So I read a great post the other day about the commodification of the client operating system. I surprisingly agree with the author. I think that's the way we're headed.
In Amazon style, Amazon would like us to get our commodities from Amazon. Several months ago Amazon released Amazon Workspaces.
Amazon WorkSpaces is a fully managed desktop computing service in the cloud. Amazon WorkSpaces allows customers to easily provision cloud-based desktops that allow end-users to access the documents, applications and resources they need with the device of their choice, including laptops, iPad, Kindle Fire, or Android tablets. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, customers can provision a high-quality desktop experience for any number of users at a cost that is highly competitive with traditional desktops and half the cost of most virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions.
Pretty cool really. Cloud-based desktops were really unheard of before Amazon's release of Workspaces. Virtual desktops? Sure and they're terrible. Hosted desktops? Sure, and they're even worse. True cloud-based desktops before Amazon Workspaces? Nope.
With Workspaces a small business could have always up to date, always secure Windows computers at their beckon call. The device being used by the end user can be a system like Chrome OS which you can't really break. Starting Chrome OS up from scratch takes a few minutes at most.
Around the world today millions of hours will be spent messing with operating systems. Large corporations have entire teams dedicated to desktop support. Our idea of the operating system will soon be a distant memory, no more special or important than the black pen that runs out of ink, quickly interchanged with another without a second thought.
It usually starts the same way each time, you get an email from one of your contacts, "Hey, I got this weird email from you?"
You immediately know you didn't send them anything weird or otherwise. You check your sent items for clues. Sometimes clues are right there, sometimes the bad guys have covered their tracks. What do you do now?
Technically speaking you probably weren't hacked but rather phished. In a phishing attack you become the unwitting accomplice, actually handing over both your username and password. The images below show the attack email and phishing site that's been making the rounds the past few weeks.
OFTEN THE EMAIL WILL COME FROM A "TRUSTED" OR KNOWN CONTACT AS THE ATTACKER LEVERAGES THE CONTACTS SAVED WITHIN THE VICTIM'S ACCOUNT.
Stranger Danger
I've shown this site to several people and many of them say if the site was from a trusted person, they'd probably hand their credentials over by attempting to "sign-in".
This site is simply a form that might as well say, "give me your username and password so I can phish your account". If there is ever any doubt, never provide credentials.
This site offers many clues that can help us determine it's part of a phishing attack. (Click here to enlarge).
The Response
You've confirmed or strongly suspect someone besides yourself is leveraging your Gmail account to send email. What next?
Change your Gmail password
You can do so here: https://accounts.google.com/b/0/EditPasswd or from your Gmail Settings:
Click Change password in the “Change account settings” section.
Type your current password and your new password. We highly recommend you create a unique password - one that you don't use for any other websites. See more password tips below.
Click Change password.
There are also several other ways to access your Account's Security settings.
Review your Security Settings
You can find them here: https://www.google.com/settings/security
Review, confirm and update your 'Recovery & alerts' information as needed. This is a great opportunity to review these settings in detail to make sure everything is up to date.
Check your Gmail Filters
The more sophisticated attacks will often configure Gmail Filters to hide evidence of the intrusion, continue to leverage your account for nefarious activities or attempt to regain access. If a Filter does not look familiar, Delete it.
Find the filter you'd like to change and click edit or delete to remove the filter.
If you're editing the filter, enter the updated criteria for the filter in the appropriate fields, and click Continue.
Update any actions and click the Update filter button.
Check your Gmail Contacts
It's becoming more common for the attacker to delete the victim's Contacts. We assume this is to keep the victim from warning other potential victims before the phishing emails have a chance of snaring more victims. If your Contacts have been Deleted, leverage Gmail's 'Restore contacts...' feature under the 'More' menu.
Review additional information
If you've followed the steps above your account should be back within your control. Google does provide additional tools that can be leveraged to review additional information.
From the Gmail footer, you can find 'Last account activity' Details in the bottom right or by visiting 'Recent activity' here: security.google.com (When accessed from Gmail, this feature also allows you to "Sign out all other sessions", very handy if you forget to sign out somewhere.)
Last account activity will show us the recent login activity for our account - if you see Germany, China, Russia, etc. but happen to be in the United States you know your account was indeed compromised. It is common to see your mobile device log activity from other areas but they should be within the United States and relatively close to your general location.
