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This is the main blog for Mike McBride Online, where you can keep track of everything I'm in to in one place.
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| Thursday, May 08, 2008
Blackberries and overtime? Some interesting thoughts from Sharon Nelson regarding the use of blackberries/smartphones and remote access and how the use of these tools might affect hourly employees. This is an interesting subject for me, I carry a blackberry, and occasionally log in from remote locations, and am an hourly employee. I try to be fair about using it, and charging overtime for what I do. For example a 2 minute email reply that I sent the other day from the National Mall, I'm not going to worry about. Yes, I'm on vacation, and yes I don't have to answer emails, but here was a peer who needed a quick bit of tech advice and I could help them without too much difficulty. I don't mind using 2 minutes of my time for that. On the other hand, if the firm starts expecting me t be available to answer emails any time I'm on vacation, or just at home in the evening, we're going to have to be fair to me, and my home life as well. Any of you in the same situation? How do you and your employer handle it? Tags: Digg this | Post to del.icio.us| FaceBook | Stumble Upon| Google Bookmark| 11:05 PM | 0 comments | 
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Tuesday, May 06, 2008
VMWare Fusion beta 2.0 Multiple displays with your virtual machine, and better 3d acceleration? I might have to check that out when I get home from this trip! Anyone already got it installed? Tags: Labels: Mac Digg this | Post to del.icio.us| FaceBook | Stumble Upon| Google Bookmark| 10:36 PM | 0 comments |
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Monday, May 05, 2008
Arlington National Cemetery
Just a quick note. I threw a few photos from Arlington Cemetery up on Flickr today. That's not the only place we took photos, but it's getting late, I've been up since very, very early and that was about all the time I had tonight. ;) Arlington is a great stop, and viewing the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns is truly impressive. To think that only 500 people have ever qualified to guard to tomb, in it's history, and that the post has never been unmanned, even during a hurricane, is really something. The photo's title above is based on the fact that during the 30 minute shift, the guard will take 21 steps, then pause for 21 seconds, before taking another 21 steps in the reverse direction. This is a symbolic representation of the 21 gun salute. The cemetery certainly gives you some perspective on life, and on the meaning of sacrifice. Labels: Personal, Photography Digg this | Post to del.icio.us| FaceBook | Stumble Upon| Google Bookmark| 10:19 PM | 0 comments |
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Sunday, May 04, 2008
ALSP Redesign
I got an email a couple of weeks ago with my login information for the new ALSP website. Supposedly, logging in was going to allow me to access all parts of the site, but I haven't actually seen any pages that I can't get to without logging in, so I'm not sure just what is behind the member's only wall and what isn't. I'm glad that they've made the webcast archives available, since I'm going to miss the next one, ESI Bootcamp ? e-Discovery Begins with Forensically Sound Data Collection this Thursday. Sounds like it might be pretty good, but I won't be near a PC. Overall I've been happy with the content of the ALSP webcasts and newsletters thus far in my first year of membership. I'm still keeping an eye on other things that haven't quite taken off yet, but which I am eager to see, such as the forums, local chapters, and the certification process. I've also seen mention of the possibility of creating special interest groups, including one for folks coming to Litigation Support from an IT background. Obviously, I'd be very interested in seeing that develop. For all of the various resources I have access to through my Summation certification, the firm's ILTA membership and the Yahoo Litsupport mailing list, none of them address this specific situation, and I for one would like to create a network of folks going through the same patterns I am. Perhaps if one doesn't get going soon, I'll see about starting one myself. :) Labels: LitigationSupport Digg this | Post to del.icio.us| FaceBook | Stumble Upon| Google Bookmark| 9:00 PM | 0 comments |
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Saturday, May 03, 2008
Scheduled Posting This is a test of Blogger's new future date posting. If all goes well, this will get published to the site at the specified time, and I'll be sure to write up some things I've been meaning to post before we leave, that'll publish throughout the next few days. That'd be a great feature, if it works. Interestingly, posting from Windows Live Writer still gives me the message about Blogger not supporting future date publishing, even though it does, and the post doesn't get published, it gets scheduled. Labels: Blogging Digg this | Post to del.icio.us| FaceBook | Stumble Upon| Google Bookmark| 8:15 AM | 0 comments |
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Excellent Customer Service, or Greasing the Squeaky Wheel?
One of the things I've long wondered about bloggers writing about good service from a company is whether they got that service because the company really cares about taking care of it's customers, or if they got that service because of who they are. A fine example came about last weekend when Louis Gray wrote about his good experience with Disqus. Now Louis is a fairly well-known blogger, he's been listed on Techmeme a few times and has significantly more readers than I do. Louis was trying to do something that I had attempted to do, use Disqus on a customized Blogger template, with an FTP connection to my own domain. At the time I attempted this, I posted a quick note to Twitter about it and Daniel Ha asked me to send my template to their help address and see if they could help. That was very responsive, and I was impressed. That was April 14. I've never gotten a response from them. Louis, however, got a response the next morning, and then an additional tweak after asking for it "seven minutes later". Louis chalks this up to "a great example of next-generation customer service, and engaging". I'm wondering if it's more a case of knowing how to get good PR where you can? My point here is not to try and discredit anything Disqus or Louis is doing here, and it's not to whine about not getting the same treatment. If you read the comments over there, I'm not the only one who didn't get so much support and Louis isn't the only one with a great story of getting support from Disqus. If I do have a point, it's that as bloggers, especially A-list type bloggers, I wonder if we shouldn't take what responses we get with a grain of salt. We may get great service from an organization, and may be tempted to do what we can to help that company out and tout their product, but do we really know whether our readers would get that same service, without the bully pulpit and the same audience? Wouldn't it be only natural for someone like Daniel to spend his limited time making sure a well known blogger gets first rate service, even if that means other people get less? After all, who's going to influence more people? I'm just asking.... Labels: Blogging Digg this | Post to del.icio.us| FaceBook | Stumble Upon| Google Bookmark| 12:15 AM | 2 comments |
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Thursday, May 01, 2008
More on Backup Tapes I wrote earlier about Index Engines and how I thought that technology might change the landscape when it comes to determining what's inaccessible electronically stored information. I also saw today that RenewData has announced their own technology to make data on tape backups more accessible. Sean Doherty over at EDD Update has some details on RenewData's technology, news that CommVault is using the Index Engines technology specifically in the E-Discovery realm, and related thoughts about the inaccessible/accessible debate is being moved by new technology. I suspect the needle of what's inaccessible will continue to be moved, to a point where just about everything is accessible It'll just be a matter of time until the costs of recovering data will be low enough that we ma not even see this debate any more. We'll see how this plays out over the years. Tags: Labels: LitigationSupport Digg this | Post to del.icio.us| FaceBook | Stumble Upon| Google Bookmark| 11:08 PM | 0 comments |
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