« July 2006 | Main | September 2006 »
August 31, 2006
Blogging at Altiris
I gave a training session on blogging to Altiris employees yesterday. The PR department there is very progressive and is embracing blogging as a way of enhancing the conversation with their customers. I was very impressed with their attitude and excitement to get out in front of this. The session was well attended and had good executive support.
If you're interested in looking at my slides, here they are (PDF). If you'd like the audio to go with them, I'd be happy to come speak to your group. :-) In the meantime, I'm anxious to see some Altiris bloggers get going.
9:00 PM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
Stop Forgetting Attachments
Don't you hate when you send an email that should have an attachment and you forget to attach it? I've often wished my mail client could help me remember. I just found a plug-in for Apple's Mail.app mail client that does just that.
This plugin from James Eagan scans outgoing email key words like "attached," "attaching," and so on and warns you if there's no attachment. Cool.
11:00 AM | Comments (4) | Recommend This | Print This
August 28, 2006
Register for the DIDW IOS
If you're planning on attending the Identity Open Space on Sept 11 in Santa Clara, please take a minute and register. We need a good head count before we order lunch. We're perfectly happy to have you sign up late or even just show up on th 11th, but you'll be on your own for lunch. We've only scheduled 30 minutes for lunch, so that will be pretty tight.
If you're in the Bay Area and are planning to attend, you can help us keep costs low by bringing a projector. I've added a place at the bottom of the wiki to add your name if you can (drop be a note too, so I know). We probably need 4 or 5 projectors.
Remember that DIDW is happening right after the IOS event and IOS attendees get a discount on registration.
1:30 PM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
More on Mobile
I received lots of comments on my question about what mobile device to buy. I think the conclusion I draw from them is that there's no mobile device that does it all. I'd love to mix and match features and functionality from 3 or 4 devices.
Various folks wrote to tell me that they've given up on using these devices as modems for their laptops and just got an EVDO card. Bernard Goldbach wrote a blog post about his thoughts on this issue. There's a bounty of over $500 for anyone who comes up with a solution for tethering a Mac and an 8700. I hate that I have to pay for connectivity twice.
Another discovery is that many of these devices, even though they have Bluetooth, are poorly supported, or not supported at all by applications I've come to love like Salling Clicker and BluePhoneElite. I love having my phone and computer know about each other and interact.
In any event, I'm still mulling this over and looking at options.
9:36 AM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
August 26, 2006
Which Mobile Device Should I Buy?
I haven't used an organizer like a Palm since 2002. Once I no longer had someone else keeping my schedule, it was more convenient for me to keep the schedule in iCal on my laptop. The gadget freak in me has looked at Treos and Blackberrys and thought it would be neat to have one, but I've not wanted to carry around a phone as big as a boat anchor for the limited utility I'd get from the organizer functions.
Lately, however, the connectivity of these devices has led me to think I might be willing to carry one around. I increasingly want to be connected when I'm mobile and find a phone interface to be too limiting. I avoid going online just because I don't want to futz with the phone keys. I'm also using SMS more and more and, again, the phone interface just doesn't cut it. I have to admit that it was Dave Winer's announcement on news rivers that pushed me over the edge (no pun intended).
So, I may be ready to bit the bullet. The question is device should I buy?? I'm partial to the Blackberry just on looks, but I could live with a Treo if it's a better team player or has significantly better features or hardware. I want something that works well with a Mac, has Bluetooth, and can be used as a modem (preferably over Bluetooth) with my OS X laptop for network connectivity. I {d|w}on't use Exchange for email. I want a full keyboard, unless SureType is just so good I'll never know I'm not using a full keyboard. I'm using Cingular now, but would change carriers to get the right device.
Recommendations? Would I be happy with a Blackberry 8700? Has Cingular disabled any key features that I could get with another carrier? Should I get a Treo? I'm in no huge hurry, so if I should wait for a few months, I can do that too.
