This weeks post is my Midterm Exam. Click the link below to get your socks knocked off!
October 15, 2009
September 26, 2009
Well, What’a You Know, You Can Take It With You, Software as a Service
From the first time I used a computer, the ability to take your stuff with you was a very appealing functionallity. When your work took you across town or across the world, how could you take along your electronic files and access them quickly? There were external hard drives, but you had to find something to plug them into, both power and data; laptops, ah, the Osborne; floppy disks; etc.
As internet technology has progressed, the ability for getting to your stuff has also improved. You can link up if you have an IP address, in most cases. But this method has its downsides, and right when you need access the most, Murphy’s Law kicks in, and you are locked out. This is possible with any system you use, but free online sites offering both application software for producing and editing documents, and online space to store/retrieve them, now this is handy. We see lots of examples of this fast, handy, use in class when students respond to a question posed, with instant document production for public display.
Google Docs seems to have its oar deepest in the water for the moment. Their interface is easy to access, use, and it stores you production. Yahoo offers MyDrive through Yahoo mail, this is a third party application. It too is easy to use, but the offer to upgrade for a small fee shows up quickly. Zohois another offering for these services, it looks good, the offer to purchase an upgrade is here also.
MS Office 2010 Link
Microsoft is scheduled to enter this market soon. I expect they will do their best to put the full functionality of MS Office online, of course for a price. One of the jobs of a network administrator is keeping up with licensing and software installations on the network. If top of the line software, like MS Office can be handled from a single location while ending all of the related administrative tasks, at a good price, I vote in favor.
Useful, free, and dependable, these are key to picking a portable document solution. This will work for most situations, but if you need more software capability on occasion, then you source a more traditional set of tools for that special job, like the ones installed on your computer.
Another consideration, when deciding on a protable document solution, is consistency. It is a good Idea to decide which provider to use and stay with them, you can find your stuff easier if it is all in one place, all of the time, at least until the provider goes under.
Adobe AIR, No, It Ain’t a Sports Shoe
AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) presents some exciting new potential for the way we interact with the internet. The following paragraph was taken from Wikipedia and offers some details.
“AIR is intended to be a versatile runtime environment, as it allows existing Flash, Actionscript or HTML and JavaScript code to be used to construct a more traditional desktop-like program. Adobe positions it as a browser-less runtime for rich Internet applications that can be deployed onto the desktop, rather than a fully-fledged application framework. The differences between each deployment paradigm provides both advantages and disadvantages. For example, a rich internet application deployed in a browser does not require installation, while one deployed with AIR requires the application be packaged, digitally signed, and installed to the user’s local file system. However, this provides access to local storage and file systems, while browser-deployed applications are more limited in where and how data can be accessed and stored.[7] In most cases, rich internet applications store users’ data on their own servers, but the ability to consume and work with data on a user’s local file system allows for greater flexibility.”
- Adobe AIR Download Site
Click on this image to download Adobe AIR.
Nobody Does That Hulu Like Youdo
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, I was slow to warm up to this content, but… Heck, I eventually came to appreciate “South Park“, I’m still torn about the “Allah” Episode. Dr. Horrible was different, well done, funny, the music was even good. A time or two I could hear remnants of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera in the sound track.
I was quickly interested and stayed to watch all three acts. Each act was proceeded by a commercial, which I could not find a way to fast forward or bypass, but the content was worth the aggravation. The video was clear and played well, not jerky.
What are the implications? The times they are a changin’. Newspapers have already been raked through Internet coals and are trying to figure out how to survive. But this industry is a bit different from the TV world. Finding print news is easier on the Internet, and free.
While I found the Hulu clips fun and spent time to see them, If I had not had a recommendation and assignment from class, I would not have spent that much time on the matter. Generations are changing, but most folks are not interested in working to figure out what to watch and especially, how to watch it. The Hollywood Screen Writer’s Strike forced folks to the brink of actual effort, to avoid watching one more episode of Lost. As a rule, It’s get home, hit the easy chair, TV on, Mind off. Now folks know the quality and possibility are there, and things will change.
