Horologigrafica WoTD September 9, 2018

September 09, 2018

MB&F Horological Machine No. 1

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by John Loves Watches (@horologigrafica) on Sep 8, 2018 at 6:53am PDT

What sounds crazier: you running Windows 7 today, or Microsoft about to start charging you for support?

September 07, 2018

Microsoft will start charging a fee, with yearly escalators, to people still running Windows 7.

As we all know, Windows 7 debuted in 2009.

Sales of the OD stopped in 2014, and mainstream support for Win7 ended sometime in 2015.

For companies that asked – with both their money, and nicely, Microsoft extended support to 2020.

Now though,

מנא מנא תקל ופרסין

The handwriting, is on the wall.

If Windows 7 is your current OS, get the hell off of it.

If you’re running your business on Windows 7, and your IT department/IT guy/IT consultant doesn’t want you off the OS, fire the imbecile immediately!

If, on the other hand, staying with Windows 7 is your decision, over the advice of your solution provider, I am sorry for you.

SMB Impact: Fuego! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Follow @johnobeto

Why not Surface Go or Surface as a rental?

August 24, 2018

This is a highly-requested product/service?

While it is true that I don’t have the number that Microsoft probably has, it seems unreal.

If you look at Microsoft’s hardware inventory, what product, or products scream out for a subscription service?

Did you utter “Surface Go”? And/or scream “The Entire Surface line, dodo!”?

Aaah! So, you know.

I have been totally verklempt trying to understand why an LTE-equipped Surface Go was not offered on Day One, and at that same price.

(The glacial pace of hardware developments and refreshes from Microsoft expose it as a software company. Nothing is wrong with that, for Microsoft mints more bars of gold-pressed Latinum than many sovereign countries. However, it does not show an undeniable commitment to hardware.)

In fact, is there any reason why the entire Microsoft Surface line does not have LTE-equipped models at launch?

And subsequently bundled with a rental+cellular subscription?

Even if you remove LTE from the devices for cost reasons, why aren’t Surface/Surface Go subscriptions available?

If low enough, it would be a fantastic K12 offering.

But, nooooo.

Xbox.

Unless this is a test case for Microsoft coming up with a Surface Go subscription service, or a completely BS rumor, I wouldn’t

Follow @johnobeto

The Circle of Trust Reject: Uber

August 23, 2018

Confession: I have only been in an Uber as a guest of a rider once.

Just once.

I have never basically, Uber’d.

Initially since I never had to, as I have always had the privilege of riding in town cars and the like whenever I need a ride, and primarily because well, LA.

Friends who lived in highly urban areas such as London, Silly Valley, New York etc., loved them.

Uber provided a service, and it both exposed, and disintermediated the municipal scams we know as taxi medallion licensing.

In all, Uber was a Good Thing!

Initially.

As they got more successful, they got a lot more nasty, more despicable, and finally – just before Kalanick got run – went completely cray-cray!

I mean, they checked all the boxes: they were nasty to customers – “surge pricing” during natural disasters; utterly disrespectful to their employees/drivers/’contractors’, stupidly an unnecessarily combatant with regulatory authorities, and more. They veered into criminality by developing a virtual environment overlay for city officials charged with possibly regulating them.

They openly yearned for the day when they’d finally be rid of the very factor that got them to success: their drivers. They talked up their foray into autonomous vehicles, thoroughly discounting current employees.

But, they stepped on the live wire of the Otto buy, which came with supposedly fraudulent proprietary IP belonging to Google.

When the merde hit the aerator, Uber realized it had no friends.

Every few days seemed to bring another revelation of dubious criminal, or outright unethical behavior.

So much so, that sometime last year, I started using the hashtag #YearOfLivingDangerously to describe Uber’s failings, and predicting an implosion.

I also made the decision never to use Uber.

Neither personally, nor professionally.

Uber’s co-founder Travis Kalanick was replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi who seems to be a more level-headed guy.

He smartly helped resolve Uber’s London mess, and adroitly steered Uber through the autonomous vehicle fatality disaster in Tempe. I seriously shudder to think of how Travis would have reacted to that!

