Blogs

Ready for a gas shortage? You better be

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There was a lot of tech news this week and I could have easily spent hours blogging on dozens of topics, but I didn’t. Instead, I spent much of my time focused on one specific issue: the Charlotte gas shortage.

The gas shortage after hurricane Ike affected much of the Southeast, including the city I live in. It was the talk of the town all week and local TV stations spent much of their air time absorbed in it. One by one, stations ran out of gas and long lines formed around the stations that still had it or were expecting a delivery of gas at any moment.

I was directly affected by the shortage myself. Low on fuel, I sat in line for two hours waiting to fill my tank. I was one of the fortunate. A lot of others sat in line for 24 hours or more, waiting for gas just so they could drive home.

It hurt my business, too. The day before I filled my tank, I had to plan my onsite trips carefully to maximize the fuel I did have. I had to cancel or reschedule appointments simply because I didn’t have enough gas to get there and back. I received a number of contract jobs this week, however I turned them all down. Most of them didn’t pay enouqh to make it worth burning the gas I had to make the trip. It wasn’t the cost of fuel, however, that kept me from accepting the work. There simply wasn’t enough gas available around town to warrant the trip for the amount of the work order. It just wasn’t worth the trip to spend half of it looking for gas. I had more important things to save the gas for.

Today the mayor of Charlotte assured us that relief was on the way. The pipeline which had been shut down due to power loss was back in operation and a huge shipment of gas was on the way via that pipeline and tankers. He promised we would have plenty of gas within the next day or so.

That hasn’t stopped me from rethinking my own operation. It has given me pause to think about Next Time.

Yes, there will be a Next Time. I remember the energy crisis of the 70’s and experiencing the long gas lines then. I remember the flared tempers and violence that erupted in the lines of cars waiting for gas. I remember the rationing. I also remember incidents of gas siphoning and theft, even in broad daylight and the run on a new item called a locking gas cap for the car. I had one of those locking gas caps on my car; even after the gas crisis was over it was years before I finally went without one.

Three and a half decades later, it is happening all over again. Perhaps not everywhere, but it is happening nonetheless. It happened once. It happened twice. It will happen again.

What will you do when it happens? Do you have a plan for your business? Do you have a strategy to work through the next crisis to minimize the impact on your business? Some of us do remote support as well, and to a point, we can work around such obstacles. But some you work strictly onsite or at your shop. How will the next gas shortage affect your business?

It isn’t a matter of if it will happen, but when. Are you ready? Do you have a plan? Or will you wait until it happens before you decide to formulate one? You may think I am being too melodramatic, but think about it. With the volatile markets, current banking crisis, the falling dollar, rising cost of oil and unstable conditions in oil producing countries whose supply we depend on, it wouldn’t take but one small incident to create another oil crisis.

Those of us whose businesses rely on getting to and from the job are but one gas shortage away from jeopardizing our livelihoods.  Be prepared. You have been warned.

 

 

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IT jobs are for H-1B, others need not apply

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Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about how well the IT industry is doing in spite of overall economic conditions. We’ve been told also been told about an increasing demand for IT workers and professionals and how this demand is likely to increase during the coming years.

Large IT companies continue to complain that there just aren’t enough qualified IT professionals to fill the available positions and continue to lobby Congress in support of raising the cap on H-1B visas in order to hire foreign workers to take up the slack.

However, IT pros insist there is no shortage. They claim that there are plenty of qualified workers in the U.S. that can fill those positions but the industry is passing them up for foreign labor simply because it is cheaper. They contend that companies are lying about an IT shortage and lock out American workers by flooding the market with H-1B employees simply to pad the bottom line.

Bill Gates has told Congress that American companies need more H-1B workers. Apparently Mr. Gates feels there is a shortage of talent native to American soil in areas such as programming. Other companies agree. Yet there is a growing number of fully talented and capable American programmers and other IT professionals out of a job and looking for work. Some of them have been unemployed for years. How can that be?

Perhaps it isn’t just talent these companies are after. According to studies H-1B workers are paid about 15-30% less than American workers.  That is an attractive proposition for any company. Perhaps it is enough to falsify a shortage.

During the past year I did a little investigation of my own. I found a plethora of IT related jobs posted on company web sites, in publications and on job boards. No doubt about it, the jobs are there, but what about the applicants?

I submitted my resume for a few positions and when I followed up on my applications, what I found was very interesting. The companies were bombarded with hundreds of resumes for a single position and many used automated processes to narrow down the prospects. Many of these applicants are fully qualified for the position and it is necessary to eliminate them based on other factors such as availability and proximity to the employer. Shortage? What shortage? It just doesn’t add up.

