Last night I received an email invitation to the Microsoft Tech Preview of there new Live Mesh service, this is Microsoft’s attempt at getting back on top and having some relevance. There Mesh service is designed to connect things together, such as your computers, phone, and I would imagine in the future other computer type devices.
The Tech Preview seems fairly limited as it only seems to support Windows PCs, not Macs and no mobiles, apparently there coming soon. When you log into the service you are shown a ring and on this ring are all your connected computers along with a Live Desktop.
When you connect a computer you need to install a small piece of software which allows synchronisation of files and what appears to be remote desktop connection software although I haven’t tried this yet. When the software is installed you can create Mesh folders on your PC, you then place files into here to sync between PCs and the Live Desktop. Rather annoyingly you don’t appear to be able to make an existing folder a Mesh folder it has to be a new one, this means I am unable to sync my whole My Docs folder I have to copy out files into a new folder first.
The other part of the service is the Live Desktop, this is a virtual desktop which does a good job of modeling the look and feel of Vista; the Mesh folders you create on your PCs are visible here along with the files. Simple files like images and audio files can be opened and played or viewed on the Live Desktop but when I tried to open a word document it tried to get me to download it.
The next step for a service like this is to integrate office type software, so when a word or an excel document is opened it opens on the desktop in an online version of the software, even a viewer would do.
I think in the long term something like this would be good, I have a problem moving files between work and home and this may solve that problem, the mobile aspect may be useful as well but I rarely find myself moving files between these devices, I usually just email the files to myself that way I can pick it up on any of my devices.
Update:
I have been using the service for a few days and it seems fairly good, the remote desktop connection system is simple and easy to use and great for downloading files at work where p2p connections are very fast, when the file is downloaded I can then use the mesh folder synchronisation which uses http connections to move the file. The only annoyance I have come across is a problem with Visa machines with UAC disabled, this means for the time being I can’t connect my main home PC.
The Google developer conference is now over, the past 2 days have been really interesting both from the conference content point of view and the event itself.
My main focus for the 2 days was the Google App Engine cloud hosting system, I had read up on it before hand but I learned a lot about the system and about the correct methods for creating an app I have also made good progress on moving my Trip List application over to the App Engine system.
One thing I found interesting was how much money Google must have spent putting it all together, there was so much there, an unlimited supply of food and in addition to the breakfast, lunch and dinner there were ice creams, drinks and other snacks available throughout the day.
One interesting I read the other day, the t-shirts we were given had binary code on the back, the code was ASCII and spelt GOOGLEKO rather than GOOGLEIO which it was supposed to spell, this may have been intentional but its unlikely.
Its day one of the developer conference and so far the morning has been very interesting.
I arrived shortly before 8 where I got accosted by some guy collecting for charity, I walked away from the encounter with my wallet $20 lighter but feeling OK for doing something for charity.
Registration was at 8 where I collected by badge which has University of Sussex written on it, I guess that’s what I get for only paying $50 for getting in, I also picked up my t-shirt, tote bag and water bottle, not to shabby.
They had free food and free WiFi so I spent the next hour on a bean bag catching up with emails, my VoIP phone also worked so I was able to call home for free.
The keynote speech was fairly interesting as have some of the sessions, this afternoon I am going to a workshop where hopefully I will learn how to properly use Google App Engine.
Facebook have just launched a public preview of there new site layout, it’s available for anyone to view at www.new.facebook.com, at the moment you can only view your profile page, any attempt to view other pages redirects back.
One big change is the separation of the sections of the site, rather than having everything tied together there is now a separate header bar with the logo, drop down menu’s and a search box, the main content is then below this in an unframed box and finally the chat bar at the bottom of the window.
At the moment a lot isn’t working, for example the items in the feed tab have an option to change there size or hide them, this doesn’t work and the applications on the boxes tab can’t be hidden or resized, also the auto search on the search box isn’t working.
The one thing that is missing is the advertising, I’d imagine they will have the same style advertising down one side, I don’t think they would get away with 2 ad units and they can’t afford to hide it at the bottom. The main content is centralised so the ad box might look a little odd floating of to the left or they may shift the content across, we will have to wait and see. Also at the moment the ads appear below the list of applications as these have been moved the ad box will always be stuck at the top of the page.
As you can see from the screen shot wall items appear in your news feed, this is one think I don’t like and I hope they remove this before the changes are released.
Google launched there long awaited Google Health product a couple of days ago and I have been filling in information to see what it’s all about.
Late last year Microsoft launched there rival product HealthVault, this is a service I tried to sign up to but as I am in the UK it wouldn’t let me. Google doesn’t seem to have any problems with my location, after visiting the Google Health site I signed in with my existing Google account there was a standard terms and conditions box to agree to and my health profile was created for me and ready to be populated with data. The service can import records from a number of medical services, several hospitals, lab testing places and pharmacies, all of which were American which meant I had to enter my data manually.
