Daft Punk "Get Lucky" Mash-Up Video

Daft Punk's new album, Random Access Memories, is a techno style that only Daft Punk can do integrated with disco and jazz legends. I have listened to it and I enjoyed it. If you are expecting a hard core album to carry on the dance beats of Technologic or Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger then you will be disappointed. This new album is more chill and listening enjoyment of a musical collaboration journey. Great album to work to.

But as the vast talent of the Internet got hold of the first single, Get Lucky, someone had put the track on an old episode of Soul Train. Above is the original Daft Punk release of Get Lucky, the video gets cool at 2:20 in. Below is the Soul Train Mix.

Enjoy.

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Binary Blogger
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BYOD - Secutity Done At The Right Place Makes The Device Type Irrelevant

Bring Your Own Device, BYOD, is such the hip thing to do. It's cool, convienent, there's an assumption it's going to save the company millions!!! Let's do it!!!

Then the techies start to look under the covers on how it will all work and reality sets in that it's not all that and a slice of bread. There are major risks and significant overhead management costs that will far exceed device hardware savings. Yet the upper management and decision makers don't want to hear any of it. This is all realized before the security guys get their hands on it and really go to town on the danger of rushing BYOD.

BYOD cannot and should not be looked at as simple as employees using their already owned hardware. It's not that simple. A 100% controlled business device is far easier to control than introducing thousands of unknowns accessing your critical business resources.

Security is the key to BYOD success. If it's done right, in the right places, then the devices used becomes almost a non-issue. Use whatever you want, my security posture makes it that I don't have to care about the thousands of devices. I only have to focus on the 30 business applications.

Enterprises need to look past BYOD and focus on the data being consumed and used. How a business does this is through three Mobile Management concepts, MDM, MAM and MCM.

Great, more acronymns...

MDM - Mobile Device Management
This is the foundation phase of BYOD. MDM allows the business to track the device to the user, remotely configure the device to push policies for lock codes, certificates, screen lock timeout, etc... The business can provision and deprovision the device, ensure minimal security is on the device, backup the device, restore it and in the ultimate emergency perform a complete wipe of the device.

MAM - Mobile Application Management
MAM is where you stop worrying so much about the device and focus on the application(s) being used. This of MAM as a virtualizer or wrapper to a mobile application. That wrapper can then be like an agent that controls what the application can do, you can go as far as use the GPS of the device control where the application can be ran (like your physical office location), without having to code or design the security into the application. Using a virtualized container that enforces a behavior allows you to have far more control around what data is or is not stored on the device. When it comes to BYOD it's all about what data can be stored and taken away. This is no longer simple Internet facing websites.

MCM - Mobile Conent Management
Repositories of data. The enterprises' own SkyDrive or Dropbox dumping ground, but most likely Sharepoint, where full blown encryption is applied, strong access controls to get to the data, live DLP system to detect real time what can be accessed, needs to be encrypted, determining the classification of the data before the user can get it. (This also requires you actually have some type of data classification criteria to begin with) If you really want to control the data and not worry about the device, implement a Digital Rights Management server and have all the devices check in with the DRM before the files can be decrypted to view. Then if a user leaves and you don't wipe the data before hand it's not that big of a deal because the files are basically useless with the military grade encryption on it since they can no longer talk with your DRM servers to be opened. Then the devices don't matter.

Developing those three approaches in your enterprise alogn side your BYOD approach is the future. Cloud or remote access, who cares where the service is provided from, is the here and now. Right now there is drive to use a hard anchor to a singular device. I say anchor your efforts to the singular application's security models and make the consuming devices less of a concern. When a business is building an Internet facing web application are they worrying about the configuration and lockdown of the millions of potential computers accessing the website? No. They are focusing on the application's own security deisgn to protect it from those millions. BYOD and the applications consumed should be an evolved thought process from that. Especially if the application requires or has a capability to have data stored on a device not fully controlled by the enterprise.

Make the device themselves irrelevant to your security focus. Instead protect the applications and the data in the new upcoming Service Consumption World.

Thinking BYOD as a device and cell phone contract costs reduction is going to make a difference, wait until the offset costs set in over time and exceed it multiple times over.

