Failing WordPress updates fixed by enabling FastCGI

Posted on By Mark Wilson

For months, although it feels like years, I’ve been struggling with WordPress upgrades and it’s been driving me mad.  Each time I’ve attempted an in-app update of a plugin (or WordPress itself), it’s asked me for FTP credentials and then, usually, failed.  I’ve got used to re-installing WordPress but it shouldn’t be this way.

The problem, it seems was a combination of WordPress file ownership/permissions. I had to set the wp-content/upgrade folder permissions to 777 in order to successfully update plugins and that just didn’t feel right.  Luckily, I’m on good terms with my hosting provider and they started looking into the issue for me.  It seems (I think) that Apache was running as nobody and that was presenting some issues with WordPress. Changing the owner on my /blog folder (to nobody) fixed WordPress, but it meant I couldn’t FTP any content to the folder using my own username, so we went back to the drawing board.

I can’t claim to understand all the technical details but I’m told the fix was to enable FastCGI on the server.  It was originally disabled because it’s memory-hungry (spawning child processes for each user) but wow, FastCGI is a good name. Now my WordPress upgrades take seconds. I updated twice yesterday (to 3.1.4, then later to 3.2) and I was amazed how quickly things happened. That is good.

Will commoditisation drive us all to the public cloud (eventually)?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Tomorrow night, it’s CloudCamp London, which has prompted me to write a post based on one of the presentations from the last event in March.  I already wrote up Joe Baguley’s talk on why the consumerisation of IT is nothing to do with iPads but I also wanted to mention Simon Wardley (from the CSC Leading Edge Forum)’s introduction to CloudCamp.

As it happens, Simon already wrote a blog post that looks at the topic he covered (private vs. enterprise clouds) and his CloudCamp slides are below:

Cloud Camp Mar 2011

View more presentations from swardley
  • The basic principle is that, eventually, services trend towards utility services/commodities. There are some barriers to overcome along the way but commoditisation will always come.
  • One interesting phenomenon to note is the Jevons Paradox, whereby, as technology progresses and efficiency of resource usage rises, so does the rate of consumption. So, that kills off the theory that the move to cloud will decrease IT budgets!
  • For cloud purists, only a public cloud is really “cloud computing” but Simon talked about a continuum from legacy datacentres to “the cloud”. Hybrid clouds have a place in mitigating transitional risk.
  • Our legacy architectures leave us with a (legacy) problem. First came N+1 resilience but then we got better hardware; then we scaled out and designed for failure (e.g. API calls to rebuild virtual machines) using software and “good enough” components.
  • Using cloud architectures and resilient virtual machines we invented “the enterprise cloud”, sitting somewhere between a traditional datacentre and the public cloud.
  • But we need to achieve greater efficiencies – to do more, faster (even if the overall budget doesn’t increase due to the Jevons Paradox). To drive down the costs of providing each virtual machine (i.e. each unit of scale) we trade disruption and risk against operational efficiency. That drives us towards the public cloud.
  • In summary, Simon suggests that public utility markets are the future, with hybrid environments as a transition strategy. Enterprise clouds should be expected to trend towards niche roles (e.g. to deliver demanding servive level agreements or to meet specific security requirements) whilst increasing portability between clouds makes competing public cloud offerings more attractive.

What exactly is a 4G mobile data network?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

I’m not a telecoms expert but, every now and again, new technologies come along that cross over into my world. One of those is the evolution of mobile telecommunications networks and there’s a lot of talk right now about “4G”. So what is it all about? Well, I’m sure there are a lot of detailed technical references available on the ‘net but I recently heard Ben Roome from Nokia-Siemens Networks being interviewed on the Guardian Tech Weekly podcast and he gave a quick overview, which I’ve reproduced here:

