Offshore Outsourcing: Author says H1-B Programmers no Threat

Computer World has an interesting interview with N. Sivakumar, the author of Debugging Indian Computer Programmers: Dude, Did I Steal Your Job? I’ve commented on his book before in my post “The Offshore Threat, is it Real??”

He has some fascinating statements, including:

“Five years from now, I don't think people will be willing to come to the U.S., because opportunities will be evenly matched in India”

" I strongly believe that the U.S. is the leader in the software industry"

Amusing and Humorous Technical Keynotes

I was giving a technical keynote speech for a division of the Department of Defense earlier this year and parts of it ended up being quite humorous. There are some very funny things about technology and how we use it, at least to a technical audience.

Afterwards I thought, “Hey, this stuff is just funny – I bet almost every audience would ‘get it.’” After all, we almost all use email and computers and suffer the same annoyances and have the same grievances. Non technical people might also find some solace that everyone has the same problems and frustrations – I certainly do!

Having to reboot our computers regularly, even though we never have to reboot our kitchen appliances, is an unfortunate fact and something that applies to all of us. When computers work the way they should, we won’t be rebooting them anymore (hint: the technology needs to stop changing so rapidly – it’s a disservice to all computer users, and it doesn’t just seem like it, they ARE more complicated than they need to be).

Computers are essentially worthless when just a few years old, yet my mother’s avocado green refrigerator from the seventies still works fine. Most of us can relate to this! Did you know that used computers qualify as “hazardous waste” in much of the US and you need to pay to have them removed? Charities like Goodwill don’t want them and won’t take them.

Some people’s obsession with email, although sometimes bordering on pathological, can be quite funny. My wife claims I check my email more often than I go to the bathroom! My occasionally homeless friend Butch’s near email addiction sometimes seems bizarre. Wouldn’t a homeless person have more important concerns than email? Well, he uses email just like the rest of us. It’s even more important to him since he rarely can be reached by phone, but he does have email access easily available at a number of places including his public library. His very active social schedule is organized via email.

I’ve used some of this material for a couple of speeches I’ve given in the past few weeks and it IS humorous and amusing to just about everyone. I’m not a humorist, but sometimes truth is funnier than fiction!

For more on my speaking, click on Keynote Speeches.

Earthlink's Protection Blog

Earthlink has a fairly new "Protection Blog" which I like a lot!

Its mission is to "provide information and tools to enable Internet users to stop online hazards and annoyances and get more out of their Internet experience." Although sanctioned by Earthlink, none of the info goes by Earthlink brass or lawyers before posting.

I particularly like the post "Three Basic Tools", which explains that you need a spam blocking program, antivirus software, and a personal firewall. Some good posts on spyware and it’s removal as well.

I'll be reading this blog. Good common sense, explained in an easy to understand and implement fashion, is pretty rare!

Humor: The Patron Saint of Sauerkraut

This inspirational tale of ethnic food comes from the soon to be published “Stuff I didn’t want to eat but did” by Ted Demopoulos, author, speaker, and poet.

Last Week-end when I was out,
I met a man named Philbert Fout.
He was eating Sauerkraut, piled up high upon a trout.

He said “won’t you try some Sauerkraut??? I often eat it when I’m out.”

“Oh, no thank you Philbert Fout, I do not like Sauerkraut.
I never eat it - not even when out,
I do not like it - there is no doubt.
But I thank you Philbert Fout, I thank you for offering me your sauerkraut.”

Philbert Fout, he looked confused.
And when his confusion was diffused,
He looked, perhaps a bit amused!!

“So, you say, you don’t like `Kraut?
You don’t know what it’s about!
It is wonderful with smoked trout!
A festive meal when you are out!
The French consider it Cuisine of Haut!
I love to shovel it down my snout!
Kings of old took it for gout!
Try some, try some sauerkraut,
You will LOVE it have nooooo doubt!!”

Click to Read More

RSS and Atom Feeds

A friend recently commented that there is a lot of great information available in blogs but who has the time to read them? Time is precious and in short supply.

RSS and Atom are designed to address this issue. They allow us to track more information in less time. Since they are extremely similar, we’ll focus on RSS. A “RSS feed” encapsulates what’s new in a blog or website, and an “aggregator” or “feed reader” lets a user easily and quickly check for new content of interest.

RSS stands for “Rich Site Summary” or “Really Simple Syndication,” and RSS is a format for summarizing new web content. A RSS feed will typically have a list of what’s new on a website. Each item has a title, a description, and a link to the website where the item appears. For a blog, the items will be the most recent posts. An item’s “description” might be its first paragraph or even the entire post. For example my blog’s RSS feed contains the title, first paragraph, and a link, for each of my last ten posts.

