MacNoob

October 14^th, 2011. Mark that date. I believe history will treat it as the day we began using speech to interact with our computers. It is the day Apple released the iPhone 4S with Siri, the automated assistant built exclusively into the 4S. Before I elaborate, a brief disclaimer. I am an unapologetic geek and a huge Apple fan. Having said that, I honestly believe I’m being objective when I predict Siri will be viewed as a transformative technological innovation.

Apple describes Siri as an “intelligent assistant”. After using it for just three weeks, I believe their description is accurate. We’ve been able to speak commands in varying degrees to our computers, cars and smartphones for some time now. So, what’s new and/or different about Siri? A lot. First, Siri doesn’t restrict what you ask or tell it. For example, my car is a 2006 model and uses voice input to dial phone numbers, set the A/C temperature or change the radio station, but I have to remember the exact commands and speak them clearly (and in just the right sequence) for the system to work. Not much intelligence there. Siri, by contrast really seems to understand the English language. For instance, I can ask Siri to “Tell Katherine dinner is at 6” and it is smart enough to know I want to send Katherine a text message. Siri responds, “I have created a new text message for Katherine” then displays “Dinner is at 6″ and asks, “Would you like me to send it?” I simply say yes and the text message is sent. Not extremely groundbreaking, I agree, but if instead of saying “yes” I said “Change that to 5:30“, Siri is smart enough to change the text message to read, “Dinner is at 5:30″! That’s my second point. The artificial intelligence built into Siri understands commands contextually. Siri knew I wanted to change dinnertime. It didn’t try to send a text message to “5-3-0″ or create a new message, “Change that to 5:30″. It responded like a human would. This is far beyond any voice recognition system I have ever used and light years ahead of what the Germans programmed into my sedan.

Siri also remembers relationships. I told Siri, “Ann Kelley is my wife” and after a confirmation, Siri remembers it forever or until I change it (I really hope I never have a reason to do that!). The same goes for all my daughters. So, when I ask Siri, “Tell the family my flight arrives at 8“, it creates an MMS to my wife and three daughters, “My flight arrives at 8″ and sends the message to all four. The same works with other relationships or nicknames like “boss”, “secretary”, “butt-head” and “landlord” or just about anything you can think of. Along the same vein, with a free iPhone app called “Find My Friends” I can ask Siri “Where is Katherine?” and up pops a map with the location of Katherine’s iPhone. I naturally assume that’s where Katherine is because if she gets more than a few feet away from her iPhone she has nervous tremors.

Siri is also very valuable when you travel. I was in Corpus Christi last week for business and didn’t know my way around too well. When I got hungry one evening I asked Siri, “What’s a good Mexican restaurant nearby?” and a list of Tex-Mex joints popped up on the screen complete with distance to, ratings and price ranges. Since I asked for a “good” restaurant the results were sorted by rating. Out of curiosity I rephrased the question to “Where is the closest Mexican restaurant?” and the same list appeared, but this time it was sorted from nearest to farthest. After dinner I asked Siri “How do I get back to the Hampton Inn?” and a map popped up on the screen with pushpins showing my current location and the hotel plus two different highlighted routes to get me there. While I was driving back to the hotel I received a text message. I asked Siri, “Read the text message” and Siri replied telling me it was from Robert and read the message, “When would you like to meet tomorrow?” I told Siri, “Reply 8:30 AM” and Siri sent “8:30 AM” in response and my hands never left the steering wheel. Next I asked Siri to “Create an appointment with Robert for 8:30 tomorrow morning.” and after a confirmation the new appointment was added to my calendar. When I was ready for bed back at the hotel I asked Siri to “Wake me up at 6:30“. Siri responded “I have set an alarm for 6:30 AM, Joe“, and did so. (Siri will refer to you using any name you wish. I tried “Your Highness” first, but that just sounded weird.)

