Channel Chat Podcast: Bernard Laroche, Symantec

As Symantec enters the next phase of the security-as-a-service trend, Senior Manager Bernard Laroche explains endpoint security and what it means for channel partners in this Channel Chat podcast for Ziff’s ITLink community.

You can download the podcast here.

Strategies to Succeed Online

Putting a small business online used to be a relatively simple matter: buy the domain names that matched your company’s identity, set up a Web server and send out a press release and a few e-mail messages. No more.
These days, a Web site may not even be the best place to start promoting your products or services. Instead, you can consider setting up a blog, participating in social-networking communities like Facebook and creating a storefront in virtual worlds like Second Life to get the buzz going.

You can read more about this strategy in today’s New York Times here.

Age Of The iPhone

This seems to be the week for contributed columns from my readers. (Please, continue, it is fun to be an editor, and I guess I am following the larger trend of taking user-generated content.) Here we hear from Bob Matsuoka, who runs his own Web software firm in New York City and a long-time friend. (He can be reached at bob@matsuoka.com). Take it away, Bob. 

 

Since getting the iPhone, I have become hooked, and realize that this little baby is changing the game of computing, as the IBM PC did back in the early 1980s, as Lotus 1-2-3 and Adobe Photoshop and the iPod did later on. And it isn’t because it has an astounding Web browser and built-in Wifi, or a simple and elegant interface, or because it marries a cell phone and an MP3 player. It is because of the built-in Clock application. 

 

It seems strange to start off talking about the iPhone being a $500 alarm clock, but bear with me. Every smartphone I’ve used in the past few years has had a clock/alarm/timer-type application.  How hard can it be to write a good one?  Yet I’ve never, ever, been happier than I have been with the iPhone’s Clock, and until now, none of the others have stayed with me. I have used many PDAs, including the latest Blackberry 8830, which is a very nice phone, and the latest Treos, which aren’t. Their equivalent applications are just awful. And while Strom loves his Razr for being a great phone, it has an impossible alarm clock/timer function that makes me want to tear out what little hair I have left.  

 

The iPhone’s clock application is so beautiful, it makes me _want_ to set alarms for alternate side parking.  I _want_ to use it for timing my ramen noodles. Here’s the ultimate test of your timer app – after pouring hot water into your noodles, get to your phone and set the timer in less than the minute or two you have before the timer is moot.  It was easy that I could do it from the first time I used it.

What is true about Clock is true about the other iPhone applications.  I’m embarrassed to say how long it took me to find out how to set a custom ringtone on the 8830.  And I’m usually a fairly quick study at these things.

And that’s my point.  The iPhone is not a phone, its the first generation of a new type of computing device.  One that will change how we view computing.  One that will make our lives simpler.  We won’t have to learn how to use applications, we’ll just use them.  We won’t worry about launching applications, saving files, quitting — just using.  Every other smartphone is still based on an archaic, cumbersome, paradigm taken straight from desktop computers. Drop-down/pop-up menus, programs, files — ugh.  Look how bad Windows Mobile is, and most of us are used to the real Windows on our desktops. Why should a phone take minutes to just turn on? The alternatives are not much better.  Mobile OSX, what runs inside the iPhone however, is a whole new beast.  Intuitive, responsive, and an extension of the beautiful hardware that it runs on. 

It’s a given to me that one day Apple will open up their API officially.  As others have pointed out, the iPhone is currently in a “benign closed” state, which allows developers to create and distribute applications, but does not require Apple’s support or backwards compatibility (note that I’m not talking about the unlocking-type applications, which are quite another story).  And its remarkable to what extent the developer community has taken off.  App Installer, the de facto distribution platform for unofficial iPhone apps, now boasts several dozen installable packages, and more appear daily, it seems. Soon there will be more iPhone apps than Windows Mobile ones.

I’m already impressed at how sophisticated these early third party applications are.  Installation and updates are dead simple, and the UIs generally are as easy to use as the ones that come with the phone.  Which shows me how powerful the iPhone API is.  No other phone or computer I’ve ever used has managed to provide this integrated an interface, and we’re still only in the early stages.

