mpv's little blog

Going to Work at Kayak.com

2010-03-05T13:11:00.004-05:00

I have really been enjoying my time off the past several weeks. I've been reading some good books, watching some good TV, spending quality time with my girlfriend, and trying to improve my overall health (running and eating much better). But I'm ready to return to real life now and ready to begin earning a paycheck again! I'm happy to let everyone know that I have officially accepted an offer to join Kayak.com, the best travel search site out there, and I start this Monday. Initially I will be with their mobile team working on their iPhone products. Very excited.

If you are like me then you have probably never heard of Kayak.com before. I'm told that brand awareness is their number one challenge right now and improving it is their top priority for the year. If you haven't heard of them yet you should soon. The good news is that they are already doing extremely well and the people who know them love them. Before booking your next flight or hotel room, check them out.

When I began my job search I had one specific kind of company in mind and kayak.com definitely doesn't fit the model I was looking for. After meeting with a number of companies and talking to a few mentors I decided to broaden the type of company I was willing to consider. I'm really glad I did that. If you are currently looking I urge you to do the same thing. There are lots of different companies out there. They will all offer different benefits and a unique experience. Why limit your opportunities? Talk to everyone. You might get surprised and find something you were not looking for.

Thank you to everyone who helped me out over the past several weeks. I really appreciate the emails, advice, job forwards, and references. Thank you so much.

Time to go write some software and pay some taxes.

Lesson #2 - Consider Hosted Software Development Tools

2010-02-02T14:33:00.010-05:00

This is my second post (the first is here) in my series on Lessons Learned from Zeemote.

In 2006 I was the first software engineer hired at Zeemote (a now defunct company) and at the time we still didn't even know what our product was going to be. We had a few hundred lines of demo code (written mostly by an outside contractor) and we had no bug database or version control in place. The closest thing to version control was zip files stored in email attachments.

Like many small companies we used an outside IT firm to manage our network and computers. Unfortunately as time progressed some in our company lost confidence with the firm and they were replaced. This became a recurring problem and during my time at Zeemote I witnessed 4 or 5 IT firms get hired and fired (a discussion I'll save for a future post).

One consequence of the above was that our developer tools (subversion and bugzilla) were being maintained by our software engineers rather than the IT "company of the month". Maintained is too generous a word though. As we grew and became increasingly busy and stressed out we had little time to really care for these tools. I don't think we ever made a single version upgrade and only occasionally checked that backups were functioning properly. I began to lose sleep over the situation.

Soon another problem presented itself. As we rushed to develop and test our second software product we contracted with two outside resources. One was a development house in London and the other was a testing house in Pennsylvania. We were suddenly becoming a global distributed software development company! But to use these guys we needed to provide remote access to our internal version control and bug database. This would require the IT "company of the month" to set up VPN and making sure that they only had access to what they needed. Given our experiences with IT this was going to take too long and the results were going to be error prone.

After a few intermediate steps we ended up with, what I regarded as, a great solution: hosted software development tools.

Over the past decade nearly all software products have been moving to the cloud. As it turns out, software development tools are following this trend too and several companies now offer hosted version control and bug tracking. These companies host and manage the software on their servers. They provide encrypted remote access to the tools and also a web based interface for simple administration tasks.

They handle the hardware and software maintenance issues (backups, upgrades, uptime) and you focus on your core work.

After some deep thought I came upon with the following minimum requirements that any service provider should meet in order to be considered:

Must allow automated downloads of nightly backups to our servers. This protects us in case the provider goes out of business or has a catastrophic failure.
Must use an open / standard data format. This prevents vendor lock in and allows us to easily switch providers if we become unhappy with them or they go out of business.
Must provide a basic NDA or terms of use policy that clearly states the data is ours and reasonable steps will be taken to protect it. This is to minimally satisfy the IP folks and investors in the company.
Must be within our (modest) software budget. Affordability is always a requirement.
Must speak with us on the telephone and instill confidence. Anyone can set up a website these days. Talk to a real person before choosing a provider. A serious company will be happy to give you a demo and answer any questions or address any concerns you may have. After speaking with one company we ran for the hills as it became clear the "company" was just two college kids with precious little experience.

