Beware the Free (Gmail) Service

Google's a cool company and has a lot of really useful tools and services. But, I never signed up for Gmail. There still are lots of concern about privacy, such as (from Gmail's own privacy page):
- "Residual copies of deleted messages and accounts may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our offline backup systems." and
- "The Gmail service includes relevant advertising and related links based on the IP address, content of messages and other information related to your use of Gmail."

OK, I get that there are things that Google needs to do to make the service free (*nothing's* free, really). But this recent post about Gmail hacking reveals a new vulnerability, that I liken to the viruses that plague Windows: when you get so big and ubiquitous, it starts making sense for people to custom-create software hacks to manipulate and use your system to scam your users/customers. It seems that Gmail has gotten big enough and popular enough for scammers to actually study and figure out the backdoors to ply their trade.

Our recommendation is that people sign up for a cheap (via GoDaddy or 1and1, for example) domain name and host, and create a simple POP3 mailbox with them. It might cost $50-$100 per year depending on features, but it's a great insurance policy against some of these Gmail limitations. It also immunizes you from a future locked in with one company. If, for instance, Google decides to do something "evil" (their motto: "Don't be evil."), you might not want to be associated with them any more. Well, if you have business cards and other marketing materials all over the place with yourname@gmail.com on them, you've got an expensive dilemma on your hands.

Simple advice: think about what you're giving up when you sign up for something "free." Most likely, there's something of value that you're giving up for the service, and it almost certainly involves your privacy.

Two Sites: Lots of Product for Little Money

We're all always looking for great things for cheap on the web, right? Well, if you haven't heard of them let me tell you about 37signals and CoffeeCup Software.

I've actually been using Coffee Cup for about a year now on Foxtrot's site. Here's a sample of their nifty form builder product at work. It doesn't take long to get working, and it does work. I've also purchased the RSS news program, though it stopped working on our site due to a change to a PHP setting at our host (working on that!). Their whole philosophy is so simple: 1) sell decent software cheaply ($20-30 for most titles), 2) provide prompt e-mail support, and 3) never require customers to pay for an upgrade of a product they've already purchased. When you buy the product, you get access to a download site where they control which programs your login is able to retrieve, but you're always able to retrieve the latest of the ones you've purchased.

37signals is a site I'm still exploring. I've delved a little into basecamp, the online project management and collaboration site, as well as backpack, a nifty little online organizer. Ever wanted a quick web whiteboard to communicate something to a person in another location? How about 37signals' writeboard? Now that's providing value!! They've also got a book out, and some blogs that I'll probably subscribe to.

Chime in if there are sites that you find interesting . . .

Intel's Built-in PC Remote Control

It's been out on the market for a while now, but it seems Intel's vPro technology might finally be appearing on more businesses' radar screens.

Short summary of the technology: it's an embedded technology on select Intel motherboards. It requires Intel's new Q35 chipset, a Core 2 Duo Processor and Intel 10/100/1000 Networking (though the LAN does not need to be running Gigabit). It allows BIOS-level remote access - basically KVM via IP. Unlike most other protocols (MS Terminal Services, VNC, etc.), it does not require a functional OS.

Here are four of my favorite features about the technology:

1) Remote diagnostic and control for failing system. Since vPro does not require a functional OS, RAM and hard drive failures can still be diagnosed remotely. This is very handy for Foxtrot, as we have several customers for whom we do on-site hardware support . . . so it allows us to know what to bring before we even move our wheels to go on-site.

2) Remote wake-up. Remote control capability is great - except when they're off!! vPro provides a slick interface for sending a wake-on-LAN signal to start a computer up. It'll be a nice energy saver to let end users turn their computers off at the end of the day, knowing that the computer can be woken up for updates, patches and other middle-of-the-night maintenance . . . and then shut back down.

3) OS Agnostic. Because it runs at the BIOS level, it does not matter whether the system is running Windows, Linux, or whatever. The software just sends whatever's on the screen, regardless of the bits on the back-end.

4) Remote image deployment. vPro can be used to deploy an image from an image repository to a desktop that may have become corrupted or needed to have its hard drive replaced. It's kind of like old PXE boot, but with the ability to control and execute the boot from a remote location.

We have a reasonably-priced vPro-compatible config posted and ready for purchase. And of course we'll help with the vPro setup for those who require assistance. Call or e-mail for more info.

Business Plan Checklist

I am one of the principals involved in Foxtrot Systems (almost six years now!), and as a first-time business owner I've learned a lot.

This is a terriffic, highly-detailed checklist for developing a business plan. The biggest thing I always stress to anyone thinking about a business or a new product idea is, "who will buy it, and how will you get them to know about it?"

