Chris Thames.com

This is a tip/reminder for me and anyone else that needs to know.

If you need to import a text file that doesn't have column names in the first row but you do already have a table created in a database, you can copy the database create script and remove the unecessary info, i.e. everything but the column names and add your delimiter. Next create a column name header row that you can paste into your text file at the top. Make sure the table structure is the same as the flate file, i.e. column 1 in db table matches with column 1 with the flat file.

If the flat file that you are importing is going to consistently not have the column names in the first row then you will need to uncheck "Column Names in First Row" check box in the file connection manager. However doing this will remove your column names and mappings and replace it with column names like Column 1, Column 2, Column X.

To get around this close the package file instead of unchecking "Column Names in First Row" of the dtsx package you are working on and then open it in Notepad or other text/xml editor. Find the xml node for your flat file connection manager then find a xml node inside of the managers node called "ColumnNamesInFirstDataRow" and replace it with a 0 (zero).

Now you can reopen the SSIS package you were working for while retaining all the column information you previously entered. This helps tremendously if you have a ton of columns that you need to import and already have the database structure created.

I created a project, source code not available yet, that will enable DotNetNuke portal hosts to install this PA and utilize SubSonic to administer 1 or more databases. The only caveat is that the SubSonic configuration section will have to be added, which is very simple to do. Follow the configuration section in this PDF by Scott Kuhl.

Go here to download the PA or go to "My Files" then to the SubSonic subfolder.

The current release version is using a change set made after SubSonic beta 3 (change set 21470). Anything previous than this change set won't work because the SubSonic scaffold was utilizing url redirection. I would like to thank Eric Kemp for enabling form postback in the scaffold for this to work.

[UPDATE: I recently posted a more indepth post. Go here to read more:  SubSonic & DotNetNuke - In Action /]

-Thames

All of us at one point have played a game, whether it is a board game or a computer game.  We all do it to get our minds off of things we should be focusing on, for the challenge, but mostly for fun. With the advent of the computer, games have become a lot more complex and time consuming with some games like Second Life and Oblivion taking up most peoples extra time and for some their family time. Games are seemingly becoming more apart of our culture with the Pause2Play initiative. Heather Leigh pointed out we now have the excuse “the doctor told me to” play games, but what does playing games have to do with virtual and real economies, you ask?

People are starting to spend more time online especially with massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) or MMO Role Playing Games (MMORPG) or just short for MMO. Even women! These MMOG’s, like Second Life, are providing everything a person needs to create whatever they would like in the game and sell it to another person. When they sell their “build”, an object created in Second Life, they receive Linden dollars. These virtual Linden dollars can then be exchanged for real money (300 Lindens = $1) through an online currency exchange. Yes, games now have currency exchanges!! Will the Linden become worth more than the American $1? Probably not since it just went down, but it is subject to change either up or down. Just like a real market.

This means people, or rather their virtual persona called an avatar, can amass money that can turn into real money to pay for rent, a new car, even a mortgage payment! Sound a little risky? I mean can’t the game owners just take away rights to their build? The answer is no in Second Life. The game makers of Second Life allowed “residents to retain full ownership of their virtual creations.” [Business Week via Reuben Steiger]

Wow! This means that game makers have really created a market; a virtual one that blurs the lines with real markets. The residents of Second Life have even taken advantage of this. Some create clothes for sale, like SLBoutique, while others take a more bold style by developing land and then selling it or renting it out. Avatar Anshe Chung has taken this route and is known as the Rockefeller of Second Life where she has amassed assets worth more than $250,000 in real money!! Maybe I should become the Donald Trump and start acquiring lots of land and developing it? I just hope there isn’t a Martha Stewart persona in the game!

Residents can build just about anything. I’ve already mentioned clothing and buildings but one can also create games, videos, and presentations/seminars on just about anything. All of which residents could pay for. Pretty soon the game developers are going to have to create a patent office and hope that it is built more effective than the real life one. Game developers could then create the virtual patent office and charge residents to file for a patent.

