The folks at Google decided to re-invent e-mail.  What would e-mail look like if we could “start over” and re-create it? You might think, “e-mail isn’t THAT old is it?” Actually it is. Internet e-mail and the specifications that define how it works have been around since 1982 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc821). In the last twenty-seven years we’ve seen many fresh ideas about how to use technology to exchange information – Wikis, blogs, SMS, and IM are just a few.

Think about it. What if e-mail was more collaborative? What if an e-mail thread (the conversation) occured in a shared medium that could be updated realtime? What if, as you typed in information, others could watch your updates? Maybe we could combine e-mail conversations with the real-time aspect of instant messenger and throw in a little wiki-style editing for collaboration and history? How about having the ability to embed this conversation on a web page for a larger audience! That’s Google Wave – part document, part web, part conversation.

We’ve all become used to using a variety of communication tools that share a lot of similarities but aren’t integrated. Wave tries to merge communication and collaboration into a single interactive tool that you can easily extend and build upon.  In a large business we often use email and IM to communicate changes we are making on wikis and other collaborative sites.  I’m not sure Wave completely hits the mark for me but I love the idea of making email more like IM and placing collaborative tools in the space with the conversation.

What I like:

• Live update.  As you type, add pictures, or do anything the wave (the shared conversation) is updated realtime. I’d like a way to have it share only when I hit return, though!
• Put a variety of content types in your Wave.  You can write your own plug-in and make it embeddable in a wave.
• Very easy to create waves and add people to them.
• Interesting protocols built on XMPP.

What I don’t like:

• Not completely open source. Parts of it are, but you can’t download all the components and run it internally on your corporate intranet.
• Too discussion-focused.  I’d like a “shelf” that I can put collaborative documents in the wave to draw attention to that as separate from the conversation.
• UI is more “cool” than intuitive. I’m sure a lot of people will start with Wave and say, “huh?”.  Of course the answer is to watch the video demonstrations. Let’s just say it’s “google-ish”.
• I’d like more structure to the wave (see shelf idea above).
• Not available yet.  You have to be lucky enough to get an invite.

Anyway, that’s my half-baked opinion from a couple of days of use. If you haven’t seen Google wave you should watch the video. It’s much easier to see it in action.

We’ve switched back to Netflix from Blockbuster (because I loathe Blockbuster for a variety of reasons).  A bonus of being back on Netflix is using the Instant Play feature (VOD) to watch streaming movies.  I already get a great amount of VOD from my AT&T U-verse box but it tends to be more stacked with recent movies.  I don’t have a Netflix device yet (newer blue-ray player maybe?) which would make it easy to watch Netflix on my home theater.  We do have a Wii, so I did some poking around to find out if the Wii could maybe stream movies.  There is a new product called “PlayOn” that works for many different platforms to do just that.

PlayOn doesn’t run on the Wii, it runs on a PC in your house (not a Mac).  It grabs the video on the PC, and the Wii streams it from the PlayOn server (the software you installed on your PC).

The install on the PC was a snap.  I put in my Netflix ID and password so it could login and get at my Instant Queue.  We went to the site playon.tv on the Wii and it found the PC we installed their software on.  We were able to watch Netflix, Hulu, and a variety of other sources.  PlayOn is a platform content providers can create plug-ins for.  That means if you have a streaming resource,  you can create a plug-in anyone with PlayOn can consume your video from the platforms they support (PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Moxi HD DVR, NETGEAR EVA2000, HP MediaSmart TV, or other DLNA-compliant device).

What Worked?

• Easy Install on PC.
• Wii connected well, no network issues.
• Free Trial.

Downsides?

• No sound on Netflix
• Jerky video all around
• Wii support in beta mode.
• $40, expensive to me.

Neat idea, easy to get running.  Video was no where near the quality of hooking up my laptop.  Would I use it? Probably not due to the cost. If it was $20 and the quality was as good as laptop…

In an earlier entry I looked at Thousand Hills coffee.  It didn’t quite make the cut for me (or several of my co-workers).  Recently I was gifted a second bag (Thanks Therian!).  This bag was the Vooba Vooba Espresso blend.

