The Tech Gap

Christmas for a Geek!

My bride of 32 years is incredibly clever --- and this Christmas her gift-selection technique scored very high. She saw me admiring a neat little piece of technology, did some research, and then reached for the credit card. Her gift [my score] was the ASUS Pocket Wireless Access Point WL-330g.

The Asus WL-330g is the world's smallest wireless access point. At a bit over 2 ounces and only 3.4" long by 2.4" wide by 0.7" deep it's the size a pack of playing cards. It's single purpose in life is to turn your hotel or meeting room into a wireless hotspot with as little effort as possible. It will also let you change from wireless access point to an Ethernet based client card, so you can add Ethernet only devices to a Wi-Fi network.

Although I'm VERY impressed with the set-up, (it's truly plug and play!) what really impresses me is its size. This thing is really compact so I can easily carry it in my laptop bag without it adding weight. It can use either AC or USB power --- how's THAT for clever?

Finally, I'm happy to tell you that the price tag is pretty dimunitive, too -- under $60 including shipping! This is one very cool little piece of technology. I'm actually looking forward to my next business trip!

gll

PS: Please let me know about your "cool piece of technology". I'd love to write about it!

Microsoft Joins the Anti-Spyware Arena

Brent Goodfellow, author of the popular Accountant Tech Talk column in The CPA Technology Advisor, is pretty well dialed in with the folks in Redmond. I know he's been watching this area for some time and in this, his latest note for TheTechGap, he's obviously telegraphing the importance of this development. [He's also a really smart guy with more initials behind his name than are IN it!]

Last week Microsoft completed the purchase of Giant Company Software, a New York-based startup with a highly rated anti-spyware application.  Within the next month Microsoft plans to roll out an anti-spyware beta for Windows customers.  According to Microsoft, the sypware detection and removal tool will work alongside other security technologies in XP Service Pack 2.  Before the acquisition, Giant sold the software for $29.95 with upgrades and updates for a year.

Brent F. Goodfellow, MCSA, MCSE, MCT, CPA.CITP

Ray Jimison to Lead Best Software's Business Solutions Unit

Best Software has [again] promoted rising star Ray Jimison to senior vice president and general manager for its Specialized Business Solutions unit.  He replaces his former boss, Himanshu Palsule, who last month was promoted to senior vice president and general manager for Mid-Market Accounting Solutions. Jimison will report to Jim Foster, executive vice president and general manager for Mid-Market Business Units, and will be responsible for strategic, operational, and technology planning for Abra HRMS, Analytics, Carpe Diem, CPASoftware, FAS, and TimeSheet Professional, as well as the Best Software Accountants Network (BSAN) program.

Jimison joined Best Software in 1997, as director of sales and marketing for BusinessWorks. Prior to joining Best, he was vice president of worldwide sales for Decisive Technology, a Mountain View, California-based software and technology services firm. Ray has been in sales and marketing management of technology companies for more than 20 years. He is a graduate of California State University, Fullerton, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance and management.

I've known Ray for many years and found him to be open, honest, above board, and a very quick study. Not many like him around! The Pensacola-based business unit that Ray was running, CPASoftware, was Best's initial push into the "sell-to" portion of the CPA market. He's been there under two years and shown a tremendous grasp of the needs and wants of these highly -specialized users. My bet is that Ray will keep a very close eye on CPAS as he moves upstream to bigger things.

Congratulations, Ray.

gll

The Toolbar War Rages On

Well-known consultant, author and speaker Brent Goodfellow sends this note emphsizing the importance of search. It looks like everybody is scrambling to get in the act.

Seems the toolbar wars are heating up with Microsoft’s release of the MSN toolbar to rival Google’s, and due out later this month one from ask.com.  In January Yahoo will enter the fray with technology they licensed from X1 Technologies.  The new toolbar touts the ability to do desktop and mail searches in addition to searching the Internet.  Microsoft indicated they incorporated technology from the Lookout startup which they purchased earlier in the beta code.  The MSN toolbar is in beta and available for downloading if you want to be the first kid on the block to try it.  The download link is: http://beta.toolbar.msn.com/

Brent F. Goodfellow, MCSA, MCSE, MCT, CPA.CITP

A Portal for Every Client?

