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October 31, 2007
ProQuo - Stopping Junk Mail
I just created an account at Proquo and spent 15 minutes stopping the insane amount of junk mail I get. Most of the "do not mail" lists you get on with a simple click and some require filling out a form off the site. The most obnoxious was the DMA, which charges a dollar "to cut down on fraud"--yeah, sure. Like I trust them. The credit card link, unfortunately, didn't work--I'd love to get Capital One out of my life. I'll see if in a few months the volume has significantly reduced and let you know.
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October 30, 2007
CTO Breakfast Recap
The first item on today's schedule was to get an update on the EMC acquisition of Berkeley Data Systems.
Scott gave us a report on his recent trip to the Millenials conference last month. This led to a discussion of workplace hiring and the differences in hiring kids out of school right now. They don't ask about salary nearly as much as they ask about challenges, number of supervisors, and so on. They want multiple assignments so that they can move from one to another as they get bored or hit a roadblock.
We had a discussion of Scratch, a visual programming environment for education from MIT. It's based on Squeak, Alan Kay's follow-on to Smalltalk. There's a community site where people can upload their projects and share their applications. Microphone support, sample applications, sound, are all included. There's apparently a "scratch board" with sliders, buttons, and other physical input devices that plugs in a USB port and can be controlled with your Scratch app.
We talked about power tool drag racing. This looks like a lot of fun!
The ethics of hacking iPhones (and other similar gear) came up. The mobile companies are starting to look like th old phone company. The arguments are even the same.
I wrote an article on Google's heavy hand yesterday at BTL. We discussed white-hat and black-hat SEO. While I deplore black-hat SEO, I'm concerned that even white-hat SEO is destroying the utility of Google. Other's expressed similar concerns. If you build ecosystems that give economic benefits to third parties, people will go to great lengths to game the system.
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October 29, 2007
Barx: A Proxy Resolver for XRI
Victor Grey and Kermit Snelson have created an XRI proxy resolver in Ruby called Barx. In it's most simple form, a proxy resolver returns an XRDS document when given an XRI. From the spec: "Proxy resolvers enable applications even those that do not natively understand XRIs but can process HTTP URIs---to easily access the functions of an XRI resolver remotely." An example is xri.net. Barx implements the entire XRI resolution spec with the exception of SAML trusted resolution.
According to Victor, "[t]he proxy resolver is a fast HTTP server based on Mongrel and Merb that can be run as a local service (on localhost:someport) to provide XRI resolution and caching for other applications such as OpenID relying parties, or as a scalable public service if desired." The Ruby gem can be installed with
gem install barx
and the proxy can be downloaded from Rubyforge.
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October 25, 2007
VMWare Fusion Clock Synchronization
When you install Linux in Fusion, make sure you install the tools. But just installing them isn't enough. Clock synchronization is turned off by default, so you need to start up the tools interface:
sudo /usr/bin/vmware-toolbox
Then click the box for synchronizing the guest time with the host. If you don't, the guest will lose time.
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CTO Breakfast Reminder for October
We'll be having the CTO breakfast next Tuesday at the cafeteria on the Novell Provo Campus (Building G) at 8am. Note that it's Tuesday not Thursday or Friday like it usually is. Bring your ideas, thoughts, and questions. We always have a great discussion and your input would be welcome.
Here's the future dates scheduled so far:
- Nov 29 (Thursday)
- No CTO Breakfast in Dec
- Jan 24 (Thursday)
- Feb 28 (Thursday)
Put them on your calendar now. Alternately, you can subscribe to the Google calendar for the CTO Breakfast.
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Starting a High Tech Business: Get a Clubhouse
I'm starting a new business called Kynetx (nothing to see there yet). As I go through some of the things I do, I'm planning to blog them. The whole series will be here. This is the third installment. You may find my efforts instructive. Or you may know a better way---if so, please let me know!
One of the things I realized pretty quick after getting serious about a new startup was that you need a clubhouse. It's fine to work from home, meet in coffee shops, and go cheap at first, but eventually you want to get real work done. For me, that means a place to go that is specifically about that effort.
This may seem like an unnecessary expense that can wait until you have more funding that your credit card, but I find it well worth the money.
First, if there's more than one of you in the startup, it's a place to show up every day, discuss what needs to be done, and help keep each other motivated. Second, I find it very encouraging to have "an office" for the company; it's a big step and makes the venture seem more real to me and everyone else.
