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10 Things You and Your Kids Will Want From E3

Nathan Barry — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:30:36 GMT

So, the big three have all had their go in the E3 spotlight for this year, but are the big things that will keep us all waiting with baited breath for those oh so far away release dates? Here’s a quick rundown of what you can expect to have spend that hard earned cash on over the next year or so.

1. Nintendo: Mario is back!

A total of 4 new Mario games where announced during Nintendo’s press conference at E3. First up is a sequel to the fabulous Super Mario Galaxy, surprisingly titled Super Mario Galaxy 2 - must have taken them ages to come up with that one! Miyamoto has promised that over 90% of the game will be new, maybe more, as the team are using ideas that they couldn’t fit into the first one. So expect plenty more upside-down running around odd little planets and asteroids, let’s just hope the camera positioning can be improved even more.

Next up, a brand new Super Mario Bros. for Wii. Taking a leaf from the underrated Zelda Four Swords game, this time out Mario is accompanied not just by Luigi, but by two other characters - Toads initially, but who knows what you can unlock later.
The game is old-school in its 2D, side-scrolling nature, but fully updated for the Wii, with new special suits (a penguin!) and plenty of worlds to explore. A quick look at the trailer shows lush green valleys, icy wastes, industrial zones - the usual fair, but the key to it is 4 player co-op play. Players can team up to access tricky areas and throw each other around the screen. There’s a bit of screen zooming to try and keep everyone onscreen at the same time, but if you fall too far behind you risk loosing a life.

The DS isn’t left either with 2 games coming soon. In the Autumn, sorry Fall, the DS Mario & Luigi RPG: Bowser’s Inside Story will be released in a localized version, in which the characters move through Bowser’s body on the lower screen, while Bowser is up to his own mischief on the screen above. And if you can’t that long for a new Mario fix, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: March of the Minis is a Mario puzzler game, downloadable from the DSiWare service on Monday.

2. Microsoft: Project Natal
On Monday, Microsoft unveiled Natal their ‘no-controller’ control system for the Xbox - a 3D camera recognition system that turns your body movements directly in to movements on the screen for your avatar, a car, a monster or whatever the developers can think of. Unveiled with the help of bigwigs like Steven Spielberg and Peter Molyneux, it promises a whole new way to interact with your games.
This slick demo movie shows a third-person martial arts fighter - where your punch and kicks are translated directly to the screen, a racing sim - complete with gear changes and pit stops, and a family quiz game show where you use your fist as the buzzer.

The interactions don’t just stop with games though. Molyneux’s ‘Milo’ demo was a slightly creepy virtual friend who can recognize you and have a chat. You can use the camera to ‘capture’ real life items to use in the games, like riding your own deck in skateboarding game. The cameras also take over the on screen interface, allowing you to swipe, Minority Report style, though your menus and use the voice recognition to start a movie playing.

If they can deliver half of the stuff shown here (and it works properly) then it could help usurp the Wii’s current top slot. And it was very hard for me to write that - I really like disliking anything that comes out of Redmond!

3. Sony: PlayStation Motion Controller
Not to be outdone in the catch-up game, Sony also announced their own motion capture system for the PlayStation. Basically, it’s a kind of ‘magic wand’ that uses the PlayStation 3’s camera to track your movements in 3D. While not as far along the development cycle as Natal, Sony were able to show a host of uses for the technology - aiming first person shooter weaponry, using it as a tennis racket, a golf club or a bow and arrow, writing with it, and all with ’sub-millimeter’ accuracy. Expect to hear more about it next spring.

4. Nintendo: Wii MotionPlus
Nintendo of course already have the motion control and tracking sorted, but they’re not a company to rest on their laurels - well not at the moment at least. The Wii Motion Plus is essentially a fine tuner for the regular Wii-mote, giving it more accuracy, and plugs into the little slot on the bottom of the controller. It was actually announced at last year’s E3, but it’s only now that we’re really starting to see it action.
The first games that makes use of it - EA’s Grand Slam Tennis and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 and Sega’s Virtua Tennis 2009, as well as Nintendo’s own Wii Sports Resort are about to hit the shelves, and the improved accuracy helps you put proper topspin on a tennis ball or draw and fade your golf swing manually. Miyamoto has also hinted that the WMP will be used in the new Zelda game currently under development too.

5. Microsoft: Xbox goes social
As if we all needed another way to access our Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm info - soon you’ll be able to do it all on that big HD TV screen from the comfort of your sofa, and all in a big unified package with your Avatar and Xbox Live friends. You’ll even be able to post things like screenshots and data live from games like EA’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour directly to your Facebook profile using Facebook connect.

6. Sony: PSP Go

The PSP Go

So what if you’ve already got a DS or a PSP? You’re still going to want to get your hands on Sony’s new handheld, for a mere 249 Dollars or Euros when it’s released on 1st October.
The new form factor has a sliding screen similar to a mobile phone, which reveals all the controls and buttons, it’s half the size of the original PSP, and has 16GB of internal memory, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support and a Memory Stick expansion port. The biggest change is the lack of UMD drive - all games for it will be distributed digitally and synced to the internal memory. Is this the beginning of the end for another failed format from Sony?
New software included with the PSP Go will also sync your music, video and photos from you PC, just like iTunes does for your iPod.

7. Nintendo: More Metroid
Proving that there’s more than one ‘M’ in Nintendo’s arsenal, Metroid fans also had something to cheer about from this year’s E3. Firstly, there’s the ‘Wii-make’ of Retro Studios Metroid Prime series, all three episodes of the GameCube trilogy in one package, with an updated and unified control scheme.
Then there’s a whole new game, developed by Team Ninja, Metroid: Other M, due for release in 2010. The trailer shown continued the theme of the Prime games, with both first-person shooting and third-person action, with both in-game footage and some CGI sequences, featuring Samus and an unknown second female character.

8. Microsoft: On Demand Games and more
Downloadable games are starting to become more prevalent nowadays and Microsoft are ramping up their offerings by adding a number of Xbox 360 titles to the already available Xbox Originals. Add to this the rebranded Zune Video, with its 1080p, instant-on movies, Netflix and Last.fm streaming and, in the UK at least, live sports from Sky, and the Xbox is looking like so much more than a games console.

9. Sony: More PS3 Exclusive Games
They may have lost the exclusivity of Grand Theft Auto to the Xbox and, a lesser extent, the DS, but Sony announced that the studio behind the GTA series - Rockstar North, are hard at work creating a new exclusive game for the PS3. Called Agent, it’s a story of global espionage and assassins set in the late 1970s and that’s about all we know about it, apart a neat looking logo.
Then there is ModNation Racers, a kart racing game which borrows LittleBigPlanet’s super customization theme, allowing almost unlimited variations of characters, cars, and tracks. The track editor seems remarkably simple, - essentially you just ‘paint’ the tracks, terrain, scenery, and power-ups, in with a brush, and then they can be tested almost instantly.
Other exclusives mentioned include a new online version of Final Fantasy (number 14) and The Last Guardian, a new game from Fumito Ueda, creator of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.

10. Great new names on all platforms
Exclusives were all well and good when the original PlayStation and PS2 ruled the roost, but now that things are much more evenly matched, it makes sense for developers to bring out their games on all platforms, so whatever your console of choice is, there are some great games coming up soon.
Musically, you can look forward to; The Beatles: Rock Band, Guitar Hero 5 and the new DJ Hero, with its funky turntable controller. Sports-fans can choose from the latest FIFA football game and Tony Hawks’ next outing Ride, again with its own funky controller. Plus, there’s a new Star Wars game on the way, The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes.

So, what will you spend your pennies on?

Building Tomorrow’s Engineers One Den Meeting at a Time

Dave Giancaspro — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:00:59 GMT

Image: Dave Giancaspro

Every year I work with my Webelos on the engineering achievement pin. Building a circuit, making catapults and using a block and tackle are all part of the adventure.

The first meeting we discuss what engineering is and what careers are available in engineering. To make things interesting this year I brought some robots to show the kids. The robots were a big hit especially the vibrabot I built with my daughter.

High Point: Two days later the Cub Master called to tell me his son duct taped his electric toothbrush to a plastic cup and had it running across the floor.

The second meeting was all about electricity. A 6volt battery some wire and an LED made a model of how electricity makes it to your home. Then it was time for the MacGyver challenge. Each kid was given a paper bag with some batteries, a broken flashlight and some conductors. The conductors were anything from gum wrappers to a Chinese food container. The kids had to build a working flashlight from these bits. They had a blast and were all able to get a working flashlight. I also gave the parents an article entitled ‘Toys are Made for Tinkering”

High Point: One scout after the meeting said “Cool now I can make light” engineering can be so empowering

Next meeting was “The Laws of Motion and Medieval Siege Weapons”. After a brief explanation of the laws of motion we built catapults out of milk containers, spoons and pencils. Then we shot Fig Newtons around the cafeteria (Issac Newton … Fig Newton … OK the kids thought it was funny). I also showed them my paper clip trebucet so they could compare two different methods of bringing down the castle walls.

High Point: One mom told me a few days later that her son thought it was the best meeting ever.

The final meeting I went to Home Depot and bought some pulleys and rope. After a demo on the basics of the Block and Tackle the kids were challenged to figure out how to lift four bricks with one brick and a rock. The results were interesting and the boys learned an important lesson about failure as an engineering tool. When I showed them the solution we were able to lift seven bricks with one brick and a rock.

High Point: In a truly Arthur C Clarke moment one kid said “That is totally impossible”.

Yes sometimes engineering is indistinguishable from magic. That’s why so many geeks love it !

Toys Are Made for Tinkering
Milk Carton Catapult
A Paper clip Trebuchet
How a Block and Tackle Works from Hows Stuff Works

Clustered or nonclustered index on a random GUID?

paul.nospam@nospam.sqlskills.com (paul) — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:34:00 GMT

Quickie this morning to start the day off. I saw a question on a forum: if I *have* to use a GUID and *must* have a primary key, should I make the primary key clustered or nonclustered?

Now, I'm not getting into the whole GUID vs. bigint identifier, or random GUID vs. GUID generated by NEWSEQUENTIALID(), so please don't comment on those issues, they're not relevant here. I just want to address the question - what kind of index should it be?

