Author: directorcia

I’m looking for podcast guest

One of the things that I really enjoyed doing last year and has unfortunately dropped away has been my podcast. You can find previous episodes at:

 

http://ciaops.podbean.com

 

Just to set the record straight, it hasn’t been through lack of trying that there hasn’t been a podcast for a while. I can tell you that I have asked a whole lot of people and nobody wants to come on. What the hell? They all can’t have stage fright, surely? I am I really that ugly that it comes through on a podcast?

 

I make the process pretty easy. We pre-record it over Skype at a time that suits you. We talk about a topic you nominate and you can even bring on additional guest if you want. If you have any doubts how easy it is just have a listen to a few previous episodes and ask a few of those guests. I can assure you they all went onto greater fame and fortune. Honestly.

 

As I said, if you have an interesting topic that you’d like to share then I’m all ears as I am sure many others are out there. So please don’t be shy, I’ll make it as easy as I can for you, all you have to say is that you are willing to give it a go.

 

Email me at director@ciaops.com if you are interested.

 

Bueller? Bueller?

Reading material

Things are generally a bit slower this time of the year so it nice to catch up on some reading. Here’s a list of titles I would recommend you spend some time going through.

 

Business

 

The E-Myth – Michael Gerber

 

This book helps you understand that you are not your business and that you need to look at it as a system.

 

The Millionaire Fastlane – M.J. DeMarco

 

Don’t get put off by the title, this book is an excellent read. It explains to you the realities of running a business and what is important in actually making money.

 

The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell

 

Want to understand why social networking is so important to business, this book will help you understand why. You don’t need to be a prophet you just need to ‘network’ with one.

 

SharePoint

 

Mastering SharePoint Foundation 2010 – Callahan

 

One of the few books that focuses specifically on SharePoint Foundation. Still a great foundation for work with SharePoint Server but most wouldn’t think so. Know you know.

 

Professional SharePoint 2010 Administration – Todd Klindt

 

This book covers more of SharePoint 2010 Server and is a highly recommended for those looking to up skill to this product.

 

Strategy

 

The Art of War – Sun Tzu

 

One of the oldest books known to man and still as relevant today as it was the day it was written.

 

Fiction

 

Daemon – Daniel Suarez

 

If you like technology then I’m pretty sure you’ll love this book. There is a sequel but I think one is better.

 

You can find all the books I recommend over at:

 

http://amazon.ciaops.com

 

which if you buy from there gives me a few pennies commission. Also, don’t forget that all of these are available on the Kindle which I also highly recommend.

Year 2011 in retrospect

So here’s a few thoughts on the year that was in 2011.

 

Office 365 – one of the more important things to become available in my opinion. Although still far from a perfect product it certainly is a marked improvement from BPOS. The upgrade to the latest versions of Exchange, SharePoint and Lync as well as the inclusion of Office makes this product a real winner in my opinion. The result has been the adoption of Office 365 from the two extremes of the market towards the middle. By that I mean, I have seen Office 365 begin widely adopted by large enterprises as well as very small businesses. From here I expect that to start moving towards the middle of the market and encompass traditional small to medium businesses that traditionally relied on products like Small Business Server (SBS).

 

In short this means that I expect to see more businesses adopt Office 365 this year, especially in the traditional SBS market. I was also amazed this year ay how many businesses are still running on old versions of server software like SBS 2003. The main reason? Costs. It is a tough market out there and that isn’t likely to change in the near future either so moving to the cloud is certainly a way that many businesses see in reducing their IT overhead, rightly or wrongly. This IS the way things are moving.

 

IPad – having the second generation released in 2011 has really grown the adoption of this product. Hell, I even got one myself and am amazed at how useful it is for business and pleasure. The average consumer wants simplicity, especially when it comes to technology, and the iPad does this in spades. So many technology people I know deride the tablet or look to Android equivalents but I can tell from what I see with customers is that firstly the tablet is here to stay so deal with it and secondly the competition to the iPad has a long way to go.

 

The other change in my thinking this year, brought about by the iPad, is the question of apps. These are what makes a platform. They also make life much simpler for consumer and also represent a massive opportunity for developers. To my way of thinking, we are now in the age of developer and standard old IT support is so passe (given tools like search engines). The real money now is in developing apps but not only for iOS but also Android, Windows Phone 7 and even the Xbox as I have mentioned in a  previous blog post.

 

Kindle – This is the year that I got serious about e-readers and bought myself a Kindle. As I have mentioned many times, I love the device and everybody I know who has one, even if they are a book reader, love their Kindle.

