People everywhere are commenting on the press release sent out Thursday by Research in Motion (RIM) earlier today regarding their software workaround that they have ready in the wings, should they lose an injunction hearing in a US court later this month.

Interestingly, the comments lean toward overwhelmingly positive. While I'm certainly glad RIM's doing something in the contingency planning department, and while I truly appreciate RIM's service and excellent devices, I just don't see things as all happy and cheerful and rosy. Call me a stick in the mud, or call me pragmatic. Whatever. I'n not a Blackberry or RIM hater, just someone who's caught in the middle of a problem that many other IT pro's can relate to.

RIM's has this workaround going for some time, and their announcement today comes just a couple weeks before the ruling. Previous reports indicate the judge in the case, if he issues the injunction, might provide a four week buffer before the injection would become active (that's what the complainant, NTP, has asked for, anyhow). That means in about six weeks, every Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) and every Blackberry handheld in the United States (maybe everywhere) might have to be updated with a software patch that RIM has yet to describe or provide. Not only that, but there's no indication made as to what versions of the BES software will be upgradeable and when that software might be delivered.

Or - who knows - maybe it will only apply to new devices when they're sold, and not ones already out there. But the servers - well no way to avoid changes there if the injunction is issued.

For what it's worth, I think this whole thing is an unfortunate pain in the backside, one which could and should have been avoided by both sides of the dispute long ago. But now we're stuck here, all of us, and it's no good. Invalidated patents being used to claim intellectual property rights are at issue, and millions of people are potentially impacted.

So I don't know about you, but no matter what happens in the court, this situation represents an expensive, time consuming and complicated set of upgrade circumstances. If RIM wants to do this the right way, seems to me maybe it's time to issue the workaround software now, get it out there in the hands of the people that need to deploy it, and then leverage it if and when it's needed. From RIM's statements, it looks like that should be a viable option:

"BlackBerry Multi-Mode Edition is a software update that enables underlying changes to the message delivery system. BlackBerry Multi-Mode Edition provides two modes of operation: Standard mode and US mode. When users are outside the US, and receiving service from a non-US service provider, the BlackBerry device operates in Standard mode and there are no changes to the current message delivery system or BlackBerry functionality."

Or at least state what versions of the server software can be upgraded should the need arise, and when. In a world where enterprise change management and production system testing requirements reign, especially on a platform as fundamentally sensitive as the BES system (secure messaging is a critical piece of infrastructure), four to six weeks is so little time as to be impossible for some.

I've carried Blackberry devices now for years, and I've worked with and managed the BES software for just as long. It's not the simplest stuff, and it's something companies rely on for their day to day operations. It's not just a nice-to-have, it's an integral piece of operational infrastructure.

Regardless of who's right or wrong in the legal case, it might just be time for RIM to stop the dancing, get off the floor, and pay the valet to bring the coach. It's getting late, and someone's ride is starting to look a bit like a pumpkin.

• RIM's multi-mode software overview (PDF)
• RIM's multi-mode edition FAQ (PDF)

Recently, I was approached by DualCor, a company that is working now on the release their cPC product, about serving on their newly-formed board of expert technical advisors. I had a conversation with the company's CEO, Steve Hanley, and was impressed with what they're doing. Their product line is of great interest to me, so I accepted. I'm honored to be on the advisory board and to have an opportunity to provide input as they launch and continue to develop a very interesting product.

I'll probably write on this weblog about the DualCor products - in fact I can't imagine not doing so. I've already written one brief entry about the cPC device (but that was actually before DualCor approached me about their advisory board). Since I'm now on their board and have a formal relationship with the company, I think it's important to say so here - full disclosure and all.

All that aside - I'm truly excited to use the new cPC device. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and Windows Mobile OS on one device. Phone, too. Dual processors, a gig of RAM, and fast, fast, fast...

Learn more at http://www.DualCor.com and see my past post here. And there's a c|net video from CES about the cPC here.

