TOMTOM Application is Out!

Well the long awaited TOMTOM application is out. Not sure who they got to test this but it must have been out of the mainstream as ZuCom nary heard a word.

See the App in the AppStore at http://tinyurl.com/oyt8bq

Cool accessories at http://iphone.tomtom.com/

At $99.99 (strange price) it's a little steep even for iPhone owners. Reviews from ZuCom and SMMC are on the way.

-ZuCom

Publish iCal Calendars Privately w/MobileMe

Great article that explains how to use iDisk to share calendars privately. While this is not an enterprise solution like iCal Server it will work in a small office or consumer setting

LINK

http://www.osxfaq.com/tips/pohlmann/index.ws

ZuCom

Remove those pesky AutoComplete addresses in MacOS X Mail

Ever have someone send you an e-mail from an address they only use once in a while. Now when you type their name in you get a match with that address instead of the one that you have in your address book.

These addresses are known as AUTO-COMPLETE addresses. They exist in just about every mail client today and can be a blessing but also a horror if you get one in the way of one you use regularly.

Mac OS X Mail allows you how to remove them. Here's how

1) Create a new message in Mail
2) Type the problem e-mail address in the recipients pane
3) Once this e-mail has been addressed to the problem e-mail address click on it, you will receive a drop down menu
4) Chose Remove From Previous Recipients List

Done

Mac Tips Brought to you by ZuCom

Outsource your Social Media Marketing Campaign

ZuCom is proud to offer outsourced Social Media Marketing Services.

We'll Tweet for you!! List and update your Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, LinkedIN or ???. Why spend hours trying to improve and manage your online Social Market when we can do it for you.


Contact ZuCom today at http://www.zucom.com. Accepting new commercial and consumer clients.

ZuCom

ZuCom at SES

SES (Search Engine Strategies) is next week in San Jose. This conference has become the standard for anyone developing a strategy for doing business on the web. Google Analytics team is promising new API for the enterprise. ZuCom will be reporting details as they become public, offering new strategies for enterprise clients and marketing professionals.


ZuCom

Success and Dreams

Great little quip from MIC this month

Success is hard and often difficult to understand....

Paul Harvey says "you can tell your on the road to success, it's uphill all the way" So if your successful and you can't figure it out and your going WHEEE HOOOO (having a great old time), then your .....asleep, .. and when your wake up you'll have to go to the bathroom...

iPhone 3.0GS User Agent Detection - Updated

Something not present in the beta's was the user agent string change.

Looks like the new one is

HTTP User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16

ZuCom staff will be developing and posting the update.

-ZuCom

Mike & Harry - A Journey Within a Dream

Mike and Harry
A Journey Within a Dream.



It’s 4am, and the flight to San Francisco leaves in an hour. As I walk through the Airport it dawns on me how recluse the travel experience has become. Stowed away in our world of mobile entertainment most travelers would do better to simply not experience most senses. Airport announcements and creative displays fade into the soundtrack that drives our lives.

Throughout my morning the sense of how many travelers are “tuned out” to their surroundings was palpable, so much so that it made one think of ways we should adapt for the experience. Should we create visual alerts for travelers, perhaps SMS subscriptions’ for alerts at the airport of your choice? The possibilities are endless.

We each have our reasons for escaping into this world while we travel. Whether it’s a relegation to the sweet sounds of our favorite tunes or the avoidance of casual conversation, the comfort is one many enjoy. Today my reason was a book. I had recently picked up “Put Your Dream To The Test” by John Maxwell. In this book John asks you 10 questions that drive you into an introspective look at your own dreams and your motivation to achieve those dreams. It’s truly a great book, and I completely recommend it to all.

Pretty soon I looked up and noticed that the monitor had my flight listed as "boarding". Whoa, I thought!! What would someone with a hearing impairment do? Must they stand in front of that monitor just waiting to see that announcement? It was one of those moments. I boarded the plane (now without my headphones on) and took my seat. Thankfully my preference for a window seat was fulfilled. As I walked down the aisle I noticed that there were two 70 something gentlemen in the outside seats. What luck I thought. As I approached my seat I reached into my bag and grabbed my iPhone and prepared for the 5 hour flight to SFO. Quite, reflection I thought. When I reached the seat the taller of the two introduced himself, “hello, my name is Mike and this is Harry”. Pretty soon we had struck up a conversation. Mike and Harry were WWII veterans, on their way home to their “beautiful brides”. They had stories of being in the Navy and Air Force that were just bubbling to get out. Mike and Harry were on their return trip from a doubles Bowling Tournament where they took 2nd place with a combined score of 227. They had a 3 hour bus ride home from SFO to where they lived and had to hurry to catch the BART because they needed to make that bus ride. The next day the pair were competing in a 5k run and as Mike put it "we need to be well rested". Now I’ve known folks this age who have done things I’d heard on this flight. It’s uncommon but not unheard of to find those of advanced age having partaken in life passions such as high diving (Mike) or even skeet (Harry). Even president Bush went skydiving at the age of 80. There was just something in there attitude that was captivating. Not only did I rebuke the temptation of my iPhone, I actively sought their story for the full 5 hours. See Mike and Harry were blind. Not “partially sighted” as Mike put it but..... blind.

As I listened to their stories the irony of the situation became apparent. Here I was intentionally traveling with out the sense of hearing and identifying with two gentlemen who were disabled themselves. By the way if you ever meet Mike and Harry don’t use the word “disabled”. Mike will tell you that it’s not something they appreciate. These two have been everywhere, and through their travels have undoubtedly touched many lives.

The experience itself is one to inspire even the staunchest traveler to tune in to the rhythms of life over the beat in the headphone. Not that there’s anything wrong with that :-) . Now Mike and Harry continued on to their destination and are undoubtedly living their dream, with or without consideration of their situation. I arrived in SFO to meet a colleague from Denmark. Upon sharing the experience with my colleague he quipped "...if your not careful you can become a passenger of your own life, watching it rather than living it". It was with this I knew my journey was truly complete.

