Recently I discussed (albeit somewhat crudely) the mass flood of E-Reader devices that made their debut at the recent CES exhibition and what the future holds for Joe Average. I’d like to take this opportunity to reveal that yesterday I, yes me, despite the very best restraint I could muster, purchased an Amazon Kindle 2 which I will be collecting during my visit to Miami this coming weekend.

I expect buyer’s remorse to take effect by February 1.

Amid the guff surrounding the release of a new E-Reader device every 14.27 seconds during CES one player that kept it’s cards firmly pressed against it’s chest was Apple.

Until now.

If you’ve paid any attention to industry headlines over the past 87 years or so you would be more than aware that Apple has often been rumoured to be working on a tablet computer. Today miniscule information was released inviting the world to view it’s latest ‘creation’. Many insiders, speculators and ‘guff mongerers’ (as I like to call them) strongly insist that this will be the moment Apple unleashes a much awaited tablet computer. Said insiders, speculators and ‘guff mongerers’ also believe that this will be the killer, game-changing device that the world has been waiting for.

Maybe, but I believe it could be a case of premature gadget ejaculation. Here’s why.

The market for tablet devices is not currently in it’s infancy. It’s not even in it’s fetal stages yet. The tablet device has been around for a number of years now, it failed on a grand scale then, it’ll fail on a grand scale now. The Apple tablet, bare in mind we’re currently talking about vaporware mixed with my own pure speculation here, may well be destined for the same fate. I won’t eat my shoes if I am wrong, but I really cannot see how the immediate future of mainstream computing is tablet based.

For starters, if the guff mongerers are to be believed then the Apple tablet device is going to resemble or function like an iPhone just on a larger scale. The first time you hear that you may very well let a little wee slip uncontrollably from your bladder. Upon later reflection though it all seems to fall a little flat. If next week Mr. Jobs decides to unveil an Apple tablet device that does indeed turn out to be essentially a super-sized iPhone, and currently I cannot see how they can or indeed will release anything other than this no matter how many layers of groovy they mask it in, then the device really will be doomed for certain failure. The Apple iPhone is, like the iPod, one of the most successful niche devices of the last decade. The iPhone being superior due to being not only a music playing device but a smart phone stapled on to form one soft, cuddly and very popular little package. An Apple tablet will likely offer very little more than that.

Now for the really negative stuff. Not so many moons ago Apple released the Macbook Air, a wonderful device that was marketed as being the future of notebook computing. Sleek, super sexy and thinner than Karen Carpenter. All this technological anorexia (sorry Karen) appeared very wonderful at first. Then Steve Jobs told everyone how much it was going to cost.

The Apple tablet, bare in mind we’re currently talking about vaporware mixed with my own pure speculation here, may well be destined for the same fate. I won’t eat my shoes if I am wrong, but I really cannot see how the immediate future of mainstream computing is tablet based.

And there lyeth my point. Who is going to want to buy a device that is essentially a super-sized iPhone that will probably weigh in around the $1000+ mark when it’s smaller,far more portable but equally capable sibling the iPhone already has a massive global user base and is more importantly available for a fraction of the cost? Nobody. Well, except maybe the kind of gadget and/or Apple fanatics that appear in line outside their nearest Apple store 13 minutes after the product is announced to the world and a good 984 decades before the store opens it’s doors with welcome arms to the faithful early adopters.

Heaping further negativity on to this vaporous device, I believe the average customer is not ready to make the switch to full-time, 24/7 tablet computing. Nor do I believe they are ready for full-time, 24/7 portable tablet computing. The devices and prices being waved in the face of the market right now are still sky high. Additionally for what tasks you can accomplish with a tablet device you can accomplish with a netbook, notebook or smart phone for a fraction of the cost. Not only is cost a swaying factor but these devices are already established and ingrained in to mainstream computing culture. I can see tablet devices becoming popular within enterprise over the next 5 or so years, but in the home I don’t think penetration will be as quick.

