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The Adobe AIR Team Blog is now live! Early this morning I put the final touches on the first post.

According to an article in the most recent issue of The Economist titled A New Twist for Offshore Wind, deep sea turbines, which tend to be significantly more productive than the land-based counterparts due to stronger winds, are suddenly becoming increasingly feasible. Several companies based out of Europe including SWAY (Norway) and Blue H Technologies (the Netherlands) are actively developing the technology necessary to bring these products to life.

After doing a bit of investigation, I discovered that the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) website. They have a Wind Energy Fast Facts (.pdf) document that states:

• U.S. wind energy potential: Estimated at 10,777 billion kWh annually--more than twice the electricity generated in the U.S. today
• Industry growth rate, U.S.: 29% average over last five years (year-end 2002 - 2007).
• Four out of the top five wind farms operating in the United States are located in Texas (Horse Hollow, Sweetwater, Capricorn Ridge and Buffalo Gap
• Operating characteristics of a wind turbine: A wind turbine runs 60% to 80% of the time, and operates at its full rated power output level 10% of the time. On an average day, it generates 30% to 35% of what it would generate if it ran at full power all the time.

According to the Global Wind Energy Council, the countries with the highest total installed capacity are Germany, the United states, Spain, India, China and Denmark. Wikipedia has a list of wind farms operating or under construction. It's amazing to me that we still live in an era where the vast majority of the world's power is produced by fossil fuels. Hopefully the collective brain power of green technology companies can begin to erode that dependency.

Truth be told, it could be said that I've merely come full circle back to the company that originally ignited my original interest in computers. I believe it was around mid 1986 that my dad brought home this mysterious contraption  one day from a company called Apple computer. Applications and games like Print Shop, MacPaint, Dark Castle and the very spooky Uninvited were unimaginably creative for their time and I devoted hours to them. I'd lose interest in the Mac within a couple of years due to the "8 bit" Nintendo revolution. Later, I'd return back to computers beginning with the breakthrough Commodore Amiga and eventually DOS/Windows machines.

This is also not to say that I've been completely out of touch with the Mac. My friend Walt, a loyal, devoted Mac customer for years, and I used applications like Photoshop and PageMaker for the Mac to produce our high school newspaper. Years later, while a developer on Dreamweaver, I used the Mac daily to design, build and test new functionality.

However, a vast majority of my time was always spent on the PC where I had access to productivity tools like Office and a wide variety of games. Even today, my work provides me with a MacBook Pro and I do use it regularly. However, the Mac has really not been my primary machine at home for over two decades. Last week, however, I ordered an iMac. There's no other way to describe it other than absolute bliss.

My daughter smiling at a blue screen that appeared the day before the iMac arrived.

In a bitter twist of irony, my Windows XP Dell computer decided to blue screen the day before the iMac arrived. It was as if it *knew* it was on the cusp of retirement. My daughter had a good laugh as I spent a few hours trying to fix it. No joke, but I did manage to fix the "unmountable_volume_error" which involved running a series of DOS hard drive commands created in the last century. Earlier this year, my work laptop running Windows XP hit a similar error and it wound up being fatal.

Without further ado, here are the six reasons why I decided to switch from Windows to the Mac.  

1. Microsoft Vista. Sadly, I have not met a single person that is happy with Vista. There was a time when I had very high hopes for Vista. As far back as 2003, Microsoft demonstrated WinFS, a technology that would fundamentally change how information was indexed and accessed. This technology never wound up shipping with Vista as was true of other major components that Microsoft had been talking about for years. Apple, if you know story, countered Microsoft by including an advanced search engine called Spotlight into the operating system.
   
2. Microsoft XBox 360. Yes, truth be told, the XBox 360 deserves a significant amount of credit for greasing the wheels and making it easy to switch. For years, one of the primary draws to Windows had been its success in attracting the top game developers in the world to its as gaming platform. Whether it was Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, Warcraft (original series if you can remember that far back), MechWarrior 2 or The Sims, if you wanted to game, Microsoft was far and away your best bet. Though originally rather cynical of gaming on the couch instead of at a desk, Microsoft has blown me away with the XBox 360 -- it's the greatest gaming platform ever created without question. And by doing so, they've essentially eliminated my dependence on a desktop operating system for my gaming entertainment.
   
3. Apple. In the past year, I've purchased two iPod Shuffles: one for myself and one for my wife. When I thought I had lost my Shuffle recently (for the second time), I decided to upgrade to an iPod Nano. It's an absolutely incredible piece of technology. While Apple has done a fairly good job porting iTunes to Windows, I still encounter glitches here and there when syncing files. The allure of hooking up iPod hardware to a Mac is difficult to ignore. Also, Apple's decision to extend the hardware capabilities of the iMac has really put it in direct competition with Dell's flagship desktop products like their XPS line. I was very close to buying my third Dell computer (an XPS 630) prior to my iMac awakening.
   
4. Media Management. It's truly shocking to me that Microsoft has not improved the user experience with Windows Media Player (WMP). Something about the design of WMP has always felt exceedingly video centric as opposed to library focused. Playing an .mp3 will force most of the screen to be taken over by an annoying visualization. To Microsoft's credit, I did recently download the Zune desktop software which is absolutely beautiful. It feels like a Rich Internet Application (RIA) with its fluid transitions and vivid color scheme. Unfortunately, it's an optional download and also has stability problems. In addition, the lack of basic photo management in Windows has been the source of tremendous grief.
   
5. Windows XP. While many claim that XP is vastly superior to Vista, I'm not sure that I agree with that. My current Dell XPS has suffered the typical Windows aging process that many of us have become accustomed to. Initially, Windows machines are blazingly fast but within a couple of months, once the registry begins to get mysteriously overloaded and random startup processes start firing at launch, the drive becomes exceedingly fragmented. Also, there feels like there is additional resource overhead in simply installing so many security patches. In my experience, typically within a year, an XP based machine will run at 20 to 30 percent of its original clean installation speed.
   
6. Most applications are now on the Mac. Nearly all of the applications I use are now available on the Mac such as Firefox, the Creative Suite (Dreamweaver, Flash, etc.), Office, Stellarium, AIM, Google Earth, etc. If the tools you use and depend on are portable, then it makes it even easier to make the switch.
   

Without sounding too harsh, I'm optimistic that Microsoft can still overcome some of the challenges they are facing. Windows 7 has potential, but Microsoft absolutely must stay focused on building the fastest, lightest operating system in the market. Performance is absolutely critical -- I cannot stress that enough. The latest version of Office runs amazingly slow on my new work machine, a Lenovo ThinkPad. While it's a beautiful piece of software and I like the productivity features, it's incredibly frustrating to wait three second here and five second there for common operations like moving between slides in PowerPoint or tabbing back into an application.

My experience so far with the iMac has been absolutely incredible. Front Row, the software that basically turns your Mac into a high-end media viewer/set-top box is brilliant. The standard Mail client is fairly basic, but seems to do the job. While I'm not a fan of how iPhoto stores images on the hard drive, I do like most of the other functionality. iTunes did an amazing job of importing my Windows iTunes music collection, properly transferring all meta data and file paths correctly. By modifying the keyboard shorts and tweaking a few other settings in the System Preferences, I'm getting along well and not looking back.

I take that back -- I am looking back, but only briefly as I glance to see Windows appear at a distance in my rear view window. Viva la revolución! 

Lately, I've been spending a fair amount of time working with our engineering team to get the Adobe AIR for Linux runtime and SDK alphas out the door. At long last, just a couple hours ago, we pushed the alphas onto our Adobe Labs website where developers can download and begin exploring this early technology. Though not feature complete, most of the features are working. The release notes provide additional details on what features are enabled, which are not, and known issues. There are still many bugs to fix at this point (it is an alpha), but we're releasing this to the public to get feedback from the community . We've also provided sample applications with source code to help people get started.

This announcement is exciting for many reasons including:

• A Flash developer, who built an AIR-based desktop application that originally targeted Mac or Windows, will likely be surprised to learn that the application now runs on Linux even though they probably never considered building a Linux-based application to begin with. This is core to the "write once, run everywhere" philosophy of Adobe AIR.
• An Ajax developer can now use a framework like YUI, Dojo, Ext, or MooTools to build Linux-based desktop applications.
• The barrier to entry is fairly minimal at this point. the AIR runtime and SDK are both free. The Flex framework is now open source. Flex Builder for Linux is currently free for download and can be used to build AIR applications, but a developer could use their favorite Linux IDE -- whether its Eclipse-based or vi/emacs.

In addition, today Adobe was also welcomed by the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux, as its newest member today which is also very exciting.

Long live Tux! Image courtesy of Ryan Stewart.

For the most part, I've tried to steer away from topics on this blog that related to my day job. The truth is, I require like that level of separation between work and hobby. However, today marks an important milestone on a project I've been working on: Adobe AIR 1.0 is now available for download. It's been the most challenging project I've ever worked on, but it's been an incredible experience working with such a talented, passionate group of people working on it.

Related Links:

• Adobe AIR Product Page
• RIA Website
• Download the Adobe AIR SDK
• Download Adobe AIR
• New York Times: Adobe Blurs Line Between PC and Web
• Adobe AIR showcase applications
• Adobe AIR Developer Center

I just noticed that several members of the Adaptive Path team including Brandon Schauer, Todd Wilkens, David Verba, and Peter Merholz are about to release a new book titled Subject to Change: creating great products and services for an uncertain world. It's been quite awhile since I've picked up an enticing book on customers/design/product development and so I'm eagerly anticipating its arrival. The team at Adaptive Path always seem way ahead of the curve when it comes to identifying patterns in product design. I'll share my thoughts on the book once it arrives from Amazon. The last book I read in this general category was Scott Berkun's The Myths of Innovation, a marvelous exploration around the history of innovation that I'd encourage any engineer or designer to read.

Last year I had the great pleasure of attending Adaptive Path's MX Conference in San Francisco. They are offering this event again this year and would encourage you to explore the event site to see if it might be of interest to you. It was the source of tremendous inspiration for me last year between the various sessions and networking with other attendees.

In the December 6th issue, The Economist published an article titled Reality, only better that explores the futuristic world of "augmented reality" (AR). AR is, in a sense, the opposite of virtual reality (VR). Whereas virtual reality requires an individual to view a computer generated landscape using a screen such as a monitor or special glasses, augmented reality involves superimposing digital imagery onto objects in the real world. As the article states, "For some things, it turns out, computer graphics can be much more effective when viewed not on screens, but superimposed on the real world."

The article details several examples of this is being applied today including locating veins for surgery. Though the article does not mention the relationship between holographic technologies and AR, these two seem to go hand in hand.

Not surprisingly, there is a Wikipedia article on augmented reality. For other interesting futuristic use cases, see the "future applications". One such application that stood is the following:

Virtual gadgetry becomes possible. Any physical device currently produced to assist in data-oriented tasks (such as the clock, radio, PC, arrival/departure board at an airport, stock ticker, PDA, PMP, informational posters/fliers/billboards, in-car navigation systems, etc. could be replaced by virtual devices that cost nothing to produce aside from the cost of writing the software. Examples might be a virtual wall clock, a to-do list for the day docked by your bed for you to look at first thing in the morning, etc.

While still certainly decades away, it seems likely that some future incarnation of an iPod like device might be nothing more than a virtual gadget powered by AR technology.

Inspired by Adaptive Path's blog post titled Software We Use, I've compiled a list of tools and services that I depend on to get my work done.

Software

• Adobe Fireworks. Fireworks is the most powerful vector image editor out there. There is no substitute. Back when I first started using it around version 1.0, I found it very rough around the edges when compared to the also 1.0 Adobe ImageReady (since folded into Photoshop). In those days, Fireworks and ImageReady centered their value around optimizing images for the web. Shaving an extra 5k here or 10k there of a JPEG or GIF would ensure those viewing your web content on a 28.8k modem had a decent experience. By Fireworks 2.0, it became very apparent that it was the definitive vector drawing tool for the web -- far surpassing even Flash and Freehand in terms of utility for web developers. Over the years, I've relied on it for creating mock-ups, specs, prototypes, websites, and diagrams. It's really only getting better with time as well. A little known fact is that Fireworks was used to create the logo for Firefox. Today, I use it to primarily create prototypes and specs -- particularly for AIR-based applications. The only thing it's missing is the gorgeous new work space that Flash and Photoshop introduced in CS3. However, my guess is that this will be addressed in CS4.
• FolderShare. This is an incredibly valuable P2P file/folder synchronization application that runs in the background. It's very dependable, secure, blazingly fast and lightweight. I've been using it for years and I still depend on it to get my work done. A few months back I urgently needed to share a private build with a person writing an article for the Adobe Developer Connection. Within minutes, I had a folder setup on my local machine that allowed us to securely transmit files back and forth. Interestingly, the development of FolderShare has been fairly dormant since Microsoft bought it, but fortunately the feature set is rich enough. It's also available on the Mac.
• Aptana. When it comes to free IDE tools for building Ajax-based applications, nothing comes close to Aptana. The icing on the cake would be if they offered advanced PHP support. That said, the fantastic support for Ajax frameworks keeps me more than happy.
• Mozilla Firefox. I've been a loyal Firefox user since somewhere around version .1. During the past year, I've been increasingly disappointed with how it manages memory. That said, there are so many great plugins for Firefox I cannot imagine switching anytime soon. For instance, Google Browser Sync and Joe Hewitt's indispensable Firebug. I'm also a fan of Yahoo's YSlow extension which helps evaluate bandwidth inefficiencies in your code. Also, I depend on the parameterized keyword capabilities. If I need to perform a quick search on Wikipedia, I simply type wiki PHP in the URL field.
• Google RSS Reader. Google Reader is basically my dashboard to events of the world. I use it daily to track particular subjects using custom Google search RSS feeds, competitors, emerging market news, photos from my friends' Flickr feeds, and so on. That said, it's a double-edged sword because there's simply too many interesting things happening in the world. I can easily spend a couple of hours trying to catch-up on feeds instead of doing something more productive. In my industry, it's critical that one have the latest information -- industry news is happening 24 hours a day and last weeks' news is often ancient history.
• Trillian. Like Firefox, I've been using Trillian since it was in an early beta release many years ago. I have mixed feelings about Trillian -- most of the functionality I use was available in the early versions and occasionally I find it more buggy than it should be given its maturity. Since some of my contacts use Yahoo and others AOL for IM, Trillian helps me make sure I'm available to both without having to log into a separate system.
• Adobe Flex Builder 3 Beta. Definitely the tool of choice if you're building Flex-based AIR applications. Flex Builder 3 also introduces support for a profiler revealing tips on memory allocation thereby allowing you to tune your Flex/AIR applications.
• Adobe AIR. Yes, even if I didn't work on the product, I'd still be using AIR-based applications like Finetune Desktop or BuzzWord <grin>.
• Launchy. While not nearly as powerful as QuickSilver for the Mac, Launchy does provide almost instantaneous access to your applications. It offers advanced functionality such as piping commands together,. It's open source and a must if you're a Windows user though it's also available on Mac and Linux (hooray for cross platform software!).
  
• Adobe Acrobat. Whether I'm providing feedback to the marketing team on early drafts of messaging material or submitting my expense report, Acrobat plays a key role in my PDF workflows. The most recent version features some improvements like a new interface and faster performance.
• Dreamweaver. I often use Dreamweaver to write my blog posts before posting them to Movable Type or updating the websites that I maintain. This past year, I've done very little original website design on the side. If I need to upload a file to share with someone, I also tend to use Dreamweaver as my FTP client -- though I also have an older version of CuteFTP I purchased from several years back.
• Movable Type. Though technically I don't use this blogging software for work purposes, I do use it to maintain my personal blog. I upgraded to 4.0 this year and have been pleased with the improvements.
• MediaWiki and Confluence. To make it as easy as possible to access notes and important information, I run a personal copy of MediaWiki -- the same web software that powers Wikipedia. This has proven to be a major productivity booster since I can usually find what I need within a few seconds (again using Firefox keyword shortcuts). Confluence
• X1 Desktop Search. I have a major love/hate relationship with this desktop search software that indexes all of your emails and files. A few years back, when I first started using this software, it worked flawlessly. Now, however, it runs slower than molasses and frequently crashes. In fact, it's no longer even indexing my email due to several bugs. I've played with al of the settings -- reducing the frequency at which it indexes -- but I believe my Outlook files may be pushing it over the edge. However, I really do think the software has declined in quality which is very unfortunate especially since Yahoo used to give it away for free. Google Desktop Search is a little too clunky and the Microsoft one is better but seems to run slowly though it may be time to give it a second look.
• Microsoft Outlook. I don't have a choice. For better or for worst, this is the tool that I depend on for setting up meetings, ripping through emails, and managing tasks. If there is one tool I'd like to replace, it's this one. However, my company has standardized on it and so it's open about 90 percent of the time on my work machine.
• Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Again, not much of a choice here. I like Word's revisioning feature and the data analysis features of Excel. However, in general, I feel like all three of these products of stagnated in terms of offering new capabilities.

Services

• LinkedIn. The first time I used LinkedIn, I knew that it was destined to change the rules of business relationships. For years, I had collected business cards only to be disappointed by the fact that they became out of date as individuals moved between companies. If I met an interesting contact, I always wanted to know more about that person. So while LinkedIn didn't kill the business card (or resume), it helped create a workflow where it suddenly became more useful. When possible, I attempt to add people I meet to LinkedIn. Quite frequently, old contacts will follow-up with me or vice versa. I no longer have to track people when they move between companies as LinkedIn handles that for me. I've also used it to find interesting people and perform background checks on candidates.
• Adobe Acrobat Connect. Formerly known as Breeze, Acrobat Connect allows you to setup online meetings with coworkers and business partners. There are many similar types of software out there, but I like it the best because it's fast, cross platform (Mac and Win) and has advanced features such as polls and URL based meeting rooms. Disclaimer: Price isn't a consideration for me since this is free to me through my company. .
• Wikipedia. Need to know some obscure detail about h.264 or information on a competitor? Wikipedia to the rescue. It seems to only be getting more valuable with time. While I'd never make a business critical decision, I find it significantly more reliable than other forms of web research.

There are a variety of other "recreational" tools that are not required by my job including:

• Stellarium. A free open source planetarium for your computer available on Mac, Windows and Linux.
• Google Earth. Endlessly interesting, I use it to check out trails or Geocaching sites.
• Geocaching.com - Bottomless source of real-world puzzles that force you to beat your feet.
• PHP/MySQL/Ubuntu - PHP/MySQL are used to power this website as well as other web side projects I've created. I'm hopeful that Ubuntu may become my primary desktop environment, but today I run it as a virtual machine.
• Replay Media Catcher. Have a favorite online radio station that you want to make sure to record? This is the best tool I've come across for capturing mp3 streams -- even though embedded within Flash movies.
• iTunes. Now on version 7, I have to admit that this software really hit its sweet spot, at least for me, around version 2.0. My needs tend to be pretty simple when it comes listening to music and features like smart playlists and burning to MP3 CD's keep me happy.
• Mozy. A super cheap online back-up service. Although I wish the UI was a bit richer for rolling back to earlier version, it's hard to beat the price.

Back in my developer days, I used to use more developer tools like Perforce, Visual Studio.NET and CodeWarrior. These days, I tend to have them installed (except CodeWarrior), but rarely use them much due to the scope of my current job.

Celebrity endorsements have been a popular technique to market new products since the dawn of man (see "testimonials"). That said, credit to the marketing team at Tesla Motors for enlisting Michael "Flea" Balzary of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to author a guest blog post. Between the amateurish photograph of Flea greeting his new car and the genuine, seemingly unedited writing style of the post itself, I think this is the perfect approach for marketing this beautiful new product. Though I'm not even a fan of Flea or the Red Hot Chili Peppers, there's just something absolutely rockstar about a a rockstar talking about a zero emission vehicle like this. One can't help but share in his exhilaration over the purchase of his new car stemming not only from the design of the vehicle, but the fact that it's 100% electric. Flea says that his purchase of the Tesla was prompted by watching the film Who Killed the Electric Car?.

Flea writes about his first experience with the vehicle:

I get into it and pull away from the curb......dead silence wow!!!!.... man it was unbelievable. it drove like nothing i have ever been in before, made my porsche feel like a golf cart! It took off like a rocket ship, handled so sensitively, it was just amazing and fun and thrilling. I am so happy i went with my gut and bought that car. Yeah it is a long wait, but man, the thing is awesome. The silence makes ya feel like you are floating, and it just rocks, it was the funnest car, i have ever been in, with the possible exception of Hillel Slovak's Datsun B210 in 1979, he was the only guy i knew who had a car, and we listened to lot of zeppelin in there....

On November 6th, Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues announced the discovery of a start system that has at least five extrasolar planets. While most extrasolar planets are detected using the Doppler effect, in this case, due to the number of planets and complexity of intermixing wavelengths of light, a technique known as Fourier analysis was applied to isolate the individual planets. Incidentally, I found an excellent wiki article titled List of stars with confirmed extrasolar planets tonight that is quite detailed. The discovery of the first extrasolar planet called 51 Pegasi b ("Bellerophon") was announced in 1992, and, since that time, there are 36 extrasolar planets of which the true mass is possible to estimate and 216 candidates of which their true masses are unknown. Note: the photo in this entry is obviously of the Milky Way and not the star system. I was just looking for a beautiful image to spice up this post. At this point in time, we do not have imaging technology powerful enough to see planets with visible light.

Since I'm a bit of an astronomy kick tonight, I'll mention that it's worthwhile to explore the PBS website mini-site Seeing in the Dark. Timothy Ferris, author of the book of the same title and writer/producer/narrator of a recent film broadcast on PBS, has created a variety of great tools and videos for those interested in astronomy. The book, by the way, is excellent and highly recommended. I had the pleasure of purchasing a signed copy at a lecture Ferris gave at the Silicon Astronomy Valley Lecture Series back in 2003. For those interested and living in the San Francisco Bay Area, the lecture series is still taking place. This Tuesday, November 13th, Jeff Moore of NASA's Ames Research Center will give a non-technical, illustrated talk on "New Horizons at Jupiter (and some Saturn News)" that sounds quite interesting.

Other things you can do to explore astronomy:

• Listen to Seth Shostak's (SETI) brilliant "Are We Alone" radio show
• Install Stellarium, an extremely useful and open source (free) astronomy application
• Watch NASA TV when shuttle launches and landings happen
• Join and support SETI
• Study up on the active NASA missions
• Compete for the Lunar X Prize
• Geek out and buy a Drake equation T-shirt

Game designer Will Wright discussed his upcoming game Spore at TED this year. What particularly impresses me about his talk is his emphasis on the importance of building user empathy in a game which is a hallmark of "design thinking." Of course, Wright was truly a pioneer in this concept long before it became Avant-garde with SimCity and perhaps culminating most recently with The Sims. The role of empathy when designing user experiences is a crucial one. Sid Meier is another lgend that has continued to push the limits.

In his TED session, Wright cites many on interests such as astronomy, science fiction and astrobiology as having a major influence on the development of the game. Since I share many of these similar interests, I'm clearly looking very forward to this game and it might ultimately lead to an upgrade of my home computer. It's funny how interesting games have always played a catalyst in my decision to upgrade my computer. I can tell you exactly when the last time I upgraded my computer -- it coincided with the release of Half Life 2.

Be sure to check out this video in which Wright, soon to be awarded a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) this month, comments:

Basically the reason is that I make toys like this is because I think that if there's one difference I can possibly make in the world, that I would choose to make, it's that I would like to give people a little bit better calibration on long-term thinking because I think that most of the problems world is faced with now is the result of short term thinking and the fact that it's so hard for us to think fifty years, one hundred, years one thousand years out.

Two weeks back I was in Chicago for MAX North America where we announced Beta 2 of Adobe AIR. This week I'm in Barcelona attending the Adobe MAX 2007 conference where I'm enjoying the chance to meet with various Adobe customers from through out the region. Though this is almost entirely a work trip, I did have the chance to enjoy some amazing seafood paella, see some of the Roman ruins and get lost in Salvador Dali's imagination. The image to the right is Dali's last painting from 1982 titled "Warrior".

This is an excellent interview/conversation between Jess McMullin and Brandon Schauer. One particular quote from Brandon that stood out to me:

... But the key is just realizing the world that your business partners come from, whether they're looking through a lens of finance or of operations or management, and being able to understand the issues they are dealing with. Having empathy with the issues that they come to the table with and actually being able to resonate with those by having read similar topics, having an appreciation for what their needs are and listening to them just as you would listen to a customer when you go out to do your research can really change how you work together.

BusinessWeek has posted an article that's worth reading titled "Wanted: VPs of Design". In the past couple of years, I've personally witnessed numerous designers that I've worked with move on to more business-oriented roles such as product management. This may very well be a pattern forming at other organizations as well.

If you use Adobe Flash CS3, you can now create AIR applications using a new beta extension available on Adobe Labs.

Today's San Francisco Chronicle featured a fascinating story on several designs for the proposed Transbay Terminal. Soaring 1,225 feet, the proposed tower will replace the Transamerica Pyramid as the tallest building in San Francisco and will likely influence architecture in the city for the next 30 years. The concept designs range from awe-inspiring (see Skidmore Owings and Merrill's design ) to rather soulless (see Rogers Stirk Harbour's design) -- at least, in my view.

Burt Rutan, founder of Scaled Composites and winner of the Ansari X-Price in 2004, presented an inspiring lecture at TED in October of 2006. Recently four workers at Scaled Composites were killed while working on a top-secret suborbital spaceship for Virgin Galactic. This a tragic event and a sobering reminder of the costs of scientific experimentation.

I'm hopeful that this event will be investigated closely so that safety precautions can be developed and that it does not significantly derail efforts to fund these types of initiatives.

My interests are increasingly gravitating towards the rapid developments of green technology taking place around the world right now. When first exploring a new topic of interest, it's sometimes shocking to realize just how little you know, but I'm now subscribed to several eco-related news feeds and blogs. Living in the Bay Area, there's an incredible amount of activity taking place as local start-ups, research organizations and universities, and, to a much lesser degree, large corporations invest in cleaner ways of developing energy.

Two weeks ago I watched "Who Killed the Electric Car" and learned about a living legend named Stan Ovshinsky who, over the course of his life, has led the development of numerous, major scientific breakthroughs related to the creation of environmentally friendly technologies. His company developed the updated version of the electric batteries that powered the EV-1 featured in the film. In his lifetime, Ovshinsky has earned over 200 patents according to an article from MIT. Now in his 80's, the rate at which he continues to earn patents has only slightly declined. In the film, he emphasizes the importance of getting students to learn science and technologies related to green technologies.

Headquartered in San Carlos, California, Tesla Motors was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. According to the their website, one startup idea they considered before starting Tesla Motors was developing smart sprinkler heads to aid in water consumption. Instead, they wind up deciding to conserve oil despite that neither one of them comes from an automotive background. Though the company's initial product will be a sports car, they're already at work on a high performance four-seater sedan with a 250 mile range -- all electric (source Yahoo! Autos).

From reading the Tesla Motor's website, it's clear that this company, similar to Ovshinsky, has a different perspective on the world. At the top of the About Us page on the website it states:

"Whether you're more concerned about global warming or about national security, there's one thing we can probably agree on: our dependence on oil is dangerous and costly. Right now 58% of our oil comes from other countries, so it's practically inevitable our foreign policy principles will be held ransom by our need to maintain domestic economic stability. When you consider that 68% of our oil is used for transportation, we believe gasoline-free cars are an ideal solution to these issues. Even a hybrid car, which still burns gasoline and emits carbon dioxide, doesn't solve our oil-related problems, it just postpones them. If you look hard at the numbers, it's clear that an electric car is the cleanest and most efficient kind of car in existence. We have done exhaustive "well to wheel" energy and emissions analyses, and the numbers are undeniable."

Featured recently in a brilliant article titled Elon Musk Is Betting His Fortune on a Mission Beyond Earth's Orbit, Musk is making two large investments right now that are of great interest to me: one is SpaceX, a space-transportation startup company, and the second is Tesla Motors. The bold financial backers of environmentally friendly technologies deserve great recognition for their vision, contributions and patience. Musk has contributed over $37 million to fund Tesla Motors -- a significant share of the overall $105 million needed to fund the company. In 2006, Exxon Mobil Corp recorded a record breaking $39.5 billion in profit.

If one takes Exxon's profits of $39,500,000,000 and divides it by 365 days in a year the resulting amount is $108,219,178 of profit per day for Exxon. According to my calculations, it would take only day's worth of Exxon's profits to fund Tesla Motors. My fellow residents of the planet Earth: what is wrong with this picture? Imagine if you performed a similar calculation that combined the total profit from the entire oil industry? If this doesn't make you as "mad as hell" then can anything?

Now imagine if the government developed a special R&D tax designed to specifically target profiteers like Exxon and set aside just a couple of weeks worth of their profits to Silicon Valley start-ups like Tesla Motors. These funds could be distributed through an X-Prize style competition or an idea marketplace. Who would run it? One thought would be to form a team led by top NASA scientists as well as leading universities that have demonstrated experience and leadership in the fields of physics, electrical and mechnical engineering, and other related fields of research. Top universities such as MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, and Berkeley come to mind.

Of course, a few hundred million, even when provided to some of the smartest scientists on the planet, would not be enough to accomplish such goals. Who could require that such an organization form and what would the goals be anyway?

In my view, there is only one person that can make this happen: the president of the United States. Obviously the concepts I'm speaking about are incomprehensible to our current leader and I'd make the case that this was true of his predecessor as well (though less so). By comparison to the last several presidents we've had, I'm probably talking about someone who would be considered a true radical and visionary.

However, the American people were fortunate enough to have a president once that did in fact inspire a nation to achieve a goal that nearly all thought was impossible. There was a president who understood how important it was for America to affirm its technical and scientific leadership. There was a president bold enough to challenge every American to believe in a goal so grand that that they too would need to become bold in order to believe in it. And yes, he and his people succeeded.

When John F. Kennedy's presented his moon speech on September 12, 1962 at Rice Stadium, he not only outlined a mission to land on the moon within a decade of the day he proposed his goal, I believe he also provided a vision so inspiring that it can and should be applied to other seemingly impossible technical and scientific achievements for the duration of mankind. If you have not had the opportunity to see this speech or believe you have in the past but do not remember the specifics, please watch it now and listen to every word:

There are a few particular passages that are are especially important:

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

In a speech filled with stirring eloquence, JFK also states:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.

Now consider this: imagine substituting out the mission from landing on the moon in ten years to eliminating our dependence on foreign resources to support our energy needs. That is to say, become energy independent. Nearly every aspect of Kennedy's vision could still apply. Would it require us to increase our national spending? Yes. Would it require a partnership between the private sector and government? Yes. Would it require Americans to make sacrifices and change their behavior? Yes. Would it require that laws be changed and atypical political bipartisanship? Yes and yes.

To put things in perspective, here's a telling summary that cites the cost of the moon race:

The US won the race to the Moon because, unlike the Soviet Union, it committed vast resources to a well thought-out "game plan" right from the start. NASA also stuck to that plan despite occasional technical and political problems. The foundation for Apollo's success was laid in 1962-67 when some 500,000 people from 20,000 companies built the spacecraft, Saturn carrier rocket and launch facilities. After this, the program was rapidly dismantled in just five years while the Apollo/Saturn system became operational, achieving President Kennedy's goal in July 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the first man on the Moon.

Though the costs of the moon race were high, this mission led to an era of great scientific discovery and technical leadership.

It concerns me greatly that I have not seen a political leader yet in my lifetime willing to take such a strong position on an important matter. The incredible environmental and political impact energy independence could have on this country is equally, if not more important, than the space race. And yet, our political leaders are either indifferent or oblivious, preferring to play political cat-and-mouse over moral issues.

The quality of life, both economically and environmentally, as well as national security depends on us taking immediate action. Though the president can drive this vision, it is a united people that share the vision I'm speaking to that must call it to his or her attention. It frustrates me that most people are not educated enough on this matter and that those that are passionate are not organized enough to assert their goals. I'm still optimistic that soon this has the potential to be addressed if the right people can come together. One needs only to watch JFK's remarkable speech in 1962, proclaiming a nearly impossible goal that was ultimately accomplished three years ahead of schedule, to know that nearly anything can be accomplished with the right leadership, motivation, people and resources.

If you have thoughts on this, please drop me a note.

The team at Silicon Valley Product Group published an excellent blog entry on why, first and foremost, product managers need to make sure that they're empowered to meet with customers regularly. One piece of advice I particularly like was the following:

For whatever reason, if you work at a company where you're told you can't talk to your users, my advice is to first try hard to change this policy, but if that doesn't work, dust off your resume and find a place where you can practice your craft and have a shot at creating great products. I really don't know how you can build products users will love without a deep understanding of those users, and you won't get that without lots of direct communication, including face-to-face interactions.

I would only add that it's not only important to meet with customers, but to know how to engage with them for maximum impact. Also, to achieve real success with experience design, it's also important to conduct more than one visit with a customer as your design for the product or service advances. The insights uncovered in properly structured meetings can lead to not only major revelations about an existing product, but provide the evidence needed to trigger new ideas on new to the world products and services.

Tim O'Reilly announced that it's now possible to purchase chapters from O'Reilly books online. While I'd suspect it'll take awhile before this catches on, I personally would have found this to be a very valuable option in the past -- at least for technical books.

After years of plotting, and many hours of dedicated developer time, our customers now have the ability to buy our book content by the chapter in PDF format. This feature is being rolled out on 714 books initially, the same books that are part of the CCC RightsLink project, but does not include HF or Digitial Media titles. For the rollout, pricing per chapter is $3.99.