BizIT101 Archives   by Gregory B. Michetti

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July 2007

High-tech fashion—hemlines up?

Hey geeks/geekettes: Exactly what will you be wearing next fall while coding away in your cubicle?

“Alessandro Dell’Acqua’s color palette is a breath of fresh air: optic white, pearl gray, black and nude with pops of blue and cherry red. His long and lean silhouette was sexy—the zip-front fitted scuba jackets, the ultimate skinny pant. My favourite pieces were the dresses; I loved the nude chiffon with a knit back and the short cherry-red pleated chiffon dress with wide nude elastic straps.”

Now that last paragraph, copied verbatim from the online version of New York Magazine www.nymag.com, represents what Ann Watson, vice-president fashion director at Henri Bendel, will be buying for her clients this fall. Here it is, just weeks after the snow has gone, the fashion plates in the clothing business are planning for winter 2007.

They’re not alone. The hi-tech industry, especially the big players in the retail game, use the months of May, June and July to begin hauling out their hardware and software for the fall and winter months.

That’s because the two busiest, hi-tech spending periods of the year are the back-to-school time in mid-August and the November-December Christmas shopping season. It’s going to happen before we know it, too. But, more importantly, most retailers need to place orders and lay out serious coin for tech products several months before delivery. And every retailer will tell you, it’s not how you sell, it’s how you buy. Want that Inventory Turnover ratio on the balance sheet to be healthy? Then you must do your homework well in advance or else the bank will turn your nice retail location into a donut shop, with you as chief barista.

Remember the Hewlett- Packard “The Computer is Personal Again” pitch display at the local Best Buy last Christmas? Did you see the same ad on Monday Night Football? To put this into perspective, that campaign was unveiled in May 2006 in San Francisco.

In May of this year, HP unveiled part of its corporate direction at an event I attended at the Battery Park Ritz-Carlton in the lower Manhattan area of New York City. Specifically, this event was held by the IPG—imaging and printing group—at HP, the people responsible for digital cameras, scanners, printers and supplies. Translation: They generate close to a third  of HP’s annual revenues of more than $90 billion (U.S.) last year.

Also in May, Sun Microsystems held JavaOne 2007—the annual love-in for Java coders—in San Francisco. This four-day event has turned into Sun’s state-of-the-union address… quite positive because the company has recently strung together successive profitable quarters. Although the analysts dumped on the stock because it fell short of their revenue estimates, Sun is getter healthier at operations. Despite turbulent times, it still commands respect in tech circles and everybody has an opinion on the company.

Naturally, Microsoft isn’t exactly sitting still: Its annual week-long Tech-Ed 2007 show for key developers and partners was held in early June in Orlando. It costs nearly $2K (U.S.) per person to attend (sans food, air and hotel) and always sells out a couple of months beforehand. With a new operating system, Vista… a new version of Microsoft Office, 2007… and a new server operating system, Longhorn… there was a lot of Microsoft Kool-Aid to drink at this event.

Also in June, I attended the Symantec Vision 2007 Conference, in Las Vegas. The upcoming year looks to be a big one for Symantec as they launch, among other things, Norton 360; a flagship-type application that has antivirus, anti-spyware, firewall and offsite storage capability for consumers. It will go head-to-head with Microsoft’s Live One Care as the primo security software suite for Vista… as Vista-equipped PCs may be the real rage in the fall.

Oh yeah… just before I hit Vegas, I attended the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal and looked at Lenovo’s involvement in hi-tech hardware for Formula One racing. Something must be working for Lenovo as the workstations and servers they supplied possibly helped vault the ATT Williams team and its driver Alexander Wurz into a third place finish that day. Again, “show-off” events like this are aimed at strengthening end-users’ opinions about the products and company around the key buying periods.

As for me, I’m just wondering what it will be like as I look in my closet before heading out on a tough day of coding next October. Will I wear the Alessandro Dell’Acqua’s chiffon… Dolce’s pewter trench… or the purple shirt from Moschino?  Hmmmm. Think I will stick with the Dockers pants and Polo shirt. Those other clothes are just so February.

June 2007

Vista: Is it time to upgrade?

Last November, Microsoft released Vista, its latest operating system, to the business sector while the general public was allowed access to it a few months later. Today, the majority of personal computers for sale have Vista pre-installed, although most hardware vendors still offer PCs with Windows XP.

So far, there hasn’t been a huge rush to implement Vista and most end users, system administrators and CIOs are cautious about the new operating system. The same foot-dragging is also seen with Microsoft Office 2007, the popular productivity suite that is often bundled with a new computer. There are several reasons for this.

