Category: Technology

Categories
Technology Weblogging

Movable Type: The Princess Time Forgot

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Once upon a time Burningbird ran under Movable Type. In fact, the weblog ran under Movable Type for at least a couple of years. But then, I also ran a Radio weblog, one through Blogger, my own form of WordPress (Wordform), and WordPress off and on–currently on.

At one time, Movable Type was the princess to Blogger’s Queen, a potential successor to the kingdom of Blog, Blog Away. Ben and Mena Trott were feted and fawned over. They were even invited to contribute to the book on weblogging that O’Reilly published, and to which I contributed.

Then that new darling, that rapscallion, WordPress came along with that era’s latest incarnation of wunderkid. Combined with Movable Type’s new, and loathed, licensing system and performance issues, MT still stayed a princess, but of what kingdom, no one really knew.

Today, nudged by Arthur in comments, and announced by Read/Write, Movable Type version 4.0 is on the way out to thee and me, and with its Typepad inspired performance enhancements, and hip, Web 2.0 interface, comes the politically astute move: Movable Type 4.0 will be open sourced.

Of course, there is open source and then there’s open source. To me, open source means I can create a fork of the product. According to Six Apart’s MT open source page, MT will be a true open source, licensed as GPL.

This is a smart move in many ways. First, it reminds us that MT still exists. Today, the big stories in technology related to weblogging tools tend to be about what dumb ass move the tool company or organization has done recently; not necessarily, ooh, look, shiny new release. This includes Six Apart with the recent fiasco of deleting too many Live Journal weblogs in its effort to be ‘child safe’. Open sourcing the MT code raises the noise level around the tool just enough to be heard among the recent Google/Microsoft/Yahoo et al stories–something that’s becoming increasingly difficult.

Secondly, Six Apart can do what it will with regards to licensing MT, including dropping support altogether for the product in order to focus on its more profitable hosted services. If it can get the ‘community’ to take over support, it means Six Apart is no longer trapped into supporting MT forever. I imagine right now that’s tempting.

Lastly, Six Apart can benefit from the creativity and skills of any number of open source developers, none of whom have to be paid. Wow, that must seem like finding a grape lollipop on the ground, still in its wrapper.

On the downside, my first reaction reading this was, “I’d give anything for a really exciting tech story, right now.” Movable Type is part of another era. An era where releasing a new version of MT would cause the news to shoot to the top of Daypop. Remember Daypop? I bet most people reading this do not. They’ll remember Mena and cries of “Asshole!”, but not necessarily the tool that built the castle that is Six Apart.

It was surprising to hear that MT is being open sourced. Surprising, also, to read that Anil Dash is vice president of Six Apart now (when did that happen?) More surprising to see a positive review by Duncan Riley.

It was good, though, to be reminded of this princess that time forgot. To see her crown polished, and her sequined gown fluffed out and shiny. Too bad that she returns to the dance so late; many of us have already left the ball.

Categories
Technology

If you can’t say anything nice…don’t weblog

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Comment to my post:

However, if you don’t use Zooomr, you shouldn’t criticize. If you didn’t donate, you shouldn’t criticize.

Bullshit.

Zoli’s Weblog:

I’ve never thought I would agree with Shelley Powers one day – she often attacks people and tends to be mean. Her comments on Scoble’s blog were somewhat vicious… but I have to admit she raises valid points. Zooomr is a great service (when it runs) but is far from being a professionally managed company, as recognized CEO Thomas Hawk himself.

Go me.

Categories
Web

Web 2.0 way of running a web application

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Question: How do you turn a Web 1.0 application into a Web 2.0 one?

Answer: Pull the plug.

I’ve been involved in comments over at Robert Scoble’s on the Zooomr crash and burn, and make no mistake: the application is down and out, and there is no plan in place to get it back up other than asking for donations. Donations for what? Well, we heard about server problems, but then we heard about RAID controller problems; discussion about the database server failing was followed by discussion that 10TB is not a big enough server. This was then followed by the problem isn’t CPU: It’s I/O because of the static pictures being served. Kristopher Tate doesn’t seem to be a consistent idea of what the problem is. Other than, We think the controller on our main database server is bad.

What?

This is what I dislike about Web 2.0. Kristopher Tate and Thomas Hawk are darlings of the A List set, so therefore these aren’t two men running an application, neither of whom really has a clue in how to keep an application of this magnitude up and going. No, these are two brilliant, far thinking futurists who only need money and help from someone to keep this going, as the troops rally around with “Way to go, guys!”

This application has been down over a week, after it went down once before with a promised rollout, after missing its initial rollout at its own startup party, following on what sounds like other downtime problems. Do you think system users should be concerned? Perhaps even, dare I say it, critical? Not on your life. Being critical is not the Web 2.0 way.

There isn’t a note on the front page about the server being down for the count. No, they’ve pasted some UStream videos where people can watch Hawk and Tate stare at a computer terminal, drink wine with ice, and talk to people who are asking them questions via some form of chat. However, when the server failed this last time, Thomas Hawk did write about the the little train that could.

(I would pay money, real money, for one of you developers at, oh, Citibank, Boeing, John Hancock insurance, or so on to go into your bosses office next time you have problems with your applications, and tell him or her about the little train that could.)

I have had more than my share of problems with hardware in the past, and normally I would be much more sympathetic. In fact, since the application is database-driven and PHP, I believe, I might even have offered help–I’m better at troubleshooting problems than building apps from scratch. Not for an application and a company, though, that keeps billing itself as the place for photo sharing, with such grandiose pronouncements that one is forced to imagine that Flickr is the po’dunk site, while Zooomr is the tasty noodle waiting to be snapped up.

