Windows 7 -- Boy am I pissed!

I downloaded the Windows 7 preview DVD a while back. And, with my lab now back into shape I decided to load it on one of my bench computers. Well, after I got a look at how much better the user interface became, how much faster and simpler the installation process had become, and all of the other little refinements, I wasn't happy that they had finally gotten closer to fixing it.

No, I was pretty pissed that Microsoft has perpetrated another multi-billion dollar fraud on the public and got people to pay through the nose just to once again be test subjects!

I would say the difference between Vista and Windows 7 is significant. It is significant enough that you should wait until Windows 7 becomes available before doing any significant Windows XP-to-Vista upgrade projects. In my view, Microsoft came clean at the last developer conference where they published their roadmap for Windows 7 and released the beta. They have clearly given up on Vista and so should you if you are planning what to do with a Windows XP sites a few years from now.

Let's face it, we'll have to upgrade old corporate XP computers eventually. They will start to wear out. But, given what Microsoft said at the last PDC you'd be crazy to say that Vista is the way to go and then start buying new systems with Vista. I am sure there are millions of sites around the world that have stumbled into the Vista upgrade path by blindly buying new systems and now they are stuck with a dead-end OS. Seems like the Windows Millennium debacle all over again.

So, this puts a real squeeze on the computer manufacturers. After facing up to the fact that smart people are going to wait for Windows 7, now the computer makers are facing a worldwide recession. I suppose the industry can look forward to a "Windows 7 bump" sometime in 2010, but that seems like a long way off in March 2009.

-- Vern

Review - MSI Wind U100 Netbook

Just like everybody else, I am intrigued with the new "netbook" class of computers. I am curious if it will be useful to small businesses as a way for a worker to easily connect back to their desktop and access applications. Using Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) one should be able to run specialized applications from a netbook without actually installing the software on the netbook.

So, I undertook a "chore" that most computer geeks like me actually cherish: a review of a new IT hardware product. Unfortunately, no one is sending me free netbooks for review, so I needed to pick the one I thought was the best and give it test run in some of my customer sites.

The main thing that distinguishes the netbook is the use of the new Intel Atom processor, which comes in a package smaller than a child's fingernail. Besides using a platform built around the Atom chip, netbooks are less than 3 pounds in weight, don't have an optical drive, have from 512Mb to 1Gb of RAM, and 120 Gb of hard drive space. The screens range in size from 8 to 10 inches in size using a widescreen pixel layout (1024 by 600). Most have webcams. All of the viable netbooks run Windows XP Home. The sweet spot price for a well-equipped netbook seems to be $400.

These are clearly kid computers. Some adults will have a hard time seeing the densely-packed pixels on the small screens. Optimized for email and web surfing, netbooks also support real time video chat. I think they will amp up the already frenetic pace at which kids adopt technology.

Perfect for high school or even going off to college, they are affordable enough so that if they are lost or destroyed then it isn't a huge disaster. Netbooks aren't quite fast enough to handle business chores, like Office 2007, so I don't think that IT departments are going to care too much about them at this time.

ASUS is credited with shipping the first netbooks, and they also pioneered the use of flash memory for hard drives and the use of Linux as a desktop OS. Many of the other competitors matched the use of flash hard drives and Linux, but that now appears to be a dead end in the netbook market.

After sleuthing around I settled on the Lenovo Ideapad S10 mainly because, as an old fart, I needed the biggest screen possible and the Ideapad had a superior keyboard layout. They are also a leading global vendor, and my distributor had supplied this product in late 2008.

Much to my dismay, the channel was sold out so I had to make an alternative selection. I eventually settled on the MSI Wind U100 (model 432US). Mine is black and has a six-cell Lithium-ion battery, 1.6 GHz Atom N270 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HD, Intel GMA 950 video with a VGA-out port, Ethernet 10/100, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, 10" widescreen (1024x600), 1.2 megapixel webcam, and a built-in microphone. The retail price is about $409. You can get this exact unit on Amazon.com for less than $400.

MSI, aka the Taiwanese giant Micro Star International, is a major motherboard and component manufacturer. Like ASUS, MSI is now trying to sell whole systems under their brand.

Basically, I am thumbs up on the MSI Wind netbook. It feels solid, the texture of the interior surfaces is nice, but the shinny outside surface can get a little messy with fingerprints. The trackpad should be bigger. The keyboard isn't perfect, with the comma and period keys being smaller than they rest of the alphabet keys. Power management is good with a pre-set that uses hibernate mode, which is usually more reliable than Windows sleep mode and saves on battery drain. We didn't really do a drain test, but we were able to get 3 hours of use without a charge.

There are no complaints when it comes to performance. With a full gigabyte of RAM, Windows XP works fine. I didn't install any heavy-duty programs, but I did manage to get some image editing programs to run OK. The Wi-Fi networking is reliable, but the range seems a bit limited, probably due to the limited size of the internal antenna. I was unable to test the N networking, so I can't confirm that it makes any difference. The hard drive performance is good, which in the past was a problem with budget portables. I wonder how the constant movement a netbook can experience impacts the reliability of the hard drive.

