Once upon a time, application programming interfaces were hooks that applications used to tap into operating system services. Want to open a port? Call an API. Need to find a printer? Call an API. Open a winder? Call an API. Write to a file? Call an API.

Developers still use classic APIs of course. They are necessary for both native and managed code. Windows, iOS, Android, Unix, Linux, all are stuffed to the brim with hundreds and thousands of APIs. In fact, one of the most useful features of an integrated development environment like Visual Studio, Eclipse and Xcode is to provide an handy reference to APIs, check their syntax and arguments, and help fill them out with autocomplete.

Classic APIs are fundamental. Cloud-based APIs, which provide loosely coupled function calls to services over the Internet, are more sexy and more dangerous.

The December issue of SD Times contains a feature by Alexa Weber Morales, “Connecting the World with APIs.” She explains that the variety of cloud-based APIs far exceeds the biggest, most visible examples, such as those from Amazon and Google. APIs are everywhere, from social media players like Facebook and Twitter, to business services like MailChimp and Salesforce.com.

Like electricity from the wall socket, or water from the kitchen faucet, it is easy to take cloud-based APIs for granted. Too easy. We outsource core functionality of our applications to cloud-based services, some free, some paid for by subscription. We expect them to work consistently. We expect them to be monolithic and unchanging. We expect them to be fast. We expect them to be secure.

We must not make any of those assumptions. Our software must be able to detect if a cloud-based API is offline or is running slowly, and should be able to handle such a situation gracefully. (I.e., not hang or crash.) We should never assume that APIs are secure and will keep our data safe or our customers’ data safe. We should not expect the API vendor to proactively notify us if they change some of the functionality within the APIs. It’s our job to be on top of any changes.

The availability of cloud-based APIs – unlike operating system APIs – is out of our hands. Our decision to upgrade a server’s OS is on our schedule, and we have time to read the documentation. When a mobile platform maker, like Apple, Google or Microsoft, releases a new operating system, we get plenty of notice and have plenty of time to understand about the newest APIs, the changed APIs and the deprecated APIs.

Not true with cloud-based APIs. While the three-letter acronym may be the same, our applications’ calls to a RESTful cloud-based APIs are not at all the same as our applications’ calls to native operating system services. While convenient, cloud-based APIs are ephemeral, distant and fundamentally unreliable. Never forget it.

echoEchosystem. What a marvelous typo! An email from an analyst firm referred several times to a particular software development ecosystem, but in one of the instances, she misspelled “ecosystem” as “echosystem.” As a technology writer and analyst myself, that misspelling immediately set my mind racing. Echosystem. I love it.

An echosystem would be a type of meme. Not the silly graphics that show up on Twitter and Facebook, but more the type of meme envisioned by Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene, where an idea or concept takes on a life of its own. In this case, the echosystem is where a meme is simply echoed, and is believed to be true simply because it is repeated so often. In particular, the echosystem would apply to ideas that are repeated around by analysts, technology writers and journalists, influential bloggers, and so-on.

In another time and place, what I’m now calling the echosystem would be called the bandwagon. I like the idea of a mashup between the bandwagon and the echo chamber being the echosystem.

We have lots of memes in the software development echosystem. For example, that the RIM BlackBerry is toast. Is the platform doomed? Maybe. But it’s become so casual, so matter-of-fact, for writers and analysts to refer to the BlackBerry as toast that repetition is creating its own truthiness (as Stephen Colbert would say).

Another is echosystem chatter that skeuomorphs are bad, and that Apple is behind the times (and falling behind Android and Windows 8) because its applications have fake leather textures and fake wooden bookshelves. Heck, I only learned about the term recently but repeating the chatter, wrote my own column about it last month, “Fake leather textures on your mobile apps: Good or bad?” True analysis? Maybe. Echoing the echosystem? Definitely

The echosystem anoints technologies or approaches, and then tears them down again. 

HTML5? The echosystem decided that this draft protocol was the ultimate portable platform, but then pounced when Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg dissed his company’s efforts.

SOAP? The echosystem loved, loved, loved, loved, loved Simple Object Access Protocol and the WS* methods of implementing Web services, until the new narrative became that RESTful Web services were better. The SOAP bubble popped almost instantly when the meme “WS* is too complicated” spread everywhere.

Echoes in the echosystem pronounced judgment on Windows 8 long before it came out. Echoes weighed in on the future of Java before Oracle’s acquisition of Sun even closed and have chosen JavaScript as the ultimate programming language.

There is a lot of intelligence in the echosystem. Smart people hear what’s being said and repeat it and amplify it and repeat it some more. Sometimes pundits put a lot of thought into their echoes of popular. Sometimes pundits are merely hopping onto the bandwagon. The trick is to tell the differences.

Skeuomorph. I learned this word a few weeks ago, after a flurry of stories broke on various mass-media websites about an apparent kerfuffle within Apple about user interface design.

