system.reflecti0n.net

There's been murmuring through several tech news sites, Neowin, TrustedReviews, etc. about the possibility of Windows7 appearing in 2009 -- that's next year kids! I think we would all be standing on pretty firm ground when we take the "we've heard that one before" stance. But this quote from Mary Foley's blog got me thinking:

Recent leaks regarding Microsoft’s next-generation Windows 7 release have all mentioned that the next version of Microsoft’s client operating system will be more tightly tied with Windows Live. The degree to which the two will be joined at the hip will become clearer, as Microsoft marches towards delivering Windows 7 in late 2009 or 2010 and Windows Live “Wave 3″ at the very end of 2008.

Microsoft memo: Windows 7 and Windows Live...

The part that gets the wheels turning, for me, is the update to Windows Live at the end of this year. Microsoft often makes a significant update to one or more of their properties just before an OS release. I'm thinking of IE4 precluded Win98, IE6 for WinXP, IE7 and Live.com for Vista.

I'll Have The Answer As Soon As I Finish My Mug of Tea...

So if I'm reading the tea-leaves right, things bode well for a release of Windows7 as the encore to the "Wave 3" update to Windows Live. [That is, assuming I'm actually looking at tea-leaves worth reading, an not just some garden-variety leaves like Poplar or Maple...]

Tags: windows7, microsoft, mary jo foley

This week, Flikr launched "The Commons", a project of The Library of Congress that will provide wider access to their photo archives. Even better, Flickr users will be able to tag these photos themselves which will contribute to making these photos "more visible" to a passive archive user.

Tag This Idea: "A for Effort"

Its an important effort because public archives or all sorts are often vast (and although their indexing is accurate) they usually lack a taxonomy that the average taxpayer can work with. In an age where the Google behemoth is trying to index every scrap of data/information out there, we should laud Flikr and the LoC for teaming up to look for a more efficient way of organizing public archives that ought to increase our access to information, not just rank it like Google already does (but ranking alone doesn't go far enough to make information visible for it too lacks an extensive taxonomy).

Flikr to the Government: Show Me the Money?

I mean, why not? Why not see taxpayer dollars go towards something that will enrich historical archives? And why stop at the U.S. government? Flikr could strike deals with virtually any country, since every government has archives of its own. The deal could be results based: a few cents per tag might be enough to keep the doors open and ordering reproductions could be brokered by Flikr for a reasonable fee.

Why Stop There? Let's Go Democratic!

How about a special section on Digg.com where Congress and the Senate publish their agendas, and U.S. citizens get to vote-up or vote-down the agendas... Somehow, the debate over pay raises gets buried in the early days and Congress mistakenly declares July 23rd "National X-Box Day". As voter satisfaction grows, perhaps pay raises will make it to the front page -- eventually.

Seriously, Getting "Bought Out" is NOT a Real Business Plan

We've seen enough websites go off the rails after being bought up my the media giants (Netscape.com, I'm looking in your direction). Maybe its time to start planning for services that can really be about the service, and not an elaborate means to eventually get VC, IPO or sell-out.

Tags: flickr, web 2.0, ngo

It's not a great novel. It's not a classic album. Not a blockbuster movie, sequel, trilogy or serial. Software is what it is.

Software stands apart from other artistic mediums because when it comes to software, it's never done. Why did we put "1.0" at the end of a product name? Because we know there's going to be a 2.0 and a 3.0 and 4 and 5 and if there's one thing we're sure of is that version 5.0 is going to be four better than version 1.0. A developer and that didn't believe that would never start 1.0, let alone find a way to get to 5.0.

We'd All Quit if They Called it "Version Done-point-Oh"

I'm probably dating myself, of late they've replaced "1.0" with "Beta" but I still know it's 1.0 in my caffeine-wizened heart. Van Gogh, DaVinci, Monet, Thompson, they never showed a thing to nobody and said "that's not the real painting, I have so much more work to do than that, let's call this the 'beta canvas'". They didn't do it, in fact, it's not uncommon for decade after a painter's death for some "incomplete works" to break into the light of day-- it takes decades to find them because no artist wants people to see half-baked ideas and they make the effort to hide that stuff. No, not to be found by you, someday they expect to go back and finish that masterpiece.

It's a Little Too Easy to Forget How to Go From 0.0 to 1.0

We, as programmers, as people who know damn well how to get things done on a computer, look at that 1.0 software and rail against it. Especially if its not ours, we suspect the creators to surely be idiots for not "doing things in a better/faster/smarter" way. After you get over the shock and horror that is v1.0 software you come to understand, there was nothing there to improve upon before version one.

How are you supposed to do things right when its never been done before? It's just not as easy as critiquing code written long before you came into the picture. Some of the most significant innovations of today you'll see it's a long series of separate inventions, setbacks and recoveries. That is, nobody woke up one morning and said: "I'm going to invent the iPod".

Tags: coding

Good Planning

...means never having to say: "I'll work through the night to get this done on time".

Good Design

...means never having to say: "I'll make it more user-friendly".

Good Debugging

...means never having to say: "I'm sorry".

Good Programming

...means never having to say: "I'm sorry, I'll make it more user friendly and I'll even work through the night to get this done on time."

Tags: coding

Yet another online music store turns itself into an MP3 haven. This time it's Napster: Napster kicks it old school with MP3. How ironic, they practically ushered in the DRM-age with their unfettered MP3 p2p service of the late 1990s-- good times.

Anyway, it got me to wondering if Microsoft didn't play a hand in the demise of DRM by turning a cold shoulder to their own content-protection scheme (Plays-for-Sure) when they released Zune late in 2006. It didn't take long after that for Rhapsody and SanDisk to announce they were going to examine making their own content protection scheme. Although it will be a cold, cold day before I turn to RealPlayer for any media playback, it was certainly a signal from within the industry that they didn't see a future in Microsoft's Plays-for-Sure.

With Microsoft's DRM left to whither on the vine and no audio-DRM schemes of note to replace it with (that don't required you to be Apple Inc.) perhaps Napster has let their own licensing of DRM technology to simply lapse. Winding down their use of DRM while they re-negotiated their positions with the record labels. IIRC, they're already a part of Sony, via Napster selling themselves to BMG back in 2000, so they probably had a Rolodex of decision makers to present their "Let's-go-MP3" case to.

So What Next?

Yahoo Music has been promising a big change. A director of theirs even said last summer that DRM was a big waste of their time and money. If they haven't made the announcement already, I suspect they will pretty soon.

Updated! (2008-01-24)

Looks like Yahoo Music is going DRM-free too: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/23/yahoo-may-offer-drm-free-music-for-free/

Tags: music, drm, microsoft, wma, napster