For any data processing professional, the protection of client data is a high priority.  Not only is a huge amount of effort put into the integrity and usability of data, significant expense and work is done to make sure that data is not disclosed beyond the relationship between a customer and the institution.  You see that ethic in action when there is a firestorm of outrage when user data is compromised by a bank or financial institutions, which can lead to that dreaded phrase - identity theft.

Our inherent urge to keep data secure and confidential continues to be assaulted as the internet seems to be going the route of spilling everything about you out into cyberspace for the world to know about.  If there is one internet trend that has turned a flow of compromised information into a volcano, it is the explosion of social networking. 

There has been plenty written about how much personal information is on display for the world to see on Facebook and Twitter.  And while social networks put on a brave front about how hard they are working to protect private data of their users, deals being made in back rooms only accelerate the trend to share your private data with anyone who has the money to get access to it.

Now the evidence of that back room deal making has come out in full view in an agreement between Yahoo and Twitter to share user data.  Yahoo's lust to sink their teeth into a rich repository of user information goes way back.  It started when they failed to buy out Facebook for over $1 billion before Facebook became a household word.  Now that social networking is the hottest thing since search engines were invented, Yahoo wants in.

It is no secret by the private information that social networks have in abundance has such a huge cash value.  It all comes down to one word - marketing.  Not long ago, if an internet marketer could just harvest your email address, they were in online marketing heaven.  Social networks go much further than just getting emails.  On Facebook alone, they can gather phone numbers, addresses, what groups you belong to, your favorite activities and even details about what products you like.  This is nothing but pure gold to companies who want to build target marketing strategies.  And that information can be sold for high price tags to the highest bidder.

Yahoo finally got their opening into this gold mine of user information when they finalized a deal with Twitter to share user data between the two domains.  This is not their first success in the deal making in cyberspace between just last December, they closed a similar agreement with Facebook.  This means that tweets on Twitter along with Facebook status messages and other updates can be tapped by the Yahoo search engine.  So if you want to have fun and post a status or tweet "I am a vampire", all of cyberspace will instantly be informed that you are a vampire.

These deals are being portrayed as ways to serve these large social networks better.  But let's not be naive here because these deals are clearly in response to similar agreements that have been made between Microsoft and Google recently.  Clearly, the big power players in internet information and data access are merging with each other to make data sharing even more a fact of life than it already was.

The value to users of Yahoo, Twitter and Facebook is that as these services become more like one online data location.  What you post on one service will be usable on the other.  For a long time, the fact that people like to post tweets of their activities almost moment to moment seems very similar to how some people post status updates on Facebook.  So if you could post something in one service and have it pop up on the other, isn't that a tremendous labor savings that these public spirit minded social networks are doing for us?

Yahoo operates one of the most active chat services on the internet as well.  If you build a yahoo account, every effort will be made to encourage you to provide large amounts of profile data that can be used within the vast Yahoo services offerings including email, chat, personals and other services.  Ever since Yahoo began to lose out as the premier search engine on the web to Google, their emphasis on provide domain services that are beyond the conventional search engine job descriptions has been aggressive.  This step of beginning to share huge caches of user data will make those ambitions to create one central library of rich marketing data a reality.

The one thing that big social networks depend upon to keep their large populations active is trust.  When you are on Facebook, you have some trust that the site is safe from hackers, viruses or spyware.  You want to feel safe that your data will be protected and that if you set your security so your private information won't be shared, it won't be.  Of course, most of those assumptions long ago proved to be faulty. 

Hackers seem to have no trouble getting into Facebook and Twitter accounts.  And with each passing month, the number of advertising "spam" that is hitting your account on either service is getting greater and greater.  We all went through this with email and the result was an entire new industry of products and services designed to stop the spam in email.  If the epidemic of spam takes over Facebook and Twitter, one wonders if their populations may just jump ship rather than spend money to be able to keep posting statuses and tweeting away while putting up with compromises to their user data.

It is a matter of opinion whether the sharing of data between these huge internet powerhouse businesses represents a breach of trust.  If you use all three services and have fully developed profiles on each internet property, it probably will turn out to be a nice convenience to have one profile fit all.  Then if you do want to update your relationship status, it is one post that flows out to every service you are on.

But if you are a bit suspicious of big companies getting generous with data that belongs to you, you are not alone in that reaction to this news.  Many people enjoy social networks but would like to do so without every detail about them being shared with the world.  Many of us would like to be able to share with a friend that we like a movie or a certain restaurant without seeing that opinion become a marketing blitz because your private data is being sold on the open market to anyone who would like to use it to sell something to you.  It is important that we keep our eyes on the big players in the internet world and not let deals like this one go by without notice.  At very least, it is a wake up call to take care posting anything personal on any online service.  Because if you post it somewhere, before long, you may inadvertently be posting it everywhere.

We have gotten to the point that a PC or Laptop is almost a home appliance.  The technology changes and improves so rapidly these days that it is pretty much a given that you should plan to replace your computer every three years or less.  For a business, that can mean dozens of computers hitting the dumpster every year as they become obsolete.  That is a lot of junk with nowhere to go.

