Mac@Work : The Ultimate Business Machine

The
Ultimate
Business Machine

Technology, business
and innovation.

And, not least, about
the Mac.

Weblog • Archive • Cutedge

by: Bernard Teo

Wed 02 Apr 2003

Catch 22

Category : Commentary/catch22.txt

My customer's DELL broke down today and we had a DELL technician come change a hard disk. I've done this before and so I'm watching him. You format the hard disk, then load in Windows 2000, then restart.

What happens? Your fresh copy of Windows doesn't have the driver for that particular monitor and for that particular the network card. You can barely make out what's on the screen. There are so many drivers available, from so many vendors, stored in so many CDs, even the DELL technician doesn't know where to look.

It's on DELL's web site. But with the network card all but dead, tough luck. If you're lucky, you can use another PC nearby to download the monitor driver and copy it over. But, after spending gollops of time figuring which monitor driver's the right one and downloading it, you realise that file's too big to go on a diskette.

So the DELL technician, he's smart, he figures he'll download the network card driver first because it's small enough to go on a diskette, and then, when he's got the network working on the PC he's repairing, he'll use that to downlaod the monitor driver.

The network driver downloads alright. But this time, he finds the diskette drive is spoilt, so he still can't copy it out. The drive had not been used for so long, it's just not working anymore.

So he has to look for another PC and the search and download starts again.

Finally, the Good Lord takes pity on him and the chain of events is allowed to go off without any further hitch. The PC's finally repaired. But it's two hours since he started.

The DELL technician had two things going for him that a normal user usually doesn't have. He knows which drivers to use even though they had such unlovely names like 3Com 3C900B TPC. And he could use other PCs nearby that were already conveniently hooked to the Internet.

Any other mortal would have spent the whole afternoon doing this or most likely would have given up.

I watched the traffic flowing across Sheare's Bridge and the boats milling around Marina Bay. Life goes on outside.

Posted at 2:13AM UTC | permalink

Tue 01 Apr 2003

"Not for MacIntosh User"

Category : Commentary/NotforMac.txt

How often we hear this. I subscribed to SingNet broadband for my home today. I got the usual "Macs not supported" thing from the counter staff. But I managed to speak to a technical staff and we agreed that the Alcatel Speed Touch Ethernet ADSL Modem, which they only support for the PC, should work with the Mac.

I got the modem and, not willing to wait till next week (which is when my SingNet line gets activated), I did a test using my current PacNet broadband line. I swiped out PacNet's SpeedStream Ethernet modem and swiped in SingNet's Alcatel, all on the fly. Everything works.

Posted at 12:42PM UTC | permalink

NetNewsWire

Category : Technology/netnewswire.txt

This is how this weblog looks like inside NetNewsWire, which is an OS X-only application that allows you to pull in information from a lot of websites, so long as they have an RSS feed.

Posted at 4:17AM UTC | permalink

Mon 31 Mar 2003

More News, Less Junk, Faster

Category : Technology/netnewswire2.txt

is how Brent Simmons, the author of NetNewsWire, describes using his product. I'm using NetNewsWire more and more these days. It allows me to skim through a lot more web sites than I coud do if I visit each manually, especially if I'm on a slow dial-up line.

There's an interview with Brent Simmons that makes interesting reading, especially if you're wondering if Mac developers are somehow different from Windows developers.

Posted at 8:49AM UTC | permalink

Sendmail Enabler updated (ver 1.01)

Category : Technology/sendmail101.txt

I've made Sendmail Enabler work even if the user hasn't loaded the DevTools CD.

Sendmail needs a program called m4 to be in the user's /usr/bin directory but m4 only comes with the DevTools CD. So I'll simply copy my own copy of m4 over to the user. Unless I discover something new, or do something more in future, he'll have no other use for the DevTools CD.

Posted at 2:12AM UTC | permalink

Thu 27 Mar 2003

Apple's Rendezvous

Category : Technology/rendezvous2.txt

What Mac users know about Rendezvous is that it's a technology that will supposedly make computers even easier to use when they're put on a network. In the last few months, it's become clearer to me how Rendezvous can actually help.

Just yesterday, when we were testing our new colour laser printer, we were pleasantly surprised that it supports AppleTalk, out of the box. Which means that, without loading any new stuff on our PowerBooks, and without even touching the printer besides turning it on, we can immediately "see" the printer as it gets hooked up to the network.

When you can "see" the printer, you can connnect to it. And when you can connect to it, you can print to it. And that's why you buy the printer, right? You get 80% of what you want, with zero effort. That's the way systems should work.

