I'm old.

This is what it must have felt like for my father when I told him that Duran Duran was like an 80's version of the Beatles. He must have spontaneously sprouted grey hair right then and there.

I'm on Facebook, and I don't know what the heck I'm doing there. A friend of mine asked me to be her Facebook friend, and how could I tell her no? I hadn't realized that we weren't friends already. Now, I have validation that we are buds. But I haven't embraced it yet. Somebody else asked me to be their friend and alas, after a couple of tries accepting his invitation, I was frustrated enough that I went back to programming. So now I feel bad, because he doesn't know that he's my friend. I've dissed him by not being able to figure out how to accept his invitation.

Oh, the humanity. Or lack thereof.

Then I read a Newsweek article on Facebook-ing Philanthropy. Okay, now some established dead-tree media is talking about the possibilities for philanthropic causes to leverage social networks. I have to figure this out now, before somebody realizes that I'm old. My read is that although no money is coming in, awareness is being raised. Now organizations need to figure out how to capitalize on those eyeballs in a quantifiable way.

The Daily Bruin also ran a recent article on Facebook and Philanthropy, which included the following quote:


Great. The real world is messed up but what is so great about this online world is that it is just like the real thing. Only with virtual kegs of beer. (And yes,  I rewrote the  previous sentence to be more grammatically correct. I can feel the grey hairs sprouting with each passing moment.)

I was just about to start following the breadcrumb trail back out of Facebook and into the real virtual world when I read this:


Oddly enough, this made me feel better and I decided to take a bit of a look around, see what I could find in this den of virtual iniquity. In order to be a responsible Facebook Citizen, I found the Causes application and added it to my profile. Then I went and searched for causes to support. Now, when my handful of friends come and visit my profile, they can see that I support the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation, and one of 11 different options for Kiva. I picked the one with the most members and the most money donated.

For some reason, I skipped joining Sam's Stop the Lies of Global Warming cause. He seems to have everything he needs already, other than a dictionary and a copy of The Elements of Style, perhaps. And yes, how old am I? I just edited out a frontal lobe joke, because it is unseemly to me to bash a high school kid for being young and ill-informed. *sigh* I swear, I'm going to go straight from Facebook to a retirement home. Besides, Sam's obviously figured out how to add friends, and I'm still trying to figure out how to log in properly so that I can add all my friends to the same profile.

Also not making my causes cut was a Stop Vegetarians cause. I didn't realize that I was abnormal and part of the problem. I guess if I really cared about making the world a better place, I'd be choking down a hamburger for lunch. Instead, I have my mind set on a nice green salad with sprouts.

So yes, Facebook did originate as a social network for college students, and in many ways has stayed true to its roots. It is as much about sex, drugs and music as one would expect, with some social causes on the side. Just like Berkeley in the 60's. Only instead of waking up and wondering where you are, you wake up and wonder if you would have more friends if you had more bandwidth.

Last week, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates took the stage together at the Wall Street Journal's All Things D conference, and what resulted was a nice look back at their history together. Not quite a lovefest, but no PC vs. Mac commercial smackdown either. An interesting interview from a historical perspective at least. Those wanting to look forward needed to watch the product announcements from both companies, along with one from Palm, to get a glimpse of what's next. Even if the announcements were more yawn than glee for the geek-inclined.

Microsoft announced the most ambitious tech product with their Surface line of tabletop PC's for commercial purposes. Great technology, but we've seen the demos from Jeff Hahn that showed us the promise of what this technology would be capable of once we - pun intended - got our hands on it. The Microsoft implementation shows us what T-Mobile and other large pocket companies will be able to do with it. I'm sure the world really does need an easier way to compare cell phones or order dessert, but until I can edit photos and go through my email on it this announcement doesn't really mean anything to me. Fabulous technology, can't wait until somebody let's the rest of us play with it.

Palm introduced the Foleo, a SmartPhone companion piece. Even without its obvious shortcomings, I'm not really sure what the point is. Yes, it's hard to type on the Treo - why bring attention to it? I wanted to like it, but... that same $500 will net me an iPhone. Which one would you buy? Yeah, me too.

Apple introduced YouTube integration with AppleTV, and a bigger hard drive in it too. They also added iTunes Plus capability to their music store along with Paul McCartney's back catalog. This week they've already announced a release date for the iPhone, and an update to the MacBook Pro line. I'm as excited as can be about the mercury free LED screens in the 15" MacBook Pro, and I can't wait to see Apple fulfill Job's promise of an all LED line of laptops and monitors, but Steve seems to just be clearing his palate ahead of next week's World Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC). I'll be there cramming my head full of all the new technologies and will report back anything that is relevant to the rest of us.

I was feeling a little disheartened by all of this, feeling like the tech world wasn't really paying attention to real people when I happened across  this post about the second annual NetSquared conference. It reminded me that there are people out there who are putting technology to use for the betterment of their communities. If you only pay attention to the headlines and don't dig a little deeper, it's easy to forget that it's not all about connecting teenagers to each other more - as if that's a problem to be solved anyway. It's not all about who can post the cutest animal clip on YouTube. It can be about enriching your community, or a community like yours on the other side of the world. It can be about making connections and making information available faster, easier and more broadly than ever before so that those who want to act on it will. It's even about letting the youngsters know that you're still around:

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.