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Binary Blogger
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Social Network Authentication Should Not Be Taken Seriously

The Brochure Buzzword of the year is Social Network integrations. Whether is the hot selling points for software vendors, federation presentations, or your management team pushing for the ultimate user convenience of allowing people to use their own social network accounts to authenticate into your applications, you can't get away from it. You should get away from it as fast and as quickly as you can.

The idea of using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn as an authentication source into applications is not a bad idea depending on what type of applications you are talking about. For web applications and services that provide benign, public, social style information that has limited to zero risk if it's made public (if its not public already) then social network integration is fine. It allows you to track users, data use, gather some marketing information, and other non-essential pieces of information like for metric reporting use.

It's when you have decision makers in the business start to push to extend this into business critical applications is where the severe issues arise. It's not a bad idea to have a single-sign-on authenticator out there, it's easy for the users, it's easy for you and people will enjoy the experience. When you look at it beyond the brochures there is a fundamental and serious flaw with social network authentication.

The social networks have NO identity verification in place to ensure the user is actually the name on the account. None! I can go you and create a Facebook profile for Joe Public. Joe Public could be a CEO of a company. If I was a committed social engineering hacker I could gain the 'trust' and confidence of an application provider and get access. There is no guarantee that Facebook stamped an approval that they verified Joe Public is in fact Joe Public. It's just a name on the account. So how can you even think about opening a business critical application to social authentication when the social networks don't even confirm the user's true identity.

This is the flaw with this. It's nice for requiring it to download the public earnings report, white papers, stuff like that. Beyond that it's a fad and cannot be taken or considered seriously as a secure option.

Facebook wants as many users as it can. Twitter is wide open to spoofing and parody accounts. LinkedIn has problems of it's own. None have any true validation to the owner's identity to the account(s) they use.

User convenience is becoming more of a hot button as the services and consuming devices continue to spread and break up from the traditional single PC home model. Now we have mobile devices, tablets, laptops, PCs, game systems, home streaming devices all beginning to be access points. Each with their own accounts, passwords to the cloud services they use. When I was at CA World 2013 I was part of an expert panel where we talked about identity in the cloud and the challenges around it. Identity proofing and how to ensure the belly button user is really the name on the account was a big topic. This will be an obstacle for years to come and more so when the lawyers get involved.

The fact of the matter is that no matter how much we want it, a central identity authenticator will probably never happen. The pieces are there, some large companies have attempted this in the past (Visa Verified) with varying success but we as users are probably stuck with many authentication keys as the cloud expands.

Unless Facebook steps up and takes security seriously, their own security and privacy model is laughable to begin with, then it will be near impossible for someone to start something from the ground up to tackle this.

Social authentication is a neat fad nothing more. Unless changes happen, help stop it from trying to become more than what it's capable of being.

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Binary Blogger
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Can BYOD Be A Forced Policy?

Bring Your Own Device is the hot button topic for many organizations lately and unfortunately the decision makers up top aren't understanding the entire picture of what BYOD is. Many are making decisions and putting businesses down the paths of BYOD under the assumption of significant cost savings but instead my inadvertently increase costs and make the business horrifically inefficient which adds more overhead costs.

BYOD, in my opinion, is a option for employees, not a forced practice. The option is to have full mobile capabilities extended to the corporate world in order to do your job but using your own mobile device(s) that you already own. Instead of carrying and worrying about multiple devices for multiple functions, personal and business, give the option to use one they already own. This is where part of the cost savings come from. The business doesn't have to procure the hardware device, manage a service contract for cellular, text and data and most likely don't have to host a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) onsite. A percentage of the monthly cost goes back to the employee as a stipend to cover part of their personal service costs.

I am not going to go into the business side management of security and all the canyons of problems that come with BYOD only the costs. So the option approach there is a realized cost savings that the business can benefit from. However, there are some that may be taking it too far and are coming full circle to a business supplied mobile device model, but with BYOD labels.

Here's another scenario I have heard and read more about in a BYOD model. That model is that BYOD is forced and there is no other option. For those that have their own devices then this is not really a problem. That is until the users refuse to have their personal devices be probed, reviewed, locked down, scanned, by the business in addition to the power of completely wiping the device in their hands. I am not talking about just wiping you mail account and messages but the whole phone, your apps, games, saved files, photos of your children. Poof.

