Category Archives: Web Site Stuff

What is up with Firefox Updates?

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For the last while, I have been aware of the Firefox v2.x release.  What has really surprised me is that the Firefox Update check has never told me to go and get it!

Just today … for the last time . .. I launched Firefox, and then went to the “Help -> Check for Updates …” menu.  The dialog that appeared stated “No Updates Found.  There are no new updates available.  Firefox may check periodically for new updates.”  What?  No notice at all that there is a whole new generation of the browser?

As a general marketing rule, it seems to me that you always make sure to let the customer know about products that you want them to use!  I can’t believe that Firefox would not tell me that v2.x is now out there and available to download.

P.S. If people want to tell me about the difference between an Upgrade and an Update … or that v1.5.x is a different product from v2.0.x … I don’t want to hear it.  This is all about marketing and getting the word out.  For the general population that doesn’t follow the tech news, Firefox would benefit the most from making these blatant announcements!

The mediaFORGE videoWrapplet …

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nume.com

For the last six months I’ve been working with mediaFORGE here in Salt Lake City, Utah as CTO. It’s been a fun place to work as we have been combining some interesting back-end technologies for doing viral marketing analytics. As we began to work with Internet Videos, we started to think about some new ways to embed more than just one video within a portion of web page real estate.

As we were developing some other solutions for our customers, I worked with one of my developers to create a basic video player that we call our videoWrapplet. This little Flash application can be embedded in almost any web page, and provides a simple way to maintain a playlist of videos, and embed them into your home page, blog, Myspace page, or other website. What is fun is that you can create your account through this widget, and then login, edit your playlist, and get the HTML codes to embed in your page through the widget also. You can add any .flv flash video into your playlist, and so we support videos from a wide range of sites – YouTube, Google, Myspace, etc. You can also resize the player to be any size you want down to 200 pixels wide, and up to a full page width.

We also created a web site called cinemaFORGE where you can check out the videoWrapplet, and also where we aggregate some of the analytics about what videos people are playing in the videoWrapplet. We’re about to add some analytics on the popular playlists also.

To get your videoWrapplet for your page simply click the “login” button on the videoWrapplet to the right, and then click the “Create an Account” button … you’ll pick a username, password, and provide an e-mail address and that’s it!  Once you confirm the e-mail address you can then login through the Wrapplet and begin to populate the playlist with your own videos.  While logged in you can click the “Put this on your page…” bar and it will open revealing the codes to embed in your page.

I figure that some folks will think of some cool things they can do with this, and I was hoping to see someone use this to embed their vidcasts into their blog page. I’m about to do exactly that. If you check it out, and think of some cool ideas that you would like to see, then please visit our forums … they are linked to by the graphic at the bottom of the player. We have a lot of ideas on where we want to take this … I want to hear some of your ideas!

Video vs. Audio … an iPod feature that I want!

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This weekend I spent some time with some friends that are into podcast and vidcasting.  As we discussed the huge explosion in Internet video content, I started to think about some of the implications.  I actually think that the growth of video content is about to drive even more audio content.

My reasoning is that video is simply more difficult to consume than audio!  I can listen to audio almost anywhere, anytime.  I can listen while driving, working, skiing, etc.  Video on the other hand is a much more demanding sensory experience.  It requires that I commit far more attention to it, and I can’t do it when driving, skiing … well … any time that I have to be present to things that might kill me.  🙂

As I thought more about this, I realized that two things might emerge.  The first will be more attention being paid to the audio tracks being done for video content.  This will involve careful production of videos that can be listened to … audio only.  The second thing will be new generations of multimedia players – like the iPod – that allow you to turn off the video when “listening only” to a video.  So when I go skiing, I can listen to a video without burning up my batteries displaying content that I’m not even watching!

My request to Apple … please give me an option to turn off the video display on my iPod when I want to … so that I can listen when I can’t watch!

Second Life … still controlling the (virtual) world!