If you do searches on Google and you ever get "spammy" search results, you can report the offending results to the Google people that deal with just that problem. They have an online form you can use. Since it's hard to find (the form, that is), here you go:

http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html

Stop search spam, report a spammer. I wonder if this works for Google Blog Search? Hmmm...

(via Jeremy Zawodny's linkblog)

The virtualization marketplace is huge, and very competitive. Microsoft has their Virtual Server product and the Virtual PC counterpart, and VMWare's got their VMWare ESX Server and Workstation products, among others.

VMWare has formally announced that they're shipping a free server product, which they are coining "VMWare Virtual Server." It replaces the GSX Server line, and the target audience is developers, testers and IT pros that need flexible environments. It's not positioned as an enterprise-class platform for production server use, however.

You can see a comparison chart that depicts the differences between VMWare's virtualization server products here.

The company also recently released the free VMWare Player, which allows people to run pre-build virtual machines (or if you are technically creative you can also build virtual machines with it, but that's another story).

For any of these VMWare virtualization platforms, there are some pre-built virtual machines also available for download in the Virtual Machine Center.

My co-worker Mike pointed out an article that's got to make some people more than a little nervous. Imagine if an RFID chip could be embedded in a piece of paper, virtually undetectable.

Well, it can. You can imagine the security and privacy concerns (while marveling at the technical advances). From EETimes.com:

"Hitachi was due to present details of the 0.15-millimeter by 0.15-millimeter, 7.5-micron-thick chip on Sunday (Feb. 5) at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco.

"Paper is typically 80 microns to 100 microns thick, and the chip substrate has been made small and thinned to 7.5 micron to ease application in paper, where it could be used as an intelligent watermark."

The Super Bowl commercials are on the web at Google Video.

You can play them all back to back by clicking here. My favorites? Here they are:

  Budweiser
  The Wave

 

 

 

  Budweiser
  Superfan Cowboy

 

 

 

 

  Budweiser
  Clydesdale American Dream

 

  Bud Light
  Hidden Bud Light

 

And because you have to have the one that makes you turn your head and and say, "Whaaa???"

  Emerald Nuts

 

The talented QA guy on our product team, Brent Strange, did a boatload of automation of tests used to ensure the quality and security of our Intelligent Authentication security software product, and he's started to write on his blog about his experiences and how he used several technologies available out there in combination to ease his Web UI testing pain. Ever try to automate Web UI testing? Wouldn't it be great if you could, and if it was fast and reliable?

Well, if you're a tester/QA type, or if you know someone who is, be sure to visit and subscribe to Brent's blog, QA Insight.

Here's his first automated Web UI testing post:

• Automating Web UI testing with SWEA, C#, & NUnit (part one)

All the virtual world's a-buzz with commentary and conversation (ironically, since a lot of the commentary is out of the reach of the service for now) about coComment, a coolio and not-yet-fully-released "Web-2.0" online service that let's you track comments make on blogs everywhere. Or at least it will at some point - only a few blogging platforms are supported right now (and the software this weblog runs on, dasBlog, is unfortunately not one of them), so it's very much hit and miss as to whether or not you can use it, but the promise of an interesting future is certainly there.

I'm using coComment now, and it's pretty cool. You can sign up at the site (look for the "Get Notified" section on the home page), and they're trying to get new invitations sent out as soon as they can.The coComment web site is well designed and the core feature/functionality is a sharp idea. I will say that it's a bit clunky in terms of how the actual user commenting experience works. You have to think about it too much, which is not so good... It puts an extra graphical "button" with your name onto the page that you have to click first, before you click the actual comment submission button. The new button falls to the right of the submit button, so it's a lot like being forced to read right to left and it just doesn't look very clickable - It's just counterintuitive.

Brian Benzinger wrote a little GreaseMonkey script that automates the sign-in for FireFox users - It's very nice and you can get it on this page. Otherwise you have to use a "bookmarklet link" to activate the service on any given comment page - another layer of abstraction that would be nice to avoid somehow.

