Digital Pipe Dreams

Cybercrime Must Be Dealt With

2009-08-06T17:39:00.002-04:00

The risks of depending on any single social networking or microblogging platform were once again revealed by today's Twitter and Facebook outage. These outages also highlighted the need for a national response to DOS and other forms of "Cyber Terrorism."

Unless the government begins "sanctioning" those who conduct these attacks as a matter of national security, they will continue indefinitely. Individuals and organizations who fail to secure their computers and companies who produce insecure computer operating systems and software are complicit in these attacks. Most attacks would be significantly more difficult, if not impossible to conduct, if perpetrators lacked easy access to the tools (bot computers) used to conduct their attacks and the targets themselves were better hardened.

Want to discuss this with me more? I invite you to join me on Plurk (www.plurk.com/JohnWestra/invite) a microblogging platform similar to Twitter, but with a threaded discussion format many people who have tried it prefer.

New Google Sites Application Misses Mark

2008-02-29T12:16:00.007-05:00

After waiting expectantly for the release of Google Sites, the successor to Jotspot, for more than a year, I must confess I'm pretty disappointed in the result. The user interface is clunky and non-intuitive and offers little new in the way of collaborative tools, other than Joomla-esq shared web page editing.

What happened? Google already has a terrific widget enabled web page creation tool. It's called Blogger! Why didn't they use that technology to make dropping various functional elements onto a page easy?

The ability to quickly create an Intranet/Xtranet of four to twenty pages is what most of my SMB clients are looking for. Doing this with SharePoint has always been too developer and infrastructure intensive, leaving us to recommend products like WebOffice (formerly Intranets.com) and Blue Tie as web-based collaboration tools.

BlueTie in unique in that it offers unique ways for partners to monetize the solution and generate a unique ongoing revenue stream. In fact, BlueTie was recently recognized as an OnMedia Top 100 Winner.

Google has missed the mark badly with its Google Sites application. It's unfortunate, because it takes the pressure off Microsoft to improve SharePoint's ease of use and Cisco to lower the cost of WebOffice.

Until Google releases a Google Sites application that is significantly easier to use and functional, I will continue to recommend WebOffice, Blue Tie or our own TeamPro application as a Intranet/Xtranet solution.

Sprint's $99.00 Cell Phone Plan Trumps AT&T, Verizon & T-Mobile

2008-02-28T11:33:00.006-05:00

Sprint's $99.00 Cell Phone Plan Trumps AT&T, Verizon & T-Mobile and ushers in a new era of competition that is destined to reshape personal communication and be huge win for consumers. The average cell phone bill in the U.S. is $55.00. The average home phone bill, with unlimited long distance is about $35.00. It won't take people long to figure out that for $9.00 extra a month, they can have their cake and eat it too!

Those wagering against Sprint's success need to place their bets carefully. Unlike AT&T and Verizon, who have a significant terrestrial (land line) businesses, Sprint has no such liabilities. If AT&T and Verizon decide to continue the price war, they will wind up further cannibalizing their own land line business. All this at a time when they are investing heavily to build out their networks with fiber to compete with the Comcast and other cable companies.

T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home Talk Forever offering is another potential loser in the unlimited use price war. Even with their new $9.99 p/month price point, the limited number of phones and WiFi hotspots that support this service, make it available to only a small minority of cell phone users.

Although it will take some time for us to see the true impact of this "war" on the major cell service providers, including Sprint, the negative fallout for Helio could be much quicker. Helio has based its "success" on providing unlimited data and optional unlimited voice services, delivered via Sprint's network and bundled with unique, high-end devices that are optimized for data (chat/web) functions. They are now faced with the uphill battle of convincing potential customers that their uber-phones make it worth dealing with a boutique vendor, while seeing the margins that subsidize that hardware drop to razr (pun intended) thin levels.

As attractive as the new pricing is, Sprint's new chief executive, Daniel Hesse, still has his work cut out for him. The Nextel merger has been a disaster and due to a hemorrhaging of Sprint/Nextel customers, the company's stock price and balance sheet is in the toilet.

To succeed/survive, Sprint needs to give up on Nextel and focus all their energy into transforming their retailer base into Value Added Resellers (VARs). As long as they continue to sell only the commodity of the connection and subsidized phones, they will have little to differentiate them in the market.

A VAR approach to the market would focus on positioning their new unlimited plan as a home/SMB phone replacement. A great solution to make this possible is the XLink home phone gateway. This device allows you to use your home phone handset(s) with your cell phone's service, to take and make calls using your cell phone number. The VAR strategy also means selling software and training.

