Key Performance Indicators

Checked out the new Clooney flick last night. Great movie – worth seeing for sure. Clooney at the top of his game and lots of cameos from some great people.

It brought back so many memories for me during my 4 years of pretty much non-stop domestic travel – back before 9/11. Domestic US travel is horrible now and I would not wish it on my enemies but prior to 9/11, if you had some status, it was not too bad. Priority check-in, no nutty security and the staff from the various airlines was actually nice. Gone are those days.

The movie captured the experience so well – the hotel bars, the airports, and the various little scenarios at the rental car place to the on the road hook-ups. Just nailed it.

It reminded me of an incident I had once since the movie centered somewhat on Omaha, NE. I was due to be in Omaha for some meetings and needed to fly from SFO to Denver to Omaha. I had a travel assistant so I would book stuff via email and then just show up at the airport with my United card. Check in, check bag (I always checked bags for ease of use and lack of back injuries for loading bags into the overhead) and then proceed to lounge for breakfast. Upgrade comes through – sit in business and eat again. During this phase I noticed some guy bitching about not getting his upgrade. Of course I was the one who bumped him and I felt some satisfaction in that – all frequent flyers secretly do.

After stopping in Denver I went to the lounge and checked in on my upgrade to Omaha. Turns out I did not have it yet and it looked like I had not even a confirmed seat yet which was strange. So the good lady at the counter is looking at the debacle and then asks for my ID – at that time one did not need to draw blood but simply show their driver’s license. So I did. Then she laughed and said that I was suppose to be on the plane Tuesday – not Monday. I looked through my emails on my 2 ton crackberry and noticed she was right. It was Monday. I was suppose to be in San Francisco. Turned out the dude who I had bumped had my same name so the first attendant in SF booked me in his seat. Shows you how laxed security used to be.

I felt so stupid – I said any flights back to SF? I got back on the plane I came on and headed back to SF. Went home and back to bed. Got up on Tuesday and did it again. This is when I started to ask for an international transfer.

Check the movie out to get a sense of road life. It is not too far off the mark. Funny, that it is, sometimes life on the road is more fun than normal life. Clean hotel rooms, big beds, room service, random hook ups, and just the road culture coupled with all the interesting people. Sometimes returning home was the letdown – not the travel.

Enjoy!

I love reading Daring Fireball, except for his love of Google, and always find that he leads me to some of the more interesting non-tech posts out there. So I guess, apart from the tech, John Gruber has some very  interesting tastes and opinions. One day  I was scanning his blog and saw the link to the Ebert Esquire article – if shit like that does not bring tears to yours than you are just not even human.

It is also worthwhile to read Roger’s own opinion piece on the article.

Well – this will make your eye moist:

It all started simply enough when I asked Pontus, Yahoo’s! head of Indonesia, if he had any judges he would like to suggest for Yahoo’s! first Open Hack Day in Southeast Asia which would take place in Jakarta. Pontus mentioned Johar Alam – founder of IDC Indonesia. To get a sense of how different IDC is from most hosting providers one only has to read their byline:

IDC Indonesia the First Neutral Data Center in Indonesia.

At first you might pass over that statement without grasping the significance of it. First Neutral Data Center in Indonesia but from my experiences around the globe I would argue that this is a first for the world.

To my left is a common photo one might snap in any hosting center in any part of the world. Some might say that the rack looks a little cluttered, if not overstuffed and in need of organizing but the photo cannot properly describe what it is you are witnessing. This photo shows that every single Indonesian internet service provider is connected across one rack and all plugged into some gigabit switches hooked into the main IDC backbone. No peering arrangements, no contracts and no funny business – the entire Indonesian Internet is hooked together and one man made it happen – Johar.

When I first met Johar I had no idea of this situation and the impact of it did not fully hit me until I toured the original IDC center to witness this marvelous cabling phenomenon for myself. Most Internet geeks when faced with this revelation will usually gasp and wonder how Johar pulled it off. I still wonder how he did it but as I spend more time with Johar at the IDC I realize that his open Indonesian attitude is at the heart of everything he does – including this amazing situation at IDC. Johar believes in the ultimate expression of freedom – the local Indonesian internet and Indonesian’s access to the global Internet is the most important part of this freedom.

