Rohdesign Weblog: Travel

Here you'll find all posts file under the Travel category.

June 30, 2009

Alaskan Cruise '09 Sketchnotes

I'm back from a wonderful Alaskan cruise of the Inside Passage last week. I spent the week capturing 28 pages of sketchnotes of my experiences to share with you:

Alaska is almost indescribable. I've done my best to capture what I saw, but the best way to experience Alaska is first hand. If you ever have a chance — go.

Enjoy the sketchnotes!

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May 23, 2009

Society of News Design Chicago '09 Sketchnotes

Last weekend I was honored to be invited to attend the Society of News Design to sketchnote their meetup in Chicago. After enjoying a morning wandering Chicago, I arrived at Tribune Tower for the event, ready to capture the presentations.

You can see the presentations captured in my SND Chicago '09 Sketchnotes Set or in the slideshow of the sketchnotes created for quick viewing as a FlickrSlidr:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Thanks Matt Mannsfield and Chris Courtney for your kind invitation. I appreciated the opportunity to meet people from the news design industry and had a great time!

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January 31, 2009

Sketchnoting SXSW Interactive 2009

Doom and gloom. Meltdown of the global economy. Real estate prices dropping, layoffs, businesses closing and more bad news bombards us daily.

2008 was a rough year and 2009 is off to a rocky start. These are challenging times.

In spite of the bad news around us, I've decided to focus on the positive. To focus on the opportunities in this new year and not let the negativity dominate my outlook or perspective.

For me, this begins with SXSW interactive in Austin, Texas, March 13-18, 2009.

SXSW Interactive Official Sketchnoter

One hugely bright spot in 2009 is the honor of being the Official Sketchnoter to SXSW Interactive. In 2008, my first ever SXSW, I used my Moleskine pocket sketchbook and G2 pen to live capture several of the panels and sessions in sketchnote form.

At the time I was capturing the event for myself and the small band of followers who enjoyed my work from SEED 1 and SEED 3 conferences and other events I'd captured in 2007 and 2008. What surprised me was how popular the SXSW 2008 sketchnotes became. Just a week after posting the sketchnotes, they appeared on 80+ sites, including Daring Fireball, R.BIRD, FrogDesign, Jason Santa Maria and Boing Boing!

I'm very excited about working in an official capacity this year. I think the toughest challenge will be which panels to attend and capture. I have a list of panels I'm looking forward to, but I also know how panels often overlap. It should be fun. :-)

Get In Touch

I'd love to meet new people at SXSW, so if you're attending and would like to talk over coffee at the event, drop me a line with SXSW in the subject line and say hello, and if you like, follow me on Twitter.

I'm attending the 2009 Avalonstar Bowling Extravaganza on Saturday, March 15th, and my co-conspirator Brian Artka and I are organizing some kind of small gathering at an Austin location during SXSW Week, we'll announce soon.

Stay Positive!

Be thankful for what you have in your life. Be ready for opportunities. Circumstances can bring you down — don't let them ruin your outlook. Stay positive!

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March 12, 2008

SXSW Interactive 2008 Sketchnotes

Welcome BoingBoing readers! Be sure to check out my follow-up post called Lessons Learned from my SXSW Sketchnotes too!

SXSW Interactive 2008 Sketchnotes are up!
I've just completed scanning, tuning and uploading 34 pages of sketchnotes I captured in my pocket Moleskine sketchbook at SXSW Interactive earlier this week.

I think the sketchnotes turned out well, and it was no problem for me to continuously create them for nearly every session I attended. I certainly went through ink in my G2 mini pens — I'm glad I brought several along.

With the SEED Conference sketchnotes being pretty popular, I'm curious to see how these SXSW sketchnotes are received. While sketchnotes capture concentrated concepts for each session well, I think they're even better at awakening ideas stored in the minds of session attendees.

Speakers Featured
Here are the speakers featured in the SXSW Interactive Sketchnotes: Naz Hamid, Veronica Belmont, Casey McKinnon, Ryan King, Glenda Bautista, Ariel Waldman, John Gruber, Michael Lopp, Jim Coudal, Dan Rubin, Didier Hilhorst, Eris Stassi, Lea Alcantara (sorry for the Leah misspell in the notes!), Ben Brown and Frank Warren.

Finally, here's the FlickrSlidr Slideshow set:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I did creating them! :-)

Stats on Flickr — Wow!

Check out Shaun Swick's very cool SXSW Sketchnotes 08 Flickr Set for another perspective.

Dave Gray does his style of sketchnotes on 3x5 notecards, check out his set from VizThink08.

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March 11, 2008

Rohdesign Podcast 05 - SXSW Roundtable Discussion

I've now recorded and posted Rohdesign Podcast Episode 05 in Austin, a little longer 16 minute roundtable discussion on the patio at SXSW interactive. It's posted as an MP3 and as a web-based flash player:

In the fifth episode of the Rohdesign Podcast, I talk with Ashe Dryden, David Overbeck and Carlos Ortega about their impressions of SXSW Interactive, favorite sessions and why you should consider attending SXSW 2009.

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March 9, 2008

Rohdesign Podcast 04 - SXSW Interactive Edition

I've now recorded and posted Rohdesign Podcast Episode 04 in Austin, after 2 days at SXSW interactive. It's posted as an MP3 and as a web-based flash player:

In the fourth episode of the Rohdesign Podcast, I talk about networking at SXSW, excellent design sessions I was able to attend, sketchnotes progress and plans for Sunday's activities.

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March 6, 2008

Off to SXSW Interactive 2008!

Wow. in a few hours I'll be on the plane to Austin, Texas with my Web414 buddies, ready to experience everything SXSW has to offer.

I'm excited and a little bit nervous, as I have no idea what to expect. SXSW seems overwhelming right now, but I'm sure I'll settle in and enjoy myself once I'm in Austin with my friends.

From Friday the 7th through Tuesday the 12th, I'll be enjoying SXSW, and therefore reading mail sporadically, so you may not get a reply for 24-48 hours.

Talk to you all again in a day or two! :-)

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February 7, 2008

Attending SXSW Interactive 2008!

For the past few years, I've been very intentional about attending thought-provoking conferences and events, to learn, grow and meet new people.

In 2007, I attended BarCampMadison, UX Intensive, SOBCon07, BarCampMilwaukee2 the SEED Conference and excellent monthly Web414 meetings through the year.

For several years I've heard great things about SXSW (South by Southwest) Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. Many of the people I admire attend yearly, I've enjoyed podcasts from the event, but it's never worked out for me to attend.

That will change in 2008. On March 7th, I'll be heading down to Austin, with fellow Web414 members Ashe Dryden and David Overbeck. We're all excited to see first-hand, just what all the SXSW buzz is about.

Thanks MakaluMedia!
I've been given the opportunity to attend SXSW as art director and designer from MakaluMedia. I'm very thankful for this opportunity, and I plan to make the most of my time in Austin. I'll attend multiple sessions, take notes and capture sketchnotes similar to the ones I did at the SEED Conference and UX Intensive.

Advise the Newbie
Since this is my first time to SXSW Interactive, I welcome tips and ideas from seasoned veterans. I'm also open to Austin tips and suggestions from any Austin dwellers out there who would like to share. Just leave a comment below. :-)

Contact Me SXSW-Goers
I also want to meet old friends and new people while I'm at at SXSW. If you're attending SXSW Interactive 2008 and would like to meet for a coffee in Austin, drop me a line with the subject SXSW. I'd love to connect before I head down to Austin.

Resources
As I prepare for SXSW Interactive, I've compiled a selection of resources to share with other SXSW attendees, and those interested in the event:

SXSW Interactive 2008 — The official site.
SXSW Interactive 2008: Panels (Time) — SXSW Panels, time schedule.
SXSW Interactive 2008: Panels (Day) — SXSW Panels, by day.
SXSW Interactive 2008: Panels (Category) — SXSW Panels, by category.
SXSW Registrant's Guide — Registrant's guide.
SXSW Registrant's Mobile Guide — Mobile registrant's guide.
SXSW '08 Insider's Guide — Information and forums on Ning.com.
SXSW Baby — Un-official Weblog and forums for SXSW.
Ze Frank Explains SXSW Interactive In Under a Minute — Classic Ze Frank humor!
SXSW Core Conversations — Directory for informal conversations.
SXSW Past, Present, and Future — Great podcast interview with Hugh Forrest, Director of Events for SXSW Interactive on the history, culture and future of the event.
SXSW Geeks Love Bowling — Bowling with SXSWers, Sunday, March 9th.
Airbag: Hampton — Greg Storey's Guide to SXSW Newbies.
John Phillips — Beginner's Guide to SXSW.

Have a resource to share? Email me and let me know!

Permalink | | Creativity | add to del.icio.us

October 30, 2007

SEED Conference Thoughts & Sketchnotes

Whew! I'm back from Monday's excellent SEED Conference in Chicago.

What a great event! The Illinois Institute of Technology and Rem Koolhaas' Tribune Student Center building, was an incredibly cool venue. Funky lines and the architectural space provided a unique backdrop for the sessions of the day.

Carlos Segura
All of the sessions were very good, though the most interesting for me as a designer was hearing Carlos Segura speak. He talked about taking risks and thinking deeper for clients and going beyond only what they ask to figuring out what they really need.

I was especially inspired by the Corbis Stock Photo case study, where Carlos' team changed the stock agency's overall approach to consider their clients (designers) and in doing so, changed an entire industry.

Segura also stressed keeping small, working on projects and with clients you really want to work with. Good work comes from these situations, and by staying small you aren't constantly taking jobs you dislike just to keep everyone busy. In fact, this turned into a thread that connected all of the talks of the day.

Jason Fried
Jason spoke very briefly, so he could open the floor for lots of Q&A time. He recommended these 5 items:

Watch out for red flags
Keep your team small
Make sure your staff has alone time
Keep meetings short and focused
Make tiny decisions instead of massive ones

Jason also recommended a small team size, though his perspective focused a little more on communication issues with small vs. large teams and scaling projects to fit your team size rather than scaling your team to fit scope.

I resonated most with Jason's call for alone time. I work remotely, but even though I work alone, there is always a temptation towards IM, email or phone calls, and I find that blocking out chunks of alone time makes a difference. I know this may be a tough one for the multi-tasking generation, but I think it really can help your focus.

Jim Coudal
I loved Jim Coudal's candor and relaxed approach, and especially his openness in sharing his firm's successes and failures. He shared several stories and films, and drew ideas from them. My take away:

Be curious
Choose people on their taste
Don't be afraid to fail

Jim talked about his curiosity and how many of the things he's been curious about have turned into business ideas. Curiosity helps with client work, since you can get to speed quickly and often see a problem from a different perspective than the client.

He also talked about identifying people and hiring them on taste over technical talent. Not untalented people with taste, but rather if you had to choose between two people and one had good taste, go with taste over talent.

Coudal suggested that failures are OK. They're learning experiences which often create opportunities that might never have happened otherwise. You have to learn to identify and capitalize on unexpected opportunities that often grow out of failures.

Discussion Session: Segura, Fried & Coudal
The most interesting of the sessions was the final hour or so of open discussion time with Carlos, Jason and Jim at the front of the room. They fielded all sorts of questions from attendees about their ideas. Questions about small teams, marketing, simplicity, community, building products while still managing client work, questions about creating apps that rely solely on other platorms (Facebook), and more.

Of all the sessions, this was the one I and the 4 other guys I met, thought was the best of all. Why? Because they had a chance to respond immediately and candidly to random questions. I also enjoyed hearing them discuss and explore ideas in depth that hadn't come out in their talks. Finally, it was interesting to hear their similarity of thought and subtle differences of approach and opinion on the same questions.

Sketchnotes
As mentioned last week, I took my pocket Moleskine sketchbook along and captured 17 pages of sketchnotes, from the entire day's talks and discussions, including Carlos Segura, Jason Fried, Edward Lifson and Jim Coudal.

I didn't try to capture everything said during yeterday's event, since others were probably doing that.

Instead, I took time to listen and analyze the talks, distilling and capturing the main ideas I was hearing. By doing a bit of on-the-fly processing, it forced me to boil down what was being said, then express it in ink on the page in a way that would be meaningful to me and to others who might read my sketchnotes later.

To make the notes interesting, I played with typography and images with the sketchnotes, to provide a little texture and depth beyond pages of gray text.

SEED Sketchnotes on Coudal Partners
Seems my notes have struck a chord. Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners emailed about my sketchnotes on Flickr and made mention in their Fresh Signals feed. Thanks Jim!

SEED Sketchnotes on Signal vs. Noise
Awesome! 37signals noticed them too: Mike Rohde's SEED Conference 2007 sketchbook notes. Thanks Matt!

Pretty cool to have speakers and sponsors mention notes taken during the event. :-)

Overall, SEED Conference was well worth the time and price to attend.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Permalink | | Design | add to del.icio.us

October 27, 2007

Going the SEED Conference in Chicago on Monday

Picture 1.png On Monday morning I'll be boarding the Amtrak in Milwaukee and heading South for the SEED Conference in Chicago. It's being put on by 37signals, Segura, Inc., and Coudal Partners at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The event features Jason Fried, Carlos Segura and Jim Coudal, leading a presentation and discussion on design, entrepreneurship, and inspiration. I like the work all three of these guys have done, so it will be a very interesting day:

You'll learn about taking control of your own work, seeking out methods to inspire new ideas, and adopting unconventional ideas about collaboration and business. The SEED conference will fill your head with knowledge you can use.
This isn't about theory, it's about practice. You should attend if you're a designer (print, web, video) or a business-minded soul who's looking to take your creative ideas and turn them into something satisfying and bankable. Anyone creative with an open mind will take away something useful.

Sketchnotes
I'll be taking sketchnotes, similar to the set I did for the UX Intensive back in April, 2007. I have a Moleskine sketchbook at the ready. I hope I can keep up with the presentations and discussions! I will post the collection of sketchnotes to my Flickr account, so others can view, read and learn from them.

If you're attending the SEED Conference on Monday the 29th and want to meet at the event, drop me a line and say hello.

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July 16, 2007

Back from Belize with Sketchtoons

Whew! I'm back from my service trip to Belize — I had an AMAZING time!

The country was wild and beautiful, the people of Belize friendly and hospitable and the food was so very delicious. We all had a wonderful week.

Our Meadowbrook team was just incredible. Every student and leader stepped up when it counted and gave of themselves every single day. It was exciting sharing Jesus' love with the people of St. Margaret's Village.

The staff of Praying Pelican Missions, who managed our trip, did a superb job providing for our team. I have to send special thanks to Matt, Tatiana, Laura, Bree and John for a great week in Belize!

