I’m pleased to be heading back to Interop this spring with two sessions on enterprise storage. Although significantly changed from the old “Networld + Interop” days, the event is enjoyable and technical, with many interesting sessions and speakers. And the New York show at least had plenty of end user attendees!

Interop Las Vegas is April 25-29, 2010, and registration appears to still be open. Let me know if you’ll be there!

My two sessions:

State of the Art Thin Provisioning

Wednesday, April 28 10:15 AM–11:15 AM

The concept of thin provisioning is not new, but the state of the art has advanced, adding awareness between the operating system and storage device for enhanced efficiency. This session introduces the value proposition and concept of thin provisioning, covers the technology of the major thin storage vendors (3PAR, BlueArc, Compellent, Dell, EMC, HDS, HP, IBM, NetApp, Pillar) and operating system integration layers (Symantec, VMware, and T10), and presents novel approaches from Data Robotics, Apple, and cloud storage systems. We will present the pros and cons of these various approaches in the context of enterprise storage management.

The Right Approach to Cloud Storage

Wednesday, April 28 11:30 AM–12:30 PM

Enterprises are now leveraging cloud storage services at a rapid pace and are looking for qualified answers on how using a cloud platform can increase efficiency and ROI simultaneously. The old model of purchasing expensive storage systems or using large amounts of tape are prehistoric, adapting a new approach to storage is necessary in today’s tough economic climate as budgets continue to be slashed and performance upkeep is critical. This session will enable users to learn about the benefits and economies of scale as it relates to developing/implementing a cloud storage solution, a focus will be placed on performance, cost-effectiveness, user experience, and customer service/satisfaction.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Thin Provisioning and Cloud Storage: My Interop 2010 Topics
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

I really dislike non-disclosure agreements, but NDAs are a fact of life in the IT industry. Even folks like me that actively avoid NDAs sometimes have to sign the paperwork to gain access to people or information, and employers regularly require such an agreement as a condition of employment. I suspect most folks try to respect and uphold the agreements they do sign, but this doesn’t stop slip-ups. So let me take a few minutes of your time to pass along my top five tips to avoid violating NDAs!

Leaking confidential information can sometimes land you in hot water - avoid trouble by keeping your ears closed!

1 – Avoid signing NDAs

The best way to avoid breaking an NDA is simply not to agree to one in the first place. Asking for a non-disclosure agreement is part of standard practice in business, but it’s not always necessary. Politely ask if the NDA is really necessary and suggest that really secret information shouldn’t be shared in the first place. I don’t want to know the long-term product plans of every IT supplier since this is the very topic I love to speculate and write about. Knowing the roadmap ruins the fun of guessing, and companies don’t always stay on course anyway!

Trap Tip! Ask your corporate counsel (or your boss) about any NDAs your company may have in place with its partners, suppliers and customers. You may find that you are covered by an NDA that you never heard about!

2 – Ask for embargoes instead

Many companies will allow you to forego the NDA and still give you the heads-up on near-future releases under embargo. If you’re proven your responsibility, you can often get a sneak peek, prepare yourself for the release, and get your ideas straight on day one without having an NDA in place. I much prefer embargoes since they’re easy to keep straight in my head – “don’t say anything about the product XYZ until next Monday, but everything is wide open then!” But make sure you’re careful about exactly when you can talk, including the time and timezone of the release!

3 – Limit the scope

If you’re dealing with a larger company, ask if you can limit the scope of the NDA to just one product or technology area. This it unusual and unlikely to fly, but at least shows that you take such agreements very seriously. Assuming this is nixed, limit what you hear. Ask in writing to keep your briefings confined to a certain area and stop speakers who want to say too much. None of this affords much legal protection, but it helps you to keep your head straight and avoid temptation to spill the beans.

4 – Follow the leader

If you’re under NDA and want to talk about something private that was shared with you, wait until an official source announces it first. One great aspect of the social web is the rapid spread of information from official blogs. If the Microsoft product team talks about something on their official TechNet blog, I assume it’s fair game. The same goes for corporate documentation posted at TechNet. Certainly employees can leak information and violate NDAs too, but information posted on corporate web sites, even in obscure corners, can’t really be considered confidential. Hold off on sharing information leaked by unofficial sources, though. You don’t want to be a trailblazer when an NDA is in place!

