Earth Hour and Slacktivism

Earth HourSo Earth Hour came and went. Technically, I did participate in Earth Hour, since I was in a movie cinema during that time and all around me the lights were off ;) .

Anyway, when I first heard about Earth Hour, it brought back fond memories of seeing emails like the one below making the rounds a few years ag0 (quoted from Snopes):

It has been calculated that if everyone in the United States and Canada did not purchase a drop of gasoline for one day and all at the same time, the oil companies would choke on their stockpiles.

At the same time it would hit the entire industry with a net loss of over 4.6 billion dollars which affects the bottom lines of the oil companies.

Therefore <some date> has been formally declared “STICK IT UP THEIR BEHIND” day and the people of these two nations should not buy a single drop of gasoline that day.

The only way this can be done is if you forward this email to as many people as you can and as quickly as you can to get the word out.

Waiting on the government to step in and control the prices is not going to happen. What happened to the reduction and control in prices that the Arab nations promised two weeks ago?

Remember one thing, not only is the price of gasoline going up but at the same time airlines are forced to raise their prices, trucking companies are forced to raise their prices which effects prices on everything that is shipped. Things like food, clothing, building materials, medical supplies etc. Who pays in the end? We do!

We can make a difference. If they don’t get the message after one day, we will do it again and again.

So do your part and spread the word. Forward this email to everyone you know. Mark your calendars and make <some date> a day that the citizens of the United States and Canada say “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”!

Sound familiar? Make a convenient and insignificant sacrifice for a short period of time, and go to bed happy thinking that you have just made a world of difference. :)

Seriously though, I do applaud any kind of activism, and I respect anyone who puts in the effort and goes out of their way to get the word out for causes that are truly believe in.

However, I also tend to agree with Abi that bringing awareness is not nearly as impactful as actually doing something to address the problem. And in the grand scheme of things, turning off the lights for 60 minutes doesn’t really contribute much in actually saving electricity for addressing the global warming issue.

It’s been two years since “Inconvenient Truth“, and we have more than enough awareness already. Those who are still not aware about global warming by now either don’t care or choose not to care.

Folks, like Abi said, we need more activists, and not slacktivists.

If you have turned off your lights during Earth Hour this past weekend, do ask ourselves this:

Have you turned off your extra hallway light tonight when you were not in your living room?

Published:
April 1, 2009 – 2:06 am
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Links of the (Last Few) Weeks – March 31st

Everybody loves links, so here are my links of the last few weeks. As usual, newer links are on top.

How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke

Money Quote: Athletes from the nation’s three biggest and most profitable leagues—the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball—are suffering from a financial pandemic. Although salaries have risen steadily during the last three decades, reports from a host of sources (athletes, players’ associations, agents and financial advisers) indicate that:

  • By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.
  • Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke.
  • Numerous retired MLB players have been similarly ruined, and the current economic crisis is taking a toll on some active players as well. Last month 10 current and former big leaguers—including outfielders Johnny Damon of the Yankees and Jacoby Ellsbury of the Red Sox and pitchers Mike Pelfrey of the Mets and Scott Eyre of the Phillies—discovered that at least some of their money is tied up in the $8 billion fraud allegedly perpetrated by Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford. Pelfrey told the New York Post that 99% of his fortune is frozen; Eyre admitted last month that he was broke, and the team quickly agreed to advance a portion of his $2 million salary.

CBS Leverages Silverlight for YouTube NCAA March Madness Site – ReadWriteWeb

Me: Would you have laughed at me if I told you at the beginning of the year that Microsoft Silverlight would be deployed in any part of YouTube? I sense the winds of change blowing…

Milwaukee Bucks tell Charlie Villanueva not to Twitter during games anymore – ESPN

Me: If you need further proof that Twitter is indeed mainstream close to the level of Facebook and MySpace, look no further than the NBA. Imagine that – NBA players using Twitter during halftime to broadcast to the world how crappy or awesome they played during the game!

