Technology Ramblings

Today at the MS Build Conference in San Francisco - MS announced Windows 10 Anniversary Edition - or what we previously had been calling Redstone 1.   The edition is planned for release "this summer" - so if it is truly an anniversary edition that should mean July 29, 2016.   The features and demos that were focused on following the announcement were the following.. 1. A big emphasis and expansion of Microsoft Ink.  So more integration across more apps and some cool things like rulers and app relevance were demo'd 2. Cortana taking a bigger role - again with more integration across more apps -  like Skype - and access via the lock screen.  Also some backend capabilities like the Cortana intelligence engine. 3. Updates to MS Hello to support biometrics as well as integration with Edge for site logins. 4. BASH shell integration through a new partnership with Canonical (Ubuntu) and subsystem.   5. New Skype UWP app along more 3rd party UWP apps ...

Each year - I take a look at the trends occurring in the enterprise space and try and predict where we are heading. First - looking back - a few of predictions I discussed for 2015 are starting to take shape.. Hyperconverged solutions from vendors like Nutanix, Simplivity, Cohesity, ScaleIO and VMware are gaining traction.  These systems provide a modular approach to compute/storage virtualization and are an excellent value.  They are very quick to deploy, provide good performance and when combined with SDN solutions provide a basis for the software defined data center.   I see this trend continuing for the foreseeable future and everyone from the vendors mentioned above to EMC and even Cisco have released appliances.  So now it's the scramble for market share.   Chances are if your planning on purchasing new compute/storage infrastructure in 2016 - you'll be looking at hyperconverged. Next was the emergence of 40GB networking and SDN. ...

One of the technology areas I follow is home entertainment systems.  As a person who has had upwards of 11 TVs and various sound systems in a home and have built and maintained various content management, distribution and automation systems for whole audio/video and device management, I was intrigued by the approach that Vizio has recently undertaken with their SmartCast technology. In recent years we have seen an explosion in what are called "Smart TVs". These TVs run an Android or Linux OS variant - like Tizen, WebOS, etc on the "main board" of the TV and come with a number of streaming applications such as Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, etc., that allow you to stream internet content to the TV.  In addition some devices had DLNA capabilities that would allow you to stream local content from a PC or laptop. Anyone who has purchased a "Smart TV" knows that one of the challenges with that technology is that based on the relationship between the content provid...

On March 25, an article was published by ComputerWorld where the author Mr Gregg Keizer utilized statistics captured by the Digital Analytics Program (DAP) which measures visits to US government web sites and came to the conclusion that 20% of those visits came from Windows 10 PCs here in the US during the month of March 2016 and so therefore, the Windows 10 market share here in the US is 20%.   The DAP data is provided via a US government account provided by Google Analytics.  You can look at the data yourself by going to  https://analytics.usa.gov/ So I decided to do some due diligence myself.   Looking this morning at the last 90 days of data - here are a few more interesting statistics.   Windows machines made up 52.4% of all visits, followed by iOS at 18.8% and Android 18.2%.   Of the 52.4% of Windows machines - 10% were shown as Windows 10, Windows 7 was 32.9% and Windows 8/8.1 were 6.7%.  XP was 1.6%.   Chrome lead the browser pac...

On Mar 25, MS released Windows 10 Build 14295 for both PC and Mobile to Fast Ring Insiders. With PC and Mobile now sharing the same build numbers it looks like PC and Mobile releases will be simultaneous going forward. Installed 14295 on a traditional desktop, 8" tablet and a Lumia 735.  In all cases the update downloaded quickly - but it did take nearly an hour for the Tablet and Phone to prepare the update and apply.   I also noticed with 14295 Mobile that the post update file migration phase was reduced from the normal 22 steps to 7.  Since MS did not call out anything specific I can only hope that they have consolidated the steps since my previous experience was that many of the 22 steps would just flash by as though nothing was being done.   The focus of 14295 appears to be bug fixes from 14291 - so here is the list for PC fixes We fixed the issue that was causing PCs to freeze when plugging in an Xbox One or Xbox 360 controller and other gamepads. ...

On Mar 24 - a tweet from Gabe Aul mentioned that Windows 10 Mobile build 14291 was made available to those legacy devices recently added to the Redstone compatibility list. One of my 3 Windows Mobile devices only one met that criteria - a Lumia 735 - an RM-1039 variant.  Unfortunate my 2 Lumia 635 RM-975s will have to stop @ 10586.164 as they have not made the list.   If you have one of the devices listed below - you can switch back to Insider Fast Ring and get 14291.. Lumia 1520, 930, 640, 640XL, 730, 735, 830, 532, 535, 540, 635 1GB, 636 1GB, 638 1GB, 430, 435, BLU Win HD w510u, BLU Win HD LTE x150q, MCJ Madosma Q501. The update download and installed with no issues.   It is shame that many other legacy devices will never see this code because almost immediately I noticed a much smoother running phone with apps that loaded quicker and the whole overall feel with 14291 seems more stable than the 10586 branch.   I also noticed increased stability wit...

During this weeks Apple announcement around the iPhone SE and new iPad Pro models - Phil Schiller of Apple repeated a statement made earlier by Samsung that there are some 600M PCs out there that are 5 years old+ and that this was sad.   The inference being that the owners of those 600M PCs should be looking to iPad as their replacement devices and that many new iPad users have mentioned that they were "coming from" a Windows PC. So obviously this was a shameless plug for the iPad to be viewed as a valid PC replacement.  Various observer blogs out there made light of the comment and some even showed reaction from some Apple execs - who seemed a little embarrassed by Mr Schiller's comments. The question is - was Mr Schiller that far off ?    It really depends on how you look at it. I'll use my own home as an example.  In my home today - we have 5 Windows based devices - 1 x traditional tower, 1 x Small Form Factor (SFF) PC, 1 x All-in-one touch scr...

