Monday, February 24, 2003

More on InfoPath and Archiving I had an interesting conversation with some pretty smart guys over lunch today. Aside from laughing really hard and talking about aviation, we spoke about the methods of archival that we use today, and their short lifespans. File formats and storage media seem to obsolesce faster than you can say VHS. There is no standard persistent storage format that we can be confident about its longevity. For example, how long will PDFs last? It's really only a matter of time before some newer and cheaper format comes out that makes PDFs obsolete. As for media, who has an 8 inch drive anymore? Actually, one of our lunch companions claims to have one, but I am skeptical. As we develop new file formats, we misplace the old programs and devices that can read the old file formats. It's doubtful that any file format in use today will be commonly used 20 years from now, so what do we do with all of the data that we have archived? Do we spend the money every 20 years to adopt a new storage format? Lest you panic and replay scenes in your mind from planet of the apes (the old one with Chuck Heston, not the new Mark Wallberg one. I haven't seen that one) where chuck goes in the ancient library and all the books have disintigrated, I believe solutions will be created that will release us from dependence on proprietary file formats, if not from perishable storage media. Now, I am not a professional archivist, so I don't know what is being developed, but it seems to me that we can make files with XML and create a XSD (XML Schema Document) that will tell new programs how to access the data. XML seems to abstract things out into a lowest common denominator, making the processing of the data accessible to any program that can read the XSD. Office 11 will have the capability of creating both types of documents (XML and XSD) using word, excel, or infopath. I have a lot to learn about this new technology, but it seems like we can figure this stuff out. The application of this new XML technology will provide the State and organizations everywhere with new ways for managing documents and workflows. It's a convergence of sorts towards XML. One of my favorite movies is Contact, based on the Carl Sagan book of the same title (in my opinion this movie is an exception to the rule that the book is better than the movie. Not the movie is fantastic, it's just that the book wasn't all that great). In the movie, a message is received from the vicinity of the star Vega, and large amounts of information are contained in the message. It looks like a garbled mess until they figure out how to parse the data, and how to translate it into meaningful data using mathematics. I see archiving data working the same way in the future. We have to store a primer, a DTD, an XSD, a dictionary, whatever you want to call it, and that primer will tell those that access the data in the future how to read it. It's that or we go back to parchment scrolls. 2:18:12 PM

Busride Radio Userland software is pretty cool. I am sitting on the bus right now, on my way to work. Once I submit this post, it will go to my localhost and then as soon as I connect to the network in the state office building the article will be automatically uploaded the radio userland community server. Now if I only had Sprint WiFi service... This is going to be a very busy week. I will be finishing my first rough draft of a PRD for UMD/auth/auth/ID management. I will be sharing this document with key stakeholders including eREP, DHRM, DPS, DWS, DOT, DHS, and DAS. This thing is so huge that the PRD will evolve over the next month, but our experience with DPS last week has proven the value of talking early and often with customers about the product. In the meantime, because there is so much work to be done to get the whole thing put together, development will continue. One major difference, tho, between now and previous development is that now we are working as a team, and everything will go thru a peer review process. Wednesday we are meeting with the eREP team in American Fork. I have only been in contact with the eREP team for a couple of weeks, and already my understanding of their requirements and timeframes has improved significantly. Their needs are many and complex. Dan Cook at ITS and Dan Rossean (spelling?) at eREP are trying to keep everything straight, getting the right people to talk at the right time. That's a big job. Also on my plate for this week will be activity on the "web services" strategic plan. This plan will address all of the web-related technologies and products that ITS offers. In the past we have not done a good job at packaging all of these services and combining strategy. Because of this we have not been as competitive as we should have been in the businesses of web hosting and web-related services. We have to improve to survive. 7:37:31 AM

© Copyright 2003 Dave McNamee. Last update: 3/11/2003; 8:16:42 AM.