Recently I read a CNet NewsBlog that reported on a consulting company in Pittsburgh that was accused of favoring H-1B visa applicants in job postings and fined $45,000 by the government. That could be a decent year’s salary for one entry level job applicant that didn’t get a job. Instead, it now goes to the feds.

Perhaps I should quit IT and work for the government.

 

 

Consulting

 

 

Microsoft debuts first Seinfeld ad – What’s up with that?

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Microsoft debuted the first in a series of TV spots starring Jerry Seinfeld Thursday night – to overwhelmingly negative reviews.

The ad, a long one-and-a-half minute commercial that aired on NBC during the NFL season kick-off, features Seinfeld at a shoe store helping Bill Gates buy a new pair of shoes. The ad was the first of a series of commercials to star Seinfeld and Gates at a cost of  $300 million. Seinfeld was purportedly paid $10 million for his part.

 
 

According to Microsoft, the commercials are designed as a viral marketing campaign to change Microsoft’s image from an old, stodgy dinosaur into that of a younger, hipper company like Apple. The question is, can they do it?

Initial response to the first ad was overwhelmingly negative. Reviews from news organizations on the Internet and reaction throughout the blogosphere blasted the ad as an unfunny pitch about nothing and suggested that Microsoft has already lost this one right out of the gate. Perhaps they have. Then again, perhaps we were all set up and the ad was actually an overwhelming success.

A lot of critics who posted negative reviews of the ad would probably call me a nut case for suggesting such a thing and anyone who saw the ad could certainly understand why. Even Microsoft fanboys are blasting the ad, calling it everything from dull to dimwitted. Sure, I was not impressed with it either, but I also noticed the ad had more than one layer to it, contained some obvious metaphors, and actually attempted to be coy. I also picked up on the term ‘viral marketing’ that is used to describe the intent of the entire campaign. I suspect that something else is going on here and both traditional and new media types are being played.

The key to this is “‘viral marketing “.

To understand what I am trying to say, it is important to understand what viral marketing is. The term itself is somewhat new, having been coined circa 1996 and attributed to author and Harvard professor Jeffrey Rayport in an article for Fast Company, according to Wikipedia .The concept centers around the use of social networking and word-of-mouth campaigns to sell products and services and to create brand awareness. It is a type of stealth marketing that sells by popular suggestion and referral as apposed to a direct sales pitch and is considered to be more effective in some venues, particularly on the Internet.

Consider this. Microsoft generated a lot of industry buzz during the last few weeks when it first announced the campaign. They told us what they were going to do, who they signed on to do it and how much it would ultimately cost. They built up great (although skeptical) expectations, speculation and a lot of hype, most of which was actually created not by Redmond itself, but by the news media and bloggers.

Then came the debut and the let down. People heard the name Seinfeld. We heard $300 million. We heard Microsoft. We expected a lavish production , a great performance (from Seinfeld, not Gates) and  most of all, we expected it to be entertaining and funny. Our expectations, although full of scepticism,  were high. Then it aired. It was not exactly what people were expecting.

Of course, the reaction was immediate. The Microsoft fans were disappointed and angry. The Microsoft detractors had more fodder to feed upon. The net was alive with the cacophony that ensued.

Okay, the concensus is that the ad was a bust. Was it?

Think about this. What if the ad had been really, really good? What if it was in-your-face funny and the message was spot-on? Would it have had as much coverage the day after? Would people be talking about it as much as they are now? Even if it was a hilarious one-and-a-half minute stand up routine, chances are it would all be forgotten by now. The old saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity still holds true.

Remember, the word for today is ‘viral marketing’.  Good or bad, this was the overall intent of the campaign, was it not? The mainsteam media is mainstreaming it. The Bloggers are blogging about it. Podcasters are podcasting it. The buzz is everywhere.

It may not have been what people were expecting, or even what they wanted to watch. But from a viral marketing perspective, it was certainly not a bust. Au Contraire, it was very effective. It got noticed. That, I believe, was the real hook. Redmond played and manipulated the mainstream media and the bloggers and they hardly even noticed it. Good or bad, I think Microsoft definitely got their money’s worth on that one.

 

 

Free Microsoft Mobile Business Resource Kit

Microsoft and IE: losing browser market share or just losing it?