2-Step Verification drastically reduces the chances of having the personal information in your Google Account stolen by someone else. Why? Because bad guys would have to not only get your password and your username, they'd have to get a hold of your phone.
Two-factor authentication would have foiled the phishing attack detailed in this post. Once your computer is authenticated you won't have to use two-factor authentication every time but anytime a new computer tries to access your account, two-factor authentication will be required. This strikes a good balance between convenience and security. Today many modern services offer two-factor authentication, you can learn more about other services offering this feature here.
Never trust an unknown or unexpected login page
If you're going about your business on the web and are unexpectedly asked to provide credentials, stop. Never login to a page you don't recognize or don't expect. Always review the URL of the site requesting credentials. If anything looks 'phishy' close the window and attempt to access the service as you normally would from a trusted URL like Gmail.com or Drive.Google.com
Leverage a good password
Keep your password secure. Don't share your password with others. In Gmail leverage Delegate Access rather than shared passwords. Don't have a single password for the whole office. If you ever think your password may have been exposed, be proactive and change it.
Never use your primary email address and password as a username/password combination for other sites.
Many services will allow (or require) an email address as a username, while convenient this can also be problematic if you use the same password for that site as the associated username for your email account. For example, Forbes was recently attacked by hackers who gained access to everyone's username.
THE SECURITY MESSAGE CURRENTLY ON FORBES.COM, FEBRUARY 17TH, 2014.
If your email address here is your primary email address and you used the same password for that email account and Forbes, you're at a greater risk of having your account compromised. While Forbes states that passwords were encrypted we can't know the strength of the encryption or if it was fully implemented. Bottom line, we don't want our primary account password in more places than it has to be. Increased points of exposure and passwords don't mix.
David Gewirtz recently wrote an article over at ZDNet called "My big email switch: Why I picked Office 365 over Google Apps". I thought many people may have the same questions and thoughts that David worked through so I thought I'd join the conversation.
It's a good article (and project) that he obviously put a lot of time and thought into. Obviously he can do whatever he'd like but I think David should have gone the other direction for multiple reasons. Why Google? He lays the most obvious reason out himself.
The case for Google was pretty simple. The two organizations I work most closely with, CBS Interactive and UC Berkeley, are both Google shops. I am in contact with my CBSi colleagues constantly — all day, every day — and I have some interaction or another with the University of California each day as well. The nonprofit I work with is also a Google grantee.
As part of my daily work, I often need to connect into CBSi or UC Berkeley files on Google Docs. I get sent links that require a Gmail account ID, and so forth. The case for Google is the theory was that if I moved fully into the Google world, then all this would become much more smooth.
It would also avoid the occasional problems of someone sending me a message directly to my never-checked Gmail account, instead of my main email account, since they'd be one and the same.
Another plus is that I rely constantly on Google Calendar. I've managed to make that application jump through some amazing hoops and have it customized in such a way that it's one of my most critical management applications. I use it not just for appointments, but for project management as well.
David can sense that his collaboration with his partner organizations would improve but it's impossible for a traditional Office user to really understand how much these interactions can improve. There is no comprable experience in the world of desktop apps. Yes, it would be much easier to "connect into files" on Google Docs if you were already authenticated, but that's the tip of the iceberg. A "file" is a thing. A Google Doc (and Sheet, Slide, Form or Drawing) is a "place" - it has a uniform resource locator (aka a URL). A "thing" has to be passed around individually; only one person can have the "thing" at once - this is why we have version nightmares and dozens of copies of important files. A "place" is somewhere we can all be together and thanks to the modern Internet, we can all be at this same place regardless of our physical location or what particular device we happen to have handy. Think about how much easier it is to share something interesting from a web site relative to a Word document - it's night and day; there is no comparison. It's hard to collaborate on an Excel file with 5 people who work in the same office! But you shared 1000x that amount of data with 1200 of your closest friends without even trying. The World Wide Web was LITERALLY invented to make sharing and collaborating on content easier. Don't believe me? Let the man tell you himself. As a full time Google Apps user David would have been able to flip dozens of workflows, large and small, completely on their head. It is not at all uncommon for dozens of tasks that used to take the better part of a week to be knocked out in minutes. Why Office 365?
David's #1 reason he wants to use Microsoft's "cloud" service = Microsoft's desktop software. Pretty sneaky Microsoft. It's time to stop using Outlook and we'll get to that shortly. But, while you should, you don't need to. Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook sets up in minutes and works great.