Currently MMOG’s have a variety of ways to make money, but most charge a monthly subscription fee to play the game. Second Life is free for basic membership, but you will need to pay for a premium subscription in order to have land and the more land the more the monthly fee. You can go here for more on MMOG fees.

This brings me back to where I was going with my MMOG Idevation that I blogged about a couple weeks ago.  Times are changing. We are not only going to have international economies in which to sell, buy, trade, and market our products. We are going to have virtual economies as well. Virtual economies will affect real economies and provides means for real people to make living playing games. (Sounds awesome; I want in!) Some companies like Disney’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy did part of their marketing campaign in Second Life to market to people that would prefer to turn on a MMOG than the television. This part of the campaign ended up being much cheaper than it would be if they had to travel and pay for other services. (I wonder how effective the campaign was and how one would measure the effectiveness.) Companies such as Microsoft could start marketing and recruiting for employees in the game with residents that are innovative.

[Update: Universities could also market in this rich in youth environment for a lot less than what a TV ad would cost./]

Wells Fargo has jumped in to create Stagecoach Island where residents can play games and learn about finances. Games and learning? Of course! I remember playing games and learning since I was in diapers. Learning from games isn’t new. What could be new is games and work. No I don’t mean play games to take a break from work. I mean play games to get work done. Yes you could take the approach of selling virtual real estate, but what I mean is that tasks that you do, puzzles that you solve, or items that you create could be interfaced with the real world puzzles, tasks, or building processes to create or do real things. Everyone should know about http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ where you can donate idle computer processor time to help in the search for extra terrestrial intelligence. In essence the game would be the same thing, but instead it interfaces with the real world. When you create a shirt, a design is created and then sold online or in Old Navy next week. When you build a house, those designs are turned into blue prints and then sold or maybe even turned into a real house. Mow your grass in the game and in turn you actually mow your lawn or you could have someone else do it. You create a game; now that game can be downloaded via Verizon VCast. The possibilities are limitless and all while playing a game.

There are many more, but I’m trying to keep this post somewhat shorter than a novel. After all this talk one would think that a MMOG is a Virtual World. I tend to think so, but here is an opposite take on it and here. Now that we have created this virtual world and are doing real work…….. wait….. this is starting to sound a lot like The Matrix. Are we actually batteries or doing work for someone else. Are we the super computer to find the answer to life, the universe, and everything? Just like in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? In that case the answer would be 42, but all joking aside. Just ponder it with deep thought. Was the universe actually created by someone like us? Are we just avatars in a virtual world?

In any case, educators should take advantage of learning by gaming and marketing to the youth; companies should take advantage of the emerging economies. Virtual worlds might just be the next step after websites.

Sources:

Second Life - Linden Lab
Business Week - My Virtual Life
Role Playing Games - Jo Zealand
Everquest Daily Grind
SLur
MMODIG.com

This is Part 2 on email encryption for Outlook 2003. Part 1 can be read here. This part will talk about encryption and decryption buttons in an Outlook email.

An encryption button in a new email message would beneficial in that you wouldn’t have to open up the crypto manager to send an encrypted message. When the button is pressed it will encrypt the body of the email message. It will not send the message, as that is what the send button is for. This will allow you to see the encrypted message before sending. The downside of this is that it will only use the public key from the first contact in the "To" textbox. You could put more contacts in, but because it isn’t using their public key in the encryption they will not be able to decrypt it.

[Update: Due to some issues with the command bar I’ve since removed the encryption button. To send an encrypted message you will have to use Crypto Manager. The problem I was running into was that the encryption button would work on first use, but after that it wouldn’t work and on subsequent Outlook startups created an additional duplicate command bar. I think this issue is due to Microsoft Word being used as my email editor and I probably need to create a plug-in for Word in order for this to work correctly. /]

A decryption button is a necessity so that the person receiving the encrypted email message can decrypt it and read it. This will allow the message to be stored encrypted and only decrypted when the person needs to read it. This will cause some issue if the receiver wants to search for some text in the plain text of the encrypted email message, however it will be more secure.

