September 2007 Archives

It seems a new service is so eager to get people to join their community that they are scanning new users address book and spamming everyone in it with a invite.

At last count this morning I have received about a 100 invites from the service and quite frankly there is no way in the world I would use it now meanwhile mailing list and personal email accounts are being bombarded.

It appears that these actions are being forced on people so stay away from Quechup.com

Facebook is the current hot topic of the Web 2.0 scene. If you were
wondering why it has got so many industry analysts interest (aside
from the lawsuit, take a look at a recent article on
CNN Money.

It's a long article, but boils down to 3 points:

1 - Facebook allows people to earn money for their hobby applications,
and gives real developers a platform to reach a growing community.
This will attract many developers.

2 - There are two ways to make money. (a) provide a product (or
service) people will pay for. Or (b) gain an audience and market to
them.

3 - You need to understand your audience, what you offer to them, and
what method of monetization makes sense. The sooner in the process
the better.

The article does not mention any possible threats to Facebook, but
there is a big one. There is really no technical reasons that stop
another site offering the same thing they do. The head start Facebook
has means the users are already there which has a very powerful
network effect. This is not anything like complete protection as a shift in
hype, a serious technical outage or a security breach could quickly drive
users away. And there is still no true 'killer app' on Facebook yet, even
though Files may be getting close.

Sick as a dog but the show must go on. Recorded very early here in Hawaii today. Lots of great content regardless.

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I was looking at the web site of a new startup from India called NetAlter, they are creating a secure p2p application that they are touting as a possible new Internet.  A quick look to the right on their homepage shows the main reason this will not happen, the patents they hold mean this will be a closed environment.  You only need to look at AOL or MSN to see what the fate of a closed Internet is compared to an open one.  They will potentially have a market in the corporate sector for information exchange applications, but the idea raises an interesting question.

A potential solution to the bad facets of the Net (spam, phishing, worms, etc.) is to remove the anonymity.  The consequence is that it also removes some of the freedom of expression.  An Internet on which you are easily identifiable need not be a complete replacement of what we have now.  It could run in parallel, or on top of the existing Internet.  But would people actually use it?

Personally I would shop, bank, read news and research on an Internet with universal identification, but I would be reluctant to post to forums or interact with people I didn’t know RL.  How would your interaction with the Internet change if you couldn’t be at least partly anonymous?

For the past three years the consumption of Podcast audio and video media has continued to climb. Month-to-month tracking of the space in the past 30 plus months have seen a rapid rise in the consumption of content that unchains us from our personal computers.

All of this have been very plain to see and podcasting has become a household word.  Even Larry King on CNN talks about his Podcast. 

I have long complained that there was one thing missing from the space that would cause a tidal wave of new listeners. That tidal wave is now on the near horizon, and the company we have all been waiting for to join the party is about to in a big way.

That company of course is Microsoft, and thankfully they are finally going to join the party with Zune having full-fledged podcasting support. Then over a short period of time their other products like Xbox and Windows Media Player will have complete integration.

While it is not 100% clear what is being planned by Microsoft, I know that they have a project leader at Zune that gets it. So batten down the hatches, because when Microsoft brings podcasting to every Windows user in the world, there will be a second tidal wave of new listeners. The question is, will your data delivery network be prepared to handle it?

It is time that Apple was challenged and since they have all but abandoned the non-commercial content creator I firmly believe that Microsoft will have commercial content on one side of the fence and new media content on the other.

While Apple helped really expand the growth of podcasting with podcast support in iTunes in July 2005 they have done very little beyond that to help the space since then. In fact, I feel they have hurt the space more than they have helped it as it is nearly impossible for any non-commercial podcasters to break out. Their podcast directory is a sad state of affairs.

If rumors on the new iPod release today prove to be true then Dave’s assertion that Apple is “chickenshit” is so dead on the money that I applaud him for saying what a lot of us have been thinking about for a while now.

I think his Dear Apple quote at the end of the post is the crux of everything we are all wishing for.

“Dear Apple: Let it support wifi, let it connect directly to the Internet to get music and podcasts, and let's at least start to get rid of syncing as a way of life.”

Scripting.com

A group of prominent bloggers have proposed a bill of rights for users of the social web.  It is a very concise and focussed statement that accurately covers the issues most people would have regarding their personal information.  I have two uncertainties with this document though.

