Utah Tech Spotlight

Utah Tech Spotlight Events

Untangle: An easy to use Solution for protecting your Kids

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 17

(Warning… Passionate rant and possible arm-waving begins now)

Last night I was fooling around with my DansGuardian server at home… again.  I have it running on a crappy little server that always seems to have problems.  Not only that, but I really haven’t been all that pleased with the lag from the squid caching, or the painful fine-tuning of Dans Guardian from time to time.  Plus, I did not have it inline with my network, so any intelligent kid could easily bypass it.  But I didn’t want to go to the trouble of inserting another NIC and setting up by Linux install for bridging… just a pain.

Enter Untagle.   Let me just say “HOLY CRAP!”  I went to the website (very professionally done BTW), pulled down an ISO (for free), and burned a disk.  I inserted the disk into a computer and booted from it.  The install was the easiest install I have ever done.  No hard questions… no troubleshooting.  It just worked.  My mother in law could have installed this!  I did have to throw in a $17 network card to ensure complete protection by putting it so it can’t be bypassed.

Done.  Within 10 minutes of EXTREMELY easy configuring I had virus protection, spam protection, spyware, adult content filtering, and a bunch of other stuff all running.  The UI is super easy to understand and use.  Once installed everything can be done remotely.  Performance seems great.  All of this at absolutely no cost.  These guys are amazing.  Seriously, I cannot recommend a product any higher than I can this one.  If you are, or know someone who is looking to protect their kids from porn, this is your solution.  I have shied away from pointing anyone at DansGuardian in the past, as I knew they would bug me for tech support questions forever on it.  It is just too difficult for a non-tech person.

Untangled.  Don’t have it?  Get it!  Curious?  Watch the video.

How Sweet the Sound. Getting the most from your i-device

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Nov 13

sound1.jpgPeriodically we step away from local reviews, and throw up a post on what really makes us a tech person’s heart beat faster: Tech Toys.  Well, one of my favorite tech toys is my iPhone.  Since I tend to travel a lot, I spend a fair amount of time listening to music, and watching video on the device (BTW, I highly recommend the TV series “Mad Men” for long flights.)

Several years back I splurged on a trip, and picked up the Bose noise cancelling headphones.  Recently however, I have seen earbuds in airports by Shure, that claim that Sound Isolation is a better model that noise cancellation (Basically, this means that the buds seal your ear like an ear plug.)  Well, Shure has a pair of buds for about what I paid for my Bose headphones… so I decided to put them to the test.  I fired up Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion (which ahs some incredible sound at the beginning, and compared.

My findings: The bose are VERY comfortable for long flights (they don’t actually touch your ears, which on a  17 hour overseas trip is a big deal),  and the sound quality is stunning.  The base in particular is very rich.  The Shure ear buds?  Tinny, silly, ill-fitting.  How in heaven’s name can these people charge $250 for a product like this?  If you have seen them in the airport and been tempted, just keep walking.  The Bose are a whole different league at the same price.

As for Ipod players in the home however, I have to say I was less impressed by the Bose options.  After a lot fo listening, I went wit the Klipsch Ifi.  The sound clarity is absolutely stunning.  Turn up the volume on a unit int he basement, and walk upstairs, and you will find you can still understand ever word, as opposed to other solutions that will just let you feel the base, and a lot of mumbling.

Any other cool iToys that anoyone would care to recommend?

Upcoming event: Politic 2.0

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Aug 01

politic2.o logoSeveral months back I attended a very interesting event put on by Politic 2.0.  It was a really neat opportunity to interract directly with a local Utah politician, ask the question that you always wonder why no one asks, and help choose which proposed questions will be put forth next.

Well, they’re back.  The Politic 2.0 folks have announced an upcoming event with a couple (possibly more) of the Salt Lake Mayoral Candidates. 

