Passing from the acceptable...

Augh! Will they ever end? These telcos and cablecos that insist that the only way to keep customers is to always charge them more! To paraphrase the infamous cartoon sailer, "I've had all I can stands...and I can't stands no more!"

Here's the scenarios:

I don't use phones much in my business. Not too many times I need to call someone from inside a dig, and once I get back to my apartment, it's usually too late to call anybody. When I do use one, it's usually a cellphone that has been loaned to me by one of the folks with me, and usually to call 911 or for pizza. But I decided last year to get a cellphone since I hate imposing too many times before my next foray into the ground. Picking a cell provider...a plan...a phone...the options...egad! It's frustrating, and not easy for folks like me who don't need massive amounts of time, no gmaes, no camera phone...nothing but the equivaent of the ground=based phone line, right? WRONG! THIS OPTION IS NOT AVAILABLE!!!! It is all of these "extras" that makes the cost of the phone close to free (if not free), and it is the minimum duration of the "plans" they offer that recovers their costs.

Let's work it out. Sample plan: 500 daytime minutes/month, 5000 weekend/night munites per month = $40/month. Minimum of two years. 24 * 40 = $960. But wait, there's more! You are allowed ONLY to have a state-of-the-art Internet and photo cellphone to get this offer...and to use the Internet, that's an additional $5/month to have any access, then $1 per megabyte transferred, etc. So your monthly gets to be $60/month, or $1440. Feel stiffed yet? Now go into the usualy side-issue of exceeding the 500/month daytime minutes. If you are a business person, you will use those in two weeks. Overage cost per minute of exceeded usage, $2/min?????? Yes, that is indeed it for some telcos. So you can end up with a SINGLE month's phone bill of over $1000...and originally you only wanted to talk to people!

Try tracphones, some say. Prepaid cost, no option phones. Fixed cost to set up, fixed usage that you can control. Problem is, exceed here and you will have to find a place that sells the cards or wait for the extension to come in the mail.

So instead of signing up for either, I began to use Skype on my laptop, and voila! No hassles! Fixed cost for non-Skype usage (to a ground/cell phone number), regardless of location. Free Skype to Skype anywhere. Some folks say I sound odd when they hear me, but I just wanted a mobile phone, dammit! Check it out, and nix the telcos "free offers". Oh, but you're using Vonage - voice over IP. And...you had to increase your Internet costs to broadband to handle that one, yes? But you have a physical phone that works. Except you can't do 911, and they gave you all these nifty options...

Okay, so I finish the rant on the telco...what about the cableco? *rubbing hands briskly* Ha! Even worse. I don't need Mr. Springsteen's song in my head everytime I sit down at the tube ("57 channels and nothin' on..."). I don't watch HBO, Starz, Showtime, ESPN...NONE OF THEM. I want the weather, some local news, the occasional decent show, and maybe HD quality. None of this other garbage. BUT I CAN'T GET IT MY WAY!!!! What if the power company said they would have to charge more if you didn't use Sears 'fridges? The water company if you didn't use American Standard toilets? EGAD!

This telco and cableco business is getting out of hand. I can only hope Steve Jobs is working on iVideos so I can pick and choose the shows and movies I want to watch...and the iPhone, VoIP through WiFi. Hey, he pulled two rabbits out of the collective hat that already shook up the entire Universe...why not two more? I did the cost breakdown. My current cable bill is $60 a month for the "bare essentials" (from their perspective). I watch two, maybe three movies and only one weekly show. At Steve's pricing, that would come to $10 (3*$2/movie, 4*$1/TV show), and I can use the other $50 for my meals. VoIP on WiFi? Excellent! It's just a device, right? Like an iPod. So it's only the cost of the WiFi provider, which at the Starbucks is $20/month. Primo! I'm already liking it! Get it out there, Stevie-boy! I want that "just one more thing" now!

