Open Port General Blog

Happy 1st Birthday Open Port!!

KellyFeller — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:58:47 GMT

Josh thinks we should have cake. But I prefer champagne. Whatever your fancy, this week is Open Port's 1st birthday as a community destination--and we couldn't be happier about that. What a momentous occassion!

The site was born because we folks in marketing (shh, I know...marketing ) believed we needed a better way to help you--Intel customers--find and understand information about Intel products. However, suprisingly (to us, probably not you) Open Port has evolved into so much more. Although we know it's not yet perfect, the site continues to grow as more folks join our community. And I think it's only going to get better in the years to come.

So how did Open Port come into existence a year ago? Well, the infamous Bob Duffy was doing his usual "looking under the hood" of stuff and realized folks weren't connecting with the technical content that was available on the intel.com website (uh, as in traffic was pretty bad). So he looked around at some other sites, like Slashdot and Ars Technica, and realized many folks were getting their information--yes, even technical information--from each other on forums and in discussions. "What if we hosted discussions on Intel technology on our site?" Bob wondered. And the rest, they say, is history.

Open Port first launched with three "communities" or "zones:" the general community, the vPro Expert Center, and the IT@Intel community zone. We've now grown to 7 communities overall with plans to add more and re-organize the content so you, our wonderful users, will have more control over the content you see on the site.

So what are some of the highlights of the past year? Well, you'd have to ask those who've been around longer for their unique perspectives. But here are some of the things I know:

Just this year alone site visits, comments on posts, and logins have grown at about 250%*
User registrations for the community have climbed by 500%*
More and more content is coming from you--our wonderful community--than from Intel folks...this includes our superstar technical expert Javed Lodhi who keeps answering questions in our Ask An Expert forum. Thanks and keep up the great work, Javed!
We've made some mistakes, heard your comments, and hopefully changed things for the better both here on Open Port and in our technology as well.

Josh goes into greater detail on many of the highlights and lowlights of the past year on his Happy Birthday blog so I won't bore you or steal his thunder.

What I will tell you that you may not yet realize is that Open Port represents a monumental shift in the way Intel talks with our customers and community. I say "with" purposely because in the past Intel's primary way to "get our message out" was to talk at people instead of with them. But inviting you, our community, to share your ideas with us and engage in dialogue, you not only learn from us but from each other--and we learn from you. And that, at a minimum, is enough to inspire me to raise a glass and make a toast.

Oh, and lest I forget...thank you to you and to everyone who makes this community so terrific. We couldn't do it without you!

*On September 2, 2008 I realized that my math skills are still terrible. I had erroneously calculated these stats too low when I posted this originally. These are now correct. Sorry for any inconvenience.

I Think I Have Manageability Envy!

KellyFeller — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:18:31 GMT

Picture this: I'm hard at work in my home office, dilligently pounding away on my laptop as I crank out my latest blog post when I hear these abhorred and frequently uttered words exclaimed in a shrill, grating voice, "That's not fair, he got more than me!" I wince. I choke. I try to ignore it but the din continues as does the decibel level of what has now evolved into a full-fledged altercation.

Freeze.

Imagine now that I do not rise from my comfy office chair to insert myself inbetween these battling six-year olds but instead click a button on my special "remote parental virtual manageability machine" and the children's issues miraculously melt away without the parental interjection I was dreading. How cool would that be?

Yes, you know I am a geek when I fantasize about using features in Intel technology (specifically the new Centrino 2 Technology) to solve my parenting problems. But I couldn't help it! All this talk about "remote isolation" and "managing, diagnosing, and repairing issues from afar" had me daydreaming of the day when technology might really allow me to manage my own problems from the next room or, even better, several states away.

A girl can dream, can't she?

So let me ask you...if you could remotely manage anything--anything at all--what would it be? Would you "isolate and repair" that solicitor who is ringing your doorbell right in the middle of +Survivor+? Or perhaps you'd like to "diagnose and power down" your neighbor's dog when he barks at 3:00 in the morning.