  • First generation mobile networks were analogue – that is to say that the signal could vary, a bit like tuning in to get a (broadcast) radio signal.
  • Second generation (2G) networks came on stream in the 1990s and used digital signals for communication.
  • There were various “interim” generations (2.5G for example) to try and squeeze more data over networks but the advent of 3G allowed mobile broadband data access, although many 3G handsets still use 2G for voice communications (modern radio networks can handle 2G, 3G and 4G using the same hardware – all that is required is a software update).
  • There are different standards for each generation of network, and 4G networks use LTE (Long Term Evolution) or WiMax (since the ITU relaxed standards to allow other technologies than LTE Advanced as LTE was not originally considered a fourth generation network technology but is now regarded as a sufficient improvement over 3G to be called 4G). To achieve duplex transmissions (i.e. send and receive at the same time) channels may be divided by time or spectrum (frequency) – WiMax uses time division (as do some LTE variants) and was effectively an interim 4G technology that was good for fixed wireless access (i.e. wireless connections, to a fixed location, cf. mobile networks). 4G networks have the potential to offer big improvements in latency (round trip speed between asking for something and getting a response delivered) but high speeds also need a high speed backhaul between cell towers (i.e. the core network). Most backhaul is microwave, but the core architecture does makes a difference and LTE networks are “flatter” (all IP from handset to cloud and back again) so they have simpler routes and improved management (hence improved latency).

Commercial 4G networks are in operation in Germany, with trials in UK. Broadband is a huge driver of economies and society so coverage requirements may be greater (i.e. 98% in place of 95%) when the UK governement auctions the radio spectrum next May as 4G is a technology that can genuinely offer universal access. The UK 4G trial in Cornwall is intended to see if 4G offers an alternative to fixed line broadband. Fixed lines currently averages 6.4Mbps, with 3G offering 1.6Mpbs – so the question is “can 4G beat offerings and offer a solution for people in areas with poor copper infrastructure.

Whilst the increased coverage requirements may mean that less money is raised by the spectrum auction, Ben Roome commented that those countries who are leading the world in this area make the most of the infrastructure with “beauty contests” for spectrum rather than charging. The UK has gone down the charging route – hopefully that doesn’t mean that we’ll all have to pay too much in years to come for something that people really value.

Useful Links: June 2011

Posted on By Mark Wilson

A list of items I’ve come across recently that I found potentially useful, interesting, or just plain funny:

“5 reasons to avoid Office 365?” Are you really sure about that?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

It’s not often these days that I feel the need to defend Microsoft. After all, they’re big boys and girls who can fight their own battles. And yes, I’m an MVP but if you ask Microsoft’s UK evangelists (past and present), I’m sure they’ll tell you I’m pretty critical of Microsoft at times too…

So I was amazed yesterday to read some of the negative press about Office 365. Sure, some Microsoft-bashing is to be expected. So is some comparison with Google Apps. But when I read Richi Jennings‘ 5 reasons to avoid Microsoft Office 365 , I was less than complementary in my reaction.  I did leave a lengthy comment on the blog post, but ComputerWorld thinks I’m a spammer… and it was more than 140 characters so Richi’s Twitter invitation for constructive comments for his next post (5 reasons to embrace Office 365) was not really going to work either.

Picking up Richi’s arguments against Office 365:

  • On mobility. I’ll admit, there are some issues. Microsoft doesn’t seem to understand touch user interfaces for tablets (at least not until they have their own, next year perhaps?) so the web apps are not ideal on many devices. Even so, I’m using Exchange Online with my iOS devices and the ActiveSync support means it’s a breeze. We don’t have blanket WiFi/3G coverage yet (at least not here in the UK) so it is important to think about offline working and I’m not sure Microsoft has that sorted, but neither does anyone else that I’ve found. Ideally, Microsoft would create some iOS Office apps (OneNote for iPhone is not enough – it’s not a universal app and so is next to useless on an iPad) together with an Android solution too…
  • I don’t see what the issue is with MacOS support (except that the option to purchase a subscription to Office Professional Plus is Windows-only). I’m using Office 365 with Office for Mac and SharePoint integration is not as good as on Windows but there seems nothing wrong with document format fidelity or Outlook connecting to Exchange Online. I’ve used some of the web apps on my Mac too, including Lync.
  • Is £4 a month expensive for a reliable mail and collaboration service? I’m not sure that the P1 option for professionals and small businesses (which that price relates to) is “horribly crippled” either. If the “crippling” is about a lack of support, I left Google Apps because of… a lack of support (after they “upgraded” my Google Apps account but wanted me to change the email address on my then-orphaned “personal” account – and you think Microsoft makes it complex?)
  • Forest Federation is a solution that provides clear separation between cloud and on-premise resources. It may be complicated, but so are enterprise requirements for cloud services.  If that’s too complex, then you don’t probably don’t need Active Directory integration: try a lower-level Office 365 subscription…
  • As for  reliability, yes, there have been BPOS Outages. Ditto for Azure. But didn’t Google have some high-profile GMail outages recently? And Amazon? Office 365 (which was a beta until yesterday) has been pretty solid.  Let’s hope that the new infrastructure is an improvement on BPOS, but don’t write it off yet – it’s only just launched! Microsoft is advertising a financially-backed 99.9% uptime agreement…

