In today's keynote, it's expected that Renee will give us more information on the Intel Atom Developer Program, which Paul Otellini announced yesterday in his keynote. Unfortunately, there's no live video stream of the keynote, but it will be made available online 24 hours after it occurs (I've updated yesterday's liveblog post to include a link to video of Paul's keynote).

Today, I'll be using the same tools I used yesterday to track what people are saying at IDF. Mostly, I'll be relying on the tweets of our team on the ground in San Francisco - here's a search that should catch most of what they're saying in real time.

At the beginning of her keynote, Renee gave a nice plug for Intel Software Network, inviting developers to come here for what they need to know, including info on Intel's tools for high performance parallel programming, like Intel Parallel Studio. Now the VP of Marketing at Cakewalk is on stage - "Our rock stars really *are* rock stars." :-) They were able to render 140 tracks in real time on a single system!

Now Renee's talking about some recent acquisitions - Rapidmind and Cilk Arts, and how these technologies will be integrated into future tools. We also acquired Wind River - did you know there are more than 1 billion devices deployed with a Wind River OS?

Now she's talking about the Intel Media SDK, available now. This is a toolkit that allows you to accelerate video in your application, whether it's a game or a movie editing app. Also, Intel has shown off the first public demo of Larrabee (a real time ray tracing demo). That's big news, and very exciting. A film grain effect that takes 129 lines of code on a traditional GPU takes only 25 lines of code on Larrabee.

Dreamworks Animation takes the stage to talk about "Shrek's Law" - compute power requirements double with every generation of Shrek. Their next film is all about dragons - showing a never before seen demo video of thousands of dragons on screen, with 4000 controls to manage performance and behavior. As you can imagine, this is a steep compute load. The movie's called How To Train Your Dragon, and the release date is March 25, 2010.

Now on to small form factor devices - netbooks and handhelds. There are 17 OSVs distributing Moblin. Running a video from Novell telling their story. And Mark Shuttleworth (Canonical) and Dell are here to talk about the new Dell Ubuntu Moblin netbook. The Dell Mini 10v will be available starting tomorrow at Dell.com, and sports "blindingly fast suspend and resume time" according to Mark Shuttleworth. Can't wait to check that one out.

Now Renee moves to the topic of the new Intel Atom Developer Program, with the question "how to make money?" Dell is a strong supporter of the Intel Atom Developer Program. Microsoft is announcing Silverlight for Moblin - the beauty of runtimes is that you write your application once, and it runs on multiple platforms that support the runtime. And the Adobe AIR runtime will also support Moblin and the Intel Atom Developer Program. On stage now is Peter Biddle (@PeterNBiddle on Twitter) describing how to "innovate and make money with the Intel Atom Developer Program". In addition to just apps, the program will also allow developers to write and sell components, which other developers can incorporate into their apps. Make money selling apps, components, or both. And all of the community resources at Intel Software Network will be behind the program, including the Black Belt recognition program. Speaking of Black Belts, developer Gaston Hillar, one of our Black Belts, is on stage demoing his application running on Windows and Moblin at the same time (on two machines, of course :-). Gaston offers advice for developers: make small changes to existing code, and target the netbook market, which is growing fast.

Renee closes with an invitation to come join Intel Software Network - read our blogs, post questions and answers in our forums, watch our videos, and get to know our community. Software is about developers, which means it's about you, and Intel Software Network loves developers. So come join us! :-)

I think that's it for Renee's keynote. There's a ton of information available out there, including a new "social media release" from our very own Amy Barton and Maryann Iannitti, which contains all the latest detailed information on the Intel Atom Developer Program, how you can get involved, and maybe even win a VIP trip to CES 2010 in Las Vegas. Check it out, and join the program!

The video of Renee's keynote should be available in 24 hours, so I'll update this post with a link when it's available. You can find video of all the IDF 2009 keynotes, and a lot more, on this page. Thanks for joining my liveblog again, and feel free to drop any thoughts or questions you have in the comments below! :-)

First of all, a few of our team members are in the keynote room right now, waiting for our CEO Paul Otellini's keynote, livetweeting interesting stuff. There one announcement he's going to make that has special relevance to our team. :-) Make sure you're paying attention to @billpearson, @intelsoftware, @amybarton, and @mungara on Twitter. Oh, and I'll be retweeting cool stuff as @jabancroft, too.

Here's a link to a Twitter search I'm using to watch real time chatter about IDF - intel OR idf OR idf09. That stream moves pretty quickly, but the interesting stuff should bubble up.

I'll update this post as the keynotes progress, with links to news and more information. Stay tuned, developers! :-)

First up, Paul Otellini takes the stage, and talks about the continuum of personal computing - the spectrum of devices that we all use. Mentions the importance of online community, social networks (yes, even Twitter :-). And the "cameras go wild" as Paul holds up working 22nm silicon.

Software is what binds the continuum together, and software is changing. Today it's all about multiple clients and multiple clouds. Intel is the 3rd largest ISV community in the world, with 136,000 students and 2,000 professors trained on parallel programming. There are over 14 million developers on Intel platforms in the world.

Steve "Chippy" Paine is also doing some liveblogging of the keynotes, with photos, over at MidMoves.com. As is Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins over at Silicon Angle.

