Monthly Archives: July 2003

A new old idea

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I was leafing through the July/August edition of Software Business Magazine this morning while I was toasting my breakfast bagel.  The quality of writing and editing in this magazine is surprisingly bad—something I’d expect for a controlled-circulation (i.e. free) periodical, but not something that people are expected to pay up to $36 per year for.  Every once in a while, though, you find a jewel in the trash.  In this issue’s Executive Strategy column, Brian Turchin describes the success of Mercury Interactive. Mercury Interactive is in the business of selling testing software, and is one of very few software companies that has sustained growth and profitability over the last seven years.  The article describes four of the success strategies revealed by the current (since January 1997) CEO.  Number two on the list of success strategies is “Have R&D personnel discover customer needs first-hand.”

This has two primary benefits:

Rather than sitting back in their dark offices coding what they think is cool, developers meet with customers, see how customers use their products, and learn why customers find certain features important, hard to use, or superfluous.  Programmers working on development tools don’t necessarily need to do this because they’re typically using the tools that they’re creating.  But a programmer working on a financial package or survey tool must understand first-hand what the customer is doing and how the customer is applying the solution that the developer is creating.

In many (most?) software companies, developers often have an adversarial relationship with Sales and Marketing.  Sales complains that the developers aren’t delivering what the customer wants, and Development complains that Sales wants stupid features that are too hard to implement and useless to customers.  By putting developers on the front lines, they see what customers want and as a result are speaking the same language as the Sales and Marketing folks.  This puts the developers in the enviable position of being treated like heroes by the Sales team because they’ve delivered exactly what the customers are asking for rather than a cool new useless feature.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all software was developed that way?

Microsoft versus the Nanny State

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I bought a Microsoft Notebook Optical Mouse today so that I can more easily use the laptop on a day-to-day basis.  The laptop has a single mouse/keyboard connector (i.e. you can plug in one or the other), but it has two USB ports.  So I bought a USB mouse and I’ll use the old Microsoft Natural keyboard that I’ve been using at the office for years.

The mouse came with a “Getting Started” guide:  a 20-page (including cover) 4″ by 4″ stapled pamphlet.  Of those 20 pages, three contain instructions for connecting, using, and cleaning the mouse.  Three are blank (due to the way it’s stapled), and five cover regulatory notices, support, and warranty.  The remaining seven pages—41% of the printed pages—contain health warnings and a “Healthy Computing Guide” that has all kinds of tips on how to use the mouse “safely”.  In addition to the expected blurbs about proper postures and taking frequent breaks, this helpful guide also urges us to “Be Healthy:”  eat a balanced diet, get adequate rest, exercise, learn to manage stress, etc.  It’s absurd.  The Nanny State has gotten completely out of hand.

Old Guys Who Get Fat In Winter

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This is one of my favorite cycling shirts.  It pretty much sums up my conditioning over the past few years.  I get on the bike in spring, get in reasonably good shape, maintain it throughout the summer, and then slack off in mid-October the first time I feel a chill when I go out to ride in the morning.  I typically put on 10 or 15 pounds in the winter, and then lose it all by the end of the summer.  This isn’t particularly good, but that’s the way it is.

As I was getting dressed to ride the other day, I realized that most men who see me wearing this shirt chuckle, ask me where I got it, and say “I gotta get me one of those.”  Most women don’t comment at all, although quite a few roll their eyes and give me That Look.  (If you’ve ever been married you know the look I’m talking about.)  I don’t usually make gender-based generalizations, but here I think I’ve stumbled on an essential difference between men and women:  I’ve never met a woman who would wear a shirt that says she’s old or fat.

Early impressions of the new laptop

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This week has been a good test of the new laptop, as I’ve spent significant time writing, doing Web research, and coding.  I had expected to need an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor in order to work comfortably, but I’ve found the laptop itself surprisingly useful.  I’m still a little lost without a separate numeric keypad, and I didn’t realize how much I depended on the menu key on my keyboard (adjacent to the right Ctrl key) until it wasn’t available.  The mouse nipple on the laptop (between the G and H keys) was much easier to get comfortable with than I thought.  Overall, I’m quite happy with the machine.  And fast?  I’m reminded of 20 years ago when I bought Turbo Pascal to replace the Pascal MT+ that I’d been using on my Osborne I.  The combination of more memory and a faster processor makes for an 80% decrease in compile times.  Plus, I can listen to music and do some background processing without interfering with my development work.  No major complaints.

