Social Software Explored

I have been using del.icio.us for a bit now (around 9 months) and while I don’t seem to have the number of links that I see others having (I have two sets of bookmarks – those that I use on a daily basis and those that I like to keep in my list and share with others). Being on the road a bit, I find myself talking to others about this link or that link or this article describing this technique or whatever. And it brings me back to the early days of the Internet (boy do I wish I had my bookmarks from my first years in college) and how horrible it was to find things (before bookmarks were popular). The only way that I could find a page again was to remember the “steps” I took to get there. I not find myself “promoting” sites like del.icio.us to users that have either never heard of it or have never used it. Like I am some Social Bookmarking whore.

I try to describe the benefits of the process (share links with your friends/colleagues, see what other people who tagged your same pages are reading etc…) but it never really seems to catch on. I still have to send them the link via email (arrgghh). Good news is that I am starting to see a change…

When you see the following links on an article that you are reading, it is a good bet that the editors that maintain this Web site know what is going on in the world of Social Bookmarking.

Above are a few of the popular links that appear on most good technology news sites. I happened to get these from a favorite of mine – New Scientist. The idea for the links above is for you to add this article (I was reading this one when it hit me) to your list of favorites and in addition to others that may share your same views.

This process is bound to increase the number of social bookmarking users out there. It however occurred to me that the above list is missing a few very popular links:

Netvibes
My Google
NewsGator (makers of the popular FeedDemon reader)

So I wonder how long before Social Bookmarking will become mainstream and when we will see the hundreds of sites dwindle down to several very usable sites. (more on this topic to follow)

I have posted a bit on RSS and while I am not a “super” expert on RSS but I am a big fan and I have posted a bit on this topic in the past so when I saw the following link: “Levels of JavaScript Knowledge” which was based on “Levels of HTML Knowledge” which was in turn based on “Levels of CSS Knowledge” I thought – what better way to describe what I have seen lately as we hire for PaperThin.

I started talking with many smart people who were interested in joining our Web based software company. I felt that there was a pretty good litmus test for the type of individuals we wanted to hire. Banking on the theory that you fill your bus with smart people first and then figure out where the bus needs to go, I would ask our potential employees about their knowledge of RSS. While I would also ask them about their views about the web and social networking and SOA, the RSS question seemed to be the most important. From that I have derived these levels of RSS knowledge

Level 0 – “RSS, Never heard of it”
I almost thought about not evening offering this level to the interviewees but it seemed logical. Let’s understand what this person looks like:

1.) They have never visited a major news site (CNN.com, MSNBC.com, ESPN.com etc…) or if they did the orange buttons for “xml” and “rss” never intrigued them.
2.) Clearly those same people were never intrigued enough to google “rss”.
3.) Obviously they have never seen Firefox and were probably not involved in the IE beta.

Level 1 – “RSS, Heard of it but I have no idea what it is”
Ok, so at least this individual has their ‘glasses’ on which means that are not blind to the idea that something else is going on in the web world besides HTML and images. Although, they probably don’t even know that the web page which contains the “RSS” links is written in HTML. It might also not be a stretch that this individual has also never heard of Firefox

Level 2 – “RSS, Yeah I use RSS for reading my favorite blog”
Now we are getting somewhere. This individual shows some promise. They are probably someone that enjoys the web and probably spends more time reading Weblogs then they do reading the local “printed” newspaper. Ideally, this individual would be very coach-able and probably “excited” about the development of the Internet in general.

Level 3 – “RSS, Just got finished uploading my Flickr photos and posted the gallery on my blog”
Clearly this individual has been using Firefox for over a year and has more extensions loaded in Firefox then they have pure Software packages installed on their mac. This individual may also know about OPML and attention.xml and is more likely to have been the first kid in their entire extended family to have an IPod . More importantly, this user of the Internet can describe the difference between RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atoms and the ITunes podcast RSS. Future CIO indeed.

