Tim Long

ClustrMaps - So Good. So Buy One

By now, you'll have seen a ClustrMap like the one shown here. This wonderful little invention shows graphically how many people have been visiting a certain web page and from what part of the world. It is truly fascinating to add one to your blog or web site and watch the red dots appear and grow. ClustrMaps are free and easy to set up.

But, ladies and gentlemen, did you know your ClustrMap could do this:

For a very modest fee, which varies depending on whether you pay all up-front or monthly, you (and your site visitors) can drill down into the data by continent and country. Given how wonderful a thing ClustrMaps is and how universally popular they've become, why not consider rewarding the inventors - and at the same time improving the usefulness of your site stats - by paying for the enhanced features. It is really, really cheap!

[P.S. my map has just had it's annual archive, which is why it looks a bit sparse at the moment!]

Fostering a Power User Culture

Darren Strange aka The Office Rocker has a new guest blogger, Colin Ashurst from Durham Business School, who has nailed what I see as one of the biggest challenges facing companies today. Time and again I see computers being used as nothing more than glorified typewriters. It is amazing how sometimes workers employed to perform word processing don't even know the fundamental techniques for putting together a word document. I've seen people use tables to set their paragraph spacing. I've even seen a case of someone who types all their word documents into one large file, named after the month - they are essentially using Word as their filing system! I've seen people type letters in Excel instead of Word, because they didn't know they could embed a spreadsheet in a Word document. I've seen people Copy & Paste letters dozens of times because they didn't know about Mail Merge. Really, this sort of stuff happens! (digression: if you job involves producing documents in Microsoft Word, take a look at my Three Golden Rules for Effective Word Processing).

Businesses know they need technology, but they don't foster a power-user culture. They plonk technology on workers' desks but don't support them in using it. An article in the Microsoft Momentum newsletter says:

Companies typically arm their employees with arsenals of desktop applications and features designed to help them work faster and smarter. [In] a 2004 Microsoft Office survey that reached more than 38,000 users, respondents consider 17 hours of their 45-hour workweek unproductive [...] implying that desktop tools simply aren't being used to their full potential.

It goes on to say of Power Users:

Power users are a whole different story. They are typically non-IT employees with a great personal interest in technology, along with a deep understanding of what technology can do to help them. The good news: Anybody can become a power user with some knowledge and the right motivation.

The article goes on to explain that getting the most from IT is about more than just providing a computer and software. It is about fostering a power-user culture, encouraging and supporting users to become more proficient in the use of Information Technology. Training courses help, but fundamentally it is about your attitude towards technology from the top down. If the managing director uses Outlook to schedule meetings, then the staff will too. If the performance review process recognizes employees for embracing and evangelizing use of technology, they will want to do it. Organizations can leverage their power users so that all employees become proficient in Information Worker tools and techniques.

As a Technology Consultant and Small Business Specialist, I see it as part of my job to help organizations foster and leverage their power user culture. I can begin that process by using the Business and Technology Assessment Toolkit and providing a free IT Health Check.

It's appropriate that The Office Rocker got me thinking about all this, because Microsoft's 2007 Office System has made great progress in this area. The new "ribbon" user interface puts features on display just at the moment they are needed. It isn't perfect but it greatly reduces the amount of searching around in menus and dialog boxes for features. New additions such as SmartArt and Quick Parts make it much quicker and easier to build professional documents. Document Themes make it effortless to transform the look and feel of whole documents and Live Preview is great for seeing how things will look without having to actually make any changes. We should be out there persuading our customers to upgrade!

Outlook 2007 Performance - A New Problem?

I need your help. I found what I think is a new performance issue in Outlook related to SharePoint integration and I’m looking for independent confirmation so I can take it to Microsoft with confidence that it is not just a local issue. If you see this issue, I would appreciate it if you could ping me.

Symptoms:

Poor performance generally; Outlook becomes unresponsive or is very slow to respond for long periods, then recovers and works well again, in a repeating cycle.

