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The Little BIG Things: 163 ways to pursue excellence by Tom Peters

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 04/08/2010

I count myself among the many Tom Peters fans out in the business world, and just started his new book “The Little BIG Things”.

I noticed on his blog that Mr. Peters has released a summary PDF version of the book available for free download – I highly recommend it. What you’ll likely find (as I did) is that you’ll end up ordering the book or checking it out at your library to get more detail on the ideas he covers.

And if you want to ask the man himself questions about the book or his work, you’ll find him on Twitter and — if you have something interesting to say — probably very responsive!

Tags: Books, customer satisfaction, twitter, satisfaction, Tom Peters.

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Tags advice, books, customer feedback, customer satisfaction

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What’s on your TV: cable, satellite or OTA + the Web?

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 01/08/2010

Someone asked today on a local mailing list for suggestion on local television options: Dish, DirecTV or Comcast (our local MSO).

I noted that it used to be that if you wanted to get reasonable TV service throughout your home, cable offered the best option requiring no additional set top boxes for a good variety of programming. That changed last year when Comcast changed their channel map: as you’ll see here, I am no fan of that move nor Comcast’s practices, as they forced customers to install new set top boxes last year.

Although we wanted to cancel Comcast, we kept the service (as noted here) as WRT the alternative, they offered the best value for television and we remain a customer (full dsclosure: as they offer to many concerned customers, they offered us an excellent deal on free set top boxes and discounted HD-DVRs). However, with Hulu’s new subscription model, Netflix on-demand, good digital TV reception in much of Medina (free, over-the-air channels, including our local affiliates), we are considering dropping cable TV once again. YMMV.

I would like to see AT&T or Verizon apply for a TV franchise and offer a competitive package. Dish and Direct now over some interesting packages worth considering.

If you have a high-speed data service and all you want is basic channels, with local affiliates and some premium programming, try starting with an OTA digital antenna (if your TV is digital ready – if not, invest in an inexpensive converter box as referenced here) and a service such as Hulu. There are some very competitive offerings from Qwest for high-speed data that offer incredible speeds for a lot less than Comcast you may want to consider.

What do you think?

Tags: Comcast, television, DVR, FCC, policy.

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Tags customer feedback, customer satisfaction, customer service, Media Center, TV

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Did you win £450,000 in a “Microsoft Lottery”? Think again: it’s a phishing attempt

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 27/07/2010

I was asked today…

I received a message in my email on behalf of Microsoft from the National Lottery International [stating] "A certificate of winning and other certificates including your winning cheque of Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand Great Britain Pound Sterlings has been sent to us by the claims officer of overseas Winner of the Microsoft National Lottery."

Is this real?

Nope, sorry… See this post at http://spamemailgraveyard.com/2010/04/microsoft-notification.html.

As I noted in my prior post, "Did you win One Million Euros in a Microsoft Lottery? Think again: it’s a phishing attempt", a lottery scam is a common phishing scam known as advanced fee fraud. One of the most common forms of advanced fee fraud is a message that claims that you have won a large sum of money, or that a person will pay you a large sum of money for little or no work on your part. The lottery scam often includes references to big companies, such as Microsoft.

In short: there is no Microsoft lottery.

For more information on how to protect yourself from fraudulent emails, please see Microsoft’s Anti-Phishing Site, and my posts on Phishing: Don’t get caught and FYI: new scams featuring the IRS logo to get your PII.

Do you have strong passwords on your devices? Here’s what to consider

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 26/07/2010

A friend noted today that their online email account was compromised over the weekend. I thought about my post on creating strong passwords (and passphrases) in six easy steps, which is still relevant today…

There’s a good article that was recently posted on on the Microsoft Security At Home web site that outlines how to create strong passwords.

Why should you care? Because last year InformationWeek reported that simple passwords created using short, simple key sequences can be easily cracked:

"For example, a lowly P3 PC running a widely available cracking tool at just 500 MHz was able to guess the password "ChEcK12" in only 26 seconds; and today’s top-of-the-line PCs could perform the same crack almost instantly. (For more examples of just how quickly simple password techniques like this can be bypassed, see this page from McMaster University). It’s scary stuff."

You can find the article on creating strong passwords here and more info and suggestions here on TechNet which notes that a strong password…

Is at least seven characters long.
Does not contain your user name, real name, or company name.
Does not contain a complete dictionary word.
Is significantly different from previous passwords. Passwords that increment (Password1, Password2, Password3 …) are not strong.
Contains characters from each of the following four groups: Uppercase letters, Lowercase letters, Numerals and Symbols found on the keyboard.

When all else fails, you may also use an online service such as http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/ to suggest strong passwords.

Tags: Microsoft, passwords, password, passphrase, security.

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Samoa adopts daylight saving time in 2010, but why at midnite?

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 26/07/2010
1 Comment on Samoa adopts daylight saving time in 2010, but why at midnite?

I read in the Samoa Observer, and in case you missed the original news, Samoa will implement daylight saving time this September…

"…in response to the need for national strategies to address the crises with fuel and food prices. This new and exciting change will come into force on Friday night Saturday morning 25th September 2010 adjusting clocks forward 12:00am (0000Hrs) to 1:00am (0100Hrs) readjusting it back one hour from 1:00am (0100Hrs) to 12:00am (0000Hrs) on Friday night Saturday morning 2nd April 2011.

"Enquiries on daylight saving can be made to the Fair Trading and Codex Division of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour on the 4th Floor of the Accident Compensation Commission (ACC House), Apia, or its Telephone 20441."

More details may be found here: http://www.sits.ws/Home/tabid/1306/mid/6724/newsid6724/175/Samoas-Daylight-Saving-Starts-in-September-2010/language/en-NZ/Default.aspx

I wonder: do we have an office in Samoa? (Answer: no, but I think our offices in New Zealand may work with the nation.)

My concern here is the midnite change.

Here’s my regular advice for governments: in support of these types of changes, we provide guidance and Microsoft’s Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests. It’s important for countries and territories to work towards seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies, providing ample advance notice (of a year or more) with published confirmation of planned changes.

In addition – and this is important – we suggest that entities considering moves to DST implement changes at the next clock tick after 01:59:59 rather than at 00:00:00. Making the change at midnight can impact daily scheduled system events that sometimes occur at 12:00 midnite, such as back ups, data pulls or other automated tasks.