Own Up!

I have a computer lab in my home office so that I can keep up to date with programs I feel I need to know to enhance my skills or because I may need to pinch hit for a coworker. Every once in a while, the firmware update I install fries the firmware. What is most frustrating when this happens is when the support people either don't know about it or won't admit that it's a known issue.

Here are the things I've learned when this happens:

1) When the first level support person says he or she can't help you, escalate to the next level. 

2) Get a ticket number. You will need it in the future.

3) When the support person claims it's your hardware or because you installed something else, such as a firewall, don't accept that as gospel. Escalate.

4) While you're waiting for someone to get back to you, do a Google search for the issue. Sometimes you will find forums in which people have posted questions or answers about it. This makes it a known issue and that your hardware is not the cause.

5) Keep your receipts handy. You may have to appeal to the company for a refund. I'm in the process of this because a board blew on my color printer. I bought a new board and installed it before I found out that the manufacturer knew about the problem. I want a refund for the new board I should not have had to buy after all.

What is so hard about posting something on a company website that says "You may be experiencing a problem with _____, but we're working on it." That would give me more confidence in the company and make me more likely to buy another product from them in the future.


This type of approach crosses all industries. Do you recall why the packaging of medications make them hard to open? Many years ago, someone tampered with some bottles of Tylenol and put cyanide in them. Some people died. Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturer, immediately recalled all bottles of Tylenol and took steps immediately to prevent this from happening again. It was a brilliant maneuver and it kept its good reputation. It wasn't the company's fault. They could have claimed that once a product leaves its warehouse, it has no control over what happens en route to its destination or what happens at the retail level. But the management then took responsibility. Sadly, that doesn't happen today. What a shame. As a purchaser, I often have a choice. And I will exercise that choice whenever I can.

What Harm Has the LinkedIn Breach Done?

Has anyone really been impacted by LinkedIn's security breach? A few of were discussing this after paying a condolence call to my late dentist.

Even semi-active LinkedIn users knew about the breach and have changed their passwords. (A note to Twitter users. For months before the LinkedIn problem, Twitter accounts of people who rarely tweet were being hacked.) 

In addition to changing passwords, LinkedIn users should be careful about documents they post on Boxnet. Both the right people and the wrong ones can see resumes posted on Boxnet. That means they have at least two key pieces of information about you: your name and home address. My wife, an ad copy writer and journalist, has received C.V.s that contained doctor's dates of birth and their Social Security number. If they have this as a PDF attached to their website in a document accessible on LinkedIn, they are potential victims of identity theft.

The answer to my acquaintance's question about how who was impacted by the LinkedIn security lapse is: We really don't know yet. One thing is for sure. LinkedIn management was penny wise and pound foolish for not taking the extra $tep$ to prevent penetration.

Weekends are for...Work

It is Sunday morning and I admit that I have a full day of work ahead of me. Not that I mind. On weekends, it's all about family. Here's what I've done so far and expect to do today:

Saturday:
Early morning: Work on finances.
9:00 - noon: Breakfast. Try to get older son ready for the day. (He's a dawdler.)
Noon - soccer lesson with my older son.
1:00 - 3:00 - try to get the older son to relax because he's already overly tired.
3:00 -  5:00 - At Rabbi Michelle Dardashti's house for a Young Families afternoon shindig. As a committee member, I have to talk to new members and prospective ones about joining our synagogue.
5:00 - Home again for brief respite and younger son's nap.
6:30 - 9:30 - Greek Festival.
9:30 - Home again, home again, jiggetty jig. For once, the older son goes to sleep right away, but mother-in-law needs computer tech support (me).


Sunday:
Early morning - Work on my blog.
? - 1:15 - Play with the kids.

1:30 - 4:00 - T-ball game with the older son and team BBQ
4:00 - ?
Late evening - Get older son to relax and go to bed!


Ah, Mondays. I love my sons, but I can't wait to go back to work. It's so relaxing!


 





 

It Happened to Jane

A nice, quiet street, a bit off the beaten path. The neighborhood is about 50 years old, with low-keyed people living in the mostly modest homes. Several of the homeowners bought the house they grew up in or are related to each other. And then something that isn't supposed to happen happened.

Our postman, John Pellicci, noted while delivering the mail on our side of the street, that the flag was up on a house on the other side. When he turned his truck and delivered the mail on the other side of the street, there was no mail in it. Rather than dismiss it,  he rang the doorbell of the homeowner and asked her if she had put mail in her box. "Yes," she told him. She had paid some bills and put the envelopes in the box. John explained that when he was about to deliver her mail, the box was empty. He suggested that she keep an eye on her finances.

Fast forward to a month later. Jane* got her credit card bill. Guess what? There were all sorts of charges that neither she nor her husband authorized. After years of getting grief from my mother-in-law about my running to the post office for my mail, she understood my concerns. Even on a street such as ours, which gets very little foot or automobile traffic, thieves can lurk. You just can't be too cautious. Watch your back -- and your mailbox.


*Name changed to protect the victim.

Over the Top

Caron Carlson recently wrote an article called "Is the CEO's 'kitchen cabinet' cooking your goose? In it, she refers to Bob Frisch's new book, Who's in the Room?: How Great Leaders Structur and Manage the Teams Around Them. This is definitely on my list of books to read. Although the book discusses the lack of transparency when it comes to decision-making at the top levels of corporations, I've seen it happen at middle management levels, as well.

