niks blog

I have been living in Iowa for over one and a half years and I am still amazed at how eccentric Iowans can be. To express my gratitude to Iowans for keeping me entertained, I am starting a new series of posts called “Zany Iowa.”

The purpose behind Zany Iowa posts is to highlight ‘zany’ observations I have made about Iowa and its residents. I may live in Iowa, but I have lived in Chicago for the majority of my life. And trust me, I am still considered ‘one of them folks’ by many Iowans since I cannot seem to understand their rural way of life.

Unsalted Roads

In Chicago, many resources are spent every year to ensure that all roads in the city and suburbs are salted, plowed, and drivable as soon as a major snowstorm hits or is about to hit. What really surprises me about Iowa is how little focus they have on keeping the roads plowed and salted.

Salt does not melt snow

I know that salt does not melt snow. If you did not know that, consult a chemistry teacher or read Wikipedia. Ok, so maybe it melts the snow a little bit. The fact is that salt simply lowers the “freezing” point for water and allows ice to form a bit later when the temperatures are cooler.

Sand doesn’t help the issue

Conventional wisdom in Iowa proclaims that by spreading sand over the snow, vehicles will have traction. That sounds good and it actually works, to a certain extent. However, all that does is create a thick-ass layer of snow and ice on which sand rests on top. Essentially, you have vehicles slipping and sliding because Iowans are too cheap to spread salt and plow the roads.

Plowing?

For some reason, Iowa transportation department is unable to successfully plow the roads even a few days after a snowstorm. The residential neighborhood I live still has compacted snow/ice on the roads and never does a snow plow truck come by. Even the main roads aren’t plowed properly and a four-lane highway actually becomes a three lane highway with drivers driving as if its a four-lane highway.

One More Thing…

Here’s the kicker, since I’ve been here, I have seen over 30 cars in a two mile stretch on the same road all stuck or rolled over in the median/divider strip of grass. Shouldn’t that be a sign that says that the roads should be managed better?

Google's Nexus One Mobile Phone

Ready or not, the “Google Phone” aka Nexus One is here and it is poised to revolutionize the playing field. So far, no mobile phone has been able to successfully challenge the current ‘king of the hill’, Apple’s iPhone. Maybe the Nexus One can challenge the iPhone, but I think the Nexus One isn’t all that great in the grand scheme of mobile phones. It certainly is a revolutionary step forward in mobile communication sales, but not technologically.

About a year ago, Google developed and released a mobile OS platform known as Android. Unfortunately, Android is NOT an actual device. Rather, it is a technology that is supposed to rival the iPhone’s OS. Unfortunately, due to manufacturer’s own goals, I believe that the user experience on Android is not as consistent as Apple’s iPhone. Each manufacturer is developing their own interface with some consistency across the board. However, the interfaces themselves are also “fine-tuned” by the carriers as well.

I’m not here to talk about the interface, technology, or the innovation that the Nexus One brings to the table. Rather, I want to talk about the lack of ingenuity that the phone is taking, but at the same time how that lack of ingenuity will drive the economy in a different direction.

There are two key factors that will hold the Google Nexus One back:

• Limited 3G capability
• Price of unlocked phone

3G: Only on the Nation’s Weakest Network

Nexus One has 3G, which means it lets you browse the web at fairly decent speeds. However, there’s a catch. You can only get 3G on T-Mobile if and only if you live in an area that T-Mobile supports 3G. So if you’re out in the middle of nowhere, you’ll be stuck with EDGE speeds or, heaven forbid, GPRS speeds (which are painfully slow, worse than dialup).

As technologically advanced as some critics and even Google claim the Nexus One is, it does not even support all GSM based 3G networks in the US. What that means is that if you buy the unlocked phone from Google and decide to use it with AT&T, you will never have 3G speeds – even if your area has 3G with AT&T. The problem is that the Nexus One does not have a 3G chip in it that supports AT&T’s 3G network.

Say what you will about AT&T’s 3G network, but I think it is fairly lame that a neat phone from Google can’t even support multiple carriers’ data services. LAME!

$530 isn’t new

Nokia has been selling almost all of their unlocked ‘smartphones’ for about the same price for over a decade. In fact, you could find other unlocked ‘smartphones’ from other manufacturers ranging from $300 to well above $1000. So when Google markets an unlocked phone for $530, forgive me, I’m not really impressed since Google isn’t doing anything innovative. The only ‘innovative’ action that Google has taken is show the ignorant American consumer that you can buy the Nexus One without having to sign an abhorrent two year contract with T-Mobile.

