Yesterday morning I got several updates delivered to my laptop via Windows Update. These were not security patches that are typically delivered by Microsoft on the second Tuesday of the month (commonly referred to as Patch Tuesday). But these were non-security related updates to the system. An example of one was an update to the daylight savings functionality, seems that governments around the world are still adjusting the start dates (see http://support.microsoft.com/KB/979306 if you want the details).
Seeing the updates reminded me that it had been a while since I checked my various devices for updates to the firmware. This was a good reminder, so I spent a few minutes checking the devices and bringing them up to the latest versions.
Keeping your firmware up to date is just as important as keeping your operating system and applications up to date. Firmware updates will often correct application issues, close security holes, improve performance and even deliver new functionality.
The IEEE has a very dry, but functional definition of firmware:
The combination of a hardware device and computer instructions and data that reside as read-only software on that device
I tend to think of firmware as this magical layer of software abstraction that has a very intimate relationship with the hardware, but I am kind of a software romantic.
Firmware is becoming increasingly important in computing as we have more and more intelligent hardware devices. I bet the average person carries at least 1 device that has updatable firmware on it and many of us who are “mobile” workers can carry 3 or more (I have 3 on me right now: Zune, Mobile Phone and laptop). Even the speaker dock that I have for my Zune has firmware in it.
Firmware updates are different
One of the things that is so nice about Windows Update is that it can be set to automatically update the system by the user (in a home situation) or by the administrator (in a corporate situation). For the most part your updates are on auto pilot at that point, with the exception of getting prompted for a reboot if an update requires one.
Note: I don’t mean to be a Microsoft “fan boy” in praising Windows Update here; the Apple software update process is similar and just as reliable. There are philosophical differences between the two; Microsoft’s updates are more numerous, but much smaller in size and Apple generally prefers fewer, but much larger updates. There are also update processes for software applications other than the operating system as well: Apple Update for Windows, Adobe, Firefox, etc.
Updates to firmware are generally not as seamless and carefree as the Operating System Updates. Almost no hardware systems pull down the updates and apply them automatically. The processes by which you apply the updates also vary greatly:
- The Zune and iPhone firmware updates are pulled down automatically and applied when you tether the devices, but they require software on the machine to accomplish it.
- The BIOS updates on a computer usually require you to download an specialized installer that updates the firmware the next time you reboot
- Home routers and access points generally have you download a binary file and upload it through the management interface
The slightly more complicated update process goes to the specialized nature of firmware, because it is at such a low level the update needs a little more care than updating a software application or even an operating system.
When was the last time that you updated your firmware?
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With the coming of the New Year we see a lot of Top 10 lists. You know like the Top 10 planning, design and development websites of 2009 or the Top 10 Quotes of 2009. We are doubly blessed that since this is the “end of the decade” that we also get the top 10 lists for that as well. You know like EPSN Boston’s Top 10 of the Decade (all Boston Teams) or Yahoo Games’ Top 10 Video Games of the Decade (Super Mario Galaxy in the top 10?, really?).
Not to buck the trend, I decided to put together my own list of influential technologies for the years 2000-2009. As you read this, please keep in mind the criteria that I used:
- The technologies listed are not in any order
- The technology did not have to be invented after 2000, but had to have reached wide spread adoption or a major turning point after 2000
- I tried to avoid specific products or websites by name, but rather focused on the technology or the trend, rather than a specific implementation
- I am strongly biased by my own personal experiences with the technologies, your experiences with them may be different than mine
Portable Music Players / Digital formats – It is not hard to see the impact of the portable music player on our society, just walk down the street and look at the number of people who have white ear buds in their ear.
While the music player is obvious to see, what is not seen was the companion shift to digital distribution of content and the mind shift that we made with the change. The digital music stores helped the music players to take off (although all indications are that most of the music does not come from online stores).
RSS – Really Simple Syndication is probably the geekiest of all the technologies that I will list it. This is one of the technologies that predates that 2000s, but saw wide adoption in the last decade; if had a blog or a website that published RSS before 2000, you should have a special badge to indicate your early adoption. RSS is probably the third most popular document type on the Internet (behind HTML and CSS). It is the best example of the power of a common data format.
Social Networks – early forms of social networking existed before the year 2000 (Yahoo Groups was one that I used to hang out in back in the day) and the concepts behind social networking even pre-dated the world wide web with people interacting on bulletin boards. But again, it was in the last 10 years (actually 4 or 5) that social networking went from being a niche activity to seeing wide adoption.
The real impact of social networking is just now being felt as the “social” aspect expands from a casual activity that takes place out of work, to applying these principals to activities at work. The overall trend of taking social technologies and applying them to the work place is called the consumerization of IT, and we will see it with a number of the technologies in this list.
Smart Phones - One of the things that the MP3 players mentioned earlier did was get us used to making out computing experience portable and taking it with us. Going back to the 1990s we had Personal Data Assistants and cell phones. It was natural to combine the two into one device and throw in the MP3 players as well.
