iPhone 4G

The tech press is all a-flutter with news of an apparent iPhone 4G prototype found "in the wild" - some Apple employee left it in a bar in Redwood City CA. It wound up in Gizmodo's hands, and they tore it apart.

The speculation is Apple will announce the next iPhone at the Worldwide Developer Conference this summer. If that's the case, availability is likely in the fall, when, coincidentally, my current contract w/ AT&T runs out.

Hmmm. Stay tuned...

Apple to Adobe: We don't need your stinking Flash

Fellow iPhone users, take heart. The legions of soon-to-be-iPad users have likely moved the Apple vs. Adobe Flash debate to the tipping point. To no ones surprise, it looks like Apple will win.

If you've tried to view Facebook video, or watch a Hulu TV show, or play an MSNBC video on your iPhone, you know that none of these things are possible without some serious (and warranty-voiding) machinations. This is because Apple has refused to support Adobe's Flash product, the leading method for delivering Web-based video and a whole bunch of other Internet content. Apple claims (rightly so) Flash is buggy, unstable, and hogs resources. Adobe, as has been their habit for about the past 10 years, has yawned and pointed to the vast amount of Flash content on the Web, implying that Flash is good enough for everyone else, so Apple should just shut up and get over it.

Millions of iPhones, and what looks to be another home run with the iPad, give Apple some clout in this fight, and it looks like content providers are going to go with the numbers. According to Daniel Lyons in Newsweek, some of the biggest syndicated content providers on the Internet are moving to support HTML5, the standard Apple is touting as a superior substitute for Flash.

All of the big tech companies are arrogant, and I personally think Apple is one of the more egregious abusers of its customers out there (FAR more so than popular whipping boy Microsoft), but on this one, I'm with Apple. Flash is a terrible product. It is exactly as Apple describes it - buggy, prone to crashes, and a far bigger consumer of device resources than it should be given its functionality. HTML5 is a more open and elegant standard, requires no licensing fees to use, is more stable, and ought to be a better solution in every way to unstable proprietary code.

Eventually, the market does make right in most cases, and especially so in technology. Those companies which adhere to proprietary code, tightly controlled IP, and closed standards are ultimately doomed to be replaced by open-source alternatives. The exception, so far, has been Apple, which has held the open-source revolution at bay by designing and mass-manufacturing elegant, simple, and functional devices and software. They have to work pretty hard to keep up the pace of innovation while maintaining their edge, but to date, they have done a pretty good job.

Another reason to set Bing as your homepage

If you haven't tried Microsoft's latest answer to Google - the Bing search page - you should. I say this not as a Microsoft shill (even though I am one), but as a user who has seen worthwhile results out of it. Bing search is every bit as good as Google's. Microsoft has been working for the better part of a decade to earn the previous sentence, and they have finally done it.

Outside of search excellence, I love Bing, and have it set as my homepage, because Bing brings you, every day, a stunning image you will see nowhere else. Some of the best, most original photography in the world is featured, for free, on Bing, with a new image appearing daily.

Today's image, of a flower farm in the Netherlands, is a particularly good example, and prompted this post. Click on the picture below for a much larger, and much more impressive, view.

A little professional blogging

I'm doing some blogging regarding my professional life over at the Catapult Systems EPM Team blog.

Come check it out!

Daily YouTube: Aircraft graveyard

In midst of the Arizona desert, there is AMARC, where military aircraft go to be mummified.

Daily YouTube: AT&T predicted the future

Remember these ads from 1993? They were right. It took longer than we wanted, but all this and more are here.

Are Violent Video Games Preparing Kids For The Apocalypse

At least I no longer have to worry about the future we are leaving for my son.....

The greatest Web site in the history of ever

If you have not checked out Pandora Radio, you need to.

A streaming music site which puts to work the findings of The Music Genome Project, Pandora takes music you like and extrapolates it into more music it thinks you'll like. Whatever taxonomy they came up with, it frickin' works. I am amazed at the songs this thing dredges up - old favorites I haven't heard in years, new stuff I haven't heard before but like immediately, and the Petey All-Time Top 100 in a commercial-free endless stream.