1:54 PM | Comments (34) | Recommend This | Print This
Silver Deodorant Status
Yesterday Delta notified me that I'm Silver Medallion status now. I used to be Gold every year, but since 2001 or so, I haven't flown as often as I once did. Now that you have to check a bag just to get your toiletries to the same place you're going, there's not as much advantage to boarding first and securing a good overheard bin. I'd be really excited about being Silver if it meant I could bring deodorant on board in my carry on luggage.
1:12 PM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
August 25, 2006
Trusting Steve Gillmor
One of my favorite shows on IT Conversations was the Gillmor Gang. I say "was" because Steve's show hasn't been on IT Conversations for quite some time. That doesn't mean it's dead, however...The Gillmor Gang lives on at Podshow.com.
I like the new Gillmor Gang. Its very unlike most things you hear--presentations or interviews. Listening to the Gillmor Gang is more like being a fly on the wall at a lunch with these guys. I know because I've been at lunch with many of these guys and this is just what it's like. The problem is that I always want to jump into the podcast conversation. In fact, I once did and that led to my first podcast.
The format of the Gillmor Gang is a little different. Steve and Gang record a show that is probably about 90 minutes long before production. Steve (or someone) then splits it up into multiple sessions and adds intros, music, ads, and so on. So each week, you might get 3 or 4 sessions of that week's show. You may want to start with the first and work your way forward in your playlist, but the sessions tend to be pretty self-contained, so listening to just one is generally OK. If you subscribe and just start listening, you'll get the hang of it soon enough.
This last week, Steve labeled the show "The Trust Gang." Steve provides very little in the way of show notes on the landing pages, so you'll just have to listen to things to see what's in them. I'll give you a 25 cent tour of the Trust Gang shows.
Trust Gang I has a great discussion of virtualization that grew out of the observation that Linux World was pretty dead and Xen was the only thing happening. One of the discussions on virtualization was that server companies might be dragging their heals on the virtualization front because it ultimately cuts the overall number of servers that they'll sell.
While there's some truth to that, I've noticed that Dell and HP push it pretty hard. As Mike Vizard points out, there's an uptake of the hardware costs in the software side. In the research we've done in my lab, we've discovered that virtualization helps take advantage of multiple cores and even hyperthreading. Those hardware designs are fertile ground for virtualization, so I think server companies will eventually push virtualization as a way of utilizing all the power in the sophisticated chips that are starting to populate servers.
Dan Farber also mentions, as an aside, the ZDNet Whiteboard discussions in Trust Gang I. if you're not familiar with these, you ought to go take a look. These are short videos with ZDNet experts at a whiteboard explaining some concept. Very useful.
Trust Gang II has an interesting debate among the gang about disclosure and how it differs (or not, depending on who you believe) from transparency. I'd hate to try to characterize positions here, but when you listen, remember that Dan's right. :-)
That discussion led to a conversation about privacy in Trust Gang III. Is privacy dead? Steve and some other members of the Gang seem to think so. I'm inclined to agree. As part of the research I'm doing for a possible next book, I ordered and read some books on how to disappear (see, for example How to Be Invisible by J. J. Luna).
It's amazing, when you think about it, how connected we are all to a collective network of information. Disconnecting yourself, even in little ways, from this network is very inconvenient. As an example, one of the first things that everyone in this field recommends is to stop getting your mail at home, stop sending mail from home, and then move. Yeah, move.
After you move you can never tell anyone (with a few exceptions) your real address again. This extends, for example, to only calling 911 from a cell phone so your real address isn't connected to your emergency call. Would you be willing to trust that your kids can remember to call from a cell phone in an emergency, lie to whoever takes the call and whoever shows up about why this isn't really where you live, and then move (again) if they messed up? That's only part of the inconvenience it takes to secure real privacy. Most of us aren't willing to even take small steps.
One of the points made on the show is that selective privacy is much more dangerous than no privacy. Amen. This harkens back to David Brin's Transparent Society.
Doc Searls piped in on this segment about identity. He made a good case for why user-centric identity systems would help to establish a commons on the 'Net by enabling accountability. I think he's 100% right. Civil society, whether online or not, depends on accountability and accountability is impossible without reliable identity systems.
