How The Internet Is Killing Salmon

It's 4:00 on Christmas day. Quiet time. The fire is just right, the house is cleaned up, and there is an ensuing battle between A Christmas Story  and Christmas Vacation on TV. I know, it wouldn't be the holidays without Dad's leg lamp and Ralphie's relentless pursuit of the Red Rider rifle. However, it is really hard to beat the Grizzwalds.

I know the quote is a bit close to the line.  But when you read this post, I think you will appreciate its meaning being pretty dead-on.

He’s cute ain’t he? Only problem is, he’s got a little bit a Mississippi leg hound in 'im. If the mood catches him right, he’ll grab your leg and just go to town. Word of warning though, if he does lay into ya, it’s best to just let ‘im finish - Cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation (Watch it here)

Ok, so no blog would be good without a soundtrack, right? This time around it is Styx - The Grand Illusion. Hadn't listened to this one in a little while and it's a play through.  This is the album that really put them into orbit. It was their seventh album and was released on 7/7/1977. What's more interesting is that such a good rock and roll album came out at a time when the airwaves were dominated by disco. You'll know many of the songs on this album. So put the needle on the record, sit back, and do some reading.  

Castle Walls

It’s the end of the year and like so many of you, I take the time to look at money spent on all different things. Again this year I've come back around to looking at my home phone and media services. In my case, this would be a combination of DirecTV and Comcast. My landline will survive at least another year. Comcast makes this so cheap at $5.00/month. But the real reason is because I still have young children. Besides the obvious emergency need, I love getting those random calls from them just to see what I am doing at work. It never gets old. But media service is different. I am starting to look more closely at "cutting the cord" and moving away from the conventional means of getting television programming. Look, I could do it right now. Between Hulu, NetFlix, and a high-def antenna, I really could be sans cord. I should note though that doing so would likely result in being sans wife as well. See, in every husband/dad's life, there are those moments where good judgment is just plain obvious. Like the moment you look at your wife and then glance over at your stack of electronics. In that moment, you are supposed to recognize there is simply no way to narrow the gap that exists between the technology YOU can use and that which can be used by your wife and children. Don't worry, that gap gets smaller by the day. While you are waiting (and it won't be long), let me tee up this little story for you. A word of caution: it will make you so want to cut the cord right now, yet at the same time will convince you waiting is the right thing to do.     

For TV and movies, I am a very happy DirecTV customer, and have been for a long, long time.  And while I consider them the gold standard for television programming,  Comcast is the clear leader in Internet and phone access…at least in my part of the country. On the Internet side, Comcast continues to follow the "more for less" model; television programming is the exact opposite. Earlier this year, I called DirecTV to review my service levels and reduce my bill. I didn't resort to using words like "I'm thinking about switching." Instead, I just politely asked for better rates on the service I was consuming. They were very accommodating, with a drop of some $30.00/month, thanks to a package change and the sacrifice of one channel I happened to like. Ok, so I am saving money. But even with these changes, the  bill is still over $100.00/month. It's at that point the annoying mental tap dance begins in my head as I am reminded about the 30+ year old cable model that nearly all of us are forced to subscribe (no pun intended). Everyone paying into the system for all of this programming, much of which you don't want or need. Equally spreading the financial misery burden amongst the whole subscription population. Sounds vaguely like some other systems we all know about…most of which no longer work either. Anyway, back in the day, this was the only way to make this type of service work. But this model no longer works in the Internet age. I have DirecTV for things like HBO, the Discovery network channels, children's channels, and on-demand movies. Local channels are also included in there although they have become far less important given news and weather are all on the Net. I am not a sports guy, nor a home shopping guy. Eliminating those two categories alone would lop off a good hundred or so channels. Really, it would. I counted. Isn't it time for these old-school cable/satellite people to make their products available more a la carte? Yes, yes it is. And believe me when I say that the decision makers hear the bell tolling so much so it is as if the Doors song "The End" is the only song on their mental iPod, playing over and over and over again. At this point it is safe to say that media services such as NetFlix and Hulu Plus are mainstream enough for nearly anyone to use. Yet, there remains one last bastion to be breached; one big shoe to drop; the TV world equivalent to the destruction of the Death Star. An event so pivotal, TV as you know it will be forever changed. It's not a new remote, a smarter TV, or even some big technology shift. The revolution will start with three letters: H-B-O. Let me explain.

Come Sail Away

Let's hop in the DeLorean time machine and take a ride back to the mid 1990's. As a fun aside, if you click this link you will be taken to the real countdown clock. Anyway, it was the time of grunge and hip-hop and the dot-com bubble was...well...bubbling.  Email was all the rage and Windows 95 began what many claim was Microsoft's march across the globe. And, we were only up to the third Die Hard movie (Die Hard With A Vengeance). It was then that HBO realized that it's long-term viability was in serious trouble. Movies and boxing alone were not enough to carry it. In fact, they started to resemble their distant cousins in the music industry; an industry known to be nothing more than a distribution system that profited from, and in some cases exploited, the creative efforts of others. In HBO's case, it was a bit more complicated. They actually served two masters: the movie studios and the cable/satellite companies; one controlled content and the other controlled delivery. HBO was relegated to being a middleman of sorts, with no real control and no royalties since the movies remained the property of the studios. Anyway, a bunch of really smart people at HBO started to line up writers and directors, funding them to produce original series. Shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Larry Sanders Show, and Arli$$ were a few of the early ones. All met with critical acclaim. As time went by, HBO raised the bar with award winning series like The Sopranos, Entourage, Game Of Thrones, and Boardwalk Empire. As word got out, an interesting transition began to take place: people wanted HBO for their original series programming more than the movies. I've been an HBO subscriber for well over 25 years and fondly remember "new movie Saturday nights" as a staple in their programming. Beyond a doubt though, I too am counted amongst those who are much more enamored with their original series programming than their movies. Ok, why does this even matter? Who cares what I watch anyway, right? Keep reading.

Even with the advent of original programming, much of which rivaled network television, people still resisted the urge to get HBO. There are a number of different reasons. Doesn't really matter. The fact is, everyone didn't have it.  So what was HBO to do? How about make all of their series' available for rental? Ah ha! Now you could mosey on down to your local Blockbuster and grab them on DVD or VHS. How many of you said, "screw the cable company and their monthly fees. They are too expensive. I want this stuff on my terms and I can do it for less." I know. And you thought you would win that little skirmish didn't you? Well, for a short time some of you did. Think it was a turning point? Nope. It was just a stepping stone in a much bigger, master plan. See, while renting DVDs brought a whole new legion of fans to HBO, it was the rise of on-demand services that will forever be seen as the bellwether for what was to come.  Not even the lifelike resolution of Blu-ray could ebb the storm surge that was on-demand service. On-demand eliminated the number one complaint from subscribers: not being able to watch a show when they wished. After all, renting DVDs was expensive and time consuming. Forgotten have you? See if this sounds familiar. You hopped in your car for a trip to Blockbuster. If you planned it right, you would get that new release. Sometimes that didn't happen. So you engaged in that time honored tradition of shelf browsing. You know, that droning up and down, left and right, aisle by aisle scanning of movie box covers. As you looked around, you noticed others just like you; some of whom look like they have been lost here for days, endlessly wandering the aisles or lurking by the counter on the off-chance that any minute someone would drive up and return the movie they wanted to watch. Not you. You will be in and out in 10 minutes, right? So, with Terminator-like precision, you began the scanning process. And before you knew it, 30 minutes had passed and nothing had grab a hold of your interest; at least nothing on the A-list of movies. It is then, in a moment of frustration, you exclaim "there are no movies here to watch." Idiot moment.

