Apple Dominates Even In Seattle With 81% Market Share
I have been extremely busy lately, spending much of my time working on preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam (which I passed on Friday!), taking a class on entrepreneurship and small business management, and working on applying this knowledge in a practical way, at the sacrifice of my blog and sleep. But I thought I would take a quick break from my break to drop a few links for my MacFriends and to illustrate just how much this region is just like everywhere else when it comes to computer preferences.
Apple iOS Dominates Even In Seattle With 81% Market Share For Mobile Web Browsing
If you recall back in November 2010, I posted this article on the grand opening of Microsoft’s store here in town. Well Apple responded by moving their store to a much larger space and in a dominating position upstairs from the Microsoft store. The first picture in my article is actually taken from what is now the view from the front of the Apple store looking down on the Microsoft store. Check out these articles. I will get some photos posted sometime when I find time.
Apple Digs at Microsoft With Bellevue Store Relocation
Now back to my studies.
Cheers,
-David, PMP
Microsoft hires Lotus Professionals for Cloud Computing at Office 365
That’s right. You read the headline correctly. I’m not the only Lotus professional working on the Office 365 project. My friend, a fellow Lotus professional just joined the team. Surprisingly, I didn’t know anything about it until a week before he started. Now you might be asking yourself: “What would Microsoft need Lotus professionals for?” No, it has nothing to do with things like mail migrations. It’s all about BlackBerry Enterprise Servers and messaging. I think this illustrates more than ever that if you have universal skills, like understanding the concepts of messaging or troubleshooting, you are highly marketable, regardless of the details of what product those skills are used on. It’s not about being a professional of a particular brand. It’s about being an expert of a process. Conceptual understanding transcends the syntactic details. Demonstrate that and you will display higher value (DHV).
Now for some quotes you might hear among us Lotus experts at the Microsoft:
“What do you mean, I can’t paste a screen shot in a Lync IM chat?”
“Where is the ‘Send and File’ feature?”
“You mean if I want to file a message into multiple folders, I have to make copies of it?”
“Why does everybody CC everyone on the team for every email? Don’t they have discussion Dbs for that?”
“What do you mean, we don’t have a knowledge base? How do we collaborate? Oh, CC everybody.”
“I’ll just Google that, uh, I mean Bing it.”
“I could do this so easy in a Notes app!”
“How do I create a reminder on my calendar?”
“Notepad++ ? Don’t let anyone see you using that.”
“Where is the workflow in this app?”
Yes, my friend, welcome to the team.
Viruses Happen
The good news: I still have never had a computer get infected with an email virus while using Lotus Notes. That 18-year run is still going.
The bad news: My laptop got a virus through a random act of browsing. It happened thanks to a touch pad strategically located between the palms of the hands where it can occasionally cause the mouse to move or misread a mouse click. It has happened many times in the past. I’m typing away when suddenly the cursor jumps to somewhere else on the screen and my typing starts appearing in the wrong place. This time it went to the browser window and who knows what input it took before I stopped typing. It’s the first time being a fast typist was a liability for me. I just know that suddenly I started getting a chain of popups.
I closed everything and it didn’t look like anything evil happened, but since then my computer started crashing randomly and would never come out of hibernation properly. A full virus scan revealed a problem, but it needed the help of a Norton Anti-virus bootable CD. OK, I created the bootable CD from another computer and ran the repair tool. After that the PC quit booting altogether. This was a case where the cure was worse than the illness. No, it won’t even restore to a previous recovery point. Sure, I could resort to a system image recovery that I made some time ago, but there are no guarantees of recovery at that point. Who knows what devilry is at work with the Norton tool and virus.
I put in a call to Norton support and pretty quickly the guy at the other end decided to escalate this one to the next level. They actually scheduled a time the support guy would call back. This is going to be a true test of Norton’s support service. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, the blog will continue to be quiet thanks to this new time-sucking event.
How to have your own Grand Canyon Expedition: Grand Canyon 2013 Main Lottery is Open and Accepting Applications
As you read this tale do you wish you could have your own experience rafting the Grand Canyon? It’s easier to get there than you might think. Yes, you can take the easier, more expensive route of going on a professionally guided trip. But doing your own private trip has an element of risk and excitement that you won’t feel if you have guides that have been down hundreds of times. A private trip is truly an expedition. Yes, there are significant logistics involved and you’ll need people experienced in whitewater to row the rafts. (I had lots of whitewater experience before the trip, but almost no rowing experience, and I made it down the river fine.) But a private trip is really the best way to go.
If you have a love of the wilderness and adventure, a tolerance for camping for an extended period of time without all the luxuries of “civilization”, then you can get a trip of your own together. Before you go, I strongly recommend experiencing at least one or two extended trips of 5 or more days before going to the Canyon, so you know what is involved. Those trips don’t have to be river trips either. Backpacking trips will provide a similar experience. This helps you learn what gear and clothing works for you and what doesn’t. You will also want some experience rafting so you know what the experience is like running rapids in a raft. You can learn more about it at their website:
http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/weightedlottery.htm
http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/cancelled-dates.htm
So what are are you waiting for? Step 1: Apply for the lottery and pay your $25. Step 2: Win a launch date and begin planning.
