Disqus - Latest Comments for indymike

Re: Behavioral Profiling: The password you can't change.

indymike — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 05:30:21 -0000

Paul - how much has keyboard fingerprinting improved in the past two years? My bank kicked one such tool to the curb because it just didn't work well enough and customers demanded they drop it. I seem to remember they rolled it out back in 2009 or so.

Re: A Million Lines of Bad Code – Variance Explained

indymike — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:40:03 -0000

Shaming a 10 year old for not writing at the collegiate level is just being a jerk. Expecting a 10 year old to write at the collegiate level is pretty much crazy.

The point is that code shaming is a bad way to relate with people learning to code, assuming your goal is to have the learner continue to learn.

Re: A glimpse into our future!

indymike — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 12:55:16 -0000

I'd love to discuss how well Chromebooks have performed as I'm on a committee at my kid's school that is writing a five year plan...

Re: A Long, Ugly Year of Depression That’s Finally Fading

indymike — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 07:10:37 -0000

You just did two things that very few leaders ever do: you recognized that the issue was you and then you handed the ship over to someone who could safely navigate. That's huge. That's why Moz is going to be just fine, and you'll be fine too. Also, thanks for all of the tools and insight over the years... they've made a big difference for lots of people.

Re: What early software was influential?

indymike — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:18:28 -0000

A few submissions here:

* Video Toaster (Amiga's killer app) and LightWave 3D really defined the video editor category from early on.
* NeXTStep is really the prototype for almost all modern desktop OSes. What it delivered in 1988 was revolutionary and has been borrowed from liberally by almost everything that has come since. NeXT's 3d beveled GUI was immediately borrowed by everyone. The features enabled by NeXTStep took a lot longer for others to offer.

Some other highly influential tools:

* CorelDraw - while Mac graphics software gets a lot of attention, CorelDraw was the gold standard in early vector drawing software on Windows. It included a built in font editor and was one of the major reasons the number of typefaces exploded when Microsoft introduced TrueType.

* Macromedia Director - Fueled a lot of the interactive CD-ROM industry and in 97, Flash was added making it the default tool for delivering a multimedia experience on the web... even if it was annoying banner ads.

Re: Should PR Representatives Be Allowed To Edit Wikipedia?

indymike — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 10:09:22 -0000

Wikipedia's community is well equipped to deal with posts from PR professionals. If someone posts misinformation, it will eventually, if not immediately be caught by editors/community members. Just be ethical and honest. If you post accurate and well referenced information, it usually sticks.

Wikipedia is a de facto public record on companies and products, so it is irresponsible for PR pros not to manage Wikipedia articles. The hard part for PR pros is to avoid spin, hyperbole and revising history...

Re: Generating leads: 3 effective (and slightly scary) ways to do it » Web Solutions & Digital Marketing » SpinWeb

indymike — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:32:58 -0000

@Aaron Craig - In marketing there are very few absolutes. Where blogging works for one company, it fails for another in the exact same market. Many of the strategies @Michael Reynolds shared in the article work incredibly well for many B2B companies.
Here's an example of a learning center that makes $billions for Google http://www.google.com/adwor....

Everyone from FedEx to IBM runs webinars and sometimes, the only attractions is some expert talking about something that isn't even directly related to the product IBM would like to sell you today.

Blogs? If you don't believe B2B decision makers read blogs, you've been hiding under a rock. Sites like Mashable, TechCrunch, Venturebeat, Lawyerist, and HuffPo might be surprised to learn that business people don't read them. It is possible though that the business people you sell to don't.

I guess it just comes down to doing what works for your company... and keeping an open mind to what might work for you in the future. After all the second rule of marketing is "Do it better next time. "

Re: Why Does Kubuntu Suck?

indymike — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:32:50 -0000

Here's my take:

I use Kubuntu. Because it is Ubuntu's packages with a KDE GUI. This is great because our servers use Ubuntu, so my Linux environment is largely identical to that of the servers. (I tossed MacOS off a Mac because I was getting sick of everything being 3% different from the command line.)

Most of the problems with 11.10 are the same as other KDE distros... Akonadi and Nepomuk are fragile (they work, but easily fail and need time to fix). Calligra / Koffice is included and is more often than not too buggy to be used for serious work. Productivity apps need to work like furniture.

There needs to be a new user welcome app that lets user configure KDE for the way they will work and maybe show them around a little bit. KDE has so much to offer, but people often see it, and assume it is just a windows clone because of the start menu... when in fact it is a lot more. There are some awesome features in plasma that are hidden from end users. Things like the different desktop options, tiling window layouts, dashboards, widgets and and so on.

Also, there are some core KDE technologies that users need to see to understand:

kio slaves - one of KDE's most powerful features is also one of it's best hidden.
file management - again, there needs to be a new user tutorial in Dolphin because of the hidden features (split windows, KIO Slaves, Nepomuk).
Launching programs: K menu and Krunner both are awesome... but Krunner is something people need to discover.

So I guess my gripe is less with Kubuntu and more with KDE's lack of training wheels.

Re: Cracking the Mobile Code | Entrepreneur.com

indymike — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:17:35 -0000

The problem is the overly creative people who have business cards that are a logo, name and QR code with no other text (like, say PHONE NUMBER and EMAIL). What if I do not have my smartphone handy? Business cards where the QR code is the card are incredibly stupid. Put the QR code on the back in a corner or something. QRs are useful for their purpose (making data machine readable), but business cards should first and foremost be HUMAN READABLE.