I've found that you can rent 200-300 square feet (one medium office that you can squeeze 2 desk into) for well south of $750/month in Utah and I suspect that's true in many markets. Call in favors. Do you know someone with a spare conference room? I'm lucky to have pretty good contacts, but still worked my way through several friends looking for a deal and I finally found one.
I'm on the advisory board for Canyon Park Technology Center in Orem (the former WordPerfect campus) and I got some space there. That's not a deal they did just for me--they regularly do incubation deals and are easy to work with. Novell has a similar deal on their campus at the Open Source Business Center. Many cities have economic development centers that offer incubation space. Look around...you'll find something.
Another option is a co-working space like the one Sean O' Steen describes. There are some formal tenants who have keys, permanent desks, and so on. I see this as less than ideal since it won't feel like it's "yours" but is better than working at Starbucks.
My minimum requirements:
- Internet connection--most incubation spaces will throw it in. If not, you'll need a DSL line and you'll probably get stuck with the high "business" DSL charge even though you won't get anymore out of it.
- Comfortable chair--I don't like to skimp here. I'll be sitting in it all day.
- Desk--No need to go fancy; a door on two saw horses will suit most needs.
- Whiteboard--two if possible. I love whiteboards for planning, keeping notes, and serving as the centerpiece for discussion.
- Refrigerator--gotta keep the diet coke cold. :-)
- Large monitor--if you're writing code don't skimp on this either.
 Kynetx nameplate on office in Canyon Park TC (click to enlarge) |
Most landlords have old furniture from previous tenants, so be sure to ask if they've got any spare chairs, desks, whiteboards, etc. that they'd be willing to throw into the deal. Many will. There are also some great deals around from time to time. We found a few great little desks at Office Depot for $125. Not bad.
You can get away without a phone and just use cells. I happened to have a Polycom and a spare Vonage line from an earlier venture, so I moved that in for conference calls--that's come in handy a few times when I have to be on a call.
I've left computer off the list above since I live on a laptop that I take almost everywhere. Obviously if you don't have something suitable, you'd need that too. There are lots of cheap places to find serviceable computers. BYU has a surplus computer sale regularly where you can pick up something that will run XP or Linux just fine for under $100. Given the choice of fast computer or a big monitor, I'll pick a big monitor every time.
I took a few photos of our set up in case you're curious. All in all it a pleasant place to get meet and to work. I'm pretty happy with it.
Now you've got a place for your new business to call home. Invite some friends and colleagues over and talk about your company. I think you'll find that it feels good and focuses you on the business in a way that few things will. Now, to get to work...
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October 23, 2007
Google Web Toolkit
I just posted my interview with Bruce Johnson on the Google Web Toolkit. This was a fun interview and I learned a lot. GWT allows you to write AJAX applications in Java that then gets compiled to Javascript.
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October 22, 2007
What Should I Buy? Parallels or Fusion?
InfoWorld asked me to do a head-to-head review of Parallels and Fusion. That review appeared today.
As a frequent user of both virtualization packages, I really enjoyed this review since it gave me an excuse to dig deep on some things and to talk to the product managers for both.
One thing is clear: there's some stiff competition between Parallels and VMWare and the users are the winners. These are both great products that perform well. VMWare has a performance advantage--especially when you need multi-core performance. Parallels, I think, has a slight advantage in usability and a pretty big advantage--for now--in the way snapshots work.
Read the review for details, but here's the bottom line:
- VMware Fusion is a solid virtualization package for OS X that builds on VMware's long experience but offers a native Mac look and feel. Support for SMP and 64-bit operating systems make it the top choice for power users. Support for Windows is strong, but some switchers will find the sparse set of GUI-based management tools a turn-off.
- Parallels Desktop is an intuitive, easy-to-use virtualization platform for switchers who need to run Windows applications alongside OS X. Convenient, GUI-based tools and a quick Windows install are the product's real strengths. Lack of support for 64-bit operating systems and some versions of Linux won't matter to most users, but could be important to developers and others pushing the platform to the limit.
Both packages cost $79.
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October 19, 2007
Squaw Peak Ride
 Orem and the north end of Utah Valley from the Squaw Peak lookout (click to enlarge) |
I rode to the Squaw Peak lookout today for my afternoon ride. I've never been on that ride before--last year I made it 1/2 a mile up the road before I turned around. I really wanted to do it this year. I figured after riding the Alpine Loop last week it would be doable--but not easy. That was accurate.
