Luck and Discipline

One half of life is luck; the other half is discipline -- and that's the important half, for without discipline you wouldn't know what to do with luck.
- Carl Zuckmeyer

Good bye Flash - what took so long

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/09/tech/mobile/adobe-mobile-flash-wired/index.html?hpt=

Invention, Innovation and Opportunity

Industrial Invention 1793 - 1860
When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and Cyrus McCormick the mechanical reaper, it signaled the beginning of a change for the global economy, markets and society. During this era, technology and innovation delivered vastly more efficient ways to harvest natural resources and moved the scale and size of industry to an entirely new level. New markets were born out of this change and the net effect on the global ecosystem was one that can be seen as having resulted in significant benefits.

Technology and Innovation 1993 - 20xx
In the current landscape Jobs and Wozniak might be names one would use to find such comparisons to where technology and invention have had such a global impact. Not mincing words, these innovations are the cause / effect of where our free markets are today. When innovation brings on efficiencies such as those seen in our modern age, its resulting global adoption brings with it massive change. Today's technology has changed the way we do nearly everything. These digital innovations now manage every facet of our lives wherein just 50 years ago much of what we did was analog and manual. Along the way, our global landscape has changed. China has become the number one manufacturer in the world ending 100+ years of this being the United States. The biggest company in the world this year (for the first time ever) was the US technology company (APPLE -AAPL). Among all this is the opportunity for prosperity and further innovation. Technology has spawned new markets and will continue to spawn new markets. Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc are prime examples of how new markets have been created from technology and innovation.

Final Diatribe
As with the cotton gin and mechanical reaper the invention is only a signal of the change to come. Studies show that when change occurs, one third will be early adopters, one third will be disillusioned participants, and one third will resist. With this comes opportunity. As often is the case, our history can be a guide to the future. The metaphors of the industrial era are certainly playing themselves out as they did in the past. One constant throughout it all is the theme of improvement through innovation and as opposed to it's alternative, its a much better place to be.

Steve Jobs - Quote

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future,"

Steve Jobs - Stanford University

Leo Buscalgia Quote

There are two big forces at work, external and internal. We have very little control over external forces such as tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, disasters, illness and pain. What really matters is the internal force. How do I respond to those disasters? Over that I have complete control.




- Leo F. Buscalgia

Success is a Choice!

Choose, Survive, Persevere, Succeed

George Washington Carver

How far you go in your life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.




- George Washington Carver

The Boys of Summer

Cooperstown

Here nestled among the green rolling hills and dew filled mornings is the center of it's past. Keeping tradition buried in innocence helps keep it in the shadows and the perfect gem for those whose ultimate journey is to find its gift. For what this place is has less to do with the physical and tangible but everything to do with preserving an experience. While many places are like this, none compare to the awesome pedigree of tradition and history for this institution. While some flock with a religious zeal others pass by what is (some say) a microcosm of metaphors for life. One thing is for sure; those who are lucky enough to find it are forever touched by it.


For those looking for direction you must start the journey from within. There is no quick way to get here. Highways and shortcuts can get you close but in order to find what your looking for each must find their own path. When you arrive you'll find lavish amenities that enrich the experience, each one customized for the individual. Time has a universal effect, so spend your time wisely, the ability for it to cast deep shadows with it's passing is a precious commodity.


For those who wish for guidance in their journey I deeply recommend you begin your search in June or July. Pick a warm day and cancel plans for the next day. Bring something to capture your moments and come prepared to have them.

-R.Zullo

George Washington Quote

we do not determine greatness by success
we determine greatness by overcoming difficulties
greatness is always formed and forged in the crucible of tension and difficulty

Walt Disney

Somehow I can't believe there are many heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret can be summarized in four C's. They are: Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy, and the greatest of these is Confidence.




- Walt Disney

Change TimeMachine Backup Interval (OS X)

Link
(sudo pico edit /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist)

How To Change Your Time Machine Backup Interval

Time Machine is Apple’s all-in-one backup solution that takes a snapshot of your hard drive and incrementally backs up any files that have changed since the previous backup. The default configuration is pretty sparse; there’s an On/Off slider, Disk Selection, and an Options area where you can exclude folders from the backup.

You might think hourly backups are a bit excessive. Apple does not give you a convenient way to change the default backup schedule. Luckily this is easy. Here are two ways you can change the hourly backup schedule to one of your choosing.


Modifying the system files

If you just want to change the default interval and not schedule anything fancy, follow this method.

Warning: this tutorial involves modifying System files. As always, be sure to make copies of the original files before changing anything.

1. Navigate to

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
You’ll see a list of .plist files. Scroll until you see com.apple.backupd-auto.plist

2. Make a copy of this file somewhere else on your hard drive.

3. Verify that you (as an administrator of your machine) can Read and Write to this file. Highlight com.apple.backupd-auto.plist and “Get Info” (Command + I). If you don’t see “admin – Read & Write” or “[your username] Read & Write” you’ll need to add yourself to the list.

