What a sad bunch

Here are some results from a recent AOL survey on email usage.

We have become addicted to email –

nearly half (46%) of email users said they’re hooked on email (up from just 15% last year) and 51% check their email four or more times a day (up from 45% in 2007). One in five said they check their email more than 10 times a day.

We are unable to cope with the volume –

More than one-quarter (27%) are so overwhelmed by their email that they’ve either declared “email bankruptcy,” deleting all their email messages to start anew, or they’re seriously thinking about doing so. Maybe it’s because 20% of users said they have over 300 emails in their inboxes!

We email on vacation –

More than 50% said they check their email while on vacation. It’s even higher among mobile users. Seventy-eight percent of those who have a mobile device check email while on vacation.

We email while we supposed to be sleeping –

Nearly half (41%) of mobile email users said they keep their cell phones near them when they sleep so they can hear when a new email comes in. Worse, 49% of mobile email users said they check their email every single time a new message arrives.

It seems clear to me that emails are creating real problems for most people, simply because they haven’t been taught the correct methods of dealing with them. Some simple techniques can really make big differences. I have documented some of these techniques in the following Overcoming email frustrations in Outlook 2007 and Overcoming email frustrations in Outlook 2003.

Normally, these books sell for about $35 but until January 31, 2009 I have a special deal going which you can find out about here. To take advantage of this offer please contact me directly via director@ciaops.com.

Also, don’t forget we also conduct email productivity seminars in your office to help everyone become more effective with email.

Your business is not you

I received a comment on my previous post about making a business profit. By no means am I implying that you should run a business into the ground sole for a dollar but again I don’t see many people running a business for PROFIT.

Let’s go back a step and again ask what are you in business for? You need to answer this honestly for it to be worth anything. If you tell me you are in it to make money or if you are in it simply to enjoy a reasonable life then they are both admirable goals BUT they not compatible with each other. You can only do one or the other. If you tell me that you are in the business to make money and yet are not focused on improving the efficiency of your business operations then I hate to tell you that you are fooling yourself. If your business is totally dependant on you to run it day to day you are again fooling yourself. If you are simply charging for your time with no leverage and think you are running a business, you are still fooling yourself.

If you tell me that you are running a business to make money then that’s what you need to be doing everyday. You need to set goals and strategies to help you achieve that. Tell me honestly, if your goal is to make money from your business is that written down anywhere? Have you developed a documented plan on how you will achieve this? If you tell me that you have but it is all in your head, I’m sorry that isn’t good enough. Why? Show me a profitable business elsewhere that has its plans “in its head”. I think you’ll struggle to find one.

Many small business mistakenly believe that they can simply earn revenue and allow a business to grow organically over time. Mistakenly they believe that, like compound interest, the value of their business will simply grow year on year. Mistakenly they believe that at some point in the future they can sell their business for a handsome reward. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

There is a major difference between business revenue and business value. Your customers provide revenue but only you can provide value to your business. If you are simply going out every day and charging for you time and not adding value to your business where do you think it is magically going to come from? I strongly believe that there is limit on how much any business can produce selling pure service. The secret to value is product. Now that product can include service components but it has be something tangible that a customer wants to buy. Simply selling maintenance will give you short term revenue but it will not add long term value.

Your business is not you. It should be totally separate from you. It should not need you to operate. If your aim is to make money then you need to be an owner of a business not a manager or a worker in that business. All an owner does it set the business in motion and collect the rewards. If you are not moving towards being an owner everyday then don’t fool yourself that you are running a business. You instead have a very enjoyable, comfortable hobby which is perfectly fine as long as you accept the fact that you are rarely going to get rich from your hobby!

I thought I had updated

A few days ago, like many IT people worldwide, I received a distressed call from a friend about the recent Microsoft Internet Explorer issue that they had seen all over the media. What did they need to do? I told them that they had to run a Microsoft Update from their browser. Having never done this (first bad sign) I had to given them an idea of what needed to be done. They were much calmer now knowing what make then safe. After not hearing again from them after a few day I assumed all was fine.

I was actually visiting this same friend today so I thought I’d just take a look at their system to ensure that it had been updated. I was amazed to find that the machine was not up to date at all and in fact was still vulnerable. After starting the update process I quizzed my friend as to why they hadn’t updated. Their reply was “I thought I had”.

So what happened? In theory Microsoft Update is only for Microsoft to inform the user about patches that need to be applied to the system. That is UNLESS they haven’t installed Service Pack 3 for Windows XP! If that hasn’t been installed you’ll see a screen like this:

The top option, and the one most likely to be picked by unsuspecting users like my friend, is to install Windows XP Service Pack 3 and no other updates. So what happened is my friend pushed the top button, not reading the actual instructions on the page, as non-computer people do, and merely installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 on their machine and nothing else.

Was their machine still vulnerable? Yes. Were they likely to run another update? Nope. Chalk up another win for the bad guys. This time in my books it really is an own goal on Microsoft’s part. Sure Windows XP Service Pack 3 is important but it isn’t a critical update. Being the first choice on the screen it is what most users (who aren’t computer people) are going to select in their quest to be “safe” given all the hysteria. Microsoft updates should be for critical updates only and if you are going to put a message about a Service Pack make it the second choice. Microsoft, please remember, most people have no idea about technology.

