Need to buy a new home network router?

Surf on over to Tom's Networking here, where my former colleagues have put together a great series of interactive charts describing performance and features on dozens of different products from Netgear, Linksys, D-Link, Buffalo, Belkin and others.

Questions to ask your Web hosting provider

Normally, I don't link to 11-year old articles, but this week while I am on vacation I thought for some amusement I would dig up a piece from my archives called "Hanging Up Your Shingle — what questions to ask your Web hosting provider."

One of the great things about the Web is that your stuff can live forever, if someone has taken the time to archive it properly. Back at the dawn of Web time, I did some work for an O'Reilly publication called Web Review. The guys and gals behind this effort did a fantastic job of creating one of the more thoughtful and interesting pubs back in the middle 1990s when we all didn't really know what we were doing. 

Lucky for me, Jennifer Robbins, the graphic designer of the publication, keeps one of my stories on her site. What I find interesting is that apart from the names of some of the companies (remember when Prodigy offered Web hosting? Digex?) and protocols (gopher anyone?), the piece still holds up well and has a lot of great advice.  

How to be a better blogger — and still keep your day job

There has been much written about corporate blogging, but not a lot about the more practical, nuts and bolts type of advice to be a better blogger. So when I was asked by the editors of Computerworld.com to write such a piece, I jumped at the chance.

Of course, the interesting story here is how I assembled the article. Usually, I spend a lot of time emailing and making phone calls. I was determined to do this one a bit differently, and sent out a note on my Web Informant mailing list asking for help. Computerworld also posted a request on their Web site as well. Of course, I got flooded with information and plenty of tips — not unlike what happens in the real world with blogs themselves. While there are still no hard and fast rules, there is some general consensus on what to do and what not to do, including to tell the truth, always, no matter how painful. Second, find your voice and stick to it.  Above all, be professional at all times. It is OK to have a personality, but remember that you are representing your company. Allow comments and read and respond to them carefully. Craft your corporate blogging policy now, and make sure it covers all posts by your employees including those on personal sites. Finally, understand the mechanics and know your tools.

You can read the entire article here.

BTW, for my private consulting practice, I do offer a series of coaching programs on how to be better bloggers and podcasters. Contact me if interested.

VARs, Pay Attention to SaaS

Okay, whatever you call it — Software as a Service, Web 2.0, mashups, hosted applications, or just the new way to combine the itty bitty pieces of code that are floating around the Internet — the days of writing a single application for a single purpose are over. In this column for the new Ziff publication Strategic Partner, I talk about ways for VARs and system integrators to leverage this opportunity and figure out a new revenue stream from behind all the buzzwords.

The action and focus should be on the lowly programming interface. And the best Web 2.0 mashups are the ones with the sexy APIs that are getting all the coding action, like Google’s Maps. What should make VARs hot about Web 2.0 is the ability to layer a bunch of these apps and tie them together with a few clever bits of programming.

The China Syndrome

Let me take you back to 1979. I am working in Washington, DC in an environmental think-tank, trying to save the world via writing policy papers and promoting energy conservation concepts of the Carter administration. I am attending an event that mixes environmentalists with business types, and I am seated next to some senior executive of a major electric power company. In my early 20s, I am still somewhat new to the Washington power scene, and not very good at making small talk (not that I have gotten any better now). So he turns to me and asks me which of the electric power generation technologies is the most environmentally friendly. I promptly answer “nuclear power, of course” and that sort of shocks him. And we have a very nice conversation before the start of the event.

You could probably still make that argument today, even given the various accidents, decommissioning and long-term spent fuel storage issues that nuclear power has brought about.

But my purpose in writing this post isn’t to promote nuclear power, but to tell you a story that has an odd series of my own personal connections. I was reminded of this story after seeing reports in the news this week about the end of the Trojan nuclear plant outside of Portland, Oregon. The plant was finally decommissioned (meaning that its cooling tower and other major structures were intentionally blown up, and its core components removed from the site) after being out of service for the past 13 years. The event that got all the press play was the destruction of its cooling tower, perhaps the most memorable structure in the plant and an icon for nuclear plants around the world. (Some also say that mismanagement of Trojan was the inspiration for the nuclear plant in the Simpsons, but I can’t verify that.)

I actually visited the plant in 1977 on my way across country via bicycle to attend Stanford’s graduate engineering school. It is an odd choice for a tourist stop, but Trojan was one of the few — if not the only nuclear plant in the nation at the time — that you could actually see the control room on a public tour. And since I was quite literally riding right past the place (I was biking down the Pacific Coast on my way to Palo Alto), it was inevitable that I took the tour and got to see its facilities, including its soon-to-be famous control room.

This control room became famous through an odd series of circumstances. Back in the late 1970s, nuclear-generated electricity was controversial, which is why my comments to the electric utility executive were so out of place. Most environmentalists weren’t looking at the overall carbon budget and greenhouse gas issues, and were instead concerned with the spotty safety record of many of the plants. Storage of the spent fuel from the reactors was then — as now — a difficult issue. (Trojan’s fuel rods are still stored on the site, because they have no place to go.) Some utilities were spending huge sums of money to build plants that were never operated and that turned into white elephants, such as the reactor in Shoreham, Long Island.

