Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Saturday 25 October 1997, 2:00 AM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Wossat? Hayes and Microsoft doing The Microsoft Modem? Since Viglen got the rights to make The Microsoft PC, there's not much left that remains unbadged. No Microsoft printer paper yet... but given that everyone knows that consumables make much more money than hardware sales, I'd expect to see that on the market before long. And of course, once the company gets the taste for paper products where will it end? Hankies -- Microsnot brand? Cigarette papers? Andrex equivalents?
Come to think of it, there's definitely a market for one of the above...
In an entirely unrelated incident, Marks & Spencer have introduced a range of ladies undergarments made out of a lycra/nylon mix called microsoft. MS sent the lawyers in, but an agreement has been reached -- after all, nobody could ever mistake any of Seattle's finest software for pants.
Tuesday
Another Editors' Day! The entire editorial team of PC Magazine troop up to Watford (pausing only to admire Euston Station for rather longer than expected, due to Virgin Railways cancelling our train) and decant ourselves into the Watford Hilton. Yes, there's a Watford Hilton.
Editors' Days involve us meeting loads of vendors who tell us, in secret, of their products and plans. They get to ask us questions about the magazine in return, and we lay on lunch, seminars and sneak attacks by the advertising sales teams.
Highlights for me included a touch-sensitive digitising whiteboard -- draw in it as normal, and it relays the pen movements down a serial port to a connected PC. It was very clever, worked a treat and could even act as a 12-square-foot Windows desktop. Here, you use a video projector to put the desktop onto the whiteboard, and it turns any touches into mouse movements. Tremendous fun, especially with paint programs -- now you can paint on the wall with your fingers and nobody's going to tell you off!
Oh, and we shared the hotel with Wimbledon Football Club. They left just after we arrived - hey, nobody wants to tangle with the hard men and women of the computer magazine industry -- but had to return 'cos Vinny Jones had left his mobile phone at reception.
Wednesday
Big event today! No, not Microsoft being keelhauled by the US Department of Justice over anticompetitive practices, nor even MSN still barely qualifying as alive (the tales of the billing system cockups are matched only by the mail, upgrade and access cockups). Not even the story of Microsoft's PR company, Text 100, refusing to send out any more Microsoft review software unless you get a note from your mum -- oops, commissioning editor -- can divert the hard-working team from the main happening: The Boat Party!
So there we are , on HMS President, a couple of hundred IT journalists merrily consuming our way through the liquid assets of Harvard PR. In a first for PR partykind, Harvard has hired comedian Al Murray ("The Pub Landlord", Harry Hill et al) to lambast us halfway through the evening. This leads to some surreal moments in audience participation...
Al Murray: "What separates us from the animals, apart from beer?"
Drunken IT hack: "622 megabit ATM switches!"
Al Murray: "Christ. Why can't you just heckle?"
A veil is best drawn over the rest of the evening, except to note that the boat's bar disposed of three evenings' worth of beer in just over six hours; several Harvard executives were treated to an impromptu discussion of what we really thought of their clients and we suspect that several members of PC Direct's editorial team cast themselves adrift on a lashed-up raft made out of freelancers.
Thursday
Borland is making money! It's wonderful to see the company prosper -- those of us who were around in pre-Window days can remember Sidekick being the best and cleverest piece of DOS software, and the company's development software is still very highly thought of.
Alas for us lovers of the eccentric, the company's recovery is very much at the expense of the Phillippe Kahn tradition -- the larger-than-life, jazz-flute playing CEO who inspired much extravagant weirdness, not to say indulgence. The Borland of today is a buttoned-down company. In similar vein, nearly all of Microsoft's adventures in creative online services have not prospered, and the focus has gone back to bread-and-butter news and features.
It's nice that technology continues to be a prosperous, exciting area; it's a shame that it's increasingly difficult to be anything other than pinstripe.
Friday
AOL has a quarter of a million users in the UK -- a city the size of Plymouth -- and nine million worldwide - London plus most of Kent. 20 per cent of them are female, the company says, which might sound like an awful imbalance but is really surprisingly good. The geeks are in retreat! Earlier this week, I'd been to an AOL meeting in town set up and attended purely by users who'd met online. The demographics were amazingly mixed; it would be almost impossible to find a common strand to those there unless you already knew they were modemed up.
Of course, the really interesting bit was the gossip about who was doing what with who. My discretion in such matters is legendary, but one day someone's going to write one hell of a sitcom...
