Cult of Digerati

Cr-48 Review: Part Two

2010-12-21T14:53:00.007-05:00

After fully charging last night I fired up the Cr-48 at 0640am to see how it would fare in real world use. The first issue was the Verizon 3G, in that it didn't have any. I completed the online form, entered my credit card info for authentication, received the Verizon confirmation then I waited...and waited...and waited. No joy. I used the toll free number in the email and called customer service, had to reset the 3G modem with the use of a command line terminal and was shortly on my way. I asked the customer service rep if this was happening a lot and she was more than happy to tell me that the recent Cr-48 activations were not going so well. Especially after the string of information filled with forward slashes and numbers have to be followed verbatim over the phone; she sounded as if she had already repeated most of these steps at least a hundred times.

That was really the only drama on the way to getting up and running. Since my company email uses IMAP and a proper email client like Thunderbird, I cannot check email on my Cr-48. But I can do everything else like access DropBox, Twitter via the Seesmic app, Gmail, Google Reader, Documents, Salesforce, and the real web. I did try to view a short Hulu video and was reassured that while this machine is sleek and light, it is most certainly not a multi-media rig. So leave your Hulu shows to your PC or Apple TV/Roku box.

It is now 3:03pm and the battery is only at 47% with moderate use, in and out of standby. Keeping in mind that this is essentially the Chrome browser I did not do anything that I didn't already do on my other PC's. I got more use to the keyboard and the shortcut keys that are documented in the box as well as many of the same shortcuts in Chrome.

While it's fairly useful, I am struggling to understand who the target audience for this kind of device is. Those of us who willingly signed up for the Cr-48 prototypes were expecting the type of user experience we were in for but the average corporate/consumer PC user will not tolerate online only usage, an invisible filesystem, and doing without the occasional offline application or two. What they will like is the almost instant on/off capability, simplistic tabbed UI, and single focus use. If this ever makes it to the OEM's like Acer, Dell, and HP there will have to be some way to manage these unless they are true "netbooks" and just accessing webapps. So if they are lost, stolen, or destroyed all of the data still lives in the cloud and the user is simply just issued a new unit. No fuss no muss.

I recently sold my iPad in favor of a Samsung Galaxy Tab and I feel that the Cr-48 most closely resembles the former except with a keyboard. Like the iPad, the Cr-48 has a lot offer but it's still keeps feeling incomplete somehow. But even with obvious shortcomings, I applaud Google for making brave moves into the traditional OS space while at the same time, changing our ideas of what it means to compute.

Cr-48 Review: Part One

2010-12-20T19:27:00.004-05:00

I remember Google's announcements a few weeks ago for Android 2.3, Google Chrome OS, and the Cr-48 but I was not fully up to date on the latter. Last week I read a post where one could go onto Google's application page and request one. A full week has passed now and my Cr-48 showed up this evening.

After a full hour with Google's latest creation, the Cr-48, I am left wondering how and why Google decided to build this true "netbook". In the past two years I have owned everything from the first Asus EeePC 701, HP 1100 Tablet PC, to my current Acer netbook, and two full-size laptops by Dell and IBM respectively. And even though the netbook monikers were attached to the Asus and the Acer, they were actually miniature laptops computers, one with a crippled Xandros Linux experience and the other a woefully out of date Windows XP instance scaled down to size. But netbooks? Not really.

With only Google Chrome OS, the Cr-48 may just be the first real netbook in that there are no native applications, no visible file system, and no waiting to boot up or down. Upon boot the user is presented with a short introduction then, much like an Android phone, only one's Google username/password is needed to activate the unit.

So far the keyboard is straightforward mimicking a MacBook Pro's chiclets with a row of keys above the number row that gives direct commands like: volume up/down, fullscreen, brightness, power button, etc. The Cr goes in and out of standby just by opening and closing the lid. In fact, regaled in all flat black this looks like a leaner, meaner version of my Thinkpad T60 but without markings it is the geek version of a "blacked out" sports car built for stealth AND speed. The top and bottom has a rubberized feel as does the palm rest. The trackpad requires the biggest adjustment as it takes a two-finger touch to simulate a mouse right-click. But even this change is welcomed. Whoever Google teamed with to create this device left out all of the bling factor but by doing so, made it look better than most of the high-end laptops out in the market today. Did Google build this to actually push cloud computing or to simply go on the offensive for its browser market share? Maybe I'll ask them next time I'm out in Mountainview ;-)

With Google's Chrome Browser out for a while now, it is more of the same here. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. All of my Chrome apps, extensions, and settings were ported into my Cr-48 and were ready to use in about a minute.

I will post the second part of this review as soon as possible but so far the Cr-48 seems to be "nothing but Net".

Us 2.0

2010-12-16T10:54:00.000-05:00

After re-reading this post about Joshua Topolsky's pitch for a "Continuous Client" and the with recent developments of Google's announcements of Chrome OS and Android 2.3/3.0, I believe we are just on the edge of Convergence Overlook. Google is creating two branches of computing platforms simultaneously: Android and Chrome OS. Even in Beta forms, there is no other company making the level of noise around pure online applications like Google has. Even in the beginning, when the first G1 came out in 2008, there were precious applications available in the Android Market because of the lofty visions of browser-based apps akin to Steve Jobs' claim in 2007, for the iPhone. Fast forward to the eve of 2011, and Android applications like Google's Chrome to Phone, Gmail, Talk, Voice, Maps, and even Skype now keep me connected from my PC, Android phone, and my Galaxy Tab.

It is not a coincidence that all of the above services are developed by Google with one exception, Skype. Along with Google, Skype has realized it's not the device or even the UI that matters, it's the connectivity and quality of service (QoS). If the QoS is usable and helps productivity, then users will flock to applications that keep them connected seamlessly.

In fact, I believe the OS of the future will be the Browser. Not in its current form however, but with AJAX, HTMLx, RIA, and yes even Adobe products like Air/Flash, the Web will be The computing platform carved into personal and corporate niches using various security permissions. Think about Facebook and Twitter for a moment, online communication is becoming as important and even more so than face to face as a medium that requires almost constant feeding and watering. And we are all complicit given this latest Forrester report that says Americans spend just as much time online as we do watching television.

All of this is making us a more mobile society but also more fragmented personally while being more connected socially. So with this new convergence and a possible blur between our real and online personas, which will you choose? It is already a balancing act for those of us who try to nurture both and I contend that the Continuous Client will not help us any better in the Future. The versions of You and Me and effectively "Us 2.o" still depend on who we really are and who we project ourselves to be.

So is the Continuous Client a computer interface or me and you?

The Best of Christmas

2010-12-10T11:03:00.003-05:00

This morning my wife and I were discussing the gifts that we recently purchased, and are in the process or purchasing for our five children. The youngest is seven with the oldest being twenty-two.

With so many children, we strive to spread out the quantity and cost of gifts equally. There are so many things out there that we would to purchase to make our children feel like they are having a "good" Christmas.

We have done the Black Fridays and the Cyber Mondays. We have shiny new metallic objects that makes us feel as if we are arriving as well as some new threads to show off in 2011.

But the most wonderful gift that we can give this year is the re-channeling of Christ's love and then demonstrate that love to my family and others.

It has become a cliche but after the boxes and wrapping paper are tossed out with the refuse we cannot let those things represent the Christmas holiday. I fear that commercialism is wringing the life out of days we hold sacred now because of door busters and close-out sales, but this cannot be.

This is my responsibility this season.

Android, FTW

2010-06-29T06:17:00.006-04:00

Last night as we wrapped our weekly AndroidGuys podcast I was reminded why I prefer Google's Android OS and methodology to anything else.

Back in 2005, I was deeply entrenched in Microsoft's Live strategy, anything BlackBerry, and Microsoft Windows XP. Until 2006, that is when I started working for a small open source middleware company named JBoss based out of Atlanta, GA. My experiences at JBoss then Red Hat, showed me what open source is. Then how it goes about changing development and business models for consumers and enterprises. The main draw for me though was choice. Choice to use software or not use software, choice to sometimes pay or not pay for something as a customer decides where the value is for his specific needs.

