|
||||||||||
|
Subscribe to the Absolute Write Newsletter and get the Agents! Agents! Agents! report free! Click here.
|
Win a 1-year subscription to Writer's Digest by subscribing to Absolute Markets-- all paying markets for your writing. Click here. |
|
| |||||||||||||
|
|
Interview with H. Peter
Alesso
You were an
engineer before you began your writing career, yes? What made you decide
to start writing? Yes, I was an engineer at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory for over twenty years. Half of that time, I was a
Group Leader over computational physicists and engineers. I led a variety of
advanced research programs; including efforts involving developing
state-of-the-art parallel processing physics computations Throughout my time as an engineer, I
have written computer code in over a dozen different languages for many
different operating systems, designed experiments, and written papers, journal
articles and reports. So, actually I was doing various
forms of writing throughout my career. Only now I have found a great deal of
satisfaction in writing books. I guess it is because I have always been a “Big
Picture” thinker and a book gives me both the latitude and length to explore a
subject to a depth I can enjoy. In the mid 1990s, I started a virtual research site, Video Software Laboratory, with several of my colleagues from around the country who had interests in different aspects of Internet delivery of video, such as compression algorithms, servers software and hyper-linking video segments. We were able to discuss research efforts and create on-line projects to exchange reports and video. At the time, Internet video was either completely downloaded prior to playing, or streaming video the size of a stoppage stamp and as clear as mud. Eventually, we began to receive lots
of e-mails from individuals interested in hearing about what we had discovered
in order to get improved performance. The result was that Video Software
Laboratory started to provide streaming video production, encoding and hosting
services. We found that there was a need for a comprehensive guide for
producing, compression, conversing, and delivering Internet Video. The result was a proposal for my
book, “e-Video: Producing Internet Video as Broadband Technologies
Converge.” The proposal offered not only a “how-to” book and CD-ROM disk
filled with streaming video, but a complementary Web site to provide technical
updates for the book. Addison-Wesley was one of the first publishers to whom I submitted the proposal, and to my delight, they accepted it immediately. What are
the unique challenges of writing for the technology market? Proprietary competition is the most
difficult and unique challenge because competing vendors are deliberately
secretive to protect their product’s advantages. In addition, competitors will
put out a product with a great deal of hype, sometimes as vaporware. As a
result, a technology writer must gain first hand knowledge of products to gage
actual performance and capability. In addition, when exploring a complex
integration of various converging technologies the problem becomes complicated
by system compatibilities and interactions. Eventually, as standards develop,
these problems disappear, but it is just in this period of chaos when the
technology writer is most needed. He can offer others a change to side-step all
the proprietary pitfalls between rival systems. In my books, I try to particularly
draw comparisons between rival products and identify their advantages and
disadvantages. In addition, I look at existing standards and explore
possibilities of future convergence. Considering
the way the Internet economy has taken such a sharp downturn, is the market
still viable for writers who specialize in Internet topics? Oh, yes. This recession will be over
in less time than it takes to write your next book. So, as a writer, you just
keep working. The technology is transitioning so fast that you need to stay
fresh and on top of you areas of interest. And of course, the Internet is here
to stay. It will continue to grow and develop as a major communication channel. You
co-wrote your latest book, "The Intelligent Wireless Web," with Dr.
Craig Smith. How did you hook up with him? Craig and I were friends who had
worked together on a variety of projects over the past twenty years. We have
written a number of scientific referred journal articles over the years and
naturally looked for a vehicle of common interest to exploit. Over a number of
lunches, we exchanged ideas and reflected on possible research areas. Finally,
we found a common vision and outlined a plan to produce a proposal and a book
outline. I have been fortunate that I was able
to develop an attractive proposal that was quickly accepted by Addison-Wesley.
They included an advance and a reasonable delivery timetable. This was based in
part on my having the right expertise and background to match my proposal, as
well as, my including a distinguished colleague as co-author. Your book
discusses what developments the future holds in store for the Internet.
