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  • 1 min read

My social theory of blogging

We all love reading blogs (right?), and some of us even use their valuable time writing blogs. In my evangelism of blogging, a common question is " Why?." Why would you spend your time writing, for a small (for most of us) mostly anonymous audience, for free?

Well I have a (lower-case "t") theory that many bloggers (like me) work alone, at home, or as a consultant, or perhaps wor in a company but not among like minded people.

In this scenario, the blog becomes an outlet for casual little thoughts, insights and discoveries (like this one), which usually would be shared around the office coffee machine, by popping into someone else's office, or when running into them at lunch or on the elevator. When none of these outlets are available, a solo worker becomes a blogger and shares those nuggets with "the world."

I don't know if this rings true to other bloggers, but it does to me.

  • 1 min read

BlogBridge interview

Yesterday I was interviewed about BlogBridge by ClientJava.com, a very useful Web site for us Java desktop developers. Check it out..

In the comment section I was asked to elaborate on my provocative statements about Java Web Start. Here's what I said.

  • 2 min read

[GEEK] Java Web Start

You might think it's a bad idea for me to complain about Java Web Start. Well the truth is that I really like it and so am really frustrated by it's failures. In my own small way I am hoping to wake up someone at Sun to see the importance of this little bit of technology to their grand Java strategy.

In my interview with ClientJava I again made some pointed comments about Java Web Start, and in the comment thread some annonymous person (coward) asked me to elaborate. Here is what I said.

"Why has WebStart been such a disappointment? I've written about this in my blog, here and here.
Basically, the promise of WebStart is great: a cross platform way to deploy, install and update Java based desktop apps. The disappointment is that it comes close to working but then fails in so many different ways. It's a tease.

  • There is no reliable cross platform way to check and then install a java environment. And then to add insult to injury, there's no user friendly URL to send users to that does it for them. Try looking at www.java.com. It's so sad. Lots of useless and confusing marketing and a little link in the corner to install Java.

  • Java Web Start is the very first experience my users get with BlogBridge. And it is the #1 cause for problems. I would say about 10% attempts don't work. People will only give an app like BlogBridge one chance so those are all lost sales. If you are really technical, you might be able to fight your way through and figure out how to install the jre or re-install it because it was corrupted.

  • Even when it works it does absurd things like telling the user that installation is strongly discouraged if there is no digital signature. This might sound like it makes sense but if you really think about it, a digital signature from BlogBridge Inc. would add no confidence whatsoever to the user that bad things wouldn't happen. All I need is $300 for a certificate and a postal address.

And there are lots more reasons. The thing that is hard to understand is why Sun doesn't see that if you want Java to take hold on the desktop, solving this problem, really solving it, is more important than probably any of the improvements in 1.5. And the only way to solve it is to have hard-core experts in each platform (Windows in all its flavors, Mac in all its flavors, Unix in all its flavors) building the solution. Becuase a working solution will be very difficult to build. But it is the keys to the kingdom IMHO. "

  • 1 min read

What’s the world coming to?

Someone just pointed me to this item on Mike Zellers blog, under the title, "best explanation of election i can think of…." Just having taken a short Photoshop course and wanting to test my newly found chops, here's a little something I cooked up:picture.jpg

Disclaimer: I don't know Mike Zellers and his photograph is most likely totally legitimate. Not that my fake would fool anyone.

  • 1 min read

Amusing

There's an amusing new blog I came across: "Gapingvoid", by Hugh Macleod. He's a cartoonist, and his postings often have a quickly sketched amusing drawing.

I caught today's posting with this quote on it:

_' "I can't take this shit anymore!" He said, mistakenly' _

Amusing.

From "Waiting for Godot":

ESTRAGON: I can 't go on like this.
VLADIMIR: That's what you think.

More amusing.

  • 1 min read

Is this a good idea?

I never was a fan of Tommy Thomson - what a name! I am no expert on terrorism, but it seems to me that saying this in his goodbye speech can't be a very good idea:

"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," Thompson said as announced his departure before department employees. "We are importing a lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that."