The alternative is the business provides a purchase stipend for the employee to buy a 'supported' device, separate to their personal device, and then have to get a new contract. So the business now is buying devices new, like before, and covering the full service contact since the new phones are not joint personal/business. There would be more control around this scenario but I can't find out how any money is being saved. Especially since most companies have pretty good procurement arrangements with retailers to get phones far cheaper than on the street that the employees use. Then there there is there problem of really 'owns' the device then. Under BYOD the employee owns it, but if the business fronts all the costs for the device do you think the employee will get to keep the device if they leave? If not the business now has to figure out what to do with that device, recycle it, give it to another employee and before you know it the business is back in the business of device management.

If the employee is forced to take care of a business use device on their own, which means entering into a multi-year contract, what happens if you lay that person off or they leave? The cell phone service provider doesn't care, you have a 2 year contract with them with no way out.

BYOD, own device. That's the key. A business forcing will experience costs and headaches above and beyond than running a 'hybrid' model of business delivered and optional combination of personal and work use. Or worse exceeding costs from sticking with proving the devices.

Like everything, BYOD is no different, just because you can doesn't mean you should... especially if you don't have a well thought out plan to execute.

End of Line.

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Binary Blogger
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How To: Excel 2010 XML Exports

In all the years working day in and day out with tools, technology and processes sometimes you miss the simplest and stupidest things. I have come across one of those bumps in the road that I have spent far more time on than I should but no more. Things like this I need to lay it out for all of you because I know there are others that have ran across this before.

I will lay out how to create a simple XML file from an Excel spreadsheet. If you are in anyway working with an application that brings in data then you have worked with either CSV (Comma Delimited Files) or XML files. CSV are easy to deal with however XML files are trick if you don't know 100% about them especially if you have to create them from scratch. I know about them, I have created them progamatically but have recently required to create XML data source files from Excel Spreadsheets. Even though it should be a simple process I was surprised of the effort to so a simple export from Excel to an XML file that wasnt' horrifically over bloated with XML tags.

So, here's how you do it.

1) Open Excel

2) Make sure the XML tools are in your Menu/Ribbon. File > Options > Customize Ribbon. Then add the Developer to the menu. See the picture.

3) Create an XML Mapping file. This file is what you will use to map your Excel spreadsheet data. There is a catch that took my a while to figure out and is not documented very well in the official Microsoft help sites or other sites I looked around in.

My sample is only for a single node XML file, you can extend this process to the complexity of your data but once you understand the process it's simple. The XML mapping file is only the nodes, <JobTitles> is my main root and <JobTitle> is for each Job Title. Now, if you only have one line for your data element Excel won't populate it with your whole sheet, only the first one. You need to have two here in order to Excel to traverse the whole column. This is what took me a while to figure out. Bug? By Design? Either way I think it's dumb and redundant.

 

4) Once you get the mapping file created, in any Notepad program will be just fine, you need to open the mapping file in your data sheet. In the Developer Ribbon, in the XML tools, click Source. A side window will open, click XML Maps... and Add your mapping file.

 

5) To format your XML drag your data element to the column of data. It will get colors if it's done correctly.

6) After that, Export it using the Export in the Developer tools, you don't save it as an XML.

 

 

7) Enjoy your XML file.



For a simple process, using Excel, it's more complicated than it should be. I don't understand why this isn't a built in Wizard. There are tons of tools out there for XML creation but they can be overwhelming when you want a very simple XML file.

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Binary Review - Twitter #Music

Twitter recently jumped into the musis game, sort of, with the release of its new iOS app called #Music. This is the next phase of Twitter trying to move out of micro-blogging into more usable services for the users. Being a techie nerd and music junkie I downloaded the app when it came out and have used it fairly regularly over the past few weeks and now here's my thoughts on the app.

To the user that only uses #Music you will quickly be disappointed to see that you can only listen to snippets of the songs, not the full songs themselves. In order to listen to full length songs you need to have a Spotify or Rdio account and connect the app to one of those. Which immediately prompts the first question, if I need Spotify, what good is #Music. Why don't I just use Spotify?

I haven't found a good answer yet.