4. Open this file with a text editor. Property List Editor doesn’t let me save any changes for some reason.



5. In a text editor, find the lines

StartInterval
3600

Change 3600 to the amount of time you want between backups in seconds.

6. Save and you’re finished.

Time Machine Editor

Another way to manage your Time Machine backups is the very handy TimeMachineEditor utility. In addition to changing the default backup interval, it allows you to dictate your hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly backup schedules with a very high level of detail.



Assign the rules you want and then click “Apply.”

TimeMachineEditor is free.

Do you have any other methods you use to increase Time Machine’s functionality? Leave them in the comments!

What Lucky People Do Different

Great Excerpt from an article by Jonathan Fields on Lucky vs Unlucky people

Recently I came upon a fascinating study by Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire. Wiseman surveyed a number of people and, through a series of questionnaires and interviews, determined which of them considered themselves lucky—or unlucky. He then performed an intriguing experiment: He gave both the “lucky” and the “unlucky” people a newspaper and asked them to look through it and tell him how many photographs were inside. He found that on average the unlucky people took two minutes to count all the photographs, whereas the lucky ones determined the number in a few seconds.

How could the “lucky” people do this? Because they found a message on the second page that read, “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” So why didn’t the unlucky people see it? Because they were so intent on counting all the photographs that they missed the message. Wiseman noted,

“Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner, and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through the newspaper determined to find certain job advertisements and, as a result, miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there, rather than just what they are looking for.”

Why be open

Great insightful article on why companies are "open" with products and ideas

http://bit.ly/e7YmkE


- Posted from the iPhone

Bernard Baruch-quote of the week

Whatever you undertake, do it with all your heart and soul. Always be courteous, never be discouraged. Beware of him who promises something for nothing. Do not blame anybody for your mistakes and failures.


- Bernard Baruch


- Posted from the iPhone

IT and Speed

Peter Hinssen on the speed to value proposition in IT today..


"velocity is more important than perfection"

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently

by Heidi Grant Halvorson


The Conversation

Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren't sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. "Lose 5 pounds" is a better goal than "lose some weight," because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you'll "eat less" or "sleep more" is too vague — be clear and precise. "I'll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights" leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you've actually done it.

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it's not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., "If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I'll work out for 30 minutes before work.") Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don't know how well you are doing, you can't adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don't underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won't improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The good news is, if you aren't particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don't have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking .... well, there's no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control "muscle" is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn't get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.

To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you'd honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don't. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur ("If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.") It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that's the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.

8. Don't tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it's important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don't try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don't put yourself in harm's way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won't do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., "Don't think about white bears!") has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior — by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.
If you want change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like "If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down." By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.

It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember, you don't need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It's never what you are, but what you do.

Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is a motivational psychologist, and author of the new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2011). She is also an expert blogger on motivation and leadership for Fast Company and Psychology Today. Her personal blog, The Science of Success, can be found at www.heidigranthalvorson.com. Follow her on Twitter @hghalvorson

Eddie Robinson Quote

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential -- these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.


- Eddie Robinson

WEB-M and Google's Move with Chrome

If you've haven't heard, Google is removing native H.264 support from Chrome and going with WebM. Probably not the best move but the market is being led by content (Mobility and Content post) and those who control content and mobility will win the game. With the lack luster sales of GoogleTV one wonders if this is a reactive move more than some Machiavellian planned play but either way we've begun the "codec wars" (cue Star Wars Theme). Apple, Adobe and now Google, hmm I wonder where this one.

Add to this the iPhone now going viral (grin) and now on other networks and what we have is a heavy weight fight between H.264 devices and ... and.. and ... other devices that play Flash? no wait other devices that use WebM? Hmm... now let's not forget that YouTube was bought by Google and perhaps that's factored into this somewhere but I would guess that the chess game isn't completely thought out and someone is winging it. Apple after all has relationships with most if not all the major media outlets and let's not forget whose in charge down at Disney. Google/Adobe, uhh.. not so much. Verizon, okay they might be able to do something with NFL as they seem to have a deal with them, and Sprint has NASCAR, T-Mobile has... has.... has ... okay enough.

Time will tell, it's going to get interesting though

Corporate Consulting and Thinking

IS YOUR CONSULTANT ENRICHING YOUR JUDGEMENT?

Ignoring the comparison of New York to a prison camp run by "the prisoners" today's article by Tom Davenport for HBR truly paint's a picture that we've seen many times over long term consulting engagements, that being the dumbing down of an organization.

Now with 20 years in the IT business the use of consulting services is certainly something that has to be endorsed. Nobody knows it all, but as Tom reveals in his article, the over reliance on an external resource for enriching judgement without building internal bench strength can and will often result in the "dumbing down of an organization".

Your thoughts?