On the subject of my old Osborne I, you can pick up a Dell Latitude C840 for under $1,800.  The Osborne I cost $1,800 in 1981.  This industry never ceases to amaze me.  For 20 years, the computer I’ve wanted cost right around $2,000.  Capabilities increase and prices stay the same.  I wonder how long that can continue.

S1MONE

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I picked up the movie S1M0NE at Blockbuster on Friday.  I remember seeing trailers for this last summer, but it was in and out of the theatres so fast that I didn’t have time to see it.  When it finally came out on DVD, it seemed to be rented the few times I remembered to look for it.  The guy at the rental counter told me once that the movie didn’t do well at the box office, but it’s been a steady rental since it appeared on DVD.

To recap the movie:  Al Pacino plays Victor Tranasky, an obscure movie director (both he and his movies are obscure) who’s had his fill of temperamental actors.  A nutcase computer hacker who loves those movies creates a virtual actor computer program.  Then he dies and leaves his program to Victor.  Victor uses the program to create Simone, who stars in his film and becomes an overnight sensation:  doing video interviews, photo spreads in Playboy, etc.  Initially, Victor is delighted and somewhat amused by the reclusive Simone’s stardom, but soon it begins to affect his life.  For example, in one scene a woman wants to sleep with Victor in an attempt “to be closer to Simone.”  It all unravels in the end, of course, but I’ll not spoil it for you.

I thought the movie was brilliantly done.  It’s funny, and touching, and takes great big swipes at popular culture and the whole business of celebrity.  Al Pacino’s performance was dead on–I can’t imagine anybody else being cast for the role.  I can understand why the movie didn’t do well in the theatres, though.  It probably hits a little too close to home for many people, by pointing out (without actually saying it) how ridiculous it is to idolize movie stars and pop singers, and by making people realize just how easy it would be to do something like this:  dupe the entire world by creating an entirely fictitious “person.”

The movie really is quite good.  I highly recommend it.

Jury duty

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Monday morning I reported to the Williamson County Court for my first ever experience with jury duty.  It’s a mystery to me how I’ve managed to miss out on this uniquely American experience for so many years.  We went through all the preliminaries, including being paid a whopping $6.00 for my effort, and I was assigned to the District Court for a felony trial that was to start after lunch.  But the case was settled over lunch (the defendant pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years in prison), and I was re-assigned to the County Court with instructions to report back today.

I got another $6.00 this morning, and 18 of us were ushered into the court room, given instructions by the judge, and introduced to the attorneys who each were given 30 minutes to interview us.  I found the entire process somewhat amusing.  The attorneys say they’re looking for people who are open-minded and can form their own opinions, but then they ask questions that are intended (both in content and delivery) to identify the prospective jurors who can most easily be lead by the nose.  After a 15 minute recess, they called us all back and selected the six who were to sit on the jury.  It’s just as well that I wasn’t selected, I guess.  I have a low tolerance for the kind of crap the defendant’s attorney was trying to shove down my throat.

Two views of Microsoft’s licensing model

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When Microsoft released Windows XP, they included a new licensing feature.  You have to activate the software before you can use it.  When it’s activated, the software examines the system on which it’s installed, makes note of the configuration, and registers with Microsoft’s site.  (Yes, I know that’s somewhat simplified.)  In any case, if you change your system configuration (upgrade the hard drive or video card, for example), Windows will tell you that you need to re-activate.  If you do that more than once or twice, the software won’t automatically re-activate—you need to talk to a Microsoft representative to tell them that you aren’t installing on a second machine.  I have two friends who regularly make changes to systems, one of whom hates this new licensing scheme, and one who thinks it’s great.  I thought their contrasting viewpoints were interesting.

Ken is a gamer.  He’s always upgrading his system, and having to call Microsoft to re-activate the software whenever he switches out the video card drives him nuts.  He’s gone back to Windows 2000 because of it.  He’d love to use XP, but the licensing is just too much of a burden.

