Man gets $85,000 cell phone bill for modem use.

“Piotr Staniaszek had been using his cell phone as a modem for his computer, thinking he was covered under his $10-a-month unlimited mobile browser plan from Canadian telco Bell Mobility. He actually caught the bill at $65,000. When he called to complain, he was told that it had hit $85,000 for the use since the bill was mailed.”

10 worst tech products of 2007

“Apple TV: Apple’s foray into the living room seemed like a no-brainer, and this HDMI-packing, Wi-Fi- and Ethernet-enabled set-top box looked like a sure-fire success. From the beginning, however, Apple TV was hamstrung by the meager movie selection (and now dwindling selection of TV shows) on iTunes, plus the fact that you can’t browse or buy videos directly over the box. Even worse, Apple seems to have lost interest in its home theater “hobby,” with a full six months passing since the last Apple TV software update. Short of a sudden infusion of new features, look for this once-promising box to go the way of iPod Hi-Fi.”

Tata Motors unveils the People’s Car

“Mr. Ratan N. Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group and Tata Motors, today unveiled the Tata ‘NANO’, the People’s Car from Tata Motors that India and the world have been looking forward to. A development, which signifies a first for the global automobile industry, the People’s Car brings the comfort and safety of a car within the reach of thousands of families. The People’s Car will be launched in India later in 2008.”

Amazon goes head to head with Apple

“The big story in the music world is that Amazon.com announced this Thursday that it would start selling music from Song BMG without the restrictive digital rights management software. This makes Sony the last of the major record labels to embrace the open format.

“DRM is dying,” Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, said in an interview. “Basically all the studios are embracing” the DRM-free model because “they have to give consumers what they want,” he said. “There are enough people who will pay for DRM-free music that it becomes a viable part of the business.” “

Former tech CEO dies in plane crash

“The former president and CEO of eGroups, once the world’s largest group e-mail provider and now part of Yahoo, was killed Sunday in a small-plane crash in a remote jungle in Panama.”

The FBI forgot to pay their phone bills!

“A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI’s lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation “was halted due to untimely payment,” the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government’s most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.”

American Airlines to outfit Anti-Missile device?

“Up to three American Airlines jets carrying passengers will be outfitted with anti-missile technology this spring in the latest phase of testing technology to protect commercial planes from attack.

An American Airlines spokesman said Friday that the test will determine how well the anti-missile system holds up under the rigors of flight.

The first Boeing 767-200 will be equipped in April or later, said the airline spokesman, Tim Wagner. American operates that Boeing model mostly between New York and San Francisco and Los Angeles.”

Has Blu-ray won the war?

“Blu-ray appears to have won the high-def DVD format war, as Paramount announced on Monday that it would dump HD-DVD in favor of Sony’s Blu-ray format. Last week, Warner Bros. also threw its weight behind Blu-ray.

The developments likely mean the end of HD-DVD as a viable format. Based on the studios’ decision, Japanese content producers and hardware manufacturers said they would likely leave the HD-DVD Promotion Group, according to published reports.”

Amazon backs the lil guy…

“The RIAA has been dominating the record industry for a while now, most large record companies have complete control over promotion, branding and distribution of all new artists.

Amazon has decided to change all that…”

“Summize” your results

“This service is a great way to read up on reviews of products which could be a movie, CD, or gadget, all you need to do is type its name into Summize.

Started by two AOL expats a year ago, and launched in a public beta last month, Summize does sentiment analysis across dozens of review sites and more than half-a-million blogs—what CEO Ajaipal Virdy calls the “reviewosphere.”

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I spent last night ( yes, it did take me a while ) going through a list of the posts i had put together over the past 4 months and the ones listed below seemed to be the most popular.

I hope you find some of these interesting enjoy!

Rating documents on Sharepoint ( MOSS 2007 ) - “Having experimented with Sharepoint over the past couple of months i’ve found a number of drawbacks, as I’m sure a number of you have as well.”

KM Theory Vs Practice - “While i haven’t spent a decade working with KM, i believe working with the challenges faced on a day to day basis, over the past couple of years, has provided me with some insight on what practical KM actually is.”