Their are literally thousands of software programs for the Palm, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Web 2.0 platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc, from games and diet management programs to sophisticated medical information applications. Every software program sold to a PDA or smartphone user has the potential to add $5.00 - $150 to the bottom line and unlike cases & chargers, be a recurring source of revenue. Technical training, a $48.7 Billion market, is another potential high profit area. Teaching companies or even individual customers how to use the latest generation of PDAs and smartphones with always-on data services for calendaring, scheduling, project management or even remote access could be a highly lucrative business.

It will be interesting to see how the new unlimited "price war" progresses. One thing is almost certain, the consumer is going to be the ultimate winner!

Comcast's "New" Strategy Lie, Cheat & Deal

2008-02-27T18:50:00.006-05:00

Lately, Comcast has been throwing lots of money around to try and convince people that they are the fastest and best value in high-speed Internet service. Although the truth (integrity) of much of the propaganda pushed by their attractive, demographically correct spokes person is questionable, until yesterday I was never compelled to blog about it.

I've been driven closer to writing about this, as I continue to experience "mysterious" performance related problems with my various non Comcast product related high bandwidth activities, such as video conferencing and Vonage.

Despite a number of complaints to Comcast Technical "Support," these problems seem to be getting worse. I find it suspiciously coincidental, that the problems associated with my Vonage VOIP service did not start until Comcast began offering their own "Comcast Voice" product in my area!

So what changed yesterday? Word began to circulate that Comcast had solicited otherwise uninterested people to take up seats at an official FCC public hearing in Boston, resulting in many genuinely interested people and press representatives being turned away! Hundreds of people, many of whom had taken the day off of work to attend and voice their concerns about the importance of an "open" Internet were prevented from entering the hearing, because it was
"full."

Since this story broke, Comcast has actually admitted to paying people to fill up seats, in an attempt to "stack the room." You can view the report HERE. One of the paid attendees is on record as saying he was "just getting paid to hold someone's seat" and said he was clueless about the actual purpose of the meeting.

This incident is a blatant example of corporate malfeasance. The FCC should levy a significant punitive fine on Comcast AND hold another Boston hearing. Future hearings, should be held at venues that are large enough to accommodate anticipated crowds. A web-based registration component should be used, with a limit on one ticket per originating IP address.

I encourage you to tell the FCC to stop the large Telecom vendors from blocking Internet traffic that is not tied directly to one of their revenue producing products. Tell the FCC we need Net Neutrality legislation today!

Garmin's nuvifone Is Another Palm Failure

2008-02-01T22:23:00.000-05:00

Once again a new PDD (Personal Digital Device) exposes Palm's failure to capitalize on their early success with both PDA and converged devices(Treo). Garmin's entry into the converged PDD market and turning their back on the Palm OS, has the potential to be an even greater blow to Palm than the iPhone.

The combination of phone, GPS and PDA functionality is something Treo users like myself have been impatiently waiting for this same combination to be delivered by Palm for years. This despite repeated pleas and 3rd party evidence of the potential. Palm's decision to enter into agreements with cellular vendors, that hold them hostage from providing Wifi on Treo devices was a deal with the Devil and a fatal strategic error. All this to keep some ingenious person from porting a Skype, Vonage or other VOIP client, thereby denying the cell phone companies their extortionate annuity.

Although Garmin's nuvifone has the potential to be a formidable rival to both the Treo line and iPhone, it faces the uphill challenge of being based on Garmin's own operating system. Palm's latest Centro model, along with the iPhone are huge hits.

Although most Centro owners don't know it, they have access to thousands of available Palm applications. iPhone users, though victimized by Apple's restrictions on carriers are, like Apple's desktop users, zealously spreading the iPhone gospel and happily hacking their way to carrier independence.

If the nuvifone is released as an unlocked GSM platform with an open development platform, it will likely be one of, if not the final nail in Palm's coffin and a huge obstacle to the iPhone's future success.

Dell Misses Mark With New Tablet XT

2007-12-11T15:21:00.000-05:00

One piece of advice I give clients and try to live by myself is: never buy a piece of technology that has an expected ROI of greater than 18 months. I also recommend my SMB clients buy/lease technology that has been on the market for at least six to eight months, so it is proven (SP1) and has had a chance to depreciate in cost.

Why would someone want to purchase a Dell XP, when they can get a proven Toshiba or HP unit for $800-$1,000 less? Most of my clients would be far better off spending that money on mobile productivity applications, two years of mobile broadband service, training, etc.

Most of the people who require longer battery life are also people who need/want a ruggedized form factor, like that found in the Panasonic CF-08. Interestingly enough, the CF-08 has a reported 14 hour battery life!

