Utah Tech Spotlight

Utah Tech Spotlight Events

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. 

Blogging to Learn… Learning to Blog

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 19

It’s funny, but as much as I try to network, be it by attending events, meeting with people, Thinkingor consuming blogs, I find that the more I learn, the more I come to grips with how much I don’t know.

Many people think of blogging as a chance to be a voice… to be heard.  But while that is true to an extent, I think that to really get the most from blogging, or communicating in any way, you really have to check your ego at the door. 

To that point, I wanted to share some really valuable information that I gleaned from a couple of blogs that I follow religiously.  Jason Alba, who has been a huge help to me in many ways, writes on the blogs JibberJobber and on JasonAlba, recently found a real gem if you want to learn how to do a better blog (which, for those of you who read this article… bear with me… I will be taking much of this advice shortly :) )

 Additionally, Janet, who writes for the blog Newspapergrl recently pulled together some other exellent materials on how to ensure that your blog gets the “google juice” that you really are hoping for. 

Want a slick looking Blog?  The article from Jason couldn’t be better.  Want people to find it?  Thanks to Janet for passing along how to do it.  These two posts really do pull together more valuable information than any blogging self help book I have seen.

Want to learn more?  Another blog that seems to consistently have great info on the subject can be found by Alister Cameron.

Seth Godin comes to Utah

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 12

Seth Godin, acclaimed auther, blogger, and basic Marketing God is on his way to Utah.  This is a huge opportunity for anyone who wants to learn more about marketing from one of the most outspoken, and looked to voices on the subject.  So who is Seth, and why do you want to hear from him?  Well, if you are into marketing, you probably already know.  If not, google will give you just over 2 million gems to choose from on the topic.  Alternatively, a good summary I found can be accessed here. 

So why is Seth Coming to Utah, well obviously he must have heard that the Red Iguana is the best dang Mexican food that can be found.  Or, more truthfully, we have a real local mover and shaker, Phil Burns to thank for this.  Please click over to Phil’s blog and see how you can participate in the event.   This is a real opportunity, and I thank Phil, and those who are making Herculean efforts to make sure that Utah gets this kind of exposure, and opportunities like this and so many of the other exciting upcoming events they have in the hopper.

 Want to see what other Utahns are saying about this?  Check out:

codeAway
KitchenSinkWebMarketing
Newspapergrl
Phil801
WordMob

Google Goes Yellow

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 10

Well… yellow pages at least :) .  I know it’s not Utah based technology, but I just couldn’t pass this one up.  I was just reading a post about Google’s new, free phone directory service.  Really cool stuff. 

Basically, you just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (Or 1-800-466-4411 for those of us who might be reading this on a Blackjack :) ), tell it your city and state, then a business name or category.  Now, it’s the category part that really intrigues me… I would love to know how it chooses what businesses to list, and in what order.  If this service takes off, I think you may well see a new facet of marketing by companies, who attempt to adjust their “Goolge Juice” as it pertains to phone searches. 

Thanks to NewspaperGrl for cluing us all in on this one.

Holy Techno-eyes Batman!

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 04

You might have noticed, that in addition to covering Utah, and technology in Utah, that I tend to chime in on technology, and using it to help out in our community (and our world). Though I know it is a bit far afield from Utah, a friend pointed me toward a really interesting article today about Technology being used in really cool ways to “solve” blindness, and even give “spidey-sense”.

To chime in with what I was told: if you read this article all the way through, and don’t say “holy crap” at least three times, I’ll be surprised.

Mozy: One heck of a technology

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 02

We want to thank everyone who attended our first Tech Spotlight.  The technology that was spotlighted was Mozy by Berkeley Data Systems.  I am personally a user of mozy, and loving it.  What is it?  Well, imagine you could take 30 seconds, download a program, install it on your computer, and it would just run silently in the background from then on, making sure that a secure backup of your files gets stored by Mozy every time you make any changes.

This stuff is just cool.  Basically, it takes the folders and files you specify, and replicates any changes.  Cooler if than than, it does block level incrementals (copies only the bits that have changed… even from large files like video or databases).  It Can handle open or locked files.  It is all encrypted.  Up to 2 gig for FREE!  It even stores 30 days snapshots, so if you accidentally corrupt a file, get a virus, etc.  Just pull the version from 30 days ago.

Drop your laptop?  Get a virus?  Remove files you didn’t mean to?  No sweat.

If I don’t sound entirely objective about this product, forgive me.  But after running it a few days, the peace of mind was so awesome I logged on and bought it. 

Want to know more?  Check out the podcast, or subscribe to the podcast with 30 minutes of Q & A with the folks that make Mozy happen.

Have questions or comment?  Chime in here and Mozy will be happy to respond.

Thanks again to all who attended, and to Josh Coates for such a great presentation.  We will have pictures up within the next day or two as well. 

