The Future of Cable-TV

There's a bit of a discussion going on between Mark Cuban and Avner Ronen. It started with someone writing an article about boxee, the company that Avner heads.

Mark seemed to take exception to the article, and posted, "Why Do Internet People Think Content People Are Stupid?" Avner then followed up on his blog.

I've been thinking about Cable and Broadcast TV for a while. I find myself agreeing with Avner, that the Internet will allow customers to have a la carte access to shows and channels.

First off, why would this happen? We only need to look at PVRs to see where it is going. PVRs are changing the relationship between broadcast networks, content creators and viewers. Currently, a PVR changes how a viewer makes use of the TV network. They can watch any show they are interested in, regardless of when it was broadcast, or even if they know it is being broadcast. People with PVRs timeshift TV shows, frequently watching a show up to a week after broadcast. This change in viewing habits is showing up in the TV show's ratings, with some shows seeing a drop of up over 30% viewership as their viewers record it for later viewing.

What happens when the majority of your customers have PVRs? They no longer watch "whatever is on". They will watch the shows that they want to watch, when they want to watch them. The broadcast schedule becomes less important. In fact, it doesn't matter when the show is broadcast anymore. Your viewers will automatically follow the show through scheduling changes.

Some consultants say that people will still want to watch the show during the broadcast slot so that they can talk about it the next day at work. That is true, there is some pressure to watch a show as it comes out, but it doesn't need to be watched immediately. It can be watched just as easily +1,+2,+6 hours later. The person could even elect to watch the show the next morning over coffee or on the way to work on the train.

So, if the timeslot doesn't matter, what does that do to a broadcast network? Frankly, it turns them into two things. First and foremost, they are aggregators. They decide what it is that you are going to watch. Second, they are a very efficient one to many data network. Because of their sunk costs in the form of spectrum and transmitters they are able to deliver content to homes across the world cheaply.

Now, remember, in the world of the PVR, it doesn't matter when a show is broadcast - it'll be found and recorded. This lowers the value represented by prime-time slots. Everyone is watching TV at that time, but it isn't needed to show them pre-recorded content. It also increases the value of the 2-6AM slots. The time when a broadcaster would usually send out a test-signal or infomercials are now perfectly positioned to show syndicated content.

Remember, it's all about feeding the PVR. You want to fill their viewing hours with _your_ content, not the other guy's.

So, we're not in a world where insanely popular shows are broadcast to people's PVRs at 2AM on a Monday morning. Just in case you think this is crazy, this is exactly how bittorrent works with background downloaders like TED (torrent episode downloader). TV shows show up on the pirate networks in the middle of the night, and are available for watching on your local PVR a couple of hours later.

So, now that they're feeding your PVR, what happens next? Aggregation. The networks provide aggregation and editing services. They are tastemakers. The only problem? They demonstrate this taste through their line-up and schedule. As I've already shown, the schedule is unimportant - people use PVRs. That leaves only the line-up. Those "up-next" teasers for the next show? Of little value - the viewer can't watch the next show! So, the line-up also becomes unimportant. There is no way to package shows to make viewers more "sticky". They will choose shows from networks a la carte. Again, we can already see this behaviour - both on PVRs, and bittorrent. There are also better "tastemakers" than networks. They're called bloggers. There are a lot more of them, they are the reviewers of the Internet age. Even better, they are perceived as more trustworthy, because they don't review things for a living. True "tastemaking".

In the world of the PVR, syndication is dead. In the world of 500 channels, how many versions of CBS do you need? How many times a day do you need to watch the same episode of "The Simpsons"? If your viewers have a PVR, the answer is you only need 1 instance. All those cable networks that are syndicating your shows to fill in their schedules? If you put those shows on your own network, with your own ads, you can have that revenue too.

So, the value of syndication has just collapsed. There's only room for one copy of each episode per week (perhaps even per year). All that revenue broadcasters get from cable companies for retransmitting their channels? Gone - the cable company only needs one, and they'll take the local one - they can frequently get that for free.

Let's recap. We've killed the schedule, aggregation and syndication. We have just turned a local TV broadcaster into a broadband pipe that specialises in delivery of video and audio content supported by local advertising.