I expect there will eventually evolve ABC, NBC, and CBS type Internet channels with actual programmed content. Then folks will have to, again, figure how to skirt the commercials in this brave new world. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Anyone for watching a reality show?
September 19, 2009
How People Are Using Twitter for Business, Organizations, Events, etc.
There is a lot of traffic and information being moved on Twitter. Once you begin to get a handle on things, zooming in on areas of interest becomes a little easier. Many businesses and organizations have created Twitter accounts and use them for promotional purposes. The possibilities seem tremendous. I punch in a topic and up pops related chatter. Savvy promoters seek to structure and place their material well so queries related to their field will show up on the screen of many readers.
Blogger Chris Brogan has written some interesting material on this subject. There is room for argument regarding the value of Twitter as a promotional tool, but in my opinion it is undeniable, that if you figure a way to get your message in front of lots of folks, in an unobtrusive way, it is a good thing.
Mr. Brogan has quite a few tip to offer at ChrisBrogan.com. The following 10 Ideas about what to post are reprinted from his site.
Ideas About WHAT to Tweet
- Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
- Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
- When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
- Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
- Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
- Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
- When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
- Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
- Don’t toot your own horn too much. (Man, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I do it all the time. – Side note: I’ve gotta stop tooting my own horn).
- Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.
Check out the other 40 suggestions offered on the ChrisBrogan.com web site by clicking on the link posted above.
More Twitter Tools
Twitters’ popularity has spawned a need for others to create tools and sites that enhance and work with Twitter. The following link displays a page detailing many such services and applications.
List of Twitter services and applications
Some examples of popular Twitter applications are:
ADA , a small desktop screen window that allows the user to keep up with twitter while doing their daily business. It bills itself as, “World* Famous Ada Twitter app. Ada is the perfect little Twitter app with a clean, compact design. Ada might be the greatest Twitter app OF ALL TIME… maybe.” Link to ADA This seems like a good idea for staying current.
The Archivist, is an application that allows users to save and archive Tweets for later use and analysis. Twitter only allows limited access to tweet history. Link to Archivist This app even shows graphs, runs in the background and exports to excel, Good stuff if you are doing research.
Article Submitter Pro, this package lets writers shotgun their writing to sites by automating the posting process. Posting takes as much or more time as writing. This would be good for marketing or getting out the word on your event. Link to Article Submitter Pro
Desktop Tweet, lets you add a screenshot of you computer monitor to a tweet. This would be handy when words just will not get the point across, sometimes you just need a picture. Link to Desktop Tweet Trying to explain something to a client, pictures can help.
Autopilot Tweet, is designed to archive, network, archive, analyze, all the things required for marketing, automatically. Now that has to be a good thing, if you are in marketing and need a boost. Autopilot Tweet This is their mission statement, “Autopilot Tweet is here to automate Twitter so you can click a few buttons and coast your way to the top of Twitter! You can live your life without becoming a slave to Twitter marketing and maintenance. Having the power of full Twitter automation, you will never have to worry about searching for new Twitter followers, posting tweets several times a day, sending emails, replies, direct messages, making sure your followers don’t unfollow you, maintaining the quality of your followers, or any of the many daily Twitter chores.”
September 18, 2009
Twitter, What the heck is it?
Today I am investigating Twitter. In sorting out exactly what that is, I found the following paragraph in the Twitter Help FAQ.
“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages. People write short updates, often called “tweets” of 140 characters or fewer. These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search. “
Setting up an account was easy. Point your browser to twitter.com and click to create a new account. Nothing unusual, enter a name, password, click through a couple of splash screens, and you are ready to Tweet.”
Image from twitter.com
You can follow what friends are posting, stay connected through Twitter for mobile on your cell phone, link to your blog, automatically search for friends using contact lists from yahoo, outlook, and other sources. You can also find friends based on keywords, location or interest. Twitter also has Official Twitter text commands for use in the site. A list of these may be found in the Twitter Help FAQ.
