07/29/2010

Off-the-Grid in Kenya

Category Nyumbani Open Source
For the next several weeks, I will be taking a busman's holiday in Kenya, working with Nyumbani.org. I'll be upgrading two computer labs, adding a video studio, and providing some general IT support. Nearly all of the software systems will be open-source. The generosity of many people has been incredible, and I'm taking over several more shipping cartons than I had anticipated.




07/29/2010

Hosted Email May be More Secure Outside of the U.S

Category Management
The White House administration is requesting that the FBI have access to "electronic communication transactional records" without the approval of a judge.

Many Internet service providers have resisted the government's demands to turn over electronic records, arguing that surveillance law as written does not allow them to do so, industry lawyers say. One senior administration government official, who would discuss the proposed change only on condition of anonymity, countered that "most" Internet or e-mail providers do turn over such data.


The privacy laws of several European countries are much more restrictive than what is practiced in the U.S. If it becomes U.S. policy to permit easy access to cloud-based, hosted, electronic records (including email), it's possible that we will start to see new offerings for the localization of cloud storage to particular regions outside the U.S. I could even expect to see that some countries would seize an economic opportunity in promoting their own data privacy laws, much like off-shore banking which shields the identities of its customers and their financial holdings.

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07/17/2010

Desert Island Reading for Linux

Category Linux
If you could only have one book on Linux, it would have to be the outstanding
 LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell, Third Edition by O'Reilly. It just came out in June in its 3rd edition, and deserves notable fanfare. Sure, the orientation is about getting LPI certification, but this massive tome is an encyclopedia of well-presented technical information.

No bull.

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07/12/2010

Email is All About Your Cell Phone, Open Standards, and Very Little Else

Category
I commissioned an original sketch to make this point: the criterion for a successful collaboration and messaging platform is increasingly dependent on integration with cheap, open-standards based mobile-devices. But, it's too many words, so how about a Microsoft-vested person standing in front of a fractured dam ? Feel free to use it (under Creative Commons) and add your own titling. My chosen caption is:

No worries. The damage is in the single digits.


Less than six months ago, Robbie Bach (until quite recently, Microsoft's president of Entertainment and Devices Division) excoriated the potential of Linux for mobile devices.

I think some of the current systems will fall away. I don't think that will be because there's not room for another operating system. I think it's because their quality bar won't stack up. And they won't get the scale that they need. And our job is to make sure we get that scale. So, I won't speculate on the number of operating systems you can see. I certainly think in the feature phone space you'll see some pruning of the Linux tree, and I don't think that's really sustainable.

At the time of Robbie's pronouncement, Microsoft was preparing two new phone platforms: the Kin and Windows Phone 7. The Kin was released in April and Windows Phone 7 will be available sometime in early 2011. Astonishingly, within six weeks of the launching of Kin, Microsoft killed the product. The pruning of mobile systems has turned out to have a sharper edge for Microsoft, than Linux.

Microsoft has a complicated story to tell with open-source (FOSS) in general, and Linux in particular. What's been interesting to watch, is the shift in market forces that is moving much faster for FOSS in social-media and consumer devices. I don't think anyone cares about another Year of the Desktop Linux announcement, because the audience has moved on. Ubuntu 10.04 rocks. Windows 7 is great. Fedora 13 is back. Mac OS X 10.6 is terrific. FOSS or proprietary--the differences aren't that significant for 90% of the applications and business purposes. Pick your desktop for your needs. The real money has moved off of the desktop onto something much smaller, more common, and far more distributed. Your cell phone.

The biggest drama with the players of proprietary vendors and FOSS is unfolding in a middle ground between pure consumer devices and corporate, enterprise systems: the phone. It's just "phone," now, and it means "cell phone" whether it includes a data package or not. The terminology "Smartphone" has nearly become quaint, like "PDA" and "cyberspace." When I over hear a conversation about a new phone, the dialog is about "how many apps have you loaded?" and "can you skype/do email/take pictures/GPS/IM ?" Yesterday's smartphone capabilities are quickly becoming a baseline for what users expect as a commodity. Demand has continued to accelerate, so much so that the average pricing of "smartphones" has even started to decrease.

