Month: May 2008

Is Rural America Broadband Deficient?

I recently moved to Madero, Tx, a small unincorporated community South of my hometown, Mission. What’s killing me right now is that there are few options for broad band. At this location, there is no DSL or Cable. Our only options for internet at more than crawling speeds are satellite, microwave, or mobile broadband through one of the major carriers like Sprint or AT&T. My current situation leads me to think about what people in rural areas face with respect to jumping on the latest and greatest websites. The downside to DSL and Cable alternatives is that they charge a pretty steep premium. DSL will be coming around in the next 6 months.

Currently, my Internet access piggybacks on my phone’s internet sharing. I’ve blogged in the past about the speed I can achieve, which is around the old ISDN speed. Back in the day, this would have been awesome. Today, it’s woefully inadequate. With today’s websites, moving around is rather painful at that speed. My activities are limited to checking email and writing blog posts. If I dare to browse around and read other blogs, it would take a considerable chunk of time to move from one to another. Quite frankly, without broadband, social media is hardly worth the effort. The only exception are those sites that have added mobile interfaces to their sites. They may be stripped down, but they get the basic job done of keeping you in touch.

This leads me to believe that there is giant segment of people out there for whom social and new media are a waste of time, literally. Without broadband access for physical or economic reasons, it is simply too much of a time sink to wait for content to download. If they go online, it is with a specific objective and they move on with their lives once it is achieved.

I often hear that New Media is in its infancy. I would tend to agree now that I realize with greater understanding that there are folks out there for whom it is meaningless. It’s tough to appreciate Youtube when you’re connected at dial-up speeds, which are often under 56k. It’s even tougher to be part of the conversation when you have limitations on what you can upload.

I don’t want to give the impression that rural areas are disadvantaged. Rather, rural America has some obstacles when it comes to participating in the new media. Obviously, if somebody living out in the country is willing to put up the money for satellite, mobile broadband, or some other alternate broadband access, then they have no problem contributing; however, I would argue that few are willing to pay $60+/month for non-business access. In addition, with sites like Kyte.tv and Utterz, which lend themselves to mobile technology, rural folks have some contribution to make. I think more people are willing to pay for mobile service, which has a practical and more accessible use.

Job Detour: Joining South Texas Communications

I have been lax in announcing another change in my employment. Recently I announced joining up with RGV Helpdesk. Well, within a week, RGV Helpdesk was in negotiations to join South Texas Communications. As a result, I had to re-interview for a job I already had. I was a bit hesitant at first because the job requires full-time involvement.

I have worked to build multiple sources of income, so going back to a single source of income causes me to hesitate. Still, the project that South Texas Communications is currently involved in made me want to be a part. Currently, we are working on a project to connect all the hospitals along the Rio Grande Valley with a private network that uses microwave bridges. Some of these network bridges will cross a street while others will cross many miles. I’ve not worked on this type of computer networking, so this is cool.

South Texas Communications has historically been a radio company. It has been in business for over 60 years. Much of their business depends on servicing city, county, and other government radio needs. They have roughly 75% of the radio market in our region. Furthermore, South Texas Communications is the leader in selling and servicing Motorola products in the RGV. Having said that, I know very little about radios. I’m a computer guy.

Why would they hire me? Well, it turns out that radio is increasingly integrating with computer networks. Carrying voice over radios is down to a science. Now, there is increasing demand for radio that can carry data. The radios are physically the same, but the infrastructure at the ends of the radios is more IT centric. That’s where RGV Helpdesk and I come in. We are there to fill the void where radio meets computer networks. Therefore, South Texas Communications will broaden the meaning of the Communications part in the name.

It was a tough decision for me to finally agree to join South Texas Communications. It is a fine company with a good track record. I think a few years back I would have jumped at the opportunity immediately. My hesitation mainly came from being comfortable where I was working for a State Representative and doing computer jobs on the side. I had steady income and access to important people throughout the state. I was ready to turn the job down. I even asked for a raise and got it. In the end, being comfortable is what changed my mind. If you are comfortable, you aren’t growing. I figure it is best to move out of my comfort zone and try to grow into something else.