Here's another Twitter search that's a little more focused: updates from the folks on our team (and a few others) who are tweeting from the keynotes. That other general IDF search feed is generating WAY too much flow for even me to keep up with. :-)

Now Paul's talking about the software environment for Atom. It's complex. How can we make it more unique? Paul says the key value proposition is "port of choice". Netbooks are taking off. And so, we introduce the Intel Atom Developer Program (this is the big announcement our team has been waiting for! :-). A common runtime is key. Adobe and Microsoft have announced support, for Moblin and Windows runtime environments. The Intel Atom Developer Program will allow developers to create and sell apps for netbooks. Developers can join the program at http://appdeveloper.intel.com. Paul is showing off a video announcing support from Dell, Acer, and Asus. Our very own Ajay Mungara will be the community manager for the new program.

Now Paul's talking about Atom-based auto infotainment, with BMW and Mercedes already on board. And he's showing off the Moblin 2.1 user interface on a Moorestown-based MID. Moblin 2.1 will include shortcuts to your social media apps and contacts. I can't wait to check it out, and neither can Bob Duffy and Josh Hilliker. :-)

Looks like that's it for Paul Oteilini's keynote this morning. There will be lots more info for developers tomorrow in Renee James' keynote, and I'll do the liveblogging thing again to cover all the news. Thanks for reading, and if you feel like it, drop a comment below and let me know if you found this useful/interesting! :-)

Update: Looks like the video of Paul's keynote is now available at the Intel Press Room site. Check it out for yourself, and see how well I did (or didn't!) with my liveblogging. :-)

Google Earth 5.0 Adds Oceans, More

Google Earth got updated to version 5.0 today, and gained a couple of nifty features: 3D imagery of ocean floors, historical imagery, which lets you see how an area has changed over time, and better ability to record audio and video "tours".

And of course, it's still free. More on the Google Lat-Long Blog. I wonder how long before these features trickle down to the iPhone version of Google Earth?

iPhone and Wii Games Coming from Tommy Refenes

Earlier, right here on the Intel Software Network blog, Tommy Refenes, developer of the award winning threaded game Goo! gave us an update on two new projects he's working on. First, an iPhone game called Beat!, which looks like a cross between Tap Tap Revenge and the old Simon game. Second, that he's working with Edmund McMillen on Super Meat Boy, an upcoming WiiWare game were you play, um, a meat guy trying to rescue his girlfriend. I've been hearing lots of buzz about SMB (at Offworld and elsewhere), and have been looking forward to it. Now I'm even more excited that I know Tommy's involved. Should be a great game!

8-bit Guitar Hero - Be a Lo-Fi Rock Star

Speaking of cool games, have you seen the 8-bit NES remake of Guitar Hero? If that's not retro enough for you, there's a text adventure version, too (I'm still trying to get that one to run in Plotz! on my iPhone).

Google Tasks on iPhone

I was pleasantly surprised to see Google release an iPhone interface to their Tasks feature (currently available to Gmail Labs users willing to put up with experimental quirkiness in return for new features).

I've been using Remember The Milk for tasks, which fits my requirement of being completely "in the cloud" (just like my Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, etc.), and it's way more robust (and has a very nice iPhone app), but I find that I don't actually use RTM that much, and I bet I could get by with just Google Tasks now that it has an iPhone interface.

You can try it by going to http://gmail.com/tasks on your iPhone. More info available on the Gmail blog (found via Lifehacker)

iStat for iPhone also has nicely done Ping and Traceroute features, but what really makes it stand out, in my opinion, is the ability to remotely monitor a Mac computer. There's a little free server app you have to install and run on the machine to be monitored, but after that, you can add it to iStat on your iPhone and monitor it remotely (even over the internet, if you set up port forwarding on your router).

So if you're the kind of nerd that cares how much physical memory you have free at any given time, and what your CPU core utilization rate is (obviously, I am this type of nerd), you'll probably get a kick out of iStat for the iPhone. It's on sale for $1.99 in the App Store (normally $2.99). If you're a Macminicolo user, they've got a special deal for you.

This post is NOT going to be a list of "tricks" or quick fixes. I'm not talking about linkbait, or SEO black magic, or anything like that. Hopefully, the things I lay out will seem like common sense. It takes sustained effort over a period of time to build up your reputation and influence - you don't just instantly "get famous". So be prepared.

Update: Google has posted some great tips for bloggers. It's mostly on how to optimize your site for Google, make your stuff more findable, etc. In case you didn't want to just take my word for it...

Step 0: Build Your Network

This is "step 0" because it needs to be worked on for a while before you get real results. I'm talking about connecting with people, in real life and online. Get to know them, what they like, what they write about, and what they're interested. Help them get to know you, what you're passionate about, and what you know. You can do this by exchanging comments on each other's blogs, following each other on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, or whatever. The medium itself isn't specifically important, but this is why I'm always talking about how important it is to connect with other people on places like Twitter.

Don't be a snob about who you connect with. I have people in my network who are senior editors at large, popular tech publications, and also people who write small, narrowly-focused niche blogs or don't blog at all. I'm friends with them because we have interests in common, and have shared inteactions - NOT just because of where they write! Don't be blinded into thinking you need to connect with the "big fish" more than other people. First of all, it doesn't matter. Second, you're going to be asking people to link to or say something about your material, and you'll sound like a jerk if it seems like you only care about attention from the "popular" crowd. Everyone has their own audience and sphere of influence. Be grateful for any and all links and attention that you receive.