Design, Design, Design

Well we've completed our review of Virgins new Project.app e-zine reader for the iPad. Overall not a bad app but lacking in some design considerations that would make it stand out in the crowd. As magazine and newspaper publishers deepen their investments in the digital medium (ahem it's about time) app design appears to have it's priorities a bit askew. Yes, beautiful text and animated page turns are important, so is the overall UI. Elegance is important, however along with that so is simplicity. What the Project.app and it's somewhat competitors have overlooked is this need to hide from the consumer the technical working of what's going on behind the scenes. Sure some of us old-timers love to see download status bars and bytes per second in transfer rates but the market as a whole has little interest in this as a design feature.


As a design component this is akin to adding an abrasive seam where your consumer will use the product the most (and reminding them your making them wait)? Not smart in our opinion and something that should be considered in the app design process. Project.app isn't the only app of it's kind to do this so it's hard to call it out just on that component. The industry as a whole will have to grapple with the concept if mass consumer adoption rate is important to them.

That's it for now, we'll be back with more in the coming months in the reader app space. We have high hopes for the reported "The Daily" app that sounds like the next big reader to be coming to the market

- ZuCom

Dickens On Habits

I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.


- Charles Dickens

Creativity and Sir Ken

Great video on our capacity for creativity.

Are we educating people out of their creative capacity?

http://www.sirkenrobinson.com/skrintro.swf

Full TED Talk here


"All children are born artists" - Picasso

Errors and Omissions - JFK

"an error doesn't become a mistake, until you refuse to correct it"


-JFK

Where you find Mobility and Content you find success

The saying "life goes by within the blink of an eye" is a reference to how time passes in our lives. Mobile devices today enable communications and delivery of content in places that have never before been available. Having this "feasibility of venue" opens up new experiences and challenges for business and consumers. While consumers struggle with how to manage time, businesses struggle with how to deliver content to the varying platforms that are available. Whether its iPhone, iPad, Droid, or anyone of the other numerous platforms out there the impact of not having usable content in this medium is palpable, and it is constantly shifting.

APP vs. WEB
While many businesses have been started solely as a result of the mobile revolution, there are many (even Fortune 500's) who have waited to get into the game. In 2006 when Apple and AT&T introduced the iPhone the game changed, but even that event was clouded with options. Having been at that WWDC, it was clear that the future would include some mixture of local App and Mobile Web solutions, but which one would win was far from certain. Four years later App based solutions have clearly taken the lead, but the battle is far from over and many are realizing it may not end anytime soon. With the Android, Windows Mobile (grin), and now Palm(double grin) splintering the app market, and mobile networks improving at a steady pace is their trouble ahead for investments in app solutions?

CONTENT
If your looking for an answer to that last rhetorical (albeit positional) question it lies in content. In the mobile space there are some amazing applications that solve business problems, provide a competitive edge, and still more that simply deliver a new more desirable mobile experience. On the other hand there are some stinkers out there the world would be better off without. The difference between most of the stinkers and the must haves lies in the content that is delivered. Think about this, if you had the option to download Thunderbird or Eudora for the iPad, iPhone, or Droid would your really (quiet Gruber). The answer is most likely, you would not, and that's because it's e-mail and as a piece of content, it's value in these new mobile venues really hasn't changed much over the years. Conversely, if you have an app that can capture audio, send its wave form to the web, returning a song title and artist, now you have a solution that delivers content in a new way to a new venue. As the app market starts to get competitive, "what" you deliver will be as important as how you deliver it.

ADVICE
As a business, not addressing the mobile world at this point is a mistake and even a poor attempt is better than nothing at all. Think of mobile like the drive-thru window for your business, without it those in a hurry probably won't stop. Mobility has moved what was once on our desks to something that is in our pockets and usually at the end of our arm and given this paradigm shift, the market must react. For the mobile consumer it's s little easier. As this evolution continues the richness of content and experiences will continue. Your choices of which device, carrier or app to go with will undoubtedly continue to get harder. Expect to be challenged by those overarching levers of content and experience that companies can provide. Apple somewhat redefined this model and it doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. The true challenge in a mobile world for the consumer will be how best to use these capabilities to slow down life, enjoy it a bit more and use that increased productivity and rich media experiences to make more free time.


Robert Zullo
ZuCom
Twitter @ZuCom_Com

Calvin Coolidge Quote

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The phrase "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.


- Calvin Coolidge

Positional vs Relational Authority (Key Leadership Principle)

Knowing when not to lead is key principle in leadership. Ron shares and experience that illustrates this perfectly.

Excerpt from ronedmonson.com

I was sitting with a staff member recently who presented me an idea. I had reservations about the idea instantly. It was actually a “red flag” idea and I knew it. I love ideas, however, and I’m consistently encouraging our staff to dream, take risks, and improve upon what we are doing. So I listened intently and we discussed the pros and cons of the idea. The next day this staff member came back to tell me and he had thought about our discussion, had changed his mind and was going a different direction. I was thrilled with “his” decision.