In the coming month, I’ll be working on a big project that is both physically and mentally demanding. Afterwards, I’m sure that more challenges will be thrown my way. I don’t know what lies ahead exactly, details were rather vague, something about a career and opportunities. I don’t know about all that, nor care. I’m going to pick up some skills and put them to work alongside my existing skills. The key here is growth.

Community and Giving

Tonight while listening in on Twitter, I saw a link to the latest post by Connie Reece. Despite her condition, she made it a point to attend church today. At church, she heard her friend say “it’s an honor to serve you” when the communion plate came around. Those six words succintly described the value of community.

This realization reminds me of some things I have read, heard, and thought about regarding community. Many of us who are really digging the rise of social media on the Internet really enjoy the facility with which we can connect with others of similar interests and passions. Of course, in life we can have friends with a variety of interests. Online communities share common traits with our everyday communities, except for physical presence. This can be an important distinction.

One thought that comes to mind is what I read in one of the 7 Habits books is “if there is no gardener, there is no garden”. The context of that was that you can’t simply plant some seedlings and forget about them. This applies to anybody who has an online presence. You cannot jump on Twitter one day and say that you have a social network. You cannot check up on your facebook account once a month and expect that to be a way of keeping in touch with your friends. In order to have the garden, you need to actively and consistently maintain that garden. In social media, you need to actively and consistently maintain those connections. More than that, you need to make those connections meaningful; and, you need to make those connections in your every day life.

I can admit that I sometimes get carried away with checking up on my online accounts to see what my online friends are doing. It is easy to neglect your community locally. The first community we all have is our family. Beyond that there are our neighbors, co-workers, and fellow parishioners. We belong to these communities and we often neglect to put in the necessary time to maintain these local communities. We don’t often take the time to ask how somebody’s day is going, to wish a happy birthday, or to even ask if there is anything that we can do to help.

When it comes down to it, most of the people who are of note in the online community offer their friends something of value. They give valuable advice, ideas, assistance, and many other things. Locally, we give similar things to our communities. We give our time, advice, ideas, assistance, and more. I find that many of the things that make you a star in the online world are the same things that make you a star in your local community. More than that, we are physically present to actually do something.

Going back to the concept of gardens requiring a gardener, it is important to remind you that you should spend a little time being of service in your home, church, and other communities where people live with you and are at hand to help you in a time of need. Be sure to serve those who are physically in your community as you would those in your online communities. It is your local friends who can check in on you and offer a helping hand much easier than your online friends can. They are worth the same amount of attention; give it to them.

Removing a diaper from the toilet

I spent my afternoon hours removing a diaper from the toilet, today. It is funny how quickly things can go wrong. My wife asked our son to dispose of a diaper in the trash. He took it and flushed it down the toilet. She called me to come see what “my” son did. In front of him, I had a stern face; alone with my wife, I couldn’t help but laugh. He is almost 7 years old. I expect more dumb things to come from that boy.

I was curious what cognitive process led him to think that a diaper would make it down the toilet, knowing that there isn’t much cognitive going on in a 6 year old boy’s head. In his defense, he said, “I’m just a little kid; I’m going to do things like that.” I must say that his logic is infallible. I can’t argue with that.

I tried using a wire coat hanger to pull the diaper out, but it would not reach. The toilet has a sharp turn that did not allow me to hook on to the diaper and pull it back. We tried the plunger, which I didn’t expect to accomplish anything; it didn’t. I did not want to have to remove the toilet, but that was our only option. Fortunately, toilets only have two bolts holding them down. I emptied the tank and the bowl manually with a cup. Thank goodness the toilet water was just water.

Once I removed the toilet, I tried to use the hanger to pull the diaper out the diaper out the bottom. I did manage to pull some of the gel from the diaper out, but it would take hours using that approach. My father-in-law suggested taking the toilet outside and using the water hose to flush the diaper out. At first, we tried doing that with the toilet on its side, but it didn’t work. Instead, we turned the toilet upside down and stuck in the hose with my father-in-law making a seal around it with his hands. That did trick. The diaper popped out the same way it went in.

