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Tim Altom

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: We need less of ‘cool’ and more of ‘can do’

I’ve been accused of being both technology-besotted and technology-averse. I’m neither one. I’m just interested in using technology in appropriate ways. I’m fond of reminding people that a pair of scissors is perfect for a job that a pair of scissors can do. Scissors don’t need Tim Allen-style enhancements. An example popped up from reading “The Soul of a Chef,” by Michael Ruhlman, where I ran across the statement by a young chef that a computer system made the difference…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Don’t believe all the threats you hear about

Ah, a new year, and a new opportunity for all of us to be scared witless by some new threat. A recent article about cell phone viruses that I read in the magazine Scientific American got me thinking about terrorism, but not in the way you might imagine. What is it about panic and fear that we love so much? We seem to treasure those moments when we’re jumping at shadows. Movie producers have known this for years, and how…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: 2006 has seen plenty of technological goofs

Happy holidays to you, and welcome to yet another yearly installment of, “Who’s Got the SNAFU?” the holiday game for those nervous about using technology for anything more complicated than opening cat food. We start comparatively close to home, in Valparaiso, where CNN reported that a modest little $122,000 home was erroneously valued in the county’s computer system at $400 million, which would have generated some $8 million in tax revenue. The $8 million figure was duly calculated into the…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Web application is right gift for those who fear software

Got a businessperson on your list? We’re hard to buy for, so you have my sympathies. Most of us have specific preferences in software, handheld devices, cell phones and other toys we euphemistically call “tools.” Ties aren’t common in business settings anymore, cutting off yet another formerly fruitful buying channel. Few of us have any use for another desktop nameplate. And gift certificates are rather cold. Software is a particularly bad gift choice. Most of us dread getting new software…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Is designing for blind worth the trouble and cost?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a potentially groundbreaking lawsuit stewing in the cauldron of a California federal court. There, the National Federation of the Blind has been allowed to go forward in its suit against Target Brands, which runs Target department stores, claiming that Target should have to make its Web site as easily accessible to the blind as its brick-and-mortar stores. I thought it would be an obscure case, but it’s been puffed up into something of…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Big screen? Two screens? Productivity debate goes on

Apple computer recently announced the results of a study by Paris-based Andreas Pfeiffer, which said buying one of Apple’s $1,999, 30-inch displays would increase productivity of one lucky employee 50 percent to 65 percent, enough to earn back the cost of the monitor before it dies or is supplanted by one with more pizazz a few years from now. Pfeiffer argues that it takes a lot of time to switch between windows on a smaller monitor, time that isn’t taken…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Laptop deal-breaker depends on reliability

I’ve been scanning laptop buyer’s guides lately, and I have to say that many magazine test labs seem utterly out of touch with business users. They extol the big screens, fast multimedia and other capabilities business users just don’t care about. They act as if weight is a big factor for those of us who have to cart our hightech symbiotes around with us, but laptops long ago dropped below that critical barrier. Hewlett-Packard had a little notebook unit in…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Programmers make lousy site designers

Many, perhaps most, Web sites are hard to use. That applies to commercial sites, personal sites, almost any kind of site. In the early days of the Web, nobody was surprised at this, because the Web was a dancing bear. The wonder wasn’t that it danced gracefully, but that it danced at all. Today, visitors are much more discerning. In fact, there is a cottage industry in lambasting poorly designed sites. One of my favorite places to go on the…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Beware the dangers of PowerPoint attachments

In a bizarre twist on the term “Power-Point poisoning,” some black-hat programmer with way too much time on his hands has created a PowerPoint presentation that, when opened as an attachment to an e-mail, plants a piece of spyware on your system that sends home to the mothership every keystroke and mouse click. Businessfolk in the Midwest need not panic, however, because the offending PowerPoint is easy to spot: it’s in Chinese. In the business, this sort of infection is…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Is becoming a podcaster dream marketing?

