Jeff Immelt also demonstrated strategic leadership in his comments in numerous areas. He said that the Chinese have developed an MRI scanner that is a third the cost of what GE enjoys as their richest market segment today. Many companies would put their head in the ground, but GE is planning to compete directly with Chinese pricing and expand the MRI market on a global basis. I was quite impressed with the comments of Vivek Kundra. The former CTO for the city of Washington DC who is now the first US government CIO. He has a very aggressive approach to opening up government to the people. Today there are more than 20,000 government web sites and most do not make it easy to get data. Vivek is planning to make all non-secret data available to the public through data.gov, His visionary theory is that by making the data available people will find ways to build applications to explore and exploit the data. Privacy will be an issue but the upside is very large. While some people fear the government "watching us", the strategy behind data.gov will allow citizens to watch the government.

Overall, the conference was exceptionally well produced. Upon leaving at the end of the day attendees were given a nice Golla Mobile Lifestyle bag containing a couple of WIRED magazines plus a copy of Chris Anderson's new book -- Free: The Future of a Radical Price. The summer read pile growing already -- but mostly on the Kindle.

As usual, one of the best parts of the conference was seeing former colleagues from years past. It was very nice to catch up with Nicholas Negroponte and Ann Winblad and to compare notes with Jay Walker. Jeff Bezos hung around with attendees at the reception at the end of the day and answered questions from several of us. He is a brilliant businessman that makes it a habit to listen to what people (customers) have to say. I would say that is also why Amazon has a market capitalization of $36 billion.

With the announcement of more than 1,000 API's (application programming interfaces -- these are commands that programmers can use to cause the iPhone to do something; sense a GPS location, sense that the iPhone was shaken, etc., it is a certainty that there will be many thousands more applications for the iPhone. To get an app you go to the app store. To get the app on your iPhone you have to have iTunes. You are tied to Apple. It is what the industry calls a "lock in". It used to be that when you needed a new cell phone you would go to the store of one of the operators and pick from a multitude of brands and phones. Now that you are hooked on various applications and the data in them you need to have a phone that can work with iTunes which is where your apps and your data are stored. Guess how many brands work with iTunes? Just one.

Apple's new OS 3.0 offers 100 new features including a search capability across the entire phone contents, cut-copy-paste, multimedia email, and landscape mode for all the apps. The most stunning and useful for me is the ability to do gmail in a landscape view. The difference in productivity is huge. There will be a lot of smartphone competition from Palm, HTC, Dell, Nokia, Acer, and many others. The phones will all have great hardware features but it is the app store that ties things together. The other guys are building their own app stores but chances are that they won't do it as well as Apple. Apple knows how to make things easy and people seem willing to pay a premium for the ease of use and they don't seem to mind being locked in.

Crowds waited in line to get one of the new iPhones this week but I practiced what I preach and ordered mine online. I was on the road quite a bit as previously reported but when I got home on Friday afternoon, the little brown box from UPS with an iPhone 3GS in it was waiting for me. Every aspect of the iPhone is quite impressive. The packaging is discreet. No indication that it is a high value item from Apple. After opening the box and turning it on the iPhone showed an animated diagram that made it clear that the next thing to do was to plug the iPhone into a computer that was running iTunes. After doing that a dialogue appeared showing my mobile phone number and asking me for my zip code and last four of the social security number. After entering that information the dialogue said that it was contacting AT&T for activation. Then it said that contact had been made and that activation was underway. I looked over at the iPhone and it said it was activating. After a few seconds it said that activation was complete. I took the iPhone out of the cradle and called my home phone. It rang. I then put the phone back in the cradle and iTunes asked if I wanted to sync my data -- photos, music, email settings, home screen photo, dozens of applications, etc.  It took an hour or so to restore all of these things from the latest backup of the iPhone 3G that was being replaced. After it completed, everything worked just fine including all the new goodies that come with the iPhone 3GS and OS 3.0. like voice dialing and platform wide search. It was a totally seamless experience. No technical expertise required. No dumb messages like we have been getting for years from Windoze. No phone calls to wait in a queue.

One of the few negative aspects of the new iPhone 3GS is the pricing. If you are a new customer you can get the 32 GB iPhone 3GS for $299 plus the normal (onerous) AT&T fees. If you are a long term loyal iPhone-AT&T customer (as I have been since the first iPhone two years ago) then you have to pay $499 instead of $299. How can this be? It is irritating millions of customers -- including me. The price gouging of more than 100% is being questioned as to whether it is ethical, sensible, reasonable or even legal. The FCC may be launching an inquiry as to the fairness of the "lock in".

The logic for the premium is that the iPhone 3G S does not really cost $200. The $200 is just a down payment and you pay the rest through the remaining months of your contract with AT&T. I have had an iPhone since day one and have paid the price of being an early adopter. But the arrangement between Apple and AT&T requires that i pay even more. If you haven't paid for enough months then you have to pay a premium to get the newest iPhone early. Most iPhone fans (including me) consider it gouging.

The next step was to sell the iPhone 3G on eBay. What to ask for it? A logical view would be to ask roughly $100 for it but looking at eBay listings it seemed people were asking and getting more. I looked at it from the perspective of a rational buyer and concluded that $169 was the ceiling. For $199 you could get a new 32 GB iPhone 3GS so I started the auction on my 16 GB iPhone 3G at $10 and set a "Buy Now" price of $169. Within less than 10 minutes my phone was sold. All things considered I am very happy with how things came out and now I have the latest and greatest features of the iPhone 3GS. I hope the lady in Minnesota who bought my iPhone 3G enjoys it as much as I have.

At some point Apple will be considered the "evil empire" -- they already are by some people. It goes in cycles. In the late seventies many thought IBM was taking over the world. Then in the eighties it was Microsoft. Then Google. Apple may be next and then probably someone we are not thinking about yet. For right now, Apple is on a major roll with a market capitalization of around $125 billion, just a tad less than GE. For me personally I have greatly enjoyed the many smart phones I have had over the years but at this point I can not imagine giving up my iPhone.

Other patrickWeb stories about the iPhone

I wrote Net Attitude during the summer of 2001 and it was published in November of that year. The timing was not good as at that point business, management, and technology books were not selling much for obvious reasons. However, the book was published both in the U.S. and also outside the U.S. in Chinese, Italian, and UK English. After roughly 30,000 copies, the book sold out, althought there are some new copies floating around and selling on Amazon. There is also a version available for the Kindle and now the new version right here on patrickWeb. My thanks to Andy Grachuk at JingotheCat Web Design for creating the Web compilation.

2001 was a long time ago but not as long ago as 1994 when Tom Brokaw appeared on " Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" to talk about "Early Reports About the Internet". I was in Las Vegas at the conference that Brokaw refers to and the camera caught me with a few comments (see video). Bill Gates got most of the attention, understandably, but it is sad to hear that Brokaw called Gates one of the "founding geniuses of this new technology". That same year both Bill Gates and I gave presentations at an IDG conference in Paris. Gates said the Internet was too slow and too insecure to be used for business. Needless to say, my speech represented the opposite point of view and was in the same camp as Eric Schmidt (then at Sun) who said that every business, large or small, will be on the Internet.

Thanks to Julie Moran Alterio,Technology and business reporter at The Journal News for telling me about the Brokaw video. She called it "A blast from your past". Meanwhile, with regard to Net Attitude....

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Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch will use the World Community Grid to identify the chemical compounds most likely to stop the spread of the influenza viruses and begin testing these under laboratory conditions. The computational work adds up to thousands of years of computer time which will be compressed into just months using the vast computing grid. As many as 10% of the drug candidates identified by calculations on the grid will hopefully show antiviral activity in the laboratory and move to clinical testing.

Influenza claims the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world each year and the current H1N1 virus outbreak is a reminder of how quickly influenza mutates and how easily new strains of the virus emerge. Traditional methods of flu vaccine development can not keep up with the high rate at which viruses change. The World Community Grid can run virtual chemistry experiments to determine which of the millions of small molecules can attach to the influenza virus and inhibit it from spreading. There is the potential to make the world a better place because of this project.

If you want to donate unused computer time to the World Community Grid, take a look at worldcommunitygrid.org.

Other IBM Happenings for the month

The closing conference panel will be moderated by TV newscaster Judy Woodruff. The panelists will be Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Robyn Meredith, and yours truly. Judy Woodruff was born in Oklahoma and has had a distinguished career as a television news anchor and journalist. I remember her as chief White House correspondent for NBC and as host of Frontline on PBS. Neil deGrasse Tyson is also a television personality -- not typical for an astrophysicist. Among many other distinctions, Dr. deGrasse Tyson hosted PBS's educational television show NOVA scienceNOW. Robyn Meredith is the author of the New York Times best-seller The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What it Means for All of Us.

