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Posts that have been updated since they were published. This does not include changing very minor spelling or grammatical errors that do not change or clarify the meaning of what was written originally.

BlackBerry/RIM. Going, going, gone?

Oct 13th, 2011
by Craig.
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A couple of years ago my company had a major server outage on a primary server that brought down websites and email for almost two and a half hours. Such outages are rare, but they happen, and they happen to small hosting companies like NinerNet as well as the giants. After that outage I wrote about the lessons learnt and, without trying to deflect attention or criticism away from us, I pointed out an extensive list of major service outages experienced by the likes of Google, Amazon, YouTube, Barclays Bank, MySpace, Facebook, PayPal, Microsoft, eBay, and so on.

Also in that list was BlackBerry/RIM, and this is what I wrote at the time on them in particular:

Have a Blackberry? Do you realise that all Blackberry emails in the whole world go through one data centre in central Canada, and if that data centre has a problem, you can still use your Blackberry for a paperweight? Nobody is immune; nobody gets away unscathed.

I’m under the impression that, since then, RIM expanded that single point of failure to create multiple points of failure (often under threat of sanctions by governments who want access to their citizens’ communications), and fail they have — worldwide — in the last few days. And for several days, not just a couple of hours.

Without wanting to gloat over a mortally-wounded about-to-be corpse, RIM’s problems weren’t that difficult to predict. Unfortunately for them they are, at this time, the victim of a perfect storm that includes (among other things) poor sales and share performance, product failures, the almost simultaneous (to their technical troubles) launch of a new messaging system on the iPhone to rival BlackBerry Messenger, and these latest technical troubles. But this perfect storm is of RIM’s own making, and their problems go deeper than that anyway; they go to the heart of their core philosophies.

Now, I’m no Apple fanboi (and in the wake of the death of Steve Jobs I commend to you What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs), but at least an iPhone more resembles a “proper” computer like the one you have on your desk than the toaster in your kitchen that can only do the one or two things its manufacturer decided in its infinite wisdom it needs to do. Mobile computers (aka “smartphones”) like the iPhone and those running on the Android operating system rely on open standards when it comes to things like email. In short, open standards and systems win. (That said, Apple is not the poster child for open standards and systems, and needs to change that.) There is no central super-server somewhere handling all email for all iPhone or Android users worldwide, just waiting to fail. With BlackBerry there is … or was. End of story.

If you swallowed RIM’s mantra about their system being de rigueur for business and the iPhone being “not for business”, you’re paying for that today.

Sorry for that.

Update, 30 May 2012: Seven months later and Roger Cheng at CNET finally comes to much the same conclusion.

Delicious butter chicken

Nov 17th, 2010
by Craig.
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There’s an Indian restaurant in Vancouver that makes the most delicious butter chicken I’ve ever tasted. (That restaurant is “The Original Tandoori Kitchen Restaurant” at 689 East 65th Avenue, just off of Fraser Street. I’ve always just referred to it as the Tandoori King, but it seems there are numerous other restaurants with very similar names.) That said, I’m a white guy, so for all I know it’s something they concocted for Western taste buds. Regardless, it’s very good. Even though I like my curries hot, I always order the butter chicken medium or even mild, as I just like the flavour so much I don’t want the heat to get in the way.

I did try making butter chicken myself once from a recipe I found somewhere, but it was crap, and I’ve stopped ordering butter chicken in other restaurants because it doesn’t hold a candle to what is, for me, the original. However, courtesy of a friend (Steve) I now have a recipe that is damn good. Try it. You can find it at AllRecipes.com.

Update, 3 February 2011: After being informed that this restaurant had apparently closed, I drove by to check for myself. There is still an Indian restaurant there, but it’s definitely not under the same name, and the awning has changed. In its place is the “Tandoori Raj Restaurant, The Original”. (Just about all of these tandoori restaurants seem to claim to be “the original”, even the ones that opened last week!) I have no idea if it’s owned or run by the same people that owned or ran the old place, or if their butter chicken is anything like the one I used to enjoy there.

I did eat at another place with the word “tandoori” (and probably the word “original” too!) in the name in Surrey recently. The food there was served in dishes identical to those of the place on 65th, and they claimed to be affiliated with the place that is or was on 65th. I sampled the butter chicken that someone else in the party had ordered and it was good. However, I had ordered something else for my own meal and we were in a bit of a hurry, so I can’t really say I gave it my full attention to come up with a definitive (for me) opinion of it.

Update, 13 October 2011: We ate at the place mentioned above in Surrey again over the long weekend (yes, it’s called “Original Tandoori King”), and this time I did order the butter chicken. While it was good, it wasn’t delicious and was nowhere near as good as I remember it at the place on 65th. I’ll stick to my own, and order something else next time I’m there.

Update, 3 May 2012: Coming back to this post months later, I am reminded that I saw a news item saying that this place had burnt down, or had at least been extensively damaged by fire, several months ago. There were actually two “original” tandoori restaurants in this building. If they’re rebuilt, presumably they will still be “original”! 🙂

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