From a Storage Engine perspective, my answer is nonclustered. Here are three reasons why:

If the index is clustered, then the cluster key is immediately at least 16 bytes (the size of a GUID). This doesn't change the size of the clustered index records (as the GUID column has to be stored in the table anyway, and a clustered index IS the table), but it does change the size of the nonclustered indexes. All nonclustered indexes on the table must include the cluster keys, even of they are not explicitly part of the nonclustered index keys (I'll do a post on this later). This means the GUID is present in every nonclustered index record too. From this perspective, it would be better to use a smaller clustered index key and have the GUID primary ley be nonclustered so it's only present in that one nonclustered index.
Random GUIDs used as the high-order key cause index fragmentation. Their random nature means the insertion point into the index is also random. This causes page splits, which cause fragmentation and are *expensive*. (I touched on this a bit a few days ago in my post How expensive are page splits in terms of transaction log?.). With a random key value, it's hard to avoid page splits and fragmentation, although you can delay them somewhat using FILLFACTOR, but at the expense of using extra space. By making the GUID index nonclustered, you can delay page splits even further. The clustered index is the table, so the records are (usually always) larger than nonclustered index records. This means you can get fewer clustered index records on an 8KB page than nonclustered index records. With fewer records per page, you can do fewer random insertions on the page before a page split occurs. So using a nonclustered index for the GUID key means you can do fewer expensive page splits.
Given that whatever kind of index you create for the GUID key is going to experience index fragmentation, you're probably going to want to periodically remove the fragmentation as part of your database maintenance plan. It makes sense to try to limit the amount of resources used by the fragmentation removal operation (e.g. cpu, IO, disk space, transaction log space), and so the smaller the fragmented index, the better. A nonclustered index for the GUID key will be smaller than a clustered index, so if you choose a non-fragmentation-causing clustered index key, and confine the fragmentation to the nonclustered index, you can use fewer resources during database maintenance.

And there you have it. I'm sure some of you have seen pathological cases that disprove one of the above points, but my arguments are generalizations. Maybe this is a can of worms I've opened, in which case I look forward to the comments!

PS Brent did a great post about humor when blogging, the cartoon links he includes are great. Check it out here.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 expected as soon as next week

Mary Jo Foley — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:06:54 GMT

One of the biggest questions at Microsoft's TechEd conference this week is where is the beta of Visual Studio 2010. I'm hearing it could be in testers' hands as soon as next week.

Firing Your Clients –Even During a Recession

jeremiah_owyang — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:55:33 GMT

Sometimes, in a recession, the best way to increase profitability is to fire your own customers.
I’ve been hearing from a few vendors and agencies, that they’re letting go of their least wanted clients. Why? During a recession, vendors are focused on being efficient with all resources, and in some cases, some clients are net negative in time, energy, resources, and morale.

Some clients are net negative
There’s a rule-of-thumb in the business realm that 20% of your customers will comprise of 80% of your total revenues. If that model is true, then likely the inverse holds truth: the bottom 20% of your clients account for 80% of all of your resource spend.

This is exactly what I heard from a recent agency I met with, they strategically decided to get rid of the bottom fifth of their client base. Why? The costs require to service some high touch clients that increase scope creep, are cheap in the invoice, shop around beyond reason, and even cause emotional abuse to account managers made it ‘net negative’. It makes sense, especially with the account manager abuse, right? What would you rather lose, a client or a dedicated employee, and risks of damage to morale?

So which clients are most likely to get canned by their vendors? Often times top name brands feel they can tout their reputation in hopes of getting business from vendors at the lowest cost –yet expecting the highest service. Having worked in the banking industry for a short time, I know that vendor management often has it’s own department that scours the market to ensure the company is getting the best deal.

Social media vendors at risk for unpaid education services
In the social media space, (which I cover) I’ve been hearing of some brands requiring extensive education from vendors. From full strategy days (non paid), non-stop Q&A in email and IM, and phone calls. While in such a nascent industry this is important, and key for a vendor to demonstrate ability, at some point, it crosses the ‘greasing the skids’ to being a complete ‘time sink’ –especially if the vendor isn’t charging for it’s hard earned knowledge in formal education offerings.

Vendors should analyze their customer base
Vendors, now more than ever, are starting to evaluate how to cut costs, and perhaps the first place to look is finding the resource sink that’s taking up the organizations time, resources –and willpower and focus on the higher value clients. A few considerations:

Evaluate the clients that you have that are net negative –is the long term gain worth it?
Could you better allocate your resources to increasing growth in premium value clients
How could your staff be better spending their time?
Often, companies purge their employee base to ensure quality talent, can you do the same for clients?

Buyers should partner with vendors
Brands, who don’t want to be stuck in the costly multi-month RFP, vendor evaluation, negotiation, and paperwork process should take in the following considerations:

Are you exceeding the scope of the original requirements of the agreement?
Is your team calling in special favors on a consistent basis?
Do you consider your vendor a long term partner and have made that clear?
Is your team getting proper education from folks who specialize on new topics? Or are you unrealistically expecting them to hand hold you beyond profitability?
Having an unhappy vendor will ultimately impact your quality of service –and folks in any industry talk amongst themselves.

Business relationships are two-way
In the end, we should all remember that these business transactions go both ways, and the relationships will sever when both sides aren’t met. In my predictions of the future of the social web, it’s possible that buyers (and vendors) could rate their relationships with brands –and even individual stakeholders, if that comes about, it could cause a shift in power from buyer to seller.

Would love to hear stories from you all about when vendors have fired their own clients, I ask however, please keep specific brands names out of the comments.

A tragic tale of Free gone horribly wrong

Chris Anderson — Wed, 06 May 2009 02:06:08 GMT

Jon Lund, the head of the Danish Internet Advertising Bureau, and I had dinner in Norway last week and he told me the chilling story of the crazy free newspaper war in Denmark that almost killed everyone involved. I thought it was an important cautionary tale of Free gone wrong, and I encouraged him to write it up on his blog.

He did, and it is indeed grim reading. I’ve excerpted (and lightly edited) the basic story below, but it’s worth going straight to the source to get Jon’s analysis, along with a lot of links to other reports on this disaster.

Short form: the attempt by a half-dozen newspaper publishers to “out-free” a free Icelandic paper that entered the market (backed by Morten Lund, who made a fortune as an early investor in Skype) ended up costing the collective newspaper industry in Denmark more than $150 million dollars and the bankruptcy of three newspapers.

Morten Lund has also been chronicling this disaster, confessional style, on his blog (see here and here).

And yes, this all started with the same Icelandic investors who helped take down the world economy.

The Popping of the Danish Free Newspaper Bubble

(everything from here on is from Jon)

“Double free”
On October 6 2006 “Nyhedsavisen”, a new Danish daily newspaper hit the streets. A quality newspaper staffed with 100 journalists and ambitions of being the largest Danish newspaper with a daily circulation of between 500,000 and 1 million readers (total Danish population equals some 5.5 million). The newspaper would feature an editorial mix prioritizing both prize-winning critical journalism and stories close to the everyday life of ordinary Danes.

The pricing of Nyhedsavisen was simple: it was free. And, as something entirely new: it was going to be delivered to the homes of all Danes – at no cost. Not only the newspaper itself was free, delivery was free as well. It was in effect “double-free”.

The front-page of an October 2006 edition of Nyhedsavisen

Icelandic intrusion
Behind the Nyhedsavisen launch was the Icelandic media group Dagsbrun owned by Icelandic investment company Baugur group. During 2005 Dagsbrun had researched the European market in order to find the most suitable country in which to try to duplicate the success of Icelandic newspaper Frettabladid. And Denmark was chosen.

Frettabladid was founded in 2001 and had managed to be the best-read newspaper among the Icelandics (total population: 320,000) battling the only other Icelandic newspaper Morgunbladid by employing for the first time the “double-free” model.

The business model
Nyhedsavisen aimed at having three different revenue streams, the first one being the traditional newspaper model, where advertisers pay to have ads in the newspaper. If you’re able to get 1 million Danes to read your newspaper, you’re able to sell those eyeballs to advertisers as well.

The second revenue stream also aimed at advertisers, but not by offering advertising in the newspaper itself. Instead, Nyhedsavisen would take advantage of the fact is had a direct contact to all Danish households before 7:00 in the morning. Nyhedsavisen would take what would normally have been a cost – the distribution – and turn it into an independent revenue-stream, making money from distribution of printed advertisement catalogues and brochures alongside the distribution of Nyhedsavisen itself.

The third revenue streams would stem from the other Danish media. Out of the 100 journalists, 35 were employed at the news network part of Nyhedsavisen, a bureau in the newspaper which should deliver and sell news wire services to other Danish media.

Flooded with newspapers
Nyhedsavisen thereby aimed to compete with the entire existing Danish newspaper industry, including the three large nationwide dailies Berlingske Tidende, Politiken and Jyllandsposten, the two nationwide tabloid-papers Ekstra Bladet and BT and the existing free daily newspapers delivered through public transportation or handed out on the streets, MetroXpress and (Berlingske owned) Urban.

And all of these took the threat seriously, and decided to fight the intruder in an attempt to defend their position on the Danish media market.

Right after the initial announcement of the double-free newspaper, Berlingske Tidende (the oldest Danish newspaper, first published 1749) answered back launching their own “double-free” newspaper, “Dato”. This they did on August 16 2006, some two month before Nyhedsavisen would eventually launch. This was Berlingske’s second free newspaper, the first being the “single-free” Urban (which again was launched in 2001 in response to the launch of MetroExpress).

The day before, however, the regional daily Nordjyske introduced two free newspapers on top of the paid daily Nordjyske. Centrum Miórgen was single-free, distributed in the morning traffic, whereas Centrum Aften was freely delivered in the afternoon in northern part of Jutland. The day after (August 17) the publisher behind Politiken, Jyllandsposten and EkstraBladet, JP/Politikens hus launched their double-free daily “24 timer”. And on August 21 MetroXpress launched an afternoon-edition in supplement to the usual MetroXpress morning edition.

When Nyhedsavisen finally arrived, Denmark was flooded with newspapers. On top of my paid subscriptions I’d now find both Nyhedsavisen, 24timer and Dato in my mailbox, and on my way to work I’d be able to read both Urban and MetroXpress in the metro. On my way home, I’d be able to read the afternoon-edition of MetroXpress.

The immediate effect of all this was twofold: the average Dane was getting weary of all the papers he suddenly was forced to have inside his home – and the price of print advertising went down in response the massive growth in supply.

Casualties and deaths
This free newspaper war went on for over two years and caused the entire industry to bleed. On top generally declining circulation for all (paid) printed newspapers the cost of producing and distribution additional free newspapers added significant losses to the financial results.

Berlingske which was bought by British Mecom in early 2006 was barely profitable then decided in 2007 to back out of the war, closing down their double-free Dato, realizing a loss of $35 million. (Though Berlingske maintained their single-free Urban, continuing in the attempt to offer yet another free alternative to Nyhedsavisen).

MetroXpress shot down their afternoon edition after only three months, with losses of some $1 million.

After one year Nordjyske eventually also gave up on their Centrum Aften double-free, and merged Centrum Morgen with 24timer. (The Nordjyske engagement in the war however tried out a completely new initiative, editorially combining several print- and webtitles in a very interesting combination - for more see this post).

