ForbesOnTech

What Happens When the Music Dies in Iraq-- A Note From Balad, Iraq

The youngest of my generational cousins is an Army Sergeant First Class now on his fifth tour in Iraq. I occasionally refer to him in my blog as “the bass fisherman,” but truth is Paul Sele and I are both are people who like being around water first and catching fish second.

Paul is getting ready to rotate home at the end of June. While he’s been deployed I’ve tried to regularly send him goodie packages that I think reflect the tastes and humor of our common ancestors; Our grandfather, the Late William Kleiberger Sele, and Paul’s dad, my uncle, Richard Sele.

I’ve used the packages to make Paul Sele smile a little. Every month, I’ve packed canned salmon, smoked oysters, clams and of course avocados.

This morning I got an email that had been forwarded from Iraq. I want to share it.

WHEN THE MUSIC STOPPED

For those who are unaware, at a military theater, the National Anthem is played before every movie.

From a Chaplain in Iraq:

 

I recently attended a showing of "Superman 3," here at LSA Anaconda in a large auditorium we use for movies, as well as memorial services and other large gatherings. As is the custom back in the States, we stood and snapped to attention when the National Anthem began before the main feature. All was going as planned until about three-quarters of the way through The National Anthem, the music stopped.

Now, what would happen if this occurred with 1,000 18-22 year-olds back in the States? I imagine there would be hoots, catcalls, laughter, a few rude comments; and everyone would sit down and call for a movie. Of course, that is, if they had stood for the National Anthem in the first place. Here, the 1,000 Soldiers continued to stand attention, eyes fixed forward. The music started again. The Soldiers continued to quietly stand at attention. And again, at the same point, the music stopped. What would you expect to happen?

Even here I would imagine laughter, as everyone finally sat down and expected the movie to start.

But here, you could have heard a pin drop. Every Soldier continued to stand at attention. Suddenly there was a lone voice, then a dozen, and quickly the room was filled with the voices of a thousand soldiers, finishing where the recording left off: "And the rockets’red glare, The bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night That our flag was still there. Oh, say does that Star - Spangled Banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave"

It was the most inspiring moment I have had here in Iraq. I wanted you to know what kind of Soldiers are serving you here. Remember them …all our soldiers serving us here at home and abroad. For many have already paid the ultimate price.

Written by Chaplain Jim Higgins, LSA Anaconda is at the Balad Airport in Iraq,north of Bagdad

I’m not much of a patriot; I’m just one of several million Americans who once served in a foreign land, far from home, years ago. Just like young men and women of today. I hope your specific political leanings don't preclude recog nition of the sacrifice of today’s veterans.--Jim Forbes 04/06/2009

Strategic Criteria For Netbook Wins---Robust 802, Good Batttery Life, and Performance Count

Having lived with a netbook for almost two months and watched their gradual evolution for much longer, I’ve formed some strong impressions about this category of minimalist portables.

Foremost: Netbooks are not be-all, end-all, solutions to portable computing. Anyone who that tries to judge these new machines by past portable standards is probably headed for a big disappointment.

If you’re able to look at netbooks, however, as ultra portables that help you execute one or more critical tasks, you’ll appreciate their light weight as much as their ability to get you through a work day.

There are at least three significant criteria for most netbooks: Battery life, usability and a stellar 802.11 implementation are all critical to a good netbook design. First off, it’s hard for me to believe that a netbook with a battery life of less than six hours is anything more than a badly rushed first attempt in a new category.

One of the glaring shortfalls in many current netbooks is their 802.11 implementation. If you’ve ever used a netbook to try and read email in a crowded environment while 300-500 other people are sucking the life-forces from an 802.11 network, you’ll quickly come to understand that a well thought out, brawny, 802.11 transceiver could be a make or break technology for netbooks. Many of the netbooks I’ve looked at in retail (or which I’ve seen in use at conferences or in campus settings) seem to have difficulty connecting and staying attached to 802.11 networks whose access points are less than 70 feet away.

