Vista is available today to the unwashed masses, and the initial reviews are not exactly stellar. The three big complaints seem to be that it is a rip-off of Mac OS X, peripherals like scanners, cameras and Zune media players don't have much likelihood of working yet, and in order to get most out of the new features, most people will either need to upgrade their systems or simply purchase new ones.

Not exactly the reception you want after working on a product for five years.

Being primarily a Mac geek, I haven't spent any time with Vista, so I'm not terribly objective or informed. I remember hearing these same objections, however, whenever Microsoft has released a new version of Windows - XP, 2000, 95. None of the new features are so exciting as to entice me to try it out. Mostly, I dread the headaches that a new Windows has in store for techies - just like I dread a new version of a browser and whatever incompatabilities it might cause.

Some folks will run right out and upgrade. And then upgrade everything else they own. Not terribly practical for most people. But really, it's a new version of Windows, and a lot of people will be running it soon as they buy new PC's. Peripheral makers will upgrade their drivers and old stuff will work with it eventually. And the fact that it's a Mac OS X rip-off? Immaterial to users. If the features in Mac OS X are really better than the features in XP, is it any surprise that Microsoft would copy them and try to provide their users with the same benefits? For all the whining us Mac geeks do whenever Microsoft rolls out a product with blatant rip-offs of Mac features, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. It's just not a reason for us to switch from the OS that provided the innovations in the first place, and implements them in a cleaner fashion.

As far as upgrading goes, I'd wait a little while. The first Vista service pack is already on the way, so I would at least wait for that and make sure that whatever peripherals you have that are essential are supported.

The most important new feature to me is the upgraded security. I have lost countless hours over the years to fixing Windows systems that have been inundated by viruses, spam, malware and spyware, so I was disheartened to see that MSNBC's reviewer found Windows Defender to be intrusive. I don't care how intrusive it is, I would leave it on and deal with it rather than have my system crippled. CNET is also not impressed with the security features.

Slowly but surely, Windows users will migrate onto Vista. 90+% of the market is not going to sit on their old machines or switch to Mac or Linux. The complaints you hear are valid, and were overcome by previous incarnations. I would be more concerned with a good security package first, however. If Vista had delivered that, then I think the upgrade decision would have been a lot easier.

I'm looking forward to installing Vista soon, and taking a look up close at the glossy new interface in particular. It looks pretty, if still cluttered. But I'll do it with Parallels on my Mac, mainly so that I can do compatability testing with it.

Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and as a transplanted Southern Californian, I recognize that the importance these announcements carry diminishes with every mile that you travel away from the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. Still, old habits die hard, and I ran through the list of nominees eagerly, despite the fact that the only movies I've seen in a movie theater since last summer were The King & I and A Miracle On 34th Street.

One of the movies I did see last summer, An Inconvenient Truth, received two nominations, one for best documentary and one for best song. I don't have to peruse any historical tome to know that Melissa Etheridge's I Need to Wake Up is the first song from a documentary to be nominated.



Watching it on YouTube is fine and dandy, but you can get a higher quality version from iTunes too.

So how do I justify writing a post in my blog that is ostensibly focused on technology about Melissa Etheridge and the Oscars? Well, let's face it. Sometimes, no matter how much you want to geek out about the new 300 Mbs ieee 80211.n WiFi standard and its extended range and speed, you have to deal with the reality of the physical world.

Some technologies that will help:

• Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
  
• Electric Cars
  
• Telecommuting
  
• Solar Power
  
• Smart Power Strips
  

Carbon credits - where do you buy them? How much do they cost? I won't pretend to know how this works exactly, but they seem to have done their homework.

Oh, and that Al Gore guy? He has a new version of his book coming out later this year geared toward children. I haven't listed to this movie fan's podcasts related to the movie, but find it interesting that two of the three reviews are ascribed to an 11 and 12 year old.

If you're cinematically inclined there is a contest at treehugger.com for green videos.

Macworld was a bit of an odd experience, as it was a coming out party for Apple's forays beyond the desktop. Or the laptop for that matter. And I had no idea how many companies were actually making and marketing iPod accessories! I mean, I knew there were a lot, but how many plastic sleeve manufacturers can stay in business long term?

Okay, obviously there are some things in this world that I am not meant to comprehend. Like why in any mall in America you can find a cart filled with cel phone faceplates. I mean, how many people are willing to spend twenty bucks to give their phones a leopard print faceplate?

