You(r)Tube Privacy at Risk

Yes, we know what you watched last summer, or at least Viacom's attorneys soon will.

The owners of Comedy Central and VH1 are attempting to prove that more people watch pirated clips of John Stewart and Behind The Music than, say, the Wii Fit Girl. In the aggregate, maybe more people are watching clips of The Daily Show on them Internets. But a viral video will still draw more eyeballs than any single thing the mainstream media can belch out, regardless of how clever Stewart is. Partly that's because most people who'd want to see it already have, for free, over the airwaves.

Trouble is, our video viewing habits are supposed to be protected by federal law. After a reporter went dumpster diving on Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in 1987 and came up with Blockbuster rental receipts (he was looking for porn, but mostly he found Hitchcock and Fellini) Congress passed a law explicitly protecting the privacy of movie rentals. The judge in the Viacom case, Louis Stanton, decided that watching a YouTube video somehow qualified as less worthy of protection than Bork's VCR.

The usual answer from people who claim to be perfectly happy having attorneys rooting around their private lives like squirrels in a nuthouse is that they've "got nothing to hide." To which I usually say, "terrific, now drop your pants." Everybody's got something to hide, even if it probably isn't what they watched on YouTube.

The right to keep one's thoughts and interests private -- and by extension, things that indicate thoughts and interests, like books and movies -- is one of the keys to democracy. Nobody can demand to know what's going on between my ears (and trust me, you don't want to know). That's the way I like it.

The real problem here is the obsession with data collection that infects Google, Microsoft, and other major service providers. If there's a reason to keep a running record of every YouTube video I've watched or Web search I've run over the last 18 months, I can't see it -- and Google has done a p*** poor job of explaining why they need it. Because if a record is out there, you're almost guaranteed that some day a lawyer with a subpoena may come looking for it.

Do you YouTube?

Top Technologies You Need to Know About

Software publishers and hardware manufacturers are making significant efforts and progress on simplifying their offerings to the benefit of everyone. Simplicity is about “How do humans really work? What do they really need to do to accomplish a task?” These are very difficult questions to answer, but the answers are coming because a number of designers have been working on the question for some time.

Several technologies and products are examples of simplicity including SaaS and offerings like the Google search engine. What was the theme that came in second for this year. “You don’t know what you don’t know.” Clearly this is an issue as technology becomes more complex and good offerings become more plentiful.

So what are the current “hot” items from a short- and long-term perspective? The short-term technologies that business's should consider include:

Virtualization: All sizes of organizations should virtualize their servers and applications and that many publishers are responding by packaging their software in virtual appliances. Business's can adopt much of this technology now for servers, and over the next few years you will see your desktops, applications and storage all virtualized. VMWare is king of this space, but Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Sun and Citrix all have reasonable options.

Software as a Service: Bill.Com, The Business Analyst, Capital Confirmation, GoFileRoom, MyPay, Run by ADP, PaySimple, SageWorks ProfitCents, SAP Business By Design, TimeBuilder and XCM all have offerings that can be installed quickly and run from a Web browser. In some cases, I do not know of a viable competitor with the same capabilities at any price. In other cases (unfortunately under nondisclosure) there are some superb offerings that you will see yet this year in addition to these new generation products.

Third-party products: These vendors expand and improve mainstream products by finding a need and filling it. For example, for QuickBooks alone there are: LeGrand CRM, MISys manufacturing, Fishbowl Inventory, BillQuick Time and Billing, Avalara AvaTax, SpeedTax, Softrak Adagio FX and Wasp Barcode just to name a few, plus thousands of others. Further, many of these products can work standalone or with other products as well.

Windows Server 2008: Windows Server has notable performance and reliability improvements including the supporting products of SQL 2008, Hyper V, ForeFront and improved Active Directory. SharePoint Services, PerformancePoint, Exchange 2007 and IIS are all becoming more widely deployed.

Windows Vista and Office 2007: The current technology is good, and ready to be deployed. I recommend using the 64-bit versions even though initial implementation may be a little more difficult. For most organizations using Open Licensing with Software Assurance is the best strategy, particularly after you have enrolled in MPAN. Remember that these technologies will be replaced by Windows 7 and Office 14 in 2009.

Improvements in scanners: Both Fujitsu and Canon have had notable and major improvements in their product lines this year. You should definitely take note and make your acquisitions from the new lines. The Fujitsu ScanSnap S300 and S510 are notable improvements as are the Fujitsu fi-6140 and fi-6240.

