IT Ramblings - Ramblings of an IT guy

Defective McAfee update causes meltdown of XP PCs

2010-04-22T10:34:00.001-07:00

Ed Bott has a blog here about the story: Defective McAfee update causes worldwide meltdown of XP PCs

Seriously, I have to say McAfee’s response to this issue has been poor. Here is what their homepage looks like:

I highlighted the area which has to do with this issue. That's all they have on their website. If you drill down into the children sites such as Large Enterprise, Small business, etc they have nothing on the main page of those sites. Considering the large impact this issue has had on their customers I would expect more notice on their website.

A few years ago we were using Lotus Notes and McAfee as our antivirus solution. McAfee releases VirusScan 8.0 and we tested it on about 20 computers. The new released hosed Lotus Notes and McAfee had no easily identifiable information regarding this bug. When I called support I finally found a level 3 tech who new about this issue and I had to uninstall McAffee and reinstall the 7.x version.

My issue was I read the Readme.txt file. I searched online for know issues. Even though this Lotus Notes bug was a know issues they did not really admit to it. McAfee…that’s why you have Readme file or a know-issues section. They tried to burry the issue so I notified ZDnet and Theregister.co.com and they published articles about the issue. Many people\corporations use Lotus Notes and McAfee’s decision to not publicly post this serious bug was a mistake. It looks like they continue these poor PR decisions.

Slate

2010-04-21T11:20:00.001-07:00

I can’t wait for the HP Slate or the Dell Slate, etc. The flexibility these devises will offer is very exciting. Yes, I know we have the iPad, but its and entertainment device\toy. The HP Slate, etc will offer the ability to run all our business applications in a small, light and multi-touch form factor. I will be able to take these devises to meetings, home, travel, etc. No more paper pads to meetings and then transcribing notes into Word, OneNote, email, etc. Very exciting.

I wave the White Flag too

2010-04-15T14:56:00.001-07:00

As we have slowly gone down the unofficial evaluation of BI requirements and reviewing possible solutions I too wave the white flag and have come to accept Excel for BI.

I use Excel everyday to perform basic and sometimes more advanced analysis. I would say I am a Power User in this space and have been for a few years now. I used Excel before the last few years, but as a Power User on the last few years. I understand the importance of Excel. I understand how it works and am comfortable in it. I do not like to use Excel for financial reporting or any advanced analysis that would have a major impact on the business as, in my opinion, there are not enough controls around the input, manipulation and output of data in Excel. Then again that why so many people love it.

This is one of the reason companies look for a BI solution. We need help controlling data but want users to be able to perform ad-hoc analysis. Many BI solutions force a user into their report writer and presenter when users just want Excel as the design and presentation layer. They do not care about all the others stuff. Give me EXCEL they cry.

So, I too have somewhat given up on presenting other BI presentation layers. So, what have we found to improve Excel “Self Serve” functionality? So far I would have to say IBM Cognos® 8 BI Analysis for Microsoft® Excel has the best Excel integration. You can built your cross tab (aka Pivot Table) report and then, unlike a Pivot Table, insert columns within the report area to perform ad-hoc formulas. Very nice. I am also very interested in Power Pivot which M$ will release in the upcoming months.

Now, this may not be what many companies would want to see as all of a sudden you are loosing control of the “version of truth” data. But, unfortunately, this is what many users want and if Upper Management buys into their dream IT is screwed and can only provide the solution which fulfills this dream.

Nice article here: Gartner BI Summit: Wave the white flag on using Excel for business intelligence

Data Sets and Business Logic

2010-04-12T14:36:00.001-07:00

Be careful building out datasets. When a business starts growing report requirements multiple datasets will be needed to fulfill these requirements. A challenge is building the business logic into all datasets in which the business logic affects. If the new\updated logic is not maintained across all datasets your reports will be off.

I think it may be challenging for non-IT people to see this or challenging for IT people to explain the impact of changing business rules and processes. Ah….good old Change Management not only across IT systems, but business processes.

Oracles Website for BI sucks

2010-04-09T09:43:00.000-07:00

So why is it that while attempting to perform research for BI solutions I come across the great and powerful Oracle and their website just sucks. After looking at SAP’s, Microsoft’s and a few other I find Oracles website to be very difficult to find any in-depth information on their products. Look at this thing.

We have some navigation on the left and right, but if I want to find out more on this solutions all I can do is click on “View Image”. How can I drill down into their specific Benefits bullet points? What are they hiding, or are they just this bad at marketing?

Leadership vs. Management: Understand the differences

2010-04-08T13:57:00.001-07:00

Leaders inspire, managers measure
Leaders guide, managers navigate
Leaders hope, managers analyze
Leaders envision, managers maintain
Leaders rally, managers retrench

Without leadership, management does little more than defend the status quo. However, without management, all the leadership in the world can't create a sustainable change. Clearly, leaders and managers have highly distinct roles -- but both are essential to the success of the business

Full Link here: TechRepublic Video

So why can this be so hard for companies and individuals to understand? People can and do have specific roles and sometimes if each is focused upon by those who perform well the machines roll along. I have seen it many times where companies expect multiple roles to be fulfilled by an employee and it becomes a mashup over time. One employee must perform the work of others to keep the machine rolling. It’s amazing how blind people can be. My guess if they do not understand the principles outlined above then they should not be in either of the rolls.