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Microsoft announced the release of Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 this week. The new version brings the promise of a new era in online productivity and W3C compliant web browsing. However, the second beta, which supposedly is an improvement on the first, also came a couple of caveats.

First, if you have Windows XP SP3, in order to install IE8 Beta 2, you must first uninstall beta 1. In order to uninstall beta 1, you must first uninstall SP3, remove beta 1 and reinstall SP3. If you install beta 2 with Windows XP SP3, you won’t be able to uninstall either the service pack or the browser. According to a statement posted on the IEBlog by Microsoft Program Manager Jane Maliouta,  the installation becomes permanent. You can upgrade to later builds of IE 8 but you won’t be able to remove the browser or SP3.

Second, as listed in the release notes, Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 has known compatibility issues with numerous applications, both third-party and Microsoft. Apparently some of these issues existed in the first beta as well, including a major incompatibility with one of Microsoft’s own applications, Visual Studio .NET 7.

When software reaches beta it is usually theoretically in a state where major bugs are addressed and the software is only a step or two away from production. When the software is in beta, it usually means it is ready for usability testing in a real-world environment. Normally a browser application wouldn’t necessarily need such serious scrutiny for compatibility with other independent applications. But this is IE, which, once installed, becomes embedded with Windows.

The inability to be uninstalled in its native OS without practically reinstalling the OS itself (once SP3 is installed it becomes part of the OS) and the issues it has with at least two of Microsoft’s own applications are serious issues. Many software companies would consider such major bugs as software still in alpha, not beta and would take the time to fix them. Mozilla is one example of a company that does this.

The fact that Microsoft was fully aware of these issues when it was in beta 1 and still released them in beta 2 instead of addressing them first tells me that they are rushing to release instead of ensuring stability for beta testing.

Remember, this is the second beta. Theoretically the second beta addresses the bugs found by testers of the first beta. Yet these major bugs purportedly exist in beta 2 as well.  What other bugs were not fixed? Ask other beta testers if they want to waste their time logging the same bugs in beta 2 they logged in beta 1. Given this scenario from their point of view, how productive is that?

So, if IE8 beta has so many issues, why even beta test it? I mean, after all, this is a mega giant software company, the largest and most powerful software company in the world. They created this thing called IE8. It’s their little monster. They can essentially write the code to  make it do what they want.

Are they that lazy that it is just easier to release it with a disclaimer than to just make it work right to begin with? Or are they in such a hurry to get it to market and stop the leak in market share to Firefox that they just don’t have the time to bother with it?

It may be a little of both, however I contend it is the latter. Given their rush to market with Vista I surmise this is becoming their modus operandi. Apparently they didn’t learn anything from the Vista launch.

Microsoft is losing market share in the browser arena, confidence in the operating system market, trust among the developers and credibility overall.

In other words, I think Microsoft is losing it.

 

 

Sitepoint

 

Astronauts discover malware in space

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Think you can escape the evil of malware infestations by leaving the planet? Think again. Malware can be found anywhere now, even in space.

Computerworld posted an article today revealing that astronauts on board the International Space Station discovered it on one of their laptops, and according to NASA, apparently it is not the first time.

The malware was allegedly identified as W32.Gammima.AG by SpaceRef.com. it was discovered by Russian astronaut Sergey Volkov last month. Volkov was scanning flash cards for viruses on a Russian laptop when the worm was found. According to the International Space Station Daily Report for Friday August 22, NASA reported the space agency uploaded Norton AntiVirus to the space station the day before to install on the laptop and remove the malware. “All A31p laptops onboard are currently being loaded with latest NAV software and updated definition files for increased protection”, NASA said in the report.

Of course, the worm didn’t originate off-world, it was carried up there, but that makes it all the scarier. The simple truth is that when it comes to avoiding badware, there really is no escape. 

There is a lot more we can say about it all, but the only thing I really want to know is this. Why Norton? Surely NASA could do better than that. No wonder we haven’t sent a man to Mars yet. I know NASA is on a budget and they are not exactly in the anti-malware business, but Norton? Sheesh. I hope it wasn’t the trial version.

Then again, if they are using Norton, that means they are also probably using Windows. Hmm.

On second thought, Is this something we really want to know?

 

 

Myfax Free Trial

 

 

Judge says cell phone early termination fees illegal

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Californians may get a break from their cell phone companies – a big one. Late last month Judge Bonnie Sabraw, a Superior Court Judge in Alameda County, ruled that cell phone carriers that charged customers early termination fees for canceling their contracts did so in violation of state law.