Performance will become a gating factor in future netbooks, and could become the wedge that separates Intel’s dominance in portable computing in future designs. While Intel’s Atom processor sits in the processor socket of most netbooks, the emerging demand for increased horsepower in netbooks could result in partial wins for AMD’s new Zeos or Qualcomm’s SnapDragon families (while Intel and AMD are focusing on traditional speeds and feeds, Qualcomm appears to focusing on chips designed for the holy grail of portable computing-- instant-on and persistent wireless connectivity).

Processor performance, however, is just one of the factors shaping how users will perceive future netbooks.  Disk and bus speeds also contribute to the equation.

The Acer netbook I carry everyday, --an Acer OneNote D150-- has a moderately fast 160GB hard disk drive that meets all of my needs, and is fast enough to meet most needs and has the capacity to let me keep important data locally.

To improve baseline performance and its impact on the overall netbook user experience, hardware makers may need to adopt an –in-their face attitude with operating system developers to provide  products that load quickly, run efficiently but, most of all, are not loaded with unneeded features. But one feature that netbooks desperately need is “instant-on” (introduced and on Hewlett Packard’s Omnibook 300, which was introduced in 1992 and also supported in the subsequent 500, and 800 models of that pioneering ultra portable notebook line).

One of the giant paradoxes of netbooks is meeting users’ demands without busting this form factor’s seams.

Battery life in current netbooks is a good example. Although Users want six hours or more of battery life, appropriate power packs add weight and increased depth and back end height, interfering with design aesthetics.

The evolution of netbook computers promises to be one of the most interesting tales coming down the technology toll road now. Some of the first generation netbooks I’ve seen are among the most rugged portables ever built. Other machines now in the development phase promise to expand the category exponentially, not only meeting existing requirements with room to spare, but also resetting the bar by adding designed in cell network connectivity (I’m pretty sure cell network co branding is imminent ) and full support of touch screen interfaces.—Jim Forbes/04/30/20098

Making the Final College Tuition Payment-- Cngratulations, Amanda!

I thrive on celebrations of life, small and large.

This weekend saw one of my most important life-tasks finally completed-- writing tuition checks for my daughter’s college education. It’s been a long haul and the credit for completing this task goes completely to the Lovely Miss Amanda, who may be one of the most self-directed young people in my family.

She got off to a very rocky start by attending a “women’s finishing school” near Boston.

She soon discovered that few of the courses offered by that institution weren’t transferrable, so rather than waste time, she zipped home to California nd began knocking down the classes she needed for her degree.

And, she’s worked to pay most of her living expenses while she’s in college. She was a Starbucks’ barista in Sacramento eventually becoming an asistant manager who helped run a profitable store.

Her sole creative outlet for much of this time was a giant horse she leased and rode regularly. Samsom,  provided both the attachment she needed and wanted while she busted her butt studying. Did I care that part of my tuition money went towards a horse that saw my daughter more than I did for several years?

Not really. Although after the second time the Lovely Miss Amanda was thrown by this 18-hand behemoth, I grew a little concerned.

Amanda’s college education has been a long haul. She’s forgone personal friendships, learned to live on a very tight budget and become more than I ever dreamed.

Last week, in a series of quick emails, she wrote the magic words every tuition paying Dad longs to hear, penning “Done, done done!”

I ran through the house and quickly told my mother, the cats, Mr. Perro and Miss Betsy the news. Now all I have to do is figure out what gift I can get to celebrate the occasion.

For her, it will be an appropriate bauble.  For me, I’m thinking long range 2009 fishing trip in the Sea of Cortez, but I’ll settle for just a couple more yellowtail, zipping line from my little reel, as I steam up the seaward side of the San Diego kelp beds in my panga just as soon as the water temp hits 68 degrees.

I need to add acknowledge my late Uncle, Mont Forbes and his sister, Bernadine Forbes Clark who helped me realize how important it is to help kids get through college.

Two through college and none left to go.  My son is a teacher enjoying his career and my daughter is about to start hers.

Amanda and Sean, you kids just rock my world.—Jim Forbes on 02/02/2009.

It's Time to let Steve Jobs Enjoy Some Peace-- Shouldn't Media know When it's Too Intrusive

    I've grown quite tired of technology and business writers making hay and headlines with reports on the health of Apple's co-founder Steve jobs.

