In January 2007, I wrote about what I wanted out of software and mobile devices. I called it my Ghost

My Ghost has communication to the core. It reflects my status and copies that to all of my applications. When I’m busy, I set it to BUSY and it handles all of my email, voicemail and instant messages. When I am available it allows them to come through. When talking on the phone, it changes my status to “on the phone” and when I’m busy playing “Jet Set Willy for GHOST”, it rightfully changes my status to “In a meeting”. When I’m available, I want it to retrieve my GPS co-ordinates and use them as a tag so that my buddies and colleagues can see where I am. For when I’m somewhere I shouldn’t be, I want to be able to switch that off too

Of course, a few days later Apple announced the iPhone, which began to seem relatively prescient. It would take another 18 months for iPhone to have GPS or third party software which would enable all of this, but I can see it on the horizon for the first time.

Half a year ago, Chris Brogan wrote some science fiction:

Chris’s context engine has 3 favorite orders for this particular coffeeshop chain. He clicks the second option on his phone, and waits to collect it, making smalltalk with the server. Meanwhile, the context engine has noticed that 14 friends within 5 minutes distance of the coffeeshop have revealed status and location information favorable for a visit. The engine offers up a “meetup” option, with checkboxes next to each person’s name. Chris selects 3 of the 5 and invites them by for coffee and a chat.

When you see demos like Loopt which was on stage at WWDC coming to iPhone soon, you realise how close to the real world this all is.

I need software that will allow me to manage my attention, retain my memory, enhance my judgement:

More than just minding my eBay (I don’t use eBay) but telling me when friends are nearby and when their status isn’t set to ‘Do Not Disturb’, reminding me at opportune times (like when I’m in town or at a mall) that I need to buy a birthday present for someone, allowing me to set thresholds which are contextual (like telling me that I’m “twenty minutes at 30 mph” away from the next meeting and I really should get my skates on.)

We have persistent network links, we have GPS, we have social networks, we have electronic funds transfer and we have location-based mashups of all of this. Everyone is throwing in their little bits and it absolutely gobsmacks me that GAMY haven’t jumped on this. Especially Yahoo.

We do have to consider the security and privacy aspects:

Some people don’t want this. Yeah, well, don’t turn it on. It’s a bit like complaining about privacy breaches on FaceBook. If you’re worried at all about your privacy, don’t put your data in there because your friends are the liability here and will likely give out all sorts of personal information.

I’m not worried about services which show my location to friends because, if they’re on my friends list then I don’t mind them knowing and as long as I’m where I’m meant to be, what’s the problem?

As for security, again - don’t use the service if you’re nervous about your security being compromised. Don’t put your birthday, the names of your kids and dog and other personal information on the net if you’re unsure about the safety, that’s just asking to have your identity compromised.

Now, we just need someone to build it.

David Rice on NiMUG wrote up this little app:

Translink for iPhone

iPhone is not available to business accounts in the US and iTunes balks at registering the iPhone to a non-residential address in the UK so it’s certainly not aimed at the Corporate Road Warrior but as I’ve blogged a lot recently, there certainly a lot of buzz about the iPhone and not just from consumers, but from big business. SAP as previously discussed is bringing their product to the iPhone because their own people want it (and as we now know, the SAP client is being developed using a pre-release iPhone SDK here in Belfast).

Avaya, one of the big names in modern telephony, has also signed up to the iPhone and therefore lent it some serious credibility in the Enterprise.

Avaya one-X Mobile for iPhone will allow users to have access to visual voicemail, corporate directories, and VIP lists, all via an “enterprise-secure” environment, and allow the iPhone to be used for both incoming and outgoing calls while maintaining users’ office identity.

Click for the flash demo (which, of course, you can’t view on an iPhone).

Nortel, (never the visionary) hasn’t leapt onto the bandwagon for either Contivity or their IP phone products. But then they’ve been hot on air and cold on “actually doing anything other than loudly collaborating with Microsoft”.

Good oh!

A German web site did a test between the iPhone and a recent 3G phone in web rendering.

Time in seconds taken to render the following web sites

Webseite	iPhone (EDGE, 2.5G)	Nokia E61i (UMTS, 3G)
Die Zeit	76	79
EBay	30	26
Applephoneinfo	31	27

You also have to consider that the iPhone renders it better but that may be an entirely subjective thing.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past talking about “Going Bedouin”, an idea of working that I adore and which I have tried to do for several years, while working for a large telecoms company and also while working for my own company. I feel it helped the company pay for my productivity because as I embraced the flexibility to work from home, the company also received the benefits of me being available possibly 24×7 because I didn’t begrudge the call at 2 am (unlike the call at 2 am I got last night which I certainly did begrudge). It meant I was happy to help people out and most importantly I didn’t feel the need to demand extra money for the privilege.

