This is how you bait Windows developers into commenting on your blog.

Besides the obvious bias of this posting, there is something interesting in this general area of what Windows developers are using. First, I think most programmers today are Intranet developers. They leverage the browser. They leverage database tools. They write code that will be used internal to an organization, rather than external. And for those outward facing apps, they’re almost always browser based apps.

So although I don’t think the point of the article was this: I do think that for most Windows development per se–let’s call it the old Win32 style of development–is dead. I’d even go further in saying that for all practical purposes .NET is the Microsoft API now. There are some of us that still develop for the Windows platform as a platform, but there aren’t many of us. Most could just as easily be writing for anything if the tools they were using were cross platform. It’s just that the tools they are using are themselves Windows targetted. Silverlight is the exception here. And, yes, Novell is working on a port of the .NET Framework to Linux, but I’m so-so on whether this will pan out the way people are thinking it will. My view is that Microsoft should be doing the work. How hard is it anyway?

So here’s how I see it (in an oversimplified and overdramatic way):

* C++ is dead
* The Windows API is dead
* The .NET Framework is the API to target
* If you want to get a programming job today, focus on web development and databases
* Scripting is sufficient for many tasks and is something more and more people can do

And here are the general trends I think we’re seeing when it comes to programming:

* Learn how to design. Design tools will continue to improve and programmers will become more designers than just programmers. Likewise, designers will gain more powerful tools that will enable them to do more programming.
* Tools will improve so that more people can do programming.
* More “things” will move to the database.

This is way oversimplified, I know, but I think these are general trends that are true. What do you think?

Jkkmobile has a video review of the just released Origami Experience 2.0.

By the way, you can download Origami Experience and run it on a UMPC or a desktop. Of course, it really makes the mose sense on a UMPC and some features won’t be available if you don’t have a touch display. The Windows Vista Blogs lists some of the caveats:

The Origami Experience 2.0 is designed for Ultra-Mobile PCs that run Windows Vista. To run the Origami Experience 2.0, a UMPC with the following specifications is recommended:

Minimum 100 MB of available hard disk space
Minimum 1 GB of system memory
Touch panel display (required for Origami Picture Password)
The Origami Experience 2.0 requires the following software installed:

Windows Internet Explorer 7. Origami Experience 2.0 requires Internet Explorer 7 for its RSS platform.
Windows Media Player 11. Origami Central requires Windows Media Player 11 in order to manage and play media.
Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. The calendar tile in Origami Now works only with Office Outlook 2007 Calendar. The mail tile in Origami Now works with Office Outlook 2007 Mail and Windows Mail.
The Windows update available here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932406 . This update is highly recommended if you use the mail tile in Origami Now with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

The Vista blog also has a couple additional postings on Web Browsing optimizations in OE2 and it’s RSS support. Believe me, there’s lots more to OE2. Definitely worth checking out.

The NYTimes has an interesting article on digital interuptions and productivity. The suggestion passed on in the article: Check your email less often. How often? Hmmm. Those details will be passed on in a forthcoming email :-).

Twitter client writers need to up their game. We all know you can write to the Twitter API and display 14-character tweets for those who I follow and maybe each user’s thumbnail, and a couple icons here and there to show whether a message is a reply or something I authored, and so on.

But none of the Twitter clients go far enough I think. None.

As you know, I’ve been a long time advocate of Twitter thinking beyond text. I accept the fact that it’s not going to happen. However, it doesn’t stop Twitter clients from working around the text biased limitation and emulating a richer experience. So here’s what I’m asking for: Add support for inline images and possibly audio or video in the clients. If you see a URL to flickr, show the flickr image in the tweet. If you see a URL in a tweet. Show a thumbnail preview of the site. If you see a link to an audio file, include an embedded audio player so I can listen to whatever it is without having to click out of the Twitter client experience. And if you see a link to a video site, see if you can embed a video preview in the message. For those of you interested in watching live videos like those by Robert Scoble and the like, just image what could be done here too. It could bring a whole new mindset to tracking news on Twitter too, I bet.