In the last part I talk about a problem with the installation that it doesn’t work on all computers. Well I’m pretty sure that it isn’t due to the setup program. I’m thinking that on those computers not all of the Office Updates have been applied. I’ve come to this conclusions because I’ve successfully installed it on 5 computers without any problems.

I've uploaded the setup files to the server and you can download here and the source code is here.

[Update: You can download a tutorial video here./]

I just blogged about ideavations and I thought I would rant about my most recent ideavation. It happens to fall under the massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) genre of a game. Other than Diablo 2, Counter Strike and Freelancer, which aren’t considered MMOG’s, I have really no experience with them other than what I’ve read on some blogs. However they seem to be quite successful.

What I like best about MMOG’s is the ability to create a world online that could be about anything, including bunny rabbits! (Two days ago was Easter and I still have “wascally wabbits” on my brain) There could be multitudes of activities to keep players coming back and if the MMOG is developed with enough extensibility it could easily be upgraded and added to, to keeping the players coming back for more. Virtual economies could be made where the game has its own monetary systems allowing players to buy, sell, and trade. The virtual economy could then touch the physical economy to allow some players to get ahead or purchase rare items using real money on top of paying a subscription fee to play.

This gray area or blur of virtual economies overlapping real life economies could be the start of something huge and is the beginning of a new area of where and how to do business.

Are you a respectable company looking for a great idea? I have one for you. Contact me here.

I came across a great article by Josh Kaufman on the Personal MBA (PMBA) and I bet we are going to start seeing a bunch more of these Personal [fill in the blank here] degrees.

The PMBA was started by Kaufman and lists 42 books that one should read to start their personal customized journey into learning the art of an MBA without the B-school cost. Kaufman calls it the “getting the 80 for the 20 approach to learning about business.” At the moment he has a site dedicated to it located here. The following is my theory on what we are going to see as this kind of education evolves and why it is happening.

Why?

The internet contains countless areas of both relevant and non relevant information on every subject imaginable. Most of these areas have not been interconnected, but over the course of the next several years we are going to see more related content connected. This is in part due to some innovations in the blogging sector with pingbacks and trackbacks that allow one blog to know about another blog. In most cases content will be about same subject and will continue the flow of the conversation over to more than one blog. RSS is another web standard that will be utilized to interconnect related web content together.

What does this have to do with the Personal MBA?  The PMBA will become a community of blogs, forums, and websites. As the PMBA evolves it will add and remove books based on the community of people involved in the PMBA. The community might even then post study materials and presentations to help in their education. This evolution will happen due to a couple of points.

The first point is that the PMBA’s that are out in the real world are going to relay their experiences back to the PMBA community through their blogs, forums, or website. They will list new or more relevant books or materials that will help in areas that were lacking in the original PMBA or other books that might explain a topic better. They will also relate their mistakes to the community and how to avoid a similar mishap from occurring.

The second point will be due to criticisms by students or professors in the MBA B-schools saying that the PMBA is lacking in a particular area, for example linear programming. As soon as a relevant book or several books are found that will easily convey the lacking concept it will be added to the program.

For example, one absent aspect of a PMBA is the network of contacts that a MBA would receive if they were to attend classes at a B-school. This is an important part of getting an MBA. How would the PMBA make up for this? If you were to look at the PMBA’s forums there are already discussions going on to help connect PMBAs in a location, i.e. Phoenix, together. This is similar to Microsoft .Net User Groups. Networking and sharing information between people especially if it involved these groups of people teaching each other. If there is one thing that I believe in, it is that one learns considerably more on a subject by teaching it to others. If PMBA groups have people teach different subjects to the rest of the group, these groups will become quite effective, as long as they convey the subject matter correctly. Eventually these groups could take a more school oriented approach and assign homework for those that are interested in taking charge of their education.

