July 21, 2010, 10:10 AM
by David Strom
Last week I had leaky capacitors on my Dell Optiplex, I couldn't get any reception on my iPhone 4 because my hands were shorting out the antenna, my Toyota nearly killed me due to faulty parts and the waters of the Mississippi continued to rise. I think I need to call my own personal liability lawyer just to get out of bed.
Maybe I am just feeling my own mortality a bit more. We are all
getting older, and no place is that more true than on Facebook, where
the fastest growing population segment is the over 65-set. Yes, kids,
grandma and grandpa have discovered your digital playground. And they
are there to stay, too.
It does seem that our digital lives have gotten more complicated
lately too. What with posting all my status updates on Facebook,
LinkedIn, and Twitter, sending to my network the latest books that I
am reading on Goodreads.com, my current location on FourSquare.com,
tagging various pieces of content to Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon,
posting restaurant reviews to Urbanspoon, recommending songs that I
like to Pandora, there are only so many hours in the day left to
delete all those male enhancement emails, including the ones I am now
getting in Chinese.
Okay, perhaps I exaggerate a bit: I do have a spam folder and it works
rather well. But it does seem that there is a social network for just
about every aspect of our daily lives, and what few places are absent
it is only a matter of time before someone invents one.
In that spirit, it is worth taking a look at an essay that I wrote
about social networking policies about a year ago if you don't
remember it:
http://strom.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/five-tips-to-being-more-professional-on-social-networks/
Since then, I have had some other thoughts. One of the comments was
"the [users of social networks] should be aware that their colleagues,
bosses and/or prospective ones are now watching." And now you can add
your grandparents to that list too.
Certainly, what you post can influence your job-hunting prospects. We
now have the ritual purging of pictures and posts every June, right
after the graduation parties and requisite summer European discovery
backpacking trip (or better yet, now there is Couchsurfing.com, a
social network for people who want to crash on your couch).
One young 20-something that I know who is entering the job market
wrote to me asking me for my recommendation letter of reference. We
emailed back and forth about taking down his Facebook party pix, and I
reminded him that it wasn't just his own photo albums that he had to
be worried about - what about those pictures that he was tagged that
could create problems too? He had it covered. But I know that many
recent grads aren't as thorough, or as concerned. They should be. I
hear from hiring managers all the time that these digital travails can
make the difference between one candidate and another getting an offer
letter.
And then there is the issue that earlier this summer reporter Octavia
Nasr left CNN after a Tweet she posted praising a leader of Hezbollah.
Never have 140 characters had a bigger personal impact.
Given this uptake in social media among consumers, businesses still
haven't gotten on board. A recent Yankee Group study
(http://bit.ly/9IW1et) shows that a third of those polled have no
formal processes in place or any social media corporate usage
policies, do not allow the use of social media at work or have no idea
if their company participates in social media. And while social media
growth among my generation is happening quickly, the study found that
half of the over-50 year old respondents stated that it wasn't
important for a business to have any social media presence.
We all have a lot to learn about how to use these tools - young and old alike.
June 30, 2010, 8:20 AM
by David Strom
With the news that earlier this month that the Air Force launched a new GPS satellite that can resolve your location down to a few feet, a growing number of location-based services are getting lots of attention for their ability to create new social opportunities. Just the other day I met up with an acquaintance at a local grocery store: he was updating his status on Foursquare as I was checking to see who else I knew on the service was in the store. I looked around and said hello, and we both went about our business, back to interacting with
our iPhones.
While Foursquare.com is the most popular, there are numerous other
services including Yelp.com, Google's Latitude, Whrrl.com, Loopt.com,
Brightkite.com, and Gowalla.com. There is even a site called
checkinmania.com that will track updates on three of these sites and
mash them up on a Google map together. These services all work in a
similar fashion: you download the app to your smartphone or use an
ordinary Web browser to indicate your current location. The smartphone
apps can make use of the built-in GPS to determine where you are and
present you with a list of potential businesses nearby. You claim one
of these as your current location (or create a new listing) and the
app notifies all your contacts where you are. The downside is that you
need to create a new network of contacts for each service, although
some of them can leverage your existing Twitter or Facebook address
list. Users get awarded points for frequent check-ins and get to
display that they are "mayors" of places that they frequent. (For some
odd reason, I am the mayor a drug store near my sister's apartment in
New York City. Go figure.)
But apart from providing new opportunities for stalkers and thieves
(pleaserobme.com is one notable site that used to list homes that were
unoccupied based on the occupant's status messages), what can IT
managers learn from these apps?
First, if you are going to get involved with these services, decide
early on which one you are recommending, if you are indeed going to
recommend any, for your user base to get behind. Each service has its
own network and can't share information elsewhere, other than on
Twitter or Facebook. The Wall Street Journal now has an icon where
readers can click on an "add to Foursquare" button similar to the
numerous "ShareThis" sites.
Second, understand the privacy issues that you create if your
employees start using these services frequently. Should you be able to
monitor someone's whereabouts during off hours? What if they are
supposed to be a business trip to Boise, but are really having a
soiree in Boston? Do the usage of these apps fall under the
responsibility of the human resources, legal, or IT departments?
Certainly, you should take a look at your existing privacy policies
and make sure you are covered. An article that tackles the larger
issues (think EZPass toll collection devices and red light cameras)
can be found on the Electronic Frontier's web site here.
http://www.eff.org/wp/locational-privacy
Next, if you don't have any corporate policy with what employees link
to their Facebook and Twitter accounts, even their private accounts,
now is the time to give this issue more thought. Should your people be
permitted or prohibited to tie these location services into their
status messages? Should you care that some of the status messages are
not suitable for the workplace?
If you have a retail business with an actual physical address, these
location services have become new ways to attract customers. You can
use the location services to publish limited time discounts or other
offers for frequent visitors. Many Bay Area restaurants are doing
this, for example, (and even a few here in St. Louis) and the entry
cost is minimal. Some consumer product companies are beginning to
pitch to Foursquare mayors as the influencers of their particular
locations. Writing for a blog seems like so yesterday. And I have
written about Aisle411, a startup company that is going very location
specific by allowing consumers to find the specific aisle in a big box
store that they are in.
