Team Individualism

Should applications be on a closed platform?

drmcghee — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:23:56 GMT

I read, yet-another, iPad article /rant this morning. I did find it clever that one quoted Guardian writer wrote "We will have arrived at an Orwellian end by Huxleian means" in reference to Apple application control. This is because the iPad is essentially an overgrown iPhone with all its application command and control. Personally, I think the iPhone is a success largely due to three things; it works as a phone, the user experience and the applications (and the implicit control). Command and control isn't going away.

This new i-hierarchy leads me to an immediate question similar to the author of the article. Is it healthy, if applications are supposedly ubiquitous and multi-platform, for a company be able to control content, access, and payment?

I recognise this paradigm will be hard to shift, but what if the industry were to open up application discovery, rather than publishing them on a single "vendor" marketplace? Applications could be instead, certified: "This application has been certified to work on devices A,B,C by authority X" and a logical progression would be for applications to be universally searchable. The likes Bing could add a new tab/search option called Applications. Click Applications>Phone>iPhone>Games.. This would open up doors for linked applications, add-ins, accessories, substitutes and most importantly competition.

Payment is a whole other and complex beast. At this stage the various marketplaces (which payment systems and the rules that govern it) will need to exist.

There is another good argument here that essentially presses the case that as a device becomes more of an appliance it is likely to be more of a closed platform. The argument here is similar in the sense that no-one wants to know how your vacuum cleaner works. They just want it to switch on and occasionally have funny extension piece to reach the tricky bits in the house. My primary reservation here, and somewhat circular, is that without open software a device can never reach its full potential.

The impact of customer service on technical decision making

drmcghee — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:06:58 GMT

True to form, my recent purchase of a new gadget, a Turbo Tent, didn't go according to the book. Truth be told I really didn't follow the book. This whole experience did leave me with some interesting perspectives on customer service, brand loyalty and technical decision making. Let me explain..

I got into camping again recently thanks to some friends. Realising we were under-gunned in the camping department in terms of gear I proudly purchased a year ago a basic tent. Marked as a family tent and enough to fit 6 people it did actually fit the bill. However in the heat of the northern NSW coast and in comparison to our Taj Mahal neighbours the tent looked decidedly amateur. The tent would have blown away in the wind or would have sunk in rain, but due to the heat it survived, but we didn't - it turns out yet another piece of camping gear you need is a Tarp (shade). So, to get back on the camping map I decided to mark last years camping adventure as a beginners mistake and promptly resold the tent on ebay.

A year on I revisit the tent I had later researched - a Turbo Tent. Essentially the core of the tent is propped up in minutes with none of the unnecessary hassle of juggling ill-fitting poles. In Australia this tent is distributed and badged by Black Wolf. They have a good reputation, from what I can glean, but come with a hefty price tag. I tried some camping accessories and they were good quality, so I was holding out to buy or find one on ebay. This is where Customer Service came in - Black Wolf despite some phone numbers could not help me locate or find an alternative to now retired Fly extension I wanted. The fly was necessary to protect from the harsh heat. So after much research, as a family Christmas present, I realised that the same product was available from the USA distributed by Black Pine. The only difference I could see was a slight colour change but several options were still sold that were no longer available in the Black Wolf brand.

Lesson 1:

If you don't help your customer, they go elsewhere

For the same money as a local Black Wolf tent I was able to purchase the Black Pine tent equivalent, its extension and shipping from the USA. I ordered from the HutShop and Amazon for the two parts and my kind friend Tracey, in Las Vegas sent them on to me. I was bewildered why the shipping weight was heavier than specified on purchase, but as I was thousands of miles away I decided it was a moot point.

Lesson 2:

Double check the specification

After Christmas the tent arrived and I quickly went about setting it up. I was impressed with the Turbo Tent technology. Sure enough, it was up in minutes. But. wait... what are these side flappy bits at the side and.. hang on.. the colour is different. Short wait. Refer to instructions. Wrong tent. Despite the box, instructions, invoice, bag and packaging saying the deluxe tent, I had a Frankenstein mix of the Deluxe tent and the Twin Tent.