Step 1: Create Interesting, Easy To Find Content

This is hopefully a no-brainer, but it bears mention. If you want people to link to something you've created, it should be interesting enough to merit the attention. No matter how good you think you are, not every single thing you write or create is going to get picked up on all the news sites and linked to all over the web. Some of your stuff is going to be higher quality than the rest. Consider exercising some restraint in what you try to promote, so you don't become "the boy who cried wolf" by trying to get EVERYONE to link to EVERYTHING that you create. Attention and goodwill from other people is a precious commodity. Don't squander it.

Also, make your stuff easy to find. For most sites, the majority of traffic comes from search results, not referring links. Think about what you'd search for if you were looking for the topic you're writing about. Be clear and specific and relevant in your post title. Try putting your post title into Google, and see if Google has any suggestions for making it better ("Did You Mean...").

Step 2: Link to Other People. A Lot.

Get in the habit of linking to other sites and people in your network. Do it a lot. It makes what you write that much more interesting and useful, and it's a great way to connect with and show respect for the people you link to, and make them a lot more willing to link to you in the future. If you want people to link to you, don't be stingy with the links you give out.

Don't worry AT ALL about trying to keep people on your own site. Think of what's probably the most visited and most useful site on the internet - Google. Is Google popular because they try to keep people on their site, or try to be "sticky"? No! Google is popular and useful because they send you away as quickly and efficiently as possible. Be like Google.

Step 3. Submit to the News Centers

There are lots of news sites and aggregators out there whose sole purpose is to link to interesting stuff that readers have submitted to them. Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, YCombinator Hacker News, etc. Discover which ones that are most influential for your area of expertise. Learn the process for submitting something, and what the criteria are for it getting published. Become a member of the community - read what gets posted, and post comments on stories.

When you have created something that you think would be a good fit for one of these news sites, submit it! On rare occasions, someone else might pick up your post and submit it, but for the most part, if you don't do it, no one else will. Don't be shy.

Don't get discouraged if what you submit doesn't "make it" to the front page of the site, especially on really big and popular sites, like Digg and Slashdot. Don't give up, and keep at it.

Step 3.1: Use StumbleUpon

This one deserves its own subsection. StumbleUpon is a collaborative "hey, this is cool!" service that lots of people use. Basically, there are two sides to StumbleUpon. First, in the course of your web browsing, you "stumble" pages you think are interesting or cool. Second, you can see what pages other people have "stumbled" as interesting. That's a super basic explanation.

The reason I put StumbleUpon apart from the other "news" sites is the quality of the visits that getting on StumbleUpon brings compared to the other sites. Getting linked on the front page of Slashdot or Digg will bring a BIG spike in traffic, but it doesn't tend to last. People who read those sites are voraciously looking for "what's hot". Traffic from StumbleUpon is different. Because there's not a "front page", once your stuff gets into the database, it generates a pretty steady, constant flow of visits. Which is really nice.

Step 4: Ask Your Network, Nicely

Once you've built your network (see Step 0), get in the habit of letting them know when you've posted something that you think they may find interesting. Send out a link on Twitter, or in your Facebook status, etc. Try to make it "hey, I just posted this, let me know what you think" and not "hey look! I posted something awesome again!". Ask (nicely) for people to link to your post, or to vote for it on Digg and the like. Again, don't become "that person" who only ever tries to promote their own stuff. But when you've done something that you think deserves some attention, it's OK to let people know about it. Again, if you don't do it, it's unlikely that anyone else will.

Step 5: Listen and Respond

Once you've put the word out, monitor for links and mentions of your stuff. This is where having "ego" search feeds, or a personalized listening dashboard like the one I created for Intel Software Network comes in handy. Set up search feeds (I use Google Blogsearch, Google News, Ask.com blog search, and Twitter search) for your name, and the URL and name of your site. This topic probably deserves a whole post of its own. I'll write something up soon.

When a news site or a blog does link to or mention you, post comments on their site, thanking them, answering questions, and basically being involved in the conversation. The reason for doing this is to show that you're smart, savvy, listening, and engaged in the conversation. Engaging in the conversation, wherever it happens, builds connections between the participants, and makes them that much more likely to want to link to you again in the future. Which feeds right back into "Step 0: Build Your Network".

Step 6: Make This a Habit

Like I said at the beginning, this isn't a trick that can be quickly learned. This stuff takes time and effort. That's why you need to think of it as skills to be learned and habits to be formed. Keep practicing. Accept that you might not get stellar results at the beginning. But if you keep it up, you'll find that you've grown your own reputation, influence, and network of people who listen to you. That's what makes all the effort worth it.

Step 7: ???

What have I missed here? If you have ideas, suggestions, or things that you do that you think would be helpful for people trying to get noticed and get linked to, please let me know. Post a comment, or post something on your own blog and link here. Like I said, I'm not proclaiming myself the expert on this subject. I learn lots every day, and I love it. So tell me what YOU do to get people to link to you and talk about you without being a jerk. :-)

While I was playing with it testing it, Jon Ramvi, Ubuntu Eee's maintainer/organizer, noticed a few of my notes on Twitter, and contacted me. I asked if he'd be willing to do an email interview, and he graciously responded. So, here is the result. Many thanks to Jon for the interview!

Me: Tell us a little about yourself: where do you live, what do you do for a living, any other personal interests you want to share/promote, etc. Help us get to know you! :-)

Jon: My girlfriend, Marie, and I live in Oslo, Norway where I'm studying computer science and technology at the university :)

What is the Ubuntu Eee project?

