My Internet Notebook

The news is everywhere: Intel is replacing IBM to supply chips for all future Macs (2007 models). As usual, analysts are debating whether this is a good thing or bad for Apple.

For software ISVs, if you already have a product on old Macs, it could be bad news for you that now you need to invest more money to port over to x86. For new ISVs, this could be a golden opportunity to get into the “Mac” ecosystem.

One last thing, the transistion could help create more open source software choices for the Mac, which would be a good thing.

I couldn’t resist: who would buy iMac or PowerBook now if they know these products will be discontinued a year from now?

Do This, Get Rich! Try to met these unmet software needs, you may get rich in the process, that is according to Business 2.o editors: Michael V Copeland, Om Malik and Erick Schonfeld. They proposed the following ideas and got actual feedback from veteran Venture Capitalists. Pretty cool!

Web Services:

PeoplesChoice – extracts data from online retailers like Amazon.com, eBay and others to create a virtual map of what’s selling on the Web …
NurseSwap – online service connects freelance nurses with short-staffed health care facilities.
CelebrityDigs – sells hotels web-based software that lets visitors tailor their stay online and takes a cut of in-room luxury goods sales.
Let’s Make a Deal – web service aimed at reducing your subscription and monthly service bills.

Software

SpotCaster – software to insert ads in podcast and other audio files.
MedTrack – RFID software system to track drugs and supplies in hospital to reduce medical errors.
EnMiser – software to enable energy savings
G Mob – a special MVNO just for video gamers thru a fast 3G network.
HeavyCE Systems – boat control software and hardware

An interesting post from Nick Malik on Feature Driven Development and its advantages (benefits) when compared with traditional waterfall based system.

It seems to me from the author’s analysis that small projects that are more suitable for Agile will benefit the most from Feature Driven Development. However, for large projects (e.g. require a team to work for more than a year), it probably makes more sense to use a combination of T-WBS and FFD. In other words, the big project can be broken into a couple of smaller FDD projects.

Full article: http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmalik/archive/2005/04/10/406965.aspx

General manager at Microsoft Evangelism group Vic Gundotra started his own blog. He stated a number of well-known serious concerns about MSFT but failed to offer any concrete answers IMHO.

A stock price that has remained flat for some time, recent high-profile departures, repeated slips in schedule for major products, the success of companies like Apple and Google, the emergence of the web as a platform and other very compelling arguments are all used as evidence to point to the decline of Microsoft.

In general, I found that all Microsoft employee blogs share some of the same tone/attitude, i.e. I am working on some of the greatest technology that is going to impact millions of people around the world; I work with smart, passionate co-workers, etc etc. We all know that! What I would like to see really is how MSFT reachs out and relates itself to those smart and passionate people that are not in the Microsoft camp. How about inviting some of the LAMP gurus to give talks on campus? How about creating a version of Microsoft Office that runs on Linux? How about developing a Linux emulator so you can run linux apps within Windows?

There are a lot more that Microsoft can do.

I downloaded and burned Ubuntu 5.4 and Knoppix 3.8.1 to a CD-R to just play with them. I used an old Dell Dimension (P3, 256MB RAM) for the test.

All in all, these two “Linux on a CD” distro appeared pretty solid. They were both able to start a Linux session on my old Dell without problems. Although I think at this moment I will probably still go with Knoppix. The reasons: 1. Ubuntu was not able to mount my hard drive (NTFS) automatically; 2. it seems need to constantly access the CD-ROM, which makes it a little slower.