While Uber’s future still looks bright, I am still a skeptic.

As a result, I will leave them in my NEVER List until I am convinced.

I want Uber’s good works and corporate citizenship to show me.

Once Uber presents as a company with good ethics as part of its corporate DNA, I’ll reconsider.

Then, and only then, will I be a Belieber!

My tweets about Uber, from January 1, 2017 to now can be found here.

Follow @johnobeto

The Circle of Trust

August 23, 2018 in Microsoft

Every day, we entrust our private and professional lives in these United States, and for most of the world actually, to basically these 6 companies, namely Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft and Starbucks. To a lesser extent, Snapchat, and Twitter. I have to add Uber and AirBnB as well. Facebook’s Instagram and WhatsApp will also be talked about under Facebook, as would YouTube under Google.

We do so mostly willingly, but mostly because of some vestigial connections still using that specific service or resource.

However, are these companies deserving of our trust, and our business, at all? Are they practitioners of ethical computing? Is our data safe with them? Can they be trusted in the future?

Over a series of blog posts, I will give you my thoughts on the firms listed above, and why I either have increased, stagnant, decreased, or zero engagement with them.

Believe me, some of these companies are not, and will NEVER be, in my Circle of Trust!

Follow @johnobeto

The incredible madness that is 'dockless personal transportation'

August 19, 2018

Why would any municipality agree to this nonsense?

$10 to start. But, how do the batteries get recharged?

How also, would they be paid for it?

Listen, spare me the horsecrap explanations, and just solve this for me: if a legally-rented bicycle is left dockless by a paying customer at La Cienega & Rosewood, and then ridden illegally by someone else to Sunset & Fairfax, who is financially responsible for that additional ride?

Right?

Now, we come to dockless EV conveyances.

In addition to the previous question, I have just one more: how and where do these dockless EV devices get their catteries recharged?

Solar?

While cities have all these visions of millions of dollars from startups in this field dancing before their eyes, the reality is, these schemes have every indication of being just this side, legally, of a con.

And not even a long con, either.

Mix in cultural differences, and now, you have a problem.

Just because a pilot program worked in some Euro nation, doesn’t mean it would work here. Not at all.

Then, you have the ridership.

In every promotional media for these ‘creations’, it seems to target a certain demographic.

And unless that demographic can produce profits, these schemes are doomed.

Now, let us move on to societal concerns.

Ride this bike in certain gang territory, and you're just asking for it!

Can you see some rando millennial safely tooling around on an EV scooter in the C-P-T, Compton?

Or on the Eastside?

Me neither.

The perp of this flagrant millennialness would probably get #$%@&^ for being a complete doofus in the neighborhood, bringing down home prices in the process.

Homie just won’t survive.

Source: Citylab.

Follow @johnobeto

Just about all Android phones ship with firmware vulns

August 18, 2018

“Pssst! Would you like a side of malware with that Android phone?”

Sounds harsh, but hey, that’s the reality of using Android devices.

Remember when it was discovered that almost all Android phone came with an app that phoned in customer data to a server in mainland China?

That app, though it could be deleted by users, would automagically resurrect itself, prompting emergency updates by wireless providers.

Well, this is even more insidious.

As discovered by security research firm Kryptowire, these Android problems just aren’t user-fixable at all. They’re embedded in the firmware, for goodness sake!

So, as a side dish to your Android phone, you get to have an increased malware attack area that attackers can use to surface your data wherever they can monetize it.

Ain’t that something?

I’m going to resist making a droll comment here.

Source: The Verge

Follow @johnobeto

Microsoft Patch Tuesday August 2018

August 14, 2018

Several flaws patched, including a couple of zero-day vulns.

The zero-day vulns are:

CVE-2018-8414 | Windows Shell Remote Code Execution Vulnerability: A remote code execution vulnerability exists when the Windows Shell does not properly validate file paths.

An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user. If the current user is logged on as an administrator, an attacker could take control of the affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with elevated privileges. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer privileges on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative privileges.