Finally, these services can represent yet another tool in the arsenal
of digital background checks that hiring managers can use to research
your past. That means you might want to reconsider whether or not to
post that you are doing shots night after night at the local bar, or
even that you are at the local bar night after night.
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May 27, 2010, 11:44 AM
by David Strom
When was the last time you actually hauled out a printed copy of your dictionary and looked up the meaning or spelling of a particular word? I am thinking for me it has been at least a decade, and indeed I don't even own a printed copy anymore. Who needs all that paper when there are so many fine Web sites, such as M-W.com, dictionary.com, and even Google will give you a definition if you just precede your word of interest with the word define.
But looking stuff up on the Web is so last year; now we have an app
for that. Several apps, of course: on the Apple AppStore, there are
four free apps, including two from Dictionary.com for the iPad and the
iPhone apiece. And Dictionary.com has apps for Blackberries and
Android, as well as providing definitions on its Web site too.
The vendor has actually taken the time to analyze how people use their
apps and Web site to look up words. And they found some very
interesting trends that I will share with you here. For those of you
that are word nerds, enjoy.
First, iPhone users are more utilitarian and just want to get a
definition in the moment. They use them mostly during the workweek.
Same with the Blackberry and Android app users. iPad users are looking
for entertainment, if such a thing could be said about dictionary
usage. They are more likely to play the audio files to hear
pronunciation, getting the word of the day, and actually playing games
with their dictionary apps. They use their app on weekends more too
and spend about 25% more time on the app per session than the other
users.
Second, the mobile apps are getting more usage than the Web site,
about two or three times more often. It seems that people want to get
definitions when they are in the moment. I am sure the Dictionary.com
apps have settled quite a few bar arguments. But what is also apparent
from the Dictionary.com usage data is that "people are just as
interested in word discovery when there's no immediate need," says the
press release from the company.
So when you think about developing the next great iPhone app, think
about these analytics. Spend some time reviewing your user data to see
trends and patterns, and think about ways that your mobile app can
complement the content on your existing Web site. Satisfyingly, one of
the most often searched-for words using the Dictionary.com app is
erudite. You'll have to look it up.
May 19, 2010, 11:46 AM
by David Strom
In the past week, I have spent way too much time dealing with product
pricing issues on a number of fronts. It shouldn't be so hard to get a
price - my motto is that the harder it takes to find out pricing, the
less motivated customers are going to be to buy it.
Let's give you some circumstances. I am back again reviewing products
for eWeek (please, don't all email me about your products, PR folks).
For one review, it took four days, 10 emails and phone calls to get
the actual price of the product. The PR person initially sent me
something that looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics that didn't make any
sense to either of us (why did she send it, you might reasonably ask).
Of course, the vendor didn't have any prices on their Web site, at
least not that I could find.
As a journalist, this gets my goat. I often hear, "We don't want our
competitors to know about our pricing." Or "We use multiple tiers so
our VARs set their own prices." Hogwash. What these vendors are really
saying, "We don't have a clue what to charge for our product/service."
Shame on them!
For a client, I was recently working with them on their plan for their
new software release. One of my issues is its current pricing model,
which has five degrees of freedom:
* Number of PCs supported
* Three different "levels" or overall pricing tiers
* Overall capacity
* Two different software versions
* Other surcharges for extra features
That works out to many thousand different prices. You need a
spreadsheet to figure out what you are going to pay. Now, granted,
there are some complex software products out there and you don't want
to leave money on the table and charge fairly for your product. But
five different knobs to turn before you can calculate a price? Not
good.
I was a judge in a local competition put on by our county economic
development office to pick wining business plans that would receive a
nice $50k cash prize. In the five semi-finalist plans that I reviewed,
three of them were missing pricing information. The plans were well
thought out, had plenty of detail about the company's prospective
businesses, and even had copious pages of spreadsheets showing how the
business was going to make tons of money in year 4. But without the
actual price of the product or service, this information is just a lot
of hot air. How can you tell if your business is going to be
competitive? What is the sensitivity of your price to your market? I
asked these questions of my semi-finalists and you could see that they
just didn't make the connection. Uh-oh.
So folks, here's my advice. Keep it simple. Better yet, make a free
version available for a limited time or a limited number of users or
PCs or whatever. And if you can't put your prices online where your
customers can see them, then you shouldn't be in business.
May 5, 2010, 1:34 PM
by David Strom
I have been writing about the Web since it was nearly invented in the
early 1990s and one of my continued sources of amusement is the snake
oil search engine optimization vendors. Repeat after me: content is
king. Everything else is just a shell game.
In our rush to better our rankings, we tend to forget why people are
using search engines to begin with: to find the best content. Those
search sites that don't deliver (remember Altavista? Or Yahoo, for
that matter?) are going to find out really quickly that their users
will go elsewhere.
What does that mean for you as a Web site owner that is trying to move
up in the charts? It means you first have to focus on your content,
and deliver what your visitors want. It is a matter of managing
expectations, but also about making sure that your content is
continually tuned and adjusted to meet the needs of your ever-evolving
audience.
What it doesn't mean is hiring some SEO firm to tweak your meta tags,
flog your links, and hire a bunch of offshore keyboard pushers to
promote your pages.
I got a PR pitch for an SEO company that I would rather not promote
here, but the essence of their existence is that charge their clients
only after the desired rankings have been achieved, with a sliding
scale depending on whether you end up higher or lower than your goals.
This is just utter nonsense, although the company is growing by leaps
and bounds.
I coincidentally was meeting with a young entrepreneur here in St.
Louis last week who runs a real business that is based on carefully
tweaking search engine results. His name is Mark Sawyier
(mark.sawyier@offcampusmedia.com), and his business is in listing
apartments near major colleges around the country.
(Movingoffcampus.com is just one of dozens of domains that he owns.)