You might say it is eclectic group -- I am certainly humbled to be part of this panel. Judy Woodruff will have a heyday asking questions and no doubt will bring out insights that the audience will find of value. I will not be surprised if I get asked about Twitter, the mobile Internet, the semantic web, and Internet security. I also look forward to learning from the other panelists.

In the "transportation" category, IBM sees increasing demand on rail systems in the U.S. and around the world that will dramatically strain existing rail infrastructure. IBM has released a new study, "The Smarter Railroad," that analyzes new approaches to modernize and build high-speed rail networks around the world. Findings from the report show that there are significant challenges including capacity and congestion; operational efficiency, reliability, safety and security. Otherwise things are fine!

The report highlights emerging technologies that will help rail companies instrument, analyze and manage rail networks and equipment in real-time. By putting sensors on train locomotives, freight and tank cars, at train stations and on the tracks, it is possible to build a new rail infrastructure that can meet dramatically increasing demand for rail transportation. Even meeting current demand is a challenge -- forty cents of every revenue dollar is spent maintaining the rail system. IBM plans to kindle collaboration among the many different stakeholders, including the rail companies, shippers, car owners, travel agents, municipalities, and the various intermodal carriers and customers. IBM is putting a lot of muscle behind the rail infrastructure and is getting good results already For example, Netherlands Railways, one of the busiest national railway networks in Europe, is using IBM software to manage more than 5,000 trains in the Netherlands through a network of 390 stations and 2,800 kilometers of track. The "smart" transportation system is improving the on-time performance for more than one million passengers per day by more accurately matching the number of trains in service to expected user traffic.

Other IBM Happenings for the month

I can handle a hiccup here and there but the terrible customer service is hard to stomach. I called from the iPhone to report the outage and hopefully to get some information about what was going on. Not a chance. Here is what they said. "Your call is very important to us. We are experiencing heavier than normal call volume. Please call back again later." Click. This is what happens when there is insufficient competition in the market. To complement the outage I received five letters in the postal mail from Comcast. Each was some kind of notice that I had changed a user id or password on comcast.com (or was it comcast.net). Three of the envelopes were unsealed. I could rant on, as many people and journalists do, but. I'll stop for now. Comcasted.

Many people may say "who cares" about twitter and tweets, but millions of people do care. They want to know what their friends are doing, not for the summer but right this minute. Millions of others give a priority to telling their friends are doing. News stations now use twitter to send out headlines. Why? To create another channel that might get people to visit a web page and see some advertising. There are many motives but the bottom line is that twitter is another channel. Some people are content to visit a favorite blog or web site once a month or when the spirit moves them. Others want to be notified by email when there is a new story posted. Others want to know instantly. Each to their own. The big picture is that social networks are evolving to the point that the entire World Wide Web is likely going to become the Social Web.

A social network is a structure consisting of nodes (people or organizations) that have a common interest or increasingly a dependency. The tie that binds us can be one or more of many things: values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, kinship, food likes or dislikes, buy or sell trading, links to each other's blogs, epidemiology, or airline routes. The resulting ontologies are very complex. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families to countries. The use of the networks is beginning to be a key tool in collaboration to solve problems, how people achieve their goals and even how organizations are run.

In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all the relevant ties between the nodes (people). One of the first social networks was Linkedin and I have been a member of it from nearly the beginning. Hardly a day goes by without an invitation to join some network -- often from a person I never heard of. To gain the real "network effect" I recommend being selective in dealing with these invitations. Otherwise you end up connected to everybody which is as valuable as being connected to nobody. There are many people who are looking for people to send press releases to or to throw you into a recruitment pool or just be able to say they "know" someone or is their "friend" because they saw your name in the paper or saw you at a conference. The real power is not in the numbers per se but to really know someone who knows someone who knows someone and to have the credibility with the person you know such that they are willing to help you to connect to someone else. I have 225 trusted friends and colleagues in my Linkedin network. Two degrees away -- friends of friends; each connected to one of my connections -- there are more than 86,000 people. Three degrees away -- members who can be reached through a friend and one of their friends -- is 6,137,500 people. If you are discerning about it you can develop considerable social capital.

There are many issues in the social networking space. One of them is that there are so many networks. If you take a look at the end of this story you will see -- and if you like the story and click on , you can send an email link to the story to friends. A second choice is that you can post the story to your own blog. Perhaps most important is the third choice which is to post the story at one or more of your favorite social networks.

How many social networks should you belong to? Certainly not forty. I belong to Linkedin, Facebook, and twitter but . Three is enough for me. But is it? There are many niche networks -- such as A Small World -- that will be of interest to many. But do you want to create a profile of your personal information at each of the networks you choose? And keep them up to date? And tell your connected friends what you are doing and exactly where you are (latitude and longitude) and what music you like or even what song you are listening to at the moment? To me the glass is half full. I am hopeful that protocols will emerge such as OAuth, OpenID, and OpenSocial that will level the playing field. We will be able to use one single "sign-on" for all our web sites and create *one* profile and have control over which networks and which parts of the profile it appear in. For example, it would be nice to create a comprehensive profile that is encrypted and totally under the user's control. You may choose to have your favorite songs be accessible through Facebook but not your medical records from Google Health and your Google Health electronic medical record to be accessible to your primary care physician and your hospital but nobody else. The application you create for your consulting business or a new game you created could be available through *all* the social networks.

Social networking is the next turn of the crank of the Internet. By combining networks, such as a mobile phone networks, mobile payment systems, the Internet and a network of people all sharing a common cause, a viral effect can take place resulting in a lot of money or assistance flowing to the need -- political, emergency response or (hopefully) humanitarian. There are surely many security and privacy issues with social networking but I am optimistic they will be solved.

Meanwhile, University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student Adam Wilson recently posted a status update on Twitter by just thinking about it. The target is people who cannot move but have normal brain function. The brain-based twitter communication system represents one of the first uses of brain-computer interface techniques in conjunction with the Internet.

e-tirement started more than seven years ago but somehow I seem to be getting busier as time goes on. The latest blast of activities started with a visit to the Lake. I rode the trike over (with heated vest -- hard to believe it was that cold) to get some rake modifications made. Turns out the parts were delayed and so I have to go back over at the end of this week and ride the trike back to Connecticut. The visit at the lake had the potential to be relaxing but then the grandchildren arrived and then there was not a dull moment. After they left, we had one really great day of weather and took advantage of it by taking a hike and discovering a geocache (as previously discussed).

After nearly two weeks at the lake we drove home then a day later to the PhiladelphIa area to serve as babysitters for the grandchildren for a few days. After an overnight at our home in Connecticut we went to New York City for an annual gathering of friends -- this was our 26th year of the tradition.

Much has changed among the five couples but the tradition lives on. My wife and decided to go in to the the City a day early. It was an uneventful train ride to Grand Central Station but then there were a number of not so uneventful happenings to follow. After checking in to the hotel we decided to walk to our lunch reservation (OpenTable) in Greenwich Village. After ten or so blocks I reached in my pocket to check our location on the iPhone and in the process a piece of paper fell out. I went back a few yards to pick it up and then proceeded down the street. My wife was out of sight. We had discussed whether to branch left or right just seconds ago. I retraced steps and tried both forks in the street but no sign of her. I continued on thinking I would catch up to her but this was not to be the case. Knowing that she did not have her cell phone and also knowing she is confident in any situation I finally decided to get a cab so as not to not lose our reservation at Monte's Trattoria - regrettably we were the only two patrons in the restaurant. Years ago I recall losing one of our four children at the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, but I had never before lost my wife. I got to the restaurant and my iPhone rang. It was my wife calling from a taxi driver's cell phone -- she was on the way. After a very enjoyable lunch, we picked off a geocache called "Golden Swan and the Cage" located next to a famous basketball court called The Cage and then walked fifty blocks (seven miles for the day) back to the hotel. Along the way we stopped at the Forbes Magazine Gallery. I was not aware of this very interesting and impressive treasure trove of model airplanes, boats, and toy soldiers. We recognized a model of the Forbes Highlander yacht, having been on it ten years or so ago for a dinner cruise around the Statue of Liberty.

After a short rest it was off to dinner at Felidia's and then to Lincoln Center for a spectacular concert of Verdi, Puccini and Respighi conducted by Riccardo Muti. As always, Stanley Drucker was one of the stars of the evening (see prior stories in patrickWeb about Drucker). It was the taxi ride back to the hotel after the concert that was not so uneventful. A black limousine had been swerving in and out as we came down Ninth Avenue. At one point our driver slammed on the breaks to avoid a collision with the limo and this apparently infuriated the limo driver who jumped out of the limo and began an unprovoked attack swearing and punching the taxi driver. The bloodied taxi driver called 911. I gave the taxi driver some money and began to leave the car but he begged us to stay and be witnesses. After twenty minutes I was ready to leave but the driver, who had a heavy accent, said the police would never believe him and he needed us to stay. A crowd at the outdoor dining area on the corner had witnessed the whole affair and one of them retrieved the license plate number of the limo. When the police arrived they took all the information, including my driver's license and phone number, and they called an ambulance for the taxi driver. We left with an uncomfortable feeling that the driver's taxi would be towed away and that he would end up losing his job for having gotten in a fight. I can only hope that a detective will call me and corroborate the story.

