When you use a flight tracking app on your phone to see where a flight is it’s very possible that location data has been crowd sourced. Pretty cool!

Sites like FlightAware.com and FlightRadar24.com use feeds of data from people around the world to help build their datasets. Participating in those feeds is open to anyone who has some basic equipment. This works by listening to the ADS-B and Mode-S signals transmitted by aircraft.  These signals identify aircraft and in some cases include positional data. It’s very easy to listen for these signals using a 1090Mhz antenna and an ADS-B receiver. A couple of years ago I bought some equipment on Amazon, hooked up the software running on a Raspberry Pi and got started feeding it to FlightAware.com. 

However, recently I stepped things up a notch with a new better antenna and dockerizing my setup. More on that in a moment, but first …

Getting started – for those who want to try this themselves

If you want to try this out yourself you will need some basic equipment:

• Raspberry Pi
• ADS-B USB stick
• Antenna

You can buy kits with everything you need from FlightAware on Amazon with everything included.

Once you have your equipment the best place to start is with PiAware – FlightAware’s Raspberry Pi pre-configured software. It walks you through everything needed to get you up and running and feeding their network with your juicy tracking data.

You should  be up and feeding the network in an hour or two:

The “good” with the PiAware guide is it’s the simplest build process, the “bad” is that it’s specific to flight aware and doesn’t set you up to feed other providers.

“Need more input!” – Short Circuit (1986)

Eventually you might find yourself wanting more “range”.  The small indoor antenna might let you track aircraft 30mi/50kms away, depending on the terrain around you, line of sight and trees etc…

When you “need more input” you will need a better antenna. This may possibly require some WAF (“wife acceptance factor”) (or HAF, husband acceptance factor) … as it will likely require putting something outdoors and, for best results, on your roof.

I recently upgraded to the FlightAware made outdoor antenna.

My situation called for mounting it externally on the roof along a gutter line.  Ideally I would have mounted it on a peak of the roof, but I didn’t feel comfortable drilling holes in my roof, so opted for a mount that let me hang it from under the eaves.

Satellite Under Eave Mount 1 5/8

Here is what the setup looks like mounted.

The new outdoor setup and better antenna really bumped up my coverage.  Even without optimal mounting (as you can see there are trees on the south side of our house) range went from < 50mi to ~150-200mi in some directions.

Dockerizing all the things

I like Docker containers. They make my life simple for running different apps and services on one box and it seemed to make sense to me that you should be able to run the piaware software and dump1090 software in containers instead of on the Raspberry Pi directly.

I came across an article “Get eyes in the sky with your Raspberry Pi” by Alex Ellis who had done just that! In Alex’s setup however the configuration of the containers is baked into the docker images at build time which isn’t ideal.  I made some improvements like moving all configuration to Environment variables and added Docker-Compose support.

You can find the code and instructions here: https://github.com/LoungeFlyZ/eyes-in-the-sky

With everything in Docker containers it was relatively simple to add a feeder to another tracking site FlightRadar24.com.  They also provide software “fr24feed” that takes a feed from dump1090 and processes/uploads it. You can find optional instructions in the ReadMe file on how to add this pretty simply.

Summary

I love this stuff.  It’s a fun project with hardware and software aspects to it.  Hanging out of a second story window being held by my wife around the waist was a “hilarious” exercise that I suggest every marriage attempts at some point.

I still have some re-wiring to do in the attic to secure the wiring a bit more, and possibly add some more feeders to feed other tracking sites before I’m complete with the project too. 

Going forward I’m not sure what is next for this project yet.  I’m sure there is more to be done and that I’ll likely be mounting more hardware the roof at some point! LOL.

I hope you can enjoy the frivolity of a project like this as much as I do!

-CJ

Call me weird … but i like clear ice in my drinks for some odd reason. So I went on a mission to learn how to make it at home.

Note: This is amost totally pointless. It tastes the same, is just as cold (i think)… but it looks sweet!