As we moved forward I faced very strong opposition against my plan to outsource these tools. I was surprised to find that my strongest opposition came from within my own software group! In retrospect I shouldn't have been surprised since they would be the ones using the tools so it would impact them the most. Some developers worried about the potential of poor performance or downtime while others simply struggled with the notion of giving another company "control" over our tools and data.

The concern about poor performance or downtime could be mitigated (at least partially) in two ways. The first was that if performance or downtime did become a problem we could always switch providers because of requirements #1 and #2. Also one of the tools we hoped to use, subversion, is explicitly designed to work "offline" anyway. In most circumstances when a subversion server is inaccessible, one can simply continue working and sync back later.

The second concern about losing "control" of our tools and data was, I think in our situation, more of a mental road bump. It was a bump that I initially struggled with this too but eventually got over.

Requirements #1, #2, and #3 show that we would be the ones who maintained ownership and real ultimate control. Sure we would be allowing another company (a partner) to have access to our code but that is a fact of life for most software companies. If you don't want anyone outside your company to have seen your code then:

don't form any tight development partnerships
don't hire any contractors
don't fire anyone
don't let anyone quit or retire

Another mental road block that software developers seem to have is in thinking that code is the company's "crown jewels". We need to get over ourselves! Of course code is really important but it is just one part of your business. Had our source code been accidentally (or purposely) leaked it is exceedingly unlikely that another "joystick for cell phones" company would have emerged or that any real damage would have occurred to our business. In fact releasing the source code probably would have had a net positive impact on our business rather than a negative one.

So sure it wasn't perfect (few solutions are) but we had to move very quickly and what we were doing wasn't sustainable. Having software engineers worry about maintaining servers and backups isn't productive or efficient. In balance outsourcing these tools was a no brainer.

While I faced internal opposition a new CEO joined the company and (luckily for me) he was open minded, willing to hear me out and gave me great support.

After searching we went with Codesion.com (formerly CVSDude.com). For an extremely cheap price they provided terrific service for us. While we did have a few outages and a few performance problems they were all quickly corrected. Overall it worked out great and I highly recommend them.

The lesson learned here is that hosted development tools can provide a great option for many software companies and should be strongly considered when building your development team's infrastructure.

I'm very proud to say that at Zeemote, Inc. we never lost of single line of code or piece of change history since the first week I joined the company.

Managing Status on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

2010-01-28T16:05:00.011-05:00

I was asked today how I manage and post status updates to the various social networking sites I use. I figured I'd put my answer here in case anyone else might find it useful.

The three major social tools I use are:

Twitter - used to share links & short thoughts "publicly". I mostly use Twitter for professional purposes which for me means mostly technical & business related stuff. I keep this network public.
Facebook - used to keep in touch with friends and family. I try not to post much tech/business stuff here since most of my Facebook friends aren't interested! Instead, on Facebook, I post more personal stuff or more "pop culture" type stuff. I keep this network private.
LinkedIn - used for professional and networking purposes only.

Occasionally I want to post one status update to multiple (or all) of these networks. For example at the moment I am looking for a new job and figure I should talk to anyone who will listen! To easily post to multiple networks you can do the following:

On Facebook install and configure the Selective Tweets Facebook application. It will monitor your Twitter feed and update your Facebook status with your tweet IF it includes #fb.
On LinkedIn install and configure the Tweets LinkedIn application. It will monitor your Twitter feed and update your LinkedIn status with your tweet IF it includes #in.
Post an update to Twitter and include #fb and/or #in accordingly.

Personality Ethic vs Character Ethic

2010-01-22T13:44:00.009-05:00

Prior to writing The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People the author Stephen Covey reviewed much of the "success literature" (i.e. self help books) written in the the United States since 1776. He found that after World War I the focus of these writings generally changed in what they taught to be the foundation for achieving success.

