SuSMETA http://susmeta.posterous.com Start-Ups, Small & Medium Enterprises – Technology ABCs posterous.com Sun, 06 Feb 2011 23:44:34 -0800 Customer focus - we don't get it - 1 http://susmeta.posterous.com/customer-focus-we-dont-get-it-1 http://susmeta.posterous.com/customer-focus-we-dont-get-it-1 A rant about a couple of incidents last week. And I'm naming the companies involved because their customer focus sucks and someone needs to tell the world that.

First one: ICICI Lombard and auto insurance
My wife renewed her car insurance policy by shifting to ICICI Lombard from her old insurer (New India). Cheaper rate, better valuation, no claims bonus carried forward and all that. So far, so good.

When the cover note arrived, she was referred to as "Mr." and the address on the policy was wrong (although the previous policy, of which ICICI Lombard had a copy, had the right address). Okay, so mistakes happen.

So, I went online to see if I could fix it or register a complaint or do something meaningful. After all, ICICI Lombard runs a neat online insurance purchase site which they advertise like the dickens and which I've used to buy travel insurance fairly seamlessly (credit where it's due). I found the Customer Support link on the page without much problem, clicked on it and got to the page where it seemed like I could do some of the customer support stuff online instead of dialing a number, working my way through a telephone menu and then being put on hold for twenty minutes. I jumped at the chance and clicked on the support page.

It asked me for my policy number and then one of four other identifying numbers (car registration, chassis, engine and something else which I forget). A bit strange, since after all the policy number should be unique, but okay, I'm willing to be flexible.

I tried filling in the policy number. There were four boxes to fill in the four parts of the number. Straightforward. I filled in the first three and tried to tab over to the fourth. No go. I tried clicking on it. Nada. I was using the Chrome browser on a Mac, which shouldn't make a difference but apparently it did. I tried Safari. Same problem plus a few more. Abandon Safari and switch to Firefox. At last! I can fill in everything. I fill in the policy and the engine number (last 5 digits) and click on Search.

I wait. And wait. And wait. I play a game of Freecell that takes me about a couple of minutes. 

Finally, after 4 whole minutes of waiting, the web page deigns to give me a search result. Well, actually 5 results. It pulls up 5 policies none of which are for my wife's car. None of which are even for my city - they are for Gurgaon and Secunderabad and other cities.

I tried again with the chassis number this time. Waited. Grew old. This time 6 other policies none of which were for my wife's car (and no duplicates from the previous list that I could see, either).

I gave up in sheer frustration.

There is so much wrong with what happened. 

Firstly, the ICICI site says "works best with IE" or some such disclaimer. That is stupid. Any site should work with any browser and particularly a site that is focused on customer support should work well with the widest possible range of browsers. IE's market share has been sinking for many months now and shows no sign of reversing its trend (e.g., http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9207625/Chrome_Safari_reach_record_browser_share_highs). To predicate your web policy around a single, failing browser is the height of stupidity and laziness (I'm looking at you, you .ASP programmers). To consciously exclude 44% of the market is ridiculous.

Secondly, to follow a policy numbering system that allows for duplicate numbers is just plain daft. What were those database designers smoking? Add a prefix, add a suffix, do something to make the policy number unique.

Thirdly, to take anything more than a few seconds (in the single digits) to return search results is incredibly inefficient. No excuses for that given today's high-powered database software and even higher-powered servers.

Fourthly, to return multiple results for what should be a unique combination of search criteria (policy number plus another number) is ludicrous (okay, I'm running out of polite adjectives here).

Fifthly, when none, not one, of those multiple results is the right one, then I am seriously worried about ICICI Lombard's record-keeping and database management skills. If I ever need to claim against that policy what's going to happen? Are they going to pay Srikrishna in Secunderabad instead?

Sixthly, to show multiple results that include the insured's name, address, car details, none of which pertain to me is surely a breach of privacy and security as far as those individuals are concerned. 

I'm not worried about my own privacy, of course. Heck, they couldn't find my policy anyway. Odds are no one else will either.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:56:00 -0700 Break the rules, do your own thing, but do it right http://susmeta.posterous.com/break-the-rules-do-your-own-thing-but-do-it-r http://susmeta.posterous.com/break-the-rules-do-your-own-thing-but-do-it-r
Great article from Wired (though a bit dated: it’s from 2008) on how Apple breaks almost every management rule and still dominates its chosen niches (and yes, Microsoft notwithstanding, it does dominate the PC and notebook industry in its chosen niche of high-end, super-cool-to-use desktops and laptops):

Required reading.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Mon, 17 May 2010 08:47:04 -0700 Small businesses can use tech to save money http://susmeta.posterous.com/small-businesses-can-use-tech-to-save-money http://susmeta.posterous.com/small-businesses-can-use-tech-to-save-money I've been sort of neglecting this blog for a bit while I teach myself Ruby on Rails, Applescript and relearn all the CSS and XHTML I forgot while doing 'management things'. Forgot how much fun it is to write code.

