I have received a lot of attention on the Internet and in print about my Lost USB Drive project.  One of the issues that I have discovered is that the USB drive itself is no longer a novelty.  When I started blogging a number of years ago, a USB drive attracted attention.  It was used as a type of geek bling that would attract attention.

But now, USB drives are everyone and are no longer a conversation piece among the geek set.  In fact, one of the few ways you can get attention regarding a USB drive is if you do not have one!  And if you are concerned about your USB drive getting returned if it is lost, then you want it to attract attention.

One of the things that I have been toying with is a company that makes personalized jump drives.  This seems to work on a psychological level in several different ways:

1. If you spend a bit of extra money and buy a nice USB drive, you will probably take better care of the drive and reduce the chance that it will get lost.
2. If it is something that stands out, there is a greater chance that it will be noticed in the event that it is lost.

I’ve picked up a couple of custom USB drives over the past few months and spent the extra money for something unique and I am happy to report that I have not lost them yet, primarily because I never let them out of my site.  I still keep a few of the cheaper flash drives floating around because I want to have a quick and simple way of giving files to friends, etc. without having to worry about them getting the drive back to me.

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Post Sponsor: Frontier Label

A big issue that IT people come across on a regular basis is keeping track of their hardware. We all use a variety of methods do this from database tracking to network monitoring.  All of these are great ideas and have their place but there is often one small, low tech piece of the tracking puzzle that people forget: stickers!

It is critical that you have clear, visible labels on all critical equipment.  Each sticker must have a unique number on it that is recorded in your database.  Each sticker should also have a distinct appearance so that it is easily recognizable from a distance.  A great option is to have your corporate logo on the sticker.

Frontier Label has a number of products that would suit these purposes.  Since they produce full color labels which can each be individually customized, they are a great way to indicate to would be criminals, “We are keeping track of this item and will know if something happens to it!”

The other nice thing about stickers from Frontier Label is the fact that they do not look ugly.  Just because this is your tech equipment does not mean that it can’t look good.  Full color labels can easily fit into the decor of your office or home.

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I’m pretty sure that it has sunk in to the people of Microsoft by now that their deployment of Windows Vista has been an utter disaster. Vista has been out for over a year and a half now and it looks like there is only about a 14% adoption of the new OS.

This should serve as a warning for all other software developers out there and software companies. It is really easy to screw up your market and turn your clients against you.

This has prompted me to provide you with some lessons that we should all have learned from the Vista debacle.

Just because you decide you are going to lead does not mean that others will follow.

Microsoft figured they had it all figured out. Windows XP was arguably the most popular operating system on the market and the most successful version to date. Now was the time to lead the sheep clients to a bold, new OS.

Unfortunately, computer users like to think for themselves. They will not purchase something new just because they are told to do so.

Some of the more common alternatives that users went with other than buying Vista include:

1. Doing nothing and sticking with Windows XP
2. Buying a Mac
3. Learning Linux
4. Putting off purchases in the hopes that something better comes along

Lesson: Let your clients lead. Get to know what they want and put in the new options that they want, not what you think will make you money. Make the client happy and the money will find you.

Terms like “better”, “easier” and “improved” are subjective.

I will be the first person to admit that there are some definite improvements to the way that things are done in Vista. Yet, I often miss the way things were done in XP.

Microsoft has told us that Vista is better, easier and improved. Does this mean that XP was worse, harder and crappy? Of course not! So if many people feel that this is inaccurate, your credibility may just go out the window.

Lesson: Make certain that any claims you make about your new product does not reflect poorly on your old product and can be, more or less, agreed upon universally without leaving much room for opinion.

People will not change for the sake of change.

There is a certain geek element out there that want the latest and greatest in anything that you make. These are the types who stand in line for the new iPhone, even though they will not be able to get service for several months.

But, the majority of your clients do not fall into this category. Rather, they are cautious and are concerned about spending their money.

Lesson: You need to give your clients a reason to upgrade and change. Without that, they will not part with their money.

More options are not always better.

Have you ever stood in the cereal isle at he grocery store? Have you ever tried to decide which cereal to buy? It is insane how many different types and brands of cereal there are out there. Different manufacturers have knock off versions of other brands. Manufacturers try to create a new cereal by simply changing something small about one of their old cereals. It’s almost enough to make the buyer go cereal serial.

It appears that Microsoft hired all of their marketers from the cereal industry. They have split Vista into multiple editions and made the selection process so confusing people are not even sure how many editions there are. There could be four, five or six, depending on who you ask. And this does not even take into consideration OEM and open licensing. How is the average consumer suppoed to decide?

Lesson: Make your product models/editions/versions simple and easy to understand. Preferably, make one model and allow them to purchase additional options, much like the automotive inductry (but stay away from the upgrade bundle concept).

Trying to force users to upgrade will just make them find other ways of doing things.

Windows XP can no longer be purchased from Microsoft. This has been the case since June 30, 2008. They had announced that this was going to be the case back in April but they decided to postpone it. But, as it stands, you can not purchase a Windows XP from Microsoft.

