building the application. We are going to modify these folders to match the Maven hierarchy. This can be done later as well, but doing it now will avoid some copy and paste as well as some deleting cleanup. You will need to remove the "src" folder that is listed by default and add the following source folders:<br />
<ul><li>src/main/java</li>
<li>src/main/resources</li>
<li>src/test/java</li>
<li>src/test/resources</li>
</ul>You should also change the Default output folder to "target/classes" <br />
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Click Next ><br />
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We are also going to change the Web Module settings to match the Maven packaging. You will need to change the Content directory on this page from WebContent to "src/main/webapp".<br />
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Click Finish.<br />
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This completes the setup of the Dynamic Web Project. We now need to make it a Maven project as well. This can be done by right clicking on the project in the Project Explorer and choosing "Maven > Enable Dependency Management"<br />
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In this wizard, you will only need to change the Packaging to "war" instead of "jar". and click "Finish"<br />
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You should now see the POM editor in Eclipse. We need to add a compiler plugin for 1.6 that will help keep things building cleanly. Click on the Plugins tab at the bottom of the editor and then Click on "Add..." in the Plugins section at the top left. Search for the groupId of "org.apache.maven.plugins" and then choose the "maven-compiler-plugin" artifact from the list.<br />
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Click on OK and then navigate to the "pom.xml" tab in the editor. We need to add the configuration for 1.6 which we cannot do through the GUI. All that is needed is the configuration XML that is selected below.<br />
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Save and close the POM editor.<br />
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When that completes building, you may notice that the Java Runtime is giving you a warning in your "Markers" tab.<br />
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This can be remedied by changing your build path. You can right click on the project and select "Properties" and then change the build path JRE System Library to point to the 1.6 Execution Environment. If you do not have your Execution Environments set, you can simply click on the "Environments..." button on this dialog and point them to the JDK installation on your machine.<br />
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Clicking Finish here will rebuild the project and you should be error free in your Markers tab.<br />
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Now for some simple cleanup of your project. You can expand your project in the Project Explorer and navigate down to Web Resources > WEB-INF and delete the lib directory. We are going to let Maven and WTP work together to manage this.<br />
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You will also notice that you have a Classpath Dependency warning in your Markers tab. This is very important and will have to be addressed if you want your Maven managed dependencies to be available to your local test server.<br />
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Simply right click on the warning and choose the "Quick Fix" option.<br />
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Then you will be prompted with a popup explaining the suggested remedies to your problem. We need the classpath to be available to our server, so we need it to be added as a dependency. Choose that option and then click "Finish".<br />
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The setup is now complete. All that is left now is to test our new project and configuration. This is easily done by creating an index JSP in our webapp directory.<br />
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After saving the JSP, you can test your application by right clicking on the project and choosing "Run As > Run on Server"<br />
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Choose the Tomcat v6.0 Server and then click Finish. This will push your project to deploy on startup of that server and it will start the server.<br />
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When the startup is done, a browser window should appear in Eclipse with your index.jsp content displayed.<br />
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You are now off to the races on your new web project using Maven. All of the dependencies that you add to the pom file will be included in the classpath each time you start the server.<br />
