More Services from Google

February has been a busy month for Google. If you use Gmail, you know they have integrated mail with Google Talk instant messaging. You can now send and receive instant messages right from your Gmail inbox.

The Gmail team also introduced a service called Gmail for Your Domain:

This special beta test lets you give Gmail, Google's webmail service, to every user at your domain. Gmail for your domain is hosted by Google, so there's no hardware or software for you to install or maintain.

I don't know what the terms of service will be, but this could be a big hit with small to medium size businesses.

More recently Google announced a beta test of Google Page Creator. This service lets you create your own web site at <yourname>.googlepages.com. It features a WYSIWYG page editor and a 100 Mb allowance for files at googlepages.com. That's 10 times more than my ISP allows and I have to pay for that service. Not surprisingly, Google was overwhelmed with people registering to test Google Page Creator. The beta is now temporarily closed to new registrations.

Finally, Garett Rogers reports Google is working on a new calendar service. There is no official word from Google on when the service will be announced, but you can bet it will generate lots of buzz.

Mail, instant messaging, calendar, blogs and home pages. Do you think Google is interested in the collaboration market? Right now, all of these services are funded by advertising revenue and tested by an army of unpaid workers (you and me). I wonder. Is it just a matter of time before Google begins selling a hosted collaboration suite directly to businesses?
 

No. 1 Ladies' Detective

The hot, dry, dusty bush country of Botswana could hardly be further from New England in winter. Precious Ramotswe's job solving crimes and other mysteries could hardly be more different than working in an office. Maybe that's why I enjoyed The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. It's the first in a series of books about the unconventional detective Mma Ramotswe*.

This is not an edge-of-your-seat mystery. It's much more of a character study -- both of Mma Ramotswe and of Botswana itself. Smith takes time to tell the story of Ramotswe's childhood and life as a young adult. He highlights her decision to become a detective to "help people with problems in their lives". Then he brings the reader along on many of Mma Ramotswe's early cases -- everything from a search for a missing person, to tailing a con man, to a surprising murder investigation.

The news from Africa these days is a litany of disease, civil war, genocide, and post-colonial turmoil. This has been the news for as long as I can remember. As Mma Ramotswe travels around Gaborone, Botswana, you sense those things in the background, but you also experience her abiding pride in the relatively peaceful recent history of Botswana and a strong connection to the land and the people. Mma Ramotswe loves her Botswana. I'm looking forward to another visit when I read the next book in the series.

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* In Botswana, Mma is a term of respect. Mma is apparently the equivalent of Madam, just as Rra is the equivalent of Sir.
 

Do It Yourself Satellite

A few days ago, NASA published photographs of SuitSat, a homemade satellite launched from the International Space Station on Feb 3:

SuitSat, an unneeded Russian Orlan spacesuit, was outfitted by the crew with three batteries, internal sensors and a radio transmitter, which faintly transmitted recorded voices of school children to amateur radio operators worldwide.

After the launch, ham radio operators around the world picked up SuitSat transmissions and reported them on the SuitSat web site. Unfortunately, the last report was about five days ago.

Although it isn't transmitting any more, I guess the suit is still up there orbiting the earth. According to the NASA site, "The suit will enter the atmosphere and burn up in a few weeks."

Correction: As of Feb. 16, SuitSat is still transmitting. Yesterday, I read the report table wrong. The table lists the most recent event first.
 

Common Ground

Last week's feature by Charles Arthur in The Guardian set off quite a firestorm within the Notes and Domino community. Several people blogged about it and many more commented. For example, there are more than 50 responses to a follow-up on Mr. Arthur's personal blog. There are close to 80 comments on Ed Brill's blog.

Charles Arthur and the Notes defenders, including me, remain very far apart on this issue. Mr. Arthur apparently lives in a parallel universe where the last three major releases of Notes never happened and where a vocal minority of Notes haters speak for the entire user population. He is, of course, entitled to his opinion, but the Notes supporters are conceding none of his points.

In such a polarized atmosphere, it is difficult to find common ground. Yet there is this quote from Charles Arthur complaining about his readers:

This inability to read something online and follow the thread of its argument seems to be an amazingly common failing. I notice it again and again in the grousing emails I get about articles: people don'’t seem to twig what they'’re reading. They skim a bit, and then reach the bit they disagree with, then leap to their email program to fire off their prejudices.

