One, two, three...Collaborate!

The past several years I have used several on-line tools to collaborate with other individuals, for both school and work. Some have seemed more valuable then others. For instance, I am a big fan of Wikipedia.org. The website is an extremely interesting read. Lots of good information and opinions out there. Often, I can use it as a starting point to get some general information and then start on research.

During the interview process for my present job I was asked if I had ever used a wiki. At the time, I wasn't sure how a wiki would play out in the work place. As I outlined in my posting, I have seen how it is used and it has some mixed results. One of the biggest shortcomings of a wiki is a lack of uniform organization, and that is prevalent in this environment.

In addition, I'm a huge fan of the WebEx style "meeting" environments. At a previous job, I was a network administrator so there was a lot of SSH sessions with multiple devices. All of the configurations were done through a command line interface. WebEx was huge when we had problems. We could set up a meeting and they could see the exact output from our devices real time. They could relay any commands they wanted us to try. Previously, this would have to be done in an e-mail communication, which is much more time consuming.

Here ERP, ERP, ERP

ERP's are the one system I am kind of down about. Every book I've read for school, all hypes them up like they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. They show how they can come up with sales figures, do projections, and this and that. All that sounds just dandy!

However, there is always a difference between book implementations and reality. I have seen this with many different systems, like networks for example. Books will talk about how things are done this way and that way, but when it comes to the real world...it is different. The books almost act like sales people. They tout different items up, but when it comes to implementation time it is hard to get a phone call returned.

So the thing that gets me about ERP's is I have never got to see them actually in action. I'm curious how these work for some of the big organizations like IBM and so on. Going even further, how could it actually help a small business. Maybe one of these years I'll make my way up to a management position, and be afforded the opportunity to see them in action.

Identity Theft

Identity theft is kind of a funny thing; a few years ago no one cared about it and now it is all the rage. My dad had a small brush it a year or two ago; he was one of the lucky ones though. He got a call out of the middle of nowhere from his bank, saying his credit card was "compromised". The bank said they'd cancel that account (credit card number), and they would issue him a new card immediately. To this day, he doesn't know how/where the card was compromised. He is assuming that it was from some place on-line, but he doesn't know.

I had an odd brush with identity theft also. About 4-5 years ago I got a call one night. THe person on the other end says something about a credit card I applied for. Right away she is trying to get my SSN to "verify" it. All I did was ask a second question of "What credit card company are you from?" and the girl got all mad and hung up on me. It just showed up with a random 800 number on the caller ID. I still have no idea if it was a legitimate call from a credit card company, with the girl on the other end just having a bad day. Or it may have been someone phishing.

But identity theft has become big industry. THose who steal the identities are making big money. On the other side, companies are making big money "protecting" you. There are companies like LifeLock who are charging customers a monthly fee (I believe 10-20 dollars) to provide services that people can do for themselves. It mostly revolves around setting up flags on your accounts with the credit companies. This can all be done for free, they just go through the process of organizing it for you. My wife is signed up with a service that sends her credit report every couple months. It is a big industry.