The other benefit is that if you are an AT&T customer and you don’t like the iPhone, the Nexus One is definitely a worthy alternative. And Google has taken the extra step to make it convenient for you to purchase an unlocked Nexus One, for a price. This is something that Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and others failed to capitalize on. That doesn’t impress me much.

The Model Will Change

Currently, most wireless providers ask force you to sign a two-year service agreement in order to purchase a phone at low prices. Now that customers have the option of purchasing the Nexus One unlocked, you could buy the phone and get T-Mobile without a service agreement. Here’s the best part: if you don’t like T-Mobile after five months, you can dump them with no penalty. Sounds good doesn’t it?

Once this concept catches on with the American consumer, you can bet that wireless providers will change tactics. Rather than rely on your stupidity to purchase phones at insanely cheap prices by signing your soul to the devil for two years, these carriers will force you to sign two-year service agreements on just the plans themselves. For instance, AT&T might turn around and say, if you want early nights and weekends, you have to sign a two-year service agreement. Another example, T-Mobile may introduce free incoming calls. However, that feature is only available to customers who have signed a two-year service agreement.

Basically, carriers will make you sign a two-year service agreement with the purchase of a phone or just for providing you a service. And that is what the Google Nexus One has done to ‘innovate’ the market. So thank you Google for making it easy for me to buy an unlocked phone that doesn’t work on AT&T (in terms of 3G). Google hasn’t really innovated anything. I’ll pass on the Nexus One since my soul is owned by Apple, thank you very much.

I am an ardent supporter of antics that repel the insurgency of the RIAA. The RIAA proclaims to protect the interests of its members and artists from the effects of music piracy. I admit that music piracy is a disease that needs to be dealt with, however, I challenge the RIAA’s approach since it has done nothing but promote the growth of music piracy. In my opinion, unlike the pirates of the Caribbean, you cannot simply ‘attack’ music pirates and expect to win. Music pirates are not as clearly organized as pirates and virtually everyone around the world can be considered a music ‘pirate’ if you aren’t careful.

You can’t stop piracy

I know that many people know this already, but what I can’t seem to understand is why people will NOT admit it. The fact is that there is no way to stop music piracy. There is no need to do a case study on this matter, simply look at historical events in the past ten years:

• Napster was shut down and Kazaa came to the scene, offering much more than just music
• After Kazaa, there came BitTorrent and Suprnova
• After Suprnova came Mininova and PirateBay
• After PirateBay, BTjunkie and others are gaining prominence

Obviously, I left out quite a few websites/software that filled the void, but the overall image is quite apparent. The more the RIAA worked to shut down these illegal operations, other more evasive operations came online and blossomed. In the aftermath of Pirate Bay’s own demise, other BitTorrent websites and search engines are flourishing with activity.

Late in 2009, the RIAA suspended its ill-advised practice of suing individual file-sharers since the lawsuits only brought more sympathy to individuals than the actual plaintiffs. And I think the RIAA learned, to a certain extent, that suing pirates or going after a ‘pirate crew’ isn’t necessarily going to curb piracy. The fact is that music pirates are virtually everywhere and by definition, anyone who listens to music on a medium that they do not own or ‘unauthorized’ to listen to are pirates.

Ok, so let’s assume I’m a bit drastic in my conclusion. Why is the RIAA not investigating what the end consumer demands from the product? And this is where things become quite interesting.

Do you really know what you want?

The RIAA actions seem to suggest that they know the best balance between what the consumer expects and wants versus what makes good business sense. Needless to say, the RIAA is a strong supporter of media rights management aka DRM (digital rights management). However, DRM has always failed to properly empower the end consumer to really utilize the content in a manner they see fit. And some of that stems from our false expectations.

End customers want the same ability and freedom they have had with music CD’s for years. For instance, if I bought a CD, I could let my friend borrow the CD for a few days so that he/she can listen to the album. Can I do that with my rights managed digital music downloads? Of course not!

If the end customer feels that they are restricted, the initial reaction will always be to find a way around the obstacle. And the way around is to download the “illegal” version of the music and have the freedom to do what you please. And that is what we all want.

We all want the ability to do whatever we like with the music we purchase. And that’s now how the RIAA sees the issue.

The RIAA believes that when you ‘purchase’ music, you are, in fact, purchasing a license to listen to the music and are implicitly agreeing to the terms laid out by the music label. Such a move mirrors that of many software publishing companies.

Take a look at Microsoft. They do NOT sell you Windows. They sell you a LICENSE to use Windows on a machine that YOU own. If you have more than one machine, you need to purchase additional licenses because each license allows you to install Windows on only ONE machine. That is how Microsoft manages the rights of their intellectual property on your machine.