Anyway, to tide things over, here's a link to an interesting Mashable article on SuSMETA type topics. Says much the same thing I've been saying for at least the last couple of years.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:06:29 -0700 Moo, er, tweet? http://susmeta.posterous.com/moo-er-tweet http://susmeta.posterous.com/moo-er-tweet Cows tweeting about their milk production. Fascinating use of technology in a millennia-old process. And poetic too. http://mashable.com/2010/04/27/cows-on-twitter/

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:56:08 -0700 India, Google and privacy http://susmeta.posterous.com/india-google-and-privacy http://susmeta.posterous.com/india-google-and-privacy Interesting map of countries that have either asked Google for information on users or have asked Google to remove content: http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/

For the six months from Jul 1 2009 to Dec 31 2009, India ranks 3 on removal requests (142) and 4 on data requests. Our bedfellows (above us on the charts): Brazil, US, UK and Germany. 

Are these indicators of governments being proactive, snoopy, paranoid? Efficient? More info needed.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:45:24 -0700 Crashplan http://susmeta.posterous.com/crashplan http://susmeta.posterous.com/crashplan
Whoa, there, let's backup a bit.

Okay, bad pun.

Seriously, though, backup is something everyone should take very seriously and almost no one does. Ironically, the people who should back up the most diligently, i.e., the non-geeks, are the ones who almost never do so.

Backups are painful to do, take time, space, cosmic energy and are no fun. Until your hard drive crashes and you lose all those photos of grandma on the rollercoaster.

Enter Crashplan.

Crashplan

Important pricing information:
Free, as in no money required. Or, as low as $5 p.m., but read the fine print.

You need:
An internet connection, preferably one that's always on while your computer is on. And a suitable lead time for the first backup - if you have lots of data, it could be running (auto) for several days. A local disk is faster but is not an offsite backup.
I tend to be OCD about backups. I've used a raft of backup software and currently use no less than three different backup programs on two machines.

One is Time Machine that comes bundled with the Mac. Simple, loads of eye candy, but only backs up to a local (external) hard disk. So, if a power surge fries my equipment or a burglar climbs in the window, my originals and my backup both stand an equal chance of consignment into oblivion.

So, I also use Mozy. For $5 per machine per month, it backs up my stuff into the cloud (Mozy's servers), so now my backup also sits off my premises. But $5 per machine per month adds up when you have 5 machines in the household. And restoring 60+ Gb from the cloud can be sl-o-o-w (I hope I never have to find out how slow). And Mozy doesn't do local backups, so I need to use Mozy + Time Machine.

Cue the trumpets and cymbals.

Crashplan backs up an unlimited number of machines in a household and an unlimited number of Gb to the cloud (Crashplan's servers) for about $8 per month. The downside is you pay upfront for the full year, rather than monthly as for Mozy. If you pay for 3 years, the cost per month comes down to $5.

That's not all. If you like living on the edge and don't opt for the cloud backup, then Crashplan is completely free. With the software download you back up locally to any other machine/s on your network. That's not all. 

If you have a friend you can trust, you can backup your machine to hers and vice versa  - all for free (over your internet connection, so it could be slow).

Like Mozy and Time Machine, Crashplan works in the background, so you set it and forget it. If you like, you get weekly emails giving you the backup status.

Oh, and it's cross platform - Mac, Win, Linux, whatever.

Automatic backups, local backups, cloud backups, backups to friends, free or cheap.... Crashplan has you covered.

It's a no-brainer.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:17:08 -0700 Cloudy thinking http://susmeta.posterous.com/cloudy-thinking http://susmeta.posterous.com/cloudy-thinking
Bumped into this article a week back, on Yale’s delaying its switch to Google Apps. The full article is here (Mashable).

While reading it, it struck me that there’s more to this than meets the eye. Ideological issues? What are we discussing here, whether to invade China? Statements like “was met with concerns and reservations from the faculty and administration. Several felt the decision had been made too hastily and without proper University approval” reeks of an incredible degree of resistance to change. 

A university, in theory, is supposed to be a think tank and a trend setter and a research hot bed, adopting, adapting and espousing the cutting edge. Let’s not forget that the Internet’s daddy, ARPANET itself was created by professorial geeks to link up three universities and a research institute (see Wikipedia) and the world wide web was invented by a professor working as an independent contractor at CERN.

