Easily Generate Your Own Word Clouds
November 19, 2013
Word clouds have become inescapable, and it is easy to see why– many people find such a blending of text and visual information easy to understand. But how, exactly, can you generate one of these content confections? Smashing Apps shares its collection of “10 Amazing Word Cloud Generators.”
The write-up introduces:
“In this session, we are presenting 10 amazing word cloud generators for you. Word cloud can be defined as a graphical representation of word frequency, whereas word cloud generators simply are the tools to map data, such as words and tags in a visual and engaging way. These generators come with different features that include different fonts, shapes, layouts and editing capabilities.”
See the list for all the options. Most offer a range of shapes, colors, and fonts to play with, so check each one out for the features most appealing to you. A couple, Tagxedo and Tagul, will gladly print your word cloud on a t-shirt or mug and sell it to you. It is probably not a coincidence that those also seem, from the examples given, to be the most creative with their cloud shapes.
VocabGrabber is different. It doesn’t even make a particularly pretty picture. As the name implies, VocabGrabber uses your text to build a list of vocabulary words, complete with examples of usage pulled from directly from the content. This could be a useful tool for students, or anyone learning something new that comes with specialized terminology. If your learning materials are digital, a simple cut-and-paste can generate a handy list of terms and in-context examples. A valuable find in a list full of fun and useful tools.
Cynthia Murrell, November 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Autonomy Adds Qfiniti Analytics
November 18, 2013
HP Autonomy is searching for ways (pun intended) to redeem itself after the fiasco from earlier this year. How is the company doing it? HP Autonomy, according to the Silicon Angle article “HP Autonomy Expands Analytics Lineup With Qfiniti 10,” is tapping into the mobile market. The company has expanded its Qfiniti analytics software to now analyze video and social media along with basic and voice and text messaging. The Qfiniti upgrade has a lot more options that make it an attractive solution for customer relations personnel. The IDOL search tool helps users identify patterns in audio, text, and video and the ability to search through old and new unstructured/structured data are tempting to try. The former rather than the latter, of course. The article also mentions how it can be used to keep track of workflows and front and back office processes—something that any enterprise based software usually does.
HP Autonomy is really proud of the new analytics angle and how it can help their clients:
“Rafiq Mohammadi, the general manager of marketing optimization at HP Autonomy, noted that ‘HP Qfiniti 10 closes the loop for the customer contact center, providing a full set of functions to match all requirements. Because HP Qfiniti is a modular platform, customers can cut their total cost of ownership by getting a solution that best fits their needs.’”
We believe that HP Autonomy is moving in the right direction to overcome past obstacles. While reading the article, commercials for the new Nissan Infiniti came to mind. A project manager probably fell asleep while listening to a Nissan commercial and was inspired by the luxury brand. HP Autonomy and Nissan can team up to design the first Big Data compliant car: it drives, saves gas mileage, and provides professional grade analytics as you go.
Whitney Grace, November 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
New Version of Media Mining Indexer (6.2) from SAIL LABS Technology
November 9, 2013
The release titled SAIL LABS Announces New Release Of Media Mining Indexer 6.2 from SAIL LABS Technology on August 5, 2013 provides some insight into the latest version of the Media Mining Indexer. SAIL LABS Technology considers itself as an innovator in creating solutions for vertical markets, and enhancing technologies surrounding advanced language understanding abilities.
The newest release offers such features as:
“Improved named entity detection of names via unified lists across languages… improved topic models for all languages… improved text preprocessing for Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Frasi, US and international English…support of further languages: Catalan, Swedish, Portuguese, Bahasa (Indonesia), Italian, Farsi and Romanian…improved communication with Media Mining Server to relate recognized speakers to their respective profiles.”
Gerhard Backfried, Head of Research at SAIL LABS, called the latest release a “quantum leap forward” considering the system’s tractability, constancy and ability to respond to clients needs. The flagship product is based on SAIL LABS speech recognition technology, which as won awards, and offers a suite of ideal components for multimedia processing, and the transformation of audio and video data into searchable information. The features boast the ability to convert speech to text accurately with Automatic Speech Recognition and the ability to detect different speakers with Speaker Change Detection.
Chelsea Kerwin, November 09, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Perspective Search Now Part of Jive Platform
November 6, 2013
Perceptive Software is working with social collaboration firm Jive, we learn from “Perceptive Software Brings Enterprise Search App to Jive Apps Market” at PRWeb. Perceptive Search has been integrated into Jive’s platform, and is available as an app through the Jive Apps Market. The press release reports:
“The Perceptive Enterprise Search App provides companies using Jive with a powerful enterprise search tool to eliminate information silos and aggregate content across multiple repositories, including SharePoint, ECM solutions, traditional file shares, legacy Lotus Notes databases, and others. The app is fully functional right out of the box, readily indexing—and giving users access to—content across multiple repositories and scaling to accommodate spikes in volume.