And the RIAA along with its members want to take a similar approach with the content that they control.

There is a solution

Believe it or not, there is a solution. The RIAA and its members need to evolve in their approach to making money. Information rights management is not the solution to the problem. And the RIAA also needs to understand that online music piracy is NOT as bad as they say it is. Many artists, such as Radiohead, also agree that music piracy is not destroying the RIAA members’ revenue.

I think it’s time that music labels started to fully embrace technology and the social (r)evolution taking place. Rather than discouraging users, the RIAA and its members should focus on empowering users to discover new music and engage in innovative ways to continue the social evolution. It’s not an easy concept to understand, but I strongly believe that by changing the business model, many music labels will find that they will have far more reach in terms of customers and artists will regain a lost inspiration that continues to elude them.

A little over a year ago, the Amazon Kindle was stealing the tech headlines all over the world. Some experts proclaimed that the Kindle would revolutionize and resuscitate the industry. Who can argue with them? The Kindle was, in my view, a remarkable device that combined an e-book store and hardware seamlessly. One could argue that the Amazon Kindle is to e-books as the Apple iPod/iPhone is to music.

Fundamentally speaking, there are three flaws with the entire e-book landscape:

• available content does not replace print media
• e-ink technology is pretty crappy
• all e-book readers are primitive (currently)

Print vs. electronic format

The best use of the Kindle and its primary competitors is the fact that it can easily handle subscriptions to a multitude of respectable media powerhouses such as Time, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, etc. The best part is that electronic format of these popular magazines and newspapers is that they are extremely competitively priced.

For instance, a one-year subscription to the Chicago Tribune in print form will cost $4.75 per week, coming to a total of $247 per year. A one-year subscription to the electronic format of the Chicago Tribune for the Kindle will cost $9.99 per month, coming to a total of $119.88 per year. That’s a total savings of over $125 per year.

This is where print versions win

For that extra $125, you receive crossword puzzles, sudokus, advertisements/coupons, and dirty fingers. Let’s face it, none of those things merit the extra $125. But here’s where print media wins. The print version of the Chicago Tribune is far more well organized with complete stories and details.

The Kindle version seems like a dump of all the articles from the Chicago Tribune. Reading one review from a customer on Amazon, here’s what he had to say:

The Kindle version of the Tribune is simply a ‘dump’ of the Tribune articles…Occasionally items are clearly missing (e.g. ‘Here are 5 items …’ and then the 5 items are missing)

E-ink sucks

We’re in the modern age of portable computing and yet, the majority of all e-book readers use crappy e-ink technology. The biggest downfall of e-ink technology is its dreadfully slow refresh rate. Imagine ‘turing’ a page on your Kindle and having to wait a couple of seconds until the page appears. Sure, it’s only two seconds, but those two seconds will feel like eternity.

The best advantage that e-ink has is its ability to render text that virtually mimics text on a page. So how come not a single e-book reader has a built-in backlight so that I can continue reading even in low-level light conditions? And don’t give me the argument of decreased battery life. All of these products use mundane battery technology that is obsolete, in order to save manufacturing costs.

E-books are babies

So now I argue that E-books are like ‘babies’ and extremely primitive. Not a single e-book reader is market innovative in my mind. An innovate e-book reader would have:

• WiFi & 3G connectivity for downloading content
• Backlighting so that I can read my e-books in low-level lighting
• Ability to write my notes on the actual screen
• Ability to view high-resolution images
• Color screen (so I can view actual magazine-like images
• Battery life that lasts over two weeks without a charge with constant use of backlight and WiFi

Sure, I know that what I want is not really technically feasible or cost-friendly. However, any successful e-book reader would do more impact if it were priced at $100 – $200 with most of the features I mentioned. I don’t mind paying for content, but I do mind that if I spend upward of $200, I can’t do what I want.

In case you haven’t figured it out, tablet PC’s will make e-book readers obsolete. My guess is that tablet computers will replace e-book readers as the preferred way to consume books, magazines, and other electronic media.

The fact is that The AG Company was never a real company. I never came up with the idea of one day making The AG Company a real bonafide business. Rather, if I had ever pursued any interest in a busines, I would have considered naming the business The AG Company.

It all started back when…

The AG Company is actually an evolution from the original concept I had back in 1994. In 1994, I had written a series of short stories that I proudly called “Farty Stories.” Over a period of a few months, I had written several pages – mind you that I was only eleven at the time, so writing several pages was definitely an accomplishment.