Many are touting the rumoured Apple tablet device to be something of a ‘Kindle-killer’ too. I cannot see this happening in the foreseeable either. The Kindle, along with the Sony Reader (and even the Barnes & Noble Nook) devices have all had a truly massive head start over Apple. Factoring cost alone, those wanting a device purely for reading will face a choice between a circa $200 dedicated reader with wifi trimmings and a $1000+ ‘iPhone XL’ with integrated reader app. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which is the better choice.

Apple has disposable clout available to it by the truckload but entering an already swamped market so late in the day could suffocate any chance it has in the bustling reader market. Amazon, Sony and Barnes & Noble all already have huge publisher deals done and dusted. What Apple has awaits to be seen, let’s hope it’s not the scraps leftover from a furious bidding war. One article declares Apple has secured a deal with the New York Times for subscription based content.

Who cares? There are plenty of other sources for free news.

I appear to have made Apple the focal point of this article but it’s not just Apple who (as yet to be confirmed remember!) are putting their chips on the tablet roulette table. Microsoft and HP amongst the larger names are also banking on tablets and touch to be the next big thing. Perhaps their mindsets will change considerably by next weekend.

Essentially, when it comes to tablet computing I feel the bottom line is thus. I honestly just don’t think we are ready yet to detach ourselves from a physical keyboard. Sure gestures, swipes and pinches feel like second nature on a smart phone or an ATM or a museum exhibition for example. But when it comes to home computing, and I’m not really talking about gaming here, I think we still feel the need to have that sense of attachment to our beloved computer. It gives the user a sense of comfort, a sense of connection and ultimately a sense of control over their computer. Detaching ourselves in this way, is, ultimately, something that I feel we are still (and at the very least) a good 10 to 15 years away from and that is why I feel that certainly in the immediate future, tablet devices will be a failure (again).

Note: Images used in this article without permission.

Scientists and Historians can be certain of two absolute and undeniable facts. Mankind has forever had the mandatory requirement to evacuate their bowels in turn leading them to spend literally thousands of years designing waste receptacles and developing elaborate sanitation systems to handle it. Mankind has also spent the best part of millions of years trying to communicate both verbally and through the written word. Thus thanks to this genius idea we have at least some sources of reference to study or read up on our ancestors. Proof, if any were needed, that the bathroom and the written word have been strangely entwined together since the dawn of time.

Fast forward to today, January 12th 2010. CES in Las Vegas is over and aside from all the hoo-haa over 3D televisions, the devices that I feel made the really big noise at this years’ exhibition were E-Readers.

Rewinding the clock I recall with some fondness reading one of those flimsy free books you get with magazines, you know, the ones with a million old video game cheat codes in them that you can just look up online. Or the one’s which are bundled with the Christmas edition of your favourite print magazine (anyone under the age of 18 look up ‘magazine‘ on Wikipedia for a quick history lesson) along with a chocolate bar, a poster you’d never dream of pinning on your wall and a water balloon marketing a video game no one is going to buy. Oh and a Frisbee (marketing a video game no one is going to buy).

This free book (I forget the magazine it came with I just remember it ran for about 3 or 4 issues before folding around the time the original PlayStation console came to market in the UK) although long since discarded, still resonates with me today. It was a pocket book containing articles by the staff writers and their ideas regarding the future of technology and entertainment. Now bare in mind this book was written circa 1995. I distinctly remember a few passages in the book by one of the writers discussing the future of the printed word. I recall intricate details mentioned such as flexible hand held devices and displays and paid content subscription models. Reasonably accurate projections I think for an article written around 14 years ago.

The concept of the E-Reader dates back even further than that. Travel back to 1988 and recall the hit Tom Hanks movie Big. If you haven’t seen it, do so, it’s a delightful yarn. You’ll notice toward the end of the movie, Hanks and co-star Elizabeth Perkins present a new invention at a toy company meeting. The idea they dream up is for a portable electronic device (which actually looks uncannily like the new Microsoft Courier concept) that displays and allows the user to interact with pre-purchased comic books supplied on 5 1/4″ disks. A well-designed device concept, a paid content subscription model and (the icing on the cake) a full colour display!