In Trust Gang IV, Seth Goldstien finally gets a chance to talk about Attention Trust and Root Vault. Good overview. You might also start to understand what Steve means by "gestures" if you listen to this and the previous episodes closely and read between the lines.
8:43 PM | Comments (2) | Recommend This | Print This
August 24, 2006
Using Amazon's EC2
Jon Udell has a screencast of an application he wrote running on Amazon's just announced EC2 metered compute platform. According to Amazon, each instance "predictably provides the equivalent of a system with a 1.7Ghz Xeon CPU, 1.75GB of RAM, 160GB of local disk, and 250Mb/s of network bandwidth." Need more capacity? Add it right now.
I think many large IT shops will be doing similar things soon with virtualization. Rather than buying servers from Dell or someone on demand, they'll order a bunch of servers up front, have an outsourced services provide install them, and then just create virtual servers for customers and projects as needed. Much more predictable and easier on the budget.
2:25 PM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
On the Acceptability of Lisp
Steve Yegge has a post that I just stumbled across on why Lisp isn't an acceptable Lisp. He hits on some great points, many of which numberless concourses of Lisp programmers would argue with him endlessly on. Nevertheless, good reading. His points:
- Which Lisp?
- Worthless Spec
- CLOS
- Macros
- Type System
2:12 PM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
Publishing with Atom
Elias Torres has created a Atom Publishing Protocol (APP) plug-in for WordPress. The service allows you to use Atom to POST, PUT, and DELETE entries as well as other things. You might recall that I interviewed Elias for IT Conversations earlier this month.
MovableType supports the APP natively since version 3. Ben Hammersley has a discussion how to use MovableType APP, if you're curious.
11:41 AM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
Goodbye Ditty
Dell has discontinued the DJ Ditty. I'm shocked.
11:27 AM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
August 23, 2006
A Non-Working Automator Script for iPod Audiobooks
I've been working on an Automator script for converting podcasts into something that my iPod will recognize as an audiobook (and thus let me control the speed of playback). I've been using the script that Dave left in the comments to my post on speeding up podcasts as a model. So far, no luck.
The script (see PDF) runs and seems to do what it's supposed to (no errors), but the M4B files it produces aren't recognized by my iPod as audiobooks. My script isn't exactly like Dave's because I've played around trying to get things to work. I'm not sure what's wrong and the information I've been able to find on the 'Net hasn't helped much.
If you're interested in helping, here's the script and the file it produced.
9:40 PM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
Getting Dooced is Overrated
I'm still preparing for a 3 hour course I'm teaching next week on blogging. One of the questions people always have is "how will this affect me career?"
Dan Farber has a great post at Between the Lines on blogging as a potential career ender. That title probably overstates the case a little. The number of bloggers who get fired because of their blogs, or dooced is small as a percentage. That doesn't mean, however that your blog won't affect your career.
I can easily point to the place where my blog has had a positive impact on my career. It's hard to find the places that it's had a negative impact because I'm not likely to know when someone looked at it and decided not to offer me a job because of something I wrote.
The advice that Dan lists to from Scott Wilder is good and useful. I'll be using some of it next week.
11:33 AM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
August 22, 2006
Speeding Up Podcasts
As you can imagine, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I listen to everything on IT Conversations, sometimes multiple times as it comes to production, I subscribe to a few other podcasts, and I review audio for inclusion on IT Conversations. One trick that helps, particularly with reviews, is speeding up the audio.
As far as I've been able to tell, there's no convenient slider bar for speeding up audio in iTunes. But, you can easily use Quicktime to get the same effect:
- Right-click the show in iTunes and choose "Show song file."
- Open the selected song file with Quicktime (right-click again and select Quicktime).
- Choose "Show A/V Controls."
- Move the "Playback Speed" slider at the bottom of the window to your preferred speed.
I find that 1.5x is a pretty good setting for reviewing shows, but when I want to really listen and learn, I have to go slower (1.2x or so)
I've found no convenient way to do this on my iPod, unfortunately. The iPod supports speeding up playback of audiobooks, which are different, in Apple's nomenclature, from podcasts. An audiobook is an ACC format file with the extension .m4b (opposed to the normal .m4a extension). So, you have to convert the selection to ACC (since most things are MP3s, then rename the file, and reimport. This isn't something I want to be part of my daily routine. If you know of a better way, please share.