Like a black hole that can't be seen, but warps space all around it, the dominance of the cell phone is being felt in many industries. Wrist watches are alien devices to the under 30 crowd. 25% of all U.S homes have cut their landlines, of the remaining 75%, 15% of the landline households only use cellular. FIOS and cable accounts are on the upswing, while DSL is working best where the alternatives aren't competitive. The gravitational pull of this astronomically-sized event is sucking in one industry after another.

For instance, the digital camera industry is being crushed and reshaped by cell phones. In Thom Hogan's analysis, "Camera phones are quickly gobbling up the low end of the compact camera market as they become 'competent enough.'" Point-and-click cameras are melting away under the heat of iPhone's and Androids' rocket ascension. Of Wired's top-ten must-have iPhone apps, two of them are photography utilities.

And, then there is your credit card. Both In2Pay (for the iPhone) and Square (iPhone and Android) support purchase transfers through the cell phone. Visa touts their capability as "designed to enable iPhone users to make contactless transactions, such as Visa mobile payments, by simply waving the iPhone in front of a contactless payment terminal."

Unified Communications (UC) is moving onto the cell phone and mobile devices (like Apple's iPad and Dell's Streak). It's a fascinating progression where the idea of UC used to be to put the phone in the computer. Now, it's about putting the computer into the phone. Skype, Goober, Strata CIX VoIP, Cisco, and Avaya are are building or distributing VoIP capabilities for mobile devices.

The pace of development is so rapid, that the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) has been created to "enable interoperability of open, standards-based UC hardware and software . . . " While there may be a need for openness, the founding members themselves have never actually been characterized as proponents for open standards, and it appears that the market leaders in VoIP (Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, IBM, NEC, etc.) have little interest in embracing UCIF. Network World's Jim Duffy opines about the membership divide for the UCIF: "It might be because the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum was founded by a handful of their competitors. Microsoft, Polycom, Juniper and HP are all involved, as is LifeSize, which makes a competing telepresence system to Cisco's." Because UC relies on large, infrastructure systems, it seems almost disorienting to view the pint-sized cell phone as tipping the scale. With integrated contact management, calendaring, and email that can be easily localized to the individual (rather than bouncing between office, home, etc.), UC finally has a viable business model for the general user.

Architectural dominance over cell phones and mobile devices is crucial to the growth of almost every tech-industry. General-purpose mobile phone vendors increased sales by 17% in the first quarter 2010, from 2009. But, the smartphones grew an astounding 50%. These phones aren't cheap--how is it possible that during a recession the demand for them continues to grow ? It's the Internet. Because they are Internet capable, they present a less expensive alternative to paying for a full computer and a land-line. The Pew Internet & American Life Project estimates that 40% of all "adults use the Internet, email or instant messaging on a mobile phone." The highest adoption rate is found with African-Americans and Hispanics who "take advantage of a much greater range of their phones' features compared with white mobile phone users." The smartphone is redefining the Internet as the "mobile web," and opening wide a portal of accessibility for those with limited means.

The market share is shifting between the manufacturers because of these capabilities. The software that runs these new cell powerhouses has had its winners and losers. The old guard of Blackberry, Microsoft, and Symbian have posted losses in market share, while Apple's iPhone, Google's Android have shot upwards. The biggest loser ? Microsoft. Even with a new Microsoft platform entering the phone market, it's looking grim. Google is now activating 100,000 Android devices each day, and the failed Kin may never have even reached a count of 10,000. In a New York Times article, Tim O'Reilly notes that "for developers, mobile is what's hip now, and there are two platforms that matter -- Apple and Android." Apple's iPhone takes the lead, but Google's Android has attracted consumers and developers with its emphasis on open standards.

Vision Mobile, an analysis and advisory firm, queried over 400 mobile app developers, with the surprising result that Android was significantly favored. Here's some of their highlights:

  • "Android stands out as the platform most popular with mobile developers."
  • "On average, the Symbian platform takes 15 months or more to learn, while for Android the average reported time is less than six months."
  • "In terms of debugging, our benchmarking shows that Android has the fastest debugging process, compared with iPhone, Symbian and Java ME."
  • "On average, 86 percent of respondents who use open source at work use it within development tools such as Eclipse. Android and iPhone developers are three times more likely to lead open source communities. . . ."
  • "Within the space of just two years, open source has created the biggest disruption the mobile industry has ever seen, second only to the Apple's iconic product series and the app store paradigm."

