My other XO is in Rwanda

Give 1 Get 1 is back: once again you can donate an XO laptop to the One Laptop Per Child project for $199 or Give 1 and Get 1 for yourself for $399 at http://amazon.com/xo. The XO is a great tool for teaching and entertaining kids, but right now my brother Phillip is using it as a netbook to stay connected between university classes. A year after it's initial release the XO still stands out with a rugged design and swiveling screen which you can read in direct sunlight.

Steam Cloud

Steam is a content delivery system used by 480 Windows games. Steam games are tied to user accounts, not computers, so players can download their games on any computer that can run Steam. Steam is already cloud-oriented, with a transparently distributed file transfer system, and an RSS-style approach to purchasing games and downloading trailers and demos. The new Steam Cloud services round these features out by add the ability to store game data, such as a player's customized settings, in the cloud so the changes will be reflected on any machine the player uses.

(photo by chotda, by-nc-nd license)

The first Steam Cloud enabled game will be Left 4 Dead, a cooperative multiplayer survival horror game. As a big fan of cooperative gameplay, I'm looking forward to the Left 4 Dead demo coming out on November 11. Coop is like collaboratively editing a Google Document, but even more violent.

On the other hand there's much to hate about Steam: DRM, Windows, region restrictions, no offline useability for single player use, using the PC as an overpriced game console, and basically being spyware that sits in your System Tray sucking up resources.

Dell Mini 9

I have been planning to buy the first device to run Ubuntu or Android that I could edit Wiki's, Google Docs, and Pygame that was under $400. Not only does the new Dell Mini 9 qualify as such a device, but it comes with built in cell phone antenna, so that this will soon be the first laptop distributed heavily in the United States as a laptop you can get internet anywhere you can get cell phone reception. So far it has been rumored to be a top of the line UMPC/Netbook, and is at the low end of the price spectrum. In other words, they have taken the ultimate step in building user access.

Remember back when I railed against the Mac Mini for not getting it's price down to $200 and becoming THE home & office computer, leaving the Microsoft campus in smoldering ruins? Dell IS doing this to a greater degree than Mac has attempted, giving a $50 (out of $400) discount for the Ubuntu version. This has the potential to become THE computer of our time (as the Apple II was the computer of the 80's,) with Ubuntu as THE premier operating system. (Many reviewers have noted that beefy Netbook Ubuntu is vastly preferable at least for business purposes to watered-down Windows.) This could leave the Microsoft campus in smoldering ruins inside of 5 years IMHO. (A likely alternative is of course that Windows 8 be an Ubuntu variation.)

I am wondering what side of the prophesied patent/trademark/copyright Armageddon Dell stands on. They are the most significant laptop company to ship with Ubuntu preinstalled, but they haven't exactly turned their backs on Vista either. (Even with the Mini 9 they made the Windows version available first.)

Dell attempts to trademark Cloud Computing

DON'T BUY DELL, EVER

• Industry Standard article: Dell tries to trademark "cloud computing"
• Official US Patent Office Status of Application

Here at "Cloud Computing Advocacy" the writers and commenters have up to this moment never mentioned nor used a Dell computer while actively engaged in cloud computing. We have used or mentioned the OLPC, Asus, VIA, and Apple iMacs ( I am currently using a new Apple iMac to write this text which is then going to be stored in the Google cloud infrastructure ).

For me, the term has brought to mind first and foremost Google -more specifically their blogger, gmail, app engine, and Google docs. At U of Washington, Google has helped create the new cloud computing courses. While there are competitors that are truly providing cloud computing services ( Amazon S3 and EC2, GoGrid, and AppNexus ), I've had a hard time caring about these because there is an entrance fee for use. But since Amazon is the essential infrastructure of long tail economics, which is a revolution equal to cloud computing, it is worth noting they use HP Proliant Servers and not Dell.