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Wow … what a quick reaction … but not quite enough, in my opinion. Linden Research quickly announced the release of the Second Life client into Open Source. I actually love the name of this blog post by phoenix linden … Embracing the Inevitable.  It announces the release of their client software into Open Source, and where to go and get it.  There is an issue though … they are still holding onto the control of the virtual world by not releasing the server software … yet. As David Kirkpatrick at Fortune reports:

While this initial step will open up what is essentially the user’s
window into Second Life for modification, it will leave Linden Lab in
control of the proprietary software code for all Second Life’s backend
services – the server software that makes the world exist. However,
executives say that the company’s eventual intention is to release an
open source version of that software as well, once it has improved
security and other core functions. They say they have been preparing
for the open source move for about three years.

Yes … this is not enough to provide a free and open platform for virtual existence. I do see where this is a prudent business move to create even more of a lock on the entire market though. Linden seems to now be pushing to create de-facto standards of their client APIs and protocols by creating a group of developers who write to this environment.

My worry is if it took them three years to get the client out to Open Source, how long will it take them to get the server software out?

I believe that the pressure is mounting as other well-funded companies continue to explore the space … as this quote from IBM demonstrates:

IBM Vice President for Technical Strategy Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a
close student of Second Life, heard about the impending move toward
open source from a Linden employee. “They have the right thought,” he
says, “which is that open source things work with the marketplace. But
this is a field in its infancy that will be very competitive. Linden
Lab might end up with a huge leadership position in a certain class of
tools for virtual worlds, but those might not be the right tools for,
let’s say, a surgeon learning a new procedure in an immersive online
environment. Second Life can be wildly successful, but so can others.”

I do not think that IBM and others are sitting still. Neither am I. I’m heading over to download the APIs reference materials now … 🙂

P.S. I just thought of an interesting “client” to create for Second Life. What if there was an “augmented reality” client that was created that would overlay the Second Life world onto the real world? Maybe create someplace in the desert – like at Burning Man – that would allow you to have GPS tracking on yourself, and then wearing augmented reality goggles you would be seeing some portion of the Second Life world? As you wandered around the desert, your view would be augmented with the terrian of Second Life, and the other people wandering around in reality would be overlayed with their graphical avatar. Hmmmm …

Open Source Second Life

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It’s really not a question of if.  It will happen.  It’s just a matter of when.

Second Life is gaining more and more attention, and more and more users.  As I write this there are now 2.3 million user accounts, with 20,000+ users now on-line.  It’s really impressive … but another lock-in application.  Once you join and begin to pay … you are captive forever.  This is obviously a good deal for Linden Research, Inc. – the owners of Second Life – but not the way that the Internet likes to evolve and develop.

For those not yet familiar, Second Life is a very impressive virtual world.  The kind of place that was forecasted and imagined by authors for decades … the kind of place described in Snow Crash.  In Second Life you can create an avitar … a character … to represent you in the virtual world.  You can wander through a wide range of virtual land, buildings, boats, businesses, and fantasy objects.  If you want to, you can purchase virtual property, and “own a home.”

The problem is that it is all a huge lock-in right now.  You are limited to their servers, their designs, their tools, and their rules.  Oh … and you pay their rates.  Want to buy some land?  Here is how to buy land in Second Life.  Want to buy a private island?  Here is how to buy a private island in Second Life.  Wait!  What is going on here!  These rates are even higher than my real-world property taxes!

So what can I do about it?  Nothing.  Right now, there simply is not a Open Source Second Life solution.  Let’s call this Third Life.  (Of course that domain name is already taken …)  What has to emerge is the Open Source platform that I can download and install on my own hardware and bandwidth.  Where I can set the rules, and define how things work.  Of course, as my server would only represent some small parcel of land, I would have to work agreements with others to create portals to travel between my land, and other peoples land.  So maybe several of my friends and I might join our servers together to create a larger landmass.

There are even some other interesting ideas that could emerge from this … such as using a commercial for-pay service like Second Life as the “connector” between private servers.  What if there was an apartment building in Second Life, and when your character comes to the door of my apartment in Second Life, I actually have the option to connect my server to the other side of that door?  So entering that portal transports you from Second Life to my private server.  To me, this is the inevitable future for virtual worlds … one that is open and interconnected, freely allowing people to pay to use “hosted virtual worlds” like Second Life, or to choose the option of hosting their own.

