I was just catching up on my RSS feeds when I ran across Dana Gardner's latest post, "WOA may soon eclipse SOA as most impactful business transformation agent" which evoked an odd sense of anxiety and the need to immediately jot down some of my SOA thoughts.  In short, Service-Oriented Architecture is a software design principle which attempts to break apart monolithic applications into loosely coupled systems, usually based around business processes.  SOA has been up in our grills for a few years now, and as Gardner suggests the adoption is relatively low for the hype.  I've not checked, but I imagine SOA is in the "trough of disillusionment" on Gartner's hype cycle.  I believe I have some insight into the slow or non-adoption of SOA in the enterprise.

First, as some buzzword compliant IT analysts and IT directors might refer to it, SOA is not a technology.  It's an idea.  You can't rack-and-power it and get warm fuzzies from its blinking LEDs.  It's more like democracy or capitalism.

Secondly, SOA is not a reason.  If an IT director or CIO ever comes to you and says "we're going to rewrite our systems so we can be service-oriented" chuck your mouse at him.  No one should ever set out to intentionally adopt SOA.  Real architects know this and that's probably why the adoption is low.  SOA, like Object Orientation, Web Services, AJAX, etc. are just tools in your toolbox.  They can be used with great affect to solve the right problem.  To be service-oriented for the sake of SOA, or to be buzzword compliant or whatever is to spell certain death.  An SOA strategy is a waste of everyone's time.

SOA is not an efficient method of computing.  The overhead involved in developing applications that are SOA pure is not acceptable in most enterprise applications.  Serialization and de-serialization, network latency and database and storage bottlenecks create very clunky applications for most user-centric software.  Never mind the usually unnecessary hoops a service-oriented architecture forces your developers to jump through to accomplish very simplistic tasks.

Finally, like its second cousin, Object-Orientation, it's actually a modest realization that massive, tightly integrated applications are incredibly difficult to maintain over time.  And once in a while, you write some cool bits of code that would be nice to reuse in other systems.  When you identify those bits, you pull them out for reuse and find a way to expose the code to other applications (sometimes outside the network) and transport data back-and-forth.  And SOA wiggles out of the swamp and breathes air for the first time.  It's evolution.  Most developers have archives of code and designs that are service-oriented long before a term was assigned to the idea.

While properly executed SOAs can present many benefits, such as more manageable code, simplified troubleshooting, easier recovery from failure points, it should be used to solve very specific business problems.  If you need to exchange data or logic between multiple applications and external partners, SOA is self-selecting.  If you have long persistent business processes or workflows, SOA is a great way to partition your workflows into distinct modules.

To close this out, and no offense to tech writers or analysts, SOA is a figment of the collective IT-onlooker imagination.  It's a term we can use to categorize a technique and that's where we should let it be.  In all my architecture sessions, I've never heard the phrase "what we're going to do here is employ a service-oriented architecture."  It doesn't happen like that.  We don't use those that term in practice, only theory.

This is my favorite time of year.  The new year rush and subsequent lull is gone, the taxes are filed (and refund on the way), and baseball is back!  It's been a long and dark offseason for Major League Baseball (see the Mitchell Report), but the 2008 season is finally here.  The MLB season kicks off tomorrow night in D.C. as my Atlanta Braves hope to spoil the Washington National's home opener in their new ballpark aptly named, Nationals Park.

As I did last year, I'm going to attempt to predict the fortunes (or misfortunes) of my 2008 Atlanta Braves.  First, let's start with the offseason transactions.

The most important offseason acquisition for the Braves was the return of Tom Glavine.  While an emotional reconnection for fans, the Braves actually needed Glavine's services on the mound.  Braves' General Manager Frank Wren made it pretty clear that he intends to go back to basics.  And for the Braves, the basics means pitching.  Last year Glavine gave the Mets 34 starts and 13 wins with a 4.45 ERA.

Andruw Jones' departure left a gaping hole in center field that is impossible to fill.  Andruw Jones is the best center fielder in the game, so all we can hope is that the offseason acquisition of grisly veteran Mark Kotsay can fill two-thirds of that hole.  Kotsay, whose 2007 season was shortened because of back troubles, is kind of a wildcard.  He certainly has potential, but the big question is can he stay healthy?

Jair Jurrjens, who was acquired from Detroit via a trade for shortstop Edgar Rentaria, may turn out to be the Braves' best offseason move.  Jurrjens went 2-3 in spring training with a 5.03 ERA.  Those stats, however, are a bit misleading as he started sharp but ended dull, giving up 10 runs in his last three spring training starts.  Bobby Cox saw enough good stuff to give the 22-year old a shot at the bigs and the start for the third game of the season.

Perhaps the most important additions to the team are not actually new.  First baseman, Mark Teixeira, who came to Atlanta in a mid-season trade, should give the Braves solid play at first base from the start of the season for the first time in a long, long time.

Also "returning" to the Braves is pitcher Mike Hampton.  Hampton hasn't pitched for the Braves in two years, but he had a very strong spring training with 1 win and a 2.16 ERA, proving some of his skeptics wrong.

Here's what I think it will take for the Braves to return to the post-season:

• Braves Must Stay Healthy.  John Smoltz starting the season on the DL is not a good way to start the season.  And with a center fielder who missed most of last year with back issues, a pitcher who hasn't pitched in two years and the veteran leader Chipper Jones health record over the last two years, the Braves do not stand a chance if these guys can't get on the field.
• Chipper Jones had one of his best offensive seasons last year and he tore it up spring training.  He'll need to hit for .320, 30 homers and 100 RBIs this season.
• Tim Hudson is officially the Braves' Ace and he'll prove it by flirting with a 20-win season.
• Smoltz, Glavine and Hampton will all spend time on the DL this year.  Chuck James, Jair Jurrjens and Jeff Bennett will need to keep the Braves on track by providing quality starts.  If they can't get the job done, I don't think Wren will hesitate to make a big mid-season trade to sure up his pitching staff.
• The closer role now belongs to Rafael Soriano.  Soriano has the talent, a wild arm and a steely confidence, but will all three come together at the same time to provide Smolts-like consistency out of the pen?  The Braves need 40 saves.
• Teixeira, who had a bad spring will continue slow and heat up when the Braves need him.  I think he'll give us 35-40 HRs and ample support for Chipper Jones batting clean up.
• The Baby Braves are the glue that holds it all together.  Johnson, McCann, Francoeur and Escobar will continue to improve and see the team through tough injury times.  Kelly Johnson must provide consistency in the lead-off slot.  He had a .375 OBP and .275 AVG last year.  He'll need to replicate that performance and hit 15 points higher.   Escobar needs a .300 year, setting the table for Jones and Teixeira.

It's going to be an exciting baseball year.  There's going to be plenty of competition in the East this year as both the Mets and Phillies are formidable teams.  Here's to hoping the Braves will return to former glory!

Last week I attended Microsoft's Convergence 2008 conference at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.  Convergence is focused on Microsoft's Business Solutions division which includes applications in the Dynamics family -- CRM, GP, AX, NAV and SL -- but also touches on related technologies such as SharePoint (WSS and MOSS) and SQL Server.  It was my first time going to this conference, but being at Tech-Ed last year, I figured it would be similar.

My main goal in going to the conference was to learn more about Dynamics GP, Business Portal and the usage of SharePoint in relationship to those products.  I also wanted to talk to a few vendors at the Expo about products I'd like to bring into our business.

At work we are in the process of re-architecting and developing our core systems on the Microsoft stack.  We're using Dynamics CRM 3.0 as an application platform to build on top of, integrating with Dynamics GP for accounting activities and SharePoint (MOSS) where it makes sense, and incorporating BizTalk Server 2006 and Scribe as the message bus to get everything talking together.

Overall, I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed by the conference.  I expected to get some really meaty chunks of knowledge, but was consistently bombarded with shallow demonstrations and unabashed marketing.

Tuesday was the first day, and in my opinion the worst day.  The sessions consisted of "Interactive Discussion Groups," which I didn't have a problem with, but the attendance of these sessions was horribly mismanaged.  While I was able to get into my first session with relative ease, I barely made it into my second session when I arrived 30 minutes early!  I didn't make it into a single session the rest of the day because they were all full well before the starting time.

