Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers — and as a counterpoint Tivo, which (until a recent court victory that tripled its stock price) appeared to be struggling.

Perhaps after watching the video above, we can then understand why so many of us “must have” an iPhone – see the iPhone vs HTC video below:

A great consumer product and it sounds very promising – but as an IT professional I worry about mixing business and consumer users on the same network – it’s got security, support and reliability risks written all over it!

Being a wireless (shared) network, I must admit would be reserved in joining my own home network to it, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t even contemplate joining any business-related infrastructure into such a network due to the following unanswered questions and risks:

1. Wireless security – what level of encryption security is being used – there is no mention on their website.
2. Network segmentation – are business and domestic traffic networks kept separate for security – if not, they should be!
3. Reliability – What are the stats here, I appreciate that ADSL doesn’t truly have an SLA, but most businesses ISP’s will give 99.5% uptime dependant on the access solution and provide failover solutions.
4. Throughput – wireless is a shared medium which is very susceptible to interference – it’s never as good as a piece of wire – but some live ‘real-life’ statistics wouldn’t go a miss.
5. IP & DNS restrictions – businesses like fixed IP addresses and DNS they can change – so they can communicate with the outside world (Mail, VPN, FTP, etc).
6. Support – Connectivity providers will need to provide reliably 24/7/365 service for business customers – the internet is now mission critical and businesses can’t afford to be without it.

Maybe Signal wish to think a little more on their “Office User Package” which is targeted at small or medium sized companies (most people define SME as 1-250 employees) – or drop it completely, concentrate on the domestic market where they are positioned quite well and let dedicated business ISP’s service corporate networks.

Rock IT Group offer worldwide computer support services for networks, servers and personal computers, based in Newbury (Berkshire), Colchester (Essex) and London.

Rock IT provide a whole host of feature-rich on-premise & hosted (SaaS – Servers, Web-Apps, Exchange, SharePoint, etc) IT Solutions & 24/7 Pro-active IT Support to Small & Medium Companies across the UK.

It’s a very exciting move, and I can’t wait to meet like-minded growing & innovating companies who need help to solve IT problems, lower their IT overheads and maximise their IT investment – so you are or know anyone looking to grow and want a reliable, expertly planned & pro-actively maintained IT system – then you should be speaking to Rock IT today!

Visit our website : http://www.rockitg.com

“this event is the most dangerous taste of physical and mental endurance pain in the world, I’ve endured three months of hard training to prepare for these sub-zero conditions and breaking through ice made this years event feel extra-tough, but despite the cold and pain, I fully intend on competing and fund-raising for next years event!”

Through fund-raising and donations, I’ve raised £600 which will be split between ToughGuys’ Horse Sanctuary, Prospect Hospice and Naomi House Charities.

Thank you to everyone for helping with my Training and Sponsorship – already looking forward to next years event!

Darren

Notes & Further Information

ToughGuy, organised by Billy Wilson (aka Mr. Mouse) was first staged in 1986 and held on a 600 acre farm in Perton, Staffordshire and raises close to £200,000 for charity per event.

It is by far the most original and toughest test of its kind anywhere in the World. Run on the last Sunday in January, you will need every last ounce of mental and physical strength you can muster to rise to this challenge. Your fear of heights, tight spaces, fire, water and electricity will be tested to the max. Everyone bar the very toughest will be beaten!

For more information please visit www.toughguy.co.uk

Networking Fundamentals Ltd is an independent company supplying outsourced IT support and services to SME’s across Wiltshire and Hampshire. For more information please visit www.nefu.co.uk or call 01264 721680

Darren’s online website is www.crannis.co.uk raising £340 online with a further £300 offline in private and business donations

50% to The Horse Sanctuary (Tettenhall) – Registered charity no. 1102444 – www.toughguy.co.uk

25% to The Prospect Hospice (Swindon) – Registered charity no. 1494909 – www.prospect-hospice.net

25% to Naomi House (Hampshire) – Registered charity no. 100283 – www.naomihouse.org.uk

OK, not quite national television, but clearly visible training hard for this years forthcoming Toughguy challenge at the end of January.

See the gruelling pain I put myself through at my bi-weekly Body Attack class in this SwindonWeb Video

Remember – there is still time to sponsor me – it all goes to charity!

More about Body Attack: BODYATTACK™ is the sports-inspired cardio workout for building strength and stamina. This high-energy interval training class combines athletic aerobic movements with strength and stabilization exercises. Dynamic instructors and powerful music motivate everyone towards their fitness goals – from the weekend athlete to the hard-core competitor!

Body attack runs at the Swindon Link Centre on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, for more details click here.

On the 31st of January 2010 I will again embark the ToughGuy challenge – a punishing 8 mile mix of cross-country, water course and SAS designed assault obstacles designed to physically and mentally exhaust you.

“This event requires you to sign a DEATH warrant”

Having completed this for the first time last year in temperatures of -5 and finishing 1,139th out of 3,500 runners in a time of just over two hours, I have been training furiously over the past 3 months and my aim this year is to finish even higher up the field with a sub 2 hour time.

