Anticlue

Access to MySQL

Vexed with Access Databases? Looking for a way to migrate to MySQL?

For those with no budget, check out the MS Access to MySQL converter.

The DB2 Cookbook

From Dwaine Snow's thought on DB2, A good reference for the syntax or commands for DB2 is the DB2 Cookbook by Graeme Birchall. It has every statement one can possibly look for and it is great to search when one is familar with RDBMS, but just not DB2.

Are you willing to Learn?

I'm learning alot lately about team building. I've realized that the team is one's greatest asset. You need to have a good team, and the team is what is successful. Good teams are hard to come across, and to get a good team one either has to a) steal good team players or b) train people to be good team players. Lately, I'm more into training my teammates, instead of stealing others.

It is a reciprocal training, my teammates train me and I train them. So a big quality I look for in teammates is the willingness to learn. That spirit to learn new things, overcome the fear and branch out into a new endeavor is a highly commendable attitude, and definitely builds up team spirit.

Google Blog Search

From the Google Labs, Google Blog Search uses Google search technology focused on blogs. The goal is for this search to include all blogs, not just those that are blogger based.

Its a great resource for finding technology hints and tricks.

AlphaWorks HeapAnalyzer

HeapAnalyzer is a tool that can find possible JavaTM heap leak area. This is completed through its heuristic search engine and analysis of the Java heap dump in Java applications.

"Java heap areas define objects, arrays, and classes. When the Garbage Collector allocates areas of storage in the heap, an object continues to be live while a reference to it exists somewhere in the active state of the JVM; therefore the object is reachable. When an object ceases to be referenced from the active state, it becomes garbage and can be reclaimed for reuse. When this reclamation occurs, the Garbage Collector must process a possible finalizer and also ensure that any internal JVM resources that are associated with the object are returned to the pool of such resources. Java heap dumps are snap shots of Java heaps at specific times."

Beta Maven 2.0

The Apache Software Foundation has started the Beta Process for Maven 2.0

Maven 2.0 has the following major features:

Simple project setup that follows best practices - get a new project or module started in seconds
Consistent usage across all projects means no ramp up time for new developers coming onto a project
Superior dependency management including automatic updating, dependency closures (also known as transitive dependencies)
Able to easily work with multiple projects at a time
A large and growing repository of libraries and metadata to use out of the box, and arrangements in place with the largest Open Source projects for real-time availability of their latest releases
Extensible, with the ability to easily write plugins in Java or other scripting languages
Instant access to new features with little or no extra configuration
Ant tasks for dependency management and deployment outside of Maven
The following features are available in Maven 1.0 and will be available and much improved in Maven 2.0 through the coming releases:

Deployment and release management
Comprehensive project information and reporting
Website and documentation building tools

System Security Policies

Oh its a gotcha, and it is a big gotcha. System security policies and implementing a new system. When I'm in the process of implementing a nice new system, I avoid like the plague the long term responsibilities of system user security and access.

Why? well first and foremost, it is the departments data. They have the most familiarity with it, they should maintain who has access and at what levels. Try to have a system manager position be create or assigned to the department during the implementation. Allow this position, to do metadata additions, user security, and installs if you were unlucky enought to implement a client server system.

So what do we as a project implementer need to be concerned about regarding user security.

First, we have to ensure a policy has been created with the proper authorizations, and security information. Also we have to ensure that the policies has been typed to word and distributed for all to understand. Having the policy up under a general area of system access requests is a good idea too.

DB2

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be doing a couple of informative posts on DB2. I've been lucky enough to get on a project that will allow my team to expand our db skills to a new platform. My skill set comes from MS SQL and Oracle 8i. It will be an interesting experience.

A couple of the good resources I've been able to come across in this endeavor are the IBM product manuals for DB2 and the DB2 newgroup at comp.databases.ibm-db2

The War Room

In the process of deploying a new system, or if you are planning to deploy a new system, please take the time to set up a war room.

What’s a war room? A war room is a central location where members of the project team are available. These members man the phones, answer questions, take down issues, and work issues. It is good to have a war room staffed with whiteboards, markers, phones, and food. (people will be there for a while)

We recently deployed a system. The war room was a great addition for the project. Allowing for users to have a centralized place to call for help, and an atmosphere where people were working the issues down was very beneficial.

Another benefit was a daily status call, where the leaders of the project team called into discuss issues, resolutions, or common user mis-interpretation. It gave everyone a sense of urgency, and the project status. Also it was a known place to communicate with your teammates.

Hand Held Charge Capture

From Mobile Health Data, Atlanta-based Ingenious Med Inc. has integrated its hand-held charge capture system with billing services from Praxis Medical Management. The San Antonio-based company offers billing services for health care organizations using the Centricity clinical information system from GE Healthcare, Milwaukee.

Now such organizations also can use the Ingenious Med software on PDAs to capture billing, care and outcome information electronically while at the bedside. The software then will check for the correct coding, flag any issues and enable clinician review.

The integration is designed to help health care organizations streamline charge capture, speed payment reimbursements and reduce claim rejections. For more information, go to ingeniousmed.com

Accountability or Execution

Do we have an accountability problem or an execution problem? Organizations suffer from various types of problems. Look at the Katrina outcome, everyone had a sense of accountability, but no one had the ability to execute.

Accountability is a sense of obligation to execute. Execution is the ability to get the job done. In work, it is essential that the execution is in place. If you can’t execute, then it doesn’t really matter what your level of accountability.

IMHO, the ability to execute is necessary before we ever begin to discuss the concept of accountability. Also to be frank, I’ve met a lot of colleagues with a good sense of accountability. Of that population, few were able to execute.

First, execution isn’t easy. Accountability is easy. The reasoning behind this is that the sense of accountability just needs to be within you. Execution is the ability to get the job done. To do any work within an IT organization, which means it is getting a team that is executing. So execution involves several people where as a sense of accountability is just within oneself. One can create an environment that a sense of accountability can florish, but the accountability comes from the individual not the organization. The execution of a task comes from the organization. The individual that motivates the organization to complete the project/task has the ability to execute.