Casio PB-100

The iPad…. Well I have to start this story a little while ago. Let’s say about 27 years. In my hand is my first (self bought) computer. Model PB-100 from CASIO. It’s a calculator with Basic dialect and all of 588 bytes of RAM. For me it was sheer amazing. I had 12 bytes output. I could conquer the world!!!

Not quite. In a certain way though yes I could. This little machine was about 12mm high, 16.5cm wide and 7.1cm high. It ran on two flat lithium batteries. If I’m not mistaken CR3202′s and they lasted for ever. I COULD take it everywhere and I pretty much did.

Of course 588 bytes quickly set an end to the unlimited potential. Causing me to go down the route of bigger and more desk bound computers. The flexibility was gone but a lot of power was gained. Nonetheless I missed the days of moving around with my computer. As a little side note the PB-100 is still in use today by my father. It’s still working well after 27 years!

Apple Newton MP2000

Years and years later, when laptops already roamed the trains, planes and office lobbies, I still missed the easy portability of that calculator. It was just always there. This was the time when the PDA revolution started. In succession I had a Apple Newton MP2000, a Psion Mx5, and several Palm devices. As a PDA the Psions were top. The Symbian/EPOC OS making all the difference. The one I did regret most selling though was the Newton. It was just leagues ahead of the competition.

Anyway for all the goodness of those platforms the input methodology was their biggest flaw it was always a compromise. Battery times were good though. What killed them all in the end were two things though:

1) the Internet. The graphical and display requirements were just too much for the processing power of these small devices and the displays were too small.

2) Connectivity to the outside world. All needed some syncing software via serial cable/USB and if you had multiple PCs you were in deep trouble.

I also have to admit here that I actually don’t like notebooks and laptops. I can’t really put my finger on why though. I had quite a few in my time also including MacBooks but they jut don’t give me the portability I want. They are to big to be truly portable and too small to replace my desktop (mainly screen size that is).

Finally Apple gave us the iPhone. I have a 3GS and that immediately changed the way I communicated and what I did on the go. I must contend I am a iPhone power user of sorts. Few games but a heaps of SSH, VNC, RDP, networking Apps stuff. I also like the absolutely brilliant way it converges calendars and email. This was the first time I was really all round happy with a mobile device…..if it weren’t for the screen size.

Psion MX5 PRO

And this is where the iPad now comes in. It is the right size, weight, power class and also very important; it doesn’t do too much. There is still a space for my iMac in all this. But it allows me to be productive on the go (like now), do my email and my surfing. It also streams video quite nicely so I can use it as a sort of TV.

The iPad certainly doesn’t do away with the iPhone. It is much more complementary. I wish Apple hadn’t locked the communication between the two devices down that much. I went for the 32gb option with 3G. The middle path between space and mobility. So far that looks a good decision.

So, my experiences…. Well my first experience was short lived. After about three hours the screen suddenly gave up mid flight. Very annoying that. So I rushed into town the next day and got it exchanged *phew*. So now I am on iPad v2.0 all going well so far. Let’s start with the down sides.

1. Aluminum can get REALLY cold! But that’s rather due to our bad insulation in our house.
2. Where’s the camera?
3. Keynote doesn’t allow the use of a clicker (yet)
4. No iOS4 (yet)
5. WordPress WYSIWYG editor don’t work
6. The USB power issues it has
7. Where is the calculator?
8. Where is SMS?

But all in all these niggles are minor. The good is that it’s absolutely awesome! After searching for decades this is the mobile device I always wanted. It gives me the flexibility without the bulk. The virtual keyboard is great. Little excursion on that… I can type nearly as fast on this thing as on a keyboard. The reason is probably that I never learned to 10-finger type. I still need to look at the keyboard. My hand movements to keys is random at best but it’s not slow. From the iPhone I’m used to not needing a tactile response and I actually find the glass that Apple uses nice to touch. Another cool side effect is that you can type easily in the pitch black.

Anyway… Oh yes, perfect device. The iPad like the iPhone follows the same principle of being more of a window on your data. So your emails and calender are just aggregates of your real services like Gmail or Exchange. So the iPad actually doesn’t save your stuff locally. This, in the age of Cloud Computing, is a good thing. Our data is ever more on-line. The need to have it locally is evaporating quickly.