The brunch at Tavern on the Green was much more serene than the cab ride. There were nine of us that were seated like sardines. The Tavern has a great view and beautiful chandeliers but service and food were not quite proportional to the price. We got to the Richard Rodgers Theatre just in time for the matinee performance of "In The Heights". The new musical is a journey into one of Manhattan's most vibrant communities, with an amazing cast, incredible dancing and a story that is deeper than many on Broadway. Somehow it seems that each year the seat space gets smaller, but no complaints -- I feel fortunate to have been able to make the annual trek.


Other travel related stories on patrickWeb

IBM intends to help make business decision makers "smarter" too. The company has announced the creation of a new consulting organization that will focus on "advanced business analytics and business optimization". What a mouthful. IBM Business Analytics and Optimization Services will draw on the company’s deep expertise in vertical industries, mathematics and information management to help clients improve the speed and quality of business decisions. The service is designed to help decision makers understand the consequences of actions under consideration and actually see business outcomes that will result.

The IBM experts and their arsenal of tools are able to construct a digital model of the client's business or a functional aspect of their business. For example, some companies have handled their distribution channel in a certain way, well because they have always handled it that way. With a digital model of their distribution channel the IBM experts could then help clients simulate the many "what if" questions. What if we used trains instead of planes, company trucks instead of overnight delivery company trucks, a central distribution center or one in each region, or outsourced distribution centers managed by the overnight delivery companies. Etc. By connecting multiple digital models of the processes of a business, decision makers can see their next year's annual report in advance and in fact see hundreds of them each based on a different combination of "what ifs". While the planet is getting smarter -- with IBM's help -- business leaders can too.

Other IBM Happenings for the month

I am so thankful to have the new oxinium knee and that it allows for hiking after less than six months. Last summer it was hobbling around and a half-mile hike resulted in a lot of pain. It seems like everyone knows someone who has had a total knee replacement or is considering one. Much praise and credit is due to Dr. Sanjay Gupta and the teams at Danbury Hospital and Bethel Health Care Rehabilitation Center but I also believe the preparation and approach to rehabilitation make a huge difference as well. The factors that made the biggest difference for me are here.

Speaking of other credit cards, it is unfortunately not possible to have just an American Express card. Many small retailers and restaurants will not accept American Express. It is too bad that they often insult the card holder with comments like "we take anything but" the card you presented. I have resigned to the fact that I need to carry two cards. One easy solution is to have a debit card but credit cards offer two advantages. You get free money -- float -- for 30+ days as long as you pay your balance. Secondly, you get points, miles, or cash rebates. It was my experience that the miles and points are too restrictive to be valuable. I concluded the best deal in the long run is to get the cash rebate which averages out to 1.5% of your purchases. In the summer of 2005 I found the ideal card -- an ExxonMobil Mastercard -- issued and managed by Citigroup. The ExxonMobil card offered a 1% cash rebate on all purchases and 3% on their gasoline purchases for six months and then 2% (and now 15 cents per gallon). One of the prerequisites in selecting this card was that it work directly with Quicken -- which I have been using since 1984 (Quicken 1.0 for DOS). Each time I update Quicken it automatically goes to Citicards (and American Express) and downloads all new transactions.

I have been a loyal user of the ExxonMobil card for almost four years. I pay my balance on time and they are usually helpful in the event of an issue with a merchant -- although much more difficult (write us a letter) than American Express (call and get instant temporary credit while the issue is resolved). A few weeks ago I discovered that my Mastercard transactions were not downloading. The error message delivered from Citicards via Quicken was "Your financial institution has rejected your request". No big deal. I have run into this error before. It will be fine tomorrow I thought. But it wasn't. It still does not work. Technical support at Citicards said the problem was that they do not yet support Quicken 2009. Quicken 2009 hit the market last summer and that did not seem like the right answer because it had been working. Looking around the support forum at Quicken I discovered that a lot of people were having the same problem. The card holders were very clear in their frustration but Citi was not listening. I sent tech support an email and to my delight they answered it the next day -- the email contained 89 words to give me a link to a web page with their answer which only had 63 words. Here is what they said.

We appreciate your inquiry and regret any inconvenience. The ability to download transactions via Quicken previously was a website error that has since been corrected. The ability is no longer available as Exxon Mobil has not authorized Quicken use of the website. At this time no plans for restoration of the service has been identified or released. Thank you for using our website.

In other words the fact that it worked was a bug and the fix is to not allow it to work. I can ignore their "purchase APR equals the Prime Rate plus 14.99% (with a minimum of 21.00% and a maximum 28.99%" because I pay my balance on time, but I can not ignore the fact that Citicards has decided to not allow their gasoline cards to work with Quicken. It really makes you wonder how such a huge organization could be so clueless and send an email that violates common sense. Their own bank and their own credit cards of course do allow Quicken downloads. This huge financial services company has a way of making you feel irrelevant. The only solution is to cancel the card. Now they have 92 million minus one card holders. The online application for a Capital One No Hassle Cash Rebate Mastercard took a few minutes and resulted in an approval within a few seconds. (I first verified with Quicken that the card transactions can be downloaded). The lesson for all businesses is that their customers are only a mouse click away from their competitors.

Like Skype, Google Voice is a free VoIP service in classic Google "beta" test status but I have already adopted it as my preferred service. While attending Demo in San Diego in September 2006, I became a beta tester for a VoIP service called Grand Central. The following year they were acquired by Google and after a quiet period of development, Grand Central was launched as Google Voice. Being a Grand Central beta tester got me an early Google Voice account.

The conversion was simple. I had not been using Grand Central much because there was no way to sync the contact list. With Google Voice you get instant sync with your Gmail contact list. When you start out you get a phone number for most any area code you want. The new number then becomes your only number. When someone calls it your cell phone, your office phone, you home phone, and a vacation home phone all ring. You answer and hear who is calling and press 1 to accept the call. Or for some people that you designate, the call goes straight to voicemail. For others only your cell phone rings. You can add your contacts to different groups and have each group be treated differently. You can "ListenIn" on voicemails as they are being recorded and then decide to enter a conversation. When you receive a voicemail you get an email containing a machine transcription of the message. It is not perfect but good enough that you can tell who it is and what the call is about. You can block callers, record conversations, or add them into an ongoing conference call. Up to four callers can be added to a free conference call. The history tab in Google Voice shows all of your inbound and outbound calls. Needless to say you can search through the history of all your calls to refresh your memory about a conversation you had a year ago. SMS messages and all of your calls have shared inboxes, trash, history, and spam folders just like gmail.

The feature I like the most is that you can install Gizmo -- a free VoIP program that runs on your PC -- and add your SIP number as one of your Google Voice phone numbers. When a call comes in a dialogue box pops up on your display. You click "answer" and then the call can be handled with a headset (I use a Plantronics noise-canceling model) which provides hands-free high quality audio for me and the caller. Another nice feature is that you can make a Google Voice call from your iPhone (or any mobile phone). All U.S. calls are free. A call to Norway is two cents per minute. With free conference calls and a boatload of other free features, Google Voice is going to put the heat on the telephony monopolists. It will also put pressure on eBay's $2.5 billion acquisition of Skype for which they later took a $1.4 billion write-down.

The best way to reach me is still to send an email but now you can also leave a message for me at Google Voice.

So I am sticking to my story -- the iPhone 3G is fantastic. There are some issues but Apple seems to be solving them. The primary change in their strategy is that Apple came to realize that the iPhone is much more than a "cell phone" -- it is a platform. The six basic elements of the platform are the iPhone itself, the network (AT&T in the United States), iTunes, the "App Store", MobileMe and, most importantly, the applications. With yesterday's announcement of more than 1,000 API's (application programming interfaces -- these are commands that programmers can use to cause the iPhone to do something; sense a GPS location, sense that the iPhone was shaken, etc., it is a certainty that there will be many thousands more applications for the iPhone. To get an app you go to the app store. To get the app on your iPhone you have to have iTunes. You are tied to Apple. It is what the industry calls a "lock in". It used to be that when you needed a new cell phone you would go to the store of one of the operators and pick from a multitude of brands and phones. Now that you are hooked on various applications and the data in them you need to have a phone that can work with iTunes which is where your apps and your data are stored. Guess how many brands work with iTunes? Just one.

