A story over at the dailytitan.com caught my interest (The Daily Titan is the student paper for Cal State Fullerton in Fullerton, CA).  Here’s the gist…

Jessica Shekell, 21, a first-semester transfer sociology major at Cal State Fullerton was involved in a head-on collision at 3 a.m. while heading west on the eastbound Fast Trak Express Lane on the 91 freeway.

Shekell, who was alone in the car, was reportedly driving down the wrong side of the freeway when her vehicle struck another, killing 44-year-old Sally Miguel and  30-year-old Patricia Miguel. Sally Miguel died at the scene of the accident and Patricia Miguel died later from injuries at Western Medical Center.

The collision also resulted in major injuries to Sara Miguel, 11, and minor injuries to Mary Miguel, 15, who were sitting in the backseat of the family’s Chevrolet Silverado without seat belts on. Mary Miguel is currently being treated for moderate injuries at UCI Medical Center and Sara Miguel is currently being treated for major injuries at Western Medical Center, according to hospital spokespeople.

Now first let me say this is a tragedy all around.  But what’s interesting here is that that Daily Titan article pointed to her MySpace page (here: http://www.myspace.com/82060729) and most of the comments have used that page to condemn Ms. Shekell. 

Something that, in fairness, isn’t hard to do. 

The page features several pictures of her holding a drink, socially drinking and in fact even posing with a bottle of Jack Daniels while in a car (and then consuming that bottle in that same car).  It isn’t very hard to jump to the conclusion that this woman must have been drunk.

Put it this way.  I show you the picture below and I tell you this woman caused an accident by swerving into ongoing traffic.  What’s your first reaction?

My first reaction is that she was probably drunk and I don’t think that’s abnormal.  But just to make the point imagine the same story but I show you this picture instead…

Being honest with yourself I think you’d be inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt (people fall asleep at the wheel for example).  At least until more information was available.

That’s my point here.

Being truthful, I suspect this woman was drunk and she caused a horrible accident because of it.  But I’m honest enough to admit I think that because of her page.  That’s important because, as I’ve said repeatedly on this blog, people take social media too lightly.  Even if this woman wasn’t drunk she’s pretty much been indicted now and all based on MySpace photos you could find on the social networking site of a lot of 21 year olds. 

People need to remember the world is not their personal friend.  The world does not know you and you shouldn’t treat it as such.  You shouldn’t share things with the world that you aren’t actually addressing to the public.  Because when you do you risk creating a detractor at a time when you desperately need a defender (like in this case). 

In the end I sincerely hope this girl is the drunk driver I think she is because thanks to her myspace page she’s facing the fallout of being a drunk driver even if she’s not.

I don’t know about everyone else but these days Google Search rarely produces what I’m looking for on the first page. 

In fact a lot of the time I get useless results.  Answers.com appears on the first page of many of my queries but I can’t remember a time when I’ve actually seen an answered question.  The same goes for message boards where the question is asked only to get no response.  You’d think Google would be smart enough to recognize that at this point and keep it off the front page.

So Google isn’t perfect.  Far from.  But it’s so integrated into everyone’s behavior that most can’t stop using it.  We’ve become accustomed to the results Google provides and adjusted our behavior accordingly (I very rarely click on links from Answer.com even though they still come up on the first page). 

That instinct to “stay with what you know and adjust” is what really works against new competitors in the search space and it’s what makes this news so interesting…

In a stunning one-two punch, Microsoft will announce separate nonexclusive deals today with both Facebook and Twitter to integrate their real-time feed of status updates into the Bing search service.

According to sources, Microsoft (MSFT) digital head Qi Lu will announce the deal onstage in a few hours at the Web 2.0 Summit.

Now this would be a lot better if not for that pesky “nonexclusive” issue.  But it still might be a windfall for Microsoft if they can stay exclusive for even a small amount of time.

Because people will adjust to anything competent and Bing is Microsoft’s first competent search engine.  So if they can some how get people to use it for a little while they could pull a piece of Google’s audience over. 

And what better way to get people to use Bing than to have it provide exclusive access to valuable information that Google doesn’t have?

Once a user comes over for that information they’ll likely stick around for their next query and the one after that (provided Bing can deliver relevant results).  Before you know it Bing will have another small piece of the search market.

That, for now, is all they need.

You see Bing is almost certainly a long term goal for Microsoft.  There’s no point in even dreaming of huge gains anytime in the next few years.  But if Microsoft can continue to strike little blows against Google and take a small piece of search market each time they’ll establish themselves as a viable competitor.  Once they become that they’ll have dispelled the illusion of Google being unbeatable and that’s when they can really start to compete.