I’ve now shown the iPad to a few people and the response is phenomenal. It’s like a no-brainer selling this thing. Switch it on, 50% sold and use it for 30 seconds…sold. This is the kind of device most people didn’t know they have been waiting for. The use is next to instinctive, no explanation necessary. Even ardent Apple nay-sayers are sold on it. Oh and I just wrote the last two paragraphs easily on the bumpy bus. Even a netbook would have been awkward in this situation. My only problem is that I am now getting motion sickness.

So in all, I definitely see this device as a milestone in computer and interface development. I am convinced we will look back on it like we do now on the first Macintoshes. It is also a much more revolutionary device than the iPhone. Where that was evolution of a concept this is revolution. The whole expectation of how personal computing is understood will change. Maybe it won’t be Apple selling the most devices in the end but neither did the Macintosh but it still was a revolutionary product (btw has someone already hacked an iPad into a Macintosh shell?).

Have a look at the iPad if you have some unused €£¥$ lying around! Don’t if you don’t. The temptation is just too big.

So my civil duty it is to tell my fellow new zealanders about www.bookdepository.co.uk. It’s like Amazon but it has a distinct advantage…..FREE GLOBAL DELIVERY!!!! Now that is music to a Kiwi’s ears. No more waiting until you have US$150 worth of books to order from Amazon. Get them in your post box for the price of a book. And that price being that what the book really costs – before our kind bookstores put the gold-lining on the price.

Bookdepository has a very good selection of books and is sometimes even cheaper than Amazon (depending on exchange rate). The fastest delivery (and we have already had dozens) is 4 days with 5-6 being the norm. The longest was about 2 weeks. Every book is sent separately so books that are not in stock don’t delay books that are in stock.

All you bookworms out there rejoice and order to your hearts content!

This will cause more kiwi $$$ to go off-shore and will force our bookstores out of business. But…see it from the positive side. You’re doing the country a service. You are supporting the upward trend of literacy and abolishing these ridiculously high retail book prices. Let’s force them to re-think what they are doing.

Oh and… Mr. Key you can probably save a whole lot of tax-$$$ if you start ordering schoolbooks from overseas

It costs about $370 to get a certification and another $125 every year plus a 3-yearly retest at $170 to remain certified. That is $1165 for 5 years or $2130 for 10 years. And that’s only certification. No courses to train and no materials.  Just imagine spending that money  on books! I think they’d teach you a bit more than the cert ever can. You can even specialise on your topic and not be over generalised.

Once you’ve read those books & invested the time to understand them you can’t tell me an employer won’t take you. By that time you should be a real expert in your field. Nobody will have charged for a piece of (unbound)paper and the know-how gain is all your doing. It gives you an immense sense of accomplishment. You’ll still go to training courses and conferences advancing your know-how. If that is not what you’re doing already I’d guess you shouldn’t consider yourself an interested expert in your field anyway.

I do agree that it is difficult for companies to recognise a good employee/candidate. It takes proper screening and good interviews with intelligent questions. The certification organisations  try and convince you that their cert gives you the assurance of quality and standardisation. Well….do they compensate for losses if that is not the case? If not, what is the use? Have I checked that the certification complies with the standards of my company? If not, are my standards wrong? Will that person then fit my company?

I think certifications (I do exclude product related certs here!!)  are  just an easy way out for companies employing people. They think if the cert’s there they can go and blindly employ. Of-course it is ideal for recruitment agencies and managers. You can rest assured that you’re promoting someone good – yeah right! So employing is: Person is alive – tick, has a CV – tick, can spell IT – tick and has the right certs – tick. Done. An employer that does that will only get my services if I’m really desperate (and even then I’d rather not). For all involved parties it is good to remember that employment is a two-way road. The candidate chooses the company as much as the company does the candidate.

I like to be challenged and prodded in an employment process. No cert is ever going to save me from curve-balls in real employment meetings. Only my know-how and education will (and education can be obtained by several means not only the institutionalised way. See www.buccaneerscholar.com for more detail). What an employer is/should really be looking for is engagement and interest. Without those you have a working drone (which sometimes could be what you really want but most of the time not). Where is the cert qualifying engagement and interest?

