The good news: a headline like that virtually guarantees you’ll stop to read a bit more. The bad news? I might actually live up to it.
And so, you ask, why is this the worst column he’s ever written? Because usually, I have some particular topic I want to explore, which leads to a reasonably coherent journey from the first paragraph to the last. At least that’s my intent. This time, however, I’m channeling Hunter S. Thompson. Where my stream of consciousness will flow remains to be seen.
NorthbayBiz.com: Have you seen the new NorthBay biz website (www.northbaybiz.com)? New readers may not realize this magazine has been online since May 2001, back when it was Sonoma Business. The new site was developed by Nu-Designs of Santa Rosa (www.nu-designs.com) and is designed so the NorthBay biz staff can update its contents on a monthly basis. In addition, subscribers can log in and access the current issue online. All visitors to the site can access content from the past year.
One of the site’s nice features is in the upper righthand corner of every page: a listing of the most popular items. If you haven’t taken a look at www.northbaybiz.com lately, check it out and send in your opinion (disclosure: for the past five years, I’ve been the unofficial NorthBay biz webmaster, a position I’m happy to relinquish in favor of this nifty new content management system from Nu-Designs).
Dual monitors: I’m totally sold on the idea of having at least two monitors attached to one’s computer. Consider that a 19-inch LCD display costs about $300. For someone who is performing mission-critical work (your CFO, a financial analyst or the program manager of your key product line), that cost is miniscule compared to the annual benefit you’ll see from that person being able to keep Outlook open on one monitor and their primary application (Excel, for example) open in the other. For key staff hires, the default configuration I order is now dual 19-inch monitors. Something you may not know: most business laptops (such as Dell Latitude) support dual monitors when placed in a docking station. You should equip mobile workers’ homes or offices with docking stations (with keyboard and mouse) and dual 19-inch monitors. Trust me on this—they’ll love you for it, and their productivity will increase. These days, an army marches on its eyeballs.
Hard truth: It’s getting harder and harder to write this magazine column each month. Why? Because when I write, I typically want to refer you to a website or a more in-depth article on the Web. Unfortunately, it’s inconvenient for you, the reader, in two distinct ways. First, you’re reading a magazine, which makes it somewhat less likely you have a computer right at hand. Second, typing in a Web page address (Uniform Resource Locator, or URL) is a pain in the butt if it’s anything more than www.something.com.
The value of hyperlinks to additional information is enormous—it’s one of the reasons I prefer to do my reading on the Web. I’m really thinking that, instead of paying me to write a column every month, Norm Rosinski (our publisher) should pay me the same amount to write a TechTalk Web log (blog) and just pick the best pieces to run as my monthly print column. Based on the blog I already maintain as part of The Winery Web Site Report (at http://blog.winerywebsitereport.com), I’m sure that I’d end up writing more than 1,000 words a month. The only downside is that people who read the blog wouldn’t find anything new in the print magazine. What do you think, Gentle Reader?
Dude, your laptop’s burning: For those of you who’ve been living on Mars this past month, you should be aware that a number of computer manufacturers (Dell, IBM, Apple and so forth) have been recalling Sony-manufactured batteries. If you own a Dell Computer, visit www.DellBatteryProgram.com to see if you have one of the spontaneously combusting batteries. You can Google “IBM battery program” if you have an IBM (now Lenovo) ThinkPad.
Windows Vista: Microsoft will be releasing its next-generation Windows operating system, called Vista, in the next few months (barring yet another slip in development). At about the same time, Microsoft will ship Office 2007. And businesses everywhere will be forced to confront the issue of upgrading to a new system and applications. Smaller businesses that buy their computers one at a time from Best Buy won’t have much choice in the matter: new computers will simply come with Vista installed. And of course, Microsoft will try to convince you to upgrade.
Here’s my advice: unless there’s some new feature your business absolutely can’t live without, I don’t think it’s worth the time, effort and potential risk involved to upgrade. And if you must upgrade, I strongly recommend simply buying a new machine with Vista and Office pre-installed. Under no circumstances should you consider moving to Vista until the first Service Pack has been released (which should correct any major flaws in the initial release of the product). Sure, you’ll be a little less cool than the other guys, but at least you won’t be fighting with the inevitable glitches and annoyances (major or minor) that accompany a major release of Windows.
So there you have it—my worst column ever. If this had been an online column, it might have reached you as a series of four blog posts, spaced a week apart, with each post containing links to supporting information. You could have been notified (using an RSS reader such as www.Bloglines.com) as soon as I completed each item, instead of having to wait 30 days for the USPS to deliver me to your door. Maybe next month, my print column will simply read “Please see the TechTalk blog at www.northbaybiz.com,” and Joni Rosinski will be able to sell the rest of the page as advertising. You never know.