It's three things.

First of all, it's an alternative operating system for the Asus Eee.

And it's an OS which isn't putting strict laws upon itself, like Ubuntu who only deliver open source software drivers. This initative from Ubuntu is great for the open source community, but not that great for new users and non-geeks who just wants something to work. Ubuntu Eee is delivered with the best applications and drivers available, open or not.

And last of all, Ubuntu Eee is an organization which is striving to be as open as possible. Our accounts is available to everyone. Updated continuously. Discussions are moved from closed emails to open foras like forums and so on.

How does Ubuntu Eee differ from the "standard" Ubuntu Linux distribution?

From the last answer, Ubuntu Eee doesn't bind itself to only using open source applications, but always uses the best applications and drivers available. For example, if we were to deliver ATI support for a machine we would without a doubt deliver the closed driver from ATI. Ubuntu delivers the open source alternative: radeonhd.

It's hard to join in on the development of Ubuntu. This is probably because it's a fairly big organization. We don't have this problem. We have some contribuors who work on Ubuntu Eee every day and some who only fix a little thing for us and we never see again.

Ubuntu Eee is completely community driven. There's no company behind us who's selling support.

What netbooks does Ubuntu Eee work (and not work) with? Any plans to expand to other models?

With the latest release we support every Asus Eee out there.

Our plan now is to re-brand and deliver this great operating system to all netbook owners.
We're now working on support for the most used once like Acer Aspire One, Cloudbook, Dell Mini 9 and so on.

Why did you feel the need to create a specific modified distribution for the Eee PC, rather than a list of instructions on how to make the "standard" Ubuntu install work?

The whole project started out just like that, making a tutorial on how to fix the regular Ubuntu install. Then I made a script which did it automatically and then I started a whole new distribution.

It's a whole lot of fun trying to get a distribution up and standing :) And the whole "we use the best software available"-thing seems to be working out for our users. Lots of people are downloading. We now have 80 000 users!

What are the coolest, best things about Ubuntu Eee?

The open organization.

If you want to contribute, there's room for you. Even if you need some help along the way, need help getting started and don't really know how to do anything. Maybe you know a language other than English or you know your way around Gimp or Photoshop.

Describe the Ubuntu Eee community. How many people are active contributors?

How many depends on how you count. Hardcore-working people on Ubuntu Eee itself is only 3. Well two really. Ferry and Adam. Adam is compiling the kernel and modules to support the different Asus Eee models and Ferry is making the scripts that automate the process for the user: Different hacks for different Eee models. And there's me, who just puts it all together.

If you count how many contribute with stuff like translating, writing articles, helping people, design wallpapers, webpages and so on - well then you're good at counting.

Convince me why I should use Ubuntu Eee on my Eee PC instead of the default Xandros Linux, or Windows XP. :-)

It's way easier to get you not to use Xandros (the distribution that ships on Linux versions of the Eee PC - Josh) than not to use Windows XP.

If you're not up for the change from Windows to Linux, maybe you shouldn't do it yet. I think the transaction should come naturally.

Xandros on the other hand is so old that you can't run Firefox 3 on it. If you try to install you will be informed that your libraries aren't up to date. If you try to compile a new library or on the road to dependency hell.

Installing Ubuntu Eee is a lot easier :) The Xandros interface also feels unresponsive and just connecting to a wireless network is hard and slow. The boot time with Xandros is amazing though.

What are your thoughts on the Intel Atom processor? How is it different from other mobile processors in the past? (be honest here - I'm not trying to get you to shill for Intel, I promise!)

I have to say I don't know too much about the atom cpu or how it's different from other mobile cpus. It's smaller, generates less heath and uses less power, so my conclusion is that I like it :)

What do you think about the netbook phenomena in general? Why do you think people are buying netbooks, and how do you see them being used?

It must have something to do with the price. Sub-notebooks have been available for some time. For example Vaio from Sony - but you had to pay a whole lot for it. When OLPC started the whole cheep netbook thing, that's when netbooks started to sell.

I think it's really great for consumers. I think size and price is more important to end users than amazing specifications. Most consumers are fooled into thinking they need several gb of ram and that surfing the web with 2 ghz will be a whole lot faster than 1.6 ghz. The netbooks are a real win for the consumers. And for Linux, which is the obvious OS for low end computers.

Describe your perfect netbook - hardware, features, OS, software, etc.

Full / almost full size keyboard (this should the maximum size of the notebook. The screen shouldn't be larger than the keyboard), LED screen to save power, >1024px resolution would be great, bluetooth, wifi n-draft, cheap low end cpu, 512 mb of ram. And a sexy case - like a mac. Oh, and turnable screen to make it into a small tablet pc - that's cool.

Any update on the Ubuntu Eee naming issue?

We're trying to figure out how long time we've got and won't re-brand untill we have to.

What's the biggest problem/challenge you think the Ubuntu Eee project and community are facing? How can we fellow netbook geeks help?

One of the problems is supporting the netbooks that none of us have. The community can help by sending us data and reporting back what doesn't work. (Since the interview, it looks like all Eee PC models are working, so here's a link to the general "Contribute" page on the Ubuntu Eee Wiki.)

Another problem is staying friends with the open source community even though our distrobution comes with Skype instead of Ekiga.

What does the future of the Ubuntu Eee project look like?

