If only it came in my Toyota

BMW and Google announced today that you can now send Google maps directions and info straight from Google Maps to the BMW's Assist GPS system. While the likelihood of me ever owning a Bimmer is slim, this shows that Car manufacturers are embracing technology more and more. C|Net now even offers a Car Tech site, where they review all of the latest in-car technology. It seems that every car now has a factory-installed Bluetooth hands-free option that let's you talk over the stereo system, and many more offer various iPod and MP3 intergration options. Still, the Bimmer is probably one of the first to be net-connected.

Interestingly enough, about 3 years ago, I was at a conference and saw a presentation by someone from Microsoft regarding where they felt mobile technology was going. The presentation showed a demo of someone walking into his car and having it automatically recognize his PDA. The car could read incoming e-mails and voicemails (integrated into one inbox) and could also access the PDA's contact database to make phone calls via voice dialing.

While we are not quite there yet, we've definitely come a long way baby!

Yahoo's Big Comeback

A bunch of years ago, before I was introduced to a small project called Google, I used to use Yahoo! for my searching. It was clean, easy and relatively well organized. It also had all kinds of great free services like personals, classifieds, e-mail, etc. But then Google came along, and started to gain steam, and I like many others left Yahoo for Google.

But Yahoo!, it seems, is making a comeback. First they bought Flickr - the photo sharing site, then they announced their new mobile tools at CES - http://go.yahoo.com (which alas, isn't available for my blackberry; during CES, they also went to MacWorld, to announce their partnership with Apple on the iPhone), and now they have come up with Pipes.


While Google has come up with tons of innovative ideas lately, this one is one of the greatest I've seen of late. What is pipes? It is a very simple tool that let's you combine website data - visually. For example, pipes can take a bunch of RSS feeds, mix them together and sort them so that you get a giant super feed, without having to a lick of programming.

The potential for pipes is huge, especially because it enables developers like me to do more with less work.

It will be interesting to see how Google answers Pipes!
Go Yahoo!

Data Centers in the Wilderness

Since the dawn of the dotcom days a decade ago, there have been many cities that have sprouted up as high-tech hubs across the country. Most of these cities of course are large cities in general, but their tech-specific growth originally was due to a handful of factors - primary of which seemed to be the abundance of technical talent. For example, places like Research Triangle Park in North Carolina (Duke and UNC are nearby), or the SF Bay Area (Stanford and Berkeley), or Austin Texas (U of Texas).

And along with the tech growth in these areas, all of the major ISPs opened data centers in them or nearby, so that the Tech Giants would be close to their data and that they would rely on someone else to manage it.

But now it seems that the trend is reversing. Recently, companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google are opening up data centers in rural Oregon and Washington, and Google recently announced plans to build a data center in western North Carolina, far from the big cities.

Why this boom? Two reasons - Power and Prices. Both real-estate and utility charges are lower in this area. In addition, these areas look forward to cash-laden companies who want to help develop their local economies.

It is also interesting to note that the whole dotcom era practice of using outsourced data centers is seemingly reversing a bit.

Trying to have some fun with Google Maps

Back in the day, in the B.C. (before children) era, I used to code for fun. To some of you the very notion of coding in general sounds bizarre in and of itself, yet alone as something that someone might enjoy.

On Thanksgiving, something cool happened - I was showing some family members aerial photos of my in-laws new place down in Florida using Google Maps. Everyone was impressed with the levels of detail, down to the pictures of my in-laws backyard. Upon seeing all of this, my Grandma asked if they had the same maps and pictures for Europe. I wasn't sure, but we put in the address of her childhood home in the Alsatian city of Saarbrucken. Sure enough, she was able to zoom in down into her old neighborhood, and all of the childhood memories of street names came echoing back.

It was than and there that I started thinking that there was a lot more to maps than simple driving directions and traffic reports. People are developing mash-ups with Google maps of all kinds, but those mash-ups, for the most part, so far, seem to be primarily 'kick the tires' products. i.e. Flickr photos on the map, or a topographical view of our contacts. But GIS (Geographic Information Systems) have hundreds of other purposes that have yet to be invented. One good example, law enforcement. The NYPD and other law enforcement agencies have use GIS for years now to help map geographic crime patterns and help solve crimes as well as investigate and discover environmental factors that lead to more crime.

I have started reading the maps API docs from Google, and I am thinking about ways to create a fun, but practical GIS tool. Any suggestions?

