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I know that this speech is getting old now but I cam across it again and thought I would post it here for those that have no seen it. It is pretty good and makes you realise that you should be doing something that you love no matter what. I tell myself that everyday but the fear always wins.
I don’t know if you guys ever watch the Google IO presentations but if you don’t you should because sometimes you find a gem. Guice is one of those gems. Guice is a lightweight Java dependency injection framework (not another one I hear you cry) but it does look very interesting. Take a look at the video if you have time.
Those of you that read this blog regularly will know that I have been moaning about Java web development for a while because it takes more time setting stuff up than it does actually coding the thing and it puts me off. I have been threatening the world that I would be working on my own framework but I now may not have to because Guice actually seems to have most of the things that I was looking for. I am going to take a further look and see if their are any more cool things or any concerns.
It fits well with the new Java app engine api as you would expect and the very cool thing I liked is GWT with GIN that can actually compile your modules/injections to Javascript so that they can be used to write the client side interface. I found that rather cool. There are a few pieces missing such as the ability to compile down method injections but in the video they confirmed this is coming soon. I now think that the app engine has finally reached the stage where I would be interested in releasing apps onto it and would recommend it to others. Yeah there are plenty of concerns about data privacy but the same can be said with any cloud environment and especially one that is hosted in the USA. As far as I see it, as long as your app is not storing data critical to national safety I don’t see a problem 
So, I am currently setting it up, will write an app, release it onto the app engine and write something about it here with any insights I may have.
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I have been taking a look at Google Wave and it looks very interesting. I am interested in taking a look but will most likely never get the time to. I bet some really cool things will be done with it. It’s not such a leap forward as they would like you to think but it is very cool and cleverly well done. I might get around to writing a bot because they can’t be that hard compared to writing your own wave system. The cool thing is that the client was all written using Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and they doubted that they would have been able to do it using anything else. It just goes to show the actual power of using GWT. People seem to be getting confused about it though having read other reviews and twitter traffic. It is not a service but a protocol and it is open source. The system they were showing was their implementation of the protocol.
It makes me laugh that the crowd has been shouting out that Google should buy Twitter over the last months, but I can see now why they havn’t been bothered. They had this under wrap for some time now and it has the capability of being pretty big. It is a very good collaboration, wiki, communication and loads of other stuff system because it is extensible and an open protocol. It will be interesting when multiple implementations are connected to each other and data is shared between multiple systems. You are also able to write services for it from the App Engine so it will be interesting to see the power of apps that you will be able to create using just their tools and infrastructure.
Why you are most probably wondering? Because Google, as a company makes me sick. I can’t stand all this nicey nice stuff and “Do no evil”. They are the darling buds of the internet and have managed to get such a stranglehold that they hold a monopoly – no reason debating this – they have a monopoly. The reason they pulled out of their ad deal with Yahoo was because the government would have looked into it deeply and would have announced that they were a monopoly. This was going to be the case because the government had already put them on their “monopoly watch list”. Actually they pulled out a mere few hours before they were going to be branded a monopoly. Because of all the current issues with Google over their dominance of the industry, privacy issues and continuous beta software (with no support), they have decided to drop the “don’t be evil” motto. It never takes long for companies to drop their moral stand when they catch a hint of a sniff of money.
Right, I will point out here that Microsoft is definitely no angel and was (is?) a monopoly without a doubt, but Microsoft never pretended to be anything else. Bill Gates wanted to create good software (you can debate this all day) and dominate using it. They never had a do not be evil motto and that is fine. They are a company, they hire a lot of people, they operate in a highly competitive industry (Google managed to sneak by after all) and they need to make money to pay for this. The problem with big companies is that they cannot always afford to be “nice” and “personal” because they are just too large. I am surprised that Microsoft has managed to keep going as strongly as it has really, because most large companies take that long to create something new, or change direction or spot new markets that it ends up ruining them or making them boring. From what I have heard Microsoft is still a very good company to work for.
I also think that Google are too reliant on one “product” that makes the vast amount of their revenues and profits. Microsoft at least are making huge amounts of cash within various areas including Operating Systems, Business Software, Entertainment Software, Web (Search and Advertising), Computer Languages and Services (MSDN), Consoles (XBox) and Games (Multiple gaming company purchases), consulting services and probably many more than I can think of. The chances are that Microsoft are not going away anytime soon, although it is very possible that they could still be non-existent within the near future if they miss any more potential big markets.