5 – Ask permission

When in doubt, it never hurts to ask. If you believe you should be able to write or speak about information shared under NDA, send an email to corporate PR or media/analyst relations specifying what you intend to cover. They will review it and let you know what you can and can not say. You can also raise your hand during presentations and inquire about the confidentiality of the information being covered. Don’t rely on “confidential” tags on slides and handouts, though – they’re often placed inappropriately or forgotten.

The NDA Changes The Game

NDAs are necessary but no fun. They can land you in hot water, even when you’re not trying to reveal information. And they put you in a subservient position relative to the companies you think, write, and speak about. Who wants to ask permission and wade through corporate bureaucracy just to blog? This is why the best way to avoid trouble is to avoid the NDA in the first place. But chances are you will be covered by such agreements at some point, so you had better figure out a strategy to live with them.

Note: Remember that each agreement and jurisdiction is different. I am not a lawyer and am not trying to give legal advice. I’m simply trying to help my friends and readers keep out of trouble!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | 5 Tips To Avoid Violating NDAs
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

It’s fun to bash Microsoft. It’s easy, too, with Apple solidly conquering the high end of the PC and mobile markets and Google’s command of the Internet. But how fair are these articles skewering Microsoft, such as “Microsoft’s chronic lack of innovation” published today at Techworld? I suggest that Microsoft innovates as well as, if not better than, any other massive company. But no one innovates like an outsider.

Note: I am a Microsoft MVP in the area of File System Storage and will be on the Redmond campus all week as part of their Global Summit for MVPs. I am not a Microsoft apologist or sycophant and have been both harshly critical when the company deserved it and full of praise at other times. Mostly I just focus on the value of enterprise information technology and try to give all companies and products equal skepticism.

Run Versus Change

Large businesses tend to group projects into two categories:

1. Run the Business projects focus on maintaining the status quo, keeping the money flowing in, and satisfying the demands of existing customers.
2. Change the Business projects are far trickier, attempting to innovate and add new products or services to keep up with the competition.

This methodology has come about through years of experience balancing efforts that either upset the apple cart or let the apples rot. Look at the history of business and you will find that most successful businesses strike a balance between run and change. Those businesses that have failed have done so because they did not strike this balance, either ignoring their current needs in an attempt at reinvention or stifling change in the name of risk management.

One of the criticisms leveled against the American automakers is that they focused too heavily on serving core markets and too little on innovating into new ones. Thus, the average age of Cadillac, Buick, and Lincoln drivers shot upward and no young person would be seen in one of their cars; Dodge, Ford, and Chevrolet derived nearly all of their profit from massive pickup trucks and stopped developing more economical cars; all of the Big Three relied too long on still-profitable older designs while their competitors developed newer, better-performing ones. In short, the American auto industry nearly collapsed because they put all their energies into running the business and very little into changing it.

High tech businesses often have the opposite focus. Companies like Yahoo and AOL allowed successful existing businesses to wither while they tried unsuccessfully to expand into new markets and take on new competitors. Yahoo Mail accounted for more than one third of that company’s traffic last year and remained the dominant webmail platform even after half a decade of challenge from Gmail and more from Microsoft Hotmail. But Yahoo spent that time thrusting this way and that into every conceivable business with little success. One can see the same pattern at eBay, Motorola, 3COM and many others.

Microsoft’s Balance

It would have been very easy for Microsoft to fall into this trap over the last decade, and indeed they have often made this sort of change-over-run move. Consider the massive money Microsoft invested or wasted (depending on your perspective) on unprofitable and perhaps even quixotic mobile, online, and gaming properties: If a constant stream of revenue from Windows, Server and Tools, and Office was not available to balance this, Microsoft would have had a shareholder revolt on their hands. As I mentioned last week, Google is in a similar position, deriving nearly all of their revenue from advertising even as they try and fail to innovate in other areas.

Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer and Kamelia Angelova presented this chart of Microsoft's profits on Feb 10, 2010

One school of thought is that Microsoft has simply milked the Windows and Office cash cows rather than innovating, but others might criticize the company for trying to establish a presence in too many areas instead of focusing on their core products. The fact that these two opposite viewpoints are widespread indicates a third option: Microsoft is trying to balance innovation and consistency both inside and outside their core areas of competence.

Consider Office, Server, and Windows: The combined effect of Microsoft’s monopoly power and sheer inertia would not keep the company dominant in these two areas forever if they did not keep innovating. There have been many points over the last 20 years where Microsoft has been vulnerable on the desktop. The 32-bit transition from Windows 95 to Windows XP was long and painful, and Microsoft is repeating this with Windows 7. The company must innovate to the very core of the operating system to make these transitions, though most of these improvements go unnoticed. Monopoly or not, I cannot comprehend a successful Microsoft desktop strategy if “Windows 2010″ was a simple evolution of Windows 95.

But Windows Server’s storage components are the core of my expertise, and Microsoft deserves much credit for innovation here. The creativity and originality of Windows Server storage features is lost on most, but that doesn’t mean they are any less innovative. I’ve written about the iSCSI initiator, MPIO, and VSS before, but there is much more than that. The peer-to-peer system used in BranchCache is startlingly creative, for example, but the pundits probably never heard of it. Under-the-covers innovation to support and continue a company’s success deserves credit, too.

Even Microsoft’s “branching out” activities are starting to see some success. Bing is much more impressive than many (including me) would have guessed, and users are beginning to notice. And the Xbox gaming platform, which has finally begun turning a profit, is a dominant player in that market. Indeed, many young people know Microsoft more as a gaming company than anything else.

Applauding Innovation

This kind of success in a new area is not unprecedented, but many companies have failed the test. In 1960, General Motors introduced one of the most innovative automobile platforms in history to take the small-car market head on. Every one of the so-called “Y-body” cars featured innovative features and industry firsts, from the Corvair’s rear-mounted aluminum flat-6 engine to Oldsmobile’s first production use of a turbocharger. Amazingly, most of these innovations flopped, and GM’s replacements were much more conventional. Innovation does not always succeed, especially when applied to a new market, so one should especially applaud when it does.

So is Microsoft innovative? Although the company has a reputation for bullying, monopolizing, and destroying competitors with “me too” offerings, a deeper look reveals true creativity both in core and speculative products. A massive company like Microsoft must be of two minds: Focused on continuing their core business while branching out into new areas. Success in either of these endeavors demands innovation, and Microsoft has undoubtedly succeeded.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Microsoft’s Overlooked Innovation
This post was categorized as Computer history, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Although “don’t be evil” isn’t Google’s official corporate motto, the company and its admirers have embraced the concept implicitly and explicitly. But pride goeth before a fall, and the buzz around Google isn’t just about their new social networking feature: Cynicism and disillusionment with Google is growing.

Why Do They Hate Me?

Last week I wondered out loud about this: When did everyone get so cynical and disillusioned with Google? It’s ironic that answers rolled in on Twitter and FriendFeed even as Google was stomping into their turf with Buzz. What response did I get?

1. Google’s corporate censorship moves, especially in China, look pretty evil to some
2. Google’s lack of innovation outside search, especially its repeated attempts to “take over” social media, soured many
3. The poor and informal customer support provided by Google is notorious
4. Many just don’t “get” Google’s mission anymore – are they a search engine, an advertising platform, a software or hardware vendor, or what?

Companies are going to make mistakes, especially massive and aggressive ones like Google. It is inevitable that their compromised position on freedom of speech in China (and India) would raise hackles, but the company apparently decided it was acceptable to gain entry there. But many of Google’s other moves are more troubling to some.

Paved With Good Intentions?

Almost every penny of Google’s prodigious revenue comes from personalized advertising. Google plainly states this in their annual reports: “Advertising revenues made up 99% of our revenues in 2006 and 2007 and 97% of our revenues in 2008.” The company spends about 13% of this revenue on research and development, 9% on sales and marketing, 7% on administration, and 5% on stock-based compensation. I imagine many of these numbers will come as a shock to average Internet users, many of whom probably assumed Google was less dependent on advertising revenue and spent much more money to employ and house so many great software developers.