It makes one think………….. have you reached your destination like Mike and Harry?

-RZullo

Alligators and Swamps

"when your up to your rear end in alligators, it's hard to remember your job is to drain the swamp"

--

iPhone OS 3.0 (beta 3) Support

Beta 3 is much better than 1 but wow does it have some quirks. Several are reporting poor battery response and even some loss of charging capability.

-ZuCom

WWDC SOLD OUT!

WWDC Sold out in just over a month. Apple I think it's time to spin this off into it's own entity...

-ZuCom

Maximum Impact Simulcast - Albany

ZuCom is proud to again sponsor the Maximum Impact Simulcast. This year Tony Blair and Jack Nicklaus are the featured guests. Information about the event can be found at http://www.albanyleadership.com.

We have been involved in these simulcasts for the past six years. The value from these events is unprecedented. Attendees get access to a premier collective of brilliant minds intent on communicating the art and science of whole leadership.


-ZuCom

Oracle Siebel CRM OnDemand - IPhone App

For the past 30 days or so ZuCom has evaluated the Oracle Mobile Sales Assistant iPhone Application. This application is FREE from the iTunes store but will require that you have access to an On Demand instance to connect.

Well designed, thought out, and priced just right, this application will be a requirement for anyone living in the Oracle application space. While we did find the application more useful than trying to use the web interface, we found that the smooth transmission of data can be an quirky on EDGE/3G networks. This comes into play when the application has to quit and may represent an area where Oracle (like many others) made design concessions due to the pull back of the original "Push" features. Thankfully Apple is offering this feature in the coming 3.0 iPhone OS and many of us will be eager to upgrade to these new capabilities for transmission of data.

Overall the recommendation is "thumbs up" on this application as any ability to connect back to the office from the road is a boon for productivity and convenience.


-ZuCom

iPhoneOS 3.0 - Edge vs 3G Support!!

First sign that you need to upgrade your hardware is when the company starts to treat you special.. Like the Edge vs 3G version of the iPhone OS. Turns out the MMS and Stereo BlueTooth features aren't supported in the EDGE version.

Time to upgrade?

Probably not yet, given the OS will not be public till June it's almost a sure bet that we'll see a new model then. Given Apple's history, and the fact that most of us early adopters will be out of our contract in June, it's liable to be a whopper of an upgrade.

-Z

Money and Success

Money will by you a bed, but not a good nights rest

-Zig Ziglar

Load Test Application (OSX) - ZuCom

ZuCom announces the release of Load Test Application (OS X). This utility is priceless for those in web development on OS X. The simple utility allows you to quickly load test a url. With options for # of loads and an optional delay setting it just works. Performance and load testing applications are plentiful in the *NIX environment but this simple GUI utility allows the user a quick easy "leave it in the doc" option for those who have the need.

-ZuCom

Fear...

"Courage isn't an absense of fear, .... Courage is what you do with fear.... doing something in spite of fear"


-Reggie Smith

Web Marketing in the 2009 Social Economy

Web Marketing in the 2009 Social Economy

I’ve recently had a number of business owners approach me seeking advice on how best to market their small business on the web. As the economy continues to drag many business owners are looking for cost effective alternatives to classic advertising and marketing avenues, many which have seemingly ceased to work.

Herein lies a comparison that has less to do with economic fortunes of a nation but may just represent the passing of the torch unto what I will call the “digital generation”. Nearly twenty years ago a number of colleagues and I embarked on a road trip from New York to Florida. For anyone who has made this trip and taken the I-95 corridor through the south you will undoubtedly remember billboards for the venerable Pedro, and his South of the Border destination. As you enter North Carolina you begin to see billboards whose ad copy is vague but yet bold. Before you know it there is a character named “Pedro” who has been added to the campaign and product placements begin to appear. Mile after mile these billboards cover the roadside, increasing in frequency until you’ve reached this attraction. Once you’ve passed the holy grail of the Carolinas you are reminded of the experience for about the next 50 miles as the billboards continue. They use all the characters and content that has built up to remind motorists that they can always turn around if they “missed Pedro”.

Lasting impressions like this are a commodity, and in today’s environment your opportunities to make an impression like this are limited, but not impossible. In a car on I-95, as in the story above, there is approximately a four-hour period where advertisers could have an almost uninterrupted access to a consumer. This is a dream situation for anyone wanting to market or advertise a product or business. As the Internet age has matured more and more people are online for longer periods of time. According to the 2007 PEW Internet Survey, 70% of Americans use the web for an average of 1.5 hours a day. This data confirms similar findings from Gartner and Forrester research as well. Add to this mobile browsing, which has exploded with the launch of the iPhone and 3G networks, and one can begin to see an opportunity not unlike the one Pedro enjoys.

Now this is not to suggest that someone surfing the web is as captive as someone stuck in a car on I-95. Certainly the marketing on the web presents a different challenge, as its “drivers” aren’t restricted to any specific road. This is where many business owners are beginning to ask questions. Most companies have a corporate website, some even purchase web ads, but very few are able to effectively drive results from these activities. This is where I say; you must use all the tools available to you to create online assets (or “roads”) that can work for you in a multitude of places. Using tools such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace are now becoming a necessity for businesses, because it’s where your consumers are spending their time. Creating assets in these systems to further your exposure can dramatically increase your visibility and make your other web marketing activities (e-mail lists, blogs, ads etc) much more effective.

Let’s face it, the web continues to add new “roads” for its drivers every day. The challenge in marketing on this medium is designing a campaign that crosses those roads your clients are on so they can be reminded about your digital destination.

-by Robert Zullo
rzullo@zucom.com
Follow on Twitter
www.zucom.com

Marc Andreessen on Charlie Rose

Marc Andreessen on Charlie Rose, good watch for any IT Leader. Charlie is still "Charlie" but still worthy of the introspective view.


http://tinyurl.com/c4zuue


ZuCom

Quote of the Week

"life is like a roll of toilet paper, the older you get the faster it goes" - JCM

Down the Road

The journey is often more about the path you choose than the destination you seek

--???

