Microsoft Needs Integrated Online Storage
This week, Microsoft announced some updates to Windows Live Hotmail, including 5 GB of free storage.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Windows Live SkyDrive has a relatively measly 500 MB of storage. Why isn’t Microsoft’s online storage integrated?
If Microsoft is really trying to create something OS-like for the Internet, why not start with the data stores?
Don’t get me wrong, the Live team is adding some nice features like drag and drop and photo previews to SkyDrive, however…
It just seems to me that Microsoft should be moving toward an integrated store, rather than having 5 GB here for mail, 500 MB here for most other things, and 3 MB there for MSN Groups, along with however much storage you can get for free to host a Web site.
Windows Live is already complicated and seems disparate enough. I should be able to map everything to one Live:\ drive, even if e-mails open up in Hotmail and photos in Live Photo Gallery upon clicking on my online items.
To me, the sensible thing to do would be to make Live SkyDrive much bigger, and to allow Microsoft’s other online storage locations to plug into it like a hub.
So why does Windows Live SkyDrive only have 500 MB of storage today?
What Does Your E-Mail Signature Say About You?
Do you ever really look at people’s e-mail signatures? I don’t usually, but I was looking for contact information for a colleague recently, which led me to scrutinize his signature.
It was a museum of 20th Century communications: The streetmail address and fax number was in there, but no instant-message ID or Skype account.
That got me to thinking about e-mail signatures and I started scanning my in-box looking at how people signed their mail. I’ve made the following observations:
Important people don’t bother with e-mail sigs.
Your e-mail signature reflects how powerful you are. If you were profiled on MSNBC, you don’t need an e-mail signature.
The primary purpose of an e-mail sig is to let people know who you are and how to contact you. If you’re really, really important, your e-mail recipients had better already know that.
The longer your e-mail signature, the lower down the food chain you are.
Some people put a whole novel in their e-mail signature:
- Their full name, including “Jr.” or “Sr.”
- Job title, which generally includes both the words “deputy” and assistant.
- Streetmail address with mail stop.
- Business phone number, with different versions for people dialing from the internal corporate PBX vs. people dialing from outside.
- E-mail address. ‘Cuz it’s not like it’s in the “From:” line of every e-mail or anything.
- And finish it off with an inspirational quote from Battlestar Galactica.
If that’s a description of your signature, then you’re a flunky. Time for a Starbucks run, Commander Starbuck.
So Geek With Laptop readers, what do you think people should put in their e-mail signatures? What do you have in yours?
As for my own e-mail signature, I have two versions depending on who I’m e-mailing. One with just my name and the other with my name and contact number.
Who Should Do Our Terrorist Screening?
Ever since September 11, 2001, there’s been a question of how big a role businesses such as airlines and banks should play in helping to identify terrorists. The Department of Homeland Security’s headed in the right direction in wanting to take passenger screening over from the airlines.
Late last week, the Department of Homeland Security proposed that it begin doing the screening of passenger names against the government’s terrorist watch list database.
Today, DHS sends the watch list to airlines and they do the screening. DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, speaking at a press conference, suggested he wasn’t satisfied that airlines are consistent enough in how they update their lists:
If they’re slow, or if they do it once a day or more slowly than that, they’re going to be more out of date. This gives us a much closer connection to the real-time information.
This move is part of Chertoff’s effort to implement DHS’s Secure Flight program, a passenger screening project that’s been marred by privacy mistakes and technical obstacles.
He proposes the Transportation Security Administration start screening tests this fall using data from air carriers that volunteer to provide it.
In another new regulation announced at the same time, DHS will require airlines provide the TSA with passenger data for all international flights in or out of the U.S. a half hour before a plane takes off. DHS will integrate that system into Secure Flight.
It seems to me that Chertoff’s heading in the right direction. Secure Flight’s had its missteps, with privacy problems foremost among them. Chertoff says the data will be checked against the watch list and “disposed of.”
Those privacy concerns are a place to watch and any CIO who has to meet data-sharing requirements with the government knows integration can be difficult and costly.
However, ultimately it’s the federal government, not the airlines, that should be combing passenger lists for terrorists.
What’s The Difference Between A CIO And A CTO?
I mean, besides that middle letter. Or is that the only difference?
I’ve always thought of Chief Information Officers and Chief Technology Officers like lions and tigers:
- Similar in species and temperament
- Each the master of its domain
But separated by a geographic distance that represents the difference between strategy and tactics, applications and theory, projects and product testing.
The reason I ask is because I recently ran across an item from the Government Printing Office, the agency responsible for printing and disseminating documents related to the function of the federal government, such as the Congressional Record and the Federal Register, among many, many others.
The government printing office said in a statement that its CIO, Reynold Schweickhardt, will now become its chief technology officer and its CTO, Michael Wash, will become its CIO.
Simple as that, eh? Just switch those middle letters.