Level 4 – “RSS, ha – working on 3.0 with Dave and by the way I make 20K a month blogging”
There are really few people who understand what is next for the web and are always active. They are probably currently active as a speaker for various technology pod-casts and have been mentioned at least once on the following web sites (in order of precedence):

- TechCrunch
- digg.com
- Valleywag
- Any Web 2.0 Workgroup blog

I am certainly no where near Level 4 but I work hard.

Oh and by the way as far as the other “Levels”

HTML – closest to Level 5
CSS – Level 5
JavaScript – Level 5

I have been programming the web for quite some time and am proud to say that I learned HTML using SimpleText with a Mosaic browser.

So there is this underground marketing current which almost “appears” at will. Think about the explosion of Google, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Del.icio.us – all of these sites are among the most popular on the web without one thing – Television Advertisements. Heck they really don’t have any mainstream advertisements. When was the last time you saw an ad on CNN.com for Del.icio.us? You didn’t – and that is remarkable.

I have seen a lot of ads on TV lately for Ask.com – you must remember them – they were the site which was previously launched as “Ask Jeeves?” – that corny little butler that was supposed to hunt for your information. Well they are at it again with this whole – “monkey” campaign which compares other search engines -with little or no tools – to Ask.com with their “Binoculars”. The tool allows you to “preview” the page before you navigate to it. In this small 150px by 150px window.

And who could forget slogans from other Internet company’s: “Do you Yahoo!?” “GoDaddy.com” “When I grow up – monster.com”. They all spent millions for 30 second advertisements to help launch their brand.

And then there is Google. Amazing. This little search engine came out of nowhere and stole the stage with it’s simple home page, amazing speed and incredible accuracy. They became the most popular search engine on the planet without a lick of advertising. Heck they have even obtained covenant status similar to that shared by the “Kleenex” brand for its “Kleenex” facial tissue. You don’t find things on the Internet any more and you certainly don’t “Yahoo something” – you “Google” it. For instance, I ‘googled’ that story about the… or I ‘googled’ so and so and returned…

Two questions arise from this 1.) What would happen if Google did create TV (or other mainstream media) ads? and if they did – 2.) What would they say? I can think of a few:

“Google – we are not taking over the world – we are the world”
“You’ve tried oxygen now try Google”
“When your Kitchen sink just has to be a part of your Desktop”

“We will destroy Oracle and SAP because they won’t be able to respond to the innovation we are about to unleash”.
Marc Benioff (CEO-Founder SalesForce.com)

Why is a software company that has only been around since the turn of the century able to make statements like this? Maybe because Marc Benioff is a big mouth and a hell of marketer or maybe because he is correct? Why would AppExchange ever have an opportunity to take Oracle out of the picture?

Innovation is finally leading the way
Back when the Internet boom first occured it was fueled by ideas. Innovation was a leading factor in the success of some of the early Internet companies. Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Dell and many others all had innovative ideas. New ways of doing the same thing. Yahoo! produced easy to use tools and search engine that made finding information easy. Amazon.com made purchasing books easier then ever and Dell revolutionized the way we purchased computers. These companies were all successful (and continue to be successful) because they were innovative.

Somewhere along the way a “shakedown” occurred and all of the companies that were truly not innovative crumbled. Granted some companies crumbled for other reasons but most simply because they did not innovate. Look at some of the popular technologies making waves in the world today during this new technology boom: Google, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Zillow.com, SalesForce. Why are they successful? Well it’s simple, they are innovative. Google … do I really need to discuss any of these? They are all flipping the online software world upside down with their innovative features.

With all of this complexity wee need simple tools
In all of the companies I mentioned making waves in the world today, they all have one thing in common (save Zillow.com which can be a bit busy) – they all do what they do and do it well. Is there really any simpler search engine then Google? For those users out there who no nothing about HTML is there any easier way to publish your thoughts and connect with your friends then MySpace? And YouTube – c’mon – dosen’t get any easier.

The Interent is expanding and not only in the amount of computers and sites available but also the number of people who are using it. As the number of users grow so does the diversity of that user. In it’s infancy the web was used primarily by those individuals that have grown up on computers. The classification of “Intuitive Interfaces” had to change.

