Kroll Takes on Search and Restoration Software
December 16, 2012
With a current arsenal of ediscovery and data recovery options, Kroll Ontrack is now offering a new search and restoration tool, Ontrack PowerControls through a partnership with Info X. The press release was found on Business Wire “Kroll Ontrack Partners with Global Distributor Info X to Address Demand for Granular Search and Restoration Software.”
Info X provides storage solutions to clients worldwide. Their partnership with Kroll Ontrack ensures that resellers will have access and technical support for the software solution. This is to replace a full-site restore or backup.
Exchange and SharePoint are the culprits of annual data loss according to a recent Kroll Ontrack survey of 326 individuals in IT, engineering and sales. Nearly half of organizations have this problem.
Sr. Manager of Enterprise Software Dan Leary, Kroll Ontrack was quoted in the article:
“This partnership with Info X enables more resellers to offer a powerful tool that addresses a common, but time-consuming problem. Ontrack PowerControls works directly with your backups and allows you to extract and restore only the items that you need, saving IT administrators 50 percent of restoration time when compared to using traditional methods.”
Altergrity Kroll expands into search and restoration software. Is this a sign there is room in the market or just a company putting feelers out in every possible arena? Time will tell.
Megan Feil, December 16, 2012
Sponsored by Arnold IT.com, developer of Augmentext
MetaVis Rolls Out Another Organizational Tool for SharePoint
December 7, 2012
SharePoint’s stronghold shows through in recent news about MetaVis. MetaVis Technologies offers organizational tools for SharePoint and they are rolling out a new governance solution for an upcoming conference. The press release, “MetaVis to Preview New SharePoint Governance Tool at SharePoint Conference 2012” discusses the latest and greatest from this company.
The release discusses the boom in information and data we are experiencing. However, the statement that content growth is happening at an exponential rate is no surprise to anyone. Two words: big data.
In response, MetaVis serves up Informant for SharePoint, software designed to analyze content, identify sensitive information and enforce compliance standards or governance policies in the file system, SharePoint or Office 365.
Market Watch also discusses the accumulation of more file sharing and storing options:
“As a result, more and more content is uncontrolled and unmanaged by a company’s IT department which can lead to information leaks, security breaches and compliance risks. MetaVis Informant for SharePoint helps mitigate these risks by providing a convenient and familiar way of crawling, analyzing, reporting, and taking action across enterprise data.”
Is there a need for an entire company to tackle add-ons for an existing software solution? With the multiple tools for organizing SharePoint that MetaVis offers, it sounds like SharePoint can be a challenging system to manage.
Megan Feil, December 07, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
OpenText Expands While Canadian Productivity Is Low Overall
December 3, 2012
First the good news. Ontario-based data management firm OpenText is growing its overseas operations, we learn from their press release, “OpenText Expands in India Growing Customer Base, Expanded R&D Capacity.” The company notes that the expansion is supported by the Indian government, and its research and development center is located in Hyderabad’s Special Economic Zone. The write up announces:
“The company is adding more space [to its Hyderabad office] as it prepares to double the size of its workforce in India over the next few years. . . .
“In conjunction with the Hyderabad expansion, OpenText is opening a commercial hub in Mumbai to address customer demand for OpenText’s offerings and to support its technology and reseller partners.”
Good for OpenText! But while that company is continuing its Indian journey, other Canadian companies may be heading into stormier waters. A recent report highlights the declining productivity now faced by the Great White North, we learn in “Deloitte Report: The Future of Productivity in Canada 2012.” The very brief article tells us:
“*Productivity growth in Canadian manufacturing averaged 0.88% between 2000 and 2008, well below the 3.3% rate of growth for U.S. manufacturing.
*Only 2.66% of Canadian services firms five years or older are likely to maintain high-growth. In the United States that number is 4.5%. In Israel it’s 5.43%.
*Rising labour costs make Canadian exports more expensive. Yet between 2000 and 2007, Canadian per-worker investment in labour-saving machinery and equipment was only 52% of the U.S. investment.”
The report includes some common-sense, if not particularly specific, recommendations for improving these statistics. (See the blue, expandable headings at the bottom of the report.)
Founded in 1991 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, OpenText supplies its clients with enterprise content management, business process management, and customer experience management tools. Deliotte‘s founders began work in the newfangled field of professional standards back in 1848, and is now the largest professional services firm in Canada. It has many locations across the country.
Cynthia Murrell, December 03, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Altova Release New Version of MissionKit
November 30, 2012
Altova, a data management solutions provider and creator of XMLSpy, recently published the news release, “Altova Announces the Release of Version 2013 of MissionKit” on its website.