When I have people apply for a job that have an ISTQB certification for example, there are two groups that  I can discern:

1. Those that have been dragged there by their companies (and have never thought about what they are doing)
2. Those that aren’t good testers and need something that will give them a foothold

I have yet to meet someone who has taken the exam that admits to stand behind the ISTQB certification. I am guessing the same thing will happen to ITCP. Certs in my opinion are actually a qualifier for mediocre abilities and/or a disinterest in my profession. If I’m good then a certification is an insult to my abilities. If I’m not a cert won’t help me to become better it will just show that I’m as good as any other of the thousand cert-Joe’s out there. I’d be better advised to do something spectacular, amazing and outright creative with my time. No matter what it is as long as it has some relevance to my job and I can speak to it. It will get you the job.

So why do these organisations not make a course with an exam and stop calling it a certification? Then everybody who thinks this course is a good idea can take it  and those that don’t can stay away without getting a stigmata? By pushing it as a certification and even going down the path of trying to make it mandatory it just plainly looks like an IT-Tax…. I wanna work in IT so I have to pay $$$ and we’ll do an examisomething so that it has a hint of legality – yeah right!

Maybe someday someone will change my mind but I doubt I’ll ever warm up to certification. Remains the hope I won’t be run out of town anytime soon.

Now that Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) came out Rebecca and I decided to invest in the whole Apple product range we use. Meaning that we needed new versions for the OS, iWorks and iLife. We have 3 Macs so the family package (5 licenses) is the way to go.

This package costs NZ $479 in the Apple store. In the US it costs US $229. Google tells me that that equates to about NZD $330. Ok….so what’s the $109 difference ($41 is sales tax)??? That is definitely a bit much for postage. So this is pure additional profit! For what? Living in NZ??? Is this the living-happily-in-NZ-tax??? I honestly feel conned by Apple. And I certainly wasn’t going to stand for it. So here’s the trick on how to save lots of dough….

Go to Amazon US and get search for Mac OS X there. You will find the family pack advertised for $199 (!!) or even less. Get it shipped to someone you know in the US and then get them to ship it out to NZ. Voila, you just saved $100+.

Apple is a cool company and I love their products and will keep on buying them but if they think they can fund cheap US sales by conning the rest of the world then their outa luck. I think this should even get investigated by the commerce commission. Wonder who I write to there…

You’ll have either 5,10 or 20GB cap. So that only means that you’ll reach your download limit on the second of each month and not the fourth! What is it with peoples craze for speed? It’s the same stupidity as with the fiber-optic cable to the curb. We don’t need any of that if we’re going to d*ck around with these outdated data caps. What needs to go is the Telecom bottleneck-monopoly of the Tasman cable (Kudos to Kordia for wanting to install that 2nd cable).

If we had free market conditions on the international data highway we’d have no caps, it would make sense to up the bandwidth and private companies would invest in infrastructure.

But we have a Telecom controlled monopoly so nothing happens and now taxpayers have to cough up $1.5bn so that we can get some cables in the ground only to find out that they won’t solve any of our issues.

So go Telstra! 100Mbit will not really bring us any advantage. Give us a flatrate and keep it at 10Mbit!!!

As a result they lost my business as I have now ordered directly from Apple (which I would have done anyway if I had anticipated that they’d sell it too). It’s even $30 cheaper from them.

So Apple has come through again and Vodafone proved it can’t really come to the party. The sad thing is Telecom isn’t an option either they’re just as pathetic. Wonder when we will really get a choice in this country.

Bill English said today something like “the downturn is worse than even the worst prognosis and therefore the tax cuts cannot be upheld”. Basically either he is lying and National has pulled the election coup of the century by buying the election and then not paying up with full intent or he is admitting that the oh so financially competent National Party has no clue what’s happening on the world markets. Please Mr. Key take a pick! I do feel sorry for the 45% (minus the few super-rich) that have voted for National. You’ve just proven that you’re politically gullible. Hope this will teach you a lesson in believing in what politicians say.

