…towards realtime collaboration. And the transition is exciting.
Yesterday was a busy day at work. It’s the busy time of year in the tax preparation business. And I’m always multitasking: planning for next year’s systems, supporting systems we’ve deployed this year, and consulting on systems that are experiencing trouble at any given moment.
But even on busy days, there is time to multitask on other matters. I knew that the Republican National Committee was holding their election for the new committee chairman. And I really wanted to watch what was happening – in realtime. As someone who uses social media as an avocation, I knew that there were ways of getting realtime feeds of data. I did a little checking and found that three or four of my favorite commentators were live-blogging the event. So I was quite excited.
I remember when I used to go to state conventions and state committee meetings. That was quite a while ago. When I used to attend, there really were smoke-filled rooms. Of course, many had smoke in them because I used to smoke a pipe. But that’s a different story… In the past, only an annointed few individuals were privvy to the rooms where important decisions were made. If you were lucky, an enterprising reporter might post a story in a local paper. And a few folks could get telephone updates from friends who were at the venue. But you never had any realtime view into the process.
That all changed with the advent of the worldwide web. And those changes accelerated with the introduction of blogs. If you knew someone who was attending, you could get an update of events within a few hours. And that was wonderful. But while you could receive data faster, it was an evolution and not a revolution.
But the last four years have seen some important changes. First, wireless phones have introduced the ability to get instant feedback (via SMS or the web). Second, text messages have been augmented with the addition of rich media – including both audio and video. Thid, everyone has these devices. So anyone in attendance at a meeting can communicate. These three shifts in communications have enabled everything I saw yesterday. And live blogging has been a real difference maker.
This week’s RNC meeting was something altogether different. Not only was there good communications (despite WiFi troubles at the hotel), but communications became multi-dimensional. Live blogging has always meant that realtime posts could be sent from conferences and meetings. But microblogging (using Twitter, Friendfeed and other tools) has meant that short and pithy bursts of info could be sent in realtime. More importantly, short messages could be sent form the outside to the inside of the venue. And this simple fact transformed everything.
I was sitting in Kansas City. I was not in the meeting room. But there were a few dozen people who were there and who were twittering the event. And these people provded multiple views (and voices) about what was transpiring. And I heard the voices of various operatives from many of the different candidates. But more importantly, I and other people could send questions or engage in realtime conversations about what was transpiring. This made those “on the outside” seem to be part of the process. This fact alone should increase excitement and participation by those who couldn’t otherwise attend. But I am sure that many people at the venue used the feedback from the remote audience as a means of gauging what the common folk might think of what was going on behind closed doors.
Of course, the only folks who were engaged in the #rncchair discussions on Twitter were twitterati and cognoscenti. But these folks were a fantastic proving ground for the technology. And the growing applicability of this technology was apparent to all. Folks who had broadband connectivity and a larger screen were at a tremendous advantage. They could provide and receive far more information for their use. I am sure that the various candidates’ teams had various levels of technology. And those with a good handle on the technology (i.e., those who posessed smartphones like iPhones and BlackBerries) were at an even great advantage. [Note: It was clear that Saul Anuzis’ team stayed in the race for a long time because he had mastered many of the communications channels available to him.]
As technology becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, more and more people will gain more and more advantage from these technologies. And as the software and services become even more accessible (i.e., less complex) even more people will be able to take advantage of realtime participation.
In the end, the technology alone did not make a deterministic difference. Michael Steels won the race because he had a good plan and he executed it quite effectively. Many folks will point to a specific reason that they think was critical for Steele’s success. I won’t be so bold. I wasn’t there. But I know that Michael Steele didn’t lose the race due to an insufficient grasp on the communications technologies at his disposal. Indeed, why else do you think Michael Steels was so visible as a Fox News contributor? He knew the imporance of using communications tools to energize his base while broadening his reach. And the communications tools available to us today helped to make that possible.
I’ll leave each of you the assignment to determine why Michael Steele won the chairmanship. In the meantime, I used a variety of tools to stay”in the know” – Twitter, hashtags (specifically, #rncchair and #tcot), Twitter search (at http://search.twitter.com) and Twitterfall (http://www.twitterfall.com). Twitterfall is fantastic. It provided a realtime rolling (or falling) ticker of a particular conversation thread. I was able to see who the talkers were as well as see who I should be following.
And for those interested in metrics… By getting involved in this one event, I saw my overall follower count (on Twitter) grow by over 20%. Of course, I started from a small base, but the real numbers were nonetheless impressive.