I was approached by the founder of Netvibes, Tariq Krim, who wanted to start a new project and use Ubuntu Eee as a fundament. Ubuntu Eee, however, will stay community driven.

Thanks again to Jon for the interview! If you have an Eee PC (any flavor), and want to check out Ubuntu Eee, you can learn more, download the latest version, and join the community at http://www.ubuntu-eee.com/. Also, don't miss Jon's blog at http://www.jonramvi.com/. And you can follow Ubuntu Eee on Twitter.

Got thoughts or questions about Ubuntu Eee, or Linux on netbooks in general? Post a comment below, and I'll do my best to find you an answer. If there are follow up questions for Jon, he might even be nice enough to answer them for us. :-)

I've been living in the world of netbooks for the last several weeks, and I've got a lot to tell you about what it's like to use one, what they're good for (and what they're not so good for), and why you might want one. I know several people who have bought a netbook recently, and I'll point to what they have to say about them. I'll even get all geeky (it's what I do best!), and talk about the different operating system options (I've tried almost all of them), and applications that are well suited for netbook use (and how to tweak them to make them even better).

Since this is Intel Software Network, a community of software developers, we'll look at using a netbook from a developer's point of view. And perhaps most interestingly, I want to try to figure out why people who buy netbooks seem to love them so fiercely - they take them everywhere. They rave to their friends about them. There's something special about netbooks - they're not just a smaller version of your laptop.

That's a lot of stuff, and I'm not going to dump it on you all at once. Over the next little while, I'll be posting lots of netbook-related stuff. And of course, I'll be looking for your questions, and trying to answer them. Just leave a comment!

Click to play

This week's show is only 30 minutes long and weighs about 28MB (it’s a 128kbps MP3). You can download the file directly, listen using the streaming player above, or (BEST OPTION!!1!) subscribe to the Bit Stories podcast feed in your favorite podcast aggregator (like iTunes). If you subscribe to the feed, you’ll get each show delivered automatically as it becomes available - probably once a week or so, with the occasional bonus video or audio segment thrown in for fun. Plus, we’ll love you forever if you subscribe! :-)

Here are some free form notes from today's show:

• Yet Another Audio Setup

• Embarrassing Confession: We recorded the last two shows using the built-in mic on my MacBook Pro, instead of the elaborate mixer/condenser mic that we have set up. Because I'm an idiot. The saving grace? It sounded pretty darn good! :-)
• Have developers let the Tablet PC community down?
• Brian paved and reinstalled Windows XP on his Samsung Q1 UMPC
• Why XP instead of Vista? Not quite enough horsepower.
• Josh has done the same thing (gone back and forth between XP and Vista) on his Asus R2H UMPC
• Speaking of mobile device operating systems... Moblin.org
• What the heck IS Moblin? Is it an OS?
• Moblin is a stack of tools to help create OSes and applications for Mobile Internet Devices. It's sponsored by Intel, and hosted by Intel Software Network
• Ubuntu Mobile Edition (UME) sneak peak is out there, if you have a Samsung Q1 Ultra
• Brian feels that he won't be able to use a Linux-based MID because of the lack of mature ink/handwriting input support
• It's really hard to do an ink interface well
• Will Atom-based devices ever have the horsepower to do handwriting well? Is this a hardware or a software problem?
• Do open source projects do better when there's a common, widespread demand and need for the result (like a web browser)? Do enough people in the open source community need and/or want good ink and handwriting support to motivate them to write it? Would enough people use it and care about it to make it worth their time?
• Since Mobile Internet Devices are all about the Internet, having a good browser is going to be essential.
• Windows versus Linux on these small, pocketable internet devices.
• In general, lack of UI "polish" in Linux applications is a deterrent for non-geeks to adopt it.
• Brian's "essential" applications on his Samsung Q1: Microsoft Office, Firefox, and Microsoft Money
• Is Firefox the exception to the "Linux applications don't have a good interface/user experience" stereotype?
• How easy is it going to be to "install any app you want" on the upcoming Linux MIDs?
• The challenges of adapting applications to devices on smaller screen.
• UMPCScrollBar - a great little app that lets you scroll windows around the smaller UMPC screen, so you can get to the "Install" and "OK" buttons that get pushed off the bottom of the screen.
• Intel Software Network's mobility community makes tons of resources, tools, and smart people available for people writing applications for these devices. Take advantage of us!
• Without great software, Intel products are just a bunch of really tiny hot plates. :-)
• Have we discovered the REAL reason Intel has chosen not to deploy Windows Vista? Is it because NetMeeting is no longer there? Microsoft stopped distributing NetMeeting in 1998 - TEN YEARS AGO. But Intel lives and breathes NetMeeting - old habits die hard. (Update after the show: according to Wikipedia, Microsoft released a hotfix that allows you to download and install NetMeeting on Vista. Guess we were wrong! ;-) )
• Macs do Screen Sharing, based on VNC, but there's NO way on a Mac to participate in a NetMeeting call, because it's a closed, proprietary Microsoft protocol.
• Google Docs is GREAT for live collaboration.
• PowerPoint is a great presentation tool, but it is NOT a collaboration tool! It gets abused WAY too often. PowerPoint abuse starts early - Brian's 7th grade son is already doing it!
• New recording time - Wednesday morning instead of Friday afternoon. Hope this gets the show out faster, and Josh and Brian perkier.
• Josh's morning voice - he's not a morning person. Brian gets up at 5:30 AM.
• Stuff we didn't get to this week: Brian dips his toes into the world of Twitter and FriendFeed, and next week is iPhone 3G day! Come stand in line with us!

