The big feature coming in BPMN 2.0 is the ability to serialize the model into a form that is portable between tools. Regular readers of this blog will know that we have this today with XPDL, but those responsible for the future of BPMN say “We are going to give you something better.” OK, I am all for progress to something better, but are they really going to achieve this? Continue reading
A few weeks ago I became aware of the bxModeller from Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A. and the University of Salento in Italy which is an open source / free tool for BPMN/XPDL modeling. I got access the bxModeller to see how it would perform. It can be entirely accessed on-line. Nothing needs to be installed. That is certainly convenient. You create projects, give them names, and start designing the processes. Later you export the results as XPDL. Continue reading
I am currently working with a number of local community groups; my role is typically to get people using Web2.0 technologies to make us more efficient. This is surprisingly difficult.
One group I an involved in recently put on a en event. The event was proposed a couple months ago through an email message. There was a certain amount of discussion exchanged by email, Continue reading
There is a new book on BPMN modelling called “BPMN Modeling and Reference Guide” by Stephen A White and Derek Miers. It was launched at the Gartner BPM Summit event in Washington DC last week.
Net Take Away: This is a great resource for those coming up to speed on BPMN. It uses a lot of practical examples of process diagram, starting from simple ones and working toward the more complex ones. Continue reading
I woke up this morning to see this on the screen:
Something has automatically installed itself into my Mozilla without my permission. What was it? I don’t know. The screen above does not actually say what was installed. It might be the Michelangelo virus for all I know. And there is nothing listed in the list of extensions. There is a list of plug-ins, so it might have been a plug in, but which one?
But I did not ask for anything to be installed. There was no little pop up window saying “About to install….are you sure?” I had no idea that something was being installed. That spells virus city.
Why am I so sensitive? Last Thursday I installed Firefox 3.0. On sunday my computer was infected with a virus that took over the screen saver. I attempted to remove it manually, including a number of removal tools, but in the end wiped the computer and re-installed windows. Not a fun way to spend a Sunday evening. I am pretty sure that source of the infection was Firefox, and having just installed Firefox 3, it makes me wonder if there is a security flaw in the new version.
So now I am running on a computer with almost nothing on it (it will be a few days before I get all my normal software installed). In this relatively sterile environment, I am finding pieces of software automatically installing themselves. Not good.
Kudos to the Mozilla folks for providing an alert saying that something happened, but how hard would it have been to include the NAME of the add-in in the alert? Real security would be to have a list of every extension to the software listed, where it came from, as well as the date and time that it was installed. Maybe even the signature on the code for verification.
I am probably overreacting to this, but given my recent experience, I am justifiably nervous. Hmmm, maybe that Google Chrome is starting to look a tiny bit more attaractive.
The title pretty much says it all. This is another BPM process modeler which represents a process in BPMN, and then saves and exchanges those diagrams using XPDL. I have not been able to actually try it out yet, nor inspected any screen shots in detail. Continue reading
I needed to describe the reason that an Agile approach to software development works, and why it is not something that is isolated to the development team. I wrote up the following explanation. Maybe this will be helpful to you in explaining agile development to others. Continue reading
Thinking Matters 