From the Politic 2.0 website:

“Politic 2.0 was created in April 2007 to answer the frustration of voters around the nation on two levels. Voters have lately been frustrated with both politicians and the traditional media outlets in trying to get substantive information about policy issues. Voters have also been frustrated because more and more people are using the Internet to find political information, yet find that the information they’re looking for is hard to locate, disorganized, and biased.”

“ConventionNEXT will not only allow candidates to speak to participants in the room, but will also facilitate interaction between them, and broadcasts the forum live through the Politic2.0 website.”

“Candidates Jenny Wilson and Ralph Becker have confirmed their willingness to participate. Other declared candidates have been invited, and subsequent media advisories will be posted to announce other participants.”

Well, sounds good to me!  I am also planning on grabbing some dinner over at Rio Grande prior to the event (probably around 5:00.)  Anyone care to join me?

Non-local tech: Teching kids to be Entrepreneurs

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on May 31

Hot Shot Business A common thread on this blog has been me jumping on a soapbox about the need to educate our children better. Not just more math, not just more science… yes, I am very happy that Timmy can determine the fluid volume of a five foot dodecahedron… but more than that. Our kids need to learn practical skills. They need to see that they ca have ideas… that they can succeed. We need to grow the next entrepreneurs, and for those who chose not to be entrepreneurial, they need to know that they CHOSE to do what they do, not that they just did what they had to.

So when I saw a post today by Briana regarding Hot Shot Business, a safe, entrepreneurial game for kids put out by Disney, and the Kauffman Foundation (looks very similar to VMK for those of you who have kids) I was ecstatic! I know one game that my children will be playing during the summer break. Thanks to Funding Universe for making sure we saw this gem!

Interview: Ken Knapton, CTO of the year

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on May 10

The primary goal of the Utah Tech Spotlight is to bring more exposure and awareness to the Utah Tech community about the Utah Tech community. As such, we are very excited to have had the opportunity to conduct the following interview with Ken Knapton, CTO of Content Watch and Net Nanny, and the Utah CTO of the year. I apologize in advance for the length of the post, but I think you will agree that it is great stuff.

1: Utah is obviously a state with significant ties to the Church and morality. Additionally, it has a very young population. However, when the issue of protecting our children on the web comes up most parents are currently not taking steps, but seem eager for advice. What do you feel is the hurdle out there that has prevented more significant adoption of protective technologies?

[Ken]: We recently worked very closely with Microsoft as they developed their Parental Contols on the Windows Vista platform. This topic came up in our discussions. Surprisingly, their research indicated that roughly 80% of parents wanted better parental controls, but only 10% indicated that they would implement them. I found this dichotomy very ironic. As parents, we are all concerned about the dangers on the Internet, but for some reason we are not willing to put in the effort to research our options and implement a solution.

As I have thought about this, I believe there are two main reasons for this nationally, with a third reason which is specifically applicable to Utah residents:

1. Parents who are technically-savvy know that any filter solution will sit between their browser and the Internet, and may slow down thier browsing experience. We pay for fast bandwidth, and are concerned about anything that might slow it down. They also know that a technical solution is not perfect, and will either block too much or too little, so they simply don’t implement it - possibly waiting for a more perfected technology to appear.

2. Those that are not technically-savvy usually don’t know enough about the technical solutions to know that there is even an option. Many of them even turn the administration of the computer over to their children, and what child will say “Hey mom- let’s put a filter on the computer”. Since these parents are not very technical, they have to rely on the advice of thier children, or their technically-savvy friends, who all tell them that a filter is a pain to install and maintain. This is not true, but they don’t know it.

3. Here in Utah we tend to have a “not in my backyard” mentality. While we believe that there are dangers on the Internet, we don’t believe that our children would succumb to them. Because of our strong religious background, we beleive that our children will shun these “bad” things if they happen to run accross them online. Unfortunately, even the best and most up-standing adults can fall into addiction from a single look at pornography - and our children are not immune either. As of today, according to Google Trends, Salt Lake City is #2 in the world for searches of “Pornography”. Lest you think that this is due to “research” of the topic, Salt Lake is also #1 for “Hot Girls”, and is in the top 10 for several other searches that lead directly to pornographic content. This is most definitely in our backyard.

