The Networked Enterprise: Fact or Fiction?

The Networked Enterprise: Fact or Fiction?: "

Increasing speed of access to knowledge
Reducing communication costs
Increasing customer satisfaction
Reducing support costs
Reducing travel costs
Increasing speed of access to internal experts
And many others"

Delicious collapse is big Web 2.0 news

Above it my #delicious page http://www.delicious.com/rhooker1236 Since Twitter has taken off I really have no been using delicious, which is sad because it was a very amazing tool for keeping you bookmarks. More than Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook or Twitter Delicious delivered the social network to work for you, keeping your bookmarks as the primary function and the social network as a supporting function.



The striking thing about this is the danger of the Cloud. Everyone is speaking about the Cloud, but the more we put of our world in the Cloud the more vulnerable we are to the businesses that run it. In the case of Flickr and delicious the danger is pretty radical. I keep a Pipes and Delicious account, but never really got in to Flickr. My wife has massive Flickr pages and is a real guru with that tool.

But all of these products are in massive danger because their founders made the mistake of selling them to Yahoo. One morning you can wake up to find years of uploads could be gone before you know it, if Yahoo decides suddenly that preserving your links, mashups, or photos is not profitable enough anymore.

Microsoft has probably been one of the worst offenders for this, with sites like Office Live Beta and PopFly just collapsing almost over night taking any content they had with them.

Learn HTML5, JavaScript and CSS With Mozilla's "School of Webcraft

"Mozilla is getting ready for the January semester of School of Webcraft, a 100% free developer training resource run in partnership with Peer 2 Peer University."

Learn HTML5, JavaScript and CSS With Mozilla's "School of Webcraft:

Promoting yourself via Web 2.0

Total Social Media, a popular phrase but we could get on the Google first page via social network marketing.

Total Social Media needed a SEO strategy. The goal was to get as high up in Google search as possible, with placement for the phrase "Total Social Media" being important. The problem was a lot of content on the web already used Total Social Media and the company was competing with firms in other nations with the same name.



One solution: get to the social networks first. By creating Facebook applications and Slide Shares with Total Social Media first the company was able to ensure its place on the Google first results page. Expanding with a Twitter, Flickr and YouTube page will come next.

All firms should, as quickly as possible, get their names in to Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. Even if it is only a tiny amount of content having something on these key social networks will greatly improve the likelihood of connecting to potential customers and preventing someone else taking your name away from you.

Killing a Web 2.0 pioneer

delicious, carrying news of its own death at the hand of Yahoo

Rumour has it that part of its current cost saving Yahoo is going to close delicious down.

Its hard to make a final assessment of delicious. Yahoo mismanagement seemed to have killed the early Web 2.0 star before the concept of shared bookmarking and social tagging really took off. In 2005 it was probably the best social bookmarking tool you could get. But its star was eclipsed rapidly by DIGG which in turn has been outdone by Twitter, StumbleUpon and GotGlue.

If anything the death of delicious will show how bad these established firms are at Web 2.0. It will leave only Flickr and Blogger as commonly used Web 2.0 tools owned by one of the big Three of Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft.

For Web 3.0 start up this news will come as music to their ears. It will prove even further what more and more VCs seem to be figuring out: that only young blood with entirely new business structures and ideas can form new ventures that have a hope of surviving.

The mantra of CA Technologies' Donald Ferguson: Simplify

"But the biggest problem is the complexity of IT. If you look at any IT in business, it is so complex it hinders the ability to be agile and efficient. Throughout the history of IT we all have said that we will make it simpler by adding more things to it, but that makes it more and more complex" BBC News - The mantra of CA Technologies' Donald Ferguson: Simplify

Time Person Of The Year 2010: Mark Zuckerberg

Actually its was the community of computer users more than any one person, but Zuckerberg's young face on the cover of Time magazine is a welcome site of how the Web has managed to more than come back after the hype of the dot bomb. And if anyone doubted the Internet emergence as the event of our time, I would point to the other likely persons of the year for 2010 would have been Julian Assange and Wikileaks and smartphones.