LINK TO FULL ARTICLE

Quote of the week

Care deeply about your employees, but accept nothing less than their very best.

Reputation

A reputation is not built upon the restful domain of one's comfort zone; it is made out of stalwart exposition of your core beliefs, for all challenges to disprove them as irrelevant hubris.


- Berp AI 2010

Stock clerks make history

Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I'll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I'll give you a stock clerk.


- J.C. Penney

Undocumented 3G iPhone reset?

Not sure if this is a legitimate fix or not but several techs have posted that a dead 3G iPhone can be revived by holding the power button (top) down and rocking the volume button (side) back and forth.

Normally this isn't something I'd post about but I just used this tip to get a non-functioning 3G back to the Apple screen. Quick restore after that and it's purring like a kitten.

Share the info!!

-ZuCom

What if your wallet was a device

With so many predicting the next wave of financial payment options going mobile, this story is hardly surprising. Paypal is not a typical bank but it's position in the merchant market is very unique. If banks were to position there capital investments around mobile merchant products and work to deliver new options, Paypal would have likely not even be player.

Interesting read: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Google-Apple-Joust-for-Mobile-Payments-Via-Android-iPhone-507837/


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Calmness and Tranquility

The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.


- James Allen

Are you being bothered enough?

Are You Being Bothered Enough?


Leadership should not
be a solitary act. Leaders need to surround themselves with people who will challenge their ideas, point out their shortcomings, and tell it to them like it is. To be an effective manager, it's critical that honest opinions and information reach you. Get your people to bother you by bothering them. Open-door policies are well-intentioned but you need to go farther and develop a culture of trust and openness. Show your people that candor is rewarded and that the more they bother you, the better.

Luck and Discipline

One half of life is luck, the other half is discipline and that's the important half. For without discipline you wouldn't know what to do with the luck.


- Carl Zuckmeyter


- Posted from the iPhone

Can't get no Satisfaction?

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing. It's when you've had everything to do and you've done it.


- Margaret Thatcher

Success / Envy and the laws Of attraction

"If you envy successful people, you create a negative force field of attraction that repels you from ever doing the things that you need to do to be successful. If you admire successful people, you create a positive force field of attraction that draws you toward becoming more and more like the kinds of people that you want to be like."


- Brian Tracy

GpGMAIL for Snow Leopard-Fix (AGAIN) 6/2010

Snow Leopard Mail update will break GPGMail plugin.

Download the update

Ross Lombardi Perot

Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.


- Ross Perot

Ron Wayne - AAPL

"I've never been rich," "But I've never been hungry, either."

-Ron Wayne, Apple Employee #3

Article

Definition non-physical

That which defines us is as undeniable as that which came first

The subtle art of leadership without saying a word

Great article in the Harvard Business Review on Quiet Leadership

-ZuCom

Blake and Powell ,Quotes of the Week

Try to forget yourself in the service of others. For when we think too much of ourselves and our own interests, we easily become despondent. But when we work for others, our efforts return to bless us.


- Sidney Powell


Ability may take you to the top, but it takes character to stay there.


- William Blake

Henry Ford

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.


- Henry Ford

Location:Mooresville,United States

Steve Jobs on Flash

Steve Jobs open letter on Flash... all great points, perhaps the most well rounded statement against flash I've seen http://bit.ly/9Lt9wD

-ZuCom

Quote of the Week

Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing there is a solution paves the way to a solution.


- Dr. David Schwartz

Fix / Snow Leopard Associations

Great Article.

If you yearn for the days of macro control over file associations, your back in business with this nifty trick

http://www.macworld.com/article/142937/2009/09/snowfiles.html

Quote of the Week

If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place.


- Nora Roberts

Location:Statesville Rd,Huntersville,United States

Quote of the Week

Refuse to let yourself end where you started. Refuse to let yourself finish where you began. It is within you--even if you can't see it yet.


-Fusion South

Joe Sugarman - Quote of the Week

Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity.


- Joseph Sugarman

Process and Startups. How much is enough

Great article discussing the impact of having good "process" in a startup company.

How much is enough ?
Is any amount too much?




http://j.mp/bw122j


- Posted from the iPhone

CleverMedia - Free Style App Review

CleverMedia has launched there new Free Style App for the iPhone. http://macmost.com/j-freestyle,

As with all of CleverMedia's offerings the FreeStyle app is well written and designed. The game mixes in audio an visual aspects into a challenging but fun experience that will quickly become a favorite. I recommend for anyone from 4 to 104.