Does that sound familiar? It should. It's an ISP running a rewriting HTTP proxy, that inserts advertisements into pages that its customers view.

At that point, the model shifts. Content producers sell their own advertisements and purchase time on the broadcast networks. This is how I see it proceeding:

1. Content producers sell their own advertisements.
2. They put their back catalog up on the Internet at VoD.
3. They make the content available on a P2P network.
4. In markets where they have significant penetration, they purchase time from the local broadcasters, and feed that information to their customers.

Now that would be an interesting synergy. You watch a show on Hulu through Boxee. When you are finished, up pops a dialog box "Would you like to schedule this show for recording in your area?". If you select yes, it instructs your local PVR to record that show the next time it comes around.

All of a sudden, there is a continuous flow between Internet VoD, P2P and OTA (or cable) broadcast. Each with their own strengths.

That'll be cool.

New Zealand S92A

Just to make sure that my stance isn't lost now that the blackout's been lifted.

I would like to see several changes to the TCF, including the right to see the evidence of your accusers.

Holy Cow

Wow, the price plans are changing. Even the prepaid plans are getting into the whole "flat rate" thing. I love the idea of a plan where if you don't use the phone, you aren't charged for the plan. The addition of unlimited on-net calling? Perfect.

Verizon prepaid pricing changes coming February 11th

(from Engadget Mobile)

Risk Management, are you getting your money's worth?

For the first time in the better part of a decade, I'm tech lead on a new project for my current employer. For the intervening years I've been working for other employers, other projects.... I wasn't slacking, honest!

Anyways, it gives me a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast the organization of 10 years ago with today.

Holy Cow! It takes them way to long to start up a project. They spend too long deciding what to do, and not enough time actually doing it. Of course, this is all in the name of "risk mitigation".

I'm finding it both extremely frustrating and hilarious. It makes me want to throw things. The company is going to spend well over 30k to make sure that the 150k they spend on the project is a success. Even before writing the SRS. They are going to spend 30k writing a Product Concept Document, Project Definition Workshops, Project Initiation Gate Meeting, and a Product Scoping Document with estimates. I'm even willing to bet that I am underestimating how much they've spent on this.

The funny thing? All that work will be thrown out as soon as the SRS is written.

The next shock was the testing cost. For every day of development, there is a day of testing, more risk mitigation. Then there's another day added for "overhead". So, that small 100 day project? It's actually 300 days.

So, I looked at it from a math point of view. First the project budget:

1. Pre-SRS work - 45k
2. SRS - 45k
3. Development effort - 100k
4. Testing effort - 100k
5. Management overhead - 100k

Total Project cost: 390k
Risk of complete failure: 10%

Even worse, the calendar time and effort are unrelated. The calendar time for steps 1+2, 3, 4 are all the same.

Now, let's have a look at a riskier way of doing it:

1. Pre-SRS work - 15k
2. SRS - 7k
3. Development effort - 75k
4. Testing effort - 50k
5. Management overhead - 50k

Total Project cost: 197k
Risk of complete failure: 50%

We've gotten rid of all of the risk mitigation. Not only that, we've shrunk the time in steps 1+2 by 75%! That's a huge time to market win.

Let's see if the risk reward makes sense.

The cost of a failure is 50% (odds of failure) * the cost of the project:

  Risky Way: 197k * 0.5 = 95k
  Safe Way: 390k * 0.1 = 39k

Therefore, the amortized cost of a project using the:

  Risky Way: 197k + 95k = 292k
  Safe Way:  390k + 39k = 429k

What failure rate would be needed to justify the extra cost? 70%? 80%? 90%? To justify the extra money spent (assuming 0% the safe way), the failure rate would have to be:

390k - 197k
----------- = 97%
   197k

Failure is the cost of total failure, as in the project has to be thrown away and started over.

Add in the time to market benefits (on the order of 30% for these assumptions), and it starts to look pretty convincing.

Everyone wonders why so many businesses are CMM level 0/1. Have you considered that they might actually be right?

Prepaid is Dead, redux.