The service is primarily aimed at the American market, the height and weight options are all in imperial and there are no global localisation options, this is a little annoying but its much better than preventing access entirely.
The system allows you to enter different medications you are taking or have taken along with allergies and conditions and any tests or procedures you have had. Data entry is by way of a free text box, as you start typing the system will display a list for you to choose from if you select one you can then easily view further information about the condition, procedure or medication but it will let you enter whatever you like. Once the record has been created you can add details such as dates or for medications times and quantities. I have an awful memory for this kind of information so I was only able to enter current information the rest I will get from my GP and enter later, once this is done it should be a useful reference. When completed I will be able to look back and see what vaccinations I have had and when as well as pull up detailed information on any of the conditions or medications I have entered.
In the UK the government and health service are rolling out a computerised system for medical records, all your details will be accessible anywhere using the NHS’s CRS (Care Record Service); at the moment this is only in use in some locations but will be rolled out to the rest of the country. The CRS also allows patient access through a website called HealthSpace although only to those patients in the trial areas. From reading the information they provide when it is complete you will only be able to view a basic summary so it doesn’t seem like it will be a replacement for the Google or Microsoft service.
I have had an account on FriendFeed for a couple of weeks now but haven’t used it other than linking it to the various accounts I have around the web, that was until a couple of days ago. I decided to start following people as I have done on Twitter and I have found the experience much more rewarding.
One of the first things I noticed after following a few notable figures, Robert Scoble, Michael Arrington and a few others was that it wasn’t just there activity that was displayed on FriendFeed but the activity of there followers, this meant that the information displayed was much richer than I was expecting.
The other benefit of FriendFeed was the threaded nature of the posts; each post whether it be a photo, Twitter post or linked blog post also had comments and again these weren’t just from the people I was following these were from anybody.
Robert Scoble has a post up describing why he things FriendFeed wont take of and also why it will; I agree with his first post, the friends I have online are all active users of Facebook but nothing else and I believe these people are typical of the average web user, they just don’t understand or care about services such as Twitter, as far as there concerned email or a messenger service will suffice. And it not just Twitter, most people don’t engage with these services, a few people might have Flickr accounts or even follow the odd blog but that will suffice for them.
I hope things do change and services like FriendFeed do become more main stream but I don’t see it happening in the short term.
I was using Digsby to chat to a friend on Facebook this evening and at the same time as using the desktop client the web based chat application on Facebook’s site was open as well, this was when I noticed a strange inconsistency.
Firstly one of the messages I received was missing a line of text, see the images below, in addition to that Digsby missed a reply and also didn’t forward on one of my messages, as I mentioned in a previous post I quite liked Digsby bringing everything together (except FriendFeed).
There is a post in there forum about one of these problems so hopefully it will get fixed soon, in the mean time I may have to switch back to Twirl and MSN Messenger.
Today the BBC have a news article on there site talking about the closure of 77 of the Currys.digital stores as there leases run out over the next 5 years. The Currys.digital stores used to be Dixon’s before that brand abandoned there high street presence in favour of a web only operation.
Up until the beginning of the year I was working at PC World where I spent 2 and a half years working as a customer advisor for what initially started as a summer job, despite not expecting to be working there for long I stuck with it over the last few years of my uni course just working at weekends. I found the job interesting and it gave me an insight into how a large company works, I only really ended up leaving due to a change in management.
While I was working at PC World there was concern about the future of the company, during my time The Link retail stores closed down and they moved to an online presence only then shortly after than the Dixon’s stores changed to Currys.digital. This last change left DSG with a lot of locations with both a Currys store and a Currys.digital store, they should have really taken the opportunity then to remove these duplicates rather than to try and support both of them up until now, they should have taken one big negative hit with the press and markets rather than stretch it out.
The market for electrical items has changed significantly over the past few years, more and more people are buying online and becoming more and more tech savvy, this is presenting problems for Currys.digital and PC World because sales staff rely on the naivety of the buying public. When dealing with customers years ago the sales staff would tell them what they wanted, so in addition to buying the camera, computer or other electrical item they would also go away with a selection of accessories such as a case, cable, printer, batteries, software, etc… It was these accessories that made the sale profitable, the base product is generally very competitive in price and as such makes very little profit in a retail store, certainly not enough to support the general operations, this is why the accessories were and still are so essential. When I was working in the store the target was an additional £60 on top of a camera purchase and £100 on top of a computer, these would be high margin items adding £30 and £50 respectively of profit to the sale, generally a lot more than was made on the main item. Towards the end of my time there this was becoming more and more difficult as customers realised they didn’t need these bits or they already had them. And of course the other profit making item was the extend support agreement but that is a topic for another time.