Re: Indianapolis Social Media: Way More than 46

indymike — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:38:28 -0000

Well, this explains why I've had to unfollow so many otherwise interesting Indianapolis tweeps... most of who went from their usual interesting stuff to " @fakeprofile you can get a great hamburger in #Indy at ____ #sb #superbowl" and "I iz in da SOCIAL MEDIA COMMAND CENTER! w000000t!" (except in typical whitebread chain restaurant Indianapolis style). Guess I'll have to follow everyone again after the Superbowl leaves town.

Re: I’d Rather Be Fat…

indymike — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:56:25 -0000

@google-506d9ea43c07526116dfea9955b5f380 - The funny thing is that Todd has been doing what he is doing for a very, very long time. The one question I have for Todd is: "Is it working?" I suspect it is because the guy has been spamming it up for at least three years... So instead of assuming that I know best, I'm just going to sit back and wait until I meet the guy and ask him how his strategy is working, how many people he's getting into his fitness programs, what tools he's using and so on. It would be interesting to see what his effort is generating.
@robbyslaughter - Totally agree.

Re: Does Your Organic Rank Matter?

indymike — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:52:08 -0000

Doug, your last bit of advice, chase traffic, not rankings is exactly what most people do not get. Sometimes I think it is because rankings are easy, traffic is hard and conversions, be it ad clicks, leads or sales is even harder.

Re: Life on the Command Line

indymike — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:08:00 -0000

In the context of one "who lives on the command line" (what this post is about), it seems off topic to discuss what a graphic artist who doesn't use the command line can do.

Re: Life on the Command Line

indymike — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 19:21:56 -0000

Sep332 - Most command line mail readers rely on a Mail Transport Agent (MTA) to move messages. The MTA typically runs all the time or is run periodically using a tool like cron.

Re: Life on the Command Line

indymike — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 19:17:51 -0000

Erez -

I have a hard time believing mouse movement (especially starting with both hands on the keyboard) can be done in the time it takes to type mutt<cr>.

Second, most CLI mail readers count on your mail transport moving messages. In my case, fetchmail grabs my email from my 20 or so email boxes every 10 minutes, so messages are prepositioned for the mail reader. This makes the reader appear to be blazing fast in comparison to connecting via IMAP or POP3.

Finally, editing takes about the same time, CLI vs. GUI, and sending will depend on how the message is sent. Personally, I find graphical editors to be more useful as I think rich text communicates better than plain text, but for most messages, plaintext is adequate.

Re: UI revolutions: from flashing bulbs to Windows 8

indymike — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:57:58 -0000

I'm not sure that Microsoft's tile UI model will win the future as has already lost in the market (as Windows Phone) against two other GUI models: Android and iPhone.

Also, the omission of the Web's impact on GUI design is probably is more glaring than leaving out NeXT. The web has been an amazing laboratory to test new GUI ideas.

Re: Why I’m Having Second Thoughts About The Wisdom Of The Cloud

indymike — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:59:51 -0000

Until now, countries have been divided by geographic borders, and hold power over the people that live there under some sort of implied social contract. Since war fighting has evolved to make holding territory nearly obsolete, it goes that eventually nations will emerge that simply are defined by the citizens who are part of the nation. I'm not sure I'll ever see this in my lifetime, but it would make for excellent science fiction.

Re: Open languages are not required

indymike — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:03:11 -0000

The whole premise of this article is "we should scrap free access to interstate highways and replace them with the private toll roads of the past." The rise of open languages (and I'd toss C and C++ in as open thanks to the GNU compilers) means that companies and developers no longer are taxed by paying for development tools or paying runtime license fees.

That said, proprietary environments that deliver real value or enable developers to do things they can't with free solutions will always have a market willing to pay. The question for Java, and I'm not sure of the answer, is, is it worth it?

Re: Social Media is Mainstream in Indiana

indymike — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:56:32 -0000

Kirk - Good catch on the date of the call. The method on the survey was email to a list of 17,400 email addresses. The margin of error was 2.4% based on 312 responses. As always with email polls, there is the possibility of self-selection bias - and in this case the opinions of Hoosier business people who do not use the internet at all could not be reached. Then again, I don't think that polling people who don't use the Internet is very relevant due to the small size of that population and, frankly, use of social media assumes use of the Internet.

Re: Social Media is Mainstream in Indiana

indymike — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:09:38 -0000

Kirk - Thanks! Glad the survey helps. Seems like there's lots of hype out there and few facts.

Re: Facebook and LinkedIn Dominate Indiana

indymike — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:13:20 -0000

I suspect the level of engagement will decrease as the network increases in size, be even so, 1.8 million is a huge number versus 38K.

Re: Join us for Thursday's Networking Blitz Teleconference

indymike — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:53:15 -0000

Shelly - If you want to see the schedule for upcoming Blitz calls, you can find them at http://www.blitztime.com/gr...

Re: Indiana Social Network List

indymike — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:33:59 -0000

@KathTK - I've made the correction

Re: Indiana Open Networker List for August

indymike — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:27:33 -0000

BTW - This is a great way to pick up 50-100 new connections in Indiana per month. On LinkedIn, it's important to have a few (at least 100-200) connections because you can find more people, jobs, questions and other opportunities.

Re: Poll results: 7 reasons why 69% of users think Twitter will go mainstream (Part 1)

indymike — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:01:28 -0000

Every point here is a good one. Twitter is the real deal as far as social media goes. The only real question is, "How big can Twitter get?" We will all get to see, and I'm sure it will be huge.