It wasn't always this way...and I don't have to go to my parents to get there "when I was your age" mantra. It was normal before cellphones and cable TV. It is the massive profit taking that these companies want to take that caused this mess...and it's time for us consumers to slice and dice that opinion. We forced the deregulation of everything else, right?

So when you get the option to remove these guys from your life, TAKE IT. I will...and you will certainly hear from me here when it happens!

Migrations Out of Season

Right now, it's about the freezing point out my office window...and as it is heading towards dusk, that little bit of sheen I see from today's drizzling could possibly turn into black ice. So I check to make sure my cell is fully charged, my iPod has Mr. King's latest (Cell), and the appropriate amount of geekish snacks are in my PowerBook's heavy-duty sporran. Those in the know will know why I do this...those that do not haven't been in Atlantean rush hour traffic in its simulation of winter weather of questionable nature.

But as I look outside, I notice a cardinal on the early-budding dogwood, rapidly picking away at the miniscule buds forming, in search of his form of data farming. Neither the budding dogwood nor its data miner are supposed to be in this state at this time of year...yet they are there...and I am about to face the same environment with the high possibility of extraneous time loss. Who is the more foolish...me or the cardinal?

Into this semi-Zen state of reflection, a phone call comes from one of our customers who wonders which version of Microsoft Windows 2003 Server is right for their particular set of circumstances, so that they can order it and have us come for the migration of virtuals swallows to Redmond. The solution of a Win2K3 server is solid for their particular circumstance...they need users to connect remotely and use Microsoft Office, QuickBooks, et al...as well as provide shared web and file services. They are a 100% Windows client shop, and to migrate them over to a non-Windows environment at this point is about as hopeless as the cardinal's current data mining -- as well as more expensive, since they would have to relearn everything they already know, cutting into their time tens times as much as the drive home today will mine.

Consulting, too, is a seasonal environment, in that the solutions are dictated more by the client's current IT schema rather than the optimal one. Walk into a business that has no solution already in place for their request, it will go one way...walk into a legacy- or budget-bound circumstance, and you will be forced to use another. Evolution, in the biological sense, means the adaptive species must be able to weather all of the seasons...so, too, must the adaptive consultant. To survive, the consultant must be ready to adapt...and to have their client to adapt...to not only the current "seasonal" IT issues, but the future ranges of "weather" as well -- or else, it was not a good consulting solution. It is foolhardy to try and reason with the cardinal at this point...or even worse to try reasoning with the dogwood. The cardinal nips at the buds to live...the dogwood plans to flower regardless of the cardinal's attempts to "over mine" its data.

A good consultant will know as much as possible about everything possible. While the seasons of IT flux and flow, the patterns are cyclic and thus map to our Zennish allegory of environmental change. Who is the consultant that the cardinal will speak with before the bud-nipping proves to be not only futile, but life threatening? Who will suggest the migration of the dogwood into safer climes that do not adversely trigger its data loss prior to the planned time?

If you are (in the Zennish sense) either the cardinal or the dogwood, don't fear the consultant. But do be ready to use their services in full...not in part. If you have committed yourself to the budnipping without listening to the weather advisory and recommendation of waiting for the dogwoods to bloom, do not blame the consultant for your resultant maladies. The information he or she has provided, if well-thought and researched, could save your business not only money, but its future. If you are the dogwood and wonder why each year the flowers bloom at the wrong time, speak to the consultant and have him or her transplant your business into a more beneficial environment before the buds no longer form at all.

Pundits at the Gates of Troy

*shaking head sadly* You know, it's always interesting to see the IT pundits try to slice and dice non-Windows platforms...

Yesterday and today, there are zillions of news articles proudly proclaiming "see I told you so!" with respect to the "Mac is secure against viruses" cry of the Cupertino faithful. As with the infamous headlines of the National Enquirer, these overglossing articles fail to point out the pure facts of the information.