He is the cyberspace version of a major urban real estate developer:
he understands SEO, Google Analytics, and how to play in a game where
you live and die by your rankings and page views. He has managed to up
his pay per click rates from his sponsors because
a. He has tons of content - in this case apartment listings,
b. He has tons of relevant content - the apartments are listed by
proximity to campus and other things that students are searching for,
and
c. Results - because the people searching actually end up as renters
more often from his site than his competitors.
He told me: "The fact is that the combination of the constantly
changing algorithms search engines use to calculate rankings with
increased competition from other websites, guaranteeing someone a rank
and still playing by the rules, to me, is almost impossible. They
would need infinite resources and time and have to have a ridiculous
amount of startup capital to get it going."
I offer my own modest example to buttress what Mark says. I have a
page on my Web site that I have maintained for more than a decade. It
is a simple list of dozens of Web conferencing vendors, with some
basics on what they cost and what client platforms they support. I
spend about an hour a year on maintaining this listing.
A few years ago, I started getting unsolicited emails from vendors of
conferencing products who wanted me to list them on my list. Then I
realized why: a quick Google search on the term "web conferencing
services" has me in the top ten results. Did I stuff my page full of
keywords? Did I abuse my meta-tags? Did I hire a bunch of third-world
keyboarders to hit my page? Did I pay some SEO firm to work their
magic? Did I have some special insight into how Google ranks my page?
No, no, and no. I just doggedly set out to provide good content, week
after week. And gradually, this got results. It may take years, but
eventually, as Mark says, the best content will win.
So instead of gaming SEO or hiring someone to push you up the page
charts, think about making a quality website with tons of content.
Mark reminds me: "search engines are ALWAYS trying to connect people
that use them to search for information online with the absolute best
websites to provide it - the minute any of them lose sight of this
objective, they will stop being a good search engine. This is the core
concept behind all of the variables and algorithms that go into
calculating search engine rankings. And while external links and
proper SEO coding are certainly important elements in the battle, at
the end of the day, the most important thing is having a website that
provides the right answers and information to the searchers."
And if you really must hire someone to do your SEO, think of hiring
Mark. Off Campus Media offers campus, social media and search engine
marketing services using his own experience with building his own Web
sites.
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April 30, 2010, 10:13 AM
by David Strom
I spent last week visiting a data center tucked into an anonymous office park in Champaign, Ill. The data center is operated by Amdocs, a company that makes its money doing managed back office applications for telecom companies, such as Sprint, Metro PCS, and others. The visit was part of a general press briefing about what Amdocs is doing, but the term "single point of failure" kept coming up.
If you are going to host apps for telecom vendors, you have to know
what you are doing in terms of providing uptime. You need redundant
everything, from the plug that a router connects to for power to the
backup of the backup diesel generator that has to fire up when you
lose main AC power from the utility.
Actually, the most impressive part of the tour was the empty
"situation rooms" that Amdocs has built. They are empty because there
wasn't any crisis going on - each room is dedicated to a particular
customer and is where the account team gathers when they have a
problem to work on. Think "24" but with far nerdier people. And that
brings up a good point: what is the rest of CTU doing to protect the
other 300 million of us that aren't directly threatened by the current
plot? All the action is happening on the main stage. But I digress.
I started thinking about other IT managers who haven't completely
thought through this issue that I have met down through the years.
There was one manager at a very large financial services firm near
Washington DC that I interviewed a few years ago. Gazillions of
dollars a day pass through its computer networks, and as you might
imagine the firm had three Internet providers - not just two, but
three - to provide connectivity. Each provider had a separate path and
pole for their line from the firm's server room. Well, that sounded
all well and good until the day that a truck collision happened in the
Baltimore Harbor Tunnel - a main north-south artery about 50 miles
away. Trouble was all three of the Internet provider's lines went
through that tunnel and the firm was offline from the Internet until
they got things re-routed. Now they have four Internet providers, and
they got them to share their route maps (try doing this with yours,
and good luck) to make sure there was no single point of failure.
Another time I was helping another firm in Florida upgrade one of its
high-end network servers back in the late 1990s. This was a Tricord
server, which took an ordinary Intel CPU and wrapped it around all
sorts of redundant things: two power supplies, RAID hard drives, two
physical processors, separate memory, and so forth. We had to pull and
replace the network cards from this $40,000 server. This required
powering down the beast and opening it up. Sadly, the one thing that
wasn't redundant was the physical power plug that went from the server
into the wall - and the $25 part that the ordinary plug fit into went
south when we powered the unit down. It took a few white-knuckle hours
to locate a new part and get it over to us before we could bring the
Tricord up again. I bet no one thought that probably the least
sophisticated part in the whole machine was going to fail.
These days, you see lots of gear that have two physical power plugs,
and at Amdocs' data center they have two separate power paths just in
case one goes out. That means taking that path back to a generator and
line conditioning gear too.
Here is a story from my own mistakes, lest you think I am just harping
on my subjects here. Several years ago, I was running this email list
server on a friend's Linux server that was in his California basement.
The friend is one of the original Internet heavyweights, and knows his
systems and has plenty of backups. However, the day came when a lot of
flooding in his area knocked out all of his Internet connections, and
I wasn't able to access my list. Well, I thought I had all sorts of
backup procedures in place and had saved copies of the server list
configuration, so I could bring it up on someone else's server.
However, I had neglected to do one simple task - make a copy of the
names of everyone on my list. Now I do. You would think something this
simple would not have eluded me but you would think wrong.
So single point of failure: it is easier to say than to do. And when
you see what Amdocs had to do to deliver on this maxim, you would be
impressed.
April 20, 2010, 11:38 AM
by David Strom
Ken Auletta writes in this week's New Yorker about the complex world
of eBooks, the iPad, and the relationship among authors, computer
vendors, and book publishers.
He got me thinking of a radical plan to save my favorite bookstores
around the world. To cut to the chase, here it is:
1. Sell at these three digital book readers, such as iPad, Kindle, and Sony.
2. Sell various add-ons to these readers, including covers, lights,
skins, car power adapters and other stuff.