It’s a testament to Apple that most of the apps on using are the built-in ones, but here are some I’m enjoying: - ApolloIM: multiprotocol IM client;- Summerboard: let’s you customize “springboard”, the iPhone’s program launcher with new icons, wallpaper, and such;- App Installer: a must-have. Makes app installation dead simple;- rSBT: rearrange your Spring/summerboard apps;- Navizon cell/wifi locator- iFlickr: post to flickr from iPhone camera

Yes, there are lots that will require improvement.  While I’m already quite happy with iPhone typing, and at least as fast as I am thumbing on a Treo or a Blackberry, copy and paste are missing and cursor movement are still rudimentary (for example).  But the potential of the beautiful multi-touch screen is enormous. And the fact is, while other people complain about how the iPhone is married to AT&T and has other exclusive carrier deals abroad, it finally puts the device front and center, rather than something that the carriers “give away” or spiff their resellers as a come-on for a two-year contract.

We have the iPhone and iPod Touch, we’ll have a tablet-sized iMac Touch soon enough, and who know.s, I may be typing at my desktop on a virtual surface one of these days (I never thought it would happen, but I’m changing my mind).

The significance of the iPhone is not that it is the best phone/smartphone.  It isn’t.  It is, however, the first of its kind, an elegant if flawed harbinger of a new era — just like its ancestor, the first Mac.  The rest of the world is still running the equivalent of DOS.  When you use the iPhone, you are using the future of portable, personal computing.

 

Towards better applications forensics

VARs looking for the next profitable frontier in network forensics have two widely different alternatives with the partner programs and products available from two vendors. The network analysis appliances available from Firescope in Huntington Beach, Calif. and Network Physics in Mountain View, Calif. offer very divergent approaches towards better network applications intelligence.

You can read the complete article published today in eWeek’s Strategic Partner.

Top Five Disruptive Technologies for MSPs

To complement some of the stories that I have written lately about managed service providers (MSPs), I am one of the keynoters at the Managed Services Providers annual conference in San Jose this week that is hosted by the MSP Alliance. You can see the entire program here, and download my slides here.

How not to do customer support (eBay)

My colleague Thom Stark, who is currently at work on a book about Alexander the Great, recently wrote to me about his experience with using eBay. This is a strong contrast to my last post about Southwest Airlines and is at the opposite end of the scale in terms of Web customer relations. I’ll let him tell his tale of woe:

I recently had occasion to bid on a fairly inexpensive item on eBay. However,
when I tried to place a bid (literally at the last minute, of course - that’s
how you win these things, after all), I discovered that eBay had suspended my
account back in April. As it later transpired, eBay had done so because my
account was “potentially compromised” (their phraseology, not mine).

Now, mind you, my account was never actually compromised. Apparently there
was a major phishing expedition in April and - also apparently - there’s a
helluva lot of phish on eBay, so (and I’m just inferring here) eBay basically
panicked and suspended accounts right and left, regardless of whether there
was any basis to do so. Apart from general incompetence, I mean.

Anyhow, I changed my password - and eBay sent me email confirming that I had
successfully done so - and checked my account activity since April, which was
nada. No transactions, no outstanding unresolved debt, no nothing. Just to
be certain, I also checked my PayPal account, and it, too, was exactly as I’d
last left it.

So I tried to bid on another auction for the item I coveted and, once again, I was unable to do so, because -
SURPRISE! - my account was still suspended. And that’s when the actual story began to develop.

In case you’ve never had the pleasure, eBay provides one and only one way to
receive customer support: its so-called Live Help chat service. (Supposedly
you can email Customer Support - which I tried - but they don’t respond to
emails, so I don’t consider that an actual option.)

The little indicator bar ran endlessly - and I mean I spent 20 minutes
watching the darned thing - without any sign of life on eBay’s end. I came to
the conclusion that there was nobody home, and chalked it up to the fact that
it was by now nearly 8:00pm PDT. So I closed my browser, went on to other
things, and determined to try it again the following day sometime during
normal business hours. Well, that didn’t work either.

Now, as an industry journalist, I long ago acquired an 800 number for eBay,
so that was my next resort. After sitting through the voice menu, I chose the
“customer support” option and pressed the corresponding number on my keypad.

And promptly got a recording that directed me to use Live Help for help with
all eBay customer support issues.

I thought that was somewhat less than helpful, so I again dialed eBay’s
closely-guarded 800 number, and this time I chose the “speak to an operator”
option. When he answered, I told him, “I’d like to speak to a customer
representative.” And he immediately transferred me to the same recording that
directed me to use Live Help for help with all eBay customer support issues.

At this point, I was beginning to lose my patience. Nonetheless, I called
back, got the same operator, and told him, “Don’t transfer me to the
recording that tells me to use Live Help. I can’t get Live Help to work with
my browser and I need to speak to an actual human being about reinstating my
suspended account.”

“Live Help is our only customer support option,” he responded.

“That’s all very well,” I said, “but, as I just told you, it doesn’t work
with my browser, so I need to talk to a customer support representative.”

