It was 14 years ago today that I fulfilled a singular goal – to launch a blog site before the end of that year 2006. I did so with my first post titled “hello world” in homage to the typical phrase a programmer would display when working in a new computer language. I did it. Goal achieved. Yea me!

It wasn’t until a couple of days later that I wrote my first “real” post on the topic of giving a job reference to a recruiter and the blog took flight from there. Sure, there were gaps and restarts, and we arrive here today with this being the 947th post.

Over the years, but not every year, I wrote similar anniversary posts like this one, as I believe such milestones should be celebrated. If you’re so inclined, you can find links to them all on the Archives page.

In closing there’s not much to deconstruct, overanalyze or predict. I have been working on much more thoughtful posts as compared to at least what’s come out over the last month. I am looking forward to those, as well as whatever else comes to mind to keep with the theme here of striking the iron while it is hot.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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‘Tis the season to bring out the best in people, as we close out the year with gift giving and gratitude to all who were part of our lives the previous dozen months. ‘Tis also the season for the exact opposite of that, which is the tale told in the book A Christmas Caroline by Kyle Smith.

This story is a modern take on the holiday classic A Christmas Carol. Here, our protagonist is Caroline, an editor for a fashion magazine in New York City who works hard at being beautiful and making sure everyone knows this. As you might guess, she isn’t exactly a nice person. After being fired after nearly burning down her office after insulting her new boss, Caroline is taken through the traditional Christmases past, present and future and in the end everything works out and then some.

Where my takeaways from fiction are not usually the same as their non-counterpart, I have a few after reading this story.

And then some – Caroline’s journey over Christmas is not just a modernized version of Charles Dickens’ tale, as it has some unique twists and contemporary story lines that may resonate more with readers today. Don’t get me wrong, I love the “original” and have read it and seen it over the years on stage and screen. However accounting in the 1800’s doesn’t quite grab someone as much as 2000’s work and life in New York City.

Holiday struggles – From the “first” story where Mary and Joseph couldn’t find a room in an inn and had to settle for a barn, to Caroline’s realizing there’s more to being a member of society than herself, what’s a Christmas story without struggle? If there is such a story, my guess is I wouldn’t want to read it.

After rereading The Littlest Snowman I looked to find another Christmas story that would be better suited to an older reader, and found A Christmas Caroline. I was drawn to it because of its story, and that its author Kyle Smith graduated from my high school a year before me. Though we were both on our school’s team for a local high school TV quiz show, I doubt he remembers me. Smith has written another book that inspired a TV show and is a columnist for the New York Post and National Review. Go Spartans!

Though the holidays are drawing to a close, I recommend picking up a copy of A Christmas Caroline. It has sharp wit on just about every page and was a nice diversion from holiday shopping. As for what I am going to do with my copy, it’s on its way to my cousin, who I know will enjoy it especially the references to the Big Apple.

Yes, click on this or any link in this post and I earn a few cents if you buy the book.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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I was fairly successful in disconnecting somewhat from work this past week, allowing me to observe some of the finer points of life in the midst of holiday planning. For example, I realized the New England Patriots are not in the NFL postseason for the first time since I became a father, all while discovering a taste for RumChata Peppermint Bark.

It’s The Non-Thought That Counts – As emails streamed into my personal and work inboxes from vendors over the past weeks with holiday greetings, few really stood out. The ones that did, however, were those I did not get.

Make Computers Great Again – Over time I have posted many links and videos here on The Hot Iron from the Nielsen Norman Group, a global user experience consulting firm. Why I post a lot of them is because I agree so much with what they pontificate –technology in itself is great, but if you can’t use it, what good is it? In a year-end video, their co-founder Jakob Nielsen takes a stand that we should finally focus on UX, and take the time to make it work. I couldn’t agree more!

Not Your Average Legal Transaction – Legal Sea Foods, the iconic and delicious Boston-based seafood restaurant chain is being sold by owner Roger Berkowitz to a larger restaurant group, while retaining the brand for his online business. The reason? Surprise – the pandemic.

Legal is a success story, providing a great and tasty dining experience that doesn’t come cheap, but is well worth it. Berkowitz is also a success story, taking a family business to international fame, with the reputation for being a good and generous person. Years ago when I was president of the Boston Jaycees I wrote him a letter, among others, thanking for support of the Jaycees and Legal sponsoring our awards program. He then wrote back a personal note to me thanking the Jaycees for all we do in the community! I would always remember than when slurping oysters at one of his locations whenever I would get back to Boston. A gift from Legal’s online shop is the perfect gift for your favorite hard-to-shop-for blogger.