The show is picking up steam - we're hitting our stride, and cranking them out. Many, many thanks to our listeners - we love you guys! We love connecting with people through the show, and getting to know who's listening. But the only way we can do that is if you talk to us, so leave a comment, email us, or find some other way to say "hi", and let us know what you think of the show! :-)

Click to play

This week's show is about 47 minutes long and weighs about 42MB (it’s a 128kbps MP3). You can download the file directly, listen using the streaming player above, or (BEST OPTION!!1!) subscribe to the Bit Stories podcast feed in your favorite podcast aggregator (like iTunes). If you subscribe to the feed, you’ll get each show delivered automatically as it becomes available - probably once a week or so, with the occasional bonus video or audio segment thrown in for fun. Plus, we’ll love you forever if you subscribe! :-)

Here are some free-form notes and links for the stuff we talked about this week:

• Intel's JF1 Workplace of the future. It isn't soundproof.
  Josh is not leaving Yahoo.

• Intel's Not Deploying Vista (NYTimes).
• It's more complex and subtle than "Vista Sucks". Really.
• Vista's not really that bad - we've both used it. Stability, tablet features, etc. are much better than XP.
• Why is Josh not using Vista today? Because he switched to Mac. It's not that he doesn't like Vista, it's that he doesn't like Windows. :-)
• Conspiracy Theory #1: Intel is creating a Linux distro for employees. All the big companies are doing it!
• Conspiracy Theory #2: Does Intel's processor technology come from aliens? Did they tell us NOT to use Vista?
• Firefox 3 was released! It set the Guinness record for software downloads in a day - 8+ million. Their servers were smoking craters for a while. Speed, stability, new UI, and memory footprint are much improved?
• Is Firefox 3 threaded for multicore processors? We don't know. Tell us!
• The use of the term "you can't swing a dead cat without hitting..." Swinging a dead cat is not endorsed by Bit Stories. Besdies, Josh is allergic to cats, except Serious Cat.
• Snow Leopard news - GrandCentral, OpenCL, LLVM, and smaller app footprints.
• Is Snow Leopard still going to have Rosetta emulation for PowerPC binaries?
• Hard drives are only getting bigger and cheaper (can you even BUY a Mac with a drive smaller than 250GB?). So why reduce footprint? SSD (solid state disks).
• Pay more for Windows on a netbook, or keep the price the same and make the SSD bigger?
• SSDs are The Future, but they're still WAY expensive (it's a $999 option on the MacBook Air).
• How few moving parts there really are in a laptop (HD and fan)
• Where do you draw the line for legacy hardware support? Apple pushes the envelope because they control the whole stack. Microsoft has it a LOT harder, because they have to support such a wide variety of hardware.
• Are Mac users more forgiving when Apple drops legacy support (smacks us around) than when Microsoft does it?
• Josh cops to being an Apple fanboy
• It's a miracle that Windows even works at all, given how many different hardware drivers (of varying quality) that it needs to support.
• Intel motherboards have finally dropped support for PS/2 ports. Josh is surprised in two directions - that they finally dropped them, and that they're still around.
• Incompatibility doesn't happen as much on Apple, because they control the whole stack. But control comes at the expense of competition.
• It's amazing that Apple has let Psystar live for so long.
• Twitter and Friendfeed
• Twitter has problems.
• The term "Plurk-up" is just GROSS.
• Josh explains how FriendFeed sucks up and aggregates what your friends share, and let you have conversations around any of those things.
• Josh had been resisting FriendFeed, but two things pulled him in - the conversations that were happening, that he was missing out on, and social gravity. Josh goes where his friends, his network, are. Enough of them are on FriendFeed now to make it worth it.
• The joy you feel when you discover a new, efficient way to connect with people and read (RSS, Twitter, now FriendFeed)
• FFToGo.com - nice mobile version
  FriendFeed is the source of all joy in the universe?

• The addiction factor - isn't FriendFeed just one more time sink?
• It's a balancing act - you have to be judicious on what you follow - feeds, Twitter, or FriendFeed. But the social aspect (things bubble up) of FriendFeed make it more efficient/potent, so you don't have to search and dig for the interesting/important stuff.
• The other obstacle - the "real time factor". Interruptions - tweets pop up, distract.
• Josh and Brian both have major FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out.
• You have to train yourself to ignore, and to be compelled to read every. single. thing.
• Use tools like Summize to track your name, topics, so you don't miss the REALLY important stuff, and then be OK with the fact that most of the rest of it is a river. Stand in the middle, let it flow by, grab what's interesting when you have time/attention.
• FriendFeed helps with FOMO, because the interesting stuff bubbles up
• Brian and Josh argue about which of us is more ADD.
• Unread Item Syndrome - all these made up dysfunctions that we have...
• Use a client like Twhirl or Twitterrific.
• Be the boss of the tools, not the other way around
• Training for "social media tools for software engineers" that Josh is working on, Brian to be a Guinea Pig
• We can geek out over anything - never had a problem filling time. :-)

Are you thrilled that the show is back? Mad that we changed something? Think we suck for being gone so long? Just want to say hi? Post a comment, and let us know! Seriously. We crave the validation that your feedback brings. You have no idea how fragile our self esteem really is… :-)

Well, we're back! And we're under the Bit Stories banner now. I work for Intel Software Network, and I've had the idea and intention for a while now of doing a show there like Brian and I used to do. Now we're actually doing it.

