NorthStarNerd.Org

Northstar Nerd's iPad for Business Manual

This post announces and includes my new (and free) Northstar Nerd iPad for Business Manual. You will find 75 pages of annotated screenshots. 

The list of Apps I've included in my manual is given below, along with a brief reason for each app's inclusion in my list. My overall goal in choosing Apps was to enable my iPad to be used for practical business tasks. Please realize I do NOT use my iPad as a desktop computer replacement. Instead, my iPad serves as an extremely handy extension of my "virtual computing environment". I still do my heavy computing on an engineering work station, but the iPad is my computer of choice whenever I am away from my physical desk (meetings, business travel, etc). It is rapidly replacing my laptop for my mobile computing.

Here is my list of apps found in my manual, listed by task or function.

• File Management: ReaddleDocs
• iPad Administration / User Interface: No particular App!
• Microblogging (internal): Yammer
• Office Connectivity (Calendar, eMail, Web): Good for the Enterprise
• Office Productivity (MS Office): QuickOffice Pro
• Presentation Management: 2Screens
• Web Analytics: QuickLytrics
• Web Browsing: Atomic Browser & Safari

Like most people, I have lots of other Apps on my iPad, but these are the serious business Apps which support my professional needs. In addition, I found these other manuals helpful which are linked below along with my own manual:

• Apple iPad Manual
• Good for Enterprise iPad Manual
• MakeUseOf.Com iPad Manual
• Northstar Nerd iPad for Business Manual
• ReaddleDocs iPad Manual

MakeUseOf.Com has many other manuals (all free) you may wish to utilize.

Plastics! (oops ... I mean location awareness software)

In the movie, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman is given some advice upon his graduation from college, plastics! Earlier this year I blogged about location based design, and how I believed this was the next best thing. While the media rages about how Apple iOS and Android are tracking your every move, and is this legal ... consider this fact ... there are many applications to which you would want to give your location.

Last week I learned about (and installed on my iPad) a great new software tool named Wikihood. This amazing appllication uses your location and presents articles from Wikipedia. I have found this software fantastic as I move around the United States of various business and pleasure trips. I just start Wikihood, and I learn about the "local hood". For an application like Wikihood, I'll grant access to my location any day. However, I'm a person who when he was young loved to read the World Book Encyclopedia via alpha volume (see blog post ... The Art of the Browse, World Book and the iPad).

Here are three screenshots from Wikihood and plastics! In each instance, the content delivered is unique to my exact location, not just the surrounding region. Click upon any image to maximize.

Grand Marais, Minnesota (recent bike trip)

.
Duluth, Minnesota (my home on Amity Creek)

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Plymouth, Minnesota (my townhome)

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Plastics!

Fortune + App + LinkedIn = Bust

As many of my long time readers know, I've been high on LinkedIn for a long time. However, the latest partnership between Fortune and LinkedIn to develop a "marketing app" is a bust. I wanted to like this app, but in the end found little of value. The idea of an integrated database that combined the Fortune 1000 data plus LinkedIn sounded cool, but in the end delivered very little of value. In fact, just searching via LinkedIn (Signals, Company Search) actually delivered more value that this app. Although I could drill down into a company based upon search attributes, the integration did not provide information beyond what I could already easily get.

What would have been nice is an integration which allowed one to set target companies and trigger points ... such as senior executives leaving or changing jobs.

Here are some screenshots of the Fortune 500 LinkedIn App (click to maximize any image):

1. Geo Search / 2. Geo Search ATK Selected

3. ATK Contacts

 4. ATK Financials / 5. News & Twitter Feed

6. Minneapolis Grid

7. Minneapolis Map

iPad1 for Business

Here is a quick post which reviews 3 Apps which will allow you to make your iPad 1 a valuable business tool. My research goal was to find apps which allowed me to interface with my Microsoft environment at work (Sharepoint and Office 2007), and be able to mirror my display out to a projector without the need for jailbreaking my iPad 1. While the jailbreaking process is not particularly difficult, it would break my Good for Enterprise App, which is how I get my corporate email. My total spend for these 3 Apps combined was under $20.