Microsoft returns to retail. Blogosphere already assumes it will fail. retailgeek.com

Money Quote: I know a lot of people like to see the 800 pound gorilla fail, and many are betting against you, but there is SO MUCH ROOM for our shopping experiences to improve, I’m excited to see a company with Microsoft’s innovation, talent, and resources move the ball forward.

Their first hire, David Potter, is an executive with leadership experience at the most successful retailer in the world (Walmart), and one of the greatest story tellers there is (Pixar); that seems like a great start to me.

Photosynth Map Explore, See The World Through Synths

Me: Geotagging + Photosynth + Live Maps = Sightseeing from your bedroom!

Cloud Computing’s Three-Horse Race

Me: Here is yet another attempt at breaking down the cloud computing landscape into three distinct segments. At the end of the day, it still aligns nicely to Tim O’Reilly’s three-tier model – Utility Computing (a.k.a. Infrastructure as a Service), Application Development Engines (Platform as a Service), and Cloud-based Applications (Software as a Service).

5 Great Microsoft Web Services You Probably Don’t Use – PC World

Money Quote: Microsoft is so often the behemoth everyone loves to hate that people overlook the stuff it does right. We tried its newer Web services and found five gems.

The Curious Case of Cloud Computing

Money Quote: Ironically, it’s Microsoft’s Hailstorm which first modeled today’s landscape almost 10 years ago, with the on-demand atomization of the InBox, the social graph (contacts), and the realtime inference engine now known as search. Identity, the very thing that brought down Hailstorm, is now being traded like a virtual stock market by the social media clouds as a new form of wealth.

Why Windows Mobile 6.5’s honeycomb menu is not just a “glorified grid”, rather, simple ingenuity

Money Quote: Several weeks ago, some pundits were quick to dismiss Windows Mobile 6.5’s honeycomb menu as a “glorified grid”, an Engadget editorial put it – “a sign that Microsoft has gone out of its way to avoid a grid”, but that’s what happens when misinformed “journalists” try to appear smart. The truth is, the honeycomb from a usability perspective is superior than traditional square grids for a touch interface.

Simple is the Reason of My Heart: Firing of BPL Football Managers and Maximal Efficiency

Money Quote: Why are we seeing more football managers getting fired these days in the Barclays Premiere League? A research paper has predicted this some years back using a combined set of ideas from physics and economics.

A Sneak Peek Look at Microsoft’s New Kumo: A Spidery Cloud? A Cloudy Spider?

Me: Color schemes aside, I have to say that Kumo is a pretty big improvement over Live Search. Some of the screenshots really don’t do justice to just how much better Kumo is over the current Live Search. A couple cool features – native IE8 web slice support and hover previews.

YouTube – TomTom CEO: "We spent more money on patent litigation then R&D"

Me: Anyone who wants to pass quick judgement on the whole Microsoft vs. TomTom case don’t be too hasty to think it’s Microsoft who is the big bully. TomTom isn’t exactly an angel when it comes to using litigation and leveraging the judicial system for its own gain.

Other ways of getting my links in real time: Twitter, Google Reader, Delicious or FriendFeed.

I may leave out certain links from my feed if I feel the stories have already been covered ad nauseam this week.

Published:
March 31, 2009 – 5:18 pm
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Getting Started with Windows Live Messenger IM Controls

Did you know that with over 300 million active users worldwide, Windows Live Messenger is the second largest IM network in the world (behind China’s Tencent QQ), and the largest IM network globally outside of China?

Most people know that you can chat on the Windows Live Messenger network from the Windows Live Messenger client, but not many people know that you can also interact with the network programmatically using various open APIs and IM controls.

For example, take a look at my Contact page. I have easily embedded a Windows Live Messenger client right within my website using the Windows Live Messenger IM control, making me contactable by anyone who visits my web page – even if they do not use Windows Live Messenger.

What I did was fairly simple – I only took the default IM control without customizing it. However, the Mesenger APIs are incredibly rich and flexible, and you can do a whole lot more other things with it.

Below is a document that teaches you how to get started with the various Windows Live Messenger IM controls and APIs. If you are a developer and would like to incorporate Messenger functionality within your application or website, do check it out!

