Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Oh Wyndham, How I Hate Ye!

Thanks to an ace corporate planner I am staying in a Wyndham hotel for a couple of days of meetings. This means the room is in the hotel as well as the meeting space and the meals are from the hotels crack kitchen staff. Some people would call this "jail". We call it meeting hell.

This is my third Wyndham stay and all have been bad hotels. This one is no exception. Three immediate problems:
  • No kleenex in the room? You have got to be kidding me. This is a new low for inhospitable treatment. I see no signs of a place to hold kleenex - it isn't like the room ran out and they just forgot to put some in the room.
  • The air conditioner is only slightly quieter than the back seat on the MD-80 I flew in on...
  • And the crowning achievement? While I was unpacking I heard a noise that made me think someone was at the door. I walked over to check, found no one, and as I turned to finish unpacking saw some black crap coming up through the bathroom sink. I called the front desk more than two hours ago and they said someone would be right up. Hah!
So like I said, oh Wyndham how I hate ye!

Monday, September 29, 2008

How will Congress's Failure to Pass be Viewed?

In one of the biggest votes in Congress of my lifetime the House has voted "no" on the rescue plan. This is huge as the market is indicating.

It's not that I was thrilled with the plan - can't deny action is needed though. No, what is horrible is they put this to a vote without having secured the necessary support ahead of time. This failure further cements the feeling that the government is inept (both parties!).

Indeed the accusations that House Speaker Pelosi turned the vote into a partisan one in her speech is quite true. What was she thinking? Her job was to get this thing passed since she has stated her full support for the measure. I know politicians can't help but try to score points off the other side in every issue. But this wasn't the time. Flaming Bush could have waited a few hours and she still could have commanded a stage...

How much worse can they screw this up? We're about to find out...

This post by the chief editor of MarketWatch is a good one I think.

Downslide

Well the so-called rescue package aka bailout is nearly done. The market isn't reacting very favorably. I think because the regulators and politicians have proven themselves to be so very far behind the curve. And so lacking in leadership. The boulder could easily have been stopped at the top of the hill but is now hurling down the hill with enormous momentum...

MarkT mused on Facebook wondering when we would see simple truth and honest leadership. I fear the answer is never. But this isn't unique to the USA...

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

How Escalation Really Works

As you know I manage Software R&D. I thought I'd break an illusion some customers seem to have about their efforts to escalate an issue they may have with their deployment or a software product. This never happens at my employer but I've heard about it other places ;-)

Customer's conception: I escalate an issue up the Vendor's management chain and they will assign more people and better people to help resolve my issue. The more I escalate the faster my issue will go away (even if it is self-inflicted).

What really happens: Higher management sees the escalation and yawns "ah, another one" and forwards it on to the same people who have been dealing with it all along. Those people already know the situation is hot and have already assigned anyone useful even if it means taking them off of something else. Vendor agrees to provide more frequent status to customer. This means that the extra resources assigned end up briefing field support, sales, product managers and the janitors on status instead of actually making progress. Customer demands hourly updates. Vendor agrees to a daily conference call to update the progress which robs the resolution team of even more time to solve the problem. Customer resolution time takes one step backwards. Vendor higher ups want to be kept informed so internal status updates are required and daily internal conference calls are scheduled. After a day or two higher ups lose interest and no one other than the resolution team bothers to attend. Customer resolution time takes two steps backwards. Eventually the problem is fixed but only after consuming more people and taking more time than if the customer just relied on the Vendor to do their job responsibly. The over-use of time and resources means other Customer's problem resolutions start to lag so they hit the Escalate button. So the cycle goes...

Economic Disaster

I hadn't intended to include entries on the economy and finance but the present situation in the US, and indeed the world, is extraordinary. 

The Treasury wants the US taxpayers to bail out what has amounted to highroller bankers who took large risks for many years and who are now seeing those risks catch up with them. The situation amounts to thousands of bank executives and high ranking employees becoming multi-millionaires straight out of the pockets of the taxpayers. A transfer of wealth from those sweating to put food on the table of their families to people with vacation homes in the Hamptons. Those who took unreasonable risks are not the ones who will pay to bail us out of the situation. And because of the large amount of leverage they used even if the government could reclaim their salary and bonuses it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the carnage they have created. 

Dramatic action by the government is absolutely needed. But the Treasury has too many connections to these highrolling financial institutions and their proposal is too favorable to those who created this pain. Congress generally mucks things up due to its partisanship but this is one case where taxpayers have to hope and count on Congress coming up with a more reasonable plan. And curses to Congressmen/women who try to use the situation to score political points. Someone needs to make a Winston Churchill speech to cut through the crap and get everyone focused on what the "enemy" is and what victory must look like.

The government must act quickly but a few days spent in an honest effort to improve the proposal will pay huge dividends. I just don't know if we can count on politicians to put in an honest effort...