This is the kind of value we'll lose when we lose AppleTalk. AppleTalk, an Apple-only technology, will be left behind when Apple moves more of its technology on top of open Internet standards. Rendezvous is AppleTalk's replacement, designed to work on top of something drab like TCP/IP; yet meant to offer the same benefits to ease of use. Best of all, Rendezvous is Apple's contribution back to the well they have drunk from with open standards. Hopefully, more and more vendors will actually make products based on it.

At the moment, only Brother has shipped a Rendezvous-enabled printer, though Epson, HP, Lexmark and Canon have all announced plans to use Rendezvous.

My hope is that when people understand the benefits they can get from something like Rendezvous, they will start to ask for it by name. We've all got to help make technology easier for ourselves. It's not a spectator sport.

Posted at 9:16AM UTC | permalink

Colour My World

Category : Technology/C1900delivered.txt

Our Epson C1900 Colour Laser Printer arrived today. It occupies less space than the monochrome Apple Laserwriter 16/600 it is replacing. (Incidentally the 16/600, which we called LookSharp, served us well for almost nine years without a single breakdown, until it just up and died. It's quality like that which created the Apple mystic.)

The Epson has got AppleTalk on it. So we can print to it over the network even without loading any Epson driver. With Epson drivers, we can print via USB, AppleTalk, and TCP/IP. I haven't got Epson's Postscript drivers for OS X yet. But, with minimal amount of fiddling, the printer is already quite usable. This is what we can do now...

Colour prints are great, but text printing doesn't look quite as refined as those produced by our old Laserwriter. Will need to see what else I can tweak when I get hold of OS X Postscript drivers. Stay tuned.

Posted at 3:22AM UTC | permalink

Sat 22 Mar 2003

The Search for the Ultimate Business Machine

Category : Commentary/TUBM.txt

I'm not thinking about Macs for a change, at least not directly.

The Ultimate Business Machine is a business that will generate income, lots of income, even when the owners are not physically there to do the work.

The archetypical example of a business machine is McDonald's (look Behind the Arches). You start off like Ray Kroc (McDonald's founder) with an idea for the value you are uniquely able to deliver. And for which people are willing to pay, such that you can make a good profit.

But that's not enough. You've got to think about how you're going to deliver that value day in and day out. Because, if you can't find a way to organise everything into a system, so that various tasks can be performed by mere mortals, you're going to wear yourself out sooner rather than later (as described most soberly by Michael E. Gerber in The E-Myth Revisited, "Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It".)

The problem is - 90% of the work of building a business is often pure drudgery. That's why Bill Gates said in one interview that you shouldn't wake up in the morning and decide you want to be an entrepreneur. "So let's see, should I be a baker and make cookies or something?"

I was triggered to think about this when I rode past The Heeren this morning. This is a very fashionable place. It's hit a sweet spot by converting its upper two levels into a street smart bazaar for the teenies. With HMV below and a lot of cool looking (I'm so out of date I don't even know the right words to describe it) shops in the middle, this place is overrun by pubescent schoolkids in the afternoons. And we all know that they are the only ones still spending money with abandon.

Anyway, it's early this morning and a bunch of kids were converting the open space at the side walk into a catwalk - leggy models and a DJ's booth perched dramaticaly out of a hole in the backdrop and all. As far as I can see, everybody's young and fresh and keen.

I think a lot of our kids are going to do businesses of their own. First as a hobby. And then they'll find nothing beats the fun of trying to make your own ideas work (did I mention drudgery before?).

And they'll be comfortable with technology. I can imagine photos and biops of the models in iPhoto (or its equivalent), a calendar on the web for bookings, a web site for the jobs they've done and the rates they charge, and e-mail and SMS to tie all these loose network of models, choreographers, set designers, DJs and marketing guys together, and of course, some sort of finance system to keep the score and dole out the proceeds.

So you see. There's always a system, no matter what you do. And technology is at the heart of the system.

Next time you eat at McDonald's, think about how Ray Kroc could have imagined a system that could be operated, anywhere in the world, by kids and by aunties and uncles who are barely literate. The magic is in the system. And in the care that goes into choosing the machinery that will drive the system. Can you hear your cash register ringing from as far away as your vacation home in Perth?

