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April 01, 2008 | Comments: (0)

In the grand tradition of April Fool's stunts at Sun, the MySQL team decided to drape the Sun Menlo Park campus with inflatable pink and blue MySQL Dolphins!

Marketing communications guru Steve Curry came up with the idea and we assembled a crackerjack team of local MySQLers to inflate 500+ dolphins late into the evening, with one dolphin for every member of Sun's Database Technology Group. Then we put on our all-black ninja wear (complete with Groucho disguise glasses) and we split up into teams to strategically place dolphins all around the Menlo Park campus well into the early hours of the morning. We also sent a crew to put more dolphins out at the Santa Clara campus. Think of it as a Christo performance art project executed on an open source budget and you'll get an idea of what we were trying to achieve. We put a heavy concentration of Dolphins around Building 10 in Menlo Park and through to the Cafeteria and the Executive Briefing Center.

I've posted some photos at PicasaWeb and some video at YouTube.

Note: No actual dolphins were harmed in this April Fool's day stunt. Some alcohol may have been consumed along the way, but it's all become a little fuzzy now... Thanks to all those who stayed up so late to make this happen.

Update: Thanks to many folks who sent me photos today from Menlo Park and Santa Clara, which I've updated on PicasaWeb. I guess our partaking in a Sun tradition like this means we are getting more and more integrated into the company. And we're still operating in our own MySQL style. Cool.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on April 1, 2008 06:05 AM

March 26, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Can the transportation market teach us anything about the software market?

The answer may be no. But hey, this is a blog, so why let reality get in the way of a post?I don't have a history degree, so please correct me if I'm wrong. But, I can only imagine that pundits foretold of an unpleasant death for railroad companies when the automobile started looking like a promising alternative. Later, pundits likely saw the dawn of the airline travel as a worrisome development for automobile makers. I'm sure all these pundits would be surprised to learn that the largest railroad companies in North America are worth nearly 3x more than automakers and over 4x more than airlines.

North American Transportation Companies & Market Capitalizations (from Yahoo! Finance)

Railroads	Mkt Cap $B	Airlines	Mkt Cap $B	Automakers	Mkt Cap $B
BNI	32.47	LUV	8.96	Ford	17.75
CNI	23.36	NWA	2.46	GM	11.54
CSX	22.61	AMR	2.40
CP	10.07	CAL	2.1
		JBLU	1.34
Total	$88.51B	Total	$17.26B	Total	$29.29B

Yes, railroad companies now make the majority of their revenue from transporting goods vs. transporting people as they did in "the good old days". That just means companies can evolve when market forces demand change.

What's more, I'm sure someone is doing a PhD thesis showing that the addition of competition from an alternative mode of transportation helped to grow the overall transportation market.

In any case, don't underestimate the resiliency of established market leaders. This is especially true when they've been given decades to study and respond to a disruptive trend as is the case with open source software.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on March 26, 2008 01:10 PM

March 11, 2008 | Comments: (0)

The No-Brainer $100 Treo Upgrade

After deliberating all the different smartphone choices in recent weeks, I finally came to a decision. Or in some sense, the decision came to me through the convergence of two events: The antennna on my long-suffering Treo 650 broke off and AT&T shipped a GSM version of the Treo Centro.

If you're looking for the latest dope smartphone (is that an oxymoron?) with state of the art UI, Wi-Fi capabilities, high-speed browsing or Windows Mobile then skip out and don't bother with the Centro. But if you're a long-time Treo user, then let me tell you why this is a no-brainer upgrade.

I'm a long-time user of the Palm OS, going back to the original Palm Pilot. I'm not only a loyal user, I'm probably too loyal. But my guess is that there are a lot of other long-time users of the Palm Treo who could benefit from the Centro. Here's what you get:

-Weighs only 4.2 oz (50% lighter than the 650)
-Smaller than an iPhone
-No bulky external antenna
-Decent keyboard for email, messaging
-Standard palm apps for calendar, contacts, etc
-Miserable crappy slow browser
-Same old Palm OS but more stable (not a single crash in 2 weeks)
-Better voice quality than the Treo 650
-Slightly better camera
-Slightly faster email using AT&T's Edge non-3G network

If you're on Sprint or AT&T it's a $100 upgrade to get a phone that is smaller, better, more reliable and faster. And if you're upgrading from an existing Palm device, it's relatively painless: Backup, resync and get back to work.

The only drawbacks I've found are:
-The Centro uses a Micro-SD card, not the older, large SD
-Battery life is shorter, so spring for a spare
-My wife called it a "chick phone"

I can live with that.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on March 11, 2008 09:06 PM

March 07, 2008 | Comments: (0)

SXSW Interactive

I'll be in Austin Sunday and Monday as part of SXSW Interactive conference. If you're not familiar with SXSW (South by Southwest) it's a combination technology and music conference. Or technically I guess it's two different conferences held one after the other in Austin Texas. I've never been and I'm looking forward to it. Where else could you find a program that has keynotes by Lou Reed and Mark Zuckerberg. There's also more than 1500 bands playing in Austin next week ranging from Carbon / Silicon (who dey?) to REM, Daniel Lanois, Vampire Weekend, The Black Angels, the Stooges and 1490 some others.

Sun is sponsoring some of the events there and we'll have a MySQL / Sun World Tour party Sunday March 9 at La Zona Rosa at 9pm with live music from The Smithereens and Seven Mary Three. If you'd like to join us, bring your SXSW badge or rsvp by sending email to austinevent@mysql.com to get adding to the guest list. (Ok, this may sell out after the first 100 people; you have been warned.)

We will be doing a series of other community meetings around the world culminating in the MySQL Conference & Expo Apri 14-17 in Santa Clara. I think that will be selling out pretty soon also.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on March 7, 2008 03:54 PM

March 03, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Jon Udell's New RSaaS

Avid runner and all 'round insightful dude Jon Udell wrote about a new idea around what I'll call RSaaS --Running Shoes as a Service.