As the program evolves we will end up with different philosophies of what a PMBA, or other personal degree, will contain. In essence we will end up with different “schools” of PMBA. Some PMBAs will focus on different implementation strategies and others will focus the PMBA on a specific area such as a PMBA for information technology people. Some will become known as an effective alternative to an MBA and could even eventually offer a certification. In the realm of anything is possible, a PMBA program could even become an actual specialized school.

Programs will eventually become a well oiled education machine that is able to adapt efficiently, effectively, and more quickly than would a normal school that has to deal with internal politics and the board. The main facilitator in this is the community involved with the program. This along with the lower cost will drive the much needed overhaul in education.

Education has pretty much stayed the same with little innovation for quite sometime. We still have teachers, books, paper, and pencils. Although we now have computers to help transform these physical parts of education into the electronic medium, there hasn’t really been any disrupting innovation. Maybe with all these communities we will be able to think of and implement a disrupting innovation.

There are a several aspects that might prolong the evolution of PMBA; if the right steps are taken these problems will be minimized. Some of these are, but not limited to:

• Too many people voicing ideas or changes.
• Too few people being involved.
• Not enough structure.

This is still an evolving theory on PMBAs and other Personal [insert degree here] programs. If you have any thoughts please comment on them below.

I just submitted a comment to Heather Leigh's blog on marketing for prospective employees at Microsoft. She wanted to know what "awesome" looks like on a resume. I've posted the comment below but after posting the comment I forgot to mention one point.

In her blog entry she talks about narrowing prospects by limiting them to the top 20 MBA programs. While this is probably helpful in narrowing the search it does leave out some potentials at other programs, especially smaller ones. While getting a Masters degree one is probably not as involved as they would be as an undergrad, however if they were that definitely shows initiative. My point is this, sometimes involvement at a smaller program/university gives a broader and more in-depth knowledge than would be gained at the top 20 MBA programs. Smaller universities can grow into newer technologies faster due to lower costs and involvement of students. At Dakota State University the members Center of Excellence for Information Systems and some others were actively involved in the planning and deployment of the Wi-Fi network across campus. They researched the access points to use and planned the locations of where access points would go to enable better coverage. They also determined whether more access points are needed in an area to handle load. Being able to be involved at this level at larger universities would probably not be as hands on.

## My comment on Heather Leigh's blog ##

I've been watching your blog for some time now and I have to say you have been doing a spectacular job! As far as GPA, I think you hit it right on. When I was an undergrad I found the first two years easier to keep a higher GPA. Then as time went on I found myself more involved with school projects such as volunteering to develop a WebCT/BlackBoard like program and school activities such as being elected as President of the Student Association. Doing these and other activities definitely showed up on my undergrad GPA, compared to high school. A search dealing with leadership in college and involvement with campus projects (like being involved in deploying Wi-Fi across campus or is involved in an open-source project) is probably your best bet on finding someone that knows how to take initiative and will excel in their career. Your other searches also hit on target. One thing that I would take into consideration is the position that you are hiring for. I’m not saying you are not; it just looks like you are looking for candidates in the top 20 MBA programs. There are other certifications that could also be looked at that are also exceptional. For example, National Security Agency’s Centers of Academic Excellence (http://www.nsa.gov/ia/academia/caemap.cfm?MenuID=10.1.1.2). If I was looking for an employee that needed to deal with IT security (programming/systems) then I would use the NSA’s list and then if I needed to narrow prospects down more, then I would cross reference the NSA list with the top 20 MBA programs. Narrowing the search all depends on what you are looking for more in a prospect. In the previous example IT security is a bigger need than MBA knowledge. One other search is involvement in activities or organizations after they have graduated, for instance being on the board of directors of the Alumni association. This ensures that they will continue to take initiative and depending upon the activity loyalty as well.