Let's assume you found something worth watching. By now you were hungry. So, you stop and grab some Chinese, wings, or pizza on the way home. Now that $5.00 rental just ratcheted up to an even $20.00 and you are running late thanks to all that wasted time in Blockbuster. Ok, so you finally get home and enjoy your movie and food. It goes back in the case and you place it on the front seat of your car so as to not forget to return it. All seems good in the world until a week or so later. Perhaps you are getting your car washed or returning from an out of town business trip. You open the passenger door of your car and out falls the movie case from last weekend. Ugh! You make your way to Blockbuster and drop the movie into the drop box. After all you aren't going to do the "walk of shame" into the store, giving that high school kid with the name tag around his neck, you know the one that is meant to mimic a backstage pass, the chance to laugh at you…the adult…for incurring late fees that are enough to buy the damn movie…twice. So much for saving money by renting.

I know, a bunch of you just said, "we just recorded our shows or movies and watch them when we wanted." With what? Your VCR? You all know this never worked as promised. These days, DVRs and TiVo have made this whole process much better. Yet they too have limits. One show at a time, perhaps one episode a week. Above all else, you had to remember to schedule the show to record. When you look back now, it seems so…primitive…doesn't it? We were real knuckle-draggers back then. No longer the case with on-demand. Watch any show you want, whenever you want to watch. And you thought binge-watching an entire series of DVDs was a big deal. Ha! Now you can watch an entire season of Boardwalk Empire without leaving your couch…literally. Try and be mindful as family members toss you food, diapers, and sponges to wash yourself down. And trust me when I tell you that rather strong scent is not the dog.  On demand really brought binge watching to the masses. And people haven't slept the same since.

  

Man In The Wilderness

On-demand services are made possible by Internet bandwidth. See, when you choose to watch Entourage, that program has to be "pushed" to you bit by bit. Technology has made this possible, using a process called streaming. That's right, regardless of what others have told you, every single television program and movie ever made doesn't live inside that small little cable box in your house. It's an urban myth. Just like there is no such thing as the deadly Arachnius gluteus from South America, rumored to have migrated to the United States under airliner toilet seats. Or known by its normal name, the butt spider. And, the big scare in 2001 over Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO), that colorless, odorless, tasteless liquid that is consumed by nearly every person on Earth? Yea, it's just another name for water. Anyway, where was I ? Oh right, on-demand. So, you pick what you want, press a button, and it magically arrives at your TV in seconds. With on-demand now really viable, other companies began to take notice. Enter NetFlix. Their flat-rate all-you-can-watch movie rental via mail was highly successful. Yet they saw on-demand as the next big thing…for them. Hmmmm. Mix a successful model of movie rental with on-demand? And do so directly to TVs, DVD players, and just about any other device. As you no doubt know, they were right on the money. You can stream NetFlix content to just about any device so long as it has Internet connectivity. Next they took a page right from the HBO playbook and released their first original series this year called House of Cards. It has met with rave reviews and is quite good. All of a sudden, NetFlix was the reigning king of streaming media. NetFlix? Here is where it gets a little interesting.

Not to be outdone, Amazon began to offer on-demand content right around the same time. It was a natural extension for Amazon as they already offered shopping, music, smartphone apps, and books to a captive audience of devoted members and device owners. Amazon's twist was making this new instant programming service part of its Amazon Prime membership. If you are not a Prime member, you are really missing out. It costs about $80.00/year and entitled you to free second day shipping on just about everything you buy from the big A. That alone makes it worthwhile. But wait, there's more. You can also borrow books from the Amazon ebook library, which happens to be one of the largest  on the planet. And if that wasn't enough…wait for it…you get unlimited streaming of select movies and TV shows. Prime also allows you to pay a small fee for first-run movies or other content in the Amazon universe. Wholly cow! Not an Amazon fan? That's ok. You can hitch yourself to the Microsoft wagon with Xbox LIVE Gold. Same premise here: captive audience thanks to the Xbox gaming console in millions of homes and dorm rooms. And guess what? The first Microsoft original series is due to come out later in 2014. Are you all about Android or Google? Then head right over to Google Play for their similar experience. And of course, we can't forget about Apple iTunes.  In the blink of an eye, you have a half-dozen formidable players in this space. None of which are the usual suspects. No studios, no networks, no record companies. None. How did this possibly happen? I just got your attention didn't I? Keep going.

As most of you know, the big networks have their own websites devoted to their shows. Miss an episode of The Blacklist? No worries. Open your browser and head over to ABC.com. What if you miss an episode of…say…Archer or Deadliest Catch? Head to the website right? Sure you can. And you will get great backstory info, schedule information, and even a nifty T-shirt. But no show replays. What? Why? Because these shows, like so many others, are only available on cable or satellite. So if you miss an episode, you have to grab it on-demand. Ok, at least you can watch it when you want. Then, one day in early 2010, with the flip of a digital switch, we were all introduced to HBO Go. As an HBO subscriber via cable or satellite, you could now watch HBO movies and original series on-demand straight off the HBO website. Take a moment and think about what I've just said.  Every day since November 8, 1972 when it first launched, the ONLY way you could view HBO content was through either cable or satellite. Not any longer. Not too long afterwards,  Verizon launches 4G mobile service with speeds now on par with home and business Internet. And just like that, you could now watch The Sopranos on your smartphone while spinning at the gym. Now then, fast forward a year or so. HBO quietly releases an HBO Go app for iOS, Android, and Xbox. Then, within days, DirecTV releases its own mobile app, enabling subscribers to stream nearly all of their channels and content, mixing on-demand and live streaming…all to your smart phone or tablet. No more going to twenty different channel sites to catch up on shows. Like Hulu, DirecTV aggregated all these channels into one app. Want to catch the news while your wife watches the Biggest Loser without going into the other room (and making her angry)? No problem. Grab some ear buds and your tablets, sit down on the couch next to her, and watch CNN with a smile. Look at what we've done. Pick your show and then pick where to watch it; phone, tablet, PC, TV. Ok, so this is pretty cool and offers a lot of convenience. However, it is only available to DirecTV customers. Right, here is where it all comes together.

The Grand Illusion

With all the pieces now in place, soon you will be able to get HBO as an on-demand Internet service…
without cable or satellite. You can bet your cable bill on it. Don't believe me? Just read the news from a few weeks ago. Comcast has introduced a new bundle that includes Internet, HBO Go, local channels, and their own streaming movie service. The service is something like $40.00/month year one and $70.00/month thereafter. A bargain when you consider someone like me pays nearly that much for Internet alone.  I know you like a good deal when you see it and you may decide to jump all over this. And it is good. But the real deal here isn't…well…the deal here. What you are seeing is the unwinding of cable and satellite service as you've know it. See, someone big needed to break away. That is what HBO has done. What appeared as a series of decisions to broaden their appeal were in fact the creation of a new, direct delivery system.  And, since these services are now delivered via Internet, the cost of infrastructure goes down…way down. Think about DirecTV and how much it costs them to continually develop and support hardware like receivers, dishes and cable boxes. What about the call centers and distribution fees? That is all changing right there in front of your eyes thanks to high speed Internet. Amazing when you think about it. And now that the wall has been torn down, rest assured other channels will soon follow suit. And I suspect it will happen at a ridiculous speed. Don't get me wrong, you will still have packages of service available from the likes of Comcast and DirecTV. However, they will look and be priced very different. 

Now the game becomes very interesting. Most TVs are now Internet-ready. Many newer ones are capable of running apps in order to receive content…just like your phone or tablet. You also have devices such as Apple TV, Chromecast, and Roku which bring these apps to non-smart TVs and give you the ability to wirelessly attach your tablet or smartphone to your TV. So, you will turn on your television and will choose from the likes of Pandora, Spotify, HBO Go, NetFlix, DirecTV, Amazon Prime, iTunes and more. Your "channels" will be accessed  from apps. And they will all be available to you on a subscription basis, all on demand, no satellite dish required.  DirecTV, Comcast, and TimeWarner will gradually transition to content companies and join the ranks of NetFlix , HBO, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Hulu. Collectively, this group will be the new media companies with some delivering content while others create and deliver it.   In the short term, most of the old media companies will desperately try to keep people from cutting the cord. They need to buy time to get themselves through the changes I have spoken about. And in true caveman fashion, they will do so by being counterintuitive: they will raise rates for everyone. Yes, I am sure. Both DirecTV and Comcast both have announced rate increases come February 2014. This will no doubt cause more people to leave. Short-term profits that tee up long-term losses. The music industry tried this with album CDs. They woke up one morning to find that people, especially kids, gave them the middle finger and started downloading music one song at a time. And the music CD industry…completely decimated.