It isn't necessarily a conspiracy on the part of executives to prevent department managers and other employees from doing what they're supposed to do, such as preventing security leaks. Sometimes it's a matter of budgets and government rules and industry regulations that need to be prioritized. Which fire do you put out first? Everyone has his preference. For me, anything and everything to do with security comes first. To the sales manager, it's all about getting money needed to wine and dine customers and doing whatever it takes to get new ones.

The book is supposed to offer suggestions on how to bring proposals to fruition, but I would also be interested in tips on how to prevent existing projects from stalling. I've worked on multiple projects, so it's important for me to stay organized. I keep simple logs using Microsoft Word so that I can show my boss what I'm working on and what the status is. I include contact information on customers, people in various departments of my company and vendors. If I never need to cover my caboose on why a project isn't completed, I can always show my log to my boss and say, "The vendor said it won't be shipped for another two weeks" or "I've called So-and-So eight times about this and here were his responses." Then my boss can hound that person.

I wish everyone kept logs like this. It would help me get more detailed answers and it would help departments run more smoothly. Good communication is key in any organization.

Faster Than The Government Can Keep Up

Everyone agrees abut two things: 1) there's a huge government deficit and 2) technology is changing rapidly. So what's the issue here? The government is having a hard time finding the money to keep up with the latter.

In particular, BlackBerry devices are on the same road as the once must-have Palm Pilots.The Veterans Affair Department is now ready to authorize new mobile devices to replace their BlackBerry-only devices, but there isn't a strategy in place yet to acquire them. Of course, gadget lovers will use any excuse to get upgraded equipment and new devices, and what they want are iPhones and iPads. (The Androids and iPhones are the two leading smartphones and the iPad is still expected to outsell other tablets, even with the recent announcement by Amazon of the budget-friendly Kindle Fire.)

The VA's CIO Roger Baker told the press yesterday that "there will not be an explosion of new devices." VA employees must make a strong business case for them and they must trade in their laptops or BlackBerries.

But funding for the iPhones and iPads isn't just a matter of replacing aging BlackBerry devices. It's security. The VA had to set parameters so that adding these new devices to the existing network will not compromise the agency and expose it to security risks. "The major thing we're doing is deciding that we are going to utilize an MDM, a mobile device manager, that will enforce the policies throughout the VA." Baker explained that the MDMs will be customized with viewers to virtualize the information instead of saving the data directly to the devices, which will use a single, encrypted email client as well. With the G4 standard available, there's another thing to consider. The iPhone and iPads are on the G3 network, and the VA is still debating on whether or not to permit access to the G3. It makes sense to go forward to the G4 standard, but the popular smartphones are still on the G3 network.

Technology will continue to change rapidly, but budgets, even for the government and other large institutions, tend to lag.

http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/audio-va-cio-roger-bakers-september-it-report/2011-09-28?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

Good Paper Goods

This middle-aged computer geek has been in love with the idea of going high tech for everything since I was in high school. Except for one area -- good old fashioned paper and fountain pens for taking notes and keeping a calendar.

My favorite thing about Bank of America is that I don't need an envelope or deposit slip at the ATM. I rarely write checks by hand and I don't use check registers. I check my balances online and download my statements each month. I'm holding off on buying an iPad because I don't want to pay for a subscription to the hard copy of a magazine. I don't want the paper clutter and I want a discount for not consuming the paper.

But calendars and notes are different. During one of my stints of being unemployed, I listened to a recruiter complain that his computer was down and, therefore, he couldn't check his calendar about setting up an interview for me. I told him that I preferred to use a paper calendar for that so that I can check it immediately. I can't imagine having to fire up my computer or futz with my smartphone to check a date and time on an electronic calendar. Once upon a time smart families and efficient small offices would hot sync Palm Pilots so that everyone would know everyone's schedule, but Palm Pilots are rarely used today.

As for notes, it's much easier for to take a pad and jot down notes, especially at meetings. At work, I've often just typed out details, contacts and notes on what needed to be followed up to update the higher ups on the status of projects. Recently, I discovered a way to combine both an agenda and meeting and project notes. It's called the Rhodia Meeting Book, a complimentary copy of which I was sent to me by Exaclair, which is well-known for high quality paper goods. Other lines include Excompta, Quo Vadis, Clairefontaine and G. Lalo. Fountain pen lovers are probably also familiar with it the inks from its division, J. Herbin. All their paper is thick enough to be fountain-pen friendly. I'm a southpaw, and I find that fountain pens are easier to write with and make my handwriting more legible.


What I love about the Rhodia Meeting Book is its well-thought out layout. There's ample room for writing the goal of the project or a synopsis of a meeting, contacts, notes and steps to be taken and by whom. Color code additional note, such as for follow-up, and it's a lot more efficient and easier to read than a black and white print out of a Word document or Excel spreadsheet. Of course, you can do that and tape it onto one of the pages. Rhodia paper is heavy enough to withstanding tugging.

My wife, a fully participating member of the Sandwich Generation, introduced me to Rhodia products, and she has a sizable collection of their various notepads. She says she cannot be "tethered" to her computer for calendars, articles she's writing, even correspondence. Paper "liberates" her. And, trust me, she's no slouch when it comes to using technology.

No doubt computers have changed the way we do work and the way we live. My paper calendar and Rhodia Meeting Book make all that better, even with up-to-date technology. My biggest problem? The temptation to buy more is too easy. I work just a few blocks from Art Brown, which sells a wide variety of Rhodia products as well as fountain pens and inks.