Certainty is Overrated

"Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance." - Fooled By Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2005, p.x.

"Could you make a pattern out of any of this? Stitch together the seeming randomness into something that had meaning? Is that what life was about, he wondered: trying to make that pattern, to have things make sense?" - Ysabel, Guy Gavriel Kay, 2007, p. 319.

As someone who has been involved with software implementation for many years, I am ashamed to admit that I am still surprised when projects don't proceed as planned. After all, a lot of very smart people are involved in software design, business analysis, project management and the actual implementation. But inevitably, stuff happens.

Sure, we put together risk management plans, we set milestones and work breakdown structures, we work on communication strategies, and we capture experiential knowledge. We do, in short, everything humanly possible to eliminate uncertainty and randomness. In hindsight, we almost magically recognize patterns that we should have anticipated or even recognized when they were happening...but we didn't.

In the quote from Ysabel, it is a fifteen-year-old wondering about the nature of life. We might inwardly smile and think the kid has a lot to learn. In the quote from Taleb's book, we recognize the wisdom of someone with plenty of experience.

So why the surprise? Why the shock when things don't work out as planned?

The simple answer is that the fifteen-year-old is always with us, no matter how old we get chronologically. No matter how much wisdom we accumulate, no matter how experienced we might become in the ways of the world, no matter how systematic we are in our methodological skepticism, randomness and uncertainty hardly ever become our companion.

I see this in myself all the time. I look for the patterns. I try to predict. I map out the typical and common pathways.

Yes, I am more aware than ever before about what I don't know, about what can't be known, and about the utility of uncertainty. But still...what the world wants is certainty. Even if it is overrated.

Donate unused computer time to charity

The World Community Grid is a simple way for individuals to make a difference by donating unused time on their personal or business computers to charity, specifically to scientific research into health, environment, malaria, and AIDS research.

Why bother?

Think of this as a no-effort, no-cost way to provide the most advanced technology yet known to reduce scientific research that would otherwise take many years to complete to just a few months.

Only 5-10% of the available resources of standard notebook and desktop computers are used on a daily basis. Whenever someone leaves their computer for a few moments, attends a meeting, or otherwise leaves their computer turned on but not active with work is, in effect, a waste of valuable resources. The idea behind grid computing is not only to use some of that wasted time and resources but to coordinate those resources in tasks that go far beyond what the most advanced super computers can perform, simply by harnessing many simpler computers together.

How does it work?

Technically, all one has to do is register online with the World Community Grid, download and install a small "agent" software program on your computer, and then, well, nothing else. Whenever your computer is idle, the agent will request information on a specific project from the server, perform calculations, and then send data back to the server.

Is it safe?

The short answer to this question is Yes. The most recent agents use SSL for encrypted communications between the client and server.

How do I know what I've contributed?

If you are like me, you will want to see what your donation is actually doing. This is accomplished by opening up the front-end of the agent software on your system and then viewing the results. On my personal computer's Windows Vista operating system, the agent software is called BOINC for Windows (The World Community Grid doesn't write this software - grid computing can be used for many purposes; I've just chosen to highlight charitable research. BOINC stands for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing). The BOINC client tells me the project and the tasks/applications underway, lists messages between client and server, provides overall statistics, and shows a graphic of overall disk usage.

The Point System

In the BOINC client - because it is a generic piece of grid computing software - you won't see the World Community Grid's point system. It is the point system that tells you what contributions you have made both as an individual and as a member of a specific team. Being a member of a team, such as Cancer Fighters, gives you that added emotional boost of seeing how a group of people can make a difference.

But to get your individual and team statistics, you'll have to use the task tab's link to My Grid which will then take you to the web site where you can see how many points you've generated, your ranking among everyone participating worldwide, and providing a link to your team's web site. There is also a link to your team statistics - my current team is the American Cancer Society's Cancer Fighters (although I will likely change this in the near future).

Will my computer's performance be affected?

The BOINC client allows the individual to create preferences for how their computer resources will be allocated, including, for example, whether or not to allow grid computing when on battery power for notebooks. There are specifications for when to start computing after the computer has been idle, day of week overrides, multiprocessor settings, switching between specific project applications, network connectivity options, even disk and memory usage constraints. The defaults generally do not affect performance. If you are concerned, though, you can always use the agent software to suspend or abort any task at any time.

Who are the current partners in Canada?

Apart from the host technology company, IBM, there are currently only 10 Canadian partner organizations. This is something I want to change...quickly. Here is a list of the Canadian partner organizations:

• AIDS Committee of Toronto



• Centre de recherche informatique de Montreal



• York University



• United OneHeart Foundation



• UserFriendly.Org



• Junior Achievement of Canada



• aids.drugs.online.com



• York Technology Association



• Canadian Information Processing Society



• Information Technology Association of Canada

Congratulations to these partner organizations - but we can do even better in Canada, can't we? Currently, Europe has, by far, the largest number of individual members donating resources.

Ironically, one of the most recent World Community Grid projects - Help Conquer Cancer - is headed by Igor Jurisica of the Ontario Cancer Institute (Princess Margaret Hospital and the University Health Network)). So joining the grid as either an individual member or as a partner will immediately benefit Canadian cancer research.

Partner obligations are simple:

• post World Community Grid information and logo on your website



• encourage individuals within your organization to join as members



• create a team and install World Community Grid on a minimum of 10 computers



• electronically accept the Trademark License Agreement

Are there any presentations available?