Then I heard that Google had purchased Andy Rubin's Android OS and was said to create a mobile OS. The Apple iPhone had just appeared on the scene and it looked like a non-starter to me because its lack of ability, the seemingly closed development, and the perception that "there is no happy partner" when it comes to Apple. Oh well, I marched on with my BlackBerry and all was well until I heard that T-Mobile was going to develop an Android phone with Google to release in the U.S. I started reading all of the blogs on Android that I could find, around ten back in 2007 (AndroidGuys.com was one of those early ones), and looked forward to the big day.

Fast forward to October, 2008 when I got my first HTC G1. By then Apple had changed the mobile landscape with the AppStore and Android had followed suit with the ingeniously named, Android Market. While the G1 was subpar hardware by comparison, the physical device was not my goal but Android 1.0. No, to me it was a mobile computer running Linux that created an almost instant modder community and fan base.

Now after owning many Android devices they sit alongside a few Apple and Microsoft ones in my collection but without being a "hater" of the others I still see the value of choice in Android. Whether Google ever decides to change the OS and/or their way of developing and delivering the software, I do not know. But until then I will indeed be an Android Guy.

Mobile Ramblings

2010-06-23T08:15:00.003-04:00

Wow! I read the Engadget review of the newest iPhone and I have to say that I am duly impressed. Apple, once again, has raised the bar for all comers and will continue to do so. But as an Android Guy I am even more happy in that it will continue to be the standard to which all other mobile smartphones will be compared.

So if iPhone is the bar then Competition has to do one better. Advantage: Us. We get to choose from Apple, Android, RIM, and WinMO platform devices according to what fits our own wants and needs.

Never mind for now how the hardware and software is developed and or much developers do/don't get paid (that's for another day and another post), but consider the end product. Apple has become THE design studio for all things mobile but as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The newest crop of HTC and Motorola phones are also very elegant and industrial in their respective devices like the HD2 and Droid 1.

What I am looking for in nextgen mobile is not a desktop experience on a 4" device but rather one that seamlessly fits into my life without compromising usability and does not force me to carry around middle devices like my iPad and a netbook. Flash and HTML5 will work themselves out by natural selection but I am still trying to figure out if apps, web, or both will win and how the Cloud will play in a new world of one and two GHz mobile processors.

I predict that local apps will prevail with data and authentication to live in the Cloud and the browser will get better audio/video capabilities. Once people get their Hulu and Netflix fixes satisfied on mobile then the great debate of mobile Flash will subside and will leave Farmville as the most played game out and about.

Too many toys?

2010-06-22T17:28:00.002-04:00

At the risk of sounding materialistic, I really like, nay I love gadgets. In fact it is an internal struggle I have where I know all of this stuff doesn't matter, won't last, and can ultimately become a god or little gods if I'm not careful.

I can safely say that my faith is firmly rooted in God, my love is for my family, and my professional passion for open source and Ubuntu Linux specifically is still strong.

By the way, I heard that the new Verizon Droid X is coming out on July 2......

My new HD2

2010-06-22T17:02:00.004-04:00

OK, so I took the plunge this past weekend as T-Mobile was running the "Father" of all sales to celebrate Father's Day weekend. All phones were free for new family plans and existing lines either had substantial discount or were free as well in exchange for two more years.

After admiring the HTC HD2 from afar, I finally made up my mind and called my local T-Mobile retail store and asked for them to set one aside for me "just in case" I had time to come in on Saturday. I had only seen one before and played with it briefly in the same store but was very impressed with the 4.3" screen and the build quality of the device. As far as I can tell, the iPhone 2, 3, and 4 have nothing on HTC when they set their mind to building an world class phone.

After signing the paperwork on Saturday it has been a few days and I am still glad I got it but it has a few flaws that have been well documented mostly blamed on Windows Mobile 6.5. The Sense UI is fine bPublish Postut I have had problems with the Opera browser, e-mail integration for Gmail and my work IMAP account, as well as the lack of Google integrated apps (but that's why I have five other Android phones, whatev).

I mainly use it as a portable WiFi router. Since T-Mobile is one of the last bastions along with Sprint for unlimited 3G data it works great as a mobile hotspot for my iPad and netbook. Since T-Mobile's coverage is really good in major metropolitan areas it usually is not an issue when traveling and you would be hard pressed to not find a McDonald's and Starbucks for free WiFi for ATT DSL customers like me.

Well there you have it, another toy but this one is highly useful and was definitely the right price ;-)

Why iLike my new iPad

2010-04-29T10:14:00.005-04:00

It has been a long time since my last post so just as a refresher on myself my day job consists of working for a leading Linux distribution and in my after-hours I write for an Android site. So I am not the typical Apple user much less a customer of a Version 1.0 device that obviously has little to no value, right? Please read on….

I will spare you countless user videos and multi-angle pictures since Google can find those for your viewing pleasure and just give an honest hands on review of my iPad after five days of use. From the moment I finally decided to get myself the iPad I had multiple conversations with myself about what I would do with such a middling device. I finally succumbed because I figured the worst I could do is end up returning it, pay the restocking fee, and get it out of my system and not look back. I showed up at the Apple store on a Friday afternoon and after waiting for what seemed like an eternity, received an arrival email Saturday morning (funny how something you never wanted or needed before suddenly becomes a must-have object of desire).

True to Apple’s process of putting you in a line to wait for your name to be called to be in another line, I was swept away by a very bubbly Apple rep and after going through the extended warranty pitch got my hands on my iPad. Again, true to Apple form, since this is not a “real” PC but an Apple peripheral device I did not even take it out of the box as it has to be activated by an iTunes account. Fine, I did that and powered it up for the first time.

What greeted me was little changed from my 2G iPhone and my bought-and-sold iPod Touch’s BUT the iPad is simply stunning because of its screen. It is much more touch sensitive than either of the former devices yet not excessive, it just goes when you go and moves when you move. The swiping between screens is not just fast but FAST. This thing moves. I see the genius of Apple not letting their “iP-X” devices run multiple processes, because if they did they would get bogged down by threads, apps that access old data over and over, and what’s more – the dreaded battery live. As an Android guy I don’t completely agree, but I do understand it. iBooks is nice to show off but I am still testing to see if it is a real viable option to a physical book. I suspect this is the future of print and I need to just quit resisting. Also, my introduction to the device cannot be discussed if the battery life is left out. I did not charge the device initially and it lasted the advertised ten hours at least, so Apple has definitely cracked the code for an “all day” device.

I proceeded to download my standard apps: TweetDeck, Netflix, ABC player, various radio apps, Skype, an HD KJV Bible and they all work just like on my iPhone. The TweetDeck, Netflix, Bible, and ABC apps are optimized for the iPad, whereas the other ones are still iPhone ready. Which means they take up the same screen real estate as an actual iPhone. No real problem here as they will be come iPad-ized soon but the 2x function leaves them highly pixelated and unsightly, but functional. The only real problem I have had so far is a stuck pixel to the left of center but I’m going to have Apple look at it this week so we’ll see. This past week I have taken my iPad everywhere. After a hard reset the fist day, I finally got my Gmail and work e-mail working and it’s very useful to use out and about as I have a portable WiFi device with unlimted 3G, so no ATT 3G version needed.

I downloaded several movies onto it and they look very good, in fact, they look better on the iPad than my full size PC’s and is my primary reason for purchase. The Netflix app is essentially a mobile Safari browser plug-in and not native but it plays movies over WiFi very well and over 3G just okay. So I agree whole-heartedly that the iPad is not a device for creativity but for consumption. And if this is kept in mind by the user then it does actually what it’s made for and then some. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Apple iPad case. As you can see by the images above it is very slim and it folds back on itself to give a decent angle when typing on a table top and/or your lap, and it can double as a stand, but only on very flat and stable surfaces or else it will topple over as it’s top heavy.

