The Cloud is Growing

Microsoft is everywhere – even in places when you wouldn’t necessarily think it would or should be; but as one of the worlds biggest software manufacturers, perhaps that’s not so much of a surprise.

 

I recently saw a statistic that absolutely amazed me:

20 million businesses and over 1 billion people are using Microsoft Cloud Services

The reason that amazes me so much is that it just goes to show how quickly cloud based technologies are taking off and becoming the norm in our every day digital lives.

 

Think about that for a moment; 20 million businesses using a cloud based service provided by Microsoft.  Unfortunately I haven’t got any statistics on the breakdown of what those 20 million are using exactly from Microsoft – it may be that there is a clear split between companies who only take up Microsoft online email platforms over those who use Office365 or Windows Azure for example.

 

Whilst I’m absolutely fascinated by the web and the Internet, yet was never a huge fan of virtualisation (perhaps because I’m an IT systems person who likes the physical hardware), I’m perhaps surprisingly remarkably interested in how things are moving to the cloud and all of the new elements that come with it (security being the most obvious of those elements).

 

These statistics clearly demonstrate that the world of IT is changing – will I like it when we finally arrive at that ‘new world’, it’s too early to say – at least from where I’m sitting, especially if everything moves to the cloud and onto “someone else’s data centre'”.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: MyForeverMe's Progress

That’s it! I’m changing my name to Sean Parker.

I recently wrote about a new web start up one of my colleagues has recently launched called ‘MyForeverMe’, which allows you to time-delay and schedule Facebook, Twitter statuses and emails. Despite my reservations about the service, from what I understand, it’s getting quite a few page hits on a daily basis.

Whilst I’m not really privy to these visitor statistics, page views are obviously a good thing and it’s only a matter of time and patience before the site grows bit by bit until a decent returning user base is established. But what has amazed me even more is from my original blog post, I’ve inadvertently caused a change to the site; MyForeverMe are now offering FREE Facebook and Twitter updates.

Right now this change is only temporary, but it’s a great way to get people to sign up and use the service as intended. Don’t get me wrong the question of how to monetise the site still remains up in the air if this change is extended, but in my mind that is an issue that can be addressed with a far more creative and perhaps unique approach (I have my own ideas here, but I’m keeping these firmly to myself – sorry guys!).

With free updates, I believe MyForeverMe has far more potential, especially if the site can establish itself as thee application for scheduled updates.

*************

I have to admit, between my last post and this one, I’ve been playing around to see if I can create a simple way to replicate a method of posting Twitter updates at scheduled times without using the MyForeverMe website.

Now (without sounding too big headed), I’m a technical person but I don’t write a lot of code; certainly not in a language that allows me to create web applications to the high standard of a MyForeverMe, but I can write a decent enough script when the occasion calls for it. My chosen language of late has been Microsoft PowerShell so I did a quick search on the web and within 5 minutes had found a function to post Twitter updates.

Using a scheduling function I’d previously written, I was able to combine the two and create my very own script based MyForeverMe Twitter updater within a very short space of time – 20 minutes to be exact.

Now, I’ll freely admit that this solution isn’t nicely packaged into an easy to use website or something that your average user is going to be able to replicate or achieve without investing far more time than I did, but it does highlight just how easy the MyForeverMe service is to copy and replicate, which is why the site needs to sign up users quickly and carve itself out as a niche product that others cannot necessarily replicate.

Having said all of that, building a service (especially a new service based on a new idea, like MyForeverMe), takes time and fine tuning it to meet the expectations of all existing users, whilst simultaneously attracting new ones as quickly as possible no easy feat.

…but at this time, I’m already searching the web for information on how to legally change my name to Sean Parker and shortly I’ll be launching my own, new Web Service Consulting Firm. Proposals on an email to the usual address in the meantime and cheques in the post please.

As I wrote in my last post, its far easier to criticises and nit pick at ideas than to actually have the idea and execute it yourself; I'd like to point out again that I would really like to see MyForeverMe succeed in the future as I really do believe that it has huge potential and looks wickedly awesome.

F1 2011: Race 1, Australia

Race 2 1 of the 2011 season has just finished and this year I’m planning on writing a blog post after after race.  But first race of the year and I’m already struggling for things to write – the only conclusion that be determined is that the results are inconclusive.

 

Vettel won the race easily for Red Bull, which is ominous and a direct continuation of last year.  But look back a few places for Webber and the issues with tyre wear on his car shows just how much the driver matters and if Vettel wears his tyres at the next rate at the same pace as Webber did this race, things could quickly change.

 

Ferrari appeared to be smart and also frustratingly un-smart in their approach today; smart with their tyre strategy, Alonso especially seemed to back-off at the right times to look after his rubber and when the opportune moments arrived put the hammer down and used his tyres to the maximum. 