But hey, it is pre-v1.0, so... Anyhow, it would be especially nice if the authors and some creative blog software creators made it even more usable.

It does solve a few problems, mainly being able to find your conversations in the blogosph -- uh, on blogs. Two other things it does is, 1) it allows you to embed a little bit of code in your blog template to display comments that you've made on other blogs, and 2) it allows you to subscribe to a RSS or ATOM feed with all your tracked comments in one place. Adoption will depend on how many blog software authors get into the mix and how many blogs the coComment people decide to try to tackle themselves, I suppose.

Note that, while it's a great start, the real test will be whether everyone will sign up - since that appears to be a requirement in order to actually track everything that might matter. Is there not a better way to do this? Does the RSS comment capability/spec not go far enough?

From their site:

Coming soon..

For advanced bloggers who would like to more fully integrate coComment features in their own blog, coComment will offer:

The ability to add elements of the coComment service to blogs based on non-standard blogging platforms in order to ease the usage of coComment for commenters (automated capture).

The ability to customize the appearance (eg colors, fonts, etc.) of coComment elements, in order to better suit your tastes and needs.

UPDATE 2/7/2006: Looks like bmw.de is back in the index - details here...

Google's been saying for some time that it would be paying more attention to search engine spam on web sites, including internationally, and apparently they really mean it. They just virtually executed German automobile manufacturer BMW when they killed the BMW.de domain from their search database and sent their page rank to - you guessed it - zero.

Ouch. That'll teach 'em not to use spammy doorway pages, I guess.

Matt Cutts of Google explains on his weblog. Good to see that if Google's wielding the sword (and I think they can and should), at least it appears that everyone's held to the same high standards. Now if they'd just step it up a notch and do more of the same for all those splogs at blogger.com... But that's a whole different can of worms.

Rich points to a take-off video. I think you can guess what the storyline is. Heh. Amazing what kinds of funy stuff people can create on their computers these days. Try doing this ten years ago.

Click the title to watch.

I use TurboTax Online - the web-based version of the software you can also buy in a box from Intuit - to do my taxes every year. For someone like me, it does a great job of helping me make sure I cover all the bases and think about everything.

The one thing that's frustrated me to no end in years past was that the State of Oregon never seemed to get it's act together soon enough, and when I'd finish my taxes and then try to file electronically, I'd find out that while the feds were ready for me, Oregon wasn't accepting electronic returns yet. I'd typically be doing my taxes right about now (first few days of February), and Oregon would start accepting electronic submissions in mid-February.

But this year, for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to submit my federal and state returns together, right away and without having to save and come back later. That's the way it should be.

So, as much as I hate to say it, someone in Salem did something right this year. Or at least someone down there didn't do something wrong. Either way, I'm happy about it.

Rory Blyth makes me laugh so hard, so often. Dude, Rory - you gotta stop... Heh...

In his post the other day, "DO NOT RESIST THE EVANGELIST," Rory warned that unless viewership of his Windows Mobile development screencasts (called TinyThings - and they're great - go here to see them) grew by ten fold, he threatened to eat a full bag of... Oh, here let him say it:

"If traffic to TinyThings does not increase by ten-fold during the next revolution of the planet Earth around its axis, I WILL EAT ONE ENTIRE BAG OF GOURMET LOW-FAT CHEEZEE-POOF SNACKS. IF THE LACK OF TRAFFIC CONTINUES, I WILL EAT ANOTHER BAG EVERY TIME THE EARTH COMPLETES A REVOLUTION"

But it gets worse - if the lack of ten-foldedness (?) continues, Rory will resort to letting a viscous microbe loose on a lone fluffy Ewok, unless... Oh here, just read:

"AND IT SHALL DO SO IF, BY THE TIME THIS PLANET HAS THRICE REVOLVED FULLY UPON ITS AXIS, TinyThings HAS NOT BEEN VISITED BY TEN MILLION NEW MOBILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS. AND YOU BETTER MAKE ‘EM ENTHUSIASTIC ‘CAUSE WE DON’T LIKE THOSE MOPEY ONES AROUND HERE."

