AG's Blog

Foray into Polycom IP phone provisioning and SIP registration

2012-03-24T12:16:05Z

Spent roughly two months playing around with provisioning and setting up polycom soundpoint IP320 and IP 430 polycom phones. My asterisk box has one SIP trunk and I simply wanted to get some use out of some fairly robust IP phones. The first problem I discovered was that I did not understand how tftp worked. The trivial ftp protocol albeit not at all secure is quite common means of provisioning or flashing the bootrom or SIP software on these phones. I suppose most people have moved onto FTP, HTTP or TLS provisioning.

Important points to consider when

Trivial ftp daemon
Polycom Bootrom and SIP software
Image via Wikipedia
NAT Firewall Setup

In my setup, the asterisk server is NATd and located on a different private LAN. So, to add to my perceived complexity, the phones are also located behind a NATd router and the asterisk box does not have a static IP. Clearly a recipe for disaster since SIP is so dependent upon holes in the firewall. *Note* Asterisk not having a static IP is not so horribly bad, but you simply have to take appropriate measures like using "externip or externhost" constructs along with the very tried and true dyndns service.

To make matters worse, the Polycom phones while popular and admired for both quality and cost are not STUN aware.
I'll save the SIP registration problem for last.

I had read that provisioning Polycom phones was shall we say quite trivial.
So I had to make sure that I could administer the asterisk box remotely.
Of course ssh and screen works well for this purpose, as I needed to open up several
terminal windows to inspect traffic coming across port 69, the tftp default port.
The first challenge was actually setting up /tftpboot and running the tftpd correctly.
For some reason the inetd wrapper never worked as designed so I simply run the tftp daemon
as stand alone service. Opening up a terminal and as root typing -->
/usr/sbin/in.tftpd -l -s /tftpboot/ -vvvv Note the "l" for listen or stand alone instance not controlled by the inetd wrapper. If you try to run tftp daemon without the 'l' switch and without the inetd service it will fail. One other gotcha which is specific to Polycom and other phones which can be provisioned via Trivial ftp (yes I know tftp is not secure and most folks provision phones via FTP and perhaps TLS or http), you must specify /tftpboot directory. These phones expect the directory to be included in all tftp daemon statements. If you are using the inetd wrapper this work is already done for you.

I then decided to run tcpdump against the desired port to monitor the output of the connection. I later learned that I could simply direct the stdout to asterisk syslog.

Now let us get to the selection of Polycom bootrom and SIP software selection. I have found this exercise to be fraught with peril. The site is very confusing and not very well planned. Essentially, it is appears to be a spreadsheet with a few colors and hyperlinks. The legend is not very useful. The result is a web page that is circa '93. Not sure if anyone else experienced this problem, but I downloaded the incorrect SIP software and wasted countless hours on needless trouble shooting. If you want to test your mettle and attention to detail visit the Polycom download site yourself. I would recommend that they mistake proof the site with some parsing mechanism to make certain bootrom and SIP combinations impossible. At the very least some sort of selection hierarchy that is common on modern websites that allow you pick and select software or hardware components. Radio boxes or pull down menus work well. I think you get the idea. Select your IP phone model --> next pull down --> recommended stable bootrom --> next pull down recommended SIP software. Really very simple. Overall I believe Polycom to be a very good customer driven company, but their self-support software website is woefully outdated. They might as well be running a BBS :-)

Now onto the most interesting part of this exercise. The networking and effective understanding of what we'll call the double "NAT" conundrum. I was working with a consumer grade Netopia 3307 DSL Router which comes with 4-port switch. The router doesn't seem to handle SIP traffic very well at all. In a nutshell, the problem could be characterized as follows:: the Netopia router doesn't understand IP addresses embedded in SIP and SDP payloads. The only way to get this to work is to place some sort of sip proxy on the LAN to intercept the packets, rewrite them to maintain state about the SIP endpoints (ie remote Polycom phones) then dynamically create the necessary NAT rules to allow RTP packets to pass between the endpoints in a call. I learned about this fact while perusing #openwrt IRC. I owe a special thanks to for the insight. For those of you who are not familiar with VoIP, RTP is what allows audio transport for both endpoints. If RTP isn't working the failure mode is that you will not hear any anyone speaking on the other end or vice versa.

