Military Officer's Oath and President Bush's "Spying" on Americans

When I entered the Air Force as an officer in 1983 I took this oath:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

This same oath is taken by all military officers while the enlisted one is slightly different. The interesting thing about this oath is the liberal media is crying "Spying on American's" by President Bush and their constant barage of their approach to Iraq as "we're not at war anymore, so let's draw down the troops so we can get back to normalcy here in America."

What the liberal media does is take the "hook, line, and sinker" of the minutia of civil liberties issues of spying on 30 potential terrorists in American, but fails to see that only 19 terrorists came into this country, that were not "home grown" in America, and murdered over 3000 Americans in 2001 in the World Trade Center. Home grown meaning that they are American citizens, just like John Walker Lindh who was found in Afganistan "fighting" the Americans. While Walker Lindh "repented" for his actions, what about others that may not be so remorseful or have full intent? What about those that are domestic enemies that use our systems to undermine our way of life? Can what happened in Britan on July 7th, 2005 happen to us?

Personally, I think it is very possible, so when President Bush only signs up spying on 30 out our total population of millions I don't think we're going down the tubes just yet. The real question is: will American's media get the message at all, or will they be the catalyst for more deaths in America?

Proprietary Standards are just another "Tax" for governments

When you read this article about Open Office and Microsoft battling for the file format standards you get the distinct impression that anything that are not open standards are just another tax for governments impossed on the people.

Personally I'm not against proprietary standards and intellectual property, but when it comes to my Federal, State, and local governments using proprietary, closed standards it now costs me, a taxpayer, more money to access government documents. If I do not have the correct program to access government services I now have to purchase the correct one in order to get that acess I am now "being taxed" by my government. With open standards which everyone agrees upon the program that I now own will probably be converted to the new standard so as to not be left out of the competition for my hard earned cash.

Public and open standards rarely "tax" anyone, but proprietary ones do.

Good enough or Great enough: getting it for free or paying for it

In writing my book I've been using the phrase that "some solutions are good enough" for most people to use in their everyday work and job. Much like seeing Microsoft Works being good enough for most people, including some small companies, to use everyday and to purchase Microsoft's Office Suite for the most part is overkill.

However, I'm come across a new perspective: are some solutions great enough to pay for them?

Because Open Source software is now used in a large portion of the Fortune 500 companies and has lowered their cost of purchasing this software to free and the software is good enough to use in everyday work, purchasing software from a vendor that will sell you a license now begs the question: is the solution worth the price you are now paying?

So instead of "good enough" being the newest game in town there is a new game called is it "great enough?" This new game is now causing many a vendor to see if the features and benefits it gives it's customers are truly what they need and want.

Due your due diligence on researching your computers solutions before you spend your hard earned cash.

Start Ups Need to Learn from Big Business Big Brother

One of the things in talking with many a small business is that they don't have the manpower or time to research all of the solutions for their business because they're too busy with their primary jobs: getting and keeping cusotmers. So, in lieu of researching for themselves they can watch they can watch what their big brothers big business are doing and learn from not only their mistakes but also where they are heading. As Frank van Wensveen in his article states

There are good reasons for using open source software (OSS), and I've learned those reasons through 15 years of experience with more traditional, commercial or closed source applications.

But what this experience teaches Start Ups is the sometimes higher quality can cost us just like poor quality can cost us, but poor quality delivers poor results even though costs are the same. That's why when costs are similar, you next look at the value of what you get.

Is Open Source Really Just as Good? A rebuttal

Michael Jung has written a blog about Open Source and is it good enough, especially from a Venture Capitalists point of view and those who look for that next big thing. But one thing you will note, there is a lot of FUD(Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) in his questionings. But let's take it one step at a time.

What’s the ecosystem that they’re trying to build?

Now let's take this first question. My first question is: who cares? I mean, when Linus Torvalds decided to Open Source the kernel of Linux, did he decide to design an ecosystem? Not hardly, but he did want to solve one problem: having other people contribute to the problem as a team where he might be weakest.

Will there be lots of people who will know (or want to know) how to work with the technology?

Again, my first impression: who cares? Normally the "Next Big Thing" are for those that have a nose for the future and even then they may not be right most of the time. We don't have a good idea of what the future holds for us especially in technology. Who would have thought that Open Source software would have has such an impact today compared with 10 years ago. Look at the history of technology and you'll see the technology dinosauers that have been killed off, and even some that remain, and notice that most people are wrong about the demise of them.

Are there vendors who can provide great support?

Again, I say: who cares? In this case, the business that is buying it cares, but the ones willing to take the risk may be in for the greater benefits if they decide to take the risk. But most businesses, especially smaller ones, are not willing to take risks with newer technologies, they wait until the Fortune 500 folks take a gander at it to see if it's worthwhile and then procede with caution with their own decisions. Bottom line: no one knows whether a product or service will take off and only time will tell if and when there will be a tipping point of a growing ecosystem being built.

And is there a path of innovation that will help the ecosystem grow?

