Is the Droid Love Affair Over? Absolutely not, but…

I love my Droid. Simple as that. But a serious flaw has revealed itself that has the potential for catastrophic consequences for my new little buddy. It’s a problem so obvious that at first I couldn’t believe it and hoped it just went away – but it is a critical problem that could cripple the Droid, and therefore needs to be addressed.



First, let me say that I have never owned an iPhone, Blackberry, or any other Smart Phone – ever. I have been a loyal Motorola phone user for years (my phone previous to the Droid was a Razor) and I WANT the Droid to be successful for so many reasons.

The problem is with the physical keys of the keyboard. This is not an issue of whether you like the keyboard or not, or think the keys could have been laid out better (for the record, I like the keyboard, but also believe it will be refined as the Droid evolves). The problem is the keys themselves -- under a very specific circumstance.



So, when I was at the Verizon store when they opened yesterday (the first day of availability of the Droid), I got my Droid, all the accessories, and a big smile on my face. Of course I got the car charger, the car mount (for GPS mode), and the Verizon-recommended rubber protective “Bra” – this latter accessory consisting of two-piece rubber that attaches to the top and bottom of the Droid. And it is this “protective” accessory that has the potential for catastrophic interaction with the phone. The problem is that is seems the “face” of the keys on the keyboard are glued on to the keys – no big deal, except when you slide the keyboard open and the rubber bra catches on the keys – in my case the edge of the DEL key caught and started to peel up. At first I didn’t realize why the slide was “sticking” but then quickly determined that if I opened the keyboard all the way up, it would rip the face of the DEL key right off. CRAP!



If you look closely at the picture above, you can see the corner of the DEL key pulled up. For now, I have used my fingernail to push it back down and I removed the top piece of the rubber protective “bra” and everything is working fine. But I can no longer use the top piece because it will rip the key face right off. I’ll be visiting the Verizon store tomorrow to seek a remedy, but in the mean time, I would caution everyone not to use the rubber bra thingee on top.

Has this experience soured my excitement for the Droid? Hell no. I told you, I love the little guy. I struggled with even raising this issue, but it was clear to me that this is a problem that will continue, and maybe the next guy who writes about it will use this flaw to slam an otherwise fantastic device. For me, I’m sticking with the Droid… quirks, flaws, and all -- but my Droid will go topless without the rubber bra.

[UPDATE: It runs out that the BRA has a small tab on three of its four sides. It must be installed so that no tab is on the bottom side where the keyboard slides open. Regrettably, neither Motorola or Verizon provide any instructions in this matter.]

My New Droid...

So I bought my DROID today...

No line for me, but the Verizon store was crowded at 7am. I was out of there within 30 minutes with my new Droid. First observations: (1) the only ladies in the store were sales personnel, (2) Verizon did not have the software to convert my existing contacts, (3) even with 2 days of training, the staff was still on the learning curve. But, everyone was smiling, everyone was nice, and after swiping my credit card I ran home to play. 2 hours later --- I still love it! It’s HEAVY, but it is soooo cool. One note, I bought all the accessories and when the Droid is outfit with the rubber protector sleeve it does not fit in the GPS car mount.



Still, I connected it to all my email accounts, enabled universal inbox, moved a ton of pictures and music onto the SD card (via simple USB drag and drop) – and barely put a dent in the 16GB memory. I synced all my contacts from Outlook (via gmail import) and then enabled the Facebook connection. Contacts started automatically populating with their profile pictures and now I’m off and running. Call quality is awesome, the speaker phone rocks, and music sounds great (plus there’s a headphone jack). Certainly it’s not perfect, but the triad of Google + Motorola + Verizon is highly incentivized to keep things fresh. And, did I mention it’s heavy (could be used as a self-defense weapon in a pinch)? In any case – no buyers remorse here!

I Love the Founder's Fund -- even when they put their foot in their mouth....

So, I was happily minding my own business --- coding away on the next greatest thing – when I was rudely interrupted by the most ridiculous statement I have seen in a while. Kudos to TechCrunch for running it, and Google Alerts for instantly bringing it to my attention – distraction and all.



I for one believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and if Sean Parker over at the Founder’s Fund wants to use words like “red-herring” when describing data portability – well, he is entitled to that comment, just as I am entitled to vehemently disagree! Here’s the full article that raised my ire, and here’s my response:

“To be clear, he thinks Google will stay huge and relevant, but it’s dominance will go down because collecting data is less valuable than connecting people, he said.”

Uh… that’s assuming we can FIND the connecting people – and it is for that very reason that Google has a phenomenal opportunity to encroach on the Facebook’s of the world. Google is trying to be the 411 of ALL information – and they are aggressively moving into the world of real-time integration — how long is it before searching Google for your friends yields status updates with links in and beyond Facebook and Twitter?