    Reports in Gawker Media's ValleyWag here stating that Mr. jobs had been admitted to Stanford hospital over the weekend, speculating he was being operated on for Liver Cancer drove me over the edge.

    The post carried information from a source identified only as being an employee of Stanford Hospital.That an employee of any hospital would publicly disclose whether or not anyone is a patient at the hospital and provides the media any information on a patient's condition goes beyond despicable. Furthermore, that bottom feeding reporters who never leave their offices or homes to conduct basic "fact" gathering would base their information on such sources goes beyond the pale. In addition, what sets my teeth futrher on edge about ValleyWag and other media outlets coverage of Steve jobs is that reporters don't seem not to be asking a fundamental question: "Does the source have reason to know the information they've provided me."

    I've reached the point in life where I've grown exceedingly tired of reading about Steve Jobs. That's not the same as saying I don't care about Apple, or Mr.Jobs' future or impact on the company and personal computing.

    Truthfully, i care about both Apple and the cautionary tale that I think will be Steve Jobs' heritage when the day comes he leaves Apple at the end of a very noteworthy career.

    There are  Several things I'd like to see in this regard: Foremost, I want to see a reporter or book author get off their asses, out of their offices and try to make face to face contact with Jobs after having first prepared appropriate questions. Part and parcel with this, I'd also like to see named sources in articles and forthcoming books. I'm tired of the same rehash of the story told initially by ex-Infoworld reporters Paul Freiberger and Mike Swain in the seminal book, "Fire in the Valley." Editorial managers and literary agents have played a huge role in my changing view of how poorly Mr. Jobs and Apple has been covered. No one seems to be demanding basic reporting, resulting in books that under serve Apple's on-going story.

Also, why have so few reporters tried to turn Apple board members, or informed third parties into sources? If there was ever a time for enterprise reporting techniques to be used on Apple, it's now.

    It's unfortunate that the working press has gotten lazy in its Apple coverage. It's a sad day when hacks turn to second rate sources, or do their reporting while leeching free drinks at parties hosted by Web 2.0 sometime luminaries blowing chunks of their first-round funding on parties for technological strap hangers.

    Covering Apple and Steve jobs has always been a challenging editorial assignment for most reporters.  Sadly, few reporters ever drilled down beyond this company's veneer and the culture of it founders.  I hope that someday, an author will take the time to do a worthwhile book on the culture Steve jobs created and drove. What I've read for the last decade, however, convinces me that stories about Apple are under reported and overblown.

    Steve jobs faces serious health issues. In addition to being Apple's on-leave chairman and CEO, he is also a husband and a father. It's time he was allowed to have some semblance of privacy--Jim Forbes 01/25/2009.

        (Disclosure: I covered Apple as a reporter at InfoWorld and PC Week and admit to having used unnamed sources at times when the source declined to be named but satisfied me that they had reason to know about the subject matter I was reporting on. I was known to rummage through trash, call people in the evenings and conduct  amicable "ambush" interviews away from controlling corporate spokespeople. )

Carl Icahn Raider of the Lost Ark-- Silicon Valley Takeovers Can Happen

Silicon Valley has always been unique. Entrepreneurs have been free to follow their dreams—as long as they coincided with the same path to liquidity as that of their venture capital backers.

But its gene pool lacks much of the fresh talent from outside northern California that marks other industrial centers. There’s almost nothing in the history of Silicon Valley and its entrepreneurs that makes me believe any company—most of all Yahoo—can survive a proxy fight like the looming battle between Jerry Yang and Carl Icahn.

Yahoo may be the best example in Silicon Valley of how not to grow a company.  In it’s short history, it’s never really been able to create a top notch brand and it’s become a revolving door for talent that’s moves laterally not upward. Yahoo is an artifact from an earlier age; a time when start-ups thought they would become content kings or giant search engine/ information aggregators. Along the way Yahoo lost its focus and it has jumped from haphazardly through a variety of business models, never quite succeeding at anything it tried. Yahoo has become yesterday’s brioche and it really doesn’t appear  there’s much that can save it.

