Friday, November 27, 2009

The Virtual Engineer is moving to Wordpress!!

I have been debating this for along time. Bit, I am making the transition to Wordpress. A few reasons for it, nothing earth shattering.

The look and feel is a massive work in progress. Stay tuned as I expect to post alot from Autodesk University next week.

The new addresses are:

http://www.derrekcooper.com
http://www.thevirtualengineer.org

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Google Chrome-esque OS is the future!!

Always a bit surprised how much debate there is on defining "the cloud". I suppose there are various ways it can be defined. To me its simple it is "working and living on the internet". Using applications that are hosted on the web and storing and sharing files that are hosted as well with the ability to access them from wherever, whenever. Plain and simple.

Google is hitting the nail square on the head with Chrome OS or Chromium or whatever they want to call it. Here is an explanation..



I love the idea. Whether it is Google or someone else, I love the whole concept of being connected and interacting with applications on the web. I have been preaching it for awhile now and see it as the future. At least for me. There are clearly applications near and dear to me that require a local installation- for now.

I feel like I am working in a hybrid environment of web based and local. I have a netbook that has a 16GB hard drive (SSD), so I use web based applications as much as possible. Not only to save space, but plain and simple I want to be able to access them from wherever, whenever.

95% of my time on my netbook, I am using a single application - Firefox! I leverage a handful of addons and other applications to access my data.. Such, as..

  1. Gmail - for personal email
  2. Outlook web access - for work email
  3. Evernote web - for all of my evernote data (although web exp isnt the best)
  4. Dropbox web- for all my work data
  5. Echofon- FF twitter addon that sits in the taskbar
  6. Identifox- FF indenti.ca addon that sits in the taskbar
  7. Mozilla Weave- FF addon for synching all of my FF activities
  8. Google docs for basic word proc & spreadsheets
  9. Visual Studio web access - for dev-based activities for work
  10. Lala- to play my entire music library
  11. Hulu for tv/movies
Ok, I think you get the idea. I.m sure there are others that I am missing.

Right now, my biggest struggle is having a "web-based music mgmt" program. Lala is great for uploading and purchasing, but not for managing mp3 players or downloading, once its been uploaded. I'm pretty amazed that someone hasn't jumped on this. Seems like a logical perpetual revenue stream. I would love to be able to access my music, download, transfer it to my own machines (realize that policing this isn't easy) but I am willing to pay for it. I hate itunes and think that songbird, banshee and others could pick up significant share of the party if they hook this up. I hate lugging my music around and transferring it from machine to machine.

Anyway, a bit of a rant here on a Sunday...

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Are you part of a community or sheeple??!?

I heard the term sheeple the other day. Not sure why I found the term so funny. The bluntness of it, was what I found most endearing. Got me thinking of the difference between community members and sheeple.

I have been engaged with the Art of Community by Jono Bacon lately. Really great book that gives a wide and specific perspective of life in a "community". One of the many points the really hit me was what draws people to communities is "...a sense of belonging". I never thought of it before, but its spot on. Community can mean many different things to you, could be a gardening club, neighborhood civic assoc, technical user group..whatever. But what draws you to these "organized groups"? One could argue its simply for information on a given topic. Could be surrounding yourself with people of similar interests. But, I think if you dive into it a bit, you will find Jono's onto something. You may have a small sense of belonging or you could be massively involved (borderline "needy").

I look at "sheeple" quite differently. It takes a sense of decision and commitment to become a community member. It takes very little to "just go with the flow". In fact, sheeple tend to throw off the curve of creativity, in my opinion. They follow the "norm", the "way" things are done.

Proud to say, I'm far from sheeple. Doesn't mean I won't try something that others are doing, even the masses. But, I pride myself on being open minded and trying very hard to establish an opinion.

I'm a proud member of a number of "communities" - from music, to various technology forums and groups to local neighborhood activities. It's fun being surrounded by people that are passionate, free thinkers and all have a common interest to make "that thing we all love" better.

How about you?

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Festival 8 was awesome, and I wasn't even there.

Phish announced that they were planning a 3-day outdoor festival on Halloween weekend, I figured, chances of attending was a bit of a long-shot. But a father of two little ones can always dream.

But, I have to say the "virtual experience" has been nothing but stellar from the beginning. I'll spare you my opinion on the band and love of the entire experience of what it means to be a fan. But thought I'd share how they are simply doing things different. They are one of the few organizations/companies that have truly embraced the web and social media exactly right. It started off with this "commercial" that was released via twitter and facebook.

PHISH - FALL TOUR 2009 from Phish on Vimeo.



They then began the countdown of locations by releasing this "save the date" map. Making it fun to speculate where the festival would be held. The map was kept up to date by eliminating the locations until it was announced that it was in Indio, CA. Of course, continuously updating via Facebook and Twitter.

Halloween is usually a big event for Phish as they historically, perform in musical costume, by covering an entire album of another band. They have played the likes of the Beatles, the Who, Velvet Underground and others. So over the course of the last few weeks, they provided a really clever 100 possible countdown. The winner was the Rolling Stones, Exile on Main St. I listened to it today and it is solid.

For those middle aged family guys, like myself, we were fortunate enough to be kept up to date via Twitter. The main Phish tweets were provided, thanks to...

@PHISH
@YEMblog
@CoventryMusic
@phishtube

There was word that a radio station, the bunny, out in CA would be streaming the show. Not sure exactly what happened, but Live Phish ended up squaring us pretty well with the stream of the show live as well as the option to pay to download.

As far as visuals- I relied on Flickr. Both Phishfromtheroad and a fan, Das38 have posted some pretty amazing shots. Surely not as cool as U2 streaming from LA, but there were a few videos posted to You Tube.



Why bother reading this? This is a clear solid example of how utilizing the web, social media and the tools that exist today can change the way that people think of entertainment.

Why should we care? It strengthens the tribe. I was one of a few thousand people that did not attend, but did everything I could to virtually be there including paying for the set in its entirety. A great example how a website, twitter, flickr, you tube all were used in conjunction perfectly.

I am anxious to see how others will embrace technology to satisfy a massive market of fans that are remote. I'll see you boys in 3 weeks in Philly for both shows.

Looking for a CFdesign Product Evangelist

Really psyched to announce that we are looking for a real out of the box thinker to fill a position as a Product Marketing Manager. This is a unique opportunity to work in a young, fast paced environment. We define the cliche of work hard, play hard.

If you have a solid understanding of the CAE software space and want to join a team that is redefining the way companies look and interact with CFD, send us your goods and lets talk.