Give us a teaser about what you think the Internet will be like in five years. The following is an excerpt from the
book: Wouldn’t
it be great to just tap your ‘com-badge’ and be able to speak to anyone,
anytime, anywhere - the way they do on Star Trek? Or to say 'Computer'
followed by a perplexing question and receive an intelligent answer? It is not difficult to imagine that, in the foreseeable future, advances in
information science, the Internet and advanced communications will continue at a
very rapid pace, and that technology convergence will begin to yield major
improvements in the usefulness and productivity of technology. Science fiction
may become reality as technology provides devices that increasingly mimic the
features of the Star Trek 'com badge.' In reality, advances in technology have frequently followed the imagination
of futurists and science fiction writers, but it is much more difficult to chart
the course of technology development than it is to imagine the end point.
Building the Intelligent Wireless Web requires developing the framework in which
a science fiction-like end point can be achieved through the advancement of
technology in a number of different technology areas; areas in which a great
deal of ongoing work is being successfully carried out so that convergence will
enable the next major advance in productivity. To begin, it is important to describe what we mean by
the "Intelligent Wireless Web." Let’s take each term in turn,
explain how we are using them and indicate how each relates to the contents of
this book. First let’s consider what intelligence in the wireless Web implies. Intelligence:
Although most people have an implicit understanding of what is meant by the word
intelligence, there is little agreement, even among experts, on precise
definitions. This is true for both biological systems (i.e., human beings) and
machines. Intelligence usually refers to the ability to reason, solve problems,
remember information, to learn and understand new things. A chess player who can
conceptualize and evaluate large numbers of alternative positions for the next
few chess moves is thought to demonstrate intelligence; a mathematician who can
calculate a complex math problem in his mind demonstrates a different type of
intelligence. The child prodigy who can memorize vast numbers of facts shows yet
a different form of intelligence. Yet, each of these forms of human intelligence
has been well demonstrated by modern computing systems. Computers are at their
best when used as tools in solving complex problems that require brute force
calculation and prodigious amounts of memory. And we have all observed the
dominance of Deep Blue, the chess playing supercomputer from IBM that finally,
in May 1997, beat the best chess master in the world,
the reigning World Champion, Garry Kasparov. Notwithstanding
the difficulty of defining intelligence (in humans or machines), it is worth
recognizing that terms such as “artificial intelligence,” “intelligent
agents,” “smart machines” and the like refer to the performance of
functions that mimic those associated with human intelligence. These topics are
reviewed in Chapter 6. While one can formulate the concept of an intelligence
quotient (IQ) for humans as a surrogate measure of the phenomena we associate
with human intelligence, a similar concept of “Web IQ” or “Web Performance
Index” will likely be developed to provide future measures of the
effectiveness of hardware/software systems in achieving the goal of delivering
intelligence in their applications and of learning and growing in time. Wireless:
“Wirelessness” is the
current rage. In a sense, the term “wireless” is self explanatory and
obvious. Even so, the current emphasis on development of new wireless technology
is a symptom of the present evolutionary trend in information technology toward
convenient, mobile access to information systems anytime and anywhere. It’s
interesting to consider the development of telecommunications technologies over
the past century and to note that hard-wired connection has been the norm for
communications for most of that time (hard-wire telegraph and telephone
services, for example), while, for broadcast information (television, radio),
wireless transmission has been the usual method. In the last few years, this
arrangement has been dramatically altered. Both television and radio are
frequently delivered to the home by hard wire (e.g., coaxial cable) while
telephone communications is rapidly shifting toward wireless delivery (i.e.,
cell phone). In the rapid expansion of cell phone usage, we have become quickly
accustomed to the idea of anytime, anywhere connectivity. Expansion of this idea
to include the full range of information services is the logical next step, and
we are seeing the introduction of a variety of different portable user devices
(e.g., pagers, personal digital assistants (PDA’s), web-enabled cell phones,
small portable computers) that have wireless connectivity. Thus, while wireless
