Not Your Typical IT Guys

So I’m always talking to friends of mine about the fun new tools(toys) I use and I always here “WHY ARE YOU HOLDING OUT ON ME!”  The reality is I can’t be cooler than everyone else if I tell you all how to be cool.  Haha, JK!

Anyway, now I can figure out next time I hear that comment, who isn’t reading our blog… because here you go:

Xobni – the best inbox search tool ever!  Here’s a quick example, receive email from a colleague, notice a name in that colleague’s network of people.  Name is someone I have been trying to get their attention, I now have my way in.  Its an interactive LinkedIn without the formality.   This is only a small snippet of its value.

Google Maps on your phone – seriously, your phone is useless without this.  Not only does it show you maps, but it routes directions for you, searches company names in the context of your location, dials companies for you, integrates with your contacts and shows you traffic.

Picasa - from Google (surprise surprise) the best tool for managing your pictures and sharing them.  It is 1000 times faster than your Kodak, Canon, Olympus software, can make cool collages, plus the web albums.  Free 1 GB of storage online and your friends can download the full resolution photos for free.  Plus the online albums have face recognition for tagging photos.

There is more but this should keep you busy for awhile….

I was reading a recent post from Dave McClure at CPATechViews titled, “The Hardware Side of Document Management.”  In it he accurately discusses many of the overlooked aspects of becoming a “paperless office.”  In addition, I think it important to note that while the hardware is very important it really doesn’t make a bit of a difference if the paperless initiative is not properly adopted organization wide. 

Oh and before I continue; Dave, I was fortunate enough in the past to work with GoFileRoom, who of all vendors I have worked with, walk their clients through the paperless project all the way down to the scanners.  Moving on…

I’ll give you an example of the misalignment related to going paperless.  How many businesses say they want to go paperless to save trees, go green??  Noble thought right?!  The reality… if not don’t right plan to spend twice as much on paper, printers and shred service than you do right now.  Here’s the scenario,

Client,  “I have a question on page 4 of my corp tax return”Â
Accountant, “OK, let me pull it up and please excuse me for a moment while I pull all 85 pages off the printer”

Those 85 pages then go to the shred box.  I know, hard to believe, right?  NOT!  I see and live it every day.  People go paperless with the best of intentions and while they eventually see the fruits of its investment they frequently don’t save many trees in the process nor realize all of the benefits.

How many people do you know that print emails they want to keep?  Or even better, print an email, to then scan it so that they can save it?  Or, print a document so they can fax it?  Please share your observations, its impossible to predict all the ways people will or will not use technology!

Paperless can be everything everyone wants it to be, but only IF executed properly.  Otherwise, I can refer you to a great paper and shred company  :)

OK, so Daniel’s love for Windows 7 has motivated me to make the leap. Honestly I wasn’t entirely upset with Vista but apparently the beefs that I did have seem to have been addressed in 7 so…what the heck!

I backed up my full system and got ready to install 7 and realized…hmmm, maybe I can just upgrade my system and sure enough there is an upgrade path.  Of course prior history of Microsoft Operating Systems clearly tells me I should wipe it clean and do a fresh install.  But hey I’m already jumping so why not get really cRaZy! I’m going to do the upgrade.

Before performing the upgrade I received  a report to tell me the applications that were going to break with the upgrade.  It listed 4.  Two of whom I downloaded the beta versions for Windows 7 and two that I really could care less about.  The one application it failed to notify me about was SecondLife… hopefully there will be a beta viewer out soon for that.

It took about 3 hours to run but well worth it.  Windows 7 so far is outstanding.  My CPU runs significantly cooler (which means no more humming fan constantly running), the memory utilization is not even coming close to the normal 80% of 4GB that Vista was using, and the Sleep function is far superior to any of its predecessors. Here are the other positives for PC:

• The new functionality of the Task Bar and Peaking of applications is very nice
• Overall application responsiveness is smooth
• The sidebar has now become just Gadgets, which don’t seem to be the resource hog they once were
• MS Search is much cleaner and more responsive
• Navigating folders is cleaner
• The Start Menu has some actual useful enhancements to it

And so far I have yet to find any downsides to performing the upgrade.  Of course one benefit I have, the applications that I really need all live in the HSI cloud and are free from concern of Windows 7 upgrades.  So for me, Life with Windows 7 is good!