The Squaw Peak lookout is 2200 feet above the valley floor and you're doing most of that in a little under 5 miles. The whole ride is 20 miles round trip from my house. I burned about the same number of calories as I do riding to the end of South Fork and that ride is seven miles longer (but 500 feet less elevation gain). For the most part, I'd put it somewhere between riding South Fork and riding to Sundance, but the last 1/2 mile is a real killer. I took a few pictures.
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Rivers, Trends, and Leaderboards
Dave Winer's been experimenting with keywords in his river of news idea. Doc thinks its the future of newspapers. I agree that a river is a better way to get the news than the old news cycle.
It's interesting to compare Dave's NY Times keywords with Google trends, the most searched on keywords for the last 24 hours. Almost nothing in common--not that you'd necessarily expect there would be. People looking for the kind of information you get from the Times make up only a small portion of Google users, I'd expect.
Dave's keywords are only updated once every 24 hours, but I expect that that is merely a practical consequence of the 24 hour news cycle of his source. With more sources, who are themselves continuously updating, the keyword river could be as dynamic as you'd want it to be.
Dave mentions that this looks like a leaderboard and indeed it is. Anything that uses popularity (even of keyword usage) to determine relevance is going to end up looking like a leaderboard. I expect that there would be multiple ways of sorting the river and keyword frequency would be just one. Doesn't bother me...
Update: Dave tells me "the keywords are updated every hour, and do a complete refresh every 24 hours on a rolling basis." Cool.
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October 18, 2007
Don't Say This About My Product!
I don't think I'd want anyone saying this about my product. Can't believe Apple's saying about their own product.
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October 17, 2007
Fixing MacBook Pro Sleep Problems
One of the things I loved about my Powerbook was that it slept--and woke--reliably. I would go weeks without rebooting my machine and I bragged about it often to the poor saps who had to use XP on their laptops. I haven't been singing the praises of OS X stability as loudly lately because ever since I went to the Mac Book Pro (MBP), my machine has had issues with sleeping and waking to the point that it probably got rebooted once a day.
Well, no more! I tried something a few weeks ago that has made my MBP into a machine I can love again. Here's what I did.
When Apple shipped the MBP, they changed how sleep works. What? Mess with perfection? Yup, that's what they did, although they had a reason (I'm not saying it's a good one). The old Powerbooks could tolerate a battery switch when they were asleep without losing state. The MBPs can't. If you put your MBP to sleep, switch batteries, and then wake it, you'll note you've see a whited-out screen and a progress bar at the bottom. The machine is waking from hibernation. If you pop a battery out of a sleeping MBP, it automatically hibernates.
In order support this automatic hibernation, the machine has to write the contents of RAM to disk every time it goes to sleep. This is called "SafeSleep" by Apple. I call it "SureDeath." That's why putting a MBP to sleep takes to long. For whatever reason, that process seemed to be causing problems for me. Maybe because I've frequently got almost 4Gb of RAM in use with virtual machines, and so on. Often my machine would refuse to sleep or never wake up once it got there.
Here's the good news: Apple left the old mode in the OS and you can activate it if you want. You can also switch back to SafeSleep anytime you like. According to this MacWorld article, OS X supports five different sleep modes:
- 0 - Old style sleep mode, with RAM powered on while sleeping, safe sleep disabled, and super-fast wake.
- 1 - Hibernation mode, with RAM contents written to disk, system totally shut down while "sleeping," and slower wake up, due to reading the contents of RAM off the hard drive.
- 3 - The default mode on machines introduced since about fall 2005. RAM is powered on while sleeping, but RAM contents are also written to disk before sleeping. In the event of total power loss, the system enters hibernation mode automatically.
- 5 - This is the same as mode 1, but it's for those using secure virtual memory (in System Preferences -> Security).
- 7 - This is the same as mode 3, but it's for those using secure virtual memory.
From Macworld: Mac OS X Hints: Set newer portable Macs' sleep mode
Referenced Wed Oct 17 2007 09:58:31 GMT-0600 (MDT)
The first step is to check which mode you're in now. Use this command from the terminal:
pmset -g | grep hibernatemode
Make a note of which mode it is (probably 3) so that you can return to it if you want.
Now, set your MBP to use mode 0:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
That's it. I rebooted. Not sure it that's necessary, but what the heck.