Finally, I would like to reinforce an important point: I do like to send “thank you’s” to the folks that followed me as a result of this event. I use SocialToo.com as a means of responding to all new followers. It is a great tool to help “personalize” the process of nurtturing your following. If you didn’t receive a “Thank You’ from me, drop me a note and I’ll send you a personalized email with my warmest thanks..
-Roo
Month: January 2009
For Better or Worse – Google Is The Center of the Universe
I got up very early this morning (~5AM) to the whining dogs. Our son had left a light on in the living room. So the dogs woke up early to the light. I dragged myself out of bed to give them a walk and then feed them. After about thirty minutes of light chores, I settled down to the computer to start to put together a post about the RNC Chairman’s race (which I will do later).
Over night, I was converting one of my DVD’s to a video file I can use on a portabe player. And everything was running very slowly. And I mean verrrrry slooooowwwwwly. Normally, I can get a DVD converted in five or six hours. But this one was only six or seven percent complete after eight hours. And nothing was moving on my system.
I had recently upgraded to Windows 7. So I figured that maybe there was some problem with Handbrake and Windows 7. So I got onto Google and did a quick search. I was then confronted with the fact that all of my search results were flagged as containing malware. That couldn’t be the case. After all, some of these sites were very trusted sites that I use all the time.
Google couldn’t be wrong. So maybe I had something on my local machine. So I started to run malware scans on my system. I ran both Malwarebytes as well as Spybot Search & Destroy. And everything was crawling along. So I started to get concerned that I had a more serious problem on my system. [Note: Paranoia is not always a good thing. I was starting to see risks lurking on every sector of my hard drive.]
I started looking at the process list and noted that I had my anti-virus scan in progress. This was quite odd as the weekly scan normally completes it’s work very early every Saturday morning. So I’m starting to get quite nervous. I must have some kind of “bad” bug that needed special eradication. I stpped the AV scan and saw that the video encoding started to move along. In fifty minutes, it had encoded a quarter of the file. So I’m figuring that Windows 7 Beta + Handbrake + a simultaneous AV scan may be a bad combination.
But what about the malware that Google tipped me off to? Since two different anti-malware tools proclaimed the cleanliness of my system, I started to relax. And since my video conversion was progressing, I stepped away from the computer for a couple of hours. When I returned, things were still slow. But that happens when a video conversion tool takes over 90% of the CPU.
So I decided to check some of my social networing sites. And I started with Google Reader. It was there that I found my answer: Google had implemented a bad piece of code. According to every source on the web, I was a victim of Google’s attempt to incorporate http://www.stopbadware.org into their search results. And a human error had literally flagged all search results as containing malware.
So with this tidbit of information, my problem is solved, right? Not really as I had just demonstrated the problem of trust and social engineering. You see, I “trusted” Google as a company that made few (or no) errors. Indeed, even their “beta” code is better than other companies and their “production” code. And to make matters worse, Google is the center of my universe. I search using Google. I use GMail for most of my personal email. I use GReader as the means of aggregating all the RSS feeds I consume. In point of fact, Google is the center of my Internet experience. And I had trusted them so much, that I did not even consider that they might have an error. I assumed that my system was at fault. After all, the people at Google are experts.
So what is a ‘roo to do. First, I must remember the words of our 40th President: trust, but verify. Then I need to remember not to be doing too many things at once. I was running a program for the first time on a new OS at the same time that I run anti-viral scans. Um, I’ll try and avoid that perfect storm in the future.
But I am also reminded of some corrolary applications for this situation. I should never make a man, a woman, a company, a government or even a political party take up residence in the center of my universe. After all, the center of my universe should be occupied by the only indivudal who is completely worthy of that role: the Lord God Almighty. Only He is completely trustworthy. No man (and certainly no organization) should be trusted so intimately or so completely. The results of such a misapplication of trust could be disastrous.
So as of today, I don’t trust Google as much. And I am reminded why I should’t trust elected officials (of any party) so much. Reagan was right; trust, but verify.
-Roo
I’m Feeling Seven-ish, She Said
Cindy asked me what I thought of Windows 7 after the first hour of using it. I told her that I felt, er, um… And she said “…seven-ish?” And I guess she was right. I am feeling seven-ish.
Here are the ‘Roo’s first thoughts:
– Installation was good – exceptioanlly good for a beta. I hope the installer becomes a little more informative before final release. There has to be more feeback to inform the user that progress is occurring – lest the user abandon hope that the install is progressing!
– A number of the default apps (like MSPaint) now display a ribbon bar. This is the UI enhancements delivered in Office 2007. I like the interface changes. But I know a lot of folks who aren’t so keen on the changes.
