Now that I have that out of the way, the true purpose of this article.  I used a Blackberry for quite a while, but have had an iPhone for about 9 months.  Can’t imagine living without it.  Whenever somebody switches from a Blackberry or <gasp!> a Windows Mobile device or a Palm device to the iPhone, I always get questions.  Here’s what I always share with new iPhone users:

Some tips to conserve battery life and make the iPhone work more effectively in a corporate environment with Wi-Fi available:

1. Turn off Push email and activate Fetch email instead.  This is the most critical step to conserve battery life – if you do nothing else, make this change!

·         Settings

·         Fetch New Data

·         Slide Push to the OFF position

·         In the Fetch section, click on Hourly

·         Remember: You can always fetch your email on demand, by going into your inbox and touching the circular arrow icon in the lower left corner.

1. Turn Wi-Fi on and have it ask you to join networks.

·         Settings

·         Wi-Fi

·         Slide Wi-Fi to ON position

·         Slide Ask to Join Networks to ON position

·         Note:  Depending on how your company Wi-Fi network is organized, this may or may not make sense.  If you have generally available Wi-Fi for web access, it will work.  Otherwise, proceed to the next step.  When walking around your company, you will be asked to connect with the network.  Accept the invitation and enter the security passcode.  Why do this?  Once you have connected with the network at least once, you will then automatically connect. Note that you may have to connect in different buildings or different floors, depending on your network configuration.  Emails and other content will download faster and consume less battery than 3G. 

·         What if you do not work in a Wi-Fi enabled company?  It will be a lot more convenient (and consume less power) to leave Wi-Fi turned off, unless you are in an area where you know you have Wi-Fi, like your home.  Otherwise, it will be constantly popping up and asking you to join networks that may or may not be good to join.  

1. Dim the brightness on your display.

·         Settings

·         Brightness

·         Slide the brightness bar down to about one-third or whatever is comfortable for you to view.  

·         Slide Auto-Brightness to ON position.

1. Keep the software updated on your iPhone.  This is done by connecting to iTunes.  The latest version, as of March 2009 is Version 2.2.1.  You can check the version using the instructions below.

·         Settings

·         General

·         About

·         The Version number will be toward the middle of the display.  

A couple other thoughts and tips/tricks.

• Some people suggest that you turn of the 3G network to conserve battery power.  That is a little like having someone take the V8 from you prized hot rod and drop in a 4-cylinder.  You can do it, but why?  If you make the changes above, the impact on battery life will be dramatic and you will want to keep 3G turned on.
• Remember to back up your iPhone periodically.  When you have it connected to iTunes, all you have to do is right click on the phone in the left portion of the screen, select Backup from the menu, and iTunes does the rest for you.  There is no good excuse for not backing up regularly.  You need to connect to iTunes periodically to get software updates and carrier updates anyway.  Do it at least a couple times a month.
• Be careful using the Maps feature, especially driving and using it for directions.  It is a major drain on battery.  You can practically watch the battery get sucked dry.  If you are planning on using it while driving, get a car charger. 
• When I first switched to the iPhone, my battery was running down in about 6 hours.  Now I can get a full couple of days of use out of it, after making the changes above. 

Here’s an example.  I pulled up a document that our help desk had put together.  It was a Microsoft Word document and had 16 screen grabs in it.  The size of the document on disk was 5,196 KB.  That’s 5 MB for one simple document!  Take that times the millions of documents stored on our network and you start to see why disk storage is such big business for companies like EMC, Network Appliance and Hitachi Data Systems. 

Now, the great part…  Using one simple command that exists in both Word and PowerPoint, I was able to click one button, click a couple radio buttons, click okay and shrink that document down to 303 KB – that’s a reduction in size of over 90% with NO DISCERNABLE degradation of quality! 

Here are the instructions for Office 2003 (they are the same for both Word and PowerPoint). 

