Tahoe Partners are Microsoft Business Critical
September 28, 2013
Tahoe Partners is a Chicago-based consulting firm that was recently awarded as a Microsoft Business-Critical SharePoint program. You can read all the details in the press release, “Tahoe Partners Selected to Microsoft Business Critical SharePoint Program.”
The article gives a little more information about the BCSP program:
“The Business-Critical SharePoint (BCSP) partner program is focused on expanding the market for building and delivering business-critical solutions by connecting line-of-business (LOB) systems with SharePoint.”
But according to Stephen E. Arnold, an industry leader in search technologies, a SharePoint stamp of approval does not go very far these days. In his article, “Software: Its Dark Side and Search,” Arnold states the trouble with current enterprise search options:
“Findability is not making much progress. I am not sure the developers are to blame. Computational boundaries, the complexity of language, and the ‘needs’ of the busy worker contribute to systems which are increasingly alike. The enterprise search systems are equally useful and equally disappointing. Good business for consultants and technical wellness staff comes from the present situation.”
So perhaps the Microsoft BCSP is just an acknowledgement that SharePoint only works well when supplemented and augmented.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 28, 2013
German Music Analysis Engine Able to Compare and Sort Music into Genre
September 28, 2013
An article on Semanticweb.com titled German Engineers Developing a Semantic Music Analysis Engine reports on a project being undertaken in Germany that will allow for greater understanding of patterns and influences in music. The article takes Shakira as an example, explaining that the Franz Liszt Music Conservatory’s compilation will enable them to see the direct influence of traditional music on her pop music. In her case, a great amount of influence comes from Colombian slave music during the colonial-era. The article explains,
“For the past two years, Brazilian music ethnologists have been working together with other experts from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa on a semantic search engine that automatically recognises basic musical attributes such as tone and rhythm. ‘We are creating something that is independent of the global industry. The current search engines are only capable of finding identical musical pieces from huge databases,’ explained project worker Philip Kueppers. ‘We synthesize basic elements from rhythm in order to deliver general musical information to users.’
With more of an emphasis on music as opposed to artists themselves, there can be little to no confusion as to what category or genre a piece of music falls into. Ultimately the system is able to compare pieces of music in a way that until now was not possible. Of course this musical technology begs us to ask the question, would it work for business English?
Chelsea Kerwin, September 28, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Brainspace from PureDiscovery Makes Leaps in Enterprise Search
September 28, 2013
The article titled PureDiscovery Wants to Remake Search In the Brain’s Image, Raises $10M To Do It on Gigaom will interest all those invested in the race for the best search platform. PureDiscovery, a company based out of Dallas, TX, corralled $10 million dollars for its reinvention of enterprise search called Brainspace. PureDiscovery has been well known in the enterprise search game for some time, and now hopes to widen it’s aims with a cloud-based platform and soon to be released Brainspace technology. Founder Dave Copps explains the new direction the company has taken,
“The idea… is to create interest graphs linking people and documents with concepts. So if I’m interested in “big data,” for example, BrainSpace should point me to internal company documents about that topic, but also to external content and to people who know a lot about it. Ideally, it identifies people based not just on keywords in their profiles, but on their interaction with big data content and perhaps their activity on the corporate social network.”
The article also reports on a demo of the new software, in which the user highlights a passage from one piece of content, deposits it in “the brain”, and is rewarded with a new set of related content. PureDiscovery even believes that there project will find mass appeal to consumers across the Internet.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 28, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Hummingbird Flits In
September 27, 2013
Good news, according to many sources. Google has made changes to its ad-supported, Web search system. A representative write up is “Google Unveils Search Updates for Mobile, New Page Rank Algorithm, and Knowledge Graph Comparisons.”
What could be more useful? Google wants “to help users access information quicker, including new interfaces and features for its iOS and Android apps, along with better integration with the Knowledge Graph.”
Machine-generated comparisons and “knowledge graphs” may prove to be just what searchers like me need to obtain pinpoint results lists. Give the system a whirl. Search for “bwr pwr compare” or “compare pwr bwr” or “pwr versus bwr.” Check out the results. Oh, I guess this did not work. These are nuclear reactor types. Well, maybe in a few days.
When I search for topics like “fluidic self assembly of nanoparticles”, I checked out a knowledge graphs. Oh, I guess this did not work. To see without ads or a fee a “graph”, navigate to www.cluuz.com and try the query. Yes, better. Well, maybe in a short time Google will do the relationship thing in a way that helps me.
