No, I didn't trade my Tilt for an iPhone. But I did notice a lot of people in line here in LA on Day 2 were 'upgrading' from their AT&T Tilt (aka the ATT TILT TyTN II HTC 8925) into the iPhone 3G.

It's not just the name that is simpler either; the apps are very simple and easy to operate. However, when I hear that the new phone is more powerful than my trusty Tilt (w/a weak tilt), I think of all the wealth of applications that can't yet be run on it as well as the very simple but critical role of tethering I use with my phone all the time. Still, I have to wonder when Silverlight Mobile will ever see the light of day.
What kind of processor will we need to get that cool vector processing? An atom in a cell phone, no doubt. Otherwise, those grandiose creations that work so well on the desktop won’t translate onto the mobile experience. What about ANSI art?

So will Android kick everyone’s butt when it comes out?

Will the oPhone ever really become a reality? (outside of a reference to an object, that is)

Will the iPhone bring an end to teenage no-look texting?

And BTW: If you noticed a removed post, I am under agreements not to comment on certain APIs – Thanks.

Yes, the title is correct. And why should they not? Perhaps not a moment too soon.

Really, as hobbyists know, all the interesting work is done on the fringes, and is often as a result of the work developed by others. Giving away a legacy OS w/no support, but still compatible w/modern operating systems (save for a few ancient DOS apps) would be a nice gesture. As Vista progresses (Dreamscape is cool, btw), people running a free copy of Windows 3.1, or Windows 95 may be content w/such a machine.

But that is the crux of the problem. The main competition to Windows in the last few years has not been Linux or OS X. It has been 'good enough' implementations of whatever technologies companies had invested in, mainly Windows 2000. And despite many arguments to the contrary, as an intranet business desktop, it (Windows 2000) goes a long way.

So where does that leave Ubuntu, the supposed new golden child versus a free but older copy of Windows? It makes for an interesting matchup. Even the mainstream Ubuntu Mr. Shuttleworth is giving away is really geared towards modern hardware. The tie breaker will go to whether Wine 1.0 will run those great legacy games as fast as the operating systems they were designed for: early 16-bit and 32-bit versions of Windows.

So how about it? Let's call it Windows Community Edition w/ads for Vista but also create a Windows Classic for hobbyists and in some community license. These make for some interesting options.

And as for older hardware sticking around longer in such a scenario, until and if a truly green pc is available, tinkering with what's at hand is a lot easier to justify versus investing in new hardware when gas is +$4.

• System-wide contact filtering to prevent unwanted attendees from being notified.
• Microsoft Live Search integration – now a user can send a map from their appointment (i.e. Microsoft Outlook) to a map, or they can re-use previous destinations as a geocoding source which saves time  (Standard and Professional versions only).
• Partnered w/Smaato to create a free, Ad Supported version.
  

It's been a long road but this is by far the best version. Stable, fast, feature rich and it works well. This is finally the version I could give my parents to use.

1. Create separate files for bandwidth. Dial-up, Edge, 3G, T1, etc. Downside - lots more work for a content producer and lots more files to maintain
2. Selectively play each segment of a single file. This is the approach Flash has promoted which is why many sites appear 'jittery' - especially video - on a low-end CPU device. Each unit has to do all the work of deciding what to display/not display, while not dropping audo. Take a look at NBC news on an old machine w/Flash 9 and it will become obvious. Downside - User experience catered to a particular bandwidth - Great looking content looks bad on old machines
3. Set up a streaming service which combines the best of both worlds and caters each user's experience. Downside - High cost

The future is likely to combine all of these elements in a best of popularity dynamic mix of peer to peer, server streaming and straight downloading all at once. Higher branded content will get better distribution, at least, that is what the network companies want. As I mentioned the other day, products like Miro side-step the issue and make the idea of getting high quality content routed only through a sort of private freeway lane silly. Of course, this is provided you don't mind waiting based on the popularity of the same content in the swarm.

This is the also the same reason I don't mind (as much) waiting for Silverlight to be released for Windows Mobile. Hopefully this is what they mean by the missing "Rich Internet Applications" section in the MSDN Moble Center. Better to have the tools get the experience right the first time than have a clipped, jittery experience.

I have to thank Sony for intriguing me w/the Eee PC. The quote by Sony's Mike Abary that the Eee PC signals "a race to the bottom" piqued my interest.  After all, if Sony is scared (smoke); there must be fire (the Eee PC).

BTW: It is a good idea to not create attention in an area where you do not want people to go. The same thing happened to me w/a company I had worked for; they kept bashing our closest competitor over and over again during meetings. What happened when I got a call from a recruiter for the competitor to interview? Curiosity.

More on the Eec PC when I get some miles on it (and get a chance to try XP on it)...

BTW: Until the Intel Atom is integrated, the machine will have multitasking problems. I also wonder if it will ever be able to stream complex codecs from flash & silverlight. Right now, the machine is too underpowered. Miro, anyone?

Video on the internet is already no longer about open access, but traffic shaping. Don't want overseas bittorrents or Joost packets? Turn this knob. It has already happened; the net neutrality debate notwithstanding; it’s plainly obvious that most backbone ISPs are dictating what data is healthy for their consumers.