So, when it comes to messaging platforms, cell phones are the ring in the nose of the bull. It used to be that the IT enterprise chose the carrier, the integration vendor, and the email system, which in turn, dictated the supported mobile device. That's all yesterday. The cell phone is not just the end-point for checking calendars, it's the nexus for a fantastic range of 24x7 services. It's tilting development towards open source and laying an Internet foundation for the mobile web. It's kind of cool to envision setting up calendaring, instant messaging, LotusLive meetings, contact management, Google Voice, document sharing and more on a simple device that fits in a pocket. The maturation of the mobile, Internet-connected device is making the Dick Tracy phone-of-the-future look positively two-dimensional.


06/22/2010

Sys Admin 8.5 Bootcamp for Washington, DC in July !

Category
If you prefer Instructor-led technical training, IBM has set up an intensive Lotus Domino 8.5 System Administration Bootcamp, 12 Jul 2010 - 16 Jul 2010. Because of the shift in training budgets, and the availability of on-line options (e.g., http://www.rockteam.com, http://tlcc.com/, http://waresource.com), the traditional training model of a classroom is not always available.

For those of you that are hands-on learners, this is a good setup to understand the nuances of 8.5 capabilities.

Any questions about the course can be directed to Cristina Bahaia (IBM Software Representative -Collaboration/ Portal/ Unified Messaging Solutions), cbahaia@us.ibm.com.


06/07/2010

Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 3 is Out

Category
I had been tipped that IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 3 was coming out this weekend, but it didn't show up until today. Some very deep changes.

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05/03/2010

Pick Your Tattoo ! LotusLive ? Microsoft Online ? Gmail Apps ?

Category Administration IBM/Lotus
If you are deciding to migrate your messaging platform to a hosted or SaaS solution, then you might as well think of it as choosing a tattoo. At least one company I know wished it had picked a different one. When the purchase details start to fade, you won't be cherishing it for the negotiated price. Choose for the long term. To help out, I have some insights from one company that went from Domino to Google Apps for Business.

Reality Orientation

Are there lessons to be learned from a Domino to Gmail migration ? I asked a project manager for some off-the-record comments of his company's recent experience:

  • Gmail is first a consumer product, and second an enterprise solution: For many new employees, starting a new job with Gmail was a welcome familiarity. Google Sites and Apps have been seen as useful and are appreciated. However, for senior and executive staff, the loss of their work-flow habits was frustrating. Users who had used the Notes 8x client were not as impressed by Gmail features, as those with an older release (e.g., calendar overlays are supported in both Gmail and Notes 8x).

  • Pilot-testing should include executives and their support staff: One of the biggest surprises that still continues to frustrate users of the new Gmail system is the rough process for joint delegation of contacts and mail (calendaring is a little better). If you are choosing between multiple vendors for their hosted solution, then try to run parallel pilots to allow easier cross-comparisons.

  • Be prepared for unannounced feature changes: You no longer control the release-cycle for upgrades and feature adjustments. While Google maintains a blog for documenting significant enhancements, there are many little changes that frequently appear without any notice.

  • BCC is not identifiable to the recipient: If you send out an email to several groups, and include a BCC reference to someone else--they won't know that the mail was addressed to them as a BCC. This ambiguity leads to awkward situations when a Reply To All is selected from the BCC recipient.

  • The mechanics of the migration were most difficult with calendars: Even with the most recent import tools, the calendaring transfer was very challenging, especially for repeating meetings (of which many had to be manually recreated).

  • Moving Blackberries was much more troublesome than expected: Accounts had to be first converted into PSTs before their inclusion with GMail. The process is slow, and CPU intensive. It proved so difficult to complete that an extra BES was provisioned to assist in moving over the accounts.

  • Read and unread marks do not work with shared email: Read marks are set anytime any one reads a mail entry. If two people spot read through a mail account, then all the read messages are marked as read--with no distinction as to who read what.

  • No Return Receipt: Some people love it, others hate it. In Lotus Notes you can mark email for a Return Receipt as soon as the recipient opens the email. It's a confirmation function that assures the sender the mail has been received.

