c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
esc
cancel

Updates from January, 2008

    I can’t resist programming in the large

  • Alex Neihaus 4:58 pm on January 22, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: active endpoints, activevos, visual orchestration system, vos

     

    After over a year of consulting, I’ve taken on a new role with Active Endpoints which returns me to my roots in application development. For many years before I went into marketing, I developed applications using what was then considered leading-edge technology.

    What amazes me is that leading-edge developers today face the same problems as I did then: there’s too much “stuff” to conquer, too many technologies to integrate and too many piece parts to put together with duct tape.

    Active Endpoints has created a new category of app dev software, what we call a visual orchestration system, or VOS. You can read more about it in a press release we issued today…there’s a lot more to come from us on this topic. (Those of you who know me aren’t surprised to hear that, I would assume.)

    Anyway, I think this company can change — indeed revolutionize — the way applications are developed by helping the industry think large — as in programming in the large. This is in complete contrast to the way people think today, which is all about devolving problems to their smallest units to make them solvable, then trying after the fact to put them together in some coherent way. Any of you who have ever tried to build something from a kit knows how impossible this can be.

    Given the size of the problem and the amazing technology Active Endpoints offers, once I got the chance to join I found it irresistible.

     

    • The death watch for GM is over: the ‘08 Cadillac CTS is a used Buick

  • Alex Neihaus 4:40 pm on January 18, 2008 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cadilliac, decline of American automobile manufacturing, general motors

    rusted buick -- like the rest of GM -- just rotting away

    There’s a very entertaining series on one of my favorites blogs, TTAC, entitled “General Motors death watch“. I am sure they are much hated at GM, but, frankly, I think the bloggers there have been evenhanded. GM has been a mess so long, I can now officially be excused for buying a new, manual three-speed Chevy Vega in 1973. (I paid $2300 for it, courtesy of Nixon-era price controls.) Still, I think TTAC has been waiting for rigor mortis so long, it can’t see that GM is already a carcass.

    Lately, the auto press has been falling all over itself to praise GM’s new cars, especially the interior fit and finish of models like the Enclave and the CTS. Interior fit and finish is especially important to me because, after all, you sit in the thing for three to five years and every flaw eventually becomes something you stare at and wonder, “How could they let that out of the factory?”

    I checked out an Enclave in the showroom; the panels in the exact center of the dash under the analog clock were misaligned. I didn’t bother to test drive it, knowing that misaligned panel would drive me crazy. Now, I’ve taken to peeking through the windows of parked Enclaves to see if it was just a sample defect. Nope. They’re all like that.

    This week, curiosity got the better of me and I test drove a $50K ‘08 Cadillac CTS with four-wheel drive and the direct-injection engine. The showroom unit had a terribly misaligned panel where the front passenger’s knee rests against the transmission tunnel. Defect just on that one? Guess again. A different unit, the one I drove, had the same problem. Now I have another GM model to stare at in parking lots. The fit and finish in that car was no better than an 80’s Corsica, despite all the press fawning over stitched leather and the stupid Viagra-enhanced navigation screen. (The latter gives itself an erection every time you push a button on the dash. Reminds me of one of those pump-kits that promise…uh…lengthening).

    I have no freakin’ idea at all what these press guys are smoking. If an average car nut like me can see this stuff in seconds, why don’t they?

    Still, the promises of resurrection from GM management continue. Yesterday, GM told analysts it’s going to be profitable in a couple of years. That reminds me of the kind of wishful talk that accompanied Roger Smith’s attempt to “take on the Japanese” in the 90’s. At the end all he could offer was a “a used Buick.”

     

    • Apple, take my $20 please, or someone is finally paying for Google Maps?

  • Alex Neihaus 10:46 pm on January 16, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: google maps, ipod 1.1.3 firmware, ipod touch 1.1.3, ipod touch 1.1.3 firmware

    ipod touch 1.1.3 update

    Please forgive my non sequitur in the title of this post. But I think it’ll make sense as you read on.

