Are you a big fan of Google Maps and feel like the Maps application on your iPhone is falling behind in functionality?  Maybe you would like to access your starred locations and My Maps data stored in your Google Account. Whatever your reason, Google has enhanced Google Maps for mobile browsers on Android and iOS.  Just visit maps.google.com on your phone or tablet browser and stare in awe of what Google has accomplished in HTML instead of a dedicated app.

So my dear iPhone owners and frequent flyers…would you like a highly interactive app where “you can track your flight, recalculate your remaining flight time and flight position, and learn more about key landmarks and geographic areas you’re flying over”?  (I love it when a vendor provides tech tips copy for me).  If so, you might want to check out all the details on the iPhone WindowsSeat app and see if this one is for you. Looks like they have a paid app for $2.99 and free app that covers a limited number of cities.

Are you one of those people who have a need to print from your mobile device but don’t want to have to install software for printing?  I’m a little late notifying you about this but Google has a service called Google Cloud Print that will do just that.  Head over to the Google Mobile Blog to read all the details.

As our social network continues expanding, the ability to keep up with all the noise can become overwhelming.  Twitter already has the ability to create lists but surprisingly many people are not aware that Facebook has a similar list capability.  Lifehacker has a quick write up on creating and using Facebook lists.  It’s only a couple of paragraphs so go read it now. Scoot.

I have had terrible luck this last year with hard drives failing on me.  I wish I had come across this website on hard drive sounds earlier.  Most hard drives start to make specific sounds when they are failing and Data Cert has created a database of sounds for each brand of drive to help you understand what might be happening with your drive when you think you hear sounds that just don’t quite sound right to you.

And finally, I leave you with one of the most interesting toilets I have seen in a long time. It’s called the Kohler Numi and this illuminated, electrified, spritzing, heated and wireless remote control device will only set you back a cool $6300. I’ll take 2.

I read the tweets coming from the Workday Technology Summit on August 23 and was surprised. A couple of the analysts seemed to suggest that Workday should stop talking about its SaaS Multi-Tenant technology approach and focus instead on the business value of the Workday application when they are talking to customers.  While that might be good advice for Workday, I hope the analysts are not advising customers who are looking to purchase SaaS solutions to focus only on the functionality of the application and not worry about the technology.  Potential customers should absolutely dig into all the nooks and crannies of a vendor’s technology.

Vendors are not to be trusted especially when it comes to HR data.  If you are a customer thinking of using a SaaS vendor for HCM/TM applications (especially core HR) you had better make sure that the Vendor is using technology that is proven and fully supportable.  Sometime after go-live when the SaaS application experiences an outage or data breach is not the time to discover the vendor’s servers are running Windows Server 2000 or the database is Oracle 8i or the “servers” are a rack of Psystar towers.  You might get compensated for the downtime but at that point you probably have lost confidence in the vendor.

Customers need to fully understand the technology used to power the SaaS application. Purchasing HR applications/software should always be a joint venture between HR and IT.  HR can focus on functionality and usability and IT can focus on technology and security.

While talking to a few people recently and comparing our Google Reader subscriptions and trends, I discovered that I read a lot more technology sites than the average reader of my blog.  So I figured I should put all that reading time to good use and share some of my technology goodies with you all.

It’s iPhone 4 pre-order day and I am sure you all are running around the house/backyard/office/parking lot/mall like crazy person trying to figure out how best to pre-order an iPhone for your spouse/significant other/son/daughter/dog/cat.  Fear not. Engadget has you covered with their post on: How to: pre-order the iPhone 4 (update: third-party retailers best avoided)

As if we didn’t have enough reasons to stop by Starbucks for our daily quad shot Latte, the Boy Genius Report says: Starbucks offering free Wi-Fi access at all U.S. locations starting July 1st

A couple of my tweeps/peeps/yahoos have been bugging me to do Skype video calling. So for all you Skype people and video bloggers pay attention as Engadget has the goods on New Logitech HD Webcams

I don’t know about you but sometime my spelling engine goes on hiatus. It can be a problem when trying to search for something on Google.  Its Google to the rescue with: Spelling corrections in Google search suggest

I know many of you use Google Reader and have been saying why, why, WHY can’t I easily rename my folders.  Stop your crying and read all about:  Renaming folders and tags in Google Reader

Last but not least for all you hardcore Gmail, Buzz and Google Maps users (you know who you are). I give you the holy grail of Google Maps previews in Gmail and Google Buzz

Did you like these tech tips?  Found them useful?  Want me to continue serving up these tips on a regular schedule?  Hated it and wish I would not waste precious blog space doing this?  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Guess what?  The rumor on the street is that HR leads the industry in using the Software As A Service (SaaS) delivery model.  Surveys say that customers still prefer best-of-breed solutions over integrated solutions so that means more HR applications instead of less.  Guess what also is true about many of these SaaS applications?  They still use flat files as the main vehicle to shuttle information into and out of the application. In this model the customer is still required to develop an interface to the SaaS vendor.  Wait, what?  As a customer you still have to do custom development even though you are using a SaaS application.

