A recent article* in the BCS magazine on the NHS use of digital pen technology proving more useful/cost effective than laptops or tablet PC's led me to wonder whether this would be useful for me - would auto digitising my notes improve my personal efficiency?
There seem to be two types:
1. A pen that requires special paper to be able to capture notes
2. A pen with a separate sensor that captures the pens movements over normal paper
An example of the first type is the livescribe pen - this actually records the audio as you write as well and is very well featured. It does require livescribe notepaper to work which has it's pro's and cons. You can print this yourself. There are other solutions like anoto that work on special paper - actually with anoto this comes with software that can add the digital marks required to pages you print from your local printer so you can print PDF forms and the software can generate the PDF with your notes on it when you sync the pen (I believe this is the solution the nhs are looking at).
A good example of the second type is the Dane-Elec Zpen which needs you to clip a small USB device to the page before you write. You can write on any paper and then sync the drawings on to your computer.
So there is technology out there that is well established and mature, it works although has a number of constraints - can I use it? There are security concerns about the data that might reside on the pen - I'm assuming one can't encrypt the data in the same way one can on a tablet pc or laptop. With voice recording folks may find it disconcerting or indeed it may stop meetings in some cases.
Interesting problems that deserve more research on my part.
From a solution point of view it does look like a great technology for areas where tablets, laptops and pc's are not viable data capture devices and you don't want to increase your scanning base.
http://www.anoto.com/your-personal-digital-whiteboard.aspx
http://www.livescribe.com/
http://www.danedigital.com/6-Zpen/
* Can't get a link to the original article but here are some others
Thursday, 23 July 2009
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
How to have more self-discipline | Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist
Some interesting observations that apply equally to the busy software architect...
How to have more self-discipline | Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist
How to have more self-discipline | Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist
Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS
Perhaps this says as much about my view of humanity as humanity itself - I rather suspect that as long as the new OS supports gaming, communication and commerce well, and also supports p0rn in some way then it will do very well.
Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS
Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS
Monday, 15 June 2009
The value of learning
One key intangible benefit that may be learnt from the agile approach to fail early / fail often is that of learning. By this I mean the project team learns how to operate but also the business learns what the change could mean and how their requirements could be realised.
It's possible to articulate this as a tangible benefit in terms of cost avoidance but this is difficult to articulate. The cost avoided from re-implementing around an error or the value of implementing a right solution is hard to calculate.
The real value of learning should not be underestimated however.
It's possible to articulate this as a tangible benefit in terms of cost avoidance but this is difficult to articulate. The cost avoided from re-implementing around an error or the value of implementing a right solution is hard to calculate.
The real value of learning should not be underestimated however.
Articulating options
When presenting a number of different solutions to a given problem there are two key elements:
1. What are the key points that describe each option and
2. What differentiates each option.
It is key in a paper discussing architecutral options that both are considered to allow the relevant group to make a decision.
1. What are the key points that describe each option and
2. What differentiates each option.
It is key in a paper discussing architecutral options that both are considered to allow the relevant group to make a decision.
Monday, 18 May 2009
Books on Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture
Big fan of the Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture book series, here's a handy link to the 5 volumes.
Books on Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture
Books on Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Just pondering this post on mobile phones in Tesco's
In Nick Lansley's post he discusses using the wifi capability on most modern smart phones to do some marketing and offering some useful targetted functionality - i.e. find a product or you might like product X. This article also points to a stronger tie in between mobile phones and the tesco clubcard features.
Using an open access point to nab someones browser and forward it to some local content is a useful idea - as Nick points out this is how hotels and trains tend to charge folks for using their wifi services. Certainly things like local map of the store, store special offers, latest news - all feels like good things. Hook this up with social networking and you could choose to have your friends informed that you're down the local Tesco.
These two got me thinking about other ways you could use mobiles in store and possibly so real time analytics that could be gained. So my recollection of the Where 2.0 convention was that there was some tech there that tracked folks mobile phones - a little digging and I found an oreilly link for the results of where 2.0. In theory the foot path system from path intelligence could allow tescos to track all customers around the store. I'm guessing similar technology exists for Wifi signals - indeed Google's latitude technology is partially based on doing just this.
Makes me wonder if Tesco are already doing this? I assume there is some tracking technology in use.
If not then this coupled with the two mobile activities above could garner some incredible MI. In theory it wouldn't be too hard to link a customers clubcard number to their wifi MAC address or their IMEI number and track how people get around the store. It's all a little big brother but I think some interesting applications could arise - i.e. as a bloke I like to get in and out of the store asap- in, grab stuff i want, pay, leave (possibly browse the electronics bit).
Now if I could see a map of how I traverse the store with suggestions about alternate routes - or even just the store was organised to better support me (assuming I'm average joe public) purchasing things then that would be great.
Tie that up with some web2.0 social networking and you could share and invite comments on your route round the store - just imagine the facebook update : Craig spent 137.51 in 1 hour 18 minutes and 4 seconds at Tesco Purley. ahem - maybe going a bit far.
Also to avoid the recent faux pas in google's street view roll out some sensitive areas would need to be handled - like spending undue amount of time perusing adult magazines or in the pregnancy test section.
Still, in principle sharing my purchases and route with friends and getting useful comments back would be good - why are you buying that? X is cheaper.. or Have you tried Y, it's available just here...
Just some musings, more thoughts in my head but lunch time slot for blogging coming to an end...
Oh, and as for the 'no mobile signal half way through the store' issue would it be friendly of tesco to install some signal repeaters?
Using an open access point to nab someones browser and forward it to some local content is a useful idea - as Nick points out this is how hotels and trains tend to charge folks for using their wifi services. Certainly things like local map of the store, store special offers, latest news - all feels like good things. Hook this up with social networking and you could choose to have your friends informed that you're down the local Tesco.
These two got me thinking about other ways you could use mobiles in store and possibly so real time analytics that could be gained. So my recollection of the Where 2.0 convention was that there was some tech there that tracked folks mobile phones - a little digging and I found an oreilly link for the results of where 2.0. In theory the foot path system from path intelligence could allow tescos to track all customers around the store. I'm guessing similar technology exists for Wifi signals - indeed Google's latitude technology is partially based on doing just this.
Makes me wonder if Tesco are already doing this? I assume there is some tracking technology in use.
If not then this coupled with the two mobile activities above could garner some incredible MI. In theory it wouldn't be too hard to link a customers clubcard number to their wifi MAC address or their IMEI number and track how people get around the store. It's all a little big brother but I think some interesting applications could arise - i.e. as a bloke I like to get in and out of the store asap- in, grab stuff i want, pay, leave (possibly browse the electronics bit).
Now if I could see a map of how I traverse the store with suggestions about alternate routes - or even just the store was organised to better support me (assuming I'm average joe public) purchasing things then that would be great.
Tie that up with some web2.0 social networking and you could share and invite comments on your route round the store - just imagine the facebook update : Craig spent 137.51 in 1 hour 18 minutes and 4 seconds at Tesco Purley. ahem - maybe going a bit far.
Also to avoid the recent faux pas in google's street view roll out some sensitive areas would need to be handled - like spending undue amount of time perusing adult magazines or in the pregnancy test section.
Still, in principle sharing my purchases and route with friends and getting useful comments back would be good - why are you buying that? X is cheaper.. or Have you tried Y, it's available just here...
Just some musings, more thoughts in my head but lunch time slot for blogging coming to an end...
Oh, and as for the 'no mobile signal half way through the store' issue would it be friendly of tesco to install some signal repeaters?
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