This blend is made with both Nicaraguan and Rwandan beans, not the traditional choice for an espresso blend.  I changed the grind a few times to try and dial in the perfect shot and got a decent pour with some crema.  The flavor was a bit sharp and maybe a bit acidic.  Overall it made a decent espresso drink (my favorite is a strong Americano). I’d probably stick with a more traditional blend that had a higher crema production and a more well-balanced cup.  It was bold enough to work well in any milk-based drink.

I meant to try it just as a brewed coffee and forgot!  Now I’m wondering if every coffee they make uses Rwandan beans!

Instant coffee is typically freeze dried crystals of a prepared coffee that can be added to hot water to make a quick coffee drink. I guess the ultimate goal is making a coffee drink that’s not fresh brewed coffee that still tastes like fresh brewed coffee. Via is Starbucks answer to your father’s Sanka instant crystals. Via has a new form of instant mixed with some very finely ground coffee (they call it micro-grounded).

My bottom line: Via tastes like correctly brewed stale coffee with a bitter finish.

When I first opened the package I noticed a strong bitter smell.  I got some of the Via on my fingers and smelled it for a while.  The smell reminded me of the bitter coffee oils from a dirty espresso machine.  I dumped the Via into my cup of hot filtered water and noticed the Via didn’t want to easily come out of the packet.  Maybe steam had condensed inside the packet or it was static – I don’t know. I tried the two varieties of Via I found and drank 3 cups of Via for my test (not all at once!)

My first thought was, “WOW”.  Instant coffee is disgusting.  Via isn’t disgusting.  Right off the bat I give Starbucks my award for best instant (I haven’t tried many).  As I drank I noticed a pretty obvious bitter finish that bordered on “bad aftertaste”.  I drank the cup and thought, “this almost tastes like brewed coffee”.  After the second cup I decided it did taste like brewed coffee, just stale coffee.  I’ll confess I’ve had WORSE coffee in many local coffee shops.  I would attribute that to the fact many shops leave coffee sit too long or brew it improperly.

Via is expensive. It comes in small single serve packets that cost about $1 per prepared up. That’s about 10-12 times the cost of most instant coffee.  Unless you are nowhere near a kitchen to use a pourover, and there are no coffee shops nearby, I can’t see Via being a great option.

Try it, you may like it.  It’s expensive and not as good as properly brewed coffee.

The answer is no.

A friend of mine says software selection is only 10% of what makes a successful solution. I’ll agree if the software options all have a set of base features you need! I think the point is there is a lot more to a successful implementation than the underlying software platform (and I’m learning more every day).

Having a few years experience trying to implement Social Media tools in a big company I have a few thoughts on what those base features are.  This week I’ve been asked three times about Sharepoint, so I decided to blog my opinion.  I’m not trying to bash Sharepoint, it does Microsoft Office team collaboration quite well. The lists feature is very powerful and underused. You can build simple Intranet sites with it quickly. So, I’ll explore what I think a social platform should be, and note why I think Sharepoint doesn’t have the core features you’ll need.

Social software starts with the individual.  Your sales division isn’t a social entity, but the people in it are.  While an enterprise social software solution should recognize the reality of the organization (but maybe not focused on the corporate hierarchy) its focus must be the individual contributor. The data you capture should use tags, search, and personal networks to bring it all together.  One easy example is bookmarks.  Individuals add bookmarks to the system with a URL, description, and a set of tags.  Ideally, a user should be able to target that bookmark to an interest group, blog, etc.  People in that individual’s network should see the fact the bookmark was added.  Anyone can search by tag or description and find other relevant or recommended bookmarks. It’s more than adding a link to a site. Sharepoint allows you to add a URL to a site, that’s where it ends. Sharepoint doesn’t support tags without an add-on, and then the tags are only applied to certain parts of the site – not to bookmarks.  In Sharepoint the bookmark belongs to a site, and you can’t search all bookmarks, check for commonly used tags, or find trends.  It’s just a link on a page. So can you store bookmarks on Sharepoint? Sure. Is Sharepoint a suitable platform for social bookmarking? Not even close. There are some free add-on tools to let you build in some lists and web parts but is that what you want for an enterprise platform? The core features should be in the product, not a set of after thoughts.