Chris Brogan’s blog has an interesting post on how to become a digital nomad which is as much a marketing term as “Bedouin”.

1. Smartphone
   

   It’s important to stay in contact if you’re going to be Bedouin. This means choosing your technology carefully. It’s no longer good enough to carry a pager and mobile phone. The expectation now is that you’ll get your email too and with the release of the iPhone comes the first mature implementation of a browser in a handheld device. It’s relegated my laptop for a lot of the day to the laptop bag.

2. Online apps
   

   While I recognise that online apps do provide a lot of power and sometimes a lot more potential for collaboration, I’m still very much a fan of rich clients. I don’t want to use primitive web app user interfaces which haven’t really changed recently. For what they offer, it’s a lowest common denominator model. It works, but it ain’t pretty.

3. Centralising
   

   This makes a lot of sense and I’d clarify by saying that as well as centralising some of your services it’s worth considering outsourcing those which don’t add value. Get everyone accounts on the same domain with the same reliable provider and keep these production services separate from your development servers and off your own machines. The economies of scale make it worthwhile.

4. Online/Offline Storage
   

   Just do backups. Don’t mess around with your data. That’s one of the beauties of laptops and PDAs, for the most part they have insuffient storage for keeping all of your data. My laptop has a 160 GB drive in it which is a tenth of what I need for storage. My iPhone has 8 GB of storage which really isn’t enough for anything other than current email. And the odd movie. Keep regular backups and consider keeping your data in the cloud - so you can access it from anywhere.

5. Messaging/Presence management
   

   If you’re not using instant messenger applications in business then you’re behind the times. I have no doubts that Skype and iChat will make it onto the iPhone which will make my phone the hub of my communications network rather than my laptop. I don’t believe for a second that Twitter and similar wanky apps are going to to be the core of the semantic web. They’re missing everything to do with context. I don’t wast to know only a short message about someone. I want to know where they are, how they are and whether they want to meet for coffee. FaceBook or Google would seem to be the contenders here for writing the meta-app which will fulfill your context needs. I just don’t really want content delivered as a side order to a main course of advertising.

6. Plan your gear
   

   This means not only making sure the kit you have is the right kit, but making sure you invest in ways and means to keep that gear running. I get a full day out of my always-on, incredibly busy iPhone. That means, if I’m planning ahead, always making sure I have at least got an iPod connection cable handy for a quick juice-up if I’m running low. For laptops you have to consider most have a battery life of 2-3 hours with some stretching it out to 5. So that’s more bulk to lug about. You’ll also have to get less shy about using power points in coffee shops and airports. The staff in the places I have been have never objected to me plugging in. Scope them out and make a beeline for them if they are free. Power is a more valuable commodity to a mobile worker than WiFi. Think about that.

For me it’s a waiting game. I’m waiting to see what will be possible with the iPhone when the SDK is released as I’m filled with ideas on how to manage this, how to add to what is already out there. I’m less and less keen on FaceBook and their constant barrages of crap but they are in the best position to start providing an implementation of the “digital shadow” (as PJ called it.

Via Slashdot comes the revival of Wearable Computing as funded by the European Union.

A few years ago I exhibited at a business expo in The Odyssey in Belfast. I was there to promote my managed IT services - pretty mainstream stuff - but there was one guy who was running around with a borg-like appendage attached to his eye.

He wasn’t quite as handsome as the guy on the WearIT@Work and he was getting little attention from the ultra-conservative Northern Ireland business wanderers at the exhibition. I don’t think they were ready for it.

As computers become smaller and more integrated, is there really a need for them to be wearable? I mean, do we need micrchips embedded in our clothing? Will they survive a 40 degree wash with a biological detergent?

Navizon was one of the pioneers of application development for the iPhone and as such I think we’re going to see something cool from them come February when the official iPhone SDK is released.

The Navizon Buddy Finder is probably one of the coolest ideas I’ve seen and something I’d be interested in a lot, however I think I’d work some on the UI before I would be happy with it. We’re going to see an explosion of IM and VoIP apps for the iPhone around then and I would really like to see location based information being available too.

I want to have lists of buddies, I want to be able to name locations and I want to be able to opt out of some updates easily.

As the iPhone is, in effect, always on, I’d like to be have it send updates to my ‘Status server’ so that instead of seeing

MJ
Love Minus Zero - Bob Dylan

in my chosen IM application - I’d have something like:

MJ
Unsent - Alanis Morissette
At Home

or

MJ
She’s so Lovely - Scouting for Girls
At the Daily Grind

or

MJ
You’re the First, The Last, My Everything - Barry White
Location Private

As I said, the UI of Buddy Finder isn’t to my taste but I think that’s more a question of polish and it’s amazing what they have achieved and an indication of what they could achieve with a documented SDK and no fear of a firmware update killing their release!