Google’s stated mission may be “to organize the world’s information,” but that’s not what the company actually does. It runs a massive collection of Internet properties which serve to collect personal information and serve advertisements. Many of Google’s employees seem to be genuinely interested in making the world a better place, or at least organizing the world’s information, but good intentions don’t pay the bills. Shortly after launching its eponymous search service, Google began gobbling up the lucrative advertising market it now dominates.

Not everyone is bothered by this. Many, including myself, are happy users of Google’s excellent products, including search, Gmail, Reader, News, and Maps. I’ll knowingly put up with targeted ads to subsidize these services because I trust that Google really is anonymizing and protecting my information. I’m sure most users don’t really think much about privacy and freedom when searching the Internet or sending an email, but even those that do have been content with Google.

Yet even Google fans have to admit that not every product is excellent. Many, like Wave, seem half-baked while others, like Orkut, seem more like misfires. Google almost missed the boat on the social web and now seems desperate to catch up. Core technology like PubSubHubbub is heading in the right direction, but Google has been unable to stitch it all together. Perhaps Buzz will be able to ride Gmail’s coattails to success, but we have seen so many failures before.

What Is Google?

I think the core criticism of Google is more fundamental than concern about censorship, advertising, privacy, or failed products. Instead, alarms are ringing at Google’s repeated and well-funded attempts to be much more than an organizer of information.

In 2008, the company tried and failed to muscle in on wireless spectrum, a move many thought was a carefully executed trick to force open the United States mobile phone market. They then introduced their own mobile phone operating system, Android, putting themselves in direct competition with Symbian, Microsoft, and especially Apple. This intensified with the Google-branded Nexus One, the removal of CEO Eric Schmidt from Apple’s board, and the launch of multi-touch features. Google seems to be stepping up to directly challenge Apple for dominance of the new mobile computing world.

The company is also moving into fixed broadband, offering temporarily-free Wi-Fi at major airports and announcing a plan to give free gigabit fiber optic service to communities in the United States. They are becoming a telecom company with Voice, and some have suggested a buyout of T-Mobile or the launch of Google-branded phone service. Google is also a cloud computing company, a hosting provider, and even an electric power company.

Even if all of these moves are taken as support of the company’s core mission, they do lead one to question Google’s corporate mission. If their advertising business wasn’t the limitless cash cow it has historically been, I’m sure Google’s investors would be asking some hard questions. What business does an advertising company have supporting blimps, gene sequencing, and electric cars?

Even if you are not worried about the money or the wisdom of these investments, it begs the question, “what is Google?” I believe this is the source of Google’s buzz-kill. In dominating the Internet, Google has tapped into a vein of confusion, concern, mistrust, schadenfreude, and downright hostility. I suppose it comes with the territory.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Google’s Evil Buzz Is Building
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer history, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

My presence at Storage Expo NL may have been cursed, but my presentation went off without a hitch thanks to the creativity and flexibility of the VNU staff and Expo volunteers like Ilja Coolen. In my session, I talked about the shortcomings of traditional tiered storage as a way to advance the Noble Goals of Storage Management and proposed a solution: Although merely using different disk types will never deliver the goods, adding flash and cloud to an integrated, automated solution will be truly revolutionary. I look forward to the day when all of today’s buzz-worthy technologies (flash, cloud, thin provisioning, automated tiering, post-RAID) are mixed together to form a really revolutionary storage system.

I went ahead and recorded the entire presentation and posted it on Vimeo for anyone to see. But I just realized I never posted it here to my blog. So without further ado, I give you “Extreme Tiered Storage: Flash, Disk, and Cloud!”

Stephen Foskett on Extreme Tiered Storage from Stephen Foskett on Vimeo.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I used BoinxTV to create this video.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Extreme Tiered Storage: Flash, Disk, and Cloud
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The new Jawbone Icon is the best iPhone headset yet (and I need to check my email and voicemail more often)

With my Cardo Scala abandoned in a New York taxi and my Motorola H800 falling apart, I decided it was time to pick up a new BlueTooth headset. As luck would have it, I decided to buy on the very day that Aliph released their next-generation Jawbone headset, the ICON.

