How to win the war on spending, visually!

Recently I have been scolded for writing too much about technology and theory (i.e. stuff that only interests me). The main Scolder was Ms. Hadar Kadar, our director of customer relations. She pointed out that every once in a while we should post something that is actually useful to our customers (and was right as she usually is).

And so with this post, we are starting a new tradition. Every week, Hadar will prepare and post a new Excel Video Tutorial. This week’s tutorial is about controlling expenses. We would love to get your feedback on this. This template was prepared for Excel 2007.

Enjoy!

You can download the template here

Five blogging tools that every blogger will use in 2007

Why is it that some bloggers are 10 times more productive than others?

Like programming, blogging is an occupation in which huge variations exist between the best and the merely average. Joel Spolsky of the famed Joel on Software made a historic post on the difference between the best programmer and the average programmer. I strongly recommend that you read Joel’s post. While doing so, replace the word “programmer” with the word “blogger.”

So how do you become a master blogger?

The secret of the kung fu master

Imagine a kung fu master during his daily practice session. He moves with accuracy and grace. Every strike is perfect and flows seamlessly into the next. But the most amazing part is that the kung fu master seems to be in another world, contemplating the philosophy of martial arts while his body automatically performs the moves.

How is kung fu relevant to blogging? Like the kung fu master, you should control the tools of your trade to the point that using them is second nature. Then you can focus on the core of the blogging art–thinking!

Here are the five essential tools you will have to master to become a kung fu blogging master:

Finding interesting things to blog about

Tool #1: Del.icio.us

When reading your RSS feeds and surfing the net, you often come across things you can blog about. Use del.icio.us to bookmark them and use them in your blog later. And that’s not all. By subscribing to the Del.icio.us tag RSS feeds, you can see what other people have bookmarked on the tags that interest you and use that for your blog. By doing so, you use the entire del.icio.us user group as your personal scouts!

Tool #2: Technorati

Also subscribe to the tag RSS feeds on Technorati. This is very similar to Del.icio.us, but you get to read everything blogged about the keywords that interest you.

Think everywhere

When you sit in front of your computer, you start thinking about headlines, subtitles, and all the other stuff that make your blog posts great. But don’t you hate it when you think of a great idea for a title or a joke, and by the time you get to your computer you have forgotten about it? Wouldn’t it be great if you could blog everywhere?

Tool #3: online word processors

By using Google Docs, Zoho, or one of the many other online word processors, you can write your post at work, from home, when visiting friends–wherever there is a computer connected to the internet.

Warning: Your spouse, family, and friends may not like this technique.

Get your blogging groove on

Blogging is hard work. To really be effective, you have to be in the right mood. I use a special “substance” to clear my mind.

Tool #4: ZeFrank

It’s enough to watch an episode of the ZeFrank daily show to forget all your troubles, get a good laugh, and enter that blogging state of mind.

Become a master wordsmith

Tool #5: Cogniview’s ultimate copywriting tool

During the first quarter of 2007, we will be launching a new copywriting software tool to serve you, the blogger. This tool (yet to be named) will allow you to write a brilliant post every time. This tool will be the equivalent of having Darren and Brian as your personal advisers.

How can you get this tool?

Easy, just subscribe to our RSS feed. Once the tool has been released, we will post it here and you will be able to download it, free!

This post is participating in the ProBlogger Group Writing Project – Reviews and Predictions.

Happy holidays, everyone,

Yoav

Zoho removes demo account from home page

In a previous post, I mentioned an inherent security problem with online collaboration tools. The quickest to respond was Zoho. First, Zoho commented on the post. It then removed the demo account from their home page (a no-login account which allowed users to test their product).

There has been some discussion lately about ultra-quick development cycles in the Web 2.0 era. In this aspect, Zoho leads the Web 2.0 collaboration vendor group.

2006 summary

Two thousand and six is rapidly drawing to a close, and summary posts are being published on every blog. In the spirit of the holidays, I too will summarize.

I have been blogging for five fruitful months. Through this blog I have met several exciting and intelligent people and learned much.

I would like to thank some people:

  1. My management, for their support and open-mindedness regarding this blog
  2. Robert Scoble, for making me feel like a part of the tech community and for being a mensch
  3. Kathy Sierra, for being so smart and so right. I want to be more like Kathy!
  4. Philipp Lenssen, for making me laugh
  5. Zefrank, also for making me laugh
  6. My few (and cherished) readers. Thank you!

Happy holidays and happy New Year!

The information leak in the online collaboration sink

Learn why information leaks in online collaboration applications are important to you

Earlier, I promised that I would look into online collaboration tools. I started looking into Zoho, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Thinkfree and others. I was a bit worried that these services created an opening for security violations.

What I found was downright scary. People use online collaboration tools to document the most damaging private and commercial information and leave this information in a public folder or URL for the entire world to see.

