Google Apps Engine

In case you haven't heard, Google has just released it's new Google App Engine, which is basically a way to run your own applications on Google infrastructure. When I first read about this I was literally shaking just thinking about the implications. Having built several application frameworks that enable regular folks to write extraordinary web applications it's clear to me that the implications of this technology go far beyond simple hosting - though that alone is awesome.

No, this is going to usher in a whole new world of technology. Google has once again taken something that most consider complex and out-of-reach for most people and have created a platform that I think many, many people will be able to take advantage of with ease.

Basically, you can write your web applications in the open source Python programming language and Google will host it for you... for free of course. If you haven't programmed in Python, now would be an EXCELLENT time to give it a try. It's been my favorite language for 10 years or so and though it's quite popular in it's own right, getting a nod like this from the big G doesn't hurt.

Once I have had a chance to play with Google Apps I will report back. It will no doubt have a significant impact on my company's own DataZoomer project so I am excited to see what's there and to begin to create what's possible in this new realm.

Smarter Applications : Part 1

Infrastructure is being reduced to a commodity. The network is a commodity. The operating system has now been comoditized. Applications are next. Specifically, server side applications. Why? Because it's easy to run server side applictions. They are zero foot print, scalable and cross platform - very compelling reasons. Also, with the help of the latest generation of application frameworks, it's easy, quick and inexpensive.

Once we have our key applications on the web, I think the desktop will be the next to fall.

Why are we still designing applications using the GUI and the WYSIWYG, the same way we have been doing for the past 25 years? Anyone who has actually used a modern word processor to create a document with embedded tables and images in it can tell you it's not because it works ( it doesnt ).

In a world where the browser is the personal computer, and storage and CPU resources are free and have essentially unlimited power there is probably a better way to develop software.

What will it be like when the desktop is irrelevant, computers are tiny and WiFi is ubiquitous? Hmm...

Licensing Costs

This article about the cost of unlicensed software use has left me wondering how commercial software will deal with unlicensed users. Specifically, will they treat them as "the enemy" as the commercial music industry seems to do on a regular basis? I doubt it, actually.

The software business has a lot more experience in dealing with the licensing of content than the music industry has, since everything the software business does is by definition digital. We have been through the copy protection schemes, the hardware dongles, the secret activation keys, and these have probably worked to some extent and the other thing they have done is helped fuel the open software movement.

Free and open software is important for many reasons social, political and practical but I think software licensing schemes like these, that make it a pain to use commercial software, that are at least partially responsible for users looking for alternatives, and free and open software is a pretty attractive alternative.

When you can get the software for free, without worrying about whether or not you are licensed properly, get free upgrades on a regular basis, have it supported by teams of people, and know that you can transfer it to any machines and use it forever at no cost... well, that seems like a much better option. The fact that's even more reliable and secure than the commercial alternative is gravy.

There is obviously a market for innovative commercial software, and happily some of that is still being produced, and some of it is even no cost!

But a lot of commercial software just offers the same old licensing, same big sticker price, same old promises, and a shiny new look... but putting lipstick on a pig doesn't change the fact that it's a pig.

Adventures in Ubuntu

I have been using Linux in my business and on my personal machines since 2002. In my business I have used it mostly for file and print serving, Apache services, database services and tunnelling services and for these things it's been amazingly stable and rewarding. In my personal life I have used it for file serving and to just play around and to have another desktop in the house for the kids and I to get comfortable with. What I have resisted though is actually using Linux as my main desktop. That is, until now.

This past year I purchased a new Dell M1330 Laptop. It's a beautifully designed small laptop that packs a big punch. It also came with Vista. After using Vista for nine months or so now, I am of the opinion that Vista represents one of the biggest opportunities for Linux on the desktop. Say no more.

Now, as some of you will know, I have been a software developer for years and I tend to write software that requires a lot of power - web sites, data management, data linkage, etc... In addition, most of my consultant work I write a lot and to generate spreadsheets and diagrams for people to document and explain complex concepts, AND, I tend to do a lot of software evaluation for clients. Ninety percent of that software is Microsoft software.

