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Business Disruption

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2009-11-18

I have this problem… whenever I see some commercial service demonstrated, I start to think of the alternatives to it. Why is that?

I got a demo of an interesting service recently, and the first thing I thought to myself was “hmmm, this is really similar to what I had running in Drupal two years ago” and then I thought about how the service could be cloned with a few Drupal modules and a few days of hacking. I was relatively sure WordPress also had similar plugins to attain the feature set. (I’m probably underestimating the amount of work, but we tend o do that sometimes, don’t we?)

Don’t get me wrong, the service I saw was not without value… it had great value! But the support for the service was probably the number one value. I mean, the software wasn’t magical (it may have some magical stuff on the inside or on the backend filter that I didn’t see) but the basic functions were not in any way amazing. For someone who doesn’t want to think about it, and outsource all the technical voodoo to someone else, it would probably appear pretty damn amazing, so if that’s you, then yes, it was amazing.

At that point I start to wonder… should they have built their product on top of any open source platform like Drupal, and then build things on top of the plumbing it provides? Expertise, customization, support, hosted services… and on and on.

Maybe it’s the whole “we have tiers, it’s $XX per month, or $XXX per month or $XXXX per month depending on the features you want” where I start to think that cloning it would be a great idea for someone, because somewhere, somehow, there’s always someone who wants to build it themselves, or modify it, or make it do something someone hasn’t thought of yet, or even just not pay $XXXX per month for something.

Maybe business deserves to be disrupted sometimes.

Tags business, disruption, drupal, free, opensource

Uncategorized

Welcome to Macintosh (Film Review)

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2009-11-14

I watched the documentary film “Welcome to Macintosh” and I liked it.

Photo by Alan Holding

I know… you’re like “No duh! Mr. Fanboi, of course you loved it!” but hey, I’ve got issues with Apple, and they do plenty of things I don’t like (they always have) but using computers created by Apple has been a part of my life for 30 years now… I don’t think there is a brand around I’ve been involved with for that long… well, been involved with, and haven’t grown to hate.

If you’ve been using Macs for a long time and been fascinated by Apple, or an actual fan, it’s worth watching. On the other hand, if you are a recent convert from the Windows world, and new to the Mac in just the past few years, it’s probably not for you. (But if I’m wrong, let me know…)

Photo courtesy of Nik Fletcher

One thing I feel wasn’t really touched on is that in the past few years Macs (and other Apple products) have become “lifestyle” items, where in the past I don’t think this was the case. The film did mention that in the mid-to-late 1990’s it was hard to be a Mac user. Damn straight it was… I was deep into it. I worked at a design firm/publishing company where we had tons of Macs, and seeing the unknown future of the Mac (and Apple!) back then was not easy. By the end of the lifecycle of Mac OS 9 (pre-OS X) I was almost ready to abandon the Mac. I was using FreeBSD as a server OS, and Windows was making in-roads and actually getting better… If the NeXT/Apple thing hadn’t happened, and Mac OS X hadn’t come along, things would have been dismal.

Looking back today, it’s easy to say that Steve Jobs and Mac OS X were the saviors of Apple… and I don’t know how much my design background plays into it, but I really do want to use beautiful, well designed things, and that’s where Apple shines, and in true Apple sense, design refers to how things work, and how they function on the inside, just as much as they refer to how things look on the outside.

So my recommendation of the film is, if you’ve used/liked/loved the Mac for 10 years or more, see it. You’ll find it fun, amusing, and informative. If you admire Apple as a brand, see it, as there’s some valuable insight into design and marketing that the Microsofts of the world will never get right. If you’re a die-hard Microsoft lover or Windows user… or hey, a Linux/open source dude… it may not interest you quite as much.

I mean… I liked it, but I guess I’m just an Apple fanboi… ;)

Tags apple, film, history, mac, macintosh

Uncategorized

MilwaukeeDevHouse4 Time Lapse

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2009-11-13

MilwaukeeDevHouse happened and you missed it… or you didn’t. Either way, you can watch this video that Time Lapse Bot and I created…

We used a real MiniDV camera this time, so we got double the resolution of the old camera, which is nice. We also had Sam Dodge doing a bit of Time Lapse Bot camera operation, so that’s cool…

I love how these time lapse videos encapsulate the events… I’m also in talks with SmallSharpTools.com to do another Time Lapse Bot upgrade, which will result in greater roaming capabilities of the unit.

You can also watch on blip.tv or grab the hires version if you like. Just adhere to the Creative Commons license and be cool…

Stay Tuned!

Tags devhouse, milwaukee, milwaukeedevhouse, mkedh, mkedh4, timelapse, tlbot, video

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Faces of BarCamp

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2009-11-09

I mentioned this project in the post BarCampMilwaukee4 Portraits at MKEDH4 and here it is…. not quite done, but partly done…

Check out the Faces of BarCamp set on Flickr and let me know what you think…

You want details? Sure… At BarCampMilwaukee4 Sam Dodge and I set up a “Creative Commons Photo Studio” and tried to get portraits of everyone there, with the hope of (a) documenting all the people at the event and (b) providing icon/avatar images for anyone who wanted/needed one. It was a lot of fun for us, as we like taking photos, and we did it quick, quick, quick! We typically grabbed people, took one or two shots, and sent them on their way. We shot with my Nikon D40 with an old manual 50mm prime lens. It was all manual focus, so some are a little softer than I would like, but hey, I think they turned out ok. We had two speedlights with umbrellas, one off to the right up high, and one to the left sort of low… Here’s the set up as seen by the person being shot.

Photo by Sam Dodge

Now here’s the bad new…. I somehow lost a bunch of photos. :( I swear I had them all copied and backed up, but somehow, there’s like 30 of them missing. I believe I can recover some from my memory cards, but I’m at a loss to find all of them. For this, I do apologize, and the only good news I can come up with is that I’m sure we’ll do this again at another event, so keep an eye out for the traveling “Creative Commons Photo Studio” soon!

Also, you should feel free to take the photo of yourself, and use it in any way you so desire, and you are granted full permission to do so… so don’t feel bound by the Creative Commons license it is published under. If you want details on all of this, just ask… And thanks for letting us take your picture!