Dan Appleman: Kibitzing and Commentary

I’ve often stated that the single most important technical innovation at Microsoft was the MSDN library. Many of you probably can’t remember the sheer pain of developing under Windows before it existed. Manually searching through thousands of pages of reference guides and books slowed things down to a crawl. Today, MSDN is our primary reference – even if most of us use Google as its front end.

But over the past couple of years a quiet revolution has happened at Microsoft that is starting to have a huge impact – especially on more advanced developers or those working with newer technologies. An impact on discoverability that is perhaps second only to MSDN itself.

We all know about Microsoft’s initial love-hate relationship with blogging. And of course, former Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble was probably the single greatest driving force in getting Microsoft to recognize the value of blogging as a communication tool. But Robert was an evangelist, and while he may have exposed us to interesting technology, that’s not where the really important change happened. The really key change is that at some point it became common (encouraged?) for Microsoft developers to blog about their work. I suspect Robert helped bring about this change as well.

When I started working with Microsoft technologies, the developers lived in an ivory tower (with individual offices, of course), and it was extremely difficult for anyone not at Microsoft to actually communicate with them directly. Worse, anything they knew about the technology they created could only be released to the world after going through the filter of the product documentation group, whose expertise often seemed more in the area of obfuscation than communication.

Now, a few years later, the bloggers on the developer team have generated a substantial body of work. And while they do talk about all kinds of things, many of the posts are about the technologies they are working on – and as the ones who wrote the code, the information you’ll find there can be incredibly valuable.

It’s for that reason that when I built searchdotnet.com, one of the first sites I added was blogs.msdn.com – and that I tagged the entire site as “by experts”. These blogs don’t always come up on the top of the results, but I’ve found that the tougher the problem is, the more likely it is I’ll end up there, reading some incredibly detailed explanation of why a particular design choice was made and as a result what I’m trying to do can’t possibly work.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for SearchDotNet.com. It started late last month when I was interviewed for DotNetRocks.com while at the DevConnections show in Orlando Florida. The topic of the interview was mostly about discoverability – how we as developers go about discovering information and existing solutions to problems. We did stray into various other topics, including some stories about earlier adventures (misadventures?) from way back when….

Shortly after the interview, a listener (at least I believe it was) posted a comment on my post describing the launch of SearchDotNet.com where he noted “A little Google homepage widget would be a nice addition”

What a great idea. Of course, I’d never actually written a “gadget” for Google, but it turned out to be remarkably simple, at least as far as simple gadgets are concerned. First I wrote a “Universal” gadget from use on custom Google Homepages. These were also supposed to work on Google’s desktop, but it turns out the latest version has a bug that prevents this for now. So I went ahead and created a Google Desktop gadget, that’s a somewhat trickier process.

While working on the gadgets I also realized that the site still had the minimalist (i.e. ugly) user interface I’d thrown together on the day I launched. It may seem odd that I hadn’t noticed this, but while I use searchdotnet.com all the time, I actually use it from the browser search box (the site has implemented OpenSearch from almost the beginning, so it’s always available as one of the search providers on my browser).

So I spent the past few days cleaning up the site. Not that I’d call it beautiful, but it’s quite a bit better than it was. More important, it now makes proper use of both CSS and .NET master pages, so I’ll be able to more easily update the design later.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank readers who have recommended additional sites for searchdotnet.com – I didn’t add all of them (there’s a new section of the site that discusses inclusion criteria), but I did add many of them, particularly some great new experts sites.

Perspective is important. I recently commented on Vista migration from a developer perspective. But as developers, we are often asked for advice from others who have different perspectives. So I thought I’d take a few minutes and elaborate further on the Vista migration story.

As a developer, the computers I use have certain characteristics that I think are common among most software developers – at least those in the Windows world. My machines tend to be reasonably powerful, and reasonably new. The software I use also tends to be very recent – in may cases pre-release. Older software, especially that used to perform builds, is relegated to stable systems or virtual machines.

When advising others, whether they are general users, small businesses, or enterprises, I take into account that their needs and perspectives are very different. Their systems may be older, and they often have favorite or legacy software which can be difficult, expensive or impossible to upgrade.

In my previous post I said:

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I must admit, I rather like Vista. Ok, maybe “like” is too strong a word. I certainly don’t dislike it. At the same time, I have yet to see that its benefits justify the learning curve (which is more nuisance value than a real problem). Maybe that will come with time.

I’ve played with it enough now to have come to some tentative conclusions about it – at least from a developer’s perspective.

First, I think upgrading to Vista is generally not worth the trouble. There’s still enough software that is “quirky” under Vista, and it’s demanding enough on computer resources, that if you have an XP system that’s working the way you like it you should leave it alone. I don’t believe in upgrading existing OS’s in general – plenty of time to do that when you get a new system (which you probably do every year or two anyway).