Beating Google in search is definitely a journey of a thousand miles for Microsoft but this is one pretty large step in the right direction.

Addendum: Pesky, Pesky word...

Mere hours after today’s announcement that Twitter would now be integrated with Microsoft’s Bing search engine, Google has annouced that it too will include Twittter updates in its own search results. 

Honestly I don't think this is as big a deal as most will.  Facebook is the real prize for Bing.  If they can keep some kind of exclusive deal with Facebook they'll see some benefits.

I got an invitation to Google Wave today and (as I sometimes do accidentally) I opened it using Internet Explorer.  When I did I was treated to this message…

Google has clearly taken an “Anyone But Microsoft” stance.  Safari would be understandable because it uses Webkit like Chrome but Firefox shows they went out of their way to support the Gecko engine while not supporting I.E.’s rendering engine.

Honestly, the more I use it the more I like Chrome so I can’t blame Google for trying to push IE users to a new browser.

Joe Wilcox has an article over at Betanews where he outlines what he feels are the strategic issues surrounding Windows 7.  In large part it’s an article designed to goad Mac fans (it’s even named “Mac fanboys should get a life and some Windows 7 common sense”).  But once you get past that he makes what I feel is an erroneous point about Windows 7’s “true competition” (as he puts it).

He lists three “true” competitors: Windows XP, Pirates and Netbooks.  The one I’m interested in is his point on Windows XP.  He says…

Windows 7's biggest competitor will be Windows XP, which runs on about 80 percent of PCs, according to combined analyst reports. Microsoft's first challenge will be getting XP users to move up to Windows 7. Mac market share was 7.6 percent in the United States in second quarter, according to IDC. (Gartner and IDC should release Q3 preliminary numbers in the next couple of days.)

I’m not sure I would have keyed in on this if not for Mac lover John Gruber’s post which focused on that paragraph.  He said…

I think Wilcox is spot-on that Windows 7’s primary competition is XP. Microsoft really does worry first about raw market share, and XP is the market leader by a long shot. Such comparisons against the Mac are apples-vs.-oranges, though, because Apple isn’t concerned about overall market share.

Sometimes I think certain points seem so obvious that people don’t actually think them through. This is one of those points.  At first blush it seems like XP will be a big problem for Windows 7 but when you look at the actual facts you find that’s not the case. 

Here are a few reasons for that…

1.  You won’t be able to buy computers with XP anymore.  The reason XP has been a thorn in Vista’s side is because Microsoft was forced to let PC manufacturers continue to sell XP (largely because Vista was such a disaster).  But WIndows 7 won’t have that problem.  I suspect Microsoft will allow manufacturers to still sell Vista on systems but who in their right mind would choose Vista?

2.  XP is losing hardware support.  Anyone who has maintained a large number of XP computers over the last couple of years will tell you that some specialized hardware is starting to come without XP drivers.  Worse, many new systems are 64bit which adds another wrinkle.  So even if someone pursued XP by installing it themselves they’re going to run into problems.

3.  XP really isn’t sufficient.  Again we come back to the problem of Vista.  People stuck with XP because Vista was so bad but that doesn’t mean people have been blinded to the fact that XP is 8 years old and getting a little long in the tooth.  All the security concerns, power management issues, and other issues are still there and are all still bugging most IT people.  There was just no where to go up until now.

The bottom line is that PC users have been waiting for a decent upgrade.  Not clinging to XP out of some love for it.  Now that we have a worthwhile successor I suspect you’ll see a Windows 7 rollout that is faster than any previous version of Windows.

First let me say this.  If you haven’t either told me to “Go F**k Myself” or thought of telling me to “Go F**k Myself” at some point in the last 48 hours than this post doesn’t really apply to you.  You should feel free to skip it. 

To the rest of you (who probably aren’t reading this but what the heck) I have a message.  In order to frame that message I would like to quote one of the lovely messages I’ve received over the past day.  It said…

Hey F**k w*d,

Why don’t you mind your own F**k**g busines (her mis-spell, not mine - tom).  Some of us are really upset about losing all our data and we don’t need you telling us you don’t give a c**p about it.  Why don’t you just leave us alone and not be a j**k*ss about things.

Some people actually care about other people’s suffering but clearly you don’t so why don’t you just live your d**n life already and let us live ours. 

With hopes that you go f**k yourself,

[Name Withheld]

In fairness I was the one who withheld her name.  She was brave enough to put it out there with her real e-mail address (which was valid, I checked).  So kudos to her on that.

