Greeting card from Paris?

Posted: 4:12 pm
August 14, 2008
ExchangeDefender
3 Comments

262218~Paris-Hilton-Posters While Tim is still trying to figure out how to integrate ExchangeDefender into his company, I’m feeling good knowing that some of the policies we have established a long time ago are finally starting to be used by the spammers. It’s one of the things we do here very often – if we were to SPAM the world, what would we do? (then we sit down and find the ways to crush it)

One of the things we integrated years ago covered the topic of extension masking, in the scam similar to the one outlined on Tim Barret’s blog. Basically, the spammer either attaches or links in a dangerous attachment that doesn’t look too dangerous. It’s all done by masking the extension to get by the user. For example:

This is a text file:
Vlad is great.txt

This is an executable:
Vlad is great.txt.exe

This is an executable that idiot users click on:
Vlad is great.txt                                     .exe

So a few years ago we integrated two checks – first, does the extension get masked by another extension and second, does the attachment or link include an excessive amount of spaces in it. If it does – poof.

paris

Now.. That’s hot!

This strain by the way has been going on for weeks now and we’ve locked down over 75,000 hosts for spraying it across the Internet. This one shows a familiar Youtube shell but links to a random web site with the virus linked on it with a masked extension.

Also of note, question came up: Why do these viruses always get spread by random web sites on the Net??? Well, because those web sites got 0wn3d. Do you really think a hacker or a script kiddy behind this is going to register a domain name and serve their traffic off their own site? Heck no. Let others pay for it, you just work on controlling your botnet.

Anyhow, thats what we do at ExchangeDefender all day long. That and read your email. We hit delete. A lot. Ok, sometimes we forward too – but only if its funny!

P.S. Oh, and if you’re wondering how I did that bubble thing in the screenshot – feature of the new SnagIt 9.0 – Betsy and Kristina have been hooking me up new copies of it  for years, best damn tool in the shed.

DRM, because someone has to pay for it

Posted: 11:11 pm
August 13, 2008
IT Culture
3 Comments

I don’t know if this is a uniquely American trait, but the sense of entitlement is just huge in the IT space. We want it all. We want it now. We want it free.

Does anyone for a moment consider that things actually cost money?

From production staff, to satellite uplinks, to broadcast staff, to bandwidth required to distribute content, to market it, to deliver and support it – oh, and a few hundred million to grease the wheels and obtain the “rights” to the certain content people want to see.

Most people don’t like to face reality that things simply cost money. Best example of this ignorance is all over this Digg discussion titled: NBC Olympics video site snubs Linux, older Macs. In a nutshell, Microsoft handed a boatload of $$$ to make sure the digital Olympiad 2008 broadcast over the Internet was powered by Silverlight. They made a business decision to invest money into the event and process that would expand the installation base of their software. It is that simple.

But it angered the entitled people. The no DRM people. The information needs to be free people. The liberty or death people. Bah. These guys wouldn’t even spend $100 on an operating system, but demand a digital broadcast from China free of charge. Here is the best argument I’ve seen so far on the topic:

itsthebrod said: Last I checked, no one is forcing you to use Linux or old Mac versions. Stop bitching for the choice YOU made. Jesus, this is one reason Linux fanboys are one of the most annoying groups of people on earth: they make a decision to be a tiny minority and use Linux as their OS and then bitch when the world around them doesn’t cater every piece of software to them…

The counter-argument follows:

magic6435: That has got to be the dumbest comment i have ever read on digg…. so mabe they wanted to save some cash and not blow another 2 grand on a new mac if their powerpc is still doing what they need it to. or maybe they wanted to use and support the open software moment. there is no reason for the content NOT to work on these systems. its a matter of companies artificially mucking things up for certain techs.

Welcome to the power of choice.

You chose poorly.

You see, the beauty of living in the free world and enjoying all the benefits of the free markets is that you have the power to choose. It’s your right. The beauty of free markets for corporate citizens is that we too have a power of choice – on how we make our investments. So in the same way that you selfishly choose one alternative over another, corporations choose one alternative over another. The right to broadcast Olympics isn’t free. The right to broadcast the college football game isn’t free. That right has to be bought, and every time there is a transaction to be made someone pays for it.