I know how you feel, Charles. Change a few words and you have:

This inability to understand and use software seems to be an amazingly common failing. I notice it again and again in complaints on the web: people don'’t seem to grok what they'’re using. They tinker a bit, and then reach the bit they disagree with, then leap to their blog to fire off their prejudices.

Of course, I don't disdain users in general, but I know from experience some users will set their mind against a software product and concede none of its benefits.

So how should we handle this situation, Charles? I think we need to realize that the vast majority of our constituents couldn't care less about such debates. Most readers of The Guardian are moved to complain only very rarely. They are more interested in sports and weather and getting on with their lives. It's the same with Notes users. They are not interested the fine points of UI design. For them, Notes is a business tool. They've learned to adapt to Notes quirks and get on with their work.

We should get on with our work too. At the end of the day, it is not about scoring points in a debate. It is about practicing our respective crafts. On his personal blog, Charles Arthur appears to be losing interest in this topic. Notes supporters like Ben Rose, Alan Lepofsky and Ed Brill need to get back to the fine work they do. I certainly need to get back to writing software.
 

Slow News Day

Today The Guardian published an editorial bolstering the claim, yet again, that Notes is the most hated software product ever. The editorial quoted my I Love Lotus Notes post from last month.

Ben Rose, founder of the UK Notes User Group, was also quoted in the editorial. Ben has already questioned both the data and the "research" behind the article. Ed Brill has responded too. I can do no better than to point you to Ben and Ed. I think they both got it right.

But, of course, I have an opinion too.

When I first heard about the piece in The Guardian, I was prepared to hate it. I feared being quoted out of context and expected I'd have to write a scathing letter to the editor. In fact the editorial didn't twist my words. To be honest, my reaction is closer to a yawn.

This whole topic has been rehashed many times over. Some of it is really old news. For example:

When new mail arrives, you get a message saying "You have new mail". But the mailbox display doesn't update; you have to press a key or menu item to refresh it. So the program is smart enough to know email has arrived, but not to show it - something the clunkiest free email program does routinely.

That problem was fixed years ago in Notes 6!

The rest of The Guardian piece is mere speculation about who hates Notes, why they hate it, and what percentage of users hate it. There is no actual research to back up the claims and many of the facts are plain wrong. Round over. The Guardian didn't lay a glove on Notes.
 

Waterfall 2006

Register today for the Waterfall 2006 conference this spring in Niagara Falls, NY. Speakers include Ron Jeffries on Extreme Programming Uninstalled, Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt on An Introduction to Dogmatic Programming, and Jon Kern on WUP: Waterfall Unified Process.

The conference will be chock full of sessions celebrating the death of Agile Development. I had difficulty registering, but I am sure the registration page will be back soon. According to the web site:

We're sorry but registration is not yet ready. Our software developers have a really wonderful design. They're almost done entering it into it a UML tool. They've told us not to worry and that finishing it will be "trivial" because "all that's left is the coding."

Don't forget to mark your calendar. The conference is on April 1!
 

Googlefight

What will they think of next? Googlefight lets you pit the results of one Google search term against another.

Click here for a Super Bowl XL prediction.
 

Buying Innovation

The truth behind Yahoo's acquisition of Flickr and del.icio.us:

The truth is, I think, that Yahoo bought 'Entrepreneurial Spirit'. Ok, these small companies also have some technology, a few members, a little revenue and great PR but that wasn't the main reason to buy them. The truth is that big companies don't innovate. They can't.

Interesting perspective.

(via Ben Poole and Volker Weber)
 

Flickr

Over the past several months, I've occasionally posted photographs to this blog. I've carefully crafted a thumbnail for each photo, uploaded the images to my ISP web space, and hacked the HTML for each image. I guess I've been doing it the hard way.

I've known about Flickr for months -- I've even used it to search for photos -- but this weekend I finally got around to posting some photos of my own. It's great! The Flickr uploader tool is easy to use and it is dirt simple to create photo sets. You don't have to diddle with image editing and HTML. For example, here's a small set of pictures I've taken this winter.

Flickr has been generating buzz for months. It is often cited as a successful example of a service fueled by a bottom-up taxonomy or folksonomy. I'm still not sold on the idea of folksonomies for organizing data, but Flickr is great. It's the photo sharing, stupid!
 

