In this case Google is the nickname given to an infant by a caring burglar in “The Transfer of Google” by E. J. Rath from Everybody’s Magazine in the January 1908 edition. Google is found home alone one evening by a nurturing burglar. The relationship between these two needy souls has each fulfilling a need in the other’s life. What makes one feel better than to be cared for by a loving person (regardless of their status) or to care for someone in need? (Okay, maybe I read too much into the story but it is cute and worth a few minutes of your time to read.)

Much like the burglar searching for treasures, our searches for information have their own Google. Sometimes too much time can be spent and I too can end up feeling like our besieged burglar, knowing I need to move on or, as the burglar states,

Well, I can’t waste no more time with Google.

But you just can’t let them go.

One question was use of Twitter amongst the younger crowd. There are many new reports on an upswing in use over just a year ago. This contrasts the theory that Twitter is a place for older West Coast programming types.

KFC apparently agrees that usage is up amongst college age students. They are offering a healthy scholarship to one deserving tweeting student.

The contest is going well if #KFCScholar hashtag usage is a valid indicator. Alas, some are using the opportunity to bash KFC and others are playing with them by running another competition.

I choose to stay publicly neutral on the KFC front, but it looks like everyone is having fun. We’ll see if this healthy offering of student support gives KFC warm hearts or heartburn.

In the end it will be nice to know a deserving student is getting much needed support.

Facebook appears to now allow the removal of any admin, even the creator, from Facebook Pages. Every admin now has a “Remove Admin” link below their name.

In the last few days this creator conundrum seems to have disappeared. I’m curious if some accounts saw this change previously or if this is newly available for all pages.

Based on the large number of ongoing discussions on this topic, there will be many people happy to see this Facebook update.

TeamSnap Term of Service Agreement

Refreshing to see a site that accepts the reality that few, if any, users will ever read the lengthy terms of service. TeamSnap makes this clear if you read the small text below the Create New Team button.

Even though I probably won’t read them, by clicking this button I agree to the TeamSnap Terms of Service anyway.

They maintain this realistic viewpoint and casual tone in the TeamSnap privacy policy when referring to their promise not to share information with anyone.

The only exception to this might be if we’re required to share your information with law enforcement. Or maybe if there was some cataclysmic global event like an asteroid strike and we thought it might help. But short of that, your information is 100% confidential. In fact, we’d be inclined to lay down our lives to protect your information (or at least just lay down, like for a nap).

It is easy to be casual and fun when you have a product that serves its purpose well. In managing a soccer team, TeamSnap has proven to be simple to use and effective. Apparently there are many types of groups using the TeamSnap service beyond sports teams. Alas, no rock-paper-scissors teams yet.

The architecture is very framework based with all the Java and other keywords thrown in. The development environment is more agile with regular builds and ongoing unit and performance testing. Keywords and architectural strategies:

• Spring Framework
• Hibernate object relationship management
• Decoupled presentation objects to permit support for a variety of presentation layers (e.g., Liferay portal, Oracle portal, uPortal)
• Terracotta cluster management
• CAS
• Separate administration node to remove administrative load from user facing nodes
• No email and calendar delivered with Luminis 5
• OpenLDAP
• Apache JackRabbit CMS for portal content management
• Apache CXF (a standards-based messaging tool) — may not keep as Spring could provide this functionality
• Flex for some channel content (primarily administrative channels, Flex XML not exposed)
• Clustering taken care of by baseline Luminis 5, no longer our responsibility. Probably still want load balancer but Luminis 5 may mean it need not support SSL termination or sticky sessions as sessions will persist across notes.
• Inter-portlet communication (action in one channel results in update in another channel)
• IDM support (UDC supported solutions)
• Fine-grained Access Controls rewritten with Flex interface
• CPIP deprecated (although GCF and Secret Store still use non-exposed CPIP libraries migrated into GCF)

With the new Luminis 5 framework and TerraCotta cluster management, configman can be deprecated and settings modifications can be pushed to all portal notes without the need for a restart. The demo showed live changes in the admin node equivalent to a configman setting that immediately took affect in the user nodes.

The development team is performing regular performance testing to watch for performance trends as Luminis 5 evolves.

Discussing future migrations to Luminis 5, there was discussion of an ETL (Extract, Translate, Load) based migration model. This would include extracts to XML, translation and then load to the new systems. This methodology would be a vast improvement over the migration model clients are still suffering when going from Luminis III to Luminis 4.

Group and Course Tools are replaced by Community. Accessing a My Communities tab presents a series of channels making up a community. Selecting a group in a separate channel updates a collection of other channels such as community photos, music and other content. Asked about migrating Luminis 4 groups the answer came back that “we haven’t, but we can.”

He also shared the product roadmap which contained no surprises. The one note contrary to the published product roadmap was a note that we may see some Luminis 5 components prior to the planned release date. This is in alignment with the promise CEO Ron Lang made in his address regarding getting functionality to customers sooner. It will be interesting to see how this plays out given the vast differences between Luminis 4 and 5.

In this opening session we didn’t see many details but here are some random notes.