For the life of me, I can't understand why he'd let himself be quoting saying that!

  • 3 min read

Why Improv didn’t succeed, Part Deux

Seems like a dredged up some "old" (you know who you are) Improv fans with my earlier posting, so I thought an additional comment or two might be in order.

First off, lest it be misunderstood , in no way do I feel anything but totally proud about Imrpov as a concept and a product. I hope it is not inconsistent to feel that way, and yet agree that for a variety of reason it was not successful, as a product.

The concept of an alternative (not replacement) for a spreadsheet for real financial modeling is, I think, quite sound. (Yes, I can do page layout in Microsoft Word, but if that's my purpose, PageMaker is better. You could make an analogous point about PowerPoint and PhotoShop.)

By the same token , if what one is building a real financial model (i.e. a business plan or an integrated set of financial statements) then a product like Improv would be far superior. I say like Improv, because that was over 10 years ago, and it certainly had room for improvement at the time.

I received an email from Peter Murray, CTO of a company called Quantrix. They have created a new application called Quantrix Modeler in the spirit of Improv, which has continued to improve and http://www.quantrix.com/r-section-2.phpthe model. Here is what Peter said of my posting [slightly edited for length]:

Dear Pito,

I was interested to read your response to Adam Bosworth's talk @ ICSOC'04.

The Improv model is not "ancient history" yet! At Quantrix, we believe there is significant value in the Improv inspired approach to building complex models - and our customers are proving that out. There is no question that the free-form two-dimensional-grid based approach is useful in many cases. However, as soon as the calculation begins to get complex or the model is utilized through time in many iterations, our customers find that Quantrix is a more powerful tool.

Our theory on the reasons for the demise of Improv follow more the line of thinking in your final paragraph, rather than the idea that the product is somehow inherently flawed:

1) Lotus was positioning Improv as a spreadsheet replacement, rather than a specialized tool to better perform an important subset of tasks currently performed with a spreadsheet.

2) Lotus was in the throes of a heroic battle for survival against Microsoft's Excel - causing undue pressure on the company to make its product portfolio clean and understandable, and to organize all resources behind the flagship product. Introducing new technology costs in a scenario such as that.

Quantrix is employing a patient approach which identifies niches where the pain on traditional tools is great and the relief from a more scalable, transparent solution is palpable. As we progress, we are listening to users and building in new / better functionality - and thus making the product more attractive to a larger audience. In fact, we have folks from all kinds of disciplines who have sought out an alternative solution to the traditional spreadsheet - financial planning / budgeting professionals, equity analysts, business consultants as well as engineers, scientists and policy researchers. We even have customers working on genome analysis with Quantrix.

So, rather than ancient history, we prefer to think that - in this case - "what's old is new again".

[…]

Sincerely,

pete

And just to close the loop, here is what I responded:

Overall, I agree with that analysis.

Of course, I would hope that the Improv model wasn't ancient history! I was referring to the particulars of my experience at Lotus. I can be critical of people who live in the past and relive long past experiences so I am always careful of that myself. That is a totally closed chapter for me and I wouldn't have even thought of it until I read Adam's story. My feeling was that at a very high level he was hitting the nail on the head.

The notion of something being "inherently fatally flawed" seems relative to me when applied to a product. For example, if I tell you I have designed a great new televeision but I don't include a screen, well it's fatally flawed. But if I told you the same thing was a radio, well, you see where I am going 🙂

  • 1 min read

Predicting the future is hard

pic59763.jpg

_" Scientists at the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look like in the year 2004. However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problem.

With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use" _

[From 1954 Popular Mechanics Magazine, from Peter Grossman]

Late breaking news: the whole thing is an urban legend. No such photograph ever appeared in Popular Mechanics. Thanks Peter and Larry for helping me preserve my journalistic integrity.You can read all about it on the wonderful Snopes site. The big steering wheel should have been the tip-off.