Yes I know, it's a blogger's cardinal sin to post about why he hasn't posted in a while. But live with it.

The irony is I've had so much blog about. The reason I haven't is because a while back I finally gave up on dasBlog and decided I'd switch to WordPress before I blogged again. dasBlog makes so many things difficult that are either easy or trival on WordPress, such as commenting and monitoring spam. After years of putting up with dasBlog I just finally got fed up and decided I'd wait to switch to Wordpress. Sadly I've waited a long time, and it's possible it may still be a while before I can move everything over.

Of course I could have tried upgrading dasBlog, but it's so much harder to enhance dasBlog with it's limited templating system that requires compiled .NET plugins vs. WordPress' PHP scripting (reminiscient of classic ASP+VBScript, only better) that I was finally able to shed my programmer's guilt for not learning how to write usable .NET plugins just as I was able to shed my guilt for never becoming proficient in x86 assembler back in the late 80's.

I've got a huge backlog of posts that are anywhere from 10% to 99% complete, many of which will never see the light of day because they just won't be appropriately timely enough by the time I'm ready to finish and post them. Ah well, story of my life; I can envision far more than I ever have time to complete.

Anyway, the reason for this post is to introduce the next post about a module I'm writing for Drupal. I've spend a lot of time recently with Drupal and am getting quite good at it, even if I do say so myself. I would have liked to have posted several Drupal related posts as a recursor but if I waited for that I doubt I'd ever manage to post about the module!

So without further adieu, on to the next post!

P.S. It may actually be a few days before I get that post finalized, but if it is not posted yes I am working diligently on it so just hold your breath... :-)

I'm at the Fox Theatre in my hometown of Atlanta today checking out the Adobe AIR Bus Tour Summer 07. It's nice to be at the first event nationwide.

I'm attending at the behest of a friend who thinks it going to be the "next big thing." I'm skeptical. I fear yet another proprietary attempt to empower developers to craft unique custom web interfaces to provide desktop functionality as a layer over web technologies, and that's not a compliment.

These types of things, especially when looking at the black box nature of opaque Flash SFW files, do their best to ignore those things that make the web work, i.e. stateless URL-addressed resources. The reality of Adobe AIR remains to be seen...

P.S. It would have been nice if Adobe had consulted me to ensure that this event was more convenient for me. I mean, I actually had to leave my homeand cross the street to attend. Adobe Please! '-)

You gotta love that some at Microsoft actually have a sense of humor! From the PopFly FAQ (emphasis mine):

Why did you call it Popfly?

Well, left to our own devices we would have called it "Microsoft Visual Mashup Creator Express, May 2007 Community Tech Preview Internet Edition," but instead we asked some folks for help and they suggested some cool names and we all liked Popfly.

Wow! It's taken me a day to get over the exhaustion of Podcamp Atlanta 2007. Kudos to Amber, Rusty, and Penny and everyone else involved for pulling off such a great event.

So I sit down and sort through all the new business cards I collected, and it occurs to me that I can't remember half the people I spoke to by business card (the good news is I did remember the other half!) Which is when it hit me; why don't people start putting a photo URL on their business card? For example, here's mine (notice the Well Designed URL :-), but of course it's not yet on my business card:

Photo: http://www.mikeschinkel.com/photo/

Of course, that begs the question of a Personal URL on a business card. A person's personal URL is a URL that points to their personal "About" page, and I think everyone should get one. Of course that URL should also have a photo:

About: http://www.mikeschinkel.com/about/

Note My "about" page points to the "About Me" category on my blog, but I plan to write a good concise "about" page in the near future. And my next business cards will have my photo and my about URLs listed.

technorati tags: business cards, photo url, personal url, about pages, podcampatlanta2007, podcampatlanta, podcamp, atlanta

I'm definitely not a real-time blogger, but I can take pictures.  It's actually very cool as people are taking pictures and uploading them as the conference is running and they are showing them on the overhead from time to time.

Here you can see my Podcamp Atlanta 2007 pictures on Flickr.  And you can see other people's Podcamp Atlanta pictures:

• podcampatlanta2007
• podcampatlanta
• podcamp

technorati tags: podcampatlanta2007, podcampatlanta, podcamp, atlanta, flickr, pictures

Last night was the third meeting of the Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs, a Meetup group that I started this past December. Although the first two meetings in January and February were "just getting started" outings, this was the first event that made me think "Hey, we can really pull off something great here!" And that is why I finally decide to go ahead and blog about it [1].

