My Morning

Quick non-technical blog post today, but just because a few people are asking me about my latest facebook status update...

I was woken up this morning at six by the sound of glass smashing. First I thought an animal or something must have sneaked in and was causing havoc in my kitchen, so I tried to ignore it. Then I hear the footsteps in the lounge. Then the footsteps coming down the corridor. I have no idea what to do so try to stay still and pretend I don't exist.

Then my bedroom door opens....

I work up the courage to switch on the light and there this fucker is standing, one meter from my bed. He's holding handfuls of smashed glass and just stares at me. I tell him to get the hell out of my house, and he tries to pretend he's looking for some mates. I've no idea if he's armed though so I try not to get too agro. I jump out of bed (in my underpants!) and tell the guy to get out. The guy just wanders off and goes out the front door.

After I catch my breath I run to the phone dial 111 and get straight on the phone with the cops. After I give my address and a description of the guy I'm barely off the phone with the emergency services when I look out my windows and see FIVE cop cars screaming up Boulcott St. The cops swarm all around the building, I head out to the car park and the cops get to work.

They caught the guy within a couple of minutes, but said there was another guy out on the balcony when they arrived, so they spend the next hour searching every apartment in the building looking for the other guy. They never did find him... :-\

After talking with the cops and giving them my statement it turns out the guy they caught was just really drunk and not a professional burgler. He had no criminal record and they reckon he had just made a REALLY, REALLY bad call. He had climbed up the fire escape and just smashed one of the lounge windows. God knows what his fucking intentions were, and WTF is up with this other guy roaming around?

Suffice to say I'm pretty freaked out about heading back to the house any time soon. It could have turned out a lot more dramatic than it did, but still a horrible experience. It was just that moment lying in my bed hearing those footsteps and then seeing my door open. Not having any idea what was about to happen. Its the stuff of nightmares I tells ya :-\

Mobile Data Applications

Just read this post by Rod on the state of mobile data pricing plans in NZ and how its such an impediment to broad uptake of these services that the operators have been promising us for such a long time now. Thought I'd comment on this because its a topic near to my heart and also happened to be discussing this exact same thing with some other vendors at the Government Insights conference today.

Basically one of the only reasons I use mobile data services at all is due to the 1Gb-$50 per month data plan from Vodafone that my employer kindly pays for. The fantastic thing about this plan is that you just *never* have to think about how much using mobile data is costing you - and this is the critical thing. I don't think people mind paying an effective flat rate for all their mobile data, but when you're constantly worrying about blowing your budget, you'll just end up never using that amazing mobile phone in your pocket that you paid so much for in the first place.

And just to share my favourite mobile data applications that I use from my SE K800i (which incidentally the best phone I have ever owned) in no particular order:

• Facebook mobile (m.facebook.com) - embarrassing I know, but I just can't help checking my friend's status updates, inbox messages, wall posts and friend requests when I'm out and about.
  
  
• Google and Wikipedia - for settling all those drunken arguments that you have at bars and parties.
  
  
• Google News - if I'm in a queue somewhere and looking for something to do.
  
  
• Picture messaging and video calls - adds a whole new dimension when communicating with mates.
  
  
• GooSync - a SyncML broker that exposes your Google Calendar info to your phone. Just awesome - and free!
  

And things that I'd *love* to be able to use but can't because Sony Ericsson don't ship my phone with the appropriate certificates include:

• Gmail Mobile - so frustrating that I can't use this.
  
  
• Google Reader - sigh
  
  
• Kiwibank Mobile Banking - although texting BAL to 5494 gives me most of what I need.

And to reiterate - the *only* reason I do use any of these applications is due to the user friendly data plan that I'm on, and if operators want to push up their data ARPU's then they need to worry a little less about building walled gardens and worry more about being CARRIERS!

More technolust

This article came up on my Google Reader this morning: Sony NZ leaks plans for digital TV tuner in PS3

As Stuff.co.nz don't archive their articles for very long the gist of it is that Sony are planning to include a Freeview compatible DVB-T tuner with the PS3 'by next year'. I was actually speculating at the beginning of this year that if the PS3 had a TV tuner then I would say it would be the ultimate home theater device - particularly for the hordes who have neither the time nor the inclination to build and maintain Myth or MCE b0xxen of their own. This is such a wide open market just waiting for a device like this. I seriously don't know why it has taken so long for a consumer-friendly solution to emerge. I mean the technology has all been there for half a decade now...

If there was a way to synchronise my iTunes library with a PS3 then I think I would just have to buy one of the damn things. And I'm not even a gamer!

Biztalk RFID Edition

Considering I skipped this morning's keynote (people told me it rocked, but I think I'd be able to present a convincing argument that my sleep-in was even better) the most interesting session I went to today was 'Microsoft BizTalk RFID at Work' by Krishnan Gopalan. BizTalk RFID was something I didn't even know existed, but due to a potential upcoming opportunity to work with RFID I thought I'd better find out what the hell it is...

It is effectively a component of BizTalk R2 that is being released in the next couple of weeks. From the demos I saw it is designed to be used as an edge server that feeds RFID-triggered business events and data to a central BizTalk server e.g as a hub-and-spoke topology with BizTalk Branch Edition.

What it actually provides is:
- Device (reader) management
- Autodiscovery, presumably using UPNP
- Device configuration, versioning and security
- An ADO.Net-provider style API for accessing vendor specific functionality
- Business Rules management

The basic premise of the system is when a tag is scanned by a physical scanner, a bitstream is read by the API and then fed up to the BizTalk processing layer. By abstracting physical devices into logical ones you can then route events to different processes. The business rules engine is used to execute pre-defined activities written in C# or then sent off to event sinks such as SQL Server, a WCF service or off to a central BizTalk server. Not really a whole lot to it, but it does tie in these physical events with business workflow enabling your enterprise to 'close the loop' as Krishnan put it.

One of examples of it in use at the moment was this sushi chain that was tagging all the dishes that were being placed on the conveyor belts at their restaurants. As the dishes went around and around, a reader would detect the tag and calculate whether the dish had been sitting there for more than half an hour. If it had it would redirect the dish off the belt and into the trash. Anything that prevents me from getting e-coli gets my thumbs up :-)

Some important takeaways from the session were:

• Gen2 readers are still now only achieving ~90% success rate at reading tags, making tag placement and removal of metal sources of interference so importance. Alternative processes such as human reconciliation are still required to weed out that 10% of tags that may slip through your net.
  
  
• On the roadmap apparently is the ability to push workflow down to a mobile device so that events can be routed before they hit the server, which of course may be too late for certain scenarios.
  
  
• X-ray machines can apparently damage these tags. WTF?! This came up after Krishnan's demo fell over and his reason for it was apparently putting the tags through the X-ray machines at the airport had caused the tags to stop working for whatever reason. Was I the only person in the audience to think this could be a pretty big bloody show-stopper for using RFID in logistics scenarios where goods need to go through security clearances?

Definitely going to investigate this one further. More info here:
http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/technologies/rfid/default.mspx

Blog Guilt

You see now I knew this would happen. I knew that once I started a blog I would then not write about anything for months at a time and then feel blog-guilt for neglecting my Web 2.0 responsibilities...

Well at least I've got a good excuse this time - I've been frantically trying to make the most of the ski season (what there is of it) which culminated this week with six days staying with James Ogle and his family in their beautiful house in Castle Hill. Photos on his smugmug site.

If you've been following my facebook status updates you'll already know it basically ended up with me doing a lot of damage to both my person and my gear. But damn I had a great week :-)

Anyway, up at Tech-Ed this week in Akld so thought I'd get off my slack ass and post some of my observations. Stay tuned...