Another thing that makes Siri so amazing is there’s no training involved. I didn’t have to memorize a list of things I could ask (like my car system made me do) and I didn’t have to train Siri to recognize my voice like Microsoft’s voice recognition software. I just picked up my iPhone and started using it. Does it make mistakes? Sure. Nothing’s perfect, but it is astounding just how accurate it is. Unscientifically, I’d estimate Siri gets it right about 75% of the time and the more I use it, the better it gets. I think that’s because I’m getting better at communicating with it and it is learning what I expect. I’m also learning that a good network connection is absolutely essential. Since Siri’s brains reside on Apple’s servers in North Carolina, a good 3G or Wi-Fi signal is necessary to send your requests. The only thing happening on the iPhone itself is the recording of your voice. That recording is then sent to Apple’s servers where those really powerful computers interpret your recording and formulate a response. That’s why Siri is so effective. With a good network connection Siri is also very fast. Even the most complex request takes only a second or two. Siri even understands Texan quite well (something I’ve found to be problematic with other voice recognition software). My wife jokes that I sound like I’m talking to a girlfriend when I converse with Siri (who’s automated female voice is just short of human). That’s the way it is, like a very natural conversation.

Currently, Siri is officially “beta” software. That’s geek speak for “not fully baked”. It also means that in addition to admitting bugs, Apple is just getting started with this technology. Some tech pundits predict Siri will be implemented on all Apple devices in the near future. I tend to agree. Given how well Siri works today, it’s bound to be completely astonishing a couple of years from now. Don’t misunderstand, we’re still a long way from HAL 9000, but Siri is the first voice recognition application I’ve ever been tempted to say “Thank you” to.

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Three days ago the FedEx man dropped off what I thought was way too small a box to contain my new laptop. I bought a 17” MacBook Pro to replace my late 2007 model (also a 17” MBP). Most reviewers write off the big Mac portable as impractical, but I’ve loved mine since I got it nearly two years ago and have always been happy to trade a little portability to get all the features offered by the 17, not least of which is its big, beautiful, high-res (1920 X 1200) display. At this year’s WWDC we learned Apple was removing the ExpressCard slot on all MBP models except the 17”. For me, that was the clincher. I use the expansion for eSATA, 1394b (FireWire 800) and a multi-card reader and wanted my new portable to retain those capabilities. This model may be the last to do so, but its not like I need much of an excuse to get a new Mac. This just happened to be a good one. Here’s what I bought:

17” MacBook Pro

3.06 MHz Core 2 Duo

4 GB DDR3 RAM

256 GB SSD

First impressions:

Apple’s “unibody” manufacturing technique for all MacBook Pro models yields a laptop that, when closed feels as solid as an axe blade. Additionally, the fit and finish of this portable is more precise with tighter tolerances than any laptop I’ve ever seen. Its < 1” thick body is amazingly rigid (both open and closed) given its larger proportions. The non-user-replaceable battery came fully charged according to the LED indicators along the left edge so I immediately powered up as soon as I got the protective mylar off. After going through the OS X setup I applied 150 megs of software updates from Apple and powered down. After moving to another office and attaching the magsafe I was anxious to see how the SSD would affect boot speed so, using my iPhone as a stopwatch, I pressed the power button. 32 seconds later OS X was running and the disk access was zero! In the thirty years I’ve been in this business I’ve never seen any computer boot so quickly.

Benchmarks I’ve seen for Apple’s SSD performance were far from stellar when compared to others, but this initial experience put a big smile on my face nonetheless. It happened again the first time I launched Safari. I clicked its dock icon and Safari appeared instantly. It’s almost as if it were running already and I just unhid it. Next, I opened Mail. Same thing. The app launched almost before I got my finger off the mouse. After two days use and migrating all my apps, settings and data from my old MBP, the boot time has increased to a whopping 44 seconds. My advice: If you can afford an SSD for your laptop, buy it! No other upgrade will increase the overall speed of your computer a fraction of what a good SSD will.