I admit that the first is slightly pedantic; I have a general issue with the overuse of the concept of ‘fundamental rights’.  There is no inherent obligation on web site owners to offer any specific freedoms to their users.  There are a set of laws to discourage or punish dishonest and corrupt actions.  And there is a set of requirements that their potential users have.  The closer they meet those requirements the more users they will attract.  The title is pretty catchy though, so I could live with it as long as the statements on entitlement and fundamental rights were removed.

Secondly, without an enforcement method this declaration will change little.  In fact its presence could be used by social web companies as a tool to deflect users concerns.  By claiming they meet the bill they can fool users who do not research the reality.  I think I have a way to address this by actually putting IP law to good use.

• Create a non-profit company, or use an existing one like EFF.
• Trademark the “bill of rights compliant” tag under the control of the non-profit.
• License that tag to social web sites that comply with the bill
• While the license would be at no, or very little charge, build penalties into it for breaches of the code.
• If sites use the tag without authorization sue them.
• If sites the license the tag wantonly break the code sue them.

It’s not perfect, but it would work well for controlling the large sites.  The document as it stands is a first draft and will undoubtedly change as it’s merits get debated.  It’s not bad for an opening gambit though.

If I were a aspiring programmer and wanted to make a lot of friends I would build a Podcatcher for the iPod Touch, here are the features I will pay an initial bounty of $1000.00 for when delivered!

Offer Expires October 15^th, 2007

• Open Source


• The ability to easily Install it on the iPod Touch


• The ability for podcasters to Bundle Pre-Built List


• The ability to import OPML files with Podcast Dir List


• The ability to clean up after itself after media is consumed


• The ability to resume downloads when looses connection


• The ability to play, stop, resume media


• The ability to one click subscribe to RSS feeds from the Browser


• The ability to set priority in feed polling


• The ability to navigate any media on device

There is a lot more that could be done. I have a $1000.00 bill to the person that builds a truly open podcatcher for the iPod Touch that the whole community can use!

While I am loath to talk about the most over-hyped product of the year, I was amazed that the news of Apple dropping $200 from the iPhone price only a couple of months after release.  I think my expectation was like others, that there would be extreme angst from all the people that had rushed to buy early.  In a fantastic example of cognitive dissonance though, there seems to be as many early adopters ok with this as not.

Engadget has a poll running on people reactions active.  At the time of posting, the ratio of early adopters that are ok vs annoyed is 48:52 (6504/6998).  Browsing through the comment stream, the comments from actual owners of iPhones are generally benign, the negative comments are almost all from non-owners.  I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t a bigger outcry.

It reinforced for me what a good marketing company Apple is.  Most companies know that there are a variety of price points that people are willing to pay for a product.  The final price is a compromise between profit per unit and number of units sold, as there can only be one price for a product.  Companies would love to have people who are willing to pay more do so, but reality and legislation generally prevent this.

New products always cost more and reduce over time as volume increases.  The main reason for this has more to do with cost than a direct attempt to gain higher profit from early adopters.  Apple has tuned their marketing to such a degree that they can inspire huge levels of desire in some consumers (no surprise there).  They can then price arbitrage over a very short period of time and essentially get away with it.  The only problem for them is they can only use that tactic sparingly, but with the level of pre-release hype for the iPhone, it is no wonder they tried it. 

Jason Hiner at TechRepublic has a great post on some of the home truths about working in the IT industry for those that are thinking of joining the profession.  Those of you like me who have been in the IT industry for some time will recognize how accurate this list is, and maybe raise a wry smile.

A career in IT is a lost of fun, but there are problems with any work place.

Sanity check: 10 dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT

We take a trip down history lane for show 300 which should prove to be entertaining and yet give everyone a perspective of how the show and activities within Podcasting has evolved.

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Instead of giving cash to a listener we are giving $500.00 to the American Red Cross.

Link to Full Show Notes

My team at RawVoice has been working with a Offshore development firm for some development jobs we out sourced, and they are about done with the current jobs we have for them.

The experience was ok but not great. In a previous post on this topic I was recommended a company from one of you, yet I have not been able to dig it out. If you have a company you have worked with offshore that has done good work and has good English skills I would really like a recommendation.

The next set of projects we have are going to need a bit of a higher experience level, and I need to engage them for 3-6 months. If you know a developer or are one we can use some more domestic help as well depending on skill sets, perfect for the person looking to make some extra cash before the upcoming holiday period ceo@rawvoice.com

I have been ignoring Vista as a possibility for my home.  My experiences with it at work and with firends and family that have used it have been frustrating.  From troubles with getting an ADSL modem working reliably, to the amount of resources the thing seemed to chew.  I was waiting for Vista SP1 before I even considered installing it on one of my home machines.  The latest news on SP1 though makes me rethink this timing as well.