Apple cracks down on iPhone customers - “Apple makes the headlines again, for all the wrong reasons. With the demand for the iPhone reaching a fever pitch startling new information has come to light. Over 250,000 iPhones have been purchased for the sole intention of cracking them.”

Why KM? - ” As with most of my thoughts this one started after a conversation i had with a colleague.”

How businesses are using Web 2.0 - “I just completed reading a rather interesting survey done by The McKinsey Quarterly. ”

Tokbox, Video Chat - “is a new service that allows users to set up video chat on the fly without the need to install any software.”

Why is Technology so important to KM? - “One of most difficult questions I’ve had to answer with respect to the subject of Knowledge Management is why Technology is so important.”

Communication, Tools and Technologies - “Communication is one of the biggest enablers for knowledge management in any organization. Your people need to know the what, where and why of the KM initiative if you want to ensure its success.”

KM Musings - “Users spend over a hundred hours every month on collaborative sites like Wikipedia. While it seems cruel to call this Knowledge “Management”, it does describe the very foundation of KM. Get people to share their knowledge.”

What is Hulu.com? - “In March of last year NBC Universal and News Corporation announced a joint venture that was initially thought to be direct competition with YouTube.”

More thoughts on KM - “As any marketer will tell you, A large portion of a products success depends on it’s brand value. The same holds true for a Knowledge Management initiative.”

What’s in Web 2.0 ? - “We’ve all heard of the term Web 2.0, but what exactly is it? and how do benefit from its use? Listed below are the various components that make up Web 2.0.”

10 alternatives to commercial software - “Another great article from Cnet. ”

FaceBook is worth $15 Billion - “Well its official, Microsoft has beaten Google to the punch.”

Install MAC on your PC in 3 easy steps - ” For those of you interested in installing the new Leopard MAC OS X on your PC, Keep reading!”

Blognation down in flames - “The founder of Blognation is stepping down and putting the network on the auction block barely 6 months after launching the site.”

Read the rest of the posts here..

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Inbox 2.0

“With the massive buzz that Facebook and MySpace have been generating recently Yahoo and Google decided that it might be time to draw attention away from “conventional” social networks.

Enter Inbox 2.0. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the term i’m sure you have reasoned that because of the introduction to this post this has something to do with social networking. Well, you’re right.

Yahoo and Google have on the drawing board plans that will hopefully turn their users email and personal home pages into social networks. The single biggest source of user connectivity today is email. Everyone has it, and with Google mail gaining popularity ( yahoo mail was established quite a while ago ) it seems logical that these 2 companies would try to leverage this existing information to create a social platform.”

Books on Knowledge Management

“I’ve put together a list of books on Knowledge Management below, if you find these books interesting you should be able to find them at a book store close to where you are staying ( keep your fingers crossed ) or order them online via Amazon.”

CRM Software Review

“CRM is defined as - “ CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is a company-wide business strategy designed to reduce costs and increase profitability by solidifying customer loyalty. True CRM brings together information from all data sources within an organization (and where appropriate, from outside the organization) to give one, holistic view of each customer in real time. This allows customer facing employees in such areas as sales, customer support, and marketing to make quick yet informed decisions on everything from cross-selling and upselling opportunities to target marketing strategies to competitive positioning tactics.”

10 alternatives to commercial software

“Another great article from Cnet. (Open-source software rated: 10 alternatives you need)

Paid-for version: Windows Media Player
Open-source alternative: VLC media player

VLC is an exceptionally functional media player that not only handles almost any media format you throw at it, but will stream stuff from the Web and play your DVDs. It’s also a great tool for anyone who downloads large video files, since VLC can play incomplete or damaged media.”

A list of Google acquisitions

“For those of you curious, this is a list of the acquisitions made by Google over the past few years. If you take a closer look the trend seems of acquisitions seems to be growing at a rather rapid rate each year. I found this information on Wikipedia, and thought it might make for an interesting read.”

2007 KMWorld Promise and Reality Awards

“A writeup on the 2007 KMWorld awards

Selecting winners for these awards gets more difficult each year. When we handed out the first ones at the 2001 KMWorld conference, we received roughly 20 nominations for each category. The number of submissions has grown each year since then; we received more than 175 (both formal and informal) this year, and paring them down to these finalists was especially tough.”