In a class action lawsuit against Sprint Nextel that challenged the charging of early termination fees on contracts, the judge rules that the practice was against the law and ordered the company to pay over $18 million to Sprint customers in California. 

Of course, Sprint plans to appeal the ruling but if it stands, it could be the beginning of a nationwide consumer revolt. There are other such lawsuits across the country that challenge the fees and this ruling, while only a preliminary one, invites more of the same.

Cell companies do not like this at all. In fact, they are heavily lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to regulate the fee and protect cell phone carriers from future lawsuits. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has already publicly proposed an initiative to prorate the fees during the period of the service contract.

Sprint Nextel claims the charges are reasonable and necessary to offset the cost of the cell phones offered in contract, which they maintain are sold to users below cost. However, the popular opinion among cell phone users and apparently, that of the judge herself, is that the fees are in place to discourage users from dropping the service and switching to another carrier.

I despise cell phone service contracts and I think they are very bad for consumers. If you are stuck with a carrier that doesn’t deliver services to your satisfaction, you are stuck. I wouldn’t mind paying more for a cell phone if it would mean I am a free agent and can fire the company and hire another one to serve me anytime I want without penalty.

This is also why I don’t own an iPhone. When I purchase a cell phone – or any tangible product –  I want the freedom to choose when and how it will used. I don’t like to be told to pay a premium for a mobile device and told who my carrier will be. I don’t appreciate being locked into a contract at overpriced rates just to have a pretty phone. If I like the phone but I don’t like the service, I want to be able to switch to a service that I feel serves my needs. If I can’t, the phone isn’t worth the money that created it.

If the sole reason for early cancellation fees is to offset the cost of the phone, there’s a simple solution: sell the phone for what it’s worth and ditch the fees. So, what If you BYOP (Bring Your Own Phone) and order service? Are you offered open monthly service or a contract without cancellation fees? Apparently not, or at least not that I could locate when I searched the Sprint Nextel web site.

I did find one thing. Included in their Terms and Conditions,  which is located behind links buried within the individual service plans listed on their site, is a clause stating that by signing the agreement, Sprint Nextel customers waive the right to pursue or join a class action lawsuit.

Cuil search has potential but needs work

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I am all for competition by creating new and innovative ways to perform common and standard tasks. Given the current state of the search industry with few serious contenders, the prospect of one major player partnering with the other one in specific areas and the possibility of that search engine’s sale to another, the announcement of a new guy on the block is a big deal. So, when news broke of the launch of a new search engine called Cuil with the potential to stand with the likes of Google and Yahoo I was there, ready to give it a go.

Of course, I was a little skeptical at the news but put my preconceived notions aside to give it a fair shake. For all I knew it could be everything it was hyped to be and more. The only way to find out was to try it for myself, which I did.

After playing around with this new search tool my first impression is rather mixed. I can’t say that I am disappointed but I can understand why a lot of others are. Disappointed is a strong word for me in this case; it denotes an attitude of final judgement that I do not want to convey. I prefer to say that it has potential. I think it does, although it will take time and tweaking to get there.

It looks different, no doubt about that. Like many others who have opined on the net, I was a little put off and disoriented by the layout of the search results. We are all generally accustomed to lists of links and content clips that are easy to scan and scroll from top to bottom, with those deemed by the search engine as most relevant listed on top. The results of a typical search on Cuil are spread across the page in a combination of titles, descriptions and pictures that at first glance (and for me continuously, if I stare at the page for awhile trying to sort out the sort order) appears to have little or no hierarchy in terms of search relevance.

I suppose one could get used to it over time and in an odd way it does seem more aesthetic, however if there is a logical order or relevance to the search results I just didn’t see it on the searches I did. In fact, I looked at eighteen pages of one set of search results that had over a million hits and found that many of them were nearly complete duplicates of previous pages, which was very confusing and more than a little annoying. The redundant listings of entire pages was a time waster for me, especially given the fact that each page was somewhat slow to load. I ended the search with the notion that if it wasn’t on the first two or three pages, it wasn’t worth checking further.

Of course, the very first search I tried was The Force Field. Type The Force Field in Google and the web site www.theforcefield.net is usually at the top of the search results. Type it in Yahoo and you get the same. Search it in Dogpile and it is in the top four. Cuil ? Not even directly listed.