Imagine that your customers are so eager to hear from you that you don’t even need to send them newsletters or e-mails, that they check each day, or even several times a day, to see if you have anything to tell them. What a dream marketing campaign, eh? There are catches, of course. Lots of them. But in the right circumstances, this come-and-get-it approach can work. It’s known as “podcasting,” a name that’s a linguistic weld job so common in…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: We need more Googles to take on government

As I write this, two of the biggest titans on the planet have just fought each other to a standstill. In one corner is the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). In the other corner, the search engine company Google. In 2005, the DOJ wanted to revive the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which had already been swatted down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. The law didn’t address child pornography, as has often been assumed in the case, but only…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Have businesses given in to security anxiety?

According to the mainstream media, no sooner is your precious data placed on a hard drive than it’s promptly vacuumed off through a hacker’s hole and inserted into some miscreant’s illicit schemes for world domination. I admit I’ve advocated for computer security for years, but that was because most companies’ idea of security is to hide the backup CDs in the coffee creamer box. I never meant to contribute to the panic that seems to have gripped the American population…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: How much freedom is enough? Or too much?

Jams Surowiecki (en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/The_Wisdom_ of_Crowds) would like you to look deeply into your business soul and choose between chaos and high walls. For that matter, so would I. It’s a decision worth thinking about. The right choice could remake your enterprise. The wrong one could, too. Surowiecki is just one of several thinkers pondering whether organizations do better with top-down plans, processes and hierarchies, or with loose controls and chaotic creativity. His book, “The Wisdom of Crowds,” maintains that large…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: RFID security not as secure as you think it is

I work in a building that makes me use a cardkey to get into the building’s back stairway. I can’t even use a physical key. I must use the card I was issued. I fumble for the thing every morning. One morning, to my astonishment, I noticed that if I pushed hard enough on the door as I opened it, it would hit the end of its travel and thereafter stand open by itself. The first person through in the…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Does your Web site need an SEO to boost it up?

Every time I see the term “SEO,” I cringe a little. It stands for “searchengine optimization,” a supposed service offered by many “SEO companies.” Such companies claim to be able to boost your Web site up the pages of major search engines so customers can find you. To a limited extent, they can help. Most Web sites are so poorly designed that they almost defy search engines to look through them, a process known in the trade as “crawling.” The…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Protecting company data not always worth the effort

Like monkeys in cages, data seems to want to be free, and will connive ways to break out of restraints. Many times it takes advantage of human carelessness, as it did in Iraq recently. Two reporters were wandering through one of the Iraqi bazaars that have sprung up outside U.S. bases, and which feature items discarded by Americans, such as old boots and broken tools. The reporters saw a number of what the media has been calling “computer drives.” These…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: At home with that old computer? Prepare to be frustrated

Microsoft is yanking our chains again, and it’s your fault. Oh, perhaps it’s not your fault personally, but you’ve contributed-as has almost every businessperson in the world. We all buy Windows machines, then use Windows software on them. In return, Microsoft treats us to heaping piles of frustration, like when the company recently said that, contrary to prior announcements (and mine a few weeks ago in this space), some versions of the new Windows Vista operating system won’t be available…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: We don’t communicate as well as we think we do

Somebody once said computers permit you to make terrible mistakes faster than any other invention in history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila. Those among us who have lost friends, clients or jobs as a result of misunderstood e-mails would probably vote for computers. At least handguns and tequila look a little menacing, and there’s no way to mistake their purposes. E-mails, on the other hand, are friendly, fast and seemingly innocuous. Many of us shoot off dozens…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Behold the upcoming Vista of Microsoft operating system

Microsoft has announced how it’s going to package and sell its brand new operating system, now called “Vista,” but long code-named “Longhorn.” The company has devoted a big chunk of its home page to a single link to more information about Vista (www.microsoft.com). Of course, you can’t buy it yet, because it hasn’t been released, but you can look at screen captures of it. Be ready to read a while. Vista is coming in six flavors, two of which are…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Is too much news leaving you woozy these days?

When it comes to news, there are two kinds of consumers: the “E.F. Hutton people” and the “cocktail party people.” E.F. Huttoners have it easy. Cocktail partiers are only now getting some help making their lives more manageable. Years ago, E.F. Hutton ran a series of commercials that would always take place in a crowded spot, like a restaurant or plaza. One actor would be talking about his investment advice and preface it with, “Well, my broker is E.F. Hutton,…

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