To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker must entice a user to open a specially crafted file. In an email attack scenario, an attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending the specially crafted file to the user and then convincing the user to open the file. In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a website (or leverage a compromised website that accepts or hosts user-provided content) that contains a specially crafted file designed to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker would have no way to force a user to visit the website. Instead, an attacker would have to convince a user to click a link and open the specially crafted file.

This security update addresses the vulnerability by ensuring the Windows Shell properly validates file paths.

CVE-2018-8341 | Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability: An information disclosure vulnerability exists when the Windows kernel improperly handles objects in memory. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could obtain information to further compromise the user’s system.

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would have to log on to an affected system and run a specially crafted application. The vulnerability would not allow an attacker to execute code or to elevate user rights directly, but it could be used to obtain information that could be used to try to further compromise the affected system.

The update addresses the vulnerability by correcting how the Windows kernel handles objects in memory.

SecurityWeek has a good breakdown of the patches.

Microsoft’s Security Advisory page for this Patch Tuesday is here.

Follow @johnobeto

The AbsolutelyJohn Startech.com Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station for Laptops Review

August 07, 2018

London, Ontario-based Startech.com is well known, and rather celebrated for their line of hard drive docks, which, unlike most of the swill out there, are extremely reliable.

In fact, I had 4 hard drive docks here at The Orbiting O’Odua before I snagged this review opportunity….

….which is rather fortuitous because I have two lappers here that can take advantage of the dock.

One of the things we all run into right quick, is screen space on our laptops.

Though I have the privilege of using two of the three best laptops in existence*, I always find myself needing more screen space with all the productivity applications I have opened.

Unfortunately, all of the desktop docks I had sampled or tested were found wanting. The most egregious of them always caused a BSOD/STOP event whenever I undocked a lapper! Moreover, they all were HD devices, barely able to drive my 2560x1600 HP ZR30w monitor.

Not good. Not good at all.

Into this breach, comes the Startech Thunderbolt 3 Dock.

Startech.com Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station for Laptops – Win & Mac**

The unit here, is feature-packed.

It sports, a USB-C port, count them – SIX – USB 3.0 ports with power delivery, an SD slot, A DisplayPort, and an ethernet port!

A true dock, if you will.

Let’s plunge in.

O.O.B.E.

Sometimes, a bad unboxing, or OOBE (Out-Of-the-Box-Experience) is a portend of disaster.

In fact, rarely is a bad OOBE not followed by a bad product, or user experience.

The OOBE for the Startech Dock was very good.

I cracked open the seals on the package, and found the surprisingly diminutive dock safely nestled in the box. Good.

What was included in the package took it away: in addition to the power supply cable, there was a USB-C cable, there was also a USB-C charging cable, a USB-c-to-DisplayPort cable, and an international (I’m assuming Canada) power supply.

Everything I needed.

Again, cool.

Test Setup

I basically used the same monitors for both tests: two Dell 4K monitors, and my trusty old HP ZR30w monitor. I also used the beta 4K monitor I am testing here from time to time. I also connected it to a projector driving a 125” screen.

Test devices were an Apple MacBook Pro, and a Dell XPS15.

Testing the Startech Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station

Dell XPS15

Connect, and go. Fini.

That’s it.

No software to be loaded, no (included) manual to peruse. Just connect-and-go.

I had zero connection and config issues. The dock drove both monitors seamlessly, only needing me to ID and set monitor positions in order to reach my optimal workflow.

I could drag and position any application on whatever screen I wanted to without fuss, and they all moved snappily.

One of my buddy Markham’s pet peeves with PC laptops and external monitors is that removing them from the monitor(s) almost always causes a STOP event. As opposed to when he does the same without errors on his Macbook Pro.

While I know this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison – pun, but using the Thunderbolt 3 dock as an interlocutor produced zero STOP events or errors with the Dell XPS15.

Finally, I use it to display media on a projected screen that I, in turn, broadcast to my staff. Pretty kewl, of me! 😉

Apple Macbook Pro

This past Christmas, I scored a Macbook Pro which I have so far used sparingly. Primarily because it has that smallish – compared to the XPS15 screen, and because I am me, and it is not Windows!

