They joy of having an “IT guy” (aka Ross) around is that he willingly expresses his opinion whenever given the chance.  Since he plays around with even more stuff than I do, one of the ways I learn to is listen to him rant and rave about things he’s played with.  A few weeks ago, it was his lousy experience with the iTunes Music Store for video.  That post generated some useful comments – especially around DRM.  Ross fired off another rant – this time a positive one about his experience with CinemaNow – along with a general response to the comments on the previous post.  Again – I’ve lightly edited to fix spelling and grammar, but left the IT guy essence intact.  Ross follows…

First, I’ll respond to some of the comments on why I support DRM. Let me be clear, I support DRM in concept – that concept being that you should be able to purchase something and use it anywhere you want. Your iPod, your smartphone, your TV, your computer, whatever. You should not be able to share that file with anyone else, period. That’s how DRM should work, and if it did work that way no one would really have any reason to complain. However, DRM does not work that way, which is why all current DRM technologies are flawed. Fred Wilson put it well saying that it’s all about “dial tone” – you pay your monthly fee to get your pipe of media and that’s it. The rest should be transparent.

The other comments that stuck with me were about the about the quality of music on iTunes and that while I’m savvy enough to have a serious media room setup that I didn’t know going in that this would suck. On the first point let me clarify that I think the quality of music purchased through iTunes is excellent. It could be better, but it is good enough for my iPod and good enough for most people’s uses. What I mean by good enough is that most consumers will notice zero difference between an iTunes file and a ripped MP3. Most consumers just don’t care and they don’t have the ears that I have (and I was a music major in college so I have pretty tough ears.)  Regarding knowing going in that this would suck – I should have known.  I figured it would, but I fell victim to a sudden bout of optimism and I wanted to go into it without any preconceived notions.

Ok – enough old stuff – let’s get to my point for this week. Yesterday Melanie and I were out of movies. We’d sent back our Netflix movies earlier in the week and were expecting more to show up on Saturday. For the first time Netflix failed us and we had nothing new to watch. Being lazy (c’mon – give me a break – I’m an IT guy) I didn’t want to drive to Blockbuster so this gave me the perfect opportunity to try out CinemaNow to watch a movie. While Melanie was, uh, less than thrilled about this idea (after our iTunes mess) but she agreed to give it a try. I ran to my PC and started setting up a new account.

Setting up a new account was.  Within two minutes I was ready to purchase a movie. We started looking through them and found the first problem, a very limited selection. We eventually settled on Junebug (which was not a comedy despite the claim that it was – but it was very good.) I proceeded to purchase it ($3.99 seemed steep to me) and download it. My home theater is built around a HP z545 Media Center PC connected to my HD projector (720p) and then connected to my high end Onkyo receiver for 7.1 surround sound. This was going to be the real test – could we watch a movie, downloaded over the net on this system, and have it look great?

After purchasing the movie it started to download. After this began I got a count down timer letting me know that the movie would be ready to watch in 30 seconds.  That’s smart – progressive downloading – we weren’t expecting that – so we let it download the entire movie while we got ready.

Ok, so now it’s time to watch. It’s downloaded, I’m ready to go, Melanie’s ready (as are our dogs) so let’s hit play. Guess what – it didn’t play! It needs to download some security update for Windows Media Player. I’m thinking, “damn it, not this again!” 10 seconds later the download is done and it’s starting to play. Not only does it work, but it looks outstanding – very close to DVD quality.  During the entire movie I didn’t see a single compression artifact, the video didn’t skip, and the sound was perfect (but it was NOT Dolby Digital 5.1 – something had to fall short.)

Overall, I was delighted.  CinemaNow has this figured out and knows how to deliver something of real value to the consumer – congrats guys, you’ve won a customer. Now, get the price down or offer an unlimited or capped subscription and I’m 100% there and dropping Netflix. Oh, and add some more movies while you’re at it (studios listen up, this is how consumers will get movies in the future.)

I’ve been on vacation this week from everything remotely work related – including all electronic forms such as email, phone, blog reading, and blogging.  Amy and I take a week once every quarter where I “go dark.” A few people know how to find me if there’s an emergency, but they do their best to protect me from myself.

We were originally planning to go to the Bahamas for a week but I came down with a cold last Thursday.  We punted our trip for a few days and then – after realizing how much we love being in Boulder – decided to stay home for the week, but not tell anyone.  We’ve had an awesome week hanging out, being completely anonymous, enjoying downtown Boulder (we’ve gone into Amy’s office every day to write and think), being together, and reading.

I wasn’t going to surface until tomorrow, but yesterday I read what I believe will easily qualify (at least in my book ranking system) as one of the best books of the year, if not the decade.  I’m not sure what category to put it in – it fits equally nicely in memoir, business, philosophy, and self-help.  The book is Chasing Daylight by Eugene O’Kelly.