"If you’re a runner, spending $100 every six (or even three) months is infinitely preferable to injury. You’d think that shoe sellers would make it easy to do that, but they don’t. I’d happily authorize regular replacements, but nobody’s ever offered me that option."

"Partly I guess this is a failure of service-oriented thinking. My local seller thinks service means taking good care of me when I walk in, and he does. But I think service should also mean helping me manage a lifelong shoe-replacement regimen, and that notion seems not to have sunk in."

It's an interesting perspective. If you're in a business of selling products how do you extend your notion of service beyond the point of sale? And how can we use technology to make the service compelling? Clearly this has already happened to music with subscription services like Rhapsody and to videos with Netflix. Where else is it applicable?

Maybe I'll see if I can get in another run with Jon at OSCON this year and we'll brainstorm some more ideas on this topic.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on March 3, 2008 07:44 AM

February 15, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Kill all the lawyers (and start with Lerach)

I've long admired Shakespeare's simple solution to litigation: "The first thing, let's kill all the Lawyers," proclaimed in Henry VI Part II - Revenge of the Nerds. In Silicon Valley the sentiment against lawyers took a fever pitch when Bill Lerach started filing class-action lawsuits against leading tech companies. But as it turns out, Lerach himself was involved in a kickback scandal and has been sentenced to 2 years in prison, a forfeit of $7.75 million in profits and a fine of $250,000.

It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on February 15, 2008 08:34 AM

February 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Pacific rubbish dump twice the size of America

This is frightening story from London's Daily Mail....

A rubbish dump twice the size of the United States has been discovered floating in the Pacific Ocean.
The vast expanse of debris, made up of plastic junk including footballs, kayaks, Lego blocks and carrier bags, is kept together by swirling underwater currents.

It stretches from 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

And here's another link on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

How did we get into this mess? More importantly how do we fix it?

Posted by Zack Urlocker on February 8, 2008 07:38 AM

February 05, 2008 | Comments: (0)

United charges for second bag

In what is clearly a sign of a business that doesn't understand its customers, United Airlines has decided to start charging domestic customers $25 for checking a second bag. This is in addition to the fact that you have to pay for meals, curbside check-in, making changes to reservations and redeeming frequent flyer awards. If United could figure out how to charge for using the restroom on flights I'm sure they'd do that too.

I'm a Premier Exec on United so while I won't be charged for checking a second bag (which honestly, I think it's pretty rare that I check one bag, let alone two) I'm sure we'll see more people trying to cram more carry on luggage into the already crowded overhead compartments.

I think United deserves some sort of award here for coming up with a program that is sure to anger their best customers. And guess what, your share price fell 5% today. Good job, guys!

Posted by Zack Urlocker on February 5, 2008 07:30 AM

January 28, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Spirit of the marathon

This post is mostly off topic, but I do no know there are quite a few runners in the open source world. We have a modest-sized running club at MySQL with many marathoners, and there's also guys like Marc Fleury, Matt Asay who have also run marathons. (The SugarCRM guys seem to be avid cyclists, and once in a while I ride with them in the hills around Cupertino, but for me it's not the same thrill as running a marathon. Call me weird.)

At any rate, I went to see the movie "Spirit of the Marathon" the other night. It's an award-winning documentary that follows half a dozen marathoners in their quest to accomplish the Chicago Marathon. For any runner, or anyone who hangs out with runners, it's a jewel of a film. It perfectly captures the obsessive nature of battling the Marathon Monster. Whether it's the pre-sunrise runs, the solo 20-milers or the sea of strewn paper cups on the course, it's all there. (Ok, in good taste they did not focus on port-a-potties, a wise choice in my view.)

The interesting thing is that no matter how accomplished a runner you are, the marathon remains a significant challenge. Even when the elite runners line up, it is not a given that they will finish the race. They go through the same suffering and pain the rest of us do. It takes training, faith and guts to finish a marathon. It's a good metaphor for just about anything in life.

The moving is playing an encore performance in 250 select theaters on February 21.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 28, 2008 07:23 AM

January 15, 2008 | Comments: (0)

What happens if Detroit becomes more like Silicon Valley?

Software has become a bigger part of just about every major industry, whether it's media, publishing, distribution and even the staid old auto industry. While I think that's generally a good thing, it does mean that some of the foibles of software development are bleeding into other areas.

While I'm a big fan of innovations that get us more fuel efficient cars, I can't help but wonder what happens when new projects apply the sometimes naive methods of project management to a product that will ultimately be cruising down highway 280 at 85 miles per hour. (Or at least 15 miles per hour on highway 101 during rush hour.) Will my Microsoft Windows powered car suddenly put up a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death)?

And consider what's been going on at Tesla Motors recently. Their 100% electric Tesla roadster sportscar now appears to be about a year late and they've sacked the CEO and several top execs. While the Tesla roadster is built on a modified Lotus Elise chassis, it's basically an all-new everything else, from the use of 6,800 laptop batteries to a new high-tech transmission, the latest source of delays. So it's like building a new application on a new operating system with a new language and a new app server using developers who've never built something like this before.

It will be a stunning car when it finally ships, going 0-60 in 4 seconds and an equivalent cost of 135 miles per gallon (e.g. less than 2 cents per mile.) That assumes you don't mind ponying up $100K to be a beta tester, er customer. Personally, I think I'll pass and wait until version 2.0.

Still it's interesting to see the industry get more competitive in the area of fuel efficiency by using more advanced technology. The Toyota Prius has already become one of the best selling new cars in recent years having sold more than a million cars so far. Chevy has come up with their Volt concept car. And newcomer Fisker Automotive has a luxury hybrid in the works.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 15, 2008 07:19 AM

December 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)

United Million Miles: Reward or Punishment

United Airlines, my carrier of choice, sent me an email this week indicating that they are now going to offer a special reward for flyers who achieve a million miles lifetime flying on United. Having flown over 900,000 miles with United so far, I am close to achieving this milestone in the next year. But if the rewards encourage more air travel, I'm not sure it's such a good thing. The last thing any frequent flyer wants is more air travel!

