Protected: SharePoint and Silverlight Collaborate on Rich Media
May 11, 2011
Clearwell Systems Continues Government Contract
May 10, 2011
It looks like Clearwell Systems http://www.symantec.com/theme.jsp?themeid=clearwell-family, one of my favorite eDiscovery vendors has managed to get the US government to get some work done. According to the SBWire.com article “U.S. Extends Contract with Clearwell Systems for E-Discovery” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have formally extended its service contract with Clearwell’s E-Discovery Platform. We learned in the write up:
The Clearwell E-Discovery Platform procured under the subject contract meets the government’s needs and performed in a satisfactory manner.
Clearwell won the position initially because it met the government’s Statement of Work (SOW) conditions. Important E-Discovery capabilities such as search functionality, review functionality, case management, export and production are included in the SOW. The write up added:
Clearwell is being used in the electronic discovery litigation process to assist ICE attorneys in processing, reviewing, analyzing and producing electronically stored information.
Clearwell’s past work record and satisfactory performance with the government spoke for itself and left little doubt. Guess one could say, looks like a job well done. In a faltering economy, litigation is a big business within and outside of governmental agencies.
Alice Holmes, May 10, 2011
Freebie unlike the services of legal eagles
Another Oracle Text Tip
May 10, 2011
We ran a query about Oracle text search on Google the other day. We were surprised and almost delighted that Beyond Search appears near the top of the results list. We would prefer that the vendor appear at the top of the results list for information about the vendor’s own search engine. The goslings try, but the vendor has an obligation to provide a flow of on point, timely information about its products in our opinion. Believe it or not, a number of vendors are falling behind in providing information to their licensees. We hope this tardiness is not a trend.
Anyhoo, here’s another useful nugget of Oracle information for DBAs and users alike. DbaSupport.com posted up an article titled “Oracle Text – Expanding Your String Searching Capabilities in Oracle Database”.
When the SQL WHERE clause falls short, the LIKE condition can generally be manipulated in creative ways to produce the results you need. One mustn’t stop with LIKE; LIKEC, LIKE2 and LIKE 4 exist and are explained here. The drawback is that there is a level of honing required to apply these, namely you need a pretty good idea of what you are looking for and where it is located.
So for broken and complex strings or searches in larger data sets, Oracle Text can help. Directly from the article we absorbed:
“The four index types (generally domain indexes for that matter) and their query operators are:
- CONTEXT, using CONTAINS
- CTXCAT, using CATSEARCH
- CTXRULE, using MATCHES
- CTXPATH, using existsNode()
Some of the indexes also use parameters, and those will be examined in subsequent articles. The query operator names are somewhat intuitive in how they support the index type. In a context search (based on large coherent documents), we want to know if the text contains what we’re looking for. For many, but smaller documents (also of various types), we have to search through a catalog, so we perform a catalog search. In most contexts, we know that rules require a match, and one thing you can’t escape in XML is searching a path to see if something exists (at a node).”
We’ll spare you the needle/haystack reference. Just consider tucking this tip away for later.
Sarah Rogers, May 10, 2011
Freebie unlike some of the engineering services provided by search vendors to licensees who are working to make these findability products “find”
Autonomy Extends Linklaters Relationship
May 10, 2011
In August 2009, we published “Autonomy … De Facto Standard for Global Law Firms”. We saw another news item about one of the firms mentioned in that write up, Linklaters.
According to the “Linklaters Selects Autonomy’s IDOL for Enterprise Search Easy Search Interface and Conceptual Search To Boost Productivity at Leading Global Law Firm,” the leading global firm Linklaters is embracing Autonomy’s IDOL technology. IDOL or Intelligent Data Operating Layer is an innovative users-oriented enterprise search platform.
We learned:
In a project spearheaded by Autonomy and longstanding Autonomy partner, Okana, now part of the Realise group, Linklaters selected Autonomy’s IDOL for enterprise search due to its unique conceptual abilities, language independence, scalability and ability to connect to virtually every data repository.
Though there are other search tools on the market Autonomy’s technology is so popular because the user specific enterprise helps to boost productivity. The write up asserted:
Okana’s Sense User Interface combined with Autonomy’s IDOL enterprise search provides our lawyers with an intuitive interface designed with them in mind, allowing both implicit and active conceptual searches that deliver only the most relevant information.
When it comes to the courtroom, Autonomy is a hard case to beat. Is this an extension of an existing Autonomy deal or a new one? We are not sure. Obviously Linklaters is a happy IDOL user.
April Holmes, May 10, 2011
Freebie
Google Images: What Is in Focus? Images or Security? Neither? Both?