11:48 AM | Comments (12) | Recommend This | Print This
August 21, 2006
August CTO Breakfast
This Friday we'll meet again for August's CTO Breakfast. We'll meet at 8am in the food court at Canyon Park Technology Center (former Word Perfect campus). We'll be in the conference room at the west end. Bring your stories, cool discoveries, and other adventures to share. Let me know if there's something you'd like to talk about that would benefit from a projector and I'll round one up.
Since we didn't meet in July I expect there will be a lot of pent up demand to share cool stuff you've seen, built, or heard over the last 8 weeks.
See the CTO Breakfast page for more info including maps and directions. Here's a list of future meetings:
- September 28 (Thursday)
- October 26 (Thursday)
- November 30 (Thursday)
Mark your calendars. I look forward to seeing you there.
8:01 PM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
Campaign Sign Mashups
Bryan Catherman's put an interesting article about Pete Ashdown's campaign sign mashup on UtahPolitics.org. I also mentioned it at Between the Lines.
10:50 AM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
August 17, 2006
Reaching Into MySpace
Ben Rudofsky at EchoDitto is talking about the web as a power base. He uses a specific example of a blogger who isn't just influencing people's opinions, but more specifically their actions. He then makes the obvious leap into politics and talks about the Lamont-Liebermann race:
In the political sphere, the sheer level of activity of the web demographic makes it an ideal target, an example dramatized by the Lamont-Lieberman race in Connecticut. Lamont's web presence was far superior, and the tech-consciousness of his campaign stood in sharp contrast to Lieberman's, which accused opponents of a denial of service attack when in fact their own service was inadequate. Future politicians can't afford to ignore the latent power of the web.From EchoDitto Blog | EchoDitto
Referenced Thu Aug 17 2006 11:27:20 GMT-0600 (MDT)
When I read this, I thought about places on the 'Net like MySpace or FaceBook. In general, their demographics are perfect if you want to influence new or soon-to-be voters. Reaching them can be difficult, however--they are more like gated communities with no easy way to reach their residents. Rupert Murdoch is unlikely to let someone who's politics he doesn't agree with solicit in HisSpace.
Still, there are ways to reach into these communities. Right now it's mostly being done to promote independent musicians and other things that the under 25 demographic might be interested in, but this will change.
11:37 AM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
August 16, 2006
Selling Sprint Short
If I owned any stock in Sprint-Nextel, I'd sell it. I just spent 60 minutes on the phone resolving a billing issue. It's too complex to explain in detail, but suffice it to say that Sprint's billing system wasn't up to the task of the change their sales office made on one of my accounts and, as a result, they got a costly support call. 20 minutes of that call was spent by the support rep, who was very nice, and his supervisor hand calculating my bills. If they get calls like this on just a small percentage of their bills, they're eating all their profit.
This small example underscores for me the importance of properly working IT infrastructure for any business that doesn't have money to burn. It's easy to make the decision to not spend the money on IT and then wonder later why support costs are so high. It's hard to connect the two and even harder to spend the necessary money later when the pain starts.
11:20 AM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
Forget the Frontal Lobe
In June, I reported that I was disappointed that a podcast from Moira Gunn was so short. The interview was with Katrina Firlik about her book Another Day in the Frontal Lobe. The interview had several fascinating stories that left me wanting more.
So, I bought the book. I was disappointed again. The book was mostly about medical school and the rigors of residency. Fine stuff if you're interested in that, but I was looking for more stories about the brain and how it works. They're there, but it wasn't what I was expecting. My advice: listen to the IT Conversations interview. It's cheaper and faster. Can't beat that!
8:58 AM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
August 15, 2006
Podcast Transcripts Via CastingWords
Jon Udell is transcribing his podcasts using CastingWords. (Also see Jon's earlier review of the service.) His bill? $260 for 620 minutes of audio. That's darn cheap.
