Wind Efficiency Vs. Gas&Oil: What I’ve Learned

As a business owner, I define high-efficiency as the ability to get things done with either the highest operating margin or the lowest operating loss.  With this in mind, and considering the amount of philanthropic hubbub surrounding wind power and the equal-in-volume guilt talk surrounding the use of fossil fuels, I decided to get to the bottom of the efficiency question.

Because for me, the debate begins and ends with three points:

- No fossil energy source appears to be in short supply.  According to reputed agricultural economists, the supply of crude in the U.S. is somewhere near 180 billion barrels, with more not discovered. At our present rate of consumption, that’s a sufficient supply for nearly 40 years, assuming no non-domestic sources were to be used during that time period.

- The ultimate decision point for energy production isn’t energy diversity, or even the environment (read the excellent current thinking on “carbon-in-carbon-out“), but the ability of energy to be harnessed at a low cost in human effort and a likewise low cost in human damage.  Diversity, on the other hand, is a false rationale for wind because it attempts to apply a social-science paradigm to a non-social process, while the environmental impact of fossil fuels is a false rationale because it isn’t fully understood, and environmental impact (large electromagnetic fields, noise, and visual impacts) of wind turbines and transmission systems is largely ignored and improperly dismissed as harmless.

- Fossil fuels, most notably natural methane and propane gasses, are institutionally mislabeled as nonrenewable, despite the natural occurrences of what many scientists agree are in fact, spontaneously-sustainable natural deposits and man-made sustainable gas tactics such as biogas. I would prefer the industry to begin referring to gas as semi-renewable until a better understanding of its supply system is developed.  The most notable example of propaganda covering potential gas renewability is the CNG (compressed natural gas) movement.  I have dealt personally with those invested heavily in this budding industry, and they agree that the estimates as to a tight natural gas supply (10 years or less) are blowhard figures motivated more by “science-for-political-gain” than by any form of truth.  These guys wouldn’t be investing so heavily in CNG if they thought they’d be out of business in 10 years.

September 9, 2011 | Tags: , , , , | 1,082 Comments »

Ted – Why Don’t You Blog VoIP Any More?

1. Divorce made me realize I needed more time with people.  Writing takes away face time, and as shrewd as that is, it’s true.

2. My business took off. 6 employees now. Microsoft partner. Digium partner. The list goes on.  Time commitment issues again.

3. My tweeners became teenagers.  More driving around, more emotional guidance, more interaction with them daily.  They have become awesome musicians!

4. I started a band in Cleveland called pOUT (pronounced “pout”), which has, in the span of about one year, become one of the top 10 club bands in the rock capital.  Time commitment.

5. I realized that, despite my preoccupation with converged business communication, the bulk of my real earning potential was in general I.T. consulting and networking, because I live in Cleveland and not San Jose or Boston.

6. Still getting plenty of VoIP press despite having been relatively disengaged from the VoIP crowd for nearly two years now.  I was the coverboy for ChannelPro SMB last month for their VoIP feature.

7. My vocational obsessions only last a few years, it seems.

July 27, 2011 | 816 Comments »

Horn-toot: I predicted a PC app store a long time ago

Apple’s introduction of an app store for the Mac is not only the right thing to do, it’s also long overdue.  I’ve been predicting it since August of 2008.  The last time I wrote about it, I suggested that opening an app store for Mac (and even Windows) would remove barriers to bigtime software distribution while driving down prices.  Both ultimately good things.  I’m glad to see that ol’ Steve finally saw the light.   Wouldn’t have been something if Apple would’ve created the first app store for Windows, too?

October 21, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | 1,897 Comments »

“Implications for Google”… Wait, can’t we just agree that Italy made a mistake?

The New York Times is reporting that the Italian judicial decision to convict Google executives of violating content rules by disseminating search content that this Italian judge found objectionable has resulted in a rethinking of Google’s role in the future.  People are beginning to worry that search is going to change and that content is going to be inaccessible.  There’s a real sense of worry.

Poppycock.  Listen, the judge is wrong.  And even if 90% of the world agreed, what American official is going to get caught with blood on his hands for extradition?  Let’s stop worrying about how we’re all going to have to behave different in this Orwellian digital future and just suffice to say the guy’s an uninformed moron who made a mistake.

This is all much ado about nothing. Can somebody back me up?

February 25, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | 21 Comments »

More Kind Words for “Switching to VoIP”

I came across some very kind passages regarding my book, Switching to VoIP.  This first one contrasts my book with the VoIP for Dummies book. He also mentions “Asterisk: The Future of Telephony”, for which I provided O’Reilly a technical review. That’s an awesome book, too.

This book is focused on the key elements of telephony and the migration to VOIP – primarily as a cost saving measure. The first 2/3 of the book deal with the VOIP technology – as an adjunct to and eventual replacement for traditional (legacy) telephony. By the 2/3 point, the author is talking about cost analysis, benefits and justification.

I would more likely title this book “VOIP for management”. This is not a put-down or insult, as the book’s primary objective is to educate the mostly non-technical person on what VOIP is, and how it might best fit into an existing picture, and one moving forward.

Being primarily technical myself, this book was good as a preliminary introduction to a subject that I wasn’t familiar with – but I immediately moved on to the O’Reilly books on the subject – “Switching to VOIP” by Ted Wallingford and “Asterisk” (Leif Madsen, et al). Someone who is responsible for managing such a transition would find it much more useful than I did.

Also, Tech PRose was kind enough to add Signal Noise as a favorite telecom blog.

