{democracy:3}
Idea from Jyte.
Archive for the 'Public Opinion' Category
How do you convince “management” that purchasing a physical piece of software for 20 people, which will need to be updated manually (no automated deployment possibilities available) every quarter, is a bad idea and that they should instead purchase the web-based edition that is managed and updated by the manufacturer?
Technical and man-power aspects aside, add to that mix the fact that one of the newer executives used this particular piece of software at their previous job and is insistent that the web-based version (which provides identical features, simply in a different format) will not be acceptable. The arch enemies of the IT industry: company politics and user stubbornness and pride.
So what do you have open right now on your machine? Is that pretty standard? Anything else you normally have open (for work / home?)?
Right now I’m at work, and on my work PC we have:
- Outlook 2007
Have I mentioned how much I love Office 2007? - Interaction Client
Our phone system is software-based. This app serves as a gateway to all its wonderful features - company directory, caller ID, etc. etc. etc. - Firefox
7 tabs open - Local copy of the site I’m developing, production copy of the site I’m developing, our internal Flyspray bug tracker, a random PHP.net documentation page, an Oracle function documentation page, and the stylesheet for some random site1 - PL/SQL Developer
2 copies - One test / development server, one production server. Usually there are many more copies open - 2 servers x 2 or 3 users - 5 or 6 instances with countless queries, procedures, etc. open are quite normal. - Easy Eclipse
LAMP (+Oracle - LAMPO?) configuration for site development. - Visual Source Safe
Microsoft’s aging source code control system. It’s no SVN, but the interface is so simple a 2 year old could probably roll back my latest screw-up. - MMC Window
The Microsoft Management Console has all my Exchange server and Active Directory management snap-in’s configured. Sadly, I spend so much time in here that it just hangs around in my taskbar all the time. - Windows Explorer
3 windows - My network home directory (specifically my saved SQL queries and results folder), my htdocs directory, and a set of data files I’m importing into our system. - ANSI 837 Importer
Our home-brewed ANSI 837 health insurance claim EDI importer. At the moment it’s eating half my RAM importing a 100MB text file of claims data into our database. Fun times…
My laptop is much simpler:
- Firefox
5 tabs - Google IG homepage, (mt) Account Center, 2x Google Apps for Domains GMail inboxes, and this write post page. - iTunes
Gotta have coding music! - NetNewsWire
Mmmm… RSS is yummy! - XChat Aqua
Gotta keep up with fellow Wordpress-loving geeks!
So those are my machines at the moment, and pretty standard. Give or take a Photoshop and Textmate session on my laptop, and that’s about it. How about you?
- I was probably stealing their code. [back]
RandyWalker linked me to the entry Google is the new http:// in #wordpress earlier, and I shortly thereafter commented over on Alex King’s blog about OpenDNS’s typo-search feature. You know the one - if you type in a domain that doesn’t exist, rather than giving you the default “Couldn’t find that server” message, you get redirected to a Google-powered search results page instead (containing ads).
In short, the conversation was about people utilizing a browser’s auto-correct feature for a domain, rather than typing in the full address themselves. This can vary from simply typing “google” instead of “google.com” to typo’ing it “goggle.com”. If you’re presented with a clear “the server was not found” message, it’s pretty obvious that you did something wrong.
Instead, the OpenDNS method of redirecting you to search results for that term (or the laziness equivalent of people simply relying on Google’s results to get them to their destination more quickly) leaves open what I consider a security vulnerability.
You see, banks frequently encourage you to go to your browser and type in their address directly, rather than clicking through any links you find in an email. This is to help avoid people getting caught into phishing traps that disguise links in false emails as legitimate links.
Imagine, if you will, a world in which everyone utilized OpenDNS, or simply lets Google direct them where to go by omitting the “.com”1, and relies upon the search results they’re presented with to get to their destination. What if some clever phisher is able to successfully game the system and get a top result (or even the top result) for something like… “Bank of America”?
Now we’ve got legitimate sources (OpenDNS and Google) handing out links people assume are totally trustworthy to a site ranking highly for “Bank of America” that is not in fact a legitimate bank website. Can you imagine the millions of idiots that would blindly type their login credentials into this website, simply because they got to it from Google and it looked like the Bank of America website?
I say we start encouraging users to deliberately take the time to type the full address into the address bar. Stop allowing them to be lazy and utilize search engine results to get to their destination because they don’t want to add the additional 4 characters at the end of the URL.
- or other TLD - .net, .org, .whatever [back]
New Microsoft Ad: Scandalous or Creatively Fresh Marketing?
Over on Reddit, I found this story, titled New Microsoft Ad Features Girl’s Orgasm.
Now before we get into this, please, go watch the video (pick the first guy on the left, that’s the dad). Don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere, I’ll be here when you’re done.
Taps foot semi-impatiently…
Ok, done? That’s great…
So this girl’s “orgasm” is one quick gasp as the father imagines the worst possible things that could happen to his (hot) daughter while she’s out on a date with this loser, spurning him to change the curfew they’d just finished negotiating. The question being posed is, is it appropriate for Microsoft to use the image of teenage sex (in conjunction with the stereotype of the loser boyfriend, no less) to help sell their Suspicious “Male”-detection module of the new Hotmail service?
Personally, I don’t think there’s anything scandalous about this ad. I find it creative and a fresh perspective from a company (Microsoft) long known for being the stereotypical hard-core straight-laced business user (much like ‘PC’ in the Apple Mac vs. PC ads). I think the real question here is much broader: How Prudish is American Society?
Ever seen the movie Eurotrip? Hey, it had Michelle Trachtenberg in it, I couldn’t not watch… Well, in one scene, they’re hitchhiking along and she decides she’ll get a ride… by taking off her shirt.
No one stops.
The point is, this straight-laced American highschooler thought taking her shirt off would get any number of creepy guys to pull over and give them all rides. Unfortunately, they find out that in Europe, seeing a chick with her shirt off isn’t a new thing. Their example was an orange juice ad with lesbians in it, which certainly hammered home the point to me (perverts!). Elsewhere in the movie, the head mistress at a brothel claims that America was founded by prudes, which seems to be an accurate claim given the rest of the evidence we see throughout.
So I ask you again: Why is this ad groundbreaking? Are we that delusional to think that our children aren’t finding out about sex elsewhere, and that a 2-second gasp in an advertisement from the 800lb gorilla of software is going to turn them all into hormone-crazy sex heathens?
Let’s grow up, America. Stop blaming the advertising for turning your children into sex-starved homicidal maniacs and start taking a little extra responsibility for raising a child that’s broken, alright?
Hiding the truth from our society as a whole doesn’t make it go away. Pretending sex doesn’t happen doesn’t mean your children aren’t having it. This isn’t a nightmare, where it will go away if we just ignore it long enough, this is real life… It’s here to stay.