All in all, I am very happy and surprised that I have come to use the iPad almost as a primary device. It has taken the place of one HP Tablet PC 1100, Dell Mini 9 and 10 netbooks, Asus Eee PC 900, Acer dual-boot netbook, Lenovo Thinkpad, built home desktop, you get the idea. I am doing 90% of my computing now from the Ipad and my Motorola Droid so my actions have spoken louder than my words.

(I purposely left out the argument against Apple’s walled garden approach to developing software as 99% of iPad customers will not care or know how they get their software, only that they do).

One more shot with the obligatory keyboard.....

2009-09-10T14:25:00.003-04:00

But it's still all about the software....

Motorola Blur

2009-09-10T14:12:00.005-04:00

While I don't usually write about particular devices (other than my G1), I feel like I would like to comment about Motorola's new Android interface called "Blur". The form factor is nice but certainly nothing new here to crow about. It's all about the UE, user experience.

This interface will be the portal to social networking apps such as Facebook and Twitter and will simultaneously update your contacts as your contacts update their information, picture, etc.

Even more than before will the internet be seen as a platform and the desitination at the same time.

Sync or swim

2009-09-04T08:24:00.004-04:00

With apps in the cloud being all the rage right now just how feasible are applications that have zip codes in the ether? Very.

Especially, with the state of data connections, browser technology, and PC speeds. Web portals are the perfect clients for viewing and interacting with applications. And with FF3, Chrome, and Safari coming online with HTML5 and more sophisticated ways for Flash and AJAX to be viewed the time of the online application is here. Even more so with Google Gears making offline web applications possible, but I digress...

The browser is the only application that has to be opened if we could only use one for daily use. Can you get by without an e-mail client and/or an office suite? Of course. But try to go through one day without accessing any type of browser and you will quickly notice how important cloud/web/hosted apps are.

On the way to cloud nirvana like my son in the backseat always says, "Are we there yet?" Almost.....just a few more miles.

The force is strong with this one....

2009-08-27T07:35:00.004-04:00

This morning my son's Nintendo DS displayed the wrong time. At this time I tried to change it but I didn't have the first clue about the interface. After I told him about it, in about three steps he had the time changed and everything.

And with my experience of Win, Linux, Android, etc. in installing, root'ing, and changing OS capabilities and I couldn't figure out his portable game console.

Like father like son.

Open source wins again

2009-08-16T15:18:00.001-04:00

For what seems to be the hundredth time, I have been asked to "fix" one of my friend's computers. And each and every time it has more to do with the browser choice than the PC.

Since we are doing more on the internet with SaaS and cloud services our choice of internet browsers is more important than ever. This goes to show that browser functions are increasingly becoming more important than underlying OS capabilities.

By the way, FF is not better because it is free (so is IE 8), but because it is developed on open source frameworks.

Sent from my wireless device

2009-08-11T14:47:00.001-04:00

I am seeing more and more e-mail sent from wirelessly but why must we announce this by adding these tacky status signatures? As more and more convergence becomes pervasive among more devices there will be no need for this.

If you are working you are working. Period. No matter the format of the platform. Let us all just send e-mail, blog, text and call from wherever no matter.

Full disclosure: I submitted this entry from my T-Mobile G1.

Sent from my wireless Android device. ;-)

Jumping the shark

2009-07-30T11:03:00.002-04:00

With this whole Web 2.0 noise I believe in the mobile computing space we have just leapfrogged 2.0 and have gone straight to v3. I am done waiting for Flash for Android/iPhone/WinMo. We just need to get over having this for a portable device where connectivity and battery power are paramount. HTML and other web technologies can give us more than we need in GWT to satisfy our web-app desires.

Mobile browsing is the only way that most people get on the web. And that will only go up as people stop buying land lines and personal computers and do more from their mobile internet device (MID).

Today's iPhones and similar devices are already pervasive...just imagine what the mobile computing market will look like in five years.

Brave New World

2009-07-28T11:52:00.003-04:00

This past week, I decided to take the plunge and buy another G1 to root and play with. After taking it home and carefully following the instructions I had a fully root'ed G1 with WiFi tethering that turns it into a wireless hotspot and an IPSEC VPN client.

The latter is what truly turned it to an enterprise phone along with the new Work E-mail app that gives Android native Exchange capabilities. Well after making short work of that G1 it was quickly sold to a friend of mine who is a TMO fan and just happened to need a new phone the next day. So being armed with my new knowledge of jailbroken G1's, I promptly bought a new white one from my local T-Mobile retail store.

Now it's fully rooted and I can now use it to its full potential. Android is quickly proving itself among the large WSP's that it is a force with which to be recokened. It will soon be pervasive on high-end and low-end handsets alike on ATT, Verizon, TMO, Sprint, and Verizon. While iPhone is going gangbusters at just one provider it is just a proprietary phone, not a software platform. After Moto releases their version the market should be flush with even more HTC's not to mention Samsung and LG variants.

To me personally, the mobile space is shaping up to be most interesting place for high technology and looks to continue to be the hotbed for new ideas.

My G1. Amen!

2009-07-02T07:06:00.002-04:00

I was using my G1 (as usual) yesterday and I just wanted to testify what a great phone this has been. With my technology A.D.D. I find it very hard to keep one phone for long. I have owned a plethora of BlackBerries, the iPhone, WinMo devices, Palm Treo's, and many others. But I cannot seem to stop thinking about Android.

Now mind you, the G1 is certainly no beauty queen but Android is the reason I keep it. Had this device been running Windows Mobile or S60 I would not have even purchased it. I was reminded of this the other day when a friend of mine gave me his 1st-gen iPhone to modify and for a second I doubted myself for selling mine. Until, I tried to make a test call on it that is. After what seemed like forever I got a signal then I tried to type on it...no dice. I get my Apple fix with my iPod Touch running 3.0 and Skype and it makes calls much better than the iPhone.

But everytime I use my G1, even though I am aware of the hardware shortcomings and I am repeatedly amazed by the OS. From multi-tasking, smart RAM usage, and the interface it may be the phone of choice for me no matter the carrier. And to the people out there who are afraid of Google and their privacy issues while using a Google phone, get over it. Your information is already out in the ether and is only a "submit" click away.

So after eight months with T-Mobile's G1 the future is definitely bright for Android.

Evolution not Revolution

2009-07-02T06:49:00.003-04:00

A while back I wrote on the browser becoming the OS of tomorrow. Well, with the new version of FF3.5 with HTML5 built in we are getting closer to than ever before. This technology is the genesis of making 3rd party extensions such as Adobe Flash and MS Silverlight obsolete in the way of making audio/video accessible native in the browser framework.

As always, we as users are the recipients of this goodness that is manifested out of the competition between MS IE, Safari, Chrome, FF, and Opera. They are all market leaders in their respective technologies and are bringing us closer to the Web as a true cloud service.

We are not in the era of Software-as-a-Service but Service-as-a-Service. When Twitter, FB, and other platforms are being accessed via phones, netbooks, PC's, Mac's, etc. these services are all hardware and religion agnostic. They just run in the browser or are presented in wrappers that interface with it.

Since the cloud is the new mainframe we should expect more applications to run within the framework of the browser, and more computers to simply become portals.

Movie popcorn = proprietary software

2009-06-15T10:57:00.001-04:00

Today I read this great analogy that inspired the title of this entry. Why is this so? Once you enter the theater you are now part of a captive audience and are expected to part with your hard earned cash. Even in the days of BYOC (bring your own candy) to the movies you don't dare bring your own popcorn.

This is an example of how proprietary SW vendors get customers apart of their ecosystem and get them locked in. In the end it's a package deal. You can bring your own APIs and some tooling but the vast majority of the proprietary SW will be sold in the millions of dollars to customers who have bought their ticket at a theater near you.

Back to the netbook well

2009-06-12T08:40:00.003-04:00

This week I found a great deal on refurbished Acer Aspire One netbooks with WXP. Obviously, I prefer and use Linux over Windows but for certain purposes such as tethering and our oldest son needing an XP platform while away at college fits my needs. With all the hoopla of Windows 7 coming out I believe XP to be their best OS to date.

