My first 23 Days with Twitter:

Twitter is a tool that lets you share sort blasts of information over the Internet. These short blasts are called tweets. Some say that Twitter is social networking, I like to think of it more as blogging, and micro-blogging at that. When someone posts on Twitter it’s called a tweet, tweets can be up 150 characters and are just short updates.

You can see the tweets I have made sharing about work. I have 18 people who follow me(meaning that they get updates when I write a tweet) and I am sure there are others who see my messages. This means that I am getting greater access to people who already have some interest in the things that I am doing providing me with another to remind and inspire my prospects, clients and partners about cool work that Denver DataMan does to help small businesses use technology more effectively.

With all content that I create I try to make sure there is great value in the content. The Internet has content everywhere and adding true value to it is what will make it read and matter in the long run. Twitter is an easy way to add nothing but clutter to the Internet but I am beginning to see that it could also be used to provide value added information.

Next month I will be having a tweet sale. At some point in the month of February, Denver DataMan will announce a sale to anyone who responds to m tweet within 5 hours. I don’t know anyone doing this yet so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

You can watch this video from the Common Craft Show on Twitter, this episode focuses on Twitter from a social approach but it is very good.

Department of Homeland Security Works to the Secure the Internet in the US

As those of you who read my blog regularly know security is something that I find very important. Right now viruses are up, spyware is up, hacking is up and there are many other problems because of malicious computer use. On July 20th the routers for the nation of Georgia.

The Department of Home Land Security has announced that they are going to spend 2.9 million dollars per-year on securing the Internet infrastructure rather than $600K that they have been spending during the past years.

This is good given that security threats are growing and the US Internet infrastructure is crucial for commerce today.

You can read more in this very technical article if you are interested.

Windows 7 Is On Its Way

A question that I get all the time is should I get Windows Vista. The answer is usually, only if you are getting a new computer with a lot of power. Upgrading to Windows Vista has been a bad idea in almost every case. Windows Vista needs a ton of power and has had trouble with older hardware and software. Windows Vista made a lot of advances but the product has been marred by bad reviews and problems that have overshadowed the advancements.

Microsoft has been talking about Windows 7 for some time now but it will be availible as a beta tomorrow. Beta means that Microsoft is saying its ready for people to look at. Betas generally still have many bugs thatr will be fixed before the release of the application.

I hope that Microsoft will fix issues with stability and make Windows Updates less problematic. I also hope that Microsoft will risk upseting people who want to upgrade and either not sell an upgrade or have releastic upgrade requirments. Often times people are told there computer can handle new software that it cant and this just makes people angry when it does not work.

You can check out videos of Windows 7 or read more information. Here is a good article as well with first impressions of Windows 7.

Seth Godin on Social Networks

Seth Godin is the author of the great book on building online communities Tribes and is also a renowned marketer. These are his words about quality of online network connections VS. quantity of online connections.

Lots of Great Reading

Recently I have been doing lots of great reading, well listening to learn more about the way the Internet works and how it is changing our world. You can keep up with my reading list in full using my LinkedIn Profile and the Amazon Application or I tend to blog about books I am reading here.

I read - Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business by Jeff Howe that examines how businesses and nonprofits can use the crowd (the 1 Billion Internet users) to communicate and interact in the new world. This book was a bit long but provided a lot of great examples.

John Brackney, president and CEO shared with me a book called Tribes. This is a short must read for anyone who is in business and those who want to know what the business world is doing. We are all in Tribes, our family, our city, our companies, our HOAs, PTA, Churches and Temples and everywhere else we are in tribes and we are looking for leadership. Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin paints a very clear picture of what is happening and what we all need to do to move with the tides and not be pulled under by the current.

Right now I am working on two books - Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today's Consumer-Driven World by Pete Blackshaw a leader in understanding consumer generated content like this blog post about these books and The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman who shares why the world is becoming flatter and flatter with technology.

Each of these books have great information and their authors are well versed in their fields. I look forward to sharing my findings and gleanings on this blog, my sessions and in my Email Newsletter.

The Future of Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is the most popular office productivity application in the world. Other vendors have been trying to break into this market by providing tools at less cost or with new features. Collaboration has been a primary feature in the fight for the most feature rich application.



Google has been a primary combatant in this war (and part of why Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo). Google apps give users the ability to collaborate on text documents, spreadsheets and presentations.



Microsoft has some collaboration tools now but they require expensive licences and the full application to be installed. Since Microsoft Word is a very large application this limits what can be done. Accessing Microsoft Word and other documents in Internet Explorer or another browser will vastly open up the pool of people that can collaborate on a given project and potently shore up Microsoft as the office application winner.



You get more information in thisMicrosoft Release about Browser based Office Support or this video from Microsoft.

Firefox Targted by Malware

Users are often told to feel safer (including by me) if they use Firefox because of its more secure design and because less spy ware and malware is made for it. Today it was released that there is new Malware (malicious software) that "[the malware uses technology to] identify more than 100 financial and money transfer Web sites, including Barclays, Wachovia, Bank of America, and PayPal along with two dozen or so Italian and Spanish banks. When it recognizes a Web site, it will collect logins and passwords, forwarding that information to a server in Russia." http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/120408-firefox-users-targeted-by-rare.html?netht=rn_120408&nladname=120408

The issue here is that the threat of malicious Internet users effects everyone. It does not matter what security software you have it is how much you pay attention to what you click on and install. Use safe Internet practices and have a good security program like AVAST! and you should be fine.