In some short hours, at 6.02 pm, thousands of people across the UK will be filing into Apple Stores, O2 stores and Carphone Warehouse stores to buy their iPhones.

The police are giving out an advisory not to display your iPhone openly. The debate of course is whether this is:

• actual advice that could be applied to any expensive consumer electronics device
• a cynical PR ploy from Apple
• a desperate PR ploy from Microsoft to keep iPhones out of sight and make them seem less popular

By this Saturday I’ll have owned an iPod touch for just a week and my impressions remain the same. I absolutely love it. I’ve not filled it - only used about 4 GB of space on it leaving 10 GB free and the only thing I would wish for would be that it had a phone built into it. I’ve been using it as an expensive teaching toy. It’s taught me a lot about the keyboard, about the interface and about the experience.

The keyboard is usable and I’m getting faster. If I’m paying attention then I make no mistakes and if my attention lapses I get either a correction suggested by the iPod or the odd case of egg freckles. I like the interaction and, to be honest, I don’t miss the feedback from pressing keys.

The interface is, of course, legendary by now. It flows, it inspires immediate gadget lust in people who view it and it’s just a lot of fun to play with.

The experience. Well, there are some good points and bad points. I would have to presume that all apps are running all the time because they launch so quickly but I know this not to be the case. The UI is very reminiscent of the Newton and the Palm in that it doesn’t really matter to the end user whether or not the engine under there is multi-tasking or single tasking because the device is really designed to do one thing at a time. There’s no application switching in a sense as it seems you leave one app to enter another, there’s very little sense that you have multiple applications running and, more than that, there’s no indication in the UI that some applications are running and some are not. They just launch when you touch them and disappear when you switch to another application or return to the home screen. The lack of an application switcher does leave you in the situation where you’re in the middle of something and you’re really hesitating switching to another task. I’ve been pleasantly surprised every time that I’ve not “lost my place” or had to start again, but the UI is kinda odd if you’re not used to it and have expectations. The Newton didn’t have pre-emptive multi-tasking but it could do several things at once and the UI for it was good (it also had a good way of doing cut and paste). But Newton is dead, the last Newton was discontinued in February of 1998. I’ve dug out my old Newt as a homage (though the battery pack is buggered) and marvelled at the size of the thing especially considering that I used to carry it around with me everywhere. By itself it was 640g and 210 mm long and 11 mm wide!

So I’m getting an iPhone.

When you see the pile of gear I’m replacing to get one slim device…

…you can see one advantage of going for this device. 477g (that’s nearly half a kilo, about a pound in weight) of technology will be replaced with a third of that. Sure it’s not quite the same equation. I’ll only have 8 GB of storage (as opposed to 60 GB in the iPod and 4.25 GB in the Nokia N800) but I’ll also only have one device I need to keep charged rather than 3. The battery life on my K800i is very poor and has been since day one with the phone dying if left without charging for more than 36 hours. It’s without a doubt the worst battery of any device I’ve ever had. I’ve heard a similar plea from Nokia N95 users (Hi Pete) which is shame because the E65 has phenomenal battery life and still delivers a great phone experience. So - changing phones will be welcome at any rate.

That, plus the savings I’ll make switching from Orange’s 30 MB a month data plan to O2’s unlimited without limits data plan will make the whole rigmarole worthwhile.

From a post on MacRumors:

O2 is pleased to advise you that we are in the process of implementing new EDGE technology across the UK. This will greatly improve the data speed to 4 to 5 times faster than GPRS on 2G devices such as BlackBerry.

To deliver EDGE, O2 has planned maintenance activities to be carried out on parts of the GPRS network across the UK until the middle of November 2007. This will result in the loss of service to cells that are being upgraded for up to 2 hours at night during the maintenance window from 10pm to 6am.