I just saw this in the news today:

Boost sees $50 unlimited plan battling Leap, Metro

Unlimited calling and texting for US$50/month. It's a race to the bottom with all-you-can-eat plans.

If you're charging per minute, per sms, per byte, the question is "why?". Save yourself a lot of money and quit billing for the core service! That Intec Billing Engine you're thinking of buying? Get rid of it, or use it for something other than charging for calls.

Adding value?

Ask yourself, "Can I be replaced with a shell script?" Specifically:

 % yes 'No'

Then ask yourself, "What value am I adding?"

Google Chrome, a Contrarian View.

I read the comic about Google Chrome. I love the architecture! We downloaded it here in the office, and sure enough - it forks a new process for every page load. This is the browser architecture that I've been waiting years for, one where a script on one page won't kill performance in another window.

So, I went home and tried it on my single core Athlon at home. Ouch! The performance is terrible. The browser keeps locking up, it stops responding to mouse clicks, keypresses, anything and everything. It acts like alpha quality software, not the "beta" it is supposed to be.

I've got a 2 year old system (Athlon64 3800+), the only difference between it and new ones is that it is single core. It's still fast enough to play new games on, but it can't handle Google Chrome.

I can only assume that Google Chrome has a tendency to starve some of their child processes on single core machines.

In the meantime, I'll stick with Firefox 3. It leaves Google Chrome in the dust.

Duck Typing Sucks.

I'm working with some code that's written in Python, and makes extensive use of duck typing. In duck typing the premise is that if it quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

Of course, if you've got code that doesn't tell you what it expects to receive, you can't hope to figure out what the type should be.

For example, let's say you've got 3 code blocks:

class A:
    def funkyDuck():
        # random cool stuff

class B:
    def funkyDuck():
        # entirely different cool stuff

class C:
    def funkyDuck():
        # a third entirely cool thing

Now, imagine you're looking at code that goes:

some_random_object.funkyDuck()

Which one gets called? By the way, they're all in different files, so the only way to find them is with "grep". Added bonus, the undocumented hash!

    def addApplications(self, appDict):
        """ Add some application modules to the defaults.
            All binaries and libraries in any of the source dirs will be soft linked
            to a directory with the name of the product.
            @type  appDict: dict of string -> (list, string)
            @param appDict: The source dirs and OS user name for each product
        """

Guess I'm supposed to guess what appDict actually looks like.

Hrm. Perhaps my problem isn't with duck typing itself, but it's use here.

Hint: When your test framework is just as complicated as the program under test, you're doing something very, very wrong.

One in a Million

I remember discussing multi-threaded programming with a senior engineer the better part of a decade ago. I was reacting rather strongly to his cavalier attitude towards multi-threaded code, deadlocks and race conditions.

"That is such a small hole, it's one in a million that it will happen."

At the time, we were a small company, and I was a young engineer. One in a million, that doesn't sound that big. Of course, one in a million happens more frequently than you would expect. It didn't take very long for our systems to be processing a million transactions a day, and then millions per hour. Every time the holes had to get smaller and smaller.

They still have a fault in there where the entire system crashes when the system goes completely idle for a couple of minutes. It doesn't happen all the time, it's a "one in about 20 million", but it only has to happen once. So, it crashed about once a week. That one took forever to track down. Still haven't been able to fix it entirely, but they know that it's there, and the hole is smaller, probably "1 in a couple billion" now, below the rate that it's restarted for maintenance. Fixed, for now.

It's interesting see that the DNS engineers are learning the same lesson. Compute power has now shifted in favour of the attackers. As we saw with Captcha, it doesn't matter that you only get through rarely - you only have to get through once in a while. Even just guessing a DNS TXID (2^16), you've got a 1 in a 65536 chance of guessing the right answer.

In pure mathematical terms, the likelihood of getting the TXID wrong 400,000 times in a row is 0.2%. In other words, pretty certain.

(1-(1/2^16)))^400000)

Let's look at the 50/50 point, where the likelihood of seeing X number of failures is 0.5.

That turns out to be somewhere around 45000 attempts, simple for loop range. Since I am spoofing packets, I don't care about a response, even better, filling up the pipe will expand the race situation, giving me a larger chance to get through.