  • Mail-in Databases are confusing: In Lotus Notes, mail-in databases don't add to the licensing cost, but they do with Gmail. In addition, there is a maximum of 10 delegated readers to a mail file.

  • Help Desk support from Google is painfully weak: Corporate Help Desk Mail support was still required. All contact with Google support is through the creation of trouble-tickets. There is no phone contact. The process for problem resolution is slowed by the requirement of very thorough question and answers to every incident. In some instances, Google was not able to replicate or verify the problem and required customer log-in credentials to analyze a problem.

  • The browser-only interface is not always sufficient: Threading is problematic, so many clients have gone back to a stand-alone client (through IMAP) like Apple Mail, Outlook or Lotus Notes.

  • Labs are erratic: The Labs extensions add tremendous customization but they have a buyer-beware orientation (to be fair, that's why they are called "Labs").

This particular organization was hoping that their migration would lower operational costs, and they expect to show the benefits within three years. On the other hand, in hindsight they would have chosen IBM's LotusLive as a better "enterprise" messaging platform. There were just so many more adjustments and work-arounds than they had expected.


The Platform is the Message

The review of the Gmail move brings to the forefront whether a hosted solution is a fix for yesterday's issues of cost and complexity or a messaging platform with vision. The evaluation metrics are different, because nearly everything (the customer's content, processing logic, authentication, etc.) is lifted into The Cloud. It's what makes a multi-tenant offering so cost-competitive: many users sharing the same infrastructure, benefiting from increased efficiencies. But, behind the browser interface is a vendor-specific platform. Yes, it's lock-in, but it can also be further leveraged.

So, don't believe the sudden love that vendors have for your current problems and their sympathetic willingness to lower every barrier to your purchase. Once they have a customer's account, a vendors' cost model changes, too. Now, the customer is a subscriber with annual renewals. It's guaranteed income to the vendor, who couldn't be happier as they look to create even more value by extending the infrastructure.

Google is looking to "appify" their email. Microsoft is quickly solidifying their Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and IBM has LotusLive and Project Vulcan. Cost reduction is only the introduction to the advantages of hosted and SaaS collaboration technologies. The next push will be to integrate and broaden messaging into unique capabilities. It won't just be the obvious linkage of Microsoft Dynamics with Microsoft on-line or Salesforce.com integration with IBM/Lotus. As Steve Ballmer says, "for the cloud, we are all in."

Google's Gmail has been the most successful at building out a large scale, on-line messaging platform. Joe Brockmeier has drawn out some of the significance in Google's latest adoption of the Oauth authentication standard for building off of enterprise Gmail.

Enabling OAuth means that an application can connect without your credentials. It still has access to some or all of your data, but it doesn't have your password. Meaning that the application can't take full control of your account. OAuth is being used pretty widely by social networking sites like Twitter to give access to third-party apps without giving them full run of account. This is a Good Thing, and people should not be giving access to their social network sites to other Web-based services in any other way.

For their part, Microsoft is looking to extend Active Directory so that networked single-sign-on will work against cloud services. Their Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 (ADFS) is just coming on-line. "In addition, ADFS 2.0 is part of a larger identity platform that includes the Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) and Windows Cardspace."

Interesting, isn't it ? The security and authentication systems adopted by the vendors are changing and evolving to take advantage of hosted and SaaS collaboration offerings. Turning to Google again, they are beginning to draw on "contextual gadgets" for development in Gmail with Google Apps.

In addition to the many integration points currently available for Google Apps, like the Google Data APIs, we announced that we will soon open Gmail contextual gadgets as a new extension point for developers. These gadgets can smartly draw information from the web and let users perform relevant actions based on the content of an email message, all without leaving the Gmail inbox.


Contextual gadgets are very promising and opens up an entire new field of development. Liz Gannes has a solid overview of the "appifying" trend with Gmail and warns that "Email will be a bit tricky to innovate around, given how dependent and immersed we are in it. For instance, messing with linear, chronologically ordered messages in order to bring relevant ones to the fore might do more harm than good."