Apple's new OS 3.0 coming in June will offer 100 new features including a search capability across the entire phone contents, cut-copy-paste, multimedia email, and landscape mode for all the apps. There will be a lot of smartphone competition from Palm, HTC, Dell, Nokia, Acer, and many others. The phones will all have great hardware features but it is the app store that ties things together. The other guys will be building their own app stores but chances are that they won't do it as well as Apple. Apple knows how to make things easy and people seem willing to pay a premium for the ease of use and they don't seem to mind being locked in. I will certainly take a hard look at the new Pre when it arrives but I doubt if I would give up my iPhone.

Other patrickWeb stories about the iPhone

The Internet has made the world much smaller and "flatter” and now the next turn of the crank will make the world "smarter". IBM is not using a metaphor -- they are not talking about the "knowledge economy" or the spread of education throughout the world. The company has a vision about introducing intelligence into the way the world actually works -- not into people but into the systems and processes that enable goods to be developed, manufactured, sold, bought, transported, and serviced.

The concept of making things smarter lies in pervasive instrumentation, sensors and powerful computing -- enabling the control of what things do and how they work. A simple example is a garage door sensor. If a bicycle is left on the driveway, the door senses that something is in the way and stops the door closing process. A more sophisticated example would be a node on the power grid sensing that power consumption is increasing in one location and decreasing in another. As a result the node switches the delivery of power from the surplus area to the area in need thereby avoiding a brownout. Likewise a smart web server might notice an increase in demand and shift workloads to idle servers and power down servers that are idle. A hospital gurney being transported down the hall is sensed and causes a message to be posted to the patient's electronic patient record and a message is sent to their primary care physician notifying the doctor that their patient has moved from the ER to a medical floor at the hospital.

The potential is boundless. Stockholm’s intelligent traffic system, created by IBM, has resulted in 20 percent less gridlock and a 12-percent drop in emissions by sensing how many vehicles are moving in a particular part of the city. In Norway IBM built a system for the country's largest food supplier that uses RFID technology to trace meat and poultry from the farm, through the supply chain, all the way to supermarket shelves. Smarter water? A collaboration between IBM and The Nature Conservancy is using computer modeling to simulate, monitor -- and potentially manage -- the behavior of river basins in the U.S., China, and Brazil.

There are countless projects of an urgent nature that can take advantage of IBM's Smarter Planet vision to make the world more instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent. The result will be improved productivity, efficiency, responsiveness, profitability and huge societal benefits. IBM is well positioned to continue delivering on large complex projects around the world. The financial results from this should be significant. Take a look at the IBM 2008 Annual Report for more insight about what they are doing.

Complete index of IBM Happenings



IBM unveils Tivoli Storage Manager 6
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager 6 helps customers reduce operational
costs by improving scalability and addressing the performance of their
storage management assets.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26608.wss

IBM announces energy and environment validation program
IBM's new technical validation program helps clients easily identify IBM
Business Partner offerings that provide energy and environment benefits.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26604.wss

IBM to build 20 petaflop supercomputer
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has
selected IBM to design and build two new supercomputers at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26599.wss

IBM delivers new talent management service
The Mid-Market Workforce Effectiveness service combines IBM's human
resource expertise with Lawson's Strategic Human Capital Management suite.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26586.wss

Suntel selects IBM Lotus Unified Communications
Suntel is deploying Lotus Notes and Domino and Lotus Sametime for unified
communications and collaboration and Lotus Symphony tools to its employees.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26607.wss

IBM unveils building blocks for 21st century infrastructure
The new products and services enable clients to use powerful computing
systems to manage and gain insight from an increasing number of things in
their physical infrastructure.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26550.wss

IBM advances enterprise cloud computing
IBM revealed a series of new products, services, clients and partnerships for
its Blue Cloud initiative – through which IBM is collaborating to develop and test
integrated cloud solutions for businesses.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26642.wss

IBM announces SPDE 3.0
IBM's Service Provider Delivery Environment (SPDE) Framework allows for the
creation, delivery and management of new telecommunications, digital media
and Internet-based services.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26658.wss

IBM to deliver software via cloud computing
IBM announced a new agreement with Amazon Web Services to deliver IBM software
to clients and developers via the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud environment
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26673.wss

1-800-FLOWERS.COM grows business with IBM
IBM announced that 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc., the world's leading florist and gift
shop, has selected IBM to provide its new e-commerce platform.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26668.wss

IBM helps clients set CO2 reduction strategy
IBM's Strategic Carbon Management offering assists clients in developing
strategies to manage and reduce energy use and CO2 emissions.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26724.wss

IBM helps HFCL go green
The HFCL Group, a leading player in the telecom sector in India, has selected
IBM to implement innovative blade server technology to reduce its operational
costs and "Go Green".
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26730.wss

IBM, IBEC initiate rural broadband access
IBM and IBEC have begun to establish Broadband over Power Line networks
for nearly 200,000 rural customers in Alabama, Indiana, Michigan and Virginia.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26728.wss

IBM study recommends biopartnering
A survey by IBM and Silico Research reveals that if biopharmaceutical
companies fail to collaborate, they risk delays in the production of medicines,
devices and diagnostics.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26732.wss

University of Louisville supercomputer advances research
The University of Louisville's new IBM supercomputer will be used in areas
such as cancer research, materials science, atmospheric modeling
and bioinformatics.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26733.wss

IBM completes acquisition of ILOG
The ILOG Business Rule Management System, Optimization, Visualization, and Supply Chain Management portfolios will build upon IBM software and BPM leadership.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26403.wss

IBM releases "Building Smarter Retail Systems" podcast
The latest episode of the "Building a Smarter Planet" podcast series addresses changes retailers need to make in response to economic changes and empowered consumers.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26401.wss

Sara Lee, IBM sign services agreement
IBM has signed a seven-year agreement with Sara Lee Corporation to manage
and maintain pieces of the consumer products company's global back office operations.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26347.wss

IBM helps Bank of Chengdu build banking system
Bank of Chengdu has chosen the IBM POWER 595 platform to upgrade its core banking system.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26411.wss

IBM signs IT infrastructure deal with Kotak
IBM has signed a US$5 million IT services agreement with Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited
-- one of India's leading banking and financial services providers.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26404.wss

IBM reports 2008 fourth-quarter and full-year results
IBM announced fourth-quarter 2008 diluted earnings of $3.28 per share from
continuing operations compared with diluted earnings of $2.80 per share in the
fourth quarter of 2007, an increase of 17 percent as reported.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26510.wss

IBM announces LotusLive
IBM LotusLive, a cloud-based portfolio of social networking services, will serve
as a single destination for all IBM Lotus online collaboration tools.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26508.wss

IBM and SAP announce Alloy
IBM and SAP AG will release their first joint software product, called Alloy, which
connects IBM Lotus Notes software with SAP Business Suite.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26505.wss

IBM to acquire Outblaze's e-mail service assets
The asset acquisition will accelerate IBM's delivery of affordable,
Web-based e-mail services in a software-as-a-service model.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26486.wss

Korea Exchange Bank migrates to IBM System z10
KEB's migration to IBM System z10 enables the bank's credit card
business to create an advanced and smarter IT environment to improve
efficiency and customer service.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26490.wss

BNP Paribas, IBM sign services agreement
IBM and BNP Paribas announced an agreement for their existing joint
venture, BP2I, to support and manage the IT infrastructure operations
of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26516.wss

Hospitals choose IBM to build electronic medical records
Capella Healthcare, Memorial Hermann Hospital System, Trillium Health Centre
and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have turned to IBM to help build a smarter
healthcare system.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26807.wss

IBM joins project to build smart grid for electric cars
IBM has joined the EDISON research consortium, a Denmark-based collaborative
aimed at developing an intelligent infrastructure that will make possible the large
scale adoption of electric vehicles powered by sustainable energy.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26783.wss

IBM launches health record system for Guang Dong Hospital
IBM announced the launch of a new suite of healthcare information sharing and analytics
technologies at the Guang Dong Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26789.wss

IBM sheds light on the smart energy consumer
IBM Global Business Services' new report, "Lighting the Way: Understanding the smart
energy consumer," shows that consumers are willing to become more involved with
managing their energy use.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26782.wss

Scientists discover oldest words in the English language
Evolutionary language scientists from the University of Reading are using an IBM
supercomputer, known as ThamesBlue, to investigate how languages evolve.

('I', 'we', 'who' and the numbers '1', '2' and '3' are amongst the oldest words.)
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26806.wss

Pro Bono Partnership recognizes IBM as outstanding volunteer
The Pro Bono award was bestowed upon IBM in recognition of free legal assistance
the company’s attorneys have provided to the Partnership’s clients.
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26747.wss


Complete index of IBM Happenings

While the cell phone makers need three years to convert to the new micro USB standards-based charger, Amazon has already included it with Kindle 2. I think they have a winner on their hands. An analyst I heard today said that Amazon was cannibalizing it's book business. I think he missed the point. When Amazon sells a "real" book for $20 their cost will include the printing, binding, inclusion of a multi-color glossy dust jacket, picking the book from the warehouse shelf, packing it in a box, and loading it on a truck. When Amazon sells a "Kindlized" book for $10 their cost includes a server noticing the click on amazon.com or on a Kindle and the transmission of a few hundred thousand or so bytes of data over the air to the Kindle plus an infinitesimal amount of storage to keep a copy on their server. The only question is how many times greater the profit margin is in favor of the non-book book.