Jon reports that the results are surprisingly accurate, but he edits them to make people read better than they sound and to make them more readable. This process takes an hour or so per episode--almost one-to-one on a time scale. Of course Jon's also spent time editing the audio for the podcast as well. That's a considerable time investment, but the results show quality.
Why do this? One answer is that Google indexes written text, not audio, so getting search placement requires text. Another reason is that some people simply prefer to read instead of listen.
Doug Kaye used to create transcripts of IT Conversations shows back when it was mostly interviews he was doing. He stopped, mostly because of the cost, I think. We create fairly extensive landing pages for shows that should contain significant textual content to help Google index the shows correctly. Still, there's no way you can completely capture the multiple twists and turns of a standard show in a page of text.
7:11 PM | Comments (6) | Recommend This | Print This
$100 Laptop Design is Firming Up
Wired magazine has an update on the design for the $100 laptop. The latest concept has lost the crank for power and has cute little ears that flip up to provide antennae and flip down to cover ports. I covered Alan Kaye's presentation on the $100 laptop at the Univ. of Utah last February. In addition, IT Conversations has audio of a talk on the $100 laptop by Nicholas Negroponte from PopTech! 2005.
6:35 PM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
Making Public Data Public
The form that public data takes is important to me. When governments make data available in the right way, it can be reused--mashed up--by others to create new eGovernment applications that governments don't have the time, interest, or money to create. I wrote about enabling Web services through the use of open standards when I was Utah's CIO (here's a longer paper if you're interested).
While my discussion has mainly focused on the technical side of this, there are also important public policy issues. What data should be public, for example. Most governments have a freedom of information act, but this goes beyond that in some ways. What are the test cases and legislation around the country that touch on making public data publicly available online. If anyone is familiar with an expert who can speak to the legal and policy aspects of this important area, I'd like to be introduced. Please contact me directly.
1:08 PM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Audio`
Between the Lines has a collection of audio from this year's MIT Sloan CIO Symposium online. So far, there's no RSS link. I'm looking forward to listening to these.
I also just posted an article to Between the Lines on the greatest software ever written. Leave a comment and let me know what you think are the greatest feats of programming ever.
11:24 AM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
August 14, 2006
OS X Keyboard Preferences Get Lost
 OS X keyboard preferences (click to enlarge) |
Why won't my Mac reliably retain modifier key changes in preferences? As shown in the screenshot, I regularly make my CapsLock key into a control key. As an emacs user, that's much better for me. I was very glad when Apple added this as part of the OS. But about one out of three times OS X loses my preference at reboot. This doesn't happen with other preferences, so why this one?
10:51 AM | Comments (2) | Recommend This | Print This
August 11, 2006
Identity Open Space and DIDW Event: Register Now!
We're doing an identity open space on Monday Sept. 11, 2006 in Santa Clara in conjunction with Digital ID World. DIDW starts Monday afternoon and we're going to do 3/4's of a day of open space beforehand to talk about user-centric identity. The format will be largely the same as the Internet Identity Workshops that we've been having--just shorter.
If you're coming to DIDW or just in the Bay Area, we'd love to see you there. You can expect good discussion and meetings with people at the fore-front of this emerging area. If you're coming to DIDW and have wondered what all this user-centric identity is about, this is a great way to get up to speed before the conference.
We've put together a registration page for the event. There's a nominal $25 fee to cover the cost of lunch. DIDW is graciously covering the cost of the room and refreshments. They're also offering a discount on the regular DIDW registration fee to IOS participants--$995. Register for DIDW here and use the code H1101 to get the discount. Both DIDW and our open space event will happen at the Santa Clara Marriott.
We'll be holding a second installment of the Internet Identity Workshop, called IIW 2006b Dec 4-6 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. You can see a workshop announcement, get information about hotels, and even register for that event now.
12:00 PM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
Atom as a Case Study Redux
I just finished listening to Tim Bray's talk on Atom from ETech. Yeah, I'm behind on listening to IT Conversations--still catching up from vacation. This is an excellent talk for anyone interested in standards, RSS, or Atom. I also went back and read my original notes from the talk (I heard it live too).
