Aug 1, 2006 | General
Joel Spolsky just posted an item on Why Dell.com Still Feels Like Buying A Used Car that describes how Dell’s attempt to segment their customer base makes it that much harder to buy a computer (and know you’re getting a good deal).
I do have two small items to add:
First, they aren’t just trying to make more from business customers – they’re trying to make more from all customers and manage their supply chain efficiently. Thomas Friedman writes about this in his fantastic book “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century” where he convinces Dell to trace the history of all the components that make up his laptop.
Second, assuming you aren’t buying in volume and able to negotiate a better deal, here’s a hint – always check prices on both the consumer and small business sites. The consumer site may seem cheaper, but they sometimes stack the small business site with some serious rebates and premium service plans that can actually make it less expensive for a comparable or better machine.
For the biggest bang for the buck on PCs, the best deals are often the refurbished units or discontinued models, where you can get 6 month old technology for a substantial discount over the latest and greatest. I discuss this in my article “The Best Deals on Desktop PCs“.
Jul 21, 2006 | General, Software Development
So today I saw a funny series of Blog posts starting with Robert Scoble’s defense of his “Geekhood” after a post by someone named Cody who hates fake computer geeks.
What’s interesting about these posts are the examples that both use to define geekiness. Cody complains that Scoble doesn’t host his own Blog software. Scoble defends his geek credentials by mentioning past experience installing NT 3.5. Either way, those definitions don’t reflect the reality of the information age.
To put this in context, let’s think back 15 years or so to the Visual Basic story. Here was a tool that provided a high level of abstraction over Windows. Who were the geeks? The C++ programmers who blew off VB as a “toy language” or “glue language”, or the millions who adopted VB either as their first language or migrating from another language?
The answer is obvious – both were. The only difference was that the VB geeks were much more productive (for a wide class of applications).
The world has changed of course, and neither VB .NET nor C# provide the kind of abstraction levels that are needed going forward. We don’t have a tool that corresponds to the .NET framework the way VB related to the Windows API. Or put another way – VB was incredibly productive because it provided a level of abstraction to the underlying API for which C/C++ was the “first class” language. Today, VB .NET and C# are the “first class” languages for .NET – but we don’t yet have that new paradigm, that new level of abstraction, that will bring us to the next level (of geekiness, as it were).
Or do we?
At least in one area, I’m beginning to think that we do.
When I look at ASP .NET, I see lots of great components and features for building great web applications. At the same time, the prospect of building a site using it is – well, it’s about as exciting as Hello World was in C back in the 90’s. I’m working on a project now (not ready to talk about yet), that is web based, and building it from scratch wasn’t even a consideration.
For web applications, tools like WordPress and CMS systems like Plone, Drupel and DotNetNuke are compelling platforms on which to base new applications. Their open source nature and flexible architectures assures extensibility in much the way that VB’s support for custom controls allowed the language to do things that it’s developers never imagined.
This, by the way, should be something Microsoft pays close attention to – the vast majority of CMS systems today are LAMP systems – and this is what might cost them the web platform war (not the quality of the platform itself).
Anyway, I digress. Cody, Robert – you’re both geeks in my book.
And for the record, this particular Blog is on WordPress, that is in fact hosted on my own server – not because there is any geek value in doing so, but because my incremental cost to do so is zero (which is, coincidently, the cost of Robert’s hosting as well).
Jul 3, 2006 | General
As many of you know, I’ve been turning some of my attention to the topic of finance and investing (the results of which you can find on my alternate blog at www.ThinkingAboutMoney.com). While most of my focus has been for somewhat more advanced investors, it occurred to me that there’s one beginners group that desperately needs financial education – new college graduates – specifically those with tech degrees.
New graduates with tech degrees suddenly find themselves making real money – in many cases for the first time in their lives. In our consumer society (devoted to separating us from our money), it’s not uncommon for them to quickly find themselves in debt and living from paycheck to paycheck.
So I wrote an e-Book called “The Graduating Geek’s Guide to High Finance” that contains the most important information they (if not everyone) needs to know about personal finance (the kind of information that isn’t taught in school). It also contains some of the career advice/wisdom that is traditionally handed down to newcomers from jaded industry veterans.
Sample topics include:
- Money Isn’t Everything.
- Wealth isn’t Income.
- Start Today, well actually – tomorrow.
- Think twice before you spend.
- Time is Money.
- The Tax Man cometh.
- A Piece of the Action.
- Stock and Stock Options.
- Investing.
- Start a business.
- Going Independent.
- Corporate Myths.
- Buying A House.
