July 2010

Microsoft Stops Security Updates for Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Microsoft has announced it has stopped issuing security fixes for computers running the Windows XP operating system updated with Service Pack 2. The switch-off will result in hundreds of millions of PCs worldwide, including tens of millions in the U.S., instantly becoming riper targets for hackers. Companies can continue to get security updates for XP computers through April 2014 by upgrading to SP3. It's free. The time is approaching to consider replacing old XP units with Windows 7. Read More...

Like Gossip Around the Office - Social Media Does Not Have to Be Accurate!

A relatively new social networking site may be far from accurate, and just a little bit scary! Check out www.spokeo.com, and search on your own name...

Is any Password Truly Secure?

Perhaps not, as new and ever more obscure techniques are developed. Rainbow Cracking is only the latest of a long line of new and extremely sophisticated techniques to crack your greatest secrets. Read more...

Social Networking for Business!!!

I know you are thinking that title is an oxymoron, but think again. My youngest son makes his livelihood working with major corporations on positioning their virtual assets (web sites, twitter and Facebook presence properly, www.activatedbyrobots.com, is a good read. I also have a son-in-law that makes his living off a purely web based enterprise that is deeply founded in the real world of sports, www.customcollegerecruiting.com. Watching them is both exciting and scary. You cannot simply have a static web-site and expect to attract business anymore, you have to employ a full arsenal of web communications solutions. As I watch Coach Shane ply his trade, he is using tools like Twitter, but also sites like Twitters app store www.oneforty.com for third-party apps to manage Tweets and  other social media sites he exchanges/publishes data with. He uses tools like www.tweetdeck.com and www.hootsuite.com to manage the hundreds of people he reaches out to DAILY! And then, follows his email success with applications like www.icontact.com.  He is smart enough to understand that you have to do more than simply blast out an email or Tweet - he measures his successes. What are the best times to send an email?  When are his recipients are most likely to open his mail and what percentage of messages are opened? How often are his Tweets, re-tweeted (RT) and how many fans does he have. Lots of analysis - but I cannot argue with his success or how quickly his reputation has grown in a time period that would have been absurd only 15 months ago.

If all the above seemed like so much gibberish to you, you should ask yourself how soon you plan to retire! Understanding the concept of Business Social Networking and how to make it work is really not optional - it just is!

iPad Making Inroads with Corporate America

For a long as I can remember, which is a very long time, Apple has been the step-child of corporate technology. Often relegated to those "strange people" in marketing or engineering, Apple products where never seen as business tools.  But, it seems the iPad may be changing that. From banks to retail, iPad's are entering the business world with a bank. I think there are a number of applications, besides just having fun, where the iPad can be useful. First, understand that it is NOT a PC, and it is not a Smartphone. It is something else. If you are considering purchasing an iPad, or have one and want to know what great business apps are available, read the rest of my article.

More Corporate Workers are Mobile,  and They Expect the Right Tools to be in Place. Most are Disappointed!

A recent Unisys-IDC survey of 2,820 respondents, including 40% aged 35 or younger,  confirmed that today's workforce is not only more mobile - it expects to have the tools to help workers be mobile. From the Millennials down, these workers grew up on consumable technology and have a harder time delimiting between personnel and work usage. They also expect to communicate with customers, co-workers, and others in real-time and with multiple formats, i.e. voice, text, e-Mail, video conferencing and so forth. The survey also showed that these users were frustrated because they were not getting the help (read technology) they felt they needed to do business in this age. The major finding may be that there is a very large gap between what information workers are expecting, and what IT leaders believe is happening in their organizations.  You would have thought the Smartphone revolution would have taught IT something, but I believe the iPad and similar devices will be a shocker for IT professionals as users demand simple dedicated tools like these in the office.

Specific survey findings: (The sad reality is; I do all these, and I am not even in the 35 or younger group!)

86% of respondents said they email while on vacation

62% view and send emails from family gatherings

40% aged 18 -25 sent business emails from bed

33% of all respondents send business emails from entertainment events

Dell to Phase out Windows XP as an OEM License as of October 22, 2010

Dell has announced that it will no longer package Windows XP as an OEM license after October 22, 2010. A date set by Microsoft to all its OEM vendors.

Windows XP, SP2 expires July 13, 2010. I have been counseling clients that it is important to begin developing a strategy to  replace Windows XP over the next 18 months or so. Security is one reason as three out of four companies will soon face more security risks because they continue to run the soon-to-be-retired Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), according to Toronto-based technology systems and services provider Softchoice Corp. report. The report states that 77% of the organizations surveyed are running Windows XP SP2 on 10% or more of their PCs. Nearly 46% of the 280,000 business computers Softchoice analyzed rely on the aged operating system. Time to move to SP3 or migrate to Windows 7.  Security is just one issue, as compatibility issues are beginning to emerge with new software releases that take advantage of Windows 7 and new hardware.