Other patrickWeb stories in the gadget category

The mobile phone industry group has announced that 17 wireless operators and handset makers have agreed to standardize chargers by 2012 for most of the cell phones they sell. The chargers would be interchangeable, evenutally making it possible to charge any phone that you own and new phones that you buy with the same charger. Imagine one small efficient charger in the kitchen that all family members could use as needed.

The initial group of companies that have joined the initiative include 3 Group, AT&T Inc., KTF, LG, mobilkom austria, Motorola Inc., Nokia Corp., Orange, Qualcomm Inc., Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefonica SA, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone PLC. The new standardized chargers would use the micro USB interface -- which is smaller than the more commonly used mini USB connector but has already been adopted in a few handsets, including the BlackBerry Storm. The new chargers will also meet higher energy efficiency targets -- with up to 50% energy savings achieved by cutting back power use when on standby. That is the good news. The bad news is that the GSM Association -- which has limited authority over the vendors -- has set the goal to have "the majority of all new mobile phone models" supporting the new chargers by January 1, 2012. That would be triple or more of the product design cycle for introducing new phones. The other bad news is that although an impressive list of companies has commited to the new standard, some key players are noticeable by their absence -- namely Apple, which is clinging to the legacy iPod connector, RIM and Palm.

Why isn't the goal 100% and why can't we get there sooner than 2012? European countries would prefer to use regulation to get the job done and there is certainly an argument for it. It was that line of thinking that created GSM phones that now work in most countries of the world. Standards definitely work -- that is why the Internet is the great resource that it is. It has been the U.S. that has been behind thanks to lack of competition, far too many lobbyists, and an FCC which is a politicial entity. Nevertheless, when it comes to power chargers I prefer a market based approach to a government mandated approach. Some will argue -- probably Apple -- that being forced to have the same power connector as everyone else will eliminate innovation. Maybe they will find a way that by just placing your iPhone near your Mac that electrons will jump through the air and charge the iPhone -- no charger, no connector. Maybe someone will invent a picture that hangs on the wall that emits electrical energy and can charge any device in the room -- no chargers, no connectors. MIT has successfully moved energy wirelessly -- albeit not very much and not very far. In the meantime I think the market will work. Let's say Palm heldout and was the only mobile phone producer that did not use the standard connector and required a unique charger. I would think their market share would decline. I predict Apple will be the only holdout.

Other patrickWeb stories about mobile

IBM revealed a comprehensive series of new products, services, clients and partnerships for its Blue Cloud initiative -- a collaborative approach the company is using to develop and test integrated cloud solutions for businesses. While Google, Apple, Microsoft and others battle it out for email and document cloud services for consumers -- much like the browser wars of the 1990's -- IBM is focusing on the enterprise. The company has a wide portfolio of cloud computing offerings for business, such as server capacity on demand, online data protection, Lotus e-mail and collaboration software, testing environments, and high performance computing for research and education. Customers in the pharmaceutical industry, for example, have selected IBM's Computing on Demand Cloud Services because it provides a highly secure and scalable storage and computing environment. Very large companies often want to build their own clouds and for them IBM offers Infrastructure Consulting Services for Cloud Computing and Infrastructure Strategy and Planning for Cloud Computing. IBM experts conduct workshops to help the customers develop clouds that are based on tried and true (and blue) solutions. I suppose many companies feel that building their clouds with "blue" will mean blue skies ahead for them.

Complete index of IBM Happenings

And now we have the Kindle 2, the next generation wireless reading device. At just over 1/3 inch and 10.2 ounces, Amazon claims an even more sleek and thin design that makes Kindle 2 as thin as a typical magazine and lighter than a paperback. The new Kindle has seven times more storage and now holds over 1,500 books. Not sure I need that much storage but I look forward to the longer battery life and especially the faster page turns. Today's Kindle has a sharp image but the new one claims even crisper images by supporting sixteen shades of gray instead of the current four.

The most amazing thing about the Kindle is how easy it is to use. The "electronic paper" makes the screen as sharp and natural as reading ink on paper without the strain and glare of a computer screen. You have to see it to believe it, and the Kindle 2 will be even better. The device weighs ten ounces, never becomes hot, and is easy for both "lefties" and "righties" to read comfortably at any angle for long periods of time. I have arthritis in my neck and need to read without bending my head down. I use a reading stand which works very well except that with large books like "Pillars", it is hard to keep the book open on the stand. No problem with the Kindle. It just sits there and when it is time to "turn the page" you just tap a button on the Kindle and the next (or previous) page appears. You can select from six font sizes to suit your taste and compensate for lighting conditions. If you encounter a word you are not familiar with, a couple of clicks the built-in New Oxford Dictionary displays the definition. You can add bookmarks, notes, and take "clippings" as you read. There are no logins and passwords. No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments. It is a joy to use.

The Chinese invention of paper in 105 A.D. changed the way the world communicates. The invention of "e-ink" may change it again. The electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. The screen displays the ink particles electronically. It reflects light like ordinary paper and uses no backlighting. All things considered, I think Amazon has hit a major home run with the Kindle and I can't wait to get the Kindle 2.

Other patrickWeb gadget stories

Like a broken record, I offered the normal upbeat view of the future of the Internet but prefaced my remarks by asserting that we are only 5% of the way there. In other words, of all the things that could be done on the Internet that would save us time and make our lives better, only 5% of them are there. It may sound low but consider retail e-commerce. Although there has been continuous and steady growth of retail e-commerce it still represents just over 3% of total retail (as of the end of October). Why isn't it 25% or more? Much written about that here at patrickWeb but the short version is that there are still a lot of lame web sites. "Click here for the location of our nearest dealer where you can buy the product you just found" or "Click here to download this form and fax it to us". And of course there are the ubiquitous clipboards at doctor offices where we take a pen and write information that they already have.

I described one man's view of the evolution of the Internet including the seven characteristics below. This parsed way of looking at the Internet has served me well for quite a few years. The things going on under each area continuously change and Jim asks me once a year to do a thumbnail sketch of my latest thinking.

Fast
Broadband in the U.S. is not a pretty story compared to other parts of the world. The problem is that there are too many lobbyists and the FCC is a political organization. I was in Greenland this past August. It is three times the size of Texas, has no trees, and only 50,000 people. The entire population has access to the Internet. When the chairman of the FCC was asked by CNBC why the U.S. was not even in the top ten countries of the world in terms of broadband availability, his reply was that there many rural parts of America!

Always On
WiFi is becoming more and more a part of the fabric of the world. Hospitals will soon be replacing their infusion pumps with WiFi infusion pumps that will enable hospital administrators to know where the pumps are, which ones need maintenance, and even allow doctors to adjust drop rates of intravenous solutions via the Internet WiMax continues to struggle. Some believe it will replace WiFi. My bet is on WiFi.

Everywhere
Cloud computing has become the mainstay for me and for millions. Whether it is gmail or MobileMe the convenience and reliability of the clouds is compelling. The next big wave is enterprise cloud computing. Virtualization is making enterprise servers more scalable, reliable, and efficient than ever. Broadband in the enterprise likewise. Security models allow remote access for telecommuters and AJAX is enabling applications to run in any browser on any kind of computer including mobile.

Natural
Social networking may not be a business model in and unto itself but it is becoming fundamental to all aspects of our economy and society. Integration of social networking with a full range of web applications will evolve to become the primary means of collaboration.

Intelligent
The Semantic Web is the next big turn of the crank. Most web pages have links but do not have context. In other words the words on the page do not necessarily mean anything -- but they could. If a web page said "Join us for a concert by The Eagles at Kimmel Center in Philadelphia next Tuesday" that set of words could have a lot of context. Clicking on it could add the concert to your calendar, knowing what "next Tuesday" means. It would also know exactly where the Kimmel Center is and that The Eagles is a performing group that performs a particular genre and your music player would receive a list of suggestions of music they have recorded or links to live concerts under way at the moment. This is the tip of the iceberg. The semantic web will lead us to a point where most of the interactions of web pages will be between computers not between computers and people.

Easy
Technology isn't the easiest thing at times. There are many dimensions to "easy" but one good example is the Nintendo Wii. At a local senior center, members find the Wii to be their exercise coach. It is not just for kids!

