RIM projections not good…..

Hi everyone, so in the blogosphere there is a lot of talk about RIM. There was recent news that they aren’t doing as good as they should be right now.

RIM has started to make some moves, along the lines of the App Store and making a neutered version of BES free for use. But I think this is all too little too late. I think that in the future RIM will be reduced to an “also ran”, and nothing more than 3rd place to iPhone and Android.

You know what the funny thing is? The BlackBerry is an extremely efficient device. Once you know how to use it I can rip through the device extremely fast to get the information I need. Much faster than I can on a “touch” based device. However I don’t think this will win over the “sexiness” of the iPhone and Android as people typically have that itch to have the latest and greatest gadget these days.

RIM needs to find a way to make people to want to buy it, and right now they just don’t have anything.

-RP

Licensing woes….

Hi everyone, I just wanted to touch on one of my pet peeves of IT. You guessed it, that’s licensing! Now what do I hate about it so much?

Well licensing is one of those necessary evils that we obviously have to endure due to the pirates of the world. I understand that. However the majority of companies out there don’t seem to have a clue how to implement it.

There are a few vendors that have this down pat and make it a pleasant experience, but this is not the norm. Generally you end up with kludgy web portals and online activations trying to get your products to work. This never helps and when you have to transfer licenses to someone else to manage this is usually a huge headache.

Needless to say, this is just a shout out to all you vendors (and you know who you are), fix your crappy licensing!

-RP

Great service Seagate!

Hi folks, I just wanted to complement Seagate on a job well done! I recently had to do a service call with them and had a great experience I wanted to share.

I have this external 750 GB USB drive that I use regularly that eventually failed. I did a warranty claim on it and I got a new drive back within a week!

Other vendors hear this, if you provide service like this, you are sure to gain loyalty from your customers. Not only did Seagate send me a new drive, they upgraded me to a 1 TB drive! Now that’s what I call service!

-RP

Cisco’s new routers

Hi folks, has anyone seen the new line of routers from Cisco? The 2900 series is out and they are sweet!

The old series was lacking some muscle and I think Cisco has really stepped up to the plate with the new 2900 series. They are way more beefier and should enable us Cisco geeks to really use some of the nice features.

My problem with the old routers was that if you wanted to use some of the higher end things, you would end up killing the router on resources. Now with the new series we can start enabling some of these features.

For example running NBAR in a large network and leveraging all it has to offer without having to move up to the next level of routers is going to be made a lot easier for us now! I love it, more power!!!!

Read more about them here.

-RP

YouTube’s position on Flash and HTML5

Hi folks, so if you have been following the hoopla, YouTube is the latest to weigh in on the Flash vs HTML5 debate!

They recently announced that even though they acknowledge that HTML5 is a step in the right direction, Flash is still continue to be there.

Now here is the interesting thing, Google owns YouTube and as  you know runs the Android platform. So does this announcement really surprise any of us? Not me. I have to agree with YouTube – Flash is quite entrenched and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I still think Apple should change it’s policy and just allow it’s use already. I guess time will tell who wins that war.

You can read more about it here.

-RP

Cisco Tablet?

Hi folks, this just in, Cisco is going to make a tablet like the iPad!!!

What the heck is up with that? I expect they are using it to leverage some of their other offerings like webex for example. The word on the street is that it’s going to run on Android. This is going to be an interesting competitor for Apple for sure.

It will be good that a  company like Cisco with the backing that it has will enter this arena of competition. It should at least foster some great advances in tablet computing.

What is this device called? They’re calling it the Cius. You can read more about it here.

-RP

Cisco Live!

Hi folks, are you at Cisco Live? Cisco Live is Cisco’s once a year conference that they hold that covers all sorts of tracks both managerial and technical.

I was supposed to be there this year but I had a lot on my plate so I decided to hold off until next year. However for those of you that haven’t heard of it, listen up – Cisco Live! is a great place to meet like minded Cisco folks and network with them.

It’s also a great place to do training for the many popular Cisco certifications out there. There are tons of topics on pretty much everything imaginable. Cisco Live! is one of those events you just don’t want to miss. I will plan to go next year so maybe I will see some of you there!

-RP

Simplifying your network

Hi folks, a lot of the times, techs can get carried away and overcomplicate things by putting every technology under the sun in their network.

It’s easy for techs to get whisked away into the wonderful world of IT and want to implement all the latest technologies that they read about lately. Sometimes, this can cause lots of issues, because if you have someone implementing without a clear vision of where they want their network to go, you can end up with a big mess!

The idea is to take a look at your business needs and see how IT can solve some of those problems. See where you can leverage technology to meet those needs and then create an architecture based on that with an eye to the future for scalability and growth.

-RP

The “size” of business…..

Hi folks, one of the things I tend to talk to clients about on a regular basis is about the “size” of their business. Some people classify themselves as small, some medium, and some enterprise. This is all good and well, but more often than not, people base this soley on number of employees.

Now this method of measurement can work, but there are often other factors to consider. I have seen very small businesses with enterprise level needs, such as high end disaster recovery solutions with hot sites that are required because the type of data they are working on is time sensitive and needs immediate access 24×7.

Then I have seen large businesses with many employees that are ok if the network is down for a little bit as they have other ways of working.

What I am trying to say here is to not base a client’s requirements based on the number of employees, but base it on their actual IT needs. When you do this, you will end up choosing the right equipment at the right price to solve your IT woes.

-RP

Extending your LAN wirelessly

Hi everyone, one of the common questions I get is how a business can extend their LAN when they can’t use normal wiring to do so.

This inevitably leads to a discussion about wireless technologies and how this can be implemented. I am a big proponent of using some of Cisco’s and HP’s gear in creating wireless bridges from site to site. Both companies make gear that allow you to bridge one network to another using wireless signal.

The biggest thing to take into account would be whether you have line of sight and what kind of distance you need to shoot the signal over. Also weather plays a big factor. There are a lot of little things you can miss when planning out a wireless bridge solution, so I would recommend consulting with someone who has experience in this regard.

You can read more about wireless bridges here.

-RP