“The app empowers users to explore data relationships through analytical, reporting and visualization features, giving businesses more opportunity to identify trends and drive value from their content. Such value may be realized in the form of more efficient product development, customer service, marketing and more.”
Perceptive CTO Brian Anderson notes that his company uses Jive with Perspective Search for their own employees, and reports that the app has sped up their own searches. The platform’s analysis, reporting, and visualization features remove those chores from users’ to-do lists, allowing more time to act on resulting insights, he says.
Acquired by Lexmark in 2010, Perceptive Software offers a range of process- and content-management solutions. In business since 1995, Perceptive serves clients in a wide range of industries. The company is headquartered in Shawnee, Kansas and, according to their About page, is currently hiring.
Folks at Jive Software are convinced that “social business is the future.” This is why they employ the latest technology to help clients cultivate crowdsourcing, collaboration, and customer engagement, forces they say are bound to improve the business world for both customers and workers. Founded in 2012, Jive already has five far-flung offices, including their headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
Cynthia Murrell, November 06, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Mold Hits the Internet
October 29, 2013
Links rot quickly on the Internet. How many times have you visited a Web page and clicked on something interesting, only to be met with standard page does not exist template? It is happening more quickly as the Internet gains more prominence in people’s lives and researchers deal with moldy link more than anyone would have thought possible. This poses a problem as Gigaom discusses in the article, “A Web Page Lasts Forever: The Plan To Stop ‘Link Rot’ In Law And Science.” Link rot is present in Web pages a teenager makes to the United States Supreme Court.
The problem has not been taken as seriously as it should, because dead-tree materials are still considered to be the authoritative source because they are static. Web sites, though, can be changed in the blink of an eye.
There is a plan to stop the rot before it eats out the entire Web. Times Higher Education took a look at Perma CC, a source for lawyers that takes a Web page and created an etched-in-stone digital reference.
“It works like this: a scholar (or anyone else) can submit a link to Perma CC, which is managed by a coalition that includes universities, libraries and the Internet Archive. According to Perma CC, the group will create a permanent URL and store the page on its servers and on mirror sites around the world.”
If Web sites from respected academic organizations and the government are supposed to be a solid resource, parts of them will have to remain unchangeable. It will be good for search, because it will mean cutting back on sifting through results and search time. Individuals will have to get used to the idea that books will longer be the definitive source.
Whitney Grace, October 29, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Tip and Bill Splitting Calculator
October 27, 2013
We are curious about the reasoning behind the new Google feature revealed in Lifehacker‘s piece, “Google Search Now Calculates Tips, Splits the Check.” Yes, a tip calculator has been added to Google Search. If I remember correctly, calculators have been standard features on mobile phones for some time, and the truly mathematically challenged have a number of apps to choose from for these tasks. Why would we need the capability in our search, too?
That question is beyond the scope of Mihir Patkar’s very brief write-up. He does tell us:
“The next time you get the bill at the end of a meal, just Google it. A new tip calculator can instantly tell you how much you should leave behind, and even lets you split the bill between friends.
“The search string to activate the calculator on the Web, iOS or Android is ‘tip for’ followed by the amount. By default, it’s set to 15% split by one person, but you can adjust those parameters as you need.”
… And the tool is already outdated; in recent years, I’ve been hearing that 20 percent is now the standard. Granted, you can change the percentage easily, as well as quickly adjust the number of diners in your party. The function is straightforward and easy to use—convenient, yes, but hardly a clamored-for feature. Still, I can respect a company that encourages its engineers to play around and then puts the results out there, to be embraced or discarded as the public sees fit.
Cynthia Murrell, October 27, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Visionary Talend Looks to the Future
October 24, 2013
Talend is a visionary, according to research firm Gartner. Virtual-Strategy Magazine reveals, “Talend Positioned as a Visionary in the Magic Quadrant for Data Quality Tools.” To land in the annual report’s Visionaries column, Gartner says, companies must “understand where the market is going or have a vision for changing market rules.” The report cites two Talend products as evidence of the company’s foresight: their Open Studio for Data Quality and their Platform for Data Management.
