On Mondays I offer comments on some   of the most interesting information technology stories that I have found on the web that week.  Please feel free to join in the discussion or suggest other stories.

Today’s comments were generated after I read a CNN story.  It is all about the rise of Bit.ly as the greatest URL shortener of them all.   I recommend it to you.  Give it a read below.

CNN.com – Clicking small links on bit.ly keeps getting bigger

“The rise of Twitter and instant messaging has been good to bit.ly — the URL-shortening service that has become a go-to tool for users across the web.

On Thursday, while announcing a host of new partners for its premium pay service, bit.ly trotted out a big number for a service based on little links.

Bit.ly is nearing 5 billion clicks per month, according to a post on the company’s official blog.”

There are many many hyperlinks that items that I have posted online that are still good links after 15 years.  I know that they are good because I made them, I own them, and I pay to keep them live.  The problem with URL shortener is that they are simply spreadsheets and look-up tables linking real hyperlinks to a shortened version that is in no way related to the original.  They are great for ease of use, saving space on Twitter, and replacing overly cumbersome URLs with easy to remember ones.  What they are not good at is being enduring, reliable, or permanent.  If the URL shortener service goes away, so go the links.  That is why, as a web author, I love to hate them. 

I am resigned that they are a necessary evil for the time being, but I still am uneasy with how fragile the link to so much of what I have created really is on today’s web.

What do you think about this topic?  Do you agree or disagree with me? Do you have a recommended news story for next week? Please share your ideas below.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for June 7, 2010  by Scott Coughlin.

Image Credit: VEED.in – Tech News

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I usually feature comedy on Saturdays.  In the past, I have featured jokes, comics, cartoons, and news on the weekends.  Sometimes I include comics, stories, games, and photos.  By far, though, humor and especially videos with Information Technology (IT) themes have been the most popular.  So I have gone back to this endless well of laughs!  I simply cannot get enough of comedy videos!

For this week, I have picked this video to share with you as follow-up.  It is called “Dilbert: Different Situations and MBA”… It is by Scott Adam’s and it just plain funny and frighteningly accurate.  If MBAs are too close to home for you, you can just think, “IT Consultant” and it will be just as funny!

I hope that I gave you a chuckle to make your weekend a little brighter.  I will be back Monday with more serious topics!

What did you think of the video?  Funny? Do you know of any other similar movies or clips?  Please share.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for May 1, 2010.

media credits: Scott Adams

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I like to take a hard look at:

• Trends in the Information Technology industry
• Gaps in my current knowledge
• Emerging issues that I see coming up at work
• Larger social and culture based effects that I am unprepared for
• Industry media coverage trends

My initial list for this year looks like it includes:

1. The overall aging of the population
2. The rise of mobile, always connected Internet computing devices
3. The growing popularity of Apple computing products
4. The decline of write once, run anywhere software development
5. Enterprise Management Systems
6. Enterprise eLearning Systems
7. Enterprise content management systems
8. Transitioning Legacy Systems to Cloud Based ones.
9. Cloud computing security and information assurance
10. The end of the print era – the all digital content delivery period
11. The rise of cloud computing from a consumer and user perspective.

Obviously, there is more than I can handle for one year on this list.  It is essentially a first draft that will have to be cut down, but it is a starting point.  Now I just need to come up with the training, education, and learning plans to accomplish it.

How do you design, execute, and manage your Information Technology Professional Continuing Learning program? What have you found works best?  Can you share via our comments section?

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for April 28, 2010  by Scott Coughlin.

Image Credit: US Senate Site – Senator Webb

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On Mondays I offer comments on some of the most interesting information technology stories that I have found on the web that week.  Please feel free to join in the discussion or suggest other stories.

Today’s comments are associated with a recent, exciting declaration from Google.  The upcoming Google Chrome Operating System, is to be a completely minimalist, web-based, cloud aware platform.  As you will read, this comes with one major headache – Printing!  Give it a read below.

Tech Radar – Google Chrome OS brings printing to the cloud: How Chrome will play with printers

Read more:

“While the emergence of cloud and mobile computing has provided users with access to information and personal documents from virtually any device, today’s printers still require installing drivers which makes printing impossible from most of these new devices," says Jazayeri.

"Developing and maintaining print subsystems for every combination of hardware and operating system- from desktops to netbooks to mobile devices – simply isn’t feasible.

"Since in Google Chrome OS all applications are web apps, we wanted to design a printing experience that would enable web apps to give users the full printing capabilities that native apps have today."

As you all know so well, getting a printer to work is a required step in every computer system setup.  It is never as easy as they say it will be and every year brings some new initiative to make last year’s “zero configuration” solution have even fewer steps. But today, it still remains that every printer needs an operating system needs a printer driver for every printer – even networked printers.  That is where Google Cloud Print comes in.  It is essentially a new standard for new printer manufacturers to follow to make their networked printers accept cloud based print requests.  That is not very revolutionary, but it is a welcome bit of strong arming from our Technology Age Leader – Google.  Their dedication to providing a platform to enable legacy printers to print from the cloud, by their supplying an Internet based print proxy, is really innovative.  The basic idea is that your legacy networked or system based printer would connect not to the print server internal to it or on the machine connected to it, as is done now, but rather to a Google Print Server in the cloud.  This is very revolutionary and could actually permit a one printer, one driver solution.  If anyone could and should do it – Google can and should!

If you have a Smartphone, an iPhone or Blackberry for example, or an iPad, or even just a traveling laptop, you know what a pain it is to try to get a print out from your device at an unusual location.  This could be the solution that we have all been searching for to enable the ability for all of mobile devices to borrow printers, use public resources, and print at remote sites without configuration.  I hope that it works!  Thanks, Google, for taking the lead here!

What do you think about this topic?  Do you agree or disagree with me? Do you have a recommended news story for next week? Please share your ideas below.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for April 19, 2010  by Scott Coughlin.

[Editor’s Note: To my long time readers: This represents a change to my editorial schedule.  I have decided that going forward, The IT Thought of the Day Website will publish it’s weekly News Commentary articles, like this one, on Monday’s vice Sundays.  Sunday will become the day that I publish my Twitter Archive for the week.  Thank you for reading.]

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Today, I want to know how you  celebrate your Information Technology Professionals!  How do you thank your ITs?

Today, our Information Thought of the Day (ITTOD) is a poll subject.

I would like your answers to the following poll today.  Tomorrow, I will share my hope for this topic with you!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

I will be sure to share the results.  Feel free to add a comment below to add other thoughts that should have shown up on the list.

Do you like polls as a daily topic? Do you have a recommended one for another week? Please let me know.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for April 15, 2010 ©Scott Coughlin.

Image credits: Maximum PC Magazine

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