Thinking Tech

Since the demise of Comdex, the big show in the computer industry seems to be CES (Consumer Electronics Show). That's where all the major companies announce their new generation of toys just a couple of weeks after you finish buying all the old toys for Christmas. I guess they figure at least it's before Valentine's day.

Macworld is also this week. Steve Jobs--fresh off his stock option debacle--is expected to announce an iPod phone, dubbed the iPhone, as well as a wireless device that lets you play video from your computer on your TV. It's been dubbed the iTV (although there is another device that has taken this name) by the industry pundits.

All-in-all, looks like an interesting week.

InformationWeek Weblog: Get The Lowdown On CES 2007 And MacWorld Here At InformationWeek

Email is now subject to legal discovery. And if someone asks for it, you need to be prepared to produce it. Few businesses are sure what the rules mean. Vendors of archiving systems are rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the revenues. The one thing I can tell you is that it doesn't make things simpler.

Hopefully, we'll find a way to avoid printing out and filing all those emails.

New Data-Archiving Rules Good News For VARs - CRN

My rule of thumb is 1,000.

It takes a thousand items to make a conversion really worthwhile. Less than that, you might as well hire a temp and have them key the data. That's 1000 of anything: Customers, Vendors, Items, lines in a bill of materials, ship-to addresses, open orders, etc. If you've got more than 1000, convert it.

If not, key it.

Why?

Well, briefly put, if you're moving from one accounting product to another, you can guarantee that the files don't look the same. They have different options. The item description is 40 characters in one and 30 in another. The item number can be 10 characters in the old and 22 in the new, or vice versa. And under the hood, in the database, they are called different things.

This means that conversion from one product to another--assuming that there's not an automatic conversion already built in--means writing a program, or at least building a map that says "put this data...over here." So there's always programming involved.

And 1000 items seems to be the break between when it's cheaper and better to code it vs. key it.

Just a rule of thumb, though.

The photo is from the Apple web site, and is (c) 2007 by Apple. There has been buzz since the middle of 2006 about a variety of devices coming from Apple: a widescreen iPod, a touchscreen iPod, an Apple phone. An Apple device that would browse the Internet, send and receive email, and download from iTunes wirelessly.

Guess what? There's a single device now that does it all. Take a gander at the iPhone.

It almost (maybe it did) eclipsed the Apple TV, another cool device announced at MacWorld 2007.

I'm not sure if Steve Jobs and Apple are stupid or just bumbling. If the press is right, Cisco has a pretty firm grasp on the name iPhone...firm enough that Apple was negotiating over "sharing" it. Surely Apple doesn't think that just because it owns the trademark (and 70% or so of the market) on one device that begins with an "i" that it can just prefix any old name out of the telephone directory with it.

Apparently, someone owns rights to iTV, because Jobs announced Apple TV as the name of the new device they'll be releasing.

But why in the world would you have a major announcement of a device that used a name that another company owned? Particularly if you were negotiating with that company over an agreement to use the name?

Did Apple want to be sued?

Cisco Sues Apple over Use of iPhone Name

I'm posting this without comment. You should read it. And remember when you do that the guy writing it is a MICROSOFT EXECUTIVE!

Wow!!

Microsoft Watch - Operating Systems - Allchin's 'Buy a Mac' E-Mail Exposed

I got a call from a company with serious software issues in the last week. They called about a year ago and wanted to buy some software that we work with.

I listened to the description of why they wanted to buy it, then told him that it was the wrong software for his company. It just wouldn't work.

He showed me the brochures and the web site. I showed him the software. I was right, of course, it wouldn't work. But I was only right once it got to be his idea...I'm used to that...after all, I'm a consultant.

Meanwhile a highly-placed executive at his company fell in love with some software from a small software company. "Would I look at it?" they asked.

"Sure," said I, "right after we finish the needs analysis and talk to all of your operational units."

They didn't hire me. I was sad for at least 10 seconds.

They called at the end of last year. They had decided to buy the software the executive wanted. "Could I help them design some training?"

"Sure. Let me tell you how we do it," I said.

"Let me tell you how we have planned it," they said.

They didn't hire me. I was sad for at least 10 seconds again.

