Tablet PC vs iPad on the road.

A few weeks ago, I traveled to Singapore with my good friend Maurilio Amorim to attend a conference looking at TWR’s global ministry in Asia. I traveled with my trusty Dell XT2, 64 bit Windows 7 tablet Notebook. Maurilio was sporting his new Apple 3G iPad. As a busy executive, I try and remain productive on the road and maintain connectivity with my organization’s Enterprise network which includes of course email and MOSS 2010 document workspace. As the president of a Web and Marketing company, Maurilio also needs access to company email and remain cutting edge and creative with social networking and the blogosphere.

The MOSS workspace gives me access to my document store either online or offline. That’s great for when I’m sitting at 35,000 feet above the Arctic icecap on a trajectory from Chicago to Hong Kong and want to edit or save documents. This second leg of the trip however is a 15 hour flight. My XT2 battery is going dead after 2.5 hours of activity and I have to shut down and read a magazine. Okay, I could carry a second battery, but I like to travel without checking luggage, so everything I am bringing for 7 days in Asia is with me in the cabin. I could also purchase a smaller laptop with longer battery life, but I like having a tablet for reasons I have blogged about earlier. Maurilio however lands in Hong Kong and posts the blog he’s been working on during the flight. His battery power indicator shows 85% remaining. He won’t even need to charge the iPad for the 3.5 hour flight down to Singapore. He’s enjoying some food and beverages in the Red Carpet lounge while I scramble to charge my laptop so I can get some work done on that same flight.

The conference in Singapore lasts two full days and we are sitting on chairs in rows – without nearby power outlets. Again, I cannot take notes and handle emails on my notebook while I’m plugged in. Several times during a presentation, I have to slip out of my seat and make my way to a power outlet about 20 feet away and plug in. Maurilio shows me his charge indicator which is again at 85%.



While I have the enterprise tools and multitasking OS on my notebook to get my work done, I am hampered on long trips by limited battery life. The iPad is only single tasking and not as connected to the enterprise as Windows 7. It does however deliver its applications hour after hour without a charge. Which tool would you prefer to travel with?

Social media is an amazing tool. It connects us to a vast network of people and allows us to interact with them at many levels with consistency. Twitter and Facebook are two of the most popular social media applications used today. Like any tool, it can be misused. Here is my checklist to make sure you're not a social media loser. I'm guilty at times, of not having gone through my own checklist (except for #1 of course).

1) Am I intoxicated? If "yes" then shut down the computer or turn off the mobile device and get counseling. No? Proceed to step 2. (This may seem like a "no brainer" but based on what I read sometimes - I wonder!)

2) Is anyone out there really interested what I'm going to say - or is it meaningless dribble?

3) Am I ranting on one of "my pet peeves" or standing on my "soap box"?

4) Do I ever say something personal or do I only use social media to promote my company, organization, product or brand?

5) If I'm a Christian, am I using "Christian speak" that nobody out side of the church crowd will understand or relate to?

6) How many times have I tweeted today? More than 10 tweets and I risk having people unfollow me to avoid my chatter.

7) Do my postings have some comic relief and if they do, is my humor appropriate?

7) Have I remembered "Steve's rule"? This post could make me look good or show the world that I'm an idiot!

And two from my friend Maurilio Amorim (www.maurilioamorim.com)

9) If using Twitter, am I keeping my post under 120 characters so it can be "retweeted"?

10) Again with Twitter - How can I say this in a more interesting way with fewer characters?

Do you have any to add to my list?

Extreme Wiring Closet Makeover!

IT wiring closets are places nobody - except the Geeks *cough IT staff go. In reality, they're the nerve center of the physical network that enables computers in an office to talk to each other and provide the services everyone depends on to get their work done. You would expect such an important place would be kept in order and meticulously maintained. Unfortunately, they are places where wiring connections are done quickly since up time is important and rerouting a misplaced cable can mean disconnecting an important network device. Unfortunately wiring closets can end up looking like this:

Time for a Makeover!

Yes, it's embarrassing, but it happens (what does your garage look like right now?) and when it does, you need to just bite the bullet and shut down the entire network and do a wiring make over. What? shut everything down? Yes, disconnecting those cables means the network is either not accessible or the serves which constantly communicate stop talking and need to re sync when reconnected. The TWR IT/IS team decided to kick everyone off at 5pm and redo the cabling. The result was dramatic!

Okay, to some it may still look like a mess of wires, but to us in IT it's a big improvement. What do you think? Now, to tackle that garage.....

TWR's Global Geeks lay out a Plan

Last week, I hosted our global IT/IS meetings. This is where we bring the geeks in our organization together for a week of hashing out future strategy and review how well our global infrastructure is working.

As a nonprofit, our organization benefits from charity pricing on Microsoft Licensing and we have an Enterprise Agreement to license our offices around the world. Needless to say, we’re a Microsoft shop, but we do deploy Open Source technology for niche applications. The discount we get on licenses allows us to stay reasonably current in server and workstation technology.

Here are some of the things I learned from our global team:

1) Windows 7 works great, runs well on existing and new hardware and is a good replacement for XP.