Yeah, so ummmm - the first day results - well, go see the video:

• I WARNED YOU, DIDN'T I - The Microsoft Crusader Lays Down the Law

I sure hope there's ten milllion visitors by day three....

The power went out at my house last night, due to a rather impressive wind storm. I haven't heard howling wind like that - well - I guess since I live in Missouri. And that was usually due to a tornado.

Anyhow, the power's been out at my place for like 8 hours, and driving down the road into town was a lot like driving through an ocean of tree branches - quite literally. So now I'm in town at Starbucks. 

It was pitch-black dark when I was trying to get ready to leave (had a early doc appointment), and I found that - in classic geek fashion - I have not yet bought a generator (procrastination and cost aversion), and my flashlights (all three) were dead. But of course they were...

So much for the classic, common sense emergency plans. What to do? Well, I have made all these investments in geeky stuff over the past few years, and there's a couple devices I carry around for work. So, what are the Real Geek Tools that can save you in a blackout?

Well, actually, there's just one: The Blackberry 8700.

In the pitch black, a little blinking red light told me not only that I had mail, but also where the device was located. I grabbed it, rolled the thumb-wheel, and voila! Instant night-light! Seriously, the 8700 spills enough light to illuminate the area around you quite well. Up stairs, down hallways, you name it. It's bright when it needs to be.

And it's a phone. And a loud alarm clock. And an email client. And a chat client for everyone else you know who's bumping their heads into walls who has a Blackberry. Go ahead, call your local public utility, check in with them and ask when the hell the power's gonna be back on. You can't watch your TV or use the computer to surf the net or anything, so email is nice. Oh wait - but you can surf the web! Ahhh, Blackberry you rock my wind-swept world. Or something. Yeah. Anyhow, everything works.

If you don't have a Blackberry 8700 and you live in an area where the power goes out with any frequency, you just don't know what you're missing. It's your one-stop-blackout-shop.

Update: The power came back on at 4:10 p.m. Power lines were down all over the place, and it's amazing actually that they got the power back up so fast, considering the damage that was done. Nice job, Columbia River PUD.

UPDATE! SuitSat1 is not dead - it's just transmitting at a low power. From Bil Munsil comes the following info:

"SuitSat1 is still alive and ham operators and other folks all around the world are receiving the audio, telemetry and SSTV picture.

"Go to http://www.aj3bu/blog/ to listen in."

So, they tossed an empty spacesuit out of the International Space Station earlier today, and it's out there orbiting the planet, but the radio transmitter they stuck in there that many were hoping they'd be able to listen to on their police scanners apparently went dead.

From SpaceWeather.com:

Space is cold - apparently too cold for SuitSat's batteries. The Earth-orbiting spacesuit stopped transmitting shortly after it was thrown overboard from the International Space Station on Feb. 3rd. Probable cause: lack of power.

This doesn't mean that SuitSat was a failure. The experimental satellite was "launched" to answer questions such as "Can a spacesuit-satellite function without internal temperature controls?" The answer, apparently, is "no." Next-generation SuitSats will take this into account.

SuitSat will continue to orbit Earth for weeks, spiraling slowly into the atmosphere. Stay tuned for information about seeing SuitSat in the night sky.

Visit http://spaceweather.com for updates.

Portland Nerd Dinner - be there and be square!

Chris Tavares is - as of this evening - a former employee of mine. He deserves some serious congratulations, as he has accepted a terrific dream-job position with a little software company you might have heard of that's based in Redmond, Washington. He'll be working in the patterns and practices arena. Congrats to Chris!

So, on Thursday a bunch of nerds are getting together for a special "see ya later Chris" dinner - plus it'll be the regular nerd dinner fare, for sure.

Details are on Rich's blog.