Outlook will have (or have had) one or more subscriptions to SharePoint list data and there will be a store called SharePoint Lists in the folder tree.

When the problem is occurring, opening SysInternals Process Monitor will show that outlook.exe is continually attempting to create error log files with invalid file names, in the user’s Temp directory. An example of the trace produced would look like this:

594456      17:40:26.7448582     OUTLOOK.EXE                 4128            CreateFile                        C:\Users\Tim\AppData\Local\Temp\=?utf-8?B?e0RBRDExNDVCLTFBMTAtNEZGQi1BNkJFLUE2ODU3NTEyNzUwQX0=?=-409598422-wss-errors.xml                 NAME INVALID               Desired Access: Generic Read/Write, Disposition: Create, Options: Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Non-Directory File, Open No Recall, Attributes: N, ShareMode: Read, AllocationSize: 0

Workaround:

Delete (Close) the SharePoint Lists store and re-start Outlook. Make sure it really exits – you will probably have to go into task manager and kill the process.

I’ve detected this issue on several computers now running XPSP2 and Vista Ultimate, albeit on my own domain, which is why I need independent confirmation. Outlook seems to be getting into some sort of loop where it is trying to create an error log, which fails because it has an invalid filename. I captured over two million attempts to create these xml files in the space of just a few minutes.

Do you compete on Quality or Price?

Seth's Blog: How to make a million dollars

Seth Godin essentially says that competing on price doesn't work. Ultimately, I agree with him. I touched on this theme a little while ago in my post The Zen of Free. I've discovered that it is harder than you might expect to give stuff away for free.

Let me share an interesting effect with you. I recently joined a BNI chapter. At my last meeting, I said "I don't normally do home computers, but as a way of getting to know you all better, if you have any problems with your home PC I'll come out and take a look at it for free". Since I said that, three people have asked me to look at their computers and have offered to pay me for my time. I'm not sure what psychology is in play here, but when I figure it out I'll let you know!

I'm learning that it is a mistake to compete on price. Setting my prices has been one of the hardest things I've had to do since starting my business and being involved in the SBS Community has helped a lot. My wife Grace is going through the same agonies with her new business, Live Assistant Business Solutions. I've been guilty of selling myself too cheap, but I am learning fast. I've seen a couple of local companies constantly offering stuff too cheap. It takes the floor out of the market and ultimately they are flogging themselves trying to please customers who mostly begrudge paying them. I think I would rather have an excellent relationship with 10 customers who are happy with my service and see the value in it, than 100 customers who only come to me because I am cheap. I'm going to try to be stricter with myself in future not to sell myself too cheap.

 As for equipment, I only sell computers containing 100% genuine brand-name product, Intel throughout. It's not that much more expensive and I know exactly what components are inside and that it has passed WHQL Testing. I see other companies in the area selling the cheapest stuff they can get their hands on and the temptation is to do the same to make an easy buck. But I wonder if anyone is really served by this strategy in the long run? What are your thoughts on this? Leave a comment or trackback from your own blog. I'd really like to know!

Change Management and the Small Business

David and Vlad have been talking about change management recently. It's not that I disagree, but I want to just inject a reality check into the discussion. Perhaps you've forgotten what it's like being a small business. The stark reality is that many small businesses cannot afford to do the sort of change management being advocated. The area I live and work in, South Wales UK, is a European Objective One area. That means that our GDP is less than 75% of the European average. In short, businesses are not exactly cash rich here. In many cases, just persuading a business that they need a decent computer (let alone a server) is like extracting blood from a stone. Some areas do OK, like Cardiff - capitol city of Wales. But travel 20 miles north and you're in a technology desert. Trying to persuade businesses that they need a tape backup drive, or a spare server to try out service packs on, would be (to put it politely) futile. For many businesses, a low-end server with SBS Standard is right at the limit of what they are prepared to spend. Redundancy and change management is not in the budget. One might argue that those are not the "right sort of customers" and in an ideal world I would agree, but working in an area like this demands a certain amount of social responsibility - someone has to help those businesses.