The point I am making is plain and obvious, go out to where cloud computing has been taking place -to the companies associated with the obligatory server farms, and the home computer enthusiasts who usually use Linux or Apple because Windows does not abide by the standards cloud computing operates on ( Internet Explorer fails at a lot of javascript functions, and javascript is essential in cloud client side programming ). A plain old Dell running Windows, or a Dell server -not much to do with cloud computing.

Hey Dell, note this new slogan being passed around in cloud computing culture: DON'T BUY DELL, EVER.

English & Cloud Computing?

The main client to the cloud will be the cell phone. I have already seen Mexicans with cell phones who didn't know English or how to use a computer. Therefore I suspect there is a barrier to the "global average cellphone user" and fully utilizing the advantages of the internet: English. The good news is there's only one language that everyone needs to know: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhmp57dh_595mwwtkcv

gPC mini, the MySpace machine

Everex is advertising the gPC mini, a very compact $499 desktop computer (keyboard, mouse and monitor not included) customized for ... MySpace. MySpace? That's right, MySpace: "The limited edition gPC mini provides MySpace users with a customized platform to easily collaborate, modify and update webpages on the world's most popular social networking site." The gPC mini is a bit longer but thinner than a Mac Mini. While it doesn't have as much RAM or CPU power as Apple's machine, the gPC Mini does have a bigger hard drive, DVD writer, S-Video out and 2-in-1 media card reader.

Android: thin client to the Cloud

As you probably know, the Android SDK has been released. If you haven't already, make sure you watch all of the videos on: http://code.google.com/android/

I have been window shopping for PDA's lately. All but the very worst physical interfaces (mice, keyboards, screen size, etc.) are sufficient for my needs. The problem comes from the software end. Like Sugar, the software just fails to be able to handle tasks in a way that I find useful, the worst software being the most essential software for my needs: the web browsers. The closest thing out there to what I need is that ultimate failure known as the iPhone (compare $15 extra per month for unlimited web data from Sprint, to the $60 per month minimum from AT&T: all SKD postponement and objective C dependency aside, the iPhone is not an economically sustainable option, like most other Mac products.)

Laptops with their hinges, hard drives and wide flat builds have too fragile of a feel for me to feel safe in investing in. I also need web/cloud access that I can get as easily and dependably as I get cell phone voice service, so that I can quickly and regularly review and modify web content while commuting or while being paid to do something completely unrelated. I suspect my job-hopping, boot-strapping, trash-talking life style is not that different from the "average" cloud user of the future, and I believe Android is the gateway to that future.

-BFGalbraith

Documentary Proposal

Seth Galbraith's "Cheap, Green Freedom: Cloud Computing as a Weapon" is an dramatic explanation of how the new wave of inexpensive portable networked computing devices is the new "AK 47" of the global justice movement.

Can this 1000 word essay be reduced to a 250 word script and turned into a 5 minute Youtube documentary for this blog?

• It seems like there are a lot of images in there, I could throw a script together somewhat easily.
• I've never composed anything that could be uploaded to Youtube, so using the software to take this from a short script to a 5 minute video could be more work than I think it is.
• This might be an overly militaristic message that we may not want to be promoting (though I think it's dramatic power should be considered.)

Google App Engine

Google App Engine

This is the greatest leap forward in history. If aliens study our world they will take notice of this innovation. Write in Python, utilize the Google Cloud Computing Infrastructure. Paradigm shift, done.

• http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/gettingstarted/helloworld.html

• Google's google-app-engine-samples

• /usr/local/google_appengine/new_project_template/
  • index.yaml
  • app.yaml
  • main.py

Posse: Portland Open Source Software Entrepreneurs

POSSE is dedicated to helping businesses in the Portland area and beyond reduce costs, mitigate risk, and make software choice easy by utilizing open source software.