Visiting Johar at the IDC allows one to experience Johar, his and his wife’s warm Indonesian hospitality and the open arms attitude of the IDC. I have been there enough times now that I know the drill. Introduce myself at the so-called front office to let Johar know I am in. Then I move to the meeting room, pour myself some tea and quickly log in to the free IDC wi-fi connection. No passwords needed – that would be very un-IDC. I usually catch up on my email and if I did smoke – I would have a cigarette while waiting for Johar. Smoking is also allowed in the meeting room since well – Johar smokes but more importantly preventing smoking would be so un-Indonesian.

A month back on one of my regular trips to the IDC Johar mentioned he had something to show Pontus and I. He told us it was a secret and he could not share it. Working for Yahoo! I am always burdened with secrets so this request was nothing new to me and keeping a secret usually means I am seeing something new that not many people have seen. And so it was to be.

Pontus and I went to the large IDC presentation room with Johar and his wife. Johar darkened the room, poured everyone some tea and proceeded to play us a movie from his laptop. I can’t really confess to understanding what I was witnessing at the time but mentions of seasons, self-expressions and upbeat music married to colorful, almost psychedelic, swaths of imaginative wall coverings had me intrigued if not slightly bewildered. Knowing Johar, this was probably his plan and within that I took comfort knowing that Pontus was probably just as confused as I was.

Lights back on and with Johar looking pleased with himself – I proceeded to ask the question that I am sure Johar anticipated, “What is it?”.

“That,” Johar replied – “Is the new IDC!”.

Then it hit me – we were seeing images of what the new IDC would be decorated as. Imagine if Tim Burton and Johnny Depp decorated a data center using the four seasons, color and a hint of well – freer times as inspiration. I was stunned but I got it – Johar wanted to not only technical create a freer Indonesian Internet but he was also wanted the actual data center to embody this as well.

Fast forward to today and I just had a tour of the new IDC while it is still under construction. Below is a photo I snapped while touring the new IDC. On the left is Johar Alam, in the middle is Juny Maimun (founder of Indowebster), and on the right is Jimmi Kembaren the newest Yahoo! employee in Indonesia. Juny is responsible, in his spare time, for building a site that is probably the biggest consumer of internal Indonesian bandwidth.

The new IDC is not complete and only two seasons have been built but I look forward to its completion and applaud Johar for his insistence on not only creating a brighter future for the Internet in Indonesia but for creating a brighter data center. Stay tuned for Yahoo’s! first event from the new IDC.

photos

for more photos of the new IDC check out these sets on Flickr.

Before I start I will just continue with my plea to the guys over at This Week in Asia – please – have me back on. I think I will keep this up until they relent.

Moving on…

I had a week in Philippines and now another one in Indonesia – so much going on in these regions. Sure the ad spend is not there, the bandwidth is not the best but the growth is astonishing. In both countries I picked up a USB data dongle with pre-paid plans. Pretty much works everywhere you need to be – which means not being tethered to the office. This is where Thailand is so messed up but I won’t get into it.

So on one of my mid-morning blog rolls I came across this piece:

If empires are complex systems that sooner or later succumb to sudden and catastrophic malfunctions, what are the implications for the United States today? First, debating the stages of decline may be a waste of time — it is a precipitous and unexpected fall that should most concern policymakers and citizens. Second, most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises. Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly indeed as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2010 of more than $1.5 trillion — about 11% of GDP, the biggest since World War II.

It is heady stuff and maybe even a tad outlandish but probably not as crazy as it sounds. America is in trouble and when I glance at it from afar I wonder what will turn it around? Higher education is being priced out of reach of normal folks, taxes just keep going up, debt is out of control, infrastructure is aging and to top it all off we seem to be fighting wars we shouldn’t.

I made the choice close to 10 years ago to be in Asia – mostly because I could. For others that is not such an easy option but something excites me about being in an area of growth and new frontiers while hanging out with people possessing a sense of optimism. Last trip to the states when I cruised around SF the thing I noticed most was how people just felt a little down.

It is scary but what scares me the most is our government, repubs and dems – seems more focused on their own agendas then they are focusing on turning the ship around. I actually thought Obama had a chance but he now appears to be just like the rest of them.

I wonder what will change it all?