It's interesting to me that even when I've heard a talk live and blogged it, going back on IT Conversations and listening to it again gives me fresh information. I think it's about context--I hear it now in the context of everything that happened since March and what I'm working on now, so it has new meaning.
8:55 AM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
August 10, 2006
Undistinguished Identity and Reputation
I just posted an article on undistinguished identity and reputation at Between the Lines. People typically don't want their online activities correlated, but reputation is largely built from such correlations. Understanding and coming to terms with the tension between those two facts is going to be a large part of building reputation systems that work. The principles of reputation that Kevin Tew, Devlin Daley, and I discuss in our paper describing our reputation framework are aimed at lessening that tension.
3:58 PM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
Management By the Identity Method
While he's been on vacation, Joel Spolsky has been airing a set of pre-recorded posts on three management methods which he calls Command and Control management, Econ 101 management, and the Identity Method of management, not to be confused with managing identities.
 Steve cooking dead cow (click to enlarge) |
Joel saved the method he recommends, identity management, for last, spending the first few days shooting holes in Command and Control and Econ 101 as management methods. There's nothing here that you haven't read somewhere before, but Joel has a great way of writing and he's speaking about what's worked for him--that's always good.
At iMall, we tried very hard to practice the identity method. We called it "building a culture." Joel's spot on with this one: to practice the identity method, to build culture, you have to spend time together in places besides meetings. We catered a lot of meals. Once a month of so, we had a big BBQ that we called "dead cow." We had an annual hike up Timpanogos. We still have an annual golfing event. These activities were very popular and provided a place for people to bond.
One thing that Joel didn't mention that I think is important: nomenclature. Cultures have their own way of looking at things and their own way of talking about things. I'm not just talking about technical nomenclature either--we made up words and sayings for everything.
 iMallians climbing Timp (9/11/99) (click to enlarge) |
We succumbed at times to the temptation to practice Econ 101 management. While I believe there's a place for economic incentive, we found that throwing money or options at developers didn't really make them work harder or better. You're better off making people financially well off (to the extent you can) and then leaving the subject alone.
For the identity method to work, employees have to be comfortable arguing with the boss and the boss has to be comfortable with that. As Joel says, if you give people information and then discuss the ramifications of actions with them, the group will typically come to a good decision.
That's why I think blogging is a good addition to the identity method. Building culture requires sharing information, but not just dry facts. More than simply sharing information, the identity method requires transparency in most areas. Blogs are a great way to lay the ground work for that. They're not sufficient, however--you still need to build relationships and have face-to-face discussions.
I say "most areas" in the preceding paragraph, because there are places where a good manager protects the team. A good manager buffers uncertainty and ambiguity. Nothing is more cruel than complete honesty, particularly when it's ill timed.
Joel describes the Command and Control method as "military" and while that's certainly the popular perception, it wasn't my experience. I spent 14 years in the Navy and had very few Command and Control encounters. Certainly the overall organization is very hierarchical, but the inter-unit interactions tend to be more identity method. The petty officers and chiefs knew a lot more about any given situation than I did and they were willing to share that with me and tell me where I was mistaken.
Moving from iMall to the State of Utah was a lesson in cultural disconnects for me, although I didn't really realize what was happening at the time. Governments are Command and Control organizations and smart people who've worked in them their whole lives are generally cynical and distrustful. I didn't get them and they didn't get me. It made for some unhappy times.
Command and Control organizations even have rules that keep you from building culture. Things like rules against buying employees food, except in prescribed situations, come to mind. The identity method requires the organization to trust management in ways that large organizations aren't comfortable with.
I'm in complete agreement with Joel on the efficacy of the identity method, especially for managing developers and other smart people. Not only does it work, but it's a lot more fun. The funnest period of my working life was the time we were building iMall and most of that is because of the people who were involved and the relationships we built.
3:02 PM | Comments (4) | Recommend This | Print This
Internet Marketing
A fellow Utah blogger, Janet Meiners, also known as Newspapergrl, is sponsoring a conference on Internet marketing. My good friend and Internet marking guru Paul Allen (the lesser) is the keynote speaker. If you're interested in this sort of thing, just hearing Paul speak would be worth the price of admission.
