mip's scan

Tips for Entrepreneurs

As many of you know, I'm not just a tech guy, but also a management consultant.  So when I came across this article titled What Not To Do aimed at Entrepreneurs I thought I'd share it with my readers.  The summary is

A seasoned entrepreneur reveals the 17 most common mistakes startups make and how to avoid them--plus, the 5 things you must do to ensure success.

Having started 3 businesses of my own, I could relate to a number of these items.  Having worked for a startup in the dot-com era, I saw a number of these mistakes happen there as well.

The iPod Beachhead

While I was out of town on some consulting work, I had the pleasure of getting together with some old co-workers and I saw an interesting thing.  I can't call it a trend since I only saw this in one home but it'd be interesting to know if this is a trend occuring and if it might continue.

While arriving at this friend's home and sitting down for a pre-dinner drink he put some music on in the background.  His wife called out that she wanted some jazz.  I looked curiously to see him at his stereo, but sitting atop it he was fiddling with his iPod.  He scrolled down the playlist, made his selection and the music started. 

Firefox Winning Marketshare

I've been so busy with client projects in the last week that my pile of reading is gotten so full!  But today with our first serious snow fall, I've had the opportunity to work in the office.  And one of the first things I've read here has relevance to one of my client projects and that is Firefox.  I've been helping one of my clients migrate a number of applications so that they will work well with Firefox.  They decided to have their office of just under one hundred people use Firefox rather than IE.  The reason for this was security related but some of their Intranet applications didn't work well under Firefox. 

So it was interesting to read this morning that Firefox continues to gain ground against IE. 

How Things Have Changed

I came across this an thought I'd post something here as a light technology topic.  Its a site that has the scans of an old book called How It Works...The Computer.  They show a number of pages from the original printing in 1971 and the second printing in 1979. 

The second printing from 1979 came out just when I was first writing my first computer program on an old CPM machine my uncle lent me from where he worked which was NCR.  I was nine at the time. God I feel old.

I loved the pics of the old punchcards.

For you old time programmers, enjoy this little trip down memory lane.

The textbook pages can be found here.

Microsoft Search

Microsoft made available its beta search tool today.  You can access it here. 
At first blush it doesn't seem like a Google-killer.  Far from it.  Rather it seems like just another search tool.  I ran an informal let's-test-this-shall-we with 8 other people and a funny thing happened.  All of them, myself included, exhibited the strange behaviour of doing a search on MSN and then double checking it with Google.  Needless to say, the Google search engine seems more thorough, returns more relevant results and more results. 

For example, I ran a test on MSN for the term mip's scan.  It didn't display anywhere in the first 2 pages any results from my online newsletter.  Strange.  Perhaps all those pro-Linux/pro-open source posts pushed me further down.  Ok, ok, I know that's a cheap shot.  More seriously what it points to is that MSN search may not be as well indexed as Google.  I ran the same test on Google and sure enough mip's scan was at the top of the list.  It even found a post on Slashdot where someone had mentioned mip's scan. 

It's this type of thing that will lead people who have become very comfortable with Google to question whether they are really getting the best results when using the new MSN search tool. 

The other thing that surprised me about the beta is that it didn't offer a desktop search.  This is really what is keeping the folks in Redmond awake and I'm sure that for the final release, a desktop search capability will also be built into the tool.  The question however will be, when it comes, will it be as good as Googles?

Finally Firefox 1.0 Is Release

For those of you who may have downloaded the preview - Firefox 1.0 has  arrived.  For those of you who didn't download the preview because you were waiting for a stable version of this fantastic browser, I repeat, Firefox 1.0 has arrived.

From the Firefox website we read

The wait is over. Firefox 1.0 empowers you to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than with any other browser. Join more than 8 million others and make the switch today — Firefox imports your Favorites, settings and other information, so you have nothing to lose.

So on your way now.  Click here and download your copy of Firefox and start enjoying your web experience again.

Halo 2 - A Definite Wow Event

As you know, I run a technology camp for kids, and one of the streams is video game development, so of course I follow video gaming closely (and of course, I'll admit, I enjoy playing games as much as I admire examining how they've been made). 

It's a given then that I was out early this morning at the local game store to pick up my preordered copy of Halo 2.  I had meeting up until about 2 this afternoon and I've spent the past few hours playing, I mean, analyzing this title.   So here are some thoughts.

Protect Yourself

I have been in the last month in a lot of homes, home offices, and small business offices to assist with recovering, rescuing, cleaning and disinfecting computers. Virus riddled emails, spyware and ad-ware piggybacking itself on downloaded programs. The thing I see over and over again is that so many of these machines are left so woefully exposed to the threats that are out there. So I thought I'd share a few tips to my readers that might help you combat this growing problem.