The app claims it uses Twitter trends, your past Twitter activity, and other social markers to build the play lists of artists. After using it I call BS on it because like most music services that claim this, the top lists always seems to be what's the latest and greatest on the pop radio stations. I dumped Pandora because my heavily custom radio stations started inserting the Top 100 songs multiple times an hour after I thumbed them down. Music comapnies shell out big money to keep their product up front, I felt #Music was no different.

The next option you have to listen to is called Emerging. This list supposedly is pulled from Twitter trends of up and coming bands and songs. Unless you are comparing them, how does looking at the Twitter trends along determine a new up and coming? Either way this list all sounds like the same college coffee shop band, music festival opening acts, same new alternative style. They all sound like the same band with different singers. No rock, no country, no hip hop that I found.

The last and most disappointing was Suggested. This is supposed to be music suggested for you based on my social activity. However I think this is more based off of the people you follow rather than what you post. All I get is techno. I post more about country, rock, classical but I follow more DJs like Tiesto, Oakenfold, Van Burren, etc...

Lastly is #NowPlaying which pulls in what the people you follow are listening to. Which I found to be the most dynamic and useful for new music than the others.

Since it's Twitter you can tweet the song you are listening to... but that's it. Even though you need Spotify to listen to the whole song, you can't flag or save anything new you hear. You can tweet it but then you have to go back and hunt later to track down the song. You would think with Spotify integration you would be able to Like the song and that would then keep it in Spotify. But sadly there is nothing you can do other than manual tracking of what you come across. Being able to follow the artists doesn't cut it. Listen to it once and it's gone forever. There is so much music options out there from artists many will be forgotten and replaced if #Music doesn't figure out how to grab and hold the songs you like beyond a simple tweet. Who goes back and reads their own timeline?

At the end of the day I will be tossing Twitter #Music aside and using Spotify as my primary music streaming service... since I need Spotify anyway to listen to full songs in #Music.

Try it, play around with it, then do what most are doing and delete it. Few days worth of a new tech gadget but nothing much past that.

End of Line.
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Binary Blogger
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Binary's CA World Blog Post Failures

So apparently after reviewing my iPad publishing program, not reviewing my blog itself, all my blog posts from my attendance to CA World never were posted. I had planned to, and did, write live posts as I went through the day but darn it, they never made it. They got stuck in online Draft mode in the iPad app I was using that will remain nameless. A few days of getting back into the groove of work and enjoying the first 70 degree days in Minnesota since last Oct. I haven't gotten around to the blog. Then I saw nothing... BAH!

I think it was more of a network failure when I posted them rather than the app because the other social network activity, Twitter, LinkedIn, Storify worked most of the time. It said it was posted but never made it out the door.

Oh well... no sense posting them now since they were all "real time" and meant mostly for the other attendees.

I need to go back to the drawing board and write up more general, thought provoking posts about all the great cloud and identity conversations and panels I was part of and crank up the frequency of entries.

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Binary Blogger
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Binary Blogger Weight Loss Journey - Success From Focus

This is a blog of technology, reviews, and such but occasionally I write about myself. Bring a little humanity to the author and maintainer of this fine blog of knowledge and insights.

Over the past year I have focused on my own health and fitness making a hard pressed effort to change. Not a quick fix but a lifestyle change, an integration into my own daily routine. I can say today I have succeeded. There is still room to go and the challenge of maintenance but how far I have come I know the rest will not be as big of a challenge as it was when I started.

Let's go back a year, early March of 2012. I switched companies and that life changing event was a good point to put the stake in the ground to mark it as Day 1. One year ago, March 3, 2012 I tipped the scales at 245lbs. Whoa. Years of neglect, mainly working in a career that has very little movement sitting behind monitors and servers. That excuse is no more for me.

I began mountain biking on a regular basis, posting my trips using the iOS app MapMyRide. Being an IT freak, social media is in my blood, so I thought it would be a good motivator to post all my workouts. Turns out that was a good motivator. It was also a huge help to track every workout because over time I could see physical progress as I was going farther distances, faster. I was also shedding weight.