In the most recent 50 years success, we have been taught, is primarily a function of what he calls "Personality Ethics". Some quotes:

Success became more a more a function of personality, of public image, of attitudes and behaviors, skills and techniques, that lubricate the process of human interaction.

This Personality Ethic took two paths: one was human and public relations techniques, and the other was positive mental attitude (PMA) ... expressed in inspiring and sometimes valid maxims such as "Your attitude determines your altitude,"

Other parts of the personality approach were clearly manipulative, even deceptive, encouraging people to use techniques to get other people to like them, or to fake interest in the hobbies of others to get out of them what they wanted, or to use the "power look," or to intimidate their way through life.

This differs from what the first 150 years of literature focused on which is something he refers to as "Character Ethic."

things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule.

Covey admits that while parts of Personality Ethic are important and in many circumstances critical--things like communication and presentations skills--these skills are at best secondary. To truly sustain long tern success one must focus first and foremost on Character Ethic. It is primary.

A great example he gives is with respect to trust. Everyone can agree that trust is a critical element for success in business, family, and friendships. While Personality Ethic suggests communication techniques / tricks to gain trust, Character Ethic says to just be trustworthy.

If I try to use human influence strategies and tactics of how to get other people to do what I want, to work better, to be more motivated, to like me and each other--while my character is fundamentally flawed, marked by duplicity and insincerity--then, in the long run, I cannot be successful. My duplicity will breed distrust, and everything I do--even using so-called good human relations techniques--will be perceived as manipulative.

and conversely

There are people we trust absolutely because we know their character. Whether they're eloquent or not, whether they have the human relations techniques or not, we trust them, and we work successfully with them.

This resonates with me because at heart I'm in idealist and always like to think that "the good guy" always wins in the end. It is nice therefore to read something that makes sense and reinforces that belief. It also helps because I think I lack some of those Personality Ethic skills!

Funny, as I read about the approaches two specific people stick out in my mind. One who excels in Personality Ethic and one who excels in Character Ethic. How about you?

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

2010-01-22T12:14:00.008-05:00

Sometime last year I was looking for new business books to read. I talked to mentors and colleagues and searched the web to discover that the The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was in almost everyone's recommendation list. First published in 1989 it is already widely regarded as a classic. I went ahead and ordered it without reviewing what it was all about and without even carefully reading the cover. Last week on a plane trip between Tampa and Boston I finally opened it and began.

I've only read two chapters so far but it is clear to me that this is not a "business book" in the traditional sense or at least what I think of as a traditional business book. It would be much better described as a "self help" or "personal change" book and to be honest, had I known that in advance, I probably wouldn't have bought it.

Thus far the book resonates very deeply with me. It reinforces some of my core believes but introduces some new and powerful ideas and concepts. It also helps that the core of the book's message appears to address what I know to be among of my largest and quite serious flaws which is that of balance. Most of my current, or in some cases former, colleagues, friends, family, and girlfriend(s) can attest to this weakness.

The author Stephen R. Covey suggests the following:

I would suggest that you shift your paradigm of your own involvement in this material from the role of learner to that of teacher. Take an inside-out approach, and read with the purpose in mind of sharing or discussing what you learn with someone else within 48 hours after you learn it.

I think this is a great suggestion for this or any non-fiction book. Taking notes and discussing what you read will multiply by several times what you soak in. Coincidentally this also happens to be a great marketing technique to spread work of the book but I will avoid being cynical! I have decided to take up Stephen's suggestion and discuss some of the ideas & concepts that I learn and find interesting here on my blog. I may also post noteworthy quotes to twitter . If you have read the book or have something to add I would love to hear from you. This may take some time since another weakness of mine is slow reading.

A Theory: Why the iPhone doesn't allow background applications

2010-01-07T19:38:00.008-05:00

The lack of support for background applications on the iPhone drives me crazy since it prevents a number of very useful apps from being deployed on it. The one I miss most from my BlackBerry is Google Talk for instant messaging. Today I was thinking about why Apple would disallow a basic feature that every other modern OS supports. I can think of two complementary reasons.