Roving Mars

A couple of nights ago NHPR's The Front Porch aired an interview with George Burton, the documentary filmmaker from Holderness, New Hampshire. Burton is well known for making Pumping Iron (1977) and The Endurance (2000) among other films. This Friday his new film, Roving Mars, opens in IMAX theaters nationwide.

Roving Mars tells the story of the NASA mission that sent the rovers Spirit and Opportunity to Mars in 2004. According to the NHPR interview, it includes plenty of footage from Mars itself, high-definition images transmitted by the rovers. This sounds great. Unfortunately, it won't be opening at an IMAX theater near me. It looks like the closest showing is at the IMAX theater in Providence.
 

Online, Over Fed, and Under Surveillance

I'm a bit overwhelmed with life online. I guess I'm not the only one. Pete recently wrote about unplugging some his information feeds. Before that, Rands wrote about Repetitive Information Injury. I can relate. Lately, I think I've been spending too much time checking my feeds at Bloglines. I need to get that under control.

But it's not just conspicuous consumption that worries me. I'm also worried about conspicuous production. I am just beginning to realize how much of an electronic trail I leave online every day. For instance, I let Google store my personal email and blog entries. That part of my electronic trail is intentional and I have a degree of control over it. But I also post comments to a handful of other blogs, enter all of my runs in an online running log, participate in discussions on various forums, and manage a queue of DVDs at Netflix. That's just off the top of my head. There may be more.

The problem is much of this electronic trail is beyond my control. If someone took the time to stitch all of the data together, they would essentially own my electronic identity. Antonio and Ned see some potential in helping "unwitting bloggers" establish a cohesive online identity. As Ned said:

People are more and more willing to have bits of themselves online. Some are more than willing, they are eager, but need help getting started with a substantial presence. I think there's lots that online services could do to turn members into unwitting bloggers. There's lots of exciting stuff coming down the pike.

Exciting, yes, but I keep getting stuck on that one word. Unwitting. I don't like the idea of someone else controlling my identity.

Om Malik recently wrote about the dangers of keeping too much of your life online:

Somewhere on some server, in some SAN your life is cached. We are living a cached life. And it is going to get even more cached, as we turn to always-on wireless devices. Our RSS will be cached somewhere. So will be our thoughts that appear on blogs. Our TiVo watching patterns to music listening patterns in iTunes, and other such new conveniences are part of a new cached, convenient albeit less private life.

Don't get me wrong. Life online is great. I like the convenience of Gmail, Netflix and other services, but we all need to be careful when trading privacy for convenience. Is your online data in good hands?
 

Kids Today!

The Wall Street Journal Online reports some Computer Science students are using the Internet to outsource their homework. Some use a service called RentACoder to put their homework out to bid. For example:

"I need a simple console-based program and a PHP script written that uses the openssl library."

"I need 2 algorithms filtering -- median and Gaussian."

"A C++ program that will implement a billing system using threads. Needs to be completed tonight if possible."

RentACoder is normally used for legitimate business purposes. The report stresses that a only tiny minority of students use services like RentACoder.

(Via Slashdot where there are plenty of comments about the offenders' bright future in middle management.)
 

Interfaces Overvalued in Java API Design

In Java API Design Guidelines, Eamonn McManus says:

There's a certain style of API design that's very popular in the Java world, where everything is expressed in terms of Java interfaces (as opposed to classes). Interfaces have their place, but it is basically never a good idea for an entire API to be expressed in terms of them. A type should only be an interface if you have a good reason for it to be.

McManus goes on to explain the problems with interfaces and to list the cases where interfaces make sense. This is the best explanation of the tradeoffs I have seen anywhere.

Of course, the article isn't just about interfaces. It includes lots of other guidelines for Java API design. Good stuff.
 

Happy Birthday, Ben

Today, January 17, is the 300th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's birth. Although he lived in Philadelphia most of his life, don't forget he was born in Boston.

Here are some words of wisdom from Mr. Franklin:

"Beware of the young doctor and the old barber."

"If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect."

"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."

There are many more Franklin quotes here.
 

Starbucks Media Empire

Apparently their profitable Hear Music division, has Starbucks executives dreaming of a media empire. As reported by the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Starbucks plans to promote movies starting with the spring release of Akeelah and the Bee. An NPR story I heard last night claimed Starbucks also has plans to sell books at some of their 10,000 coffee shops.