The write up asserts:
Google Senior Vice President and software engineer Amit Singhal took the stage afterwards to talk about the company’s future in search. Fifteen years ago, you had to go to a website on a “bulky computer”, turn it on, fire up the dial-up modem, and look up the information and wait for it to be returned. Over time, retrieving answers to questions became possible on the go with the evolution of mobile devices. Singhal says that in today’s age, we’re comfortable with finding information no matter where we are, whenever we want.
Maybe?
My take on “improvements” to Google search include these observations:
- I find it more difficult to locate information today than at any other time in my online experience.
- Results are no longer tied to precision and recall. Results may be hooked to agendas such as advertising revenue. Advertisers pay. The shift to mobile means that the dear Overture approach has to be tweaked. Precision and recall are tossed from the slowing revenue Camry for me.
- Users have zero idea about the accuracy, completeness, or provenance of most search system outputs. Sorry, but I want date and time stamps, information about index freshness, access to content across index silos, and content not distorted by the happy laborers at low cost SEO services.
I could go on, but I won’t. In my lecture at the ISS conference, I told a standing room only crowd, getting online information today in which one has confidence now requires real work. Queries must be passed against multiple search systems. Results lists must be examined carefully. Items of data must be assembled by a human into a coherent fabric. Few have an appetite for this work.
Look at the bright side. Google’s new system makes it easy to find out about Miley Cyrus, rental cars, and pizza. Useful, right?
Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2013
Rethink SharePoint Authentications
September 27, 2013
Microsoft’s recent SharePoint security bulletin left a few developers shaking in their the code. According to Threat Post’s article, “SharePoint Fixes Priority For September 2013 Patch Tuesday,” online SharePoint installations are vulnerable to thirteen critical threats and Microsoft only patched ten of them. The threats lead to remote code execution on the collaboration server. Nearly all versions of SharePoint are affected and any installation that has disabled the user highest risk.
The CVE-2013-1330 bug is the worst threat. It is a remote code execution that gives the attacker privileges in the context of W3WP service account, but it requires authentication to gain access. If that feature is turned off, your SharePoint installation is a delightful smorgasbord of hacked information.
Some are surprised about Microsoft’s alarm and user ignorance:
“ ‘It’s interesting that Microsoft prioritized the SharePoint bulletin as highly as they did. In theory, the vulnerability requires authentication. Given the frequency with which people disable SharePoint authentication and the ease of access to documentation on that process, the priority needs to be that high,’ said Tyler Reguly, technical manager of security research and development at Tripwire. ‘People know their computers and email need good passwords. It boggles my mind that we see so many SharePoint deployments in anonymous mode. ‘”
I have been told multiple times by online expert Stephen E Arnold of Arnold IT to always take security risks seriously and find a solution quickly or private information will be stolen faster than a Google search.
Whitney Grace, September 27, 2013
California Inventors Patent Application for Natural Language Search Interface Now Available Online
September 27, 2013
The article titled “Multimodal Natural Language Interface for Faceted Search” In Patent Application Approval Process on Hispanic Business reveals that inventors in California have applied for a patent of their natural language interface. The inventors are quoted in the article as claiming that the problem of users implementing a “successful query” revolves around an issue of transparency in the criteria of the search being held. The inventors, Farzad Ehsani, Silke Maren Witt-Ehsani filed their patent application in February of 2013 and the patent was made available online early in September of 2013. The article states,
“Solving this problem requires an interface that is natural for the user while producing validly formatted search queries that are sensitive to the structure of the data, and that gives the user an easy and natural method for identifying and modifying search criteria. Ideally, such a system should select an appropriate search engine and tailor its queries based upon the indexing system used by the search engine. Possessing this ability would allow more efficient, accurate and seamless retrieval of appropriate information.”