Saturday 11 October 1997, 9:00 AM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Monday
Phone call from a close friend saying 'Help! I installed Internet Explorer 4 and now my computer doesn't work!" Reflect for a moment that it's actually her ex-boyfriend's computer and that there may be Ramifications. Nevertheless, turn up during the evening with boot disk, printouts and a purposeful glint and set to work on the stricken beast (the computer, not the ex-boyfriend). It takes about three hours of in-depth registry hacking, SYSTEM.INI snippery and general swearing to undo the damage - IE4 not installing properly is the least of the woes. Track problem down to a SYSTEM.INI entry which refers, mysteriously, to an old Adobe Type Manager driver. Heaven alone knows what IE4 did to it.
Finish at around 3am, a lot of wine to the worse yet flushed with success. As I slide into a coma on the sofa, I reflect that tomorrow is going to be painful and it's all due to Bill Gates.
Tuesday
Wallop along to Broadcasting House, where Radio 5 Live has got a bod from Microsoft to say how evil it is when businesses make illicit copies of software. My task is to 'provide some balance' - it's not often one gets the chance to have a live discussion on air, and I'm relishing the prospect. Especially since I'm still tired and hungover from battling with the Seattle demons the night before.
In the end, it turns out to be rather low-key. He says his bit - "Microsoft needs all this money for R&D, and it's illegal not to give it to us if you're using our software". I say mine - "If you gave better technical support and had better products, people might consider them better value for money and be less inclined to rip them off" and our time is up. No chance to really get going, or to mention that Microsoft is perfectly happy to give away software half the time anyway.
Wednesday
Sit in on press conference from Nortel/Norweb about Internet access via the mains. Quite clever - up to 1Mb shared between up to 200 people, fed from the local substation. However, there is almost no technical information and the time scale of the trials and any possible commercialisation is such that it'll have a hard time surviving against ADSL, radio access and many other alternative access arrangements.
You wouldn't know this from the coverage they get from the national press and the broadcasters. Front pages are cleared, leaders are written, news slots filled with 'computer experts' who explain what a huge breakthrough this is for British technology and how amazing it all is. Even if - as is rarely the case - the facts of the matter are correctly reported, the ignorance of context is total.
Despair. Perhaps I could forget how to read...
Thursday
In conditions of tippermost toppermost secret, the editorial side of PC Magazine convenes in the upstairs room at a nearby restaurant. Our task: to decide the winners for this year's Technical Innovations awards, the good old Tinas. Of course, no details can be published until the awards breakfast itself (towards the end of November), but I can exclusively reveal I threw two paper aeroplanes at Mark Child, labs Technical Director, and we ate vegetarian rolls for lunch. Oh, and the proposal that we give Microsoft a special award for keeping us all so busy was rejected.
However: the restaurant overlooks St Kathryn's Yacht Haven, as do our offices. As we chewed our red onion and eggplant rolls in the weak yet welcome autumn sun, we let our gaze rest lightly on the various boats bobbing on the water. One dark-windowed gin palace in particular caught our interest - a well-dressed businessman was making his way towards it, followed closely by... well, a woman in very short skirt, rather dazzling jacket and rather a lot of makeup. They were shown aboard by a bloke in jeans and T-shirt, who then left. One of our number, bolder than the rest, sidled up as close as he dared and reported that a cheque had been signed and left next to an erotic statue of two people... well, not doing anything nautical.
Not that anything untoward was going on. A million respectable explanations suggest themselves. Just... well, watch this space. One word. Webcam.
Friday
The weekly pile of press releases hits the bin, and thoughts turn to delicious pints in waterside pubs. Favourite release of the week is headlined "Motorola Heralds New Era Of Internetworking For Europe" and goes on at length about "strengthening focus". It's only by page 2 that it admits that this new era is one remarkably lacking in Motorola, who is strengthening its focus by 'phasing out' loads of products.
This week's quiz comes courtesy of Networld+Interop show in Atlanta.
Study the following passage, then answer the questions below.
"If you're using the argument that 'we aren't there because the standard isn't there yet,' then that's a pretty poor argument," said Frank Hayes, program manager for LAN switching at Cabletron. "If you don't enter in this relative time space, you're behind the power curve."
1. What do you think the proponent is trying to say?
a. I watch Star Trek, me.
b. Buy our kit NOW. It won't work with anyone else's.
c. I know more than you. Be scared. Then buy our kit (which won't work with anyone else's).
d. I've lost my mummy. Why am I wearing this suit?
e. Please give me one of my purple pills.
2. What happened next to Frank Hayes?
a. The power curve suddenly turned around and bit him
b. He got first prize at the Kyoto Zen School of Incomprehensible Koans
c. Relative time space became relative space time and he vanished up his own wormhole
d. He was hoisted onto the shoulders of his fellow marketing droids, who shouted "Yeay! Way to go, Frank!" and punched the air a lot.
e. He was recruited by John Birt.
