I haven’t yet quite figured this guy out. I keep hearing his name in a handful of the podcasts I listen to, and I think I’ve heard him on occasion on one or two (can’t remember really), so I figure he must be some important person in tech on the west coast. So I follow him on Twitter.

Yet day in and day out I think I have slowly started to realize why his name pops up frequently. How about a nice picture:

This was essentially what my Twitter feed looked like the two times I checked it today. Yeah, plastered with nothing but @ replies and that avatar that for some reason just weirds me out (have you seen the full photo? Is he a little person? Something’s really proportionately wrong with his left arm.)

I really can’t figure out where his popularity comes from other than the fact that he really likes to make himself heard. It’s nothing new apparently. If you check into his background, it looks like blogging and publishing has been his expertise going way back. Maybe that makes him popular? What do I know, I’m just a VMware/Systems Engineer at the ComputerWorld Magainze’s #1 of 100 Best Places to Work in Information Technology. I’m a blogger too, but I don’t blog for a living…so I guess that doesn’t make me popular.

I can’t really knock his work honestly, it looks like he’s done a lot of pretty decent interviews with high profile people. I haven’t really dug into a lot of what he does though, or how deep his technical background is really…I have no interest at this point. I get the impression he’s more “reporter” than “tech guru” though. Just likes to blog/write/video about the stuff more than anything.

Well, I’m unsubscribing him for the second time from my feed mainly because I’d like to check it and see what other people have to say. The other people I follow get buried so quickly by his chatting that I simply miss things unless I flip back multiple pages at a time. It’s just noise for me at this point. I’m not finding much value in it. Sorry Scoble, I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal for you. You have 21K other followers.

Technorati Tags: robert scoble, scoble, scobleizer, twitter

Social Bookmark Links

Hide Sites

XP is still king on the Cloudbook…in my mind.  I’ve been itching to go back to Linux (either the stock distro, or a custom install of another flavor), but I fear doing it.  Why?  Other than some sluggishness with XP when there’s extreme disk activity and some of the bloat of it….it’s been working flawlessly for me.

All of my hardware works, all of my apps work, it plays nicely with external displays.  If it wasn’t for the bloatiness of XP and the virus/spyware scanners I have to have on there, this thing would be zippy enough for me all the time.

But sometimes I still wonder if it would run better with Linux back on it.  I know I could get all my apps I want working on there under Linux.  Skype, Firefox, etc..etc.  They have versions for both platforms.  Not a problem there, plus I use a lot of stuff up in “the cloud” on the Internet.  But always wonder if the “experience” would be zippier using all of this stuff.

Well, I still hear there’s issues with drivers for the video hardware under Linux for the Cloudbook…I haven’t dug into it much yet, but I know the stock Linux install for the Cloudbook used a framebuffer driver, which has horrible performance.  Plus it doesn’t support larger resolutions for external displays, doesn’t support squished resolutions for the stock LCD panel, and doesn’t support dual-displays.

THAT alone is enough of a deal-breaker for me on the Linux side not to run it.  Couple that with some questionable wireless support for the Realtek hardware in the Cloudbook, and really is it worth it to put myself into the situation of trying to make stuff work, when under Windows XP it just does work?  Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without drivers supplied from Everex or some of the other companies that make clones of these VIA-based UMPC’s.  Just looks like Everex is more interested in supporting drivers for Windows XP than they are for Linux.  Hence, well…Windows just plays ball with the hardware better than Linux does.

I posted an open question to the forums over at what used to be Cloudbooker.com (guess the Cloudbook wasn’t popular enough to keep the name up), and got virtually no response from the community over there.  The one single response I did get was “Why?  The disk drive is large enough for both.”  So what.  My Dell Latitude’s drive is large enough for like 10 installs of different OSes.  Doesn’t mean I want to run 10.  His answer basically tells me that Linux isn’t really ready still, so you may want to just dual-boot and use Linux to toy with, and XP for the real work.

I’m not a Linux-hater at all.  I want to run the OS.  But I also want to be able to use it.  If there’s no drivers out there at all that support the video hardware…this is no deal then.  I’m not using the Framebuffer or VESA drivers for Xwindows on this thing and basically crippling the experience simply to run a super-cool, open-source, free OS that you can customize however you want.  Bleh!  I’ll leave that to the VM’s I use at work.