XP is great at PnP, USB support, and with the latest service pack is actually useable. But I will miss the almost instant on/off that Linux gives me but that's OK since I have four netbooks and and only half of them run XP.

The most incredible part is that I found these on TigerDirect for around $200 each for specs such as the ubiquitious Intel Atom proc, 120GB HD and 1GB RAM. That's pretty good horsepower considering I use to configure servers when I first started out with Pentium 180 Pro procs, 256MB RAM, and a single 2.5GB SCSi hard drive.

Moore's Law is alive and well....

And a little child shall lead them...

2009-06-04T10:06:00.007-04:00

As a piggyback off of Matt Asay's recent experience with various Linux distros on netbooks I too have a recent example with our middle son and Ubuntu.

The other day I came across a slightly used Asus Eee 900 netbook on Craigslist for around $125. I was looking for another one anyway for our high school age kids and I was specifically asked to get one with Linux and not XP. While we have both OSes in our house the PC's running Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 have quickly become the go-to devices for getting on the web. They are also much easier for me to manage and "deploy" in my home. No defragg'ing, anti-virus, or malware to worry about just make sure the browser can play Flash and java and we're off to the races.

They are just as comfortable in picking up my G1 running Android as they are using a PC with XP, Linux, etc. The key is the interface and how easy it is to get up and running and being productive. Operating systems now need to be "point and click" like an iPhone because that's the PC that our kids are now familiar with. Users are not interested with what's under the hood, just the 0-60 times.

Why Google wants Android to succeed

2009-05-26T06:32:00.002-04:00

After reading a recent online interview with CNET and Andy Rubin I now have a better understanding of Google's persistence with a mobile OS. Since Google aggregates, sorts, and serves up the data we are looking for on the WWW they are seeing themselves as the de facto gatekeeper of information.

Google's Android is a mobile enabler of information. If/when we cannot access information via traditional means of WiFi, wired, desktop,or otherwise then Android will be there for us on many mobile devices.

Since Android is free to OEM's and developers then it can be customized for many form factors as well. This is where the tipping point of Android will be, when the software dominates hardware development and the user is considered primary.

My daughter thinks open source is cool

2009-05-25T11:14:00.004-04:00

Being a Red Hat employee I have the pre-req SWAG at the house and it is commandeered by two youngest children as fast as I bring it home. So today I got my 5-year old daughter's play clothes out and after she was dressed she promptly told me that she wanted to wear her Red Hat tee.

After going through her dresser I finally found the one that she likes and coordinated it with her red shorts and her red Shadowman baseball cap. She actually thinks that this stuff is cool and mostly because she knows that I do too. While I sport the occasional Red Hat ballcap and/or t-shirt, I certainly do not wear these items in tandem.

Just goes to show that if this generation uses open source in moderation the next one will use it in excess.

Android 1.5 cupcake

2009-05-23T21:36:00.007-04:00

Finally! I couldn't wait for T-Mobile to send the update OTA. I grabbed it here. Anyway, after the initial reboots and navigation to see what all the fuss was about, I happily ran the battery down playing with the OS.

It honestly feels less like an update and more like a new OS. Here's what's new:

Onscreen keyboards for all applications that accept input
Portrait to landscape and vice versa in all apps except the home screen
More widget support that will enable developers to create cool stuff from the home screen
Some small changes to the GUI but not enough to change the user experience
Hopefully better battery life to come...we'll see.

It's truly too bad that this was not v1.0 but I understand because Android had to get into the marketplace first to see if it would be a player against iPhone and BlackBerry. It definitely is and it's only getting better. Android is not being rumored on multiple devices with as many form factors. It will not be constrained by a particular ISP or OEM. It is a viral mobile OS that is free and ready for prime time.

Now the hard part will be waiting for the donut update.....sigh.

I'm not a socialist, I just play one on the world wide web

2009-05-23T21:25:00.003-04:00

Even though, I am particularly conservative in my political thinking I find myself becoming more and more open in technological terms. This is come about with my exposure to open source development and business processes as well as web collaboration models (more to follow).

The WWW is a strange medium in that it has no ideology or principles. It simply is a means of transport for information, ideas, and commerce. But even more so than its predecessors radio and television. Sure all sorts of ideas are presented to us by these technologies but it is very hard for the average person to have a radio or TV show broadcast much less have it be successful. Enter the blogosphere. Obviously, many of us regard blogs as a way of expressing our thoughts and see them as an outlet wherewith we can make our voice heard and possibly heard by many.

The phenomenon of web collaboration is one that is making distributed people and work more centralized while at the same time lets us be decoupled from the herd. Even though, I work remotely I always feel apart of my team because we frequently call, e-mail, IM, and collaborate on the same work in real time.

The internet lets everyone be an individual contributor to a team while bringing attention to the real star of the show: the produced work.

Blast from the Past

2009-04-29T15:57:00.002-04:00

Back in the 1960's the Ma Bell telephone companies did not allow you to use your own telephone but made you rent one of theirs'. This was referred to as CPE (customer premise equipment) and you had to use their service with their CPE. That sounds pretty harsh but we are re-living the past with current wireless carriers.

Anyone with an iPhone has heard the term of "unlocked phone". This refers to a phone can be unlocked to run on carriers other than the one who sold us the phone. This practice is found in the old world of telecom, but how do we stop it today?

Wireless carriers need to figure out how to sell us one wireless plan and let devices share that one plan be it CDMA/3G/HSDPA just like we do on our home WiFi networks. We have one router and multiple "unlocked" devices can access it and share the bandwidth.

The carriers are just dump pipes, plumbing if you will. I personally do not find any value-add in ringtones and hosted picture albums. Just give me unlimited data without caps at a decent price that can be shared.

The Netbook Effect

2009-04-27T11:25:00.003-04:00

Speaking of the technology of good enough the notebook industry is now shifting to the two-year netbook market.

Enjoy....

Web 3.0

2009-04-21T10:19:00.001-04:00

The internet is the ultimate laboratory for cloud computing. Many of us use it every day without knowing or even caring where the data is stored or where the server lives. We just need it to be “on”. Availability being the name of the game.

The WWW is an active hive of thought, imagination, and even boredom. But what can it be from twenty years fro now. It has vastly evolved from the days of bulletin boards and text news groups. Now we have AJAX, Flash, and other web 2.0 technologies that is enabling interactive sessions with artificial intelligence with our marketing preferences so we can see ads that appeal to us only.

But a con to this movement is that isolation is growing exponentially between people and societies. Online communities are taking the place of reals ones that use to be created and maintained at churches, schools, and our workplaces.

What we need to do in this Facebook world that claims to make us more connected but we are replacing real relationships with virtual ones. We need to be making inroads to web 3.0 technologies to truly connect in unison.

Take me to your Leader

2009-04-17T10:06:00.001-04:00

Android has landed and it is not about the non-sexy T-Mobile G1 of which I am a proud owner, but it has more than enough mojo to make up for its clunkiness. This operating system is more than just mobile phones and even netbooks with said OS. It is about a shift in computing and creating mobile thin clients that access the "cloud".

Here is an example of usage: imagine a government mobile PC that access classified information. When they are stolen and/or lost it usually makes the national news of how much sensitive data it held and is now on the lam. But with a mobile thin client all of the apps live on a remote server yet has Web 2.0 native feel without the storage woes. So when these units are lost you just get a laptop that has a browser.

Android is already second to Apple in mobile browsing with 8% of the market and it was just introduced last October. This out of a field with Nokia Sybian OS, Windows Mobile, and various flavors of Samsung's mobile OS. But the major difference in Android's development model is that it is the only open source option in the litter.

So all in all, a very good showing for the little OS that can and all very early no less. Stay tuned for more Android goodness....

The technology of "good enough"

2009-03-18T09:40:00.005-04:00

Even more than ever technology is expected to work. Can it have all the shiny parts that get your immediate attention? Sure. But in mission critical (I'll let you decide) apps and anything connected to the internet we just want, no need our apps to work.

