Reviewing some disconnected solutions I came across CodeRun.com.  CodeRun.com is basically a web-based development environment that let’s you write,test, and debug code online - in the cloud so to speak.

And, it’s no joke, this is a powerful interface.  It let’s you, with syntax highlighting, write the most popular code syntax out there including ASP.NET, PHP, AJAX, Java, etc.   This is clearly not enterprise-level team based software but if you need to transfer code, test a quick snippet out, or are looking to train users in a classroom setting this is really functional.

The more tools that I have in my arsenal the better versed and prepared I am. So, I’ll keep this in my favorites regardless.

Just thought I’d share.

If you haven’t had a need for utilizing Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) as an ETL (or E-LT source as ODI advertises itself) then you wouldn’t know that it is actually somewhat of a beast of a ETL tool. The interface leaves a lot to be desired and I could really get picky but again it is a beast - very powerful. I recently read a great review by the good folks at BI Quotient about ODI. They did a 3 part series on the topic and really covered some areas not mentioned in most ODI write-ups.  I consider myself well versed in ODI but these guys threw in some great ancillary discussion with links to awesome tools such as PolePOS and SQuirrel SQL that I did not know about. And, we know that I am a big fan of open-source software so this was a great discovery for me.

Okay, well the article by Uli Bethke might not be the “Best ODI Review…” but it is really solid.  I like how he keeps HyperSQL at the forefront of the article.  Since HyperSQL (HSQLDB) is really at the core of ODI you know that ODI has the potential to be powerful as an ETL tool.  As you know, HyperSQL is at the core of another very well known software suite, OpenOffice.org so clearly it works pretty well.

The article introduced me to PolePOS which a database benchmarking tool.  I’ve yet to get it a go but you can see the possibilities there, especially since it is free.  Could this be used against OBIEE as a source?

Lastly, in part 2 of the article Uli takes an investigative look at the in-memory synopsis memory engine of ODI against one of the Microsoft SysInternals tools to see just how severely the server’s memory gets consumed as an ODI process executes.  For some this is not a common-sense benchmarking approach but subtly suggest strong performance tuning technique when working with such an application.

Just to wrap it up, no the article did not provide an immediate tutorial or a step-by-step solution.  John Goodwin and some others have some killer articles like that.  However, this one seemed to be one of the first ODI articles that I’ve read that touched on the tool as a part of whole not just the whole itself.  Give it read if you have the chance.

References:

http://www.business-intelligence-quotient.com/?p=703

http://hsqldb.org/

http://www.polepos.org/

I just had to share one of the more interesting ancillary collaboration websites that I have seen in a while.  It is called screenjelly.  I am not sure how to even classify this website in terms of its application but it is a brilliant SaaS website that allows anyone to make a short screen capture video (max 3min in length) to be shared with the masses or privately.  No software to download or install.  It is entirely web based.  It even picks up your microphone as if using video IM so that your video has a sync’d audio track.

Now, 3 minutes, is really a short amount of time to do grand tutorials with rambling explanation like I tend to do for ArtOfBI.com (see our videos), but for small quick explanations this is a great tool.  Best of all it is FREE and it is hosted for FREE.  The only drawback that I see so far is that there is no editing functionality. However, I think that is why this type of tool will be successful.  It is like micro-blogging.  When you have something to show you just crank it out quickly and send it off to your colleagues or whomever; it is short enough for them to either get the gist the first time through or replay it a few times to get the core point trying to be conveyed.

I may be using it going forward for some quick video tips and continue to use Camtasia for the longer more detailed stuff.

See more and view their demo at http://www.screenjelly.com/

I think two of the most under appreciated parts of a Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing project are gathering the project requirements and creating the action plan of implementing the solution, often referred to as “Change Management”. Now, some groups deal with each of these techniques with their own methodology. Others see this as part of the normal project process, haphazardly hitting the high-level topics and driving to the finish line hoping that no one asks them for the directions on how exactly they got there. Because after all isn’t the goal to provide the solution and not every atomic step it took to get there?

I sit on the fence with that question because the answer really depends on each project and each client. However, there are several consultant groups that earn their dollar by solely providing Content Management professional services.

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Recently I dusted off an old laptop of mine that was peforming terribly with Windows XP since it only had 1/2 GB RAM and the machine is about 4 years old.  So, I wanted to throw a Linux distribution on it.  I was going to wipe the hard drive and then thought to myself that I may actually want to keep the Windows OS as well and just run a dual-boot system.  I’ve done this before when I have installed both OS’s on on fresh HD and had no problems.

I thought this endeavor would also be no problem until I saw that the only volume on the laptop was set as the system partition - Basically only a C: drive consuming all 80GB of hard drive space.  I looked in WIndows Disk Management and there is no tool for reducing a partitioned space.  What?? You can’t shink a partition via Windows?

Then long and short of it is that I was not going to spend money on any Disk Management software like PartitionMagic, etc.  I called a Linux guru buddy of mine and he pointed me to a killer open source bit of software that runs on the Linux Kernel from boot via ISO download to CD burn.  The software is called GParted.  Just download the ISO, burn it to CD (or USB if so skilled), place the CD in the tray and reboot the machine.  GParted will start up (3 minutes or less) and the GUI is really intuitive.  Some user of GParted even wrote a nice detailed post with a checklist and warnings before partitioning a Windows environment, here.

Using GParted I was able to Shrink my parition (clearly I was not using the full HD on the laptop) by a substantial amount making room for a new parition which gets marked as “unallocated”. It took about 30 minutes to go from a full 80GB partition to a 40GB/40GB split.   I think the speed was due to the low RAM.  Once finished GParted reboots the machine and pops out the CD tray on exit.

I popped in my ISO download to CD burn version of Linux Mint 8, installed it and presto, a perfect dual-boot install.  Linux runs fast on this low RAM machine.  Time to install some BI stuff.