Outlook has given us some great memories but it's time to say goodbye:
Outlook runs on a single hard disk (or SSD if you're lucky!) in your computer. 1 disk. Gmail runs on multiple data centers simultaneously.
Backing up Outlook is your problem. It's taken care of in Gmail.
Outlook for iOS = no. Outlook for Android = no. Outlook for Mac = please in the name of all things holy don't do that.
You need to install and maintain Outlook on any computer you want to use it on. Gmail works on any computer at any time. Never say "I wish I had my work computer" ever again; any computer is your computer. Cloud Computing makes us less reliant on computers; it's one of the ironies of this paradigm shift.
Outlook breaks. Sometimes it's fixable; often times you have to reinstall it. Reinstalling takes hours, if you're lucky.
"I like Outlook better" is something you hear pretty often (and there is the sync connector for those who won't or can't change). But Gmail is more robust, faster, and more mobile. It works better - it is a utility, a tool. What you're really saying is "you're comfortable with Outlook" and that's understandable. Remember when you told everyone who would listen you'd never get rid of your Blackberry? Then you wondered how in the world you used that piece of junk for so long? Similar situation. It's time.
David also mentions he needs PowerPoint and that "While we have a bunch of Office 2010 licenses, I'd probably need to buy at least two new Office licenses, at least sometime in the next few years." Why? Office 2010 isn't going to stop working anytime soon; the amount of Office 2003 still out there is amazing. Office 2010 is good to go for at least 3 more years. Office is a perpetual license, check the box and move on. The costs David lays out are off as Office has already been purchased. Office 365 = $360 per year based on the article. Google Apps = $100 ($50 per person). $260 is a good chunk of change to hold onto. Multiple Google Accounts
David's biggest complaint here is that he can't take all of his personal Gmail stuff into his work account. I think this is a good thing. Why would you want to? He probably doesn't have all his personal stuff in his current Exchange account ... otherwise why the Gmail account? To some of the specific points raised by the author.
I would share my personal calendar into my work account. 2 minutes to do including logging into the account. David mentions he uses Google Calendar as his primary calendar (I think) - in this case I would just export the Gmail calendar from the personal account and import it into the work account. This takes 5 minutes. This has the added benefit of allowing for professional meeting invites in and out of the account as the professional identity hardworker@mycompany.com vs. justsomedude@gmail.com - this also applies to chat, Google Docs, etc.
David also mentions chat contacts. Chat will figure out who you email with and add them in chat if they're available or you can send the invite to force it ... you want to chat, send the invite. A few seconds maybe. Just add them when you want to chat, you don't need to figure it all out at once. Just do it as you work.
David talks about Google Voice a bit but I'm not sure I follow. You can move a Google Voice number from one account to another. If I used it as a personal and work #, I'd keep it associated with my personal account ... you'll be you for life, work identities change.
David says "Most people will likely have started with individual Google accounts and gotten to like Google services, and then decide they want to move to Apps." I think this is wrong. Many people have personal Gmail accounts that they want to keep personal. They have Apps accounts for work. I don't see how this is different than how he has it set up now. Google tools are useful in personal and work life but we don't necessarily want all that data smashed together.
It's at the end where David absolutely loses me.
I didn't want to have to be a squeaky wheel to my busy CBS Interactive and UC Berkeley colleagues. I didn't want to make them all change my chat names, change my account access to all our shared documents, and make them re-invite me to all the groups I rely on to do my daily work.
David didn't want to use Google Apps for Business because everyone he works with uses Google Apps for Business. That's one I haven't heard before. I've made many assumptions in this overview, some of them are undoubtedly wrong, but if you're a person using lots of Google services working with a lot of other people using a lot of Google services ... well, the squeaky wheel uses Office 365.
8/27/2014 Update: apparently David agreed: http://www.zdnet.com/why-i-bit-the-bullet-and-finally-switched-from-outlook-to-gmail-7000032179/
Simple is the opposite of complex and as famed technologist Ray Ozzie notes in his Dawn of a New Day memo, complexity is not cool.
Complexity kills. Complexity sucks the life out of users, developers and IT. Complexity makes products difficult to plan, build, test and use. Complexity introduces security challenges. Complexity causes administrator frustration.
As someone who often plays the roll of administrator, or managing others playing this roll, I have a particular appreciation for the awesomeness that is simplicity. Ray Ozzie feels the same way as Leonardo da Vinci did some 500 years ago as he stated, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Some things never change.