Dell's experience with the XPS 1710 gaming laptop may have clouded its judgment on this new offering. Unlike the gaming crowd, who are willing to pay a premium for the fastest and coolest rig available, most businesses that I work with, are looking for solutions that minimize their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and provide tangible value. The Dell Tablet XP misses this mark.

I've thinking about buying a tablet PC, to replace the Dell Latitude C640 with 1G of RAM and XP Pro, that I purchased off-lease and has served me well for the last two years. I've enjoyed my Dell and have been eagerly awaiting their entry into the Tablet PC market.

Now that I've seen Dell's Tablet XP, I think I'm going to give up on Dell for my next machine. Sorry Dell, but..

What I Really Want Is A Vostro 1500T with 2G (4GRAM for < $1,500

Acedemics Just Don't Get Digital Rights

2007-10-25T18:29:00.000-04:00

Much of the furor sorounding "Digital Rights" has been emanating from College/University campuses, where huge amounts of illegal file sharing takes place, using the school's networks. The following article recently appeared on ZDNets Technology News Blog:

Politicians just don’t get it by ZDNet's Marc Wagner -- If we want to keep Washington lobbyists out of Education IT, we need to enforce our own codes of conduct with regards to copyright infringement. It is THEFT, plain and simple and if we don't pursue student misconduct ourselves, Congress will mandate solutions which will impede our educational mission for years to come.

Here was my response:

Disclaimer: I'm one of those "politicians" and have also spent the past 20+ years working in IT.

This issue is not complex. Current laws should be obeyed/enforced, until they are repealed/replaced.

It's illegal to copy and redistribute almost all commercially produced music, video or software. When you have a bunch of elitist academics tacitly supporting the theft of copyrighted materials and universities more interested in promoting their football teams than civics/ethics, you wind up with the situation you have now.

Copyright holders see as much chance of voluntary compliance or enforcement on college campuses, as they see for underage drinking, by the same irresponsible whelps who are all glad to break copyright law if they "feel" like it. If they saw mandatory ethics and civics classes being taught, as a apposed to diversity training and Marxism 101, perhaps they would be more willing to take a less aggressive approach to the problem.

It is my opinion that most of the knowledge worth knowing has little or nothing to do with popular culture. Saying that keeping the miscreants from Kazaa and other P-2-P tools will slow down or stifle true academic pursuits or learning is a disingenuous red herring.

If people want copyright laws changed, they should get involved in the political process. Students, try writing (not email, not text message) your elected representatives and in complete sentences, lay out a well reasoned position on why you think current copyright laws need to be changed and what you think they should be. "Teachers," get off your fat, tenured buts and teach these kids how to be productive, law-abiding citizens and how to work within the system to effect positive change!

Here was my response:

BEWARE Of SMiShing Attacks On Cell Phones & PDAs

2006-09-02T00:02:00.000-04:00

SMiShing is the newest form of cyber attack.

Like Phishing, from which it gets half its name (SMS + Phishing = SMiShing), SMishing attacks rely on social engineering. They attempt to convince the unsuspecting user to do something that ultimately leads to the theft of personal information or financial fraud.

These attacks have already begun. Users of cell phone services in Australia were recently sent an SMS message that told them to confirm a $2.00 p/day charge for an online dating service. When alarmed users logged into the web site mentioned in the SMS message, the site attempted to infect their computers with a Trojan virus!

A new virus, VBS/Eliles has been identified by major anti-virus vendors. In addition to its Trojan functions, the virus is designed to send SMS messages through cell phone service provider gateways.

The insidious part of this virus is that it actually offers the Cell Phone/PDA user with a free antivirus download for their device. The software is allegedly from the recipients cell phone provider. People who downloaded and installed the "antivirus" software on their phones were quick to discover that they had loaded malicious software instead!

Despite the other social malfunctions that plague Virus writers, they are good at sharing. Although SMiShing is new, the code to carry out this type of attack is already spreading on web sites and discussion forums used by would-be virus writers. This means that we can expect to see more and more of these attacks in the near future.

eBay & PayPal Mobile Users @ Risk

Although no SMiShing attacks aimed at eBay or PayPal users have been documented, they will likely be future targets. Both eBay Wireless and PayPal Mobile have mobile tools that make it convenient to manage auctions and pay vendors / sellers using a Cell Phone / PDA. It won't take long for criminals to identify this pool of tempting mobile targets and start their attacks.

Users of newer converged devices are doubly at risk. The current generation of cell phones like the Nokia 6265i, Motorola Razr (Razor) or LG Chocolate as well as PDAs like the Palm Treo 650 / 700 or HPs iPAQ running Windows Mobile Edition offer both SMS and Internet Web browsing and eMail, giving criminals multiple ways to target these devices.