Show-down: Nyhedsavisen vs. 24timer
This left 24timer and Nyhedsavisen alone on the scene, trying to wear each other down. Nyhedsavisen were backed by the Icelandic investors, claiming they had “enough” money to carry on to the bitter end. In 2006, 2007 and 2008 the revenues of JP/Politikens Hus totaled a little more than $600 million, with losses of respectively $20 million, $25 million and $30 million each year, taking a quarter of the company’s market cap with it by 2008.

The costs of producing and distributing the double-free newspaper was - at least during 2007 - around $200,000 a day for each of the papers.

The free delivery was one of the main obstacles. It simply turned out for all of them to be extremely difficult to manage delivering the newspaper at peoples’ home before 7 in the morning. As a consequence JP/Politikens Hus gradually shifted the distribution of 24timer to the single-free handing out in the morning traffic. In March 2008 this shift was total.

This partial surrender from 24timer came after Dagsbrun/Baugur group in January found themselves forced to back out of the Danish market. Instead of abandoning Nyhedsavisen altogether, however, a new majority-investor, Morten Lund, entered the scene. Apparently 24timer didn’t find it necessary to keep up the pressure, reasoning a traffic-only existence would do enough harm eventually to kill Nyhedsavisen off.

In may 2008 24timer merged with MetroXpress. At that time Nyhedsavisen actually had managed to bring down the cost of delivery to some 20 cents per issue, only 25 percent more than the corresponding cost of distributing the newspapers in the traffic. But little it helped: on September 1, 2008 Nyhedsavisen was no longer able to pay its bills, and was declared bankrupt.

Today we’re left with but two remains from the Free Newspaper War: 24timer still lives on, partly owned by JP/Politiken. And the website of Nyhedsavisen - avisen.dk - has its own life, now under the auspices of Danish social network-publisher Freeway and a-pressen, the media division of the Danish Labour movement (!)

Could the “double-free” model have worked?
Despite the fruitless attempt to prove the double-free business model during the two years of free newspaper war, the conclusion is not entirely clear. Surely it didn’t work. But it might have functioned under other, less hostile, circumstances.

Particularly: the revenue streams from the traditional newspaper-advertising model dried up for Nyhedsavisen due to the fierce competition on the media market in which the excess of supply ensured radically low prices. Also the markets suspicion that Nyhedsavisen might not be able to make it also discouraged media agencies from engaging in longer-term Nyhedsavisen-campaigns.

Also, the distribution services never got to work: At first Nyhedsavisen was planned to be distributed in a joint venture with Post Denmark, the official Danish Post, who – on top of their knowledge and professionalism in distribution – had access to an essential asset: keys to all doors of the houses in the large cities. The use of these keys, however, was deemed illegal by the Danish Competition Authorities (after JP/Politiken and Berlingske had filed their complains – while these two ironically entered into their own agreement on swapping keys with one another). Also the massive demand for paperboys to actually deliver all the free newspapers around Denmark caused severe problems for the distribution (all the players were forced to import immigrant-labour from primarily Poland, who then worked their way around Denmark by night, trying to make sense of the signs in the streets in order to figure out their routes in order to deliver the free newspaper in their trolleys correctly).

Taking into account that the third revenue stream – the news network delivering and selling news wire services to other Danish media – for various other reasons didn’t turn out a cash-cow either, Nyhedsavisen was in effect left with no revenues at all.

Who will save the tables?

Anil — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:14:07 GMT

About a decade ago, the web development industry made a decisive shift towards support for web standards. Though the effort encompassed many related efforts around HTML, CSS, the DOM and related technologies, perhaps the signature work of the movement was to encourage CSS-based layouts instead of the then-common practice of using HTML tables to design a page's visual appearance.

The campaign was extraordinarily effective, to the degree that most new sites that launch today use CSS as their primary system for styling and positioning. And the more socially inept web geeks out there still consider those who use tables for layout worthy of their derision, instead of opportunities for education.

In short, for front-end web developers, tables are definitely out of fashion.

More recently, web architects and developers have adopted a new generation of storage technologies for data, such as BigTable and SimpleDB. While these systems still use tables to store data, it's common to have a far smaller number of columns in these tables than were used in older systems. And their advantages in areas like scalability and partitioning, have encouraged lots of developers to consider adopting these new data storage systems despite their unfamiliarity.

In short, for back-end web developers, fat tables are rapidly going out of fashion.

Now, I don't mean to suggest that these technological trends are merely about geeks following what's faddish or popular amongst their peers. In fact, in both cases, the shift away from traditional tables might reflect the fact that our data has to be more nimble in both how it's stored and retrieved and in how it's presented and styled. These accommodations are necessary because the applications being built are more social and human-centric in nature, which means they have to be able to adapt and evolve as relationships and communities mature.

But part of me can't help but feel sad for the tables. I'm sorry, tables! I hope you come back in favor soon.

(Thanks to Mo for the image.)

Small Businesses Say: We Want Independent Contractors

Anita Campbell — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:48:39 GMT

If you are an independent contractor or freelancer, the economy may be looking up for you — at least where small businesses are concerned.

Every month SurePayroll puts together its Small Business Scorecard. The Scorecard tracks hiring data among the 25,000 small businesses that use the SurePayroll service.

As part of that Scorecard the company calculates a Contractor Index. The Contractor Index shows the percentage of 1099 contractors versus W-2 employees hired in small businesses.

The Contractor Index for March 2009 shows that an increasing percentage of staffing help are independent contractors — nearly 4 out of 100 workers are brought on as independent contractors:

We track how dependent small businesses are on independent contractors with the SurePayroll Contractor Index.

As of the end of March 2009, the Contractor Index now stands at 3.88 percent.

This means that for every 100 workers engaged by small businesses in February, 3.88 are 1099 independent contractors and 96.12 are W-2 employees

This is up from 3.82 percent in the prior month. It’s also a record high for the Contractor Index.

In other words, more than ever before, small business owners are opting to engage an independent contractor rather than hire an employee.

This suggests 4 possible implicatons:

(1) The economy is starting to brighten a little. Typically, hiring of temporary employees and contractors is a leading indicator. If you’re just starting to see a little light after a long dark tunnel of recession, but are still feeling sales are a little weak, you’re more likely to start by bringing on temporary or contract help. You won’t feel confident enough to hire employees yet. Couple that with the fact that SurePayroll’s Scorecard shows hiring among small businesses is rising, and it’s one small nascent sign of an improving economy.

(2) Independent contractors are becoming a preferred way to staff a business, regardless of the economy. These days small businesses are run lean and mean. Sites like Elance help you staff up with contractors. So instead of hiring a single employee, small businesses might bring on several freelancers or contractors. That way you get a wider range of skills than one person can bring.

(3) Entrepreneurship is in. People are choosing to become independent contractors, not employees, so that they can run their own businesses. Many prefer contractor status.

(4) Those who prefer to be employees are forced into accepting contractor roles. The commentary to the Contractor Index suggests people are accepting contracting roles instead of employment, because they really want to be employees but can’t negotiate a good enough deal in this economy. I’m sure there’s some of that going on – although I don’t think that’s true across the board, by any means. Many prefer to remain independent. Often independent contractors will in turn hire other independent contractors to support THEIR own businesses. I receive as many 1099 forms as I give out each year.

Your thoughts?

From Small Business Trends

Small Businesses Say: We Want Independent Contractors

Microsoft's 'Alexandria': RAD for RIA

Mary Jo Foley — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:35:52 GMT

Continuing on its self-proclaimed quest to simplify the programming of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), Microsoft has rolled out a first tech preview of its .Net RIA Services technology.

How I Learned to Program Manage an Agile Team after 6 years of Waterfall

saraford — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:04:35 GMT

If I could go back in time… 3 things I would tell myself about Agile

For a long time, I’ve said that my biggest job on the CodePlex team is to learn agile. Now I find myself saying “if only I could go back in time, here’s what I would tell myself about agile:”

1. Design and plan for the very next step, instead of designing and planning for the very next feature.

2. Break down work into smallest possible sets. Adding work is fun and rewarding; removing work is painful and risky.

3. Design and plan 80% of the way as the very next step. Use feedback to solve the remaining 20% in the very next step after that.

And there’s probably a 4^thpoint that’s only relevant to a Microsoft Program Manager going from multiple 3-year product cycles to 3 week agile releases:

4. Forget everything you’ve been told about what makes a Program Manager successful at Microsoft. Thinking about this will only drive you insane and make you completely miserable on a real agile team.

Agile: A love / hate relationship

Usually at this point, someone asks me, “so how did you convince your team to do agile?” I have to laugh and say, “It’s the other way around.” The team already consisted of agile people. I was the person with zero agile experience entering the team with my traditional Microsoft software development ways.

To illustrate how clueless I was about agile, during my first week on the team, I had asked a specification question, like how many characters do we allow for a password? And Jim says, “we’ll have to look it up in the test cases.” And I said very proudly from my Visual Studio experience, “Gotta love it when the test cases are the specs.” (yes, I said this to Jim Newkirk, my manager.) To which Jim very calmly replied, “That’s the way it is supposed to be.” And I laughed, and then after a pause, I said in slight horror, “you’re serious, aren’t you?” It was like finding out there was no Santa Claus or you really don’t vote for the President of the United States. The mind just simply can’t comprehend.

Needless to say, the CodePlex team had a lot of “untraining” to do. They estimated it would take about 18 months for me to chill out, and it actually took 18 months for me just to see that agile could actually work well. I still have my moments when my “VS-side” (the traditional program management training) takes over raging out of control, but this really stems from me not having enough info to replace #4. After 6 years of being told how everyone views your role in the world, it’s impossible to see it in any other way, especially when you still work in the same company.

And just to get this out of the way now so there’s no confusion… if you asked me personally what i thought of agile, I would say that I hate agile and despise agile solely for reason #4. Why? Well, I was hired straight out of college by the Visual Studio team, so traditional waterfall software development is all I’ve known for 6 years. And since there were so many people in the VS org, everything had to be well-defined, from what was expected from us, how we performed our jobs, etc. At any given point in time, I knew what was expected from me, my dev, my PM (since I was mostly a SDET / tester during my VS career) and how they would do it.

Moving to agile, I knew what they wanted me to do (have meaningful work for the devs to do, and make sure they always have the right work to do), but had no clue how they wanted me to do it. I called it “navigating a labyrinth that had invisible walls outlined with electric fences.” I only learned my way around by making one agile mistake after another agile mistake. It wasn’t really until I decided to try for one week, “I don’t care how I’m evaluated. #4 never existed. And I’ll just see if Rome burns down…” that I actually felt true happiness at work. But nothing like that is sustainable for long, and #4 started creeping back into my life… And because of this, I personally will always hold a grudge against agile (if not all out hate it). I’m only sharing my personal feelings to prove that I’m not just drinking from the kool-aid (or anti-kool-aid, in the case of Agile at Microsoft). I really think agile is awesome (see next paragraph), even if it comes to me at great personal cost (which is why I personally hate agile).

