The Obesity Epidemic

You can't argue with it, things are growing. Humans, the global warming problem, and software are all getting bigger, and its all because we've got too many resources.

With software, the more system resources available, the more things developers think they can bundle in.

Now this may sound like I'm having a go at the DTAlpha software, and I am, a little bit, but hear me out.

We're about two weeks into beta testing the DTAlpha software, and I've been running it on my computer quite a bit, testing out all the new features and generally trying to crash the thing. So far, the software has been pretty solid, apart from the first patch which had a bug that caused the options not to be saved, but the developers have been all over the bug reports like a fat lady on cake.

My main issue with the software is that 90% of what it does do (in this current stage of beta) is already done by Firefox, natively, when I'm browsing the web. I've got all the sites that I regularly use in my Bookmarks Toolbar, and I've got all the RSS feeds that I check on a daily basis as a Live Bookmark. I don't need to use any more system resources (it is using between 10 and 20% of my CPU when it is not minimised) than are already being used, and I don't have to have a toolbar at the top of the screen taking up a vital 50px of screen real estate. The other problem is that the toolbar is quite distracting with the ticker-tape news feeds, so I have it minimized most of the time, defeating the purpose of the quick access icons and the scrolling news feeds.

But Nick, your missing the point!

DTAlpha isn't about the software I hear you all scream, it's about the information that the software delivers. Don't get me wrong, I know this. The Right Information, Right Now is the promose, and I'm excited to hear that Stephen has announced we'll be getting fresh content delivered through DTAlpha starting this weekend. I have absolutely no doubt that Stephen and his team will be able to deliver on this promise, after all, they are a bunch of pretty smart cookies.

I just hope that the developers might take some of my comments on board and make a very cut down version of the software (or better yet, make the software optional and deliver via a traditional membership website and RSS feed) and deliver the content in a way that doesn't make our normal work less productive.

Think I've got it all wrong? Leave a comment and tell me why.