The arguments for and against supporting non-text media natively in Twitter is kind of like the original web arguments as to whether images should be rendered in a browser or whether images should be embedded within email messages or provided as external links. By and large I think those arguments are over. For the vast majority of users the answer is yes. For a handful of others who don’t want it, the answer is to turn off images or use a text only browser. These people, however, are in the minority. Let’s just accept this fact and move on. The Twitter client authors need to make this happen.

Of all the Twitter clients, GTalk is probably the closest to providing a good media experience for Twitter messages. Depending on whether you point to Flickr let’s say, it’ll give you access to your Flickr image. (Last time I checked though the link has to be a real Flickr URL, not a tinyurl.) The problem is the approach is Flash biased and doesn’t go far enough. There’s lots more to support direct Flickr content as well as content from other sites.

Unfortunately, most tweets don’t contain the full address at all. Many use tinyurl or some other URL shortening services. So what GTalk and all the other Twitter clients ought to be doing is following through links. If you see a tinyurl or similar, you have to chase it down. You have to see what it really points to and then render something more meaningful in the tweet message area if it makes sense.

OK, here’s what the Snitter client typically looks like for me what I’m wathing Twitter messages:

Note that there are two URLs mentioned in two different tweets. This happens all the time. People are pointing to one of their most recent posts or sometimes some breaking news. But URLs being URLs many times I can’t tell what the paths point to. Give me a thumbnail preview of the site to help me out in deciding whether I should click on a link rather than me having to play URL roulette. Is this another link to truemors, or a link to actual news? I want to know.

So here’s one cobbled of idea of what these tweets ought to look like in my book:

Both tweets that reference URLs have thumbnail previews substituted or supplied for them. Isn’t this more interesting to read and give you a quicker and better idea as to what the person is pointing to?

There are lots of interesting questions here as to how thumbnail previews or images or audio or video and the like ought to be rendered inline with tweets. For instance, should the images be placed at the end of the tweets or the urls substituted with images with text wrapped around or the images right justified or what? Or maybe site thumbnails shouldn’t be used, but rather thredr or Techmeme style image excerpts ought to be extracted from the sites and right justified? Or maybe only take image excerpts on certain news sites or from blog posts? And if site previews are used, should tinyurls at the end of posts be displayed or simply dropped? Lots of possibilities.

Let’s face it, thumbnail previews for sites make complete sense. So do replacing Flickr URLs with the images they are pointing to.

During the next major earthquake or flood or storm don’t you want to see an embedded Twitter image rather than just the link to a page that you have to visit to find out if it’s a link to an image or a news website you’ve already read or to a blog that links to a blog that links to the image you want to see? And I think a compelling argument can be made that live videos ought to be embedded too. Maybe I do or don’t want to watch the video. Give me a few seconds at least of content to decide.

There’s more to it than this, though. I think we’re missing some great non-text conversations. I can’t remember what debate was going on the other day, but it was something silly and although I wanted to respond with something appropriately silly and pointing out some irony yet I decided not to post anything because in such a short text message it’s so easy to be misunderstood. So I said nothing. But it struck me at the time, that what I really would have liked to do was share my thoughts in a cartoon. There’s a reason why political cartoons are so popular in print media. Why can’t they be too in the Twitter community? I’d love to see Hugh Macleod’s drawings inplace. They’d be perfect. And I think we’d see lots more creative types joining in with their edgy commentary if Twitter clients would work better to support non-text.

I think we’re missing some terrific opportunities for quick visual commentary. Some of these might be photos snapped at the most recent Apple event, or someone sharing a sunny day in their backyard, or someone drawing a cartoon that more poignently than any sequence of 140 characters gets to the real point of an issue. Yes, sometimes things are better said in wiggles than words.

Of course, all of this should be a feature so those that don’t want it can turn it off. However, I’m convinced that if we broke out of this text bias we’d see lots of interesting use of non-text content.

What do you say Twitter client authors? How about it? It’s not that hard.

Some companies are famous for being paranoid. As Andy Grove of Intel has said many time, “Only the paranoid survive.” So, you decide that if escorting the press to the restroom at Apple’s WWDC event is being too paranoid or not?

Doesn’t this sound like a great story for a cartoon? Too bad Twitter doesn’t support images, because that’s where it belongs.