Last year, O’Kelly was CEO of KPMG, and going 100 miles an hour when he was suddenly diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer.  He quickly comes to terms with the idea that he has less than 100 days left to live and takes immediate action.  He determines to have the greatest possible existence during those last 100 days, systematically saying goodbye to all the people that have touched his life, trying to have as many “perfect moments” as possible, to live always in the present, and to chronicle the experience of dying as one of his last acts on this planet. 

While the quality of the writing deteriorates as O’Kelly does, the power of the book steadily increases.  I finished it in the waning light of day yesterday, O’Kelly’s favorite time on the golf course and the source of the key metaphor (“chasing daylight”) for the book.  I read it in a room by myself, in total quiet, and found myself completely absorbed for the entirety of the book, which always signals that I’ve found something special.

O’Kelly isn’t perfect, nor does he try to be.  But – he’s intensely real.  The boundedness of this experience comes through in his writing and helps calibrate the experience of life.  The answers (including mine) to the cliched question “what would you do differently if you knew you had 100 days” are usually trite.  O’Kelly addresses it head on and really gives the reader something to think about.

Mortality – which we face every second of every day – is on naked display in this book.  I learned a lot, even though I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my life and what I want to get out of each moment.  When I read the Amazon reviews after I read the book, I was surprised by the bimodal nature of the reviews – they were either 5’s or 1’s.  This was a 5 for me and a book that I recommend every “hard working, accomplishment driven person” read and ponder.

I woke up with a brutal cold yesterday so I spent the day today sleeping, drinking lots of fluids, being pampered by Amy, and reading mental floss.  Fortunately, my good friend Jenny_the_bookstore_owner had sent me the publisher proof for Harlan Coben’s latest book Promise Me.

I love Coben’s books – he’s one of my top five mental floss writers (up there with Stephen Frey and Barry Eisler).  As a special bonus, Coben revived an old character – Myron Bolitar – and his gang of cohorts including Win, Esperanza, and Big Cindy.  Myron is a complex man (and Yoo-hoo lover) – made even more interesting by the six years that have passed since Coben last wrote a book that featured him.  While everyone is a little older, their killer instincts – especially Win’s – are as sharp as always.  Coben’s promise is a page turner – and he delivers.

Dad – Promise Me is in the mail – you’ll have it in a few days. 

My long time friend Jenny Lawton has recently put up a web site for the bookstore – Just Books – that she runs in Old Greenwich, CT.  As part of the site, she has regular book reviews which can be subscribed to via a feed.  They aren’t all by Jenny – she asked if she could put my review up on Max Barry’s hysterical book “Company.”  If you love books, this feed will guarantee that you’ll end up with a bigger stack to read.

Today I decided to read two running books instead of going for a run.  I’ve been struggling with a cold (maybe a low grade flu) and a gout attack for the last week and lost seven days of running.  It’s been a little bit of a drag since I’m in the middle of the training cycle for the 110th Boston Marathon on April 17th, but I’m not too concerned because my base is very deep right now.  So – I figured reading about some big running feats would be good motivation for my 90 minute run tomorrow.

Long Road to Boston is a magnificent novel about a long comeback that a runner has from a near death car accident to being in competition for winning the Boston Marathon (against Bill Rodgers.)  I’ve found only a few great running novels – this one joins The Purple Runner and Once a Runner on my very short list.  Thanks to Matt Fleckenstein of mSpoke for sending this to me.  It was especially enjoyable considering my upcoming marathon.

I then tackled Ten Million Steps: The Incredible Journey of Paul Reese, Who Ran Across America – A Marathon a Day for 124 Days – At Age 73.  The title says it all.  Reese also had been diagnosed with prostate cancer at age 70 – so this was even more remarkable.  He ultimately ran across all 50 states, completing the last one (Hawaii) when he was 80. Paul Reese died in 2004 (at age 87) – he made a huge contribution to the running community.  I’ve read a few other “run across the US” books – they are all enjoyable in a twisted sort of way.

After reading Reese’s story, I decided that 90 minutes was – well – pretty light weight.

I’ve been very busy the past few weeks so I haven’t had much reading time.  I’ve been slowly working my way through Company by Max Barry.  Tonight, after my friends left our condo at Beaver Creek after our Friday night sushi orgy, I laid down on the coach,  near the fire, across from Amy, and finally polished it off.

Company was brilliant.  Imagine a novel about a Dilbert-esque company run amok, with extraordinary character development and a steady build-up to a 24–like plot twist.  I found myself laughing out loud regularly, which is always a good sign (although it means you probably shouldn’t read this book on an airplane.)  The author – Max Barry – claims to have “spent the best years of his life in the bowels of Hewlett-Packard, conducting secret research for this book.”  He did a good job.