Has this stopped people from selling it? No way! In fact, Dell is turning this into big business along with other companies.

Lesson: Do not try to force the hand of your clients. If they do not like your new product, they will find ways to stay with the old and send you less money in the process.

Don’t make people relearn something they already know.

With so many “improvement” in Vista, it is really difficult to know how to navigate around the system. While it may be more intuitive for a new user, the vast majority of people who will be using Vista will be those who have experience in other versions of the Windows operating system.

I know as someone who is technical, this really put me off because I’m not really interested in learning a whole new operating system, especially when I am finding it harder and harder to learn new things.

Lesson: Make your new product intuitive for both old and new users.

Make sure that those who are selling and supporting your software are on board with the upgrade.

I think that one of the biggest reason that Vista has done so poorly is that it failed to be adopted and promoted by the people who are in the trenches. I mean the techs, company computer guys, and sales personnel. Since these people were not behind Vista, they were not recommending it to friends, family and clients. This is where a new product is made or destroyed.

Lesson: Make sure that those who are speaking directly with the people who are parting with their money believe that your new product is the best version of the product ever made. Ensure that these people know as much about the product, they are excited about the product, and that they are using the product themselves every single day.

Don’t make people choose between functionality and aesthetics.

There are a very small number of people out there who will choose something useless that looks pretty over something that just gets the job done. Unfortunately, Vista, while it looks really nice, often does not get the job done.

Many people, especially those who decide to upgrade to Vista, find that the cost of all the bells and whistles means that some of their old hardware and software does not work and their system is now slower than ever.

Lesson: Focus your attention on ensuring your product gets the job done. If you have time and it is warranted, make it look pretty.

Make sure your product is ready for the market.

Even Steve Ballmer admits that they messed up the release of Vista. There are too many incompatible software packages that were critical to business and many hardware manufacturers had not gotten around to finishing up releasing new drivers for existing hardware.

All this made Vista a show stopper before people even looked at it.

Lesson: Make sure your product is usable by the largest audience possible with as few barriers to upgrade or replacement as possible.

Don’t force a hardware upgrade unless you absolutely have to.

This has goe to be one of the biggest complains made by users. Vista rarely runs well on hardware that XP was more than happy to work on. So now, the cost of purchasing Vista has just gone up significantly. This can get very expensive, expecially if they are part of a large business that has hundreds or thousands of machines to replace.

Lesson: Try to keep the collateral cost of upgrading to a minimum. Do not make people buy new products or add-ons unless they absolutely have to.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/08/25/10-things-you-can-learn-from-the-slow-vista-adoption/trackback/

If you purchased any Microsoft operating system over the past number of years, you were probably inundated with offers to purchase Microsoft Plus! This product promised to give you even more than was originally provided in your OS.

Personally, I thought it was Microsoft’s attempt to make you part with even more of your hard earned cash than you had already. What Plus! provided was essentially eye candy and it added very little in the way of extra functionality.

But, it looks like Microsoft will no longer me making this product available to the public. According to their website, they believe that they have now built all of the Plus! functionality into their products. My theory is that the public realized that the product wasn’t worth the money and voted with their feet.

Have you had any experience with the Microsoft Plus! products? Did you like them or not? Are you going to miss them? Were they worth the money?

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I have been receiving some comments lately from people who are opposed to me wanting to make money from Daily Cup of Tech. It seems that there is an unwritten rule on the Internet that states:

“Thou shall not benefit from thine hard work when it is related to the Internet!”

Rather than addressing these comments individually, I thought it would be best to respond to each of these issues in one post so that I can clearly lay out where I stand on.

Advertising on DCoT

This is often the first complain that I will hear when it comes to making money with DCoT. People simply do not want to see advertisements. Period. It doesn’t matter if they are one the front page, in a post, in a comment, or in the RSS feed.

I’ve taken a look at a lot of blogs and the vast majority of them have advertising on them. If you go to the top five blogs according to Technorati (Endgadget, Boing Boing, Gizmodo, Techcrunch, and The Huffington Post), each and every one of them have advertising on them. Why should DCoT be any different? I try to limit my advertising and make it relevant so that if there is a product that is being shown to the reader, it is at least something that the reader would find useful.

DCoT has far fewer and less intrusive advertising than many other sites. I refuse to put pop-ups, pop-unders, and interstitial advertisement on Daily Cup of Tech. I also refuse to put on ads that attempt to install components on the reader’s computer.

I also occasionally write a paid or sponsored post about a specific product or service. I always start and finish these posts with a disclaimer that this is a paid post so that there is no confusion that I have received some compensation for writing this post and that it is an advertisement.

Readers need to realize that DCoT is a form of media and that advertising is a part of the media. You see this in magazines, television, radio, etc. Why do people expect the Internet and, more specifically, blogs to be any different?

Asking for Donations

I guess in many ways, this is almost like advertising for myself, but I have received some complaints about writing posts asking for donations to the tip jar or to release the source code. They do not like that I ask for donations on a regular basis and they are annoyed by the posts.

