kate's infrastructure

On Monday 16th of Feb I made the leap from Vodafone and a HTC Touch Dual (Windows Mobile) over to Optus for the new HTC Dream (Google Android).  I’ve been a windows mobile user for years, and a Vodafone user for ages, so I was a little hesitant about the switch.  Vodafone don’t even get to say goodbye and thanks for 12 years as the switch is entirely handled by Optus.  Best to keep emotion out of these things I guess.

The big killer for me on the HTC Dream was that it was basically an iphone without a few of the dealbreakers.  I agonised over an iphone purchase many times, but stuck with Windows Mobile because I liked the physical keyboard and honestly I just found it easier to use.  But now I’ve switched and I’m a week into the process, here’s what I think:

What I’ve liked

• The always-on connectivity (my phone alerts me to email or tweets before my computer has even realised there’s something to be excited about);
• It does everything and nothing.  Very intuitive, easy to use and extend;
• There’s an app for everything I really need;
• The web browsing experience over wi-fi is truly outstanding.  Saves me from opening my netbook on many occassions;
• Optus is surprisingly good, though I’m still not loving their website;
• GPS!
• Notification area on the phone is exceptionally well implemented;
• Dad now wants one.

What I don’t like

• The always-on connectivity (omg what about the cost);
• Where are all the homescreen widgets for me to download?  Is this the next step for iGoogle gadgets?
• Sliding the phone open doesn’t prompt me to unlock it;
• You don’t really exit most apps in Android, can be a bit disconcerting or annoying really;
• Battery life is appalling.  Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.  The price to address this was only $5 on ebay for a second battery and its own charging dock.  The phone is easy enough to open, so that seems reasonable;
• The placement of the ‘chin’ of the phone took some real getting used to.  I type at a reasonable speed now;
• Solid construction, but the handset is basically ugly.  I usually break phones so this is doomed without a doubt.

Essential apps

I’ll write some more detailed reviews of these, so here’s a quick list of my ‘must-have’ apps for android:

• Twidroid  - Twitter client 
• Greed – Google Reader
• TouchDown – Exchange sync
• NetCounter – tracks GPRS/3G traffic separate from Wifi
• PowerMeter – tweaks for battery life
• Useful switcher – easy access to key settings (e.g. wifi)
• Klaxon – Alarm clock (also a british band)
• PostBot – WordPress client
• Compass – Um, it’s a compass
• MyTracks – GPS tracker.  You know, for stalkers.

What’s missing

• An evernote client;
• A chat program like pidgin.  Meebo is setup and can log me on to multiple chat accounts at the same time, but I need to authenticate everytime.  Annoying.

I intend to revisit this idea at the 1 month mark, so we’ll see how my usage and needs develop.  I’m particularly interested in money hitting the Android MarketPlace.  Apps there right now are great, but I expect this will drive a whole new phase of development.  Because Australia is pretty well behind the curve on getting this one, it means that there’s a heap of useful applications already developed and accessories readily available on ebay.

Articles I found interesting today:

• New Paper Defines 10 Popular Data Virtualization Patterns
• DisklessWorkstations.com Announces New Thin Clients Based on the Intel Atom

- Interesting thoughts on where desktop virtualisation might be headed.

• It’s Official: XenServer Available for Free
• Citrix CTO Simon Crosby Discuses Free XenServer Virtualization, Citrix

- Citrix just became a real market mover. Now it’s an interesting game.

Articles I found interesting today:

• Blades and Virtualization Aren’t Mutually Exclusive: Part Four, HP Traditional Expansion Options
• Free tool checks VMware servers for VMotion compatibility: News in brief
• Citrix To Offer Free XenServer; Takes Shot At VMware

Articles I found interesting today:

• 21st Century Skills For Dummies

- Targeted at education professionals, but pretty relevant for everyone. I think that for tech professionals you increasingly also need a relevant tech skill on the list. Consider what you fall back on when the market no longer wants your niche skills.

• Got Checklists?