The Jawbone Backstory

The Jawbone series has emerged as the most-hyped headset around, with a devoted user base that swears to its effectiveness. They praise its “Noise Assassin” technology, which uses special software and a nubbin that senses the motion of your jaw bone when you talk (thus the name!) But they complained about the proprietary charging cable, the lack of a physical on/off switch, and the “we are the Borg” look of so many business folks sporting headsets identical except for color.

The ICON moves everything forward. It comes in a variety of design themes with different colors and textures. It uses the same industry-standard micro-USB plug as my Motorola. It has a real power switch. The company even claims advanced noise reduction capability. Plus, the ICON is cheaper than its predecessors, though $100 is still pretty pricey.

My ICON

I picked up my Jawbone ICON at an Atlanta Best Buy store. It was the first one they had sold; the guys had just put them on the rack and weren’t sure what the price should be! But I was willing to drop $106.99 (including tax) to take my iPhone call quality to the next level.

Unboxing revealed a stubby headset, a wide variety of rubber ear attachments, some tiny manuals, and a USB charger with the world’s shortest micro-USB cable. The headset fired right up and paired easily with my iPhone, not even requiring a ridiculous game of enter-the-useless-0000-PIN.

This is apparently the first headset, other than the now-discontinued Apple model, that reports its battery status back to the iPhone for display. It also integrates nicely with the voice dialing features of the Apple wonder-phone, though I can’t understand why “call” is not a synonym for “dial”.

The Fitting Room

I was immediately impressed by the Jawbone Icon, but this wore off quickly. Although it ships with no less than eight different ear attachments (including a hook that can be added to any of the seven pads), I was unable to get a good fit. The default pad-plus-loop (shown in the images and video above) just wasn’t snug enough, and the little jawbone nub didn’t touch my cheek securely. Without this, my smooth-talking voice kept cutting in and out, irritating the party on the other end of the call.

I switched to the small circular pad, which fit nicely into my ear but didn’t hold the headset securely. So I added the hook, which kept my new $100 toy from hitting the floor but was too small for my ear. That ear hook is impressive, with a ball-type connector allowing near-infinite positioning, but it doesn’t hold the headset securely either, allowing it to “fall away” from my face whenever I look up or down. No dice.

I finally tried out the largest pad-plus-loop without the hook. Lo and behold, this last-ditch attempt worked, holding the headset securely, correctly applying the nub, and allowing me to speak clearly. But it feels a tad too big in my ear, becoming a pain after an hour or so. I’m not one of those “ear mullet” folks who leaves my headset in all the time, but I do get on long conference calls quite often. Although I now have a functional Jawbone Icon, I’m still not 100% satisfied.

Headset Apps!

The final cool new feature of the Jawbone Icon is MyTalk. “Apps” are the buzzword of the moment, thanks to Apple and the iPhone, and Aliph isn’t left behind: The Jawbone Icon can run apps! Apparently, one can log into Aliph’s MyTalk web site and download different voices for the headset and even special apps that allow it to do nifty things.

I can’t tell you how cool MyTalk and the Jawbone Apps are. No, seriously, I can’t tell you. See, I don’t have access. MyTalk is in beta and, although Aliph allows folks to register for beta access, I guess I didn’t make the cut. I held off this review for a few weeks, even after posting the first unboxing video on YouTube, but still have had no response from Aliph about access.

So I’m going to make stuff up. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could get Lt. Uhura from Star Trek to be the voice in the Icon Ear Mullet? Or Marvin the paranoid android from the BBC dramatization of Hitchhiker’s Guide? And I’d love it if I could tap and hold the button for 15 seconds and have Starbuck’s deliver a grande green tea latte with no syrup! Maybe it’ll have voice control so I can even order a venti nonfat cafe mocha with two pumps and no whip? Naah, that’s crazy talk! You’d definitely need to set a voice command macro to get a Hoffacino!

