This past weekend my wife’s iPhone was stolen from a store in Secaucus, NJ. While in store, she placed it down to try on a pair of shoes and then moved an isle down to take a look at another item which was long enough for the phone to “disappear”. Once she realized that she was missing her phone it was too late. The phone was gone, it was nowhere in sight. We traced our steps back and looked everywhere, I called it several times, but it was nowhere to be heard either. Then I remembered that I installed Find My iPhone on both phones and have tried tracking it from my phone. After a couple of failed attempts to locate the lost (stolen?) iPhone it finally displayed on a map, it was somewhere in the parking lot. We ran out to try and get a better location when all of a sudden it started moving. Its next stop was a Walmart parking lot in and this time we were able to narrow it down to within a few parking spots. Unfortunately, several cars were leaving that area as we arrived and the phone was on the move once again. Here’s where the fun really begins.

After a brief detour to fill my car’s gas tank and to drop my wife off to enjoy a sunny day by the pool (no sense in both of us spending time on this potentially useless chase) I was back on the trail of the stolen iPhone. Now, the app was showing it to be at a church’s parking lot in Fairview where it actually stayed for quite a while (at least it felt that way considering I was refreshing the screen every 30 seconds). This was good news as it gave me time to catch up, but as I was within a few blocks of that location, it started moving again – this time, heading back down towards Route 3. If you are familiar with that area (Fairview and North Bergen) you know that quite a few streets are one way which made my tracking a bit more difficult, but I finally caught up to my “blinking dot” in Union City, NJ.

License plate is obscured to protect the not-so-innocent

At a particular intersection, the app was showing the phone right in front of me (and as I remembered seeing this Volvo leaving Walmart’s parking lot) it all made perfect sense – I found him. The driver (who I also recognized from Secaucus) fed a parking meter and walked into a bar. So did I…

Bar where we had our chat

After a brief conversation (where he tried to come off as a good Samaritan) he was very apologetic and accommodating in returning the phone to me. It was in the trunk of his car under a bunch of towels and blankets – luckily none of them could interfere with the GPS signal.

iPhone recovered!

While the search lasted a bit longer, the actual conversation was very quick. Within a couple of minutes of arriving at the GPS location I had my wife’s phone back. All in all, a very happy ending to this escapade (for me at least).

In short: If you own an iPhone (or any other iOS device) make sure you install this app now. As you can see, it can be very useful in getting your stuff back.

Approximate path traveled by the iPhone - Secaucus to Fairview to Union City (NJ)

Find My iPhone app (along with Google Maps app) was instrumental in recovering the stolen iPhone, but I would like to see it further developed to include the following:

• Real-time updates as the phone moves
• Show both devices on the map, my current location and the location of the device being tracked, then provide directions – similar to their (Google) Maps app

Post from: Milos Topic

How I tracked and recovered a stolen iPhone

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Geotagging and location based services are all the rage these days. While they are very useful at times, these features should not be taken for granted nor should they be enabled on all of your devices and applications. Certain parts of your life are meant to be private and they should remain that way. Geotagging every move online for all to see could pose serious security and safety concerns.

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Geotagging your life online? Be careful.

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Facebook used as an online identity management solution? Yeah, that puzzled look on your face compares to my initial reaction when I started noticing this trend (among websites from all kinds of industries) of using Facebook as their (blog) commenting system. Some large tech websites, such as TechCrunch have completely moved over to Facebook’s Social Comments Box plugin as their solution while others allow for multiple comment options, including Google accounts.

Using FB comments can provide clear benefits to content providers as it eliminates most of the spam and dumb/evil/malicious comments, something TechCrunch for instance had a serious problem with in the past. Ideally, using someone’s real identity (assuming their FB profile is authentic) should bring up the quality of exchanges and improve the conversation. On the other hand, don’t we already have tools in place to combat spam? How about Akismet and Bad Behavior to name a couple. So why Facebook then? It is easy to see why, it’s slowly becoming the core online “hang out spot” for most and as such people can simply continue using their identities across other multiple sites. This is a great move by Facebook as the more we use them across internet the more they learn about us which they can then use for targeted marketing (among other things). Effective ads bring revenue.