– I like the new themes that display multiple pictures. And some of the pics are fabulous!
– Media Center setup was peculiar. At first, it didn’t detect my Hauppage HVR 1600. After a reboot, it finally detected my TV card. Once the TV card was detected, downloading of the guide and the remainder of Windows Media Center setup went smoothly. I do like the interface touches like the icon/preview that appears at the bottom of the guide. It’s a little touch. But I find such touches to be demonstrative of a complete commitment to the customer experience.
– I had zero problems playing movies when using the Windows Media Player.
– iTunes functioned flawlessly. I could play MP3 audio files, AAC audio files and a variety of MP4 video files. And I had zero problems when I plugged in my iPod. It was detected by both Windows and iTunes. As a side note, Last.fm’s add-on for iTunes worked great. I need to check scrobbling – but so far, so good.
– A variety of my system utilities seem to operate nominally. This includes Spybot S&D, AVG Free and even Privoxy/TOR.
– Printing worked fine- thank goodness.
– Adobe apps seem to work – including AIR apps (like Twhirl).
– Other Twitter-related apps (like Tweetdeck) seem to work well.
– I used Psi to connect up to the work IM infrastructure. All seems to work.
– Google apps (like Google Earth ad Google Chrome) all seem to work well.
– Home network setup isn’t smooth yet. I tried to set up a homegroup. But it didn’t allow me to set one up until I was connected to a network that was previously designated as a “home” network. Of course, my network was setup as a “home” network. So there is obviously something amiss. I hope to try this function out in the next couple of days.
Bottom Line: Windows 7 is not the grand divergence or vast improvement upon Windows Vista that some folks claim. Indeed, it is an evolution of Windows Vista’s basic system. As I consider how Vista relates to Windows 7, I remember how Windows 2000 related to Windows XP. W2K was a great baseline that XP built upon. Similarly, Windows Vista is the base that Windows 7 builds upon. In so many ways, this is the OS that Microsoft should have released. I wonder just how much this OS will cost (in the retail channels). As an upgrade from Vista, I’m not inclined to pay the full sticker price. Indeed, this is what I should have received when I first purchased Vista.
Nevertheless, Windows 7 is quite nice. And for a beta, it is wonderful. It is clean and far more nimble than Vista. And a lot of the rough edges that we had in Vista have finally been polished to a fine sheen.
In short, I’m very impressed by the OS. And I am even more impressed with the “fit and finish” of this beta. Microsoft was very smart to provide this to millions of people. It will build the enthusiasm for the Windows brand. And in all candor, that enthusiasm has been flagging for a couple of years.
I'm Feeling Seven-ish, She Said
Cindy asked me what I thought of Windows 7 after the first hour of using it. I told her that I felt, er, um… And she said “…seven-ish?” And I guess she was right. I am feeling seven-ish.
Here are the ‘Roo’s first thoughts:
– Installation was good – exceptioanlly good for a beta. I hope the installer becomes a little more informative before final release. There has to be more feeback to inform the user that progress is occurring – lest the user abandon hope that the install is progressing!
– A number of the default apps (like MSPaint) now display a ribbon bar. This is the UI enhancements delivered in Office 2007. I like the interface changes. But I know a lot of folks who aren’t so keen on the changes.
– I like the new themes that display multiple pictures. And some of the pics are fabulous!
– Media Center setup was peculiar. At first, it didn’t detect my Hauppage HVR 1600. After a reboot, it finally detected my TV card. Once the TV card was detected, downloading of the guide and the remainder of Windows Media Center setup went smoothly. I do like the interface touches like the icon/preview that appears at the bottom of the guide. It’s a little touch. But I find such touches to be demonstrative of a complete commitment to the customer experience.
– I had zero problems playing movies when using the Windows Media Player.
– iTunes functioned flawlessly. I could play MP3 audio files, AAC audio files and a variety of MP4 video files. And I had zero problems when I plugged in my iPod. It was detected by both Windows and iTunes. As a side note, Last.fm’s add-on for iTunes worked great. I need to check scrobbling – but so far, so good.
– A variety of my system utilities seem to operate nominally. This includes Spybot S&D, AVG Free and even Privoxy/TOR.
– Printing worked fine- thank goodness.
– Adobe apps seem to work – including AIR apps (like Twhirl).
– Other Twitter-related apps (like Tweetdeck) seem to work well.
– I used Psi to connect up to the work IM infrastructure. All seems to work.