Now here's a question that I can answer: it depends on how the innovators define the ecosystem and whether it will grow or not. The more restrictive the technology is (i.e. Intellectual Property) toward growth the less or smaller the path will be for others. No different than world governments. The more restrictive the less growth, the less restrictive the more growth. So, if you want your technology to take off, get liberal with it.

Open Source is here to stay and will continue to grow and companies would will be well advised to keep it on their radar screen. The real question is: are the VCs and others keeping their fingers on the pulse of the health of technologies or are they keeping their wetted finger in the air monitoring the winds of rumors and smoke signals.

Update: Take a look at Vince Cerf's comment at Doc Searls' "Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes" for a quick and more precise comment about being open.

Delivering value with Linux

Brian Proffitt has written a very good article "Delivering value with Linux" concerning Linux and the loss of Linux "selling techniques" by various Linux advocates. But there is a missing point to his argument: it's not that businesses don't want to sell Linux, but that to sell Linux requires a lot more work to sell than Windows does. In other words, it's an up hill battle to sell Linux and since most businesses earn money by what they sell, which would you go after, the easier money of selling what most people want or the harder way of making money selling something which many may not be aware of?

Now, to counter this argument, Linux advocates need to change how this is discussed. There are a number of things that need to change. First, there is the mindset that most computer businesses get more and more services money from the same customer but at a greater and greater cost of poor quality to the customer, i.e. a bigger and bigger piece of the IT budget pie. Second, that if the businesses sell Linux it has now moved from a "getting more from one customer" to getting more and more of the market share (i.e. more and more) of the number of customers because you will visit the customer less often. Hence, quality is a significant factor here.

Now, most businesses will go after the first part to get more and more of the customer's IT budget until the customers pain is so great that the pain to remain with the current situation that it is too great to stay and thereby resulting in change. But this change can come from two perspectives: the business changes to reduce their charges to the customer and the customer stays with the business, or, the customer is so fed up that they change businesses/vendors regardless of what is offered. This last change is known as the migration factor, from Windows to Linux or Windows to Mac.

I've been selling Linux, Windows, and Mac for a number of years and in order to stay in business you have to make money. While most computer sellers want the "easy bucks" of what people want, the longer haul will be Linux and Free and Open Source software (FOSS). While the foundation for Linux is superior to Windows, the first and second floors (desktop and applications) are the next area in which Linux will gain ground.

But, since most computer purchases are "enterprise level" purchases, Linux will only make more inroads to Windows area when you see Linux on the Fortune 500 desktops. Why? Because once people use it at work they'll want to "bring work home with them" and will want the same thing at home. Once it has started in the Fortune 500 then the medium and smaller businesses will take notice. Unless, of course, the small business is like Ernie Ball's Guitar business did when he dropped Windows for Linux. Ernie is a leader. But many small businesses are followers.

Linux has the better value for sure in many ways, but getting people to change is the hardest part. People don't want to change. It took a friend a year and a half to get me to see and then begin using Linux. Most people will be the same. Linux selling should be in for the long haul.

Intellectual Property and Derivative Works

Ok, I just signed a new Intellectural Property document because I'm beginning a new job. What I was told, but have not gotten a copy of what I signed, was that any information that I saw and if I were to leave the company and used that information to create a new product that this company owns my idea.

It reminds me of license agreement I read about some Excel macros that were sold to others and the license agreement stated that if I added to his work that he owned all derivative, i.e. added, changed, or otherwise improved, works to his program.

One of my skills is a "connect the dots" skill, that when I see certain pieces of information I can "connect the dots" to arrive at conclusions that most people may not see. So it would seem that the only to be legally bound by any IP agreement is that someone would have to find public information via Google and "connect the dots" in order not to loose out on any future income to get out of their economic doldrums.

But what I find so interesting is the "legal" approach to this issue rather than a "let's build it together" approach. Rather than a, forgive this poor analogy, of a "slave and owner" viewpoint that is taken it now bomes a "partnership" like Jim Collins expresses in his "Good to Great" book. It would seem that the out of the gate while sets the stage, there is very little "Let's build it together" in making things better. It reminds me of the story of the goose that laid the golden egg. Greed got to those that wanted it faster and better and killed the goose rather than letting things mature at the rate at which they would grow and be more inclusive. Imagine what a company could do if they were to say "Hey, you've got a great idea, let's work together to build it." When you read that 70% of the people working are not happy with where they are working, is it really the work or the organization that is making things the way they are?

For me, it's making the world a better place, not that I want to own the world.

Discussions with a book publisher: Addison-Wesley, first of many

Ok, I've begun discussing with Addison-Wesley about my book. What a "long" process and I'm not a full time writer, but a part time one and this processs looks daunting. But as I've read before, I'd rather be a best selling author than the best author.

As I discussd with AW my book has some elements of a series that if I spill it to them that while I'm not a great writer and there are others that are better at it than I am, it's the idea that I have that could make my first book become a series. I have heard of some horror stories about publishers treating "up and coming" authors like the publisher owns the author. As I was not aware of, for you all beginning authors here is what working with a big publisher will get you involved with.

Each project has a editor, an editorial assistant, a production editor, a marketing manager, a markeing specialist, and a publicist. There are also members of the sales team that may contact you from time to time to strategize or get information for customers.

