The story

Two pirates in Somalia vowed revenge Monday, after the U.S. military killed three pirates and freed a U.S. ship captain who had been held hostage for several days.

The pirates told a Somali journalist that they were angered by the U.S. action, as well as a French raid Friday that killed two pirates and one hostage and freed four hostages.

“We have decided to kill U.S. and French sailors if they happen to be among our future hostages,” said Abdullahi Ahmed, a member of a pirate group based at Harardhere, a coastal town in central Somalia.

Seriously!  They are angered about how the US handled this!  Why is the “media” even talking to them?  Do they have any suggestions on how the President should deal with future hostage situations?

If the US was not held to such an unreasonable ethical standard we could go on a pirate killing spree and save future American lives…

-mike

Today is start of a new year, for me this means more resolutions I won’t keep.  It always seems like a good idea to change your life with the dropping of a ball but how long does it really last.  Last year I wanted to get more organized, spend more time at home and get in shape…  Guess what, I went backwards!

Like most people who promise themselves a lifestlye change every year I go at it hard for a few weeks and then fall back into the old groove.  Well this year is going to be different, I have a kid on the way!  If the new year can’t force a change maybe a baby can? 

Can we hope for a economic boom in 09?  The word “CHANGE” will hopefully restore confidence to the American people and set things in motion.  And although I don’t agree with most of President elect Obama’s policies I wish him well in his new job, but I am not sure why anyone would want it.

-mike

My company has many clients that are “not” contemplating massive layoffs but are strategizing for massive growth.  Why?  Because the economy is what we make of it!  We are letting the media drive the economy with their negative reporting when we should be looking at the facts.

Don’t get me wrong things are bad, but they can get worse.

-mike

More money more problems!  Trying to handle all of those large monthly invoices and vendor bills has forced us to change the way we do business.  We have to be thorough and complete, no more mind over matter.  Document Everything!  Our 14 hour workdays and endless projects are a blessing and a curse.

I just finished coding the last few lines of our very own integrated billing, inventory, support ticket and monitoring software.  If I could just get my new I-phone to sync my sql database (just had to do a hard reset) I could get some sleep.  We now have the tools even our largest competitors can only dream about!

I don’t like meetings, I like doing!  I have had more meetings in the past year than my prior 28.  Much to my dismay this has gotten in the way of my doing, but people like to meet!  I guess maybe there is a social aspect or something, but I feel at home behind my keyboard and monitors.

Vacation!  Now that we have “almost” made it through the summer I am going on vacation in September, 7 days with no computers or internet.  Just me and my wife relaxing in the sun!  Okay, maybe there will be some internet but only on the beach…

-mike

Some of you might say Google didn’t do this last year either, which is true! I had attributed that to the fact that they have not been doing the dressed up logo’s for very long, but look at what they have been celebrating:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/holidaylogos.html

You will notice the most recent logo celebrating the 125th Birthday of Walter Gropius – May 18, 2008.

I can only guess this because of Google’s stance on “war” and so they can give us some insight to their agenda. It’s their company and they can do what they want, but I think it should be all or nothing!   So if they decide to put one up on Friday (the real memorial day) it’s just because of all the heat from the bloggers.

-mike

Check out their website and if you know any German please translate it for me:

http://www.prosieben.de/show_comedy/stromberg/

-mike

The calculator watch is one of the finest pieces of technology ever developed and not to mention a major fashion statement. Since the early 80’s Casio has been a market leader in providing wearable computers to nerds allowing them to function in everyday life. So what does the future hold for these marvelous devices? Not much, but it was fun while it lasted!

So if reading this post has made you a bit nostalgic for the 80’s. Fear not, I may break it out from time to time just to prove a point…

-mike

So if you are unwilling to pay, here are a few free tools that work pretty well:

AVG Free Antivirus: http://free.grisoft.com/
Ad-Aware malware protection: http://lavasoft.com/
Spybot Search and Destroy:  http://www.safer-networking.org/

These tools are a decent substitute for the pay versions but are a little more manual so make sure you read the instructions carefully! 

It is always better to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to security, but if you think you are infected BACK UP YOUR DATA…

-mike

Their 70 MB update contains fixes for security, compatibility and performance. Another primary enhancement is for server 2008 compliance when using PC health detection to protect your network. The service pack will be available for XP Home, XP MCE and XP Professional 32 bit versions, there is no update planned for the 64 bit versions of XP.

If you can’t wait till June you can download the “full” 580 MB service pack here on the 29th:

Microsoft Download Center

-mike

“You are surrounded by simple, obvious solutions that can dramatically increase your income, power, influence and success. The problem is, you just don’t see them.”

- Jay Abraham

Let’s tackle the big question first.  “What do I know?”  The fact is we have more knowledge available to us than most of you believe and learning how to find it is the first step.  There are plenty of books and websites pertaining to just about every aspect of every business and a quick Google search can prove that.   So with the right combination of information and motivation you can know everything or at least figure it out quickly.   To sum it up if you ever have to tell a customer you don’t know something you are not trying very hard!

For those of you who still don’t get that part I will have a future post on searching the web…

Back to the “presence”, as most small business owners know it is hard to be everything to everyone.  Taking advantage of readily available resources can make the transition from overwhelmed to managing a simple one.  Knowledge management!  For a successful business we need to share our information and make it available company wide, for us this is our Microsoft Exchange server combined with our fabulous service ticketing software.  Your business may be different but the concept is still the same.  Where is Mike today, what is he working on?  Just check my calendar or shoot me an email becuase I am  fully mobile…

There are a lot of great tools for knowledge managment, some are even free.  In the last couple of weeks we have transitioned many clients to “Google Apps” it has shared calendars, shared contacts, document management and email.  Oh yeah, it’s also free!  Does it worry me that something I would have previously sold is now available for free?  No, this service is very helpful for small clients and it can help them to grow into big clients which will need our services.

Marketing, the biggest time waster for most small business owners has also gotten a little easier.  The problem is most of us cannot afford a $25K marketing campaign bill but we still need to reach those clients.  With a quality website, email marketing and the personal phone call we can cut those costs to dollars.  When it comes to the website I have found it is better to have a simple concise point, packing in more information than necessary will just cause potential clients to lose interest and fast.  Products like Constant Contact have allowed us to reach more people than ever with a minimal effort, a simple advertisement email can be sent to thousands with the click of the mouse.

As a major decision maker in our company I have spent many hours researching, trying to get organized and making us more efficient in the parts of our business that do not deal with technology.  Life would be great if I could hire employees to fill these positions but I can’t, so I need to make these tasks as effortless as possible.

-mike