The first has to do with user interface. Most users don't understand the very concept of "background applications". I'm not sure I've ever seen a really great UI for managing running processes on a desktop OS let alone a mobile one. Since most applications don't need the feature anyway my guess is that Apple just punted on it.

The second reason is more technical. Currently the iPhone only supports application development using Objective-C. More notable is that it is Objective-C without garbage collection. This means that each developer is responsible for his or her own memory management. All but the most egotistical of developers would admit that managing memory is a difficult problem and most of us do a bad job at it. If allowed on the iPhone many of our poorly written applications would run in the background eating away at the memory and slowing the phone down until the frustrated user reboots it. Foreground-only applications means that won't happen since the application will be destroyed after just a few seconds or minutes. As a result I suspect that most iPhone developers do little to no memory management what so ever.

iPhone OS will have to support background applications eventually and my prediction is that it will arrive on the same day that garbage collection does.

Zeemote Assets Sold to Aplix

2009-12-21T05:00:00.001-05:00

Five weeks after Zeemote ceased operations it was announced Thursday that the assets of the company have been sold off to Aplix Corp.

The obvious question then is who is Aplix?

Aplix Corp is a Japanese based company that creates a JVM / KVM called JBlend that it licenses to handset manufacturers. I've seen JBlend on older Motorola feature phones (like the RAZR and PEBL) as well as few Windows Mobile devices. As far as I know though they have very little market share in the US or in Europe.

It seems like an odd marriage but hopefully they can help add Zeemote support to more games and devices and to improve the overall user experience. I also hope they allow, encourage, and aid in getting the Zeemote supported on non-JBlend devices since MIDP (Java ME) based devices (Aplix core business) are quickly dying in favor of more capable smartphones. Just Friday the press went wild with reports of the rising success of the java-hating iPhone in Aplix's home turf of Japan.

Congrats to those at Zeemote who got the deal done and are continuing on. I decided to turn down their offer but will be watching and rooting for them to turn this into a success. Good luck.

Lesson #1 - Hardware is Hard

2009-12-09T18:59:00.008-05:00

Among my first lessons learned at Zeemote, Inc. is that hardware is hard and in my opinion start-up companies should avoid getting into the physical product business if at all possible.

For some time I believed that physical products held a huge advantage over software-only products. Consumers are after all used to paying for items that they can touch and feel whereas most software these days seems to be free. The high barrier to entry of the hardware market also ensures that you will see much less competition than you otherwise might.

Having said that, I now feel that the disadvantages of creating hardware products far outweigh the advantages. The barrier to entry is high for a reason and it is not just your competition that needs to cross it!

Compared to software, hardware is several orders of magnitude more expensive to prototype, manufacturer, and distribute. One software engineer can develop a basic demo in a matter of hours and the manufacturing / distribution costs approach zero. Creating and distributing a hardware product requires much more expertise across a wider range of domains. It requires hiring more staff and partnering with outside (and expensive) vendors. An initial prototype may not be seen for months. If you make it to manufacturing, each unit you build costs money and everyone along the value chain needs to get paid. You must figure out how to distribute the product and manage all the logistics it entails. You also need to carefully manage inventory which is non-trivial since forecasting demand of a new product is almost impossible.

The larger (but related) issue is that of iteration. Start-ups are usually attempting to create a new market or segment an existing one. A start-up is usually founded on some hypothesis which almost always turns out to be wrong. Experienced and successful entrepreneurs will tell you that the key to success is through experimentation, learning and iterating on your product idea. Get your product into the market as quickly as possible and modify it based on what you learn. Often the final winning product bares little resemblance to the initial idea. The sad reality is that today the costs of manufacturing and distributing hardware makes iteration impractical for most. If you don't get it right the first time then you are dead meat.

Unfortunately at Zeemote we spent much more time dealing with the basic issues of just bringing the device to market than we did (or could) on iterating the product based on user feedback.

If you are considering a hardware product I'd urge you to think long and hard about it. Is there any way that you can develop an initial version or a similar product that doesn't require hardware?