Information week posted last week that SP1 may not offer much in the way of new functionality, being mostly tweaks and bug fixes.  Looking around I found a post on Windows Vista Blog that details what will make it to SP1.  This confirms that SP1 will be fixes (Reliabilty and Performance improvemets), tweaks (Admin experience improvements) and some more hardware support.

I think MS has realised that many people wait for SP1 before even considering using a new product.  Rather than add the new features that will make it a viable option, they look like they are getting an SP out and adoption up.  It looks like I might be waiting until SP2 before I consider Vista now.

Yesterday was my last true work day in the Navy, after 24 years of traveling the world over. I am now going to be spending a lot of time with my family, re-charging my batteries and at the same time working full time for RawVoice.

For the past 3 years I have juggled School, Job, Podcast, Blog and building RawVoice. While I will only be replacing one job with the other at least now I can put in 80 hours a week dedicated to RawVoice versus juggling both.

It’s going to be a fun and relaxing period and I look forward to being able to walk to the office.

VMWare has just announced its new version of ESX server, 3i.  They only mention, in the info out to date, that the new hypervisor “..is an extension of the hardware.”  This is actually much more geeky cool than it seems and represents a large step forward in virtualisation.  They are not the only company to have this, Xen is one example of open source embedded hypervisors which appear to do similar things to ESX 3i.  My purpose is not to compare virtualisation technology though.

Intel released its VT processors (VT standing for Virtualisation Technology) extensions about 2 years ago (AMD has similar AMD-V), but applications are only just starting to become mainstram that support it.  The problem with virtualisation has always been with ring 0 access to the processor.  If you are not familiar with priveledge rings, you can find a basic primer on Wikipedia.  Traditionally the hypervisor takes ring 0, which is the only level that can directly access hardware, forcing guest operating systems to operate at less privelaged levels.  Virtualisation engines have used various methods to get around this like emultation or binary translators.

Intel VT and AMD-V chips have a ring -1 that allow the software that controls the virtualisation to run in a special privelage level. This means guest operating systems can now directly access hardware without needing weird translations.  This reduces the complexity of virtualisation and opens the market for more players and faster developement.  But the real cool thing is the future possibilities this opens up for clustering.

If you can picture that a clustered OS allows applications to grow across seperate machines.  The limitations on how that application can use the resources of that cluster is dependant on that application.  Because the level of clustering is at the OS, it is the next level that must know how to use it.  At the moment the ability to do cool things with clusters is often application specific.  If the clustering is moved down a level, to the hypervisor, then this gives greater scope for the OS to do cool things with clusters.  And the applications can transparently take advantage of them.  This wasn’t impossible with ‘old school’ virtualisation, but much harder.

While virtualisation to date has offered some benefits, the virtual machines have still been limited in size by the physical hardware.  The future of virtualisation is to expand beyond a single box.  Not only will it be possible to have many virtual servers on a single physical box, it will also be possible to have one virtual server on many phyical boxes, and anything in between.  In all these cases, once the resources are selected it is only a standard OS install that is required.  The new generation of hypervisors make this much easier to achieve.

This is a monster show with a huge number of listener comments that I had to get caught up. This show is packed end to end with good info.

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When Todd offered me the chance to post on the GNC blog my intention was to start without fanfare.  I hope to maintain the feel that we all love about GNC while helping to increase the content on the site.  If you are interested in finding out more about me my personal blog is at http://businessgeek.org.  My posts there generally involve the business and economic facets of technology, but I will occasionally cross link to posts there I think might be of interest to the GNC audience.

I have been reading some commentary on the recent law suit raised by CCIA alleging that some copyright holders are overstating their actual rights in their copyright notices.  While I am undecided on the merits of this case, it reminded me of how much copyright notices on DVDs really annoy me.  I hate getting a lecture for doing the right thing, I wouldn’t see the notice if I didn’t buy the DVD!  In reality these notices make little sense unless pirates actually buy DVDs.  This just reinforces the fact that copyright holders are making a mistake in fighting their own customers.

Everyone has gone stark raving mad over the fact that you can now unlock an iPhone and put a different SIM in it. Heck, there is a commercial hack and also a open source hack so even folks that are broke after buying the phone can now drop a T-Mobile SIM in and laugh all the way to the bank.

This is probably one of the reasons T-Mobile made some data rate changes. I am sure they are expecting a bunch of people with T-Mobile accounts to pull their SIMs out of their phones and drop them in a iPhone now.

I will be visiting a local Apple location tomorrow and picking me up a iPhone but you can bet that it will not remain locked for long.