Patients and...

..learn to "Cockpot" things in life and business. Too many try to microwave things, and every time you zap something like that you end up with a "pop-tart" result..

-JCM

Definition of a leader

..a person who motivates people,
to work collaboratively
to accomplish great things

-U.S. News and World Reports

Malcom Gladwell - Outliers

Clearly a different intellectual perspective on success and it's foundations. Gladwell has done a fine job yet again.




"...IQ is of little help if you are faced with a formful of clever boys"

"...hard work is a prison sentence, only if it doesn't have meaning"

"...success is not a random act, it arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities"


-ZuCom

The Book to have on the iPhoneSDK

The fundamental prerequisite for anyone looking to develop iPhone applications. Whether you are new to Cocoa or just the iPhone SDK this book will quickly get you up and running. From concept to working code the author's approach is both easy to read and quick to understand. The code samples get you up and running applications in very little time and the step by step approach makes the learning process effortless.

Hands down this is the best fundamental primer on iPhone Development on the market today.

August Dirty Job by Rank

Truths are found in many places..

"opportunity is most often missed, because it usually shows up dressed in overalls, looking like work"

-Mike Rowe - Television Show Host, Eagle Scout

Parallels Virtualizes OS X (Server)

ZuCom has been provided with an advance copy of Parallels Server 3.0 for Mac. (you too can get it now that it's public. at www.parallels.com). With a little over a month in use we can report that the engineering of this solution is clearly of a new caliber. This product targets enterprise shops who need to get serious about virtualizing the Mac platform.

While this product only allows the virtualization of OS X Server (Leopard Server 10.3), it does so with a no-nonsense design and offers most tools you'll need to manage a large infrastructure of VM's. With P2V tools, Management Consoles and even remote management from command line, the only thing missing from this package is a system monitoring tool (something that Parallels engineers say is something they've had a number of requests for).

With all this one has to ask where you could go wrong? Truthfully we cannot. With a starting price just north of $1200.00 (it's un-confrirmed but we think that's per host machine) it's a heck of a lot cheaper than competitors from an entry point but still a little high for the small shop who's trying to manage costs (but even that point is arguable in most circumstances).

I must make one thing clear, this is not a desktop VM solution so if that's what your looking for look at their other products. The integrated desktop features you've seen with other Parallels and VMWare aren't what this product is about. This product is clearly intended to reduce server rack space in your data center and provide you with the tools to manage that infrastructure. Simply put it does that VERY well at a competitive cost.

Overall ZuCom recommends the product and will offer support to enterprise and small business clients looking to leverage this new technology.

-Robert Zullo

ZuCom

3g + GPS + Better Battery Life

Apple announced the iPhone 2.0 today. LINK TO KEYNOTE To top that when it launches (July 11th) it's going to start at $199 for the 8 gig model and $299 for the 16gb model.  WHOA..

What next?

Oh GPS and 3G.

What next?

To be honest, there wasn't a "one more thing" during this Keynote but from the crowd of industry leaders it didn't appear that it was really needed.

ZuCom is happy to announce that it will follow the launch and add consulting support for development of applications and enterprise integration as it continues to grow.

Stay tuned for more..

-ZuCom Division of Mobile iPhone Consulting

Leopard Sharing Snafu

Apple has dramatically changed the file sharing preferences pane in Leopard.  Much of what has changed is just in the GUI but for many who only use this layer some features are very new.   At issue is the Users window inside the preference pane (see pict below).  This area gives you the ability to set user permissions on a shared folder.  By default the Everyone group shows up in this list with read only access to the public folder of the user who is currently logged on.  Pretty standard and not anything new for most.  Apple has disabled the ability to remove the Everyone group from this pane by greying out the '-' option in the field.  While the exact mapping of the "Everyone group" to a standard Unix group like Wheel is not clear it would appear that Everyone is very important and really is something integral to the system function (post if you are aware what group it maps to).  Now comes the area where it gets tricky.  If you select the Everyone group and hit the DELETE key on your keyboard, you can remove the Everyone group from the share entirely.  Logic would follow that this would action should simply remove the permissions from that folder as it would in any POSIX system but the results of doing this actually have a much bigger impact.  The result of this action is the actual removal of this "Everyone" group from the root of the drive thus rendering the system unable to boot.  While several have reported this as a bug, and it may be, the behavior seems to be something that was missed in user acceptance testing more than a bug (save the fact that the root of the drive is involved).  

Several posts claim to have a fix, that will save the system.  Our testing was able to reproduce the problem consistently but recovery efforts, while successful, were not as consistent. 

In the end the message here is "DON'T REMOVE THE EVERYONE GROUP" from your shares here in Leopard's preferences pane.  CHMOD is still a great way to control access to folders and files in your system and one that gives you the control over the details group assignments more detailed fashion.

-ZuCom

Free iPhone Web Simulator

Don't own an iPhone?

Still want to see what your website design looks like on an iPhone?

Enter iPhoney a simulator for pixel accurate simulation of your site.  This simulator runs on your Mac and allows you to browse sites through it's iPhone interface.  Support for rotation, zooming, and multiple user agents makes the 1.2 version one of the best simulators we've seen.

ZuCom highly recommends the tool.  

It's FREE, solid and just works.

-ZuCom

Future of OS Computing

It's official Gartner has predicted that Microsofts' dominance in the OS market may not be on solid ground anymore. Without a doubt this "end of days" prediction is not new and Microsoft is certainly not immune from those types of critiques (albeit this is something new for them in the OS arena).

What we've seen for years is a gradual movement away from standard computer platforms to more of a mobile and device driven market. This move inherently means that Microsoft will be at a disadvantage because they do not dominate those spaces quite like they do in the others. Where this movement ends, only time will tell but, signs point to it not being with you behind a keyboard. Be that as it may, approaches to technology in general will have to change. If we are no longer dealing with standard computer based solutions then approaches to engineering, networking, development, and even business processes (like SOA, and BPEL) will have to be redesigned.

iPhone 3G + Enterprise Support = International Reach

With the announcement from Walt Mossberg that the next iPhone will be 3G the potential impact of this unique crossover entity might just be moving towards a Corporate International audience.

