Mac@Work : The Ultimate Business Machine

The
Ultimate
Business Machine

Technology, business
and innovation.

And, not least, about
the Mac.

Weblog • Archive • Cutedge

by: Bernard Teo

Fri 27 Jun 2003

A Buying Coalition

Category : Commentary/coalition.txt

While waiting for the Oracle 9i Developer Release for Mac OS X Jaguar to download (slowly...) from the Oracle OTN site, I'm thinking of a couple of things we could do, if we could ever grow this "Mac-using community as The Ultimate Business Machine" idea.

One is to make it evolve into a buying coalition. Let me explain. While at the last Mac meet-up, it struck me that these are people who're quite happy to buy up the latest gadgets, from the variety of digital cameras, Bluetooth adaptor, handphones, etc., that turn up on the table. I believe that each individual would have found ways to make these purchases pay. But the point is that we're in the midst of rather savvy users who are willing to snap up the latest gadgets.

Now what if we could pool our purchases? Like, let's say, make an announcement that we're looking for people who're thinking of buying the 12-inch Powerbook. Then pool all these and form a coalition and take bids from the hardware vendors. This may make the low price they're bound to submit worthwhile because the vendor will be happy to get the bulk sale. If there's a way to use technology to systematise this (and I'm sure there's one), we would have transformed a loosely knit collection of individuals into one whose negotiating power is equal to that of a major corporation. Think of the hundreds of postings at the MUGS board. They've got lots of users on their board. I'm wondering why they hadn't moved on to this? (Or if they did, are there problems with this idea that I hadn't thought of?) So far, it's just an idea.

OK, another idea (the Oracle download has reached the half-way mark). I'm thinking of a training co-op. I've noticed, again from the last meet-up, that there are quite a few people who could really teach - e.g., how to use the Mac really well (e.g., Yezdi who, by Hai Hwee's account, not only teaches you the steps but also tries to explain the reasons behind the steps). Now, what if we could create a set-up such that you could get such people to train other Mac users and make it really worth both their time. We could set up the systems and infrastructure such that the trainers could just turn up (for a day, or a morning, even if they have a full-time job) and the system will take care of everything else (providing manuals, handling course booking, fee collection, etc...) and they just concentrate on teaching, and then get paid.

These are just ideas. But how do you make them come alive? That's where you need the magic. I'd be really happy to receive feedback.

Oracle's still downloading. We need more speed. Whatever we have is never enough. (But then, my iBook has usually worked faster than I can think. By all accounts, it should be considered fast enough.)

Posted at 12:50PM UTC | permalink

Points of Inflexion

Category : Commentary/inflex.txt

LCD monitor sales (now at the 37% mark) are on track to overtake that of CRTs while Frank Casonova, at the QuickTime State of the Union address, mentioned that digital camera sales are already more than that of conventional film-based ones.

Posted at 6:23AM UTC | permalink

Wed 25 Jun 2003

Emotional Connection

Category : Commentary/emotionalconnection.txt

While watching the WWDC keynote coverage, I needed to remind myself that this is not MacWorld. The crowd here are developers. They're the ones who were supposed to have left the platform long ago in droves. Yet they're still here, ethusiastically receptive. They're obviously liking what they're seeing. Steve Jobs seems to have made an emotional connection.

That's also the idea he used to describe the design of the iSight video camera. This makes it possible for people to see the other party's full facial expression in a web-cam conversation, and thus more likely that they'll connect emotionally.

This is a good example of how Apple "gets it" - that the whole idea of information technology is to improve the quality of human communications. And so it goes, with the shift from computer-centricty to user-centricity in the design of the new Finder.

Until I watched the keynote, I couldn't imagine what else Apple could do to improve the user's experience, besides a little improvement here and there. As it turned it, they could still do a lot. Nothing would have prepared me for Expose. Now that we've seen it, it's obvious that that's the prefect solution for managing desktop clutter.

And did you hear the crowd gasp when he showed the Mac switching from one user's workspace to another? This is called delighting the customer.

