Linux in a matchbox

Information Week published an interesting article ranking "The Greatest Software Ever Written". The pole position in the 12-item hall of fame is held by UNIX operating system, conceived at Bell Labs as an individual pet project. During many years UNIX migrated to various flavors, with Linux being the most known and widely used today. We all know Linux is strong at server side, while most of the client machines running Windows. This is easy to understand, especially when we look at the roots of each operating system. Windows was growing on client PCs, replacing DOS being its first major goal. In the meantime it became clear Windows internals are strong and solid enough to power servers. But still the most evident part of Windows is its GUI (Graphical User Interface), something servers can live without. What is more - it is hard to imagine Windows without GUI, and this makes somehow difficult for it to invade several market niches.

One of such niches is so called embedded systems. Devices like internet routers, telephone PBX switches, WiFi access points. They run silently, being treated as a piece of hardware. But there is no pure hardware these days. Software rulez. Some time ago many of these devices used to run some proprietary pieces of code. But designers soon found out it would be much easier for them to concentrate on the real functionality they wanted to deliver, if they had some universal operating system on every platform. Every "hardware" device needs to run several tasks. Take a home router for example. It needs things like TCP/IP stack, web server (for configuration and administration), memory management, etc. At the same time it needs to be light, robust, inexpensive and does need own GUI. The truth is, most of these "hardware" devices today run Linux. As this is not a full blown distribution like Suse or Red Hat, you can find a real kernel there, accompanied by a handful of other services. Be it a TiVo receiver (or a Dreambox if you live in Europe), or a popular Linksys WRT54G or a small NAS server... there is Linux embedded inside. And most of these devices are GPL compliant, so they ship with the source code and it is legal to develop your own modifications to the system. This result in a plethora of communities devoted to development of enhanced versions of the original software. I have written about my adventure with running SlimServer on Linksys NSLU2 recently. There are many people running Asterisk on WRT54G. But really the most powerful stuff seems to be the Dharamsala Wireless Mesh project run by Tibetan Technology Center. These guys build a mesh - topology WiFi network in Tibet, using custom developed software running on. The end result is the AirJaldi Mesh Router, based on the Netgear WGT 634U hardware. And who would expect the most advanced network topology to find its home in a place like Tibet? Well... necessity is the mother of invention...

USB - Universal Supply Bus

Recently I got some controversial comments from one of the readers to my BlueSoleil post. Tam Hanna says the power supplies will never be standardized. And I have to admit, I do not agree. While device manufacturers still want to be protective of their own market shares (and avoiding standards is their way to go), there is a de facto power supply standard already present on the market - USB. At the moment 90% of my gadgets are powered / charged using USB. That includes a mobile phone (HTC), my wife's phone (SonyEricsson), an iPod, a Bluetooth headset, my son's Gameboy and Sony PSP. I even have a GP PowerBank USB, to charge standard AA batteries from any USB port.

And the USB standard makes it way forward. One of the ultimate gadgets is pictured here world power adapter (a single, reconfigurable mains plug that fits US, European, British and Far East / Australian standards). Designed by swiss travel products, apart from being just a plug adapter, it has a USB power socket. So now wherever I go, I carry just that one plug. It fits almost any socket in the World and it gives a Universal Supply Bus connection to charge almost any gadget you might have. BTW - availability of USB power cable is one of the points on my checklist now, when I buy any new electronic device.

Device manufacturers are not dinosaurs either. HTC has always had all their phones charged over USB (with mini USB port for both data transmission and recharging). Motorola joined the party several years ago. This is a strong differentiator of the Motorola mobile phones in my opinion. Hey, Nokia, are you listening?

Tech Bulletins Blog Starts Today

Sometimes I happen to go through a lengthy process of configuring something (usually related to one of my computers or parts of my home network). Sometimes it looks like others may face similar challenges, so I decided to launch a dedicated blog (http://techbulletins.blogspot.com/), where, from time to time, I will publish some technical information. For starters there is a how-to on upgrading an IBM ThinkPad hard drive. This process was more difficult that it seemed to be initially, and I could not find a good step-by-step guide on The Net, so I decided to write it down and archive. Blogger seems to be the best place to store things like that.

Sony mylo: will they ever learn?

mylo, the recently announced WiFi communicator by Sony is another missed opportunity. I ranted about missing keyboard in otherwise fantastic Sony PSP. Now they release mylo - a keyboard equipped PSP2 that... does not play games... Will they ever learn?
For years it was obvious mobile phones would be used to play music. Yet Sony buried the Walkman brand and designs for a long time and could not figure how to equip and market their mobiles. Only recently they have "discovered" the phone can indeed be a Walkman (with a great market success...).

So how difficult was it to take the current PSP, give it a mylo - style keyboard and create a PSP2 (even the branding would be almost free, thanks to the PS2 popularity). This would be exactly the device loved by teenagers. Games, movies, accelerated graphics, WiFi, web browser, RSS reader (all these features are in the current PSP), plus a messenger/ email keyboard and VoIP support. Giga dollar giga market. Seems they just don't want to earn money.

I would be tempted to add a VGA screen (mylo has just 320x240) and Bluetooth, for over-the-phone 3G data connectivity when WiFi is not available. I just do not understand... they have been so close to the sweet market spot...

Google Office

Slowly, below radars, Google moves toward the goal to provide integrated Web - based Office - like suite. Just a couple of days ago I noticed the tabs in the top - left corner of my GMail changed. Now they show Mail, Calendar, Photos, and Spreadsheets... And Writely - based "Word" is surely coming. Is something missing? PowerPoint? Not quite... Picasa Web Albums can easily be used to prepare presentations and slideshows. There are no fancy animations yet, but we are getting closer. Network computing in a full swing. I love this!

Fastap Keyboard

What is the oldest design, still absolutely common among all the Star Trek 21st century computers we use today? Yes, even the Titanium Intel Core Duo Macs... The QWERTY keyboard, patented almost 130 years ago. And the primary design goal was for it to be as slow and uncomfortable, as possible. Ironic? Yes, it is. And if you look at the keyboard on the mobile phone, it is even worse for what it is used nowadays. 12 numeric buttons to be the input device of choice for mobile email, chat, instant messaging, SMSes, navigating 500+ entries in the address book... 8_44_444_7777 1 444_7777 1 2 1 5_666_55_33_!!! (this is a joke!!!).

We are flying to the moon, building ultra fast HSxPA mobile networks, launching cell-based Sony PS3 supercomputers to the masses, yet all these designs share 130 years old design at the very center.

Time to break free? At least this is what Digit Wireless thinks, giving us the Fastap design. And I do agree. Despite T9 and other approaches to solve the text entry problem on mobile phones, we do not have any really good mechanism, we would be happy with. Fastap really looks like it can change something, at least before most of the phones will be equipped with usable ASR (automatic speech recognition). And I do mean usable, not the famous Vista - like...

Fastap really looks like a good solution to most of us, ordinary phone users, who more and more often try to enter alphanumeric characters on our phones. I must say I was really surprised when I looked at the Nokia 111 - the concept 4G/5G "phone of the future" that has come out as a winner from a 6 months long design competition. Yeah, it has a nice screen and an iPod-like wheel at the center (why not a virtual one?). And I like the folding keypad that can be used as a desktop stand. But is it really all we are going to get on our way to 5G? May be just extrapolating the progress in keyboard design since 1878, we should not expect anything more... But I hope the Fastap guys do not agree, and will the design gap we have all got too used to question...