Arguments can be made that iPhone is already a corporate entity in the international market but as most non-US readers know, the limitation of not having 3G is a real concern on the international scene.

Let's face it 768k is only called "broadband" in the US. Most international markets reserve the term broadband for much higher data transfer rates. While Walt refers to content and marketing angles as his main points, the rub with enterprise I.T. managers becomes what to do if this 3G option is now part of the iPhone platform. While dismissing the iPhone is a hard thing to do even today, 3G support would really make this naysayers look more like pundits.

Walt references a 60 day timeline so time will tell, but should Apple decide to take that angle with the iPhone, it's clearly added another threat to the existing Mobile market.

Valuable Lesson for iPhone Wifi

Today at a wifi hotspot we were given the a Key to allow us on the network.  Mind you this was not an ordinary network, it was a network based on the shop owners brand new Time Capsule.  Clearly a nice choice!  After about the third time trying to enter the Key, the shop owner noticed I was having a problem and mentioned that others too has indeed been having a problem and I should try all CAPS.  

Sure enough that was it.  WPA/WPA2 on the iPhone are normally a no brainer but for the record if you are having issues connecting to a WIFI spot try the old ALL CAPS trick and you might just have saved yourself 10 minutes. 

-ZuCom

iPhone SDK (Updated)

Apple has updated it's latest release of the iPhone SDK.  With the fury at which the last release was downloaded this one is sure to be a hit.  While the details of the upgrade are still sketchy and it would appear that Apple is dedicated to the market it has found for mobile development platforms.  

As mentioned in the a recent article over on the iPhone Development Blog the reach that this product will give Apple into the enterprise could be big.  I would argue that with regular updates and what is seemingly a caring / nurturing attitude from Apple this could be a revolution in the making for the industry yet again.  

Many corporate I.T. departments will find development in this area will be hard to categorize and even tougher to fit in to a standard CMMI, Agile, RUP methodology.  Over the next few months ZuCom will evaluate the impact this has had in the industry and look to develop strategies that partners and clients can use to help better cope with this next wave of innovation.  

-ZuCom

ZuCom Upgrades SwitchtoHeadphones to version 1.1 (FULL LEOPARD SUPPORT)

Today Zucom has announced it's release of "Switch to Headphones v1.1". This application is now fully supported under Apple's OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and further improves performance with it's OS integration.

Developed originally under OS 10.2 this simple tool has found it's home in the professional audio studio all over the world since it was first released. In recent years it has become popular with the VOIP community who often use it with products like iChat and Skype. By adding support for Apple's Leopard operating system ZuCom preserves this app for years to come, and ensures it's longevity as a native Mac utility.



Softpedia

LinuxLinks

-ZuCom

Ideas

If you're not allowed to implement new ideas, you stop having them

Article Quoted

Paul Graham

Paul is dead on.. Don't go moving to Africa or try to apply this thinking in a Military service situation but he's still dead on. To date I've not seen a college level course on how to manage I.T. resources like the ones he describes in his article. Undoubtedly these approaches exist, some may even work on a large number of I.T. types, but the ones he's describing are visionary. Those types are not lead, managed, or dictated to, the best you can hope to do is partner with them.

Client Side iPhone / iPod Touch Browser Redirect

If layer 7 redirection from hardware based solutions isn't quite available in your enterprise, or perhaps the entire CSS3 standard hasn't completely made it into your long term memory yet there is a very easy way to redirect iPhone & iPod Touch users.

While several of our clients have experience varying levels of success, small to mid-sized solutions may benefit from a simple inline javascript redirect.

Example:

<script language=javascript>

<!--

if((navigator.userAgent.match(/iPhone/i)) || (navigator.userAgent.match(/iPod/i)))

{

location.replace("http://TYPE_YOUR_URL_HERE");

}

-->

</script>




Those who are better versed in conditional CSS, will find that the iPhone
and iPod Touch react very favorably to a CSS that is optimized to the
specifications referenced by Apple in the developer documentation on their
site (Apple Developer Connection Guides).


-Robert Zullo

iPhone - The triple threat

As many of you know last week saw the latest development release from Apple, in the iPhoneSDK. While we have been a stalwart supporter of the iPhone and it's capabilities, it wasn't till last week that we saw the development community come alive with enthusiasm.

Exceeding all expectations the initial reviews from ZuCom and the community have been overwhelmingly positive. With the unexpected announcement of enterprise level integration and support capabilities Apple added another threat to competitors which now clearly extends beyond the phone market. For the entrepreneurial developer who has struggled with getting offerings to market, Apple has also developed a sales and marketing strategy, with the App Store that truly make this announcement a triple threat.

It isn't often that we see such a complete offering, and given the let down from the WWDC07 announcement this is a welcome surprise.

We look forward to supporting our partners and development community in all their endeavors, helping mature the iPhone software market will undoubtedly be in all our plans from here on out.


-Robert Zullo
ZuCom Services

Even tough decisions have Choice

When it appears that a situation has left no choice, remember that choice in itself is...

...everybody has got a choice,
between right or wrong,
giving up or holding on...

-J. Mellencamp

What all successful projects have in common

The ability to:

..adapt, overcome, and improvise..

Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway

"...you can run me....you can starve me...., and you can kill me..., just don't bore me."

OS X Leopard Printer Sharing Tip

Out of the box requirements of an OS like Vista can present more confusing than helpful sharing options. While I would encourage all to explore those options, sometimes we just need a quick fix that works under almost all circumstances.

OS X users have always had the ability to use CUPS for printer sharing and Leopard has maintained that option. If you've upgraded to Leopard (or are on anything 10.3 or better) and you are behind a firewall why not just use CUPS.

How to share OS X printers through CUPS to Windows Clients.