Still, it sounds like the attacker has to also be requesting lookups to poison the server. Let's say they take 2ms each, and they're being nice by only doing them one at a time. Even using the large 400k count, it will take at most 15 minutes of concerted effort to poison the cache. The 50/50 point? One minute, 20 seconds.

Look out for those one in a million situations, they happen more often than you'd like.

Naming Documents

I thought we killed off Hungarian Notation because it doesn't work? Did I miss a memo somewhere? It seems that Hungarian Notation is making a comeback, this time in document names.

There's nothing like having your meta data encoded in the file name, with three letter acronyms for everything. It is impossible to decode, and becomes really fun when the team names change once a year!

"Say where's the SRS?" "Is it in SRS.doc?" "Nope" "How about esgEng_SIT_DR4_SRS.doc?" "Nope" "Oh, wait, Engineering was renamed last year for 6 months.... How about esg_PEN_SIT_DR3_SRS.doc?" "Ah, that's got it."

Encoding meta data in the filename is stupid. How about putting it in the file in the meta data portion where it belongs, and then using a search tool to search it? Or, maybe a directory structure that represents your tag tree.

esgEng/SIT/DR4/SRS.doc

Then, when you need to change the meta data, you rename the tree:

esg/PEN/SIT/DR3/SRS.doc

But Jason, I need to know who produced the document without opening it!

Use the checksum, and search/store that. Anything else can be mistakenly altered or lost. Use the file's checksum. It is a much more reliable descriptor of the file than the filename! I have learned from experience to, never, ever trust a filename, they lie.

Or better yet, you buy a document repository off the shelf for 100k, and shove the problem at them. Personally, I just use the Google Search Appliance. Now that they've got it looking at the correct bits of data, it's very useful. Much better than any of the searches built into the various corporate portals.

Getting Starcraft working on OSX

I've started playing Starcraft again after ages away, but I found that my brand spanking new MacBook Pro wouldn't work!

The new versions of OSX have an updated video driver which does not support 256 colour modes. This means that Starcraft, Diablo II, or basically any older game will no longer work. Not good when the applications were still sold by Apple as OSX compatible games (they've since been removed).

I have now figured out a simple (albeit more expensive - US$79.99 + Windows license) way to solve the problem. I decided to run the game under VMWare Fusion.

However there were two problems with this. First, when running in full screen mode, the display doesn't stretch to fill the screen. So on my laptop, I end up with a postage stamp display right in the middle of the screen. Second, the mouse is not restricted to that little postage stamp, it moves freely all the way around the display. When attempting to scroll the display in the game, you move the mouse to the edge, since the mouse will leave the bounds, the game doesn't scroll very well.

The first was fixed with a quick google.

In the file "Preferences/VMWare Fusion/preferences" add

    pref.autoFitFullScreen = "fitHostToGuest"

This will stretch the display. If you have a widescreen display, you will still have black bars on the left and the right, but we're making progress.

Now to mouse capture. There doesn't appear to be an option to prevent the mouse from being taken back by the host OS, so I took a more drastic approach. I uninstalled VMWare Tools. This requires a reboot of the VM, but when you are done, you will no longer be able to move the mouse outside of the VM!

To get back to the host OS, press CTRL-CMD. To re-install VMWare Toole, select "Install VMWare Tools" under "Virtual Machine"

You should now be able to play Diablo II and Starcraft in all their 256 colour beauty.

Now, if I can only control my nerves enough to work my trackball....

Keeping Efficiency Gains

Air Canada has implemented self check-in at Pearson Airport in Toronto. For all flights, you no longer go to an attendant to obtain you boarding pass, you enter all the required data into a computer, and then check your bags.

This was supposedly done for efficiency reasons. However, most of the efficiencies in the system have been lost. Amazingly, when you get to the front of the second line (to check in your bags), the check in clerk does exactly the same amount of work as before. The first thing they do is verify all of the details that you provided the computer!