As for Data Portability being a “red-herring” – WOW! Data Portability is not just about technology, but about process, rights, and mindset. Without that so-called red-herring, the investment you make in creating, refining, updating, and enhancing all of your data would be “owned” by someone else.

@sean: grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

-- Steve.

OpenAjax Hub 2.0 Released, xWinLib and Scrapplet provide advanced integration

Today, the OpenAjax Alliance (www.openajax.org) formally announced the new version 2.0 of the OpenAjax Hub. Their press release even included a quote by me:

"The new OpenAjax Hub 2.0 provides a comprehensive enterprise-grade solution for secure widget interoperability," said Steve Repetti, CEO/CTO, RadWeb Technologies. "OpenAjax Hub 2.0 is the glue that binds distributed objects and applications together in a trusted environment."

For those of you not familiar with the OpenAjax Hub, it is a powerful collection of technologies that enables secure interaction and communications between widgets, applications, and mashups. It's a great way for web objects to co-exist in this increasingly dynamic and real-time web. Both xWinLib and Scrapplet have OpenAjax Hub integration.


xWinLib (www.xwinlib.com), the cross browser windowing and web application library, includes enhanced support of the OpenAjax Hub by adding direct integration with all xWinLib-created browser windows and objects. This lets web elements automatically discover each other and communicate using the Hub. For example, RSS feeds can automatically update reader panes, even though neither has direct knowledge of the other; likewise text links can automatically render map and database information in separate widgets, panels, and web pages with their only association being interaction via the Hub.


An added level of advanced support is also provided. xWinLib uses the standard OpenAjax Hub communications engine as a delivery mechanism for extended messaging within the windowing environment. This includes the automatic delivery of enhanced messaging information thereby making real-time distributed communications even easier.


Scrapplet, the social aggregation website (www.scrapplet.com), includes OpenAjax Hub support and goes a significant level further by adding a powerful yet simple interface to the standard and extended implementation. Web objects can easily “publish” and “subscribe” to each other and automatically share events and other information over the integrated Hub. Check-box simplicity is combined with automated code generation and a host of other tools, pre-defined objects, and other resources.

For more details and to play in the OpenAjax Playground on Scrapplet:

- Main OpenAjax page
- OpenAjax Playground
- Documented Examples

Here’s the press release that just came out:

- OpenAjax Alliance Delivers Software for More Secure Enterprise Mashups


--Steve Repetti

Here's to those mean and despised open source nut-case curmudgeons!

Open Software advocate Chris Messina pondered the other day if he was getting too harsh in his old age (yeah right!) in a post entitled “When all I seem to do is bitch, bitch, bitch”
He was caught up in an interesting debate regarding, what else, open source, and said:

"It would seem as though I’ve become one of those mean and despised open source nut-case curmudgeons with nothing nice to say. How soon we forget the lessons our mothers taught us."

The post is awesome, heartfelt, and insightful; and the comments themselves are quite revealing. Here was my response:

"Bitch, bitch, bitchin is our God-given right! But it doesn’t always get us the results we intended. Sure, we may feel better about it at the moment, but all too often it invokes regret and two aspirin in the morning.

"Yet sometimes that is exactly what the world needs — smack-down, called to the mat, black ‘n blue upside the face, called-me-out-cause-I-deserve-it bitchin’!!!!
Still, that crazy balance of life often let’s us accomplish even more with tact and being polite; or better yet: tactful politeness.

"Balance. I suspect as time goes on that you, Chris, will increasingly weild that balance like a sword — to all of our benefit!!!! Bitchin’ included!

"Keep on rockin’ dude!"

Bottom line: don’t stop what your doing just because you stir up the muck. All too often it needs to be stirred, and we always need people willing to step knee deep in the mire for the benefit of the masses!

POWER.COM Serves FACEBOOK a PR HEADACHE, Thrusts DATA PORTABILITY into LEGAL Spotlight

Yesterday, social aggregator POWER.COM filed a countersuit against Facebook that raises some thorny issues for Facebook and adds some interesting defenses for the case of data portability and personal data ownership. It is not yet clear from reading the pleadings whether either party will win in this escalating case (there are some key issues and concepts on both sides that a Court will have to wade through), but it is clear the issue of Data Portability comes center stage.

Jason Kincaid over at TechCrunch released an interesting article on the subject, “Power.com Countersues Facebook over Data Portability,” along with a copy of the counter-suite.