After that, it was a matter of putting the toilet back. I re-seated the toilet on the wax ring, screwed on the nuts that hold it down, attached the water tank, and reattached the water hose. I gave it a test and everything seems to be working fine. I do need to recaulk the edge around the toilet, but that’s no big deal.

In my post incident interview of the boy, I asked him why he thought that the diaper would make it down the toilet. He said that he thought it would go down just like toilet paper. I told him that toilet paper shrinks when it is wet. He replied that he thought the diaper would also shrink. I informed him that diapers are different, they have a gel that makes the diaper bigger when it gets wet. I asked him not to do it again.

I might have been angry with the boy if what he did weren’t so dumb. Even now I chuckle about it. I can guarantee you that I will tell this story until the day I die. His kids will know about this. More than anything, I just hope he knows better next time.

After Startup Weekend San Antonio

I’ve had quite a bit waiting for me since my return from Startup Weekend San Antonio this weekend. If you have kept up, you know that I am a part of the team that started ForceXchange.com. We are still working to carry the project forward in addition to carrying out all that pertains to our daily lives. It’s funny, I’ve heard it said that if you want something done, ask a busy person. Well, there you go. All of us have plenty to do and we have taken on more. We must be nuts.

I do want to also recognize, with a little bit of link love, the other teams from Startup Weekend San Antonio. There is IDre.am; which is a team of developers who threw up a functional website in record time. The website is a fun idea. People post what they dreamt the night before; others post interpretations of the dreams. Still others can vote on the interpretations for the best one.

The other team is RentEscapes.com. It is the most ambitious of the startups, which can potentially earn the greatest amount of money. On the other hand, it is also the most complex to carry out. The good news is that the team has a large pool of talent from which to draw.

We all want to carry our projects forward and monetize from our efforts. We’ll see how things work out in the coming weeks. I am grateful for the experience; and I am glad to have met so many awesome like-minded people. Even though I am still catching up on rest, I am clear of mind what I want to do as a result of the experience. I will keep you posted on what is going on with the ForceXchange team as we work to complete our project.

UPDATE

You can read more about Startup Weekend San Antonio at the San Antonio Express News. Watch video here.

San Antonio Startup Weekend

Next weekend, I’ll be heading out to San Antonio for Startup Weekend. I’ve heard of Startup Weekend from friends. It has all been second-hand knowledge in addition to what’s on the website. My understanding of Startup Weekend is that it is 54 hours of putting a company or a project together over the weekend. There have been several of these Startup Weekends already, so you can search around for projects that have come out of it.

Everything that I’ve read about Startup Weekend glosses over all the technical stuff and focuses on the people. Andrew Hyde, the founder of Startup Weekend, is very much interested in promoting community. I can’t say that there is anything wrong with that. After all, the business may succeed or fail; it’s up to the market. However, you will have spent three days seeing other people work on a project for long hours. If the company succeeds, that’s great. However, you’ll have the relationships for years after (positive or negative).

I’m not exactly certain where I fit in through all of this. So, to give myself a chance to grow, I signed up as a Cook. My understanding is that there will be food available, so I don’t know that there will actually be any cooking, but I’m up for the challenge. 🙂

I’m in it to help bring a new company to life. Yet, I am equally interested in meeting some great and talented people. If you are looking for a business startup, you may consider joining us next weekend from May 16 to 18. You should buy a ticket before showing up. It should be a good experience for you entrepreneurial types. I hope to see you there.

Joining Forces With RGV Helpdesk

RGV Helpdesk Logo

Today, I joined forces with RGV Helpdesk. RGV Helpdesk and I have complementary skill sets and mindsets for achieving success in the Small and Medium Business (SMB) technology field. In order to improve my service offerings and keep up with demand, I thought it best to become a part of a team.

As many of you know, I have ventured into providing computer services in South Texas. I’ve been at it since December, technically, but have only really been actively seeking business since March. In this short time, I found myself a little bit stretched thin and experiencing the limitations of being a break-fix technician. There are certainly some benefits to my existing clients by my joining the geeks at RGV Helpdesk. Amongst those benefits are improved response times, improved resources, and more well-rounded solutions.

I look forward to working with the team. Please don’t hesitate to call me at the new business office. I look forward to serving you with a little help from my friends.