Seriously, I have no idea what MyTalk is all about. But I guess it’s cool. Maybe the Aliph bouncer will let me in once they read this review…

Update: Aliph approved me a for a MyTalk Beta account right after this went live. Look for a review soon!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | iPhone Review: Aliph Jawbone ICON BlueTooth Headset
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

J. D. Salinger, January 1, 1919 - January 27, 2010

Before my current limited fame as an enterprise IT and data storage maven, I was somewhat known for my admiration for the writing of J. D. Salinger. I started the first Internet mailing list and web site about his work and this meagre contribution stood out enough for me to be interviewed and mentioned in various newspaper, radio, and magazine stories over the last 20 years. The following remembrance was written for that web site, Salinger.org.

J. D. Salinger passed away January 27, 2010; he was 91. The famously-secretive author rose to prominence in the 1950’s for The Catcher in the Rye, a book that has resonated with every generation of youth since. He is more celebrated in literary circles for his shorter stories, many of which centered on the Glass and Caulfield families and explored deeper religious and philosophical territory than his sole novel.

The special place awarded him in the world of American literature was shunned by Salinger. He never wanted to be troubled at all, in fact, hiding from the world with a vigor that goes beyond mere reclusiveness. His few public statements make it clear that he wanted to be left alone, focused only on the few people he brought into his life. He allowed that his published works would be absorbed by readers, but he never wanted the scalpels of criticism and devotion that followed.

The Future

J. D. Saliner spent the last 50 years literally telling the world to leave him alone, but his death is likely to cause his life to be thrust into the spotlight again. We will hear stories of his unsavory relationships and his extreme idiosyncracies repeated, elaborated, and unveiled anew. Family and friends have not always bowed to his wishes for privacy, but this wave of exposure will be unlikely to dim the devotion of his admirers.

With just one novel and three short story collections in print, it is surprising to discover that Salinger was not much more prolific than this. A total of 22 other short stories were published and never made it into popular books, but not much more work is known. Rumors claim that he continued writing over his later decades, and his representatives admitted as much in a court deposition in the 1980’s, but this work has never been exposed. His last magazine story, Hapworth 16, 1924, was to become a book a decade ago but even this never appeared.

What will become of these underpublished and unpublished stories? The Salinger estate could certainly publish them at any time, but this seems unlikely. The most probably course is a flood ofbiography followed by a collection of the published books, perhaps with Hapworth added. We might see the uncollected stories appear as well, but the unknown writing will likely remain under wraps for decades; one rumor suggests a 40-year wait.

Rediscovering Salinger

Though I have long worked to expose the published works of J. D. Salinger, I have always resisted focusing too much on the man himself. I do not wish to promote idolatry in general, and Salinger-worship in particular, and his death does nothing to change that. He wrote powerful realist American fiction and added new dimensions to the short story genre. I believe that alone is remembrance enough.

Instead of gossip or garment rending, I urge readers to focus on the works of fiction left behind. I am embarking on a personal journey to reread and rediscover the writing of J. D. Salinger, and urge any reading this to do the same. I will begin with his first published piece, 1940’s The Young Folks, and will progress from there, chronicling my reactions in this space.

If you would like to join me on this journey, I suggest visiting a well-stocked library and unearthing The Young Folks for yourself. It is in the March/April 1940 issue of Story magazine. A Google search might work as well, but I do not condone copyright infringement. I will be posting my reacton to all of Salinger’s stories here on my blog and at Salinger.org. I welcome your feedback!

Note: The above undated photo of J. D. Salinger was provided by a mailing list member over 20 years ago. I have lost the attribution, but would welcome verification!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Remembering J. D. Salinger
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

I’m an old-school UNIX guy. This is one reason I like Mac OS X so much: It’s a solid UNIX system under a pretty and functional GUI. Unlike (probably) most Mac users, I find myself using terminal sessions frequently, often running a few different windows with ssh sessions to various UNIX systems.

My affinity for the command line probably explains my fascination with clever fonts. If you’re like me, I think you’ll chuckle at the bizarre combination pictured below.

Two stupidly-cool fonts in action: My normal DEC VT220-like terminal and a super-large terminal with super-tiny Tom Thumb displaying Hamlet. All of Hamlet. No kidding.