I have many stories to share: wild bus rides on the Hummingbird Highway, tons of village kids waiting for our bus to arrive every day, a visit with a Mennonite family, sharing their home-made pineapple juice, and discovering that the Internet reaches to remote Belizean villages. Those stories will come as I catch up at home and work.

Meanwhile, I'd like to share a set of Belize Sketchtoons. I'd hoped to do more sketching in Belize, but there just wasn't time in such a compressed week.

Thanks to all who prayed for us — we felt your prayers in Belize.

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July 6, 2007

Departing for Belize

Wow. It's finally here — our departure for Belize, Central America.

Very early tomorrow morning my wife and I depart, along with 4 leaders and 26 students, for St. Margaret's Village, in the Cayo District of Belize.

Back in February, when we had our first team meeting, this weekend seemed so distant. Back in April, when I posted about the upcoming trip details, it still felt so far away.

I'm excited, and naturally, I have some nerves about the trip, having never travelled with such a large group, nor to Central America. But even with so, I know this is going to be an amazing experience for our team.

The past 2 months have been crazy for our family, to say the least. Yet, Last night, I realized we've managed to sell our house, buy a new house and prepare ourselves and a small army for an intense week in Belize. I think we've done OK. :-)

I especially appreciate your prayers for our team this coming week. Please pray that we would gel as a group around our goal, we would represent Jesus as we serve Belizeans, and that we would all stay healthy and return home safely.

I can't wait to share my stories, sketches and photos here on the blog when I return!

Images: Wikipedia

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May 16, 2007

SOBCon08 Suggestions

Now that I've taken a little time to unpack my thoughts about SOBCon07, I felt it would be a good time to share my suggestions for SOBCon08:

• More Workshops — I would love to see more workshop sessions, like we did with the "Iowa Caucus" of Mike Sansone, Mike Wagner and Drew McLellan. The ideas and collaboration from this session was energizing, but we ran out of time.

• Longer Breaks — I wished for more/larger gaps between sessions, to congregate with others and get to know them better. I just popped out to meet with people to solve it, but I'd prefer not to choose between sessions and meeting others.

• Free WiFi — T-Mobile WiFi was available for individual purchase, but I'd prefer a free, SOBCOn WiFi service to encourage more blogging during the event. I think 3 or 4 WiFi base stations would have been about right to avoid a saturated network.

• SOBCon Speaker & Attendee Page — I'd love to see an official speaker and attendee page on the SOBCon site, with names, photos, bios, 5 favorite posts and blog links. This would help new attendees "meet" other attendees before the event.

• Unified SOBCon Page & RSS Feed — What about a single Page and RSS feed, where any post with "SOBCon" and "SOBCOn08" tags would be included? Attendees could follow a single feed, and see every related post before, during and after the event.

• All Day Coffee — In the afternoon on Saturday, a couple of attendees and I were searching for coffee but found only stacks of soda bottles. It'd be great to keep hot coffee available all day, for those of us who like the rich, black brew. :-)

I hope these suggestions will encourage the '07 attendees to suggest some ideas in the comments, and be useful for SOBCon08 next year.

Permalink | | Blogging | add to del.icio.us

May 15, 2007

Unpacking SOBCon07

I'm not surprised to find myself still brewing and unpacking the reverberations of this weekend at SOBCon07. The conference was a concentrated burst of energy, community and challenges, that I haven't been able to completely process.

Part of it for me, and I think for many attendees, was diving headlong into something completely new, without any expectation of what to expect, or what we'd get out of it.

I didn't know anyone but my buddy Phil Gerbyshak, so I had to step out and meet some new people. That's the wild thing though — people were stepping out to meet me, treating me as an old friend.

Some of this must be chalked up to knowing Phil, but much of the warmth and friendliness of other people seemed to be at the very core of the SOBCon vibe.

Here are some observations after much brewing and pondering:

We all came to give and take. Everyone present came ready to give something away, while being confident they would receive that much and more in return. Everyone I met was sharing energy, which encouraged me to keep sharing my energy.

This was our conference. Bloggers dreamed it up, handled the logistics, showed up and then created it like a barn raising. We connected and encouraged each other, challenged each other and made it happen. Two nights in a row, I witnessed people spontaneously gathering to talk, pulling chairs into circles until no chairs were left.

We are brands, like it or not. One thread running through the Saturday sessions was how we're all projecting a brand (ourselves), whether conscious or unconscious. From our writing to our blog design, everything we project and communicate is our brand. The challenge for everyone was how to sync your brand with who you really are.

We're communicators, not bloggers. David Armano challenged us to stop calling ourselves bloggers, and instead consider ourselves “conversation architects.” I'm a communicator — whether with words, sketches, graphics, sound or video — I aim to communicate with others through this space on the web. Rohdesign is now operating without "Weblog" in the title to reinforce this idea.

Conclusion: I had a great time at SOBCon07!

It was more powerful than I expected, and the people were wonderful. I've already established relationships with several people I resonated with, and plan to build more relationships as the week goes on. Relationships really are at the heart of SOBCon.

I was also challenged to step my communication to the next level. After 4+ years of writing at Rohdesign, I'm energized to keep on sharing, encouraging and learning.

I can't wait for SOBCon08!

SOBCon07 Attendees:
Liz Strauss
Wendy Piersall
Andy Sernovitz
Phil Gerbyshak
David Armano
Mike Sansone
Drew McLellan
Mike Wagner
Terry Starbucker
Christine Kane
Rodney Rumford
Ben Yoskovitz
Chris Cree
Robyn Tippins
Diego Orjuela
Vernon Lun
Jonathan C. Phillips
Sandra Renshaw
Brad Shorr
Timothy Johnson
Tammy Lenski
Sean Rox
Muhammad Saleem
Lorelle VanFossen
David Dalka
Todd And
John Yedinak
Joe Hauckes
Tim Draayer
Jeremy Geelan
Carolyn Manning
Sheila Scarborough
Steve Farber
Dawud Miracle
Doug Mitchell
Jeff O’Hara
Dave Schoof
Jamy Shiels
Adam Steen
Hannah Steen
Chris Thilk
Barry Zweibel
Eric Bingen
Ellen Moore
Cord Silverstein
Jean-Patrick Smith
James Walton
Sharan Tash
Vernon Lun
Tony Lee
Scott Desgrosseilliers
Mark Murrell
Kammie Kobyleski
Easton Ellsworth
Mark Goodyear
Ann Michael
Kent Blumberg
Ashley Cecil
Robert Hruzek
Sabu N G
Mazur Krystyna
Lisa Gates
Franke James
Chris Brown
Troy Worman
Karen Putz
Jesse Petersen
Terry Mapes
Andy Brudtkuhl
Lucia Mancuso
Peter Flaschner
Derrick Sorles
Thomas Clifford
Rajesh Srivastava
Claire Celsi
Jason Alba
Alex Shalman
Cristiana Passinato
Brad Spirrison
Ari Garber
Dr. Rob Wolcott
Cheryll Cruz
Sharon Scherer
Jason Wade
Jill Pullen
Doug Bulleit
Wendy Kinney
Brenda Friedrich
Ella Wilson
Chelsea Vincent
Ayush Agarwal
Paul Mangalik
Premchand Kallan
Xochi Kaplan
Michael Snell
James Bergstrom
Raj Majumder
Keith Levenson

Special thanks to Jonathan C. Phillips for providing this extensive list of attendees. :-)

Photo: Vernon Lun

sobcon07

Technorati Tags: sobcon07, rohdesign, mike+rohde

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May 11, 2007

SOBCon07: Day 1 Impressions

I've spent a good day heading to and spending time at SOBCon07, and wanted to capture a few impressions here before I head to sleep.

The people at the conference are just amazing. I mentioned knowing only Phil coming into SOBCon, but it didn't take long to meet many friendly, warm people.

I met Tim Johnson and Director Tom (Clifford) over lunch, Mike Sansone and Clare Celsi in the restaurant, Terry Starbucker and Franke James in the lobby... and the conference hadn't even started!

I'd have a hard time naming everyone I met here, but in general everyone treated me warmly and as one of the crew right away. I feel right at home in this crowd.

Christine Kane provided a wonderful performance tonight. She's a great singer and musician, with an on-stage presence that made me feel at home and relaxed.

After the music we had a delicious light dinner, including pastries and veggies, cheese and sushi, all of very high quality. After eating, we had an open mic time, where we each shared a little about ourselves and what we do on our blogs.

After the kickoff even ended, I spent time hanging out in the room and then in "Le Bar" with many of the bloggers here at the conference, listening to their stories and how they blog. There's a common theme I see emerging from every attendee: a general amazement that this convention is really happening and that it's awesome to finally meet these friends in person.

I think it's fascinating and encouraging to watching online-only relationships expand and deepen in face to face connections. Coming in as an outsider of sorts, I'm able to see this dynamic occurring between people.

After only the first day, I've concluded I've made a great choice in attending SOBCon07, simply to meet so many wonderful, friendly people.

I can't wait until Saturday! :-)

Permalink | | Blogging | add to del.icio.us

May 9, 2007

Getting Ready for SOBCon07 in Chicago

Tonight I had a great talk with my Milwaukee blogging buddy Phil Gerbyshak, who I'm traveling with to SOBCon07 in Chicago this Friday and Saturday. I'm excited!

Phil and I are doing a road trip from Milwaukee to Chicago for the event, enjoying the time driving down, and taking it easy when we arrive. I can't wait to see Phil give his keynote speech on Saturday and talks from other speakers on the schedule.

Of the about 80-some bloggers attending, I know one — Phil. Still, this is a great opportunity to meet and get to know many new bloggers. This is Phil's crowd, so I'm sure I'll meet new people through him, and on my own.

I'll be sketching and taking notes at the event and may continue the sketchnotes approach I experimented with at UX Intensive... we'll see. I'll post a report of the weekend's activities, along with an analysis of the conference.

If you'd like to attend SOBCon07, there are still spots available.

Permalink | | Blogging | add to del.icio.us

April 27, 2007

UX Intensive Chicago 2007: Thoughts & Sketchnotes

This week I attended Adaptive Path's UX Intensive: Interaction Design Workshop in Chicago. I've decided to share my thoughts on the event and my set of sketchnotes on the blog.

UX Intensive event was a 4-day series of workshops and lectures, and of those 4 days, I attended 1: Interaction Design. Here are my thoughts about that particular event:

The Speakers & Venue
Overall it was a good experience. Dan Saffer and Kim Lenox are both very smart, talented designers who know their stuff. I gleaned good ideas for tweaking my own design process, and was affirmed in the approach and process I already follow.

The Black Orchid was an OK venue. The room was relatively spacious, and the food was quite good. The tables, however, were designed for drinks while listening to jazz — not ideal for taking notes or working, and not positioned ideally for a conference. I got a bit of a cramp from sitting at an angle at my table, trying watch the speaker and take notes.

Workshop or Lecture?
UX Intensive was billed as a "workshop" even though Wednesday's Interactive Design session was actually a day-long series of lectures. Even though the topic very much interested me, by about 2pm I was having a hard time focusing, even after a second Starbucks cappuccino.

I heard from Matt and Que, 2 guys I met at my table, that Monday's Design Strategy and Tuesday's Design Research sessions were true workshops, with activities and interaction between the attendees — much different than Wednesday's lectures.

Concepts I Liked
There were many good ideas shared by Dan and Kim, some of which I'll note below:

• Research is useless in a raw, unstructured form. It's critical to filter the information and draw insights and conclusions from your research that can be applied to the project. I liked Dan's suggestion to use physical and visual representations of research, using post-it walls and drawings on various surfaces.

• Brainstorming for quantity and brainstorming in categories. Dan suggested brainstorming sprints with limited times and an emphasis on many ideas in that time. I also liked his idea of brainstorming within narrower categories, then displaying findings in a matrix or a grid.

• Failure is OK. A 50% failure rate was suggested as a good thing. I've noticed that in my sketches, the more ideas I can get through the sooner I usually find a solution. Trying out ideas that may fail, lead to a good ideas, so I find this to be very true.

• Good designers make better guesses. Intuition is important in design, and it's based on making good guesses. Dan shared principles and techniques for making better guesses and decisions.

• Living Documents. Kim Lenox talked about designing for suites and platforms, suggesting the use of living documents, sharing information and innovations, consistency and that interaction designers need to think about the integration of 3 key areas: the PC, the Internet and mobile devices.

• All products are broken. By starting with this premise, we're free to try and improve products rather than making them perfect and completely free of brokeness. Dan talked about good areas to focus on for fixes, breaking fixes down into smaller chunks, and the use of quick n' dirty wireframes with screenshots (I use this approach, and it works great!)

• Constant Communication. Use various tools such as blogs and wikis within your team, to keep communication lines open with each other, and to capture information as living documents.

View my detailed notes in my UX Intensive sketchnotes on Flickr.

Suggestions
I'll end this post with my thoughts on how the Design Interaction portion of the UX Intensive event could be improved:

• Call it a workshop only if it has workshop activities. I came expecting interaction and activities with my design colleagues and instead got a day of lectures. Workshop activities would have broken up the time, made it easier for me to focus on the ideas and apply them practically.

• Add more breaks. We had breaks for lunch and for the morning and afternoon sessions, which were great. However, because of the day-long lecture format, by the afternoon I needed mini breaks in-between the individual sessions. By about 2pm I was losing focus on the topics that a few mini-breaks may have helped with.

• Show more real-world examples. We had some nice examples in the lectures by Dan and Kim, but I wanted to see more of them to illustrate the concepts presented. Having more examples might also have helped my focus in the afternoon.

• Go narrower and deeper. I think reducing quantity of material covered and focusing on deeper real-world examples, discussions on those ideas and workshop activities might improve the relevance of the information to attendees. So much info was presented, that I couldn't adequately digest, discuss or apply with those ideas to my own design practices.

I hope these thoughts are helpful to fellow designers, and might be useful to Adaptive Path in tuning and perfecting their UX Intensive series in Amsterdam in June.

Many thanks to MakaluMedia (my employer), for sending me to the event.

Technorati Tags: uxichi07, chicago, design, rohdesign

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April 26, 2007

Korean Soup Sketchtoon

On Wednesday I had a great visit to Chicago, for Adaptive Path's UX Intensive Interactive Design Workshop in Chicago's Old Town. I'm currently scanning in my sketch-notes from the event (which I will post tomorrow), but in the meantime I wanted to post a sketchtoon from my dinner in the evening.

I had the pleasure of traveling to Chicago with my friend Hyeon "Sean" Kim on the Amtrak Hiawatha to UX Intensive. After the event, I met Sean on the Brown line EL train at Sedgwick to Rockwell station to visit a Korean restaurant on the North side of town.