There are several other more state of the art options such as an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) or SOAP messaging.  I don’t know about you but when an employee gets hired into my core HR system, I would love to have the employee information zip over to my SaaS based Learning Management System within a couple seconds instead of sometime that evening when the flat file interface gets run.  When I push the button to fill a requisition in my recruiting application, wouldn’t it be great to have the new hire in my core HR system right away. Sorry SaaS Recruiting vendor, sending me XML files via FTP multiple times a day doesn’t count.

All is not lost fortunately.  The HR SaaS application vendors are starting to incorporate messaging or ESBs into their offering.  The most prominent example of this is Workday purchasing ESB vendor Cape Clear back in February of 2008.  Since then Workday has embedded Cape Clear into their application to allow end users to create their own real-time inbound and outbound interfaces.

For those other SaaS vendors who are still stuck in the flat file interface, you better get it together soon.  We are wising up and will be requiring state of the art real-time interfaces in our vendor selection criteria.

On episode 45 of the Bill Kutik Radio show, Bill Kutik interviewed Jason Averbook and Jason Corsello regarding the HR year past and coming up.  During the show the topic turned technical and Bill Kutik brought up the topic of whether SaaS will become the dominant delivery method for HR applications.  In answering the question, Jason Averbook discussed the myth that you do not need IT help when implementing SaaS application. Spot on commentary by Jason until he says:

Software as a Service requires just as much IT support as any of these other solutions. It’s a different kind of IT support, a different skill set.

Sorry Jason but I am going to have to disagree with you on this point. SaaS applications do not require as much IT support as on-premise solutions.  Let take a look at the typical IT tasks for supporting on premise vendor application and note the tasks that are also needed for SaaS applications:

My experience with SaaS applications show that you no longer need IT Datacenter support, Database Administration support, Application Infrastructure support and Application Development support (with the exception of interfaces).  Poof.  Gone. No longer needed.  Depending on the number of resources either partially or fully engaged to support your on-premise application, this could be a sizable reduction in the resources needed as you shift to SaaS.

Agree? Disagree?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Apologies on the delay in moving my blog to WordPress. I could bore you with all the reasons for the delay (work, work, work, bad cold, holiday gatherings, learning the Thesis WordPress theme etc…) but I know you could care less. You just want some new content to chew on. Especially that darn @thehrmaven who has been snapping her fingers at me. So how about a compromise? Let’s turn back the clock and remind of you some of my earlier work while you wait.

In my very first post, I told you to SaaS your SaaS. Now that was one sassy post. How about this beaut from last February when asked if you Twitter in the bathroom? In April I showed you how to convert filing cabinets into a ping pong table. Finally for all my new readers, this gem of a video from August entitled What I do (Wednesday edition) will give you the low down on my work and my passion for rescued greyhounds.

Now run along and don’t come back until I tell you I am ready.

I have been dismayed recently at all the articles and blog posts I read these days that seem to indicate that we won’t need data centers anymore with Cloud Computing. That somehow Cloud Computing runs, well, in the cloud! Now I know you all are smarter than that. Right? You know that somewhere, someplace way back behind all those wonderful fluffy clouds are big huge datacenters with hundreds and thousands of servers.

Here in our little state of Oregon, Google has built a computing center “as big as two football fields”.

and Amazon is building a 116,770 square-foot data center near Boardman.

When you use Google, Amazon, Yahoo or any number of SaaS applications such as Salesforce.com or Workday there are servers in a data center somewhere serving up the data and application logic. Now to be fair, some of the more sophisticated cloud computing companies have stitched together servers in data centers spread all over to provide you with true 27×7 access. The “cloud” provides virtual access to your data or application so that it can be spread across multiple data centers. In certain cases (such as Google) you probably don’t have any need to know how this works. For SaaS applications (such as Workday), it is a good idea to understand exactly where the data centers are located and how the application is load balanced, backed up and configured for disaster recovery.

But at the end of the day, there are still physical data centers behind all those fluffy clouds. But you knew that anyway.