It makes you wonder that if Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins can come up with a colourized version of the Amazon Kindle in 1988, why haven’t the good people at the dot com giant (or anyone else for that matter) released one already? Hanks and Perkins were marketing this bad boy for a cheeky one hundred dollars with new content at a couple of bucks a pop. Genius marketing strategy, a sure fire winner, a guaranteed global hit. Sadly Tom Hanks flushed (pun intended) his career away by wanting to be 13 again and thus left the company but that’s beside the point. The bottom line is for 1988 this idea was deemed achievable even if it was ultimately presented in a work of fiction. What I am saying is, the idea was there.

Back to today, and in 2010 the E-Reader (yes along with the aforementioned 3D revolution) is set to be the hottest thing since the Netbook (anyone under the age of 3 look up Netbook on Wikipedia for a history lesson). We’re in 2010 and we’re still fiddling with a nearly 3-year old device with a black and white display designed by an online book retailer. The less said about electronic giant Sony’s attempt at an E-Reader the better. I expected more from the inventor of the Walkman.

John Doe 1 walks in to a restroom carrying a Kindle 2 on his person. John Doe 2 walks in to a restroom carrying a magazine on his person. John Doe 2 I feel would be likely to flick through a few pages of the magazine finish up and exit the restroom within lets say 10 to 15 minutes (20 at a push, pun not initially intended).

I really want an E-Reader, truthfully. I can shamefully reveal I’ve spent countless hours drooling over the Kindle pages at Amazon.com lusting for a Kindle 2. I’ve recently spent those hours ogling the news flooding through from the 2010 CES news wire. Every other press release recently seems to be for a new E-Reader. Perhaps the market is quickly becoming over saturated with product that hasn’t been launched yet but I am still keen to buy one now. My heart says “GO! BUY! HAVE FUN!” My head says to hold off and wait to see how this pans out, especially with market leader Amazon rumoured to be developing the Kindle 3 and colour E-Reader displays additionally being touted as ‘not too far away’.

I believe the right thing to do as of now is fend off any early-adopter syndrome you may be harbouring and wait to see how the market develops. As of now we have several devices lining up on the trenches ready to go over the top. When they do many will fall in the field, few will be left standing. My predictive senses believe Amazon will emerge from this market victorious if they can get the Kindle 3 right. The word ‘Kindle’ in my opinion is already becoming a recognizable device brand name akin to the iPod, Walkman et al.

The beginning of this article discussed a rather loose entwining of humans, toilets, faecal matter and the written word man relyeth upon for both factual and entertainment purposes. In fact recently a first edition of Evolution Of  The Origin Of  Species by Charles Darwin was found in a toilet (where it had been lain for years prior) and sold at auction for thousands of dollars! With so much choice and vast storage space offered by today’s current crop of electronic reading devices, what does the future hold for bathroom reading and will E-Readers become a bane of the bathroom for households across the globe?

I tried with little success to research the origins of when going to the toilet and bringing along reading material became synonymous. However the few scraps of information I did come across were filled with page after page of site visitors and forum users discussing the origins, the pros and cons of and suggested material for reading on the toilet.

Could the future of bathroom reading be set to change with the mass-market penetration and (according to Amazon.com’s Christmas 2009 sales figures) rapid uptake of E-Reader devices? Think about it carefully. I’ve devised the following for use as an example.

John Doe 1 walks in to a restroom carrying a Kindle 2 on his person. John Doe 2 walks in to a restroom carrying a magazine on his person. John Doe 2 I feel would be likely to flick through a few pages of the magazine finish up and exit the restroom within lets say 10 to 15 minutes (20 at a push, pun not initially intended). John Doe 1 meanwhile has an assortment of 1000+ books, magazines, comics, newspapers and annotations at his fingertips thanks to his Kindle device. Couple that with wireless access and you’ve the perfect recipe for longer toilet stall occupation than that currently enjoyed by that guy/girl in the stall next to you emitting nothing but the sound of a BlackBerry trackball rolling around and clicking interspersed with occasional ‘plop’ and ‘fart’ sounds (yes women are guilty of this too I have been reliably informed!).