The point of Office 365 is not to move 100% to the cloud but to “bring office to the cloud” and use it in conjunction with existing IT investments (i.e. local PCs/Macs and Office).  If I’m a small business with few IT resources, it lets me concentrate on my business, rather than running mail servers, etc. Actually, that’s the sweet spot. Some enterprises may also move to Office 365 (at least in part) but, for many, they will continue to run their mail and collaboration infrastructure in house.

Richi says that, if he were a Microsoft Shareholder, he’d be “bitterly disappointed with [yesterday’s] news”. The market seems to think otherwise… whilst Microsoft stock is generally not performing well, it’s at least rising in the last couple of days…

Microsoft stock price compared with leading IS indices over the last 12 months

To be fair, Richi wasn’t alone, but he was the one with the headline grabbing post… (would it be rude to call it linkbait?)

Over on Cloud Pro, Dennis Howlett wasn’t too impressed either. He quoted Mary Jo Foley’s Office 365 summary post:

“Office 365 is not Office in the cloud, even though it does include Office Web Apps, the Webified versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Office 365 is a Microsoft-hosted suite of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online €” plus an optional subscription-based version of Office 2010 Professional Plus that runs locally on PCs. The Microsoft-hosted versions of these cloud apps offer subsets of their on-premises server counterparts (Exchange, SharePoint and Lync servers), in terms of features and functionality.”

Yep, that’s pretty much it. Office 365 is not about competing with Office, it’s about extending Office so that:

  • It’s attractive to small and medium-sized businesses, so that they don’t need to run their own server infrastructure.
  • There are better opportunities for collaboration, using “the cloud” as a transport (and, it has to be said, giving people less reason to move to Google Apps).

Dennis says:

“Microsoft has fallen into the trap that I see increasingly among enterprise vendors attempting to migrate their business models into the cloud: they end up with a half baked solution that does little for the user but gives some bragging rights. All the time, they seek to hang on grimly to the old business model, tinkering with it but not taking the radical steps necessary to understand working in the cloud.”

Hmm… many enterprises are not ready to put the data that is most intimately linked to their internal workings into the cloud. They look at some targeted SaaS opportunities; they might use IaaS and PaaS technologies to provide some flexibility and elasticity; they may implement cloud technologies as a “private cloud”. But Office 365 allows organisations to pick and choose the level of cloud integration that they are comfortable with – it might be all (for example, my wife’s small business) or none (for example me, working for a large enterprise), or somewhere in between.

Office 365 has some issues – I’m hoping we’ll see some more development around mobility and web app functionality – but it’s a huge step forward. After years of being told that Windows and Office are dead and that Microsoft has no future, they’ve launched something that positions the company for both software subscriptions (which they’ve been trying to do for years) and has the ability to host data on premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid solution. “The cloud” is not for everyone, but there aren’t many organisations that can’t get something out of Office 365.

Allowing people to download a subset of images on Flickr

Posted on By Mark Wilson

My photostream on Flickr is reasonably well locked down.  I try to strike a balance between sharing and protecting my intellectual property (not that I use it to generate an income…).  Basically, I don’t add watermarks but everything is All Rights Reserved © (although they could be licensed, if they were good enough); only I can access my original image files; only I can print my images; and only I can download images.

RNLI Little Haven 7A few weeks ago though, I was enjoying a family holiday in Wales and I saw the local RNLI lifeboat crew returning from an exercise. I picked up my camera and grabbed some snapshots (and that’s all they were – there was no planning; I was shooting straight into the sun, etc.) but the Helmsman asked if I could send the images to him. Email’s not great for shipping around 12 megapixel images, so I thought I’d share them via Flickr. Unfortunately it seemed that I couldn’t let him download the images… not unless I dropped the security on the whole photostream.