Teaching useful skills to our kids

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Mar 28

Those of you who know me know that I am very outspoken in regards to how and what we educate our children.  Richard, I, and a few other folks fromt he UTC were very pleased to be able to speak before the Utah Board of Education onthe topic last year.  Basically, we as the technology community need to do what we can to make sure that our kids are not only happy and healthy, but also have the skills to contribute and succeed.  We need to help schools turn out well adjust people who will be functiona members of the community and workforce.  (As a side note: being part of a group that has the ear of legislators, and schools on issues like this hsa been a huge value of UTC to me)

Anyway…. I read a post today by Janet, who I met at a blogger’s dinner.  The jist of it is: teching sixth graders to blog.  But the part that really hit me was “These kids are totally into it! They want to make money online.”  One of my real hot buttons has been: we are teching kids math, and science, and how to determine the fluid volume of a 5 foot dodecahedron.. but are we really teching them any skills that will help them succeed?  We need to take “teaching” and turn it into “mentoring.”  If kids understand the application, and the world, then they turn into “people” rahter than just a vessel that bears a plethora of facts. 

Anyway, I wanted to applaud Janet and her friend Paul.  I would love to see more of us provide this type of mentoring.  Not only to help our children and our community, but also to ensure that in the years to come that the workforce, the people, and the companies in Utah are thinking new thoughts and doing new things.

Twitterpated?

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Mar 22

Skype, IM, Blogs, Youtube… ready for the next big thing?  Well, a definite contender seems to be twitter.  Basically, twitter is an “I am here” sort of application… the next step beyond you IM or facebook status.  You can update your twitter status from their website, through their easy to use API, or from your cell phone.  It lets your friends (or the world, if you feel so inclined) see what you’re up to. 

So my personal experience?  Mixed.  It’s neat to be able to keep in touch with people… (dang, I use … a lot, dont’ I :) ) but how really candid can you be with something like this?  A message taken out of context, or that seemed funny at the time, can be dangerous.  Especially since Twitter will clearly be adopted by a market even younger than myspace (although the rest of us get a kick out of it too :) ). 

Another word of adive: don’t have it send updates to your phone unless you REALLY are that interested in knowing when your buddy is thinking about weird stuff.  Having a movie or conference call interrupted to find out that Bob is “Looking at ducks” can be annoying.  Unfortunately their IM integration is currently down (read that: overwhelmed) which is sad, as I think that could be worth while.   Speaking of overwhelmed… the site positively crawls right now.

So my conclusion: Out the gate, a “cute” social tool.  With a bit of API integration an some creative thought it can be a very valuable way to push content (snow alerts to cell phones, news info to IM clients, etc).  I certainly will not be giving my “buddies” a way to send their status real-time to my cell phone again any time soon :).  Once the growing pains get resolved Twitter, as a gateway to distribute content through a variety of consumer-chosen mediums is a tool that will be more and more widely used.

So what’s your take?  Are you using it, and if so how? 

Local Vista Experts?

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Mar 13

So forgive me yet another post about Vista today :)

 With the changes needed to support Vista, and the knowledge about Vista needed to make those changes, or quite frankly even to understand the underlying security model enough to ensure that applications are properly tested, it seems that many local companies may need some guidance.  I would love to hear if anyone has worked with companies who can help with such guidance in developement and testing on Vista. What has your experience with them been like?  Would you recommend them?  If so, let us know.

Vista: A bitter pill, but the right path?

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Mar 13

Some of you may already have read my review of the latest UTC Peer to Peer.  That event really got me thinking about Vista, and I wanted to put down some of my thoughts, and open it up for discussion.  For those of you who don’t know, Vista has drastically changed (or perhaps a better word is enforced, since it had previously been “suggested”, but was not mandatory) how application interact with the OS.  Among other things it has forced users to log in as “users” as opposed to administrators, and then has the user perform something akin to what us linux geeks might refer to as an “su” in order to temporarily get a higher level of access to perform certain tasks.  It also has all sorts of safeguards (manifest files in binaries, abstration of the “real” file system and registry, etc) in place to protect you and your environment.  For those who have always coded to Microsoft’s suggested security model, this transition may not be too tough.  But for the other 99% of the world, get ready to roll your sleeves up. 

 I have to say though, that I am torn on this issue.  I think most of the steps Microsoft is taking are logical, and will lead to a more secure OS.  In the meantime however, since almost everything will throw security alerts, people will get so used to clicking “allow” that the security becomes almost moot.  This, combined with the fact that they are strong-arming new computer buyers into Vista, means that the world is goignt o be scrambling to rewrite applications quickly, and in the meantime everyone (providers and customers) are going to be very frustrated.

But what would have been a better approach?  If Microsoft made Vista merely an option would anoyone have bought it?  If not, abviously software writers would not have written to it.  In the short run this is really going to suck… but will we be better off for it in a year (or maybe two :) )?

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