RSS is used not only by blogs but by traditional websites as well. For example, The New York Times, Reuters, Yahoo, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, The US Department of State and The Washington Post all have RSS feeds. Many sites have multiple feeds, e.g. The New York Times has feeds for arts, automobiles, books, business, etc. which parallel their content. Even some retailer’s websites have RSS feeds that show what new merchandise they have.

Click to Read More

Why I dumped Internet Explorer for Firefox, like many others have

The Firefox browser has surpassed 25 million downloads, giving itself 10% of the market.

I am one of its recent converts! I dumped Internet Explorer for Firefox last week. So far I like it!

Why? I like Internet Explorer, but it’s too big and complicated. As I've written before, big and complicated leads to more security issues - there's simply more to be attacked or go wrong.

Equally importantly, Internet Explorer is a big target for hackers because it has most of the browser market. I got hit by some nasty spyware last week that seemed to come in through Internet Explorer, despite running up to date antivirus software and two different spyware programs! This stuff was nasty - 3 different spyware programs couldn't kill it and I eventually had to do "surgery" on Windows manually. Who knows what nasties may be left behind, and I'll probably have to reformat and rebuild my harddrive to be sure it's clean.

In probably related news, Microsoft has announced it’s releasing the next version of Internet Explorer, IE 7, early than previously expected.

Favorite Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein was a lot like Yogi Berra - very quotable!

Here are some favorite Einstein quotes:

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

And my favorite:

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

What is Information Security?

Information Security is simply the process of keeping information secure: protecting its availability, integrity, and privacy. Information has been valuable since the dawn of mankind: e.g. where to find food, how to build shelter, etc. As access to computer stored data has increased, Information Security has become correspondingly important. In the past, most corporate assets were “hard” or physical: factories, buildings, land, raw materials, etc. Today far more assets are computer-stored information such as customer lists, proprietary formulas, marketing and sales information, and financial data. Some financial assets only exist as bits stored in various computers. Many businesses are solely based on information – the data IS the business.

Click to Read More

Microsoft’s AntiSpyware Beta Testdrive

I installed Microsoft’s free AntiSpyware Beta on a couple of machines to test it out and it works well and is fast, although it’s certainly beta quality. Unfortunately on one machine it exhibited a fatal flaw.

Machine one was my old business machine that my wife has adopted. It runs Windows 2000 and McAfee antivirus. Not surprisingly, Microsoft AntiSpyware found and deleted a few spyware programs.

It had one major flaw. For whatever reason, McAfee would periodically die. Since I don’t like the idea of my wife, or actually anyone, running without antivirus software, I removed it from the machine and McAfee has been happy ever since.

Machine two is my main laptop running Windows XP Professional and Norton antivirus. There were no major problems, and not surprisingly no spyware was found. It did however regularly ask me about “A Change to the Default User Folder Requires Approval,” and the “Remember this action” checkbox didn’t work. Just an annoyance, but enough so that I eventually removed Microsoft AntiSpyware!

Supposedly other antispyware programs are more thorough and find more spyware. I’m not surprised, this is “beta.” Some will complain that it doesn’t deal with cookies on their machines. Spyware programs differ on whether cookies constitute spyware and the entire issue is controversial. Cookies exist for a reason, and even Internet Explorer lets you turn them all off if you’d like! Some will complain that it comes from Microsoft and therefore is horrible. I avoid religious issues and won’t comment on this further!

As a fascinating aside, Sophos PLC has just discovered MalWare called BankAsh-A that specifically targets Microsoft's AntiSpyware. It attempts to delete it and also tries to steal users' banking passwords.

Book Review:"Purple Cow" by Seth Godin

“I’ve never seen a Purple Cow,
  I never hope to see one.
  But I will tell you anyhow,
  I’d rather see than be one.”
      -a poem my father told me as a boy.

“Purple Cow” is an amusing quick read by Seth Godin. Although it doesn’t contain a lot of practical advice for most people, it does have lots of food for thought. It’s short, cheap, and fun and I recommend it. A good airplane book!

Synopsis:

Purple Cow is the act of building things worth noticing into your product or service – i.e. being remarkable. The opposite of remarkable is “very good,” and very good is boring. Boring leads to failure because the “very good” slot is almost always already taken.

Everything having to do with a product or service, from the design to support and everything in between, is marketing. The marketing, that is the total of what you have to offer, has to appeal to “sneezers” – the early adopters who like new stuff and who will hopefully tell everyone else. The sneezers need to find your product remarkable.

Being a Purple Cow is easy – because most people are afraid of the Cow. They are afraid to stand out or be different.