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I hope that you found this useful. Let me know your experience.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-48659858652819222412010-07-21T08:14:00.001-05:002010-07-21T08:16:42.136-05:00New Open Source Cloud Platform<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TEXKRVl4oEI/AAAAAAAAAkU/MaE6PlVRoSs/s1600/openstack-logo.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TEXKRVl4oEI/AAAAAAAAAkU/MaE6PlVRoSs/s1600/openstack-logo.jpeg" /></a></div>Cloud services and platforms are popping up everywhere you turn and everyone is jumping onto the bandwagon it seems. I have even been asked by 2 startup companies that want to jump into the space if there are needs that still haven't been met with what is available now. This is a growing market and it is still in its very early stages, so there will always be room for more right now. Rackspace and NASA's announcement about <a href="http://openstack.com/">OpenStack</a> makes it a little easier to jump into the cloud software and infrastructure game. Rackspace is contributing some of its code under an Apache 2.0 licence to the open source community for the management of compute instances and storage. These seem like just initial starting points for contribution as they have also asked for other needs from the community. I would guess that we will see parallel offerings from OpenStack that mimic Amazon's AWS offerings since they are the largest player in this space. OpenStack's computing platform is currently scheduled to be available in an initial release state in October and the storage platform is expected in September. If you would like to dabble some before then, you can go and download the code at <a href="http://launchpad.net/openstack">http://launchpad.net/openstack</a>. There are projects there for the compute and storage platforms as well as projects for management from the web and from your favorite mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android). Seeing another open source project in this space is a good thing. I hope that people don't immediately start trying to claim standards on cloud computing out of this project. I believe that it is still way to early to try to start standardizing everything. We start to kill the pace of innovation when standards are forced early. That being said, this will be a project to watch closely along with <a href="http://open.eucalyptus.com/">Eucalyptus</a> and will be one to offer a great playground for ideas.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-45543953143303677742010-05-31T13:54:00.000-05:002010-05-31T13:54:52.048-05:00Cloud Computing ROI<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TAQFQcp6-CI/AAAAAAAAAj8/03FttGVwsio/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-05-31+at+2.16.00+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="314" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/TAQFQcp6-CI/AAAAAAAAAj8/03FttGVwsio/s320/Screen+shot+2010-05-31+at+2.16.00+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>It was a very easy decision for me to start <a href="http://digitalchalk.com/">DigitalChalk</a> on a cloud computing platform. The calculations were quick and easy 4 years ago with a small budget and a dream to build a global platform for training. We had to scale as we gained customers because we didn't have the immediate capital to buy everything up front. Today, I still spend time thinking of new ways to use the power of the cloud for our business and the ROI is still clear to me; but I have to say that it is something I get asked about every time I speak or talk to other people looking to take the plunge. I had the pleasure of speaking with Jonathan Feldman, writer for Information Week, more than once over the past couple of weeks. He has put together a great study helping the CIO, CTO and individual business units navigate the "gotchas" and common questions when it comes to moving to the cloud. I was happy to see the report and I think it will help those of you looking to move or start some of your applications to the cloud. I encourage you to take a moment and read the report. It is an Analytics Report titled, <b>Cloud ROI: <i>Calculating Costs, Benefits, Returns</i></b> and can be found <a href="http://j.mp/b6suzt">here</a>. Great job Jonathan! It is good to see all of this research in one place.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-34189470164572003152010-03-14T15:32:00.001-05:002010-03-14T15:33:22.794-05:00Juicy Ideas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/S51GUEr7XKI/AAAAAAAAAi8/ZUcrJd0KIlU/s1600-h/jisquare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/S51GUEr7XKI/AAAAAAAAAi8/ZUcrJd0KIlU/s1600/jisquare.jpg" /></a></div>I have been hard at work with my team to help launch the Juicy Ideas Competition <a href="http://juicyideas.com/">website</a>. I am happy to say that it has been successfully launched as of last week and we are receiving signups for the competition. My company, <a href="http://digitalchalk.com">DigitalChalk</a>, is sponsoring a competition with AdvantageWest and will be sending the winning team to <a href="http://google.com">Google</a> Headquarters in Mountain View, California. The winning team will also receive 5 Android phones provided by Google.<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/"></a><br />The competition is a software competition that challenges college students to do something innovative and creative using data that will benefit their community. I know that we will see some very cool applications come out of this competition this year! If you would like to compete, or know someone that should, send them to the Juicy Ideas website at: <a href="http://juicyideas.com/">http://juicyideas.com</a> and have them register their team.<br />The video on the homepage was done by DigitalChalk's very own Jacob Absire and I love it. You can check it out on YouTube as well.