So that means going for a new system – no big deal, a decent Vista capable system is well under $1,000. But here’s where I’d suggest going a step farther. As long as you’re getting a new system anyway, get a 64 bit system and install Vista X64. The performance of 64 bit Vista on a fast machine is very nice indeed.

Next, install Virtual PC 2007 and bring up a 32 bit system of your choice (XP or Vista – or both), so you can be sure to be able to run other software you might need. Be sure to install the Virtual PC additions – they dramatically improve performance.

How do you know that your system will support 64 bit Vista? Look at the support web site and see if the vendor is shipping Vista 64 bit drivers for the machine. If you see drivers and utilities released over the past couple of months that are either 64 bit specific, or explicitly state that they support 32 and 64 bit Vista, you should be in good shape. I’ve been working on a new Thinkpad R60, which installed Vista X64 just fine without the new drivers (leading me to suspect it was one of the systems they tested it on). The new drivers and utilities are nice though in that they support the Thinkpad specific features (shock detection for the hard drive, finger print reader, custom trackpoint control, etc.) better than the Vista default drivers.

I suspect with time I’ll find more things I actually like about Vista. But for now I’ll settle for the fact that I now have a reliable 64 bit development system to play with, along with several 32 bit virtual machines that run surprisingly fast. Oh yeah, the Aero interface does look cool. Not enough reason to upgrade, but as long as it’s there anyway…

I’m a tech skeptic. Seriously. My first reaction to anything new is almost always doubt – especially if it comes with a ton of hype. And I stay skeptical for a long time. As a result, my track record for predicting which technology will be slow to catch on (or fail) is pretty good. Unfortunately, as with most people, my track record for predicting which technology is going to boom is average – I usually figure it out after it’s happened.

Once I got it right – when I saw the Visual Basic 1.0 beta, I knew that it was going to be huge and change the nature of software development. I responded to that change by launching Desaware.

This week I felt the same way when I saw Google Custom Search. Within 12 hours I had launched SearchDotNet.com – really as an experiment (and a tool for my own research, that is already proving useful).

The more I think of it the more I’m convinced that Google Custom Search is going to do for search what VB did to Windows development – change the paradigm.

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One of the terms I hear often when people talk about search is relevance – which I interpret to mean the ability of the search engine to return the result you actually want. To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to this. Like most everyone else, I’ve been using google for a while, and the results were quite acceptable.

When amazon.com launched a9.com, I switched to it immediately because I was able to get the best of both worlds - it was serving up google’s results, plus giving me a small additional discount on may amazon.com purchases.

Last week I noticed something funny though - the search results I was getting didn’t seem as helpful as I had come to expect. In some cases I would type in a search term that I knew should quickly bring me to a particular site whose URL I had forgotten, but it wasn’t on the first or even second page. I couldn’t figure out what might be wrong. Then I took a closer look at the a9.com page - the web search was now by live.com - which I guess is the beta for Microsoft’s new search. I then retried some of the searches that frustrated me on google, and sure enough - the sites I was looking for were right there near the top. Google also proved much more understanding of spelling mistakes than live.com - a good thing since spelling is not my strong suit.

I don’t know what the future will bring in the search engine wars, but this is the first time that I’ve really had my nose rubbed in the fact that not all search engines are equal - and Microsoft indeed has a long way to go.

It’s not every day I see an ad on TV that makes me laugh out loud, but tonight I saw one by Apple that pulled it off. Two men appeared on screen. On the left, a Bill Gates look-alike suffering from a very bad cold (one of 114,000 known viruses that knocks him down – aka causes him to crash – before the commercial is done). On the right, an “I wish I still looked like that” Steve Jobs imitator who is, of course, naturally immune from such illnesses.

The irony of course, being that today is also the day that MAC OS appeared on the SANS top 20 vulnerability list, a fact that was picked up by many news services. Of course the MAC and Safari has always had vulnerabilities – just a lot fewer than Windows and IE. And the fact that today Apple got a lot of bad press because SANS released a new list has more to do with hype and marketing than security.

The new from SANS only served to make the ad even funnier, though I suspect the humor is a bit darker than Apple had in mind.

I tend to be a skeptic of gadgets. Oh, I do get excited by the latest new gizmo (I’m too much a techie not to be), but the excitement is mitigated by the knowledge that buying it would mean having yet another gadget to learn to use and keep track of. Another source of worry with regards to breakage, crashes and loss of data. Another charger to match with it’s correct device. And, of course, another device to inevitably replace in just a few months when it becomes hopelessly obsolete.

In my experience the benefits of devices from cell phones to PDA’s are often outweighed by these hidden costs and hassles.

So it was with doubt and trepidation that I opened a box containing an IPod shuffle that was recently given to me.