Understand that Netopia has a set of tools that did enable "one" polycom phone to work. I used the IP Passthrough mode and it enable one endpoint to correctly register with the remote asterisk box. Of course this was less than optimal since the I have two SIP endpoints. So, I had to abandon IP Passthrough and figure out a better workaround.

I began looking for a solution to my dumb Netopia problem, so I immediately thought openwrt project. Luckily, I was able to cop a Linksys WRT54GL for $50 bucks. My theory was that I could learn how siproxd works and place the openwrt device on the network between my SIP endpoints and the remote asterisk box. However, I was on a time constraint and I had to get the problem resolved and leave the experimentation to a later time. I still have the the openwrt router and will use it to monitor connections on the LAN and perhaps install squid proxy. One day I might even try siproxyd.

So, I was able to get things working albeit not exactly my first preference.. I finally broke down and placed both the SIP endpoints and asterisk box on the same LAN. Voila, no more double NAT situation. No more need to punch holes in firewall to accept SIP and RTP packets. I then used the IP Mapping feature of the Netopia router which seems to work quite fine. In truth, I am still not entirely sure how it inspects inbound SIP and RTP packets. Perhaps that is less important now that iptables rules on the asterisk box can do the heavy lifting. The router is simply mapping a static IP address and the iptables rules on the asterisk box accept all the required traffic and drops all that is not desired.

Another added benefit is that I finally upgraded from Asterisk 1.4 to Asterisk 1.6 and hardened my CentOS box a bit more. If I get more time I'll share my experiences with openwrt..

Despots, Civil Unrest and New Media

2011-11-01T13:42:44Z

Image via Wikipedia

Ghaddafi is now dead. Regardless of what you thought about his rule in Libya, you cannot mistake his ability to leverage regional natural resources to combat Western powers. Revolution is typically bloody and remarkable, but watching it unfold in the information age is rather unique.

Though I was younger and perhaps less globally aware, I am old enough to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall. I could imagine that an event so significant (ie unifying Germany) and so consequential surely there must have been tremendous bloodshed. One can only imagine what the people of East Germany had to endure in an effort to dismantle that political and Socialist cultural regime. Ironically, the Western media never captured any of their leaders being dragged through the streets covered with blood or filmed the hiding places of their generals. One might attribute this fact to a fledgling world wide web, perhaps, but it does seem that African or developing nations which are undergoing political change seem to get far more coverage.

Clearly 1989 media was hindered by the available technology, largely everything was captured by tel-lie-vision and radio. There was no flickr or other Internet based social media channels. The United States was largely controlled by just a few major news outlets, and the huge growth of cable networks had not yet begun to take root.

Still it is rather curious that events in Libya, Egypt, etc garnered so much coverage in the US. Could it be that there was such a human interest story and the enduring embrace of personal freedom and democracy for all? Hogwash.. Methinks it has more to do with the financial leverage and controlling natural resources. Going back to the Berlin Wall example. I'm clear that East German leadership was under tremendous attack from the resurrection of its citizens as well as outside forces that had a vested interest in seeing Socialism crushed in the Eastern Bloc. However, I never saw pics or video footage of Honecker or Krenz getting beaten or bloodied for their part in maintaining the Berlin Wall.

The other aspect of the Libyan story is economics. Obviously the US has a vested interest in controlling the price of a barrel of oil. In fact, Ghaddafi took great pride in organizing the OPEC to help dictate the flow of oil thereby manipulating demand. Simple Economics 101 and the Western nations despised him for it. Again, the Berlin story had few if any money underpinnings, so it would be logical that US interests would be pale in comparison to Libya.

Not sure what the new media focus will be now, the destabilization efforts have succeeded in Libya, Iraq, and Egypt. I suppose that a greater focus on Africa would not be out of the question. Curiously, China and Afghanistan are on the back burner. Time will tell.