As for cutting investments into superannuation, the second idiotic thing in the budget, it’s just typical behaviour. Pray on the future which someone else will have to deal with. They made it look as if there were only two options: no investment or an unsound investment. I really can’t believe that a “financially highly capable” National Party cannot find an investment that cannot return a good return. I’d even say that money could have been invested into NZ and have directly created jobs! How shortsighted.

There seem to be only two good things that came out of the budget.

1. Insulation for homes. Thanks Greens and Maori Party!
2. Luckily not even more headless damage. Thanks National Party for being a bit lazy or afraid of the backlash.

Point to note is the absence of Labour in this post. I think they have to step up to the game a bit if they want to have a chance in the near future.

Sorry for the political rant but it’s hard not commenting when given such an invitation. I do hope the feeling is mutual.

Usually this feeling is not really strong and doesn’t really affect us or what we do. It does explain though that there’s more of a leniency to cut corners or to ignore the obvious. If the product is virtual maybe nobody will notice (and nobody really does). If you do that as a builder it is blatantly obvious that the house  has no doors.

Have a read http://tinyurl.com/o2t9ox (thanks Yee for the link! And Matthew for the insight). This article pretty much hits the nail on the head of what I’ve always felt and seen.

I don’t really know what to do about it. Not for me and not for the industry. How do we mak the virtual workplace, the cubicle monster give us what we need? Or are we doomed to a happy existence as motor cycle repairist? Is this growing up or becoming wise or when does knowing set in? Is this where the common midlife crisis sets in? Maybe you’ll know…

My overall Internet/phone bill (not mobile!) is about $1500/year. That’s a LOT of money and with the average kiwi income being $38,000 that’s prohibitive. Never mind if you’re rural. And I think 10-20GB is the norm for a household or will be very soon. We’ve now got all this talk about fibre-to-the-home but without descent cheaper plans this will go nowhere at all. I think the government should focus on the current broadband, push the technology and force the GB price way down or even force cheap flat-rates. They should take a cue from Sweden (one of the countries NZ government loves to compare itself to). Have a look at this.

I’ll just quote the most interesting part…

Hmmmm…. So pretty much everyone is getting a better deal than us ($=USD!).  Even if it is more expensive they are getting more bandwidth and no download limits. I’d be happy if I could get 5/50 without a limit. Pretty much anything without a cap would be great so that I can finally stop worrying in the last week of a month.

Since 1999 I’ve been more or less actively trying to reduce the power consumption where I live. At that time not so much out of ecological aspects but plain saving money. So things like energy saving lamps were a given. (By the way, I still use those lamps today! Out of the about 20 I bought over the last years only two have failed and one I destroyed by accident. That means these energy lamps have saved me heaps of $ and caused quite a bit less CO2 and still continue doing so.) I also rigged PCs that had to run non-stop to use less power by removing any unneeded parts. Even removing single chips from mainboards.

In 2007 I became interested in the ecological side of things. Being bombarded with climate change ‘n all left it’s mark. So I decided to re-look at where I got my energy from. I used Genisis and well….let’s say they are about as clean as a coal miners hands after a double shift. So I did a 180 degree turn and went to Meridian. As a sidenote I didn’t see a change in the energy costs I was paying each month and this is 100% renewable energy (I won’t go into the debate here whether and how that is true or not). Anyway I really felt better doing that. Made all my energy saving lamps even more CO2 friendly.

But I also thought I owe Genisys an explanation. So I did send their staff a longish email on the reasons I changed. Explicitly stating I didn’t see any move from Genisis to become more environmentally friendly. After a while I got a nice email back stating how Genisis is proud to be embarking on a mission to become more environmentally friendly etc. I wrote back that I’d contemplate coming back if they ever did.

About 6 weeks later there was an article in the press about how Genisis was searching for more coal to scrape off this earth (against the wishes of quite a few people). So I got quite enraged. The dear woman from Genisis blatantly lied to me. So I wanted to make a formal complaint but after scouring the web page I couldn’t find one email address or anything that allowed me to escalate the issue. So I wrote an inflammatory email to the woman from before and CC’d it to our then PM Helen Clark. I was hoping at least the CC would give something to mull about. Anyway nothing happened for a few weeks. Nothing at all from Genisis and I wasn’t expecting anything back from Helen. I must admit I probably did that just for the theatrical effect. But…. then I did get a letter from Mr. Mallard (at that time he was Minister of Energy). Seven pages mind you. Going into the details about what the energy startegy of NZ is. I was very impressed but not really appeased since it really didn’t condemn Genisis at all.

