Author: dlambert

I turned on the Today show this morning, and Jim Louderback was doing a little bit where he compared devices of a few years ago to those we have today. He looked at early PCs, laptops, and so on.

Since I've seen Jim speak before (going back to the 90's -- yikes!), I was a little disappointed in the content. He seemed to really be trying to tone it down for the crowd this morning, which may have gone over a little better with some of the crowd.

The best part of the interview, though, was him trying to demonstrate a Lenovo convertible laptop / tablet PC. He started with the laptop opened up normally, then showed how it converted into a tablet, and then demonstrated the touch capabilities. He was standing above and behind the tablet, though, so he really wasn't too nimble with the handwriting. The best he could manage was to scribble on the tablet from behind, explaining that you can draw "circles and stuff."

Not really a big leap forward for public awareness of tablet PCs.

I'd have thought he'd have been further off to grab a remote desktop view of the tablet on another PC and pipe that view directly into the video feed so the show could cut to that view while he wrote. It would have been nice to see a real demonstration of the capabilities of the tablet, but we'll have to wait until next time.

MyBlogLog

I was trolling for some help on a particularly infuriating MS Team System problem (more on that later...), and stumbled upon a site by David Findley. David's got some great stuff on this site - here's a short list of useful items that grabbed my eye during a quick sweep.

• Using IronPython for Dynamic Expressions. As an architect, it's always interesting to see unique solutions to ever-present dynamic code problems. This one's pretty slick.
• Suggestions for distributing CTPs as VirtualPC images. As you know, I'm a huge fan of VM's, so anything about virtualization catches my eye. David's got a couple really good points in here, and he also made reference to a VM utility I'd never heard of: Invirtus VM optimizer -- a tool that claims to be able to shrink VM images substantially. These guys also make a VM converter to help with P2V and V2V conversions. Pretty neat.
• Team Explorer available for FREE !?!. Of course, Team Explorer doesn't get you too much without a server, but read David's article, and you'll learn about a code-sharing site that uses Team Explorer to connect developers. Also, very cool.
• My portable thumb drive toolbox as of May 2006. A pretty good list of run-from-a-stick tools.

There's more, of course, but you'll have to go read yourself to see the whole list.

My recommendation: add this feed to your RSS reader, pronto, so you never miss another gem.

Oh, yeah - the problem I was having with Team System? Turns out you can't do unit testing on a build server that only has MS Build installed on it. Team System for Developers or Team System for Testers will do the trick, but of course, those are an arm and a leg for a license. It looks like it's possible to add just the testing capabilities using the Team System install.

I ran into this last week when I tried to get a standalone load test to run on one of our servers, and it turns out it needed all kinds of MS assemblies in order to run. I'll try fixing up our build machine for this and see whether I can get it to go. As so often seems to be the case, I feel like I'm assembling my own setup on the fly, and I'm really not sure what the licensing implications are for this.

I honestly don't understand how MS expects people to use Team System -- do they believe people are going to run their builds on the Team Server? On developers' machines? How else does it make sense that the easiest way to get a full install of build machine files is to install an IDE or Team Server???

Sigh.

David's blog was really good, though. -g-

I just saw an interesting blog called Instigatorblog, where Ben Yoskovitz has asked readers what they learned in 2006. Although I normally consider myself more of a forward-looking person, this question grabbed my attention a little bit because it's been an eventful year for me.

In January, I was still running a development department for a Business Rules Engine company called Resolution EBS. The original meaning of "EBS" has been lost to history, but for purposes of this discussion, we can assume it meant "Energetic But Sunk", because we were rapidly taking on water.

The first thing I learned, then, was what happens to a company when it dies. I'd been through buy-outs and mergers, but I'd never seen a company just close its doors. We wound inexorably toward that end, and in May, the doors closed for the last time.

The next day, I learned how to file for unemployment. Sigh.

Then, I learned how to conduct a job search. A real job search. I attended a couple meetings of a group called 40 Plus, where the 40, by the way, is intended to be the number of hours you expend on your job search every week, but which sadly also corresponded to the ages of the members. I learned a few things there, but concluded that there were probably better places for me to spend my time.

I started to do some serious networking, which turned out to be a lot of work. I scared up a bunch of leads and started chasing them down. Quickly, it became clear that I was working a sales process, and I was doing it with post-it notes all over my desktop. So I set up SugarCRM and started using it for my job search (read more about this in SugarCRM for Job Search Management - Part 1 and Part 2).

