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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With the 12 days of Christmas a couple of days away, it’s a good thing it’s been a little warmer out this week as it will be easier for the pear tree to take root in the backyard. Maybe that pondering and ping-ponging at work all week caused me to not observe as much over the last week, but what I did was at least for me interesting.

Not the Same Ol’ Song – As much as I enjoy listening to non-stop Christmas music this time of the year, I am starting to get a little tired of the same songs over and over and over. My friends at Riot Fest (ok, I don’t know them personally, but they do get my musical tastes) have published a Spotify playlist of ska Christmas songs as well as a list of videos of Christmas songs by 70’s musicians. If you don’t know ska, give it a listen. If you don’t know 70’s music, I’m sorry.

Give The Gift of Files – I own a Synology device, which simplified is a home server. The firm held its annual event virtually this year and talked about new features and functionality in the coming year. What I am excited about is the future launch of Synology Photos which is its application suite for managing your photos. Imagine iCloud of Google Photos with complete control over your files, and it’s elegant and secure.

Goodbye Groups – At one point it seemed I was part of at least a dozen Yahoo Groups. This was a free service by the once search engine giant where you could collaborate online, but ended up being more of a mailing list offering. As Yahoo isn’t what it once was, neither is Groups, and after stripping the service of most of its features, they are shutting it down altogether. Social colleague Matt brought this to my attention and wrote about his use of Yahoo Groups over the years.

Ten Years After Berlin – As I was reading a post by another social colleague Craig about a new printer he bought I realized I met him in Berlin a decade ago, thanks to Nokia. We were both there, along with Dennis and Rhiannon, to “cover” the Microsoft TechEd Europe conference, where Nokia had a booth and debuted the E7 mobile device. Little did we know a few months later Nokia would switch to the Windows Mobile platform. Or as many in the tech community call it, the beginning of the end for Nokia’s global dominance in mobile technology. Despite this, we had a great time in the German capital.

Total Taste of the Holidays – Ever since I discovered microbrews in Boston in 1990, Harpoon Winter Warmer has been my holiday beer of choice and what I measure all other seasonal beers by. Memories of drinking it ice cold while outside tailgating for late-season Patriots games are now dancing in my head (sans sugar plums) as I am enjoying one as I writ this. For a while I was able to get Winter Warmer at local stores, but it has been hit or miss. This past weekend I found the very last case at Total Wine a national retail chain with an amazing selection of beer, wine, liquors and cigars I had never heard of before that has a store near Milwaukee. It’s certainly now tasting a lot like Christmas.

Happy Birthday on Saturday, Mr. Chairman.

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

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As I struggle with accepting “prepone” as a word to use in my vocabulary, I reflect back on what I realized was new to me throughout the week. Maybe it’s because prepone rhymes with condone, which is another word I never use as it sounds the opposite of what it truly means, but I digress.

The reality of virtual events – As equal to the marketing intellect of John Wall is how he keeps it real. I have had the good fortunate of knowing John way before he become the podcast pioneer he is with Marketing Over Coffee. John recently did an interview on PR Nation where he talked about virtual events – you can fast-forward 4:50 to hear his wisdom on them.

No impact on me whatsoever – This week fast-food giant McDonald’s announced the re-introduction of the McRib sandwich including how to get one for free as well as dropping all-day breakfast. Neither move will get me to go back there, much to my kiddo’s dismay.

Fortunately no impact on me either – Where I am not currently thinking about my resume, I found this service to create a reactive resume. Even with digital profiles and LinkedIn, having a resume is still important to have if you are looking for your next gig on your career journey.

Bigger Tech – This week it was announced Salesforce, the pioneer in cloud-hosted business applications, has bought Slack, a pioneer in online team collaboration for $27 Billion. Where Salesforce has made other acquisitions this is one of their more high-profile ones. Not to mention feeding the fire for those concerned about “Big Tech” in our lives.

Sounds Pretty Good – It’s amazing to hear and see the change in someone when a bad boss is removed from the picture.

Buzzed Out – About the only real, regularly reported in-depth journalism in my local newspaper is a column called The Buzz, which covers local business news. The reporter who has had this beat for decades announced she accepted a package from the publisher and left last week. The decision as to if I will continue my subscription is still up in the air.

From TRaSh to Live – Despite their age and clear replacements over the decades, there’s a lot of activity globally over vintage computers, from the actual old hardware to emulators on modern computers. An example of this I found this week was a TRS-80 Cassette Reader, where you can record a cassette tape to an audio file, then upload to this site and it will give you back the code that was saved to the tape. For some people reading this who may be confused, before the flash drive and before the floppy disk, there was the cassette data drive.

A Reason to be Giddy – One of my colleagues posted on LinkedIn he was an investor in Giddy. So I had to check it out. Not necessarily safe for work, it’s an FDA-approved medical device to help cure ED. Keeping to the safe for work theme I won’t spell out ED, but I am not talking about Executive Directors. Needless to say, I can see why he’s giddy to announce this.

Remembering a Pioneer – Last week Zappos founder Tony Hsieh died in a house fire in Connecticut. Where many people in the tech world have familiarity with him, one person who knew him is Frank Gruber and he wrote this story about Tony with videos on TechCo. I first met Frank back in the TechCocktail days back in Chicago, and this is a nice tribute.

Bring the Militia to your Soccer Game – The New England Revolution of the Major Soccer League announced its Remote Training Team a free program where Revs players provide training videos and tips for youth soccer players. As one of my kiddos is really taking to the world’s game, I will await her seal of approval from my “hometown” team.