Here is how I do it:

-= Making the Ice =-
1. Boil lots of water
2. Let it cool to room temperature (dont skip this step)
3. Boil it again
4. Let it cool to room temperature (yes, again)
5. Fill a small cooler with the water. Leave about 10cm (4″) of room at the top
6. Take the lid off the cooler or leave the lid open
7. Put the cooler in your freezer
8. Leave it for 24 hours
9. Take the cooler out of the freezer and it will be frozen on the top 8cm (3″) or so
10. Slide a knife down the side of the block and ease it around the block. This will let in air and release the block
11. Take the block out carefully and use a knife to remove sharp bits

-= Cutting it/Shaping it=-
Note: I have not mastered this bit yet

1. get a saw or knife and score the block where you want to cut it.
2. Place knife on score line and knock/hit it with a rubber mallet
3. Hopefully it will break cleanly
4. repeat until you have the rough blocks you want
5. Use a hot fry pan to shape the blocks and make perfect sides of the block

Bask in the glory of your perfectly clear ice.

-CJ

Today Microsoft announced the much anticipated competitor to Slack called Microsoft Teams.

At the core Teams is all about lightweight team to collaboration spaces that include in persistent chat, docs, notes, instant message, video calls and more. It really brings together many parts of Office 365 into one experience and is simple and easy for users.

Why is this so important for Office 365? Well, in short, Microsoft has had all these pieces of technology for many years but has not brought them together in a cohesive application experience for users …. Until now.

I’m excited about Microsoft Teams! For some time many have marveled at Slacks simplicity and therefore friction free collaborative experience, but winced at having to manage, purchase and integrate yet another application. Teams is baked into Office 365 and it comes for free. Is it as good as Slack? We don’t know yet. It’s only in preview currently and only time will tell. But it’s off to a good start.

Reliance on people profile data is more important than ever

Virtually all the new experiences going into Office 365 have people at the center of them. Microsoft Teams is no different.

People are at the center of Microsoft Teams. However, to get the best experience in Teams, and to make it as compelling and interesting as the demos suggested, you must have great people profile information.

Org charts

Take for example the org chart they showed in the demo. Looks great and gives you all the information you need to know when looking where in the organization someone sits. It’s also interactive and you can navigate around etc…

But 75%+ of companies don’t have the org structure data needed in Office 365 to power this feature!

Photos everywhere

Or take the photo thumbnails that show everywhere to help you connect with the person you are IM’ing with and make it more personal.

Those photos come from Azure AD and Office 365. If you don’t have your users profile photos in AD then chances are you will be getting a subpar experience in Teams.

Bots and automation

WhoBot was another example of how people profile information is powering new experiences. WhoBot is a chat bot that lets you look up people in the organization based on their name or skills for example. Again, all this is driven from people profile information in Office 365.

So what if you don’t have great profile data?

Most organizations don’t have great data in Active Directory, Azure Active Directory or Office 365 profiles. So don’t worry, you are not alone 🙂

This is why we created Hyperfish to help organizations understand their profile data and then complete or fix the missing or incorrect information.

Our mission is to make experiences like Microsoft Teams, Delve, people search experiences everything they should be with complete and accurate profile data.

If you don’t know what how good you profile data is you can try our free analysis app! It support Active Directory on-premises as well as Azure Active Directory / Office 365.

Try it out here: https://app.hyperfish.com

If you want to fix your data you can have Hyperfish reach out to users through email or IM to gather it from the folks missing data. e.g. missing photo photos, incorrectly formatted phone numbers, non-standard addresses, non-standard job titles etc… Learn more here about the full Hyperfish product: https://hyperfish.com/

At Hyperfish we are pumped about Teams! The preview looks great and we cant wait to see what else comes as part of it before it is due for release in Q1 of 2017.

We hope you enjoy these new capabilities and get in touch if you need a hand with keeping your people profile data clean and up to date!

-CJ

At Ignite 2016 I did a quick 20 min theatre session in the expo hall on driving better adoption with your Office 365 rollout by leveraging people centric features. A lot of organizations dont make it part of their plan to ensure they have the right people profile data set up to make the best use of the ever expanding range of experiences in Office 365 that rely on it.

They are letting their users down, IT down and the business down.