You have to hear the strings playing a bit before the show is about to start (the young & unfamiliar - think of the opening seconds of the Beatle's Sergeant Peppers). It’s pretty obvious that the next few years are going to be of accelerating change at all levels of industry and government. It seems that instead of the decline of brand awareness, we are about to see its explosion.

The Laptop Fu cast is starting to come back online and I think I have a better idea of where it is going. Also, a few other shows are going to be following. However, without revealing all my secrets, I think the internet as a casting medium is about to get a whole lot more interesting.

Listening to all the Zune news, it sounds like Microsoft will finally launch into the video sharing and social networking space. Overseas, variants have been happening for some time and I imagine the Channel9 vblog site (& related) has given a good internal experience w/the medium (while launching the first MS vlog star - Robert Scoble). Apple doesn’t seem to even be touching this space and is moving away from high-touch and into multi-touch (less forum dialogue, more 50s-90s era 1-way consumer content).

Here in LA, every week I get the same call - we are starting a media internet company pitch (up north, it would be an internet media company, I imagine). I have no doubt there will be a number of dominant players in the marketplace. However, it is obvious that many of the modern P2P products like Joost & BitTorrent (both the company & the protocol) don't currently fit into the current roadmap for Tier-1 ISPs. The good news: for the interim period, the cell carriers may provide the business plan out of this mess with highly shared meta-content and a secondary network of TV.

What we all want isn’t here yet; the ability to have a dinner party style conversation environment on the internet. Various attempts abound from Second Life to GooTube. Until we can have coherent large scale personal communications: a post-modern scaled personal communications example would be that of the U.N. General Assembly – a lot of precision timing on who gets the floor, background translation, real-time interaction w/several hundred. Unfortunately, the U.N. isn’t much like a dinner party these days but perhaps the prevalence of modern dialoguing communications will help.

Be Back L8r,
Alex

PS: Where is the Microsoft video site? beta.search.live.com/video is empty.

PPS: I am finally getting over my fear of blogging. I can thank Brittany Spears for helping me see that going into public doesn’t necessarily mean I have to show my junk; also, apparently, Microsoft is softening on it’s stance on direct criticism, as long as it is done respectfully (i.e. not ad hominem type attacks but a reasoned argument that also take into the account the long view (i.e. 1^st products suck but 2^nd generations are highly competitive)).

For those of you unaware, I have started an irregularly produced cast called Laptop Fu. It is making me a centionaire!

This week, I had on Stephen Toub from MSDN Magazine, his blog is http://blogs.msdn.com/toub/. He was working from home on a day the Microsoft campus in Redmond was having power issues on a bad weather day. Good cast, Thanks again Steve!

So yes, Laptop Fu is on the air; I welcome you all to join me via TalkShoe which has audience participation. I am starting to enjoy doing Laptop Fu and have some interesting ones planned in the future. BTW: In terms of OS: I'm clearly in the Vista camp w/SideShow coming out.

What do I recommend for older hardware, older laptops? If Microsoft would release Windows 3.1, 95, etc as freeware... but in the meantime, there are a fair number of distros that can all fit the bill. With older hardware, the question goes back to the cost per CPU cycle and what do you use the machine for? Word for DOS (or WordPerfect 5.1) doesn't take much of a machine but the the WYSIWYG isn't quite there... a good upcoming show idea on only older hardware laptops.

So hello Laptop Fu, a discussion of all things laptop, laptop related and laptop-life!

I think Steve may be overreaching this time on the x-patent protection. The idea is very 1980's, buddying w/Novell and trying to isolate what is 'genuine' and what is unstable/lawsuit-waiting-to-happen. This time, however, the facts on the ground are very different.

A few months ago, when Microsoft opened the linux testing labs to ensure compatibility, I was the first to cheer. With the growing popularity of distros like Ubuntu, having Windows machines exchange services, files and even emerging technologies makes sense. Are they only installing SUSE in this lab?

The reality is Steve is buying some time before Vista comes out and recaptures the cool crown. The growing battle lines are likely to be between adobe flash and windows presentation framework not linux versus windows. The operating systems wars are close to being over with more and more dynamic language code like python and IronPython running natively w/few/little/no changes.

Wow, I had no idea there was such a mass of cobwebs on this site. Having returned from Vegas last week after the DevConnections conference (I did a few Office related sessions around IRM, advanced InfoPath and Workflow with Office 2007.

I see the products went RTM a few days ago which is a relief. I must say SharePoint 2007, along w/MOSS, SharePoint Designer, the new BDC and a few other goodies also present one with an interesting challenge. Which tool do we use for a given task?

On a project I have started with some early SharePoint 2007 bits, I wrestled with doing custom development along w/SharePoint but found the demands of a modern UI pushed most of the SharePoint tools out of the equation. I ended up using ASP.NET for the solution and SharePoint is pared as a contextual community portal around the core application.

So where does SharePoint Designer, web parts galore and everything else fit in? For your general business applications, where the user doesn't mind a few extra clicks. However, for fit like a glove wrapping around data, ASP.NET prevails.

Here are a few photos from the Q&A session:

Viva la B#! (B Sharp)

Bird's eye view of office in sunny Marina dey rey/Culver City/Los Angeles

13101 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066