Broadband - In August of this year Comscore released their latest estimates of broadband penetration in the United States. The national average is now 89% of all Internet Users have some form of fast Internet access. Personally I have had a cable modem for nearly 8 years, but I entered the year 2000 with dial up access.
High speed access at the home was unusual in the 1990s; most people only had high speed access at their work place. Now broadband access is becoming so ubiquitous that the people who develop websites and applications are starting to take it for granted. By itself broadband access is a fantastic improvement, but like many infrastructure technologies, the real power of broadband is as an enabling technology that brings us other things (like streaming media).
Streaming Media – As I am writing this I have the television on in the background showing a movie. The interesting thing is that it is streaming from Netflix in full High Definition quality to my Xbox using my internet connection. There is no special magic about the Xbox; I could just as easily be streaming to my web browser or to any number of devices that support streaming. Nothing special about Netflix either, I can stream from dozens of sites. Contrast this with prior to 2000 when video on the web (when you could get it working) was of low quality.
GPS – the Global Positioning System dates back into the 1970s from a military experimental standpoint and has been operational for civilian use since the 1990s, but this is one of the technologies that really took off in the 2000s. The obvious adoption inside of the car was a first step, but now that many phones come equipped with GPS we are starting to see the real applications of location awareness.
Game Consoles - Game consoles are not new by any stretch of the imagination. As early as 1978 I remember hanging out with my friend Charlie after school every day playing his Atari 2600 for 46 minutes (the time between us getting off the bus and having to turn off the console before his mother got home from work). But the generation of the game consoles that launched with the original XBOX and the PS2 are really a different class of systems. The modern game console is a hub of entertainment, with connections to social networks and streaming video. Certainly games have comes a long way from Space Invaders.
Social Media (Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts) – The last item is less about the technology and more about what it has enabled. A vast reduction in production cost and a huge reduction in the distribution cost have led to the emergence of user generated content. There are some that are saying that user generated content is replacing content from traditional media companies, but I look at the trend as additive; I still watch the evening news, but I have added social media to the mix as well.
I rather enjoyed putting this list together, but I am sure that I have missed a technology or two that is influential and would love to hear about the ones that I missed. I will say that I intentionally left off search as a technology. Search was clearly influential in the 2000s; however I think that it was established by the beginning of 2000.
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The last time I was in New York City I got a fascinating history lesson about the Queensboro Bridge from the cab driver that took me from midtown to LaGuardia Airport. He started off the lesson with a tongue in cheek statement:
It only took them 6 years to build that bridge 100 years ago, but they have spent the last 30 years just painting it.
I am fascinated by stories of complex construction like bridges, stadiums and unique skyscrapers and buildings. So I really loved the cab driver telling me about the bridge and while he did, I got a lesson in the cost of construction vs. maintenance.
Initial construction – expensive and long
The history of the bridge starts long before the construction actually started. Attempts to build a bridge that connects midtown Manhattan to Queens actually started prior to the Civil War. The location of the bridge was ideal to span the East River, because of Roosevelt Island being located in the middle of the waterway.
After many years of private efforts failing the newly formed Department of Bridges of New York City started construction in 1903, after replacing the architect on the project. The construction was plagued with delays, including the collapse of part of the bridge due to a wind storm and a labor unrest that nearly lead to the dynamiting of part of the bridge by upset laborers. The bridge was finally completed in 1909 at the total cost of roughly 18 million dollars and the death of 50 workers during construction.
Maintenance – more expensive and longer
The bridge and its associated rail and tramway systems underwent a number of changes during its history as the street car system was decommissioned and the rail systems were updated to accommodate the growing city.
In 1979 a project was commissioned to perform rehabilitation of the Queensboro Bridge. 30 years, six project phases and an estimated $300 million dollars later they are still working on the bridge. The six different projects did more than just paint the bridge (but a lot of effort was expended on painting the bridge), but all of the changes did not change the fundamental structure of the bridge.
Software projects
I do not mean to belittle the teams working on the rehabilitation of the Queensboro Bridge. I am actually quite impressed at amount of work that they are able to do while keeping the bridge open for business; it is easier to build a bridge than maintain it, because there was no traffic using it when it is being built. I liked the contrasting story of the bridge’s construction and maintenance because it shows something that we deal with every day in the world of software development: It can be more expensive to maintain a code base than it was to develop it.
If you work in software, you know what I am talking about. There are lots of different estimates on the cost of software maintenance, but pretty much everyone agrees that the majority of IT budgets are spent just maintaining the systems that they currently have in house and that for every dollar you spend building or buying software you will certainly spend at least another dollar maintaining it (and I have heard that estimates for maintenance can go to 3 times the initial investment).
To put the Queensboro Bridge in perspective, I used the US Inflation Calculator and figured that the original cost of $18,000,000 in 1909 is about $269,454,545 in 1994 dollars (the midpoint of the 30 years of rehabilitation). Making it a bit of bargain when compared to some software projects.
Notes: The inflation calculator does not go back to 1909, so I used 1913. There are some fascinating photos of the history of the bridge on gallery of http://queensborobridge.org/, brought to you by the Greater Astoria Historical Society and the Roosevelt Island Historical Society.
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