Reporting: There are significant shifts occurring in business reporting including Excel reporting tools like BizNet Software, Adagio FX, Crystal Xcelsius and the shift at Microsoft from FRx to PerformancePoint. Many of the business analytics companies and products have been purchased by larger companies, for example Business Objects being acquired by SAP, Cognos being acquired by IBM, and Hyperion being acquired by Oracle.

Voice over IP (VOIP): This technology has come of age. In doing the research for my own company this year, I was exceptionally pleased at how usable and affordable advanced features had become. I can see no condition under which a phone system should be replaced without at least some consideration for VOIP compared to traditional PBX or KSU systems. This applies to all sizes of companies.

Green: From the introduction of Intel’s Atom to the announcement by Dell about making their product line 50 percent more energy efficient over the next two years, being energy efficient is more than a fad. You can help your business save money by buying more energy-efficient products today, and by teaching your team about energy-saving steps to use with technology.

Security: Far from being solved, most organizations are just assessing their risks and choosing encryption software. We believe that encryption will be needed on all laptops, desktops, servers and backups by the year 2012, possibly sooner. Passwords still are sufficient today, but two- and three-tier authentication is also becoming more important.

Longer term technologies that will probably have merit include:

New generation communications: Including WiMax, 802.11n and soon-to-arrive on the desktop 10GB Ethernet.

Replacement cellular technology moving from 3G to 4G: Players will include Apple with the iPhone, RIM with new-generation BlackBerry products, Google Android and Samsung.

More SaaS and Utility computing: It should be possible to run an entire business with no servers in-house if you choose this strategy. Assume all current services can be hosted, virtualized or will be offered as SaaS.

Small portable devices replacing laptops: Prototypes have already been created using projection and other techniques eliminating laptop devices. Many of the new-generation cell phones are candidates to have enough computing power to serve as your access to information. Internet and cell phone convergence will lead to even bigger shifts in the way we use technology. Scorecard today: 3.3 billion cell phones, 1.2 billion laptops. I expect even more cell phones within three years and only moderate growth in laptops. I recommend the return to desktops at the office and home unless there is a need for portability. This strategy provides more speed and security at a lower cost.

Nanotechnology: I have long been a fan of this technology that crosses multiple industries. For computing, we expect smaller devices, security implemented via nanotechnology and flexible screen technology

Walking Around for the Right Reasons

Management by walking around (MBWA). This concept has been around for a few decades now. Management theories in the 2000's, such as "the Tipping Point" and "the Long Tail," are more marketing- and market-driven. The advent of communication by e-mail and IM has planted many a manager's butt in their seats. Still, there are plenty of bosses and managers wandering the hallways, patting themselves on the back because they think walking amongst the people is a noble act.

The thing is ... it could be. MBWA can pay off big, especially for entrepreneurial companies, but you have to do it the right way and for the right reasons.

If the point is to recognize and appreciate the employees who help make you successful, then what's not to like? Seeing you gives your staff the opportunity to see their boss as less the voice of authority and more a genuine human being who is invested in their ideas and opinions. The problem arises when those who walk the halls do it for all the wrong reasons.

Many business owners walk the floor only when a crisis has hit, and they think their presence will calm their employees. That's not effective if you've been hiding in your office before the you-know-what hit the fan. MBWA only works if you do it regularly -- and if you really want to know what's going on in your company.

Effective leaders (bosses) do more than just communicate with their employees; they encourage all employees to do the same. Open communication is key to business survival, particularly when times are tough. Chances are that some of your employees are concerned about their job security and the stability of the company. If you hide out in your office, rumors will only increase, as will the number of resumes headed out the door.

Real leaders are problem solvers. They don't abdicate responsibility, they don't expect others to make the tough decisions, and they don't shy away from accountability. W. Edwards Deming said it best: "If you wait for people to come to you, you'll only get small problems. You must go find them. The big problems are [the ones] people don't realize they have in the first place."

So be a good leader, be a good boss, get out there and take ownership.

Wi-Fi VoIp?

The Wi-Fi Alliance wants to make voice a part of Wi-Fi networks, and has introduced a program to certify products, it announced on Monday.

The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Voice-Personal stamp of approval means a product is capable of making or handling good-quality voice calls in the home or a small office environment, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance. Access points, wireless routers, handsets (which are growing at a steady rate) and laptops can all be tested and certified.

The push is a way for Wi-Fi Alliance to keep femtocells and upcoming technologies such as WiMax, HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) and LTE (Long Term Evolution) -- which lately have overshadowed Wi-Fi -- out of the home, according to Richard Webb, directing analyst at Infonetics. Webb thinks Wi-Fi, helped by a low cost and a large installed base, will be able to stay dominant.