The iPad 2 has a display out mode for all Apps.

The 3 Apps are:

• 2Screens: whiteboard, photos and more ...
• Atomic Browser: tabbed browsing and more ...
• Quick Office: edit and display MS Office docs

All 3 Apps mirror out to a projector (see screenshots). Click to maximize any image.

Atomic Browser Settings

 

Quick Office Settings

My Projector (using Atomic Browser)

I Yam what I am!

The Minnesota DNR has delayed the Fishing Opener, thus you have NO excuse not to attend Minnebar! 

Seriously, if you are in Minnesota (geek or not), attend the best (free) technical conference in Minnesota. Over 600 individuals will be at Best Buy's headquarters on Saturday, May 7th. Register quickly because this event always fills up very fast. 

If you are familiar with barcamps, these events are "unconferences". Any topic is allowed, but the focus is normally technical. The ability to learn about what is driving technology throughout the world is unparalleled. You also get free pizza, beer and a t-shirt! 

I plan to both attend and present. One day's investment in your knowledge will have a great return. 

For those of you who don't live in Minnesota, and are not enjoying our late Winter, plus the ability at attend minnebar ... barcamps are hosted around the world. We are lucky in Minnesota that our barcamp is normally one of the largest anywhere. 

My session description: From skunkworks project to integrated production application. Learn how a a Fortune 100 company grew a 3 person private cloud microblogging network to a 5,000 person technical community which is integrated with Sharepoint and the Corporate Intranet. Expect a live demo. You've heard about Facebook for the Enterprise. See it in action with a business focus. 

Participants are most welcome to show their own corporate social networks. Bring your laptop! Sign up to attend my session.

Data Visualizations

I love data visualizations. However, that fact is obvious to my long time readers who remember my being interviewed by the NY Times about ManyEyes. Since that interview back in the Summer of 2008, I've continued to work and do research with data visualization. You may ask why the subject of visual data is exciting? Quite simply, done properly the visualization can help one better understand what may appear as disparate data. However, done poorly, it can be misleading (how many of you remember Ross Perot's run for president? Charts and Percentages!)

Here are some data visualization sites and services which I particularly enjoy. First two blogs:

• Flowing Data (if a new visualization is out there, Nathan Yau will find it!)
  and
• Patrick Cain's Map Blog (a journalist who creates data visualization maps) 

As a fyi, I learned of these two blogs via Google's new online journal, Think Quarterly. Google's online journal also reminds me to call out Google's great online tool named Ngram Viewer. You can read a Google blog post from last Christmas on their relatively new service, or just accept my explanation that Ngram is a great tool for comparing how key words (and thus ideas, and philosophies) have appeared in books since the year 1800.  Are some ideas becoming more common in literature, or is the opposite true? It can be fun exploring via nGram. Remember if you decide to run some Google Ngram data visualizations, words and your thus your results ARE case sensitive.

Click any of the images shown below to view some of my own nGRam research. In closing, visual data is fun!

nGram Google Charts

Sex vs. Religion
This Ngram intrigues me. Is there a relation with the fall of organized religion and our societies fixation with sex? 

 

England vs. United States vs. China
I call this Ngram the fall the English empire, but will the United States be next? 

 

Plato
Kind of makes you wonder what causes the peaks and valleys of Plato and the discussion of certain philosophies! 

 

The Crack of the Bat! Fieldf/x

Batter up! A new baseball season has begun; and like any good techno blog, let's take a look at some newer technology now combined with America's favorite pasttime, baseball! Let me introduce you to Fieldf/x. However, I warn you, if you don't like data, you'll hate Fieldf/x from Sportvision.

Imagine object recognition system software which interacts with multiple cameras placed around a baseball diamond. The cameras in conjunction with the software record each players movement, and the ball as it leaves the bat (i.e. via a hit). This information is then fed into a database which then can over time determine the probablity that a given player will make a given play. Pretty cool!

Some of the data recorded includes: a fielder’s reaction time, his path the ball, the baserunner’s speed, or the arc of a fly ball.

Learn more via this web link! Here are some excellant images from Business Week which show some of the data and analysis in action.

Play ball!