Robert Zullo
ZuCom

Two Great Quotes on Communication

"Be sophisticated. Keep it simple." - Steve Jobs

"Insecure managers create complexity. Exude confidence and security; speak simply" - Jack Welch

Posted via web from robertzullo's posterous

Space-Time and Digital Media

Einstein developed a model for space-time and it's truly fascinating to anyone with even a casual interest. Over the past few years the media industry has been making attempts to develop it's own space-time model for content. In this space alternatives like DVR's and OnDemand have been the staple, while other "Time Shifting" alternatives have been slow to gain market share. Many will argue, factors from the Digital Media conversion such as use rights, or bandwidth considerations have been the cause, while still others will look at cable companies and wireless providers as the cause. Regardless of where you stand, there exists a strong value in media delivered without regard to the time or schedule of a media consortium.

Take the current issues at NBC with Leno and Conan. There is a demographic that wants to watch there "Tonite Show" at a 11:35pm. Today NBC decides who you will see at that time and they sell advertising for that hour knowing what demographic will be watching. This is a model that was developed in the 50's and let's face it, a model that is seriously outdated. Much media content lives under similar antiquated models.

As our media market continues to grow, finding new models that deliver value to consumers, is an area where differentiation will lead to a market edge. Being someone who has been in the Technology Industry for the past 25 years, it seems logical that whatever solutions arise they will be technical in nature. Let us not forget though, where Apple Inc. changed the face of Music with the iPod, this wouldn't have been possible without concessions from content providers, so it won't be without cooperation.

However 2010 ends up, the current state will change, as no market can ignore new models with such potential and so many clamoring for their rebirth. Watch for them! Where today we live by a time based model there will come a day when this will be little more than an outdated method.

Cloud Impact on App Development (InfoWeek)

Cloud Ready For App Development In 2010

Posted on Tuesday Jan 5th at 1:45pm *(http://tinyurl.com/yey4ojr)*

The cloud is an emerging platform that can ease the strain on application development, analysts at Forrester Research conclude in a report published Monday, "The Top Five Changes For Application Development In 2010."

Analysts Mike Gualtieri, John Rymer and Jeffrey Hammond conclude that Amazon Web Services' (AWS) cloud, EC2, and other public clouds, such as Salesforce.com's Force.com, AT&T Synaptic Compute cloud, Rackspace Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, are offering mature operational environments that can be used to speed the development and launch of cloud applications.

"Various public cloud offerings are maturing rapidly, opening up more opportunities for developers to quickly build and delivery applications. You should start now." the authors concluded.

Salesforce.com is a leader in establishing its platform as a development environment and encouraging the creation of application to run alongside its standard customer relationship management applications. It offers a proprietary language, Apex, for the creation of business logic and the Visual Force graphical user interface building tool that invokes Adobe Flex components. Microsoft will soon offer Visual Studio 2010 and .Net 4.0 to give Windows developers the option of building applications to run in Azure.

Force.com's senior director of platform product marketing, Ariel Kelman, said it takes one-fifth the time to develop an application using the database-centric Force.com platform and development tools versus standard enterprise development techniques. He says that conclusion is supported by a Salesforce.com-sponsored study by Nucleus Research.

In addition to Microsoft and Force.com, the analysts cited LongJump, Caspio, Boomi, and WorkXpress as supplying online tools for cloud application development.

"Cloud platforms offer big improvements in the cost and speed of deploying applications... Embrace cloud computing as an emerging platform," they wrote. The mature cloud platforms allow development teams to skip buying servers and storage and setting up networks to connect them. Rather, development can proceed more directly, based on use of the target cloud's APIs, which speeds the launch of the application in the cloud, they said.

By developing applications for the cloud, developers avoid the doggedly perplexing issue of being able to scale out the application at will. Applications can scale up just as fast as server instance subscriptions can be added, based on the cloud's subscription process. If the application runs on open source code, then no new license charges need to be incurred as the application is scaled out across more servers, the analysts observed.

Public clouds now offer choices for application deployment. The infrastructure as a service option, such as Amazon's EC2, offers developers maximum control over the application. Platform as a service providers, such as Force.com and Microsoft Azure, offer a more integrated development environment leading to faster deployment; and software as a service vendors, such as Oracle's E-Business suite, open source SugarCRM, or Salesforce.com's CRM application, offer ready-to-use, finished applications.

Furthermore, the analysts concluded, public cloud servers are good for running Web site applications, collaboration and social networking applications, email, information services and analysis applications dealing with large data sets. They are still less desirable for running core business production systems and transaction applications.

"The cloud is here to stay," the analysts concluded. "Start learning what cloud computing holds for your development organization. .. Formulate a strategy to put this new generation of platforms to work."

Five key elements of such a strategy are:

1. Make enterprise development more nimble and adaptable -- in other words, more like a startup. "Every line of code they write has to be linked to their ability to obtain revenue." So enterprise development teams should know at a deep level what it is the company is trying to do and how it relates to its customers.

2. Startups don't build up elaborate architectures. They use "just enough business-focused process and technical tools to get them to a solution as quickly as possible," they said. Likewise, startups need to respond quickly to changing conditions and competition. "You can't just set a course and stubbornly stick to it," they warn. In other words, find your inner startup, they advise, and put it to work.

