Upcoming Webinar on Optimized Search
February 20, 2013
LucidWorks is a major contributor to open source technology, training, and development. In addition to supporting the development of open source projects, LucidWorks also offers training on implementation. One of the latest training opportunities to be made available comes in the form of a webinar. Read the details in, “Webinar: Intersection of Search, Analytics and Big Data.”
The registration information begins:
“There is a perfect storm brewing: organizations are amassing large volumes of multi-structured data, yet there are few cost-effective ways to analyze this data without data scientist, who seem to be as elusive as a white unicorn. Although there are higher level languages on the horizon, like Hive and Pig, that promise to give mere mortals access to Hadoop-bound data, there is an easier approach that some may consider old school: search technology.”
And LucidWorks happens to specialize in search technology. In the webinar you can plan to learn:
- “The value of using search to perform analytics
- The marriage of search and big data
- The technology that powers search-enabled analytics
- Use cases for search-enabled analytics”
The presenter is Wayne Eckerson, the director of research at TechTarget. Take advantage of this professional training opportunity from LucidWorks and learn more about how search technology will not only make sense of unstructured data, but can actually turn it into a powerful analytical advantage.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 20, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Creating Search Based Apps in SharePoint Simple and Effective
February 20, 2013
New SharePoint users can often benefit from a hands on learning tutorial that lays out step by step how to get things done accurately and well, accurately. Let’s face it, in this fast paced world of ever evolving technology it is important to not waste time. Time is MONEY and money is the business.
Ontolica has done it again. With “Building Search Based Applications with SharePoint,” author Robert Piddocke walks users through an easy and effective way to create a search based application.
“Creating Search Based Applications in SharePoint is an easy and effective way to drive contextually valuable information to users without the limitations of having the documents in a specific library. Search can surface content from not just SharePoint but even from File Shares or other document management systems. All you need is the content crawled and you can create a document display mechanism based on search.”
The first step is to identify what metadata you want to use and if custom columns on SharePoint lists exist and can be used for your search. You must make a metadata mapping in the search service application for each piece of metadata you want to use. Run a full crawl.
Next up is creating a new page for your search based app. Then you must configure th core search result web parts but don’t forget that each web part needs a unique setting in order to function properly. After you adjust the layout xalt on the resut web parts to exclude the description and display relevant metadata you then have to set the sort on the result web part for date to display the most recent items and ply a query hat will match what you need users to see.
For more detailed information and some ridiculously helpful screenshots as well as a download we suggest heading over to Piddocke’s article.
Leslie Radcliff, February 20, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SLI Receives Big Boost From Trade Me Founder: Morgan Invests Million
February 20, 2013
I read an interesting article this week about SLI Systems. It seems the full service search and navigation based company has generated some interest from a wealthy benefactor.
According to Business Day’s article “Morgan Invests in SLI Systems,” Trade-Me Founder Sam Morgan has invested $1 million in new equity in the provider. This is good for SLI because the equity can be used to inflate employee numbers and create growth within the company.
“Morgan said the potential for growth in global on-line sales made SLI Systems an exciting investment. “Online sales are such an important segment for all retailers now and SLI simply helps customers find things and buy them more easily.”
It’s that potential growth that has Morgan interested in the investment and he has been involved in a number of other business investments that promise to make small businesses run more smoothly. Most recently he’s invested in Xero, the online accounting software.
Morgan has been able to take Trade Me from a one man operation to the largest internet auction website in New Zealand but can his investment and influence take SLI to the next level? It remains to be seen, however, the money will serve to grow the number of employees and market reach simply because of the Morgan name.
Leslie Radcliff, February 20, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
United Kingdom Appeal Court Rules Google Must Promptly Remove Problematic Blogger Posts
February 19, 2013
It looks like Google must now become Mother Google. Overturning a previous finding by the high court, a U.K. court of appeals holds Google Blogger responsible for rapidly removing defamatory blog posts by third parties, we learn in the Guardian’s story, “Google Must Act Quickly on Libellous Blogger Posts, Says Appeal Court.”
