Peter Hallen

...thoughts experiences...

Unlawful data-stream spooks, and how to protect yourself

I've made some changes for the content services that I pay for every month. My current ISP is Optimum Online (Boost 30mb down / 5mb up), which including tax is monthly, around $65. Where I live there are no other viable options for Internet service providers. FIOS (Verizon’s TV/Phone/Internet service) is not available in my area and there just aren't metro class ISP’s available on the east end of Long Island. Read more...

How to get away from CableVision TV

How do you get rid of Cablevision and still get the content you want?

First let me just say that Optimum Cable is not a bad company, they’re just old media and their time is over. Charging 100’s of dollars a month for content that is available online for free is a losing proposition. Wake up Cable, you fell asleep a giant and woke up as AOL.

I cancelled my Cable TV and phone over a year and a half ago and I am getting everything I want from just an Internet connection - Here’s how I do it.

 

 

Top 5 Ways to get Unfollowed

Tweeting too much? How many tweets will it take to get you dropped into the background noise, unfollow, or just the disassociated space? 

I recently participated in a FollowFriday, and honestly the pickings were slim on the content side. I figured that #FF would have solid results because I am only one or maybe two degrees away from the connection. I was wrong, however I now remember why I’m not on FaceBook. 

Just because you know a friend-of-a-friend doesn’t mean you’re going to enjoy, or find any interest in what they have to say. Just like real life right? 

Here’s a checklist of things that will get you Unfollowed (by me).

  • Over posting - Less is more - please one or two good links a day, that’s it. When I see 10 or 20 posts a day from the same person, even if the content is good, I can’t possibly read it all. This creates a negative connotation with your followers, which emotionally is overwhelming. Like getting an email from your boss about something you already talked to him about - 20 f-n times.
  • Offer a high level of interaction with readers - meaning; have something in your links that engages the reader, like a a tip, or a unknown fact, or a survey. This will nest the concept in your follower's minds, that you are a poster of valid content and that will ensure a higher CTR. Even more important; it opens up a dialogue with your readers.
  • Twitter is conversation, so ask questions. I often feel like I’m being talked at on Twitter, rather then conversed with. Questions give me an opportunity to speak to my expertise, and not just be an observer. The spirit behind Twitter is that everyone is a content creator and not just a consumer. With that being said, write your own blog post and tweet them out, ask for feedback, and then take it - in the form of updates to the post. No one is the expert and everything can get better.
  • Talking about your cat/dog/pet - Please! Does anyone really care that your mangy mutt has cataracts? 
  • Obviously - products, offers, and other spammy content = insta-drop, unfollow, and/or letter bomb!

I know this is a “Top 5 Ways” post, and in my experience, I ignore 90% of these - so let me say - it was nice having you as a follower ;-)

Attention Deficit Technology Disorder

It recently occurred to me that many of the most successful technology services in the market today are based on filling up the time between the things in life that require real focus. 

Some of the sites of interest to me are FaceBook, Twitter, Gowalla, and many other social networking apps. I could probably live without most, if not all of these services. With the exception of Twitter, they are not adding value to my life in regards to work, or productivity. So then why are they so successful? 

Mobile app development is super hot right now as well. Why? Are we using our phones for critical tasks and business needs? Yes we are, but the majority of hype is around distracting apps and games that suck up every ounce of space between the things we really need to focus on. 

I’m seriously concerned for my focus, attention, and my creativity in the face of constant compulsive distraction. I am one of the worst offenders. I will post my locale to Gowalla or FourSquare, and autopost to Twitter in the time it takes the Barista to drop three shots of espresso in a mug and hand me my change. I’m constantly reading partial blogs, having half formed thoughts and existing around the 140 char. stream of inet consciousness. 

I’ve noticed a severe drop off in creativity (personally) over the last year. I can attribute this to many things, but I have to say that one thing that has taken a back seat this year has been the fifteen minutes I used to take every day for myself. Fifteen minutes of quiet, alone, distraction-free time. I’m heading back to that discipline again...