• The following link provides a 2-minute video into how the technology works (it was produced in November 2004 and doesn't mention some of the newer projects).



• Or, if you prefer a slide presentation about becoming a partner organization, you can see how it works here (last updated 17-Sep-2007).



• If you like podcasts, listen to this overview of grid computing.



• Here is an IBM PDF overview.



• Finally, an interview with Dr. David Foran, a scientist with the Help Defeat Cancer project.

Unused computer processing may well constitute the single largest untapped resource available to humanity today. Let's leverage that resource wisely and charitably.

The Last Bastion of Analog - an idea re-"Kindle"d

My wife and I are talking about downsizing - smaller accommodations, fewer "things", less clutter, minimal household responsibilities. But as soon as we get talking, I know the conversation is going to turn quickly to my library. You see, I love books and I own a lot of them. They are stacked everywhere in our house, in every room, on almost every table, on shelves, on and under pieces of furniture, beside the bed and recliners - you name a location and you'll find a book within reach. Yes, even the ubiquitous bathroom reader on top of the toilet tank in each of three bathrooms.

The book and the magazine are, if you think about it, perfectly designed devices. Unless the book is too heavy or awkward to hold for some other reason, the reader quickly finds himself immersed in the experience, not even noticing the device, something which can't be said about a lot of other devices I use daily. Whether it's a notebook computer, an iPod, a Smart Phone, a Blackberry, or a camera, it would be an exaggeration to say that the experience is immersive.

So when I made a commitment recently to my wife to reconsider my habit of buying and storing books everywhere in order to participate in our joint downsizing initiative, I had to wonder almost immediately whether I had made an unforgivable blunder. I began to reconsider my old Toshiba PDA which I had successfully used to read PDF and Microsoft Reader books until the unit died. Unfortunately, my newer Blackberry and do-almost-everything Windows Mobile 6 HTC 6800 device, and even my notebook computers, are not that great for reading immersively. And if I am truly honest, even my older Toshiba PDA didn't really qualify as a totally immersive experience either.

I've considered opting in to Safari for my addiction to IT and programming reading material, and, at a mere $40 per month, it seems to be a cost-effective alternative to buying $80 computer books at Chapters. But, I would need a notebook computer with me any time I wanted to steal a few moments to do some reading. Forget the bathroom, although there have been moments when I've been immersed in an episode of 24 when I've taken along my notebook instead of fetching the nearest bathroom reader book. Too much information...I know!

But this evening I've discovered a device which somehow bypassed this techophile and avid book reader until I opened an email from PCWorld.ca with reference to an online article entitled "The 25 Most Innovative Products of 2007" and read about Amazon's Kindle. Even though the EVDO-based wireless network is not yet available in Canada, and even though the available units were all bought up within a little over 5 hours when first released by Amazon, I'll be avidly waiting for Amazon to authorize shipments to Canada. After all, this could be the best way to have my cake and eat it too. Books, magazines, newspapers, blogs, even my MS Word-based business documents, plus an online store when the network is available in Canada - just about the most effective way to downsize a library without jeopardizing the experience of reading.

This might just be the way to breach the final bastion of the analog device!

My-iButton

I love geeky electronic items. So today when I read about something called My-iButton on CBC.ca's Money Talks by columnist Jim Bray, I was intrigued. As Bray writes, My-iButton is a lapel tag that is programmable and offers a small video screen and speakers embedded in the "name tag". It's a rechargeable advertisement (about 8 hours worth before you need to recharge) that you could wear in a variety of scenarios.

My-iButton.com shows a number of typical scenarios where it might be useful: a waitress advertising the speciality of the day; a father showing off a photo of his children; cheerleaders promoting their sports team; well, you get the "picture".

Jim Bray obviously has mixed feelings about the device. Writing for the Post Chronicle on 17-Dec-2007, he wonders aloud whether it's just "Advertising OD". Quoting My-iButton's CEO Richard Quintana, Bray admits that the technology's impetus came from throw-away political campaign buttons, a kind of ephemeral collectible. Quintana wants to make these kinds of buttons recyclable and reusable. And, to be fair, on that level the device makes a lot of sense. If you attend trade shows as a promoter, if you are involved in a political campaign, if you have to wear a lanyard at conferences regularly, why not invest in something that you can adapt and reuse?

But Bray rightly wonders aloud whether the device will simply become another way to inflict poor taste and questionable causes on other people. Maybe. But T-shirts with slogans, buttons, bracelets, bumper stickers, and ads superimposed on hockey boards, football fields, and other sporting events isn't going away any time soon.

One example of a company promoting the advertising possibilities is XSCAPE. You can download and view their PowerPoint presentation here.

Another interesting alternative is a custom device mentioned in an article by Bob and Joy Schwabach, namely using a video iPod. Of course, the video iPod is a lot more expensive than an $80 My-iButton.

Personally, I can see this being useful for anyone doing trade shows or manning booths at conferences. WWITPRO, for instance, is often represented at user-group booths at Microsoft TechNet events. If we wore a device like this, and if they had not yet become a common device, it would be sure to attract attention and interest. But that's part of the problem. If you get in on the action quickly, you can capitalize on the fascination factor. But give it a few years when everyone is sporting personal advertising and the novelty will quickly fade.