    I’ve been raving lately about what a transformational device my new iPod touch is. And I’ve been struggling to put into words exactly what’s why that’s so. At first, I wasn’t convinced that it was so much different from my 5th generation iPod, which I still use daily.

    Then I took the iPod touch on vacation with me and discovered that the Safari browser was compatible with Outlook Web Access 2007. And that I actually enjoyed watching videos on YouTube. And that the flicking and pinching stuff I thought was the equivalent of tofu — as in real men use mice to navigate — is the first significant UI innovation in at least a decade.

    Then I started reading on the Internet about the upcoming 1.1.3 software update. Monday, Apple announced this was free for iPhone users, but would cost iPod touch users $20. Apparently, Apple has decided that the iPod touch is really a handheld — not just a music device. Ergo, bug fixes are free but enhancements are not. I know that lots of people will whine about this…and I gotta admit I wasn’t too happy having just spent $400 on the device.

    But, man oh man, is it worth it! I suspect the iPhone people got this upgrade for free because they are AT&T’s prisoner for two years, and food is included in the jail stay. But for those of us who own our iPod touches outright and have to decide to pay or not, I must say I am not looking for $20 back.

    The mail client is astonishing…Google Maps is amazing. This is the first device I have ever owned where a setup mode itself is entertaining (the icons wiggle when you are configuring dock pages).

    But for all of the amazing new features and the value, there are two things that bother me: first, Apple really should have made this one free. The device has only been in the market since September, 2007. I’ll bet a lot of people got theirs over the holidays, like I did. It leaves a small aftertaste to have to pony up 5% of the price to get the thing to do what it should’ve at first customer ship.

    Second, am I the only one who worries that the Google-masters-of-the-universe-who-control-all-our-searches-and-all-galactic-advertising have figured out a new way to extend their monopoly? This is, I think, the first time anyone is paying for a system with Google Maps. (I downloaded an excellent new version that uses cell towers for location onto my Windows Mobile 6 device last week for free.) Google Maps is a killer app…it’s one of the things that makes the iPod touch a transformational device. I wonder if all the “free” stuff people have become accustomed to was really nothing more than a very long term trial.

     

    • Alli: a "chocolate rain" you wish wouldn’t fall

  • Alex Neihaus 4:33 pm on January 3, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , chocolate rain, oily stool, orlistat, tay zonday

    002

    I am very late to the Chocolate Rain phenomenon. In case you are one of the remaining 50 people who don’t know about Tay Zonday’s famous (>13M views!) music video, I’ve embedded the YouTube video below. Be sure you also watch the related videos, including the Chad Vader spoof and Tay’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

    Back the to main purpose of this post: it’s time to bash the purported “weight loss” drug Alli again. Last summer, I both railed against and sympathized with the marketers of this “miracle drug.” I empathized with the plight of marketers who have to market a drug that, uh, “soils” your clothes with….here it comes…an ugly chocolate rain as it works. Then, I whined about those same marketers minimizing these effects on people.

    Then, last week, I was in a Wal-Mart and was stopped dead in my tracks by the display captured in the cell phone photo above. Look at the bottom of the retail display. It says, “can you commit to this?” Cleanly designed and mostly white brochures that match the nice white packaging of the “starter kit” of Alli on the display explain that low-fat foods reduce, the…yes, I am going to say it again…”chocolate rain effects.”

    The pun on commitment to achieving a diet goal strikes me as the most cynical marketing I’ve ever seen. It’s not about commitment to low-fat diets…it’s about commitment to a drug that makes you produce a nasty chocolate drizzle. After all, if you can commit to a low-fat diet, what the heck do you need Alli for?

    And, yes, I find the minimalist, white graphic design of the packaging and the brochures offensive as well. This product, which in truth, makes you slightly ill by interfering with your ability to absorb fat, should be in a black box with big FDA warnings, or at least a very dark brown that matches the real value of Alli itself.