Degen.Net

From the “Resistance is Futile” department comes today post:

Not only has Google assimilated every web technology in the world, but they are now colluding with Dr. Evil to incite digital mayhem and take over the world! *Cue sinister music*

Ok maybe that’s a bit extreme, but the company’s motto of “Do no evil” seams to be harder to justify these days as they run around gobbling up web firms left and right. Splashing around money like crazy, it is obvious that they have well over “One Millllioon Dollars!” But it’s not just the act of acquisition that is raising eyebrows, but rather concerns about what the sum of the parts will enable Google to become and do!

How can this be “Evil?”

Don’t get me wrong, there are some awesome synergies among the new Google acquired applications that enhance existing functionality, or are logical new extensions for the search company. But at what point does all this ease of use and integration cross the line from handy tools, to just plain scary?

For starters, consider the issue of Google’s eternal cache of searches; every search, you’ve ever made, chronicled for all time! (And remember, when you are logged in it’s tied back to your Google account.) All searches, from queries for illegal movie downloads to online lingerie outlets, to Craig’s list searches, to blogs about nymphomaniac kitten lovers… oh well I think your starting to get the picture, all archived and organized for future reference, embarrassment or potential litigation. What? Your still reading? I figured you would have shut your Gmail account by now and have switched to a real dog of a search site like Lycos or something.

The World is not Enough

A few years ago, a friend of mine got all hooked on the Google Earth. From the comfort of his office he would spend hours jaunting wildly around the world zooming down with voyeuristic interest on the houses, buildings and parks below. Little did any of us realize just how intimate Google cartography was yet to become.

Consider the Google Mapping product “Street View”. If you are unfamiliar with Street View, it’s an enhancement to the base Google Maps offering that allows you to see actual photographic detail of cities that have been “recorded.” While certainly a technological accomplishment, what are the social and personal implications of this technology? If you were walking out to the mail box when the Google imaging mobile happened by – Congratulations, you are now part of the permanent record of Google. Oh don’t feel bad, many are being assimilated like this daily!

All your Data is Ours

My boss came up to me the other day and asked “What do you think of all these online Google productivity apps?” Wow, now my boss is no technological neophyte, but I was impressed at the pervasiveness of Google’s relatively new Spreadsheet and Docs online apps, so much so, that a longtime Microsoft shop like ours would consider switching away from the venerable MS Office Suite.

And we are not alone! Many others are evaluating and some are even in the process of converting to Google Online apps. I’m not knocking the functionality of Google Docs and Spreadsheet, they work fine; heck, well enough that we are considering migrating to them. Rather, I question the wisdom of turning your content/files over to an orginazation whose stated goal it the indexing of all content on the Web, perhaps on Earth!

I know this has been a rather weighty post, and I’m sure there are some great arguments for and against the juggernaut that is Google. But if history has shown us anything, it’s that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and if that axiom holds true what terrors will the keeper of “Absolute Data” be able to unleash upon us?

As the 2008 election cycle’s rhetoric approaches a feverish crescendo, I’m reminded of one politician’s axiom a few years ago, “It’s about the economy stupid.” No, no, this is not going to devolve into a senseless rant about our broken system of governance, but rather an examination of the sad state we find the PC industry languishing in. This post kicks off a series on the challenges facing personal computing and innovation stagnation.

Let’s recap, here we are a couple of decades into the PC Revolution, you know “information at your fingertips” and all that good stuff; and for the most part (in the developed nations on earth), the vision laid out by the Jobs’ and Gates’ of the world has been radically successful. Computers in every home, school and practically every pocket (if you count PDAs and smart phones); add in virtually ubiquitous internet access, and we can safely say the information age has come into its own.

But it is that very pervasive success that now threats innovation across the computing landscape. The large install base is now the industries’ greatest hindrance to technological advancement.

