MSN Sandbox
I just came across this - MSN Sandbox - where you can find various Microsoft goodies which are otherwise not available. Notable is LookOut the search product that MS has recently acquired. Haven't tried it myself - I prefer X1.
iTunes Rules
Here's a nice bit of civic participation : the iTunes Music Store is offering single click, FREE , downloads of the 9/11 Commision Report's Executive Summary, and of speeches from the 2004 Democratic National Convention. What a great way to make this accessible to us. Thanks!
Jon Udell on Bloglines
I want to address just one point, which is Jon's prediction of the coming world domination by web apps. There's an interesting paradox , inconsistency or contradiction here, if you look at the following qoutes from his piece:
"Web applications such as Gmail and Bloglines are already hard to beat. With a touch of alchemy they just might become unstoppable. "
"… that Bloglines, like Zope, handles foldering about as well as you can in a Web UI -- which is to say, well enough. With an intelligent local cache it could be really good; more on that later."
"Finally, I'd love it if Bloglines cached everything in a local database, not only for offline reading but also to make the UI more responsive and to accelerate queries that reach back into the archive."
Is there a way to have our cake and eat it too? Is it possible to have the user experience of a real application with the universal access of a web application?
That's the BlogBridge experiment : a total inversion of the Web Application scheme. BlogBridge has a thick client (Java based) with the local cache and the flashy responsive UI and offline operation.
And we are about to launch the BlogBridge Service which is a Web Service (XML-RPC) allowing BlogBridge to synchronize both your feeds and folders as well as their unread status periodically.
In other words, you run the BlogBridge application and periodically it talks to the service (behind the scenes) and uploads your latest feeds, folders and unread state. If you run BlogBridge somewhere else, you BlogBridge talks to the service and grabs your latest info and you continue where you left off.
What do you think?
Announcing… The BlogBridge Service ;-)
Here's a sneak preview of something a little bit different. As of the next beta, we will be running a BlogBridge service off our BlogBridge.com site. Initially all it will do for you is keep things in synch as you use BlogBridge on different computers. Keeping in synch means making sure that you have the same 'favorites' configured and that your unread information is kept consistent.
It does require you to register, by giving us an email address and password to authenticate you. So that whenever you run BlogBridge it will pick up your favorites and not someone elses.
Oh, and it's free. For now 😉
Here's what the BlogBridge service setup looks like (click on it to enlarge.)
Will Wikis Rule the World?
I was recently asked by a VC friend of mine what I thought of a certain Wiki product. I thought my response to him (with specific product and people references removed) might be interesting. He asked me, "Have you kept track of what 's going on in Wiki-land, and what do you think?"
Here's my answer :
Yes, I have very much kept track of the wiki stuff. After doing eRoom, which is still among the best collab systems out there in my (humble) opinion, I very much believe that there's a whole next generation of collaboration that is needed. I say this because eRoom and others fall really short when it comes to get mass adoption. Wiki's might point in that direction.
That said, I think Wikis today are abominable. They have a few breakthrough ideas, certainly, but other than that they are IMHO very hard to use and will in their current form be adopted by few. Also in my opinion, in terms of enterprise adoption, they will suffer the same challenges that eRoom and all the others do: customers don't really experience enough pain collaborating as they do today over email and IM. They are and will continue to be hard pressed to spend real money on solving the 'collaboration' problem.
The more likely strategy , still, is one of verticalization : understanding specific use scenarios, building specialized flavors of collaboration stuff, and marrying this with the right marketing strategy and sales approach.
Mac OSX not easy to use!
Years ago I was a hardcore Mac fanatic. I was one of the creators of a long- gone early Macintosh application called Jazz. I programmed on a Lisa in 68000 assembly language. As I said, a long time ago 🙂
Anyway, for years I've been a PC guy, but still with a warm spot in my heart for Mac. Recently we got an iBook in our family and so I had a chance to reaquaint myself with how the world had changed.
After hearing disparaging remarks from Mac folks about Windows XP lack of usability and elegance I was all set to be blown away by OSX. Here some first impressions.
Yes indeed, OSX is beautiful to look at. It wows you with some nifty and novel animations. The level of design, colors, icons, etc. is all really enjoyable to look at.
OSX has a little Unix heart beating inside it. This means it's nirvana for Unix folks. But to the average joe it also means something: stability. It has yet to crash on me.
I can't believe that it still has only a single button mouse. And it's funny because you can see how OSX gradually is inching towards giving in on this little bit of obsolete religion. If you plug a 2 button mouse into the USB port, it works like a charm. And the scroll wheel works. And some applications even put up a context menu. But because Mac is conflicted about this, this is not nearly consistent and pervasive enough.
Gluing the menu bar to the top of the screen an antiquated holdover from when screens were tiny and there was no multi-tasking (even the term multi-tasking sounds quaint given that everyone does it.) The result is that it's often not obvious what application you are in.
And while the dialog boxes are pretty, they are not necessarily well designed. One trivial example: if you are setting up your airport, and you have enabled security (like everyone does) then it is not explained anywhere that you must precede the hex password with a dollar sign to get it to work. Another trivial one: in more than one place I was 4 steps down a 'wizard' when I decided to quit out of it, except there was no Cancel button. I had to 'back-back-back' to get back to the start.
Anyway there you have it. I think with this experience I would debate the Mac user's claim that Mac is inherently easier to use than WInXP. First of all, it's more similar than different and second of all, it's not all good.
[JAVA ONE]Sun answers my question
In several previous posts I've wondered aloud: "I can see that Sun spends a ton of money on Java. It must be astronomical. What's the strategy behind that? How do they make money on that?"
Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's President and COO, answers that question directly in his new Blog.
And in the " you can't win" department: One of my observations about this year's Java One was that there was a real contrast between the way Java ran this and the way, for example, Microsoft runs the PDC (Professional Developers Conference.) Microsoft works hard at and I think succeeds at painting a grand future for their stuff. Not only what is here today, but what will be coming in 12 months, 3 years, 5 years and even 10 years. A holistic and compelling vision.
In contrast, at Java One, I felt Sun basically appologetic: "No, Java really is fast" and "See, it is possible to write real time applications in Java" and, "Who said you can't make great desktop apps in Java?".
And with this posting, Jonathan Schwartz continues this appologia : "No, stop complaining: we do have an idea of how we make money on Java. Just like GE made money on standard rails, [and other parallel examples]"
I am not sure that the economics argument works (over my head) but I am sure that it doesn 't bristle with confidence and passion.
Scary Software, Part Deux
Continuing my complaints about Java Web Start, as if the message displayed on Windows under Java 1.5 isn't bad enough, here's what a slightly older version of Java displays on Linux:
I highlighted the message near the bottom in yellow: "It is highly…" I mean, really, what is the point? I can spend several hundreds of dollars (annually) on a certificate to change that message to "This application was signed by R. Pito Salas and Associates", and that would assure people who know me personally. I would hope my user base grows beyond that 🙂
BlogBridge Beta 2 almost ready
Well we've been busy little beavers and are getting ready to release BlogBridge Beta 2. It has quite a few nifty new features! I will write a little more about it tomorrow or Monday.
We've done a total overhaul of the content of the web site (the look/design is unchanged.) Take a look at our Brand New Web Site
An important change in opening the kimono a bit more is that you will find a direct link from our web site to install and run the beta. You are of course invited to join the beta group, but if you just want to play, go for it. Click here to download and run BlogBridge.