I usually don’t put much work stuff on my blog but since this is a video and I was a part of the event I thought I would make an exception. Enjoy:

The news does not seem to have anything yet but twitter does:

http://twitter.com/#search?q=bangkok%20bomb

I am sure this is related to Thaksin and the verdict but it just shows that democracy is the least of the problems in Thailand.

Bummer…

The battle lines are clearly drawn – Google is scared to death of Facebook. It makes sense – as more and more people spend time on it they need Google less and less, but as Google tries to strong arm everyone into submission FB is running around realizing that being an enabler is better than destroying everything in their path – ala Google.

Take FB Zero for instance:

This system is apparently called zero-rated pages, and allows operators to use a trimmed down version of a web application as a sort of teaser, driving the adoption of certain mobile services or apps, and more data usage revenue down the line.

Presumably, Facebook will offer Facebook Zero to carriers for free, since it helps them make the social network as ubiquitous on mobile phones as possible.

Wow. Helping carriers to drive adoption and bill more minutes. Carriers love that shit.

This is compares to the talk at the Mobile World where even the big guys like Vodafone are trying to gently tell Schmidt to back off:

In one sign of these growing fears, even Vittorio Colao, chief executive of Vodafone – nominally one of Google’s business partners – raised a red flag over the potential spread of its search dominance into the mobile world. Regulators should take a close look at Google’s massive market share in search, he said, “before it is too late”.

As I have said many times – Google is the next MSFT but maybe worse since their monopoly of the Internet might actually be stronger in comparison to MSFT’s monopoly of the desktop. What is silly is how Google goes around telling everyone they are good, helpful and trying to make life easier.

Right – and McDonald’s good for me:

Whatever the reality, botching the launch of the strategically important Buzz has intensified a feeling that has been growing as Google has sought to extend its reach: that it is deliberately using its dominance in one area to gain a stronger foothold in new markets, much as arch-rival Microsoft did before it.

For me it is the way they shove new features down your throat on top of other widely used products. Just like MSFT did with the OS.

http://counternotions.com/2010/02/15/buzzback/

The only other company that can fill this evolving void is Apple, but Apple is not interested in commodity businesses. Google sees a great opportunity and has decided to pursue it, mostly by imitating Microsoft’s leverage strategy: if you want free mail, you (also must) get social traffic (because we need your personal network data graph). You’re welcome, enjoy your Buzz!

This leverage strategy can indeed let Google harvest more social territory, at the expense of Facebook and Twitter…but only for a time. Eventually, what Microsoft is going through now is what will happen to Google, even if Google thinks it’s immune to Microsoftdom.

What is funny is buzz on its own would probably be dead in a few months but since they can attach it to Gmail it has a shot – not matter how badly designed:

In its urgency to offer a me-too product, Buzz confuses the read/unread email paradigm with real-time messaging stream like Twitter. It adds insult to injury by co-mingling various cognitive spheres like blogs, photos, videos, status, etc into thin soup delivered through an unceasing firehose. The final blow is the embarrassingly unfocused layout: the complete absence of visual hierarchy and progressive disclosure, overabundance of visual cues/links for action, and clumsiness in using white space to strip away meaningful information density.

I’m sure Google executives don’t think these are critical, as long as Buzz is free and can be leveraged through Google’s other widely used properties. If Buzz was a startup product, it would have died shortly. But when you expose it by default to 175 million users, who needs to worry about design and delighting users!

If this takes you back to the ’90s, to a place called Redmond, you’re not alone. Buzz wasn’t an accident. Get used to it.

To top it all off though is their arrogance. Google is so big, rich and feeling invincible that they tend to act like if you don’t like it then stuff it. Funny thing is some people did – their Gmail account anyway. I actually had a few friends email me to say that after the buzz fiasco they were dumping their Gmail account. Nice. Eric is not known for caring about what anyone thinks anyway – let alone his customers:

For a guy who threw a fit when personal details about where he lives and how much money he makes were revealed — using public information sources — by a CNET writer (which resulted in a ban on contact with the publication that was later lifted), this is a pretty laissez-faire response to the concerns of Google Buzz users. And Schmidt has made similar statements about privacy before. Hey Eric — would it be so hard to just say “We’re sorry?” You can say it now, or you can tell it to the FTC.

Google needs to get back to actually building cool things, making what they have better and realizing that no one cares for their arrogance and forced product adoption.