2) Windows 7 in combination with server 2008 R2 provides powerful integration and makes network management much easier.

3) Exchange 2010 should provide us with tighter integration to our SharePoint 2010 environment and allow for more efficient disaster recovery. It also supports non IE Browsers in the Web Access environment.

So our goal is to have Windows 7 on the workstation, Windows 2008 R2 server on the backend (virtualized through VSphere) with an Exchange 2010 email environment and our collaboration environment handled by SharePoint 2010. No, we’re not quite ready to move to the cloud. It’s not yet cost effective and we do have security concerns. Plus we have a global WAN to consider and not all locations have the best internet access.

This step should be good preparation should we move to the cloud in the future, but for now it will give us a robust and integrated environment using the best of breed components available today.

What do you think of our plan?

As a CIO, I spend a lot of time in meetings where I take a lot of notes. As a result, I go through a lot of note pads. In some situations and in some cultural settings it is considered rude to bang away on a laptop during a meeting. I also seem to attend a lot of meetings via conference call on my mobile phone. Have you ever tried to take notes on your computer while trying to hold your mobile?



When my "old" Vista laptop needed upgrading a few weeks ago, I decided to try moving to a notepad. Since my firm uses mainly Dell PC products, I decided to go that route and ordered the latest Latitude XT2 with 64 bit processors, Vista Business edition and 3 Gig of RAM.


After teaching it my cursive handwriting style, and installing MS OneNote (recommended by a friend) I was off to notepad penmanship. I soon learned that trying to use a touch sensitive screen to take handwritten notes was a challenge. Rest your hand on the screen, and an application launches! After turning off the touch feature things calmed down nicely.


I realy like OneNote. It lets me organize meeting notes and find information quickly using search. Converting script to text works nicely.

Last week, I blew everything away and installed Windows 7. The tablet PC capability is greatly improved. I didn't even need to "teach" it my handwriting. With a fresh instill it is amazingly accurate at turning my scrawls to tent. I published this blog without typing a single key.

I read in one tech pundit's blog that one day all notebook computers will be touch screen. What are your thoughts? Do you agree?

Technology should be simple!

I can remember a time when we believed that computer technology would liberate us from the mundane and give us more free time. There are days however when I feel that computers have enslaved us. Much of my time is devoted to "feeding the beast", just trying to keep all the applications and gadgets I use on a daily basis doing what I want them to do.

There are good examples though of technology that is simple and just works. A good friend of mine has a Kindle. He had it on the beach during a holiday and grew bored with the book he was reading. He browsed Amazon and saw another book which interested him. After downloading and reading the two free chapters he paid for and grabbed the entire book. Within minutes, he was reading the new book, without having gotten out of the beach chair. That's simple technology that works.

An interesting technology experience happened to me last week. My wife and I just moved from Europe and we haven't purchased a TV yet. We felt like watching a movie, but all we had was my laptop and our internet connection. We went to the web site of a major company that I heard is now offering download movie rentals. I quickly signed up, chose a movie and hit the download button - nothing happened. The movie would not download. Time to "feed the beast"! I wasn't going to walk away from the $3.99 I had just paid!

While the technology was broken, "feeding the beast" wasn't difficult. The web site had a nice link to "chat with a technical support person". I clicked that and stated my problem in the message window. Within 20 seconds, Angela typed back telling me to put my IE8 browser in compatibility mode, which I did and the download started. Having a live person to chat with was a good use of technology. Having the download technology work with the latest Microsoft browser would have been even better. The movie was mediocre.

I see great strides in making technology simple at the consumer end. We need to be doing more in the corporate environment. My company is global and we often have meetings in the USA office. Even though we have the same wireless configuration at all our offices, nearly every time we conduct these meetings, there are attendees lining up in the IT area asking for help in getting on the wireless. It's more than training staff, we do that, but the technology should "just work".

How would you rate ease of use for the technology you use as a consumer and the technology you use at work?

Operations vs Vision

As a technology executive, I am constantly trying to meet expectations. Many facets of the organization want me to manage operations. The IT infrastructure must be sound, hardware needs to be current, Disaster recovery must be in place, tested and documented and then there is COSO and COBIT. Added to the mix is Systems Integration, BI needs and how to flatten the Silo'ed applications I inherited when I took on this job.







In my organization, I am fortunate to report directly to the CEO. IT/IS is recognized as strategic and in reality, the platform on which our organization does business. The CEO however wants me to think and act strategically, chart a course for an effective and successful online presence and put in place a web architecture which can be monetized.


I work for a non-profit which means I do not have the resources to set up an in house web services department. That means I have to get out from behind my desk and establish the strategic partnerships and relationships to enable us to get that done. It's a tight balance. I need to oversee operations yet think and act strategically.


For me, the key to survival is a good team. Fortunately they know operations and are conscientious and proactive. They know how to to keep things running smoothly without me needing to micromanage. Delegation and encouraging growth and responsibility among the IT/IS staff also helps.


How do you handle competing pressures and expectations as a leader?