Sean had a Korean restaurant in mind, but after walking to Lawrence Avenue and searching, we realized it had closed or moved, because a new condo was sitting right at the corner where it should have been. It was actually good fortune for us to walk the neighborhood, since we came across Han Bat, a small, family-run Korean Soup restaurant, right on Lawrence Avenue.

Our Korean dinner was delicious. Sean was worried that old-school, hard-core Korean Seolleongtang soup might be too unusual for me. Now he knows I love unusual new things, including Korean soup, kim chee, pickled radishes and corn tea! :-)

The sketchtoon was created in my Moleskine sketchbook, while riding home on the EL. Sean and I contentedly recalled the details of our delicious Korean dinner. I colored this piece later on, to add just a little more detail.

Now I can't wait to try more Korean foods!

Technorati Tags: chicago, korean, uxichi07, rohdesign

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April 18, 2007

Serving in Belize: July 2007

I've had many wonderful opportunities to visit and spend time with friends in interesting places.

Travel has provided memories I'll treasure for a lifetime, and looking back, I believe travel has fundamentally changed my viewpoint, thinking and life for the better.

So, as you might imagine, I'm always interested in travel experiences.

This July 7th, my wife Gail and I will help lead a team of 31 adults and high school students from Meadowbrook Church, to serve the people of Belize, Central America. We're both excited about this opportunity to follow Jesus' example of loving God through service and love for others.

St. Margaret's Village, Belize
We'll be serving one week in St. Margaret's Village, a mountain town in central Belize. We're partnering with a local church, visiting orphanages and hospitals, playing sports with local kids, light construction work around the town, giving guitar lessons and leading church services.

As the departure day approaches, I'm realizing just how much of an impact this trip will have on our lives and the lives of our students.

Belize is a fascinating Central American country, located just south of Mexico and East of Guatemala on the Caribbean Sea. Belize has the 2nd largest Barrier Reef in the world, and because of a British colonial heitage, is the only English speaking country in Central America.

Belizean culture has a strong Caribbean influence, even though the country is located in Central America. People of Belize consists of different 9 main ethnic groups, including Creole, East Indian, Euro-Americans, Garifuna, Mestizo, Mennonite, Mopan, Kekchi, and Yucatec Mayas.

Prayer & Partnership
We invite you to pray for our team, as we prepare for the trip. We want our team to be open and ready to serve. We ask for safe travels to and from Belize, and that our team would have a positive impact on the people of Belize and they on us.

If you're interested in partnering financially, we welcome your support. We're raising about $1,800 per person for the trip, so every dollar brings us closer to our goal. If this interests you, feel free to use the button below, to donate:

Or, if you prefer sending in a tax-exempt donation, send it to my church directly:

Belize Youth Mission Trip Donations
Meadowbrook Church
1025 North 70th Street
Wauwatosa, WI 53213

http://www.meadowbrook-church.com/

Travelogues & Sketches
Finally, those who know me, know I can't resist writing travelogues and sketching while I travel — I intend to do both on the Belize trip and provide reports here on the blog of my experiences.

I can't wait! :-)

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August 2, 2006

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone

As a fan of the Tour de France, one of my favorite Tour blogs is Martin Dugard's at Active.com. I've thoroughly enjoyed his writing while following the Tour across France. His writing style is approachable, easy to absorb and has generous portions of personal observations and interesting historical details.

Martin's blend of readability, observation and historical detail bring his subjects to life.

Because of his writing style, I picked up Martin's Last Voyage of Columbus last November. Just 3 weeks ago, I found a copy of Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone at my local library.

In a nutshell, Dr. David Livingstone was a Scottish explorer in the mid 1800s, credited with walking across Africa, is sent to search for the source of the Nile river. When he goes missing, several expeditions are sent to verify if he is dead or alive, but only one man, American journalist and adventurer Henry Morton Stanley, finds Livingstone alive, and utters the famous line to him: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

It would seem knowing the end of the story would make for a dull read — but no! Dugard does and excellent job of building up the back-story on both of these remarkable men, and their contemporaries. Dugard shares details on both their accomplishments and defeats, which led them their moment in history.

I was surprised by the hardships both Livingstone, Stanley and other explorers and their support staff were willing to endure to criss-cross Africa. Tribal wars, cannibals, slave traders, swamps, rivers, lakes, mountains, deserts, insects, wild animals, disease — you name it, they experienced it.

I knew this was a great book when I found myself yearning to read just a few more pages on my vacation last week. I would take time morning, afternoon and evening to read this intriguing story. It definitely passed my 100 page book test. :-)

After finishing Into Africa, I had a better understanding for the people involved: both Livingstone and Stanley, but also for their contemporaries, the state of the world and Africa itself. I've added a new piece of mental map to my understanding of the 1800s, and its impact on our current culture.

If you have an interest in history, exploration, Africa or just enjoy a good story, I highly recommend Martin Dugard's Into Africa.

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June 28, 2005

A Fez of the Heart: Mini Review

Several weeks ago, at a local rummage sale, I came across the book A Fez of the Heart by Jeremy Seal. It took a few moments to realize this paperback was one I'd purchased in 1994, lent to a friend, and never got back. So, I drove a hard bargain, and bought the book for 50 cents, happy to have a second chance at a reading it for the first time.

Jeremy Seal's account is a travelogue of his time spent in Turkey, searching for the origins and present day occurrences of a hat — the Fez. His interest in the fez brought him to Istanbul to begin a journey around Turkey, seeking actual wearers and historical information related to the country, the culture and its hats.

While I'm not an expert on Turkey, I enjoyed his description of the country and its history, particularly the end of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey. I learned a bit more about Turkey's history and the sometimes unusual blend of East and West, and of course quite a bit about Turkish headgear.

Probably the most interesting part of the book for me came at the 3/4 mark. Jeremy is given a hand-made Fez by an elderly hat maker and feels compelled to wear it on the street. As the Fez is technically "illegal" in Turkey and has cultural significance for Turks, this was a larger challenge than it might appear. Seal becomes quite self-conscious in his be-fezzed state, and receives added notice and scrutiny all the way back to his hotel — before removing and hiding his fez.

While Jeremy's travelogue-style account isn't what I'd consider a historical reference, it did increase me curiosity about Turkey's history. Several of the book's Amazon reviewers challenge Seal's history and information, so I do plan on exploring books like Turkish Reflections : A Biography of a Place by Mary lee Settle for more historical detail.

Still, historical accuracy and personal opinions of Seal aside, I looked forward to reading this book each night before bed, and passed the 100 page mark quickly. I found it an interesting perspective on Turkey, Turkish cultures and the Turkish people themselves.

As the book ended, I found myself drawn to learning more about the Turks and their country. I don't know if I'll have the honor of visiting Turkey, but I feel this book put the spark in my mind and heart to consider it, should the opportunity arise.

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June 13, 2005

Cafés and Sketching in Madison

This past weekend my wife Gail and I had a very enjoyable Friday night and Saturday visiting Madison, Wisconsin, home to the University of Wisconsin. Gail had meetings to attend for work on Saturday, (nice of her to bring me along eh?) which meant I was free that morning to find some interesting Madison cafés.

I walked several blocks form the Hotel, on the directions of the concierge, to Dunn Bros Coffee, and was pleased to see they had free WiFi and fair trade coffee. However, the shop didn't open until 10am! What kind of coffee shop opens that late?

Fortunately, I had noted several cafe locations on my Madison map just in case. I turned up Lake street and headed to State, where I immediately saw a Starbucks. I really wanted to experience a local cafe though, So I walked up State and found a Steep and Brew, which is (I think) a local chain.

But I kept going as I knew of one more place on State that seemed like a local place, called Espresso something or another. Well, I found it, but it too was closed, even though the sign said it should have been open.

I made the decision to head back to Starbucks, where I knew could get net access and reasonably decent coffee. Before firing up the laptop, I pulled out my trusty Moleskine Sketchbook for a relaxing sketch, which you see above (click for a larger view):

The sketch started as a pencil scribble and then expanded as I moved to the Uniball Signo 207 gel pen. I intentionally keep my strokes loose at first, to try and capture the mood of the view I had from my Starbucks table.

Since the sketch might be a little unclear due to looseness, here's a brief description of the scene: I was seated at a table facing the window onto State Street, across from a Walgreens and other shops. The dark figure on the lower right is an older gent enjoying a coffee, and just outside of the window are bicycles on bike racks. You may also notice trees outside, and a woman walking down the opposite side of the street.

I was unsure how things would go when I began, but am now quite pleased with this sketch. It's a little unusual for my Moleksine style, in that it began so loosely. Generally my Moleskine pen sketches are quite tight and measured — with this sketch I tried to remain loose.

I hope you enjoy viewing the sketch as much as I did making it!

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June 4, 2005

PalmSource DevCon: Day Four

Thursday was the last full day of DevCon and I was amazed how quickly time had passed. It seemed as though I'd only arrived the day before, each event blurring into the next. It was for this very reason I'd made the effort to keep notes and (eventually) blog my experiences — so wouldn't lose my memories of DevCon.

Natara Boyz, Part II
On the ballroom level I'd staked out a table and coffee to catch up on email, and was literally replying to Bryan Nystrom's note from the evening before, when he and George walked up. I closed my Powerbook, and took advantage of some undivided time with the Natara crew.

I had a chance to ask a few more Bonsai questions and chat about other items with them, until a few fellow User Council members wandered to our table. We all had a good discussion of our DevCon impressions, up until the first talk of the day.

Dave Fedor on Smartphones
David Fedor (PalmSource) spoke on development for smartphones, which differ in many ways from traditional PDA devices. David spent time explaining PalmSource's view of the smartphone experience: more focused applications, use of d-pads and keys, constant wired access and the distinct nature of a mobile user interface.

I crept out of the next talk on selling software online, to try and get caught up on my blogging. I'd felt the urge to write, but never seemed to have any free windows in which to get writing done. So often this is the case when traveling, so I finally decided to keep detailed outlines and catch up with posts after the fact. I didn't want to miss an opportunity to meet someone by getting too hung up on recording my experiences.

Meeting Ivan Phillips
As I finished updating my outline, I noticed someone at the next table, speaking with Justine Pratt of Creative Algorithms, who I'd met earlier in the week. I introduced myself to Ivan Phillips, CEO of Pendragon Software (the guys who make Pendragon Forms). Ivan was very easy to talk with, so very quickly we shared our backgrounds. Soon we were discussing the Palm ecosystem (the new buzz word around DevCon), challenges PalmSource and Palm OS developers will likely face. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Ivan.

Lunch with Chuck Horner, Palm Fanatic
For lunch I ran into Chuck Horner, whom I'd met last year at DevCon. Chuck is a pastor of a church in Hayward, CA and a total Palm-powered fanatic. He runs both the Personal Computing Community - Palm Users Group (PCCPUG) and San Francisco Palm Users Group (SFPUG) so Chuck is a very busy guy. We had a great time catching up while munching our lunches. I'm always amazed and a little humbled each time I meet Chuck, because he has so much energy!

More User Council Meetings
Our User Council meetings started later today, and were quite good, as we met with PalmOne and PalmSource folks to listen and discuss challenges faced by both companies going forward. We had a chance to learn more about the dreaded NVFS memory issues and the solutions coming soon.

Coffee with Dan Royea
After the last two meetings, I left my gear in our private meeting room, fellow Council member Dan Royea and I snuck out for a coffee. Dan and I are both big coffee fans, so it was good to hit the local Starbucks in the walking mall behind the Fairmont for some good, dark brew.

Near the hotel we spotted the park across the street and decided to find a bench, enjoy our coffee and catch up. Sitting in the sun, enjoying good company, good coffee and good weather was just the break I needed after a busy convention week.

Dan updated me on his son (recently diagnosed with diabetes) and how well he was dealing with the changes. I shared a bit about Nathan and some of the funny stories from the past year. Dan is one of the guys I look up to as a father to emulate, because I can see how much he loves his boys. I truly appreciate his example.

Palm OS on Linux
After relaxing a while, Dan and I headed back to DevCon and slid into the Palm OS on Linux presentation by several PalmSource programmers. Most of the specifics were beyond my level of understanding, however I did get the sense that PalmSource is aiming to open up as much of the underlying Linux layer as they can. It seemed there was also a strong desire to give back improvements made by PalmSource to the Linux community, rather than an obligation to do so.

In general, I see PalmSource aiming for an OS model something like Mac OS X: building a Palm-like user experience on top of a Linux core, with as much standard stuff being used as possible. PalmSource would also generate some code for mobile use, some of which would be released back to the community (depending on where it's added or used).

Hal Schechner, the User Council's resident Linux guru said he liked what he was hearing, so I think in general most Linux minded people will be pleased with the PalmSource approach. As with anything which is still pretty conceptual, only time will tell going forward, but I think this bodes well for both Palm and Linux users and developers.

Final User Council Meeting
We had our last User Council meeting with PalmSource folks, just prior to Michael Mace's ending keynote presentation. This meeting focused on the Windows desktop experience and I think our group provided some good suggestions to the team we met with. Hopefully we'll see the results of our discussions soon.

All in all, I feel we had excellent meetings with all of the groups we met with. I thought we shared the thoughts and concerns of real users and took back some good information for the Palm user community. If anything it's good to simply be there as representatives of the users, to remind PalmSource and licensees who it is they are making products for.

Michael Mace, PalmSource Jedi Master
What can I say about Michael Mace's presentations — they're always the highlight of DevCon. If there was one presentation you don't want to miss, it's the Mace presentation. This time Michael spoke about the 3 kinds of users (actually 4) their research shows dominate mobile device use:

Communicators: interested in keeping in touch via email, IM, voice, whatever they can use to keep in touch. These users will pay a premium to do as much as is possible. They're very attached to their phones, looking at their devices almost as family members, pets or children. These users tend to lean toward smartphone devices, because they provide multiple communication options.

Information users: interested in information but not such heavy users of wireless phone, IM or email as this could be more distracting than helpful for their needs. More likely doctors, attorneys or business folks who rely more on data (local or networked) than voice or communcations.

Entertainment users: Those who are interested in mobile entertainment, such as movies, TV, music, gaming and so on. I can see how the LifeDrive will be popular with this group (though I can also see how the Sony PSP could also appeal to this group).

Basic users: These are users who simply want basic, focused features — a phone for voice and maybe SMS and camera. They won't pay for anything more than the basics. I think this is where the "Rome" project could offer a Palm OS mobile experience to standard and feature phone users.

There were videos of actual users, expressing how they felt about handhelds, smartphones and phones, amazingly, some groups were very attached to their devices, others who had a more detached relationship with devices, seeing them as business tools. I think the display of real focus group video helped send the message well — much better than Michael simply stating stats and figures. It was another excellent presentation by Michael Mace.

