Open source software has clearly hit critical mass. According to Forrester Research, 55-60% of all companies now use at least some open source technologies. I just published a piece for this web site covering the basics on balancing security with open source solutions for small to midsize businesses.

Just as an ad hoc to that piece, I'd like to offer this interesting column on why more businesses are accepting open source. It's by Guy Smith from Sandhill.com and worth the read.

The ISOI meetings ended on Tuesday with some more interesting presentations. Attendees were exhorted to talk about what they could do tomorrow to solve the problems. The truth is that none of us can solve the problems tomorrow. There were several suggestions for how we can start working on solutions. There is no silver bullet, and if there was it would only be useful against werewolves anyway.

A straw poll revealed that several people received information that they would put to use immediately. Today a message came into the group that detailed how a meeting between a researcher and a law enforcement expert resulted in a new technique that has already helped prevent a type of internet fraud. The results are estimated to prevent several hundred thousands of dollars of losses.

One of the key items of discussion was the need to get information out to the general public. Many of the topics are fairly well covered on security sites, but that only reaches a small percentage of the people who need to know what is going on. I’ll try to do my part here to share information that is relevant to you in a non-techy and useful manner.

Randy Abrams is the Director of Technical Education for ESET LLC

Here I go again, going off about terabytes.

First off, here's the headline for today. The Israeli-based company, Mempile, has announced it has developed a new DVD that will hold a full terabyte of data. It's the same size as a DVD, just slightly thicker. I won't go into the science of it all. But Ars Technica has a great write-up explaining how it works, if you are so inclined.

The most important part of this announcement is the idea of a full terabye of information on a DVD. Earlier this year, Hitachi announced it was launching the first terabyte-sized hard drive for a desktop PC. Then just a few months ago, Fujitsu up'ed the ante announcing a terabyte-sized hard drive on a laptop.

Now we're talking about all that information on a mere DVD. This may sound like great news as you contemplate a DVD that would hold not just one James Bond movie, but all of them. But from a security point of view, this sounds like a nightmare to me.

Just this week in my home state of Connecticut everyone is buzzing about the stolen laptop of a State Department of Revenue employee. The laptop contained the tax records of more than a 100,000 people, including their social security numbers. It wasn't even encrypted.

I've said it before. I'll say it again. Just because you can store that much data on a laptop, doesn't mean you should!

Think about jewelers for a minute and what a little velvet sack of diamonds might be worth. Do you see jewelry store employees schlepping around town and airports with a bag of diamonds? Of course not, high end jewels don't go anywhere without an armed escort in an armoured truck. Perhaps the tax records of a 100,000 people should require the same protocol.

Now back to this DVD that holds a terabyte of data. That's 50,000 trees worth of paper! Imagine all of that on a disc small enough to slip in a pocket. Mempile doesn't expect to have these little guys ready for market before 2009. But you can bet when they do, an armed escort will not be included in the sale.

Yahoo Email To Add Text Messaging

Yahoo to that, I say. Just so we're clear what that means: Yahoo email users will be able to send a quick text message to a cell phone number online through their email client. Sweet!

By it's own admission, Yahoo is overhauling it's email to look more like a social networking tool (clearly feeling the heat from Facebook and MySpace). The new version will become available through a slow rollout this Fall over a period of six weeks or so.

My take: Yahoo may be going after the teens and twenty-somethings, but this sounds like a handy little upgrade for businesses to keep in mind. What a great way to keep in touch with colleagues in the field or on the road from your desk!

More than 250 million people worldwide use Yahoo email.

Not a good week for Microsoft, what with the Vista downgrade announcements
and now this - apparently this weekend their servers went down making zillions
of machines inoperable as they couldn't login to verify that had a non-stolen
version of the OS.

Maybe all the complexity has just become unmanageable for Microsoft at this point?

Mr. Dvorak was not pleased.

With the exception of the June launch of the iPhone, it's been a typical summer in technology - dead! Like most businesses (and academia... and network television... and the NFL), Fall is when things start cooking. Over the next week or so, I'll try to roundup product launches of interest for smaller businesses to watch for between now and the end of the year.

Today, let's start with Microsoft

Office Communications Server launches October 16th. It includes VOIP, instant messaging and audio/video conferencing all bundled into the Office Communicator client.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 launches September 19th. It features a palette of business intelligence tools (BI) to streamline employee work flow throughout the business, as well as provide analytics, accountability and security. It's priced for small to midsize businesses.