While we might be starting to view computer the way we look at any other appliance such as a microwave oven or an alarm clock, we cannot approach computer disposal with that same casual attitude.  For one thing, computers and their associated peripherals have toxic materials in them that will create an environmental problem if they are just dumped at the local garbage dump.  In this day and age, where all of us are trying to be environmentally conscious, we have to find a better way to get rid of an old computer. 

Dumping your old computer in the trash with the cat litter and milk cartons is the wrong way to throw away a computer.  So here are some considerations to keep in mind when it is time to upgrade your computing power so you put your old system out to pasture the right way.

• Think About That Hard Drive.

Most of us keep a huge amount of information on our computers.  You may have used a utility to move that information over to your new computer before you made it your primary system.  But you should be aware that if you just put that computer in the trash, that old hard drive is loaded with personal information about you that a hacker can have a field day with. 

If you used your computer for online banking or to access other secured accounts, that information may be stored in your internet settings or in downloaded transactions.  To be safe, you must find a way to secure that information before the computer leaves your possession. 

Now this doesn’t mean taking the old hard drive out of the computer and backing over it with the car.  But there are ways to wipe a drive clean or destroy it so it cannot be used by anyone after you get done with it.  Don’t make the mistake of just using Windows to delete those old files will do the trick.  Deleted files do not go away entirely.  The hard drive must be wiped clean sot here is no remnant of data on it at all. 

One way that some people suggest is to reformat the drive.  However, experts in protecting data will tell you that reformatting a drive is not sufficient for protecting data.  Instead, look into using a good "wipe disk" utility such as Norton Wipedisk which is part of the highly respected Norton Utilities or one of the other top programs for clearing old data such as Darik's Boot and Nuke,   Active Kill Disk, or PC Inspector.  You can also take advantage of the expertise of the installation people who set up your new computer so they can help you clean off that old drive before it is reused or disposed of.

• Recycle that Computer at Home

With a little advance planning, an old computer does not necessarily have to go away at all.  There are tasks it can do at home so it can continue to be part of the family at a diminished capacity.  To use it in this way, simply plan well in advance that you will replace your old computer before it crashes.  In this way, the old computer and all of its software will still be functional. 

Some families have found good use for an old computer by setting it up to run old computer games for the kids.  You can also devote an old computer as a place for family members to use word processing and spreadsheet software.  These applications are low demand so that old machine will be able to handle them for quite some time.  So if you keep your old friend around, you have a device to use for local computing and you don’t have to worry about the hard drive issue we just discussed.

• Don't Dump - Donate

Lots of charities can use a computer that is not this year's model but still has plenty of use in it.  Make some phone calls because many times a school might take the computer off your hands.  You can also find services that will take old computer and repair any problems and then provide them to service organizations that cannot afford new machines. 

This is a way for your old computer to do some good in the community, which makes you feel good.  You can also take a tax write off if you donate the computer to a recognized charity.  Just be sure the hard drive is clean as we discussed earlier because the risk of compromising your personal data is just as real even if you are being a Good Samaritan with your old computer.

• The Value of Parts

There is still some value in that old computer in the boards, the housing, the power supply and other components that made the machine so reliable all of those years.  With a little creative research, you can find computer refurbishers who will buy your old computer for a small payment and take the parts and find new uses for them. 

This is an especially good option for a business that has a lot of computers to get rid of because the services will usually come and get the old equipment, which saves you a lot of labor expense carting them off.  And it puts a little cash into the budget as well.  Once again, clean that hard drive or destroy it before it goes to any company that rebuilds electronic devices.  You just cannot be too careful.

• Let the Pros Do Their Jobs

Finally, if all else fails, turn to the professionals who make it their business to dispose of old computers.  There are services that will take that old machine and destroy it in an environmentally friendly way.  There may be a fee for this service but it is a smart way to go about getting rid of old computers that you can feel good about.  Many times these services will be able to guarantee that the old computer will be disposed off completely and to your satisfaction. 

Even with that guarantee, take the time to secure and clean that hard drive.  By knowing some of your options, you can find an acceptable way to get rid of that old machine that you are comfortable with and that won't cost you a lot of money.  And taking charge of this process is a lot smarter than putting the computer by the curb with your Christmas tree or trying to use it for a flowerpot.

A systems administrator has a big job.  The job description for systems administration seems to take in just about anything management can think up.  At the same time, systems administrators become very possessive of the systems they care for because every aspect of the operation of those systems is their job. 

In many ways, systems administrators are the real backbone of the computer industry.  It can be a thankless job but it is one that a true systems administrator can be proud of.  You work hard, you know your systems inside and out and you keep them running, which keeps the company running.  It’s a big job but you are up to the task.

Perhaps because systems administrators are held accountable for the functioning of their systems, it is easy to become defensive when part of your job is taken away by a subset of the discipline that seems to be unnecessary.  Capacity planning seems to seek to take away part of your job as a systems administrator.  Professional capacity planners are very aware of the perceived threat that they pose to systems administration personnel. 