 This applies to all Windows XP pre-installed OS options, including:

• Windows 7 Professional Bonus – Windows XP Professional downgrade preinstalled

• Windows 7 Ultimate Bonus – Windows XP Professional downgrade preinstalled

• Vista Business Bonus – Windows XP Professional downgrade preinstalled

• Vista Ultimate Bonus – Windows XP Professional downgrade preinstalled

• Windows XP Home (available on Minis and Netbooks)  

According to Dell, all pending orders must be shipped by Oct 22nd, in order to receive the XP OEM option.

Cisco, Next King of the Hill?

I know you are thinking that Cisco is already king of a pretty big hill,  but with network futures limited and a desire to branch out, it looks like Cisco may be preparing to compete in a much broader spectrum of technology.  Their belief that the future is in video may be a strong indication of what is to come.  Cisco feels they own the communications infrastructure, now they want the communications too. The real surprise is the new Cisco Tablet Cius. Based on the Android 2.2 (Froyo) OS, amazingly close to the iPad in design, Cius has an e-mail button in nearly every productivity application, from almost anywhere in Cius users will be able to detect presence, or start a WebEx session or a video chat or a multi-party call, with a push of a button. Cisco is providing access to its APIs, which presumably means that if Android developers want to take advantage of Cisco's collaborative infrastructure, they could, extending any productivity application into a unified application ecosystem. The specs for this new device are impressive.

I expect the tablet (a.k.a. pads and slates) to become crowded quickly, very quickly, so those that strike first with the most may win. Apple of course has such a huge lead that I expect it do dominate the buzz, even if it does not yet dominate the numbers. At more than a billion iPads sold per month since its release, the demand for such a device is absolute, now if we can get the prices down. 

June 2010

Save Big Money - Use Another Font!

I know I usually preach about not printing, but I know that sometimes, as accountants, we just have to print! But, if you are big on printing you can still save a ton on the money you spend on ink, as much as 30%, just by changing the font you use to print across your organization. Because different fonts use different amounts of ink, you could save money just by moving to Century Gothic rather than using Arial.  Schools and businesses are saving thousands of dollars a year by doing this very simple change. Data on the subject from Printer.com was enough to persuade the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay to make a switch. Diane Blohowiak, coordinator of information-technology user support asked faculty and staff to use Century Gothic for all printed documents. The school also plans to change its e-mail system so it uses Century Gothic. As a result the University could save between $5,000 and $10,000 a year. With an annual expenditure of roughly $100,000 on ink and toner cartridges, this is nothing to thumb your nose at. For, more on the cost of different fonts and to help you make a decision, read more.

Will You Be Able to Escape?

With so many options today for using one or more suite of productivity tools, it is sometimes difficult and even intimidating knowing just what is the right thing to do. One big I seem to get a lot is "How can I migrate my data?"  We are, of course, talking about Office files, Google App files and the like. I recommend that individuals considering making the switch give this serious considerations. For example, using Google Apps is enticing. The price is right, free!  And, they make it so easy for you.  But how would you escape from Google if you had to at a later time?  An excellent article on Escaping Google Apps gives both sides of the story, going to and escaping from. It is worth the read. As for me, I was taught early that there was no such thing as a free lunch or free beer.  So, I proceed with caution, I am willing to change, I protect myself with a known and viable exit strategy before I enter, and finally, I never assume.  Make sense?

Small to Medium Businesses Need Affordable CRM Too.

I have been tracking the success and evolution of Results CRM for nearly two years now, and it looks like others are taking notice as well. This powerful CRM solution is Cloud based and integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks and Microsoft Office. Read more at Informationweek, or visit  Results CRM website for product details. This is an excellent solution for accountants in public practice wishing to deploy CRM throughout the firm, but should also be considered as a solutions for clients as well.

Why NoSQL may change the Database world forever!

I know some of you may not believe this, but there was a time before SQL. SQL was created to meet a need, and as with most evolutionary processes, it has aged beyond its usefulness with today's very large volume Cloud based database requirements. A new generation of low-cost, high-performance database software is rapidly emerging to replace SQL's dominance in distributed processing data storage applications. Many companies have already traded SQL's functionality for these new options that let them create, work with, and manage large data sets. When we say large, we mean Google, Amazon, Zappos large. REALLY LARGE!

