ROI: Return on Internet

New StratumTech Blog Launch

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 10:25:31 -0500

The tech team at Stratum has launched a new blog aimed at discussing tech topics and providing cool technology announcements. The initial launch of the StratumTech Blog has posts categorized by Application Development, Back Office Solutions, Backup Solutions, Blog Hosting, Cool Technologies, Data System Development, Exchange Hosting, FTP Hosting, Help Desk Support, Internet Solutions, Intranet Solutions, Off-site IT Support, On-site IT Support, Reporting & Analysis Solutions, SEO / SEM, SharePoint Hosting, User Interface, Web Hosting and Wireless Technologies. Visit the StratumTech Blog at http://techblog.stratum.net and feel free to jump in the discussions.

Firefox 3 beta 4

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:04:21 -0500

The 4th beta of the Firefox 3.0 browser was released Monday and includes more than 900 enhancements over the previous beta. Mozilla said the new beta includes improvements to performance and memory usage, fixes for stability, and platform-specific enhancements. Some of the enhancements include a new download manager to make locating downloads easier; a full page zoom feature that allows you to zoom in and out of pages more easily; and integration for Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux that features platform-specific icons, buttons, and other user interface elements. Get the beta 4 download here.

iPhone and Exchange Integration

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:10:57 -0500

This is the first positive step I've seen taken by Apple towards making the iPhone a possibility in the secure world of the business enterprise. The rumors have been flying for a while that Apple had licensed Microsoft's ActiveSync so the iPhone could function on Microsoft Exchange. The introduction of the iPhone SDK this week verified those rumors. We can't get too slap happy yet though. Apple has only licensed the protocol. The functionality is not there and won't be for a couple of versions later in the iPhone. That means at least mid - 2009. But this is a good first step for iPhone enthusiasts.

A Connected World and how important is it?

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:44:06 -0500

CIO.com recently stood up an interesting survey - BlackBerry Users Vote: How Tethered Are You? I think a more important question for company decision-makers would be, How Tethered Should My Team Be? My world is very interesting and overall I think unique. Not unique for the tech industry but unique as compared to the work force as a whole. I require myself to be electronically connected at almost all hours of every night and day. Yes, 'every' night and day. My tech team is nearly the same and during their disconnected times there should be another connected person capable of filling the needs of the organization. Let's move to other member (sets) of the organization's team. Should the Operations team be consistently connected? Should the Creative team be consistently connected? Should the Sales team be consistently connected? Should the Marketing team be consistently connected? (I'll stop there but there are other teams just a critical such as HR, Finance / Accounting, etc.) Within each of these teams an evaluation of senior management, team leads and team members should also be weighed. Should they, or at least their role, be consistently connected? Here's my answer - YES! Yes, they absolutely sure should. Each of these teams occupies a vital role in the decision-making processes that are important to the organization's success. A senior member of each of these teams should be always available, reachable and able to communicate at any given time as dictated by the real-time needs of the organization. So how do we make this connected state happen? Smartphones. Smartphones that are reliable, (platform) stable, secure, usable, functional and yes, okay attractive. Smartphones that put email, SMS, MMS, Internet access, IM and phone calls at your fingertips. RIM's BlackBerry tops the list of recommendations from leaders of most top organization around the globe including myself. Nokia (the N95) makes fine smartphone products as does Palm (the Treo series) and HP (the iPAQ series). CIO.com's Survey Results for "How Addicted to Your SmartPhone Are You? 5% - My phone is for business. I put it away at night, unless I'm traveling for work. 2% - I check messages every few hours after work and on weekends. But I'd never bring my smartphone on vacation. 19% - I'm more productive because of my smartphone, and it doesn't negatively affect my work/life balance. I wouldn't call it an addiction. 67% - My smartphone never leaves my side. At work, rest, play, vacation, you name itmy best electronic friend is with me. 7% - IMHO That's NOYB. BB4N. EOM. (In my humble opinion, that's none of your business. Bye bye for now. End of message.) Where do you stand? Do you make yourself available to be a vital piece of your organization?

