Components of a knowledge share solution

Both at work and at home i've been studying our current toolkit for sharing knowledge. At work I'm supporting our software development, at home I'm looking at a ways to share knowledge to support lifelong education of persons with cognitive disabilities, including formal public education and home schooling. Naturally I'm looking at similar technologies in both environments.

I've summarized a few of the components I'm thinking about in a table. I compared best of breed solutions to the best (not free!) suite I know of and to Google's offerings.

Function	Best of breed	Atlassian Confluence	Google
commentary, notices	Wordpress	yes	Blogger
Q&A	StackExchange	no	no
collaborative hypertext document	TWiki?	yes	Sites
PDF, other	FTP/HTTP server	yes	Docs, Share
Calendar/event	Google Calendar	no	Google Calendar
Social, networking	Facebook	no	G+
Subscribe/notify	RSS	RSS	?

Looking at this solution set it's clear that each has its advantages and weaknesses.

Atlassian Confluence is the best integrated knowledge sharing and collaboration solution I know of. It's not at all free, but it's inexpensive for 10 or fewer users and anonymous users can have read only access. I give Atlassian extra marks for actually publishing an easily discoverable price list. Unfortunately I don't think I can get Confluence running at Dreamhost, my net hosting provider.

Google, like Atlassian, is free for a small number of users and provides high performance anonymous access. Sadly, Sites is a great disappointment. On the other hand, I'm not impressed with any of the currently available open source wiki solutions. In many ways FrontPage 98 was better.

Lastly the best of breed solutions have advantages in terms of data freedom and ease of switching providers or changing knowledge base ownership. An integrated approach can also leverage StackExchange -- the net's best technology for question/answer based information sharing. Likewise a Facebook Page can engage customers and provide a secondary notification solution in addition to RSS/Twitter.

Any thoughts? Comments are most welcome.

PS. I've been looking at collaboration technologies for about 20 years -- starting with BBS software and a long string of innovative solutions. The functional list would have had answers 20 years ago. What's different is that the audience today is vastly larger.

Managing Apple Community email: where to unsubscribe

In the old days it was easy to unsubscribe from Apple Community Support emails. Every email had an unsubscribe link.

That's the right way to do it.

Somehow, that got forgotten when Apple made their support community "Social". I'm getting emails from every thread I've commented on, and I couldn't see how to stop them.

This stuff isn't hard, but Apple blows it every time. Something about their culture.

Anyway, this page seems to be the trick. It was a bit hard to find:

• https://discussions.apple.com/people/jgordon?view=watches

It lists all the items I'm (unwittingly) "watching". I clicked each one and removed it. You might be able to find it in in Apple Support Communities> People.

A dead MacBook Air power adapter is magically restored. SMC problem?

The power adapter for my 6 week old 11" MacBook Air failed overnight (45W MagSafe power adapter with "L" style connector $80!). No glowing LED, no charging. Happily a friend's works, so I know the Air is ok.

Still, it's most annoying -- especially since today's lunch trip to a nearby Apple store ran into their Jobs memorial closure.

Naturally I'm inclined to believe this is a national disaster, but this isn't a trending topic anywhere. So it's probably just bad luck.

Researching this did lead me to a related topic of interest. It's safe to use a higher wattage adapter with the Air, specifically the current MacBook and MacBook Pro adapters ...

Intel-Based Apple Portables: Identifying the right power adapter and power cord--US: 

... Power adapters for Intel-based Apple portables are available in 45W, 60W, and 85W varieties. Although you should always use the proper wattage adapter for your Apple portable, you can use an adapter of a higher wattage without issue.

For instance If you have a MacBook (13-inch Late 2009) that normally uses a 60W adapter, you can also use an 85W adapter with that computer. You would not use a 45W adapter with that computer; it would not provide enough power for that MacBook...

I've read elsewhere that using a lower power adapter might allow the machine to function, but not to charge.

The article, incidentally, tells us the removable AC plug on Apple's power supplies is a "Duckhead". Who knew?

Update: On the advice of Dan Swift (see comments), I tried a fix that I thought was 90% crazy. First I confirmed I didn't have a 'stuck pin' problem. I checked all connector pins were moving and out. Then I charged it for 30-45 minutes on a friend's 'good' charger. Then I tried my charger. Now it works again.