3. Don't stick with the same development platform out of misguided loyalty. The Java and .Net languages and related technologies remain the favorites of developers, but the analysts said there has been "a significant uptick" in the use of lighter weight technologies, such as the Apache Tomcat Server, Adobe Flex, the Dojo Foundation's Ajax components, open source Drupal content management, Google Web Toolkit, and the open source Joomla portal management system.

In addition, other open source code is frequently used, including the Red Hat JBoss application server and middleware, the Ruby on Rails scripting language framework,the SpringSource Framework for producing Java applications (SpringSource is now part of VMware), and the Zend Framework for PHP development from Zend Technologies. A large retail chain recently deployed open source Geronimo, an Apache Java application server to 4,000 stores, saving itself charges for 4,000 software licenses.

4. The analysts urged developers to expand their definition of performance in 2010. Performance is affected by the overall platform quality, ease of use, ease of adoption, ease of making changes and availability of a broad community of support. Open source code alternatives are often not as rich in features as their commercial counterparts, "but they often measure up just as well in other dimensions of an expanded performance matrix," they wrote.

Furthermore, the report's authors urged developers to become "passionate" about the user experience they were delivering in their software. Best practices for user experience design need to be injected into the development process, they said.

5. Finally, the analysts urged the cultivation of developers with the right talents. Many offer fine technical skills but don't have much understanding of the business. When accelerating development in the cloud, knowledge of the business may prove as crucial as technical skill.

Cloud computing is part of the "new normal" of enterprise computing, which takes the lean and mean operation during recessionary times and continues it into the return to a healthier economy. Cloud development will help enterprises do more with less, and getting cloud skills right might make the difference between success and failure. "If your competition can build an app faster than you, then your business will be destined to be no more than a fast follower," they concluded.

Posted via web from robertzullo's posterous

Quote of the Week

Knowing what you want turns hope into a plan.

2009-2010

Happy Holidays all, ...........now don't shoot your eye out!

Posted via email from robertzullo's posterous

2009- 2010

Happy Holidays all, ...........now don't shoot your eye out!

Quote of the Week

"find the best in everything. Let it justify the bad and underscore the good."

ZuCom

Situational Leadership

Situational Leadership

I was reminded today of the importance of situational leadership. As a management consultant I often meet with trusted partners and clients who are experiencing some sort of organizational shift.  Whether or not it's an entity that has good development programs there is always a need to maintain situational leadership styles.

Many organizations invest in programs on this subject and almost any MBA program includes some form or review on the practice.  It's not a particularly difficult concept to understand and it's based on the work from Robert Tannenbaum and Warren H. Schmidt (1958, 1973) who put forth the notion that a leadership style should be born from the circumstance and therefore leaders should have a range of styles in their arsenal.

In the technology industry many leaders rise to management on the backs of technical skills, and some ascend very quickly (Gates, Wozniak, Jobs are great examples).  A good leadership development program can teach situational leadership and experience can mature these skills such that anyone can become a "4 Tool Leader"™.  

This is all great stuff to review and somewhat fundamental so what is new here?  What I was reminded of today was the maintenance that accompanies this skill set and the responsibility we are empowered with to use it appropriately.  To effectively utilize this practice you must employ a healthy introspective review of situations, styles and results.  I will go as far as to say that getting feedback from other leaders familiar with the organization is also another diligence that should accompany your review.  Some leaders feel threatened at the thought of considering any post analysis of their leadership.  Many will realize value in it and nearly all who engage in the practice will grow from the experience.

How do you maintain and grow your situational leadership?

Posted via web from robertzullo's posterous

HP buying 3Com

HP buying a company that helped found the NET.

"By acquiring 3Com, we are accelerating the execution of our converged infrastructure strategy and bringing disruptive change to the networking industry,"

LINK TO FULL ARTICLE

HP executive VP Dave Donatelli

Tim Sanders - Cloud Computing

Cloud computing will eliminate discreet servers at companies like voice mail killed the answering machine.

-Tim Sanders (former Yahoo exec)

Zero-day flaw found in web encryption

Interesting article. The implications of this are potentially earth shaking for those dependent on based TLS authentication designs.

Is TLS in your basket? What are the reasons you've not gone down that road?

ARTICLE

-ZuCom

One Reason NOT to upgrade to 64bit Mode in Snow Leopard

VIRTUAL MACHINE SUPPORT!

After posting the roundup of issues with the release along with the hint on how to force 64bit mode a number of readers and colleagues noted that VM support was absent in the musing. After some post analysis it does appear that the Virtual Machine market in the 64bit host arena is very weak when it comes to this support.

Crossover Mac (the WINE port), has a number issues while VirtualBox, VMware Fusion, and Parallels may not even launch and this is not to mention the few others that are in the consumer market. Suggestion for now. If you need to run a consumer virtual machine on your Mac, then wait to force your copy of Snow Leopard to boot into 64Bit mode. Let it run in 32bit mode and you will be fine for now. Those who use these tools in the enterprise will find that the running VMware Fusion and Parallels does have support under the Snow Leopard Server version but this would not be something a consumer wants to tote around on a MacBookPro.