According to the article, Altova has released an integrated suite of XML, SQL, and UML tools. It offers automatic error correction and support for SQL stored procedures in data mapping projects. Prices start at $59 per product and are available for purchase in the Altova online shop.
The release states:
“Among the many updates and new features we incorporated into the Version 2013 release, one of the most significant is Smart Fix. Smart Fix is unique to XMLSpy 2013 and is a huge leap forward in intelligent XML editing. It provides options for fixing validation errors that developers can apply automatically, with a single click. It’s true XML alchemy,” said Alexander Falk, President and CEO for Altova. “With increased demands on developers today we are always looking for ways to incorporate efficiencies into our products. You simply won’t find this functionality in other tools.”
Altova’s MissionKit is certainly affordable and the suite offers great tools. However, it only saves you money if you plan on using equal numbers of XMLSpy and MapForce.
Jasmine Ashton, November 30, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
More Enhancements to Google Translate
November 17, 2012
Tech Crunch recently reported on some new enhancements to Google’s translation service in the article, “Google Translate Gets a Better Dictionary with Smarter Rankings, Reverse Translations and Grouped Synonyms.”
According to the article, Google Translate, a beta service provided by Google to translate a section of text into another language, has come out with some new features that make it easier to decide which translation of a word the querier is looking for. It also groups synonymous translations together when their meaning is closely related and provides reverse translations.
The article states:
“Google Translate will now rank possible translations by frequency. Every possible translation is now also marked as common, uncommon or rare and this ranking is based on, as Google says, “the vast number of translations we use to train our system.” Very rare translations will actually be hidden by default, but you can bring them back with a single click.”
With a globalized world and more and more people looking overseas to find work, translation programs like Google Translate are becoming more and more imperative for English speakers. We appreciate the Search Giant’s recognition of this fact and ability to proactively incorporate a translation service into its services.
Jasmine Ashton, November XX, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Keep It Separated
November 14, 2012
Respect data decentralization. That is the key to “The Challenge of Defensible Deletion of Distributed Legacy Data,” according to the eDiscovery Law & Tech Blog at X1 Discovery.
Blogger John Patzakis submits that, for large enterprises with data subject to governance requirements, centralization can make it hard to create a defensible retention schedule. Most archiving systems require that bits of data be pulled from their cozy homes on group and departmental silos and dumped into a central system before any retention and management process can even begin. He writes:
“Forcing centralization on these many pockets of productivity is highly disruptive and rarely effective due to scalability, network bandwidth and other logistical challenges. So what this leaves is the reality that for any information remediation process to be effective, it must be executed within these departmentalized information silos.”
Not surprisingly, Patzakis recommends one of X1’s own products, X1 Rapid Discovery, to do just that. The company has produced an hour-long webinar outlining their method. According to the article:
“X1 Rapid Discovery represents game-changing technology to effectuate the remediation of distributed legacy data due to its ability to install on demand virtually anywhere in the enterprise, including remote data silos, its light footprint web browser access, and intuitive interface. X1 Rapid Discovery enables for effective assessment, reporting, categorization and migration and remediation of distributed information assets by accessing, searching and managing the subject data in place without the need for migration to the appliance or a central repository.”
Sounds good. It may well be that X1 Rapid Discovery is the best solution for this process, or maybe not. Either way, the webinar could be worth a gander.X1 Discovery makes e-discovery tools and enterprise search solutions for IT and legal professionals. Founded by Idealab, the company is located in Pasadena, CA.
Cynthia Murrell, November 14, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Hello Siri Google is Coming for You
November 14, 2012
Google has been trying to come out with a rival to Apple’s Siri for months now. While those who have new Android products are able to utilize Google Now, until now, there has not been a Google app to bring instant information to non-Google smartphones. LifeHacker.com recently published the article, “Chat with Google Guru to Get Google Now Style Answers on Any Device.”
According to the article, for those who want Google Now style data but do not have an Android product, there is now an easy solution. All you have to do is add guru@googlelabs.comto your contact list on your smartphone. Then ask Google Guru what you want to know and receive instant replies.
The article explains:
“Granted, this works best with Android devices, since Android has a built-in GTalk client. iOS users will have to use a third party app, like our favorite, Imo, to get the same features. Once Guru is in your contacts list, commands like “weather: city” will give you the current conditions in that location, and “score: team” will help you find the score of a game you’re interested in, or the last game your favorite team played. Here are all of the commands guru understands as far as we can tell:
- Score: team
- Weather: city
- Define: word
- Translate: word
- Web: query (performs a Google web search)
- Calculate: formula”
While it doesn’t have all of the features of Siri or Google Now, Google Guru could lead to some potential competition for Apple if more non-Android smartphones begin using it.