The main goal of the business plan is to solicit funding. Before you even think about developing a business plan and soliciting the funds, you should sit down and develop a detailed marketing plan. It will become part of your business plan, but this is the first part to start thinking about.

Project worst-case sales scenarios, and build contingency planning into the final business plan (see Risk Assessment section in the article). This might entail cutting some staff and/or re-allocating funds toward stepped-up marketing efforts. This kind of flexibility and realism will be a breath of fresh air to most people evaluating your business plan (read: will increase the likelihood of getting funded).

Web Address Theft a Real Concern

A bit on the basic side, but this Wall Street Journal article documents and provides some tips for avoiding web address theft.

One that they didn't really cover, that's not really even in the scope of "stealing," is when domain squatters swoop in when companies accidentally let their domains expire. There are lots of bots out there crawling the internet and recording traffic patterns, so if the registration on a well-traveled site expires there will almost always be a squatter in line to pick it up for at least a short time.

These cases are especially tough, because the squatter technically did nothing wrong. They represent themselves accurately and all that, so it's not like they're impersonating someone to "steal" a domain. That said, they certainly are shady since their goal is either to sell the domain name back to the original company that let it expire, or to simply capitalize (using Adwords, etc.) on the traffic that the former owner had built up. Sometimes the registrars and hosts will work together to make it right; sometimes the ransom costs thousands of dollars, even for small, relatively-unknown domain names.

Godaddy.com is nice that they automatically extend domains registered through them for another full year. I suspect they badger you daily or weekly if they do this favor for you and extend your domain without making you pay.

Windows Server 2008 Preview

SearchSystemsChannel.com provides a nice little roundup of new features in Windows Server 2008.

The Terminal Services Gateway sounds very intriguing . . . Microsoft continues to deploy features that are eating Citrix's lunch. Maybe not, considering that Citrix does not seem to be putting much effort into its Terminal Services overal products like Presentation Server. We've had much more contact from Citrix regarding their push into optimization and performance enhancements found in NetScaler.

Another nice feature will be IIS 7.0, which is an enhancement to Microsoft's industry-leading Internet Information Services. Mostly pretty obvious enhancements in IIS - more modular, better .NET integration, better diagnostics.

Windows Server is absolutely vital to Microsoft (yes, understatement of the year -haha). It's the place where Apple and Linux still trail by a fairly wide margin (yes, I'm aware of Apache server and its popularity, but look at the numbers and you'll see IIS more than holding its own in that space). Largely driven by Microsoft themselves in their Small Business Server, business are more and more reliant on client-server-based computing. MS made a great play to release SBS and extend their Server product to small business, to ensure that their desktop OS, which is all but required if you're running a Windows Server, would remain popular and viable. No word on Small Business Server 2008 that I've seen yet, but I'm sure it won't trail Server 2008 by too much. Knowing Microsoft, they'll probably give it a totally different name anyway . . .

We're running 2008 Server on a test server and are just starting to play with it. Like Vista-versus-XP Pro, it's largely the same experience, but with a few nice little features and tweaks. Looking forward to the launch.

Help Us Help You: Making it Easy for Your IT Dept

The Wall Street Journal published a great piece on making it easier and faster for your IT department to help you.

I love #'s 2, 4 and 6 on the list. These are all things that we try to explicitly encourage in our customers. The ones that "get it" do get better service, because it's easier to help them!

Red Hat Whiteboxes are Coming!

Red Hat announced a partnership with Intel, which is very long overdue on both parts. As an Intel-authorized reseller and a Red Hat Ready (RH authorized) company, we're positively chomping at the bit for something similar to Microsoft's pre-install kit.

Hopefully, this partnership will ease the RH licensing process and automate much (if not all) of the RH desktop load process, including driver configs and selection/loading of add-on software.

Also, I'm looking for Red Hat to improve its compatibility. Say what you will about both distros, but Ubuntu just seems to fire up, recognize devices and work better out of the box than Red Hat. I've been saying for a good year now that Red Hat has the coordination and the channel-friendliness, but Ubuntu has the ease-of-use. Hopefully this is RH's attempt to fulfill the best of both worlds . . .

Cool Freeware of the Week: Launchy

If you've never tried Launchy, it's time you thought about it. Launchy is started using a hotkey combination (alt-space) and allows you to quickly launch other applications, do calculations, use Google search, browse Windows and even (with some customization) run Windows terminal commands.

If you're looking for Foxtrot-endorsed (useful, unique) free downloads, please visit our free downloads page. And if you have other free software recommendations, please post in the form of a comment. Thanks!