If you haven't listened before, this isn't some professionally produced, slick, marketing message controlled by our corporate overlords. We're just a couple of geeks who love gadgets, phones, computers, the web, and software, talking about whatever's new and cool. We try to make the audio sound good, but it's always going to be a little rough around the edges, and we're OK with that. Sound like something you'd be interested in? Come have a listen.

Click to play

In this show, we talk about the following, in no particular order:

• The iPhone 3G announcement - its features, whether Brian is finally going to cave in and get one, how AT&T is raising prices on the plans just because they can, how we can't wait to see what comes out of the App Store, and everything else we can think of. We're a little obsessed. :-)
• Netbooks vs. regular laptops vs. Tablet PCs (with the tangent typing vs handwriting discussion).
• Where we want to take the show - we don't have grand plans - we pretty much have always played this by ear, but we'd love to hear any ideas or suggestions (or complaints!) you have, so we can keep it interesting.
• And a whole lot more I can't remember right now!

The show is about 38 minutes long (we try to stick to the magic 40 minute length), and weighs about 35MB (it's a 128kbps MP3). You can download the file directly, listen using the streaming player in this post, or (BEST OPTION!!1!) subscribe to the Bit Stories podcast feed in your favorite podcast aggregator (like iTunes). If you subscribe to the feed, you'll get each show delivered automatically as it becomes available - probably once a week or so, with the occasional bonus video or audio segment thrown in for fun. Plus, we'll love you forever if you subscribe.

Are you thrilled that the show is back? Mad that we changed something? Think we suck for being gone so long? Just want to say hi? Post a comment, and let us know! Seriously. We crave the validation that your feedback brings. You have no idea how fragile our self esteem really is... ;-)

http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

Much has been written about the more controversial questions - are they really not adding any new features? Are they going to drop PPC support? Is it going to be 64-bit only (and if so, what about early Intel Core Duo chips that aren't fully 64-bit capable?). I'll leave all that to the people who know what they're talking about. But what strikes me as interesting is that the few fundamental technologies they HAVE discussed looks like a mirror image of the technologies Intel, and specifically, our group Intel Software Network, Intel's developer community, have been promoting and evangelizing to software developers for quite a while now.

First, I have to cling to my hope and dream that one day, Apple will release something along the lines of a "netbook", like the Asus Eee PC or the MSI Wind. Something like the MacBook Air, but much smaller. Apple's throwing fuel on that particular speculative fire with statements like this:

Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos.

Having recently paved and done a clean install of Mac OS X Leopard on my MacBook Pro, I can tell you that the operating system itself only takes up about 5.5 GB of hard drive space. Hard drives are growing in capacity and dropping in price at an astounding rate (did you ever dream you'd be able to pick up a terabyte of disk space for a couple hundred bucks?). So why would Apple care about reducing that 5-6 GB footprint, when drives are huge and cheap? Think SSD. Solid State Disks. Like the ones in the netbook devices. The Asus Eee PC I got to play with a while ago had a 4 GB SSD. Current models have 12 or 20GB. Fast, efficient, and no moving parts. Perfect for mobile devices. But still really expensive - you can get a 64GB SSD in a MacBook Air instead of the much slower 80GB hard drive, but it will cost you a cool $999 for the upgrade. SSDs are coming down in price, but they're still going to be expensive in any really large sizes for a while. So, if Apple was thinking of doing a Mobile Internet Device or netbook, it makes sense to squeeze OS X down as much as they can, to make, say, an affordable 16GB SSD a viable option that won't get hogged by just the OS.

Next, there's the new "Grand Central" technology, that focuses on taking full advantage of multicore processors:

“Grand Central,” a new set of technologies built into Snow Leopard, brings unrivaled support for multicore systems to Mac OS X. More cores, not faster clock speeds, drive performance increases in today’s processors. Grand Central takes full advantage by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Grand Central also makes it much easier for developers to create programs that squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems.

Emphasis mine. Intel Software Network has been banging on the multicore drum for quite a while now, ever since it became clear that the future of processor performance was more and more cores working in parallel, rather than ever-increasing clock speeds. In fact, we have a whole multicore developer community (hosted by my awesome colleague, Aaron Tersteeg) dedicated to multicore programming resources, tools, learning, and access to the Intel experts who literally wrote the book on this stuff. I'm sure as Snow Leopard gets closer, you Mac developers will (hopefully) be seeing a lot more details from both Apple and Intel on how to make your apps sing on many-core processors. It's the biggest fundamental shift in computing since, say, the x86 architecture became the standard. I can't wait to see this gain broader acceptance and implementation.

Finally, Apple teases us with this little tidbit on the vaguely-named Open CL (Open Computing Language), apparently aimed at taking advantage of upcoming super-powerful GPUs for other computing tasks:

Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL (Open Computing Language), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU). With GPUs approaching processing speeds of a trillion operations per second, they’re capable of considerably more than just drawing pictures. OpenCL takes that power and redirects it for general-purpose computing.