Speaking of Leopard, where was it? Outside of a rehashed demo and a new ad taking potshots at Windows Vista, where was Mac OS 10.5? or iWork/iLife '07? Missing, and tantalizingly so. Are they waiting until after Vista gets the inevitable press rush to display the hinted at new features? Is the integration between the OS, Apps and the new iPhone so deep that you can't reveal one without the others? Is everything coming out of Cupertino going to be insanely great all year long?

Yes, the reality distortion field is in full efect. The fact that Apple didn't announce things has caused a stir among the faithful. You can debate whether or not Apple has reinvented the phone, but there's no debating that Steve Jobs is a master of manipulating the media.

David Pogue is at Macworld hawking his books and getting to play with the new iPhone, making him the envy of most everyone here. He gave his impressions about the iPhone for the NY Times.



When I stopped by the O'Reilly booth he was talking about the input with the virtual keyboard, and that yeah, Blackberry addicts would prefer a tactile keyboard. This thing is for the rest of us. Well, at least those with $500 to blow on a phone.

On the software front I kind of got what I expected. No Microsoft Office 2008 until fall or later, and no Adobe Creative Suite CS3 until "spring". Frustrating since those are the apps in their non-universal form slow my day down the most. They love the rainbow ball. And no update of iWork or iLife? Probably on hold until Leopard/Mac OS X 10.5. Even the demos of Leopard are mostly a rehash of what they showed at WWDC last year.

Looks like Project Management is starting to finally happen on the Mac. OmniPlan and Project X both look interesting. I'll have to do some more investigating...

I spent a bit of time sitting in on a presentation on the New New Media by Jon Alper of WGBH, a PBS station in Boston. Jon talked about podcasts and context, and what motivates conent creators and aggregators. He made two very interesting observations about creating content and web sites.

1) Web projects require three distinct disciplines: editorial, technical and design. Each discipline should be represented by an expert on the team. I wholly agree - only there are only two of us here at Social Edge. Hmm. When you are getting things started this might not be practical and you may end up with overlapping responsibilities.

That said, having a designer handle your tech architectue or vice versa can leave your implementation wanting in one area or another. Each needs to make concessions to the other in order to produce a cohesive end result.

2) Boundaries are important. They make content creators' work easier. Let your users do what they need to and keep the technical bells and whistles out of their way.

I've always been a big believer in constraints. They allow people to focus on the task at hand rather than getting lost in the possibilities. If you want to write about hybrid NGO business models, you shouldn't spend a bunch of time making colored tables and slidesets from scratch. You should tell me about hybrid NGO business models!

At the end of the keynote presentation yesterday John Mayer played a couple of songs. In between Gravity and Waiting on the World to Change he said something to the effect that Macworld was like the exact opposite of terrorism. It was fun. It was about making cool new things. Then he launched into his latest hit about changing the world and how the younger generation feels cut off from the ability to make a discernible difference in the world. I'd love to introduce him to someone like Kyleigh Kuhn and have her tell him about her Pennies for Peace project.



iPhone will change things. It really doesn't do anything that different than today's smart phones, it just does the same things better. It's that whole Think Different mindset that Apple has. As I was riding the train to San Francisco I found myself thinking about transportation and what it would be like to rethink transportation.

Segway went down this path and made a device that was a really different take on getting from here to there. GM did the same with the EV1 and have just announced a new plug-in hybrid called the Chevy Volt. The Toyota Prius is all over the place and Tesla is releasing their high end electric Roadster.

Some are incremental changes and others are big leaps in a certain direction without a definite destination in mind. What's the best way to overhaul how we get to where we want to go?

Which brings me back to the train. Every morning there's a regular and an express train that leave my station at almost the same time. Every morning the two trains are there but not in the same place. There's no indication as to which is which, either on the train or on the led screens telling us to be aware of suspicious activity. The only way to know which is which is to ask another rider who got on at a previous station which one they got on.

Seems like a simple UI issue that, once solved, would go a long way towards making the train an easier more pleasant way to get around. Have the trains pull in to the same location every day. Put a sign on the train indicating it's number and type. Have the LED signs say which is which.

Big changes are usually an accumulation of small changes from a lot of people solving a lot of related problems.

Well, hanging with Steve and thousands of his closest pals.

After some trepidation after hearing others in line for the keynote discussing a dreaded "overflow room" I was quite releived to get into the keynote presentation. Others were not so lucky. I guess catching the 5:56 train from San Jose to San Francisco was worth it.