And all I was thinking was publishing one book. Whoa, more to think about and stretch myself in new directions. As my wife has stated, "hold on because the ride is going to crazy and wild." More personal stretching and growing to do here.

But, what this does is get some backing from a large publisher and lessens my royalties compared with going with a POD (Print On Demand) such as Book Locker publisher.

The real question is since I have the idea I don't have the expertise to write the series so that if I write the first book and it sells well it's the subsequent books that I wonder if I would be involved in.

We'll see what happens, I have to go learn some more to prepare for this endeavor.

Update: I found this site that is most helpful A Book Publishers Blog by Joe Wikert. Good info in my quest.

Linux IS cheaper, more reliable, more secure, and...

This is the real reason that you should use Linux:

"One thing business-technology professionals believe about open-source software: It provides more opportunity for innovation than commercial or proprietary software. Two-thirds of the 439 business technology professionals we surveyed in January 2005 contend that open-source spurs more opportunities for technical innovation. Half (47%) say it encourages business innovation."

It can't get any better than that.

FOX News: Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument

Ok, have I got a really BIG beef with James Prendergast's comments in his Op Ed piece at FOX News. Here are his comments followed by mine

The policy promises to burden taxpayers with new costs and to disrupt how state agencies interact with citizens, businesses and organizations.

Let's begin with defining what OpenDocument is. OpenDocuments is an open standards based file format that is open to anyone to copy or work with. See OpenDocument FAQ for a more detailed outline. Here is just one quote from the FAQ OpenDocument is owned by OASIS, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the open development of public XML standards. and here OpenDocument is royalty-free. It can be used without charge by anyone..

Now, since the file format is free, how does Mr. Prendergast's comment make this new file format to burden taxpayers with new costs? The latest version of Open Office version 1.1.5 allows one to download the office suite for free and open any OpenDocment at will!! How does that increase one's cost?

Worse, the policy represents an attack on market-based competition, which in turn will hurt innovation

As if market-based competition is the ONLY game in town? Riiigghhttt!! I don't think that Prendergast has ever heard about what Thomas Jefferson did with his Plow Moldboard of Least Resistance? He designed it and did NOT patent it. Was this what Jefferson was thinking when Predergast stated Massachusetts’ citizens and government agencies have been well served by a competitive, merit-based procurement process for technology services? So free fails to innovate? Riiiggghhhtt!!!

But for now, the policy simply promises enormous and unnecessary migration costs to Massachusetts’ taxpayers. The mandate forces the entire state government to acquire new technologies, train personnel, and contract for new services and support.

And you don't think that Microsoft's future Office 12 will force the entire state government to acquire new technologies, train personnel, and contract for new services and support?

I could go on, but this is too ridiculous to keep commenting on.

Mapping the Wireless Jungle

Here are a few sites that discuss wireless networks for people.

Wigle.net has a web map of most of the 70% or so of free wireless access points, or hotspots, across the US and elsewhere that you can access from your wireless laptop.

Freepress has a link to the local governments that are putting up whole town hotspots for people to use.

Or, you can take a look at WiFiFreeSpot to find an easier locate for free hotspots.

I wonder if someone could like Google Maps with this info to produce a great looking map.

Only time will tell.

Will proprietary file formats raise your taxes?

"The Commonwealth of Massachusetts says legal worries helped drive it to open standards, but Microsoft has lambasted the move."

So imagine this: your state or local government uses a proprietary (i.e. Intellectual Property, IP) file format from a company and begins using it. At some point either the company goes out of business, and your local government is stuck with it, or the company begins pressuring your local government for more money. Now, you not only have to pay taxes to your state or local government but your taxes were just raised because of the proprietary nature of this technology.

Is this something in which you want your state and local officials to intangle your tax dollars with? And not only does your hard earned tax dollars go to IP but now you as a citizen have to purchase this proprietary format to deal with you governments.

Is this something which you want to be locked into?

Is your boss a psychopath?

It makes you wonder how many more of them are out there like the likes of WorldCom, Enron, etc?

Is it creativity or control of the market?

After reading this ariticle, it make me wonder how our capitalistic society has grown from a collaboration to a "win at all costs" sort of mentality. I believe in the Free Enteprise system, but this system needs moral and ethical choices to be made. Crushing the competition means that you can't or won't innovate for your customers. With Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) you, as the customer, no longer are "locked in" to a vendors decisions, but you hold the cards. Control means you limit the amount of creativity that can be done with your product and service, but if you're creative you outdo your competition.

While most are against new government taxes, what about Microsoft "taxes"

Ok, now I've heard all of it. Now Big Business, such as Microsoft, costs our governments plenty of money, albeit discounted per license, but when a government wants to be more inclusive toward it's citizens, Microsoft balks? Hmmm, me thinks this is the wrong approach by Microsoft and I think that this is the break in the Microsoft money dike that will erode their dominant position.

Is Microsoft pricing itself out of the world computer market?

When Microsoft's Vista comes out late next year or early 2007 you'll need a 3.0 GHz CPU with lots of other energy loving parts. But based on the story about Ghana in Africa because of their weather conditions they can only use 386s and 486s. Why? Because the heat generated from the new CPUs (and I have an AMD 64 3200+) would probably be too hot in that heat.