In part 1 we talked about base pay, and automation optons around it, as well as some ways to find out quickly on the net if you are currently in the right ballpark with respect to how you're paying people.

Now we're going into incentive pay, which is where compensation structures get really powerful and interesting.

As promised, an update from the ISOI3 conference. Much of the information presented here is confidential and designed to help law enforcement and others deal with internet crime. The confidentiality is to prevent the information from becoming useful to the bad guys. There is a presentation I can talk about, in part because it was discussed at the Black Hat conference.

Hillar Aaerelaid from the Estonian CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) and Gadi Evron from Beyond Security gave a presentation about the recent internet attack against Estonia and what was learned.

The IRS is warning of a new scam in which people receive and email claiming that they will receive money for filling out a survey. In this case, rather than requesting social security numbers they only ask for a name and phone number.

It is believed that those who provide their name and phone number will later receive a call in which they are asked for the rest of the information required to empty their bank accounts, or max out their credit cards.

Punch number one is the phishing email. Punch number two is what we call “vishing”, which is like phishing only it is done over the telephone. Those of you older than about 8 years will simply call it a phone scam.

At any rate, the social engineering attack is in two stages so that the target has already been set up for the request for useful information. The IRS is not going to pay you for your opinion and not going to initiate contact via email.

If this is like a “duh” moment for you then please share it with those you know who are quite gullible.

Randy Abrams is the Director of Technical Education for ESET LLC

Lenova is offering downgrades.

Geez.

How bad does Vista have to stink before companies begin to think it's profitable to enter the downgrade business?

Pee-eww!

I've been in the tech industry for decades and this is a first as far as I know.

I first saw this on the crushingly funny Fake Steve Jobs Blog.

Curt is an Author and CEO

The iPhone's been out since June 29th, which means some users have already received their second monthly statement. Good news: next month it won't be arriving in a box so heavy it sprains your wrist when you pull it out of the mail box. AT&T has heard your cries.

Apparantly, AT&T went a little crazy itemizing every call, text message, email, even every web page accessed. Some customers were literally getting statements so big that it couldn't fit in an envelope. Check out the youtube video of one customer showing off her iPhone bill/paper weight.

AT&T says it will be sending out statements sans details. Customers can get an itemized account of past activity online. There you can scroll through it on your iPhone with your finger - and without risking a paper cut!

Blackberry Tidbit

My sister-in-law just got back from vacationing in South Africa. She had no problem using her Blackberry there (it didn't work, however, while on safari in Zambia). What's interesting to me: She doesn't have the fancy new global Blackberry that came out a few months ago. It's a regular Blackberry with international service.

The ISOI task force is meeting in Washington DC on August 27th and 28th. You may have heard of us back in January when the press reported a super-secret meeting at Microsoft! Nice headlines, but the secret was on a public web site :) This is a group of individuals from a variety of companies, as well as education and government bodies who are working together to fight bots, phishing, and other internet scourges that threaten businesses and users alike. ISOI is rather unique in that those of us who participate generally do so as individuals, rather than representatives of the companies we work for. To be sure, many of our companies are fully supportive of our participation, but that’s where it ends. Information that a security company might potentially be able to use for competitive advantage is shared because ISOI is looking for tactical advantage over the bad guys... that is our goal.

We meet twice a year, but communicate year round with each other to try to take down phishing sites, botnets, compromised web sites, and share intelligence that can be used by the security community. Much of the content of the meetings will be confidential, but I’ll post some blogs while I am at the meeting and share what I can.

I would be remiss not to thank the folks sponsoring the meeting this time.

Afilias Ltd, ICANN, The Internet Society, Shinkuro, Inc., and Sunbelt Software.

And thanks to the many companies, who like my employer, are footing the bill for their researchers to take part in this event.

Randy Abrams is the Director of Technical Education for the antivirus company ESET LLC

If you're self-employed or a smaller company that has gone wireless, then you know it's a jungle out there picking out the right gear (much less installing and securing it).

The first big decision: whether to stick with the current standard of 802.11g or go ahead and invest in what's called "pre-n" (802.11n) equipment. 802.11n isn't expected to get it's official blessing as the new industry standard until next year. However, that's not stopping vendors from pumping out what they call "Draft N" WiFi equipment. The IEEEs task group working on next year's new standard for N has agreed that all "Draft N" gear (version 2.0) will be compatible with the final standard when it comes out in 2008.

