Google Synchronizer

No, I don't mean Google Sync for Firefox. While that is a worthy addition to my browser tools, answering one of my main complaints for years, it's not what this is about. Nor do I mean GDrive, which is described as an on-line drive share

This is much bigger....

If you have tried Google Spreadsheets, you may have shared my experience. I thought "hey, this is great, now those spreadsheets that I access from several computers will be handy all the time, whether or not I have Excel installed"! But on trying it out, I found some issues. Granted, this is an early beta, but I believe the snags will persist unless Google adds a much needed feature - desktop file synchronization.

Here's what goes wrong:
You upload your Excel file to Google Spreadsheets and go about editing it on-line. You make some edits, save them, and access it from another machine. Great you think.
A little later, you go to access the file and find that it's not accessible. Network's down or somesuch. You now panic and return to your local copy which is by now several edits out of date. You curse and re-enter your edits, promising that your local copy will be your "real" copy and that the on-line copies will only be there for convenience. You never update the on-line copies and return to your original method of local-only editing.

How to make it really work:
Google is really close. With GMail, they made a killer app that totally replaced local email programs for me. In order to do the same for Google Spreadsheets, and future apps of this ilk, wha they need to do is make the user experience transparent. We are creatures of habit. If I've been editing an Excel file on one machine for years, chances are, I'm going to keep doing so.

However, I want the convenience of accessing my spreadsheet anywhere. Currently, I must manually upload the spreadsheet any time I make an edit locally and download it back if I edit it on-line. This is a horribly inefficient and dangerous operation, much better suited for an automated system of synchronization.

Enter Google Synchronizer. GSync, as I'll call it, is an OS patch that intercepts file i/o requests and does a very fast check to see if a given file is tagged as having an on-line shadow. If it does, GSync activates a synchronizer program that brings the files into proper sync, allowing local edits. This could be Spreadsheets, word processing documents, money manager files, images, whatever.

Clearly, this is a non-trivial application. It involves numerous file formats, file locking, multiple simultaneous editing, etc. However, it is one of those apps that once people use it, they will wonder how they lived without it.

In order to be successful, it has to be implemeneted so as to have minimal impact on the user experience. File checks cannot add measureable OS overhead. There shouldn't be more than a check in the file header (like the archive, r/o etc. bits).

Likewise, once GSync has determined a file needs to sync, it cannot take forever checking an on-line database. What if your connection is down or bogged? People don't like to wait! As such, the file must load up and display as normal. A background thread can check for on-line version(s) and report to the main app when it can. If no connection is available, it will just warn the user of that fact and choose a course of action. They could "edit anyway", knowing that the file might be newer on-line. Or "view only", if they just wanted to browse the file for some info. Or, "try again", just in case they forgot to activate their connection or there was some moentary glitch.

File synchronization should transfer the minimum amount of information required to get the job done. If a megabyte spreadsheet is modified, chances are, only a limited number of cells were actually edited. GSync would only send a change log to the on-line handler to incorporate the changes. This would also facilitate multi-user editing of the file as it would make synchronization nearly trivial on the server side.

Some files could be considerably more difficult. For example, if you were editing a sync'd image in Photoshop, all the pixels would be changing. However, one could still pass the change log on to the server and have the server make the appropriate changes to the on-line file. The downside is that the server then has to handle the burden of millions of users' data manipulation. There will need to be some arbitration process which will decide whether it makes more sense to just re-upload the modified file or integrate the changes on the server side.

Note in the above example, I used Photoshop as the sample app, not Picasa. The key to GSync's success is to allow people to use their old familiar apps as well as Google supplied apps to edit their files. This requires integration with third party software.

While initially this will be a big problem, third parties will soon learn the power of supporting this functionality. Google produces useful, but limited, applications. Picasa is not going to replace Photoshop for hard core image editors. It's a very useful tool, but limited. Files anywhere is such a powerful feature, that once users get a taste of it, they'll demand it in all their apps. Supporting an open GSync standard will allow interoperability, reduce R&D time, and give vendors a step up on their competition.

GSync is the next evolution of the personal computing phenomenon.

Massive Multiplayer Games Become the New Reality

Increasingly, I've been reading about the merging of the "real world" with online realities. Interestingly, there are people who make a real living designing avatars and homes or trading real-estate. People are also selling rights to simple entertainment systems in these worlds. Not to mention the real, virtual relationships. .

As these online worlds evolve, will they become fully immersive? That is, will people be able to satisfy all their mental/emotional needs in a virtual world? How about paying the bills? Will one be able to get a virtual job that enables them to support this lifestyle? Will the richness of these environments become truly compelling? Will something akin to the Matrix be the new reality?

