Author: Adam Fowler

Samsung Galaxy Note Review

Posted on by Adam Fowler

Hi readers,
I have been trialling out the new Samsung Galaxy Note. For those of you who haven’t heard or seen this phone before – it’s  huge. Huge compared to any other phone you’ve seen with a 5.3” WXGA (1280 x 800) screen. Check out the official specs here: http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxynote/note/spec.html?type=find

The first thing that came to my mind when deciding if I wanted to test this device was this Dilbert comic:

Source: http://www.dilbert.com/2012-02-23/

So, can a device still be a good phone, while being large enough to be a tablet? After playing around with it for a while, my personal answer is ‘yes’, but it’s still not the best solution for every scenario.

The first thing I noticed about the phone after taking it out of the box, was the size. Suprisingly the phone is quite light, thin and study despite this. After realising I also needed to put the battery in, it was still quite light. Powering on the unit then displayed it’s next great feature, yes the display. 1280 x 800 pixels brightly showing on 5.3″ is a rather decent resolution, and the picture takes up almost the full front face of the phone.

Here’s a comparison on size. An iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy Note and finally an Acer Iconia A500:

Source: Me

As you can see, the Note is still much closer to an iPhone than it is a full 10″ tablet. if I had a 7″ Tablet that would have been a closer comparison.

The next difference is that this phone actually has a stylus. A great addition in my opinion, as you can interchange with using the fingers you’re used to for touchscreen devices, or the very old ‘stick technology’. It  means you can write your own notes/lists on the go, draw diagrams or doodle whatever takes your fancy. For me, the main use I considered was that I could Citrix into my work environment and use the stylus on a Windows desktop, which definitely isn’t designed for fingers. Sadly this didn’t work out the best, but this isn’t Samsung or Google’s fault – after logging in using the Citrix app, it seems that using the stylus on the screen does the same function as pressing the delete key along with what you’re selecting. This made a rather large mess of my mailbox as I deleted about 20 emails. Hopefully there’s a solution to this, but even the Citrix Connector Beta had the same issue.

Using the on screen keyboard is quite nice, due to the screen real estate you’ve got nice big virtual keys to press. There’s some extra functions for zooming/scrolling that I hadn’t seen before, such as putting 2 fingers on the screen (one from each hand ideally) and tiling the device backwards or forward to zoom in and out. Not a bad idea, especially if you’re reading something and already holding the device with 2 hands.

Anyway, I should mention the software. It’s running Android Gingerbread, with an Ice Cream Sandwich update coming out soon. Response times of opening, switching and scrolling are great. It’s a very smooth experience natively. I can’t say the same about the official Twitter app though, the scrolling in that was very jerky and clunky. I’m going to guess that this is the fault of the Twitter app developers, since everything else ran so smooth.

There are a bunch of pre-installed apps and widgets on the device. Nothing seemed to be bloatware, and the widgets are a really nice feature for your home screens. It’s really customisable!

I’ve also set up a full home screen just for my calendar (that was actually there by default) and added, removed and resized others. It really makes you feel like it’s your own device, instead of having screens and folders full of apps (sorry Apple).

Now, if you’re considering the device there’s a few things to think about, especially for men. Unless you’ve got large pockets, you’re going to need a manbag. This is something that I can’t do, but maybe you’re fine with that. My work pants are fine, but I could never wear a pair of jeans and manage to fix the Samsung Galaxy Note in a pocket (gangsta’s probably won’t have this problem). Women, well generally you don’t even have pockets and this will fit nicely in that little red handbag of yours.

In summary, I like it…. buuut it’s too big. I love the screen size, and it’s selling really well around the world, but I think for a single thing to carry around 24/7 I’d rather wait for the Samsung Galaxy S3, which comes in at a smaller but decent 4.6″ screen. Either way, I now look at my iPhone 4S and have size envy.

Update: Since writing this article, I obtained a Samsung Galaxy S3 and have been very happy with it.

Service Center 2012 is out

Posted on by Adam Fowler

All the Service Center 2012 programs have gone RTM!

I downloaded them all during the week and spent tonight upgrading Systems Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2007 to 2012.

Getting SCOM 2007 ready was the time consuming bit. I had to apply roll up 5 which was a rather long process, then work out how to enable SQL’s full text search and apply a few extra updates to finally get the 2012 installer happy.

Thankfully the actual install was quote smooth (even though it took about 30 minutes) and everything seems to be working fine after allowing the clients to update.

SCVMM might be next, and SCCM is a while away as I need some new servers at all our sites to get that one going.

SCSM might be sooner, I need to read up on how easy it is to upgrade, but may end up doing a fresh install and starting again, we will see.

Fun times ahead!