Presentation on Web 2.0

“An interesting presentation on Web 2.0.”

Drupal to get VC funding

“For those of you who’ve grown to love Drupal the way i have this bit of news should be rather interesting….. A recent article at CMS watch about potential VC funding for Drupal….

“I’ve heard from several different sources about a “hot deal” for venture capital funding of a Drupal-oriented start-up called Acquia. Acquia has been in stealth mode, but not for long — “hot” means likely to get funded, perhaps by a consortium of VCs. Acquia will release has released an FAQ outlining the new company, formed with a CEO and some developers, as well as the participation of Drupal founder and über-committer Dries Buytaert as Acquia CTO. As Web CMS Report readers know, Dries is revered in the Drupal community by creating both a culture and a technical framework for the project where a thousand flowers could bloom in the form of pluggable, community-contributed “modules.” Rare is the Drupal implementation without a unique bouquet of such modules.”

Google’s Postini Solution

“The Google App suite has, till date, not received very much of a positive response from market analyst. The main concern being a lack of security for the application.

Enter Postini, a company Google acquired in July of this year for around $625 million dollars. The service they provide is targeted at companies that maintain their own email servers.”

iPhone the Germany Story

“A court said Monday it would delay by one day a ruling that has pitted cell phone operators T-Mobile and Vodafone against each other over the sale of an unlocked version of Apple Inc.’s popular iPhone.

The Hamburg District Court had been scheduled to rule Monday on an appeal by T-Mobile, part of Deutsche Telekom AG, that forced the company to sell an unlocked version of the combination smart phone-iPod media player that can be used on other networks besides its own.”

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Here is a list of the top 10 feeds on GridLock this past month.

MySpace a Social Behemoth:

“MySpace - A household name that’s recognized by almost anyone who has spent a little time on the internet. Founded in August 2003 by the then publicly traded company eUniverse .

Currently boasting over 200 million user accounts its one of the largest( and most influential ) social networking sites on the internet.”

Apple cracks down on iPhone customers:

“Apple makes the headlines again, for all the wrong reasons. With the demand for the iPhone reaching a fever pitch startling new information has come to light. Over 250,000 iPhones have been purchased for the sole intention of cracking them. Now, this is what i’d call determination.”

Top 5 commented posts on GridLock:

“My last post introduced you to Wiki’s in Sharepoint 2007 ( MOSS 2007 ). I have since had the time to explore this feature in greater detail, and to be honest was very impressed by what i discovered. I was a little apprehensive about the wiki feature for the simple reason that being part of the Sharepoint platform might have encouraged over-engineering. However aside for the rich text editor ( which makes the process of adding content that much easier ) the basic layout and functionality of the wiki hasn’t changed. So if you are a contributor on Wikipedia you needn’t worry.”

Google’s new Social Network:

“With the recent partnership of Microsoft and Facebook, Google has decided to speed up its plans to deploy a new social network that it hopes will be a one-stop-shop for software developers thereby making it easier to share video’s, music and so on.The reason for this frenzy is the development of “widgets” for sites like face book, that has propelled its reach to a much larger audience.”

A guided tour of MAC OSX:

“A three part guide to the new Leopard MAC OS X”

The less known Gridlock articles:

“This is a question that a lot of you might have battled with at some point in time and if i’m not mistaken continue to do so. Before we get into the “meat” of this post let me sum it up for you , there is NO right technology for KM.

While we all agree KM is more of a cultural initiative, there is no doubting that without a solid technology backbone chances are you’re heading down a dark road.”

What is Hulu.com?

“In March of last year NBC Universal and News Corporation announced a joint venture that was initially thought to be direct competition with YouTube. While “another” YouTube would have been interesting, it turns out that this new venture would be used as an online distribution medium to promote premium video content ( Movies, TV Shows and clips ).”

Facebook is worth $15bn!!

“Well its official, Microsoft has beaten Google to the punch. Securing international advertising services worth over $240m including a minor stake in the social networking site. This puts Facebooks value at a staggering $15bn !!”

Why is Technology so important to KM?