I can envision a world in which some people live rich lives virtually. Where they go to work by entering a VR and having interactions with co-workers. Much of their social interaction could be achieved likewise. However, I don't see a substitute for physical contact. There's nothing like the sensations of a real, passionate kiss. The feel of your lover's breath or their scent. The caress of fingers on skin.

My prediction is that online worlds will become immersive to the point that one could satisfy virtually all of their non-corporal needs. For many folks, this will be enough, and they will essentially disappear into The Matrix. However, I believe that, while people may initiate and grow relationships in the VR, they will return to the physical world for their more base needs. Check back with me in a decade or two to see where this goes...

'Huge Oil Field Discovered in Mexico'

The BBC recently reported that a huge new oil field was found in Mexico. This deep-water field is believed to contain roughly 10 billion barrels of oil.
Upon reading this, I wondered how this might affect world oil supplies, as this sounded like a great find!

But taken in light of the world oil consumption, currently some 120 million barrels per day, 10 billion barrels really doesn't seem like much. That's a mere 83 days of world consumption. Sure, that's a lot of oil, but in the scheme of things, it won't make any difference.

Two important tidbits can be extracted from this information. First, This is considered a huge oil find, with all the associated hoopla, and yet, by itself, it won't alter predictions for peak-oil. Second, this is a deep-water find, that some think supports the abiotic oil theory.

In a very small nutshell, the abiotic oil theory proposes that oil stores are contained inside the earth and seep up to form the pockets of oil that we've been drilling for the last century. This is in direct contrast to the popular fossil fuel theory that indicates that oil is the product of decayed remains of carbon based lifeforms. The abiotic theory is important because, if true, it could indicate that the quantity of oil in the Earth is vastly greater than that already extracted. I haven't decided for myself whether I buy this theory. The one thing that makes me take it seriously is that Tommy Gold (recently deceased) was a major proponent of this theory. See this Wired article for more info.

More Patent Insanity

Man, how I hate corporate lawyers and the patent office! Have you seen Michael Crichton's article in The Times?

It seems that every week, some insane/inane patent is brought to light. How is it that the patent office ever allowed business process patents? I won't go on to restate Chrichton's article, read it for yourself.

When I had my company, people were often suggesting that we patent our processes and scientific techniques, but I would rebuff those efforts as most of what we did was obvious or had prior art. Sadly, had we tried, we probably could have obtained patents, as did one of our competitors who somehow managed to receive a patent on 3-dimensional reconstruction.

I'm all for companies protecting their novel inventions. But the number of process and software patents granted has grown tremendously. If you start reading some of those patents and can get past the legal mumbo-jumbo, you learn just how inane they are. The Amazon One Click Shopping patent is a classic example.

The problem lies at the core of the patent system. If the patent office had more critical criteria for permitting patents, including peer review, we'd see a precipitous drop in stupid patents. Without that, we're doomed. Technology companies are valued largely on their intellectual property. So it behooves them to amass as large a portfolio of patents as is possible. Additionally, companies have to use patents defensively - patent everything possible in order to avoid being sued by competitors for violating their patents and increase the barriers to entry into their markets. It's a downward death spiral which has led to a sort of patent arms race.

Now, the system is so heavily entrenched, that there's little we can do. There has been a backlash against stupid software patents, and we can only hope that it slows the tide. But I don't have much hope. Businesses simply have too much power.

Every Choice Matters

In each of our lives, there come times when we have to make choices about our place in the world. Do we choose to be an active participant or a passive bystander? Recently, I have found myself in the unpopular position of participant.

By now, most people have been touched by the possibility of an oil shortage. Whether from increasing prices at the gas pump or through reading news stories about “peak oil”, in some way, the rising cost of oil has touched us all. But only a small minority has an appreciation for the implications of an energy crisis in the 21st century.

For me, it hit during the Fall of 2004. Gas and heating oil prices had practically doubled in the preceding year and I was looking into more efficient heating and cooling systems for my home. During the course of my research, I came across information on peak oil – the concept that the world was about to reach a point in time when global oil production was at a maximum.

At first, this might not seem like such a big deal. There’s plenty of oil now, and we’ve been extracting it for many decades, so why should this be a problem? And besides, look at the advances in hybrid vehicles, solar power, and those miraculous fuel cells! In the next fifty years, scientists are sure to come up with a replacement for oil.

Unfortunately, the world consumption of energy increases every year. Strong economies are built on the abundance of energy. And most of our energy comes from oil. Oil to run cars, to make plastic, to provide power for the foundries that produce computer chips. Oil for farm machinery and electricity. Everything we know as progress and economic growth depends on a never ending supply of relatively inexpensive oil.

And what of alternative energies? Perhaps if we did have one hundred years to transition from oil to alternate sources, we could do so smoothly. Unfortunately, the world demand for oil will likely exceed the maximum supply within the next decade. Only with concerted efforts on the part of every person can we hope to pass this critical juncture without severe disruption to our way of life.