Open Source will probably be the slow death of Microsoft, or could it possibly increase global warming because of the energy needs of new computers and operating systems? Is that why Intel has started it's power per watt marketing and technology strategy in order to cool Microsoft down a bit? We'll give it some time to get the answer.

Measurements: for profit or for customer satisfaction?

How many of you trust your gas gage on your car that when it reads 1/2 a tank that it means 1/2 a tank? How about a 1/4 of a tank? Talk about bad measurements!! While it is not a huge issue, it's probably a "image" thing rather than an accuracy thing. Probably most cusotmers want the gas gage to look symetrical rather than to be accurate in how much gas is left in the tank.

In this article about AOL Fined for Making it Hard to Cancel Service it makes you wonder why some businesses are in business. But guess what, as the saying goes What gets measured gets done is just as accurate here. But the real question is: would you do business with a business that does that?

What should be happening from the Board room is not "How can we keep their money" which is nothing more than a short sighted approach to fixing the problem but a "What issues are occuring that we're not aware of that we need to fix?" But my most people's accounts, this costs money? Oh really? And how much did it cost you in reputation and current and potential customers when these people sued you?

Personally I'm tired of the bigger companies with the CSRs (customer service rep), and it's not their fault because they're following management's policies, that are more concerned with keeping my money than asking what can we do to fix the problem? No wonder the Dilbert comic strip just keeps on going.

Profit is a measurement of success, but it comes after People!

1 Cor 13:1-3 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have {the gift of} prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed {the poor,} and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

When you look at the origina Greek of 1 Corinthians 13:3 and read Vincent's Word Studies about the passage that is bolded above you see that the picture here (see SOP in verse 26) is of a mother laying with her child and chewing food to pre-digest it for her baby (especially in third world countries today) and giving it to them to eat. Even something as touching as this scene when done without love is worthless.

Why do you think this is stated? Why is it stated that performance without love is worthless? Would love without performance be just as worthless? Do big businesses and venture capitalists do the same thing? How do you fit into this scene?

Beyond Oil

Just saw Kenneth Deffeyes speak on CSPAN tonight about his new book Beyond Oil. Bottom line: we've reached the most amount of oil that we can get out of the ground, or we've found about 94% of all of the oil that is in the world and we don't have anything lined up to take care of our energy needs once this runs out. Take a look at the Summary of the oil production and use over the course of it's discovery.

Conserving won't extend it to the degree that we use energy.

This message needs to get out to the public.

Getting computer spare parts for "out of warranty" computers

I was talking with a COO of a computer consulting company this week and he stated that he will never buy Brand X again. It seems that because he didn't get the extended warranty for his computer that his now broke computers, two of them, do NOT have spare parts for them and he couldn't buy the parts on eBay. It seems that the manufacturing company will only purchase spare parts for those that have extended warranties!

The interesting part is that the computer is less than two years old and the COO is now purchasing new parts to build his own computers because he said "I'd rather spend a little more and have them last 4 years or so that break just after a year and the warranty expires.

That's good advice coming from someone who's in the trenches.

Open Source, where to begin

As a business owner when you've decided to begin using Open Source (or Free and Open Source Software/FOSS), there are a numbers of places to begin, but this is the first place that I'll catalog. I'll add more as I find them.

Alone with my book; Linux distro comment

OK, it's Sunday and I normally go to church but have decided not to today. Today I need to get back to my book so I sit here with my iTunes streaming Sky.fm jazz, my Firefox browser, Thunderbird email client, and Open Office office suite with my book opened up and ready to go.

With this setting, I'm off to do some work.

After half heartily working on my book yesterday it seems that I may have to do a major reorganization of the information. While I think my first organization of the information was correct, it does not lend itself to quick answers that people need. The nice thing is that it will take some work to cut and paste, it's still easier than rewriting the info all over again.

I got Fedora Core 4 in a magazine from the book store last night and installed it. It recognized my SATA hard drive, but was lousy at recognizing my monitor. Decided to drop it and reinstall Ubuntu Linux which had no trouble finding it and makes it easy to reconfigure my hardware setting. However, it did not recognize my SATA hard drive, but I still like how easy it is to move forward with it.

Well, now to work. Oh, at 32,000 words.

My ISP deleted the domain name, so I have to get a new email address

Oh boy, now I've got work to do. My ISP, I guess because of all of the spam and the trouble it takes to administer a number of acquired companies, has deleted the domain name (orci.com) and I now have to get a new email address. It didn't take so long to get it, but the repercussions with getting the new address to my contacts will take a while. Getting my new address to my friends, family, business contacts, etc, updating my various emails lists that I belong to, and getting back to normalcy is not something I like to do since I had that email address since the first day I got onto the Internet. I would expect that some will not be able to get to me at all at some point. But I guess the upside is that my SPAM will be reduced. So what's a person to do to prevent this?

From what I'm thinking you would need two email accounts on separate domains names as well as web home pages that are placed in your email signature spot. This would allow those that you want to continue to contact you to be able to go to the second site when your deleted email account starts bouncing emails back and to locate your new email address.

