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Articles I’m re-reading this weekend

A cloudy day in Washington and the kids are at a birthday party. So once I’ve cleaned up the kitchen, here’s a couple of articles that I’m re-reading:


BusinessWeek


The Apple Calendar Conundrum –  OCTOBER 12, 2006 By Arik Hesseldahl – There’s no easy way to transfer addresses and other data from Mac to PC to handheld and back—but there should be. “A startup called Sharpcast is building a way to make complicated, geeky tales like mine and that the of the “Holy Grail” author a thing of the past. Sharpcast CEO Gibu Thomas demonstrated for me the company’s photo-sharing service that takes all the guesswork out of keeping your photo collection in sync between computers.”


slideshow thumbnail imageBusinessWeek’s slides on how Technology can Make Fitness More Fun


A Red Flag In The Brain Game – BusinessWeek’s look at “how America’s dismal showing in a contest of college programmers highlights how the tech talent gap is closing in China, India, and Eastern Europe.” By Steve Hamm – May 01, 2006


The Man Who Invented Management – Why Peter Drucker’s ideas still matter. By John A. Byrne, with Lindsey Gerdes in New York – November 28, 2005. Also this podcast from BW’s John Byrne in which he tells why Peter Drucker’s ideas still matter. Download the episode directly or grab the feed for your podcast reader.


PC Magazine


Wire It Yourself – By Eric S. Fellen, 053106 – “In a world of wireless this and wireless that, sometimes we all find ourselves begging for a little bit more—a little more reliability, a little more bandwidth, a little more speed, a little more security, and heck, even a little more free time to enjoy this world that offers so much more. In order to feed this technology crave, we need to go back to the basics and connect our dots with copper.”


Will Digital Access Make the World a Better Place?  “Low-cost machines are neccessary but not sufficient for getting the world online. We also need broadband Net access and education.” By Michael J. Miller, 053106.


Office Problems, Solved!  “Microsoft Office doesn’t always behave the way you want it to.” It’s a helpful article with quick links, menu shortcuts and tips. 
 


Business 2.0 has an article on Pushing Past Post-Its – “By allowing his top scientists to peek over the horizon, 3M’s Larry Wendling helped turn a century-old giant into a nanotech pioneer.” By Daniel Del Re, November 1, 2005


DVDs: They will survive – “Doomsayers say DVDs are dinosaurs, but they’re dead wrong. These discs will not only make it through the digital age – they’ll thrive in it.” By Chris Taylor, Business 2.0 Magazine


Retooling the Entrepreneur – Excite co-founder Joe Kraus says cheap technology makes this the perfect time to start a new company–which gives him an invaluable chance to prove himself again. By John Heilemann, November 1, 2005


The Master of Gadgets – Samsung Electronics CEO Jong-Yong Yun wants to dominate the digital world–inside and out. By Erick Schonfeld

Forbes articles (subscription required): 


Forbes’ Offshoring The Offshorers – April 17, 2006 – “Forget India. For outsourcing, China, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Mauritius are open for business.” Also see The Great Offshore Wimp-Out (“The offshoring story has two sides. Guess which one Lou Dobbs wants to talk about?”)


Back Door To Growth – April 24, 2006 – “China has a powerful economy, but its stocks are iffy. So Steven Champion gets a piece of the action there via shares in Taiwanese companies with big stakes on the mainland.” Also see the Forbes 40 China


NotPods – Apr 24, 2006 – “By now Apple’s sainted ipod should be seeing real competition. Some enterprising company should be developing a dandy new device that costs the same as the clickwheeled darling but performs significantly better–or a pure knockoff that looks great and works as well but costs a lot less.”


Also see Different Tunes – “By now Apple’s iTunes Music Store should be seeing some real competition, too. All some enterprising company would have to do would be to develop a site with much the same content, add the ability to use it on a host of players that don’t happen to be iPods and offer better prices.”


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Mac or PC Security, it doesn’t matter: be prepared

In a comment I received to a recent blog posting on being careful when it comes to viruses, I wanted to mention something when it comes to computer security: whether you have a PC or a Mac, you will have to be concerned about security and protect yourself.


If you own a computer – PC or Mac (and we have both at home) – you should run AV software, have a firewall on your internet connection and practice “safe computing.”