However, I use it for quickie email triage and troffing off emails where brevity is needed.

It is though, a perfect platform to test the Startech.com Thunderbolt 3 Dock on.

It worked. Perfectly.

What I liked about it was that with the MBP, I just used the two 4K screens, not even looking at that weak play Apple called the MBP screen.

Microsoft Office is the app, and I found myself able to do more on MBP when docked than I have been able to do since December 25 of last year!

I max’d out the USB 3.0 slots on the device with external hard drives, and no worries.

Everything worked.

I am thinking of amp’ing up the ante by ordering up a LaCie Thunderbolt 3 external hard drive just to test performance***. Maybe portable external SSDs, it there’s such a thing.

Conclusions

I must confess that I generally put peripheral devices in the “Someday, Sometime” category, for reviews.

Why?

Because there are so many of them across several usage scenarios.

However, this is different.

I used it entirely in a business environment to great success. Secondarily, I was able to use it to consume Netflix and Amazon Prime Video consumer content.

The flicker-free video and zero-latency mouse movements need to be seen to be believed, and everything just works out of the box.

This is, without a doubt, the most able peripheral device I have attached to a computer in a very long time. it is immediately useful; has the most pleasant OOBE – ‘featureless install’, included cables; and the user experience for connected devices is superb.

Resultantly, we are bestowing the SmallBizWindows Business Ready Award of Excellence on the Startech.com Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station for Windows & Macs.

I look forward to other scenarios, and to testing other good stuff from Startech.

-John

*The top 3 laptops commercially available are the Dell XPS15 – in all models, especially the one with the 4K screen, the Dell XPS13, and Apple Macbook Pro. We have tested them. We have reviewed them. We have placed several hundred of the first two devices to great success, so you won’t waste your time replication it. You’re welcome.

**Somebody at Startech.com needs to quit going full IBM in product nomenclature!

***If I do so, I will post an update to this review detailing my experience.

Follow @johnobeto

Blackfriars - 417pxverbiage white - 300px.png

The Incredibly ‘Hot Mess’ that is the Microsoft News app

August 06, 2018

This is something I didn’t see coming!

For one thing, Microsoft is not known as a company which creates upgrades that completely mess things up further. Which makes the new Microsoft News app even sadder.

If you overlook the one-time misstep that was Windows Vista, you really wonder how Microsoft got here.

For years, especially since Windows 8 dropped, the MSN News app plodded along.

The app was never improved upon. Not a single iota.

Even the basics people want in their news apps, weren’t there: customizations were not possible, news sources were limited, and the UI sucked major.

However, there were two things the app excelled in: it was relatively quick, and no matter what the prevailing thought of the day was, the news was laid out chronologically.

Over the years, it became quite useless, and most folks moved away from it.

However, it was sorta crammed down your throat when you initiated a new Windows ‘X’ install, and also when you used any Microsoft property in iOS. After a while, you got completely worn out by the nag screens asking you to install the News and companion MSN Sports app, that you basically capitulated.

I actually liked the Sports app because it was about the only app that would bring me timely Formula 1 news. Apart from that, it was rather useless for every other sport. Or, I didn’t even try after version 1; I don’t remember which….

My greatest pet peeve with this app was that it would neither let you select news sources, nor let you block and/or deprecate news sources.

What good is that?

Worse yet, you couldn’t even make the minor customizations allowed without creating a Microsoft Account, signing in to MSN.com from a [desktop] browser, and making customizations there. Which would then be propagated to all devices and apps linked to your Microsoft account.

Yes, some Redmondian Mensa came up with this merde!

Totally, uncharacteristic for Microsoft, if we discount the one-time swill called Windows ME.

Since Microsoft is integral to my business life, I had to dogfood it, so to speak.

So, with apps like Apple’s formerly excellent News, and Flipboard, I was able to endure.

Sadly, Flipboard removed their little news age notification, so I don’t know, at-a-glance, how old the proffered news tidbit is without reading the entire article. And iOS News app has resorted to some algorithmic kaka in order to bring you Siri “AI-powered” news. Moreover, on my ipad, iOS News seems to trail my iPhone in synching/updating the news. Crazy, right?

