Warning: this post contains geek content that may be inappropriate for some readers.

Normally I’m not the impatient sort when it comes to gadgetery, but I must admit my patience is running pretty thin.

I’m an avid note taker.  I find it very important in my line of work (and in my personal development).  Often I will come out of meetings with pages of notes.  Unfortunately, that means I have shelves of notebooks, which are incredibly hard to refer back to later.  I often find that when I need to look back, I don’t have the right notebook with me (who wants to carry 3-5 notebooks for a year of notes!). 

When I’m problem solving, I also scribble a lot.  It’s a very good habit, formed early in my programming years.  There’s always a notepad on my desk with only semi-legible thoughts where I have been working through some process or problem.

Needless to say, with where technology is today, pen and paper should be obsolete.  Somehow, it’s not yet. (more…)

I find it entertaining to see the broad range of reactions to Windows 7.  The product is currently pre-beta, and various technology websites are posting their opinions like it’s the final release.  Windows 7 sucks.  Windows 7 is Vista done right. 

I’m disapointed in the hype mongering sites are doing.  One site I read (briefly, while shaking my head) went so far as to say that Windows 7 is Windows Vista because of thread and process counts.  Others say that the fact that it’s no faster than Vista for encoding video means it’s not an improvment. 

While many of us were hoping for a complete rebuild of Windows for the next major version, that’s not going to happen.  Vista was too much of a jump from XP to have them make another major jump in 3 years.  Windows 7 is going to a major improvement of Vista. 

All that being said, I find myself strangely excited about Windows 7.  I was at first about Vista, but then when I started to see the pig it had become, that excitement faded away.  Windows 7, so far, is faster (in the ways that count) and has learned many lessons from it’s overweight and less-than-intuitive predecessor.  Hearing about it running well on Netbooks and other small systems gives me hope that my note-taking slate will come one day.

Our team always recommends that clients purchase their PCs, laptops and servers from 1st tier manufacturers such as Dell, HP or IBM/Lenovo.  We do this for one reason:  support. 

Many people will lecture that extended warranties are a tax on the stupid.  I disagree completely.  Especially on laptops and servers.  $100 per year is a small price to pay for the insurance that should anything break, the vendor will replace the parts. (more…)

Groove is a pretty cool product.  Always has been.  When Microsoft bought Groove, it became a point of worry for me and many others.   Could they have purchased it purely to kill some competition?

Microsoft did some good things with Groove.  They’ve released (what looks like) a decent server platform for it, elevating it from a peer-to-peer product to one with a stronger reach into the Enterprise.  Groove can now link to, and leech, information from Sharepoint sites. 

Microsoft’s pricing of Groove is a death-sentence for the product.  It’s hard to convince anyone that Groove is worth over $250 per copy (retail).  Not when you can run Sharepoint Services as your server for free, and a product like Colligo to do your offline work (we use Colligo heavily here). 

I have had several clients now evaluate their use of Groove and make the transition to other solutions.  A couple to SharePoint, one completely dropping the functionality and going with a small online storage vendor. 

Same on you, Microsoft, for killing yet another potentially cool product!

One of my clients is the perfect buyer for a full featured video conferencing solution.  They are a small(ish) biotech company with their corporate head office here in Vancouver and much of their clinical/medical team in a remote office in Seattle.  

Every time I turn around, one or more of the Seattle office people are up here in Vancouver for meetings (or vice versa).  These meetings are hugely expensive – a senior medical-type person driving 3ish hours to Vancouver, often the night before, staying in a hotel, having the meeting(s), then driving home.  Direct cost for that person in the meeting ends up being 1-2 days (depending on if there’s an overnight), plus mileage, meals and hotel costs.  Add what they COULD be doing, and you end up with 2-4 days wages + costs.  INSANE. 

(more…)