I think this experience festered for a while. I got more involved with ecological topics (that includes all food related topics too) and started to think about pros and cons. I looked at what I’m buying more closely and recently joined the Greens in an effort to drive more action in the direction I wanted to go. Now don’t get me wrong I am definitely not a CO2 minimalist wonder or anything but I try and do what I can. Hence actions like the post below, where we’re trying to get about without a car. Public and private transport seems to be one of my key focus points that I tend to go on about. I’ve actively taken part in discussions with local council and Stagecoach or seen to it that I participate in petitions against more roads. I am also actively trying to buy an electric car (to no avail). The effect I have is small but at least something. When the election came I was happy to see the Greens do well but still came out short.

The National party has been quieter in their first 100 days than I would have thought but it seems that now they are really turning up the heat. Never mind the ungraspable shortsightedness of stopping tax breaks for all R&D work that had just been introduced (how can (at least 45% of) New Zealanders actively throw away their future like that?). But I’ll stick tho the current unfathomable newest brainchild (or should I say dud?).

6c petrol tax increase. Alright Johnny! This is a cool thing to do. It will bring more people to public transport and give you money to make public transport better. But  then I read the fine-print. They need to raise 1bn to build more roads. Hold on! MORE ROADS???? That’s like buying horse carriages today because “they’ll never go out of style”. Cars are the transportation of the past. Can’t we all just accept that? Do we need $2.50+ petrol prices to prove that? So why 1bn for roads that we can scrap 20 years from now? But it doesn’t stop here.

The 6c petrol increase only covers about $260m so another $420m are coming from cutbacks in public transport. ???!!! OK, now I’m lost. Not only are we failing to invest in public transport but we’re also now taking money away from public transport?! Could it be that Johnny just can’t say the word Kyoto? Do you know how much this decision will cost YOU? Kyoto will be a huge burden for each and every one of us if we can’t get our act (no pun intended) together.

Just imagine what 1bn in public transport could mean. That is $250 per person in NZ. We could even build a high speed train link between Wellington-Palmerston North-Auckland. Never mind buses, light rail and trains till kingdom come. And roading is supposed to cost us $10bn+ in the next 10 years. Just imagine the possibilities (that includes the Overlander with true 24ct gold faucets).

I know Kiwis love their cars and I admit I have a weakness for them too but we all have to switch to public transport on the long term. At least we should do it for the haul to and from work. If we did that now we might even be able to keep our cars for quite some time to enjoy our weekends. But I also understand that nobody will do that without a little nudge. So I’ve been saying for years you need to up petrol taxes, RUCs and taxes on cars and at the SAME TIME introduce good, flexible and cheap public transport. The additional taxes should be contributed 100% towards building the public transport infrastructure. Even if you’re a National government you should see the short & long term benefits of that. And I can promise all Kiwis they will enjoy good public transport. It’s not as bad as it’s made out to be.

So *yay* to the 6c increase. That will help but an absolute failure at the 1bn thing.Nats get with it.

Someone pinch me please I’ve got the strange feeling I’m in America and it’s 20.01.2001.

As most of you probably know or can guess, Rex Black’s law is quite the opposite of what I believe testing should be like. So I was quite surprised to see him talk about (A)agile testing. I couln’t see how those worlds really fit together. And I wasn’t disappointed.

[(A)gile as defined in the talk was the commonly misused cloud of anything that is not really Waterfall/V-Model. I will use this definition here and not distinguish between the project management side and the engineering practices as I usually do.]

One of the first things that he said is that he sort of doesn’t believe in (A)agile (or was that (A)agile testing?). Then he went on in his usual self to ponder about Risk Based Testing and how (A)agile is failing it’s targets because testing is being squashed at the end… He even went so far as to propose his own take on sprints (adding a second sprint after each sprint for more testing). He can do that because (A)agile is about freedom but I’m not convinced that’s what he understood why he can do that.