There are controls allowing you to keep you business private, and methods to block people from following you. Communication can be public or private. You may post photos on your page, but you cannot put html in web updates.
I’ve created my account, searched for friends to follow, and read the Help page to figure out which end of this bear goes up. By gum, I think I’m ready to take a test drive. Time to get Tweetin’.
September 13, 2009
Opera
Excerpts taken from Wikipedia: Opera is a web browser and internet suite developed by the Opera Software company. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying websites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, IRC online chatting, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feeds. Opera is offered free of charge for personal computers and mobile phones, but for other devices it must be paid for. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_(web_browser
Opera Software (OSE: OPERA) is a Norwegian corporation, primarily known for its Opera family of web browsers. Opera Software is also involved in promoting Web standards through participation in the W3C. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway, and is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange. The company also has offices in Sweden, China, India, Japan, Korea, Poland, Czech Republic and the USA. Opera’s stated vision is “to deliver the best Internet experience on any device.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_Software
From all indications, the Opera web browser is not very popular, while the mobile edition is a top dog.
Editing Wikipedia Pages
So, how difficult is it to get your slant on some topic in Wikipedia published for all to see? As it turns out, it’s not that hard. One need only create a user account in Wikipedia, then the keys to the castle are yours. After creating my account, I looked up the topic, GIS (Geographic Information System) and found an article. To add my, “2 cents worth” I clicked on the, “Edit This Page” tab at the top of the screen whereupon I was immediately transported into the text of the original article, in edit mode. I typed the following paragraph, and clicked in the, “Save Page” button. My edit was immediately visible to the world.
In simplest terms, GIS is the merging of graphic map entities and databases. Consumer users would likely be familiar with applications for finding driving directions, like a GPS program on their hand-held device. GPS (Global Positioning System) is the real time location component that uses satellites to show your current position, “where am I now” on your device. GPS technology is discussed in more detail, later in this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system
It is scary how easy editing an article is. The implications bring to mind all sorts of shenanigans and potential for foul play. Even so, I often use this source, finding the information accurate and useful. I’m hoping that this is a commentary on our global society in general.
September 6, 2009
Blue Ocean Strategy, X-Men Do Bussiness?
Business strategies, competition, Five Forces Strategy, Six Forces Strategy, Blue Ocean Strategy, now everybody knows that folks are going to survive the best way they can. From microbes, to fishes, to lions, to man… everything and everyone must make a living. The sophistication level of that endeavor my vary somewhat. It is difficult to picture a Wall Street Investment Banker running down a gazelle on the Serengeti, unless you have been spending too much time on YouTube, but it is easy to imagine that if Joe starts selling coffee in town, and he is doing well at it, other business people are going to notice and imitate, cutting into his market share.
Porters' 5 forces model taken fro Wikimedia
Michael Porters’ model seems to reflect the reality of life and business. Some critics of Porter say he has not gone far enough and add a sixth force to his model, saying that competitors might act in collusion. Remember the lions?
So what about the Blue Ocean Strategy with its’ Red Ocean and Blue Ocean metaphors? At first blush, these oceans seem to refer more to Reality and Disney Land than to factors affecting a business. While there are some instances of great leaps forward in a market, such as with the iphone, the “Blue Ocean” effect on business factors seems to be temporal. That is, a great new concept brings it all together, leaving the pack behind. This new concept is sailing in blue water with no troubles in sight. This may be true, but lions, over in the red ocean are hungry, not blind, they see this new concept and want some. It doesn’t matter how far, how fast, or how high, the lions will catch up… given enough time, money, and resources. That is unless we are talking a new concept truly based in black magic and supernatural powers. Even then, perhaps eventually a lion might find a magical like minded friend to lend a hand, maybe Wolverine from X-Men, or that really cute cheer leader from Heroes.
Time may be all that is needed in this blue realm. Enough time to make a fabulous fortune and slip back into the pride, watching for other opportunities. How much time is enough to qualify as having sailed the Blue? I suppose that depends on your prospective, but I feel certain that once arrived, the destination is more important than the journey.
Photo taken from Wikipedia
