The Intellog Blog

It’s July, and that means that once again, the Tour de France is on TV, and for just one time each year, I’m watching Versus. During one of the commercials breaks I didn’t fast forward through, the Versus Sports Montage commercial came on, and I was horrified by what they had done to it. I was reminded of the fact that last year’s equivalent of the ad is very likely some of the best commercial footage you are ever going to see.

“The odds may be stacked against you. Fair enough.“

The images combined with the gruff old coach voice over made me think about the little endeavour we’ve got underway here. Loyal followers of this blog will have seen a lot over the last couple of years, and some have even have noted the seemingly futile efforts to get things done. Important things. Things which need doing. For us. For all of us.

“Don’t be surprised if somebody decides to flip the script, and take a pass on yelling uncle.“

But when the little successes come, I’m reminded how much I love this job and this entrepreneur’s life I have chosen. There’s no guarantee of success, and the odds are long, but the rewards are truly worth the effort. I’m truly proud, not yet for having succeeded, but simply for having tried.

“We got ourselves a game.“

Note: The fabulous soundtrack for this ad is First Breath After Coma by Explosions in the Sky, available on iTunes. The voice over is actor John Doman, most recently of The Wire. Also, I only wish I could get a version of this ad without the hunting, which I simply cannot abide.

It’s still surprising that with all the thing you can do these days, the amount of time you still spend dealing with email, calendaring and contacts. So the first concern when migrating from an XP-based laptop to a MacBook Pro were these applications. To replace Outlook, the Mac default position is Mail, iCal and Address Book, which are bundled with the hardware. There are other products out there, but it just didn’t seem to make much sense to spend time and energy on them until Mail, iCal and Address Book have proved inadequate in some way.

Migration of legacy information is really the issue. In the case of email, the problem was solved with the use on IMAP on the XP laptop. This places mail handling on a remote server, so pointing the Mac to the remote server had the effect of migrating all of the history from old to new. Some rejigging of IMAP mailboxes was required, but in short order, the legacy mail was accessible on the MacBook, and working in perfect synch with the iPhone to boot.

Calendar data migration proved to be trickier, because Outlook does not provide much in the way of mass data export functionality. Or at least the functionality they do provide generates formats not importable by iCal. So the brute force, inelegant method which eventually succeeded was to export each appointment to vCalendar format, and the open it on the MacBook side. This doesn’t seem to work for recurring appointments, which you have to edit by hand. Rolling through the year week-by-week had it all covered off in about an hour. Birthdays are handled a little differently from recurring appointments. iCal Preferences allow you to configure Address Book birthdays so they are displayed in the calendar . There is similar functionality in Outlook, of course, but I had never fully utilized it and the migration effort provided the impetus to get this implemented.

Migrating contact data proved to be the easiest, facilitated with MobileMe, which will be the subject of a future post in this series. But the short version of that story is that within minutes of implementing MobileMe, there was perfect contact synchronicity between MacBook, iPhone and the MobileMe web client.

The only problem which is currently not solved is reliable cross-platorm meeting scheduling. The Outlook users with whom I try to schedule meetings using iCal have not been able to accept the meeting notices, and vice-versa. When I was on Outlook, I could at least receive these meeting notices from iCal and accept them, so I’m assuming there is still some configuration to do to get this working correctly. A comment will be added to this post when that gets figured out. In summary, there was one working day where the data was inflight, but after that, it was all MacBook.

For 27 years, on virtually every morning of my professional life, I sat down at a Microsoft operating system. It began with an IBM PC XT running MS-DOS purchased shortly after it was released in March 1983. That eventually evolved through MS-DOS 6, Windows 3, 95 and 98 and thence to XP. To be frank, I was a fan and a defender. I lived on the West Coast of Canada at the time and felt Microsoft, just down the road in Seattle, was the home team. But the rot began to set in when Vista was released, and Microsoft seemed to have gotten it so profoundly wrong in so many ways*. I hung onto my XP-based laptop as long as I reasonably could, to the point where I had worn the paint off the keyboard.