POSSE members meet once a month to network with other open source software entrepreneurs, engineers and enthusiasts.

http://www.possepdx.org/

NPO and Total Market Dominance

As we were organizing this blog, someone asked me about "forming a non-profit", and I responded with my usual "that's an excellent way to take money away from the government tax base and use that money in a way that is not accountable to voters... it's an excellent idea for dedicated fascists." I have also been known to rail against Apple for not destroying the Windows market with a cheap MacMini or hand held device. These two ideas combined with fifth generation warfare concepts and the recent discussion of "how IS money made from FOSS anyhow?" have me rethinking my position on Non-profit Organizations (NPOs.)

First, an NPO is not required to survive off of tax-deductible donations. (NPO's aren't even required to accept any such donations.) The "for-profit distinction" section on Wikipedia sums it up nicely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-profit_organization#For-profit_distinction An NPO can hold massive assets, pay exuberant salaries, and make hefty profit margins on products and services. (What they can't do is redistribute those profits to "owners," they instead have to use profits to further the causes that the NPO is supposedly serving... which can include things like marketing and salaries.)

Second, why didn't Apple storm the gates of Microsoft and leave Redmond a pillaged pile of smoldering ashes? Because as a for-profit corporation, they probably determined they could make a higher over all profit margin by not lowering their prices... and they are legally obligated to make as much money as possible and increase their value for their stock holders (owners.) In this way, a for profit Corporation has more limitations than an NPO - an attempt at "total market dominance" is only justified by a for-profit corporation if it makes more money than less-than-total market dominance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_dominance For an NPO on the other hand, the most important metric is "number of persons served." NPO's are inherently focused on market dominance instead of over all profit margin.

Third, reading Scott Ritter's "Waging Peace" has me thinking in OODA loops now. Regardless of weather he realizes it or not, Ritter ends up recommending a very orthodox NPO strategy with very orthodox NPO strategic planning. This is because the progressives' "tyranny of the structurelessness" ( http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/structurelessness.html ) is being out maneuvered by standard corporate/military organizational strategy inherently embraced by conservatives. It almost goes without saying that the corporate powerhouses in the software industry are similarly outmaneuvering the small grassroots software development movement. The exceptions to this is where the grass-roots software development movements are better organized:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_Foundation
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakai_Project#Sakai_Community_and_Foundation

My focus is on digital divide (and personal development through (usually electronic) simulation.) In order to achieve progress in digital divide, market dominance and market expansion is much more important than over all profits, though progress is seriously limited without paychecks. In order to have the agility of a corporation (pay checks & faster OODA loops) and the focus on market dominance (maximum number of customers), it seems that an NPO would be an appropriate structure after all.

Enablers versus Disablers

In other posts on this blog free open source software(FOSS) and software-as-a-service(Saas) are being talked about in positive terms as paradigms on the rise. I want to take a step to the more general to talk about the same technological landscape, but in more economic and social terms.

In sales, we can think of two very opposite types of selling. One is a disabler, where a "pain" is created, and the salesman then gets the mission to solve the pain. Synonyms for "pain" are "lacking", "problem", "social ill", "vexation", "need" and many more. The second sales type is the enabler. Interestingly, the enabler sales strategy delivers solutions to a "problem space" also. The distinction between sales types is the way the selling playing board is set up. The disabler subtracts from the buyers options first, then offers the solution in an environment of impoverishment. The enabler simply adds value to the buyer's already rich environment.

The rise of FOSS, Saas, and Cloud Computing are within an enabler paradigm. Business models that ride this wave, or push the wave higher, need to be that type of sales person. Obviously, this type is easily stereotyped as teacher or even altruist. Fine, let's accept that the type is, in street jargon, less mafioso than the disabler.

In the last few years I finally started seeing Bill Gates point. People need income. All free stuff within some domain means no one was making money. Bill Gates and Richard Stallman are the gods of the opposite salestypes, and Gates is saying with a world of Stallman's giving away software there is less of an industry, which translates into less people with money in their pockets buying houses and DVD players. Way to go Bill, I totally see your point.

But along comes Google, and suddenly it is no longer saintly and simple Stallman versus dispensing-large-paychecks-Gates. Strangely, Google enables with free services, and the only price the user has to pay is smart-advertising. This is not the old altruism anymore, and it is not the disabler either.