Posted at 4:50AM UTC | permalink

Fri 21 Mar 2003

Apple Gored by the Business Press

Category : Commentary/gored.txt

This morning's edition of STREATS reported Apple's appointment of Al Gore to its Board of Directors, in a story taking up most of one page. While leading off with the spin that Apple wanted to place - that Al Gore is an avid Mac user who does his own Final Cut Pro editing - it quickly became an almost perfect counter-spin - that Gore had in fact "switched" away from Apple ("because the PC had more software") and it's not known when he had, if ever, switched back.

The PC has more software, even Al Gore thought so. That's the defining thought.

It's really nothing to get excited about because Apple routinely gets gored by the business press (see the Apple Death Knell Counter). By this time next year, Mac users will have gotten twenty years of productive work out of the Mac. That's why it's loved like an old dog.

What's really interesting, though, is - who puts these spin on the stories and why? Even companies that are struggling through dire straits, like HP and Sun, come up smelling like roses. I don't think there really is a conspiracy, at least not consciously. What I think may be happening is something akin to what Clayton M. Christensen described in "The Innovator's Dilemma".

"There is a certain type of technological innvoation which mainstream customers initially reject." Not just reject. They'll throw all their forces at it to maintain the staus quo; they and every one of the incumbents who are benefiting from the status quo.

Eventually, some of these technological innovations break through like a tornado (See "Inside the Tornado" by Geoffrey A. Moore). "New technologies can cause great firms to fail", as Christensen observed. That's why they won't go down without a fight. While Apple may, or may not, be among the ones to profit from their demise, interesting changes appear to be afoot.

Have you ever wondered why the number of Apple-related sites on the Internet is entirely out of proportion to its market share? When you're trying to start something new - a new business, a new trend, or a new brand - the thing to do is to look out for a potentially disruptive change (often caused by the rise to affordability of a new technology that allows things to be done that could never have been done before). Then, old paradigms are shaken and, in the resulting chaos, you break through to take your place.

There are a lot of people looking for that edge. For some time already, a huge amount of interest has gathered around a certain way of doing technology that is epitomised by the Apple that is Steve Jobs'. There is a thought among the digerati that the way to understand information techology is to study the wake left behind by Apple. Changes at the scale of a tornado don't happen quite so often. There's profit to be had.

As an aside, did Al Gore really said he invented the Internet?

Posted at 5:50AM UTC | permalink

Thu 20 Mar 2003

The Epson C1900 Colour Laser Printer

Category : Technology/epson.txt

I had the chance to do a further test on the Epson C1900 colour laser printer, this time at the Epson office. I was told by their engineer that there is a bug with the current driver. If you choose Fine mode, it will actually print in Draft (300 dpi) or vice versa. Therefore, I'll want to leave it in Draft mode to get 600 dpi prints. I checked and indeed this was so. I get clearly defined text even at small point sizes. This bug should be easy to fix.

I'm also printing out on a stock C1900 with 96 MB of RAM but without both the optional PostScript module and the 10/100 Base T ethernet card configuration (and the 192 MB RAM) that I've ordered.

There's something of a tipping point that we've reached here. On OS X, you don't need a PostScript printer anymore. It's a nice-to-have option that will give slightly better prints, resolution, and font handling. But for anything other than high-end work, you won't require PostScript in the printer anymore. This means that we'll have more printers to choose from and lower costs. Secondly, if you have an Airport Extreme Base Station with the USB connector, you won't need ethernet to share the printer, or a Mac that needs to be always on.

So in summary, this means that you can now add a shareable, high-quality colour laser printer to your toolbox for just S$1600.

I believe this will change things. At this level of affordability, people ought to take another look at the things they can do with InDesign or Photoshop or FreeHand. For everyday, low run, one-off stuff. For real estate agents, insurance agents, financial planners, etc.

I have things to do when I take delivery of the printer next week.

Posted at 7:36AM UTC | permalink

Wed 19 Mar 2003

Scott McNealy in Singapore

Category : Commentary/ScottMcNeallyTalk.txt

"Don't you all have something to do? I thought I've walked into a Bill Gates talk." Scott McNealy, Chairman, President and CEO of Sun Microsystems, proceeded to charm the large audience, with Windows and IBM Global Services serving as butt for jokes.

"The default firewall setting in XP lets in Excel and Outlook macros, keeps out Java; that's like letting in Anthrax and blocking penicillin". "Do you want to leverage all the developers in Redmond or all the developers on the planet?" "IBM Global Services - if we can't solve your problems, we've got lots of duct tape and, as long as you've got money, we're here".

Underneath the laughter is a delicate exercise in positioning. Sun has got $5.3 billion in cash, lots more than you or I have if we should have the temerity to question Sun's continued viability. "It's Mankind versus Microsoft; and we're winning."