No one (normal) questions social content has an important role to play in today's world. Google's mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible".
When we search on the web, we're searching from our personal perspective. Search is a personal activity and there's a great deal of information that's important to us in our social networks. Google can't ignore this, regardless if the incumbents want to play nice or not.
Earlier this week Google released Search, Plus Your World in an effort to make its search engine more social. Reviews have been mixed to say the least. Google's search engine has always been revered as a beautifully simplistic service. Some people think these new social results muck it all up. Maybe they're right. Maybe not.
Google's innovating. That's a good thing. Period. Will this effort be successful or a failure? We don't know, but you can't know until you try - that's critical. People and companies that try new things are always criticized by others - that's the price of leadership.
Switch to Bing? Absolutely not. Bing is slower and has fewer results. Google's technology is literally years ahead of Microsoft's. Google.com is a better search engine. Technology is only half of the search engine business, you actually have to make money as well.
Hate the social results? Turn them off.
Google.com > Search Settings
Then look for "Personal Results" about half way down and turn them off.
Just like that, 5 seconds maybe, and all is right with the world.
Regarding Facebook and Twitter. They've been locking their data up tight and creating silos of proprietary data - it's not "on the web" it's on Facebook. Facebook doesn't own the social graph, it's on loan. I don't feel sorry for either one of these firms and it's great to see more competition in the social space. Twitter in particular has been ruthless in how they've treated their ecosystem. Twitter couldn't figure out how to run its own business so they decided to highjack the businesses of others.
"Google needs to be more social." Everyone and their mother has been screaming this for a few years now - well you asked for it and here we go.
My role for the past 10 years has basically been biz dev which, as my other biz dev associates will agree, means you do whatever, whenever, where ever and however. You wear tons of different hats and try to bring two or more organizations together despite both of their best efforts to keep this from happening. Navigating the politics and dysfunction in one organization is difficult enough - now multiple that several times over.
I find myself spending a lot of time in a variety of places at client sites. Access to the Internet is always a shaky issue. IF you can get access to WiFi or a cable the chances that it is a reliable connection are slim. Messing with network cards or smartphone hotspots is great if you can get them working without looking like a total spaz. Waiting for a computer to boot up can also be a pain - god forbid you have to restart it, the meeting will be over before you're back up and running.
Enter the Chromebook. I'm writing this post from the office of a CIO who stepped out. For security reasons temporary guests are not given access to WiFi. No problem, the Cr-48 I'm using has Verizon wireless 3G built into the device. The instant on functionality of the device combined with it knowing my WiFi networks were not available and connecting via 3G had me running and connected in a matter of seconds. The all day battery life ensures I won't be messing with cords or crawling under a table to plug anything in. If later I needed to knock something out from the car or any other location while traveling, no problem.
Chromebooks are easy. That's all I ever wanted.
Important Update: Now if you could only eat a Chromebook. I'm starving! Where did this guy go? I hope he remembers I'm in here...
It's been pretty amazing to see the advancements of Gmail over the past 5 years or so. Multitenancy has many advantages for customers but probably even more so for the vendor.
Gmail provides a good example.
Google's messaging service:
Gmail
Microsoft's messaging products and services:
Exchange Server 2003
Exchange Server 2007
Exchange Server 2010
Small Business Server 2003
Small Business Server 2008
Small Business Server 2011
Business Productivity Online Suite
Business Productivity Online Suite Dedicated
Office 365
Office 365 Dedicated
Hotmail
Office Communications Server 2007
Lynx 2010
Office Live Small Business (forced sunset coming 10/11)
...I'm sure there are a couple more.
Consumerization is an extremely powerful force that's just getting started in the technology industry. The iPhone is the best example. Gmail is another great example. It was cool to see Facebook roll video chat into their service, it was also a reminder that Gmail has had this feature for more than 2 years.
Today our personal computing experience is dominated by multitenant web-based services. Tomorrow our business computing experience will be as well.
The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.
This law is a key reason why my MacBook Pro is many million times more powerful than the computer that put a man on the moon. A modern washing machine has more computing power than the computer used for the Apollo space missions.