How about Communities or Groups?  This is one place Sharepoint has some rich features.  Unfortunately it fails to weave the content together within a community, or provide a way to surface up content to a global level.  Content in a group should come in the form of blogs, bookmarks, forums, and more. When those things are all tagged you can navigate through the group easily.  Sharepoint doesn’t provide tags, or any easy way to search across many sites (I do hear some people have success with global search of textual content in 3.0).  How about show me all forum entries and bookmarks tagged with “coffee”? Sharepoint doesn’t support tagging or the navigation and search mechanisms for it. Social software systems for the enterprise must feature a great meta-data driven search or they won’t be useful. Features like blogs should be allow authorship from both groups and individuals.

Another core feature is system news or activity where you can see a log of what’s happening in the entire company or your personal network. Just having a colleague or friend list is very useful if you can’t use it to navigate relevant content in the system. In Sharepoint assumes what is relevant is what’s in the site you are viewing. It doesn’t allow you can’t get feeds of what’s new by artifact type, or by your “friend list”. While all system components should feed the activity stream, a user should be able to insert something into the stream with a status update.  This can contain a note or link to offsite material, etc.  Sharepoint has no notion of status updates or an architecture to support features feeding into a single repository the user can view.  if you use FaceBook this is the Home/Newsfeed.

A great platform needs to be accessible.  In the 90’s that meant some type of COM or CORBA interface. Later, middleware interfaces morphed into web services.  Today RESTful interfaces that only require simple HTTP interactions (like Atom/Atompub) allow for mashups and are what people expect.  While Sharepoint does expose a lot of the underlying data via a web services model (I’ve been told it’s extensive) you’ll have to write a lot of REST based wrappers to enable easy interaction.  Using feeds to get data is tough with Sharepoint.  I’ve found you get a basic feed, but the options to get content by age, ranking, etc is non-existent. Even a list’s feed may be useful (could be somewhat static) but Sharepoint seems to treat most feeds like “news” and only give you recent content. Don’t skimp on the API.

I could go on and talk about using crowd sourcing for idea and news and other features.  I’m sure there is an add-on for this or that, and Microsoft has some new tidbit in the latest release.  Do you want to build a social software system on top of a groupware solution? Why? Find a social sofware solution that is evolving with each release, don’t build something on a platform with none of the infrastructure or mentality you need.

Summary & Other features I’d look for:

• Groups of people can do the same things individuals can.  If a person can store bookmarks, or have a blog a group of people should have those features.
• Profiles must be extendible, tag centric, and support personal networks.
• Blogs should allow multiple authors.
• Everything should feed an activity log the user can filter by their network, tags, etc.
• Ratings & commenting should be pervasive features of any artifact.
• Rich notifications scheme that uses feeds and email.
• Don’t overlook crowd sourcing features.
• Pre-Built widgets that can be leveraged with simple JavaScript.

If you are looking for a platform check out Sparta Networks, IBM Lotus Connections, and Jive Software.  I use Lotus Connections and think the 2.5 version fits much of what I want in a platform. Don’t bother flaming me, it’s simply my experience and opinion.  If you don’t like it go find a blog that agrees with your thinking and enjoy it (and have a cup of coffee too).

In the town I grew up in there was a small TV repair shop named “Ron’s TV”.  The folks at Ron’s TV repaired televisions and many other electronics. From what I heard, the owner’s name wasn’t Ron, that was just a ruse for sales guys and bill collectors. Apparently they did something right, because many years later they are still in business – amazing given the change in this industry.  The great thing about this repair shop is if it was electronic and had a screen or speaker they could repair it.

Today everything is disposable.  Most electronics are built in China at factories that would never pass our safety standards.  They are made by people making wages we would consider unthinkable. Unfortunately, I think we exported our morals along with our electronic manufacturing.  The upside is costs have gone way down.  A growing problem is many electronics cannot be serviced.  I’ve heard many low-end 40+ inch LCD televisions can’t be repaired anywhere (well except maybe the famous Ron’s TV).