In this case, Microsoft paid for it. And they offer it under the terms they set. Take it or leave it. Nobody is forcing you. Nobody is snubbing you.

Microsoft chose the format to broadcast the Olympics with. You chose an operating system that does not have the capabilities to watch the Olympics. Thats all there is to it.

Now the delicate dance that the creators (such as the music industry) and distributors (iTunes, Best Buy) and consumers (us) do in order to determine just what the right amount of money, DRM and restriction is acceptable so that everyone walks away from the deal happy and content…. that’s a much longer blog post. But in the end it comes to the exact same conclusion – it is all about the choice.

The best way to cause change is…

Posted: 6:29 pm
August 13, 2008
IT Business
Comments Off on The best way to cause change is…

… to let someone else change things.

One of the most awesome things that we’ve learned from opening up the development process, the feature requests, bug tracking and shortly even community participation is that we are no longer the change agent. Given that we sink our money, sweat, tears and blood (if you haven’t spilled blood into a gadget or computer you are not in IT) it’s a little unbelievable that we don’t call the shots but really – we don’t – our partners do.

What’s the hardest thing to do? After begging for money and meeting the bills or deciding which projects to scrap? Firing people and making large changes to the structure of the company, offerings, portfolio.

No matter how great or positive the change may be, it will piss someone off.

Not because it hurts them directly, but because they will feel like they have been left out and their input, feelings, thoughts or concerns never made part of the process. It’s one thing to dismiss someone, but to not even ask. That hurts people.

So the lesson in transparency is to involve people in the process. Let them know when they are doing great. Let them know when they suck. Stay open about what is doing well, what is doing terrible, which team members are kicking ass and which ones are just dragging it behind them.

So when things change… they aren’t a shock and nobody is surprised. Prepared, hopefully.

To Robbie, from the City of Angels, with love. (Warning: not safe for anyone, anywhere, anytime)

Posted: 10:35 am
August 12, 2008
Awesome
11 Comments

Final warning: You should not read this blog post. Under any circumstances. Ever.

I love Los Angeles. Best place on earth. Tons of energy. Tons of people. Tons of opportunity. I’m here on my second leg of ExchangeDefender 4 tour and I always make it a point to make a religious pilgrimage – and as you’re about to find out, it is a very religious experience – there is nothing you can do to get closer to afterlife (legally) than the below.

Some people like to wrap themselves in a bed sheet and stand with thousands of other smelly men in the middle of a desert so they can throw a tiny rock at a rather large rock. I like to stand in a line for hours with a bunch of girls not hot enough to get into a club, all for a little nutritious goodness.

If you’re a foreigner, this would be a good time to go dust your furniture, wash the dog, etc. I’m in a rather good mood so this is about to get dangerous.

la 050

My dear pal Robbie could never quite appreciate the beauty of the type of food we eat here in America. I must admit, I find it intimidating at times, but that which does not kill me can only make me fatter. So a few years back Robbie and I started talking about the “Luther Sandwich” which I have yet to try. But every time I am in Los Angeles I make it a point to go to Pinks – a family hot dog Hollywood legend since 1939.

doug-reinhardt-lauren-conrad_400x400 Earlier in the day I was looking over ExchangeDefender 4.0 core infrastructure and had a good cause to celebrate. I got to meet up with one of my partners from Los Angeles, Garett Chipman from TVG Consulting. We had the complete “The Hills” experience, eating at a nice restaurant in West Hollywood, on the sidewalk, etc. I got a pizza that seemed to have more veggies than cheese and dough so naturally I had some room left for dinner. And after a long day at work, what better dinner treat before bed like the following options:

So Many Choices….

As I mentioned, Pinks is as much of a hotdog stand as it is a Hollywood tourist attraction. However, when you do show up between 11pm and 3am the place is more of a last call of sorts for bar hoppers and people looking to hang out. On a beautiful LA evening in August (68 F, coming from Orlando in the 90’s with 200% humidity and Dallas hitting in 100’s, this is heaven) there is nothing better than hanging out in a line waiting for a dog. Just in case you’re wondering, I’m not the only guy there, at the time my turn came there were well over 100 people here with the line wrapping around the building.

