WindyCityDB has been over for a while now, and I’ve had some time to collect my thoughts about the conference.

First and foremost, this was an incredibly well organized and wonderfully run conference. Ray Hightower and the WindyCityDB team did an amazing job. The space at IIT was perfect. The food and drink was ample and tasty. And the talks were interesting and thought provoking. To top it off, all proceeds from the conference, approximately $1,000, was donated to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

One theme that took me by surprise was the broad support for relational databases. Almost all of the speakers stated that the relational database still has a place in this new world, along side all of the NoSQL technologies that we had gathered to discuss. This is something I completely agree with, but being a NoSQL conference, I had imagined that there would be quite a bit of RDBMS bashing going on. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Everybody seemed to agree that the RDBMS is a very functional and reliable piece of software that is still very much needed. Everybody also seemed to agree that there are some things the RDBMS doesn’t do too well based on how it is designed, and that the different NoSQL technologies aim to fill this gap. Nobody was advocating their particular NoSQL database as a replacement to the RDBMS. Instead, all were pitched as alternatives, created to solve different problems.

Another theme that sort of caught me off guard was the wide acceptance of Polyglot Persistence as “the future” of application persistence methods. I say “sort of” because I was there to speak about Polyglot Persistence, which of course means that I think it can be a great tool if used properly. However, I thought it was a bit more controversial of a topic. As it turns out, there are many already taking a polyglot approach to solving their persistence needs. This was great to hear, as made me feel a little less insane for wanting to use multiple databases within a single application. Well, I could still be insane, but at least now I know I’m in good company :) Several speakers mentioned Polyglot Persistence in their talks, and I spoke with several individuals at the conference, and after the conference, who are actively using a polyglot approach to address their persistence requirements.

I also found John Nunemaker’s prediction that hosted database solutions are going to be the future of application data persistence to be very interesting. If you think about it, this is exactly what happened with web hosting. Most companies, especially small companies, now use a 3rd party to host their production environments. In fact, I’d bet that the thought of hosting your own environment doesn’t even cross the mind of the vast majority of small companies now-a-days. I can easily see how hosted database solutions, such as MongoHQ or Cloudant, could follow a similar path. You would no longer need to worry about hardware issues, scaling issues, backups, maintenance, etc. It would allow you to simply focus on your data.

Even though I didn’t get a chance to play with it, the WindyCityDB lab was a nice touch, especially for those who had never tinkered with some of the NoSQL databases on display. The lab consisted of several iMacs, each loaded with a particular NoSQL database. All of the databases were preloaded with the Stack Overflow data set. Sharing a data set was a great idea, as it gave you a good way to compare and contrast how the different databases handled the same set of data.

I really enjoyed myself at this conference, and am already looking forward to next year’s. At the rate the NoSQL movement is moving, I can only imagine what the landscape will look like a year from now.

conferences, nosql, windycitydb

The mobile industry is exploding. In just a few short years, everybody will have a smart phone. A tiny, internet connected, mini computer right in their pocket. As each month passes, we learn more and more about what the future of this industry holds, and what the mobile handset landscape will look like. If one thing is for certain, it’s that nothing is for certain.

As it stands right now, Apple is king with consumers. Though not the first ones to market with an internet connected mobile device (the Blackberry has been around for a long time, and still holds the majority of the smartphone market share), Apple appears to be the first to really understand what the average, non-corporate consumer wants. A true mini computer. An open device that can play music, run applications, take photos, and provide a pleasant web browsing experience. And they did it in true Apple fashion, making the device extremely easy to use. As a result, the iPhone has become extremely popular with consumers, and is widely considered ”the device to have”.

With the majority of people still without a smartphone, much of the market remains up for grabs. Apple’s competitors are scrambling to catch up, trying to ensure that they they get a piece of the pie. But, one very important question lingers. What can Apple’s competitors offer that would give the average consumer a reason to buy their device instead of buying an iPhone? To me, the reasons are few, and becoming fewer.

(I’d love to hear your reasons in the comments. So please, chime in.)

