The Many Faces of Mike McBride

Louis, you may not be an a-ister yet, but you sure...

2008-05-03T21:50:00.000-04:00

Louis, you may not be an a-ister yet, but you sure seem to be closing in on it. and to be fair, as I said in the post I don't know whether Daniel was being cynical and helping you knowing you would write about it or was just really trying to help because you wanted to use Disqus. I was trying to make a larger point about reviews. In the old days of newspaper reviews of restaurants or hotels, the reviewer wouldn't let the establishment know who he was, for fear that they would, naturally, treat him/her differently than they would treat the typical customer. In the case of Web 2.0 services, it's not really possible to be incognito like that, so it may behoove us as bloggers, who don't have the same journalistic training, to have a few doubts about the service we're getting compared to what the average user is getting.

Mike, I don't have enough points of reference to s...

2008-05-03T02:28:00.000-04:00

Mike, I don't have enough points of reference to say if my experience was dramatically different than others, but it's not a huge surprise that it was extraordinary. I essentially thought I was SOL, given my Blogger config.

To be honest, I feel like I know the real truth about Louis Gray. He's no A-lister. So if it's portrayed that way, surely there's some mistake. :-)

Thanks Steven, I will have to see if I can find a ...

2008-05-02T09:18:00.000-04:00

Thanks Steven, I will have to see if I can find a copy of that.

Aaron, that's a good example of how the tools bring people together, and that's the important part. On the other hand, when I was reading that part of the book my thoughts were drawn to the flip side of that equation, the Utopian vision many people have about social media and instant communications bringing people together and helping them understand each other. I think it's fairly obvious that doesn't happen often. The technology has only given us more ways to voice our differences in the same rude, obnoxious ways we always have. If anything, tech has allowed us to behave worse, and to more easily give in to our lesser instincts. Communication tools can't change them.

It's definitely the people. Even in the Portland ...

2008-04-30T23:55:00.000-04:00

It's definitely the people. Even in the Portland area, where twitter has gone wild and is used for all sorts of things, the real power is that Twitter is used as a way to facilitate and supplement many real life meetings/gatherings/events. Folks don't have a real identity and a Twitter identity. It's just one identity, and the Twitter network becomes the real life network.

Mike, you might also want to check out The Victori...

2008-04-30T21:57:00.000-04:00

Mike, you might also want to check out The Victorian Internet, by Tom Standage.

Marc, When I first saw your comment about chest th...

2008-04-22T19:49:00.000-04:00

Marc,

When I first saw your comment about chest thumpers this morning, I thought to myself "wait, lawyers are famous for being like that, we should see that more in the legal blogs?", but after giving it some thought something occurs to me. The chest-thumping lawyer would never stoop to blogging. They're much too busy with important clients and important things to mess around with something like blogging.

On the other hand, in the tech world, you're no one if you don't have a blog, or a site where you can spout off about your latest accomplishments, or rip someone else's accomplishments. The chest-thumping type of person in the tech world considers blogging to be the important thing, that surely everyone cares about what they have to say. The legal world hasn't seen blogging in that same light yet. It hasn't risen to the level of "real lawyer work", the way it has risen to that level among tech pundits and social media experts. Part of me hopes it never does. ;)

The tech blogs tend to attract the "chest-thumpers...

2008-04-22T06:40:00.000-04:00

The tech blogs tend to attract the "chest-thumpers", those who like to boast about being able to do something: dude, my virus reached a level 3 alert on symantec(!). I haven't visited the blawgs, but I imagine people who are involved with billable hours would be more sensitive to using their free time a little more productively than flaming someone on a computer issue.
Everyone has ethics, it's just a matter of maturity and consideration of others.

Good points Mike. Knowing what's going to happen ...

2008-04-19T02:15:00.000-04:00

Good points Mike. Knowing what's going to happen and what the organizer has in mind is always important.

You mentioned being friendly to get better candid shots... right on. I like to chat with attendees and what I find is that if they're open to the photography, often the candid shots are more revealing and representative of the event than the "planned" ones.

Kevin, at a law firm I don't believe there are any...

2008-04-16T10:28:00.000-04:00

Kevin, at a law firm I don't believe there are any strict requirements. Certainly if you're dealing with email from a client in the financial or health care industries, it might be a good idea to keep those records the same amount of time they would be required to, but I don't think it's ever been spelled out as a requirement for us to do so, though I don't know that for sure.

I do know that we have no obligation to keep those "donut" emails Andy mentions, and it's those kinds of emails that I don't want to keep. The ones that have nothing to do with the business of the firm and only take up space and slow down searches. There has to be a better way to find and delete those.