Jasmine Ashton, November 14, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Harsh Words for SKOS eXtension for Labels
November 8, 2012
In 2009, the W3C published the SKOS-XL (SKOS eXtension for Labels). Now, Voyages of the Semantic Enterprise asks, “Who Needs Skos-XL? Maybe No One.” What does writer Irene Polikoff have against the SKOS extension?
The post begins at the beginning, with an explanation of the Triangle of Reference and the concepts behind the open source SKOS. Polikoff goes on to describe the purpose of SKOS-XL: to allow concept labels to collect their own metadata. This, she says, unnecessarily complicates vocabulary management. She writes:
“Labels are not strings as in SKOS proper, but RDF resources with their own identity. Each label can have only one literal form; this is where the actual text string (the name) goes. The literal form is not one per Label per language as with SKOS’s constraint for assigning preferred labels, but one per Label. So, to accommodate different languages, different label resources must be created. At the same time, there can be multiple Label resources with the same literal form (for example, two different Label resources with the literal form ‘Mouse’). Even a simple SKOS-XL vocabulary is considerably bulkier than its SKOS alternative. Since SKOS-XL format takes far more space, storage, import/export and performance of search and query can become an issue for larger vocabularies.”
Labels can be linked to each other as well as to their concepts, the article notes, further increasing complexity. Also, the same text label may be applied to different entities, potentially leading to confusion. Furthermore, the write up points to a couple of specific integrity clashes between SKOS and SKOS-XL. See the article for more details.
Polikoff closes by offering to help readers who think SKOS-XL is their only choice for vocabulary management to find a simpler solution. Will many users agree it is wise to do so?
Cynthia Murrell, November 08, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Personal Search Integrates Disparate Tools
November 1, 2012
All Things D reveals Google’s plans to serve up yet more integration in, “Google Amps Up Personal Search to Combine Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and More.” The product combination, which brings together personal and public services, is bound to rub some people the wrong way. Writer Liz Gannes hypothesizes that this is why Google is currently only making the change for users who opt in to the “field trial.” This Googley experiment is only available in English, and only for personal Gmail accounts.
The write up explains:
“Starting today, Gmail users will be able to search across their mail, contacts, Google Drive documents and Google Calendar appointments, all from the search bar at the top of the Webmail application. But that’s only if they choose to opt into a “field trial” of the new product.
“This builds on top of an existing field trial that combines Gmail and search on Google.com. That experiment launched in August and as of today also includes Google Drive documents, spreadsheets and files. Users who opted into the first field trial will have to opt in again.”
Such a to-do about integrating pieces and parts reminds us that Google has a big-data view of small things. Does that perspective hurt or help the search giant? Or some of each?
Cynthia Murrell, November 01, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
InMagic Makes Welcome Customer Pledge
October 30, 2012
InMagic has taken a step forward with a recent promise to its customers. On the company’s blog, General Manager and CTO Phil Green posts, “Back to the Future: a Pledge to Keep our Customers Self-Sufficient.” This vow to boost ease-of-use is an attitude we like to see.
One of InMagic’s primary commitments, says Green, has always been to provide software that can be easily used and customized by even the non-technical among us. As the Web grew in scale and complexity, however, that goal became more of a challenge for the company’s DB/TextWorks WebPublisher solution. Clients using that software to build and maintain their Web sites have often found it difficult to modify their sites without the help of a skilled Web developer.
InMagic now has the solution. Green recalls a client who urgently needed two things for their custom DB/Text WebPublisher-based website. First, they wanted the ability to make changes to their site without tapping an expensive consultant. The customer also wanted to stick with InMagic’s DB/TextWorks to build and maintain their database. Green writes:
“We were thrilled to be able to offer our new solution, Presto for DB/Text. The DB/TextWorks connector in Presto for DB/Text enables the client to build and maintain their textbase in DB/TextWorks while publishing the content in Presto. And the connector easily accommodates their textbase of more than 100,000 records. In addition, the Presto configuration layer enables the client to easily make changes to the website without technical support. In fact, the client is so comfortable with the product that they’re handling the majority of development of their new website themselves, with only limited configuration and building help from us.”
Green goes on to mention another client, one who successfully used Presto to rebuild their intranet site and to integrate with SharePoint. Specialized InMagic Web parts installed into SharePoint made Presto content available in the customer’s new SharePoint-based intranet.
Formed almost thirty years ago, InMagic is located in Woburn, MA . The company builds information management tools that, they say, are known for low cost of ownership, flexibility, ease-of-use, and rapid deployment. Some prominent customers include NASA, the esteemed Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and corporate powerhouse Owens Corning.
Cynthia Murrell, October 30, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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