• Post Luminis 4.2 release supporting Red Hat Linux AS 4.* and Oracle 11G
• Luminis 5
  • Banner channels rewritten
  • Collaboration and community functionality will see academic and non-academic environments
  • Acceleration of functionality time to market
  • Introduction of AJAX and FLEX interfaces

After the session I went and found the Luminis Developers’ Lounge. It is nice to see that we have a true room again after the fabricated room of last year.

In a discussion with the Luminis Technical Architect we learned more details of Luminis 5 which sound promising. One concern though is that it will be such a new product that I worry about out of the box stability and new growing pains. They are obviously working now in a new development environment that should result in better product releases than we’ve seen in the past.

Confirmation received that email and calendar will no longer be delivered as part of Luminis. Existing Sun licenses will be migrated to Sun directly. Email and calendar integration will be expanded to include Sun, Microsoft, Google and — later — Zimbra.

The portal framework is obviously focused on Liferay but they believe support will be available for other frameworks (e.g., Oracle Portal, uPortal) based upon their new architecture. Liferay though is the primary Luminis 5 target.

More technical info to come in the Luminis 5 Architecture session.

The showmanship this year was left to Ron Lang, the “high energy” new CEO of SunGardHE. This “student” came out on skateboard with sunglasses and backpack. His speech set the tone we’ve been hearing from our SunGardHE contacts regarding a streamlined company with services focused on the customer. They will consolidate resources such as our account reps and services contacts so we always know who to contact. From what we’ve seen this consolidation is still a work in progress.

Lang also spoke of products moving from massive singular releases to incremental releases that promise to get tools into customer’s hands sooner. Of course I’m curious how that will play out in the vastly re-architected Luminis 5.

The highlight, of course, was the keynote speaker, Maya Angelou. She received a standing ovation as she was escorted to the stage and the awaiting table and chair. The focus of her talk to us was the rainbow in the clouds we can be in the lives of those we touch. She highlighted the rainbows she has been blessed by in her life with stories, readings and song. She spoke with a strength that contrasted the frailty coming with age.

Being a rainbow in the clouds expresses the impact she has had on all of us. A wonderful start for the conference.

• Morning of the lost dog; unrecognized forewarning of the day to come.
• 9:45am, Portland Airport.
• United Airlines check-in process is now completely dependent upon self check-in screens even at the ticket counter, a confusing and unorganized experience.
• Everyone frustrated, even the ticket agents. Are they still called that? Agents are left simply herding customers rather than providing a complete service like I’m sure they would prefer.
• $15 for a checked bag. Not an extra checked bag, $15 for your firsted checked bag.
• Three PCC staff gather at the gate.
• 11:00am, load the 737. We’re all in the same row.
• Uneventful flight from Portland to Denver.
• Layover for two hours.
• Curious, why aren’t we loading?
• Delayed appears at the boarding gate.
• Two hours later we finally make our way down to the runway-level boarding gate.
• Shooed back into the main terminal
• 5:45pm, informed our flight was cancelled.
• A line to learn our destiny.
• “Denver International Airport closes at 6pm on Saturday evenings.”
• All faces show disbelief.
• No more flights to our destination or even anywhere closer.
• Local man takes pictures of terminal, he’s never seen it so quiet. He thinks something is wrong.
• Flight to London is only plane leaving after 6pm.
• Our choice at this point was to take a hotel room for the night and get flights the next day.
• Arrival time would be late afternoon, after our workshops and setup time.
• Group of six contemplates renting a minivan.
• A 12 hour drive.
• Train ride to pick up luggage.
• Visit the rental car counters.
• Most car rental agencies also mostly closed after 6pm on Saturday.
• Only company represented on our first stop had no minivans available.
• Calls start to all rental agencies in the phonebook.
• Avis representative shows up.
• Avis has a vehicle available for drop-off in Springfield, MO.
• The six head to Avis shuttle bus to get minivan.
• Load up the minivan.
• GPS set. Pretty much a straight shot but none of us have been here.
• On the road with Karen at the wheel.
• A little trouble getting out of the parking lot.
• On the tollway.
• Miss exit, so much for GPS navigation system.
• Pay toll on exit.
• Turn around.
• Pay toll on entrance.
• 800 miles to go.
• One hour later.
• RPMs on minivan start jumping.
• Call Avis emergency number.
• After 6pm Saturday, must wait for tow truck to deliver new vehicle from Denver Airport.
• Limon, Colorado, is our stop.
• Denny’s for next two hours.
• Tow truck shows up.
• New van gets off tow truck.
• Unload Toyota van.
• Load Chevy van.
• Smaller van means luggage up front with us.
• On the road, Gabriel driving.
• Kansas!
• Rest area at mile 98.
• On the road, Luis driving.
• Salina!
• On the road, Tracy driving.
• Kansas City!
• Breakfast at McDonalds. When was the last time I ate at a McDonalds. Hunger wins.
• On the road, Luis driving.
• Fantastic Caverns? We can drive through it?
• Springfield!
• Hotel!
• Noon, workshops start in an hour.
• HighEdWeb 2008!!!