VT220 Terminal

That green-on-black window is my standard terminal. It’s an awesome duplicate of the original DEC VT220 font that really brings back my days sitting at “the Wedge terminals” at WPI. The font is “Glass TTY VT220” by Viacheslav Slavinsky. I’m running it at 20 points to make it look perfect.

In the window is Carole Gunst’s blog post from HighTechHistory.com announcing publication of the autobiography of Digital co-founder Harlan E. Anderson, “Learn, Earn, and Return: My Life as a Computer Pioneer.” I thought that was apropos.

Tom Thumb Hamlet

The one in the back is just plain weird. It’s a terminal using a miniscule yet readable font, “Tom Thumb” by Robey Pointer (based on a font by Brian Swetland). I used FontForge to convert Robey’s BDF to an OS X-compatible dfont package and fired it up in Terminal at 6 points.

Since I was using the 27″ iMac with crazy-huge 2560 x 1440 resolution, I got curious about just how much information could be displayed in a Terminal window at once. Running Terminal at 633 x 197 characters yields 124,701 characters on screen, along with the scroll bars, header, and menu. That’s enough for every word of Hamlet on screen at once. Including footnotes. Wow!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Two Stupidly Cool Terminal Fonts
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer history, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Concluding my series on vendor blogs, I’d like to share my own experiences. This will be much more personal than the other three articles, but will hopefully still be helpful.

Everyone is a vendor - what are you selling?

We’re All Selling Something

I’ve always been a vendor blogger, and so have you. It took me a long time to come to terms with this, but nearly everybody is a vendor of one sort or another: Regardless of whether you deliver results to your employer, sell your own services, or push a product, we’re all selling something.

I’ve been delivering enterprise IT consulting for a living for almost 15 years now. It’s easy to pretend that human services like consulting are somehow more pure than the “box pushers”, but this is simply not the case. Even internal end-user employees are trying to keep themselves employed, and the most effective way to do this is to promote their company and themselves.

It’s not a black and white scale. If we are all selling ourselves and our employers,then we are all vendors to greater or lesser extents. We all have our axes to grind, our prejudices to expose, and only our experience to draw on. So no one is perfectly credible and no one is perfectly tainted.

I’ve long labored to maintain my credibility and independence, even as I have moved from an IT outsourcer (Sprint Paranet) to a storage service provider (StorageNetworks) to strategic consulting companies (GlassHouse Technologies and Contoural) to a cloud storage provider (Nirvanix). I’ve always remained separate from any product focus, but I’ve always been part of the sales and delivery process for consulting services.

Get Out Of Jail Free?

The fact that it’s all shades of gray does not mean, however, that we are free to twist the facts with impunity or that we should object when others pass judgement on our motivations. Quite the opposite: If we are all vendors, we all had better be careful what our actions say about us!

This is the most important lesson I have learned about blogging: Credibility is our currency, and no one has yet offered me enough reward to sacrifice mine. Can I be bought? Well, in the words of Jayne Cobb, “that’ll be an interesting day!”

Because I recognize the importance of credibility, I try to keep a level head and maintain a respectable persona. This means avoiding personality-driven battles and engaging in accptable business practices I would be proud for the world to know. This isn’t always easy: As your personal profile rises, there will be outside pressure (or inside temptation) to leverage it. Our shared challenge is to keep level heads.

The Messenger Matters

One inescapable fact remains: Employees of companies known for FUD are held to a higher standard of scrutiny. No matter how personally responsible and credible you are, if you work for a marketing-driven product vendor, you will be under the microscope.

Comments that would be considered innocuous or even respectably aloof from an “independent” might seem like mud slinging from a vendor employee. Imagine reading blog posts or tweets from an end user criticizing the products of Microsoft and IBM. If the exact same statements were made by employees of EMC or HP, wouldn’t they be seen in a different light? The message is the same, but the messenger matters.

I have personally experienced the doors that close when moving from a consulting company to a managed service provider. Certain publications and event organizers have strict rules denying “vendors” the right to participate; others have no such restrictions. I was sad to say goodbye to TechTarget after 5 years, but I respect their rules. Happily, as their door closed, others opened and I was able to write and present more last year than any year previous!