Andy, interesting that you mention deleting the incriminating evidence. It brings to mind something I heard a speaker say recently about people who go in to "hide" stuff when they are facing litigation. "The hole where the evidence used to be, is almost always more damaging than the evidence was in the first place". Obviously, if you get caught deleting evidence, people will assume the absolute worst about what was there, probably worse that what you're actually guilty of!

I'd also find it hard for users to know what to de...

2008-04-16T07:21:00.000-04:00

I'd also find it hard for users to know what to delete and what not to - most of them will not delete anything or will delete the incriminating evidence - both situations you don't want.
We just turned on auto deletion of deleted items after 7 days on exchange - about 5gb of data will be removed after the expiration - I'm pretty sure that the "doughnuts in the kitchen" emails (from 1997) will still be in people's inboxes though

I believe much of that might have to due with gove...

2008-04-16T00:45:00.000-04:00

I believe much of that might have to due with governmental requirements... those which e-mail is considered a public record and thus must be archived / preserved. I don't believe there is any kind of vetting of which e-mail can or cannot be preserved.

I could easily be wrong though -- Not completely my area of expertise. :-)

Welcome to FriendFeed, Mike. I hope you like it as...

2008-04-13T00:38:00.000-04:00

Welcome to FriendFeed, Mike. I hope you like it as many of us have. We look forward to engaging with you there.

I guess not many people blog about going there, hu...

2008-04-04T10:34:00.000-04:00

I guess not many people blog about going there, huh? ;)

Hey, just thought I'd let you know that when searc...

2008-04-04T09:30:00.000-04:00

Hey, just thought I'd let you know that when searching "Franklin Park Conservatory" on Google, your blog was the 3rd search result. Cool!

Hey I'm glad you liked the story. Thanks for the l...

2008-03-29T23:46:00.000-04:00

Hey I'm glad you liked the story. Thanks for the link!

Not seeing the update here either and I am also on...

2008-03-20T22:26:00.000-04:00

Not seeing the update here either and I am also on Roadrunner. Seeing other small updates i.e. Defender, though.

I agree with you. As much as I love my daughter, ...

2008-03-17T23:03:00.000-04:00

I agree with you. As much as I love my daughter, sometimes you have to have a break. Whether it's a movie, dinner, social gathering, etc., it's nice to leave the kids at home once in a while.

((STANDING OVATION))

2008-03-16T20:10:00.000-04:00

((STANDING OVATION))

It was good to meet you Mike as well. We've got to...

2008-03-15T21:37:00.000-04:00

It was good to meet you Mike as well. We've got to more of those beer for bloggers events. Maybe nexy time not on Saint Pat's day so we can get into the bar.

I've had really good luck with SyncMyCal pushing m...

2008-03-11T20:15:00.000-04:00

I've had really good luck with SyncMyCal pushing my team's public folder calendars to my Google Calendar.

Andy, that's actually a really good question. Obvi...

2008-03-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

Andy, that's actually a really good question. Obviously, with it being company computers, the question of ownership goes away. That is not insignificant. I think there are some variables that would make me uncomfortable, if it was being done just to target one person for no obvious reason, I would have some reservations and want more details before I made a judgment on it, on the other hand if it was system-wide monitoring, or being done because of already suspicious behavior by an employee who might be putting your organization at risk, I'd be more likely to do it. The obvious difference in that situation compared to the husband/wife one is that the employee is not only doing something bad, they may be doing something that puts the organization, and therefore my job, at risk. There may be court action, and as much as I don't want to do that, if it's necessary to be involved in it as part of your job as the IT guy for that organization, then so be it. It's not necessary to be part of the court proceeds for someone else's divorce.

If was just being done to be vindictive, or over-controlling, since the boss is paying me to do what he/she asks, I would probably do it, but start looking for another job right away too.

A dilemma I hope to never find myself in, that's for sure!

There were some interesting comments in that blog ...

2008-03-02T08:52:00.000-05:00

There were some interesting comments in that blog post and situations - On the wife/husband thing - would your answer be different if it was a boss asking you to do it on company computers?
I know the boss's have the right to do what they want on company property, but I was wondering how that would also work in the case of court action?

its been a long time since i've used it, but I thi...

2008-02-28T20:07:00.000-05:00

its been a long time since i've used it, but I think you can limit it to X hops so it will bomb out after 5 links (for example). limit it to something like 20 links may help?

I think that's what my coworker tried, but I need ...

2008-02-27T08:28:00.000-05:00

I think that's what my coworker tried, but I need to double check that. Her attempt crapped out after about 10,000 files. If it wasn't what she was using, that'll be the next tool in the lineup!

I've used http://www.httrack.com/ to get offline c...

2008-02-26T22:18:00.000-05:00

I've used http://www.httrack.com/ to get offline copies of a website before - works very well.