This statement from Yale does not sound like they are keeping the pioneering flag flying. It sounds more like bureaucracy at its very finest.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:49:20 -0700 YATS! http://susmeta.posterous.com/yats http://susmeta.posterous.com/yats YATS!

Ok, so I'm partial to acronyms: they make for good mnemonics. Today's acronym is special because the last letter stands for another acronym, which makes this, what, a super-acronym?

Maybe.

YATS stands for Yet Another Technology Snafu and snafu, of course, stands for situation normal all... er... up. You get it, I'm sure, everybody's been there.

At the start of the weekend, a bunch of us friends decided to meet for dinner at one of the city's more famous and better Chinese restaurants. We were four couples and, rather than get into the usual Indian hosting tussle about who gets to pay the bill (used to amuse my kids no end when they were younger), we decided to be all grown up and mature about this and opted to split the bill four ways. Two of us had plastic and the other two wanted to pay with real Gs.

(Semantic aside: "real Gs" are thousand-rupee notes that have Gandhiji's portrait on them. Unlike some other currencies, all denominations of Indian currency notes have a portrait of Gandhi (G) on them, but only the thousand rupee notes have a colloquial nomenclature that matches the initial, a 'grand' being a thousand, and hence abbreviated to a 'g'.)

(Philosophical aside: Why does the RBI print on the currency notes it issues, a portrait of the only Indian leader who can honestly be said to have had no interest in money? Perhaps we should change the portrait with each issue of notes to show a more recent politician or two, who are rather well known to be interested in money. That would have the twin advantages of making the currency more current (ha, ha) as well as stymieing the counterfeiters.)

Back to the story.

We asked the maitre d' to split the bill four ways. He said, no can do. 'Our software does not allow that. And we cannot split the bill for liquor.'

Ok-a-a-y.
The two who wanted to pay real Gs gave the other two their share and the two plastic warriors put down their cards and asked the waiter to split the bill in two.

No can do, sir. 'Our software does not allow that. And we cannot split the bill for liquor.'

Huh.

So put the entire liquor bill on one card, and put part of the food bill on that card, and the rest on the other card, so that both cards get an equal charge. A ten year old with a pocket calculator could do that faster than it took me to type out this paragraph. My neighborhood paanwalla could work that out in his head.

'Sorry, sir, our software does not allow that. We can only do an equal split on two cards.'

I thought technology was supposed to be an enabler. Here's one business that has succeeded in shooting itself squarely in the foot using technology. Unfortunately, it has plenty of company.

We ended up doing sums on the back of the bill, exchanging more real Gs with each other and generally destroying the satisfied feeling that follows a good meal. Next time, we'll fight over the bill. It's easier than lousy software.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:44:02 -0700 The day the falls didn't http://susmeta.posterous.com/the-day-the-falls-didnt http://susmeta.posterous.com/the-day-the-falls-didnt
March 30, 1848: Niagara Falls didn't. 

More at Wired.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:37:44 -0700 Heads in the clouds? Unfortunately, no. http://susmeta.posterous.com/heads-in-the-clouds-unfortunately-no http://susmeta.posterous.com/heads-in-the-clouds-unfortunately-no Looks like I'm not the only one with a poor opinion of CIOs (still CTOs in the Indian context). Here's Marc Benioff of salesforce.com deploring their stick-in-the-mudness:

"My message to them: We are moving from Cloud 1 to Cloud 2, and the iPad is the accelerator. Many of them haven’t even made it to Cloud 1—some are still on mainframes. They are working on MVS/CICS, or Lotus Notes, and they have never heard of Cocoa, or even that there is now HTML 5. This is unacceptable. The next generation is here. The iPad that shows us what now is really possible—and that we all need to go faster. Unfortunately, some CIOs would rather retire than go faster."

 I like that last line, so true. Read the full article here.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Mon, 29 Mar 2010 08:41:00 -0700 LEEN - nope, not a misspelling http://susmeta.posterous.com/leen-nope-not-a-misspelling http://susmeta.posterous.com/leen-nope-not-a-misspelling
[This is the second of a number of blog entries tackling technology adoption. Click on the "ceo questions" tag to see the others.]

Time to start tackling the questions. Funnily enough, the first one is the longest one, but probably merits the shortest discussion. Er, I hope.

Question 1 was “What is my line of business, my set of core competencies and where does technology fit into that answer?”

Of course, the first two parts of the question are pretty much the sort of introspection that every company, every founder, every owner, every CEO and pretty much everybody who makes any strategic decisions for a business needs to do constantly. And, of course, precious few do so on a regular basis or with anything approaching true intellectual honesty, which is why one finds so many companies getting into disastrous mergers, overreaching on their expansion, misreading their markets, and so on. The details of this are well beyond the scope of this blog, but I’m sure they have been the subject of many a doctoral thesis and management book.

