Dipity - Social Timeline

A few times before I write about my life stream and visualization of a timeline with LifeBlob. Today I played around a bit with Dipity and you see the result below.

It really like how this visualization in a timeline looks like, and as least as cool is the map visualization.

Go and have a look for yourself... Enjoy

Google Chrome OS - I can't wait

I'm excited about todays news that it's finally true that Google is developing and operating system. I'll give you here the main reasons of my excitement

1. In my 'SkyDrive, I love and hate it' post I wrote about my goal to live in a completely web based world. This is just so much more convenient, because you know all your information is stored in 1 location, accessible from everywhere. I'm convinced that Google will tightly integrate the desktop with the web and Google Apps. I really hope that Microsoft now takes the opportunity to tightly integrate SkyDrive in the Windows Explorer.

2. In October 2008, about a year for the launch of Windows 7 I wrote: Windows 7 - I can't wait. The reason for the excitement was the promise of improved boot times, better performance and overall better responsiveness. Today I know that Windows 7 has made good steps forward, soon I will even be shown in an endorsement video, however it's still not fast enough. This announcement will force Microsoft to further improve on performance.

3. On Windows my default browser is Google Chrome, for the simple reason that it's very fast. Not only the JavaScript engine is fast, but especially the browser startup time is by far the fastest of all browsers. In our fast connected world we want to have information available quickly. It's all about performance.

4. Competition is good. This is not the atomic bomb on Microsoft or Apple as some are writing, but it will force these companies to innovate beyond the small incremental improvements we have seen in recent years.

5. I love the CrunchPad concept. For years I already would like to have a table that boots directly into the browser and removes all the other overhead. The simplicity of things creates extreme value.

So, let the games begin!

Unified Communications for Everyone

I'm a big fan of Unified Communications, because it helps to bridge generations and gives a human touch to machines. Communication is directed towards people and not numbers.

My love for Unified Communications resulted also into a significant research investment into integration possibilities of the Microsoft implementation of Unified Communications into the Exact Product portfolio. You can see some of the results in this video. The research work has paid off and currently presence based on Microsoft Office Communication Serve is implemented into Exact Synergy Enterprise. You can read more about this on the Exact Product Blog. Note: Exact enthousiasts, make sure to follow the Exact Product blog for new and exciting product information, news and tips.

However one of the concerns when working on these solutions is always the complexity of the infrastructure for the customers. At Exact we create great solutions for Small and Medium Businesses that usually are too small for complex and expensive IT infrastructures. We do have a responsibility to our prospects and customers to provide solutions that create significant value without excessively complex IT infrastructures.

In the 'True Value of Software as a Service' I wrote that Software as a Service is the driver of commoditization of IT. With the Microsoft Business Productivity Suite this has become reality, it brings Unified Communication as a Service towards organizations of all sizes without having to worry about complex infrastructures. Of course we are still in the infancy phase with limited functionality, but it's very likely only a matter of time until full fledged Unified Communications will be offered as a Service. Others will start to offer this too, creating advanced commodity services at affordable prices. This is good news for many organizations that do see the value but are worried about the complexity and costs.

Image credit: Julian Bleecker

Another Business Trip

I just returned from a short business trip to Munich. Both the trip and the flight was short, but long enough to finish 'The Inmates are Running the Asylum' that I started on my previous trip. It was a nice read, the issues that Alan Cooper addresses are real and still very actual today. The software industry is slowly starting to mature and it's a useful read when you want to look into further professionalizing the different disciplines in your software development organization. However the book is a bit dated and I personally don't like the 'Get a point across by extreme exaggeration' style of writing.

The trip also reminded me that it's again time for an update on how I'm doing with my New Years resolutions. Well I haven't done great, but I definitely have done better then the previous quarter. I'm not more fit, but I do exercise more, so there is a start. I've been eating healthier and slept more.. spend more time with my girlfriend but still work a lot.... However with so many people loosing their jobs I should be happy that I can work, so it's not really an issue. I will keep you updated on any further progress.

Image credit: Claire Louise

Due to Heat Wave this Blog shows limited activity!

Here in the Netherlands we are currently having a very hot period in the summer. Since this doesn't happen very often and usually doesn't last more than a few days the office buildings aren't equipped very well to deal with the heat.