Time Person Of The Year 2010: Mark Zuckerberg

A tale of two search engines

Back in the late 1990s Yahoo! had it all, it seemed cool, it had the best index of the web, it was the one must see place that all my friends wanted to work at. After the dot bomb turned in to the dot boom 2.0 Yahoo! was one of the first firms to see its stock rise. But there is probably a life times worth of historical work to identify why Google prospered and Yahoo! collapsed.

BBC News - Yahoo cutting its workforce by 4%:

"The redundancies also follow after Google recently announced a 10% pay increase for every member of staff.

In 2008 Yahoo rejected a $47.5bn (£30bn) bid from Microsoft. Today its market capitalisation - the combined value of its shares - totals $21.68bn"

Personally I have two experiences of Yahoo! that explain it all for me. The first was the first web site I ever got funding to build back in 1997 called "City of Nations", I sent it to Yahoo to be indexed back when these reviews were handled manually by staff. I kept getting emails for this staff member telling me he could not see the site. It turned out that he did not know that default.html was the root page, and was looking a pages that established navigation frames as the only page.

After he figured that he was suppose to just type in the URL without any of the other html names he had somehow been passed he indexed the site where it belonged, but then send me a series of emails concerning how I should design my site. When I informed him I was not interested in his opinion he started fighting with me.

So it took me about a week and cost Yahoo! probably something like $20 to get my one site in their index.

10 years later my wife and I were doing a presentation on teens and technology and we didn't want to use a power point presentation but show off the possibilities of the web to the group. So we created a Yahoo! Flickr site site to share the slides with the group and collect data. Sad thing was no one could see the slides. Seems Flickr was reviewing all new accounts back then for "moral appropriateness" and you were restricted until one of their staff could review you an approve you. No one without a Flickr site could see it, and the review process was taking months.

Some firms never learn. Some firms have th root of their own destruction rooted in them. For Yahoo! it was not bad technology or extreme greed or even too much evil. Yahoo! didn't understand that the web had to be user centered. Yahoo! always seemed to think it was going to decide for users, from what pages should be tagged as to the moral stature of photos Yahoo! has always found it impossible to trust the community as the driving for for the Internet.

Does Collaboration Really Impact Business Performance?

Does Collaboration Really Impact Business Performance?:

"Based on the findings from the first report, collaboration impacts virtually every aspect of business, more so than both a company's strategy orientation and market turbulence."

A very interesting report in CMS Wire reports that not only is collaboration important, it could be one of the most important factors driving success in business. If these kinds of research findings hold up we will be seeing even more rapid growth in the SharePoint space.

Productivity & collaboration - Microsoft UK Medium Business Centre

Productivity & collaboration - Microsoft UK Medium Business Centre:

"Do your employees waste valuable time huddled around a laptop cradling cups of coffee, or sending endless e-mails to complete a group project? Times are tight and your staff are stretched, so to do more with the resources you've got, you have to find a better way to work — improving productivity and collaboration."

The "internet of things": The internet of hype | The Economist

The "internet of things": The internet of hype | The Economist:

"MANAGEMENT gurus are always discovering the next big thing (and source of income). Last year it was emerging markets and 'frugal innovation'. This year it is 'the internet of things', or, as it has rapidly become 'the internet of everything'."

"The internet of everything will help solve two of the biggest problems facing the world: energy and health care. Buildings currently waste more energy than they use effectively. We will be able to cut this waste down to almost nothing. Health care is currently delivered in lumps: we visit the doctor a couple of times a year at most, and get our blood pressure checked every now and again. The internet of everything will allow us to monitor our bodily functionings all the time. A few sensors discreetly attached to the body will keep you constantly informed about how your vital functions are doing. It will also help us to keep ourselves healthy. Pill bottles will tell us when to take our medicines; wine glasses will be able to tell us when we have had enough to drink; sugar bowls will warn us about our sugar intake."

