Posted because I was a guest on the show.

One more shot with the obligatory keyboard.....

But it's still all about the software....

Motorola Blur

While I don't usually write about particular devices (other than my G1), I feel like I would like to comment about Motorola's new Android interface called "Blur". The form factor is nice but certainly nothing new here to crow about. It's all about the UE, user experience.

This interface will be the portal to social networking apps such as Facebook and Twitter and will simultaneously update your contacts as your contacts update their information, picture, etc.

Even more than before will the internet be seen as a platform and the desitination at the same time.

Sync or swim

With apps in the cloud being all the rage right now just how feasible are applications that have zip codes in the ether? Very.

Especially, with the state of data connections, browser technology, and PC speeds. Web portals are the perfect clients for viewing and interacting with applications. And with FF3, Chrome, and Safari coming online with HTML5 and more sophisticated ways for Flash and AJAX to be viewed the time of the online application is here. Even more so with Google Gears making offline web applications possible, but I digress...

The browser is the only application that has to be opened if we could only use one for daily use. Can you get by without an e-mail client and/or an office suite? Of course. But try to go through one day without accessing any type of browser and you will quickly notice how important cloud/web/hosted apps are.

On the way to cloud nirvana like my son in the backseat always says, "Are we there yet?" Almost.....just a few more miles.

The force is strong with this one....

This morning my son's Nintendo DS displayed the wrong time. At this time I tried to change it but I didn't have the first clue about the interface. After I told him about it, in about three steps he had the time changed and everything.

And with my experience of Win, Linux, Android, etc. in installing, root'ing, and changing OS capabilities and I couldn't figure out his portable game console.

Like father like son.

Open source wins again

For what seems to be the hundredth time, I have been asked to "fix" one of my friend's computers. And each and every time it has more to do with the browser choice than the PC.

Since we are doing more on the internet with SaaS and cloud services our choice of internet browsers is more important than ever. This goes to show that browser functions are increasingly becoming more important than underlying OS capabilities.

By the way, FF is not better because it is free (so is IE 8), but because it is developed on open source frameworks.

Sent from my wireless device

I am seeing more and more e-mail sent from wirelessly but why must we announce this by adding these tacky status signatures? As more and more convergence becomes pervasive among more devices there will be no need for this.

If you are working you are working. Period. No matter the format of the platform. Let us all just send e-mail, blog, text and call from wherever no matter.

Full disclosure: I submitted this entry from my T-Mobile G1.

Sent from my wireless Android device. ;-)

Jumping the shark

With this whole Web 2.0 noise I believe in the mobile computing space we have just leapfrogged 2.0 and have gone straight to v3. I am done waiting for Flash for Android/iPhone/WinMo. We just need to get over having this for a portable device where connectivity and battery power are paramount. HTML and other web technologies can give us more than we need in GWT to satisfy our web-app desires.

Mobile browsing is the only way that most people get on the web. And that will only go up as people stop buying land lines and personal computers and do more from their mobile internet device (MID).

Today's iPhones and similar devices are already pervasive...just imagine what the mobile computing market will look like in five years.

Brave New World

This past week, I decided to take the plunge and buy another G1 to root and play with. After taking it home and carefully following the instructions I had a fully root'ed G1 with WiFi tethering that turns it into a wireless hotspot and an IPSEC VPN client.

The latter is what truly turned it to an enterprise phone along with the new Work E-mail app that gives Android native Exchange capabilities. Well after making short work of that G1 it was quickly sold to a friend of mine who is a TMO fan and just happened to need a new phone the next day. So being armed with my new knowledge of jailbroken G1's, I promptly bought a new white one from my local T-Mobile retail store.

Now it's fully rooted and I can now use it to its full potential. Android is quickly proving itself among the large WSP's that it is a force with which to be recokened. It will soon be pervasive on high-end and low-end handsets alike on ATT, Verizon, TMO, Sprint, and Verizon. While iPhone is going gangbusters at just one provider it is just a proprietary phone, not a software platform. After Moto releases their version the market should be flush with even more HTC's not to mention Samsung and LG variants.

To me personally, the mobile space is shaping up to be most interesting place for high technology and looks to continue to be the hotbed for new ideas.

My G1. Amen!