For me, the highlights of the show was Steve Ballmer's keynote address on Wednesday, Microsoft Research's keynote on Friday and a couple sessions that sparked some ideas.  Ballmer's keynote wasn't anything special, but neither was anything else that happened all week.  I twittered the keynotes as they unfolded if you're interested in seeing what I thought about them.

My takeaways from the show were...

• Microsoft is insecure about their place in the enterprise.  Ballmer and every other keynote speaker kept repeating their commitment to the Dynamics products.
• SharePoint is Microsoft's killer business application.  They want everything on SharePoint!
• I can take advantage of SharePoint's Business Data Catalog to solve some architecture problems with CRM.
• CRM 3.0 does not support SQL Mirroring.
• I sometimes over-think business problems.  Since this conference was geared more towards business people than techies, I was able to see how people with limited technical abilities and tools are able to solve problems.  Sometimes knowing too much gets in my way.
• Business Intelligence is a huge buzzword right now.

For a while I've had ongoing conversations within my group of business friends about core businesses.  The conversation goes like this:  companies say they do Y but act like a company that does Z.  It's a discrepancy in perception (or public relations) and actuality (which usually isn't so public).  I was reminded of this topic this morning when I read a message from Hugh MacLeod, who said that Wal-Mart is a tech company.  Very true.

I replied to him with my two favorite examples: Amazon.com is a tech company and Fandango.com is a research company (try it... http://fandangoresearch.com).  I have more... AAA is a research company, NASCAR is a marketing platform not a sport, etc.

I've had a few conversations about the core business of the company I work for and it's always a very enlightening discussion.  I wrote about one such encounter with the Chairman of the Board.  His version of reality was very different from mine -- wishful thinking on his behalf.  He thought our core business was a call center of 30-some-odd people who take care of 'customers' who call in for assistance.  The reality is that we are a company that creates products for banks.  Our 'customers' are banks.  People who call to consume our services are, for lack of a better word, 3rd party to us -- they are our customers' customers.  We keep them happy so our real customers don't leave us.

Only recently has this core business idea been challenged.  It took a completely objective executive consultant to dispel the call center myth.  Apparently a lowly Director in IT knows nothing about business :).  Needless to say, there have been a lot of frank decisions that are disruptive, but necessary if this company has any chance of getting out of the roundabout (Look kids... Big Ben.  Parliament!) and on to bigger and... uh... other things.  But the company is thirty-one years old!  It's taken thirty-one years to understand the core business!

The first time I hinted at this subject was in a meeting two years ago for marketing's 'web strategy' initiative.  Their goal was to align our business with the Interwebs, thinking it was a platform to save us money by allowing more self-service.

Wrong!  Go straight to jail, do not pass GO.

Self-service and decreasing operational costs, yada, yada, yada are sometimes an affect of a decent web strategy, but should not be the cause.  With all of the functionality they wanted to throw onto our website, I made the following flippant, but very serious comment...

"I'm all for turning us into a technology company, but has anyone asked our clients, customers and vendors if they actually want this functionality on our website?"

After a few seconds of silence, someone asked why I thought this would make us a technology company.  The answer was simple.  In order to deliver the amount of sophistication they wanted on a website, we would have no choice but to outsource it for millions of dollars, or become a technology company.  Since no one was willing to spend millions of dollars for the functionality, it was inevitable if we headed down that path we would indeed become technology focused.  Which again, I was completely cool with that idea.

While I'm sure it pissed them off that I was questioning their work, the result was effective.  The 'web strategy' project was pulled off the table only to resurface about six months ago with a narrower, more focused scope.  They realized technology was not our core business.

For reasons unexplained, I was on the iTunes Music Store, happened to click the American Idol section and remembered how offended I was at the performance of John Lennon's Imagine.  And I was compelled to write the following review:

He's got a good voice, but I'm sorry... there are songs that should be off limits to the contestants and John Lennon's Imagine is one of them.  I find it highly disrespectful and pretentious of a 16 year-old to try and rewrite one of the most important and cathartic melodies ever penned.  The American Idol producers need to impose a moral authority, as protectors of art, to stop this kind of nonsense.  What worries me is that we'll see a lot of this butchery this season now that the Lennon/McCartney catalog is available to the contestants.

Who's with me?

Last Thursday I received an email from a friend, George Colombo, that pointed me to an article that Apple had filed a patent for "customized podcasts."  I was immediately surprised and dismayed, quite frankly, because my business partner, Matt Thompson, and I had actually developed the technology (we called it Modcast) and implemented it on our former podcast, The Cubicle Escape Pod, back in June 2005.  I wasn't miffed at Apple for filing the patent, though with very little research they could've figured out there was prior art, but I was upset because I started to have second thoughts and regrets about why we didn't push our concept harder.

To be fair, we weren't the only ones doing it back then but I believe we were the first to do it specifically with podcasting and custom personalized feeds.  Also in fairness to us, we tried to push the idea by building a few websites around the concept including The Cubicle Escape Pod, BrainDumpTrivia.com, and our last attempt, InkOutLoud.  Hell, we even got a little press on our concept thanks to MIT's TechnologyReview.com.  But I can't help but think that perhaps we gave up too soon on the idea.

When we first hit upon the idea, we thought about patenting it, but on top of lawyer fees and the expense and tenacity it takes to go through the patent process, we decided to settle on a trademark (which we eventually let go as well).  At the time, the advice we were hearing was to go through with the patent process.  However, as a software guy, patents bug me.

What Modcast did, in my opinion, was nothing special.  It was a concept, not a technology.  The underlying technology was no different than merging two text files or copying & pasting two paragraphs together.  What was fascinating about the technology was its infinite possibilities.  And we struggled with it.  It was almost overwhelming to Matt and me.  While we could, and did, easily create a few different services based around Modcast, it was very difficult to explain.  We found it difficult to wrap our heads around the concept beyond what we knew it could do, and because of that, we found it difficult to talk about it, nevermind package it in a friendly manner for others to use.

However, all that aside, we knew we were on to something that could've been huge, but well aware that we were ahead of the times.  I guess we didn't have the stomach or the energy to will our idea to a mass market.  And, really, that's what entrepreneurism is -- the faith that what you're doing is the most important thing in the world.

So while it's tough to read stories like this (which I decided to comment on and to my surprise had a few people back me up, including Emile Bourquin, who happened to cover what we were doing back then on his podcast, The Podcast Brothers), we must swallow our pride and hope that level heads prevail and Apple is denied this patent.  Ultimately, it's just wrong and by no means an invention but the gradual evolution of media.

It's not quite been eight months since iPhone entered my life, but it's close enough and I've been thinking about this blog post for a couple of weeks.  After only having the phone for a day, I made a few predictions that I felt would be fun to revisit to see if I should quit my job and become a palm reader.  So let's dive into it...

Prediction #1 - 1.0.1 Within 2 Weeks of Launch

This goes without saying, but I will say it anyway. We're going to get a service update within the next week or two—before the next batch ships—to address the launch bugs.

iPhone update 1.0.1 hit everyone's iTunes on July 31, 2007 nearly one month after the iPhone launch.  The update was met with a lot of excitement.  Everyone was curious to see how an update would work and what goodness Apple would give us in it.  Would we get Flash?  Copy & paste?  No and No.  We got some bug fixes and slightly improved stability.  Since this was a time-sensitive prediction and I was off by two weeks, I got this one wrong.

Prediction #2 - Flash w/ Leopard 

We will get a Flash-enabled version of Safari sooner than later. I'm guessing within a month or at the very latest in tandem with OS X Leopard.

Ouch.  This one stings.  Here we are eight months later with no Flash.  But I may be speaking just a few days too soon.  Apple has a special event set for next tuesday and the rumor is Apple will be revealing the much anticipated iPhone SDK.  I also think they'll launch a few new applications built with the SDK.  Another firmware update might be imminent which could bring Flash to the iPhone.  Needless to say, I got this one wrong as well.

Prediction #3 - Copy & Paste before Leopard

It's crazy to even say this, but text selection and Copy & Paste gestures will come before Leopard.

Hahaha.  We still suffer without Copy & Paste functionality.  Please, Apple throw  us a bone here.  Wrong.

