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Newsletter | Information Area News |
Since January 2005 Visible Pty Ltd have published a monthly newsletter “Information Area News” (IAN) in both English and Chinese. It will be available by subscription in Q3 2005. In the meantime if you wish to join the mailing list please email us.

Free Vendor Support
Most software vendors have free support websites where you can access their knowledge and technical support database. Microsoft’s is well known and amongst the Crystal fraternity the Crystal Decisions comprehensive tech-support database was transferred over to the Business Objects site when the corporate takeover happened a year ago. Some useful tech-support websites are shown in the list below. These links will save you the effort of navigating from their home page to the support page within their site. Sites which themselves have lots of good links are highlighted with an information symbol.

Vendor Sites:

Microsoft: http://msdn.microsoft.com/sql/ and http://www.microsoft.com/sql/default.mspx and if you are in Hong Kong http://www.microsoft.com/hk/msdn/
Business Objects: http://support.businessobjects.com/search/
SPSS Inc: http://support.spss.com/Default.htm
Embarcadero: http://www.embarcadero.com/support/support.html
Mapinfo Corporation: http://testdrive.mapinfo.com/kbase_by_product
-Non-Vendor Sites : Please refer to our the section entitled 'User Groups Around The World' immediately below.

User Groups (Around The World) Some of these are run by businesses who are authorized software vendor partners and others are user groups based on a collective membership. The third group are Academic and Standards organizations.

Software Vendor Partners
Microsoft Partners:

AUST: Superior Software , http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/ a company run by our colleague and Microsoft Regional Director Adam Cogan. He runs the Sydney .Net Users Group which started out as the MS Access User Group over 13 years ago.

Business Objects Partners:

USA: Hammerman and Associates , run by Dr.Howard Hammerman http://www.hammerman.com/ . We use their Crystal Courseware training manuals.
USA: Ken Hamady http://www.kenhamady.com/ . He specializes in Crystal Reports training and consulting in America. A very rich site with lots of good content.
USA: Crystal User http://www.crystaluser.com/ Basically a Crystal bulletin board run by a US Crystal partner. The message boards are good to see what people are having problems with.
AUST: Cortex Systems http://www.cortexsystems.com.au/ A developer who make the excellent Crystal metadata “scraper” product called ‘Report Analyzer’ which we use a lot. One of the best products of its kind.
AUST: Wave Business Solutions http://www.wavebusiness.com.au/ They provide Crystal consulting and as well as data warehousing solutions using other vendor products. We have worked with them on various consulting projects. They make and sell an excellent documentation management application called Avalon Seaview. It is like MS Sharepoint and BO Crystal Enterprise combined and is a lot cheaper than either of them.
NZ: Chelsea Technologies: http://www.chelseatech.co.nz/ A small business in New Zealand who publish an excellent newsletter called Crystal Clear. They also make and sell their own low cost Crystal Report viewers for those daunted by Business Objects Crystal Enterprise licensing.
USA: American company MindConnection owns this site called CrystalKeen http://www.crystalkeen.com/aboutus/index.htm They have business links with both Chelsea and Cortex.
HK: Data World are a ‘business management solutions provider’ based on Hong Kong island. They run targeted Crystal Report training courses in Cantonese. http://www.dataworld.com.hk/dws/events/crystalreport.htm They also have branch offices in major cities in Mainland China (Shenzhen, Dongguan, Shanghai and Beijing)
USA: Ablaze Group http://www.ablazegroup.com/ Run by George Pack , famous for his ‘Complete Reference’ books on Crystal.

SPSS Partners and Independent Consultants:

UK: KBCS run by ex-SPSS employee Kathy Beard. A small consulting / development business in the English county of Berkshire west of London. http://www.kbcs.co.uk/assoc.htm
USA: An individual SPSS consultant (Raynald Levesqu) website with very rich content http://pages.infinit.net/rlevesqu/ . Good library of SPSS scripts (VB .sbs files).
HK: None that we have come across. SPSS is used heavily in the Universities for survey analysis. SPSS Inc have a regional office in Quarry Bay. http://www.spss.com/worldwide/template_view.cfm?Country_ID=88
AUST: Not many , most are academic working from within Universities. If you search using Google for “SPSS Consulting Sydney” (click here) you will find Visible in the top search results.
AUST: Coakes Consulting run by Psychologist Dr.Sheridan Coakes author of the SPSS book “Analysis Without Anguish (which we highly recommend). Based in Glebe in the inner west of Sydney.

Pervasive Partners:

AUST: Wave Business Solutions , based in Melbourne, Australia

Mapinfo Partners and Independent Consultants:

AUST: ENCOM Technologies is a leading innovator in the development of specialist software tools for the exploration industries and geosciences. http://www.encom.com.au/ They make and sell the Mapinfo add-on product ‘Discover’ which makes making maps easy for Mining Companies.
AUST: AUSMEC is a multidisciplinary consulting firm that provides a range of services to the Mining, Exploration, Environmental, Rural/other Land Uses, Engineering and Corporate industries. http://www.ausmec.com.au
AUST: Technical and Field Surveys http://www.trrac.com/ run by Mike Aubrey north of Sydney, Australia. They are an international GIS consultancy using Mapinfo and other products.
HK: MapAsia.com is the corporate web site of City Country Consultancy Ltd. http://www.mapasia.com/emap/index1.htm . They are an authorized partner of Mapinfo. Their offices are in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Collective Membership Type User Groups (including e-Magazine sites)

Groups and Orgnasiations which Visible is a member of (often via personal subscritpion held by our senior consultant) are indicated by the word MEMBER next to the group/organisation. These memberships often involve paid subscription.