After three days:

This is by far the fastest laptop I’ve ever used. Apps open in a blink and file saves happen so quickly I rarely see a progress bar. The NVidia graphics do an excellent job rendering 3D and I’m sure the upgraded GPUs have a lot to do with the machine’s overall “snappy” feel. On more than one occasion I’ve caught myself unnecessarily waiting for something that had already happened while I wasn’t looking.

The LED-backlit display is quite an upgrade from my late ’07 model. First, when the display is off, the black bezel and the screen become one, a nice look. Wake the machine and the high-res, glossy display instantly comes to life. This is quite different from my previous machine with its fluorescent backlighting. It normally took 5 – 10 seconds for the screen to reach its normal brightness and color accuracy. This new Mac display is not only more responsive, colors look quite a bit more accurate also. Side by side, the older Mac’s screen looks almost dull by comparison.

I used the Migration Assistant utility to copy everything from my old Mac via a FireWire 800 cable. It was very simple and took about an hour and a half to copy my settings, apps and data totaling 110 GB. After a restart, I was almost sad. My new Mac looked exactly like my previous one. It took some of the “new” feeling away. Other than that, the tool worked amazingly well. Everything “Apple” transferred without a hitch. iTunes was complete, recognizing my iPhone and Touch, iPhoto, Aperture and their libraries are intact and the new Mac now knows all my network settings for three different networks and multiple hotspots. Maybe I’m still a bit of a noob, but when something works so wonderfully I appreciate it. I haven’t become jaded by Apple’s thoroughness just yet. All I’ve had to do since migrating is re-authorize a number of applications. Some were much more difficult than others, but I’ll save that rant for another day.

Contrasts:

I’m preparing my old Mac for my daughter as I write this. Starting that task after not using the computer for a couple of days throws the differences of the two machines into sharp relief.

Booting the older MBP seemed painfully slow even though it only took about 90 seconds.

Also, I immediately noticed the audible difference. The older Mac’s hard disk does make a little noise. It isn’t much, but after using the SSD for a couple of days, even the relatively light chatter of the 320 GB disk is noticeable.

The older display is less bright and the white balance appears shaded slightly yellow by comparison.

The keyboard difference is noticeable although I use an external keyboard and mouse most of the time. I use this box as a desktop replacement for the most part and the new keyboard feels almost exactly like the latest desktop keyboards from Apple.

The new buttonless trackpad is a much bigger improvement than I imagined. I spent some time setting it up and adjusting my preferences where I also discovered the new gestures make the new trackpad the control device of choice when manipulating graphics and also for navigating Spaces and Expose´.

Speed. This new MacBook Pro is damn quick. It runs every bit as good as my iMac (purchased in April). It should, the specs are almost identical and the SSD is definitely faster than the iMac’s 640 GB hard disk.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m completely pleased with this new machine. Am I $3400 pleased? Probably not, but machine envy is nothing I’ll have to worry about for a few months and my techno-itch has been scratched.

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As the netbook form factor exploded onto the computing scene last year, Linux gearheads everywhere rejoiced in the notion that they finally had a toe-hold into the mainstream computing world. Hardware manufacturers almost universally offered price-leading netbooks (many <$300) with some flavor of Linux pre-installed. Unsuspecting bargain hunters sucked them up but quickly realized none of the software they wanted (or already owned) would run on their new, tiny laptop and the familiar buttons on the screen didn’t do the same thing as the ones on their other computers. Consequently, Linux-based netbook manufacturers saw a 35% return rate. The open source community got their collective bubbles burst when netbook owners shunned their beloved kernel in favor of the six-year-old Microsoft retread, Windows XP. Redmond happily obliged by offering the home version of their old reliable OS to netbook makers for thirty bucks, effectively jabbing the entire Linux community right in the nose. Sure Linux is free, but $30 is really close to free and certainly worth it (for most users) to avoid learning a new operating system.
Fast forward to this year. Look up the word failure in the dictionary and you see a Windows Vista logo. Incompatible, bloated, overbearing and slow are the words frequently used to describe Microsoft’s current OS offering. Installing Vista on a netbook is like putting a Sumo wrestler into a Smart Car. Even a company as obtuse as Microsoft could see that Vista is a complete non-starter in this sub-compact hardware category. But wait, Redmond has a new + improved OS, Windows 7. Is it like every one of its predecessors? Bigger, flashier and feature rich to the point that nothing but the latest, fastest hardware will run it?
No.
As betas trickled out to developers it quickly became apparent Microsoft did something they’ve never done before. They made Windows 7 trim and fit to the point that it runs as good as XP on very minimal hardware. It only took a few days to see 7 popping up on YouTube running on a Dell Mini 9 or Asus Eee PC. And it wasn’t just running, it was running quite well! Windows 7 beta quickly became a very hot item, seeded to every file sharing site you can imagine. The next announcement from Microsoft surprised even me, a long-time Windows developer and MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) subscriber for over 12 years. They said they were making the Windows 7 RC (release candidate) available to everyone for one year! FOR FREE! Now there’s a free version of Microsoft’s latest operating system and by the way, it runs great on the average netbook. Ouch, Linux faithful. If $30 XP was a jab to your nose, free Windows 7 is a right cross to your chin. Down you go.
The referee is counting and I don’t see any sign of the penguin getting up.