As a small business IT service provider, this is the value that we add. I consider it my job to try out updates and service packs on behalf of my customers, before I approve them for installation (I use WSUS where possible). But, there's no way I can really test updates at each customer site. If it works at my site, I install it for all my customers. I've never had a really serious problem yet. Maybe one day I will, but neither I nor most of my customers can afford to do it any differently.

Wikipedia Link Module for CS2007 - Ben Tiedt's Blog

If you are a Community Server blogger (that is, your blog is hosted on a Community Server) then you might like to look at this add-on module by Ben Tiedt. Ben's module allows you to create links to Wikipedia articles using the CS text module notation, that is, you enclose your link in square brackets then use the following notation: wikipedia:Community Server. The links appear highlighted and when the mouse is rolled over, the help cursor is displayed. Clicking on the link pops up an article summary from Wikipedia. I find this a really convenient way to break out definitions of things on my blog, it saves me having to explain things all the time and enables the reader to open the full article if they want to drill down into it.

The links and pop-ups are easily styled (as I have done here) by editing the supplied CSS file.

Wikipedia Link Module for CS2007 - Ben Tiedt's Blog

I've had it with broken partner directories

A little while ago, Microsoft wrote to me and asked me to test their latest partner finder solution. If you're a partner, then I'm sure they wrote to you too. Well I tested it, and guess what? It was broken. In fact, it was so completely and utterly broken that it was only finding 5 small business specialists in the whole of UK (I know for a fact that there are several hundred).

I gave feedback. Nothing has happened. It still doesn't find my company or any others in South Wales.

Look, Microsoft: it's not that your tool needs tweaking - IT DOESN'T WORK AT ALL. Don't you think this is an urgent situation? Why can't we go back to the old tool, which worked pretty well and really didn't need changing? Moreover, don't you think you owe it to your partners to actually TEST these things before you unleash them on us and our customers? Gadzooks! Are you having these search tools coded by an infinite number of monkeys?

This is highly unprofessional and a bad show. And I'm not the only person who thinks so.

[UPDATE: I have received notes today from some of the UK small business team that the problem is being worked on. In all fairness, they are a great bunch and they do listen to us]

Microsoft and TestDriven.NET

This is like driving past a road traffic accident. You don't want to look, but the morbid curiosity is overwhelming. In case you've missed this developing saga of Microsoft vs. TestDriven.NET, here's a quick summary:

• Jamie Cansdale, a developer based in the UK, produced an add-on for Visual Studio called TestDriven.Net that enables developers to do unit testing. The problem is that the add-on works in the Express versions of Visual Studio, which Microsoft says is not allowed. Express versions are free, so you don't get add-ons.
• Jamie says he hasn't done anything wrong. He simply used the APIs that Microsoft provided. Microsoft says that in order to load an add-on in VS Express, the EULA must have necessarily been violated. Jamie thinks not. That's the crux of the issue.
• Microsoft asked Jamie to remove the part of his code that enabled the product to load in Express versions.
• Jamie initially removed the code, but when his users wanted to know why he pulled support, he asked Microsoft to provide a statement explaining what clause in the EULA had been breached so that he could inform his users. Microsoft didn't provide an adequate explanation, so unable to see what he had done wrong, Jamie re-enabled his code.
• The whole thing has spiraled to the point where Microsoft's lawyers are now dealing with the matter. Jamie is standing his ground (losing his MVP status in the process) and insists (after taking legal advice) that he has not breached the EULA.

I saw a post on Andrew Connel's blog arguing more-or-less in favour of the Microsoft position. Much of what Andrew says is correct, but I disagree with Andrew slightly. Albeit from reading Jamie's account in which he publishes much of the email exchange and the letters from Microsoft's lawyers, it doesn't seem to me like there has been any stealing of code. Jamie simply used the APIs that Microsoft provided, complete with IntelliSense. The fact is, Jamie has figured out an innovative technique to load add-ons that Microsoft didn't anticipate, and they don't like it.