NBC’s Tim Russert died today of a heart attack.

Listening to MSNBC online remembering Tim Russert.

We’ll miss you.

My two cents worth: Yahoo should acquire AllTop.com along with Guy Kawasaki.

Why? Besides getting one of the new darling websites AllTop, Yahoo would gain the company of one of the top tech evangelists–Guy Kawasaki. Imagine what he could do to revitalize Yahoo’s image.

What an exciting challenge that would be.

What are the things he might do? Well, I guess it would depend on what arrangements Yahoo might make with him. Might they encourage him to keep going with his investments? Not a bad idea. Maybe Yahoo could even throw in a percentage in exchange for a stake.

What might Guy do to advocate Yahoo advertising content? Can’t you see him twittering and talking with site owners making the case to run Yahoo ads? Imagine the value of the feedback he could gain and give back to the engineering teams.

And can’t you envision him helping to showcase flickr to a larger audience or communicate via TV interviews and the like the value of Yahoo mail or Yahoo news or Yahoo Finance? He’d be a natural–because he is a natural.

The synergy is obvious to me.

Of course, the odds are that Guy would say no, but then again maybe if Yahoo throws in an ice rink and a couple autographed hockey shirts from his favorite teams….hmmm

Update: A couple people have messaged me saying they don’t get it. I guess the hockey shirt idea isn’t obvious enough :-).

Well, forget the shirts, let’s just focus on the web sites. Currently, with AllTop, Guy and the Nononina venture are all about listing top blogs and sites on the Net. Like any directory (which by the way is part of the DNA of Yahoo), the directory is a destination in itself as well as a service that drives traffic to each of these sites. The site owners can see the results. They see that traffic is coming from AllTop, which means they already have a relationship with AllTop and indirectly Guy. I mention Guy specifically, because since AllTop was launched you can see him on Twitter interacting with people, looking for good sites, advocating the AllTop site itself. You can see him building relationships. OK. So Guy has what looks to me like the foundation for a good relationship with these top sites. Now, what’s often as important to these sites as the traffic AllTop can help them get? Ad revenue. And this is where the tie in with Yahoo might come in.

It’s not just AllTop sites where this type of approach could be used. There are many others. I’ll leave it to you to make your own mental suggestions.

And finally, what’s in it for AllTop? Joining Yahoo would help AllTop grow far beyond where it is now both in traffic and in terms of a business model. Again, makes sense to me.

In this “after the show” WorkFastTV interview with Mr. Office 2.0 Ismael Ghalimi by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, a question popped up that’s near and dear to my heart.

Robert asks, what about multi-touch and rich user experiences with web-based Office 2.0 style apps?

Ismael gives his answer around the 10 minute mark talking about how a touch device larger than an iPhone and smaller than a Eee PC makes sense. I agree. Although I think it would have been interesting to hear Ismael get into how he thinks the Office 2.0 apps might adjust to these form factors. He’s not to sure it sounds like that people will be using a smaller device with Office apps. I think he’s missing something here: If Office 2.0 apps are going to really take off they need to support many of the devices out there.

What about using an excel spreadsheet on an electronic whiteboard during a meeting? Or a student using a small notebook to drive a slide presentation in front of a class? What will the interaction be like. We’re going to need to start thinking about what these Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)–if any–will look like and what makes sense for different form factors.

Might we see optional browser UIs akin to those for mobile devices that people might elect to use when they have a device that goes beyond the keyboard? Or might the web 2.0 office apps bypass supporting these specialized capabilities because their market is too small?

I hope worst case that the former is the case. Right now we see some rather boring Office 2.0 apps online. They’re very menu and mouse biased. This works fine on a desktop or a notebook, but not everything is going to be that way.

Another area that the conversation didn’t get around to that I think would have been interesting is that of preventing data cilos in web 2.0 apps. Location transparency and portability would be a good thing.

As the news settles down about Microsoft-Yahoo-Google dealings, I can’t help but reflect on a few things. Namely, the fate of these companies–at least in the stock market–is almost always tied together. They’re independent companies, yes, but when one is impacted by something they either all trend up or down together. Just look what happened over the last six months or so with Google, Apple, and Microsoft stock. There are very similar patterns in all three. Yep, their fates are tied together–not strongly, but tied enough.

