Here’s my quick guide to setting up a new Linux-based Aspire One.

First, download and install Skype and Firefox 3 from the Acer support site.  Once the download is complete, select the file and click the ‘Extract’ button.  If you use the default directory (/tmp) for extracting, you need to launch the file viewer (’My Files’ on the home screen), and type /tmp in the address bar.  You will then see the directory that has your installation file.  Double click on the .sh file in the directory, and let it churn away.  (Um, Acer, it can’t be that hard to make your installs automatic.  How is Grandma supposed to know where the /tmp directory is?)

Next, I used some of the tips from The Register article: “Ten tweaks for a new Acer Aspire One“. Specific tips I used:

• (Tip #1):  Ran Live Update to update the system software.
• (Tip #3):  Enabled the Advanced Menu so a right-click would give me access to Linux behind the scenes (including a Terminal for command-line geeking).
• (Tip #9):  Improved SSD (Solid State Disk) performance by changing a line in a configuration file.

If you want to add other software that isn’t available at the Acer support site, the macles* blog has great instructions.  I installed Thunderbird, but didn’t bother with a better media player (VLC), or version 3 of OpenOffice.  Most people agree it isn’t worth installing a different flavor of Linux, such as Ubuntu, because of the usual hardware device issues.  Now I’ve got my Aspire One the way I like it.  I’m happy using it for travel, coffee shops, around the house…anywhere I don’t feel like dragging my heavy and expensive (but wonderful) MacBook Pro.

I’m considering the tweaks that make the fan run less often, but so far I’ve been too chicken to turn up the heat on my Aspire One for the sake of a little peace and quiet.

Could this finally be the fabled Year of the Linux Desktop?  The good news is that everything works out of the box.  That’s no small accomplishment.  But to keep people from running back into the arms of Redmond, Grandma has to be able to install new software without touching a freakin’ command line.

The teaching module, “Instant Websites:  Using WordPress as a Content Management System”, is now available:

• The “Instant Websites” Teaching Case Executive Summary
• The “Instant Websites” Instruction Module
• The “Instant Websites” Teaching Note

This work was done with research wonder Jackie Rees at Purdue University.

Thanks to the USF Faculty Development Committee for supporting my research this summer.

The number of free or cheap online tools for running a business is growing (see this article from mashable.com with 270 tools for small business).  Open source tools for business are increasing in sophistication.  But what about those times when even an eBay shop or PayPal button is too complicated for the budding online business person?

Enter the blogshop, a term used in Singapore to describe teenagers setting up a free blog with items for sale, usually funky fashions or accessories.  Forget shopping carts or credit cards for most blogshops–buyers simply email or leave a comment for what they want, then do a bank transfer, or hide ‘concealed cash’ in an envelope.  The buyers pick up their goods by mail, or by meeting at a subway station.  Sometimes buyers band together for a ‘shopping spree’ to Taiwan or Korea to pick up the latest fashions.

Blogshop directories like blogshopr.com and emall.sg list over 300 blogshops in Singapore.  A survey in the Straits Times found that 30% of blogshop owners spend over 20 hours per week on their sites.  It’s not the route that I would choose for starting an online store, but sometimes ease and simplicity win over functionality.

The story quoted a young business school student as saying she learned much more about business from her blogshop than her ‘boring’ lectures.  I have a difficult time imagining a ‘boring’ business school lecture, but that’s just me…

My advice for MBAs starting with social media?  Try these simple tasks first:

• Set a google alert for a topic you care about (LISTENING)
• Comment on a corporate blog (CONVERSATION)
• Send a product evangelist email (EVANGELISM)
• Answer a question on an online forum (SELF-SUPPORT)
• Vote for a product idea online (CO-CREATION)

2,604,288. That’s the number of people running WordPress blogging software on their own websites, with their own web hosting. You’d think that only a hard-core techie fringe would choose to pay for their own web hosting, and deal with the geekiness of it all, when they can get WordPress for free on wordpress.com.  But, as of this morning, 3,870,299 blogs were running on wordpress.com.  That’s a close race.

