mip's scan

What's All The Fuss About Netbooks?

I must admint that netbooks are a tech that puzzled me somewhat.  For a time I felt they were too small and, more importantly for me, too underpowered.  Of course, what I was thinking about were mini laptops that I tested over the years - there was no netbook category.  They were ultraportable laptops like a Sony UX50 or a Fujitsu Lifebook.  I liked their size (for the most part) but found them to be pokey/sluggish when it came to performance.  I loved the concept of the OQO as this really tiny computer you could use at your desk, plugged into a keyboard and monitor.  Then, when you had to leave the office, you simply grabbed the OQO, put it in your pocket and off you go.  A very appealing idea for me.  The problem again, was performance.  The device is somewhat underpowered.  The other issue - price.  You were really paying a premium for that portability.

All those things I mentioned above came back to me (mixed feelings) when I started to see this new category emerge called Netbooks.  They have been taking the markets by storm though, in a time when laptops and PCs have been taking a beating.  I often see articles that talk about how business users are warming to the netbook and how the overseas market has been soaring for these low powered mini devices, but still I scratched my head in wonderment.

How I Became a Twitter Convert

I've been a long time Facebook user.  And I love it.  I find it an incredible way to keep in touch with family and friends.  I'm not sure if it is because I've used Facebook for so long that Twitter initially made little sense to me.  Let me tell you then, how I went from being confused, to a huge supporter of Twitter.

I signed up for Twitter some time ago; when exactly I can't remember.  I typed a couple of one-line updates.  That's what they felt like to me, like Facebook status updates.  That was what was somewhat disappointing to me.  It was like a lightweight version of Facebook.  Status updates but nothing else.  I tried to see what the appeal was.  I searched for some people that I knew, but alas, nobody was there.  So I stopped visiting, content to update status in Facebook, share photos with families, and trade comments with friends.  Twitter seemed like a technology that had been surpassed by Facebook.

From time to time I kept seeing Twitter pop up in the odd news article or blog post that I would read.  Then I heard about how Barack Obama was using Twitter to reach out to the grassroots supporters.  I checked it out again, but it felt like the same experience I had the first time.  

I again, I left my Twitter account untouched.  Then several weeks ago, I saw someone in my Facebook network questioning "what is the appeal of Twitter"  - I chimed in and echoed the sentiment.  Someone else wrote back "Follow a few people and see what happens."  With that thought, I got back onto Twitter and searched for people I knew.  I found a few, but not many.  I really didn't want to email my close friends and family and try and lure them onto Twitter - I figured they'd all have the same reaction as me and feel that Facebook more than satisfied their social networking needs.  

I persevered and started updating Twitter.  I did like that I could update it more frequently in Twitter than I could in Facebook.  People in Facebook, while they enjoy a status update, they definitely don't want to see four or five or a dozen updates in a day.  So I was diligently making updates, answering Twitter's question: What are you doing?

Then it happened, February 10.  I was doing some research on a business intelligence platform and I updated my status to read Is creating some Microstrategy research notes.

Google Office Suite Complete. Now What?

Google added to their online office suite that capability to create presentations.  Previously they had the online word processor and spreadsheet.  Now they've launched a competitor to Microsoft's Powerpoint.  I've been using the presentation tool in the last 2 days to create a presentation I'm giving this afternoon.  Yes, that is brave thing to do, but I wanted to stress test the tool in a real world setting.  If you are asking yourself the question "what advantage does this online suite of tools bring?" watch the video below, then join me after the jump for a little discussion on this.

Be Safe When Using Public WiFi

It is early morning and I've walked over to a small café while up here at the cottage. They have free WiFi and it has made me pause and think about an important thing you can do if you are a Gmail user. If you aren't careful when using public WiFi, you can be hacked. Someone could grab your WiFi session, then hack into your account. If you use Gmail, to avoid this issue simply type https at the start of your web address rather than simply http. The adding of the S will make your connection to gmail secue. It is a valuable feature that 99% of people don't use.

Not all web-based email providers offer this. Hotmail for example, doesn't offer this kind of encryption. If you have web-based email in the work place, you system administrators can make it so that the connection must be secured through SSL as well.

So if you want your email to be secure while using WiFi, I'd suggest using gmail, starting the web address off with https. I for example have the address bookmarked that way so I don't use the unencrypted tunnel by mistake. Even though I'm out in cottage country, I'm playing it safe. So should you!

Safari 3.0 Beta

For those of you who are Mac-enthusiasts, you probably already know that the Safari web browser, version 3.0, is available for public beta.  If you haven't gotten it, get it....it is a nice improvement.  What you might also know, is that this beta can also be downloaded for Windows.  Yes, that is right...Safari for Windows.  Now this isn't breaking news...it's been out  there for a bit, but then again, that isn't what I try and do here at mip's scan.  I don't want to break news...I want to tell you how I find things to be as I test them OR I like to think about trends. 

So I'll spare you the "how do you like Safari 3.0 beta" post....in short, I like it.

What I do want to kick around a bit is the "Why?".  What motive could Apple have in releasing Safari for Windows? 

The Power of Wikis

I recently read a good book on Wikis called Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott.  It is an excellent read.  I had a colleague at work who "just gets this stuff" read it as well and he found it interesting and thought provoking.  The thing is, most people don't seem to understand Wikis and that prevents them from delving into the topic with a book such as the one from Tapscott.  I tried to explain it to a few other people I know but they weren't interested.  It is kind of like blogging before it became mainstream...most people just didn't grasp it and couldn't seem to get into it.  Then it became mainstream and unsurprisingly, a lot of people now blog.  I think the same will be true about Wikis.  They are the next big thing in and around collaboration.
I was recently preparing to introduce this topic to a group I was making a presentation to and wanted to find something I could show them that would help illustrate what a Wiki is and why it is better for collaboration than just emailing, for example.