I’ve found the growing trend to combat the lack of repair is a good old American “do it yourself” spirit.  Recently I’ve had some Nintendo DS game devices in our house break.  The pictured device is a perfectly good machine, but the bottom screen stopped functioning as a “touch screen”.  Many people would just buy a new device, but I wondered if there were any tricks to fix it.  I went to my friend Google and found several tricks to fix the problem.  None of them worked!  I knew replacing the component was an option so I dug deeper.  Turns out you can not only get the part on eBay for $8 delivered, but find YouTube videos to show you how to put it in!  I ordered the touchscreen on eBay and it arrived a week later (it even came with the right screwdriver for this machine).  I immediately took it apart and started the repair.  My son watched and a few times asked me if I knew what I was doing.  I didn’t read any online instructions but it seemed simple enough to me.  Find the old part, figure out where it is connected, and replace it with the new one.  About 20 minutes later he was up and running.

So if your stuck with a dead device, head onto the internet and find your $8 solution!

You’ve seen the Mac and PC commercials right? Apple products are hip, fun, and counter-cultural. iPods, iMacs, and iPhones generally exude a fun, simple, elegant design. Working at Apple must be a really progressive place just like the commercials right? Everybody blogs, lots of wikis and ad-hoc collaboration? Nope. Apple employees aren’t supposed to have personal blogs (something about speaking with “one voice”).

The United States Government typically brings to mind thoughts of red tape and process for anything and everything. Think up-tight, uniforms, and nobody shares information. Wikis and blogs would be squashed by regulators or the CIA Right? Nope. The government, particularly the Intelligence and Military, is all over social media tools and is a role model in many respects (one example).

We’ve come a long way. Wikis and other trendy collaboration tools popped up many years ago under the desks of IT folks who got tired of boring document management systems and static Intranet portals. Today every corporate leader is being yelled at, “Get a 2.0 Collaboration Strategy!”

Most companies go through an evolution of tools and platforms to get to a consolidated, supported, “everywhere” platform. As the tools evolve so do new policies to deal with this new media. Often younger segments of the workforce expect these tools, more seasoned employees question them.

How about your workplace? Do you have tools to find other employees based on their user profile? Is there a corporate “Encyclopedia” anyone can contribute to? Can you quickly create ad-hoc communities to share information without email lists? Do you have these tools but your corporate culture is holding back their adoption?

Don’t try this at home.  Wait, TRY this at home!

Often I get assigned “coffee duty“. This often happens when we have people coming over, we host a party, or bring coffee to an event. I often find myself getting out my two glass airpots and brewing coffee into the carafes. Then I carefully pour into the airpots.  While this solution works, I was interested in brewing a larger quantity directly into an airpot.  This would be less work and temperature loss (a lot).  Even my great home equipment isn’t made to do this, but I developed some workarounds to the problems I ran into.

1) Cone filter.  These are great for brewing smaller batches of coffee. With larger quantities you wind up over-extracting the grounds at the point of the filter (the bottom). This can give you a nasty bitter taste even if you use the correct amount of coffee. Workaround? Stir the basket grounds when brewing is 2/3 complete.

2) Water reservoir is too small.  In my Technivorm I can do 10+ cups (close to 1 liter) of filtered water.  Unfortunately, an airpot is typically 1.6-1.8 liters. Workaround? Before the 10 cups were gone I’d add 6 more cups of water.  Your application will vary, I did a “dry run” with just water.

3) Basket too small  for extra coffee.  Typically to brew an airpot of coffee you want about 3.25 ounces of beans, which is roughly a cup of dark roasted whole bean coffee. This may be too much coffee for the basket and cause an overflow. Workaround? I did a scant cup of coffee (7/8) as to not overload the basket.

4) Airpot is taller than the brewer!  Workaround? As you can see, I was able to put the brewer on a small box to accommodate the airpot perfectly under the brewer.

If your coffee maker doesn’t brew at the right temperature, or takes longer than six minutes to brew a normal pot don’t try this.  You need a quality brewer that will brew for the right amount of time at the right temp. The Technivorm MoccaMaster is a high-quality coffee maker that will last for many years and make coffee as good as your best local coffee shop.