Stay tuned more to come

-ZuCom

Boot Snow Leopard into 64Bit Mode

The default mode for the new Snow Leopard install is 32bit mode.

Want to change that and upgrade to 64bit.

Simply change one line in the  /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist file and your Macintosh will boot into 64bit mode.  With most recent Mac's you'll see a significant performance improvement , of course the more memory you have the better and results may vary.  You can always switch back using this method

FROM THIS

________________

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple$

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

        <key>Kernel</key>

        <string>mach_kernel</string>

        <key>Kernel Flags</key>

        <string></string>

</dict>

</plist>

________________

TO THIS

________________

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>Kernel</key>

<string>mach_kernel</string>

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>arch=x86_64</string>

</dict>

</plist>

________________

Any text editor should work or you can simply use PICO by typing the following in terminal along with your root password.  

sudo pico /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

-ZuCom

http://www.zucom.com

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Snow Leopard Roundup

Well it's been over a month now since Apple released "Snow Leopard" (version 10.6 of it's popular operating system OS X). From first reports, the upgrade seems to be a non-event for most. Two enterprise clients (those with at least 1000 upgrades) are reporting a 98% success rate on the upgrades while the power user community (the hardest group to win over) is reporting satisfaction ratings in line with past upgrades.

The roundup of popular issues and potential fixes:

BLUETOOTH

Several reports that Bluetooth devices fail after the upgrade. While ZuCom has not seen this in volume we can validate that deleting the devices and re-paring quickly solved the problem

NETWORK

In most cases we've seen no issues however some wireless network profiles needed the password (WEP Key, WPAx Password, etc.) re-entered

HOME FOLDERS

CNET has reported that "several" users have lost there home folders and even posted a detailed account of how to restore the home folders. While we've not seen this at all, the potential may exist, and especially in consumer environments where setup profiles can "drift" from the norm. Another reason to do a full backup before you do any upgrade.

GPG-Mail

The wildly popular open source GPGMail v1.2.0 plugin for OSX Mail.app does not work in Snow Leopard. This is something that was found in the later beta's and remain's a major problem in the Power User community. At issue is the use of an undocumented API in the mail bundle that is no-longer supported in the new v4 of Mail. A developer has posted an interim fix for the community which can be downloaded here. Simply unzip this file and copy it to the /Library/Mail/Bundles folder and re-start Mail and your back in business.

More updates will be posted as they come in. As usual Apple has made the upgrade process painless and smooth. Considering this upgrade is for most the first time they will migrate from a 32bit to 64bit platform it's been relatively quiet. This is a feat that many accomplished technology leaders expected to bring a litany of problems but has really been a non-event. Kudos to Bertrand Serlet and team for getting this one right. If you haven't made the jump yet, just back things up and pounce (pun), from all accounts it's another non-event with many benefits.

-ZuCom

Apple, the iPhone and Mobile, The Barbarians are at the gates.

It's hard to argue with the success that Apple has seen in it's mobile platform. Entering it's third year on the market the iPhone continues to to break new ground and is as popular as ever. Some pundits say that it's just savvy marketing coupled with great timing, others believe it's the leading edge of a revolution. As with most things when history looks back at this time it will undoubtedly fall somewhere in-between, but one thing is undeniable, .....with success come the barbarians.

In no particular order, there is Google developing a very similar looking phone called the Android and has accompanied it with an Application Store similar to the iTunes App-Store look and feel. Palm has come out with the PRE and claims to have a developer platform that rivals Apple and Google, not to mention the virtual plethora of others.

Outside of those beating down the hardware path there are software giants who are keen to get in on some of the spoils. Many of the corporate software giants have been forced to play by new rules in order to get past the proverbial "gates". Rules set by mobile carriers, platform SDK owners and hardware limitations, something these giants aren't used to dealing with. The revenue and market shift to mobile is palpable and thus a few of the big boys have found ways to capitulate. Still others have chosen to take matters into their own hands. This week Adobe announced that Flash CS5 would support the creation of native iPhone apps. As of this writing it's unclear if this is a defection or something that has been condoned, but suffice it to say that many foresee a day where tightly controlling the move to mobile won't be possible, and we may be seeing the first signs of that coming.

-Robert Zullo

ZuCom

Project Management Quote of the Week

"You can't be neutral on a moving train"

- Howard Zinn

(actually that's the name of his book).

Great test to tell if a project is moving of not.

The Changing Face of the Enterprise Desktop

The Changing Face of the Enterprise Desktop

Capital investments in enterprise desktop infrastructure are often a sizeable part of an IT department’s budget. Add in the cost of maintaining the hardware, OS, software stack, etc. and the total cost analysis would shock most. Technology leaders who are savvy enough to understand this, have already adopted alternatives that present a much smaller impact and address some evolving pressures in the industry.