This is for me personally not very easy to deal with, because I'm just not very heat resistant. I'm constantly asking my self when I catch fire. This basically means that the day time at the office is wasted and not productive at all. I go out for long lunches, or figure out other useless things to do. This wouldn't be much of a problem, because I can't sleep due to the heat anyway and the night is good quiet time to catch up on work. However laziness for doing grocery shopping and tempting outdoors dinners with plenty of beer to cool down really suck the last bit of energy out of me. I'm adapting to the heat, but it's hard and really envy the people who enjoy the heat, stickiness and manage to function.

For this reason I'm not really able to write something useful here. I do regret this, because I do want my blog to be my home base. My reduced activities on Twitter and other communities are also effected, but are less of an issue for my regular readers. But not to be worried, I will resume posting as soon as the weather changes, what very likely here in the Netherlands will be soon.

The Real-Time Web

Dion Hinchcliffe, the dude from the nice charts, last week wrote an extensive post on The Evolving Web in 2009. One of the key characteristics of Web Squared, a term coined by Dion, is Real-Time. Lately there is a lot going on about the Real-Time web. A few months back FriendFeed started with real-time updates, Facebook tries to copy this and Twitter claims to have real-time search. When a celebrity dies we expect information to be found on Google, etc. etc. Real-time is hot, but also a controversity. Robert Scoble for instance wrote in his blogging week only that real-time systems might hurt long term knowledge and a while back Ben Parr already questioned if Real-Time is the future of the Web.

My take on it is very simple, like everything, real-time has a place on the web. Will it rule the web? I doubt, however we do have constantly increasing needs for information in our ever faster moving world. Therefor we will see many more places where real-time will be incorporated and even might be a differentiator.

Last week Vyoom launched, a social network designed with real-time in it's core. I've played around with it a bit and it allows you to share heaps of information in a real-time manner. This of course sounds great, but what it the use if you social friends are somewhere else. One of the concepts is that you can earn points for activity. The points can in return be redeemed for stuff. Sounds interesting, or is it just a way to capture more members. Feel free to check it out for yourself. Disclaimer, sign-up earns me points!

Welcome to Posterous, Bye Bye to Tumblr

For a quite a while I used a Tumblr log to post snippets of interesting stuff I found around the web, but it never really satisfied me. It's difficult to describe what I missed, but for sure I was struggling with the template options and I really missed a title with every post. It was just not very easy to use.

A couple of days ago, just for fun I tried Posterous. I was impressed by the ease of use to get started. Just email your first post to post@posterous.com and follow up on the reply. It's very simple, but yet very sophisticated. I've no hassles with choosing a template, because there just are no templates and every post has a proper title.

Posting to Posterous is very simple, you either email you post to one of the many email addresses or use the excellent bookmarklet. Posterous also has various ways to automatically redistribute you posts to different microblogging, blogs, photo sharing sites etc., but I still need to figure this out in detail.
There is also a nice, a little hidden, function to import an existing blog. I was no effort at all to move my Tumblr log into Posterous. I had a few issues, but they were very quickly resolved by the Posterous staff, excellent service!

On top of this all, it comes with some basic analytics on page views and I've already had more referals from Posterous to my main blog here then I every had with Tumblr.

Tumblr, thank you... You served me well, but I move over to Posterous. The simplicity fits me better.

New Blog Design

Finally I've updated the design of my blog. This was a project that was in the planning for a long time, mainly because I don't have any design skills and needed help. A good colleague, Stella Pahinis helped me out with the header, icon and bullet design. I did the HTML and CSS work myself and dealing with Blogger templates was a bit of a learning curve.

There is a nice story behind the design. I like colorful shirts that are not always appreciated by my coworker, however I feel good and happy wearing them. Therefor I appreciate that the header is based on one of the colorful prints gradually going into a mind-map reflecting ideas and innovation.

The design now also includes a menu bar to quickly find my life-stream, contact information and allows in a later stage for more features to be added. The body text has gotten a bit more spacing and should be easier to read and the information about me is less prominent. I still have future plans and ideas, but you will automatically see them if you frequently visit.

Updated: Added the name of the good colleague that did the design: Stella Pahinis