– Google apps (like Google Earth ad Google Chrome) all seem to work well.
– Home network setup isn’t smooth yet. I tried to set up a homegroup. But it didn’t allow me to set one up until I was connected to a network that was previously designated as a “home” network. Of course, my network was setup as a “home” network. So there is obviously something amiss. I hope to try this function out in the next couple of days.
Bottom Line: Windows 7 is not the grand divergence or vast improvement upon Windows Vista that some folks claim. Indeed, it is an evolution of Windows Vista’s basic system. As I consider how Vista relates to Windows 7, I remember how Windows 2000 related to Windows XP. W2K was a great baseline that XP built upon. Similarly, Windows Vista is the base that Windows 7 builds upon. In so many ways, this is the OS that Microsoft should have released. I wonder just how much this OS will cost (in the retail channels). As an upgrade from Vista, I’m not inclined to pay the full sticker price. Indeed, this is what I should have received when I first purchased Vista.
Nevertheless, Windows 7 is quite nice. And for a beta, it is wonderful. It is clean and far more nimble than Vista. And a lot of the rough edges that we had in Vista have finally been polished to a fine sheen.
In short, I’m very impressed by the OS. And I am even more impressed with the “fit and finish” of this beta. Microsoft was very smart to provide this to millions of people. It will build the enthusiasm for the Windows brand. And in all candor, that enthusiasm has been flagging for a couple of years.
Windows 7 – Finally
It’s almost 3:00PM CST on Saturday. And I’ve been working on this for over six (6) hours. But I’m sure that a whole lot of people have spent a whole lot more time than I have.
Yesterday morning, Microsoft was supposed to make a beta version of Windows 7 available to 2.5 million customers. So far, there is no single proocess that works to make that download process a reality. Indeed, the Internet was abuzz with the challenges that Microsoft was having with the huge demand for Windows 7. I don’t know about any of that, but it sure has been a Byzantine process getting all the bits and getting the appropriate product keys.
After hearing all of the whispers, groans, screams and general noise yesterday, I waited until today to start the process for myself. I got up bright and early and walked the dogs. Once they were fed and watered, I started the process. I tried to go to the Microsoft location where I could get the download and the product key in one place. But that was not a workable solution this morning. It may be OK as you read this post. Check at Microsoft’s site first. And if it is still down, here are some tips on how I proceeded.
So I figured that I would try and do the two things separately. I found a great link over at Neowin. From there, I was able to get to the product pages where I could request a product key. Fortunately, I did this before 2.5M other people did. So I got a good key. Then I went over to Technologizer to see where the downloads for the ISO were hosted. It’s important that you get a file that is hosted at Microsoft as there are lots of BitTorrent trackers that are pointing to very old versions of the code. Get the dowload from Microsoft and you can be more comofortable that you are getting the Build 7000 bits. And the Microsoft folks have updated their infrastructure. It only took me about ninety minutes to download the 2.4GB ISO file.
Once I got the product keys and the ISO, I burned the DVD and started the install. That was before 10A. That’s when the fun began.
8:3oAM – Began ISO download
9:45AM – ISO downloaded
9:50AM – Got product key
10:00AM – I rebooted the system and I started the install. I chose to upgrade an exising partition. That is a risky proposition. But it would best represent the experience most people would encounter. So I checked currency of backups and started the install.
The install looks almost identical to the Vista installs I’ve performed hundreds of times. Unfortunately, the instller also acts like the same installer. You get precious little feedback to determine if the process works or not. You can wait for five minutes to progress 30% across the progress bar. But sometimes, it takes thirty minutes to move a single percent. The good news is that the installer at least lists the number of files it is dealing with in each step. So while the progress bar may not move, you can at least tell if things are “stuck” or not.
It took almost an hour to “check the files” before the next step in the installation could proceed. I was starting to get a little worried. But then things started to move along. By noon, the installer had finally prgressed to the last step (“Completing upgrade”).
12:01PM – The “post-migration” steps are taking longer than the unpacking and copying of files. Arghhh.
12:48PM – The post-installation process has jumped from 34% complete to 57% complete. I am really glad to see the file count. Otherwise, I would have abandoned the installation long ago. I’m becoming a little peeved at the note that says “this may take a few minutes.” OK, Redmond’s definition of “a few” and my definition are not in agreement. But this installer is acting just as it has in the past – very little feedback with data that is non-representative. At 57%, I can be certain that I am not 1/2 of the way through this process.
1:10PM – Is this thing scanning my HD and sending checksums to NSA or the RIAA? This is taking forever.