Lesson 3:

Price, though important, is irrelevant if you don't get what you asked for

As background to my original purchase, I ended up paying more because the original companies I ordered with, despite listing the tent and accessory in stock, did not in fact have it to hand. HutShop was reasonably priced, and for the accessory I plumbed for Amazon because I knew they honoured the delivery date and their stock levels were accurate. HutShop were very gracious in making sure the item was shipped pre-Christmas and true to their sites claims Amazon delivered bang on time.

Its largely because of this decision, of plumbing for the personable companies, that when things went wrong that the problem was corrected. Amazingly HutShop and BlackPine sorted my issue and the family were with a new tent and camping by the next weekend. Thank you!

Lesson 4:

A personable company is more likely to have better customer service

During the in between period of having no tent to speak of, I approached Black Wolf, HutShop and Black Pine. Black Wolf were no help at all - responding in sorry but we can't help. When asked if the manufacturer could help they promptly replied with they cannot provide any assistance. Black Pine, despite no reply, looked like they were assisting HutShop on a response. The manufacturer, the Sportsman company, were extremely helpful and offered to assist on supplying the spare parts.

Anyway, now two weeks on, I have started to feel a little less than impressed with Black Wolf. Those products I owned I thought were good, started in my mind to have flaws and I felt uneasy about using them. As premium goods I sold them on ebay and purchased some Vango products instead as they have a 30-40 year record of providing recommended camping gear.

Lesson 5:

Brand loyalty goes beyond what you can sell. It can reinforce or undermine existing purchases

I found myself drawing parallels with my work. How do I service our customers? Am I here to help? Do I get my facts straight? Do I deliver what people ask of me? Am I personable and do I re-enforce the value or represent the value of Microsoft? Please let me know either way - feedback most welcome.

Where I started did actually stand me in good stead. I ordered the right product, I bought (thank you HutShop and Nikki) from the right people and I can now make recommendations based off personal experience.

Lesson 6:

Research and personal recommendation in technical decision making is vital

Throwing away the rulebook

drmcghee — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:45:03 GMT

Reading various articles this week, I found an article on Windows Mobile 7 from msmobiles. I found the quote from Phil Moore very interesting.

"We're still playing catch-up.. [Apple] threw away the rulebook and reinvented it. We unfortunately don't have that luxury."

I'm assuming the luxury part is about maintaining an existing eco-system. In the case of Windows Mobile the underlying engine is good - its just the UI is outdated when compared to new entrants to the mobile market.

Its typical for journalists to use commentary and to sensationalise, so I'm not focussing on the article but rather the notion of throwing away the rulebook.

Stow Boyd has a nice article on design approach which roughly outlines:

The transition from a bunch of ideas, goals, or requirements (depending on how you view the start of the process) to a design.

The opportunity to become involved in designing things.

He cleverly points out some bad metaphors such as Design Is Driven By Requirements. It's not like 'requirements' exist in some concrete form. Requirements should inform and not define a product.

Getting the design pattern, as Einstein would put it, "as simple as possible and no simpler" is not a luxury. To keep current, relevant even, to your users I would suggest its mandatory.

Throwing away the rulebook should the first step on the path to innovation. Referring to the rule book for information when its not obvious or doesn't exist.

One such rulebook that's worth looking at is the "400 Project Rule List" for game design. There are many guidelines that help outside the game world:

My favourites are:

17 - Begin at the Middle

11 - Emphasize Exploration and Discovery

42 - No Bosses in Brainstorming Sessions

92 - Trim the Fat

Smooth streaming on StreetSide thanks to Bing Maps Silverlight

drmcghee — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:06:34 GMT

There have been some great new features released overnight to beta for Bing Maps. Whilst, at first glance, you might say this has been done before, I’d hasten to add that its very fast, involved smooth transitioning and other meta data to maps (even PhotoSynths). My first impression had me stunned. The following pictures don’t really do it justice so please have a look yourself.

Below is an example of Twitter on StreetSide

And in more locally birds eye view with Coastalwatch surf cameras:

Try it - Goto www.bing.com (Change to United States - ‘cos its beta - by click top right hand side of screen typically set at Australia)

And click Maps beta......

Ask the Development Tech Community

drmcghee — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:20:20 GMT

I've been reading David Burela's blog - some pretty good stuff.