Trusted
This is the big one. Will we trust the Internet? Security technology is available to achieve much higher levels of security than presently deployed both at enterprise and consumer levels. The bigger issue will be privacy. Banks have our personal information and they are using it. Healthcare insurers have more information about our health than our doctors do. Nevertheless, there is much to be optimistic about when it comes to electronic medical records. Maybe 5% of doctors and hospitals use them but this will likely rise fast and the result will be better care, better outcomes, and fewer errors. And, fewer clipboards.

Other patrickWeb stories

Comcast is great as long as things are working but when things go awry they are terrible. A recent survey on reputation by Harris Interactive put Comcast at #56 out of 60 companies. (See The Dark Lord of Broadband Tries to Fix Comcast's Image in current issue of Wired). A free market with a lot of competition would drive such a company out of business or to higher rankings. Unfortunately, in the U.S. we do not have much competition thanks to the FCC and legions of lobbyists at Comcast and AT&T and Verizon, The Comcast call center system is smart enough to take the 10-digit phone number you key in and tell you that there is "an outage in your area", but if you persist through the call center menus and reach a person they will first ask you for your 10-digit number -- the same one you have already keyed in. The person I spoke to was very nice but had no other information other than "technicians are aware of the problem and are diligently working on it". No estimate of expected restoration of signal but "it usually isn't more than a day". Great. The final comment was "thanks for using Comcast". I said I wish I could. In some ways Comcast is a 21st century communications company but when you have service issues they are a 1970's cable monopoly. Vonage, on the other hand has great customer service. Turns out the Vonage modem went bad recently also. The support rep overnighted a new modem at no charged and called me several times to follow-up to make sure I received it and had it working properly.

The Comcast outage lasted more than 50 hours. There were no follow-up calls nor an available status at any time. Fortunately, outages such as this do not happen very often. I can't remember the last one -- a couple of years at least. I did have a Verizon EV-DO card for backup and while traveling but between the iPhone's increased 3G and WiFi coverage, plus Verizon's $60+ dollars per month cost and less than great service, I recently cancelled the service. At some point Google Gears will provide a way to have local copies of your email and documents.This will allow you to create emails and edit or create documents and then synchronize them when you get connected.

The bottom line is that things break. Moving into the clouds moves the exposure of computer breakdowns in the hands of Google et al but getting between your computer and their requires reliable communications. The communications path includes modems, local networks in your house or business and utility poles which are vulnerable to ice storms. Having an iPhone replaces my modem and local area network with a 3G tower about 2 miles away. At the bottom of the tower is a shed full of equipment. Fortunately, all equipment is getting more and more reliable. The main dependency in the end is having enough competition to motivate the providers to keep their equipment up to date.

Anybody still buying CD's? I can not imagine why. I used to think XM Radio had a big future but I now have my doubts. I love music and my current favorite way to play it is using Pandora. The music genome at Pandora allows you to pick a genre, a specific title, or an artist and it then creates a "radio" station on your Pandora web page that continuously plays music that "sounds like" the selection you made. You can give a playing song the thumbs up or down with a click and your "station" gets more and more like you like it. When at home I listen to Pandora through the house music system using a Squeezebox which is connected via WiFi to the home LAN. When away from home I use the Pandora application on the iPhone. In most cards these days you can plug your iPhone into an "aux" jack and listen to your favorite Pandora stations. Satellite radio has been disintermediating terrestrial radio and now the Internet is disintermediating satellite. Just like just about every other dimension of business, the Internet is taking a major role in music.

Other patrickWeb music related stories

Let's start with the easy parts. Effective and simple backup has been elusive for me for decades and much has been written here about the subject. Finally, a solution is in place that I am comfortable with. It has two parts to it. First is idrive.com. The service is free for up to 2 GB. You simply identify which files and folders are critical and it keeps them backed up in the idrive cloud. Very simple interface and you can't beat the price. I have been using the service on two Windows ThinkPads in the house and have been extremely pleased with how it works..

The other half of the solution is the Iomega one terabyte StorCenter. The six-pound marvel plugs right into the home LAN in the basement. Very inexpensive and easy to setup. I use it to back up really big files and Linux ThinkPads. It is set up as an I: drive and is accessible just like the C: drive. It is connected via gigabit ethernet so copying files to and from the box is lightning fast. Like the predecessor I had been using for years, it is RAID storage, so there are always redundant copies of everything. The box is smaller than half a shoe box and it uses roughly $3 per month in electricity. The predecessor used $30 per month, so the justification to spend $250 on the StorCenter was very simple.

There are two applications on my desktop that keep me chained to Windows and which I backup every time I use them. First is Quicken, which I I have been using since Release 1.0 back in the early 1980's. As I wrote in Net Attitude seven years ago, the web version is not a viable alternative. Unfortunately, that is still true today. In theory a web-based application like Mint.com and others could replace Quicken but they just are not up to it quite yet. The other workhorse for me is Dreamweaver, which I use to manage patrickWeb. In theory there are many web based alternatives but I have yet to find one that is as powerful and easy to use. Eventually, I expect both of these to be "in the clouds" but not quite yet.

Now, on to the more interesting things. Photos are all in the Picasa cloud and music is in iTunes. No particular issues with either of them. Next is email. I started using email in the early 1980's with a system at IBM called PROFS. In 1994 the company email system became Lotus Notes. I was an early adopter and in the beginning there was nobody to send email to! When I e-tired in 2001 I switched to Microsoft Outlook so I could be like everybody else that I attended tech conferences with. As with many people I know, it developed into a love-hate relationship. The Lotus and Microsoft mail solutions are great in many respects but in a way you are chained to someone's central infrastructure with them. I was looking for freedom. Along came gmail and, bingo, I was liberated. Or so I thought. The mail part of it was easy. Gmail is lightning fast and although it is a "cloud" application with all the user functionality appearing in the browser, it acts like a desktop application and I can use it on the Ubuntu Linux ThinkPad in the kitchen, a Windows PC in the workshop, or any computer anywhere. And freedom from Outlook -- almost, expect for contacts and calendar entries, my lifeblood.

Contacts and calendar entries were still in Outlook but they synchronized with MobileMe which in turn synchronized with the iPhone. Seems a bit convoluted but it worked. Some occasional glitches but it was acceptable. How to add a new contact or modify a calendar entry? Could do it with Outlook but that would defeat the purpose behind my strategy. MobileMe might actually be the perfect cloud application. It was awkward at first and Apple definitely had some problems as chronicled here before, but I began to get used to it. Apple appeared to have fixed the most serious bugs, and I actually began to like it. However, as I got to be really dependent on MobileMe I found a lot of shortcomings. Calendar invitations did not work. Contacts would at times "go missing". The MobileMe page would hang up in certain browsers under certain conditions. Bottom line -- MobileMe proved to be extremely slow and unreliable. It had to go. It became clear that the solution was Google contacts and Google calendar. I was getting sucked in -- just as Google no doubt hopes we all will. Quickly getting over the issue of having all my eggs in Google's basket, the bigger issue became how to get there from here.

MobileMe not only has huge performance problems it is also a closed proprietary system, just like iTunes and most everything Apple does. Some people fear Google but what gives me comfort is that they use Internet standards and they provide both import and export from any of their applications. Their only lock on you is that their stuff works really well and you get addicted. MobileMe is a one way system -- easy to import things to it but you can not export. Maybe you can if you have a Mac but not with the hodgepodge of Windows and Linux systems on my home LAN. No problem. I synched back to Outlook, exported from Outlook, and then imported to Google. Good riddance to MobileMe. Now everything is in Google. Calendar invitations work. Contacts are nicely integrated with the calendar and with email and with maps and documents that I choose to share. Microsoft has good reason to fear Google. Their cloud approach is far superior to the heavy-weight desktop approach of Outlook and Office. Google is not without faults, however. There are issues when importing and at one point I lost all the contacts and calendar entries and had to stitch everything back together from various snippets and backups. It was worth the pain.

Google Docs is still a work in progress but highly worth using. You can email documents to Google docs but not pdf files. You can upload pdfs but only one at a time. There are issues with printing certain things and various other shortcomings, but having documents in the cloud assures they are continuously backed up. You can share them with others and work on them anytime from anywhere.

The biggest gap with the Google cloud is that it doesn't synchronize contacts and calendar entries with the iPhone. Ooops. I am sure they want to offer synch and that it is not a technical issue. It is an Apple issue for sure. I found two third-party applications in the app store that not only work with Google but also provide extra functionality on the iPhone than the basic calendar and contact manager that comes with it. I can recommend them both -- SaiSuke calendar and Sync in a Blink for contacts. I am sure Google will soon offer their own iPhone synchronization soon.

If this all sounds complicated -- it is. I have spent many hours getting to this point but I am a happy camper. More importantly, I am confident it will get better and better and I am almost no longer chained to my PC. Almost everything is in the clouds!