2008 - Watching for the black swans

It's New Year's Eve and I've just picked up one of the most popular and best reviewed non-fiction books of 2007 - The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Spending a few moments reflecting on my own personal experience, it's clear that the author has twigged on to something very significant. Whether it's the rise of the World Wide Web (or to be more specific, HTML-based web pages) or Google, YouTube, Facebook or any other number of technology phenomena, nothing beforehand would have allowed an accurate prediction of their respective successes.

So, for 2008, as I finish this book and Taleb's earlier book (Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets), I resolve to imagine the unpredictable, to anticipate the unexpected, and to be prepared for surprising opportunities. Yes, I will work on planning and risk management and improving my skills and knowledge about existing technology. But I will also look for anything but the sure thing, assured that the future is located somewhere in those black holes rather in the artificial light of the office cubicle.

I don't have any predictions for 2008, no prognostications - except to say that when I look back a year from now, I don't think it will be about the release of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, or even Visual Studio 2008. Something else will almost certainly have captured the imagination of IT professionals and developers. Well, maybe, maybe not. But insofar as IT professionals are tuned to the future of information technology, it won't be the obvious stuff that makes the year outstanding. It will be something that is now barely even on the radar.

I can hardly wait.

Newbie, Oldie, Freebie

My new job is taking almost all my time these days. That's a good thing, I guess. But it's a little awkward for me having to ask so many questions about the environment, tools, procedures, policies, even names and job titles of people around me. That's to be expected, but I've operated for so many years from a position of expertise, knowledge, and the authority that brings that this kind of shift is a little bit unsettling. But that will change.

One of the things that I've noticed in the IT world is the respect for "older" IT professionals, something we were told wouldn't happen. We were told to expect that younger workers would displace everyone with "experience", but that simply hasn't happened. Sure, there are some areas towards which younger people tend to gravitate, but even then I've noticed an admiration and general respect for people still in the IT field with years of experience and the flexibility that implies.

There is absolutely nothing - not certification, not university or college training - nothing which trumps experience in depth and width.

But with a new job and new responsibilities, it's to be expected that I might back off blogging a bit. Still, when I got an offer from an excellent courseware company for a free course on blogging, I thought I'd take advantage. Simple-ology is the brainchild of Mark Joyner. I've looked at some of his material, but found that with a job search and then a new job, there simply wasn't enough spare time to do justice to his otherwise compelling courseware. But free! That's too much to ignore.

So you may just see me blogging about his free course.

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Working with other IT professionals

This week I started a new job as Implementation Consultant with Covarity, a company marketing a loans monitoring software service to financial institutions. On a personal level, it's a very exciting career change, part of which is the daily exposure to and working with other information technology professionals and developers.

Even though I've worked with teams for almost as long as I've been in the IT sector, I've not had the "luxury" of having immediate access to other IT pros and developers. True, I've been part of WWITPRO, the Waterloo Wellington Information Technology Professionals user group. But now, instead of just executive meetings and monthly public meetings to get my IT pro "fix", I can just lean over in my chair and reach several other IT professionals.

This is, thus far, an incredibly liberating experience. Because I'm part of a logical and functional team, I can now apply a laser-like focus while enjoying exposure to those with another set of responsibilities, all the while speaking the same language and having the same corporate objectives. And those other professionals, like me, come from different sectors where they have applied their considerable IT expertise. This means that casual conversations while grabbing a coffee or moving about the office often entail insights about the application of IT in areas I haven't touched before. And, I hope, the experience is mutual.

Sometimes it's just the little things that give me a jolt of excitement, such as learning a new software trick, tip, or technique in a sixty-second conversation over the baffle boards. "So, how do you do this?" - a kind of incidental, collegial learning environment. Now that I have it, I love it!

Having the aptitude and discipline to find it and fix it on your own is important. But having the resources of others who might have found it and fixed it already is oh so luxurious!

Beating the odds by mind mapping IT projects

Monday night (26-Nov-2007), I delivered a presentation to IT professionals at the Waterloo Wellington Information Technology Professionals IT Forum event held at triOS College in downtown Kitchener. My presentation was a look at how to use mind mapping techniques to manage IT projects.

I've presented other talks to our group about mind mapping before, but this presentation focused on project management, especially on using MindJet's MindManager Pro v7.0 and the add-on Project Management JetPack to conduct project management without the headaches associated with a complete deployment and rollout of Microsoft Project and/or Project Server to the enterprise.

For many companies, Microsoft Project is overkill. More importantly, the time and energy required to deploy and train staff in the proper use of a full-blown Enterprise Project Management solution can sabotage project management initiatives before they're started. That's because everyone needs to understand how to use MS Project before team collaboration with the tool will be successful. For many, that's simply too big a hurdle to contemplate.

With mind mapping (especially MindManager Pro), only team leaders need to have familiarity with the tool - the viewer will be sufficient for everyone else on the project team. Even then, if you determine that you do need the resource and scheduling management tools in MS Project, you can readily include MS Project in the entire solution matrix, but only for project managers. In other words, deployment of both MindManager Pro and MS Project can be limited to project managers with everyone else using standard viewers and Microsoft Office productivity tools like MS Word and MS Excel.

But in addition to the deployment and training savings, using mind mapping techniques reaps rewards in productivity and team collaboration that I've not seen matched in any other software category. Download my presentation in PDF format for a full description of how this works.

If you decide to do that, you'll see an example of a new PowerPoint methodology I'm trying out called Beyond Bullet Points or BBP, something which I think will improve my presentation quality dramatically. The developer of BBP, Cliff Atkinson, also has his own blog and web site devoted to the methodology.