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Anybody remember Friendster? How about AOL? Twitter? Bingo! I’m sure that last one rings a bell, even to the non-techies of the world. You can’t tune into a news channel these days without hearing the word tweet every few minutes. I know when my 56 year-old minister asks me about Twitter that its’ cool factor is nearing an end and the technorati will soon abandon it for the next big thing. Being of considerable years myself (53), and having spent the past thirty years in the computer field, I’ve observed and participated in this technical upheaval with more than a passing interest. As I’ve watched the crowds moving from AOL to Friendster to MySpace to Facebook I’m reminded of a similar phenomenon of the non-technical social networks, nightclubs. Although I haven’t been a “clubber” for many years, I have kids in their early twenties and their recounts of social behavior don’t differ much from my own recollection of post-pubescent revelry.
Social networks are only cool as long as the tech elite and others of the “in” crowd grace them with their presence, pronouncements and participation. I knew that Twitter had peaked when the mainstream world made Ashton Kutcher’s million follower milestone newsworthy and Mr. Kutcher proclaimed the event to be as epic as landing a man on the moon. Give me a break. Certainly, the “A List” found Twitter, making the most popular tech pundits like Leo Laporte with a mere 50,000 followers seem insignificant by comparison. About the only thing as certain as Twitter’s “king-o-the-hill” status is its inevitable decline to Friendster-like obscurity. It is just a question of how long it will take. That is largely a function of when a cooler replacement emerges and lures the fickle A-listers away. As with all things social on the street, tech-trendies flock to what’s hot in cyberspace. Today, AOL is about as relevant as Studio 54.
Facebook has almost sent MySpace to the waste bin much the same way MySpace replaced its predecessors like Friendster. To me, that makes Facebook’s Mark Zukerberg the biggest goof on the planet. While he may be technically brilliant for his design of the social networking giant, I think he was a complete idiot for turning down the reported $1.8 billion for his 30% stake in a company with only $150 million in annual sales. To put the numbers in mere mortal terms: If I owned a company that had total sales of $60,000 per year and turned down an offer of $720,000, my relatives would have me committed and rewrite my will. Assuming my company had no operating costs (a silly notion), that’s a factor of 12!
Maybe Facebook will will be different and nothing will emerge to displace its’ popularity. For Mr. Zuckerberg’s sake, I hope so but rather doubt it. Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps he has more technical brilliance up his sleeve and Facebook will evolve into something that keeps the tech-savvy enamored and engaged. History paints a very different picture though. Coolness is perishable. It’s almost like everything social is born with an expiration date and through no fault of their own they waste away just because the clock keeps ticking.