Such is the modern way of technology

Update 08/21/05: My wife states that this is the time "to get your own domain name, it'll never go away then." I'm her "IT guy" and she comes up with that, I must be good for my thoughts to rub off on to her. ;-)

Ideas in the making: saving energy or using it wisely

I was talking with a friend of mine today who has been going to Africa twice a year and he told me about the level of poverty there. He also stated that there are problems with keeping food.

Well, I told him about this idea called Pot in Pot which allows for a limited refrigeration in rural Africa.

But more importantly, the site called World Changing discusses many changes that are occuring that save energy. Now I'm not a environmentalist, but I am a conservationist. Why? If I can save so many gallons of fuel that means that the unknown amount of oil in the ground will last that much longer.

Hope this helps get the word out.

Ben Franklin Quote

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Benjamin Franklin

Amen to that. I've passed the 31,000 word mark, that means I've got 56 pages in 8.5 x 11 or 75 in 6 x 9 format.

I'm keeping on truckin'

Hire talent first, then experience

What I have found recently in various discussions with people is that the labels of job titles, previous job experience, and other such items causes others to pin hole you into your history, never into your future.

During a recent job fair I overheard a job applicant state that they wanted to head in a certain direction for their career but the HR person took one look at their resume and said "I see you have sales experience, you'd be great at our company in sales!" The person stated flatly that they did not want to be in sales any more and for the HR person to think that the HR person was only just doing their HR job. The HR person was not thinking like a business owner becasue they would probably have to rehire someone in a number of months because the person left to find other work.

In discussing the idea as to how to hire, an HR Director stated it the best, "Hire talent first, then experience." The reaon: talent is engrained in a person much like Michael Jordan has talent at playing basketball, it just flows from them. If you hire based on experience you may not get a Michael Jordan and miss completely those things that people LOVE to do and would do it without getting paid. If you pay for performance, then those that love their work because of their talent will be paid hansomely by the right company. If you read the book "Now Discover Your Strengths" you'll get the picture.

In talking with a small business owner over lunch one of the things that stuck in my mind was his comment that most people will work 40 hours a week for someone else but over 60 for themselves. It's a shame that "The Joy of Work" does not get practices much in corporate American. All hail the Dilbert comic.

Look at a world's view of Linux

The one thing that I discuss with people is the spread of Linux throughout the world. For Americans it means getting our eyes off of ourselves and see what others are doing, sort of like to tortise and the hare, we'll be left behind soon if we don't watch out. And it's not an either or to software between Windows or Linux, but an AND where Windows will play alongside but lose it's dominance over time.

I foresee that both Linux and Mac will grow substantially over the next few years because of Open Source and at the expense of Windows even with it's Trusted Source.

Bottom line: global reach needs to start happening in America more than it is.

Linux deployed: where you least expect it.

One of the local governments in my state, Jefferson county, has migrated to use Linux and Open Source, in areas where it works the best. What you may not realize is that some companies may not tell you that they're using Linux because it's being used in a strategic fashion and may want to keep it hidden from prying and curious ears and eyes. So while you may think that no one is using Linux in their operations, don't be so naive. Even other local governments such as Kenosha, Wisconsin are using Linux.

Bottom line: When you least expect it, it just might be there.

Origin of the Species: God or Evolution?

What I find so interesting about the article Evolution revolution? regarding President Bush's comment about Evolution and Creationism be taught side by side is that the "Freedom from Religion" groups don't want creationism taught while the "God said it, that settles it" group doesn't want evolution taught. Both side are wrong. Why? Did not Charles Darwin write Origin of the Species? And would not a defining of the "origin of the species" try and determine whether or not God created the earth and the stars OR that there was not God in creation? I do not propose that through evolution that we can become like Gods in the Mormon religion or that evolution denies there is a God. Personally, I see Him and (minor) evolution at the same time.

Bottom line: God started it by creation, set up the laws (physics, etc) in which it was to be run, which we're still trying to figure out, and let us decide based on the evidence whether or not we see Him.

Start Ups: Learn from the Big Boys before you play

The one thing that I learned a number of years ago is that you either learn from your mistakes or learn from others and their mistakes. Learning from other costs them, not you! So it was nice to read that some of the SMB market is getting the message of process improvement. Those that don't will be in this global market will go the way of the dinosaur and extinction. And for these companies it's not a marketing ploy, although some may believe it is. Some companies even market it, but if you really get down to brass tacks, they're just as phony worth as much as the paper their marketing materials are written on. While I was doing some consulting, a supplier was told by the company president that they were going to a Process Improvement program and they wanted each of their suppliers to come on board to help reduce costs. The president of the supplier company thought they were only using it as a ploy to get a better deal and were not realistic about it. Well, along came a year and their customer asked to see what they had and they didn't provide it. This company then lost their largest customer! Needless to say, they embarked on a program and hired a Big 8 Accounting firm spending big bucks to give them the low down, but it was too much for them. The president never really understood what it was and never believed in it and never fully recovered from the loss.