“There is no customer support representative you can talk to. Live Help is
your only option.”

Huh?

“Okay,” I responded, gritting my teeth, “then I’d like you to transfer me to
your media relations department.”

“Are you a member of the media?”

“Yes.”

Without further conversation, he switched me to the media relations line -
which was answered by a recording, directing me to leave my name, number and
publication, without promising that someone would respond to my call.

Mark Twain advised, “When angry, count ten. When very angry, swear.” Instead,
I left a message, stating that I was planning to write about my eBay customer
service experience, and suggesting that, should eBay want to respond to the
issues it would raise, a media relations representative ought to contact me
in the near future.

I never heard back from them, of course - but I’m sure you guessed that.

In the meantime, I decided that - because it was already past 5:00pm by this
time - the following day I would try using a different browser to contact
Live Help.

Of course it worked like a charm with Internet Explorer 7. The Live Help
operator was polite - unlike the 800 number operator had been - and helpful,
and he reinstated my account during our chat. However, he professed no to
know anything about why Live Help didn’t work with Mozilla 1.7.12 (my default
and preferred browser), nor about why the fact that Live Help seems only to
work with certain specific browsers is only mentioned here (rather
than in the Live Help window, where it would do some actual good), nor about
why there is no list on eBay of which browsers do work with Live Help -
although he mentioned that it’s known to work with Firefox. When I pointed
out that not everyone uses either Firefox or IE, and listed some of the
alternatives (such as Mozilla and Opera) that some subset of eBay’s customers
do use, he told me that his colleagues recommended I contact a different
department about that issue.

That I was not able to do, because - just to put the cherry on top of my eBay
customer support sundae - the Live Help session window automagically closed
itself when Chico, with whom I’d been chatting, logged off, foreclosing any
possibility of my saving a transcript of our session.

Now it seems to me that my experience reveals a number of lessons, some for
eBay users, and, more importantly, others for eBay’s management and
designers:

1. Users should be aware that eBay only supports certain browsers -
especially for the chat-based Live Help service that is its only real form of
customer service.

2. eBay should be aware that its customers may not be using those specific
browsers as their preferred default, and it prominently should post which
browsers it does support on every page of its “suspended and problematic
accounts” section, and in the Live Help popup window itself.

3. Users should be aware that eBay doesn’t respond to email regarding
suspended accounts.

4. Unless it begins responding to such emails, eBay should stop offering
email as a way to inquire about suspended accounts. (Automated, boilerplate
emails that essentially consist of instructions to use Live Help instead,
don’t count.)

5. eBay needs to train its telephone operators to be polite and helpful.
Callers are not a nuisance to you folks - they’re the reason your job exists.
Service with a snarl leaves a bad impression.

6. eBay’s media relations people need to learn to return phone calls. Public
relations and media relations are … well … related. And, if you’re too
busy to be bothered to respond when you’re warned well ahead of time of an
impending corporate black eye, perhaps you should consider another line of
work.

7. eBay’s success is based on its customers. And, just as its customers pay
attention to each other’s ratings for reliability and service, so do they pay
attention to eBay’s own reputation for reliablility and service. Good
managers are accessible to their customers. eBay’s managers are not. On the
face of it, this seems like a very bad idea.

From Wang to WordPerfect, the history of the tech industry is littered with
the corpses of businesses who stopped paying attention to their customers;
whose executives made the fatal mistake of believing in their own
infallibility; who failed to understand that ownership of a market is not a
divine right, and that there is always a competitor ready to take it away
from you, the moment you start taking it for granted.

There is no reserve price on this warning - and bidding begins at $0.02

Channel Chat Podcast: Brian Gladstein, Bit9

Locking Down Endpoint Apps is the title of my latest podcast for Ziff’s ITLink site.  With data leakage and malware being number one problems today, Brian Gladstein, director of product marketing for Bit9, talks about it and ways you can protect your network.

Southwest’s “boarding school”

I love flying Southwest (or should I say LUV, which is a cute pun on their airport of choice in Dallas). This is a good thing because they have lots of flights from St. Louis and they keep American’s fares low too. And I have to give them plenty of kudos for the way they are about to transform their boarding procedure come this fall (it is already in place in San Antonio): they reward people like me who want to do prior-day online check in to get those coveted “A” boarding passes, they have eliminated the  extra hour that I have to wait at Lambert to position myself in line, and they do with wit, style and panache on their Web site. This is how you build trust with your customers: do extensive surveys and research to make them part of the process, and then actually listen to what they say! What a concept for other businesses.