In other words, green means go.

Here's a list of current Draft N products on the market today, for your perusal.

American workers are increasingly turning to Facebook as a social networking tool. Underline the word networking - as in professional networking. Facebook even offers a Linkedin application called "My Company's Hiring".

While movers and shakers love it, bosses apparantly don't! A new study put out by Sophos, an IT security firm shows roughly 50% of companies surveyed are blocking their employees from Facebook. The most popular reasons given: lost productivity and fear of TMI (too much information) given out about the company.

Another interesting nugget, however, to come out of that same survey shows those businesses that do allow Facebook actually consider it a useful business tool (for their own networking, no doubt). About eight percent of bosses that allow Facebook say they only do so because they fear the employee backlash that would come with taking it away.

Just a casual observation. If your employer is one of the blocking types, it's just as well. You should probably do your personal networking on your home computer, anyway. In fact, anything that involves the word "personal" - as in networking, profile, expression of any kind - is best kept off the company servers. And use an alias while you're at it.

Cisco Systems and the National Cyber Security Alliance commissioned a study by InsightExpress which found that 73% of mobile employees think that security is IT’s responsibility. What do the users in your company think?

The user who believes that security is somebody else’s job is a significant security risk to their company. IT’s job is to assist with security, but the user bears some responsibility as well. A car manufacturer’s job is to make a safe vehicle. The DOT is responsible for certifying that new cars meet minimum safety baselines. City, county, state, and federal government share responsibility for the safety of roads, and still the driver is responsible for operating their vehicle in a safe manner.

Policy alone will not make users take responsibility for their security. Education is paramount as well. The National Cyber Security alliance has resources for a variety of different types of users. If you haven’t been providing security training for your employees, this is a good place to start.

When embarking on a trip it is a good idea to know whose job it is to drive and that they actually know how to drive!

Randy Abrams is the Director of Technical Education for ESET LLC

Recently I wrote about the technology from Breathway, and how it's changing the banana industry.

Areogel is another magic material that's coming online in a big way.

A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.

More about this technology can be found here.

The two go together like peanut butter and jelly. Let me put it this way. Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES! Nothing beats courtesy and respect extended from a real live human being.

But!

If you want to improve your customer relations, go talk to your IT department first. I'm guessing they'll be a lot more helpful than your PR person.

This comes from the perspective of a customer - me!

1. Customers want to be treated decently by the companies they do business with. They usually want it in the form of some sort of personal contact - or at least know that personal contact is a just-hit-O away, in case they need them.

2. After that, the real issue is immediate gratification. Customers want it now! Now, as in everthing. Customers want service - now. They want the product or service they're buying - now! They want buying information about the product or service - now! They want information about delivery - now! And if you screw up, they want an apology and a tangible offer to make amends - now!

Now let me tell you about my flight home from Florida last night.

I flew from Pennsacola, Fl to Charlotte, NC and then from there switched planes to fly from Charlotte into White Plains, NY. My layover in Charlotte was to be about a hour and a half. I was traveling alone with my two small children, one with special needs.

I'll leave the airline's name out of this. The tickets were purchased on Expedia a month in advance. Sometimes you can pick your seats online. This flight didn't offer that.

Murphy's law: me, my four year old with mild autism and my six year old were assigned seats on three different rows. It happened both coming and going. I tried to get it fixed at the ticket counter. I tried to get it fixed at the gate. At every turn, I was told to just work it out with the flight attendants. Eventually, it all worked out. But only after being directed by the stews to basically pick a row of seats and become squatters, sending the passengers assigned to those seats to our real seats. It was awkward to say the least.

Back to the layover. It turned out to be four hours, instead of 90 minutes. The reason for the delay: operational. Whatever that means. No other details were made available.

My travel experience could have been much easier if the airline in question had followed my two simple rules of customer service, as explained above.

I won't bother complaining about the lack of human interaction or sensitivity. What galls me is how the airlines continue to get away with being technological hicks when it comes to customer-facing processes.

It doesn't take a Cray supercomputer to figure out how to rejigger seats and put families together on a flight. When the tickets were booked, my children were noted as young children. Can't the airline industry come up with a piece of software that would factor that in when seats are assigned? Somewhere on the vast world wide web, there's probably a free mashup available for download.