1:38 PM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
August 8, 2006
Elias Torres on SPARQL
I just published an interview I did with Elias Torres on SPARQL and the semantic
Web at IT Conversations. This is part of my personal
podcast that I call Technometria to couple it to this blog.
Rohit Khare introduced to me to Elias while we were all touring the castle in Edinburgh while at WWW2006 in May. I started talking with him about SPARQL and immediately knew I wanted to know more about it and that he was the right guy to explain it. I think you'll find his interview interesting whether or not you're a fan of the semantic Web.
2:35 PM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
Changes Big and Small at IT Conversations
While I was on vacation, there were some big changes at IT Conversations. Listeners who just download the podcasts won't notice much difference, but the Web site has been redone with a new look. Behind the scenes, the software we use to manage the site has also changed--I've spent the last few days getting reoriented.
More significantly, GigaVox Media, IT Conversation's new parent company launched with two new channels in addition to ITC: Open Source Conversations, run by Scott Mace, and Podcast Academy. We announced this move in June--now it's reality.
You won't notice much difference in content at IT Conversations, we're still committed to bringing you high quality tech content from your favorite conferences and podcasts. We've got several new conferences and series coming online in the next little while and I think you'll enjoy them. We've just started releasing shows from Supernova 2006, for example and there's more on the way.
Personal listening queues and recommendations still work the same, as does show rating. You'll probably need to log in again since it's being hosted on a new machine with a new domain, but once you do that you'll find the old familiar interface. Please take the time to login and rate the shows you enjoy so we know what you like.
Thanks for listening...
2:22 PM | Comments () | Recommend This | Print This
Building Cars With Small Teams
 Ariel Atom front view (click to enlarge) |
This video about the Ariel Atom is fun to watch. This would be a great car to drive. The best quote from the video: "anyone who wants to know what a car should be should drive one of these."
The reason I mention it here, however, is that the Atom is built by a small team of seven people. It's easy to see how a small team can develop software, but the conventional wisdom is that to manufacture something like a car you have to have a big organization.
I chose the word "manufacture" deliberately in the last paragraph because this isn't a one-off racing car, which are built by small teams, but a car you can order and buy.
Manufacturing something like a car requires intense specialization of skills. So, how is the Atom possible? It still requires lots of specialization, but in the same way that a small programming team outsources a lot of specialization by using open source tools or buying hosted Web services, the Ariel team has outsourced things like building the engine (it uses a Toyota engine).
This is a theme that Thomas Malone talks about in his book, The Future of Work. He gave a talk recently at Accelerating Change 2005 that you can listen to on IT Conversations.
10:54 AM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
August 7, 2006
On The Virtues of Functional Abstraction
Joel Spolsky, who I interviewed for IT Conversations last year is talking about virtues of first-class functions and their positive impact on functional abstraction.
Ok. I hope you're convinced, by now, that programming languages with first-class functions let you find more opportunities for abstraction, which means your code is smaller, tighter, more reusable, and more scalable. Lots of Google applications use MapReduce and they all benefit whenever someone optimizes it or fixes bugs.From Joel on Software
Referenced Mon Aug 07 2006 14:36:35 GMT-0600 (MDT)
When I make students learn Scheme in CS330, it's often the first language they've used that has first-class functions. Even if they have used a language (like JavaScript) that has them, they've likely not taken advantage of them.
Joel points to Steve Yegge's post from earlier this year calling Java a kingdom of nouns. That's an apt description and explains why many programmers are leery of functional abstraction. They've grown up in a programming world that emphasized nouns over verbs at every turn. Steve's essay is masterful and one that I'll require CS330 students to read this fall.
2:32 PM | Comments (3) | Recommend This | Print This
Dresdner Bank, BYU's Partner in Germany
 Dresdner Bank (click to enlarge) |
In Germany, many of the ATMs were in enclosed vestabules that required a card to enter. Some seemed OK with any bank or credit card, but others apparently needed a specific card (the bank's ATM card, I presume).