New VOIP services

I had a chance to compare two new Internet phone services from Ooma and MagicJack. Let me summarize what I have learned in the table below:

	MagicJack.com	Ooma.com	Vonage.com V-Phone	Skype.com
Initial cost	$40 for first year	$400	$40	$96/yr
Recurring cost	$20/yr following years	None	plus monthly Vonage service
911 features	Uses E911 PSAP	Uses landline 911 (2)	Use Vonage PSAP	None
Headset or analog phone?	Either supported	Analog Phone	Neither needed (mic included)	Headset + PC
Free calling area	North America	USA	North America	Various countries (1)
Mac OS X support	Not yet	Uses phones	Not yet	Yes
Notable features	Headset or phone	Second line	Built in mic	International reach
Drawbacks	Few area codes yet avail.	Customer support	Tied to Vonage account	Dicey p2p network issues
Email voicemail notifications?	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
(1) Skype pro provides unlimited calling in a single country that you receive the phone number for.
(2) Please note that in order for the ooma system to work, we will add call forward busy (”CFB”) when we provision your line, for which you will owe your landline phone company associated monthly charges

So what are these new services? Ooma is a small box about the size of an answering machine that hooks up to both your broadband Ethernet and your land voice line. MagicJack is a bit bigger than a USB key drive that connects to your computer’s USB port. They have very different approaches, and are not for everyone.

MagicJack is a way to supplement your existing landline or cellular service. If you have a loved one that is living overseas, or someone who travels a lot, then this makes sense. At a fixed price of $40 and $20 for the second and subsequent years, it is a low enough price point that you can send it to someone living abroad, have them register with a US phone number, and then you can have cheap unlimited talk time. The nice thing about the gizmo is that you can either hook up a standard analog phone to it, or use whatever PC-connected sound device you’d like: it can toggle between both. It doesn’t yet have many local phone numbers — when I tried it out, I could get as close as Memphis but nothing in Missouri as yet. But this is becoming less of an issue as many people have unlimited long distance plans anyway.

Ooma is much more expensive, and I am not sure where their market is: at $400, you have to make a lot of calls and the device requires a lot more commitment. You need to make changes to your landline calling features too. Its niftiest feature is the ability to give you a second outgoing phone line, so you can get around a chatty teen who is always tying up your phone. But it has very poor customer support despite some initial buzz and a high initial cost to get their gear.

Both Ooma and MagicJack come with their own voicemail box that can send you email notifications, which is becoming standard in the VOIP world. Both supply unlimited calling in the US or North America, with additional per-minute charges to places beyond. Both support the better E911 services that aren’t the norm with most VOIP suppliers: ironically, Vonage offers a competitive USB gizmo called the V-phone, but 1) you need to sign up for a Vonage service plan to use it and 2) it doesn’t support E911, instead, emergency calls get routed to a Vonage operator.

The other entry in this sweepstakes is Skype. They of course only work on your PC, but they do offer Macintosh support, something neither the V-phone or the MagicJack presently have. They are a bit more expensive if you buy all the various options (you need Skype In to get a fixed phone number so people can call your PC at $60/year and Skype Pro to make outgoing calls at $36/year ) than either USB device, but they do offer local numbers in various countries, should that be important to you or if both of your frequently called parties are outside the US. Their Pro plan allows unlimited outbound calling to phones in whatever country you assign your phone number to your account.

What you pick will depend on a lot of different circumstances: if you are looking for a complete replacement of your landline phone with an Internet solution, I still think either Vonage or AT&T CallVantage is a better way to go than any of these products. If you make a lot of international calls to different places, then probably Skype is your answer. If your teen or traveling salesperson is tying up your phone or racking up cell minutes, then any one of these might be a lower-cost alternative if you want to keep your existing landline.

Clearly, the VOIP market is undergoing a lot of change, and a lot of players will come and (like SunRocket) go. As someone who uses Vonage daily for the past four years, I am watching avidly what is going on.

Radiosophy’s portable HD radio

You would think that under the category of tabletop clock radios, there wouldn’t be much to attract a Tom’s Hardware Guide reader. Think again, with the Radiosophy HD100, a stylish device that delivers digital HD radio at a very reasonable $99 price. The neat trick with HD radio is called multicast. This means that a single radio station can broadcast multiple signals and programs over one frequency: you can have rock, talk and jazz “stations” all coming from a station that previously only had one program format. And all of this programming supposedly comes at near CD-quality sound with no static.

You can read more of my review that ran today on Tom’s Hardware here.