The full list of EDGE Network upgrades is at that link. Relevant to NI:

Region	Area	Postcode	Date
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT12 6HR	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT14 6NP	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT7 2GB	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT9 5DY	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT4 1DH	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT14 7EE	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT9 6SY	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT2 7BB	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT12 7GL	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT11 8BJ	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Malone	BT9 5JH	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT3 9JS	29/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Portadown Craigavon	BT63 5PE	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Antrim	BT41 2LP	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT36 6UZ	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Portadown	BT63 5BA	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Tommesbridge	BT41 3RA	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT17 0AT	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	BELFAST	BT17 0HD	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Carrickfergus	BT38 9DE	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Upper Ballinderry	BT28 2PQ	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Antrim	BT41 4PR	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Carn Money	BT36 6QD	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Milltown	BT28 3SL	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Broughshane	BT43 7HJ	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Ballymena	BT42 3HJ	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast Int Airport	BT29 4DW	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Newtonabbey	BT36 7LQ	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT15 4AW	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	LISBURN	BT28 2UR	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Antrim	BT41 1PG	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Craigavon	BT65 5AG	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Craigavon	BT63 5QQ	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Craigavon	BT63 5QE	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Larne	BT40 2ST	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Lurgan	BT67 9JD	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Dromore	BT25 1PR	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Belfast	BT8 7XP	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Ballyclare	BT39 9BB	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Carrickfergus	BT38 9DN	30/9/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Sherriffs Mountain	BT48 0JX	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Draperstown	BT45 7ES	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Dungannon	BT71 6SJ	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Londonderry	BT48 7AY	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Castledawson	BT45 8DU	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Moneymore	BT45 7NZ	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Derry	BT48 8PY	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Londonderry	BT47 6JZ	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Londonderry	BT47 5FX	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Londonderry	BT47 3LZ	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Cookstown	BT80 8HX	3/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Armagh	BT60 1JD	27/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Omagh	BT78 1PL	27/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Woodview	BT61 9HL	27/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Enniskillen	BT74 7HR	27/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Omagh	BT79 7HT	27/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Omagh	BT78 5LU	27/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Tandragee	BT62 2EF	28/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Newcastle	BT33 0LN	28/10/07
Scotland NI and Borders	Kilkeel	BT34 4BH	28/10/07

As you can tell I’ve been reading a lot from the 37signals blog this week.

The title of this post comes from their post about Why Enterprise Software Sucks.

A few years ago everything was about the Fortune 500. Even I, as a lowly network engineer, had some familiarity with it. We’d all heard most of the names for sure. The 2007 list, for example, looks like this.

1. Wal-Mart Stores
2. Exxon Mobil
3. General Motors
4. Chevron
5. ConocoPhillips
6. General Electric
7. Ford Motor
8. Citigroup
9. Bank of America
10. American International Group

As a small Mac-focused company, there’s very little that we can target at these immense corporations. For one thing, they are pretty much standardised on Windows. That kinda kills any development stone dead. There’s some work we can do in the enterprise space which is platform-agnostic and we probably have a leg up on many in our position.

But is this where the money is?

I don’t think so.

Landing those big deals with the big companies out there lands you in a world of competition - where you’re often competing with the staff inside the company for work (which can make co-operation very difficult).

There are literally millions of companies out there and everyone, especially small businesses aiming to start to make it big, should be aiming at the SME (Small to Medium Enterprise) sector. These companies have more limited budgets it’s true, but they are also much more in need of external expertise.

I said on a forum I run recently:

90% of small businesses don’t need to run a mail server on site. That sort of thing should be outsourced.

The other 10% are, of course, Microsoft Certified Partners….who insist on installing Exchange on a DSL line…

Outsourcing is a dirty word in many areas. It reminds me of my experiences with Compass, Nortel, CSC, IBM, Flextronics and other companies who I had dealings with. I’ve been outsourced and I’ve witnessed outsourcing and I have never found the process to be fulfilling or enjoyable. Quite the opposite. It ruined working relationships, built up hostility within teams and fostered a Can’t Do attitude in almost every case.

In these examples, it was the outsourcing of people which caused the problem. People are crazy, emotional, irrational. Of course it’s not going to be simple.

But should a mortgage advice/brokerage company run a mail server onsite? Should a design firm have any more technology onsite than the need to store their image libraries for swift access? Why does a company where everyone has a laptop feel the need to run essential services on their business broadband lines which, by the way, have ZERO assurance on uptime or bandwidth. (Yes, we’re getting dangerously into Bedouin territory here).

Outsourcing these functions in a small business where it’s not someone’s entire job makes a lot of sense. This is why, despite being a “technology” company, Infurious does not have their own dedicated mail server (sitting on a fluffy carpet in a warm dusty office). It’s why Mac-Sys, despite being a technology company, advises their customers to using hosting plans for their mail and web servers. Email is so important that you want it to be on 24×7, sitting in a cooled rack of other servers with multiply-redundant network pipes and avoid outages caused by someone kicking the cable while slouching in their chair.

There’s a lot of work involved in freeing the Fortune 5 000 000, the hosts of small businesses out there, from the legacy of blunders caused by centralising their infrastructure around legacy Exchange installations. Just my £0.02