I like Starbucks cappuccino. Although I've never bought a music CD at one of their stores, I also like the "Starbucks sound" and I can see the logic in their peddling music with coffee. But I think it's a stretch for Starbucks to be tying in other media. It feels like they want to dictate good taste in coffee, music, books and movies.

Since it is Starbucks, I won't bet against their success, but I don't like where this is heading.
 

Misuse of Chinese Characters

Over the years, I have worked with many engineers from Japan, China and Korea. I am always amazed by their ability to speak two (or more) languages fluently. I feel stupid by comparison.

Still, I get a chuckle whenever I visit Engrish.com. It's a collection of unintentionally funny English phrases discovered in Japan and other Asian countries. I think it's mostly a good natured collection. Hopefully, it's not offensive to Asians.

The good news is it is just as funny when the shoe is on the other foot. Hanzi Smatter is a site "dedicated to the misuse of chinese characters in western culture". The site specializes in translating chinese characters tattooed on gullible westerners. The tattoos don't always mean what their owners think they mean.


Photo from Hanzi Smatter
 

Best Database of 2005: Alpha Five V7

CRN recently named Alpha Five V7 the Best Database of 2005. It beat FileMaker Version 8 and Microsoft Access for the top honor.

I was fortunate enough to work on Alpha Five starting with version 1.0 about fourteen years ago. Selwyn, Pete, and Doug deserve credit for designing the original product. I left Alpha Software almost 10 years ago. I wonder how much of the original code is still in V7.

In any case, congratulations to Richard, Selwyn, Cian and others for the CRN award. It's great to see a small company taking on the bigger players and winning in the SMB Database market.

(via Pete @ DevelopingStorm)
 

I Love Lotus Notes

Lotus Notes is a truly great software product. It is slicker than black ice in New England in January. It may not be the best thing since sliced bread, but is better than anything invented before sliced bread. Alright, I may be over compensating to counter the claims at Lotus Notes Sucks (and elsewhere), but I really do love Notes.

In the interests of full disclosure, I worked on Notes from 1996 through 2002. As a software developer, I contributed to versions 4.5, 4.6, 5.0 and 6.0. Obviously, I don't like to hear people bash the product I worked on. On the other hand, I have also used Lotus Notes every working day for almost ten years. It is not and never will be a perfect product, but it also isn't nearly as bad as some people make it out to be.

Let's look at some indisputable facts:

• When it was introduced in 1989, Notes pioneered the concept of groupware.
   
• It is one the most successful desktop applications ever. For example, in 2000, Network Computing named Notes one of the top ten products of the 1990s.
   
• Unlike many products of its vintage, Notes is still going strong. According to Ed Brill, Notes still has 120 million seats (see comment #9). Microsoft in particular has repeatedly tried to kill Notes, and Microsoft has a history of obliterating the competition in many market segments (think Wordperfect, Lotus 123 and Netscape Navigator). How many products have been able to withstand sustained competition from Microsoft? Notes and Quicken are the only two products that come to mind.

So why do many people dislike Notes? Why does the anonymous owner of Lotus Notes Sucks spend hours on his web site? Why does Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror fame rant against Notes on his other blog? Are evil CIOs intentionally torturing their users with a defective product? That would be ironic considering the early adoption of Notes was viral**.

In my opinion, people dislike Notes because their expectations don't jive with the original intent of the product. At its core, Notes is a runtime environment for collaborative applications, but when people complain about Notes, they are usually not talking about core Notes at all. They are talking about the Notes Mail and Calendar applications.

Why does this distinction matter? It matters because the Notes core is what a lot of people really love. The three core features I really like are:

1. Replication. This is what lets you disconnect from the network and continue to read and send mail. It's also what lets Domino servers maintain multiple copies of your mail file. I don't think any product does replication as well as Notes and Domino.
    
2. Security. Notes security was way ahead of it's time in 1989. It is still rock solid.
    
3. Programmability. You don't like the way Notes Mail works? Programmability lets you (or an IT developer) fix small problems and add completely new features in mail. It's also what lets you build entirely new applications for your business.

None of this means IBM should disregard people's complaints about Notes Mail and Calendar. Far from it. I know IBM takes these complaints very seriously. The Mail and Calendar applications have consistently improved from one release to the next. As a relatively new Notes 7 user, I am very impressed with the new features and quality of Mail and Calendar.