My Mobile Connectivity Epiphany
In my weblog posts I often talk about my work style being that of a not-very-mobile person. I work at a Mac with constant broadband access, so a Treo or other fancy phone doesn't seem practical for my regular daily needs.

My heavy use of a little Virgin Mobile pre-pay phone during the week, provided some good insight to me on how a connected mobile device could become important to someone. I was constantly using voice but even more SMS messaging, because it worked so well for connecting with others at the show and keeping in touch with Gail back home.

Even though composing SMS messages was a royal pain with my el-cheapo phone, I found myself doing it anyway, and could immediately see how addicting a Treo or other smartphone device could be for a mobile person. As the week wore on, I would simply take my little phone along, ditching the Zire, and Powerbook in the hotel room — it was enough.

Oddly enough, this experience seems to have rubbed off on me — now when I go out my phone is always on my person, even though my mobility is just as limited as before DevCon. I suppose experiencing the freedom and power of constant connection was needed for me to see how others come to rely on the connected mobile devices they carry.

Sushi with the User Council
After the show ended, the User Council gathered and walked to Smile Sushi, and excellent little sushi restaurant near the Fairmont on 86 South 1st Street in San Jose. Wow, what excellent food they offered our group of nine diners. We ordered 3 sushi combo plates and a few other items and ate like kings and queens.

I believe the owners gave us way more food than we ordered, probably pleased with a large group helping them make rent for the month. Not only were we well-fed, but it was great food. By the time we stood up from the table, we were all full for just $20 each, including tip!

Breaking the Fellowship
After a walk back to the hotel, we took a group picture, and began parting ways. A smaller sub-group of guys headed to the hotel grill to hang out a while and enjoy the California night. It was very relaxing to kick back on the patio, shoot the breeze and enjoy our last few hours basking in the fading glow of DevCon 2005.

I had an early flight the next morning, so I spent an hour on the patio before my farewells to the guys. Back in the hotel I finished packing, checked email and closed down for the night.

DevCon Summary
It's now Saturday, more than a week after DevCon, and I can still sense the energy boost from the event. I really think this year's event was special, providing hope and a spark of energy to myself and many others I spoke with.

Adoption of Linux under the hood, shifts in personnel at PalmSource and PalmOne, moving the Palm name back to the hardware side and positive networking experiences have excited me about the Palm world again. There is of course some level of "show glow" to be considered. Only time will tell how well PalmSource can parlay the Palm on Linux to developers and device makers and how their competition will react to the shift.

However, at the very least, PalmSource and PalmOne (now Palm, Inc.) have some momentum and an opportunity in a forward, upward direction. I hope that each company can capitalize on the energy and excitement at DevCon, using it to innovate and provide opportunities for developers and great devices and solutions for us users.

Thank you Larry Berkin and your staff at PalmSource for having our User Council out to the show. Thank you to the User Council members who made the week great fun. Thanks also to the old friends and new acquaintances I've met last week and readers of my blog. As much as I enjoy the technical and mental part of DevCon, the social aspect is still my favorite part of the experience.

So, until (hopefully) DevCon 2006, this is Mike Rohde. Thanks for reading!

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June 2, 2005

PalmSource DevCon: Day Three

Wednesday began with a breakfast meeting with my friends Bryan and George at Natara, and my partner in crime, Michael Ashby. I'd been looking forward to introducing the Natara boys to Michael, who I think may be the world's biggest Bonsai and DayNotez fan.

Over freshly brewed coffee, the four of us discussed the conference, PalmSource's direction with Linux, Natara products, blogging and more. Bryan has been a reader of my blog for a while now, often leaving comments here. He's also a bit of pen freak like me, and begged that I not mention any more pens on the blog, because he feels compelled to try anything I suggest. Bwahahaha! :-)

I also had a chance to get to know George a little better, and ask some detailed questions about his baby, Bonsai. As a former Brainforest and current ShadowPlan user, I was curious to see the benefits of Bonsai on the Palm. George was kind enough to do an on-site demo, and I was duly impressed. I especially like the clean user interface and several features of the app.

Of course Michael and I gently hammered on both guys about Mac sync, though I do know they have limited resources for this. Bryan is actually a Mac user, so our pleas were not lost on them. in fact they hear the same request from Mac users all the time. I know they'd love to support a Mac outliner like OmniOutliner, so we talked a bit about how Michael and I might help move that forward. The most promising solution would be a conduit, working in conjunction with The Missing Sync. We'll have to see what we can do to keep the dream alive.

Emotional Design
i was very excited about the keynote for Wednesday with Don Norman of the Nielsen Norman Group. Norman's talk centered on how emotions play a part in our reactions to the things we work with, even at the lowest levels. He touched on the importance of design, especially with the mobile devices people will carry in the future. It was an excellent talk.

I was very pleased to see a design talk integrated into the conference, especially for developers who might have the tendency to place design last in their list of tasks. I informally polled the developers and friends I spoke with about the Norman session and they all enjoyed it thoroughly — a good sign. In fact, the most impressed of my contacts were those who had low expectations for Norman's session!

The Rome Project
Larry Slotnick spoke after Don Norman, and presented the 'Rome' project from PalmSource — more or less a spec that's aimed at so-called "Feature Phones" with small screens and more phone-oriented options (d-pads, buttons and phone keys). It was good to see PalmSource embracing this space, and I do hope they can bring some of their UI expertise to this new OS variation.

LifeDrive Hands-On Experience
During Slotnick's talk, I had a chance to play around with a Life Drive owned by two of the people seated at my table, one of which was Justine Pratt of Creative Algorithms. My first concern about the LifeDrive is the size, and happily it's much less of a brick than I first feared. The shaped back of the device helps with this, though I still have to say, the size, especially the length is right at the edge of pocket-ability.

Construction of the device seemed solid, with metal case, and a nice overall tactile feel. The screen is gorgeous and the buttons and D-Pad very nicely designed. I did notice a bit of an OS lag however, as reported by others who have reviewed the device. It was pretty minimal, but noticeable, especially after coming from my speedy Zire 72.

I've heard reports of around 2.5 hours battery life at fill tilt (watching movies off the drive), longer with MP3 play and even longer for regular use. I suppose this is an achievement considering the hard drive, big screen and stagnation of battery technology in general. I think there's a built-in expectation of old Palm users that the battery should last weeks, as it used to in Palm Pilots of years ago. While I'm sure that would be wonderful, I think we old-timers need to accept that where we're going (at least for LifeDrive-like products) is going to be more laptop than a handheld-oriented in power. I wish it were otherwise, but that's the reality, at least today.

Overall, I was impressed with the LifeDrive. I think despite its imperfections, LifeDrive represents a decent first step into a space that will exist along side phone-oriented devices. While I'm still very pleased with the balanced features of my Zire 72, I could see myself enjoying a LifeDrive.

Expert Guides Luncheon
Following more User Council meetings, Jen Edwards and I met up with Eric Cloninger and Ivan Dwyer of PalmSource and Michael Yokoyama author for a lunch together. Jen, Michael and I are 3 of the many PalmSource Expert Guide authors attending DevCon, so we were invited to a lunch on PalmSource for our efforts in this area. Expert Guides are web resources at the PalmSource site aimed at helping Palm OS users find applications to achieve certain tasks, in my case, writing with a Palm-powered device.

We had a very tasty lunch at a local Thai restaurant a few blocks from the Fairmont, talking Palm-stuff (of course) and other things as well. Near the end of lunch Michael Mace stopped over and chatted with us a while. He updated us on the state of Expert Guides and his desire to continue their expansion into new areas. So, if you have a unique idea for an Expert Guide, please apply!

Meeting The Etherfarmer
Between User Council meetings, I had the pleasure of meeting fellow designer and Etherfarm blogger, Narayan Nayar. He and I have had email exchanges and have worked on a project together, so we decided to try and meet briefly in person. Using my mobile phone's SMS and voice services, Narayan and I were able to coordinate a meet up in the hotel lobby. We were able to talk about DevCon, Treos, Palm on Linux, design and Narayan's cool new corporate job in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, he had to head back to beat traffic, but I still very much enjoyed the quality time had. Thanks Narayan!

USB Drive Burners
After the User Council meetings were finished for the day, the Council was tasked with copying PDFs of the session presentations onto 350-some 128MB USB drives. The group established a little assembly line process and within 40 minutes we had the job nearly completed. We had only a minor error at the end, finding 3 USB drive caps separated from their drives. We dug through nearly every closed box to locate the 3 cap-less drives, but did complete our mission successfully. :-)

Party Time
Our timing was perfect, as the DevCon party began minutes after we'd finished our work for the day. In a private room in the hotel, a band was set to play on stage. Food and drink of all sorts was set out for the attendees, so our crew showed our DevCon badges and walked in to enjoy the fun. The food was very tasty, and the band was OK, but not spectacular.

Craig of our group was on a mission to win a new Treo 650 in the SplashBlog contest, by shooting the most photos and posting them with SplashBlog. You can check out the DevCon group SplashBlog here to see some of his shots.

Walgreens Run, Thwarted
Michael Ashby, his wife Holly and I decided to leave the party a little early to hit the local Walgreens. It was good to leave the hotel confines and get outside. Within a few minutes we'd arrived at Walgreens, which had closed at 9pm. Bummer. In fact, I think Michael and I tried this same run in 2004 to find the place closed at 9. I need to make a note to get over there earlier in 2006.

Hanging with Kerry Woo & Dave David Kendall
I grabbed by Powerbook and headed to the lobby to write and catch up on email, but ran into one of my blogkids, Kerry Woo, some folks from Motricity (PalmGear.com) and Dave Kendall chatting. Kerry convinced me to skip the laptop time for chatting (and I agreed), so we hung out for a while.

I learned more about Kerry's work and his commuting lifestyle between Nashville, Tennessee and Durham, North Carolina. Wow, what a life the guy leads, living in North Carolina and flying home every 6 weeks or so for long weekends. I don't think I could do it.

Dave Kendall leads an interesting work life at UltraSoft, working very much as I do, from home and in collaboration with others around the world. His company, UltraSoft, develops UltraSoft Money, DataShield and one of my old-time faves, Brainforest.

Both guys were very fun to talk with, each sharing great stories about their lives and Palm-related experiences. Even though we were all night owls, the fatigue of the long DevCon day set in. We called it a night around 1am (I think), to get a little sleep before getting up to do DevCon again on Thursday.

Wrapup
I was pleased to experience another fun, busy day. As the DevCon progressed into day 2, I sensed that energy and excitement levels were rising. The addition of Linux under the hood seemed to offer developers a gleam of hope for the future that just wasn't there in 2004. We'll see of that sense of hope continues Thursday and on into the following months.

And with that, I'll wrap up Wednesday's entry. Until next time...

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May 31, 2005

PalmSource DevCon: Day Two

After a busy Monday settling in a meeting old friends, I was ready on Tuesday for my first full day of the DevCon. I found coffee and settled in for the keynote, wondering what the scoop might come from outgoing PalmSource CEO David Nagel.

The Keynote
What a surprise we got, learning that PalmSource had sold rights to the "Palm" name to palmOne for some 30 million bucks. Wow. As the news sunk in though, I found myself thinking it's a good move. I constantly see and hear conversations where the whole "PalmSource vs. palmOne" naming issue truly confuses people — even long-time Palm fans. Better to move it back to the "hardware" guys where it seems to have more connection. Now PalmSource has the challenge of finding a new name that's memorable and fits their new direction.

Powered Up Award winners are announced: SplashBlog (photo blogging tool), Quicknews (RSS reader), Village Sim (Simulation game) and The Missing Sync for Palm OS (Mac OS X sync tool) and all 4 seem very worthy recipients. I actually need to investigate Missing Sync for myself, as its features are looking more and more compelling.

Chris Dunphy of PalmSource demoed the new PalmSource Installer, which can install Palm OS apps and databases via web to sync or even better, over the air (like to a Treo). I was able to play a bit beforehand with the installer and it's very nice — even supports Macs! I do hope developers embrace this new tool as I think it makes the user's life easier and therefore will likely make sales increase for developers.

Again I was surprised that Dave didn't mention his resignation directly in the keynote (though I understand he did address this announcement after I left the PUG meeting Monday). Maybe the PR guys are afraid to broach the subject or maybe Dave is reluctant to, but I think a better course would have been to embrace the facts and be straightforward with the audience. Maybe that's just me.

After the keynote, I had several User Council meetings. In general our council was very well received by both PalmSource and their licensees. While I can't share details of those meetings, the Palm community can rest assured that we're representing them well.

Meeting Justine Pratt
At a break I had the pleasure of meeting Justine of Creative Algorithms over coffee, which we'd intended to do during the week. She actually recognized me as I was heading back with coffee (one good side-effect of my picture on the blog) so we took time to connect and chat a while. I learned quite a bit about the business she and her husband run, and her connections to other Palm community folks like Sammy and Shaun. I enjoyed this chance to get to know Justine and her family's business story.

Lunch with Bob Russell
Following another set of internal meetings, I ran into Bob Russell of MobileRead.com at the lunch buffet tables. Bob and I have traded emails in the past year, so it was again nice to meet someone in person I've known only virtually. Over lunch we had a chance to share our backgrounds, interests and talk about Bob's difficult decision between a new Treo 650 and a LifeDrive.

PalmOne vs. Tapwave Stores
A friend of mine was very interested in an unlocked Treo 650 (GSM) for use in Europe, so I took a chance at 3pm to stand in the palmOne store line for about 30 minutes to pick one up. Later on I heard there was a limited supply of 50 LifeDrives (and 50 rain checks). I was fortunate to get through in about 25 minutes but some attendees waited as long as an hour and a half for devices.

The Tapwave folks also had a special deal on Zodiac packages, though sadly enough, their store was like a ghost town compared to the palmOne store. I should mention that Tapwave was selling devices earlier that day, but it was still an interesting comparison to observe.

Coffee with Russell Beattie & Ewan Spence
In the afternoon, I was able to connect with Russell Beattie, a fellow mobile device fan, blogger, and recent hire at Yahoo. He'd stopped to pick up a Zodiac at the show, and meet with Ewan Spence of AllAboutPalm.com.

Again, it was good to meet an online acquaintance in the flesh. It's always interesting to connect writing and small photos with the real people. Russ was much taller than I'd expected: my impression of him was that of a friendly, happy, mobile-minded wookie (minus the fuzzy outer coat). Ewan on the other hand, was straight out of Braveheart, complete with tartan kilt, sporran and a mediaeval shirt with a hand tied collar.