Aaaah! I almost forgot my 3rd pet peeve with the old MSN News app: you can’s select an news article for sharing without opening up the story.

And since I’m here: 4th peeve: you cannot dislike any story. 5thpeeve: you cannot dislike, downvote, or block a story topic.

Yes: why bother [with it], right?

Well, I still maintain that this is very unlike Microsoft, especially if we ignore the abominable Windows 8.

A week or so ago, Microsoft fanboy sites started shillin’ about the Microsoft News app which was going to replace the MSN App.

I took the bait, and installed it on two iOS devices: an iPad and an iPhone.

Incredibly, this product has gotten worse!

Wow!

Where can I start?

It now has ads embedded into everything, completely FUBAR’ing your reading experience. I am talking about ads at the top, the middle, and everywhere else within a story!
It is no longer chronological, with stories coming at you from whenever.
You still cannot select a landing tab without signing it.
You still cannot restrict news sources.
You still cannot block or deprecate a news topic.
You still cannot select your desired news sources.
It now has infinite scrolling! Either in the headlines, or after a story!

The graphics are blocky, and all over, sadly, eerily, and scarily reminiscent of the Duplo-esque UI that was the failed Windows Phone/Windows Mobile debacle!

People, this is Windows 98 all over again!

If this, after a decade or more, is the best Microserfs can do, I shudder.

Follow @johnobeto

Evolving AbsolutelyWindows....

August 01, 2018

This is the evolution of AbsolutelyWindows.

We started by talking about small business computing using NetWare for file-and-print services. For which we sent out a mailed newsletter.

Called The Interlocutor.

(The Interlocutor is still published today, as a monthly electronic newsletter.)

And we stopped using NetWare in favor of Windows Server as our only recommended file server. We also standardized on the Windows client.

The focus on Microsoft, and specifically, Windows led to blogging about, what else, Windows.

Blogging initially as John On Technology, which split into AbsoluteVista, for the Windows client, and SmallBizWindows for SMB technologies using Microsoft Windows. We re-consolidated both into AbsolutelyWindows.

Now, as Microsoft has moved away from orbiting Windows, so must I.

AbsolutelyWindows has now morphed into AbsolutelJohn.

The circle, is complete!

Discussions about business, SMB computing, technology, space and aerospace, my much beloved Los Angeles Lakers, Formula One, and beautiful timepieces, will come back to fore.

I am hoping to get Horologigrafica to write periodically about watches.

Oh, I shall still discuss the entire Microsoft stack, never fear.

You have been warned.

Let’s do this!

Follow @johnobeto

lw - 300px - NO VERBIAGE - EDITED 05-24-2012-.png

Microsoft and Azure may yet help retailers avoid the Retail Apocalypse

July 20, 2018

Short-memoried (new word 😊), or outright ignorant journalists seem to have either forgotten all about THE Amazon v Toys-R-Us saga, or have never educated themselves about ti.

To recap: at the dawn of the modern internet, when e-commerce still had a hyphen, Toys-R-Us, the Big Kahuna of toy retailing at that time, went all-in with Amazon in order to staunch the onslaught of Walmart.

Suffice it to say, it didn’t end well. For Toys-R-Us.

Amazon almost immediately started selling toys alongside them, almost always beating them in price, and with the primo sweetener of Amazon Prime.

By the time the c-suite at Toys-R-Us woke up to what was happening, it was literally too late.

Walmart, on the other hand, now has Mark Lore, who himself sold a startup to Amazon before quitting to form Jet.com, which in turn was purchased by Walmart. He now runs Walmart’s ecommerce operations.

Which mean he knows what inexplicably, Netflix seems not to care about: you cannot, and should not, compete with your marque customer.

However, ‘marque’, is in the eyes of the beholder. Just ask American Express about their former marque customer, Costco.

Walmart has been ruthlessly proactive in dealings with and against Amazon, itself a vicious competitor: it has banned all suppliers from using the Amazon cloud, AWS.

Today, news dropped that Walmart has chosen Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud.

Smart move.

Microsoft can help Walmart better compete with Amazon.