What does this mean? First and foremost, astronauts have huge cojones and modern washing machines are pretty awesome. It also means that it wasn't computer power that put man on the moon. It was people power. Ambition, passion, creativity, collaboration, intelligence, perseverance - inputs that are difficult to measure, but outputs that change the world. Moore's Law only describes the science of the engineering driving modern computing. It does not capture the social sciences amplifying the impact and value of modern Internet services.
I became aware of modern computing while evaluating the economics of business-centric information technology products and services. I was a huge fan of Web-based applications because they were easier. More specifically, they required less time and money to operate. Modern Internet services offered more for less - what else did you need to know? Economics sealed the deal for me but modern computing is more complex and more powerful. This is why Moore's Law needs some company.
To add some context, let's define the social sciences.
A branch of science that studies the society and human behavior in it, including anthropology, communication studies, criminology, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, social studies, and sociology.
Let's extend Moore's Law to include some more abstract realities of modern computing. What's more important? How many transistors can be placed on a microchip or how many transistors are made available to each person on planet Earth?
Modern Internet services are the most efficient model of transistor distribution. The number of transistors that is being placed at the disposal of an individual in a modern country is growing exponentially faster than doubling every 18 months and we're just getting started!
Over the past several years Chrome has become my favorite browser and the browser I recommend to anyone who will listen. While Chrome has many great features for the enterprise, here I'm going to focus on why I love the browser for individuals. I love other browsers too and never hesitate to recommend Firefox. It was incredible to see the Mozilla team's Firefox 4 double up Microsoft's IE 9 in the first 24 hours of downloads last wee. I love Firefox but Chrome is my favorite. Here's a few reasons why.
The Omnibox
I have no idea why the other browsers have not implemented the Omnibox feature. Chrome is based on the open source Chromium project so documentation for Omnibox and the code are available. It sounds like it's available in Firefox and Opera via extensions but it should be the default for all browsers. Omnibox is fantastic because it's stupid simple. Instead of a place to put the URL and a place to enter a search term, why not just have one field a person can use for either? It's pretty easy to tell the difference between a URL and a search query. Why should it matter if I type what I want in the left box or the right box? Of all things, shouldn't computers know the difference?
If they can win Jeopardy you'd think they'd know what a URL looks like vs a search query and act accordingly. Well they should and they do. Chrome has one place for the person to type their URL or their search term. It seems like a small change but a 50% reduction in complexity is always a good idea. Once you get used to this change you'll never want to go back. Working with others browsers is like using a phone that has one button to make a call and another to end the call - it's just silly. Omnibox is the only way to go.
Instant Search
Chrome takes it to a whole other level with Google Instant. One of the artificial intelligence challenges Google's founders mentioned earlier in the company's history was for the ability of the search engine to know what you're looking for "instantly". Google is getting surprisingly good at this and the firm illustrates this most effectively in the Chrome browser.
Looking at the picture below we can see the combination of Omnibox and Instant Search in action. I hit one key, the 't' and that's it. The instant I hit that one key, not only did Google correctly suggest and autocomplete the rest of the word, the service actually pulled up the page itself. I never hit 'enter', I never typed an 'e' much less an 'echmeme.com', I never selected that first item from the list - I only hit 't' and before I could even consider typing the next letter I was on the page I was looking for - this is fast, this is instant. The term Instant Search doesn't actually capture the full ability of the service, it's not just search - it's instant specific to your search. This is magnitudes faster than digging through bookmarks, or trying your URL box only to mess up and the use the search box to try and find the site.
If you're like most people you're going to be somewhat consistent in what sites you visit. From the time you first hit a letter, Google is going to offer and simultaneously present your web sites based on that first letter. As you keep typing, Google is going to keep guessing. 't' first represented Techmeme, the service's second guess can be seen as well, it's Twitter. Had I typed a 'w', I would have been taken automatically to Twitter. If I keep typing and Google doesn't recognize anything in my pattern, the service will begin to make suggestions based on aggregate search activity of all Google users.
You're on the web all the time - seconds add up to minutes, which add up to hours. Hours make up days and days make up our life - seconds are a big deal. Google's search engine is our world's most heavily utilized artificial intelligence system - by definition these systems are engineered to improve. And improving they are.