My new knee has gone from a dream to reality. In a couple of weeks the real test will come -- getting through security at Westchester Airport on the way to Florida. No doubt that the pound or so of oxinium will set off all the bells and whistles. The "knee card" shows a very accurate picture of the prosthesis and on the back of the card are the details of who did the surgery, when, and where. I have a hunch the TSA staff will not be impressed.

Perhaps the Fly Clear card will help. It contains nothing about knees but it does have biometric fingerprint and iris image verification. Clear is also working with General Electric to offer shoe-scanning technology as soon as it is approved by the TSA, which will enable Clear members to leave their shoes on during security screening. Some people have security concerns about "smart" cards. By necessity we all travel with complete strangers. I don't feel a need to know about travelers life history but I think it is reasonable to know that each passenger is in fact who they say they are and that their travel history is not suspicious. Back to knees.

I feel extremely fortunate and happy that my knee replacement has gone so well and that the rehabilitation is ahead of schedule. Most knee replacements go well but it is possible to have an impact on how well. Following are the key factors from my layman point of view that I feel can make the difference.

First and foremost is to make sure you really want to have your knee replaced, your surgeon agrees, and you are prepared to make it your top priority. Some say you should be in your seventies to have it done, but the advanced materials used today can last 30-40 years. I had two surgeries on my knee (1985 and 2001) and I waited too long. If you have daily pain and can't get the level of exercise you want, I say go for it.

Clear the calendar. It really needs to be your top priority. If you are a type A and can't wait to get back to things you may end up taking shortcuts that end up preventing the fullest possible benefit to accrue. Your knee is numero uno. Medication and rehabilitation should take precedence and focus over everything.

Find a surgeon that does nothing but joint replacements. There are many surgeons who have done replacements but I would say find one who does nothing but. High volumes leads to high quality outcomes. You can go to big cities and famous places but if you have a local surgeon who does just joint replacements and who is accessible you will feel better about the process. In the end, a part of the best result is having the best attitude going into it and feeling a relationship with the surgeon becomes a part of your attitude. I feel extremely fortunate to have had Dr. Sanjay Gupta perform my replacement.

Learn everything you can about what is going to happen to you. Find out what company makes the prosthesis your surgeon will use and then visit their web site and read about what will go into your joint, how it works, what it is made of, and what procedure is used to install it. If you have the stomach, watch a video of a real operation at the National Library of Medicine. Maybe it doesn't really matter but I feel it is part of the attitude factor. The more you know the better you will feel.

Prepare for it physically. Trim a few pounds, exercise as much as possible, cease any medications you don't really need, and get your mind around what will be happening. Envision the pain and process but also envision the "desired outcome". Another part of the attitude factor.

If your insurance covers it, or maybe even if it doesn't, go to a rehabilitation center after you leave the hospital. There are mixed opinions on this. Some say going to another institution after the hospital increases your exposure and risk of infection. Some say there is nothing like home as the place to recover. I spent four nights in Danbury Hospital and then six nights at Bethel Health Care Rehabilitation Center. The center specializes in short-term "rehab". They have a continuous flow of patients. They have seen it all. Pain management is a vital part of recovery and they administer it and monitor it three shifts per day. Physical therapy is not an option -- you go to a therapist in the building twice per day, every day. It is painful but essential and the rehab center has it down to a science.

Whether you are in rehab for a week or two (two weeks is probably average), pre-enroll with a physical therapist (PT) and start the day you leave the rehab center. Three times a week is best and keep it up for six weeks. Don't cut corners.

Plan and commit to a home PT program. Ask the therapist for printouts of home exercises and do them faithfully. The investment you will have made in your knee -- in my case a lot more than my first house -- should be thought of as an investment (more accurately a joint investment with Aetna Healthcare). To get the most from your new knee it will need strong and flexible muscles surrounding it.

Develop a balanced exercise program. For me, four marathons, many thousands of miles and dozens of races were too much. No doubt that my knee needed replacement because I wore it out. More exercise is not necessarily better. Not enough is not good either. I often heard the advice to "listen to your body". I let my mind be in charge instead. Don't let it go to your head. Exercise, but think about your joints.

Oxinium knee - Part 1

These are some highlights of the five areas in which IBM sees our lives being impacted by technology innovations. For more, visit ibm.com.

Energy saving solar technology will be built into asphalt, paint and windows. There could be huge savings by having solar heat embedded in our sidewalks, driveways, siding, paint, rooftops, and windows. The cost of solar is going to drop with the creation of “thin-film” solar cells that can be 100 times thinner than today's materials. The new material can be “printed” and arranged on a flexible backing, suitable for not only the tops but also the sides of buildings.

What if you could foresee your health destiny and use that knowledge to modify your lifestyle? Our doctors will be able to provide a genetic map that tells you what health risks you are likely to face in your lifetime and the specific things you can do to prevent them, based on your specific DNA. Pharmaceutical companies will also be able to engineer new, more effective medications that are targeted for each of us as individual patients.

You will talk to the Web -- and the Web will talk back. You will be able to surf the web hands-free. Already, in parts of the world where the spoken word is more prominent than the written word in education, government and culture, “talking” to the Web is leapfrogging the PC because of the ubiquity of the mobile phone. We take voice for granted but soon we will just as easily use our voice to post to our blogs, scan and respond to e-mails and instant messages, and sort through the Web verbally to find what we are looking for and have the information read – as if you are having a conversation with the Web.

In the next five years, shoppers will increasingly rely on themselves - and the opinions of each other - in combination with technology "assistants" to make purchasing decisions rather than wait for help from in-store sales associates. Fitting rooms will be outfitted with digital shopping assistants - touch screen and voice activated kiosks that will allow you to choose clothing items and accessories to complement what you already selected. Once you make your selections, a sales associate is notified and will gather the items and bring them directly to you. You will also be able to snap photos of yourself and email or SMS them to your friends and family for the thumbs up -- or thumbs down. Shoppers can access product ratings and reviews from fellow consumers and will even be able to download money-saving coupons and instantly apply them to their purchases.

Forgetting will become a distant memory even as Information overload keeps you up at night. In the next five years, it will become much easier to remember what to buy at the grocery store, which errands need to be run, who you spoke with at a conference, where and when you agreed to meet a friend, or what product you saw advertised at the airport. Such details of everyday life will be recorded, stored, analyzed, and provided at the appropriate time and place by microphones and video cameras. Our mobile phones with GPS will remind us to pick up groceries or prescriptions if we are in the vicinity of the appropriate store. Strong privacy protection will have to be a key feature of these new technologies.

Complete index of IBM Happenings

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the United States has enough wind resources to generate electricity for every home and business in the nation. All areas are not suitable for wind energy development, but if you look at the map developed by the Wind Energy Program working with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) you can see that the wind is blowing at 15-20 mph at 150 feet above ground in many parts of the country. From a distance wind energy seems very simple. Instead of using electricity to make wind -- like a fan -- wind turbine technology uses wind to make electricity. The wind turns the blades, which spin a shaft, which connects to a generator and makes electricity.

GE Energy recently shipped its 10,000th 1.5-megawatt wind turbine and over the past decade the GE machines have been installed in 19 countries and have accumulated more than 130 million operating hours, producing more than 78,000 gigawatt-hours of clean wind-generated electricity. The 10,000th unit was shipped to the Ashtabula Wind Energy Center located in North Dakota. (See full list of wind farms). It is often said that wind energy is a drop in the bucket in terms of total energy needs but that is beginning to change. GE's "fleet" of 10,000 1.5-megawatt machines can power more than five million homes and produce more than 50 million megawatt-hours annually and there is an added benefit. Compared to "traditional" ways of generating electricity, the wind farms represent a savings of more than 27 million tons of CO2 emissions each year, the equivalent of removing more than five million U.S. cars from the road. Hardly sounds like a drop in the bucket.

The more I learn about wind energy the more exciting it is. You can follow wind energy developments at the Wind Energy Update. As the market grows, the technology will advance. GE has already introduced a 3.6 MW machine specifically designed for high-speed wind sites such as exist offshore -- remember the map? The main challenge with wind energy is getting the electricity from where the wind is blowing to the places where the electricity is needed. The wind is howling off the Aleutian Islands but that is a long way from San Francisco.

The engineers at GE are doing incredible work. The technical details behind the design of the behemoth wind machines is staggering. They must also stay on top of wind energy as one niche of the exploding new subject area of sustainable energy. I suspect that the GE engineers are using Knovel as their constant online companion. Knovel Corporation has has recently expanded their already vast online engineering resources to include new books such as the Wind Energy Handbook.

The now Knovelized book covers what engineers are looking for -- ranging from practical concerns about component design to the economic importance of sustainable power sources. The online book includes 95 digitized and interactive graphs that will be an indispensable asset to engineers, turbine designers, wind energy consultants and graduate engineering students who are anxious to get out in the market and design the latest and greatest wind turbines.