Let's go over that again. After having provided my information to a computer, I have to provide it a second time to a human who verifies the first data. The time taken for verification was exactly the same as it would have taken for them to key it in in the first time. Instantly, you have a net loss of efficiency. Even worse, they only have a single set of scales for each pair of desks. That means that there is substantial dead time while you wait for the person at the desk next to you to finish weighing their bags. More lost efficiency.

I can see how it happened. Someone checked in to the wrong flight, or their bags went to the wrong place. Perhaps they got to US customs (you go through US customs in Canada when flying to the US), and didn't have the correct forms or all their data provided, and were sent back, maybe they even missed a flight.

So, the check-in clerks, who are also looking to protect their jobs, add in the task of checking customer provided data.

However, they don't check the data of people who don't have checked baggage, they go straight through to customs. This shows the stupidity of the additional check. Is Air Canada saying that people with checked luggage are more likely to enter incorrect data? I doubt it.

If you make efficiency gains in your organisation, make sure you protect them. Guard them jealously. If you don't, you will see them frittered away.

The Truth about Vacations.

This invariably happens to me. I go on vacation, and then the server goes down. It doesn't go down during the year. It's had an uptime of over a year! However, it's down and stayed down. So, if you've been trying to email me, I apologize, it won't get through. The same goes if you're wondering where blog.jason.pollock.ca went to, or why I'm not on jabber anymore. I'm trying to get it going again, but email will probably be down until I get back home. The eBook Repositories will definitely not be updating, so the Baen Books will slowly rot.

Installer.app and chmod/chown

How is it that I would go about chmodding the directories created by CopyPath?

It seems that if the .zip contains the permissions already, they are maintained when used by CopyPath.

In other words, if you have:

foo/bar

in your .zip, and do a CopyPath("foo", "~/foo") in the XML document, the permissions are set up correctly. At least I haven't had any problems if my installer looks like that.

However, if you create implicitly create directories by using CopyPath on the individual files, they are created without permissions, and a chmod/chown is needed. For example, CopyPath("foo/bar", "nuts/baz/bar") will create "nuts/baz", with no permissions.

I have to do this with the Gutenberg SciFi and Baen Books libraries, since I don't host the .zips themselves.

To manage the chmod/chown problem, the packages ensure that the BSD subsystem is installed (or Cydia), and then runs them as part of the install steps.

Here is an example:

      <key>preflight</key>
      <array>
        <array>
          <string>IfNot</string>
          <array>
              <array>
                <string>InstalledPackage</string>
                <string>com.natetrue.iphone.iphone_binkit</string>
              </array>
          </array>
          <array>
              <array>
                <string>AbortOperation</string>
                <string>You must install the "BSD Subsystem" package from Installer first!  It's in the System Category.</string>
              </array>
          </array>
        </array>
      </array>

Which checks for the BSD subsystem as part of the pre-install. If the BSD subsystem is not installed, the user gets a pop-up error message and the package will not install.

And then the install

      <key>install</key>
      <array>
        <array>
          <string>CopyPath</string>
          <string>1013.txt</string>
          <string>~/Media/EBooks/The_First_Men_in_the_Moon/1013.txt</string>
        </array>
        <array>
          <string>If</string>
          <array>
              <array>
                <string>FirmwareVersionIs</string>
                <array>
                  <string>1.1.3</string>
                  <string>1.1.4</string>
                </array>
              </array>
          </array>
          <array>
              <array>
                <string>SetStatus</string>
                <string>Changing Permissions</string>
              </array>                              
              <array>
                <string>Exec</string>
                <string>/bin/chmod -R 755 /var/mobile/Media/EBooks</string>
              </array>
              <array>
                <string>Exec</string>
                <string>/usr/bin/chown -R mobile /var/mobile/Media/EBooks/.</string>
              </array>
              <array>                 
                <string>SetStatus</string>
                <string>Running GutenMark</string>
              </array>
              <array>
                <string>Exec</string>
                <string>/usr/bin/GutenMark --profile=en --no-toc --config=/etc/GutenMark.cfg /var/mobile/Media/EBooks/The_First_Men_in_the_Moon/1013.txt /var/mobile/Media/EBooks/The_First_Men_in_the_Moon/1013-h.htm</string>
              </array>
              <array>
                <string>SetStatus</string>
                <string>Running GutenSplit</string>
              </array>
              <array>
                <string>Exec</string>
                <string>/usr/bin/GutenSplit --no-toc /var/mobile/Media/EBooks/The_First_Men_in_the_Moon/1013-h.htm /var/mobile/Media/EBooks/The_First_Men_in_the_Moon/Chapter_</string>
              </array>
          </array>
        </array>

That's not the full install segment, but it should give you an idea. I have to separate 1.1.3/4 from earlier firmwares because they use different users and store files differently.

