The Abusive Relationship That Is the American Cable Industry

I just got done reading I Fought the Cord and the Cord Won over at MacWorld.  It is a well-written article that examines one man's attempt to divest his family of cable television and to use Internet-based alternatives, an option that is becoming increasingly more attractive for many and one that I have been using happily for several months now.

I've always been somehow distrustful of any commercial relationship that is based upon negotiation or haggling.  I'm certain this is naïve of me, to be honest, because the larger a transaction is, the more likely it is to require haggling: purchasing a house, a car or even negotiating your salary at a job, for example.  But for smaller purchases, the merchant should simply state what they consider a fair price and then it is up to me whether I want to pay it or not.  It makes me more comfortable to deal this way because then I feel that the merchant is treating me equitably and helps me trust them more.

But when someone tells me a price and then when I say no and begin to walk away they tell me a new, lower price, I feel like they were trying to cheat me.  I feel as if the original price wasn't a fair one, but a price that they were quoting me to see if I was a sucker, a mark, a chump.  And so now, how can I trust that the new price is truly any more fair or just another step along the way to see how much of a sucker I am?

Yet, this is how the American cable industry constantly does business with their special offers to get you to switch providers and their deals to get you to stay, but that always have an expiration date.  Not to mention the bundles and the packages, always trying to maximize the amount of money they get out of you each month.  How many times have you come away from one of these negotiations and known exactly what your monthly bill was going to be?  And how many times have you been correct?  For me the answers are "almost never" and "not one single time".

So, with the exception of the Internet service (that I desperately wish there was an alternative to, though where I live there are at least two choices), I cancelled my subscriptions from the cable company in favor of services such as Netflix, iTunes and Amazon Instant Video that tell me what they're going to charge me ... and charge me exactly and only that.

Anything else is just someone trying to put one over on you ...

das Keyboard for Mac

I've been touch-typing for a long, long time.  I originally taught myself to touch-type on my dad's old manual typewriter from college.  I remember a time when pretty much all keyboards were metal and seemingly constructed to withstand a nuclear blast.  I've always been pretty picky about the keyboards that I use, even going to the extent of learning the Dvorak keyboard layout.  But it wasn't until recently that I really started pining for the old mechanical-switch-style keyboards that have come into vogue.  I like the clicky-clack of the old keyboards ... and it wasn't until people started pointing out that old keyboards truly were different that I took a look around and decided to do something about it.

I eventually settled on the das Keyboard.  Partially it was because of the attention to detail.  Originally they touted that the various keys were loaded with different resistances depending on how strong the finger was that was intended to operate it.  Partially it is because I could get the same keyboard in loud or quiet form.  But eventually, it was because it was one of the few mechanical keyboards that offered a Mac model that said it would work with the various Mac function keys like volume and brightness control, etc.  Also, they offered a key puller to let you rearrange the keys so that those of us who use a Dvorak layout could actually have the keycaps displaying it.

I got my new das Keyboard for Mac yesterday and have been playing around with it for a bit.  I immediately pulled all the keycaps off and reorganized them.  Despite seemingly encouraging exactly this practice, it seems the keyboard isn't designed to pull the caps off and rearrange them, just clean under them.

It's fairly easy to see that the "?" key and the "-" key are a little out of plumb.  What's less obvious is that the bracket keys are a little shorter than their horizontal neighbors.  None of this has affected my typing so far or irritated me, but it was one use case that I thought I would have and don't seem to.  Had I known, I'd have thought more about getting the blank keycap version.

On the positive side, the keyboard is solid.  It is heavy and feels like it could withstand a nuclear blast ... except all the plastic keycaps would melt.  But it feels like the innards would be fine.  And it feels like it will last a long, long time.  We'll have to wait and see on that count.

Despite being heavy and solid, it is not bulky.  The desktop footprint is only a little larger than the Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad that I had been using previously.  It also has two USB ports in it, like the Apple keyboard.  Unlike the Apple keyboard, they are full power so they can charge an iPhone.  The das Keyboard manages this by having one USB cable with two plugs.  One for the keyboard and one for power for the hub.  If you don't need to charge things with the USB ports on the keyboard, then you only have to plug in one of the connectors.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the new keyboard and its ultra-clicky sound ... just like I remember it.  We'll just have to wait and see if it stands the test of time.

