November 2007 - Posts

• Duality, life as a Mac and Windows user

  Before I left for TechEd Barcelona I picked up a new MacBook Pro. I was headed to Europe for 3 weeks, the first part of which was business and the second part vacation. I presented and demoed on Windows XP using VMWare's Fusion (this works *flawlessly* BTW and seems to be faster than my Lenovo T60). I still use Windows XP for all my work related stuff, but I've pretty much committed everything else (photos, videos, etc.) to Apple. After I got back, I headed down to the Apple store and picked up an iPhone and said goodbye to my trusty BlackBerry. The move to the iPhone was the result of being a long time iPod user and then absolutely loving my MacBook experience. So far, the iPhone is really nice but disappointing in comparison to my BlackBerry for managing email. While the iPhone does have "Microsoft Exchange" support it's pretty weak (IMAP/SMTP only). Note the iPhone is awesome at web browsing, video, music, calendar, phone, and contacts. So while this is a bitter pill (giving up BlackBerry's email support) the tradeoffs were well worth it. One of the first problems I ran into was syncing my Contacts and Calendar to the iPhone which required that my contacts and calendar be in Apple's "iCal" and "Address Book" applications since I was syncing the iPhone with the OS X. I read that you could sync if you were running Microsoft's Office for the Mac so I started doing some research. I installed the trial of Office for the Mac. Yuck. All my friends and co-workers running Macs tell me that the next version of Office for the Mac due out in January is supposed to be incredible though. I can't wait. Next, I went to the Apple store by my house (which was crazy busy). Surely someone there would know more and maybe even be able to help me. This is where the Apple people started to look dumb. Me: I've got an iPhone and an MacBook Pro and I run Exchange at work and want to sync the iPhone to my Exchange Server. Apple store: Why? Me: (long explanation, ending in me trying various things like Office for the Mac) Apple store: We don't recommend installing that company's [Microsoft] software. You'll get viruses. It's a huge target for attacks. If you want to buy it though you can by the Student Edition for $49. Me: I'm not a student. Is this version different from the commercial version? Apple store: Yes, one is professional one is not. Me: So the commercial version is different? Apple store: We really just recommend avoiding that company's software. That was about it for me. I said thank you and left. It's pretty amazing to me that (a) I would be told some complete lies about Microsoft and (b) then told that I can buy the Student Edition. Note, they also didn't answer my original question either. What's frustrating is that the 2 sales people I spoke with put their own personal politics/issues ahead of my actual problem. While frustrating it also makes Apple look bad. So I was back to solving it myself... I found out that by installing Plaxo on OS X and Windows XP I could keep everything in sync (which is now working perfectly BTW). I really do hope that Apple adds better support for Exchange in the iPhone. I also really hope that Apple starts encouraging a more open attitude at it's stores for people that use mixed environments like myself. I suspect this type of scenario is going to become more common in the coming years. Posted Nov 26 2007, 12:00 PM by Rob Howard's Blog Filed under: Apple, iPhone

• Graffiti CMS Beta 1 - should be this week

  Unless we run into some major last minute bug(s), beta 1 of Graffiti CMS will be available this week! We've had a large response to our announcement of Graffiti and a lot of people have also signed up for the beta. If you are interested it's not too late to sign-up for Beta 1 -- see the link below -- I've also include some other useful Graffiti links: graffiticms.com - web site for Graffiti and where you can sign up for the beta Overview video - a short video overview of Graffiti Graffiti FAQ - Frequently asked questions about Graffiti Graffiticms.com will soon go live to with more content and videos about Graffiti as well as a community (of course). Lastly, Scott also recently wrote a post about the development philosophy behind Graffiti. It's definitely worth a read. Posted Nov 26 2007, 11:14 AM by Rob Howard's Blog Filed under: Graffiti

• Graffiti to be available with Windows Home Server

  We've been working like crazy to get Graffiti out the door. We're really, really close but it's always that last 2% that is the hardest. We've also been doing some work on the business side and we're pleased to announce that Graffiti CMS will be available to customers of Windows Home Server (some details on the PR piece picked up by CNN). Posted Nov 06 2007, 11:32 AM by Rob Howard's Blog Filed under: Graffiti

• MacBook Pro - first impressions

  I picked up a 15" MacBook Pro on Sunday after struggling with this decision for about 8 weeks now. I figured I'd just have to dive right in. First impression: wow. Just opening the box was a great experience. There was: 1 laptop, 1 DVI to VGA converter, 1 power cord. It took me about 5 minutes to unpack, plug-in, power-up, and get on my home network. The laptop itself is just awesome. I'm still getting used to the Apple OS, but I also picked up VMWare Fusion, which I've been told is better than Parallels. I installed XP as a virtual machine and am now in the process of installing all the other necessary software. Tomorrow I leave on a 15 day trip to Barcelona and my goal is leave my ThinkPad at home and only bring my MacBook.  The MacBook is lighter than my ThinkPad and the screen is bigger, so that's another plus. Suffice to say, I've got a lot to do in the next 24 hours to ensure this isn't a disaster as I'm presenting at TechEd Europe! My concerns with the two-mouse buttons was easily resolved. Turns out you can configure the touch pad to detect a right-click when you clicking using 2 fingers instead of one. Posted Nov 05 2007, 09:05 AM by Rob Howard's Blog

