DISQUS

Thanks for the post. This will make hashtag research and info infinitely better. Thanks for the info.

Tsudohnimh
@tsudo on Twitter
KnowtheNetwork.com

<abbr>Tsudohnimh’s last blog post..Why Twitter will Outlast Facebook.</abbr>

I completely agree. I tried using the Google Shared Stuff bookmarklet but it doesn't integrate with my Reader Shared items and no other social services support it.

I currently use the Shareaholic Firefox Plugin to give me easy access to other sharing services.

I don't know why Google doesn't leverage it's power to create a ultimate share list. Maybe they are listening.

Tsudohnimh
website: http://Knowthenetwork.com
follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/tsudo
interact with me on Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/tsudohnimh

This is a wonderful idea. It's like a book club for bloggers. I've posted and would love to participate. My post

I use a similar system. 3 gmail accounts as well, 1 for commercial use, 1 for online identity, and 1 for flesh and blood friends and family.

I use the 3 folder system. Action, Hold, Archive.

Action - Everytime you have a new mail message you decide whether you can respond in under 1 minute. If you can, then respond immediately. If you cannot then it is filed into the Action folder to be processed ASAP.

Hold - If the email concerns an active situation but you are awaiting response or more information then file it into the Hold folder.

Archive - If you need to keep it, file the message into Archive.(http://tinyurl.com/5j4efl)

I enjoy the blog.

To be clear you aren't in the mob are you? LOL Too funny.

I appreciate the article but must say I have a very different view of Mozilla and Firefox. Firefox is just a browser and Mozilla is not doing cancer research. However, Mozilla is producing excellent open source software that standardizes across all 3 major operating platforms. As we move toward the inevitability of cloud computing and ubiquitous web based applications I think the presence of an open source, standards compliant and community reviewed browser is absolutely necessary.

Firefox's innovations continue to elevate browsing technology and promote web standards. Without Firefox I doubt IE7 would be offering tabbed browsing or that the IE7 team would have focused on creating a more standards compliant browser. An open source foundation is keeping a behemoth software company on their toes and that is a very good thing for the end user regardless of their browser preference. (Imagine what would happen if a Linux environment like Ubuntu continues to gain popularity and compatibility, Windows 7 might be very different. Doubtful to be sure, but it's nice to dream)

Finally, the Mozilla team continues to find a way to make a "better browser." Even a simple and intuitive addition like the Firefox 3 address bar has already drastically reduced the time it takes me to visit a URL. Mozilla seems to put real thought into what a web user needs, like adding tags to bookmarks, creating smart bookmark folders, or introducing a new iconography to SSL certificate validation. That type of thinking has not occurred or at least has not translated into software with IE. IE7 is still slow, has (IMHO) a terrible UI, and treats invalid certs with a terrible error page that a common user mistakes for a 404.

I'm grateful to Mozilla and the Open Source community for meeting my needs and making my browsing experience better. IE hasn't done that since the Netscape days.

Good post my friend.

I looking forward to the sections. I'm not on the forefront of managing large printer organizations on an ongoing basis, however I can add my observations.

(Full Disclosure: I am employed by an HP partner and my opinions are my own and not of my employer.)

I am often asked to design a printing infrastructure as a complement to my network design and recommendations. Our market is mostly SMB's and therefore I rely heavily on networked HP LaserJets to provide TCP/IP printing and then we manage multiple printer from a print server where they are shared to the network. They are workhorses and I love them.

However, many organizations have a skewed idea of the costs of printing in their environment. Many consider an off-the-shelf $35 printer from the local office suppy/retail story a very good deal. Whereas a HP LaserJet 4250 monochrome printer at $1300 be way to much.

This is a common thread we encounter and discuss when recommending any type of technology. We concentrate the client on the following, "What is this technology going to cost you to OWN?". When you consider and calculate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) then our solutions toward value and longterm seems much more sensible. Internally it is said our competition is interested in the product they can sell you, we are interested in the product you can own.

A quick comparison:

A $89 consumer model printer is cheaper to purchase but the ink is overpriced, poorly managed, and poorly reported. (Concerning ink, the printer is normally a loss leader to tie the customer into your line of overprice toner) The ink cartridges can often be wasteful and the software may report cartridges as empty when indeed they are not. Beyond the price of ink you have the price of managing and maintaining this printer. The drivers are usually much larger in size and much more inefficient for consumer models. This combination usually requires IT support to setup. Lastly, the consumer hardware has a life span of about 18 months(if you are lucky). This path leads to multiply consumer printers scattered through offices without standardization of device or drivers. The cost of ink and paper to maintain this system will be sky high. Guaranteed.

However, the $1300, reliable, supported, efficient drivers and good driver development process so that they are standardized across platforms. They can be setup on a network in a matter of minutes and with the addition of a print server the ability to manage tasks and jobs and permissions is a great benefit to controlling cost. I believe that business class laserjets are around 3cents per page where consumer models are in the 30-40 cent per page cost.

How do you manage an envrionment large than a handful of TCP/IP printers via a Print Server? I don't know but I'm looking forward to learning.

Thanks..._--_ Stepping down of soapbox

I really enjoy Toluu as well. It is a great feed discovery service. It has some strangeness... like I keep getting recommendations to read things I already subscribe to and the UI should be less 2.0ish and get more content on the page... Never the less I recommend to all.


Me @ Toluu http://www.toluu.com/tsudohnimh

Great post reminding us that sometimes you have to see the trees b/d the forest is overwhelming.

