What I want for Christmas

It is that time of year once again and I am getting into the mood to make a list of wants and needs for Christmas. Thanksgiving is over and with keyboard in hand here goes:

• A truly modular laptop- recently I had the opportunity to rebuild my 3 year old laptop. It had developed an intermittent problem that was heat related and it took a while to figure out that I needed to replace the motherboard. I would like someone to make a truly modular laptop so that I could purchase the required part and slap it back together. It took me several hours and an eBay purchase to fix my machine. It should not have to be this way.
• An operating system that is universal- I do not believe that computing OS for the end user has benefited from the current competition. We should have one that works, is bug free, and all applications work on it. Windows clearly does not fit this description, MAC might come close but not all the way. Vista is a long way from what I think we need too.
• Smart Network ports- I would like to be able to set up my computer for the services I need from a network, including the destinations I would like to go to, plug it in, and I get the services I need. This ideal set up would be made available to me wherever I go, to any enterprise network regardless of who's equipment it is built on. Think about roaming with your cell phone. Yes I know about 3G and 4G and 2.5G and all the variations but it used to work! I am not thinking that NAC in its current form is what we need.
• My Blackberry to work again- About a month ago my Blackberry stopped working on my BES account. I can receive emails but not send or respond from that account. I can send from other POP accounts but.... It turns out that there is an incompatibility between my software in the device and the BES software. Now if I could only convince the support guy of this I would be in great shape. It worked up until a month ago so one would think that rolling something back to that configuration would do the trick.
• Anti-virus software that does better than blocking 20% of the known infections.
• Real-time vital health statistics monitoring displayed on my wireless device. No wires or anything, just an implant that does all the work and sends the numbers to my screen. Blood pressure, cholesterol, EKG, EEG, blood sugar. I would be able to tell when it was time to eat, not eat, sleep, not sleep, and leave frustrating meetings before bad signs start to appear on the screen. I could keep my doctor fully informed in real time. No office visits, no problems. The perfect gift!

Politics signals IT shortcomings

Like most Americans I have been watching the Presidential election process closely this time around. Given the current state of affairs in this country I figured the better informed I am the better my decisions would be.

We have now elected to the highest office in the country a person who prides himself on being well connected. Barack Obama is an avid Blackberry user, web surfer, email power user, Facebook user, and text messaging guru. This is not normal in Washington, D.C. Most of the elected officials in D.C. are up there in age so they are not used to all the options available to them.

The news recently is that the President Elect might have to give up his Blackberry in order to comply with the Presidential records act and security good practices. What does this really mean? It means that wireless device security and managed services like Blackberry Internet Services are less secure than they should be. It means that the President has just found out that, while he can be the most connected guy in the world when he is in the office or on his plane, he can not carry around his own personal communications device. It means that we in the IT field still have some work to do.

Can you imagine how good it would feel if we could say that it would be safe for the president to carry and use a Blackberry? We may never get there but it is a good target goal to strive for.

We did, We can, and We will

I have to admit to being an on-line news addict. The immediacy of news from all parts of the world is hard to resist for me. Being well informed is a duty we all have, both in our jobs and our communities. The last two years have been especially enlightening with the election of our new President and new leadership in the other branches of government. It also points out some technology insights that are important to enterprise users.

First, examine Barack Obama's use of technology in his run for the Presidency. He used everything we have developed to communicate a message, to organize citizens for his cause, to raise money to fund his campaign and to serve as a cornerstone for his message on the importance of innovation in our society. While some may have criticized his use of text messaging to announce his running mate I thought it was a classy way of doing it. Everyone got a personal note at nearly the same time. President elect Obama used the Web like no other politician has ever done. In doing so he energized a younger electorate (his customers) and they responded by granting him the right to carry some of these innovations to Washington. I have no doubt he will finally be able to get the federal government to successfully automate many of the functions that still need attention, like the processes we use to vote perhaps!

President elect Obama's use of the same technology tools used by many enterprises was not an accident. Collectively the technology community has developed a powerful set of tools that can bring success to any campaign, business or political. How does it feel to know that "we did that". Even more important is the feeling that we now realize that we can apply these solutions to nearly any problem we face. The tools are out there, as is the talent to apply them.

I have no doubt that we will continue or tradition of innovation in this country. New solutions are out there waiting to be discovered or simply applied to different problems in ways that can range from the very simple to the more complex.

We owe President elect Obama a big thank you for successfully demonstrating to us that innovation is not over in this country.