Category Archives: General

Quickie post here, but I did a full system recovery this past weekend, and now appear to have a working computer. Of course, the initial reaction you should have is: it completely sucks that one would have to do a system recovery just to get their brand new computer working properly!

For those doing their research, I unfortunately can’t recommend Vaios anymore. Maybe this’ll change down the road, but it’s simply ridiculous that the out of box experience I had was so terrible. Granted I’m a power-user and I probably tried doing too many things simultaneously during the first-time setup, but if that’s enough to mess it up, it shouldn’t have given me that much control.

That behind me, I will say that *this* version of my VGN-SZ460N laptop seems to work pretty darn well. I’ve disabled Aero, but otherwise Vista is cranking away. For now.

The restore process I used:

1. Triple-redundancy backup (yup, 3 different storage locations) for all my Photos, Videos, and Documents. Also copied my bookmarks, my Outlook.pst file, and took screenshots of my email account settings for fast replication.
2. Had a shot of whiskey then clicked on the System Recovery option built-into the laptop.
3. Paced nervously for an hour, trying to remember what I might have forgotten to backup.
4. Watched the restore happen, with only 2 “scary” dialogs during the process wherein Vista informed me it might have had trouble with two of the installs. I chose to ignore them.
5. Logged into my fresh Vista configuration.
6. Restored all my stuff

And that was last night, so I’ve had almost a full day of productivity already, and everything is much, much better.

At the end of the day, however, Apple doesn’t need the iPhone to convince people like me about the desktop. Companies like Sony and Microsoft are doing their work for them.

First, go read Kent’s great post on the 5 stages of blogging. Don’t continue until you’ve done this, as my post makes almost no sense without it as a baseline.

Second (you aren’t cheating, are you? ok good), go read Jeremiah’s great followup on 5 other stages of blogging. Done?

I think these two have started a great analysis, and I’d suggest a third mini-path to add as well (and would make a pretty graphic if I weren’t in the midst of some very frustrating issues with my new Vaio and Vista). My third path would go right in between the other two, and would have these steps:

3. Ennui – at this point the blogger is neither focused nor disappointed, they are, in a word, bored. Maybe they have some traffic, maybe they don’t, but they find it more challenging to create content on a recurring basis. Writing becomes irregular, infrequent, and spans numerous topics. From Ennui, the blogger will either move on to 4a:Revival or 4b:Malaise.

4a. Revival – something sparks life back into the blogger, either another blog post, a personal or life-changing event, or some huge piece of industry-specific news. The blog regains its pulse and attention, and the blogger’s back on top of his/her game. From here, the blogger moves back into stage 2:Expectation.

4b. Malaise – the blogger posts even less frequently, and the blog becomes more of an afterthought than an activity, and is on its way to out. The blogger doesn’t necessarily go through Kent’s stages of alienation, because based on sheer numbers, most bloggers don’t really get intertwined with “the blogosphere”. In this case, reality sets in for the individual that they just aren’t a writer. I firmly believe that not everyone was meant to blog (or podcast or vlog). Blogging seems like a great idea when we all start it, but let’s face it: blogging is work, and good blogging is hard work. Most people don’t enjoy spending time on activities wherein they aren’t being successful or feeling good about themselves. After this, Kent’s original stage 5:Abandonment is the only spot left to go.
I’m curious to see where the thread goes from here.

First, to get the mandatory coverage out of the way: iPhone line. Ah, I feel better now.

A friend of mine told me he has adopted the “10% of JT” rule to digital “stuff”. I took ~400 pictures in the first 2 days when my son was born, he took 40. I’ve ripped over 600 of my CDs, he’s still not at 60 (but making progress). I think he’s way behind in the video realm, but I’m still just getting started over there.

What it’s really made me think about is the ability I have to truly chronicle the life of my child. I take pictures or video almost every day now, even if it’s just him in the crib or on his playmat. I managed to capture one of his first smiles in video (the real ones, not just the gas). When I talk to my parents about my upbringing, I quickly understand the advantage the digital world gives me. I’ll never ‘wonder’ what my child looked like at 2 days, 2 months, or 2 years.