I was using my G1 (as usual) yesterday and I just wanted to testify what a great phone this has been. With my technology A.D.D. I find it very hard to keep one phone for long. I have owned a plethora of BlackBerries, the iPhone, WinMo devices, Palm Treo's, and many others. But I cannot seem to stop thinking about Android.

Now mind you, the G1 is certainly no beauty queen but Android is the reason I keep it. Had this device been running Windows Mobile or S60 I would not have even purchased it. I was reminded of this the other day when a friend of mine gave me his 1st-gen iPhone to modify and for a second I doubted myself for selling mine. Until, I tried to make a test call on it that is. After what seemed like forever I got a signal then I tried to type on it...no dice. I get my Apple fix with my iPod Touch running 3.0 and Skype and it makes calls much better than the iPhone.

But everytime I use my G1, even though I am aware of the hardware shortcomings and I am repeatedly amazed by the OS. From multi-tasking, smart RAM usage, and the interface it may be the phone of choice for me no matter the carrier. And to the people out there who are afraid of Google and their privacy issues while using a Google phone, get over it. Your information is already out in the ether and is only a "submit" click away.

So after eight months with T-Mobile's G1 the future is definitely bright for Android.

Evolution not Revolution

A while back I wrote on the browser becoming the OS of tomorrow. Well, with the new version of FF3.5 with HTML5 built in we are getting closer to than ever before. This technology is the genesis of making 3rd party extensions such as Adobe Flash and MS Silverlight obsolete in the way of making audio/video accessible native in the browser framework.

As always, we as users are the recipients of this goodness that is manifested out of the competition between MS IE, Safari, Chrome, FF, and Opera. They are all market leaders in their respective technologies and are bringing us closer to the Web as a true cloud service.

We are not in the era of Software-as-a-Service but Service-as-a-Service. When Twitter, FB, and other platforms are being accessed via phones, netbooks, PC's, Mac's, etc. these services are all hardware and religion agnostic. They just run in the browser or are presented in wrappers that interface with it.

Since the cloud is the new mainframe we should expect more applications to run within the framework of the browser, and more computers to simply become portals.

Movie popcorn = proprietary software

Today I read this great analogy that inspired the title of this entry. Why is this so? Once you enter the theater you are now part of a captive audience and are expected to part with your hard earned cash. Even in the days of BYOC (bring your own candy) to the movies you don't dare bring your own popcorn.

This is an example of how proprietary SW vendors get customers apart of their ecosystem and get them locked in. In the end it's a package deal. You can bring your own APIs and some tooling but the vast majority of the proprietary SW will be sold in the millions of dollars to customers who have bought their ticket at a theater near you.

Back to the netbook well

This week I found a great deal on refurbished Acer Aspire One netbooks with WXP. Obviously, I prefer and use Linux over Windows but for certain purposes such as tethering and our oldest son needing an XP platform while away at college fits my needs. With all the hoopla of Windows 7 coming out I believe XP to be their best OS to date.

XP is great at PnP, USB support, and with the latest service pack is actually useable. But I will miss the almost instant on/off that Linux gives me but that's OK since I have four netbooks and and only half of them run XP.

The most incredible part is that I found these on TigerDirect for around $200 each for specs such as the ubiquitious Intel Atom proc, 120GB HD and 1GB RAM. That's pretty good horsepower considering I use to configure servers when I first started out with Pentium 180 Pro procs, 256MB RAM, and a single 2.5GB SCSi hard drive.

Moore's Law is alive and well....

And a little child shall lead them...

As a piggyback off of Matt Asay's recent experience with various Linux distros on netbooks I too have a recent example with our middle son and Ubuntu.

The other day I came across a slightly used Asus Eee 900 netbook on Craigslist for around $125. I was looking for another one anyway for our high school age kids and I was specifically asked to get one with Linux and not XP. While we have both OSes in our house the PC's running Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 have quickly become the go-to devices for getting on the web. They are also much easier for me to manage and "deploy" in my home. No defragg'ing, anti-virus, or malware to worry about just make sure the browser can play Flash and java and we're off to the races.

They are just as comfortable in picking up my G1 running Android as they are using a PC with XP, Linux, etc. The key is the interface and how easy it is to get up and running and being productive. Operating systems now need to be "point and click" like an iPhone because that's the PC that our kids are now familiar with. Users are not interested with what's under the hood, just the 0-60 times.