1. Open up the offending, bloated document that is full of images and pictures.  Note the size of the document, just so you can feel the satisfaction later. 
2. Activate the Picture Toolbar, if it is not already.  This is done from the main menu by clicking on View, then Toolbars, then Picture.
3. The Picture toolbar will appear.  Scan it for an icon that looks like a box with four arrows pushing in from each corner.  When you hover your cursor over it, a box will pop up that says Compress Pictures.
4. Click on the Compress Pictures icon. 
5. The Compress Pictures window will open.
6. In the “Apply to” section, click on the selection for “All pictures in document”.
7. In the “Change resolution” section, click on the selection for “Web/Screen”. 
8. In the “Options” section, make sure that the check boxes next to “Compress pictures” and “Delete cropped areas of pictures” are both checked.
9. Click on the OK button at the bottom. 
10. You will see a warning that states “Compressing Pictures may reduce the quality of your images.  Do you want to apply picture optimization?
11. Click on the Apply button. 
12. You’re done.  Save the file and you will be amazed at the difference in size.

Now you probably noticed with step 7 that there were other options.  If your intended audience will be viewing the document/presentation on screen (like for a PowerPoint slideshow), then the Web/Screen option is the best.  If they will be printing the document, then go with the Print option.  Either will reduce the size of the document, but Web/Screen will reduce it the most. 

Simple, effective and nearly impossible to tell the difference between the original document and the compressed/optimized one.  Give it a try and save some disk space!

Bottom line?  Forget the ones that advertise on TV with the catchy jingles and the flashy commercials.  The site you want to use is:  https://www.annualcreditreport.com

The other ones are simply advertising angles that the credit bureaus have created to sell you their credit monitoring services.  They hook you in with the idea of free credit reports and then force you to sign up for their service to get the “free” credit report.  It’s a scam.  That’s the bottom line.  Your government has ensured that you have the right, once a year, to get your credit report for free without signing up for anything.  Just use the site/link above and ignore the commercials.

Let’s face it.  Software Assurance (SA) is great for Microsoft, but sucks for their customers.  Essentially what Microsoft did was attempt to turn their software into a constant revenue stream.  By purchasing SA, you effectively pay for the software every three years — whether you upgrade or not!  Add another wing on Bill’s mansion! 

Now I did say that Microsoft “attempted” to turn their software into a revenue stream.  They also tried to gussy up SA along the way to make unsuspecting purchasers think they were getting a good deal.  Not good enough!  Instead of being turned into a revenue stream, we have decided to treat their software like a disposable asset.  A commodity.  Use it and then replace it.  Use it well, by the way.  More than three years, and definitely long enough to make it a better deal than SA. 

How does the “commodity model” of licensing Microsoft software work?  

First of all, assume that the operating system is going to be purchased OEM with new hardware.  In other words, when you do a major operating system upgrade, you are going to have to purchase new hardware anyway.  Microsoft always bloats up the next version of their OS, so you can pretty much assume that the hardware that was good enough for Windows XP will not work for Vista, Windows 7, etc.

Next, buy new licenses of the Office product suite and plan on keeping them for at least three years.  In our case, we’ve been using Windows XP and Office 2003 for over five years now.  We bought upgrade rights in 2002 (the last time they offered them), upgraded to XP and Office 2003 over the next year and have been happy ever since.  We are skipping Vista and will begin to consider Windows 7. 

The last time I checked Gartner, over 80% of corporate America was still using Windows XP.  We’ve definitely gotten our moneys worth out of it — without SA.  With SA, we would have paid for it twice over for no real added benefit.

Bottom line?  Microsoft’s SA pricing model has turned their software into a disposable asset.

After a week in the glass carboy, I moved it to a location that should be into the lagering temperature range (50 to 60 degrees F).  It is less cloudy now.  The temp in this new location has been staying in the upper 50′s.  I’d like to get it a little cooler, but don’t have good temp control, so it will have to do.  I’m planning to leave it in this location for a couple weeks before bottling.  Total fermentation time 4 weeks, 2 at low ale temps and 2 at high lager temps.

What does this have to do with technology?  Absolutely nothing.  That’s why I enjoy it…to blow off steam!  Plus, drinking the results can help one decompress as well.