This year as well as setting myself a new personal best challenge, I would also like to raise sponsorship in the process.

50% of money raised automatically goes to the Horse Sanctuary, who rescue and look after retired horses and donkeys, it is also their land we are taking-over for the event and so seems fair we give something back.

The remaining 50% I have decided to split equally between The Prospect Hospice who bringing dedicated end of life care to the people of its community in Swindon, and Naomi House, who provides support to children, with life-limiting conditions, and their families from across the Wessex Region.

If you would like to sponsor my attempt, please visit the on-line link below:

http://www.crannis.co.uk

or if that link is broken please go direct to:

https://www.charitygiver.com/index.php/charity/darren-crannis-toughguy

I cannot stress enough, please note the word ‘attempt’, as ever with this event I cannot guarantee that I will actually be able to complete the course as its very tough, but in the spirit of fund-raising I will take you hard-earned money anyway!

If anyone does fancy helping my training, I intend to run the Stockbridge 8 mile on Sunday 17th January 2010.

Update 18/01/2010 – I successfully completed the Stockbridge 8-mile x-country event in 64 minutes

I will of course update you on my progress once I’ve recovered from the event in the first week of February.

More information about the event and chosen charities can be found on their respected websites listed below

www.toughguy.co.uk
www.prospect-hospice.net
www.naomihouse.org.uk

Thank you for your support,

Darren

With that in mind, I just thought I would share a little about SaaS and some elementary forms of it out there which we may or may-not use today.

What is SaaS?

The simple bit – Software as a Service is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand.

The bit more in-depth bit – SaaS software vendors may host the application on their own web servers or download the application to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires. The on-demand function may be handled internally to share licenses within a firm or by a third-party application service provider (ASP) sharing licenses between firms.

Basically - You don’t own the software or application, you don’t maintain it, service it, patch it, back it up, and you don’t tend to install it or use it locally to your network or machine – you just rent the rights to use it, usually via a web-browser or a small client installed on your machine – easy!

The positives of SaaS:

Cost - no huge up-front server and application infrastructure costs, instead a low monthly subscription.
Time - deployment is a lot quicker when you don’t have to build and test a system.
Maintenance – the SaaS provider does this for you!
Support - again, the SaaS provider does this for you!
Backup & Restore – usually, again, the SaaS provider does this for you!
Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity – included - SaaS providers host these applications in multiple secure data-centres all over the world – so you can be assured of near 100% uptime and as long as you have internet, you can access your data or application.

…and much, much more such as centralisation, typically more software and application features, lower cost of ownership…

The drawbacks of SaaS:

Internet - Since SaaS utilises the internet, you must ensure that yours is robust and stable, and consider multiple SLA-bound internet circuits (such as Leased Lines or Ethernet Circuits with some auto-failover (ISDN / ADSL / 3G as an example).

Have I been using SaaS without realising?

Probably certainly yes! If you work in an office, your email may be provided to you (for example hosted Exchange), perhaps your financial and ERP system (SAP), or even your CRM system could be on-line (such as Salesforce.com).

On a domestic & home-user level, if you use GoogleDocs – a popular system for storing your files “in the cloud” – this file store system could be classed as SaaS, and I’m sure it won’t be too long until a few of us will adopt the Microsoft Online packages instead of downloading software to our home machines.

SaaS is a great way for products, services and applications to follow YOU, the user, rather than the traditional method of being dedicated to devices which may never be fully utilised. The idea is to give you trouble-free, zero maintenance access wherever you are, and I’m sure it won’t be long (5-10 years) until we all end up paying for our IT service on a cost-per-use basis, both work and home, just like we buy our electric and gas.

Darren

The traditional boundaries between the digital world and physical world are becoming less and less, and with a simple $2 computer mouse, Pranav show us what is possible!

To see the demo click on the video link below:

TED SixthSense Video Website

Pranav Mistry states in his VT that he is making this technology OPEN SOURCE – so anyone can develop this concept further for hundred of dollars not thousands.

Will we be seeing this in our homes soon – how useful will this type of technology be available on the mass market!

It all started last week, whilst reading a news article I spotted BMW were doing cracking offers on 118d Sports, and as I was the mood for a car change in the next few months (the MINI was proving to be a bit small travelling long journeys with Wife, Dogs and kit), I popped along to our local dealership in Hungerford for a look.

Having finally found a silver 5-door in stock, Ceri joined me and decided that she liked the 3-door M-Sport with a few toys (why is everything on a BMW an extra!) instead – and I don’t blame her, so after a cracking discount we opted for that…a shame I don’t get to drive it!

After 24 hours hard-work (Thursday 12noon – Friday 12noon), they came up with a fabulous idea to ’shop by colour’ – take a look at Dr Hue on their new website – which is now on sale on eBay as we speak.

If you like this business concept – bid for it here!