Chris Kerns - Technology category

Butterfly Inspired Color Palettes

There is fantastic assortment of color palettes over at ColourLovers.com that are derived from butterflies. I'm not really a graphics or design kind of guy, but I think this is really neat. Next time you are picking a color scheme for your website, or even if you are redecorating a room or house, keep the palettes in mind.

--Chris

Wal-Mart Selling Linux Workstation

I just learned that Wal-Mart has been selling a Linux PC for $199. From the customer reviews on Wal-Mart's website, it looks like people generally like it, even though it is apparent that some are buying it and loading it with a Microsoft Windows Operating System. For someone who just needs internet access and word processing, this is a great option. Given the Open Source options for software, there really isn't much of a need for anything Microsoft produces any more. For example, if you are using Internet Explorer 7, then you just don't know how much better your world could be by simply switching to Fire Fox. IE 7 is an unmitigated piece of crap. I'm appalled that it ever even got released. Office 2007 is generally pretty good, but it's performance is unimpressive. I'd be happy to use Open Office in its stead, but for compatibility with my school, I decided to just go with the flow. Luckily, when I bought my new ThinkPad T61 last summer, I decided to stick with Office XP. Given the comments I've heard about Vista, I'm glad I did. The one thing that will likely always keep me on a Microsoft Operating System, however, is simply the availability of 3rd party software, especially Microsoft Flight Simulator. In other words, I don't continue to us MS OS's because I like the product, but because I like other products that only work on MS OS's.

So, kudos to Wal-Mart for offering such a product. It will be interesting to see how the product does for them, and it is a great stride for the Linux community.

--Chris

Forget Twitter

OK, I'm terminating my silly little experiment with Twitter. I have no clearer understanding now about what the attraction is. I think Twitter is probably more geared towards teenage girls. Like MySpace, if you are an adult male, and think the service is cool, I suspect that there is something seriously uncool about you. Grown men with MySpace pages scare me. I'm starting to feel the same way about Twitter. Sorry for my previous lack of judgement.

--Chris

Innovation at Microsoft?

Steve Ballmer is talking about innovation at Microsoft. Riddle me this: When was the last time Microsoft "innovated" anything? Every product launch from Microsoft over the past 5 or 10 years has been either a response to a competitor (C#), a direct copy of a competitor's product (Zune, Xbox), or simply a lifecycle upgrade to a legacy product line (Vista). I'm not being facetious here, really. If you can think of a product that Microsoft has released in the past 10 years that doesn't fall into one of those categories, please let me know. I'm sure there are one or two, but I can't think of a single one. Bonus points if you can think of one such product that actually turned a profit. Acquisitions don't count; must be internally developed.

--Chris

Twitter-ing

If you look over to the right, below my SmugMug-hack-badge and above my Yahoo! Finance widget, you'll see my new Twitter badge. Honestly, I don't get Twitter, but it has been a runaway success so far. I first heard about it through someone blogging about the founder's efforts at Obvious. When I first heard of the idea, I thought "who would want to do that?". It turns out, lots of people want to do that. So, being the techie that I am, I figured I had best give it a try so I could see what all the fuss was about. However, most of the interest in Twitter seems garnered from people forming groups, checking up on their friends and what not. So, let me know if you Twitter, so I'll have someone to follow!

--Chris

Not a Nobody

Kevin Delaney reports in the Wall Street Journal that You're a Nobody Unless Your Name Googles Well. By that measure, I'm doing pretty well. Of course, that is largely a result of owning my own domain name, ChrisKerns.com and running this little blog. Unfortunate, however, is the number of detractors my namesake has; "Chris Kerns" isn't exactly unique. For example, there exists an IRS communications manager, a lawyer, a Highs School Principle, a CEO of a manufacturing company, a bass guitarist in a metal band, and even a cardioligist. All fine people, I'm sure, but they do detract from my uniqueness. I'm sure glad I got a lock on the domain name back when I did (1999, I think). Too bad Calvin Klein already trademarked my initials, though.