<br /><object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/weEf_gGjspk&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/weEf_gGjspk&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-40426165169068805542010-01-04T23:58:00.001-05:002010-01-04T23:59:36.525-05:00Creativity for Amazon's Cloud Computing ContinuesAmazon Web Services continues to move forward in innovative ways to get people to take advantage of their services. Two announcements last month enhance the <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ec2">EC2</a> service pricing and the <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront">Cloud Front</a> delivery model. The availability of auction price instances (spot instances) in EC2 and the ability to do true Flash streaming from Cloud Front really put the squeeze on traditional hosting and edge delivery companies.<br />With the new Spot Instances in EC2 you can take advantage of the excess capacity that Amazon is not using at that time. Because that capacity changes as more instances are started, the price for those instances fluctuate. With good planning, this can be used to really save on cash. Over the past 20 days, the price of a Spot Instance has been less than 50% of the price of a regular priced instance much of the time. If you are considering using EC2 for some bursting tasks and quick turn around, I would look at the Spot Instances first. Because you set the price you want to pay and the price changes over time, your instance may be terminated if your price is less than the Amazon rate. For this reason, you must plan ahead when using them in a production situation. One good strategy here to lower your costs would be to purchase some Reserved Instances that will stay running and then start Spot Instances in peak situations. You can use the AWS API to see the current prices of the Spot Instances to know how to set your price at runtime. If you want to see the prices online and over time, you can use the AWS console or some other sites like <a href="http://www.cloudexchange.org/">Cloud Exchange</a>. Because you cannot reserve Windows instances right now on Amazon, it makes a lot of sense to take advantage of the Spot Instances. As I write this, a small Windows instance is $0.12 an hour and you can have the same thing running as a Spot Instance for $0.042 an hour.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/S0K_leA50SI/AAAAAAAAAiI/E7t94Cpi1rY/s1600-h/Picture%201-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/S0K_leA50SI/AAAAAAAAAiI/E7t94Cpi1rY/s400/Picture%201-1.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/S0K_lUOLdwI/AAAAAAAAAiM/vcs9eelu8aM/s1600-h/Picture%202-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/S0K_lUOLdwI/AAAAAAAAAiM/vcs9eelu8aM/s400/Picture%202-1.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/S0K_lvllB5I/AAAAAAAAAiQ/9e2Zta67GlE/s1600-h/Picture%203.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="356" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/S0K_lvllB5I/AAAAAAAAAiQ/9e2Zta67GlE/s400/Picture%203.png" width="400" /></a><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">At about 1/3 the price of a standard small instance, it makes it very attractive to use the Spot Instances right now.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The announcement of streaming support from Cloud Front is also a great new addition. Delivering content to the end user from the closest data center helps improve performance. Until now, all that could be delivered was static content and progressive downloads. Streaming video from Cloud Front helps reduce your costs because only the viewed parts need to be delivered. It also does not store the file on the end user's machine. You can use Cloud Front to deliver videos in several formats, even H.264 allowing playback on the iPod and iPhone. Thank you Amazon!<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-21830182155405332832009-10-14T15:32:00.002-05:002009-10-14T15:35:08.833-05:00Cloud Confusion and the DoD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/StYzYpc5_5I/AAAAAAAAAhY/3KZwz1e2hcM/s1600-h/race_logo3.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img style="width: 204px; height: 87px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/StYzYpc5_5I/AAAAAAAAAhY/3KZwz1e2hcM/s320/race_logo3.gif" border="0" /></a><br /></div>Last week the Department of Defense announced a new private cloud computing environment called <a href="http://www.disa.mil/race/">RACE</a> (Rapid Access Computing Environment). This was an announcement that received a ton of attention in blogs and the circles of cloud computing advocates and naysayers. The frustrating thing about announcements and the ensuing arguments that take place afterward is that there are very few people that really understand what cloud computing is and all of the facets that are involved. The problem really stems from the over-use of the term "cloud computing" to cover what seems to be every application that runs in your browser. Just because you don't know where the actual server is located, or because it runs in your browser does not make something cloud computing. As soon as the announcement was made about RACE, the comparisons to Google came <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/10/05/urnidgns852573C40069388000257646006AC738.DTL">flying</a> <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/forget_google_and_amazon_the_dod_shows_off_what_a_real_cloud_platform_can_do.php">in</a>. First of all, this is not even the right