Group Collaboration And Project Management With SmartSheet

Lately, I have been working with a very useful collaboration and project management web service at SmartSheet.com. Well, actually, I’ve only worked with the Project Management portion. I don’t have much of a team with whom to share, but if I did, it would be through SmartSheet.

The appeal of SmartSheet, as opposed to other project management software, is that it runs like a spreadsheet. I think you would agree that most of us will jump into Microsoft Excel, or some other spreadsheet software, whenever we have a project. The appeal of project management through spreadsheet is that you can pretty much make lists for all your tasks. You can make a list of things to do, add a column of people who are responsible for the tasks, add a column for due dates, add a column for comments, and so on. A spreadsheet effectively flattens out a project. Another benefit is that you can email a spreadsheet to anybody and have reasonable certainty that they can view it. SmartSheet takes this part of project management via spreadsheet and improves it.

Having said all that, SmartSheet is not a spreadsheet, nor do they claim to be. You’re not going to use their service to crunch numbers. Given that the service is web-based, your browser will writhe in pain if you try to run a project with 100,000 lines. Most of us don’t have projects of that magnitude anyway. So, don’t go signing up for the service thinking that you found an online spreadsheet.

At this point, you might be thinking, “big deal. So you can make lists of things to do on the web. So what?”

Well, that’s not all. No, my friend, that is not all. Smartsheet also allows you to share a workspace where you keep a collection of SmartSheets. If you have a company with different departments, for example, you can create a workspace for every department. You can then create groups of people who have access to those workspaces. Yes, we’re talking about group-based permissions. But that is not all. You can even assign permissions down to the user level. So, you assign those permissions to a workspace, individual sheets, or, get this, even down to individual line items within a sheet. How’s that for fine control?

That’s not all, by far. Another advantage of using SmartSheet is that it gives you version control. Since the document is stored and accessed online, there is only ever one version available. On top of that, I understand that if one user updates a sheet, the changes are updated on the screens of others who are accessing the same document. And while we are on the topic of version control, SmartSheet also lets you look at the history of individual cells to track the changes. How do you like that?

One of the limitations that a spreadsheet has for project management is keeping track of other documents or information. SmartSheet eschews this problem handily. You can attach documents to individual sheets or to individual rows within the sheet. You might be thinking why you would need such a thing. Here is an example. Let’s say that you have a network to plan and install. There are some documents that have to be available globally, like tech support numbers, default network settings, inventories, etc. These are generally useful across the whole project and can therefore be attached to the entire SmartSheet. But, let’s say that you have to customize a workstation or server. On the rows where that computer is customized, you can attach documents that lay out the customized settings. In fact, if any changes come up, you can edit that document, and then re-upload it with the new settings. This is how I’ve been using SmartSheet, as a way to keep track of the computers on a network and all the settings of each desktop.

Probably, the coolest feature of SmartSheet, for me, is that I can export the sheet as an Excel file or as a PDF. This is awesome because you can take your PDF down to the copy center and quickly duplicate your project to hand out to all the stakeholders. You can also, if you really must, email the project spreadsheet to somebody.

Under the current version of SmartSheet, there are some features that take some digging around to understand. I think, however, you’ll find that it doesn’t require too much learning. I really like that they have tutorial videos on how to do pretty much anything that SmartSheet can do. I was speaking with somebody from SmartSheet recently. He tells me that there are some big changes coming this Summer that will make SmartSheet even easier to use without losing out on functionality.

If you are a small business and are looking for a way to keep track of those things your company does, SmartSheet would be a great subscription. It’s not an accounting system, so don’t get the wrong idea. It’s a project management and collaboration platform that can add great value to your business. I wrote about Microsoft SharePoint a while back. I think either SmartSheet or SharePoint are probably one of the solutions you should consider. They are both powerful in getting your team on track, although how they go about it is totally different. However, if you are not ready to have an Intranet or don’t need one because you have a virtual team, then SmartSheet is definitely the way to go. You won’t need special software, just a browser; and you won’t need special hardware, any computer with Internet access will do. When it comes to a mobile workforce, running the show via the web is pretty powerful. Check them out.