I’ve always said it. I would never work for a company that doesn’t innovate. Which is exactly why I’d never work with Microsoft - even though as I grew up I dreamt about it. But before I get crucified by Scoble and a horde of Microsoft aficionados though, I’ll clarify:

We see no innovation at all coming from Microsoft. Even all the hype surrounding the PDC, Windows Vista, the new WinFX platform strikes me as nothing but marketing or word of mouth from people who just don’t know any better. When was the last time you actually saw Microsoft do something new that would radically change your life? I haven’t in a long (perhaps too long) time.

Windows Vista is clearly needing $100M investments to look (and I do mean just look) decent - it doesn’t pack any of the features I was waiting for (WinFS, Monad, etc), and instead it packs a whole bunch of limitations imposed by the need for DRM monitors, 2 gigs of RAM and 256mb graphics cards. Office 12 has no real features I need, and the new toolbars look like a perpetuous excuse to scream “Where are my functions?”. So why should 2006 be the year of Microsoft? You have to be kidding me.

Still, despite all the people who are waking up to the disappointing reality that Microsoft is stale (and has been for years now), there’s still guys who blindly believe Microsoft is doing new stuff when it’s clearly not. Ideas inspired by Cupertino, extremely late adoption of RSS, trying to frame Apple by patenting the iPod, not embracing standards, being flaky about features for Vista - these are all tips to the great conclusion that Microsoft is late in the game and they want a piece of a cake that’s just not theirs anymore.

2006, year of Microsoft? No, not really. As Douglas Adams would say, “So long, and thanks for all the fish”. There are new players in the field.

So now that I’m in the bay area and finally used to the timezone (which was easier than I had expected), I am seeing what’s special about it that makes it so enticing to start businesses here. Basically, everyone’s around. I had wondered about this a couple of times (okay, maybe three) up until I got here but now it’s sunk in. It’s all about the ecosystem of people that live in or around the bay area, and those that drop by all the time.

How should I put this. The ease with which you can call up a few people to talk about some great ideas and get them listening or using your products is so tremendous, that it blows anywhere else on the planet out of the map. Yesterday I had the perfect example of that. We set up an informal barbecue with some of Mike’s and my own friends (most that I was meeting for the first time in real life, so to say) and it was great. We had some extremely interesting discussions about Web 2.0, politics, business and everybody had a good time. But apart from the conversation, it is the flow of ideas that both impresses and inspires.

With all the conversations we had and all the notes I took, I now know exactly what to do with my personal projects, and got some really good insight on how to actually get them up and running. So, answering my own question, is it understandable that there’s so much innovation in the bay area? Yes. Whether that means that there won’t be any new poles for innovation or not, I’m not sure - and I hope it doesn’t, because I’d like to see this whole attitude spread across other places. But we’ll see. Web 2.0 is changing a lot of peoples minds, and people are on the lookout for the next big thing.

And I’ve never believed there would need to be a specific place or time for the next big thing to emerge. Even an obviously good time for innovation like what we’re experiencing now.

Lately I’ve been asked a lot about what sort of applications I use to work. Since I deal with a lot of different areas (development, design and IA/ID), there’s a few applications in the whole work flow, so I’ll attempt to describe both the app and the use I give it.

Firefox (page) needs absolutely no introduction and honesly, I won’t trade it for any other browser unless Mozilla seriously screws up in some future version. A couple of reasons are are obviously the standards support (and if you’ve seen my post about CSS3 columns selectors you know how much I like it) and it being open-source and cross-platform.

Web Developer Extension (page) is a Firefox extension that simplifies the job of the Web designer (and the web developer, as the name so implies) by giving the user an extra developer-oriented toolbar that packs quite a punch when it comes to important little tools. Things like automatized validation of code as well as showing block sizes and outlining important blocks on the page are extremely important for me.

DevBoi With Rails (page) is yet another extension that I’ve been giving some use lately. It is basically a sidebar for firefox that you can use to read reference on Ruby on Rails, Ruby and XHTML. So if you’re working on a piece of code and you don’t know how to use a function or need to check out the docs, you don’t need to look further than your sidebar.

TextMate (mac only | page) is probably the most useful text editor I have ever used, and it is usually what causes the “Wow!” effect behind me whenever I’m working on any kind of code. It’s automatization features as well as modular experience (allowing 3rd parties to create bundles to support new languages) are so good that I didn’t actually hesitate to pay for the application. Even if there are good (and in some cases free) alternatives out there like SubEthaEdit (mac only | page).

CSSEdit (mac only | page) is the only application that actually substitutes Textmate (above) for editing any source - in this case, CSS. It is actually so good with CSS that there’s no contesting rival on both Macs or PCs. Whenever I don’t have CSSEdit around, I use Textmate or any other plain text editor, but when I do, there’s no beating it.

OmniGraffle (mac only | page) is the de-facto application to build diagrams on macs. If you’re on windows and you know Visio, OmniGraffle does the same thing and packs a couple of other uses, but with the simplistic mac-oriented look and feel. I mostly use OmniGraffle whenever I need to come up with diagrams or explanations for flow on pages but since this hardly ever substitutes a good whiteboard or paper and some pens, I was almost about not to post about it. Still, if your line of work envolves diagrams and specs, OO is the way to go.

The other stuff

It’s funny how few applications I use on my work (and some of these are nothing but utilities), but I was never a guy that would use bloated applications to get clean work done - it just doesn’t happen. I keep my “toolset” at a minimum but specific enough so that the applications (or tools) are so good at what they do that they become a must-have.

Naturally, there are applications that I use extremely often like NetNewsWire (mac only | page), Photoshop or Illustrator. But those would be a whole new post. The applications above, probably being already in the harddrives of most my readers, are my toolbox for working with development, design and IA. What are yours?

As you probably know (because I’ve mentioned it already), I was planning to fly to SF this month. Well, this quick and dirty post is just to let everybody know that I’ll be landing at 15h40 PST tomorrow at San Francisco’s International Airport. I’ve already been offered rides out and trips across the city (thanks, everybody), and I’m planning on seeing a lot of people and talking about a lot of stuff. Chances are, if we’ve talked about meeting, you’ll have a visit.

It’s always funny (or weird) for someone like me, deeply attached to the people I live and work with, like friends and family, to leave things behind, even if only for a couple of months. But its time anyway, and I had to do it sometime. It’s gonna be great. Anyway, time to get 2 hours of sleep so I can drive to the airport. See you in San Francisco!

Oh, and if you’re wondering how you can contact me while I’m there, you can use skype (username: fboliv), email (hello@webreakstuff.com), gtalk (fboliv@gmail.com) or you can call me on my cell as soon as I get a proper US operator number (which I’ll post asap - even if my regular cell is still available). Drop me a line and let’s meet up. I won’t be staying exactly in SF but in Atherton, next to Menlo Park in PA. Still, when there’s a will, there’s a way. Regular posting to come back as soon as I’m settled.