Reviewing the HTC 6800

While attending the Security Education Conference in Toronto (SECTOR) last week, a colleague from Microsoft Canada, Ruth Morton, and I took some time out to do a video review of our cell phone/Pocket PC of choice these days, the HTC 6800 from Bell Mobility. Thanks to another Microsoft Canada IT Pro Advisor, Damir Bersinic, for getting those devices into our hands in the first place!

Ruth and I have never done a vlog before, so the experience was experimental, but ultimately successful, especially in having post-production work done by a Microsoft Canada intern, Majid Mirza.

Video: HTC 6800 Review

If you're anything like me, you may not like watching yourself in video. I certainly feel that way when I see this review. But, I think the message gets across anyway.

A lot of my IT pro colleagues use Blackberry devices, and I can certainly understand the appeal. But I've resisted, instead choosing Windows Mobile devices which give me the operating system that is closest to what I use with my notebook computer and whose Office Mobile applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) work almost exactly the same way on my mobile device as on my notebook computer.

The HTC 6800 doesn't disappoint in this regard, being one of the first Windows Mobile 6 devices available in Canada. By now, there are probably several more choices available, but the point is that for me the choice of operating system has always had priority over the hardware features. Having the newest Windows Mobile operating system also means that I have to upgrade my mobile productivity applications, but that's almost always a good thing anyway. My particular favorite add-on application is Pocket Informant 2007 which takes advantage of a desktop add-on I use regularly for Microsoft Outlook called Franklin Covey PlanPlus for Outlook v.5. In concert, these two add-on's provide extended features beyond what Outlook and Mobile Outlook provide, the most important of which are simplified project management and task prioritization. The management screens on both the desktop and Pocket PC platforms for both software packages are also superior to the default screens in Outlook.

With my new HTC 6800, I've got what amounts to a computer on my belt clip. All my projects, tasks, contacts (over 2500 now), email, Mobile Office files and productivity applications are now available to me wherever I might be. And having the QWERTY slide keyboard just makes it that much easier to take notes and update all those productivity applications. But the device also has more flash memory, a Wi-Fi/Cellular switch, a decent camera and camcorder and an incredibly rugged and reliable casing, along with a snug stylus holder, a great belt clip accessory and several other hardware accessories to round out the user experience.

Take a look at the vlog and let me know what you think about my and your device!

SecTor 2007 - Blue Christmas?

I know a little about computer security, not a lot, but enough to be aware of where individuals and businesses are vulnerable. I've dealt with attacks and breaches, formed a response team, and been responsible for policies and procedures to mitigate risk. But when I go to a security education conference like this (http://www.sector.ca/), I realize that there is so much more to know and understand.

One session I attended this morning was all about Bluetooth vulnerabilities. The presenter was Dino Covotsos from TelSpace who traveled all the way from South Africa to be in attendance (if you want to see the PowerPoint presentation, you can view it here). One of the slides Dino used included video of hackers using Bluetooth technology to inject audio into the phone of an unsuspecting mark buying a coffee in a Starbucks Coffee shop so that when he asked for a coffee, there was an additional audio message asking the waitress for her phone number. Even more interesting was the use of Bluetooth technology to actually transfer funds from an account for the Chief Technology Officer of a bank. Yikes!

Most of us think that Bluetooth is simply a cool way to go wireless with our cell phones, or possibly to use a headset with our MP3 player, or to use a game controller for the Sony PlayStation. And to some degree that's right.

But hackers are able to do so much more including hijacking Bluetooth-enabled cell phones to make calls to 1-900 numbers, garnering hundreds of dollars an hour in a London public space. They are able to track the physical movements of individuals over a period of days in the Netherlands, thereby enabling profiling that is quite dangerous. They are able to capture bank account numbers, social insurance numbers, and entire phone books, SMS text messages, and an incredible amount of other personal information that most of us would be ashamed to find stolen so readily. And they are able to follow cars up to two miles away and listen in on all the conversations going on in that car.

Part of the problem is simply lack of education. But part is also owing to manufacturers using default PIN numbers like 0000 or 1234. Another part of the problem is that Bluetooth scanning devices can be built for about $750, something within the reach of almost everybody. Part of the problem is also the almost overwhelming desire for convenience. CBC.ca, for example, has a five-part series on cell phone technology this week, part of which deals with using cell phones instead of debit or credit cards.

All the parts of this jig-saw puzzle of Bluetooth technology mean that it will be an uphill battle working towards more security in the use of Bluetooth-enabled devices. In the meantime, I may simply turn off Bluetooth unless I have an immediate short-term need. And it may mean that I forego buying Bluetooth-enabled devices for family members this Christmas.

SecTor 2007 - Inside and Dangerous

What is the greatest information system security threat facing companies today? According to a poll of information security managers, 87% of respondents say disgruntled employees are the worst threat they face. Ninety-two percent of actual attacks were motivated by revenge. Sixty-two percent of those attacks were planned in advance. Here's the kicker, though - 80% of those perpetrating attacks were under suspicion already within their organizations.

So why don't we hear about insider threats when talking about computer security.

Part of the answer to that question has to do with embarrassment. I mean should we expect to hear from Seagate directly that some of their hard drives were compromised and responsible for personal information being transferred to hackers in China? If you answered no, then you might be surprised to hear that Seagate did, in fact, 'fess up recently. Still, it's reasonable to assume that most privately held companies will not necessarily broadcast when insiders (or, in Seagate's case a subcontractor) are responsible for introducing vulnerabilities into their products or systems.