Opera, Firefox Bug Could Export Users' Web History

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:55:42 -0500

Keep your patches up to date! Keep your patches up to date! Keep your patches up to date! I cannot stress this enough. Not just for the two applications in this report but for all of your computer programs and operating systems, keep your patches and updates up to date. A flaw in the way the Firefox and Opera browsers handle an image file could allow an attacker to see what Web sites a person has visited. The problem concerns how the two browsers handle a ".BMP," or bitmap, image file, according to an advisory written by Gynvael Coldwind of Vexillium.org, who posted a video illustrating the problem. You can see his technical description here. A malicious bitmap file can be created that pulls other information from the browsers' memory. Some of the information that can be captured is random, but at other times could be valuable, the advisory said. "The harvested data contains various information including parts of other Web sites, users' favorites and history and other information," Vexillium.org said. Using the "canvas" HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) tag supported by the browsers, an attacker can capture the data. Then, using JavaScript, the information can be sent to a remote server. The flaw could also crash Firefox. The vulnerability affects Firefox 2.0.0.11 and previous versions of that browser as well as the beta version of Opera 9.50. Source: CIO.com

It's All the Same Thing

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:28:48 -0500

In reading an only-so-thrilling article about John Lilly's promotion, I caught a few important words. They weren't even terribly relevant to the story, but they made it in there just the same...

"...will be responsible for leading the Firefox developer's ambitious plans to dramatically extend the reach of its Web-based applications into the mobile and services arenas."

So FireFox is coming to a phone near you, while Apple TV (and other devices) brought the computer to your television. Two years ago (heck, maybe more now), Microsoft told attendees at a conference that this day was coming - when your phone, your computer, and your television would be virtually the same device just with different size screens (I'm paraphrasing). That is, there wouldn't be a large variation on what you can do and see on any one device. Of course you'll still watch movies on TV - but the beauty of that is you can pause the playback and go start the next one downloading, right from your couch. Just a little longer, and you'll be able to use your phone to browse the channel guide that's on the internet, then remote pilot your DVR to record a show you find - despite being nowhere near the TV. Are you ready to be everywhere all the time?

GPS Goes Mainstream

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:26:24 -0500

I was listening to a story on NPR not long ago about 2007 being the year of GPS. Seems that GPS gadgets were the hot item for Christmas giving last year. And not for the gadget-lovers; for the everyday joe and his mama. One of the new add-ons that GPS providers have integrated is tour guides into the devices. These tour guides are audio recordings triggered by a driver passing points on the map then tour guide information plays about the area in relation to the GPS location. Brilliant! Marketing and advertising initiatives are ideal for these triggers, opt in of course. Does your marketing firm offer you these kinds of aggressive ideas? They should. Here's the story from NPR. And here's the audio [4 min 7 sec] from NPR.

Six degrees of Stratum.

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 13:25:37 -0500

The really cool part of working in marketing is how you get to learn about other things while practicing your craft. Stratum is working on a very exciting project that we are honored to be a part of and to boot we got to go on a really big boat! Saturday, our creative director, Walt Taylor and I got a VIP private tour of the USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71 from Steve Patrick a friend of ours, who's a Chief assigned to the ship. You may have seen a post where we took a picture of the TR as it left the shipyard a while back. Well She's now pier side and Stratum was welcomed aboard. You might wonder - why is the TR on Stratum's blog about return on internet anyway? Well here's where the six degrees part comes in; see Walt and I aren't forming an old timer boy-band called Six Degrees (thank goodness) What's underway is the Hampton Roads Squadron of the Association of Naval Aviation has selected Stratum to develop an online complimentary web site and interactive virtual tour about the Naval Aviators monument which was recently constructed in Virginia Beach at 25th Street and Atlantic Avenue at the boardwalk. When we get an assignment like this, everybody at Stratum gets started learning everything we can about BIG navy boats, FAST navy jets and the people who run 'em and fly 'em. And one of the best ways to do this is to think about everyone and every way that can help us. That's how we make our work the best it can be. Humn, sounds a bit like we're mixing recruiting metaphors, but you get the drift (a technical term we picked up on the tour). Stay tuned, we will be posting other links to the online ANA monument in the future and will be happy to report about the ROI we generate as the features help Hampton Roads Squadron meet their goals for the site. Dave and Walt on the TR