Azure has a similar global footprint to AWS, and delivers something AWS lacks: SaaS.

Most importantly, Microsoft will NEVER compete with Walmart in the retail or ecommerce space.

That alone, should be the vote of confidence Walmart needs.

I full expect Microsoft to snag more wins like this at the expense of AWS as Amazon seeks new sectors to conquer, and tramples on current allies/affiliates/partners.

Follow @johnobeto

““Schadenfreude is the sweetest joy””

"When Google Met Schadenfreude". A play in €4.3 billion parts

July 19, 2018

How many people remember the NOISE coalition against Microsoft?

During Microsoft’s transatlantic antitrust woes?

N.O.I.S.E.?

The people who secretly and publicly funded that mofo working with Penfield Jackson to bring down Microsoft?

Novell. Oracle. IBM. Sun Microsystems. Everyone Else.

Surreptitiously, Google was in the “Everyone Else” category, until outed.

At every turn, Google complained to the EU, coming up with farcical BS market dominance theories that yum-yums running the EU antitrust offices eagerly lapped up like the, well, lapdogs that they were!

It was horrifying!

Under the intellectually-deficient Mario Monti, the thoroughly-incompetent Nellie Kroes, and the dumbass Joaquin Almunia, Microsoft was hobbled.

All the while, Google had a free hand to become unlawfully dominant.

Fast forward to today.

Thankfully, the current European Commissioner for Competition is Margrethe Vestager.

The competent Ms. Vestager has been able to cut through Google’s BS, and has undertaken to hit Google in the wallet for [economic] crimes against the people.

Today, the blow came to €4.3 billion.

Not a small sum to sneeze at, but smallish, to Google.

Sadly, this won’t stop Google.

What the EU competition authorities should have done, was to wrest control of the Android store, called Google Play, from Google.

Allowing Google to maintain control over that marketplace enshrines Google’s dominance over the Android ecosystem no matter what other remedies are ordered.

I sincerely hope that Ms. Vestager is still keeping a close watch on Google.

Until then, schadenfreude bites.

Follow @johnobeto

Shiny New Thing: Startech.com Thunderbolt 3 Dual-4K Docking Station

July 18, 2018

I am in possession – have been for over 3 weeks! – of the Startech Thunderbolt 3 Dual 4K Docking Station.

This thing is a beauty.

It comes with SIX USB 3.0 ports, as well as an SD card reader.

Windows & Mac compatible, this device is driving two 4K mobitors here with serious aplomb.

I have been using it with both a Dell XPS15 and my Macbook Pro, and it is doing the job very well.

Full review follows shortly.

Product page here:

Follow @johnobeto

Will Skype 8.0 save the franchise?

July 16, 2018

Is Skype 8.0 going to be the resurrection of the Skype franchise?

The lack of traction for Skype so far during Microsoft’s ownership is rather pitiful.

From being the communications app for most of the world, across both industrialized and emerging nations, Skype has become largely forgotten.

In the interim, WhatsApp has conquered all.

To an outsider like me, the faults came down to a few things: unnecessary tedious onboarding, a hard-to-use UI, a craptastic user experience, and a seemingly user-unfriendly stance from Microsoft. Making international calls, a hallmark of Skype, became a severe chore!

To crown it all, further development on Skype visibly stopped. New features introduced into competing products weren’t even publicly roadmapped!

How bad was it?

Well, WhatsApp went from nowhere to being neck-and-neck with Skype for a minute, and now being in excess of 1 billion global users.

As for Skype, the last time user numbers were made known, it was at 300 million users. Back in 2016.

What makes this more infuriating, is that Microsoft is a well regarded company that is universally trusted to not abuse customer PIIs and data.

In these days of just-1% slightly-greater-than-1% user privacy awareness, I am pretty sure Microsoft can recapture, or at least, capture, a few tens of million new users if they keep their eyes on the prize.

Sadly, I’m not optimistic.

Follow @johnobeto

Google allows 3rd-party humans to read your email

July 12, 2018

This is bad. Very bad.

Like ELE-level bad!