“One of most difficult questions I’ve had to answer with respect to the subject of Knowledge Management is why Technology is so important.

The people asking these questions do not confuse Knowledge Management with Content Management ( as a lot of people very often do ). More often than not they do understand what KM is about and what it could potentially achieve.”

IMAP support for Gmail:

“IMAP support has finally been made available for Gmail. This service allows you to use Google Apps email at work and pretty much anywhere else.”

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In the last month or so the number of hits on this blog has increased tremendously ( thanks in part to an steadily increasing rank on Technorati ( Favourite it! )). I have also witnessed an increase in the number of people subscribing to the feeds on this blog.

For those of you who have just stumbled onto GridLock…. What do we discuss here?

Knowledge Management :

“Every journey has a start point and a destination, making sure you get to the right destination is the job of a road map. To ensure you get to the destination on time, within budget and without accidents you need to make sure you have a damn good road map and a plan.”

Technology :

“A large percentage of my posts so far have touched upon technology in the KM sphere. Now, while a portion of you practicing KM out there might feel that technology has no place in KM i still feel that in this day and age creating a robust technology platform that can support a KM initiative is one of the most important milestones you can set for your company.”

Tech News :

“With the recent partnership of Microsoft and Facebook, Google has decided to speed up its plans to deploy a new social network that it hopes will be a one-stop-shop for software developers thereby making it easier to share video’s, music and so on.The reason for this frenzy is the development of “widgets” for sites like face book, that has propelled its reach to a much larger audience.”

Social Networking

“MySpace - A household name that’s recognized by almost anyone who has spent a little time on the internet. Founded in August 2003 by the then publicly traded company eUniverse .

Currently boasting over 200 million user accounts its one of the largest( and most influential ) social networking sites on the internet.”

You can go through the complete set of articles by Category or date in my articles section.

If you do like what you read here do spread the word…. and Thank you!!

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Choosing the RIGHT Technology for KM

“This is a question that a lot of you might have battled with at some point in time and if i’m not mistaken continue to do so. Before we get into the “meat” of this post let me sum it up for you , there is NO right technology for KM.

While we all agree KM is more of a cultural initiative, there is no doubting that without a solid technology backbone chances are you’re heading down a dark road.

I’ve reviewed a large number of applications that claim to provide the perfect KM solution, and guess what? they don’t. No surprise there for those of you who’ve spent time trying to find an application that suites your needs. Please feel free to disagree with me, and if you’ve stumbled upon that “Perfect” KM tool do leave a comment. I’m sure the rest of my readers would love to get their hands on that information, as would I.”

Rewards OR Recognition

“One of the biggest challenges in Knowledge Management these days is getting people involved in the process. Unlike other initiatives which use a mix of the carrot and stick approach, KM can only be promoted using the carrot.

Now the challenge is, what motivates the average users to contribute towards the system? Is it the rewards or the recognition? From what i’ve seen its a balance between both.”

Is the Term KM misleading?

“The term “Knowledge Management” can be misleading at times. When i first got into this field a couple of years ago i was a little wary of what i was supposed to accomplish. The very idea of Managing Knowledge was something i just couldn’t wrap my head around.

Today, after having practiced KM in the real world and studied it, i’ve come to understand that true KM is more environment management than actual managing of knowledge.”

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Wiki’s in SharePoint 2007 - Part 2

“My last post introduced you to Wiki’s in Sharepoint 2007 ( MOSS 2007 ). I have since had the time to explore this feature in greater detail, and to be honest was very impressed by what i discovered. I was a little apprehensive about the wiki feature for the simple reason that being part of the Sharepoint platform might have encouraged over-engineering. However aside for the rich text editor ( which makes the process of adding content that much easier ) the basic layout and functionality of the wiki hasn’t changed. So if you are a contributor on Wikipedia you needn’t worry.”

YouTube a KM Platform

“YouTube a KM Platform?? Are you out of your mind? thats probably the first reaction you had when you read the title of this post. Honestly? i don’t blame you , i was having the same thoughts a week ago , but then as you know when an idea takes hold it takes a while to shake off.