My own experience, limited as it is, would only partially confirm these lessons about insider threats. My viewpoint is simply that insider attacks happen far more frequently than most managers believe possible. Most are not particularly sophisticated. Most can be predicted at least to some extent. And most will never be reported publicly.

All of this from the first breakout session at SecTor at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, a session with Kevin Coleman of technolytics.

CBC.ca series on Going Mobile

This should be very interesting. Beginning Monday, 19-Nov-2007, CBC.ca will be delivering a 5-day series on its technology pages about the impact and future of the humble cell phone. Here's what will be covered:

• Day 1: Competition and confusion in the cell phone market place
• Day 2: Wireless competition in Canada and using cell phones instead of debit/credit cards
• Day 3: RIM, Google, and iPhone, the future, and social networking
• Day 4: Wireless technology in the 3rd world and in the human body
• Day 5: Landlines and cell phones, cyborgs, and spirituality

 

One of the messages to IT professionals - especially IT managers - is to watch out for Gen-Y innovations, one of which is the pervasive appeal and infiltration of mobile devices into the IT infrastructure. This series will claim "we ain't seen nothin' yet!"

Microsoft Virtualization Newsletter

I recently published a two-part series on the IT Manager Connection blog about virtualization. The series dealt with the rationale and resources available for IT managers considering this technology. In the resources entry, I mentioned Microsoft's virtualization newsletter (If you wish to subscribe to this newsletter, you will need a Windows Live ID, a freely available credential providing easy access to MSN Messenger, MSN Hotmail, etc). This newsletter is slated to review technology news headlines and the benefits of virtualization, including customer success stories.

The November issue arrived in my Inbox yesterday afternoon. After reading this issue, I have to say that my enthusiasm for virtualization continues to grow on an almost daily basis.

In this issue, for example, we read about Microsoft's rationale for integrating its version of hypervisor virtualization into the core operating system for Windows Server 2008; we also get brief glimpses into both Windows Server 2008's Hyper-V technology and the current Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 products; we get an overview of Surgient's Virtual Labs software delivery process, of Digiturk's implementation of Virtual Machine Manager, and of Voca's implementation of SoftGrid application virtualization to multiple sites; finally, there is a section on Microsoft's virtualization resources, including a beta of Microsoft Application Virtualization (4.5) publicly available from Microsoft Connect, and a link to Tony Iams' webcast "Virtualization: Making the Move" (This webcast requires registration with InfoWorld Webcasts. The original webcast was broadcast on 24-Oct-2007).

Tony Iams, a VP and Senior Analyst with Ideas International, Inc., has a Camtasia Studio screencast presentation about their company's Virtualization Analysis Suite which any mid-sized to enterprise IT shop considering virtualization should review.

If you're thinking at all about virtualization, I highly recommend signing up for this free newsletter and using it as your jump-off point and monthly reminder to keep your finger on the pulse of the virtualization industry.

Previewing Microsoft's Unified Communications

Yesterday, I had the privilege of providing feedback on a "dry run" for the technical track for the forthcoming Unified Communications Launch 2007 tour for Microsoft Canada.

To say I am impressed with Microsoft and the technology as an IT pro and an IT manager would be an understatement. I have to add that both those perspectives - IT pro and IT manager - are distinct and provide very useful ways of providing context to the technical presentations. More about that in a moment.

So why am I impressed? Some of it is about the mechanics and dedication of the people involved. Having now been part of two separate "dry run" experiences, it is readily apparent to me just how committed Microsoft Canada is to these launch tours. Presenters are grilled not once, but twice, in preparation for the tour, the first time to deal with content and overall objectives of each session, the second dealing more with fine-tuning, vocabulary choice, emphasis and tone.

The critical comments of "dry run" audience members are direct, sometimes brutally so. But the overall tenor is constructive and always delivered within a collateral objective of team building and empowerment. From my Toastmasters background, I find this very refreshing and another indication of why the corporate culture of Microsoft Canada is so highly regarded (among the top 10 for 2006 in the Canadian Corporate Culture Study).

Because these tours are so highly technical in nature, it is also critical that bugs be found and eliminated, and that both presenter and supporting audio-visual staff members feel comfortable with the technical components of the presentation.

But I am also impressed with the target audience analysis done by IT pro advisors and product managers. They know who will be attending these events and are constantly rehearsing how target groups will react to aspects of the presentations and demos.

Still, what impresses me most - beyond the way Microsoft Canada handles these event preparations - is the suite of technologies exposed by the moniker Unified Communications. As Damir Bersinic mentioned in a recent Canadian IT professionals blog post, incorporating these technologies into the overall IT environment means that IT pros will have to stretch once again. Telco pros know a lot that we don't, but we will have to learn much of what they know and do daily in order to make unified communications a reality in our environments. For the upcoming tour, this means that IT pros like me will have to listen very carefully to some of the telecommunications technical vocabulary, take copious notes, and be prepared to research those areas with which we are uncomfortable. But we've done it before and we can do it again.

But IT pros will feel very comfortable once the software demonstrations begin. Once presenters show Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 and the older Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 - not to mention the show stopping Microsoft RoundTable - IT pros will feel right at home. Telephony will seem like just another software service.