Fooling Yourself

By this time next year, the competition amongst all these players (which is a really good thing by the way) will be palpable and compelling. Could you dump Comcast TV for say Amazon? TimeWarner for a combination of Hulu and HBO Go. Both are not only possible but very much probable.  Folks, this isn't fiction or a parallel universe. It is here right now. In the near term, I am betting that the old media companies like DirecTV, Comcast, TimeWarner and Charter will find themselves in a bit of a flat spin as they both try and figure out the balance of new and old; to reinvent themselves and remain viable. So, check this out. Each one of them has to continue funding the operation of their older delivery systems (ie dish and cable) while quickly learning how the Internet model really works. If that wasn't enough, one of their premier partner (ie HBO) has decided to go direct. Now check out the other side of the street. There you will find those smart TVs and connection devices (ie Chromecast, AppleTV etc) that give consumers that direct access to movies, shows, and the Internet. They don't need old media; they only need Internet. Oh man, if you are an old media company, you've got that feeling; not the James Brown get up and dance feeling; that feeling of loneliness as your customers begin to leave you. But don't count them out just yet. There is room in the market for them. However, they will no longer enjoy healthy competition amongst a handful of like players with similar problems. Now they will find themselves competing against each other as well as the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple. And these are companies who have built their businesses on Internet ecommerce and efficiency, in highly competitive environments, serving millions more customers than Comcast and DirecTV combined. Let's face it folks, they are pretty much wrote the e-book on delivering stuff to people via the Internet.

So, what do you do? I'd suggest you pull up a chair, grab a cold one and just watch it all go down for now. It will feel like a mixture of freedom and a breath of fresh air. Remember, most of you have been in a dysfunctional relationship with your old media company for many, many years. Choice is about to come back to you in a big way. Until then, let me offer up this little story as to how the old media companies are like salmon. Yes, I am talking about the fish. When I was a kid, the only fish my mother cooked was salmon. I remembered it kind of stunk. An ocean full of fish but you could only eat one? I didn't really count tuna as a fish since it was always served as tuna fish salad (the salad on the end made it a salad and not a fish). Plus, to add to my confusion, it was called Chicken of the Sea. Brilliant. Anyway, so, I grew to hate salmon. Really, I did. I knew it was supposed to satisfy me in a good way, but I was often left disappointed and a bit hungry. I also couldn't help but turn my nose up just hearing about it. Ugh. But I really had no say at the time so I was forced to accept it. As I grew older, I let it be known that the liking of fish was prohibited in my digestive kingdom. It wasn't until I met my wife that I experienced the return of the fin. Halibut, Sea Bass, Cod, Snapper and more. Hmmm. You could cook and combine them all different ways. And you could eat them too! Best of all, they each tasted good and you didn't have to just pick one. Will there be an end to salmon? Certainly not. There are some people out there who are very content living in a one-fish pond. For the rest of us, the sea is full of other fish…and about to get fuller.

See you all next year. May 2014 find your tips up and your lines tight.

One Good Thing About Music, When It Hits You, You Feel No Pain

All this tech talk over the last few months has reminded me that I needed to wax musical. If you are a regular reader you no doubt know of my intense love for music. It is always on, and all around me. That is except for the time I am sleeping. Music has been a hopeless addiction since I was a kid riding around in my dad's car listening to the Beatles on 8-Track. My listening is really dictated by my mood. And while I tend to like most everything, my soul seems rooted in jazz and blues with my weapon of choice being acoustic guitar. Don't worry. I am not unhappy or depressed. I am really drawn to the pure and expressive nature of the jazz and blues greats, with a passion for the beautiful expression that comes from an acoustic axe. Anyway, as you can no doubt imagine, my collection is…well…massive. Classical, Rock, Jazz, Pop…you name it. And it is a combination of studio and live music.

   Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them - Louis Armstrong

Over time I have painstakingly converted old cassette and digital audio tape masters to full digital files. As for my CDs, well they were already digital; they just needed to be "ripped" (eg digitally extracted) into files. I've been doing this long enough to remember how painful this used to be. The software to rip CDs started out as just "ok" and expensive. The sound quality was lower and filled with that distinctive digital shrill. And you had to manually enter the name of each and every song. Yea, I know. Want the album cover art? You were out of luck. Funny thing: a record jacket just won't fit through one of those page scanners. So perhaps you would resort to scanning the inside paper from a CD case or cassette. Trust me, it looked awful. These days, it's easy. Throw in a CD and Windows will not only rip all the music into individual files, it will go out to the Net and download the song titles and album art automatically. Anyway, one by one, I took each album or concert, digitized it and meticulously tagged them all with the appropriate information and cover art (aka metadata). After all, if I am going to spend all this time getting everything digital, it better be consistent and complete. OCD...check! This work has gone on for over a decade with a backup running each and every day. My dear friend James reminded me of the fun you endure if you lose a drive and have to start all over again. Like dragging a needle across a record, it only takes once to learn that lesson.

Then, just as I saw the end of this monumental task; just as I reached the peak of the musical mountain, the digital music revolution took hold and everything changed.
      

Hypnotized
I started thinking about this blog while listening to Fleetwood Mac - Rumours. It is the 35th anniversary of
this very special album you know. It is by far one of the best albums ever recorded. It came from a time when music didn't suck. Artist saw an album as a body of work that told a story. Hence the term "play through" was coined to describe an album which you played from start to finish, enjoying each track. Rumours wasn't the first play-through, just the first of many play-throughs I would own. You all know nearly every single track on the album thanks to the radio. "Go Your Own Way, Dreams, Gold Dust Woman" just to name a few, are enduring songs which you've heard most of your life. What you may not know is that Rumours was the 10th album by Fleetwood Mac which, up until the album previous to Rumours (simply called Fleetwood Mac), was a modestly popular blues band. What happened next is one of rock's best "right place at the right time" stories.  In late 1974, as the original band was folding, Mick Fleetwood began looking around for replacement musicians. He was hanging out in the recording studio where he overheard the playback of a newly recorded song by a local group called Buckingham Nicks. Fleetwood really dug the sound and asked to be introduced to the guitarist. The studio engineer said, "He is right over there in the other room."  It was at this moment that Fleetwood met, you guessed it, Lindsay Buckingham.  Fleetwood asked Buckingham to join the group. Buckingham agreed, on the condition that his girlfriend, Stephanie Nicks could join too.  I think you know the rest.

Don't Stop
Enjoying my music digitally was pretty easy to do at home. I had all the music living on a hard drive and could play it through a PC. Trouble was I didn't sit at my PC all the time. As time went by, my device count grew. I have a smart phone, a few tablets, a laptop, and a PC at work. I wanted to jam everywhere. So, I discovered Pandora. No, not the expensive charm bracelet. This Pandora is free. I just saw most of you smile. Dubbed an Internet radio service, Pandora allows me to create my own radio station and she seemed to be dialed into everything else I liked too. For example, I created a station called Santana. Naturally, Pandora immediately started to spin out one song after another from the great San Fran guitarist. Yet they weren't all Santana songs. See, Pandora "listens" to the music you like and then guesses (based on certain patterns) that you will like other artists. So, while listening to Santana, Pandora throws on some Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, Crosby Stills & Nash and so on. If she guesses right, I give her a "thumbs up" and she knows from that point forward that she is guessing correctly. I can also give a "thumbs down" when she hits me
with "Inna godda davida." Very cool stuff.