Why Google wants Android to succeed

After reading a recent online interview with CNET and Andy Rubin I now have a better understanding of Google's persistence with a mobile OS. Since Google aggregates, sorts, and serves up the data we are looking for on the WWW they are seeing themselves as the de facto gatekeeper of information.

Google's Android is a mobile enabler of information. If/when we cannot access information via traditional means of WiFi, wired, desktop,or otherwise then Android will be there for us on many mobile devices.

Since Android is free to OEM's and developers then it can be customized for many form factors as well. This is where the tipping point of Android will be, when the software dominates hardware development and the user is considered primary.

My daughter thinks open source is cool

Being a Red Hat employee I have the pre-req SWAG at the house and it is commandeered by two youngest children as fast as I bring it home. So today I got my 5-year old daughter's play clothes out and after she was dressed she promptly told me that she wanted to wear her Red Hat tee.

After going through her dresser I finally found the one that she likes and coordinated it with her red shorts and her red Shadowman baseball cap. She actually thinks that this stuff is cool and mostly because she knows that I do too. While I sport the occasional Red Hat ballcap and/or t-shirt, I certainly do not wear these items in tandem.

Just goes to show that if this generation uses open source in moderation the next one will use it in excess.

Android 1.5 cupcake

Finally! I couldn't wait for T-Mobile to send the update OTA. I grabbed it here. Anyway, after the initial reboots and navigation to see what all the fuss was about, I happily ran the battery down playing with the OS.

It honestly feels less like an update and more like a new OS. Here's what's new:

• Onscreen keyboards for all applications that accept input
• Portrait to landscape and vice versa in all apps except the home screen
• More widget support that will enable developers to create cool stuff from the home screen
• Some small changes to the GUI but not enough to change the user experience
• Hopefully better battery life to come...we'll see.

It's truly too bad that this was not v1.0 but I understand because Android had to get into the marketplace first to see if it would be a player against iPhone and BlackBerry. It definitely is and it's only getting better. Android is not being rumored on multiple devices with as many form factors. It will not be constrained by a particular ISP or OEM. It is a viral mobile OS that is free and ready for prime time.

Now the hard part will be waiting for the donut update.....sigh.

I'm not a socialist, I just play one on the world wide web

Even though, I am particularly conservative in my political thinking I find myself becoming more and more open in technological terms. This is come about with my exposure to open source development and business processes as well as web collaboration models (more to follow).

The WWW is a strange medium in that it has no ideology or principles. It simply is a means of transport for information, ideas, and commerce. But even more so than its predecessors radio and television. Sure all sorts of ideas are presented to us by these technologies but it is very hard for the average person to have a radio or TV show broadcast much less have it be successful. Enter the blogosphere. Obviously, many of us regard blogs as a way of expressing our thoughts and see them as an outlet wherewith we can make our voice heard and possibly heard by many.

The phenomenon of web collaboration is one that is making distributed people and work more centralized while at the same time lets us be decoupled from the herd. Even though, I work remotely I always feel apart of my team because we frequently call, e-mail, IM, and collaborate on the same work in real time.

The internet lets everyone be an individual contributor to a team while bringing attention to the real star of the show: the produced work.

Blast from the Past

Back in the 1960's the Ma Bell telephone companies did not allow you to use your own telephone but made you rent one of theirs'. This was referred to as CPE (customer premise equipment) and you had to use their service with their CPE. That sounds pretty harsh but we are re-living the past with current wireless carriers.

Anyone with an iPhone has heard the term of "unlocked phone". This refers to a phone can be unlocked to run on carriers other than the one who sold us the phone. This practice is found in the old world of telecom, but how do we stop it today?

Wireless carriers need to figure out how to sell us one wireless plan and let devices share that one plan be it CDMA/3G/HSDPA just like we do on our home WiFi networks. We have one router and multiple "unlocked" devices can access it and share the bandwidth.

The carriers are just dump pipes, plumbing if you will. I personally do not find any value-add in ringtones and hosted picture albums. Just give me unlimited data without caps at a decent price that can be shared.

The Netbook Effect

Speaking of the technology of good enough the notebook industry is now shifting to the two-year netbook market.

Enjoy....