 

Multivariate Testing of your Web Site

Do you know if your web site is optimal? How much testing did you perform? Can you be sure? After all, if you are the web developer, didn't some of your own biases enter into the design?

I assume the answer to the last question has to be "yes". No matter how hard we try, it is hard to be 100% objective. Thus, why not let your web visitors be your testers? Welcome to the field of mutlivariate testing. Although the term sounds difficult, the concept is simple:

• Create a duplicate of any web page
• Change something small
• Measure both web pages
• Which page optimizes the desired action?
  • Is a page more likley to now be visited?
  • Is a web form more likely to be submitted
  • Is a video more likley to be watched
  • You get the idea ...

The process is easy to set up using Google's free web site optimizer tool. Here is all you have to do:

• Create a Google account if you don't already have one
• Use Google Web Site Optimizer
  • Decide what page you want to test
  • Create a page which is very similar
  • Decide your desired action (a destination page)

All you do is provide Google the three urls, and the tool in return gives you some Javascript which you paste in the top of each web page's html. You then activate the experiment and wait (i.e. Google will randomly serve up your original page, and it's options ... and record the analytics).

You will find to screenshots given below from my experiment. I've blacked out some items because I don't want to bias my results (i.e. if you read this post). When my test has run I will post the results on this blog.

If you wish to participate, just click upon my name (Rich Hoeg) in the banner at the top of the page. Once redirected, click through to at least one additional page.

Finally, here are some videos which explain the concept in more detail.

Want to view either of these images at full size? Just click upon either image!

 

Results: My Test of LinkedIn Ads

I've spent 1/2 of my budget, and the numbers are stabilized such that I can report results. The basic question is, do LinkedIn Member Ads work? My answer, a qualified "yes". Very early on in my experiment I was contacted by an individual who had clicked through to my site, NorthstarNerd.Org. This person was kind enough to let me know my url was misspelled. This example and others lead me to believe I have made contact with viewers, and enhanced knowledge of my site. However, if you look at either of the images given below, I think you'll note two things: (click images to view expanded)

1. My two advertisements that received clickthroughs were somewhat "off the wall" in terms of the headlines / message. My top ad receiving clicks was:
   • Headline: Dr. Seuss Would be Proud!
   • Copy: I do not like Android here or there, I do not like Android anywhere?!
   • Link: http://www.NorthstarNerd.org/
2. Look at the placement of where LinkedIn advertisements appear on one's profile. The ads are quite easy to ignore. Perhaps this is why it took the more unusual "copy" to attract a click. You decide, and then determine what might work for your campaign. However, remember that you never pay for viewing, just clickthroughs.

Original blog post defining the experiment.

Android Apps Development

In my post, Practical Android for the Business User, I promised a follow-up on Android development (the SDK or software development kit). As a preface to the rest of my post you need to know that I HATE syntax. Luckily for me Google has created two Android development environments. The first environment which is not reviewed in this post involves learning specific code in conjunction with JAVA.

Being a five year veteran coach of Lego Robotics, I was thrilled to discover Google's other Android development environment ... which is a LabView / Lego Robotics Programming like visual building blocks development environment, the App Inventor:

• App Inventor from Google Labs
• Instruction on how to build your first app

I found the service straight forward, and with a little bit of effort, not difficult to learn. Here is a short video overview: (access much more extensive training and videos)

Remember, you don't need to be a registered Android Marketplace developer to install your own apps. There are Android apps like APKatcher which allow you to email your completed app ready for installation to your Android smartphone. (see screenshot given below)

Finally, here is a screenshot of the actual App Inventor environment.

(click to maximize)

Although not strictly related to actual development in Android using Google, I did discover that lots of people (including me) had difficulty getting the ADB service to initially run (a necessary software installation step). Here is some key information which I discovered (my thanks to ksfrogman who posted this information on AndroidForum.Com):

• Copy the adb, AdbWinApi.dll, and AdbWinUsbApi.dll files from your SDK platform tools folder to your tools folder
• If your smartphone does not have default Google USB drivers, an approach like the one I used for my HTC Incredible smartphone may work for installing drivers.

Good luck! Have fun!