I think a good example of this done right is Boxee. They provide an internet media streaming service that ideally would run on a dedicated set-top box connected to your TV (like your cable box). When Boxee launched however they did so with desktop software only (no hardware). This let them test their product idea and build a user base. Sure, ideally, it would be a set top box but the software allowed early adopters to try the service and provide feedback. It wasn't until this week that they announced a dedicated hardware device. Smart move.

I don't see myself getting into the hardware business again any time soon but if I do you can be sure it will have a software-only strategy at launch.

- mpv

Game Over for Zeemote

2009-12-08T18:38:00.011-05:00

I'm disappointed to report that last month my (now former) employer, Zeemote, Inc. laid off its staff and shut down operations. The news was first reported in Mass High Tech the day after it happened a few weeks ago.

According to investor Michael Fitzgerald of Commonwealth Capital Ventures, the company has shut its doors, but he declined to offer any further details of the closure, except to note the plans to sell Zeemote’s assets.

I spent three and half years at Zeemote, Inc. That may not sound like a long time but in the world of start-ups and the mobile industry in particular that amounts to several lifetimes. Remember that back in 2006 the number one cell phone was still the Motorola RAZR and few people could envision high quality games or applications ever running on mobile phones.

I joined the company back then as the first full time hire after the founders. Like all roller coasters this one had lots of ups, downs and unexpected turns. During my tenure I had 4 different bosses and 3 different CEOs. We worked in 2 different office buildings and saw the company renamed. We celebrated a few big launches and deals but were disappointed by the failure to close many more than we landed. We had a few hiring sprees and two major layoffs, the last of which was my own.

The failure of the product and company is a huge let down for everyone involved. A lot of time, money, and heart went into this effort but we ultimately failed.

With that said, Zeemote was undoubtedly the best professional experience of my life. I strongly believe that failure can provide the best learning experiences and this is no exception. We did a lot of things right at Zeemote but we also made a ton of mistakes. The lessons I learned here will stick with me for years and I hope (in due time) to share many of them with you on this blog.

For now I'm officially one of the many unemployed but I'm very excited and optimistic for what is next.

DISCLAIMER: This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer (I don't even have one!)

Early Access to Google Products

2009-10-01T16:02:00.008-04:00

UPDATE: After this post several readers sent me invites. I now have an account. Thanks!

Last year I was lucky enough to get early access to Google Voice (formerly Grand Central). How? Well I just logged in to blogger, google's blogging software, and there was an invitation just waiting for me.

This is a great marketing strategy for Google. Create a new service and provide early access to bloggers since they are very likely to write about said service and build buzz around it.

I haven't been writing much lately but I really want a Google Wave account. I logged in to blogger today for the sole purpose of finding a Wave invite. Unfortunately nothing. Come on Google, let me try Wave!

Zeemote now sold in the US

2009-08-26T09:39:00.004-04:00

The Zeemote JS1 controller is now available for sale in the U.S. off of BlackBerry's site here. Go buy lots of them. ;-)

DISCLAIMER: This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.

Lets Run Series

2009-08-21T10:16:00.002-04:00

Last night I ran in an organized 4.2 mile run as part of the "Lets Run Series". It was great. Several hundred people were in it and at the end you are treated to a food, beer, and live music. If you enjoy running I encourage you to check it out. Unfortunately these events sell out quickly and if you are not already signed up for the final runs you will probably have to wait until next year.

Which for Windows

2009-08-14T15:16:00.006-04:00

I've been stuck having to use the MS command prompt a lot lately because some of the tools I'm using at the moment don't work under Cygwin.

I needed to figure out which installation of an app was first in my PATH and I longed for the which command.

Ask [google] and you shall receive: which for Windows.

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net hosts a number of standard unix apps that have been ported to Windows and do not require Cygwin.

Moving Your Google Desktop Index

2009-08-14T10:13:00.005-04:00

I was surprised last week to find that my C:\ drive was completely full. Using WinDirStat (thanks for the link Paul) I was able to analyze the drive and see where exactly the space was being used up. The largest disk hog turned out to be Google Desktop which was consuming over 4 Gig of primary C:\ real estate.