So, I’m probably going to leave XP on it for now, even if it is bloated and seems to sometimes crawl due to disk activity from the OS and other stuff installed.  It still comes off to me as way more functional and usable for every day stuff than Linux.  On other PC’s I don’t mind wrestling with Linux to make it do things I want to do, but the Cloudbook is my main device right now, and wherever I pop it open I want it to work.  Whether it’s at Panera Bread over wifi, or at home on an exernal monitor at 1280×1024 with 7 USB devices plugged into it and a wired LAN connection, or just sitting on my recliner using Skype with the built-in video camera.  Maybe if someone can tell me how to load up the stock Cloudbook.ISO on an SD card, I’d dual boot that way, but I’m not carving up my little 30GB disk just to dual boot two OSes for the fun of it.  No need for two OSes on the same device, I just want one on there that works.

Technorati Tags: cloudbook, Linux, windows xp

Social Bookmark Links

Hide Sites

I use Twitter, not a whole lot like Scoble or Calacanis, but enough.  What is it though with people that over use the @ reply feature to the point that Twitter is no longer a microblogging tool for them…it’s a chat channel?  I see it every day, and damn is it annoying.  My friends feed is just littered with tons of meaningless @ replies to me because I’m not following everyone that is being @ replied to.

somedude @sillygirl I know what you mean.
slickerguy I was meaning to get with you @myfriend, but never got a chance.
hotone @wcfriend @ecfriend @lookatme @uwantme What?

Talk about useless noise.  People, it’s a micro BLOGGING service, not an instant messenger chat program.  Get on IRC or AIM if you want a chat experience.  Or, if you decide to use @ replies, which I do from time to time myself…stop the back-n-forth chatting methodology, and learn become friends with moderation.  Now go tweet something useful, not more “tweetguru @friend2me Did you really?”

Technorati Tags: chat, microblog, twitter, twitter noise, twitterchatting

Social Bookmark Links

Hide Sites

I haven’t posted a rant in a while. I guess I haven’t posted much of anything lately (ok, last night’s post was quite sizeable). I’ve been trying to only post entries with some substance to them, like decent articles with good information…so when I have nothing substantial to post, I basically haven’t been. Well, time to get back to posting what’s on my mind and now what cool stuff that I think would make a great CNET-style article or whatever.

Here’s something that’s been bugging me lately. I follow a lot of folks from the west coast on these internet shows and popular in the tech circles on Twitter, and I can see a theme with them that both bugs me and makes me envy what they do. Probably the biggest one (really not west coast, but meh) that I stopped following was iJustine. I’m not sure how much she makes off her internet endeavors, but I’m so annoyed getting a tweet from her that is her trying to decide if she’s going to film herself buying shoes, or eating at another trendy resturant that day…while I’m stuck at my normal 9-5 job working on difficult problems as a systems engineer probably making far less dough.

It’s a theme really, internet celebrities that have what seems to be cake jobs, and they post on Twitter about what they’re doing, and it never seems like they’re really working at all. I’m not really picking on these folks, they’ve obviously done something right that they can tape a show or two a week, maybe do some in-office work here and there, and basically play the rest of the week. I envy that…I’d love that kind work week. Here’s what I’m talking about.

kevinrose leaving to go fishing w/my dad this afternoon - will bring the Qik cam for live fishing action 39 minutes ago from twitterrific
Must be cool to just take off anytime you’re not taping a show, I’d love to just do that with my dad…but alas, we both work 9-5 jobs every day of the week.

JasonCalacanis prepping for divingtrip to great barrier reef. anyone ever stay on Hamilton Island? u can fly direct frm Sydney–good for scuba? best hotel? 33 minutes ago from web
Posted right after Kevin Rose, looks like Mr. Calacanis is having a rough day at the office too.

Or how about these two posts from Alex Albrecht. Wakes up on a week day, plays video games for three hours, and then decides to read some work email finally. Where do I sign up for that?
- just finished with the Mario Kart madness now off to check the Diggnation/TRS mail box. 12:27 PM May 05, 2008 from web
Icon_star_empty
- waking up getting ready for Mario Kart at my place… @girlhack coming along nicely! 09:26 AM May 05, 2008 from web

Veronica I would like the record to show that yes, we shoot all Tekzilla Dailies on one day and no, therefore I do not wear the same shirt every day. about 1 hour ago from web
Sooo….does that mean that she only works 1 day a week? Probably not, but must be nice to compress what normally would be a daily taping down in to one day so you can do other stuff the rest of your week. (like party at tapings of other shows).