Staying Safe

Start by following all the same rules that apply to other online communication tools like email and instant messaging;

Never Open/Respond to messages from unknown sources.
Verify the source/content of all unexpected messages.
Don't send text messages in response to Ads for free ring tones, jokes, horoscopes, etc.
Never provide any form of financial or personal information in response to an unsolicited message.

Companies like Norton and MacAffee, as well as freeware antivirus vendors are already developing new antivirus software for cell phone / PDA devices. Versions of this have already been made available for PDA users. Like the war that has raged over desktop computers for years, the war against portable devices will likely be just as brutal.

Google Office is not a solution. It is merely a set of virtual tools.

2006-08-29T08:59:00.000-04:00

Google Office is not a solution. It is merely a set of virtual tools.

Can a small business afford to give up the high-level of functionality and integration offered by Microsoft Office? If you tell your controller they can no longer merge AR letters with Dynamics, the sales manager they can't analyze CRM data using MapPoint and HR/Payroll the time clock data will need to be re-keyed, what do you think they will say?

Google is NOT providing 'free' applications because they are a philanthropic organization. They have a plan to monetize any hosted application suite through advertising and mining the data for aggregate trend data. The first reason should be enough to keep any smart business person away. The second reason, in light of recent AOL privacy revelations, should be enough to make you run!

Today’s small businesses are looking for solutions that help them compete more effectively in local as well as global markets. They can not afford to be hobbled by inferior applications that offer little more than virtualized versions of non-integrated 1980’s-vintage shareware.

I look forward to the day when we can offer our clients hundreds; if not thousands of small business applications, designed to work together in a virtual cafeteria suite, with the same tight integration available in the networked Windows environment of today. Until then, we will continue to encourage companies that want virtual access to their systems to use solutions like
Terminal Services and Go-To-My-PC, complimented with web-based collaboration tools like SharePoint and Groove

http://blogs.ebay.com/probizteam

In Blu-ray vs HD-DVD Debate DRM is the Only Issue

2005-12-28T12:18:00.000-05:00

Blue-ray vs. HD-DVD is a hot topic these days. Recent blog discussions have included posts that discourage Blu-ray adoption because Sony is promoting the standard. Other posters suggest that people stop "harping" on Sony's recent DRM debacle and not let it be a factor in the decision to support Blu-ray. That's like saying we should have ignored Watergate, Enron and the UN's Oil for Food Scandal, because:

A) Other people were doing it too
B) They promise to not do it again
C) It really didn't harm me.

As for me, this was the first Christmas in years that I bought Zero (0) Sony products as gifts. Until I see some high-level (VP or greater) firings/"resignations" at Sony, I will continue to boycott their products and urge my family, friends and clients to do the same.

This being said, the functional differences between Blu-ray and HD-DVD are going to be invisible to most potential users. After all, how many consumers understand or care about the difference between DVD+R and DVD-R today?

A huge barrier to the rapid adoption of either standard will be content vs. cost. What type of content exists to drive either standard? Individual movies fit comfortably on a single DVD. Currently, the only reasonable purpose for greater video capacity would be for storing a series of related video titles, such as a complete season of a particular show or all the sequels of a movie. Although this might appeal to Star Trek and Harry Potter fans, the average consumer probably won't decide that this is worth the $500 - $800 price premium vs. a top-of-the-line multi-format DVD unit. After all $800 buys a LOT of DVD movies!

For most Small to Medium sized Businesses (SMBs) the extra data capacity won’t make a difference either. Most companies in this category generate far less archive-eligible data each year, than the 17GB available on a dual-layer, double-sided DVD. With the continual drop in cost-per-megabyte of RAID storage, many SMBs will find themselves replacing their servers before they run out of room! The rapid growth of broadband and economy of scale offered by online backup/storage vendors like Novastore is going to make it a much more attractive alternative than either tape or optical backup for the SMB users.

Here is the bottom line: Hollywood and other content producers want to replace current DVD formats to further their DRM ambitions. Consumers are NOT likely to invest in a technology that offers them less choice for 10x the price. SMB’s don’t need the extra cost or features and will likely embrace on-line backup and archive technology because it doesn’t depend on the same week link as tape, namely who changed it last!Until we have a truly compelling content-driven reason (3D Home Movies?) for the extra capacity offered by either Blu-ray or HD-DVD, both technologies are likely to languish for the next 3-5 years. By that time, someone will have figured out how to store 100G on a holographic crystal with no moving parts that costs less than $100.00 and comes pre-loaded with ALL the Star Trek movies / series ever produced! Now that’s something I’ll buy!