As an IT pro, I look at these enabling technologies and realize that although the infrastructural details are intimidating, our end users will get used to the experience of unified communications very quickly. Like so much else of what we do, if we do it right, our "customers" won't even notice. End users will simply get used to identity and presence indicators in their Office software applications; they'll get used to starting instant message threads, conference calls, video conferencing and sharing of key collaborative documents with a click of the mouse and maybe a drag-and-drop operation. In a few days, it will be standard fare with productivity improving substantially. Sure, there are a lot of technical details we will have to master, but end-user training won't require much additional work for us.

As an IT manager, I look at these technologies and see business benefits staring right back at me. It won't take much to deliver these benefits and return-on-investment messages to business managers. Unified communications is, as Bill Gates said in an interview at the San Francisco launch, "taking your phone calls and making them far simpler and far more effective." That's the message. It doesn't get much simpler than that.

Whether you're an IT pro or an IT manager, make sure you get to one of these events.

Photosynth - a breath-taking glimpse into the future of photo viewing

Thank you to Ruth Morton for a blog entry mentioning one of the most spectacular software developments occurring at Microsoft these days. If you go to Microsoft Live Labs to their Photosynth web site, be prepared to be amazed! In fact, take a few minutes right now and watch what Ethan Zuckerman, founder of Facebook, said was "Perhaps the most amazing demo I've seen this year." -available here). 

Imagine all the world's photos synchronized and organized within a 3D interface that can cater to both those who prefer a slide-show automated demonstration and to those who prefer the self-directed, virtual game-world ambience. OK, so if imagining all the world's photos is a bit too grand, simply imagine your own photo collection tagged by similarities and organized according to the Photosynth model. Now you can launch your photo collection into a 3D space and navigate, zooming, re-organizing, panning, detailing, re-arranging the photos according to likeness, etc. In effect, you've completely renovated your 2D photo collections into a 3D virtual world with emergent characteristics greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Emergent characteristics of a Photosynth collection are something you have to experience directly to fully appreciate. Imagine, for instance, that you were able to assemble all the photographs of yourself for your entire lifetime. Then imagine tagging those photographs by subject, time, place, perhaps even mood. Then the photographs are processed within Photosynth into a single panorama whereby you can rearrange instantly the way you view the collection with all the attendant capabilities of zooming, panning, and moving around objects.

For a few seconds, you view your life chronologically; then you see a friend in one of the photos and you wonder, "what about my other friends at that time of my life?". So, as long as you've tagged images of friends as "friends", you can instantly rearrange the collection according to the similarity of the photographs to "friends". Or, perhaps you want to view family connections, or locations and events.

The possibilities are truly staggering. But again, you've got to experience this to appreciate the possibilities. If you have sufficient graphical capabilities on your computer, you can download and install the Photosynth trial and then view the online collections which include NASA, buildings of Great Britain, a South Korean palace under reconstruction, the Gary Faigin art studio, the Piazza San Marco in Venice, the Grassi Lakes in the Canadian Rockies, or the Piazza San Pietro in Rome. Truly spectacular!

An Evening of Essentials

Last night we held the first meeting of the fall for the Waterloo Wellington IT Professionals user group (photos on Flickr). A crowd of about 40-50 attended the event hosted by our local TriOS college in downtown Kitchener, Ontario. Our speaker was Rodney Buike, an IT Pro Advisor with Microsoft Canada. His topic for the evening was Microsoft's System Center Essentials, a system administrator's toolkit in a single package for managing small- to medium-sized IT operations.

Rodney's an experienced presenter and the topic was a timely one, so when you add on a few door prizes, some pop and pizza, and comfortable chairs, you've got the formula for a very good IT evening.

As Rodney pointed out, whether you manage a network of 25 personal computers or one of 2,000 personal computers, the issues of management are pretty much the same. You need a handle on the hardware and software assets, the status of hard drives and services on the servers, the situation with service packs and updates, and notifications and alerts to help you deal with all these issue proactively.

Most of us in small IT shops depend upon a number of point solutions to get the job done. In my own case, asset management is accomplished with the help of an Excel spreadsheet. There is no automatic discovery of assets or of changes in assets, just a spreadsheet with information that may or may not be up to date.

Again, service packs and operating system updates are handled, in my case, by Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), although I still have to manage most of the desktops by hand if users aren't compliant in leaving their notebooks and desktop computers on at night. I also have to do a lot of weekend server upgrades since weekend shift work varies week to week, thereby making a scheduled automatic server upgrade impossible.

Monitoring of essential services is outsourced and seems to work reasonably well, but I would still like all these essential services in a single tool instead of the assembly of point solutions. Rodney's presentation on System Center Essentials gave me a sense of what's possible.

Hail Mary - Parallelism

iTunes is so cool! Now, in addition to music, podcasts, movies, even PDFs, you can check out university courses and programs, some of which deal with information technology. This morning, I took in the first in a series of lectures from Stanford University entitled, "Computer Architecture is Back: The Berkeley View of Parallel Computing". This specific lecture was given by Dave Patterson in January of this year and is part of what Stanford calls their Computer Systems Colloquium, a series of 14 lectures in "movie" format, available free on iTunes. If you have the 60GB "video" iPod, like me, then you can download these lectures and view them while traveling on the train or plane (uh, forget the car, please, if you're doing the driving!). To get more information, simply head over to SoiT, Stanford on iTunes U at itunes.stanford.edu.

So, what about the lecture and what is the message for computing and information technology in a manufacturing environment?