The three of us spent a little time in the hotel lobby over coffee, discussing the entire Mobile space as it related to PalmSource and palmOne. The general consensus around our table was that the Linux direction was welcomed, with some concerns about PalmSource's ability to shift quickly enough to get something compelling out the door to complete against Microsoft and Symbian.

Both guys were a complete riot to hang with and the time went entirely too quickly, but has been the case with my entire week. I'm finding that quantity of time is not so important as quality and often the most interesting discussions happen at the spur of the moment. Through this I've learned to be open at any time to chat with anyone.

Dinner & More Networking
Dinner was served in the exhibit hall, stocked with hot asian and Mexican foods to nibble on. Near one entrance stood a flowing fountain of chocolate sauce, which attendees could use to cover varied food items with a rich chocolaty coating. Dip-able food items included all sorts of fruit, pound cake, marshmallows and even chunks of Snicker bars. Mmm, good.

Spent a little time during and after dinner catching up with developers and friends, including a chat with a team working on an interesting sync solution (I hope to share more soon). It had been a long day, so it was good to retire to my room, for an evening of capturing travelogue notes, and keeping up on email before crashing for the night.

I was pleased with the meetings I was fortunate to have on Tuesday, with Justine, Bob, Russ and Ewan along with the many other folks I spoke with. Being a social person it's always a successful day when I am able to connect with others interested in similar things, like the mobile space.

Next up: Wednesday's report.

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May 27, 2005

DevCon Short Status Report

You may have noticed that I've not yet posted any of my day's entries here since Day One at the DevCon. Well, I'm here to assure you all that I am indeed planning to post on each day in detail.

This year has been a much busier one in general and that's a great thing. I've talked in person to many people I know virtually and have met many interesting folks by intent and happenstance on at the DevCon. It's actually been a blast!

The unfortunate side effect of this is a reduced opportunity to write down my experiences more regularly. But be assured that I've taken detailed notes of my days (something learned after trying to write travelogues on the road) and will be expanding those into detailed posts over the weekend.

Overall, my impression of DevCon has been very positive, particularly for PalmSource and palmOne. I sense a bit of new energy around the Linux direction that hasn't been around for a while now. We'll see if that energy is maintained going forward.

So, I am soon off to my flight and back to Milwaukee. I'll post my entries here as I find the time over the weekend and probably early next week, so stop on back.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

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May 24, 2005

Palmsource DevCon: Day One

You know it's going to be a long day when the line for the security check snakes off past the airport Starbucks cart to another concourse. On Monday I was certain this was an omen of troubles to come. I was wrong. The line through security went surprisingly quickly, though the trip to San Jose would take longer than expected.

No WiFi at the terminal, even though it was promised on several signs on the way toward my gate. No matter, I decided to start reading and preserve the battery of the Powerbook. I'd brought along my copy of Microserfs (a fave of mine) to see how well the story resonated more than 10 years later. I'm happy to report Douglas Coupland's writing is still funny and natural.

Odd Luggage & Tight Squeezes
On the way out to the plane, I saw an older gent carrying a bowling ball, complete with the original AMF cardboard box, wrapped with his baby blue ball carrier. Only in Milwaukee would you see someone with a bowling ball as a carry-on. Well, Milwaukee and Cleveland.

Stuck on a small plane to Denver. Worse yet, stuck in the most cramped front seat next to a selfish, inconsiderate businessman, who hogged the space all the way to the Mile High City. By the time we reached Denver, I had a serious crick in my shoulder from the pretzel-like shape I'd adopted. Thanks buddy. Arg!

Meeting a Cool Google Dude
In Denver I grabbed a bite to eat, and boarded a Boeing 757 (thank the Lord!), ended up sitting next to a very cool guy from Google. We had quite a bit in common, chatting most of the way to Denver. He didn't share any top-secrets with me, though we had a good discussion on why I liked Google, on software tools, trends on technology, jazz, web and logo design, blogging, podcasting and more. I always enjoy being seated next to interesting people.

Got to San Jose at least 15 minutes late, due to headwinds. At the baggage claim I received two messages; one from User Council co-member Jen (PocketGoddess) and a second from Renee that David Nagel had resigned. Yow! I wondered what was up, with Nagel calling it quits on the eve of PalmSource's big DevCon.

Jen and I shared a cab into the Fairmont, where we checked in without fanfare. It felt good to be back at the hotel where I'd built good memories the year before. This time I'm in a 9th floor room, with a nice view of San Jose and prime viewing of incoming jets. I dunno if it's just me, but the low-flying jets over high-rise buildings freaks me out slightly. Must be a 9-11 thing.

Settled into the room, then connected with my partner in crime, Michael Ashby and his wife Holly. They had spent a nice anniversary weekend around Carmel and along the coast, enjoying some wonderful food, great wine and gorgeous scenery.

The DevCon Login
Next we were off to the DevCon to sign in and get our packets. The PalmSource backpack made a comeback this year, with a slightly different design and a bunch of items packed inside. I was most interested in an Audible coupon for one month of free subscription service. I'll have to sign up for an audiobook for the long trip home.

Michael stopped over to do his stint with the Computer Outlook Radio Show guys, John and Rich, just before their live show began at 5. If you're interested in hearing PalmSource's Larry Berkin, the director of DevCon and Kenny West of PalmGear, check out the audio archive (5.9MB MP3) of the segment. Actually, Computer Outlook is featuring folks from PalmSource all week long, so check out the Computer Outlook streaming archives and PalmSource's own podcast feed.

Nagel Resigns: Some Reasons, Maybe?
While hanging about, I learned that at least part of David Nagel's decision to step down as CEO was related to the declining health of his wife (due to cancer). Knowing this tidbit does put the news into perspective. I hope Mr. Nagel and PalmSource come right out and share this reason to cut the speculation going on and to be real with users, investors and developers. I admire Mr. Nagel for giving his family priority.

Ahhh, WiFi...
I finally had a chance to get connected to WiFi in the lobby. I'd hoped to catch someone's free signal in the hotel room, but I had no such luck. Well, at least on the DevCon floor, WiFi floods the airspace and is free for the absorbing.

Met my fellow User Council members down in the lobby and had a chance to catch up a bit in person. Oddly enough, we chat regularly in our IRC channel, so it's less a matter of catching up than it is show and tell with new devices and software. Geeks and their toys. :-)

Palm User Group Meeting
We all headed up for the Palm User Group meeting, sponsored by PalmSource and several developers. Saw several marketing spiels (the giveaways are always left for the end of the event). Dave Nagel spoke at the event, but made no mention of his resignation nor any of the reasons why he was resigning. Hmm. I really wished he'd said something directly about the issue — this pretending there's no elephant in the room seems the wrong tack in the Cluetrain age. C'mon PalmSource, get real with us!

Left early for a private dinner the User Council folks, myself and several others attended at a nearby restaurant. We were all a bit bummed to lose out on the freebie swag, but hey, you can't do it all. Dinner was quite good, with many interesting discussions and of course, good food. I enjoyed the best tiramisu I've tasted, since visiting Germany 4 years ago. Yum!

Back at the hotel I stopped down to the lobby to run a last check of email, where I met a woman from Cingular's developer division, who was trying to get her laptop on the WiFi network. She'd received some bogus info from someone at PalmSource (wrong SSID name) so I helped her sort things out. Had a nice chat about what we both did, and had a chance to share some info on SnapperMail which seemed suited to their enterprise focus. I love these kinds of spontaneous social meetings. in my opinion, these types of meetings are one of the best things about DevCon.

End of a Good, Long Day
And so it's begun, DevCon 2005. It seems the Palm OS on Linux should be the big deal at the event. I do hope PalmSource can finally clarify their OS strategy for developers and users. Having so many variations of their OS out in the wild really confuses people about what's what. Even I, who should know the intricacies of the OS variants feel pretty clueless, which is not good. I hope the next few days will provide a clear picture of where PalmSource is heading in the future.

I'll post a new entry tomorrow on my experiences on Tuesday. And be sure to check out other blog sites in the previous post, who are doing a much better job than I am with the latest scoops and technical details.

Until tomorrow...

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November 4, 2004

Cafe Bag Discovery

Mike's Cafe Bag Last weekend I stumbled across a great new bag while creating an Indiana Jones costume for a party on Saturday. I wanted to share the details of my new "Cafe Bag" bag, in case you might be interested in picking one up for yourself.

First, I should offer my definition of a so-called "Cafe Bag" eh? It's a bag large enough to hold multiple 8.5x11 or A4 papers, sketchbooks or magazines, deep enough for library book toting or reference book carrying. It should also accommodate pencils, pens and other such items. I call it a Cafe Bag, since it's primarily used to carry my gear to the cafe for writing, sketching or reading over coffee.

As a home-office worker, I've found the change of atmosphere while working at a cafe helps turn on my creative juices. At other times, I'm just tired of the home office and need a change of scenery. Sometimes I'll bring along the Powerbook, but more often than not, I prefer analog tools such as a sketchbook or notebook, or on occasion, my Dana Wireless.

My Cafe Bag is a surplus US Army Map Case, bought from a local surplus and sporting goods store store for $12. It's constructed of heavy-duty 22 ounce cotton canvas and measures 12" tall x 8.5" wide x 4.5" deep. The spacious main compartment has a sewn-in divider and a flap with two snaps to secure the contents. There are even weather flaps at the top of the compartment to seal it from the elements.

A pocket is sewn onto the front interior part of the bag (and is the spot where the flap buttons snaps to) complete with an elastic pen and pencil holder. Mike as Indy The bag has a single strap, attached by swiveling snaps to the back, so it can be worn over the shoulder or across the shoulder, messenger-style.

I've found that this bag can hold quite a bit of gear, because it expands up to 4.5 inches. The width and height are also perfect for carrying larger magazines (like Wired) or my Dana Wireless. I suspect smaller 12" Powerbooks and iBooks might fit in this bag, though I don't know if a Powerbook plus a padded shell would fit. I need to check the Apple Store to verify this some evening.

I've located similar Canvas Map Cases on the net, including Camping Survival.com, SoldierCIty, Frank Bee, Fatigues Army Navy, though local surplus stores may also have them.

So far I've been very pleased with my bag, so I can highly recommend this one if you can make use of a small, tough, flexible and very inexpensive bag.

Visit Travelogue.net for travel writing and helpful resources

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Cafe Bag Discovery

I've located similar Canvas Map Cases on the net, including Camping Survival.com, SoldierCIty, Frank Bee, Fatigues Army Navy, though local surplus stores may also have them.

So far I've been very pleased with my bag, so I can highly recommend this one if you can make use of a small, tough, flexible and very inexpensive bag.

Visit Travelogue.net for travel writing and helpful resources

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August 2, 2004

Post Vacation Observations

Our family had a very nice vacation break last week, driving to Western Pennsylvania (New Wilmington to be exact) for our yearly New Wilmington Missionary Conference experience. My wife has been a conference attendee the conference over 20 years, my own attendance is now at 6 years.

As usual, It was refreshing and relaxing and provided some time away from the daily grind to think about things I might not normally consider. So, what follows is a collection of random thoughts which percolated to the surface last week mixed in with thoughts about the weblog redesign, etc.

Disconnection Feels Good
While I carried along a laptop, mobile phone and PDA, I found myself enjoying freedom from those devices very much. I checked emails only once per day and for several days didn't check at all, leaving the laptop idle in my bag.

The only broadband connection occurred via free WiFi, at new little local cafe in town called Mugsies, where I could grab and send email or surf the web for free, while enjoying a coffee. Even then, laptop use at Mugsies was quite limited — I found it handy, but in no way was I interested in sitting for hours on the web. I liked having the option, but had no interest in what I do every week day, back home.

Of all things, I happened to forget the charger for my mobile phone, which meant it stayed off and in our room most of the week, though I did find even at low battery level, I could make calls in an emergency.

The Tungsten E became a reading tool for some weblogs and Le Tour sites I like to grab via iSilo. Again, since the laptop was mainly parked in my bag, using the TE for reading only happened a few evenings during the week.

I was pleased with my limited use of technology — it was freeing to not feel compelled to be online all the time. I was able to maintain touch if I wanted, but in the end, chose mainly to remain disconnected. Maybe the Amish, who live around New Wilmington had some subconscious effect on me.

The Grapes of Wrath
Besides spending time with my family and conference friends, I took time to continue reading The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck's novel is quite a good read, though I admit it took time to settle into his written version of 'Okie' slang that the Joad family speak in.

I'd started the book in the spring and lost track of it following PalmSource DevCon 2004, only to find it prior to our vacation. I was pleased to get back into the book again, finding the story interesting, shocking and challenging.

In a nutshell, the Joad family is uprooted by landowners on their Oklahoma farm, and are forced to migrate to California in hope of work and a life there. The Grapes of Wrath chronicles their story and of other migrants flowing to the West in the 1930s in search of a new life. I'm now nearly done, and can't wait to see the end of the story. One could safely say, I'm liking this book.

If you haven't read the book yet, or were forced to in school, I can highly recommend it. The story offers readers a great opportunity to experience first hand what hard times, forced travel and the migrant life might have been like, while displaying what dignity, kindness and being a human being is about.

Road Trips
I've discovered again that I really enjoy road trips. I dislike all of the preparation for a road trip (either direction), but once I'm on the road, I'm happy to drive, as long as good coffee, good tunes or a book on tape is there.

We listened to music and books, but most impressive was Thomas Cahill's How The Irish Saved Civilization. I was amazed to learn about the ancient world and how the Irish made copies of important documents just prior to the dark ages of Europe. Who knows where these documents might be if not for them. Not surprisingly, this little book revived interest in ancient Rome, St. Augustin and St. Patrick, because of their roles in history.

Unfortunately, it also saddened me to realize how much of the ancient world's literature was lost over the centuries, in spite of the Irish and their work.

Finally, road trips make hospitality shine like a jewel when it's encountered. I was encouraged, feeling the friendliness of strangers traveling with us. In one case, a man pointed out my accidentally dropped wallet at a rest stop, in another, I had a nice chat with a woman walking small puppy that my son wanted to pet, about kids and animals.

I think the largest example of road hospitality was that of my brother Steve and his family (Janet and Max), who offered to have us stay the night at their house after 8 hours on the road from PA. We'd only intended a short stay, but resting seemed a better option. We were treated to generous hospitality, and fun time together. It reminded me how nice a safe place for a traveler is, and challenged me to be ready to offer hospitality when the opportunity rises at our house.

Rohdesign Redesign
My last item is the redesign of my site, which happily had no progress over vacation. I'm now excited about completing the process, building the site and learning as I go along. I plan to have a detailed update at the end of the week.