Bottom line: It just makes good sense to improve your business. It's OK to be skeptical to new things, just don't be a cynic!

Start Ups: How to get started. By Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki, who worked at Apple and has helped over 100 companies get started, has an article called Make a List, Check it Twice which can help start ups get a grip on what they are trying to do. I've read his book "The Art of the Start" and think it's great. His venture capitalist firm Garage Technology Ventures is for those individuals that have a great idea but need more than their family and friends investing in their endeavor. But if you're that type of business, then contact them.

The more you know, the more productive and successful you'll be.

Linux + SAMBA = 2.5 times faster than Window Server 2003

This is not me saying this, this is an IT Director. Does Linux need to be everywhere? No, but there are benefits to your organization when it is deployed. While you may be thinking of the cost factor of running only one OS such as Windows Server 2003, you lose on the performance side, or you have to upgrade your exixsting server to something more powerful to handle the performance. That, once again, incrases your costs. Poor quality ALWAYS costs you more.

Migrating to Macs: Contact Management Software

Here's a great site if you're thinking about migrating away from Windows to a Mac computer. This link shows a lot of software thats available that most people may not be aware of. Enjoy the info and happy migrating.

Open Source: you gotta learn from it!

I really enjoy Paul's articles, he writes about many things. But one thing that struck me is his commment in this article is:

"The same happens with writing. As we got close to publication, I found I was very worried about the essays in Hackers & Painters that hadn't been online. Once an essay has had a couple thousand page views I feel reasonably confident about it. But these had had literally orders of magnitude less scrutiny. It felt like releasing software without testing it.

That's what all publishing used to be like. If you got ten people to read a manuscript, you were lucky. But I'd become so used to publishing online that the old method now seemed alarmingly unreliable, like navigating by dead reckoning once you'd gotten used to a GPS.

As I'm writing my book and I'm just over 27,000 words, I'm wondering about what Paul states. What should I do? Open Source my book? Put things online for others to view? I'm at a loss at the moment, but maybe over time it will become clearer.

One thing I will say, I'm doing what Paul says to do here about Star Ups Here's what Paul states that I'm writing about

to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible.

I'm hoping my book is a best seller then. With over 150,000 businesses just in the state of Colorado, you just never know.

Software quality: higher quality IS better productivity!

As I stated in a previous post the higher quality is better, this article certainly agrees with my premise that higher quality is more productive. But only you can be the judge of your own endeavors.

But the premise still stands. In my job, I tackle customer issues that not only I make but everyone that affects what I work with. That means that each time I have to address a mistake, problem, or trouble spot from FEDEX to Accounting to Tech Support it takes away from my primary job: making sales! So the next time you see a mistake, just consider how many sales are lost because of that one mistake. You don't have to be perfect, but you have to be close.

Along this same line, it's been shown that Linux is still high on the quality index compared with other operating systems, per Linux Code Grows as Defects Decline article.

Vector Graphics apps (like Adobe Illustrator) compared

This site does a good comparison about programs such as Adobe Illustator and others. Great job. It also shows a lot of the Open Source applications that are available, not that they are up to par with the professional version of the software, but they are great for those just starting out or need it for the one and only project that they need it for. Thanks for the work done, Ed.

Update 08/12/05 Ed has increased the number of apps from 29 to 65!! What a savings for consumers.

Buy Macs now before Mactel happens in Jun 2006

Ok, I really enjoy reading Doc Searls articles, especially his User Management Inside comments which describes Intel's and Apple's (and probably Microsoft as well) focus on Digital Rights Management (DRM for short). This is technology at the chip level that will probably prevent the average computer user to do things with a legal copies of content that they own. Read the article, then you may probably agree that it might be best if you're considering buying a Mac that you buy the pre-Mactel Macs. If you want to know more about DRM, see Free software and digital rights management: Bitter enemies or strange bedfellows? to get a more detailed analysis.

Only time will tell, but be forewarned, I'd seriously considering buying a Mac before the Mactels come to market. The average user will not know the difference or the reasons why, but only the techies can articulate what best to do or not to do. This is a chance for them to speak out what the average computer user should or should not do to things that take away "fair use" of content and the technology that prevents this from happening. Speak up geeks!!

See here for updated comments.

Despite 6-7 times media coverage of Microsoft, Google/Apple have more buzz!

This article shows that while the industry writes about what Microsoft is doing, Google and Apple are the buzz factors now. That says to me that the industry writers and analysts are not listening to what the customer wants but is touting it own technology horn. Complexity is out, simplicity is in.

The Dell Shell

Ok, is this article a real accurate one or what? But I have to quote fully the most important part that Michael Vizard states at CRN.

"The myth is that Dell is the low-price leader. The reality is that Dell is exceptionally good at marketing systems that appear to have a low price to end users, but more often than not, when one actually configures the system with the appropriate amount of memory, drives and graphics cards to be really useful, it winds up costing as much as any other comparable system. In some cases, the price tag may come in at even more than what rivals are charging for the same fully configured system.

