Integrate or divide?

Mash or mesh?

Two interesting ideas crossed the desk today - Intel's Mash Maker and Microsoft's Live Mesh. The one allows you to collate different information on one platform, the other allows central information to be spread across different platforms.

Ah, but if only it were that easy... I struggled with Mash Maker for a while, without successfully implementing any useful combinations at all. And Mesh simply isn't available to anyone outside the US yet - although even if it were, it seems to be restricted at present to Vista or XP only. So, no progress on either front. But as both are really just beta's right now, I'm not too disappointed: past experience shows that by the time they are ready for the mainstream, there will be sufficient info and support out there make them usable: they need that sort of help to succeed, given the increasingly diverse and complex information environment out there. It's not that there are particularly new or high barriers to implementing new ideas, it's just that there are so many of them hitting us on a frequent basis that only those which can be grasped easily seem to take off.

It's easy to come up with a lot of examples of successful products or concepts - in communication, blogging and Twitter represent just how easy it can be to get ideas across. In commerce, PayPal and eBay showed how simple ideas can succeed. In contrast, the complex and difficult to understand stuff is at best relegated to backwaters and niche markets: just look at the relative popularity of Lotus Notes/Domino versus SQL Server or (and here's where the ton of bricks come flying at me) Linux versus Windows. Sorry, Open Source fans - but if Linux had been as simple as Windows to get going several years ago, it's likely that it would have had a better foothold than it has yet achieved; I'm not saying it won't eventually become at least as prevalent as it's more commercial competitors, but I feel it still has some way to go before it can be classed as equally popular. The whole concept of Microsoft Windows is keeping it (relatively)simple, at least as far as an OS can be: when it fails, it may be both spectacular and expensive, but I still recall with absolute clarity my first battles with Linux (an early Mandrake distro), and the problems I had writing my own graphics routines just to get X11 working.

I suppose Apple has taken the perceived simplicity to the extreme, enabled by the near-absolute control over hardware - and look how popular that is with the fans. The rest of us are inhibited by the price of Apple's products, from which I take that there must be more under the bonnet than is immediately apparent, but we can't deny that it is both neat and effective. A one button mouse is all it needs - just try running Windows like that (yes, I know, you can do nearly everything with the keyboard, but who remembers all the complex key combinations? Point made, I think).

So I'll watch the mash and mesh over the next few months, see what if anything develops - and then see how much we're going to be charged to for the right to manage the appearance and location of data again. Because there's one thing both systems have in common - they both want some sort of central control over your data, be it as communal mashups, or central data storage - and the idea is that we'll willingly pay someone to take that load off our minds.

The chattering classes

I'm wondering if to use Twitter, and if so, how best to use it. Whilst it looks as though it might be of some value, right now I'm frankly unable to put it into any kind of meaningful sense.

Is it a blog replacement?  Clearly not - there's no way to develop an argument or include much more than the stripped down basic text.  Where would this post have been if I'd been limited to 140 characters?  (OK, count them - right in the middle of 'unable' which is a fair measure of my ability to make posts that succinct).

Is it an IM replacement? On this, I'm a little more ambiguous.  Given the right clients, it can do most of the direct communication tied up in Messenger, for instance.  But then I'm forced to ask 'why?'.  What's the advantage of Twitter over Messenger?  Both have PC and mobile clients.  Is Twitter simpler to use than IM?  Maybe, but it also has a big potential disadvantage of being too open.  Sometimes I want my conversations to be relatively private.

The basic idea of Twitter - type what you are doing right now - strikes a wrong chord in my old-fashioned mind.  There may be a new generation coming along who don't have either an expectation of privacy, or the general desire for it, and this group may well grasp Twitter and its like with open and unrestricted enthusiasm.  And I'll admit, there's absolutely nothing to force anyone to keep it updated constantly. But you run the risk of disappearing off the radar if you don't update; you'll lose followers if you don't have anything interesting to say; so there's a social pressure to keep it active, and as stimulating as you can.

I suspect eventually, that much of the excitement will die down and, having found that it's largely hype, a lot of the userbase will just drop it, moving on to the next big thing in communication.  And I think we're already halfway there - isn't Youtube accepting live video input?  Helmet cams will be the next big fashion accessory, and we'll all be able to see what the contributors are up to, instead of relying on hearsay.  And that is scary.

(Pete - on Twitter as @pemur)

Quick update

Whilst I'm online, here's another success story - the broadband connection: whilst I can't say it's been absolutely reliable, it has now lasted seven whole days with only two disconnects in between.  Unfortunately, I rebooted the PC the other day, but still have some details of the line stats.  They show an interesting picture, clearly indicating over two days between resets. 

The SNR had actually dropped to 4 occasionally without killing the line - the figures I have show resets occurring while the SNR was of the order of 8 or so, so I'm glad I didn't let O2 support persuade me to alter the threshold.

All in all, a lot better than six resets per hour, so kudos to O2 Support.  Even if I did have to argue with them on at least three separate occasions to get the firmware update.

Now, can I have the .3 upgrade, see if that improves speed as well as reliability?

It's dark in here, isn't it?

Well, not really.  But it might have been.

Despite all the fears to the contrary, I have a working system.  Took the plunge and loaded SP1 onto the main workstation's Vista.

I know, I wasn't going to do it unless forced.  But I got bored, and there's nothing like living dangerously.  Also, it seemed best to try this out on a non-critical device first.  My flush of success in re-animating the laptop, for however brief a period it might turn out to be, gave me confidence to go ahead on the desktop system.  After all, if it all went to pot, I'd at least have the laptop to fall back on and be able to access Internet resources to see who to blame.

But against all expectation, the process was smooth as anything, albeit a bit slow.  I hate to think how long this would take on a lesser machine - this isn't the greatest box ever built, but with a quad core processor, enough RAM to sink a 32 bit OS, and RAID disks it's quicker than most.  Yet it still seemed to take an age to complete the download, then the install, then the three-stage reboot.  But I have that coveted little addition on my system properties page now - SP1.

Hope I won't regret this

Another step into the great wide world out there, that's all the comm tools installed on the laptop.  Or, more correctly, installed on what's left of the laptop.

It's taken me over two hours tonight to get this into some sort of usable state, a job I've had to do because I have as yet failed miserably in getting hold of any mobile computing tools from work, and I have an important business trip due in two days.  However, I have no great confidence in this system keeping up the pace - just hope it lasts the next 72 hours...

Kiss of death

After a couple of months of far too frequent disconnections, I finally snapped last night.  During the space of one hour, the DSL connection was dropped no less than six times.  Now, O2 support are very good at answering the phone, and will always take the time to find out what is happening.  However, on the previous two occasions that I've been forced to contact them, I was promised both times that they'd update the firmware on the router.  Being the patient sort that I am (the rest of you can stop laughing now), I waited.  And waited.  And had even more line drops, but no updated firmware for the router.

So this time it was an update or I'd walk.  I'd be loathe to lose the connection, but as it was becoming increasingly unreliable it seemed a reasonable decision to make.  Anyway, after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, which included the standard "we'll raise your SNRM" and my usual response "no you won't", I got my update while still on the line.  Version 6.2.27.1 was replaced by, wait for it, 6.2.27.2.

OK, not a massive jump.  Not even a second point update.  But (and this is where the post title becomes relevant) it hasn't dropped the line so far, in 24 hours.