B. Mann Consulting

Phil Wolff of Skype Journal contacted me (over Skype, of course!) earlier in the week to ask about posting something for Skype's 5 year anniversary. I didn't get to it earlier in the week, but when I was chatting with him I had some ideas around Skype and the identity space that I've continued to think about. So, here is a belated birthday wish to Skype. Check out Dan York's post for a lot of the same items that I'll be mentioning here.

I was really annoyed with Skype when it launched. Annoyed because I had spent the previous 5 years working in the VoIP standards space at Nortel, having seen MEGACO and MGCP fall by the wayside so that my favourite, SIP, could reign supreme. And here was Skype, with its proprietary protocol. That just worked. And nary a cool SIP service to be seen (other than the Gizmo Project, which is still the only cool SIP project around...).

I wouldn't say that Skype is an integral part of my work flow today (lots of people use it much more heavily than I for all of their voice communications). But it is one of the communications channels that I do need to have open most of the time, primarily for group IM chats. 3 years ago at Gnomedex, we started a Skype backchannel group chat, and it's still running today -- the "Vancouver Swarm". For various groups and companies, multi user chats are just an add to channel and bookmark away. Oh, and of course, the way that chat history "flows" to you if you've been offline for a while: persistent chat!

And I'm still not talking about the audio and video features :P

My dad is a heavy user of Skype, especially Skype Video. Whether it's sitting down and "sharing" a coffee with my sister in Italy, checking in with relatives in Germany, or showing off the snow up at the cabin at Deka Lake, he uses Skype all the time. He continues to "evangelize" Skype to people he comes across.

I started by mentioning the concept of Skype and identity. With sites like Twitter and other social networks and services exploding into general consciousness and discussion, I'm (still) thinking about identity.

Each of these services are an identity space. Systems like Facebook are rooted in your real identity -- you use your actual name and such -- while others like Twitter have you using nicknames or shortened forms. These nicknames become your identity within those spaces. Phil Windley talks a bit about this namespace federation -- in response to Craig Burton ho humming it. Yes, there is a friction with federating so that a single namespace is very valuable.

Are phone numbers, especially international phone numbers, a single or federated namespace?

In the past, our phone number was a large part of our identity. e.g. my parents have had the same home phone number for 29 years. I still remember the last 4 digits of my childhood friend's phone number (the whole island has the same 6 beginning ones, so the "local" identity space only needed the last four...). Now, less so, in part defensively. I give out my Vonage VoIP number which rings all the numbers I need it to. Of course, when I then switch to text messaging, my cell number shows up (and shows up as "unknown" for those that know me by my home number). Traveling between countries and switching SIM cards, you have multiple numbers.

Skype is a portable voice identity. It doesn't care what country you are in or what SIM card you happen to have inserted. It is Internet voice. One could argue that federation and open standards are needed (and I would agree ...), but no one else has reached the same "just works" level of functionality. Here's hoping that we get at least another 5 years of innovation and disruption out of the Skype juggernaut. Happy birthday!

Dave Olson caved and got an iPhone, so the Nokia N78 he was testing for Roland has now made its way to me (my previous phone has been the Nokia N80). Thanks to both for making it available to me.

Here is the Nokia N78 on Nokia's website for full tech specs etc.

First reactions:

• much slimmer! almost half the height of the N80
• not a slider ... I had gotten used to the convenient / easy lock and unlock that the slider activates. Guess I'll be download AutoLock again.
• wow, the keypad on this is incredibly annoying! bye bye high speed texting ... I feel like my fat German peasant fingers have to use the edge of my fingernail to use them
• speaker and sound is awesome. Regular headphone jack, yay! FM tuner, very cool, I'm going to make a lot of use of this. Dedicated volume buttons, also great. There is much more music functionality to explore here...
• comes with FM antenna headset thingie with remote volume and playback controls, as I said, music quality is very good, although the ear plugs are slightly small for my ears
• lightly tapping the back button seems to not close the app you are in, but bring you back to the menu. The menu / app switching seems easier, but at the same time confusing. Why not make the funny asterisk symbol the same as the Nokia "menu" button that is on all their phones?
• the camera is much fancier -- only slightly more megapixels, but all sorts of autofocus features that make it feel more like a "real" digital camera; the flash is three times the size of the N80's
• video much improved -- now at 640x480, with excellent focus and sound quality
• USB data connection -- yay! not using standard USB mini connection -- boo!
• can the USB connection also do charging? don't know, it did come with a charger
• comes with a 2GB even-smaller-format memory card (I've given up on remembering the names for different formats ... I have three or four different "mobile" memory cards, plus SD for my camera...)
• there is Share Online which lets you connect to Flickr, Ovi, and some other stuff out of the box. Not quite set up yet.
• GPS! Haven't wandered around outside to test yet, but first impression is that it is very slow to get a GPS lock. After installing Google Maps app, the cell tower only location put me in the middle of Howe Sound (I'm on Bowen at the moment) -- I actually still consider that pretty good. Definitely going to be doing more experimenting with this.

My other "first reaction" is that it's clear that I've been a Symbian S60 user for a long time: there are certain apps that I always download / setup. I'll be cataloging those in another post, in part for my own use so I can go to one page and quickly download all the apps that I want on every phone. Like my experience in setting up a fresh install / new Mac, this would seem to indicate a certain level of maturity in S60. Or perhaps a clear line of what they will include and won't with the base OS, so there are distinct areas where third party apps flourish.

For those on the Mac, the N78 is not supported by default. You'll need to download the N78 iSync plugin from Nokia Europe (thanks to Carniumology404 for being the first hit for that).

Back to installing apps...

Just as Drupalcon Szeged is kicking off, I'll be talking at this coming week's Net Tuesday event, "How Drupal can help you save the world!". Boy, that Joe Solomon really does like catchy titles :P

I'll be kicking things off with an intro to Drupal. I'll talk a bit about open source and how it relates / meshes with the mission of non profits. Or rather, why the heck aren't you using your non profit DNA to work together with other organizations?! I'll also do lots of my "question" tactics -- asking people in the room to think about their strategy, their use of the web, their use of open source software, and their approach to engagement online.

Following me will be the folks from Fearless City and Agentic talking about some case studies.

The event is this Tuesday, August 26th, at 5:30pm at WorkSpace. The Meetup event is now closed, but you can show your attendance on Facebook or upcoming.

P.S. yeah, I said I wasn't really going to post event stuff here much anymore, putting most of it on the Bootup Labs blog. Well, this is an event that I'm doing "solo" as it were. And never fear, I'm going to post over on Bootup about the Expression Engine Roadshow.

I'm going to be doing a short interview with Global TV with my thoughts on the Blackberry Bold, which "launches" today on Rogers (apparently, reports say that the product isn't actually available in stores).

Of course, this is currently a GSM phone, so it's one more piece in Roger's arsenal vs. Telus and Bell, which both have the same set of CDMA phones. The newest phones are released on GSM first, and the CDMA versions lag by months, if they are available at all.

I've never been a huge fan of the Blackberry… as a consumer phone. I think that's still the case. This is definitely a great upgrade, but unless your company is paying for it, you're more likely to get an iPhone for home use. In addition, the Bold is more expensive with Rogers - $600 without contract, $400 with 3 year contract, vs. $200 (8GB) or $300 (16GB) for the iPhone.

If you're a current Blackberry users that loves the keyboard and scroll wheel, then you'll like this upgrade. Otherwise, we're waiting for the Blackberry Thunder (the touchscreen version) to potentially be "more like the iPhone".

Related links:

• Boy Genius Report: Blackberry Bold review - we've been rockin' it for a month
• Mobile Computer UK: RIM Blackberry Bold Review
• iPhone Blog: YouTube Video Review of iPhone vs. Blackberry Bold
• Boy Genius Report: Blackberry thunder, touchscreen

I'm at VinoCamp for the day, a fun wine event I helped organize. This is the first one we've done, and it all sort of came together at the last minute (I think). We're drinking our first set of wines, and listening to our second presentation. There are tech folks in the audience, posting to Twitter (VinoCamp 2008 or vinocamp).