comparison. I am behind using cloud computing for government applications, but if we are going to compare the systems, let's at least compare them fairly. RACE is more of an IaaS cloud service and Google is both SaaS (GMail, Google Docs, etc) and PaaS (AppEngine). It seems more fairly compared to the single service of EC2 provided by Amazon. I would love to take a deep dive into RACE, but unfortunately, and as expected for security, it is only available to someone with a government card or clearance. What they do say on the website though is that provisioning after a request only takes 24 hours. Is that truly on demand computing? Call me spoiled being able to provision dozens of servers with a single web service request in 5 to 10 minutes, but that is what I expect from a system now that claims to be on-demand. This is a great direction and good start for DISA. It is very encouraging to see the activity in the government space around cloud computing. We really need to stop lumping every cloud computing service or offering under the single banner of Cloud Computing. People will continue to make their offerings sound better than others with unfair comparisons and statistics. A common language and standard is needed for fair comparison. Until then, let the spin go on!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-80397848566435122202009-09-07T14:44:00.001-05:002009-09-07T16:14:21.744-05:00Why Social is Successful<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/SqVidN2EA5I/AAAAAAAAAhQ/1zmOxhML_sQ/s1600-h/3427996361_dd0d4375f1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/SqVidN2EA5I/AAAAAAAAAhQ/1zmOxhML_sQ/s200/3427996361_dd0d4375f1.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><br />Almost every time that I speak, I can count on being asked about where the internet is going and what technology will be the next "big thing". Obviously there are a ton of people that would capitalize on that if anyone could predict the future. Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and angel investors spend their days trying to decipher and figure out the answer to that question. It is clearly a tough question.I love technology and the constant curve of innovation that surrounds me at work everyday. With the new hot technologies being social applications, the whole world is getting a little smaller still. It is not surprising to me that applications such as Twitter and Facebook are so wildly popular. It does help that they are free, but the "freemium" model works like a catalyst. People generally don't sign up for something just because it is free, but because it is useful. These applications are successful because they are relational and they bring us into closer contact with one another. The internet a great warehouse of all sorts of information at your fingertips, but that only satisfies our curiosity and natural thirst for knowledge. Most people are looking for more meaningful relationships and someone that cares. The corporate website that only displays information and does not allow for a round trip of communication does not "get it" yet. That is the old way of doing business on the internet. Simply having a presence is not good enough. The internet has evolved to allow us what we really want: a conversation, and it will continue to move in that direction. The first generation of internet technology satiated our hunger for knowledge and now it is helping us connect with others in more meaningful ways. Social is sexy because that is how God made us. Just look at what the top search terms are on a daily basis: they are for people, celebrity figures, that we want to know about. It is really, a desire to get to know them better. It is the next best thing to a conversation. Dating sites have been wildly popular for years, and now, the feeling of instant connection with Facebook and Twitter are where we feel comfortable. We are able to connect with people we haven't seen in years and people we have never met. We can share our life experiences and our knowledge across all boundaries and all over the globe. The next technologies on the internet will bring us even closer and more connected. The written letter was and is an excellent form of communication, but it was made faster with the telegram, the telephone, and the cellphone - continually bringing us closer in relationships with greater and greater ease. I believe that internet technology will continue to do the same. Whether it allows us to take a course online from a renown instructor, get us just a little closer to our family, or connects us better with a business contact, social applications (done well) will continue to be successful. As to what it will be... well, let's talk about it on Twitter.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-77375762536242267222009-07-15T00:41:00.000-05:002009-07-15T00:41:19.598-05:00Azure verses Amazon AWS Pricing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/Sl1rvyW9pUI/AAAAAAAAAhI/m70KiIS8R8s/s1600-h/azure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/Sl1rvyW9pUI/AAAAAAAAAhI/m70KiIS8R8s/s320/azure.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Microsoft <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/azure/pricing.mspx">released the pricing</a> today for their cloud computing platform called Azure. The costs really look competitive when compared across the other platforms that are currently offered in the market. The breakdown is as follows:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>Windows Azure</li>