Then Three Mile Island happened in 1979 and safety issues transformed the industry. Interestingly, while no new plants have been built for a decade, the percentage of nuclear-generated electricity has almost doubled to about a fifth of our overall electricity today.

What ties all of this history together for me is a movie called The China Syndrome that starred Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas. The movie became infamous because it portrays a nuclear accident that is similar to the one experienced at Three Mile Island, yet timing is everything: the movie was released just a few days prior to the accident. The actual events surrounding the ones portrayed in the movie did have historical antecedents at a research reactor at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory that is now operated by Boeing in the hills north of Calabasas, Calif. And in another twist of fate, I worked nearby at the offices of Tom’s Hardware — which is just a few miles away from this facility as the crow flies, although to drive there would take much longer.

While the movie was filmed on a set, the set was made to closely resemble the Trojan control room and much of the action in the film takes place there. You could say that it was the most famous control room for any nuclear plant given its role in the movie. Fonda plays a TV reporter who is doing a puff piece on the plant but gets involved in the events surrounding the accident, and Jack Lemmon has a wonderful role as one of the chief plant engineers.

Regardless what you personally think about nuclear power, I was a little sad about hearing that Trojan no longer exists. Here in LA we tend to dynamite various architectural icons as quickly as you can say tear down. And it is doubly ironic that the actual place that is the model for the movie no longer exists, while the research reactor that did have the problem (this was decades ago) is within a few miles of some very pricey real estate. And few people even know of its existence as one of the first nuclear reactors in California.

Public Speaking

I give lots of speeches for groups large and small. One year I had the opportunity to go around the world for the Interop show teaching engineers about eCommerce. I also have done small roundtable discussion groups, most recently for Oracle and Information Week. Currently, I am represented by the Convention Connection speaker’s bureau

Here is a selection of the slides to many of my previous engagements. If you are interested in having me come talk to your group, contact my bureau at the link above.

And if you are interested in hearing me speak, I also have a site of podcasts for small business owners that I call Your Personal Geek.

Two security podcasts worth subscribing

In doing some research for one of my clients, I have been checking out various network security-related podcasts. Here are two that are worth subscribing to, and a bonus podcast that will brighten your day.

• Speaking of Security (typically 10 minutess)
  Various RSA staffers contribute to the blog and podcast series.

• Security Now (typically 45 minutes)
  Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte have put together a terrific series on various security topics. The ones on PKI (start at episode #30) are perhaps the best and clearest explanations I have seen on the subject.

• Weekly Radio Address (less than 2 minutes)
  Regardless of what you think of our president, these are hilarious and show you what you can do in just a few minutes.

Is Cisco vulnerable?

At Interop last week, Cisco CEO John Chambers spoke about how IT managers have to think three years ahead for planning their network infrastructure — “by the time it is obvious, it is too late” to plan for any changes to actually be implemented, he said during his keynote. He also mentioned the theme of “quad-play everywhere” meaning networks that support data, voice, video and mobility. (This is an upgrade from last year’s keynote, where mobility hadn’t yet made the cut and we were just dealing with the first three. Way to go on updating a tired metaphor, John.)

He spoke about these four-headed networks in your home, in Starbucks, and everywhere else, and how this will enable different business strategies and opportunities for networked IT. This is news? This is keynote-worthy?

This got me thinking. Before we can take that look ahead, it is instructive to take a look back three years and see where Cisco has come. It is a convenient time frame for me, because about three years ago I wrote a piece for VAR Business called “Is Cisco Vulnerable?”

My article opened with this thought:

The year 2003 may well be the beginning of the end of Cisco’s world domination in the networking marketplace, according to VARBusiness reporting, industry analysts and Cisco competitors. The company has lost market share in the key service-provider sector to Juniper, and is lagging on key technology-innovation areas as well. It has demoted thousands of partners from Premier, Gold and Silver statuses — partners who are finding out that there is life after Cisco and who are doing well selling products from competitors. And, to prop up its flagging stock price — which hasn’t been out of the teens for much of the past two years — Cisco has had to cut margins and trim staff to keep costs in line.

Well, its stock price has climbed out of the teens and now is trading in the low 20s, so how about that? At this rate, they might pass Microsoft in about another ten years. But forget about all those disgruntled VARs from 2003, who are probably selling lots of non-Cisco stuff now and very happy. Forget about the layoffs and margin slicing too.

What Cisco has been doing the past three years is buying up lots of companies. Shortly after my article appeared in VAR, they did the deal acquiring consumer networking vendor Linksys.

So here is your assignment. Do you recognize any of these companies and can match up with the category of products (voice, video, security, wireless) that they develop? No cheating by checking online sources, this is a closed book test. Also, before any of you email me, I am sure that I am missing a few acquisitions here and there, so this isn’t a complete list.