How fortunate the GPO is to have two people flexible enough to be willing to trade places like that.
What are the difficulties involved in such a switch?
I assume there are salary considerations - certainly there would be in the private sector - as well as management challenges, such as adjusting for leadership styles.
What about vendor relationships, or strengths and weaknesses technology-wise? Office politics?
I’d like to know just how common it is for a CIO and a CTO to exchange jobs. Have you ever done it, or know of someone who has?
Forget MySpace, Facebook Is A Bigger Threat To LinkedIn
When it comes to social networking, it seems everyone is obsessed with Facebook. The big meme is that Facebook will soon surpass MySpace as the biggest social networking site on the Web.
Regardless of who wins this race, both sites have amazing growth numbers and don’t seem poised for a downturn anytime soon.
The more interesting question is this: Will Facebook kill LinkedIn to become the primary career networking site on the Web?
When I look at Facebook, I see a social networking site perfectly designed to capture professionals from cradle to grave. Facebook’s heavy emphasis on college students and do-gooders has given it a lock on the middle class and upwardly mobile demographics.
LinkedIn is a social networking site designed to capture the same demographic but it faces two big limitations. It’s not big with college students and given LinkedIn’s stripped down format, it doesn’t offer any multimedia or graphics to appeal to them.
Facebook has just the right amount of bling. It’s not as overdone or kludgy as MySpace but it has enough graphics and video for both college kids and 40-year-old professionals and that’s a killer combo.
Regardless of what you think of Danah Boyd’s recent class analysis of the two social networking sites, she does get a thing or two right. Unless you’re a musician or an artist of some kind, you don’t use MySpace to advance your career.
You probably use LinkedIn for business networking and if my personal experience is any barometer, your LinkedIn connections are all rapidly going over to Facebook.
If you are a college student you probably use Facebook and there is a chance that you also use MySpace but once you graduate, I suspect you’ll stick with Facebook and ditch MySpace, especially once you settle into your first job.
And if you’re a graduate student (especially in business school or law school), you probably use both Facebook and LinkedIn. And if the majority of your LinkedIn connections migrate over to Facebook, you will probably stop using LinkedIn at some point in the near future.
What do you think? Will Facebook kill LinkedIn? Will it become the primary social networking tool for professionals? Or is there a place at the table for both Facebook and LinkedIn?
Cyberterrorism: By Whatever Name, It’s On The Increase
Security Pros are hesitant to label Web attacks as “cyberterrorism” because of the volatile connotations of that phrase however, recent events in England and Russia point to an increased use of the Web to coordinate or launch such attacks aimed at cultural and political subversion.
A British court last week handed down prison sentences of up to 10 years to three Muslim men it called “cyber-jihadis” and convicted of using the Internet to urge Muslims to wage holy war on non-Muslims and in the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) reported politically motivated cyberattacks in Russia.
This type of cyberwarfare has been going on for months. The Web sites of Kommersant, a Russian newspaper and the Echo of Moscow, a radio station, suffered significant denial-of-service attacks in early May.
The editor in chief of Kommersant’s Web site speculated might be retaliation for the publication of a police interview with the expatriate billionaire Boris Berezovsky.
Even the generally neutral Swiss government has found itself in the middle of the emerging struggle against cyberterrorism.
Late last month, Swiss prosecutors charged a husband-and-wife team with running Web sites that supported terrorists by providing them with information on how to make bombs.
Similarly, the “Electronic Jihad Program,” available via the jihadi Web site Al-jinan.org, is an application that users can install and use to target specific IP addresses for DOS attacks.
The application includes a Windows-like interface that lets users choose from a list of target Web sites provided via the Al-jinan site, select an attack speed (weak, medium or strong) and then click on the “attack” button.
The site was down late last week, but Al-jinan has been registered for about 4-1/2 years. Its domain name server registration features a number of contradictions that make tracing its origins difficult.
Al-jinan’s domain name server is being hosted by Ibtekarat, a Web hosting company based in Beirut. The site’s registration information cites an address with a Los Angeles postal code, while listing the Egyptian city of Al Esmaeiliya as its “registrant city” and Iraq as its “registrant country.”
Electronic jihad hasn’t yet caused any major Web site disruptions, but the potential is there. Jihadists are interested in taking down Web sites and disrupting economies that they don’t like. It’s something to be taken seriously.
U.S. businesses would be greatly affected by large-scale cyberattacks because most of the country’s critical infrastructure is run by companies in the private sector.
The government and the U.S. business community are one-in-the-same target. Even businesses that don’t run critical infrastructure elements would be affected because there’s a cascading effect if you attack the infrastructure.
While companies that operate critical infrastructure must be especially wary of Internet-based attacks, everyone has to pay attention to security.
There may be some businesses that say, ‘No one will target us.’ but electronic jihad will target anyone if it creates economic disruption. Whoever’s vulnerable gets attacked.