To help, I've created a little perl library that allows me to write packages without having to mess with the nasty XML. It's part of the iphoneebookrepo project over at google code. Specifically PlistMaker.pm.

In terms of the perl library, it ends up looking like this:

my $gutenberg_html_install =
 p_if(IsFirmwareVersion("1.1.3", "1.1.4"),
      SetStatus("Changing Permissions").
      Exec("/bin/chmod -R 755 /var/mobile/Media/EBooks").
      Exec("/usr/bin/chown -R mobile /var/mobile/Media/EBooks/.").
      SetStatus("Running GutenSplit").
      Exec("/usr/bin/GutenSplit -1 -2 -3 -4 --no-toc --no-skip /var/mobile/Media/EBooks/$BookDir/${BookNumber}-h.htm /var/mobile/Media/EBooks/$BookDir/Chapter_")
 ).
 p_if(IsFirmwareVersion("1.0.0", "1.0.1", "1.0.2", "1.1.1", "1.1.2" ),
      SetStatus("Changing Permissions").
      Exec("/bin/chmod -R 755 /var/root/Media/EBooks") .
      SetStatus("Running GutenSplit").
      Exec("/usr/bin/GutenSplit -1 -2 -3 -4 --no-toc --no-skip /var/root/Media/EBooks/$BookDir/${BookNumber}-h.htm /var/root/Media/EBooks/$BookDir/Chapter_")
 );

my %BookDescriptor = (
 bundleIdentifier => "ca.pollock.gutenberg.$BookNumber",
 name => $BookTitle,
 version => "1.0",
 location => $BookURL,
 category => "Gutenberg SciFi (" .$BookLang . ")",
 size => $BookSize,
 hash => $BookMD5,
 url => "http://jason-pollock.blogspot.com/",
 maintainer => "Jason Pollock",
 contact => 'jason@pollock.ca',
 description => "by $BookAuthor",
 install => $Book_install,
 preflight => $Book_preflight,
 postflight => "" ,
 uninstall => $Book_uninstall,
 update => ""
 );

my $BookPLIST = CreatePackage(%BookDescriptor);

One "Gotcha" to be aware of... The Exec command is actually performing it's own parameter splitting prior to calling "Exec". It does not do any sort of "~" expansion, nor does it understand spaces. So, if you are doing a chmod on a directory with spaces in the name, it won't work, regardless of escapes or quotes.

The iPhone Gutenberg Science Fiction eBook Repository!

Yes, I managed to finish it. I've managed to convince Project Gutenberg books to install onto the iPhone.

To make use of the repository:

1. Obtain an iPhone.
2. Jailbreak the iPhone, I recommend ziphone for this task.
3. Install Books, the iPhone ebook reader using the Installer application (1.4+ only!)
4. Add the repository to Installer:
1. Start Installer
2. Click "Sources"
3. Click "Edit"
4. Click "Add"
5. Enter "http://library.pollock.ca/gutenberg_scifi"
6. Click "OK"
7. Click "Done"
8. Click "Refresh"
5. Select "Install" at the bottom of the screen. You will see "Gutenberg SciFi" is now available as an application category!
6. Before you can install a book, you will need to install GutenMark, it is under Utilities. I am using it to format the files on your phone to save me bandwidth.

There are currently 163 books in the library, in English and French. The list of books I used is from Gutenberg's SciFi CD collection. Since I can convert any Gutenberg book at this point, if there is a favourite you are looking for, please let me know.