Anatomy of Championship

2011-09-15T16:49:42Z

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The great Yankee closer, Mariano Rivera now sits at the precipice of history. He is now ~~two saves away from being~~ unequivocally the best closer in the game. Rivera has the uncanny ability to avoid injury and is quite consistent.

Opposing batters rarely square up any of his offerings and this provides numerous opportunities to shut down offenses and secure saves in bunches. The Bx Bombers are indeed fortunate to have a fabulous bullpen. No ballclub can be successful in the post season without a reliable closer.

In all honesty, Trevor Hoffman's accomplishments do not even hold a candle to Rivera's. Hoffman folded like a cheap suit in his only post season appearance against the Yankees. Hoffman does not have very many pressure save opportunities.

2011 Ohio Linux Fest

2011-09-10T12:28:10Z

Image via Wikipedia

Though this is not my first OLF experience, it does mark the first time that I have come on a Friday. As the conference extended its offerings, the OLF organizers decided to create certification and Health Track content on Friday.

Last year I was on a mission to learn more about electronic medical records, specifically OpenEMR. During 2010 OLF, I met Fred Trotter, who while not a current contributor to the OpenEMR project; he introduced me to the Availity clearinghouse. He also gave me some helpful suggestions on how I might begin to contribute to the OpenEMR project. This year I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Sam Bowen, who is not only a Gentoo user but also an Internal Medicine Physician. That is remarkable indeed. He gave me some pointers on how to upgrade from a OpenEMR v2.9.0 experimental to latest stable release v4.1. Bowen gave me a full run down of the meaningful use effort for OpenEMR and some of the struggles associated to funding the effort. He also was gracious enough to help identify some of helpful third party companies that are available for hire to do additional development on OpenEMR. We exchanged business cards and I plan to drop him an email right away.

Another item of note was that I participated in my first GPG key signing party. I'll have to capture the finer details in another entry. GNU Privacy Guard (gpg) allows one to deploy publicly available cryptology (thanks to Phil Zimmerman) to encrypt email and other documents. Basically, key signing is the act of verifying that the signature indeed originates from the rightful owners. You physically verify the key fingerprint by having the owner read the fingerprint then you exchange picture identification with other key signing participants. Very cool indeed. I'll summarize some of the talks I attended in forthcoming entry. I learned much more at the 2011 OLF than I had at other previous OLFs.

Lastly, I ran into the urban camper named Klaatu. Who is also a fellow slackware user. We chatted briefly, but did not get a chance to exchange public GPG keys. Oh well, perhaps next time.

Experiences with CUPS

2011-08-28T02:00:31Z

Image via Wikipedia

I have been running Common Unix Printing System(CUPS) for perhaps 10 years. Prior to CUPS I used LPRng and simple LPD which are basic BSD variants for UNIX-like computing systems.

CUPS has become the defacto printing solution for Linux, I'm not exactly sure why it was chosen, but it certainly seems ubiquitous with most Linux distributions. Though CUPS was purchased by that Cupertino hardware company that I love to hate, it still gets widespread use.

Running CUPS can either be exhilarating or very humbling.
I still recall a time where a conducted a demo for WLUG and I failed miserably in my attempt to install and run CUPS within 15-20 minutes. Some other folks have also stubbed their knuckles and ranted about this software. Now that I am a bit wiser and more familiar with the print services here are a few pointers.

You'll need to understand the following

Hardware Compatibility
PPD files
Samba
Ghostscript
Basic Networking

Before purchasing a printer be sure that it supports Linux. Typically most HP printers will work quite well. I have had good experiences with Brother printers too. If you do not take the time to verify that your printer works with Linux, you will most certainly become very frustrated.

At our small office we've used a Dell Color Laser 5110cn and Canon MF8350cdn multifunction laser printer. The latter released its printer drivers under the GPLv2. It took me awhile to find these drivers (PPD files). As it turns out Canon released these drivers for Canon Japan, I stumbled upon them running a GOOG search. A very helpful community run site is linuxprinting.org. They have several hardware compatible drivers. I will one day add the CanonMF8350cdn to their list.

