MobileMe sounded like an answer to many of my Office problems - I thought I could finally easily sync my email, calendar and contacts across my several PC's, smartphone, and iPod Touch, and do it all wirelessly.
Unfortunately, it did not do this for me. From what I've read in other blogs and reviews, I'm not the only one who is disappointed.
I could not make MobileMe copy my Outlook calendar to the cloud. It did copy my Outlook contacts mostly right, but for a few of them, it did not copy the complete contact information with all phone numbers and email addresses. And, I couldn't get it to do anything with my email that I received through other email addresses and that presently resides on my hard drive in Outlook. As best as I could tell, the only solution to my email sync problem it provided was to give me yet another email address as a consolidation point, and I already have too many of those, any of which could serve as a consolidator (if only all my contacts would use it!).
For those of you haven't yet tried MobileMe and who have the same hopes of it that I did, my recommendation is to wait. Apple usually build great stuff, and I have hopes that they will get this right. So, save your free 60 day trial for a time when the chances are much better that you will be pleased with the product.
In the meantime, use the Google Calendar Sync to solve this problem for your Outlook Calendar, and set up a Gmail account that collects email from all your POP3 mail accounts. For contacts, you'll have to periodically manually sync up Gmail and Outlook. It isn't perfect, but Google does a better job today at this problem than MobileMe did for me.
I'm rooting for Apple to get it right, and hopefully they will soon.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Keeping Your Calendar Sync'd Across Devices
I use Outlook on my PC. I have a Palm smartphone that syncs to Outlook via a cable. I have an iPod Touch that has a calendar function and web access via wifi. And, sometimes I use other PC's. It's quite a challenge to have access to the same calendar data in all these environments.
Well, there is a way that is simple, convenient, and FREE. Google offers a calendar capability and a program that automatically keeps it updated with changes made in Outlook on your PC. You can access your updated Google calendar on any device that has internet access.
This means my current calendar is now on my Palm smartphone, my iPod Touch, and on other PC's - provided I have internet access.
Well, there is a way that is simple, convenient, and FREE. Google offers a calendar capability and a program that automatically keeps it updated with changes made in Outlook on your PC. You can access your updated Google calendar on any device that has internet access.
This means my current calendar is now on my Palm smartphone, my iPod Touch, and on other PC's - provided I have internet access.
Protecting Data on a Notebook Computer - Whole Drive Encryption
I've worried for a while that it would be more than just a little inconvenient if my notebook was stolen. As most people do, I have a lot of confidential personal and business information on it. While I back it up regularly, which protects me from one type of problem associated with a stolen PC, I have no protection from "bad guys" who would use my data for all sorts of nefarious acts.
There's technology around that solves this problem, and I'm pleased to report that it's easy to use and incredibly powerful. I recently downloaded the latest version of a free, open source, program called TrueCrypt. It enables its users to protect files, folders, and now even the entire system drive (the C: drive). Using state of the art encryption technologies, it encrypts the entire drive and makes it virtually impossible for anyone who steals your disk drive to get at any of your data.
The process of encrypting the drive takes just a few minutes of your time and several hours of your computer's time. Amazingly, TrueCrypt performs its magic while still permitting you to use your PC while it runs. Because it slows the PC down, it would be best to let it run overnight, but you don't have to do this.
Once you complete the process, no one can login to your PC without the TrueCrypt password, and no one can make sense of your disk drive if they remove it and put it in a drive enclosure. Your data is safe from prying eyes.
TrueCrypt is a great package. The price is right. The technology is powerful. And it provides a very valuable security function that every laptop user should take advantage of.
There's technology around that solves this problem, and I'm pleased to report that it's easy to use and incredibly powerful. I recently downloaded the latest version of a free, open source, program called TrueCrypt. It enables its users to protect files, folders, and now even the entire system drive (the C: drive). Using state of the art encryption technologies, it encrypts the entire drive and makes it virtually impossible for anyone who steals your disk drive to get at any of your data.
The process of encrypting the drive takes just a few minutes of your time and several hours of your computer's time. Amazingly, TrueCrypt performs its magic while still permitting you to use your PC while it runs. Because it slows the PC down, it would be best to let it run overnight, but you don't have to do this.
Once you complete the process, no one can login to your PC without the TrueCrypt password, and no one can make sense of your disk drive if they remove it and put it in a drive enclosure. Your data is safe from prying eyes.
TrueCrypt is a great package. The price is right. The technology is powerful. And it provides a very valuable security function that every laptop user should take advantage of.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
GE's "Work Out" for Process Improvement
Along with Six Sigma, General Electric developed a much simpler approach to process improvement called "Work Out".