But that tension does not need to be there because capacity planning can be the best thing that ever happened to a systems administrator.  Not only can a well developed capacity planning program take some of the stress off of the job of systems administration, it can help you justify upgrades and manage workloads because of the wealth of solid statistical information that good capacity planners can provide.

Capacity Planning Defined

Capacity planning is an IT discipline that is not well understood.  The title of the office is well chosen because the goal of a professional capacity planner is to help measure the performance of computer system to determine how much of the capacity has been used and if the capacity of the system is being well used.  The way capacity planners accomplish this goal is through statistical analysis and forecasting.  Detailed metrics about the performance of the computer systems and the applications being executed within a computer system are gathered by software modules that constantly collect these metrics and store them at a database level for evaluation.

The result are highly reliable models and statistical graphs that depict the capacity of a system on an hourly basis.  This is not opinion being graphed to accomplish the goals of a particular department.  A well developed capacity planning department is above the goals of managers or even the objectives or budget of the company.  The goals of capacity planning is to forecast when a computer system will need additional capacity and to help balance the load of computer systems when excess capacity is identified.

Friend Not Foe

Before capacity planning was defined as a separate discipline from systems administrators, the determination when a computer system was approaching capacity was done by the systems administration group.  Very often, this determination was done by "gut feel".  When you are responsible for the operation of a computer or a system of computers, you develop a feel for when the system is operating well and when it is bogged down.  You know the workloads that you are putting on a computer system and the kind of internal demands each workload requires to complete the work to be done. 

But too often, when a systems administrator goes to management to request more capacity for a system under his or her charge, that request is not received well.  Management may see the systems administrator as ambitious or unaware of the budget constraints of the business.  This is not the case but that is a perception that sometimes keeps systems administrators from being effective at providing systems that are adequate to the demands of the business now and certain to be capable of dealing with any growth planned for those systems in the future.

Capacity planning can give systems administrators the "teeth" it takes to graphically demonstrate that the capacity of the systems being used may become critical in a specific time frame based on projected use and growth.  Through graphic representation of existing usage and capacity and forecast models of when a system will exceed capacity, a good capacity planning program can get out ahead of a potential crisis level capacity shortage long before it happens. 

As a systems administrator, you know that you must begin to plan a systems upgrade long before you hit maximum capacity for your systems.  In fact, if you are hitting above 70% utilization for any critical processing time frame, you are at capacity and any increase in demand could represent a capacity crisis that could cause the systems the company depends on to fail to deliver as expected. 

This concept is sometimes hard to get across to the business level of management who are often a little stingy with buying more computer capacity based on the word of a systems administrator.  Capacity planning can give you statistical "proof" that a crisis is coming where the company will need computer support to accomplish its goals and that systems availability simply will not be there.  When capacity planning can provide evidence that you need that for the company to continue to grow and prosper, it must make an investment in computer power, that benefits systems administrators by giving them what they need to do their jobs.

In addition to proving or disproving that systems being used require additional horsepower, capacity planning can be an invaluable aid in load balancing.  Often a large business may operate many midrange or large computer systems and each of them have mission critical workloads that are automatically executed throughout the week.  Capacity planning can measure when maximum capacity is being used and the amount of resource each application is consuming. 

Applications often reserve a lot of resource capacity when they launch and then release some of that resource as they process their workload.  This means that very often a system that seems to be exceeding capacity and in need of an upgrade could benefit by targeted load balancing.  Capacity planning measurement can pinpoint how to do that load balancing.  By staggering when resource heavy applications start, you can often put a lot more work through a system without stressing the capacity of the unit because the jobs use and release their resources in cooperation with each other.  This is smart systems management and it is made possible when systems administrators are given the help of capacity planning measurement and reporting.

Systems administrators should see capacity planning help as an ally in providing the best support for systems performance.  Capacity planning does not seek to take away the authority or the decision making of systems administration experts.  Instead, capacity planning can support and make better the job of systems administration. 

When the two functions work together as partners, each succeeds.  But the ultimate winner is the business because it gets the best out of their computing resources.  In addition, the business has the assurance that when a capacity shortage looms, they will have plenty of time to prepare for it because they had the help of solid systems administration and expert capacity planners working together.

An IT person must approach the challenge of finding a new job in a very particular way.  Because your skills are specialized, you are not going to apply to every job that is in the newspaper.  The approach you should take to find good jobs and then how to craft your resume and your strategy are all just as peculiar the IT industry is and as unique as you are.  But if you approach the job search right, you can cut through a lot of the confusion that hunting for a job can bring and get to the good jobs fast.

Stealth Job Hunting

The frustration of job hunting is that the job market is a huge jumbled mess.  The last thing you want to do is compete for the perfect job with hundreds of other people who are not as qualified as you are.  It is even worse to find yourself applying to job after job that are not the perfect next step for you.  You need some stealth job hunting tactics that can get you to that perfect next step in your career, even if you are unemployed at the moment.