 

To me the Kindle and the Amazon ecosystem just works so well. I have bought so many more books this year because of that fact. Conversely, I have also read many more books for that reason. Honestly, if you haven’t looked at e-readers then I recommend that you give them a go (they are so cheap now) and for my money the Amazon Kindle is the best by far.

 

So there are some parting thoughts for 2011. I’ll take this opportunity to thank anyone who reads my blog. I also thanks those who have left comments or contacted me directly about what I have written. It make doing this so much more worthwhile when you get feedback, good or bad I welcome it all.

 

See you all in 2012.

I’ve seen the future

It isn’t all that often that I am really blown away with changes in technology. Sure, they are cool, interesting and in some cases astounding but something that really blows me away is rare. I can report that I have recently had one of those experiences with my Xbox.

 

Microsoft has just updated the interface on the Xbox to be more Metro like (a la Windows 8) but that isn’t the big change. The big change in my mind is the ability to allow third party apps to be downloaded and installed to the console. It goes to show you how powerful apps concept is in our technology world these days as pioneered by Apple. But even that is not what I found earth shattering. My epiphany came when I installed the ABC iView, SBS on Demand and YouTube apps.

 

The ABC iView and SBS on Demand apps allow you to watch TV from two popular channel here in Australia. This is fantastic but still does have some limited content in what is available. However, it is when I started to look at the YouTube app that my brain exploded.

 

With the YouTube app on my Xbox I can watch just about every YouTube clip right on my TV set! I started with watching some of the clips that I have saved as favourites on my channel. I then moved into looking at what YouTube recommended and then finally trawled through some popular picks including shorts for upcoming movies. I could have stayed up all night watching YouTube (which contrary to popular belief does have some very interesting and engaging content).

 

Think about this for a moment. ALL of the content on YouTube is now available on your TV. You can use the YouTube app to tee up what you want to watch during the day and then come home a play it. You can view all the latest movie trailers on your TV WHENEVER you want. Why would you ever go back to watching normal network TV? Why would you pay for cable TV? The Xbox makes this available ONTOP of all the other great things the Xbox does.

 

Now, also throw into the mix the ability to control and access your YouTube preferences from your mobile device (say an iPad). You can then potentially stream onto your TV or this device as well as you move about. YouTube becomes your personal TV station where you control the content. The possibilities are endless. The possibilities are also endless for Microsoft as it positions one of its devices into the living room of consumers.

 

The one thing that I waiting for is for my DVD services (Quickflix) to become available on the Xbox (HURRY UP). That will give me access to a huge range of movies and TV shows on demand. However, with iView, SBS on Demand and especially YouTube now available for the Xbox I think I’ll be busy enough until Quickflix becomes available.

 

It’s still early days for this but I can see what a potential game changer this is for traditional media businesses. With YouTube you can watch the content just about anywhere you have an internet connection. The integration of the service across devices like the iPad and iPhone but down to consumer devices like TVs is going to open up even more people to viewing the wonders of YouTube. Like I said, if you sit down and think of the possibilities here your head will explode!  

I didn’t know it did that

I recently received an update to my Windows Phone 7. I am now at OS version 7.10.7720.68 but discovered something interesting about this update.

 

Wireless connectivity is bad and evil because it is insecure no matter what you do. The best you can do, if you REALLY need it, is to make sure that it is as secure as possible. One of the ways that you improve the security of your wireless networks is to use an Access Control List (ACL). In the case of WiFi you control connection to your Access Point by restricting which network cards can attach to the Access Point. You do this by using the ‘unqiue’ Media Access Control (MAC) address of your device’s network card in your Access Point and preventing access for all other devices that don’t have a matching MAC address. Here’s how you do it with Netgear:

 

http://support.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13112/~/securing-your-wireless-network%3A-access-control-list

 

Thus, you enter a list of device MAC addresses you want to attach to you Access Point and deny everything else. If the network card attaching to the Access Point doesn’t match something in the list it can’t connect to your WiFi.

 

Not 100% fool proof but an additional way that you can make it more difficult for people to break into your WiFi. I have this enabled and have a list of all my devices in the WiFi Access Point so they can connect. Well, they could until recently. My Windows Phone 7 would see the WiFi but wouldn’t connect. What the hell? I retyped the details and tried again, still no go. Hmmm…

 

Then the Eureka moment! I had recently upgrade my Windows Phone 7 firmware and guess what? It had a new MAC address for the WiFi connector. Interesting. When I updated my WiFi Access Point with this new address it could connect again.

