Category Archives: Internet

Apr 23

Cloud Computing: More Like Costco, Less Like Oxygen

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People Waiting For Costco

The hype around the cloud computing is getting tiresome.

The recent highly-visible downtime with Amazon is not a rare occurrence, it just happened to be so widespread that Amazon and others that rely on the EC2 infrastructure had to publicly address and acknowledge it. Negative aspects of the ‘cloud’ are rarely addressed. I am sure there are many failures of many different flavors that the larger public never even knows about. I am happy that this recent situation does bring up the downside of what is normally touted as a salvation to many as of late. As the hype dies down over the next few months and years, I think you will see cloud computing settle in as something more along the lines wholesale giant Costco rather than something ubiquitous and unavoidable (as is the current consensus) for a few of major reasons.

Different, But Hardly a Revolution

The term ‘cloud computing‘ is a new term for something that, at it’s core, is nothing new. Yes, the recent technological advances on clustering and the vendors packaging services sitting on top of the newly clustered hardware and software is new, but vendors selling hosted services is nothing new or tremendously revolutionary. You don’t want to all the heft of managing servers and hardware? That was the case back in the mainframe days before the PC revolution of the 1980s and 1990s. You don’t want to try and have all the possible information in the world on your local hard drive? Makes sense. Glad we have an ‘internet’ of connected servers across the world with different types and sources of every-changing information. People farming-out services is not a new thing.

When Price Club and Costco first arrived on the scene, the items they were selling were not new. The channel methods with the vendors, portions of the products sold, wholesaling to the consumer all while grabbing membership dues from the public was the revolutionary part. The consolidated company, Costco, is wildly successful and has a strong model and loyal customers. We shop there every once and while when we have a need for certain types of stuff. We get toilet paper, paper towels in bulk and other items we know we will use a lot of and don’t particularly care about brand or exact details. Many will come to understand this is the kind of service cloud computing provides.

Great For General Needs, But Not Displacing The Specific

You need a bunch of generic toilet paper? Let’s hit Costco. You need a bunch of generic email accounts? Use Gmail instead of buying your own email server, domain name and configuring it all and hosting it in your garage. You need tires for your car cheap and not concerned too much on brand name or options? Costco is great for that. You want someplace to put a basic webserver for a company or personal site? Great – use a cloud provider and let them figure out what to use to serve things up for you to rent. But, just as Costco is not the go-to place of choice for everything you want/need to obtain for your daily life, cloud computing vendors are not going to be the only place to get everything you need or want to go for everything information technology-related. If you are a business, you might head down to Costco to get basic office task chairs, but if you need specific, high-end models, Costco is not the place you are going to buy from.

Costco opened up new options for people to acquire consumer goods but it hasn’t ever displaced the Safeway, 7-11, Target or Whole Foods out there because consumers see it as an option for them, but not the only option or the option they MUST go with. You will see cloud computing and the hype around it dissipate in similar fashion as people realize there are fundamental reasons why you want to continue to have local servers and be able to continue to maintain strategic advantages of various aspects of information technology based on your educated needs. There are, and will continue to be, numerous reasons to keep services local. Even if you have the ability to move them to the cloud, you might not. Specific needs like access to large amounts of file data across a fast local network, ability to have vertical control over all aspects of the network service and be able to be secure in the concepts around where your important information is physically located will never go out of style and will continue to be important to you. You are not wrong. If you feel email/groupware is a critical piece of your information technology, you probably want to keep it in-house at minimal cost vs. renting at Google or another ‘cloud’ vendor. Even though cloud computing companies will evolve with more and more specification of services, they won’t be able to provide the types of tailored systems organizations need (coupled with staff that has your priorities in mind) after they perform thoughtful refection and analysis. You also might not like not having the visibility on services you sacrifice when moving it to the cloud.

TANSTAAFL, But Maybe Free Samples

As with all businesses and services, the old saying “There ain’t so such thing as a free lunch” still applies. Perhaps many people and organizations are so excited about cloud computing because they think it bends the economic reality and they can snag free stuff without regard. Just because the service is in the cloud doesn’t make the underlying economic factors and needs for the vendors coordinating the services any different. They still need to generate profit to stay in business. When you walk the aisles in Costco to get the free samples, they are not there for you to just consume but rather given in the hope they get a few takers to buy the case of their frozen corn dogs or potstickers. If they don’t move enough product, then the samples aren’t working and it is time try something else. This is really no different than Google giving you a free email account to sell ads and harvest user information and behaviors, Ning letting you have groups in their site so you see the value and will be eventually willing to pay or the many others trying to use the ‘Freemium‘ model.