 

They were also smart by moving Alonso past Massa following the ‘Button off-track overtake’ and then subsequently pitting both cars to force a 10 second drive through penalty to be applied (I’ve questioned whether or not Ferrari were forced to change strategy as a result of this moment in the race or not, but I can’t work it out).

 

What wasn’t so smart was switching Massa from his 2 stop strategy onto a 3 stop.  Regardless of the state of his tyres, I believe Massa could have and has the talent to have maintained at least 8th and grabbed a point for his Sunday after run.  But I’m still confused by Massa, he raced and battled with Button like he was possessed in the opening stint of the race, but then seemed to drop away massively as the race went on.  This is something that he needs to work on – and I write that as a Massa fan.

 

Looking into next year though, Massa may have to watch himself even further: Ferrari Young Driver and current Sauber driver Sergio Perez, in his first race made the field look silly by only one-stopping on tyres that weren’t supposed to last that long and he managed to slot in some ‘fastest laps’ throughout the course of the race too.  Perhaps Perez is on his way to replicating Felipe’s route into a Ferrari drive?  An impressive debut in the Sauber team.

 

At the other end of the spectrum of drivers, Rubens Barrichello seemed like he was the rookie driver rather than the seasoned and most experienced driver on the grid.  I’ve never really been a fan of Rubens, even in his Ferrari days, but if Australia is a sign of what he’s got in his locker for this season then this could be his last.

 

Mercedes Nico Rosberg suffered massively as a result of Ruben’s reckless attempt at a pass.  The mentality of Michael Schumacher surprised me however; the guy who’s mantra was ‘never give up’ for so many seasons he seemed too quick to retire the car when running around at the back of the grid.

 

Petrov delivered a great result for Lotus Renault today with third but I don’t know what else I can write about it – it was an uneventful race for them and the result was secured from a decent start.  I’m yet to judge their performance after one race, so lets see what comes from them in the next one.

 

And that’s unfortunately the headline from this race: we all need more time to work out what’s going on.  The DRS (?) moving wings was inconclusive, KERS technology is back but with Red Bull purposely not running it (which has wound me up quite a lot actually and may warrant me writing a further post on the subject), and the situation with tyres.

 

Race one: inconclusive.

Ferrari Result: 

Alonso:  Drove exactly as expected; but start needs to be improved and the car needs to be slightly better.

Massa:  Needs to do better; has defence down to an art, but need desperately to improve his attack and strategy.

 

Man of the Race:  Perez; in a season that’s supposed to be all about tyre strategy, he made the field look foolish with a one-stop strategy in his debut race.

Internet as a Medium?

A couple of years ago I gave up on music CDs after having ripped them all onto my – then – iPod. A CD box just takes up far too much room compared to the ‘space-free’ MP3 that floats around on my network storage and on my - now - Sony MP3 Player.

The rise of MP3 stores also paved the way nicely towards a world of CDs disappearing from view; Amazon’s MP3 store being my favourite as I’m definitely not an iTunes user following Apple’s attempts to bundle all sorts of software in with the installer (not a practice I like from any one, toolbar makers included).

It was only a matter of time I guess that my attentions were finally diverted to my DVD movies. The process takes a little bit longer and has required some planning around increasing my network storage, but it’s all certainly very achievable; I’ve purchased a LaCie Network Space 2, 2TB disk which is probably more than twice the storage I will ever need.

Once I’m done with my movies and have managed to banish my discs to the back of some cupboard or even to the loft, I’ve not doubt that my attention will then turn again to my book shelf and an Amazon Kindle the likely hardware solution for this. But back to movies for a moment…

At the start of this year I made a statement that this year would be ‘the’ year for streaming media content to really make its mark on the web and that it would take off in a big way, especially as new form factors – like tablets – continued to become more mainstream and widely accepted. And then I read this article by Paul Carr.

He basically says that the Internet as a medium is effectively dead already and that its not sustainable as most people are probably more than willing to pay for content if its correctly priced rather than opt for illegal torrent files and/or advertisement heavy or interrupted content as most web media tends to be. All valid points, but I have my own views on some of the costs involved in streaming content.

In my mind, there needs to be a middle ground; the new age Internet media companies need to be better or discover a new pricing models that does allow the Internet to be a sustainable medium whilst being funded accordingly. I agree that most adults with a disposable or allocated income for such things, would be more than willing to pay for content, but some sort of ownership needs to be granted to the person owning the content, even if that is ‘virtual’.

The MP3 is that ‘virtual’ content that is downloaded and owned. I like owning that file on my network as it insures that the file is mine forever, moving forwards perhaps I don’t need to download that MP3 or movie onto my network and instead I simply own a ‘forwarding file’ or ‘license’ that allows me access to the content I’ve purchased that can be held in the cloud forever until such a time or occasion I do wish to download it for offline consumption.