Think about it:

Your startup, with all your best ideas and innovations, sends all your email via Gmail.

Then, your startup's email, containing all your best ideas and innovations, is read by some 3rd-party yob, in the name of ‘app development’.

This 3rd-party yum-yum, with access to emails containing all of your startup’s best ideas and innovations, now decides to literally use you for his or her personal R&D. Reading all you good stuff. Cataloging all your good stuff. Maintaining a shadow company for all your good stuff. Registering, trademarking, or patenting all YOUR good stuff.

By the time you’re ready to goto market, guess what?

Your game-changing innovation is now owned by some thieving mofo.

All because you trusted your email to Google.

Dare I ask how sunny your days going forward would be?

Follow @johnobeto

Keeping it real–> Influencer selection II: Influencer authenticity

October 29, 2017

Disclaimer: I am not a social media professional. I do not work for an agency, or even freelance. However, I know what doesn’t feel right when I encounter it. Over the next few notes on this topic, I will delve into a few points from a blogger’s perspective. I may be wrong, but, until I drop the mic, I’m ‘Da Man’! Let’s do this!

Part 1 of this “Keeping It Real Series, Influencer Selection 1: Suitability To Task of the Influencer, is here.

Authenticity is of utmost importance to any campaign.

People can see, immediately, if the presented/featured influencer is either inauthentic, or an outright fraud.

One of the most memorable ads I have seen in the past few was one where this lady said “I saw it on the Internet”, whereby she was then asked, “Do you believe everything you read or see on the Internet?”, before her online date showed up, turning out to be a sniveling schlub who had masqueraded as an Adonis on their preferred dating website. (I’m paraphrasing here.)

My point here, is that the Internet allows people to “front”, if I may use the parlance of ‘the streets’.

The onus is on the social agency or social manager to deliver influencers who are relevant to the campaign.

Fail: The influencer with the greatest eyeballs

Focusing just on eyeballs almost allows lazy social managers in the position of trying to defend their choices, especially if their influencer choice is that nazi-sympathizing YouTube doofus called PooPooPie or something. Imagine if your campaign, your job, and your client’s brand are associated with a misogynistic racist like that? Especially after blowing a major part of your budget on him! How do you recover? By explaining to your client that PooPooPie has over 50 million followers on YouTube?

Another Fail: The influencer with the greatest ‘likes’

The article that prompted this blog series – thanks, Becca T.! – mentioned the Pepsi ad with the Cardassian woman. That example is genius, and should be taught in every PR, advertising, or marketing class as primo example of the pitfall of going for eyeballs rather than relevance and authenticity.

The infamous commercial has über-Cardassian doing something stupid with a can of Pepsi, trying to diffuse a street protest a la Black Lives Matter.

In the eyes of Pepsi, this is an authentic street scene.

Apart from the simpering imbeciles at the in-house ad agency that came up with that abominable concept, who, in their right mind, would associate any Khardashian with any sort of activism? Not even Charlie, after an all night crack-binging session with both Bobby & Whitney would think that was possible!

The inauthenticity of that ad killed the campaign immediately, damaging Pepsi’s brand in the process.

This, is what really happened in Ferguson, Missouri.

Let’s take a looksee side-by-side, shall we?

One of these things is NOT like the other, right?

A smarter, ‘woke’ agency would have at least tried to source out the lady in the photo on the right, with a view to getting her to attempt to diffuse what is still a volatile situation in that town.

Barring that, they should have found someone – anyone! – of color with the street cred to make that campaign memorable. But no! Their laziness had them trying to foist a privileged know-nothing on us as an authentic voice of street smartness, and victim of a militarized police oppression.

Yeah. We’re that stupid! Supposedly.

The bottom line is that you cannot use ephemeral standards in determining your influencer.

An influencer well versed in security may be a complete n00b when it comes to gaming. No gamer would listen to that person at all. The same rings true with whenever you try to cross the streams with influencers who have no business being in the room!

Who’s zooming who, right?

John Obeto is CEO of Blackfriars Capital

Follow @johnobeto

Blackfriars - 417pxverbiage white - 300px

Pensa, Pensa Maestro & Pensa Lab

October 16, 2017

Last week, Pensa finally exited their quasi stealth, and became very public, announcing several things.