In 2004: Riverhead Networks, Twingo Systems, Procket Networks, Actona Technologies, and Parc Technologies

In 2005: Airespace, BCN Systems, Jahi Networks, NetSolve, Perfigo, FineGround Networks, M.I. Secure Corporation, NetSift, Sipura Technology, Topspin Communications, and Vihana

And in 2006: KiSS Technology, Nemo Systems, Sheer Networks, Cybertrust’s Intellishield Alert Manager, Digital Fairway Corporation, Scientific-Atlanta, SyPixx Networks

Now, granted these aren’t exactly household names, with two possible exceptions: Scientific Atlanta, which makes set-top boxes; and Airespace, which makes managed wireless networks.

But what it is interesting about this list is the lack of the leading edge. Look at what Microsoft and Google were buying over the past three years. Is there a Ray Ozzie or Vint Cerf-equivalent that we can point to at Cisco?

So here are the questions I would have asked Chambers, had I had the opportunity:

1. While Cisco is still profitable and has the lion’s share of many markets, they continue to move away from being the technology innovator. So prove me wrong, John: let’s list products from each of these acquisitions above that are still sold by Cisco and can demonstrate that leadership.
2. Are the remaining Cisco Gold and Platinum VARs still as unhappy as they were three years ago? What have you done to turn the tide with your channel? And show me where having Linksys can complement this strategy, too.
3. Speaking of which, Linksys has largely been left alone as an independent business unit, which is probably for the best. I don’t see much evidence of any product synergy between them and the mother ship. Did I miss something?
4. The past three years haven’t seen much price erosion in core Cisco products: instead, we continue to see price increases to keep up with features and functionality found in less-costly competitors. And as the gap widens, there is more opportunity for the second tier to take market share away from Cisco.

Big Sunday full of spare parts

Yesterday was Big Sunday here in the city of angels. What is that, you might ask? No sporting event, but a day for folks to volunteer at several dozen different projects happening all over the city. My stint was working at ReDiscoverCenter.org, a rather interesting place that takes donations of left over commercial and industrial materials and turns them into spare parts that can be used by youngsters to assemble their own art projects. Think of a gigantic storeroom filled with all sorts of stuff like reams of paper, retail byproducts, spools of thread, and stuff like that, and having a bunch of five year olds descending on all that and making inventive craft projects out of it. I was helping with some manual labor to get their stuff organized. It was a fun morning, although my shoulders are sore today. At one point, a group of us were taking apart several gross of furniture legs. I kept thinking about the folks in China (or wherever these legs were from originally) putting them together. I guess that the order of things, and it certainly will be more useful to have several bins of spare parts rather than something else to fill up our landfills around here.

While I wasn’t doing anything crafty — the point of this post isn’t about me really — but talking to the volunteer coordinator there I was reminded of this wonderful museum in St. Louis called the City Museum that takes the same idea and expands to an entire museum. If you have never been, it is almost worth a trip on its own. You can get something of the feel from their Web site, but it is really like taking the idea behind the found art assemblage of the Watts Towers and adding a truckload of stuff like found at ReDiscover Center.

At least 25,000 of us volunteered yesterday. It probably is the only time that people in LA are doing something fun outside of their vehicles, and interacting with strangers (other than post-quake meetings on their front lawns).

Why more people should do real Web demos

At Interop this week, I saw a lot of demos of products with Web interfaces of one sort or another to manage their configuration, reports, and other operational controls. As I am sitting through the 57th one, I am thinking:

Wouldn’t it be a cool thing if the vendor put a link to their actual product on their Web site, so a potential buyer could just click on that link and try out the Webtop (as we call these things) for a test drive?

You could set things up so that the default settings are restored after each user logs out, and limit the actual damage that someone could do by putting the product on its own network, so that you couldn’t get everywhere inside the product, but still get a good feel for things.

I have been asking about something like this for many years, and now with the various Ajax and Web technologies, it would seem like a no-brainer to develop. A good programmer could probably whip this up in a couple of hours.

Yet, when I mention it, I keep getting stares from various marketing folks as if this was a really new and impossible idea.

The real-world Web demo really extends the whole notion of trying something out before you buy it to a completely new level. Sure, you can download software until your DSL modem is hot enough to melt butter, but nothing replaces the ability to actually go through the screens and see for yourself if something has the couple of cool and killer features that will make or break the product for your particular situation.

So in the interest of public service, I found an example for all of you Web Informant readers to check out. They are a British Intranet hosting provider, and clearly they understand the value of what I am suggesting — not that we have ever spoken. You can tool around the product, create your own entries, and otherwise have yourself a fine time understanding what this company’s product is trying to do, and what are its limitations.

But wait, there is more. You can grab a 30-day free trial, and unlike many “free” trials, no credit card number is required to get it. And at anytime during this trial, if you like the product enough that you want to really buy it, you just click on the subscribe button and all your data that you have created for the trial is instantly preserved in the fully working version, should you so desire.

This seems like a smart sequence of events, and I wish more people would do this. Granted, some of the products that I saw at the show cost more than a couple of bucks per month, but still, this is the way to convert looky-loos into real buyers, and without expending a molecule of bandwidth from any sales force, installing any ad-ware on a user’s computer (as some ecommerce merchants tend to do), or harming any small animals in the making of this software product.