In the meantime though, until such a time that this paradigm change happens, I’m going to happily continue to buy DVD movies, rip them and then store them in a box at the back of my cupboard, safe in the knowledge that no matter what, ownership is mine forever.

Dream Education

Love him or hate him, you can’t deny that Jamie Oliver is a huge source inspiration thanks to his passion and dedication for his many causes to change the world for the good. Most of his projects thus far have revolved around food and healthy eating – as you would expect from a top chef. But his latest project is completely different – education.

In “Jamie’s Dream School”, he’s taken a classroom full of pupils who failed to achieve five A to C GCSE’s (the level required by most colleges for entry), and give them a second chance in his school. As you’d expect Jamie’s school is different than your traditional model, in that with his ‘celebrity’ status he’s managed to persuade some of the best people in their field to teach and provide the lessons.

A genius and unique way to get through to these disruptive pupils; what better than those who are uniquely placed to talk about their chosen specialist subjects than those who are famous for knowing about those subjects. Hell, I’d jump at the chance to attend any one of those lessons if only to learn from the very best.

There-in lies my problem with this concept. The pupils who concentrated and worked their socks off for their academic lives and made the effort to pass exams get nothing as far as this show goes, yet those who cruised or disrupted or just didn’t care enough to put in the work get the pleasure of a second chance and attend the lessons of a lifetime.

Stepping back, I can admire and appreciate what Jamie is trying to do here, but I don’t really see what the ultimate goal is at the end of the show – is the message, don’t work hard and we’ll get celebrities to teach you everything you need to know? Or is it that everyone gets a second chance, so don’t worry about things the first time around? I don’t get it.

If Jamie really wanted to change education and improve the lives of the next generation, then I think he’s backing the wrong campaign. Instead he should be looking at how to change the system to benefit everyone, like the ‘Khan Academy’.

The Khan Academy, for those not in the know, is an online education portal (that’s the best way I can describe it), which contains a bunch of videos on a variety of different academic subjects.

The idea is that you log onto the site, pick a subject and watch a video lesson online at your own pace; allowing you to pause, rewind and review the video as and when you need to – you can even play the lesson over and over again until you really do understand the content. You then get a quick test at the end of the module and only upon a pass of 10 or above can you progress further.

Whilst this is all very impressive, what really projects the Khan Academy further and makes it one to watch for the future is the underlying analytics that can allow teachers to monitor their student’s progress through the online academy and allow them to focus in on an individual’s weak point.

But that’s not all, the academy allows teachers to completely change the dynamics of the classroom; by allowing self-paced, online learning for students, it means that pupils can learn at their own pace when it suits them outside of the classroom, allowing classroom time to be used more as a one-on-one basis to help those who are struggling with certain aspects of a course to be addressed – and the analytics from the site help identify those pupils and those subjects causing problems.

To me the approach of the Khan Academy is totally revolutionary and has the potential to become absolutely huge across the globe for many, many people – not just those in schools, but also those with an interest or need to brush up on their skills in certain areas. It’s also a far better and scalable system than Jamie’s static and unhelpful Dream School approach.

What’s more, Bill Gates just so happens to agree and approves of the Khan Academy concept.

Posted from the Past: MyForeverMe

Not being in the ‘start up’ business it’s very rare (actually this is my first time), that I get to review a new Internet start up that I haven’t read about anywhere else prior to my visit. But a colleague of mine is actively involved in the creation of this site so I’d be foolish not to be first with a review (Tech blogs are you listening? I’m available for hire).

So without further ado, here’s the run down.

The site is called ‘MyForeverMe’ and is designed to be used as a method to time delay your status updates to Facebook, Twitter or email. A simple idea, but then most start ups are the simplest of ideas that transform the face of the web once the word spreads and a niche is carved out for them, before becoming an essential tool for its users – as a prime example, who’d have thought a 140 character update service would ever be so popular?

In my opinion, the site looks amazing and could easily take its place amongst other social networking sites. The idea behind the site is strong too, but there is a jump to be made between what the site does and what the site is trying to achieve. Lets make no bones about it, the service is essentially time-delayed updates – but the use of these updates is being marketed around never forgetting to connect with your social network of friends at those times most appropriate.

Wishing someone a happy birthday for example; no one wants to forget a friend’s birthday and a social networking message is becoming more acceptable as a way to send on that message. I can easily see Anniversaries and other milestone events easily using a time delayed message delivered via MyForeverMe. An automated ‘Hallmark card’ for example for those who wish to set up statuses and forget.

As a man, I can totally appreciate this approach - forgetting that ‘special date’ can often lead to that uncomfortable conversation. But, I have doubts about what the service is trying to achieve overall and how it monetises itself.

