Technosutra

Technology is the decisive component which determines the speed at which a business can commoditize the competition’s advantage and simultaneously develop and protect its own. 

 

I love that statement.  I run around quoting it as much as possible.  BTW, I'm talking business here, not healthcare, education, and all of the other humanistic things technology gets us -- just it's use in business (and war I suppose)

 

It comes down to this. If your competition has a really cool idea, then copy it.  Use technology to make your competition's really slick idea boring and common.  Make it a commodity.  Make it nothing special.  That, to me, is the first use of technology -- By commoditizing it, you take away your competition's advantage.  The second use of technology is to try and innovate a new advantage.  To do that, you'll have to spend time thinking up ideas, applying creativity, research, experimentation, etc.  It's far easier to just copy someone else's great idea.

 

I know this sounds kind of crappy.  So many companies, small ones usually, refuse to do that.  They'd rather seek to the nobler path by trying to innovate a better way without seeming like they are copying their competition.  That's very commendable.  I respect it.  It's also the hardest path and arguably the least profitable.

 

If your competition has a great idea and they are using it to make money, and you don't have it, then you are leaving money on the table.  As fast as you can, you need to be doing the same thing or better.  If you have the time and the resources, maybe you should try to innovate a little, but becareful!  The competition will copy that innovation in short order.  But don't lose too much sleep over it.  It's inevitable and impractical to guard against.  The best you can do is

 

Good Luck!

 

On April 11, Microsoft is expected to release a security update that will affect the way users interact with embedded rich media content including Macromedia Flash, Java Applets, Real Networks' RealPlayer, Microsoft Media Player, Apple's QuickTime, and ActiveX controls. Users will be shown the outline of the control and on mouse over of the area a tooltip will prompt the user to click and activate the control. This change is a result of a patent infringement lawsuit by Eolas Technologies against Microsoft. Needless to say that the user experience will be less than optimal on IE browsers once the security update is released on April 11 and gets widely installed.

Fortunately, there is a work around. In short the code change required would be based on the following principle: If the tags (EMBED, OBJECT, APPLET) that get used to embed the rich media content is written dynamically using client side JavaScript, then the embedded content will function as before. The work around is outlined in the Microsoft article referenced below.

Below are some useful references:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912945

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/activecontent/#captivate_before

http://webdevelopment.developersnetwork.com/Articles.asp?Article=33

Great Article

I found this great tutorial on Section 508 compliance.  It's written by Jim Thatcher.
http://www.jimthatcher.com/webcourse1.htm

Just a quick scan of the tutorial will give you a very clear understanding on what making your site section 508 compliant is all about.

Someone in my office asked what people used for data access to Oracle.  The comments of this blog track the responses.  Why not add your suggestion?

I ran across a fascinating link today.  This site, KwMap, has built a site around keywords.  The idea is that you put in a keyword and it shows you all the other keywords related to the topic.  In many ways, I can see this being somewhat useful.  If you think about it, what wastes your time when you use a search engine?  For me, it's choosing the right keywords.  I usually begin with the keywords that I know and begin reading related documents.  I try to build up some knowledge about the subject and a relevant vocabulary.  Then I start plugging in the words that I just learned to see what I find.  Over time, it starts to become obvious if you've got the right keywords or not. 

Anyhow, a site like this might help getting to the right keywords quicker. 

Now what would be really cool is if this thing could let you start selecting keywords related to the topic you are interested in.  It would put them in some kind of a clip board.  Then it would start suggesting topics related to my set of keywords.