Innovation Partner of the Year Winner!

July 12, 2007 at 7:25 am · Filed under .NET, Grid Computing

Last night, Dan and John accepted the 2007 Microsoft ISV/Software Solutions Innovation Partner of the Year Award. 

Why Digipede?  According to the press release:

The ISV/Software Solutions Innovation Partner of the Year Award recognizes an ISV that has developed an innovative, new approach to solving a new or existing business or consumer need utilizing Microsoft’s latest server or client technologies. The winning partner has demonstrated leadership in the areas of innovation, market potential, media/analyst buzz, investor value creation and customer adoption with a least three active business customers or 1,000 consumers.

Thanks, Microsoft!

Tags: Digipede, Innovation, ISV, Microsoft

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MSR, AIDS Research, and Digipede

June 15, 2007 at 6:32 am · Filed under .NET, Grid Computing

Microsoft Research has just released a set of tools (both binaries and source code) to help in the search for an AIDS vaccine (full text of the press release here).   I am very excited about this announcement and happy to have played a small part in it.

As Dan Fay announced, these tools run on the Digipede Network. 

But what part did I play in this?  I built a wrapper of the PhyloD model to distribute onto the Digipede Network.  This version is the basis for the PhyloDDN project on the CodePlex site. 

And what am I excited about?  Using PhyloDDN to distribute the model across the Digipede Network allows, well, you know, radically improved application performance!  I’m excited that our product will (and is) being used for this important project.

Tags: AIDS, CodePlex, Digipede, Mircrosoft, MSR

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Innovation Partner of the Year Finalist?

June 14, 2007 at 3:06 pm · Filed under .NET, Grid Computing

Yes.

Digipede has been named a finalist (one of three) for the Microsoft Innovation Partner of the Year. 

Microsoft has a whole bunch of very innovative partners.  To be named one of the top three is quite gratifying.

Thanks, Microsoft!

Tags: Digipede, Innovation, ISV, Microsoft

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The Police

June 14, 2007 at 10:47 am · Filed under Miscellaneous

My wife and I went and saw The Police last night in Oakland.  She was a big fan the first time around.  I was not.

Of course, they don’t look much like the guys in this picture. 

But they sounded great.  Sting’s voice still sounds terrific and the three of them can really play.  And their music (lyrics, rhythm, melodies, harmonies, the whole lot) is really good.

I didn’t realize how much I identify their music as a natural part of my life — not only did I really enjoy the show, but I was much more engaged in it than I am at a typical show. 

Maybe I am a fan after all.

Tags: Events, music, Rock, The-Police

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Digipede does MSDN

June 10, 2007 at 6:14 am · Filed under .NET, Grid Computing

John and Dan are doing an MSDN Webcast Tuesday at 10:00 AM.  It is titled, Scaling SOA in Financial Services with Grid Computing for .NET.  Described as:

Enterprise architects in financial services are looking to service-oriented architectures (SOA) to address many real-world problems – brittle systems with tight interdependencies, data stuck in single-purpose silos, and applications that don’t scale to meet growing demand, to name a few.  But implementing an SOA can also expose new scalability issues.  New high-performance computing (HPC) offerings from Microsoft and its partners are ideally suited for scaling out compute-intensive components of an SOA.  Using real-world examples from financial services companies, this presentation will describe how to grid-enable compute-intensive analytic services for use in an SOA.  

I’ll bet they talk about Digipede in there somewhere.  😉

Go to the link above to sign up.

Tags: Digipede, grid, Microsoft, MSDN, SOA, Webcast

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User Contracts – Part II: User Beware

June 10, 2007 at 6:14 am · Filed under Attention, Web 2.0

I recently wrote about some problems I had with the user contracts for Cluztr, an attention service.  At the time I promised to write about a user contract I could stomach.  Some of these ideas are being rolled into what Steve Gillmor has called Click Insurance to be supported by the GestureBank.  More on that soon.

My problem with the Cluztr contract is their version of user opt-in.  Cluztr is unremarkable in this way — many companies use the same approach.  Their form of opt-in goes like this:

1. Read our user contract before you use our service (good);
2. Using our service implies acceptance of our contract (good);
3. We may change our user contract (not good or bad);
4. We may not post any notification that our contract has changed (bad); and,
5. Continued use of our service implies acceptance of our new user contract (what?).

I call this the User-Beware Contract.  This is any contract expressly allowing the service provider to change it without user notification.  The onus is on the user to be wary of the service provider.

Instead, I’d like to see the User-Aware Contract.  It goes something like this:

1. Read our user contract before you use our service;
2. Using our service implies acceptance of our contract; 
3. We may (and probably will) change our user contract;
4. We will notify you of any change;
5. Any change will require you to opt-in again formally (through a click-through or other process);
6. If you do not formally agree to the new contract, you will be removed form the service and all user data associated with your account will be purged.