Think back to when the DOJ made its anti-trust ruling against Microsoft back a few years. Is it a coincidence that it wasn’t just Microsoft that got hurt in the stock market after the decision, but almost about everyone? Put another way, almost all the tech companies rode a wave up and almost all rode the same wave down.

Now not all of the companies perform exactly the same. That’s where the real money making comes in for the traders. They predict when Apple will outsell the bunch or when Yahoo will fade back from the pack. But there’s no denying that one can affect the others.

The other point I’d make is that all of this focus on shareholder value isn’t the healthiest thing to do. The only focus of a business is not to maximize the return for its owners. Never has been. Never will be. Show me a company that’s doing this and I’ll show you a company that’ll be gone in no time flat. It’s important to keep making money, yes, but it’s not the only thing and there are many, many legitimate things that a company may need to do which at any given time do not maximize the returns for its owners at that time. It’s the time period that’s so crucial to everyone. And that’s the key. That’s where the money’s made. When a handful of people maximize their returns relative to the others because they did or did not maximize their returns earlier. Put another way, owners don’t cash out at every chance they get. It doesn’t work that way. I can appreciate why there’s talk of “maximizing shareholder value,” but it’s implementation is quite nefarious. There’s no recipe–except for sell now and if everyone did that right this minute, there’d be a terrible collapse in all businesses. They’re all that connected.

Robert Scoble takes a Qik video of a couple people playing with a Microsoft Surface demo app.

When I look at something like this I see another twist on social computing–no not the multi-player game type, nor the Facebook type. No, I mean more than one person directly interacting with a computer device at a time.

In a trip to tech-central, the Silicon Valley, Josh Bancroft finally figured out why he doesn’t feel like he belongs there: He hates the technology industry–not the tech part, but the business part.

Believe me, Josh, there are all kinds. It’s not just about Gizmodo gadgeteers or bluetoothed business people. It’s not a single dimensioned spectrum.

Take me, for instance. I’m a tech enthusiast that you’d probably group on the business side of things because I thoroughly enjoy thinking about how technology and businesses go together. However, to me it’s all about building and seeing someone benefit from something I’ve worked on. How does the business part fit in? First and foremost I’m a builder. I love making things. It doesn’t matter what it is–digging ditches, writing software, building Robots–I just like making things. But I can’t just stop at creating something in the basement. Doing so would give it no value, would be of no use to anyone else. I have to share it with others; I have to see people use it and learn from how they view it. This is where the business part comes in. This is where communication is so central to the technology itself. You have to not only make something, you have to communicate it, you have to transport whatever it is to them. I’m enthralled by the whole package. It’s a single thing to me.

I’m a bit quirky, I know. Besides making things I get a kick out of looking at office buildings and office furniture (I really do!) or reading about how people created this or that, the decisions they made, why they made them, what worked, what didn’t, what people at the time thought about what they were doing. All of this is so fascinating to me.

Over the years I’ve gotten a kick out of people trying to label me one way or another. I’m too much an engineer, not enough of an engineer, too much a thinker, not enough of a thinker, too much business minded, not enough business minded, don’t have enough commercial experience, too experienced with old technologies, too focused on new technologies. Don’t fall asleep yet. I could go on, but I won’t.

You know what’s funny though? They’re all correct. I’m all of those things. It may sound strange, but that’s why I love the tech industry so much. It’s so vast that I can be all of these things giving myself room to learn more and do better.

At Computex ASUS was showing off a small “handwriting pad” that recognizes Chinese and English, numeric and sybmol characters. The external handwriting pad I imagine would make sense for Linux users where there’s no reco.

If more companies add handwriting recognition to their Linux distributions, Microsoft may need to free up its tight grip on its version of the technology–especially to facilitate its use in schools where price is often a big concern.

Today’s announcement by Qik that they will be supporting the iPhone trumps everything I heard from WWDC.

This is fantastic. No idea if this is WiFi only or if it supports 3G well too. A download will be available next week so jailbreaking is going to be required–at least for now.

I’m very curious to see how the chat works. Can’t wait to give it a try on my iPhone. I guess I now have reason enough to jailbreak my iPhone.