Their are two possible solutions for this to occur … one is for Second Life to open their platform – and source code – to the world to use.  The other is for the next generation of virtual worlds to emerge from the Open Source community.  I hear rumblings of Second Life/Linden Research and what they might do, however it appears to be to push the business model and “open standard” more than Open Source.  Of course, there are other people like Glyn Moody who also see Why We Need a Open Source Second Life.  Even Ben King at The Register articulates the value of Open Source Second Life in his article Open sourcing Second Life.

The most impressive Open Source solution that I am now seeing is Croquet.  Croquet is being developed by some brilliant minds, and is already out there and working.  I’m about to install the lastest versions and begin to experiment, however much of the core is in place.  As the networking layers solidify, we’ll see how quickly you and I can get our own Croquet servers up and running, and begin to link them together via portals.

What is interesting is that I am beginning to see a parallel between this, and the beginnings of the World Wide Web.  Instead of Web Servers, we have Croquet Servers.  Instead of hyperlinks, there is now the world of TPostcards.  And unlike the World Wide Web … the client and server are the same.

I can’t wait … and I know it will occur.  It’s all just when …

Palm bugs that might never get fixed!

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As I am completing my divorce, it is causing me to find obscure bugs in various software.  I have a 4 year old son, and I have 50% custody of him.  Part of that arrangement means that I have to share holidays with him on alternating years.  I had him for the Thanksgiving vacation this year, but his mother has him next year.

As a user of a Palm Tungsten E2, and Outlook, I figured that I would set-up the “recurring appointment” in Outlook and the sync that to my Palm.  I learned that it’s not that easy.  The first thing was learning the syntax of the recurring configuration in Outlook.  First I created the “Thanksgiving Vacation” appointment in my calendar, from November 22 at 7:00pm, till November 26th at 7:00pm.  Then, I have to create a recurring appointment that repeats “From 7:00pm till 7:00pm lasting 4 days, monthly on the fourth Wednesday of every 24 months, starting on November 22, 2006 through November 29, 2020”.  Outlook actually deals with this ok … but when I sync to the Palm it fails.

As I dug further into the problem, I found that the issue is that the Palm conduit, or sync software, can’t seem to deal with the 24 month interval.  The error log tells me to “split the appointment” into individual days, however when I do that the appointment sync’s to the Palm on a 12 month interval.  Uh … not quite what is showing in Outlook.

After I spent hours trying to resolve this I finally realized that the only way around this is to “hand create” all of the appointments each year.  Or to go in and modify each of the “occurances” of the recurring appointment to modify them in a way to make them unique and “non-recurring”.

Hello … Palm?  Anyone out there interested in fixing this bug?

Can I collect Virtual Unemployment?

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Ok … I love to see where this is going. Someone in government begins to see the “dollar” volumn of commerce within virtual worlds … and they soon think “Gosh … how can *we* get a cut of that?”

I had really thought that taxation was something done for a purpose … not just because it can be done.  If the government is going to tax in virtual worlds, then are they going to begin to spend that money in virtual worlds?  I can’t even wait to learn about the newest virtual pork-barrel projects that are going to show up on the scene.  Politicians are going to begin to cater to the special interests of “furries” or some other group within Second Life … just to get their real-world votes?

If government really gets involved in Second Life, for example, then I wonder if they’ll set up the various programs to assist the “needy” or “unemployed”?  Hmmm … maybe I’ll be able to create a new character in Second Life and have them left homeless … file to collect virtual-unemployment in Lindon dollars?  Convert those on the various markets to real dollars?  Wait … I’ll create 100 characters in Second Life and have them ALL file for unemployment!  At that point will the government create “virtual immigration”?  I won’t be able to create a character or enter a virtual world without a proper passport that will limit me to one virtual character at a time?

It is amazing the times that we live in where the government is considering that they tax the creation of virtual wealth … however this will begin to set some precedents on how virtual worlds are looked at by laws, and general definitions.

Congress to look into taxing virtual worlds. Blog: For at least the past couple of years, one of the biggest questions in virtual world circles has been whether or not the U.S…. [CNET News.com]

Virtualization … a whole new level of abstraction

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I love to think about the future, and how it is going be for my 4 year old son. As I consider the models of “how things are”, I keep wanting to explore the “edges” more and think about what things are going to be like 10 years from now … or 20!