Now, you may be wondering...if my MBP was writing memory out to disk, is that stored somewhere, taking up precious disk space? Yes! Here's how to recover it:
sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage
My sleep image was 4Gb since that's how much memory I have. Nice to have it back.
Now, a word of warning: if you change to sleep mode 0 on a MBP, you lose the ability to do a battery swap without plugging the machine in. I only do that occasionally, so I'm happy to forego the feature if my machine works more reliably every day.
As I said, I made this change two weeks ago and my machine has been as stable as my old Powerbook every since. I'm happy to have solved one of the annoyances of my computing life. As always...YMMV.
Update: Bryan Morse made me aware of this Tidbits article that contains a script you can run as a cron job that will put you in hibernate mode when your battery gets low. Some people have reported that occasionally OS X will switch the mode back to 3 so you have to check to make sure you're still in 0 (and delete the sleepimage file). This script does that as well.
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October 16, 2007
Amory Lovins on IT Conversations
Social Innovations is a sister channel to IT Conversations. They have a 10 part series of lectures by Amory Lovins, the Cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. The series is a from set of five lectures he delivered at Stanford earlier this year.
I'm cross posting the Lovins lectures on ITC. The first lecture (see part I and part II) is on energy efficiency for buildings. This lecture has been highly rated by SIC listeners and I think ITC listeners will enjoy it too.
The second lecture, on energy efficiency in buildings (see part I, part II, and part III), has also been well received.
Many people I talk to are put off my environmentalism because it seems to always be telling them that they should "suffer" for the earth's sake. People don't like that message. One of the refreshing things about Armory's message is that you can do the right thing by the earth and be better off--more from less. That's a refreshing message and accounts for a great deal of the appeal. If you're interested in how good, smart design can result in more comfort with significantly reduced energy footprints, then I think you'll like these lectures as well.
A few notes about listening:
- I'm publishing all the parts of any given lecture at the same time, so if you haven't configured iTunes to download more than one show per day, you'll end up with the last part of the lecture and not the earlier parts. Take a minute now to configure iTunes.
- Also, you're MP3 player or podcatcher will probably order the shows according to the publish date in the RSS feed, so they will show up according to when they were published on SIC, not the order they are on the IT Conversations homepage. For example, the first lecture appeared on SIC in middle of September, so it's quite a ways back. Search down the list in your player and you'll see them.
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Mini Mail is Very Useful
Getting control of email so it doesn't control you, is easier said than done. One of the problems I run into is having the email client open on my desktop all the time. When I'm coding, I frequently just close it all together.
Sometimes though I want it open and want to delete things that can be deleted and reply to things that need to be to be replied to and ignore the rest. Mini Mail is an application helper for Mail.app that shows a tiny window with just enough information.
The best way to describe it is to compare it to iTunes. When you click the green window decoration, iTunes shows a full window, or a tiny control panel. Mini Mail does the same thing.
At first I was skeptical that I'd like it or use it, but now I love it. You can try for free for 30 days, so there's little risk.
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October 15, 2007
Security on the Cheap
Larry Dignan at Between the Lines has posted some great tips for making your business more secure without spending much money. These are things everyone ought to be doing, but many aren't.
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Top Ten IT Conversations Shows for September 2007
Update: I've updated this with ratings data.
Normally the top 10 report includes the ratings for each show. The way I get access to the ratings data has been inop for some weeks now. I've delayed doing the report for September in hopes that I'd get access soon, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen soon. So, I've generated it without the ratings data for now.
- Rob Levy - Tech Nation (Rating: 3.80)
Some technology companies founded and headquartered in the United States aren't outsourcing to India and China, but are spreading technology centers around the world instead. Ron Levy, CTO of BEA Systems Inc., explains to Dr. Moira Gunn how BEA is making things work when their staff works in wildly different time zones.
- Eben Moglen - Freedom Businesses Protect Privacy (Rating: 4.38)
Rich in linguistic play and delivered with both wit and panache, Eben Moglen's talk is an intellectual delight. Beginning with a look at the history of memory from the public recording of England's 11th century Domesday Book, Moglen leads us through the private memory palaces of 14th and 15th centuries to the problems of privacy that started with photographic technology. Convincing us that we have willingly given away our data and that those who now possess it have the right to use it, Moglen proposes voluntary data collectives as the answer.