In the words of Marc Benioff:

“The future of technology is all lower cost and easier usage,”

AppExchange 2.0?
In light of all the changes that have occurred in the recent past as it pertains to on-line software what makes Marc so certain that his innovation will change the world of on-line information storage? Right now we can only wait but in a few weeks we will know what Marc and company are thinking

At the heart of ADN at Dreamforce is technology — the features, tools, and APIs that will inspire developers looking for new ways to innovate. At ADN, salesforce.com will preview the biggest update ever to the AppExchange Web services API, one of the industry’s most popular Web services.

Combining concepts from service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Web 2.0 patterns, this new API will open the door to applications that can combine on-demand with traditional software, and Internet services with each other. In addition, a new set of tools for building directly on top of the AppExchange platform will make it possible to create sophisticated, enterprise-class solutions — capable of meeting the most challenging business requirements — on demand, and without software.

From the “DreamForce 06” web site.

I only wish that I could be there for the announcement.

I have been talking a bit about the new web software age and how interesting it is being a part of this whole revolution. I am often struggling to make sense of this whole transformation that is going on. How Internet web sites (software) are battling for attention from users. I also, often try and separate the “technical” aspect (those individuals who knew what HTML was before Yahoo.com was popular) of this growth from the “human” aspect (those individuals who could differentiate HTML from RSS). I ran across two rather interesting posts today. Each one supporting and de-supporting some of my hypothesis that I (being from the technical side) am in a vacuum.

Digg.com still cannot compete with NY Times
This post has been around for a couple of days and has been reported on by a few people. The post that I like the most (because it has fancy graphs) is Hitwise US: Digg versus New York Times Reality Check from LeeAnn Prescott. In her post she talks about how many people have been talking trash about how popular Digg is and that it has enjoyed a serious 50% growth since February of this year. Since they just turned non-technical.

The share of page impressions for the NY Times was 19 times greater
than for Digg for that week. If I put the NY Times on the same chart as
Digg, Digg’s traffic would look tiny and relatively flat, even though
its share of page impressions has grown substantially in the past
several months, increasing 51% from February to June 2006.

Additionally, she goes on to note the top 20 search terms for users who were sent to digg.com:

1. sidekick3
2. chuck norris jokes
3. limewire pro
4. scary maze
5. mosquito ringtone
6. videora
7. digg.com (YES! Digg.com – clearly they have begun to reach the non-technical!)
…

As of the time of this writing here are the top 5 stories on Digg.com (Not the Technical Category – which is the default category if you visit the site – but the “All” categories).

1. Students used wigs to disguise the wireless gear used to cheat on exam
2. Resdesign From Scratch – first in a series of 50 redesigns
3. eWEEK Labs Bakeoff: Linux Versus .Net Stacks
4. Searching with “find” one of the least understood commands of Linux,
5. $200,000,000,000 isn’t enough. We need more money. Let’s tax the Internet

For me what this means is that there is still a divide between the technical audience and the non-technical audience. So my thoughts are, I am still in a vaccum.

YouTube.com nearly doubles in one month
Then I read about the tremendous growth of YouTube.com. YouTube.com could be classified in the social aspect of the new software that has been popping up. The site is new (founded as a company in February 2005) and allows people to upload their own video. Recently YouTube.com has been signing deals with major networks (NBC for instance) to publish their content. Not quite sure how that will work but it is turning into a numbers game with YouTube.com

YouTube had 12.6 million unique visitors in May (up from 6.6M and so putting it just outside the top 50 properties on the Web), Google Video 7M, and Yahoo! Video 4.2M.

Ok so if that doesn’t put it into perspective then I am not sure what does. YouTube.com went from 2 place (compared to Google and Yahoo! Video’s current numbers) to more than both combined — in one month! Incredible growth. With the Google Adwords on the right, Google just has to sit back, relax and buy YouTube.com at the right moment.

So what this means to me is that there are certain areas of this Social Networking, which is reaching beyond the Technical realm. Real ordinary people are flocking to this site to view video.