Why Open Access Trumps Open Source

A handful of years ago, during the dotcom boom, there was a period where Linux and other Open Source technologies were getting a lot of headlines and attention on Wall Street. They were the next revolution. While some of the spotlight on Open Source seemed to flame out a bit along with the dotcom boom,  companies continued to (and still do) take it seriously. Despite that, many companies realized that just because the software is free doesn't mean it has no cost. While there are many Pros (and Cons) to Open Source software, people have come to realize that using open source software does come with it's own costs - hardware, maintenance, training and customization aren't free. While many companies find Open Source to be a good fit, many others see it as too costly. Quite frankly, the latter have come to the realization that sometimes, for specific needs, COTS (Commercial - Off-The-Shelf) software is a much better, less costly alternative. But therein lies the rub.

One of the biggest benefits of Open Source is your ability to customize it. As a Software Professional with over a decade in the industry, one of the key pain points for CIO's is Integration. If I had a Nickel for everytime I was asked to help with an Integration issue, I could've bought YouTube myself! Yes I can buy great COTS for CRM, and for ERP, and for Financials, but how do I get them to talk? How do I get my website to talk with my fulfillment and inventory systems? How do I get my suppliers and customers systems to talk to my own? How do I create unified reports across all of these systems so that I can get a clear picture? With two incompatible COTS packages this can get very tricky. Open Source seemed to solve some of these issues, because it enabled companies to get at an applications underlying data structures and make them integrate with their neighbors. But along with power comes responsibility. Using open source meant that you had to keep up with patches, that you had to do regression testing that you had to work harder to ensure your own data integrity. While this worked for many, it was obviously not the most ideal situation.

Enter Web 2.0, the birth of the 'New' web, blogs, and rich content recently caused two very important things to happen - first, it bolstered the popularity of a little-known technology concept called AJAX (I was using the underlying technologies of AJAX in 1997, but  they weren't called AJAX then) and as people became more and more creative with AJAX, the advent of the Mashup. These two concepts have given people the ability to visualize a new concept - Open Access.

In my definition, Open Access is the notion that a developer of commercial software provides its users with an API or Web Service that allows them to directly interact with the application's data. IMHO, Open Access is great. It enables me to leverage my existing COTS by scripting integration points between them. By utilizing COTS with open access, my development staff can focus on specific integration needs without having the extra burden of maintaining software patches for Open Source Software. Interestingly enough, Open Source also benefits from open access, as it now becomes easy to even integrate Open Source and commercial products.

As companies like Google, Salesforce, and even Microsoft open up these Web Services and APIs, it will give new dimension to the trials and tribulations of integrating software.

Now if only I can discover that killer mashup? :)

Second-class Google Accounts

I have been using Google Apps for my domain for a few months now, and by and large, I have been very satisfied with their service. But all that aside, there is one big problem that I have with my Google Apps accounts - that I can't use them in any other services aside from those setup for my domain.

If I want to use Orkut, the new Blogger Beta, or even the Google Toolbar's custom features, I still need to use my old G-Mail account. Granted, this isn't a major inconvenience, but I would much rather have an opportunity to do this with just one account, and just one password - it would make things a lot easier.

Are you listening Google?

Would you pay almost $300 for a headset to use with a free service?

Sometimes I feel like I work for Google :). Okay, wishful thinking, I know, but I do use and like a lot of their products. I happen to like their e-mail, Calendar and talk products a whole lot. I was pleased to see that Google started to sell headsets for Google Talk, but to my chagrin, the wireless one (to the right) costs almost $300! I can imagine that there are a handful of people out there willing to shell out for something with a Google logo on it. But if you really want a wireless headset to use with Google talk or any other VoIP or Voice chat service, why not get a bluetooth one? For under $100 you can get a decent bluetooth headset and probably even a USB Bluetooth adapter so that you can use it on your PC, and even better, you can use the same headset for your Bluetooth phone to boot.

Now I need to decide on which Voice chat client I like best and then get other people to start using it.

Google to Go

Back in April, I finally bit the bullet and started wearing a company issue BlackBerry on my hip. Of course, being the gadget head that I am, I took every opportunity to customize it. In short order I found two great applications from - guess who - Google. I started using both Google Talk and Google Maps right away on my BlackBerry and received instant gratification from each of them.

For starters, Google Talk helped push me to push more of my friends to start using this IM/Voip service. Now, even when I am on the go, I can get IMs from people at work and friends. It also has several key features that differentiate it from amongst other IM services - namely, I can start a conversation on my BlackBerry, and seemlessly continue it on my PC. I simply go to the talk client on My PC, double-click the name of the person I am chatting with and Voila!, my conversation history is already there. The other feature is that it integrates with the BB's inbox, so when new chats arrive I automatically get notified as if it was an e-mail coming my way.

Maps has also turned out to be a lifesaver. Never again will I need to carry tiny scraps of paper directions with me on business trips anymore. It's great, just put in an address and go.


And now Google has promised to improve and expand its wireless offerings, I am looking forward to them.