Youtube help desk here, how can I help?

Ever since I started putting videos on YouTube I have received quite a number of “please help me” emails. Now most are very courteous and I have no problems helping these people where I can. However, a growing number are very demanding and in my opinion extremely disrespectful. These emails normally contain just a line or two and say something like,

“I need to do x please tell how to do this asap”

If you really want me to help at least you could be a little courteous, considering that you probably wouldn’t have to do anything else, let alone pay money.

This attitude really reinforces to me the fact that many people EXPECT something for nothing. Now come on people, I have to run a business here, I have to pay bills, etc. I do believe that I provide a fair amount of freely available information to the “community” per se via this blog, YouTube videos, Supportweb site, user group postings just to name a few. However, when I offer something like my Sharepoint Operations Guide for a few hundred bucks most wouldn’t even think of purchasing it as a means of showing me support for all the other stuff they get for “free”.

To those people who are courteous, have bought the Guide or have shown some support, I say thank you very much. To those people who send me demanding support emails, happily consume information that I locate and continue to whinge about there not being enough “free” content, all I can say is that your time is coming, your time is coming.

What’s the difference between a business and a hobby?

The way I see it, you run a hobby for FUN and a business for PROFIT. Let me ask which you have? Now there are plenty of people who can survive quite well with a hobby but if they think they have a business then they’re fooling themselves. Sadly I think most smaller IT providers delude themselves into thinking they are running a business when they in fact simply enjoy fiddling with the technology. In other words they have a hobby. Like I said, there is nothing wrong with having a hobby but don’t confuse it with a business.

So, if you want to run a business then you must be in the business of making PROFIT. The next question is what can you define as PROFIT? Put simply, it is income less expenses, nothing more. Profit can mean more time for you family, it can mean a better lifestyle but generally the easier measure of profit is in dollar terms. Unless you are generating more INCOME from your business than it is COSTING you then you are not making PROFIT. Take a cold hard look at how many hours you are investing in running your business, are you getting a return for this? If you simply dismiss that as ‘part of the environment’ I’m sorry to tell you that you are engaged in a hobby not a business. A true business person would never dismiss extended hours as ‘part of the environment’, they would be making sure they PROFIT on this time. If you aren’t making PROFIT then you have two choices, change the way that you run your business or get out.

Making PROFIT can require some hard choices at times and means that you always need to remain focused on the goal of making more PROFIT. This doesn’t mean having greater revenue, it doesn’t mean having more customers or more employees, it means GREATER INCOME and LOWER EXPENSES. Again, many people get fooled into think higher revenue means greater PROFIT but is doesn’t. The aim is to make the most INCOME with the least OUTLAY, i.e. the greatest PROFIT.

What’s the first step to generating more PROFIT? Again, simple – measurement. If you don’t know how much you are earning or spending then how are you ever going to determine whether you are making a PROFIT? How does your results compare to last year? Which are you most profitable (again NOT highest revenue) customers? Where are most of your expenses? If you can’t answer these basic questions at any time, then I’m sorry to say you don’t have a business.

If you want to have a business rather than a hobby then you have to focus on PROFIT. This can take some getting used to and can reveal some cold facts that people may have previously chosen to ignore. The first step in focusing on PROFIT is to measure it.

The fact is that the business landscape has changed and tougher times lay ahead. If you want to guaranteed your survival then ask yourself whether you are focused on PROFIT or just getting a buzz from technology?

The little device set to change the world

Now kids, July 11 is only 6 more sleeps. Then you’ll be able to join the rest of the “in” crowd and go out and “mortgage” an Apple iPhone. For those of us “uncool” enough not to line up at our local store for an iPhone there is little doubt that we will be endlessly regaled by those having shelled out for the device about how “cool” they are, how “fantastic” they are, how “amazing” they are… and so on and so on, “dude”.

In all seriousness, these devices ARE going to change the current comfortable world of IT that most techie’s live in. Firstly, techie’s are going to have to figure out how to get the iPhone sync’ing with Exchange server pretty darn quick because by Monday July 14 the boss is going to expect to be receiving emails on the iPhone they bought on Friday July 11! Techie’s are also going to need to work out how to use all the functions the boss saw in the iPhone video without actually being allowed to use the device because once the boss has one of these sexy things in their hands they are never going to want to let it go (or so Apple says).