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So how do you stay popular in Hollywood and become a tourist attraction? How do you stake that claim? Why put pictures of celebrities all over the joint. Name sandwiches after celebrities. Here are a few choice pics, enlarge for the actual description:

The Hollywood “Walk of Fame” Dog: All-Beef STRETCH Hot Dog topped with Yummy Coleslaw & Chopped Tomatoes.

la 032

The VIEW Dog – TWO All-Beef Hot Dogs in one bun, Topped with Mustard, Onions, Chilli, Cheese & Guacamole.

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Brooklyn Pastrami Dog – All-Beef Hot Dog, Topped with Mutard, Pastrami & Swiss Cheese.

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Planet Hollywood – Polish Sausage, Grilled Onions, Grilled Mushrooms & Bacon. But wait! Topped with YUMMY NACHO CHEESE.

la 036 

The Gustavo Dudamel Hot Dog (these are getting progressively more disgusting as you get further in the line)

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The “Mulholland Drive” – 10″ Stretch Hot Dog, Grilled Onions & Mushrooms, Bacon, Topped with Nacho Cheese.

la 038 

Three Dog Night – Hot dog even I didn’t have the courage to order. It’s three beef hot dogs, three slices of cheese, 3 slices of bacon, wrapped in a GIANT tortilla, topped with Chilli & Onions. Oooo lawd.

la 039

The Millenium Dog – 12″ Jalapeno dog, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, chili, grilled onions, topped with guacamole.

la 040

The Olympic Rings Dog – I actually got this one. I know. I know. 10″ Stretch hot dog. Yummy Barbecue Sauce. Topped with our Famous Onion Rings.

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The Ozzy Spicy Dog – “Hot as Ozzy Osbourne”

la 042 

The Building Process

The hot dog assembly process is pretty impressive. First you are greeted by the assembly engineer that takes your specs and verifies the request.

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He then lays out little aluminum/plastic napkins to lay the dogs and buns on. Then, from the metal chest I can only assume is heaven, god creates hot dogs which are carefully placed into the buns.

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The hot dog then goes down the assembly line for bacon, cheese, nacho cheese, chili, etc.

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The finished product is then delivered to you and explained. The people in front of me were really hungry. My order is on the right. Olympic dog, chilli cheese bacon dog and two plain mustard dogs.

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Here is a closeup of the artwork.

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How many calories is that? I don’t know, but I did get a diet coke to offset it. Three of them. I was concerned about not taking in enough sodium yesterday I suppose. Gotta get your vitamins.

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Now here is where it gets graphic. This is the clean side of the hand after eating the Olympic dog and the chili dog. What you can’t see is the back side, covered in chili oil that will give my hand an orange stain for weeks.

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All done.

Have you saved any room for desert?

Of course. I’m not an animal! Waiiit.. Wait a minute…

la 058 la 006

But of course! Randy’s doughnuts in Inglewood! I believe “Lardo” the doughnut mascot from The Simpsons was actually concieved as a parody of this very doughnut stand. Not sure though. But the doughnuts are delicious.

If you’ve made it this far, I applaud you 🙂

So a call to action. Please register for TechEd Preday in Australia. Find the one they call Robbie Upcroft and bring him a hot dog. Frozen, Corndog, Olympic dog. You name it. Look around Robbie, you will see Wayne Small attached to him. Wayne will be asking you for your business card. Everyone to bring Robbie a hot dog and present it to him gets two beers on Own Web Now / Vladville, Wayne will be your official beer distributor.

Update: Of course this blog post is for the ladies. Who loves ya, baby? With Playgirl out of print, I got your back: Where else on the Internet can go find an IT blog that gives you a shot of a few hundred weiners all in one blog post? That’s right! Vladville! You’re welcome.

Who knew Henry Ford was an infrastructure VAR?