The installation software has a preference for the HTML version of the book if it exists, however it will use the TXT version and pass it through GutenMark if it doesn't. Both versions will be split into chapters using the very handy GutenSplit.

VoIP and 911

I see that another infant has died because a VoIP call wasn't properly routed to a 911 operator. Situations like this caused some very extreme results for US VoIP carriers - Vonage wasn't allowed to accept new customers for a couple of months until they sorted it out!

Every time I see one of these stories, I try to come up with a solution. Here's what I would do for this problem.

There are a couple of problems in the current solution that need to be solved. First, the call was routed based on the customer's billing data. That isn't accurate in the VoIP world. It's not even accurate in the fixed line world! Many people have phones that are billed to PO boxes or businesses that are not the physical location of the line. Second, E911 has the ability to locate an individual caller. Without that, if the call is disconnected, or the caller cannot speak, the 911 operator has no way of determining where the person needing help is.

First, the easy one. Routing based on billing data. This is pretty easy, DON'T DO IT!

We need to find some reasonably accurate geolocation data in a VoIP call. Thankfully, it's right there. The source IP address. Home VoIP will be at the end of either a cable or DSL modem. Either is a physical port. With a static IP address, it's well defined where they are. Even with a dynamic address, the address range is still geographically limited. Definitely accurate enough to select a 911 call center.

We can make use of commercial IP address geolocation databases to route to the nearest 911 operator. There are existing commercial databases that provide just this information. However, the data may be inaccurate. So, you add the data to the call. You now have a call with location data of the call and the billing data. If they disagree, you route based on the IP address and inform the call center to verify the region information.

Perhaps it's too simple a solution. VoIP telephony people (and most Internet people) view the Internet as a cloud, they don't trust IP addresses to identify locations (Telephony people have the opposite problem, they put too much trust in the phone number.)

However, society has started using IP addresses as not only identification of location, but of a specific user too. For an example, have a look at the RIAA lawsuits in the US. The IP address is sufficient to sue an individual for copyright infringement. It is used to identify not only the location the connection is made from, but to make a reasonable assertion to the identity of the individual!

So, current commercial IP address geolocation products have the information we need to properly route 911 calls to the local call center.

How do we get E911 levels of location accuracy? To do that, we need the help of the ISPs.

Remember, everyone is connecting through DSL or cable, or some other fixed-line connection. We will deal with mobile later. That means that the ISP has a mapping between the IP address and the physical port (at least for DSL, cable too probably). However, gaining access to this data will require government regulation and probably some money changing hands (carriers bill for 911 services).

If this database is also made available to the 911 operator, then we have a complete system, a database that maps an IP address to a call center, and then on from the IP address to the physical location. There is probably even a standard that we can use, since E911 services for mobile phones have the same problems.

So, what about mobile? Well, in the mobile world, we still have the IP address to location mapping, and the carrier still has the IP address to physical location mapping. However, it is a little more indirect. There is a mapping from IP address to phone number, and then the carrier can use their existing E911 services to locate the actual device.

Is any of this even expensive code? No, it isn't. That's the interesting bit. It's all information that is added on to the existing 911 call. Even without a correct geolocation of the IP address, the call center operator can still correct the problem by asking "Where are you?". This system will be there to provide additional information to the 911 operator, not replace them. Since the 911 operator themselves are a key component of this solution, additional training will undoubtedly be needed, including a change in some of the scripts they read from. Adding the city to the address for confirmation would solve many problems.

Where does this break down?

1. VPN - If the phone is in a branch office, that routes IP traffic through a VPN to a different POP, it won't work. However, they've already got this exact same problem with corporate PBXs anyways, this isn't new.
2. Calls from outside of the jurisdiction. If someone takes the device overseas to use it for cheap (free) long distance.
3. Carriers making frequent changes to their routing rules. If a subnet moves from one region to another, 911 calls may have the wrong location until the database is updated.

Baen Free Library iPhone eBook Repository Updated!

Since STE has released v 1.4 of the iPhone EBook reader, I have finally had to update the repository to support 1.4. The major change? It now places books in ~/Media/EBooks instead of /var/root/Media/EBooks. This is because Books.app only looks in ~/ now!