Now, the iPhone is far from perfect and has a number of disappointments that are coming to light. I have also heard that the iPhone doesn’t have speed dialling! C’mon, that can’t be true can it? Even a 10 year old Nokia has speed dialling. One of the biggest issues has been the support for data traffic from our local telco’s here in Australia. Optus is the latest to release its pricing but there is plenty of good local Aussie information at the SMH site, which in itself highlights why this product will revolutionize the market (imagine a whole section dedicated simply to one product in a major metropolitan online newspaper!).

It doesn’t matter if the iPhone is expensive to buy, it doesn’t matter if it is going to be expensive to run, it doesn’t matter if it has security issues, as I have heard so many people say of late – “I want it”. When was the last time you heard people say that about Microsoft technology? Certainly not about Vista eh? But that’s another story. What it does highlight is the fact that technology is fast becoming a commodity and fast being driven by the consumer not business market. Consumer’s are embracing technology faster than business. Business simply want things to stay the same for as long as possible, they don’t like change. Yet they WILL BE dragged kicking and screaming forwards as consumers infiltrate their products into businesses they are involved with. As I said previously, case in point, techie’s get ready to have those iPhone’s sync’ing with corporate emails by Monday July 14.

Sure, it doesn’t make sense but then what does in a consumer’s mind these days? If you want to survive in the technology field you have to adapt to what is driving your customers. Like it or not, after Friday 11 July the world in Australia is going to be a different place and you can either embrace it as an opportunity or be road kill as your customers stampede around you to have “what they want”.

PC-Cillian and Windows default profile

Just updated a stand alone machine to Trend Micro PC-Cillian Internet Security 2008 and when I logged it in I got a message saying there were not enough system resources and I would be logged in with the default profile. Huh? Stand alone machine, not enough resources? My ar@#! A reboot didn’t fix the problem so it was off to Google.

The result was this article:

http://support.antivirus.co.uk/trendmicro/kbresolution.jsp?hmid=46365&appId=11

which basically tells you that PC-Cillian is a resource hog and you need to make some registry changes to allow more page pooled memory. The above article contains a link to a Microsoft KB article that did the trick for me.

It seems that a few other people are getting the same problem now. Phew, it wasn’t me after all!

I was wrong – again

In a previous post I posed the possibility that there was missing step in the migration of Companyweb from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008. After repeating the process again it appears that it does work as laid out in the recommended migration process.

Interestingly, when I repeated the process using an untouched version of SBS 2003 Companyweb I actually received a timeout during the Application creation stage. After running the process again it worked as expect. Perhaps when I did my initial migration there was also some sort of timeout that I wasn’t aware of and the site creation failed to complete properly. Maybe, it had something to do with the fact that I used a demo SBS 2003 Companyweb I have. Maybe, there were some security issues I over looked on the SBS 2003 Companyweb that caused the failure of the site creation. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Yes, maybe but looks like I stuffed up (again) and the recommended migration process works as expected. Now I just have to work out what I did wrong.

Proof that emails make you stupid

I came across the following article about the Myth of Multi-tasking in which it says:

“Workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.”

So there you have it. Actually, I commend that you take the time (don’t multi-task) and read the complete article, which simply shows how humans can’t improve their productivity by multi-tasking. In fact they make it infinitely worse.

To me the rest of the world seems to be chanting “multi-task, multi-task” but the real heroes are those that step back and say “No, I need to concentrate on one thing at a time”. They may suffer ridicule but I bet they get more done than most people.

Most emails are a waste of time

Here’s an interesting article from the NYTimes about information overload. As you can see from the above graphic most information workers waste the greatest percentage of their day on interruptions from things that aren’t urgent. Don’t forget that it isn’t just the time to look at the irrelevant material, it is also the time taken to get back to what you are doing. (Also, interestingly they spend 15% of their day looking for stuff – I’ll talk about that in the future.)

Have you ever stopped to evaluate your own productivity in relation to things like emails and mobile phones? Are you actually “using” the technology or is “using” you?

Technology should be making your life EASIER not HARDER. If it isn’t then perhaps it’s time to take control back or perhaps just ignore it for a while?