Personalized Search

I have a great idea for a search engine to implement.  I have multiple tools at my disposal for trying to remember stuff that is on the Internet.  I can make a bookmark in my web browser.  I can use a tool like Instapaper.  For programming, I can make a question and answer on Stack Overflow.  But these are all a bunch of data silos.  I can't readily search across all of them.  And if I forget where I read that one article ... did I archive it on Instapaper?  Did I drop it into Evernote?  I have a solution ...

I want the search engines to provide a way for me to mark something as of "personal interest" to me.  Then when I search for something, it will rank my personal interest items alongside everything else, but give my personal interest items a boost in the rankings.  Or maybe just list them off to the side in a kind of, "Hey, I noticed you're searching for information on Git, it looks like you have a guide to Git bookmarked and it looks like it has the information you're looking for."

I would have to sign up for an account with the search engine of my choice for this to work, because I would want my "personal interest" items available no matter which machine I was logged into.  But, for this feature, I would gladly do so.  I would also like this to be an API that any service across the Internet could use.  So Evernote could submit my notes to the API.  Instapaper could submit my articles to the API.  Perhaps it could even boost the accuracy of the ranking systems the algorithmic search engines use because it would be another source of data separate from links between web pages.

Anyway ... Google?  Bing?  Either of you listening?  Whichever one implements this to my satisfaction first wins my business.  

3D Printing Potential Boon to Miniatures Wargaming

I've been following the 3D printing scene for a little while, thinking that I'd really like to get my hands on one of those and do something really cool with it.  3D printers like the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic have the potential to be the beginning of something really special, I believe.  It's one of those ideas that I can't yet conceive of how it will revolutionize things, but I believe it will.  Perhaps this is how my parents felt when my dad was working with computers in the 1970s and thought that we should have a computer at home because they knew that it was going to be the future.  But I digress ...

Anyway, I've been on a "reduce all the things" binge around the house because I'm at the point in my life where I want things simple.  The problem here is that I've been a good American consumer and bought a metric crapton of crap!  (I think I've found a new state of George Carlin's classic stuff/crap dichotomy: When you no longer want the stuff you have, it becomes crap.)  I want to organize my house and one of the easiest ways to organize things is to reduce the number of things that need organizing by getting rid of the things you don't really need but are afraid to throw away.  Getting a 3D printer (one more thing) that will allow me to make things on demand (probably a whole bunch of things) is ... shall we say ... somewhat counterproductive?

So I've been able to resist the temptation to purchase one of these wonderful contraptions, so far.  But that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about what I could do with one of them, if I were to purchase one.  And then I saw on Twitter that someone had made a 3D terrain map of the Hudson Valley using a MakerBot.  Then it hit me, what if game clubs or game stores purchased MakerBots and started printing their own miniatures, terrain and so forth?

Currently, there are a couple ways to obtain or create miniatures suitable for wargaming.  One can purchase off-the-rack mass-produced miniatures.  Or one can create one-off or even small run miniatures using a resin casting method.  Resin casting generally provides lower-quality miniatures than mass produced ones, but are generally cheaper than their mass produced counterparts.  I would expect 3D printed miniatures to be more expensive than resin cast and possibly mass produced miniatures, but to have quality rivaling or even exceeding in some cases the mass produced miniatures.  The exact differences in cost and quality would require more research.

But think of the convenience!  What if I were a sculptor with some talent for creating miniatures models?  Or a 3D artist?  Perhaps I could sell designs that people with 3D printers could use to create their miniatures with?  Perhaps deals could be struck between the artist and game stores where the artist gets a percentage of every miniature printed by the game store?  Perhaps new miniature wargaming companies could sell designs with their rule sets so people could print the miniatures at home or take them into the game store to be printed for a modest sum over cost of materials?  And just think, for the people for whom the painting of the army is ninety percent of the fun of having a huge miniature army ... an endless supply of things to paint!

The mind boggles!

Trials and Tribulations with My New iMac

I recently bought a new iMac, making my conversion to The Dark Side complete. I got it almost completely tricked out. I was especially glad to get the SSD/HD combination. It's a 240GB SSD for the system drive and then a 1TB HD for whatever. The problem is that the way the system comes configured from the factory you would end up just using the SSD for everything unless you do some wizardry first. So I had to go and teach myself the wizardry through a couple failed attempts before I landed on what I believe, now, to be the proper solution.