In addition to some neat presentations on Azure he's recently release a community site for Cloud Computing.

www.AllYourClouds.com

Which lead me to a further site at Codify for Technical community lists:

ausDotNet - General .NET windows and web development

The ausdotnet list is an offshoot of the old Stanski mailing list. This list discusses software development as it related to .NET. Learn More »

OzAzure - All things relating to Microsoft's new Cloud Computing platform

ozazure is a discuss list for the discussion of the emerging Azure Services Platform. Learn More »

OzMOSS - Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server

The mailing list brings Australian (and International) WSS/MOSS/SharePoint knowledge together in one place. Learn More »

OzSilverlight - RIA development in .NET

OzSilverlight supports developers utilitising Microsoft Silverlight to create Rich Internet Applications. Learn More »

OzTFS - Team Foundation Server

OzTFS supports users of Microsoft Team Foundation Server and related technologies. Learn More »

SQLDownUnder - SQLServer and related technologies

SQLDownUnder discusses the use of SQL Server and related technologies. Learn More »

Thanks also to Luke for links to MIT Open CourseWare here.

For example Computer Games and Simulations for Investigation and Education ; a project-based look at how we learn from interactive computer environments.

pDC UPDate – Windows Azure for PHP, MySQL and a host of other popular open-source tools

drmcghee — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:15:53 GMT

Thanks to much tweeting I am beginning to be jealous of Greg Willis, Catherine Eibner, Richard Banks and others overseas at #PDC09. Particularly given the sheer amount of content and good news for Cloud Computing via Windows Azure.

I'm not sure if you would want wan on these Azure Containers in your back yard, but I guess the point of it all is – why run your own electricity.

Lots of press and tweets. I like this good summary from Forbes.

The big news here was support for more tools," says PC Magazine's Michael Miller. He notes that Azure will not just support .NET programming language, but also

PHP, MySQL and a host of other popular open-source tools

So what is Azure about? "At its core, Azure is Windows--Windows Server,"

http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/17/azure-ray-ozzie-technology-cio-network-microsoft.html?feed=rss_news

Here’s an index of useful websites for your reference:

· PDC09 Website

· Engineering Website for the Azure platform

· Customer Website for the Windows Azure platform

· MSDN Windows Azure Developer Center

and social media:

· On Twitter follow PDC09 and watch the community’s #PDC09 tag updating ‘live’ using Bing!

· On Facebook become a fan of Microsoft PDC

· On Flickr follow Microsoft PDC and the community’s PDC09 tag

· Watch Channel9 videos tagged PDC09

· See the Virtual PressRoom

· Follow the PDC09 ‘Behind the Scenes’ Blog

Windows 7 Themes

drmcghee — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:32:09 GMT

new Windows 7 Themes now available here

Weary from IT marketing

drmcghee — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:13 GMT

After a long day I'm trawling through my.live.com and reading tweets and a few comments on fixing pet hardware projects and I come across a guy called Daniel Eran Dilger. Seriously, the posts and rants I found really depressing. Yes they were anti Microsoft but on further reading anti anything not Apple. Worse still I'd rather hoped I'd find some balanced commentary on some of his posts (check this long and weary post as evidence). What I found more scary than the quotes below was the fact that the comments must have been doctored to include Dan Fans.

"Despite making the vast majority of its money from hardware sales, Apple is investing heavily in shaping the future of software" (I'm not sure I believe the future of software is solely HTML 5)

"nobody's talking about how terrible Gartner is at predicting things" (I quite like Gartner and they do a pretty good job of giving advice in my experience)

"cloud services take away users' control in managing their own data" (I think this is part of the motivation - users haven't got a good track record of data management)

In relation to information doctoring, I've been talking to some of our Financial Services customers this week about the importance of intrinsic and immediate feedback. By simply not hiding issues or biases, or even comments, you can engender brand resonance and loyalty. Take First Direct for example. Well known for good customer service, on the whole, they have recently opted to use social live commentary (even bad comments) linked on their front page. If you read the comments it gives some great appraisal of where they are good and where they need some improvement.

What it says to a prospective customer is - expect nothing less than transparency. Why is it then that IT marketing is so skewed and not transparent? Would it be refreshing if you read an ad that said 'We are really great at X, not so good at Y but we are trying"?