I don't know how many people I've talked with that have come under "Dell's Spell" and spout their marketing logic verbatim. The one thing that Dell does have the execution of a process once the process is defined exactly and precisely. But what I have found is that most people get hooked on "the deal" that Dell makes without realizing the trap that Dell has set. Did you know that Dell offers a 90 day warrantee on it's products? While most people would not go for it, guess what it's offered on? Their lowest price products, but after reading a little more and after they've hooked you you read further to see what you really want and end up paying more than the original LOW price.

In fact, one person that I had been talking with stated the she "originally was going to pay $2500 for Dell laptop but Dell got her a $900 saving and she could have the laptop for only $1600." Let me see here if I was a computer salesman how could I get this through someone's head. I know, here goes. How about if I sell you a brand new laptop that originally cost $10,000 just last week, but I'll give you a 80% discount and sell it to you for $2000?! What a deal right? Wrong!

Bottom line: You get what you pay for almost all of the time!

Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags

This is a great article that discusses what I had thought about a number of years ago when I got involved with taxonomy for a documentation project I was working on. It's a great read for those that use Google and Yahoo and the differences between how they view things so you can find things. But, this was done in a much better fashion than I could have done. Simple put, some things can be easily categorized and have a beginning and an end, other are too free form to be concrete about it.

Macs Lose to Dell, but at an increased cost to the customer

Well, it seems that cheapest price may be the undoing of Macs at the local school, but value was not the consideration. Anytime you have cost as the deciding factor WITHOUT value, i.e. TOTAL costs being considered, as an inclusive issue your costs will go up! Once you've been "locked in" by a vendor, your costs will go up because they can charge more. It now becomes a "tax" on your use of their product or service.

As the article points out, Microsoft's Office is the defacto standard in business, but the real question is: why? I've used MS Office since it came out and it does not cease to amaze me that people will purchase expensive things "just to keep up" with the Corporate Jones. In many jobs I had I've had no reason to use 90% of the features of MS Office, but the only reason I'm forced to use it is because of corporate policy. As a Small Business owner, the ONLY reason now to use MS Office is buying one copy to verify the limited documents going out to customers, not for the day to day work that I perform. I use Open Office instead. It's just as good a MS Office and allows me to redeploy my hard earned money to better things.

Linux Goes Global (what it means for America)

What most people in America don't understand or have on rose colored glasses to what is beyond our borders, there are things that are going on that affect us here in America in rather disruptive ways if we're not in tune to the global market place. While most American's don't hesitate to use the Windows operating system for their computers, with Apple's Mac OS X gaining in markshare during the last quarter of 2005 as this article points out Apple doubles industry growth, US marketshare jumps, outside of our borders in Europe, Asia, India (see here for the 3 million open CDs to be distributed to Tamil speakers worldwide), South America and emerging nations they are adopting Open Source software in droves because of the lower barrier to entry into acquiring Open Source Software.

The issue for American companies is not if you use Open Source Software, but when. Apple's Mac OS X is based on FreeBSD which is partly Open Source and partly proprietary while most of Linux is completely Open Source.

As a small business owner, do you want to be left behind the global market place because you fail to adopt Open Source Software?

What CIOs should know about the open source revolution

Bottom line: No longer is the vendor in charge of your computer budget, but you can now take charge of how you spend your hard earned cash. Let the revolution begin and continue.

Quality, not expensive, always wins

Having been involved with process improvement and the Baldrige efforts for a number of years I see this all of the time in business and in life. As the quote states "The University of Northern Colorado's Monfort College of Business says applications have been on the rise since it became the first business school to win the prestigious Baldrige Award late last year." For those that have their game hat on and understand the significance of this, this is a no brainer, but for those that have not learned what this is about, they'll either continue to suffer or ask for "favoritism" or "a break" in the issues because of their failure to change. You see this all the time for businesses when they ask for the governements help in stemming the tide of competing products. Does this mean that all product are fair that come for overseas? No, but to give the illusion that overseas is always the problem is bad for business.

The one thing that most people are not aware is the Linux kernel has better quality than proprietary ones. This article Linux Kernel Software Quality and Security Better than Most Proprietary Software tells the whole story about why Linux is better. When quality is better, over time your costs go down, buy poor quality and your costs will go up. While my grandfather always said "Pay enough to get the job done," sometimes it can be short sighted. With that said, for small businesses always buy good value, never on price, for either cheap or expensive will cost you money.

If you hit the tree, you missed the forest

As I begin my quest of building my own business and writing my book documenting this growth and the computer use involved and needed, my good friend Triche Guenin's skills and talents may be above the needs of the normal SMB of under 10 employees, but as you begin growing you can't lose site of your vision and the necessary changes that may need to occur in which her experience will undoubtfully come into play.

Why do I state this? Because as another entrepeneur Roger Denton of SharePlan fame, a project management software that less complicated than Microsoft's Project and is great for the SMB market, notes that most tools that are simple can get the job done just as well as the more expensive ones.

As an SMB owner, don't feel that you have to pay through the nose for good stuff. Keep it simple and make sure that you keep your vision in front of you instead of the tree.