Published:
March 9, 2009 – 3:56 am
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Microsoft’s Future Vision is Amazing

Update: Unfortunately, the Silverlight Streaming service which I use for my videos seem to be temporarily down. In the mean time, please make do with this to watch the videos.

Update 2: The Silverlight Streaming service seems to be back up already. (cross fingers)

Update 3: OK, so the Silverlight Streaming service has been discontinued. I replaced all the embedded videos with their YouTube equivalents. The quality may not be as good as the original Silverlight HD videos, but they’ll do. :)

I have been sitting on these videos for a while already.

However, now that it’s been made public and everyone seems to be talking about it in the blogosphere and on Twitter, I guess I can also talk about it now.

Ladies and gentlemen, here it is for your viewing convenience, the full set of high-quality, unedited Microsoft Future Vision videos from 2004 to 2009 all gathered in one place.

We will start with the latest and coolest video, Microsoft’s Productivity Vision and work our way backwards in time. And make sure you watch the videos in full screen mode for the best effect!

You will need Silverlight installed to watch the videos. If you don’t have it installed, you can get it here. Trust me. It’ll be worth your time. :)

Microsoft’s Productivity Vision (2009)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5js1rS2OcE[/youtube]

Microsoft’s Healthcare Vision (2007)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35Kv6-ZNGA[/youtube]

Microsoft’s Manufacturing Vision (2006)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml5Bi9SvdPw[/youtube]

Microsoft’s Banking Vision (2005)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3CvU8OTAmM[/youtube]

Microsoft’s Retail Vision (2004)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_fIAE78tt0[/youtube]

A Glimpse into the Future: Microsoft’s Future Vision Montage

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHVjPCMEtts[/youtube]

The Future Awaits

Alluring, isn’t it?

The best thing about the future is that no one can really be sure what it’s going to be like. All Microsoft can do is try to project a future which can reasonably be achieved based on where Microsoft thinks technology will take us ten years from now.

And the key word here is “reasonable”. All the ideas and concepts seen on the videos are not science fiction, but something that real people today (whether in Microsoft or elsewhere) are researching on right now.

In early 90′s, didn’t folks predict a new way of user interaction with computers in the future – not with mice and keyboards – but using human touch and optical feedback? Well, a decade later, Microsoft made it a reality.

So what do you think?

Is this the kind of future you would like to live in 10 years from now? Or do you think this vision is doomed to fail?

Lastly, some technical details…

The videos above are hosted on Microsoft’s Silverlight Streaming service. It’s a free video and application hosting service which gives you 10 GB of storage space and up to 5 TB of bandwidth per month to stream your videos via a Silverlight video player.

You can either use the built-in video player from the Silverlight Streaming service, or pick from a variety of free alternatives, such as the sophisticated open source Silverlight 2 video player or the Silverlight Open Video Player.

In the end, I settled for the nifty MinoPlayer, which is both small (only 60KB footprint) and feature-rich.

Published:
March 5, 2009 – 2:08 am
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RIAction Post-Mortem

RIActionRIAction

Last Friday we successfully held our RIAction event at the Microsoft Singapore office, which is Singapore’s first ever event for Rich Internet Applications and web development.

In a nutshell…

Although it was tiring, I had a wonderful time organizing the event with the cool guys from FUG (who said people from competing technologies can’t mix?), and it was awesome to see an event where Microsoft, Adobe, and Google shared the same stage to tell the audience what cool stuff is available today for developers to use to build their RIAs.

I said it during the keynote, and I’ll say it again here:

Competition is passé. Interoperability is the new black.

Instead of worrying about which technology is better, let’s celebrate the fact that the market is big enough for different vendors and their technologies to co-exist and work together.

Ultimately, the more diversity we have in development technologies, the bigger the win is for developers.

RIAction Reactions

Enough words from me. Here are what other people are saying about RIAction:

From Abhishek Kumar:

IMO the RIAction team (one of the organizers is Hu Shunjie)  did a pretty good job of a first RIA Conference in Singapore.