To make my point try this: Every time you hear the name “Yahoo” think “Excite@Home.”  Where is this company today? It’s little more than a footnote and absent a near divine miracle, I think Yahoo is doomed to become a subordinate entry in the same footnote list as Excite@home.

But if nothing else, the unfolding story of Yahoo should increase the pucker factor for entrepreneurs and their investors. Until now the Valley has escaped predatory investors and take-over kings.  But if things are changing Carl Icahn may just be the lead predator in a pack of hungry foxes looking at some of Silicon Valley’s cash plump chickens.  Do I think Donald trump is going to invade the Valley anytime soon?  Hell no. But there are some companies that have enough cash to make them prime targets.

Take a second and imagine Apple if Steve Jobs’ health were to crash.  (Note, I give Jobs and Apple high marks for management of Steve Job’s brief fight with Pancreatic cancer that affected the company’s stock not a whit). If there were a change in Job’s health I believe Apple’s stock price would drop and consumer confidence in the brand would tumble. Add to this Apple’s image as “only one person can manage the beast so we don’t have a strong number two” and you have the picture of a company that could be taken over.

Who would do this? There are two obvious candidates in Silicon Valley—Larry Ellison’s Oracle or Google.

All of this is pure conjecture on my part and I’m not saying it would happen, I’m just noting that takeovers of technology companies are possible and could happen, as, long as the right celestial tumblers line up and the lock that’s heretofore stopped corporate raiders in Silicon Valley pops open.—Jim Forbes 05/17/2008.

The Unintended Dangers of A Redial-- from a Soldier's Cellphone-- In the Midst of a Firefight

Today’s personal technologies like cell phones, portable computers and digital cameras are so commonplace among members of our military that many soldiers forget they are carrying them in the rucksacks or pockets of their utility uniforms.

            Take the case of a young soldier stationed in Afghanistan who tried to call his parents back home in Oregon but no one was home. So, the young Army specialist puts his cell phone back in his pocket and goes off on patrol.

            The patrol is engaged by Afghani evil-doers, the soldier takes up a firing position using a HumVee for cover.  The Problem then is that as the soldier presses up against the vehicle, his phone accidentally redials, connects and he ends up leaving a three-minute voice mail of a hot firefight, which scares the Bejesus out of his parents when they listen to their voice mail when they come home from shopping. The audio in the voice mail lays it all out, soldiers screaming for “more ammo,” orders to engage distant targets, and an urgent request for a replacement barrel from the soldier for his Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW). The voices are urgent and in the background is the constant thud of an automatic 40mm grenade launcher, the longer brrps of the SAW and the high pitched racket of M16’s, all left on an answering machine back home in Oregon.

            The accidental redial ends about three minutes into the call, just after one of the patrol’s other members spots an incoming smoke trail and yells “RPG!” (rocket propelled grenade).

            The upside of all this is that the parents were able to reach the soldier on his cell phone later that day and discovered his was fine, but embarrassed about the commotion of the unintentional redial. It was then that his little brother posted the audio to YouTube. You can listen to it here.

            I guess that in addition to making sure that members of patrols are buttoned up, have clean rifles, chow and water, squad sergeants now have to make sure that soldier’s have their cell phones turned off before they cross the wire.—Jim Forbes 05/06/2008.

Why We Need to Teach young Adults Not to Rely on Internet Job Sites Fo that First Gig

Watching how my two children use the Internet is like reading Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

            For my kids, it’s the best of times, the worst of times, but they’re having a dickens of a time in their adult lives.

            My daughter, Amanda, relies on the Internet for a substantial part of her education. Yet, she’s quite adamant that the Internet causes many individuals to isolate rather than mingle with peers.

            My son, Sean, is a teacher and while in college had been led to believe that Internet sites listing teaching jobs here in California would make job searching an easy task.

            The reality was far different than what my son was told. He spent hours looking at and responding to job listings and after one year had not found a gig. As a parent watching the process I became very alarmed.  It didn’t take me too long to figure out that school districts were using the Internet to build large files of resumes.

