Use UI Mockup to drive the UI development

Using the UI mockup to drive the UI development is a very nice thing to do.

A UI mockup tool, like invision, provides many benefits to the UI development:

https://www.invisionapp.com

Team Work and Lan Yu Chong Shu

Here is a Chinese Story about 濫竽充數 ( Lan Yu Chong Shu):

During the warring states period (475 – 221B.C.) in ancient China, the King of the state of Qi was very fond of listening to music played on Yu, a wind instrument made of bamboo and wood.   The King convened musicians from all the states and formed a large royal band with 300 musicians.  When he wanted to listen to
the music, he would call in the whole band to play Yu together.  The ensemble was spectacular and the sound was thunderous to ears, but the King seemed to quite enjoy the effect, so he kept this habit all the time.

Task Management

Five good tips:

1. Use a software for tracking tasks

Abbreviations I use

fyi = for your information
np = no problem
ttyl = talk to you later

OpenSAML

To make an application as a service provider (SP), you need to support SAML protocol.

It includes accepting the SAML message and generate the SAML message.

This API seems help the developers to hanlde SAML

OpenSAML2 User Manual

Here are examples:

Understand Single SIgn On

Here are my notes.

1. The sign on process protects the software and the data stored within or accessible by the software. from unauthorized access.
2. The sign on process is to ask the user to provide something, such as password, to verify himself.  Only those people who have the right answer is allowed to get in
3. SSO, from user perspective, is about using the same sign on password and sessions for multiple applications.
• SSO allows the users to not remember multiple passwords.
• SSO can be used to avoid the user to provide the same thing over again (within a browser or even across browser)
4. SSO, technically speaking, is to by pass the login screen from the applications and use a login screen from the SSO server.
• Once the SSO is enabled, the application login page should not be seen by the users.
5. SSO allows the user information (password) used for authenticating the user to stored centrally, not in each apps.  The sensitive information can thus be protected.
6. However, applications can ask the SSO server to provide additional attributes about the users
7. The login page redirection from the apps to SSO server is a typically way to enable SSO.
• If the SSO server is also providing a portal service, in the other word, the applications are listed centrally, the redirection from an application URL may not be important.
• We cannot avoid the users to use a browser bookmark to access to the application.  Redirection from the apps to SSO is almost always required.  Also.  It may be from any page, not just the specific login page
8. Browser Cookie is a way to make the browser to "remember".  It is used to communicate between the SSO server and the apps. 

Here are notes about SAML:

Github and Git

Github.com is a website that hosts many software development projects.  It is kind of like a collaboration workspace. It can host files, but it is mainly for maintaining the software codes.

Git is a software that provides the version control service.  You can keep the old versions and track the changes.  It provides a multi-user development (MUD) environment.  You will know who makes the changes and when the changes are made.

Here is a great video:

Communications in a software development organization

My experiences on these communication/ collaboration tool:

1. Email
2. Wiki
3. Instant Messaging
4. Phone
5. Audio Conferencing
6. Web Conferencing
7. Oracle Social Network
8. Collaboration Workspace
9. Group Calendar
10. Discussion Forum

Created my first Github repository

Just followed the instruction here:
https://guides.github.com/activities/hello-world/

Learning Github and Git is a very good way to learn these basic idea about software development :

1. Version Control

Create a Quick Code for your contact information

I found that an easy way may be use PingTag.

I have been using Linkedin for several year. PingTag can create the QR Code from the Linedin information.

vCard and QR Code

vCard is an old standard.  It is a way to represent the contact information.  It is a digital version of a  business card.

When you receive a business card, you probably want to enter the data into your cell phone.

This is where the QR Code comes in.

QR Code is a way to get information into your phone.  Nowadays, phones almost all have the camera capability.  QR Code is a way to let you take a picture of the bar code and to scan the bar code into your phone.  One image can contain a lot of information.

Combining QR Code and vCard allows you to pass the information from the business card to your phone, without manually typing those information.

See also:
How to create a business card QR code
6 Good Reasons to Add a QR Code to Your Business Card

Mobile Apps Wish List 1

1. Dial In to a conference call with one button

It should allow me to program the call script first. I should be able to save a phone number and a series of keys and save the time waiting between pressing these keys.

This is so simple function. Not sure if any phone can support this.


2. Join the Web conference to view slide show

I think that the change required on the web conference technology. They need to support a more light weight presentation/ screen play.

