October 2019 - Talixa Tech Blog

October 26, 2019October 25, 2019

Mac – Not For Business Anymore

A few years ago, I fell in love with the MacBook Pro. From the amazing display to the incredible battery life and everything in between, the MacBook Pro is an amazing machine. Unfortunately, Apple started killing that when they removed support for standard USB and I decided not to upgrade. Now, Apple has placed the final nail in the coffin for professional users with Catalina.

Apple has grown accustomed to telling their customers what they want and providing few options. Whether it’s the iPhone, the iPad, or their computer products, you typically don’t have many choices. This has always been a complaint lodged against Apple by PC users. But during the last year, this has killed the effectiveness of the MacBook Pro for business users. With Catalina, Apple has removed support for 32-bit software applications. Unfortunately, as a business user, I don’t have the luxury of upgrading my system if it’s going to kill applications I need for my business. In the business world, legacy code and applications may exist for a decade or more. So, I need to support those systems until they are end-of-life. This means insuring that I having support for 32-bit applications well into the future.

So, as of Catalina, I am no longer an Apple fan. I will keep my current MacBook Pro until it is no longer usable, but my next machine will be a Windows laptop. I can pick what ports I want, and find the corresponding laptop. I can decide what OS I want and what software. I don’t need Apple to tell me what I want – I’m a business user and I know my tech needs far better than they do.

October 16, 2019October 13, 2019

WiFi Calling

During the last few years, WiFi calling has become an option for cellular users. This is particularly exciting for those who use smaller cellular providers, those in rural areas, or those in building with poor cell coverage. But how good is it?

I have two cell phones – one that I use strictly for development and one for general use. A few months ago, I purchased a cell plan for the development phone to use Google Fi. My personal phone uses Verizon. My office is in a concrete building that does a pretty good job blocking cell signals. I do, however, have pretty solid WiFi. So, it only made sense to setup both phones for WiFi calling in my office. Now, no matter what, I can make calls from anywhere in the building.

My Experience

Unfortunately, the only option for WiFi calling on my Google Pixel is on or off. I can’t specify which should receive priority – WiFi or 4G – and I can’t specify what access points to enable WiFi calling on. So, when I’m in my car (with cellular WiFi), my phone uses the car’s WiFi for calling. Hardly optimal given that I pay per megabyte for data. When I’m at home, I have an excellent cell signal – so there’s no reason for WiFi calling. But that won’t stop my phone from defaulting to WiFi anyway.

This wouldn’t be a big deal if WiFi calling was as good as the cell network. But, unfortunately, it’s not. Even on an access point without any other users, my WiFi calling tends to break up or be delayed. Sometimes, it’s so bad that the other party complains and I’m forced to call back later. Of particular annoyance is that there’s typically a several second delay after the other party answers.

While I think WiFi calling is a great idea, it’s not reliable enough – at this time – for me to rely on. If I’m in an area without cell service, I may switch it back on, but until then I’m keeping it shut off.

October 2, 2019October 2, 2019

Sleazy LinkedIn Users

As a small business owner, I am always trying to improve my social network. It’s an essential part of business development and the main point of LinkedIn. During the last decade, I’ve communicated with clients, prospective customers, old colleagues, and people I went to school with via LinkedIn. Unfortunately, now that I’m a business owner, I increasingly find that too many LinkedIn users behave like they’re at a sleazy bar. They connect with me to ‘grow their network’, and within a month I’ve received a half-dozen unsolicited messages to give them my business. I find this utterly annoying. Just because I connected to you doesn’t mean I am looking to outsource to your company, purchase your health care, use your accounting services, or anything else. And your behavior ensures that won’t change.

Previously, I wrote a blog about Social Media Etiquette. In that blog, I mentioned the Like/Know/Trust model. The idea is that you move connections from the outer circle to the inner. I start by getting you to like me, then get you to know me better, and finally get you to trust me with your business. Unfortunately, when you start by spamming me, I don’t like you. If I don’t like you, I will never get to a point where I trust you.

Why are people engaging in this sleazy behavior? I assume, sadly, that it gets results. If you spam enough people, you only need a small percentage of conversions to consider your method a success. But what happens to your reputation among those who didn’t purchase your product? It’s possible that I may have purchased your product at some point, had I ever gotten to know you, but now I never will. You have lost a potential customer who, because of your sleazy business practice, will never be converted to a client.

My advice for social media: slow and steady wins the race. Develop meaningful relationships with people, share meaningful content, engage your network. Through this process you will earn friends. And we all know that given the choice of working with a friend or a stranger, nearly everyone will chose to give their business to someone they know and trust.

To those who spam me on LinkedIn: my new policy is to immediately remove you from my network. You bring nothing of value to me. I get enough spam in my email, I don’t need it on social media too.