You can read more about the artist, album, or song; find similar artists or songs; continue to refine your "station"; create new stations; or just sit back and let the sheer awesomeness of it wash over you for hours on end.

Best part? The free app for Super-Phone, which works equally well on Wi-Fi or the cell network.

THIS is technology you can use! Check it out!

Looking for a Holiday Gift Idea -- Try Kiva

Do Something Good in the World.

Make a Gift to Kiva

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.
Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, they gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Their partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, their partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entrepreneur on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently.

How Kiva Works:

1) Lenders like you browse profiles of entrepreneurs in need, and choose someone to lend to. When they lend, using PayPal or their credit cards, Kiva collects the funds and then passes them along to one of our microfinance partners worldwide.

2) Kiva's microfinance partners distribute the loan funds to the selected entrepreneur. Often, our partners also provide training and other assistance to maximize the entrepreneur's chances of success.

3) Over time, the entrepreneur repays their loan. Repayment and other updates are posted on Kiva and emailed to lenders who wish to receive them.

4) When lenders get their money back, they can re-lend to someone else in need, donate their funds to Kiva (to cover operational expenses), or withdraw their funds.

As all our belts grow tighter and we all get caught up in our own personal misery, sometimes it is good to think of others. For $25, you can change someone's life. Now that should be what the holidays are all about.

Go to!

In Eight Years -- Reed for President!

Behold: Super-Phone

Well, I did it. I finally got rid of my craptastic Cingular 8125 Windows Mobile phone, and got myself a slick, new Apple iPhone 3G. The 16 gb baby. White. Hereafter to be referred to as "Super-Phone".

As time goes by, I'll provide commentary on its various bells and whistles. At this time, however, all I have to say is: My God, this thing is COOL!

The Most Disturbing Video Game Ever -- "Bioshock" -- by Jack

The basic plot of this game is your plane crashes in the middle of the Atlantic in 1960. You find a lighthouse, swim to it, 17 fathoms later you find yourself at Atlantis on crack (also known as "Rapture") and you go around either saving or harvesting "Little Sisters" or young girls.



This game is not for the faint of heart -- like my dad. Seriously, this game freaks me out.

The biggest announcement of my life

Thank you to everyone who has supported me, and suggested that I do this. I owe it all to you.

The most important article you will read this decade

The headline is not hyperbole.

The cover story in this month's Wired magazine (the greatest magazine ever in the history of ever, but that's another story) is about a man named Shai Agassi and his company, a little outfit called Better Place.

You need to know about this guy. You need to know about this company.

Agassi and Better Place are going to break our dependence on fossil fuels. And they're going to do it soon.

Better Place is involved in electric cars. No, they're not building souped-up golf carts. They're not even building the cars. Better Place is going to build the new paradigm.

They are going to build charging stations, they are going to build battery swap-out stations. And they are going to sell you a service plan which allows you to drive your electric car, built by GM, or Nissan, or whoever, for as long as you want to. The service plan you buy will be a lot like your cell phone plan. You'll be billed for usage, or you'll pay a flat fee for X amount of electrons, or you'll buy a premium service plan which allows you unlimited juice and a new battery whenever you want it.

Better Place is going to be the company Exxon-Mobil should be.

Agassi has already signed deals with the governments of Israel and Denmark, which will give him and his company tax breaks to help build the infrastructure. The US is not too terribly interested at this point. But we will be.

Folks, it's coming. Agassi is handling the transportation/consumption end. Boone Pickens is evangelizing about the supply end. And My Hero Al Gore is keeping this stuff front and center.

My good, sweet Lord. I can't wait!

Daily YouTube: Big Al says drilling is stupid

I LOVE this guy!