On your MAC do the following

1) Enable Printer Sharing on your Mac
>System Preferences>Sharing
Check "Printer Sharing"
2) On the Firewall tab (still under Sharing)
Check "Printer Sharing" under the Allow window.
3) Browse to http://your mac ip:631/printers or http://127.0.0.1:631/printers
This will bring up the CUPS printer administration page
4) Scroll all the way down the page and choose ADD PRINTER
You may be asked to authenticate here
5)Setup a printer with no more than 8 characters (for older clients). Use RAW as the type of device and queue.

On your VISTA(PC) do the following

6) Open the Control Panel Printers & Add Printer
>Start>Control Panel>Printers
Click Add Printer
Click "Add a Network, Wireless or Bluetooth Printer
Click "The Printer I want isn't Listed"
Verify that the radio button "Select a Shared Printer by Name" is filled
In the "Select a Shared Printer by Name" field type the address of your shared printer, ex: http://your_mac_ip:631/printers/shared_printer_name.
Click Next & Finish (call it what you want etc).


I've used this sharing method for years, it's solid and supported by a very robust community, not only the MAC, but several other platforms.

-Z

Nobody

...your nobody till you've been downloaded ..... without permission

-???

History

History doesn't actually repeat itself, but it rhymes...

-Mark Twain

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

-Saint Augustine

Irish Proverb

"Don't let life just happen, carve it from your passions and dreams"

-Irish Proverb

Welcome to the Jungle

..You can taste the bright lights.... but you will never get there for free

???

Jobs Quote

Great things in business are never done by one person..... they're done by a team of people

Steve Jobs



Link to Video

Dilbert's Leadership Quote

LEADERSHIP is a flavor of evil. Obviously no one would need to lead you to do something you wanted to do anyway.

— Scott Adams, “Dilbert’s

Teaching, the thankless gift.

It's not often that the one imparting wisdom receives confirmation of the act. The real question is whether or not that confirmation is always necessary.

??

Endurance

There are very few * I can’t find a level of stomach for

-Robert T. Zullo

Giving & Getting

....You only get back what you give ... no more no less..


-??

Commitment

It's not about money sometimes, it's about commitment.
Commitment takes two, and trust.

-Joe Torre (2007)

Judgment

...I never let judgment impair my life

-PH

Uncertainty

Leadership is the reduction of uncertainty.

-??

Growth and Learning

Well educated people of today are adequately prepared for a future that doesn't exist.
It's only those who continue to learn that will be able to survive and thrive of the changing world of today.

Zig Ziglar

Cast your shadow with care

when one casts a shadow, be mindfull that it's not so big that others must travel very far to get out from under it..

Z

Baseball Parks - Americana at it's best

As an avid baseball fan, I often visit parks around the country. Whether it's Yankee Stadium in the Bronx or the Coliseum in Oakland the pleasure has always been mine to visit these parks and watch the good old american past time. Over the years it dawned on me that the attraction of these parks to me (and others) is that many of these ballparks deliver an experience that is becoming harder and harder find. No I'm not a classic relic that doesn't believe in progress. Yes the stadiums are new and today you can even pay for food with a credit card from your seat, but the values that sit behind all that haven't changed in most places.

Kids still get balls signed, foul balls are still a fan favorite, the 7th inning is still the 7th inning, and reason people go to these parks is still the same today as it was 100 years ago. Values Though the experience may vary from park to park, I encourage anyone searching for that definition to visit that bastion of americana that has decided to call itself ... the baseball park.

-Z

Myths, Truths and History

"Myths are the embodiment of truths which society has observed, but is often unable to communicate"

-ZuCom

Statues and Pigeons

"some days your the statue
and others your the pigeon "

Talent is Never Enough - John C. Maxwell

Talent is Never Enough - John C. Maxwell

The new book, as wonderful as his previous works, it is unfolds the wisdom of the ages in his patented style.

"....talent wants to jump into action, but preparation positions talent to be effective"

"the frustrating thing about preparation is that it usually takes much more time that the actual event one prepares for"

ZuCom

Leadership it requires: Action, Vision & Passion

Action without Vision makes us pessimistic.

Action without Compassion makes us legalistic.

Vision without Action makes us moralistic.

Vision without Compassion makes us idealistic.

Compassion without Action makes us unrealistic.

Compassion without Vision makes us fatalistic.

-John C. Maxwell

Character - Integrity and Honesty

You can’t spell integrity without the word grit which is defined as “a firmness of mind,” or “unyielding courage.” It takes a great deal of courage or grit to be true to self. In the end, though, it’s worth the effort because our legacies are going to be impacted greatly by our integrity or lack thereof.

-John C. Maxwell

WR54G SVEASOFT to LINKSYS

I like many in the early days of the wireless G spec, wanted to boost my coverage area, so I invested in bigger antenna and the famed SVEASOFT firmware (which for the record does a excellent job), Recently though I needed to flash my WRT54G v1.0 back to the original Linksys firmware.. Simple right, anybody with a TFTP client and a cable can do it. Well it ain't so. Seems that going to SVEASOFT is easy, but back isn't, and requires a harrowing (and warranty voiding) adventure. Once you've gone away from the stock Linksys firmware your required to manually put the device in standby mode in order to flash it with a different type of firmware. Not too hard one would think, but it involves shorting out a couple of pins on the ROM that holds the firmware (not something for the squimish). The detailed directions are in the links blelow and I must commend the authors for being so detailed. Even I was able to follow it enough to make it work. I'm happy to report that my WRT54G 1.0 is back in the Linksys saddle again and it was really a sinch.



http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net/redhat/wrt54g_revival.html

http://nino.net/blogs/nino/archive/2005/06/09/744.aspx

What version WRT54G do I have?

I will add some detail to the information found in those links that is specific to v1.0 of the WRT54G.

1) The rom chip your looking for sits underneath the card that is in the slot inside the unit (tricky to find when 90% of it's covered up).

2) The markings that the postings elude to aren't on my version, so use the exposed side and count up from the triangle symbol you see in the picture to pins 15 & 16.