I'll leave the last words to Derrick Story at O'Reilly : "Over dinner do you think we were talking about how some Wall Street analyst thinks Apple stock should be valued? No way." These are hard core developers here. "The hardware is robust, the operating system is evolving, the developer base is growing, and customers worth having are taking notice of Apple once again. I call it peanut brittle computing: You have 'salt of the earth' Unix blended with the sweetness of GUI applications. My gosh, what a good time to be an Apple developer."

Posted at 4:15PM UTC | permalink

Knowledge Diffusion

Category : Technology/knowledgediff.txt

Over the last week or so, there's been a marked increase in downloads of Sendmail Enabler. I know for a fact that somebody in Michigan has used it (he says he's been trying to get Sendmail running on OS X for six months - without success until he found SM Enabler).

Then there are the downloads done by people who were referred here by google.de and google.nl (e.g., look at this from MacFreak.org. Can somebody help me translate this? I would like to know what they're talking about.)

I've been doing an experiment with this application. I believe it's useful. It does something in under a minute, where I used to take a whole evening. All the knowledge that is needed to turn on Sendmail, PHP, and DNS on OS X is now encapsulated in this application. So I can now clear the space in my brain for other things. Yet I can give this knowledge to other people. And it'll take them less than a minute to use it.

I thought of submitting it to versiontracker, but perversiontracker could be where it will end up, so that did serve as some sort of a disincentive. But I was really curious to see whether, and how, it will get picked up (if ever). So I simply placed it on this (roadstead.com) site. About six weeks ago, the site started to show up in Google (how did these guys know?). And I've been watching the downloads. It's starting to pick up.

There's a pattern to this diffusion of knowldege, and search engines like Google are important players; they perform a crucial service. (Brandenburger and Nalebuff, in "Co-opetition", would say that your market worth is directly proportional to the value you add to the market.) Life is one Great University. But of that, another time.

Posted at 3:21AM UTC | permalink

Tue 24 Jun 2003

WWDC - Apple's World Wide Developers' Conference

Category : Commentary/wwdc.txt

So, the G5 PowerMac is now a reality. But, for me, the two most significant items were these:

One. Apple is now almost free of Motorola. For years, Moto has kept Mac users down by dragging their feet on the PowerPC - almost out of spite, it seems, after Apple pulled the plug on its Mac clone operations. For me, it's hard not to question the sanity of a company which moved away from the Mac to standardise on Windows NT (like, "What's wrong with your own chip?"). So now it's "Welcome, IBM. Really." Your G5's are a god-send. Thanks.

Two. Xcode - because the better the development environment, the more useful the platform becomes. Let's see: it's Unix-based, so that should mean it'll allow access to all the Open Source tools. It seems to allow projects to be done concurrently by multiple developers, with the usual project management tools, like searches and indexing. And it still includes the graphical development tools, which I take to mean Project Builder and Interface Builder, albeit (hopefully) in a more evolved form. So, all in all, it looks good. Now, how do I get a preview copy? I'm ready to upgrade to Panther now.

When there's some new action on the Mac software development scene, I like to monitor James Duncan Davidson's weblog. He's always got something intelligent to say: look here and here.

Posted at 5:03AM UTC | permalink

Mon 23 Jun 2003

Comes a Time

Category : Commentary/oreillynutshell.txt

While we're waiting for the Stevenote to begin at WWDC, here's a very interesting feature on Tim O'Reilly (publisher of the O'Reilly books and the MacDevCentre site much loved by Unix geeks) at www.apple.com.

Note O'Reilly's observation that we've reached an unusually interesting inflexion point - brought about by the creation of Mac OS X - which involves "Mac users re-upping to enjoy the benefits of a robust digital hub, Windows switchers seeing the light, and hackers switching from other Unix systems or even multiple systems."

I'm seeing all these and loving it. Not too long ago, I was spending more time on my laptop than on my PowerBook, building systems for others, and feeling the life being slowly leeched out of me.

Yonder lay a dead-end. But there's a time for rest and a time for reflection. And I feel the belief coming back. When you want to do things differently, you need to seek out the alternative platform - because it's too crowded where everybody else is. That felt shaky a while back but I feel it getting stronger. (And what would tomorrow bring at WWDC?).