Not Your Average Baseball Transaction – In other business news, a trio of local businesspeople have acquired the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and Fond du Lac Dock Spiders baseball teams, both teams local to me here in northeast Wisconsin. Previously both were owned by a non-profit organization. The reason? Surprise – see the reason for the Legal Sea Foods sale. I see this as a good thing – local people will want to keep the team local and viable, a win for everyone.

What Also Comes With Vaccines – Where the news has been flowing on the newly-released COVID-19 vaccines with sparse mention of the side effects from taking them, there has been little to no coverage of how injuries from this new or any other vaccine are handled. My favorite local radio show, Fresh Take on WHBY, last week covered it, and host Josh Dukelow had an attorney on who argues cases in front of the federal vaccine court. Didn’t know there was such a thing? Or how it works and how the COVID-19 vaccines are handled different from other vaccines? Then give a listen to this informative 17-minute interview and be informed as many are completely unaware of all of this.

Gimme an H for Access – As I perused the Web this week something caught my eye – an hCaptcha prompt on a Web site form. As I have talked about adding Google reCAPTCHA to The Hot Iron before, I’d never seen hCaptcha before. Looking into it, it’s an alternative to the Big Tech giant’s offering, and has an, um, interesting twist on how hCaptcha handles Web Accessibility. Despite this cumbersome method it is a choice nonetheless and one I am looking into more.

Barbie is from Wisconsin –- Who knew? Clearly I didn’t, did you?

Finally Coming Back – Coming to America 2 has been made – finally – and is coming out on Amazon Prime in the spring. Watch the preview and try telling me Eddie Murphy has aged since the first one, because he hasn’t.

A Basic Mobile Layer – Where the Android operating system for mobile phones was developed by Google, many people don’t realize at its base is an open source development project. GrapheneOS is a variant (or fork) of it, which provides a similar user experience with a focus on security and privacy that its commercial kin does not. Installing GrapheneOS on a device isn’t something the average person can do, and though I personally am all-in on iPhones it is something I am looking into due to the inherent nature of most mobile tech to track and sell your information.

Duo Methods to Learn – When searching more on the new voices in the Duolingo language app, I found you can actually take language lessons using a standard Web browser – all along I have only been using its mobile app. One difference is you cannot earn as many points from practicing completed lessons. However the ease of typing on a real keyboard quickly negated that.

Christmas Serendipity – A year ago my family spent the week in Orlando, Florida, and Christmas Eve at Disney Hollywood Studios. Sadly the majority of the holiday festivities there wrapped up days before our arrival, but there were still some decorations out and our kiddos got to see Santa. The picture above is of a wreath hung on an out-of-the-way wall near rest rooms, and I was compelled to capture this consequential decoration.

Rest in power Mike, and I will always remember oysters and beers in Panama City Beach.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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To all reading this who believe in the birth of Jesus Christ or simply acknowledge the national holiday, Merry Christmas! To everyone else, Happy Friday!

My gift to all of you would be a big hug and a drink of an adult beverage of choice. All I would want from anyone is the same, preferably a brown liquid aged in oak barrels in Kentucky or Scotland. However I realize such a gift exchange may be in direct violation of local or national executive orders.

A New Symbol of the Season

One day my oldest kiddo suggested we get a dumpster fire ornament for our Christmas tree. When I searched Amazon I found a plethora of them, in all ways shapes and materials, and I decided on this laser-cut wood design. I only hope in the future the words of Bruce Springsteen in the song Rosalita will apply, “someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny.”

I hope you all have the merriest Christmas as you possibly can have!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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It’s that time of the year... when I wonder why people still stand in line at the post office to ship packages. As I dropped off cards and packages the other day, it was clear so many have not bought a simple, inexpensive postal scale and chosen to generate postage online.

As a service to my loyal readers, allow me to suggest a postal scale like this (yes, it’s an affiliate link) and to create a US Postal Service online account and use their Click-N-Ship service.

With all of this free time on my hands as a result of these tools, one may think I would have gotten this list of what I learned out a few days earlier if not on-time, not to mention writings on other topics. Let’s just move on.