I'm not going to delve into PPD files. Suffice to say, they are essentially print drivers. While you do not need Samba to run a reliable print server with CUPS, Samba can help you with authentication and can also serve as a domain controller in a M$ windows environment. In this particular case I used Samba to share the Canon multi-function printer as a resource to four windows clients. The printer is attached to a Slackware 13.1 box that is serving as a print server.

A word about Samba...
Windows clients expect SMB/CIFS to be spoken over the network and Samba allows Unix-like systems to address this need rather easily. Shared network resources can be accessed and the appropriate handshaking authentication can take place. Samba handles the often used NT LAN Manager rather well. Nuff respect to hackers Andrew Tridgell and the rest of the Samba Project team. Samba is an indispensable networking tool on any heterogeneous network.

Linux and Unix-like operating systems work best with printers that speak native postscript. I leave discovering the definition of postscript and its origin to the reader, as it is beyond the scope of this entry. However, I will state that you will need to install Ghostscript to successfully get printing to work on Linux, BSD and Unix systems. Basically, Ghostscript is software interpreter for postscript. In the cases where your printer may not speak native postscript, you can run Ghostscript to help fill in the missing bits that your Unix-like operating system expects. Actually, most consumer grade printers inkjets do not speak postscript in the manner that the aforementioned operating systems expect. Most laser printers speak some proprietary PCL. If you really wish to learn about the origins of postscript and the many variations of PCL. I'd highly recommend this paper, written by the author of the LPRng project, Patrick Powell.

Lastly, you'll need to understand basic networking. As trivial as it sounds, you'll need to be able to ping each client in your network to be sure it can receive packets that originate from anyone on the LAN. Once you've established good connectivity, the CUPS logs will become useful.

Below is a snippet of /var/log/cups/page_log

Note that 'nobody' is considered a guest account on the server.

Canon_MF8300_Series_ 104 nobody [06/Jul/2011:17:36:06 -0400] 1 1 - 192.168.1.200 smbprn.00000072 Untitled - Notepad - -
Canon_MF8300_Series_ 105 nobody [06/Jul/2011:17:36:34 -0400] 1 1 - 192.168.1.200 smbprn.00000073 Untitled - Notepad - -

As an aside, I detected an annoying problem with "user" authentication within Samba.

For the moment, I'm forced to use the "share" security model. The problem seems to originate from Win7 clients. I believe the issue is the NTLM. I seem to recall the fix deals with hacking the Windows Registry of the Win7 clients.

In summary, CUPS is an ideal solution for printing on Unix-like systems. However, you must be sure to do upfront research to avoid purchasing the wrong type of printer.

links for 2011-08-23

2011-08-23T07:01:12Z

Objectionable C

Interesting, but falls short of explaining the changes to Obj-C. I'd heard that Jobs had violated the GPL to produce Obj-C.

(tags: apple programming stevejobs)

Lame Marketing

2011-07-25T10:46:50Z

I suppose that I should begin with the ubiquitous disclaimer - "The thoughts expressed here are mine and do not represent those of my employer"

Some weeks ago, I received an email from one of the internal marketing firms for my employer. What was most curious about the communication was it came a few days prior to office wide shutdown period. I would venture to guess that many of the desired recipients never received the information or simply deleted it upon returning to the office, along with the other 350 or so messages. The only reason I gave it a second glance was that it contained the name of another colleague that I had worked with recently. Another odd tidbit was that a 3rd party marketing firm was also cc'd.

Perhaps most intriguing was the message alluded to some mystery forthcoming USBE magazine which highlighted myself and several other employees of color. I paraphrase the message to set the theme, "Were you aware that the you were being recognized in a forthcoming magazine article... Please be sure to list the STEM efforts that you are currently fostering?" At this point I'm thinking that this smells rotten, but my curiosity was peeked so I do a bit of research to confirm my suspicions. I could find no such article. So I could only surmise that we have the classic bait and switch effort at work here. What does an intelligent individual do at this point? Blow it off?

Well the tone of the message clearly suggested that they really were not interested in the helping the employee shine. It was all about finding some individuals that are involved in STEM efforts and let the employer gain credit for the unsanctioned volunteer work of the employee. I should state that this is the way of the world so to speak. Not uncommon, but in my humble opinion still disingenuous nonetheless.