            My daughter also used the Internet to find jobs.  But she used a much different strategy and as a result, she’s achieved many of her goals. What my daughter did differently was  focus in on a job she wanted, provide the basic requested information  and then show up in person with a copies of the same data and sell herself to get an in-person interview.

            Talking to some soon-to-graduate college students earlier this month, I was dismayed to find out how many s relied on the Internet as their primary source of job leads.  Looking at this group I was struck by my daughter’s belief that the Internet often depersonalizes things that over the years have worked best in one-to-one settings. And as I listened closely to the students I soon realized that they were unable to connect with a potential employer as anything more than a web page. At the close of one class, I asked a group of bout seven students to find out the name of the person who would hire them in an individual organization and then tell me how they planned to get an interview with that person. As I did this I was vividly reminded of how depressed my son had become when he wasn’t able to make contact beyond a web page.

            I am very concerned that the Internet has created an entire generation of young people coming into the workforce that may not understand that hiring decisions are made by people, not web sites. The best way to get the job you want is to by personal contact, not resume mass mailings to so-called job sites. It’s dismaying to me that in this day and age, the idea of one-to-one contact is going the way of the high-buttoned shoe.

           And to bing this full circle, I'm' happy to report that my son is now teaching, after getting an in-person interview with a school district he had originally applied  to on the Internet more than one year ago.

            Why back in the “old days” after graduation, some of us got in our cars anx (in my case) drove 400 miles overnight for that first opportunity to press the flesh and meet a potential employer in person. And guess what? That strategy worked.—Jim Forbes—04/29/2008

FCC Lays Foundation for National Emergency Texting

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A program to create a nationwide alert system using cell phones and other mobile devices was approved Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission.
An emergency text message would be sent in the event of a widespread disaster, severe weather or child abduction.
The system would send text messages to Americans when an emergency occurs.
The FCC said cell phone companies that voluntarily opt into the system would send text-based alert messages to subscribers in response to three types of events:
A disaster that could jeopardize the health and safety of Americans, such as a terrorist attack; these would trigger a national alert from the president of the United States
Imminent or ongoing threats such as hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes
Child abductions or Amber alerts.
T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and AT&T all stated that they would be likely to opt into the alert system if it is passed by the FCC.
"While we obviously need to review the details of the FCC's decision, we look forward to offering mobile emergency alerts to our customers," AT&T said in a written statement.

A national emergency alert system based on mobile phone texting? It’s about time. But it’s only part of a solution. How about cities, counties and states take a big step further and adopt reverse 911 emergency notification systems.
That’s what we have in San Diego County where I live and it was put to work quickly last fall during the 2007 firestorm season. While there were some minor glitches in the notification system (a couple of neighborhoods were told to evacuate earlier than was necessary) the use of Reverse 911 during the 2007 Fire season is a text book example of how useful some technologies can be in disasters.
I was directly effected by the Witch Creek Fire.  We lost several homes on my street when the fire came roaring through the nearby adjoining city of Ramona, CA. Rather than wait for the “official evacuation notification.” I started collecting my gear as soon as I could see flames cresting the hill that separates my place from Ramona.
The “evacuate now” order came late in the afternoon the next day. By phone.
I loaded my two useless cats in their cages, hooked up my dog and installed him on my front passenger seat and drove by my two elderly neighbors to make sure they were packed and ready to go and had transportation.
Adding emergency text message notification to the system  is the next logical step. But before that happens nationwide cell networks are going to need to become a lot smarter. A whole lot smarter.
One of the problems I foresee is with yahoos like me. My cell phone is a 650 area code number, but I live 400 miles south of Silicon Valley in the 760 area code. Now that cell networks support GPS, it doesn’t seem like too much of a technological stretch to assume that me cell network knows I’m in the 760 area code and any emergency information relative to the specific area is something I need to be aware of.
There are some other baby steps that can be taken to cover the ground needed to keep the citizenry informed.  While I personally don’t like the social media messaging application Teitter.  I believe regional emergency Twitter URL’s could be an important information dissemination channel.
Observationally, the one thing local electronic and print media and local government could have done much better here in North San Diego County during the Witch Creek Fire, was provide better communications to local residents including electronic maps of road closures. More than 500,000 people in my county were told to leave their homes in the last Fire storm. Most of us ended up in emergency shelters. And the one thing that was in real short supply was real time information.
National emergency text messaging is a great first step. The next logical move for it is at the regional, county and city-level.--Jim Forbes 04/09/2008