Well the video below does that..perfectly.  If you are interested in Wikis but haven't really been able to get your head around them, watch the video.  Then go out and get Tapscott's book.  Then...go out and build a Wiki for your next collaborative project!

My Facebook Experiment

Back on February 26 I first wrote about Facebook.  I signed up to test it out and see what it was all about.  I had promised to get back to you on it once I used it for a while.  Well, now, 3 months and 92 friends later, I'm happy to come back to this topic and write about it.

In short, the experience with this site/tool/service/network has been outstanding.  I love it.  I've met old friends from university, high school and elementary school.  My grade eight graduating class is planning a reunion, posting old pics from school trips and having lots of funny and reminiscent little conversations.  I've been in touch with old colleagues of mine.  Close friends of mine and I use it as part of our daily interactions.  My family, which is geographically spread out, keep in touch through it, giving updates on each other and our lives.   It has been a very positive social networking experience for me.

It goes further than that though.  It isn't just a social tool.  It is becoming more than that.  Facebook is really becoming more of an interesting application platform.  You can now build applications for Facebook and already there are numerous examples of interesting and useful apps - all leveraging the social networking capital that Facebook has built-up over time.

Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful

Well, as we get hit with a fairly bad storm and now freezing rain here in Souther Ontario I was exploring, of course weather tools.  Lots out there and mostly all the same.  And then I cam across an interesting one I though I'd share called Weather Bonk.  Yeah, weird name but cool site.  What do I like about it? 

Well first, they've leverage Google Maps and that is really well done.  With Google Map as the centre piece, they layer on after you select radar, real time weather info.  Temperature and precipitation, if I understand the map.
Around the map, they've made it very "portal like", aggregating data from other sources.  I like how they show traffic cams on the left that change as you zoom in or navigate to other parts of the map.  If there is no traffic cam in that area, they'll show you the closest one and tell you the distance from your location to that camera.  Nothing beats a good visual of a jammed highway with cars stuck in the snow to really drive home the fact that you shouldn't....well...drive home.

I also like how they have a feature called Route Weather.  You give it your starting and ending point (i.e., where you are leaving from and where you are trying to go) and it'll tell you when the best time to go will be.  Very neat feature.

Hopefully, if you're reading this in an area where you got hit by snow and ice, you got home safe and sound.

The WiFi Effect

Let me tell a story to set the context for this post.
I remember when I had dial-up internet at home. I was basically the only person who was using the internet in my home.  My wife had an email account that she never really used.  I would show her things online like the newspapers available for reading but it never really flew.  Magazines available, same thing, a no-go.  Online grocery shopping, no thanks.  To be honest, even my use was somewhat limited.  I'd jump on and off the internet maybe a half dozen times in a day.  It was frustrating because I thought there was so much available and yet as a household, we were hardly using what was there.  When I asked my wife one day why she wasn't using it that much her response was telling - "It is too much of a hassle.  All this dialing, waiting for things to load, dropped connections."  Then an interesting thing happened back in 1997 (wow that is a looooong time ago now) - we got highspeed internet access.  Not just highspeed...but always on highspeed.  It radically changed the way we interacted and leveraged the web.  This has been the case for many families I'm sure.  However, for me, the integration of the web/internet as a part of daily life at home came when we went completely wireless using a WiFi router.  Moving to highspeed from dial-up freed us from the limitations of speed and the need to connect (which took time).  Moving from highspeed to wifi freed us from the limitation of where.  Without WiFi, we'd have to go to a certain place to get our internet, namely, wherever the computer was setup.  With WiFi, the Internet is where you need/want it to be in your home.  So what?  Yeah, you're right, this isn't revolutionary news is it?  Well, I read an interesting article late last night how they have found that people with WiFi do more online.

People who use wireless internet "show deeper engagement with cyberspace," according to an American study.

This doesn't come as a surprise to me, but it is nice to see it is a broad phenomenon and not just something that was taking place in my household.  And it takes me to the next step: really highspeed wireless.  That is what will make "the network"/the web/the internet really a ubiquitous part of our daily life in and out of the home.  I can already see some changes just having moved from 802.11g to 802.11n in my home.  The faster throughput allows me to stream video content from one machine (my iMac) to any other computer without and hiccups. 

So how about you?  Have you moved to WiFi and if not why?  If you have, how has it changed things for you?

Social Networking & Exploring Facebook

What is it about social networking that is so intriguing?  Why does it work?  Why are we drawn to it?  Why do young people seem to "get it" more so than older people? 

Those are question I've asked myself again and again at various times like when exploring other social networking phenomenons like mySpace or YouTube, Wallop from Microsoft or even blogging.  Why is it that it has such mass appeal?  Is it because we live in such a fast paced, spread-out society that we yearn to connect and do so online? Social networking has become such an important social trend that even consumer products like the Zune mp3 player from Microsoft have started to build it into the product and give it the tag line: Welcome to the Social. 

Again this question of the "why" came to me as I began to explore a new tool / site / social network that was suggested to me called Facebook.  That little badge you see at the top of this post is from Facebook - it updates my status for example dynamically as I change it.  The question is, why change it?  Why put anything into something like Facebook?  Let me tell you what I've experienced in the past few days.