Saturday 4 October 1997, 9:00 AM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Picture the scene: Camden Town, midnight, Saturday. A rather merry computer journalist traipses to the cashpoint to refuel for the rest of the evening's nonsense - but no! "Your bank has not authorised this request". Penniless, and a week till payday. Can our hero survive purely on the generosity of PRs and nibbles at press launches? Read on...
Monday
We've moved! Here we are in International House! No phones, no network, no Internet, but plenty of crates. I 'unpack' (well, spill the contents of my crates over the desk), set up the computer and... well, what happens next? I check my e-mail to find out what I'm supposed to be writing, only the e-mail's not working. Feel strangely insubstantial.
Later that evening, progress to Planet Hollywood to see the launch of CyberGuard. A rather uncomfortable video tells how Cyber Springs, a virtual community seemingly composed of Dukes of Hazzard rejects, is going to make the users feel safe, warm and comfy about security and automatic software updates. Not sure how well small-town America is going to play in High Barnet, but am even more unsure about any company whose marketing manager tells us that nobody really knows what a cookie is. Like the idea that they'll 'take ownership' of any technical support problem no matter what's really gone wrong and will pursue it with the various vendors until a result is reached.
Food: hamburgers, "Thai Sticks" (which, rather disappointingly, turn out to be some sort of peanut-flavoured spring roll), chicken bits. Drink: Heineken Export. Survival value: 6/10.
Tuesday
Still no e-mail. Our IT division is showing signs of incipient meltdown, but plug on regardless.
The evening's launch is Internet Explorer 4.0, which comes bundled with previews of NT 5.0 and Windows 98. Microsoft launches are usually more flash than flesh, but this is dire even so. A video of the 'future of television' is silent and aborted after about 20 seconds: a demonstration of dragging links to the desktop crashing and is quietly abandoned without comment. IE 4.0 looks and acts as if it's unfinished: already, reports of various problems on installation abound and... we, like everyone, are putting it on our cover disc. Have interesting conversation with Demon Internet, who will be getting a licence to be a telephone company in two weeks' time. "But OFTEL are giving those out like confetti these days", says the ever-engaging Cliff, chief Demon.
Food: choice of salmon in radioactive green sauce or stir-fry chicken, followed by tooth-implodingly sweet lemon meringue pie. Drink: Molson. Survival value: 4/10.
Wednesday
Discover that Notes has eaten the mailfiles of everyone with a first name beginning with R,S,T,U,V or W. Fortunately, they are all restored... except for one. Rupert_Goodwins@ZD.COM is cast adrift in the depths of cyberspace (so if you e-mailed me over the past four days, try again). IT sigh and create me anew. By now, the leased line to the Internet is back again and we've worked out where to find the toilets, the smoking room, the kitchen and the nearest pub: essentials completed.
Tonight's launch is Elle's BackWeb channel. Lounge decorously in the Café de Paris, hear great demographics - 40 per cent of Net users are now female, Elle has eight Web sites already, and it all looks very swish. And it's really fun to be a sloppily dressed anorak circulating with sharply-clothed fashion journos.
Hear riotously amusing yet undeniably libellous tale concerning a marketing person, a kitchen sink and... well. Alan Clark would've been proud. Journalist who printed this story before finding out that it was wrong on all salient points is not looking happy, but seems that the subject is opting for a quiet life and won't engage m'learneds.
Food: Blinis, tiny poquettes of salmon and egg, frankfurters with mustard dip, delicious pastry confections. Drink: Tattinger. Survival value: 9/10. Am definitely in the wrong business.
Thursday
During the process of restoring my mailbox, Notes has discovered some messages from three years ago. The one it chooses to present to me (wrapped up as something new) is a passionate discourse from long-since-ex-girlfriend. Ping! You Have New Angst! Lots of carefully buried emotional nonsense resurfaces.
Set off in terrible temper to see the launch of NetDynamics 4.0. Amazing stuff this - it can take just about any old legacy system and extract the information for redistribution over the Web or intranet. What is most interesting is the level of penetration of Webbery - over 50 per cent of US companies have sites.
They take everyone to Yo, Sushi! Despite an enormous fondness for nosh Nippon I'm weighed down by deadlines, so make my excuses and leave. Spend last pennies on M&S chicken sandwich and an apple, washed down by diet ginger beer (new invention, don't bother trying it) Survival value 3/10.
Friday
New building having problems absorbing quite so many magazine people in one go. Toilets are ankle-deep in water, the electronic door access system is making loud bleeping noises to itself and the lifts have developed the occasional worrying shudder. Still, to be expected. View of yachts most soothing.
Hear amazing story from the French Microsoft developers conference. A presenter started to get into some serious Java bashing, only to invoke catcalls, boos and random cries of "Allez Java!" from the audience. These increased in loudness and frequency, until the poor Microsofty was forced to retreat in confusion. One of these days, that company will get the message...
And it's pay day! Camden, watch out...