Though the article itself in the Economist contains nothing new, and in the end is corrupted by the simplistic black/white thinking the Economist staff seem stuck in (asking would the Internet be bottom up like the West of top down like China, a question that both misunderstands the West and China along with the Internet) it does mark Web 3.0 being serious enough for the crusty old Economist magazine to care.

Given the Economists recent score card on predictions (Iraq war would be easy and good for Iraq and the west, credit crunch would help western economies, Bush would make peace in the middle east in his last term) the fact that they are not excited about Web 3.0 is probably a good sign.

Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010

Today I found myself asking what is UAG, Forefront Unified Access Gateway?




Well if you don't know what UAG is, like I did not, you should go out of your way to learn. Forefront UAG is a new Microsoft technology which seeks to centralize and make more uniform technologies of remote access. As Microsoft says it delivers "delivers comprehensive, secure remote access to corporate resources for employees, partners, and vendors on both managed and un-managed PCs and mobile devices. Utilizing a combination of connectivity options, ranging from SSL VPN to DirectAccess, as well as built in configurations and policies, UAG provides centralized and easy management of an organization's complete anywhere access offering."

So what is the big deal. Well lets say you are a CTO, or just the IT guy, of some firm. You have SharePoint WSS installed. But times are changing. A lot of your staff works from home outside of the company WAN. Also you have partners who need to have access to information inside of your firm. And people are starting to bring in computers they want to work on, from iPads to Chrome OS netbooks. UAG addresses a set of trends that look only to get larger:

• More and more staff working from home


• Partner organizations need to collaboration on your systems


• Employees have their own devices they want to use

If you have these problems you will probably want to take a close look at UAG. You can download it and try it on a virtual machine.

For love Microsct Web Apps

I spent the day playing around with Microsoft Excel Apps. First the ugly news, you can copy and paste from Google Docs to Microsoft Web Apps. Pathetic but that might have more to do with the limits of Ajax. Now the good news, you get essentially all the functionality of Office 2010 for free and on the web.



Microsoft's Web Apps use the ribbon, which makes working with documents much easier than with Google Docs, Open Office or Microsoft Office 2003.



After a bit of testing I sent a groups of excel documents I needed to review to a large machine I had. The machine does not have Microsoft Office but it 64 bit with a large screen. I have been reviewing the documents in Microsoft Office Web Apps because of the benefits of the screen and clean interface.

I think in the race to beat Microsoft Office on the web we have a winner: and the winter is Microsoft.

The Microsoft Cloud: Benefits and a look inside

Above is a Microsoft slide showing the benefits of the cloud. Below are two pictures that show you what the Microsoft Cloud computing facility in Chicago looks like on the inside. Pretty cool.





Rober1236 Jua the Cyber Trekker of Second Life

Corporations Are Drawn Into WikiLeaks Controversy : NPR

Corporations Are Drawn Into WikiLeaks Controversy : NPR:

"As more online companies grow fearful of the controversy, they are cutting themselves off from WikiLeaks and its supporters. Some observers say it is a sign of the growing power of corporations to censor the Internet."

Learning to forgive yourself, downtime and the IT professional

Learning to forgive yourself, downtime and the IT professional

I have seen so many IT professional who tear themselves apart trying to keep their teams services up even in the absence of SLAs or, in many cases, even in the absence of users. From struggling to restart beta server in test environments on Friday nights to pressing to get pages updated and revised which have never had any views at the cost of major site update, IT people pressure themselves to the point of break down.

I think break down from self inflicted pressure is probably the largest long term threat to a IT career or team. So all I have to say is if you had to be flawless to make it in IT why is Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and even Facebook on the top?

From Web 2.0 to Web 3.0

From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 to Web 3.0

View more presentations from Total Social Media.

How did I do on my 2010 IT predictions?

I made the following predictions in 2010, how did I do?