I think the main thing that concerns me is durrability. How will it survive a drop? When will the hard drive fail? How many power cycles will the battery survive? Does the hinge break or is there a seam that comes loose? Nothing like that has happened to mine, yet. In my personal experience, I have found that MSI motherboards can be overly sensitive to heat, so I suppose that is the source of my concern especially versus a vendor like Lenovo.

I have tried to use the netbook in a few business situations. Remote desktop works good, and one can get at applications running on the desktop. However, the small screen seems to be a problem for using catalog-type applications and looking a diagrams and instructions. So, I don't see a lot of adoption in business, yet.

I'll continue to test this unit at some other customer sites, so perhaps netbooks will find a place at Berkeley Logic customers. But, until then I think they are great little computers for young people. And, it fits nice in my bike messager bag!

-- Vern

Why We Are Looking Forward to 2009

We would like to take this time to thank all of our customers, clients and contractors for helping us make this a great year.
We realize it takes time, patience and integrity to survive in today's changing economy.
We hope that 2009 brings more new clients, more websites and more Adwords accounts.
With what we have learned about these modern challenges to business, Berkeley Logic is poised to help other businesses grow. Our beliefs about this ever changing world have been renewed.
We advocate a culture of readiness that is bolstered by the use of modern technologies.
We see that the technological path to the future is opening, not closing.
In the post-print world, Berkeley Logic sees the internet as THE way to find what you are looking for.
We look forward to helping our clients, new and old, in the new year as they adapt to the changing business climate.
Berkeley Logic looks forwrd to the challenges of change!!!

Welcome to Cal Students!

It's still summer in Berkeley, but the University of California campus is swarming with new students. Berkeley Logic welcomes back returning as well as new students!

Just in case any of you are looking for a job, we are always looking for talented young men and women who are looking for a flexible, interesting gig with our Berkeley and North Oakland customers.

For more information check out our recent fliers seen around campus, our Jobs Page as well as our recent craigslist posting.

-- Vern

Google Apps: Hella IMAP

As the kids say in North Oakland and Berkeley, the IMAP service built into Google Apps and Gmail is "hella good." Why such a strong accolade? It is because Gmail is now the leading mass-market free email system, and adding IMAP to that free offering puts it over the top. With the Google Apps packaging and support for custom domain names, the system is tailor-made to accept the content of other repository-based enterprise accounts. This is an opportunity for Google to grab market share from Microsoft in the elusive small business category. And, it is an opportunity for small business IT specialists like Berkeley Logic to provide the services and support necessary to ensure a smooth transition to what looks like email nirvana in the cloud.

IMAP promotes Gmail into an efficient, standards-based email repository system. With IMAP one may use a client like Thunderbird or Outlook and not even see the Google advertising. This new, freely available IMAP server's feature list is extensive: search (one may "google" ones own email, easily finding old correspondence), carrier-class infrastructure, 6 Gb storage capacity, very large attachments, and the cost is literally zero.

Creating an alternative to Microsoft Exchange is a holy grail in the Open Source and ABM (Anybody But Microsoft) worlds. Thousands of huge enterprises around the world have a crack-like addiction to the email, shared folders, and calendaring functions of Microsoft Exchange and Outlook. There is a continuous churn in companies relicensing Exchange and some big enterprises are looking to avoid the big hardware and software investment to go with an Exchange 2007 upgrade.

There are also thousands of small businesses (5 to 100 employees) in the United States that are using in-house implementations of Microsoft Exchange and Outlook. Google Apps is aimed squarely at those small enterprises who don't use the advanced features of Exchange or could adapt to Google Calendar and Google Docs as a practical groupware solution.

I think the IMAP feature for Gmail released in late 2007 might just be the pixie dust needed to accelerate the advance of Google Apps for small businesses. With the availability of the feature-rich IMAP protocol for Gmail, it and Exchange now share a critical set of features that enables a smooth migration to Google Apps. Using a scripting language like Python or PHP, several developers, including Google, have already deployed web-based tools that transfers an email repository from Exchange to Google Apps using the IMAP protocol.

At Berkeley Logic we use a Linux-based tool called imapsync to write shell scripts that transfers cpanel-based IMAP email repositories to Gmail. Our imapsync server runs in the LMi.net data center directly connected to a high-speed Internet backbone. While this hot connection makes transfers go a lot quicker, we have found that one needs to be careful not to overload any IMAP server with multiple simultaneous transfers.

For home and small business users I think the greatest feature of Gmail is the fact the data is stored in the Google global "cloud" which is backed up by one of the world's most extensive data networks. This means that all that valuable personal and business data locked in personal hard drives doesn't have to be vulnerable to the eventuality of hardware failure. And, all of that old data all of a sudden becomes useful once again.