But if you ask me as Sara Ford, the Program Manager of CodePlex, and the author of this blog post, I will tell you that agile is the single greatest things a team could do to significantly improve the user experience and quality of their site. I honestly believe this to be true after everything I’ve seen, even if agile drives me crazy and makes me miserable inside. But as I tell myself to get out of the car each morning, “it’s a chance of a lifetime to fight the evil empire from within!” (yes, you can quote me on that.)

How we build the CodePlex software

Before I can explain the above 3 things, it’s important to understand how we build the CodePlex software, especially if there are any other MSFT Agile PMs out there reading this. (We should start a support group, btw.)

We deploy every 3 weeks using 5 week deployment cycles, as shown below. There’s roughly 2 weeks of new feature work, then 1 week of bug fixing. Then we “cut the RC” (Release Candidate) where we fork the code so Test can start the full test pass (regression) on the RC bits, and the devs can start new feature work on the “main” code branch.

Besides having a very good “very next step” plan ready to go, another reason why agile works for us is that we all sit in a team room, as effective communication is key. Got a question? Ask the room. Never be blocked due to communication. Another inside joke here of the “untraining of SaraF” is how long it took the team to break me of the “don’t interrupt the dev,” a strong motto from my Visual Studio days. Somewhere in month #2 or #3 on the team, I asked someone “so, um, how am I supposed to ask a question out loud to the room.” The answer was, “um, just ask the room.” (see #4)

Now, once again, me as Program Manager thinks a team room is excellent, but it took a little (okay, a lot) to get used to working in a single room of so many people, after years of fighting for a window office. The solution we found was to put me facing the corner of the room – out of sight, out of mind, while giving me the sense of “an office”. Significant job satisfaction improvement with that single tweak.

As show below, all the devs sit together at the pairing stations (to the right), and over on the left is where the test team sits. I later moved to the desk in the bottom left FTW!

We use a variation of “Extreme Programming,” but are 90% following XP. Other agile aspects include

One week iterations
Test driven development
Continuous integration
Pair programming
Shared workspace
Collective ownership of codebase among devs

Why those 3 things are so significant

Now back to me. =D

Jim and Jonathan (bless their hearts) tried their best to explain agile to me, while putting up with all my temper-tantrums, my “level-3 red moments” (for those who have taken the insights training), all my other whining (I’ll stop now). But I didn’t believe them that Rome isn’t burning (and still don’t to some extent, but to lesser degrees now compared to back then). I’m still expecting the world to end (see #4), but just less often, but there are still some special cases out there that just freak my inner waterfall self out “ARGH!!! WHY ARE YOU MAKING THAT CALL AND NOT ME?! Rome is burning! I’m not doing my job righT And!!! Oh wait, what’s that? I’m on an agile team and this is my VS-side showing? Everything is fine? Oh, okay, um, nevermind. Let’s open the next bug to triage.”

But, it’s like anything else, until you figure it out for yourself (like leading a horse to water…), listening to instructions over and over is just white noise. (no offense Jim or Jonathan). Or better yet, like I say in karate, you really don’t know a technique until you can teach it to someone else.

Let’s take a look at those 3 things again, but this time in detail, so I can prove (or be disproved) that Agile has clicked for me.

1. Design and plan for the very next step, instead of designing and planning for the very next feature.

In traditional product groups, specifications can be as long as 60 pages. Every scenario must be known at design time and figured out, because you only get one shot of getting it right. The analogy here is firing a gun. You could spend a significant amount of time planning, calculating, aiming to achieve the perfect shot. Or using the agile approach, you could aim and fire, recalculate aim and fire, recalculate aim and fire. You could say that traditional product groups do this to some extent, but a few years is a long time to wait for a recalculated shot.

What I didn’t know when I first joined was that it was “okay” (recall #4) to break down the feature work. I honestly though features had to be designed end-to-end and then squeezed into a deployment. Once I had that glorious light bulb moment of “plan the deployment based on the very next step, not the very next feature,” everything else fell into place.

This first light bulb moment occurred when I wanted to do a particular feature, but the way the designs ended up would have taken us a deployment cycle of 6 months. This of course was unacceptable, and I accidentally found myself saying, “if they would have just scoped it to the very next step I could get started with this…” and that was the moment I realized that agile actually had a structure to it.

2. Break down work into smallest possible sets. Adding work is fun and rewarding; removing work is painful and risky.

Maybe it was light bulb moment #1 going off that enabled the “on” switch for light bulb #2.Towards the end of last summer, I was so exhausted from the book, trying to figure out agile, doing major speaking events, and of course not to mention promoting open source within Microsoft, I decided to “give up” for one particular release and just do the minimum amount of work possible to get the deployment out. I was just too exhausted to worry about enduring the potential wraith of my manager (see #4) for deploying such a small amount of work.

And of course, it turned out that was the ideal amount of feature work for the deployment. I discovered this simply based on the number of bugs that had to be fixed in the 3^rd week of the cycle, and how there was no feature work that needed to be carried over to the next deployment cycle. In other words, when I finally “failed” in the traditional program management sense, agile clicked for me. And people wonder why I’m a nervous wreck all the time (see #4).

And to explain the second half of this light bulb moment: If there were any feature work we couldn’t squeeze in, it had to be carried over, but yet it wasn’t “planned” this way. Then it was a question of do we finish a half-written feature, or do we pull it out, not fully understanding what other aspects of the feature sets it could affect in this state? We would have to make a best guess decision right before deployment.

Another analogy is like Legos. Break all the pieces down into 1x1 blocks. Then it is easy to plan, add, remove. But the larger the pieces, the more connection points, the more cost, the more complexity. I’m sure there’s some analogy to the connection points (the little bumps on the lego square) and writing the code, but I’m not a developer on an agile team, so I’ll leave that open to interpretation.

3. Design and plan 80% of the way as the very next step. Use feedback to solve the remaining 20% in the very next step after that.

Immediately after light bulb moment #2 clicked, I saw the very reason why agile rocks for customer quality. Using agile, you actually can recalibrate, aim, and fire in a time period that is reasonable for customers (compare 3 weeks to 3 years.) I’m not talking about overall feature set comparison, but a comparison of the quality of the features being released. It was finally at this point in time I could allow myself (see #4) to take advantage of this “aim fire recalibrate repeat” concept by actually planning the recalibration time period. In other words, I could say “okay, we’re going to go with this, and based on feedback, we’ll tweak as needed in the next deployment.”

In Conclusion

Once these three wonderful light bulbs went off, I demanded from Jim a whiteboard. I had this awesome idea that I could use sticky notes to track all of the individual 1x1 (or 2x2) Legos (as shown below). Then someone (I forget who) said, “That’s how agile teams typically track work.” Part of me wanted to rejoice that I had finally graduated to some level of “I’ve figured out agile,” and part of me wanted to scream, “Why didn’t you tell me this before!?” But they probably tried, and had I listened, I would have had just a big sticky note called “Feature”, and we’re back to day 1 all over again.

Just some final thoughts about #4, since I refer to it so often. I just want to do the best job I can, because I’m here to fight the culture to make Microsoft better for customers. (I know what it is like to use Visual Studio in college (graduated in 2001) and Microsoft asking me for 250 dollars (my month’s rent) to report a bug about the IDE, hence the “evil empire” reference.) But I’ve been so trained by #4 on how software development should work, that it’s been an uphill battle to learn Agile, even if it think the process produces higher quality results at the end. Jim must spend at least 30 minutes on average with me each week trying to get me to accept that I am doing a good job, even though all of my traditional waterfall training says everything to the contrary. (we should do a podcast of my 1-1s.)

I guess #4 is to a Program Manager like trying to convince a developer to write unit tests or to do pair programming. It’s hard cultural change to accept.

So, to all my fellow real agile PMs at Microsoft, I hope this posts helps in some way and I’m serious about the support group. And to the rest of you, I hope this has been an interesting read to say the least of what’s it like to change the culture at Microsoft, especially when you are quite literally the cultural change.

Busting The Microsoft Cloud Computing Myth

Krishnan Subramanian — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:34:57 GMT

Image via CrunchBase

Ever since Microsoft was forced to jump into the Cloud Computing bandwagon, they are touting their Software+Service (S+S) strategy religiously. Their dilemma is understandable as Software is their current cash cow and Service is the future. Their desperation to hold on to their cash cow when the ground under them is breaking apart is evidenced by their push of S+S in every single opportunity they get. Recently, I attended Cloudcamp Seattle last month and someone asked the panelists about why we need to download software to do computing on the Cloud. A panelist from Microsoft grabbed the question and went on to explain why Software + Service strategy is the right approach to Cloud Computing.

In fact, I don't care that much about Microsoft trying to push their strategy in the Cloud Computing space. Ultimately, the market will decide on the winner. But, what irritates me is the way they try to push wrong facts, at times, to justify their Software + Service approach.

On Friday, I came across an article in The New York Times about Microsoft's Cloud Computing strategy. Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, spoke with the author of the article at the NYT offices and explained Microsoft's grand attempt to conquer the Cloud Computing landscape. The article points to a quote by Steve Ballmer in which he tries to convey an impression that there is no difference between using the desktop applications to access the services in the Cloud and accessing these services through a web browser.

As he has before, Mr. Ballmer insisted that these PC programs are not all going to be replaced with Web sites, like Google Docs or Gmail.

“Everyone says ‘You have to run in a browser.’ That’s nonsense,” he said. “When you run in the browser, you are not running HTML, you are just downloading code to the browser instead of downloading code to the PC.”

This is plain wrong. I am not sure if Steve Ballmer said exactly this or the author of the article misinterpreted Mr. Ballmer. But, it is a plain misrepresentation of the facts and there is no way these two are one and the same. Using Mr. Ballmer’s words, it is plain nonsense.

I will try to explain these two scenarios at a basic level to help non technical folks see through the misrepresentation of Cloud Computing. When we install applications on the desktop, each application uses a certain amount of space and it varies according to the application installed by the user. It can range from few Kilobytes to Gigabytes. In fact, a software like Microsoft Office can take a couple of Gigabytes of disk space depending on the components installed. Eventually, all these applications add up and use enormous amounts of disk space. They also use the computing resources of the desktop computer while running. When services like Google Docs are accessed using the browser, it doesn't install software on the browser like the desktop applications. Rather, some of the services download a small script (maybe a few kilobytes to a Megabyte) to the browser (stored in temporary folders and, usually, removed after the session is closed) in order to offer a desktop like experience to the users. In fact, most of the heavy lifting is done on the server side, in the Clouds. For example, when a complex calculation is done using an web based spreadsheet, it is done in the backend servers at the vendor's Cloud. If an user is using a dictionary inside an online Word Processor, the whole dictionary is not downloaded to the user's browser. Rather, the work is done on the vendors’ servers. So, Mr. Ballmer's assertion is plain wrong and there is no way the desktop software installation and use of scripts in SaaS applications can be compared. It is like comparing apples with ~~oranges~~ grapes.