3) You must have your patch cord plugged into the WAN or INTERNET port. (duh for some but just thought I'd mention that)

Enjoy!!

-Z

Fix IE7 ToolBar location

After 10+ years of using IE, Microsoft has decided to move the Menu Bar down below the address bar. For old-timers (like me) this is just too much of a switch. So in the beta there was the ability to change the location by adding a key to the registry.

Keep in mind that there is no warranty on any of this information. This may damage your system. The information is provided "as is" with a implied hold harmless agreement to ZuCom and all related parties (now that we've got that out of the way)


Here's what worked for me..

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser]

"ITBar7Position"=dword:00000001



Or below is a link to that registry key
MOVE_IE7_TOOLBAR

-Z

SnowBall - One foot in front of the other

One foot in front of the other


If you want to change the reflection
you see in the mirror each morn
it's just your election 
to vote for a chance to be reformed

-WW

The Grain

"To avoid a confrontation, it's sometimes necessary to go along. Other times it's necessary to stick out and just play by your own rules."

William H. Moses

The Plan

luck isn't a plan, but without it a plan isn't much

-???

"Telecommunication Philosopher"

..recently I had the fortune to watch some unedited footage of the Apollo 11 coverage.  At the end of the tape there was a panel discussion with, (and I'm not kidding here):   

an editor of a newspaper
a telecommunications philosopher
and an amateur ecologist

Initially I was struck by the title "telecommunications philosopher".  A title I've never tried myself but from the shear name, one I may have been able to claim in the past.  As I listened to this 1969 broadcast I was struck at the amazing message that was being sent.  The panel focused on the ecological reasons for going to the moon.  As one would imagine the impact of automobiles on the environment was the center of the argument.  Juxtaposed against some 2006 ecological documentaries the message is shockingly similar.  Have we progressed so little in almost 40 years that we can do no more than predict the end of the automobile, and the end of nature as we know it?  Either this panel was 40 years ahead of thier time or our societies argument about the automobiles impact on the environment hasn't changed during that period.

And what is a telecommunications philosopher doing on that panel?  Was he invited to the wrong panel? After all this was 1969, DARPA was probably not really a household name.  Modem's were a bit crude at best and, let's face it the only cellular phone calls were coming from Apollo.  Then it struck me.  Tele Communications Philosopher was a Television Communications Philosopher.  So, although my interest was peaked by the mis-communication (couldn't help myself there) of what I thought was a primer on sending packets back and forth to the moon, I was reminded that our view of polution in 1969 may still be relavant today.  Much more relavant than the term "telecommunications philosopher".

-ZuCom

Consensus

"one primary key to leading is the ability to build a consensus"


...even bad leaders know that you can't lead without a support of others.


-ZuCom

Joe Clark

"disipline is not the enemy of enthusiam"

-Joe Clark

Control

Control is an illusion, mastered by fear, and held captive by risk

--ZuCom

True

"when they own the information.... they can bend it all they want"


John Mayer..

Words to live bye

"Never follow a leader who leads by proxy" ...???


Remember the 3 D's in leadership....

Do it,.....Delegate it,...or Ditch it... .......HSZ


-Z

Quote of the Week, Change the way you look at things

Change the way you look at things and the way you look at things change

???

Linksys BEFSR41 (any version) FTP issue

Recently my 5+ year old Linksys router stopped translating PASV commands for the FTP protocol. This showed up first by throwing errors during the LIST process and then just ended up refusing to translate any PASV commands. In the end the inconsistency finally resulted in no Active or Passive FTP traffic whatsoever, with all other features working just fine. Linksys's Routers are one of the few that can dynamically handle PASV commands and port shifting, without leaving open ports on a perm basis. It accomplishes this with an API translator that is prone to corruption. I've not found a way to fix the issue (that wouldn't have cost more in time than the cost of a new router). If your functioning FTP site suddenly stops translating PASV commands and starts throwing 226 and 500 errors and it's behind a Linksys BEFSR41 try removing it from the loop of possibilities. Just might save you some time.

Sure there can be a litany of other things that can cause the issue, last on most peoples list is the routers translation API, but it's really not that uncommon of a problem for these normally iron clad work horses.

Long live your BEFSR41, rip to the rest...


-Z

Know your seasoned customers

Know your customers, treat them like they want to be treated, build relationships by what you do not what you say you do..

All good statements, not often followed.

Take sports season ticket holders for example. Most teams put "guest service" representatives in the sections where they know they have season ticket holders. One might call these season ticket holders "seasoned customers", and the related guest service representatives "relationship managers". It really works well, the relationships that are created are amazing.

Enter the newbie, "unseasoned customer". What better advertisement for what a company (or Team) than for the newbie to witness that relationship unfold a few seats down. Never underestimate the collateral of a relationship, it may be your best advertising avenue ever....


-Z

WWDC 2006 Quote of the week

This has to be the quote of the week.... at least it's got my vote..


"are you a digital survivalist or a an old school analog hippie?"

-Z

Am I the only NON-RAZR owner?

Seems like everyone has a RAZR these days (at least in the airport where I am today). Can anyone tell me about the VZ (Verizon)Navigator Service and how it works with your model phone...

--What model??
--Battery life while using it??--How accurate is it??

Thanks

iPod Shuffle - Waterproof?

The iPod Shuffle might just represent the prefect marriage of design and technology. No suprise that it's made by Apple.

Ultra portable, yet possessing an amazing battery life, this little Fair Play compliant device can act as a thumb drive to store your files, play your MP3's for hours and hours, and recharge from any standard USB port. Functional and technical, perfection!.