Patterson's high-level message in this lecture is that everything is changing in computer architecture, that the conventional wisdom of doubling processing speed every 18 months is over, that both hardware and software design need to invest in parallelism, and that a multiplicity of perspectives in the computer industry is required to find solutions for the new predicaments we face. The message for IT in a manufacturing environment (at least a non-computer-related manufacturing environment) is that it looks like the near future will offer far less performance improvement than we might otherwise have hoped for assuming the conventional wisdom.

The metaphor Patterson used is the "Hail Mary", itself a metaphor in football for a desperate play in which the quarterback throws a long pass hoping that somehow somebody on his team will catch it and rescue the team in the end zone. In the computer industry, the same appears to be true. Everyone is betting the farm on parallel computing to solve problems like the power wall we read about daily in the computer press. The "hail Mary" part is that the industry itself doesn't seem to know who or how the pass will be caught. And if the industry doesn't know, how the hell are IT managers supposed to figure this out?

As the computer industry moves uniformly in this new direction, IT guys like me are trying to figure out the implications for designing our systems. Although Patterson tries to make it easier by talking about the "13 dwarfs" - the areas in which multiple disciplines see the future evolving - and the computing world "interest groups" (things like high-performance computing, machine learning, games, embedded systems, and databases) where the 13 dwarfs are mapped, guys like me may feel somewhat overwhelmed.

But I think viewing this material a second and possibly third time brings on the aha experience.

One take home is that programming will have to change dramatically in the next few years. No longer will performance improvements be relegated to hardware. Programmers and developers will have to figure out how to program for parallel processing (Patterson calls this the end of "La-Z-Boy Programming"). Programmers will also have to invest heavily in the psychology of programming, in other words understanding how people interface with computers and making adjustments to make those interfaces more appropriate.

Another take home is that IT managers will have to understand their environment and make changes necessary to find incremental improvements. We can't depend any longer on new servers providing us with huge performance dividends. For example, in a database-driven environment such as ERP systems, IT managers will have to push software vendors in the direction of optimizing database structures, algorithms, reporting tools, querying tools, and integration.

Yet another take home is that knowledge of virtualization will be critical for IT managers, especially as we realize that we need to deconstruct our bloated operating systems, adding only the functions and services necessary to meet a computing objective which is, in turn, linked to a business goal.

Dave Patterson says, "No one is building faster processors." So, given the end of Moore's Law for single-core processing and given the industry's "hail Mary" approach to parallelism, why should IT managers feel optimistic? I mean, after all, are we now relegated to incremental improvements and lobbying with database and ERP vendors?

Patterson admits that the future could be one of failure. But it might also be one in which 1000 cores could be manufactured on a single, economical chip. It might be one in which experts from multiple disciplines work together to design human-centric solutions. It might be one in which the open source programming movement transforms software development by fostering development of minimalist services and functions based on minimalist operating systems and made available to IT managers in a secure virtual package. In other words, there is reason for optimism.

View the lecture for more detail, and check out the innovative Research Accelerator for Multiple Processors (RAMP).

Death and Digital Assets

When my brother died in 2002, he left behind some interesting digital assets. They were mainly in the form of artwork he created in his spare time, but also included a personal web site and samples of graphics work he had done for a variety of companies. At the time, his employer's web site design was primarily the result of his creative work.

I now wonder where those assets are. It would be interesting, purely for nostalgic reasons as we get closer to the 5th anniversary of his untimely death, to look again at what he created. But I strongly suspect they have evaporated much like the web site we created as a memorial for him did when the company hosting the site went out of business (it was called wewillmissyou.com; thankfully, I kept backups of the finished memorial web site).

With my recent catastrophic loss of data, as well as my recent medical history, not to mention the approaching anniversary of my brother's death, I've been thinking about digital assets and what happens to them after death. Then today, as I unwrapped my copy of Smart Computing magazine, my eyes were drawn to an article entitled, "Death & Digital Data: What Happens To What You Leave Behind?". The gist of the article is that it's not always clear who owns personal data in an online world. Even the most obvious situations may require litigation to secure assets of a loved one who has died. The case of Lance Corporal Justin Ellworth is an example of an online email company - Yahoo - trying to prohibit the family from retrieving the young man's personal email.

In corporate settings, it's not only the death of an employee that can raise these issues. A simply resignation or layoff can be the occasion for a review of ownership issues, not to mention consideration of what is the humane thing to do. This is especially the case with knowledge workers with corporate notebook computers which act as a repository for both personal and company data. Smart phones, Blackberries, and Pocket PCs are also part of the picture. Even if a company is progressive, for example, and strongly affirms that employees should have the right to retrieve personal data from company assets, if the employee has died, who is responsible for reviewing and separating corporate from personal data, for storing the personal digital assets and getting them into the hands of heirs?

Part of the obvious solution is to backup data, but that can be difficult with online email, web sites, and blog hosts. In my own case, for example, I'm still trying to find and execute reasonable backup utilities to preserve online digital assets like my blog sites and my photo sites (HTTrack WebSite Copier looks promising; Adobe Acrobat Professional also includes a utility for web site downloads).

And then there's online email. What about your hotmail, gmail, Yahoo egroup correspondence, etc.? Not that we'll all be famous after we die, of course, but even the correspondence of the not-so-famous can be extremely useful to historians and cultural analysts, not to mention the families who wish to preserve as much as possible of a deceased loved one's correspondence.

This digital age of ours means not only that we have more assets that will survive us, but that we have to take greater care to preserve those assets for our loved ones.