Over the year I started going back to the gym and integrating running and some weights. Running then, and still is, my most hated exercise. Mainly I never really did it before and it killed me when I tried. But I worked on it and over time 1 mile turned into 2 then to 3 and last week I ran for 5 miles straight inside an hour. Not bad for not being a runner.

I am also able to get 20 miles on the stationary bike inside an hour as well.

Like most I got stagnant with my workouts and wasn't losing the obvious fat I was still hanging on to. Then the holidays hit and didn't fight it and let the workout schedule lapse a bit. 2013 came around and I got frustrated with myself and accepted that if I wanted to get where I needed to be I needed assistance. So I hired a Personal Trainer for 3 months to get me over the hump.

The first day I started he put me through an assessment that consisted of a full body scan and a series of exercises to baseline my performance. Then once a month we re-did the assessment and here is the data from Feb 12, 2013 to April 18, 2013.

Feb. 12, 2013
Body Fat: 22.5%
Weight:    214.9 lbs.
Waist:      36.5 in.
Hip:         43.6 in

Exercises - 1 minute to see how many reps can be done 
Standing Cable Squat Rows:   45 reps with 47.5 lbs.
Chest Pushups:    23 reps
Ab Crunches:      25 reps
Body Squats:       34 reps
Lat Pulldowns:    20 reps with 80 lbs.
Back Extensions: 25

===========
March 13, 2013
Body Fat: 20%
Weight:    206 lbs.
Waist:      34.5 in.
Hip:         43.1 in.

Exercises - 1 minute to see how many reps can be done 

Standing Cable Squat Rows:   47 reps with 47.5 lbs.

Chest Pushups:    33 reps
Ab Crunches:      36 reps
Body Squats:       44 reps
Lat Pulldowns:    22 reps with 80 lbs.
Back Extensions: 46

===========
April 18, 2013
Body Fat: 17.5%
Weight:    201 lbs.
Waist:      33.5 in.
Hip:         43 in.

Exercises - 1 minute to see how many reps can be done 

Standing Cable Squat Rows:   51 reps with 57.5 lbs. (added 10 pounds)

Chest Pushups:    40 reps
Ab Crunches:      60 reps
Body Squats:       28 reps (added two 30 lb. Dbells in each hand)
Lat Pulldowns:    30 reps with 80 lbs.
Back Extensions: 47 (added 25 lb. plate)

==========

The data doesn't lie. Progress was made. Success was had and value was fully received. Now you may say I cheated by hiring a PT. But 1 hour a week training session did not do this. It educated me to be more focused about how I work out, all the muscles not just the legs, diet, habits, snacks, proteins, water intake. Slowly but surely my lifestyle changed not in a diet mode but as an adoption mode to weave these as a regular part of my life.

It worked. I have reaped many other benefits medically, physically, mentally, and every other positive outcome from this personal achievement. At the end of the day I proved to myself it could be done.

I am going to round up but losing 45 pounds feel pretty, pretty good. When I can say I lost 55, that will feel a little better.

People change for one of two reasons:
    1) They are motivated
    2) They are desperate

When it comes to your health and well being, don't change because of #2.

End of Line.
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Binary Blogger
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Online Marketing Is Out Of Touch With Online Style

I am an IT geek but I think I would make a good marketer. I have found that marketing folks, some of them, are out of touch with how the real world receives their messages. Now as the world is moving beyond 30 second TV spots to shorter more frequent blasts the messaging style hasn't changed and I am surprised no one has changed their approach yet.

Here's what I am talking about, online commercials. I watch a lot of videos, news videos, tech videos, waste of time humor videos. YouTube, Vimeo, Break, they all have commercials that pop in from time to time that you are forced to watch anywhere between 10 and 30 seconds. However I noticed something, most of the time I am counting down the timer and after the fact I have no idea what the product or service was that I just waited through. Not because I wasn't paying attention but because the marketing message never showed it.

That's the problem for the marketing world, they are out of touch with the technology. If your messages are only to be seen for the first 15 seconds, don't spend 30 seconds with a 'story' and then your produc punchline. You don't have that time. The first 3 seconds should have the product name, right there, up front and personal. Otherwise your video is just filler. Waste of money. As soon as the 'Skip Ad' link lights up the viewer is gone. Poof. Your story and product you are trying to sell is never seen.