Simple is good
Chrome has the most efficient interface of any browser. The clutter on most browsers is horrible. They could be featured on the A&E TV series Hoarders. It's like some evil conspiracy against the general public. 98% of it is useless junk - it's bloatware. Chrome is as clean as they come. We can see below what I typically work with. I'm on a MacBook Pro running OS X. Not counting the Google.com web site itself I think I have about 15 buttons. Without my extensions I only have 11. That's pretty trim but I can still reach any site I want in a matter of seconds. My extensions are the icons to the right. Chrome to Phone allows me to send any site directly to my phone - very handy for directions or any other site I want to take on the go. Google Voice gives me real-time access to any incoming voicemail or text messages and reply by text within the extension or receive calls and place calls directly if you have Gmail open. Google Translate let's me translate any web site or content like a Tweet. That blue star provides a list of old bookmarks for stuff I access so infrequently I haven't committed it to memory or added them my Chrome bookmark bar which renders when I open a new tab but don't offer a letter or letters for Google to work with. The little baby head is bit.ly, the very popular URL shortner. The last extension is Pandora which gives me instant access and streaming of about a dozen customized music stations - you can do everything from the extension, no need to open the site itself.
Speed
Chrome is as fast as they come. Chrome especially excels with its V8 JavaScript Engine. JavaScript plays a big role in moving from the Internet of static pages and text, to a web full of dynamic sites and applications, like Gmail. JavaScript allows browser based applications to look, feel and perform like desktop applications. Not only is the browser itself crazy fast, the development cycle is crazy fast too! A new version of Chrome is released every 6 weeks. The time between Microsoft's release of IE8 and IE9 was two years! Technology moves faster than ever today - you need a browser that can keep up. Chrome is wicked fast by every measure.
Security
I don't really worry about phishing or other malicious sites. Chrome prompts me with a very clear indication that the site I'm trying to visit should be avoided. Chrome's Sandboxing feature also keeps malicious sites from installing software onto my computer. Chrome's auto update feature allows the Chrome team to quickly respond to new threats and proactively protect my system.
Syncing
Chrome Syncing is one of my favorite features. You can actually set Chrome to keep you synced between all your devices. No more managing bookmarks on each individual computer you work on. Chrome also keeps your extensions synced so they can follow you too.
The Browser
The browser is the most used and useful application on your computer. It is important to actually decide which browser is best for you rather than just use what you've always used because it just happened to be put in front of you. The Internet has changed a great deal in the last 5 years. Has your browser? It might be time for a fresh start with Chrome.
Over 6 million email messages are migrated to Google Apps every day! That's a lot of email messages. Most of these messages are coming out of Outlook.
I'm very thankful I don't have to deal with Outlook for my own email anymore but a vast majority of those people who reach out to Umzuzu for help do, so I find myself working with Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 constantly. I see more projects involving Exchange and Outlook now than I did while working in the Microsoft partner community - one of those ironies you should but don't see coming. I also gain a lot of insight into how people are using Outlook. At larger companies the use cases are fairly uniform. However, with 6 million messages going into Google Apps everyday, you can imagine we see our fair share of small businesses.
Some of the stuff I see people doing with Outlook is crazy. "I don't really use Outlook to communicate with other people, it's more for sending letters" was one recent line I heard from a small business owner. Well, he didn't know it but he was talking about newsletter marketing and Outlook is not the place to be doing that. MailChimp is my favorite as it is a great combination of powerful features and ease of use - and has integration with Google Docs which is great.
People become uncomfortable with the switch from Outlook to Gmail because they perceive, correctly, that they just don't have as much to do in Gmail. This is very uncomfortable for someone who has been spending day in and day out staring at Outlook.
Outlook is the world's best example of bloated software. Outlook has trained the user to associate being busy with being productive. Organizing your Outlook inbox feels productive because you're busy but it's the opposite of productivity - it is busy work defined. "But I have to organize my inbox" ... this is very true in Outlook. This is less true in Gmail.
If you're looking for something on the Internet you can find it in seconds. Obviously searching the Internet is a much more difficult challenge than searching several thousand emails. Thousands of messages can be sorted in Gmail in a second or 2 - anytime you want. If you can find any message you want in a matter of seconds, organization on your part becomes less important. While this is a very, very good development; it is often perceived that doing less, is the same as being less productive. This is a mistake.
You're going to have more available time when you move from Outlook to Gmail. What should you do with it?
Reexamine what drives your specific communications. My default for many years was, to borrow an account term, Last In First Out (LIFO). I believe this is the default of most knowledge workers who are early in their careers. Outlook loves LIFO and it's how many people manage their day and their communications. Communications should be driven by more strategic objectives. This is why living in Outlook is a mistake. An inbox is no way to manage a day - your days are your life. Life is short.