Challenges to SQL dominance is coming from specialized products built from the ground up for large-scale analytics and document storage, as well as for building operational systems that require high availability more than consistency when partitioning data. Applications such as online transaction processing, business intelligence, customer relationship management, document processing, and social networking don't have identical needs for data, query, or index types, nor do they have equivalent requirements for consistency, scalability, and security.

For high-volume Web sites that live in the Cloud, such as eBay, Amazon, Twitter, and Facebook, scalability and high availability are essential. New low-latency data stores provide scalability for applications that don't require rich query and analytics capabilities. Amazon developed SimpleDB, and Google developed Bigtable. Other low-latency, open source options include Cassandra, Hypertable, MongoDB, Project Voldemort, Redis, Tokyo Tyrant, and Dynamo, the database used for Amazon S3, which as of March was hosting 102 billion objects.

Google developed Bigtable to distribute data across thousands of servers and scale to petabyte-sized data sets. A variety of Google applications use it, including Web indexing, Google Earth, Google Maps, Blogger, YouTube, and Gmail.

Open source (meaning free, or near free) implementations of Bigtable include Hypertable, Cassandra, and HBase.  Amazon subsequently built SimpleDB as a key-value store available for Amazon Web Services customers. Project Voldemort, an open source clone of Amazon's Dynamo, is a keyvalue data store that supports versioning, eventual consistency (where the database sometimes returns the wrong answer in order to maintain scaling), and automatic partitioning and replication. Keys and values can be complex objects such as maps or lists. Project Voldemort supports offline building of distributed data stores. LinkedIn developers created it, and sites such as Lookery have used it. Cassandra integrates the Bigtable data model with the Dynamo distributed design. It offers eventual consistency, not the rigid consistency that ecommerce transactions and stock trading require. Instead of data stored in row-major or column-major sequence, Cassandra uses the ColumnFamily order inspired by Bigtable. Cassandra is geographically distributed across multiple data centers, such as Amazon EC2 availability zones. Bulk loading can be done with Hadoop.

Ken North has a excellent recap of the NoSQL movement in the Dr. Dobbs section of May's Informationweek, or you can read it here if you are looking to learn more.

Now I know that this post is a little more technical than I usually do (sometimes the Geek just comes OUT!)  But, there is two principals that are in play here you should understand.  That for very large databases, where queries and heavy structure is not required, SQL is dying. Newer database technology is emerging, and at some point options with both characteristics will evolve. While most of you are not Amazon or Google, you are amassing huge volumes of documents which must be stored and managed and today's SQL options will not get the job done. So a new day dawns - larger disk drives anyone?

Text for Free!

Why pay AT&T $20 a month to send and receive text messages on an iPhone. San Jose-based Pinger has just waived the annual $5.99 fee for its popular Textfree Unlimited app. And that means you can send and receive free texts from the iPhone without paying a dime. The catch: you'll have to read some ads. Read more...

How Secure is Your Data?

Where are you storing your clients files? If your building burned down tonight would be retiring tomorrow? How secure is your information.  You need to start thinking about Disaster Recovery, about protecting your data and your customers or clients data as well.  There are many good options out there and there are several I like.  Gillware, www.backup.gillware.com has a great option for QuickBooks and Peachtree users to back up your data for free!  I say give it a try, but really - what is your business worth to you?  Consider backing everything up!  Take a look at the Gillware YouTube Video.  You will love the characters name, I know I did!

May 2010

Man Infected With a Computer Virus!

I could not let this one go. A University of Reading researcher has become the first human known to be infected by a computer virus. The virus, infecting a chip implanted in the researchers hand, passed into a laboratory computer. From there, the infection could have spread into other computer chips found in building access cards. Computer Scientist believe that as prosthetic devices and devices such as Pacemakers could potentially fall pray. Read more...

Apple passes Microsoft as biggest tech company

Apple has surpassed Microsoft as the largest technology company in the world by market capitalization. Apple's move comes as the company's iPhone, and now its iPad, have taken over more of the tasks once the hallmark of personal computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system and other programs. Market cap is the dollar value of a company's outstanding shares. As of May 26th Apple Inc.'s market cap closed at around $222 billion.

iPad, I Love You.

Actually that was my wife's comment, not mine. But, I am developing a strong fondness for the iPad. It is really amazing to see how quickly business apps are coming on-board. If you don't believe me, check out Citrix running on the iPad, much better tool than Citrix on the iPhone, and yes you can do that too. Perhaps you are a VMWare shop? How about running Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) via Citrix on the iPad. If you are an IT pro, you might use the iPad to manage your windows servers remotely via WinAdmin for the iPad - check it out at the App Store. Or, iTeleport for iPad provides a streaming remote access session to connect with Windows or Mac based systems over either Wi-Fi or 3G. 