Many shops have developed a strategy to address recurring desktop costs by involving a blend of thin client and virtualization. These solutions can present an enormous effect on a budget and overall support costs in a short amount of time. With products from WYSE and HP being very popular here in the US these solutions offer zero or minimal configuration, which can be done by unskilled labor, and within an enterprise network offer more than adequate performance standards. Because these clients don’t perform much in the way of processing or storage they have a very low cost, and offer some additional security benefits as a consequence. Many studies place the utilization of these types of systems at about 20-50% of a work forces’ desktop computing needs. In these environments a strong network management component is important for success, something you will see is a theme that is developing in the industry.

As data centers reduce in size and hosting applications on private or public Cloud solutions evolves it’s impact on the enterprise desktop has already seen a dramatic impact. While it’s rare there are studies where the elimination of a desktop product (thin client, thick client) was not only possible but also more efficient. A biotech research company eliminated desktop clients for it’s sales force, replacing what they carried into a sales call with an iPhone based solution utilizing Google Apps for it’s needs. While this is not typical it’s representative of what is possible and where the face of enterprise desktop will go. Application hosting is another article entirely, but the consumer success of Google Apps, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and those of the like are undeniable. Cellular based networks are maturing in the US making this a viable option in the enterprise desktop market and something to consider.

The change we have seen in the enterprise desktop space has been dramatic. Gone are the days were the only option was Wintel or Mac OS and a piece of hardware. As the economy tightens and applications migrate to a web based platform opportunities become more available, cost effective and efficient. Some day we may look back at the days of sitting in front of a computer as archaic and unnecessary. Where will your enterprise desktop roadmap take you?

Robert Zullo

Vice President, Technology Consulting

ZuCom

www.zucom.com

rzullo@zucom.com

518-496-2592

When Green became Chic!

When Green became Chic!

I received a call from a colleague today who manages a large data center in North Carolina. About a year ago we toured this facility and while impressive and modern it was far from what someone would call "GREEN". Over the past year they have undergone a major change in thinking and have undertaken a program to make all of their IT operations and functions GREEN aware. From easy items like solar panels to more difficult items like monitoring cooling and air flow the change has been palpable, not just in technology approach but also the the bottom line.

Of course there is the savings against utilities and general facilities costs but there is also government subsidies that can make the whole pill a little easier to swallow. In most states their are programs that can help take advantage of tax breaks or incentives for for embarking on a GREEN effort. In this case the correlation from the incentives to the return was immediate and for most enterprise data centers this has to be at least a fundamental consideration at this point even with energy costs leveling off.

Whilst this was a great example of industry (and government) making a change for the good, advising clients to GREEN outside the data center space is often a more challenging situation. Government subsidies are targeted at energy and not hardware per-say. Client based GREEN efforts have come of age, and they've done so without similar government subsidies. As most know client computing has been dramatically effected by the move to the Virtualization and Mobile platforms. While clients often see an immediate impact on budgets by a reduced cost for hardware the GREEN impact of not having to run additional hardware is often lost in the fray. Making hardware refresh decisions today often is an opportunity to explore the impact of GREEN on IT as well as the efficiencies of new technology.

No matter what size organization, there are options to let GREEN find it's way into your organizational thinking for IT. Virtualization, Alternative Energy, Mobilization, and even Cooperative Cloud Computing are just a few examples and efficiencies in this space are growing every day.

Robert Zullo
Vice President, Technology Consulting
ZuCom
www.zucom.com
rzullo@zucom.com
518-496-2592

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TKIP Based WPA Cracked

http://tinyurl.com/navjvp

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Zig Ziglar

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.
	- Zig Ziglar

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PandoraBoy Code

http://code.google.com/p/pandoraboy/

 Nicely done Pandora App...

 -ZuCom

Posted via email from robertzullo's posterous

Observations on Hope and Optimism

Observations on Hope and Optimism

Optimism is the belief that things will get better
Hope is the belief that together we can make things better

Optimism is a passive virtue
Hope is an active virtue

It takes no courage to be an Optimist
but it takes a great deal of courage to have hope

VC and today's Leadership / Management Approaches

Where do the likes of Business Management icons Collins, Blanchard, Covey, fit when it comes to a startup? Startups are are dramatically influenced by venture capital investors after all. I suppose the very nature of the question makes it moot. Most leaders at successful startups rarely let VC concerns get in the way (right or wrong). With passion for what they do that transcends comprehension to most, these startup leaders could turn to these business management authors for advice but would it make sense? Most of the work in the business management field centers around companies who have a board of directors and more importantly.... share holders. VC's have investors, and as "share holders" they have much more influence it can have a dramatic impact on a leader.

Management Consultants with industry experience can help keep the wolves at bay what is your approach?

-Robert Zullo
Management Coach @ ZuCom

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
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