Apparently Talend’s vision includes fresh leadership, for hard on the heels of the above press release came another, “Talend Appoints Mike Tuchen as CEO” posted at 4-traders. The write-up explains why Tuchen is their choice for the company’s next phase:
“Prior to joining Talend, Tuchen served as the CEO of Rapid7 and led the company through an exponential growth, dramatically expanding its marketing, sales, partnerships and product line. A former Microsoft executive and seasoned marketing and product strategist, he also served as the General Manager of Microsoft’s SQL Server Marketing team, helping grow that business from $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion. Tuchen is also a board member of ThousandEyes.”
Already a leader in open source data management, Talend boosted that standing in 2010 with its acquisition of Sopera. The company supplies data-management and application-integration middleware to organizations of all sizes. They cite their scalable platform, flexible architecture, and easy-to-use tools as reasons they have grown to serve more than 4,000 enterprise customers. Talend was founded in 2005, and is based in Los Altos, California.
Cynthia Murrell, October 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Spotter Details Revealed
October 23, 2013
Spotter is the new way information management professionals can spot data (pun intended). Questions have been flying, however, about how exactly it works have papered the Internet, but we found details from the Spotter Web site itself: “Methodology For The CB News-Spotter #AdBossDigitalBuzz Barometer.” The barometer is a bit confusing. How can an Internet use a tool for meteorologists? The official descriptions explains it better:
“With its propriety web tracking technology, Spotter harvests mentions of the personalities (directors of advertising agencies) followed in the barometer, as well as their quotes and statements, in real time, from a panel of 1000 online media sources / blogs and social networking sites such as Twitter (entire stream), Facebook, Google+, Viadeo and LinkedIn including the public accounts of the personalities themselves (trusting they are clearly identifiable).”
Think of Spotter as more of a marketing/advertising tool to gauge an Internet profile. Spotter gathers data with specific expressions to identify the followed figures and then it is put through the its semantic technology to filter our irrelevant documents. The barometer calculates information based off the pooled data and published on the first Tuesday of every month in the CB Newsletter and available through the CB News Web site. The figure’s profile not simply a machine product. Spotter uses a team of expert media analysts to perform quality checks to guarantee accuracy.
Internet reputation social monitoring tool? Not a bad idea, but instead of focusing on publishing the results solely on their Web site, Spotter may fair better in creating a software package that they can sell.
Whitney Grace, October 23, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Try this English Arabic Translator
October 14, 2013
We would like to call your attention to a resource hosted at Softpedia, an English Arabic Translator for Windows 8. The full version of the shareware from InTouch Softwares costs all of $1.49, but there is a free trial available. The description states:
“English Arabic Translator for Windows 8 is a handy application that you can use to easily translate your texts from Arabic or change the English texts into Arabic. The utility is a breeze to use since you just have to input the texts in the right box and then push ‘Convert’. If you want to do a translation the other way round, you have at your disposal the ‘Flip’ feature of English Arabic Translator for Windows 8 that will switch the languages.”
Despite the “for Windows 8” in the name, the software will also run on Windows 7, XP, Vista, and even 2000. Only by performing a test run can one tell whether the dedicated English-Arabic translator beats the multi-language Google Translator and similar offerings, but I suspect it just might. At that price point, it is a good thing they offer that free trial so users can compare before buying!
Located in India, InTouch Softwares offers both web development and software applications, focusing on marketing, branding, and communications. The company is committed to using the latest technology to boost clients’ profits.
Cynthia Murrell, October 14, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Track Website Changes with Diphur
October 10, 2013
We’d like to share this free service we’ve found: diphur tracks website changes via bookmarks. Tech Tips Geek introduces us this helpful tool in, “How to Keep Up with Changes to Favorite Websites.” Writer Charnita Fance begins:
“How do you keep up with changes to your favorite websites? RSS feeds are great for websites that support them, but what about websites that do not support RSS? A great way to keep up with websites that don’t support RSS is by using a free service called diphur. With diphur, you can add websites as bookmarks and then get notified (via email) when there are changes to those websites. Diphur is not just for websites that don’t support RSS though, you can also use it for social media sites and any other website that has textual content.”
If this sounds helpful to you, check out Fance’s detailed instructions. She describes how to start an account, how to add and edit bookmarks, and how to customize the service.
Naturally, diphur inc. has ways to monetize their handiwork, no doubt hoping to hook users with the free taste. Diphur helps businesses set up tailored site monitoring for a fee, and grants volume discounts on such subscriptions. They also offer a version of the service for use on organizations’ private networks. See the company’s About page for more information on these business options. Diphur is headquartered in California.
Cynthia Murrell, October 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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