So every girl has her hang-ups, right? Well, Pandora is no exception. She very much resembles a Millennium-generation teenager. Short attention span mixed with instant gratification tendencies. Sure she has access to a lot of music. But she knows nothing about albums. All she knows are singles. This is perfect for the iTunes generation. You know, the people who say "photo" when you say "album;" who think Crosby, Stills, and Nash are a law firm, Cream is what goes in your skinny, half-calf non-fat organic blend latte, and The Grateful Dead is the name of the next zombie apocalypse movie. I don't fault them. Look, they have been conditioned to enjoy music $.99 at a time as an eclectic collection of really short stories instead of an epic tale. Hey, if you're being told the book only has one good chapter, you don't really know what you're missing, right?  Me, well I am a space-generation baby. I am all about albums. As an aside, you may enjoy Rolling Stone Magazine's  500 greatest albums of all time. It's an interesting journey on its own. Anyway, if you are an album junkie, Pandora will frustrate you. Then there is what I call the "Beatles phenomenon." It would seem that every Pandora station meanders its way back to Beatles. Don't get me wrong, I love the lads from Liverpool. I just find it funny that one minute I am listening to Johnny Cash singing Folsom Prison Blues and the next I will hear Sgt. Peppers. And finally, Pandora has no way of tapping into your personal music collection. With all that said though, I still enjoy her. Pandora fills a need in that you can have a ton of different stations and let it randomly play. Your own personal radio station made up of all the genres that you like. It's like having an old-school FM radio station all to yourself. Request lines are open...just for you!

Second Hand News

About a year or so ago, I discovered a neat program called Plex. Plex is a piece
of software that lives on my home PC and catalogs all of my personal music and movies. Not impressed? Let me go a bit further here. Plex will transmit (aka stream) my music and movie collection to nearly any device I own, anywhere I am, so long as I have Internet access. There are Plex apps for Windows, iOS, Android, and any browser. Remember, I mentioned my vast personal music collection? Sure, I have a ton of standard issued albums just like you do. However, I am also an avid collector of live recordings that capture artists in a very different way. None of which were commercially released. Billy Joel playing in a bar in 1977 before releasing "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant;" Widespread Panic performing in Aspen as an unknown jam band from Georgia. The Black Crowes doing an entire show of Led Zepplin covers, with Jimmy Page playing guitar (a subsequent version of this show got released). I'm talking hundreds of shows. So, here is what I can do now. I hop in my car and am in the mood to hear...um...the original Van Halen demo sessions from 1976. Demo sessions you say? A little side history here. Everyone knows Van Halen and their music. What you may not know is they were discovered by none other than Gene Simmons. He liked their sound so much that he funded their first demo recording.

The band's original name was "Genesis." That is until Eddie realized there was a band from England with the same name. Then it was "Mammoth." However, it too was by another band. David Lee Roth suggested something more subtle: Van Halen. A good move considering the name they almost went with was "Rat Salad." Really, that is a true story. Where was I? Oh right...Plex. I open the Plex app on my smart phone, find the album and press play. Within a few seconds, the unmistakable guitar of Eddie Van Halen goes from zero to sixty in a few seconds. I start up my car and, through the magic of Bluetooth, the music effortlessly begins to play on my car stereo…without me doing a thing. I stick my phone in the cup holder and begin to drive…never missing a beat (no pun

intended)…all the while listening to music coming straight from my house. Just amazing how all this technology seamless works together. So well in fact that it has really caused me to question even having satellite radio any longer. When I am at home, I use Plex on my Apple TV. So, my whole music collection is readily available to me everywhere in the house. And I have the added bonus of browsing my collection using a remote and my TV.  A little Ray Charles from the Newport Jazz Festival; perfect for a dinner with friends. Perhaps a day of cooking is in store? Hmmm...I'm feeling some Stevie Ray Vaughn. A few clicks and Texas Flood starts coming your way.

Then there is work. Pop open the Plex player for Windows 8 and I can enjoy some tunes at work. Some days its Bob James and David Sanborn with a mix of Aretha and James Taylor. Perhaps a dollup of Metallica with a drive-by of AC/DC and Paul Simon. Some nice toe tapping at the office. Plex is absolutely awesome! But wait, there's more! It will also stream my movies the same way as my music. So what doesn't it do? It only knows about the music and movies you own. That means I am still back to either buying music and placing it on my computer or using Pandora. For a while, between Plex and Pandora, I felt pretty whole. Then one day I met Spotify.

Dreams
Spotify came along about a year ago. I talk about it all the time. It too is an online music streaming service...with a big twist:  It was all about full albums. Hallelujah! Another free service, Spotify allows you to search for and play albums of your choice. Oh man! How good could it be for free? Limited selection right? Crappy quality? Not at all. Granted, every artist has not cut a deal with Spotify to catalog and offer their music, but most have done so. Ok, here we go. I searched for Jimi Hendrix Valleys of Neptune. And there it is…the entire album. How about the Three Tenors in Rome. It's there. Pink Floyd The Wall. There. Dave Bruebeck Take Five. There. Miles Davis Kind of Blue. There. Eric Clapton, David Sanborn, Boston, Simon and Garfunkel, Pavarotti, Strawberry Alarm Clock, it goes on and on and on. I quickly realized that much of the recorded music in my collection was already in Spotify. How convenient considering I spent...I don't know...call it an excessive amount of time and money trying to achieve digital perfection with my collection Anyway, Spotify works on all my devices just like Plex. No, it doesn't know about my home collection. But it is all about commercially released albums that I like. This is huge. Now, comes the fun part: the Spotify community.

Music-lovers from around the globe enjoy Spotify. And they create playlists of their favorite artists, songs, and albums. Here is the best part: they share them with the community. Imagine choosing a group like the Rolling Stones and building your own greatest hits playlist that consists of as many songs as you want across all the albums you love. Then, quicker than you can say "Jumping Jack Flash" you can share that list with your friends. Your very own greatest hits list without...wait for it... buying any of the music! I know, it just hit you didn't it? Who is "Jumping Jack

Flash?" That would be Jack Dyer; Keith Richard's gardener in 1968. Wait! I meant "it just hit you" that music no longer will cost you money. That is correct. You no longer have to buy your music. No CDs, singles, full digital albums…nothing. With Spotify, music becomes a cloud service where you can explore and listen to any genre, and any artist without spending a single dollar and without any limits. True musical freedom. Now then, if you want free, you have to endure a commercial or two. However, for a few bucks a month, you can have Spotify completely commercial-free.  That's right, for the price of five singles on iTunes, the entire music world is available to you sans advertisement. And recently, Spotify introduced their "Radio" service. This is a Pandora knock off that is built into Spotify. This changes everything! And, I've gotta tell you, Spotify's Radio beats Pandora. Really, it does.

Go Your Own Way
I really think the Spotify model is the future of music. Google and Apple seem to agree as they both scramble to catch up. Google says they will give you the best of both worlds: streaming albums like Spotify and your own music collection in the cloud. We'll see. For now, artists are embracing the new model. Why? because artists no longer make money on album or single sales. Instead, the money is made on the road with concerts and high priced tickets. A full reverse of the way it used to be. Nothing exemplifies this statement more than when you hear the stats of the number one album in the country. A mere 200,000 album sales and you are in the top spot. Used to be you need to get to at least Gold

(500,000 sold) before anyone recognized your album as successful. Platinum (1,000,000 sold) meant you really had something worthy.

