Chat Security that Google Misses

Today I am going to add one more point to likes about Microsoft Products. It is about MSN Messenger. In early days of chatting, Yahoo was the most popular and then MSN messenger. There were similar chat clients available. But with entry of Google Talk and embedded chat in Gmail, everyone took back seat. Every everyone came up with embedded chat with audio and video. But Google Talk is still popular being very light weight. I like Google talk to avoid many non-sense features that typical chat clients have.

But there is one feature about GTalk which I always hate. When you log in from multiple locations, it keeps all the sessions active. When you chat with someone, you are never sure if you are talking to the real person. In this case even you are not sure who is reading your chat session. So you lose your privacy. You cannot easily end all other sessions.

Now coming to MSN Messeneger (Now Windows Live Messenger) it has many features which I do not use like integration with Facebook and LinkedIn. But common chat feature I use. The best part of it is that when you log from multiple locations, it gives you a notice about being logged in from multiple location and all the locations from where you have logged in. I know even Microsoft is getting data from your system. But it publishes and give you a facility to remotely end all other sessions so that you can keep your active session live.

Actually Google too have this feature in Gmail but it is hidden from common users. One has to go to some page which I do not remember now and end all other sessions. May be here I can say that Google keeps your data for their use and do not wish a common user to understand it where as Microsoft gets your data and shows it to you.

An a layman I will say Google is missing a chat security feature in chat clients where are Microsoft scores here. I can log out from all other session from a client which I wish and keep only one session active.

 

thanks and regards
Ashish Kulkarni

 

Microsoft and Others

Some time back I was one of the computer users who used to hate Microsoft Applications and including operating systems. Windows Vista was the main reason. But these days I am liking Microsoft applications.

I liked two products of Microsoft. One is licensed and other is like open source. I am one of the lovers of Content Management Systems (CMS). In open source products, I like Drupal the most. I still love it for its features. But I like Microsoft SharePoint as well. Though I am a end user or just a portal administrator but still I liked it a lot. It is always debated that can it fight with PLM? Answer is NO. But still it can replace many features of PLM like Document Management, Workflows or any typical information management feature. I liked Custom Lists feature a lot. One does not need programming experience at all. Just some added commonsense is enough to create very useful custom list which can reduce your lot of data management efforts. As I always say, we need to integrate PLM and SharePoint with some social networking features. In this area, I do not see Google anywhere. I know they have many things for corporates but you need internet connectivity. I think in organizations where internet is still under control, SharePoint is the best option to have company intranet.

Another Product I like is Microsoft WebMatrix. I am still a novice in WebMatrix but it is a good tool who want to experiment with web applications. Basically Microsoft has given us a tool to experiment without much programming knowledge or a monopoly feel. Earlier I used XAMPP for this purpose but it needs some amount of basic knowledge of how web applications work. WebMatrix is just wonderful. It does all background work and one does not need to worry about Database Server, WebServer and so on. It just simple helps you to download some of the templates based tools and configures it for you on your localhost. Then you can publish your site with world using WebMatrix or just keep on experimenting locally. Here too, I see Google not much ahead. Google gives some good site development features but everything is static. Yes, Google Apps is there but again you need programming knowledge.

I liked these two products. May be sometime in future I will write more about features in these Products. I wish Microsoft keeps doing this good work.

thanks and regards
Ashish Kulkarni

PLM and Social Network Features

These days we always talk about Social Network, its features and related stuff in PLM. In past few days, while working with PLM End Users I faced user frustrations about multiple emails sent by PLM systems. These emails are many times non value addition items. These are not only flooding inboxes but make user confuse to prioritize their activities.

Intension for sending email notifications is really good. But now it is old fashioned and more important is not work it by making your smaller inbox full of System Generated auto mails. Specially when today’s user use Facebook, LinkedIn in and twitter on their mobile phones, then sending emails for notification is really old fashioned.

What I think is to give a twitter like service in PLM so that user can see notifications, tasks on his/her will by just clicking on “25 new notification ” or “12 New Tasks”. It should also give an ability to tag these updates by Project Name or Part Number or anything else that user is interested in. So that user can ignore unwanted notification without leaning up mail box and also enjoy social network features in PLM.

This will not only reduce load on mail servers and inboxes but also improve PLM Application performance. I would love to see such features for tasks, notification and lifecycle changes and anything that an end user can think of. I think this is not impossible. May be a plugin can help.

thanks and regards
Ashish Kulkarni

How to get IE8 back

Hey,I got a new Dell XPS when I joined our China office. Once I logged in it started installing updates on Windows 7 Base installation and I got IE9. I never liked IE9. Its asks for more security warnings and Favorites button is on browser toolbar. For more than a month I tried to adjust with IE9. But one fine day I lost my patience. I wanted IE8 back. So how to get it? Here are the steps.