Again, I’m not hating on these folks. I love what they do and enjoy the content/products they put out. But I look at what I do daily (and nightly when I get called on call or whatever), and compare it with some of the updates I see on Twitter coming from them, and I’m starting to think I need to move to the west coast to kick off an internet startup or create a podcast or something.

Technorati Tags: cake job, jason calacanis, kevin rose, less work, more play, podcast, silicon valley, veronica belmont, west coast

Social Bookmark Links

Hide Sites

I’ve been itching to post on this for quite a while, but my problem with it is that I could make one monster posting on this topic. I’ll try to keep this short though. What’s this about? Cloud Computing!

Running right along side hot technologies like virtualization, online music/video subscriptions, and multi-core processors, cloud computing is an interesting concept that is starting to gain some serious momentum. It’s not really a new concept, but it’s something that’s becoming more visible because of the wide reach of the Internet.

What is Cloud Computing? Well, ya could click the link at the top of this posting, but I’ll give you a basic rundown. The idea behind it is that you are using an application or service that is not running locally on your computer. Your computer becomes simply a portal to use services that are accessible via the Internet…the “cloud”. You’re no longer tied down to a specific piece of hardware. You can access all of your services, software, and information from any Internet-connected device.

Many of you are already using cloud computing, and you don’t even know it. If go to gmail.com or mail.yahoo.com to get your email, you’re using cloud computing. You are getting your email without using a locally installed email client. You can access your email from your own computer, your work computer, a coffee shop computer, or a computer at your parent’s house….anywhere! That’s cloud computing. Being freed from the limitations of a single PC and getting all your “stuff” from anywhere by using remote services.

Email is one thing, and we all know and love that, but what’s starting to gain more momentum is things like office suites, file storage and sharing, photo sharing, and social networking. You used to have to purchase an expensive office suite for hundreds of dollars to be able to create documents or spreadsheets. And then, you were limited to only being able to use that license on one single computer…basically tethering you to that PC to do your work. With the introduction of Google Docs and Microsoft Office Live, you now have the ability to simply open up a web browser and point it at one of these services to be able to edit documents or spreadsheets.

Of course, there are limitations to what is available as far as features on these online versions of office suites, but it’s been shown that in general most people don’t use the majority of the advanced features available in high-priced office suites. The benefit of having your documents stored centrally in the cloud and accessible from wherever you’re at without a client application can easily out weigh the need for special features you may only use once in a while.

And it doesn’t stop at office suites. Cloud storage offers the ability for you to store more than just documents. There are plenty of services out there now that allow you to securely store files online, essentially taking the place of your USB thumb drive. You would never have to worry about losing your drive again because your files are stored in the cloud, accessible from anywhere. Microsoft is taking this one step further with their announcement of Microsoft Mesh, which offers an online Live Desktop where you can store files, share them with other people, sync them with mobile devices, and even get updates on changes made to files in the cloud by other people your collaborating with.

Online backup services, distributed processing, social networks, blogging, office applications, email, photo processing and storage…there are many services available to Internet users which promote the concept of using the vast compute resources of servers on the Internet to power the applications that you may have used on your local PC in the past. Most of the time we don’t even really know “where” these services are running from, nor do we care.

I think there’s a solid future for this concept and I’m jumping into it as much as possible (in fact, I’m actually writing this article from an Everex Cloudbook PC…how’s that for working from the Cloud). I haven’t installed an office suite on my laptop in almost 6 months now. I’ve been using web-based email for years, access all my IRC chat rooms via java clients, read all my RSS feeds via Google Reader, and utilize a number of other services and applications online now. It’s made maintaining my PC a lot easier. I no longer have to worry about patches for my office suite. I don’t have to worry about getting my POP/IMAP settings correct to get my email. Life is simpler in the cloud.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, cloudbook, Google Docs, Microsoft Mesh, Microsoft Office Live, the cloud

Social Bookmark Links

Hide Sites

Checked my email today to find this in there (clicky click):

Just when I thought I’d seen everything, MC Hammer comes along and follows me on Twitter. Now if I could only get Vanilla Ice to follow me too, it’d be like an early ’90’s reunion of hip-hop idols.

Technorati Tags: MC Hammer, mchammer, twitter

Social Bookmark Links

Hide Sites