I've been in Atlanta for most of my life and the positive, community-oriented, grassroots entrepreneurial tech culture thriving in San Francisco and Boston and has been all but none-existent in the modern era. Atlanta has been a Fortune 1000 town [2]; its high tech community has either chased big business dollars or been of the "get rich quick" dotbomb variety [3], or both. And those who prostrate to major corporations or indenture to venture capitalists are rarely of the "rising tide float all boats" ethos interested in the types of business communities I've yearned to be involved in.

Most readers of this blog know that web technologies have evolved to the point anyone with reasonable intelligence and enough passion can create a successful online business; no deep technical knowledge and only a tiny amount of startup capital required. That level of empowerment has unleashed latent entrepreneurial aspirations worldwide. The new-style online businesses people are creating may or may not be a jackpot like YouTube has been for its founders, but they can provide a great living for those involved.

And that excites me. But what really excites me more is, with events like SoCon07, Podcamp Atlanta, and others it's evident the community-oriented entrepreneurial web ethos that I've so longed has finally arrived in Atlanta!

I won't take any credit for Atlantans new interest in building agile online businesses as none would be deserved. But I will say I'm now doing what I can to help catalyze this transformation of Atlanta's entrepreneurial web landscape in hopes to see as supportive an ecosystem emerge as those found in the aforementioned Boston and San Francisco.

Wish us luck!

technorati tags: atlanta, web, entrepreneurs, meetup.com

Well, yes as I've already said, I'm not a super-timely blogger. I should have blogged this long ago, but ah well.

Anyway, Amber Rhea of The Georgia Podcast Network organized a Podcamphere in Atlanta for this weekend March 16-18 2007 at Emory University. An as of yesterday when I asked, Amber said that she had 185 people registered!  Wow.  Another event like SoCon07; I can't wait!

But this one is going to be special for me as I get to hold my first discussion on Saturday about User-Centered URL Design. What's that got to do with Podcasting, you ask?  I'm not sure either, but Amber assurred me that attendees would be interested. :-)

But seriously, podcasters has many of the same issues to address that everyone publishing on the web should consider including usable URLs for their audio files as well as the website that hosts them. I look forward to some likely discussions!

technorati tags: podcamp, atlanta, url design

Ok, for those who have been keeping up with Mike Gunderloy this is old news but I just ran across it. Mike is one of the most prolific writer/developers I know and one of those rare breed that can evidently learn new technologies in no time flat.

Mike has been working with Microsoft technologies for about fifteen years, but it seems he's gotten fed up with Microsoft. Even though he is continuing his blog of links to info and tools of interest to .NET developers at The Daily Grind, he has started a new blog named A Fresh Cup where he explores his search for an alternative development platform. 

Here is an except of his initial post:

...I’ve spent the bulk of the last fifteen years developing some amount of reputation and expertise in the Microsoft universe...

Unfortunately, over that time I’ve also come to the conclusion that, even though it is staffed largely by smart and ethical people, Microsoft itself represents a grave threat to the future of software development through its increasing inclination to stifle competition through legal shenanigans....

...I can’t afford to just walk out on a career that brings in good money. But I rather desperately want to find an alternative. This blog will record some of my explorations as I hunt around in other corners of the software world, trying to decide if there’s a viable business plan for me that can include weaning myself off of Microsoft software.

So it seems like I'm not the only onewhohasgottenfrustratedwithMicrosoftasoflate.

So I was reading Hanselman and came across his OpenDNS post. I'd not heard of it, but evidently it is a free service comprised of a network of 'smart' DNS servers that can correct spelling errors (i.e. convert craigslist.ogr to craigslist.org) and provide warnings when users attempt to go to a phishing sites. Cool!

Reading Scott's post also led me to a discussion on mrneutrongodeon's LiveJournal about OpenDNS where dr_strych9 commented (emphasis mine):

Part of your problem here is that BIND just plain sucks. I would expect similar results from djbdns, for example.

I also don't like that "spelling correction" or "anti-phishing" feature. That doesn't belong in the cache; it belongs at the resolver. ... OpenDNS is unsuitable for use as an enterprise DNS cache. It might be a good solution for people who want to run their own personal cache on a local node.