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Uninstall a program
3. Once you go to installed Program’s list watch on the left hand side for View Installed Updates.
4. Locate Internet Explorer 9 and select.
5. Simply click on Uninstall
6. Reboot the system

Once you are logged in you get IE8 back without losing any data. Hope this helps. Happy Surfing.

thanks and regards
Ashish Kulkarni

Learning JavaScript

Hey,
I am learning JavaScript on Codecademy (http://www.codecademy.com/learn). It is really fun to learn basics of programming on Codecademy. You do not need great coding knowledge before you start.
For a long time I was not moving ahead after learning HTML and CSS on my own. This is interesting to code on your own and test your code and get answers online and move forward with a motivated mind. I am really enjoying it.

thanks and regards
Ashish Kulkarni

PLM and Blogging

These days whenever I come across any blog post about PLM, the first impression I get is that PLM Implementations are nothing but failures. There many posts which say these are the areas where it fails. Then there are posts which says why it fails and what is missing. But there are no collective efforts which either address these implementation failures or real needs/requirements of PLM Projects.

Somehow I get a picture like that you implement PLM and your issues are solved. Which is not so. PLM Vendors, PLM Implementing teams and PLM Customers need to set a process of implementation. Typically, what should be the methodology? What should be the road map? Which type or people are required at various stages of PLM Implementation and so on.

I think those who all work in PLM area need to highlight success stories than only pointing out failures and limitations.

thanks and regards
Ashish Kulkarni

Network Mapping on command line on Windows

Mapping a network drive on windows is very easy using UI tools. It goes this way…

1. Open Windows explorer
2. Go to Tools – Map Network Drive
3. On new window select a letter as Mapped Network Drive (e.g. P: )
4.  Select a network folder by browsing or just paste network path (e.g. \\hostname\FolderName) and click on Finish

Now you can see a new Drive in your explorer. But what if you want map a drive through a batch script? Yeah, you need to know a command to map network drive from command line. It goes this way.

To map a network drive from command line you need 2 inputs same as above.

1. Drive Name (e.g. P: )
2. Network Path (e.g. \\hostname\FolderName)

Now follow the steps below

1. Go to run and type cmd
2. On command line enter the following command

• subst \\hostname\FolderName P:

This will map your network drive. Now to make sure that you have mapped it correctly, type drive name and hit enter. E.g. P: hit enter. Now user dir command to list all directories and files. You can also go to explorer and check that new drive is available.

– Ashish Kulkarni

DB2 Concepts and Enovia V6 Installation on AIX

Enovia V6 installation on AIX with DB2 was always a problem for us to maintain various environments. We always used single instance and single database. Moreover Application Server, Web Server and Database Server were on same hardware.

This time database server was different. Somehow db was moved to other server without consulting environment owner. Hence our environment was directly affected. We tried to move some parameters by changing few paths in environment and installation files. But it did not work. We made sure that we have a db2 client installed on our application server. But all efforts were unsuccessful.

Finally we concluded that if instance is moved or renamed will not work for current environment and new installation is required. So we decided to for a new installation. Following was our plan which was successful for installation. Deployment is pending.

1. We used existing instance (e.g. INST1)
2. We used existing db user (e.g. dbuser)
3. Now we created 2 different databases on DB Server. (e.g db1 and db2)
4. Next task was to configure client to access these 2 databases. Hence we created one more instance on client (dbuser, yes we kept name same as server db user). Our client has same user name for db user as dbuser on server.
5. We cataloged dbs on client instance as db1db for db1 and db2db for db2.

Rest all was easy to do. When we install Enovia V6 on AIX using DB2 as database system we need 2 parameters. Following are the details.

1. Database Instance name on which we catalog our database. In our case this name is dbuser (Do not get confused. J This is instance name on client with same name for database user. ) This is required while installing Studio as well as Server.
2. Catalog Name as connection string which is used to generate Bootstrap file (e.g. MATRIX-R)

Rest of the Enovia installation is almost same as on windows. On 2012, DS has provided GUI for installation which is a great help for administrators. Yes, there are few annoying things like installer always refers to default path and does not consider your custom paths even if you provide at the start of installation.

This was a good learning for us when installing Enovia V6 2012 on AIX with DB 9.7.

If you have any queries, please ping me.

-Ashish Kulkarni

Auto Expo 2012

I am eagerly waiting to see new launches in Auto Expo 2012. I visited once in year 2002. Experience was amazing. I still feel it like just few months back.

This year I am looking forward for new SUVs and MPVs. Let us keep a watch.