Since MacOS X's delivery five years ago, there have been three "confirmed" trojan horse applications created...only one of which was actually released into the field and the other two were "concept" programs created to show that under the right set of circumstances, it could be a threat. In the same time period, over 35,000 new Windows-based viruses, trojans, spyware, and worms have been released straight into the world to wreak havoc.

Before any Mac user goes and cowers, there are three things that MUST happen before any of the three in question succeed in doing harm to your Mac. (1) You must allow it to happen by accepting a file from another person who has it, (2) You must then allow the infection to complete the process of getting into the operating system by entering your administration password to permit it to do so, and (3) you must be completely out of your mind.

UNIX as an operating system rarely gets these issues, but they do occur...usually the exploit of a process or portion of the operating system that communicates with the outside world, such as a web server, ftp server, or file server. By running any of these and using them, you allow folks to try and get in to begin with, right? So these services must allow a general "okay you're there, what can I do for you" kind of feel to them. But with the open source nature of things in the UNIX world, it allows for quick fixes that are immediately placed into the channel, and anyone who wishes to can get these integrated into their OS right away. There is no Norton AntiVirus for UNIX...meaning the danger isn't there enough to make a market demand.

So now we come to the three (count them, three) MacOS X "trojans". Each one is designed to take advantage of a specific flaw found in an underlying technology that was in the UNIX history to begin with...or an associated I/O technology, like Bluetooth. With the Bluetooth one, for example, you'd have to infect within 30 feet of your target, and that the "allow me to be discovered" option be on. No spreading across the Internet. No inclusion in an email. Another requires a file transfer through iChat. So if you don't use that program, no spreading...and if you do, the person at the other end has to accept a file from the infected machine, allow it to be expanded from a compressed format, and allow the OS to execute it.

Frankly, this is akin to saying, if I stand in the driveway, and someone opens the garage door, and they get into the car without seeing me standing behind them, and they back out without looking, and I don't move, I will get hit by a car. Sure, it's possible. But to continue the allegory, in the Windows world, I can be sleeping in my bed behind locked doors and a security system, and STILL get rolled over by a steam roller. It's a difference in the programming environment, the operating system, the security ideology, and the nature of the desire by Microsoft to have applications be "friendly" with each other. This is why there are over 100,000 viruses/trojans/worms, over 65,000 spyware/adware, and over 30 different protection programs in the Windows world.

Another recent article said that a "protected" Mac was hacked and changed, suprising its owner. Oh, yeah...he forgot to mention in the first report that his web services were on, file sharing was on, and he did not turn on a few other secure features that are provided to thwart "intentional' hacks. Heck, I can walk into any company, sit down at their computers, see everything, and do anything. What was the point of these articles? The only thing I can think of is to prevent people from thinking different (as the old Apple ads used to say), and trying a non-Windows approach. But isn't this the concept of competition, of free enterprise?

As Sgt. Joe Friday used to say, "Just the facts, m'am." These writers should do that: stick to the facts, and make sure ALL of them get printed. Or else we'll start expecting to see headlines like, "Giant Server Footprint Seen in Central Park!" next. I'm not a Windows-basher...but I hate when the news is slanted, biased, filtered, spun, or blocked. Peer past the Gates of Troy in Life and suspect that funky-looking wooden horse that was supposed to be a "gift" from your enemies. No reason to get that durned thing as a trophy...you won the battle, right?

Try this before your buy...

We are pretty much in a time of a purchasing paradox.

Buy a personal computer today and you have loads of hardware choices -- desktops, laptops, server, Tablet PC, Media PC, custom -- but up until recently, once you have bought the hardware of your dreams...or the one your Aunt Mary is using...you became stuck with the costs of running it.

But why did you buy the computer in the first place?

Gartner does polls. CNN does polls. CNet does polls. Everyone can find a published poll that says this or that about the primary reason for an individual to buy a computer. If you are working in IT, your business is pretty much dead without one, so you can't ask us. So I asked my Mom, who is a retired RN, and didn't touch a computer until about three years ago. She knew she was going to go into scrapbooking and all of her circle of 'scrappers' had email addresses and passed along their tips and links to on-line images of their work that way.