• Google office in a box

  Google already sells their "Yellow Box" search appliance which is essentially Google Search packaged up into a hardware solution that you simply drop onto your network. The software crawls your intranet and indexes your content using Google's search, indexing, and ranking algorithms. Very cool. When does this same offering happen for all the Microsoft Office web-based competitors that Google has bought or released in the past year? I heard recently that Microsoft expects 25% of its revenue within the next 5 years to come from advertising. If you know how much money Microsoft pulls in per-year, plus the growth they are shooting for year-over-year, this number should be 6-8+ billion dollars just from advertising. I would actually expect it to be higher than that since this is probably all going to be new revenue with no reductions in sales goals for Office and Windows. I wonder if the push for advertising revenue has to do with any competitive pressure or threat from Google's rapid acquisition of web based office tools? It seems like Google is positioning itself to enter into Microsoft's Office market and I wonder if part of the plan is a hardware solution similar to the Yellow Box. The scary part is that Google could offer this corporate solution for free and simply sell text ads. Web based office competitors obviously have a long way to go before they would be a real threat. For example, Google's web based spreadsheets are neat, but neat as in "wow this is cool" not "I'll use this to manage a P&L or budget". Same with the document editor Google acquired (which by the way was an ASP.NET solution). Nevertheless, I think these tools will get there given Google's current track record. I think they would get adopted more quickly if you didn't have to trust Google with the data too. Of course all of this is completely speculative (but I have been buying Google stock just in case <g>). Posted Nov 03 2007, 12:24 AM by Rob Howard's Blog Filed under: Google

• Vista, Leopard, or both?

  I haven't upgraded to Vista yet. It's not that I'm not eager to use Vista, I'm just not eager to have to go through the head-ache of updating my laptop. I will admit that I've been a bit slower since quite a few of my hard-core developer friends have re-installed XP recently. Part of the problem is my Lenovo T60 laptop is nearing its end of life. I just upgraded the RAM only to find out that the Lenovo/ThinkPad chipset only will recognize 3GB of memory. The other choice that's holding me back is Apple. A lot of my friends/co-workers are buying Mac Books and well, I'm jealous. Scott bought a Mac Book Pro and runs Vista natively (and says it is the best computer he has ever bought). Jason has a Mac Book Pro and runs VM Ware, and also swears by it. Here is why I'm jealous: Cleanliness. There are no stickers and random junk stuck all over the laptop. Have you gone to Best Buy or another electronics store and looked at all the crap that OEM's stick on your laptop? My Lenovo has 3 stickers: Graphics by ATI; Intel Centrino; Microsoft Windows XP. The Microsoft one was the worst. After about 5 months I now just have a shiny silver spot on the keyboard (the image wore off). It's a work of art, seriously. The Mac Book just looks awesome. It's small, very well engineered, and is much thinner than other laptops I've looked at. I've got to admit a large part of the appeal is the hardware itself. Ready for something new. Maybe it's the geek in me, but I'm ready to try something new. The Apple OS, Leopard, looks really clean. That and I just love my iPod and if the experience is in any way similar... Parallels. I really like the idea that I could run both a Windows OS and the Apple OS together. Not just together but literally integrated together. That just looks cool. Media. I'm finding myself doing more and more with media such as photos and videos. The tools on my PC feel clumsy whereas my Apple friends seem to manage media with ease. Just about everything I do is on the web. The only non-web applications I use and depend on are: Microsoft Office; QuickBooks; and all development tools. In other words, get me FireFox and there's a 99% chance I'm happy. Here is why I'm on the fence: Time. The time required to learn something new (right now) just seems like it would ultimately be unproductive considering everything else I want to do. Plus if I'm going to put the time into it I might as well just install Vista. Email client. My Apple friends complain vocally about using Entourage (Microsoft Outlook for Mac). I literally live day and night in email. A bad email client is a big negative - of course I would probably be running parallels or VM Ware anyhow. Presenting. I do a lot of presenting and I know a few friends have struggled with presenting on the Mac Books from Parallels. Maybe I'm wrong, but this one is a show-stopper for me. I haven't made up my mind yet. But everyday I'm pestering Jason with questions about his Mac Book. He even wrote up a post recently for "Mac Converts." Posted Nov 03 2007, 12:00 AM by Rob Howard's Blog Filed under: Apple

• Want to meet-up in Barcelona?

  I'm headed over to Barcelona, Spain next week. What's not fun is how I get there: Dallas,TX -> Las Vegas,NV -> San Francisco,CA -> Munich, Germany -> Barcelona Yes, I'm going to go west before I go east. Please don't ask why. It's a long story :) Yuck. The good news is I've got plenty to do on the plane flight over going through our new Reporting Server, Graffiti CMS, and of course Community Server 2008. Meet up in Barcelona I'm headed to Barcelona for Tech-Ed Europe. I'll give a couple of sessions on ASP.NET Internals, which is always a fun topic and Europe is always a fun venue. I'm also looking for any social networking groups and/or meet-ups. If anyone is interested in connecting for coffee or possibly even dinner shoot me a note at rhoward@telligent.com Recommendations for Barcelona I'm also open for suggestions on things to do in Spain as I'm going to stay an extra 2 weeks. Posted Nov 02 2007, 11:21 PM by Rob Howard's Blog Filed under: TechEd, social networking