Prediction #4 - iTunes Store on iPhone

We will be able to buy media from the iTunes store directly on the phone via the wifi connection by end of year.

Ding ding!  We got a winner here.  We officially received the iTunes Wifi store on September 27, 2007.

Prediction #5 - GPS in Google Maps

I thought most cell phones came with GPS capabilities for emergency scenarios. I find it hard to believe this puppy doesn't have a GPS chip in it. It will be opened and will be used with the Google Maps.

So the iPhone has no GPS hardware.  Therefore we can't possibly get GPS with Google Maps.  So I couldn't be more wrong.  But we did get pseudo GPS behaviors in the latest 1.1.3 firmware in the form of cell tower and wifi spot triangulation.  It works pretty well.  I've been able to locate many a Starbucks while driving in unfamiliar territories.

Prediction #6 - iChat with Leopard

iChat application will appear with Leopard as well as an update to the camera application, which obviously will be used by iChat.

Wrong again!  We've yet to see wifi chat from Apple and there have been no updates that add functionality to the most under-powered feature of the phone... the camera.

Prediction #7 - Notes Syncing, To-dos & More Photo Integrations

We already know that Mail.app in Leopard will get some new functionality like notes and to-dos. We'll see those on the iPhone too. I think they'll also listen to the complaints and allow attachments from the Photo Library.

Booooo.  So we've got the nifty Notes application that doesn't sync to anything on the Mac?!?  With Leopard we got notes and to-dos in Mail.app, but there have been no abilities to sync the notes or add to-dos from the iPhone.  In fact, I don't think they've touched the Mail application on the iPhone since launch.

It appears I'm no Nostradamus and I should hold onto my day job.  Oh well, I was so looking forward to moving into that lonely small house still fronting the busy highway surrounded by shopping centers.  But I'm not going to stop making predictions.  I'll save them for another post.

I was on my way home work tonight when I stopped at a Exxon/Mobil gas station, surprised to see the above sticker plastered on the pump.  I immediately thought that it was very odd.  In my limited experience with merchant accounts and credit card processing, I thought this sort of practice was not acceptable per the credit card companies and merchant services.

A rather boring topic for my first post in three months, but whatever.  Has anyone seen something like this before?  Doesn't this break some terms of service with merchant services?  Is it even ethical?  I don't know.

On a completely different note, I'm testing the upgrades I made to my blogging software, so that's the real reason for this post :)

I know I'm a little behind, but better late than never.  I wanted to show off my Beatles-inspired Abbey Road pumpkin that Alex and I carved for Halloween.

Okay, well it was more me than Alex, but she was by my side supporting every little twist and turn of the knife.

Okay, so that's a stretch too.  She barely stuck her hand in it to pull out seeds and after about a minute of carving she was bored and went inside to play on the computer.

So let's call this one exactly what it is... my self-indulged carved masterpiece.

But Alex still thought it was awesome, so that's all that matters. 

Today Radiohead announced their new album, In Rainbows, is available for pre-order. It will be released on October 10th without the distribution arm of one of the major record labels. Radiohead is thumbing their collective nose at the record industry's tried and tired business model, putting their ingenuity and faith into the goodness of their fans. How much is the new Radiohead album worth to you? Figure that number then head over to www.inrainbows.com and name your price.

Beyond the excitement that is a new Radiohead album, what is most gratifying about today's announcement is that their business sense is as bold and fearless as their own music.

Since the debut of Pablo Honey, Radiohead has reinvented their sound with each successive album. After the critically praised OK Computer, most bands would have zeroed in on that sound and milked it for all it was worth. Unconventional in their ways, Radiohead tossed that winning formula right out the window and unleashed the heavily synthetic Kid A and Amnesiac albums, stunning fans and critics.

After their last studio release, Hail to the Thief, Radiohead's contract with label EMI expired. And while Thom Yorke hinted that the band wasn't looking for a new label, I doubt many industry types thought they would go it alone.  In the age of digital music, it's easier to release a new album without the distribution and marketing of a major label. Radiohead has the clout to approach any of the major online music stores and command a profitable exclusive deal. But that would be too pedestrian.

Instead, they decided there was no need for a record label or an online store and are selling the album in two configurations from their website. For a price you set, you can get the album as a download. But more interestingly, for £40 you can get the "discbox."

The discbox is an innovation. Gone are the days of the album cover and liner notes. Music has been reduced to a piece of plastic or streaming bits—it's just packaging. Radiohead understands the growing disconnect between art and commerce and has attempted to recreate the experience of the album. Included in the discbox package is the CD, 2 12" vinyls, a second enhanced CD with extra tracks, artwork and lyric book all contained within a hardback book.

Radiohead gets it. And they're ready to change the business of music. And that is what you do when you're considered the Best Band in the World.

Over the weekend, while watching Live Earth, on what amounts to a shot in the dark, I was lucky enough to score some tickets to The Police show in Tampa. And last night, at the St. Pete Times Forum, my face was melted by one of the most iconic rock bands of all time.

It's weird when I think about the influence The Police have had on my musical taste. As a six year old kid, Synchronicity was the first CD my dad bought. He kept it outside in a tall cabinet in the garage. Needless to say, my older brother and I would borrow it and incessantly air banded and tried to play our real instruments to that disk. Okay, well I pretended to know what I was doing with my Chiquita travel guitar while my brother could actually play some of Stewart Copeland's beats on my dad's old Slingerland kit.

Stewart Copeland started the show by whacking a huge gong, followed by Andy Summers' opening guitar lick from "Message In a Bottle." It was The Police and it was awesome. The stage, a huge oval with a platform around the back, was minimally lit at first. Quite honestly, it didn't look like the setup one would expect from a tour as magnificant as The Police. It felt a bit club-ish. A small venue plopped into an arena.

Then suddenly we were introduced to the trio as the band rocked into "Synchronicity II." The familiar red, yellow and blue that graces the cover of the the Synchronicity album splashed across the lighting that hung beneath three huge video screens as Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers appeared on the big screens. It was the first of many surreal moments I encountered throughout the evening. I was there and this was the band that I've been rocking to for 25 years.

As the evening progressed, the set became more sophisticated. The lighting more intense, but tasteful and not distracting. The video screens were filled with tightly directed and well composed shots of the band members, closeups of their fingers in action and occasional photographs.

I felt it took a bit too long for the mixing engineer to dial in the sound. There was a moment about five songs in where it started to sound like one of the most popular bands in the world.

The highlight of the night for me was "Wrapped Around Your Finger." Stewart Copeland had a percussion pit behind his drum kit with an assortment of percussion instruments which he played before switching to his kit when necessary. It was a slightly more mellow and tribal feeling rendition than the cut on the album. It was different and inviting.

They pulled out most of their hits and peppered a few rarer tracks in that I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't recognize but enjoyed all the same. Missing from the set was "Spirits in the Material World" and "Synchronicity I."

My girlfriend and I, along with 21,000 other people, sang along to "Can't Stand Losing You", "Walking on the Moon", "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da", "King of Pain", "Invisible Sun", "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic", "Roxanne" and "Walking In Your Footsteps." (Not in that order)

The band was called out three times for encores in which they obliged. The first encore was an erie styling of "King of Pain" and a driving rockin' "So Lonely."

The second encore was "Every Breath You Take" and the final encore was "Next to You." The climax was a wall of bass, guitar and drums as the video screens crescendoed with fast-cut images of the band in their day,

This was easily the second best concert I've been to. I can't place it ahead of Radiohead in West Palm in 2003, but it was well worth the money, the headaches of traffic, the horrendous parking situation and the general suckiness that is Tampa. I'm seriously thinking about catching the show in Atlanta, GA which is the last show of the U.S. leg.

It's hard to describe the impact The Police had on rock music for the very short lifespan of the band. They accomplished so much in five or six years and then they were gone. When you start to compare The Police to other bands, it's hard to find a more influential band, outside of say Nirvana, that splashed onto the scene and then disappeared leaving behind a lasting discography and legacy as one of the best bands in the world who still have a drove of rabid and adoring fans.

It's been a little over one week with iPhone as my fulltime phone. First of all, when people ask, "What's so revolutionary about the iPhone?" or "What's the difference between iPhone and my _________ phone?" my answer has been, "Technically? Nothing. In fact it's missing many features of your phone. But the iPhone is all about the experience. It's like driving a Mercedes versus driving a Hyundai. They both essentially do the same thing, but packaged and presented completely different."