- Vint Cerf on Technology & Digital Culture - IEEE Spectrum Radio (No rating yet)
On this edition of IEEE Spectrum Radio listen to Google's Chief Internet Evangelist Vinton Cerf speak about his favorite work of fiction. Also, hear about Spectrum's Senior Editor Tekla Perry's cell phone shopping experience , and why an old shoe box might be better storage than your hard drive. Finally, Spectrum interviews the Swedish mobile technology engineer Stig Nordqvist on his vision of future news reading.
- Jared Smith - Technometria: Open Source Telephony (No rating yet)
For many years, only very large businesses could afford to create and deploy innovative voice applications, such as looking up account balances or tying voice applications into their existing business applications. Now, with Asterisk and other open-source applications, the field is wide open for businesses of all different sizes. Jared Smith, Community Relations Manager of Digium, the creator and primary developer of Asterisk, the industry's first open source telephony platform, joins Phil and Scott to discuss the present and future of open source telephony.
- Edward Iacobucci - Jon Udell's Interviews with Innovators (Rating: 4.14)
Joining Jon Udell on this episode of Interviews with Innovators is Edward Iacobucci, co-founder of DayJet. Widely known in IT circles as the co-founder of Citrix, he left in 2000 to pursue his interest in aviation. In 2002 he co-founded DayJet, a company whose mission is to deliver on-demand, per-seat jet travel service.
- Rohit Khare - Jon Udell's Interviews with Innovators (Rating: 4.60)
At the 2002 Emerging Technology Conference, Rohit Khare gave an influential talk on an architecture he called application layer internetworking (ALIN). Five years later that thinking has evolved, and now he's describing syndication-oriented architecture (SynOA). On this edition of Jon Udell's Interviews with Innovators, host Jon Udell asks Rohit Khare why he thinks that syndication-oriented architecture will enable business users to achieve that same kind of awareness.
- Joshua Spanogle - Tech Nation (No rating yet)
Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Joshua Spanogle, author of a number of medical thrillers, and student at the Standford Medical School, about the bio-ethics of cosmetic surgery.
- Beth Kanter - Jon Udell's Interviews with Innovators (Rating: 4.60)
On this episode of Interviews with Innovators, Beth Kanter describes the strategies she uses to teach digital immigrants in non-profit organizations how to use Web 2.0 strategies to communicate and collaborate more effectively.
- Dave Gynn - Enterprise Open Source Directory (No rating yet)
Optaros started an internal list of open source projects that become the Enterprise Open Source Directory, a growing online community still under the editorial guidance of Optaros. The EOSD includes case studies, grouping of software by categories, and Optaros' trend rating showing which open source projects are stable, up-and-comers or fading glories. Gynn explains why the directory includes open source software whose license does not match the Open Software Initiative's definition of open source, as well as commercial versions of open source software.
- Joel Spolsky - Technometria: Hiring Technical Talent (No rating yet)
The top software developers are ten times as productive as average developers. You can't afford not to hire them. But if you haven't been reading Joel Spolsky's books or blog, you probably don't know how to find them and make them want to work for you. Joel joins Phil, Scott, and Ben in a discussion of how to recruit and interview technical talent. Joel talks about how to develop a useful intern program and how best to treat employees to make them both happy and productive.
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October 14, 2007
Riding the Alpine Loop
 Timp (click to enlarge) |
At the beginning of the summer, I had two biking goals: ride a century and the Alpine Loop. If you've been following along, you know that I rode the ULCER Century in August. I rode the Alpine Loop on Friday and had a great time. The fall colors were simply spectacular. The yellow aspens were so bright that they almost hurt your eyes to look at them. It was a little cloudy and cold, but there was almost no wind and that made for a very nice ride.
The Alpine Loop is a highway (US92) that goes from Provo Canyon, past Sundance Ski Resort, over a 8200 foot summit and then down into American Fork Canyon. Round trip, from my house, was almost exactly 40 miles with a 3500 ft elevation gain. You basically ride all the way around Mt Timpanogos, the 11,500 foot peak that dominates the Utah County skyline. Click on "hybrid video" in this Google Maps view of the Alpine loop to get an idea.
The hardest part is the two miles from US189 in Provo Canyon to Sundance--a nearly 1000 foot elevation gain in just about 2 miles. After that it's fairly tame. The ride down the other side, of course, is a lot quicker and tons of fun.