First, we have been used to paying relatively low prices for hardware in the past year and when end users—corporate or home—see the cost of a new Vista equipped box with MS Office software, they’re surprised at the sticker price: it easily tops $1,800… and nearly double that price with laptop and notebook units.

Second, many users of Microsoft Office are a bit spooked by the four-letter file name extensions in Office 2007 and feel that will cause confusion with the files they create and send to others. To illustrate, a Microsoft Word document called “michetti.doc” in Office/Word 2003 or earlier is now called “michetti.docx” in Office/Word 2007. Likewise, Excel files now carry an “xlsx” ending. You can’t read MS-Office files with four-letter extensions in Office 2003 and earlier.

Third, some resist the move to Vista because the new ‘cartoony” interface is a bit scary—first impressions are critical. Nevertheless, I give full credit to Microsoft for making a much more intuitive user experience. It’s easier than you think. Meanwhile, others won’t make the move until the proper Vista drivers are written to allow for their favorite printer, scanner or digital camera.

However, most people resist Vista because they are perfectly happy with their existing XP environment and find absolutely no compelling reason to change. I call this “good-enough computing.” Really, who can argue with it?

Chances are, you won’t upgrade to Vista until you get a new PC. If you think an upgrade is in order, make sure you run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor 1.0 tool (free download from www.microsoft.com) If you are considering a new box, here are the specs I recommend. It should be at least an Intel Core 2 Duo microprocessor running at 1.8 GHz or higher. A 2.00 GHz or higher is highly recommended. It should have at least 2 GB of RAM or memory. This might sound like a lot but I consider it an absolute minimum. Hard disk drive size should be at least 120 GB for a portable, and twice that for a desktop. A SATA hard drive for your desktop unit is highly recommended.

For the business executive or power using, portable users, get Windows Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 Professional, even though this will increase the cost of the notebook by a significant amount. I have not had a chance to try out Windows Live One Care for security, except to know that it uses a truckload of resources. Meanwhile, applications like Norton 360 should be purchased at the same time you buy the PC as firewall, antispyware and antivirus security software are considered a necessary element of a new computer.

Strongly consider a second monitor. Now I didn’t say you should buy one, I just said consider it. This means if you get a desktop unit, you must ensure you have a second video card. If you are a portable user, this might mean you want a notebook PC with a docking station rather than a larger laptop with a wide screen. A good 17” flat panel display is less than $200. Once you use two or more monitors, you’ll wonder how you ever operated with a single one.

Real savvy PC users and seasoned gamers can certainly piece together their clone PC from the local hardware store… but, if that does not describe you, go with a brand name unit from Hewlett-Packard or Lenovo. Recent Vista models from Acer are surprisingly solid and offer great value for their price. Until Dell gets some of its quality control, delivery and support issues resolved, I personally don’t recommend them; even though their low price tags are attractive.

Specifically, I would advise buying a unit on-line, as that represents the best deal; the best warranty information and the best delivery time. While it is fine to look at retail establishments such as Best Buy or London Drugs, keep in mind they usually do not have the necessary options for “business” buyers and instead focus on home buyers.

In both Lenovo and HP’s case, you should talk to a representative before you get Vista Ultimate as they generally sell Vista Business. (HP Canada: 1-877-231-4351 or on-line buying website at http://shopping.hp.ca, Lenovo is at http://www.pc.ibm.com/ca  or 1-866-96-THINK (84465).

Bottom line with Vista?

Do your homework to make sure you get the right version of Vista and Office 2007. Ask yourself what you really want do with it. Simply put, “What’s important?” Next, approach the new interface as a positive, learning experience that will be easier than it seems and, oh yes, be prepared to spend more than you think.  Finally, remember there is no going back. Once you get used to the new interface and features, Windows XP will seem just so ’06.

May 2007

Google: The new Evil Empire?

Who doesn’t like Google?

Easy. The newspaper, magazine and book publishing business, that’s who.

In case you didn’t notice, more traditional print publishing is going the “Way of the Web,” meaning less emphasis on the “touchable” style of yesterday and more on electronic “push” delivery via regular e-mail with links back to the main website.

While most established publishers agree with this, their standard reply is: “Sure this will happen, but not soon.” Yeah right. Talk about classic denial.

I’ve got news for them—it is happening… right now. Look for 2007 and 2008 to be huge transition years for the publishing business as advertisers continue to move more to the web for revenues.