Maybe only supporting powerpoint like slide show should be enough. Many web conference is showing PPT. We do not need such high bandwidth communication in between.

The slides can be sent in one page at a time. Mouse movement events do not have to be passed.

Also, text content should be treated as text, not image, to lower the traffic.

Then I should be able to view it from my phone.


3. Check Availability of the people I am calling

I am able to see the status before I contact people via Instant Messenger. I should be able to do the same thing in my phone.

This can be a separate message sent to the person's mobile phone. The mobile phone should answer this type of requests to a list of people in the contact list.

I should be able to publish my status via my phone with the text message "busy", "in a meeting", "studying", or "free to talk" and people should be able to check before they call me. It will lower the traffic too.


4. Pre-record messages for a short period of time

I should be able to pre-record the message for people calling me. The feature is similar to answer machine. I can say "I am in a meeting now, please press #6 if this is urgent, otherwise, I will be available at 3pm, please press #5 if you want to leave me a voice message."

I should be able to set the end time of this voice message to 3pm, just like setting the vacation auto response emails.

5. Low batttery reminder

My phone should call me to remind me. Some alarm will help.

6. Check bus schedule and active status

The car should publish where it is to the network. The subscription program should be able to show the current location on a map.

This does not necessary requiring a GPS.

The bus is going with a scheduled routine. When the bus is reached a stop, the bus driver can just press a button to recognize the bus's location. The key is that the message should be sent to a server or to be published using some message to the network. (If this is done by a human being, it will be just a phone call to someone.)

More to come.....

Registered with Twitter

Twitter provides a service to let me post entries from my IM client.

This is an interest idea. Here is a link to my Twitter site.

For some reason, I feel that I am more like talking with someone when I use the IM client. When I use Blogger editor, I am writing.

Google Home page also provide the capacity to do the post-it like notes. I almost never use it. Typing text with a browser is acceptable for writing a doc. Not for taking a note.

What do you think?

Cisco, WebEx, and Google applications

On March 15 - Cisco Announces Agreement to Acquire WebEx. It is interesting to watch what will happen after Cisco enters into this collaboration technology space.

WebEx started their business by providing the web conference, which is now integrated as a suite of collaboration applications, including web conference, instant messaging, VOIP, etc. These services are also integrated with those more traditional collaboration applications, called the "group ware", including email, calendar, document management, contact management, etc.

If I remember correctly, these vendors have been providing the group ware applications.

Oracle - Fusion Middleware
IBM - Lotus Notes Sametime
Novell - Groupwise
Microsoft - Outlook, Exchange, and iMeeting

They all started with the client /server desktop applications with the focus on the intranet application.

Later, we see the similar offerings from the web portal companies.

Yahoo - Email, Calendar, Group, Geocities (Free Web Page), Y! Messenger, etc.
Google - They challenge Yahoo! by providing all the same services - gmail, calendar, group with usenet support, gtalk, etc.

Google just announced their Google application on Feb 22, 2007. You can use your own domain to access these services: Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Docs & Spreadsheets, Page Creator and Start Page. As a paid user, you can get support from Google and you can integration these services with your SSO.

Many people also use Skype's web meeting feature for international meetings.

Although the services are all integrated and can be available from a single vendor. We are still using them separately.

I mainly use Oracle calendar and almost not use Google or Yahoo calendar. I use Oracle email with the thunderbird client at work and use both gmail and Yahoo! email. I use AIM and Yahoo at work and use gtalk with my family. I also now use Oracle Messenger more often since I do not need to worry about getting my cowork's AIM nickname. I have never used WebEx but use Oracle Web Conference almost everyday. I use Skype once a while since some professional group I participated using the Skype for the weekly meeting. I also use Yahoo! Messenger to talk with people in China since the other services are just not as popular there. Yahoo! Messenger is also the only service I use to watch my daughter's webcam when she is with her grandparent.

Yahoo! Brief Case, Geocities, and Google's Page Creator cannot help me to share files with people outside my intranet. They have size limitation. I found that I can use my AIM account to use the Xdrive, a service provided by America Online.

Since each of them provides some unique features or has different strength, even many of these vendors can provide a one stop shopping, I use multiple of them.

It is interesting to watch what will happen in the next few years.
Will Cisco make the web conference more like a telephone service, which is operated by the local phone companies to almost everyone?