I’m more interested in the latter part of the question: “where does technology fit?” My experience has been that way too many CEOs have at best a misguided idea about this, and at worst, absolutely no idea. 

There are a variety of models that businesses follow when it comes to technology. In broad terms, I would classify them using the acronym LEEN, into the following four, starting from one extreme and ending at the other, and, of course, plenty of companies change models as they go along (notice, my reluctance to use the word “progress”). 

1. Luddite: Technology is all very well, but we don’t really need it, so ok, we’ll do something tech if you twist our arms. Really hard.
2. Enthusiast: Technology is interesting, but we don’t understand it, so we’ll do what the guy next door is doing.
3. Expert: Technology is useful, we know what it can do for us, so we use it selectively and intelligently.
4. Nutcase: Technology is the greatest thing since sliced bread, we love it and can’t get enough of it, we’ll take a dozen of those.

Let’s look at examples I have encountered of adherents to each model, just for the sheer fun of it.

1. Luddite: In the late 90s when I was selling ‘technology’ to the legal sector in India, practically every law firm I encountered fell into this category. The really progressive ones were using electronic typewriters. And the ones on the bleeding edge had a solitary PC tucked into somebody senior’s room, somebody who didn’t know how to use it, and would grudgingly allow a tame junior to enter his hallowed precinct and sit at the keyboard for a little while each day. To this day, I know of ‘busy’ managers who have their secretaries print out their emails.

2. Enthusiast: A classic example of this is the rush towards the holy grail of ‘ERP’ in the eighties and nineties. Everybody and his uncle wanted an ERP solution, never mind the cost. My competitor has one, so it must be great, so let’s get one too. Now, this is not to belittle ERP, which, if it’s done right, can be useful, but doing it right comes at a huge cost. And I’m not talking about the software or even the hardware. The true cost of doing ERP right is an honest and thorough analysis of every business process within the organisation, and in many cases, undergoing some serious re-engineering to ensure that you are doing it the best possible way. If you don’t do that, you are not going to get the benefit of all those millions you will be spending on ERP. And all of this takes time, perseverance, commitment and constant renewal of this commitment from the very top downwards. Too few companies realized this and that is why so many ERP initiatives took so long or never delivered on their promise. (Most surveys quote numbers well over the halfway mark for customers who were ‘dissatisfied’ or considered ERP a ‘failure’: http://www.it-cortex.com/Stat_Failure_Rate.htm and http://erp.ittoolbox.com/documents/successfail-rates-for-erp-implementations-12546) 

3. Expert: This is an admittedly tough category - not too many great examples, which is kind of dispiriting. But some that I know of include online banking as offered by HSBC and Citibank, but not Bank of Baroda, and email, which most companies have got (more or less) right.

4. Nutcase: I used to know a gentleman whose company was a client of my company’s and every time I visited his office, which was fairly frequently, he would have upgraded his hardware and would be using some piece of equipment that was absolutely the latest and greatest in its space. He was using a 24”monitor in the nineties, when it probably cost as much as a small car. Did he need to? Absolutely not. But he got a real kick out of having the latest and biggest and brightest (and most expensive) gadget around. There are plenty like him - the ones who stand in line outside the Apple stores whenever a new Apple whizmo is released have lots of company. And more than a few Enthusiasts become de facto Nutcases, when they hide their ignorance behind a large technology budget.

Now an astute reader (yes, that means you) would have realised the the LEEN model also approximately describes the maturity curve for technology adoption. First, they don’t want it; then because someone else has it, they want one; then they start using it correctly; then they go overboard.

Today, there’s a lot less of the L phase than there used to be, loads of the first E (enthusiast); not enough of the second E (expert); and a generous share of the N.

The predominance of the Enthusiast adherents are because not enough CEOs and business owners know enough about  technology to ask smart questions of those who advise them about technology. They are only too willing to listen to the CTO, who almost invariably recommends the technology that he is interested in, or is comfortable with, or wants to get experience in so it shows up on his resumé, or provides the heftiest kickback (sad, but true).

The strange thing is that on most other counts, these same owners and CEOs are pretty savvy folk, smart, sensible, driven and any other adjective you can think of that describes a recipe for success.

But when it comes to deciding whether technology is appropriate or relevant to their company and the business that they are in, they almost totally abdicate responsibility to a CTO whose goals are really very different from theirs. It’s as if they have decided that this is something they can never really understand, but it needs to be done, so they’re going to lie down and let someone whom they think understands this, roll all over them.