The other interesting thing that has been happening in software is virtualization. What Virtualization means is that I can set up virtual machines (whole computers in software that run inside the windows of other operating systems) that run specialized software, without having that software actually installed on my main (host) machine.

When I bought the M1330 I maxed out the RAM at 4GB because I knew I would be running virtual machines under Vista, and also purchased the largest, fastest hard drive for it because I hoped some day I would get virtual machine technology running under my favorite Linux OS, Ubuntu. Well, a few months ago, I managed to get that working, so now I had all of the pieces.

So, last week I finally decided, it's time. I have partitioned my drive on my main laptop that I use for daily work, and am now running Ubuntu as my main OS. And, since the machine is dual boot, I have Vista still available as needed for things like Word, Excel, Visio, etc..

The first thing I need to do is get everything running. The M1330 comes with a LOT of bells and whistles, and not all of them are supported out of the box, and some may not yet be supported at all. Over the next few weeks I will be going through each thing and hopefully getting it working. I will catalogue my adventures here and on the Ubuntu wiki site.

XO Arrival

I am writing this post on my new XO laptop. If you have been reading this blog you may know that a couple of months ago I took advantage of the opportunity to purchase a new XO laptop from the One Laptop Per Child project. Purchasing this laptop for myself and donating one to a child in a developing country was just too great of an opportunity to pass on.

So, my first impression?... WOW! This thing is cool. It's cute as a button but don't let the appearance fool you. This thing is running a great operating system and comes packed with cool software and the device itself is packed with hardware features.

Now the timing is not great for me because I am busy working on the upcoming release of DataZoomer, but I will write some more about this nifty device in the upcoming weeks.

Who knows you?

I wrote some time ago that who you know isn't nearly as important as "Who Knows You". Seth Godin wrote today about something else... "Who trusts you?"

So, if trust is important, it begs the question... what is it that has people trust other people? There are probably many factors that go into the formula of trust, people have written whole books about trust, but I would say there is one over arching principle that is the foundation of trust, the entry level from which all other trust factors are built and I can say it in one word.

Integrity

I could write a whole chapter on integrity because I have studied it in some depth and it has become such an integral (no pun intended) part of how I choose to live my life but in short, the definition of integrity I live by is: "Honouring Your Word".

When people know that they can count on my to walk my talk, to do what I said I would do, their level of trust goes up. This shows up numerous ways every day and I find that I have many opportunities every day to increase my level of trust ( or not ).

I also find that when people in my life don't do what they said they would do that my level of trust for them sometimes goes down depending on how they are about it. It doesn't mean that I love them less, or think less of them. I just means I trust them less. When translates into, I don't count on them as much and when they say something, I don't rely on the validity of what they say as much... in short, I don't make decisions for myself based on what they say.

Why is that important? Because human beings live in stories, we make decisions based on stories, and people who can tell stories well can influence other people and can in turn make a real difference for other poeple. And to be a good story teller, one that can make a difference, one whose stories are believed and can make a difference for others, people need to trust you. Because people listen to people they trust... people talk to people they trust and people do business with people they trust.

All things are transitory

Zen philosophy teaches that all things are transitory.

As human beings evolved our brains developed to take advantage of the slow rate of change relative to our lifespan. We talk of fear of change, like as if there is some alternative to change. Consider that the world we live in is constantly in change.

As I write this, the only thing I can think of that doesn't change, is information. The words that I am writing in this post will never change. The 1's and 0's that make up a digital photograph will never change. The notes that make up Beethoven's 5th will never change. But these are not "things" in the strictest sense of the word. The physical manifestations of them (a printed page, a printed photo, the musical score) are subject to change.

The experience of "no change" is something that we make up, something that our mind makes up. It is a survival mechanism. If I am alive now, then if I keep doing what I am doing, I will stay alive.

Password Resets for Dead People

Does anyone else see what's wrong with those new website password reset schemes where they ask you a half a dozen questions like, "What's your favorite food?", "What's your favorite car?", etc..?

Umm... what if I change my mind about what's my favorite? The only time I expect to stop changing my mind about things is when I am dead.

Seriously, what this amounts to is now having six extra passwords that I have to memorize, any three of which can be thrown at me at any time and they are all based on criteria that is changing.