So she bought a WebTV box (before it was purchased by Microsoft and became MSNTV). No PCs in her house. Just her TV and a keyboard. Heck, these days you can buy a PS3 or an Xbox 360 to surf and mail. So why are computers still selling?

All of the above mentioned polls on computer purchases place the Internet at #1. Yet the Internet brings the viruses, the spam, the pop-ups, the porn...all of what is bad along with all that is good. All of this unasked for information comes courtesy of hackers plunging directly into your computers via the open invitations left that are not totally secured. You can surf the web from your TV and avoid that issue, as Mom has found out. Or from your PSP, as my eldest does. So we can remove the reason for actually buying a personal computer just for the Internet by pointing out much more cost effective and secure hardware exists...even your cellphone can surf the web, right? And get mail?

#2 for most of the polls is gaming. Ah. I see. We have the computer, $500 and up to $1500 yearly in maintenance/repair fees, versus the $99 Playstation 2 with no repair/maintenance fees. Games for the PC at $30 - $50 versus same games $15 - $30 for the PS2. There are few games that you play solo that aren't also available for one of the gaming boxes. The online ones that require a PC are for its processing speed (both CPU and graphics) that should be addressed by newer boxes, I suppose. But the PS2 I have at home browses the web, gets email, and plays online games quite well.

#3 is compatiblity with work. You have to use Microsoft Office at work, so you spend $1000 ($500 PC, $275 Office, $225 printer and peripherals) to work 1 - 2 hours at home. Is that daily work from home? Oh, you telecommute. Good. Accessing the work machine from home can be done on the TV or anything else that supports a web browser. Didn't know that one, eh? You do now. See me after class for the details. But your employer doesn't offer that capability? Okay, open a Word or Excel document with 100% compatibility with OpenOffice 2.0 which is free. Cut your costs back down to the $500.

Better yet, why not take that old laptop or desktop out of the garage or attic, download a UNIX variant, and do everything on the above reasoning list for free...and have the side-effect of being virus/spam/pop-up free. Yeah, you've heard that one before. No games for UNIX, you say. No Office for UNIX. *buzz* Wrong. Games for UNIX ARE there (if you'll admit to actually justifying the new machine purchase just for the gaming), and OpenOffice IS compatible with Microsoft Office.

I'm not saying you pitch everything you have and start anew. I suggest that your future purchasing is always being forced into the realm of BBFM (bigger, better, faster, more) by the behemoth that is the Marketing Machine. So you purchase an entire set of Craftsman tools when all you need is a single Phillips screwdriver? Do you buy a Cusinart when you want to make chocolate milk from a mix?

Try it on that old machine. Download and burn the CD images from Ubuntu or RedHat's Fedora and see what the whole UNIX buzz is about. You'll be surprised. Got that PSP for your kids last Christmas? Enable the WiFi, download the latest system updates, and connect to your work PC to be amazed. Check into the minor details that change your PS2 or Xbox into a fully-functional web device. Exhaust the new and proven technology advances that can not only save on your budget, but also prevent the spread of the BBFM virus.

I am not a geek...

Ha! Chief Underwood of the KAUi Tribe says that I am to "...be the one ranting and raving about its short comings..." Okay, if that's the way he wants IT, so be IT. Oh, I won't pass on the puns in this blog, believe me.

I'm Drusilla Joplin...Dru for short. I'm not...nor have I ever been...a KAUi employee. Mark and I do know each other, that's true. He has been over to break bread with me, and I with him and his eclectic family. We agree to disagree on just about everything, which he says is a very excellent use of his relaxation time. I am, I suppose, the Yin to his cerebral Yang. So what am I doing here?