Harsh?

Not a bit.

These smart folk need to take a conscious decision to educate themselves about technology (not rocket science, and I’m not advocating they charge out and learn programming or how to set up a wireless network), so that they know the answers to the following questions and can put it all together coherently, so as to arrive at an informed decision:
* what does (a particular) technology do for their business?
* what are the alternatives (yes, including ‘non-tech’ ones)?
* what does it cost? (this is a doozy - much more on this later in another post)
* how long will it take?
* how much training is required?
* what specialist skills are required?
* why are they proposing to adopt this?
* why now rather than later (or never)?
* who is going to use this?
* how is it going to be used?

And when I say, “know the answers,” I don’t mean regurgitating what their CTO or resident expert has fed them. This knowledge needs to come from the CEO’s own “real” understanding of the answers, preferably backed by his own firsthand research. It’s not difficult with all the resources of the Internet a mere click away. And it needs to be firsthand because the stakes are higher than are immediately apparent. This needs to be given the importance it merits.

 

If a CEO or owner sits down with say, an interviewer for a TV show, and can give coherent, simple English answers to the above questions, then he knows that he is adopting this bit of technology for the right reasons, and it has a much better chance of being a successful adoption than if the CTO is the one doing the answering. The company will have moved from Enthusiast (or Nutcase) to the sweet spot: Expert.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:09:25 -0700 User Interface Nirvana http://susmeta.posterous.com/user-interface-nirvana http://susmeta.posterous.com/user-interface-nirvana A stunning collection of gorgeous user interfaces at http://wellplacedpixels.com and some pretty nifty programs too! Epitomises what first hit me when I moved to the Mac - the user interfaces are so much sexier than almost anything on Windows. 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:37:00 -0700 CEO, COO, CTO - Questions you should ask yourself http://susmeta.posterous.com/ceo-coo-cto-questions-you-should-ask-yourself http://susmeta.posterous.com/ceo-coo-cto-questions-you-should-ask-yourself
I find it both amazing and dispiriting that too many businesses do not ask themselves the right questions about technology. With a view to helping them think along the right lines, I am proposing the following list of questions that every CEO, COO and CTO must find answers to before they jump into technology with both feet and while they’re paddling furiously along the tech wave. I also hope to provide some answers to these questions in later blog entries, though it will probably take me several weeks to do justice to this entire list.

So, here goes:

  1. What is my line of business, my set of core competencies and where does technology fit into that answer?
  2. How can technology enable me to do more of what I do, do it easier, cheaper, smarter?
  3. Who should drive technology adoption and adaptation?
  4. Laptops or Desktops?
  5. Windows or Mac?
  6. Microsoft Office or something else?
  7. Open source or proprietary?
  8. Printers?
  9. Handhelds / mobiles - do I need them, will they help, how, will it be worth it?
  10. Connectivity - how fast, how secure, how redundant?
  11. Website - why, what should it do, what does it do?
  12. Email - how, why, who?
  13. Security - how, what, how much, where?
  14. Servers or the Cloud?
  15. Networks - wired, wireless, WAN, LAN, VPN, WTF?
  16. Training - important or waste of man-hours?
  17. Backups - how, how many, when, how often, where?
  18. Redundancy - how much?

Okay, those should be enough to be getting on with, though I’m sure there are plenty more where those came from. Look for answers to these in the coming weeks.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:19:00 -0700 Google Quick Search Box http://susmeta.posterous.com/google-quick-search-box-7 http://susmeta.posterous.com/google-quick-search-box-7
For keyboard lovers on the Mac, QSB is hard to beat. Give your mouse a sabbatical.

(There are also Windows and Linux versions but allegedly not a patch on the Mac version. See History below for reasons why.)

Use it to launch apps, as a clipboard manager, look up addresses, search through Wikipedia, play songs from your iTunes library, do quick calculations, and lots more, all with a clutch of a few keystrokes, tabs and Enters. 

Media_httpqsbmacgoogl_etqjf

Important pricing information:
Free, as in no money required. Ever.

Start:
Hit http://code.google.com/p/qsb-mac/downloads/list and download the latest version, load the dmg, copy the app from it into your Applications folder and eject and trash the dmg. Start the Google Quick Search Box application. 

Usage:
To use it, tap Command-Command (the default combo to bring QSB up) and start typing iTunes. Within a few keystrokes you should see the iTunes icon, large as life and the iTunes app will be highlighted in the pop up list. Hit Enter and iTunes will launch. 

Try this with any other application that’s installed on your Mac. Beats scrounging around the dock or through the apps folder. 