This type of contract puts the onus on the service provider.  After all, the service provider changed the user contract — shouldn’t they take the responsibility of notifying them and getting their continued opt-in?

A variant of the latter approach is not uncommon (e.g., on banking sites).  Your data may not be purged if you don’t accept the new contract; however, you will not gain access to the site unless you do.

That said, the User-Beware Contract is, by far, the dominant contract on the Web.  The big players all use it, most of the smaller players use it.

I would like to see an attention service throw out their User-Beware Contract in place of a User-Aware Contract.  Of course, they’ll have to notify their users of the change 😉

Tags: AttentionTrust, ATX, Cluztr, GBX2, GestureBank, Gillmor

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Microsoft postpones PDC and more

May 26, 2007 at 8:15 pm · Filed under .NET, Web 2.0

Robert Scoble had a great post on the PDC and what is going on at Microsoft.   I liked it so much I included most of it here with my comments.

The PDC stands for “Professional Developer’s Conference.” It happens only when Microsoft knows it’ll have a major new platform to announce. Usually a new version of Windows or a new Internet strategy.

So, this means a couple of things: no new Windows and no major new Internet strategy this year.

I agree there is no new strategy this year and that is disappointing; however, Silverlight is huge and this year, and if not an Internet strategy it is an Internet developer strategy. 

Cleary Mix07 was the place to be — I would have made sure I went if I had known that PDC was going to be cancelled.

Some other things I’m hearing about the next version of Windows? There still is a ban on .NET code in core parts of Windows. They aren’t getting enough performance yet from .NET to include code written in it inside major parts of Windows. This is a bummer, because .NET is a lot easier to write than C++ and letting Microsoft’s developers write .NET code for Windows would unleash a bunch of innovation.

I fully agree with you here — a definite bummer.  Yet I don’t agree about the performance of .NET.  Certainly there are parts of Windows that need to be unmanaged code; but Digipede has a slew of customers using .NET for computation and getting terrific performance from it.  Face it, this “not performant yet” argument is used by people at Microsoft from kernel / device authors (OK) to the Office team (what?).  It is hard to separate the good arguments here from just plain bias and inertia. 

The person who told me this (who works at Microsoft) told me .NET still takes too long to startup and load into memory and because Windows is now being compared to OSX they can’t afford to ship components that would slow down Windows.

What?  If this were baked into the OS, couldn’t they do a better job of sharing this startup cost (i.e., doing it once with reuse)? 

This gets right back to my posts about how the Windows .NET API is actually dead (see these: WinFx).

It also means that Ray Ozzie’s team probably doesn’t have anything dramatic to announce yet and they aren’t willing to have live within the bounds of a forcing function like the PDC (PDC forces teams to get their acts together and finish off stuff enough to at least get some good demos together).

This is the “no Internet strategy this year” part.  Yup.  Definite bummer.

Some other things I’m hearing from the Windows team? That they are still planning out the next version of Windows. So, I don’t expect to see a beta until 2008 (probably second half of the year, if we see one at all) and I don’t expect to see a major new version of Windows to ship until 2009.

Microsoft says it won’t be as long between releases of the OS now.  I think, though, we won’t see a major new version released until Windows till 2010.

Anyway, this is sad cause I was hoping to see Microsoft make an all out push for developers this year.

Well, I think they have.  Their developer story is getting better and better every quarter.  I think they should have had the PDC anyway and continued to flog the .NET 3.0 and new .NET 3.5 stuff particularly Silverlight. 

What do you think it all means? Am I reading too much in between the lines?

Maybe you are.  I think the timing for the PDC was definitely wrong for Microsoft.  The Microsoft Internet strategy we are really waiting for has to do with Office / other applications and Internet services.  When this is unveiled, I think it will have less to do with developers than warranted at a PDC.  Ironically that should have been announced at Mix, but will have to wait for the next one.

Will Microsoft unveil a new Internet strategy at Mix08?  I bet.

Tags: .NET, .NET3.0, .NET3.5, Digipede, Microsoft, MIX07, PDC, Scoble, Silverlight, WinFx

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User Contracts — Part I: Cluztr

May 18, 2007 at 6:18 am · Filed under Attention, Web 2.0

User contracts are the proof behind user in charge business models.  I took Steve Gillmor’s challenge to go and take a look at attention startups in search of a user contract I could stomach.  First up, Cluztr.  I suppose this is pronounced cluster.  Apologies to my distributed computing readership — this is not a clustering company.

The interesting part of their user contract is in their privacy policy.  I call out some parts of it (out of order).