Of course, I ended up getting a new job - I'm an Applications Architect for a local consulting firm, and things are going ok. While the sense of adventure is a bit diminished, so is the drama of seeing your employer exist month-to-month, and that's not a bad thing!

Through it all, I've also learned a bit more about social networking. I'd heard of services like LinkedIn and participated on sites like Joel on Software, but hadn't really appreciated how these services can help build communities. Today, I add sites like MyBlogLog to the list, and I also recognize the role of individuals like Ben.

Thanks to all, and here's to a prosperous 2007!

As I scanned my RSS feeds today, I came across one that I found absolutely astonishing.

It wasn't astonishing because of the content of the story as much as for the context. The story is about cell phone chargers. The astonishing part is who's showing leadership, and how they're going to get away with it, and why nobody else was able to make this happen before.As I scanned my RSS feeds today, I came across one that I found absolutely astonishing.

It wasn't astonishing because of the content of the story as much as for the context. The story is about cell phone chargers. The astonishing part is who's showing leadership, and how they're going to get away with it, and why nobody else was able to make this happen before.
As I scanned my RSS feeds today, I came across one that I found absolutely astonishing.

It wasn't astonishing because of the content of the story as much as for the context. The story is about cell phone chargers. The astonishing part is who's showing leadership, and how they're going to get away with it, and why nobody else was able to make this happen before.As I scanned my RSS feeds today, I came across one that I found absolutely astonishing.

It wasn't astonishing because of the content of the story as much as for the context. The story is about cell phone chargers. The astonishing part is who's showing leadership, and how they're going to get away with it, and why nobody else was able to make this happen before.

The article (China to Phone Makers: Get Your Chargers Straight) pretty short and to the point. In short, China is mandating that all cell phone switch to a USB connection for their chargers.

Shoot. That was easy, wasn't it?

The really interesting part of the story, in my opinion, is the study in market forces this provides. Consider where this market has been. Proprietary networks, proprietary phones (not to mention locked phones), proprietary accessories and software. The closets of the world are testaments to the fragmentation of this market -- everyone who's old enough to have lived through a few cell phone contracts has a collection of gadgets and accessories, most of which don't fit any phone they still own, but all of which are kept around "just in case".

China comes along and says, "Rubbish. Fix it, or get out of our market."

So how many manufacturers, exactly, do you think are going to punt on the largest market in the world? Is there really any question?

Why didn't this happen earlier, either through market forces or by another country's legislation? Here are some possibilities:

• Self-interest. The cell phone manufacturers and providers probably like the status quo just fine, since these accessories are sold at an obscene markup. Why would they want to change?
• The market is often sadly inefficient at settling such things. VHS vs. Betamax. Competing cellular technologies. WiFi (b / g / n / etc.). HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray.
• Other governments just don't seem to be in the business of legislating things that are this sensible. Ok, I guess that's not fair. Truth be told, I'd rather have a government stand aside and let the market fix things than step in and get it wrong, which would surely happen a fair amount of the time.

When I read this story, I was really reminded of Wal-Mart's recent moves to slash prescription drug costs. Here's another example of a Gorilla making policy stick. Wal-Mart, of course, isn't a government, but they're close enough to make no practical difference. Again, the problem they addressed was one that we as Americans had every reason to expect our government to solve, but they couldn't get the job done. Wal-Mart steps up the plate, and in a very short timeframe, they make a huge difference to millions of consumers directly by serving them, and indirectly by making every other pharmacy deal with this new market force.

Pretty amazing.

Anybody else? How about Microsoft in the early days of PC's? Don't get me wrong - I'm no fan of some of their recent moves, but make no mistake: the PC would never have taken off so quickly without a Gorilla leading the market. Wal-Mart made a market earlier with RFID -- not as dramatic, but certainly no less impactful.

Failures? You bet. Take Sony and Betamax. Probably Sony and Blu-ray. If you don't have enough chips to force the hand, don't go all-in.

Most of us will never be in a position to "make" a market, nor to create a standard by declaring, "I deem it thus!" -- so what are the implications of these dynamics for us little people?

• Recognize when these moves happen. In most cases, this is hard to miss. Wal-Mart making a move on prescription drug prices was big news all over.
• Recognize when someone's trying to force an issue that they can't sustain. This is trickier, but it can keep you from betting on a losing horse.
• Watch for a market that's ripe for someone to make a move like this. Look at health care records today. Quicken's working on a product to open up these records for management and analysis by real people -- will that start the revolution that this industry so badly needs?

Years ago, as I was swearing at the PL-SQL on my monitor, I declared that if I ever understood how Oracle managed to achieve market dominance, I'd know a lot more about how markets worked. This is another one of those moments.