I hope with this rather crude analogy you can see the point I am trying to make here. I believe if E-Reader devices do become a mainstream hit in 2010 it will essentially change how we consume printed media forever. The industry is already dying a death thanks in part to the explosion of the Internet over the last decade coupled with higher operating costs.

I strongly believe we will read more than ever over this coming decade. This can only be a good thing. If that means newer and successively cheaper devices, the ability to carry more books, magazines and textbooks on my person at one time and ultimately higher global literacy rates I’m all for it. Count me in.

Several weeks ago I made an important ‘family’ decision. I decided it was time to start looking for a 2nd car (I’ll spare you the boring details, we just needed a second vehicle). Living in the Caribbean, a region of the world susceptible to extreme weather conditions; a place where a hurricane or sporadic heavy rainfall can leave you wading through several feet of water in mear minutes, you will find a large volume of citizens choose to drive SUVs. A sensible off-road choice, (currently) not a sensible financial one.

Today I bought a 1996 4.0l V6 Ford Explorer XLT.

This used beauty spans the width of three continents, weighs in at a scale-busting 87,000 tonnes delivering a (non)face-shattering 210bhp resulting in a majestic 12 (yes TWELVE) whole entire city miles to the glorious gallon.

That should keep Greenpeace happy.

Don’t get me wrong I’m all for fuel economy, lowering greenhouse gases and reducing my carbon footprint. I love a great deal on fuel prices too. When I lived in the UK I would have email alerts sent to me daily from petrolprices.com and would drive to the next service station because they offered unleaded for a penny less than the other gas stations in my area at that particular time. So why am I buying a hulking great gas guzzler then?

Sure the CRV is less thirsty when it comes to fuel consumption and yes you can run the thing in to the ground and it will refuse to die. But with a bit of TLC and a foot not made of lead the Explorer can more or less compete too.

Island Life

Living on a small Caribbean island dramatically streamlines your automotive purchase, rather it makes it much easier. Mainly due to used car prices and lack of choice. Here in the Cayman Islands the used car market is forever buoyant. Cars and trucks hold their value due to the difficulty and expense of importing new ones. Earlier this week I saw an ad on a Cayman classifieds website for a 1988 BMW 3 Series. This dream ride can be yours for just CI$1000 (about US$1200). That said, I fail to see how the market and it’s consistent buoyancy is not supported by at least a little owner induced artificial inflation. Still, it keeps the market healthy and buying a used or indeed new car here can be looked upon as an investment of sorts.

The Ford Explorer is a popular car round these parts, probably more popular than it was/is in the United States. The island is literally flooded with them so buying a used one makes finding one easy and negotiating the sale even easier. The price difference between the Explorer and it’s nearest island competitor, the Honda CRV, is the tipping point. The deal clincher if you will. In Grand Cayman you can land yourself a reasonably tidy, mid-to-high mileage Ford Explorer circa 1995-1998 for between CI$2000-CI$4000. A CRV with the same specs will set you back anywhere between CI$3500-CI$7000.

It’s a Honda. It won’t die

Sure the CRV is less thirsty when it comes to fuel consumption and yes you can run the thing in to the ground and it will refuse to die. But with a bit of TLC and a foot not made of lead the Explorer can more or less compete too. From an ex-pat point of view that means I can get myself a Ford Explorer (a car made in the USA meaning parts are more readily available and cheaper than for Japanese vehicles) for a lot less than a Honda CRV. I can maintain and repair it for less and with a lighter foot I can get (still horrendous) reasonable fuel economy from it.

Plus as the owner of the world’s most excitable dog (also the world’s most car sickness prone), I am blessed with a trunk space the size of St Paul’s Cathedral and additional air vents in the rear to not only keep passengers cool but also prevent my pooch from overheating when it’s 90F+ outside (basically every day of the year here in the Tropics).