Back to the Blocks – As I am typing this up I am sitting in a hotel conference room watching via streaming video my kiddos’ first swim meet since February. The actual pool is about a 5 minute walk from where I am, but parents aren’t allowed to watch in-person. I have mixed feelings on this as there’s great energy by the pool, cheering on our little ones. However this particular pool is the most uncomfortable aquatic facility I have ever been in. But the important thing is the kids getting back into the pool, and that was a success all around.

Off to Bayfield for Bay Blend!

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

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As it is a certain first of December morning, it’s time for my annual rereading of my all-time favorite Christmastime book from childhood, The Littlest Snowman.

In the spirit of the season, and as a diversion from the usual multi-hundred paged tomes that I have been reading throughout the year, the nearly two-dozen pages of this classic is a welcome treat. As I gently paged through this Wonder Book I couldn’t help thinking of what I do with every other book I read – writing my takeaways from them. In the spirit of The Hot Iron as well, here’s my takeaways from this winter tale.

Selflessness at its core – What is a holiday book without a feel-good story? This one is about the annual tradition on a town where a small boy, who is the only one who knows how, makes the Littlest Snowman along with his neighbor and several anthropomorphic animals. The Littlest Snowman then lights the town’s Christmas tree, followed by the local weatherman declaring it will be a white Christmas. Only that the forecast doesn’t pan out, and it’s up to the Littlest Snowman to save the day by sacrificing himself. Fortunately the story has a happy ending with his remaking.

Why am I the only one I know who knows about this book? – When I tell people about The Littlest Snowman, which was originally published in the 1950’s, nobody has ever heard of it. I have always wondered why, and even did Internet searches on it to no avail. Once again I am either in the minority, or am once again leading a niche.

Why wasn’t this made into a TV special? – With all of the TV specials out there and new (but not necessarily better) ones being created every year, why hasn’t anyone made this book into an animated feature? Or even a live action special? Perhaps it’s because nobody knows about it, or who knows why. As I am not in the position to do so, anyone reading this can feel free to do so.

The process of rereading The Littlest Snowman is a delicate one. As the copy of it I read as a child is long gone, I was able to find a used copy online several years ago. It’s an original print of the story, and is a little fragile. Each year I search for other copies online and find them, but I have decided to make this version the replacement of the one from my youth. You can find your own copy of The Littlest Snowman on Amazon using this affiliate link. That way we can both benefit from making this tale part of your holiday season.

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

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As I compiled these I watched the movie The Christmas Chronicles 2 starring real-life couple Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn as Mr. and Mrs. Claus. It was a nice movie, and the portrayal of Boston’s Logan Airport was spot on. Though a million elves was a bit much.

Take Me Out to the Thanksgiving Dinner – We tried something a little different this year and had our Thanksgiving dinner catered by the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. For those unfamiliar, they are the Single-A Minor League affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers... who just happens to have a banquet facility and catering business at the ballpark. We picked it up at the stadium the night before and heated and served the next day a delicious meal, with a lot less fuss.

A Faster Thanksgiving? – Had we not hit a home run with the T-Rats for our Turkey Day meal, we could have gone to the drive-thru of several fast food joints and used these recipes from Riot Fest of all people. It’s a good thing we didn’t need this Plan B.

Plan C could have been for Churkey – I was intrigued by this promotion by Popeyes chicken for a Churkey – a plastic container shaped like a turkey and filled with a fried chicken meal. After further review, Popeyes wasn’t actually going to offer this to the public and it was only a media event, especially as most of their restaurants were closed on Thanksgiving. In my mind this was a huge opportunity lost for them in the fast food “chicken wars.”

Fool Me Once – In a recent email from my kiddos school system they eluded to the possibility of holding in-classroom classes starting in January, after being fully virtual all school season long. It was déjà vu all over again for many people as we heard similar messages through last summer about in-classroom learning before not going back at all. I’ll believe it when I see the kids walking into the school building.

Slanted Arrival – This week the book I pre-ordered in April finally arrived, Slanted, by Sharyl Attkisson (yes, it’s an affiliate link). It is a chronicle from one of the most straightforward journalist I follow, discussing the state of journalism and its political coverage over the last 4 years. As of the writing of this I am half-way through the book, as it’s a page-turner. Now to start thinking about who I will be passing along this book to when I finish it. In the meantime, you can get taste of what’s in the book from Attkisson’s latest podcast, on how a fair news media would have covered the 2020 election.

Scrum Decor – Following the release of the latest Scrum Guide last week, there has been a plethora of webinars, documents and even posters released to support the enhancements. You can order or download posters from Incrementor and The Liberators.

Not Sur – This week I got prompted to install the latest version of MacOS called Big Sur. After looking into it, the design of Big Sur is more iOS like, drops all Flash support (yea, it’s still out there) and has been known to have upgrade issues. So for now I will wait.

Bubbly Promotions – Soda Sense, a Green Bay, Wisconsin-based provider of cannister refills for home soda machines, released a new commercial this week but I am partial to one of their older ones.

Cyber Monday Comedy – But the best video I have seen has come from domain name registrar and Internet services provider Name.com and the comedic genius of Jared Ewy. If the video inspires you to register domain names, use my affiliate link and earn $5 credit. Ok, I earn $5 too.

Making Verification Great Again? – Twitter is apparently rethinking its verification program, known as the blue checkmark you can see on verified accounts according to reporting by Gavin Heaton. To me, what difference at this point does it make? I am barely on the platform anymore that I once couldn’t promote enough. But with divisiveness at an all-time high there, it’s nothing like it used to be, and a blue checkmark on a few people’s profiles isn’t going to change anything for the better.

A Sign of Hope – This week a sign with large letter spelling HOPE was installed at Houdini Plaza here in Appleton, Wisconsin. And not soon enough.

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

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