Just think about how dependent we are upon electronic mail. When e-mail goes down so do whole companies momentarily. This is an example of technology, that ten years ago was essential but today is the life blood of business. It also has not changed too much beyond Exchange, POP, and IMAP because it just works and is good enough to get the job done.

There is a niche for software, hardware, and all types of players who know what they do and do it very well. Companies have to ask themselves, "Do we want to make steak knives or butter?" then make the hard decisions. In these times markets need to be created and not followed.

My new Dell Mini 9

2009-03-04T05:53:00.004-05:00

After much thought then anticipation I finally broke down and purchased a shiny black Dell Mini 9. On President's Day Dell ran a $199 special for the base model with Ubuntu as the OS. The 4GB SSD hard drive was enough for me since I was upgrading from an Asus Eee 701 with very meager specifications. But I did order a 2GB DIMM to get the little laptot going with a little more oomph.

After receiving it yesterday and using it in the real world today and I am thoroughly impressed by the multimedia capabilities for movies and music. The sound is very good for even the base model. The Dellized instance of Ubuntu is very user friendly and I can see why many of the ones sold are the Linux ones. You don't need experience with command lines, terminals, or even repositories. The Dell/Ubuntu quick guide tells one how to be up and running in no time on wired or wireless Internet and the included software is very intuitive.

In fact, I have already taken a peek in Dell's Outlet and they have refurb'd units starting at $229. Even with XP as the OS that's a great deal.

e⋅con⋅o⋅mist /ɪˈkɒnəmɪst/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [i-kon-uh-mist] –noun 1. a specialist in economics. 2. Archaic. a thrifty or frugal

2009-03-02T17:04:00.009-05:00

Another historical day for the DJIA and this recession inches closer to a depression. Our policy makers are listening to economists who by their occupation are not entrepreneurs or business leaders so why oh why do they seem to have all the answers?

This past few months the liquidity has been literally stolen out of the private sector by our own government then force fed to companies that may or may not need the money. What can only follow now is the nationalization of top U.S. industries. If we thought we lagged behind the global economy before well we just took three giant steps backward:

1. The U.S. federal government is now the largest debt holder of American private industry.
2. There is no consumer confidence and therefore no trust in the marketplace for a bottom to be found anytime soon.
3. The American taxpayers are broke and have nothing more to give to this out-of-their-mind Congress and White House.

The mindset of "everybody for himself" is starting to set in and the answers are not found in politicians and spending bills. I pray one day soon, that Americans will turn back to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people will thrive again.

This is not a left or right, republican or democrat, or even a conservative or liberal issue. This is about what is right and wrong. And there is a whole lot of wrong going on....

Rise of the small machines

2009-02-23T08:48:00.002-05:00

I posted an earlier blog about Microsoft bringing XP out of an early retirement to fight the new wave of netbooks shipping with Linux. But the real story here is why everyday Americans who usually hold to the mantra of "bigger is better" are flocking to them in groves and made them one of the best selling tech products of 2008.

I read an interesting article this past week in Wired magazine with the following sentiments: Back in 2000 when our first child was due I went out and traded our trusty Subaru Legacy wagon in for a GMC 2500 HD (Heavy Duty) Suburban with a 454 V-8 that got 10mpg. What a great truck. It was huge, fast, and huge! But after driving it for awhile I quickly found out it was not good for the ole' daily commute and grind. Then some parts needed replacement and GMC thought very highly of its HD line and charged accordingly. It was all that we wanted but waaaay more than we needed. It was soon traded in and replaced by a much smaller and economical Mazda MPV van when gas was going out of sight at $1.50/gallon. ;-)

This is like the new fifteen and seventeen inch wide screen portable desktops that are available at the local electronics store with dual-core processors and 4GB of RAM that can double as small enterprise servers in a pinch. They are not good for daily commuting either unless your idea of light is a 7 or 8lb. anchor in your bag. Well, what is quickly being discovered that most of the time spent on a portable PC is mostly made of web surfing, social networking, and e-mail. All of which can be accomplished by a sub-$500 netbook with a 4GB SSD, 512MB RAM, etc.

While I'm not stumping for everyone to have small, portable laptots I am advocating spending within our budgets and understanding what the PC is exactly used for then purchase for the individual purposes instead of the one-size-fits-all big box store recommendations.

And this back-to-basics mentality is just right for this new economy.

Gather 'round the PC kids, let's see what's on the WWW tonight....

2009-02-18T09:02:00.005-05:00

Last year I almost purchased the DVR service and receiver from Dish Network but after a shocking call with Dish I decided against it because of all the fees heaped upon loyal customers who want more service. Alas, I did downgrade my service to the lowly Family package that has programming geared towards the G-rating scale, but I have recently been watching more and more TV over my 6mb Internet connection.

We have a 42" plasma screen in our living room that is connected to a satellite receiver and it has a VGA connection to a free standing laptop that has WiFi access. We can now watch television shows and movies anytime we want on Hulu.com and various corporate sites such as NBC and CBS. Since it can be viewed in full screen and in 720p it is even better quality than if I watched via satellite.

So other than saving some money I utilized my existing Internet connection even more. And that is good all around.

Lions, Tigers, and Firefox oh my!

2009-02-17T07:21:00.001-05:00

As my FF extensions were updated this morning I was reminded on how increasingly applications are being accessed by us on the WWW. Given that more and more apps are exposed to web services and being accessed by legacy apps the browser is becoming even more of a services portal.

Today's browsers are customizable with extensions that do everything from removing ads to filling in forms. And this is just the beginning. We're only a few years into the Web 2.0 phase after the dot com bubble burst and it seems there is no slowing down. The phenomenon of social networking will push the envelope even further in the near future.

Just more proof that tomorrow's OS is today's browser.

The gospel according to Android

2009-02-14T10:31:00.002-05:00

This past week my partner in crime at Red Hat finally saw the light and converted to the faith of Android. Like me he was a longtime user of BlackBerry, but when he neared the end of his contract I talked up the only available open source smartphone on the market: the T-Mobile G1 (Google One).

Being RHT employees we already understand the value of an open operating system that doesn't have to be jailbroken only rooted. And we get all the goodness of Google apps, funding, and innovation that come along with the privilege of membership.

Domo arigato Mr. Roboto.

Happily sent from my G1

Cheap PC's are en vogue. Thank you Linux.

2009-02-13T09:13:00.005-05:00

While Moore's Law marches on for processors and consumer electronics most Americans are opting for technology that's "so last year". But Linux is the OS at the forefront making netbooks affordable and keeping Microsoft at bay by forcing them to offer XP on comparable offerings. If/when Windows 7 debuts it will already be well behind the curve for a portable operating system and will come in several flavors that will probably make most consumers scratch their heads with confusion.

This new emergence of low-end computers is made possible by running Linux. This allows PC's to run as little as 2GB and 4B SSD hard drives, 512MB, and 900mHz processors. Most PC's with those specs and other operating systems with bloatware/antivirus/customer service add-ons would not even boot much less run seamlessly all day accessing full versions of Java, Flash, and Silverlight web apps.

My 2yr old Asus Eee 701 PC is still running strong with minimal specs and it just keeps going and going and going and going.....

JBoss virtual show with real customers

2009-02-12T12:24:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I was able to participate in JBoss' first virtual tradeshow dubbed JBoss Virtual Experience. Sometimes I get so involved in my own day-to-day working with Dell I forget that we at Red Hat have great buzz for JBoss.

There were many success stories of how our customers are kicking costs out of their IT budget and using more and more open source components in their infrastructure. The worse this economy gets there will be even more scrutiny on every dollar spent and weighing wants versus needs. And open source companies like Red Hat will be happy to lend a helping hand.

I was proud to be a part of the conference and enjoyed all of the sessions I could attend. It is gratifying to see all of Red Hat's hard work come to fruition.

Ciao iPhone

2009-02-08T15:39:00.005-05:00

After what has certainly been a love/hate relationship I bid farewell to my first generation iPhone. If all goes right tomorrow I will be selling it to a happy owner that I found on Craig's List.