Recently a colleague and I shared how our Shuffles' had become like an appendage when it came to our daily routines even more so than our full size iPods. You can imagine my shock when I awoke one day to find that my Shuffle had gone missing. Apple really should think of adding a GPS location device to it for those of us who are absent(lazy) minded. When it was located it just happened to be in the dryer. My shock of realizing that my daily workout routine would not include my favorite tunes was only shadowed by the realization that my poor Shuffle had been run through the spin cycle and then 70 minutes of high heat drying and probably dead. I plugged the Shuffle into the USB port of my Powerbook and went on to work out. I returned 30 or so minutes later and opened iTunes to find that the Shuffle was mounted, charged and reporting that it was ready to add new songs. ?? ??? ???? Could it be that the darn thing was going to work? I quickly found a new pair of earbuds. (as they didn't fair very well in the dryer) I undocked the Shuffle and fired it up, and to my amazement it worked!!.. Now I would not suggest that anyone test this, al la MythBusters but I would also not assume that your Shuffle is necessarily dead until you see the iPod reaper.

Small, Ultra Portable, Powerful, and now Waterproof, the Shuffle continues to amaze.

Da Vinci Code Quote of the Week

Da Vinci Code Quote of the Week

"...want to know more about the Da Vinci code... go to church on sunday, "

Leadership in I.T. - Not a lost art.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
As the Information Technology business has evolved so to have it's leadership challenges. Many companies realize too late that investing in the development of a good leadership team is often critical to thier success. With the speed of inovation in the Information Technology business the challenge to fill this key component often over shadowed by competing priorities. Before they know it many I.T. professionals find themselves in a leadership position they are ill prepared to handle or really don't want. ZuCom has developed a mentoring program to help I.T. leaders navagate the waters and strengthen what skills are inherient to all of us.


Leadership Development by ZuCom

Perfect Logic, Beautiful Loser

He wants to dream like a young man
With the wisdom of an old man
He wants his home and security
He wants to live like a sailor at sea
Beautiful loser
Where you gonna fall
When you realize
You just don't need it all
He's your oldest and your best friend
If you need him he'll be there again
He's always willing to be second best
A perfect (begin my edit) logic (end my edit), a perfect guest


- Bob Seger.... Composer...

Thanks to Jeff, Bobby, William, Detroit, Bob, and the Silver Bullet (not the beer)..

Sunday Morning Sermon

Sunday Morning Sermon

3/5/06

Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest places, sometimes it comes from exactly where you expect. When you go to a leadership conference you expect to be inspired. When you go to church you expect to be moved. For that reason (and many more) the receivers "expectations" which may be set by a venues "aura" may put communications in those places at an advantage to others. Believe me though if you listen close enough you'll realize that the sermon of life can come from just about anywhere. Take for example Rocky and Bullwinkle. No not the 2000 film (although it had De Niro and some other great stars in it). I mean the 60's television show.

On the surface the show is based on a the adventures of a squirrel and moose (Rocky and Bullwinkle) from a town called Frostbite Falls, who battle the forces of evil (Boris and Natasha). When you look at the characters you soon realize that there is a very thinly drawn statement about leadership with an admitted dogmatic undertone. On the surface you have characters who portray two recurring roles. One role being confident but not so smart role and the second being a pessimistic but oh so cunning role. As is often the case in real life these roles play out under the guidance a character called the "fearless leader". What may be lost by only giving a cursory look, is the underlining statement that is made about management. As dogmatic as it may seem, you will often find the roles portrayed in people you see every day. It may not always be obvious but the reality effect of this show is probably what made it so popular during it's run. The interplay between these roles is where the rubber meets the road.

So what's the insight? Where is the inspiration? To this end I can only suggest that each individual find their own answer by looking within themselves.

What I see is a very close correlation to two different team management styles. The "fearless leader", who micro-manages Boris and Natasha and the self directed team management of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Save the good vs. evil undertone, both management styles are portrayed along with the benefits and pitfalls of each. If you find yourself leading a Rocky, Bullwinkle, Boris or Natasha (and we all do at times), you might find the answer to what you seek in the simple message a cartoon can send. Take what you will from this post, no doubt the venue of your "situation" will highlight what you seek.

Mac OS X Tiger & Linksys PCMCIA Card

Recently a friend brought over a TiBook (PowerBook G4 400). After playing with it for a while I noticed how limited the range was on the built in Airport card. The well reported limitation was actually worse than most of the published reports. After checking to make sure the AirPort card and antenna was plugged in properly it became apparent that the infamous limitation was indeed a design flaw and not a a hardware issue.

Not being one to leave well enough alone, I began a journey to resolve this limitation. After some research into the Airport card it became apparent that the drivers for it were loosely similar to the open source Broadcomm equivalent. Loosely similar might not be that accurate but it got me where I needed to be. A few years ago I ran to a problem trying to find a RedHat driver for my a Linksys WPC54G. Although Linksys didn't make a linux driver at the time, the solution was to modify a Broadcomm driver to fit the Linksys WPC54G card. Could that mod also work for Mac OS X Tiger?

To test the theory I inserted the Linksys card into the TiBook pcmcia slot and began to search for the files I needed to modify. Before I could launch Spotlight I realized that the Signal Strength meter was on full. After checking the Preferences it became apparent that the Linksys WPC54G card was supported by OS X natively. Tiger had disabled the internal Airport, enabled the Linksys WPC54G, copied the WEP key over to the new "Airport Port" and connected to the default SSID. Who could have known. NO MODIFICATION NEEDED! This BLOG is minutes from when the card was enabled but this seems REALLY strange. Who would have guessed that OS X Tiger had support for Linksys PCMCIA NIC adapters. Please post if you find out others that work as well. Either way I would think this is a boon for Apple. Linksys (now owned by Cisco) is a huge player in the NIC market. Gotta hope that the Intel switch won't effect the nougaty center of OS X by removing support for things like this.

Disclaimer.
I can only tell you that it worked for me. I've not tested it on other machines and I've not tested it with other cards. If you decide to try this you do so at your own risk. All readers of this blog must hold all parties harmless for it's content.

How hard do IT people work?

Just too darn funny not to add to the blog

Call us what you will: Systems Developers. Programmers, Engineers, etc.. It's our determination and tireless work that drives this technology world..

MacOS-Vista ;-)

Windows Vista Features - Spoof (MacOS X)


Link is now dead but file name was: real_vista_episode_1.mov

Stabilized Zapruder video footage?