But the real beginning of the end came with the purchase of the iPhone this past December. It was just so far ahead of what I had been experiencing with the Moto Q and that demon spawn Windows Mobile and its evil twin ActiveSync. The latter is quite possibly the worst piece of software in the history of computing. With the iPhone, I was just able to do what I wanted to do, without any mind-bending logic trying to figure it out. But when the advertised ability to synchronize the iPhone with Outlook turned out to be a mirage, the bell tolled, and it tolled for thee, Microsoft.

At the same time, I began to think about what I was actually doing with the laptop and went through a mental inventory of applications. It seemed with one or two potential gaps, virtually everything I was doing with XP had at least an equivalent (if not a superior) application on Mac OS X. So the day finally came, and I ordered the 17″ MacBook Pro fully optioned out including the new Intel Core i7 processor. I cannot begin to describe the difference between the two platforms. As I have said to others, “the Mac is for those are interested in what computers do, rather than what they are.” It’s a testament to the design and the Apple philosophy that the the MacBook quickly became part of the furniture and entirely transparent to the task at hand.

Of course, the most important issue is what applications will replace the tried-and-true ones I had been using over on the old laptop. In no particular order, I intend to provide a brief series of posts which will map the existing XP-based applications and what was chosen to replace them on the Mac. But for those who are wondering about making the same leap, I offer words of encouragement — you, too, will wonder why you waited so long.

OK, Apple, you’ve got your shot. Don’t be evil.

*I even contemplated writing to Bill to ask if he had been to any of the meetings where they were discussing Vista. Something along the lines of “Bill, have you seen this?” Alas, I never did, and Bill moved onto work with a higher calling and left Ballmer with the job of putting lipstick on that pig.

If, in a twist of irony, you put the word Google into the Amazon book search, you now get more than 3,000 titles.  One would think everything that could be written about Google already has been.  Not deterred, Ken Auletta, who has written the Annals of Communication for The New Yorker for the last 18 years, has decided there are still a few more things to say.  Surprisingly, he does manage to find a few in his recent book Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.

Part One gets things off to a good start, where the author opens with a description of a meeting between Mel Karmazin, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.  Karmazin – the quintessential New York Madman – is to have said about Google’s impact on traditional advertising; “You’re f… with the magic.”  In a less civil world, this would have actually been the subtitle of Auletta’s book.  At the very least, it is its main thesis.  “Half of advertising is wasted, you just don’t know which half” has been the foundation of advertising as long as there has been advertising.  It’s as funny as it is true, but Karmazin believes Google has cracked the code.  As a result is the world really has changed, and there is simply no putting the genie back in the bottle*.

Part Two is the least interesting part of the book, with Google’s start really well documented in several earlier books; The Search by John Battelle is a pretty good place to start, and does a better job of putting Google in the context of all the other search engines which also go their start around the same time.  Battelle’s book was one of the earlier works to assert Google’s success can be attributed, to some degree, to luck.  Or rather, the lucklessness of their competitors.  What Auletta manages to add to the story is to find a quote attributed to Larry Page where he says AdSense “was probably more luck than a plan.”  Also, the author highlights the missing ingredient provided by the enigmatic ‘Coach Campbell’; that is, Bill Campbell, Chairman of Intuit, Google board member and Silicon Valley confidante-to-the-technology-stars.  He had the ability to weld together the traditional approach of Schmidt, and the revolutionary approach of Brin and Page. 

Part Three is a dense description of the inevitable clashes arising from Google’s success; with government, so-called old media companies, book publishers and anybody else caught in the tsunami radiating out from the earthquake Google has created.  It laboriously enumerates the corporate machinations, lawsuits and negotiations as the wealth inevitably gets redistributed.  Two surprises are highlighted;  Eric Schmidt’s much more significant contribution to Google’s success than had previously been asserted, and secondly, when Google gets it wrong, it may well be attributed to their leadership’s naivety, as opposed to outright malice.  The section is highly detailed and well written, but the nature of the subject material still makes it hard to follow.