At the moment I like reading Kindle books, USA Today, Time, watching TV, playing music (I do mean playing music Piano, Guitar and Drums!), and a host of other activities.  (P.S. Steve, I do miss Flash, just wanted you to know!!!)

If you just can't bare to use an Apple product, do not despair, options are coming for you next month with some 15 non-apple tablets, slates and other smart devices coming with Operating Systems ranging from Windows 7, Google Android, Google Chrome, Palm (soon to be HP) WebOS and more. I am so excited...

It's not your father's PDF

There was an excellent article by Pam Doyle in this months issue of Infonomics Magazine, www.infonomicsmag.com, on PDF formats and how they have matured over the past few years. The article focus's on the subsets of PDF such as:

PDF/A, the Archive format, is the preferred electronic document file format for long-term preservation. PDF/A became an ISO standard (ISO 19005-1) in September 2005. It was developed to provide a file format with a mechanism for representing electronic documents in a manner that preserves their visual content over time. PDF/A PDF files will always be able to be viewed by future versions of the Acrobat Reader. A revision is currently being worked on by the ISO working group that will add some additional functionality to the archival electronic document file.

PDF/Universal Access, PDF/UA (ISO/CD 14289), (which was originally also referred to as PDF/A, so you can appreciate the confusion, so they changed the tag to UA to differentiate formats) is currently being updated to enable individuals with disabilities to be able to render PDF documents in a format they can process. The committee tasked with this standard is working on a PDF standard to produce electronic documents that are maximally accessible to those who use assistive technologies to read documents.

PDF/X is an umbrella term for several ISO standards that define a subset of the PDF standard. The purpose of PDF/X is to facilitate graphics exchange, and it therefore has a series of printing related requirements, which do not apply to standard PDF files. Active content is not allowed in a PDF/X file. This means that standard PDF features like forms, signatures, comments and embedded sounds and movies are not allowed in PDF/X. Features that are forbidden in the PDF/X standard can sometimes be used, if they do not affect the rendering of the file.

PDF/Engineering, or PDF/E (ISO 24517-1), is the standard file format for the exchange of engineering documents. This standard enables organizations to streamline engineering workflows that incorporate diverse sets of complex engineering documents, resulting in improved productivity and the ability to more quickly deliver better products to market. In addition to improving workflows in engineering organizations, this standard specifies the proper use of PDF for on-screen display and printing of engineering documents.

PDF Healthcare is one of the latest PDF standardization projects. This project is unique in that it is not initially a file format standard but rather a best-practices guide that will describe the attributes of the Portable Document Format (PDF) that facilitate the capture, exchange, preservation and protection of healthcare information. These best practices are especially valuable in aiding the compliance of regulatory guidelines such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which ensures patient information privacy and protection.

PDF/XML? There has been much discussion on integrating XML standards and functionality in with PDF standards and some of this has already occurred with integration of interactive forms. However, this discussion will continue to evolve over time. There are also competitive products such as Microsoft XPS, Extensible Publishing Specification, which is XML based and intended to compete with PDF as the next true business alternative to the aging PDF.  Not my words mind you.

As I prepare for my updated paperless and PDF seminars, see www.k2e.com for our schedule of seminars across North America, I am reminded how far PDF has come and how deeply this electronic file format is embedded into our offices and workplaces. They are diffidently much more than we ever  imagined in 1995.

What would Abe have said?

Some day I will pay a terrible price for the pain that I have brought to others. I am talking, of course, of the thousands of PowerPoint presentations I have delivered to audiences over my career. I know, I am addicted, it is a crutch. I cannot help myself. If only we had a 10 step program to cure ourselves of the need to create PowerPoint slideshows.. Alas, I know of none. But, Peter Norvig has done a great job of poking fun and making us stop and think. What if Lincoln had done the Gettysburg address in PowerPoint?

April 2010

Prepare Your Social Media Strategy

Remember all those problems we had with e-mail (what do you mean HAD!)  Well we have new problems with communications at work and it is call Social Networking; which encompasses a whole family of Social Media tools. No matter what you do, no matter how you do it - the fact is you have to be positive and make positive moves to educate your people on what they can, should, and should not do regarding social networking at the office. You have to have a written policy and you have to have it yesterday.  It cannot be an email to everyone, it cannot be posted on the wall in the break room and it perhaps should not be distributed as a Tweet! The next questions is, "so what do I put in my Social Media Policy? First of all see what others are doing, find examples, determine what is best for you. document it in writing and remember you MUST enforce what you create, otherwise do not make it a policy.  Read more...

There's an App for That.