In addition to “Farty Stories,” I was also accumulating essays that I wrote for my English class in seventh grade. Since most of these were on paper, I decided to put together a ‘folder’ that would hold my works and I labeled the folder Agarwal Galleries. It was around this time period when my father brought home our very first computer and I started to learn typing my stories on the computer using WordPerfect 5.1.

Side note: did you know that WordPerfect 5.1 made extensive use of the function keys that are found on almost every major computer keyboard?

I created a folder on this computer called Agarwal Galleries and from then on, all of my works had been stored in that folder.

Agarwal Galleries has life on the web…sort of

Around the 1997 time-frame, my father bought another computer that was significantly faster than the old NCR 386sx. This new computer was loaded with Office 97 and Windows 98. If I recall correctly, Office 97 introduced the ability to easily implement hyperlinks within a document. With this, one could – in theory – link several different word documents together and create a rudimentary website.

Side note: We never got internet access until 1999

Since I was still learning my way through the nifty new GUI of Windows 98 and Office 97, I inadvertently developed multiple documents and linked them together with exhaustive use of hyperlinks. In other words, I had created a very well developed intranet on the home computer.

It was clear to me that Agarwal Galleries was becoming more than just a ‘folder’ that stored my works. To me, Agarwal Galleries became a ‘second world’ where my thoughts and my words meant everything.

In college, dreams can come true

Once I started college, I learned about how I could have my own personal website. To make matters even simpler, my college actively encouraged students to deploy a website and have web presence. I did not have to be told twice and I immediately embarked on a mission to have my website up and running.

It was in college when I started to dream of having Agarwal Galleries as a full-fledged website that showcased my work. As the college years went on, I continually updated my website and evolved it from a simple FrontPage98 creation to an all-out Flash enabled website that was fully powered by Macromedia Flash.

Name change

It was around 2005 when I felt that the moniker, Agarwal Galleries, was becoming a bit complicated to pronounce. I started doing my research for a new name. I wanted the new name to reflect the ‘dreams’ I had with Agarwal Galleries. Soon, I discovered that the word somnio (or something similar) meant to dream in Latin. What better name than The Somnio Company – loosely translated to The Dream Company.

The Somnio Company was a website fully powered by Flash and, for the first time, used my own custom-made graphics. Unfortunately, the site was very large (over 60 MB) in design and had slow performance.

(sarcasm) I wonder why it was slow…(/sarcasm)

Another Name Change

Just a year later, I changed the name of my website to The AG Company. This was a transition back to my old ‘folder’ name, but without the complicated pronunciation. I was committed to making The AG Company become a portal to my works. Alas, the complicated scope of the project, my educational commitments, and the lack of web-authoring knowledge dissuaded me from really doing anything with the site.

Soon I learned about WordPress as a powerful web blogging solution that was both open source and free. I immediately installed it and, thus, came The Air. I derived the name, The Air, after realizing that my thoughts were always in the air, but never flying.

Go Daddy screwed me…

When I registered the domain name, theagcompany.com, Go Daddy had a promotion going where you could register your domain name using something similar to privacy manager. This prevented people from finding out your real name during a WHOIS search.

What the order failed to mention, at the time, was how much the privacy feature was at regular price and how I can cancel the service. For a couple of years, I prepaid and didn’t really bother to wonder too much about it.

Earlier in December 2009, I received an email from GoDaddy to renew my domain name. I went to renew and found out that privacy manager was a whopping $9 per year renewal fee. To make matters worse, there was no easy way to cancel the feature from my order. Instead, I had to login to some obscure GoDaddy-owned privacy website.

Here’s a link you should read about GoDaddy’s private registration removal and the hassles involved (scroll down until you see a post by Cobes, post #6):GoDaddy is a b**ch

The end of an era

When I look back, I find it hard to believe that for 15 years, I had a dream with one name that will always be with me. So with that, I decided not to renew theagcomany.com domain name and purchased a new domain name, without signing up for some bullshit privacy feature.

Although 15 years of Agarwal Galleries reigned supreme, the new road is filled with other brands that will continue to ‘house’ my works and my thoughts.

New Beginnings

I decided to get a new domain name that was more me. And so here we are today, niks.me is about me, my thoughts, my words. And I couldn’t be happier!

So I finally did it! I have my new blog up and running and it has been modified to my taste. Compared to my old blog, this new blog makes use of some really nifty features that improves the overall reading experience.

organized comments & trackbacks

I love the fact how the comments and trackbacks are more clearly organized and easier to follow. Another interesting tidbit is that the comments are nested so replies can be directed towards a particular response.

Gravatars

Many popular websites make use of Gravatars aka avatars. If you sign up for Gravatars, it’ll attach a picture of your choice next to your name in the comments section.