Form 1: Default Configuration
The default configuration from the factory makes the SSD the main drive where everything gets stored.  The system, all the applications, all the user folders, everything.  The problems with this configuration are that I have a 1TB drive that is now useless and the SSD is only 240GB.  This is big enough for a while and may even be big enough if I wanted to really watch my disk usage.  But the whole point is that I don't want to watch my disk usage!

Form 2: Move /Users to HD

This is more like it!  So now I have the operating system, applications and such on the super-fast (but small) SSD and all my big fat user files like pictures and music and videos on the HD.  This is how I did it:

1. Create a Users directory on the HD (named "Macintosh HD 2" by default).
2. Copy the contents of /Users to the new Users directory.
3. Open System Preferences.
4. Select Users & Groups.
5. In the lower-left corner, click the lock to unlock and make changes.  (Authenticating as an administrator also, if necessary.)
6. Right-click on a user and select "Advanced Options...".
7. Where it says "Home Directory" click the Choose button and select the new directory in the new Users folder.  (This would be /Volumes/Macintosh HD 2/Users/[username] if everything is still on its defaults.)
8. Click Ok and repeat for the other users.

The problem I ran into with this configuration is that some stuff I use at the command line chokes on a home directory path that has spaces in it.  This led me to ...

Form 3: Delete /Users and Create a Link

What the link does for you is that anything that looks for "/Users/Foo" gets sent to "/Volumes/Macintosh HD 2/Users/Foo" instead.  But it is all behind the scenes and isn't the wiser ... so it doesn't have a chance to choke on the spaces in the path.  This is how I did it:

1. Delete /Users.  (Not a big deal because everything was already pointing to the other drive.)
2. Open Terminal.
3. Type the command: sudo ln -s /Users /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD\ 2/Users

The nice thing about this is now /Users and /Volumes/Macintosh HD 2/Users were essentially indistinguishable.  But then I read this article from MacWorld and learned of a weakness in my plan ...

Form 4: Abandon the Link and Go Back to Form 2

The problem with this plan is exposed in the final paragraph of the article.  (Good thing I read the whole thing!)  What happens if at some point the HD dies?  The system could still boot because the SSD is working, but it can't because it doesn't have a way to log in as any valid user!  But how do I take the advice and still keep my command line stuff from choking on spaces?  Rename the drives!  I renamed "Macintosh HD" to "System" and "Macintosh HD 2" to "Data".  Then I had to delete the link and recreate the /Users directory.  Here's how I did that:

1. Open Terminal
2. Type the command: sudo rm /Users
3. Type the command: sudo mkdir /Users

Then I went in and created a new administrator user called "backupadmin" and left their home directory in the default /Users location.  Any other real users I create will have to be migrated to the HD by hand, but I think this will work best in the long run.

Some Thoughts on Application Stores and Openness

In writing down my thoughts on why I switched to Mac from PC, I ended up composing a big rant on the difference between the iOS App Store and the Android App Store from what I hope is a rational cost/benefit perspective.  I wanted to post these thoughts separately to protect the flow of that other article and also because I think it is deserving of its own post.

I want to divorce this analysis as much as possible from the iOS App Store and the Android App Store.  So I will generically refer to a few different things.  There is the application store.  This is the store, virtual or physical, from which applications are purchased in order to be installed upon a device.  There is the user.  This is the person or party who owns the device on which applications will be installed and used.  There is the operator.  This is the person or party who owns, operates and optionally curates the application store.  Curation is the action of managing what is contained and ultimately sold from the application store.  When I speak of curation, I'm thinking of the kind that we see in the Apple application stores.  I know that the Android application store does remove applications and perhaps even proactively prevents some applications from being listed, but these are rather rare exceptions.

Who benefits from keeping bad apps out of an application store?  The user does surely because they can purchase apps without fear.  Does the operator benefit?  They might sell a few more applications because of the benefit enjoyed by users, but they also might not.  Curation, on the other hand, is a huge cost.  Each application and every update must be scrutinized by, presumably, both automated and manual processes.  So the operator of a curated application store must spend a lot of resources for a benefit enjoyed mostly by the user.