Resisting the urge to check mail, post or read tweets, or play games in the ever decreasing time I have to myself, is a challenge. I'm not saying that any of these tools/toys are by themselves creating a negative impact on my attention, but cumulatively they do have an affect. Reclaiming my space between is my objective, even if it's a moment at a time.

"Discover inner space by creating gaps in the stream of thinking. Without those gaps, your thinking becomes repetitive, uninspired, devoid of any creative spark, which is how it still is for most people on the planet." — A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle 

Unethical Hiring Practices

Have you ever been interviewed for a position and been asked permission to have your credit checked as part of their background checking process? I have, and I don’t understand this. Why does an employer need to check your credit? Okay insert B#!#$%# excuse here; that it’s a valid way to verify someone’s character as being solid. I understand that if the position you’re applying for involves handling money, or is a high level management position, the company could be at risk hiring someone with a dodgy credit history. However; there are a hundred ways that a person’s credit could have dark spots on it. Divorce, illness, family and emotional problems. None of these things come up on the TRW report, just the payment history. 
Does this mean you don’t want this person working for you? 
With the current divorce rate in the U.S. pushing against 60%, you’re going to be hard pressed to find someone in their thirties or forties who has not been divorced. With the economy at an all-time low, you may also be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t missed a payment or has been late on their mortgage once or twice.
Never mind that tangent, here’s the deal. 
The company you’ve applied to work for is not extending you credit, actually it’s the contrary. You are extending them a form of credit. How do you as a prospective employee, know that the company you’re applying to work for is reputable and up2date on their financials? If they’re not a public company you really can’t tell. You could check against the Department of Consumer Affairs to see if they have complaints filed against them, but you’re really taking a risk that they are not going to go belly up and leave you high and dry without a job. If you ask me (and you didn’t but too bad), the risk is on you as the employee, not the other way around.
Another practice hiring companies are doing is asking for your social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and in one case I heard of a company asking to login to the candidate’s web based email. That’s F%$#ing crazy!  Maybe soon companies will want to have a home visit, or sift though your curbside garbage bags to ensure you’re recycling.
I personally think this practice is bordering on illegal, and prejudicial at best.
The kicker is: when you’re hired for a job, in most cases, you are placed on a probationary period; not given benefits, or 401K, or anything besides a paycheck for 90 days, and sometimes longer. The hiring company can terminate you at anytime without cause during this period. They will not have to pay unemployment benefits, or health insurance, and are at little or no risk to terminate you. If they determine the level of your performance inside the  90 day window to be unsatisfactory, the they just let you go. No risk no foul. I think that is enough protection for a hiring company. 
What do you think?

Cloud Based Options

Cloud computing has got some attractive offers out there. I’m going to speak about two options I think are viable for most small to medium sized businesses.

Option one - Gmail Standard Edition:

Google now offers email hosting for companies looking to host their email in the cloud. With the current costs of traditional exchange hosting, a small business should really consider the value of a cloud based solution. For one, the SPAM filtering you get out of the box from Google is amazing. Two, on the Standard Edition; you get 50 users with 7 Gigabytes of storage per user, with 10 mail aliases per user. That’s a 500 mail destinations for nothing. Three, you can brand your domain name i.e. mail.domain.tld and you can brand the login page with a company logo. Not bad for zero cost.

Option two Amazon EC2:

Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Computing is a terrific resource for reducing costs and operational risk. I’ve setup my company’s website (wajig.com) inside the EC2 cloud and have to say that I’m very happy with the cost and ease of scalability for our infrastructure. With features like EBS and Elastic Load Balancing we can scale to meet demands rapidly and with minimal out of pocket expense. My hosting costs have gone from $100s a month to a fraction of that since being on EC2. With software like iAWS for the iPhone, you can take snapshots of your data, add IP addresses to your AMI instances, and many other features right from your iPhone. 

The biggest benefit for small companies moving into the cloud has got to be the ability to get out from underneath your current IT department. Poorly managed IT groups can hold a company hostage with missed deadlines and bloated budgets, never mind the depreciation that small companies face when purchasing hardware or managed services from other third parties. 

My next post will be on the pitfalls of both of these services and what you should watch out for when moving into the cloud. As with any new technology, there are lots of things to consider when making a move of this proportion.