OOo Off the Wall: What New Users Need to Know About OpenOffice.org

As one who enjoys using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) I really enjoyed this article explaining the differences between Open Office (OO) 1.1.4 and the new version 2.0 due out soon. This is a great article for those that are considering OO instead of Microsoft's Word or Excel. For the SMB market with companies of one, OO is a great alternative to paying hundreds of dollars just to do simple letters and such.

For more information about Open Office click on the link. For parents that want to give their middle or high school a greater chance of getting good software, this your chance to get good stuff for free.

Walt Disney, failure, his views and my thoughts

As I've been writing my book, I've always heard that Walt Disney had difficulties with his business, but now that I've read about what he went through, I don't see it as bad. Or, at least I can see some of the light at the end of the tunnel I'm going through. It's nice to know that Walt was not immune to things and that those in leadership positions need to communicate with those below to help understand the issues involved with running a business. Walt's dealing with his strike means that while he considered his employees his family, they considered it a job. When you let other become "part owners" in your vision, not only are the failures felt by everyone, so are the successes. I particularly don't like entrepreneurs who state "It's MY business," and while it is true, they fail to see that they bring on others that are helping them along and it's their career their staking on the entrepreneur's vision as well.

It was also good to read that Walt Disney has faith in God (Walt Disney on Faith, Church, Bible Study, Prayer & God), it's a shame that today you can't mention God without offending others. He wasn't offensive at all, but believed that there is good in people.

My Book is coming along

Well, I've passed the 22,000 words on my book about the SMB market with computers. Whew! As I was reading "The Millionaire Mind" by T. Harv Eker the one thing that he states hit home. He states that rich people are bigger than their problems while poor people are smaller than their problems. Good stuff! I need to keep reminding myself of this while I write this book. I'm bigger than this book, I'm bigger than this book.

The other part I liked was his quote of Richard Kiyosaki's comment that Richard is recognized as a best SELLING author, not a best WRITING author. Same goes here. My writing is to show my thinking processes, not my writing skills. Thinking from a process point of view is my talent, writing is a skill.

Saw on CSPAN Thomas Freidman discuss his new book "The World's Flat" oday during the National Governor's Association Conference which discussed education and technology and about how the various technologies and events in the world's history have flattened the world so that we're now at a global tipping point that there, in my view as
well, is now going to be an new economy this century that will be far and away the most dominant compared with recent growths. After reading Eker's book, I want to be at that point as well.

Off the take a rest from writing and reading for more research.

This is a test of the email blogger

OK, I've signed this up, now let's see how it works. Kevin

Programming on Windows or Mac?

Just talked with a new Mac convert today about his experience with his new 2.7 GHz G5 Mac. He's been a .NET and JAVA developer for a number of years and after only four weeks (two weeks using his new Mac and 2 converting all of his developing work over to his Mac) he's decided that the Mac is the only way to go for the long term. As he stated "Programming on the Mac because of Apple's encouragement and insistence of following coding guidelines on the Mac has made me a better Windows programmer." So there you have it, Macs increase your quality and expertise as a programmer because insistence on you writing better code, or in other words, expecting quality begets quality efforts. As I continue to write my book for the SMB market of under 20 employees I'll have more to say as I digest this information.

The SMB Market, what size is it?

I just read this article "Seven SMB vendor sins revealed" and I'm alway fascinated what Fortune 1000 companies classify the SMB (Small and Medium Business) market. Here in Colorado these numbers are probably much like the whole of the US. About 85-90% of the companies in the US have less than 20 or 30 employees, yet most of Fortune 1000 companies follow exactly what this this article states: they cause problems with doing a good job by NOT listening to the SMB customers needs! There's a conservative estimate of a total of 150-200,000 companies in my state of Colorado with about 115,000 of those having less than 20 employees. Yet, for all of the good the Fortune 1000 companies do, they miss the fact that these companies spend money just as easily as the larger groups if the product is good enough for them to use. There's a saying that states "If you sell to the masses, you live with the classes" and most of the times the larger organizations think that only larger organizations have money and money to burn. But this is true ONLY if the product is of high quality and there is a need for it. Personally, I like the UNIX/Linux philosophy or approach of tools and how to make them: make them simple and make them work together with others. That is, don't make the tool so larger that the less than expert person can't do the simpliest of things to work. Enough of this, it's time to move on to another subject.

Efforts on writing an SMB Computer Book

Well, I met with a writer a week ago and she went over my book outline for the Small Business using Open Source Software. Janet (The Write Source) stated that I had done more than most by having an outline but that I have the information for two books. So I've split the book into two and I've got til the end of the year, my goal, to get the first one done. It's fun for sure, but a lot to think and write about.

I was also able to find a number of POD (Print On Demand) publishers that can take a book and do some of the work of writers: Lulu.com and Booklocker.com. I'll take a look at these more in depth as I get more done.

New to Blogging, will see how it runs

Well, I've taken the plunge into the blog-sphere. I am both eager and anxious about this but plunging I will go. If some of you know, some have been fired from their jobs for writing about their experiences or with company info or appareal in full view (see here for an example: Google Employee Fired Over Blog). Although this is an extreme or out of the ordinary, blogging will be here to stay because it allows others to connect with those in a position of influece to make changes for the good. Let's get blogging!!

Kevin