Then I found a workaround.  Even though the default license I selected is All Rights Reserved ©, I can change the license on selected images. Granting a Creative Commons (i.e. Some Rights Reserved) license to the Little Haven lifeboat images gave others the option to download them. Result.

I’m sure this information is buried somewhere in the Flickr website but it didn’t come easily to me, so I’m sharing it here – hopefully it’s useful to someone else!

Social Media, the BBC and Jon Jacob (@thoroughlygood at #digitalsurrey)

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Last month I travelled down to Farnham to see Michael Wu’s talk on the Science of Gamification at Digital Surrey. Despite a hellish journey home*, I enjoyed the evening and met some great people, so I decided to come back again last night for this month’s talk. I may feel like an interloper from “analogue North Bucks” – and it would be fair to ask why I’m at an event for networking amongst the Surrey digerati – but my first two experiences of Digital Surrey have been great, so it looks like I could become a regular, if they’ll have me!

Last night’s talk was from Jon Jacob (@thoroughlygood), a BBC writer, journalist and producer – who was at pains to point out he was speaking on behalf of himself, and not the BBC. Actually, Jon has a post about his own performance, which is worth a read.

I took a lot of notes in his talk, which included his reading test on LBC whilst being constantly heckled by Sandi Toksvig, but I think it was best summarised with these points:

  • Jon has used and shamelessly exploited social media to build a “brand” and pursue a career.
  • Social media is at risk of being taken over by dangerous forces who don’t understand it. Many of us like using it, or tolerate it, but more and more people are using social media, including groups that don’t “get it”. Early adopters need to keep an eye out for:
    • Protest-driven people who know technology, bring together armies of geeks and put together massive project management teams to deliver projects in time and budget.
    • People with a little bit of information – they learn how to use Twitter on a Tuesday afternoon and set up as “social media experts” on Wednesday.
  • Social media is a conversation to tap into for stories and sources. More fundamentally it’s a transaction between the author and their own audience. If we post something on Facebook, implicitly we want attention: if we deny it we’re liars! It’s the same for Twitter – about the actor and the audience – not about how large is the audience…
  • If we listen to a radio programme and don’t like then we won’t listen again… it’s the same for TV… if it’s a bit tired we’ll go elsewhere. If that’s how it works for radio and TV, surely it must be the same for social media?
  • It doesn’t matter how many followers you have, the focus is about copy/editorial, not the medium.
  • The secret to engaging copy is that the personality flows through. Be the same person on the medium and in person. Tap into joy rather than avoid it. Exploit everything about yourself in a good way and turn into something (on a personal level or a corporate level).
  • Social media is nothing more than a distribution method, just as TV and radio are.
  • The thing that excites Jon is coming up with ideas and doing things. Maybe people have ideas and feel a bit frightened. Maybe they have ideas and “marketing” didn’t like something. Clearly there are certain laws to follow but it’s actually quite difficult to be that naughty. It’s hard to bring down governments!
  • We need to tap into people with ideas. Don’t just ask them to write a blog post but inspire them, create a delicate ecosystem, get people enthused. That can’t be bottled or put in a book but we’re missing a trick if we’re selling something and have teams of copywriters – maybe we need to do break out of our boundaries and do something different.

By the way, I found Jon’s talk to be completely engaging (thoroughly good, one might say). I saw some negative comments and sure, maybe he went off in a few seemingly random directions, but at all times I was completely switched on to what he was saying. There’s not too many presentations where I can say that!

*OK, so “hellish” is a slight exaggeration but the Highways Agency did close 5 out of the 6 lanes on the M1 northbound where the M25 filters in, at around 10pm, to lean a ladder up against an overhead gantry. I’m sure the resulting queues were just for their own amusement.

Humanising the customer experience (and why there are not enough Ts in alphabet spaghetti)

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Every now and again, a story comes along that just makes you feel good. And it makes you realise just how important it is for employees to understand their personal impact on a customer experience.