What happens when someone finds a better way to do advertising on the internet? It will happen and if it is not Google they could be in big trouble. You are probably thinking that it won’t happen, but why not? Google managed to do it without Microsoft or Yahoo taking much notice. Without advertising Google would be in trouble and they have managed to convince the entire world that web software should be free (such as gmail, google docs, reader and the many more) which was easy for them to do because they fund it through massive advertising deals. How are they ever going to make money from that software now? They have Google domains for business of course, and I think this makes a profit but it must be very small and I cant see it keeping the company ticking over in its current form.
I know that they have very clever people at Google (and also at Microsoft) so they could come up with some pretty clever stuff and I am sure that they are on a daily basis. I also do not question how good their engineering solutions are, but how good are the managers at spotting the good ideas from the chaff? The engineers and Phd’s could be churning out brilliant stuff all day but, if Mr. MBA does not spot the brilliance nothing will happen (I am sure this is the case for Microsoft as well – perhaps even worse in cases because they are scared of upsetting their current massive revenue stream) and they might go away to do it themselves (another issue with the 20% day – they could be paying for ideas that might end up being their competitors)
I always moan about web companies that do not seem to care about making money and it really makes me grind my teeth how they can get away with it. Google obviously makes money and Microsoft definitely makes a shed load of money. I personally like Microsoft because they don’t pretend to be anything else unlike Google and that’s why I would prefer to work for them. They also have tons of interesting groups that you could switch to when you get bored.
My ideal world is where companies stay smallish (maximum 100 people) and excelled within one area. This would ensure companies stay focused and allow the owner/manager to see what was going on within its staff (applies to staff looking up as well) without an over abundance of managers. You could more easily find and retain your best staff. Because the company is smaller it would not need massive revenues to fund, so in most areas there would be many competitors which would be good. Instead of having one huge company with a massive number of staff taking everyone in the same direction you would have them split into many more smaller companies all interested in their own unique ways of accomplishing something which would in turn accelerate development. Smaller companies are able to change direction so could change their product/service focus in a relative short time compared with the monolithic. I know its not perfect and probably could never work, but the way it works now is also imperfect and doesn’t work. What can we do hey – dream.
I could talk about this all day but I won’t because I don’t want you falling asleep 
Update: Dell have finally agreed to refund us our money for the actual price we paid and not some lower price or credit note. I wont hold my breath until we actually have the money in our account. They must have finally realised that by not giving us our money back they were going to lose a whole lot more in the future because my company spends a lot on Dell equipment.
Anyone that knows me or reads this website will know that I have had problems with Dell. I cant stand them to be honest and the support that I have received is and was bloody awful. The basic story is that I have a £2,000 Dell XPS M1730 laptop that has gone wrong about 5 times now (two major ones where the motherboard and graphics card have been replaced). The last repair that was completed was shoddy workmanship and the screen has not been fixed correctly so it now wobbles on its hinges and now the wireless card is all messed up.
Basically I have lost confidence in the machine completely and have demanded a refund but they don’t want to give me one. The amount of times that they have put the phone down on me (or got cut off) is mind boggling and the number of times that they were meant to call me back but never did has been very annoying, especially when it means I have to go through the same shit every time I start with someone new. They were even cheeky enough b******s to ask me to pay to extend my warranty in case any more problems occur – If I could have, I would have put my arm down the phone and strangled the git.
My company in Germany has now managed to get our business contact to actually offer a semi refund. This is from the guy who originally said that he could not do anything for us and we would have to go through the customer service. The thing is though that they are not refunding the money for the actual laptop that I have. They are offering a different cheaper laptop. I mean how the hell can they get away with this, it just does not make any sense at all. Dell have gone from the company that I always recommended to people to the company I will tell everyone to stay away from. This is a lot of computers as well because I regularly get asked for my opinion on which computer someone should buy and they listen to what I say. How many other people in a similar position have they done this to? This has just cost Dell a lot of customers. Its a sad sad shame that Dell is no longer the company they were but I look forward to the new company that can fill the space.
The reason I mention all this again is because I read the consumerist.com and they have loads of complaints/articles about Dell and one in particular stood out to be a very similar experience to my own. What really annoyed me was when I got my phone bill this month and £20 worth of calls were for my time on Dell’s support line. That’s how long I have been on the phone to them and it still hasn’t got me anywhere – the computer is still in my drawer doing absolutely nothing.
I now own a very very expensive paper weight. Just remember to thing before you buy from them or any other company that treats its customers like dog poop.
Saw this on reddit.com. How true is that..