Posted by Zack Urlocker on December 14, 2007 07:17 AM

December 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Hands-On with Kindle

As a follow-up to my earlier blog, I happened to get 15 minutes hands-on use of the Amazon Kindle, their new portable eBook reader. As it happens, Amazon's Lab 126 development team is located in the same building as MySQL's US headquarters, and so when I happened to spot a team of folks with a Kindle in hand at a local restaurant for lunch, I dove in and asked if I could try it out.

First point to note: the display is fantastic. To me, it's as easy to read as a book. While you can argue that the text is dark grey rather than black, it has excellent contrast. The underlying e-Ink technology has improved since its first introduction in the Sony Reader, but there is still a split-second flash of black when you turn the page which detracts from the smoothness and shatters the illusion of it being a real book. (Imagine if your ipod hiccuped every minute while playing music.)

Also, the device is not nearly so ugly in person as it might appear in photos. In fact I'd say it looks kind of cool, especially given the quality of the display. The Kindle may not be as elegant as an iPhone, but you're not going to feel like you're lugging a 1980's Kaypro around. The cover is a bit cumbersome and to me adds some unnecessary bulk, but that may just be a matter of personal taste. Overall, the Kindle is lightweight and easy to hold and operate in one hand. Performance appears to be quite good and downloading sample chapters or entire books is a snap. The user interface is not quite as elegant as an iPhone, but in about 5 minutes you know everything you need to know to use it.

My limited hands-on evaluation does not change the fact that at $400 the Kindle is still very expensive. If for that price it included some kind of Netflix-style book subscription, then I would probably go for it. But at $400 plus $10 a pop on books, the economics don't work for me. I don't have the need to carry more than 2-3 books at a time when I travel, and I'm willing to trade off convenience for price at this point. But if you're schlepping ten pounds of reference books around, then you may view it differently.

And as my lunch companion pointed out: if you've already got a cell phone, a Blackberry, an iPod and a laptop, then adding one more device seems like overkill. But if the Kindle could be a general purpose browser and email device, that would be a different story.

Maybe that's Kindle 2.0?

Posted by Zack Urlocker on December 5, 2007 01:17 PM

November 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Remembering Mansour Safai

Mansour Safai, who passed away just over a year ago, is probably best known among the Java community for leading the development of the first Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Symantec's Visual Café.

I had the pleasure of knowing and working with Mansour for a number of years. Initially, we competed in the IDE space when he led a number of C++ projects at Symantec and I was at Borland working on Delphi. I had gotten to known Mansour during this time and was always impressed with his enthusiasm, technical depth and most importantly, his values. Mansour was a straight shooter. "Cards on the table," he would tell me, and I knew he was being completely honest and candid.

Mansour was one of the first to see the potential of Java and consequently Symantec was first to market with their Java IDE. He used it as a game-changing move to pull ahead of Borland, Microsoft and others. He leveraged all of the lessons he learned in building the Multiscope Debugger and other developer tools and shipped a Java IDE while the rest of us were still figuring it out. Mansour made Java accessible to millions of programmers around the world.

A few years later, after Symantec had spun out their tools division, Mansour contacted me. He had started a new company, called M7, along with some of the key developers from Visual Café. I found his enthusiasm and vision contagious, and so I joined. (The company was so small that we joked that we would now have to change the name of the company to M8, reflecting the number of employees.)

No matter what ups and downs there were (and there were plenty) Mansour always carried the vision of the company, which was to make developers lives easier. Mansour was relentless in continuing to lead the team. Not relentless in the sense of being a dictator or mean-spirited. I mean he was relentless in terms of giving the team his all and doing whatever it took.

Mansour cared deeply about the team he had built at M7 and he saw it through to a successful acquisition by BEA. He did this even while he was battling for his life.

Next week commemorates Mansour's birthday and his brother and sister Mammad and Massy Safai have started a memorial fellowship fund at Stanford University. You can find out more about this fund at www.mansour-safai-fund.org.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on November 30, 2007 10:30 AM

November 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Amazon Kindle: Kool or Krap?

Amazon today announced their eBook reader, known as the Kindle. It's a paperback book sized device that can store a couple of hundred books and download NY Times bestsellers for $10 a shot over the wireless EVDO network. You can also subscribe to magazines and newspapers. Since it's got wireless built in, and a thumb keyboard, you don't need to sync with a PC to get more content. It has a nice black on white display that works well in daylight, using the same E-Ink technology as found on Sony's competing Reader Digital Book which costs $100 less.

For those who travel a lot, I could see this being quite a useful device, since you don't have to bring two weeks worth of books on a trip.

However, there are some drawbacks. First of all, it's a proprietary device, which is ironic since under the hood it's running Linux. It's not clear whether you can add books from project Gutenberg. (You can email PDFs, Word documents or JPG's and then amazon converts them to its proprietary format.) And even though it's got wireless and you can get Wikipedia, it's not a great general purpose browser. There's no RSS reader. Also, you have to pay to subscribe to blogs. Though it's not much ($1-2 per month), it could easily add up.

And you won't be able to get any arbitrary blog, just those that Amazon choses to sell. (Would Infoworld rate? Maybe. GuitarVibe? Doubtful.)

But the big kicker: It costs $399. That's a lot of dosh for a gadget. Who knows though? Maybe this will be on the gift list for IT staff this holiday season. Or do we wait until version 2.0? If anyone has used one, give us the details...

Update:

Meanwhile, the blogosphere seems divided on this one. Guy Kawasaki likes it. (And why not, they're making his site Truemors available via Kindle.) On the other hand Seth Godin thinks they missed the boat by not including his books and blogs for free.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on November 19, 2007 12:14 PM

November 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Guy Kawasaki's Fake Steve Jobs Interview

Guy Kawasaki, prolific author, blogger, Garage Technology Ventures investor and the man behind Truemors, has posted videos of his interview with Fake Steve Jobs, Dan Lyons at a recent LinkedIn Q&A event. It's one of the funniest interviews I've seen as Dan talks about the origins of the blog, getting outted by the New York Times and more. But what I really want to know --who was behind the now retired Fake Larry Ellison blog?