--Chris

Space Invaders - In JavaScript

Despite being pretty occupied, I've been spending some time over the past week or so playing around with the Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) JavaScript library. Through linking from the YUI Blog, I came across Kris Cieslak's blog, Digital Insane. Kris has done some really impressive things with JavaScript in the broswer. My personal favorite is Space Invaders, done completely in JavaScript. He also has Solitaire and "Yetris"

I used to avoid using JavaScript on websites at all costs. I hated it. It added little tangible value and caused great consternation, primarily because of browser compatibility issues. Times have changed, and so have my views. Users want a rich experience. If you aren't doing what you can to get the users what they want, you will lose out. How much traffic do you think MapQuest lost in between the time Google Maps came out and MapQuest implemented AJAX? Honestly, I didn't even know MapQuest HAD implemented AJAX until just now, as I never go there any more (I actually prefer Maps.Ask.com). People are pushing the envelope on what can be done with JavaScript, and I think that is pretty exciting.

So, click the Space Invaders image and check it out. If your boss yells at your for playing games, just let him know you are researching advances in JavaScript technology.

Check out Solitaire and Yetris! on DigitalInsane while you are there.

Kudos to Kris Cieslak

-Chris

Gears of War....Mad World.....Donnie Darko

Here is a brief case study in how unlicensed digital media eventually generated revenue for the music industry:

Last December (November?), Microsoft was running this commercial for a new video game that was coming to the market soon called "Gears of War". The commercial really struck me as it paired apocolyptic scenes with solefully sober background tunes, which I thought was pure marketing genius. It set up the framework to invoke emotions while looking at a video game.

I found the song a bit hypnotic, and a bit familiar. So, a month or so later, I got the itch to figure out what that song was. A search on Yahoo! led me to youTube where I found the commercial in its entirety, as well as some discussion about the music. There, I learned that the song was a cover from the old Tears for Fears song "Mad World". The cover actually came from the soundtrack of the movie Donnie Darko.

Further poking around the internet gave me more information about Donnie Darko, which really picqued my interest. Elizabeth and I rented and watched it a week or so later (great flik). A few weaks ago, I bought the soundtrack.

I always said this back in the day of Napster, too. So what if I listen to songs for free? Can't I do that on the radio anyway? If I like what I hear, I'll buy the CD. It's free advertising. Don't assume that you lost any revenue because I got the song for free as I wouldn't have bought it anyway since it wasn't until I listened to it that I even realized I liked it. We'll see if Steve Jobs recent comments on DRM have any impact.

--Chris

"The internet is democratic" Fallacy

Fred Wilson was lamenting this morning how the Democratic party's primary may well boil down to just another "big money game". His post is actually about the shortcomings of Barack Obama's campaign website, namely that you can't watch the video of his announcement to run for President in Firefox (sites that require you to use Microsoft Internet Explorer or only work on the Windows platform are also a pet peeve of mine). However, Fred goes on to make this commment:

"[The big money game is] not democratic. It's not of the people, by the people, and for the people. The net is."

I thought about this for a moment, then concluded that the internet is not really much more democratic than the "big money game". Why would I say that? A few reasons:

Access We would like to think that the internet is a more level playing field than our bank accounts primarily because of accessibility, right? Maybe not everyone can write a $1,000 campaign check or attend a $10,000 a plate fundraiser, but everyone can participate on the internet. Or, can they? I think it is safe to say that those same impoverished, inner-city, minority groups who have no high priced lobbyist working for them in Washington probably don't have a nice wi-fi enabled MacBook that they can use to post to their blog while sipping a $6 latte at Starbucks. And what about the elderly? Many scraping by through retirement on a fixed income may very well choose to eliminate the "technology funds" from their budget as they focus instead of paying for their skyrocketing health care costs.

Who is favored? Anyone with disposable income.

Capability Capability really goes hand-in-hand with access, i.e., I don't really have the capability to buy a pair of $10,000 a plate tickets to the next fundraiser in town. I do have the capability to write and maintain my own blog. I'm in the software industry, so there is no challenge in it for me. But what percentage of our 300 million strong population couldn't tell you the difference between a USB and a PS/2 cable? How many people have the technical know how to run a blog? Of course, running a blog is easy, especially with free sites like Blogger.com and the WYSIWYG tools that many blogging tools provide. But not everyone even knows that. Heck, a lot of people's knowledge on blogs is probably attributed to hearing about them on the news. It's probably worth considering the elderly here, too. Although I think AARP constitutes "big money" anyway, my point is that I can guarantee you that my grandparents aren't going to be starting a blog anytime soon. I doubt yours are, either.

Who is favored? Younger, educated, tech savvy people.

Time Time is money, the saying goes. You usually only hear it from people who get paid a lot per hour, but those who are scraping by working 2 or 3 jobs probably know this just as well since they have to trade all of their time in for money. I say that the person working 80 hours a week across 3 jobs, 7 days a week, just to pay the rent and put food on the table probably doesn't want to use what little free time is left to blog politcal commentary. Likewise with the CEO of a multinational company who is away from home 75% of the time.