However, could this push to use FB profiles also have a negative impact? Yes it can and here’s where I see that come into play. In the not so distant days of internet, chat rooms and blogs, people were (and still are) leaving comments under their pseudonyms which lead to more open and honest discussion (along with an occasional argument or two), but it’s what people liked about being online, being able to search, roam, comment and explore without being tied to their proper, socially accepted persona. Furthermore, some folks would expect their comments to serve as traffic baits in hopes that they could get some of the visitors to follow them to their business, website or a blog. Now, that that that’s no longer an option, I wonder if the participation has decreased on TechCrunch and other sites which have completely moved over to Facebook comments? It would be interesting to know if this change had any negative impact on the volume of comments and interaction between readers/viewers and publishers. Based on some preliminary tests and my gut feeling, the answer is yes. Unfortunately, on most websites this is not a win-win situation.

Using Facebook comments presents clear benefits for publishers and potential drawbacks for both publishers and readers. To answer who wins in the end, one must ask the question: Who is the website’s intended audience?

Post from: Milos Topic

Facebook, an online identity management solution?

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About a week ago I noticed (as I’m sure many of you did) a new feature of Google Search, Social Search (BETA). It basically leverages your Google Profile and the information you provided to expand your search into online posts of those you consider friends, followers, etc. While this is another great advancement coming from Google inline toward the “ultimate” goal of semantic search this could potentially cause privacy concerns for some.

Let’s say you have posted an article and didn’t share it with your Twitter followers (for any number of valid reasons), this new search feature could find it and make it available to them anyway. What if you don’t want this to happen? Well, segregating online content is becoming increasingly difficult (but not impossible thanks to Robots.txt and a few other techniques) due to search engines so it is important to remember that once you post something online it’s there for ALL to find and see.

Overall, I think that unifying search across all of your social networks will be a positive experience for most, but keep in mind that “Results from your social circle” will most likely include EVERYTHING you post online under one of your online identities/profiles.

Once online, always online (and now indexed and nicely organized as well)

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Google social search

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This past weekend a friend of mine got engaged, and while immediate families were informed of these great news that same day (hour?) the rest of us were finding out gradually over the past couple of days. However, the notification to the masses happened today as she changed her Facebook relationship status to engaged. Almost immediately the news spread like wildfire across the internet, across the world. People were calling, texting, e-mailing her within minutes of that status change. It is wild to even think how powerful the social networking sites are in spreading the word; their impact is instantaneous for better or worse. The moment you announce something it becomes available to dozens, hundreds, thousands,…of people across the world who happen to find you “interesting” in one way or another.

For the sake of pure comparison of the advancement of technology and services, let’s go “back in time” some 20 years to 1991 (if you really think about it, this wasn’t that long ago). Imagine if this same event occurred in 1991, how would you find out about it if you lived in another state, country, on another continent? 20 years ago there were no online social networking sites, no Facebook, no Twitter, no [insert your site of choice]…average person had no online social networking concept. In 1991 masses were first introduced to the web browser a piece of software we all use today without giving it much thought. That same year, Internet reached 1 million users which has grown to close to 2 billion today (more on Internet 2010 in numbers). It’s only been 20 years and look were we are today and try to imagine where we will be in another two decades, in 2031 (maybe we will finally see those flying cars and jet-packs). Possibilities are endless.

Until then we get to use and enjoy what’s available to us today: a simple selection from a drop down menu, clicking on a “save” button which informs everyone and frees up time which can be used to look at that ring again and begin planning the wedding. Amazing!

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Social networking travels fast

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Recently we have witnessed an amazing turn of events for a man who was homeless and now has a job and a house all thanks to his amazing voice, good people and the power of internet.

While this is the latest example which left a powerful impression on me, it is not the only one where technology (alongside good people) helped spread the word quickly and eventually provided assistance to those in need. I love this particular story, it made me smile, made me feel good about people and their compassion for a fellow human in need. Stories such as this one about Ted Williams are fairly rare, but I hope that will change considering that people helping each other should be the norm, not the exception.

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The power of internet

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New year is here and for most of us today is our first day at work in 2011. As we woke up on January 1st (and sobered up) we were generally highly motivated to stick with the resolutions we made last week/year and believe that this year it will be different, that it will be better somehow. New year always brings new resolutions, mostly positive attitudes and excitement that this year we will do better than the year before. Some of the common ones (in no particular order) are: we will get a better job, work harder, get married, have a kid, lose weight, get back to school, buy that dream house/car, stop procrastinating…the number of resolutions is endless. While some people actually follow through on their resolutions and have measurable results before the year is over majority doesn’t.