SQL and programming Related:

HK: The Hong Kong .Net User Group http://www3.hknetug.com/Forums/
AUST: The Australian SQL Server Users Group http://www.sqlserver.com.au/ MEMBER We have been a member for over 5 years now. David Lean from Microsoft Australia was one of the founders of this group, which has attracted some of more dedicated SQL types away from Adams group as he has pursued . Net applications.
USA: SQL Server Worldwide Users Group http://www.sswug.com/ MEMBER Run by Steve Wynnkoop
USA: BOB, the Business Objects Board, http://www.forumtopics.com/busobj/ A non-vendor supported site which is a BBS dedicated to Business
Objects topics. The content is not Crystal related.
USA: Business Objects v5 overview, http://www.upenn.edu/computing/da/bo/busobj5overview.html. If you are a Crystal person and need to see what BO used to look like before the new BO XI was released then this University site is good. They teach courses using BO.

Data Modelling / Enterprise Architecture (EA) Related:

UK: Database answers http://www.databaseanswers.com/ . An excellent site with many free logical and physical data models for download. UK: Data Model . com http://www.datamodel.com/ A new portal for data modelling.
NZ: GEAO http://www.geao.org/ MEMBER GEAO is a new not-for-profit organisation created by and for professionals who work in the field of Enterprise Architecture. Its formation was announced at the EA Conference that we attended in Sydney in July 2004. The EA consultants from the NZ office of the business/IT consultancy EDS were largely behind it.
AUST: Information Engineering Services Pty Ltd http://www.ies.aust.com/ run by the ‘father of Information Engineering’ Clive Finkelstein from Perth , Western Australia. Another EA devotee.
USA/NL: IFEAD Institute for Enterprise Architecture Developments http://www.enterprise-architecture.info/ .They have their own framework which is different to John Zachman’s. Jaap Schekkerman is the Founder.

Business Intelligence:

USA: IT Toolbox http://businessintelligence.ittoolbox.com/ Good site to see what issues other consultants are having.
USA: OLAP Report : A pay subscription site with good content on everything multidimensional.
USA: DM Review Magazine http://www.dmreview.com/ MEMBER Home of the excellent print journal DM Review.

Crystal Related:

USA : Tek-Tips . http://www.tek-tips.com/ MEMBER A good BBS “agony aunt” type site where Crystal users go for group therapy. It has other forums for other applications.

Data Warehousing:

USA: TDWI , http://www.tdwi.org/ MEMBER The Data Warehousing Institute. A decade ago TDWI was formed to provide data warehousing professionals a single source of information to help them do their jobs more effectively.

Academic Discipline related sites (including standards organizations) and Leading Consultants

Business Transaction Systems (ERP/CRM)

USA: The Spot for SAP, http://www.thespot4sap.com/Shop/SAP_BW_403.asp Everything you wanted to know about this particular source system.
USA: Kania School of Management SAP Study Guide, http://134.198.33.115/sap/sapguide.htm The name says it all.
USA: Siebel knowledge base, http://siebel.ittoolbox.com/ This is a good site with rich content on all things Siebel. The issues which other Siebel consultants are having are quite valuable. The Siebel Bookshelf CD is the ultimate resource but you only get that by buying the software.
It contains the Siebel Logical Data Models.

Enterprise Architecture:

USA: The Zachman Institute for Framework Advancement, http://www.zifa.com MEMBER Founded by John Zachman

Business Rules:

EU: :Business Rules Resource Page, http://classweb.gmu.edu/kersch/infs770/Topics/Business_Rules_Page.htm A good University based website with rich content and many links. Zachman links here.
USA: The Business Rules Group http://www.businessrulesgroup.org/brghome.htm
USA: Business Rules Solutions: http://www.brsolutions.com/ MEMBER Run by business rules ‘guru’ Ron Ross and Gladys Lam.

Corporate Information Factory:

USA: Inmon Associates Inc. http://www.inmoncif.com/ Bill Inmon’s site. The Library page has good links.
USA: Intelligent Solutions Inc. http://www.intelsols.com/ Claudia Imhoff’s site. She co-wrote the classic ‘Corporate Information Factory’ text with Bill Inmon. She writes excellent monthly articles in DM Review magazine.

Data Warehousing:

USA: The Kimball Group http://www.rkimball.com/ Run by multidimensional consultant Ralph Kimball, whose “ DW lifecycle” books are popular. His philosophy says that cubes ARE the data warehouse. Inmon and Imhoff would say that multidimensional modelling only has a role in the presentation/data mart layer.
USA: EW Solutions http://www.ewsolutions.com/ Run by Chicago- based metadata guru David Marco. He is the author of two books on this subject which is the “best kept secret” of data warehousing but is slowly gaining recognition. Without an MME (Managed Metadata Environment) you won’t have the infrastructure for any business rules or a data warehouse.
USA: Object Management Group: http://www.omg.org This is the international standards body that “own” UML (Unified Modelling Language) and CWM (Common Warehouse Metamodel) . Their flagship is MDA (Model Driven Architecture). They also “have” CORBA, MOF and XMI.