Posted by Zack Urlocker on November 16, 2007 06:57 AM

November 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Rockin' the Open Source Way

Last week, Hyperic hosted a gaming party at their offices, with plenty of open source people there from MySQL, MuleSource, JasperSoft and others. Ross Mason, co-founder of MuleSource, flew in all the way from Malta, just to play some Wii Tennis. (Ok, maybe he did have some other meetings in town, but I'm sure this was the highlight.)

While I was quickly eliminated in the Wii Tennis matches, I had a good time playing the latest version of Guitar Hero III. Not as good as Javier, who obviously is not busy enough given his 200 note streaks, but still respectable enough to not get booted off stage. There was an impressive amount of musical talent on display. I think we will need to graduate to RockBand when that comes out. Dave Rosenberg on drums, Barry Klawans on bass (and theramin) and Javier and me on guitar. Who knows, maybe we can be as good as Deadguy was in its heyday.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on November 9, 2007 09:26 AM

November 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Google Set to Announce Mobile Phone SW & Open Handset Alliance

Tom Krazit at News.com is reporting that Google will formally announce a mobile platform dubbed "Android".

Tom writes:

"A software development kit for what's being called "a complete mobile-phone software stack" is believed to be in the works and will be released relatively soon thereafter, the sources said. It's not exactly clear what kind of software will come as part of that stack, but it's said to include everything you need to run a phone."

Google is also expected to announce the formation of the Open Handset Alliance, which includes vendors such as Qualcomm, Intel, Motorola, Intel, Spring NTT DoCoMo, and others.

It's great to see Google herding cats towards a vision of "open handsets". The apparent lack of Nokia and RIM in the Open Handset Alliance is troubling. It's difficult to see any mobile phone alliance succeeding without involvement from Nokia (#1 overall) and RIM (leader in smart phone market & expanding into consumer space). But I guess you shouldn't bet against Google...especially when Google sees future revenue coming increasingly form mobile scenarios.

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on November 2, 2007 11:04 PM

November 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Everyone's Out to Get Dave

First Sanjiva challenged Dave's views (repeated by yours truly) that OSS vendors should focus on competing against the enterprise gorilla in the market vs. competing with each other.

Next, BEA decided to make his prior post on "whether BEA is screwed" redundant by trying to paint itself as a Web 2.0 firm.

BTW Dave, the press release is from Oct 8th...dude, that's over a month ago, and it's just a press release. Who reads those anyway?! ;-)

Anywho, all the best with your new blog at CNet. We'll be reading with interest! It's been fun working with you here at IW and look forward to bad mouthing you now that you're gone.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on November 2, 2007 02:40 PM

October 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Fake Larry Ellison Retires?

Looks like Fake Larry Ellison has decided to retire his blog. This is unfortunate as it was quite topical and funny. Never did figure out who was behind this, but we had some guesses...

Who do you think was behind this one?

Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 29, 2007 10:12 AM

October 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Off-Topic: IBM IMS, 40 yrs Strong

I ran into this piece of PR from IBM today.

"Initially developed to power the Apollo space program, IMS is recognized as the industry's first modern database and transaction management software. Over the past three decades, the reliability, security and performance of IMS has led it to become the backbone for much of the world's corporate data. In fact, almost ninety five percent of Fortune 1000 companies use IMS for their most critical IBM System z data management needs with more than 50 billion transactions running through IMS databases on a daily basis."

I only highlight it because IMS (database & transaction processing system) is nearly 40 years old and customers still see value in it. IMS has added new features and capabilities to remain relevant to customers, but 40 years is a long time for any piece of information technology. There are alternatives to IMS that have emerged, but few (if any?) provide the performance and reliability of IMS for a certain class of applications.

Just another reason why a one size fits all approach in the IT world doesn't make much sense.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 10, 2007 10:59 AM

October 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)

The Automatic Blog Pundit

In case you haven't guessed, I'm off line and wrote this week's blog entries in advance. To help round out the week, you get to create your own custom blog posting just by filling in the blanks below. How hard can it be? I think Matt Asay actually has a program that cranks out these kind of posts automatically.
--Zack

Ok, I must admit, I was surprised when I read this morning that (Microsoft / Sun / Novell / Red Hat / Oracle / Apple) announced they were (sueing / acquiring / partnering with / suing and partnering) their longtime (partner / rival / customer / ex-girlfriend) (insert name here) for (patent infringement / OSI compliance / a billion dollars / dinner and a movie). It seems that (the OOXML spec / GPL 3 / the Linux kernel / AJAX / iPod Touch) is (too hard to pronounce / too hard to use / written in Finnish / too little too late / too much too soon). I say lets take all the (licenses / Linux code / lawyers / guns / money) and shove it (into a MySQL database / where the sun don't shine / down the drain / out to the community and call it a Beta version).

I had the same feeling of (deja vu / excitement / nausea / deja vu) when I (upgraded IE7 / downloaded napster / bought the iPhone / pulled into Nazareth / played Guitar Hero with my nephew.) Sure it (works / rocks / sucks) but at least it's (compatible with / incompatible with / better than) (a poke in the eye / Windows / No Doz / plain clothes) and anyways, you don't need a (weather man / clean nose / fire hose) to know which way the wind blows. Or do you, Mr. (Jones / Jagger / Jobs / Dewey, Screwem & Howe)?

Maybe this is a (good thing / bad thing / summertime fling) and (I've got it wrong / written a song / stayed too long / banged a gong). I've always thought that (building an open source business / writing a blog / the answer, my friend) is (like running a marathon / like cycling from Pittsburgh to DC in the rain / way too much work / blowing in the wind). In the end, everyone (wins / finishes / crashes / drinks too much).

But maybe (Matt Asay / Stephen O'Grady / Linus Torvalds / my brother Mike / Dave Beckham) had it right when he said (US soccer / open source / Linux / Red Hat) is like (a match between 9 year old girls team and Arsenal / taking a page out of Microsoft's history / falling off a log / disruptive, man.)