Elliot Williams had this to say:

i attended the riaction event put together by shunjie …. it was a whole day event on 26feb2009… i took off… and boy was it worth it…

Gerald from FusedThought Studio said this:

It was quite interesting to see evangilists from 3 rival companies in many products together in the same room. However, as pointed out in the keynote address, the theme is interoperability. What we have now are choices which developers in the past may not have..

Carlson from Creative Crew posted a few photos.

Also check out what people are saying about RIAction on Twitter.

And finally, my co-organizer Shunjie is already thinking about RIAction 2. Do drop him a line or leave a comment if you have feedback on what you want to see in the next RIAction!

Until next time, here are some more cool RIAction stuff…

RIAction Logo

“I Love RIAction” Video

RIAction Photo Mosaic (featuring Silverlight Deep Zoom technology)

You will need Silverlight installed to view the photo mosaic properly. If you don’t have it installed, you can get it here.

Hint: Use your mouse and scroll wheel to navigate around…

(Photos and Silverlight Deep Zoom application courtesy of Neng Giin)

RIAction Presentation Slides

All of the session presentations will be posted shortly on the RIAction website. In the mean time, I have uploaded my two RIAction presentations onto SlideShare:

Published:
March 3, 2009 – 2:00 am
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Come See Adobe, Google and Microsoft Duke It Out at RIAction!

RIAction LogoI’m just kidding. No one will be duking it out. :)

But Singapore IS holding its first ever Rich Internet Application conference – RIAction – next week on Feb 26th at the Microsoft office. This event is organized by the Singapore Flex User Group.

Sponsored and co-organized by Microsoft, Adobe, and Google, RIAction offers a full day of technology updates and networking opportunities for people in the tech community who are interesting in RIA, web development, cloud computing, and rich user experiences.

I believe this is also the first tech event in Singapore where the three big names (and competitors) in the RIA space are working together under the same roof to promote a common cause, which is the evolution and development of next generation rich Internet experiences for users.

When Shunjie first approached me and asked me whether Microsoft would be keen to participate, I wasn’t sure at first, since I knew that he was a Flex developer, which competed directly with Silverlight. And even today, my colleagues at Microsoft will ask me, “are you sure it’s a good idea to have an event with three competitors that compete head-to-head with each other in so many different offerings?”

Well, to me, the answer is pretty simple, which is also the reason why I agreed to help FUG organize this event:

Ultimately, having multiple vendors is about offering multiple choices to the user, and the market is big enough for multiple technologies to co-exist and interoperate.

Therefore, the message we would like to put across is that as a end user or a developer, you have a lot of choice today in developing rich Internet applications. There is no one size fits all formula, and different people will appreciate different tools and technologies. What is important is that all the vendors appreciate the fact that technologies today can interoperate with each other, thus giving developers the assurance that they can pick and choose from a menu of technologies which is the best combination for them to accomplish their goal.

The theme of RIAction is interoperability, and not competition. :)

If you are interested to come please go here to register. Hopefully you will enjoy the event as much as we had organizing it!

Date and Time:

26th February 2009, 9am to 6pm

Venue:

Microsoft Auditorium
1 Marina Boulevard, Level 21
One Marina Boulevard Singapore 018989
Nearest MRT : Raffles Place MRT

Cost:

FREE!

Online Coverage:

Published:
February 17, 2009 – 2:17 am
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Links of the Week – February 10th

Everybody loves links, so here are my links of the week. As usual, newer links are on top.

Infrastructure for Modern Web Sites random($foo)

Me: A must-bookmark page if you want a concise yet comprehensive checklist of things you will need to build up the infrastructure for a modern web site. Does your web framework handle all this?

I, Cringely Blog Archive Yahoo Should Buy Microsoft – Cringely on technology

Cringely: Setting out to rebuild Microsoft for the next 30 years it is tempting simply to throw away the parts of the company that don’t make money, which is to say almost everything except Windows, Office, and MAYBE the xBox.

[...] The problem, though, is that the folks in Redmond don’t know how to build an online business, which is a big reason why they wanted to buy Yahoo.