In Koln, we were in a hurry to get money to catch the train to Munich and the Dresdner Bank was the one closest to the hotel. It is in the latter category, neither my bank card nor my credit card would open the door, even though I was fairly certain that once I was in, either would work in the ATM. I didn't really have time to run around looking for an ATM, so I pulled out my wallet and started trying every card I had. I finally found one that worked: my BYU ID card. I have no idea why it worked and nothing else did.
2:05 PM | Comments (1) | Recommend This | Print This
My Summer Vacation
 Sidewalk artist in Koln (click to enlarge) |
I'm just getting back from 10 days in Europe on vacation with my wife and two oldest kids. We had a great time. Meanwhile, I'm trying to re-enter. I turned my email off while I was gone so I don't have any emails to wade through. If you tried contacting me in the last 10 days or so, please do so again since your email didn't get through.
I put together a map of places we visited and I uploaded a selection of photos.
Our younger kids were staying with Grandma and I used Skype to keep in touch with them. Grandma doesn't have Internet, so I used the Skype Out feature to call her number in the States. This worked quite well--even over T-Mobile WiFi hotspots (used my US account). I did have a USB headset. Talking for 30 minutes cost less than $0.50. My wife sent a few postcards and that cost about twice as much proving once again that bits are cheaper to transport than atoms.
 ICE train going 300 KPM (click to enlarge) |
We rode the trains a lot and had fun doing it. For the long hauls, we used fast ICE trains. I didn't find the Deutsche Bahn site all that helpful, but the ATM-like ticket machines were pretty easy to figure out. I learned two things: it pays to ask for group rates and make reservations a day or so ahead of time for long-hauls. For example, when traveling around Munich, I used a Barvarian Group Pass that cost 27 euros a day for up to five people whereas a one-way ticket to and from Fussen cost about 20 euros each.
All in all we visited Amsterdam, Enschede (Netherlands), Koln, Munich, Fussen (Germany), Dachau, and Salzburg. We had a great time and really enjoyed touring part of Europe. We planned the primary itinerary (which days where) and then decided what to do and how to get there once we were on site. That worked out pretty well. My kids had never been overseas so they thought it was a great experience. I'm glad we did it.
1:39 PM | Comments (2) | Recommend This | Print This
August 3, 2006
The Long View of Identity
Andy Oram wrote an entry at OnLamp.com on the long view of identity. The article is good overview of his thoughts after attending the Berkman Identity Mashup. He concludes:
I can't end this article without sharing some of the most pessimistic fears aired at the Mashup by some of its most well-informed participants, such as Stefan Brand. Brand admitted to feeling near despair sometimes, because we could easily move into a society where RFIDs are embedded in our bodies and every move is tracked. "I'm afraid that, despite all our best efforts, our technical solutions may drive us into totalitarianism." There were many responses that tried to assuage this fear, but no one could banish it.
Perhaps our best hope was cited by Berkman Center fellow Mary Rundle, who said that we must maintain multiple sources of power that can constrain each other, so that "power cannot be used to amass more power."From ONLamp.com -- The Long View of Identity
Referenced Fri Jul 28 2006 18:03:33 GMT+0200 (CEST)
10:04 AM | Comments (3) | Recommend This | Print This
August 1, 2006
Provo River Trail on ActiveTrails
 Bridal Veil Falls (click to enlarge) |
I frequently ride the Provo River bike trail. It's just a few minutes from my home and offers a great ride through some spectacular scenery. Over the last few years, I've taken pictures of the trail and the scenery surrounding it.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a project one of my students is doing called ActiveTrails at Between the Lines. ActiveTrails let's users submit GPS data for trails they hike. Other users can comment on the trail. Each trail is shown on Google Maps and has elevation data. What's more, there's a USGS topo map service built right in. Here's the Provo River Trail displayed on ActiveTrails.
The Provo River trail is, like many great bike paths, built on abandoned rail bed for the line that used to connect Provo to Heber City. The trail ends at Vivian park because the rail beds active from there to Heber. That's a little odd, but there's a historic railroad that runs as a tourist attraction between Heber and the park called the Heber Creeper. I don't think there's any chance that rail line will be abandoned for a good while, but I really wish the bike path went all the way to Heber--that would be a great ride.