Nick Wingfield IS the Insider Threat

I perused over this Wall Street Journal article by Nick Wingfield and my heart immediately went out to the poor IT guys at the WSJ who have to put up with him. The title of the article, "Why You Can't Use Personal Technology at the Office", caught my eye because I thought it would be a nice overview of the various reasons bringing your personal techno gadgets to work causes headaches for your IT department. As it turns out, Nick was simply using the WSJ as a soapbox to cry his heart out about having to use "ancient" technology like "Windows XP" and how clever he is to have found a way around his companies IT policy enforcement to install his favorite toolbars and plugins. How he got a job at the WSJ writing about technology is beyond comprehension (I have a few ideas), but at least he gave me a good example of someone with just enough technical know-how to skate around corporate policies and not enough common sense to see how dangerous that is.

Bad Tech Advice, Pt. 1

I had other items to write about, but my fury at having to deal with astonishingly bad tech support, advice, or recommendations is at a boiling point. It's not the inexperience or naivety that bothers me, we all have to start somewhere and some of us still struggle with new technology. It's the fact that these people, or companies, sell themselves as "experts"; after which I have to explain to the client that they would have gotten more from their money by investing in one of the many wonderful business opportunities available in Nigeria.