Now, it’s only been around for a couple of days and it takes time for search bots to scour billions of pages on the web, so I didn’t exactly expect Cuil to list it in the top ten. But the hype was that Cuil was already the largest repository of indexed pages on the net, claiming to be much larger than Google. So I expected at least one page from The Force Field dot Net to be listed in the search results. I searched through numerous pages in the returns and it wasn’t there. Yet several other sites that were generally lower on a Google or Yahoo search were listed right there on the first page of listings in a Cuil search.

Now, there were listings for other sites that referenced or linked to The Force Field and The Force Field podcast, quite a few, in fact. There was just no direct listing for the home page of the site itself.

Okay, they didn’t list The Force Field. Hey, it’s not as if we’re a big company like Microsoft , is it? Well, it might as well be, because during another search session I typed in Microsoft. Guess what?  There were numerous third party references to Microsoft and Microsoft products but a link to their home page, which I would expect to show at the top of the first page, wasn’t the first item displayed, as I would have expected. The links to the website were there but some of the titles didn’t seem to match the search query. Mixed in were seemingly irrelevant entries to other sites with no apparent relation to Microsoft. I mean, this is Microsoft, one of the most universal household names and one of the most high profile web sites in the world. Just another listing on a targeted search? Now, that just isn’t natural.

But that was only a minor bug for me. The real annoyance was not the listings themselves but the other items attached to them – the pictures.

For every search I did, the results returned included site links accompanied by pictures that were completely unrelated to the sites. For instance, I did a search for The Force Field in search of a link to www.theforcefield.net and the same pictures kept cycling through on the listings. None of them were related to The Force Field podcast or the web portal. Few of them were actually related to the sites they linked to.

I then ran a search for The Force Field podcast. This time there were a few hits for the show, but again, the same unrelated pictures, none of which were actually connected to the show, the site or the sites that referenced or linked them. This was just plain weird. The concept of a more graphical search is nice, however it is somewhat confusing and a bit annoying when the pictures don’t actually represent the page listed or anything remotely connected to it.

Now, my initial foray into Cuil was not at all scientific nor was it organized. I was just another user searching the web. But then, isn’t that a real world scenario for using a search engine? If searches like mine are normal, what can we normally expect based on the results I experienced?

I know I sound too critical and it isn’t my intention. I am just reporting my first impressions of Cuil. Overall I like the concept and the layout of the site is something that, while unconventional for me, is something I could probably become accustomed to and possibly prefer over traditional formats in time. However, I do think it needs some work and a lot more tweaking to get it to the point where it becomes a serious contender for the search market. It’s a great concept, I just don’t think it’s there yet. Before we pass judgement on it, we need to give it some time.

This is an ambitious project and I wish it success.

Have you tried Cuil? Have you had a similar experience with it or do you get completely different (good or bad) results? What do you think?

Yahoo releases the Zimbra Desktop

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    A while back I wrote an article about an open source alternative to Exchange called Zimbra. Zimbra was acquired by Yahoo recently and it appears that Yahoo is continuing to develop this product. Yahoo released the Yahoo Zimbra Desktop today as a free download. (Be aware, it's rather large.)

    This email/productivity software works in the off-line mode and also has available options for word processing, spreadsheets, task management, and more. The desktop runs as a stand-alone application and uses JAVA to store data locally. Google has been working on something similar, built on the open source “Gears” project, but has yet to release anything.

    The Zimbra Desktop does not run in a browser, it's more like Outlook. A nice feature is that it functions so much like Outlook that even the keyboard shortcuts you're used to using with Outlook will work within the Zimbra application. A few “gotchas” remain though, most notably that it doesn't sync with your contacts/calendar (you have to do a manual export/import) and the IMAP folder sync seems to be a bit funky.

    All in all, it's not a bad first attempt. Take a look at it if you're contemplating an alternative to Outlook. Just keep your fingers crossed that a Microsoft Yahoo buyout doesn't happen; the Zimbra suite is a major competitor to Exchange and we know what would happen to Zimbra if a deal goes through.

 

With Yahoo, it is all or nothing and bad for us

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IDG News Service reports that Yahoo has rejected Microsoft’s latest bid proposal. The reason? Yahoo wants to sell out completely – or not at all. If Microsoft buys that, it is bad news for consumers.

 For those who have been off-world during the last few months, Microsoft has been in on-again, off-again negotiations with Yahoo to purchase all or part of the search company. In what seemed like a done deal, Microsoft initially offered purportedly more for the stock than it was actually worth and Yahoo upped the price even further at $33 a share, more than realistic and certainly more then Microsoft was willing to pay. Yahoo did everything it could to resist – even to the the point of making a back-door deal with its rival Google that raised everyone’s eyebrows and could command the attention of the SEC.