In other words, the do-it-yourself web crowd is looking mainstream, not fringe.

The one-click install revolution on web hosts has made this possible.  The amount of software/web services power at your disposal with today’s inexpensive web hosting is ridiculous.  Take a look at a typical menu of open source software choices (this one is from Simple Scripts).  Blogs, wikis, forums, serious content management, e-commerce, CRM…often the best software in its category.  We know people are using install scripts, because of the growing number of blogs that are launching with slightly out-of-date versions of WordPress.  (Script services are often behind the latest version, one of the downsides of using one-click installs vs. slapping it together by hand.)

Not all is perfect in one-click install land.  Upgrades and backups are nowhere near as painless as getting started.  But it’s been good enough to compete with free, and it keeps hope alive for a more open web future:  not everything has to happen through Google, Yahoo!, MSN or even wordpress.com.

As an example of a business WordPress site, I use nextbusnews.com.  NextBus is the groovy technology that tells me real-time how late my next MUNI bus will be (more details on how NextBus uses WordPress as a simple content management system here).

It amazes me that only 36% of US small businesses with net access have a web site (as reported in the Wall St. Journal last week).  This is 2008, not 1998!

Is there an opportunity for WordPress to become a kind of generic small business solution?  Business sites can be done now, of course, with some tweaking and geeking.  But, following the analogy from Stephen O’Grady’s talk at WordCamp on Saturday, perhaps someone needs to build a company on top of WordPress, in the same way that Google builds its services on top of open source software.  A small business website service built with WordPress, but where 99% of the users don’t even know what WordPress is?  Edublogs for small business, but maybe without even using the term ‘blog’?  Is this a good idea?  Is somebody doing this?  In the meantime, we think there are lots of good reasons to teach students about open source business platforms and basic content management via WordPress.

(I’m going to wait on an official release of this teaching module until after I hear from reviewers at the WITS 2008 Technology Instruction in Business Curriculum Competition.)

• Tech is still innovating big-time.  Thanks to innovation, tech-centric industries (software, networks, online, services), and closely related industries (electronics, telcos, digital media, entertainment, gaming, tech consulting), are going strong in tough economic times. We’re the ‘real’ economy now!
• Hardcore tech is easier to access than ever.  It’s never been easier to move beyond being just a ‘user’ by actually customizing, assembling, and developing your very own apps and services.

In an effort to capture the excitement of this new era, we have launched the non-award-winning “You belong in tech” ad campaign to get students fired up.  The campaign only consists of an eight slide presentation, but each slide is extremely high impact.

We have also launched the Campaign for Real Tech (CRT), which consists entirely of this blog post.  CRT believes that a business school education in San Francisco deserves serious tech coverage. Students, if you want to learn more about any of these topics, leave a comment on this page, or grab your nearest b-school administrator:

social media, social technologies, online communities, tech product management, tech marketing and sales, web 2.0, open source, open innovation, enterprise architectures, web analytics, web apps, e-commerce (yes, it’s back), content management, customer relationship management, APIs and platforms, search engine placement, online ads, online experience management, usability, virtual worlds, mobility, location-based services, sensor tech, or enterprise 2.0

If you want to change the world, this is the time.

In my remarks, I advise folks to keep an eye out for these Virtual World trends:  open source to create your own worlds, public grids, virtual workspaces, serious gaming, casual gaming, and the return of virtual reality technologies (now that we have more interesting places to visit, maybe it’s time to start digging those gloves and goggles out of the closet).

The legal types seem to be most interested in virtual property rights and regulating money transactions, but we had time to talk about fun stuff like the virtual ’strike’ against IBM in Second Life.  A continuing point of controversy:  the terms of service for most virtual worlds give users little recourse if a company decides to suspend or delete their account. But what if I built and furnished my whole mansion online?