Who benefits from fewer apps in an application store?  The user benefits if the apps that are allowed in are of the same variety, similar cost and of generally higher quality.  The operator benefits if the apps that are allowed in somehow bring in more revenue than all apps would.  Again, curation is not free.  So, once again, the operator of a curated application store is spending a lot of resources for a benefit enjoyed mostly if not solely by the user.

Who benefits from an application store that will allow any application with as few restrictions as possible?  The user is taking the risk of downloading malicious applications.  The user has to judge quality for themselves using their own time and money.  The user has to be their own curator.  The operator of the application store benefits from allowing in all applications because they have an application store without the cost of curation.  The operator benefits because users and volunteers like security researchers will find the bad apps and notify the operator who can then take corrective action reactively.  In this scenario, the operator benefits from the users' and volunteers' efforts, does not incur the overhead of curation and possibly brings in more revenue because all apps has a chance of making more money than most apps.

One of the costs of curation is that good apps can be thought bad and not allowed in to an application store.  Or the operator can use curation as an excuse for barring good applications from the application store that might cost the operator something.  These can cost the user the enjoyment or benefit of the good app.  Mistakes and maliciousness, from the perspective of the user, are the costs of curation.  These can be minimized, if the operator is interested, but perhaps not eliminated.  (Maliciousness doesn't have to be systemic, it could be that an app reviewer sees that their old college nemesis submitted an app and rejects it to "get back at them.")

Overall, it looks to me like the majority of the costs of the curated approach are borne by the operator and the majority of the benefits are enjoyed by the user.  The reverse seems to be true of the uncurated application store.  Looking at it from this perspective, I'm beginning to have a new respect for the Apple approach to the application store.

We Don't Need No Steenkin' Cable!

Back in March, I wrote a post about The Ultimate Set-Top Box.  I've been thinking a lot about it lately and the fact that I just don't watch much cable TV anymore.  Sure, when I'm bored I occasionally flip through the things on my TiVo, but it wouldn't be any huge hardship to choose something else like reading a book, playing a video game or working on a programming hobby project.  So the question is ... how much extra am I spending on a cable subscription that I don't need?

I did some research.  Actually, I did some digging because Frontier Communications made it very hard to find out this information.  I tried going through their website via my account to see if I could change my plan.  They would not allow me to deselect TV from my current plan.  I could add or upgrade services, but I could not remove anything.  I finally had to resort to logging into their website as a new customer and look up the currently available plans that way.  Still, they didn't make it easy because of the dizzying array of choices available.  But I was able to finally select just FIOS Internet without TV, without Home Phone, at my current speed rating.  Making this change would save me $30 per month.  It also turns out that the next higher speed rating might save me an additional $10 per month.

As Marco Arment recently pointed out in a podcast, $40 per month can buy a lot of TV or movies on iTunes (or Amazon or Hulu or [insert your favorite video service here]).  Approximately thirty dollars will buy you a full thirteen-episode season of Doctor Who in HD from Amazon Video-on-Demand.  A full season of House in HD will run you about $56.  iTunes runs slightly more at $37 and $60, respectively.  Remember, these are HD videos that are yours to keep (so long as the DRM continues to be supported) with no commercials or other claptrap getting in the way.  $40 per month is $480 per year or eight full American-style seasons in HD.  So I could still have the shows that I really do want to watch, in a format that may allow me more freedom to watch when, how and on which device I want to watch it, and possibly still save me money.

Now I just need to figure out how to break the news to my daughter ...

Making Your Own Tools

I remember reading somewhere that you aren't a real carpenter until you've made your own tools.  Not being a carpenter of any sort, I'm not sure if its true or not, but I've started to feel like it might be true for programmers.

More and more I've noticed that IDEs are becoming required to work with code.  And more and more, these IDEs have very similar, but not the same, features.  They all offer customization of one form or another, but what's more custom than something that works exactly the way you want it to, because you wrote it that way?

So I've set out on a quest to take the journey of my programming forefathers and write, to begin with, an editor and a language with its own compiler/interpreter.  Perhaps the two will be related, perhaps not.  Perhaps the language will be generally useful or maybe it'll only be the extension language for the editor ... or perhaps it will be nothing more than an experiment in language design and have no practical purpose whatsoever.  But I expect that once I get to a certain basic level of usefulness with the editor, it will become my sole text editor since I do believe in eating my own dogfood.