Adherence to the principle of Property

Most importantly in this context, the principle of property:

Property – You own your attention and can store it wherever you wish. You have CONTROL.

A critical corollary to this is that you can delete your attention data too.  They have this covered in the following:

Cluztr collects clickstream data by means of a browser add-on that tags your use of the Internet. We do not track Internet usage on a secure website, or capture username or password information at any time. You have full control over your clickstream data and can delete or purge our database at anytime.

Note to legal: tighten up that language.  This really should say “purge your attention data from our database” instead of offering users the right to completely delete the entire Cluztr database.

So far, so good.

Changing the policy without notice

And then we have some sticky language about changing this policy.  Granted, this is common in its user unfriendliness:

By submitting your information you consent to the use of that information as set out in this Policy. If we change our Privacy Policy we will post the changes on this page, and may place notices on other pages of the web site, so that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it. Continued use of the service will signify that you agree to any such changes.

In other words (my words):

You own and control your clickstream data unless we decide that you don’t.  This privacy agreement is the only place we are obligated to tell you this.

Not good.

Change of ownership

And finally, their sale caveat:

Unless otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy data relating to you will not be disclosed to any third party unless you have specifically given your consent. We will not rent or sell your personal information without your permission (other than as part of a sale of the whole or a substantial part of the assets of Cluztr).

This language makes me nervous because it appears to mean:

You own your data unless we need it as an asset to sell the company in which case we own your data.  For all intents and purposes, we own your data.

To be kind, they may mean here that your contact info (like email address) is owned by them, but your clickstream is not. If they are purchased, that contact info would be passed to a new owner.  OK, but the ownership of the clickstream should not change and, if that is their intention, they should state it.

Conclusion

Cluztr has made a good start at a user-friendly contract but then mucked it up by over reaching on rewriting the policy and on the company sale.

I wouldn’t sign up with an Attention service with such a policy.

Next up on this topic:

1. the GBX2 broadcasting user licenses
2. a better user contract (what I currently call triggered-opt-in)
3. other Attention companies and their user contracts

Tags: Attention, AttentionTrust, ATX, Cluztr, GBX2, GestureBank, Gillmor

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Silverlight and Ajax

May 2, 2007 at 8:18 pm · Filed under .NET

I’m glad to see that the CLR story for Silverlight (aka WPF/E) has made it out.  There was much discussion about this at the recent Microsoft ISV CTO Summit.  Scott Guthrie let us know at the time that there would be announcements at MIX07 as there have been.

Silverlight really is a game changer.  It pushes the very compelling managed code and XAML stories into the browser.

At the Summit someone asked how Ajax (and ASP.NET AJAX Extensions) fits in with the WPF/E strategy.  The answer (from the ASP.NET AJAX guy) was something to the effect of “they are solutions to two different problems”.

Certainly this is true.  I put it a little differently:

• Silverlight is a new way of deploying apps on the Web while leveraging the existing .NET tooling and languages.  It is an entire development platform and strategy for building rich applications in a browser.  It provides an OS and browser independent story (albeit limited on day one).
• Ajax is a set of techniques to create dynamic HTML.  Basically this is to force dynamic Web applications into the browser.  Ajax (and HTML/XHTML/CSS for that matter) is notoriously browser dependent.  Much Ajax work is made more painful because of browser-specific hacks.  In addition, building extensible and maintainable Ajax is extremeley difficult.

So, one is a new way of building web apps with killer toolking.

The other is a way of building web apps with killer hacks.

Which would you rather build, deploy, support, and maintain?

Tags: .NET, .NET3.0, ajax, Microsoft, Silverlight, WPF, WPF/E

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Double Blue Screen of Death

April 24, 2007 at 8:32 am · Filed under Miscellaneous

Pretty much the opposite of Double Happiness, John and Dan just got the Double Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) within 30-seconds of each other.

Grabbing some coffee and chatting to John, I saw the whole thing.  Here is what happened.

• Some months ago, Dan tried to share a folder with John using Windows Live Messenger.
• John had Windows Messenger, so nothing happened.
• Windows Messenger has been crashing for John, so today he upgraded to Windows Live Messenger.
• First thing it does is notice that Dan has offered to share a folder with him.
• He says, “Sure, I’ll share a folder with you, Dan.”
• Dan says, “What?” — he doesn’t remember this.
• Then, John gets the BSOD.
• Dan and I kind of laugh about it.  Losing your work is no laughing matter, but we laughed just the same.
• Then Dan gets it too.

While writing this, John got another BSOD.  Making that a Triple Blue Screen of Death (or a Hat Trick of Death, the HTOD).

Tags: BSOD, Digipede, LiveMessenger, XP, XPSP2

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