Now that I've done it, I suspect I'll do several times per season. It's a fun ride and great exercise--I burned about 3500 calories according to my heart monitor. I took some picture with my iPhone--not great given the low light situation (cloudy), but they'll give you and idea.
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October 11, 2007
New Series on the Conversations Network
This last week, the Conversation Network (IT Conversation's parent) launched a new channel: Media Conversations. The new channel, like IT Conversations and Social Innovations Conversations, produces high quality audio shows from a variety of sources.
A first for us: Media Conversations includes video for some shows. The video is of a series called "Future Talks." The first two shows are with Gerd Leonhard and Glen Hiemstra. I've listened to both and found the very interesting. In addition to the video, you can just get the audio tracks via RSS if you like.
I'll be pulling in some shows from Media Conversations into the IT Conversations stream as they seem to be a fit. I did that with Gerd's talk today, so even if you're not subscribed to Media Conversations, you'll see some material from that channel on IT Conversations.
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October 10, 2007
Batteries in Your Clothes
This story about using nanotechnology to create wearable batteries puts last weeks story about a man's iPod battery catching his pants on fire in a whole new light.
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October 9, 2007
Weather in Your Feedreader
Do you live in your feedreader? If so, you might like to get the weather there too. Just use this URL:
http://xml.weather.yahoo.com/forecastrss?p=84042
Simply substitute your zipcode for 84042 (unless you want to know what the weather is where I am). Not in the US? You can use city codes instead. The whole thing is documented on the Yahoo! Developer Network.
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Starting a High Tech Business: Legal and Banking
I'm starting a new business called Kynetx (nothing to see there yet). As I go through some of the things I do, I'm planning to blog them. The whole series will be here. You may find my efforts instructive. Or you may know a better way--if so, please let me know!
Obviously one of the things you have to do to start a business is actually set up the legal entity. This is actually easier than it first appears.
The first question is what kind of entity to set up. The two basic choices in the US are a C-Corp and a Limited Liability Corp, or LLC. One of the big differences is how the entity is taxed. C-Corps pay taxes on their own behalf. LLC's pass profits through to members who pay taxes as part of their personal returns.
There's lots of discussion about "the right choice" on the 'Net. Ultimately, if you get funding, you'll probably end up as a C-Corp due to the tax issues. But my feeling is you can start out as an LLC and switch later. LLCs are easier to set up and manage when you're just getting started. Pelle Braendgaard has called them the Ruby on Rails of legal entities.
As an aside, another legal entity that you might consider is an S-Corp. It is like an LLC from a tax standpoint, but like a C Corp from a governance standpoint--to my mind the worst of both worlds.
Some feel that switching to a C-Corp later is hard, but I have access to some pretty good business attorneys who have assured me it's just not a big deal. Consequently, I went with the LLC--it's easy and familiar.
The next step is to actually set it up. In Utah we're lucky to have the One-Stop Business at Utah.gov. I set up my LLC online--including getting my Federal employer identification number (EIN)--like an SSN for the corporation--in about an hour. The only thing you don't get is an operating agreement.
If you're not blessed with an online system for doing this, you probably want to hire an attorney to get it done. I've found that not all attorneys understand the subtleties of this process, so make sure you're dealing with one who does. I've gotten good results for as little as $500 before, so it doesn't have to be expensive.
The operating agreement (don't confuse this with the articles of incorporation, which are filed with the state) specifies how the corporation will run, who capitalizing the entity, how ownership works, etc. If there's more than just you involved, the ownership issues can be the cause of a lot of consternation and hard feelings, so it pays to get it right. An attorney is a great help here.
Once the corporation is registered and you have an EIN, you can get a bank account. Don't mingle the corporation's funds with your personal funds--it will make your life difficult at tax time. I went to Washington Mutual because they offer free business accounts. Even if you don't have funding now, put $1000 in the account so you can pay for incidental expenses.
Now you're set: you've got a legal entity and a bank account. The next step: getting a clubhouse.
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October 5, 2007
State Sovereignty Doesn't Count for Much Online
Let me pose a hypothetical situation for you: Imagine some backwater town in your state. Now, imagine that some vandals move through town one night and plaster the local water board office with pornographic posters. The town fails to clean it up for a few weeks. Now, imagine that in response, the federal government mobilizes the Army and shuts down every government office in the state.