The final part of the book is where Auletta’s broad understanding and insight of the media industry really combine to make for some interesting reading.  It’s where he finally explains the concept of being Googled by Google; turns out it’s a collective term that describes the net effect of Google focusing its gaze on a particular market space, and what happens to the current occupants of the space when they do. 

There is, of course, an angle to Auletta’s book.  To some degree, Auletta has been old media, at least during his tenure at The New Yorker.  So when he says ‘The End of the World as We Know It’, it may more accurately describes ‘The End of the World as I Know It’.  What Auletta, with his great journalistic powers at his disposal, should now investigate whether online advertising – post Google – actually works.  If I am in any way representative, my pathological avoidance of the ‘sponsored link’ makes me think it might not.   As always, I would highly recommend the Charlie Rose interview of Auletta talking about Googled.  The book is well worth reading, and Auletta a person to whom its well worth worth listening.

*Of note is that Karmazin is now CEO of Sirius XM, the very existence of which is predicated on a business model based on an alternative to advertising.  To fully appreciate Karmazin’s characterization in the book, it’s worth watching his interview with Charlie Rose.

A new page has been added to the Intellog background library entitled Oil and Gas 101.  It is a list of resources for those wanting a relatively quick primer on the oil and gas industry.  Of course, if there are resources which you feel have been overlooked, please let us know by leaving a comment below, or by contacting us.

In Ken Auletta’s recent book Googled: The End of the World as We Know It (full review to follow) the author talks about a Silicon Valley figure by the name of Bill Campbell, the Chairman of Intuit.  He’s also the so-called ‘secret coach’ of the Google triumvirate of Brin, Page and Schmidt.  In Auletta’s book, there is a reference to an article from Fortune magazine called The Secret Coach, by Jennifer Reingold.   In turn, both the book and the article mention the only known interview with this very private individual, appearing in the The McKinsey Quarterly, called Coaching Innovation: An Interview with Intuit’s Bill Campbell.  The latter provides some of the specific ideas Bill has with respect to building and maintaining innovative development teams.  Both of these articles are well worth reading. 

After a long wait, iPhone is now available on the Telus network in Canada.  There was no question this was going to be the way I was going to go, and made good on that commitment recently.  With the help of Paul McFedries’ Portable Genius (review coming up), I’ve been pleased with how quickly I’ve been able to learn the new functionality.  The only disappointment so far is with the Visual Voicemail.  When I tapped the Voicemail icon, instead of the beautiful Apple Visual Voicemail screen — pictured to the left — I got something akin to the old functionality of my recently ditched, demon spawn Moto Q.  Huh?

It will come as no surprise that Apple’s Visual Voicemail does require the co-operation of phone company, and as of the date of this post, Telus has not taken up the challenge.  I even went so far as to send them an enquiry, to which they promptly responded; “TELUS Visual Voicemail does differ from Apples Visual Voicemail, because they are different products. Visual Voice Mail is not available for any HSPA+ product, including the iPhone. The $7.50 price they are referring to, is for CDMA devices only. Visual Voice Mail for Apple will be introduced in the fall of 2010.  Please be advised, TELUS did not advertise any Visual Voice Mail for the iPhone, nor did we proactively offer this to clients. Any client with Visual Voice Mail on their iPhone has been or will be credited when removed as per our credit policy, and was most likely added via self serve.”  Well, at least it was not the dreaded “no plans to support it at this time”, which frankly was what I was expecting.

Other than that glitch, the iPhone experience so far has been magnificent.

Think of this as the book David Mamet would have written if he had written on the subject of faceted search.  For about $29, it was little surprising to see how thin the volume was when it arrived – a scant 70 pages of reading.  The text is part of the Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services which is described on their website as “50- to 100-page publications on topics pertaining to information science and applications of technology to information discovery, production, distribution, and management.”  I’m afraid I didn’t follow the reference to ‘lecture’ – but I can only assume the author has lectured on the subject at some point, and the text captures the essence of his presentations.