Since my platform of choice nowadays is the Mac, I have already started writing my editor as an Objective-C OS X application.  I started out with the code from the article: Building a Text Editor in 15 Minutes.  It has given me a huge appreciation for the underpinnings of OS X and gotten my editor almost all the way to that basic usability level I mentioned before.

As I move forward, I'll be sharing thoughts and discoveries from my journey here.  I hope you find them useful ... or at least entertaining.

Pet Peeve - Silicon vs. Silicone

Silicon is an element used in construction of semiconductors, most notoriously computer chips.  Silicone is a type of plastic used for all manner of things, most notoriously breast implants.  Silicon is a component of silicone, but they are not synonymous.  Please stop using them as if they were.

The Ultimate Set Top Box

I struck upon an idea the other night while talking to a friend on the phone.  Wouldn't it be great if I could get rid of the series of boxes in my entertainment center?  Ok, perhaps getting rid of all of them is too much to ask, but I don't think that reducing down to the TV and one "set-top" box is going too far.

I currently have the following in my entertainment center:

• Xbox 360 - for playing games and streaming Netflix
• TiVo - for cable, DVR and Amazon video downloads
• Sony PS/3 - almost exclusively for BluRay movie watching

I honestly think that the Xbox is really close to being my one and only box in my entertainment center.  Here is what it would take for this to happen:

• Add CableCARD support to the Xbox
• Add DVR capability to the Xbox
• Add a BluRay drive to the Xbox
• Add Amazon Video-on-Demand support to the Xbox

Currently, my TiVo is my cable television set-top box because it supports CableCARD.  I just plugged in a card I rent from my cable company (for a cheaper amount than if I rented a digital set-top box) and my TiVo now controls my cable television.  True, it doesn't have some of the extra features that the cable company provides, but mostly that's video on demand and DVR capabilities ... which my TiVo provides.  So if Microsoft puts a CableCARD slot and DVR software into the Xbox, then I can replace most of my TiVo.

If Microsoft puts a BluRay drive in the Xbox, then I can get rid of my PS/3 ... along with being able to store a bunch more data on my game discs.

If Microsoft adds Amazon Video-on-Demand support to the Xbox Live service, then I can get rid of the one remaining feature of my TiVo.

I would love to be able to just use my Xbox as my sole entertainment hub.  It already does so much, from watching movies, to streaming video, to listening to music, to playing games.  And if they rolled the "guide subscription" that most DVR devices charge for access to channel listings and such into the Xbox Live annual service, then they might even boost Xbox Live subscription numbers.

Microsoft, please make this happen!

The March of Progress

I'm on my way home from a programming conference in Baltimore right now, typing this out on my new laptop.  At the same time, I'm downloading videos from Amazon Video on Demand to watch on the flight through the airport Internet access.  In my backpack, I have my Amazon Kindle with ninety-two books on it and hundreds of thousands more available with a couple of mouse clicks.  In my pocket, I have my smartphone that can access virtually any website in the world, run a plethora of helpful applications as well as the more mundane placing and receiving of calls or text messages.  The battery in the phone lasts all day almost no matter what I do with it.  The battery in my laptop, if I'm careful, will last about five hours of active use.

Just a little over ten years ago I was flying to and from Taipei for work.  I had a few books with me, a laptop crammed full of music (video was too large to store more than a little bit on a computer) and one game that I had bought to bring with me so I would have something to do in the hotel room.  I carried a pager with me for text messages and a cell phone for calls, but I could only keep the cell phone on for a few hours at most even if all I did was just left it on ... so I gave out my pager number for people to get a hold of me and then called them back on the cell phone after turning it on.  The laptop battery lasted about five hours of listening to music and doing nothing else with the screen and everything else I could turned off on the plane.

A hundred years ago, I wouldn't have been taking a plane at all.  What I can do in just a few hours now would have taken days on a train or weeks on a boat.  For most, it would have been a one-way trip to start a new life rather than something taken at a whim or for leisure.

It is amazing how quickly things are changing within my lifetime compared to the period before it.  I wonder what the next ten years will bring?