CNN.com reports on Rocketboom
Rocketboom is a vlog (videoblog) that has been around since October of 2004. While Rocetboom reports on many topics that are certainly considered non-technical, the fact that the very existence of this site is due to the Internet places it in a semi-technical realm. The fact that it receives over 100K visitors a day means that it is popular. Popular enough for the news about Amanda Congdon leaving Rocketboom, to make the front page of CNN.com.

Interestingly enough, the news about a non-mainstream news service loosing their host making it on the front page of a very mainstream news service proves that we are in some sort of paradox. Some large shift.

I will continue to ponder the change, what it means and how it will effect the technical and non-technical people in my life.

powered by performancing firefox

Ok like a “Flock of sheep” or a “Flock of seagulls”? Nope, Flock as in the Web browser. I found this new browser by reading TechCrunch. I decided to try it out and I have been using it ever since. Sure it has it’s quirks and I don’t seem to mind some of the “pitfalls” (described below). I also, don’t use all of the features, but you know what? I like it… and here’s why.

1. It’s Firefox.
Yup, the core engine of this baby is Firefox. So, all of the same things I like about Firefox (read my earlier posts) are still here.

2. Best News Reader (for free!).
I was a huge fan of Sage – the extension for Firefox which handled all of my needs for news reading. Then I tried this. I have to say today that this is probably the single reason that I use Flock soo much.

2a. Downloads RSS Automatically
One of the things that I didn’t like about Sage (and I did not realize I didn’t like it until I tried Flock) was that you had to force Flock to retrieve your RSS. It did not do it on a scheduled basis. Flock is constantly reloading your RSS. That means it will notify you when there are new articles by changing the News Reader Icon (which is a part of the normal browser window icons – like Back, Forward, Stop).
2b. Reader is easy to use (once you understand it)
The news reader loads all of the feeds in the left pane (which shows and hides automatically whenever you go to an RSS feed). On the Right side it will show all of the posts pretty neatly.

2c. The look and feel is better
I like the way the news reader looks. Each feed has a little icon next to it (based on the icon located in the RSS or the favicon.ico on the site hosting the RSS feed). The layout of the content in the right page is preceded by a management header that allows you to mark all posts as read. Boy I could go on and on about the reader.

3. It’s cool.
The icons for the browser are a ton better than those of Firefox. It’s ice blue.

4. Integrates directly with Photobucket and/or Flickr
Yup, it has an integrated tool which allows you to upload images directly to your photobucket or flickr account. (I have since found this to not be as useful as the new Picassa – which I will post about soon).

5. Integrates directly with your Blog
Click Ctrl + B and it opens a little word pad window which allows you to post about something while your are reading. I have been using Performancing (which loads nicely in Flock too!) so this tool has little use for me.

6. Integrates the Stop button and the Refresh button
Yeah, never really realized how silly two buttons for Stop and Refresh were. When you start navigating to a site, you would not need to click refresh (at least not frequently – F5 works fine for me). So the refresh button automatically switches to a Stop button. Then when a page loads all the way it switches from a Stop button to a Refresh. No need to hit Stop when a page is loaded already.

It was some of these little things which interested me. Hey someone was thinking about how we use the web.

So what are some of the pitfalls for this product?

1. Doesn’t support folders (or sub-folders) in the bookmarks or Toolbars
I am a big fan of organizing. I have not switched over to this whole “Tagging” thing yet so I am much more efficient loading up a folder with common links. It makes it easier for me to manage my links. I may get better at using Delicious but for right now, I don’t have enough time to tag all of my links.

2. The settings on the News Reader were not intuitive at first and defaulted to a setting I found unuseful
The reader by default would not display anything. That is because by default when you clicked on the left nav to see a feed you had registered, it would immediately mark all the links in the feed as read. When I set the settings to be logical (or at least what I thought to be logical – to display only “New” items) nothing was “New”. They had all been marked as Read when I clicked on the feed so they were now all “Viewed” so, they did not show up.