Services such as Spotify have the ability and potential to re-imagine the music business by not only acquainting the younger generations with the concept and meaningfulness of an album, but also inviting them to explore beyond the hyper-dance, angry, auto-tuned, poaching sampling-other-people's-work-and calling-it-original-music that seems to be all around us these days. It would be nice to talk to a twenty-something and have them know three things: "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme" is not a list of spices your mom wants you go buy at the grocery store; Johnnie Lee Hooker is not the name of a call girl; And that "Great Balls of Fire" was not sung by Jerry Lewis. If we can get passed these three things, I believe there is hope.

So what has happened to me now? Well, for starters, I don't buy singles or albums any longer. Period. There
is no need. And I am not faced with cataloging and dropping all that music onto my home server. Used to be when I traveled that I needed to load up music on devices before I left town. Do you know how time consuming this is when you have a family? It took forever and you always left off the one song or album that everyone wanted to here. Mindreader = Fail. Those days are now gone. I have hundreds of playlists in Spotify, for whatever music mood I find myself. As a result, , I use Pandora less and less. Spotify rules them all, with Plex filling in where Spotify can't reach. So now that you are emboldened with this great musical knowledge, go forth and re-discover that which used to make you so, so happy. Sign up for Pandora and Spotify. Then, grab your black concert t-shirt, studded leather belt, some Levi 501 button fly jeans and a bandanna; Go now and relive your guilty pleasure of big-hair 80's bands the way you couldn't before since you didn't have any money. No cassettes, no concerts, or boom boxes required. Just you, your smart phone, and some epic air guitar with Ratt, Twister Sister, The Scopions and Motley Crue. Sure you will look like a one-man flash mob but who cares. No regrets, no judgement. That is, of course, provided you don't attempt the aforementioned task at work...not even on Halloween.

P.S. Yes, some of THAT music is in my collection too :-) One other thing: the title of this post is one that I do not take credit. It is a wonderful quote from Bob Marley.

P.P.S. A small note about Ray Dolby. He passed away late last week. Many of you don't know him, but you have benefited from his wonderful work every time you hear music and watch a movie. Thanks to Ray, the world is, and shall remain, a much quieter place.

What I Use

I am really trying hard to get back on track here. And I had a little extra time so I thought I would get this new little post off the ground. It's been something I've want to post for a little while, and that many of you have asked me about in emails and posts.  Quite often, I get asked about the apps I choose to run on different devices. So, I've started a new section in my blog called What I Use. If you look on the right, you will see this nifty filter thing called "Labels." It will allow you to go straight to the list any time you wish.

My intent is for this list to be something of a living document that I will add to on an ongoing basis. So, to make sure I don't end up becoming just another propeller head with "his" apps, I have established a few rules. The apps I list will only be ones I really use. And I'll try and give you a good reason why they are cool and useful. I will need to play around a bit with the format so bear with me. Mind you, I am not claiming these are the best apps. They are instead the ones which warrant taking up space on any of my devices…and get used all the time.

By the way, iDone. I've broken up with my iPad3. Look, she is beautiful and it's been nice for a year. But she is high maintenance, needy, and won't let me do my own thing. Getting the Android band back together. GS4+Nexus 10. Like Plant and Paige. Whole lotta love 

On every device, I use:

Google Chrome - 7/14/2013

Besides being the fastest browser, you'll want to use Chrome on all your devices thanks to its built-in sync system. Here's the deal. Ever grab your phone and run off to your car only to forget that you needed the info on your webpage…on your PC. Decision time: dash back into your office and be late to your appointment or grab your phone and open Chrome. What you say? Open Chrome on your phone. That will show me my desktop? Yup. Open Chrome and choose "other devices." In a moment, you will see a list of the last link you opened on all of your Chrome browsers across all your devices. Just cool. Just login to your Google account from each device and everything stays in sync. Yea, that easy.

Google Chrome To Phone - Chrome Browser  - 7/14/2013

This is one of those cool little things that makes you glad you use the Chrome browser on your desktop and your phone. Chrome to Phone is a Chrome extension; a little program that runs inside the Chrome browser. Here is what it does. Say you locate a website on your desktop PC and want to send it over to your phone. Like all the items you need to get from Lowes. Click the icon and the link is immediately sent over to your Android device. No emailing yourself; no copying and pasting. Just click and it automagically appears.

Dropbox - 7/14/2013

I think this is the defacto app for getting info between your devices. I take pictures and they go into my Dropbox. Automagically they sync to my PC. No mas. Really, it is that easy. When I travel, I throw docs and reading material into my Dropbox. I can then read or edit them on my iPad or laptop. No thumbdrive, USB cable, wifi transfer. It just works. And, if you get your friends to sign up, you get more free Dropbox space. One of the coolest features is being able to drop a file into a public folder and sending a link to a friend or colleague. They don't even need a Dropbox account to get to the file. Effortless. I've used SugarSync and Box.net. Dropbox won me over. And my wife can use it too which counts for...well...everything.

DropItToMe - 7/14/2013

I am a big, big Dropbox fan. But sometimes people need to send me files. Perhaps my accountant wants to send financials. Or a customer wishes to get proprietary files to us. This stuff can't (and shouldn't) be sent via email. This is where DropItToMe fits. I have a web page link that never changes (ie www.dropittome.com/yourownname). I send that to you along with a password. You go to the site, enter the password, pick your file and choose upload. That’s it. In a few moments, I get an email that you just uploaded a file to me. And guess what, it lands in my Dropbox. How cool is that? No crazy FTP. No big attachments clogging up the email on your phone. Best of all, it's free.

KeePass - 7/14/2013

Here is what you should do here. Download a program called KeePass. Its free and will store your passwords in a highly encrypted database that also has a master password. This is what I use. Its a terrific app. Here is the trick with KeePass: Take the KeePass database and place it in a folder in your Dropbox! Load the KeePass program on your devices (its tiny) and open the database direct from Dropbox. Now you have all your passwords with you, highly encrypted, on any of your devices. And any changes made are written to the DropBox folder. Clever little use and it works flawlessly. Uses 256bit AES encryption. 

Microsoft OneNote - 7/14/2013

This is by far one of the most important apps I use every single day. I could go on and on for days about how awesome it is. I think I could write an entire blog just about it. In fact, I write my blog in OneNote. OneNote is one of those apps that came along from Microsoft that they didn't make a bunch of noise about. Back in 2007, it was bundled with Office. I got hitched to the wagon back then. And it keeps getting better. Now I have it on my PC, laptop, phone and tablet. All synced together, all the time,  thanks to SkyDrive. OneNote is probably best described as an electronic version of a notebook. It has colored tabs, sections, font control, tables…you name it. …everything. So what do I use it for? Let's see. I write and keep policies and procedures, How-Tos, and projects lists. Sure I could do this in Word. But I would have thousands of files scattered across hundreds of folders on a server. OneNote keeps them all together in pages and sections. Find a link or picture on the Web? Paste it write into the page. Have a stylus? Wonderful! You can ink right on the page. One of the newest features is the ability to share a notebook with other people. We use this feature all the time for collaborating about projects. One place for all your notes and comments. Tasks are linked in too! What makes this cool is we use it for customers. I create a shared notebook and then drop documents and notes into

Microsoft SkyDrive - 7/14/2013

Yes, I use SkyDrive as well as Dropbox. I needed to add Skydrive because it does some things that Dropbox won't. Like keep all my OneNote notebooks in sync between all my devices. I also love the fact that I can save files from Word and Excel directly to SkyDrive. A little integration that saves mouse clicks and time. And, I can share a file or folder with other people…even if they don't have a SkyDrive account.

Nest  - 7/14/2013

I didn't know whether to mention this one or not since it requires that you also buy a Nest thermostat (www.nest.com). If you haven't read about these things yet, you should run out and grab one. It is the learning thermostat re-imagined. I have two of them.  Besides the fact that they have saved me serious money on my energy bills each month (well below my old programmable thermostat), you can control your thermostat from your phone or any browser. Think about that for just a minute. Land at the airport and turn on the A/C in your home while you are getting your luggage. Forget to adjust the thermostat before leaving town? No problem. Grab your phone or hop on a PC. And save money. What could be better than that?