Redesigning the inbox and integrating with new functions will be be tricky, but it will be done. What is happening, is that third-party vendors and enterprise developers are beginning to build on the email platform in The Cloud, just as they did when it was on-premise. The difference ? Once the platform is Microsoft, or Google or IBM, then the developers will become even more constricted for their tool set and architectural choices. I doubt many Exchange/Sametime customers will hesitate to absorb their IM choice into Microsoft when they go to Microsoft BPOS. Moving into LotusLive or Google is going to slowly kill off Microsoft Office, and promote the Open Document Format (ODF). The re-birth of the enterprise developer for The Cloud may also be the end of selecting the best-of-breed.

How to Pick Your Tattoo

Tattoos have a tribal association to them. They can describe class, or a vocation, but they always reflect an era. If the most important criterion for choosing a hosted, SaaS email platform is to reduce operating costs, then it will be selected on the current needs of the current situation (that's what defines the operating cost). Choosing by price will fix the messaging framework to the past.

Do you trust the provider for the future ?

What about Unified Telephony ? Email, IM, voice, video and collaboration on a single interface ?

How is email to be integrated into business workflow ? Invoicing ?

Is social networking integration going to be more important ?

Where do you think mobile devices will be in two years ? Three years ? It's important because there is an acceleration of momentum for smartphones and other devices. Windows Mobile is on the wane, the iPhone and the Android are climbing charts and the outlook for Blackberries is not as strong as it was a year back. The iPad brings a new consumer medium to messaging.

If a device is manufactured by the same vendor as the messaging platform, do you expect the vendors to remain neutral in functionality and support, or to maximize their devices for the benefit of their own platforms ?

Security is a completely new field of investigation. How is access monitored ? What about moving clients into Virtual Desktops ? VPN support ? How about data ownership when the court serves the remote data-center with a subpoena? How is eDiscovery supported ?

How is older email to be archived ?

Cross-browser support on mixed platforms ? HTML5 ?

What about document formats and document management integration ? Sharepoint ? Documentum? Quickr/Alfresco ?

Directory integration and management ?

Go with an entire repositioning or, instead, a hybrid model with some accounts or capabilities left on-premise ?


Maybe you have enough insight from the "lessons learned" that were listed above. And, you appreciate that hosted, SaaS email platforms are going to have development capabilities to exploit. You've marked your path through the thicket of choices and their consequences. Do me a favor, if you step into Fatty's parlor, please tell him I sent you. Maybe I'll get a discount when I make my pick.


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04/08/2010

The Latest Tungle Beta is a Lotus Notes Winner

Category
Tungle has just released their latest beta for supporting the Lotus Notes 8.0.2/8.5 client. It's only at release 0.80, but it is good enough that Tungle has my vote. At my company, there has been an increasing need to provide calendar integration. Some corners of the enterprise rely on Microsoft Exchange and we have a business need to be able to coordinate our meeting schedules, independent of the messaging platform.

In addition, the connectivity of the Internet has altered work relationships so that many people want a more nuanced technology for calendar integration with the people they know. iPhones, Blackberries, and the Android are stretching work boundaries outside of corporate walls. LinkedIn, Facebook, GMail, Twitter, Xing and Ning are growing new communities, many of which are work related. So, how can I schedule my time with my associates ? How can I look up shared meeting spaces to verify an open slot ?

For about eight months, I've been looking at different solutions which I can divide into three classes.

1. Consolidate everybody onto a single platform. The difficulty with this choice, is that depending on the size of "everybody" it's a very expensive option. There has been a trend to solve this dilemma by pushing disparate messaging platforms onto a hosted service, which can be less expensive than an on-premise solution. But, any messaging transition is disruptive and costly, whether it is hosted or not.

2. Another possibility is to integrate the calendaring between these various messaging systems. The most notable provider for enterprise calendar integration is BinaryTree's Calendar Connector. It integrates calendar lookups for different entreprise domains (Exchange to Exchange), and platforms (e.g., Domino to Exchange).