But a trajectory is set up in the FOSS computer with all its most groovy functionality relying on Google services, towards almost no money in the business.

The enablers will need to be more truly enabling. If the need is water, with sub $300 laptops and the FOSS infinity suite of powerful software, buyers live in the middle of a large lake. If you're going to sell in that environment, it better be a darn nice bucket for scooping water. Or a job in security, which is just working at the desalination plant.

Gartner: Cloud Computing to Eclipse Open Source

The State of Open Source, 2008 published by Gartner, Inc. notes that Open Source software is quietly taking over in "stealth applications" such as embedded devices which aren't as obvious as running Linux on a server or laptop. Gartner goes on to predict that Open Source software will dominate Cloud Computing infrastructure by 2011, and Software as a Service (SaaS) will eclipse Open Source as a way for businesses to cut IT costs by 2012. Reading between the lines, Mark Taylor from the Open Source Consortium points out that SaaS will actually be Cloud Computing apps based on Open Source software.

A Focused Business Idea Selling the Cloudbook Paradigm

A business idea, very much like the PC shops that build custom boxes, maintenance, sold peripherals, software, provide network consultation to homes and small business, but with a focus on the Cloudbook paradigm.

Units would be one or all of these cheap "Cloudbook" Linux SSD laptops. The business would do research and install lots of useful FOSS on units tailored to various buyer profiles:

• The (Security Super-Hardened) Basic Web Browser Box -Maybe booted from custom Knoppix CD

• Digital Audio Workstation

• Multimedia Station

• Programmers box ( child version and college version )

• Duplicated Units for Small Business, emphasis on Google apps, and install custom graphics related to that Small Business ( or Non-profit).

A new market for consumer electronics

The Asus Eee PC 900, sporting an 8.9" screen and a price tag closer to a low-budget laptop than the smaller Eee PCs or CloudBooks, has sparked a discussion here at Cloud Computing Advocacy that echos Mary Lou Jepsen's take on CES this year: (emphasis added)

99% of the stuff is unneccessary, expensive stuff basically derivative of Apple. Yes, this is a simplication but in very gross terms - Steve Jobs leads and everyone else follows. However, Apple really just serves a niche market - the rich. There are literally billions of people that want to join the information age. OLPC has shown that we can make products that are just as exciting at the low-end, not stripped down machines but products that people are proud to use and proud to own. They don't have to be expensive. This area isn't being well-served by the current consumer electronics industry and where Pixel Qi will aim. But immediately there is need to get the OLPC screens that Mary Lou invented into conventional laptops as soon as possible.

Apple, the standard for consumer electronics, produces non-essential gadgets for a small market of rich customers. Other products, including windows PCs and laptops, Linux computers and iPod-like devices are generic imitations. A much larger market is now excited about fully functional but more economical computers. The closest thing to that machine is the conventional laptop, but alternatives include:

• Public use computers (at internet cafes, libraries, and so on) combined with cloud computing allow many people to own a piece of the internet without owning computing hardware. Properly done this can be more economical and nearly as convenient and exciting as owning a personal computer.
• Recycled computers bridge the internal digital divides in areas that have decent electrical power and affordable wired internet access. This small subset is still bigger than the Apple niche. PC recyclers are learning to use better aesthetics and branding than the traditional cheap looking "used computer."
• Smart phones/handsets are spreading quickly in developing countries. They are lightweight, efficient and economical. Phones are sometimes better equipped for interaction between the world and the web than cheaper laptops, thanks to rapid deployment of small innovations like built-in cameras.

The total cost to benefit ratio of owning a laptop has been much better than a PC for several years. Now the up-front price of a new low-end laptop is about the same as a low-end desktop PC with keyboard and monitor. So laptops are heading toward that more economical, more universal market.