On the topic of transparency, I've long been concerned about Google and privacy, but recently I think they are starting to do the right thing - evidenced by publishing more of what they hold about you. I would like an opt out button - across the board - regardless of time or tool. On the contrary I've been a big fan of Apple and particularly their hardware - I think competition is good and the industry needs innovation. But recent adverts do nothing but rubbish the otherwise good banter from the Mac vs PC debate. I find it all a bit dumb because a Mac is a PC; I know I use three. However after my last install I will really reconsider. I'm finding its taking too much home engineering time (or options), when often I just want it to work. Sony, HP and others are really beginning to make the Apple hardware a marginal choice. Microsoft is not immune to marketing effects - The Windows 7 Was My Idea campaign, whilst baked in some truths and learning's from Vista, has had some legitimate criticism in my opinion. The listening to our customers video does a better job of explaining I think:

And then there the plug in wars, and commentary, resulting

from Chrome Frame. Don't get me wrong, it seems like a smart move from Google but I'm pretty sure as of October 2009, the HTML 5 specification is in the "Last Call" state at the WHATWG. In other words the claims of some parties of being HTML 5 compliant are a little early (see here for latest HTML 5 changes). That and the fact that plug-ins are notorious for doing things you might not like (i.e. crash your browser) or make your sessions insecure. It is all about the development platform for me - if you can bring your favourite development platform to the web (or anything else) then that's a good thing. Applications are built faster and software doesn't, necessarily have to be duplicated. I'm just not sure the browser has to be considered a development platform (as the Google blog posting claimed).

All this marketing, spin and put me downs - I'm sure its not the only one it makes weary. The IT industry is changing, perhaps flourishing, possibilities and change are greater than ever before. I propose we stick to the possibilities rather than the problems that stem from "not built here".

Infoglut - I'm making an email resolution

drmcghee — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:52:55 GMT

IEEE Spectrum magazine's article on infoglut has provided me some inspiration to:

Reapply PIFEM

Reduce the number of emails I send (I am part of the problem)

Reduce my number of words in email (I can be more structured and more succinct)

Refuse to reply all

Investigate tools such as Clear Context

Introduce to the team a concept of a group contract

Nothing comes for free?

drmcghee — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:06:05 GMT

There is something skill or magic about picking up a topic such as "Does IT matter" or penning a blog about "Everything for nothing". The latter thanks to James Gardner, is typically thought provoking style as he writes "the next decade or so, I can't see why you would build a private corporate network" since "The internet will be way cheaper and more reliable as well as ubiquitous". It not hard to see why James is predicting this, as companies like Microsoft and Amazon are participating in this "evolution of infrastructural technologies" (e.g. Microsoft Online Services).

With change comes a shift in costs

It struck me today, listening to the ABC radio on the way to work, that the recent Air France aircraft disaster could be better understood had it had more of its sensors sent over the internet. IT matters, in this case because the function of the IT department of Air France would have been able to ultimately save lives. Unfortunately, for now, the cost of sending messages back to base is far to expensive for it to be possible. Nothing comes for free? This small example might go some way to show that costs are often displaced. To use a technology example, the mythical virtual desktop, whilst a seemingly great idea, may be simply moving one function (or cost) from place to place.

Changes in technology and adoption will make existing jobs and practices redundant

What I am not saying is that companies will continue to function the same way the do at the moment. Its entirely likely that in the same way new roles that have emerged since I've been in IT (web designers, enterprise architect, sociability testers and business intelligence analyst) that roles I will not have foreseen will emerge. A change in the workforce, like a trade-wind, is heralded by ubiquitous titles such as "architect" being used liberally.

Change is about demand

James does write about a big trends - the consumerisation of IT. Which brings me on to my second thought for the day - developers are an indicator of future trend. Ask any developer what they are doing today, gadgets, work, lifestyle and I would argue that many of these traits many will use down the track. Developers have for a long time had free use of any equipment they can get their hands on, and indeed have a uncanny ability to work around any IT infrastructure constraints placed upon them. Your average developers don't want, and probably don't use, the standard desktop or want to use the corporate standard applications. Its not unreasonable for consumers to demand more from their work place, and for the workplace to respond to attract the right people. The demand for change varies along an axis of economic growth, demographics, consumer behaviour and technology.

