Jason Sidabras

Well I guess it is nice to see that the guys over at Microsoft read my blog. It seems that the past couple of months they have created a new protocol that allows you to share files and programs over the internet, I called it the ADAPT protocol (second post here on ADAPT)… they call it Live Mesh.

Let us do a comparison.
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Thanks to CES, Intel finally explains the difference between a Mobile Internet Device (MID) and a Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC). Here are the highlights:

UMPC

• Business-class device for enterprise users
• Runs a “heavy” OS like Vista
• Optimized for office-use applications like Excel, Word, etc.

MID

• Consumer-class lifestyle device
• Runs a ‘lightweight” OS with quick startup like Linux
• Optimized for things like media playback and web surfing
• In 2009 (or so) Moorestown-based devices will be classed as MIDs only

So the question then comes up, why does one need a “heavy” os, like vista, to run a business class UMPC? Read the rest of this entry »

This is sort of a repeat blog, but I have a lot more reasoning behind it. Plus, I wanted a dedicated blog to this subject. Which subject? Well, if I had 60,000 employees at my disposal. This blog can also be titled: How MS can stay on top for the next 10 years.

Let’s face it, MS has gotten sloppy. Perhaps they always have been, but Vista’s “success” only shows that lack-luster OSes can be accepted on a mainstream level if the right people are involved. Let me give you two examples that bugged me on my trip to Colorado.
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Talk about getting what you ask for. My previous post about how microsoft can remain relevant for the next 10 years and the new protocol that can get them there, was met with some heavy skepticisms. But in general, the comments missed the point. I want to address those comments and further explain why I think the ADAPT system would be exciting. Also the overwhelmingly negitive response seemed more of a mistrust that MS can do it and that the technology couldn’t fit together. Which I thought was interesting.

First off, Apple’s announcement of the new .Mac package on Tuesday afternoon reassured me that this system can be useful. What Apple has done is make publishing your pictures and videos trivial. By uploading them to the .Mac account they are already published and categorized in albums and events exactly how you have them on your computer. Also, this website senses the iPhone and allows you to view the movies and pictures “iPhone-like”.

Also doing some research I found a list of websites that allow you to “get your data anywhere and anytime” . I am not saying that these are not great ideas and websites. My complaint is that they are primitive, “a new program to learn” and only allow certain types of documents and functionality. Egroupware was mentioned as having a ton of permissions and such, but as far as I can tell eGroupWare is a project management software, which this system is not trying to replace.

It seems like that the comments focused on having “standards” and that MS can’t get them accepted. Its true that the doc format isn’t a standard but when was the last time you got an OpenOffice format or TeX file or even Apple Keynote Presentation to edit? It seems with the new Adobe 7.0 added a lot of dynamic content can be added to pdf files to make them editable without having to have a doc file. This is great, because pdf is an ISO standard. Not sure if all the new functions are though. Specifically, I was recently impressed with this PDF file.

I agree, the U3 standard might make something like this obsolete. But this is a windows only thing and wouldn’t allow you to run MS office on an Apple, for instance. Also, who want to buy a 4 GB thumb drive to put all of your programs on AND your data? As for remote desktop and vnc, they suck. You would never be able to successfully create an AutoCAD drawing using vnc and I doubt remote desktop can do it either.

Let me try and focus a bit on the ADAPT system. It seems that when mixing my feeling about the CO presentations and introducing a new protocol some wires got crossed. Two assumptions have to be made: i) MS can pull it off, ii) you would want your computer running this service all the time (i.e. you trust its security).

The other point that seemed to be missed, probably because of my rambling, was that this is an All Documents Access Protocol/Transfer, not just word files or ppt files. In this respect I would be able to edit an AutoCAD at home if I need to fix it on vacation or other similar tasks.

SSH encrypted SVN

There are two things this system has to have and its encrypted file transfer and an automatic version system. I choose these two as the most important because the main point is to compete with emerging web application technologies. SSH encrypted transfer is slower than, say, ftp. So allow it to be turned off, but if I am allowing a group of people in an office to edit important client information or like-wise I would want this to be encrypted.

SVN is critical. Not only in the merging technology that it has but in the version control. In this scheme text based files like odf’s or other open formats would be trivial. Your office program would open up and show the differences in marked up colors and you would accept or decline the changes. For more complicated files, such as AutoCAD documents, pdfs and say, GarageBand files, a binary only versioning would be made. Do you see where I am going? Any type of file would be able to be shared either by downloading a version and merging your document or by editing it from the computer where it resides. Similar to corporations who deal with thin-clients.

Permissions

The next important thing this system has to have is proper permissions. This was explained in the previous post but I will repeat it here. When you drag a file to the shared directory you are confronted with a dialog to se the permissions and add the people who are able to work on the file. This permission can be as complex as needed: give some people permissions to: i) read only locally, ii) download (check out), iii) highlight and note taking only (locally or remotely) and iv) edit locally only. The files which have some type of permission will be indicated on the icon set and those that have no permissions will not show. So if you have a file called “Jason is a dork.doc” you can not give me permissions to view this file and I will not know it exists.