Careful, Counterfeiters: Color Lasers Identify Themselves

Apparently at the behest of the Federal Government, manufacturers of color laser printers are quietly embedding individual-unit-identifying yellow marks on each print they spit out.

Of course, it's a huge concern for civil libertarians who are seeing red over the yellow dots. The long arm of the law on the printer manufacturers will be tested by consumeristic efforts like Seeing Yellow, whose "buffer overflow" campaign is apparently more than the Feds are willing to continue chasing down . . . but will it prove compelling enough for manufacturers to change their stripes (and dots)?

Tips for Extending Notebook Battery Life

Basically, these tips all boil down to one of just a few rules: 1) manufacturers are improving battery life, so new products have better battery life; 2) a well-maintained notebook is a battery-life-efficient notebook; and the 3) the more stuff you ask your laptop to do (multi-tasking, running CDs, etc.), the worse its battery life will be. A nice little primer . . .

Networking Gear Default Passwords

Just ran across a great little addition to the ol' "online toolkit": an online listing of the manufacturer's default passwords for hundreds of networking devices.

Need to read Office 2007 files in Office 2003 or earlier?

You can do it! You just need to get the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack.

In contrast to Microsoft's "viewer" apps which only allow you to see the content, the Compatibility Pack actually does allow you to create, edit, save, etc. in XML file format.

Could Your Company Benefit From CRM?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been around for many years in the form of Goldmine and ACT!. The past 5 years have seen Microsoft challenge the market some, and innovative companies like SugarCRM, OnContact and salesforce.com are great viable options for small and medium-sized businesses.

But before deciding *which* solution is the right one, a company first needs to decide *whether* to move forward with CRM at all. What are the benefits? CRM is not for every business, so it's important to think about your company, products, customers, personnel, intelligence needs, etc. It's a complex decision, but this article is a fantastic primer and guide for making the decision.

9 Things to Not Have on a Business Web Site

As a followup to last week's 10 things to have on your home page, here are some (even more helpful, I think) tips on what *not* to have on your web page.

I can't even express how much I agree with #1. I had a marketing consultant a few years ago insist on having her clients put their pictures and a personal letter right on their home page (she drinks her own Kool-Aid, at least). I grasped the "folksy," one-on-one approach, but I thought the overriding effect was simply unprofessional. She actually was the catalyst for getting going with Managed Services, but once the business model and concepts were out there, the follow-on advice for marketing it seemed "overly guerilla" and annoying.

10 Rules for Your Small Business Home Page

Here's some sage advice about keeping your business web page succinct and effective. I believe it was Winston Churchill who said, "Be brief, be concise, and be seated." And so it is with web pages, I believe.

It's always a struggle for me, since I do the content for our website, to be descriptive enough to pique interest and get people to understand how *differently* we do things, yet not get to be so technical and such a bulk of words that it all gets ignored. I find help in tools like bulletpoints and headlines.

Linux in the Enterprise, But Maybe Not Yet Small Biz

Linux is certainly graduating from its roots as a "enthusiast-only" technology. Foxtrot has delivered a few systems, and we keep a few "sandbox" PCs here in the shop loaded up with different distros, just for experimenting and what-not.

I know some small businesses who have embraced - and installed - Linux, but typically only on a server or two. I think the main updraft for Linux-on-the-desktop will be larger enterprise customers. HP's claims validate this, and we're even starting to see "bake-off" articles where distros are actually compared based specifically on their enterprise supportability and viability.

For the meantime, in the small business space I think Linux-on-the-desktop might actually best be reserved for "blank slate" users, where little technology infrastrucutre exists and users' knowledge of Windows is not quite so deep.

The biggest hurdle for Linux in small business, however, is probably the lack of well-developed vertical apps. Yes, I understand there are CRM apps, financials apps, and lots of solutions, but none of these solutions that I've seen are anywhere as easy-to-use, or as well-supported, as the Windows world likes of Quickbooks, Act! Goldmine, etc. Comments from the legion of Linux blog-crawlers are encouraged! I'm Always interested to hear about new solutions out there.

H1-B Hiring Under Fire

I understand that this bill is well-intentioned, with the idea of increasing the number of domestic workers filling technical jobs. However, it seems that - like most government interventions - the main end result is higher prices, more harassment and less efficiency.

It is axiomatic that government never makes *anything* more efficient, and the labor market is certainly a prime example of that.

There are already many barriers for H-1B visa-holders to overcome to get here and be successful: significant physical relocation, language and culture barriers, and of course the H-1B process itself. If after all that, they're still able to work for such a significant discount to the US-born applicants and they do as good a job, then perhaps the US workers need to accept a smaller number.