So I asked myself this very simple question, What makes a good KM platform? and then started listing the points down one by one. This is what i’ve come up with so far ( this is a very basic list, so bear with me)”

Why is Knowledge Sharing so different in the corporate world?

“Users spend over a hundred hours every month on collaborative sites like Wikipedia. While it seems cruel to call this Knowledge “Management”, it does describe the very foundation of KM. Get people to share their knowledge.

More importantly, this cultural phenomenon has shown long term sustainability of such initiatives without traditional drivers like Rewards and Recognition. ( Read Here ). Which addresses the basic question this post raises : Why is Knowledge Sharing so different in the corporate world? For a lot of you the answer might seem obvious, but with the trend of KM adoption in corporates rising there is a serious need to understand what can be done about this.”

MS Wiki Vs Wiki

“Right, i’ve already put up two prior posts on the wiki functionality thats available on MOSS 2007 ( Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 ) , You can read them here and here.

Now while it’s a great thing that Microsoft have finally awoken to the wonder that is the wiki, an in-depth look at the functionality would give an average wiki user the shudders.”

Knowledge Mapping in Organizations

“Why is establishing a knowledge map important for your organization? Well, lets look at it this way, unless you had a travel map you wouldn’t know what was out there and more importantly you wouldn’t know how to get there. A knowledge map for a company works in pretty much the same way. It tells the company where their knowledge resides and where the gaps are.

However the most important thing to keep in mind when creating a knowledge map in your organization is to map it in the context of the business processes that you are trying to improve. Otherwise you end up mapping knowledge you have no idea what to do with”

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KM Theory Vs Practice

“While i haven’t spent a decade working with KM, i believe working with the challenges faced on a day to day basis, over the past couple of years, has provided me with some insight on what practical KM actually is.”

How Businesses are using web 2.0

“I just completed reading a rather interesting survey done by The McKinsey Quarterly. This was done to identify if and how businesses are using Web 2.0 within their organization. I was pleasantly surprised to note that a large percentage of companies have started taking a serious look at Web 2.0 technology implementations within their ranks.”

Why KM?

“As with most of my thoughts this one started after a conversation i had with a colleague.

A number of us are so caught up in meeting deadlines, creating drivers that ensure our existing KM initiatives don’t fall flat. We don’t stop to think “Why KM?”, at least thats what I’ve found after talking to a number of people. Sure there were indicators that lead to the decision of implementing KM, however no clear cut goals were established right at the beginning.”

What’s in Web 2.0?

“We’ve all heard of the term Web 2.0, but what exactly is it? and how do benefit from its use? Listed below are the various components that make up Web 2.0.

Social Networking : refers to a system that allows users of a specific site to learn about other users skills, talents, knowledge or preferences. Commercial examples include Facebook and MySpace. Some companies use these systems internally to help identify experts.”

Blog Review - Weekly KM Blog

“The Weekly KM Blog by Stan Garfield is another blog that i read rather frequently. It has a wealth of information , mostly in the form of external links.”

The Week that Was ( July 2nd to 6th )

“Thought I’d add this new section to my blog, something along the lines of a recap of posts the previous week(Some of them more popular than the others) with a brief excerpt.”

The need for a Knowledge Audit

“The traditional definition of an Audit is to check performance against a standard, as is the case with financial audits. However a knowledge audit works a little differently, its more of a qualitative evaluation. Its essentially an investigation of an organizations knowledge “health”.”

Getting paid to Blog - Good or Bad?

“When i first started this blog a couple of months ago the focus was to get my thoughts on KM in order, and hopefully connect with like minded people across the globe. I’m happy to say I’ve accomplished both, Gridlock has given me the opportunity to put my thoughts down on paper (so to speak) and allowed me to network with a number of very smart individuals.”

State of the Art for Enterprise Portals - Part 4

“All vendors and open source communities brag about the depth of available, 3^rd-party portlets. Reusing and sharing components is already a great idea, but without community ratings it can be prohibitively difficult to assess the quality and usefulness of available portlet code.”

Knowledge Culture

“It is widely acknowledged that the biggest hurdle of establish a long term knowledge management practice in any organization is culture. So what is culture? well in an organization its a set of unwritten rules, expectations and social customs that compel behaviors.”

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