What do you think? Maybe I'm (all wet / completely out of ideas / not really listening). Let me know your thoughts. You can (post comments below / get your own darn blog / say what you like, I'm on vacation.)

Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 5, 2007 05:42 AM

October 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Product Management

When I joined MySQL four years ago, there was quite a lot of debate about product management. We didn't actually have any product managers and the view in Engineering was "we don't need 'em." The rationale was that we were so far behind in implementing features requested by customers that there was no need to have another opinion. "We already know exactly what we need to do" or "The Community tells us what we should focus on" were typical responses.

It took me a while to convince people that product management could add value in helping to prioritize things and make sense out of sometimes conflicting views from customers, users and partners. But every time I would bring up the discussion it ended up as a theoretical debate over who would decide what.

So I decided on a different approach. I just put up the resumes of two of the folks we were considering hiring and showed them their backgrounds. They had tons of hands on experience with multiple databases, had worked for more than 10 years as DBAs, had written technical articles and books about database technology and had become advocates for MySQL within their companies. Then I asked the question: could guys like this help us?

By focusing on the skills of the candidates rather than the grey areas of the role, it became a much more productive discussion. Everyone saw that they brought a real world perspective that would be valuable. And we were successful in recruiting the candidates. A few months later, the question became "Where do we get more guys like this."

Product management is not an easy function to perform or define. I did the job for 10 years and still have trouble explaining exactly what it does. Mostly its about making sure you build a product that people will care about and solves real problems customers have.

One of the things that makes the job challenging is it suffers from the imbalance of responsibility (lots of it) and authority (none of it). A PM needs to be a strong customer advocate and also a diplomat to work with Engineering. Having good product management on board has helped us immensely to make sure we are focused on solving the right problems. Its not a panacea; at the end of the day, Engineering has to deliver on making sure the product does what it's supposed to do and has the performance and ease of use to make it successful. But hopefully guidance from Product Management makes the Engineering job more focused.

Product management is an important investment for open source companies that want to get better at meeting customer needs. You can find out more about product management at the web site www.PragmaticMarketing.com. There's a particularly good article called "Who Needs Product Management?" There's also a humorous blog called www.TheCrankyPM.com. And also some good war stories by David Pogue of the New York times from years gone by.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 3, 2007 12:59 PM

October 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Off-topic: The quest for Perfect Pizza

The SF Chronicle is in search of the perfect pizza and interviewed one of buddies, Anthony Mangieri, owner of Una Pizza Napoletana in NYC, whose pizza would be my choice for last meal prior to Electric Chair (though I am hoping that's not my way out of this life.)

"It hurts me, because they act as if I'm trying to get something over on them. I wish I had the nerve to charge $50, because that's what it's worth."

The pizza is so delicious it will bring a tear to your eye and you'll offer to pay whatever you have just to get another one.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 3, 2007 12:50 PM

October 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Off-Topic: Pick a number from 0-99

There are 50 people in a room. Each is asked to pick a number from 0 to 99. The winning number will be calculated by taking two-thirds of the average of the numbers picked by the 50 people. What number would you pick in order to win?

Scroll down.

Scroll down a little more.

Some common answers:

33: All things equal, in a random, normally distributed sample, the average would be 50. So, taking 2/3 of 50 = 33.
0: As above, but, since everyone "should" follow the above line of thinking, take 2/3 of 33. But wait, everyone should do this also, so take 2/3 of 2/3 of 33. Continue until you've multiplied by two-thirds all the way to nearly 0.

From a statistics standpoint, 33 is the "right" answer. But, this answer undervalues the level of thinking that others will apply to the problem.

From a game theory standpoint, 0 is the "right" answer. But, this answer presupposes that everyone "will think through the problem to the same degree as you".

To win, you really want to balance between the above two approaches. If you expect that most will pick 33, then taking 2/3 of 33 = 22 will be a "good" pick with a "good" chance of winning.

When this test was administered to 5 different classes with ~50 students in each class, the average number picked was 34.72, meaning that the winning number would be ~23.

I bring this up because the professor went on to explain that most companies make business decisions that resemble picking "33" in this scenario. Companies typically tend to ignore the thinking of others (competitors or customers) when making a business / technical decision.

I'm sure OSS vendors & enterprise software vendors are equally guilty of this.

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 2, 2007 06:53 PM

October 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Off topic: My robot only speaks French

I decided today that I would buy the Roomba so as to not have to look at the dog hair all over our floor. I picked one up at the local Bed, Bath and Beyond was totally thrilled and then got home opened the sucker up and all of the documentation is in French.

Bizarrely, the iRobot website only has docs in English so something is really wacky over there. I hope to write a Mule connector that triggers the Roomba to start up.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 1, 2007 07:27 PM

September 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)

New Apple Tablet?

Interesting rumors surfaced this week at AppleInsider about a new Apple Tablet or PDA some are dubbing a return of the Newton. For those who missed it, the Newton was Apple's much maligned too-early entry into the handheld market and quickly eclipsed by the simpler and lighter Palm Pilot.

The newest device is allegedly larger than an iPhone, has a 720x480 display and runs an embedded version of the Mac OS/X Leopard operating system.

Who knows if this rumor will pan out, but there's been some ongoing murmurs in this area for over a year now. And while the iPod Touch is pretty cool, I would love if they came out with something just a bit larger. Ok, and please, please, please add a flipdown clamshell keyboard. Pretty please. Otherwise, I'm not sure why this device would go beyond the Nokia N800.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on September 28, 2007 06:33 AM

September 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Off-topic: $ CDN at par with USD

They said it couldn't be done. (They who? I don't know, the Rosenberg's and Russo's of the world! ;-)

For many years my American friends joked about Canadian money being worth slightly more or less than Monopoly money. Well, today the joke is on you. The mighty Loonie is at par with the Greenback. Mass hysteria is taking place...well over 4 people have been spotted outside in Winnipeg.

Either we're doing something right or we just look good compared to you ;-)

*Note: The last statement could be applied to some vendors in the OSS/Traditional software arena.