Pandora - 7/14/2013

It is really hard to find a better streaming music service than Pandora. I am convinced that Pandora is the perfect companion. She willingly goes everywhere with me.  She makes me smile;  I never tire of listening to her and she wants nothing more than to please me.  Oh, and she knows what music I like too ;)

Plex - 7/14/2013

I am a big music and movie guy. And while I prefer to use Spotify and Pandora for streaming music I don't have in my collection, they really do nothing for the music I have amassed over the years B.D.E (Before the Digital Era). They also don't give a hoot about my movie library. Plex will take the music and movies I own and stream them to just about any device so long as I have Internet. Install a small piece of software on a PC, open the web interface and point it to your collection. In a matter of seconds, I can watch or listen to anything in my collection. So whether I want to jam to that Allman Brother's concert from 1991 on my phone, or watch "Tangled" with my daughter on our home TV, Plex handles it all for me.

Pulse Newsreader - 7/14/2013

It's hard to keep up with all the news all the time. Pulse makes it nice and easy. It pulls together all of your favorite stories and presents them in a tiled and scrollable format. Yea, these guys were doing a little Metro UI before Microsoft. Go check it out. This one I know you will thank me for.

Spotify - 7/14/2013

So you know how I handle the music and movies I already have in my collection. Going forward though, I've really stopped buying music. And while Pandora is great for mixing it up, it doesn't know anything about albums. Hey, sometimes you just want to listen to a bunch of Grateful Dead, Zepplin, or Rush. This is where Spotify comes into play (no pun intended). Spotify is all about streaming albums of music to you just about anywhere. It also has a Pandora-like radio feature called…wait for it…Spotify Radio. The service is free if you want to deal with commercials. I pay for the service and get it commercial free. For the few bucks a month (literally $5.00), I have access to all the albums I can possibly stand and I am saving serious coin thanks to no longer downloading tracks and albums. And besides, who needs to build up a huge music library on a hard drive any longer. This is a no-brainer.

TripIt - 7/14/2013

I plan all my trips with this little ditty. No spreadsheets with itineraries. And no long emails to friends and family. Here is how it works. You create a trip. Then you book your flights, hotel, cars, etc. When you get those handy confirmation emails, you forward them to plans@tripit.com. Within seconds, the email is "read" and all the information is automatically added to your trip. Seriously. Your flight info, hotel arrangements, car rentals...down to the confirm numbers. It is all neatly organized per day and guess what? You didn't type in any of it. There are also cool little links that are added in. For example, click on you departing flight info and it will give you your flight status. Click on your hotel name and you immediately get Google directions and the local weather. Plan one trip with TripIt and you will never do a travel itenary in Word or Excel again. Ever. Oh, and you can share the trip with anyone you wish.

Trillian - 7/14/2013

Part of my job involves talking to people all the time. However, I can't actually "talk" to everyone all the time. Sometimes, I use Instant Messaging. Kind of like texting through the Internet. Unlike texting though, instant messaging started a long time ago and has remained compartmentalized. That is, if you have a Windows Live or Skype IM address, you can talk to anyone so long as they too have a Windows Live IM address. Same for AOL, Jabber, Yahoo, and Google. So, in order to maintain communication with all your friends and colleagues, you needed to have like five different accounts. A pain in the hind quarters. Trillian solves the problem by pulling all these IM accounts into one program. Launch the program, and it logs into each account for you. You can send and receive messages now without having to go in and out of each program. One day perhaps the IM systems will all come together. Until then, there is Trillian

WiFi Analyzer - 7/14/2013

Another geek toy but actually very useful for the non-geekdom as well. Whenever I am in a place where WiFi doesn't seem the be as good or as fast as the bars indicate, I turn on WiFi Analyzer. This app shows me all the wireless networks that are broadcasting at that moment. While it doesn't give me the ability to nuke the ones that are stepping on my signal, it does give me an idea of why my WiFi isn't working great and gives me the chance to change the channel on my gear to give me better performance.

In addition, I use these apps only on my mobile devices:

AirDroid - 7/14/2013

This is the first app I ever load. Even with a big screen, there are just those times when it is nice to manage your Android device on your PC…without any cables. From transferring files to just cleaning up your home screens, a big monitor and full keyboard make it easier, especially when it is wireless. Start up this service on your device and type the link into your browser. BANG! Full control of Android from your PC. Easy, elegant, and effortless.

AccuWeather - 7/14/2013

I find this to be the best and most informative weather app. And it has the coolest animation

A.I. Type Keyboard

As time goes by, my passwords become more complicated. They have to involve a combination of letters and numbers. I know you face the same issue. Perhaps not with passwords but just typing numbers in general, on your mobile device. It always involves hitting the bloody shift key and going back and forth. Not any longer. This little diddy adds a top line to your onscreen keyboard with…you guessed it…numbers! They are there all the time. Nope, can't do that on an Apple device. Go grab this one and send me an email to thank me for fewer calouses on those fingers of yours.

AquaMail  - 7/14/2013

The built in mail apps that come with most mobile devices are really basic. And, if you have multiple email addresses (which nearly all of us do), you don't want to spend your time switching between those apps and hunting down your email. AquaMail is a fast and clean email program that not only gives you more control over your email, it also allows you to add and check all of your email accounts in one simple app. Smart Inbox is one of its key features. AquaMail uses Smart Inbox to display email from each of my accounts, tagged with a different color so I know from whence account it arrived. And I can choose which account to use when sending out email. Ahhh, one app to control them all.

CloudCube - 7/14/2013

This is a new addition as of July. Now that I use multiple cloud storage services (ie Skydrive, Dropbox etc), keeping up with data on each service involves opening that service's app and looking around. CloudCube solves this problem by giving you one app that pulls together all of your cloud storage services into one view. Clean, nice, and easy. I love this app because it saves me time and is very functional.

DigiCal - 7/14/2013

This is an Android calendar alternative. Besides having more layout control, it will display your calendar on the main screen of your android device. Nice to be able to glance down and see your day's agenda without thumbing through apps to find it. Right where you need it. It also lets you edit any appointment in your calendar, even those created by others via an electronic invite. Try that on your iPad

Fing  - 7/14/2013

For those network folks out there in the audience, this is a nice one to have. Fing will scan your network and show you all the devices that are present, via IP address. A very useful tool when trying to find devices.

FoxFi  - 7/14/2013

This one would seem a bit retro but there is a real need for it. Example, I have a 4G data plan on my iPad. Same with my GS3. I don't carry a data plan on my Samsung laptop. With FoxFi, I launch the app and my phone becomes a WiFi hotspot with full Internet access, for any device to connect. Way cool and free. So, for those travelling times when I want to give my Samsung some 4G goodness, I use FoxFi. In the car, in hotels…anywhere. I know that WiFi is all around me. So does every other traveler. You can have great wifi signal and palsy Internet access because of all the devices latching onto the cow for free milk. Don't believe me? Travel through the DFW airport and try to use WiFi to get on the Internet. Its brutal. You're smarter than that. You will have this app loaded on your laptop and phone so that you become the shepherd and not one of the sheep.

Google Voice - 7/14/2013

This is the first app I load on all my devices. If you are not using Google Voice, you really are missing out. Why do I like it? Well, for starters, I don't always have the ability to listen to my voice mails. I don’t have to with GV. It transcribes them and either sends them to me in text or email. That alone would be good enough. With the native app, I can view them or listen to them within the app. If you call my cellphone, GV is my default voice mail (no I don't use the carrier's voice mail). It will screen the call, hunt me down, or just let the call come through. There is also a really nice Google Chrome extension. It allows you to playback your voicemails right in the Chrome browser, without going to the Google Voice website. Really Sweet

One other nice thing is texting through GV. Yup, I can text straight from Google Chrome thanks to the Google Voice tie in. Same is true on my phone. I know you are scratching your head and asking why this is important if I can just text from my phone via the carrier. I will tell you the answer in one word: money. Texting through GV is free.  Let me put this in perspective. I recently travelled outside the country. Texting with my phone was a $2.00 whack in the head each time. I still texted with my phone but did it through GV...and it was free. Google Voice may be the best Google app out there. And, did I mention it is free.