Never happen, right? Well, in a matter of speaking that's just what happened to California earlier this week. The story about GSA pulling down CA.gov makes me shake my head in amazement.
Some history: the .gov TLD is managed by the GSA on behalf of the US Federal government. It's only been 5 or 6 years that the feds have allowed states to use domains in the .gov TLD. In fact, there was some consternation over the whole thing. So, as the registrar, GSA can technically delist any domain in .gov. The question is, can they do so legally?
This quote from the InfoWorld story gets it all wrong:
State IT staffers were able to fix the problem within a few hours, narrowly averting disaster, but the situation shed light on what observers are calling a shocking weakness in the state's IT infrastructure.From Feds pull the domain name plug on State of California | InfoWorld | News | 2007-10-04 | By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
Referenced Fri Oct 05 2007 11:19:51 GMT-0600 (MDT)
Now, indeed, it's probably true that parts of California's IT infrastructure are less than secure. That's what happens when you have hundreds of agencies all going their own way and an assembly that's unwilling to put them under the jurisdiction of a strong CIO. But that's not the story here.
The story is this: US states are sovereign. That is, within the federal structure, they operate independently and are self-governing. States are granted significant rights by the Constitution. Heck, they have the right to raise armies! Because of the Constitution they exist independent of the power of Congress. Contrast this to the way most cities and town operate: they are wholly creatures of the state legislature and 100% subject to it's whims.
So, to my mind, the fact that some faceless bureaucrat in DC is making the decision, with no legal basis other than the technical power to control the switch, to shut down California's online presence is shocking. Besides the point that the response was wholly out of proportion to the problem, any action whatsoever on the part of the Feds beyond a friendly "head's-up; you've got a problem" phone call was beyond their authority.
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October 4, 2007
Using CCTVs to Make Movies
This is pretty cool: a group of kids made a movie using already installed CCTVs in a shopping mall in England. The teens are part of a group that regularly engages in "video sniffing," using electronic gear to sniff out the wireless signals that CCTV cameras use to communicate a picture.
The Duellists by MediaShed ft MethodsAdd to My Profile | More Videos
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October 3, 2007
SOA Governance Podcast
As part of preparing for my upcoming tutorial in NYC on SOA Governance (Nov 8, 2007), I went back an listened to this interview I did with Todd Biske and Ed Vazquez for IT Conversations. Todd and Ed are so smart on this topic. I got a lot of good ideas from listening to this again. I changed some of the things I was going to talk about after reviewing this. If you don't care about enterprise IT, it will bore you to death, but if you do, there's some great ideas here.
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Microsoft Keeps Plugging Away
Microsoft release the next Zune to very little fanfare compared with what Jobs generated with even the most recent iPod refresh.
For all the crap Microsoft took over the Zune ("oh look! it comes in brown!"), you have to admire the perseverance. The fact is that this is how Microsoft wins lots of battles: "release, watch, redesign, lather, repeat." Office, Outlook/Exchange, and the XBox are all examples of Microsoft powerhouses that were less than exciting in version one. Heck, can you remember Windows 1.0? What a dog.
Microsoft has the affluence and smarts to have a long range attitude about new products and in the end, it's one of the company's biggest assets.
Scoble makes a nice distinction between products where you have to win and defensive products. I'd add that many of Microsoft's defensive products do become winners simply because the product people refuse to just mark time.
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Starting a New High-Tech Business: Setting Up Email
I'm starting a new business called Kynetx (nothing to see there yet). As I go through some of the things I do, I'm planning to blog them. The whole series will be here. You may find my efforts instructive. Or you may know a better way--if so, please let me know!
When you start a new technology company, you're going to be talking to a lot of people. You'll want them to get in touch with you. That means phone and email at the very least. In the early stages you can get away with your Gmail or Yahoo! account, but eventually you'll need to look more professional.
The first prerequisite is a name of some kind. If you're a technology company, that means one that you can get a domain name for. In my case, we picked a word that was meaningful for what we're trying to do "kinetics" and then started spelling it funny until we found a domain that worked and seemed short and memorable.
Once you've got a domain, Google makes the rest easy with Google Apps. There's a free edition and a premier edition. When you're starting out, the free edition is plenty good enough. It lets you create gmail accounts that are addressed as user@domain.com. You also get Google Docs, Calendar, and so on. There is a 2Gb limit--just like individual Gmail accounts, but that's not likely to be too big a factor early on.