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A friend of mine sent me an e-mail asking how my WWDC experience was. I replied: “It’s like drinking from a fire hose!” That response may have been a bit melodramatic, but I still stand by it. The conference presents so much information so concisely its difficult (if not impossible) for a mere mortal to absorb it all. If you’ve ever seen a video of an Apple keynote you have an idea of how polished their presentations tend to be. Even though the subject matter was different, every session I attended at this year’s WWDC was put together that well. Instead of talking about new Macs or iPhones like in a keynote, the session presenters talked about new code constructs, OS X Leopard features or any of 100+ different subjects at varying levels of detail and complexity. The labs were done just as well. The first floor of Moscone West was over half lab space, filled with enough new Apple hardware to make any fanboy think he was at the North Pole with Santa Steve and the four labs I attended were staffed with knowledgeable, helpful engineers. As is customary with Apple, nothing gets done half way.

I spent the week attending five sessions (or labs) per day and every one of those sessions were professionally architected and excellently presented. As impressive as that may be, Apple orchestrated over 280 sessions and labs for more than 5000 developers and from everything I’ve been able to gather, they all went well. In fact, I had a difficult time deciding which session to attend on several occasions. There were typically over twenty sessions and labs available for every time slot and odds were, there would be more than one that interested me. Fortunately, Apple will post video of all the sessions on their site so I won’t have to miss anything.

As valuable as the presented material was, the availability of Apple engineers and their willingness to help was of equal worth. Every session ended with a Q & A and I gleaned a ton of information without ever stepping up to the mic. The four labs I attended proved to be some of the best time I spent all week because the engineers were available to answer my questions and provide guidance for my specific problems. I also enjoyed the 100Mb internet connection whenever I plugged my Mac into one of the lab’s hardwire ethernet connections. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never experienced a connection anywhere near that fast. I took the opportunity to download all the available SDKs and iPhone OS versions and snuck in a HD movie download to boot. The new James Bond flick downloaded both versions (>4.5GB) in about 10 minutes! My 5Mb connection at home usually takes a couple of hours. But I digress…

My only regret was not having enough time to mingle with other developers. While Apple provided lots of seating and internet connectivity outside the sessions and labs, I just never seemed to have the time to take advantage of it for fear of missing some of the prepared material. This is one thing I’ve vowed to change next year. No doubt, I’ll be back!

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Ass Clown

I do my best to keep politics off my blogs, but this does involve the tech community and I just can’t keep my mouth shut about this one.  Senate Bill S.436, sponsored by Senator John Cornyn of Texas is just one more liberty snatch being attempted by our federal government under the guise of “child protection”.  More specifically, S.436 is an amendment to Title 18 of the Domestic Surveillance Oversight Act of 2003 that would require “ISPs” to maintain records of all DHCP activity for two years and make those records available to “federal, state and local law enforcement agencies” without a signed court warrant.

Two parts of this bill are particularly onerous.  First, the definition of an ISP is so loosely defined it could include virtually anybody with a router.  Why?  Because virtually every router includes a DHCP server service to hand out IP addresses to the users who connect to it.  S.436 requires all “ISPs” to maintain records of all issued IP addresses for two years.  Second, and the most disturbing, forcing anyone to hand over any information to the government without due process is tantamount to wadding up our Constitution and wiping their butts with it.  I wonder if Senator Cornyn has ever read the Constitution.  Do the first, fourth and fifth amendments mean anything to this guy?

A word of advice to anyone who cares to listen:  Any time a politician starts talking about protecting children, look for more of your civil rights to disappear.  The summary of S.436 on Senator Cornyn’s web site reads,

A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to protect youth from exploitation by adults using the Internet, and for other purposes.

Did you catch the last four words of that summary?  ”And for other purposes” is code for “anything the government damn well pleases”.

When I first heard about this, I wrote to Senator Cornyn politely explaining the implications of the bill he was sponsoring.  Of course, I got the standard, automated response via email and the next week got a letter asking for a contribution to his campaign.  I didn’t expect any more.  After all, he’s a Senator and I’m just a reactionary kook, right?

Hang on folks.  Just a few more pieces of legislation like this and we won’t be much better off than Jews running from Brownshirts.

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