[...] The only answer to optimizing the online operations of both companies, then, would be for YAHOO TO BUY MSN.

Some Blog Commenter: Outside of MSN and Zune, its hard to find a Microsoft product which loses money…

Cringely: But do those divisions raise Microsoft’s gross margins or lower them? I believe they generally lower them, which means they are effectively drags on the company compared to Windows and Office, which do the heavy lifting.

Me: Just curious, but by a similar line of reasoning then, shouldn’t Google drop all of its products that don’t make as much profit as AdSense and AdWords do for them?

And if we use the “DNA” argument – if Microsoft doesn’t have the DNA to build a successful online business and thus the whole shebang needs to be discarded, does Google have the DNA to build a successful business to make inroads into the enterprise space (which it is trying to do)? Should Google give up and discard that too?

I’m a PC and I am only 4 ½ years old

Meet Kylie. At just 4 ½, Kylie doesn’t have that much experience with a PC. She’s a rookie. Yet she transferred her photos from her camera, color-corrected them, then e-mailed a snapshot of her pet fish, Dorothy, to her family. All using Windows Live Photo Gallery. It makes fixing and sharing photos easy at any age. Why not try it for yourself?

How well does Windows 7 handle 512MB?

Me: Simply amazing. Windows 7 runs well even on a 512MB older machine.

MarketScope for Ajax Technology and RIA Platforms

Me: Here is the latest MarketScope report from Gartner surveying the RIA landscape. Microsoft, Adobe, and Yahoo are all amongst vendors who ranked positively in the report.

Why Google Needs the GDrive to Fight Microsoft

Money Quote: From a strategic standpoint, I marvel at Google’s game plan. From a personal standpoint, however, I don’t like it a bit. My biggest problem with GDrive is that it would come from Google.

blu :: a WPF twitter client from thirteen23

Me: Functionally, it ain’t at the level of Twhirl or TweetDeck yet. However, this is by far the slickest looking Twitter client I have ever laid my eyes on. And since it is written in .NET and WPF, it also consumes a lot less memory than the two aforementioned Adobe AIR apps. ;-)

Adobe UI Gripes

Me: Sites like these always cracks me up. Reminds me of so much of the classic Lotus Notes Sucks site (inactive since 2006). :-)

TringMe Finds A Way To Make VoIP Calls from Microsoft Silverlight

Money Quote: This could open up the door for Silverlight developers to integrate VoIP in their applications. What’s interesting is the ability to use Silverlight’s competing application, Flash, to get around issues in the Silverlight platform. Basically, a competing platform is being used to strengthen an existing platform.

Asking “should we trust the cloud” is like asking “should we trust horseless carriages”

Me: Part 1 of my Dare Obasanjo special this week. Dare pens a thoughtful piece on whether we should trust cloud services or not. I commented about this on Daryl’s blog before, but here is my opinion:

To me it’s very simple. It is all about a trade-off between risk and convenience.

Here is a hypothetical: if Google flat out came out today and said that every month, 1 out of every 10000 free Gmail accounts will be deleted just for the heck of it, would you accept that risk (0.01%) and continue enjoying the rich experience and convenience that Gmail provides? Personally, I still would.

Essentially, whenever you use a cloud service, you need to make trade-offs like these all the time.

The best you can do to protect yourself is make sure that you have backups of all your valuable content offline or at least in multiple online locations. For example, all my online presentations, videos, and photos are stored in my NAS at home and backed up on my desktop PC. All my contacts in Gmail are backed up on my iPhone. My entire blog database is backed up in my Gmail, and so forth.

The only way one can truly get peace of mind using a cloud service is if one pays for it, and in return receives a SLA from the cloud service vendor. This way, at least if things screw up, you are entitled to some form of compensation.

Office Live Workspaces, Live Mesh and Windows Live Coming Together

Me: Part 2 of my Dare Obasanjo special this week. All I have to say is that anyone who has tried Live Mesh and Windows Live before will know this is super exciting news. It just makes too much sense to merge Microsoft’s online synchronization and collaboration strategy together all under the same umbrella.