Gadget Guy, Gadget Guy

So, I have a bit of a reputation as a geek at work. That's not entirely a bad thing, I guess, for an IT Manager. Some of my colleagues poke good-natured fun at me (for the most part) wondering whether there is any more room on my belt for the next gadget to occupy. How will I ever get the flat screen monitor to hang from my belt?

But if there is a refrain that IT managers need to listen to regularly these days it's this - being a geek is OK, but you need to be much more than that. You also need to understand the business and to provide strong leadership. And not just any 'ole leadership will do; it has to spring from a clear understanding of business objectives and a coherent alignment of IT with those objectives.

That's sometimes hard for geeks to grasp. Yes, there will always be a role for a computer technology chief cook and bottle washer, but that's not really what IT management is all about these days. No matter how large or small the company we serve, no matter whether our business context is survival, maintenance, or market breakthrough, no matter how many servers, printers, scanners, pocket PCs, and firewalls we manage, no matter how large the staff - IT managers need to embrace the business and understand the value propositions of their business.

Yes, there are only so many hours in the day. And while it is obvious that you can never have enough knowledge of specific technologies that could benefit your company, it is more important that the technology you do manage be put in service of the goals and vision of the business itself. In other words, technology should always serve business, never the other way around.

If you are like me, the lone-wolf IT person in your organization, then the refrain may be something you know by heart. The real question becomes, "how do I do this?" It's different in every company, of course, and if I had the answer, then it's very likely I wouldn't be blogging about it. All I know for sure is that we need to talk about this, not only with other non-IT colleagues in our organizations, but with our peers and friends in our professional organizations.

For example, in our IT Pro users groups and information processing societies, it probably makes sense to balance the occasions when we show off our technical competence with times of vulnerability when we plead for help in understanding the larger business picture. Sure, iSCSI and SANs and turbo-charged WiFi will get the engines firing on all cylinders in a room full of geeks. But perhaps when we gather together, we need at least 50% of our time talking about how to manage business process re-engineering. What tools and techniques and skill sets do we need to become the business leaders that are needed in IT today? The gadgets can wait...

Vista Upgrade - Still at it

Not as smooth as it should have been!

May I complain for a moment? I'm an IT manager, an IT professional. I've been a developer, an early adopter, a geek since 1983. Granted, not all that time has involved a lot of attention to operating system upgrades and deployment. But I'm no slouch either.

So, why the heck did upgrading from Windows XP Pro to Vista Ultimate cause me so many headaches?

Two reasons are stupid mistakes.

1. When upgrading and using the Windows Files and Setting Transfer wizard, always use the version of the operating system to which you are upgrading (I used the Windows XP Pro version instead).


2. When doing data backups, especially for a planned upgrade, always use at least two devices (I used one and then dropped the external hard drive; it is now at a hard drive data recovery shop being evaluated).

Yes, even a genius like me can still make stupid mistakes. Just ask my euchre partner.

I should have considered the migration from one operating system to another to be a special case. Members of our Microsoft certifications study group, for instance, mentioned how most of their experiences with FAST have been from one computer to another using the same operating system. But when migrating from one operating system to another, the general rule should be to initiative the transfer using the tools from the newer operating system. My mistake was thinking that I could use the FAST tool from XP. But, again in retrospect, I should probably have used the User State Migration Tool from Windows Vista, instead of the Files and Settings Transfer wizard, even though the MCDST textbook for supporting Windows XP desktops suggests otherwise (70-271, pp.2-21, 2-22 - although the context is always Windows XP Professional only in the instructions).

I thought I had enough backups. About 3 weeks earlier, I can copied My Documents and an archive folder to one external hard drive. Then, as I prepared for a weekend's work of upgrading, I used another external drive with their backup software to take three kinds of backup - a simple file copy, a synchronized folders version, and a typical backup to disk. But as I prepared to go a study group, the external hard drive fell out of my backpack onto the steel stairs behind me. Guess what? Neither I nor two different computer consultants were able to access the drive. Now files that I have used for the past 10 years or more are sitting on a single device at a Toronto-based hard drive data recovery specialist where they are evaluating how much money and time will be involved in retrieving those files.

So you could argue that I'm the author of my own misfortune. You could, but you won't, right?

Still, with the backups that I did have, I ran into problems that required further research, quite a bit of tweaking of both the server on our domain and my notebook's operating system. The biggest problem is roaming profiles with Windows Vista.

Vista has changed - one might even say simplified - the file structure of user profiles. But in doing so, if you use roaming profiles in your domain, you will very likely encounter the dreaded "Your user profile was not loaded correctly. You have been logged on with a temporary profile." error message. When you do a search, you'll inevitably get a lot of misleading suggestions about folder permissions problems on your server or membership problems in the Guests group either on your local machine or the domain. Those discussions won't help you.

Instead, go directly to the Managing Roaming User Data Deployment Guide MS Word document for Windows Vista, download it, and read through the 39-page set of instructions (pick it up here). It took me almost an entire afternoon to implement a portion of the recommendations, but at least I now have my roaming profile working again.

It shouldn't be this hard. I am curious what might have happened had I used the Windows Vista User State Migration tool. Would I still have had the roaming profile problem? Probably, but at least I wouldn't be chewing my nails wondering whether I'll ever have my files back. They would have been transferred to some kind of profile on my upgraded Vista machine. What was a 2-day job has become a 2-week job.

Time for another coffee...wait...wait...

The estimate for the data recovery has just arrived...

Instead of coffee, I think I need a scotch...or two!!!!