I decided to cut to the chase and contact the 3rd party marketing firm that was curiously cc'd in the message. Maybe the 3rd party marketing firm added "validity" to the correspondence?

Based upon the manner in which the message was orchestrated, I did not bother contacting the internal marketing firm that specialized in "African-American" matters.

After talking to the individual I told them I was unable to find the USBE article. I also asked about the goal and intent of the marketing campaign. They basically stated that my company wanted to showcase its STEM efforts by highlighting the various African-American engineers who were engaged with such volunteer efforts. I explained the I was not currently active, but had supported such efforts in the past. He asked my name and said thank you. I suppose he crossed me off his list. C'est la vie.

Lame Marketing Lessons Learned:

It is never about showcasing the employee
If it sounds too good to be true...
My company is still struggling to leverage its African Ancestry talent

Lame indeed..

links for 2011-07-21

2011-07-21T07:00:55Z

NeoPwn - FAQs

Great pen-tester :-)

(tags: n900 linux mobile maemo5)

Hacker Public Radio - HPR 0728

2011-05-24T14:12:19Z

I recently collaborated on a netcast for Hacker Public Radio (HPR). It would appear that my itch for time shifting and technical dialogue is still in me. However, in this particular episode Dismal Science and I discussed issues related to Race, Sex and Open Source. We did not prepare any show notes.

Enjoy the conversation HPR 0728
For anyone who is unfamiliar with HPR, Hacker Public Radio is an podcast that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday. Our shows are produced by the community and can be on any topic that would be interesting to hackers.

Please consider contributing a show for a good cause. The content does not have to be technical in nature, but it must be interesting and thought provoking to the community. The show is by and for the community. Is this not what "radio" was designed for in the beginning?

Unfortunately, I do not have the conversation in ogg format. Early morning snafu with the recording, we'll use one of my asterisk boxes next time.

Apple for education is a misnomer

2011-05-19T03:50:48Z

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I have always wondered how hardware companies get selected as the preferred vendor for academics. Some years ago, I encountered an Apple IIc which was used in a Physics lab in a junior college where I was studying. How did this machine arrive at such a destination?
Perhaps there was an existing vendor contract with that particular school. If you were to ask the average computer user circa 1980, Apple was considered a learning platform for children.

In fact, children often grabbed their parents and demanded that one be purchased for them. What are the criteria for robust academic computing? I would offer a few thoughts, as I'm certain that there are no standard well described guidelines.

Some Basic Academic Computing Tenets:

Open Learning
Sharing of Ideas
Free Software
Standards Based or Open Hardware
Zero Barriers to Entry

I cannot state with any certainty that Apple offered any of these tenets with its older computers.
One could argue that these concepts were in the minds of people like Wozniak. Perhaps they were, but I would assert that they are not at all tenets of the modern era Cupertino company.

If these are not the tenets of Apple; why do people constantly talk about using Apple products for assistive technology for special needs patients? I have also heard the same rhetoric in favor of using Apple products for elderly computer users. What I find odd about this tendency is that the use case seems in direct contrast to these claims.

The current rage is the tablet and apparently the expectation is that tablets will soon render netbooks and desktop computers obsolete. Before I get into the tablet phenomenon, I want to revisit the tenets.

Open Learning -
Intended to foster scholastic mastery through the use of application software (ie word processor, spreadsheets, etc). The ability to save documents for posterity without the risk of vendor lock-in. Deprecated file formats are in direct contrast to the open learning principle.

Sharing Ideas -
When you open and free exchange of facts and data are expected. It is difficult to argue that Digital Rights Management (DRM) often makes sharing ideas difficult. Apple is perhaps the most well known for its gestapo actions in the area of DRM. Their virtual marketplace iTunes is the prime example. If you wish to give your friends copies of music, lectures or whatever from their digital marketplace you do so with expectation that the files may not be readable by your friends. This seems odd considering you have already paid for the content. However, you really are not the owner, but merely leasing the content. I suppose the owner will always be the copyright holder.