The very unfortunate thing here is that the video is going to suck the battery life out of the iPhone and unlike let’s say the Nokia N95 (which supports Qik), there’s no way to change the battery on the fly. I’m guessing we could run from a portable, external battery pack powering the iPhone via the USB/power connector.

FlixWagon, a competing service, interestingly announced today that it too will be supporting live broadcasting from the iPhone. Cool.

[Found via TechCrunch]

Those Apple Tablet rumors just won’t go away. Yesterday AppleInsider revives talk of a larger iPhone multi-touch device:

“Intel has been in the running to assert its Atom processors at heart of a larger iPhone-like Multi-Touch internet tablet that’s also under development at the Cupertino-based electronics maker, and was at one time believed to have sealed the deal.”

Well, if this device is based on an Atom processor, then it’s obvious why we haven’t seen anything from Apple yet: The MID-focused Atom processor isn’t shipping. So far Intel is only shipping or soon to be shipping in quantity the Diamondville version of the Atom processor, which is targetted to inexpensive notebooks rather than mobile Internet devices. The other version of the Atom processor/chipset which we believe is more geared towards MIDs and the like isn’t shipping yet and even at Computex no one seems to be saying when the Atom-based MIDs will be available.

Intel’s Sean Maloney suggests that with MIDs “there’s much more experimental design,” which is I guess part of an excuse why MIDs are taking longer to hit the shelf–like any Apple MID itself. Interestingly, Maloney continues, “By the end of this year, you will have seen a whole bunch of new MIDs coming out and we’ll see which ones are hits.” So whereas MIDs were originally thought to be on slate for a June launch, it sounds like things are still not ready.

It could be because of the designs themselves or maybe it’s because of Intel’s lagging supply of the Atom processors used in these devices. It makes sense that if there are no chips and Apple is going to use these chips in a forthcoming Tablet-like device, that Apple can’t release anything yet either. Or maybe in deference to Apple as it continues to work out its design issues, maybe Intel is holding back until Apple is ready. That would be odd, but I guess it wouldn’t be impossible to imagine. If true, then that would make Steve Jobs’ recent comments on the next version of OS X (which presumably would be the big brother to an embedded version running in a touch Tablet) a misdirection in that he says, “We’re going to hit the pause button on new features” and work on parallelism and “foundational issues”. It doesn’t take much to imagine that an Apple Tablet is going to need new features tuned to it. So if the Apple Tablet uses an embedded version of the OS, and the OS is on pause for adding new features, then my guess is the Apple Tablet is on pause too in terms of software. Then again, maybe the embedded OS has branched off from Snow Leopard. That would be odd, especially if handwriting recognition improvements are involved in any way–and those are currently aging and in the existing OS. So if they’re fixed for an iPhone and Tablet, they’d be put in the main OS X too. This is all conjecture. Complete guessing. Who knows.

Anyway, if Apple is going to use the Atom family in a Tablet/PDC/iPhone+, then we’re talking at least about later this summer for a launch–if there is a launch. It’s making sense why we didn’t see anything at the WWDC. Then again, maybe we didn’t see anything at WWDC and we won’t see anything later this summer or year, because the Apple Tablet is still an R&D effort and nothing more. Ah, the rumors.

This InfoWorld article makes it sound like Intel is going to take a wait and see attitude when it comes to marketing MIDs. InfoWorld suggests that at Computex this past week there were several hit, low-cost PCs using Intel’s forthcoming Atom processors, but there wasn’t the same thing for Atom-natural MIDs.

Executive Vice President and General Manager of Intel Sales and Marketing Group Sean Maloney takes a wait and see attitude with respect to MIDs, “”By the end of this year, you will have seen a whole bunch of new MIDs coming out and we’ll see which ones are hits.”

Excuse me. There already is a hit MID. It’s called the iPhone. And in terms of early adopter power users the Nokia N95 isn’t far behind. If Intel or anyone else is looking for permission to do a good job with a MID, they have it. The market has spoken. Now get to work and make it happen.