Image-stabilized Zapruder video footage?

Not sure personally but worth a look...

Link Dead file name is: zapruder_stable.mov

NEW BLOG... SAFEGUARD AGENCIES ... CHECK IT OUT

Safeguard Agencies Vero Beach FL BLOG

Lawrence Lessig Free Culture.

'cept for the shameless plug for $$$ towards the end, this is a masterful presentation of the issues at hand surrounding DRM. Although a bit dated, it's still relevant today. The presentation must have given to a technology based audience as the references to the open source community are deliberate and welcomed by the crowd. If you have an opinion on digital use rights you owe it to yourself to hear this Macromedia Flash presentation.

Lawrence Lessig's Let Freedom Ring Presentation

'Hammonasset Line' - Lithic Sites

Ever hear about the line of Lithic Sites that leads to the Devils Tomb near Hunter Mountain? Even if your not a believer the mathematics and celestial coincidences are shocking... And the Turtle mounds are just too funny..


http://www.neara.org/PAUL/Hammonasset01.htm

http://www.neara.org/PAUL/Hammonasset02.htm


Thanks Steve!!

Vundo Virus.. PARTICULARLY NASTY

REMOVE VUNDO INSTRUCTIONS

The ZEN of Presentation..

Quintessential view of how delivering a message is more about mastering multiple communication methods than raw data. A talent not native to most IT leaders, (Steve Jobs the obvious exception).

Presentation Zen

Add Samba Shares to OSX.

http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/03/18/samba.html


Handy article!!

9 Essentials to IT Management

Great article, shocking how some of the characterizations are dead on.


http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/25/geeks.html

SAW

"angry yet apathetic"

"to overcome something you have to understand what makes it a perfect engine"

"the ability to see past anger and fear, can set you apart"

PowerMac G4 DP Mirror Door Superdrive Replacement

After burning 20 or so DVD coasters, buffer underruns, and blank check failures a much balder version of me decided that the issue was looking more and more like it was the DVR-104a that came with the machine and not media, or software. Faced with the loss of being without burn support from all the iLife apps and iTunes I was at a crossroads. Upgrade to a non-Apple drive would mean that I loose all the integrated burn support, (right!) and spending $90 on a refurb'd drive that only burned at 1x was a little crazy. I went down the firmware path and really considered overwriting the Apple firmware but stopped short of that when a trip to a local office supply store sparked what can only be described as devine intervention. While in the store I mentioned the problem I had encountered to one of the techs. Amazingly enough this was a Mac friendly person, who as irony would have it had the same issue with an iMac. His solution was to replace the SuperDrive with a regular Sony CD-RW, DVD. All the iLife apps worked fine he said, since Tiger. Hmm... Could this be true.. Has Apple lightened up on the firmware check now that DVD-R's are more common? Hmm.. After all I have complete support for my Sony 195E CD-RW, and haven't had to play with the the devce-plugin file in over a year. Hmm... since Apple now get's the SuperDrives from many different manufacturers (not just Pioneer) could it be this easy? Well I was going to find out. $79.95 later I had a Sony DRU-810A, an hour after that I'm back in business. Everything works including TOAST!!. As of the writing of this the only thing I haven't tried is the DL (DUAL LAYER) support from Toast. All iApps work like a charm. I've only got 4x media and thus have only burned 4x in a DVD but heck it worked. I will mention that you don't want to try and reformat the old media you had problems with in the old Superdrive. Upon looking at the media it would appear that it was stripped (0's written to all sectors).


Results may vary, take this with a grain of salt and be realistic, not EVERY DRIVE will work. Not responsible for the info in this or any blog on this site.

For GREAT Mac support and consulting see ZuCom Services

Sometimes a list is just a list!!

The September 19 2005 issue of Information Week magazine has the 17th annual 500 Top Innovators in technology. This one managed to get me to open it while I was "in a meeting". I immediately flip to the alphabetical list and look to see where my favorites all landed. A's,....Amgen, Applied Materials, AT&T... WAIT ... Houston we have a problem and we're not even in the B's. NO APPLE COMPUTER? WHAT!! Admitedly my blood flows through Cupertino, but why is Apple not listed as one of the top innovators? . No GOOGLE, or even YAHOO..??

Top 5 reasons why a company wouldn't make the Info Week Magazine top 500 innovators list:

5) If your company is a leader in innovating things like online music and holds a 70% market share in that arena for hardware and songs sold.
4) If your company is the #1 or #2 portal on the planet offering new products every 30 days.
3) If your company is makes it cheaper, better and faster to do ANYTHING!
2) If your company was started in a garage and thumbed it's nose at corporate bean counters, and then proved them wrong.
1) If your company doesn't advertise in Info Week.

THAT WAS SARCASM FOR THOSE USING WEB SPIDERS!!


"average companies never want other companies to go beyond average"???

Unknown

It isn't wrong until someone tells you it's wrong.

John C. Maxwell

"Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple."

John C. Maxwell

Stupid human things

7/6/06

During a recent plane trip my laptop battery died, and thus I was stuck with the seat pocket reading material and my iPod. In this magazine it explained that the airline offered complementary beverage service on 90% of all flights and alcoholic beverages for $4 each. A little further down the page the following statement was made: "employees of the airline are not allowed to serve alcoholic beverages to anyone who appears to be intoxicated." Now I've never been in the situation where this would actually be applied, but how ridiculous is this statement?

Will they serve people as long as they don't "look" intoxicated?
What behavior constitutes the look of being intoxicated? (this may seem silly but think about it.. ever met someone who drank all the time and never had a superdrunk cape?)
If they stop appearing intoxicated, will you serve them again?
If you serve people alcoholic beverages till they are intoxicated should the employee stop serving everyone?

Only one thing beats this...the restaurant I just ate in. They had a sign on the menu "18% tax and gratuity included" 2 inches away from "gratuity not included" I'm just glad I didn't appear to be gratuitous... ;-)

Probably not something I will BLOG again but really how stupid are humans sometimes..