Toasty Hot – I was skeptical when I saw Starbucks Toasted Graham coffee Keurig cups (yes, another affiliate link) on the supermarket shelf the other day, but bought them anyway. For me flavored coffees are usually a disappointment, and are typically artificially flavored to add to my aversion of them. That skepticism evaporated like the steam of a fresh-brewed cup of coffee. This is a delicious product – both the smell and taste were amazing, and the package states it’s flavored with unspecified natural flavors. I’m not sure how long they will be around but I will stock up on my next shopping trip.

Keeping Password Safe and Sane – With the flurry of last-minute online shopping, I almost forget the memory muscle of using my password manager Keeper. I have been using the product daily for over a decade to manage all of the online accounts for home and work. I recommend you try it out, and if you use this referral link we both get something in addition to what you get for the sanity of organized account information accessible online and offline and across all devices and computers.

Unique Encryption – In a conversation about securing purely digital voting machines and the safe transmission of the voting results over the Internet, I learned about Diffie-Hellman encryption which is a process of providing unique encryption keys for each voting machines and their unique communication to a central server. Note this is not anything new, as the method was first published in 1976. Without getting into encryption details and causing some of my reader’s eyes to glaze over, it differs from common encryption – say, a Web site – where there’s a public key that any Web browser uses as compared to unique keys for each machine. Just providing some unique information you likely haven’t read in all that’s being covered about the last US election.

Devolving Opinion – I will join the masses in highlighting the stupidity of Joseph Epstein’s “opinion” on whether Dr. Jill Biden is a real doctor. In saying this note I am not pandering to my audience as many of them have a PhD (yes, it’s a small but mighty readership here at The Hot Iron and I know most of you). I have many friends who use the title Doctor before their name, and knew most while they were studying and writing their dissertations for it, and I have great respect for what they went through. However lost in story this is devolving of what the opinion or editorial “pages” of newspapers have traditionally been. Perhaps it’s because I have recently finished reading Charles Krauthammer’s book on his opinion pieces over the decades of his career. Whatever it is, if there’s questions of what is considered “news” today, adding “opinion” to it in this format doesn’t help for the long-term viability of the mainstream media.

May I Have a Second Opinion? – I reminded myself this week that in software as in medicine, and with the repair of just about anything, it’s important to have a second opinion by an expert. Many times initial triage is done on a situation by someone without a high level of experience, and as a result their recommendation reflects that. Many people offering that triage don’t like to go directly to the person eventually offering the second opinion for many reasons, everything from ego to not realizing they should. So I raise my glass to those offering second opinions, and for reducing my stress a little over the last week.

Chatbots on my Horizon – A couple of weeks ago I participated in a webinar titled The Power of Chatbot offered by Women in Technology Wisconsin. The driver for me was that I really didn’t know much about chatbots. To that end, the webinar opened my eyes to the possibilities of their use and the power and cost-savings they can provide. The recording of The Power of Chatbot webinar is available here. One takeaway I had from this was the human involvement in creating and continually improving the chatbot experience. The value with that is humans are still needed to answer the question once, rather than repeatedly for the multitude of people asking.

Keep Those Ugly Sweaters Clean – My local favorite dry cleaner came out with a good video on keeping your winter clothes clean and fresh. The video is a little long but in the end was worth the time. I also learned from this that the company, which went to a full-delivery model during the pandemic, renamed itself from Donaldson’s Cleaners to Donny On The Spot. The name may take a little getting used to, but their great service is a family tradition.

Robots Speak Italian? – For the last few months I have been trying to learn Italian using the Duolingo app. Where so far so good, but I would likely crash if immersed into a conversation in my ancestral tongue. This week the app introduced 2 new voices, a male and female, to replace the existing ones I have used since I started over the summer. They sound horrible – I can barely understand them, and they are far from fluid and natural like the ones I started with. So far I am plowing through new lessons and hope it learning Italian will continue to be una bellissima esperienza.

Speaking of my heritage, this week I made a batch of pizzelles. They are a traditional Italian cookie made in something similar to a waffle iron. Where there are many variations and flavors, I make them thin and with my Mom’s recipe with anise. Where I would love to ship them to all of my readers, they unfortunately don’t travel well. I have also adapted a grain-free version of the recipe (sorry, Mom) and am going to make them and another batch of the traditional ones leading up to Christmas just as she used to do.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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