Each moment, we make decisions which seem insignificant in and of themselves. When multiplied by six and a half billion people, these same decisions are world changing. Even if one only includes the population of the United States, roughly 300 million people, even the most minute decision can change the world.

For example, in the U.S., we use approximately twenty million barrels of oil per day. That’s 2.8 gallons of oil per person per day. Each of us may think that it doesn’t matter if we use 2 or 3 gallons per day, but when considering the entire population, this seemingly trivial difference amounts to almost three hundred million gallons of oil per day. Think about that.

Each of us holds the key to the future of the world. If only ten or even a thousand of us turn that key, little will happen. But if tens of millions of us take action, the cumulative effort can help us not only survive but thrive in the upcoming decades.

I’ve made a personal choice to consider how each of my daily decisions affects my personal energy consumption. Should I drive a truck or a more efficient vehicle down to the store for a few groceries? Should I install a fluorescent bulb to replace the burned out incandescent? Trivial decisions by themselves, profound ones together.

And then there are the big decisions. I own a couple of rental properties in addition to my own home. Some are heated by oil furnaces. Every year, they burn hundreds, if not thousands of gallons of oil. What if I throw away the furnace and install a more efficient heating system? What if my friends and neighbors did the same? What if everyone did so? Soon one thousand gallons becomes ten thousand then millions of gallons saved every year.

How about my house? This year I spent quite a bit of time and money improving the insulation on my own home and at rental properties. In doing so, I reduced the energy needs of the houses significantly. Will the energy savings pay for the insulation and my time? Maybe not any time soon. Will it save energy? Absolutely.

And how about that renovation project? Replace leaky windows with high efficiency, low-e windows and reduce one of the greatest sources of energy loss in your home by 50%-75%. Again, it may take a while to pay for them, but every improvement made will save irreplaceable energy.

Even better, add passive and active solar heating. Using relatively basic principles, you can drastically reduce your home's heating needs. And if you're building a new home, incredible savings can be achieved through a whole house design that utilizes intelligent building design, low consumption appliances, and solar heating.

Can I change the world by saving a little enrgy today? You bet I can. And so can you!

Magazines and Reference Articles

Home Power Magazine - Magazine devoted to "home-scale renewable energy and sustainable living solutions"
Mother Earth News - Magazine with long history of devotion to alternative energy and low-impact living
National Geographic - The End of Cheap Oil (article)
Newsweek - Crude Awakening (article)

Energy Efficient Building

Energy and Environmental Building Association - Focused on educating professional builders
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy - U.S. Gov. page on efficient building topics
EnergyStar - The U.S. Government EnergyStar Program
OIKOS Green Building Source - Green Building News

SIPS - SIP (Structural Insulate Panels) Association

Efficient Vehicles / Biodiesel for Transportation

Biodiesel - Green-trust.org info on biodiesels with lots of links
Biodiesel.org - "The official site of the national biodiesel board"
Biodiesel 101 - Nice overview and links to biodiesel resources
Biodiesel from Algae - University of New Hampshire site. Give background usage stats and savings possible
Biodiesel from Algae - U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory paper on getting oil from algae
Biodiesel Now - Biodiesel site with extensive discussion group
Green Car Congress - "Technologies, issues and policies for sustainable mobility"
Hybrid Vehicles on the Market - Site listing currently manufactured or planned hybrid gas/electric vehicles
The Diesel Stop - Discussion group for all things diesel. Plenty of biodiesel threads
Union of Concerned Scientists - Biodiesel FAQ - the basics of biodiesel

Government Resources

Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy - Portal - U.S. DOE main portal.
Reducing Home Heating & Cooling Costs - Gov. Document
Insulation Fact Sheet - DOE information on insulation

Home Heating

Furnaces
BioDiesel - Using BioDiesel in a domestic home oil burner
Mother Earth News - Heat Your Home With BioDiesel

Ground Source Heat Pumps
Geothermal Heat Pumps - EERE informational document describing these systems
GeoExchange - Geothermal heat pump consortium - educational site for high efficiency home heating/cooling systems

Peak Oil

ASPO - Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas
Peak oil reference articles - on ASPO website

Solar Energy

Energy Efficient Renewable Energy - Solar - U.S. DOE Resources relating to solar energy
Florida Solar Energy Center - University of Florida Solar Education Site
Windows - Just like it says! Info on windows

United States Energy Information Agency

Overall analysis of current consumption and production

Transportation

BioDiesel - Organization promoting using organically grown sources for fueling your diesel
GreaseCar - Convert your diesel car to run on recycled veggie oil.

Zero Energy Homes

Florida Zero Energy Homes - Homes designed to produce as much energy as they consume

Homes - Homes designed to produce as much energy as they consume