This week they called. The software purchase was a disaster. They had voted with a 75% majority in the management group to give it 2 more months and then give up. And the IT Director (who called) wanted to know if I knew someone they could hire in the Finance department with software implementation experience. That was what they needed, they had decided.

I wasn't sad. Not even for 10 seconds. Nope, I told them, I don't recommend employees anymore. They have head hunters for that.

Question: What went wrong here?

(My answer deleted...what's yours?)

As they say in the legal shows, let's stipulate to the fact that the Apple Mac is more stable than the PC. It's pretty much a fact. All the tech sites like Engadget and Leo Laporte's This Week In Tech (TWiT) say it. Don't get me wrong, there are a few Windows loyalists out there that think Windows can do no wrong.

But here's my $0.02: Before you critique Windows instability, recognize that Apple controls 100% of the product. They don't deal with 100s of video cards. They don't deal with processors and motherboards that come out AFTER the product is released that they're expected to support. They don't deal with drivers written by hardware manufacturers that are unstable.

So when you criticize Windows, take everything that's relevant into account.

I should probably add this to the list of things you should (or shouldn't do) when selecting software. It's part of the standard way businesses go about selecting software. It works something like this:

• Find 12 companies that sell software that looks like it might work
• Call all 12 of them
• Start research on the Internet about the software. Print out everything you find of interest, whether it's one of the 12 software companies you called or not
• Add all the new companies to your list, and call them
• Talk to the first 8 or 10 that call, and request a demo
• Accept the offers to demo on the web
• Don't take notes
• Don't have a list of questions to ask
• See the other demos either on the web or in your office over a period of 4 or 5 weeks
• Realize that you should have been taking notes and start after the 2nd demo
• Make a list of notes about the first 2 demos so you can give them fair consideration at the end of the process
• Since some of the software companies will call after 2-3 weeks, pack in 2 demos per day in the last 2-3 days of the period before the deadline
• Call a committee meeting the day after the last demo
• Reschedule the meeting because a key employee (who could only attend 25% of the demos can't be there)
• Reschedule again...same employee
• Reschedule again...
• Finally, insist on a meeting and have it
• Make a decision to call back the 3 possible vendors you liked the best
• Be disappointed at the second demo...it seemed like those products did more
• Make a decision based on the best presentation of the 3
• Document, document, document the process so management will see that it was thorough, thorough, thorough
• And now....?

Does this sound like a process you've been through?

More tomorrow on what the best practices look like.

The #1 problem with getting software demos early in the selection process (or as a replacement for the selection process, in most cases) is tunnel vision.

Software vendors train software resellers to demo only those features of their product that are (a) strong in relation to competition, (b) work well, and (c) are flashy. This biases the selection process in the direction of the features that look the best to the committee--even if it's a committee of one.

I've seen too many businesses select software that I knew would not meet their needs because they got tunnel vision. They focused on a few features that they didn't currently have to the exclusion of features they needed. It's one of the key things I wrote about in the Guide To Selecting Business Software. It's the key reason for having a selection process that includes needs analysis.

I know Microsoft wonders why IT folk won't jump on the Vista bandwagon. Why we won't beat the drum and dance to the music.

Here's the thing: I would, but....

The last month of the year and the first are upgrade months for us. There are tax upgrades, software upgrades, antivirus upgrades, etc. I don't know why they are clustered at the end and beginning of the year for us, they just are. Probably has to do with the fact that we do a lot of ERP (accounting) software support and the IRS releases new tax rules about then.

Every December and January we load new updates for clients...and every December and January, there's a new list of hot fixes, bugs, quickly rolled out versions, etc. from vendors who didn't quite get all the bugs out. I know why it happens, but it makes for a couple of rough months for me.

And that's why I--for one--won't be banging the drum for Vista for a while...I don't want to get caught in the fallout of new drivers, quickly updated software, incompatibilities, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'll update my computer as soon as all the software I use is compatible...and I'll load Office 2007 and tell all my friends how much I like it.

But today I'm tired of software that breaks just because you upgrade it.

So...software vendors...tell me again why I should encourage my clients to upgrade? Why was that again? I must have missed something...

