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Introduction to ZxApp IT
What is ZxApp IT and what can it do for me?
ZxApp IT is an Integrated
Personal Development Environment (IPDE). Click the link
to learn what IPDE is all about and how ZxApp IT supports End User
Development.
Since ZxApp IT is an End-User tool, it was designed to be usable right
out of the box (figuratively speaking). Please read on to discover some
of the things it can do without any customization. Please note that all
of the features you are reading about were built with and on top of the
core End User Development Tools.
Manage Your Time
ZxApp IT is designed as
one-stop-shop for getting your life in order. To help you manage your
time, it comes complete with a terrific set of Personal
Information Manager (PIM) features. They will help you to track and
manage just about anything, including notes, appointments, birthdays,
anniversaries, TO-DOs, contacts, addresses, passwords (securely), and
anything else you want. Define dates that repeat, receive reminders and
alerts, and view the whole thing in day-view, week-view, month-view,
year-view, list-view, or create your own view. But calling ZxApp IT a
PIM is like calling a computer a word processor. ZxApp IT is actually
an Integrated Personal
Development Environment (IPDE), Database, and Content Management
System with PIM functionality built into it and on top of it. With
ZxApp IT you can create your own web sites, backed by a fully-scriptable
templating engine. You can also create your own database applications.
ZxApp IT is backed by a sophisticated database that makes it EASY for
you to define your own types, and create relationships between them,
meaning you will be up-and-running within minutes.
Organize and store rich-text documents hierarchically. Embed your
contacts, appointments, TODOs, etc, into your documents, or just put
them in the database if they don't fit in any particular document.
Then, perform incredibly powerful text search and/or record queries to
locate what you need, when you need it.
View your appointments, anniversaries, TODOs, etc, in day-view, week-view, month-view, year-view, list-view, or create your own view.
Never miss another appointment. Keep on track and on schedule by having ZxApp IT alert you when you have somewhere to be!
Manage Your Information
To help you manage your information, it provides a means of (a) storing,
(b) managing, (c) searching/querying, and (d) publishing all of your
personal information. You can create rich text documents and organize
them hierarchically. What makes ZxApp IT so unique is that it actually
integrates narrative and record-based information into one cohesive
whole. At the heart of ZxApp IT is an unique, powerful, and highly
performant in-memory database. Instead of having monolithic tables like
a typical database, ZxApp IT allows you to define Types, and then
embed Records directly into your text. Instead of having rows
(in a table), ZxApp IT has records. Records flow naturally within a
document formatted for optimal human comprehension by a WYSIWYG (What
You See Is What You get) editor... ZxApp IT allows users to manage
these documents (HTML documents to be exact) in a hierarchical
collection. The ZxApp IT database is contained within the
collective-whole of the text contained within all of the nodes of the
hierarchical collection of documents. Users can create new records using
a set of user-friendly graphical tools. But they can also create new
database records by declaring them right inside their documents! To
ensure data integrity, the document is checked when the user is done
editing it.
At the heart of ZxApp IT is an unique, powerful, and highly performant
in-memory database. Instead of having tables, like a typical database,
ZxApp IT has Types. Instead of having rows (in a table), ZxApp
IT has records. Records flow naturally within a document formatted for
optimal human comprehension by a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You get)
editor... ZxApp IT allows users to manage these documents (HTML
documents to be exact) in a hierarchical collection. The ZxApp IT
database is contained within the collective-whole of the text contained
within all of the nodes of the hierarchical collection of documents.
Users can create new records using a set of user-friendly graphical
tools. But they can also create new database records by declaring them
right inside their documents! To ensures data integrity, the document
is checked when the user is done editing it.
What are the advantages of this type of database?
It's Easy
Unlike a traditional database program, you can understand ZxApp IT and
be up-and-running within minutes. After five minutes of showing someone
the basics, they are ready to jump in with both feet. After an hour
later, they're ready to show off the types they created to help them
manage their rental properties, or their baseball cards, or their
customers, or their student. Its so simple, and yet it can be used for
just about anything. What makes it so easy is that you already have 95%
of the skills necessary to become proficient with ZxApp IT. Oh, but
it's that last 5% that make ZxApp IT so amazing.
Integration!
Most traditional database systems are disjointed. For instance, you
create contacts, and you create appointments, but you lose the context
under which those items were created. Its rigid! Next, try to enter
all that data, flipping madly from screen to screen in a traditional
organizer, during a teleconference. Most people enter their notes into
a text document (or note-taking program) during the meeting, then go
back after the meeting to formally enter the data into their organizer.