In their opening salvo, Power steps up to the soap box and discusses “a borderless Internet where users have the right to own and control their own data” and goes on to present their recently adopted “Internet User Bill of Rights:”



This is great stuff for users and data portability, and in many ways mirrors much of our work over at the Data Portability Project (http://www.dataportability.org), however it has little to do with what Facebook is doing in the context of their site or their lawsuit. It does, however, place Facebook in a position of having to answer why it does not agree with these principals.

Thus far, Facebook has tread cautiously as it relates to user data and rights therein. They do not wish to give away the store or proprietary and competitive advantage, nor do they wish to (further) incur the wrath of its users by inflicting too many restrictions. Many of us hoped that a number of Facebook’s recent initiatives signaled their willingness to explore a leadership role in this highly important area. Unfortunately, the pleadings conflict with this hoped for direction.

From Facebook’s perspective, Power.com violated Facebook’s stated terms and conditions; the contract that establishes the relationship between the parties for the use of the site. Every Facebook user has agreed to this (or they wouldn’t be using the site), but, like virtually every other “terms and conditions” document, it is overly broad, highly protective, filled with legalese, and generally ignored by most actual users. It is merely the lack of enforcement by the provider (in this case Facebook) that keeps these things out of court more often. (The standardization and simplification of this topic is also the subject of much work over at Data Portability and other advocacy organizations).

Power.com counters by saying they are doing nothing that Facebook isn’t already doing themselves, and, besides, theirs (they believe) is the right way anyway. It is clear that Facebook does not agree with this position but now is in the difficult position of explaining why many of the good points that Power.com raises are not valid within Facebook.

Still, Facebook is a privately held company and they get to decide what is allowed or not. No court, other than the one of public opinion, can force them to do what they do not want to do – unless the legal line is crossed.

And while I do not believe that Power.com has a leg to stand on when trying to win based on how much “screen scraping” of data is allowed (Facebook’s terms and conditions say none), they have raised some interesting issues that could inspire both the court of opinion and the hollowed halls of justice.

At the very least, Facebook is highly conflicted. It does not own the copyrights associated with all of the information available on its site; it does use some of the very techniques with 3rd-party sites that it accuses Power.com of using against Facebook; it has moved in the direction of providing greater access to its data; and it is party to litigation that potentially represents a PR quagmire.

More significantly for Facebook, Power.com raises the issues of “Restraint of Trade” and “Restraint on Competition” regarding data portability which both lead to the dreaded “M” word: MONOPOLY. Specifically:

“Facebook’s conduct restricting users’ ability to access their own data constitutes an unlawful restraint of trade under Section I of the Sherman Act.”

“Facebook’s conduct constitutes monopolization (or attempted monopolization, ed.) of the market for social networking website services in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”

With all of the issues at hand, I predict that there will be chest banging and posturing by both sides, some “interesting” press conferences, followed by a negotiated settlement that washes the issue aside and lets both parties (partially) save face. Regardless, Facebook will likely take a PR “black eye” over this.

But I submit there is another, better, solution: Facebook should not only continue its current efforts of data portability and accessibility, but become the leading player on how to do it right! Users would benefit, Facebook would be crowned a friend to all proponents of Data Portability, and the lawyers would find something else to do! In absence of such, Facebook risks becoming the view in the rear view mirror for the company that actually does get it right.

IMHO.

The Google OS: “For Developers, the Web is the Platform” (Yeah Baby!)

Last night Google announced what many have been suspecting for some time, the creation of a Google Operating System (OS) based on (what else?) the Google Chrome Browser! This is not something that (initially) directly competes with Windows, however the Google OS could easily take a lead position in the NetBooks category, an area defined by simplicity and specificity of task. More so, this “OS” has the chance to provide the single most requested feature sought in an operating: instant on!


Image attributed to Daryl Caggle at MSNBC

The title quote to this post, most recently by Mike Arrington over at TechCrunch, reinforces what we’ve been saying for some time: “the browser is the delivery platform for modern application; it is OS agnostic, ever present, and increasingly robust.”

The problem, of course, is that browsers are not necessarily compatible with one-another, even from one version to the next. What’s needed is a browser-based abstraction layer that “normalizes” this exciting platform and allows web apps and web sites to act, interact, and display the same across all of the browsers. Our solution to this is called xWinLib; a JavaScript library (with server-side interaction via Ajax, OpenAjax, and other web services) that provides a powerful platform for the creation, delivery, and operation of complex web applications. From the xWinLib site:

"The xWinLib library is a JavaScript framework optimized for the creation and execution of sophisticated browser-based applications and advanced web pages. xWinLib provides a self-contained client-side platform that integrates windowing, events, ajax, user interface, drag and drop, web 2.0, data portability, and more within a single cross-browser platform."

It will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out. Google will innovate their way into new spaces and force Microsoft to compete, evolve, or give way. Along the way, the web as a platform will be good for all! What a great time to be a web developer!