"Wi-Fi performance has been continually improved, and this is another step along that road," said Webb.

In a departure from interoperability testing, which has always been Wi-Fi Alliance's bread and butter, it instead looks at performance. To be certified, products have to deliver packet loss of less than 1 percent with no burst losses, as well as latency and maximum jitter of less than 50 milliseconds, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance.

The first round of certified products include Intel's PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (an embedded 802.11a, b and g PCIe Mini Card), Cisco Systems' Aironet 1250 and 1200 Series Access Points, and Meru's access point AP200.

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Voice-Personal is only an option for vendors, so users will need to double check a special Wi-Fi product database to see whether a particular product has passed the testing.

Wi-Fi Alliance also has plans to introduce a program for enterprise environments, called Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Voice-Enterprise, early next year. It will be based on the Voice-Personal Program, and add support for bandwidth management, hand-offs between access points, enterprise-class security, network management and other features that are necessary in larger environments, according to Wi-Fi Alliance.

Enterprise adoption of IP (Internet Protocol) telephony over WLANs is growing, and vendors have put a lot of effort to improve performance, but many companies are still reticent about putting voice on it, according to Webb.

"Certification gives it a stamp of approval," he said.

Quotes to Inspire

I recently read a quote that inspired me and thought, "Why not share it with others?" I've also collected a list of quotes from entrepreneurs and other quotes that are relevant to entrepreneurship. I hope one of these quotes inspires you as well.

• I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work - Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist
• The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary - Vidal Sassoon, entrepreneur
• Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't. - Anonymous
• The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning - to create a product or service to make the world a better place - Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneur, investor, author
• Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle and a victory - Mahatma Gandhi, political and spiritual leader
• Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners - Robert T. Kiyosaki, author, entrepreneur, investor
• Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence - Lisa M. Amos
• Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life - John F. Kennedy, U.S. President
• In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable - Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. President
• The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire in the first place - Jim Rohn
• Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them - Anonymous
• Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make - Donald Trump, real estate and entertainment mogul
• The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities - Michael Gerber, author, entrepreneur
• An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he'll quickly learn how to chew it - Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries
• The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer - Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese's
• I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful - Warren Buffet, investor and billionaire
• I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent - Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist
• Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the Trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover - Mark Twain, author
• There is a tide in the affairs of menWhich, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;Omitted, all the voyage of their lifeIs bound in shallows and in miseries.On such a full sea are now afloat;And we must take the current when it serves,Or lose the ventures before us - William Shakespeare, author
• Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration - Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist

Balance Work and Life or Else!

Q: What does it mean to have work/life balance?

A: This is a very personal thing and it is different for everyone. Generally speaking, having a good work/life balance means that your actions and priorities are aligned in a way that is taking care of what is really important to you.

One of the main implications of being out of balance, however you define it, is that you neglect other areas of your life; family, health, etc. are often some of the first. When you become so addicted to only dealing with your urgent tasks you don’t think there is time for the non-urgent. You think that there will be time to deal with them later. But often, when you ask people what they feel is most important in their life, things they really want to accomplish, they are things that take time and long-term investment. By the time these things become urgent, it’s often too late to affect them.

You have to decide what is important.

What do you really want to be and do with your life. What is your mission? What do you want people to say about you 30 or 40 years from now? Then, look at what is being asked of you and see if those things are a part of your life’s important goals. If not, smile and say “no.” If you’ve really decided what is important, you can become an agent in helping the people you work with, your family, friends and boss, know and understand your top priorities. This takes courage. It means you have to stand up for what you feel is important and help others understand why.

There are no quick-fixes to achieving work/life balance.

Your priorities may change as your circumstances change. Thus, I invite you to consider the things that you value most and allow those to serve as the foundation. Then commit to consistently re-evaluate your current priorities, given your current circumstances and based on what you have identified as your core values. It takes courage, but remember not to trade in what you want most, for what you want now.

Why does my printer take a long time to print?

HP Laserjet P1505n Problem.?
-asked by Steven B

There are 3 computers connected to this HP printer via the network. Often the printer will fail to print documents, especially web pages with lots of graphics (mapquest or weather.com). The green light on the printer will just blink but it never prints. This happens mostly on the 2 older G4's in the room. It doesn't appear to be a problem with the network because the same problem happens when connected to the printer via USB. It does not appear to be a problem with the computer. I believe they are running the most recent version of the driver.

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
by Pendragon...

The printer doesn't have enough memory to process the graphics. Buy a printer suited to the job. That printer is a personal printer not a workgroup printer.