Last week Thomson Creative Solutions quietly released UltraTax 1040 Portals as part the Web Services family. The Portals allow firms to provide their 1040 clients with a private, secure portal to complete their tax organizers and access an electronic copy of their completed tax returns. Clients access their UltraTax 1040 Portal directly from the accountant’s website. The concept has been around for several years and this recent announcement is more marketing than technology. The new packaging recognizes that, for most firms, the idea of paying a recurring monthly fee on a per-client basis just to provide secure 24 by 7 availablility of a PDF of a tax return simply isn't palatable. The early-adopter crowd in the CSI camp was very excited about portals in general --- but the "every client" cost (and related management issues) had most of them slowing down. Always well-tuned to customer thought-leaders, CSI quickly stripped down the full portal to a "tax return only model", combined it with their previously released Web Organizer, and began taking orders on an "all-you-can-eat for $1,000" basis.

“UltraTax 1040 Portals were developed in response to firms that understand the value of private portals for their clients, but did not want the administrative work and expense of setting up a full portal system for once-a-year 1040 clients,” said Jon Baron, Executive Vice President, Professional Accounting Markets,Thomson Tax & Accounting, and President and CEO of Creative Solutions. Baron goes on to say (wisely, I might add) "... advanced online service also continues to strengthen the accountant-client relationship and positions the firm as a technology leader.”

gll

Note to the wise --- if you're an UltraTax user this is a service you most certainly want to look at. Great way to move your clients into your future paperless office!

I surrender!

About six months ago I wrote a post describing how to implement digital signatures in Outlook. Fortunately, it’s easy to turn off!

I’ve spent these last six months in a seemingly never-ending series of conversations with an equally never-ending stream of email partners. Every conversation was around their inability to open my digitally signed email and their frustration with me! Now, I’m NOT the one using “other than the very latest version of Outlook and Exchange”, but I AM the one answering the phone. And I am the one being blamed for the Microsoft and Veritas rush to claim a standard when the simple fact is we [the computing public] are simply not ready for the standard. In building this digital signature “standard” without backward-compatibility (it doesn’t work with AOL, Outlook Express, Eudora, etc.) they seem to have doomed its eventual acceptance. I’ve often opined that technology thought-leaders owe an obligation to demonstrate technological prowess whenever practicable. It’s for this reason that I suffered for six months. But no more --- I surrender. As of today I am turning off my digital signature on outgoing email.

I report this sadly and after having conversations with several other technologists around the country. It seems we’re all coming to the same conclusion. This is a GREAT idea, just not yet. In talking to those representing large businesses I’ve discovered that their surveys showed that customers were not only frustrated by being unable to open a digitally signed email, but that they actually expected that the signature was equivalent to encryption. And we know it’s NOT! So the problem is exacerbated --- recipients get an email that they can’t open. They suspect a virus and delete it. Bad result. They call you for an explanation. Bad result. They DO get it to open and they assume the contents are encrypted. Bad result. Legendary Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes is credited with having said “When you pass the football only three things can happen, and two of them are bad!” In this case only three things can happen and, it seems to me, all three are bad!

gll

By the way --- you can turn it off by going to Tools | Options | Security and unchecking the “Add digital signature to outgoing messages” box.

Stay sychronized with BeInSync

As you probably know I travel a great deal and consequently keeping my laptop "sync-ed" to my desktop is difficult at best. While I use and enjoy my Mirra personal server it's just not the answer for keeping la large number of files always synchronized. Outlook 2003, paired with Exchange 2003, does a great job with email, but what about my FILES? I'm tired of emailing the "latest version" of documents back and forth to myself. Modern communication has made me realize that having TOO MANY copies of a file is just as almost as having none! I believe I may have found an answer. BeInSync, a company based in Tel-Aviv, Israel, recently announced BeInSync 1.0, a software program designed to automatically synchronize the data on all of your various computers so that you can access your files no matter where you are — at work, at home or on the road.

BeInSync synchronizes data using a secure peer-to-peer connections. For example, download the software to your desktop PC and your laptop, choose which folders to synch — (i.e. desktop, My Documents, etc.) After the process runs, every time you make a change to a document that change is automatically sent to your other PCs. The service maintains an authentication server that verifies your credentials. Users' data never leaves their control or resides on any third party servers as BeInSync uses a 128-bit encrypted direct peer-to-peer connection to move data between up to three synced computers. The service also provides an option for Web access to all or portions of the synced data. 

BeInsync 1.0 is available at the company's Web site with promotional pricing of $5.95 per month.

If you suffer with too many versions of too many files on too many machines --- BeInSync just might be your answer.

gll