Wendy Gauntt’s Tech Zest

Does your favorite writer or business icon blog? Because a blog gives you an easy way to connect with your idol. I’ve got many friends who’ve used blogs to do just that.

With people you normally can’t reach, or people you don’t already know, you have to get their attention. You could do something wild, crazy, and desperate. Or you can simply read and comment on their blogs. Regularly.

Your comments must be thoughtful, relevant, and insightful. Something more than “thanks for the great post.” Something that makes them think - a change of perspective, a real-life example, a well-reasoned contrarian argument. Whatever. Bloggers need fresh content several times a week, so if you give them new ideas, they are likely to start noticing.

I will admit, I comment on other blogs, but I haven’t deliberately focused on making this kind of connection. While I can speak in front of hundreds of people, I am oddly shy about this. Go figure. But one of these days there will be someone I want to meet, and now I know how to make this happen.

With gas prices on the rise, a home office makes more sense than ever. Do you have the tech tools to work efficiently no matter where you are? Here are four options appropriate for nearly any small business:

Remote Desktop: the simplest solution, a remote-login service like GoToMyPC or Windows Remote Desktop allows you to access your work computer from another location. When you start these services, a window will open that shows the desktop of your work computer. You can run programs, open files, and even print documents as if you were in the office.

GoToMyPC is subscription-based, allowing access from any computer with an internet connection, whereas Remote Desktop is built into most versions of Windows but requires a little more complex set-up.

VPN: VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is a slightly different method of remote connection. It’s ideal for workers with company laptops, giving them mobile access anywhere they have an internet connection. It works by creating a secure, encrypted tunnel through the internet so that you can access resources on your business network. You can open files on network drives, connect to your Exchange server to get email in Outlook, and more. It requires special setup on the PC you use to connect, and you have to have all the software you need installed on that same PC.

Terminal Server: for offices with branch locations that work closely together, a Windows Terminal Server or Citrix environment can work well. These work much like Remote Desktop, above, except everyone logs into a central server where all the software is installed. It’s quick because files remain on the server and don’t have to be downloaded. The only thing sent over the remote connection is a screen image.

Web-Based Software: many companies use hosted software, which runs on a remote server. That means that everyone, whether at home or in the office, is connecting remotely via the web. In this case, no special setup is involved for telecommuting. Web-based email is a common example; even Outlook has a web-based equivalent that you can get hosted remotely. Major software programs like QuickBooks and Act! have online versions meant for collaboration, and online-only CRM vendor Salesforce.com prides itself on eliminating the need for software downloads.

Find the right combination of these services to suit your work habits. Not only do you save money at the pump and commute time in traffic, you gain the freedom to work whenever and however you like.

Everyone’s talking - and blogging - about the latest iPhone. As one of the original owners, there on iDay 2007, how can I resist?

You may be surprised to hear I’m not buying a new phone. GPS would be nice, but the geo-tracking already built in is enough to get me un-lost when needed. The faster Internet? Well, I admit that’s tempting, and ultimately I may upgrade. But a plastic case? Really?

Actually, the best part of iPhone 2.0 isn’t the new phone, it’s the software. Fortunately all iPhone owners get it, not just the newbies. There are plenty of new features, from subtle to amazing, but the single most revolutionary change is open developer access. Programmers are now writing iPhone applications as fast as they can type.

Download new iPhone apps directly to your phone via the iTunes store. Many are free, others cost. Look for a rapidly expanding selection as more and more programmers get involved in iPhone development.

The most useful app I’ve found is the new iPhone version of Jott, a free reminder service I wrote about a while back. It records a voice message but transcribes it to a written note. Perfect for jotting down your to-do list in the car or between meetings.

Many apps tie into social networking, so you can tweet to Twitter throughout the day, locate Facebook friends who are close using GPS, or instantly geo-tag and post new photos to Flickr.

But my very favorite so far is midomi. Have you ever heard a great song and wanted to know the artist? Hold up your iPhone to the radio so midomi can listen. In seconds, you’ll have your answer. Can’t remember a favorite song but you can hum the tune? Sing directly into your phone. Seriously. I’m so fascinated I’ve been singing to my dogs for the past 20 minutes to see if I could stump it. So far it’s gotten every single one right. I’ll be unbeatable next time we play “name that tune” on trivia night!

One last thing…for all you Apple-bashing Microsoft devotees, you can sync with Exchange. Wirelessly. With push technology that rivals the BlackBerry. The iPhone is now officially a player in the business cellular market.

Amazon has a unique service, Mechanical Turk, that they refer to as “artificial artificial intelligence.” The original mechanical turk, back in the 18th century, was a chess-playing machine that eventually turned out to have a real person inside. The secret was kept for years despite rampant speculation.

Amazon’s captured the essential concept on a much larger scale. Their service, providing ways for programs and websites to request human intervention for tasks where humans are simply better equipped to provide answers. These include things like image recognition and language transcription, where computers lack the nuance to do a high-quality job.