That difference is what makes the iPhone the most satisfying phone I've ever owned. And granted, I'm not a cell phone phreak. In fact I hate phones. I hate talking on the phone. I hate messaging on a phone. I hate carrying a phone. I've had opportunities to own a "smartphone," but have turned them down every time. Mostly because it's an additional tether to a part of my life that I'd rather not be tethered to... AKA work. But also because the last thing I need in my life is another device that is a pain in the ass to use.

I'll start my biased review with the negatives...

Contacts should be a top-level application. I appreciate the design philosophy Apple took here. Let's get rid of top level buttons—which increases perceived complexity—by burying the contacts where they will be used the most... in the phone application. That may be true if you use the phone functionalities 90% of the time. It becomes burdensome when you use the phone only a small fraction of the time. Also lacking in the contacts is the ability to add contacts to groups or create groups on the phone. A minor inconvenience, but an inconvenience nonetheless.

Like many other reviewers have said, the Mail application is not all it should be. The concept of "syncing" mail is completely absent. Sure, it syncs the actual accounts so you don't have to configure the accounts yourself, but syncing mail means ensuring the mail folders (inbox, sent, trash, drafts, etc.) are mirrored on your desktop and the phone. If you have IMAP accounts (thank you AOL and Yahoo), this is done for you by the nature of the IMAP protocol. But if you still manage a ton of POP accounts (GMail included), this becomes a painful experience. While I've not found the need to create mail folders on the phone, I could see this becoming an issue as well. Another overlooked but extremely powerful feature of mail is the ability to change the sender account, regardless of which mailbox account you're composing within, when composing mail like you can with most mail clients in existance.

Being able to use landscape mode for all applications would be nice and quite honestly, I don't know why we can't. I don't see a technical barrier in the way. The keyboard is quite good. In portrait mode I can swiftly type using one finger. In landscape mode I can use two thumbs and double my input rate.

The recent call list doesn't indicate if a call was outgoing or incoming. Missed calls are in a red font, which is fine, but if you're recent list has the same names on it you can't tell if you made the call or accepted the call. The "Clear" button also is a bit misleading. If you're looking at only the "Missed" calls and you tap the "Clear" button, it clears the entire Recents list. This is a misleading user interface gesture.

The camera is probably the only application on the phone that needs a tactile button. Taking one-handed pictures while ice skating (I took my daughter ice skating on Sunday) is nearly impossible, partly because I suck at ice skating and taking a picture with two hands means I can't hold onto the side rail at the same time. Lack of zoom and other camera-like functions also cramped my style.

One of the only real bugs I've found is when using Safari and listening to music. Once in a while the music will stop, which I assume is caused by the browser. It makes me wonder about how this thing is threaded and how it shares memory. Curiously, it seems to happen when using heavily AJAXed sites. Another annoying inconvenience is not being able to edit the URL when saving a bookmark. Many websites will redirect from whatever.com to a very specific URL which could change in the future rendering the bookmark useless. To change the bookmark's URL, you have to go in after the fact and edit it.

Generally speaking, input could be improved by simply adding copy and paste. Numerous times I've found myself needing to copy a block of text from emails to SMS to webpages. Also selecting a block of text just to delete it would be nice. Although I feel it should've been included in this first release, I can understand why it might have been left out. I've read that Apple engineers could not find a method to implement this functionality without creating usability issues. I admire that, and honestly, it doesn't really prevent you from using the phone as a communications device. It's just one of those incredibly annoying things about the phone that could've been addressed in a positive way in the two plus years of development.

For the most part, the iPod functionality is great. My only pet peeve is that the node on the progress bar that indicates the current point on the track or video is so dang small it's impossible to accurately position it with your finger.

Now the good stuff...

The device, physically, is beautifully designed. It feels solid in your hand. The screen is gorgeous and easy to see in every environment I've put it in (little light, direct sunlight, etc.). While it does accumulate oils from fingers as expected, the screen is bright enough to power right through the gook and remain crisp.

Overall, the experience of using the device is as advertised. The applications flow seemlessly and respond quickly to your actions. Unlike my RAZR, bringing up the contact list doesn't take two seconds. The experience of listening to music while browsing the internet, texting via SMS and receiving phone calls is brilliantly orchestrated. This is what I call the "experience." This is the difference between driving a Mercedes and a Hyundai. This device seems to understand how you would use a phone and executes to your expectation.

I handed the device to my six year old daughter and within minutes, with very little verbal instruction, she was able to use the phone and its features like a pro. She was browsing photos using the finger gestures to zoom and page, browsing the web, SMSing her mom, calling her mom, editing her contact sheet, applying images to contacts, finding the nearest bowling alleys on Google Maps, taking photos and emailing them to herself and watching videos on YouTube (with my supervision of course). That is a true test of a device and its usability.

While the headphones that come with the phone are uncomfortable in my ears, the integrated microphone/remote control is brilliant. I find myself putting up with the ear buds to take advantage of the remote functions. Simple and elegant. It does just enough to warrant its existance.

Overall, for someone who hates phones, this phone has been a pure joy to use. What makes me even more excited is that this is the starting point. It will get better and that should make other cell phone manufacturers fearful. The many small annoyances can easily be addressed via software updates. But as far as a version 1.0 product, it's solid.

I've never been a huge fan of the widget. The rest of the world is. From desktop widgets to web widgets, people just love to play around with tiny little programs. It reminds me of people that collect miniature stuff. It doesn't matter what it is, if it's small, it's cute and people love it.

I was listening to the latest TWIT episode today at work and one of the guys on the show mentioned that the Weather application on the iPhone is exactly the same as the Yahoo! Weather widget. Then I saw an article on digg (sorry, I can't seem to find it now) where a dude basically dove into a widget's package and copied the code up to a server to access it on his iPhone via Safari.

Curiosity got the best of me so I ripped open one of my widgets to inspect its guts. Sure enough, it's just html and javascript—which is what I've heard but never cared enough to bother looking at it.

Then I remembered at the last two Apple WWDCs Steve Jobs mentioned Dashcode to an underwhelmed audience. I thought for sure after the accouncement of Dashcode bombed at last year's WWDC, it would be swept under the rug and left alone. So I was surprised at this year's WWDC when he mentioned Dashcode again! Why, Steve, why do you keep mentioning Dashcode?!? No one cares!

I still don't care, but at least I know why Steve keeps mentioning Dashcode. It's all about the iPhone. For a while now Dashcode has been mentioned as one of those OS X Leopard things because apparently Apple is overhauling Dashboard, letting them freely sit on the desktop as opposed to the crazy layer on top of the desktop. It's an illusion, Michael!

Dashcode is how Apple will extend the iPhone and allow 3rd Party developers to get their applications on the iPhone. Safari, as a browser, is not the platform per se, as people have been talking about. The Safari rendering engine is the key. That is what breathes life into these "applications." The Safari browser is simply a "compiler" used by developers on both Mac and Windows platforms as a way to test their applications.

To bring it all together, the release of OS X Leopard (with Dashcode, Safari 3.0, iTunes 8, etc.) due in Q4 this year, Apple will also bring Widget Syncing via iTunes to the iPhone.

I'm also fully expecting a rebranding of iTunes into something more generic such as "iHub" or something equally generic that conjures up thoughts of syncing a myriad of digital content between multiple devices.

Day two with the iPhone...

I went to a movie this evening to get out of my cave. I saw the new Die Hard flick. It was entertaining I suppose, but that's not the point of this post. While out and about I checked out a few more features of the iPhone.

First, I wanted to see how YouTube would perform on AT&T's EDGE network. So I checked out some of the same Muse videos that I was watching the other day. Interestingly, when the phone is on the EDGE network, it downloads heavily compressed versions of the YouTube videos. It makes sense, but damn it looks horrible. I guess horrible is all relative... it is YouTube after all.

While standing in line to buy some popcorn and a drink, I pulled out the phone to check some baseball scores. I opened Safari and went to espn.com. While the page was opening, a pop-up message appeared telling me it found a new wifi network and asked if I wanted to join. I did and proceeded to surf on espn.com. One thing that would be helpful is if it would tell you the signal strength of the wifi connection before you join. In my case, the movie theater's (or mall's food court, not sure who owned it) wifi signal was very weak and it was actually slower than the EDGE connection.