I'm a clicker. I see what looks like an interesting email, and I click it. I have virus protection. I have spyware protection. They ought to protect me from anything out there....

Right.

Most users really are their own worst enemies. Microsoft is right...if they close the holes that hackers squeeze in through, I'm less likely to click on something that does me harm.

I like that.

Truthfully, I like Vista. It looks cool. It has some really nice features.

And in two months, my kids haven't broken it. That says something.

I'm not sure what.

"The weakest link in the security of any system is the end user. It seems like we're putting them down, but, realistically, there's a lot we can do in technology to secure our products, but as long as user can be tricked into clicking a link or going to an unknown Web site, we're at risk," Fathi said. "We think that by helping users protect themselves better, we can make a big dent in the current methods of attacks being used by hackers."

Vista Aims to Stop Hackers' Social Engineering Ploys

The #2 problem with getting demos to select software is that most demos aren't driven by the needs of the company trying to select software.

Don't get me wrong--a demo is an important part of selecting software. But not a demo of the features that work best in that particular software.

Demos--if they are done--should address (primarily) the key needs of the business. Here's an example:

Several years ago, I spoke to a company that wanted software to control the delivery of their service. It would take the particulars of the (sometimes very complex) contract and manage the delivery of the service (which many times involved coordinating a number of different activities over a period of several months). The company was known for providing very personalized service (knowing names of family members, etc.), and the idea was to support not only the service side, but the scheduling and delivery side.

I didn't participate in the demo, but the only demo that would make sense in this case would be a simulation of the contract delivery support the system can provide. Specifically, I'd want to see

• Setting up a contract
• Setting up the parameters (contacts, family member names, etc.)
• Simulation of several of the common scenarios (from both the customer service and the operational side of the business)
• Opportunity to address several unusual "what-if" situations
• After all of this, I might have questions about accounting, export to Excel, Access, and Word, and the database backend. I might even want to look at the report writer and the database structure. If I planned on customizing the stuff, I'd want to see some of the representative code (I'd pick the functional area of the program and the function I wanted to see code on.) BUT (and this is a big but)...I'd want the answers to these questions ONLY AFTER I was convinced that the software could meet the needs I'd expressed in the needs analysis

Of course, this assumes that there WAS a needs analysis.

In the few years since Linux was supposed to take over all the desktops in the world like Alexander the Great, there have been few takeovers. Many volleys have been fired across the decks from Linux advocates to Microsoft and back to Linux and back to Microsoft. Both groups claim lower total cost of ownership. Both groups claim technical superiority.

One truth has remained the same: Microsoft has the revenue stream to support and develop the product. Linux advocates have evidently realized that the lack of consistent support for the product is a problem. Thus the Linux Foundation. I notice, though, that Linus Torvalds the inventor of Linux isn't saying anything about quitting his day job.

Group Formed to Support Linux as Rival to Windows - New York Times

If you haven't tried out YouTube, you should. It's a great medium. And it portends a change in the way businesses and individuals will use the Internet. Put simply, YouTube allows anyone to upload a video--whether taken with a hi-definition professional camera or with their cell phone--and converts it into a format (Flash Video) which 90%+ of the users of the Internet can see.

The upcoming Presidential Campaign should be interesting. Candidates are already positioning to use Internet video as part of their strategy. But it's the video shot on-the-sly by college students that may get the most downloads...

...watch your gaffes, gals and guys, you may see them (along with a few million others) on YouTube that evening...

'Macaca' Moments Will Define 2008 Presidential Campaign - News by InformationWeek

I thought email SPAM was bad...until I started blogging. Now I spend a few minutes every day (or several minutes every other day) deleting SPAM from the comments and trackback logs in this blog.

A comment is...well, a comment. Someone posts something about a blog entry I wrote.

A trackback is intended to be a link from someone else's blog to mine. They occur when someone writes about an entry I made and puts a link into their blog to my blog. Most blogging software then sends a trackback which lets me know that someone out there agrees (or sometimes disagrees) with something I wrote.

A trackback also results in a link from my blog to the other blog that sent the trackback.

One of the reasons SPAMmers do trackbacks has to do with search engines. The more incoming links they can generate, the better their sites come up in search engines like Google.