Google Desktop is essential for searching files on your desktop and especially useful for searching mail in Outlook but it consumes huge amounts of disk space over time. Google doesn't provide a user setting for where to store the index but there is a registry key you can modify to get the job done.

Here is how you move the location of your Google Desktop index:

Exit Google Desktop
Run regedit
Observe the folder path / name stored in the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Desktop\data_dir
Move that folder to where ever you want it stored
Update the registry setting to reflect the new location
Restart Google Desktop

This allowed me to move the index to my D:\ drive clearing up space needed on C:\.

Pass the Line Item Veto Amendment

2009-07-14T20:55:00.012-04:00

If Obama and the Democrats are serious about restrained and responsible government spending they should pass a constitutional amendment to finally give the President the much needed line item veto power.

We need this today more than ever. I just read an article about how a few senators have modified a defense spending bill to appropriate $1.75 billion for outdated F-22 fighter jets that the President and the military don't want and consider wasteful. Why the spending? The jets are made in the senator's home states of course. Obama is now considering the unusual action of vetoing a bill that his own administration primarily wrote!

The president's not alone in opposing the change. He's also got the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, and his former GOP rival Sen. John McCain -- a war hero himself -- on his side.

But with jobs on the line, other senators are putting up a fight for the F-22.

Today most US state governors have the line item veto but sadly the President of the United States does not. Actually for a short time President Clinton did have this power and he used it 11 times. Bob Dole and John McCain introduced and passed the Line Item Veto act in 1996 but in 1998 it was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in a lawsuit against it by then NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani. A constitutional amendment or a modified version of the law is now needed to legalize it.

This power is over due and desperately needed. Now is the time to pass it. It would also happen to be a great way for Obama and the Democrats to fight the public's growing concerns over uncontrolled and wasteful government spending.

Android Native Development Kit Released

2009-06-25T21:07:00.012-04:00

Today Android announced official support for native development via the Android Native Development Kit. This is a huge step forward for the platform.

Yea, I love my Java but not having a native C / C++ option makes it impossible for developers to port many popular desktop applications & console games. Without C / C++ you could never see apps like Firefox, Google Earth or a halfway decent version of John Madden Football running.

Currently the NDK doesn't support a native UI so for the time being developers will need to use Java as the front end and interface to C / C++ via JNI.

Lack of a native interface remains a huge weakness of the BlackBerry platform. BlackBerry has no real Operating System per say. In fact they don't even refer to it as an Operating System but rather as "Device Software". The lowest level software RIM has is essentially the JVM. I've heard RIM describe the architecture as "Java on the metal".

Luckily the entire BlackBerry platform should be fairly straightforward to port to a full Operating System such as Linux. In this way they could add support for native development while maintaining full backwards compatibility with existing applications. And in fact they have essentially done this already! The BlackBerry Application Suite runs atop Windows Mobile and runs most of the platform.

BlackBerry and Microsoft continue to look like a perfect match for each other. If it doesn't happen I sure hope RIM is busy at work porting the platform to Linux.

#IranElection

2009-06-24T21:43:00.005-04:00

Events in Iran are are occurring in such a drastically new way and at such speed that I'm not sure I have a good grip on what yet to think of it all. Below are some miscellaneous thoughts.

With text, images, and video coming directly from the people involved this is the closest I've ever felt to war (if you can call this a war). Sad when my own country has been at war for several years.
Everyone should be watching and reading at least some of these accounts.
The Neda videos (here and here) are terrible but not watching is either not fully understanding, ignoring or denying.
Should the U.S. get involved?
A great quote going around: "In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible." - Michael McFaul, National Security Council
Twitter is a very effective communication tool but it is very noisy and it is impossible to verify the accuracy, truthfulness, or the real source behind the messages.
Twitter is a great propaganda tool.
Has the U.S already been involved?
Will this fizzle out in a few days or are we seeing a true revolution?

As it relates to us

All countries are far more fragile than we think.
Suggestions of election fraud with or without basis threaten the stability of a country.
Should suggestions of election fraud without basis be considered a criminal act (like saying "fire" in a crowded theater)? Should it be considered a treasonous act?