Monday, September 22, 2008

Parenting and the Internet

As a parent of a young daughter with one more on the way I've long intended to do something about protecting them from the darker side of this wonderful thing called the Internet. I had searched around for a product to install on my network of Macs at home and every time I looked over the reviews for the candidates the number of problems reported stopped me in my tracks. So far my daughter is young enough I've been able to get by with using the draconian methods that are part of Leopard (10.5). But the sweetheart is growing up and we also have older kids visiting regularly who want to use the computer so I recently took another look at options.

I had heard of OpenDNS a number of times but the only feature association in my head was it's claim to providing faster resolution times. I've never had a problem in that area so tended to always skip over any mention of the service. However in my recent search I found several blog entries on its usefulness to parents. Moving at the Speed of Creativity had one of the most direct discussions.

In my case I changed my 2Wire router to point to OpenDNS rather than using the ISP's servers. Once done I selected the Customize option to allow me to set some site filters based on a categorization of the site content. All of this setup took less than 5 minutes and has worked flawlessly. I like the fact I can customize the filters as well as "vote" on categorizations for various sites. I haven't needed to but you can block or open individual sites as well.

This scheme doesn't provide the same level of filtering and control as some commercial products but it is also less intrusive with essentially zero overhead. For my particular situation and approach to controlling Internet access this is an excellent free solution.

Note we do not allow children access to a computer in a "private" location in our home. The only one they can use is adjacent to the kitchen in full view. If this weren't the case I would probably opt for one of the more draconian commercial products.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Now They Kick Seinfeld to the Curb?

Well after a negative - and confused! - reaction to the Bill Gates+Jerry Seinfeld ad campaign Microsoft is making a 180 degree turn and giving Jerry (and presumably Bill?) a kick to the curb. Their new - and equally screwy - ad strategy is to use a look alike for the PC guy in Apple's ads. Guess Jerry is happy to walk with his money.

Get a clue MS... I know they say even bad publicity is good but in this case I think it is just ineffective. It's not like we don't already know Microsoft exists. The ads are too late to effect the back-to-school shopping, won't do anything for enterprise sales, and aren't going to sway anyone for the holiday season either. It's not like Apple is the only source of negative comments on Vista. 

Read more at TUAW.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Clouds

No, this isn't another photography post :-)

Cloud computing is in it's nascent stage. As a SW R&D and products guy that means it is exciting, rapidly evolving, ill-defined, and with uncertain profitability. Which added up means lots of folks are going to throw millions of dollars in trying to capitalize on the theme. The only sure winners are the "experts" and evangelists who will claim to be able to give you all the answers. For the rest there is hard work ahead.

Unfortunately I'm not in the middle of this one but wish I was! This post by James Urquhart provides a good background on some recent announcements and key facets of this nascent product/service area.

iPhoneApp Winners

I've gotten questions from several newer iPhone 3G owners along the lines of "I'm too lazy to browse the App Store, just tell me which apps to look at." Well, actually none of them admitted being lazy :-)

Rather than continue to answer these one at a time I think a blog entry is in order. So without further delay here is the list. Click the app name for more details:
  • Klick - best Flickr companion
  • PCalc - best utility belt for anything involving numbers
  • Jott - best to-do and list application
  • WeatherBug - multi-locations, radar, alerts and more
  • Bloomberg - world wide market indexes and news
  • Facebook - missing some key features but still convenient
  • Where - finds events, friends, cheap gass, etc nearby based on GPS
  • 2 Across - crossword puzzle app, a free lite version also available
  • Wikipanion - guess what, this is a Wikipedia front end. Surprised, aren't you ?
  • Now Playing - find movie times, theaters etc near you
All are "Ron Approved" and receive near daily use. Oh, did I forget to mention all but one of these is free? :-)

I got a bunch of others I use less frequently. I'll get around to posting on those soon.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

PCalc - a great iPhone utility belt

I've long been a user of PCalc on the Macintosh. I love it's feature set and most of all the elegance of its implementation. James Thomson, its author, has shown great commitment to his products and so I was very interested when I heard a iPhone implementation was available.

PCalc for the iPhone exceeded my expectations and has earned a place on my iPhone's home page. I'll first cite one of the coolest innovations and that is James' undo implementation. To undo an entry you simply swipe your finger right-to-left across the display area. To redo simply reverse the motion. Multiple levels of undo are of course available. Very natural and efficient since no screen space is needed for buttons or menus. Another innovation is the use of the shake "operation" on the iPhone. Simply shake the phone twice to clear and three times to do a clear all.

Some of the other features that set it apart from Apple's version, and the iPhone app crowd in general, are its support for RPN, operations in a whole range of bases, a simulated tape so you can see the history and result of interim results, and finally a very convenient and comprehensive set of unit conversions as well as constants. 