 

I am still puzzled why the MAC address of a Windows Phone 7 WiFi adapter would change during a software update? It doesn’t really matter, just have to make sure I remember that the next time my Windows Phone 7 updates. Strange I can’t remember my iPad 2 doing that when it was upgraded to iOS5 recently.

Missing Lync


If you aren’t aware, Microsoft has recent released its Lync client for MAC machines. I was configuring this recently as part of an Office 365 installation and seemed unable to connect. It turns out that Microsoft has recently added to the requirements for DNS records for Lync online. You need, in fact, to add 2 new CNAME records. They have documented this in the following article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2566790

I didn’t have time to allow the DNS records to update the local name servers so you can also insert the following URL in both the internal and external server fields in the Lync MAC client:

sipdir.online.lync.com:443

Once I had done that the Lync client connected.

Microsoft also recently released Lync for Windows Phone 7. You will also note that Lync clients for iDevices (iPhone and iPad) as well as Android are coming soon, before 2012 if you believe the rumours.

Being a Windows Phone 7 user I eagerly downloaded the app and installed in on my phone but again I couldn’t seem to connect to Lync online. Same issue as before, you need to update your DNS records as detailed the above KB article. However, again, I couldn’t wait that long so once more I needed to make some manual settings.

To do this on a Windows Phone 7 toggle the “Auto-detect services” and enter the following as the “External Discovery URL”https://meet.lync.com/Autodiscover/autodiscoverservice.svc/Root. Chances are you’ll never be “internal” to the Office 365 network so leave the internal one clear for now.

Again, once I made these changes I could connect my Windows Phone 7 to Lync Online. Cool stuff.

I can’t wait to see the Lync client emerge for the iPhone and iPad devices as this will really open up the market for Lync. As I have said previously, Lync is one of the real selling points of Office 365 and the more places it can be used the better I say.

Microsoft apps come to iDevices

In the past few days there has been a flood of Microsoft apps making an appearance in the Apple Apps store.
Skydrive
The first of these is SkyDrive. Microsoft will give you 25GB of free ‘cloud’ storage space (limit of 100MB per file though). With the new app you can access all that information directly from your idevice (iPhone and iPad) as well as Windows Phone 7. This makes Skydrive a very compelling offering when compared to other ‘cloud’ storage offerings like Dropbox and box.net.

More information about Skydrive for idevices:
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2011/12/13/introducing-skydrive-for-iphone-and-windows-phone.aspx



OneNote
Microsoft has had a OneNote application for the iPhone for a while but it has now released dedicated OneNote app for the iPad. The difference is quite marked and OneNote on the iPad takes full advantage of the additional screen real estate. It is again a free app but at this point in time you can only work with OneNote notebooks saved on Skydrive rather than something like SharePoint. However, the expectation is that this will change in the near future opening OneNote up to access notebooks on any shared medium.

More information about OneNote for the iPad:
http://appscout.pcmag.com/apple-ios-iphone-ipad-ipod/291719-microsoft-onenote-arrives-on-ipad



Lync
Lync is Microsoft’s ‘unified communications’ solution. Basically, it allows people to install client software and then communicate with each other via chat, video and voice. It also provides the ability to share things like desktops, whiteboards, PowerPoint presentations and more.
Microsoft has recently released Lync clients for the Mac as well as for Windows Phone 7. It is also expected that Lync clients will be available for most other mobile platforms by the end of December 2011.

More information on Lync for Mac:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/enterprise/lync

More information on Lync for Windows Phone 7:
http://lync.microsoft.com/en-us/Product/UserInterfaces/Pages/lync-2010-mobile.aspx



Xbox
Microsoft has recently updated the interface on the Xbox device but it has also released apps for the iPad and Windows Phone 7. The iPad app again makes great use of the medium and allows you to perform a number of control functions on your Xbox (provided it is on). Although in its infancy it isn’t hard to see where this develop is heading. It is not hard to imagine a not too distant future in which you can login to your Xbox remotely and ask it to download movies, save TV shows, etc.

More information on Xbox for iPad:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/245653/microsoft_releases_xbox_live_app_for_iphone_and_ipad.html



Office
There are also very strong rumours that Microsoft will release its Office suite onto the iPad very shortly. There is still apparently a battle going inside Microsoft as to whether delivering Microsoft’s most profitable product to a competitive device like the iPad is such a good idea given that holding it back may drive sales of the ‘proposed’ Windows 8 tablets or whether without Office on the iPad Microsoft Office is losing sales. Personally I’m in the second camp. To me Microsoft is a software company and the more platforms it can makes it software available on the better I say. Time will tell on this score.

More information on Office for the iPad:
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/260910/20111205/ipad-ms-office.htm