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on September 20, 2007 08:00 PM

September 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Off-topic: How to pack for travel

Stephen O'Grady and I have been talking for at least a year about the best travel gear (including laptop bags). Today I found OneBag.com which gives you all sorts of guidance and suggestions of gear you need. I also just signed up for the Clear Service to try and fly through security...look for me in the SFO lockup when the whole thing goes wrong.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on September 20, 2007 10:16 AM

September 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Off-topic: Ten Most Polluted Places in the World

National Geographic is running a pictorial. Just be glad that you don't live in any of these places.

Sumgayit, Azerbaijan; Linfen, China; Sukinda, India; Vapin, India; La Oroya, Peru; Dzerzhinsk, Russia; Noril'sk, Russia; Chernobyl, Ukraine; Kabwe, Russia;

It's always good to get a brutal dose of reality as we sit bitching and moaning about why Microsoft is evil.

If you're looking for a pick-me-up, this ain't it.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on September 19, 2007 12:27 PM

September 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Detailed Descriptions and Decision Making

I'm reading "The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making" by Scott Plous. It's a really interesting book.

Plous explains:

"As the amount of detail in a scenario increases, its probability can only decrease steadily, but its representativeness and hence its apparent likelihood to subjects may increase"

The more detailed the description is, the more likely we are able to imagine it. Imagining a situation helps increase the situation's perceived likelihood vs. a situation we find difficult to imagine.

Plous describes an experiment by Tversky & Kahneman in 1982:

"Linda is 31 year old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations. Please check off the most likely alternative:
A] Linda is a bank teller
B] Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement"

When this scenario was presented to 86 subjects, nearly 9 out of 10 selected "B". The study authors found similar results with "Bill", who was thought more likely to be an accountant and a jazz player than simply a jazz player.

Keep in mind that there is nothing in the description to indicate that Linda is a bank teller, but apparently enough to indicate that she is a bank teller *and* a feminist?!?

OSS vendors currently converting ~0.01% of their ~~user~~ downloads ~~base~~ into paying customers would love to increase their conversion rates. Some vendors do so with proprietary extensions or product versions, or by providing 'enterprise' binaries for paying customers.

Could more detailed descriptions of situations where paid support would be beneficial help raise the conversion rate?

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on September 9, 2007 05:44 PM

September 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Tech Investor Turns Guitar Hero

Roger McNamee may be more famous as a tech investor and author of "The New Normal" than as a guitar player, but that could be changing. For years he's had a jam-band called the Flying Other Brothers as a sideline to his investment work at Integral Capital, Silver Lake Partners and Elevation Partners. They played at various tech conferences and corporate events. Now that band has morphed into a new band called Moonalice, which is playing around the bay area this labor day weekend and touring across the US this fall. The band includes all-star players G.E. Smith (former bandleader from Saturday Night Live), Jack Casady, Barry Sless, Pete Sears, Jimmy Sanchez and Roger's wife Ann McNamee.

I had the pleasure of seeing Moonalice on Friday at Moe's Alley in Santa Cruz and they did a great job on some original songs as well as well-known and loved cover versions of songs from the Dead, Bob Dylan, Marshal Crenshaw and others. You can read more about Moonalice on my other blog www.guitarvibe.com.

They're playing on September 14th at the Hyde Street Pier as part of MSNBC's power lunch and on the 25th at Union Square. If you're in the area, check it out. Other upcoming gigs include Las Vegas, Denver, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Columbus, New Jersey, Annapolis.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on September 3, 2007 12:06 PM

August 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)

(Sort of) Open Source (Half) Marathon

Ok, this is definitely off topic, but...

There's a podcast I listen to regularly called Phedipidations. If that name rings a bell, maybe it's because you're a runner. If not, maybe you want to skip the rest of this posting.

At any rate, Steve Runner, a Network Analyst who produces Phedipidations weekly, along with a few of his 10 listeners ;-) are organizing the second annual Phedipidations Half Marathon Challenge. It's a race that takes place more-or-less around October 13-14 in whatever location you like. The cost? Zero. Nada. Zip. Just sign up. Run the race. And then post your results. If you want to raise funds for a charity you can do that, but there's no obligation.

If you're looking for an excuse to train for a half marathon, or even a 5k, this is a nice way to get motivated and meet friends online. There are over 500 people signed up from more than 30 countries worldwide. There are also training plans available on line, forums and plenty of friendly runners to encourage you.

October 14 is also the time of several other half and full marathons around the world, so if you want to run along with a group at an organized road race, you can do that too. I plan on running the San Jose Rock 'n' Roll Marathon and I hope to talk a few MySQLers into running with me. Whether in San Jose or at their own home location.

Strictly speaking, Phedipidations and the WorldWide Half Marathon aren't really Open Source according to the OSI definition, but I think there's some parallels here: It's a distributed community-led grassroots project that's free of charge. And it's pretty cool. What more could you ask for? If you're not ready to run a 5k or Half Marathon but are still interesting in running, check out the Phedip podcast. You can get it on itunes, podshow, or direct at www.steverunner.com.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on August 31, 2007 09:23 AM

August 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Fake Larry Ellison Blog

A few months back, the Fake Steve Jobs (FSJ) blog was making its around the internet. It's a reasonably funny satire that shines a light on technology CEOs and Silicon Valley in general. It's funnier than it sounds as you read Steve ranting about Linux, the iPhone, IBM and more. As it turns out, the FSJ blog was written by Dan Lyons of Forbes magazine, and he is publishing a book called "Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs (A Parody)".

Fake Steve Jobs had Fake Larry Ellison manage his blog for a couple of weeks when FSJ was on vacation during the summer and now there's a full blown Fake Larry Ellison blog. I don't know who is writing this one, but I think it's even funnier than the FSJ blog. He rants about MySQL, Apple and Paris Hilton.

Here's a typical comment about MySQL from Fake Larry Ellison:

"The first thing we tell new hires is that they shouldn't install or use MySQL under any circumstances. But accidents happen. And we understand that. Sometimes people are duped into doing stupid things like installing malicious and useless applications that are harmful to themselves and others... We're granting employees amnesty today and today only. Give us your computers, people. We'll purge the evil and put you back on the straight and narrow. Because after today, Safra gets to deal with you. And believe me, you really don't want to see her when she's got a whip in her hands."