It's the force of the marketplace, and whether it's in the labor market or in the finished product market, placing inefficiencies on the markets always come around and result in a negative impact for the company doing the restricting.

Let's play this to the logical conclusion: the bill passes, and limitations are placed on hiring H-1B applicants. Fewer qualified H-1B workers are available here, so more are available off-shore. This glut of supply of talent in India and elsewhere probably creates a decrease in the cost to run off-shore operations in the native countries, which makes them that much more an option that hiring an internal staff or domestic outsourcing.

Also, if the US companies have to now pay more despite not getting any better talent (other than being born in the right place), the company's costs go up. Throw in the cost of complying to and documenting this "good faith" effort and we've got still higher costs at the corporation.

So, either their product prices go up, or the speed, quality and quantity of their products decreases. Any way you slice it, the product is a worse value and may lose in the global marketplace to 100% foreign-grown products and services . . . maybe even to the companies in India (or wherever) enjoying the cheaper labor they've got as a result of fewer of their citizens emmigrating to the US. Hey, guess what happens when the US company's product becomes less attractive and loses customers? People get let go . . . so the American workers are back in the unemployment line.

Plus, on top of all that, you have 200 more employees (at least!!) at the DOL, which is paid-for by the taxpayers. So, the end net-effect of all this will be less globally-competitive US companies, greater taxpayer expense, and a questionably-positive benefit to any US-born workers. Not looking that great, guys!

Business Expo March 7

Foxtrot will have a booth at next week's SHARP Upswing Business Expo up in Brooklyn Park. Stop by and see us!!

Geek Squad Horror Stories

I hear questionable or flat-out terrible things about Best Buy/ Geek Squad service fairly frequently, actually.

I recently had someone point out that Best Buy for Business is stepping up their efforts to make inroads in small business . . . and aren't I concerned about that? Not only does this not concern me, it actually kind of validates Foxtrot's business model.

For one thing, I can name several accounts that I've taken away from poor GS/BB service, and cannot name one instance where they've directly beaten me out. Of course, their marketing machine will get to some customers that I don't have the resources to, but I'm not sweating that much, either.

I like the fact that Best Buy sees a tremendously underserved sector in small business, because I see it as well. So many companies can benefit so greatly from more effective use of the relatively-inexpensive tech products that are out there. It's just a matter of getting to the people and building awareness of what's possible!

Generally, I have a friendly disposition toward competitors. My philosophy with regard to competition is that there's plenty of work to go around for companies that provide good products and services that consumers want, at reasonable prices.

Google Continues Push for Online Office Apps

Google continues to push their online software-as-a-service business model, in clear competition with MS Office.

So many interesting dynamics here:

1) Microsoft versus Google. I'm not sure if either would admit it, but this is another chapter in a pretty heavy competition. I wonder if Microsoft will respond to this competition the way they have responded to most: by taking their competitor's idea, making it their own, and using their existing foothold and integration with other MS apps to muscle out the competition.

Microsoft already kind of did this to Google once, in the desktop search. Vista has a far-improved integrated desktop (and beyond the desktop) search tool that takes some of the wind out of the sails for Google Desktop.

2) Google's direct-sales philosophy versus Microsoft's partner- and channel-centric philosophy. Foxtrot is a Microsoft partner, so of course there's some belief here in how they do things. However, I haven't drunk quite enough MS Kool-aid to believe there *can't* be a better answer. Google really has no formal partnership or channel opportunities for little ol' Foxtrot, so probably the only thing for me to do for Foxtrot right now is to watch and be aware.

Verifying IDs to Prevent Cyber-crime

I don't normally look to MSNBC for useful tech news, but this is a great article on inroads being made with TPM technology, against the growing tide of crime on the internet.

To say the least, I never knew all the network-ability features to TPM. We sell some notebooks with TPM onboard, but I usually advertise it as a theft deterrence system. If someone steals your NB (or you leave it on a plane with super top-secret info onboard, like has happened several times recently), the person who gets it cannot do anything with it. All the ones that have TPM also have a fingerprint scanner, so it basically serves as the on button - no fingerprint, no startup. That's my understanding, at least - never have had a chance to play around with it.

This internet verification is huge, I think. Just like telephone calls are more are more being placed to *people* (personal cell phones) rather than the olden-days' *places* (home/office phones), this seems like it would transform "machine-based" computing into "verified person-based" computing. Then again, fingerprint and TPM info is sure to be stored on internet-accessible servers . . . which opens the can o' worms right back up, for hackers and other ne'er-do-wells.