Change will happen, over time

Over time, and with enough supporting demand, costs will come down, Keynesian theory 1-0-1, but will it come for free? Like James I'd argue, that perceptibly, most of what we use today, will at some point, probably sooner than we would care to imagine, become free.

As an example, nobody would want to pay for a software calculator these days; its functionality is to be expected. The key here, I think, is time - what companies invest in IT today is acceptable, but over time, if they don't change will become unacceptable.

HopeMongers

drmcghee — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:52:52 GMT

Over the last ten months, a volunteer team of 7 Microsoft MVPs, 30 community developers, 5 solution/ISV/hosting partners, and 4 non-governmental organizations have spent evenings and weekends working on a very unique philanthropic software business called HopeMongers.

HopeMongers’ software enables a whole new kind of philanthropy, microgiving, helping you give as little as $10 to the work and people you care about most and see the direct impact – the before AND the after – of the money you gave. Its believed this plan picks up where micro-finance and traditional models of philanthropy leave off. From digging wells in Ethiopia to building libraries in India, this website lets you give as little as $10 to specific people and projects in the developing world and keep track of the impact your gifts have had.

1. Mathematics Teacher ($2,140 remaining)

2. Mobile Medical Clinic ($1,600 remaining) Kamuda, Uganda

3. Water Well ($7890 remaining) Bayaha, Haiti

4. Community Playground ($16,000 remaining) Bukaya, Uganda

Links to “what to know” about Sharepoint 2010

drmcghee — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:49:14 GMT

The public beta will be available on November 2009. Register at following location to access the software:

http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/try-it/Pages/Trial.aspx

Watch the SharePoint Conference 2009 keynote video

http://www.mssharepointconference.com/pages/default.aspx

SharePoint 2010 overview @ product group blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/19/sharepoint-2010.aspx

SharePoint 2010 (Beta) Developer Center

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee514561.aspx

TechNet information for ITPro (install, upgrade….)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/sharepoint/ee263917.aspx

And note that the external SharePoint Product site has the latest content

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Pages/Default.aspx

HP Envy

drmcghee — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:10:41 GMT

As many of my colleagues rib me about, I do like the Apple Hardware. Today we at Microsoft in Sydney had a bit of a look at many OEM Windows 7 devices pre-launch.

The first I came to was the HP Envy, notable not only for its strikingly Mac like features (I'm a big fan of the low profile keyboards), metal unibody casing and curved corners.

It might not be well priced in Australia (there's a surprise - not new to any machine) but when it is announced it certainly matches the Mac's for style and pulls a hefty punch in terms of specifications. Not to mention that it can (with extra battery) run for 18 (!!) hours.

More funky styles can be found here

Well done HP!

Microsoft Helps – The Official Twitter account for Microsoft Customer Service

drmcghee — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:54:19 GMT

Just launched http://twitter.com/MicrosoftHelps It’s the official Twitter account for Microsoft Customer Service.

Google: What if you don’t know any better?

drmcghee — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:38:37 GMT

Doing my regular rounds of tech news I came across this article which is a surprisingly candid review on a press conference with Google cofounder Eric Schmidt.

Schmidt rejected the idea that customers are locked in . “There is no closed loop,” he said, “there are competitors and we make it possible for you to get out.”

What one could extrapolate from this statement is that Google does indeed use data (from its non-search products amongst others) to “improve” search

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land was quoted as saying “you seem to have data other people cannot get because you give away free tools”

So, if you don’t know any better then are you fair game?

I’d say it’s probably another good reason to move to Bing

Team Individualism

Should applications be on a closed platform?

The impact of customer service on technical decision making

Throwing away the rulebook

Smooth streaming on StreetSide thanks to Bing Maps Silverlight

Ask the Development Tech Community

ausDotNet - General .NET windows and web development

OzAzure - All things relating to Microsoft's new Cloud Computing platform

OzMOSS - Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server

OzSilverlight - RIA development in .NET

OzTFS - Team Foundation Server

SQLDownUnder - SQLServer and related technologies