In no area of computing is this more true then the symbiotic relationship between PC Hardware and Software. Think about it, with hundreds of millions of X86 architecture systems out there, predominantly running some version of Windows, there is very little incentive for vendors to venture out in new directions. Rather month after month, year after year; it’s good enough for system/component manufactures and ISVs to offer minimal incremental improvements and call it a “Ground Breaking Must Have” upgrade.

And this vicious cycle feeds itself! But rather then a synergistic cycle that generates greater innovation and cutting edge solutions, this cycle is like a giant boulder rolling down hill squashing the objects it encounters on the way. As these peripheral objects (E. G. software applications, hardware devices, even new CPUs) are mashed into this massive PC collective “boulder”, the mass and diameter of the boulder expands exponentially.

Continuing with the metaphor, the inertia of this boulder has become unstoppable. The boulder is now very big and its moving fast, after all it has been building momentum for a many years now. As the PC boulder careens downhill (think of the hill as the a measure of time), it can easily squash new innovations that are viewed as too cutting edge, or outside the mainstream.

In my next post on the subject, I’ll expand on this problem as well look at the Software side of the business and how it’s failing.

So taking a break from iPhone hysteria is always therapeutic, add a week long road trip and you are sure to let those Techie wows just drift away like the lazy days of summer. But I’m back from Vacation now and ready to plunge back into all things geeky.

Below my son and I take a shot from the St. Louis Arch.

As most of you have heard me pontificate about to no end; Virtualization is here and is changing the IT landscape. And if the reasons for migrating to a virtualized environment were not compelling enough on there own merits, the good people at VMware have made the move even easer with the windows based Converter product.

Converter, yet another free offering from VMware, is simply put – amazing software. After you load the small (about 20M) app on your windows system you answer a few wizard like questions, specify a disk target and let’er rip. Converter then turns your live physical system into a ready to go VM package. Did I mention it does this LIVE, to any Win XP, 2000 or 2003 system!

In fact the blog your reading right now is hosted on a “converted” VM. In my case the Windows web server the blog was hosted on, a Pentium III 733, was getting a bit long in the tooth, I loaded the converter and after about an hour of processing the system was moved over to a Linux VMware host.

If you are an existing VMware user checkout, and if this whole VMware thing is a mystery to you – go download your free copy of VM today (Http://www.vmware.com), it will change the way you think about computing.

 

Apparently Verizon won’t be able to for the next 5 years. USA Today via AppleInsider is reporting that Apple is barred from producing a CDMA version of the iPhone for at least 5 years. Both Sprint and Verizon utilize CDMA networks. Good business move – and is it just CDMA subscribers who will be missing out?

I would be quite surprised if Apple is truly pleased with this arrangement, as it limits the iPhone’s potential market. Now I’m not questioning the decision to select a GSM network over CDMA. GSM is clearly the more dominant global standard for cellular networks, and thus logical choice for an initial offering. But it’s not just GSM that Apple is locked into, it’s AT&T/Cingular specifically. Where does this leave Apple in its negotiations with other North American GSM providers (T-mobile for example) not to mention what are the international implications of this AT&T exclusive?

Others have been quick to point out that Apple should be selling iPhones direct at Apple stores anyway (ala the iPod.) Not so fast. I actually understand the advantages of working with an established mobile provider like AT&T. Remember, this is Apple’s 1.0 offering in the mobile phone market, and not to knock Apple’s engineering, but AT&T has been at this whole phone thing for a little while longer. Also, if by any chance, there are any technical difficulties, wouldn’t Apple rather all these end-users show up at a local wireless provider store then slam the Apple stores?

Time will tell just how big the iPhone is going to be. My bet is there are many lessons yet to be learned by the folks in Cupertino about the phone business. I’m just looking forward to a time when all the pre-realware hype to about the iPhone dies down and people start reporting real world experiences.

It seams no matter how fast things get in this zany PC computing world, they just aren’t fast enough! As soon as you get one bottleneck eliminated another one pops up.  Such has been my life the last few days.