Free and Open Source Software -
Although Apple has made a fair amount of cash using the Mach kernel which was basis for Darwin and of course OSX. Darwin's BSD lineage aside, there really isn't much free software in the wilds that has been fostered by the Cupertino company. If you look at the Darwin web site it would appear that there really is not active development on the project. Ironically, Apple boasts "200+ Open Source Projects ship with OSX". I wonder how many of these upstream projects ever see contribution from Apple devs? My guess would be not very many.

Standards Based or Open Hardware -
In truth, I am very impressed with the appearance of most appliances produced by the Cupertino company. They really are works of art and quite pleasing to the eye. Taking a more pragmatic approach to the utility of these devices is another matter. Apple was perhaps the first company to release machines with IEEE 1394 (Firewire) standard, which is surely commendable. In general, their devices are compliant and provide most of what is needed. I say most, as their first tablet offering did not include USB or Bluetooth support. Mind boggling for a company that released Firewire ports on their machines in the mid '90's. Heh, maybe not so mind boggling as no one knew much about Firewire in the '90's go figure ;-)
It really must be about the vendor lock-in strategy. Buy from our software stack or have nothing at all. The other alternative is to hack your very expensive piece of art and risk turning it into a door stop or paper weight.

Zero Barriers to Entry-
If we really want our students or elderly to use Apple products, we must forewarn them that it will be a very expensive proposition. Sure you can get PowerPC based machine and run Linux on it. However, I'm talking about more modern better supported hardware. Most of it is cost prohibitive.

Now let us get back to the idea that tablet computing will drastically revolutionize the way average people use computers. I emphasize average computer user since these use cases typically define mainstream computer usage. I would argue most tablet users are generally power users or computer hobbyists. Additionally, most tablets are feature based appliances. You can surf the Interweb, send email and other limited activities. Multimedia seems to be the growing desire of most computer users. High definition video is something that an under powered ARM processor may not be able to handle. Perhaps I've got it all wrong. I'm just not convinced that under powered tablet devices are going to unseat laptop and desktop machines. I would think that smart phones are more attractive and pose a greater threat. Even smart phones do not have the feature rich applications and offer a limited computer experience. As the price of smart phones continue to drop, I would expect more mainstream computer users to adopt smart phones over tablets.

Academia and assistive technology computers require flexibility and they must provide superior value. High cost, closed silos are not the answer.

WP7 Struggle for Relevance

2011-03-08T14:09:01Z

Image via CrunchBase

I'm sure that you've had enough talk about the M$ and Nokia agreement and subsequent WP7 propagation across all future Nokia handsets. Well, I figured that since I recently purchased a Nokia N900, I am uniquely qualified to weigh on this recent merger. While I am befuddled with the abandonment of Maemo and MeeGo. The uber cool QT development platform was also scuttled. I do agree that Symbian platform had outlived its usefulness. Nokia waited far too long to release the software into the community and it really smelled like a desperation move. Now that I think about it, befuddled is probably disingenuous.

The new CEO is a Redmond cast off, so it does make perfect sense that Nokia would adopt WP7. However, I really do not see the so-called competitive advantage that is now afforded to Nokia. Ballmer seems to believe that WP7 will suddenly stop the hemorrhaging M$ effort and narrow the gap between its chief competitors iOs and Android. Though Symbian probably has a much larger install base than iOS and Android (and certainly any Windows Mobile play), Symbian is quite long in the tooth. The UI is quite ugly and rivals RIM for the most stagnant development platform. It would appear that the proprietary Symbian C++ has made people run away in horror. I compare the Symbian Open Source move to that of the wayward Netscape and it last ditch effort to save its browser. Netscape left behind a heaping pile of code that took a community of hackers several years to forge into a cohesive project named Mozilla. Fast forward to Nokia's February 2010 announcement of Symbian3 and its Open Source strategy. How much time do you think it will take for Symbian3 to get the appropriate uptake in the developer community? Obviously, Nokia brain trust did not plan well and really had no confidence in Open Source Symbian.