Those tactics are right at your fingertips and you may not even know it.  Most IT professionals are part of groups and associations that cater to your particular specialization and skill set.  Whether you are a web designer, a data base administrator or a project manager, there is an organization that is out there that is full of people with your same career focus.

Those groups are also natural magnets for businesses who need people with that skill set.  The people in your own IT specialization are the ones who will be aware of openings that are out there or about to happen.  If your company paid for your membership to some of those organizations, keep up those dues.  Then use the collective power of those groups to look for your next job.  Because they know exactly what you do, they can guide your search and plug you into job openings that are perfect for you.

The Power of the Network

Just as potent as the groups who make it easier to do your job are the people in your immediate IT world who know you well.  Any expert in finding a new job will advise you that your first strategy is not to file for unemployment or even go home after losing your job to pout about it.  Your first and most important strategy is to network.  Your network are the other people in your specialization who may be able to direct you to another job in town that can use an IT specialist just like you.

Your network is also people you worked for including bosses and clients who admired your work.  If you served other businesses as part of your work, those businesses might be eager to "snap you up" when you are cut lose from your current job.  So by all means, get snapped up.

Networking is not something you start to do when you are suddenly out of a job.  If you still have your position, work at building that network every day.  It is a natural thing to do because you are in a professional position with peers on your IT team, supervisors who can witness how good you are at your job and customers who come back for more every time you deliver good work.  Those social groups are teaming with networking opportunities.

IT professionals sometimes have a reputation of being socially retiring.  That may be true if you prefer to sit and crank out code instead of going to a party.  But networking isn't about a popularity contest.  It is about taking advantage of the close professional relationships you naturally develop with other technical people like yourself. 

Your networking web is everywhere.  It is at work, in your family, at the bowling alley or at church.  When you are looking for that next great opportunity, throw the doors and windows open for your network to go to work for you.  If you do that, the network of people who know you well are the ones who can do the most to plug you into that next great job.

What a Resume Isn't.

It is smart to keep your resume up to date all of the time.  You don’t have to wait until you are unemployed to update your resume so it is ready to go to work for you to get you that next great job opportunity.  In fact, you don’t have to wait until you are unemployed to put your resume into circulation.  If you get in a mindset of always having your radar up for a great new opportunity and also keeping your resume ready to go out at a moment's notice, you may be the one moving from job to job on your terms rather than waiting for your employer to make that decision for you.

If a resume fails, it is because people put too much in it or too little.  A resume is more than a skeleton review of your career with dates and addresses.  But a resume is not a chance for you to write the story of your life either.  To find the right balance, be aware of the job the resume is out to accomplish for you. 

The resume has one job.  That job is not to get you a job.  That is what happens in the interview.  Your resume should not set out to talk a potential employer into hiring you.  All it has to do is make him or her interested in talking to you.  You will take it from there when you get to the interview phase of the project of getting a job.  So to be successful, your resume's job is to leap past human resources and past the final cut where the person doing the interviewing picks the people to talk to and rejects the rest.

There is a secret to getting past human resources that your résumé must use to get to the person making then decision about that job.  That secret is two words - key words.  There are certain key phrases that summarize what the person hiring is looking for.  So when you write your résumé, scan the text describing the job being filled.  Look for key phrases and use them exactly as you see them in the job ad.  Phrases like "outgoing and personable", "knowledgeable professional" or "creative and outgoing" will give you the keys to getting the job you want.  Also, acronyms of your profession and key job description phrases like "data base administrator", "web development expert" or "project manager" are key words that will get your resume to the final cut.

The reason key words are important is that when an employer is taking résumés, they will either use job screening software or a person in HR who will weed out a lot of resumes before they go to the decision maker who will send out invitations for interviews.  The Human Resources person and that software may have no clue what your job is.  They will have a list of key words to look for in the résumés they are reviewing.  If those key words are there, you make the cut.  If they are not, your résumé hits the big trashcan in the corner.  Stay out of that trash can and use key phrases to get past screening software or the Human Resources department so the person dong the hiring has a chance to appreciate how great you are.

By taking advantage of your professional associations and by networking, you can find the great jobs that are out there.  That saves you a lot of aggravation because you don’t have to pound the bricks going after dozens of jobs that are not right for you.  Then by being clever in how you organize your resume, it will cut through the mass of resumes and get right to the person who is filing the position.  From then on out, the rest is up to you.  But if you can get an interview for the perfect job where your skills will be utilized perfectly, landing that job should be a snap.

Failing all that- you could always kick off your own startup... Here's a few thoughts for starters...

Most IT department managers or project leaders grow up out of the IT technical ranks.  That is a good thing.  For one thing, an IT manager must have the ability to talk intelligently with technical experts.  If he or she cannot sustain the respect of a staff of highly trained and talented IT developers, that manager's ability to be effective is in bad shape. 

An IT manager has a very unique job because you sit directly between the two most important groups in the business world that you must get to work together to be successful.  You manage a department of developers who are capable of performing technical wizardry if you manage them right.  And you work for the top-level leadership of the business who are capable of making the business and you very profitable if you can deliver what they need, when they need it, on time and under budget. 