Thanks to everyone who's stopped by to visit. I will be back in the swing of regular blogging once the redesign is posted... soon. :-)

Have a great week everyone!

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February 13, 2004

PalmSource DevCon: Day Three

Today is my last day at the DevCon. Since I'm booked on a red-eye flight back home tonight, packing up all my gear and checking out was on this morning's agenda, right after a call to Gail and Nathan. I learned that things back home were going well, which is always a great way to start the day.

I had a bit fatter bag to pack for the trip home, so I got busy. Fortunately I had my favorite L.L. Bean nylon suitcase along, which zips out to accommodate more stuff. This $20 soft-sided suitcase was purchased from the L.L. Bean outlet in Maine on our honeymoon. It's my bag of choice for travel, because it's so tough and flexible. Once I was packed up, I made my way to the desk to check out.

The "workday" began with a meeting in our User Council room, followed by a walk down to the ballroom for a special session with David Nagel, CEO of PalmSource and Jeff Hawkins of PalmOne, (inventor of the Pilot). Nagel asked Hawkins all sorts of interesting questions about his work over the years. Hawkins was as engaging as ever, providing thoughtful and funny replies. I get the sense Jeff really is a "regular guy" underneath that visionary exterior. :-)

When Jeff was asked what has motivated him to do what he's done for the handheld industry, he spoke about how early on he knew mobile computing was the way of the future, but wasn't quite sure where it might lead. At the time he began, the "connected organizer" was really just his first step in a longer term vision of a device that could be with you all the time, carrying all of your critical information locally or on a network.

Jeff made a comment something to the effect of "making handhelds is like batting in baseball. If you get a hit every third at bat, you're doing pretty well." I thought this was a good analogy to what in fact Hawkins' track record has been. The Pilot was his third at bat (and a success) and the Treo 600 is a third generation device, that seems quite popular.

From what I've seen of the Treo 600 and its users, this device is very nice. I know that the Treo 180 had great integration between the PDA and Phone capabilities, so I suspect this has improved in the 600. Apparently the 5-way pad makes one handheld use of the Treo a wonderful experience. Orange in the UK is apparently pleased with the Treo 600, claiming that it's the best selling phone they currently have. I thought the industrial design was also well-done... the Treo 600 feels great in the hand and is much more workable (and less geeky) than the original 1XX and 2XX series Treos.

Hawkins also talked about moving the industry forward in small steps; that you aren't going to change the world with a single product, but if you can move the industry closer to where you want to go, that's a success.

When asked about competing platforms like Symbian, Microsoft and BREW, he talked about how they're much less flexible with regards to what can be done with their OSes. Since PalmOne sees their way to differentiate in customized software, this was a significant issue. He also mentioned that these other platforms were much more focused on building "platforms" rather than building "great products" -- something he and his team are very keen on doing.

Hawkins talked about many other topics, but his funniest comment came when Nagel asked him about his interest in brain research. He talked about what he's doing in that area and how for him, building handheld computers has financed his brain work:

"Other people wait on tables, I build handheld computers."

After the session ended, Michael Ashby and I had a chance to chat with Ryan Kairer of Palm Infocenter for a little while. I hadn't realized it, but Ryan is actually doing PIC as his full time gig, which is very good to hear! It's always good to hear people doing what they love.

Immediately after the session, Mashby had to leave for his flight back to Nashville. We said our goodbyes, though we'll of course be in touch online. One great thing about the Internet is, friends may part in person but can keep in close touch online.

The bulk of my day consisted of Palm OS User Council meetings, which all went very well. Our Palm OS Handheld Survey results (presented to PalmSource and licensees) were received well and seemed to be taken seriously. In fact, it's good to note that several of the most common wishes and gripes from the survey seem to be addressed in Palm OS Cobalt. I think the future of Palm OS is going to be quite an interesting ride.

I was very disappointed in the announcement that Mac OS will no longer be supported by PalmSource on Cobalt devices. It looks like PalmSource has decided that Mac support is not their focus with a limited amount of manpower and money. Of course I can understand their reasoning for the decision, but I still dislike it. The Missing Sync, which will apparently fill the gap (and is a very nice solution) requires Mac user to spend another $30-40 just to sync a Cobalt-based device. Argghhh!

Apparently, the good run of luck for Mac users (probably generated by ex-Apple employees and Mac users at PalmSource) has run out of gas. In a discussion with my friend Andy, I wondered if Mac support had always been subsidized and never profitable for PalmSource. Now with tighter budgets and Microsoft and Nokia coming on strong, that subsidization may be unrealistic. Throw The Missing Sync into the mix and you can see PalmSource's possible thinking here. It's at least a reasonable guess.

It's also very important to know why PalmSource has dropped direct Mac support. From what I've read in the technical whitepaper PDF provided by Mark/Space, the old Mac HotSync tool couldn't handle the new XML databases of Cobalt nor the larger than 64k chunks of data it needs to sync with the Mac. It's possible that Mac support for PalmSource might have meant a complete ground-up rewrite of the Mac HotSync tool, which would be no trivial task.

One ray of hope is that all licensees can provide Mac support via The Missing Sync. I would hope makers of Cobalt devices would see Mac users as attractive and provide a Lite OEM version of Missing Sync in the box, with the offer of a fanicer, more powerful Pro version from Mark/Space. However, if a Missing Sync Lite version cannibalizes the sales of the full version, maybe this isn't so attractive to Mark/Space.

Maybe a coupon for a reduced cost download of The Missing Sync would be more realistic. At the very least, licensees could offer a copy of The Missing Sync thrown into the box with a Cobalt device for additional cost, saving the additional step of downloading or ordering the software from Mark/Space.

But my larger concern with PalmSource dropping direct Mac sync support is what this might signal to other Palm OS developers. Will they be more likely to drop Mac conduits for their products now? Maybe the way out of this is a wireless sync approach. If Cobalt devices come standard with WiFi or Bluetooh (or both) would it be better to have direct sync over these wireless protocols than to build platform-specific HotSync conduits? Hmmm.

If you happen to be a Mac-Palm user, please send me your thoughts on PalmSource's decision (with Palm/Mac Support in the subject line). I'll be sending a summary report of the Mac community's reaction to this news about Mac support being dropped to PalmSource, and would love your thoughts on the matter.

As the day wore on, Our group of 7 User Council members began to dwindle. Greg Gaub, Craig Froehle and Jennifer Shelamer all departed by 6:30. The remainder of our crew, which included Dan Royea and Renee Roberts (also User Council members), and Mike Waldron of Bits n' Bolts Software, paid a visit to the Valley Fair Mall in Cupertino. We wanted to to have a peek at the PalmOne Café and get a bite to eat. The Café seemed decent: people were actually checking out the tethered handhelds on display at multiple tables. (no, they didn't offer Lattes).

Dinner was fast-food fare, though here in California that includes sushi (which I happened to have). Dan had a similar selection of sushi and when he pointed at his sushi and gave me a look, I thought he liked it as much as I did. Nope, he said it was average. I guess I'm just a land-lubber, sushi newbie. :-)

We made our last visit to the hotel to drop off Dan and Mike, then Renee kindly dropped me off at San Jose International. The airport is a ghost town at night, though my check-in agent said Thursdays are crazy, since everyone wants to get a jump on Friday travel. I was glad to be flying out Wednesday night. I found a seat near an AC outlet. O' Happy joy!

I was reminded of the cold winter I was returning to as we walked into the cool night to board the plane home. The San Jose evening was very pleasant but cool enough to wash away my expectations of a warm Thursday morning. I was still happy to be going home, but wished I could bring a few nice days back to Milwaukee for Gail and Nathan. Oh well.

2004-02-13
Now it's Friday, and I'm tuning up and tweaking my last DevCon travelogue post. I did try to get this last one out on Wednesday, but my schedule was too busy and my mind and body were too tired after three intense days and a red eye flight home. In the end it seemed better to provide good entry a little later rather than rushing the post out early.

All in all, it's been another great DevCon. I was very pleased to have met so many new people this time 'round, including Bryan, George, Lonnie and Zane. I think these conventions become much more enjoyable when you look forward to meeting old and new friends, so next year (should I have the good opportunity to return) should be a blast.

I hope you have enjoyed these travelogues. Sometimes I wonder what interest readers will have in the small details of my trip. Maybe none. Yet it is sometimes the case that things I don't think are interesting at all, are to others. Well, at least it's a good writing exercise and record of the week. :-)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Update 2004-02-19: MobileWhack Dispatch Day Three has now been posted.

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February 11, 2004

PalmSource DevCon: Day Two

From my room on the 17th floor I was treated to a gorgeous sunrise over San Jose this morning. That's one advantage to being from a time zone two hours ahead: waking at 6 but feeling like it's 8. Problem is, being set artificially behind 2 hours eventually catches up with you.

After enjoying my sunset, I placed a call home to talk with my wife Gail and to talk at Nathan. I say "talk at" because Nathan doesn't quite get how phones work yet and much prefers playing with the buttons on the phone to listening to this voice that sounds like daddy. One day he'll get it.

Prior to the first keynote of the day, I was privileged to meet with Bryan and George from Natara Software (makers of Day Notes, Bonsai, Project@Hand, etc.) over breakfast. I had hoped to take them to the 1950s diner Mashby and I discovered last night, right behind the Fairmont hotel, but alas, it was closed. Breakfast in the hotel restaurant was just fine though, and so was the conversation.

Bryan and George are great guys, creating wonderful software for many happy Palm users. It was nice to hear about how Natara was started and what they've been up to (it's all good stuff). Turns out that Bryan is a reader of my weblog, so it was fitting that our breakfast get together came about through that. (Thanks Bryan and George; I had a great time!)

After breakfast it was off to find my fellow User Council colleagues. I found them congregating outside the PalmOne store, set to open at 9. Craig and Greg both picked up handhelds, and I was sorely tempted by a T3 for $199. In the end my practical side won out, especially since I really do like my TE, and that Gail and I can share peripherals and cables with each other.

David Nagel's keynote was good, and in it he announced the official names for Palm OS 5 (Garnet) and Palm OS 6 (Cobalt). Not too bad actually. I like the elemental approach for naming, though Starsky and Hutch would have been much more fun.

Highlights included information and some brief screenshots and demos of Cobalt, which look quite good. I was excited to hear that the PIM apps will be tabbed, have more than 15 categories and no 4k limit on text. Apparently the PalmSource PIM apps will offer many of the features already introduced in the PalmOne PIM apps, for other licensees.

Also interesting were Sliplets, which are more or less pop-up applets. Basically a Sliplet can do things like check stock prices or control things on the device. I can imagine these being very useful in the hands of creative developer.

There was also a toolbar along the base of the screen, somewhat similar to the PalmOne toolbar on the T3 and the Zodiac's toolbar. We only saw brief snippets of this in action, but again this looks good. However, I do imagine the icons in the toolbar will be highly regulated since space is still at a premium.

Palm Powered Awards were handed out and I was happy to see C.E. Stuart Dewar win for Datebk5 and NormSoft win for Pocket Tunes. All of the apps represented were great choices but I was particularly happy to see these two great developers honored.

In both David Nagel and Larry Slotnick's talks, there was mention of Nokia buying Psion's share in Symbian yesterday as great news for PalmSource. The big reason being, Nokia is now going to face challenges selling Symbian to handhset makers like Motorola and Siemens when they as the OS owners are also the chief competitors. Pretty ironic that the situation in which Nokia and Symbian find themselves now, is the very one that PalmSource has spent several years digging themselves out of.

Unfortunately, I am no developer, so once Larry Slotnick got deeply into abstraction layers and protected memory spaces, I was a deer in the headlights. I decided to take a bathroom break and stretch my legs until the session was nearly over. I had a second reason for the walk too -- it was cold as a meat locker in the hotel! I had to get some blood pumping and hot coffee to my extremities before they started turning blue! ;-)

Our group of User Council members headed up to our private meeting room to prepare for visits from PalmSource and their licensees, setting up the projector and our laptops. My OS X Powerbook actually came in handy, as I was able to setup an ad hoc WiFi access point for my Windows-using buddies, using the room's broadband connection. Mac OS X saves the day!

It was then off to lunch downstairs. I'd touched base with Lonnie Foster, and crossed paths with him as we waited in line, working out a lunch meeting. We had a nice discussion about his Palm OS Programming Bible work, his personal life and day job. Quite nice to finally meet a fellow blogger! (Thanks for your time Lonnie!)

I also crossed paths with R. Zane Rutledge, on the way up to the meeting room. We promised to meet up later that day, somewhere, someplace.

Our meetings went very well with PalmSource and their Palm OS licensees. We presented our findings from a recent survey we completed with the community of online Palm and non-Palm users. Our findings were well received, as was our feedback to them on questions they had for us.

After our meetings, it was downstairs to the big PUG meeting and party. Several high profile Palm folks spoke, including David Nagel of PalmSource, Kenny West of PalmGear and many others. Got to see the new Sony devices from afar and also a demo of the TH55 calendaring application, which was intriguing. Handwritten writing on the new Clie calendar looked to be vector based, but i can't verify this. Have to see if I can manage a close up demo on Wednesday.

At the end of the meeting a drawing was held (I didn't win a thing) but R. Zane Rutledge did and after the meeting I approached him to take him up on our promise to chat. We followed the crowd to the Cobalt launch party in the nearby ballroom and had a great discussion about Palm gaming, film, creativity and many other topics. It was again fun to meet a fellow blogger and discuss ideas we both had been mulling. (Thanks for the great discussion Zane!)

I'm now very pleased to have met all three people I'd intended to meet before leaving Milwaukee. I had been worried that time would be too tight, but in the end, all three contacts fit right into my schedule, all on the same day. Incredible! :-)

So, as my time zone begins to catch up with me again, I find my will to write is waning. Looks like the Mobile Whack Dispatch will have to wait until morning now.

Until Wednesday...

Update 2004-02-15: MobileWhack.com Dispatch Day Two has been posted.

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February 10, 2004

PalmSource DevCon: Day One

And we're off! Things have progressed smoothly today. As I write this, I'm presently lounging in the Milwaukee terminal awaiting the boarding of my first flight. There was a spectacular cattle-riffic crowd at the security check-in this morning, so I was happy to have arrived extra early for my flight. I much prefer time to relax a bit if possible, in this case it afforded me time to enjoy a coffee and breakfast, sketch the plane and do a little writing here.

It was quite gusty at takeoff, causing the tail of the plane to fishtail pretty wildly. For a moment, my mind drifted back to my younger days, driving my old '70 Chevy in fresh snow, spinning out the rear end. Once we hit cruising altitude, the joyride ended.