A comparable feature set

This pretty much goes without saying. Any challenger to the iPhone crown must offer similar features to that of the iPhone. It is very unlikely that a competing device will lure anybody away from the iPhone if it is missing a feature that is now expected to be there. The device must be capable of running apps, taking photos, playing music, etc, for it even to be considered.

A better network

AT&T’s network leaves much to be desired. Having never been an AT&T customer, I can only relay the opinions of my friends and family who are AT&T customers. However, their opinions are one in the same. I’ve not heard a single word of praise when it comes to AT&T’s network. All of my friends and family with iPhones have expressed frustration that the device they love is frequently crippled by a network that is spotty and congested.

It’s no secret that Apple has an exclusive agreement with AT&T, and that agreement has an expiration date. Rumors have been circulating about a jump to another carrier, possibly Verizon, sometime next year. The more wireless carriers offering the iPhone, the less valid of a reason this will become for not purchasing one.

A comparable application ecosystem

Competing devices will need to have an application ecosystem that is at least comparable to the iPhone’s. This is no small task. There are over 100,000 applications in the App Store. Sure, several offer the same functionality, and many are of very poor quality. However, nobody can argue with Apple’s tag line of “There’s a app for that”. There really is an application, in most cases many, for everything you could possibly want to do with your iPhone.

Given their head start, beating Apple at this game will not be easy. Google’s Android OS currently stands the best chance of challenging Apple on this front, with over 10,000 applications already available. The Android OS is open, and capable of running on hardware from any manufacturer. In addition, applications written for Android are capable of running on any device that runs the OS (for the most part). Next year is going to be a big one for Android, with several new devices coming to market from many different manufacturers. Some analysts are even predicting that the number of Android devices in the hands of consumers will surpass the number of iPhones by 2012. This will no doubt attract more application developers to the platform.

However, Android has its own set of challenges awaiting. The fact that manufacturers are free to run Android on devices with very different hardware specifications (screen size, input controls, etc) poses a major challenge for application developers. Perhaps the risk of rendering thousands of existing Android applications useless by releasing a device with dramatically different hardware specs will be enough to convince manufacturers not to do it. Perhaps Google will provide a set of Android APIs that can help application developers deal with this issue. Perhaps a set of best practices will emerge as a guide for developers looking to tackle this issue. Perhaps we’ll see something similar to the PC application market in the mid-late 90’s (and the Blackberry application market today), where only certain devices will be capable of running certain applications. Only time will tell if these issues will prevent the development of the Android application ecosystem.

A killer feature

One wild card that is always in play is the killer feature. Apple’s competitors are only one, innovative, killer feature away from stealing the spotlight for themselves. By “killer feature”, I mean a feature so awesome that when you see it in action, you say to yourself, “I need one of those!”.

Version 2.0 of the Android OS took a stab at this with the introduction of Google Maps Navigation. A fantastic feature, Google Maps Navigation morphs your mobile device into a fully functional GPS unit, complete with a synthesized voice telling you where to go, real time traffic information, and several map overlays showing you the location of everything from ATMs to gas stations. But, is this a killer feature? Frankly, I’m not sure. But, its announcement was enough to cause a significant drop in the stock price of traditional GPS manufacturers, and it certainly has potential.

An incredibly easy to use device

Making devices that are intuitive and easy to use has always been one of Apple’s strengths. Look no further than the iPod for an example of this. Competing devices will need to be as easy to use as the iPhone is to appeal to the average consumer.

How do I get my music onto the device? How to I get the photos I take off? These operations should be simple and intuitive. Motorola’s new Android 2.0 device, the DROID, is seriously lacking in this area. Several steps are required to store data on or pull data off of the device:

• Attach the device to your computer
• Use the device’s menu system to instruct it to mount itself as an external drive
• Locate the files on your hard drive that you would like to store on the device
• Copy and paste the files from your hard drive onto the device
• Unmount the device

For the iPhone, the list of steps is much smaller.

• Attach the device to your computer, and let iTunes do the rest

Are the steps required to store data on the DROID too much to handle for an experienced computer user. No, of course not. But, there is still a large percentage of people out there who would struggle with completing those tasks. Believe me, I know. Many are family and friends of mine who I help complete “simple” tasks on their computers all of the time. These people make up a significant portion of the market. If you want them to buy your device, then you have to make it stupid simple to use.