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Microsoft Expands DreamSpark Academic Evangelism Program--Wouldn't it be Nice if Others Joined In

Microsoft pulled another of its feet onto the academic computing bandwagon with the announcement this week of DreamSpark, a philanthropy program aimed initially at college students but which will eventually include high schoolers as well, according to the online version of PC Magazine.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates announced new details of the program during a speech at Leland Stanford Jr. University on the San Francisco Peninsula earlier this week. DreamSpark has already provided software to about 35 million students worldwide, Gates said, adding that the program will be enhanced to include more college and some high school students in the future.

click here for PC Mag's original story.

Some of the titles that will be given to students free of charge include the 2005 and 2008 editions of Visual Studio, 2005 Developer’s Edition of SQL Server and the Standard Edition of Windows Server, according to PC Mag. Students will also be given access to Microsoft X-box development tools and the company’s game developmenyt community, the magazine says.

While much of Microsoft’s philanthropic efforts have been aimed at individual colleges and universities, the company has a long history of academic evangelism and has been a co-sponsor with hardware maker Hewlett Packard of large academic computing grants in the past.

DreamSpark’s sheer size-- more than 35 million students have benefited from the program-- is astounding.

Academic evangelism isn’t limited to immediate gratification. In decades past, companies such as Hewlitt Packard and Techtronic helped create entire generations of equipment buyers and brand specifiers by exposing young students to professional-level test and measurement systems through academic evangelism programs. In the 1980’s Apple made significant inroads into academic computing through its conspicuous evangelism.

The two companies in today’s market that have active and high profile academic evangelism programs are Hewlett Packard and Microsoft. Both companies have dedicated staff members who run their companies programs in this category.

The pay-off associated with academic evangelism isn’t immediate. Rather it happens years later when former students enter the job market and begin buying IT or engineering test equipment on behalf of their employers.

However, I believe there is at least one category of computer technology that could reap an immediate benefit from academic computing evangelism. That category is pen-based computing. And, looking out over today’s landscape the one company I hope jumps directly or indirectly on this bandwagon is Demo 2008 standout Live Scribe,

here

makers of the Pulse Smart Pen. -- Jim Forbes 02/19/2008

Gates Foundation Commits to Basic Ag Science Funding-- Aim Is Small Farms in Developing Countries

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Moves Fund Research in Small Scale Farming

"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women," Gates said.CNN story here

Once again, Bill Gates finds a base level solution providing strong vectors that help solve many key problems. In this case it’s a commitment to work on solving world hunger by improving small farm agrcutural methods in developing countries.

If you want to build, stronger, smarter citizens you must firzt have a basic level of agrculture technology to provide enough sufficient nutritional and caloric intake. Funding specialized research into agricultural technologies and products as well as educational institutions that enable all of this is an important evolutionary step in these overall processes.

In looking around at topics in the coming conference season, I was struck by Gates’ position on funding agriculture in developing countries. How does this compare in  importance to say a discussion of technology opportunities in Sharan Africa, West Africa or the Horn of Africa? Before you have techno0logy centers, you need people who are capable of feeding themselves and producing basic surplusses.

        Without such basic ingredients in developing countries you have conditions leading to wars over agriculturally or water rich territories or famine on a bibical scale.

The importance of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funding agricultural research for small farms in developing countries?

        Some things are so self evident they need not be argued.

        That’s my screed for the week—Jim Forbes 01/25/2008

(mandatory disclosure. I am a graduate of an agricultural  and technology college as well as the direct descendant of female farmer from Western Colorado. That woman, my maternal grandmother, Ella Sherrod Forbes,  lost her husband to anthrax, then moved her family to California but instilled a love of the land and agriculture that exists in her lineage to this day.jmf)