I think this is quite funny. I also have a lot of respect for anyone who can write satire on an ongoing basis. It's not as easy as it looks. As has been said, "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard." Whoever is writing this one, keep it up!

Posted by Zack Urlocker on August 24, 2007 01:43 AM

August 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)

SUN = JAVA?

I'm sure someone with better insight than I (evil Geir?) thought this was a great idea.

Schwartz states:

"Most know Java, few know Sun - we can bring the two one step closer."

I don't understand why Sun would want to market the fact that while they "own" Java, IBM, Oracle, BEA and even JBoss have all built & grown middleware businesses of varying size with Java. Sun on the other hand was never able to gain any traction in the middleware market. Imagine if Sun had to play from a level field....

To be fair, Sun may drive substantial revenue from licensing Java to devices etc. I've never seen that revenue figure, but that shouldn't mean it's not substantial (or that it is).

I wonder what will happen when the next "killer language" comes out. At one time, COBOL and C/C++ held the same marketplace position that Java does today. In the technology market, nothing ever dies completely, but nothing ever remains on top forever.

This seems oddly similar to companies that added an "e-" or ".com" to their company name in the early 2000s.

Well, good luck with that,

Sincerely,

e-Savio.com Inc.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on August 23, 2007 05:29 PM

August 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Disclaimer Explained

Roy Russo, of Loopfuse, said:

"I have to say the funniest things about your posts are: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
I guess its indicative of you not working for an OSS company, like the other editors on here. ;-)"

I'm not sure if that is a compliment but I'll take whatever I can get :-)

I was going to reply in the comments, but thought how many of you read the comments?

I'm "required" to have such a disclaimer as per IBM's blogging guidelines. Most IBMers have that text on the "About" page or somewhere on the homepage as I do on my personal blog. At InfoWorld, I've started to add the text to my posts because I doubt anyone reads the About page.

But the main reason is that a well respected IT journalist suggested that I make my IBM connection clear on every post. I don't mind doing it because I don't want anyone to think I am an IBM marketing vehicle. Yes, my views are formed by the experiences I've had at and through IBM. But I try to speak my mind (i.e. my views on MySQL which may not be shared by every IBMer).

So, the disclaimer is partly attributed to IBM requirements, and partly because I am somewhat of an Alien (in the US immigration sense of the word) in the OSS vendor community. But mostly because nobody trusts Canadians. :-)

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on August 14, 2007 06:39 AM

August 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)

(Don't) Steal My Content

The New York Times published an article recently called "Please Don't Steal This Web Content." It's another random story about how low-life scumbags are ruining the Internet in order to generate ad revenues. That is, until it happened to me.

In addition to this blog here at InfoWorld, I also have an earlier blog I created called www.theopenforce.com (now somewhat neglected) as well as a blog on music and guitars called www.guitarvibe.com, and a satirical web site called www.valleyofthegeeks.com (no longer active). I also occasional write articles about disruptive technology published on my brother's site www.ondisruption.com. Over the years, I have written hundreds of blog entries and another hundred technical articles for various print publications ranging from Byte to Microsoft Systems Journal. While I've never made much money off my writing, I still have an author's pride. So I was somewhat shocked when I accidentally stumbled across a site that had hijacked articles I'd written at www.guitarvibe.com.

It was an eery accidental discovery. I was doing a follow-up article on a rather obscure guitar, and noticed that one of my blog entries was near the top of the Google search results page. The odd thing was, it wasn't on my site, but on another site I'd never heard of. I recognized the fragment of text as my own writing and then clicked through to see where I was being quoted. The problem was, I wasn't being quoted. The entire article, along with two dozen others I had written, had been scraped directly from my site and published along with the works of several other bloggers. All of this was done without anyone's consent and in direct violation of copyright law. Note, this wasn't accidental or an excerpt being used in accordance with the doctrine of "fair use."

Why steal blog content? Well, if you want to put up a Google ad farm quickly without all the bother of writing, you can easily find tools that keep your site up-to-date with the latest content that some other poor slob has written.

So what do you do when this happens? First of all, you should protect your own content with explicit copyright notices. Secondly, contact the owner of the site, letting them know of the violation and demanding that it be corrected within 5 days. Finally, if that doesn't work, I recommend contacting the ISP and/or Google to let them know the user is in violation of copyright law. Typically such copright theft is not tolerated by ISPs or Google and they'll remove the offender immediately. There's a great article by Lorelle on Wordpress called "What to do when someone steals your content" that is also cited in the NY Times article.

In my case, the offender (whom I won't dignify with a link) removed the content within a few hours. But now I know to keep a watchful eye on things. If you're blogging, maybe you should too.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on August 7, 2007 09:48 AM

August 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Dilbert Goes Open Source

Or at least Dilbert's boss is trying to get him to use open source software because "it's free." Click on the image below to view last Friday's cartoon at the official site.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams has long been involved in tech and has spoken at a number of open source and developer conferences including EclipseCon earlier this year. Still, it's a significant milestone to see open source in the comics. I guess it means open source is safe enough even for pointy haired bosses.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on August 6, 2007 02:02 AM

August 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Crying about not being rich enough (NY Times)

I've had no interest in blogging lately. Too much work and crazed baby to deal with. But it's good to know that there is lots of complete rubbish for people to read while I abstain from writing.

Take today's NY Times masterpiece "In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don't Feel Rich" about several SV execs who still have to work. I don't want to go super-negative here but I know two of the profiled and while I never considered them to be crybabies, this article makes them look like Oliver Twist characters upset with their paltry "$2.2 million" in the bank.

It's perfectly OK to want to work hard and try and hit it big(ger).

"I know people looking in from the outside will ask why someone like me keeps working so hard," Mr. Steger says. "But a few million doesn't go as far as it used to. Maybe in the '70s, a few million bucks meant 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,' or Richie Rich living in a big house with a butler. But not anymore."