<ul><li>Compute = $0.12 / hour</li>
<li> Storage = $0.15 / GB stored / month</li>
<li>Storage Transactions = $0.01 / 10,000</li>
<li>Bandwidth = $0.10 IN / $0.15 OUT / GB</li>
</ul>
<li>SQL Azure</li>
<ul><li>Web Edition - Up to 1 GB relational database = $9.99</li>
<li>Business Edition - Up to 10 GB relational database = $99.99</li>
<li>Bandwidth = $0.10 IN / $0.15 OUT / GB</li>
</ul>
<li>.Net Services</li>
<ul><li> Messages = $0.15 / 100,000 message operations</li>
<li>Bandwidth = $0.10 IN / $0.15 OUT / GB</li>
</ul></ul>As you can see, they look fairly competitive to Amazons pricing in the different areas which can be found on the pages for <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/">EC2</a>, <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">S3</a> and <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/sqs/">SQS</a>. It is very hard, if not impossible, to do a complete side-by-side comparison that covers all of what is offered and all of the different configurations and software stacks, but let's look at some of the basics to get an idea.<br />
<br />
Let's first look at the storage services offered by the platforms since they are almost identical in function and feature. Azure's platform for storage is a flat $0.15 / GB / month and <br />
$0.01 / 10,000 transactions. Data transfer across all of Azure's services is $0.10 IN and $0.15 OUT / GB. This makes the calculation for storage very simple on their part. S3 has a tiered pricing scheme which makes it a little more difficult to calculate, but does offer some cost saves when storing vast amounts of data. On light storage (1-50 TB) Amazon will charge $0.15 / GB for storage, $0.10 IN and $0.17 OUT / GB in bandwidth. Amazon divides the types of transactions in their pricing: $0.01 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST and LIST request and $0.01 per 10,000 GET (and other) request. This ultimately gives Azure the win on the low end for storage. As soon as you go over the 50 TB / month threshold for storage or transfer more than 10 TB of data OUT of storage however, Amazon wins in price on the growth. The more your store, the less it will cost you on Amazon, even going down to $0.12 / GB. The data transfer rates going out can get as low as $0.10 / GB OUT. Amazon also does not charge you for data transfer from S3 to EC2 (inside the cloud). It is not clear if the same holds true for Azure. So, if you have a lot of data, then Amazon will give you the better prices, but if you are light on data and traffic, then Azure has the best price. All that being said, it is important to note that Azure is severely limited during the preview period to 50 GB of storage. They could add tiered pricing in the future to compete with Amazon's pricing at larger volume.<br />
<br />
Probably one of the most anticipated, but hardest thing to compare, was the pricing on the compute hours for Azure. This is extremely difficult for many reasons: Amazon offers a dozen different types of operating systems while Azure is the only environment. Amazon virtualizes the memory and cpu so you have the option of adding horsepower at added costs and Azure has not published any information about the underlying metrics of a computational unit. Azure takes care of all of the scaling and load balancing within the fabric and these are add on services that you must pay for with Amazon. Lastly there is an upper limit of 2000 VM hours right now on Azure during the preview period. With all that being considered, if you compare the lowest price Windows installation on Amazon at $0.125 / hour to the $0.12 / hour on Azure, then Azure wins on price ever so slightly. It is very hard to say how the "speed" compares on the two systems by virtual core and if this is even a fair price comparison, but it is the closest we can get for a comparison. When included the tiered pricing from Amazon for data transfer, which lowers the cost per GB as you go up, and include Amazon's costs for Auto Scaling, and Elastic Load Balancing then the waters start to get very muddy.<br />
<br />
The easiest to compare is the messaging systems on both cloud offerings. Azure is offering 100,000 message operations for $0.15, plus the regular $0.10 IN and $0.15 OUT / GB. Amazon offers 100,000 message operations for $0.10, plus the Amazon tiered pricing for data. It is very likely that the majority of the messaging operations on these platforms will stay internal to their platform which takes the cost on Amazon for data virtually down to $0.00. In this case Amazon beats the Azure pricing by 1/3.<br />
<br />
I was happy to see Microsoft release the pricing for Azure today as I have been anxious to see what the cost comparison would be. With pricing relatively close between the two, I would venture to say that Azures success will depend on its ease of use and streamlined single platform while Amazon will continue to thrive on its openness and plethora of options.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-61155742389018757502009-07-01T10:38:00.000-05:002009-07-01T10:38:48.207-05:00North Carolina and the Amazon Associates ProgramThe North Carolina General Assembly has a mandate to balance the budget every year, which I can appreciate because at least it keeps us somewhat focused as a state. I guess I have a very hard time understanding how the General Assembly can try to get that money out of companies that are not even located within our state borders.<br />
