Some time ago someone told me they thought our web site should be “more Web 2.0″ and when I asked for confirmation as to what they felt Web 2.0 embodied I was met with a glazed expression then they said “you know … more up to date and modern looking like all the other Web 2.0 web sites”.  I could have gone on and asked for web site addresses for examples but I thought I would save them (and me) some pain and instead simply told them I would look into it - this at least seemed to keep them happy for the time being.

Now, I know what Web 2.0 means to me but this enquiry piqued my interest and I started looking into the Web 2.0 phenomenon for a series on my other blog (42 things about Web 2.0 in 2008, part 1 of 3) and after initial investigation it does seem to be a group of concepts and technologies that are painted with a very broad brush. It is even more interesting to see that even in the IT community the idea of Web 2.0 is very much a gray area although the term is bandied around at leisure.

My series is still running but so far I have found that Web 2.0 means:

• Interoperability
  Between applications or data, between presentation and data layers or between users of information
• Accessibility
  Information that is easy to access and deal with
• Usability
  Information that is useful, convenient and capable of being used (and re-used)

I have more work to do looking into Web 2.0 and I am curious what you think. So, in 2008 what does Web 2.0 mean to you?

I’ve been running Wordpress 2.5 RC1 for around a week and have posted my Wordpress 2.5 RC1 - First Impressions on this long anticipated upgrade. There are a number of CMS platforms out there but Wordpress is quickly transforming into an extremely useful and adaptable platform. We have also been looking at using it internally within our organisation due to its ease of configuration and use. Sharepoint has always been the direction we have been heading in as I’ve written about several times but Wordpress is definitely growing on me! Two of my favourite things about the platform are the ease in which content can be published and the varied array of plug-ins which extend the platform into a number of useful directions.

Which CMS do you use and what do you like about it?

The time is rapidly looming for us to decide which remote control support software (or service) to use for the year ahead. Since remote control software came of age, supporting remote users has become much easier in our organisation. What used to be a two hour conversation on how to get an IP address has since become a two minute remote control session - the users are happy and the support team are happy. Our key requirement has always been a simple, fast remote desktop control service so we can quickly connect to an end user and take control when needed to sort out a particular problem.

In the early days when remote support initially became a real time consuming problem we started out with Logmein RemotelyAnywhere which required a small install on the users computers and provided quick and easy access for remote control support. This move is still pretty much one of the biggest improvements we have made in our support operation. We later moved to Logmein Rescue (see my post Remote Access Support) as we needed to support users that may not have the client software installed. This typically required a visit to a special web site for the end user to type in a pin code - it generally worked well and gave us a more flexible solution. Last year we moved to NTR Support which allowed us to place a support button directly onto our web site (which included a chat session) - I previously wrote about this in Remote User Support with NTRsupport which meant that users were able to request remote support directly from our web site which felt more familiar (although behind the scenes they were redirected to a hosted service). The only problem we have experienced with this service is caused not by NTRSupport but by Internet Explorer trying to be clever by blocking ActiveX and insisting users click on the yellow bar (which rarely appears on the users locked down desktops). There is an installable remote client option but we really wanted to get away from that dependency.

So, time moves on and I am looking into the options available and would really appreciate your thoughts and experiences using remote support software and services. I wouldn’t rule out free software - Jamie at Terinea posted an article “Free Remote Support Software” which talks about Cross Loop which (although requiring a user download) seems to offer a simple and friendly user experience.

Imagine the old metaphor of the Internet being like a motorway with packets of data carrying web pages like little motor cars. Then came IP telephony and these little cars have to contend with caravans. Then came social media and the cars and caravans had to content with lorries. But wait, what’s this? Digital video is on the horizon and we are trying to run trains down the same motorway. Congestion? Tailbacks? One day we may well look back at the heady days of good old congestion and tailbacks when we are all stopped in the road waiting to move another 100 yards - even those nice guarantee Quality of Service passes your car may be displaying in the window may not help anymore. Let’s just hope those motor cyclists carrying Internet radio can get through to us.

Everyone is crawling along and the slip roads are full of new little cars trying to get onto the motorway and the interchange routers are crammed full of traffic following their sat-navs deciding which way to best reach their final destination. In the real world of course we can hop onto the paid toll road and circumvent many of these delays but we have some time to wait until they appear in the land of the Internet – and would you pay for them anyway?

You may hear about the last mile - unless you live in a new build (or techno heaven where fibre is king). The last mile for many probably consists of some old piece of wire that runs from the local phone exchange to your house. This wire had aspirations but in my humble opinion they peaked roughly when bonded 56K modems and ISDN/2 appeared. All sorts of tricks and techniques are used these days to try and make the best use of this piece of cable. Living on the cusp of the nearest exchange I really feel the impact of the last mile. In fact I prefer to think of it as the first mile - as some days I would be happy to get that far. Once I am past the first mile I then have to try and get on that slip road but wait … another train is coming. I tried to apply for Internet TV via BT (BT Vision) but was told my Internet connection wasn’t good enough – oh well I would only be adding to the tailback.