Files Are an Implementation Detail

John C. Dvorak recently wrote that the desktop gets no respect and it should.  This column has been a source of discussion and disagreement between my friends since it made the rounds.  Leaving aside the whole "licensing" issue, what Mr. Dvorak nearly captures is the divide between what most people need to use computers for and what professionals need to use computers for.  He claims that the desktop can do things that appliances can't.  I disagree, one only needs to look at the TiVo to see an example of an appliance that does things that one would once have needed a desktop computer to do or had to do manually.  But let me start by defining my terms ...

An appliance, for the purposes of our discussion, is a device that performs a task or set of related tasks in a way that a user can learn to operate it by intuition or usage and hides most if not all implementation details from the user.  A refrigerator is an appliance because you don't need to know how it works in order to keep your food cold, you just open the door, stick something in and a few hours later it is cold.

A desktop computer is not an appliance because you need to learn aspects of how it operates in order to properly use it.  You need to know about files, folders, networks, programs and a whole lot more.  And the more the computer can do, the more you have to learn.  A desktop computer does not hide its implementation details.  As a matter of fact, its job is more to piece together various things that let you use the implementation details without hiding them.  Yes, you can plug in to a network nowadays without needing to know much about TCP/IP, network protocols or the OSI stack.  But it doesn't keep that stuff from you either.  A refrigerator doesn't give you access to its compressor and let you tweak it.

Here's another point where I disagree with Mr. Dvorak.  The modern automobile is an appliance.  I don't need to know anything about how a car works in order to operate it.  I don't need to know about the transmission, the engine, or the brakes.  I just need to know that putting the car in D and pushing the accelerator makes it go.  I take my car to a mechanic to fix it, just like I have a professional come and fix the refrigerator if its broken.  It is only the American love affair with the automobile that has kept it so the average person still can get access to the engine and other internals.  And while I know more than many about how an automobile works, I have only the most basic grasp of newer automotive technology like anti-lock brakes and traction control.  Those are things that I have decided I don't need to understand, they just work.  That's the magic of an appliance, I don't need to know in order for it to work.

So let's take a look at what I believe computers are and should be evolving into, the modern camera.  You have the point-and-shoot camera for consumers and you have the SLR camera for enthusiasts and professionals.  With the point-and-shoot camera, I don't need to know about white balance, f-stop or any of a bunch of other technical aspects of photography.  I simply point it at what I want to take a picture of and click the button.  On the other end of the spectrum, there are the SLR cameras where I may not need to know those things in order to take a picture ... but it doesn't hide those things from me either.  The point-and-shoot camera is an appliance.  The SLR camera is not.

What does a general computing appliance look like?  Simply enough, it looks like the iPhone or iPad as far as the way it operates.  With these devices, you don't need to know about files or folders or networks.  You turn it on, download an app and perform a task.  Everything else is taken care of for you.  Does this mean you can't "calculate, with accuracy, the trajectory of a rocket shot to the moon, and the amount of fuel it needs to get there"?  Of course not, but you do need an app for that ... which someone else must have made for you.  Does it mean that you can't connect a Wacom tablet and do cool, unspecified things with Adobe Illustrator?  Well, for now, yes ... but the concept of a general computing appliance doesn't preclude this.  A general computing appliance is something for consumers and will hide the implementation details of how the computer works, but that doesn't mean it can't do powerful things or allow one to attach peripherals such as a Wacom tablet or a keyboard.

And here's where we get to files, the big argument amongst my friends was that files are the glue between applications that are never perfect.  A file allows one to take data that was created by one application that does part of the task I want to another application that allows me to finish the task.  The implicit fear is that on a general computing appliance, apps will turn into data islands that do not allow me to perform this kind of assembly-line workflow that the desktop PC has enabled since its inception.  If you look at the iPhone, this is mostly the case.  One app's data is not shared to any other apps, with the exception of some built-in applications like the camera and the photos app.

On Android, it is a different story.  Android has a system whereby one application can serve up its data to the rest of the device via a content provider system.  This allows any application on the device to integrate with the built-in contacts application, or the gallery application.  It allows new applications to serve new kinds of data and control how that data can be accessed or changed.  This system also does not resort to sharing files.  It is an OS-controlled communication protocol that allows an application to have its own data strongly protected but also affords sharing.  This type of system is what will allow for files and folders to truly become an implementation detail on consumer-level general computing appliances.