Microsoft then walked away from the bargaining table and vowed never to return. But wait, barely a week later they were back, at first  behind the back alley, then through the front door, asking to buy only specific portions of the company.

Now Yahoo is doing an about-face, largely thanks to shareholder Carl Icahn and his followers on the Yahoo Board of Directors who actually want to sell to Microsoft  for that big Yahoo! shareholder payoff in the sky. Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock still opposes the idea altogether but Ballmer and Icahn are really twisting his arms. Faced with the prospect of being replaced with MS-Icahn puppets, Bostock and company apparently are desperate and are now willing to talk whole bean.

Friday evening Microsoft sent Yahoo an enticing offer for a partial purchase with a 24 hour deadline. Saturday Yahoo responded with a firm rejection. They won’t just sell part of the company, they want to sell it all.

Icahn is clearly an opportunist here and is thinking of his shares. Microsoft, of course, is thinking about, well, Microsoft. No one is thinking about what this would mean for the industry overall, and most importantly, the customer.

The Microsoft-Yahoo deal is the talk of the media. There are many who think Microsoft Yahoo would be a great combination and would prevent a monopoly that Google is threatening to become. Yet, despite the fact that Google and Search are nearly synonymous, there are other choices out there, for now.

 While Microsoft’s current search product is hardly worth mentioning, it is still one more competitor to offer users choice in the marketplace. Once they purchase Yahoo (and I think it is only a matter of when, not if) Microsoft and Google will have the combined market share to render all other search engines essentially nonexistent. The two Super Searches  will also have the eventual power to possibly do the same for online advertising, SEO and other marketing venues.

Then there is the question of web applications.

What will happen to consumer choice once a majority of them are owned by two mega giant web companies? Who will control the SaaS market? Who will control access to free or Open Source web apps?

A few months ago our own Todd Hughes blogged about the dangers of a Microsoft-Yahoo deal for Zimbra. Zimbra is an OS application developed by Yahoo and is the only serious Linux alternative for Microsoft Outlook and Exchange. Microsoft has insisted that their primary interest in Yahoo is for the search engine. However, if Microsoft buys Yahoo – all of it – they will then own Zimbra.

Microsoft is not a fan of Open Source. Although they have recently made overtures to the contrary (mostly to help them push OOXML through the ISO fast track to become an Open Standard and for other personal gain) they have also made it clear that they are an enemy of the Open Source movement and seek to control or destroy it on several fronts.

When Microsoft buys Yahoo and has Zimbra, what will they do with it? What will they do with other open source code in Yahoo’s portfolio? What will they do with the patents? They can say anything to appease the public. The question is, given their history of aggression against the Open Source movement and their anti-competitive practices in general, do you trust them?

I don’t. That is why I think this deal, while great for Icahn and Microsoft, is very bad for us.

Contributors needed for new TechiWiki Project

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As you all know, The Force Field podcast and web portal cover the business side of running a tech business. But the business side isn’t all there is to running one. There is the tech side, too.

Those who know me and listen to The Force Field know that I have discussed the pros and cons of being a “MacGyvertech” in our computer business. Although I have sometimes talked about the advantages of specializing in a certain area instead of trying to be everything, there are times when all of us need to be that “MacGyvertech”.

I myself was nicknamed “MacGyver” when I worked at WRBW-TV in the mid 90’s for finding ways to patch things together and make it work.I realized since then that no matter how much you want to specialize there is always that situation where you do need to do it all yourself.

During the last few months I’ve been working on another project to complement The Force Field and open up to a larger audience. The new project is designed to be community driven depends on the collective knowledge and experience of techs everywhere. This project is very large in scope and it greater than I alone can handle. I need your help.

To all members of The Force Field: I am actively seeking submissions and contributions of content for a new sister site now in beta. The site has a main portal and forums, much like The Force Field. The main area of the site, however is much different and exists on community managed content. In particular, tech related, how-to content.

It is a TechiWiki .

This is intended as a comprehensive database of picks, tips, tricks and techniques for everything tech. The concept is to provide an instant resource for techs, partiularly those in the field, who need a fix in a pinch, without having to call around to their buddies, slogging through hundreds of tech forums or googling through thousands of listings for an answer.

I am calling on members of The Force Field and techs everywhere to contribute to the wiki and make it worki for all of us.

To participate, go to http://www.macgyvertech.com and join the forums or the wiki.

Thanks!

Rick