They don't name any one company's products or technologies, but it's well known that Nvidia and Intel are both working on many-core GPUs that support "GPGPU" - General Purpose (Computing) on the GPU. And again, my group, Intel Software Network, has a whole community (this one just freshly minted!) dedicated to what we call Visual Computing. Steve Pitzel hosts this community (Steve has more interesting stories than ANYONE I know - ask him some time!), and the super swanky page design came from our resident web development wizard, Kevin Pirkl. Intel has a little upcoming product called Larrabee that we think is going to really turn the notion of what a GPU is for on its head. Have you noticed how Nvidia has been getting very aggressive towards Intel, some might say even attacking? Yeah, it's because of Larrabee. And knowing Apple, they'll be right there, ready to take advantage of all of the advances in the visual computing world. Competition is a good thing.

Anyway, that's it for today's dose of idle speculation, and listening to me play armchair industry analyst. I have to say it feels pretty cool to work for a company (Intel) that has such influence over the world of technology. I get to see SO MANY COOL THINGS in the course of my job, I feel spoiled. And I try to share as much with you as I can - like tomorrow, I'll be filming demos at the Research@Intel event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. From the previews I've seen, some of this stuff is just freaky sci-fi cool. I can't wait to see it, shoot it, and get it out to you. As usual, I'd love to hear your thoughts, even if all you have to say is how wrong you think I am. Leave it in a comment! :-)

(Crossposted from my blog, TinyScreenfuls.com.)

There are only about 20 MIDs in the world today, all prototypes, and they were pretty much all at IDF. As you can imagine, access to them is jealously guarded, and they were pretty busy being shown off, participating in photo shoots, etc. My access to them got postponed, rescheduled, and moved around a lot, until one afternoon, we got the call. "You can come play with the MIDs if you can be here by 5:30pm." It was 5:00pm, and Welles and I jumped in a taxi right away, headed for the Intel Software group's Mobility Enabling Lab. I didn't have time to go back and get my "big boy" professional video gear, so these videos were shot on my pocket Aiptek Go-HD camera, secured by a GorillaPod. I think they turned out pretty well.

Big disclaimer: the Linux-based software for both the Lenovo and Aigo devices I used is NOT final - there are some features that aren't implemented, and performance optimizations that haven't occurred. This is NOT how they're going to be when they're released commercially. There are crashes, slowness, and missing features in these videos. Think of this as a preview of the foundations of the software - what it's capable of in general. Then squint your eyes a little and imagine the final version, a little more polished, sitting happily in your pocket. :-)

First up, here's a 13 minute video of the Lenovo Ideapad U8 Mobile Internet Device (MID). It's one of the more unique hardware designs, with it's flared end, special limited edition Beijing 2008 Olympic color scheme, and hardware number pad, for T9 text entry. In the video, I take a detailed look at the hardware (Intel Atom processor, two cameras - the rear one is 2.0 megapixels, SD slot, GPS, USB ports, etc.), and spend some time poking around with the software/user interface:

You can download the high quality (640x360) MP4 version here - the file is about 153 MB. You can also embed/share the video on your own blog or site by grabbing the Show Player code from the video's page on blip.tv or by clicking "Embed" in the show player above.Next up is 10 minutes of video with the MID from Aigo. I cover pretty much the same aspects of this device in the video as I did with the Lenovo Ideapad - hardware (sliding QWERTY keyboard, two cameras - the rear one is 3.0 megapixels, MicroSD slot, USB ports, "Smart Key", etc.) and software and user interface. The Aigo device looks very similar to the Gigabyte MID, which has been floating around, making appearances. So much so that I suspect they're manufactured by the same OEM, but I didn't get any concrete information on this, so I'm just speculating. Here's the video:

You can download the high quality (640x360) MP4 version of this video (117 MB) here, and get the embed code to share the video on your own site/blog on the video's page on blip.tv, or by clicking "Embed" in the show player above.Now that you've seen the videos, I hope some of your questions have been answered. And, no doubt, you have new questions. I'll do my very best to get answers for you, so post your thoughts and questions in the comments below. Thanks for being patient while I got these videos ready. I have a TON more video content that I shot at IDF, and that will be coming out as it gets processed/edited. But this is the juicy stuff, so enjoy! :-)

The good news is, I just posted an "appetizer" video, with a quick look at the MID hardware, comparisons to the Fujitsu and Samsung UMPCs (and my iPhone), and a glimpse of the lab. It's about 2.5 minutes long, and you can watch it right here:

I'll post a more detailed writeup of my impressions of the devices soon, as well as the video of the time I had with them (summary: the Lenovo Ideapad U8 looks and feels wonderful in my hands - I WANT one!). I spent several minutes on video with each device, examining the hardware and UI/software features. Right now, thought, it's almost 1 AM, and I need to get up early to do a blogging training with the Intel Shanghai software guys. But I wanted to get these photos up and available as soon as possible.

Please post any comments or questions you have either in this post, or on the photo's page on Flickr. I want to answer all of your questions, but I'm going to sleep for a few hours, and don't want to miss any of them. Please be patient, and I promise I'll answer all questions. :-)

The entire set of 33 photos is available in this photoset on Flickr. Feel free to browse through all of the photos (bonus photos: some shots of the Intel Shanghai sales offices, which occupy floors 22-24 of the ShanghaiMart tower). Click here to view as a slideshow, and you can see full size/resolution versions of every photo on Flickr by clicking "All Sizes" on the photo's page.

And now, the photos! Here are some that I think turned out best - be sure to check out all 33 photos in the Flickr set!