2- You comment in your blog about technology not being the silver bullet to protecting our children, that there are additional steps that need to be taken. What do you see as one of the key “non-technology” areas where many parents fall down?

[Ken]: I will give you three key non-technical things that parents can do to protect their children:

1. Move the computer out of bedrooms. There is never a valid reason to have a computer in a bedroom. When asked about this topic, our Attorney General Mark Shurtleff stated that you should look for the place in your home where the carpet is most worn, and place the computer there. When the computer is in a location where anyone can see what people are doing, they are much less likely to wander into the dark byways of the Internet, or to linger there if they stumble upon it.

2. Take an interest in your children’s online activities. Know what they are doing online, and where they spend their time. Tal to them about what they do online, and follow this up by simply looking at the browser history. If there is no History, this is a sign that someone is trying to hide something. Know what chat rooms your children frequent, and who is on their Instant Message list. A study by the FBI recently declared that if you “frequent” chat rooms, there is a 100% chance of interacting with an online predator - parents need to be aware of these dangers. As parents, we need to know the difference between chat rooms and Instant Messaging, and we need to know with whom our children are communicating while online. Several online games these days have chat capabilities, and these are filled with child predators.

3. Teach them about the dangers of the Internet. Children need to know that they cannot trust everyone they meet online. Some predators will spend months gaining a child’s trust online before attempting to engage in inappropriate behavior (of course, some will jump right into it almost immediately as well). Write up the “Internet Usage Rules” for your home, and post them next to the monitor - include things like “never give out your last name, address, phone number” and “If you see something inappropriate, turn off the monitor and get mom or dad”.

3- Most of us have accidentally hit a porn site before, and have seen on Dateline how predators are hunting children in chat rooms . What do you see as the key danger to our children that tends to be overlooked?

[Ken]: That’s easy: Google. The “Safe Search” helps, but is far from perfect, and even with strict safe search turned on, many extremely innappropriate images can appear. Without Safe Search, it is a veritable mine field of pornography. Recently a customer of ours told us of a search term which, when entered into Google Image Search with safe search turned on, would bring up a hard-core pornographic image as the first search result. The search term itself was not sexual in nature, and one would never think it would lead to pornography, yet there it was. Google has been accused of being the largest purveyor of pornography on the Internet, and I have to believe that it is close to the truth. Unfortunately, our children turn to Google Image Search when working on research papers, and much of the time parents have no idea what their children are seeing in the results.

Here again, a little prevention in the way of blocking/monitoring software can help, and reviewing where your children went online would uncover exposure to pornography - whether accidental or not. Talking to them upfront, and asking them to come to you when they see something inappropriate is key. Notice I said “when”, not “if” - if they spend any significant amount of time online, they will see something inappropriate.

A close second with regard to dangers would be Chat rooms. They are extremely dangerous, and most parents don’t even know it. Letting your child into a chat room is like allowing them to enter a bar in every city throughout the world at the same time. Personally, I believe that children under 18 should be banned from every chat room. Even chat rooms that cater to children are dangerous, as child predators know that this is where to meet children. Stick to Instant Messaging, and know who is on your child’s “buddy” list.

4- On your blog you talk about the “Agile based process.” Can you give us an overview of how you have implemented that into your culture, and how it might seem converse to what companies generally do naturally?

[Ken]: Interesting question. In the “old days” of software development (which, in reality is not all that long ago) development happened in a serial fashion: the marketing team would spend months preparing tons of documentation regarding a software product, and then would negotiate with development regarding what is possible and what is not, then the development team would spend months (or years) implementing it. Once the code was written, the test team would get involved and make sure that the code the developers wrote matched up with what marketing documented. Finally, a product would emerge to the public - and usually this bear only minimal resemblance to what marketing originally envisioned. Even when it did match what marketing documented, enough time had passed that customers no longer actually wanted it.