A quick search on the Internet shows that there is much doom and gloom regarding some eventual “collapse of the Internet” so I aim to be positive. I don’t think the Internet will collapse under the weight of traffic – or rather I hope it won’t as I can barely remember life before the Internet and I’m not sure I could bare life without it. I mean in those days people had to actually talk to each other face to face, they had to go out in person and drive to places for entertainment and from time to time get stuck in tailbacks on the motorway on a bank holiday.

I wrote about an interesting site for testing your broadband speed in a previous post on my other Blog: Test your Broadband speed

Nokia e61i, Blackberry 8820, Apple iPhone, Windows Smartphone or something else?

In our business email has reached critical mass and the time has come to take it mobile. It’s a revolution in our little world almost as big as the introduction of the mobile phone itself. We already implemented Exchange Server 2007 but now I need to decide which direction to go for our field based personnel. Currently they have a mix of old but reliable Nokia based phones that pretty much just make and receive calls and send and receive SMS - but email on the road is rapidly becoming a requirement.

Looking at what’s available and even more importantly what I can get my hands on for testing I have this shortlist.

• Existing standard mobile phone (I have a Sony Ericsson K800i)
• Nokia e61i (we already have one in test)
• Blackberry 8820 (I recently won one in a prize draw)
• Apple iPhone (someone I know has one that I may be able to experiment with)
• Windows Smartphone (I may be able to get my hands on one for a while)

So the choices are there - unless there is a device I’ve missed of course.

Moving forward I guess the first thing is to decide what we want to achieve:

• make and receive calls
• send and receive SMS
• Send and receive email - preferably using Push with Exchange Server 2007 (preferably headers with the body an option)
• Use Wi-Fi if available to keep the costs down
• Have a decent battery life
• Be easy to use
• Open Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and PDF files
• Keep costs low

As we already have Exchange Server 2007 I am leaning towards using Exchange with Direct Push. The Nokia has a downloadable sync feature with Exchange and I am currently experimenting with that however the end user is using the standard pull facility for email (not without the odd quirk such as deleted emails remaining on the device!). The Blackberry, I believe, requires a dedicated node (BES Server) which could become a problem and the iPhone is on a single network at present which limits its appeal somewhat - though to use one is almost an emotional experience! I have always found battery life on Windows Smartphone’s to be somewhat short but I admit I haven’t used any of the recent ones (I gave up with my iMate JasJar last year because it was just soooo slow).

Have you successfully implemented a mobile email solution? Have you any advice/tips? Have you field tested or are you using any of the above (or any other) devices? If so, how have you got on with them?

I confess - I only speak one language (excluding programming languages of course!). Some people might even tell you I have difficulty with this one. However, I was still asked to work on the technical angle of converting a website to a multi-lingual website - to include French and German language variations. The actual “language” side would be handled by someone else - phew I thought, oh and apparently the project would be a breeze. Now, the older I get the more worried I look when people tell me things are going to be a breeze because more often than not they aren’t. This was to become no exception.

Finding a translator was simple enough, our local chamber of commerce were very helpful in this respect. I was a little concerned when there was no project meeting, discussion or even email communication to lay out the requirement but as the “language” side was being handled by someone else I was not too concerned. As long as I received the text then the technical implementation should be quite straightforward.  

It took just over a week for me to prepare a notepad file full of text to send to the translators but then a number of Word files arrived via email and to my surprise the job was declared complete. It seems the translators and the person handling the “language” side had decided to approach the translation by saving pages from the website into Word and translate them directly. “Now all you have to do is load them up on the web server and you’re set”. No, I’m sorry I reply - but we are far from “set”. You see the website is dynamically loaded and uses ASP with HTML templates and the content can change following a browser refresh (and some during an image or link hover). In addition, a large amount of text is saved as images to ensure that it is consistent - the translating people didn’t do any translation of image and left them the way they were – ouch.  

I still managed to muddle through the French version but the German version had a bunch of missing text which turned out that someone had marked portions of it as hidden text in Word - by default Word doesn’t appear to show hidden text. After several dozen emails back and forth we discovered the problem (by accident as it turns out) but the delays were still there.  As I was preparing the notepad file which eventually never got used I also realised something quite important. Certain phrases don’t translate very well and the impact (and sometimes even the meaning) of words and phrases can be lost and even worse much of the content is aimed at the UK market and so refers very much to the UK and to UK guidance and regulations. Of what value, interest or use this might be to someone in France or Germany - I am left to wonder!  

So what is the moral of the story? If someone comes along with a job and tells you it’s going to be a breeze - look busy, for heavens sake, look busy.