Going it alone

Taking your vehicle to a professional is not cheap anywhere, not just Grand Cayman. That is why I have decided to go it alone for the simple stuff with the Explorer purchase. Not only because it is an older vehicle and I don’t want to put too much money in to it (besides the stereo which is coming out of it’s current home asap to be replaced with something that will provide at the very least an auxiliary hook-up to my iPod, and hopefully soon a Zune HD) but also because I want to use it as an opportunity to learn something, at the very least the basics of car maintenance and servicing.

As soon as I can get my hands on one I am getting myself a Haynes manual. I already have one minor repair job to undertake; replacing the hood struts. Easy enough job it would appear from what I have read but I would still like the trusty Haynes book to help me out.

Incidentally it was while browsing the Haynes website that I actually came across a very useful page containing a variety of free videos and podcasts that demonstrate simple routine maintenance techniques. I think any complete novice would find a video detailing a basic oil change procedure to be very useful. Take a look, there are lots more free videos available. Save yourself some money!

An acceptable SUV (sort-of)

I find myself writing this article almost as a defense of my SUV purchase. Maybe it’s hidden guilt. I never thought I would find myself driving a big All-American SUV. I’ve never wanted one. Nor did I think I would use the ‘excuse’ that my dog fulfills the need for extortionate boot space.

When you find yourself jotting down a list of reasons why you would want to buy such a vehicle in an age where vehicles today are vastly different than they were 13 years ago, not only in design but for economical reason for ownership, you can find no justifiable reason for owning a vehicle such as this.

Unless you live somewhere as unique as the Cayman Islands.

And it is for the exact reasons outlined in this article that the knot in my stomach as I drove my new SUV home has disappeared and the overwhelming sense of guilt at owning a ‘gas guzzler’ has more or less fallen by the wayside.

If you find yourself at a gas station on Thursday and you are wondering why the cost of fuel just sky-rocketed, please accept my most sincere apologies. It’s my Ford Explorer’s fault, not mine.

Cloud computing. It, along with virtualization are the two hottest things in the IT industry today. It’s also had a bit of a rough day today.

Virtualization speaks for itself (assuming you, the dear person reading this are IT savvy). If it doesn’t, to put it in basic terms, virtualization gives users the ability to consolidate several computers in to one ‘host’ computer. As an example let’s say I build one physical computer. I can then install virtualization software on that computer and effectively install multiple computer operating systems on to one computer. It therefore eliminates the cost of hardware and thus puts a nice big smile on the face of whoever handles the IT budget at your place of work.

Thus the few (!) folk out there that truly rely on Google’s lovely applications to get through their busy work days (and believe me, there are lots of these users; mostly working for companies with an IT budget of zero that see Google Applications as a cost-cutting superhero and who can blame them?) were left with nothing for the best part of 2 to 3 hours today.

The other hot topic in IT today is ‘cloud’ computing. It too uses consolidation (and also synchronization) to form its heartbeat. The difference being that the ‘cloud’ part means data is stored online (the cloud). This also means that all devices connected to the cloud (with relevant permissions of course) can access the data and any changes made to the data will be synchronized across all devices with access to the cloud.

A comedic view on cloud computing

There are currently two major mainstream examples of cloud computing available today, lots of other companies are joining the wagon at almost breakneck pace but we’ll concentrate on these two for this article. You may well have heard of them (sense the irony approaching); Google Applications and Microsoft Mesh. Granted Mesh is still in its beta infancy and will probably lose its ‘free’ status once it hits the market proper.

Google Applications (which forms the concentration of this blog entry) consist of a variety of tools, the most well known would comprise of Mail (or Gmail), Reader, Calendar and Docs. For the unfamiliar Gmail is your standard webmail (think hotmail, yahoo mail etc) client. Reader is (as you’ve probably gathered from my previous post) a fantastic RSS/Atom feed management tool. Calendar is the same as your calendar feature in Microsoft Outlook. Finally Docs is a fully fledged document viewing application, suitable for all those PDF and Word files you know and love. The ‘cloud’ formed here comes from the fact that all of these applications are offered to the end user by Google and hosted by Google (e.g. provided to you by Google for use online). The cloud is amassed further by these applications being accessible by the end user with any device they choose to use (including special Google applications for BlackBerry, iPhone and other mobile devices). For the cherry on the cake, all of these applications, from wherever you choose to access them, will remain in perfect synchronization with each other regardless of what you do with them. That’s your mainstream cloud computing right there.