Annoying at first, but with some help from a friend, we found the setting that “Mark[ed] feeds as viewed when selected in the sidebar”. Now the setting in the main window to only display “New” items was correct. Happy Day!

3. Some of the existing Firefox extensions were not compatible
At first it appeared that there was a complete difference between the two platforms when it came to extensions. Now it appears that there has been somewhat of a convergence and tools have been built to make Firefox Only extensions work in Flock.

So what does this mean (and why am I really using Flock)? For me it shows me how important (and powerful) the browser has become. This tool can now Read RSS, Aid in organizing and post pictures to your favorite image site, Post to your blog and oh yeah by the way…browse the Internet. I know that Firefox can do all of this with extensions but all of this is “Out of the box” with no extensions needed. It shows that there is some movement on the integration of applications with your web browser.

A quick note: Photobucket is now distributing a custom Flock browser which only supports uploading images to the Photobucket site. In addition, there are rumors that Yahoo will be doing the same (only removing Photobucket). Let the games begin.

One of the things that I have been thinking about a lot lately is the separation between the “Technology Web” and the “Web for the Masses”.  Sure there is some cross-over like the fact that a ton of non-technical people enjoy Photobucket but, I think that there is still a great divide.  When (and if) is that divide going to collapse and what will be the driving factors?

One sign that there is a great divide can certainly be found in a topic that I talk a lot about.  The browsers.  Firefox is currently very appealing to the technical audience.  Those individuals that are not afraid of change.  Try something out, give it a chance.  Heck if you don’t like it, go back to what you were using before.

So what if Web 2.0 isn’t just the applications, frameworks, social networks.  What if it represents something bigger.  THE CHANGE!  I saw it in 1992 when I did my first project in college for an Economics professor.  I saw what the Internet could truly be.  I didn’t see the Internet for what it had to offer now.  Nobody did.  At that time it was severely underdeveloped.  I saw it for what it could be come.  This incredible tool for improving the communication in our lives.  Ok, so I will be honest, it helped me talk to my girlfriend at the time who was going to school at Richmond College but it was truly profound.  When I got into Web development in 1995 I started to truly understand that the Web could solve problems.

I saw that a local businessman whose current business for connecting fisherman in Galilee RI with potential clients in Japan could be 10 times more efficient by switching from the current Fax system to an Internet based application.  I saw that a Claims management company which digitally scanned claim forms as TIFF’s could cut paper and personnel costs by switching to a reporting system that was Web based.  The Internet and Web applications in general represented the “new” way of doing things.

So what of this new revolution.  Surely it is great that I can now store bookmarks in a global space and access those bookmarks from any computer in the world.  I understand what that means.  But what about those people out there that have no idea how the bookmarks they use are stored.  I still know countless people out there who have no idea how to even create a bookmark.  And they are very successful people with more money in the bank then I have.

What does 2.0 represent to them and how does it reach them.  In one sense, I say that 2.0 reaches them without them even knowing.  I remember my first job at the local ISP.  I spent time teaching people how the Internet worked and how they could send email and find information on the Web.  Some of the people that I taught were like “That’s it??”  “That’s the Internet???”  I was like…uh…yeah…don’t you get it.  This is amazing.

If Web 2.0 represents applications and frameworks then I say it is not going to last.  But, if Web 2.0 represents an idea.  An idea that the Computer and Web ARE the means for communicating.  If we can truly manage our lives on the Internet and it’s EASY.  Then we are in for a hell of a ride.

All this talk about Social Networking.  That isn’t something that just “happened”.  It wasn’t driven by software.  It was driven by the fact that there are more people living in the on-line world now then ever before and the number keeps growing.  Social Networking too me as a participant in the on-line world is like a global voice saying:

“OK… we bought into these computer things.  We trucked big pipelines to our houses and pay a ton of money a month to get a descent connection to the Interent.  No What?  Where do we go from here.  Web 2.0 is a trial. Can we get the masses to participate at a level us technical people have been accustomed to for years.  What can we learn from the masses who are going to look at this technology differently.  With their head tilted and with less of a desire to say “OK, that works for me”.