In order to achieve the goals of both groups, the IT manager must be able to speak two languages fluently.  Moreover, you have to be able to communicate the needs and interests of both groups to each other and do so in a way that results in greater cooperation and productivity - resulting in completed projects, happy developers and happy upper management.  It’s a tricky operation to pull it off.  But if you can speak both languages, you are in for a long and very successful career at the IT management level.

Very Different Languages

If you got to management by working up through technical jobs, you understand the language of technical people.  Knowing how to be proficient in "tech speak" is about more than just understanding the acronyms.  Your history in the culture of technical developers will serve you well.  Speaking the language of developers means understanding what makes them tick and how the technical tools they use can be brought to bear on the development problem at hand.

Even within the technical world, there are various disciplines that must be able to integrate with each other and you must be able to make that possible by understanding the tools and terms of each group.  If you have applications developers, they will need to make their code work seamlessly with the database management system and with the web interfaces needed to make the application really deliver for its users.  Add in the security team and the hardware gurus who will give you the limitations and possibilities you have from a platform perspective and that is a lot of translation going on within an already cramped technical world.

Your technical team cannot function without good projects that come to them from the business planners who run the business.  But the top level owners and managers of business departments speak their own language as well - sometimes sniffing rarified air that just isn't ready for everyone else.  Their goals and objectives for the projects that they define are couched in what the application will do for the business.  In many respects they may not know, understand or care about the technical complications you face to make that application a reality.

Your job as the manager who will make your department or project team successful is to define the projects and goals of upper management in terms of their business language.  When you meet with the business leaders who make things happen in your organization, your job will be to understand what the application will do and how it will make the business more successful.  The business objectives of the application will be the standards of measurement by which your technical team will be judged.  Those objectives will then be "translated" into technical objectives that you can communicate to your project development team.  You may wonder who does that translation.  That would be you.

Very Different Priorities

While you may be manager of the technical development team, to make them successful, you have to know how to motivate them and make them productive - I can tell you from experience, it isn't a lot of shouting and cursing.  While you may work for the upper level business management team, you manage them in a sense because it is up to you to understand their priorities and get them to work with you and not against you for the success of your department.  This can be the hardest game to play if that management tier isn't interested or just doesn't 'have time' for teamwork .

The priorities of upper management are business objectives.  So the applications you bring back to your team from the top brass will be successful if they make the company more efficient, more profitable or save money through some form of process improvement.  So you must understand and speak fluently about those priorities so you can excite management about what your team can do for them.  Then you can then gather the details of the business objectives of the applications work to be done so you can take those goals to your technical team.

To say that your technical development team will have different priorities is to understate things dramatically.  It isn't that systems developers and "techies" don’t want the company to hit it's business objectives because they do (contrary to the belief of upper management sometimes!).  They consider that to be your job and the job of upper management to deal with.  The priorities for a systems developer lie in the ongoing development his or her skills, the size and impact of projects that they get to work on and the peace and quiet you can provide to them to continue being "techies" by keeping management "off their backs."  There ARE tools to make management less painful.  But that's the subject of another post.

The Fine Art of Translation

Much of the real work of being a manager over technical projects is translating business objectives to technical people and technical details to management people.  While it is always good management to let your technical team know what the goals are of the project in business terms, to get their "buy in" and to see them really engage the project, they must see it as a technical challenge. 

So you will translate each business priority into a technical specification before you begin having meetings with the rank and file development team.  That means that the first few phases of the project development life cycle, which is the project definition and needs analysis, are by far the most critical phases.  It is in those phases that you will use your ability to speak two languages to lay out a technical solution to a business problem in language that both camps will understand.

Similarly, when you and your team have defined the business problem in technical terms, you will take that solution to your business management team to explain how that solution will take the business where it needs to go.  The more you develop your skills at explaining technical solutions to business managers in business terms and explaining business objectives in technical terms to your development team, the more success you will realize as an IT manager.  And success is what it is all about after all.

P.S. A bad place to start building bridges is to post this one on the office wall!

Google has all the traits of a company that we all are all going to hate to love but love to hate.  The more they take over big application after big application, we have this natural, and very Australian 'tall-poppy', instinct to look at that kind of empire building with skepticism.  We worried and were skeptical about Microsoft, Apple and IBM's Empires - forgetting at times about the tremendous amounts of good they all did making computers accessible to the regular man on the street.  So are we going to let Google off the hook?

As much as we hate to admit it, Google comes up with some pretty amazing services and tools that can help individuals and businesses a great deal - and challenge the status-quo.  The newest one that seems to be poised to become a major player in the telecommunications world is Google Voice because of how easy it makes it for even the smallest business to set up a phone network anywhere they need it.

I have a young niece who doesn’t like to say something "kicks butt" when it is great so she just says "kicks face".  Well Google seems to be on the verge of yet another "kicks face" application in Google voice, as though they needed any more big wins.  They have one this time, need it or not.