The agile process is a way for all of the groups to work together to produce software much faster, and to meet customer needs in a more timely fashion. There is much less documentation, and more functioning programs that evolve to meet customers needs in real-time. At ContentWatch, we have averaged a customer release every 5 weeks for the past 2 years - each one with some bug fixes and some enhancements/new features. By using this methodology, we can listen to customers and respond to them very quickly. This is extrememly important in our field, since technology is always changing. For example, MySpace recently launched an Instant Messaging application. Our product will allow/deny access to Instant Messaging applications, and will log all IM conversations. However, when MySpace launched their new application, it was a surprise to us (and everyone else), and it was based on its own proprietary protocol, which our software did not recognize. Using the agile processes, we were able to identify this as a problem, research and develop a fix, and get this fix into the next version of our software (due out toward the end of this month).

As for the details regaring our implementation of these “agile” concepts, you will have to watch my blog for those - there is way too much to go into here. Suffice it to say that we operate much like an express train: if your feature is ready when the train leaves the station, it makes it into the next release. If not, you wait for the next train. It is surprising how well the analogy holds up with regard to software development processes - I expect this to be a blog topic in the near future, as many people have been asking me about this recently.

5- WordPerfect, CyberPath, Intel, AccessData, Content Watch, and now CTO of the year. Wow. What’s next? Where do you see yourself in the coming years?

[Ken]: It is such a different world from the prior generation, where people would work for the same company for 30+ years. When I finally made it into development at WordPerfect, I knew I had arrived in my dream job and that I would retire as a developer from there. I honestly thought that I would work at WordPerfect for my entire career. Man, was I wrong. It is a fast-paced industry we work in.

I have had a fun career thus far. Each company has had its share of challenges, and I have had the pleasure of working with some extremely talented individuals. I really don’t know where it will lead me, but I am having great fun on the ride. As for where I see myself in the coming years, the answer is “right here in Utah”. I have had many opportunities to move out of state, but simply didn’t want to leave. I know that this has limited my career in some ways, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love Utah, and I love being a small part of the High Tech industry here.

Jason give us some pointers on Social Linking

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on May 08

One of the local folks that I really enjoy reading from time to time is Jason Alba. jibberjobber logo For those of you who don’t know Jason, he has a platform call JibberJobber which is essentially, your personal CRM.  It’s where you keep a list of the relationships you have that may or may not have to do with work, and are owned by you, not your employer.  That way you have your own personal view that stays with you no matter how many times you change jobs, and it lets you track those relationships and your interaction to always help you find a better job.

As a business owner I initially was not all that interested in looking at Jason’s product… but as I started following his writing, I found that what he really writes about is not job searching, it’s about relationships.  It’s about how to build them, how to keep them fresh, and how important they are. 

In this vein, I want to mention Linked In.  I have it installed.  I accept when people want to add me.  I run Plaxo also.  So what.  I have to admit that I have never really leveraged these tools.  They sit there, but quite frankly I get little or no value from them.  But Jason did a really good post recently about Linked In, and an interesting way (and time) to use it.  So I wanted to pass it on.

I also wanted to say that Jason tends to put out these little bite-sized gems of knowledge fairly often.  Definitely a blog worth following.

Give a push to help Utah

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 30

If you read Blogs in Utah at all you have probably seen a fair amount about Seth Godin recently.  UtahYou might ask yourselves why… Why have so many Blogs been trying to get you to think about Seth Godin… and who the heck is he anyway? 

Well, let’s start with who Seth is: He’s a writer.  He’s a writer who get’s to the point, and says some of the things we all really knew anyway, in a very in your face way that hopefully gets us off our butts.  He’s also one heck of a speaker.  Odds are that if you’ve read any good self help, or energizing books recenlty Seth either wrote them or is quoted in them. 

