Recently, a business associate was getting rid of an old PC and wrote me about how to make absolutely sure the information off of that PC could never be found by anyone. After giving it some thought and a little research, I realized I had never before (looked for or) seen a straight-forward answer to this question so I thought I would share what I found. The remainder of this blog is my reply to her.

You may have noticed this past Wednesday morning that when you went to Facebook that the chat feature was not available. But did you know why? Well, a recent software release to the constantly evolving site contained a glitch. Logged in users, for a brief time, were able to access chat transcripts from their friends private chats with other people. To be clear, people could see chats that they were not involved in, as long as one of their friends participated in the chat.

Ever since humanity first arrived on the scene one of the ways we've communicated with each other was through visual symbols. Written language itself evolved from the pictorial symbols created by the Sumerians to conduct business! (Now that's too long of a story to write now, but you can read about it here if you like.) Even as books arrived on the scene, the creators would add value to their labor's internal messages by illuminating the pages with drawings of the written content to reach as many people as possible. Adding pictures to the books sold more books. Adding icons to an application or website increases reader (and customer) involvement.

It is a well-known truth in technical circles - most successful "hacks" have as much to do with fooling users into opening a door as they do forcing their way in through that door. There is another case of that type of problem going around, this time involving Facebook.

As I have said in my earlier blog postings, I am fascinated by technology and how it affects marketing and how businesses interact with consumers. One of the biggest influences of today is social networking sites, namely Facebook. There is an amazing trend in the Facebook community right now that could shift the way some companies view the site’s uses.

Recently, you may have read about the Google hack that happened in China. If not, the thing you need to know now is that the malicious code used in that hack is now freely available on the internet. That means unethical users can use this code in new and creative ways, potentially against you. The code targets Internet Explorer 6 running on Windows XP.

Continuing along the lines of our Resource Center, another “hot” I.T. topic that is widely unknown or misunderstood among laymen business users is “cloud computing.” The origin of that jargon is simple—in diagramming solutions in our industry, the Internet is represented as a cloud. So the simple definition of cloud computing is using software and even network components (servers) over a connection to the Internet instead of the server and its software being physically located in your server closet.

If you have visited other parts of our site such as the Potential Employees page or the Message from the President page, you may have noticed how highly we value our employees. In our line of work, the developers and network engineers are our largest asset which makes finding the right people vital. In my experience of sifting through candidates to find the right fit for both a specific technical position and our organization in general, I have developed these five criteria that may come in handy to other I.T. managers looking for hiring advice:

Prior to SQL Server 2005, you only had a few labor-intensive options if you wanted to order to pass a collection of values to a stored procedure from your .NET application.

If your data was an array of objects containing only single values, such as an array of strings, you could pass a delimited string to the stored procedure. Inside your procedure you would have to then parse the string and fill a temporary table with each piece of data.

This is an extension of my original “Too Legit” blog where I discussed the importance of your website in legitimizing your company. However, legitimizing your online presence extends further than just your website.

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Next Saturday, September 26th, the University of Houston will be hosting the Houston TechFest. The events provides a whole day of training session for programmers for a wide range of technologies including .net, iPhone, Java, Ruby, and more. And the best part is that it's all FREE!

I would like to imagine that in this day and age being too legitimate can’t possibly be a bad thing. Today, consumers are becoming more cautious of with whom they choose to do business. It is important that your company validate itself as a reputable organization from the get go.

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As part of Microsoft's online training seminar, Virtual Tech Days, they have a vast amount of training videos available online. One in particular that caught my attention was Top 5 Web Application Security bugs in custom code. Click the link below to see it.

It is becoming fairly typical for a developer’s workstation to have dual monitors. For me, my main code editor is usually on my primary monitor, and other resources such as e-mail, database tools, or reference web pages are moved to my second monitor.

If the Mono project can gain enough support, it could be releasing a new framework and compiler that will allow .net developers to write iPhone applications in C# using Apple's native code library and SDK.

One of I.T. by Design’s core competencies is the creation of custom software, designed to give our client organizations a competitive advantage in their marketplace. And some of our competitors in the custom software industry have gone so far as to say any and all applications should be custom. I disagree strongly with this opinion. Here are five types of solutions that you should always buy “off the shelf” rather than re-inventing yourself or with a consultant.

Because you can't teach an old dog new tricks, it's about time we grab the shotgun, take Internet Explorer 6 out back and send it to a better place (the Recycle Bin).

Although I.T. by Design has been in business for almost six years, I have personally been doing professional I.T. work for over 15 years. Wow how time flies....

As a marketing professional who works for a technology company, I am intrigued by the way technology influences trends in marketing. These days, social networking sites have proven themselves to be stable and effective for reaching users, and small businesses and corporations alike are taking advantage of these tools.

Google is aiming for Microsoft yet again with a new, free communication and collaboration and tool on the web called Google Wave.  Google Wave seeks to provide the same functionality as SharePoint but in a more easily extended and interactive interface.

With search engines quickly replacing the good ole phone book, it is important for businesses to make their websites search engine optimized or more commonly referred to as SEO. The purpose of optimizing your website is to get listed higher in the search results than competing websites. Here are a few quick tips that can help with this effort:

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This morning just after waking up I followed my usual routine and turned the TV onto ESPN-HD to see what Sports Center thinks of the Yankees-Red Sox feud. I then immediately grabbed my phone to check email, text messages, Facebook, and Twitter. I am definitely a digitally connected person. I run an I.T. outsourcing firm, so every day I am around similar high-tech, connected people.

Today Microsoft unveiled its newest version of its search engine, called Bing (www.bing.com). This engine is a highly visible, easy to access example of some web technologies that many in the area are not taking advantage of.

As much as Apple, Google, or a variety of “Face-Spaces” hate to admit it, when Microsoft speaks about the future the I.T. world listens. Despite having more fierce competition in the last five years than they’ve ever had, Microsoft’s dominant market share is still undeniable. In college I asked my networking instructor why TCP/IP was the standard protocol even though it was so flawed in terms of security. He responded “because that’s what Microsoft chose.” In many ways, especially in the business world, they still have that kind of power.

Just what the Internet needs, I know — another blogger. This is my first blog, and I have put some thought into what I will place in this little corner of the Internet. In this space I plan to talk about technology and business, and how the two are related. We employ plenty of smart people who will be able to dissect the technical aspects of our work — I will leave that to their blogs. So on to it then.