When challenged by someone who did not understand that the term "resolver" had a defined meaning, dr_strych9 clarified (emphasis mine):

The "resolver" in the DNS protocol is the agent that sends questions and receives answers. Contrast with the other two kinds of agents in the DNS protocol, i.e. the "server" and the "cache" agents. The "server" sends answers to recursive questions, and the "cache" sends answers to non-recursive questions.

I'm saying the "resolver" agents are where this name fiddling code belongs, not in the "cache" agents where OpenDNS is doing it. Technically, OpenDNS is running an alternative "public" DNS horizon for its users. I think more than one "public" DNS horizon is a very bad idea. We only need one: the global public DNS horizon.

Also, I really hate designs that try to make the network protect the nodes from one another, particularly designs that outsource security to somebody I have no reason to trust. A much more secure and sensible approach to this problem would be to be the spelling correction in the DNS content servers (by registering multiple spellings and redirecting) and optionally the resolvers (by making them ask the right questions), and put the anti-phishing protection into just the resolvers, i.e. your web browser should protect you, not your DNS server.

And what follows are both my response and my analysis of the situation:

I agree. And I disagree. :)

What OpenDNS has done is recognize a way to improve on the DNS protocol. This could be argued to be a limitation in the vision of the DNS protocol, and OpenDNS have offered a solution that is of interest to a reasonably significant segment of users. Unfortunately, that solution violates the spirit of the existing DNS protocol. You can say that it should be in the client, but the "cost" (in the technological sense) of requiring clients to be updated to get this functionality is unrealistic when you compare it with the cost of updating a well-defined set of servers.

And whenever the spirit of a protocol is violated it causes lots of hand-wringing among the standardistas[1]. That happened a lot during the browser wars, but it forced the standards bodies to address the needs people were having as opposed to pontificating on abstracts at a glacial pace which is the nature of standards bodies when there is no market pressure to drive them. This market pressure spurs standards bodies into action to as quickly as possible reign in fragmenting yet proven technologies and codify them into a standard instead of spending years debating a hypothetical envisioned use (can you say 'Semantic Web?')

Yes some negative can result when market pressure is applied to force standards but I also think negative can also result when a hypothetical is standardized without a lot of proven implementations. All-in-all, I believe the accelerated pace of standards development resulting from market pressure is almost always a net positive.

Given OpenDNS has identified a way to add value to the DNS protocol I think it would make sense for the standards bodies to extend the DNS protocol in a backward compatible way to incorporate this functionality. When up-level clients and servers are paired they can use the newer functionality but when a client attaches to or server where one is down-level, the transactions would work as it always has.

And if OpenDNS were to work to update the DNS standard, they could move from being a novelty for most web users and a rouge element to the standardistas to potentially gaining a huge market share and capitalization. At the same time this newer version of the DNS protocol could provide added value across the broader Internet and provide value-appropriate revenue opportunities for a large number of people and vendors to support companies who want to update to their DNS infrastructure.

JMTCW, anyway.

In closing, I just want to remind readers that I definitely do like the idea of OpenDNS, that is unless and until someone points out some aspect of it where it really should be considered harmful that I hadn't really considered.

1. NOTE: I don't mean the term 'standardistas' perjoratively; I actually consider myself to be one, albiet a little more pragmatic than most.

They say people can't understand an abstract concept unless they have language to describe it. For example, because Tahitians don't have a word for sadness they think of sadness as they would a physical illness.

As we are immersed in a world of rapid change we need many new words to describe previously unidentified concepts. And when one of those new concepts inspires the masses, the media latches hold and a buzzword is born. And though everyone scoffs at them, we simply couldn't discuss so as new concepts without using buzzwords. Like it or not, buzzwords are here to stay as the pace of change accelerates.

Recent examples of Internet buzzwords are 'AJAX' and 'Web 2.0' with the latter often being derided as meaningless and just hype. But 'Web 2.0' is, by definition, not meaningless! Ney, the term 'Web 2.0' identifies the nature and level of activity on the web not seen since the dotcom crash. So if 'Web 2.0' were truly meaningless, there wouldn't be a buzzword for it!  Of course whether or not 'Web 2.0' actually describes anything of tangible value distinct from prior periods is a matter of significant debate. :)

The reason buzzwords are so beneficial and will continue to be used is they give people a shared context in which to efficiently communicate, and that has an incredible value. Of course most buzzwords are merely shorthand for "the next big thing" but that's just the nature of the hyped-up world we live in.