New technologies break through at inflexion points - with new opportunities. It's time to get back in the hunt.

The last paragraph in the O'Reilly feature is interesting. "O'Reilly wrote an honours thesis at Harvard on the tension between mysticism and logic in Plato's dialogues." A renaissance man.

Posted at 3:56PM UTC | permalink

Sun 22 Jun 2003

What I've learnt from a Mac Meet-up

Category : Commentary/whatilearnt.txt

I've not attended any of the previous meet-ups before because my iBook battery's shot - it can't last 5 minutes without power

I must be a jinx around batteries. my Dell laptop can't last a single minute without power.

I learnt so many things, I'll take a while to sort it out. I think just about the most important is being introduced to this site for digital cameras ("Digital Camera Reviews"). My three-year old Kodak broke down just before the meet-up and I bought a Canon IXUS 230 to replace it. But I found that the image definition wasn't as good as the Kodak's. It may be what was traded-off for a smaller size - the IXUS is just a fraction of the size of the Kodak and has a consequently much smaller flash.

Anyway, I learnt enough that there's a lot more to know before buying a digital camera. Next time, I'll be better prepared and save a lot of money. But for now, I traded the Canon back for a higher-end IXUS 400. The image quality is so much better this time and I'm already so happy with its size. I've always wanted a camera that can slip into my pocket and that is quick to start. I remember seeing once an old lady at Chinatown sleeping on the lap of Ronald MacDonald. It was such an arresting image. Next time, I'll have a better chance of capturing those moments.

Next, there were lots of little tips that were too small to mention but they all build up to make the Mac a joy to use. I'll never forget Yezdi slipping a Bluetooth connector into the USB port of my iBook and showing Eric, who's got a new Bluetooth-capable Sony Ericsson, how to sync it using iSync. I was going "That's my address book", and I thought they were all going to get sucked into Eric's handphone. But you've got to see it to see how the digital hub idea all makes sense.

Then I learnt that Kristian ("hey, Kristian, come on over to the meet-up and I'll give you a Cocoa tutorial") is not in Singapore. That's the net, dissolving time and distance.

And I learnt that it doesn't matter if you don't kow a single soul there (just ask You Meng), but you're warmly welcome simply because you use a Mac.

To all the good guys, and ladies (Airani and Hai Hwee), thanks. I learnt a lot and, most of all, that the best way to "get" the Mac culture is to attend a Mac meet-up.

Posted at 2:54AM UTC | permalink

Sat 21 Jun 2003

Pictures from the Meet-up

Category : Commentary/meetuppics20030621.txt

I've finished putting up some of the pictures from the meet-up. Look here.

Posted at 5:15PM UTC | permalink

Meetup@roadstead (21st June 2003)

Category : Commentary/meetup20030621.txt

We completed our first ever meet-up at my place (which I mean to call Roadstead) with Kevin Guo, Yezdi, Welly, Mook Sum, Siva, Airani, Eric Pang, George, You Meng, and Hai Hwee turning up.

It's also my first time at a meet-up, and I realised just how useful these sessions are when I learnt so much about digital cameras in just the first fifteen minutes. There were Sony, Nikon, Canon, Fuji, plus a couple more digital cameras I can't remember, turning up on the table in no time. Also Eric's latest-model Sony Ericsson, which Yezdi used to demo Bluetooth connectivity and iSync. If only money is no problem... I've got a long Christmas wish-list of wanna-haves.

We started at 0930 and the last guys (Siva and Airani) left at three-plus. So we did manage to get Siva going on his weblog. At any one time, there were discussions on Flash, web page design, accounting applications on the Mac, video on digital cameras, etc... And this must be the first time there's a PC laptop at a Mac meet-up, which was put to some good use. (Photos coming up.)

So, all in all, it was great fun. Besides Siva, Welly and Hai Hwee, I've never met the others before today. What is it about Mac users that engenders such camaraderie? Got to get my iBook battery replaced (can't go 5 minutes without power). Don't want to miss the next meet-up.