This quote from the inventors continues on to address the current methods which do not meet the expectations of users in terms of selecting the best search engine and data repository as well as not formulating the search query in the appropriate manner.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 27, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
iFerret from Australian Company iPlatinum Improves on the WebWombat for Local Government Search
September 27, 2013
In the article on WhaTech titled Purpose Built Search Engine Helps Ferret Out The Facts To Ensure Good Corporate Governance at NSW Council, the introduction of the iFerret from iPlatinum is discussed. The iFerret was released as an improvement on the WebWombat, a purpose built search engine created for local government use. The WebWombat was found lacking in its ability to collect and collate various electronic documents found on various data sources. Randwick County in Sydney, Australia was one of the first to utilize the tool, and one upper level management staff, David Kelly, explained the uses of iFerret as follows,
“…Problems reported to any council call centres: the damaged footpath which results in someone falling and sustaining an injury or a tree in a public space that drops a large limb and damages private property. If such incidents are consequential enough they will set in train a search for information stored across numerous data repositories. That information may be required to satisfy insurance claims, assemble the facts for subpoenas in judicial proceedings… It’s information to help ensure good corporate governance.”
Another staffer spoke on the importance of iFerret when collecting the range of PDFs, JPEGs and other file types into one folder, sometimes containing upwards of a hundred files for a single insurance claim. The improvements specific to the iFerret include OCR help, synonyms, duplicate document detection and other functions that offer speedy and comprehensive search.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 27, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
One Bloggers Opinion on Khan Academy Statistics Videos
September 27, 2013
For those of us that have been living under a rock (myself included) Khan Academy is the latest and greatest thing to come to mathematics education. According to a recent Learn and Teach Statistics blog post “Khan Academy Statistics Videos Are Not Good.”
After viewing a sampling of the Khan Academy statistics videos, the author concludes:
“My main criticism is that the video is dull. It doesn’t provide anything more than the mathematics. But apart from alienating non-mathematical students it isn’t harmful. In fact if I had a student who wanted to know the mathematics behind the statistics, I would be happy to send them there. People have commented that my videos don’t tell you how the p-value is calculated. This is true. That is not the aim. Maybe I’ll do one about that one day, but I figured it was more important to know what to do with one.”
This is an excellent example of why pouring money into a project doesn’t automatically make it good or useful. While video teaching in itself is not a problem. Videos that are not helpful are.
Jasmine Ashton, September 27, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Leading Publishers: Not What You Think
September 26, 2013
I took a look at the data in “Sensor Tower Publisher Worth Leaderboard – iOS – All-Categories”. Alas, there were no data about the methodology, the time period, or the criterion. Serious flaws, but the list is interesting. The list contains some suggestive information.
For example, the list does include game application developers, Facebook, and Google. There is only one property — ESPN — that I consider a traditional “publisher” but I have to stretch my own connotation of publisher to make ESPN a familiar face amongst the new kindergarten class.
Absent are folks like Bloomberg and Reuters. These are companies which have spent money on creating applications which provide these publishers with a channel to a mobile and tablet users. With the demise of NEXT (yet another Thomson Reuters’ new media initiative), I wonder if traditional publishers will make a Sensor Tower type list.
The list contains a large number of games along with outfits like Google. A few years ago, I wrote a monograph called Google: The Digital Gutenberg. Perhaps Google really is a publisher and not an online advertising company.
Assume the listing is accurate for a mobile/tablet demographic. The failure of a traditional publisher to crack the Top 40 underscores the rather disappointing results from the Herculean effort expended by publishers to remain in the game.
Stephen E Arnold, September 26, 2013
SharePoint Not on the Radar
September 26, 2013
Microsoft recently updated its SharePoint Cloud services to include more options that allow more flexibility for mobile users. While the PR for this update has been well received, “AIIM Research Indicates SharePoint Has A ‘Cloudy’ Future” says PRWeb. This reminds me of something Stephen E Arnold of Arnold IT notes in many of reports about how upgrades may be good, but they do not solve the underlying problems, such as implementation and security.
AIIM conducted a survey and found that only 6% of its respondents found their deployments successful, while 43% are struggling with implementing SharePoint, and another 28% say that progress has stalled in their SharePoint projects. That only touches the shallow end of the SharePoint pool. Many companies are also running multiple versions of the software, which can only lead to compatibility issues.
And how is SharePoint Cloud security viewed?
“ ‘There are many benefits to tapping into the power of SharePoint 2013, specifically the mobile and social aspects, yet as our research indicates, many business and IT leaders are wary of security issues around cloud technology,’ said AIIM President John Mancini. ‘While using SharePoint can help companies of any size, as a collaborative platform and even a records management tool, it’s clear from our research that, based on a variety of factors, deployments and adoption of the technology has not reached its original goals.’”
SharePoint is a viable solution, but behind the shiny labels and screensaver there are many, many problems.
Whitney Grace, September 26, 2013
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