- Insurance.
- Trust No One.
The Graduating Geek’s Guide to High Finance is published as an e-Book for $3.99. Now available on amazon.com.
If you’re interested in a review copy, contact me via Email.
Jun 15, 2006 | General, Society & Politics
With news of Gates’ planned retirement from Microsoft, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on his extraordinary accomplishments:
- He founded Microsoft
- He managed to maintain a majority stake and control over Microsoft.
- He recruited a team capable of managing Microsoft (in so far as any company of that size and built-in degree of chaos can be managed).
- He built an organization strong enough to carry on running Microsoft without him.
- He’s leaving Microsoft so he can spend his time making the world a better place by working on health projects and reforming education (something desperately needed).
While one might credit some of these to being at the right place at the right time, and one might disagree with some of his actions along the way, one can’t help but being impressed by these absolutely remarkable accomplishments.
Given the resources he brings into play with his foundation, and his talents, it’s just possible he’ll make a real difference addressing these problems. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he makes more of a difference than some of the governments who are supposed to be addressing these problems.
I, for one, commend him on his decision, and wish him all success on this venture.
Jun 5, 2006 | General
I’ve been thinking about money.
Odd isn’t it that we in the technology field have so much to say on everything from technology to politics, but hardly ever talk about money? (at least our own – we’ll talk about a company’s money, especially when they are stupidly losing it).
For all that we tend to make a good living, it’s amazing how many of my friends find themselves struggling financially to various degrees. Is it possible that we’re so busy struggling to keep up with the newest .NET framework features or server technology that we never bother to learn about finance beyond the clich’s (set aside money for retirement, diversify through mutual funds, etc)?
I’ve always been one of the few authors and speakers who has incorporated economics and psychology into my work. I’ve long advocated the blasphemous idea that you should choose a technology based not on what’s new or cool, but based on what is the best economic choice. And we all know (though we don’t necessarily admit it) that many technological choices are actually emotional rather than rational (the pseudo conflict between VB .NET and C# being a classic example).
Anyway, it seems to me that since most people reading this are highly paid professionals, all of us (at least those who’ve been in the business for a couple of decades) should be pretty well off – possibly ready to retire. And I’m quite sure those who are newer to the profession would very much like to be pretty well off within a couple of decades (or sooner, preferably much sooner). But I also know that for most of us it doesn’t work out quite the way we hope. And that got me thinking. Thinking about money.
So I am about to “fork” this blog. I’ve decided that right now, along with continuing the semi-futile fight to stay up to date with the newest technology, I’m going to spend some time learning about money. I know a fair amount, but there’s a lot I don’t know, and I don’t trust any of those financial/investment web sites and books that claim to know “THE SECRET” to instant wealth (or even long term wealth). Instead, I’m going to study the topic, with the same focus that I’ve been known to apply to technological topics.
And I’m inviting you to come along for the ride. The best way to learn something is to teach it, so I’m going to write about the things I learn on a new site www.ThinkingAboutMoney.com. I invite you to join me for the ride.
Apr 25, 2006 | General
Earlier this month I was at the Dev Connections conference in Orlando. One of my most intriguing experiences was seeing a contrast between two of the speakers (sorry, I don’t remember which ones – call them A and B). Speaker A was showing off his latest and greatest combination cel phone – email – multimedia – camera – browser – toenail clipper device. He was describing how it allowed him to make use of every bit of “dead time” for answering Email and keeping in constant contact with work. Speaker B also had a nice phone, but she described how she only checked Email a couple of times a day – that because it made it easier to stay focused on work and concentrate.
The fact that software developers need quiet time to concentrate is undeniable – I think that’s the reason many of us work at night – there are fewer distractions. But what really interested me here was the contrast between the realtionship these two speakers have with their technology.
I love tech toys as much as most anyone, but I’ve become more and more aware of the degree to which the technology owns us, and the demands it places on our time. Cel phones give us connectivity, but also have the power to interrupt our lives multiple times each day. Windows is a powerful OS, but how many hours of my life have I spent installing, updating and configuring it? Frankly, I’d rather not think about it.
Of course, there’s nothing new about this. From cars to homes, we work as hard to keep and maintain them as they do to shelter and transport us. But somehow tech seems more invasive. And where homes and cars have a primary claim on our cash, tech seems to demand time. Time to learn, time to maintain and time to use.
One thing I bet we have in common – we don’t have enough time to learn and do all we want. Obviously, when you’re in the tech business, tech command a great deal of your time. But one can’t help but wonder – are all those extra gadgets really saving time? Or are they actually stealing it?