The theme of the talk is "The Next Big Thing in Technology". In Sun's vision, everything and everybody will be connected to the Internet. The network is the computer and it'll be driven by smart devices running Java Web Services.

But how do you talk about some of the significant changes without undermining your own position? If Open Source is a good thing, why shouldn't we all use Linux, download everything we need (after all they're free) and, best of all, use all the PCs we've already got? Just swipe out Windows.

So then, why would we want to buy more Sun SPARCstations or pay for Solaris? The proposed answer is : Open Source is not pure unadulterated good. You don't want to download stuff from the Internet. They may be tainted. Let someone like Sun package it for you. There's a limit to what Sun can charge because there's always someone else out there with the source code.

If people left the talk thinking that Open Source is somehow bad, as one attendee was overheard to complain, then who could blame them. There are subtle forces at work.

Sun's stated mission is to solve complex problems for governments and enterprises. Sun's way is to build complete "integrate-able" systems - bundling all the servers into a huge pool that they wrap a layer of services around - which companies can then subscribe to, like the model of a utility company. Hence web-tone as in dial-tone. No need for IBM Global Services to do the mix and match because an integrated system that works is what people really need. (Been there, done that, Apple?)

The problem is explaining this to people who graduate with "golf majors". So how do you access the services? You don't want to lug around a machine with you. That would be like a PC on every desk and in every home. That's Bill Gates' vision. Somehow we'll use a smart card and slot it into a terminal (a SunRay?) that will magically be there wherever we need them. How we'll get all this infrastructure set up is left as an exercise for the imagination. Kinda like throwing in more complexity to solve an already complex problem.

I used an iBook to take this note (McNealy asked, how many of us are in our office right now? I would be if we have wireless access.) In the future, I'll slot my smart Java card into my conference seat. Yeah, that's about right.

If all else should fail, talk about security. Mobility with security. "If anyone can do it, Singapore can." Somehow that feels like a left-handed compliment, or are we too touchy? "If you do .Net, there's no chance at security."

Scott McNealy wrapped up with the usual spiel about being good partners - "Sun is the most open, partnered, volume platform for services delivery." Now why can't Apple do that?

(I guess if you start off - like our hero His Steveness - with the notion that everybody is brain-dead until proven otherwise, it's hard to be convivial.)

It's great to have attended this talk. It's thoroughly good entertainment. McNealy was presented with a Chinese scroll that supposedly said "Partnership between 2 giants for the wealth of a nation." What fun.

Posted at 2:41PM UTC | permalink

An Enterprise Centre - The Mac Way

Category : Commentary/EnterpriseCentre.txt

I've been thinking about this idea for some time. It goes back to when we were starting our business nine years ago and looking for a place to work out from. There were certain things we needed: Internet access (though that was new then), a bright cosy place that had a buzz of enterprise, and people around who were also starting their businesses (because you really could use that camaraderie).

We found such a place at first (The Ballot Business Centre which we remembered fondly but which had since closed down) and wandered around after that for quite a long while - until we bought this place we're now in at Shenton Way. It's quite a bit bigger than we need. It'll give me a chance to try this out.

I'm inviting designers (web or graphics or even designers of new businesses) to come and share this space with us. I'm pricing this at $450 per month per person, inclusive of utilities, maintenance, and Internet access via Airport. I've got three rooms which can take two to three people each comfortably. And I've got a couple of partitioned spaces which can be taken for $380. And a big conference room.

What I've always wanted to do is to encourage people to use Macs to build their businesses on. Every business is an IT business now; so we ought to find the best tools. We're nowhere near exhausting the possibilities. In fact, I don't think we've ever really started.

So I'm starting this enterprise centre, so to speak, Mac-style. I've a vision of people doing interesting things, and we've an understanding of the technology that we really want to share with people who will come and work here with us.

It may or may not work. But in my mind, I can see the possibilities and the kind of buzz that comes from coming to work at an interesting place. I've got a name for it - Roadstead - which means a harbour or a refuge or a sanctuary, before you launch out into the open roads. I even know how this will scale if it works. But it may need time for the concept to gell. Please call me at 96312460 or e-mail me if anyone is interested.

I forgot to mention this. It's at Shenton Way, Shenton House, looking out at the SGX Centre. It's near the Festival Market, Lau Pa Sat, where good food from a half-a-dozen cultures can be had, 24 hours a day, at Toa Payoh prices. Cheap and wonderful.

Posted at 9:41AM UTC | permalink