Courtesy of Getty Images

If giving stuff away doesn’t help sell product in the long run, those taquito samples table near the frozen section in Costco go away just like the free access to the cloud system service gets turned off like Ning did a year ago. I see many people, schools and business trying to ride the wave of free stuff just those people roaming the aisles at Costco grazing samples, but that game usually ends poorly. You really don’t want to put critical pieces of what you need to operate and rely on dependent on shaky business models. It is an illusion that you can subsist bouncing from free thing to free thing. It consumes the time and energy that you should be putting into your mission, operations and investment in local resources for those items that are critical to you.

After The Hype, I Welcome Reality

As more incidents like the Amazon failure, Google deleting batches of Gmail accounts, etc. occur, when the VC money lessens and when darling cloud companies like DropBox figure-out they really need to properly monetize and have to stick it to the their users causing outcry, I think the cloud luster will wear-off. A few years ago there were tons of Facebook developers trying to do all kinds of crazy businesses and that was all the rage until reality set-in for the entire ecosystem. This sort of reality will take effect soon for cloud computing as well. I have no doubt and welcome it.

I know where Costco is and maintain my membership, but I don’t load-up on corndogs, peperoncini or frozen chimichangas like I once did. We all tend to make better choices when the options and understandings around them are more mature. We will all still breathe oxygen as the cloud computing hype will mellow to become commonplace but not essential and we will be on to the next hyped, ‘revolutionary’ technology cycle.

Mar 11

Setup Mail Rules to Send Out Of Office Replies to Trash

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If you are on a number of maillist lists, you feel my pain. When you want to contribute to a listserv but are tired on receiving all the junk email associated with various people’s auto-responders for vacation or out of office, you can just go forward and delete all the mail you get telling you that “so and so doesn’t work here anymore” or “so and so will be out of the office on vacation” or you can just trash them through mail rules on your mail client. I will continue to update this post as I tweak the rules to best operate but here goes the first pass at it.

 

Here is a screenshot of my Entourage setup for the rules I detail below but these rules should be able to be created in whatever decent email client or web-based client you are using to manage your email.

Found in Entourage under 'Tools' Menu

Four criteria to dump to the Deleted Items

These correspond to the following rules I am working with so far.

FirstClass Servers
Auto-responders seem to have a “X-FC-MachineGenerated: true” in the header we can grab them via a header mail rule and use to route to trash.

Microsoft Exchange Servers
You can probably pick-off via the Subject line mail rule containing “Out Of Office” or “AutoReply” and dump them.

Gmail ‘Vacation’ Responders
Seems to have “X-Autoreply: yes” in the header of ‘vacation’ auto-replies so a header mail rule on that should do it.

 

If you have other rules you have constructed for these types of email servers or other settings you would like to share please comment. I have always thought of doing a consolidated page on this for general reference and would love some contributions and help.

Mar 10

BYOI (Bring Your Own Internet) and K-12 Students: Perils and Opportunities

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Nothing New

Mobile internet connectivity is nothing new.

Back in the 1990s, many of us were running around with Ricochet modems and PPP connections on our fat heavy laptops maybe getting 19200 bps around the streets of San Francisco. For New Year’s Eve 2000, I was shelled into email on my Palm V with my slick/expensive OmniSky wireless modem cradle while champagne and fireworks were all-around me near the Ferry Building so I could email by CEO right after we rolled-over to the year 2000 and prove we were okay for Y2K. We were.

After Y2k, and onward, smartphones like the Handspring Treo (later Palm Treo) really started to provide constant connectivity for email and simple web-browsing. Blackberry was in there as well. But, the mobile viewing of the internet and the speeds that one could achieve via the device itself or using a phone as a COM port or USB port ‘tether’ was never that great enough to provide such a wide-spread movement akin to the migration to the mobile phone we have seen over the last few years from the traditional ‘land-line’ POTS phones.