But that’s just scratching the surface of what you can do with QSB. For a great set of tutorials, what-you-can-dos and how-tos, see the Getting Started, FAQs and documentation links on the main QSB page: http://code.google.com/p/qsb-mac/. No point my restating the already-stated.

I use it to perform quick calculations without needing Calculator, to look up phone numbers in my Address Book, to play songs from my iTunes library, search Wikipedia, look up the Thesaurus or Dictionary... super quick!

History, for those who like that kind of thing:
If you’ve been around computers for some time (and you’re a half-way decent touch typist) you’ve probably figured out that it’s faster to simply type in stuff than mess around with a mouse. Actually, that’s one thing that I found Windows better at doing when I first shifted to the Mac - helping me ditch the mouse for long periods of time and access most everything with the keyboard. My unconscious had memorized a raft of keyboard shortcuts for apps and menus and I could just blaze through stuff. I missed that on the Mac and chafed at its insistence on mousing around for a lot of things.

Of course, once I got familiar with the Mac, I found there was a truckload of stuff I could do with just the keyboard. Then I discovered Quicksilver and it was as if I’d been given the keys to the kingdom (no pun intended). Life was hunky-dory until two things happened. Snow Leopard came into my life and onto my Mac and the developer of Quicksilver announced that he was going to stop further development of QS.

QS started misbehaving on my newly Snow Leoparded Mac and although the open source community had adopted QS and was continuing with its development, progress was erratic and the performance of QS was no longer predictable. I had got so used to QS that I continued to limp along with even a half-broken version just so I could use some of its functionality.

Then I discovered that the developer of QS had moved to Google and was starting from scratch as lead developer for QSB - Quick Search Box. I suspect the choice of name had a lot to do with its congruence as an abbreviation with QS. Quick as a snow leopard I bounded over to the site, downloaded QSB and got back to those keystrokes.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:42:40 -0700 Red-eye special http://susmeta.posterous.com/red-eye-special http://susmeta.posterous.com/red-eye-special Awe-inspiring photo of Jupiter and the Great Red Spot – the longest-running and largest storm in the solar system that we know of – 300+ years and counting! Humbling when you consider that three Earths could fit side by side into the Red Spot and that’s just a blob on Jupiter.
Jupiter, courtesy Wired

Read more at Wired.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:41:00 -0700 Dropbox http://susmeta.posterous.com/dropbox-283 http://susmeta.posterous.com/dropbox-283

Enough with the philosophy, for the time being, anyway. Today I’m going to blog about my favorite file-sharing trick. It’s called Dropbox and no, it’s not a little-known Eastern martial art.

It’s a pretty well-known, and deserves to be known even better,  software and service that allows you to:

- painlessly share files with others
- painlessly share files with yourself
- painlessly back up your critical files
- painlessly share files between Windows and Mac computers

Important pricing information:

Free, as in no money required. For that enormous sum of FREE, you get a 2GB account, which if you’re not knowledgeable about these things is the rough equivalent of storing over 2000 of your average-sized Word documents or Excel spreadsheets. Pretty decent.

You need:
An internet connection, preferably one that’s always on while your computer is on.
Start:
Nip over to www.dropbox.com, sign up for an account, download the software, install it and you’re on your way.
Nitty-gritty:

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the software, you’ll see a new folder in your File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) window, called, not surprisingly, Dropbox. This is for all intents and purposes, a normal folder like any other on your computer. Copy files into it, create sub-folders, save new files to it, delete files from it – all the normal file/folder stuff you would do, go ahead and do it.

The magic in this folder is that whatever you put into it, gets automagically copied up to the Dropbox servers without you having to do a thing. (That’s why you need the internet connection on. If it’s off, no big deal, except that the copying to the Dropbox server gets postponed until your internet connection is back on.)

Download the software and install it on as many computers as you have – your office machine, your laptop, your home desktop, your iPhone… When you do the install on each, remember to log in (when prompted) with the same account details as you filled in when you set up your new account on the Dropbox site. This is a one-time thing.