First of all, yes, I do ask for donations. I feel that the time and effort that I put into DCoT is worth some support and recognition. I have expenses to keep the website up. My time is valuable. People do not hesitate to ask me for help with their tech issues. (Granted, I did ask for people to submit their questions to me but they were asking long before I officially offered to answer.) Why should I hesitate to ask for a donation to support the blog?

Second, I do ask on a regular basis. The old adage, “Out of site, out of mind” holds very true on the Internet. There is good reason why you see “Gratuity not included in price” on your restaurant bill and Karma cups at Starbucks. Had I not regularly pointed out that people could help release source code to the Internet or just donate to help keep DCoT running, I would never receive any donations and DCoT would eventually die.

The one things that people don’t mention when they express their opinions about my donation requests is the fact that I also use that opportunity to recognize all of the people who have donated to DCoT in the past week and give them the recognition that they deserve. I think it is very important to shine the spotlight on these people because they understand what I am trying to do here.

What many people don’t seem to realize is that the donations that I receive are a real encouragement to me. There have been at least three or four times that I almost shut down DCoT and then someone would make a donation, even a couple of dollars, and it would change my mind. Not because I’m in it for the money but because I am encouraged by the fact that people feel that my hard work is worth giving up a small portion of the money they have earned from their hard work.

Paying for Source Code

This is an issue that started when I announced my Release the Code concept. In a nut shell, I promised to publish the source code on DCoT for my freeware applications when a certain amount had been donated toward the project. Some people thought that I should not be charging for the source code or that I was charging too much.

First, I am not charging anyone anything for the source code. When people voluntarily donate money to a project, they are doing it out of their own free will. I do not force anyone to pay me anything.

In fact, the vast majority of people who get access to the source code do not pay a single cent for it. For example, as of the writing of this post, over 2,000 people have accessed the recently released source code for DCoT Menu. There were five people who donated to the release of this source code which translates into fewer than 0.25% of the people who got the code paying anything for it. I really do not see how this is unfair to the readers of DCoT.

The other issue that comes up sometimes is that I am charging too much for the source code. In general, I ask US$100 for the source code for my projects. I have never worked or been paid as a coder but I have been a paid consultant in the past. My hourly rate back then varied between US$80 and US$145. Now, the absolute least amount of time that I have spent on one of my projects is seven hours. Based on my lowest consulting rate, my effort was worth at least US$560. All I am asking is US$100.

Also, when you hire a developer to write code for you, they are working for you to generate your product. And you need to pay to get the code. Unless you are one of the people who actually donated toward the release of the code, you haven’t paid a single penny and you have complete access to the source code to do with it whatever you want. I don’t know how much a programmer would to create an application and provide you with the source code but I’m sure it is more than free.

People have also argued that US$100 may be a small amount for someone in North America to pay but what about some people who make significantly less or are from a third world country? I have to admit that the world is not fair but, as I have stated earlier, these people do not have to pay for the code if they do not want it. All they have to do is wait and be patient. I do not know of anyone who is so poor that they cannot afford to be patient.

Readers must also be aware that I have to survive in the market that I live. I can’t convince someone at the grocery store to give me food because I gave away my source code. This is not how the world works and it is naive to believe that it does.

Still Don’t Like These Things?

I understand that there are going to be some people out there who are going to get up in arms about this and I may even lose some readers. So be it. This is how DCoT is being run and I do not apologize for it.

But, if you are truly serious about getting rid of the advertising and the donation requests and you would like all of my applications to be open source and free as soon as I release them, then it is up to you to be my boss. In fact, I am willing to quit my jobs and work on Daily Cup of Tech full time!

The only way that I would be willing to do any of this would be if I had a guaranteed monthly support base that would allow me to replace these other sources of income. With these in place I am willing to drop each of my other income sources one at a time until, eventually, I would be working full time for you, the DCoT readers.

Please do not take this offer lightly as I take this very seriously. I would be willing to put my finances in the hands of you, the readers, if you are willing to support this venture. This is how it would work:

I would accept subscriptions via PayPal (or any other legitimate form of payment) for Daily Cup of Tech. A subscription differs from a donation in that a donation is a one time contribution while a subscription is a monthly contribution. As the subscription number increases, I will start to make changes to Daily Cup of Tech and my life.

These are the changes that I would be willing to make in order as subscriptions increase:

1. Removing DCoT Discounts
2. Removing Text Link Ads
3. Removing ads in RSS feed
4. Stop writing posts for advertising
5. Release all source code and future source code as open source immediately
6. Stop asking for donations
7. Remove ads from Feedburner
8. Remove ads from AdSense
9. Quit my one day a week job and work on DCoT on that day exclusively
10. Quit my four day a week job and work on DCoT exclusively full time

So, is anyone willing to take me up on my proposition? I am willing to commit to this. How about you? If so, I will formally set up the program. I eagerly await your comments.

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