That said here’s my message to the author and everyone else who wrote similar ones: I think you missed the point.  To save myself from having to type any more than I have to and to prove I’m not back tracking I’m going to quote from the FAQ on my “about page” to make my point…

===Begin Quote===

“Why are you so mean? I don’t think I am mean but I know where the sentiment comes from.

Here’s the thing, I can be hard on people from time to time but that’s because I actually do care. It’s easy to just say “you’re great” to a person and then go on your way but to me that’s dishonest. That’s really saying “it doesn’t matter what you do it’s of so little importance that I’m just going to tell you how great you are no matter what”

I believe what people do is important and I believe that I have an obligation to tell them when their actions don’t deliver the results that their words are intending.   So I'm not going to tell you how great you are unless you actually ARE great but I am willing to do everything in my power to help make you great.  That's the sentiment I live by.

If that makes me look mean then so be it. I’d rather look mean and be comforted by the fact that I did the right thing than look nice and be the guy who just doesn’t give a damn.  “

===End Quote===

And that is what I say to you.  Believe it or not, I am the one who “gives a f**k” about your suffering.  I am the one who is trying to make you see that you made a mistake so that you won’t do it again.  The folks who are out there telling you it’s all big, mean Microsoft’s fault for losing your data are the ones that don’t care whether this happens to you again (and if you continue to not back up your data it will in fact happen to you again)

Sure, I’ll be the first to admit to the character flaw that is sarcasm and I’ll absolutely agree that my message would get across clearer without the sarcastic title.  But that’s the world.  No one’s perfect.  That shouldn’t stop you from thinking through what I said and realizing I was trying to help you.

So in closing, and I say this with all the love in the world, but if you can’t see that I’m trying to help you than you can go f**k yourself.  But I mean that in the nicest way possible.

A day or so ago I got an e-mail from a co-worker asking that I upvote an item he'd posted on Ycombinator's Hacker News Message Board.

Now this was surprising for me.  I work with a couple people who frequent Hacker News and we've all pretty much decided never to  upvote each other simply because there's a bias involved.  So for him to request an upvote was a big deal. 

The message he posted was in regards to this whole T-Mobile Sidekick situation in which Microsoft (who acquired Sidekick maker Danger) lost a lot of user data.  Apparently Sidekick data is not permanently stored on the device.  So there was some technical glitch on the server and any Sidekick users who turned off their device during that time lost all their data.

Anyway, back to my co-worker, this is the message he posted...

This probably (definitely?) makes me a jerk but I have to say it: They deserved it.

I'm sorry but in this day and age anyone trusting their data to a device that stores it exclusively on the server deserves what they get.

Some will say "the type of person who uses these devices isn't the type of person to understand where their data is located" but I say that's BS. We're in a data centric world now and I don't think it's asking that much for people to be aware of where their data is kept and to make sure they have some kind of "backup" guarantee.

To Anyone Downvoting This: Let me ask you one question. If someone without a seatbelt gets hit by a drunk driver does the fact that the accident's the drunk driver's fault mean it was ok for them not to wear a seatbelt? Or can someone be responsible for their own irresponsibility even though the damage was caused by a party that was more to blame?

When I first read it I thought his post was maybe a little too blunt.  But I essentially agreed with the sentiment and didn't think he deserved to get taken to the cleaners for it (when I saw the thread it was at a -5 rating).

Still, I thought he was a tad harsh until I saw this news item from CNet's Ina Fried.  She quotes several sob stories from users who lost their data during this Sidekick debacle. 

The one that really set me off was this one from "Rachel" (last name held by request)...

Unfortunately I was unaware that my phone was at risk during this whole "data service disruption." There were a couple of text messages sent out last week from Tmobile apologizing for any inconvenience during this time period, but not once did it plainly state in a text to NOT POWER DOWN YOUR DEVICE, DO NOT ALLOW THE BATTERY TO RUN OUT and/or DO NOT REMOVE YOUR BATTERY. Instead it advised users to checkout their webpage for more information. At the time I was having no problems with my data and therefore disregarded the "sorry for the inconvenience" text and carried on using my phone as normal, and not bothering to check out the tmobile webpage.

Well, the next day my battery somehow died while I was at work (still unsure how that happened as it was charged the night before as it always has been) and after charging the phone at home my phone powered on easily enough, but without any of my personal information on it any longer. So I turned it off again, pulled out the battery for a few minutes, and then reassembled it all and tried again. Still no luck.....photos, address book (250+ contacts!), events, notes, etc.....all gone. It wasn't until this happened that I started to investigate the problem and found this in huge letters across the top of the main sidekick page (t-mobile.com/sidekick): "Sidekick customers, during this service disruption, please DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power." Along with a note explaining they were trying to recover the data, etc.