But that really seems to be changing now. With beefier smartphones and more complex handheld computers with robust operating systems that power them mainly from Apple, Google but also from other vendors like RIM, HP and Microsoft, we are starting to see the real likelihood of bringing all the internet you need with you for all your devices. For the average user, this can mean some wonderful freedom and flexibility. For the technology directors of K-12 schools, this means a lot more to worry about and evaluate. The main perils and opportunities I see relate to content filtering, equity and new possibilities for learning.

Content Filtering Efforts

The whole concept of being able to control the content students have access to via network content filtering will fade away. All of us who have chosen to implement content filtering know the limitations, false-positives and other perils it can generate, but still do it as a way to try and protect the school from content that adolescents might mistakenly or intentionally pull into the school environment and cause harm to others in the process. Right now many in my school have smartphones and will most certainly be flipping-on their iPhone Hotspot or Android Hotspot to use personally or to allow their friends to connect. Helping students take breaks from technology and gaming will become even more difficult than today. If students don’t need to go through you and your network, then they don’t need to understand or respect what your school is trying to setup as a learning environment. For lower and middle schools, the dilemma of unleashing the internet on students at all is also something that the school decides on.

I think this sort of shift will makes school administrators in the independent school world go one of two ways. Either they will embrace it like many 1-1 schools do now when looking at the folly and flaws of attempting content filtering combined with their sense that students can self-regulate or go down the road of further clampdown of technology through limiting access in a way to try and protect the school environment and culture. I think the real solution is somewhere in the middle and directly dependent on how your school values technology supporting the curriculum.

Absent of content filtering, many schools allow full access to the internet. Even though content filtering is quite problematic, it is a useful tool in the dialog or helping students understand what is appropriate in a the school environment and many independent school administrators move forward on that tenet. But, now with the BYOI concept, this mechanism will not be available for the school and schools will need to adapt usage policies and culture.

Equity of Student Body

All independent schools focus on their culture and what it means to be at that school. Honor codes, community and a sense of equity for all students at a basic sense, is quite common throughout all independent schools. Diversity of background is something that that many schools, like mine, cherish for the learning environment. But, I see this kind of shift in the portable power of information as something that can potential harm such focus on the creation of equity between students in schools.

Again, this is nothing new but perhaps just the nouns have changed. Used to be (and still is) some students have resources from their families to have cars, nicer clothes, take vacations to exotic places, etc. while others do not. I think this expanded sense of internet connectivity and ability to bypass the network structure of the schools for those that ‘have’ will be the new noun. School admin spend a lot of time and effort creating an environment where all students can thrive and have equal opportunity. This kind of differentiation – some students with the ability to go where they want whenever they want vs. those that cannot because they don’t have the tools and resources could really add another barrier to teachers and admin in schools. In a public school setting, the effects ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ will be even more severe. I can also see how different forms of ‘cliques’ of hotspots could manifest based on student groups access to information.

Equity in some form with technology will have to be addressed in schools that are ‘laptop’ schools or not. Also, just making sure every student has a laptop doesn’t address it anymore than giving a laptop (or any tech) to a student and assuming they know how to use it or will use it effectively for learning.

New Opportunities For Learning

I just mentioned a couple of perils of the the current shift and future acceleration of students bringing their own internet to schools, but I can also see a great deal of opportunities in this for the schools. There are many to think about but I can see a few examples right now. For schools in urban environments like mine, field trips to museums could be now structured with immediate online resource on works the students are looking at. Students could use social media tools for something productive related to their course while they were traversing the art or history.

In addition to augmenting class outings, students can use their mobile internet devices to coordinate with others in the area on projects in real-time. They can update their digital portfolios with content they are interacting with and creating immediately. There are many different models right now for distance learning and as that continues to evolve, mobile internet can allow schools to connect with students in rural areas not supported by wired broadband.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many ways this new shift toward BYOI can go but understanding that it is either happening at your school today or will be happening and accelerating in the future means you have to think about how will affect your schools mission, culture and technology structure. With all new innovation there can be wonderful opportunities and possible perils. The one sure peril for your school would be to ignore or gloss over the fact that students are going to be increasingly empowered with their own access to the internet whether you are ready for it or not.