A good analogy can be found in the computer book publishing sector. Remember all those big, fat $89 “how-to-do-this-in-Excel” glossy publications we used to purchase? They’re not around anymore because, if you need the answer to a technical problem, you get very timely, detailed replies by simply Googling the question.

Now, Google is moving into another area once dominated by print. This time, it is telephone directory assistance and Yellow Pages that are under siege. In early April, Google Inc began experimenting with the use of speech recognition on telephones where callers can ask for location information. U.S. callers dial 1-800-GOOG-411 and can test a free voice-activated service called Google Voice Local Search (http://labs.google.com/goog411/)

A practical use? Simply call them and ask for the all the Chinese food delivery places in your area. A few seconds later you get a list; most likely via a text message on your cell phone. Somewhere in all of this will be advertisements of some kind.

It doesn’t stop here. You librarians better start dusting off your résumés, too. Read up (sorry!) on Google’s plans for the Library of Congress and you will see what I mean. No wonder many magazine publishers call Google the new Evil Empire because next to them, Microsoft looks like Ghandi.

Speaking of India, with a major Dell Inc. technical support centre here in Edmonton and another big one in Ottawa, why do I have to talk to somebody in Bangalore, India to help me solve problems?

Ditto for the very questionable tech support at Lexmark and especially Edmonton-based, Intuit, which also have their phone support in Asia. Now personally, I don’t care where the phone support is. I just want to talk to somebody (on a good quality phone line) who can speak English, understand my question and doesn’t interrupt me before I explain the problem in full. Is this really asking too much?

Memo to tech companies: For telephone help, have two levels of technical support; one on North America and one somewhere else. You can even charge for the North American service and people will pay for it. Or, take a page from Hewlett-Packard’s On-line Chat service where a customer service rep is always available to yak with you about your problems.

Finally, there are several reasons why the uptake on Microsoft’s Vista and Office 2007 has been so slow. First, most people, either at home or in business, won’t buy Vista until they need a new computer and, second, they are a bit confused by the various SKUs or offerings from Microsoft—Ultimate? Professional? Business? Home? Last but not least, the technical vendor community itself is not fully behind it yet. They haven’t taken enough time to learn the new operating system. Of all the Microsoft operating systems released in the past 15 years, the migration/acceptance/adoption of Vista has been the slowest yet. The fastest adoption was in the mid-1990s when Windows 95 was first released.

March 2007  Where's the peanut butter?

A quick look at the calendar and, suddenly, you realize you’ve done absolutely zip in terms of your personal income tax and April’s filing deadline.

You reluctantly threw in a token amount at the RRSP deadline last month and your entire, admittedly feeble, tax plan is in a tizzy since you took the payout… and you left your job last year, then incorporated a company and split income with your wife. Oh yeah, you cashed in a couple of GICs and an RSP for business cash flow… and, the other day, your son told you he feels he should get all the tax credit for tuition fees at the university. Sheesh, exactly what do you do with that rental property income you get every month from those condos you and your sister bought last year?

There are only two things you know for sure at this point. First, you are going to owe money to the government and, second, you have no idea how to handle it all.

Don’t feel bad. The majority of Canadians are the same as only 15 percent know exactly how much they can contribute to their RRSP, according to  Decima Research. Other findings include:

The greater the salary and the higher the education, the more likely Canadians are to have a financial plan and follow it.

Only three percent of Canadians say their retirement plan is dependent upon winning the lottery. That number nearly doubles for those with less than high school education.

Married people are more than twice as likely (45 percent single, 70 percent married) to have an RRSP. Those who make less than 40k are three times more nervous than those making 100k+ (33 percent vs 11 percent).

In terms of seeking financial advice on RRSP purchase decisions, most turn to financial planners. Interestingly, nearly a third of Atlantic Canadians rely on friends and family, double the national average.

Sixty-five percent of Quebecers feel that they will probably not have to work by age of 65 in order to have enough money for their desired lifestyle; in Alberta, that number rises to 74 percent.

OK; enough numbers. After all, filing your taxes electronically—either by yourself or with the assistance of an accountant or tax preparation firm has long been the preferred way to do this mainly because it is easy and refunds come back faster.

Now stay with me here because there are a flock o’ tax applications here, starting with QuickTax Standard, the computer-installed package that allows for five returns. If you have a really simple return, consider QuickTaxWeb, the online tax software service.

For tax preparers, QuickTax Pro 50 and QuickTax Pro 100 allow owners of that software to file up 50 or 100 returns, respectively.