I am a member of the Amazon Associates program which will pay a small commission on products sold from simply advertising on your site. I have not made any significant amount of money from this, but there are several people in our state that do very well supplementing their income and even forming a small business out of concepts such as the Amazon Associates Program. The North Carolina General Assembly has now added to the budget that Amazon must pay the taxes on products sold through the program to North Carolina. Amazon's answer.... pull the plug and don't offer it anymore. I don't blame them. What services is North Carolina providing for them? They do not have any buildings here that our Fire Departments, Police Departments or Emergency services help protect. They don't have any cars or trucks that use our streets and highways. They do not have a physical presence here that consume any of the state provided services. Why should they pay taxes? What the General Assembly is doing is stifling small business and is really doing absolutely no good for the state. It only serves to drive companies away from our state. After passing a budget with this nonsense in it, why would Amazon even consider placing a facility here or locating a division here within North Carolina. The passage of this item buried in the middle of the budget has produced no additional revenue for North Carolina and only serves to drive business away and make its own citizens consider moving to neighboring states. Here is an excerpt from the email that I received from Amazon explaining the shut down of the program within North Carolina:<br />
<blockquote>We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account has been closed as of June 26, 2009. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional tax collection scheme expected to be passed any day now by the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) and signed by the governor. As a result, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com after June 26. We were forced to take this unfortunate action in anticipation of actual enactment because of uncertainties surrounding the legislation’s effective date.</blockquote>If we are going to look for ways to balance the budget, let's make sure that we actually have the ability to collect money or cut the money from many of the wasteful programs already in place. Please don't drive business and people away.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-35967589814266902342009-06-24T06:06:00.000-05:002009-06-24T06:06:09.569-05:00CloudFront Added to AWS ConsoleThe Amazon Web Services management console has a new addition. A new tab appeared this morning at the top of the console at <a href="http://console.aws.amazon.com/">http://console.aws.amazon.com</a> allowing you to manage your <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/">CloudFront</a> distributions.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/SkIHy9eZ3JI/AAAAAAAAAhA/DiIi4yGHrP0/s1600-h/Picture+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WaWcMRB-faw/SkIHy9eZ3JI/AAAAAAAAAhA/DiIi4yGHrP0/s400/Picture+2.png" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Using the console, you can choose to create a new distribution, select the bucket from within S3 and add up to 10 CNAME entries for the distribution. This functionality is convenient, but is not the functionality that I would have liked to see added to the console next as you have been able to do all of this with S3Fox for several months now. I was hoping to see the management functions for <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/">CloudWatch</a>, <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/">Elastic Load Balancing</a> and <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/">Auto Scaling</a> to appear in the console. These should be available in the console this year I have been told, but it was wishful thinking to expect them this early in the year.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769368385010827831.post-37729723396947303752009-05-31T22:42:00.001-05:002009-05-31T22:42:37.487-05:00DigitalChalk at ASTD<a href="http://www.digitalchalk.com/">DigitalChalk</a> is going to be giving away $300 over Twitter at the <a href="http://www.astd.org/">ASTD 2009 Conference</a> in Washington DC this year. If you are at the conference and have a Twitter account, you can play. Watch crazy man Josh in this video...<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3Mka8yXjxjo&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3Mka8yXjxjo&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><br />I heard that they were at the White House yesterday and President Obama asked how he could play, but they sadly had to turn him down since he isn't going to be present at the conference. Oh well, maybe next time.<br /><br />The goal of the game will be to figure out a word or phrase that will be on the back of a bunch of shirts running around the conference. If you want to be a live participant in the game, go see Josh and Tony at booth 1519 and make sure that you follow DigitalChalk's Twitter account http://twitter.com/digitalchalk . More information is available on <a href="http://tmccune.blogspot.com/2009/05/digitalchalk-astd-2009-twitter-game.html">Tony's blog</a>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545919165268812543noreply@blogger.com1