I think there's a good vibe in the room, the weather outside is beautiful, and the UBC Botanical Gardens space is beautifiul.

I'll do some more updates later, and look for pictures on Flickr to add.

Later being the end of the next day :P I'm just in the midst of uploading my Flickr pics, which will be tagged with VinoCamp. Here are some bullet point thoughts still percolating a day and a bit later:

• 10:30am is pretty early in the morning to start drinking wine
• a large portion of folks that were "techie" in some way (50%? not sure...)
• non-techies not quite sure what to make of laptops, iPhones, and interstitial techie comments
• a handful of people Twitter'ing an event gives it a real time feel to the outside world, and a sense of connectedness to the people in the room
• scrumpy is a type of strong British cider; apparently, it's made with raw meat in some recipes (don't ask ...)
• David Sanders talking (and really, demonstrating) about the shape / type of wine glass and how it affects the flavour made a believer out of me and 95% of the rest of the room...I think an event featuring *just* David and his magical set of Riedel glasses would be worth the price of admission
• Bradley Cooper is Bradinator on Twitter, and I was amazed and the amount of back and forth wine chat there is going on around the globe.
• 14 tastings are rather a lot in one day; some how I didn't quite realize how much wine Lori managed to pull off; no, really, I was thinking maybe 8 wines throughout the whole day
• the first time you have an event, you have to "just do it" and hope you can set the tone for follow on events

We'll be gathering together resources from the event (blog posts, pointers on the wiki page, etc. etc.) and putting them in the email. Or at least a link to the wiki to look for all those resources. I'm especially looking forward to feedback from the event. I definitely had fun and would want to do it again, and the tone seemed to be positive ... we'll see what the entire crew had to say.

Dave Olson sat down with me at the beginning of this week and did a long (50 minutes) podcast over at Raincity Radio.

We covered a lot of ground. Here are some short notes with related links on what we talked about:

It seems that when I am working with a lot of different ideas and companies, that what I post here really dries up. And that's the case right now.

I went through 8 startup presentations yesterday at New Ventures BC, check out my post at Bootup Labs:
New Ventures BC 2008 Mentor Panel Two

So, between one day mind melting events like the NVBC mentor panel and all the new companies and founders I'm being exposed to at Bootup Labs, I'm processing lots of information and giving direct, "live" feedback. I've still got lots of ideas floating around, they're just not making their way into blog posts :P

And yes, I really am not posting local Vancouver tech event stuff here anymore. Check out the Bootup Labs event listings page.

Buzz Bishop put a request for cloud computing experts. I'm not exactly an expert, but it is something that I've been looking into more deeply lately (see my cloud links on del.icio.us). And, of course, I'm advising TrevorO's startup, Layerboom, through Bootup Labs.

Anyway, I ended up writing a fairly lengthy set of answers to questions that Buzz sent across, some of which made their way into his article in today's 24 Hours -- Head in the Clouds. Thanks for the opportunity, Buzz!

I'm catching up on some mobile-related blog reading today, and was spurred to write something by Tim Bray's Mobile Blues and Dean Bubley's re-post of an article by David Wood. (And thanks to Roland's Google Reader Shared Items, where I am getting a wealth of mobile and food related links)

Canada (and the world in general) is caught up in a storm of mobile imaginings based on the launch of the 3G iPhone. Recent results of app sales potentially point to a future where carriers *don't* have a chokehold on the mobile handset experience: for the first time, your average non-technical end users can easily buy and install applications for your mobile fun. Except, of course, it's just another kind of walled garden, just one run by a computer company instead of a carrier.

Tim in particular has issues with that, as well as with having to learn yet another development environment to program native apps for the iPhone:

But there’s a little problem and a big problem. The little problem is that I don’t wanna learn Objective-C and I don’t wanna learn a whole new UI framework. I acknowledge that lots of smart people think Objective-C and Cocoa are both wonderful, and quite likely they’re right. I don’t care. I’m lazy; I know enough languages and enough frameworks. You’re free to disapprove, but there are a whole lot of people like me out there.