When Steve said that he was debuting three revolutionary products in one, he wasn't kidding. The iPhone appears ready to change our perceptions about what mobile connectivity means. Sure, we're starved here in North America for the kind of mobile connectivity that parts of Asia and Europe enjoy, but the UI that the iPhone has and the capabilities changes the paradigm a bit. Right now it's $499. (Or will be in June.) Imagine it at $100 and see what kind of shift takes place. I haven't seen so many grown adults drool over a toy in my life. Reminds me of the last day of school when I was a kid - everybody excited about the fun to come.

The presentation itself - wow. And I heard a lot of wows the entire time. If you need to learn how to give presentations, look for the video of this or any of Jobs' old keynotes. The Reality Distortion Field was in full effect. He announced two products, neither of which are available for purchase, and the whole crowd was in awe. Contrast it to the brief presentations given by the CEOs of Google, Yahoo!, and Cingular. The energy dropped off considerably when Jobs left the stage.

It was hard to tell at the end if the standing ovation was for the products introduced or simply for the presentation itself.

I'm going to my first Macworld. As a longtime Mac-geek, this is my pilgrimage. Of course, the anticipation I am sure is greater than the actual event will be. Booth after booth of tech toys and software. Oooh, Mufasa!

There are plenty of pundits out there predicting what will be revealed at Steve Jobs' keynote. It used to be just a small group of MacGeeks that salivated over these things, but now with the success of the iMac, iPod and iTunes, CNN and the Wall Street Journal even get in on the pre-show hype. Of course, most of the predictions are just logical extensions of a product cycle, and others are logical guesses and some are based on component orders or leaks from partners. The most fun of course are the wild ones based off of what people think they want Apple to make. Like an iPod with a GPS and a built-in pocket knife.

I'll spare you my predictions, and just say that as someone who has sat through his share of horrid PowerPoint presentations where the only question I wanted answered was 'when will it end?' I'm looking forward to a presentation where I'm actually happy that it's two hours instead of 1 1/2. I like good presentations. It's an illness, I know, but I do.

All the fun hardware aside, and the obvious fun of the distortion field pales in importance, however, to the software updates that hopefully get announced. MS Office and Adobe Creative Suite updates to Intel native versions and more features of the upcoming Mac OS X Leopard.

Happy New Year to those around the world who are celebrating the beginning of 2007!

New year's resolutions, they come and go. Mostly, of course, they are forgotten by February. A few years ago, I started writing mine down. This led to my finding the list later each year and becoming depressed by how little progress I had made. I have yet to lose those same 20 lbs. that show up on the list year after year. I misplace them from time to time, but I always manage to find them right where I left them.

This year, I’ve decided to limit my resolutions to 5 simple, straight forward things I can do to make my daily work more productive. Nothing too taxing here, nothing that should cause me too much pain or light-headedness. Anyone who wants to get in on the act can follow along.

1. Clean up my desktop.
All those files that are splattered all over my desktop? Time to put them away in an sustainable organizational hierarchy. If there’s not a folder for a particular file, it’s time to either make one or decide that the file can go away. It’ll make resolution number 2 a whole lot easier.

2. Back it up.
Global X is doing it. I should to. Not the whole system, just the files that are important. If my kernel blows a gasket, I’m going to want those files I’ve been saving diligently to my desktop. These, of course, will now be filed away in my Documents directory which I will schedule for automatic offline backup once a week. At home, I’ll do the same but backup my music, movies and photos directories as well.

3. Organize my inbox.
It’s a whole lot easier to find that all important email when it’s not lumped in with a whole slew of spam and out of office replies. Once I’ve done the big clean up, I’ll set aside a time every week to keep it sorted.

4. Eliminate one barrier between myself and site users.
There are a lot of ways for companies to do this. Make your contact form more visible on your website and make sure that someone is responding to all incoming mail. Make it easier for donors to donate. If your organization has a call center, add a chat component to your site that allows them to chat instead of calling in. I have a few ways of doing this that’ll come to fruition sooner rather than later on Social Edge.

5. Take more pictures.
Post and tag them too. I have a Flickr account, and didn’t post a single picture to it last year. Life moves fast, and sharing what you are doing with those close to you - and with those you have yet to meet - is an invaluable means of communication.

So that’s all for this year’s resolutions. Sure, it’s more fun to list off retire or weigh what I weighed in my early twenties, but these five things are all achievable and will make a difference every day of the year.