The real question we have to ask is how over the top is AT&T going to go on this or will they get smart and make their data and phone plans compete with T-Mobile so that guys like me who have T-Mobile accounts would be more inclined to switch.

Heck I have three phones on my current T-Mobile plan with 2000 minutes a month airtime for under a $100.00 bucks for the lot. Don’t think that AT&T can compete with that. While I use Sprint for my EVDO service for my business both AT&T and T-Mobile cannot compete with Sprint over their superior data services.

While AT&T is sure to be upset and will go after sites legally this is a real win for Apple if they don’t get stupid and program the hacks out of the phone. I am sure their engineers are working on it though as AT&T wants some of that 5-year love they have been promised by the boys at Apple.

My bet? It will be a all out war for a while and while I could see some of us having to put our iPhones on Ebay it sure will be fun having a iPhone to show friends with the T-Mobile logo running on the phone. Engadget

If Google wants to really make Google Reader sizzle they can add RSS feeds to the Google Reader Search results.  I would like a RSS feeds for the searches I do on my own Google Reader feed list. This way I can subscribe to search results of the 1000 or so feeds I am subscribed to.

Hope that makes sense, it is really late here.

I upgraded to Office 2007 a few weeks ago and have decided that was a big mistake. I am now looking at pulling Office 2007 off the machine and downgrading to Office 2003.

I have a lot of email accounts and every time Outlook downloads mail my systems comes to a complete stand still. I can do nothing until it is finished. This is absolutely ridiculous.

I check mail every 15 minutes and it takes outlook at least 60 seconds to poll the 11 email accounts I have it check and during that time I cannot to anything. I have a pretty high end laptop with a gig of ram and it does no good.

I like the rules functionality in Outlook and have been hesitant to switch to another solution because of my high reliance on Google desktop search that helps me find email's amongst the thousands of email's.

The memory footprint has grown considerably as well on the program and while the machine has 1 gig of ram I see Outlook taking up at a minimum of 160 megs of ram at all times.

While downgrading is the last resort does anyone have any tweaks to improve performance?

Sun has been in trouble for a number of years.  While they make good product and have good services, the market and value of their core product has declined significantly in relation to Intel servers.  All of the Unix market has declined, but other players that had other businesses to prop the Unix segment up (notable IBM and HP) were able to cope better.  Sun’s strategy for a long time was to avoid caving in to commodity hardware and operating systems.  Java, N1 and thin client (to name a few) were strategies to drive the decision away from the platform where they could compete better.  As were strategic relationships with the likes of Oracle.  And Sun arguably did a better job than any other company in capatalising on the Internet boom, which cave them a significant war chest of money and customers.

Sun has been able to garner fantastic loyalty in its customer base, particularly amongst the technical bods.  Complexity of operation gives techo’s a huge investment in their knowledge and all important bragging rights with their peers.  Extremely high levels of service ensure the complexity does not hurt customers and ties Sun into the daily operations (which is future sales goodness).  And the mythos of the company made it geek cool, especially with the skill and antics of its demagogue leader, Scott McNealy, particularly the denigration of anything Windows.

With Sun announcing it is going to ship Windows servers all of these benefits are now gone.  The geek skill prestige of operating these servers is gone, the ability to over-service declines under cost pressure from HP, Acer and Dell, and Scott McNealy resigned a year ago.  Consider the cost of maintaining a processor that is now slower than a mid-range Intel; and also the cost of a proprietary Unix against Open Source alternatives.  These costs make Linux on Intel a good move, and this has been successful for Sun.  Windows probably seems like an economic good move, there is easy opportunity in their customer base.  It is very bad for the Brand though.

Another Monster show some great listener comments at the end of the show that you will not want to miss. Still fighting a horrible cough wife thinks it's time to see the doctor.

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Link to Extensive Show Notes

It is possibly a blogging faux-pas to link to a blog entry on another site that links back to an entry on this site.  Especially when I have written all 3 posts, but I expanded a little on my previous Sun post on BusinessGeek.  I have gone more in depth into the Brand equity implications and a basic financial analysis of Sun’s ability to compete.  If phrases like “Brand equity”, “Gross Margin” and “Cost of Sale” make you yawn reflexively, this article may not be your cup of tea.

The essential summary though, is that Sun are entering a market their company is not structurally able to handle.  The only way they can compete is to cut costs, which will impact negatively on their only remaining key differentiator in the market, post sales service.

Quite Literally my team at RawVoice has been burning the midnight oil to get two products into full production and out of Beta testing. As of very late tonight two new products have been put into full production.