I think Microsoft has to be really careful how they play this. They are almost in a no-win scenario. The open source community is already up in arms, though much of what is being written is complete drivel. If Microsoft uses strong-arm tactics and crushes an individual developer, that could be a PR nightmare. On the other hand, if it turns out that Jamie's legal advice is correct, then Microsoft will have egg on its face. Having not read the VS Express EULA myself, I can't comment on who is technically in the right. But I can tell Microsoft that it is not winning any PR victories here. It would have been a lot better if Microsoft had, when asked, provided a direct and explicit answer as to what EULA clause had been violated. Their failure to do that until lawyers were involved has lead to this pointless escalation, in my opinion.

I'm not sure that I would be brave enough to stand up to Microsoft. There are individuals who I interact with who are very open to frank discussion and accepting criticism and that is great. Those guys a re a credit to Microsoft. I admire Jamie for his tenacity, but if I were in his position I'd be thinking very carefully about my next move. I really hope the two sides find a way to come back from the brink.

Joel on Back-peddling and a nod to Windows Vista's SuperFetch and ReadyBoost technologies

Apple Safari for Windows: The world's slowest web browser - Joel on Software

Joel Spolsky is someone whose writings I respect greatly, but I had to chuckle when I read Joel's latest blog post - it started well but then sort of got away from him. Despite the "blog first, think later" situation (I'm sure we've all had the occasional "Dilbert Moment" and Joel's normal high standards more than make up for it) Joel criticizes Apple for the weasel advertising techniques it uses.

Joel starts by complaining that Apple Safari for Windows, which Apple claims is "the world’s fastest and easiest-to-use web browser" was actually insanely slow, taking about 57 seconds to launch. However, it seems that Safari is doing some magic behind the scenes on the first launch and that's why it takes so long. Not only that, he's running it on Windows Vista, so each time Joel launches Safari, Windows Vista's SuperFetch technology is working out that Joel is using this program quite a lot, so the startup time gets faster and faster. So actually, this is a sideways compliment to Windows Vista and its disk-and-memory optimization features.

 If you are running Windows Vista, particularly on a computer that is a bit resource constrained, then consider getting a memory drive, such as a USB 2.0 flash drive and letting Windows Vista use it for a different-but-related feature called ReadyBoost. Not all devices are fast enough, so try-before-you-buy. When you do find a suitable device, when you plug it in the AutoPlay pop-up will include an option to "Speed up my system", as shown in the screen shot here. You can set what proportion of the device you want to set aside for ReadyBoost and the rest is available for saving files as normal. Vista will use the memory drive as a medium speed disk cache that will speed up your disk I/O giving a noticeable performance boost, giving that ageing computer a new lease of life that might just make it tolerable when running Vista. I use ReadyBoost on my Acer Tablet PC, which has 1.2Gb of RAM which is not really enough. ReadyBoost does make a noticeable difference but if you shut down the PC that seems to set you back to square one and it takes 15 minutes or more to get the performance boost back again - so I try never to shut my laptop down unless I really have to.

Oh, and before you ask, it is fail safe. Go ahead and yank out that memory stick in the middle of saving a document. So what if you just hot-unplugged your hard drive's cache - Vista doesn't even flinch, not a beep, not an error message. It just keeps going. Put the memory drive back in, and ReadyBoost picks up where it left off. And, if you lose you memory stick and worry about confidential data in the cache, no need. It is AES encrypted. Microsoft has done a good job on this one.

Microsoft Pursues The Pirates

Staggering starfish! As reported by Susanne and David, it looks like Microsoft UK is turning words into action at long last, with an out-of-court settlement and more cases in the pipeline.

This is great. This pleases me on two fronts:

1. They (Microsoft) are doing something proactive that benefits customers and honest and legitimate partners
2. They are telling us about it.