I am the first to admit that Apple hit a home run with the iPhone interface and form factor but I quickly grew tired of its numerous shortcomings. No need to list because they are all over the WWW but I found to be the iPhone the worst mobile phone I have ever owned for voice use.

I have had numerous free (read carried subsidized phones) that outshone the Apple in most areas. Most of the iPhone's features were on my first Palm III and HandSpring Treo phone. No, what makes the iPhone special is the AppStore and the mobile internet experience but certainly for the phone capability. My G1 has push e-mail, a full QWERTY physical keyboard, can run multiple apps in the background, MMS, copy/paste, a removable battery, a non-crashing-once-every-five-minutes web browser, and to boot it's open source.

Maybe Apple should have called it the iMobile or iWeb. But iPhone?

Dell gets Linux!

2009-02-08T06:29:00.004-05:00

I came across the above post when I was looking for Dell Mini 9 reviews specifically running Ubuntu Ultra Mobile Edition. I currently run UME on one of my laptops but the Dell Mini runs a customized version of the interface that proves if the GUI is slick and the OS is as stable as Windows it can have a future.

Even though Dell usually gets negative press for their support and lack of quality they deserve props for building a quality netbook with a choice between Linux and Windows.

The BarakBerry

2009-02-02T11:35:00.004-05:00

Oh the scuttlebutt and speculation over the new Prez's BlackBerry usage! Based on the nature of his communication for national security and such I was surprised at his adamant demand for it. Basically, he won't take no for an answer.

This is usually enlightening but in this case it just looks foolish. There is already too much information on too many servers and this is the most powerful person in the global economy and our political environment.

With the recent press of MP3 players and mobile phones being purchased on eBay with classified U.S. Army contact info; I wonder what would happen if Obama ever lost or has his Berry stolen. Would the American public even be notified or would it just show up on Craig's List unidentified? I guess we'll never know.

Does Linux really have a chance?

2009-02-02T06:10:00.001-05:00

There seems to be an evolution in the IT space where system integration is migrating to browser integration. Therefore the browser is the new application platform. When this happens the platform operating system will have less import because the application will not be native but in the cloud.

Enter Linux. Think of this is as the second coming mainframe technology. Applications being available through web portals though instead of emulators. Eventually users will be able to access their application no matter what code it was written in and the OS will need to be the following: CHEAP, fast, secure, standards based, and open source (if possible).

I can think of quite a few that fit the above description.

Close but no cigar Microsoft

2009-02-01T20:53:00.006-05:00

The WWW and the blogosphere is alive with positive reviews of Microsoft Windows 7 beta running on everything from smartphones to netbooks. The biggest contributor of this is the failure of Vista. The OS that was summarily dismissed by major OEM's and home consumers alike. In fact, Microsoft extended XP support and use just to make people happy, not something they are accustomed to doing.

This is akin to asking Pontiac if any other car sold better than the ill-fated Aztek.

W7 is almost the service pack that Vista should have been but it is likely a marketing reason since a name change was in order but Microsoft is use to doing this as well, i.e. the Millennium debacle.

They are actually listening to their users and their community by making a light weight OS that can run on a computer that is not spec'd out like a WoW gaming rig. But here's where they fall short, they will still only sell one OS at a time and not support all versions for a seven year life cycle. Can you imagine if Microsoft open sourced their bits and adopted a subscription model like the enterprise Linux distros? No more legal threats and "Dark Side" like mentality towards their customers, just good software where people and companies would gladly pay for support.

And that my friend, is precisely why I work for Red Hat.

TGIF

2009-01-30T08:49:00.004-05:00

Given all the recent press on our economy and the state of the state and just before the GDP numbers are revealed to abysmal results I find myself being more thankful than ever.

I not only enjoy working at Red Hat but I believe I am apart of something much bigger than myself and that is Choice. We help individuals and enterprises endeavor to have choices when it comes to software, services, and the financing of those products.

I am grateful for the support my wife and children give me when they try to speak to me during work hours not knowing that I have a wireless headset in the other ear taking making and taking calls all day. And it is great knowing that the family understands that I am working for them as much as anything else.

Even with day-to-day annoyances there is much more given to me than I am giving back. I am happy to be part of a family/community/church/country/employer where each individual can make a difference for the greater Good.

One more....

2009-01-20T13:06:00.002-05:00

And this has nothing to do with digerati anything other than the modern F1 race car is the most technologically advanced automobile on the planet.

T-Mobile ad in the UK

2009-01-19T14:38:00.004-05:00

I am an ardent customer and supporter and T-Mobile and thought this commercial was innovative and refreshing:

Open source conversation

2009-01-16T12:09:00.009-05:00

Pretty cool that I had the opportunity to talk with one of the associate pastors at my church this morning about the difference between Internet Explorer and Firefox. He had some issues with IE and I recommended that he download and try FF. He had never used it and he had it up and running with imported bookmarks and all in about five minutes.

Just because there is no charge for either browser doesn't mean it is free. Trust me, if you've ever gotten a Trojan Horse or any other worm virus via IE it is NOT free. There is a lot of pain and suffering that happens to you and your PC.

We also talked about the difference between a monolithic, proprietary license company and a volunteer community centered around the interest and desire for good software.

This is the foundation for any group based on open-source/religious/social/hobbyist community: love. And when you love something you set it free.

Stairway to heaven

2009-01-13T06:58:00.013-05:00

Given the dearth of new articles coming out after the new year two in particular caught my attention: Peak of the Netbook (Engadget) and Death of SOA (Google it). Here are some reasons why I believe that this is not true and why these two technologies are symbiotic.

The acronym may be dead but Service Oriented Architecture is alive and well. More and more enterprises and customer facing companies are moving their business to the web and are utilizing common messaging platforms to communicate to multiple applications, platforms, and databases. The applications are being fronted with web interfaces so that they can be formatted for the new wave of mobile internet devices (MID's) whether they be iPhones, netbooks, etc. I have before stated that the browser is our new OS and given that reason more and more data can be offloaded to the SaaS app and it keeps its state in the data center and not on your PC.

Netbooks are getting more RAM, processor speed, and hard drive space but my current Eee 701 only has a 630Mhz processor, 512MB and 4GB SSD and yet I can access any and all websites that I need for e-mail and occupational hazards. Even with these puny specs I am able to "git'er done" because the applications do not live on my PC, but live in Zimbra hosted e-mail, Salesforce.com, Facebook, Google...

So how do companies get to the data heavens? What is their stairway?
- Build an application that can be written in a web language then interconnect.
- Virtualize when you can, early and often.
- Have a common messaging bus that can communicate to all internal apps then let them talk to the internet and live on the web.
- Understand that your apps will be accessed by customers and companies who are on the go.
- Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Virtual Reality

2009-01-08T17:14:00.007-05:00

Here is an example of cloud computing versus onboard sync'd storage:

My T-Mobile G1 wirelessly synchronizes with my Gmail, Google Calendar and Contacts AND receives OTA updates as needed. My iPhone needs to be hard wired sync'd with one particular laptop with its' iTunes profile for back-ups, sync's, restoration, and OS upgrades. So my G1 and Google services are more available to me than when I update information on my iPhone. Because just the iPhone is updated but not my Google services. Here is where the cloud comes into the picture.

For me, the winner is the G1. As more and more of us become mobile and use our browsers as miniature operating systems utilizing AJAX, Java, and the SaaS model we will be plugging more and more into virtual computing clouds to get our data and needing less native storage on our interface devices. Whether I use Gmail on my PC, G1, or any other device I could care less WHERE Google's servers are just that they are available.

This short tutorial gives a good understanding of how and why cloud computing is valuable:

Way back in 1998 in the 20th century at Compaq Computer we were told by vendors like EMC that one day we would have virtual storage that could be added on as simple as plugging into an electric wall socket. Well my friends, we're almost there. The Enterprise space is already doing this by virtualizing the operating systems then the applications for high availability and the virt data is being homogenized into a storage cloud that can be accessed by web API's and used anywhere a browser is available.