A skeuomorph is a design element that looks functional, but is actually purely ornamental. The automotive world is rife with skeuomorphs. Fake hood scoops on sports cars, plastic tire covers that imitate wire wheels, plastic that’s textured and painted to look like wood.

Check out the Wikipedia page and you’ll see several examples, including the program that sparked a number of articles. That’s Apple’s iCal calendaring application on the company’s iPhone and iPad devices, or Calendar on a Mac.

Look at the calener on an iPad. See how the app is designed to resemble an old printed calendar, and the top of the app looks like embossed leather, complete with stitching? See how there’s even a little graphic detail that make it look like pages have been torn out.

Some find that kitschy or distracting. Some find it cute. Some people, like me, never particularly noticed those elements. Some people, apparently like the late Steve Job, believe that faux-reality designs like the leather calendar, or like the wooden bookshelves in iBooks, enhance the experience. Some people, apparently, are infuriated by the notion of foisting an outdated analog user-interface model on a digital device.

A number of those infuriated people are quoted in a story in Fast Company, “Will Apple’s Tacky Software-Design Philosophy Cause a Revolt?”

Some of these designs may be nostalgic to older customers, but may be increasingly meaningless to most consumers of digital products. I’ve seen phone-dialer apps that look like the old rotary telephone dial – and they’re stupid, in my humble opinion. So are address-book apps that look like an old Rolodex, or calendar programs that resemble the Pocket Day-Timer I carried around in the 1980s and 1990s.

If you (or your young coworkers) never used a rotary phone, or owned a Rolodex, or carried a Day-Timer, those user interface metaphors make little sense. They don’t enhance productivity, they detract from it.

Worse, the strictures of the old UI metaphors may constrain the creativity of both developers and end users. If you want to innovate and reinvent productivity tools or business applications, you may not want to force your visual design or workflow to conform to old analog models. Microsoft’s Windows 8, in fact, is being held up as the new paradigm – simple colorful squares, no drop shadows or eye candy, and no skeuomorph. See another article from Fast Company, “Windows 8: The Boldest, Biggest Redesign in Microsoft’s History.”

The temptation to write about Microsoft’s brand-new logo is almost unbearable. I’ve been trying to resist but… okay. I can’t resist any longer.

Microsoft has a new logo. It has color squares reminiscent of the four color blocks in Office, SharePoint, Visual Studio, and so-on, with the word “Microsoft” spelled out in type. The Pac-Man-like bite out of the letter “o” is gone.

You can see the new logo in this blog post from Jeff Hansen, General Manager, Brand Strategy, Microsoft. Hansen writes

The Microsoft brand is about much more than logos or product names. We are lucky to play a role in the lives of more than a billion people every day. The ways people experience our products are our most important “brand impressions”. That’s why the new Microsoft logo takes its inspiration from our product design principles while drawing upon the heritage of our brand values, fonts and colors.

Ahhh. When I see companies redrawing their logos, I’m reminded of ship stewards rearranging the deck chairs. Don’t they have something better to spend their time on, their money on, than redrawing a well-recognized, 25-year-old logo? Think about the signs that must be remade, documents that must be reprinted, business cards, brand identity handbooks, and so-on. The ROI for this is what?

The same was true, by the way, for the last several movies based on the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew. Why was the Federation constantly redesigning its Star Fleet uniforms? But I digress.

Let’s not forget the 2010 logo redesign for the Gap, a chain of clothing stores. The social-media outrage about this logo change was so swift that the Gap reversed itself a week later. Amazing. You can read the whole sordid story here in Vanity Fair.

The new Microsoft logo isn’t terrible. But it’s not wonderful either. Yes, the colors tie the corporate logo to flagship product identities, but other tech companies like Google use similar colors with Chrome and other product lines. The new Microsoft logo seems utterly unnecessary – and the timing isn’t great.

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This is one of a series of articles I wrote for the monthly Bulletin of Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame, Calif.

In our haste to get to services, classes or committee meetings, we sometimes forget to appreciate the beautiful physical environment at Peninsula Temple Sholom.

Next time you visit the Temple, please take a moment to look around. Go into the Sanctuary and examine the new lectern, with its subtle Menorah design and exquisite craftsmanship. Look around the Sanctuary and Social Hall, with the many Jewish themes from the Star of David on top of the dome to the menorahs and tallitot on the walls and windows. It’s a big space that inspires peace and introspection.

In the foyer, on the side near the Social Hall, see the large plaque honoring our synagogue’s founders and charter members. This plaque was recently installed by our hard-working History Committee. Near the Memorial Wall you’ll see a freestanding menorah. It was donated a few months ago and adds character to this part of the building.