Several people have "corrected" me saying that the iPhone is not a multitasking device. If you believe that try checking your email then while the mail is being pull, go do something else. The mail will continue to be pulled in the background. The iPhone has long had some multitasking functionality, but it has been limited to Apple apps. Yea Jobs. The good news, iPhone OS 4 is expected to open multitasking to more programs more applications. Read more..

Is the iPad a Business Tool?

Now keep in mind that the iPad is not really intended to be a computing device, it is an information retrieval device. It is a larger version of the iPhone and functions almost identically. or those who need word processing, spreadsheet or presentation software, Apple has made the iWork equivalents available for $9.99 and we expect iLife apps to show up soon.

While not a business computer, like we are used to, the iPad will have many features and functions that professionals will clamor for.  I only hope that other manufacturers understand the difference. I have a Tablet PC running Windows 7 with full touch capability and it runs all the windows applications. It has 4GB of RAM and a 500GB disk drive - it is a computer. The iPad is not that type of computer. But I am sure someone will try to make it one.

Wyse announced that is PocketCloud solution, announced last year at VMWorld for the iPhone, also turns the iPad into a fully functional virtual Windows 7 PC. This will allow an iPad user to run all their desktop applications as virtual machines from the cloud. Read more...

Any ideas on how to work faster on slow connections?

Are You Managing Your Virtual Assets?

Not sure what your Virtual Assets are? Then you really need to read this article I recently published in the Progressive Accountant. Expect this to be a hot topic getting hotter over the next few months! And remember you heard it from Bob first. Read more...

iPad Applications May Change the Way We Compute

If the impact of the iPhone and similar Smartphone applications are any indication, the new Apple iPad, and similar products from other manufacturers, such as the HP Slate, will create a new computing standard.  I believe we will see the end of huge "Do It All" software applications in favor of smaller single purpose applets that easily share information between them. I am speaking more of personal applications obviously, at least first. But as the way we work and think evolves, the principal of smaller simplistic applications will continue to emerge.  As will applications that may run on a larger server in the Cloud, but serve information to Pads, Slates, Smartphones, Cars, Refrigerators, and so forth. A good example might be applications like Billing Boss, www.billingboss.com; which I had the opportunity to review recently. They support the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry via browser interface that is both non-intrusive to the device and incredibility easy to use.  Products likes these will establish standards for computing that will completely change how we work as much as the advent of the PC changed the Mainframe computing model 25 years ago.

March 2010

Things Are Not as Dim as They Seem.

Jeff Graber, our Joomla expert and overall great Web development guy at NMGI, brought this site to my attention. www.dimdim.com. If you use Microsoft Live Meeting, Citrix GoToMeeting, or Adobe Connect, you know all about web conferencing.  Like Adobe Connect, DimDim is free. However, DimDim supports up to 20 conference attendees for free, versus Adobe Connects three attendee limit, and allows you to share your workstation, etc.  Like most free and beta products, it is a work in progress. But if you are looking for cost effective teleconferencing options for a small office, or personal use, free is a good place to start.

Special Report on Managing Information

My good friend Randy Johnston forwarded a current article from the Economist to me on the incredible amount of data stored and analyzed every day and where the trend is headed. For those who do not read the Economist, this is a long but very interesting read. Worth the time for those who think about such things. Epistemologically, or the study of what is knowledge (there's a new word that you can throw out at the dinner table tonight,) tells us that  information is made up of a collection of data and knowledge is made up of different strands of information. But more and more the two terms, Information and Data, are used interchangeably. New terms are coming into play, like Data exhaust, the trail of clicks that internet users leave behind but is analyzed and used to determine what people are looking for and what they need. So even these little clicks becomes data and information to someone. The data you collect and information you use is instrumental in your success today. Have you considered that? A could CIO would. “Every day I wake up and ask, ‘how can I flow data better, manage data better, analyze data better?” says Rollin Ford, the CIO of Wal-Mart. Now, I can think of a number of other things I think about when I first wake up in the morning - but I under stand where Ford is coming from. Read more...

While you are at it, you might want to know how much data is available about you! Read more...

It's Not Your Father's Pivot Table, For Sure!

I received this link from my friend Brian Tankersley on how to generate a Tag Cloud via Excel's new PowerPivot functionality. Now you may need to learn a little bit about Tag Clouds (my graphic above was generated as one.) But, using a Pivot Table and a little ingenuity, you could come up with some pretty dynamic ways of generating and displaying information. Read more...

Your Next Desktop Thin-Client Could be Your Smartphone!

Citrix and Open Kernel Labs have joined to author a specification for turning Smartphones into mobile thin-client devices. The Nirvana Phone, as it has been tagged by the new group, is not available yet, but you can expect to see something like in the next few years. Read more...

