Wrestling Legacy Data to the Web & Beyond: Practical Solutions for Managers and Technicians. (Book Review).TITLE: Wrestling Legacy Data to the Web & Beyond: Practical Solutions for Managers and Technicians AUTHORS: P.C. McGrew and W.D. McDaniel PUBLISHER: M[C.sup.2] Books ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m : 1-893347-02-8 PUBLICATION DATE: 2001 LENGTH: 219 pages PRICE: $29.95 SOURCES: McGrew + McDaniel Group at www.mcgrewmcdaniel.com or 800-283-9444 Advances in communications technology Noun 1. communications technology - the activity of designing and constructing and maintaining communication systems engineering, technology - the practical application of science to commerce or industry have not only made the world seem smaller -- they have made its inhabitants
The game is based loosely on the concepts from SameGame. more impatient for immediate access to information and data, regardless of its vintage or origin. Among the most perplexing per·plex tr.v. per·plexed, per·plex·ing, per·plex·es 1. To confuse or trouble with uncertainty or doubt. See Synonyms at puzzle. 2. To make confusedly intricate; complicate. questions that any manager or information technology (IT) staff can face is, "Why can't we view all of our documents on the Web?" It is the redirection Diverting data from their normal destination to another; for example, to a disk file instead of the printer, or to a server's disk instead of the local disk. See virtual directory, symbolic link, shortcut, redirector and DOS redirection. 1. of older or legacy data from computer files designed for printing to Web browsers The following is a list of web browsers. Historical Historically important browsers In order of release:
The authors have directed their attention to organizations with voluminous legacy data that is formatted to print in specific report forms on specific classes of print devices. The work does not attempt to address other alternatives that immediately come to mind when discussing the migration of document formats, such as the transmigration trans·mi·gra·tion n. Movement from one site to another, which may entail the crossing of some usually limiting membrane or barrier, as in diapedesis. transmigration 1. diapedesis. 2. within electronic formats. The majority of this 218-page volume is dedicated to establishing the background and providing the methodology for creating an inventory of electronic document systems and their print attributes. While Wrestling Legacy Data is not a book that the average Web site developer will find immediately useful and applicable, the book is invaluable to information professionals and managers who face this daunting daunt tr.v. daunt·ed, daunt·ing, daunts To abate the courage of; discourage. See Synonyms at dismay. [Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin task of legacy data repurposing to a Web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. . The first chapter provides the non-technical reader with an overview of the issues and aspects of print format migration. Chapter Two consists of a lexicon of printer language characteristics and the terminology that is likely to be used by any consultant or vendor who will engineer an enterprise-wide reformatting of legacy data to a new platform. Chapters Three and Four, "Legacy Data: What's Under the Covers" and "Digging Deeper," are among the most interesting sections of the book; they are a mix of analysis of historical technology and directions relating to relating to relate prep → concernant relating to relate prep → bezüglich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acc detecting printer outputs and, thus, how migration might be planned. Chapter Four guides the reader through the next several chapters. In determining the organization's information assets and output formatting, the reader can read, skip, or master the subsequent three chapters, "Line Data and Line Printers 101," "All Points Addressability: IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) and Xerox," and "APA (All Points Addressable) Refers to an array (bitmapped screen, matrix, etc.) in which all bits or cells can be individually manipulated. APA - Application Portability Architecture : Beyond Xerox and IBM." These chapters are essential to understanding how legacy systems apply and interpreting printer instructions within a current computing environment. McGrew and McDaniel's most important chapter in analyzing the practicality of reformatting, migrating, and repurposing data is Chapter 11, "A Question of Migration and Fidelity." This section helps to answer the questions of when is it worth the time and treasure to make the transition and how closely new output has to mimic traditional paper output. The final chapter gets down to details in developing a useable inventory for the organization's information and print format assets. This chapter is competently presented, but it might have been better placed earlier in the book. The authors adopted an informal and conversational style for the book that helps to guide the technological novice to the necessary sections without condescension con·de·scen·sion n. 1. The act of condescending or an instance of it. 2. Patronizingly superior behavior or attitude. [Late Latin cond , yet it will still interest and serve the IT staff member. In keeping with that style, it omits such academic features as footnotes, references, or a formal bibliography. However, it does include a short but vital glossary that is a must for writing RFPs, bids, asset inventories, and translating the highly technical and demanding language of service vendors. Wrestling Legacy Data is very well written and clearly articulates the technical complexities of the task of migrating the printed page to the displayed page. However, the book deals very little with the possibilities and practices of document imaging and publishing images directly to the Web. This book is precisely what the authors set out to create -- it is a technical primer on planning for output migration and not a discussion of the content and information value issues that must also be a part of a well-planned and executed migration. Michael E. Holland, CA, is the Director of University Archives for the University of Missouri-Columbia. He can be reached at HollandM@missouri.edu. |
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