Some back story – if you are a regular reader, you know I have been working with Vista Media Center as a potential solution for my trusty Direct TV Tivo.  Ironically while working to replace my old Hughes DVR2, I picked up a second one and quickly hacked it up to 100+ hours of recording; I know, I must really have some issues, but I digress. At any rate, my efforts thus far to supplant the Tivo with a new HiDef capable device have lead me down a very rocky path.

As I blaze a trail to this promise land of HD goodness, I’m reminded yet again of the woeful inadequacies of PC architectures.  See to enjoy that glorious 1080p image I need to move lots of data to the flat screen; and standing in the way between those digital bits and a CSI autopsy so clear that you have to wince, is a cadre of cruel components.

While most of these are pretty easy to remedy – More RAM, Faster CPU, etc – one remains for me to beat my head against: I/O. See for successful 1080 playback you are looking at some serious data transfer, and whether it’s streaming form the local Hard Drive or across the net, it’s proving to be a serious challenge. Alas, I/O performance has set itself up like a massively walled city, constricting the poor plebs passage to and fro through a small constricted city gate.

But since I’m not content to take the simple route, slap a blistering RAID 0 in the local Media Center – heck, where’s the fun in that – I’m presently scratching my noggin whilst endeavoring to move this HD content over the network from my home server. Attempting to move this data via WiFi, would be ridiculous!  This makes me wonder what so many device manufactures are thinking about, integrating wireless into solutions like the Apple TV or the SMC SMCWMR-AG, to cite a couple.

Presently I’ve hardwired the Media Center box on a 100Mbit switched port to my Gigabit connected file server, and am still experiencing stuttering with 1080 content.  Seams I can play 720 with reasonable success, but the added burden of 1080 is just too much. And considering the MC platform is running on a Pentium D 2.8 with an Nvidia PCIe 7300 card, it’s hard to imagine that it does not have the processor power to decode and play the images.

Further testing in this matter is required. But while I do that, check out a great source of Vista MCE info I have found  The Green Button. Nice forums with a strong hacking community, if you are working on a Media Center implementation I highly recommend them.

Once in a while a widget/app/gizmo comes along that is so dang useful and cool that I simply must share. Foxmarks for Mozilla Firefox is one such plug-in.

Foxmarks is a nifty little cross-platform extension that will both backup and synchronize your firefox bookmarks. This is ideal if you work on multiple machines, and even across multiple Oses

http://foxmarks.com/

If you are a Firefox users and have multiple systems, simply put you need this Extension – Enjoy.

So a fair amount of Microsoft bashing has happened here on the blog over the past few months.  And while there are plenty of opportunities to blame the evil Empire for their failings and missteps as of late, visa vie Vista, I thought it might be nice to chronicle one of Redmond’s major successes – Outlook and Exchange.

Outlook, especially when it is teamed with Exchange Server, is one of the most pervasive Microsoft applications on the planet – okay, well maybe not the planet but at least the North American business landscape. Sure, sure, I know what you’re going to say, “what about Gmail” or “there’s always Lotus Notes”, not hardly, the fact remains most business users remain ardent Microsoft Outlook aficionados.

While some might say this is simply because there is “no choice” or that “Outlook is too entrenched”, I’ll put forward another theory.  Are you ready for this?  Outlook is actually good!  No wait, it’s better than good, it’s actually the best Microsoft application available today.

Go ahead, take the cheap shot, if Outlook is the best thing: I’d hate to see the worst. But that is not the focus of this story. I will instead submit to you that the user community has actually selected Outlook as their preferred e-mail and personal information manager (PIM.)

Here are just a few reasons why Outlook is the best in class e-mail, calendar, contact, task manager:

Outlook is bloated in all the right ways – We all know about feature bloat and how most users will only need about 2% of all the functions available, and very few will ever use the other 98%.  Outlook is different.  From version to version; Microsoft has actually added usable, desirable, and downright needed new features to Outlook.