Sharing files with yourself:
You’ve worked on a bunch of files in office and you need to get back to work on them when you get home. (Remember, work-life balance is important!) Pop them into your Dropbox folder. When you get home and turn on your home desktop, they’ll automagically be copied down to it and you’re ready to roll.
Sharing files with others, say, Jack:
Do this on the Dropbox site. Log in and you’ll see your Dropbox folder contents in your browser.  The best, i.e., most flexible, way is to create a new folder to share with Jack. Use the options you see on the site to create a folder and share it with Jack. You’ll need Jack’s email id. Jack will receive an email from Dropbox and if he’s not already a member, he’ll have to sign up for an account, download the software and accept your invitation. If he’s already a Dropbox member, he just has to accept your invitation. Once he does that, the contents of Jack’s Folder are mirrored on both your machines. If either of you copy stuff into it or make changes, those are reflected on both your machines. If either of you delete stuff from it, it vanishes from both your machines. (More on deletion later.) This beats the email approach because there is no limit on the file size or number of files you can share (subject, of course, to that overall 2GB) unlike email which usually restricts the size of each file and the number of files and even the types of files you can share (no .exes, for example). And you don’t need to check into your email a/c and download and save the files manually.
Note about that 2GB:
When you share files with Jack, the size of the files you share is common to both your accounts. So, you have a 2Gb account to start with and Jack has one too, so together you have 4Gb. Now, if you share files with him that are 1Gb in size, together you have only 3 Gb of storage, because that 1Gb is common to the both of you, so each of you have only 1 Gb left over for your unshared files. If you share folders with too many people, you’ll find the space for your own unshared stuff vanishing pretty rapidly. Be smart about sharing and moving stuff off Dropbox.
Back-ups:
Since whatever is in the Dropbox folder is automagically copied to the Dropbox folder, that’s a basic-level automatic backup right there! What about the stuff you delete? That’s where it gets interesting. While deleted stuff vanishes from your own computer a copy is retained on the Dropbox server. So, if you login to your Dropbox account at www.dropbox.com, you get a chance to undelete (click on Show deleted files) and restore any file you may have deleted. For an undeleted file, you can even choose which version of the  file you want to restore, in case multiple versions are floating around (typically, when you’ve been making changes to it in instalments), by right-clicking on it right on your own computer (no need to visit the website).
(Naturally, this isn’t a get-out-of-jail-forever card. At some point, deleted files will get permanently removed from your account. 30 days is what the Dropbox site says.)
Cross-platform:
Of course, this works on both Mac and Windows, so it’s a great way to share files between platforms.
Tip:
Dropbox installs a tiny icon in your menu bar (Mac) or system tray (Windows). Keep an eye on that. If it shows a green tick, that means all the files on your computer are the latest versions. If it shows a little rotating blue arrow, it means that the files are still being synced between your computer and the Dropbox server, so don’t shut down your computer till that’s done.
Downside:
2 Gb is less than unlimited GB, but it’s still a pretty generous amount. No downside here, unless you want to be churlish.
If you want more than 2GB storage, of course, you can go there, but Free no longer applies. 50Gb is $100/year and 100Gb is $200/year. Still pretty decent considering the other functionality you get with the account, but only for the real pack-rats.
Privacy and security?
Aha, the favorite whipping-boy of the ‘knowledgeable’ techie. As private and secure as privacy and security go on the Web (note to self: topic for a whole new blog post!). Your files are protected by your username and password and are stored encrypted on Dropbox servers (which are actually managed by Amazon, which has its own rigorous security protocols), so actually, the real security hazard here is you being generously stupid or stupidly generous with your password or leaving your computer unprotected when you walk away from it.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:36:00 -0700 Libellous thoughts http://susmeta.posterous.com/libellous-thoughts http://susmeta.posterous.com/libellous-thoughts

I read an interesting article today in TechCrunch on how a newspaper published a libellous headline, which was promptly propagated across the Web, including to ‘far-flung newspaper websites as the Times of India.’ The newspaper realised its mistake within an hour, and changed the headline, but by then the damage had been done.

A second story in the same article was about another newspaper which published a false and again libellous headline in an article about Facebook, realised it and changed the headline.

In both cases, the newspapers used URLs (the link that points to the article) that also included the libellous material. So, if the headline said ‘Hooker who became an Agony Aunt’, the URL would have looked something like www.newspaper.com/hooker_who_became_agony_aunt/. (That’s only an illustrative URL, not the real one, so don’t try clicking it – ’twill get you nowhere.)

In both cases, the newspapers changed the offending headlines reasonably promptly, but took more time (‘several hours’) to change the URL.

An assistant editor of one of the papers, when asked why it took more than 24 hours to change the URL replied that ‘it was “a technical matter”, adding: “We are removing elements of that”.’ [Translation: I don’t know how to change the URL, I don’t know why it’s taking so long, but someone, somewhere is surely doing something about it. I hope.]

The author of the article that discussed this story, Paul Carr, opined that “The simple fact is that many editors have absolutely no idea how their papers work any more. “

I would modify that sentence to read:

“The simple fact is that many owners and managers have absolutely no idea how their businesses work any more. “

It’s a bold statement and needs some amplification.

But before we get there, let’s look at some of the implicit lessons in this tale of newspapers, headlines and URLs.