UPDATE 7/3: I stand corrected. It does show the signal strength when the phone finds new wifi networks. In fact it becomes flat-out annoying when you decline to join and seemingly everytime you wake up the phone it asks you to join one of the networks. Guess I must have been excited and overwhelmed that a movie theater had an open wifi network?

After the movie, which clocked in around 2.5 hours, I was hungry. But it was 10:00pm and anyone who knows anything about Sarasota it's that after 9:00pm it is damn near impossible to find an open restaurant other than McDonald's or Taco Bell. But one of my co-workers and I were talking about that same subject the other day and he mentioned that Buffalo Wild Wings is open really late everyday.

So I pulled out iPhone, clicked on Google Maps and did a search for "Sarasota fl wings"—I was driving (I know, I know) but typing was pretty easy to do. A few red pins plopped down on the map and after clicking on two of them, I found the restaurant. With a single click I was calling them to see if they were open. They were and now I won't starve to death. iPhone saved my life.

Back on the keyboard, one thing I miss is arrow keys to move the cursor around. I know I could place the cursor with my finger and I know about the magnifying glass thing, but sometimes you just want to back up a couple letters with a quick tap on an arrow key.

I'm still enjoying the phone. It's not perfect yet, but way better than any phone I've ever owned.

Now that I've had a day to get to know iPhone, here's what I think is in store for us iPhone owners over the next six months. Most of these I think will be major updates that will coincide with the release of OS X Leopard.

• This goes without saying, but I will say it anyway. We're going to get a service update within the next week or two—before the next batch ships—to address the launch bugs.
• We will get a Flash-enabled version of Safari sooner than later. I'm guessing within a month or at the very latest in tandem with OS X Leopard.
  
• It's crazy to even say this, but text selection and Copy & Paste gestures will come before Leopard.
• We will be able to buy media from the iTunes store directly on the phone via the wifi connection by end of year.
• I thought most cell phones came with GPS capabilities for emergency scenarios. I find it hard to believe this puppy doesn't have a GPS chip in it. It will be opened and will be used with the Google Maps.
• iChat application will appear with Leopard as well as an update to the camera application, which obviously will be used by iChat.
• We already know that Mail.app in Leopard will get some new functionality like notes and to-dos. We'll see those on the iPhone too. I think they'll also listen to the complaints and allow attachments from the Photo Library.

Okay, so those may not sound like very bold predictions. Oh well.

I took the iPhone out into the wild today as I went out to pick up dinner. As soon as I got out of range of my wifi network the phone switched over to AT&T's EDGE network. Testing the connection using Safari while driving was probably not the best idea, but we all do it don't we? Coming from Verizon's EVDO it was definitely slow. In the rare event I'm not in wifi range it will suffice.

The keyboard is going to continue to be a challenge to get used to. In fact I'm typing this post on the phone right now. The key is definitely trusting the word correction features. It does an amazing job correcting your typing mistakes. I think the key to mastering the keyboard is to think of typing as word gestures rather than precise clicking of buttons. You can completely mistype entire words and it is able to understand what you meant by the relative positions of the keys you intended to press.

I had issues setting up the visual voicemail. When I clicked the voicemail button the phone would dial the voicemail number rather than showing me the list. I called AT&T support and after 15 minutes they had it working. Apparently I didn't have the iPhone data plan on my account. AT&T is really screwing this thing up. I hope Apple has crafted a way to break the agreement with AT&T if they can't meet certain SLAs or KPIs. Steve Jobs is probably fuming over these service issues.

I've also experienced an issue with playing music while using Safari to post to my blog. I think it's related to TinyMCE which is the text editor for my blogging sofware. When I'm typing the keyboard becomes sluggish and then the music abruptly stops.

I'm already missing the Flash support. I can't imagine we we'll be going without it for long. There has to be a good technical reason for it not shipping. I'm betting it will be part of the first non-launch related releases.

I'm also severely missing the ability to select text and copy and paste. I assume that will also be forthcoming.

That's all for the first cul day playing... err... living with the iPhone.

By the way, is it a coincidence that the iPhone and the Pixar film "Ratatouille" launched on the same weekend?  That Steve is a smart man.

Quite honestly, I never intended to buy an iPhone on launch day. In fact, since I'm a Verizon customer with six more months on my contract, I planned on waiting until the holiday season before thinking about buying an iPhone. I figured that would give plenty of time for the kinks to be worked out of the phone and the AT&T service. So I found myself in line at the local AT&T Wireless store at 5:15PM on Friday, succumbed to the hype.

I figured I'd have a decent shot to get one since I live in a less metro city. When I arrived at the store there were about 65 people in line. I kind of laughed to myself as I made the embarrassing walk to the back of the line. I've never waited in line for a product launch and I couldn't believe I was doing it. Yada, yada, yada... 2.5 hours later I'm in the store buying the 8GB model with no accessories. Get the hardware and get out... that was the plan.

With sore legs, feet and back I made it home, took the box out of the bag and plopped it on my desk for the experience that is an Apple product unboxing. As expected, the packaging was brilliant. I slid the top of the box off and the angels sang. The iPhone was revealed in it's serene, lifeless state complete with halo and beams of sunshine. Okay, not really but whatever.

I lifted the phone out of the plastic holder and my first impression was, "Damn! This thing is heavy. No way I'm going to hold this up to my ear." I pulled the dock and cables out and plugged it into my MacBook Pro. iTunes launched, immediately found the iPhone and was ready to step me through the activation process.

So far, it's an Apple experience. And then... AT&T! Ugh. My first issue with activating the phone was that I was not able to port my existing phone number. At first I was bummed, but I've been thinking it's time for a phone number change anyway so I proceeded to get a new number. The next issue I had was with the pre-approved credit code that was given to me by the sales guy at the store. iTunes was expecting a 9, 11 or 13-digit number. I had a 14-digit number. So I had to leave that field blank, which immediately made me uncomfortable because that meant I had to get my credit checked a second time in less than an hour. So I proceeded and iTunes told me it needed about three minutes to activate. Hahaha! Not so much.

After three minutes or so, iTunes came back with a message that my account would need more time to activate and I would receive an email when the phone was activated. Okay great.

30 minutes went by...

1 hour went by...

Still no email. So I started searching the Apple Support site to see if people were having similar issues. They were. Some were saying their phones were activated immediately and others were in the exact same boat as me. So I decided to just wait and see what happened.

Three hours later I decided I would call the AT&T 877 number displayed in iTunes. The voice message said something to the affect of, "We're experiencing technical difficulties and are unable to take your call." Yes! Just how I wanted this to go. A new phone carrier who can't even get their own phone system working.

I waited another hour and then called back. This time I got a real human on the phone. But unfortunately it might as well have been a dog because she was just as useful in helping me. She shuffled me to the sales department. And then I was shuffled to the sales support department. Finally, I arrived at Apple support!?! What in the hell is going on? I told the Apple representative that this was not an iPhone issue and he tried to be helpful, but he couldn't do anything.

I gave up around 12:45AM and went to bed hoping it would be activated in the morning.

I woke up fairly anxious to see if my new $600 phone, which has been working flawlessly as a statue, was activated. I had no emails in my inbox, so I was immediately expecting the worst. I decided to turn off the phone and turn it back on and holy crap, it was activated!

iTunes popped up and syncronization started. From that moment forward it has been a total Apple experience. The sync, the phone, everything is working as advertised. After searching around my mail, I finally found the AT&T emails trapped in my AOL spam folder (which, by the way, doesn't go to your Junk Mail folder in Mail.app -- that caught me totally off-guard -- and yes I've had an AOL email address since 1994 or something so sue me). The phone was activated around 4:30AM this morning. So I'm glad I didn't wait.

The phone is rad. I've been playing with it all day. I'll post some thoughts as I uncover or discover stuff or encounter issues, but for now here are some initial feelings:

• The keyboard is a little strange at first, but if you trust it, it works fairly well. The word suggestion is very nice.
• My WiFi network was found immediately and connected without issues.
  