Ditto for Maemo and MeeGo. Many have chronicled the promise of Maemo and its first to market potential. For whatever reason Nokia hedged some initial bets on MeeGo via partnership with Intel. However, Nokia leadership understood that Symbian could not stop them from rapidly losing market share. Using F/OSS to help stave off Android and iOS takes guts and patience. At this point no one will ever know if Maemo/ MeeGO could compete with Android and iOS.

So, Nokia decides to outsource its software development to another mobile laggard. M$ is betting on the distribution channel. Despite what Scoble and other M$ proponents believe. The uphill climb will be substantial.

Several challenges for WP7

Android and iOS
Windows CE
Licensing
Consumer Interest
Past Failed M$ Partnerships
Microsoft XNA

The list above is not exhaustive, just a few observations. Additionally, I did not list these in any particular order. If I can depart from my usual point by point analysis. Let me just highlight the most important of the group.

Obviously, Windows CE has been around for quite awhile. It powered many of M$ mobile phones over the years. It's performance was mostly abysmal. I don't think there is much debate here. WP7 advocates will need spend time convincing people that its predecessor is far inferior to WP7.

Perhaps the most compelling question is why should you care about WP7? It would seem that the most difficult aspect of the WP7 adoption would be to simply get people to try it. Clearly this point resonates in the United States. Perhaps the alliance with Nokia will be a resounding success in Europe, but adoption in the US will take a herculean marketing effort.

Differentiation of the handset is not enough to propel WP7 past Android and iOS. As both have a head start in terms of street credibility and developer mindshare. While we're talking about developers, Scoble and other M$ advocates would suggest that success is predicated on the apps or the glorious app store. People who have used Free and Open Source software have used repositories or ftp sites to obtain their software for at least a decade. I would argue this is analogous to the glorified app store. Though the software was free, the ability to update your device firmware or install new software over the network is nothing new. I would agree that if nobody is writing software for your platform your platform will eventually disappear. However, I'm not clear that an app store drives the hardware platform.

Lastly, admittedly I do not know much about the XNA effort. Suffice to say that it is fairly new and developers in the M$ camp probably understand it well. If this XNA strategy is going to be the bedrock for WP7 it had better become a household name for developers outside of the M$ community. Let's talk about M$ partnerships for a moment. We can look at Novell, Xandros, Palm, Erickson, Sony, Samsung and several others. The common thread here is that these partnerships never ended well for the other companies involved. If I get a moment I'll update this post with some examples of these failed partnerships. History suggest that this one will be no different. I suppose time will tell. More later.

Tough to Teach Intensity and Focus

2011-02-20T12:09:48Z

I have been a Tang Soo Do practitioner for the past 12yrs. and it truly has been a wonderful journey. Though, I still continue to learn nuances and place a heavy emphasis on the basics, the fervor was at its highest when I was preparing for 1st Dan (1st blackbelt).

I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to teach the ferocity and intensity I experienced as I prepared for my examination. I was very excited to stand before the late Jae Joon Kim and demonstrate precision and discipline. These days I do more coaching, observation and teaching. The youngsters do not seem to understand how to exhibit power and purpose in their techniques.

While I understand the virtues of patience, at times it can become a challenge to stay calm and not get annoyed with the kids. It is difficult to watch them as they wander through the motions of their hyungs. My criticism is particularly directed at the 1st Gups as they will eventually test for 1st Dan. I typically stress that the hyung (basic form) isn't a dance but a fight against a would be adversary. The Sang Dan Mahkee (high block) is not done with a limp wrist.

Interestingly, while these children struggle through one or possibly two classes per week in preparation for their Dan examination, I trained at different schools, some which were not related to my system (ie Tamashi Dojo) . Yes, I remember vividly going to these schools as a visiting practitioner to receive extra training in preparation for my Dan testing. Often this extra training came in the form of sparring at both Tamashi Dojo (Friday Fight Night) and Metro Karate. It really was the height of my training. When I'd had enough training in Detroit, I'd go to Canton and train with Greg Boliard at Mu Sa Kwan. Well, if that was not enough I would work out when I returned home to B'klyn with Tessa Gordon of Pure Energy Martial Arts. As an aside I worked out on an invitation at United Tae Kwon Do in Detroit.
Though I am Tang Soo Do practitioner, I did enjoy working out at both Pure Energy and United Tae Kwon Do despite the fact their systems were Tae Kwon Do, as the training was quite intense.