The other amazing part of it is the ability to share with my family, located around the world. His 94-year-old great-grandmother gets my Flickr updates once a week, and she’s seen a video I made as well (of him sucking on his mother’s nose – quite adorable). My parents and in-laws are able to take the pictures and print them with Shutterfly or other services. I’ll gladly out-digital people by 1000%, it’s worth every megabyte.
But best of all will be the chance to show all these memories to my son when he’s older. And, of course, to every girl he ever dates.

Sometime last week I had come to the conclusion that either my new Vaio VGN-SZ460N is a lemon, or Vista is utterly terrible, or somewhere in between. On Monday night while talking to Michael Gartenberg (who’s spent more time with Vista and Vaios and everything else known to man and computing), he concurred that while Sony isn’t exactly known for high quality drivers, my experiences were, in a word, subpar.

By the way – iPhone.

After hearing enough Apple Geniuses stories (with the exception apparently of when you just walk into the store and try to buy a computer, at which point they no longer retain ‘genius’ status in my eyes, but I digress), yesterday I decided I’d put Sony to the task. Called support, held, held, held, held more, held, talked to someone, escalated, held, held, escalated, held, got on the phone with a specialist. Ahh. Specialist.

This guy (coincidentally named Jeremy – sweet) really did have a good grasp on the situation. Didn’t try to duck and cover. Didn’t have me waste time with a defrag or other clearly unnecessary step. His hunch was one of the following issues:

1. Bad motherboard
2. Bad RAM
3. Bad Vista load

After some diagnostics last night, it’s apparently not the RAM. And while it could be the motherboard, I don’t really want to wait the 7-10 days, nor pay $150 for on-site support. Supposedly some SonyStyle stores will get their own geniuses too sooner or later, but I’m not one for patience. So reloading Vista is the path I’ll try – I actually did have a quirky bootup the first time I turned on the PC, which apparently can knock the self-install for a loop, so hopefully that’s all the fix I need.
So, I’m doing my backup to my Drobo right now, and will follow up with a full System Recovery later this morning.

ps – The reason I wrote ‘iPhone’ above is apparently Congress recently passed a law that stated all blog posts made in the month of June must in some way reference the iPhone. Didn’t want to get in trouble…

I’d characterize myself as a fairly ambitious guy.  I’ve either started or been on the ground floor of about 6 companies (not including the two I tried to kick off in high school).  At present I have my about-to-be-named consumer technology product marketing consulting business (that’s a mouthful), two Web services startups, this blog, my not-so-biweekly Engadget column, and, most importantly, my wife and new baby to take care of. 

Pruning that list somewhat still leaves me with no fewer than four, and as many as six, recurring writing outlets (here, Engadget, the aren’t-I-clever-by-using-hyphens-to-mask-my-unnamed-company blog, and at least one of the Web services startups’ blogs).  Additionally, a lot of the client work I do has me writing numerous documents. 

So the question comes down to how to prioritize and focus on the blogging.  I have a bunch of ideas or even half-written posts about gadget marketing issues and suggestions – but I now want to keep those on ice until the ok-the-hyphen-thing-is-now-annoying company blog goes live.  I’d like to do some writing here on “what it’s like to build consumer electronics” but I don’t really have enough topics to keep me going, and I don’t know how compelling that is as a reader anyway.   I have a backlog of gadgets to review, but they are extremely time-consuming, and these days there are so many others doing the same thing, I feel it’s harder and harder to stand out.  This leaves the ol’ LD in a bit of an awkward spot – any suggestions from the crowd?

With all this writing, it’s somewhat ironic that I got booted out of the honors English classes back in high school, don’t ya think?

In my roles at both Mediabolic and Sling Media I gained a lot of exposure to speaking at conference, and had chances to join numerous industry visionaries on a variety of panels.  I’ve talked about the Digital Home to audiences as small as 20, and demoed a pre-production Slingbox to hundreds of engineers (well, until someone on stage with me accidentally broke it, but I covered for that).  I’ve always enjoyed public speaking, especially when it’s with a group of peers with interesting things to discuss and debate. 