As most big businesses do, Google didn’t invent Google Voice out of thin air.  The application has been improved, given a face-lift and refined since it was first marketed under the name of GrandCentral.  While the current version of Google Voice may not resemble that original approach, Google knew exactly what it was doing to create a tool that can benefit small businesses in a big way.

What Google Voice delivers to even the smallest of business is the ability to set up a centralized networked phone system in any business setting, even a home-based business.  The set up of the system is straight forward and a very small business can have all of the big business benefits of passing all business phone calls though one system including voicemail.  For all intents and purposes, if a "mum and dad show" always wanted to have a call center to deal with their business phone traffic, Google Phone is the way to go.

It might seem odd for a huge company like Google to put effort into a an application like Google Voice that can help businesses so small that they are run out of someones garage or spare room.  But Google knows something that a lot of massive companies either never knew or forgot and that is that there a huge amount of the business that goes on in our economy this way. 

And now that the economy has turned bad on almost everybody (to one extent or another), more of these little home based businesses are springing up all the time.  Google just happens to be smart enough to see the writing on the wall and give the little guy a tool that is perfect for a business that is very cost conscious - like most small businesses are.  If big business took as much care for how they ran their operations, maybe our economy would not be in such a mess.  But maybe that is a matter of opinion.   

There is one small inconvenience to get started on Google Voice.  You still have to get an invitation from Google to enjoy this great new tool.  But Google isn't being stingy about handing out the invites.  You can easily request an invitation to be part of the fun at this URL - http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html

Once you are on board to get on the Google Voice bandwagon, you give Google your zip code and area code.  This is necessary so the system can find and set up available phone numbers that you can use in your part of the world.  You will be given some choices on what you want your primary business phone number to be so you can pick one that is easy for your customers and business partners to remember.

You should be ready to provide a phone number you already have to connect to your Google Voice phone number that the system sets up.  This is actually one of the cool things about Google voice because you can have all of your business calls route to your home number, your cell phone or any other business number you already have.

Not only does that give you the ability to capture business phone traffic to one line, it provides you with security so your personal numbers don’t have to get tied in with your business communications.  That is a great way to keep from a situation where your 8 year old son gets into a conversation about ordering himself a new PC via one of your parts suppliers because you run the business from your home base. 

Google will verify the number you give it with a SMS text that will include a code that you use to validate that you are using a real phone to set up your Google Voice account.  This is a fairly standard phone verification system that you have probably seen before if you have set up with very many online services.  But once you are set up, there Google Voice has plenty of value to provide to your business.

Some of the features that Google Voice already has ready for you to take advantage of includes call screening and the ability to capture transcripts of voicemail messages.  This turns a lot of decision making over to you about who you want to talk to and how.  If a call is coming in that will be full of information such as an order for a large amount of product or a report from a consultant, let that hit voice-mail and you can generate a transcript of it - just that easy.  No more sitting on the phone scrawling notes until your hand hurts.

The call screening function not only turns the decisions over 'who to talk to' over to the small business  owner, it gives you the ability to route calls to the most appropriate person based on who the caller wants to talk to.  So you can set up Google Voice to ask the caller who they want to speak to and the call will be routed to that associate.  This IVR function is something big businesses pay a lot of money for in their business phone networks.  Now small businesses can both enjoy this feature and afford it as well.

Given this is Google's first widespread foray into the Voice space, and an impressive one at that, we can be sure there's still a lot more to come.  Given Skype's now released their "Corporate-flavoured" Skype solution, the competition may just be a good thing for small business...

Application Development for Mobile Computing Explodes

Unless you live in a cave, you already know that the huge surge of popularity for mobile applications is the next big technological paradigm shift.  The days when a mobile phone was only a phone are long behind us now.  And judging by the speed of technological development in the mobile markets, we may never see those days again.

To even call a modern mobile device a cell phone only understates the multifunctional nature of mobile devices.  And the sector of the economy who are not underestimating this explosion of functionality at the mobile level are hardware and software developers who see this explosive development environment as the next great market for them to tap for greater profits.  And such a huge surge of creativity and productivity is bound to yielded some very big winners and some very big losers along the way.

This newest explosion of both platform and software innovation is comparable to the huge surges in the technology sector such as the initial spread of the internet, the arrival of WEB 2.0 applications and the development of social networking.  In fact, each of those monumental paradigm shifts in how we see technology were necessary steps that lead up to this latest change in the technological landscape toward mobile computing.  The speed at which the capabilities of mobile devices has changed has created a need for mobile applications.  That need creates huge opportunities for systems developers worldwide.

The genres of application development are tremendously diverse.  The most obvious applications that get a lot of attention are games, music and video applications and tools to enhance social connectivity such as the use of Facebook and Twitter.  But as more applications become available, developers and companies who sponsor that development are being presented with an unprecedented ability to market their developments to their markets. 

The reason that the time to market has been cut so dramatically lies in the nature of mobile computing.  Because people can access their favorite apps libraries and shop quickly and anywhere they go, applications reach customers much more quickly and move more rapidly from developer to customer as well.  And because online payments has become so routine, the resulting marketing paradigm is a systems developers dream.