May 10, 2011
This weekend (May 7 and 8, 2011), I wanted a US government picture of earth taken from space. I checked out Bing.com but did not spot the image I had in mind. I bopped over to Google.com, clicked on Images, and checked out some snaps. One caught my eye and I clicked it. The Google iFrame thing popped up. I clicked the image, saved a copy to a USB, hit the button on my KVM control, and worked some Photoshop / Gimp distortions. When I clicked back to the machine I use to look at Web sites, malware had taken over the machine. A bit of sleuthing revealed that some clever teenagers at heart had used Google’s iFrame as a vector to corrupt a computer. Nice. This particular exploit left my machine without the ability to do much of anything. If you get snookered by image malware on a Windows machine, you will have to use some crafty techniques such as running Task Manager, clicking on Run when you hold down the Control key, and working with this Swiss cheese operating system. So I got to revert back to my old command line self. Semi fun.
You can find out about the Google images malware thing in “Attackers Using Google Image Search to Distribute Malware.” I noted that in Google’s “Sort by Subject in Google Images,” there was some cheerleading for a function I don’t need. Er, a keyword search is a subject to me. Google is excited about this function. The write up pants:
Sorting by subject uses algorithms that identify relationships among images found on the web and presents those images in visual groups, expanding on the technology developed for Google Similar Images and Google Image Swirl. By looking at multiple sources of similarities, such as pixel values and semantic relationships, and by mining massive amounts of data, we can make meaningful connections and groupings among images.
In my opinion, we have a Microsoft Office type of disconnect. I want to do something and I don’t want software to do something else. Whether I am pasting text or formatting a table, Microsoft’s engineers are so darned smart that the software does what it thinks I should do. The software does not do what I want to do. Google Images is moving along this knife edge. I wanted a picture and I got an exploit.
How about getting the basics right? Skip the fancy talk about semantics and find a way to deliver the basics—one click access to an image without the accompaniment of some high IQ teenagers who want me to practice my command line skills. (For more on Google security check out “Chrome’s Security Crown Slips”. Wow. Pretty exciting. What happens to folks who, unlike me, don’t know how to work around an exploit, losing access to their computer and maybe data. No more Google Images for me.
Stephen E Arnold, May 10, 2011
Freebie just like Google images’ malware
Protected: SharePoint and Mobile
May 10, 2011
BA-Insight Sees Opportunity through Azure Colored Glasses
May 9, 2011
It seems that BA Insight is embracing the media marketing trend as they showcase their new technology on Microsoft Channel 9. The interview and article “Building On Azure: BA Insight” which are located on the Microsoft Channel 9 Web Site provide some interesting details about the new search technology. BA Insight integrated its new search technology into FAST and SharePoint 2010. A passage that caught my attention was:
BA Insight’s advanced user interface, which, among other things, removes the burden of having to download content to assess relevance. Using this technology, individual pages, slides, or worksheets can be previewed without downloading the entirety of any one file.
Cloud computing through Microsoft Office 365 and the Windows Azure Platform allow BA Insight to handle heavy workloads efficiently. The cloud is still a relatively new technology but the possible implications of the technology could provide Microsoft customers with notable options. However, the cloud computing problems that have struck the very popular Amazon do raise doubt but maybe Azure can prove that there is light at the end of the tunnel?
Is the cloud the future of computing? It seems to make sense for organizations struggling to contain computing costs and cope with staffing challenges. However, the assumption is that organizations can afford the bandwidth and the risk of losing a connection when a big deal is in the balance. Google is cheerleading for cloud computing as well.
What happens when a cloud based search system is unavailable? Employees will have to scramble. The big deal may be saved but at what cost? Will senior managers and CFOs listen and act? Sure, until there is an Amazon event. Everything works on paper and in PowerPoint presentations. The real world often behaves in unexpected ways.
Alice Holmes, May 9, 2011
Freebie
Microsoft Alleges Google Apps Carry Hefty Hidden Fee
May 9, 2011
“Microsoft Attacks Google Apps with “Google Tax” marks another 22 caliber shot in the skirmish between Microsoft (the new IBM) and Google (the new Microsoft). Yep, the 22 slug is an allegation that Google imposes a “tax” on users. Interesting but many companies impose a tax on users. Some achieve the revenue with a partner fee, some with training costs, and others with strongly recommended engineering and consulting services.
After interviewing “more than 90 small and medium sized organizations using Google Apps,” Microsoft discovered that:
…For 9 out of 10 companies surveyed, Google Apps are used in parallel to Office.
Additionally, the majority of companies surveyed:
will continue to standardize on Microsoft Office, while they only evaluate free trials of Google Apps, and do not intend to spend money on deployments.
Among the small and medium sized businesses surveyed, I learned that “Only two in five adopted Google Docs and two out of three companies still use Office as their primary productivity solution.”
Microsoft, the article asserted, “has created an iceberg info-graphic that reveals Google’s hidden costs.”