Big Ideas are not as important as Good Ideas

Me: Part 3 of my Dare Obasanjo special this week.

Money Quote: The problem with “Big Ideas” is that sometimes people get obsessed with how game changing or disruptive their product is instead of focusing on making it the best at what it does.

The new Posterous bookmarklet lets you grab photos, video, and text right out of the page you’re already on!

Me: I’ve been using the brilliantly simple Posterous service more and more in recent days. Prediction – in five years time we will have more tumblelogs than traditional blogs on the Internet.

It’s a Windows 7 Love Fest | sarahintampa

Me: The love for Windows 7 just seems to be never ending. Sarah has compiled a list of recent reviews and articles, including one from Walt Mossberg, a key influencer from the Wall Street Journal.

Social  Software Adoption

Money Quote: Barack Obama won the presidency in a landslide victory by converting everyday people into engaged and empowered volunteers, donors and advocates through social networks, e-mail advocacy, text messaging and online video. By combining social media and micro-targeting in the manner that it did, the campaign revealed force multipliers that are already being adopted as part of a new communications model.

Other ways of getting my links in real time: Twitter, Google Reader, Delicious or FriendFeed.

I may leave out certain links from my feed if I feel the stories have already been covered ad nauseam this week.

Published:
February 11, 2009 – 1:03 am
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Is the Internet Intelligentsia Disconnected from the Enterprise World?

Did you know that Intelligentsia was a brand of coffee?

Did you know that Intelligentsia was a brand of coffee?

This week, an interesting discussion surfaced on FriendFeed. Paul Buchheit posted an article from Slate which claimed that Gmail has now surpassed Outlook in every aspect and proclaimed that Outlook has been destroyed by Gmail.

With such a provocative headline, naturally the Silicon Valley intelligentsia quickly chimed into the discussion. While the majority of the comments seem to pile on and proclaimed that Outlook is dead, thankfully many folks rightfully pointed out that comparing Gmail to Outlook is not an apples-to-apples comparison. It is more like comparing apples to… I don’t know, fish?

Gmail is a web application for email. Outlook is a collaboration platform. Both sides put forth their arguments. At the end of the day, there was no consensus after 75 comments and 187 likes. Just another day in FriendFeed land.

I love Gmail. I love Outlook. I love FriendFeed. At the end of the day, everyone is entitled to like what they want to like, and use what they want to use. Whatever. To each his own.

What I wonder about though, is this: How did this even become an article and a point of debate in the first place?

Gmail is a great web mail application for consumers.

At the office, my Outlook is tightly integrated to my Office Communicator which in turn is tightly integrated to our IP telephony systems. I can call a colleague over my IP phone directly from within Outlook and check her employee profile and internal social network by just right-clicking her name. I can create emails from events, create events from emails, create to-do items from emails, recall messages that have already been sent, and protect emails from being forwarded without my permission. My Outlook is so tightly integrated to my company’s CRM system that within Outlook I can see all of my sales prospects and existing opportunities, a graphical dashboard of my sales pipeline, and have the option to contact my customers them via voice or email all within a couple of clicks.

It will take Gmail years before it can do all of that. And even longer before Global 1000 companies will be convinced that keeping all of your sensitive email (your company’s lifeblood) on a 3rd-party server is a good thing.

And for a modern enterprise like where I work, what I described above really is the bare minimum I need to do my work effectively.

Yes, Gmail’s conversation view is nice (which Outlook has, by the way), and some may even argue that Gmail has a sleeker and more responsive interface (which I do agree).

However, I can’t believe that a marginally-superior user experience can result in sweeping statements in headlines such as, “How Gmail destroyed Outlook”.

Is the Internet intelligentsia, no doubt the author who penned the Slate article as well as the majority of folks who hang out on FriendFeed, so disconnected from the enterprise world?

The tools that work for a 30-strong startup or a new media web agency with six employees is vastly different than what works for a company with employees in the hundreds.