I have run into this situation numerous times - A customer calls complaining about equipment that is functioning fine. When purchasing any type of office equipment it is essential that you match the equipment to the job. The LaserJet P1505N is a fine printer and works well for home use. It was never intended for an office environment. The decision maker in this instance should have consulted a dealer before purchase. Most likely the company could have saved some money, purchased the correct machine, and avoided the headaches and hassles they now have.

Create Some Buzz

One of the goals in business is to get people to talk often, favorably and in the right way about your products. Below are three ways you can spur the buzz about your business - best off all two of them are free!

Develop a high quality product.
The first step to generating buzz about your business is to produce or sell a meaningful and quality product. It must possess a quality that is worth talking about. Your product may be something that improves the quality of life, innovative, and connects or elicits passion among its customers. People will not hesitate to pass on or recommend to others a product that they think offers something valuable.

Ask for it.
Don't hesitate to request your customers and prospects to recommend you to any other person or organizations they think might benefit from your products or services. A happy customer will be more than willing to talk about you to their circle of family and acquaintances. Request them to give you a list of friends or family members that you can contact or include in your mailing list. Also ask people to pass the word about important company news and product developments.

Set up a formal referral system.
Referrals can allow you to bring in quality new customers at a fraction of the cost of advertising. The key is to start with a quality product or service that other people can feel confident about referring your business to their friends, family members or others. Then give them incentives to spread the word about your business.

One effective way to solicit referrals is to approach businesses that offer complimentary (but not competing) products or services, then requesting them to refer clients to you. For a business selling baby books and videos, a good referral partner would be a business selling baby clothes or furniture. Same market, but different products fulfilling different needs. For every client referred to you, you will pay them the agreed referral fee.

Printer Spooler Errors

If the Print Spooler service fails when printing, when Windows starts or it can not be restarted, the usual reason is that one or more printer drivers is defective. If the Print Spooler service is not running, the Printers and Faxes folder will be empty and you can not use it to remove (or add) printers or printer drivers.

Check in Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs; if there is an entry relating to one of the printers, select it, then click Change/Remove. Follow the dialog and "uninstall all" or "remove all" as appropriate. Some "printer software" have programs that show up here and it will be a good idea to remove those before going any further. If the Print Spooler service is not operational, or you want to make certain there are no printer driver remnants use cleanspl.exe from the Windows 2000, XP or 2003 Resource Kit. Download it from the link below.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd

Cleanspl.exe from the Windows 2003 Resource Kit tools will work on Windows Vista. Cleanspl.exe does a very thorough job of cleaning up the print spooler stuff, but it does not remove the spooler service dependency on the Lexmark service (see special information about Lexmark printer drivers). When you run it, it asks you if you want to remove some things that are actually delivered (and installed by default) with Windows. In most cases, you should answer No to the corresponding prompts (you don't want to remove the Standard TCP/IP Port or the BJ Language Monitor).

Lexmark Special Instructions: The Lexmark printer installation process sometimes installs a service that makes the print spooler service dependent on itself. If there is a problem with Lexmark service or a Lexmark printer driver (or you removed it using the steps above), the print spooler service may not start. Open a Command Prompt window - (Start - Run - cmd)key the command sc config spooler depend= RPCSS(note the space after the = but not before)Reboot the PC

http://www.tangerineofficesystems.com
http://www.d-ros.com

Communication is Undervalued

Probably the most important skill anybody needs today in business is the one rarely taught in our education system - how to communicate. This is the skill that gets people their first job, helps them get promoted, creates respect and trust from meetings, develops confidence in others, and help them become leaders.

Technological changes have indisputably led to faster and more efficient communication. To name a few, we have:

• Email
• Fax machines
• Cell Phones
• Telephones
• Telephone conferencing
• Video conferencing
• Pagers

but are we communicating more effectively? No.

Communication is largely undervalued and untaught in the modern world, often with disastrous results. Professor Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University recently stated – that ‘the world’s problems could be solved if we kept talking’. This idea can be applied to almost any situation.

1. Speak to people
2. Smile at people
3. Address people by name
4. Be warm, friendly and helpful
5. Be enthusiastic about life
6. Be genuinely interested in people
7. Look for the opportunity to give praise
8. Be considerate of other people’s feelings
9. Be thoughtful and respectful of other people’s opinions
10. Be a great listener

On the above list, Number 10 may be the most important and also the hardest to do.

Listening and hearing are not the same things.

I will give some tips for being a better listener in tomorrow's blog. For now I will part with a quote from Ernest Hemingway, "I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."