The tech industry speaks as though the security and privacy problems inherent in collaboration and Web 2.0 software were merely a theoretical problem. My intention here is to show that this problem is very real. I will also suggest a solution.

Here are some of the things I found (note: I blacked out personal data):

Samples of personal medical information leaks

I’m pretty sure that recipient of the following letter is not aware that the details of his orthopedic appointment have been published on the Internet.

Private Medical Information - 1

The following image was taken from a 13-page list of daily admissions to an ICU. It probably was posted by a nurse or doctor who wanted to share information about a patient with a colleague. The unfortunate side effect was the exposure of enormous amounts of private medical data to anyone with a browser.


Personal medical information - 2

Samples of personal employment information leaks

This Best Buy employee decided to go to school and resign from Best Buy. That’s not such a big deal, but if I was a master spear phisher, I could use the information to my advantage.

Personal Employment Data - 1

The same goes for this XILINX employee. These are just two examples of countless personal and corporate documents that contain data that can be used for spear phishing. Perhaps we should call it spear phishing 2.0: fraud based on information found in Web 2.0 apps.

Personal Employment Information Leak - 2

Samples of personal and corporate financial information leaks

The following claims form was filled in with every kind of personal financial information about Mr. S. Using this to perform identity theft is a piece of cake.

Financial Information Leak - 1

Ironically, this next example was taken from a status letter sent by a VC that invests in Web 2.0 and online collaboration to its limited partners. It was a very interesting read, with much financial data.

Financial Information Leak - 2

The mother of all leaks – Passwords galore

For all you techies who are thinking, “Heh heh, stupid users, putting all their private data on the Web,” here are some techie-generated documents. I actually logged into the accounts shown in the next documents.

Leaked Passwords - 1

Leaked Password - 2

How big is the problem of information leaks?

After we checked some 1,500 documents that had been created by online collaboration tools and published on the internet (without any access restrictions), two facts emerged:

Percent of dangerous information leaked

Why information leaking could spell the end of online-collaboration tools

Corporations are terrified of information leaks. Information leaks such as the ones we’ve discussed make the company a target for litigation, pave the way to commercial espionage, and may help expose weaknesses in the company or its management.

Once this problem becomes known, corporations will act swiftly and decisively and block their users from accessing online-collaboration tools. Since corporations are the target market for online-collaboration vendors, getting blocked by corporations is very bad news.

How can information leaking be prevented?

The problem can be solved by not allowing users to publish “open to all” documents. Just don’t allow users to publish documents on the Internet on a publicly accessible URL. This is a painful act, since it decreases the productivity gain offered by online-collaboration tools, but it is necessary for those tools that wish to survive.

One more thing

All the tools I checked were amazing–easy to use, fast and skillfully designed. In fact, the high quality of these tools attracted all these users and led to the information leaks.

Microsoft Office 2007 launches

It finally happened. Microsoft launched office 2007. For many of you, this is hardly news, since you have been using the 2007 beta version for some time. But for the tech world, this is a big deal.

There are mixed feelings about this release. Delaware Online believes that the “new Office isn’t a must-have” while others like the Indianapolis Star state that “Microsoft office makes encouraging strides.”

I agreed at first with the reporter for Delaware Online, but after meeting a couple of our clients and discussing Excel 2007 with them, I came to see that the Indianapolis Star was correct. Many of the new features in Excel 2007 resonated really well with our clients and both of them decided to try Excel 2007. One of them even asked his IT staff to order the new version from Microsoft.

These are the features in Excel 2007 our clients liked the most:

My recommendation? If you are an Excel power user, take Excel 2007 for a test drive.

Itensil: You just have to check it out!

Itensil is the most brilliant Enterprise 2.0 application I’ve seen. It combines a workflow builder, a wiki and task management to bring a corporate process from design to execution. Their flash demo says, “Itensil bridges the gap between ideas and execution.” I’m a believer.

I have just one quick idea for the Itensil team. Don’t use the sentence, “we do agree that most enterprise software is revolting”. Corporate IT guys (yes, I admit it, I have some corporate IT background) get upset when you call our babies revolting. It just gets in the way of us buying your excellent software. And yes, I know you were only joking.

Another thing: Where is your blog’s RSS feed?

An apology and some Google news

Hello everybody. I apologize for the long gap in posting. Although there is no excuse for such a gap, I am the proud father of two small boys who have decided to take turns at being sick. So I spent a lot of time at home in October. On top of that, we have been very busy at Cogniview, adding a new and very exciting ability to our products. I will make an official announcement soon.

Back to business, Google has made some advances in its online docs and spreadsheets product. You can read a good summary of these features here on Ian’s blog. Google seems to be the most threatening competition to Microsoft Office these days. In my opinion, however, a couple of other companies are better positioned to dethrone Microsoft. Can you guess which companies I am referring to?