DragonStyle

From Om Malik’s Broadband Blog — » Flock Lands To Cheers & Jeers

I did a little experimenting with Flock, but my review was pretty flat too. I spose a part of it is that I simply don't use Flickr and del.icio.us all that much. I'm just not sure I'm ready to adopt a new browser to get those features. Perhaps something that integrates with an exisiting browser would be a better solution.

So what does the world at large generally think of this? The early verdict is that there is no verdict. Paul Kedrosky, a man of few choice words says, “I’ve messed with it and been largely unimpressed. It is nowhere near as feature-rich as my preferred browsing tool, Maxthon.” Solution Watch had a more indepth review of the product, and are generally enthusiastic. But being 100% honest, I’m still not sure I’m changing my browser to have a way to integrate delicious and a blogging tool into my browsing experience,” writes Frederico Oliveira.

Link to Om Malik’s Broadband Blog — » Flock Lands To Cheers & Jeers

VMware Player - Run VMs for Free!

We're big users of VMWare at Onfolio - it is a great tool for testing installation / uninstallation as well as for testing various platforms quickly and easily. We keep a shared repository of VMs that are used for testing of specific configurations, so having the ability to run these for free on our developer desktops will be a real boon for us. Thanks VMware!

VMware Player is free software that enables PC users to easily run any virtual machine on a Windows or Linux PC. VMware Player runs virtual machines created by VMware Workstation, GSX Server or ESX Server and also supports Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats.

Link to VMware Player

Reality is Probably Somewhere in Between

Joel has a cynical take on the Web 2.0- definitely finding grains of truth. The truth about the usefulness of the Web 2.0 is probably somewhere in between, so I'm happy someone is lining up across from the Web 2.0 folks (there are pleny of people who are spouting advocacy, so now we just need a few more contrarians so we can get to the bottom of this).

When people use the term Web 2.0, I always feel a little bit stupider for the rest of the day. To quote the line from Billy Madison:

Principal: Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

 

Architecture Astronauts Are Back
Originally Posted on 10/21/2005 1:01 AM
by spolsky@panix.com (Joel Spolsky)
Joel on Software

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: "Microsoft will acquire my company"

Ok, you can tell that I just discovered Don Dodge's blog, but a previous post of his makes another great point that is very worth keeping front and center when evaluating an emerging market. Its tempting to focus on the technology, but it turns out that market position is a truly critical factor for choosing a winner in the market. Of course, the people at the company are the other critical factor- a company with great people and strong market position is one that is likely to be successful somehow. A company with great people has a shot at gaining market position and winning. A company with neither is a disaster.

Entrepreneurs should remember this. The "barriers to entry" are most often market position, not technical brilliance.

Link to Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: "Microsoft will acquire my company"

"The Search" an insiders response

Don Dodge has a nice post providing some additional color to the recent book 'Search.' One of his points that seems imminently clear and accurate to me is that the search war is far from over. Google has and early lead, but Don is right to point out that counting out MSN is a mistake. The same could be said for Yahoo as well- niether MSN or them will go quietly into the night.

The last chapter has not been written in the search game. Microsoft MSN Search is every bit as good as Google in terms of size, speed, and relevance. Microsoft has come from behind several times before. I wouldn't bet against them now. MSN Search is just getting started. The Search...

"The Search" an insiders response
Originally Posted on 10/19/2005 12:25 AM
by DonDodge
Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

NewsForge | Three reasons why Internet-based applications are a bad idea

A decent article suggesting that network reliability and connectivity are still sketchy enough that having important data on the desktop remains critical for many applications. I absolutely agree.

Nick Bradbury also included a shout out to desktop apps in his post revising Web 2.0. His point is that desktop applications will remain, but the local only data model may be gone (instead replaced with online storage via APIs). It's worth pointing out that although Nick suggests that maintaining and scaling a web application is too tough for many single developers, I wonder if maintaining and scaling an online API is really that much easier...

Taken together, the two above posts suggest the real future of applications- you will not need to be concerned with connectivity or concurrency, and your data will be available everywhere, online and offline. OneNote has already started to go there, and I expect that more and more applications will support this mode of work.

Macromedia Labs

This is a great thing- Macromedia opening up the development process a bit to give developers a closer look at what they're up to. It is nearly a requirement for developer centric tools these days, since it is so time consuming to build a base of developers...

In the spirit of open betas everywhere, Macromedia is flinging wide the doors to their upcoming geegaws with Macromedia Labs. According to the site:

"Macromedia Labs provides developers the opportunity to experience and evaluate new and emerging innovations, technologies, and products from Macromedia. By providing early access to software to our development community, Labs fosters a more collaborative process of software development, helping both our developers get productive with new products and technologies faster, and Macromedia development teams to hear their early feedback on these products and technologies and help shape their development."

That's a pretty cool move, IMO.  I'm again reminded of the old Willy Wonka Club, where you could test new, unreleased candies. Right now they're pushing Flex, a web-based application platform that (as is usual in hype-rich marketspeak) looks quite promising. I think there's going to be a lot of server activity at Macromedia in the next 48 hours. Wonder what'll happen once the merger with Adobe is done?

[Thanks, Dave]
 

ReadPermalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Macromedia Labs
Originally Posted on 10/18/2005 12:32 PM
by Victor Agreda, Jr.
Download Squad

Advertising to your friends sucks

 

Who knew that generating ads in my blog could be so easy? Now, let the money come rolling in, based upon my _massive_ readership. Or based upon the 3 friends I have clicking the links below. Don't you think that for most blogs, whose readership is tiny and personal, the concept of advertising as revenue is crazy? Well I guess its as crazy as tuperware parties, which apparently worked.

 

 

Technorati Tags : Advertising, RSS, Friends

Ruby on Rails in Wired by Tim O'Reilly

Tim O’Reilly recently did a piece called “What’s on Tim’s Radar?”. It features a handful of concepts and software that Tim O’Reilly believes to be ”...innovative, world-changing, or just plain cool”. Guess what’s in that fine bunch? Ruby on Rails!

The quote:

Ruby On Rails: A framework, based on the Ruby programming language for rapid Web development, makes it easier than ever to build a site that draws on a big database. Presto: instant Amazons and eBays!

Ruby on Rails in Wired by Tim O'Reilly
Originally Posted on 10/5/2005 12:11 PM
Riding Rails