Thoughts are with the Iranians protesting for and dying for free speech and free elections.

Congressmen Ask Fannie and Freddie to do What?

2009-06-24T19:32:00.005-04:00

Congressmen Barney Frank and Anthony Weiner have written a letter to the CEO's of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac asking them to lower their lending standards. Many people (myself included) believe this is a big part of how we got into the housing crisis in the first place. Amazing.

Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said.

First Jobs of Famous CEOs

2009-06-10T19:15:00.002-04:00

Check out this interesting slideshow from businessinsider.com showing the first jobs of a few famous CEOs.

My favorite part was the slide on Steve Ballmer that includes a video of him selling Windows 1.0:

GM vs California Pizza Kitchen

2009-06-06T14:43:00.006-04:00

There is a good Op-Ed in the Washington Post by George Will criticizing the government bailout of GM. In it he points out that today the the market cap of GM is roughly equivalent to that of California Pizza Kitchen.

Washington's "rescue" of GM began because GM is "too big to fail," and bankruptcy is (well, was) "unthinkable." Big? GM's market capitalization, $375.8 million on Wednesday, is about the size of California Pizza Kitchen's ($340 million) -- is it too big to fail? -- and one-eleventh that of Harley-Davidson ($4.3 billion). Fail? If GM has not already failed, New Coke was a success.

Extreme Sheep LED Art

2009-06-06T14:25:00.002-04:00

We all have our hobbies I guess. Check out this "Extreme Sheep LED Art" video:

Java Store In Private Beta

2009-06-02T21:56:00.002-04:00

Java One kicked off today and the big announcement, as expected, was the Java Store. They are further along than I expected. They have a private beta site up and running and are accepting applications for testers now.

Verizon to Support Java ME

2009-06-02T21:47:00.005-04:00

Verizon announced today at Java One that it will begin supporting Java ME. Wish they did this 4 years ago!

A quote from the press release:

Lowell McAdam, president and CEO of Verizon Wireless, who will outline his company's strategic decision to deploy Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) -based services in its network and offer Java-based services and applications to its subscribers.

Obviously short on details but we will certainly learn more soon.

It is unclear how widely the support will span (most devices or just a few) nor is it clear what will happen to BREW now.

I suspect they will move to the Sprint model where by which:

A KVM is developed atop BREW
System applications and preload applications can be written in BREW or Java ME
All 3rd party applications must be written in Java ME

Homeless on Twitter

2009-05-31T09:12:00.009-04:00

Last year I mentioned how Google was offering free voice mail service to the homeless. The idea is to give people (think welfare officials, doctors, family) a way to leave messages for those who can be difficult to find and get in touch with.

Well that is sooooo 2008. I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how the homeless are getting on the internet. They are surfing the web, doing email, and even using social networking sites. It profiles Charles Pitts who says he has been on the street for two years and has accounts on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter (see @poetcharles).

In the United States we have been blessed with the freedom of speech since its founding. Only now however do we have the tools that enable all of us (regardless of economic class) to exercise that freedom on such a massive scale.

The fact that individuals from @poetcharles to @mpv to @APlusK can now communicate and publish their thoughts and experiences on identical platforms is mind blowing.

One day our kids will study these technologies as we did the printing press.

Java Store

2009-05-20T16:32:00.006-04:00

A year and a half ago I noticed and joked about how Sun was advertising other products from within Java Update on the PC.

In a video blog posting today Sun's CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, discussed the success they had distributing Google toolbar via Java Update and announced that they will build on that success and extend it to become a full fledged / general purpose App Store!?

With an installation base of "approximately a billion users", he says, it "has the potential to deliver the world's largest audience".

As with other app stores, Sun will charge for distribution - but unlike other app stores, whose audiences are tiny, measured in the millions or tens of millions, ours will have what we estimate to be approximately a billion users. That's clearly a lot of traffic, and will position the Java App Store as having just about the world's largest audience.

Presumably it will work across all Java platforms. More details to come in a few weeks at JavaOne.