Rabbit’s hole

Merita … nu merita …

Ma tot gandesc de ceva timp la un startup - motivele sunt evidente si frumos romantate - sa muncesti pentru tine pe ceea ce iti place, realizarea unui lucru bun, un return mare pe investitie (nu vorbesc de timp), posibilitatea de a realiza ceva. Destui au incercat sau incearca (bafta multa, Alex!) si mult mai multi stau pe margine si dau cu banul.
Initial ma gandeam la o comparatie DA / NU pentru un startup. Dupa ceva scris am inteles ca practic faceam o comparatie DA - in strainatate / DA - in Romania. NU-ul este usor de inteles pentru noi toti - risc limitat, return sigur (desi nu neaparat foarte mare) si trai relaxat.

Practic tot Romania este candidatul nr 1 - tara mea, cunoscuti, prieteni, colegi, eventual relatii. Ceva mai ieftin traiul, legislatia nu e chiar atat de rea (cel putin in momentul asta nu e foarte respectata, ceea ce mi se pare echivalent), exista unele masuri de ajutor din partea guvernului - parca lipsa de impozite, daca imi amintesc eu bine.
Iar la avantaje mana de lucru suficient de calificata si mai ales invatata cu munca serioasa pentru rezultate - din nefericire, ma refer mai ales la studentii de la specializarile de calculatoare pe care ii cunosc, nu la intreaga populatie. Legat de restul populatiei si de tara in sine apar si problemele.

Continue reading Merita … nu merita ……

Are Pocket PCs worth it ?

After almost 2 years of being a pocket (and handheld) pc enthusiast, I have decided to take my business elsewhere.

My first PPC was a Jornada 565 from hp that served me very well over the years. I upgraded it to a Jornada 710 (the business class) an year ago and played a little on the side with a Nec MobilePro 770. Just for the heck of it, I also acquired a Jornada 360 (a pattern seems to emerge, doesn’t it ?), a 320, an old Compaq and a few others.

Last months I have been contemplating getting a new one (it was either a hp 4700 or a dell x51v). I’ve read reviews, played around with them in stores, looked at photos and so on. And yet, each time I had almost decided, the same faults annoyed me - faults created by the device class itself, not by a company.

The limited screen size was one of the first ones - from the start it limits the usability. Movies are annoying to watch, reading books makes you squint (or read about 8 words per page) while touch input is laughable.

Weird interaction was another problem : even with the 710 Jornada and it’s keyboard I couldn’t really touch type, while the stylus for a clamshell fells strange. A PPC works a lot better with the stylus but is almost always a data consumer type of device.

Battery life (a point many have complained about) was also a sour spot for me (sometimes I ended up using a 2 AA batteries 40 Mhz processor powered Ericsson MC16 because of it’s 5 days life). I would sacrifice some stamina for power, but modern PPC still do not cover everything a road user might need.

These are the points everybody knows (and hates) but here a few more personal ones : different set of instructions for processors means binaries have to be recompiled in order to function properly - and PPC’s aren’t really developper oriented. You cannot for example write the code, execute and debug it on the same device - you’ll have to write it on a desktop, link it, copy it and then use it (or try to debug it in a simulator). Desktop full compatibility has gotten very important to me (none of that synchronizing crap warms my heart anymore). After all, I’d like to become proficient with a few tools and exapand from there, not learn a different set for each device.

The software is many times not properly tested or has annoying glitches - for example I’ve spent almost half a day installing the PPC RSS Reader egress and still it functioned like hell - images were not opened correctly, after a few syncs it lost the entire list of feeds and from time to time I had to reset it. Unfortunetly, it was one the the best I found out there, so I gave up on the idea after a lost Saturday.

Space is another problem - even if memory cards are getting cheaper and bigger by the minute, they still cost a hell of a lot more than a 200 gigs harddrive (4 GB CF anyone ?). So no way to cram in your favorite music collection, a few movies and some pdf books.

To sum it up, I finally realised a PPC is not exactly what I have been looking for. The size atracted me, but this factor imposed a lot of the limitations I described.

What is my minimal perfect product ? A convertible tablet pc that weighs less than 1.5 kg, with a 14″ or 15″ screen, 5 - 6 hours battery life and enough power to run Winamp and Photoshop at the same time. Why not the new UMPC or Origami ? Because the input still sucks, size is still too small (I’d rather carry half a kilo more and gain 2 hours of battery life and 5 - 6 inches) and the operating system does not guarantee you’ll be using the same software on and off your desktop.

Maybe Santa will hear ?

Why do IP trolls and domain squatters exist ?

I’ve been reading from some while on the problems the american IP (intelectual property) system has, and annoyingly it is getting worse, and not better. And it’s not a single practice: domain registrars and other “dedicated” companies try to buy domain names just to extort a fee from some startup or average Joe, while they do nothing with it: a few Google ads, a few links and the wonderfully big title: “YOU can buy this domaine NOW from xxx” at the amazing price of 100 times it’s value. Why ? Because some company had the money to lease anything remotely inteligible: “www.zoobie.com”, “www.fifi.com” and so on.

When I first heard about problems like this, I’ve tought they’re just a problem of the IT industry and not a general thing, but you can see it everywhere : real estate companies buy land before a highway is developed so they can make some money on the tax-payers back, movie and music rights are used so to control the distribution (god forbid a artist put his or her succesful album on their site for 3 dollars the download) and it goes on and on. So what’s to blame ? Well, even if you’ll be getting a chill about this, it’s our notion of property. More to the point, the way we see property as absolute and inviolable.
Before yelling about your freedom to pursue happiness (meaning a Ferrari, a summer and winter house plus that by- yearly vacation to Taiwan for the “special” massage) think about it : property laws as they are now do not protect the individual - they protect any property what-so-ever, even infinitely stupid ones. Remember the guy that declared the moon his property because no one had done it before ? Well, if you apply the law, he’s right - the moon is his, and he’s selling it by the thousand miles a piece. What about the Mercury ? Venus ? What about every other galaxy besides ours ? What the hell, we might not even get there in our life times, but my children will be very happy to know their father will leave them the known universe - and I didn’t even have to use a doom’s day machine - just send an email to the bureaucrats of a few major countries.

But wait, you’ll say - we all have some property we want to defend - so we all gain from it. And this is the catch - property SHOULD be protected, but on a usage basis. Your house is your castle , but your second vacation house will cost you a lot more in taxes; fine if you want to buy a few islands, but if there is somebody with a more important claim that yours (like building houses for the native inhabitants), then you lose. You can go ahead and get rich but you should do it by producing something, not by speculating stuff. For example, in the dark world of IP, if a concurent can prove that your patent is not used in your products and he needs it, then it’s common property.

And how is this different from let’s say communism ? Well, first of all, this will only apply to resources that are limited and to situations that clearly impact other people : nobody cares if you buy a thoudsand miles of ocean surface and go crazy swimming in circles, but if that space happens to be a heaven for fishing, then it shouldn’t matter you were there first - you will either get reimbursed at your paying price, adjusted to todays normal value or change it for another one. None of that “my grandpa bought this land for a marble from the indiens so now I want a billion dollars because it happens to have oil” stuff. You can try buying actions from the next-to-be Google or invest in the dried frog legs that drunk gipsy mentioned on your 14th anniversary if betting on the future is your thing.

I happen to like perfect ideas - thinking eveybody has the same chances does make us feel better about the people we see every day, but that is not true in a world that seems to get a little crowded by the day and where interests widely differ. So while an individual’s property is sacred and should be protected at all costs, I think the cost may be a little too high if it affects a lot of people.