Honestly, when I first heard about it I thought the Shuffle was a stupid idea. With minimal controls – just enough to skip forward or back in a play list (which is either the order you defined when you loaded it, or a randomly generated order), and a volume control, this is not a “feature rich” device by any means. Besides, I already have a very nice MP3 player – a 60GB Nomad Zen which, while not as cute as an IPod, is quite usable and benefits from having a replacable battery. On the other hand, I only use the Nomad on flights – it’s too much of a hassle to keep charged, carry around, etc.

So I was stunned – floored in fact – to discover that I really like the Shuffle. That in fact, it is the very simplicity that makes it so useful.

First there is the size. It is truly a “fit anywhere” device. I swear it’s just about weightless. And there’s no pocket it won’t fit in.

And it has no charger to lose. It charges right off the USB port.

But most important, once you have loaded it there is nothing to learn or configure. In a daily routine that has way too many decisions, the Shuffle offers none beyond turning it on or off. And with 100 or so of my favorite songs loaded, it turns out I really don’t care what order they play in.

So to my surprise I find myself carrying it with me often. And sometimes just turning it on when I feel like listening to music, even if just for a song or two.

All is not perfect though. Like the regular IPod, it’s battery is not replaceable, meaning it’s ultimate demise will be much earlier than it should be. And it uses ITunes software. Now, I’m sure ITunes is a very nice program for managing a full IPod. It has plenty of features and power and a suitably confusing user interface. But the feature rich UI is in total conflict with the sublime elegance and simplicity of the shuffle. It is far too easy to accidentally delete songs painstakingly selected and loaded. It’s basically awful.

But such imperfections aside, the Shuffle is a surprising treat, and for those of you who appreciate that more complexity is not always better, you may find it a pleasant and painless gadget to add to your collection.

(for the record, I do still own a small amount of Apple stock)

Like many, I have very mixed feelings about IBM’s sale of their PC division to the Chinese company Lenovo. Like many professionals, IBM’s Thinkpad is my notebook of choice. And it’s not just the features, or quality of construction. Or the incredible compatibility with everything. Or great support web site. Or excellent reliability. The real amazing thing is their technical support. Whether it was replacing a forgotten custom power cable on a few hour’s notice in Chicago, or being able to get a real person on the phone late on a Sunday night to deal with milk spilt on a keyboard, IBM provides a level of support that few if any can match.

My first thought when I heard of the deal was – so long Thinkpad. Because I couldn’t imagine that anyone else could maintain the overall quality that the brand name “Thinkpad” has earned.

But then I read their press release. Yeah, it’s the usual marketing fluff, full of nice semi-promises that don’t really mean anything. But there were a few facts that surprised me. First, that the new PC division would be headquartered in NY. Second, that an IBM VP was becoming CEO of Lenovo. Third, that IBM is maintaining a pretty significant ownership stake in Lenovo.

In other words, this looks less like Lenovo just buying the PC division and more like them trying to, in effect, become a major multinational company, like Microsoft, Sony, and dozens of others including IBM itself.

You see, the one flaw with Thinkpads is that they aren’t cheap. So it occurred to me that it’s possible, just barely possible, that this new company might be able to keep all the things that make Thinkpads so great, and just maybe do it at a lower price. Ok, I know it’s a long shot, but one can hope.

I’m going to be due for a laptop upgrade next year, and I’d really hate to start shopping around again. However, just in case – if any of you believe that another laptop line is overall as good as Thinkpad has been, I’d love to hear about it.

At our thanksgiving celebration we go around and everyone attending says something they are thankful for. In this pre-holiday shopping season, where we tend to get very excited about the latest high-tech toy, it occurred to me to take a moment and note a number of technological marvels that I personally am thankful for. No hype here – these are the things I use every day.

• Google
  My main search engine and fount of all wisdom, it’s a rare technical problem for which I can’t find some guidance by following it’s paths.
• Amazon.com
  More than a store, it helps me find new books and music, and provides a first pass at market pricing. Plus, it’s a great place for me to sell my own eBooks.
• Yahoo Calender
  I don’t like PDA’s (yeah, old fashioned, but it’s just another thing to carry around, keep charged, and worry about losing). Yahoo’s online calender has all the features I need, is available everywhere, and is free if you have SBC DSL.
• Boston Acoustics & Plasma Displays
  A great display and a fine set of speakers makes a home theatre shine. All the plasmas look great (mine happens to be Toshiba), but I hunted for months before settling on Boston Acoustics Micro 100x speakers.
• Wacky Voice Alarm Clock
  You’d think I’d have gotten tired of this one, but it still works. Annoying enough to get me up when I must, funny enough so I haven’t (yet) taken a sledge hammer to it.
• Tivo
  Once you start using a DVR, you can never go back.

More suggestions are welcome. Meanwhile, I wish you all a very succesful pre-holiday shopping season. May you always find an open parking space at the mall. May that gift you just have to get always be on sale.