IP Camera Viewer - 7/14/2013

I have all sorts of cameras for many different things. And they are all from different manufacturers. Want to watch them on your phone in one view? Easy. Download this gem and you can pretty much connect to any of your cameras from anywhere you have connectivity, mixing and matching different manufacturers. The developer does an awesome job of keeping the program up-to-date with the latest camera drivers. I wish he had a version for Windows 8. For now, it is out there for Android and iOS.

Open Table  - 7/14/2013

If you eat out these days, you need reservations. This is my go-to program. I use it quite a bit in my home town. However, I find it immensely useful when I am on the road as well. A few clicks and your table will be waiting for you.

Thumbs keyboard - 7/14/2013

This is a must-have program for you tablet folks. If you are like me, you were not genetically disposed to texting or tablet typing. Yup, at 6'2", my hands and fingers resemble Fred Flintstone. So, pecking out message QWERTY style is...well...pecking. Thumbs takes your keyboard and splits it in half. Now, we're talking! So you can hold your tablet portrait or landscape and type simultaneously with your thumbs. On a tablet, this feels natural. Trust me, it should be one of the first apps to load up on your tablet.

WAV Player - 7/14/2013

The native audio app has some trouble with WAV files. Download this little jewel and you can listen to those WAV voice mails or files anytime you wish. Its free.

I'll Have The Soup, Server, and SUV Please

I take a great amount of pride and time when I pull together my blog posts. Why? I don't want to waste your time. Sure I could pull together some meaningless dribble each month, perhaps just poaching links and re-blogging what others have said. What would be the point right? So instead, like a good chicken soup, my blogs are hand-crafted using an original recipe and the finest ingredients. Most important, it is never rushed and allowed to simmer a little bit. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I will sample it a few times, walk away, and come back. It'll be done when it is done. By the way, be sure and click the links in this blog. Makes everything taste better.

Blacksmith and the artist, reflect it in their art. They forge their creativity, closer to the heart - Rush

Virtualization. By far THE most important network technology that you don't know about. It is all around you, hiding in plain sight. I bet you are using it right now, just didn't know it. It's big. Really big! Bigger than tablets? Most definitely. More important than Facebook or Twitter? You bet. It is pretty safe to say that if you use any tablet, PC, laptop or smartphone, you are using it. Scratching your head? A bit confused are you? Not to worry. Have a seat, grab your tin foil hat we'll chat about it. 

Let's start from the very beginning. A very good place to start. When you read you begin with A,B,C. When you count your servers you say 1,2,3…and 4 and 5 and beyond. Jeez. This server room seems to fill up like John Belushi at the Faber College lunch buffet in Animal House. Need to store some data, order a server and add it to the network. Want to start using that new accounting system? No problem. Get with Dell or HP and a new server will arrive about ten days later. Your company needs to move from an old version of Microsoft Exchange to a new one. Call IT and tell them to order a few more of those metal monsters . Before long, your server "corner" became a server room. And it isn't a little PC with a power strip any longer. No, your server room now looks like the bridge of the starship Enterprise. You can't help but stare at it and say "jeez, when did we get so advanced?" Then, in the next breath you exclaim, "how the hell did anyone get anything done before?" 

We in the biz call this "server sprawl." That apparently endless growing footprint of dedicated server hardware. And how did this happen? Blame it on software. Software is kind of like that spoiled kid you knew in high school that talked like a Valley Girl; a bit selfish, slightly conceited, and a prima donna. See, long ago, everyone in the software business pretty much decided that their software was special. So special that they started requiring their own dedicated server. For the software companies, it was a rather obvious (albeit expensive for the customer) way to reduce the amount of headbanging in the support department. Put another way, if my software, and only my software is running on this here server, nothing else should interfere with it. That should give me stability and troubleshooting should be easier. There is validity in this thinking. However, this widely adopted practice led to many a propeller head having to stack companies full of single, dedicated servers, with lots of computing power. When they worked, they worked hard; yet they spent a fair amount of time kinda hanging out; waiting...waiting...Bueller...Bueller. Unfortunately, there wasn't much we could do about it. Remember, you expect us IT guys to predict the future. What do I mean? Well, we're given a budget to buy gear; we're also given a directive that it must last for five years, perhaps longer. Therefore, we need to anticipate heavy and light work days; we have to be ready for a company that grows, adding new or even temp employees at a moment's notice; we must have enough power to push through the crush of end-of-month reporting or the addition of 10,000 new SKUs. And of course, we know how to place phasers on stun. So while you believe we all speak Klingon, or think that we sit around half the day debating whether the technology in Star Trek or Star Wars is actually better, there is usually logic, knowledge, and a bit of clairvoyance behind our decisions. Your servers, each and every one of them, were likely sized right given the rules by which we played. But man there was so much computing horsepower sitting around not really being used all the time. If only there was a way for one server to use the idle resources of another server; if only we could just fuse these metal boxes together instead of duplicating or triplicating the same resources across all these individual servers. Now that is a technology you would jump all over, right? I feel the water in the soup pot heating up a bit. Read on.

First Ingredient: Hypervisor

Back in the 60's, IBM had an idea. Yes, your Uncle Ricky is about to tell you yet another sad tale of how an IBM-developed technology has benefited everyone…except IBM. So, here is the quick story. IBM mainframe systems (those room-sized servers of long ago) needed a way for multiple operating systems (think Windows, Android, and iOS) to run on one piece of hardware all at the same time, without stepping on each other. What does this mean? Think of it this way. You have your head with two ears and one mouth. Everything you hear comes into your ears roughly at the same time. That is, you hear most things in stereo, right? Seems like a bit of a waste when you consider you have two perfectly good ears and a pretty smart piece of meat between them (aka your brain). Try this. Take two of my favorite tracks from live albums. Start with "One Way Out" by the Allman Brothers - Live At The Fillmore. Just play it in your left ear. Then, in your right ear, crank up "Mean Woman Blues" by Jerry Lee Lewis - Live From Star Club. Now, try to sing along to each song individually while they are playing at the same time. Can't be done. By the way, please don't try this in public. It will resemble a bad imitation of Evan Baxter from "Bruce Almighty." Anyway, this is basically what IBM was trying to do with its servers. Remember, this is a time when a server cost more than a neighborhood of three bedroom homes. Before long though, a group of fellas in IBM's research center figured out a clever way to do it. And they called their creation a Hyper-visor (nowadays just called hypervisor); the "hyper" part came from the way this special code worked above everything else; and "visor" was short for supervisor. What made it uber cool was that the hypervisor was small. So small that today's version easily fit on a $10.00 USB thumb drive. So, in 1972, IBM introduced this technology to the world. Doing so meant that two, three, or four different software versions could independently run on the same mainframe at the same time. All of a sudden, they could place four customers on one mainframe, dividing the cost among them. This was a very, very big deal. They were very proud of this achievement and coined the phrase "virtualization." Now then, for some 20 years, IBM didn't have a single competitor in virtualization. Decades ahead of the competition. Then in late 1990, a company named VMware came up with its own hypervisor which worked with Windows-based systems; Microsoft would follow suit in 2008. Once again IBM was caught sleeping at the wheel of the getaway car, losing the chance to capitalize on a technology they invented. VMware and Microsoft are now seen as the leaders in virtualization technology…not IBM.