Posted: 6:27 pm
August 8, 2008
IT Business, Vladville
6 Comments

Today’s guest blog post comes courtesy of the page 18-19 of the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review. I think it sounds eerily similar to the attitudes we’re seeing in the IT field these days and felt it was relevant enough, so here it is for your consideration. Enjoy:

History has lessons to teach about the role of denial in the decline of companies. The stubborn refusal of the U.S. automobile industry to admit changeability of consumer demand is one of the best examples.

The Model T was introduced in 1908, and over the next two decades the Ford Motor Company sold more than 15 million of these cars. But by 1927 sales had flagged so severely that Henry Ford discontinued the line in order to retool his factories for its successor, the Model A. To make the change, he shut down production for months, at a cost of close to $250 million. This chain of events was disastrous for the company, because it allowed Chrysler’s Plymouth to gain market share and permitted General Motors to seize market leadership.

Why did Henry Ford, who was such a visionary in the industry’s infancy, fail to see that the Model T was about to run its course and that a smooth transition to a new vehicle was essential? Evidence of his signature model’s declining fortunes was everywhere apparent at the time. But Ford dismissed sales figures documenting the Model T’s declining market share, because he suspected rivals of manipulating them. One of his top executives warned him of the dire situation in a detailed memorandum. Ford fired him.

Ford’s blindness resulted from a conviction that he knew what customers wanted: basic transportation. He was equally convinced that this desire would never change. His favorite slogan about the Model T- “It takes you there and it brings you back” – captured his myopic view. What Ford didn’t grasp is that every product or service has two components: the core (the product’s primary purpose) and the augmented (additional functions and features). In every industry the border between the two inevitably shifts over time. (For another take on Core and augmented products, see Theodore Levitt’s The Marketing Imagination)

In 1908 the automobile was mostly core: It got you there and back again.

By the 1920s, however, the world was changing, whereas the Model T wasn’t.

The full piece is well worth the time to read it (and the magazine’s $20 newsstand price) and is written by Richard S. Tedlow, rtedlow@hbs.edu

And yes, I read the Harvard Business Review – as should you.

Off on the ExchangeDefender 4 Road Trip

Posted: 10:14 pm
August 7, 2008
ExchangeDefender, OwnWebNow
Comments Off on Off on the ExchangeDefender 4 Road Trip

As you may have noticed, I’ve been rather quiet about the ExchangeDefender 4.0 upcoming feature set. For a product scheduled for launch date of August 19th it’s pretty unusual for me to be this silent about it.

So you know this is going to be big 🙂

And when you see what we’ve been working on for the past eight plus months your thoughts are going to be… “I get all that for that price? How can they possibly make money on it?”

Pssst. We’re gonna make the future users of ExchangeDefender pay for the enormous infrastructure expansion bump you’ll see. And the new pricing will be announced on the 20th. And it’s gonna be higher. Significantly higher. But every service provider in by the 19th will be locked in to the current pricing. So if you aren’t in the partner program, today is a day to get in and sign up for the Service Provider account. It’s $150 for the first 100 accounts, $1.50 per account after that. You get first 60 days free. You can make a good $ on the markup of that alone, and on Aug 19th when ExchangeDefender becomes a product onto itself you’ll be able to damn near build a business on it. If I’ve written about anything on here is that you’ve got to spot opportunities when they present themselves – this is your opportunity. No exceptions will be made after the 19th.

So tomorrow I go to Dallas to inspect and sign off on ExchangeDefender 4.0. We are so badass that the head of this monster is split between three data centers 🙂

On Sunday I board a flight to LAX to visit the live geographically redundant data center doing the same thing in DC. God willing, in December there will be one in London too. And then Australia. And then Elbonia!

So that is what I’m up to. Join us 🙂

P.S. To my blogging friends and tireless advocates that have been just amazing partners in the Own Web Now business I want to ask you not to blog about this last offer. I feel that enough ass has been kicked and I’ve given both the IT world and the IT community enough of what I and my OWN family are all about. And while I appreciate that you want to give that one additional kick in the ass, even I thought about not posting this. So the comments and trackbacks are disabled, this is the biggest business favor I can offer my readers and I’d like to keep it as such.