Here's what I am really saying to people who dislike Notes: Grow up please. You may have preferred the mail application you used in your last job. You may have a dozen small complaints about how Notes works. But don't say Notes sucks and recommend throwing it out. That's like throwing out the baby with the bath water. Chances are your IT department has many good reasons for sticking with Notes. Have you asked what those reasons are?

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** I mean viral in a good way. In the early days, small groups in large companies used Notes to solve real business problems they couldn't otherwise tackle. At first, this drove central IT departments crazy. Eventually, the IT departments understood the business justification and adopted Notes themselves.
 

So Long, Weather Notebook

The last edition of The Weather Notebook aired on Friday, December 30. In case the name is unfamiliar to you, it was a two-minute radio show produced from the weather station on top of New Hampshire's Mount Washington. It's mission was to educate the public about meteorology and weather-related issues. The show aired on more than three hundred radio stations nationwide.

The Weather Notebook received most of its funding from Subaru and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Recently the NSF decided not to renew it's commitment. I find this troubling. The show was a perfect vehicle for the NSF's mission to "promote the progress of science". I wonder whether the decision is a result of budget cuts, or the perception The Weather Notebook violated the NSF's advocacy guidelines (pure speculation!), or something else.

In any case, you can still read The Weather Notebook Archives online. And perhaps the producers will secure enough funding to return the show to the radio. I hope so.
 

Inside Symantec LiveUpdate

Last April, I wrote about my problems with McAfee Internet Security Suite. Since I am on vacation this week, I finally got around to removing the McAfee suite from my home computer. I decided to upgrade to Windows XP Service Pack 2 -- for the built-in firewall -- and then add Norton AntiVirus for virus protection.

I was particularly worried about removing the McAfee software. Last time I tried that, the uninstall program failed and left lots of remnants on the system. I spent hours first tracking down instructions and then manually removing services and registry settings. By comparison, the removal of Internet Security Suite 6.0 was painless. It took all of five minutes.

The installation of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) was painless too. I still haven't explored all the benefits of SP2, but I like the built-in Windows Security Center, the new Outlook Express security features, and the Internet Explorer pop-up blocker. (Nevertheless, I will continue to use Firefox for most of my web browsing.)

In short, things were going great. I had a brand-new copy of Norton AntiVirus 2006 and I expected that installation to be dirt simple. Twenty four hours later, I finally have things working. Although the initial installation appeared to go well, I couldn't get Symantec LiveUpdate to work. Without LiveUpdate, it is difficult to get the latest virus definitions. Without those, virus protection is incomplete.

When LiveUpdate fails, it tries to be helpful. It displays an error message and provides a link to a Symantec web page with trouble shooting tips. In this case, the message was:

LU1841: Connection to ISP failed. LiveUpdate could not connect to your Internet Service Provider. Verify your dial-up information is correct.

Possible explanations included problems with the system's Internet Options or misconfigured firewall software. I checked these and other possible explanations, used Symantec's Automated Support Assistant, and generally pounded my head against the monitor for hours. Nothing helped.

Finally, I stumbled upon this excellent document on the Symantec site. Near the end of the document there is a section about some Settings.LiveUpdate files. These files hold various settings including the names of LiveUpdate servers. If the files are corrupted, LiveUpdate can stop working. The document suggests removing the files and trying again. Since the LiveUpdate service appears to keep the files open, this is easier said than done. Unless you take some special steps, you will get sharing violations when you try to remove the files.

Here's what worked for me:

1. Restart Windows in safe mode. This causes Windows to run without the LiveUpdate service.
    
2. Backup all the files in c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\LiveUpdate. I just copied the files to a temporary directory.
    
3. Back in the c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\LiveUpdate directory, remove all files with Settings in the file name. In particular, you don't want to remove the Configuration and Product files. Those files apparently contain important information about your registered Symantec products.
    
4. Restart Windows and retry LiveUpdate.

While this whole process took much longer than it should have, I feel like I understand the inner workings of LiveUpdate a little bit better. I am posting this story with the hope that someone else can benefit from it some day. Now I just have to take care of some overdue vehicle maintenance, finish a few household chores, and defeat the legions of spammers assaulting my Inbox. Then my "vacation" will be complete.