Perhaps I should have told my friend to keep running Microsoft Update until there were no more updates. Perhaps they should have read the update screen more carefully. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Yet it only takes one maybe for an attacker to compromise a system. Once they get control, your only real option is to reformat and reload, today’s malware is just too sophisticated for any cleaning tool to deal with 100% effectively. To guarantee that your system is clean after an infection the only option is a complete reload. Who wants to do that? No-one but the odds are stacked in an attackers favour. Why? You need to defend your system against EVERY threat in Windows, Office, iTunes, Acrobat and piece of software you have installed on your machine. Not just Windows, the lot. An attacker only needs to exploit ONE SUCCESSFULLY and they can have control. So who’s got the better odds? It certainly isn’t you!

It further illustrates to me the divide between those that develop IT systems and those that use them. The void between the level developers believe users are and where they actually are is immense and getting bigger everyday. Wasn’t technology supposed to get easier? The reality is that is only getting easier for attackers to compromise systems. What does that say for a system we put so much faith in these days. Our common technology is built on very shaky ground, very shaky indeed.

Why start a business?

In these failing economic times many small business owners are probably asking themselves why they started their business. That doesn’t achieve anything because it is examining the past, besides I’ll give you the answer. Actually, I’ll let someone else far more qualified than me give you the answer:

“there is ultimately only one reason to create a business of your own, and that is to sell it!” – E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber ,P152

I will admit that for many years I never ran my business like I was going to sell it but I learned that you need to. Even if you choose not to sell your business you STILL HAVE THE OPTION if needed.

In this economic environment plenty of small businesses are going to think about cashing in their chips, but guess what guys? The pile of chips is only a tiny fraction of what you believe it to be. Why? Because the business depends on a single person, you. Unless you have documented and created procedures for the way you business operates and the business can run without you it is not going to be appealing to buyers. Simply reverse the situation and ask yourself whether you would buy your business? If so what would you pay for it as an outsider?

So if you are not making your business more “sellable” everyday what the hell are you doing? I’d say that you simply have a job or at best, a hobby. You need to run it like you’re going to sell it – end of story. The sooner you start seeing a business as something that you continually need to add value to the sooner you’ll start adding value.

Times change and unforeseen situations arise so if you optimize your business to be sold at any time, then you have far more options that most small business people I know.

Is nothing safe?

Ok, if you haven’t read the news or seen the TV then you should know that you need to patch Internet Explorer urgently. In the meantime the reports indicate that you shouldn’t use Internet Explorer to browse the web.

No problems you say, I’ll use FireFox instead. Ahh, wait on there. Apparently Firefox tops the list of the 12 most vulnerable applications on Windows according to this report.

So no more web browsing until the patch gets applied. Will you are downloading the patch consider this story that a company involved with the new frontrunner’s bid for Australia’s national broadband network has links with the Chinese military.

Man. Why would anyone ever use the Internet? Problem is, they are still going to aren’t they? And many won’t be updating their systems, so it makes the Internet an even more dangerous place even if YOU do the right thing.

It’s a real double edged sword isn’t it? So, please update your systems and get others to update theirs as well because we’re all in this together.

What coming in the next SharePoint Guide release?

Here is some of the new content that will be included in January release of my Windows SharePoint Operations Guide:

– Migration to Companyweb on SBS 2008. I have retested my initial beta information of this process on the released version of SBS 2008 and added some additional information about security. So like SBS 2008, this process is no longer in beta.

– Upgrading SQL Versions. There are cases where you may wish to upgrade the version of SQL server you are using with SharePoint. Typically this involves an upgrade from the default SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition (SSEE) to the full version of SQL server. I have documented the full process to make it simple and straight forward.

– Additional troubleshooting techniques. I’ve added a few more troubleshooting techniques to help overcome some common frustrations.

These are just a few of the items I’ll be adding for the January release. As always, subscribers will receive their new versions automatically free as part of their subscription to the Guide. If you aren’t a subscriber then don’t forget that from January 1, 2009 the price for the Guide rises to $299. So if you get in now you’ll save $50!

As always, information about the Windows SharePoint Operations Guide can be found at http://www.wssops.com. I thank all my subscribers for their support over the last year and look forward to providing you even more content in 2009.

How to crash SBS2008 (and Vista)

I came across a bug in Microsoft Vista that allows it to be crashed from the command prompt by simply typing a single command. Apparently, Microsoft don’t believe that it warrants enough emphasis to provide a patch. They say they will fix it in the next Service Pack (due soon).

I was then a little curious. If Vista and Windows 2008 (and therefore SBS 2008) are based on the same TCP/IP stack would I also be able to crash SBS 2008?

I made sure my SBS 2008 machine was up to date:

Firstly, I go to the command prompt as an administrator and type:

route add 1.2.3.4/240 4.3.2.1

[On my test SBS2008 server it did not always happen immediately but I could normally force the issue if it didn’t happen initially by removing the route via the command:

route delete 1.2.3.4

]

I then wait a few moments and

BAMM! Blue screen of death!

Sure, to actually execute this command on Vista or SBS2008 you need to run it from a console but what is to stop some enterprising person getting this to run on a victim’s machine? We all know users just love to click and install spyware. So even though Microsoft say it isn’t a big worry I’d be concerned, especially as there is currently no patch available.