• I was shocked to find my 3rd party iPod headphones do not fit the plug! I have a pair of Sony MDR-EX71 and Shure EC2 (I think that's the model). I ended up shaving down the Sony pair and it works. Of course I lose the built-in microphone on the iPod headphones, but it's worth it for the comfort for now.
• The finger gestures and the responsiveness to said gestures is much better than I anticipated. The phone reacts quickly and accurately.
• The screen is brilliant and with the brightness set halfway it is amazing.
• The iPod functionality is awesome. CoverFlow is nice.
• Google Maps is amazing.
• Safari is cool, but a little clunky. I was able to post to my blog from it, which is heavily AJAXed so that's good news.
• SMS is iChat-like which is a really nice way to communicate.
• YouTube is pretty cool. I watched a few Muse videos and they looked good but sounded horrible.
• Mail is mail. It's about as good as it can get I suppose?
• Making phone calls and receiving phone calls is flawless. Very nice touch fading out/in music when you get a call. The voice quality is very good. Much better than my RAZR. Holding the phone to my ear is not entirely comfortable, but it is better than the RAZR.

This is a test.

This week I've been attending Microsoft's Tech-Ed 2007 conference here in Orlando at the gigantic Orange County Convention Center.  A group of us from work ascended upon Orlando on Sunday and Monday to check out new Microsoft technologies, do some recon on products we've recently brought into our "enterprise" and to get out of the office fray for a bit and communicate the with the people that design the tools we use on a daily basis.

Besides the unbelievable amount of walking, which has left my left leg and right knee extremely sore and somewhat permanently damaged, the conference has been just okay.

With very high expectations, Monday was a complete downer for me.  I arranged my schedule last week and quickly realized that I would need to reschedule on-the-go.  Two of my sessions were in what they call "Interactive Theaters" which are like big cubicles with extremely limited seating.  If you don't arrive fifteen minutes early, there's a good chance you won't get a seat.  And if you don't get a seat you can't see or hear anything. To me, this idea is incredibly stupid.  I'd say there are 12,000-15,000 people here.  There are going to be times where more than thirty people want to see one of these presentations.  So I started avoiding the "Interactive Theaters" and opted for the breakout sessions in normal rooms with plenty of seating.

My primary focus for being here is to learn more about BizTalk Server practices specifically related to Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and the idea of message buses.  My secondary goal is to learn more about Microsoft's approach to SOA.  Thirdly, I want to learn more about integration techniques with BizTalk, MS CRM and SharePoint.

I'm pleased with the amount of  Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) focused talks considering I've yet to meet anyone that is actually implementing WCF in production systems.

I've also had time to talk to a few of the Microsoft guys on the floor about BizTalk, which is interesting but I'm taking their recommendations with a grain of salt.

Perhaps the most interesting talk thus far was Rocky Lhotka's talk on Object-Oriented, Service Oriented and Workflow.  I've seen parts of this talk at VSLive just a month ago.  The basis is somewhat common sense-- use the best tool for the job.  When I talk about SOA, I don't even consider the strictest of implementations.  To me that's recipe for disaster.

SOA to me means loosely coupled systems and that's it.  It doesn't mean everything in your environment has to be service-oriented nor should it be.  Software architectures need to be flexible and extensible, but also practical.  Service orientation, in most cases, is not practical.  Currently at work we incorporate bits and pieces of service orientation where it makes the most sense.  That doesn't mean we're an SOA shop.  It just means we've concluded, before SOA became a buzzword, that sometimes it made a lot of sense to break up a workflow or process into smaller more granular applications (or services) that act like black boxes, constantly acting on messages (or data in our case).

Okay, so I'll admit it... I watch American Idol. I still don't know why, but that's neither here or there. I'm a huge Beatles fan and I'm upset. Not that I missed the ending because Fox ran over two minutes and my recorder turned off—which by the way, is Network TV's gameplan against time-shifting. No, I could care less if Blake or Jordin or Bob won. What upset me was the most pathetic tribute to "Sgt. Pepper" I've ever witnessed.

First, what struck me as odd was the non-challant manner in which Seacrest announced that they were about to smack us in the face with absurdity. "Oh, yeah... so here's like Sgt. Pepper." That's what it sounded like to me.

What Fox, American Idol producers and the "talent" did was massacre the most decorated and celebrated recording in the history of mankind. They turned "Pepper" into a second rate Fleetwood Mac album.

From flubbed lyrics by Ms. Idol herself to a tone deaf Ruben, Idol after Idol took liberties with some of the most popular and well-crafted melodies of all time. Delusions of grandeur, my friends. To do what Ray Charles did to "Yesterday" was after years of paying musical debts, building a career and forging his place in music history. Only then can you put your touch on material such as "Pepper."

I may be a purist, but in my opinion, this material is off limits to amateurs. I didn't mind the rendition of "I Saw Her Standing There" because there's nothing to that song. It was fodder for girls. That wasn't art. "A Day in the Life" is. Musicians know this. Musicians respect it.

This morning's keynote entitled "Jurassic Code" by Billy Hollis was a breath of fresh air. The topic of his speech was about simplicity of software design. In making his point, he spoke strongly against Microsoft and the Visual Studio Team. He urged the audience to adopt his manifesto. People don't want features, they want simplicity. He referenced the movement towards simplicity as the "iPod Revolution." I couldn't agree more. As I wrote about yesterday, I'm drowning in a sea of "revolutionary technology." I can't keep up. As someone who manages a software system, a team of developers and many projects as well as analyzes feasibility of new projects, I simply don't have time to learn the ins and outs of every significant or insignificant improvement to our programming models.

Hollis made his point by referencing two very useful but widely unknown features of Visual Studio 2005. One feature was a context menu that resets a property to its default value and the other was an incremental search in the editor. Only a handful of developers were aware of the features. So how, or why were those features developed? Who was asking for those features? And couldn't they spend the time to develop those features by improving our programming experience with tools that actually help us?

I've made my preference for Apple and the Mac OS X known. I believe every Windows developer could learn a thing or two from Apple. Apple designs simple and elegant software, spending their time on the features that provide value to real people that use their products as opposed to the small minority who want to use insane easter egg-like keystrokes and gestures.

Back to the keynote... Hollis predicted a major paradigm shift from imperative programming models to declarative programming models. He referenced the architect of C# (and Borland's Delphi which revolutionized RAD development), in which he said at a previous conference that the imperative programming model is at its end. We've taken it as far as it can go. While I'm not so sure I agree with that statement, it's clear to me that we're quickly approaching a point in time where everything we know as software developers is going to change.

I consider myself a fairly smart guy and anytime I get anxious about something it's because I feel I'm not understanding it completely. I'm getting to that point with the entire .NET framework. Quite simply, it's too much for one human to possibly know.

So after the keynote I walked up to Billy, shook his hand and told him thank you for making me feel sane again. I'm not alone in thinking that this whole .NET thing is a kludge. Don't get me wrong, there are some great things about .NET. A lot of great things. But there's a lot broken with it too and its inherent in the model.

I'm excited and yet depressed about being at the VSLive! conference in Orlando, FL. I like going to conferences. I enjoy the experience of the hotels, the routines and the knowledge sharing. But it's also very depressing and frustrating because it revolves around Microsoft.

First, the following complaints should not be construed as a dig at Microsoft, but the folks in Redmond have to know how difficult it is to keep up with them. Enterprise IT departments are about as swift to embrace new technology as lawyers. If you're wondering how slow lawyers are to adapt technology, the last place I worked developed software for law firms and many of our clients (about 75%) were moving straight from paper-based file folders to our case management system. This was in 2002.

In my particular case now, we are running code written in Borland Delphi 7 against old DBase tables that were originally created for use in Clipper DOS application! So we're already about seven years behind on the code and oh, about twenty years behind on the database side.

We started a project to rearchitect the entire enterprise under .NET about a year and half ago. We purchased Visual Studio 2005 shortly after it came out and we have yet to implement any production code based on the .NET 2.0 framework. A few months ago, the .NET 3.0 framework came out. At this conference they've been demoing the new version of Visual Studio (code-named Orcas) with the 3.5 framework.

On top of that, we've got Microsoft CRM 3.0, BizTalk Server 2006 and SharePoint Portal Server (or MOSS) in the house now. All of that and we still have to maintain this legacy system, enhancing it for the incessant streams of new business.