Why?!?! With ZxApp IT, you can enter that new contact directly into
your meeting minutes as you are in the meeting. Likewise, you type that
new appointment directly into your meeting minutes. There is no
flipping madly from screen to screen. When you're done, your meeting
minutes are conveniently located under a hierarchical node that pertains
to your WORK. Your new Contact automatically shows up in the Contacts
view. Your new Appointment shows up on the Calendar view, complete with
alerts and any repeat occurrences. When you create a new view in the
future that pertains to Contacts, your new contact will be there. You
can query the data like a traditional database, or you can perform
highly sophisticated text-based searches on it. Its all about the
integration of qualitative and quantitative information.
With a traditional database, the rigid structure gets in the way. Did I
place that registration information in the TODO task when it was
completed? Or is it in a note somewhere? Or is it in the passwords
database? Did I create that new record as an Appointment, an
Anniversary, or a Meeting? Was this the cancelled appointment that I
made at the Monday meeting that I accidentally forgot to delete, or is
it the revised version that we agreed upon in the Tuesday meeting? With
ZxApp IT there is no mistake. Just look in the meeting minutes!
Data Mining
How does the brain work? Well, maybe that's something we're not going
to nail down in the next five minutes. But for the most part our brains
automatically categorize data for us. We don't have to stop during an
experience, and say, "OO... Bring up the 'Fun' file, I want to save
this!" The brain does this automatically. And it doesn't just save the
experience in the "fun" file, it saves it in the "water skiing" file,
the "good lakes to visit" file, and the ever-popular "put more sun-tan
lotion on when you're going to spend a day in the sun" file, etc.
I'm not sure the brain really has all of those different files. I think
the brain actually just has awesome software for locating relevant data.
Incidentally, this is also how ZxApp IT works. It is designed to allow
the user to enter their data in the most convenient format. In the
process, ZxApp IT also captures the chronological aspect that most
organizers miss. Then, it offers an awesome set of tools for locating
relevant data. This is referred to as data mining. With
the advent of the internet era, data mining has become a household term.
Search engines have made data mining the de-facto standard for
organizing information. ZxApp IT takes it one step further, by
expanding the lexicon of written language, in a very simple way, to
incorporate formal records.
How does it work?
First, we have to define a Type. Don't worry because ZxApp IT
comes with lots of predefined types to get you up and running quickly.
Later you can modify the predefined types and/or create new types as
you feel the need.
An example of a Type would be a Contact. We define a Contact to have a
Name, Phone Number, and Email Address. This is all done in an editor
that makes the process very easy. Then, we simply create records like
this; @Contact { Name: Bob Jones, Phone Number: 555-1212, Email
Address: bjones@wherever.com } ... Formatting is irrelevant... So
declare the next contact like this:
@Contact
{
Name: Sam Smith
Phone Number: 555-1212
Email Address: ssmith@wherever.com
}
Cool, eh? It gets cooler. Now type "@co" and hit [CONTROL]-[SPACE].
ZxApp IT auto-completes the entry for you and brings up a helper dialog
to enter the data. Enter the name, hit tab (or arrow-down), enter the
phone number, hit tab (or arrow-down), enter the email address, and hit
ENTER. Like magic, the record is placed into the document, and the
cursor returns back in the editor for you to finish typing your
document. No mouse necessary. It's addictive!
Got a typo in a record? Arrow back to the type declaration (@Contact)
and hit [CONTROL]-[SPACE] to get the record back in the helper dialog.
Or just double click it with your mouse. Arrow through the fields of
the record, make your changes, and hit [ENTER]. The document is updated
with your changes.
If you've done something silly, ZxApp IT will catch it when you're done
editing the document and give you a chance to fix it. And if you don't
know the format for something, like how to tell ZxApp IT that you want
an appointment to repeat itself weekly, don't sweat it! There's a
graphical tool for selecting dates, repeats, and alerts. There are lots
of graphical tools to help you. It's easy! Seeing any trends?
From a data perspective, a record in ZxApp IT can be thought of in the
same way as a record in any database. You can query it. You can create
Views of it. You can even select it and edit it directly from a view.
Why didn't anybody think of this before?
Good question! Actually, there's a good answer too. Traditional
databases operate under the assumption that your data will not all fit
in memory at the same time. Twenty years ago this was a terrific
assumption. For a large corporation, this might still be a good
assumption... Maybe or maybe not... But if you put the database in
memory, then all operations become about one thousand times faster.
Anybody been to an electronics store lately? You can't buy a new
computer with less than a gigabyte of ram. Worried about running out of
memory? Don't. To give you some perspective, the King James version of
the bible takes about 5 megabytes of memory. So one gigabyte will hold
about 200 bibles. You won't run out of space, unless you plan to write
the equivalent of 200 bibles. Of course, if your personal productivity
hits that 200-bible threshold, you could always just go buy another
gigabyte for about $29. Get the picture?
So the answer is, "Even if someone had thought of it, it wasn't feasible
until the last few years." Today its not only feasable, but its
available and affordable to just about everyone.Never miss another
appointment. Keep on track and on schedule by having ZxApp IT alert you
when you have somewhere to be!
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