I saw a tweet earlier this week which highlighting a couple of letters, one written to Sainsburys by a three year old (with a tiny bit of help) and the other, a response from their Careline. It would have been so easy for Sainsburys to ignore this, or just to respond in a “standard” letter but instead, they wrote in a style that was clearly aimed at “Lily”, signing off with their age, and enclosing a token gift. Very sweet.

And now there’s even imitation from nearly-31-year-old Managing Directors of PR agencies who don’t think there are enough Ts in cans of alphabet spaghetti for them to write their press releases. Oh how true that seems at times!

This sort of reaction is not new – but it is heart-warming, and great to see in today’s society of bland corporate identities.  (The positive press it’s generated won’t have done them any harm either!)

I’m sure, if I look hard enough, I can find a letter from the Institute of Advanced Motorists, congratulating me, aged 7 and a-quarter, on my entry in their road sign recognition competition at the Northampton Town Show (which was only beaten on the last day) and enclosing a book token. I still remember that today – and it makes me smile when my own son (who is approaching that age) asks about road signs on our journeys…

Can we measure online influence? And should we even try?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

One of the challenges with managing corporate a social media presence is understanding the impact that you’re making. It’s notoriously difficult because there is no “one true way”. Indeed, if there was a simple way to assess online influence, I’d say that its inventor could clean up.

What we do have though is a number of indices – and two of the most common are:

  • Klout “the standard for influence”.
  • PeerIndex “understand your social capital”.

OK, so we have algorithms to generate a number, but I’m not convinced they are really measuring influence. Klout in particular seems to be swayed by volumes of online activity– I went on holiday for a week and tweeted less often, then my Klout score fell – no surprises there then; but did I really become less influential because I dropped out for a week?

Earlier this week, I wrote a post calling for “brands” to engage and not to simply use social media as a marketing tool to broadcast their own message (or positive customer feedback).  But there is another side to the story – what if you are a brand?  How do you target your limited resources effectively? How do you assess the influence of a social media renegade and decide whether they warrant a response or not?

I’m not sure that we should be trying to. Does it really matter whether a disgruntled customer is influential or not? If they are disgruntled, then they deserve help – even if that help is simply pointing them in the direction of the appropriate channel to get an appropriate resolution.  It’s interesting though to see where influence engines meay head in future (and, indeed, how they might be monetised).

At a recent Digital Surrey event, I was chatting with Simon Cast, Head of Product at PeerIndex. He sees a time when systems such as his will become integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) systems (like Salesforce.com). For a business, that’s valuable – when I call their customer services team, not only can they see details of my transactions with them, but they can also see if I’m influential in a broader sense (i.e. could I damage them if they don’t fulfil my request?).  And, not only will they see if I’m influential in general terms, but if I’m influential on a specific topic. A car manufacturer might not be too bothered if I’m influential in the world of telecommunications, but what if I could potentially affect people’s car purchase decisions?

I guess an analogy to the social capital-CRM tie up is a credit score. My credit score not only affects the financial services products that are available to me (and how much they cost) but it (along with other metrics) might be used to tell my bank how valuable a customer I am, and may influence the way that they interact with me (e.g. sending my call to a UK-based call centre instead of an offshore one). Online influence is a logical equivalent for customer service organisations, but it sounds like a risky strategy to me.

Just to recap on my earlier statement:

“[…] I know only too well the challenges of monitoring and measuring social media activity; the resources that are required; and I completely understand that it’s not always possible to respond to every mention of your company’s products and services.

Even so, I’ve heard of organisations that consider whether to respond based on the apparent influence of the user. That sounds dangerous to me – someone may only have a limited online audience (for example, a handful of followers on Twitter) but their influence could be much wider. Perhaps a journalist/analyst has a personal and a professional Twitter account (or a blog), one with just a few followers, the other much more influential? Maybe the aggrieved/frustrated consumer is also a CIO, or a stakeholder in the business services purchasing process?

We’re all consumers, but many of us have responsibility for business purchases too – and it’s unrealistic to expect that poor experiences as a consumer won’t prejudice business decisions […]”

So can we really measure influence? Maybe we’re getting closer, but I don’t think we’re there yet. And should we even be trying to? There might be some benefits, but beware of the risks too…

Social media: don’t forget the social (it’s time to engage)

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Many readers of my blog will know that I’m a heavy Twitter user. I’m also very un-British when it comes to complaining about poor service and, for those organisations with Twitter accounts, I do have a tendency to copy them in on my frustrations.