Second Ingredient: Core Technology

So why did virtualization take so long to hit the mainstream? Because back in the '90s and early 2000s' the price of server hardware was still pretty expensive. Same was true for the price of hypervisors. So while this virtualization technology looked promising, it was still cheaper to have multiple dedicated servers. So we bought servers. A lot of them. And while we were all bopping down the network road with all these servers humming along we learned a few things. First, like anything else, it takes money and expertise to maintain them. Second, about every five years, they need to be replaced with something newer and faster. 

See, for all these years, we had been taught to chase the fastest processor (aka CPU) possible. After all, the faster the processor, the quicker the server. Then we were taught that two processors were better than one. And just like Noah did with the Ark, we started buying servers with processors two-by-two. Man these suckers were pricey. Thousands of dollars just for the CPUs alone. Did it matter? Not so much. Those multi-processor servers never seemed to really give us that gut-wrenching speed we wanted, let alone paid for. Ugh. We needed a technology that could deliver and also be affordable. A VW with the horsepower of an aircraft engine. Flash forward to 2005. Intel and AMD introduced the masses to something called core processors. You'll notice I said "introduced the masses." Guess who actually developed the first known core processors? Yup…IBM. You don't need to know anything else about that story except to say it ends like the last one I just told you.

Anyway, remember those two processors I was just talking about? Well, they take up a lot of space inside of a server, mostly because they stand side by side. And if you think space is at a premium in a server, think about a tiny smartphone. Which begged the question of why go wide when you can go up? And Intel did just that; they took two processors, stripped them down to the core and, instead of setting them side by side, they stacked them right on top of each other just like you stack dishes in a cabinet.  Doing so used much less space and power, reduced heat, and gave us lightning fast performance. And, thanks to shedding all that extra baggage, prices dropped significantly. What started as a stack of 2 cores in 2005 has moved up to a stack of 10 cores now. Just unbelievable. My friends, this was the turning point. Core technology is the Emancipation Proclamation for virtualization. What happens next is quite amazing. 

Mixing It Together

So now we have this hypervisor thingy and we have servers which contain all of these cores inside. What can we do now? Say we have a single server with a processor containing four cores and a bunch of memory. We can now run say four different servers, and electronically divvy up the cores and memory amongst them, with each one running Windows all by itself. In olden times, we would need four physical servers to get this done. Not any longer. 

Hmmm I just re-read all that stuff and maybe this is a bit hard to wrap your mind around. Try this out. Think of your software programs as people. Naturally, people share some of the same attributes. Things like arms, legs, eyes, and feet. Yet, we're also all rather unique. Software is exactly the same. It is common in terms of compatibility. That is, hundreds if not thousands of programs are written to work with Windows. Yet, they are unique in what they do for you and your business. I have software for email, accounting, even for playing music and movies. They are all compatible with each other (ie attributes) yet do very different things. Now then, think of  servers as small cars, perhaps Mini Coopers. Cars hold people just like servers hold programs. Get it? Good. Let's keep going.
So, imagine that you have a group of people, each in their own little cars, who all work together on the same floor. We typically call them a department. Like a Sales Department. In the computer world, a group of programs (ie people) that each run on their own servers (ie cars) are linked together to form a network (ie department). Now you've got it. Stay with me here. These people all take the same highway to and from work, and, on most days, are all sitting in traffic together. And we all know about traffic; it slows you down at the worst time…all the time. Believe me, I am a connoisseur of traffic; I live in Atlanta. Everyone drives their own car. Hence the reason for the traffic. I get it though. You have your own space, your own music, and you don't have to interact with anyone unless you wish to do so. So we have all of these "cars" full of "people" that make up the "department" that is your network. And, like the interstates, networks have their share of traffic and congestion. Sometime the speed is good while other times it is slow. When rush hour comes and you are hammered in gridlock traffic, you can't help but wonder what the heck we are doing. All these cars. All this gas. All these people. All driving their own cars. Down to your bones you know there is a better way. There is, it's called carpooling. In the network world, when servers are allowed to carpool, it is called virtualization! I know, I know, it just clicked. Keep going.

Imagine that instead of the Mini Cooper you have a Suburban. A big, beefy SUV that can easily seat eight people. Plenty of horsepower to handle the weight of all the people as well as pull a small three-bedroom home down the street at 70 mph. Since all the people work at the same office and park together, their route to work is identical. This carpool idea is sounding pretty good. But here is the catch (and you knew it was coming): even though these people are carpooling, they want to appear to their co-worker as driving their own cars. After all, carpooling may be cool but having your own wheels is cooler. And, while these people are cordial to each other, they don't necessarily wish to talk amongst themselves all the time. They want, in fact they actually need, the ability to have their own space when they want. Put another way, they want to throw on a set of headphones and jam to their own tunes while riding in the Suburban, without offending anyone else. Ok, that's very do-able. So here's what we've got. We've got a big Suburban with say eight people inside. They are all co-workers and pretty friendly. However, while they are carpooling, they pretty much keep to themselves. Yet they ride together, split the cost of the Suburban and the gas to go to and from work. 

Now, each "person" no longer needs a car. That is a huge savings. Second, we're making better use of the one resource we are sharing, in this case the Suburban. Take space for instance. The space within the Suburban can be dynamically assigned to each of the people based on their needs on any given day. If they are travelling light, they don't need as much space. If they have a laptop bag, luggage, a projector, they can take up more space. It's ok, everyone understands and we've got some room to spare here. Now, let me hook the fish for you and bring it all together.

In the networking world, this means you don't have to buy as many servers. See, thanks to core technology, the performance that used to require multiple servers is now available in one large server…for less money than say eight smaller ones. And the performance is better. Much better. Fewer servers also means less infrastructure to buy and maintain; less infrastructure means lower operating costs; lower operating costs means savings for everyone. Cloud services would not have become reality without virtualization. The cost of buying servers alone would have placed the cost of these services out of reach for most people. Ever asked yourself how services like Gmail or Dropbox are offered for near nothing? Because they can now put upwards of fifty dedicated servers (aka virtual machines) inside of one robust server (aka host server). That wasn't a typo. Fifty. To the users and the software there are fifty different servers. And that remains true. However, they all live in one physical piece of hardware about three inches tall. Ponder that for a moment. An eight foot tall stack of individual servers reduced to a single box less than three inches in height. With virtualization you really get the chance to use the server you have paid for. Here is another advantage: suppose you wish to test a new email program or accounting package. That used to mean buying another physical server. That is a pretty expensive investment considering you are unsure which program you will actually use. With virtualization, it's easy: just add another virtual machine to the host. Easy. Like adding another person into the Suburban. What if you want to upgrade the host server? Or perhaps it fails due to a hardware issue? This used to be a catastrophe. Days spent reloading the server, your programs, and all your data. Not any longer when you are virtual. Here is how easy it becomes. Get a new server, plug in your USB thumb drive and start up your virtual machines. No restaging, no day-long slow Internet due to massive Windows updates. You are back in business in hours instead of days.

See, I told you it was hiding in plain sight. You didn't know what you didn't know. Now that you know, a little advice. For your IT jock, be sure and listen to him the next time he tells you that you need to virtualize. It will change the way you buy and use servers and your network…forever. And yes, he will save you money by doing so. As for your friends and colleagues, here is where you can have some fun. The next time you are around the poker table, on the golf course, or even at dinner, boldly proclaim that you have proof that a Suburban is more efficient than a Mini Cooper. Perhaps you can take it a step further and say that the technology that makes it happen has been right under their noses for the better part of their lives. Take note of the stares you get afterwards. I bet they will resemble the old RCA dog with its head cocked sideways. Expect one of your friends to yell something about a government cover-up, claiming the technology came from Area 51. Others will say you've lost your "green" marbles. Hey, there are a few in every crowd. After a dramatic pause, assume the roll of Dr. Seuss, saying:

I'll tell you a tale of soup, servers, and SUVs. 
A story which is sure to please. 
And if you will pardon the tease, 
I'll impress you with my expertise.