But it’s not nearly as interesting if the panelists have too much of a “sell my company” agenda, or the moderators aren’t actively moderating – and I’ve sat through hours of both.  In two weeks, I’m going to participate in the Under the Radar: Entertainment and Media conference in Mountain View, CA.  Click here to register for the event. I’m particularly excited about this event because I once presented at an IBD (now Dealmaker Media) event for Mediabolic, and last year did the Momentum event for Sling.  Nice to keep it ‘all in the family’ like that, eh?

For those of you using feed readers, here’s a quick list of the presenting companies (as of the time of writing):

Adap.tv | Bunchball | ChaCha | CrazyEgg | Criteo | Cruxy | Doppelganger | Flowplay | Fora.tv | Hothead Games | iLike | Kaneva |  Kongregate | Meez | MOG | mPire | Multiverse | Pluggd | PolarRose |  PowerReviews | ReverbNation | ScanScout | SplashCast | Splice | ThisNext | Ustream.TV | Vidmeter | Visible Measures | Wize | XLNTAds | YuMe Networks | Zattoo

And the list of judges/presenters:

• John Balen, General Partner, Canaan Partners

• Chris Carvalho, Director, Business Development, Lucasfilm

• Sean Crawford, Director, Home Services, Orange FT Group

• Peter Daley, Equity Research Analyst, Rutberg

• Simon Hayhurst,  Director, Product Management,  Adobe

• David Hornik, General Partner, August Capital  

• Steven Horowitz, VP, Media Innovation, Yahoo!

• Sam Klepper, GM, MSN Media Network Group

• Steven Li, WebEx

• Doug MacMillan, Forum Nokia Americas

• Alexander Marquez, Director, Strategic Investments, Intel Capital

• Rafe Needleman, www.webware.com

• Chris Pirillo – Lockergnome.com

• Jeremy Toeman, www.livedigitally.com

• Jeff Yapp, Executive Vice President, MTV Networks Music & Logo Enterprise Group

C’mon, that’s a pretty outstanding list of companies and individuals.  If you work in the digital media, convergence, “digital home” or any other related space, you need to come!  All the cool kids’ll be there!

If you don’t come, we’ll be talking about you, and trust me – it won’t be pretty.

Seen Techmeme recently?  If not, it’s been Applerific for 48 hours now, and only barely about the iPhone!  Jobs announced Safari for Windows.  My favorite quote so far comes from a commentor (gasp):

i suspect it’ll be bundled with itunes by default, set itself as the default browser, set quicktime as the default media player, and set your homepage to the mac store with an imac already in your shopping basket.

One day later, it’s hackable.  Does that really surprise anyone?  My hunch is its equally hackable on OSX, but thats not quite as newsworthy, is it?

I’m sure there’s some big long uber-strategy here, but I don’t see it.  IE is not-so-great.  Firefox is fine. Opera is fine.  Do we need another browser?  Especially the oh-so-mediocre Safari. Is this a “foot-in-the-door” strategy? Sure doesn’t seem that way.

Where’s iPhoto for Windows?  Now THAT would be interesting, especially considering there’s no dominant photo app on the PC platform.

I’m 2 weeks into my Vista experience, and it’s clear to me that there’s plenty of opportunity for Apple to continue to outshine MS these days.  I’m not even close to making the leap personally, although my “right-click outage” (it stopped working until I rebooted) was pretty darn frustrating.  But bringing over the browser certainly doesn’t seem like the most obvious way in.

I’m writing this post while watching an episode of Modern Marvels (History Channel) about 70s tech.  The episode recalls Pong, Speak and Spell, Polaroid cameras, microwaves, LED watches, and other technology nostalgia.  It’s one of those shows that any geek over 30 years old can watch and recall a much simpler era of consumer tech. 

Back in the 70s (and 80s and even 90s to a much lesser degree), consumer technology was its own Wild West.  Computers had numerous operating systems, there were more than 3 consoles on the market, and any innovation was looked upon with wonder. There were no “sure things” and virtually no rules.  It was chaos.  It was also fun.

Part of the fun was the inherent challenge in making technology work.  There was very little software you could just go buy.  You had to put a little of your own energy into the process, even if it just meant typing Load “*”,8,1.  Now after a week of using Vista, I might make the argument that you have to put a lot of time into making it work properly, but that’s a different type of technology chaos.