The case began, perhaps not surprisingly, with a politician (Payam Tamiz)who didn’t like some things someone wrote about him. While some of those nasty assertions were, indeed, untrue, it should be remembered that it was not anyone at Google itself who wrote them. The first judge made a ruling consistent with my don’t-shoot-the-messenger viewpoint; writer Lisa O’Carroll reveals:
“Eady ruled that no libel action could be heard because Google could not be deemed to be a publisher in its own right.
“Eady said Google’s responsibility for online slurs was no more than that of an ‘unfortunate owner’ of a wall ‘festooned with defamatory graffiti’.”
Sir Eady also indicated that the five weeks it took Google to remove the offending post after Tamiz complained was not unreasonable. This latest appeal ruling disagrees with that assessment, and insists the company must respond more quickly to such complaints. However, neither Tamiz nor Google walked away completely happy. We learn:
“However in making his ruling the master of the rolls, Lord Justice Richards, took the decision to side with the high court and refuse the overall appeal of the original libel action in the high court because of lack of evidence about how many people had read the offending blog comments.”
Well, that’s the Internet for you. A Google representative said the company would “continue to operate within the law,” removing content that is illegal or violates the terms of service. But will they be able to do so fast enough, especially as their blog platform continues to grow? More trouble could be on the horizon.
Cynthia Murrell, February 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Source and Deliver Information Across Multiple Enterprise Applications with PolySpot
February 19, 2013
We stumbled across an article from TLNT that discusses big data as it pertains to the HR world in light of some other articles from major sources like the New York Times and SAP. “Big Data: It’s Just Useless Information Unless You Put It To Work” asks businesses to inquire within their HR departments about using data to ask deeper questions about the way people work.
The author recommends using big data, and the strategic and social recognition possible through it, to inform and gauge performance amongst employees.
The referenced article enlightens us on the topic of using big data to increase efficiency in employee work patterns:
Translating that to the world of people management, data can transform how we view individuals, their capabilities and their work by giving us more information to correct flawed or incomplete perceptions and, as Brooks said, “illuminate patterns of behavior we haven’t yet noticed.” This is particularly powerful in terms of employee behaviors related to what we say is most important to our organizations – our core values.
While big data and the technological solutions needed to access it may help uncover employee work patterns, it will also become necessary then to tap into multiple enterprise applications they use in order to gauge their performance. Solutions like PolySpot enable both sourcing data and information delivery across different file types.
Megan Feil, February 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
Delving into Dark Data
February 19, 2013
Big Data is by now a familiar term in the world of content management and enterprise search. But while Big Data refers to the enormous amount of data being automatically generated at every moment, there is another level of data within the larger group. Dark Data may be the next frontier. Paul Doscher, CEO of Lucidworks, thinks so. He wrote on the topic in his piece “Searching for Dark Data.”
Doscher defines Dark Data:
“Welcome to the world of Dark Data, the humongous mass of constantly accumulating information generated in the Information Age. Whereas Big Data refers to the vast collection of the bits and bytes that are being generated each nanosecond of each day, Dark Data is the enormous subset of unstructured, untagged information residing within it.”
Dark Data definitely presents a challenge, but just as Big Data, it also presents a substantial potential value. The meaning that can be mined out of Dark Data makes it the next challenge to be tackled on the plate of developers. Since LucidWorks has been able to adapt their Lucene and Solr enterprise technology to successfully meet the challenge of Big Data, it will not be a huge leap for them to tackle Dark Data.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
New Visual Analytics Tool Arrives Right on Time for Midsized Businesses
February 19, 2013
SAS has announced a new product geared toward work groups and midsize businesses. The new SAS Visual Analytics brings an enterprise-level computing ability to scaled down systems and works with database appliances Greenplum and Teradata.
