Reviews, Technology

IE 7 1st impressions

I have now had the opportunity to mess around with IE 7 beta 2 for a week or so. Here is a list of things I like:

  • The new tab button that makes opening a blank tab very click-able.
  • The clean tool bar design.
  • Simply supporting RSS
  • The Tab Grid View

I read someone comparing IE 7 vs. Firefox to IE vs. Netscape. I am still a loyal Firefox user but again Microsoft is working hard to remove the functional differences between the two. It has been a long wait for IE 7 but It seems that it won’t disappoint the average user. The IE Blog has been an interesting read.

blogging

Blogability

I was listening to the GilmoreGilmor Gang Disclosure gang podcast I believe John Jon Udell brought up (52:53 minutes in) the overwhelming amount of punditry in the blogisphere. He thought initially that people would be using their blogs to maintain a “Narration of their work”. He was unable to find many examples of people narrating their work. The gang also talked about the constraints that exist for the average person when blogging. Well I can confirm that the restrictions and conflicts listed both real and perceived are accurate. The acceptance of blogging has yet to penetrate many large corporations. It is sad at times because I would love to share in more detail the things that I am passionate about. The dilemma is that which I am passionate about makes up a good part of my work hours. So I can feed my blog only bits and sanitized pieces of my passion.

Technology, tomcarroll.org

Google is now watching (oh yeah and maybe No Such Agency also)

I finally have installed Google Analytics. What can I say I just wanted to try Google Analytics out. I was also real lazy and used the Google Analyticator plug-in. It was easy as 123. Now I can track the mass of people that stop by to see how long it has been since I updated last.

I wonder if the there are more robust versions of the plug-in underway, maybe from Google. Sounds like a great summer of code project.

Food for Thought

Continuity of Experience

The Continuity of Experience is:
About making the experience more ubiquitous.
About making the experience more consistent.
About making the experience more understandable.
About making the experience more actionable.
About making the collection of our experiences more contiguous.

This web 2.0 thing is just one of the more visible increases in our computing Continuity of Experience. Its all about increased simplicity, integrated metaphors, greater collaboration, transparency and increased information composition. The goal is to make it easier for people to interact with the universe of computing platforms, applications, services and information. Increasing the Continuity of Experience for one user or 10,000 or 10 million (think companies) increases the capacity to transfer value during the experience. We need to think about the continuities we enjoy today and really focus on what opportunities we have to bring isolated experiences into a larger continuity of experience.

Just The Facts

Just the Facts: The Next Wave

Dispensing with all the commentary:

The next wave (From the Economist Dec 17, 2005)

Investments in India by Large Corporations

  • Microsoft $1.7 Billion over 4 years.
  • Intel $1 Billion over 5 years.
  • Cisco $1.1 Billion.

The number of people recruited per month by Infosys, Tata, and Wipro: 1000

J.P. Morgan Chase planned number of employees in India: 9000

Exports From India’s IT industry and Business Process offshoring:

2005: $17 billion

2010: $60 billion (estimated)

India’s Market Share:

Offshore IT Services: 65%

Business Process Offshoring: 46%

Amount of Money spent on Legal Services World-wide: $250 billion

Cost per hour for an American Lawyer: $300

Indian firms can reduce legal bills by: 75%

India Produces:

2.5 million graduates per year,

200,000 are engineers.

India has:

28% of the global available workforce,

compared to,

China’s 11%.

Indians working in Business Process outsourcing:

2005: 700,000

2010: 2.5 million (estimated)

Qualified Indian graduates between 2005 and 2010: 1.05 million

The additional amount of office space needed in India by 2010: 14 million sq meters

If you find these tidbits interesting you should read, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century By Thomas L. Friedman.

tomcarroll.org

WordPress 2.0 up and running

Well its been a long time since I updated the blog. Having Kids keeps me very busy and causes my blog to suffer. I had some time off so I decided to upgrade to WordPress 2.0. I f you see and problems let me know.

Happy new year.

Reviews, Technology

Web 2.0 Summary

I have spent the last few day at web 2.0 in San Francisco. The conference was the launching pad for 12 companies and my first real experience with a conference with loads of start-ups and venture capitalists. I found that the conference spawned many interesting lines of thought. I really enjoyed the presentations by Dick Hardt, Jason Fried, Jeremy Allaire’s Bright Cove, Steve lavine ‘s Transparensee. I found the conference to be full of hype. Setting the hype aside the conference was worth every penny.

Food for Thought

Opening Yahoo, Ahh the possibility.

Over on David Weinberger’s blog is a post about opening Yahoo. I have been using Yahoo for a long time and would love a complete Yahoo API. I have long wondered why Yahoo hasn’t integrated Calendar and contacts with a cell phone provider. I would love to have my contacts in my mobile category on Yahoo sync to my phone. I would also love to have the changes I make in my phone contacts to be synced with Yahoo contacts. Yahoo must know how powerful this integration is, so what’s taking so long. So I hope the Opening of Yahoo will make my dream of a single source for contact information come true.

Technology

The Digital Divide sponsored Pete Sessions, SBC, Verizon, and Comcast

I heard a NPR article about Municipal WiFi in Philadelphia. I have also caught bits and pieces on the Municipal Wifi fight in St. Charles Illinois. My position is simple; ubiquity of the internet is a key to developing an informed and technology savvy labor force. A tech savvy work force will be required to help the United States maintain its position as the economic force in the world. Many countries are using the flattening force of the internet to compete with the U.S. workforce. Today not only do companies compete but so do the workforces in all countries around the world.

As long as companies are going to charge $50 to $80 a month for Broadband internet access, and as long as we have ignorant, lobbyist loving Congressmen (Pete Sessions, Former Phone Executive) trying to pass laws to hinder internet access and maintain the digital divide, we are going to lose to the other countries.

Access to information must to be affordable for all Americans.

Sascha Meinrath has an article with more information.

Call and write your Congress person and say no to H.R.2726.