I won’t be a plot spoiler here – you’ll have to read this book yourself.  However, Barry’s characters range the gamut from pitiful, to lovable, to hateful with occasional inter-office sex tossed in for good measure.  As with most large companies, donuts, human resources, problems with the network, and the suggestion box play central roles.

As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve been having a lot of fun with Tom Evslin’s blook hackoff.com.  Several weeks ago, I got on a conference call with Tom Evslin, Matt Blumberg, Kelly Evans, Stephanie Miller, and Fred Wilson and recorded a scene in the book.  Tom put it up on the hackoff site today in two segments: here and here.

I played Joseph Windaw of Windaw and Wallar Venture Capital, a very white shoe VC who has a lifetime pass to the Harvard Club.  As a jewish kid with a couple of degrees from MIT that wears sneakers, it was a tough role for me but Tom said I pulled it off fine.  The balance of the cast is described in detail on Tom’s post about the recording.

The production quality was surprisingly good considering we did it over Skype and cell phones.  I’ve suggested that we all hunker down for a three day weekend in New York and crank out the entire book in a real recording studio.

I’ve been an unabashed supporter of Tom Evslin’s blook (online book) hackoff.com – An Historic Murdery Mystery Set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble.  I’ve been reading it over the past few months as each episode (somewhere between 1/3rd and 1/8th of a chapter is published.)  Each morning, one of the first things I read in FeedDemon is the latest episode, often with a smile on my face.

As a result, I’ve gotten to know Tom’s publisher Kelly Evans at dotHill Press.  She recently invited me to participate in an online book tour that she is doing by interviewing one of the writers on the tour.  I read through the list and decided to interview Mark Leslie – who is a blogger in addition to being a writer – about the blook he is currently working on called “I, Death” – A Serial Thriller In Blog Format.  The questions are mine, the answers are Mark’s.

1. What inspired you to write “I, Death”

That’s a tricky question to answer, because the inspiration was part of a domino effect. Almost a year ago I looking at some writing market guidelines and this one set of requirements a publisher was looking for seemed to closely match a story I’d written when I was back in University. That tale was the sequel to the original version of “I, Death” which was a 2000 word short that I’d penned back in high school.

When I went to rewrite the sequel (because it did need a lot of work before it would be ready to be submitted to a publisher), I needed to look back to the original prequel for a detail — I think it was something as simple as a character name. The original story was the 2000 word journal entry of a frustrated teenager. I think I was originally inspired for the format by Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” which was done as a series of journal entries. The title was because I liked the title for Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot” so much that I wanted to pay homage to it.

However, once I started looking at the old story, I couldn’t help but realize how much more it could have been than a quick and hard tale about teen angst and death. I considered re-writing “I, Death” and fleshing out some more of the character who had lived in my mind and heart for almost two decades.

2. Why are you writing it as a Blook?

When I started approaching the re-write of the original “I, Death” storyline, I considered modernizing it. I mean, the original was written in the mid 80’s and was the writing of a teenager in a physical journal. I imagined that if this teenager were wanting to tell his tale or write his journal entry today, it would be on some sort of an online journal.

I had started a blog back in March of 2005 and was using that as a daily warm-up exercise to get the “blood flowing” so to speak before tackling my real writing. I thus started to conceptualize the re-written tale into a format that would look like a series of blog entries.

I wasn’t very long into the re-writing of the format when the idea struck me — what if I wrote, and posted it “live” as if the writer was a real person blogging about his troubles. It would be not much different than thousands of real blogs out there, except the writer would be a fictitious character. It would be like an internet version of the old “War of the Worlds” radio play by Orson Welles.

I did a bit of research to see if there was anything else out there like it. While I’d found several serialized books being rolled out on blogs, I hadn’t yet seen anything done in this particular manner. I’m not saying that this is the only story being done like this, but in my travels I hadn’t been able to find anything like it, so thought I’d give it a shot.

3. Have you written other books? Blooks?

Two of the books that I have written will never see the light of day from the bottom of my writing drawer, and I’m fine with that. I have fond memories of working on them, but I recognize them for what they were — sophomore attempts, good for learning the trials and struggles of writing a book, but not efforts that are worthy of being shared.

In October of 2004, my book One Hand Screaming was published. It was a compilation of some of the best horror and darker pieces that I have written and had published in small press magazines for the past 15 years or so. I went with a publisher that used a “print on demand” technology, so while I recognized that the distribution into actual book stores would be limited, I was satisfied with having some of my work that had gone out of print readily available via online book retailers for those who really wanted to read my short fiction.

