Month Year Issue

February 1999 Issue: 7

Journal of Conceptual Modeling
www.inconcept.com/jcm

Editor's Notes: 2000 Bandwagons
By Scot A. Becker

Welcome to the New Year!

While is may seem a little late for New Years wishes, our publishing schedule dictates that I wish you well in 1999 -- in February. We're also glad to still be around and starting second year of publishing the Journal of Conceptual Modeling. I think this little electronic journal has done pretty well. We've had a lot of great content, and have made many improvements. This issue also marks the first time we are distributing the JCM via e-mail. We're glad to be meeting reader demands. If you'd like to receive the next issue of the JCM via e-mail, please see the mailing lists page. Further, we have a few other lists you may be interested in, such as our announcements list, which will inform you when new content (such as new issues or major updates) is put online. We also have an author reminder's list to inform our authors (and potential authors) of upcoming deadlines. As if that isn't enough, our discussion list is starting to grow. More on this below:

The JCM Discussion List

The JCM Discussion list is starting to pick up, but we still need more members to get the maximum benefit of an e-mail list. We're already starting to get some lively discussions which you shouldn't miss out on. The list is free and it shouldn't bombard your inbox too much. For more information of the JCM discussion list and all of our lists please see the mailing lists page. Come on... join the fun!

The Bookstore

I'm surprised (but proud nonetheless) that our bookstore has already generated revenue during the couple of months it has been online. The revenue will go straight to charity -- we won't keep a dime. We haven't made the donation yet, as we are still deciding on the charity, but we are leaning towards donating the money towards Diabetes research. This disease has impacted us, and we feel the best spot to start giving is right at home. So, help us along. If you see a book in the bookstore that you might want to purchase, click right on it and we'll get a portion of the proceeds to donate. Also, if you are planning on buying anything from Amazon, please link to amazon through the bookstore (just click on the Amazon logo) as we can make a donation from those proceeds as well. You can get your book(s) and can help millions of people all at the same time. Cool, huh?

Speaking of Books

Have you tried to order Dr. Terry Halpin's definitive text on ORM, Conceptual Schema and Relation Database Design, 2nd Edition? I bet it was hard, to say the least. I'm glad to announce that a 1999 revised edition of this Bible of database design is being published by WytLytPub. The book should be ready for purchase by mid-February and has a suggested retail price of $45 (on average, cheaper that the original 2nd edition). For more information or to reserve your copy, contact WytLytPub at WytLytPub@worldnet.att.net. Additionally, I'm told WytLytPub is also currently working on making the text available via standard retailers (such as Amazon).

If you don't have this text, I strongly recommend you buy it; especially if you compare it to some of the database model junk (and by "junk", I am using the polite term) that costs you more than $45. However, Dr. Halpin wanted me to make it clear that aside from some minor changes and corrections, this 1999 version contains no substantial amount of new content. So, if you already own a copy, and aren't a book-collecting dork such as myself, you may not need to buy the 1999 edition.

Then again, I like Terry, so buy 5 or 6 copies. Maybe he'll buy me a beer or something....(s)

Yet another 2000

The next major release of Visio, code-named "Farpoint", will supposedly be named "Visio2000".

I'm trying really, really hard not to make sarcastic comments here.

Suffice it to say that I think (being the computer geek I am) that the Star Trek reference is way cooler than any Microsoft bandwagon name. The Envision website, however, refers to this product as "Farpoint", so perhaps the 2000 is just a marketing prank. Then again, how many funny marketers do you know? (Just kidding, of course.)

As I teased many Visio staffers about this, many of them were surprised to learn about this new name for Visio 6.0. Thus, you probably heard it here first, folks!

By the way, any one wanna make bets on my suspected marketing campaign for this, "Visio, the official drawing tool for the new millennium"?

I thought not.

And here I've been trying not to rant....

Anyway, Visio does have a conference coming up (in March) in Chicago. They have timed to to coincide with a VB conference, so it promises to be interesting. You can find more information at http://www.visio.com/envision/.

Preface

In this issue of the JCM, Dr. Terry Halpin gives us his 7th installment on UML and ORM, Pat Hallock talks about the very roots of a conceptual model, Dr. John Sharp has an article on the Zachman Framework and, as always, has provided us with another analysis problem and last issue's solution.

Scot A. Becker is a software consultant and the founder of Orthogonal Software Corporation. He is also a certified ORM consultant and trainer, a certified Visio trainer, and former Editor of the Journal of Conceptual Modeling.

Contact Information:

Scot A. Becker
Orthogonal Software Corporation
scot@orthogonalsoftware.com
www.orthogonalsoftware.com