Do You Deserve to Wear the Crown of Ultimate Geek? Join me at IDF to Find Out.

KellyFeller — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:31:40 GMT

Never being one to shy away from any event brimming with buzz, I was excited to learn I'll be attending the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco August 19-21. This event is exciting for many reasons, the least of which is an opportunity to meet Intel and Open Port community members in person. But this year IDF brings some other exciting and tasty new treats that I'm anxious to check out:

Keynote by visionary Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak
Discussions on the future of mobility and what it means to be "on-the-go"
A look at the digital enterprise and how embedded, dynamic, and visual computing fit in
And last, but not nearly the least is The Ultimate Geek Challenge!

As a self-described social media junkie I am addicted to my Twitter feeds (are you on Twitter? Follow me at KellyRFeller) and anxiously await a better way to consume them than through the tiny browser window on my Blackberry Pearl. It's why all this talk of the Atom processor for mobile internet devices has me fanning myself like a twitterpated schoolgirl. But I digress.

Probably one of the coolest IDF events to look forward to is the Ultimate Geek Challenge. This event has been brought back to IDF by request from the fans and pits geeks of all persuasions against each other to determine who is the geekiest of all. I doubt my geekiness can hold a candle to geekiness expertly cultivated by the uber geeks in the room. I'm just anxious to watch the fun as the Intel geek community (uh, that might be you) answers tech trivia, challenges the "mad gaming skillz" of Team Evil Genius, and tries for the top techie prize by completing a technical build of the most difficult sort. Rumor has it the winner will get a major big-time prize (shh, check back here and I'll try to find out what it is).

So what do you say? Care to join me? There's still time to register. And who doesn't love San Franciso in August?

Talking about the "Great Debate"

josh.hilliker — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:18:18 GMT

Join Hank & I talking about the Great Debate in a few minutes @ http://www.blogtalkradio.com/openport/2008/06/13/Intel-Great-Debates-Eco-Technology-Post-Debate-Wrap-Up

Technology Going Green - Experts Debate The Issues

KellyFeller — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:55:34 GMT

I remember back when I worked in the field of organic agriculture and environmental marketing. No one had a clue what I meant when I referred to the importance of "going green." Yet today the green debate has rapidly spread from the rows of organic farms to the halls of corporations all over the world. Even technology companies are joining the movement and debating the issues at hand.

On June 11, 2008 experts on various sides of the eco-technology issues will converge in Santa Clara to debate these "hot" topics:

Data center efficiency: AC vs DC power
Data center efficiency: liquid vs air cooling
Client: thin vs. thick client

In addition to the debates, the event features keynotes from Lorie Wigle, general manager for Intel's Eco-Technology Program Office and president, Climate Savers Computing Initiative and Andrew Fanara, head of the ENERGY STAR product development team, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Register to attend in person or tune into Open Port's Blog Talk Radio the day following the seminar to hear interviews with the speakers.

This debate should be quite compelling with industry experts from esteemed organizations like IDC, The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Emerson Network Power, Intel, Microsoft, InfoWorld, and Verari Systems--to name a few. View the complete schedule and register today for this one-of-a-kind opportunity.

Is Intel's Open Port community site too commercial?

KellyFeller — Tue, 27 May 2008 23:16:16 GMT

There's nothing like a little criticism to spark reflection and introspection. Well, usually after a hefty dose of denial and defensiveness first. But we're all about community self actualization here so I thought I'd take this opportunity to open up the dialogue and invite your feedback--positive or constructive--on this site and our efforts in various new media forums across the web. Here goes.

Holding up the mirror
As a background, recently Open Port and our community managers received some criticism from the community-at-large that the site, and our technical experts, were too focused on marketing objectives. IT Blogger rodtrent on his myITForum.com blog complains that when he attempted to find vPro information on Open Port, he noticed in a discussion that the community was "inundated with responses from vendors about how their management product was the best." Additionally, in an Intel-sponsored forum on popular IT fansite Ars Technica a community member laments how he is tired of hearing the product name vPro in the forum.