When Mark first approached me about the idea of providing a sort of editorial content in this blog about the pitfalls and pratfalls of information technology, I'm sure it was because of my excessive and required overuse of same. While I am not a geek, I do use computers...all sorts...in the labs and in the field of my work, which is anthropology. I have a cellphone, a PDA, a laptop, and other flat-out geek paraphenalia. Most of it has been "loaned" to me by the educational and corporate sponsors of my work, and as such, I have lots to complain about. Mark and I spar over the dearth of proper IT support infrastructure all the time. My biggest gripe can be summarized in this statement: we use half-baked technical equipment against a half-baked communications methodology and expect to get 100% accurate and useful results. Ha!

Devil's Advocate? Hardly. I do not want to be a Luddite...I have too much to rely on with respect to electronic and computer-driven sensing and analysis equipment. Anti-Microsoft? Nope. I must turn in all of my papers in Word format, process all my grants in Excel, and display the presentations in PowerPoint. Yet from my years of studying the hows and whys of cultural and paleo-anthropology, viewing the evolutionary cycles of both physical form and communication form of function, I can give you better historical and biological examples than this muck we call "IT". Heck, half the time of my lab analysis is spend in validating the equipment and gathering methodologies so that the results, while never exact, can be trusted to be within acceptable tolerances. I like the Feynman approach to things...which echoes von Clausewitz and Sir William of Occam. If this technology is to be useful, it MUST be simplistic and broad-usage ready. As of yet, I do not see a proper evolution towards that goal...instead, I see too many mutations that are allowed to live and not "reproduce" properly in order for their lineage to die off permanently via natural selection.

I am reminded of a show my parents saw and told me about on television: Point/Cointerpoint. Designed to cover political issues of the day, it was never allowed to gestate fully either, and died once it got too boring. Buckley and Vidal would have made better hosts, but then the dialog would have been too cerebral for most folks to comprehend...just like the "spin doctoring" that goes on now from Redmond and the Valley on why we should immediately rush out to purchase/upgrade continuously. Fingers in the dike, eh? So I shall provide the "other" view of Mark's corporate philosophy on IT, or just my gripes in general about same. He says that I will be unedited, that I can say my say...well, we shall see. Otherwise, the next time he comes over for my killer quesidillas, I will add extra habenaro sauce!

Until the next post, brush it clean my friends. Only them will you see all of the relic.

Modern Corporate Virtual Retreats

You are REALLY not in touch with IT if you have NOT heard of Blizzard's immensely successful MMORPG, "Worlds of Warcraft". If this IS new to you, go ask your kids (or your younger siblings if you have none of those), and be ready to register the proper embarrassment. It is indeed a sign of the times that C*Net is just NOW getting the idea that any sufficiently large online gathering area will breed its use into corporate camaraderie. Gone are the days of the Company Soccer (or other physical sport) Team. If you want to impress your friends, provide a proper smoozing environment without wondering how to lose poundage and fit into the aghasting weave-ware, and generally take all of your company frustrations out by destroying things in a productive way, this is it.

KAUi has their own WoW Guild (on the Horde side, of course...anyone can be a night elf) and we meet weekly to tackle one of the major instances of Azeroth, make a run through one of the battlefields and squash the enemy, or bring a planned RP event into being. Even though I am the Guild leader, I will rotate the leadership or planning of these events to one of the others each week, and as such, get to see first hand what my employee's strengths are with respect to planning and working under pressure. Rather I find that out here than have a client tell me about it...and rather the tech find out here before they get into trouble on-site. The company even picks up the monthly WoW fee (as well as the broadband connection -- most of our folks work from home or on the road) so they aren't out of pocket for this "workout". Plus, it puts all of the employees on an even starting field...no problems with physical limits or disabilities.

Megaplusses all around, and there's even possible dueling with the "Chief" to let them take their frustrations out on me!

Please allow me to introduce myself...

Every company has a founder -- a chief cook and bottle washer, if you will. That's me: Mark Underwood. I have been in IT for over 20 years and still wonder at the directions it fragments and coalesces into daily. With respect to Internet speeds, I have been working with this mess for over seven generations' worth of geek kitsch.