Now it seems that all my information may be lost for good. It's infuriating.

So...This woman got a warning from T-Mobile , she chose to completely disregard that warning, and now she's mad because there were negative consequences? 

Come On!

Now don't get me wrong.  I'll be the first to admit I've ignored similar messages in the past.  I'm just as guilty of that.  But the difference between me and "Rachel" is that I would take responsibility for my actions if ignoring those messages led to a negative result.  Because in the end I did choose to ignore an explicit warning. 

(Again, the group at Microsoft/Danger that let this happen are world class idiots who deserve a ton of blame, just not all the blame)

Which brings me back to my co-worker's experience on Hacker News.  What amazed me about the replies he got was that there were a lot of people defending those Sidekick users who lost their data.  Saying they shouldn't be responsible for backing up their data and that they deserved no blame for any of this.  That bothers me a great deal.

Have people just completely divorced themselves from results?  The actions of these people who lost their data have already ended in disaster.  Regardless of how bad or stupid Microsoft is that doesn't change the fact that all these people would still have their data if they'd just backed it up somewhere.  Instead of entrusting the sole copy of it to a company who gave them no guarantees whatsoever in regards to data integrity.

Bottom Line: Children expect someone else to take care of their problems for them.  Adults are supposed to know enough to safeguard those things which they value.

2nd Bottom Line: The cloud does not solve everything.  You can not just trust the cloud to protect, backup, and safeguard your data.   It's your job as the owner of that data to make sure you have it somewhere else in case there is a disaster.  Because if something like this happens it may very well be the cloud's fault but it's you who will have lost your data. 

When I started this blog I intended it to be a technical one.  Not "commentary on the day's tech events" which is what it has become.  The reason for the evolution was largely based on my admiration of two bloggers in particular.  Drama2 of the Drama 2.0 show and Loren Feldman of 1938 Media.  These two defied the blogosphere's group think and, imho, told it like it was.  So they've always been very important figures in my blogging life.

Six months ago today one of them disappeared.

Actually "disappeared" doesn't quite do the incident justice.  After a bizarre Twitter post on April 4th the Drama 2.0 web site changed dramatically.  The next day's post was entitled "Kim Kardashian vs. Lamborghini: Who Has the Smoothest Ride?" and the site's header had changed to feature porn pictures mixed in with provocative celebrity shots.  It now sported the tagline "Celebrity drama has never been this sexy" and was written by "nikolay" whoever that is.

For the next week items popped up regularly sporting headlines like "Lady Gaga Has An Ass To Go Gaga Over" and "Spencer Pratt Pumps Gas Before Pumping Heidi Montag".  This continued just long enough to confirm this was no prank on Drama2's part.   

Then, in another bizarre twist, the site went dark.  The next post appeared about 6 weeks later on May 28th and proclaimed "[Cameron] Diaz doesn’t have the freshest face" but "that doesn't mean she looks bad from the back".  Since that cutting edge news item the site has only managed to put up 3 more posts (though  bizarrely the last item was posted a mere 3 days ago so it's still active to some extent)

In the end a site with one of the best contrarian bloggers on the web has now become a half ass celebrity site that posts once a month or so. 

Why I still don't know (and if Google is to be believed neither does anyone else).  Since Drama2 was anonymous there's not really a way to track him down.  Even if there was he clearly doesn't want to be found and has clearly chosen not to explain his actions.

The sad part is Drama2's still proving his worth to this day.  With one exception his "2009 Predictions" have been eerily accurate so far.  I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say keen insight like that is worth far more than yet another place to get a video of Kim Kardashian having sex (I know there are at least several thousand people out there who agree with me)

I'm not as high profile as Drama2 was nor am I as talented yet I've taken a good share of verbal beatings on this blog.  I assume he saw even worse and I have to imagine that was part of the reason he disappeared from "the scene" (though this post makes me wonder if that's true).  But it's sad because the blog world desperately needs him.  Anyone who has taken an anthropology class will tell you most people line up behind the loudest voice which leads to a system of group think based around the most powerful people in a social structure. 

No where is that more evident than in the blogosphere which means no group needs a talented contrarian more desperately than the tech blogs.  I don't know where  Drama2 went or if he still keeps up with tech blogs but if he should ever come across this I hope he knows  how much the blogoshphere has lost without him and how many of us out here still hope for his eventual return.