The lottery just opened today and they will be accepting applications for the annual lottery from February 1 to February 22 for launch dates in 2013. Here is the email they sent announcing it:
Date: 02/01/2012 07:19 AM
Subject: 2013 Main Lottery is Open and Accepting Applications
The 2013 Main Lottery is now accepting applications for 449 calendar year 2013 noncommercial river trips. Lottery applications will be accepted through noon MST on Wednesday, February 22, 2012, and the lottery drawing will take place by the end of that week. Applicants can log in after Friday, February 24, 2012 to find out if they won.
Lottery winners will have until noon MST on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 to pay their trip deposits ($400 for standard sized trips, $200 for small sized trips).
A list of the available launch dates can be found at http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/cancelled-dates.htm
Additionally, the following 2012 launch dates were previously released in follow-up lotteries and were not claimed. They are currently available outside of the lottery system to the first live caller to 1-800-959-9164 (i.e. cannot be claimed by leaving a message).
Standard Sized Trips (1 – 16 people):
February 2012: 3
March 2012: 1, 3, 4
If you need any assistance, please ask. We are happy to help.
Sincerely,
Steve Sullivan, Grand Canyon River Permits Office
===================================================================
The Grand Canyon River Permits Office sends out emails announcing the main lottery
and follow-up lotteries. You can choose to receive all,
none, or any combination of these emails. To set your email preferences,
login and then click on “Edit Personal Information”.
To be sure our emails get to you, add the following two email addresses
(grca_riv@nps.gov and send_only@npspermits.us) to your email contacts.
This should prevent River Permits Office emails from being blocked by a spam filter.
______________________________________________________________________________
Grand Canyon River Permits Office Contact Information
Phone: 800-959-9164 (toll free)
928-638-7843 (optional non-toll-free number to same line)
Fax: 928-638-7844
Mail: National Park Service
Grand Canyon River Permits
1824 S. Thompson St., Suite 201
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
email: grca_riv@nps.gov
Websites:
Main River Permit Information: www.nps.gov/grca – click on River
Available Launch Dates: www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/cancelled-dates.htm
Noncommercial River Trip Regulations: https://npspermits.us/grandcanyon/river/pdf/Noncommercial_River_Trip_Regulations.pdf
Frequently Asked Questions: https://npspermits.us/grandcanyon/river/pdf/River_and_Weighted_Lottery_FAQs.pdf
Statistics From Past Lotteries: www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/nomcommercial-riv-docs.htm
Lottery Website: https://npspermits.us
Password Reset: https://npspermits.us/grandcanyon/river/forgotLogin.cfm
Twitter: twitter.com/GCRiverPermits
______________________________________________________________________________
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BlackBerry Business Cloud Services: The truth behind the story from one who knows
There is a lot of talk going around about BlackBerry Business Cloud Services on various blogs: Paul Farris’ Blog Volker Weber’s blog
First, let me say, unless you work(ed) for Microsoft or RIM, this is totally irrelevant and transparent. BlackBerry support has been available with Office365 for years. The big deal here is that RIM finally finished their cloud solution which was code-named “Contrail”. This has been long in the making. It’s not insider news, it’s just that few people noticed it when n4bb.com published it back in March 2011.
All it means is that instead of those BES servers sitting in Microsoft’s data centers, they will be sitting in RIM’s data centers. So what’s the big deal? It’s all in the cloud, so you don’t care where the servers sit. What’s more, this doesn’t really apply to all of Office365, only the standard edition for smaller customers. The bigger customers are hosted in dedicated environments and they won’t be moving their BES services for awhile. But it doesn’t matter. You won’t notice any difference and the transition is completely invisible to the customer, save that as it is RIM’s product, they will probably be more responsive to upgrades to the latest version and more savvy in troubleshooting issues. This is really more a positive press opportunity than anything for a company overdue for some good news.
If there were anything even mildly interesting in this story it would be that Domino isn’t mentioned. But I expect that’s just around the corner and they probably don’t want to confuse the message. If your company uses Exchange, you don’t care about Domino. (By the way, LotusLive AKA Smart Cloud also supports BES deployments) This will also give RIM a second press release of glory when they make a similar announcement for Domino.
Added a page with all Grand Canyon Story Links
If you have been following the story of our Grand Canyon expedition, I have created a page with all the links to each day’s journal entry. Click Grand Canyon Journal Links in the banner at the top. Now you can be sure you haven’t missed a day!
Thanks for all the questions and comments. It adds life to the story to have the dialog.