I think the old challenges of technology contributed to the fond memories many of us have.  Sure I complained about losing a few weeks’ worth of work due to my recent burglary, but it doesn’t compare to the crushing blow of losing the video game I wrote in BASIC on my C64, and saved on a cassette tape!  That was the first moment in which I almost threw a computer out the window – and most certainly not the last.  Fundamentally, it was so much more of an adventure.

Consumer technology today is so spoon-fed.  Sure, there’s some bugginess, and sure, not everything works out of the box – my new Vaio came with the wrong video driver – how pathetic is that?  Sure I have fond memories of some late 90s technology, specifically:

• my 14 hour TiVo
• my 16MB Rio MP3 player
• my 1MP Kodak digital camera
• my first-gen Toshiba Tecra laptop
• my first Startac
• Netscape 1.0 (the browser, not whatever it is now)

But for the most part, it seems like the West is tamed.  I don’t envision people looking back on technology of the 00’s as fondly.  “Wasn’t the RAZR cool?” doesn’t have a big ring to it.  “I sure miss my old Comcast DVR” will probably never be uttered out loud. 

I could be wrong, but I feel like the energy it took to get your old Kaypro working with your Hayes 300 baud modem to connect to some local BBS where you can see the latest in ASCII art is the kind of challenge that doesn’t quite get equalled by using Yahoo Pipes to connect a real-time map with a list of local Dairy Queens so you can launch BlizzardFindr. Which is, of course, a service I’d totally use, just so we’re all clear on that point.

Last night I did my laptop research, narrowed down to:

• Thinkpad T61 or X60
• Mac
• Vaio VGN-SZ460N

However tempted I was (and I was) to go Mac, I realized I just don’t have the energy to learn something new right now.  Maybe as a 2nd computer to have some fun with, but not as my primary. 

I went with the Vaio over the Thinkpad because:

• 13″ screen and less than 4 pounds.
• Already have Vaio docking station, extra battery, extra power charger.
• Thinkpad T61 is big and heavy, X60 is too small.
• Vaio has superior displays.
• I really liked my last one, had none of the problems I hear others complaining about, figured I’d try it again.
• I could walk into the Sony Style store and be done with it in minutes.

Came preinstalled with Vista Business (read this post for my feelings on the Vista Edition nonsense), which seems to mean “no solitaire” as far as I can tell.  It’s still amazing that Sony can’t even touch Apple when it comes to OOBE (out of box experience, pronounced ooh-bee) – during the first-time setup I sat watching it try to figure out the “right” display settings to use.  How come this isn’t pre-configured?  Sony knows the settings…  silly.

Next two hours spent:

• Downloading backup documents off my Drobo (3 weeks since last backup – not too irresponsible I guess)
• Downloading backup photos (also from Drobo, although I have a more recent photo backup on my Maxtor NAS at home)
• Getting online with office network 
• Activating Office 2007
• Twittering something 
• Uninstalling miscellaneous Sony crapware (by the way, does anyone know why Visual C++ and SQL server are pre-installed?  do I need them for Vista??)
• Downloading Plaxo toolbar for Outlook – all contacts/calendar restored
• Activating Outlook email – downloaded past 10 days email from server backup
• Installing AIM (classic, not Triton) and MSN Messenger
• Customizing Vista power and other settings

Overall experience was pretty good.  I have no real complaints about Vista other than it is a lot clunkier than it should be – what I mean is there’s no good reason for the clunkiness.  Also, I think this new Vaio has an ever better screen than my last one, but I might be dramatizing it a bit.  I don’t quite understand the inclusion of Cingular/AT&T Edge networking for $59/mo (compared to Verizon/Sprint EVDO Rev-A for $50/$20 respectively), couldn’t they have at least upgraded to HSDPA? 

What did I learn from this?