Also noticed the Alvin Toffler quote, I'm not sure if we'd chatted about him yet, but his book "The Third Wave" was a paradigm shifting book in my life. His ideas on Industrial business models with hierarchical power systems vs. information-age flat structures are so relevant it isn't funny. Also his expressions of information channels and pools apply to personal politics as well as network design. Toffler is the man. I can't believe that it was published in 1980. I need to read that one again.

Thanks for the link. I really enjoy your blog.

I have barely got my feed wet with Toluu but I can tell you why I'm excited about its possibilities.

It is a very efficient way of finding blog recommendations from people with similar tastes. Friendfeed is fantastic but I might process a handful of blog/site recommendations where as in a matter of minutes I can discover 100's of feeds in an OPML sharing site.

My further opinion http://tinyurl.com/6h9zf3

Thanks, Tsudohnimh

I love the your analogy, "It’s almost as if you are becoming part of the root system of a large tree seeking more and more sources of minerals and water." I entirely agree. I'm trying to get more active with Twitter and FriendFeed for these exact reasons.

I've been thinking about my Signal to Noise ratio as it concerns my consumption and production of digital content and I find that the best filters are human ones. I need people like you and others that find items that I would not have seen or might have not paid attention to. It is the power of recommendation. Social media and especially social media aggregators like FriendFeed have become essential in correlating information from a number of sources.

BTW, have you considered posting a link to your Google Shared Items? I love this method of recommending good stuff that I might not blog about.

Thanks

I'm really sorry to see it go. I often reffered people to my list if they asked what I was reading and I found some of the best feeds looking at similar subscriptions.

Thanks for running it as long as you did. It was great and I'll miss it.

What pseudonym? lol

Thank you, it is amusing the responses I get. Some completely miss it and others think my spelling is atrocious. I claim it as the first phonetical pun.

I really enjoy your writing. Keep it up.

I and a GTD fan but I limit the koolaid intake.

I completely agree about emails being a great fall back document in a sticky situation but I've yet to have (RGE - resume generating Event) caused or saved by and email so I don't worry it. Perhaps that will change someday.

And in full disclosure I do keep somethings but I'd estimate that I keep about 3% of all email sent and received.

I sent this post to my CEO last night and he said that he quotes raving fans quite often so I'll be picking this one up.

I'm just doing a small thing over at KnowtheNetwork but I've had some many people that helped me along the way that I'm trying to give back. I really appreciate you taking the time to check me out. I've subcribed to your RSS feed and I truly look forward to the future conversations.

Tsudoh

In a sharepoint environment I think you need MS Office. I've never tested OO with Sharepoint but I'd be surprised if it was usuable.

However I would consider the cost of MS Office as part of the total cost of ownership of Sharepoint instead of solely the Sharepoint sticker price.

Sharepoint is awesome stuff but if MS Office is a necessity I must consider that as the client software costing a couple hundred per. That might effect my initial decision on Sharepoint integration.

In short, I don't. I'm an ardent user of OpenOffice. I am fortunate to have MS Office at my disposal for no cost but I still choose OO. I find the word processor to more intuitive and better at outlines (I'm a big outline guy). My work mail backend is an exchange system so I do have Outlook installed but OWA serves my purposes well so it isn't a deal breaker.

I have a fundamental problem with a office suite costing more than an operating system.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 @ 466.99
Microsoft Windows Vista Business - upgrade license @ $183.99
(CDW Pricing as of 5/12/08)

I estimate that only 10% of Office users are enough of a power user to actually need MS Office. Considering that a Small Business of 15 users could save $6070 if 90% of their users switched to OO I don't think there is much of an argument.

Tsudohnimh
KnowtheNetwork.com

Awesome idea. I assume you recommend the book? Great blog BTW and I dig the disclaimer

"My hope, however, is that you will engage in some level of an intellectual debate in an effort to learn something, teach me something, or simply make the world just a little better..."

Nice

Tsudohnimh
KnowtheNetwork.com

I'm a firm antiEmail archiver and organizer. I obviously keep emails of ongoing projects with clients and some that I just tend to keep but otherwise I ditch it. I clean out my Sent items every 90 days and my Inbox stays empty 60% of the time. I organize email using the 3 folder approach.

1. If I can deal with an email in 1 minute or less I do it immediately and dispense with it. If I can't deal with it in under a minute and it requires action on my part I file it into an ACTION folder.

2. If the email requires a response from someone else or additional info that I'm waiting on it goes to the HOLD folder

3. If I need to keep it, it resides in ARCHIVE

I have 2 suggestions about email archiving that I tell anyone who will listen.

Email is a communication technology not a database. You wouldn't keep your voice mails on your answering machine would you?

Secondly, It might be better not to have it. Unless you are under mandate or compliance law that requires you to keep it then you might appreciate the ability to say we just don't archive email. Sorry

My 2 cents

Tsudohnimh
KnowtheNetwork.com

I might be employed by a Watchguard partner and I must say I complete agree.

Since Vector/Francisco Partners (who owns Barracuda and Bluecoat) bought WG in late 2006 things have really changed for the better in regards to support and products. It took until mid 07 for those changes to become apparent but wow what a difference. It used to take support a couple of hours to return requests and now they average 5-10 minutes. The WG fireware system is dramatically better and version 10 with SSL VPN support is great.

I'm no shill for the organization and I'm the harshest critic of the products I recommend but Watchguard is doing things well.

Written behind a WG firewall.

Tsudohnimh
KnowtheNetwork.com

I've come to rely solely on Google Reader. First, my feeds are note limited to an application sitting on the computer at work, or at home, and syncing opml files... bleck

The new version is slick, easy to read, I'm hooked... adios Pluck

www.tsudohnimh.com/blog

Always has been, always will be