Daily YouTube: Big Al gives us more on The Goal

Katie Couric did a LONG interview with My Hero Al, giving him the opportunity to expand on The Goal - generating all of our electricity using renewable sources within 10 years.

It's lengthy, and the end of the interview deals with unrelated nonsense, but its worth watching. This guy makes so much sense. I still think he would have been a lousy President (Worse than GWB? Um, er, let me get back to you on that one.), but he's found his way to contribute.

BTW, I went out and bought an "Al Gore is My Hero" T-shirt. I'm not making that up.

Daily YouTube: Revenge of the common man

A ding-dong local funny-guy reporter tries some "man on the street" interviews with people waiting in line for the new iPhone. One of his interviewees doesn't think the reporter is as funny as the reporter thinks he is. Hilarity ensues.

Just once, I'd like to have the opportunity to say something like this on live TV, and the stones to do it.

US Vote: "Savvy use of the Internet"...again

Long, but interesting, reprint of a NYT article on MSNBC today: Barack Obama's use of the Internet in his campaign is being hailed as "revolutionary".

Obama has enlisted one of Facebook's founders, Chris Hughes (all of 24 years old), as his chief social networking guy. I'm only lately a fan of his work, but the guy does seem to know what he's doing. MyBarackObama.com (insiders call it MyBo, with the last "o" very definitely in lower case; MyBO clearly won't do) is, by all accounts, enormously successful, easy to use, widely leveraged, and an all-out hoot to be part of. I wouldn't know, as this is the first I've heard of it - I'm late to the party, as usual. However, as a new Facebook devotee, I'll go give it a peek.

Even if it's the greatest Web site in the history of all Web sites, I have to tell you that I am sick to death of hearing about how the Internet has "completely changed" the political arena, and how a candidate (usually the younger, hipper one) has "revolutionized" campaigning thru his team's use of the Web. This uber-hype started, I believe, with Howard Dean waaaayyyyyy back in 2000 and has kept going since. It reminds me a lot of the Internet bubble of the late 90's-early 00's in terms of the totally skewed bang-to-hype ratio.

Internet campaigning is a reality, just like Internet news, Internet shopping, and Internet social networking are. However, is it really a game-changer? Don't you still have to get out in front of people - on TV, on the radio, in print, online, and in person - and have something to say? Haven't we all seen really cool technology, really slick presentation, and a ton of hype, all wrapped around nothing of substance? What was the staying power of Razorfish, pets.com, Loudcloud, Marimba, PointCast, or the million other Web flameouts?

This stuff is just clutter to me. Who cares, really, if Obama is using the Web more effectively than McCain? Does this have one iota of impact on the kind of leader each might be? My questions remain the same as they've been: Obama's experience, his ability to influence people and events on the world stage, who are his advisers and what are their views, etc - all far more important to me than either candidate's ability to "revolutionize" politics via the Internet.

IT Project Management: Not for the faint of heart

I don't often write about work stuff here, as the seven of you who have been reading consistently for a while likely could not care less about the silliness of IT projects. However, we've picked up a few new readers (well, one - hi, Victor) who may actually find this amusing.

Here is a blog post from one Bruce Webster. Bruce is an internationally recognized expert on IT... well, you can read his bio as well as I can. To summarize, the dude seems to have a bit of cred.

In this post, Bruce offers a sanitized version of a memo he wrote describing the imminent failure of a mission-critical IT project being (poorly) executed for a major firm of some sort. It's not so much funny as it is scary.

Having been involved in a few disastrous technology projects in my time (the acronym "CFS" can still reduce me to tears), I can tell you that this is somewhat more common than you might think.

Best passage from the post:

The code base is very fragile. A lot of it is bad old code that BigFirm didn’t have time to rewrite two years ago, but now is five times its original size and even worse. One consultant said he took a code listing, picked pages at random, and found problems on every page he selected.

Oh dear. I have been there, my brother!

Daily YouTube: This is not good news

If this is real (and many of the comments say it's not), you may want to rethink that unlimited mobile plan you just signed up for...