Excellent third-party integration – Just about every ISV and his brother has built Outlook based modules or plug-ins, from chat clients to PDF writers, CRM systems to custom database applications, vendors are leveraging the power and ubiquity of Outlook to extend their applications and create a seamless end-user experience.

Ease of accessibility – The goodness that is the Outlook client front end is taken to the next level when it is paired with exchange server on the server side. This configuration is extremely popular, and typical in the business workplace, and allows for the implementation of OWA (or Outlook Web Access), enabling users access to not just e-mail, but Calendar, Contacts and public data via any web browser.  And with the advent of Windows mobile phone devices, Exchange Server can seamlessly update e-mail and contact information for users on the go.

All together in one nice package – Microsoft has managed to brinig all of the most common tasks and functions together into one cohesive application.  Outlook is not the only game in town, but seems to be the one that strikes the right balance of integrated features and ease of use.

Now don’t get me wrong Outlook is not a perfect application, it’s simply the best one that Microsoft has out right now. It’s actually quite shocking to me that with so many alternatives Outlook remains far and away the most popular Windows-based PIM. And like so many other MS applications, once its delegates talons deep into your data’s heart, it’s hard to migrate elsewhere – but that’s another entry for another day.

So Ubuntu 7.04 (code name Feisty Fawn, if you are unfamiliar with the Ubuntu naming convention) has been out a few weeks now. Only this weekend did I get the chance to load Feisty on a couple of systems; and all I can say is – Holy hand-grenades Batman, this thing is really flippin’ sweet!

To start with, installation on my build up desktop was lights out easy. Auto detected everything (just a minor resolution support issue on the Nvidia 6600 card), and I was up and running in no time flat. I quickly threw on my favorite OSX styled Gnome themes, turned on the basic three-D effects option; shame this is not on by default, and then it was time to install and config some apps.

I was particularly happy to find that NTFS read/write support is now just a couple of clicks away in the apt-get interface. RDP support was pre-installed, wonderful news for all the windows servers I need to support.

Installation on the HP NC8430 was a little more tricky, but really this was more due to the ATI X1600 and Intel WiFi drivers than anything. It was very surprising that Ubuntu 6.10 and the 7.04 betas worked off the live CD great, but the 7.04 release did not. After doing some research it appears this is due to some config in the X server with ATI X1xxx chipsets – argh, AMD/ATI!!!! Fortunately I was able to find a work around using the Alternate disc (Click Here), hopefully a 7.04.x patch will debut and resolve this, as it would be nice to have a Feisty disk that works from a live boot.

The Intel 3945 drivers where another story. I have yet to be successful getting the wireless manager to connect to my WEP Access Point. Like the ATI driver issue, this is well documented on the Ubuntu forums, but the solution alluded me; for now, I’ll operate in a wired configuration.

Overall Ubuntu 7.04 has me very impressed! I’ve used Linux and Ubuntu in that past, but for the first time in my career I’m starting to look at it as a serious replacement for Windows (especially Vista.)

The next step is to integrate Linux into daily work. On the plus side, many apps I use are already cross platform, but others are going to require the use of WINE or migrating to a native Linux app (It’s that Love-Hate thing with Outlook.) I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

If Microsoft had know that the best thing they would ever do for the Linux community is release Vista, I have to wonder – would they have rushed its release? Would they have every released it for that matter!

With this week’s major announcement from Dell, not only to support Linux, but to offer Ubuntu as an outright preload, you have to ask are the Windows alternatives that good or is Vista that Bad?!? I would submit that it’s a bit of both.

On my desktop Ubuntu 7.04 is now the default OS, and as soon as I can get the cursed ATI/AMD X1600 driver situation under control on my notebook, it will soon follow with Linux load.

Also some big props going out to the Linux Action Show podcast. If you have yet to discover this wonderful resource for all things happening in the Linux community, I strongly recommend you give them a listen.