For the love of all things holy, reevaluate your workflows and business processes. Too often the question of "why do you do it that way?" is answered with "I don't really know" or "that's how Sara/Bob/Katie/whoever did it." - you should take a look at workflows often and take into consideration new tools. Sharing is easier than ever. Smartphones are everywhere. Many tools are free. If you've been doing something for 5, 3 or even 2 years it is probably out of date by now and ready to be retooled. "I don't have time for that, I'm too busy." Too busy to work on being more productive? Yeah, sorry but that doesn't make any sense. It's like saying, "I'm too fat to exercise." You'll get better at this type of exercise once you incorporate it into your habits of how you conduct business.
"Fit for purpose" is a beautiful term. Until recently the acquisition, installation, testing, support and scaling of software was at best a pain in the ass and at worst a horribly expensive exercise that cost someone their job. Small businesses didn't stand a chance. People use what they perceive to be available. Outlook has been very available for over a decade - it has become the de facto tool for much more than messaging. CRM, Document Management, Enterprise Content Management, Workflow, Scheduling, Collaboration, Customer Feedback, Data Collection, and wow if something takes you longer than a couple of hours you're doing it wrong types of applications. Outlook is not a CRM. Outlook is not a place to store documents. Outlook is not a collaboration application. Outlook is not a survey tool. Outlook is not for data collection. It's time to start over. It's time to start fresh. If you're using Outlook for more than sending emails, scheduling events, and keeping simple contact information you're doing it wrong. Yes, more is possible but that does not make Outlook automatically the best fit for purpose option.
If you spend a large amount of time working in Outlook be careful. Bloated software, by definition, excels at disguising busy work as productivity. You'll feel uncomfortable without Outlook to keep you "busy" but another world is waiting.
I've been testing Google Chrome OS now for about 2 months. Chrome OS is a new Linux-based operating system based on the open source Chromium project. The goal of Chrome OS is to deliver the web to the user as fast and easily as possible.
Anyone who has spent anytime in technology knows, without question, that a vast majority of people are not "computer people", never will be and could care less how things work - just as long as they do.
There are many opinions regarding Chrome OS but one fact is clear. Chrome OS is the world's simplest operating system. If you can browse on the Chrome browser, you're already a Chrome OS power user. For a Chrome browser user, any Chrome OS device is ready to go as "their device" in about 10 seconds. Anyone installed a new version of Office lately? How about upgrade a Vista device to Windows 7? How long did that take? An hour? Two, four, five, overnight? That's not even to make it "your device", that's just to make it capable of becoming your device.
In my work with Umzuzu I have access to multiple Chrome OS devices so I get to enjoy the potential enabled by the simplicity of Chrome OS first hand.
Writing this post actually provided a perfect example. I was working on a Chrome OS device from the comfort of my couch. The devices' batteries last for about a day's worth of work so I don't think of plugging them in that often. The particular device I was using prompted me with a low battery warning. "Darn," I thought, "I'm super comfortable and really don't feel like being tethered right now." ... because I would no longer be laying down. Then I noticed the other Chrome OS device within arms reach. Nice! This is a brand new device.
Turn it on, prompted with login, enter Google username and password, done. Not even 10 seconds. What did I get?
My extensions ... stuff like Pandora, Bit.ly, Blogger, Picnik, Chrome to Phone, Hootsuite, Google Voice, Google Translate
My bookmarks ... you can use your imagination here.
My Apps ... Gmail, Google Apps, Salesforce.com, Box.net, Squarespace, Freshbooks, Blogger, Google Voice, Instant Messaging for 2 work accounts and 1 personal account, 5 calendars - work and personal, Picnik, Linkedin, Facebook, Hootsuite ... you know, the Internet.
I have more and can do more on this brand new Chrome OS device in 10 seconds than most people even realize is possible or exists. What does this mean? This means Windows 7 is bloated. It's a waste of money and more importantly a waste of time, especially at scale. A retail copy of Office can cost almost $300 ... it is possible when Chrome OS devices hit the market some could cost less than Office.
Cloud computing is not a TV commercial. The cloud is the complete commodification of the client operating system. The browser is already the most used and useful application on a computer. The browser serves the Internet, in the Internet we find the Cloud, the Cloud is powered by millions of computers ... we can choose to use the power of 1 computer or we can choose to use the power of thousands of computers.
