Duet References Online

Microsoft's Duet online reference site went online at the following address: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/duet/FX101686211033.aspx

Also, SearchSAP started an online Duet resource center at http://searchsap.techtarget.com/DuetResourceCenter/

Making Ideas Stick

I'm currently reading Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die which is a fascinating book exploring why certain ideas thrive while others die and what we have to do to convey our messages better in order to make them "stick".

I could have written a long post summerizing the ideas i the book but I just came accross, while reading some news, the perfect example that sums up what the book is trying to say.

Lets look at Ron Pauls campaign for US presidency. Take a look at this video at YouTube before you continue reading:

Fascinating right? I bet you didn't watch the whole 6 minutes and skipped to this paragraph.
To sum up the video, the guy talks about whats wrong with the current US policies etc. etc. etc...
Wouldn't a short, concrete message stick better in the mind of the voters?
Now take a look of this video (spinn on Apple's commercial) published at YouTube to support Ron Paul: 

Think of all the hidden schemas (psychology) in this short flick: War, Dictatorship, George Orwell's 1984, Apple vs. IBM...
Using all these schemas (which are basically analogies) this short flick captivates viewers and delivers a much more profound, string, and lasting message...

According to "Made to Stick", to make an idea stick the delivered message has to be Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and conveyd using Stories (SUCCES)...

Sounds interesting?  Go read the book...

שישה מי יודע?

Yahoo! Widgets 4 Released!

The new release of Yahoo's widget engine is finally here.

One of the cool new features is the side dock panel (wtach out Vista SideBar!):

With lots of slickier UI, cool features, tons of community made widgets and an engine that runs on multiple platforms, Yahoo! Widgets are on track as leading platform from widget development leaving Microsoft's Gadgets platform way behind...

(And did I mention that the weather widget that comes as part of the package actually works?)

How to Enable YouTube Videos on CS 2.1 Blogs

CommunityServer filter the posts html and only allows tags defined in CommunityServer.config. Opton CommunityServer.config and go to markup/html and add the following:

<embed
    style="true"
    type="true"
    src="true"
    quality="true"
    bgcolor="true"
    scale="true"
    wmode="true"
    salign="true"
    FlashVars="true"
    width="true"
 height="true"  />

   <object
    width="true"
    height="true"    />
   <param
    name="true"
    value="true"    />

Hit the web.config file to trigger a process restart (or restart the process yourself if you control the server's IIS) to apply the changes.

Microsoft's Share-the-Pain Program

The guys at Microsoft sent us this video about a year ago.
Now its on YouTube so I can share:

What would happend at Microsoft if we could really share the pain...

Switched to CommunityServer

I've switched from dasBlog to CommunityServer over the weekend.
I've already changed my FeedBurner feed and www.developerzen.com to point to the new blog location and I'll keep http://www.ekampf.bom/blog/ functional in order to keep my Google references.

Still need to do a lot of skinning and customization to get everything looking and working they way I want it to...

Managed Library for Nintendo's Wiimote

Wii Goes Enterprise

I just read on Thomas's blog about what the guys at Colgate Palmolive where doing with their SAP software and the Wii remote:

"Using our newfound shiny object, we just had to experiment and introduce the Wii to the enterprise. We decided to integrate the Wii remote with an existing Ruby on Rails application connecting to an SAP BW backend. More information on the Rails application developed by Dan can be found here . The application is a resource planner that enables a manager to easily view and plan his upcoming projects, requirements, and available resources with an easy to use drag and drop interface, while utilizing SAP BW planning cubes for it's model."

I've been trying to push ideas like this for some time now and I've also written before about the need for enterprise software to sue some of the new innovations in the consumer entertainment market.

Thomas also mentions the my team on the SAP Developers Challenge. This is kinda encouraging since I didn't think anyone will remember us as the SAP executive judges didn't seem to care about the idea and we lost the people's choice by a matter of few single votes (some say we actually one, no one actually counted the votes so its hard to tell).

What we did at the SAP developers challenge a demo demonstrating the possibility of exposing enterprise information through a FrontRow\MediaCenter UI using different remotes (Wiimote included).
It must have not been such a bad idea if our customers are actually starting to do this sort of stuff too :-)

Anyway, Some demo screenshots to feed your appetite:

And who knows, maybe the next versions of Duet will go beyond Office and integrate with Microsoft's Media Center? ;-)

Technorati : BW, Enterprise, SAP, Wii, Wiimote, sap blogger

ויסטה מדיה סנטר - חלק ב - פוסט תיסכול

אני לא כותב הרבה בבלוג בזמן האחרון.
אחד הפוסטים האחרונים שלי היה על מחשב ה-HTPC החדש שקניתי במבצע ההשקה של המדיה סנטר (בבלוג של ליאור).
מאז, המדיה סנטר תופס  יותר מידי מזמני הפנוי.

לא, זה לא שאני מעביר את עיקר זמני בצפייה בסדרות, סרטים ובשמיעת המוזיקה האהובה עלי תוך כדי צפייה בספריית התמונות שלי.
זה יותר כמו גהינום צפייה במסכים כחולים, שיטוט בפורומים ברחבי האינטרנט בחיפוש אחר פתרונות ודרייברים ונסיונות פיענוח של הודעות שגיאה קריפטיות.
כבר שבועיים שהמשב החדש מתעקש לפלוט מסכים כחולים ולרסט את עצמו מידי פעם.
בהתחלה חשבתי שזה רק ויסטה שמרעיף עלי קצת tough love או שיש בעייה כלשהיא בתאימות של הדרייברים אבל המצב התדרדר כבר לרמה שהמחשב מרסט את עצמו (כאילו שמתנתק לו זרם החשמל)
כל כמה דקות  ואני כבר לא בטוח שויסטה הוא האשם.
בעצם, העובדה קיבלתי ניתוק חשמל נחמד ואיזה מסך כחול חביב במהלך הרצת התקנה מחדש של ויסטה מהדיסק דיי שיכנעה אותי שכנראה שמדובר בבעיית חומרה.

מהתקוות לסלון דיגיטלי נשארו רק מחשב מת שמחזיק את כל התמונות והמוזיקה שלי בתוכו וטלויזיה ורסיבר מנותקים... אכן קשה להיות early adopter...

מה נשאר לעשות? לקרוא איזה ספר...  ספר לא יהפוך לכחול ויתחיל לצעוק עלי פתאום.