There is good reason to pay attention to this explosion in marketable mobile applications.  It is a golden opportunity to use your skills to put together some very cool applications that can get to this huge market quickly.  To put it succinctly, if you are thinking about how to cash in on this huge technology explosion, you can bet someone you know is. 

Whether you are a programmer, a writer, an internet company or just someone who has some friends who are plugged into what is "right now" in technology, right now is the time to strike gold in this market.  You may not have been able to buy Cisco at $1 or get in on the Google paradigm shift.  But this new mobile marketplace is anybody's game and anyone who can get to it fast with great new applications, can win big!

It’s a Wide Open Playing Field

Probably the players who are going to grab the biggest pieces of the mobile application pie are big technology companies who have the resources to develop applications quickly.  When a developer begins to brainstorm what applications could be the "next big thing", its good to broaden your view.  To try to go after the markets for video players and games is fine but that is a limited application group.  The variety of apps that are taking off is far more diverse including…

• News server applications that allows mobile customers to stay up to date on the weather, sports, keep up with blogs and access online information sources like encyclopedias or dictionaries at a moments notice.
• Tools for staying organized on the go including schedulers, calendars, post it note utilities and alarm services.
• Any application that enhances the social networking environment or takes shortcomings in Twitter, MySpace, Google Buzz or Facebook and makes them better is going to get a lot of attention.
• Mobile computing is taking off in the business world just as much as it is among college students and teenagers.  So tools for business people to manage contact lists and network with each other will have a natural market waiting for it.
• Because users will develop a diverse assortment of web sites and services they like to use on their mobile devices, any application that makes it possible to organize user names and passwords and does so in a secure way will be welcome.  Mobile users know they should not use the same user name and password but they will without some help.
• Financial applications will see greater and greater demand as more people who use their mobile devices to manage their financial empires expands.  This includes applications to keep up with stock movement, applications that safely speeds up the management of online financial accounts, spreadsheet applications and checkbook tools to keep things balanced even while on the go.
• Applications that connect the mobile device to home computers or the local network at the office or at home so a user can manage those worlds while on the go.

Get Yourself Some Tools of the Trade!

In order to quickly develop and deploy mobile applications, you will have to become proficient in the newest development tools.  This is a routine practice for anyone who has developed applications for the web before because the toolsets change frequently.  But the toolsets are not difficult to get used to.  It isn't like you have to learn to program an IBM mainframe in binary code.  The learning curve is pretty fast.

The IPhone environment is probably one of the biggest markets for applications that is happening right now.  So learning how to develop and distribute apps to that world will prove to be a profitable move.  The good about the IPhone is that once you conquer the development tools, that will open up applications possibilities to the youth markets and to the professional world at the same time.

It is always smart to keep an eye on Google to see what they are putting together for new markets.  For better or for worse, Google works hard to maintain the cutting edge in anything cyberspace related.  Right now Google Android is a resource for development tools that you can put to use quickly.  Keep your fingers on the pulse of Google because as quickly as this development paradigm changes, Google will probably be on top of it.

It is a challenge to stay up to date with the shifting markets in cyberspace.  This new application world in the mobile computing setting is just another in an ongoing flow of technological innovation and change.  The skills you learn to adapt and capitalize on this technological shift will serve you well because as sure as mobile computing is taking over the world today, something completely new and unforeseen will take over again tomorrow.

The Rise of Navigation Systems

Remember paper maps? You'd take them out of the glove compartment or boot, unfold them, flip them around, and it would take you some ten minutes to find where you are on the map, before you could find where you were going. Later map books were a small improvement, but really reading a map while driving was always for the birds.

Automotive navigation systems simply revolutionized driving - there was no other way to see it. Given turn-by-turn navigation, you can now go to a city you've never been to before, punch in your destination, and go straight there exactly as if you were a native! This miraculous system is the sum product of scientific advancement in communications, transportation, digital technology, and let us not forget space exploration (we had to get those satellites up there somehow!).

The history of modern automotive navigation systems actually goes back to the 1970s. Even before microprocessor technology emerged, there were attempts to make automated guidance systems. The first commercially available automotive navigation system was Etak, of Sunnyvale, California, USA. Other companies which were early to market with prototypes include Alpine, Honda, Mitsubishi Electric, Magellan, and Pioneer.

Oldsmobile introduced the first GPS navigation system available in a production car in 1995, calling it "GuideStar." Even then, it was another five years before GPS signals and navigation systems came into wide use.

Today's systems involve a symphony of technological advancements. There are visualization components, including maps in top view, bird's-eye view, and linear view. Sometimes they have voice prompts. There is always a road database, including a vector map of the area. A couple of map formats include CARiN, created by Philips Car Systems, and the S-Dal format published by NAVTEQ, as well as Physical Storage Format (PSF) created by an industry grouping of car manufacturers, navigation system suppliers and map data suppliers in an effort to standardize the data format used in car navigation systems.