But in truth, if you strip out the fluff that accompanies most texts, it’s likely you’ll wind up with something not much longer than Tunkelang’s book.  It’s a worthwhile (and very quick!) read and takes the reader through a brief history of the subject, identifies the key concepts, compares academic research and commercial applications and finally deals with some of the practical concerns of implementing faceted search.  There are 119 references which form the basis for lots of additional reading.  Actually, it’s not a bad approach.  Read through the text in a couple of hours or less to get an overview of the subject, then use the references to expand knowledge if interested or if additional explanation is required.  There are at least a couple of referenced books and websites I’m inclined to follow up.

As the author says on page 25; “You might wonder why you have picked up an entire book on faceted search only to find it summed up in a couple of pages…not quite halfway through.”  Indeed.  But as he alludes to shortly thereafter, faceted search is a simple concept which gets complicated in the details, many of which are introduced in the balance of the book.  But in summary, you could spend a lot more money and time getting the same basic information Tunkelang provides in his book, and it’s therefore recommended reading for those looking to get up to speed quickly on the subject.

I finally managed to get through the 463 pages of this well researched, extremely well documented and reasonably readable tome.  Nandan Nilekani, the co-chairman of India’s Infosys Technologies Limited has prospered handsomely since the introduction of political reforms in the early 90s. His business rock star status means he is often asked to provide his explanation of the Indian economic miracle.  Imagining India is the collective response, and he has answered the questions exhaustively to say the least.  The only downside is he felt the need to squeeze his answer into just one volume.

The first 340 pages are a fairly dense history of virtually every aspect of Indian life including politics, education, health care, national infrastructure and, of course, business.   While necessary to provide a context for where India is today and where it is going in the future, I almost wished the author had put this information in a separate book, which could be optionally read.  It certainly paints a very complete picture of the period from India’s independence in 1947 to the current day.

For someone like me who was otherwise unfamiliar with India’s history, the most significant surprise is the wide diversity of cultures which make up the country.  Naively, I had assumed a certain homogeneity for all parts of India.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  To describe India as one nation would be the same as describing Europe as one nation.

However, the most interesting part of the book started for me on page 341 through to the end, where the author talks about the status quo, and the things which will need to happen in the future if the boom is to continue.   He makes what seem to be practical and workable suggestions.  However, they do appear to be variations on the theme of deregulation and getting the suffocating Indian bureaucracy off the backs of the fundamentally entrepreneurial Indian people.

It’s interesting to note that in July of this year, Nilekani was appointed Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India.  This is one of the subjects he spends quite a bit of time on in the book.  Simply having one, universal identification system for each Indian – when there are nearly 1.2 billion of them – is a monumental task, and Nilekani sees it as a key enabler for further reforms and the continued rapid development of the economy.  Unfortunately, his move into this position has necessitated the discontinuation of his blog.  In the last post he states “In my new role, I can no longer comment on government policy.”  Not only do we lose a useful point of access to this exceedingly bright mind, but one also hopes this is not the first step in Nilekani being subsumed by the bureaucracy, as opposed to being a useful and constructive critic of it.  Time will tell.

Imagining India is a long and fairly difficult read, but well worth the time and effort to get a sense of a country which is going to have a huge impact in the future.  (Also, for those interested in the subject, watching Charlie Rose’s fairly brief  interview with Nilekani is well worth the time.)

I’ve attended a couple of webinar events put on by the folks at Lucid Imagination (LA), and have found them all to be very useful, and well worth the time spent attending them.  In particular, I recently took in Building Local/Geo-Search with Apache Lucene and Solr  and found it extremely interesting.  ‘Geo-search’ is getting a lot of press these days, and in an hour, it was possible to get an overall sense of Solr’s positioning in this regard.

There is another event coming up on 2009-12-02 which I thought I would bring to readers’ attention; An Introduction to Basic of Search and Relevancy with Apache Solr.  From the description, it sounds like a  good place to start if you’re contemplating a  Solr implementation in the future.  More detail about the presentation, and a registration link, can be found here.

Intellog uses Solr to implement search, and it’s an amazing product with incredible potential for Intellog and our customers.  If you’re interested in our approach to implementing Solr, by all means, post a comment below and we can get in touch.  Also, this is not a compensated endorsement, and I have no affiliation with LA other than having a lot of respect for the company and the people who work for it.