Switched from Blackberry to Droid Pro

UPDATE - 2/19/2012 - Newly acquired a Droid 4, replacing my DroidPro. First Reaction - Much Better! Definitely way faster. Will post new blog post soon.

UPDATE - 3/23/2013 - I am ready to dump my keyboard, and go full touch screen, but awaiting Verizon contractual obligations until October. The main change in my usage is...type less! With wireless everywhere, I spend more time on my MacBook.
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I've been using Droid Pro (Verizon) for one week now, having ditched my Blackberry after 9 loyal years as a thumb user. I was a Blackberry power user, and I have been waiting years for a device like the Droid Pro because I must have a physical, usable, tactile keyboard. It was difficult not to get an iPhone, watching other developers and CTOs enjoy them, but in the end I decided that the iPhone is just not a business email device.

My verdict is... Droid Pro beats Blackberry. I am still getting past some significant keyboard differences, see below. A number of journalists have written reviews comparing the two devices, but with so many smart-phone devices available now, it wasn't really that useful to a long-time Blackberry user like myself. Here is my review (in bullet form)...

Pros

• Much better notification controls than Blackberry, can configure both sound and vibration for different apps
• Getting to phone, gmail, yahoo mail, text messaging, calendar, and much easier than Blackberry
• Keyboard is almost on par, with one major exception (see 'Cons')
• Screen timeout, controls, off in pocket all work extremely well. Only bug is screen sometimes flips between portrait/landscape when first coming our of pocket and activating
• Apps work fantastic, very much like iPhone (I know, IPhone nailed this years ago). My Blackberry 8300 SUCKED at this, and probably always will
• In general, seems highly configurable as a phone and apps.
• LOVE Verizon, always works for me in the NYC area and when traveling

Cons

• MAJOR Keyboard issue - When hitting keys in top qwerty row, I frequently also hit touch screen command with my fat thumbs (menu/home/back/search), which jumps out of the app I am typing into. Took me a few days to figure out what was happening. Now that I am watchful, happening less, but needs resolution
• MINOR keyboard issue - No capital letter on key hold-down, must hit shift (I often used this feature on Blackberry)
• Battery runs out before end of day. I have 2 chargers, one at work and one at home
• Reading email always seems to be an extra click away, but getting used to it
• Contacts are a little slower (I have over a thousand), not quite as easy as Blackberry, but getting used to it

Things I haven't yet figured out

• I like notifications (drag top down to see what's new since last use, email, apps, etc), but haven't quite figured out how best to use
• How to easily take multiple notes/files? (on Blackberry, was Notes function)
• Different apps for same function (i.e. text messaging), always prompts me for which one on action, annoying and caused me deinstall 2nd text message app I was testing
• Allows me to send text messages to non-mobile phone numbers, why? It's just stupid.
• No easy way to show unread emails in gmail or yahoo mail

The Droid Pro is definitely a learning experience, but after just one short week, I am hooked.

What is "Open"?

I am a huge advocate of open source software, and now that I am CTO at an open textbook company, I am pondering the question "What is open?". Let me use the moniker "open product" for covering open source software and open textbooks (and if anyone has a better term, please let me know!).

Some criteria for an open product:-
1) A version of product available at no cost
2) A company developing an open product needs a revenue stream to support product development (in what manner those revenues are derived can vary widely)
3) Product needs to be remixable (in technology parlance, "mashable"), allowing for an even better product or use of product

As an open source expert once told me, "without revenue, there is no open source". I believe this applies to all open products.

Many, many products meet the above criteria for "open", let me pick a few:-
- Linux
- Google search
- Flat World Knowledge open textbooks

Not to say Flat World Knowledge open textbooks are in the same league as Linux and Google, but what's interesting is that each of these products provides different revenue streams. Redhat makes revenue by providing support to enterprise Linux users. Additionally, other companies like HP make revenue using Linux on their hardware (HP has claimed that open source software has accounted for billions in indirect, additional revenue sales). Google makes revenue selling keyword and ad placement inside their search results. Of all the open products, in my opinion Google has made the most significant revenue, and interestingly using that revenue to support other open products (i.e. Google docs, email, maps, etc.), which in turn can drive additional revenue.

At Flat World Knowledge, our revenue stream is selling print-on-demand textbooks in addition to our no cost online textbooks. We also sell additional material useful for students, including audio study guides, flash cards and quizzes.

In open source software, you get the "source code", which itself is changable and remixable (depending on creative commons licensing terms). At Flat World Knowledge, our open textbooks are "customizable" (i.e. changable) by educators who adopt our textbooks. They can move chapters and sections around, add anotations, and in the future do many other customizations with our open textbooks. It really is quite amazing how open products have really changed they way products are developed and used, with many, many more changes to come!

With new technology, the tech community at large looks for a moniker to understand and grab on for new concepts. Recent ones include "web 2.0", "cloud computing", and "NoSQL". I wonder what is the best moniker for covering open source software, open textbooks, open courseware, and other "open" things as a group? What about "open product"? I would like to hear from others if this works for the category, or if they have or have heard of better terms. Clearly, this is a space of growing interest, and we will benefit from have a term to describe this new concept wider than just open source software.

Started today at Flat World Knowledge

I started today as CTO at Flat World Knowledge, a publisher of open-source college text books (a good article describing the model here). It's very exciting to join a start-up and be in the education industry. I also like its similarities to the open source software industry.

While I've been on the corporate route since 2001, I've spent most of my career at small companies. I am really looking forward to the scrappiness and nimbleness of small. While I will be crazy busy, hoping I can regain my blogging activity.

How to choose between a Mac and a PC?

Simple. Is price the major factor in your purchase decision?
YES -> buy a PC
NO-> buy a Mac
Apologies to anyone who was expecting more. FYI, six months ago I purchased a MacBookPro, it had been 20 years since I my last Mac.