Pampers and Clouds: The end of an IT generation

Posted: 11:11 pm
August 6, 2008
IT Business, IT Culture, Microsoft
6 Comments

Geek Squad Dave first gained notoriety in the newsgroups for his very public lack of ability to grasp the basic concepts of vendor and client management and dealing with cost structure changes. After being condemned in public by most of his peers Geek Squad Dave became only the second person OWN will not do business with, which has apparently motivated him to become an unofficial spokesperson for one of our customer-direct competitors where he hopes to lead the drones of retail consulting IT failures like him – and god do I wish he succeeds. He also appears to be preoccupied with me for some reason even though I don’t remember ever meeting the guy. Here is his latest bit of “brilliance”:

I’ve been in this industry since Vlad was in diapers and I can assure
you the WAN bandwidth is always going to be behind LAN bandwidth. And that as bandwidth increases, the apps and data will too.

This is a part of the Geek Squad Dave’s argument on why most applications will just never make it to the cloud. Now, for this to work I am going to need you to ignore a few things. The last time I was in diapers was about 28 years ago or so.. so please ignore for a moment that this genius comes from a man who has been virtually unemployed for that period of time and failed to even accidentally be successful enough to hire another person. Please also ignore the flawed logic of “this has failed before, so it will surely fail again.” Also ignore the billions of dollars being pumped into the transformation of IT infrastructure by every major vendor. Let’s also ignore the wisdom of people who work with network engineers, developers, major IT powerhouses all of which are indicating that this is the direction they are strongly focusing on. That’s just how much ignorance you’ll need to think that we are not on a cusp of the most significant change in computing during most of our lifetime. Pampers stage included.

You see, for the longest time we’ve had this shift of computing and processing power from mainframe to PC, from PC to server, from server to workstation and the trend always flowed to the device with the most computational power because that is what transformed data into something useful. But over the last few years we have seen the relevance of a local area network diminish. Change in paradigm? Change in trust? Change in cost and affordability? It doesn’t really matter why, it matters that the computing experience is no longer dependant on you being a part of some segmented network that needed to be managed, monitored, tuned and audited around the clock. Your phone accesses the same Internet. It sends around the same email. It provides similar services, often better and more reliable if at times even cheaper. Ever tried to print a picture across the Internet and pick it up at a local CVS? Or have a picture book shipped to your doorstep?

The large data set argument is the last one in the defense of the local area network and is by far the most flawed of them all. If the data set grows, the processing power needed to manipulate it grows. Major movie studios do not render their movies on expensive standalone SGI’s anymore – they render them on server render farms. Major database and transaction systems no longer sit on monolithic clusters fighting a storage medium bottleneck – you’ve guessed it, data farms. Large files, voice, video – all within the reach of your cell phone powered by a tiny battery.

Welcome to the future. (PDC ’08 Sessions)

As the cloud computing becomes more prevalent medium for long term storage, processing, scalability and affordability, what unique feature will bring computing back to the confines of the LAN? That my friends is what is crushing guys like Geek Squad Dave right out of their almost-business, the inability to deal with change combined with lack of expertise to seize the opportunity. It is what separates IT solution providers from independent Geek Squad guys running out and “trust recommending” the solutions. One provides solutions, the other picks out laptop bags and offers input on which version of Quickbooks or Office you should buy. The successful IT solution providers of today and tomorrow are the ones who stay informed and can demonstrate the ability to help a business be successful in the modern times.

The opportunity is incredible. And the only requirement is shedding the ignorance.

This is the most exciting time to be in the IT space, bar none. And if you think you’ve seen this before… your mind is starting to go, a good indication that you’re closer to diapers than I am.

Perplexed by Change in Direction?

Posted: 12:34 am
August 6, 2008
IT Culture
4 Comments

It means confused, just in case you’re wondering.

Why do companies that have been built on going direct suddenly decide to care about the reseller channel?

Why do companies that have been built on the reseller channel partnerships decide to go direct to the customer?

Mo money. The grass is always greener on the other side.

That is all there is to it. Or as my buddy Robbie would put it: It’s that simple.

Really? Really.