Anyway, as I was saying the customer was becoming smarter and not purchasing these items which I image is why DSG took 2 brands out of the high street into a purely online operation where the sale of just the main item can support the operations of the brand.
So far this hasn’t happened for Currys and PC World, this is because of the type of items being sold. In Currys they generally sell large items like fridges, washing machines and ovens which people like to look at and measure to make sure it will fit in there house, they are also not very glamorous items so don’t suffer from a huge amount of competition as people aren’t as interested in selling them. In PC World the computer is the item keeping the store alive, but barely, a computer is still seen as a large purchase by many and people like to spend time looking at the different machines and talking to people about them. As time goes on more people will become comfortable with these purchases and be happy to take them online although I wouldn’t expect to loose the computer on the high street for a long time. As I alluded to the PC is no longer enough to keep a store in business that is why PC World has spread into anything and everything, at a conference I was at for the store one of the speakers (PC World management) said there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t consider selling, and this can be seen by the changing product lines. PC World tried selling stationary in a fairly big way (an attempt to compete with Staples) but this only lasted for a short period before they scrapped the idea, they then started with TVs this range has now expanded and become a significant range for the store.
While I was working at PC World I had to complete a financial analysis of a company for a university course, with the permission of the store manager I analysed several years of store financial data, whilst I am obviously not going to post it here it did reveal an interesting trend. Over the 2 years I covered the stores profits remained fairly constant although the turnover was increasing, this shows that the store was having to sell an increasing amount of stock just to keep profits level. I don’t know if this was indicative of the whole chain or just a poorly performing store but it clearly wasn’t a sustainable situation.
The next few years will be an interesting time for DSG and the other electrical retailers; I don’t expect much to happen to DSG, they have been expanding significantly into Europe so are in a better position to survive the changing consumer buying patterns but they will need to be quicker at adapting if they are going to be around in the long term.
Yesterday I came across an event Google are holding called Google I/O, this is a 2 day event for developers in San Francisco. It covers several topics including Googles OpenSocial, Maps and Mobile services as well as general AJAX technology. I have used Google Maps a couple of imes in different websites but I have never explored it I much detail, I have also not looked at the other services before.
Events like this allways facinate me, especially the Google ones, I have never managed to get to one before either because they are too expensive or in the case of this one in another country, despite this obvious location issue, me being in the UK, the event looked very interesting and would only cost $50. I had been looking at costs of flights to the US the previous week, it’s one of those countries that I have never been to before but have really wanted to, I was originally looking at visiting New York but San Francisco seems like a decent alternative.
With this in mind I have booked a place on the Google I/O event and booked a hotel and flight via Expedia, I am going for about 4 days, 2 to spend at this place and another 2 to explore the area.
Hopefully the developer event will be worth it and I will learn something interesting, I now have a list of over 80 sessions I need to choose from.
This trip has also given me the opportunity to try out Dopplr, after entering the trip there seem to be a number of fairly interesting bits of information relating to SF and it will also provide a usefull place to store bits of information or plans for the trip.
There seem to be a huge number of social networks around today, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Yahoo! Mash, Orkut, Twitter, Pownce, Tumblr, Flickr, just the few I could remember while writing this. There are probably as many desktop clients and aggregation sites for these services, things designed to make your life easier by putting everything in one place.
One of the more popular ones is FriendFeed, I use this service a bit but not much, I have a widget on the right displaying my feed but as I don’t have any friends using the service its a bit limited for someone like me, that’s why I liked Socialthing when it came out. Socialthing doesn’t require friends to use the service it simply pulls data off existing services and displays it, I used Socialthing for a couple of weeks when it came out but stopped checking the site after that, I guess I just got bored.
I then started using Twhirl, it was a simple desktop application written in Adobe Air that brought together my Twitter feed as well as my FriendFeed, although just my updates so that bit was a bit pointless.
Recently I have started using Digsby, this is more like an IM application and aggregates MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, Google, ICQ, Jabber and Facebook Chat. It also incorporates my Twitter feed as well as my Facebook Updates, it also supports MySpace, the only thing its lacking is FriendFeed support.
I have no idea if I will be using Digsby in a week or not or if I will find something different, for now it seems to do the job.
One final thing I want to get of my chest is how awful MySpace is. I created an account last year, a while after I started using Facebook and I found it so confusing, I can normally pick things up very quickly but this was different. The other thing that really annoyed me was the huge amounts of advertising, there are 3 big ad units on the front page; I was also going to mention how many there were on my profile page but I can’t even find a link for that or any links even relating to an account. A disgusting site.