Other patrickWeb engineering related stories

In the early days of the Internet we thought of it as made up of three parts. First there was a discrete collection of specialized computers called routers which moved packets of ones and zeroes between origin and destination. Secondly was another set of computers called servers which contained emails and web pages, and finally the networking infrastructure including telephone wires, modems, and various networking devices such as hubs and switches that loosely tied everything together. Users of the Internet today that are not aware of this technical history -- which is the vast majority of the world's billion + users -- know the Internet for it's most popular application, the World Wide Web. In a sense, the web is a "place" that contains all of the information and applications that we want to use.

In more recent years the larger web application providers, such as Amazon, eBay, Google, Yahoo!, and others have begun to refer to their infrastructure as "clouds". If you create a spreadsheet at Google Docs and then save it, where is it actually saved? In the Google "cloud". We don't know where it really is -- it is just "there" at http://docs.google.com --- in the "cloud". There are many millions of servers on the Internet but to most people there may as well just be one. That is the beauty of the Internet -- you don't have to know what the infrastructure is or how it works. But suppose the spreadsheet you create and save at Google Docs happens to be your personal financial plan with income, taxes, assets, liabilities and estate plans. Do you trust Google with this information? There are multiple dimensions to the question and answers. From my perspective it is important to compare the risk to that of keeping such data on your own computer.

I have been using IBM ThinkPads since 1992. They are very reliable -- but they do break. Hard drives are mechanical devices that fail; not often but they fail. How many people keep their data backed up? The minority. Does Google keep your data backed up? I completely trust them on this and have no doubt that their commitment and execution on backup is better than mine. The Google File System is very sophisticated and distributed. I don't know where my data is exactly but I know it is not at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California. In fact I am sure it is  replicated around the world and combined on the fly as needed. From a security perspective there are some risks but Google does support document transfer using encryption and I suspect their security will get better and better over time. I suspect they have excellent programs to protect against employee intrusion and disaster recovery.According to Safeware Insurance Agency in Columbus, Ohio, more than 600,000 laptops are stolen or lost every year. I doubt if Google's computers will be lost or stolen.

I was skeptical about using Google's gmail in the beginning because I was hooked on the Outlook client. Not that I really liked Outlook but it has the look and feel of the desktop. Generally speaking Outlook performs well and you can work on things without waiting for the network. Gmail on the other hand is an online web application. The surprise to me has been how fast gmail performs -- especially when using the Google Chrome browser which executes the program instructions which are stored in the gmail webpage at lightning speed. At this point I would say not only does it perform as well as a desktop application but is actually faster for most of the things I tend to do -- like looking for something in my archive of more than 30,000 emails. What about when I am not connected to the Internet? There actually are ways to work offline but in reality, and considering the great gmail support in the iPhone, I am almost always connected. When it comes to email, I have moved to a cloud. My email is still john@patrickweb.com but my server forwards everything to my gmail account which where I access it.

Cloud computing has been around for years, we just didn't call it that. What has changed is that it has become easy. If I add an appointment or a contact to my iPhone, a few seconds later it is accessible at me.com/calendar or me.com/contacts. Likewise if I make a change at me.com, the change is reflected a few seconds later on my iPhone. Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange have had this synchronization capability for many years but it was Apple that has made it really simple. So simple, that they explain it simply by saying that your data is in the MobileMe cloud.

Spreadsheets, presentations, text documents, email, contacts, calendar -- all in the clouds. What is not in the cloud? There still remain, for the moment, some applications that cling to the Windows or Mac desktop. The biggest example is Quicken. It is a large and complex application with intense graphics and sophisticated interaction. Can it be done with javascript in the browser.  like gmail? I have no doubt, but not so far. Quicken.com and mint.com and others are going after it but at this stage they have not been able to replicate what Quicken does on the desktop. There are other examples, such as Adobe Dreamweaver and other sophisticated tools, but ultimately everything that most of us need will be in the clouds. 

Will everything be in the Google cloud? They make a compelling case, but I don't think so. There was a time when pundits said that IBM was taking over the world. Later the pundits said Microsoft was taking over the world. Now some say it will be Google. The world is a big place. There are billions of people out there and large numbers of clouds they will utilize. In fact more and more clouds are being formed. Startup companies these days do not bother with the details of their Internet infrastructure. Many of them use the Amazon cloud. The Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (aka Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides "resizable" compute capacity in the cloud. For storage, many companies use the Amazon Simple Storage Service (aka Amazon S3) to enable storage in the cloud. The advent of cloud computing has made it possible for startup companies to get from new business idea to a full implementation of their idea in weeks instead of months.

Great for smaller companies but what about the really big companies like GE, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, Bank of America, BP, or Toyota? How about when they have a new web-based idea? How do they deploy it? Generally speaking it takes a lot of detailed planning. The project manager has to specify exactly what resource is needed -- a very specific computing capacity and well defined storage. In many cases it is difficult to be precise when an idea is new. They could use Google or Amazon but chances are they would prefer to have their own cloud. The large companies of the world have vast computing resources and skills and they also have a desire to keep things inside their own tent for various security and intellectual property reasons. Enter IBM and their new plans for "Blue Cloud".

"Blue Cloud" is a series of cloud computing offerings that will allow corporate data centers to operate more like the Internet startup companies by enabling computing across a distributed, globally accessible fabric of resources, rather than today's predominantly local machines or remote server farms. Blue Cloud technology will make it possible to have the computing resource and storage be specified in "virtual" terms and the cloud will do the provisioning in an automated manner using virtual resources. Underneath the cloud there are real resources but the cloud computing environment manages them in an autonomic way. That means that the cloud responds somewhat like the human body. When we get cold we shiver to warm up. When we get hot we sweat to cool down. In a similar fashion, the Blue Cloud will automatically add computing resources and storage on demand and when something breaks the cloud will provide alternate paths to keep things running. The project is based on open standards and open source software supported by IBM's hardware, software, and services businesses.

Blue Cloud will not replace the computing infrastructure of the world's enterprises any time soon but over time, this new approach to IT should dramatically reduce the complexity and costs of managing Internet projects. Ultimately, most computing may be done in the clouds and billions of people will be interacting with data and applications with handheld devices that will be more powerful than the supercomputers of just a few years ago.

I got to know Bill Machrone in the early 1990's. Bill had been the founder and editor-in-chief of PC Magazine. I also had the pleasure of meeting Bill Ziff on a few occasions. Both "Bills" were early believers in "vertical". Ziff Davis had the approach of publishing magazines such as Car and Driver, Popular Electronics, PC Magazine, and Computer Shopper that entertained the "enthusiasts" -- people who cared a great deal about specific technologies and products -- not generalists but those who were passionate about a particular topic and wanted to go "deep". Today we would call such market segments "vertical".

You might say that much of the evolution of the web in the early years of the new millennium has focused on "horizontal" applications and content. Many millions of users swarm to sites that are a foot deep and miles wide -- Google search where you can find anything, eBay and Amazon where you can buy or sell anything, music and photo sites where you can enjoy any kind of media, and Facebook or MySpace where you can meet anyone. Enter Tony Tjan, CEO of Cue Ball Group, a venture and growth equity firm based in Boston.

Tony has put forth a perspective blog post in a posting (now on the home page at Harvard Business Publishing) that the generation of the web now evolving will certainly be more "verticalized and editorialized". Tony says that current behavior will continue as we use use large, incumbent, generalist (horizontal) sites like Google and eBay, but at the same time, there will be a strong movement toward more specialized sites. He hypothesizes that this will allow a better balance between "authoritative, expert-endorsed content and broad, less bounded user-generated information". He adds that the advertisers will follow this trend as they sharpen their focus. See Tony's full story here.

One of the best examples of a truly vertical site I can think of is what has been developed by Knovel Corporation. When I entered engineering school more than forty years ago (is that possible?), I used a slide rule and engineering reference manuals. I think of them as the first of four generations of using engineering and scientific data. The second generation was web-based data with PC's for standalone and separate analysis. Knovel Corporation (pronounced nah-vil) introduced the third generation about five years ago -- "Knovelized" data with deep search and a high degree of interactivity. Knovel brings boring reference manuals to life and in the process saves engineers and scientists many hours of effort. It is a good example of an information service that is available "on demand". The fourth generation of Knovel's vertical site currently being launched includes Ajax-based interactive graphs built with Mathematica. With no software on the PC other than a standards-based browser, the new generation of tools allows the engineer and scientist to dive deep, find the most arcane of formulas and then interact with them deeply and graphically to solve a design challenge or fulfill a research project. For millions of engineers and scientists around the world, this will be the next generation of the web -- information and tools at their fingertips -- reliable, relevant, and fast.

Disclosure: Tony and I are both investors in Knovel Corporation and members of the board of directors.

Other references to Knovel on patrickWeb