3. Pre-load these devices with eBook "staff picks" and have the staff
member show off their picks at various times of the week.
4. Beef up store Web sites to sell this gear online as well.
I know, it is probably unworkable, but a bold plan. Indy booksellers
are my trusted advisors to acquire new titles. I confess that I have
gone into these stores looking for new books to read, and sometimes
walked out having bought them on my iPhone at Amazon's Kindle store.
Shame on me! But if they adopt the Strom plan, they will bring me back
in, and not just for the lattes that they don't have.
Out of my five favorite booksellers' (Dolphin Books in my former home
town of Port Washington, NY, Left Bank Books here in St. Louis,
Powell's in Portland, Elliott Bay in Seattle, and City Lights in San
Francisco), only Powell's sells eBooks on their Web site. Dolphin
doesn't even have a Web site. None sell the hardware eReaders or any
accessories. Admittedly, this isn't a very scientific sample.
Yes, Barnes and Noble sells their Nook eReader, and Borders has the
Sony eReader in their stores. They also sell overpriced coffees and
baked goods too. Both chains have some in-store gimmicks to get you
interested in buying some etitles, but they are about as impersonal as
the rest of their miles of aisles. I want to go up to that
multi-pierced bespectacled androgynous 20-something sales clerk that
has plenty of 'tude to tell me what I should be reading next. I want
to hold the hardware in my hot little hands and get the contact rush
that I have visiting that technologic temple, the Apple Store. I want
to develop a relationship with my store, not just shop there for
stuff. And I want them to start making some money so they will still
be around in a few years, unlike record stores and encyclopedia
salesmen and daily newspapers.
All five of my stores have sections in their stores where they display
the titles that the staff recommends and typically a 3.x5 index card
with a handwritten description of why this book made the cut. Let's
get better than that and use digital marketing techniques. Pre-load
the eBooks themselves on the eReaders and let me take them home right
then and there.
Sure, I know this is a pain. You need someone who is a refugee from
the Apple Store, who has some software smarts, who can do the customer
service kinda thing. And the wholesale margins on the hardware are
slim. And you have to carry and stock and deal with returns on
something that costs more than $35. But would you pay a small markup
to get the units with, say, ten titles already to go? But think of the
in-store debates about which device is going to be better for your
situation. Yes, you can go into Best Buy and look at several different
units, but do you really trust their salesperson to sell you anything
other than a TV? (And that might be a stretch too, come to think of
it.)
It is ironic that the three biggest vendors in the eBook space
(Google, Amazon and Apple) are all organizations that are difficult to
nearly impenetrable for authors and the general public, late night
personal emails from Steve Jobs notwithstanding. It is time for some
brave eBook VAR to package my plan for the indy booksellers and
dominate this market niche.
(In interests of full disclosure, I have written three books, two
published. None have made back their advances. Were I to write another
book, I would do it as a self-published eBook first.)
April 14, 2010, 12:48 PM
by David Strom
I was talking to Paul and Dana Gillin about their new book, called the
Joy of Geocaching. I would urge you to buy this book, even if you
aren't interested in the sport. You'll see why in a moment.
Today's column isn't about finding small objects hidden in plain sight
across the landscape. (It is actually more interesting than I make it
sound.) It is about how online relationships can fuel and shape how we
interact with our colleagues in the real world. You know, that
environment that exists outside our desktops?
Our newspapers and Web sites are filled with stories about how the
nature of friendship has become devalued as we go about connecting on
MyLinkFaceSpace et al. But what few have covered is how the online
world creates new kinds of communities, and builds trusted
relationships that carry on in the real world of face-to-face
interaction. And that is where the Gillins' book comes into play. In
it, they tell stories of geocachers and how they have come to enjoy
finding and hiding these objects.
There is one story of a woman who travelled to Toronto on a business
trip with several colleagues. She left them at the airport, and was
picked up by a stranger - with the only thing in common being that
both were cachers. How many of us would climb into a car in another
country with nothing more than exchanging a few emails? That involves
a certain level of trust and comfort that just doesn't happen in the
real world.
Other examples are people that use the Meetup.com site to find people
of similar circumstances. And of course there are the online dating
sites, too. Crowdsourcing is another. I am sure you could think of
other examples.
This use of online connections to prime the pump for a face-to-face
meeting happens more and more frequently because we are doing more
than just sending emails, or friend requests, or linking to others via
online sites. We are sharing a common bond, a series of interests. We
are building an authoritative source of content, context and identity.
And along the way, we start shaping these micro-communities one person
at a time.
Yes, there are people who pride themselves on having thousands of
"friends" or who can connect with celebs and CEOs alike. But that
isn't what today's Internets are all about.
Yes, it takes a village. But increasingly, our villages are formed
online and with hyper-specific interests - not just because we share a
common street block or elementary school classroom of our children.
This is nothing new. The early bulletin board systems were great at
this. But what is new is the potency of these relationships, and how
quickly they can come to fruition.
Sure, I belong to lots of different communities, some based here in
St. Louis, some that include people from all over the world. And my
biggest community is you, the Web Informant reader. Or I hope so. Do
share some of your own online/offline relationship stories with my
readers on strominator.com if you feel so inclined.
April 6, 2010, 10:01 AM
by David Strom
This week's missive is written by Dennis Fowler, one of the members of
the Internet Press Guild (IPG). He tells the story better than I, a
story about how a small community helped its own.
Before the internet, before Windows was a gleam in Bill Gates' eye,
Ross Greenberg pioneered computer anti-virus software. In the mid '80s
his Flu-Shot protected against all 81 viruses loose at the time. It's
impossible to know how many computer users owed the health of their
systems to his work. Ross also became a computer journalist, and in
the '90s, a member of the IPG (www.netpress.org), a non-profit
organization promoting excellence in journalism about the Internet.
Also, for the last two decades he has battled the relentless,
crippling onslaught of Multiple Sclerosis.
But the slow decline in his physical abilities couldn't slow his
active mind. When Ross could no longer type he used voice activation,
dictating articles to his computer, sending them over the internet,
first from his home office in upstate New York, then from Atlanta,
Georgia, where he'd relocated so his wife and caregiver had family
support.