The worst part is, the site that I just used where this happened ( an partners extranet portal of a major software company ), automatically expires my password every three months!

Ouch.

This makes the site basically unusable to me.

Too bad. I am sure they put a lot of work into the rest of their site.

Free Radiohead

I know it's been a few weeks now since it's release but I have something to say about the new music distribution experiment being conducted by Radiohead.

I like the album. I want to buy it. But when I went to the site to pay for it... the site asked me for a bunch of personal information.... my question is, why?

That information grab was actually enough to prevent me from buying it. In an age where giving someone your personal information can result in spam, junk mail, annoying phone calls, or even contribute to identity fraud, etc... I am fairly careful about where and when I give out my info and I am certainly not willing to give it out for the right to purchase some music. I don't give it to the local record store so why would I give it to Radiohead? I wouldn't, and so I won't enjoy that album and my willingness to support "free" music ( as in freedom ) will not be counted by this experiment. Hmm.... too bad.

Well, when someone finally releases free music, I am willing and ready to pay for it.

It will happen.

Honouring Teenagers

I was in a meeting with someone the other day who said talked about how their 17 year old child was so annoying to live with. Apparently this child is rude, messy, bossy, selfish, knows everything, has no consideration for others... is annoying. Then they went on to say, "She's a typical teenager. The're so disrespectful these days."

It struck me how simple it is for people to write off a whole segment of the population to justify the behaviour of their one child and avoid responsibility for how that child operates in the world. The message is, 'it's not anything to do with my child... all teenagers are like that".

I couldn't agree less. It's been my experience that teenagers are wonderful amazing people and I value the relationships that I have with so many of them (including the teenager in question above). In fact, I don't know a single teenager that fits the above description, and yet sometimes we adults paint this segment of the population with this brush. Unfortunately, this sort of lore, like the slams against racial segments tends to stick and be used by people looking for a way to be right.

I am tired of hearing how bad teenagers are. I say let's stop talking about "the way teenagers are" and just treat them like people... like we would want to be treated.

My friend Dar wrote about this very thing over a year ago. I missed it since I didn't know she had a blog at that time. I do now.

Thanks for tweaking my memory Dar.

Brightnets vs. Darknets

This is a great little bit of technology that's sure to disrupt the vectoralists.

Dell to offer Linux as alternative to Windows

This article from Reuters Business News reports that Dell is considering offering GNU/Linux as an alternative to Windows on it's personal computers. Of course this is great news for free software.

I think there are at least three major factors that will make this a huge success.

1) The price will be lower. Dell doesn't report how much of the purchase price goes toward Vista when you purchase a new Dell computer but it's probably not as low as say Ubuntu with a price of $0. And, for lots of users, price can easily be the deciding factor. No doubt, Dell will offer direct or third party support which will incur a price, but it will be an option.

2) The barrier will be lower. Right now, if the average mom and pop wants to run GNU/Linux on their computer there are a multitude of options and although it's dead easy to install, there's not much reason to because Windows is already installed. The switch from Windows to GNU/Linux is complicated by the fact that the user has usually already created documents and folders and they often have no idea how to move that data over to a new OS. Unless they have a kid who is a geek, the barrier to switching is pretty high. If, however, the OS comes preinstalled and mom and pop just start working with the new GNU/Linux box and creating their documents there... no problem. And, in fact, there would then be a barrier to switch back to windows, for the same reason.

3) No viruses. PC users can join the MAC crowd enjoying virus free operation of their PC. Security with GNU/Linux is just so much higher that there's no need for anti virus software and all of the complications and expense that goes with that.

4) Okay, I said three but here's one more. It's good for you. This is just a hunch, but I think in the near future the coolness of GNU/Linux will play a factor. It's like it's the environmentally friendly OS and with all of the polished distros like Ubuntu now available it really is a pleasure to use.

Your Word

Your word is the single most powerful tool you have to generate the results you want in your life.

You can either honour your word, through thoughtful communication, being clear and straight, doing what you said you would do, and cleaning it up when you don't, OR, you can blurt out what ever thought enters your head, waste peoples time with nonsense, make promises and not keep them, and when you don't... pretend the promise didn't happen.