Today's workforce is increasingly more distributed and remote than ever before and the data we need usually come in two transports: e-mail and the world wide web. The new netbook phenomena along with new mobile internet devices (MID) like the iPhone, G1, BlackBerries, and every other new smartphone coming out has turned us into constant consumers of information.

Whether it be constant Facebook updates, Google Reader, or VPN'd corporate e-mail we all need our fix.

Multiplicity

2008-12-10T09:05:00.007-05:00

Mobile computing choices are increasingly becoming more like trying to purchase a pair of shoes. When I go to the store with my kids to buy their plethora of athletic shoes I need to know what what sport with which they will be used: basketball, softball, or football? Each type of shoe has a unique purpose in order to do its job well. For example, I wouldn't buy them metal spiked cleats for the gym floor so why do I see MANY air travelers literally lugging around 17-inch desktop replacements as mobile laptops?

Now I know what you're thinking, it costs a lot of money to purchase multiple PC's for specific uses. Not really.

Here's how I did it:
- Purchased a slightly used Asus Eee 701 7-inch netbook from a disappointed user from Craig's List for very little because he thought it too small for daily use. Paid $300.
- Bought a 1st generation iPhone from a buddy of mine when he told me that was upgrading to the new 3G version. I unlocked and jailbroke this unit the first day I had it. I now use it on T-Mobile and it runs on WiFi with my trusty ATT login at all McDonald's, most airports, and all Starbucks. Paid $125.
- A work provided Dell 12-inch D410 laptop.
- And lastly upgraded my Blackberry Curve to the T-Mobile G1 running Google's open source mobile platform, Android. Upgrade fee $175.

So for the price of mid-range laptop I now have three separate units for a total of $600. The above mobile computers are particularly adapted for traveling and/or remote users. So now, I too have a "shoe" for every playing surface.

WMD's

2008-11-12T14:19:00.001-05:00

We are not being destroyed from falling bombs but by rapidly falling bonds and markets. It seems as if there is no force, coalition, or government that can correct this situation. Open source is not relevant in this matter as a development idealogy but one for transparency. Anything done in openness is inherently better and consequently side agreements and secret conversations are bourne out of hypocrisy within the context of struggles for power.

The new super powers are now truly The Super Markets on the global stage. And the more we understand that we are interconnected and interwoven than ever before we can see how complicated the problems are as civilizations and not just individual countries.

Open source and Globalization are the two newest 800 pound gorillas in the room.

Open Source = Updates

2008-11-10T14:13:00.003-05:00

As I sit here with my 4-day old T-Mobile G1 phone I am most struck by the updates, i.e. early and often. Even though, to me, it is a converged device of my iPhone and BlackBerry Curve and even with relevant hardware it is still the software, stupid. While my trusty Curve only had one OS update this whole year it still made me plug it into a PC via USB and download, backup, and restore. Ditto for my unlocked, jailbroken iPhone now running 2.1.

But on Saturday morning I received a message on my phone telling me that an OS upgrade/update was already available and even better - it was delivered OTA (over the air) without any PC and USB cable needed. Now to be fair it was shipped with RC28 and this update was for RC30 but for a new OS this is pretty cool.

Now for the kicker....the G1 runs on Google's new Android platform that is open source and the SDK is readily available for any who want to write apps/code/fixes. Sooooo that means that the software can be written by a community of developers instead of a proprietary group within a single company (no matter how large) it will never be bigger than a global community of rabid fans.

How can voting be made more secure and exact?

2008-11-04T06:37:00.002-05:00

Open source the machines and the application. Anytime there is a proprietary way of doing something it can always be hacked or changed to serve someone else. If the technology community designed the tools we use to vote they would already have inherent weaknesses patched in development. Instead there is one or three companies manufacturers out there who test and re-test the equipment then it is release into the wild and they are exposed to the real world.

Yesterday my wife asked me why we can't hold voting online. Hmmm, something to think about. Funny how we can buy stocks online, watch our 401k, order our clothes and even post our most private thoughts in online blogs and journals. But the world wide web has not been used for voting. We Americans stand in line for iPhones, Star Wars movies, and for delayed airplanes but for voting? It seems so old-fashioned. Maybe in the not too distant future the fundamentals of open source can be used in the development of voting machinery and quite possibly the voting process. Sort of sounds like a representative form of government with a majority rule, does it not?

2 much 411

2008-09-19T11:38:00.002-04:00

Lately, I have been trying to read all of the blogs and feeds that I am subscribed to and am beginning to think it's all for naught.

Technology is definitely moving too fast for any one person to keep up with in light of products, speeds and feeds, and how to's.

I for one will do a better job of unplugging and enjoy real face-to-face communication instead of IM's, em's, and webcasts.

Google goes live with Android

2008-09-17T11:19:00.003-04:00

In a few short weeks T-Mobile will introduce the new phone boasting Google's Android open source platform for mobile phones. Even though, it will be a start to the "Android" phone it will be revolutionary in that it is all about the applications for this phone.

Google is banking that developers will be the life's blood for Android's stack and API's. I own both an iPhone and a BlackBerry Curve and while both of these devices have their respective advantages, hopefully one day we will have a mobile unit that will act both like a UMPC and a phone but without compromises in either. But for now I travel with the before mentioned phones and my trusty Eee 701 laptot.

Until then....

Today's Browsers are tomorrow's Operating System

2008-09-09T11:46:00.005-04:00

As we get more and more competitive features from Mozilla FF, MS IE8, Opera, and now Google's Chrome the lines between application and the WWW are getting blurrier and blurrier.

When I first started in the hardware business over ten years ago the emphasis was on local process power, RAM, and hard drive capacity. While those are still concerns of a current PC buyer the new "need for speed" is the bandwidth capacity. DSL, cable, fiber, and T1's are all ubiquitous so we just want it faster and cheaper. So what has this done to the modern OS? Not much actually, it has just created more and more applications that live on the world wide web. Oh sure, local PC operating systems will still be utilized for availability and virtualization for managing resources but as more and more applications are written as Rich Internet Applications (RIA), then so too will browsers be equipped for Silverstream, Flash, Java, etc. right off the showroom floor.

The dominant player for Software As A Service (SaaS) is Google and they have gone so far as to create their own browser framework for Google Docs, Gmail, and the like. Even though Microsoft still has the largest market share with IE the other smaller niche open source browsers are quickly on the rise. More and more web users are becoming increasingly aware of security, spyware, and other risks that can break their web sessions, browsers, and even their computers.

In closing, the newest crop of browsers are just touching the hem of the garment of what developers have in mind for our near future personal and corporate applications.

Play ball!

Free is the new Black

2008-06-09T08:35:00.004-04:00

I am sure that most of you all out there have gotten "free" stuff for service. For example: free mobile phones, free dish satellites, etc. Well, if the sign says free then why do you have to sign a 1yr or 3yr contract to get your free-ness on?

Because none of it is free, it is just subsidized by the bloated service contract.

Open source software is never free. Even if the developers let you download it from the web for no charge their energy, and effort went into it to create it.

When I talk to freetards who think that OSS is free I try to remind them while the distribution may be, the support is most certainly not. This past week Amazon.com was down and the global outage cost to Jeff Bezos was $31,000/minute and $16,000/minute for North America. They use OSS in their infrastructure but it was internal and external support that got them back up and running and not freeware.

You know what they say...time is money.

BYO(OS)

2008-05-19T14:35:00.011-04:00

So here I am, a proud new owner of an Asus 4G 701 Eee PC. It is a 7" laptop that is about the same size as a travel DVD player. It has a full keyboard, three USB 2.0 ports, ethernet, VGA out, and a Kensington lock when needed. I have been using it for about three weeks and other than my latest BlackBerry Curve and iPod it is possibly the greatest tech buy I have ever made.

It allows me to be online at any given time (with WiFi availability) and is the size of a hardback book but it's not just the portability that is special about it. I'll give you a hint. It runs Linux. While there is an XP version and others have installed Windows on the Linux versions there is no way I'd even entertain it. Even if I didn't work at Red Hat.