My Approach

My new role at Nirvanix explicitly allowed me to continue my personal social media presence, including organizing Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day. Management saw that my reputation was a benefit to the company and trusted I would remain objective and keep my work and non-work roles separated.

I’ve endeavored to do just that, launching a new blog, Enterprise Storage Strategies, specifically for cloud storage strategy and restricted crossover between the two domains. In the interest of objectivity, I’ve also “recused” myself from discussions of cloud storage on the Gestalt IT web site and at Tech Field Day.

I don’t want to say that this is the correct approach for everyone, but it’s worked well for me. What do you think? How can vendor bloggers remain credible in the increasingly social world?

Hot dog cart image by rollingrck

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | What I’ve Learned From Vendor Blogging
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

As previously-independent bloggers are being hired in droves by the major IT infrastructure hardware and software vendors, attention is turning to their independence and credibility. But this extends far beyond blogs: Today’s social media influencers are everywhere!

Biased content isn't just found on blogs - it's much more likely to be found in other areas like Twitter and discussion forums. When does discussion become Astroturf?

Discussions Are On The Move

The new Internet isn’t just about blogs. In fact, the majority of social media discussion and linkage probably happens on Twitter, LinkedIn, discussion forums, and other sites. But non-blog content raises even thornier bias issues than blogs:

1. Discussions are less formal than blog posts, so off-the-cuff comments are common. The rapid turnaround of Twitter comments encourages “post-before-you-think” thinking, and knee-jerk comments can be damning. Even if one did not intend to but another vendor down, it’s easy to say something inappropriate.
2. The length of a comment is limited, so subtle nuances get lost. I’ve often had trouble saying what I want in 140 characters, and even blog and forum comment conventions restrict verbosity. Again, sometimes your meaty tweet will really cut a competitor to the bone.
3. Biographical information is limited. Twitter profiles include just a few words and a single URL, restricting the disclosure of relevant information. Many profiles don’t include the name of an employer or disclosure of other vendor ties. Forum profiles and signatures are similarly restricted.
4. The Internet scatters content. Even if one is careful to disclose one’s business relationships on a blog, Twitter profile, or LinkedIn page, interactions go far beyond these.

Conferences are even worse. Many attendees switch badges or intentionally list a different company just to get in the door, obscuring their identity. And no one knows who the guy in row 12 is or why he is asking such pointed questions of the panel. The same thing happens with webinars and Internet polls.

All these limits obscure the good folks out there and conspire to allow the bad ones to act with impunity. This makes everyone suspect. Actively comment on a number of industry blogs and you could be accused of astroturfing! Whether it’s fair or not, employees of hardware and software vendors are being held to a higher standard than so-called independents.

Personal Defensive SEO

I’m going to assume you’re a good egg and want everyone to know where you’re coming from when you interact on the Internet. Many businesses actively engage in search engine optimization (SEO) to help them rise to the top of Internet search results. Individuals need to start doing some SEO, too, but the reason is different: Make yourself easy to find and disclose your connections and you won’t look like a bad egg.

1. Get a LinkedIn profile, keep it up to date, and set your name and company information to public. Go to Settings -> Public Profile, and turn on Basics, Summary, Current Positions, and Websites at a minimum. And make sure Websites includes your current employer and blog(s).
2. Create a Google profile with links to your LinkedIn profile, blog, Twitter, and other profiles. This helps Google and other search engines disambiguate you from the rest of the crowd. FriendFeed is another great place to set up a profile. I only use Facebook for personal/private connections, so I don’t bother with corporate links there.
3. Make sure your blog includes links to your Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, too. And pepper your blog with your own full name so it shows up in Google searches.
4. Include your employer’s name in your Twitter “one line bio” and use your blog as your Twitter profile URL.
5. Set up Disqus, Intense Debate, WordPress, and Typepad profiles and use them whenever possible.

All this effort won’t directly help you, though it might save a few minutes when you try to comment on a blog. But they will make you easier to find, and reduce the likelihood that someone will accuse you of not disclosing your corporate affiliations.

Astroturf car, public domain image by Ingolfson

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Vendor Non-Blogs
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.