Tunneling from local computer

Both the read and edit only locally needs some way to display the file. If I don’t own MS office on my Mac but I need to edit a file at home I can open it up at work and do what needs to be done. This can be controlled by licensing so that way an office can’t purchase one copy of office and have 100 people editing files locally. But the same can be done (if it is truly cross platform) where I can let a friend in Japan lay down some beats on my GarageBand file then I lay down the guitar and export it. The protocol makes sharing easy and fully cross platform. Also you can view your pictures or movies locally, allowing people to comment with Meta tags or edit the album names and titles.

Conclusion

Perhaps this idea is too “mainframe-like” to work. But thinking about how I use svn and how I would like to allow others to merge their changes and documents to large journal articles this thought process of “one copy, one version” is needed in the industry.

Talk about getting what you ask for. My previous post about how microsoft can remain relevant for the next 10 years and the new protocol that can get them there, was met with some heavy skepticisms. But in general, the comments missed the point. I want to address those comments and further explain why I think the ADAPT system would be exciting. Also the overwhelmingly negitive response seemed more of a mistrust that MS can do it and that the technology couldn’t fit together. Which I thought was interesting.

First off, Apple’s announcement of the new .Mac package on Tuesday afternoon reassured me that this system can be useful. What Apple has done is make publishing your pictures and videos trivial. By uploading them to the .Mac account they are already published and categorized in albums and events exactly how you have them on your computer. Also, this website senses the iPhone and allows you to view the movies and pictures “iPhone-like”.

Also doing some research I found a list of websites that allow you to “get your data anywhere and anytime” . I am not saying that these are not great ideas and websites. My complaint is that they are primitive, “a new program to learn” and only allow certain types of documents and functionality. Egroupware was mentioned as having a ton of permissions and such, but as far as I can tell eGroupWare is a project management software, which this system is not trying to replace.

It seems like that the comments focused on having “standards” and that MS can’t get them accepted. Its true that the doc format isn’t a standard but when was the last time you got an OpenOffice format or TeX file or even Apple Keynote Presentation to edit? It seems with the new Adobe 7.0 added a lot of dynamic content can be added to pdf files to make them editable without having to have a doc file. This is great, because pdf is an ISO standard. Not sure if all the new functions are though. Specifically, I was recently impressed with this PDF file.

I agree, the U3 standard might make something like this obsolete. But this is a windows only thing and wouldn’t allow you to run MS office on an Apple, for instance. Also, who want to buy a 4 GB thumb drive to put all of your programs on AND your data? As for remote desktop and vnc, they suck. You would never be able to successfully create an AutoCAD drawing using vnc and I doubt remote desktop can do it either.

Let me try and focus a bit on the ADAPT system. It seems that when mixing my feeling about the CO presentations and introducing a new protocol some wires got crossed. Two assumptions have to be made: i) MS can pull it off, ii) you would want your computer running this service all the time (i.e. you trust its security).

The other point that seemed to be missed, probably because of my rambling, was that this is an All Documents Access Protocol/Transfer, not just word files or ppt files. In this respect I would be able to edit an AutoCAD at home if I need to fix it on vacation or other similar tasks.

SSH encrypted SVN

There are two things this system has to have and its encrypted file transfer and an automatic version system. I choose these two as the most important because the main point is to compete with emerging web application technologies. SSH encrypted transfer is slower than, say, ftp. So allow it to be turned off, but if I am allowing a group of people in an office to edit important client information or like-wise I would want this to be encrypted.

SVN is critical. Not only in the merging technology that it has but in the version control. In this scheme text based files like odf’s or other open formats would be trivial. Your office program would open up and show the differences in marked up colors and you would accept or decline the changes. For more complicated files, such as AutoCAD documents, pdfs and say, GarageBand files, a binary only versioning would be made. Do you see where I am going? Any type of file would be able to be shared either by downloading a version and merging your document or by editing it from the computer where it resides. Similar to corporations who deal with thin-clients.

Permissions

The next important thing this system has to have is proper permissions. This was explained in the previous post but I will repeat it here. When you drag a file to the shared directory you are confronted with a dialog to se the permissions and add the people who are able to work on the file. This permission can be as complex as needed: give some people permissions to: i) read only locally, ii) download (check out), iii) highlight and note taking only (locally or remotely) and iv) edit locally only. The files which have some type of permission will be indicated on the icon set and those that have no permissions will not show. So if you have a file called “Jason is a dork.doc” you can not give me permissions to view this file and I will not know it exists.

Tunneling from local computer

Both the read and edit only locally needs some way to display the file. If I don’t own MS office on my Mac but I need to edit a file at home I can open it up at work and do what needs to be done. This can be controlled by licensing so that way an office can’t purchase one copy of office and have 100 people editing files locally. But the same can be done (if it is truly cross platform) where I can let a friend in Japan lay down some beats on my GarageBand file then I lay down the guitar and export it. The protocol makes sharing easy and fully cross platform. Also you can view your pictures or movies locally, allowing people to comment with Meta tags or edit the album names and titles.

Conclusion

Perhaps this idea is too “mainframe-like” to work. But thinking about how I use svn and how I would like to allow others to merge their changes and documents to large journal articles this thought process of “one copy, one version” is needed in the industry.