Transparency Redux

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:28:07 -0500

Recently, a colleague of mine revealed that while they do allow customer feedback on their website, a member of their web team frequently goes in and deletes any negative feedback. In fact, I found this out because they were asking me if there's anyway they can make the person who posted the comment see it, and not let anyone else see it. OMG! (that's "oh my god," for all you old-school types) Why would anyone do this? Well, just in case you're thinking about doing the same thing, I have an alternative point of view to offer: transparency is good. We — your customers — KNOW that sometimes things don't go smoothly. We know that sometimes people are disappointed. If we see only good feedback on your website, we pass it over. We know you've screened it, and so it has no meaning. We'd much rather see both positive and negative comments. When we see that, we feel like we're reading the truth, and not just your company's polished message packaged another way. We feel like your customer feedback is credible - and we feel like you're credible, because you don't try to conceal it. But it doesn't stop there. We'd love to see you respond to negative feedback - to show us that when we are not satisfied, you will listen. Better still, we'd love to see that you will take steps to make it up to us, because you want us to be happy with you. So the next time you're thinking about sweeping the complaints under the rug, think again. Turn your negative feedback into great PR; you might even make the complainers happy enough that they'll become your brand evangelists.

WE'VE DONE OUR CHRISTMAS SHOPPING...

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:00:12 -0500

...and found the perfect gift! Simply put: "The mission of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child." People are being to recognize that being computer-literate is not a privilege or a perk of affluence, but a necessity, especially for people in deprived circumstances. We're giving a portion of our 2007 earnings to this important cause, and we encourage you to think about it too. Want to learn more? Click here.

THE IDEAL CONFERENCING AID: RED BEANS AND RICE

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:39:07 -0500

If you're going to talk about the Semantic Web and Google Knol and such, you'd better be fortified.

Email Hijack Scams

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:50:43 -0500

Have you ever received that email from yourself and wondered why? I have so I know you guys have. And this concerns me. Let me say up front, be careful. If an email looks suspicious don't just delve into processing through its instructions. It's okay to IM or call the supposed sender to check the email's legitimacy before doing anything with it. I received an email a couple of days ago that advertised offering Swiss watches for sale. I see you smiling; you got one too, didn't you? I get a lot of spam everyday with the many email addresses that I monitor but this one stood out because it was from me. Get that - I'm trying to sell myself cheap, fake Swiss watches. Not wanting to blame myself for spamming me, I went Inspector Clouseau on this spammer and checked the email headers only to find that the REPLY-TO email address was a Gmail address (not mine). This is fine and good for me to have found out that I didn't send myself this spam message but what can I do about it? Nothing really. It just means that we need to be careful knowing that masking the real sender's email address can be done very easily. My email addresses are basically public information. They are listed on almost every website that I've spoken on and have been written about. They are on my business cards and of course are a part of every email message I've ever written. And so are yours. Don't think you can hide because it's virtually impossible to do so. Then I got to thinking - who else is getting emails that look like they're from me? And are they following instructions in my (fake me) message that directs them to a website that may contain malware, adware or spyware? How many of my business associates, friends and relatives are being tricked by this? Probably quite a few people are getting these from me. Don't believe them. I don't wear cheap Swiss watches. ESQ is my brand of choice. Happy spam-fighting!