Okay, that’s all fine and good… but there are a lot of cool writers and speakers out there.  Why are the local Blogs so active on this guy?  The answer:  Because it’s not just about Seth Godin.  It’s really about a bunch of people who are not making any money on any of this, who sat down and wondered why it seems that Utah gets less of these types of opportunities than most other big cities.  Who wondered why the technology community here in Utah doesn’t have the pull it should.  Now note: I say the technology community.  There are some very powerful technology leaders.  But the grass-roots, sheer force of numbers and will community has not had the ability to make itself heard.

This is not about Seth.  It is the first effort of several folks to “rally the troops”, and come up with a way to give the folks pounding out code, building sites, testing products, supporting customers, making sales, and building brands to make their voices, and their wills heard.

So if you have wished that there was a way to get events, people, and opportunities here… and have always wondered why “someone” wasn’t getting it done… then come become part of that “someone”.  Join up with a bunch of someones who are in the process of becoming “something” that can get these things done.  I have put my Blog, and my corporate sponsorship dollars behind this effort.  Maybe you are luke-warm on Seth or maybe you love him… either way, support this bigger effort to build wordmob so it can help with this, and it can be a force to bring the people and the opportunities here for you and for all of us.

So I ask you, either click here, or get pass this along to someone who you think might.

A Word from the Wordpress

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 30

Josh Kenzer, a co-worker of mine (as well as an avid Spotlight attender, and the person who whipped Matt pic me into blogging in the first place) recently conducted one of his wonderful “5 question interviews” with Matt Mullenweg, co-creator of Wordpress, and very involved in Akisment, bbPress, and Ping-o-Matic. 

There is no question that the way the world is communicating is constantly changing, and is currently in the middle of a fairly radical shift.  At 23, Matt is clearly one of the folks poised to be instramental in many of those new ideas and solutions.  Go here to read the full article. 

I did want to pass along one quote from the interview however… I think this is a key component of the successful entrepreneur, “My general approach to life is just to experiment, fail fast, and run with what sticks.”

Utah leads the charge with a new way to can Spammers

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 26

Outlook rules don’t work well enough, or catch things they shouldn’t.  Filters, While lists, Black lists, Gray Lists, SPF, Creamed SpamGoodmail, Badmail, What-The-Heck-Can-I-Do-To-Stop-This mail… There have been a lot of techniques to try to cutt off, or even check the growth of spam.  The most common teqniques thus far however, have really focussed on the content of the email (which is immensely dynamic), or who exactly is sending it (wich, with the vast amount of senders, and even worse, infected “bot” computers, has a whole new set of issues). 

But Unspam, a Utah company headed up by Matthew Prince and Eric Langheinrich, has not only adopted a new strategy, but they’ve locked arms with the big-boys, and are taking it to court.

Here’s the gist of it:  Project Honey Pot (Which is some really cool stuff cooked up by Unspam) generates unique, spamtrap email addresses each time a web site is visited.  It also records who was hitting the site when that address gets generated.  So if spam shows up at the trap, they know who gathered the address.  As Matthew stated in the Washington Post Article, “We’ve found that the Internet addresses of those doing the harvesting is a much smaller universe of those who are actually sending the messages, and locating [the harvesters] may give us good indicators of who out there is at the top of these spam operations.“

Matthew aknowledges that this Lawsuit will not solve the spam problem, “But if we can take two or three major spammers offline, that’s a huge victory for the Internet as a whole.”

Want to see even more coolness that Unspam is doing to help out Bloggers?  Check out this gems from their 5 days of announcements around comment spammers.

Mozy lands a big fish

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 25

Those of you who were at our March Event, or who have listened to the podcast from it are aware  big fish of who Berkeley Data Systems is, and a bit about their product, Mozy.  Well, we just heard some big news, and wanted to pass it along.  According to the Salt Lake Tribune Article Mozy beat out several other online backup firms to close a deal with GE for roughly ten million dollars (that’s a lot of zero’s!)

Good job to Josh Coates and his crew!  Thanks go out to Phil Burns for keeping us all abreast of this exciting news. 

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