If you use Quicken at a personal level, using QuickTax is a no-brainer. Likewise, if you’re a small business owner using QuickBooks, then QuickTax Business becomes a reasonable alternative to examine the tax consequences of your incorporated or unincorporated business. It also automatically determines eligible tax deductions and completes all necessary calculations.

There is tremendous overlap between your business and personal financial situation. In June 2004, Statistics Canada found that 98 per ent of businesses in Canada are small to mid-sized, with fewer than 100 employees.

“After 14 years, we know what small businesses need to succeed,” said Yves Millette, president and CEO of Intuit Canada. “It helps business owners save thousands of dollars on professional tax preparation fees.”

Millette carries a “Don’t-do-it-if-you-can’t-measure-it” philosophy. Intuit Canada’s headquarters, located on southeast Edmonton’s Roper Road, represent the Canadian version of Intuit, the successful Mountain View, California-based makers of financial, tax and bookkeeping software.

Intuit Canada is one of the 50 best employers and the top-ranked technology company in Canada, according to Hewitt Associates.

The Edmonton office sports three on-site nap rooms, an absence of a dress code, a 24x7 fitness facility, Bose Quiet Comfort 2 Noise Cancelling headphones for coders; subsidized cafeteria with free suckers and free coffee. Everybody gets a minimum three weeks vacation and, best of all; there is a terrific “open door” mentality where complaints, issues and problems among staff are dealt with.“In one of my ‘Ask Yves’ e-mails, [where employees can ask the boss any question] I was asked why the peanut butter was taken out of the cafeteria,” smiles Millette.

Anyway, you get the picture… the same way that any successful software firm gets the picture: Its only true assets are the intellectual properties and well being of its employees. This type of environment is critical in terms of generating solid software application and software executives—from Steve Ballmer to Larry Ellison—know if you want sensational, bug free codes, you have to keep the coders wanting to come to work. √

February 2007  Credit card hacked? Get over it!

Uh oh.

Somebody just hacked into the computer systems of a major U.S. retail firm and copied/swiped/viewed the VISA credit card numbers and purchasing information of approximately two million Canadians.

Um. So what?

OK, first, let’s review. Last week, it surfaced that hackers stole customer information from computer systems of TJX Cos., the U.S. parent firm of Canadian retailers Winners and HomeSense. Reports say as many as two million Canadian Visa card accounts were affected. The hack was discovered in mid-December and included trans-actions between 2003 and part of 2006.

There’s more. Another Canadian news item came to light last month when CIBC Asset Management admitted a backup computer file containing information about almost half a million of its Talvest Mutual Funds clients disappeared during an internal office move. CIBC said it appeared that none of the information was inappropriately accessed, but it was taking precautions to reassure its customers that their accounts would remain safe.

The actual theft or compromise of these systems isn’t news. It seems to happen a lot and makes for great headlines on slow days with non-technical reporters of the daily newspapers.

What is news is when somebody actually uses your credit card and gets away with making a major transaction that you have to pay for. So far, I haven’t seen a single reported incident of where a regular, normal day-to-day Winners-VISA credit card carrier has been forced to pay for something that was purchased by the credit card hacking thief.

However, let’s say somebody did make a $700 purchase on your VISA card after obtaining the number illegally, and the amount showed up on your next statement. Do you think you will pay it? Not a chance. You will call your MLA, MP, local mayor and hire Johnny Cochrane—well, maybe not that Johnny Cochrane—before you write the cheque… especially if you can easily demonstrate you didn’t make the purchase. Remember that any online purchase using a credit card contains the date, time and IP address of the purchaser. To coin a great Microsoft line: “It’s not a bug! It’s a feature!”

Let’s take another example. How many of you have handed your credit card to a dozy, sinister looking waiter in a sleazy restaurant in Mexico or a dumpy bistro in Greece simply because the American Express logo was on the door? What’s to stop that person from writing down your credit card number, expiry date and security code on the back or even to photocopy your signature? Nothing.

Now, here’s the best part: Do you know why the thieves seldom use the credit card information? Because it is too hard to use, there is too much security and, above all, it is way too easy for the enforcement agencies to catch the bad guys.

Having a list of stolen credit card numbers is the electronic equivalent of a regular bank robber who gets 10 grand in cash from an armed robbery. Generally, the cash is stained with that secret dye the banks use for just such an occasion.

In other words, stealing data may be easy but using the data for profit is a different story. Rarely are they able to pull this off and, even then, it is insured so the cardholders almost never get hurt.