• Thankfully I backup frequently, although clearly not often nor thoroughly enough.  My real data loss was the past 2 weeks of docs I’ve created and hadn’t shared, as well as tons of emails.  I really relied on the combo of Outlook and Google Desktop Search as my mechanisms for archiving & finding stuff.  I should’ve backed up my Outlook PST file and I think GDS should include an offline backup feature as well.
• Using offline email and Plaxo is mandatory – I restored my entire contact and calendar database in minutes, and it was free.  Granted, if your company has Exchange server or you use Gmail, this is likely unnecessary, but there was nothing else that can replicate this experience.
• Thieves suck, renters insurance rules.  I use Allstate, and they are moving fast and super-helpful to get me rolling again.

After last week’s $6 billion offer to buy aQuantive, I’ve been thinking a lot about Microsoft and its future.  See, the company has about $25 buh-illion in cash (after this acquisition!), and they seem to be, well, sitting on it.  And that’s not exactly the best return to shareholders by a company that’s supposed to be the visionaries of computing.  So it’s either time to issue a whole bunch of dividends, or else they need to really look to the future, spend some of that money, and help reinvent themselves as a competitive player for years to come.

I really enjoyed reading Thomas Hawk’s piece on turning MS around, and I agree with John Furrier that the company needs new blood.  I think the best move they can make is a sweeping series of acquisitions (one of the few times I disagree with my friend Michael Gartenberg).  Some big players that can bolster the company’s lineup, and some small players to bring a new generation of innovation into an increasingly stale-minded shop.  Frankly, with the exception of Windows Mobile, Xbox, and some (and not all) of the Vista folks, it seems like all the really creative folks have jumped ship.  So, here’s the list of companies (8, not 10, because I’m bored of top-10 lists) I think would help bring the right balance of creativity, ingenuinity, technology, talent, and in some cases – straight revenue:

1. WordPress/Akismet/Automattic – This is the biggest no-brainer acquisition in my list.  With over a million blogs served, the company is the hands-down leader in enabling blogging.  Whereas MSN Spaces Live is the hands-down leader in… well, I have no idea.  WordPress as a software package is the most powerful and yet easiest-to-use.  WordPress as a hosted service is simple and elegant and professional.  Akismet is one of the best spam filters I’ve seen (I’ll bet it could even help make Exchange server work better!).  This acquisition would be one of those ‘intangibles’ the company should make – I don’t know if Automattic makes money or not, but this is a strategic bet, and in my eyes, it’s an easy one.
2. Netflix (market cap: 1.5B) – While not an obvious choice, Netflix is a nice strategic bet for Microsoft. We all know that shipping discs around the country from distribution centers is not the game that MS wants to be in, but I’m not sure it’s the game that Reed and the Netflix crew want to be in either. Long term, with Netflix, what you’re buying is the customer information, the hollywood relationships and the interface. The company should have 7.5 million subscribers this year, all of whom are helping feed the machine information about their preferences. It’s one of the greatest collaborative filtering engines and quite accurately predicts what movies you would like to watch with great functionality linking friends. They also have the relationships with Hollywood to deliver platters of bits to your house as you select them from their interface which becomes its own mini-portal to content. As they move away from physical to digital distribution they are a great fit for Microsoft’s online properties and XBOX platform. Just imagine combining the Netflix queue with Xbox Live Marketplace, where the right movies are presented to you based on your Netflix account and are automatically delivered to the Xbox hard drive, or taken portable on your Zune (okay, the Zune part is a maybe, but I had to throw it in there).  Also a good preemptive move against Google doing the same thing (as Google is still terrible at working with Hollywood and would love the collaborative filtering stuff for more ads).
3. HTC – Unless you are an Engadget junkie, you might not have ever heard of HTC.  Well, they are the not-so-little Taiwanese manufacturer that not only could, but does.  They make all the hottest Windows Mobile phones, and typically contribute technology to some of the ones they don’t make.  Their devices are setting the standard in innovative mobile platforms (yes, more so than the iPhone in my opinion).  My reasoning for the acquisition here is for Microsoft to take some control over their destiny.  It’s time the company acted a little more Apple-like in more of their hardware, just like they do with Xbox and Zune.  Also, HTC has quietly attracted some of the top talent in the mobile space, so the company gains a cache of clever folks instantly.  Now there’s a bit of a twist here, as I think MS should also spin out Microsoft Hardware (aka Microhard?), a division focused on taking their own software platforms “to the extreme”. 
4. Asus – The second hardware company on my list is here for the exact same reason as HTC.  I’d love to see MS Hardware building stylish laptops that truly leverage all of the new technologies the company builds.  Sure, there’s the potential this would lead to ‘evil’ since Asus’ motherboards are used in numerous manufacturers’ computers today.  But think about it, that’s already a case of customer/competitor it would just be upping the ante a little. 
5. 37signals – I put this on the list with reservations (maybe it needs an asterisk or something).  I use BaseCamp to manage some client work, and it’s really not the most impressive software I’ve seen (despite the ridiculous lauding I continue to read).  But they are onto something, and when I compare it to the unbelievable bloatware that is MS Project, I can’t help but think there’s something to be done here.  Marry these two teams together, and let’s see the offspring in a year or so – I have a hunch it’d be good.  Also, rumor has it they’re profitable, which is a nice touch in 2.0-land.  If nothing else comes of it, they have a pretty popular blog too…
6. Salesforce.com (market cap: $5.4B) – Microsoft is a software company. While Salesforce’s pitch is “No Software” in essence any patent describing them would use the definition software; it’s just that the software is hosted. As Microsoft is going to adapt to a world of subscribers and services as Ray Ozzie puts it in his memo “The Internet Services Disruption“, Salesforce is a great fit. Microsoft never truly nailed the ERP space and can use the combined entity against their mutual rival, Oracle. Microsoft could integrate CRM applications into their hosted versions of Office. Web Outlook, Mail and/or Messaging and Salesforce are a solid fit, and Microsoft’s Live functionality could be weaved in to Salesforce’s app’s. This is also a block against Google who is planning on doing exactly this…
7. Ingenio – Again, a move to cut off Google, buying Ingenio slots in really well with their recent TellMe acquisition.  I don’t know how much bigger the online ad space is growing, but I do believe it’s pretty obvious that the opportunities in both Mobile and Voice are huge.  Ebay wants to use Skype to sell advice, but they spent too much money on the company and are finding quickly how much work there is to efficiently offer such a service (hint: it’s a lot).  Ingenio is one of those Bay Area startups that doesn’t come up in conversation all that often, but they are already providing services to MSN, AOL, AT&T, and a host of others, and guess what – they’re profitable.  I don’t know how much this one would go for, but if MSFT is serious about getting into advertising (I did mention the $6B for aQuantive, right?), they should look to expand the concept horizontally while they still have the chance to get out in front of the pack on it.  As an added bonus, the company is even built on top of MS technologies.
8. Facebook (estimated valuation: $1-2B and up) – Well Microsoft is already giving Facebook $900 million (over 3 years), what’s a few $100 million amongst friends? I’m not sure that Mark Z. would sell to Redmond because he may not “feel like it” (plus they’re so old over there), but I think Microsoft needs to make itself relevant to the next generation (i.e., make him an offer he can’t refuse). If your online identity is with Facebook, then the services you use may naturally follow. Integrated IM. Mail. Video Posts. Blogs. All are natural extensions of your identity (all are things being done oh-so-poorly by the MSN group). Facebook isn’t just an advertising play, it also can help “sell” software by weaving Microsoft’s services into the Facebook platform. Oh, and by the way, it’s a pretty good advertising play. Rumor is that Facebook is signing up 1,000,000 members a week. Yeah, week. Yikes. Comscore and Hitwise have it outpacing their much more mature (57 million members) predecessor, MySpace.

Sure some of these might sound a bit controversial, and some might not make sense to everyone.  But Microsoft needs to start thinking a little different, so to speak, and some radical acquisitions are one way to start that process.  Fundamentally, I feel Microsoft is still waiting to enter the 21st century.  All I have to say is: come on in guys, the water’s fine!

Disclosure: I do not work for any of these companies, nor Microsoft.  I do own about $500 worth of MSFT stock as the last vestige of an E*trade account I set up back in 1999 and haven’t touched since.  Oh, and I have a few friends at MS and some of these startups, and I guess if they ever make it rich and it was my fault they owe me a big fat steak dinner.