According to “SAS Rolls Out Visual Analytics for Work Groups and Midsized Businesses,” by 2015 more than 30 percent of analytics projects will deliver insights based on structured and unstructured data. This is important to know because small business intelligence will have to scale up in order to meet the demand. That’s where SAS comes in.
“Designed as a starting point for organizations wanting to add analytics to their business strategies, SAS Visual Analytics’ self-service option lets business users explore their data without having to seek assistance from their IT departments.”
While SAS touts its new software as more than just a simple business intelligence product and confirms that it will be fast and easy to use there is still the question of whether or not the software can live up to its billing as a useful to those businesses with a handful of users, all the way up to global deployment. Seems ambitious.
Be that as it may, there is no doubt that it is a step up from the small business platforms that are currently on the market. It will be an interesting system to watch unfold as it moves into the future.
Leslie Radcliff, February 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
dtSearch Harnesses TV Power
February 19, 2013
Written tutorial guides do not help visual learners, so when videos were added it became much easier to learn and troubleshoot with someone doing the process in “real time.” The dtSearch Corporation is a renowned software company, specializing in text search and spidering for desktops and networks along with a range of search products for enterprise search, and engines for Linux and Windows. The dtSearch Corporation decided it was time to take to the Internet TV waves and make their own tutorial videos. Several videos about dtSearch have been posted on eDiscovery TV-Law Meets Technology. Each of the videos walks users through how to use dtSearch and take advantage of its many features. The tutorial comes in five parts:
With eDiscovery becoming more prevalent in the legal world, dtSearch created AccessData: “AccessData provides court-validated, state-of-the-art computer forensics, eDiscovery and cyber security solutions. Built on its gold-standard forensics technology, Forensic Toolkit, AD eDiscovery is a comprehensive electronic discovery software solution. In addition, AccessData’s legal review technology, Summation, is used by more law firms than any other solution.” EDiscovery is working its way through the news and dtSearch does not want to be forgotten. These videos are instructional, but they could be a push for legal technology conference attendees.
Whitney Grace, February 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Facebook Imagines A Whole New Way To Search
February 19, 2013
According to “How Facebook Made Me Search In Strange New Ways” from Search Engine Land, Facebook Graph Search has changed the way people search or at least wants to. Before social networking, people used to actively search with search engines because an action influenced them. With social networking, people are passively discovering information that they never knew they wanted to know all due to network connections.
Graph Search will not replace Google, because it does not search the entire Web. It only contains social information, in other words a social search:
““Social search is a means of uncovering information, to fill a knowledge gap taking into account crowd sourced information from your network, which contains information from a reputable source within your network, giving more of a credible touch to the content.”
Graph Search does not have all of this, but with some improvements it can. It can get better by adding general searching, i.e. only search through Facebook while Bing picks up the regular Web and the social network. The image search can use tweaking by searching tags and captions. Also the Facebook auto complete feature is annoying and is down right wrong sometimes.
Graph Search is not grasping the basic search engine fundamentals and needs to add them to even think about being competitive. The “graph” will probably be the next wave in social networking, so it is necessary to get on it.
Whitney Grace, February 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
NIST Trec Results
February 18, 2013
Short honk: A person heard me give a talk in which I said, “NIST Trec results are not widely available.” I thought the comment was appropriate, but someone thought I was full of goose feathers. I want to point you to the Trec page at http://trec.nist.gov/results.html. On that page one can view the results provided the user has a valid user name and password. In my book, that means “not widely available.” Your mileage may vary. Basic information about TREC is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Retrieval_Conference, which like most information about search is sort of right and sort of not right.
My hunch about the closed nature of the comprehensive data Trec results spit out is that some outfits participating use math magic to demonstrate a particular system’s performance. My inner goose thinks that the flat lining of precision and recall scores and the data about search and retrieval within certain test sets indicates that search is not making the sort of progress most vendors wish to be true.
Stephen E Arnold, February 18, 2013
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