So these criticisms are valid. We want you to know we hear you. And we wanted to ask more of you to join this conversation. What do you think? Are we "doing it right?" And by "it" I mean does Open Port enable tech enthusiasts and IT professionals like yourselves the opportunity to engage in technical discussions and connect with others who have similar interests in Intel technology?

The Nacho Analogy
In the spirit of engaged dialogue, I wanted to propose an analogy that might help frame the discussion. My colleague Bob Duffy came up with a brilliant one I thought I'd share with you. It has to do with nachos. He noticed that nearly every restaurant you visit includes nachos on their menu. And let's face it, some nachos are better than others, depending on the restaurant. So what makes a good nacho, you ask? Bob says it is the "cheese to chip ratio." The best nachos, Bob claims, have a well balanced ratio between cheese to chip. Too much cheese can drown the chip. And too much chip can be dry and difficult to swallow.

The same holds true, he argues, for commercial information in community conversations. Since this site is on Intel.com, there is going to be some element of cheese (aka marketing). But the chip (aka non-commercial information) is the foundation of the information that is shared among the community and should be the crux of the community conversations. So what is a good community chip-to-cheese ratio? Is it 20% commercial information (or marketing) and 80% technical data?

You decide. And while you're at it, can someone please figure out how to make the real cheese as liquidy and gooey as the fake cheese product they put on nachos?

The promise of open source; how has it affected your business?

KellyFeller — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:11:58 GMT

Travels, like life in general, can often be filled with coincidental meetings and accidental occurrences. My recent trip to the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai China was no exception. As I lumbered down the long skinny hallway of the jumbo jet that was to be my home for the next dreaded 13 hours, I approached my cramped middle seat in the very back of the plane to find a familiar face smiling at me from the seat next to my own.

Now it was no surprise to see other Intel employees on this entirely full flight to Shanghai, but it was nice to see a former colleague seated next to me. This meeting proved even more fortuitous as I later in the week ran into him once again just in time to sit down for a brief conversation about the important work his team is doing in the realm of open source software at Intel.

Ram Peddibhotla, Director of Intel's Open Source Technology Center, spoke with me about Intel's efforts in leading a variety of open source projectsincluding moblin.org, the open source project devoted to developing an open operating system for the mobile internet devices (MIDs) that were the talk of IDF.

In addition to moblin.org, Mr. Peddibhotla discussed the variety of other critical open source projects in which Intel experts are instrumentally involved, including lesswatts.org and as maintainers of the Linux kernel itself.

Certainly not new to many of you in the IT Community, open source software continues to drive more and more of the critical applications we use to power business everyday. So I'm curious:

How many of you have either adopted or are evaluating open source software for critical functions like customer relation management (CRM), business intelligence, communication apps such as email or other productivity tools?
Are there particular benefits or challenges you've faced when implementing this software?
And are there particular applications you wouldn't consider using open source software to accomplish?

I want my M.I.D!

KellyFeller — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:05:20 GMT

As I sat through the marathon keynote sessions in this morning's kickoff of the Intel Developer Forum, I tried to Twitter to provide you all some colorful realtime observations from the dark auditorium. About halfway through my Blackberry lost the ability to access the internet and thus...my voice was silenced, albeit briefly.

As I powered my way through my local grocery store last week--which I often do to grab the week's meal supplies, each time trying to beat my previous record (so far I'm still trying to beat my record in-and-out time of 7 minutes)--I realized I had forgotten to write down the ingredients I needed to make one of my succulent meals. Stomping my feet in disgust, I pined for some quick and easy way to jump on the internet right there in the produce aisle to look up the recipe and ensure I brought home all the requisite ingredients.

Both of these scenerios demonstrate my own personal longing for immediate and uncomplicated access to the internet; anytime, anywhere. And I don't think I'm alone in this desire. As I learned at IDF today, I'm happy to report that Intel is on it!