Most of us will sooner or later give up or simply come up with excuses (generally poor ones) why we have failed to accomplish what we set out to do. Why is this the case, why are we excited for the first week or two of the new year and then it all goes back to the old way of doing things, we lose our excitement, our drive, our hustle. Why can’t we always be confident and determined to do the best we possibly can every single day?

I understand that January 1st is a nice, “tangible” separation and reference point used to reevaluate, review and move forward, but I can’t seem to understand why is it that we can’t do our best every single day. As the weeks go by, why do we lose the momentum we almost always have at the beginning of January?

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Sustaining new year’s momentum

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Keeping one’s resume up to date is generally not at the top of “to do” lists since most of us don’t change our jobs frequently and as such our resumes quickly become outdated, inaccurate and forgotten. However, considering that we got our current jobs in part due to that old, outdated paper representation of ourselves we should definitely keep them current. Even if you are currently happy and satisfied with your job, your resume should never be more than 6 months old, that way it can be updated quickly when needed while at the same time act as a great reminder of your progression and career choices. Having realized this myself I decided to see how much I’ve grown, improved and learned over the years (if at all ).

Updating resume with what I have been doing all these years was an eye-opening experience on many levels. First, I realized that I really need to keep this document up to date (revisit it semi-annually at least) as it will make the updating process much easier and make accomplishments fresher in my mind. Second, I did more then I thought I did over the years. Time flies and we do things daily that we don’t pay too much attention to, but once you put them on paper and look at the impact they had it puts it all in perspective. Furthermore, comparing your resume with that next position you are striving for makes you look at things objectively and highlights the (mis)alignment of job responsibilities with your qualifications and experience.

Having said that, when was the last time you seriously put some time aside to update your resume or CV? Objectively, looking at the resume alone, would you hire yourself for that dream job?

Ask yourself these questions and the answers might surprise you.

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Based on your resume, would you hire yourself?

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Finding that perfect balance between business and technology can be a challenging process. Aligning them together where they are useful to one another, productive and most of all on the same page has proven to be the key to success for many organizations. It’s simple, in order to maximize return on technology investments, organizations must align IT decisions with strategic business goals.

Now, we have all heard that all old, outdated and inaccurate statement that Information Technology (IT) is a cost center. While at times, this certainly can be the case, I would like to respectfully disagree and here’s why. Irrespective of the business/industry you are in, today, you need technology to be more productive, responsive, available and well informed and as such IT is enabling and helping people do their jobs better. Disagree? If so, imagine how productive would your work day be without technology?

Having been in IT for over a decade I have seen both sides of this negative, adversarial environment where business and IT are competing instead of collaborating towards a common goal, organizational success. To be fair, most IT personnel is of a unique sort (I know, I’m one of them) and at times we transgress our responsibilities and by doing so impose on the business side and their goals and objectives. This is absolutely the wrong way to go about it (unless you are an IT company of course) as IT employees don’t have the full grasp and understanding of business objectives and strategic plans. Conversely, I attended meetings where business executives have enthusiastically stated that, “business* will drive technology as that’s the only way it makes sense.”

NO! That’s the not the solution either. Business and technology need to be partners, not competitors or in subservient positions to one another. They need to work collaboratively early in the process (or project) to benefit from each other’s strengths while at the same time minimizing weakness that both sides certainly have. Us vs. them approach needs to end and we need to realize that we are all in this together and that the difference between success and failure of our company, organization, project or idea is directly correlated to how well we work together.

* replace business with a more applicable term (revenue, ROI, market, education, pedagogy, research agenda…I heard them all).

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Business & technology are partners, not competitors

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Since most of us haven’t won that elusive jackpot yet (trust me, I’ve been trying) we continue to work for a living. It’s a job to some, career to others, yet a place we all go to to earn money (on average 5 days a week) so that we can enjoy the rest of our lives.

Considering how much time one spends at their place of employment it really ought to be an enjoyable and rewarding experience, don’t you think? Financial aspect is definitely an important factor when accepting a job offer, but what else is of importance while making that decision? I personally value the following items (in no particular order) and believe that these components complementing each other create that enjoyable and rewarding work environment.

• Respect and acknowledgment
• Friendly and knowledgeable co-workers
• Knowledgeable, open and enabling management
• Opportunity to have an impact
• Ability to learn, grow and advance
• Flexibility and accountability

What else should one look for in search for that ultimate balance and desirable quality of life?

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Work and happiness shouldn’t be mutually exclusive

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