I was waiting for more information from a mini-review* of one of their products before posting. However, it looks like that will take longer than I want, so let’s go for now.

Ahead of the announcement, I had a conversation with Tom Joyce, CEO of Pensa, on the company, their products, their prospects, and importantly, their competition in their space.

Pensa Exits Stealth

Pensa had been in a semi-stealth mode for a while, as they were already known in industry as an up-and-comer to keep our eyes on.

Exiting, they have rebranded as simply Pensa.

Initially starting out to build automation into SDN (software-defined networks) and NFV (network function virtualization), it quickly dawned on Pensa’s founders that they were in fact easily – for them – able to include all datacenter functionality in their product. So, an easy expansion of mission was performed, and voilà, Pensa was born.

Tom Joyce is Pensa CEO. Tom is a veteran executive of some of the largest tech firms, with HP, Dell, and EMC coming to mind. In snagging Tom, I believe Pensa is setting itself up for success, as his pedigree, relentless energy, and above all, access to VITOs** in a lot of firms, will ease the way for Pensa, at a minimum, to be in the picture.

People, répétez après moi: relationships matter!

Pensa Maestro released, and available for all

Pensa’s flagship product, Pensa Maestro is now available to the public.

Developed under the codename “Sleeper Shark”**, Pensa Maestro is a SaaS product that allows for intelligent design, build, validation, and deployment of DevOps modules.

Pensa Maestro gives a dev team the ability to create solution in a test lab that can be ready in minutes. Using sophisticated

Pensa closes Series A round

This is good, and money is always good.

However, they did not release actual figures.

So, what is Pensa Maestro?

Pensa Maestro is a cloud-based platform that compresses the amount of time dev teams need to design, build, validate, and deploy software-defined datacenters.

The initial product from Pensa Maestro, dubbed Pensa Lab, is a SaaS offering that gives Pensa clients the ability to create secure virtual test labs prior to deploying apps, delivering financial and resource savings across the board.

According to Pensa, the use of Pensa Lab allows developers to achieve up to 3X faster design speeds, deliver applications up to 2X faster, and bask in lab utilization and cost savings of up to 55%!

Which certainly got my attention. As I am sure it will, if as predicted, it delivers on those kinds of savings.

Pensa Labs’ intelligent automation enables the creation of virtual preproduction environments in seconds, and for the deployment of said labs within minutes to validation, with eventual migration to production.

The secret sauce in doing this, I am told, is Pensa’s forte.

Pensa Maestro and Pensa Lab are available for OpenStack today, and run seamlessly on VMware, and AWS. Pricing is based on requirement, with the most expensive tier priced at around $1,500 per month.

Pensa is here.

** VITO: Very Important Top Officer. Usually of a corporation

I have commissioned one of our outside contractors with the task of using Pensa Lab for a month with a view to posting a review of the product. That process hasn’t yet concluded. It actually hasn’t even commenced as the contractor is in the process of ending his current project. Once this commission is done, I shall deliver a review. – John Obeto II

Follow @johnobeto

Interesting to Me This Past Weekend……October 15

October 15, 2017

On my mind today……

This just sucks. –> What Facebook Did to American Democracy
I wholeheartedly agree! –> Thwarting terrorism in Nigeria: The Indigenous People of Biafra must be designated a terrorist organization
I have waited for Project Aurora since, well, forever. –> Rumors of Secret Warplanes Preceded SR-72 Reveal

Windows & Microsoft

When will Microsoft put this issue away? Does it need telemetry from EVERY Windows 10 PC in order to protect them? –> Microsoft’s Windows 10 breaches privacy law, says Dutch DPA
Microsoft Email-Access Fight With U.S. Gets Top Court Review

Politics

No kidding. Worse even: Facebook is swift to kick Blacks off the platforms for decrying racism, while not doing the same to neo-nazis! (purposeful lowercase.) –> Black Lawmakers Hold a Particular Grievance With Facebook: Racial Exploitation

Follow @johnobeto