A few years ago, our all-knowing government decided that we — as consumers — should be able to take a look at our own credit report without paying.  They passed some legislation and it is now law.  Once a year, you can get a look at your credit report, free of charge, at all three major credit reporting bureaus: TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.  However, that is NOT what freecreditreport.com is all about.  They are a for-profit business, with Experian behind the scenes, that wants to sign you up for credit monitoring.  By signing up for the “free” credit report through them, you are actually agreeing to spend $14.95 per month for their credit report monitoring service.  SCAM!  It is a scam with entertaining commercials, but a scam none the less. 

So.  You actually want to get your truly free credit report from the major credit reporting bureaus?  Skip the one above and use this link instead.  You will go to the government sponsored site, www.annualcreditreport.com, where you can get your free credit reports once per year. 

One other warning…  As you are going through the annual credit report web site, you get linked to each of the credit bureau sites to get your free report.  Do not agree to any of the “extras” that they try to sell you along the way.  You have to be careful to click on the links that say “no thanks” and other such terms, to get through to the free report.  Just read and click carefully and you will be fine. 

Checking your credit reports, thanks to our government, is free and easy.  Just use the right link, do it once a year, and don’t fall for a scam.

1. It has a pretty good “wow” factor.  People are impressed when they see the size the projector and the image it projects.
2. It is well built and well packaged. 
3. While the picture is sharp and visible if you have good control over ambient light, it is not very bright. 
4. The built-in speaker is pretty much worthless, but what do you expect from a speaker the size of a dime?
5. It is not a business tool.

The bottom line is that I’ve decided to return the unit.  It does not have any real use in a business environment, since about all you can do with it is watch movies or photo slideshows. 

However, if you are a consumer and interested in sharing your movies or photos with others while traveling, it might just be the device for you.  Here is a link to a great write up about the device from a consumer perspective.  My only update to the article is that the version I purchased in the US did include the connector and cable for connecting to the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Optoma Pico Projector w/iPod

Just got one of these puppies.  The Optoma Pico Projector.  It is literally about the size of an iPod and can be used to project an image up to 60 inches diagonal.  It comes with two rechargeable batteries and a cable and connector to hook it up to my iPhone. 

First of all, let me explain the thinking.  We are currently piloting the box.net storage technology (see my post on Cloud Computing) and box.net has an iPhone app that you can download from the App Store.   I copied up some presentations to my box.net account and was able to view them on my iPhone.  Very slick.  Now, to see if I can project them with the Pico…

This is where the bad news comes in.  The Pico Projector only displays audio/video signals.  In other words, you can view movies, photos and youtube, but not the desktop or other programs.  Disappointing. 

I could convert the PowerPoints into a video, but that’s too much work.  Maybe somebody will come out with an iPhone App that will convert whatever is on screen to the A/V output.  Now that would be cool.

So what is Cloud Computing?

After reading a number of different definitions and looking at the current “cloud” offerings, I’ve decided to come up with my own definition:

Cloud Computing is the use of Internet-based technologies to replace traditional enterprise computing technologies.   Software as a Service (SaaS) sometimes gets confused with Cloud Computing (CC), but I would just like keep it simple — SaaS providers really started out the “Cloud” craze, and are still the most popular form of CC.  Salesforce.com is a great example.  Some of Amazon’s new offerings through their Amazon Web Services are what could be considered the next generation of CC — leveraging the massive infrastructures that have been built by some of the successful Web driven companies. 

So what does it mean in everyday terms?  We technology leaders need to start thinking about where CC can benefit our companies.  I’ve come across a really interesting technology from a company called Box.net.  This is true enterprise-class file sharing and collaboration at an incredibly cheap price.   We are starting a pilot of their technology, so I will fill you in later on how it goes. 

Bottom line?  If you are a technology leader and aren’t looking into how CC will change how you deliver technology services to your company, then you best look out.  You will probably be displaced by some young punk that “gets it!”

What is interesting about Kolsch style beer is that it is not unusual for the ale to be mistaken for a lager.  However, you brew it like you do any other ale.  I’ve read a few different recipes for the beer, and apparently it is common to lager it after the intial ale fermentation is complete.  I’m going to try that and see how it works.  Stay tuned…