Honouring your word gives your word power. When people know they can count on you they treat you differently, they trust you, things can happen at a much higher velocity.

And, that's not even the best part. When you honour your word, you trust yourself more, you count on yourself more, you start to get a sense of what's possible through communication alone.

Seth Godin recently wrote Seth's Blog: Precision in language short riff about a writer's use of language. It's not that the writer is wrong, or bad, it's just that it's a waste of time. It doesn't move the conversation forward. And that's just not as powerful as it could be.

Sony Mylo

Imagine being able to head down to the local convenience store and pick up a commodity web browser / communicator. It will cost less than $50 so you will be able to upgrade fairly often. If you lose it, it's no big deal because it doesn't actually hold any data. Your data is all safely stored on the net, at gmail, Skype, Flickr or DataZoomer.

If you want to give your device to a friend, no problem. If you want to share one with other family members, no problem. It's basically a the modern version of what we used to call a 'dumb terminal'. After 30+ years of viruses, spyware, blue screens of death and upgrade nightmares, it doesn't seem so dumb after all.

Now imagine that next generation WiFi is everywhere. And it's free. All metropolitan areas are covered as are most smaller towns. And, this dumb terminal, has software that allows you to communicate via the internet. Just like a telephone - but there's no phone. No phone bill.

It runs a basic set of communication applications, and that's it. You don't won't install applicaitons on the device because they're all available on the net - for free.

This futuristic scenario is getting much closer that some of us think.

Sony has had the PSP Game machine out for a few years and in my opinion, one of the most exciting features of this device is often ignorede. The thing has an awesome display and it can be used for browsing the web via a WiFi connection. Not only that but it also has a streaming media player that can play podcast feeds right off of the net. Pretty cool stuff and it's a few years old.

Well, here is something new from Sony. They call it the mylo personal communicator and get this... it does not have a cell phone! Instead, it has Skype. Very cool. It also plays mp3's, has 1 GB built in RAM, supports memory stick (natch), web browsing, email, chat, .... on and on... you can check out the link for yourselves but for me the idea of ditching the cell phone and using ubiquitous WiFi instead is just awesome.

It's not just about the money (although I do think cell phone rates are outrageous). It's about being held hostage by having your phone number locked, it's about contracts that cost a fortune to get out of and, it's about being nickel and dimed for every little feature for years.

WiFi phones are coming in lots of different shapes and sizes and companies like Sony, Apple and Nokia are getting on the WiFi bus because unlike most cell phone companies, they have a business models that don't have that nasty side effect where your customers end up not liking you.

Hard to say goodbye

Beware the free cell phone! I am tired of being held hostage by cell phone companies. Multi-year contracts, locked handsets and huge cancellation fees makes me very cautious about trying a new cell company but also leaves me choosing cell services like I sometimes choose who to vote for. I end up choosing the one that I think is least likely to steal from me than the others.

Imagine what would happen if a cell phone company came in with unlocked phones and no contracts. Just pay us for the service we provide. Oh, and bring your own handset if you want or we'll sell you one that is yours to keep, for a reasonable profit. Oh, and if you want to stop, no problem, just let us know. We hope to have the opportunity to serve you again some day. Thank you for your business.

Seth's riff (Hard to say goodbye) about companies that make it hard to leave is right on. Companies aren't taking into account the opportunity cost of holding their existing customers hostage.

Sadly, it may take a disruptive technology (SIP over WiFi anyone?) to break free of the stranglehold.

LogMeIn

If you do any remote control, helping friends and family with their Windows based computers or if you do tech support remotely you owe it to yourself to check out LogMeIn Remote Access and Desktop Control Software for your PC. It works great, has a very light footprint and makes connecting to remote PC effortless. Not only that, there is a Firefox plug-in that you can install at your end that makes it even more seamless. Check it out.

Competing Business Models

Twit.tv pointed me to this article about Himachi, a peer to peer VPN system which was aquired by LogMeIn.

I like the concept of Himachi a lot but was hoping that it would go open source. Keeping it closed however made it a more likely target for a buyout.