Integration fundamentals – What to Avoid

Posted on by Adam Fowler

Hi,
An opinion piece here, so please poke holes and post criticisms below.
Lately I have been going through a lot of system changes at work. That is to say, more than normal, and most at the early stages. We’ve been stuck in a state of limbo, mainly because the several systems we want to upgrade or change all talk to each other in one way or another. I’ll first briefly outline one house of cards, and then move to what should have been done better, generally speaking (or typing as the case may be).

We are on Exchange 2007, and want to go to Exchange 2010. That’s not too difficult you may think, you can build your whole new Exchange environment and move a few mailboxes over for testing, then just do a mass mailbox migration over the weekend and everything’s great.

This would be true, if several other systems weren’t leveraging off of Exchange 2007. Firstly, voicemail. Our phone system will pass unanswered calls through to the Unified Messaging Exchange 2007 server, which means we need the same functionality in Exchange 2010. How do we even test this? We need to contact our PBX support, and pay for changes back and forth out of hours. It’s not something we can easily do without business impact. Then, the PBX has no official support for Exchange 2010, so if something doesn’t work or goes wrong we’re fairly stuck.

Then, we’ve got the same problem with faxing. It goes from our PABX via Unified Messaging. Both of these services are considered business critical.

At the same time, we want to change our PBX system. So we’ve got the above problems in reverse, but on top of that we use OCS 2007 R1 which also needs to get upgraded. So now, we need to deploy a new PBX system, integrate it with a new Exchange environment, which in turn is integrated with Lync to replace OCS, and that talks to the phone system for both making/receiving calls and precense.
Now, because we want to change our PBX system we may need to also change our switch infrastrucutre because if we keep what we have, and went with a provider such as Cisco, they would say that they won’t support what issues happen with vocie quality if the switches aren’t theirs. Our switch infrastructure is up for renewal anyway.

I could go on about this with several other systems that are tied in, but hopefully the above is starting to paint a picture.

When integrating systems, think about how the OSI 7 layer model works. Refresher: each network layer can talk above and below it, regardless of what it is. This means that anything that gets changed in your network environment should work, if it meets the standards. You can swap a network card over, and everything else above it will work exactly the same way as before (drivers pending). You can swap a centralised switch, and it will continue to pass the packets of data around like the old switch did. Your application can talk to anything else on the network when anything below it gets swapped over. Hopefully that shows what I’m trying to say…

Where possible, use standard protocols or single supplier solutions. If you’ve got something that needs to send alerts out, go for simple SMTP emails. Everything supports it, and little to no work should be required when you have to change something. If they won’t support standards like SQL databases of either the latest version or the version before, you should hear alarm bells ringing.
If you need two seperately supplied systems to talk to each other, get each company to show proof they support the other, and will in the future. There’s no use 3 years later saying that company X would say it would work.

This should be the case for any system implemented – think about the future and what would happen, and what might go wrong if you have to swap out any part of it.

A prediction: Personal Cloud Desktops in the next 5 years.

Posted on by Adam Fowler

Hello,

Lying in bed last night, I had a revelation about where I can see us heading in the next few years. This is mostly reliant on better broadband though (hello NBN!) but regardless I believe my idea is where we are heading.

Firstly, if you use more than 1 PC/device then you’ll know the frustration of having to either do multiple installs of applications you use, or re-do settings. A good example of this is your browser’s favorites/bookmarks list. Sure you can type in the websites, but it’s nice to have a full list to just choose from. To fill this void, services like Delicious http://www.delicious.com/ popped up – your bookmarks in the cloud! Now it doesn’t matter where you are, you can access that same list.

Email went the same way – Outlook is nice to use, but it doesn’t help you when you’re at work and want to check your personal emails. Again, the solution was to have your emails in the cloud and sync all your devices/PC’s to that single point, or even just use a web interface and forget about using any other client.

Twitter is my third example. Personally, at home I use Tweetdeck, work I just use the webpage www.twitter.com and on my iPhone it’s the official Twitter App. They all have different options and strenghts/weaknesses, but there’s no standard to how I’m reading twitter between all these things. For those of you that attened TechEd Australia and didn’t fall asleep in the Keynote, this was one of the points Microsoft made about their future vision – consistency across all platforms.

At the moment, I’m at the stage that if I’m at work, or even in the lounge at home, I can remote desktop to my main desktop with everything set up how I like it. I’d rather do that then have to both installing a bunch of apps yet again, looking for that consistent user experience.

Anyway, I don’t see this consistency stopping with just the apps – I see it as being your whole environment/desktop. I believe this will happen one of two ways:

1. All your settings/apps/etc will be synced to the cloud on a single account. You sign in somewhere, and all these settings get pulled down. It’s almost like a roaming profile, but with a much wider reach. This may be the first step before #2, because there are many limitations with this.