One thing I find very interesting is the variety of reactions that I receive. As part of my job involves helping to develop the social media strategy for a major IT systems and services company, I know only too well the challenges of monitoring and measuring social media activity; the resources that are required; and I completely understand that it’s not always possible to respond to every mention of your company’s products and services.

Even so, I’ve heard of organisations that consider whether to respond based on the apparent influence of the user. That sounds dangerous to me – someone may only have a limited online audience (for example, a handful of followers on Twitter) but their influence could be much wider. Perhaps a journalist/analyst has a personal and a professional Twitter account (or a blog), one with just a few followers, the other much more influential? Maybe the aggrieved/frustrated consumer is also a CIO, or a stakeholder in the business services purchasing process?

We’re all consumers, but many of us have responsibility for business purchases too – and it’s unrealistic to expect that poor experiences as a consumer won’t prejudice business decisions, so I’d like to call out some good, and some less good, reactions to online interaction:

  • First up, Dell. The company has been used as a case study in just about every social media training course since Jeff Jarvis’ “Dell Hell”. The story goes that they took Jeff’s comments and acted, before implementing a much broader social media strategy – one which now acts as a major revenue stream too. My personal experience was that, after blogging about a difficult purchase, Dell contacted me and gave me the technical pre-sales advice that I needed, and shipped the cables that I required. That was pre-Twitter (for me at least), but it was almost certainly as part of the company’s reaction to Jeff Jarvis’ highly publicised experience.
  • Another example, was Biffa – after a near miss with one of their drivers on a zebra crossing earier this year and a cathargic blog post by me, their PR agency picked up my comments and passed it to one of their directors. After I provided more information, the company tracked down the driver and took appropriate action (although the promise to replace my broken iPhone headphones seems to have fallen down a crack…).
  • On Twitter, @iPass were very responsive to issues using their service on Virgin Trains until they respectfully advised me to follow their support route (that’s fair enough). On the other hand, @VirginTrainsseem to monitor feedback but on respond selectively. To their credit, I tweeted about a rattling train window and they were straight back to me for details of the service and the carriage (to get it checked out) – I guess that could have been a safety issue. They also responded on my comments re: overcrowding/the need for more standard class seating (longer trains on the way) but apparently ignored many other items of feedback (like the issues with their on-train Wi-Fi).
  • @LondonMidland is more responsive. When I had issues following a change of mobile payment provider for their station car parks, they got back to me and even offered to help if I was unable to make payment before catching my train. When a train was cancelled and 150 people (I guess) were left waiting just a few miles from it’s original destination so that the driver could end his shift on time, they explained that there were ongoing issues in their relationship with the railway driver’s union.
  • @O2 responded to a tweet/blog post about their poor account management processes and at least managed to retain me as a voice customer, even though my data had since been transferred to Three. @VodafoneUK is pretty responsive on Twitter. Meanwhile @3uk is missing a trick…
  • @BTCares responded to a tweet I wrote about their poor service (I don’t recall the details now), but I got the distinct feeling that it was about appearing to be responsive, rather than caring (@BTDoesntCare doesn’t sound quite so good!). My friend Garry Martin’s recent conversations with @BT_UK would seem to back that up – first he couldn’t even get a response on the BT Infinity delays in his city, then @BT_UK replied with what was effectively an online shrug of the shoulders.

I’m sure I can list many more examples (both good and bad) but I think my point is becoming clear. As Jeff Jarvis wrote six years ago (quiting from a book published in 1999!):

“This is a story of customer relations in the new age – an age when, to quote blogger and Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Doc Searls, “‘consumer’ is an industrial-age word, a broadcast-age word. […] Now consumers don’t just consume. We spit back. We have our own printing presses.”

[Jeff Jarvis, “My Dell Hell”, Guardian 2005]

Even so, eConsultancy reported that 25% of retailers are unresponsive on social media. Sure, retail is just one part of the overall B2C market but that sounds pretty low to me in this day and age.

It seems that many companies are creating Twitter or Facebook presences (just as in the late 1990s we were all setting up corporate websites) but there are some fundamental differences with social media: