With homage to the old Prego spaghetti sauce advertisement.

After 15 years of DOS-Windows, the OS X experience beginning in August 2003 was a daily revelation of built in functionality for me.

The old way of building technology solutions considered the operating system merely a platform upon which to add more software.  Additional purchases were required to enjoy a useful, fully functioning system.  Any applications that did ship in the box were stripped down teaser (adware) versions to tempt users into purchasing full functioning versions.

As the Web rose to prominence, Netscape inadvertantly contributed to better information technology design.  

To compete with the mindshare Netscape had gathered with their add-on Web browser, a fully functional Web browser began shipping as part of the base of the worlds most popular operating system.  Thus a full functioning browser became a core system component instead of a purchased add-on.

The bundling made Web access simpler for end users.  Bundling also decreased expenses for IT departments who no longer needed to search for, integrate, and support third party browser solutions.

The OS X revelation is how greatly "it's in there" contributes to ease of use and deployment.  It was a few years before I could wrap my mind around the concept and stop searching outside the system for functionality.  Since then, with each release since 10.2, OS X continues to bundle more of the technologies people use every day, right into the base system.

• Backups - Time Machine
• Smart Cards - Keychain
• Drive Encryption - FileVault
• Password Storage - Keychain
• Local Web Serving - Apache
• Search local system - Spotlight
• Fast Application Launcher - Spotlight
• Read and markup PDF Files - Preview
• Digital Music Creation - Garage Band
• Screen recordings - Quicktime 10
• Contact Management - Address Book, iCal, email fully integrated
• System Automation - Automator
• Animated GIF creation - Preview
• Application Development - Xcode
• Server tools, don't get me started.

Out of the box access to over 100 top open source scripts and applications including Apache, MySQL, PHP, Python, curl, wget, rsync, and tcpdump to name a few.

For about 95 percent of the information technology needs of 95 percent of the users, it's in there.  Nothing more to buy.

The dollar savings are substantial, the time and confusion spared an even greater value.  By bundling everything needed all the way up to the level of power users within OS X, Apple simplifies technology like no other operating system on earth.  One example is backups.

Typical Backups, Select Backup Disk, Slide Selector to On

The choice of  backup systems is already made with Time Machine.  Usage is as simple as selecting the backup disk and sliding the selector to the "On" position.   Backup scenarios remain fully customizable on the back end by power users through rsync , which is also "in there". 

The simple-power concept carries throughout the system.  A simple interface for normal users, backed up with command line power for experienced admins.

Don't expect techies to quickly grasp the power of the concept of "it's in there".  We stay busy installing, and maintaining third party software, that is typically sold at the golf course then pushed down to us.  I was configuring sound cards while Apple was introducing iTunes.  Users today have never heard the term "sound card", marking a giant leap forward for technology.

When information technology becomes toaster simple for all, people will be impressed.  Shipping a fully functional system with all primary user level applications already "in there", factory supported, marks tremendous forward progress in tech simplification.  Minor apps for minor tweaks is the new wave of add-on software technology.  

But before spending a lot of time at the app stores, check the possibility that what you seek is "in there", included with the original purchase.  Far too many app store apps are thin wrappings of built-in technology which is easier for users to use and admins to maintain without the extra layers of wrapping.

Particularly for anything Web related look inside before spending time at the app stores.  The building blocks of the Web ship with every copy of OS X .

Prego - It's In There

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJjD7UF-6k

Old Time G5 Computing Power http://www.apple.com/science/profiles/colsa/

Apple shows no indications of slowing to let competition catch up.  

Rather they seem bent on increasing the speed of innovation, while lowering hardware costs.

Manufacturers report orders that would equate to roughly 65 million iPads available in 2011 based upon screen purchases.  "DigiTimes, which has good sources in Apple's Asian supply chain, regularly publishes credible reports about Cupertino's production plans. This is not one of them."  --  http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/29/65-million-ipads-in-2011-not-likely  They go on to say that they do believe in the possibility of 45 to 48 million iPads shipping in 2011.

Using articles strictly gleaned from Fortune Apple blog, If Apple wanted to sell 65 million iPads in 2011, how would they do it?

Reduce the Price

iPad already sold direct for $429

Sell them for $399 per.  That is in line with what people believe they are worth.  If that doesn't keep them flying off shelves, drop the price to $350.  http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/02/how-much-is-an-ipad-worth

Production costs for iPad estimated at $230.  http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10451132-1.html  Add front and rear facing cameras as per Touch 4G at slight additional cost.  Maintain a healthy profit margin on each sale, while competition struggles to gain traction for lack of sufficient volume to obtain similarly favorable component prices and profits.

Remove the Mothership Requirement

Make the iPad stand-alone capable.  This needs to happen someday, make it soon.  It is not beyond the realm of possibility or even probability.  All that is required is some server power.  It makes the iPad an infinitely simpler sale to a casual consumer.

The North Carolina facility could take the place of a mothership for iPads, making them stand alone self-sufficient computing devices.  http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/27/apples-invisible-server-farm/

To maintain some margin, possibility of subscription based ~$5 per month for guaranteed backup storage and similar amenities that were formerly provided by a connection to a local computer system.

Shawn Geddis, PKI, and Smart Cards

Prove identity, receive authorization on client machine and network, made as simple as sticking a card in a reader.

OS X integrates the features required to handle smart cards directly into the operating system.  Usage and responsibility are simplified, as no third party programming is required to begin using smart cards.

Also by clever use of existing Keychain technology, little or no pre-configuration is required for users to enjoy the benefits.  The IT burden to begin using smart card services is minimal.

OS X supports leading smart card technologies:

• US Federal Government
• CAC, Common Access Code
• PIV, Personal Identity Verification
• BelPic, Belgian National ID
• JPKI  Japanese Public Key Infrastructure

Also included are Token D components to support applet delivery from the card, on demand establishment of communications from cards to readers, and validation prioritization.

The whole story, straight from the horses mouth via podcast..

 --  Quick Tour 26  

Get a card reader here:

 --  http://store.apple.com/us/product/H2312LL/A

The Facetime app marks the first mass market video communication capabilities not tied to a specific carrier.

All that was needed was a vision and a device.

Requirements:

• either an iPhone 4, 4th generation Touch, or snow leopard Mac computer
• wifi connection
• Facetime application on both ends of the communication <free download direct from Apple >

Capabilities:

• Basic video communications, well advertised
• From a mobile device, switch between front or rear facing camera for view of person or persons surroundings as shown below
• From mobile device, switch from portrait to landscape mode as shown below simply by orienting the device.
• Automatic start/stop remote viewing sessions .
• Automatically logs time spent in facetime sessions.  See below.

Uses:

• Most emotionally compelling form of real time communication, face to face
• Most efficient way to communicate complex design and pattern information
• Most effective way to insure integrity of communication, visual reality including surroundings
• Augmented reality to improve situational awareness , see theodolite picture below.
• On demand remote surveillance with authorization from surveilled location
• Remote viewing applications at a cost/benefit ratio pennies on the dollar compared to past choices
• There is no longer any need to run a continuous video channel to the Web just for periodic viewing of remote locations. Phone home, remote viewing , with no intervention required on the receiving end to start or stop.
• Facetime logs the call history, track what users are doing with their time.

More:

While Facetime officially works only over wifi connections, Skype release of late December 2010 does video calls on 3G (cell) networks.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skype/id304878510?mt=8  
Just in case local cell traffic is not already bogged down without new video overload.

Video camera on the 4G touch is capable of 1280x720 at 30 fps, complete specs . Video quality that must be seen to be believed from a device that can always be with you.

Forward facing landscape view

Forward Facing Portrait

Rear facing Landscape

Rear Facing Portrait

Tricks with Mirrors

Theodolite Situational Awareness Augmentation

Facetime session logging displayed on right pane

Missouri Athletic Training Center, MATC, looking for a way to schedule 3 outdoor softball fields in-house and push to online.

They were initially set up with a mini server, two imacs, and a windows 7 machine for legacy software.

With a server in-house the solution was as simple as a new wiki named "Outdoor Leagues" with calendar capabilities.

MATC Wiki with Calendar

Week view of online calendar

Week View of online calendar

Select Field 1 for more information

Select Field 1

A small "i", the information selector appears, click it to subscribe ical.

Click the information selector, the 'i'

Click to subscribe the online wiki calendar to local machine iCal.

Click ical Link

The path is confirmed.

iCal subscription path

As fields are scheduled on the server wiki, anyone subscribed to a calendar receives updates pushed into their local ical.  Also anyone with Web access can view the current schedules.

First, create a new editor login for her.  User Accounts->Editors->Create User Here

Then, step by step instructions:

• On dad's Mac, launch the Safari web browser, go to site and login.
• After login, browse to the content you would like to edit, for instance Beethoven's story.
• While viewing the content you wish to edit, click the pencil icon in the toolbar to switch into editing mode.
• You may or may not be prompted that someone else is editing the content.  If necessary, click the "New draft" button.
• Then an editing window appears.
• Make your changes in the editing box.  Make a big mistake, click discard draft and start over.
• Otherwise, when finished, Click "Send for publishing"

Step by step instructions In pictures --

http://www.lakedata.net/index.php/eng/eZ-Publish2/Web-Content-by-Mom

Today is the 10 year anniversary of the internet successor to spam -- Google adwords.  Spam was the original Web advertising channel.  Web advertising is a drop in replacement.

The difference between spam and a modern web cluttered with advertising is that people have accepted much more willingly the cluttering of their content than the cluttering of their inboxes.  A majority of web users have never known an alternative.  The Web was not designed to work this way, but it will take a grass roots commitment to revert back to the original glory.

Google search is great!  But Google adwords is simply a pyramid scheme hidden by a shell game.  It is a high tech way to transfer an average of forty million dollars per state per month out of local economies*. 

The success of a shell game depends on the ability to distract attention from the prize.  The prize in this case is getting a message to the Web.  Keep your eye on the prize.

Before Adwords

Before Google Adwords, getting a message to the Web was easy, a domain name and some html.  

Google convinced techies that simple efforts like that are lost in the clutter of the Web.  So the concept of improved visibility via search targeted advertising was born.  Google analysis tools were provided so techs could prove to their bosses how well the effort succeeds, using high tech charts and graphs.

At this point, the shell game connects to the pyramid scheme.  The early adopters enjoy fantastic success in an uncrowded market.  The successes are touted, the rest of the market jumps on board.

Success does not come so rapidly, if at all for the late adopters.  Their efforts are lost in the clutter.

Remember the original problem?  The faulty logic of the pyramid scheme, what happens at the bottom, is covered up with a high tech shell game.  The techs peer into their charts and graphs, and no surprise, the answer is to spend more money on internet advertising, outspend your neighbor.

A real world parallel is the flashing portable sign.  The first few were a novelty and generated interest.  As more appear, they all DISAPPEAR into background clutter.  The logic fault that more signs in more places will work worse, not better, is masked by the aura of "high tech".

Local competitors beat each other up funding a competition that makes Google investors rich.  The local message at best treads water, at worst is subsumed by "targeted" ads from those on the coast who now have more money to spend.  The original problem remains, now with less time and money available for solutions.

Simple is the Solution

The simple solution is to do what Google does, not what they say.  

The useful part of Google is simple powerful search.  How this was parlayed into a Web cluttered with advertising is one for the history books.

When people seek information on the Web, they want to find it fast, have it delivered as cleanly as possible.  Clean and simple is a rarity, a refreshing change from the cacophony of modern Web design theory.  How you use the Web is not so different from how others use the Web.  Think about it.

A site that is easily found, in the form of a simple billboard with business hours of operation and list of services works great for starters.  Such a site is easily turn-keyed by just about any LOCAL developer for around $50 including a domain name and a year of hosting.

Anything beyond a front page, should be carefully considered in terms of human interface design, what site visitors seek, how they will get there the quickest.  The Web standard is that fewer than one of two visitors ever click a link to go deeper into a site, fewer than one in eight have ever clicked an advertisement.  A search box and web analytics are not Google exclusives.  Anyone can use them to aid discovery of what people seek when on a site. 

Simple interfaces powered the original glory of the Web and remain the peoples choice.  Try spending a few dollars with local development talent that understands the original promise instead of chasing the tail of the current reality.  In this economy, forty million is a lot of money to send out of state every month.  

------------------------

* Google $24 billion revenue last year divided by 12 months, divided by fifty states.

Ezwebin is the eZ Publish Web Interface extension  that simplifies creating and maintaining web content in a traditional CMS style.

 eZ Flow is another such extension developed and maintained by the eZ Systems developers.  eZ Flow explores the very latest design features like device dependence and time scheduled publishing-unpublishing.

Both extensions are so feature laden they would require a book to describe the inner workings and how to use them.  The code developers show no inclination to write such a book.  Even if they commissioned one, the frantic development pace would outdate the book shortly after it was put to ink.

If there is written documentation regarding use of the "image map" feature for banner images in the ezwebin extension, I could not dig it up in half a days search.  So it was time to go debugging this useful feature to figure out how to use it.  I will spare the debugging details, the usage details are below.

Image Maps Definition

Image maps are clickable overlays of html images on a web page that act as hyperlinks to other content.  The MAP tagging is standard html, defining the regions is a bit of an art form.  More MAP tag info at w3schools.com

Simple Image Map Generation

This online image map generator  quickly brings newbies up to speed by supplying examples via automated code generation.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

The image map for the banner on the front page of lakedata.net circa December, 2010.

ezwebin banner and image map creation

Sample Code

<map id="#banner_map" name="banner_map">

<area shape="rect" coords="1,24,125,129" href="http://innovation" alt="A Decade Makes a Difference" />

<area shape="rect" coords="304,2,446,147" href="http://Crazy-Apple" alt="Crazy Apple" />

<area shape="rect" coords="632,17,759,133" href="http://Mobile" alt="Mobile Future is Here!" />

</map>

Because the CSS loads custom for each page, a standard naming convention of #banner_map works as long as only one banner per page. 

The first line was the missing piece of information that required a debugging session to discover.