1:25PM – We’ve rebooted yet again. But I’m seeing a new splash screen. So far, it’s the only indication that there is anything different between this OS and Windows Vista. I do like the animations of the swirling balls morphing into the Windows logo.
But I’m greeted with the post-installation process still being at 57% – arghhh!
1:30PM – Whoa. We’ve jumpted to 63%. I wonder if the reboot was needed to clear a file lock.
1:37PM – 74%
1:44PM – 87%
1:45PM – Restart again
1:47PM – Hey, it’s asking for the product key. I must be making progress.
1:50PM – I’m being asked for the first Ctrl + Alt + Del of the new OS.
1:55PM – I finally see my standard desktop
So the installation / upgrade process is very long. And you need to be patient. But my upgrade went fairly smoothly – except that Citirx ICA had to be disabled and uninstalled. Otherwise, the upgrade is pretty good – f0r a beta. It took a little over five (5) hours to upgrade an existing Vista SP1 system.
-Roo
Some Virii Must Be Attacked With Multiple Drugs…
About a month ago, I went to the doctor to address a sinus infection. I have always been prone to getting sinus infections. But for the past couple of years, I’ve found that using a sleeping wedge has reduced my sinus infections to one or two a year. But last month, I couldn’t beet back the odds. I think I fell prey to lots of rain and lots of large temperature shifts. But whatever the case, I had to go and see a doctor.
The doctor confirmed that I did indeed have a sinus infection. And he prescribed a low dose of Amoxicillin. While Amoxicillin works well for lots of people, it hasn’t always helped me. But I though I’d give it a try. After all, I don’t want to over-prescribe or cause some kind of weird viral resistance. So I gave it a try. After about five days, I could tell that the antibiotics had helped some. But it was clear that they had not totally eradicated my problem. I still had pressure and nasal discharge indicative of a lingering problem. But I figured I’d wait until it got worse, just in case my own immune system could beat it down.
Well, after being away from town for a week and flying to and from Atlanta, I could finally tell that I needed to see a doctor again. This time, the doctor decided to take a more aggressive approach. He prescribed a cocktail of Amoxicillin and Augmentin. And he prescribed it for 14 consecutive days. The doctor figured that he would attack the problem with two sticks – and keep hitting it until it was beaten into submission. I really appreciate this approach as I want to get rid of the problem. I’ve had a bad headache for almost a month now. It will be nice to solve the problem.
That Was An Analogy
But this solution applies to multiple problems – including a problem my duaghter was having. Yesterday afternoon, Bailey asked if I could check her computer and see if there was a problem. Bailey isn’t one to ask for help at the first sign of trouble. In fact, she likes to try and solve problems for herself. So when she asked me to take a look, I leaped into action.
The problem was easily identified; I used Spybot Search and Destroy to diagnose that my daughter was suffering from a case of malware. In this case, she was infected with Virtumonde. I was surprised that she was infected at all as she was using the “approved” anti-malware products recommended by the University of Kansas. And even though KU is good, I should have realized that I need to stay on top of these things.
So I started the process of removing Vundo (the shorthand name for this beastie). I first used the Spybot Search and Destroy tool. It idetifed three instances of the infection. And it removed these instances – or so it said. But afte rebooting the system, I was still seeing bizarre problems (like difficulty logging onto the system and some slugglishness in web operations. So I restarted Spybot S&D and noted that the same infection had returned. That’s when I started to get concerned.
I started reading up on Vundo and learned just how pernicious this little beastie is. I donwloaded VundoFix. And started to run this scanning and repair tool. It also noted problems with Virtumonde infection. So I let it clean up some things. And after running this tool, I rebooted and tried Spybot S&D yet again. And once again, I encountered problems with reinfection. This one was beginning to remind me of my sinus infection.
So I started bringing out broader spectrum tools. I downloaded current versions of Sophos Antivirus as well as AVG. I also downloaded Virtumonde Begone. Then I downloaded a PCTools utility and a Symantec tool to help along the way. In short, I startied hitting this thing with multiple attacks. In the end, a combination of two anti-virus / anti-trojan tools plus two anti-spyware tools seems to have knocked this thing off her system.
There are lots of references to how to get rid of this beast. But the forums on Yahoo (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080729134452AA2GPB5) gave me some of the best info. If you get infected with this one, make sure that you don’t spare any effort to get rid of it as it is quite nasty. And be prepared to spend a number of hours trying to knock this one down. It causes a heck of a headache and requires attacking the problem as broadly as possible. Indeed, be prepared to get into a two-front war when you attack this bug.