I took the opportunity and added some additional features:

1. Cover Art! The books now display their cover art in the main title list.
2. Chapter Sorting! The Books.app team removed a hack they had specifically put in for Baen, it was causing performance problems. I have renamed the html files to avoid the problem.

Well, I thought it was more features than that when I started.

If you already have the book installed, it should upgrade through Installer.app. I have tested a couple of books, so I'm reasonably confident it will work.

Also, since webscriptions has a habit of updating the .zip files every week or so, I now scan their site every hour to ensure that the source plist is up to date.

Again, if you run into any problems, file a bug report over at the google code project

Truth in Advertising

If you say "Usually ships in 48 hours", it means that I should expect to see it ship in two business days. It also means that if I leave five business days, I should have the item in my little hands by the time I need it.

I'll understand if you are going to miss that deadline. Let me know, and give me the option of canceling my order. Leaving me guessing about the status of my order is frustrating and ultimately (as we'll see in a second) bad for business.

I won't be shopping at Gameplanet Store NZ again. I have placed two orders with them, the first one took an extraordinary amount of time to arrive, missing the party that I wanted it for.

I ordered a second game (mostly due to a $10 discount from the first order), and again it didn't ship inside of the 48 hour window. So, you have to ask, "What does 'Usually' mean to them?" To me, it means at least 95% of the time. How ever, two failures in two orders means it sure isn't 95% to them.

GPStore - Avoid, they're the "flying pig" of NZ software retailers.

Announcing the iPhone eBook Repository

Installing eBooks onto the iPhone for reading was nearly impossible. You needed to download third party tools, use scp, rename files, the works. To help, I decided to package existing eBooks for viewing on the iPhone.

Since this is an AppTapp repository, the books can be installed onto the iPhone from any location that the device has a valid network connection, GPRS, EDGE or WiFi.

The current repository provides installation instructions for 117 SciFi novels from the Baen Free Library, with plans to add additional sources. I am currently working on Project Gutenberg.

To make use of the repository:

1. Obtain an iPhone.
2. Jailbreak the iPhone, I recommend ziphone for this task.
3. Install Books, the iPhone ebook reader using the Installer application (http://code.google.com/p/iphoneebooks/ (1.37 only!))
4. Add the repository to Installer:
   1. Start Installer
   2. Click "Sources"
   3. Click "Edit"
   4. Click "Add"
   5. Enter "http://library.pollock.ca/baen_books"
   6. Click "OK"
   7. Click "Done"
   8. Click "Refresh"
5. Select "Install" at the bottom of the screen. You will see "Baen Free Library" is now available as an application category!

Just to clarify a couple of things. I am not providing copies of the .zip archives, they are provided to the iPhone by Webscription and Baen. The content of the files themselves are unchanged, although I have had to rename the html files to better fit in with the reader (I changed the SKU in the filename to Chapter).

To make it easy to spread these repositories around, I have uploaded the scripts I used to generate the repository to google code (iphoneebookrepo). If you would like to help, either with code, by reporting faults (thanks Ross!), or just general comments, I would appreciate it!

Take that Kindle!

AppTapp Exec bug

I released my project to a couple of friendly users. After giving it a try, one of the testers came back and told me the installer was leaving crufty directories lying around in the root directory.

I eventually tracked it down to this:

<array>
   <string>Exec</string>
   <string>/bin/mkdir -p "/var/root/Media/EBooks/Beyond World's End"</string>
</array>

Now, if this was in a shell, or passed to the OS using "system" or a similar call, it would work. However, it seems that they are using direct calls to exec. I can't really tell, because AppTapp is oddly closed source.

The directories it was creating were:

• "/var/root/Media/EBooks/Beyond
• /World's
• /End"

Fun!

Next up, I tried escaping the spaces, again with no luck. It looks like the code is splitting the parameters out through the use of spaces and ignores any attempt at grouping the packager might make.

Luckily CopyPath does the right thing, properly handling the spaces. It even creates parent directories, which is why I was using mkdir in the first place.

Now to figure out how to host it on Amazon S3. I really don't want a 2.5meg file being slurped across my cable modem every day!