The age of the Internet has ushered in another age: the age of transparency. Customers (i.e. people) have come to expect full disclosure on everything. Companies can't simply get by with just a what anymore. They have to supply the why too. Why was my flight delayed an additional two and a half hours. Mysterious operational reasons don't cut it.

Why can't airlines figure out how to send updates by voice or text message to the cell phones of passengers when a connecting flight is delayed?

Why can't airlines set up a social networking feature on their web sites, so passengers could anonymously message other passengers on the plane swapping around seats in advance?

If airlines can develop software to juggle all the different ticketing pricing tiers among a hundred or more seats per plane, why can't they do the same to juggle the personal needs of where passengers need to sit for comfort and safety?

I don't fly often, but when I do (as in earlier this week) it seems like the process of migrating me from check-in to boarding to grabbing my bags on the way out the door is no different than it was twenty years ago. A lot of really great technology has come along since then: great ways to communicate more effectively, streamline service and customize the customer experience.

The friendly skies may be friendly, but they are medievel compared to most other business sectors today.

Perhaps August wasn't such a dead month after fall for at least one big online company that rhymes with schmebay.

Here's a roundup of what the alpha auctioneers have been up to lately.

eBay and Facebook

Two words come to mind: Of course! That's my reaction to word that eBay has launched a Facebook application. It enables sellers to embed their auction items within their Facebook page. It also allows Facebookers to post a live feed of items on their "watchlist" and share with other fellow facebook friends. You can even "push" flagged items to your friend's watchlist.

eBay and iPhone

That didn't take long! iPhone hit the streets in late June. And now quicker than you can say Pez collection, eBay developers have created an iPhone ap so you can view and bid on auction items while looking really hip at Starbucks with your new $600 smart phone.

Paypal finally launches a blog

Paypal is, of course, owned by eBay. When I stumbled across this announcement (one among many that stacked up while I was in Florida this month), I thought it was bigger news that Paypal didn't already have an official blog. (Insert shrug here) Oh well! They do now. Unlike most corporate blogs, this one could actually be a good source of tips and insights for online retailers - regardless if you use Paypal.

Coming Soon: Window Shopping

This new feature could go into testing any day now. Window shopping will allow you to search for items and get a screen full of product pictures. By simply rolling over the blingiest piece of eye candy, users will get a blow up of the picture. This will surely take impulse shopping to new heights (or lows) depending on how you look at it.

Paying people fairly is hard. Pay too much and you're not competitive. Pay too little and they leave. There are many types of bonus plans, paid time off options, and base compensation practices. How can we get something that is easy to administer, yet effective? And how
can technology help - if at all?

First we'll go into base compensation...

Have you ever gone to a hotel business center to get a little work done? Did you stop to think about how secure your data is? You should. The risks associated with business center computers can be staggering. If you open an Office document then there is probably a copy of the file in a temporary directory that is left behind after you finish your work. At one hotel I found such a document that actually spoke of cyber-security and referenced Richard Clarke, former US cyber-security Czar. The document was marked Confidential so I didn’t continue reading it, and actually deleted it for the author.

Many public computers have little or no security controls on them. Other people can either deliberately or unintentionally install malicious software on them. If you access your banking information then your account user name and pin may belong to a remote attacker.

A hotel I recently stayed at had the computer locked down and secured very well, but there was a problem with the privacy settings. I’ll use a hotel computer to print my boarding passes. When I logged on to the airline’s web site I was presented with the name of the previous passenger and their frequent flyer number. Unfortunately the computer was locked down so well I couldn’t clear the temporary files that contained this information. It was refreshing when I spoke to the hotel manager to meet someone who understood the issues, how to fix them, and appreciated being made aware.

Public computers can be used quite effectively if one understands what the risks are and what appropriate uses are. Perhaps you understand this, but do your employees? Businesses of all sizes need to have clearly communicated policies around the use of public computers for work related use. In addition to writing a policy it is a good idea to have some education so that employees understand the intent of the policy. You can’t write a concise enough policy to cover every situation, so give your employees some knowledge so they are aware of the issues and can choose to make security conscious decisions.

Randy Abrams • Director of Technical Education • ESET LLC www.eset.com

Canning started in jars. The process was invented in France in 1795 by Nicholas Appert, a chef who was determined to win the prize of 12,000 francs offered by Napoleon for a way to prevent military food supplies from spoiling. Before that time, armies would run out of steam when they ran out of pillage.