Then, early this year, the marriage crumbled, and he found himself in
a nursing home, confined to a motorized wheelchair, his computer left
behind, without even a phone of his own. While his mind was still
clear, he was cut off from his livelihood, his IPG colleagues, the
internet, the world.
Ross's plight came to the attention of the IPG when, through the
generosity of Rebecca, the home's administrator, he painstakingly
pecked out a brief e-mail, using one finger, to a fellow IPG member,
who passed word along to the Guild.
Naturally the IPG wanted to help. A valued colleague was imprisoned by
circumstance. Could the money be found for at least an inexpensive
laptop computer and an internet connection so Ross could rejoin the
world?
IPG members, many of whom had never met Ross, opened their wallets.
Even those who were themselves struggling with unemployment and a
shrinking market came up with $10 or $25. Within days they'd pledged
more than enough to buy a laptop and get him back online. The nearest
IPG member, an hour and a half north of Atlanta, volunteered to
deliver the system.
Problem solved?
Not exactly.
With his handicaps, Ross needed the muscles and know-how of someone in
the Atlanta area to help him. He needed voice activation software, a
microphone. Even the simple act of slipping a CD into a drive was a
challenge, hooking up cables an impossibility. With no IPG members in
the immediate area, a plea for help went out to the Atlanta PC User's
Group (ATLPCUG), a group of people who'd never heard of the IPG. Who
only knew of Ross from the dark ages of computer history or as a
byline in a magazine.
Despite this they immediately responded. ATLPCUG President Tom Baley
contacted long-time member Al Gruensfelder, President of Atlanta based
Always-Care ® Nursing Service, who agreed to help. Other ATLPCUG
members took up a collection at their March meeting and offered
hardware for the project.
Wisely, the first thing Gruensfelder did was vist Ross. A laptop, it
turned out, wasn't the best solution. Instead Gruensfelder offered to
retrieve Ross's massive, fully equipped but inoperative desktop
system. Still recovering from back surgery, with the help of Ross's
son, Al wrestled it into his van and took it to Frontech Computer
Inc., a business his company had worked with for twenty years.
Frontech's owner, Charley Jin, donated company workspace and labor by
Kevin Capossere, Frontech's Technical Manager. Campossere had to
virtually rebuild the system to get it running again, wrestling with a
major operating system upgrade, replacing damaged hardware. The money
donated by IPG and ATLPCUG members was used to replace parts, upgrade
software, purchase a table to hold the system and subscribe to CLEAR
Wireless for the Internet connection.
By late March, after countless trips by a tireless Al Gruensfelder
between various stores, Frontech and the home, punctuated with
imprecations to the digital gods, Ross Greenberg had his workstation,
on a two foot by four foot CostCo table raised on blocks to
accommodate his motorized wheelchair. He had an internet connection, a
new printer, a 24" monitor, and a new friend named Al. Three days
later he dictated an e-mail to the IPG. Ross was back!
Thanks to the efforts of a lot of good people, and donations from
across the country, Ross Greenberg is again active in cyberspace, the
internet extending his mind's reach far beyond the walls of his
nursing home room. Now he is working with other nursing home residents
to bring them in touch with friends and relatives via the internet.
Proving once again what a powerful force computers, the internet and
friends from around the world can be in drawing people together,
enabling the disabled who can, in turn reach out to help others.
March 30, 2010, 9:31 AM
by David Strom
Last week we witnessed the first Cyber War, but it didn't go down
quite as many of us expected. Instead of a group of anonymous hackers
trying to take over thousands of infected PCs or trying to cut off
access to critical infrastructure, we saw Google declare the first
salvo in its war against Chinese censorship by moving its servers to
Hong Kong.
The more I thought about this, the more I realized that this was war,
declared by a private company on a nation state. Just because Google
doesn't have its own army (yet), or that no actual physical weapons
were fired doesn't make it any less of a battle. And it is only going
to get worse for all of us as other private firms realize that they
need to take control over their servers and intellectual property.
What is curious is how few companies signed up for the cyber
equivalent of the coalition of the willing - GoDaddy was one of the
few. Not Microsoft. Not Intel. No PC manufacturer of any shape or
size.
Let's face it. No one wants to declare war on China, whatever form
that will take. Most of our PC hardware components are made there.
More people are using the Internet in China than the US total
population, and it is growing quickly, too. And while the breaches on
several Google accounts had Chinese origins, getting accountability
isn't easy.
Coincidentally, while all this was going down I was reading a preview
copy of Richard Clarke's new book called Cyber War. I highly recommend
pre-ordering a copy. Clarke was a national security advisor to several
presidents and teaches now at the Kennedy School at Harvard.
The book is chilling account of exactly what is wrong with our
government and how unprepared we are for Cyber World War I. How so?
Think of a Cyber War in terms of nuclear proliferation and the Cold
War preparation. But unlike what we did in the 1960s to defend
ourselves against possible nuclear annihilation, we are doing
everything wrong for a cyber defense. Instead, we have made America
more of a target, because so much of our infrastructure, our weapons,
our culture, and our PCs are out in the open, ripe for the picking.
Look at how easy it is to hijack the drone video feed as a starting
point (although the control systems are secured, for the moment.)
Clarke talks about various war game scenarios and at one he mentions:
"If you have a mental image of every interesting lab, company, and
research facility in the US being systematically vacuum cleaned by
some foreign entity, you've got it right. That is what has been going
on. Much of our intellectual property as a nation has been copied and
sent overseas. Our best hope is that whoever is doing this does not
have enough analysts to go through it all and find the gems, but that
is a faint hope, particularly if the country has, behind the
filtration, say, a billion people in it."
He mentions how there were times when computer professionals working
for the Hopkins Applied Physics Lab back in 2009 discovered a data
breach. The only way they could solve it was to disconnect their
entire organization from the Internet and clean each PC, one by one.
"If you are connected to the Internet in any way, it seems, your data
is already gone [overseas]."