I’m currently shopping around my contemporary fiction novel Morning Son. I’m about half-way through writing a science fiction thriller, a novel about a werewolf, a children’s story book and a book of short plays for teaching drama to young students. I’m also the series editor for the North of Infinity science fiction anthology series by Mosaic Press (NOI 2 is due out in the new couple of months, and I’m still in the selection process for NOI 3)

I enjoy diversity in my writing projects if you can’t tell by that list.

4. How long do you think “I, Death” is going to be (e.g. is it planned out in advance, or ad hoc)?

I really like the fact that you asked this question, because I don’t truly know the answer.

That’s because “I, Death” is a combination of pre-written and improv or ad hoc writing. That’s the beauty, I think to using my character, Peter O’Mallick, as if he were a real person writing a real blog. People who read blogs often comment on them, and sometimes, comments can have an effect on what a person writes about.

Remember, the story is being told “live” so when the blog entry is posted at say 11:19 PM, I’m out there, writing the post as Peter and publishing the entry pretty much at that time.

Thus, while I already do know for sure how the story is going to end and while I have already written many of the specific plot details and storyline twists, I’m still finding myself making last second decisions to insert new elements or plot details or even twists at the point of each post.

For example, even though I do have a file in which I have some “planned” posts for specific dates and times, I’ve already diverted some items since I’ve started, modified some others, and still re-vamped entire sequences.

Readers, as well, have had an effect on Peter’s mood during certain posts and some of the subject matters that he has approached.

That, to me, makes the project more dynamic and more exciting. Back in my theatre days, I always enjoyed improv. This is like the best of both worlds. I can be self-contained in my little secluded writing world, but I can also be on stage playing the role of Peter; and the readers are helping make him three-dimensional. I’m also discovering more about Peter’s character than I’d ever originally imagined. This process itself has been excellent for that.

I guess that while I’d originally planned for this story to last maybe 3 or 4 months, I think that the readers and their interactions, and some ideas that have occurred to me along the way, have me thinking that the story might end up being a 6 month project in total.

5. What do you consider “success” for this experience?

I think I would measure success based upon three elements. One, people are reading the tale; two, those readers are enjoying the experience and three, they hopefully remember my name and keep an eye out for my writing in the future.

Therefore, even though I only launched this on January 18, 2006, to me, the experience has already been extremely successful.

The feedback I’ve received from readers has been overwhelming, and unlike any feedback I’d ever experienced as a writer before. For one, there have been many times where a reader has left a comment on the “I, Death” blog telling me the writer how much they enjoyed that particular scene or installment, or how much the character seems so real and alive. But I am moderating comments for this blog and only letting through the ones that maintain the fiction that Peter is a real person. For the others, I’m trying to let the commenter know why I didn’t publish their comments.

For that, I’ve created a “Deathreaders” forum and map at https://www.frappr.com/deathreaders. A small number of the regular readers have joined and participated there (I always think it’s an interesting concept when you can look at a map and how a group of people from various places have been linked together), but I’ve also received feedback directly by email as well as comments about my writing and this project which I’ve seen on other sites and blogs.

So, to me, it has already been successful. Anything else that happens, that’s just gravy.

In the meantime, I’m having a blast with this whole process.

Just Say No To Microsoft is a mandatory read if you fall into one of the following three categories:

  1. Someone who wants to switch from Microsoft-based software to something else.
  2. Someone who creates software that competes with Microsoft products.
  3. Every single Microsoft employee.

As you might expect, there’s plenty of snarky stuff in a book with a title of Just Say No To Microsoft.  However, it’s extremely well organized, technically deep while being accessible to mainstream computer users, and often very entertaining. 

I’m a long time Microsoft fan and supporter (many of the companies I’ve been involved in over the years – including my very first one – have benefited greatly from their relationship with Microsoft.)  I’ve also funded and been involved in numerous companies that either compete with Microsoft or have a distinct anti-Microsoft approach to the world.  I use a bunch of Windows-based PC’s (and a nifty new Xbox 360 on my desk at my office), but I also have a very nice Mac on my desk at home that I play around with.  I’ve never been much into religion (in this case, pro-Microsoft vs. anti-Microsoft), so I stay away from being aggressive about it, but try hard to understand all aspects of it. 

For the categories above, I recommend this book for different reasons:

  1. Microsoft Switchers: Quit talking about it – this book will help you figure out how to do it.
  2. Microsoft Competitors: This book will help you understand Microsoft’s weaknesses more clearly.
  3. Microsoft Employees: You want to know your weaknesses so you can do a better job, don’t you?

Today was a two book day.  Both were very good.  I’m pleasantly surprised.  I’ve had enough intellectual stimulation for the day – I’m going to go upstairs, lay on the couch, and watch The Running Man with Amy.