It's an on-premise solution.
It would provide full lookups, in our existing infrastructure with no end user involvement.
It works with the desktop clients, as well as for browser-based email.
Unfortunately, an estimated cost for our architecture is in the range of $100,000.00

 3. The last category is where shared calendaring is supported as Software as a Service. This industry is still nascent, and IBM and others will be certainly be creating similar offerings. Interestingly, most of these SaaS companies provide a basic set of functionality at zero-cost. This is important for us, because the only way to ensure that calendar sharing will work for us as SaaS, is if everyone uses the same service. It's like using public IM systems, if Group A is on AIM then they can't chat with Group B on Google Talk. As long as the initial set of functionality is free, then it's much easier to get everyone to agree to the same service.

The last time that I checked there were four primary services for calendar sharing:

  1. Timebridge ( http://www.timebridge.com/ ) is only for Outlook and iCal.
  2. Jiffle ( http://www.jifflenow.com ) is only for Outlook and iCal.
  3. Doodle ( http://www.doodle.com ) has connectors for Outlook, Lotus Notes, iCal, Google Mail, Yahoo Mail.
  4. Tungle ( http://www.tungle.com ) has connectors for Outlook, Entourage, Lotus Notes, Blackberries, iPhone, iCal, Google Mail, Yahoo Mail.

For Lotus Notes, Tungle has programmed a widget plug-in. The idea being that it's the Notes client which collects the calendaring information from the user's account and pushes it into Tungle's cloud. They are advertising themselves as using a "freemium" business model, where premium services will eventually be added at an extra cost.

I've selected Tungle, because they have the broadest offerings ( http://tungle.me/Home/Faq.htm) , and because they support both Windows and Macintosh users for Lotus Notes. Tungle integrates with the Eclipse client for Lotus Notes, which we have already installed on all new Macintosh systems and we are in the process of pushing to all users (mostly Windows). The shared calendaring is even tunable so that it is only available to a specific list of accounts for each email user. Just to be on the safe side, I ran netstat and confirmed that the connection between the Notes client and the hosted service is encrypted.

Sometime, I'd like to give a full review. I've been in the beta program for over four months, and Tungle's responsiveness is encouraging. In the meanwhile, I hope that I outlined the most salient aspects of Tungle and why it's getting my recommendation.

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04/07/2010

Secrets of the Administration Guild: New Compacting Options

Category Administration IBM/Lotus Domino ND8 Secrets of the Administration Guild
ND8.5 has added lots of new functionality, but not all of it is well documented. Because I haven't written any "Secrets" for a bit, I thought this would be the right opportunity to explain a new configuration: DEBUG_ENABLE_COMPACT_8_5=1. I've run it on AIX, Linux and Win2008 Domino servers.

The new setting is dynamic, so it will be active very quickly. To ensure that it's working correctly, use a console command to read the advanced setting: "load compact -?" Reviewing the console help, you'll see several additional parameters:

  • W nn - Only compact databases which haven't been compacted successfully in the last nn days.
  • w - Exclude system databases (e.g., log.nsf, names.nsf).
  • X nn - Limit each database compaction to no more than nn minutes. (Applies to in-place compaction only)
  • x nn - Limit total compaction time to nn minutes.
  • # nn - Execute up to nn compactions in parallel using different threads.


There are some caveats to keep in mind with these settings. It is possible to achieve some dramatic improvements in compacting throughput by employing the "#" configuration. But, there is a cautionary recommendation to not exceed eight threads, as Domino will run into the ground with database I/O and CPU bottlenecks.

The "w" is one of those About Time settings. To date, the only alternative has been to create an indirect file with a listing of all the root databases that could be safely compacted. The "w" is not perfect--it will try to run against the events4.nsf, and that's going to create a compaction error. However, I've never seen the "w" compaction interrupt the Events task, so the error is only an annoyance. On the other hand, I've certainly seen the AdminP task halt because someone tried to compact adminp.nsf.

So, if your Domino server is up-to-date, then you should be ready to optimize your compacting.

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03/31/2010

Maybe, You're Not So Smart or as Organized as You Think

Category Management
Even with every imaginable, computer-assisted program or device, I still struggle for working efficiently and with continuous learning. I carry a Blackberry, an iPod Touch, an iPod Nano, and a plethora of CDs and bootable USBs. My workstation is a monster Mac (4 CPUs and 16 G of RAM) that runs VMs of WinXP, Win7, and Ubuntu, spread over two large monitors. I have the world's best e-mail, practice Getting-Things-Done, and access a varied range of tracking systems that are synchronized between my systems. Am I better off ? Maybe not.