Since that time, planet Earth has increased its human population 80-fold and we have fewer famines than we did in the 1700's due to better technology for growing, storing and transporting food.

Along comes the latest idea from Breatheway. You'll see veggie trays wrapped in this stuff at Sam's or Walmart. It is a clear plastic film that is designed to naturally extend the shelf life of virtually any fresh product that would benefit from reduced oxygen levels and managed carbon dioxide levels. It turns out that shredded broccoli in a plastic package is
still alive (sort of) and it respirates, creating carbon dioxide, which speeds the spoilage process.

Breatheway's plastic film is designed to be crystalline at low temperatures (in the fridge) and let the CO2 out and become amorphous at higher temperatures (in the back of a truck) to seal it up. And it can flip back and forth an infinite number of times.

Now they're turning their attention to bananas, the bane of grocers everywhere. The percentage of bananas eaten is lower than any other fresh produce due to their extremely brief shelf life. They only taste right for about 3 days once you get'em home. Breatheway will be individually wrapping bananas at the source in central America so they can be sold one at a time in 7-11's here in the US.

It could make that crop significantly more valuable and finally enrich that neck of the woods a little bit (and they could use it).

They're owned by Landec.
I'm tempted to buy their stock just to see if they actually can change the world of bananas.

Curt is CEO of a time tracking software company and has written a book about time tracking.

A slave to trends, as president or owner of your own company, you've launched a blog on your corporate site.

Now what?

Everyone's doing it. But what the heck are you supposed to blog about?

Perhaps you should think less about what to blog about and more about how to blog!

Here's an interesting posting on Blog for Business entitled Law of Attraction Works on Corporate Sites

Final advice: no matter how uninspired you feel, blog anyway on a regular basis. Preferrably everyday during the work week and a few days a week at the very least. Better to write a little something than absolutely nothing. The more you write, the easier it'll come. It's like building a muscle.

You'll never know if you don't run web analytics to track how much traffic you're getting, what they're clicking on and how long they're staying.

That's rule number one: Get cozy with web analytics. I recommend Google's web analytic tools. They are very good and free.

Next: Where are you in the search engines? Search engine optimization (SEO) is a trip down the rabbit hole for many businesses. There are lots of people who will sell you SEO consulting work and net you nothing thousands of dollars later. That being said, deal with it. Check references. Find a firm or consultant who knows what they're doing and spend some money on it. There are 619,000 sites that pop up when you Google candy wholesalers, for example. You don't want to be somewhere around 432,443 on that list.

Exchange links with other businesses and professional organizations that are compatible with yours.

Spend some of your ad budget online. It's advertising designed to deliver eyeballs to your site, not just catch their eye on a passing billboard or in the back of a trade magazine.

Just because your site is online doesn't mean that's the only place you should promote it. Here's a great list of ways to promote your site offline (like on your business cards and on the side of your company vehicles) from Small Business CEO.

Bottomline: There's no point spending thousands of dollars on a slick company web site if you don't spend the time and energy to get people to visit. It's like opening a storefront six blocks off Main Street and then wondering why no customers ever drop by.

Remember in The Matrix when the little kid said to Neo, "There is no spoon"?

As CEO of a project timesheet company, I think about time a great deal. Part of my job involves trying to convince people that tracking their time is worth the effort. One response I got recently from a smart-aleck at a customer of ours (a giant pharmaceutical company) was "there is no such thing as time, so why track it" and he directed me to this article in Discovery magazine.

My favorite quote from the article...

“I recently went to the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder,” says Lloyd. (NIST is the government lab that houses the atomic clock that standardizes time for the nation.) “I said something like, ‘Your clocks measure time very accurately.’ They told me, ‘Our clocks do not measure time.’ I thought, Wow, that’s very humble of these guys. But they said, ‘No, time is defined to be what our clocks measure.’ Which is true. They define the time standards for the globe: Time is defined by the number of clicks of their clocks.”

Rewind to a year ago. Wal Mart decided to use this new-fangled social networking thing as a tool for its back-to-school promotional blitz.

It failed. Mistakes were made. First, it was a Wal Mart created site, heavily monitored that didn't allow messaging between users and notified parents by email when kids signed up. That may sound like a dream come true for antsy parents, but it was the kiss of death with teens. Wal Mart's visions of teenagers flocking to their site buzzing about all the great back to school clothes and supplies (uh huh!) were dashed. But not to be undone, Wal Mart did the next best thing and just planted fake teens in their site buzzing about all the great back to school clothes and supplies.