1. Uptake of SharePoint 2010 will be slow: reason, few new features at cost of requiring 64 bit conversion.

Reality a year later, I was pretty accurate on this one.

2. SharePoint 2010 though will be taken up more as a Cloud. With cuts made recently in staff and IT how many firms really have the ability to migrate to 64 bit server farms. And who really can use the new technologies to reduce carbon footprint. SharePoint 2010 I believe will mark the point at which SharePoint becomes a Cloud product.

Reality a year later, can you say Office 365 or BPOS, Microsoft seems to be pursuing a Cloud SharePoint 2010 strategy.

3. Virtual World market will become highly profitable, via the sale of virtual goods.

Reality a year later, probably I over stated my case on this one.

4. More and more small devices like iPods, iSlates, Droids, eReaders and other will put pressure on the netbook market, but the netbooks will survive by becoming as rich as current laptops. That is the line between netbook and laptop will blur as laptops get smaller. This prediction comes from my back having lugged a laptop around too long.

Reality a year later: netbooks are under pressure, Apple and Google have released much smaller lap tops that are more like netbooks. I give my self this one.

5. Azure will not do well. From people I have spoken too its just not a competitive Cloud offering.

Reality a year later: too early to tell.

6. Jobs in IT will start to rebound and boom. After doing some recent work with OSGrid I am struct by the massive amounts of manual work that will need to be done in VR, augment reality, and Semantic Web, and India and Brazil won't be able to consume it all. The next 5 years will be about both booming IT in the developed and developing world.

Reality a year later: I think from what I see there is a lot of work in IT still, and a lot of unfilled positions.

7. Windows 7 takes wind out of sale of Linux. Just saying, not celebrating or cheering, but I could not find even an Eee PC with Linux for sale anywhere in London high streets this Christmas. And that is despite Linux having a far better offering right now.

Reality a year later: I never saw much in the way of Linux desktops. I still use Linux but Windows 7 has taken my interest in it.

8. Augment Reality. This thing is going to be the biggest money maker yet on the web. There I said it. Not all next year but over the coming 10 the ability to reduce lines, facilitate interactions, find goods and services in your language, provide translations, spot threats, and keep social networks will make this huge.

Reality a year later: too early to say.

9. Bling vs. Google will be a windfall for content producers, including bloggers. Google presently has a monopoly of surfacing the web and placing ads in content, and they act like it. The rise of Bling will produce real competition in this space.

Reality a year later: I think I was wrong on this one.

10. 3D web will save the desk top. 2008-2009 was about the web you could see with one eye shut, 2010 will see the massive display and rich 3D web getting people back on their desktops.

Reality a year later: I am thinking I was wrong on this one. Companies are trying to push 3D but users are not going for it.

Three Generations of Web 2.0

This very interesting Alexa graph show the three generations of Web 2.0 technology. Web 2.0 probably got its biggest launch with MySpace.com which a few years ago was insanely popular but now has dropped significantly. Flickr was probably the first page to show the true promise of Web 2.0, but restrictions on use and filtering ensured it remained a niche player after the Yahoo take over and despite the explosion of smartphones with cameras the site is flatlined. The most recent super start of Web 2.0 is Twitter which in my opinion reflects the true promise of the approach to technology.

Twitter has the ease of use and intuitive design of a Flickr but has learned lessons about Web 2.0 Flickr never had time to learn. Twitter's main lesson was to let the users decide entirely what the site is. Flickr and MySpace suffered from management early on making decisions about how the techology was going to be used and trying to put in restrictions they could not enforce.

Twitter from day one let the user population decide what to do with the tool.

Microsoft: It's 'Too Soon' To Talk About Windows Phone 7 Numbers

Microsoft: It's 'Too Soon' To Talk About Windows Phone 7 Numbers: "Belfiore would not say how many Windows Phone 7 handsets have sold since they were released this fall. 'It’s just too soon to talk about numbers,' Belfiore said when asked about Windows Phone 7 sales."