Lamont Wood writes a good summary about the growing suspcision that office technology does not correlate to an increase in productivity.

The dirty little secret of office technology is that no one can agree on how exactly to measure white-collar productivity. That means, in turn, that no one can prove definitively that PCs and other technologies contribute anything to productivity

Lamont has written a balanced perspective on the positive contributions made by white-collar automation, but he also calls out the myth of "multi-tasking" as creating the appearance of being busy at the cost of effeciency.

I'd like to add to the conversation with an observation that the qualifying criterion for being a 21st century Knowledge Worker is the ability to learn. Scanning e-mails, opening up IM chats and being plugged into social networks does not increase the depth of my job competencies (at least, not for me). Productivity for a brick-layer can be counted, piece by piece. For life in front of a computer screen, productivity requires the acquisition of new skills. And, learning is hard. To be an effective worker requires keeping up a pace of continual learning. A wonderful, must-see, set of videos on the challenge for learning is the documentary: "Minds of Our Own."

Seriously. If you haven't seen these videos, you need to, and it'll take you several hours. The series was produced by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. You are simply not going to believe how obdurate bright people can be in overcoming rudimentary self-perceptions to learn something correctly.

Why is it that students can graduate from MIT and Harvard, yet not know how to solve a simple third-grade problem in science: lighting a light bulb with a battery and wire? Beginning with this startling fact, this program systematically explores many of the assumptions that we hold about learning to show that education is based on a series of myths.

Breaking free of the multi-tasking-connectedness cycle is more than a reprioritization of my tasks (e.g., access email only once a day, Facebook is for afterwork, etc.). Because, it necessitates a different concept of being productive. It's not about busyness. My productivity is foremost and intimately correlated to an ability to learn, and then the application of what was learned.

And then ? Then I can tweet about it.







03/28/2010

The Next Ubuntu Release Will Increase Its Desktop Reach

Category Administration Management Nyumbani Open Source Ubuntu
Malware is a parasite that is too familiar with Windows, and uncommon on Macintosh and Linux. It's going to be one more justification for moving onto a different desktop. Robert McCartney has detailed an article of his hijacked Windows machine, "Cyberjustice: An Impossible Dream?"

The cyberswindlers didn't get my money, but they cost me a heap of frustration. It took two weeks and four visits to The Washington Post's IT department to get my computer back to normal.


I've never met McCartney, but I am familiar with the technical support staff at The Washington Post, and they are not slackers. In fact, every workstation and laptop is installed with several monitoring programs to fight malware and viruses. Still, a smart journalist fell prey to a phishing scam and suffered a very long two weeks from an infected system.

Personally, I also provide a fair amount of family support. My solution for my Uncle Joe, after his second installation of malware ? Ubuntu. It's what's on my daughter's laptop, my Dad's workstation, and it's what I put on equipment that is being shipped to Nyumbani, a children's residence. I've been working with Linux, and Ubuntu in particular, for several years. The result has been no viruses, and no malware.

I've been running Ubuntu 10.04, beta, and it looks very polished. IBM's Client for Smart Work is going out on Ubuntu, and it is even possible to be run on a very inexpensive VDI platform by Virtual Bridges.

Ubuntu 10.04 is the release that enterprises will begin to seriously evaluate for deployment. Maybe it should have a market slogan of "Now, with less malware than competing platforms." I should ask Robert McCartney what he thinks.


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03/26/2010

SimmBook, Ubuntu and IBM Lotus are Gaining Ground

Category Administration Management Open Source Ubuntu
Early estimates are placing the price of the Ubuntu-powered Simmbook with IBM/Lotus software at less than my original guess. Lilliputing is noting that the little netbook will "come preloaded with IBM business software including Lotus Symphony, Lotus Notes, LotusLive iNotes, and other desktop and cloud-connected applications" for under $200. That's a lot of business-ware for such a small cost.

ReadWriteWeb summarizes the intention of the Simmbook:

Part of the strategy here is to convince IT managers in emerging markets that the Netbook is a legitimate alternative to the PC, especially when it comes pre-loaded with Ubuntu and productivity applications with no custom work required.
Interestingly, the inclusion of LotusLive places the Simmbook in the middle ground between the cloud-oriented iPad and Google's Chrome OS. The Simmbook has enough resources to manage locally stored applications, and will benefit from any available cloud-services, when there is connectivity.

