Tablets, Phones and Wearables

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Benedict Evans has written some great stuff lately. Two articles in particular have jumped out at me. The first was Tablets, PCs and Office. In it Benedict talks about how the tablet discussion is reminiscent of the laptop discussions a decade or more ago. Which to get? In it he basically says that one reason to get a PC today is because Office (or Office-like) products work best on it but questions whether that is that the right decision point?

This brings us back to the mouse and keyboard that you ‘need for real work’, as the phrase goes. Yes, you really do need them to make a financial model. And you need them to make an operating metrics summary – in Excel and Powerpoint. But is that, really, what you need to be doing to achieve the underlying business purpose? Very few people’s job is literally ‘make Excel files’. And what if you spend the other 90% of your time on the road meeting clients and replying to emails? Do you need a laptop, or a tablet? Do you need a tablet as well as a smartphone? Or a laptop, or phablet? Or both?

Interesting, especially his discussion of Office.

In the second article I will point out today, called Cards, Code and Wearables, Benedict talks about the recently announced Google Watch and rumored Apple Healthbook. In it, he discusses how both are really the same product, focused on the phone as the source of processing power and how watches, apps and other things are all extensions of the phone itself. Near the end he philosophizes:

It seems to me that the key question this year is that now that the platform war is over, and Apple and Google won, what happens on top of those platforms? How do Apple and Google but also a bunch of other companies drive interaction models forward? I’ve said quite often that on mobile the internet is in a pre-Pagerank phase, lacking the ‘one good’ discovery mechanism that the desktop web had, but it’s also in a pre-Netscape phase, lacking one interaction model in the way that the web dominated the desktop internet for the last 20 years. Of course that doesn’t mean there’ll be one, but right now everything is wide open.

I’ve followed Benedict’s work for a while. I can see why a16z added him as a partner.

Scratch and ScratchJr

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My six year old daughter sat on my lap yesterday after her half-day kindergarten class let out and wanted to help me program. So I had her do a little typing for me. Sadly, it wasn’t the slowest coding I’ve ever completed! I have a keyboard and fake monitor set up next to my desk and sometimes my youngest likes to pull up a chair and type away, pretending to be working next to her dad.

My eldest daughter, eight years old and in second grade, has also shown an interest in computers. She uses them at school more than at home. Here the iPads rein supreme. Both girls have had access to iPads since they were fairly young and use them with supervision, especially for math exercises and other academic pursuits. (Plus a few leisure time activities, too.)

Yesterday when my six year old and I were working together, I explained to her what I do. I told her I make the computer do things just like she makes paper do things. My tools are a keyboard and a mouse while hers are scissors and glue. She got that right away. She helped me change a couple of lines of code and she could see the changes immediately in the web browser. Her eyes lit up.

I’ve had this thought over the years but have not found the time to go explore: how could I get the kids into programming? They are so young right now, such early readers, and writing code “the traditional way” would be boring and hard for them to grasp. I remember Logo (although I never wrote code with it) when I was a kid but haven’t made the time to find age-appropriate programming tools for my girls.

Today, those tools found me. Fred Wilson blogged about a language called Scratch from MIT Media Labs. Scratch is specifically designed for kids 8 to 16, teaching them development in a visual style. MIT Media Labs has a Kickstarter going for a new project called ScratchJr, too. It’s designed for early readers, age 5-7. It’s reached its goal but I’m sure they could use more funds. I backed it this morning. Hope you will consider doing so too.

Microsoft Makes oneNote Free

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Microsoft made oneNote, one of the apps in its Office suite, free. Why? As Alex Wilhelm at Techcrunch reports:

Microsoft wants to drive OneDrive usage, an experience that is tied closely to OneNote. So the company lowered friction to entry by increasing its platform support in OneNote and by ending pricing questions. No matter where you want to use the service, you can, and Microsoft would like to welcome you into the larger Office-as-a-Service world with open arms.

Microsoft may be down but it’s not out. If it will just stop obsessing over operating systems the company could still do amazing things. A focus on services instead of operating systems is a huge step in the right direction. And as many people have pointed out, the new CEO came from Azure, one of its very successful services.

Urinal Rules

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Men, you should know this already. Women, if you didn’t before, you will now. This is important so please read the entire thing. There are rules to using a urinal.

  • Rule #1: If you can help it, don’t stand directly next to anyone.
  • Rule #2: Eyes straight ahead or down. Especially never look at the person next to you.
  • Rule #3: Don’t talk to your neighbor. Importantly, don’t make any noise you can help.

The rules of urinal use are extremely important and implicitly understood by every male on the planet. Knowing these rules may be more important to your future than knowing how to read and write [1]. Rule #1 is a cardinal rule. It is to never be broken. Always leave an empty urinal between you and the next person if you can help it. Sometimes this doesn’t work out. Crowded sporting events rarely offer such openness at the urinal, for instance, and if there are only two then you have no choice. In these cases it is acceptable to take an adjoining urinal.

Rule #2 may be more important than Rule #1. Never ever look around. Never. Ever. Some men’s rooms are kind enough to put a newspaper on the wall, giving you something to look at while peeing. Otherwise, study the water patterns on the piping or make sure you aren’t splashing. But whatever you do, don’t let your eyes wander.

Rule #3 is critical, too. It is not the right time to ask about the weather or the time. If you started a conversation before stepping up to the urinal, stop until you have finished. In fact, while at the urinal, stay as quiet as you can. No clearing of the throat or other bodily noises, if you can. No one wants to hear it.

I used to think these rules only applied in the men’s room but have since realized that these rules apply to other situations as well. As an example, this weekend I was busy doing my workout on the elliptical machine. There was no one in the place and I picked a machine near the end of a row of 12 machines. About 40 minutes into my workout some woman came and TOOK THE ELLIPTICAL MACHINE RIGHT NEXT TO ME. What the hell was she thinking? There were 10 other machines she could have picked, none of which would have been right next to me, and she picked machine #11!? WTF!

To top it off, she spent the next 20 minutes clearing her throat every 10 seconds. Not only did this lady break Rule #1 but she also destroyed Rule #3. It was a miserable workout.

I can only assume, as a woman who doesn’t use urinals, she was not aware of these rules. So I thought it appropriate, as a public service announcement, to post them here. Now you know. There are no excuses next time.

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[1] I’m not kidding. Not knowing how to read and write won’t get you punched in the face.

Persistance

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Joe Posnanski is running this great series of the top 100 baseball players over at his blog. #50 was Al Kaline. I love the way he sets this up:

When I was young, the thing that I admired most in the world was talent.

…

When I grew a little bit older, I changed, and the thing I admired most in the world was skill.

…

And now? Now, as I close in on 50, I think something else still.

Persistence. I think it comes down to persistence.

And persistence, more than his youthful talent, more than his developed skill, is why Al Kaline matters.

We quit too easily. We don’t have the guts to stick it out, to work a little harder, to look for a new angle or develop a new skill.

I’ve been listening to this podcast called CMD+SPACE lately. It’s an interview show with various developers, designers and other technical people. At the start of every show the host asks what do you want to be remembered for? Because of this, I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately.

Personally, I want to be remembered as a good father and husband and friend, someone who could always be counted on. Professionally, I hope I’m remembered for my persistence, for my unwillingness to give in when I knew I was right, for my strength in constantly moving forward, and my willingness to learn what I needed to and do what I needed to (within a strong ethical boundary) to get the job done.