Off Topic: Shawn Dodd's Weblog

Settle in Seattle

Thu, 12 Feb 2004 06:40:36 GMT

Okay. Looks as if I'll need to tweak this new theme a bit. So, some news. I moved to Seattle in December. I'm getting settled in and things are going well. I love Ballard, my new neighborhood. I've been thinking about opportunities to blog my work. I haven't made any decisions, but there seem to be a couple of under-represented topics I could touch on. We'll see. More next week.

Test Post

Thu, 12 Feb 2004 06:32:08 GMT

Test post. Please ignore.

Miller Says Not To Worry, Royalty-Free License Available

Thu, 20 Feb 2003 00:22:04 GMT

Today [Jim Miller] had this to say on a Rotor listserv sponsored by the University of Pisa. "As one of the inventors on that patent as well as the person heading up the standardization efforts for the CLI, I'd like to explain why I've never felt the two are in conflict. [...] Microsoft (and our co-sponsors, Intel and Hewlett-Packard) went [beyond RAND] and have agreed that our patents essential to implementing C# and CLI will be available on a 'royalty-free and otherwise RAND' basis." [Managed Space]

The reaction on Slashdot to the disclosure of these patent filings was downright ravenous. At the time, I thought there were too many unknowns to justify getting all worked up about it.

Assuming Miller's statement is accurate, an RF patent license for everything "essential to implementing C# and CLI" goes a long way towards easing any anxieties I might have had about the patents. Granted, the CLI is just a subset of the proprietary .NET Framework. So people creating a .NET workalike still need to worry about patents. But there's a lot you can do with a truly open standard C# and CLI.

Even with the recent patent filings, C#/CLI is still more open than the Java platform.

Evil DRM in TurboTax

Tue, 18 Feb 2003 00:45:44 GMT

Turbo Tax DRM "The latest version of TurboTax is laden with DRM software [...] as reported at Extreme Tech." [Slashdot.org]

I didn't want to quote the entire Slashdot post, as it contains technical inaccuracies. The gist is that TurboTax has copy-protection that recklessly writes to your hard drive's boot track, breaking multi-boot systems -- all without asking the user.

There's no excuse for a tax preparation program to write to the boot track. Not for any reason. Even a program that does need to write to the boot track -- like a boot loader -- shouldn't write to the disk without first warning the user of the risks and specifically asking for permission.

I've used TurboTax in the past, but will not be buying it this year. I think I'll evaluate TaxCut instead. I hear it can import TurboTax records. When my friends ask, I'll definitely recommend they find an alternative as well.

Under a Bushel

Tue, 11 Feb 2003 20:12:24 GMT

An update to my earlier post about Michael Fagan's Google Ultimate Interface: Michael wrote to point out that his interface does, in fact, support "Linux only" searches. I just didn't look closely.

From an interaction design standpoint, I think Google does a good job of exposing complex functionality without overwhelming new users. But they are sometimes guilty of hiding their light under a bushel (so to speak). Mr. Fagan's search interface makes sure that light shines for everyone to see.

BitTorrent Killed the TV Star

Sun, 09 Feb 2003 22:50:42 GMT

bittorrent and rss. Since first posting about it, I've been thinking more and more lately about the possibilities of combining rss enclosures and bittorrent ad-hoc p2p networking. The more I analyze the setup the more I like it.
[Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Oh, it's a great idea. I'm all for it. It will do for TV what the Web did for publishing: lower the barrier to entry to enable everybody to do it. (A $200 Walmart computer, a $40/mo cable modem and a $50/yr subscription to Radio Userland, and you're a publisher. Add some Digital Video gear to the mix and now you're a TV studio. Totally awesome.)

I'm definitely not trying to put out stop energy here, but there is at least one problem, and it could be a show-stopper. In some circumstances, BitTorrent can totally slam your Internet connection, making it unusable for other (interactive) tasks. This appears to be unrelated to the amount of bandwidth BitTorrent is using. BitTorrent's built-in throttling -- which is ingenious -- doesn't seem to help here.

