BHC Tech Blog2010-09-07T05:51:54ZBenjamin Hill ConsultingCopyright 2010, Benjamin Hill ConsultingSPHPBLOGEmployee Policy vs. ‘Big Brother’, or ‘Just let them WILB’ The study found that those allowed to participate in WILB (workplace internet leisure browsing) produced a 9% greater productivity level than those that were prohibited from doing so. Seems a bit shocking…or does it?
I have found most of my life when I am faced with a challenge that I can’t solve quickly, it is often only by stepping away from that for a time and allowing my mind to ‘be freed’ of it, that I am able to return to that challenge and solve it successfully. Many times I can attest to this process working. In fact, it works so well, I think I have trained myself to perform this cycle without even thinking about it at times. However, I am not using leisure surfing as my ‘freedom’. Usually I eat lunch, use the restroom, or more commonly, pick up a different problem and try and tackle that one instead.
It seems foolish to mandate workplace leisure internet surfing as the total solution for everyone. Employees do need breaks however, and each of them needs to be allowed to take the break they need to clear their minds and return to effective productivity levels.
My recommendation remains as it always has…use employee policy to restrict the types of content that you are uncomfortable with your employees taking in while on the time clock. Then first, measure their productivity, not their leisurely internet usage as a means of ‘keeping tabs’ on their performance. Secondarily, you can watch their internet usage, if they are performing well, but able to WILB 60% of the day away, they probably could produce more effectively for you. But based on this study, a WILB of 20% might be worth tolerating. Although, it may be difficult at times to allow, this study may actually have some validity.
The days of total denial of leisure browsing could be numbered…but my guess is, it will be a while before employees are forced to surf for fun at work…
-BEH ]]>http://www.benjaminhill.com/blog/bhctech/index.php?entry=entry090424-1454242009-04-24T00:00:00Z2009-04-24T00:00:00ZShould technology learn from history?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat ) Yep, that little cat-shaped bar code scanner that could seemingly scan anything and immediately take you to some web site that was related to the item you scanned. This brought all kinds of thoughts to mind, like price shopping from your phone for items while you were in a store, to immediately being able to get nutritional information for almost anything, even stuff it isn’t printed on. There were all sorts of reasons why this failed…but the bottom line was it failed miserably. In fact, it was listed as one of the top 25 worst tech products of all time. Pretty pathetic. And now if you’re lucky you can by a CueCat on eBay for a dollar. (Although without software to use it as a barcode scanner, it won’t do much, and the software that used to work is not longer functional.)
Enter Microsoft…in their infinite wisdom, they now are putting ‘TAGS’ on their advertisements that you can use your cell phone to ‘read’ and then you will be instantly taken to a website with your in-phone browser. My reaction: Cool technology…but, what a waste. My next thought…it’s CUECAT all over again. So, now our brains aren’t good enough to remember SQLServerEnergy.com, so we should rely on our cellphone to read a fancy barcode and take us there automatically. ( http://gettag.mobi )
Give me a break. Computers have already been blamed for helping to turn out a generation of students that struggle with basic arithmetic without a calculator. Anything that makes us lazy (mentally or physically) concerns me. We already have a nation of overweight children and middle-aged adults that die of heart attacks. (I must admit I worry about myself in that latter) Can’t technology be used in ways that helps us, without making us more lazy?
I don’t really think Microsoft Tags are going to ruin the world, but I just wonder if this is one of those times that people with new bad ideas should look to history at old bad ideas and make sure they aren’t repeating mistakes. Maybe technology solutions are seasonal and what works at one point in time might not work at others. I hope for the Microsoft Tag people, this is the season for this technology to blossom. I’m not holding my breath…
-BEH ]]>http://www.benjaminhill.com/blog/bhctech/index.php?entry=entry090328-0910262009-03-28T00:00:00Z2009-03-28T00:00:00ZIris for WM5 / WM6 I had never heard of this browser, but everything I read was positive, so I decided to give it a try. Boy am I glad I did.
I simply registered online and downloaded straight to my phone from the Torch Mobile website. ( http://www.torchmobile.com/download/ ) Then within minutes, my Moto Q9m (recently upgraded to WM 6.1) was finally able to actually browse websites in a manner similar to a PC or at least an iPhone.
Some of the features that stand out for me are:
1. Mouse cursor - even on a smartphone that allows easier navigation and clearer clicking on sites. 2. Page Thumbnail - as you are navigating a page, you are presented with a thumbnail 'aerial' view of the entire page you are browsing...genius. 3. Zoom / View Control - Great ability to zoom to many levels and scroll through multi-screen viewing as needed. 4. Import Favorites from IE - nice feature to allow easy migration.
Now on my Moto Q, this isn't perfect. I have experienced some out of memory errors and other problems. (the MotoQ doesn't meet the minimum recommendation) But overall, this has opened some abilities for browsing that I simply didn't have before.
Great work Torch. Keep on improving Iris!!!
-BEH]]>http://www.benjaminhill.com/blog/bhctech/index.php?entry=entry090318-1917422009-03-19T00:00:00Z2009-03-19T00:00:00ZTethering Your Smartphone Not only can you access the internet using your SmartPhone but you can also use it to provide Internet access to your laptop. This is great when your laptop is not near a Wi-Fi, public LAN, or your only way to access the Internet is through a pay "hotspot", or even worse...dial-up.
The instructions I am going to give are for connecting your SmartPhone to your laptop using the USB data cable. You can also do this using BlueTooth, and it works equally well, but it is a little more complex to step through as the process requires getting your SmartPhone and Laptop handshaking on the Bluetooth connection. Specifically I am performing this using a Verizon Motorola Q9m, but most others should be similar. This exact process may only work on Windows Mobile 6.0 or 6.1 OS as well. It does not appear that WM5 devices have the needed executables. (At least in our limited testing.)
With your SmartPhone connected to your laptop, use ActiveSync to Explore Smartphone, go to the \Windows directory. Scroll down until you find a file named "InternetConnectionSharing". Right click on it and select "Copy". Now go to \Windows\Start Menu and again right clicking and select "Paste Shortcut". This will create a shortcut to IntShrUI.exe and it will be named something like "InternetConnectionSharing(2)". You can leave it like this, but I would rename the file and drop the number (2) from it (you can do this by right clicking on it and selecting "Rename").
You are now ready to use your SmartPhone as a modem for your laptop (or PC or desktop, etc.). Make sure that your laptop is connected to your SmartPhone using the USB data/sync cable. If your laptop is currently hooked up to a network (wireless, ethernet, dial-up, etc) disable the network card for this test. Once you are sure you are no longer connected to the Internet, go to "Start/Internet Sharing" on your SmartPhone (directly on the phone not using ActiveSync) and click on the icon.
The application will start on your phone and you will have to click on the left hand soft key named "Connect" (the options should be already filled in for you, but if not, they should be "PC Connection = USB" (or "Bluetooth PAN" for Bluetooth-Paired phones) and "Network Connection = Broadband Access"). That's it, you should now be able to surf on the Internet from your laptop. When you are done, bring up the Internet Sharing application and click on "Disconnect". Don't forget to re-enable your network card if you previously disabled it for this test.
So now when you are out in the real world and have no Internet connectivity on your laptop, you now can use your SmartPhone to keep you connected. I highly recommend you go the next step and get it working Bluetooth, because those USB sync cables just never seem to be around when you need one!