This is my idea of what the general computing appliance nirvana looks like from the user's perspective:

• A way to download, install and uninstall applications.
• A means of launching an application.
• A system whereby installed applications can notify the user of events.
• A means of switching between running applications and controlling what applications are running.
• A system of configuring the settings of applications.

Additionally, a general computing appliance should afford the following without the user having to be involved:

• Sharing of data between applications.
• Access to the device's peripherals.
• Other integration points between applications (a la Intents in Android).

And that's about it as far as a consumer is concerned.  This is the genius behind the iPhone and why I believe it will be considered revolutionary in the years to come.  It was the first true general computing appliance.

Where does this leave the desktop PC?  Should it get more respect or should it become the computing world's Rodney Dangerfield?  I partially agree with Mr. Dvorak here.  The traditional desktop PC will continue to have its place in the computing future.  But it will belong to enthusiasts and professionals, not to the consumer.  The people who are writing apps for consumer devices will use a desktop PC (or the future's version of it).  The people who are doing more free-form computing tasks will likely use a desktop PC, perhaps engineers or scientists or data miners, people who aren't performing the same task all the time.  I believe though that over time the set of people that use what we now call the desktop PC environment will shrink slowly but inevitably.  As operating systems evolve and developers begin to understand more of what people actually use computers for, we will be able to simplify more tasks to the level of an appliance.  It does not mean the end of the enthusiast or the professional, simply that one does not have to be an enthusiast or professional to get the benefit of the technology.

This is not something to be reviled, but something to be considered natural.  It is the march of progress.

Why I'm Considering Dumping Facebook for Google Buzz

I've been following the various Facebook privacy debates and I've been just as concerned as many people, but the reality, or so I thought, is that there weren't other good options. I really like being able to update all of my friends, family and extended acquaintances on (not so) significant happenings in my life in one easy motion. I like being able to easily share stuff like pictures, videos, links and commentary with these same people. I enjoy posting nonsensical musings that might make people smile, but if people don't have time ... they don't even have to delete them from their inbox. As far as I knew, there weren't other worthwhile* sites that offered that kind of functionality.

When Google Buzz came out to fanfare quickly followed by privacy issues of their own, I was immediately turned off and vowed to not consider the product, let alone use it.  But lately, I've been perusing Google's offerings for various reasons and well, it was right there, so I fiddled about with it.  I checked their privacy policy.  I checked the Google Dashboard, where one can see everything that Google has associated with your profile ... manage the privacy settings and in the case of Buzz, delete all content with just a few clicks.  And Google Buzz lets you easily do everything that Facebook can do and some other things besides.

So here's the breakdown of why I'm strongly considering using Google Buzz as my social network framework of choice:

Privacy

I can easily control who can see what entries I create on Google Buzz.  I can make something public to the entire Internet, assign one or more groups or even just one person as able to view and comment on my posts on a post-by-post basis.

Visibility

I can easily see what items can be seen by whom.  Through the Google Dashboard I can see everything that Google has connected me with and why.  I can then make informed decisions on how I use the service rather than relying on word-of-mouth and the latest Internet scare to tell me what Facebook has exposed to outsiders this week.

Anonymity

I'm not using this particular feature but it is well known that Facebook doesn't allow accounts with anything other than your "real" first and last name with an optional nickname (but only if it is a variation of your first name) or maiden name.  On Google Buzz, I could create a new Google Account for any of the various gaming names I've held over the years and post as that identity, if I was so inclined.

Control

Basically, what all this boils down to is a question of control.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has publicly stated that in his opinion, the expectation of privacy is no longer a social norm.  Because of this, he decided to change Facebook's policies to match his vision of the current trend in social norms.  While I applaud him for taking his company in a bold direction, something most CEOs will not do.  I'd rather that access to my information be controlled by my vision of social norms.  As far as I can tell, Google Buzz gives me that control.

* Yes, I know about LinkedIn, Friendster, MySpace and the like.  LinkedIn is designed for business networking.  Friendster I can't even go to their main page without signing in.  And if you think MySpace is a serious site, comment after you get your driver's license.