Yes, I once operated an IBM 029 card punch to author PL/1 programs and draw architectural diagrams on a Calcomp plotter. Retained the copyright on that one, but it's way outdated. :-) Messed with UNIX quite a bit when it was young and only on Digital Equipment Corporation's VAX and DEC-10 monstrosities. No, I did not know Ms. Hopper...I'm not THAT old. But I have traced the evolution of the stuff for quite some time. My first personal computer was the 1984 Macintosh (yes I saw THAT Superbowl commercial), and I'm writing on a PowerBook with MacOS X 10.4 now.

To say that I have been exposed and have had to deal with just about every variety of OS, language, API, GUI, etc. that has been created and used since 1974 is quite close to the truth. Like a cultural anthropologist, I can reconstruct the multitudinous filligreed family tree that stretches back to ENIAC (who just had his 60th birthday) -- and still look at the current state of things to decide where this tree will grow next.

In this blog, I will provide the "musings" and projections of IT -- I won't be the one ranting and raving about its short comings...I'll leave that to a good friend of mine, Drusilla Joplin. I'm more the science fiction dreamer, anyway. The brave new world that springs eternally each day in IT is so exciting and deep that I cannot fault it's misgivings. Again, like evolution, those technologies that live on are the ones that work...and the cycle is so fast that it seems almost viral in intensity.

You'll get loads of refs from literature, music, and cultural sources in my articles...so break out the Trivia Pursuit cheat sheets and score yourself on how many are in this one alone. HINT: the title is one of them. :-)

Getting Started - Better Late?

Greetings from KAUi!

Well, blogging isn't new -- heck, even the Oxford English Dictionary has the word in its lexicon -- but the concept of "blogging" or just posting the inner thoughts of a company is a process that has its pros and cons.

We are a technogeek consulting and training company...we walk around with our eyes almost eternally glued to a flat LCD display...our ears connected to a iPod(tm)...our fingers rapidly converting all that is IT into something a bit more palatable to our customers and potential clients. If there was Internet-based "Smell-o-vision" or "Taste-o-vision", we'd be rigged into those as well. Too much information? Never. Digesting it's a big pain in the rear for most folks, but it is the proverbial sourdough and thousand island dressing that constitutes our sandwich.

So there are things that we can and can't talk about, as you might guess. And with that factor a somewhat limiting one (with respect to baring the compary's "soul"), you might think that it contradicts the whole purpose of the "blog", which is supposed to the be modern-day equivalent of the personal diary. Many folks indeed have barred their souls in this medium, and many more will use it to convey to others their personal thoughts, ideas, visions, and life.

But we'd like some of our corporate "blogmata" to bleed into the Internet...hence this blog. It's going to have the musings of our folk on the current state of IT...barring our souls, if you will...but will not be the place for us to comment on our clients at all. So if you were looking for that sort of thing, shame on you! We're neck-deep into technology...so you will see loads of our thoughts on that. You will see reviews of geek idolatry, experiences on using IT, and even the frustrations and anxieties of holding tight to the bleeding edge of IT...something we must do to keep ahead of the game (and our competition).

Every once and awhile, we'll let you add your tuppence to the musings...but remember, a lot of this is our viewpoint and as such it would not be kosher to let you be viewed by others as if you were employed or spoke for our image. Our corporate website has its own copyrights and disclaimers...and this one will, too.

So here it is: Views, musings, metadata, and anything else that manages to survive long enough to become part of these bloggish pages ARE indeed held responsible by KAUi Software, Inc. and its employees. Reproduction of what you read or see in here is not permitted without express permission...but you can link to it, if you think it's worthwhile. Ya-da, ya-da.

Sit back...and enjoy the ride we might be sharing with you on this wickedly fast and hideously mutating creation of mankind called Information Technologies!

-- Mark Underwood, KAUi Chief of Everything