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Grand Canyon Expedition Day 7 Part I: What it means to be living on Canyon Time
Previous Post: Day 6 – Little Colorado R and a birthday
First Post: The Story Begins…
Morning of Day 7. This is the earliest I have gotten up so far. It’s 5:30 AM and still dark, a good time to do some writing by headlamp and watch the sunrise.
TRIP TIP: If you go camping, get a headlamp with a red light. It uses much less battery power and it doesn’t affect your night vision or disturb others.
Quiet time in the morning
I had a lot of vivid dreams again last night as I have nearly every night on the trip. I never have such dreams at home, or at least I don’t remember having them when I wake up. I don’t sleep as deeply here as at home in bed, but I feel very well rested in the morning. It was the same on my first trip to the Canyon as well. Is it from going to bed so early? Is it all the physical and mental exercise I get all day long? [Yes, it is very mentally stimulating to row as you are always giving a bit of attention to where your raft is heading and making minor adjustments to stay in the current. Even in the flat water when you kick back and relax, you have to keep aware of where you are or you'll get caught in an eddy and find yourself drifting in circles as the rest of the group floats on by.] Or maybe the dreaming comes from sleeping on a 2″ thick sleeping pad in the fresh, cool Canyon air instead of on a big mattress indoors. Or is it just that all the worries and stresses of a busy life back home don’t exist here leaving the mind clear? The wilderness is so remote and the surroundings so distracting that I’m too busy living in the present to be thinking of what is going on outside the Canyon. It’s like meditation 24 hours/day for 21 days straight.
Here in The Canyon, all man-made boundaries and measures fade. Without electricity, lights, television, or alarm clocks, the artificial measures of time disappear making it easy to adapt to the natural rhythms of the day, going to bed soon after dark and rising at dawn’s first light if not earlier. The calendar loses meaning. Days of the week are soon forgotten. The phases of the moon become the units of measure for the calendar.
Halloween Moon in the Grand Canyon
Days are only tracked by the number of nights camping since we started. Even the notebook with the menu plan identifies the meals for each day by the camp number, not the date. Today we will be sleeping at Camp 7. I can recall the date of the month only because I have a paper listing our planned itinerary for each day’s camp and on it also are the dates. The absence of man-made labels marking time feels like a map of the world devoid of the lines and colors marking cities, countries and other imaginary political features. Just the real, natural features of the earth and time. My schedule indicates Camp 7 is October 31st, All Hallows Eve. Cool! Glad we brought costumes to celebrate the holiday. Trips run all year long. I can only imagine what it’s like to be here for Christmas or Thanksgiving.
Trip itinerary I carried along with my journal. Note the revisions made during the trip. (click to zoom)
Menu binder provided by PRO River Outfitters. Work teams written on left page. Note the camp # on the page and the tabs.
Clouds are starting to move in from the west. It’s hard to tell yet if it will bring rain, but I expect cooler weather. On Day 4 we had high clouds that were a warm front. Not this time. Lower, thicker clouds and the wind is starting from the North, straight down the Canyon. Understanding weather is useful knowledge on extended trips in the wilderness. The weather here is very different from the Pacific Northwest, but it is much like Florida’s weather which I know well.
Ariel mentioned to me last night that she keeps hearing people say “When Ariel is gone…” or “after Phantom Ranch…” [Ariel will be hiking out at the half way point at Phantom Ranch.] She is wondering if people don’t want her here. That was *my* mistake. I made it very clear before the trip that everyone shall be mindful of their behavior until after she has left the trip. I know they didn’t mean it the way it sounded and she understood it once I explained it. I have heard many times how everyone is enjoying having her along.
Hula hoops are a great way to warm up in the morning!
Today we will be doing a loop hike starting from right here, going up Carbon Creek Canyon and then follow Lava Canyon back down to the river a mile downstream. A few people will row most of the rafts down to confluence of Lava Canyon, park the rafts there and hike the same loop in the opposite direction. When they get back here to camp they will get in the remaining raft and row it down to rejoin the group at Lava Canyon. From there we will continue down river to the next camp. We will be heading to Upper Rattlesnake camp at river mile 74.5. There is a hike there too.
My raft is ready for Halloween!
Craig is dressed for Halloween too
OK, time to pack up and get ready for the hike!
Hiking up Carbon Creek Canyon
Footprints in the mud-turned-concrete in Carbon Creek Canyon. It's been awhile since this creek flashflooded.
Brief video of the top end of Carbon Creek Canyon before climbing left and going down Lava Creek
Hiking down Lava Creek Canyon
Colorful layers in Lava Creek Canyon
Raft shuttle arrives after hiking Carbon-Lava canyons.
I’m really wondering if “Canyon time” is so unique to the extended time spent in a remote setting or if it is possible to achieve this “living in the present” feeling at home amidst all the noise of the world. What do you think?
[Author's note: The photos posted throughout this series were contributed from many photographers in the group. With over 10,000 images taken by 12 different people, I lost track of who took what. My apologies to everyone that I can't give proper credit to each photographer.]
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First Post: The Story Begins…