With every change of guard and seasons, the occupying management force will do a business assessment and identify key areas of improvement, the opportunity matrix, the differentiating factor… and the rest is basically what the Dilbert comic is based on.

These change strategies are all ultimately based on a flawed concept that while everything else stays the same and we change only this one thing, we will be able to make $X more money. People making this kind of a call probably never heard of causality. 🙂

You see, the problem is that when you change one little thing, even with the best of intentions, you end up pissing off a large contingent of the base that got you to your current stature. So it makes sense to do it when you are at the bottom and the feds just raided your office. But what happens when you are at the top and your change for an incremental % of market share results upsetting 100% of the constituency that got you to your current leader role in the market? There goes your sand castle.

Now sure you can draw parallels to Dell and Microsoft, but I do the same for my OWN company. As the reseller base erodes and folks flunk out of business there is mounting pressure for us to go direct.

Whenever there is a high demand of unquantifiable revenue opportunity I like to find out who is suddenly making this need apparent. How did the world change overnight that we could be making all this money and how did all these customers figure out to call us? Dig a little below the shiny cover sheet of the presentation and you find out that it’s Bob, the failed VAR, callling from the $25,000 job he got with his largest client and he needs us to go direct because he is tired of returning support phone calls during summer from his car during the lunch hour.

So let me get this straight. We’re going to throw our biggest partners under the bus in order to be friendly to the very customers that couldn’t even keep the ol’ Bob in business? We need to go direct for that? Answer on the first ring for that needy client base? Reeeeeeeally?

Let me think about that one… Bzzzt. No.

I wonder if Dell, Microsoft and others are looking past their presentation cover sheets or blindly salivating over the large dream numbers?

Live from the Garbage truck worker convention…

Posted: 3:50 pm
August 5, 2008
Awesome
4 Comments

Ok, not really, that one is still scheduled for October 4th-6th, but the college football season in the south is getting warmer than a moonshine possum stew. Here with some thoughts is Chris Rue’s-black-half-brother-from-another-mother:

Amen. Inspirational. SEC, SEC, SEC!

(having a bunch of dental surgery done so things are going to stay quiet around here for a bit)

Being Vlad Mazek

Posted: 3:57 am
August 4, 2008
Uncategorized
4 Comments

One of the readers emailed (vlad@vladville.com btw) to ask what it’s really like to be Vlad Mazek. Surely the post about working long hours can’t be real because nobody would believe that someone in my role would work that hard.

Believe it.

Look at any successful (and legal) company and you’ll find it is built on hard work in particular off the backs of the people on the very top of the org chart. I’m not talking about charlatans who sell fraudulent dietary supplements over the web and write books to inspire others to be worthless scammers in just 4 hours a week. I mean real companies, that have been around for years, with track record of building millionaires up and down the management chains.

Those folks work hard.

After giving my son a bath and rocking him to sleep around 9PM I hung out with my wife and watched Venture Bros for a little while. So after the whole day of out and about and working on the monkey, I took an hour or so to relax. Then at 11:15 PM I went to the airport to pick up Erick Simpson from Intelligent Enterprise, a highly respected MSP organization and a training firm and author and the list of credentials goes on. Four beers, two diet cokes and two bags of pretzels later, Erick and I compared notes on trends we see in the SMB space. Trends, business model changes, competitive landscape, opportunities, threats. We wrapped up at 3:18 AM.

In three hours I will be waking up to meet over breakfast with Stuart and Frank from SecureMyCompany, global leader in hosted Kaseya deployments.

After which I will go through the usual 9-5 day running the company that provides thousands of you with the services that make it possible to do your job.

Yup, that’s what a Sunday night to Monday morning, on three hours of sleep, looks like if you want to be successful.

Is this gratuitous self-promotion? You bet. But who do you think the customers pick and trust to run their IT? Companies that work hard, care and improve their offerings every day, or slackers that despite their lack of motivation and insurmountable demand for technical services managed to remain unemployed and employeeless but took a dozen vacations? 

Ask yourself what you are really spending your life doing and who you are serving. When you have some perspective then you can define your goals, your process and pave the way to the destination. Hint: It ain’t getting done in 4 hours a week.