connections among devices in our local area networks (see Chapters 4 and 5) are
an important development, the extension of information services to the mobile
user is perhaps even more exciting. Thus, the
term “Web” can be considered a shorthand term for the “World Wide Web,”
but the common usage of the term is broader than this and is inclusive of the
entire Internet, including the multimedia enhancements. The Web is what the
Internet has become in its current form, a large, rapidly growing, multimedia
enabled network of networks. But why do
we suggest putting all three of these terms together into one concept, the
“Intelligent Wireless Web”? It is certainly possible to develop intelligent
applications for the Internet without media (audio/video) Web features and/or
wireless capability. But, it is our suggestion that Web media, such as, audio,
can lead to improved user interfaces using speech and that small wireless
devices, widely distributed, can lead to easier access to large portions of the
world’s population. The end result could be, not just an intelligent Internet,
but a widely available, easily accessible, user friendly, Intelligent Wireless
Web. As a result,
the concept of an Intelligent Wireless Web weaves together important concepts
related to the growing and evolving system of information technology software
and hardware known as the Internet. Intelligence (in particular, the ability to
learn) and “wireless” (with its attendant mobility and convenience) promise
the delivery of increasingly capable information services to mobile users
anytime and anywhere. Fundamentally,
our vision for the future of an Intelligent Wireless Web is very simple - it is
a network that provides anytime, anywhere access to information resources with
efficient user interfaces and applications that learn and thereby provide
increasingly useful services whenever and wherever we need them. But what exactly do we want our future communications and information processes to become? How can we construct such a system? In the following sections, we will layout the framework and building blocks for our future communications and information resource processes that will enable the construction of the Intelligent Wireless Web. There are
still so many writers who are afraid of the Internet-- who believe that
designing a web page is a complex thing that only computer experts can
understand. How can a person with very little experience make a good
website for themselves? Today there are many sites that can
take you the hand and do much of the design work for you. They only require you
text input to produce a reasonable presentation in a community setting, such as www.authorden.com For those
who are interested in writing for the technology market, what do publishers look
for in terms of a bio? Should writers work their way up by writing for
newspapers, e-zines, etc., or is computer experience more important than writing
experience? The technology market demands substantial credentials, or equivalent experience, in order to demonstrate credibility to the reader. This could be accomplished academically but extensive experience, such as writing or editing a web site, is valuable. Publishers are careful to seek strong reviewers (often 5 or 6) to evaluate a book proposal or draft manuscript. And the review process can be quite daunting. The author is expected to take the toughest criticism in a constructive manner. However, at the end of the effort, you should find an improved work. I understand that your wife is also a writer. What's it like having two writers in the house? It’s great, though we are often
able to provide a treasure trove of helpful feedback on what is wrong with each
other’s work, but we are seldom able to offer a useful solution. This stems
from our very different interests and expertise. She is a superb fiction writer,
an area where I have dubious talent, and I am non-fiction writer while she lacks
the technical background to make a specific correction. Never the less, the free exchange of general ideas and opinions are enthusiastically offered and taken seriously. Do you turn to each other for feedback? Yes, very often. We love to go out
for breakfast on Saturday morning and set that time aside to discuss writing. We
talk about settings, characters, themes and plots. This often can get quite
involved as we rehash old constructs and work out new ideas. But having someone
to act as a sounding board is very helpful. One of the benefits of this interaction has been a growth of our individual perspective of why we should write a book or story. What is it that we really have to say? Is it worth saying? What in particular do we bring to the story that makes it special and worthwhile?
ORDER THE INTELLIGENT WIRELESS WEB BY CLICKING HERE.
|
Sponsored links 
Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer! How to find a book publisher |
Text on this site Copyright © 1998-2007
Absolute Write, all rights reserved.
|