Summary

Apple has set the bar high with the iPhone, very high. While I can think of several reasons why developers and techies would prefer a different device, I can’t think of many reasons why the average consumer would. And, there are a lot more average consumers than there are geeks.

But make no mistake, Apple’s competitors have the iPhone in their sights. The tide can shift very quickly in this market, especially since most people get a new phone every couple of years. Will the iPhone challengers be able make a dent in the iPhone’s market share? Or, will the iPhone be the de-facto standard for smart phones? Only time will tell.

android, iPhone, mobile development

Yesterday I stumbled upon Parleys.com. It appears that Parleys has been around for a while, providing podcasts of various tech presentations (audio only). However, the new version of the site, still in Beta, takes their offerings to an entirely new level. It now contains several videos of presentations from various Java conferences over the past few years. Not only is the content fantastic, but the user interface is very slick as well. The UI displays not only the audio in sync with the slides, but also a video of the presenter, giving you the full experience. The navigation options are also great, providing a table of contents and a time line for the presentation…letting your jump to a specific point in the talk. In addition, Parley’s provides information about the speaker and the talk, a list of related talks, and the ability to post tags and comments at specific points in the talk.

In my opinion, the best feature provided by Parleys.com is the ability to watch the presentations, with all of the UI features, offline. This is HUGE for me, as I spend almost two hours every day sitting on a train. Parley’s provides an Adobe AIR application that makes all of this possible. Adobe AIR is a runtime environment that “lets developers use proven web technologies to build rich Internet applications that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems”. The Linux version of AIR, still in Beta, works wonderfully. The AIR application operates just like the site, and provides some additional functionality to download the presentations for later viewing.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately looking for a site like this. With the current economic conditions, I’d imagine that most companies are cutting back on the number of conferences they send their developers to. According to the site, they plan on continuing to add content. If they do, I see this as an invaluable resource for keeping up to date on what is going on in the Java community.

career development, continued education, java

Wow, this sucks. I was seriously considering picking up a Macbook for my next laptop. Although I’m primarily an Ubuntu Linux user, OS X is becoming quite popular as a development platform. Plus, the hardware in the Macbooks is a big step up from what I’m currently working with. I was thinking a dual boot setup with Ubuntu and OS X on a Macbook would be perfect.

What was really making me consider picking up a Macbook was iLife, and specifically, iMovie. I’ve heard great things about iMovie. Supposedly, it just works, and it’s really easy to get it to do what you want it to do. Linux has no all-in-one video editing package. Just a bunch of stand alone applications that you can piece together to get the whole picture, but that’s too much work for yours truly. And, the Windows ones I’ve tried I usually end up fighting with to get them to do what I want. So, I was really leaning towards the Mac.

But, this is a deal breaker. My miniDV camcorder will not transfer the higher resolution video over USB. If you want the good stuff, you have to use the firewire port on the camcorder. And, I would like the videos of my kids in high resolution thank you very much. It creates a much better end result to blackmail them with when they’re older and don’t like me anymore.

Sure the Macbook Pros have a firewire port. But you know what else they have? A price tag that’s $700 more than the Macbook.

Shortly after Apple’s announcement today, I was already able to find disgruntled folks like myself on the web via Google. I can only hope that Apple fixes this mistake and puts a firewire port back on the Macbook.. Until then, no Macbook for me.

apple, hardware, macbook

Merlin Mann, creator of 43 folders, was in the office today to give his talk on Time and Attention. It was a very good talk, and Merlin offered plenty of practical advice on how to manage distractions at work, and really focus on what you are getting paid to do. If you constantly feel like you can never get anything done at work due to meetings, the constant flow of emails, or some other distraction, I’d highly recommend checking out the presentation. None of what Merlin points out is rocket science. It is all simple, practical, and sound advice. I’m really going to make an effort to try some of his suggestions, and see they can’t help me spend a little more time doing what I’m good at while at work…solving problems.

career development, productivity