Outrageous is not always remarkable and is not required. Just outrageous doesn’t usually work. You don’t need passion or incredible creativity either – just the realization that only the Cow will work. Being remarkable doesn’t always require big changes. Small things can help you be remarkable: how you answer the phone, price updates, handle complaints, etc.

Be a Cow, explore the limits. Be the fastest, slowest, biggest, smallest, baldest, hairiest, newest, oldest, etc. – just be remarkable.

Spam and Virus writing courses

I am a strong believer that the best defense must include knowledge of the offense. In order to defend against anything, it’s extremely useful to understand it as well as possible. Know your attacker, their mindset, and their methods - anything you know can help. That’s one of the reasons the FBI and others create “profiles” – descriptions of typical offenders. For example, the FBI has a profile of typical child molesters and US customs has a profile of typical “bird smugglers" (I know – I fit it unfortunately).

In combating spam, the more we know about spammers the better. The University of Calgary has introduced a controversial course in which students are taught how to create spamming software. This follows a similar course where students are taught how to write viruses. The instructor John Aycock admits there is a possibility for malicious software to escape from the classroom, but says that reasonable precautions are taken. The classes teach both how to write malicious software and how to defend against it.

Why is this controversial?

The Biggest Web Design Mistakes

I found a great article called The Biggest Web Design Mistakes in 2004. Most of these mistakes will persist throughout 2005 and well beyond. A very amusing and informative article from Web Sites That Suck, which incidentally doesn’t suck.

As far as I can tell, I only come close to violating one rule on my website, “Believing people care about you and your web site.”

As a small consulting company often competing with the behemoths, I need a professional looking website. A potential client usually forms an opinion even before the website finishes loading. Most potential clients don't care unless the website is unprofessional. An unprofessional website doesn't let you even enter the game (as a side note, "unprofessional" and "suck" are not the same!)

Here’s a contest: look at Demopoulos Associates, comment on what sucks and preferably how to fix it, and you may win a great prize – errr, will you settle for some good will? :) Or maybe one of my soon to be announced videos from WatchIT??

In the immortal words of my friend Joe, “Ted, your website doesn’t suck real bigtime anymore.” Prove Joe wrong and help me improve my website!

Guidelines for Writing Great Email

(or at least not screwing up too badly)

Email has changed a lot from when I first used it over two decades ago. Most of us use it for business now, and we use it a lot more! Some very basic guidelines for making email more effective and for preventing us from embarrassing ourselves follow.

These guidelines focus on sending email, as opposed to reading it. That's another story.

Get to the Point FIRST:
The point of the email should come first. People scan email – they get too much!

NOT “nice to see you last week here is my follow up” or similar! That can come later, AFTER some white space.

Use white space:
Did I mention people scan email? Make it easy for them, and you both benefit. White space – blank lines. Use them.

One major point per email:
Again, people scan email.

I just needed to send two major thoughts to a client: a date change, and thoughts on an unrelated project. Two thoughts, two emails. Otherwise it's likely one of those thoughts will be lost.

Emotional email:
There is one simple guideline to sending email when upset or emotional – DON’T DO IT.

Write the email, but wait until you cool down before sending it. An overnight waiting period is a good guideline. Of course if you want to come off as an unprofessional hothead, or simply don’t care, go for it!

Amazing that some supposed “professionals” sent me nasty mail about my “outsourcing” post. Clearly they were upset and emotional, which is OK, and they came off as unprofessional, which is not. People have lost their jobs over emotional emails before, as well as caused other significant problems.

Title:
Your title should make sense and relate to the content of your email. And you NEED a title.

I’d admit sometimes I might use titles like “Naked Goats Break Dance” when sending email to old friends, whether it’s for business or otherwise. That’s the exception to the rule – old friends who know me and expect a somewhat warped sense of humor. I don’t recommend you try this in your email! Use logical self-explanatory titles.

Profanity:
NO!

I don’t care if the email is to a colleague you affectionately call “Little Fuckhead.” Issues of professionalism aside, a spam or other email filter may eat your message.

Check your recipients:
Are you sending to the right "Bob?" Did you hit “Reply all” instead of “Reply?”

I’ve sent some embarrassing things to entire groups by accident. I’ve also sent jokes that make so sense to anyone but the intended recipient (I specifically remember an invite to a “Naked Eastern European Wine and Sheep Cheese tasting” . . . .).
Everyone makes this mistake eventually, but try to limit the damage by checking before you hit send.

Think before you hit send!
I usually do – despite what friends may think.

Hopefully my business associates think my email is effective and professional, at least until they become friends and I start sending them emails with titles like “Naked Goats Stole My Lunch!”