UPDATE 3/23/2013 - Never looked back from this decision, and have become a 100% Mac household. For startups in NYC, almost all are going with Macs. For developers, a non-brainer.

Is cloud computing ready?

I recently read Infoworld's coverage of Cloud Computing (link here). I think the description is overly complex, futuristic and not clear. The cloud is too new to bed considered as a stack. Let me try to simplify the cloud.

IMO, there are 3 types of cloud services:-
1) SaaS (i.e. Salesforce.com, email outsourced, etc.)
2) Web services (i.e. google maps, facebook connect, XML APIs, ProgrammableWeb, etc.)
3) Infrastructure (i.e. Amazon EC2). This is what I think of when I say "the cloud"

SaaS is relatively easy, either do it or don't, depending on whether SaaS product provides the features you need. Web services is also easy, really just a web API. (NOTE: I am making the assumption that security issues in the cloud meet appropriate standards for you applications. This is different in different industries and applications).

Infrastructure is hard. The main barrier is with existing applications that are two or more years old, and not cloud compatible. I've not seen nor heard of any CTOs moving an existing application to the cloud. I've only seen it done for new application frameworks which are cloud-friendly, typically PHP, Ruby-On-Rails and other open source frameworks. Many startups are using these open source frameworks and the cloud for infrastructure, and having great success.

The other "unspoken" barrier is that deploying in the cloud invalidates existing corporate data center investments. Oops! You would think a private cloud would solve this investment dilemma, but I have not seen large corporations move this way. I was completely surprised when I discovered that most very large corporations have no intentions of building a private cloud.

Question: how is a CTO to move to the cloud?
Answer: by replacing existing application with a brand-new application which is cloud-friendly

This is tough, who has time, budget or inclination to completely replace existing applications? This is way harder than internet-enabling applications, which CTOs have been doing or completed in the last 5+ years. How long will it take for us to completely replace all our application frameworks?

In the meantime, we'll continue to watch with envy as startups make full use of the cloud.

Kindle 2 Review

I acquired a Kindle 2 a few months ago, and had been using it on my daily train commute. I spend 1st hour reading NY Times, and 2nd hour reading blogs and book samples. Having fun with it, and I am almost ready to cancel my NY times print subscription.

What I like:-
- It’s .3 inches thin, and very style-ly. Has that iPod/iPhone/Palm coolness feel to hold and touch
- Screen is easy to read in all but low light, no eye strain
- All buttons and controls are excellent from physical/mechanical perspective (see "don’t like" below on navigation)
- Power lasts a week, whereas iPod doesn't, although I find myself turning off wireless after daily NY times download, which triples battery time
- Wireless connectivity always works. Full books download in 60 seconds after purchase
- Daily subscription downloads (NY Times, Newsweek, Blogs) happens automatically
- Pictures in articles make NY Times feel like the NY Times. Has a Table of Contents (TOC) for NY Times, easy to browse around
- 14 day free trials of periodicals and first chapter free samples of books. Love this!
- Saving my place in what I read
- Looking up words in dictionary automatically (using this when reading bed-time stories to my son)
- Shopping for books on Amazon store works very well. Auto connected to my Amazon account
- Emailing documents to myself my 10 cents is good (they will be very long documents), although this can be done for free using USB cable to PC
- Seems to bounce well when dropped occasionally

What I don’t like
- Navigation is ok, but not intuitive like the iPod. Needs learning (i.e. difference between back and previous buttons)
- Almost every person in the office whom I demoed to thought it was touch screen for navigation
- Comes with no physical cover, what about just a cheap one?
- $15 for NY times monthly subscription? What about ½ price for existing print subscribers
- Paying monthly fee for blog subscriptions (basically subsidizing free wireless, which Amazon pays)
- Can't have automatic search against NY times (i.e. basketball, Australia, Drupal), has to be manual
- Can't tell which sections of NY times I’ve read, and which I haven’t
- No NY times crossword or KenKen (plus side is I spend more time reading)
- Article clippings lose all formatting, its like Unix (i.e. it just copied text appended to one long file of clippings)
- I don’t like the text-to-speech in general, but that’s just me.
- Cant read reviews of books in store, only overall rating
- I have been unsure about using it on subway.

UPDATE: Went to buy Harry Potter, Book 7 for recent overseas trip and was not available. And I thought initially that search was broken. Same experience as searching for Beatles in iTunes store. Had to carry heavy Harry Potter book 7 on plane, so that soured me a bit on Kindle, but guessing I will get over it.

Voodoo meetings

Technologists are typically far from superstitious, I am near the top of that list. But there is one thing I am superstitious about... systems failing over holidays or long weekend. Nothing like blissfully leaving the office for more than 2 days off and having it interrupted by an outage call.

One technique I use to ward off these holiday/long weekend outages is to hold a "readiness" meet just before the time off. My experience is that doing such a meeting usually meant nothing bad would happen, or at least if it did the team would be prepared for it.

My team recently did a readiness meeting before the US Thanksgiving holidays, and one of my team came to me early the Monday after and exclaimed "that Voodoo meeting worked, no issues/outages". Hence, the name, which has since stuck and people know what it means if they are invited to a Voodoo meeting. .

Seriously, there is nothing better to get ready than assembling your team together and asking them if the are ready. Are we doing any changes that we should review? Are there any projects launching? Who's going to where should something happen? You may find they go to the desks and double-check systems and changes.

And just as important as a readiness meeting is reaching out to the business to tell them you are "ready", and reiterating incident escalation process. Once we discovered a major issue on a Tuesday after a long weekend, and later determined some end-users had suspected something, but didn't want to bother the IT team on the long weekend.

My message back them:- "Please bother us", its our job.