The point is preparation for your Dan exam should be humbling, exciting, difficult, focused and extremely intense. You _cannot_ simply walk through the motions. You would be doing yourself a disservice. It really is difficult to teach intensity and focus, especially to children. I suppose this is why minimum age requirements always comes into question when talking about black belt readiness. No one tests if they have deficiencies. Perhaps I need to remember that they are teenagers. However, I am reminded that we had some intense teens and they were focused. Sigh, a Master's work is never done.

Mama Egypt

2011-02-03T11:36:53Z

Image by Jorge-11 via Flickr

It's surreal to see the unrest in Egypt. Actually, I visited the country almost 20yrs ago as military serviceman. In fact, I have fond memories of the coastal city Hurghada, as I spent most of my time there while in Egypt. The red snapper was excellent and the people were extremely friendly. One particular episode, weighs heavy on my mind. I recall having dinner in a local cafe with some fellow shipmates. For whatever reason, I had run out of Egyptian pounds. The meal was actually 20 pounds and I only had something like 15 pounds. Ordinarily, not having enough money to settle the bill is a recipe for disaster. Get out the latex gloves and bust some suds or run for the nearest ATM. Quite the contrary, the restaurant host simply paid the difference and was gracious in doing so. Obviously, I will never forget this generosity. Very refreshing and quite rare indeed.

I also had the opportunity to visit Cairo and the Pyramids of Giza. A site to behold, and one that is truly a world wonder. If you find true engineering to be godly work, then you will appreciate these pyramids. I traveled to the bottom and one of our tour guides presented me with a Quran for safekeeping. A very humbling experience. While I know that the present day inhabitants of Egypt are not the indigenous people, I felt very at home in Egypt. Regardless, whether they knew I was a US serviceman or tourist I could see they generally wanted me to enjoy my stay in their country. While in Cairo, I got a chance to walk the streets and experience urban North African style. I even talked to people about the Six-Day War, a great education for me to put it mildly. The Cairo Museum had a treasure trove of artifacts that I really wished I had been able to photograph.

Fast forward to the unrest you see on the major and minor media outlets, very sad. It is amazing that a people who have been forced to sacrifice, will eventually be forced to unite and prepare for a bloody revolution to gain freedom. I sure hope the Americans let the Egyptian people decide the outcome. If you're unaware of the how all this occurred check out Wikileaks and an assortment of other documents in the wilds of the InterWeb.

Speech For Freedom

2011-01-26T07:54:09Z

Yet another movie review. I'm sure most of you will appreciate this one ;-) My wife has educated me on speech disorders and "The King's Speech" seemed like an interesting film. Without giving away the entire plot, one could really sympathize with the main character despite his hubris, I found myself hoping that he would succeed.

Humans typically create barriers where there are none simply because they are different. For instance, if one spat saliva each time they spoke in close proximity to other people, would it be appropriate for them to stop speaking all together? If the individual is deeply subconscious about their nasty habit, they may actually withdraw from close contact with others. Obviously, I'm talking about an extreme case, as I know people that spit each time they talk to me. These people still don't seem to have any problem striking up a conversation. Hopefully, you get the idea ;-)

From what I understand, speech impediments can be corrected if detected early. They are more difficult to modify or eradicate in adulthood due to fragility of egos. This film certainly addressed that point very clearly. The main character earned his liberation my facing his deep rooted fear of ridicule and persecution. Everyone has demons that we cannot bear to face head on.

In this film, the king gained liberation by actually becoming humble and seeking help. He would later discover freedom and triumph by ridding himself of self doubt. Many people talk about freedom of speech, but this character took the cliche a step further. In learning to speak without fear of ridicule or chastisement he was able to exorcise demons that were deeply rooted in his childhood.

Good flick.. Peep it in the theater or grab the torrent.

links for 2011-01-11

2011-01-12T07:01:11Z

RDF Primer

Semantic Web Primer

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