Plus we were able to announce a new type of advertising campaign as well.

The product roll-outs and new advertising campaigns have been in work for a while and should prove to be fun to see how they work out. While I don’t want to talk very much about the new ad campaign I do want to talk about the two products.

First the RawVoice Statistics package has proven to scale as we expected it and we opened it up to nearly 2000 podcasters tonight. Secondly is a consolidated product were calling RawVoice Exchange it will be a modular system that will collect and distribute aggregated new media data.

The best part is that it will prove to be as valuable to the new media creators as it will the managers and media buyers that will eventually have access to aggregated data. We are in Phase 1 of 5 planned phases of development but the rest of it will come together pretty quick.

Great stuff an one heck of a lot of code has been written for sure. My team has been doing amazing work should be a fun Podcast and New Media Expo.

Ars Technica reports today that UPnP has been approved by the easy to remember ISO/IEC JTC 1 (International Standards Organization/International Electrotechnical Commission Joint Technical Committee 1 in case you were wondering) as an official standard.  As part of the article they discuss how Microsoft has addressed some of the “security flaws” that were in the original implementation.

While its good that the security flaws have been patched, I haven’t seen some of my other concerns addressed yet.  UPnP makes it easy for applications to set themselves up for Internet access, but this facility is available for all applications, bad and good.  If malicious code makes it onto your computer, a router will not necessarily stop it getting out to the Internet.  Whether this is spy-ware reporting back, or a trojan setting itself up to communicate with its swarm.

I expect that most of the GNC readers are like myself, and have enough IP experience to get by with UPnP disabled.  But when I have helped relatives and friends set up their systems, I have always had to weigh up the possibility of hostile programs accessing the Net, with the number of ‘support calls’ I would get if I disabled UPnP.

I don’t necessarily object to UPnP becoming a standard.  Especially if that means it will be more open to collaborative development.  What I hope is that some focus goes into making it more secure without compromising the usability.  If it is a standard, there could therefore be a standard challenge/response routine, so there is at least a warning if something is trying to open a port.  I am sure that there is probably more security on UPnP in Vista, but you know my feelings on that.

Well I understand why Sprint and Verizon are kicking the heck out of both AT&T and T-Mobile when it comes to connection speeds. This afternoon I had the chance to put AT&T and T-Mobile head to head on their respective Edge Networks with the iPhone.

Here in Hawaii it took my website about 43 seconds to load on T-Mobile Edge. It too AT&T 31 seconds to load my website. As compared to Sprint EVDO Rev A which took a total of 6 seconds.

What surprises me is that AT&T was so slow. I expected slow from T-Mobile but I was surprised that AT&T was not significantly faster than T-Mobile.

Now I am sure the AT&T folks are not happy that people are using T-Mobile with the iPhone but based on the reaction I am seeing from people when shown a iPhone running T-Mobile I think they will be facing some significant challenges. As unlocking the phone becomes more popular.

But again I remain completely un-impressed with the Edge network it is like living in the dark ages but hey Apple made their bed and now have to deal with it.

Ohh by the way if you need the APN for T-Mobile for your iPhone it is internet2.voicestream.com

Back to normal show lengths here. This show is packed from end to end and I talk a little bit about my iPhone unlocking experience and T-Mobile Edge Slowness

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There is a great video on YouTube explaining the downside of modern copyright law using the story of a very famous drum loop called the Amen Break.  The video is called Amen Brother.  It is 18 minutes long so be warned, but if you want to skip to the explanation of why current copyright law hurts the economy rather than encourages it, this part starts at 14:46.  If even that is too long I’ll provide a summary.

Prior to the ‘Sonny Bono’ act and subsequent extensions in 1998, it was generally possible to sample small sections of other artists work and re-interpret them, as long as there was substantial difference from the original, or the original artist did not complain that the work infringed on their copyright.  Music scenes like Hip Hop and Drum and Base, blossomed with the invention of the sampler, using snippets of existing music to build a new work.  These genre’s started with people mixing new tracks at home and playing them in clubs and the like, making little or no money.  With few exceptions, the new works, while borrowing from the original, where so radically different from it to be considered an original work of themselves.  If you listen to the video you will see how unless you were told there would be no way to associate some of the derivative tracks from the original 6–second drum break.  Both genre’s eventually grew into significant markets generating huge revenues.

Under todays laws any length of sample, regardless of how it is modified, must be credited and licensed.  While this does not matter to big Hip-Hop artists of today, it prevents any new backyard artists fro