So as I've been sitting through these sessions where the presenters are talking about all the cool stuff we can do—not right now I mind you, but before the end of the year or when Orcas is released—I'm struggling to digest it and how it all fits into my architecture and implementation plans.

Fortunately, I've got the ability to decide if we write against the 3.0 framework or write against the 3.5 framework using beta code from Microsoft. The latter sounds sketchy, I know, but you also begin to see real benefits, specifically in LINQ and Entity Framework, as well as all of the tool improvements for Presentation Foundation and Communication Foundation.

As if my water wasn't muddy enough, it feels like I'm swimming in chocolate.

As if sports, as an entity or industry, wasn't insignificant enough already, it appears sports journalism has turned into a cesspool of sensationalism and petty arguments between people who play games for a living and people who watch games for a living.

I'm tired of hearing about Pacman, another Cincinnati Bengal arrest, the NBA All-Star shootout, feuds between Kobe and Shaq, Jeter and Rodriguez and now bloody f'n socks!

Here's what I really don't get. Anyone who calls himself a real "sportsfan" doesn't give a crap about the off-field shenanigans of overpaid, whiny assletes. So why the hell does ESPN cater to the lowest denominator?

ESPN might as well drop the S-P-N and add an exclamation point because that's exactly what it's become... E!. Pretty soon, Ryan Seacrest and Brooke Burke will be hosting Sportscenter; dishing the latest on who's dating who in the sports world. Oh wait, they already tried that--with C-List celebs (no offense, Slater). Come on!

I don't know who in the hell is running things at that Mickey Mouse (literally) operation, but someone needs to tear it down and start over. Sportscenter has become such a frickin' mess with the damn sponsors and the obnoxious graphics and sound effects, the ridiculous crosstalk segments and god forbid the panelists (ahem... NFL Countdown) listen to each other instead of playing a game of shoutsies.

I'm predicting the downfall of ESPN within 5 years.

A serious all sports channel will creep up and infiltrate the market that ESPN has a stranglehold on. They'll do it with serious journalists and analysts, not caracitures. They'll focus on the game not the games. They'll be discrete, but transparent with the advertising and when there's nothing good to show, the screen will be black with a message in white text that says, "Life is more than sports. Go read a book or something."  Of course the text will move around so people's TVs won't burn in.

So I'm back at work today after being on vacation for a week. I guess you never get used to the first day back at work. Any time I have more than a two-day weekend, I question why I'm working in Sarasota. Once I come to the conclusion that I'm here for a paycheck, you sink right into clock watching. T-minus six hours and I can go home. I'm still on West Coast time, so I'm a bit groggy today which doesn't make it any better.

I was actually surprised I didn't get bothered by work. This is a first in the four years I've been at this company. Perhaps it was because I told them I was going to Vegas and wouldn't be answering my phone or email. Or perhaps, for just one week, I adequately prepared the company for seven days without me. I don't know, but whatever it was, I need to keep it up as I attempt to distance myself from the everyday operation of this company.

One thing I wanted to do on vacation was brainstorm a little bit about my near-term career. Unfortunately, I was so in vacation la-la land, I didn't think about it at all. All I did think about was how dreadful it would be to go back to work.

I did think about the things I enjoy doing and how I can translate that into a business or career. I've had this itch to be a sports writer—covering mainly baseball—for many years now. In fact, that's one reason I went ahead and started my Braves Blog, just to see how challenging it would be and if I had the chops to do it. So far it's been fun, but I clearly need to write a lot more.

I'd like to find a way to work the things I enjoy into my businesses. I talked about this a few weeks ago with my friend and business partner, Matt Thompson. You know the saying that entrepreneurs should do something they are passionate about? While our businesses usually interest me, I can't really say they truly encapsulate my passions. I may enjoy bits and pieces of the ventures, say the development or organization building, but they've not entirely consumed me with the passion that might be necessary to succeed.

So I think I'm going to clear my mind over the next week and think about where I am with all of my projects and businesses and figure out what I would really enjoy doing and find a way to make it a sustainable business.

Yesterday we decided to get out and see more of the Vegas strip.  So we started walking south.  Lisa wanted to visit Paris and ride the roller coaster at New York, New York, so we did.  While in Paris, we gambled a little.  After about an hour of playing Blackjack, Lisa was up $25 and I was down $50.  So I wasted another $50 playing craps for about 10 minutes.  After Paris, we started walking south towards New York, New York.

After seeing "Love" the night before, Lisa wanted to see another more action-packed Cirque du Soleil show, but two of the shows were dark and the other two, "Mystere" and "O" were sold out.  I, on the other hand, saw an ad for "FabFour Mania", a Beatles cover band, in one of the ad magazines we picked up at the airport and that's what I wanted to do.  So Lisa called her friend with the connections to try to get tickets to a Cirque show, but nothing came of it.  So we dropped by the Alladin/Planet Hollywood and bought tickets to the FabFour show.

After riding the roller coaster at New York, New York, which by the way was extremely rough but fun, we walked back to the Alladin to catch our show.  It was in the V Theater, which is in the Alladin which is under construction and rebranding to Planet Hollywood.  The theater was small, maybe 200 seats at most.  It was a more intimate club-like venue.

The show started off with a recreation of The Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, complete with an Ed Sullivan impersonator.  I was impressed with the band, not only their musical ability and attention to detail, but also the characters.  The John Lennon character was good, but the Paul was spot on.  Everything from his voice—both singing and speaking—to his mannerisms, facial expressions when singing and body movements were incredible.

The show was about two hours and kind of chronicled The Beatles through their phases.  First was the Beatlemania phase with music like "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "I Saw Her Standing There", "Yesterday", "Twist and Shout" and "A Hard Day's Night."  Then they transitioned to the Sgt. Pepper era and played tunes like "Got To Get You Into My Life", "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", "With a Little Help", "Sgt Pepper's Reprise" and "A Day in The Life."  Finally, they closed with White Album/Abbey Road era with tunes like "Imagine", "Revolution" and "Hey Jude".  It was a good show and well worth the $60/ticket price.

After the show we walked to the Bellagio, caught the fountain show and ate at a Japanese restaurant called Shintaro.  It was a teppan-yaki style preparation.  I had beef tenderloin and Lisa had chicken.  It was very good, but the service was dreadful.

After dinner we came back to our hotel, got some ice cream and called it a night. 

Last night we had dinner at Emeril's Delmonico Steakhouse at The Venetian here in Las Vegas. I thought we'd just have a normal reservation, but Lisa surprised me. She arranged, through a connection and personal friend of Emeril, to have dinner in the kitchen (see image), where one of the sous chefs personally catered to our needs and prepared a tasting of dishes—some of which were not on the menu and others which were prepared differently than the menu items.

We started out with Truffle Parmesan Potato Chips, which were a nice light start to the meal.

Next came an item that was not on the menu, but in my opinion was one of the most surprising and well-balanced tastes of the evening. It was prosciutto with mascarpone cheese and exacerbated strawberries marinated in balsemic vinegar.

The third course was Oysters Rockefeller baked in a small cast iron skillet. It had oysters, dijon spinach, three different bacons and parmesan bread crumbs.

Fourth was the grilled lamb T-bones in a red wine reduction, served with green onion au gratin potatoes. This was nice, but not my favorite.

The main course was filet mignon served oscar style with asparagus on a bed of crab mashed potatoes with a bearnaise sauce. This is similar to the menu item, but was a filet mignon rather than the sirloin.

Finally, we had some cappucino with two desserts—butterscotch creme brulee with white chocolate hazelnut cookies and one of my favorite desserts, banana cream pie. They were both awesome, but I particularly liked the banana cream pie. It was quite possibly the best I've ever tasted.

All-in-all, it was one of the most interesting food experiences I've had and the perfect start to the evening.

After dinner we had a few hours to kill before the Cirque du Soleil "Love" show. So we hit the Venetian casino where I promptly lost $100 playing craps. Awesome.

The show was pretty cool. Unlike most other Cirque shows, this was not a display of technical aerobatic or gymnastic prowess. It was more of a visual experience to compliment the Beatles' mashup music. Quite honestly, I could sit there and watch paint dry as long as the soundtrack was kick-ass like this show's. The music almost directly followed the CD/DVD soundtrack, which I was a little disappointed with. But there were some interludes of outtakes from sessions, clips of the Beatles' press conferences and television and radio appearances.