This is the time of year when disasters seem most prevalent. Could I recover if my business were hit by disaster? Randy Johnston, co-owner of Network Management Group, retails a Net Rescue Appliance that they market and support for small to medium  size businesses as protection against lost files or lost servers due to a disaster. An appliance, is typically a small electronic device which is easy to install or implement and easy to use. In this case Net Rescue is a low cost device used to backup files and servers locally, as well as offsite if you choose that additional feature. See Video...

Skinput allows you to use the surface of your skin to control your iPods or iPhone. See it now...

Cyber thieves are Stealing from a Large Percentage of Small Businesses! Read more...

Who's Using Software as a Service?

Who are the winners and who are the losers in the world of SaaS? You might be surprised. Read more...

Data Security, Destruction and Encryption Leads the Way for States in 2010.

As 2010 has barely kicked off a data theft and data losses are already on the rise. New security breach legislature goes into effect for Massachusetts and Nevada this month that represents some of the strongest passed so far.  Congress is considering legislation, the Data Accountability and Trust Act (DATA) (H.R. 2221), that would preempt all state notification laws and instead establish a national breach notice standard. Whatever happens, business owners need to be more aware of the legal requirements and possible ramifications. Read more...

Now this is my idea of a Laptop, I want one!

This novel concept laptop computer from German engineers is making the internet rounds. Worth it for you to see it...

How cybercriminals invade social networks, companies

Really like your Facebook?  Love visiting with co-workers, companions, and friend?  Of course you do! But, just beware they may not be so excited with you when you end up infecting their computer systems and networks. Nice piece from U.S.A. Today Read more...

2010 Will be a Transition Year in Many Ways.

I think that we will see significant transitions this year, such as the transition from USB 2.0 to USB 3.0; which will provide significant speed improvements and increase the number of devices we connect to. This may lead to the end of the video port, but that will most likely take another year or two. Firewire is hanging in there, but it too may go away as USB 3.0 will nicely fill this gap and be far more universally accepted. The micro USB port will begin to dominate cell phones, headsets, readers and similar devices, and will slowly move upstream to larger appliances and computers.

LED displays will replace LCD displays beginning this year as LED is comparable to LCD, but uses less energy, is less expensive to manufacturer and faster than LCD. So video is much better. I project that LED will also overtake Plasma with the caveat that Plasma is still cheaper, so those that are buying strictly on cost will want Plasma TV around for awhile.

HDMI will kill off Component Video cabling beginning this year. It may take three years, but HDMI is the standard now, so get ready to move. I moved all my TV's and component devices to HDMI last year and never looked back, dumping Component Video, SD digital sound cabling, and so forth along the way. One cable does it all, and I have noticed that most computers now fully support HDMI and we are seeing more of the higher-end laptops and most displays including an HDMI ports. Here is an excellent article if you would like to read more...

The greatest transition is already progressing nicely and will continue to evolve over the next three years. That is the move to Internet based TV. I believe the days of coax cable are limited as well. The new TVs I reviewed at CES last month had Internet connectivity built in. Today, my BVDs (that's Blue-Ray Video Devices, not what you were thinking!) has network connectivity and allows me to setup Pandora radio, order movies from Blockbuster or Netflix, or, watch YouTube for free. All without a computer connection. This will all be standard fare soon and cable providers will begin pushing traditional satellite broadcast via the Internet instead. It will interesting to see how this will affect Direct Satellite Broadcasting, as they compete with Cable providers, but do not have high-speed Internet offerings without partnering with a land-line provider. Unfortunately it may also signal the end of free TV, which in my mind is not a good thing. But cable providers are struggling to end over-the-air broadcasts. More revenue opportunity for them, right? Vote no if you have the opportunity.

So, lots of fun things are happening - pull out your checkbook. Its good for the economy :-)

February 2010

Are There Less Costly Options to Adobe Acrobat, and Is Adobe Flash becoming ancient history? Read more...

How to Enable Windows 7 GodMode. Read more...

Windows 7 Release Candidate Scheduled to Begin Shutting Down in March. Read more...

Amazon Launches Kindle for Blackberry!!!  Read more...

Will Microsoft's New Windows Mobile 7 matter?  Read more...

What's the Buzz?  Will Google Buzz be the Twitter Killer... Maybe the SharePoint Killer? Read more...

Before you get too excited about the Buzz, might want to consider the security issues with Google Buzz. Read more...

Found a great tool to help you track billable time, or just track time! Read more...

When Did You Last Visit www.microsoft.com/downloads?