Who is favored? Retired people, housewives, and generally speaking, the middle class.

internet = big money game

The real thing to notice here, however, is that the internet IS a big money game. Oddly enough, this was lost on a man who makes his living by providing money to internet startup companies. I find a little irony in this, especially considering that the only reason Fred has a readership is because he talks about money. But lets look at the tie between the "big money game" and the internet from a different perspective. A good example is John Edwards recent fiasco with his campaign blog. First, note that Edwards hired others to blog on his campaign's behalf. This isn't isolated to Edwards, or the Democratic party, but I think it illustrates the point. Edwards found himself in the spotlight a bit because his campaign hired bloggers better known for their hateful rants than their insightful commentary. In counterpoint, though, it was the blogosphere itself that raised the issue into the national discourse (for a few minutes, anyway).

Back to Obama's website, we see that his campaign is actively engaging his supporters, even giving them a place to blog right on his website. Why do you think they are doing this? So you can have your voice heard? Perhaps, but the real point is that by spreading the discussion of Obama as much as possible, it will help his campaign raise money. Positive talk for a candidate in the blogosphere is very much akin to advertising.

One last point about the tie between money and the internet: I mentioned Blogger.com earlier as a path to easy access to blogging, but why is Blogger free? Advertising. So, your democratic expression of opinion on blogger is bringing in revenue to the same player's who are "big money" in politics. If you are a conservative blogger, you might want to avoid Blogger.com, as it is owned by Google, and Google's employee's contributions go almost exclusively to the Democratic party (although the corporate contributions seems to bit more evenly spread). So, blogging actually generates revenue for "big money".

Of course, I am playing the Devil's advocate here, and certainly don't mean to come across as picking on Fred Wilson. The impact of technology on politics is undeniable. The internet does bring a lot of new voices to the forefront of the public discussion. But those voices are anything but evenly distributed across our nation's demographics. I think it is safe to say that the internet really helps the middle class be heard, as they are the ones with the access, capability, and time to make use of it. I do believe that is a good thing, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the internet is democratic and devoid of the influences of money.

--Chris

Easy as Dell?

The big business news last week was that Michael Dell is returning as CEO of Dell, but all I can keep thinking is "so what?". Why would anyone expect Michael Dell to be able to turn Dell around any more than Kevin Rollins (notice that his bio was quickly removed, so that link is to a capture)? Sure, Dell may very well be a better CEO, but here is my point: Dell has had continued inolvement in running Dell (the company). I can't imagine that Michael Dell has some new strategy that will turn the company around that he has been keeping a secret until he pushed Rollins aside. So, if Mr. Dell has strategy/vision for the Dell company , it is surely already on the table.

I'm not saying it will be bad for the company, I just don't see how it will matter either way.

Personally, I've never cared for Dell (the company) because they did not offer AMD processors for a long time. I believe competition is always best for the consumer, and Dell was limiting the consumer's choice. Of course, now we know why. I do my best to avoid doing business with anti-competitive companies.

Sidenote: I didn't realize that the infamous Donald Carty was Dell's CFO. I always wondered what happened to ousted CEO's. I think the fact that Dell hired Carty sends its own kind of signals about the company's leadership.

--Chris

Snap Links

I just added Snap scripting to my blog which will generate little preview pop-ups of the web pages that I link to. The images will appear when you hover-over the links. I just saw this on TechCrunch and thought it was pretty slick. It took almost no time at all to generate the script and embed it in my blog. Let me know if you like it or not, or if it appears to be causing any issues with the look or performance of my blog.

--Chris

SmugMug in; Flickr Out

A few weeks ago, I signed up for my new account on SmugMug. It had been a goal of mine to actually write my own Open Source, Java based gallery software and host my own gallery. However, with my recent decision to pursue an MBA, I realized that finding the time to devote to writing such software was simply never going to happen. Being a big fan of the Web 2.0 "Software as a Service" concept, I figured I should walk the talk. I did/do have a Flickr account, but two things kept me from using it full fledged: Advertising, and nudity. SmugMug has neither of these. The price, though, is a price. $39.95 a year, although I got $5 off by searching the internet for a coupon code.