(This is where I effectively end my relationship with my colleague with some home-truths and opinions. But it’s important that anyone who reads this that these are my opinions only and I’m more than willing to be proved wrong. I also realise its far easier to nit-pick, so I’ll explain myself and my opinions the best I can as I go).

For a start I’m not sure for how much longer social network status wishes of ‘happy birthday’ are going to continue to be acceptable; especially for those friends and family closest to you (imagine finding out that the ones you consider closest to have sent you a time-delayed message rather than taking the short time it takes to personally post a message). For me such status updates, @ replies or wall messages are always a little impersonal and may be considered even less so if they are time-delayed.

Signing up to the service gets you five free status updates, after this point, it’s done on a “pay per post” basis (credits can be purchased via PayPal). Other than the aforementioned ‘Happy Birthday/Anniversary’ messages, I can’t think of many other messages that I need to time-delay; perhaps I’m thinking too small and the ability to do this may open up a whole new market or need for such things.

In a world where smart phones are the norm and Internet access is available just about everywhere you go, through one form or another, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where a time-delayed message will be needed. More so when you consider that the Facebook and Twitters of the world have designed their sites to be all about the here and now - “What are you doing?”, “What’s happening?” and “What is on your mind?” rather than “What will you be doing?”.

If there was a demand for time-delayed messages, and I find it hard believing that there is, then surely social networking services would have already created and integrated these features into their services – and more than likely free of charge? It’s the rise of ‘Internet everywhere’, mobile phones and apps that make posting an update instantly, so easily that kills MyForeverMe before it even leaves the starting blocks.

Is there a way for MyForeverMe to change their approach and become valuable? I believe there is – having done a quick search around the web for ‘time delayed tweets’ there certainly isn’t a service that does this on your behalf, the results I seem to find were all instruction sites of how you can code and achieve this yourself – and that’s the gap MyForeverMe needs to fill; it needs to re-position itself as that app, provide a valid reason for users to time-delay their messages that mean something more than live update and be free of charge. Monetisation can be achieved in other ways. But all of this needs to be done before someone else codes, replicates and does exactly this service free of charge.

Then again – maybe I’m wrong.

Perhaps I should write my follow-up blog post and time-delay it by a couple of years asking where the service is at now? Blogger will certainly allow me to do this – so perhaps it’s just me who doesn’t ‘get’ MyForeverMe just yet?

A Deadly Revelation

Before I started writing this blog, I previously wrote another blog called “Deadly Revelations”; the contents aren’t too dissimilar to what I post on this blog and I can’t remember why I stopped blogging there and started blogging here instead.

 

I think it was something do with wanting to write anonymously on Deadly and wanting to write as myself under my own .com banner.  I thought at the time that that would be how it always would be – however as soon as my ownership of DeadlyReveleations.com lapsed, I let it go…..

 

Perhaps it was never meant to end like that, my very last post on that blog was promise, which I broke, stating my intentions to continue to blog on Deadly.  But happened it did.

 

I’ve still got all of the content from that blog site – which lasted for 130 posts on a variety of subjects and reading back over some of the content, it brings back some good memories.

 

A thought crossed my mind that perhaps I should start re-releasing some of that content under my CraigButters.com banner and I’m genuinely going to think more about doing that. 

 

This blog post however, is to commemorate and finally lay to rest – DeadlyRevelations.com.

False Start

Normally before this time of the year, I’ve put together my predictions for the forthcoming Formula 1 season and riled myself up in a frenzy of petrol, burning tyres, noise, colour and glamour – but not this season.

Why? Because I’d be looking forward to next weekend’s opening Grand Prix in Bahrain – only there is no Grand Prix in Bahrain next weekend, its been cancelled, so instead I have to delay my excitement and wait for the Australian Grand Prix at the end of the month.

But that's not all; the reason I haven’t laid out my predictions is because I haven’t got any predictions. All I’m hoping for is what I hope for every season – victory for the Prancing Horse of Ferrari. I really don’t even mind which Ferrari superstar driver wins, as long as one of them does.

I’d like to predict a season dominated by Ferrari and there’s no reason why it couldn’t be; a switch to new Pirelli tyres, which are reported not to last as long as Bridgestones (by design), means that the team who can look after these tyres best will be the team to be. Ferrari are traditionally very good at tyre management, but get this wrong and the whole season could end up a complete write-off.

Equally a battle and a race with another team could ruin any tyre management advantages, which is why I’m really hoping the scarlet cars can motor out in front and lead the way all season.

But enough about my dreams and hopes for a Ferrari whitewash – there’s racing to be had. This season KERS is back and I couldn’t be more happy, if there is anything I want more than fantastic racing in F1 its a bit of green tech to improve the show and ultimately improve the world. Moving rear wings are also a new element, will they spice up the show or not? Time will tell, the paddock seems divided.

…..just get the racing started already. I’m now ready!