SMB tech trends for 2007

ConnectIT, a business technology online mag angled toward resellers and solution providers writes about the upcoming trends for SMBs (Small/ Medium Businesses).

Since I've been crafting and re-orienting Foxtrot as a Managed Service Provider for about 18 months now, I certainly agree with his notions that managed services and outsourcing will continue their upward trend.

The MSP market here in the Twin Cities is interesting. I like to think we've got things dialed in - at least operationally, and marketing is getting there finally - with being an MSP. I'm aware of several other MSPs here in the Twin Cities, and have heard nothing but negative stories about quality of service, the way they deliver, etc. I always try to get more info on how they're going wrong, and it seems the biggest downfall for them is spreading themselves too thin. They grow too fast, don't use software to automate simple tasks, and don't have standard procedures.

My days at SimonDelivers.com certainly taught me about BPM (Business Process Management), and I try to bring that into Foxtrot as much as possible. One of the ex-military techs here likes to call it SOP (Standard Operating Procedures). It kind of dehumanizes the process (for better or worse): just follow the documented process, and if the BPM design was right to start with things should all go smoothly.

If you blow your volume too high too fast, though, BPM can break down because there wind up not being enough hours in the day to get through the processes. This is where automation of tasks comes in. We try to leverage our software investments to automate simple tasks, so the only human interaction winds up being configuring and monitoring a whole slew of tasks.

This is a constant concern of mine still - how big can we grow? One can forecast all day long, talk to peers, use industry benchmarks . . . but when all's said and done it's a fairly case-by-case situation. The systems, the employees and the customers all determine exactly how big we'll be able to get, and how quickly.

Spam = 94% of all e-mail in December

Nice summary-of-a-summary piece from Information Week, reporting on Postini's report. Of course, Postini has everything to gain from singing from the mountaintops about today's spam crisis.

It is something we get asked about frequently: controlling, filtering, and handling spam. I've seen Postini's service and it is quite nice, though not very reseller-friendly (minimum 250 seat commitment) so Foxtrot's not reselling.

One nice solution we do use is Sunbelt Software's Messaging Ninja. Formerly called I Hate Spam, Ninja basically sets up an SMTP sink in MS Exchange that traps, scans and sorts spam right into each user's Exchange folder structure (in a designated spam folder).

We've also done some work with Symantec's Anti-spam plug-in for Mail Security, and it works similarly-well. Actually, we had to have a customer show it to us, but Symantec has a great suite combining Enterprise Antivirus and their Premium Anti-Spam product in one bundle for only about $30 per user (~$150 for a 5-pack).

I've always wanted to set up a dedicated Linux SMPT spam filter (have seen good things from Spam Assassin), but the one person I had interested in doing for Foxtrot wound up leaving town. Might be interested in picking it up, if anyone's out there and is interested.

What's the difference between CAT5 and CAT6 cabling?

Sorry for the uber-nerdy post here, but I had this question come up recently and thought this was a really nice technical summation of it.

Lifting the lid on the next-gen Intel CPU

Dailytech.com publishes an interesting "interview" (though there are few actual direct quotes) with a couple Intel execs.

Intel is just another great example of the wonders of Capitalism at work. Intel was fat and happy, resting on its laurels for a good five years (2000 - 2005). AMD, with its Athlon and Opteron CPUs, started winning the speed wars and a resulting increasing marketshare.

Voila, just like that Intel completely ditches the over-heating and under-performing Microburst architecture. They created the new "Core" (Conroe) series of CPUs, have a repeatedly-demonstrated performance advantage. And, this article is proof they are not going to rest on their laurels, but rather continue to push the envelope of smaller, faster, more efficient chips.

What people must realize is that, in that five year hiatus from meaningful new product development, a lot of Intel's focus was on its manufacturing capacity. They pushed from 130, to 90, to 65nm . . . and are now poised to convert plants to 45nm and (apparently) continue the pace every two years. Meanwhile at AMD, while their Athlon and Opteron chips were gaining market share and out-performing, their manufacturing advances lagged. Now, they're just getting to 65nm process and anything smaller than that is but a pipe dream.

So, the lesson is that Intel is a much stronger company - and we consumers are getting a better product - as a result of AMD's competitive influence. Beautiful!

Dispute over wiki.com

Some interesting wrangling going on between MindTouch (a company Foxtrot has done a bunch of business with) and Wikia. Seems we're a little short on details as to what exactly went wrong with wiki.com that has everyone being pushed over to wik.is.

I check with MT to see what the deal is, but have not yet heard back. Will update as I learn more . . .