The site went quietly into that good night before the after Christmas sales.

This year Wal Mart is at again, but they've clearly learned from last year's debacle. This time Wally World is forgoing building its own site and instead has launched a group on Facebook appealing to college students to design their own dorm rooms.

What's the moral of this story for other businesses wanting to cultivate customers through social networking? Let's review...

- If you have to fake members, you've already failed. Real people can smell fake ones a mile away.

- Don't take the social out of social networking. Not allowing users to communicate with each other? Big mistake.

- Why build your own site when there's Facebook and MySpace, for example. Unless you're the kind of company that already has a robust online customer base, like Dell with it's Ideastorm site; go where the people are and then migrate them to your site when the community grows some legs.

- Building a social network for your customers is more than a promotional tool. It's more about converting your customer base into a community. With community comes more loyalty, more interaction and, thus, market intelligence from that community and better, faster customer service. You don't build a "social networking" site just to beef up pencil box and blue jean sales in August and September.

It's official, Microsoft and Google are going toe to toe in the online data storage game.

Last week Microsoft announced it's newly named Windows SkyDrive (previously Windows Live Folders). The first 500mb are free. It allows not only online file storage, but file sharing and collaboration with others. It's as easy as sending a link.

Google is up'ing the ante however, announcing it now offers larger storage options for a price. Plans range from $20 a year for 6 gigs all the way up to $500 a year for 250 gigs.

Read/Write web has a nice write up on the story that includes several links to lesser known companies with perhaps better options.

Fujisitu has announced it's the first to break the terabyte barrier on a laptop. Yipes! In fact,it's a 1.2 terabyte hard drive to be exact.

A few months ago, I noted the announcement from Hitachi that it had come up with the first terabyte hard drive for a desktop PC. I guess one for a laptop was bound to happen. I just didn't expect it so soon.

Here's the problem: that's a lot of info to be schlepping around in your briefcase. One terabyte is the equivalent of 50,000 trees worth of paper. Any database that big is going to be very valuable and require lots of security. To quote a previous posting from June, here are my thoughts about TMI (too much information) on a laptop.

June 20th, 2007th Posting Laptops: The Loose Cannons of Data Security

Call me crazy, call me madcap, but....

Just because you can fit that much data on a single laptop, doesn't mean you should.
Does the average diamond dealer tool around town with his highly portable inventory in a little felt bag on the front seat of the car, while running errands? No! Just because diamonds are highly portable, we all know that stuff doesn't leave the building unless absolutely necessary and only then under armed escort in a Brinks truck. Organizations and businesses that traffic in personal information would do well to take their cues from the jewelry business.

Apple just didn't get enough attention earlier this summer with the release of the iPhone. Behold, the latest Mac! It's sleek and completely encased in glass and aluminum just like the Dallas, TX skyline.

For $1500, you too can own a PC to match your Sub zero refrigerator and Viking range stove.

So how did we get from the first Apple PC (which looked suspiciously more like an apple box, than an apple computer) all the way to this post-modern Mac?

Check it out...

The Ascent of Mac

- 1976: The first Apple Computer

- 1984: The first Mac

- 1989: The first portable Mac

- 1993: The first color Mac,also the last Classic Mac

- 1991 - 1994: Mac Quadra (Looks like today's Compaq)

- 1997: 20th Anniversary Mac (original retail price: 10k)

- 1998: The iMac (the VW bug of computers)

- 2000: Mac G4 Cube (design inspired by Kleenex)

- 2002: Flat panel iMac

- 2004: iMac G5

- 2007: The latest iMac

There have been those that were enraged by the recent article about how Skype is pushing AT&T into the dustbin of history, which must mean it's right on the mark.

Of course the descent into freeware is a painful slide for any industry and the telecoms are no exception. I recently met an AT&T IT director at an IBM SOA conference who described what it feels like to work at a company who's service prices have changed from 25 cents/minute to essentially free in an accelerating manner over the last 30 years. It hasn't been fun.

Read that article and send us your thoughts...

Harumph! I don't think some of our British friends like us very much.

Consumer Reports has just put out its annual State of The Net report. The news is not good for our team.

- One in four Americans online are likely to be a victim of a cybercrime.

