From Where I Sit: Watching the Grass Grow

By Larry Eiss

The lawn at Red Fox Run is a verdant carpet surrounding a glistening blue pond, adorned with numerous trees, and flowing over hills and valleys. When the sun caresses it by day and the rain brings sustenance by night the neat Berber-like emerald becomes lush shag. This spring was nearly perfect and at times it seemed that we could sit on the dock and watch the transformation. To reset the cycle to its beginning we use a large commercial mower, which longtime readers may recall was out of commission last summer for want of a new transmission.

As spring began to colorize the landscape I looked forward to days of riding around the brilliant mat, farmer-tanning in the sun. Since our grassy carpet comprises some eight acres I get to reflect on its beauty some eight hours each week. After several weeks of tranquility however, the powerful mowing machine decided that the time had come once again for a rest. Although in my optimism I failed to grasp at the outset that this "rest" was actually to be the mower’s retirement, it was nonetheless true.

The connecting rods on both pistons had broken. This left me with four options: I could rebuild the engine; I could replace the engine; I could buy a new mower; or I could watch the grass grow and learn to see the beauty in eight more acres of hay. After obtaining the wise council of respected advisors and careful consideration of all the options I came to the reluctant conclusion that replacement was the most viable and financially prudent decision.

The gleaming red machine rolled off the trailer purring contentedly. Clearly there had been a few refinements, but it looked basically like its predecessor and came from the same manufacturer. I anticipated the same excellent performance.

As I spent more time with my newly acquired lawn recycler I began to discover enhancements. The new machine is longer, so I have more room. Instead of relying on the pressure of my body weight on the seat to ensure that the mower shuts off if the pilot is no longer aboard, the new unit uses a foot plate so when I adjust myself in the seat, the engine no longer sputters. In addition, the engine is 11 percent more powerful. This is a great improvement. Thick grass no longer slows the cutters so shag is converted to Berber more uniformly. The greatest benefit, however, is performance. Where cutting the entire lawn with the older unit took me eight hours, the new one gets it done in six!

This issue of the WebFOCUS Newsletter will arrive on your desk or in your inbox concomitant with the availability of WebFOCUS Release 5.3. Like my new lawn-care solution, the latest version of the WebFOCUS business intelligence solution looks very similar to its predecessor. The two are also similar in that they have some important and useful enhancements.

For example:

	The ad hoc tools (Report and Graph Assistants) have a new and more familiar look
	There is a new graph engine under the hood that produces boardroom-quality output
	The Resource Layout Painter has new functionality, including a calendar control
	Compound Reports are supported in Microsoft Excel – new worksheets can be created for each report request or on each sort break
	The text editor of your choice can be called by WebFOCUS Developer Studio
	Product installation has been simplified and more configuration options are set automatically
	ReportCaster supports Informix and Sybase
	A new Web services adapter allows WebFOCUS to consume Web services, seamlessly using them as data sources
	The WebFOCUS Business Intelligence Dashboard has several new banner templates and color themes can propagate to the ad hoc tools
	There is a host of other features in the new release as well

I’m headed home to enjoy a sunny tour of the landscape and bask in my newfound productivity. From where I sit upgrading is a very smart move; I recommend it highly! Take a look at WebFOCUS Release 5.3. Enhanced productivity awaits.