People I asked at the local three stores said that they were selling fairly well, but not at the same level as the iPhone or Android. Orange was pushing the Windows 7 mobile phone but it seems to have been eclipsed utterly by the Android Galaxy.

Using a Chrome notebook

So here it is from Google. I have been using a demonstration version from Google for evaluations for a while. In short it seems to be saying "you have a browser", the way it tries to make established web browsing as new or exciting is a bit funny.

What we lost with Sky Drive

Above is my Google Docs folder. This is where I keep my key personal files.


Last year when it looked like Google Docs would be a problem Microsft offered Office Live Workspace beta seen above. They have now replaced this with the turely pathetic Sky Drive.

This is a terrible example of Microsoft pulling features from the marketplace when it sees that it does not need to provide it. Its a sad case, but without Google pushing at Microsoft we would have only Office and Windows.

BBC News - Wikileaks defended by Anonymous hacktivists

BBC News - Wikileaks defended by Anonymous hacktivists: "Internet hacktivists have fired the latest salvo in the Wikileaks infowar

.

A group called Anonymous has hit sites that have refused to do business with the controversial whistle-blowing site with a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks.

It mirrors similar attacks aimed at the Wikileaks site.

Targets include the Swiss bank that froze founder Julian Assange's assets and PayPal which has stopped processing donations to Wikileaks.

Anonymous is a loose-knit group of hacktivists, with links to the notorious message board 4chan."

BBC News - Cloud computing 'could give EU 763bn-euro boost'

BBC has a good article about Cloud computing, but I think the part later in the quote is the most important. Certainly the Cloud has lot of promise, but my experience is that early adopters will be extremely disappointed. Users are losing a lot of experience in many Cloud projects. And There is a real danger Cloud will be rejected.

BBC News - Cloud computing 'could give EU 763bn-euro boost': "Widespread adoption of cloud computing could give the top five EU economies a 763bn-euro (£645bn; $1tn) boost over five years, a report has said.

The CEBR said it could also create 2.4m jobs. The technology gives software and computing power on demand over the net.

But experts warn that cloud computing can be very disruptive to business, and companies could end up 'disillusioned'.

'Nothing kills a new technology better than a poor user experience,' said Damian Saunders of Citrix."

Rober1236 Jua the Cyber Trekker of Second Life

Autonomy Takes the FAST Track as Microsoft Winds Down Linux, UNIX Support

Autonomy Takes the FAST Track as Microsoft Winds Down Linux, UNIX Support: "Last February Microsoft (news, site) announced that it was discontinuing mainstream and extended UNIX and Linux support for its FAST search technology. There was some speculation that in doing so it hoped that it could drag Linux and UNIX users into its Windows stable. However, Autonomy (news, site) has been quick to see and seize the opportunity this decision provided.

With the December 31st discontinuance date ‘fast’ approaching, it has launched the Put FAST in the Past marketing campaign.

IDOL and FAST
For enterprises and vendors currently using FAST, Microsoft’s decision has the potential to become a real headache. They either move across or switch to an entirely new infrastructure and operating system, or they find an enterprise search technology that works with existing deployments.

Autonomy, in launching their Put FAST in the Past campaign, is offering IDOL as an alternative solution that will future-proof their existing infrastructure."

Microsoft Google and the Cloud War

Turning the world on its head. Normally people use Google Web Apps on a Windows OS. The above VM shows using Windows Web App in a Google Chrome OS. It illustrates the way both firms could evolve in their ongoing war with each other, and how the dance between these two enemies is defining both companies.

As I have blogged about a great how I see the entire future of Collaboration and the Cloud as being defined as a war between Google and Microsoft. Recently I blogged about how gaps between Microsft's R&D and release of a Web enabled OS have been determined by the successes and failures (mostly failures) of Google to challenge windows. See Share the Point: Google OS Chrome and Microsoft..