The big problem is this: I don’t wanna be a sharecropper on Massa Steve’s plantation. I don’t want to write code for a platform where there’s someone else who gets to decide whether I get to play and what I’m allowed to sell, and who can flip my you’re-out-of-business-switch any time it furthers their business goals. …

OK, points taken. You don't *have* to learn another programming environment, but every experience I've had with Java on every single phone I've ever owned has been .... terrible. Use Java if you want to quickly prototype an app for your enterprise ... but the usability and UI for the average end user, never mind the install process, is terrible. Most people go to native platform code for that final bit of polish (IF that polish is needed for your target market).

I don't have much to say on the locked platform aspects: you make your choices. In some ways, writing native apps for *any* platform is a level of lock in. That is, shouldn't we rail against OS X native only apps in the same way?

And here we finally come to the punchline hinted at by the title. For desktop operating systems, there are now a couple of site specific browsers (SSBs [wikipedia link]): you enter in the URL of a website / webapp and it is bundled into a separately clickable "application" that you can run like any other native program on your desktop. I use Fluid, based on a WebKit engine, and there is also Prism, based on a Mozilla engine.

So, somewhere between widgets and full blown native applications, can an SSB engine for mobile operating systems reign supreme? Bubley's summarized thoughts on this are:

…for many applications, Mobile Web will be the way to go, for ease of development, cross-platform support, rapid update and so on.

But for some the most important and demanding applications, there will still be a need for native development, even if it comes with a dose of pain.

The mobile web, with advanced, compliant browsers available on smartphones like the iPhone or various Nokia phones, is the Internet. Various UI niceties and formatting to fit the screen factor aside, this is regular ol' HTML and AJAX, no new platform to learn here.

So, I'm looking forward to "Fluid for iPhone" or "Prism for Series 60": I can think of a web app developer or three that would be VERY interested in exploring a potentially very quick way to have apps on these smartphone platforms, without the full pain of native app writing. Actually, paging Handimobility -- there might be a very nice business in there...

Yes, I'm getting involved in yet-another-event. I was overjoyed when I heard that Lori Pike had made the jump out of tech and into a great marketing position with Mission Hill. I mumbled something about a WineCamp, a similar-but-different* event that started down in San Francisco / Napa Valley.

Lori took the idea, went off and got approval, and then came back and called me on actually helping organize this thing. A bunch more volunteer organizers were called out, meetings were had, and now, we bring you ... VinoCamp! Here's the blurb:

This is definitely not the wine festival. In a more unstructured form than a standard conference, VinoCampVancouver brings wine, people and technology together in one place, making wine accessible, educational and fun. As a different type of conference, VinoCamp is designed for those interested in technology and wine, and people are expected to take photos of what's happening, and to blog or tweet or message about their experiences.

Join us! Whether you're speaker, sponsor, or a wine-drinker, our aim is to make this day memorable, fun, and interesting. You will learn more about wine and viticulture, meet interesting people, and enjoy yourself in one of Vancouver's loveliest gardens.

It's a full day (approx. 10-4) and is being held on August 16th at UBC Botanical Garden. We're expecting about 125 people. Registration is open now, and tickets are $50 for the full day event (t-shirt, lunch, wine, and food pairings included) please head on over to Eventbrite to register now. I fully expect this to sell out as we push out the word this week, so get your tickets soon.

We're also looking for sponsors and speakers.

Thanks to launch sponsors Redwerks for helping put together the website with their Kommonwealth tool, and to Artisan Wine Company for being the wine sponsor.

And, of course, a tip of the corkscrew in the general direction of my co-organizers: Degan, Tanya, Colleen, Megan, Cyprien and Lauren (yes there are some Northern Voice co-conspirators in that list).

* For the record, the WineCamp one liner description is "an ad-hoc gathering that brings together the best of the old world and the new... wine, non-profits and geeks!" -- connecting non-profits with technologists over wine. A great goal, but we really were interested in reaching out to wine and food enthusiasts and skip technology all together -- aside