Maloney’s cautious words, which I can appreciate, are making me cringe. I smell another UMPC-scale disaster. And I’ll be totally bumbed if this is what happens, because I really want a larger device than an iPhone for my Internet browsing, videos, home remote control, and the like.

Why do we need MIDs when we can get a smartphone that’s similar? Yes, the MIDs will have many of the same features (great connectivity, diminutive dimensions, cost), but some key differences: They will have larger displays. They will have better browsing experiences (complete with Flash). They will have more open platforms.

Now here’s where it’s going to be hard for MIDs–outside of the OEMs dragging their feet and saying “Show me first”:

First, MIDs will be secondary devices. Why is this an issue? Connectivity. WiFi is OK for starters, but many MIDs will need 3G radios or similar. And I’m like more and more people that have multiple radio-based devices and the carriers don’t see to have good offerings for users like us. Why should I be paying as much for a second or third or fourth device as my primary phone? I shouldn’t. Intel is going to have to work with the carriers to solve this or if they won’t do it, Intel is going to have to subsidize the market and prove to the carriers that they should be working with customers that have multiple connected devices differently.

I see another looming problem with MIDs, like the UMPCs before them? Price. Remember when the UMPC was going to be only $500? Didn’t happen. Instead prices reached three times that. There’s no doubt about it, price has been a big problem when it comes to the small UMPC. Huge problem. And if Intel doesn’t work with manufacturers, in terms of incentives, hardware and software engineering support, and marketing, MIDs are going to be a failure. There’s no doubt in my mind that the manufacturers will not commit themselves fully. Look at the UMPC.

So here are a couple more suggestions I have for Intel if they wanting win:

1) Watch the convergence of cameras and connectivity.

There has to be good a camera built into these devices. Most UMPCs failed miserably here. MIDs are large enough to have cameras and lenses that knock the socks off most cell phones.

Further, Work with QIK (etc) to get video out of the box in these devices. One advantage the MIDs will have over the Nokia N95 or other cellphones running Qik is the larger screen size which will come in handy for interacting with chat. Yes, this means that there has to be a 3G/WiMAX or comparable radio on board. For those that don’t have radios that go beyond WiFi there’s still hope here, but the message should still be the same: You can broadcast live, record video, upload video, and we’ll help make it easy for you.

Think a live broadcasting video feature is too esoteric? Think again. Look at who’s doing it. 1) Early adopters, like the ones you want to be standing in line to buy your device. 2) Key communicators. You want the likes of Michael Arrington of TechCrunch or Robert Scoble of FastCompany to use your product for their videos. Why? Because they communicate with a large number of early adopters. Just look on Twitter to see how much impact each 140 character sentence they say can have.

2) You better get your content ducks in order. Out of the box there ought to be three month coupons for Skype or a video download service or Rhapsody or all three. MIDs need to have bundles. I’m not talking about icons that clutter the screen. I’m talking about services that people really want. If users don’t want them, they’ll never get in the way. That’s key. But there better be blow away bundles. The bigger, the better.

3) The browser better be real and tuned for these devices.

4) The software experience is as critical as the hardware. In particular, what OS to use? Intel is in a pickle here in large part because Microsoft doesn’t appear to be onboard with this. It’s a crying shame. Maybe all of this is stating the fact that it’s not time for MIDs yet–except for companies like Apple and Nokia. For everyone else they need to wait a couple of years. Again, I hope not. I think someone at Intel needs to spend a bit more time with a few people outside of their normal group. I think they’re going to miss the obvious.

No matter what the OS, work with developers. Provide loaners. Help give exposure for MID apps. If there’s multi-touch, work with developers to come up with creative multi-touch games and apps. If there’s an accelerometer do the same there. Same goes for GPS. Whatever you do, don’t think you can slap together a bunch of hardware and some existing apps. It’s not going to work that way.

Finally, I disagree 100% with Maloney’s view that the issue is going to come down to fashion. He’s reading the iPhone tea leaves incorrectly. Sure the Apple crowd crows over the design sense of the iPhone, but that’s the Apple mistique. You’re not going to win this game. Just do a good job when it comes to design, but don’t focus in that direction.

Anyway, I look forward to see which MIDs reach the market. I hope I’m not going to be as disappointed as Maloney makes it sound.