Virtualization is one of those technologies that is just beginning to alter how we look at hardware and software.  The hardware that we are buying is now so powerful, that we can emulate whole PCs on our PCs.  On a daily basis I am running Linux on my laptop … in a window, on Windows, using Microsoft Virtual PC.  I am also running Windows XP and Windows 2000 in Virtual PC on my desktop at work for testing purposes.  What is fun is that I now have a library of “machines” that I have created in Virtual PC, and I carry these on my 80GB pocket USB hard disk.  Windows (various versions), Linux (numerous distros), OpenSolaris, OpenDarwin … even a CP/M hack.  When I set up my new desktop machine I simply copied my “test machines” onto the new hard disk, and immediately booted them in my free Virtual PC that I downloaded and installed.

What I found last week – and predicted years ago – is that “virtual hard disks” are now being distributed by Microsoft.  Do you want to check out Windows Server?  Exchange Server?  SQL Server?  Instead of installing all of that software, simply download the pre-configured Virtual Hard Disk and boot it in Virtual Server!  You are instantly up and running with a machine ready to go!

What is facinating to me, is that I start to see this as a whole new level of software distribution.  Instead of downloading ISOs images of CDs and DVDs … just download the vitual hard disk and boot it!  Why download the software to run on yor machine … when you can download the machine!?!?!  I can begin to see a future where people are running numerous virtual machines on their desktop or laptop … just as we run applications on our OS today.

There are already tools like WinImage that can read and write the .vhd (virtual hard disk) file format, and Microsoft has opened up the specification for others to use this format.  What this means is that we are watching the first moves to create a “standard” format for passing virtual machines around on the Internet.

I’m curious when we’ll see the first Linux distros that realize that offering their installed solution as a .vhd might get them some real traction with Windows users who want to experiment with Linux?  I’m also watching to see what Internet web site becomes the defacto palce to download *any* .vhd that you might want?  Who will become the one-stop-shop for grabbing a VM?  I can see whole libraries of VMs being developed and made available … all in the not too distant future!

Oh yeah … and my son?  I can already see that he won’t be into “file sharing” on the Internet … he’ll probably be into “machine sharing” or “VM sharing” … or what ever comes after that.

Adobe MAX 2006

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I came down to Adobe MAX 2006 this week. It’s being held in Las Vegas, and this is my first time attending this event. Last night at the welcome reception I met some great people, and saw a few interesting applications. One thing that hit me was the deep penetration that Adobe has into government. There were government employees – federal, state, and city – along with military employees and defense contractors everywhere!

I’m down here with part of my team from mediaForge as we are now committing This morning I’m at the keynote, and I’m impressed that Adobe has really spent some money on this event … and there are a *lot* of people here. Our first guess is that there are maybe 2000+ people attending. After an intro by Blue Man Group, Kevin Lynch – Chief Software Architect – came on stage and said that this is the largest Adobe MAX conference to date.

The CEO then reviewed the Adobe/Macromedia merger, and showed a video of the feedback from users. He talked about the adoption of the “labs” concept that Macromedia brought. His focus then turned to the technologies that they are going to focus on – video, mobile devices (FlashLite is running on over 100 million devices!), Flex, and Flash Player 9 (now 10 years old).

Kevin Lynch returned to the stage and fist addressed the adoption rates of Flash Players. He showed where the Flash Player 9 reached over 80% adoption within 9 months, and how Flash Player 9 is on track towards 40% adoption in close to three months. This again demonstrates that the ability to deploy updates globally, in a seamless and simple way, is key to software adoption.

There was then a series of demos of new features in Fireworks, Photoshop, After Effects, their new application Soundbooth.  Then came the demo of what I’m here for … Apollo.  Apollo is the new “cross-OS runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing web
development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop RIA’s.”  I’m hoping that Adobe will release a beta to us here at the show …

More later!

Net Neutrality from Gilder’s Telecosm

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Bummer.  I just realized that I missed the 10th Annual Telecosm Conference held by George Gilder and Steve Forbes.  This has always been one of my favorite conferences, where I’m always stimulated with something technology oriented that I never would have thought of.  I’m really into discovering what I don’t know that I don’t know.

The one thing that I was glad to find is that they are releasing the conference proceedings as podcasts … good move.  The first one is on Net Neutrality and has an all-star line-up of speakers.  I’m downloding it now.  Oh … ad it even says that it’s a video podcast.