On the way into the main sanctuary from the foyer, of course, you have the joyous statue that always makes me think about Rabbi Raiskin z”l. Elsewhere in the foyer, and in the waiting area to the administrative offices, there’s plenty of framed artwork hanging for you to study and enjoy.

If you are like me, you have left noseprints on the glass to our Sholom Women Judaica Shop as you look at the beautiful objects in their window display. There’s another window display on the opposite wall. These add to our foyer’s appearance.
Move outside the building. The canopy over the front entrance is a starry sky of peace over our pomegranate grove — an artistic rendering of the Hashkiveinu prayer we sing together every Friday night.

Behind a bench near the pomegranate grove, find a plaque that quotes Psalm 34, “Seek Peace and Pursue It.” The plaque commemorates the founding of Peninsula Temple Sholom in 1955 and the construction of our Sanctuary and Social Hall in 1960-1961.

Turn around and see the new landscaping in our parking lot. The greenery was installed shortly before the High Holy Days this year, and gives members and guests a gentle, peaceful first impression of our campus. (Thank you for not walking on our landscaping!)

Artwork is everywhere at PTS, and there’s much more to admire than has been described above. Everywhere you look, you will see beauty. We appreciate the hard work of Diane Goldman and Eileen Battat, who co-chair our Fine Arts & Beautification Committee; Gary Fishtrom, who heads our Facilities Committee; Amy Mallor, our Executive Director; Mariano Sanchez and our team of custodians who maintain everything at PTS; and of course, the generosity of our members for endowing the art and gardens.

Go ahead, take that moment to look around the Temple. The worship service, the class, the meeting will wait.

nosubjectAmong the most peevish of my pet peeves are email messages that have no subject line. Why do people send them?

I know, I know, it’s generally accidental. Unfortunately, not all email applications warn users when they’re sending a message without a subject line. While most do warn, often you can set a configuration preference to disable such warnings.

The graphic is of the pop-up message that Mac Mail provides. As far as I know, there’s no way to disable it the alert. Good!

Memo to world: Sending email without a subject line is pretty rude. Subject lines help us find messages in our inbox, and also let us link threads together. Test your email software to make sure that it warns you. If it doesn’t, check your settings to turn that feature on (or back on).

Memo to my friend Nancy, who always uses the subject line “from Nancy”: That’s just as bad! I already know that the message is from you, since I see your name in the “From” field. I have a hundred messages from you, on multiple threads, and they all have the subject lines “from Nancy” or “re: From Nancy” — stop it!

chairI am consistently amazed at how comfortable my Steelcase Think office chair is.

For years, my back had been sore and stiff if I sat in front of my computer for more than an hour or so. In early 2005, I mentioned that to a friend, and he said, duh, buy a better chair. I guess it was time to replace the task chair picked up second-hand 15 years earlier.

My search was exhaustive: I was willing to spend serious money to get something good. After visiting several “real” office furniture stores – places like Office Depot, Staples and Office Max have a lousy selection, imho – I fell in love with the Think.

What I like is that it’s essentially a self-adjusting chair. The Think has extremely few adjustments, and the back is made of springy steel rods. Plus the mesh fabric means that my back doesn’t get all hot and sweaty on a warm day. (You can read about the ergonomics at the Steelcase site.)

Some even pricier chairs I tested, like the Steelcase Leap and the Herman Miller Aeron, were much more complicated, and much less comfortable. With an Aeron, I literally can’t find settings that work. With the Think, it only took a minute to find the right settings, and I haven’t changed them in the past 2 ½ years.

While I can’t claim that the Think is the best premium office chair, I believe that this is the best investment that I’ve ever made in my work environment. I paid about $700 for it in 2005 at an office furniture store in San Francisco.

There are a few different versions available. Mine is the original model with mesh back, cloth seat and adjustable arms. Today, Steelcase also offers leather or vinyl coverings, fixed arms or armless, and optional headrests and lumbar supports. That makes it complicated again! When I got mine, the only option was fabric color. I chose black.

So, if you sit at your desk/computer for hours at a time, and if you’re using a cheap task chair, consider an upgrade. Try the Think — maybe it’ll work for you, maybe it won’t. (My wife tried mine out, but didn’t care for it.) The important thing is that you get a good chair that fits you well, and is comfortable. If you’re sore and stiff, duh, buy a better chair.

According to this article by the Evening Times, silver is the most popular color for cars. It shows a desire to be seen as having wealth and prestige. What does your car color say about you?

My wife and I have only purchased one silver car, a Ford Tempo. At the time, we weren’t seeking to flaunt wealth or prestige. Just the contrary: We were getting a bargain on a left-over.

Our current fleet (pictured) consists of my Titanium Gray Mazda3 hatchback and my wife’s Deep Green Pearl Acura TSX sedan.

According to the story, gray is a sign of stability and reliability. Green is for those who are conscientious and try to smooth over tense situations. Works for me.