Why pay money when you can get it for free? Well, for one, I am really striving to not have any advertising on my website. I don't criticize those who do, but it is my personal decision. For one, it clutters the site, and frequently annoys visitors (all five of you!). Second, I really don't want to have to worry about being affiliated with products or companies that I don't like. Flickr is a great site, easy to use, free, and has just a minimal ammount of advertising. My problem with Flickr is it's pretty much unrestricted content policy.

SmugMug won me over for being ad-free and family-friendly, but also because I just liked how you can customize the galleries, i.e., the "Themes". It's just a very well done site. The fact that content is backed up to multiple servers, and you can easily order your own backups was also a nice "piece of mind" feature. I originally signed up for the 30-day free trial, and that was enough time to realize that really like the site.

That doesn't mean I don't have any complaints, though. Most of my complaints stem from the fact that I'm the type of user that tends to use something like Flickr. In other words, I'm a blogging power-user, and SmugMug really caters more to "family" users, and also seems to be fairly popular among professional photographers who create their entire website through SmugMug. One thing that I really wish SmugMug had was "bling" for my website. Notice the SmugMug badge to the right? Well, it isn't. That is the flickr badge code that I hacked to work with SmugMug pictures. I had to hard code the images instead of having it randomly pull images like the Flickr badge script did. SmugMug needs to come up with one or several pieces of bling for geeks like me to be able to add to their websites and blogs if they really want to attract this type of user. The other funny thing was how hard it was just to get that little SmugMug logo at the beginning of this post. It's like SmugMug doesn't want free advertising! I ended up finding that logo image through a Google image search that led me to a web article on the Wall Street Journal. It shouldn't be that hard. SmugMug makes heavy use of CSS, to include an image filter, to display their own logo on their own website. Go try and steal their logo from their own site and you'll see what I mean.

All in all, though, I think SmugMug has done a fantastic job. I do wish they had a different pricing model that would allow me to purchase just the features I need. For instance, I would pay extra to be able to use my own domain name, but am not willing to upgrade to the pro package just for that feature (and that is the only pro feature I want).

This also means that you should see more active uploading of gallery images from Mr. and Mrs. Kerns, although we do need to upgrade our digi cam though (I have my eye on the Canon SD600). I also hope to start scanning in old 35mm pics and start adding those to the gallery. That's pretty time intensive, though, so it will be a slow process, and there is no "Software as a Service" for that.

--Chris

Vitria to go Private

I stumbled across this article the other day stating that Vitria is going to go private. This isn't the first "de-ipo" I've heard of lately and find it to be an interesting trend.

Vitria is a company I've always loosely followed because I used to work with their software and had entertained thoughts of seeking employment with them. My first introduction to them was through a gig at MCI/Worldcom in Colorado Springs where I worked in one of their Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) development teams. This was right about the time Bernie was running that company into the ground, so the job didn't last long, but my experience with Vitria's products helped me land my next job in Chicago. It was in this position where I got to know the local sales rep and post-sales support engineer, who both hinted several times that they could find me a position within their company, which is always flattering. I thought Vitria had a solid product, but saw some troubled waters ahead for them, so decided against pursuing the opportunity.

Vitria had a strong product in a market that was about to become "commodotized" as much of the functionality of their product would be available out of the box in most enterprise Java application servers. They still added value, but the value proposition was declining rapidly. Shortly thereafter, the entire EAI market space (which was already flooded) began a major transformation to SOA (Service Oriented Architecture). Now, I'm the first one to speak of the hype of SOA, I like to joke that it stands for "Same Old Architecture", but either way Vitria needed something new. From the looks of their website, they appear to have fully embraced the SOA buzz. Despite that, they still play in a crowded market place where it is hard to get recognized. Numerous open source alternatives are surely putting pricing and sales pressure on Vitria.

Despite the rough market, the CEO of Vitria must feel like they have something. I don't see why he would try to make the purchase if he didn't think he was not getting a deal. Perhaps going private will give them the independence they need to turn the company around. If so, would the re-IPO? It will be interesting to watch.

--Chris

RAID Explained

The next time you have to explain what RAID is to management, use this as a visual aid.

I love geek humor.

--Chris

Microsoft Windows Vista Worth about Half the Price?

How Much is Windows Vista Really Worth? Apparantly about $133. To bad the upgrade price tag will be around $260. Generally speaking, I'm happy with Windows XP Pro, but if it weren't for Microsoft Flight Simulator and a few other programs, I would be running in Suse Linux all the time. Since Flight Sim X will be out before Vista, Microsoft obviously feels Vista is not needed to run it, so I don't see an upgrade in my future any time soon.

--Chris