I became sold on this technology after I used Gmail IMAP to upload my old mail archives. I have managed to keep an email archive dating back to 1997. Using Thunderbird I was able to upload 57,000 old email messages into my All Mail and Sent folders. I should have used imapsync, which was thankfully found later, but this exercise helped me get used to the nuances of IMAP Gmail, such as the fact it doesn't store duplicate messages.

The ability to quickly find any old email is a stunning productivity-enhancer. Not only is much time saved looking for a critical document, but I have begun to use the feature to look for things I wouldn't have bothered with in the past. It definitely has made keeping that 57,000 message archive intact worth the effort.

We are definitely very excited about the possibilities that Gmail, Google Apps, IMAP and Thunderbird gives Berkeley Logic and our customers. We are now actively looking for more small businesses who want to switch over to what we believe is email nirvana in the cloud. We believe the safety, speed, search power, and the flexibility of Gmail and Google Apps provides a compelling solution for thousands of small businesses in the East Bay.

Berkeley Logic sells computers

Good news! Berkeley Logic is authorized to resell Dell computers. I know what some of you are thinking: "Yuck, you like Dell?" Well, we actually are not ashamed of reselling Dell computers, and here is why.

Let's face it, there are only three or four major PC makers left in the world: Dell (USA), HP-Compaq (USA), Lenovo (China), and Acer (Taiwan). When judging what brand is better in terms of reliability, it is always best to look at industry statistics rather than one's personal experiences. Based on my research, all of the these vendors are putting out a good product that should last for at least three years and maybe as long as five years. The "Lemon Rate" for these vendors is way below 1%.

Besides, if you are buying basic box-type computers then most of the components are just a commodity and all of the manufacturers put out essentially identical boxes that differ slightly in performance, price and support options. All of the manufacturers have speciality products, such as small form factor designs. Laptops is certainly an area where the vendors differ significantly.

Given the fact the PC industry is highly commoditized, what made Berkeley Logic choose Dell for our recommended PC maker? First of all, Dell's online configuration tool is the best in the industry and saves a lot of headaches, especially when it comes to buying servers. Also, I have had good experience with onsite Dell service technicians where they will replace parts readily (including laptop parts that have been abused by a user). Finally, Dell is a little less anonymous for me because Berkeley Logic has our own real person sales team that sits in an office in Oklahoma City. So we have real people and phone number we can use to escalate problems or get quick answers.

Also, Dell is making an effort to get rid of the bloatware present in many pre-installed systems. They have a new line (Vostro) that is specifically designed for the small business user who doesn't want to wade through a bunch of junk to get going with their new PC.

So, for Berkeley Logic these factors push Dell past the others, but race is very close at the finish line. Since the products are largely commodities we are always looking at the competition and occasionally choosing non-Dell solutions. We like the small form factor designs from Acer, and I have had some pleasant experiences with HP's business-class laptops.

In any case, if you are looking to upgrade or buy some new systems, the Berkeley Logic will be able to meet your needs with a cost-effective, well integrated solution.

Vern

Web 2.0 Conference Notes From The Field

Went to the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. It was a small show but it had some of the fun elements I look for in a high-tech trade show. There were plenty of companies I had never heard of, and no one could explain what "Web 2.0" means.

According to what I saw on the exhibit floor, Web 2.0 is either Enterprise Social Networking, Web Applications like Google Apps or "Platform As A Service" (PaaS). These are really three completely different things; it looks like the Web 2.0 moniker will have to live with this fractured definition, probably until the term becomes old hat.

Enterprise Social Networking seems to be MySpace for companies. I see FaceBook filling this market niche already, but there are a whole bunch of little startups who are making software or services that will outfit a big enterprise with a private version of MySpace. Related to these companies are the enterprise wiki companies all doing products like Google Sites.

There were plenty of web application companies on the show floor too. Again, Google is doing this with Google Apps. Honestly, I'm not quite ready to drink the web application koolaid quite yet. I still need the richness of an application like Microsoft Word to produce printed documents. But, given the size of the market represented by Microsoft Office I am sure it will only be a matter of time utill the quality of the applications, offline capabilities, and really useful groupware functions will drive a significant part of the market to web applications.

I suppose if I had to pick my personal favorite definition for Web 2.0, it would be Platform as a Service. I think this is the most important trend identified at the conference, because it represents the largest potential stake of the future of technology.

It doesn't take much to realize that what Platform as a Service represents could be as significant as Windows OS or the TCP/IP protocol stack. And the key to it is developers. As this idea begins to catch on, more big applications like salesforce.com will be deployed using a particular PaaS provider's APIs and other programming tools. Salesforce.com realizes this and they have been courting developers right from the beginning to get them to use Force.com as a programming platform.

There were plenty of other big players at the Web 2.0 show to court developers with their PaaS offerings, including Microsoft, Amazon.com, Entelos, and Yahoo. I suppose the real question here is whether any of them will be able to catch up with salesforce.com's tremendous lead. Experience shows that betting against the leader in high-tech marketing is usually a bad idea, so let's all start learning the force.com platform.