Many of the companies using a 'software as a service' business model keep the software that drives their service proprietary, giving them a competitive edge and providing a barrier to entry. So, although much of the proprietary software that we run on our own computers is becoming obsolete, the software that powers 'software as a service' is far from obsolete and is usually far from open.

It's also interesting that in most cases these proprietary systems are implemented with open source software.

One of the most compelling reasons to use Open Source software is the quality of the code, especially when it comes to security feautures, which is why I thought Himachi offering, was ultimately doomed. I wouldn't run it or recommend it because it was proprietary and for that reason I wasn't confident that it wouldn't be vulnerable to hackers. The fact that it wasn't open source became a barrier.

So, open source is very compelling as a way to get your project noticed and used, but, if you are writing software that you ultimately want someone to "aquire" then proprietary still has a lot of appeal.

Open Source in Government

I have been an advocate of using open source software for govenment for several years. So far, little progress has been made. Large software corporations still tend to dominate in this arena. A recent article, Open standards group to beat Microsoft at its own game, talks of part of the struggle that is in progress to create more open and free (as in freedom) software options for the public sector in their software choices. I would love to see more software being used and supported financially by government.

Why are we throwing away millions and millions of dollars on plans, requirements and specifications for software that never sees the light of day? Why aren't we spending some of that money on open source development? Because the game of selling mega software (failures) is way too lucrative.

Some traditional IT managers insist on banning open source software from their IT shops.

Why? Because it's unreliable? I don't think so. Because it's not robust? Nope. Because it's a security risk? Wrong again. It's good enough for google, Yahoo, IBM, so why not the IT manager?

Because it's free.

• Free software developers probably aren't going to throw a nice big dinner party for you in every major city in the country.
  
• Free software developers aren't going to come and schmooze you over a nice lunch.
  
• Free doesn't require a multi-million dollar budget.
  
• Free doesn't satisfy the ego.
  
• Free isn't as much fun.
  

But, what traditional IT managers conveniently ignore is that if they are doing anything with the internet, they are already using free open source software.

Free software works. And that's why it's successful.

The binders that are produced are impressive... but I, for one, would much rather have my tax dollars spent on supporting software that works.

Gmail mobile client

After reading this article , I decided to give the Gmail mobile client a try. Seriously, there are not many bits of software I would install on my phone but since this is from Google, and Gmail is so amazing, I just had to give it a try, and... it doesn't disappoint. This is a seriously cool little application.

I am running it on my Sony Ericsson W810i (which is a phone that you should check out if you are in the market, BTW) and it's fast and has some great features like shortcuts for search and compose. It also seems incredibly fast. I am guessing they download a bunch of stuff at once, although it doesn't seem to take very long to connect. No doubt that usual mail clients on phones don't optimize for packet size so you get lots of little chucky mostly empty packets.

Anyway, it was painless and easy and worked right away. I will let you know if I still like it in a few weeks.

Are you really ready for more?

I am currently reading Ready for Anything by David Allen. In chapter 11, titled The deeper the channel, the greater the flow, David talks about how sometimes when an opportunity comes up for us, we get a little internal danger signal, like a tiny little "uh oh" feeling from inside.

Most of us say we want more business, more clients, more money, more responsibility, more fun, more time. But do we really? He says that because we have this subconscious resistance we actually miss a lot of opportunities for these things we say we want. Why? Because what we want is only a part of what is considered when we choose what to do. When some part of us isn't prepared to handle the opportunities that are presented to us, we resist them and we let them slip by, unrecognized, or even when we do recognize them we push them away in subtle ways. Are we really prepared to recieve the things we say we want? We are often defeated by our concern of what will happen if we actually take on one of these opportunties. I say get prepared for success. Find out what's keeping you from recognizing these opportunities for what they are and deal with it. Are you not paying yourself enough? Do you have too much overhead? Are there issues in your relationships with others that need to be resolved? Deal with them because to see these opportunities for what they are, you have you have to stop stopping yourself. Allen advises, take a risk, and do what you need to do to get back to eagerly anticipating the ringing of your bell. I couldn't agree more. Life's to short to be afraid of your phone ringing.