The problem is that the best defense in a Cyber War isn't the best
offense. Nope: it is hardening your connections. Look at what China
has done with its "Great Firewall." Most of us think this is to keep
the porn and liberal thinking out of China. And yes, it does do that.
But what is really going on is that in the event of a Cyber War, China
can quickly pull the plug and disconnect from the world, to defend
itself. Trying asking AT&T or Level 3 to do that here. Ain't gonna
happen.
Another part of the problem is that there is no one actually "tasked,"
as they say in DoD-speak, with defending our power grid control
systems, transportation networks, and so forth. Where are the cyber
equivalents of nuclear strike forces in case someone hits one of these
targets? Nowhere. DoD has its own ships, planes, and troops to worry
about. Homeland Security is trying to keep shoe bombers and the like
out of our skies. What is left is up for grabs. Call it the cyber gap.
"Can a nation shut off its cyber connectivity to the rest of the
world, or spot cyber attacks coming from inside its geographical
boundaries and stop them?" China probably can. We can't. In an odd
twist of irony, the less developed a nation is, say Afghanistan or
North Korea, the better defended it can be, because so little of that
country's resources are hackable. How many power grid control rooms
have VOIP phones, bringing the Internet literally to the right
desktop?
In the past, spies had a harder time of it. They had to physically
copy plans, or data, or compromise an actual human being. Now, they
can sit in their jammies and download entire manuals without anyone
noticing.
When Obama was elected in the fall of 2008, Clarke was an advisor to
the transition team. He asked everyone on the team to stop working on
their home PCs and even provided brand new Apple MacBooks that were
locked down so they couldn't connect to the public Internet. When the
users complained about this when they tried to access public Wifi
networks, he "tried to quietly point out that if you are a senior
member of the informal national security transition team, you probably
should not be planning the takeover of the White House from a
Starbucks." Gulp.
That is the problem. We are too used to our connectivity, and have
gotten too complacent with our computers. A lot remains to be done.
You have been warned.
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March 23, 2010, 1:28 PM
by David Strom
My college experience was perhaps a bit different from many of you. I
was very lucky to be able to design my own curriculum around what
turned out to be an entire year's worth of independent study classes.
Perhaps that set the tone for my working life, where much of my day is
spent doing research and writing articles and designing my
presentations.
I thought about this during the past week when I read in the NY Times
about the digital archives of novelist Salman Rushdie that is being
curated at Emory University in Atlanta. Rushdie was fanatical about
keeping digital copies of all of his work product and donated his
older Macs to the university several years ago. Since then, a team of
computer programmers has been working on ways to make it more
accessible to researchers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/books/16archive.html?ref=technology
What does this have to do with my own education? One of my independent
classes was to research and create a series of photographs that
mimicked well-known photographers of the past. One of them was Lewis
Hine, who created a series of images of underage factory and mill
workers around 1910 before there were any child labor laws. Some of
his work is kept at the Library of Congress. As part of my independent
study, I went to DC and got to see his pictures firsthand.
It was fascinating to be able to walk into the archives and within a
few minutes have these old photos in front of me. And what was even
better was that for a small fee, I could have the government make
contemporary prints from some of the original negatives. I thought,
how cool can this be? It was then that I got interested in what
archivists do. And even cooler, I can link to it on the Web now:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/207-b.html
Fast forward to today. Now we have to deal with what archivists call
born digital works. This means that instead of paper copies, we have
to deal with preserving computer files that were never or infrequently
printed out. My Hine negatives and prints aren't an issue - other than
their deteriorating condition, you can still take a 4x5 negative and
print it out on modern enlargers and so forth.
But there is a problem if we are trying to view the records of someone
who creates digital content so that later historians and even the
general public can go back and examine them. This is where it gets
tricky, and we run into issues.
As an IT person, you initially might say: this is simple, just make
bulk copies or image the hard drives and you are done. But wait. Some
of the programs are no longer available. Newer versions don't
necessarily read very old file formats. As an example, try buying a
version of a 1990s era software program today. And even if you can
find it on eBay or in your attic, it might be difficult to run it on
modern hardware.
That is the situation that the Emory archivists found themselves in
when they got Rushdie's old Macs. But through some hard work, they
have been able to reconstruct things and allow us to become immersed
in the complete environment that Rushdie was working in at the time he
was writing his books. You can view the same files, work through the
revisions and edits that he made, and be completely brought back to
the past, care of some very clever programming tricks.
You can read more about what the team of programmers and archivists
have done to set up this exhibit and what they are doing with all the
materials that Rushdie donated to the library here:
http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_MAGAZINE/2010/winter/authors.html
What struck me was that I doubt many of us could even attempt to
recreate the computing environments that we have had over our careers,
let alone last year. Granted, it isn't like some university is
knocking on my door wanting my Model 200 Radio Shack, not that I have
kept it or many of the other computers that I have used over the past
30 years. Nor would I want to turn over my old PCs and Macs, even if I
had them, to the world to see what is all on them. <shudder> But
still. I do have copies of many of my previous' years work on my hard
drive. Sometimes I actually do search for something that I wrote and
even find it, but most of the time these files remain untouched. I
took a quick look at what I have been carting around with me digitally
speaking and it is a real mess. I have presentations in software that
is no longer in my possession, documents in Xywrite (which for the
most part are text files that I can still open and read), and older
versions of accounting software (DOS QuickBooks, anyone). Speaking of
DOS, trying to decode an eight letter file name into a meaningful
article is an exercise in frustration. I can't imagine what an
archivist would have to deal with if I am having problems.
I will have more to say about this for an article I am writing for
Baseline magazine. In the meantime, I am enjoying look at Hine's
photos again, you can find many of them easily online. And I don't
have to leave my office either. This Web thing is pretty cool.
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March 16, 2010, 11:41 AM
by David Strom
I have been on a few planes in the past couple of weeks that are
Wifi-enabled. American has created an entirely new opportunity for
identity thieves here, and while the opportunity to surf and email at
30,000 feet is tempting, count me out for those that will become
frequent users.