Updating my systems today to Office Professional Suite 2010 I had to uninstall a few older Office products so that the installer would work properly. Specifically I was searching for Microsoft SharePoint Designer, and what I found was several Office 2010 Betas available as well as Office 2007 products.  I won't make a list as that would take away the fun of your searching and finding all the goodies for yourself.  Take a few products like Microsoft Project and Visio for a drive, you will be glad you did. www.microsoft.com/downloads is worth a visit once a quarter at least. And, I will let you know how Office 2010 Release Candidate is going, but so far, so good.

Microsoft Has Announced Office 2010 Release Candidate...

Microsoft is one step closer to the May/June release timeframe. As a user of Office 2010 Technical Review and the Beta Release I have found minimal issues, several nice new features.  I did have issues with ODBC and OLAP connectivity between Excel and third party tools. But, I am hoping that this was just beta version kind of stuff that had not been turned on yet. A group of early testers will be receiving the Release Candidate version - which is typically then headed to manufacturing to produce boxes for inventory and sales copies for OEM. I should be testing mine in the next few days, as soon as I can get the download to work - server activity has been brutal. In the meantime you can read more more on the RC version.

The Most Popular Passwords In Use Today.

This is not a contest you want to win!  In other words, your password should not be a popular. Your password should be 8-15 characters, alpha numeric with at least one special character. If your password is PASSWORD, or 12345 - you might as well just make it "PleaseHackMe! Read more on bad and good passwords and how to protect yourself...

iPad Apps are likely to be bigger and pricier

While the new iPad has a lot of the characteristics of the iPhone and iTouch, it is vastly more powerful and thus has the potential for a whole new breed of uses and applications. But, don't expect these applications for .99 cents. Read more... 

Sitting Too Long May Be the Death of You!!

For professional accountants entering tax season, or business professionals stuck behind a computer, a new study published in England shows that sitting for long periods of time can be extremely hazardous. Like the big "D" hazard. Read More...

Don't be afraid to touch your computer.

While they are slow to come hardware manufacturers will be releasing touch screen notebooks, netbooks, and display screens in the coming months. All this is to take advantage of Microsoft Windows 7 touch capability. Windows 7 can support up to 100 touch points, Microsoft says, though there are hardware constraints (screen size) and the genetic reality of having just so many fingers with which to perform gestures. The behavior on the screen changes depending on how many fingers you use.

To help make touch easier, Windows 7 is able to use larger icons for the Start Menu, Taskbar and Windows Explorer. Don't touch your mouse, you can open and minimize and close programs by simply tapping or double-tapping with your fingers. You can summon a virtual onscreen keyboard, too, though it's not as natural as typing on a real keyboard. You can zoom in on a picture or text by spreading two fingers apart, or zoom out by pinching them back together. To "right-click" hold down one finger while you tap the screen with a second finger.

Microsoft is making available a free to manufacturers the Windows 7 Touch Pack which is a Surface-like photo collage application and a few simple games. The idea is for you to become more proficient at using gestures, like Solitaire help use learn to use a mouse back those many years ago.

I imagine home touch systems will be big first and then move into the office environment. Having played with touch for several months on my Hewlett Packard Tx2 tablet Netbook, I can tell you I like it very much, and will not buy another PC that does not have touch screens.  Now if I can just justify new monitors for my home system!

January 2010

How to maintain privacy on your Facebook.

Have you set your privacy settings on your Facebook account? If not you could be vulnerable to scams, fraud, and pain in the behind friends bugging you. As well as nosy fellow workers wondering around your page. There are ten privacy setting that every Facebook user should know now. Protect yourself, protect your Facebook, do it now...  (unless you are at the office of course, in which case you should close this and go back to work now.)

Would You Like to Work at Home?

Of course you would!  Nearly half of the 900 adults recently surveyed by Harris Interactive say they work remotely more often than they did two years ago while fully two-thirds yearn to make it habit. Workers defined off-site as accessing business files or software from home (80%), a hotel room (37%), or another company office location (27%.)  Remote workers also like the fact they can use the computer for other activities while working remotely such as checking personal mail (44%), paying bills on-line (15%), and my personal favorite, watching TV (41%). Hulu anyone?

Readers and Reader Accessories were Plentiful at CES 2010

Polycom CMA Desktop bring video conferencing to the corporate desktop level.

Traveling the showroom floor at CES last week with Randy and Brian we saw lots of new technology being served up as well as some old ideas revisited. Among the offerings we really liked was the Polycom CMA solution (Converged Management Application.) Right from there web-page, this is a comprehensive video network management solution that vastly improves a customer's ability to simply and securely deploy, provision and manage visual communication to thousands of users across their organization. Polycom CMA Desktop™ is a tightly integrated enterprise desktop video application capable of supporting high definition (HD) video, voice and content while scaling to thousands of users across an organization. Read more on this cost effective solution to multi-media conferencing and collaboration.