So now people are being asked to give, Kristopher has bills to pay, and Zooomr needs a new server. Personally, before I started throwing money at the site, I’d ask to see a business AND technical plan upfront, including a detailed estimate and listing of hardware Tate and Hawk need, now and for the next six months to a year. But, as Thomas Hawk has pointed out, I’m not really a part of that whole Flickr/Zooomr scene, so I don’t really understand.

True, I don’t. I don’t understand solving server problems by doubling or more the burden on the server; throwing new features on when the server can’t reliably support existing ones; and not putting an honest, blunt, note in the front of the site telling people exactly what’s happened, and how the site, and their photos and data, will be recovered. However, before other startups think to follow this as an example, all I have to say is: don’t try this at home, kiddies. Not unless you’re good buds with the Big Names.

I’m sure the company will get the support they need. After all, they have all sorts of friends among the movers and shakers. That’s the only thing that really matters in a Web 2.0 universe.

Speaking of movers and shakers, I have an idea for the company: Get Mike Arrington and Techcrunch to fund the equipment they need. After all, Techcrunch has been pushing the company as a Flickr buster since the very beginning. As much as Scoble and Arrington have been touting this site, you’d think they’d both be fighting each other for the honor of investing.

Categories
Technology Writing

Hacking Computer Books

I’m in the middle of ‘proofs’ for Adding Ajax, which is never a terribly fun experience. You can only fix errors during proofs, because the layout of the book and the indexing can’t change. You don’t have time for anything major; to spend a lot of time rewording phrases you might not be as happy about. It’s also typically the time when a computer book author will see ‘content editing’, whereby someone in the publisher has ‘polished’ up the writing –a process that can leave you feeling disconcerted. Even a little down.

It’s discouraging, at times, being a computer book writer because we’re not really treated as ‘authors’. Someone like David Weinberger will take 2 years to write Everything is Miscellaneous, get a nice advance for doing so, have a rollout party, and then lots of people will write reviews. The publisher will send him around to places to talk to folks and typically pay the tab. The only time computer book authors get ‘sent’ to a place to talk is if we pick up the tab, and usually we have to have another reason for being at an event–such as doing a presentation, if we’re so lucky as to have our proposals accepted. Being an author is no guarantee of acceptance.

As for the tech community, I’ve had so many people ask me what open source projects I’ve been involved with. What have I done to give back to the community, I’m asked. I point to my books, many of which are on open source technologies. Writing isn’t the same, I’m told. The code we lay down in the book isn’t ‘really’ code, and therefore we don’t garner any ‘street cred’ for writing about technology–only creating something.

Ask all but the ‘star’ computer book authors, of which I am not one, and I bet they’ll all say the same thing: typically, we’re not taken seriously. One link to an application is worth more than five links to books written. But in the book community, we’re just ‘hack’ writers, writing to a formula.

Yet for all that we’re writing to a so-called formula, it’s an enormous amount of work to write a computer book. We not only have to write, we also have to create little mini-applications all throughout the book. We have to second guess what our readers are going to want to see; balance the use of word and code so that neither is too much; use the right amount of bullets and figures; and basically try to mix in enough of the human element to keep the writing active and entertaining, without compromising its quality. Our code must be error free and innovative. Once finished with the code, we’re faced with other problems related to syntax: would that be better as a colon? Comma? Period? Sentence too long? Sentence too short?

All of this gets packed into 3-5 months, depending on the size of the book. This for a book that is effectively double the size of David’s Everything is Miscellaneous.

People will say that David’s book is ‘different’. Somehow, his writing is more creative, his ideas broader, his reach further. More people will be impacted by his book. It is somehow grander in the scheme of things. This is highlighted at every facet at the book publication process, and when the computer book author rolls a book out–other than reviews at a few sites, a note at the publisher, and comments at Amazon–there is no major drum roll to announce the book. No rollout parties. No press. It’s just another computer book.

Then, from time to time, you get a note in your email. Someone will tell you how much your book helped them. These notes are our champagne bottles, our corks going off. I guess everything is relevant in addition to being miscellaneous.

Enough of such maundering. Back to the proofs.

Categories
JavaScript

Ajax is dead. Not it’s not.

I love how the marketing folks put a spin on things every time there’s an announcement from one of the Players. This time it’s Java’s turn for the RIA space with the introduction of JavaFX. Immediately people are talking about ‘Ajax killer’. It’s no more an Ajax killer than Flash was (actually, Ajax and Flash are quite compatible), or Silverlight.

This one cracked me up:

The advantage Java-connected scripting language has over others, such as Ruby, PHP or Python, is that Java programmers can easily transfer their skills and knowledge. Moving from Java to another language like JavaScript, which is often used for Ajax applications, “is like moving to another foreign land,” Monson-Haefel said.

I used to program in Java before Sun et al bloated it out of recognition. I had no problem working with JavaScript. I guess today’s crop of Java developers isn’t very versatile.

Sun has also said it will open source JavaFX. What does that mean? Microsoft and Adobe are also talking about ‘open sourcing’ select pieces of their infrastructures. Seems to me there’s as many variations of ‘open source’ in this market as there is ice cream flavors at Baskin’s & Robbins.

JavaFX does seem to have a head start into the mobile market, but it’s behind the other players, which are at least on the street. However, it also has a built-in audience, as there is a lot of Java developers. Of course, same could be said about Silverlight and Adobe’s Flex.

I’ve not found, though, that companies that use Java for their applications are the most forward looking and ‘on the edge’ development environments. In my opinion (note I said, ‘in my opinion’), Java is the most conservative web development environment. Web Sphere, nuff said.

One thing for sure: RIA is the hot market this year. Adjust your resumes accordingly.