Is the Internet intelligentsia hanging out at all the popular social media destinations today really so under-represented by employees working in large enterprises that a service like Gmail, although no doubt a great application, is automatically thought of as superior to mature software created by companies that have a lot more experience than Google in creating software for enterprises?

If this disconnect is indeed real, does this bode well for those of us who sing praises to each other about the consumer Web 2.0 applications we use everyday, with the hope of seeing eventual workplace adoption of these tools?

I mean, we all love Twitter, but how do we know if microblogging really works better for group communication in the enterprise context? Is Yammer really gaining traction and proving itself in Fortune 500 companies?

Published:
February 4, 2009 – 7:25 pm
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Using Linux is Like Riding a Bicycle

Inspired by a discussion on my previous post between myself and my good friend (and Linux advocate) Stephan Wissel, here is a analogy I like to use when describing when someone switches from using Windows to using Linux:

Switching from Windows to Linux is like switching from driving a car to riding a bicycle.

Yes, it should still get you from point A to point B, but you will likely take a longer time.

Yes, the big bicycle companies [RedHat, Novell and Ubunthu] will almost certainly emphasize the bicycle’s negligible cost [open source] and conveniences such as the fact that you don’t need to worry as much about traffic jams [lack of viruses on Linux].

Initially, you may even enjoy these benefits.

However, after riding a bike for a while, you realize that driving is actually what you really want to do. Mostly because riding a bicycle is actually a lot more difficult and stressful than driving [Linux has a steeper learning curve and may not be as user friendly].

It’s also harder to travel over the vast areas of rough terrain in the world [support the vast number of hardware devices in the world] because a bicycle just doesn’t have as good of a suspension compared to a car [hardware driver support compared to Windows]. Yes, there are professional off-road bikers [kernel and driver hackers] who can navigate through the rough terrain with ease, but for most people, it’s impossible on a bicycle.

Not to mention, because there are so many different flavors of bicycles [Linux distributions], when your bicycle breaks, it’s difficult to find a cheap bicycle shop that can help you fix it [more difficult to get support].

You also really miss the ability to play CDs on your car’s stereo surround system [running Photoshop in Windows], even though the guy who sold you the bicycle [Linux advocates] insists that you can install an FM radio and duct tape it to your handlebars [running GIMP] and it *should* be indistinguishable from your car’s high-end stereo system.

Finally, the new GPS navigation system that you just bought [Grand Theft Auto IV] just can’t be mounted on your bicycle, no matter how hard you try. Sure, you can try to use it while holding it in one hand while you ride [running it in a Windows VM]. But you will have to ride at one-fifth the speed [slow performance], and more likely than not you will end up wiping out [system crash].

Stephan instead offers up the following analogy:

Switching to Linux is like switching your car from brand X to brand Y with a change from fuel A to fuel B.

It will still drive you from one to the other location and you might or might not notice a difference. The more you push it to the limits, the more different the behavior becomes (where it is subject to religious debates what fringe behavior is “better”).

And it boils down to knowing all your levers (look for the parking break in a Merc: it is a pedal not a handle *and* it does its job as a parking break well).

Another realistic comparison might be between a sedan and a rugged off-road vehicle. While the sedan might promise more creature comfort, the off-roader will support you in any situation and break much less.

What do you guys think? Agree? Disagree?

Any other Linux analogies to share?

Oh, and thanks to this story for starting off this whole mess. :-)

Published:
February 2, 2009 – 1:37 am
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Links of the Week – January 22nd

I will be traveling over the weekend, so here are my links of the week a few days early. As usual, newer links are on top:

Cloud Computing Conundrum: Platform as a Service vs. Utility Computing

Money Quote: As it stands today  platform as a service offerings currently do not satisfy the needs of people who have existing apps that want to “port them to the cloud”. Instead this looks like it will remain the domain of utility computing services which just give you a VM and the ability to run any software you damn well please on the your operating system of choice.

However for brand new product development the restrictions of platform as a service offerings seem attractive given the ability to “scale infinitely” without having to get your hands dirty. Developers on platform as a service offerings don’t have to worry about database management and the ensuing complexitiies like sharding, replication and database tuning.