Dave works for a company that sells and services computers.  He configures computers for clients, maintains the office machines, and is always testing new hardware.  He’s on the phone with Microsoft on a regular basis to re-activate a license on one machine or another.  And yet, he doesn’t mind.  Why?  Because it keeps him and his business out of trouble.  With the new licensing scheme, there’s no way that he can be accused of installing a single copy of Windows XP on multiple computers.  That’s a big win for him, because he’s “inherited” clients from integrators who played fast and loose with licensing previous versions of Windows and left him to clean up the mess.

What do I think?  In the three years I’ve had this particular system, I haven’t opened the box once.  The new licensing scheme would be no burden at all as far as I’m concerned.  I don’t think.  I’ll let you know once I install this copy of Windows 2003 on my server.

Computer games for women

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Since I posted my TriTryst pages, I’ve received a steady stream of messages about the game–mostly thanking me for posting the installation instructions for Windows 2000 and Windows XP.  Most interesting to me is that all but a handful of the messages are from women who say things like “TriTryst is the only computer game I play,” or “this game is my stress reliever, please help me get it working!”

Contrary to what many people think, women do play computer games.  They’re not terribly interested in first-person shooters, though, and many find resource management games like SimCity and Civilization too complex to be relaxing.  The women I know like puzzle games and pinball.  I see this not only in responses to TriTryst, but also in discussions I have from time to time.  Women prefer games like Bejeweled, Collapse, and Freecell that are simple, easy to understand and play, and not particularly stressful.  The problem for game developers is that women tend to find a game or two and play it for years—much different than teenage boys and men who play one first-person shooter after the other, always looking for the next coolest thing.  Game developers have been trying to tap into “the women market” for years with female protagonists in FPS-type games.  Instead, they should look at developing more engaging and more beautiful puzzle-type games.

Tour de France update

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In the world of bicycling, this year’s Tour de France is high drama.  It’s had more chills, spills, and thrills than some NASCAR seasons.  The first stage featured a mass pile-up that ended the Tour for a few riders and broke Tyler Hamilton’s collar bone (as I mentioned last week).  One of the leading sprinters crashed out of the final sprint at the end of the third stage, as did another rider at the end of stage six.  The Tour’s leading sprinter abandoned the tour on the first hill of the mountains.  Joseba Beloki, one of the primary contenders for the overall lead crashed spectacularly and quite painfully at about 45 MPH on a descent, breaking his leg and causing Lance Armstrong to ride across a rocky field in order to avoid becoming another casualty.  Jan Ullrich, who was not expected to be a big contender this year, was amazing in the stage 12 time trial while Lance Armstrong dehydrated and lost over a minute and a half.  Armstrong went down again today when a spectator’s souvenir bag caught his handlebar, and his subsequent recovery and comeback to win the stage was amazing.  And all through it, Tyler Hamilton slogs along with his broken collar bone, keeping himself right there in the top 10 overall.

Those of you who think bicycle racing lacks excitement should check out some of the stage reports and video clips.  See my July 13 post for links.

Feeling out of sorts

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Unreasonable people have really got me down lately.  Aggressive drivers, fat people suing fast food companies, smokers suing tobacco companies, illegal aliens complaining that they can’t get medical care or social services, isolationists who want to keep us out of the world and the world away from us, Democrats who think the solution to society’s problems is in my wallet, Republicans who think that the solution to societies problems is in my personal liberty, Libertarians who think the problem will go away if you ignore it, special interest groups of all kinds who insist that government protect “rights” that don’t exist, people who wear too much perfume, parents who won’t control their kids, etcetera, ad barfo.  Recently I’ve come to believe that the world’s population consists of a handful of decent people and a giant mob of inconsiderate, rude, pushy, loud, obnoxious idiots.  Two years ago I found it funny and just ranted about it.  A year ago I tried to ignore it because I had other things to worry about.  Now I’m beginning to believe that my inability to just “brush off” the idiots is a major contributing factor to my frequent (although less frequent than a few months ago) bouts of depression (if that’s the right term).  I used to rant about things to blow off steam, but lately I’ve been too tired to work up a spit.  It’s a vicious cycle.  Blech.  I need to go live in a cave for a while.  Or at least stop reading the paper and listening to the news.