In that sense the Eee PC and CloudBook are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

The laptop is on it's way to becoming something like a smart phone, but at the price of a "dumb" phone. To turn a handset into a general-purpose computer which is used to create and manage content and services (rather than only consuming them) improvements and alternatives are needed for text input, large image display, battery charging and service contracts (which can undermine the sense of ownership and excitement.)

Everex CloudBook with gOS released

The $399 Everex CloudBook ultra mobile PC is supposedly in stock at WalMart.com, but Linux hardware builders ZaReason say they won't have any until the 29th. Cloud computing is central to the design and marketing of the CloudBook. As Everex puts it:

9 Inches, 2 pounds, 5 hours of battery life. Surf, email, blog, IM, Skype, compute. Cloud computing makes it simple and easy for everyone.

The CloudBook hardware is based on VIA's Nanobook design which is also used for Packard Bell's EasyNote XS (which runs Windows XP.) So the CloudBook has some relatively beefy features for an ultra mobile PC, such as a 30 GB hard drive and DVI out, but local storage and big screens are not high priorities in cloud computing so these features are buried in the technical specs.

Instead the gOS operating system gets top billing - an Ubuntu distro which Everex also uses for their very low budget desktop PCs. Cloud computing is at the heart of gOS, which features Google search right on the desktop. gOS's Mac-like user interface is a testament both to Apple's contributions to cloud computing and to the experience-oriented computing giant's missed opportunities.

I'm a proud XO adopter and love to show off my UMPC's amazing physical transformations, but I envy the ergonomic innovations of the CloudBook/Nanobook/EasyNote XS form factor. The simpler clamshell design has a wide gap between the screen and the keyboard so you can hold the CloudBook in one hand and punch keys with the other while standing up. The touchpad and mouse buttons are on the left and right sides where they can be thumb-controlled GameBoy-style, again allowing you to operate the laptop while supporting it's weight with your hands.

In my experience these are the ways you instinctively want to hold a laptop when it is not resting on a table: with one hand directly under the center of gravity or with both hands on opposite sides. I have experienced significant discomfort trying to find ways to use my 15" laptop while sprawled on a couch or the smaller XO while standing at a bus stop. I even found myself automatically trying to grip the larger laptop like a CloudBook, feeling for a finger grip behind the hinge.

Watch the ergonomics of this design in action.

What IS cloud computing?

We are on the verge of the biggest technological paradigm shift since the world wide web. Instead of all the individual people having their own computers, we all share one big computer network. This is comparable to "what if everyone converting from using independent automobiles to using public transportation." The Ausus eeePC/Xandros, FreeGeek/Ubuntu, Everex/gOS, iPhone-iPod/OSX, OLPC/Red Hat, public library computer access and coffee-shop free Internet access are but a sign of things to come. On the horizon is the 50 Euro laptop and the gPhones (Android-linux devices that will take forms "beyond current imagination.") That "shared consciousness for all of humanity" hippies have been dreaming about for the last five decades? Well good news for these technophobes: we are on the verge of a universal shared consciousness through portable linux-based communication devices and a robust digital communication infrastructure. (That infrastructure being based on mega-web-servers made from thousands of computers integrated in single one-building facilities, like what is used by Yahoo and Google.) And remember, Microsoft has fought this every step of the way (which has me wondering: who's paying the bills over at the cloud-computing critic's club?): http://badvista.fsf.org/freesoftwarefreesociety/free-software-free-society/

Mottos by Lance

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Cloud computing. You can get a less powerful computer paradigm, but it will cost thousands more per year.

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The poor do not want cheap home computers. 

The poor need free interactive 
                                     text, 
                                     voice, 
                                     music, 
                                   and video networking,
blog and vlog pages to brand themselves,   
advertising that promotes things in their conversation, 

and all done on their free internet device.

As do the rich. 

Cloud computing is a new and truer equality.

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Go ahead, save that file locally. Confirm its unimportance.

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Operating systems and executables are for getting on the network.

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My planet is no longer solely bio and geological, it is a cyborg. It is also my computer.

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