There were a few cool moments which gave me an idea. They used silhouettes of the Beatles (they could have been actors, I couldn't exactly tell) as performance clips of the band. There was also a cool scene of the boys crossing Abbey Road (using actors), trying to avoid traffic until they figured out that they controlled the traffic by stepping into the street, which created a cool stomp-like effect with traffic sounds.

The images of the Beatles were so powerful that I thought it would be cool to create a virtual Beatles concert using silhouetted images of the real Beatles from all of the recorded performances. The soundtrack to the concert would be done in a similar mashup-style like George Martin and his son did for this Cirque show. With slightly different arrangements of the music, it wouldn't feel like we were just listening to a CD and watching old clips of the band.

It was a good show, though not as awe-inspiring as the other Cirque shows I've seen. The music set to that environment was worth the ticket price (which I didn't pay, heh).

So after the headaches of the first night, things have improved. Thursday morning I wrote an email to Guest Services explaining my discontent and that afternoon I received a call from one of the Hotel Managers. I have to hand it to them. I didn't think they'd respond to me, but they did and offered to make things better. I wasn't looking for anything other than just getting the room situation straight. But I did have one request and that was free WiFi access for the remainder of our stay, which she happily obliged.

Thursday I was supposed to have a phone interview for a new job with a web company, but it was cancelled on Wednesday night. That was good for me because after that first night, the last thing I wanted to do was wakeup for an interview. So we went to Sigfried and Roy's Secret Garden to see some dolphins, lions, tigers and leopards. It was ok. We walked over to The Venetian and walked around a little. We gambled, watched some baseball and relaxed.

That night, my buddy from high school, Dan Boissy, was playing at the House of Blues at Manadalay Bay with the NK Band. So we hit the monorail and rode down there to hang out with him and the band. It was great hanging out with Dan. Neither of us could remember when we last saw each other, but I suspect it was shortly after I got married in 1998. He's been living in L.A. for seven years.

Yesterday we gambled some more and walked over to the Fashion Show Mall to check out the Apple Store. We came back to the hotel room to watch some baseball, then headed out to visit some of the mor... uh... less nice casinos. We ended up walking into Caesar's Palace and stumbling upon Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill, so we ducked in and luckily were seated immediately. It was awesome. I had the Pork Tenderloin and Lisa had 16-spice chicken. The tenderloin was awesome.

Today we've got some big plans. Dinner at Emeril's Del Monico Steakhouse and tickets for Cirque du Soleil's "Love."

After a very long but on-time flight, we arrived in Las Vegas.  It's been quite a few years—5 exactly—since I've last been in Vegas.  Besides the major construction changes, it appears to be the same-old city.  Full of expectation, I'm sad to report that our first night here at The Mirage was miserable. 

I'm rarely critical of customer service.  For some strange reason, maybe it's the entrepreneur in me or maybe it's because I deal with "customers" daily, but I tend not to be the kind of person that routinely complains about little annoyances, but livid would be a soft term to describe my anger and dissatisfaction with The Mirage hotel last night.

I pre-paid this vacation about two months ago via Orbitz.  During the booking, we selected a non-smoking room.  Of all room options, the smoking option is perhaps the most important; above bed and room size.  So to my surprise, we checked in and were told they had no non-smoking rooms available and we could only get a "smoking optional" room.  We were told if the smell was overwhelming, we could call down for a "de-fogging" and they would move us to a non-smoking room the following day. I hesitantly obliged without making a scene and we were off to our room.

Rarely do I get worked up about anything, but I cannot begin to describe my anger upon opening the door to the room and being smacked in the face with the most dense and disgusting smoking odor I've ever encountered outside of a "club."

We immediately called down to the front desk for the "de-fogging."  We were told it would take two hours.  Now, it was already midnight Vegas time and we're still on East Coast time, so really it's 3AM to us.  I drove two hours from Sarasota to Orlando, then the flight was five hours, baggage and shuttle to the hotel was another hour and then another 30 minutes standing in line to check-in.  To summarize, we were tired and now we had to waste another two hours just to get a decent night of sleep.  I've already paid for this damn five-day hotel stay!  I was boiling,  but like a good customer, I didn't complain.  I'd wait and see how the process works.

We went down to the Carnegie Deli and ordered what turned out to be the most impractical sandwich I've ever had.  It was a chicken salad sandwich, but the damn thing was stacked so high (about 8-9 inches) it was impossible to eat.  Note to all restauranteurs: meals are just like every other consumer product.  If it's impractical, it's useless.  So besides the sandwich sucking, the service sucked too.  What is the deal with this hotel?

After eating and a little bit of time-wasted gambling, we ventured back to the room.  Opened the door and the smack of nasty air again.  That was it.  I was not going to stay in this room.  It only took 5 minutes before our eyes were burning, noses running and our stuff starting to stink.  I called down to the front desk and complained.  House keeping never "de-fogged" the room.  The rep offered me a $50 credit which meant nothing to me.  My eyes are burning, I'm dead tired and they offer $50.  The crappy inedible meal I just had was $30.  I've already paid for this damn room!  I want a smokeless room, not money.   I politely told the rep that I needed a resolution and money is not the issue.  My eyes are burning and I've only been in the room for five minutes!

The rep put me on hold for a couple minutes and then came back to tell me house keeping "just finished" cleaning a non-smoking room.  Mind you this is 2AM Vegas time, 5AM our time.  I didn't see any house keeping people in the halls since we arrived.  I call bullshit on this one and I knew it from the moment we arrived that there was something else going on here.  I suspect it's because I had already paid for my room.  They had my money, what do they care?

The rep finally switched our rooms and generously allowed me to keep the $50 credit.  Wow.  Great job.

So here's my advice to all of you planning on staying at The Mirage—DON'T.  It's not worth the struggle.  You work hard to earn your dollars and spend decent amounts of it to relax and not be bothered by stupid little things like the smell of your hotel room.  The customer service here sucks.  There's little regard or sensitivity to something that, quite frankly, should be the most sensitive issue a hotel should ever have to get right.  God forbid people actually do not like staying in cancer-infested rooms.

I'm going to try and put this behind me and attempt to enjoy the rest of my vacation.  However, I will never return to this hotel to spend my hard-earned money.  Neither should you.

Well, it's been a long long time since I've had a proper vacation.  Sure, I've taken days off from work, visited relatives and such, but I've not taken five or more days, packed a suitcase and been somewhere with no other reason than to get away, relax and have fun in about 7-8 years.  After a very stressful four months at work, I decided as soon as my new boss started and had a few weeks to get acclimated, I was out of there.

For proper vacations, I want to go to places that don't resemble my reality.  Living in Sarasota, an international tourist destination for reasons I don't know, I just find it hard to believe that people spend their hard-earned dollars to visit such a normal place.  Sure we have fine quartz sand on Siesta Key, but you're essentially in... well, Florida (not that there's anything wrong with that).  I like to know I'm on vacation, but putting myself in a place that doesn't come close to resembling reality and Las Vegas certainly fits that bill.

So my girl and me will be boarding  a plane in less than 4 hours to spend 5 days in Vegas with no agenda other than seeing my pal from high school play with his band tomorrow night and then dinner at Emeril's restaurant and the Cirque du Soleil "Love" show based on the Beatles' music on Saturday night.  The rest of the time we'll be gambling, shopping and relaxing by the pool. 

Every year, apparently, there's a new golf course.  I'm not talking about the actual golf course where people hit little white balls into small holes in the ground.  I'm talking about the so-called place where business deals are made.  Over the last few years I've heard that motorcycles, cigar bars, power breakfasts/lunches, World of Warcraft (the most outrageous of them all) and most recently, NASCAR are all new golf courses.

Maybe this is where my conservatism shines through, but I think board rooms and plain old offices are the original and current golf courses.  Sure, enjoy your day sweating your balls off at a NASCAR race, talk a little business and such, but on Monday, the phones, email and fax machines (people still use them) light up and the real deals are made using old-fashioned statistical and market analysis, risk assessment and management and financial forecasting.