If you are looking for Bible study software for the Mac you aren’t alone. On Windows there are quite a few options – even great free ones like Online Bible and e-Sword. I did a lot of “poking around” for low cost and free solutions. The only real solution I found, that was native to the Mac, was MacSword.  MacSword is a port of the open source “SWORD Project”. It didn’t do much for me, though it had great integration with the large Sword project library.

On Windows I used e-Sword, and I had bought a couple of modules for it (like NASB translation). I decided to look at running e-Sword on Mac using virtualization or emulation. Since I only have 1G of RAM on my MacBook I immediately tossed the idea of a tool like VMWare Fusion (which would have been easy and effective). I looked at using the Windows emulation software called “wine”. I already own a copy of Crossover, a paid supported version of the “wine” project.

I was able to use e-Sword on the Mac, and it works pretty well. The verse navigator box causes it to crash, but everything else works so far. Here are two options I found for installing it.

1) Get Mac e-Sword Package. This package bundles the free version of Wine with an e-sword distribution. You can click, install, and run. I found the tool worked fine but was a bit slow.  This was totally free and simple!

2) CrossOver with e-Sword. Since I own CrossOver which has the latest Wine code, etc. I decided to try it out. First I installed IE6 with CrossOver to create a Windows 98 “bottle” as my default. I then ran the installer for e-Sword using the CrossOver control panel. This worked fine and product started normally and works much faster than the one using the Darwine wine package (above).  CrossOver costs $30 but it’s a great product.  You can easily install Quicken, IE, Office, and many other windows programs easily onto the Mac.

Regardless of how you install it, I would recommend following these instructions for turning on font smoothing. Enjoy!

About 3 weeks ago my wife and I started noticing an odd rubbery metallic taste/smell to my espresso drinks. We had some immediate suspicions. The first was the cup itself. We had just picked up some new fun mugs at IKEA in Chicago and figured the nasty smell came from the cup. We swapped out cups and thankfully it wasn’t our new mugs. My next guess was the espresso blend itself.

I thought the beans smelled a little different when grinding. I know sometimes too much Robusta in a espresso blend can give the cup that flavor so I emailed my local roaster to see if there was anything new or maybe a bad roast batch had been reported (anything!). Nope, dead end. Time to clean the Ranchilio Rocky grinder.

I unscrewed the plate that holds the hopper and unthreaded the top burr. Yup, a 1/4 inch of yucky oils and residue. I got it all clean and cleaned the small cavities around the bottom burr. Fixed right? Nope, another dead end. Time to clean the machine.

I started with descaler, soaked all the components (wow – the portafilter!). The first shot I pulled revealed no change. I start wondering about that gasket in the brewhead that’s been there for 5+ years and the scary process of backflushing that I’ve not done (because of the vendor recommendations). I stumble across a great website (there are many for this machine) that finally gives me the courage to do these two things. I ordered a rubber insert for the portafilter that turns it into a blind (which forces pressure back into the machine for backflushing). In addition I picked up a $5 gasket. $10 in parts, $10 in shipping (boooo…!)

After emptying the machine and turning it on the side I wrestle out the gasket. Prying it out from the innermost part seemed to be the trick. To say there was a lot of oil and burnt reside in this area would have been an understatement. After removing it I used a standard espresso cleaning brush to get every corner of that brass brew head clean. Putting the new gasket in was simply, insert smooth side down and push. Next I backflush. I first put the knobby part of this rubber stopper down into the spout (made sense to me) but it didn’t seal, upside down did the trick. I flushed it several times and let it sit for a bit, then cleaned it out and backflushed again with water. After putting it all back together I pulled a couple shots with old beans.

The moment of truth. Will I be cursed forever with rubbery metal flavored coffee? I was happy to only smell coffee flavors when I dumped the 2 shots into the hot water to make an Americano! Gasket, backflush, who knows – one or both of them did the trick.

I found a lot of people complaining about this same issue on the net (but not a lot of answers). If you have a similar issue read the above links and order from Chris Coffee (I got parts in a few days). Gotta run, time for another Americano.