2. Your own virtual desktop in the cloud. Instead of just syncing bits and pieces – your whole desktop can either be hosted in the cloud, or synced there. Differential Syncronisation would make any changes required back and forth. Think of it the same way you do email, but on a larger scope. You sit in front of a new PC, and either download or plug in your desktop – and everything’s there just how you left it. This is already in place in some corporate environments, but as far as I know it’s only doing a remote session to a server. This is the next step, where you have the option of still using your local powerful PC because you’ve got a copy of the desktop on it. If that isn’t needed, then you can still just remotely control your little space in the cloud (again, I’m hoping you see the parallels with email here).

So there you have it. My prediction. I want my personal desktop in the cloud, but also don’t want to be limited by latency or bandwidth issues.

TLDR; A personalised virtualised desktop that downloads locally on demand, with differential synchronisation for changes.

SMS Dead in 5 years, Email Dead in 10?!

Posted on by Adam Fowler

27/09/11 Update: Tommy Tudehope has written an article on his thoughts here: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2913064.html

Today I was listening to the current affairs show ‘Hack’ which airs daily on Triple J at 5:30. One of the topics today was from a Social Media Consultant Tommy Tudehope (on Twitter at @TommyTudehope), who was predicting that SMS would be dead in 5 years, and Email dead in 10.

For the audio of the broadcast: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/daily/hack_wed_2011_09_21.mp3

Webpage of Triple J’s Hack: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/podcast/

Tommy’s claims:

“… People think SMS is one to one, of course it is, but is it really private, who has access to it, and are you always relying on your service provider Telstra or Optus to connect you through.”

“…A lot of businesses have trouble working/collaborating with other businesses so sending mass emails to different people who you’re working with. Now with Google Plus, you can have a single group of people in once circle and share that information. You might have an announcement that you got a new CEO.”

“This is why I think it will (die) because instead of sending a corporate email to 5000 employees, why don’t you just have a group of people on your Google Plus account with in that circle just say all your employees and make the announcement ‘Hey we’ve got a new CEO’ saves the cost of the email (which is obviously minimal) but it’s also a more direct and informal communication.”

This is my response to Tommy’s predictions.

I could start and end with citing the example of the fax machine. Invented in 1846, and in the mid 1970’s the first fax connected to a phone line via modem was invented. They aren’t as common these days, but many businesses and homes still have them. Why hasn’t email killed off the fax machine yet?

I do agree that the internet based free services will continue to grow and evolve, but just like the whole PC vs tablet argument – they’re an companion, not a replacement.

Now, I agree with the notion that SMS isn’t private, but it’s no more private than ANY other service that goes through a 3rd party. The security behind SMS is much higher than anything app/web based.

The main claim for SMS dying from Tommy is that SMS will be killed off by Facebook, Twitter, Skype and other apps. I don’t believe this will be the case until another lowest common denominator method of text messaging is around, and this needs to be heavily integrated into ALL phones. Why replace SMS? The telcos have no incentive to do so – it makes them the most money. Mobile phone OS makers have no reason to innovate in this area either unless they can value-add. The growth of Apps lets consumers choose, but with choice comes diversification and separation.

The crux of the argument it seems all comes back to smartphones. The technical bar is too high for many people to set this up and use. SMS is easy, and if you can call someone on their mobile you can SMS them. The same can’t be said for any of these other services.

Now, for email’s 10 year life expectancy, it’s almost the same argument. It’s too heavily integrated to be replaced. Systems have been built the last 40 years around email and nothing’s going to kill it. Email needs to be overhauled to an Email v2 with a lot more security and guarantee of service (instead of being able to fake any address, being sent plain text and hoping the other end received it), but that’s not replacing email.

I’m a bit baffled at Tommy’s understanding of how this all works. His comments about the ‘cost of sending an email’ are quite strange – I don’t know where he’s coming from on this. It raises many questions for me: How is Google Plus any cheaper? How is it easier to set up a group of all your employees in a circle, then require them to check themselves for updates? How is email not direct? Why class email as formal, when surely the content and style of the email should demonstrate it’s formality? Why would the example of announcing a new CEO not be formal? What is difficult about sending emails to another business (if it’s collaboration on a project, surely each end could just create an email group for the members!)?

At no stage was any reason given why Email and SMS would die off, just examples of other services that could do other things (such as one to many communications – Twitter being a prime example of that).

Could you see your business solely communicating on any current method of social media? Is there anything out there that can even be managed, audited, recorded and controlled by a company the way Email currently is?

I hope Tommy reads this and clarifies his position – He didn’t receive much air time, but I get the feeling it’s a ‘blinkered’ viewpoint. His business is Social Media, and anyone I see in that business puts more importance on it than it deserves… and of course, that’s in their self interest.

Do you think SMS will die in 5 years, and Email in 10? Please respond in the comments below!