Also, it is not a correct assertion that browsers are used only to run HTML scripts. Come on!! Is he still living in the early 90s? Or, is it a result of using Internet Explorer for a long time? Browsers have moved beyond rendering HTML web pages to do much more complex stuff. In fact, it has matured into a platform. The very success of SaaS can be attributed to the evolution of the browser to a platform. Any attempt to paint browser as a tool to view HTML pages is not just simplistic but plain wrong.

To get a feel of the scripts downloaded during the use of SaaS applications, I asked Zoho evangelist Raju Vegesna about how much code is downloaded when I access their SaaS applications. He told me that the "code" downloaded is a Javascript and it is 1.1 MB in the case of Zoho Writer and even less with their other applications. He further noted that they keep it very light on the user side and take the entire computing to the server side. He said that this helps them to run the same app on the mobile devices too. ((Disclaimer: Zoho is CloudAve's exclusive sponsor, and Raju was the easiest to reach on the weekend. I'll be happy to quote other SaaS providers numbers, too.)

It is sad that facts are misrepresented to justify the S+S strategy of Microsoft. I would prefer if Microsoft gives out some really valid reasons to convince users to buy their shrink wrapped software than giving out such wrong information.

Microsoft refreshes Azure cloud, development kit

Mary Jo Foley — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:32:06 GMT

Microsoft is making its first big refresh to its Azure cloud platform since the company first rolled out "Red Dog" operating system and the Azure layer of accompany cloud services officially last October.

Signs That Your JavaScript Skills Need Updating

scott — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:11:00 GMT

JavaScript has made some improvements in its “state of the art” over the last several years, despite your best attempts to ignore the language.

Yes, you.

The language hasn’t changed, but the tools, practices, runtimes, and general body of knowledge have all grown and matured. Yes, it’s still a dynamic language, and we all know that you think dynamic languages are more dangerous than a loaded gun, but you can’t ignore the language any longer. JavaScript is everywhere. Why, just the other day I turned on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”, and what did I see?

Here are some signs that you might be behind the times.

1. If you still mix JavaScript and markup …

<head>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        function doStuff() {
            alert("boo");
        }    
    </script>
</head>

<html>
 <body onload="BLOCKED SCRIPTdoStuff();">
    ...
 </body> 
</html>

… you should read up about unobtrusive JavaScript. In addition to the performance benefits of keeping script in a .js file that a browser can cache, you also separate your presentation concerns from script behavior and allow yourself to focus on writing better script.

2. If you still use document.getElementById and assign functions to onclick …

var header = document.getElementById("header");
header.onclick = headerClick;

… then you really need to start using one or more JavaScript libraries. There are many great libraries available – just look around. They help isolate you from variations in the browser environments, increase your productivity, and allow you to write more maintainable code.

Other obsolete patterns:

3. Using document.all or document.write

4. Using global variables and global functions

5. Rolling your own browser detection code

6. Debugging with alert messages

Once you learn modern JavaScript idioms and tools, you’ll never look back at these old anti-patterns.

Finding Purpose

Dustin Wax — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

At the beginning of the semester, I asked my students a simple question. See, I teach an unusual class, a core requirement that fulfills not just a social science or humanity requirement but also fulfills my university’s diversity requirement. In practical terms, that means that students working on satisfying their general education requirement can take just my class instead of having to take two classes to satisfy the same requirement.

So I already know why my classes are packed every semester. I know why they’re there. And it’s pretty damn boring. So this semester I handed out cards and asked them to answer a question for me: what do you hope you learn in this class? I explained to them, you’re here for 16 weeks. 16 weeks that can be like a prison sentence, each of you just waiting for the warden to open the doors, give you your two requirement credits, and let you free – or we can find some way to make those 16 weeks worth your while, some way for each of you to leave this classroom with something of value to you.

When I went through the cards at the end of the day, there were a few people who’d taken up the challenge, but well over ¾ of them gave the same answer: I’m just here for the requirement. They chose prison over learning, jail over purpose.

Wow. I mean, just – wow.

Most people find themselves doing things for no real purpose at all. It’s just “what’s done”.

Think about that. How many things do you do that you “need” to do or “simply must” – without having any greater purpose of your own?

Many things we think of as ends in themselves really aren’t ends at all – they’re means to an end, means to our own ends. Passing a class, keeping a job, cleaning your house – these are things we do (hopefully!) for a greater purpose – not just towards a goal, but tin pursuit of our own personal growth.

But it’s easy – too easy – to lose track of that purpose and start treadmilling through our days as if getting through yet another day were the whole of life.

That path leads to despair!

The remedy is simple enough - - a few calm minutes with yourself every week or so to reflect on what you do any why you do it. Maybe a chart or mindmap listing your major activities and your purpose in doing them.

In the end, the key isn’t having the “best” or the “right” purpose (which only you could say, anyway) – the key is to lead a considered life, to find the threads that hold it all together and to be aware when the skein of your life slips out of your grasp.

How many things do you do every day that, if asked, you’d be hard pressed to explain why you’re doing them? How many tasks have no meaning at all for you, no real “fit” in the Big Picture of your life? Isn’t it time to start thinking about that — getting rid of the stuff that has no purpose, and learning anew to appreciate the important stuff whose purpose you’d forgotten along the way?

Dustin M. Wax is the project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College. Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.

Windows Azure

tomchris — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:04:28 GMT

I have been looking into Windows Azure a lot more lately and wanted to post a little bit about some of the things that I have found out so far. It is certainly a new way of thinking of things and will take some careful thought.

Azure Tables

The first big difference is if you decide to use Azure Tables to store your data. Here is the official verbiage on them:

Windows Azure Table – Programming Table Storage
Windows Azure Table provides scalable, available, and durable structured storage in the form of tables. The tables contain entities, and the entities contain properties. The tables are scalable to billions of entities and terabytes of data, and may be partitioned across thousands of servers. The tables support ACID transactions over single entities and rich queries over the entire table. Simple and familiar .NET and REST programming interfaces are provided via ADO.NET Data Services.

So what does this all mean to you? Well, when you create a table, there are two important “columns” that you need to concern yourself with. The PartitionKey and the RowKey

PartitionKey

The PartitionKey a string that we use to split up the data. For example, if we were creating a table that would store news articles, the PartitionKey may be the section header (Top News, Sports, Weather, etc). We can then take each of these groupings and put each individual one on a different server. This is part of how we can scale.

RowKey

The RowKey is also a string that we use to sort the data. This needs to be a unique entry for each row of data. The most common thing to use so far has been some form of date entry. This is what we use by default to sort the data. So if you use the ticks of the current timestamp, then all your data will show up with the oldest entry first. If you want them to show up the other way around, one easy way to make that happen is to subtrace the current timestamp from the DateTime.MaxValue and then get the ticks from that. Just please remember to use UTC times!

Azure Queues

When you get data from a user and want to enter it into the data backend, there are a few ways to handle it. The major reason that I see for using a queue is for the situation where something happens while entering data into the back end. If you just enter the data directly from the web site’s code, you can get into a situation where some tables are updated and others are not. If you instead place the data into a queue and then have a Worker Role process that pulls that out of the queue, if there is a problem then the message will still be in the queue and the next Worker Role process can pull it out and process it.

This isn’t without it’s own set of problems however.

If you have updated some data, when you try to insert into a table you can get an error that the data already exists. So you need to check for that and call update instead.
You then have a problem where the data may have existed when you attempted to insert it again, but it was then deleted before you tried to update so that also fails. So to handle that, you need to put the insert/update attempt into a loop to ensure it happens.
What if the reason that a Worker Role crashes or doesn’t complete is because the message is causing the problem (corrupt data)? Then you need to have a way to check when you are processing a message to see if the timestamp when the message was entered into the database was a certain time in the past. If that is the case, then you know that the message is bad so just delete it.

Azure Blobs

Blobs are a really interesting concept where you can store named files in the cloud. You can also store metadata for these files. One way that this can be used is to store the images used on your website. Typically they have always been stored in a subdirectory of your website. The problem with doing that is that the package that you use to deploy your website to Azure will then have these images. This means if you want to update your images, you have to redeploy the entire package. If you instead store them in blob storage, you can then update them whenever you want and it doesn’t affect the website at all.

You can use the name of the file to include a \ in it and treat those like folders. So if you had music files you were storing, you could put it in as a file name called “rock\myrocksong.mp3”. You could then do queries to pull out all the “rock” files.

How Do I Videos

There are some great “How Do I” videos available for Windows Azure, be sure to check them out.

Going forward

I am going to continue to look into Windows Azure and some of the other pieces of Azure and will post things as I figure them out. I already have a few tips that I have been looking at, but I want to get a few more before I start posting them. Let me know what you think of Azure and any of these things.

The anatomy of cloud computing

(author unknown) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:30:52 GMT

Cloud computing is changing the way we provision hardware and software for on-demand capacity fulfillment. Lately I have been thinking about the ways on-demand servers, storage, and CDNs are changing the way we develop web applications and make business decisions. Gone are the days of idle CPUs, empty memory, or unused drive space. The cloud charges us for what we use as we use it (assuming capacity is available). In this post I will provide an overview of the cloud hosting landscape with a particular focus on cloud utilization by web companies. I will walk through a managed infrastructure stack and examine a few major business targets.

The hardware

In 1943 Thomas J. Watson of IBM famously proclaimed "there is a world market for maybe five computers." Today we look back and laugh at such a proclamation but the statement really did hold up for approximately 10 years. Into the 1950s IBM designed computers for a possible market of 20 companies, of which 5 were expected to purchase such a machine. In 1953 IBM was pleasantly surprised to find 18 of 20 companies purchased the IBM 701, provind the business of back office processing and a new division for the tabulating giant.

Last week Rick Rashid of Microsoft was quoted as saying around 20 percent of the world's servers are sold to a handful of companies: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, and Amazon. Three of those four companies are cloud resellers, renting small slices of their compute farms to businesses all over the world. 198 megawatt datacenters may be the new mainframe, with consumption units charged in minutes and bytes much like the time sharing relationships of the 1970s.

IBM again caught my interest last year with its Kittyhawk project from Jonathan Appavoo, Volkmar Uhlig, and Amos Waterland in New York. IBM is currently researching ways to repurpose the massively parallel Blue Gene supercomputers for the datacenters of the Web. It's possible your future web application will run on a computer originally designed for gene sequencing and nuclear weapons testing.

Hardware and data operations are again consolidating towards major players. These specialist providers are building at a scale and specialization most web businesses can't match. On-demand infrastructure of the cloud makes it cheaper and more efficient to outsource needed operational function to teams of experts already keeping some of the largest web companies in the world running every day.