This is the weirdest thing I have seen in years. I assume there's no OS in the (bloody $80) charger, so I assume this is a MacBook PMU glitch that will need a firmware update to fix.

Thanks Dan. I've changed my post title to make this easier to find.

I've posted on this to Apple Discussions.

Update: It's back to not working, which feels saner to me. I did reset the SMC, which may help when "The MagSafe power adaptor LED doesn't appear to indicate the correct activity". So it's to the Apple Store sometime soon.

I did find an article on a similar problem from 2008 that tells me that firmware issues can alter charging behavior: "In certain situations when you connect a new 60W or 85W MagSafe power adapter to the MagSafe port of an older MacBook or MacBook Pro computer, the adapter may not charge the computer and the LED indicator light on the MagSafe connector of the adapter may not illuminate."

What happened to Google calculator?

I entered an arithmetic expression into Google -- and I got back a search result!

For years Google interpreted and solved the expression.

It's been a while since I've done this, but not that long.

Is it really gone?

I can't find anyone else who's noticed ...

Update: Ok, it's working again. Phew. That was weird.

 

iPhone 4S battery life is half of what it should be

Emily's new iPhone 4S can't make it through a day of light use.

I suspect a software issue with either IMAP or MobileMe or ActiveSync polling. Otherwise, hardware. I posted a question to Apple Discussion: iPhone 4S battery life is half of what to solicit ideas.

I'll see if a software notice appears in the next few days, and I'll post updates here.

Update 10/16/11: This post has a likely cause. It's apparently a longstanding iOS bug. Restored accounts may have problems with IMAP/POP accounts resulting in high server polling rates. The fix is to delete and restore the account. I did that on Emily's account, and on my first try with the restored account Mail.app crashed. On the 2nd try I had to reenter her password but it's working now. She is getting new email, but I didn't notice a problem before.

The missing iPhone and iOS 5 PDFs - found

Pay phones. Fax machines. Printers. All vanishing.

Documentation too!

I went looking today for PDF documentation on the iPhone 4S and iOS5. I didn't find much, and what I did find was out of date or incomplete. The "User Guide" Safari bookmark in Emily's 4S pointed to a web site that didn't describe use of the camera controls on a locked phone [1],[4].

I found the iPhone User Guide For iOS 5 by Apple as an iBook, but it's ePub only. There's no Apple ePub/iBook reader for OS X [1]. Kindle, sure. iBook, not so much.[3]

Google failed me, but old fashioned clicking found support.apple.com/manuals and the iPhone User Guide for iOS 5 (pdf) and iPhone 4S Finger Tips. The Finger Tips PDF and physical handout do describe how to use the camera from a lock screen.

- fn -

[1] Double click the home button from the lock screen. Brings up sound and camera controls against lock screen background. Camera response time is now faster than most dedicated cameras; about 3000% faster than my iPhone 4. I figured this out on my own, but later found it in the user guides I located. Because we restored from backup I suspect we wiped out the URL that is part of the default iOS 5 install.

[2] Many recommend http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions. This is, obviously, an Adobe product. I try hard to avoid Adobe's sofware. With the exception of Lightroom the quality is poor and the installers are insulting.

[3] Yes, Apple's missing OS X EPUB reader is ... astounding. My response has been to only get Kindle books.

Update 10/16/11: In the 24 hours since I posted Apple has updated their manuals site and added links from the support page. Guess they were just catching up post launch. [4] The URL for iPhone help that I couldn't find is: help.apple.com/iphone.

Warning: iPhone 4 cases may not fit 4S

Just got the AT&T 4S. I'm seeing the same problem with Speck Pixelskin reviewer had with a Verizon 4:

Speck Products | Speck Products PixelSkin HD iPhone Case | TPU iPhone Case

... I bought this cover for a Verizon iPhone 4 and the cut out for the ring/vibrate switch does not fit. It may be fine for the ATT phone, but not Verizon. It is advertised as fitting both, but it makes it look like the cover doesn't go with the phone...

On our new 4S the mute switch slot is too high. I wonder if the AT&T 4S more closely resembles the Verizon 4. Many cases will have similar issues.

I'm disappointed that Speck is marketing their cases as 4 and 4S.