March 2008 Archives

Impersonating Mythological Creatures - Billy ONeal

By Doug Grant on March 31, 2008 4:07 PM | | Comments (0)

Three vids from WhittmanHart flash developer Billy ONeal... when I say flash, I mean the Macromedia kind. He's an actor in shoplocal.com ads. I learned this after I asked him what Impersonating Mythological Creatures meant in his Bio?

 

 

 

 

Hillary: Do I Hear Breathing?

By Doug Grant on March 31, 2008 1:42 PM | | Comments (0)

Hillary Clinton's 14 day Intrade trend is looking grim - she's trading at 17 while Obama has risen to 80. Though she had a lift after the March primaries, it has more than disappeared in the ensuing days. 

hillary0331.png 

 

Why Your Bike Tire is Always Flat

By Doug Grant on March 25, 2008 9:19 PM | | Comments (0)

Wonder why your bike tire is always flat?

 

SAP Linkedin and Plaxo Groups

By Doug Grant on March 23, 2008 7:57 AM | | Comments (0)
LinkedIn, Plaxo SAP Groups. Source : Wouter Van, March 2008

Plaxo SAP Groups

Yahoo

Other SAP Related Websites

Ning

My Life as a Dog

By Douglas Grant on March 22, 2008 12:13 PM | | Comments (0)
How is your life as a dog? Well, your longevity would depend on what size dog you may be. My daughter asked me what was the expected lifespan of our Jack Russell Terrier (aka Jack Russell Terrorist). Everyone's heard of the "7 year" rule, but our perky and active JRT (age 7) absolutely does not behave like a 70 year-old. When we checked the veterinary websites, we learned that smaller dogs live much longer. So our dog is behaving as an age appropriate 44 year-old. See extended post for the chart.


Dog Longevity - Under 20 Pounds
Calendar Years Dog Years
115
223
328
432
536
640
744
848
952
1056
1160
1264
1368
1472
1576
1680
1784
1888
19
92
20
96

Hungarian Idol

By Doug Grant on March 19, 2008 4:31 PM | | Comments (0)

ROI analysis in a hurry: Alinean calculators

By Doug Grant on March 12, 2008 6:28 AM | | Comments (0)

IT initiatives get funded by compelling business cases. Need one in a hurry?

Alinean provides widely-used ROI tools for consultants and sales professionals. For example, SAP offers the SAP Value Calculator on the Alinean platform,  TIBCO the SOA Business Analyst, and check here for many more examples from IBM, HP and others.

If you are on the "client-side" like me, you simply use or adapt the template as delivered by one of the vendors using the Alinean tools. There are 81 templates in use for TCO and ROI, from Accounting and Treasury Administration to Windows System Administration.

The Alinean wizards aren't as analytically robust as the SAP Netweaver ROI tool (see post), but have the advantage of speed and are a valid starting point. The extended post lists the 81 Alinean ROI and TCO analysis templates.

SAP Solution ROI Calculator (expands on click)

SAP_ROI_Calculator.png







Continue reading ROI analysis in a hurry: Alinean calculators.

Steven A. Grant Speaks at EU-US Danube Vienna Meeting

By Doug Grant on March 11, 2008 10:53 AM | | Comments (0)

Initiative involving my brother Steven Grant.

The Danube River is the longest river (1,771 miles) in the European Union and its basin is the most multinational in the world, with 19 countries having parts of the basin within their borders.

Under the European Union's Water Framework Directive, the ICPDR is the implementing agency for water resources of the Danube River Basin. In August 2007, ERDC hosted a study delegation from the ICPDR on visits to ERDC Headquarters, the Corps’ Mississippi River Commission, the Pentagon and HQUSACE. At the 10th Ordinary Meeting of the ICPDR, 4-5 Dec, in Vienna, Dr. Steve Grant, ERDC International Research Office director, presented the talk, "Visit of ICPDR Study Group to Corps of Engineers sites in the United States" and met with the delegates to discuss the Corps’ proposed application for observer status.

He also discussed areas of technical collaboration with delegates and observers, in particular the potential for ERDC technical staff performing a reconnaissance of the Iron Gate Dam complex, on the Romanian-Serbian border, for re-establishing a sturgeon passage up the Danube.

Reversal of Fortune for Hillary?

By Doug Grant on March 6, 2008 6:23 AM | | Comments (0)

After Clinton won the the March 4 Democratic primaries in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island, prediction market traders stepped up purchases of Hillary shares, now $25.

 

Hillary0306.png

FMS New Delhi Wins Pepsi Challenge to India B-Schools

By Doug Grant on March 4, 2008 10:23 AM | | Comments (1)
PepsiCo today announced the results of its B-school challenge 'Taste the Success - Become Indra's Advisors'. "MIDAS" - the team from MDI, Gurgaon were the proud winners of the contest. Under the challenge, PepsiCo India had invited business strategies, for unlocking the latent demand for beverages in India, from the leading management schools.
Continue reading FMS New Delhi Wins Pepsi Challenge to India B-Schools.

Clinton's Prediction Market Plunge Continues...

By Doug Grant on March 1, 2008 3:56 PM | | Comments (0)

Throughout the month of February since Super Tuesday, Hillary Clinton's value on the prediction market Intrade has dropped continously and are now trading below $10.00. Clinton's "win the nomination" shares have been traded since 2004, when she held steady in the 30 to 40 range while Obama was a mere $1 to $2.  In a zero sum game on the prediction markets, each fall of Clinton prices is associated with close to a 1 to 1 rise for Obama's share prices. Political analysts observe that Obama's genius for presidential politics was not anticipated fully by the Clintons. 

sapintel-0112.jpg

OpenGroup and Zachman - EA Governance Tools

By Doug Grant on March 1, 2008 11:09 AM | | Comments (0)

The Open Group maintains the Togaf Enterprise Architecture Framework which can be downloaded for 90 day evaluations.  Within this, the Zachman EA model is used. Zachman organizes EA components into a 6x5 grid as follows. Each cell has its own iconic EA component; for example the cell "Workflow" is the conjoin of x4:People and y2:Business Model.

X-Axis

  1. Data-What
  2. Function-How
  3. Network-Where
  4. People-Who
  5. Time-When
  6. Motivation-Why

 

Y-Axis

  1. Scope (Contextual) - Role: Planner
  2. Business Model (Conceptual) - Role: Owner
  3. System Model (Logical) - Role:Designer
  4. Technology Model (Physical) - Role: Builder
  5. Detailed Representations (Out-Of-Context) - Role: Subcontractor
Continue reading OpenGroup and Zachman - EA Governance Tools.

Sapintel Traffic

By Doug Grant on March 1, 2008 9:34 AM | | Comments (0)
Sapintel traffic from compete - reflecting 300+ daily visits to the Sapintel SAP google search engine generated from visits to my SDN blog during February 2008.

 

BI 7 Upgrade Delta Training PDF

By Doug Grant on March 1, 2008 9:12 AM | | Comments (0)

An excellent BI 7 Upgrade guide was originally published in the July 11, 2007 SDN Newsletter and is included here. SAP generously provided 79 slides from their BI 7 upgrade class. The detail level is great. The outline:

  • Milestones of the technical upgrade
  • Technical preparation of the SAP system
  • Preparation for the SAP application
  • Possible solutions for upgrade errors
  • Tuning tips to improve runtime
  • Technical post activities for SAP BI
  • Post activities for the SAP application
  • Background information, tips and tricks
Continue reading BI 7 Upgrade Delta Training PDF.
« February 2008 | Main Index | Archives | April 2008 »

Search