Highly recommended! Check it out here or look it up in the Apple App Store.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Another thing to love...

When you downloaded an app update on the iPhone it used to always dump it in the first available spot on the first home screen page with available space. This meant I was constantly having to move updated apps back to the desired page.

I did some app updates this morning and lo and behold they were updated in place on the desired page (although the download still shows up in front while it is in progress). One small step for users...

Contacts are like Greased Lightning!

The new iPhone 2.1 is out and I did the update from my Windows XP laptop (I normally sync with a Mac). The update was flawless. A number of the fixes, like better battery life, 3G coverage, and fewer app crashes can only be verified over time. But...

The claim that the Contacts app is faster is awesomely true! It is like greased lightning - everything about the app is more responsive. I have a large list of contacts and previously it was painfully slow. The update has completely turned around this situation and I am one happy camper :-)

Hope the other fixes are as solid!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Front Row now Supports Aperture

Thanks to a tip posted on Flickr I found out that Front Row now supports Aperture as a photo source (previously you had no control over this as iPhoto was the only option).

To take advantage of this install the new Front Row (2.1.6) then start it up. Navigate to Settings->Photo Source and click to change from iPhoto to Aperture. At least in my case when I clicked on Photo Source it took awhile for Front Row to do anything. I think it might have been traversing my large Aperture library before changing the text indicating the source.

One small victory for users :-)

Monday, September 8, 2008

Hurricanes - New & Improved

Well, actually it is a new and improved hurricane tracker site courtesy of Stormpulse. Though I live out of hurricane territory my past experiences with the beasts as well as my ties and friendships with those still living in target zones keeps my keen interest in tact. The National Hurricane Center gives some great data in a rather a bare bones presentation format. Stormpulse gives a lot of data in a very sexy package. You know which one I'm gonna prefer...

And yes, Ike seems to have the hots for Houston... However urricanes are notoriously fickle in their romantic attachments.

Fattening of America - A Conspiracy

As if "want us to super size that for you" wasn't enough of a reason to think there was some kind of conspiracy to fatten up America I've now found that several local sandwich chains now charge you more if you want less food. When you approach the register for your sandwich and small drink you are asked if you don't want to "make it a combo" which includes a bag of chips. When you decline the sales clerk quite helpfully will let you know that declining the combo, i.e. foregoing the chips, will increase the cost of your meal by 10%. What kind of business model is that???

I guess the idea is that if they fatten us up and stretch our stomachs we will buy more later? But what about the premature deaths of customers? Or is Frito-Lay giving kickbacks?

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Making Seinfeld boring wasn't enough for Microsoft...

...so now they are going to copy Apple's Genius Bar (where customers can get help with hardware and software issues for free). I would be willing to bet MS will not be nearly as effective. First, Microsoft doesn't have their own stores so consistency and location will be challenges. Second, MS doesn't make the hardware so will be seriously limited in helping in some cases and essentially have to turn away users who do have hardware problems. Third, Windows is a nightmare to support in the consumer space. Corporations lock down their Windows boxes and run a bunch of anti-virus and security software to keep them relatively clean. Many consumers don't know enough, care enough, or lack the resources to follow the same approach. 

These MS gurus are going to be busy...

Friday, September 5, 2008

Beatbox Humor (UK)

This is a hilarious beatbox video. Very creative in the dry UK humor style :-) Check it out for a Friday pick-me-up!

Yep, Microsoft Just Doesn't Get Consumers...

Well the much ballyhooed Seinfeld/Gates ad campaign started. The first spot that ran was so empty the MS spinmeisters are out trying to explain it to people. I'm not a consumer marketing expert, but I don't think ads are supposed to need explaining... More commentary on this over at CNET.

One Ugly Ike

This is a very ugly picture. I no longer live in the hurricane zone but all the activity still triggers a strong desire to stockpile water, food, gas for a generator, a rush to put up hurricane shutters, and a tendency to be glued to the National Hurricane Center forecast updates. We saw so many the preparations became routine but the stress was always there.

Ike looks to be headed right for our former home in south Florida. I have a lot of friends there and I truly hope it either curves north or becomes much weaker before landfall. And hey guys, if you want to get away and visit Dallas just let me know :-)

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Flock has Flopped

Well, I gave it the old college try but just can't see the value in Flock the way it is working on my Mac and Windows XP. Neither seems that stable in terms of integrating with the third parties I'm most interested in. So I've given up and returned to Safari on the Mac and Firefox on Windows.

Onward to Chrome as the new yab (yet another browser)...

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Good Morning Gustav

Driving to work this morning and the outer bands of Gustav had arrived overnight. The sky is ever changing today - a day where I could sit outside and watch it like a movie. Instead I have to work like most the rest of the world :-)

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