CBS Best Inauguration Video Quality, Hulu, C-SPAN The Worst, Others Not Loading | The Business Of Online Video

Money Quote: I’ve now watched over a dozen live feeds of the inauguration from most of the major news portals and hands down, CBS has the best quality and most reliable stream.

Me: Guess what technology did CBS (as well as the official PIC site) use to do it’s video streaming? Hint – It isn’t Flash. :-)

Think Megan Fox is Sexy? I’ll Sell You 1 Share of “Synthetic Ownership Interest” for $10 : The Drama 2.0 Show

Me: Just read the article. It’s not what you think. And yes, I wouldn’t mind a share of ownership interest in Megan Fox – synthetic or otherwise… 8-)

How Not to be a Key Online Influencer | David Henderson – author, journalist

Me: Hilarious!

Angels and Demons of Our Social Media Souls

Me: Are you more Angel or Demon? :-)

How to Create a Blogging Plan and Actually Reach Your Goals This Year

Me: Good Article from ProBlogger which talks about creating a blogging plan if you choose to blog to make money. Personally, I just blog to vent. :-)

Obama’s Inauguration & Future Of Technology

Me: Another glowing review of CNN’s use of Microsoft Photosynth during Obama’s inauguration event.

Photosynth Comes of Age in CNN’s Inauguration Coverage

Money Quote: Today’s feature on CNN is certainly an awesome showcase for Photosynth, a technology that Microsoft first debuted back in 2006.

Social network Friendster refocuses business on Asian users

Me: Is that a first for a Silicon Valley startup? To have its full time CEO operating from Asia while the global headquarters still remains in the valley?

Google Web Drive and “Cosmo” Discussed in Deleted Document

Me: I don’t understand all of the hype and excitement recently over Google’s mythical GDrive service that may or may not happen. Personally, I’m more than happy with my Windows SkyDrive account with free 25GB storage and drag-and-drop integration with my desktop.

Tim Sneath : The Bumper List of Windows 7 Secrets

Me: Anyone want to guess why the default wallpaper for Windows 7 Beta is the picture of Siamese fighting fish blowing bubbles?

Study: Rich Men Give Women More Orgasms

Me: Instead of conducting this study solely as a survey, will they be scientifically proving it through experimentation? ;-)

Online file storage from … Dilbert? – TechFlash: Seattle’s Technology News Source

Me: I think the service will seem cool for the first week or so, then everyone will realize how lame it is that your company is using a file storage service from Dilbert.

Are Record Labels the New Realtors?

Money Quote: The first R.I.A.A. lawsuits were filed in September 2003, against individuals allegedly caught sharing music illegally online. By the time R.I.A.A. halted its legal campaign this past fall, they’d managed to issue 35,000 suits, win none of them, spend more money on legal fees than they recovered in settlements, and plunge the industry into a public relations quagmire — all the while failing to stop either music piracy or the continuing decline of CD sales.

What Men And Google Have In Common | Plushies in Action

Me: The answer may not be what you think… :-)

Will Windows 7 stymie Mac OS X’s growth? | The Digital Home – CNET News

Money Quote: As a person who performs almost every computing task on a Mac and tells anyone who will listen that at this point, the average consumer should be using a Mac instead of a Windows machine because of security and usability, I’m starting to prep myself for the single moment that I thought would never come: I’ll be using a Windows 7 machine as my main computer and telling anyone who will listen that, believe it or not, using the latest Microsoft operating system really is worth it.

The Dangers of Telling a User Switching to Linux That “Linux Is Just like Windows” | CodingExperiments.com

Me: The reality is that Linux is not like Windows. There are still way too many things you can do in Windows which comparable and familiar alternatives are just not available in Linux. Which is why despite seeing Apple’s OS X gaining ground on Windows over the past few years, Linux desktops are still running to a standstill during the same time frame.

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I may leave out certain links from my feed if I feel the stories have already been covered ad nauseam this week.

Published:
January 23, 2009 – 4:24 pm
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