I suspect it has something to do with one's uplink hardware (cable modem, etc.) getting slammed by extraneous incoming requests. These extra incoming requests are not serviced, so it's overhead traffic. I don't have any proof that's actually what's going on, but that fits my observations. I'll develop huge latencies (frequently over 1500ms) that go back to normal (20-40ms) as soon as I kill BitTorrent processes.

The point: the system Adam describes would work in the background without user intervention. Due to the side-effects outlined above, it might be wise to add controls which would allow the user to disable BitTorrent in the event it causes network performance problems.

Sun Knows Java Has Serious Problems

Sun, 09 Feb 2003 19:46:50 GMT

Even Sun Can't Use Java "It turns out that Sun does not eat its own dog food. Specifically, this internal memo from Sun strongly suggests that Java should not be used for Sun's internal projects." [Slashdot.org]

Oh, man, for years I've been complaining about Java's virtual memory usage, saying that the Java VM's memory allocation behavior is pathologically bad. See the memo's point #2, "The JRE is very large."

This memo should not be seen as an indictment of Sun. This sort of internal dialog is (in my opinion) healthy. It's good they're articulating the problems they're running into as they gain experience deploying and maintaining Java in production systems.

As a developer who has been deploying and supporting Java-based solutions for years now, I can confirm that all of the complaints outlined in the memo are valid in general, and apply specifically to non-Solaris JREs as well. (Where the memo says the problems are worse on Solaris, I'll have to take their word for it.) I've felt their pain -- this ain't baseless political bickering. ISVs deal with these problems all the time.

I'd also like to point out that many of these problems may not be exclusive to Java. As the .NET platform matures it may also suffer these limitations. Only time will tell whether Microsoft will do better. In other words, I don't think any of these complaints can be used (today) as reasons to switch to .NET from Java. Others will disagree.

Just Some Static IPs and an SLA, Thanks

Fri, 07 Feb 2003 22:44:36 GMT

James Kempf and Rob Austein: The Rise of the Middle and the Future of End to End: Reflections on the Evolution of the Internet Architecture. "Because an ISP delivers a commodity service, the profit margins on basic bandwidth provision for a best effort service bit pipe, together with the email and Web access services that are typically bundled with bit pipe service, are fairly low." OTOH, providing pure IP connectivity can itself be a source of differentiation if no one else offers it. [Hack the Planet]

Note the last sentence. When "Internet access" eventually comes to mean "first class access to the crappy content we want to sell you and second-class crippled access to everything else," I will gladly pay more for "pure IP connectivity." No email address, no customized home page -- just some static IPs and an SLA. (See Speakeasy's "No Blocking" pledge for a glimpse of the future.)

Portable File Servers

Fri, 07 Feb 2003 22:05:39 GMT

Ooooh ooooh hot product alert. According to Gordon Mohr, Sony is coming out with a 20GB hand-held WiFi file server. Think about it. Hehe. Hey that's awesome. [Scripting News]

Don't buy one until you can discern what sort of DRM is built in. There's no doubt in my mind we'll carry around hundreds of megabytes of wireless storage in the future. But I won't be carrying around anything that limits my freedom to use digital media in all the ways the Constitution guarantees.

As ad-hoc local file sharing (a-la Rendevouz) permeates our cars, homes, offices, stores and public gathering places, carrying a portable file server begins to have real value. That value disappears, however, if the use of that stored media is tied to a cumbersome crypto infrastructure (for DRM purposes). DRM nullifies the network effect.

Are You Hardcore?

Mon, 03 Feb 2003 14:53:46 GMT

Ultimate Google Interface. The Google Ultimate Interface -- by Fagan Finder. This is an attempt at integrating all of Google's various search facilities. [JohnLawlor.com]

Dude, check out the "keyboard" down at the bottom. JavaScript that's actually useful? Who'da thunkit? If you are seriously hardcore about searching Google, this could turn out to be very useful for you. At first glance, the only thing it lacks is a "Linux Only" option.