Had a pleasant surprise boarding the flight in Chicago. I heard a voice calling "Mike! Mike!" and when I turned to face the call, saw Craig Froehle, a fellow Palm OS User Council member, boarding the flight. We ended up across the aisle from each other on the flight to San Jose, which provided us with a good chunk of face to face time.

Craig had his Zodiac 2 along, which I had a chance to play with. Wow, what a nice bit of hardware! The video performance is very good, games are impressive and the audio quality is top notch. According to Craig, his battery life matches the hardware specs, giving him 3 to 3.5 hours of solid gaming time. Craig's only major complaint was a freaky analog controller that seems to have a mind of its own. It randomly steers to the top right... ghost in the machine. Hopefully he can swap his Z2 for a new unit at the DevCon.

Upon departing the plane, and experiencing the spring-like weather of San Jose, Craig announced he was officially "fed up with winter!" I heartily agreed. On the way to lunch, we stopped at a little hi-tech shop in the airport terminal, and checked out the new Panasonic SD Video/Still cameras. Wow! These little devices, about the size of a Palm handheld, can shoot MPEG 4 video straight to the SD card. With an A/V cradle, they can import and record video input (TV, DVD, whatever). Think portable TiVo.

After lunch and a meet up at the baggage claim with Michael Ashby, the three of us headed to the Fairmont hotel by cab. Greg Gaub from the User Council met us at the hotel. After settling in, the three of us paid a visit to Subway so Michael could get a bite to eat. While at the booth in the Subway store, I saw something slightly freaky -- a customer in line with a gold plated M-16 automatic rifle on a gold chain around his neck. "Yes sir, you certainly can have those cucumbers for free!"

Back to the Fairmont and time to register for the DevCon. There was no backpack given out this year, as it had been replaced by a sporty blue pullover jacket (with cotton lining). PalmSource must have been concerned about the multitude of backpacks given to delegates in prior years. I guess it was time for something new. While these jackets are slightly geeky (you can spot 'em from 30 yards away), they are quite nicely made.

To end the evening, it was off to a dinner with several PalmSource people, members of the Palm OS User Council and other various handheld people from the community. After a nice time of dining, we all sat around and chatted about tech and Palm-related topics.

I was especially pleased to finally meet Chuck Horner of the PCCPUG Palm User Group (East San Francisco Bay area). We had intended to meet last year, while I was still running the Tipsheet, but it never worked out. We had a nice time discussing a variety of topics, including some great input Chuck had offered to iambic about Agendus features.

One thing that always impresses me about these conferences, is the passion of the attendees. Our after-dinner discussions touched on many high-tech topics, including wireless access to data and what's being done of late. One person talked about MP3 streaming to Treo 600s, another about hard drives in devices of the future, about WiFi, bluetooth personal area networks and more. I'm constantly buoyed by these excellent discussions, especially in tough economic times, because it gives me hope for the future.

And now I'm back in my room, posting my first travelogue report from San Jose on my weblog. There's high-speed net access in the rooms, and WiFi in the lobby areas, which is incredibly handy for things like this. And so ends the first day of DevCon. I'm heading to bed now, but I'll post a new report tomorrow, hopefully with some interesting new info.

Until Tuesday...

Update 2004-02-10: MobileWhack.com Dispatch Day One has been posted.

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December 5, 2003

Vagabonding

There's a wonderful weblog/site I came across a few months back called Vagabonding, that I pop over to check out from time to time to read the latest posting. I visited the site today and noticed that the author has now come home after a year vagabonding, so I thought this would be a great time to mention it.

As a backgrounder, Vagabonding is a travelogue weblog by Mike Pugh, a Chicagoan who's very fond of world travel. Mike took an entire year to travelled through Asia and Africa while carrying a small contingent of tech items (laptop, videocam, digital cam, etc.) with which to record his experiences and post them at the site. Mike's site is gorgeous and easy to navigate; clean and simple with lots of nice imagery.

But what makes a travelogue site special is the writing, and Mike's writing is superb. He has the knack of capturing his environment and sharing stories as if you were tagging along, two things I really enjoy about good travel writing.

Here's a little sample of a near-mugging in Durban, South Africa:

"A young man approached me on the sidewalk with an outstretched hand and said, "My friend." No chance, son, I thought. I know the friendly handshake trick; you've got something to sell, be it a trinket or a sob story, and I want none of it. I maneuvered around him and continued walking.
I sensed something was amiss a half block later. I glanced back and saw the young man and his friend following a few paces behind. I stopped, put my back against a storefront, and let them go by. They slowed to a stroll. One of them nodded to a man further up the sidewalk. Two more men came from the other direction; they were looking at me.

Something was up. But could all these guys be in on it? Who was who?

I wasn't going to stick around to find out. I made to cross the road right where I was. I checked for cars and started walking.

A man in a floppy brown hat blocked me. He placed his right hand lightly – almost delicately – on my left shoulder. With his left hand he flipped out a rusty four-inch blade and pressed it to my chest. I looked down at the knife dumbly, and then up at the man's eyes; I didn't really see either.

It was noon – lunchtime – on a beautiful spring day. The sun was directly overhead. Cars went by. People were all around. How can this be happening?

I felt someone try to wrestle my messenger bag off my back. The man with the knife said something in English, but his words didn't register.

I wasn't thinking. I was running."

Really well done! I appreciate the level of detail that Mike has poured into his website project -- travelogues, photos and movies -- they are all top quality and seem to draw mew back again and again.

In fact, I've now turned the archives page into a nice iSilo document so that I can read through all of Mike's Vagabonding travelogue entries on my Palm. I can't wait to start digging in tonight! ;-)

I appreciate that Mike has decided to put his trip out there for anyone to see, read and enjoy. I think he's done a superb job of bring the story back for his site visitors, but more importantly Mike has been a lone ambassador to everyone he's met and befriended along his route. Thanks Mike!

Hopefully, Mike's year-long travels will convince readers who might be on the fence about a trip somewhere, to go for it. I know that my travels have significantly changed my own perspective of the world and those who live in it. If you happen to be someone who's considering travel, I highly recommend it.

Further, if you are planning to travel, write a journal! I always encourage travel journals (paper, PDA or weblog, whatever) because you must capture your thoughts shortly after you have them. I can say for certain that trips on which I didn't do a journal have been lost in my collective memory, while those on which I've travelogued have remained very clear in my memory.

So, go check out Vagabonding. It's a great example of how the web and weblog can become a valuable resource when in the hands of a creative, dedicated person.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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November 19, 2003

Great Bike Tour Travelogue

Mashby Goes Biking. If you've read my weblog for a while now, you'll recall that not only do I love reading a good travelogue, I enjoy writing them as well. I think my love of good travelogues are experiencing another person's observations of the places they visit and their experiences in the new environment's context. My all-time favorite travel writer is Paul Theroux, because he tells a great story and writes vivid accounts of the places he visits. That combination, when done well, can make me as a reader feel as if I were along for the ride.

Today, as I do every day, I loaded up the weblog of my buddy and fellow Palm OS USer Council member, Michael Ashby (Mashby) and saw that he's posted his Natchez Trace bilking travelogue and photo collection. I knew about Mashby's bike tour plans because he tried to convince me to join him. As fun as it sounded, the timing just wasn't right, but I kept Michael in mind then on, knowing what he was facing.

Anyway, Mashby survived his trip but I was chomping at the bit to read his account and was rewarded today with his first postings. After reading through post 01.07, I came to realize just what a great storyteller Mashby really is. He shared his doubts and fears, physical challenges, local history, personal backstory and even joked about the horde of electronic gizmos he'd regretted hauling as he hit fierce headwinds like a brick.

I love this bit:

"OH MY STARS was this heavy. As soon as I moved Juliet away from the wall I knew that this was more weight than what I trained with. How much heavier? DOUBLE. Clearly the computer junk I had thrown in the panniers was nothing like what the final load ended up being. Flashbacks to my first month in the European tour flashed in my mind. I spent a month in some incredible pain as my legs adjusted to the load I was carrying back then. Would this tour have my legs crying the whole time?"

Hee hee! Oh man, I can just imagine the look on Michael's face at that point! This is what I love about reading good travelogues... you get not only the description of the event, but also an experiential and visual image of the event and teller.

Anyway, just wanted to provide a little encouragement and exposure for Michael Ashby, who I admire greatly for what he's done on his bike tour. I can't wait until his full account is posted, and hope he bundles the travelogue into a nice downloadable e-book in Palm Reader, iSilo and Palm Doc formats.

Congratulations buddy -- well done!! :-)

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July 1, 2003

Queen's Cup Sailabration

This Friday, my wife Gail, Andy (our houseguest), and I had the great opportunity to go on a sailing adventure in Lake Michigan. Andy had located a special boat trip called the Queen's Cup Sailabration, onboard old style wooden tall ship called the S/V Denis Sullivan and invited us along while he visited Milwaukee. Normally the Sullivan offers sailing tours of the Milwaukee harbor and lakefront but this package was a bit different. Details were sketchy on their website, so I rang the office.

During my call, I learned that the Sailabration package was a spot on the race committee boat for the Queen's Cup sailing race, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Muskegon, Michigan. The Queeen's Cup is actually one of the oldest sailing races in the world (since 1855), making this the 148th running. Funnily enough, not one of the committee members we asked knew which queen the race was in honor of.

So, we headed for the lakefront at 2 p.m. in the afternoon, with only a slight idea what we were in for on this excursion. There was a little confusion at Pier Wisconsin's office locating someone with our tickets. However, our persistance paid off, and we clarified all of the needed details for the trip and for parking. A little while later we were underway on the Sullivan, motoring for the starting point of the Queen's Cup.

Regarding the S/V Denis Sullivan, it's a recently built wooden tall ship, made in the old style of shipbuilding. I remember reading about this craft while it was being constructed; it took several years but I must say, the builders did a wonderful job. The vessel is made mostly of wood, with metal here and there. Very analog.

Of course, there were modern items on board, such as GPS, radios, a diesel engine and other items, though the majority of the ship is quite traditional. Masts were all solid wood (crafted from some seriously massive trees) as were the block and tackle and the deck. Even the anchor hoist was of old-style design, with hand crank ffor raising and lowering the anchors and chains. All in all this is a beautiful craft.

Rainbow Racing We anchored in the chosen spot and the committe of the race began their praprations. We watched as they test-hoisted race flags and prepared the shotguns for race starts. Soon, the time approached for the first race to start -- which was accompanied by a huge squall that approached rapidly from the western shore of Milwaukee and hit the Sullivan just at starting time. We remained on deck and donned our foul weather jackets as the rain blasted the ship.

I was assigned photgraphy duties by one of the committee members, and through the rain I managed to shoot a few pictures of the start. Once I had a decent amount of shots taken, Gail, Andy and I all went below deck for a break from the rain, along with our packs. There we chatted while the race committee got drenched while officiating the race.

10 minutes later we returned to the deck, when we learned that the sun was out and the rain had ended. Upon exiting the lower decks, a huge rainbow had emerged, creating a gorgeous backdrop on the lake. We all worked feverishly to get shots of racing sailboats and rainbows while the moment lasted.

As the day's races continued, starts improved. It seems the less-experienced sailors started first while more experienced sailors started last in the sequence. In the first few race starts there were many illegal start line crossings (requiring the offending boat to circle back for a short time as a penalty) while in later starts, more experienced sailors managed to hug the start line, jumping over only seconds after the starting shot had sounded.

Once the last race had begun, another squall was fast approaching the ship, so Gail, Andy and I got back below decks to try and maintain some dry spots on our clothes. In the galley, chatted with the crew and the race committee, and heard several war stories from past Queen's Cup races.

Breakwall Lighthouse One of the crew came below and mentioned that the storm had passed, so a large group returned to the deck to enjoy the return trip to the dock. However, the anchors had to be raised, which was quite an experience, since there was no electric winch. The raising was done by four crew members on a manual winch! It looked like very hard work, taking 200 feet of anchor chain up 3 inches at a time. Gail and I even had an opportunity to help haul in some anchor line with the crew, which was a workout in itself.

Once the anchors were up, it didn't take long to re-enter the Milwaukee Harbor, motoring toward our docking point at Pier Wisconsin. Looking back at Lake Michigan provided an eerie sight, with the dark storm clouds heading East, right behind the sailors, and the sun setting in the West.

All in all it was a wonderful experience. If you ever have a chance to go sailing on a tall ship like the S/V Denis Sullivan, go for it. There's nothing else like it.

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May 12, 2003

Palm DevCon: Day Four

Departure day. Bags are all packed up tight and a 6:30am phone call from my wife served as a nice end to the week away and wake up call in case of an alarm failure. Gail and Nathan are doing better and are glad I'm heading back home.

At 6:50am, I meet Jen Edwards (a.k.a. PocketGoddess) in the lobby to catch the shuttle to San Francisco International, as our outgoing flights both left around 9am. We had a good chat on the way over to the airport, discussing our meetings and experiences over these past few days. Jen mentioned writing some articles about her experience -- when that info goes up I'll be sure to share the link. Jen and I parted outside SFO as I needed to ride the shuttle a bit farther to catch my United flight.

Inside, people were hustling to gates and security checkpoints seemed very busy. I found the line for United and within a few minutes, I was standing at the desk, getting checked in. Interestingly, United's desk featured e-ticket consoles which most people were using -- since I didn't have an e-ticket, I chose to speak to a representative. This turned out to be a good choice, since the attendant seated me farther up on the plane since getting to my connecting flight within 45 minutes was going to be a tight affair.

The security line looked like a zoo, but moved quickly. While departing Milwaukee earlier in the week, one of the security personnel commented to another traveller that tennis shoes didn't require scanning, so I tested this info at SFO and found it accurate. A few minites later I was through and headed for my gate.

Decided to grab a coffee and was pleased to learn that the Starbucks location at SFO accepted the Starbucks card (many airport locations do not). I have this card for occasions such as this; where my pocket cash is limited but I can really use a coffee.

Starbucks seems to have done well in cornering the airport market for coffee vendors, at least at San Francisco International, Chicago's O'Hare and Milwaukee's Mitchell. It seemed everywhere I went I could easily locate a Starbucks either by sight, smell or the sound of squealing steam and frothing foam. At O'Hare it seemed as though there was a Starbucks at every gate.

While awaiting my flight from San Francisco to Chicago, I noticed the pillar near my gate had a T-Mobile HotSpot logo emblazoned on it. I fired up the Powerbook and activated AirPort networking -- the HotSpot immediately displayed itself in the menu bar, to my delight. I then tried checking my email, but with no luck. Must sign in.