The three opening keynotes, delivered by Pat Gelsinger, Dadi Perlmutter, and Anand Chandrasekher respectively, all talked of innovative breakthroughs in technology and visions on how the future was going to be overwhelmingly different. But the topic on most everyone's lips was the exciting new mobile internet devices (MIDs) finally coming to market in the next several months.

It is easy to see why there is all this fuss about MIDs when:

60% of internet users in China play online games
3 billion minutes are spent everyday on social networking worldwide
88% of Japanese phone customers are dissatisfied with their access to the internet from their phones

Combine all this data with the recent announcement of the Intel Atom processor and you have one perfect storm of mind-blowing proportion. And with all the awesome different MIDs that were on display today at IDF, I can easily see this anticipation grow into a consumer-covetous frenzy.

Ok, perhaps I'm a bit too hyped up on caffeine to stave off my jetlag. But this is exciting stuff! And I for one am thrilled Intel and our partners are working hard to, as Mr. Chandrasekher so eloquently put it, "unleash the internet."

So stay tuned for more of my observations from IDF. As long as the coffee keeps coming, I'll keep writing (I LOVE the coffee here!).

Intel's IT Utopia Means You Have a Voice

Bob_Duffy — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:36:11 GMT

Imagine for a second your a large corporation and you are going to spend millions of dollars to get a well crafted message out to prospective customers, then you decide to fire the copywriters and turn the site into one big brainstorming session where people express ideas like.

*"My ideal Utopia is when everybody is using Mac computers and finally everything works better in a Windows free world."

*"IT Utopia means that everyone can hack everyone, thereby hackers become useless. "

*"Sorry IT guys, but my idea of IT Utopia is no more IT."

Welcome to Intel's IT Utopia site. As one poster observed, "Interesting, like a faceless Twitter...". Thus this is not your typical Intel campaign. Companies like Intel spend lots of time and resources to protect and manage messages around a brand. And campaign sites are usually where marketing excersize these resources with great delight and great control.

However with the success of site's like Open Port and a growing online trend for IT customers to seek out support and information on online forums, Intel is hoping to be part of the conversational trend.

So while Intel is promoting products and techologies, I think some of the real there, there is that Intel is spending time and resources to integrate voices of the community within the campaigns.

So my advice for those who feel their voice is lost in small little corner of an IT chat room, go to http://www.intel.com/itopia and speak up.

Intel a services company? Sizzling announcement coming to you from IDF!

KellyFeller — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:42:13 GMT

Do not attempt to adjust your screen. And since April Fool's Day is over, this is not a silly prank to see if you are paying attention. No, this is a real and true report coming to you straight from the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, China, where today Intel announced it would begin offering software testing and validation services to members of the Intel Software Partner Program.

Did I say services? From a hardware company? What's up with that?

Well, Intel has entered into a key partnership with SpikeSource, a software validation solution provider. The deal is that software companies, many of whom are medium in size or who develop open source solutions, can now receive Intel certification that ensures their solutions meet "rigorous standards for security, interoperability and maintainability, and are optimized for Intel technologies." (I took that directly from the press release).

I sat down for a brief conversation with SpikeSource CEO Kim Polese to get her perspective on this new service and how it will benefit both the software community and the end customers who rely on software in their everyday jobs and lives. (You all remember Kim, right? Think Java.).

Wow, maybe it's the coffee here (I've made it no secret how I feel about it) but once again I'm a little giddy with the important implications of this announcement. Intel's partner program reaches over 8,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) and I can see this service being a major benefit to developers so they can focus what they do best: developing cool software.

Intel and Microsoft Fund Multicore Research at UC Berkeley

KellyFeller — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:22:25 GMT

Greetings! Allow me to take a brief moment to introduce myself. I am new to the OpenPort community and will manage the overall OpenPort's site going forward. I am thrilled to be a part of this growing community and look forward to engaging in a plethora of ongoing discussions with you all.