Maybe I don't understand the marketing world, but I do understand it as a consumer. If you want me to even consider buying your product, I have to know what it is.

Focus on how your message is consumed as much as it is presented.

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Binary Blogger
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Binary Review: Radisson Blu at Mall of America

My wife and I are local to Minnesota and decided to spend a night at the new Radisson Blu at the Mall of America to check it out. Our stay was within a month of their opening.

The hotel itself is brand new, fresh, clean and the decor is beautiful. Obviously lots of blue overtones, great use of LED lights and the whole complex feels up to date. Being attached to the Mall of America you'd hardly notice it as it has a complete stand alone hotel look and feel.

PARKING - D+
If you park at the hotel you can valet or self park in the parking ramp attached to the hotel. We self parked. The ramp itself is one of the more confusing mazes I have ever seen. There are signs but there is really no clear marking where the heck the door is to get into the hotel. We parked and found the elevator, then it gets more confusing.

The ramp has two level, we parked on level to which is marked with signs P2.
When you hit the elevator there is no P2 or any indication on the buttons where the heck the hotel lobby was. There were buttons labeled 2, 1, and 0 with a star I think. I guessed the star and was correct.

Going back I remembered parking on the big green P2 level. So I hit the elevator in the lobby after checking out and hit 2. But that was wrong, that takes you to the bar and conference room level, for parking you have to hit #1... there was another couple getting into the elevator that had the same problem.

Parking bad labels, elevator no labels, easy fix.

Parking is $22 a night if you don't stay there which I assume is purely to keep the mall customers away from a really close ramp because if you stay at the hotel you park for free. However their system needs a BIG fix.

When you park you get a ticket. When yo check in the hotel gives you another coupon ticket that is supposed to let you leave for free without paying. However when I left the coupon didn't work and from others in the valet area yelling that I heard, it didn't work for most people. The only way to get out was to pay the $22 via credit card. I then had to park in front, go into the lobby and work on getting the charge back. $22 is a big chunk for parking anywhere. A real pain on check out day.

ROOMS - B
The room was clean, big and very up to day. We stayed on the upper floors, city view. A great view of the airport and of the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul. THe room was spacious, we had the King bed, and the LED lighting was very nice. The bathroom was slick and the shower was the rainfall style shower head, in the ceiling not on the wall. There was a great top of the line coffee maker, complimentary water, top TV, the room was very conformable.... until the bed.

We got a King size bed however I don't think it was a King size bed. We have a King at home and the room's bed felt more like a Queen size. It wasn't as wide and was shorter than a traditional King. The pillows were big, very soft and there were lots of them.

The bed itself was awful. Maybe because it's new, but I have never had a new mattress need breaking in. It was hard, immovable, left like it was a dome, and both our backs were stiff and cramped after sleeping on it. Made for a very uncomfortable night. For as awesome the room was the bed ruined it.

For additional annoyances there is a smoke/CO detector on the wall that flashes bright green lights and the coffee maker strobed to brighter green lights. If you like to sleep in the dark those stood out. I actually threw a shirt over the coffee maker to block it out.

THE BAR/RESTAURANT
Before we headed into the mall for dinner we stopped off at the bar. FireLake Grill. We each a handcrafted cocktail and they were out of this world. Bravo! My wife had the Calhoon Loon and I had the Sweedish Passing. You can find the menu on FireLake website for details.

The service still has lots of wrinkles to work out.

The ambiance inside was rustic, wood covered walls and ceilings, old style lights and a great view. In hindsight we should have tried the restaurant.

OVERALL - B+
Aside from the parking gaffe and the terrible bed this was a fantastic stay. The hotel is very, very cool and trendy. Another big part of their appeal I see is their party, meeting, conference hosting for businesses and such. Looking at their calendars it appears that's a big hit and they are busy for a while.

The price is not bad for the hotel, less than $200 a night for a very nice room depending on where you stay. It's connected to the Mall of America which has plenty to do but is one of my most hated places on the planet not because of the mall itself but because of the people and troublemakers that come out of the woodwork after dark.

I would recommend this to anyone coming to town for a visit and wants to goto the Mall of America.

I also put this review on Yelp.
Binary Blogger Yelp Review

End of Line.
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Binary Blogger
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