The platforms

Microsoft and Google are the newest entrants into the cloud computing arena, focusing their efforts their respective programming languages of expertise. Microsoft's Windows Azure services platform will likely be the best platform for C# and ASP.Net development as it is tuned by the creators of .Net, IIS, and SQL Server. Google has similarly applied its expertise in the Python language and distributed web nodes to its Google App Engine product. The App Engine cloud is tuned by top contributors to the Python language including its BDFL, Guido van Rossum. App Engine utilizes custom Google software, Google Front End and Megastore, for web serving and storage. Cloud developers on either platform are using a similar set of hardware and software as the proven web-scale platforms of Live.com and Google. I expect Google App Engine will add support for Java in the near-future, their second major language offering and the most popular language among Google's own services.

Language specialists are building managed stacks on top of generic cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services' EC2. Engine Yard sells a custom, managed AMI optimized for the Ruby language and its Rails framework. Rackspace's Mosso subsidiary and others optimize for the latest versions of PHP + MySQL, attracting performance-minded applications in search of a tuned cloud instance. I am not aware of any major language contributors of Ruby or PHP employed at either company but the platforms do attempt to find their own niche among a broad offering of scalable hosting providers.

Amazon's EC2 is the most well-known cloud computing provider and, as previously mentioned, the baseline service for other companies building value-added solutions. The AMI, a machine image formatted deployment in the Amazon cloud, is the basic building block of EC2 virtualization and the primary interaction point of Amazon's customers. Amazon resells premium operating system and application packages on behalf of companies such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle but it's possible such specializations will instead be absorbed by the software publishers themselves as they roll out their own hosted clouds (such as Azure or IBM Blue Cloud).

The cloud computing software stack is trending towards an integrated, managed experience maintained by some of the top contributors to each programming language and related components. More generic cloud platforms will need to stay up-to-date with managed technologies on their platform and/or establish a strong reseller relationship to more specialized cloud managers.

The managed cloud stack

Managed cloud providers handle an entire stack of infrastructure needed to deliver web applications at scale. A solid cloud computing environment abstracts the basics of a computing environment away from the implementors and lets them focus on adding value with each new application. Managed cloud hosting providers need to offer the following basic layers to stay relevant in a web developer's world.

High availability

Any web application needs to be available to legitimate visitors from all over the world. A true cloud creates spans the entire globe, defeating the speed of light on behalf of its customers with a server point of presence in multiple simultaneous locations. The cloud provider needs to effectively receive and route incoming requests to the appropriate virtualized application instance on behalf of its customers.

Google and Microsoft replicate each application instance to multiple physical locations. AT&T Synaptic Hosting spans multiple locations for its enterprise customers.

Security

Web applications should be protected from intrusion and abuse at the network layer. In a cloud computing world application security is a lot like click fraud in advertising: every bad action carries a marginal cost. Cloud providers need to guard customers against potential external abuse and intrusion.

Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have their eyes on many incoming requests each day. Google serves App Engine requests off the same hardware handling Google Front End, keeping bad requests away from search, ads, and your apps.

Stable, efficient OS

Web applications rely on a stable, efficient operating system to interface with hardware, manage filesystems, and allocate resources. The cloud server operating system is a stripped down version of standard installations without a need for direct hard drive interfaces or other peripherals.

Amazon EC2 highlights the operating system behind every machine image. Older versions of Fedora and Windows Server are the default "quick start" options available to each new account. Google and Microsoft clouds run on custom operating systems tailored for web use. Windows Azure is a stripped-down version of the latest Windows Server. Google runs a Linux-based OS tuned by its infrastructure team.

Programming Language Business Logic

Every managed cloud platform includes a dynamic language virtual machine and an appropriate web services gateway. Language functions too closely associated with the parent operating system and its libraries are stripped away, leaving only a pure operating environment for a machine interpreter. External dependencies such as GNU tools and custom compilers will not function within the cloud language abstraction layer. Cloud services bundle a dynamic language runtime into an easily spawned instance for standard and efficient interpretation across many application instances.

Google App Engine supports most functions of the Python language with additional support for the Django framework, WebOb, and PyYAML. Developers may replace these built-in libraries with newer or customized versions at an additional performance and usage cost. App Engine passes web requests into the programming language environment through the Web Server Gateway Interface.

The cloud client layer

Attached storage

Cloud applications don't operate in a vacuum. Dynamic applications persist their application state and logic through database and file storage. In the cloud world the database and the file server are cloud services unto themselves, operating in an isolated and specialized layer. This isolation makes the storage layer swappable from the rest of the cloud stack and presents new opportunities for competition.

Static files fall into two major categories based on their planned consumption. Files under 1 MB in size can be consumed by most clients in a single request, matching the expected simple request/response model of the platform. Files over 1 MB in size need to be broken into more manageable parts, or ranges, for a sequenced download. Static cloud storage can be broken up into differing solutions by file size or file type, providing the best possible solution for the storage and delivery task at hand.

Google App Engine offers static file storage separate from its dynamic runtime. App Engine supports up to 1,000 files and has a 10 MB HTTP response limit.

Amazon Web Services offers static file serving through its Simple Storage Service (S3) origin server and CloudFront CDN services. Amazon allows private and public file storage and can even charge individual users of third-party services for their use through DevPay.

Attached storage is by far the most diverse service offering for companies evaluating a specialized solution. I prefer storage providers with widely supported file management APIs, smart settings for MIME types and caching HTTP headers, and a primary functionality of serving files our to the worldwide web. I expect popular storage providers will bundle more CDN services in the future through an exclusive up-sell partnership. I also expect a new class of storage middleware optimized for minimizing files, cleaning up images, or transcoding video will set up new programmable front-ends backed by popular storage providers.

Database storage

Databases are the preferred way of persisting structured data powering web applications. Cloud service providers have tuned and rewritten database functionality for the cloud, opening up new opportunities for scalable data services across multiple dynamic application instances. Cloud databases are distributed, replicated, and largely transactional. Cloud databases can be separated from the rest of the cloud stack through RESTful APIs between different vendors but there is a definite latency advantage to coupling of data and its interpreter.

Microsoft offers SQL Server as a web service as part of the Azure services stack. Google App Engine offers Megastore, an abstraction layer on top of BigTable, as a service API within an App Engine instance or as a separate remote API. Amazon's SimpleDB brings together EC2 processing with S3 data storage. Greenplum offers PostgreSQL as a stand-alone cloud offering.

Cloud databases are typically more limited in functionality than their local counterparts. App Engine returns up to 1000 results. SimpleDB times out within 5 seconds. Joining records from two tables in a single query breaks databases optimized for scale. App Engine offers specialized storage and query types such as geographical coordinates.

The database layer of a cloud instance can be abstracted as a separate best-of-breed layer within a cloud stack but developers are most likely to use the local solution for both its speed and simplicity.

Cache

Our web applications receive multiple requests for the exact same resource. We should be able to place a pre-assembled version of our web pages, images, and XHR data into a local memory cache for fast serving on multiple requests. On our own servers we frequently use memcached, Varnish, Squid, etc. The cloud stack should include a storage cache as its first layer of request processing.

Google App Engine includes a memcache API written by Brad Fitzpatrick, creator of memcached. Windows Azure will supposedly support Velocity caching in the near future.

Cloud consumers

The target market of a cloud computing platform will affect its stack completeness, feature sets, and future support. Cloud terminology seems to be thrown around as a magical buzzword but there are major usage cases emerging.

Web application developers

New web applications start small and may sometimes experience exponential growth on a worldwide basis. Web developers evaluating the cloud stack are likely starting from scratch without the concerns of switching from a legacy system or alternate implementation.

Cloud computing abstracts tiered architecture, operations planning, and other nuances from companies specializing in bring new ideas to market quickly. Web developers prefer a cloud stack tuned for fast web performance. Geographically distributed dynamic instances are important at least as an upgrade option to protect a new business from a rewrite at varying levels of scale.

I believe cloud providers offering a complete managed stack will attract web development specialists to their platform. Google App Engine, Mosso, and Windows Azure compete in this space.

Back office tasks

Enterprise applications are moving out of the local server closet and into the cloud. Medium- to large-sized companies are replacing in-house maintenance of machines and applications with software and infrastructure as a service. Project management, employee tracking, payroll, and many other common functions have made their way into the software-as-a-service realm. More customized applications will migrate to cloud hosting and take their place alongside the anchor tenants of the groupware and collaboration suites.

Windows Azure, Salesforce's Force.com, and Google App Engine show strong promise as integrated back office add-ons. Microsoft and Google already have a solid footing in enterprise groupware services through Exchange Online and Google Apps respectively. Force.com can be closely tied to the popular Salesforce CRM application for sales and marketing teams.

More generic back office functions can operate on any cloud hosting provider with a properly maintained disk image. A new class of hosting provider operates as an abstraction layer between multiple clouds by maintaining the appropriate images and deployment scripts for any given task. Companies such as Aptana, CohesiveFT, RightScale, and many others span multiple cloud hosting providers with a single management interface. Cloud management companies can monitor multiple providers and create spot pricing market for computing resources.

Back office solutions represent the largest possible growth area for cloud hosting providers. Platforms with strong existing anchor tenants can add on new services combining software-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service. Generic cloud hosting providers will likely be tapped for general tasks directly or though a cloud management layer.

Microsoft is promoting its cloud hosting solutions through its partner channels. Microsoft partners receive a 12% commission on the first year of revenues and 6% commission on all future revenues. Google offers a 20% discount to Google Apps Authorized Resellers over the life of the account.

Disaster recovery

Business operations need to stay online when catastrophe strikes. An earthquake in California, a hurricane in Florida or Texas, or a power outage anywhere in the world could knock your business offline instantly. A hot backup in the cloud spins up when your primary site is down. An on-demand backup facility is a lot cheaper than physical investments as companies invest in contingency planning.

Amazon Web Services recently introduced reserved machine instances for companies who must be absolutely sure they will be able to operate in an environment of strained cloud capacity. Reserved instances receive priority allocation of cloud resources in exchange for an upgrade fee and lower monthly usage charges. Reserved instances are the VIP treatments of the cloud hosting world.

Demand response programs are common in utility sectors such as electricity. Businesses can opt to be the last ones kicked off the grid in a low-capacity environment in exchange for higher consumption costs.

Summary

Cloud computing is picking up steam and there are a few early winners. The most promising solutions from large vendors are still in a technology preview stage but should be open for general use by the end of the year. Startups developing new applications should pick the best solutions provider based on the strength of their stack offering and usage pricing. Some cloud layers can easily be abstracted to best-of-breed solutions.

I hope you enjoyed this summary of the world of cloud hosting! There is a lot going on and this post just scratches the surface of how our computing world is changing.