  1. All businesses, even traditional ones that have been around for centuries, are today increasingly dependent on technology.
  2. The effects of this dependence are that things happen faster than they used to, so reaction times need to be faster, and they happen very differently from the way they used to, so new skills need to be learned.
  3. Technology, by its very nature, tends to be a specialist domain, a ‘technical matter’, and there is an unspoken belief that only ‘techies’ get technology and for the rest of us, the great unwashed, there is no hope but to rely on this new priesthood. [See the quote from the editor, above.]

Naturally, techies themselves have done nothing to dispel this belief. You surely don’t expect the priesthood to denounce the religion. Everybody conspires to foster this belief because it’s just more convenient all around. Techies get to decide on matters technological and the rest of us assume that these are matters beyond our ken, so we jump onto the bandwagon and sign on for the ride. Everybody’s ‘doing’ technology, so we must do it too, and if (because) we don’t understand it, we’ll rely on others who claim to.

I have personal knowledge of some very smart business leaders, spokespersons of their industries, who have allowed their companies and businesses to make foolish, expensive, criminally insane decisions with respect to technology. These leaders are experts in their own fields and some of those fields are technological in nature (the planes, trains and medical imaging stuff), but their experience of technology stops at the borders of their own chosen area of expertise. Which is fine, but one would expect these leaders to be able to apply their obvious intelligence and leadership skills to such a critical area as technology, but for some reason, they choose not to. That’s the closest I can come to an  explanation for this very irrational behavior: they choose not to understand it.

If you dispute my findings, I must admit that these are not the result of a scientific survey, but they are based on the observations of a quarter century of intimate interaction with technology, techies and non-techies. If you’d like more scientific evidence of the fact that people just plain make wrong decisions about technology, see the following links

http://www.it-cortex.com/Stat_Failure_Rate.htm which references a raft of studies showing abysmal success rates for IT projects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield_(software_development) with similarly depressing news when it comes to implementing technology in existing environments (hence the term ‘brownfield’ as opposed to ‘greenfield’)

Sure, technology is complex, it’s new, it’s conceptually unfamiliar in many ways, it’s constantly evolving the way almost nothing else is and at speeds that we as a species have never experienced. But that can’t be the reasons for our inability as individuals to understand and use technology in the best, most commonsense way possible. C’mon, we invented the darn thing, after all!

It is my postulation that these dismal statistics are rooted in a failure of leadership – the non-techie leaders choose not to understand technology and therefore make wrong, stupid, expensive decisions.

I have no clue why they make this choice to not understand: fear, pressures of other responsibilities, misguided advice… the potential list is long.

I am not advocating all of us to charge out there and become programmers and chip designers. All I would like to see is people take the trouble to understand technology, even if at a very basic level, so that sensible decisions can be taken in full knowledge of their consequences, good and bad.

Technology can be hugely beneficial if applied sensibly.  Forlorn hope? One lives on hope.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:26:04 -0700 Because every blog needs a reason http://susmeta.posterous.com/because-every-blog-needs-a-reason http://susmeta.posterous.com/because-every-blog-needs-a-reason

I have been thinking about starting this blog for sometime, because, yeah, the world needs another blog. Over the last few years my conviction that people in leadership approach technology with their heads in the sand has been increasingly borne out by events that I see all around me. While debating with myself whether the world needs my blog or not, I came across an article on Techcrunch (see next post) that pushed me over the edge and this blog has been born.

In it, I will attempt to focus on technology as I define it, which is to say:

In most of this blog, when I use the word ‘technology’ it’s as a shorthand for personal computers, servers, networks, software, hardware, the Web, mobile phones and similar examples of the digital domain that pervades our every working and leisure moment. I am not referring to the broader meaning of ‘technology’ which would include planes, trains and automobiles and solar energy power and modern medicines and medical  imaging and robotic surgery and so on.

I hope to rave and rant and provoke and recommend and advocate. And I do this from my own perspective as a non-techie who ‘gets’ technology, enjoys it, has seen it change my life and has seen it being abused, misused and confused in too many businesses and organizations to be comfortable about it any longer.

I have named the blog for Start-up and Small and Medium Enterprises, because these are the ones that can benefit the most from technology and these are the very ones who are getting it all wrong, most of the time. It is unfortunate that they are also the ones who cannot afford to do so, and they also usually cannot afford sound advice on the matter.  The larger enterprises can afford mistakes (to a greater extent than the smaller ones can, at least) and can afford to pay for advice, its soundness or otherwise notwithstanding.

So, SuSMETA has been born. The resemblance of its name to an alluring damsel is entirely coincidental.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/477986/VH.JPG http://posterous.com/users/5erxJErFCSfD Vivek Hurry Vivek Vivek Hurry