 I have personally been in the position of going into a customer site and having to tell them that all their software is unlicensed and they have to start again from scratch. It is not a nice situation to be in, because they had no idea anything was wrong and it creates a short term conflict of interest between helping out a hapless customer and staying on the right side of the law. In my case, I used a 'softly softly' approach and after a few months of gentle persuasion I got them to do a complete hardware refresh, and they are now using brand new "Office Ready" PCs loaded with OEM Windows Vista and Office 2007. They are properly licensed and have state of the art equipment. A good result - in the long run.

It is important that Microsoft continues to announce successful prosecutions to the public and in particular to the Small Business Specialist Community. We are, effectively, Microsoft's licensing police (I like to think that we are the "good cop") so we need to have concrete examples of what can happen when the rules are broken. It is also a MAJOR incentive to encourage us to report the bad guys who compete with us unfairly. This is the first report I've ever seen of anything actually happening to a rule-breaker in the UK and now I am much more inclined to believe that Microsoft UK is serious about helping legitimate partners do the right thing and compete on a level playing field.

So thanks, Microsoft - and thanks for keeping us in the loop.

The Zen of Free

I was just reading a post by Joel Spolsky on the Joel on Software blog. Joel was dispensing advice on how to make yourself look more valuable to prospective employers. He touched on something that I've been contemplating a lot lately:

"Opportunities seem more valuable to us when their availability is limited"

This seems to confirm something I've been observing more and more lately: If something is too easily available, for example if you give it away for free, then the recipient will place no value on it. Case in point. Grace and I have just started a course run by Swansea University, which is fully funded and therefore free at the point of delivery. Entry requirements: ability to fill out the application form. About 30 people turned up to the seminar that was run to announce the course. I'm not sure how many of those actually signed up, but on day one of the course, 8 people turned up and we were given to understand that another 4 were expected. So that's a 33% dropout rate on day one. Compare that to the degree course I did back in the day, which I had to work hard to get on to (A-levels were hard in those days). Out of a class of 60 or so students, the drop-out rate was probably less than 10% at the end of the course.

I see this pattern in all walks of life, including the software business. A colleague developed a piece of software and initially gave it away for free. In the next version, he said "hey, this is a lot of work, it would be nice if you sent me a donation". No-one paid. In the next version, he made it pretty clear that a donation was expected. Still no-one paid. Finally, he formed a company and sold the very same software on a commercial basis, with a price tag of a couple of hundred dollars. He's now running a successful business venture selling that same software for up to $400 a time, to the same market that would not make a $5 donation. The situation is a bit different here, but when he gave the software away for free, no-one thought it was worth paying for.

I think the open source movement needs to watch out for this effect. Ultimately, open source and free software may be a victim of its own success, because the Zen of Free is that free stuff has no value. In the human mind, value and cost (or scarcity, or barriers to entry) are inextricably linked. It's better to be "reassuringly expensive".

PS. bonus points if you can work out why I used that picture...

How to Change Your Live (passport) ID

For historical reasons, my Live ID (formerly called a Passport ID) has always been different to my main email address. This was getting annoying because it meant that I didn't get presence information against my ID in applications like Outlook, SharePoint and Groove.

I discovered it is really easy to change your Live ID to match your email address and all of your online profile information and Messenger buddy list will be updated automatically - others will not even notice you made a change unless they are really observant.

The process is simple. Just visit http://account.live.com and sign in, if necessary. Look for the Change link, next to your email address. Click it and follow the instructions. That simple.

ASCOM 5.0 Class Diagram Revisited

A number of people have expressed objections to installing the XPS viewer. I'm not sure why, when they would happily install the PDF viewer, but such is humanity. Resistance is futile! The Borg are going to get you in the end. However, for the time being, here is the diagram as a Portable Network Graphic (PNG) file, which is a universally accepted lossless bitmap format, for the record.

Click on the image for a full size version, or right-click and Save Target As... to save it.

If you are using a non-express version of visual studio, the original .cd (class diagram) file is attached - if you don't see the attachment, click on the heading above to open up the article then you should see the attachment at the bottom of the post.