February 9, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , | 1,031 Comments »

iPad/iPhone platform takes the shimmer off OS X

I couldn’t help but wonder what the iPad hype machine is going to mean for OS X in the long wrong. Sure, OS X is the development environment for the iPhoneOS, but is there enough *there* with the mobile OS to make it the de facto environment of choice for folks like me?

As it is now, iPhone OS does a whole lot of things OS X does not–platform-wide UI support for multi-touch is just the beginning of the list. Still, it seems Apple has gone to great lengths not to cannibalize desktop PC sales, if not overtly saying so. No, iPad is not a desktop replacement, yet.  For starters, it synchronizes with iTunes, meaning that it doesn’t actually run iTunes, so its calendaring and music apps are still very mobile in nature. I also wonder if the lack of a user-facing camera was a design scheme to keep the iPad out of the desktop space, as opposed to a financial consideration to keep down manufacturing costs.

But the brushes app seems like an impressive utility with the potential to offset some productivity that’s normally reserved for the desktop.  And as I type this on a Macbook Pro, I realize that the iPad will never be suitable for video production, or for audio mixing. Even still, I can imagine great uses for multitouch in these kinds of apps.

Without the UI goodies, OS X shimmers less, and I believe it’s only a matter of time before touch-enabled desktop gear starts shipping from Cupertino.

January 29, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , | 800 Comments »

iPad Data Plans Nice, but where’s the tethering?

All iPads are unlocked and use GSM micro SIMs, so you can use a carrier right away if you have data. No contract: you activate the service directly from the iPad and can cancel any time you want without an ETF. iPad has built-in 3G. Data plans normally cost $60 a month for a laptop. 250MB of data per month is $15 (less than the usual $35). $30 for unlimited — a much better deal. AT&T is providing the service.

Come on AT&T, I still can’t tether my iPhone according to your terms of service!  Brutal.

January 27, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | 871 Comments »

How to save Windows Mobile

Among Blackberry, Microsoft, Google, and Apple, Microsoft was the earliest player in mobile computing and smart phones, so why have they failed in this area?

With Windows Mobile 7 waiting in the wings, it occurred to me that I just don’t see people using Windows Mobile devices that much any more. In fact, at work, we’ve seen a shift from WinMo to Blackberry and iPhone, with the exodus split about 60/40 in favor of Blackberry. The market share shift has been swift and decisive.

Now I know this isn’t exactly news, but I was trying to figure out why.  Microsoft correctly foresaw the mobile market as being the next big thing for them and the software industry, and they had very early foresight that mobile was going to sweep our eyes away from our desktops in a major way. They had the timing right, but their solution is, and has been, inadequate.

The Value of Ecosystems

One key difference between Microsoft and Apple is that, while they both offer end-to-end ecosystems (Microsoft with XBox, Apple with iTunes/iPhone/AppleTV), they seem to use their ecosystems to different ends.  I believe Apple’s tightly-integrated iTunes ecosystem was primarily driven by the “digital paranoia” of the record industry in the early 2000′s, and it may not have been Apple’s idea to provide such a closed environment. But, in the end, consumers seem to prefer the “just works” ecosystem over the “bring your own interface” approach. For this reason, Microsoft can be seen to have failed at establishing a clear content-to-consumer delivery model based on Windows Mobile.

What’s worse, the Zune, which could have been a great launchpad for a simplified, stylus-free version of Windows Mobile four years ago, exists on yet another Microsoft island, limiting its value to the consumer. Rectifying this problem by bringing the ill-fated Zune line into the limelight of the Windows ecosystem would go a long way towards making Windows Mobile relevant again. Think iPod.

Failure to Recognize Consumer Patterns of Behavior

It was only a matter of time before the average consumer was using personal devices to manage nearly every aspect of his life. Yet Microsoft took the wait and see approach, preferring to believe that the corporate world would drive personal device adoption, where, in reality, we can see that personal, entertainment-oriented device use has driven the entire mobile industry for the last several years.  Two parts gear lust, and one part nerdification of the general populous, this movement is the exact opposite of the strategy Microsoft used for Windows Mobile.

Most People Lose Their Stylus

The user interface options available on Windows Mobile devices, until recently, have been based on resistive touch screen technology, generally used with a small, inkless pen called a stylus.  Blackberry, by contrast, has always offered its trademark “scroll wheel”, and Apple developed a slew of UI technologies, including groundbreaking iPod controls, that culminated in a stylus-free touch-screen control environment for the iPhone. Windows Mobile never employed either approach, so solving this problem (and Microsoft is solving it) will help.

Give Developers a Reason to Develop

The real trick isn’t coming up with the idea. The real trick isn’t coding the program.  The real trick IS getting people to notice.  Apple has more than solved this problem, for better or worse, with the Appstore.  You bring the code, we bring the customers.  While some web sites have served as communities of developers and consumers of WinMo apps, they exist outside the ecosystem and don’t provide turnkey delivery of content.

When Microsoft finally did show up on the scene with an official WinMo store, they stubbed their toe by naming it “Windows Marketplace for Mobile”.  Srsly?

Stop Trying to Look Like Windows

Windows Mobile shouldn’t look like Windows and shouldn’t even be called “Windows”, since a windowing environment on a 3″ screen is a useless idea anyway. Yet when we look back at the releases of Windows Mobile (and its mobile predecessors), we get the idea that Microsoft has always wanted WinMo to look as much like desktop Windows as possible. Only with Windows Mobile 7 has this pattern been broken. (See above screen grab.)

Blackberry never had this problem, as their main objective was to develop a good mobile UI, and they had no ties to an existing desktop environment.  Apple, who does have Mac OS X, decided not to bother bringing the X look and feel to their mobile device. This was a great decision, of course.

January 18, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments »
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