Getting things set up with Google Apps is pretty easy if you're familiar with domain names and can manage the subdomains in your domain easily. You can create up to 100 users on the free account, which should be plenty.
Want a logo? Probably. I'm fortunate to have friends who are good with graphics and I had a friend do one. You can change it later. Right now, it's just nice to have, so pick something and move on. Don't spend a lot of time agonizing over it. If you don't have a friend who's a graphical designer, you might try LogoWorks. I've not used them, but I know people there and have heard good things.
You'll want business cards. While you can probably get away without them, why? They're convenient and cheap. I've used a company called Four Square Graphics several times and always had good results. You can design a business card on the site, but I had a friend who's good with graphics do it and submitted a custom job as a PDF. $40 and 10 days later I've got 250 high quality business cards.
None of this is going to guarantee that you're company's a success of course, but it's some of the stuff you've got to get done. Using something like Google Apps is a no-brainer. I know how to configure and manage a mail server with the requisite spam filters and so on, but why would I want to when Google will do it for me for free?
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October 2, 2007
Fall Colors in South Fork Canyon
 Fall Colors at the top of South Fork Canyon (click to enlarge) |
I was on a bike ride up South Fork Canyon this afternoon and the colors were spectacular. This picture, from my iPhone, doesn't really do them justice. If you're in Utah county and want to see the colors on the Alpine loop, I suspect that this week is the time to go.
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Using Twitter for Messaging
Dave's given his podcatcher a Twitter account. So, if you're interested, you can subscribe to notices, via Twitter, of what Dave's downloading.
"So what?" I hear you ask. You may not care what Dave's listening to, but chances are, someone does. Moreover, Dave's using Twitter as a messaging endpoint in what Rohit Khare calls a "syndication oriented architecture," or SynOA. Jon Udell and Rohit talked about this on IT Conversations a few weeks ago.
I'm using Twitter in a similar way in my class this semester. My students are writing servers that send updates to a Twitter account via the Twitter API. Anyone can then subscribe to those updates through RSS, via SMS, or simply by going to the Web page. Easy, simple, and pretty effective.
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October 1, 2007
AT&T Doesn't Want Critics as Customers
AT&T's terms of service now allow them to immediately terminate the service of anyone who is critical of the company. From Broadband Reports:
"AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes ... tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries."
Amazing! By the way, have I mentioned lately how happy I am with AT&T's service? Really..., it is. I mean it.
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Think Similarly
This post at CrunchGear showing a 1989 Apple ad encouraging people to "think different" by challenging the status quo, followed by a video about Apple not allowing third party apps on the iPhone touched a nerve following the most recent iPhone update.
The latest iPhone update is the first that's fixed anything more than security flaws. There were some minor UI changes--nice to have--and a new icon for the iTunes music store. Besides ruining the symmetry of the application list, the addition really rubbed my nose in the fact that this is a walled garden. "Hey, buy some music from us!"
The update also "reactivated" the phone, meaning that iTunes went off to check that the phone had a valid account and had a good SIM, etc. For people who'd hacked their phones, the process did not go smoothly, to say the least.
I'm not saying that Apple doesn't have the right to sell any product they like or that we were forced in any way to take the iPhone. I still love mine and will continue to use it. Apple was also upfront in saying that modifications voided the warranty--that's standard. The first rule of hacking is: hack at your own risk.
Still, we're seeing a real clash of expectations here that could have significant repercussions. People have long accepted that consumer devices (like an MP3 player) would be single purpose and locked down. We've also expected that computers would be extensible and modifiable.
Is the iPhone a consumer device or a computer? Both actually and therein lies the problem. Computer manufacturers have long envied the lock down that purveyors of consumer device were able to get away with. They'd love to lock the devices down and force people to use the devices the way that they intended when they designed them.
For all the grief Microsoft has taken over the instability of Windows, it is largely a result of trying to build a platform that is infinitely extensible by users who will do things you have no control over. There is justifiable concern by manufacturers about the stability of open platforms.
I believe, however, that for all their warts, the computer industry we have today exists because of open platforms. From the very start, computers have been things that were programmable--by users. That set them apart from every machine that had been produced before and accounts for their incredible versatility. Most of the important advances in the computer industry were not by the people who created the platform, but by people who used it for something it's designers never intended.
Does Apple have the right to close down the iPhone? Sure. But I maintain that it will be more important and more influential if they embrace those who "think different."