There's even an entire book devoted to the subject - "The GE Work-Out" by Dave Ulrich and two other authors. Whether the topic deserves an entire book is a question I'll leave to the reader, but the approach is straighforward and the results can be quite stunning.
FourThought Partners has used this approach and found that the investment to perform this methodology is quite low, and the return large.
Essentially, the consultant/facilitator does the classic consultant cliche - borrowing the client's watch to tell him what time it is. In a very structured way, your people are brought together for a couple of brainstorming sessions and some "quick and dirty" ROI calculation sessions. The ideas that survive this process are brought to management in an unusually rapid process for go/no-go decisions, and the team is challenged to start producing results in weeks rather than months or longer.
Both "low hanging fruit" and benefits that take longer to realize are identified and acted upon without a lot of bureaucracy, and the teams involved are encouraged by the process to continue thinking about even more improvement. It's a satisfying experience that even those with short attention spans will appreciate!
If you are interested in learning more about GE Work-out, and want to determine whether FourThought Partners can help you implement it, please contact us.
There's even an entire book devoted to the subject - "The GE Work-Out" by Dave Ulrich and two other authors. Whether the topic deserves an entire book is a question I'll leave to the reader, but the approach is straighforward and the results can be quite stunning.
FourThought Partners has used this approach and found that the investment to perform this methodology is quite low, and the return large.
Essentially, the consultant/facilitator does the classic consultant cliche - borrowing the client's watch to tell him what time it is. In a very structured way, your people are brought together for a couple of brainstorming sessions and some "quick and dirty" ROI calculation sessions. The ideas that survive this process are brought to management in an unusually rapid process for go/no-go decisions, and the team is challenged to start producing results in weeks rather than months or longer.
Both "low hanging fruit" and benefits that take longer to realize are identified and acted upon without a lot of bureaucracy, and the teams involved are encouraged by the process to continue thinking about even more improvement. It's a satisfying experience that even those with short attention spans will appreciate!
If you are interested in learning more about GE Work-out, and want to determine whether FourThought Partners can help you implement it, please contact us.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Constructive Laziness
What is "constructive laziness"? Is it a good thing?
At FourThought Partners, we consider constructive laziness to be one of the best attributes a thinker can have. In mathematics, it is called the search for elegance. It means not being satisfied with a complicated solution, but rather seeking out a simple and straightforward one.
Too often, business processes, especially old ones, are anything but simple. They represent a long ago solution (which may once have been elegant) with lots of fixes changes and enhancements on over the years to solve the problems of the day. By today, the process has no single owner, it is incredibly complicated, and it has legacy features that no one can quite explain (but, which no one dare eliminate for fear that the house of cards may come crashing down).
In such a case, it would be highly desirable to simplify the process, and make the work easier - hence the term "laziness", which in this context means looking for less work and a process that is easier to understand and execute.
Another example of a context in which constructive laziness is a good thing is when looking for a way to display data. The non-constructive lazy solution is to just dump it out and let the reader try to figure out what it says. (How often have you been in a meeting where that is what the presenter did?)
The constructive lazy solution is to think about how the presentation could be short and simple, with conclusions readily apparent to the reader. It's actually more work to do it this way, but the result is much easier to explain and to modify at a future time. In other words, it's much less work for everyone over the long haul.
We at FourThought Partners strive to be constructively lazy in all our projects. It may have been difficult to perform our assignment, but we do not want it to be difficult to get benefit from our work. We strive to find the easiest way to get each problem solved.
At FourThought Partners, we consider constructive laziness to be one of the best attributes a thinker can have. In mathematics, it is called the search for elegance. It means not being satisfied with a complicated solution, but rather seeking out a simple and straightforward one.
Too often, business processes, especially old ones, are anything but simple. They represent a long ago solution (which may once have been elegant) with lots of fixes changes and enhancements on over the years to solve the problems of the day. By today, the process has no single owner, it is incredibly complicated, and it has legacy features that no one can quite explain (but, which no one dare eliminate for fear that the house of cards may come crashing down).
In such a case, it would be highly desirable to simplify the process, and make the work easier - hence the term "laziness", which in this context means looking for less work and a process that is easier to understand and execute.
Another example of a context in which constructive laziness is a good thing is when looking for a way to display data. The non-constructive lazy solution is to just dump it out and let the reader try to figure out what it says. (How often have you been in a meeting where that is what the presenter did?)
The constructive lazy solution is to think about how the presentation could be short and simple, with conclusions readily apparent to the reader. It's actually more work to do it this way, but the result is much easier to explain and to modify at a future time. In other words, it's much less work for everyone over the long haul.
We at FourThought Partners strive to be constructively lazy in all our projects. It may have been difficult to perform our assignment, but we do not want it to be difficult to get benefit from our work. We strive to find the easiest way to get each problem solved.
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