New Live Framework tookit adds Win 7, IE 8 support

Mary Jo Foley — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:16:15 GMT

Microsoft is starting to turn the crank for the set of developer-focused announcements it is planning to make at next week's Mix '09 show. On March 12, Microsoft made available for download the April Community Technology Preview (CTP) release of its Live Framework software development kit (SDK) and Live Framework Tools for Visual Studio.

Small Businesses Will Lead Us to a Better Future

Anita Campbell — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:49:06 GMT

Polling firm Zogby International conducted a joint interactive poll with WeMedia, asking the question: “Who will lead us to a better future?”

Americans put entrepreneurs and small businesses at the top of the list, with 63% of Americans saying entrepreneurs and small businesses would lead the way. Next were science and technology leaders, with 52% of Americans having confidence they would lead us forward. Here’s the chart:

Government, which should be leading, came in at 31%. Large corporations and business leaders came in next at 21%. Traditional news media such as newspapers, television, radio, and magazines bringing up the rear with just 13% having faith in them to lead the way.

A couple of observations on this:

(1) Small businesses are definitely going through a time of “high popularity”. But Andrew Nachison, CEO of the media think tank iFOCOS, sees this as part of a fundamental cultural change. He points out that dissatisfaction with government, big business and the media runs deep. That, he says, is leading individuals to take charge: “If big business, government or the media won’t lead, we’ll lead ourselves. We’ll create our own businesses and our own media to build a better future. No matter where you sit or what you do, that’s a call to action to participate, to inspire hope and bring prosperity to more people. It’s an agenda for everyone: Lead us to a better future.”

(2) Is anybody surprised by the traditional media falling to the bottom? To some degree it’s a matter of being in a beleaguered industry (print media) struggling to make money — it’s hard to see a future for newspapers and magazines that are declaring bankruptcy and laying off journalists right and left. But there’s something deeper, too. The polarization in favor of one political side or the other has undermined the public’s confidence in the mainstream media. Instead of being political activists, maybe, just maybe, a return to factual reporting would restore some confidence in the media.

Your thoughts? Why do you suppose the numbers came out as they did?

(Hat tip to Martin Lindeskog for this survey.)

From Small Business Trends

Small Businesses Will Lead Us to a Better Future

What to do if your startup is about fail (or “Don’t Stop Believing”)

Jason Calacanis — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:06:58 GMT

Location: Mahalo HQ, Santa Monica
Date/Time: February 26th 2009 6:25pm
Subscribers: 12,483
Rock out To This While Reading: Don’t Stop Believing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip1zsUIosoA
Forward To: Startups that are hitting the wall

A lot of CEOs with less than 12 months of capital left have been
asking me for advice about what to do, given the massive economic
turmoil we’re facing. I thought I would take the time put these
various conversations into one email to help those who are “up against
it,” as we say in Brooklyn.

Now, sprinting to the startup precipice is one of the most horrible
and exhilarating experiences you can have as an entrepreneur.

The exhaustion sinks in as you slam on the brakes. You dig in your
heels and watch the dirt and pebbles fly off the cliff as your left
foot dangles down in the ravine, with your right foot desperately
trying to save you. Your momentum could–if the wind kicks in–send
you straight down to your death. Heck, even the two inches of earth
under your right foot could give way and send you to your death. Or,
you could slip and fall on a magic carpet that will take you to the
Promised Land.

OK, that last part is made up. You’re probably screwed and you know it.

This email is intended for startup companies with less than 12 months
of cash in the bank, who know in their hearts that their VCs have lost
faith, and that Google, Yahoo or Microsoft aren’t going to pick them
up on a magic M&A carpet ride.

This is the email I’d like you to forward to your friends who are
running startups that could go under in 2009.

Some background
————————-
I’ve been to the precipice and faced the fall a couple of times. I’ve
learned a couple of things from the experience. I can tell you that
the first time it happens, you’re terrified, because everything you’ve
done–all the effort and dreams–will probably be lost (like tears in
the rain).

The second time it happens, you’re deeply concerned, but know it ain’t
over until you’re splattered on the boulders below.

The third time it happens, you smile and say “let’s get it on!”

You see, there are two types of entrepreneurs in this world: real ones
and the folks who play entrepreneurs for some portion of their lives.
From a distance, most folks can’t tell who’s who. In up times, when
the market is flush with cheap money and unexplained exits (Bebo,
anyone?), everyone looks brilliant.

It’s only when the tide goes out that you know who’s naked. (Who said
that? I hear it on CNBC every other week now).

The differences between the two types of entrepreneurs become clear
when the fan and the manure meet. The faux entrepreneurs run for cover
rather than dealing with the storm. They go back to their plush,
somewhat mindless jobs as VPs at mega-companies, while the real
entrepreneurs suit up and clean up the mess.

We’re going to find out who the real entrepreneurs are in 2009 because
they are going to spend another 12 months, on top of the last six,
cleaning up the mess. It will be two years of total pain, so before we
go any further you gotta make the decision if you’re in or you’re out.

In or out?
————————-
Here is a really easy way to figure out if you can deal with the mess
in front of you. How many of the following can you deal with:

1. Laying off half your staff.
2. Laying off half your staff again three months later.
3. Spending 20 hours a week on the phone being yelled at and
threatened while trying to renegotiate a dozen contracts–like your
T1, phone system, rent, equipment leases, etc.
4. Having an investor scream at you and tell you that they will ruin
you, your career and that “you’ll never raise money again, you mother
f-er.”
5. Laying off half your staff for a third time.
6. Getting served a half-dozen lawsuits, courtesy of the folks who you
tried to renegotiate with in point number three who wouldn’t deal.
7. Having one of the people you’re renegotiating with come to your
office every week and ask for their check in person.
8. Having the same media outlet that once claimed you were the next
Barry Diller write that you’re a fraud.
9. Not getting a good night’s sleep for six months.
10. Having dozens of paying clients default on their bills.
11. Having staffers who you really need to double down and focus walk
out the door after you helped make their careers.
12. Have the people who begged you for a meeting at the peak not even
return your emails or phone calls.

If you can’t deal with these 12 situations, then you’re out. It’s time
to refresh your resume, tell your board you resign, sublet your place
and go to Thailand. Go sit on the beach and lick your wounds for $40 a
day (all-in) like the fauxtrepreneur you are. You suck. I hate you.
You’re smart enough to cut your loses in a way I could never
understand.

If you think you can handle most of the horror above, well, then you’re in.

How do I know this?

Those 12 things–and more–happened to me for over a year when Silicon
Alley Reporter, my first business, got whipsawed by the dotcom bust.
We went from $11.6m in revenue one year to $600k the next. From 70
full-time people to 12. From a 20,000 square foot office to subletting
ten desks at a PR firm.

Personally, I went from being on top of the world, with appearances on
Charlie Rose, 60 Minutes, CNN, and Fox News, to being savaged in the
press as a fraud who got lucky and who no one would ever hear from
again.

My office used to get 100-200 phone calls a day and I had two
assistants. Six months later, I answered my own phone–on the rare
occasions it would ring. When it did, it was either my mom calling to
check in on me or a vendor calling to yell at me.

It was the worst year of my life, but it made me who I am today. I’ve
never talked about the tailspin that my business went into, and how I
barely managed to land the plane, but I get the sense that there are a
lot of twenty-somethings about to experience the same thing, and
perhaps my lessons could help.

I’m not going to tell the story. (That would take 80,000 words, a hard
cover and the right publisher), but I’m gonna share some of the
lessons.

Let’s get to work.

The Good News
————————-
If you’re a real entrepreneur, you’re still reading. If you’re a faux
entrepreneur, you’re writing your resignation letter, considering
which beach to surf and how long to grow your beard. God bless you
fauxtrepreneurs, because you’re gonna have a much nicer 2009 than the
real entrepreneurs who are “up against it.”

Of course, a year from now, the real entrepreneurs will be
battle-scarred beasts who are capable of taking big bold risks, and
you’ll still be crying about what could have been with your last
business while attending back-to-back meetings about nothing at BigCo.
Not that I’m judgmental of fauxtrepreneurs who create noise, distract
investors from the real workhorses, suck at their jobs and take no
real risk in their lives.

No, on the contrary, I love you fauxtrepreneurs, because you create
the foundation upon which real entrepreneurs stand. At the start of my
career, it wasn’t east to stand out, but by the time I’d done two or
three businesses and become a fixture in the technology industry, I
had figured it out: Longevity is a big part of credibility. I met
Esther Dyson, Fred Wilson, John Brockman, Jerry Colonna, Mark Cuban,
Ted Leonsis, Seth Godin and countless other luminaries between 1994
and 1997.

Well, it’s a dozen years later and they still take my calls and
respond to my emails.

Longevity is credibility.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the good news: People’s reputations are made
in the bad times more than the good times.

Even if you’re 100% sure your company is going to crash in the next
six months, you’ll learn more from staying on board than you will from
running. You’ll also earn the respect of your peers and you’ll learn
exactly how people break down and lose their cool. You’ll see how
certain VCs screw entrepreneurs, you’ll see entrepreneurs screw VCS
and you’ll watch the lawyers and landlords collect their vig the
entire time.

Most of all, you’ll realize who you are and who your real friends are.

So what’s the sitch?
————————-
You need to figure out your runway immediately. This is really easy to
calculate: you look at how much cash you burn every month and divide
that into how much cash you have in the bank. Your accountant can do
this for you or you can simply look at your P&L and bank statement.

Once you know how many months you’ve got left, you’ve got to do the
hard work of trying to extend it by at least 1/4. This means cutting
staff, negotiating with your landlord and cutting any and all
recurring bills. You then need to look at your revenue streams and
figure out if you can double them. In most cases, if you do these two
simple things, you will have increased your runway by 50-100%. If you
double your runway, your chances of figuring out what your business
actually is will go up exponentially.

You also need to do a monthly P&L review with your management team.
Look at every single recurring cost you have and figure out how to cut
it. In an up market, this level of obsessiveness is often wasteful,
because you’re in a race to take market-share. In the case of MySpace
vs. Friendster vs. Facebook all having unlimited funds for a period of
time, this makes total sense. Why worry about $100,000 in server costs
if you’re racing to see who gets bought for a billion dollars first?
However, this is not that time. You have to change your style. There
are times to hit the gas and there are times to conserve your gas.

Look at it this way: Getting the most market-share and running out of
cash is the equivalent of getting to the moon first without the
ability to get back to Earth. Congratulations, you won the race… and
now you’re dead!

My primary business right now, Mahalo.com, is lucky to have raise a
large amount of capital and is going to fairly easily make it to
profitability based on our growth curve, runway, modest spend and
significant traffic (we’re at 5.6m unique visitors over the last 30
days).

We couldn’t be in a stronger position.

However, even we recently did a deep review at Mahalo and were able to
cut 30% of our costs in under 60 days. The company is still growing
just as fast, and in fact we’re actually more efficient. There is
something strange about that: 25-person companies seem to get more
done than 40-person companies in my experience (other CEOs have told
me the same thing).