Hal works for Funambol, I company I truly enjoy, but I can't see how this kind of comment would make the development team or community members want to help him.

On to Tony B, former marketing guy at Groundwork and a guy who I consider a friend. My issue here is that it doesn't explain that Tony founded a company and sold it, only that he somehow amassed riches that are dissipating.

Today, he has roughly $1.2 million left in savings and another several hundred thousand dollars' worth of home equity, Mr. Barbagallo said, with one child in college and a second on her way.

So he works as hard as ever, logging more than 70 hours a week at a San Francisco start-up.

"Poor Tony, he'll never be able to retire," Catherine Barbagallo said.

Of the three people profiled two are from open source companies--companies that rely on developers out in the universe who often get paid nothing for their work, and in 99% of the cases have no equity in the companies that they contribute code to. This is some message to send to the developers toiling away all over the world.

End result, this article sucks and I am pretty surprised that Gary Rivlin took it in this direction. Employees--especially developers take this stuff really personal, and no one in this article was done a favor. Sometimes not all press is good press.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on August 5, 2007 10:42 AM

July 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Softwar - An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle

I've been reading Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle recently.

The book is interesting because it's written by Matthew Symonds, an author from The Economist, but Ellison gets to add footnotes explaining his side at the bottom of the page.

It's a quick read, quite funny. Since the book was published in 2003, you can track Ellison's visions, as stated in the book, with what we've seen. For one, he pretty much telegraphed Oracle's acquisition strategy in the book.

I disagree with his views on IBM's marketing (i.e. "how do they get away with the lies") and some of his statements on Microsoft. But hey, as I said, the book is a howl.

My favourite story from the book: Larry describes why he didn't buy Netscape:

Netscape's Navigator browser ushered in the Internet age. They single-handedly changed the Valley. EBay, Yahoo!, and all the other Internet companies exist because of Netscape. But Netscape had a big problem. It's just not very hard to write a browser. Andreessen wrote Mosaic in his spare time when he was in college. So there was no technical barrier preventing Microsoft from writing a competing browser. To emphasize that point, I said my cat, the one that recently died, could write a browser. For some reason that made Jim Barksdale [Netscape's CEO] and Marc very angry at me. I don't know why. She was a very smart cat. The two cats I have left, incidentally, can't program worth a damn.

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on July 15, 2007 12:12 PM

June 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

It seems I'm not the only open source guy currently suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Carpal Tunnel is a Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) typically caused by too much typing combined with bad ergonomics. Not only do heavy-duty computer users suffer from this, but it also affects musicians quite frequently. In my case, the onset was a combination of too much typing (and why did I agree to a new blog?) bad desk setup and too much guitar playing. Admittedly, I am a novice guitar player but I was spending too many hours learning scales while seated in a cramped office chair on weekends.

So in case anyone else is dealing with RSI, I thought I would share some thoughts and remedies I've learned. Ok, learned would imply I'm following all of this advice, which is not entirely true. But I'm trying to follow it and I'm making progress.

First of all, if you are feeling any pain, tingling or loss of sensation STOP IMMEDIATELY. If your body tells you to stop, pay attention. In fact, you ideally shouldn't do repetitive tasks like typing for more than 15 minutes at a time without getting up and stretching.

The next most important item is about the ergonomics of your desk area. You absolutely need to make sure that you are not bending your wrists upward while typing. Laptop keyboards are not great in this regard. If you have to type at a laptop, use a wrist pad to raise your hands to a neutral position. If you have a detached keyboard, it should be angled downward which means you should never use the rear keyboard feet to raise the back of the keyboard. In fact, you should have a riser at the front of your keyboard. I switched to a Microsoft Natural keyboard years ago, and found this helps somewhat. The newest model, the Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000 or the wireless version the 7000 are well designed in this regard. In fact, I picked up a new 4000 keyboard for use at home to replace my old Dell branded Natural keyboard and I noticed it had the legs at the rear, which is completely wrong.

You want to make sure that your arms are basically level and that your wrists do not need to bend in uncomfortable ways when you type. I learned to touch type in high school and although I do not usually type completely properly using all 5 fingers, I am trying my best to do so now. It makes a huge difference. If you're of the two finger hunt-and-peck school, consider learning how to type properly so that you are not stretching your hands in unnatural ways. For me, I especially need to make sure I'm not attempting to use the same hand for two simultaneous keystrokes. That is, when you shift, you should be hitting the shift or control key with one hand and the appropriate letter with the other. This takes some retraining if you have bad habits ingrained after many years. The worst is the Alt-Tab combination in Windows. I'm also experimenting with a Kinesis keyboard at work, which is an even more extremely shaped keyboard than the Microsoft Natural keyboard. (It also costs more, but I figure its cheaper than surgery.)

The mouse is a frequent culprit in RSI. You may wish to try just switching hands to see if that helps. Or alternatively using an ergonomic mouse like the Logitech Trackman or Marble Mouse, which is sort of a mouse and trackball combination. I'm also trying out a Kensington trackball.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is an inflamation, so taking Ibuprofen (note to self: should that be iBuprofen TM Apple?) will help. Also warming up your arms (before a lot of work) and icing after is a good idea.

I have also found that padded wrist splints such as those by Futuro or Imak can be helpful. You can find them in most drugstores. Plus if you get them in black, grow your hair long and and wear a studded leather jacket, they look kind of heavy metal. These splints can help keep your wrists straight while typing which is important.

When I was in the most pain, I tried using the Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software. It works pretty well, but its not easy to get used to dictating. Its definitely a lot slower than typing.

Oh yeah, and blogging or email from a Treo? That's got to be one of the killers. I can't say I've cured myself of that habit, but I'm trying.

Let me know if you have any ohter ideas that are helpful here. Also, take a look at Wikipedia, the Effective Ergonomics site, as well as these articles for other ideas: Ergonomic Problems with Mice, Cornell's Ergonomic Guidelines for Computer Workstations.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on June 28, 2007 03:22 PM

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