The problem is that most people get lost in the wonderfulness of the
Web and tend to forget that their seatmates can watch every move, see
every keystroke (it doesn't take much to follow along, especially at
the speed that many people type), and collect all sorts of
information. By the end of one flight I was on, I had Larry (not his
real name) the HP sales rep's Amazon account, read several of his
emails, got to see his new sales presentations that HP corporate sales
office had sent him, figured out that he was a recent hire as he was
checking HP's Intranet to understand some corporate travel policies,
found out who his clients that he had just visited were, and more.
Now, I wasn't really paying that much attention. I was tired, and just
wanted to be left by myself for the trip. And I think we exchanged
maybe ten words between us all told. But if I really wanted to do some
damage, I could be all over Larry's accounts by now (he had some nice
taste from what I could see he was looking for on Amazon, too).
Yes, people have been using laptops on planes for years. I used to do
it all the time, back when the middle seat was rarely occupied and you
didn't have to almost disrobe to get to the gate. But those days are
almost as much part of history as calling the people that worked on
planes stews. The difference is now that we have Internet piped
directly to the seat, people are free to go anywhere and everywhere,
and where they go are places that are critical to their life. I
wouldn't be surprised if someone was doing their online banking
in-flight.
So people (and HP, you might want to consider this a corporate-wide
purchase) if you are going online up in the air, get a privacy filter
for your laptop so that no one else can see your screen. They cost
about $30. This isn't complex technology: it has been available almost
as long as Windows has been around. And while you are at it, dim your
screens to save on power anyway (Larry had one of those nifty
power-packs to boost his battery, too). Or better yet: don't work on
anything important on a crowded plane - and these days, what other
kinds of planes are there? Bring a book or watch a movie if you must
be immersed in your electronic cocoon.
I am reminded of a story from my early days as a reporter for PC Week,
back in the late 1980s. We were very scoop-oriented, and would always
try to get information from the vendors through all sorts of means,
some of them probably unethical or at least uncomfortable in the light
of the present day. One of our reporters was having dinner with her
boyfriend (now husband) at a quaint and cozy Cambridge Mass.
restaurant, and overhead two businessmen at the next table gossiping
about work. What was unusual was they were speaking rapid German, and
both were working for Lotus Development, at the time a powerhouse
spreadsheet player. They were in town to discuss the company's future
product plans. Trouble was, my colleague spoke German fluently, and
got a couple of scoops that were published the next week in the paper.
No one knew who the source of the leak was.
Remember loose lips sink ships, the World War 2 posters put up by the
government? We need something similar on Wifi-enabled planes. Be
careful out there people. You never know whom you are sitting next to.
March 9, 2010, 10:37 AM
by David Strom
I have been using Pandora's online stream music service off and on for
several years. What got me more interested lately was it being one of
the many services on my Roku video streaming box, which my wife and I
use mostly for watching movies from Netflix's "watch instantly" queue.
As I investigated the service more, I came to understand exactly the
challenge of what it takes to be truly multi-platform in the current
era. It isn't just about having both Web and mobile phone versions of
your service, but how you have to go deep into a lot of different
devices to appeal to your customers.
The cool thing about Pandora isn't that you can create your own custom
radio station that will try to find music based on a particular artist
or genre. But that once you set up your account on one platform, you
can access it in your car, in your home, and on the road in between.
All with the same collection of stations and music. As you spend more
time with the service, it tries to figure out your likes and dislikes.
Let's look at all the various places you can get your Pandora fix as
an example of how hard it is to become this ubiquitous. First is the
Web browser: you have to work in a bunch of them properly, so there is
the usual testing in IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. Add Mac,
Windows and Linux versions of each browser, and that's 15 regression
tests right off the bat.
But we have just gotten started. Add in the
newer brower versions, like IE8, the fact that Linux isn't a single
OS, and 64 bit Windows. Then stir in support for both Flash and HTML
v5, and you can easily get more than 200 different environments if you
want to support a wider base. Pandora, by the way, doesn't officially
support much beyond Flash on Firefox, IE, and Safari on Mac and
Windows.
Then we have separate apps for each of the five mobile phone platforms
(Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, and Windows Mobile) and four
cellular providers because their phones work differently on each
network. Never mind that each phone's ecosystem has different rules on
how an app can get posted for download and get itself updated. There
are at least twenty different tests there. The phone apps have to be
designed to work with the limited screen real estate available on each
phone, and yet still connect to your account in a way that you can
recognize without a lot of user training.
Some of the phones have different screen and control button configurations, so just supporting
the Blackberry line, for example, isn't so simple. You also need to
get the development environment for the phone (typically these run on
PCs with simulators that show you what your phone user will end us
seeing) and probably a bunch of phones to test out too.
But wait, there is more. How about Facebook, My Space, and other
social networks? Don't you want to integrate with them and leverage
them to make your app viral? More code to write, more interfaces to
learn, more tests to run to make sure you new versions don't break
these links.
Then there is support for the home-based entertainment systems. While
each of these have some embedded Web browser in them (like the Roku or
the Samsung BluRay DVD players), you still have to test to make sure
that the pages load properly and the music keeps on playing and your
fancy navigation controls operate as intended.
There are more than a dozen different devices, including the Ford Sync in-car service that
will be available later this year, to test out. The trouble here is
that these devices typically have older and less capable browsers that
don't get updated, unlike the PC world where users are trying out new
versions.
As you can see, it is easy to lose count of how many different
platforms you want your app to run on. And then if you have to make
choices and limit yourself, how do you do the triage? Do you drop
Andoid in favor of Roku? Bring up the new Ford Sync API and leave the
Pre to wither away? The user populations of each of these communities
is constantly changing, as sales wax and wane.
It is enough to make many of us long for the simple days of the 1990s,
when we just had to worry about Mac vs. Windows support.
I got the idea to look at Pandora from an article in today's NY Times.
And while the service can wreck havoc on corporate networks (lots of
folks start the audio stream and then walk away from their PCs), I
think they are doing exactly the right kind of things when it comes to
managing their multi-platform strategy.