On March 17, MS released Windows 10 Build 14291 to Fast Ring Insiders for both PC and Mobile.   The Mobile build is still limited to "Windows 10 Phones" - so only the Lumia 5 series and a small group of others. The big changes for this build are all about Edge improvements and specifically Edge extensions.   MS finally began to support the modern browser extensions with this build and offered 3 initial ones - Translator, Mouse Gestures and the Reddit Enhancement Suite.  MS stated that many more are to follow including LastPass. Additionally there is an updated Maps, Alarm apps as well as a new Feedback Hub app.  Finally there some improvements for Japanese input.   One additional change I noticed as well was an improved WiFi experience.  With 14279 - one of my machines - a Dell Inspiron 3647 with Dell 1507 WiFi+BT Mini card was acting up and even with the latest driver would occasionally Blue Screen with IRL_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS errors in NetIO...

On Thu March 17 - MS finally released Windows 10 Mobile to Production for Legacy Devices.   The release appears to be the same 10586.164 build that was released to Production Preview folks back on March 8.   So this release is for folks who are not members of Windows Insider and want to receive the update for their qualifying Windows 8.1 Phone.  The key word here is qualifying device. Here is the official list of devices that may receive the upgrade. Lumia 1520, 930, 640, 640XL, 730, 735, 830, 532, 535, 540, 635 1GB, 636 1GB, 638 1GB, 430, 435, BLU Win HD w510u, BLU Win HD LTE x150q, MCJ Madosma Q501. There are some very notable exceptions on the list - for example the long time "flagship" Lumia 1020, along with 920, 922, 928, 820, etc.  Basically if you don't have a 3 series or newer device - you will not be getting the production release.   Now this list may change but MS calls out the following... "This list includes a limited set of Windows Pho...

The Open Compute Project (OCP) was formed back in 2011 by Jonathan Heiliger at Facebook as a method for the largest web-scale participants - providers, hardware vendors, etc to share their information and to drive energy efficiency and innovation across this unique industry. Members today include Facebook, Intel, Google, MS, Apple, Lenovo, Cisco, Juniper, etc.  These are not your normal data center consumers.   MS Azure alone is over 1M servers and counting.  So for these folks things like PUE or Power Usage Effectiveness is critical not only from a business sense - but also from a overall environmental impact.  Saving 1-2 watts / server is huge when you multiply it across server farms of these sizes.   The goal of the group is to develop standards across server, storage, networking, racks, and data center that drive PUE up and costs down.  The expectation is that the innovations coming from this group will find their way into traditional SKU based...

2015 was a record year for Smartphone sales.  According to IDC some 1.43B - yes billion devices were sold in 2015.  That is a 10.1% growth over the 1.3B devices sold in 2014. Just as a quick comparison - The PC market according to IDC in 2015 was 276M total units sold, interestingly a 10.4% decline from 2014 - where some 308M devices were sold. That means today that the mobile market is 5.1 times the size of the PC market - a staggering factor considering that in 2006 - smartphones only sold about 64M units and PCs sold 240M units.  So the complete reverse where the PC market was 3.75 times the size of the smartphone market. If anything reinforces the impact of mobile on the worldwide computing market then this is it.   From a vendor perspective - Samsung is the worldwide leader in smartphones, finishing 2015 with nearly 325M units shipped and a 22.7% market share. Apple was 2nd with a 16.2% market share and some 231.5M units shipped - followed by Lenovo, Hua...

A few weeks back I authored a post entitled - Hyperconverged Infrastructure - Hype or the future of the Data Center. In that post I discussed the basics of what a Hyper-converged Infrastructure Appliance (HCIA) is - how it works and why these new devices are going to impact data center purchasing decisions going forward. When I authored the post - there were a few players in the space.  Nutanix, Simplivity, Gridstore and Pivot3 to mentioned a few along with software plays from DataCore and ScaleIO.  Most of these HCIA vendors originally started with their own ODM appliances built by SuperMicro or Quanta but then created partnerships with server vendors like Dell, Lenovo and Cisco to expand their offerings and appeal.  VMware had also entered the space back in 2014 with their Evo:RAIL concept that was eventually sold by Dell, EMC, Fujitsu and a few others - but it has not been a huge seller. In just the last 3 weeks - several major vendors have announced new HCIA o...

Today - March 10 - MS released Windows 10 Mobile Build 14283.  This is a first in Windows 10 where the Mobile edition release is ahead of PC - which is currently at 14279.   We'll probably see the PC version sometime tomorrow. This new build based on the Redstone branch is only available for the following devices -  Lumia 950 / 950 XL / 650 / 550 along with the  Xiaomi Mi4 and ALCATEL ONETOUCH Fierce XL. The build features some improvement to the Phone App and updates to Mail & Calendar.  There is also a pretty long list of fixes based on feedback from 14271. We have addressed an issue where the background behind the All apps list would not have an overlay (causing it to appear too bright or too dark, depending on your background) if you went back to All apps list after launching an app. We fixed an issue causing the title of a song in volume control to flicker a few times when you pressed play or changed tracks after a pause. We fixed an issue some...