I am in Manila this week cranking away and wondering how I might get invited back on TWIA. Might have to grovel soon…

Anyway. Lots going on.

First off is a developer event with Globe Labs tomorrow night. Looking forward to meeting people and seeing how I can help. While I was walking through Greenbelt this afternoon I saw this QIR sign for BB users of Globe. I meant to try it but I am not on Globe. Cool to see this type of stuff happening.

Thursday night I will be at roofcamp #6 – looks to be fun. Hope to meet lots of new folks there.

The rest of the week is chock full of meetings.

I have ran into Brian of aloo.ph finally. I was trying to figure out who was behind aloo.ph but it took Mohan over at e27 to make the connection for me. Six degrees of Mohan lately. We had lunch at Myron’s Place in Greenbelt 5. I must say it was a tasty steak and a nice place to chill.

Good call Brian!

Well that is it for now. Gotta get back to work.

Hope to see people at some of the events over the next few days.

cya

One of the things I notice is many people in this world seem to be lacking any sort of conviction. See dictionary:

3 a : a strong persuasion or belief

Let me give you some examples. I was in Manila sometime back and ran into one of the guys who is supposedly part of the volunteer Firefox association – some sort of part-time FF evangelist. Cool. While showing me something on his computer I noticed he happened to be using Chrome. I was like dude – get a clue. Either use FF or don’t say you are a FF evangelist. Pretty simple stuff. This guy lacked any sort of conviction whatsoever. Pathetic.

I remember in the early days of my enterprise software career competing with MSFT and having to run around using a Windoze laptop – so we started using Mac, Linux, and even Solaris just to show that if we were going to preach about a world without MSFT then we better be able to practice what we preach.

Whatever. Stallman – you gotta love this guy. If this is not the most direct example of conviction I don’t know what is.

http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/

As creator of GNU this guy seriously lives what he preaches:

I am using a Lemote Yeelong, a netbook with a Loongson chip and a 9-inch display. This is my only computer, and I use it all the time. I chose it because I can run it with 100% free software even at the BIOS level.

Stunning.

I love this:

I spend most of my time using Emacs. I run it on a text console, so that I don’t have to worry about accidentally touching the mouse-pad and moving the pointer, which would be a nuisance. I read and send mail with Emacs (mail is what I do most of the time).

I switch to the X console when I need to do something graphical, such as look at an image or a PDF file.

Most of the time I do not have an Internet connection. Once or twice or maybe three times a day I connect and transfer mail in and out. Before sending mail, I always review and revise the outgoing messages. That gives me a chance to catch mistakes and faux pas.

Loosely translated – I like to get work done rather than play around with twitter and FB.

Stallman rocks. Enuff said!

Usually when people write about products or product companies they are bitching. I have done it many times myself but for this post I will be offering up my gratitude for a job well done. About 4 months back I picked up some Dr. Dre Beats Headphones. They rock. Amazing bass, great noise canceling, comfortable, great gadgets (iPhone wire) and look cool. They also fold up nicely. About a month ago they cracked on me – right near where the hardware is for the slider mechanism. Clearly it is a defect or a design flaw since I am not the only one to have experienced this.

I went to the Monster website and I was NOT able to use the support form. Kept bombing on me – one little niggle I guess. Finally I got through and received an email saying I needed to contact the distributor in the country I purchased them. With this I do have a complaint though – what if you are traveling or on holiday – how would you get your headphones replaced? I do think Monster is a big enough company to deal with this issue and should address it. Meaning I should be able to get my Monster equipment replaced at any Monster deal. Globalization folks – get with the program.

Other than that all I have is praise.

I emailed the distributor in Bangkok, Thailand – Dynamic and they quickly replied saying I just needed to bring in the headphones with my receipt for a replacement. Problem was I could not find my receipt. I found my credit card statement and emailed that and explained where I had bought them since there are not many places in Thailand to buy them. The manager emailed me back to say no problem and to bring them in.

I did. Within 5 mins I was out the door with my brand new pair. I will note they are clearly the 2nd generation with a new ear cup design and the slider has been reworked. The plastic even feels different so it must mean they had problem with the 1st gen. Good for me – I got a new set and the new design. They sounds awesome!

Thanks to Monster and Dynamic for awesome customer service. Hard to come by these days!