One of the many unique applications I’ve seen is a map company that has turk workers draw a line on a small satellite photo to identify exactly where the road lies. Their maps are tremendously accurate and they can make rapid updates thanks to this simple human intervention. Another service uses people to transcribe podcasts. They’ve even set up a second batch of tasks, where workers evaluate the accuracy of the transcriptions. In this way they can to ensure overall quality service to their customer with limited need for oversight. Basically, the oversight is already built into the process.

Tasks are known as “HITs,” which stands for “Human Intelligence Tasks.” Most HITs are quick and simple; pay is generally a few cents each. A few run $1 or more, but not many. Keep in mind this level of wage is more likely to draw third-world workers than domestic.

The absolute most creative use of Mechanical Turk: The Sheep Market, an interactive online art experiment. Hear more directly from artist Aaron Koblin:

Now that you are inspired with a dose of out-of-the-box creativity, what simple, repetitive tasks are required in your business? Do you need your own mechanical turk? Here are a few examples to get you started:

• Online research (trivia, competitors, information-gathering)
• Writing (reviews, website updates, articles, blog comments)
• Photo evaluation (identification, selection, matching)

Find all the details on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk Welcome page.

In the email world, most anti-spam programs use lists as part of their effort to figure out who’s legit and who’s not. A blacklist is the worst and can affect your ability to send email to nearly anyone. A whitelist is maintained by a single person or company, but it says you are approved and can send email to them anytime. A greylist, no surprise, is somewhere in between.

Blacklists are managed by a variety of spam-prevention services. They flag people, websites, and servers that are known spammers. Many anti-spam programs rely on these lists to filter out bad email. If you are caught on one, you will undoubtedly have problems delivering your message. Since different email servers rely on different lists, you may find most email gets through and only a few people have problems. Get on a big enough list – or several lists – and the number of issues will increase.

Even the innocent get blacklisted. For example, a spammer may “spoof” your email, making it appear that you are a spammer even though messages come from a completely different source. If you start getting bounce-back messages as mentioned above, that make it appear you sent large batches of obscene or get-rich-quick emails to people you don’t know, that’s the most likely cause. There’s no way to prevent this; wait a couple of days and it will usually subside.

Another frequent problem arises because small businesses often share email servers via a hosted service. If someone else on your server is a spammer, everyone is in danger of being blacklisted. If this happens, you’ll start getting bounce-back messages with a spam-related error message.

Blacklist removal can be extremely simple or extremely complex – it all depends on the list, but blacklists assume you are guilty until proven innocent.

Greylists are less serious but can be equally frustrating because they are harder to track down. Many large organizations will use these to filter email from senders they haven’t seen before. As long as your message isn’t spam, this will more likely delay your message than completely block it. However, if you need quick response and the email doesn’t arrive for a full day, it creates a significant communications obstacle.

When the delay is a one-time occurrence and your next message gets through, there’s no need to do anything. Keep in mind you may encounter delays with several recipients; it’s only cause for concern if you run into multiple delays with the same person, or even the same company.

If your message never arrives, contact your recipient’s email administrator and request to be added to their whitelist. That’s their list of approved email addresses that always get through.

Not long ago, I wrote about the problems with self-employed basement geeks. What I may not have made clear is how this hits you, the business owner, directly in the pocketbook. This is one of those situations where hourly rate comparisons can be misleading.

Here are some of the true stories we’ve seen and heard…

• Overspent on equipment: we ran into a business owner who spent thousands more on a server than he needed. At first glance, our services appeared far more expensive than his current tech, but the money he wasted on that server could have paid for months of our services. At this point he’s gun-shy around techs and doesn’t trust anyone. Who can blame him?
• Underspent on equipment, overspent on labor: even more often we find clients with a hodge-podge of old equipment that’s expensive to maintain, when a small investment in upgrades would cut labor costs dramatically. We run our business so that it’s in our best interest to tell our clients. Geeks that charge exclusively by the hour may not think this way.
• Software licensing issues: basement geeks are notorious for installing illegal copies of software. Sometimes they charge clients for full copies, sometimes they simply “do a favor” for their client; either can cause expensive problems down the road when software needs to be reinstalled and can’t be found, or illegal copies are reported to regulatory agencies.
• Excessive labor charges: we heard of a company recently who’s been waiting more than two weeks to have a Windows XP computer fixed, and “the guy” has already spent more than 40 hours working on it. That’s just not right, but the owner thinks this guy is brilliant and can do no wrong. Who knows what the final bill will be. All I know is that someone in that relationship is going to get burned, whether they know it or not.
• Extended downtime: what if, due to lack of availability or lack of skill, your business computers are down for a day? What about a week? What’s the cost of all that wasted time? Compare that to the little you’re saving on that cheap basement tech.

You may do fine with the basement geek when you’re first getting started. He may work out well for months, maybe even years. But at some point you’ll almost certainly run into serious problems.

How can I be so sure? It’s not like I think these are bad guys with evil intentions. But time after time, we’ve done cleanup duty for businesses that have been burned. At this point, even the worst horror stories fail to shock us. Don’t let yours be the next one we hear.