Successful adoption means focusing on users

In Office 365 most of the profile data comes from Azure Active Directory. Sadly, it’s all too common to see it poorly populated.

As an example, here are some charts from our Hyperfish Directory Analyzer tool that are very common:

Missing this data impacts your Office 365 deployment. Some are simple yet important and others are business criticial.

Here are the Top 10 things I felt are the most common things people are missing out on due to poor profile data that drive better user adoption and use of these tools.

#1 – Delve People Profiles

Microsoft is investing in making the Delve people profile pages THE definative profile page in Office 365 for users. Search etc… will use these. Without great data these look bland and dont provide users the information they need to find and connect with people quickly.

Delve without good data

Delve with good profile data

#2 – Contact cards everywhere

Contact cards pop up in all sorts of places e.g. in Outlook (clicked 10s of millions of times a month no less!) Without great data they make it hard to connect and discover people.

Poor example

Populated contact card

#3 – New SharePoint experiences

SharePoint is in the middle of a visual makeover in Office 365. More people data drive experiences like the new rich contact panels will be popping up all over the place.

New SharePoint contact popups

#4 – Mobile SharePoint Intranet

Along with better desktop web experiences, SharePoint have released new mobile apps to help you find and connect with people while you are on the move. Great for finding someone’s phone number while out and about.

Mobile people profile

#5 – Office apps

There are plenty of places in Office applciations like Word and Excel where people information pops up. For example while co-authoring a document with someone else. Good profile data makes it a much nicer experience for seeing who is in the document.

Co-Authoring in Word

#6 – Dynamic Distribution Lists in Exchange

Not many people know, but you can create dyanmic distribution lists that include people that have specific words in their profiles. Great way to ensure that all Sales people are in the right DLs!

Dynamic DLs in Exchange online.

#7 – Workflows

One of the most common people want to do in workflows is excalate a task to someone’s manager if they out of the office or take too long to respond. Without good organization heirachy data in profile this isnt possible! This means people have to write more code to look it up from somewhere else e.g. HR system, or replicate the data somewhere else (which will become stale the day after).

Nintex workflow in Office 365

#8 – People Search

Here is a test. Go to your search portal in Office 365, flip to the people search tab and type “Sales”. Did you get great results? Probably not. People search is driven by people profile data and without it search is hard to use and find the right people at the right time.

Rich people search results in Office 365

#9 – Groups

Groups are slowly becoming the new team sites for projects etc… They are rich with people data and conversations. Make sure they sing with decent profiles.

Office 365 Groups

#10 – Skype for Business

Skype for Business uses people profile data for its Search, dialing and in calls. If you dont have good profile data you cant find the right people in search, you cant dial people if they have poorly formatted phone numbers and you dont get to see who you are talking to without nice profile pictures. Help remote users connect with one another by ensuring their experience rocks.

Skype for Business

Summary

These are just a few of the experiences I think most people are missing out on in Office 365 due to poor profile data. I founded Hyperfish to help people whip their people profiles into shape and start making these experiences rock for users thus driving satisfaction, adoption and reuse of the tools you have already bought.

I hope you are getting the most out of your Office 365 investment and not letting something like profile data get in the way of users loving it.

-CJ

Exciting news! Last week we released a beta of our free directory analysis product! 

This is the first small step towards a much larger product we have coming later in September at Microsoft’s Ignite conference for helping organizations leverage their investments in SharePoint and Office 365 better. It will ensure organizations have rock solid people profile data in their directories to power experiences like profiles, Delve, search, personalized intranets, automated business process decision making and more.  But more on that in the coming weeks (stay tuned to www.hyperfish.com also).

So what does this directory analysis do?

Simply put, it scans your on-prem Active Directory or online Azure Active Directory and tells you interesting facts and figures about the completeness and accuracy of your users profile data. We send you a report on what we find.

We have been testing it with our beta users and now we are ready to have others try it out.

It’s a Beta, you might hit a bug and hopefully will have feedback for us! If you do, please reply to the email you get from us with your thoughts.

Try it out here:  https://app.hyperfish.com

We would love any feedback you have! Also feel free to reach out if you hit any issues on twitter @LoungeFlyZ

Thanks!