As an aside, the reason the term 'Web 2.0' has atrracted so much derision is it grouped hard-to-pin-down concepts having more in common with the current era than anything else. The shared context for 'Web 2.0' is 'the period starting around 2003' and since there is little value in discussing 'the benefits of the period starting around 2003' the value of the shared context is diminshed and dissonance results. It would have been much better had the purveyors of Web 2.0 done more to segment and focus attention on the individual concepts instead of defining the umbrellla that covered them. Ah, but easier said than done.

On the other hand when the buzzword defines a concise and well understood concept the shared context can create many orders of magnitude more value than the concept on its own, as has been the case with the term 'AJAX.'  Of course the downside to buzzwords is that wherever they go hype will follow, and that you just can't avoid!

Jon Udel is a big fan of using screencasts to instruct, and I'm a big fan of watching them when I want to learn something. I'd like to start doing some of my own. However, reading his post on screencasting tips today, I was reminded of how I can't help but think that TechSmith is really missing out on a huge opportunity because of their pricing for Camtasia Studio.

I've followed them for a while, and I know that they are pretty much the gold standard for screen recording software. However, their price of $299 is in no-man's land. It is too low for the market it currently targets, the corporate market, and too high for a much, much larger market; the amateur and semi-pro blogger.

For those company's who need the software, TechSmith could easily double the price and would probably still sell 90% as many units. But of course, the lost 10% would be well more than made up for by the increased price per unit.  And frankly, a higher price would motive resellers more (which, as a former reseller, I always hated that my business did better financially when I raised prices on customers.)

On the other hand, $299 is way past the threshold where an amateur bloggers would buy a copy. Frankly, I think that is the reason why we see so few screencasts on the web. In my 12+ years experience in selling software tools to developers, I'd say that $69 is probably about the right price for an amatuer to semi-pro blogger to say "Sure, what the heck, I'll buy a copy and try this screencast thing." 

TechSmith could easily cut feature features from this blogger version to differentiate from their professional version. For example, the blogger version could be limited to outputting only to Macromedia Flash, i.e. no AVI, Microsoft Windows Media, RealNetworks RealMedia and QuickTime. The could cut the output-to-EXE feature and the Create a CD-ROM feature. And probably a few more things. 

But TechSmith would need to be extremely careful NOT to cut the features that bloggers would really need. I ran into this over and over with components vendors while running VBxtras/Xtras.Net. I'd suggest a lower-priced version so they could reach a slightly different market, and the vendor would want to cut so many features of the product that it would have been crippled. Instead what's needed it to look at the features that are needed only by the high end customers and cut those while leaving feature every users could benefit from. For example, if TechSmith were to cut any of the recording, pre-production, or editing features they could very well end of with an expensive demo and lots of frustrated customers badmouthing them on the blogs.

But what they could do, given this market, is to have the screencast on the blogger edition end with a splash-screen/advertisement for Camtasia. Imagine that, having the ability to get advertisements on a larger percentage of the blogs on the web and the only thing requires would be to restructure an existing product! Can you say "No Brainer?"

So, what would this look like?  I think if TechSmith were to offer two editions with the following prices they'd see a surge of new customers, the web would see an explosion of screencasts, and that would be great for (practically) everybody:

• $69 - Camtasia Studio, Express Edition
• $599 - Camtasia Studio, Professional Edition

So, if you are a blogger who thinks is a great idea and you'd be anxious to buy a copy of Camtasia Studio for $69 but wouldn't even consider paying $299, why not go over to TechSmith's website and send them some feedback on the subject. And be sure to point them to this URL so they can read my justification. Together, we can make a difference. :-)

P.S. One thing the skeptics in the audience should know is that I have recently started playing with the free software called Wink from DebugMode (thanks to Ben Coffey for the recommendation.) While it is great, I'd prefer the polish of Camtasia Studio. However, at $299 they won't be getting a dime from me. On the other hand, for $69 I'd happy spend the money for the time and frustration it could hopefully save me, and I bet lots of other bloggers feel the same.  So what will it be TechSmith: "$69 in revenue, or nothing?"