Perhaps it’s because after you trim down you have the most efficient
folks left, or maybe we’re all more focused because we don’t have to
communicate what’s going on to as many people? Does anyone know if
there is any research on optimal team size for startups? I’d be
interested to hear what the studies say. Anyway, we made the hard
decisions and that extended our runway by a year. That means Mahalo
will be here in 2013 if we make every single wrong decision and we’re
asleep at the wheel. Of course, we’re focused like lasers on getting
to profitability and developing a really helpful service. If we can’t
figure this business out by 2013 or 2014 then, well, either we really
suck or there is no solution to combining search and knowledge
exchange (of course we know search and knowledge exchanges can and
have worked–so we’re bullish).

Also, when your company goes through this kind of economic boot camp,
I think you get stronger. You understand which parts of your business
are working the best and which ones are, well, not working at all. We
had one area of our business that was two percent of our spending
making 30% of our revenue. You figure these things out when you start
cutting. It’s a sick and sad process to be sure, but Darwin is your
friend at a startup.

Put your VCs to the test
————————-
If you’re running out of money, you’ve got three choices: cut costs,
make money or raise capital. We’re going to get into cutting costs and
making money below in a minute, but I’m a big fan of testing your
investors. When the market is crushed, most VCs get realistic, greedy
or paralyzed. You’ve got to figure out where you stand with your
current investors as quickly as possible, and the quickest way to do
that is to ask them for more money.

Let’s say you’re burning $200k a month and you have a million dollars
in the bank. Go to your VCs and say something like the following:

“John, we’re going to run out of cash in five months. I’ve developed a
cost-cutting and revenue-generating plan that I believe will extend
our runway to 10 months. I’d like to present it to you and your
partners tomorrow for a half-hour with the goal of doing an ‘A+ round’
of one million dollars. I truly believe in this business and I’m
willing to do a flat-round, bust my ass for the next two years and
come out of this recession on top.”

Now your VC is probably going to start asking questions–as they
should. They may try and push off the discussion of the “A+ round.”
Your job is to stand firm and say something to the effect of:

“Well, we’re both vested in this business and I’d like to take the
time to present to you guys this week and get a response from you
either way within five days. I know it’s a compressed time frame, but
we’re living in extraordinary times, and if you guys don’t believe in
the business the way I do, I can accept that and make other
arrangements.”

At that point, you say nothing. Silence is the greatest negotiating
tactic ever created–use it. Your VC right now will be thinking the
following:

a) “This guy/gal’s a real killer and I wish all my CEOs were this
focused. At the very least, I should hear them out.”
b) “This guy/gal has another opportunity, so I’m gonna have to deal
with this train wreck myself–that will suck.”
c) “This business is a dog and I shouldn’t have invested in it. Since
they’re asking for the truth, I might as well give it to them.”
d) “I’m an idiot and I can’t make decisions. Let me push this out a
couple of weeks and make this person’s life hell while I
procrastinate.”

That last part is not what the person would actually say, but that’s
basically the translation of “let me think about it.”

Now, in cases a, b, and c you’re in good shape. You’re gonna either
get your meeting and money or you’re gonna get told you’re not getting
any more funding. Situation D is what you don’t want. If you’re
running out of provisions in the middle of the Atlantic, your best bet
is to go either East or West–not in a circle.

VCs and investors will sometimes send entrepreneurs in circles, either
inadvertently or as leverage. Sometimes VCs are juggling a lot of
balls and can’t focus. Sometimes they’re inexperienced and/or they
have issues that don’t concern your business, like their limited
partners, their partners or their divorce settlements. Sometimes
they’re cutthroat and know that, when you’re down to your last two or
three payrolls, they can extract a 2-3x liquidation preference out of
you.

It’s your job to force the issue now–don’t wait.

Heck, even if you have a year’s worth of runway, you should probably
do this kind of thing so your VCs know you’re the real deal and so you
know where you stand with them.

Put your staff to the test
————————-
If you’re down to six months of cash, you’re gonna have to cut the
bottom 1/3rd of your staff, if not half. This sucks, but there is no
choice. You’re gonna also have to cut salaries. So, here are some
suggestions on how to do this:

1. Get rid of the non-core staff. Look in places like PR, marketing,
and admin to cut. See if you can put some of these folks on part-time.

2. Look at the salaries of your current staff vs. market and look for
ways to cut the high-priced ones who you can get cheaper at the
current market. I know this sounds cutthroat, but remember, this is
advice for folks going out of business in six months. Another way to
run this test is to ask yourself “Would I hire this person for this
amount today?”

3. Go to each member of the team who is over-paid by today’s market
rate and tell them that you’re probably going to be cutting their
salary and that you’re increasing their options. Ask them how they
feel about it. Some people can take a pay cut, others can’t–you don’t
know until you ask.

I’m really against cutting people’s pay above cutting position because
you want the people remaining in your organization to be happy. Of
course, sometimes that’s just not realistic. Many CEOs overpay in a
hot market because they feel they have to, and those folks are the
ones who really need to take this hard action now.

Put your landlord to the test
————————-
Call your landlord and ask them to get a cup of coffee. Do this in
person. Let them know that it’s 50-50 you’re going out of business and
that you need their help in the form of four months free rent,
starting today, the ability to sublet some space (if you don’t have
that right already) and to keep the rent at the same rate you already
have. Tell them you feel horrible about this, and you wouldn’t ask
them to do this if it wasn’t urgent, but you didn’t want to drop the
bomb on them five months from now when there were no more options.

Remember, silence is your friend. Tell your story and see what they
say. I did this at one point and not only got free rent, I got 50% of
our letter of credit freed up. It was a win-win. Trust me, your
landlord is probably facing a LOT of fallout right now… better to
get half than nothing.

Put your vendors to the test
————————-
Since you’ve probably got webhosting, CDNs, equipment leases, and
other recurring charges on your credit cards, cancel those cards
immediately. Call up each vendor and tell them you need six months
free while you figure out your status, and if they can’t do it, ask
for suggestions. Then call each of their competitors and let them know
that you are willing to switch over for the first six months free. If
you get one of four vendors to do this you just saved 25%–I bet you
can get two or three.

Vendors would rather eat some profits for six months than lose your
business. If they can’t support you in your time of need, then you
should find someone who will. There is a LOT of competition out there
and you can negotiate harder than you probably think you can. Tell
vendors you’re willing to switch if they give you six months free and
see what they say. We’ve had folks offer us a *year* of free service
to switch (of course, that’s an exception, not the rule).

Put yourself to the test
————————-
If you’re going to ask so much of your staff, investors and vendors,
you obviously have to take a hit yourself. Go to your VCs and ask them
to participate in the next round–the A+ round. Tell them you know
it’s not a lot but you want to put in $5 or $10k in the round as a
show of support. This will result in them saying it’s not necessary.
After that, tell them you’ll sell your car and take a bike to work and
put $20k into the business if you can get that for your car. Make sure
your staff doesn’t take a bigger cut than you do in salary if you’re
doing salary cuts.

Even if it’s just ceremonial, it means a lot to make cuts. I’ve
stopped traveling as much to conferences even though they cost me
little to nothing (normally people pay me to speak or at least pay for
my travel). Of course, don’t cut traveling if you’re going to
conferences where you might find clients or investors (which is why I
travel half the time!)

Put your product to the test
————————-
As Mark Cuban told me over and over again, “Sales solves everything.”
If you can’t sell your product, it’s not a product–it’s a hobby. Take
your consumer service and sell it as a software package to someone. Go
on the sales calls yourself. During the final year of Silicon Alley
Reporter I made cold calls and set up lunches to sell folks on our new
product, Venture Reporter (the rebranded Silicon Alley Reporter). It
works. When people see the CEO making sales calls, they respect the
company and take it seriously. When the VCs and staffers see you doing
this, they get inspired.

Put a whiteboard up and count any stat you can: sales calls made,
meetings scheduled, contracts sent and sales closed. Give your team
something to think about other than just the bottom line, because you
might have to celebrate the little victories before getting the check
in the door. Celebrate getting the meeting. Celebrate sending a pitch
out.

What to do if it’s over
————————-
If you’re going to hit the wall, you should do so with three or four
months of capital left in the bank. You should cut down to your core
staff and tell them “we have 120 days of cash left and we’re going to
try to land the plane safely. If you want to leave at any point during
the 120 days you’ll get the reference of a lifetime from me. If you
help us land the plane safely I think we’ll all be better off because
of it.”

Then make a plan to do one of the following:

a) sell the business
b) close the business
c) sell the assets of the business

There’s a little bit of overlap up there, since sometimes you close
the business and sell the assets, or you sell the assets and leave a
shell behind. The point is, don’t wait until you have a month left. Do
it when you have 120 days left. If you signal to everyone it’s over,
you’ll have done the honorable thing for your employees, by giving
them the maximum time to have a safe landing, and for your investors,
by allowing them to roll the business or its assets into another
company.

The worst thing to do is to delay this process. I’ve gotten down to
this point exactly, but when I was at break-even at my first business,
we looked for a buyer, because I didn’t think we had much chance of
making it on our own in the 2001-2002 market. I could have been wrong
about that in retrospect, but either way, I’m glad I got out because
it set me up for Weblogs, Inc.

And that is the final lesson: when one door closes, three more open
up. When you shut down your business properly, you will have a clean
slate and renewed energy to take on your next project. You might even
get the investors to give you the company with the 90 days worth of
capital left to start your next project with a recapitalized
structure.

Remember that there is no shame in failure but there are honorable and
dishonorable failures. If you’re going to lose the game, remember that
it’s just that: a game. There will be another and another and another
yet to play. Don’t lose your cool and don’t get depressed. Just get
yourself back up, dust yourself off and get back in the game. The
precursor to success is almost always failure.

[ To the 17 folks who made it to the bottom: If you're struggling with
failure right now, if your business is failing and you don't think you
can go on, remember that at the very least you've been lucky enough to
take your shot. That's more than most people get. You're going to be
much stronger for getting through the heartbreak of a failed business.
Also, you've always got me--your pal Jason--if you need a shoulder to
cry on. I'm only an email, tweet or IM away jason@calacanis or
jasoncalacanis on skype/twitter/AIM. ]

SQL Data Services to get an overhaul

Mary Jo Foley — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:09:54 GMT

Whether you call it a "mid-course correction" or a reset, Microsoft is rethinking its "SQL Server Services in the cloud" strategy.

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Azure Tables

PartitionKey

RowKey

Azure Queues

Azure Blobs

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Going forward

The anatomy of cloud computing

The hardware

The platforms

The managed cloud stack

High availability

Security

Stable, efficient OS

Programming Language Business Logic

The cloud client layer

Attached storage

Database storage

Cache

Cloud consumers

Web application developers

Back office tasks

Disaster recovery

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