There is a much recycled graphic metaphor depicting the tip-of-the-iceberg up front costs of $50 (per user), and the annual costs and one-Time costs as the unseen base of the iceberg. How hefty are these charges? The article suggests that these fees amount to almost ten times the “visible” costs, in addition to unknown costs for end-user training, staff training, and lost user productivity. I think the “lost productivity” means a person familiar with Word has to waste time trying to make Google Apps deliver the same functionality.
The bottom line is that user prefer Word. Is there a tax for using Microsoft Office? The article sidesteps this issue. In Enterprise Technology Management, a publication of ISIGlobal.com, Stephen E Arnold summarized Google’s pricing of its Google Search Appliance. The Google “tax” may be evident in those data as well. To see the US government’s Google Search Appliance fees, navigate to www.gsaadvantage.gov and search for “GB 7007” or “GB 9009”.
Jane Livingston, May, 9, 2011
Freebie
Recommind and LexisNexis Team to Generate More Revenue
May 9, 2011
Recommind has moved from eDiscovery to enterprise search and back again. The latest tactic in the firm’s growth strategy is a tie up with LexisNexis. This unit of Reed Elsevier has emerged as one of the leading non US owned firms delivering legal information in America and elsewhere. LexisNexis has been working overtime to cope with changing buying patterns among consumers of high end commercial online content. LexisNexis has branched into new markets, including data analytics and various legal back office services.
Recommind announced in “Recommind Forms Strategic Alliance With LexisNexis for Hosted eDiscovery Service” a new deal with LexisNexis. The idea is to apply the well known online dream of 1+1=2, maybe 3 or more. The news announcement said the tie up was “A strategic hosting and sales alliance” the two companies promises “rapid deployment of [Recommind’s] Axcelerate On-Demand” and LexisNexis’ Hosted Litigation Solutions group.
The goal we learned is to:
“provide more options and greater flexibility in discovery. . . dramatically reduce the costs and timelines associated with document review and analysis as part of litigation and regulatory investigations.”
In addition, the alliance offers “top-tier infrastructure capabilities, globally diverse IP network,” as well as security against disastrous loss events.
The business alliance will answer 2010 customer demand “for Axcelerate On-Demand with Predictive Coding.” It is designed to offer corporations and law firms to meet their review information needs, budgetary demands, and critical timelines for all of their cases, no matter how complex, changing “’the way corporations and law firms manage litigation in 2011 and into the future.’”
Sounds very good. Now we have to wait to see if there is an impact on other competitors in the over-crowded legal sector and if the river of revenues pulls a swollen Mississippi or maintains the current flow.
Jane Livingston, May 9, 2011
Freebie unlike commercial online legal and news information or special purpose search solutions
Jewish News Archive: Another Hot Curated Vertical Content Source
May 9, 2011
Anne Mintz, the star of the Forbes’ organization’s information center, shifted direction a while back. She dropped into stealth mode, alerting me to her activities via brief emails. I am delighted to be able to announce her Jewish News Archive project.
The remarkable collection of JTA news reports from 1923 to the present is now available for free at archive.jta.org . Formerly the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, now JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People, the organization is a not-for-profit media company similar to the Associated Press. Ms. Mintz, one of the world’s leading experts in business information, told me:
Writing the first draft of Jewish history. The archive of original reporting from around the world documents the Jewish experience of the 20th century, much of it not written about in the mainstream media.
I was delighted with the depth of this new service. She said:
There are more than 7,000 contemporaneous articles reported from Europe between 1937-1945 that document the Holocaust on a daily basis, at least that many documenting the experience of Russian Jews throughout entire reign of Communism, coverage of life in then-Palestine before the new state was inaugurated in 1948, and much more.
You can explore this exceptional resource at http://goo.gl/kPk6d.
If you are one of the video addicts who read Beyond Search, you can get additional information from a nifty YouTube video.
Ms. Mintz–who vies with Marydee Ojala, Barbara Quint, and Ulla de Stricker for the title of best business information expert in the world—told me after I asked about her involvement:
Yes, I worked on the project for four months helping prepare the site for launch on May 9, 2011. The content speaks for itself. One interesting aspect of my role was to help surface the articles on news events that didn’t mention the overall subject, such as the Holocaust and the Six Day War, which of course weren’t referred to as such in the original coverage. Another is making sure that people who search for Sabbath also get stories about Shabbat and Shabbas.
The shift from running a commercial organization’s information operation to developing curated vertical information services is one that is interesting to me. Most of the curated sites are little more than plays for revenue from online advertising services. Ms. Mintz’s work delivers quality without the search engine optimization baloney. This is a victory for curated content. Ms. Mintz receives a virtual laurel wreath from the team in Harrod’s Creek.
Three quacks for this service. What’s next?
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2011
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