Next I launched my browser which brought up a JavaScript that automatically launched the T-Mobile HotSpot login page. It was very disconcerting to have my browser so easily commandeered by the HotSpot server. I began to wonder how hard it would be for a hacker to access the T-Mobile access point or server, in order to spoof users signing in to get access to their Wi-Fi connected laptops. Hmmm.

Finally, I wanted to see if I could sign up for access via the HotSpot connection and found it quite possible, but with only a few minutes until boarding began, I decided to hold off for a future opportunity. Still, this sign up option brought another question to my mind -- was the signup secure? Could someone with a packet sniffer grab my credit card info, or my username and password this way? Double hmmm.

Flight was significant only in that the pre-takeoff announcement by our pilot included:

"related to the the safety presentation, which I'm sure you all followed intently... that some passengers are charged with helping the crew. I wanted to point out that this includes certain security situations, such as dealing with unruly passengers. Please think about that."

I had to chuckle -- an airline pilot with a dry sense of humor. :-)

Near the end of the flight I was slightly concerned about timing, since we were running about 18 minutes late on the expected 3:00pm landing time. My connecting flight was scheduled to depart at 3:45pm. This delay would leave me with less than 30 minutes to get across O'Hare, not to mention my checked bags.

When we finally landed it was 3:18pm -- I cranked it out of the gate, searching for the connecting flight's gate number, then located the gate on the map. Sure enough, I had to cross the entire airport to reach my flight, so I put the afterburners on. I blew past all sorts of travelers, until climbing an escalator where a wife was casually chatting with her husband, blocking the way. Arrgggh!

Amazingly, I made my gate with time to spare, only to find that the gate had switched from E9 to E7 and the Milwaukee flight had been delayed. All that hard work to make the flight for nothing. Still, I was happy for the delay in the end, since I figured my bags would have never made it on my original flight. Better to be delayed 15 minutes at the gate than spending hours hunting down bags at the airport baggage claim.

Saw a great t-shirt on two guys from the Soldiers for Jesus Motorcycle Club who were traveling to Milwaukee for a Harley rider's convention:

Jesus Would Have Ridden a Harley

On the ground in Milwaukee, I exited the terminal and entered the main waiting area where I heard Gail call my name. Wow, it was great to see her and Nathan again. Ah, home again. :-)

All told, I had a great time on my visit to the PalmSource DevCon and I hope you've enjoyed my travelogue account. I wish I could share more details from meetings and other events, but I take the NDAs I've signed very seriously. I will instead direct you to other story links from the event:

BrightHand: Steve Bush's PalmSource Trip Diary
Brighthand: PalmSource Developer Seminar Recap
GearMongers: Craig Froehle's Post on the Tapwave Helix
Palm Infocenter: Palm OS 6 To Be Released in Late 2003
SiliconValley.com: Palm OS 6: the Evolution
SiliconValley.com: Q&A with PalmSource CEO David Nagel

If I do come into information related to PalmSource stuff that's ok to share, you can be sure I'll post it here. :-)

Thanks for reading. I should be back on my normal weekday blogging schedule here once again, so tune in tomorrow for another installment.

Cheers!

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May 9, 2003

Palm DevCon: Day Three

Another early start Wednesday, but like Tuesday, our meetings were well worth the time spent. We learned quite a bit about the state of wireless carriers and how Palm handhelds integrate with them among other things.

I was also able to have a look at the new Aceeca device in the expo area between meetings. Aceeca is the second of two licensees to the Palm OS platform. The Meazura device was interesting -- I can imagine even more interesting to industrial clients looking for an inexpensive, reliable device for testing and gathering information. I even had a chance to meet the CEO, Alex Topschij, a good bloke from down under in New Zealand. :-)

Lunch was a short grab and stuff affair, followed by more excellent internal meetings in the afternoon. Near 4:30 we wrapped up. I enjoyed note taking once again, though after another day of mind-to-finger processing, I was glad for the break from note writing. Amazingly, in two days I managed to write about 15,000 words and about 100k worth of notes -- yikes!

Okay, now for something a little off topic and curious. I observed over the past two days a very strange habit of people at the seminars starting sentaces with "so...". To give you a better idea of what I mean, here's an example:

Q: Why did the Tungsten C have a mono headset rather than stereo headset?
A: So... We asked people if they had to choose between a stereo jack or a mono jack with potential Voice Over IP features, what would you choose? They overwhelmingly said "give us the mono headset and VOIP".

This sentance starter just seemed to me a very odd way to begin a statement. I noticed the abundance of "So" statement-starters because of how commonly it was used among speakers. I suppose this could equate to an "Ummm..." often used for buying a little time while organizing thoughts. See what two days of note-taking does to me? :-)

The seminar sessions ended with an interesting session with David Fedor on details of Palm OS 6. Most of the stuff he spoke about was several atmospheres above my head (I'm no developer), however some tidbits I did comprehend and liked the sound of. One in particular is the structure of new built-in core app databases being based on "schemas" which meant XML to me. Very cool.

The essence of David Fedor's message on this point was extensibility of stock databasess, allowing 3rd party developers to add fields to the built-in app DBs without screwing them up. So, a product like Beyond Contacts, used for full sync to Outlook could theoretically extend the standard Datebook and other stock DBs without ruining the underlying database structure. (Developers, feel free to correct any errors I may be spouting here)

Fedor also mentioned an evolutionary transition to OS 6 rather than revolutionary, so the changes will not be so shocking. He phrased it as "Changing Everything and Nothing." I suppose this should make developers a little happier knowing their apps will not have to change unless they choose to take advantage of new OS 6 system features. I was happy to hear old Palm OS apps should still run on OS 6 under PACE (Palm Application Compatibility Environment), assuming they've followed the Palm OS guidelines properly.

After the David Fedor OS 6 preview and a break I attended the Silicon Valley Palm User Group PUG meeting, featuring David Nagel and speakers from Palm SG, Fossil, PalmGear, and Handango. I put my card into the bucket to win one of 3 handhelds, but no such luck.

That evening the PUC group and a few others had a final dinner together in the overpriced California Grill, inside the hotel. It was a great time of discussion and banter about the past few days, Palm devices and many other topics. Will and Matt from SnapperMail dropped in a bit later to hang with us -- I had a great time chatting with these friendly New Zealanders while enjoying my Spicy Thai Chicken bowl.

I stopped by Michael Ashby's place to get a fix of his high-speed hotel network connection -- I was too cheap to activate mine at $10 per 24 hours. Back at my room I spent the remaining hours before bed, organizing and packing my gear for the journey home. The incredibly nice backpack by PalmSource on Tuesday ended up packed to the gills with t-shirts and promo swag, and would have to be checked as baggage since I brought my own backpack for the PowerBook and other stuff.

And so the seminar ended. All in all a great time to meet other Palm people, learn about what's new and to make a difference for the future. It all seemed to go by so quickly though. Ah well, that's what makes "see you next time" so attractive.

Until my next post...

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May 8, 2003

Palm DevCon: Day Two

First day of the DevCon and it was off to David Nagel's (PalmSource CEO) opening keynote speech. It was an upbeat and positive presentation, covering the current state and future aims of PalmSource. David mentioned two staggering stats: there are now about 260,000 Palm OS developers and 17,000 Palm OS applications out there. Pretty significant and important for PalmSource and Palm OS users alike.

Nagel also suggested the coming availability of ubiquitous wireless in the next few years and PalmSource's desire to have an impact in this area with the Palm OS. I'm all for that!

Following David Nagel's keynote intro, the group I'm a member of -- Palm OS User Council (PUC) -- departed to prep for our day-long meetings. In a nutshell, our group of 10 Palm community leaders distill and share feedback from the Palm community with both PalmSource and Palm OS licensees, to help improve Palm handheld devices and the Palm OS.

The PUC represents the voice of Palm handheld users, making sure the user perspective is heard clearly. While details of our meetings are all under NDA, I'm pleased to report we had very productive meetings with PalmSource and several licensees.

At lunch, one of the PUC members, Dan Royea, did a Bluetooth test at the Sony booth. While holding a Clié TG-50 he walked nearly 30 feet from a Bluetooth controlled DV video camera and was able to activate panning, zooming and other functions -- all from the Clié. Impressive!

Lunch itself was eaten in the hotel courtyard under overcast skies. I was surprised at how chilly San Mateo was in May. However, I did remember I was in the San Francisco area, which has the reputation as a cool and foggy place.

Our PUC meetings continued productively after lunch break. I was grateful when our meetings finally ended at 5pm, mainly because I'm the group secretary. My tired fingers and brain needed the break after hours of processing and typing.

On my call home, I learned my wife and 6 month old son were both battling terrible colds. l felt a bit guilty for having such a great day. But we both felt badly for our little boy's sickness, even though we know colds help build his immune system.

Next, it was off to the seminar reception for great Chinese dim-sum and conversation with Palm developers. I met Brian Oldham and Dale Walker of Farwalker.com, who help small companies integrate Palm devices into Mac networks. We actually talked more about Macs than Palms, as we were all Mac fans.

The reception was interrupted by a power outage in the hotel, lasting over an hour. It's apparently become a tradition at PalmSource events (February '02 conference in San Jose had a power cut too). The hotel staff even broke out the green light sticks as night fell.

A small group of people, including the PUC group and others escaped the hotel for the Prince of Wales Pub in downtown San Mateo. The pub was quite unique, with a comfortably shabby ambiance one member of the group described as "The kind of atmosphere you can't buy". We managed to acquire the private upper room of the place, complete with recently patched kick-holes in the wall, legless, gaudy and torn couch, a table and mixed chairs.

Four of us began a game of Cricket with darts and a board we found while the rest of the group chatted. For the record, Hal and I beat Craig and Dan by a single bulls eye. Greg from the PUC tried the pub's famous Habenero Burger, which helped warm the room. I think Greg's ears were smoking, but he ate it all.

Back at the hotel, I posted my first DevCon entry on the blog. It was good to test out my WordSmith blogging solution and to see how well remote posting to a blog is. Most definitely easier than manually editing and posting files via FTP.

I can also tell you that using a broadband cable connection has a way of amplifying the pain of using a 56k dialup connection in a hotel room. It works, but I fear cable has spoiled me.

So that's the story for Tuesday. Look for the remaining DevCon entries to appear here in the next few days.

Until my next post...

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May 6, 2003

Palm DevCon: Day One

Sorry I've been mostly quiet this past week -- I'd been preparing for my trip to California for the PalmSource Developer's Conference. I left today (Monday) on my journey. Yes, I know it's Tuesday... more on that later.

It was hard to say goodbye to Gail and Nathan this morning. I'm going to miss them the next few days. But traveling is in my blood and I know this little getaway will be very good for me. Time to venture out and explore. The good thing about travel, in my opinion, is knowing I have someone and somewhere I can return to. As enjoyable as travel is to me, coming back home is always the sweetest feeling.

I just witnessed a sadly funny scene here at the terminal. An older, cranky lady who looked a bit like Georgia O'Keefe was sitting near the departure door, hassling the United woman at the desk about getting on her flight to Denver waiting just outside. She needed a wheelchair to board and had apparently been waiting a while. "I'm frustrated! Been here an hour and a half! Arggh!" At one point an Asian man walked past her, with a wheelchair and she snapped at him with a gruff "Hey you!" The guy threw her a dismissive wave and said "Not for you! Another one coming. You wait! " and kept rolling down the terminal.

Finally Georgia's ride arrived, but not before she had a little verbal tussle with the United attendant. It wasn't pretty.

Whew, almost missed the flight! Sitting in terminal D at gate 35... Realized nobody else was sitting around me. Took a brief walk, and found the flight had moved to gate 33. That was close.

Saw that our pilot was scribbling in an old Palm III, which I spotted while embarking. There is still hope for old tech! :-)

In Chicago, I heard a funny announcement in the men's room between flights: "Please present all electronic devices to security personnel before entering the magnometer..." This announcement made me wonder just what would happen if electronic devices were accidentally or intentionally run through the magnometer? Would the offending bag launch itself against the magnometer's wall and stick like a wet jello square? Funny how seeing a film like X-Men 2 with a bad guy like Magneto, alters the imagination.

Spent time after a little lunch scoping out power outlets, so I could use my Powerbook without killing off the battery. found several, but always in awkward locations or next to occupied seats. At the moment I'm contemplating stringing my power cable from my seat to the outlet across from me or sitting against the wall. Pretty pathetic, eh? Maybe I'm better off reading my paperback book or listening to music than becoming an electro-vampire geekazoid.

Amazing how many people are on mobile phones at the airport. There was a guy in Milwaukee making call after call, like the president lining up votes. Here in Chicago there's a woman to my right, stretched across three seats, working the phone. This struck me as both admirable and disturbing. Admirable in that these two business people were utterly dedicated to not wasting a precious moment of down time. Disturbing for the very same reason.

I mean, isn't travel stressful enough? I just want to relax. However, I see this tendancy popping up in myself as well, as I seek to plug in my laptop to read email or write this account on my handheld. The question is, why are we so driven to fill every second of our lives with activity? Are we modern people unable to be loafers once and a while?

Which reminds me of a valuable lesson I've learned from several of my European friends: the art of doing nothing. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean doing nothing all the time, but occasionally and intentionally. Martin, Matthias, Andreas, Mysan and Andy all taught me the art of finding a nice spot to let the world pass by. Normally it was a cafe (accompanied by a tasty coffee) but was often a roadside or park. Hmmm... in light of my observations today, I think I need to practice the art of doing nothing a bit more often.

The rest of my trip was uneventful. Waited a long time for the free hotel shuttle, but it was such a nice cool spring afternoon, I didn't mind at all.

Met my fellow Palm-friends at the hotel and we trekked over to the Metreon, a Sony-sponsored store inside the Moscone center in San Francisco. It was a little underwhelming and overpriced, though some of the tech they showcased was very cool, like tiny Vaio notebooks and large flat screens.

We settled on dinner at the Moscone, which for me consisted of a pudd thai-like noodle dish at a noodle joint. Not bad.

Our final destination for the evening was the launch of a new Palm OS product from Tapwave, a new Palm OS licensee. The event was held in a snowboard club in the industrial part of San Francisco. After 30 minutes of mingling, the presentation began with heads of the company sharing their process of developing a new multi-purpose gaming/multimedia device, culminating with an actual viewing of prototype devices. Can't say much more than this device they're developing is very, very cool. Good industrial design and top-notch specs to match. Keep your eye on Tapwave.

The remainder of the evening was spent back at the hotel, settling into my room and calling my wife. Not a bad first day in California.

So, as you can see it's actually Tuesday and I've had another full day here. I'm going to be a bit delayed in posting here because Wednesday is going to be jam-packed full too. I'll probably be writing posts on the flight home, so keep popping back here for more entries.

Until next time...

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