At the start of 2010 I blogged about how this "Cloud War" between Google and Microsoft would structure the war for the Slate/Tabled/Pad space which I saw coming Share the Point: The war for the Slate Space. Given the evens of 2010 and the rise of the iPad this blog post turned out to be rather prothetic and I have become more and more convinced that the entire IT landscape, both Enterprise and consumer, is being defined ultimately by the battle between these companies.

To say it simply Microsoft will innovate in to the Cloud only as far as Google forces it to and no further.

For a long time Microsoft had the sweetest deal in IT industry. They owned the OS space, they owned the productivity space. They were assured a steady flow of revenue from just Windows and Office and Windows and Office could drive other products like Exchange and SQL Server.

But two things developed. One was the Web 2.0 revolution starting with Google using social information in search. Social Networks was not part of Microsoft model of Office and Windows. People sat in Offices and looked through Windows. Google was making wealth by making the work of people inside of these Offices in to a product with their PageRank system.

Microsoft sat by helplessly as Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter created the Social Network and made the MSN obsolete. Microsoft made the biggest failure of its history allowing MSN to be overshadowed to such a degree by companies that did not exist 15 years ago.

Microsoft was stuck playing catch up with mixed success. SharePoint is the one true triumph of this space. Microsoft decided that if it could not innovate Web 2.0 at least it could score big by bringing established Web 2.0 into the Enterprise, inside the world of Offices and Windows.

But in the past 2 years something much more ground breaking has happened. Mobile. Mobile has stated a process where by IT will no longer live in Offices and Windows. Mobile has given users doors to walk out in to the real world. Web 3.0 is here and promising to make many more billionaires than Web 2.0. It also posses a serious threat to Microsoft.

The present Microsoft R&D strategy to develop innovation but market only that which fits is current tactial advantage could, in the current climate, be washed away very quickly. So far Microsoft has been lucky in Google's failure to really present a productivity tool that takes away the market for Windows and Office. This could end very shortly and suddenly.

Microsoft already finds itself in the unusual position of having to insert itself in a OS market as the distant "also ran". Windows 7 Mobile has to catch up to much more established Mac, Android, and RIM "smartphone" OS platforms. Microsoft has already taken Mac on and won, but at that time there was no third option waiting in the wings. Microsoft is in real danger of not having a niche in the mobile world.

If that happens and IT stops being out Offices and Windows but Doors and Parks, than SharePoint might be a pretty limited option.

Microsoft would certainly survive though, and actually for the ecosystem of Microsoft developers and consultants that might be the best thing. Microsoft would be forced to roll out R&D to the market almost as fast as it makes it. Today the Microsoft Labs is a mass toy store which might never be open. We have seen Kinetic, Office Live Apps and Photosynth but there is a great deal more thy are holding on to which would keep Microsoft relevant in a mobile world more dominated by Google.

But I think the biggest battle in the Cloud War is about to stat, and its a battle that will be waged only in Richmond. The battle to make Microsoft see that the future of IT is not dominated by the structures of Windows and Offices.

Google OS Chrome and Microsoft

Taking another test run with Google Chrome OS. From the very start you know you are in a Google OS which serves Google's long term strategic interests. But that is really the entire problem. I started using Linux to get out of the reach of one Microsoft's control, why would I use a Linux that just hands me over to Google. And not just over to Google for the OS, its a bit eye opening to see how little there is outside of Google once you take away the OS.



The Chrom OS has some major problems as I can see it:

1. Little installed software compared to other Linux OS systems. (If you want Linux try Ubuntu)
2. Security model on the one I have is so locked down I can not even install new code, this means you are cut off from the Open Sourced world out there. For several years Linux fans saw Google as a natural ally. A few hours on Chrome and you see they certain are not.
3. Google and the Cloud as of yet does not offer a full suit of productivity tools fully online. You still have to do stuff on your desktop. Probably the worst part of my testing Google Chrome OS was my use of Google Docs as the writer tool and not Open Office.
4. Clearly this is targeted to the netbook and micro laptop market, the Eee PC crowd. And its clearly late. The micro laptop was killed by the iPad and now the Galaxy Tablet.