I was just reading a blog post on “WeBreakStuff” about “Railsday: Pushing the limits of 24 hours“. I have always been a big fan of ColdFusion (CF) development and find it amazing the amount of steam applications built with Ruby are gaining recently. I found “Railsday” particularly interesting because in 2003 I presented an idea to Macromedia’s Event Marketing team which was built on the same premise. I called it 36 Hours of Max:

Excerpt from my original document:

What: A three-day competition coinciding with DevCon, for MX developers. The goal will be to coordinate the creation of a web site/application based on a strict specification in 36 hours using nothing but MX products. By holding the event at (or around) DevCon we would maximize exposure and create an added feature for future DevCon gatherings. (A humanitarian angle could be added to the “what” by choosing a Non-Profit organization and either re-designing or creating a site for them. Maybe an organization with little money or resources.)

Scenario:

- Teams of 6 (could be more or less) would work together to complete an application based on a pre-defined specification. The specification is the same for all teams and the application must be built exclusively with Macromedia Studio MX.

- On the final day all the entries are *collected* and the judging begins [may want to perform preliminary judging during the day on Saturday so that Judges are aware of the programs before actual judging]

- The awards ceremony follows the judging and is open to all attendees of DevCon

- [Optional] require no pre-coding by releasing the specification at the beginning of the contest

Since one of the values of CF is to be a Rapid Application Development architectures I was a bit surprised that Macromedia did not take me up on my idea. Maybe the idea was before its time (Hey Adobe if you are listening….) Now with the advent of Flex and the tight integration between CF and Flash I think that an idea like this has even more merit then it did in the past. I do not know a lot about the architecture of Ruby but I know a lot about CF and I can say that it would be difficult for any architecture to have the IDE/Application Development integration that CF is pushing.

Value of Small Agile Development Teams
One of the topics that WeBreakStuff spoke about was the value of small agile teams. I left a very small agile team at Seton Hall University a few weeks ago. The web team responsible for implementing our CMS has some incredible talent and interesting dynamics. Lee Clark and Mike Hyland are avid bloggers and compliment each other in their development/design skills. Where Mike leads the way in CSS and HTML layout, Lee produces database interactions in PHP and CF. In addition, there is Marie Somers (Team Lead) and Kevin Whary (Applications Development).

I have seen some good applications development teams out there but none with the dynamics that match this groups abilities. Covering the gammut of CSS/HTML/JS/CFML/Linux/SQL Server/MySQL support, the team is nimble and efficient. [Ok, enough promotion]

The real value here with teams of this size, is that they can get things done. There is no time to overthink things and rarely is any time wasted. In the fast moving environment of Web Development these are great qualities in a team. What makes this group really interesting is that they can cover start-finish an entire Web application.

Nimbleness + Proper Planning = Success
Often the notion of Rapid Application Development carries with it a connotation of poor quality. How can you produce proper applications in weeks in months?

I have been using the Internet for a long time. In fact, it has been almost 15 years (14.7 to be exact). I am sure that there have been others out there that remember the earlier Internet. After all according to this article, the 2400 baud modem become affordable as early as 1987.

Back then though the Internet was not really for public use and the World Web hadn't even been created. I do remember people talking about Bullitein boards and AOL but before 1992 (when I got my start) the web had just gotten started. First it was Mozaic and then came Netscape and finally IE. I have seen all of the browsers and I have ask myself "Why Firefox and Why Now"?

I will take this in two sections:

Why Firefox
What makes Firefox so popular? What is making it so successful? For starters Firefox has been around for a bit longer than most people might think. It was originally launched as beta software project named "Phoenix" in September 2002. They launched the beta for 0.8 in February 2004 with the name Firefox. So lets talk about what makes Firefox so appealing. I can think of a few good reasons:

1. Cross Platform
This browser runs and acts the same on all platforms mainly because of its use of XUL for the Interface. I am not sure how they got their rendering engine to be so cross-platform but with Firefox you did not see all of the crazy HTML/CSS incompatiability problems that you may have experienced with IE. So from the development perspective you didn't have to write your app 3 or 4 ways to work on different platforms.