I think Rex misunderstands what (A)aile is all about. In my opinion it’s all about bottom up. Or to use another overused phrase “power to the people“. I asked him about that and he said that that was a dreamers perspective and would never be really implemented. I think that’s what this is really about though. As long as we have managers/sales second guessing their subject matter experts (SMEs) and coming up (dreaming up) with estimates and time-frames overruns and bad projects will continue to happen. Why not let the people in the know do what they do best?

If you are not willing to go down the path of giving power to the people who actually know what they are doing you’re still in Waterfall/V-Model world. Only if you make the mental leap to trust the people you have employed to do their job can you contemplate going (A)agile. (A)agile and all of its different methodologies have (at least) one thing in common. They rely on adhering to the proposed rules of the methodology for them to work. The nice thing is that they are pretty simple and so can be remembered easily. The problem is that they usually get “waterfallified/v-modelized”. My conviction is, that as soon as you do that, you have just migrated all the downfalls of the past to what you want to do in the future.

Rex buys fully into the “waterfallified/v-modelized” agile. That’s like saying you quit before you start. So I classify Rex’s talk as an anti-agile presentation. He would of-course vehemently oppose what I just said and went so far as to indicate that the testing job in an agile world will not change that much and he’ll earn money no matter what happens.

Wat was interesting about Rex’s talk was that there are some new things I hadn’t seen him use before. One that amazed me was the use of Test Oracles. That is something I heard from James Bach for the first time (although I’m not saying one was before the other because I plain just don’t know). Rex was using the exact same definition in his presentation and talk. For those that don’t know James and Rex are probably the most extreme positions we have in testing at the moment (each one on the opposite side). So what’s happening? Will we see a slow amalgamation of all testing lore out there? That would be like a dream come true. Or is this just a another ploy for ISTQB to make it even more encompassing (i.e. we cover that keyword too-type of encompassing)?

Anyway, the talk was good and it definitely opend my eyes a little more but I guess not quite like Rex might have wanted. I learned that the people like Rex are probably the biggest danger to (A)agile and all (A)agile methods. They say yes to agile but do not embrace the pure spirit of the movement (and reading a manifesto doesn’t really do it). Especially in people with a standing such as Rex saying it’s OK to deviate or water(fall) down the (A)agile teachings is really dangerous. They are giving the managers and non-believers out there the ammunition they need to scuttle (A)agile in the workplace.

If (A)agile does not become commonplace in the next 5-10 years it will be a huge loss to the industry. The loss of efficiency has the potential of slowing down or hampering the whole of human development. So I’d be happier if people like Rex who don’t believe that agile can work would say so and not try and fly some quirky path that leaves them somewhere in the middle just to keep in the game. I’m sure he can find enough to do in the “old” world to keep him happy until he retires. We need this revolution in the minds of leaders and managers for IT to survive as a sane engineering practice.

Thank you to SoftEd for the invite and the good breakfast.

Apple has introduced new Mac Minis, iMacs, Mac Pros and Airport TimeCapsule’s (and some other smaller stuff). All that is of course nice but…

1. The Mac Mini seems the only system worth looking at. All others are technologically not that interesting. Not much has changed. I was expecting 4-core iMacs. Mac Pro’s well are out of reach anyway.
2. Have you seen the NZ prices?????!!!!! Who will buy a Mac now? $3,300 for the smallest 24″ iMac?! That is crazy. And then Apple writes “Cheaper than ever”. Sorry guys you’ve just priced yourself out of league. Same as with the new software (iLife ’09 and iWork ’09). And that in this economy. I don’t see apple shares going up anytime soon.
3. Where’s my Jobs keynote? Or at least the equivalent thereof? That was half the fun.
4. The good. Well…they’ve finally released them and we can now get on with life.

One thing worth looking at now are the notebooks. They are cheap compared to the desktop models because the exchange rate adjustment hasn’t been done yet. They will soon though. Same goes for a new iPhone model. So buy now if you can or be happy that you bought your iMac before yesterday.