With such weak features I would stay on Windows 7 or Mac OS X for a higher end laptop or PC. If I was going to install Linux on a new PC I would use Ubuntu. I have Ubuntu installed on a few low spec machines and it works fine. And it gives more than Chrome would. As for the Mobile world, right now I am going to use Android or an iPad/iPhone.

The only place I could see Chrome maybe coming to play is a netbook that is so low spec it can't run Windows 7 sold to people who demand a name brand and will not use an Suse or Ubuntu. But that market is already settled: Windows XP snatched that group up in 2009. Chrome is simply too late.

Strangely enough the thing that made Google Chrome OS most tolerable was Microsoft Office Web App.

A very eye opening article tells us perhaps more about Microsoft than Chrome

BBC News - Delays for Google's Chrome questioned by experts: "'I think Microsoft is always worried about what Google could do,' said Neil MacDonald, research vice president and fellow with Gartner.

'Don't underestimate Microsoft. For example Microsoft had a web-enabled version of Office for years back in the lab ready in case Google apps ever matured to the point it felt threatened, and recently it released a web version of Office.

'In Microsoft's labs today there is absolutely an....OS supporting browser-based access. But they won't release it on their own because there is too much money at stake in the Office franchise and for the moment Chrome is nothing more than wishful thinking.'"

If i am reading this correctly, Microsoft has spend money and effort in R&D which it has then NOT releasing to the market. This just goes to prove the danger of a monopoly position to the market and make a joke of Microsoft's previous claims that its massive position gives it an innovation lead. Certainly Microsoft CAN fund as much R&D as anyone else in the world, and can produce some of the greatest break throughs in technology, BUT there must be some force pushing Microsoft to do it.

Lets be frank, if it has not been for Google we would be pretty much stuck with an updated version of XP and Office 2003 coming out of Microsoft. Google and the rise of the Web has forced Microsoft to embrace collaboration, the cloud and to look at a world after Windows and Offices.

In a mobile world there will not be Office or Windows, web 3.0 takes the web out of the Office and out of the Window and out of Microsoft comfort zone. But that does not mean Microsoft will lose the entire pie, and certainly Windows 7 does not have much to fear from Chrome

Everyone has their own TV channel with YouTube

I caughthe moment where my YouTube site reached 46,000 views. Just me ranting, but fun.

Ian Ruotsala Chrome with Win 7 issue solved

Ian

Above is me running a copy of your HTML on my local machine. I had to change the relative paths to absolute paths

Around the images that did now work I but a

I put the nobr tag around the offending images.


The images still extend beyond the length of the page, but it solves the problem.
Go to http://socialmediais.us/wc/test.html to see how the code works.

I hope this helps.

Windows Live updates are trash

Recently I received an email from Microsoft inviting me to "update" my Windows Live beta account. I have been a big fan of the Windows Live Beta, blogging about it and comparing it positively to Google Docs.

Well I take it all back. The update took a folder I had in Windows live, like the one above, which had almost all the features of a SharePoint document library and left me with the crap we see below, and pathetic Sky Drive.



I have to be frank, I really am having serious questions about Microsoft's execution on the cloud. Frankly I simply don't use it in the cloud anymore. This recent "downgrade" to something as useless as Sky Drive has made me very happy I kept my main files in Google Docs.

One really has to wonder from the failure of Kin, the failed effort to get Yahoo (should they even have tired) and Ray Ozzie leaving one has to wonder if the Cloud is even a place Microsoft has any future at all in.

I am writing this as a concerned SharePoint professional. SharePoint in its current firm is the best Enterprise collaboration tool, but is the very concept of the Enterprise valid in a world of network culture and clouds. This world of network culture is more the place for Google, and I am getting very concerned.