Another reason is that you might actually click on a link here and wind up at a site selling Viagra or a consciousness-altering drug.

But I delete them...I just hope I don't miss legitimate trackbacks and comments with all the SPAM.

We keep hearing about pirated software, pirated movies, pirated CDs, etc. Yesterday I heard that the MPAA is installing surveillance cameras in an attempt to catch movie pirates selling their wares. But these packaged copies of XP look to be the real thing...but only one is...take a look.

http://news.com.com/2300-1012_3-6151598-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

McAfee releases an update with an "undocumented feature:" it locks Lotus Notes users out of their mailboxes. This is the kind of stuff that drives us CRAZY!!! We never know about it until it's too late! That's the day after we install it!

McAfee Update Chokes Off Lotus Notes - Security, Antivirus - CRN

Nothing to write. This one is a visual.

English Russia ｻ Handle With Care

Joe Wilcox at eWeek said it. I've always thought it, but it's tough to get through to software vendors. Microsoft isn't the only company that wants to move the newest version off store shelves. But doing so at the expense of user confidence backfires.

Wilcox writes,

Product marketing often is much more about perception than reality. Negative perceptions, once they set in, are tough to shake. For companies with multiple, closely associated brands, negative perception of one product can affect another. Based on dissatisfied reader feedback about Internet Explorer 7, negative perceptions about the browser reflect poorly on Windows Vista.

So software vendors came up with another idea.

"We'll create a market channel where the end user doesn't talk directly to us. That'll insulate us from the bad reputation."

So Data Guidance Group clients call us when they have a problem with IE7 or Vista or ACCPAC or a dozen other products. And that's what we're here for...to help with product problems. What our clients don't realize is that the product problems frustrate us at least as much as they do them. After all, clients probably deal with product problems two or three times a year...we deal with them daily.

Is software perfect?

Not on your life.

Can we usually make it work for our clients?

Yep.

But have patience with us...we're imperfect human intellects dealing with the products of other imperfect human intellects.

To put it succinctly: we're doing the best we can!

Should you upgrade to Vista? Eventually (as I've written elsewhere) you won't have much choice. For now, have a few really nice dinners with your significant other and save the Vista investment for another day....or week....maybe month...

Microsoft Watch - Web Services & Browser - Will IE 7 Perception Problems Hurt Vista?

Did you know that the letter "T" is the most common letter in the English language? Followed (in some order) by E, R, F and G. And as it would happen, all of those letters are reaches typed with the index finger of the left hand. Which I slammed in a bathroom door yesterday. The door wasn't at home, it was a public building. I was coming out, not going in. Someone spoke to me...just then the spring kicked in and I couldn't get my finger out of the way fast enough.

So if I blog less for the next couple of days, you'll understand I hope.

My wife is trying to figure out how to catch my lips in a door somewhere...

Kidding, honey. Just kidding. (She probably doesn't read the blog anyway)

There are several blogs that talk about legal issues in blogging. Most of them focus on things like copyright or trademark infringement. A few mention issues like libel and slander. I never intend to say anything bad enough about anyone to get in trouble for that kind of thing.

But here's a new one: a blogger subpoenaed for what some commenters on his blog said about each other. Guess when we said this was social media, we meant that it was like every other media. If we insult one another in print, in paintings, in email, and in letters, why not on blogs?

Here's the link: http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/01/27/shoemoney-you-just-got-served/

Ok, I know Bosworth is talking about Asynchronous JavaScript (AJAX), a programming technology which makes web sites perform more like programs running on the computer than web sites (which can be a bit clunky for applications like accounting and word processing without it). And AJAX deserves (and gets) a lot of press in technical articles.

What I found interesting was this quote:

Bosworth said he has been building software for about 30 years and "not all of it works" all the time. "The reason, on reflection, turned out to largely depend on physics and human psychology," he said. And "a lot of it had to do with Tom Cruise," Bosworth said, citing the actor's line in the movie "Top Gun" where Cruise says, "I feel the need, the need for speed."

Yep. He's right. Not all of it works.

For the technical among thee, here's the link to the article.

Google's Bosworth: Why AJAX Failed (Then Succeeded)