Joy to the World Wide Web

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:21:26 -0500

If you're anything like me, the memory of holiday shopping requiring that you either get in a car and go to the mall or plan months in advance with catalog purchases seems relatively recent. It also seems like a relative novelty that you could conceivably buy every single gift online a mere week before the big day and be reasonably assured that you won't be short a gift when the time comes. If you're even more like me, you still get in your car and go to the mall to do some of your shopping - despite crowded stores being a little frustrating. Online shopping has come into its own, though - and while anyone with an Amazon.com account knows it just takes a few minutes and a credit card to get a variety of goods delivered to the front door, they may not realize just how prolific it is. One good indicator? You know what Black Friday is - the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is brick-and-mortar businesses' "unofficial launch" of the holiday shopping season. But do you know about Cyber Monday? That's the internet version of Black Friday - when online retailers watch the holiday sales start rolling in. And it's not necessarily just a kitschy little phrase the web-types came up with; at this point, CNN, CBS, ABC, TIME, CNET, and Business Week have all reported on it. Admittedly, some of those news stories call Cyber Monday more myth than reality, point out that it isn't really the biggest online holiday shopping day, and report that the purported event is really just something invented by internet marketers to generate buzz about holiday shopping online. All those things may be true - but then, according to ABC, Black Friday isn't really the biggest holiday shopping day of the year either (the Saturday before Christmas is), and was also manufactured by merchants to create "energy, buzz and excitement about the holiday season." Add to that parallel that CNN reports that this year, "by 2 p.m. ET, more than 300 retailing Web sites tracked by Internet monitoring firm Akamai were drawing 4.6 million visitors per minute," and Akamai - an Internet monitoring firm - said in a recent press release that Cyber Monday shopping traffic was up 37% from last year. Taking those kinds of reports into account, Cyber Monday begins to seem more like a self-fulfilling prophecy than a marketing-induced myth. So what does this mean for you, besides not always being able to load the Circuit City website on this particular Monday of the year? Maybe it's a wake up call, about just how much of business is actually being done on the internet now - and incentive to give some hard thought to how much your website enables your customers to do business with you online. Sure, it's more complicated than just taking a payment and shipping an item for some businesses - but there's still plenty your website can do to enable and encourage the online component of your business. It's December, and for many businesses it's budgeting season. Have you budgeted for your share of 4.6 million visits a minute next year?

Blog? What? Me? Why?

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:36:46 -0500

The age old question - okay, maybe not age old, but Internet 2.0 age old - why should I blog is one we hear all the time. True that blogging is not for everyone but it's a great way for people and organizations to obtain a presence in the online world. Blogging is a great way to be heard, to spread your message and to find out information fast. By the way, did you know Britney Spears is pregnant again? See. That was fast! Here are few reasons why people blog:

To share thoughts about a particular topic such as a product you're interested in or an experience you had.
To communicate your satisfaction or frustration with a product or company.
To drive traffic to your other web properties. SEO!
To earn money through advertising and sponsorships.
To obtain links from other sites and blogs pointing to your blog. SEO!
To add valuable content to your web presence.

Remember how you used to write notes in class and maybe even wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper? Blogging has the same goal except with a greater result - faster delivery to a larger audience. Here are few reasons why organizations blog:

To interact with clients and potential clients.
To build your 'verifiable' authority on specialty topics.
To announce the launch of a new project.
To build brand awareness.
To address reputation management issues (we can talk at length about the increased value of blogging to handle and manage(!) negative press).
To build trust and alliances with other organizations.
To provide almost real-time feedback about strategies, products and future initiatives.
To generate a viral buzz about a product or topic.

So you see? Blogging is good. Yes, it can be time intensive at times and definitely addicting if you get the fever. But what better way to network and build your web of trusted individuals and organizations.

Check That Pedigree!

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:52:13 -0500

That killer photo you just put up on your new website--do you know where it came from? Do you know if whoever's in it approves of you slapping it up there? The copyright and privacy laws apply on the internet just as they do in print. Because of the sheer number of images out there, it may be harder to enforce those laws, but are you willing to take that risk? If someone raises a stink because you used their image without permission, it doesn't matter much who eventually wins the argument. The damage is already done. Many people get away with it, but many don't. Just last week Rudy Giuliani got some unwanted bad publicity for this very issue. There are millions of images sitting out there in the ether, and they're very easy to capture. But if they don't have a pedigree, they could turn around and bite you. Know where your images came from. Let your designers, developers and photographers know that you expect full legal rights to any image they use, including model releases when appropriate. It may cost you a little more, but it may cost you a whole lot less.