This operating system lets me do anything I want to do while not getting in my way. No de-fragging, no anti-virus, no spyware, and NO multiple rebooting after software is downloaded and/or removed. This open source operating system that is written and maintained by a Linux community is perfectly ubiquitous and transparent all at the same time. The value I find is that this PC is a true tool that I can use and not spend most of my time maintaining and protecting it from the big bad WWW.

Open Source: 1, Proprietary: 0

When is open source like Starbucks?

2008-04-16T08:13:00.004-04:00

When there is a premium placed on customization. This morning I am getting some work done in a local SBUX waiting for traffic to die down and I see a stream of people willing to come in and pay two to three times the price for a cup of coffee from the competitor across the street. Why is that? Customization.

I watched a special that featured SBUX on television the other night and their VP of Brand stated that there are 80,000 possible combinations of coffee using their standard menu. Starbucks understands that people will pay a premium to get exactly what they want.

This can be applied to open source software where the premium isn't always a financial one. It could be the investment you have to make in your IT force to educate them in other lines of software or understanding that your IT services need to change in order to better server the organization as a whole.

Companies will not only pay more for better service but they will do so gladly. What they resent though are sky-high fees for licenses, maintenance, insurance, proprietary audits, and the like; and then being asked by those same software companies to sign on the the line which is dotted for another three years.

The open source companies are here today and are open for business.

You want extra whip on that?

The world is flat but business is vertical

2008-04-03T10:40:00.003-04:00

When it comes to solving large enterprise IT problems we typically offer solutions for the usual suspects: Healthcare, Financial Services, Oil/Gas, and Telecom. If we offer software, services, and training to fix problems then why do we do this in silos? I am sure that most industries face the same exact issues: speed of transaction, security of transaction, and getting more out of less.

Instead of selling to vertical markets we need to sell general solutions for specific needs. If in fact open source is the preference for innovation then we can use this new arrow in our quiver to REALLY understand our customer's needs and adapt our software to them while at the same time turning them from just a customer to an open source contributor.

Customers want to hire and do business with problem solvers and not transactional order takers.

When good Globalization goes bad.

2008-04-01T09:41:00.004-04:00

As more and more financial institutions write off losses in the billions I listen for culpability in the marketplace and I am still not sure how we got in the perceived mess we're in. It sounds as if the basic rule of Economics 101 was grossly violated: do not buy more than you can afford. But therein lies the engine of a free market: borrowing and lending.

But it is now much more complicated because the proverbial pebble in the water has now caused ripples to manifest themselves in nasty ways in China, the Euro's, and all other large investors (read owners) of the U.S.A. It now seems that some of our largest corporations can now be bought "on the cheap".

So now what happens on Wall Street not only affects Main Street but now the transatlantic waterway...

Will work for open source

2008-03-17T13:07:00.005-04:00

Just in case you didn't know I am employed by Red Hat as a partner manager for the Dell Americas account. I happen to believe that RHT has a handle on the open source market in many regards, but even more than before after returning home from my company's annual sales meeting this past week.

I was emboldened by our renewed JBoss message and the ultimate flexibility of Linux Automation. We are doing many "firsts" in the industry but we are now truly staking our claim as the 'defining technology company of the 21st century'. This year holds much excitement for me; as we and the new CEO, Jim Whitehurst, move forward to evangelize the open source development model as well as feeding the subscription business model.

The competition is still there but I feel privileged to be a Red Hatter at this moment in time.

Mobile

2008-03-03T18:34:00.001-05:00

Often when I work remotely I tell my co-workers that I'm "mobile". Think about it. Nowadays many of us are mobile. On my way to work I see women putting on mascara, men talking on a phone, and steering with one knee with a cheese burger in the other hand. People are TCOB'ing and closing million deals in traffic. We are getting too consumed with doing too much while on the go.

"Hello, my name is Sam and I am an addict". I do waaaaay too much at one time and it constantly corrodes my quality of work but I just can't stop. Not with my BlackBerry on my side and my tri-booted laptop in my bag and ideas rattlling around.

So what's the point here? Not much ... Just wanted to get some things off my chest. Gotta go and answer e-mail, talk on the phone...
---
Sam Herren
sent from BlackBerry
http://cultofdigerati.blogspot.com/
404.641.4700

Novell to buy maker of restroom hygiene systems?

2008-02-27T09:15:00.008-05:00

That's what I thought after seeing the following article this morning:
http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUSN2741685820080227

I was reading too quickly as usual but until I realized it was Newell and not Novell I wasn't even surprised. Novell has been on a buying spree lately to ensure their place in open source history to remain relevant, but I didn't think that buying hand washers would help sell more Linux!

Modernity is good

2008-02-25T22:26:00.002-05:00

It is 10:25 pm and I am in our kid's school parking lot waiting for my oldest daughter to get back from playing an away softball game. I am listening to the newest Crackberry podcast on my iPod and uploading this blog on my BlackBerry. I worked from a hair salon this afternoon on free WiFi whilst my wife had her hair cut. With power cords, Bluetooth and WiFi devices in tow I carry batteries to back up batteries.

Today's technology is a godsend in the way it can make us all more productive (or at least look like it). I assume if am doing all I am to do more I also wonder what my customers are doing with JBoss, RHEL, and other open source software they are rolling on their own. IT departments are doing more today in order to stay ahead and make profits versus spending them.

Just like kindergarten....it's better to share.

2008-02-25T16:57:00.001-05:00

When you think of technology what comes to you mind? Personal computers, filament lightbulbs, the automobile assembly line? The past one-hundred years have been the most progressive in the history of mankind yet there is still so much to do and learn. How about open source software (I will commonly refer to this as OSS), do you think of this global phenomenon as a trend that can truly change the way companies and people think of their software applications? I do, and hopefully after reading this article you will too.

OSS is the term for any software that can be distributed with any number of BSD, GPL, LGPL, etc. licenses and the source code can be viewable as well as changed. A community of developers and users then become supporters of the software to form an open source community for any number of OSS projects/products. The inherent power of OSS is that it is changeable by its users. This is a clean break from proprietary software vendors who sell you a monolithic package with a license-to-use (LTU) purchase. While these companies are not necessarily bad or evil what they do their customers is certainly an injustice. With proprietary software you are at the mercy of the company and its closed band of developers. If you purchase an operating system that limits your ability to be productive and you cannot change said operating system to serve you it is holding up production. Here lies the power of OSS! With OSS you are able to change the software to serve your needs and not the other way around.
Whether it is an operating system, middleware, or an application development platform if it is open sourced there is transparency and collaboration. A community who rallies around ANYTHING is essentially a fan base whether be a football team or an application system and sometimes these feelings can be as strong as a religion. These large communities greatly enhance the speed of development because instead of a finite number of developers working for Big Software what we have with OSS is literally thousands of people who are available to write and check code. Acceleration is also the name of the game when it comes to getting a product out on time. Imagine if you will a concept car going from development to production and the design team only has ten people who are designing and building the car. Even though this happens often, how much longer do you think it will take this auto to get to the showroom versus having a thousand people design and build it? Exactly.

OSS is about empowerment and change. These are both powerful motivations for customers who consider their application environments as a means to an end - not the end result. Today's software architectures are very complex with many different avenues for connection, serviceability, and execution. Recently, there has been a new way to build enterprise software structures with service-oriented architecture (SOA). At the its most base form SOA is a way to allow the service executables to be shared by applications like resource pooling. If your applications can share process management or transaction firing without being written into the program it can run in an outer silo and not be tied to the application. Thus the services can be modular and reusable allowing for the applications to be lighter and the services to be shared across the enterprise.

For instance, if you have application "A" that calculates employee benefits from payroll and application "B" deducts state tax they can both use the same business process management (BPM) and rules engine that tell both applications to get employee info and social security number. This is a simple illustration but since this intelligence is not written into the application it allows the core services to do focus on primary functions while allowing BPM and rules to be used and reused by both applications.

Just like in kindergarten...it's better to share.