2. Extensions
Did I say extensions? I really mean "Mini-software apps". I am actually using one now called "Performancing". A great tool for those of you who blog. The number of extensions (and their relatively easy development process) is astounding. Since Firefox used XML and scripting standards for their Intereface API it appeals to broad audiences. Since we use our web browsers so much, it makes sense to add in connections to our email, bookmarks, RSS readers, Blog tools etc… Why leave the browser? I know the Web as the OS is the new mantra, but to me the Browser as the OS means soooo much more.

3. Cleanliness
The application is so light weight (not that it can't chew up memory). It sits in a tiny space on your hard drive and is not integrated with the world. I can not remember the last time I was browsing for files on my local machine and felt the urge to visit a web site so bad that I replaced "c:\temp\foo\" with "http://www.techcrunch.com". Integrated browsers with my "everything" is not as useful as one might think.

4. Security
When Firefox first came out, it was a lot more secure than IE. There were not as many security holes because it did not have a lot of airtime for hackers. Plus, it was the hackers that got sick of IE and started using Firefox. They were almost championing Firefox because it was more appealing. Zillion dollar software bohemoth vs. Non-Profit foundation for the better of all Internet users. There was no reason to poke holes in the app, it was accepted. Not to say that there aren't any security risks – because there are some doozies. But it is more secure than IE.

5. Updates
Ok, so IE does have updates, but since these updates are so bundled in with the OS, you have to download a million other patches to fix holes in the browser. Firefox has more regular updates and they install automatically (should you choose to).

So why now?
I can not truly say why now. Maybe it had to do with the tremendous security holes opened up via the IE browser in the early 00's. It certainly is a lot more fun to use. But what really makes an application like this work so well.

1. Appealing to the right people
This application was targeted for people who embrace change. This was evident in the Marketing campaign. There were no flashy commercials. There were no full page ads taken out in Technical Publications. It was a quiet movement dessiminated via Blogs and forums posts. "Hey, did you check out Phoenix"? or "I downloaded Firefox last night and it is really cool … there are all of these extensions…". The development community ate it up because it was fun and different.

2. Reliable
It is rare that Firefox crashes. It is very light weight. It is good at doing what it is supposed to do – serve up web pages. If Firefox does crash it is more likely due to the fact that you have installed some beta extension that did not take into consideration how users would react to the tools provided.

Reality
Don't get me wrong, Firefox has it annoyances, but I would take them over IE any day. I can not say that I will never open up an IE browser again, but I can say that my browser of choice is certainly Firefox.

powered by performancing firefox

Apple should change the name of OS X to osX – allOneWord. Seriously though, anyone seen what is going on over there? I mean really this is pure madness. Have you heard of bootcamp? I know that I am always the last man to hear the god damn thing (reference to PulpFiction). Anyhoo I was conducting some training last week with the good folks at Florida Area Real Estate – shout out to the crew! – and Rob Shrewsbury told me about bootcamp.

If you haven't heard, there is this new beta program that Apple is offering to allow you to run Windows and osX at the same time. That is something of a "virtualization" software program from what I gather. Rob had purchased a Mac a year or so ago (its -pre intel) and heard about it. Being that his work pretty much required him to work on a Mac he thought it was a good idea. I am not sure if he decided to try it or not but. To read more about it go over to their web site ( www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/ ).

I was reminded of this software tonight when I visited a customer of ours. Actually brought in by a Partner NI Solutions in Toronto. The company name is "Virtual Iron". They make a product that is also in beta which seems to run on the Linux platform. Specifically RHEL3 and 4. They are going to have a Windows version of the product available in September 2000.

It appears to "run between the Operating System and the Hardware".

Alex Vasilevsky Founder and CTO Virtual Iron Software. I think that this is an interesting technology, especially if you read their "In the news" section. Ton of talk about this type of technology.