Usher Blogs

Good riddance

Al Zarqawi is dead (at least those are the initial reports.  Link: BBC NEWS | Middle East | Zarqawi dead, say Iraqi reports.

Good.  I wonder if the potential openings in the row with Iran over nukes has anything to do with Zarqawi's death...I've always figured that Iran's intelligence services could probably find and kill him in a matter of days, if not hours were they so inclined.  Perhaps the positive overtures from our side provided the motive...if true, how much more to get bin Laden?  I think we (US) are certainly strange bedfellows with Iran when it comes to Iraq, but I think we are ironically bound  with some common interests.

Ironic...

Exactly one day after I all high and mighty about using IM and presence I receive my first instance of SPIM (IM Spam) courtesy of the MSN network and I was unable to access my Yahoo contacts through the Gaim client I use. 

(Full disclosure, Jabber, Inc. an enterprise IM and presence leader is my client).  The SPIM issue is a very strong argument for using an enterprise solution for business.  The Yahoo issue today exposes one of the fundamental problems of business IM, we're all using different services and protocols and rely on too many hacks to get everything working in a single window.  Its time for the consumer services to get serious about interoperation and federation so that IM becomes much more pervasive and useful as a business tool.

There are Only Two Kinds of People...

that I do business with: those that at least tactically understand presence and use IM regularly, and those that don't.

Those of you I regularly play phone tag with know who you are. Better, faster, more coordinated is the work product produced for your peers when we're regularly sharing presence information.  Qualitative data to be sure, but I'd be willing to bet the cost of quantitative analysis that I'm right.