In addition, new features are being integrated all the time. Newer navigation systems can receive and display information on traffic congestion and suggest alternate routes. They can supply data about parking places. They can even provide real-time data such as weather broadcasting and road conditions.

These sophisticated systems continue to improve and add features, building upon decades of work in various technology fields. We might yet see the day when cars can actually drive themselves, and when they do, they'll be building upon the rise of navigation systems!

The Beginner's Guide To Choosing a PDA

For everyone thinking of buying their first PDA, this guide's for you! A gentle introduction to these devices should be all you need. PDAs aren't like other computers - they're compact, user-friendly, fast, featureful, and even fun!

The first thing you have to do is figure out what you want to use a PDA for. The most common use is as a datebook or appointment planner, a purpose for which PDAs are suited like no other device. Address books are the second most common feature, and something else that are very well-managed on a PDA. A calculator is a given. Email and Bluetooth/ WiFi connectivity is usually required as well. PDAs also make great eBook readers. And for jotting down quick notes or sending text messages, an onscreen keyboard or stylus with handwriting recognizer.

What other fancy features would you like? A USB connector will let you hook up your peripherals. A backlight is essential if you won't always have full light. And then there's the entertainment value - quite a few games are being written for the PDA platform, and multi-media applications will let you watch movies or listen to music. And web browsers have also become standard with the platform.

All of these will be things to keep in mind when you go shopping. Be sure to ask around your social circle for the model you're interested in; chances are you know someone who has a model they'll let you look at. Work is an especially good environment for shoulder-surfing PDAs.

Major brands include the Windows Mobile Classic PDAs, ASUS - Asus P750 3G/ HSDPA/ GPS PDA Smartphone, Hewlett-Packard - HP iPAQ 212 Enterprise Handheld PDA, 4P - 4P FDA300 - Intrinsically Safe PDA - CE5 / Barcode / GPRS / Atex, Zypad - Zypad WL1100 Wearable Industrial CE6 PDA with GPS, Pocket PC, and the Blackberry. Of course, the market is always changing, and new manufacturers are always coming and going. Some of the PDS market is getting absorbed from either end into the smartphone category at the lower end and the UMPC (think mini, mini laptop) on the high end, so you might consider these devices as well.

Some quick care tips for after you get your PDA: Use furniture polish to clean your PDA, buffing out any scratches. An inexpensive alternative to a screen protector is to use a swatch of clear vinyl tablecloth from a fabric store, cut to fit the screen, stuck on with a few drops of water and using your fingers to smooth out the bubbles. In case your PDA ever gets lost, set an alarm to go off once a week and briefly flash your phone number and address on the screen, to help people find it and return it. And when worse comes to worse, remember that a hard reboot, not a soft reboot, will reset the device just like hitting Control-Alt-Delete on your home computer reboots it.

How Your Web Browsing Habits Impact Your Computer's Security

No matter if you're a home user, running a small business, or adminning for a 10,000-head corporation, web browsing will be the weak spot in your computer system's defense. Because the number one path of infection for malware continues to be the web browser. These tips will help make you a safer surfer:

Pay attention to slow-downs. - The number one sign that your machine is infected is that it runs slower than normal. That's because malware, no matter how clever, cannot hide the fact that it's sucking down 20M RAM to send spam through an open relay. Gradually lagging performance as your machine ages and you install more stuff is one thing; a sudden, overnight drain is another and should ring a bell.

When in doubt, do without. - The fewer installed programs you have, the fewer places infected programs have to hide and the more they will stick out when they do show up. It's tempting to install plug-ins and desktop toys, but keep it down to things you're actually going to use. It's tough to sort out which program is causing your browser to crash when you have ten toolbars, a bank of email smilies, an animated cursor, and a Bonzi Buddy dancing around.

Always look at the Status Bar. - That's the bar at the bottom of the web browser window, and when you hover your mouse over a link on a webpage, the destination of that link will show up there on the left. This helps you find out where you're going before you click. The hyperlink on the page might say it goes to Yahoo.com, while the address bar will show that it actually goes to http://ru.www2.yahoo.com. Where there might be a cybersquatter distributing malware.

Do not ignore critical updates of your software. - Being sure it comes from the software's vendor, of course. These updates happen because modern software teams run proactive testing on their product even after release, looking for new vulnerabilities before malware authors discover them. Why don't they do all that testing before release, you ask? They do, but new technologies and methods are going to pop up all the time, regardless of when you release your program.

Never install a media update from a site not related to your software. - So only install WMV format upgrades from Microsoft, only install Mac software from the Apple store, only install Firefox extensions from the Mozilla site, and so on. Flash player comes from Adobe.com, and Java comes from Java.com by Sun Microsystems. One of the oldest tricks is a site which gives you a pop-up asking you to update some player or plug-in to view a media file when it's actually installing malware. Here's a screenshot of one caught in the wild.

Never install a "security update" from a site you don't know. - Exactly like the last trick, malware authors have gotten very good at imitating a Windows system update. Same logo, same icons, same jargon... but coming from a MySpace page.