Skype comes to your TV.

One of the things that was interesting was Skype to your TV. Of course we saw a number of Internet ready TVs at CES that included NetFlix and Pandora streaming. LG has their NetCasting feature and Panasonic was right there as well with VIERA CAST. Skype has signed deals with LG and Panasonic to embed its client into next-generation TVs, finally putting video calling into the living room. The deal promises that TVs featuring Skype functionality will be available from Panasonic and LG by the middle of 2010. Both companies will also sell branded web-cams to plug into their TVs, which will be capable of Skype audio and video calling, the latter at 720 progressive lines - technically HD quality. Video calling on a TV is eminently sensible, especially as it's increasingly adopted by consumers who want to stay in touch with ever-more-distant family. But for most people, the complexity of living-room conferencing is too much, which is where Skype-on-a-TV fits in. You will most likely need at least 800Kb/sec each way to get 720 lines of goodness, though slower connection speeds will still allow lower-quality connections.

There were also Skype enable phones available from several vendors and we should begin seeing those as well.  I expect competing providers such as www.oovoo.com to offer similar products or sign deals with big time manufacturers in order to survive.

Microsoft Announces Pricing Strategy for Office 2010

If you are planning your upgrade strategy for Office this year, you might want to rethink it. First, it seems that Microsoft is planning to drop upgrade pricing across the board for Office 2010 (and other offerings later I assume.)  Microsoft is pricing new "key cards," single-license codes that will be sold at up to 30% off boxed copy prices, for upgrading the Office Starter 2010 mini-suite that many computer makers are expected to preinstall on new PCs.  How software will be released via resellers (included on the machine when you purchase it, will change as well. Further, there are fewer SKUs in the Office 2010 offering and one new Professional Academic version at a substantially reduced cost for teachers and students K-12. Without the upgrade pricing, businesses may consider if they should wait for Office 2010 or go to Office 2007 now upgrading from either Office 2002 or 2003 and push additional migration costs our to Office 2012 (or whatever.)

Depending on your organization, you may not need all the features in Office 2010 such as web essentials or the new Outlook Ribbon upgrade. to help you decide review the Complete Guide to Microsoft Office 2010 and other links I have included in this article.

The End for CES may be near.

I just returned from another year at CES.  I think I have attended nearly all the CES conferences since COMDEX bit the dust. That's the Consumer Electronics Show for those new to the technology conference scene, and is where manufacturers usually go to show off their hottest technology. I say usually because this year was a HUGE disappointment.  HP, no booth.  Dell, no booth. Lenovo, no booth.  The list goes on and on. Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Toshiba, LG etc. all had large showcases, but it was phones, displays and cameras that stole the show, not computers.  Microsoft was there, but mostly showing Windows 7 and Bing with some home stuff, but generally disappointing. There were a ton of e-readers in the e-reader tech zone, but nothing really new or exciting.

I get the feeling, and I don't seem to be the only writer feeling this way, that the days of mega-large shows is about over. According to show promoters CES had around 100,000 attendees give or take 10,000 in either direction. while the Adult Video Network conference (which was part of CES up until a few years ago) was around 20,000.  However, the Las Vegas taxi drivers tell a different story as to the numbers... far different! Either way Las Vegas was full for Geeks and Freaks but nowhere near the numbers of the hype of past years. We may not see those glory days again.

So what did I like?  Well Casio has a new super thin and light weight projector coming. 3000 lumens, wide projection and very small for under $1200. The model will be the Casio WGA ZJA250 and we should see it in the spring.

Sony and several items that I liked such as the new Sony 3D Blu-ray Disc model BDP-S770, or the Sony Blogger camera, the MHS-PM5 – Sony camera records 360 degree, now that's cool.

You know I loved the Tweaker portable speakers last year, this year Grandmax is introducing the Klipper for laptops that is smaller and louder for about the same price.

My Ditto – http://my-ditto.com/ is one of the new Personal Cloud devices for accessing your files from anywhere over the Internet. More on these later as Randy Johnston, Brian Tankersley and I are playing with some of these new options to show this year.

National data breach notification bill passed in U.S. House

A national data breach notification bill passed this month in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Data Accountability and Trust Act would require any organization that experiences a breach of electronic data containing personal information to notify all U.S. individuals whose information is breached. The House bill requires organizations would be required to designate an information security officer and establish a data security policy. The policy would have to address the collection of personal information and include a process for identifying and correcting system vulnerabilities and disposing electronic data. There are at least two versions floating around and one or both plus others may be passed before it is all over. Either way Congress is paying more attention to data privacy and fraud.