But we have to be careful to reach broad-based conclusions. It’s better to anticipate an attack and be prepared and protected rather than hope that you won’t be the victim of an attack. As I said in a past post, see our Security at home site for more ideas on how to protect your computer. It has info on avoiding online scams with the Microsoft Phishing Filter, anti-virus, anti-spyware, security updates, Office and Windows update tools… well worth your time. Mac users can look here on Apple’s site for more info on protecting your Mac.


As USA Today reported earlier this year…



“Windows-based PCs have felt the brunt of attacks for years because those machines command more than 95% of the worldwide market. Macs mostly have escaped the attention of hackers. Until now.


“Unless they consider themselves very savvy, Mac users should run anti-virus software just like Windows users,” says Larry Seltzer, security center editor at news site eWeek.com. “Mac users need to start developing a sense of cynicism about content that comes unsolicited, even if it appears to come from a user they know.”


Of interest is eWeek’s Larry Seltzer’s article on “What Will Apple Do When the Malware Comes?”


As our COO Kevin Turner says, (paraphrased): don’t be a victim… be a participant in your own rescue.

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Friday humour: the guy the virus writers count on

Flash to a conversation overheard in a checkout line: when one person asks another why they hadn’t responded to an email, the resopnse comes: “there was an attachment in your last email, and I heard that attachments could be bad… so I didn’t open it.”


That reminded me of a past cartoon…



You really do have to be careful these days: I regularly receive emails with small .zip or .jpg attachments that no doubt hold all sorts of nasty goodies. Don’t open attachments unless you really know (and can confirm!) who they came from and what the attachments are.


As Stephen Sinofsky said in this discussion on the impact of “I Love You” virus that infected computers worldwide in 2000…



“Always make sure you have anti-virus software running and that it is up to date. Ensure you have the latest product updates… You should also practice safe computing practices, such as being very careful when opening email attachments.”


More info:



(BTW, the cartoon is by the talented Cam Cardow of The Ottawa Citizen.)


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News & Link: T-Mobile Dash coming Oct. 25

As noted earlier in the week, the new T-Mobile Dash Smartphone is coming soon. This info is in the official Dash press release:



The T-Mobile Dash will be available exclusively to T-Mobile customers beginning Oct. 25 at T-Mobile retail stores and online at www.t-mobile.com. Prior to retail availability, customers can learn more about the T-Mobile Dash at www.t-mobileregistration.com/dash.

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Article: Seattle PI reports on the Changes in COSD

The Seattle PI reported today that “Microsoft Corp. announced plans Thursday to reshape the internal structure of its Windows engineering division…” known as the Windows Core Operating System Division (aka COSD), which Jon DeVaan leads.



“Microsoft said the changes announced for the Windows Core Operating System Division will take effect after Vista’s release, applying to work on future versions. They’re designed, in part, to streamline the division and make it more flexible. Microsoft said the changes won’t involve layoffs.


“It’s part of a broader revamp of Windows development efforts. Earlier this year, Microsoft brought in Steven Sinofsky, a Microsoft Office executive known for getting teams to meet deadlines, as the senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live engineering group.


“The latest changes include the creation of a new team inside the Core Operating System Division that will “focus on a single, integrated development plan for Windows,” the company said.


A couple of the changes noted in the article include…



  • the move to combine our Security, Trustworthy Computing (TwC) and Engineering Excellence teams (which operate across the company) into a single group within COSD, led by Scott Charney (he’s led the TwC group),

  • and the venerable Jawad Khaki will manage a new group in COSD that works with hardware makers.

Good moves as these and the rest of Jon’s technical executives are focused on the needs of our customers (end users) and partners (IHVs, OEMs, manufacturers, service providers). Jon DeVaan is one of the best listeners, continually supports our efforts to improve customer and partner satisfaction across the company, and is particularly good at finding ways to bridge the communications gap that sometimes happens (even within the company). I’ll ask if he can make some time for a chat on TechNet.


And Scoble sat down with Jawad this summer and the interview is here on Channel9, and see this community/chat transcript on Technet. Jawad is great with customers and has forged some deep relationships with key manufacturers in the industry.