I'm sorry to have to do this, but I'm restricting comments for a bit. I've had problems with someone posting a bunch of spam in comments, and I'm afraid I can't stop it without locking the comments down a bit. If you're for real, send me an email and I'll assign your login comment rights. In the mean time, I'm going to look at switching the site over to Drupal. Among the attractions there is a bayesian comment scrubber that's supposed to combat exactly the kind of crap I'm running into.

For some reason, this just doesn't hold the same charm, does it? (Congratulations anyway!)

Quick tip - if you're trying to get up to speed on Visual Studio Team System, MS has a great little lab available to let you take a self-paced guided tour on a live, hosted Team System box. Really a nice way to see the sights. I've found this is also helpful when introducing new team members to VSTS -- "Go take the 30-min tour, and then we'll talk about how we use VSTS on our project."

Here's the link

There's a guy on a Channel9 forum who asked about people's experience with Microsoft OneCare. This is their AntiVirus / happy PC program, and I bought it a while back in large part because I liked the ability to install on up to three PC's. I'd been meaning to write up my experience for a while, and this gave me an excuse. Here's a link to the post on Channel9, and my response is quoted below.

---

I'm sure lots of people have had good experiences, but I'll share mine.

I bought a copy at a local retailer, took it home, and tried to install it. During the install, it asked me to uninstall my previous anti-virus program (this will become important later), and log onto Passport (I used the same acct I'm using now). OneCare then asked me to provide the validation key from the package. I did so, and OneCare told me the number was invalid.

So I get on the help line. And I wait. Finally, I speak to a tech who asks a bunch of questions and ends up saying, "sounds like a billing problem - let me transfer you (and by the way, here's a ticket number)."

I'm transferred to the billing department, and the first thing I do is give them my brand new incident number. "Oh, sorry - we can't use that number - we've got a different system here." The story of the cobbler and his shoes flashed through my mind, but I pressed on with this new guy. A few minutes later, after walking him through the whole problem, he says, "yeah, I think this is a tech support problem..."

"But no!," says I -- I just came from there, and this can't be right. Surely the two departments can get together and figure this out, right?

But they couldn't. I trade more calls over the course of a few days. At one point someone suggested I take the software back to the store and exchange it. Of course, I observed to them that there was no reason to believe there was anything wrong with the box at all -- the problem was the damned number printed on the box! I also pointed out to them that software retailers have a no-open-box-return policy.

It was at about this point that I started to get a little annoyed, not only because I had a box full of useless software, but because my PC was now unprotected, having had it's previous virus scanner uninstalled. I pointed this out to the people on the other end of the phone, resulting in lots of sympathetic hmmmm-ing, but not too much action.

So I asked again for these two departments to convene a summit and, in short, get their sh*t together. Please. "Get a plan, and give me a call."

"Fine. We'll have a manager give you a call." In the mean time, why don't you install the trial version - that'll keep you protected while we sort this out.

No manager ever called.

I installed the trial version, by the way, and it immediately started crashing my PC. Happened at least once a day.

After about two weeks of this crap, I uninstalled OneCare and put on a free antivirus program from AVG.

Of course, your mileage may vary. 🙂

"Welcome to the Social"

My reaction the first time I saw this slogan was not really positive. Several years ago, I moved to Ohio from a place where they speak English, and I've rarely gone a day without lamenting the sad state of the language here in the land of the Buckeye.One of the strangest experiences of my new citizenship was the strangely common practice of asking for "my social." Invariably, the interrogator was at the head of a line at a government agency or doctor's office. It took me a while to appreciate the efficiency of these workers; after all, if they'd taken the time to spit out "security number", too, I might still be waiting in line.

I saw Microsoft's new slogan, then, and immediately flashed back to my experience with those decidedly un-hip, non-technical queue processors, and I shuddered just a bit. I'm not sure I'm really ready to be part of the social.

After my cold sweat subsided, my next impression was that the social, whatever it was, sounded vaguely Borg-like. In understand, of course, that this is not the way Zune sharing is supposed to work, but we're talking about first impressions here, so I'm going to stick with mine. I don't want to be assimilated, either.

So, as far as I'm concerned, Microsoft's marketing department is 0-for-2. The popular consensus on the Zune seems to be that it's a 1.0 release, and Microsoft never gets 1.0 releases right, but they've got the sheer stubborn will to pour money into a losing fight until they finally get it right. I have to believe that the marketing message will improve in with future releases, too.