Larry Page, Google's CEO, is the son of a late computer scientist and computer science professor at Michigan State. Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The point of Chrome OS is not to enable the potential of 1 computer - it is to enable the potential of thousands of computers. If you think Google is not going to follow through on Chrome OS, you're nuts.
As my friend Leo says, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." I'll bet Larry Page knows Leo too.
"Every computer has a browser" ... yes, and every human has a heart but if 70% of everything else is bloat you're hardly running at optimal performance. Chrome OS is fit and it stays fit - starting every time from a clean version, called Verified Boot.
5 years ago we didn't have iPhone, 3 years ago we didn't have Android, 1 year ago we didn't have iPad ... the pace of innovation and change in technology is accelerating. The thought that Apple would one day be worth more than Microsoft once seemed crazy. Today's its worth $100,000,000,000 more. Google will pass Microsoft by the middle of this year and IBM will pass them by the end of the year.
NOWHERE in technology is more stale than the desktop. They range from the rare "sweet Mac" to the more common "oh my god, you work on this everyday? I'd f'ing kill myself. You know computers aren't supposed to work like this, right?" We will see massive changes here in the next 5 years. Chrome OS will catch Windows in the next 5 years. Mac sales will continue to soar at triple digit paces, 300%+ in the enterprise, as well and will play a much more significant role in the Enterprise.
The Internet is the most disruptive innovation in human history. To think it will continue to influence every aspect of society and business and yet our soon to be secondary point of access will keep its form of the pre-Internet era is insane. Today the Web rules.
Cloud Computing is going to have a great 2011. It is economics rather than technology that truly drives the paradigm forward. Economics is coldly objective and regardless of personal opinion the shift will accelerate. Look to vendors with business models based on technology services rather than software products to find the most robust and value-adding cloud computing services.
1. Adoption.
2011 is going to be all about adoption. The economic benefits of cloud computing are crystal clear. It is less expensive for a business of any size to consume technology services from a specialized provider than it is to purchase, install, support and upgrade legacy on-premise software products. Adoption in small business was red hot for the past 3 years and enterprise adoption is accelerating across IaaS, PaaS, and especially SaaS.
2. Private-cloud discredited
"Attention staff: the data center is now a private cloud.
Please note the change and continue with business
as usual."
Private-cloud is marketing terminology developed by legacy on-premise software product vendors to maintain the status quo. The implementation of a private-cloud requires capital investment in software, hardware and professional services. If this sounds familiar, it should. Technologies such as virtualization are very beneficially relative to legacy implementations but ultimately an executive needs to determine if they are in the business of running software products or not - most companies obviously are not.
3. Multi-tenancy required
The specific definition and relevance of multi-tenancy is widely debated. Many vendors even call single-tenant client/server software stacks "cloud computing" because they are hosted. Re-purposing legacy client/server technology is not cloud computing. Modern consumer and business cloud computing services are multi-tenant from Facebook to Salesforce.com and Google Apps. The shared multi-tenant environment offers economies of scale to the vendor but more importantly it offers transparencies of scale to customers. Transparency in cost, functionality, security, and reliability. The technology community has traditionally created user groups and forums to create this collective transparency - multi-tenancy furthers the knowledge and influence of the community. Innovation can also be delivered across the entire environment rapidly allowing for a constantly improving application - be it in functionality, value, reliability or security. Multi-tenancy is critically important and will be better understood in 2011.
4. Mobile
By 2012, mobile devices will be the primary way in which we access the Internet. Android became the #1 platform in the US in about 2 years. The iPad was the quickest consumer product to reach $1B in revenue. The only technologies capable of fully leveraging the rapid innovation taking place in mobile computing are cloud computing services. Your data on any device, in any location, at anytime can only be realized with modern cloud computing services.
5. HTML5
Modern browsers like FireFox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera are designed to run web applications. Every day web-based applications become more powerful and many have reached full parity with their desktop equivalents. The most heavily utilized application on the desktop and on the mobile device is the browser. The capabilities of modern browsers will continue to improve and the rate at which they improve will accelerate. For example, the Chrome browser release cycle is 6 weeks. Google is also piloting the Cr-48 with runs ChromeOS, and operating system that, for better or worse, is the Chrome browser. The device is designed to provide as pure a web experience as possible. The advantages of these thin client devices are numerous for businesses and consumers. For some people the browser will move from being the most heavily used application to the only application.