It’s brilliant, it really is. Except it’s not really.

You see today, Google had a bit of a rough time keeping its Gmail application online. Thus the few (!) folk out there that truly rely on Google’s lovely applications to get through their busy work days (and believe me, there are lots of these users; mostly working for companies with an IT budget of zero that see Google Applications as a cost-cutting superhero and who can blame them?) were left with nothing for the best part of 2 to 3 hours today.

Zip, zilch, nada.

Right there is your problem. A percentage of users are so reliant on the ‘Google cloud’ that when it messed up today they were left with no fail-over to carry on with their work while Gmail was out of action. The same situation would apply within your workplace if (how IT industry brush-wielders see it anyway) cloud computing becomes the true staple of enterprise solutions.

It won’t. I guarantee it. At least not in the near future anyway.

Cloud computing at present is too risky. Especially for those who effectively have given ownership of their data to Google by using their ‘cloud apps’. If the cloud dies, and you become 110% reliant on it, you’re done for. Everything stops (as I am sure it did for many Google Applications users today). It certainly did for me. I guess it was fate telling me not to rely on the cloud as I was waiting for a really important email to arrive when the outage kicked in. Before this clash of fates amalgamated today I (on reflection) feel I put too much faith in the reliability of the Google cloud. Gmail (according to the Google dashboard status updates) was still accessible via POP and IMAP setups. For me, with POP and IMAP access not set up I had no other way to access my Gmail at such a crucial time.

How very appropriate.

I was infuriated. How could this be happening? A company as large as Google suffering downtime with their most popular application was for me a personal travesty. It was only when Gmail was brought back online that the aftershocks hit home and changed my outlook on cloud computing.

This evening, as I write this during the outage aftermath, I now feel entirely different about cloud computing. I wonder how many other users had developed a reliance on the cloud and what the future of this current hot topic may well be. I don’t think we will ever reach a point, at least in the Enterprise market, where information is stored and exchanged entirely within the cloud. That would just be stupid. On top of that I cannot see this happening from a security point of view. Leaving sensitive or classified data online presents a whole host of security issues that are significantly reduced with secure remote connectivity that is perfectly capable for the task and in widespread use today.

Cloud computing certainly has its audience but I can safely say with great confidence that I think it is more for the mass mainstream market and certainly not something that will be widely adopted by Enterprise.

I’ll leave it at that for now and let the good people at Google continue licking their wounds tonight.

I don’t even need to confess, the date stamp says it all, I’ve not updated this site in forever. I apologize.

However upon embarking upon such a monumental feat as to write a new blog entry, I decided to couple it with a site makeover. I felt the old design wasn’t working out so I went for a different theme (plus my ever-ongoing tweaks) that I feel is much better suited and easier to use.

So what has been going on for all this time? Well, offline it’s been a very busy 5 or so weeks. I haven’t even had time to put any effort in to the music project at all, that has ground to a complete halt. Although with the schedule looking rather lighter in the coming weeks I should have a bit more time to dedicate to it.

I recently moved in to the world of the netbook by purchasing an Acer Aspire One. Would you believe it runs Windows 7 Ultimate astonishingly well? Windows 7 aside, the netbook and a copy of Notepad++ should provide ample opportunities to scribe new entries whilst on the go (or while the good lady is using this notebook to look at photos on social-networking websites).

I’m a keen follower of human rights issues, especially when it involves freedom of speech and privacy issues. I am closely following an issue close to home where a local ISP is looking to implement Deep Packet Inspection technology. The general public have been asked to provide input on the matter and I intend to submit my comments soon on the matter.

All of this should pack my schedule up quite nicely for the foreseeable!