- Identify theft costs businesses and individuals $49 billion (yes, that's a 'b') last year.

- American consumers lost more than $7 billion from viruses, spyware and phishing scams.

What's this have to do with the Brits? Check out what The Inquirer is saying about our misfortunes, referring to us as a "million US idiots".

My mother always told me if you don't have anything nice to say...

There has been a lot of buzz lately about the government auctioning off the 700 Mhz frequency to the highest bidder(s). Other than the $13 billion jackpot for the government, a lot of people are left wondering what that means for them. There is a lot of speculation about what it means for the consumers, and only time will really tell, but there looks to be some immediate benefits in the way of "portability". Remember, it wasn't too long ago that you could not take your phone number with you if you left carriers, much less make your land line a wireless number. The 700 Mhz spectrum is deemed as the ideal frequency band to deliver content rich applications to wireless devices. Additionally, there will be a plethora of wireless devices working on that spectrum interchangeably. This will allow consumers to take phones with them from carrier to carrier, and drive carriers to compete aggressively on customer service and additional applications that consumers and business customers want. The concensus is that this will be very good for those who rely on high end data services from their wireless carriers. The only major drawback is that the new owners of the spectrum have spent billions of capital for their share of the spectrum that might normally have gone to infrastructure improvements and network buildout. So, I guess that means you'll get more and better applications...but only in the areas your carrier and applications providers can cover!

What is Web 2.0? What's Web 3.0? And why should you care?

Here is what Google thinks about all this.

It turns out I think that things are changing in a way that is going to be very interesting for us all.

Web design teams at ecommerce sites are clearly getting a workout these days. A new survey from Internet Retailer magazine shows 60% of all e-tailers have redesigned their web sites within the past year. 74% expect to overhaul their site within the next 12 months. Only 23% surveyed have left their site "as is" for more than two years.

If you're thinking this is a byproduct of the Web 2.0 craze (adding widgets, blogs, streaming video, etc.): think again. The real motivations for redesigning sites still boils down to the basics: making it easier for customers to shop. That means better navigation, better site search and better product organization.

Take a look at the survey. It's very meaty breaking down the popularity of certain features, costs, staffing sources, etc. Kudos to Internet Retailer. You usually have to pay for access to such an exhaustive survey. This is a treasure trove of information for any company selling online.

I've been talking all week about ways to use technology to keep the office at bay while you're on vacation this summer. I know! It's ironic: the idea of technology helping you to untether from the office given how rampantly it is used and abused as a virtual leash by most employers with their employees.

If you're one of those downtrodden workerbee's (or a hopeless workaholic) that just absolutely must keep slogging away even from a sunny caribbean island, at least travel light without your laptop.

Here's a way to do it. Check out GoToMyPC, a web site that offers remote access to your PC from any other compatible browser. By remote access, I mean total remote access: as in your email, files, applications, everything. The service is safe and encrypted and offers a 45 day free trial. So, try it this month on vacation. If you don't like it or need it after that, then dump it. Thereafter, it's about $20 a month.

p.s. Do try it out BEFORE you leave home without your laptop.

If you're running an association organization with lots of members, you might want to take a look at Affiniscape. They have a SaaS (software as a service) solution for managing your association that allows you to do everything from issue credit cards to your members with your associations logo on them, to manage recruitment drives. They also have a resume/job posting capability that you can add to your association website.

Just another step forward in the SaaS revolution.

At least keep it to a minimum! Don't let email and phone calls eat your vacation. Ideally, the office should pretend you're dead for a week or two. Unfortunately, most of us don't get "ideally".

Here are some tips to minimize the intrusions, so you can focus on your tan and your family.

- Set up a temporary gmail or hotmail account. Give it out only to colleagues and clients that you know you want to hear from on specific projects. Don't look at your regular email account and risk stumbling onto something that you can't do anything about and will only stress you out while you're away.

- Only make yourself available for specific issues or projects. If you're overly generous making yourself readily available for calls, the calls will likely get increasingly unnecessary.

- Limit work calls to a short window of time and on as few days as possible. Use your Caller ID and screen out work calls at all other times. Your colleagues back at the office will quickly get the idea that you're only taking calls or answering emails for a hour in the early morning, for example. Let them adjust around you and not the other way around. It's your vacation.