Dec 12

The Real Fundamental Problems Of Twitter

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After investing a solid year into Twitter, I have found some serious flaws in how Twitter currently operates. Other recent articles covering the Pew Research Survey are more focused on who uses Twitter but I think they all are missing the larger context of the flawed dynamics in Twitter. I think Henry Blodget at Business Insider has wrote a great article on the Truth of Twitter. But, being in the world of Twitter can provide some even more clues as to the serious problems of the Twitter system. Here is a list rundown.

1. Unlike most technology, the more you work and craft Twitter the more you follow others, the more they follow you and the more you the interact the messier the whole user experience gets for the individual. The more people you follow, which is what the platform intends for you to do, the more convoluted the whole dump of twitter updates gets for you. The more difficult it is to find that which might be of value to you in the muck of the fluff. For me, following about 100 people or so is close to the tipping point to where you start to get so many posts, you really cannot read or absorb all that you might want to take in.

2.Because of the follow ‘tipping-point’ above, there is a point Twitter users really need to decide what direction and strategy they will take on Twitter. After about 100-200 follows attempting to work with the existing set of Twitter tools, one has to decide to just ignore everyone else and just start posting because organized interaction with that many people becomes extremely difficult or scale back your use of Twitter to have it be manageable and worth your time. Many just migrate to ignore others and just blindly post their own beliefs without dialogue with others even if they didn’t go into Twitter initially under that understanding or mindset. So, Twitter just becomes a broadcast one-way tool. If Twitter is just that, then there is little value in that for many of us non-celebrities or spammers.

3. The fact that Twitter is user-centric, you follow individuals. But, you might only want specific content from those individuals. Because you can only follow individuals rather than topics or categories, you get all of the tweets from the person you have chosen to follow without the ability to filter. This inability to filter or restrict makes the experience of those possibly insightful individuals you might want to follow flawed because of you have to get ‘all’ of them rather then the subject matter you might care about. Heck, even Facebook allows you to be friends with someone, yet disable their daily affirmation from always being in your views to have to bypass. Again, this is only an issue if you really wanted to build a platform where those that have knowledge can share it with others collectively. This is a real problem and it goes against the rationale and potential of what Twitter and micro-blogging supporters argue is so revolutionary yet the tools themselves minimize this goal. Of course, if you follow a celebrity and find what soup they are eating important, then this is not a major concern for you.

4. Because of the problems above; the messy user experience, the learned or inherit blind ignorance of the population coupled with lack of tools to help chop the fluff for the engaged user, Twitter will continue to become a platform for already externally known celebrities, executives or pop-culture figures that treat it as an accessory to their PR rather than a communication tool with its our inherit value. The concept of being ‘mainstream’ can be debated, but I do feel Twitter is mainstream but for all the wrong reasons. Just because millions of people follow a celebrity in a one-way passive ‘follow’ method, does not mean there is something of value beyond ‘groupthink’ really going on there.

I have seen celebrities and executives say some very stupid things on Twitter and others just re-tweet those possibly controversial, probably incorrect assetionss just to have a sense of connection with that cultural figure or corporate leader even though there is no genuine connection there. There cannot be the connection there because of the million-to-one dynamic, heck even the thousand-to-one dynamic. Also, when someone calls someone on a foolish or clearly problematic statement, nothing usually happens which only further generates more noise in an arena with little and hard-to-find ‘signal’ to begin with due of the above problems I have summarized.

Essentially, there are many great uses I have seen with the Twitter architecture, but these main fundamental issues are ones that will continue to limit Twitter from reaching its potential as a revolutionary communication platform. There are ways to fix this and I have some ideas in a future posting.

Mar 31

Rejected Urban Dictionary Words

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Recently submitted a couple of words to Urban Dictionary but they rejected them. Anyway, here they are.

Whackamendation: Noun 1. The incorrect or undesireable result of an algorithm that the various social networking websites use to try and provide people you are not currently linked to on their site but might know based on your current network. 2. The incorrect result of the algorithm your DVR suggests you might like but is totally off-base and probably rooted in the one show you recorded by accident or error.

Fauxfile Pic: Noun 1. A picture a person uses on social networking sites to represent them that attempts to show them in a more socially-positive way. Examples of fauxfile pics are; a picture of the person that was taken over 5 years ago, a picture heavily corrected in digital imaging software such as Adobe Photoshop.

Unfortunately, UD seems to have gone downhill a bit.