Let me start with a truth: I am not a technologist. I don't even play one on TV. So I promise never to wax poetic on deeply technical things that you know more about anyway. However, I am an enthusiastic tech user in both my professional and personal life. So hopefully my insights won't be completely from left field. Oh, truth number two: I have worked in software for the last four years so sometimes my focus is a bit myopic.

With that little revelation it will probably not surprise you that I wanted to start by mentioning some recent headlines regarding Intel's announcement last week. Perhaps you heard, but if you didn't last week Intel and Microsoft announced they had awarded UC Berkeley $20million to fund research on new ways to program software so it would take advantage of the benefits brought forth in multi-core processors. The research is focused on addressing challenges to parallel computing and encompasses programing for applications & operating systems to ensure they take better advantage of multi-core processors.

This is an interesting development and once again illustrates how Intel works with the broader ecosystem to help propel technology of all kinds forward. I am often suprised to learn of the many behind-the-scenes efforts Intel helps drive to bring about technology innovation; things like pushing WiMAX standards for ubiquitous wireless access worldwide and the formation of moblin.org to host open source projects for the development of software targeted at mobile internet devices (MIDS).

I'm not saying Intel's efforts aren't in the company's own best interests. But these endeavors are meant to affect sweeping industry changes that help advance technology that makes all our lives better. It kind of gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Unleashing the power of the Intel® Atom™ processor

Bob_Duffy — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:55:47 GMT

Intel just announced the brand name for it's newest mobile processor called the Intel® Atom™ processor. And as a new brand name, I have to admit I really like this one.

Brian Fravel, Intel Director of Marketing, Brand Strategy recently posted a good article introducing the brand.

"Soon, you will see the Intel Centrino Atom brand on handheld devices that can bring an amazing internet experience in a device that fits in your pocket. You’ll see the Intel Atom processor powering a growing category of devices aimed at delivering affordable, Internet-centric uses."

Not only is this this Intel's smallest processor it is also contains the worlds smallest transistors. Listen to Anand Chandrasekher, Senior VP of Intel's Ultra Mobility Group, explain what's so cool about the Intel Atom processor.

Pretty neat stuff.. but wait there's more! Let's bring this home by showing off some end products. Watch Mark Parker show off early prototypes based on this new architecture.

Bottom line? Cool brand name for that will be at the heart of very cool technology coming our way. Want more? Visit these sites.

Intel Atom processor technology page: www.intel.com/technology/atom/
Mobility@Blog: blogs.intel.com/mobility
Software Developer Mobile Community: http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/isn/home/Mobility.aspx

Car Dashboard Cams Show off Intel's WiMAX

Bob_Duffy — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:43:47 GMT

Promise of WiMAX is around the corner. Check out this site that puts you in the passenger seat of automobiles around the country.PocketCaster WiMAX Demo

For some perspective, I walk more than 10 feet with my laptop at a brisk pace, and I'll have a connection drop... this is simply amazing. Makes you wonder what we'll be able to do with phones and handheld devices in the comming year (see Moorestown: Much more than an iPhone killer ). Can't wait!

Intel shiny object baffles Las Vegas crowd at CES

Bob_Duffy — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:41:10 GMT

We went to the street during the The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and we asked people to respond to something we showed them. Check out the interesting responses.

Hardware Assisted Virtualization to Mitigate Security Risks

Bob_Duffy — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:00:00 GMT

In this podcast Intel's Malcolm Harkins and HP's Manny Novoa chat about the latest issues in security technologies, notably the emergence of hardware assisted virtualization.

With the emergence of software virtualization technologies, allowing for multiple OS's to be run on a single system, Manny and Malcom postulate security risks at the software layer. They discuss how hardware assisted virtualization can establish the management of platform controls and protection of keys at the hardware level, reducing the risk of virtualization systems being maliciously compromised.

They also discuss coping with zero-day threats and the benefits of automated management of PC fleets