There’s a second aspect to all this; relating mostly to customer information and the security of such. Call me crazy, but most run-of-the-mill e-crooks find the buying habits of people quite boring. In fact, more often when a system is hacked, it is by one company looking to gain an advantage over their competitor. In that case, you almost never hear of the hack.

Years ago, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy said, “You have no privacy. Get over it.”

January 2007  BizIT101 by Gregory B. Michetti Microsoft Finally Ships Windows Vista

TORONTO – It’s cartoony, clear and cool.

And it is finally ready.

Last November 30, Microsoft officially launched its new operating system called Windows Vista, to the business community. All “flavors” of Vista, such as the Home version, will be widely available by the end of January, 2007.

The official launch itself was different, as it is rare when the Microsoft Corporation simultaneously releases a new operating system and a new version of Office. It is extremely rare if the company ships a new version of a key plank in its backend platform as well. Still, that was precisely what happened as the Redmond giant announced Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Office 2007 at the same time as Windows Vista.

Naturally, Microsoft wants us to buy all three and is pitching a softer “People Ready” angle that focuses on simplifying how people work together; improved search functions, stronger security and improved management of content.

Windows Vista, which will eventually be shipping in versions such as Vista Enterprise; Vista Ultimate; Vista Home, Vista Home Premium and Vista Business has plenty of new features in addition to the slick looking, modern new interface. Despite the colorful looks, it really is much more functional.

For example, the operating system optimizes file transfers by analyzing network availability and adjusts data transfers to receive more or less data for faster transfers over networks. The Windows Imaging (WIM) format — a hardware-agnostic image file format — gives companies a “Ghost-like” format to allow multiple images to be stored in one file.  This means network administrators can now set up new computers on the network in a hurry.  Windows Vista personal firewall and Windows Service Hardening are other new tools that prevent critical Windows services from being used for abnormal activity.

The new search capabilities in Windows Vista - including Instant Search, Search Folders and Desktop Search - help users find emails, applications, configuration settings or documents anywhere on their computer or attached network drives much faster than the simple “Explorer” search. Vista ships with a premade search folders, called the Recently Changed folder, which displays recently modified files.

Ever have a hardware crash in XP? Sure you have. Now Vista’s new DDM (Windows Display Driver Model) runs outside of kernel mode; meaning incorrect display driver failures aren’t as likely to bring down the entire system.  Vista also ships with built-in spyware detection software (Windows Defender) and a new firewall that filters outgoing traffic and incoming traffic. Vista also has built-in support for speech recognition and handles user/administrative rights far better than XP, where junior systems administrators simply handed out system administrator rights to all users.

I also liked the Vista diagnostic called Reliability and Performance Monitor. It displays a summary of the load on a machine's processor, memory, disk and networking systems and lets you drill down for more details.

For mobile users, Vista also now includes a new control dialog, called the Mobility Center, which collects configuration options related to Tablet PC or notebook PC use, such as battery, Wi-Fi radio and file synchronization controls into one area. With this, mobile business users can configure wireless connections, set brightness controls, and specify power-saving options - all from one location. The Sync Center provides them with a single place to control data synchronization — between PCs and servers and/or between PCs and devices. A new collaboration feature called Windows Meeting Space enables peer-to-peer virtual meetings among as many as 10 users, on or off the corporate network.

Windows Vista comes in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. For the 32-bit release you will need an x86 processors of 800MHz or better. The 64-bit version (which can also run the 32-but version) can run on Advanced Micro Devices' Athlon 64 and Opteron and Intel's EM64T processors. 

By the way, testing of Vista and related applications was extensive as beta users of Windows, Office and Exchange Server 2007 downloaded more than 5 million beta versions of the three products.

So.

Should you rush out and somehow get a copy of Vista once it is available? Sure, but you probably won’t.  My guess is most people won’t buy Vista until they get a new PC. At the same time, they will pick up a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 Basic (Word, Outlook and Excel) which OEM’s will probably include on the machine for at least a 90 day version. Most system administrators won’t deploy Vista until Vista Service Pack 1 is released; sometime in the second half of 2007 or about the same time as Microsoft’s Longhorn Server is slated to ship.

Before you do anything, check out the various Vista-related websites and make sure your personal computer can actually handle the upgrade; especially relating to a good graphics/video card. Visit the Windows Vista home page at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.aspx.

Gregory B. Michetti of the Alberta-based systems integration firm Michetti Information Solutions, Inc. can be reached via www.michetti.com  or e-mail IT101@edmontonians.com