It's being built at a rate of nearly 4,000 units/month, which isn't an overwhelming number considering that it will take 5 years to reach 1 million units. You'd think that someone else would jump into the fray and offer a competitive product. But, I'm not sure that another manufacturer is going to bother to undercut the Simmbook unless the scale is adjusted upwards. Simmtronics has several manufacturing facilities, so it's likely that they can increase their output to keep pace with the Simmbook's rising popularity.

I'm keeping an eye on the Simmbook, and looking forward to the possibility of evaluating one.

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03/12/2010

Great High Level Tool for Working with MX Records

Category Administration Messaging And Collaboration
There are times that I need a quick read on public MX records, reverse lookups, blacklists and that sort of stuff. MXToolbox.com is a great fit. One really neat feature, is the ability to parse out header information. Yes, I know that you, an IT professional, can read it. But there are times when a user wants to know why the mail was delayed, and the headers show a delay but the readout is a jumble. I might as well be talking about flux-capacitors.

MXToolbox has an on-line parser that breaks the pieces into a table format that makes the reading of the header transparent. Now, I have something that's to show where the delays have occurred, and to give the response time of the originating and receiving servers.

MXToolbox deserves to be bookmarked in your favorite browser.

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03/09/2010

Super LightWeight Lotus Symphony

Category Administration Linux Open Source
Lotus Symphony is a cross-platform office suite, which is an advantage if you are looking for a zero-cost, light-weight desktop operating system. Because if you are really thinking of running Lotus Symphony, with its Eclipse-based foundation, on hardware that is of marginal ability, then some of the Linux variants would be a good choice.

Phoronix has a write-up of their analysis of "Power & Memory Usage Of GNOME, KDE, LXDE & Xfce." Interestingly, the LXDE, "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment" really shined, and there are several Ubuntu-based distributions which are built with LXDE. This last week, I tried out WattOS, and as it runs as Ubuntu 9.10, it's possible to install Lotus Symphony from the Ubuntu Partner repository. One click install.

WattOS isn't as sophisticated as MacOSX, Windows 7 or the latest, full, Ubuntu. But, Lotus Symphony on WattOS works quite well and makes it possible to extend the usefulness of a lot of systems that might otherwise be limping.

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02/25/2010

VERDE Gets a Close Look and Pre-announces Hosting Option

Category Administration Linux
In September, IBM's Client for Smart Work was announced as including Virtual Bridges VERDE VDI solution. It was a surprise to many analysts in the virtualization industry, as VERDE hadn't been receiving the same press as other VDI companies. I've worked with VERDE's solution, and have been impressed by it. Gabe Knuth has given a wonderfully detailed assessment of VERDE's VDI in his "A first look at Virtual Bridges VERDE."

Virtual Bridges then added some of their own commentary:

We feel the cherry-on-top of VERDE is our TCO story --  the combination of higher densities, lower storage requirements and lower software acquisition costs uniquely deliver a VDI value proposition where the numbers finally add up, whether a Windows 7 refresh or just an XP desktop infrastructure make-over. This is really where we stand apart from the field.

The biggest surprise, is that Virtual Bridges will be offering a complete, hosted solution.

The hosted service will be formally announced over the next few weeks.

For more info on licensing, discounts or hosted options interested parties should send an email to sales at vbridges dot com.

Virtual Bridges and IBM have a relationship across several fronts. Customers can buy from IBM as part of either an IBM Client for Smart Work (ICSW) adoption from Lotus and IBM partners or as part of an IBM Smart Business Desktop Cloud from IBM Global Services End User Services group where we are one of three official Offerings (Vmware and Citrix being the other two). By buying through IBM users can get the advantages of integrated product and service delivery with other IBM offerings. Virtual Bridges will often support IBM, either directly or through our wide range of international partners, in the background of these adoptions, especially in international markets where IBM has a closer relationship with the customer already established. Virtual Bridges is happy to sell direct, through partners, or in partnership with IBM depending on the customers preference.



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