March 2, 2010, 3:32 PM
by David Strom
The news last week that Italian authorities have convicted three
Google executives for criminal privacy violations got my attention
for two reasons. One, the charges are based on a video that shows an
autistic boy being bullied, a video that Google did not create or
post. It was filmed by cell cameras and posted more than three years
ago, and indeed one of the executives has since retired from Google.
Two, none of the three live or work in Italy, and a fourth executive -
a product manager - was acquitted. We truly live in a global village,
and one in which the legal operations move slower and slower. As
someone who was bullied as a child, I get this, although not sure that
justice really was served here.
This case comes on top of the company's missteps with Buzz, where it
had to alter the default privacy settings after a rather embarrassing
launch and lots of fanfare.
Has Google become more evil, or is it just the contentious times we
live in that makes this sad state of affairs possible? One thing is
clear, though: Google is becoming bigger and buying more and more
companies that have products or services that I use. Picnik (online
photo editing) and Etherpad (online real time document collaboration)
are just two of the more recent acquisitions. The Etherpad acquisition
was also a bit troubling, where the company had first announced they
were turning off the service, then had to restore it after numerous
complaints.
I still think the vast majority of people at Google adhere to the
company's ten founding principles, which is more than I can say for my
dealings with Microsoft over the years. Certainly both companies are
hyper-competitive. But the very nature and pervasiveness of Google's
online services makes it more pernicious, and has a greater potential
for abuse, as the recent news indicates. But it also means that they
can turn more quickly when they make a mistake: the Etherpad issue was
resolved in a day or so. Imagine Microsoft trying to do that. Indeed,
try finding something similar to this document on Microsoft's Web
site: you will find a lot of corporate doublespeak, rather than the
plain spoken "Ten Things" that Google professes:
http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html
While all this was going down in Italy, I was reviewing what
information Google has stored on me in Google Accounts. If you haven't
had a look at your "dashboard" lately, it is instructive to see
exactly what Google can track on you. In my case, I use a ton of
different Google products, and recorded for posterity include the
following:
-- My most posts to my Blogger blogs -- What items Google Alerts has located that mention my keywords
-- The three people I most often email in my contact list
-- The most recent Google Doc that I have edited and how many of them
have been supposedly "trashed" but are still accessible
-- My complete Google Chat history of more than 1500 conversations
-- The photos stored in Picasa, fans and favorites included
-- My history of calls made on my Google Voice account
-- My most recent Web browsing history, including search terms, images
downloaded, maps visited and news items read
-- And there are 12 other Google products that aren't yet tracked,
including AdSense, Knol, and Groups too.
You get the picture: there is a lot you can learn about me when you
scroll through all this data, and a lot that I would prefer remain
private. All it takes is someone to guess a single password, too. That
is scary, and I hope that "do no evil" thing is still very much in
force in the years to come.
I invite you to comment on this column on my strominator.com blog. Please also join me on Facebook.com/davidstrom, watch my video product reviews at webinformant.tv and follow me on Twitter @ dstrom. To view a few of my presentations and to find out more about my speaking business, go to http://strom.com.
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February 23, 2010, 2:12 PM
by David Strom
It all started when one of my clients wanted to pay me with a credit
card. It is odd that I have been in business for 18 years and this is
the first time that I have been paid in this way. It is doubly ironic
in that I used to teach classes on eCommerce back in the early days of
the Web and hadn't ever gotten around to getting a merchant account,
which is what you need to take credit card payments.
If you want to accept credit cards, you enter a brave new world where
there is an entire collection of jargon to use your secret decoder
ring. For example, "discount rate" is the fee that the card issuer
(like American Express or Visa) charges you per transaction. Typically
these are anywhere from one to four percent, depending on a series of
circumstances. Then there is the "virtual terminal" which is a series
of Web-based services that allow you to enter the credit card number
in your browser and have the transaction completed online. These
replace the typical credit card swipe machines that you see in every
retail shop.
Since my client wanted to use their American Express card, my first
stop was to try my business bank, Bank of America, and see what they
could offer me. Online had limited information but I tried the 800
number and got nowhere fast. They suggested that I talk to Amex and
see what they could do for me. Within about 30 minutes I was setup
with an Amex merchant ID and could start accepting their card via a
telephone response number. The issue was that the transactions would
take some time to clear and actually end up in my bank. They could
also sell me their virtual terminal software, called Payment Express,
which would be an extra charge of $20 a month. Amex has many
different options that can easily get confusing - my recommendation is
if you want to go this way, first sign up online to access your
account and then read the various screens that describe Payflow,
Payment Express and their physical card payment terminals.
In the interests of research, I pressed on to see what else is available.
Paypal was my next stop. While you can process some credit card
payments, once you get beyond a few hundred dollars you need to have a
Paypal business account. This means $30 a month, plus transaction fees
of 2.4 to 3.1% to use their virtual terminal software. Here is a
description of that process.
Intuit was next. Their merchant services are $13 a month, and it took
about a day to set me up. They also have their own virtual terminal
software and their home page takes something to get used to. They also
charge less per transaction, with fees ranging from 1.9 to 2.9%. They
have a great series of online demos here on their Web site.
So which do I recommend? If I had to start over knowing what I know
now, I would go first to Inuit. They are geared towards their online
product, they have a simple sign up process, and if you already use
Quickbooks they can integrate with that too if you end up with lots of
transactions. (I have been a happy Quickbooks user for nearly two
decades, starting with the DOS version, can you believe it?) I would
steer clear of Paypal, I just think they charge too much for too
little.
There are dozens of other payment processors online, and this isn't
meant to be a comprehensive review. And feel free to share your own
experiences on my blog or via Twitter.
David Strom is an expert on Internet and networking technologies who was the former editor-in-chief at Network Computing, Tom's Hardware.com, and DigitalLanding.com. He currently writes regularly
for PC World, Baseline Magazine, and the New York Times and is also a professional speaker, podcaster and blogs at strominator.com and WebInformant.tv.
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