- Leave your work laptop at home, if possible. It'll keep you from caving into work demands. If you can't go without Internet access, take your kid's laptop so you can access that hotmail account. Use Google docs & spreadsheets to have web-based access to only the files you absolutely need. This will keep you from working on budgets and expense reports, etc. that can wait until you get back.

- Lie. If the folks back in Dilbert land are bugging you too much, tell them you're going to be scuba diving or hiking all day out of cell phone reach. Then unplug everything, regardless of where you are or what you're doing.

- Remember: your family, spouse, love interest, best buddies from college... whoever you're traveling with... are all getting increasingly resentful everytime you take a call or check your email. Those dirty looks and stony silences are not your imagination. It's not just your vacation you're wrecking!

Most of you reading this are likely either:

- Heading out on vacation sometime this month.
- Just getting back from vacation.
- Or, already on vacation and still enslaved to your email for fear of the buildup later in the month when you return to work.

Don't let your email get the best of you. Remember, it's there for your convenience and not the other way around.

Here are some personal tips to deal with the dreaded vacation email pile up.

1. First, nuke out all the obvious junk emails. It'll be easier to do the more important sorting with a shorter list of emails.

2. Now, sort by name. You'll quickly get an idea from the date/time stamps and subject lines which email threads are most current and still relevant. Plus, you can prioritize whose emails to read first (like your boss or most important clients)

3. Create three temporary folders: Immediate, This week and FYI. Sort your emails accordingly. Anything that doesn't go in one of those folders delete and move on.

4. For the emails requiring immediate attention, keep it short. You can always go back and respond with additional detail when you get a little more caught up. As a courtesy, explain you've just returned from vacation and will follow up more thoroughly soon.

5. If you haven't gone on vacation yet, send out an email to the people in your address book you have the heaviest communication with letting them know you will be out of the office. If they know you're gone, they're more likely to leave your inbox alone.

I hate it when people point out how easy it is to become rich on the Internet.
"Just look at those YouTube guys. Why didn't you guys do that?"

Glenn Kelman completely agrees with me.

It's as essential as a business card: the ability to sum up who you are, what you do, for whom and what makes you so darn special all within the length of time of the average elevator ride. Thus, the elevator pitch.

And we're not talking about the amount of time it takes to get to the top of the Sears Tower. Remember, I said average. Think 30 seconds.

Think also about Vator.tv: A relatively new site that kind of feels like a youtube version of Linkedin. Vator.tv is a place for business types to upload a quick video of their "elevator pitch". It hasn't been around long enough to have a robust community yet. If successful however, it could become a great place to get noticed by venture capitalists and other investors, new clients, executive recruiters, etc.

I noodled around the site for a bit last night. I see potential if it takes off. But more importantly, I see a great learning tool for businesses right now who still need to develop their elevator pitches.

Vator.tv mostly has examples of what not to do, which can actually be just as helpful as good examples.

Here are some tips of what you should do to create a good pitch for yourself or your company on the fly:

- Keep it short. Remember - 30 seconds. Not two minutes, not twenty minutes. 30 seconds!

- Keep it simple. Avoid jargon. Speak in short sentences. Less is more.

- Keep it honest. Don't oversell. Don't fudge. Don't muddy the facts. People can smell you-know-what from a mile away.

- If you make a video of your pitch for vator.tv or anyone else, do it right and hire a pro to make it for you. Amateur videos imply an amateur operation behind it.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Google is pouring hundreds of millions (pocket money at Google) into a new mobile strategy. Rumors have been flying around about this for months, including talk of a Google phone to compete with the iPhone.

WSJ quotes sources at Google who say they are in the process of wooing the major wireless carriers to offer handsets customized with a mobilized version of Google products like search, email and maps all on a new mini Google browser.

What's this all about? Ads of course. The Mobile ad market is expected to take off like a rocket anytime now.

Clearly, Google hopes to be the launch pad.

If you've been breathing easier since smoking got banned in the workplace, well not so fast. That laser printer sitting in the corner may be just as hazardous to your health as second hand smoke. This, according to a new research put out by The Queensland University of Technology in Australia.

The problem: all those little bitty toner particles emitting from the printer. The new study claims those tiny particles of toner can be drawn deep into the lungs causing respiratory or even cardiovascular problems.

Out of 62 laser printers tested, 17 were "high emitters" including Hewlett-Packard's 1320 and 1450 models and a number of other models from Canon, Richoh and Toshiba.

Inkjet anyone?