- I’ve been dying to share a link from a blog with such a great name. This note on checklists has an exchange slant, but it’s right up my alley. The basic premise? That even if you’re an expert, you’ll probably do the task more accurately if supported by a checklist.

• Webcast on Corralling Multiple DR Strategies
• Next Disaster Resource Guide Issue Is Shaping Up

My emerging obsession with Android powered phones, coupled with Kogan’s failure to deliver on their promised handset means I have to spend my days at the Optus site fawning over their slightly ugly and dated HTC dream (equiv. to the T-mobile G1 launched in the USA).  I hate the handset design, but I do want a physical keyboard and a dose of awesomeness, so this will be my phone.

Long story short, the Optus website experience seems surprisingly amateur.  I’m a loooong time Vodafone user, so maybe I’m just used to something a little more.  The Optus website just screams to me 1990s SME.  I find this a little astounding for what is basically a technology company.

The first thing is that the front page of the site adds nothing to either the existing or potentially future customer.  There’s very little visible content and yet it is noticeably slow to load.  This appears to be a fact known to the developers as they have a prompt which will sometimes appear explaining that the site is still loading and offering alternative shortcuts.  Maybe a site with a bit more content OR a bit less bloat would be more sensible (i.e. don’t make me wait for nothing).

The second (and more infuriating thing) is this:

Yes, I understand the role of maintaining the user session, and I can understand being a developer who relies on a session to maintain something meaningful about the user.  The thing here is, I’d done nothing aside from stare at the HTC dream pictures.  No login, no transaction.  Nothing.  Maybe the tab was open for a while when I was doing other stuff, but really, what kind of useful information did my session contain?  And is sessions, and making users abundantly aware of them really the right direction? 

Failsite aside, I should be an Optus customer later this week all going to plan.  I guess that doesn’t exactly give any incentive for update then does it?

Articles I found interesting today:

• Happy trails with My Tracks for Android-powered phones

- Excited by Android as it is. This makes me excited plus 1 billion.

• Gartner Says Cloud Application Infrastructure Technologies Need Seven Years
• IBM to Deliver Software via Cloud Computing With Amazon Web Services
• A Quantitative Comparison of Rackspace and Amazon Cloud Storage Solutions

- Excellent analysis, exploring more about the service than the concept. A good step forward in cloud maturity

• TOT-Tackle the Top Three VMware Backup Challenges
• VMware View Open Client now on Google Code: News in brief

Articles I found interesting today:

• Global Recession Hits the Data Center – Millions at Risk!!!

- Great Intel blog post likening expensive and under-performing servers to employees. A new take on a current issue

• New Virtualization Wiki

- Might be a handy future resource

• Happy trails with My Tracks for Android-powered phones

- I have devices that do this, but I’d be sure excited to have a phone that just “does” this. I love you google

Articles I found interesting today:

• Are we Ready for Energy as a Service

- Energy as a service. I thought IT was meant to mature to a state to be like electricity, hard to differentiate and user pays. Apparently not.

• VMware Canada Chief Pushes Internal Cloud

- More evidence that we’re headed back towards centralised computing

• Citrix XenApp in the Amazon.com EC2 cloud is now simple with a (free)

- This might be about to be my first true adventure in cloud computing. I just need an idea to play around with

• Sorting out some myths and facts concerning Windows Server 2008 Failover

- Considerations for building, operating and maintaining a Windows 2008 cluster. Seems to have been a major direction change and redesign of the service and how it’s managed. Not to be entered into lightly.

Articles I found interesting today:

• Understanding Web Operations Culture – the Graph & Data Obsession

- As told by John Allspaw, Operations Engineering Manager at Flickr & author of The Art of Capacity Planning. I want this man's job.

• ISP filtering pilot goes ahead

- This is a great reason not to choose Primus for internet access and can be added to the list of reasons that iinet are one of the best ISPs in the country. Also this clean feed argument is getting ridiculous. People can regulate their own internet if they choose, but taking that choice out of people’s hands is ridiculous.