Posted at 3:27PM UTC | permalink

Thu 19 Jun 2003

Fairport

Category : Technology/fairport.txt

I got a NetGear wireless PC card for our Dell laptop today. It's a snap getting it to work. It recognises our Airport Extreme Base Station and (whoosh!) we're surfing the net on the Dell, no strings attached.

It's interesting what the guy at the PC shop said when I asked if the card's known to work with the Airport Base Station. He said, "Yes, but the PC can only surf out; it can't talk to the Mac and vice versa." I asked him what makes him so sure. He admitted he's never used a Mac. So I told him that, if it can surf out, it'll talk to the Mac. Now it's me who's sure.

In fact, that's what happened. Share a folder on the Mac and the PC can see it. Share a directory on the PC and the Mac can see it. It's the magic of OS X, which gets better and better all the time.

Posted at 4:00PM UTC | permalink

Tue 17 Jun 2003

The Parable of the Talents

Category : Commentary/parabletalents.txt

When I was small, I puzzled over The Parable of the Talents. For one thing, it seemed to contradict another thing I was taught - the concept of stewardship. When you're given something to look after, you guard it with your life and hope to return it all in one piece.

So I was indignant the last servant in the parable (the one who was thrown out to the darkness, with all the weeping and gnashing of teeth) had done nothing wrong, returning to his Master the single talent he was given to keep. After all, he hadn't lost it. I often wondered what The Good Lord would have said, had the first two guys reported a next loss with their speculative investments.

Nowadays, I am content to believe the parable was an exhortation to do more with whatever talent you had the luck to start off with. If you don't, even the little that you have will be taken away from you.

So somehow this morning, when You Meng made a reply to my request to see more of his work, my mind jumped back to The Parable of the Talents.

This is what I was hoping for - that people would respond to using this platform to show-case some of their work. Especially, since I'm the host and I'm saying it's OK. Otherwise, it would be like the third servant, digging a hole for his talent and hiding it. If you don't show it, nobody will know you can do it. And if you do, the worst that can happen is to be accused of flaunting it. But, what if your example serves as an inspiration for others and spur them to push the state of the art. That, in my opinion, would be a very good thing. And well worth the trouble. For it's the same with me, too. I've got a platform I can use to do some good. If I don't, well, I would lose it.

Posted at 7:13AM UTC | permalink

Mon 16 Jun 2003

As Dull as Dell

Category : Commentary/dullasdell.txt

I was at the Sakae Sushi joint next to the AppleCentre at Wheelock. My favourite table is where I can just look across at the action.

It was the iPod Live launch. And I'm thinking of the comment by Richard Lim ("Got Singapore") on Sunday that these hand-held devices are going to get ever more powerful and the next natural progression we're going to see is video.

Now what does it take to do that? Even higher capacity drives. A little bigger screen. In colour, definitely, with very fine pixels and sharp picture quality. A litte bigger form factor, but not too much. Needs to be still slim. And still weigh not more than two CDs. And FireWire 2 or 3 or its equivalent, to keep the data transfer times short. And tight software integration with the mother ship, the personal computer that was used to create or edit all the video.

Now who's going to be able to build that? Not the kids at Sim Lim Square snapping up their own PCs, looking for the cheapest deal. Not even Dell.

I believe that the future favours makers of integrated products. Products that show a tight integration between hardware and software. In all the dark years of Apple's troubles, I still believed they were right. They were criticised for not licensing out their operating system, leaving the field open for Bill Gates and Windows. But what if, having known all that, Apple would still have done what they did. It's in their DNA to build the hardware with the software, as one indivisible whole.

Now back again to Dell. Just what have they done? They've not made the pie any bigger. Instead, they've just grabbed more and more slices to themselves, bleeding the competition dry in a painful price war. What the PC user loses is the innovation that Andy Grove talked about that would have made more out of the processor.

Let's say Dell succeeds in totally annihilating the rest of the PC makers (and they may because, for PCs, I've also only bought Dells lately). They're the only ones left standing. Now what do they do with all that power? Will they suddenly know how to innovate and build great products. Not if they haven't spent all of their lives trying to do that in the first place.

Posted at 1:31PM UTC | permalink