Brilliant Thinking

I was talking to a friend yesterday about this very topic - he asked me what it was - and then I read a post today on ZDnet that I thought was going to tell me the answer. Here’s the post: What’s Cloud Computing and What’s Not?

However, the post just told me there was a lot of debate about the issue and that a task force was working towards a definitive definition.

Not much use, so I thought I would add to the corpus of articles and definitions by publishing my (Emissary’s) definition of Cloud Computing.

continue reading »

Earlier this week there was a “name game” being played out on Twitter. For a couple of days my tweet stream was filled with people’s porn names as they happily divulged personal information about themselves under the guise of a game.

Since this information is publically available it is very easy for identity thieves to simply combine the real name of the twitterer with the “porn name” and harvest key facts that help secure the identity of the individual. The game encourages twitter users to post a combination of their first pet’s name and the street they grew up on (or their mother’s maiden name) to create the name they would use if they were a porn star. While this is similar to the methods used in the adult industry (so I am told), the fact that it is public and linked to the individual’s real name creates the risk of identity theft.

Read: The Twitter Porn Name Game Is a Scam! for more information.

However, a far more insidious variant of this tool appeared in my Facebook stream this afternoon where one of my friends posted their responses to a much longer questionnaire. Here is the questionnaire which encourages you to respond and post to your friends: continue reading »

A couple of weeks ago there were two significant events in social media marketing. The first was the “quiet” launch of some new Apple products, and the second was the change to the Skittles corporate site. Both used social media in very different ways.

The result of both campaigns was massive brand exposure for both companies. So, mission accomplished?

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I have been a member of Ecademy since 2003. Over the years I have made some good contacts and enaged in some excellent conversations in the various online clubs that I joined. I have also met some good contacts through the occasional offline events I have been to.

However, the value of the system has declined in the past couple of years to the point that I have decided to leave.

There are two reasons for this: continue reading »

This is a quick “how to” post if you experience the above error when installing a legitimate copy of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007.

I spent some time scanning various forums to try to understand this problem better and a common thread emerged:

Uninstall Skype.

So, I did this (I had Skype 2.5) and Office installed without any errors. I then re-installed a later version of Skype and all was well.

Not sure why they interfere but it appears to have something to do with ports. Hope this solves your problem - add a comment to say thanks if it does