2005 May « itsalleasy

Archive for May, 2005

OSS Bounties

May 11, 2005

There is an article on slashdot about OSS Bounties. It got me thinking…and not directly about what the article/comments were talking about. I really saw it as a neat idea/addition to an existing feature request and donation system.

If your project already takes donations and has feature requests, you could just ask (as part of donation) which feature the donator is interested in (have a ‘no particular feature option too). Then, on your feature request page, provide an additional ‘donate’ link on each feature. There would really be no expectation of “If I pay for it…it should be implemented”. It would just be a way for the users to suggesting direction for the project while donating.

Will this bring a lot more money to an OSS Project, doubtful. I still like the idea.

This also made me think of the Programming Language stock trading game (btw…took me forever to track that down again…tons of google/slashdot/bloglines searches…google finally won with a search for: programming language market…first result found). It would be interesting to do something similar for OSS…I dunno what the payoff would be…just a fun way to see where your donations are going and seeing where other oss projects are.

Posted in Good Reads, Ideas | No Comments »

Bits of me in one place

May 9, 2005

A couple discussions have been going on over at photomatt’s blog. I’ve also been playing a bit with backpack and basecamp. All these things have banded together to really pique my interest and thinking for ways to use blogs and feeds in different ways.

Imagine your blog being super-smart. You make a post that contains a date and it will extract the date and some information from the post and ‘ping’ a calendar service to create an event for you. Or you make a list of things, and it will extract the list and add them to a tada list for you (maybe prompt you first). Or, better yet, you have your services ’subscribe’ to your blog…the services will periodically extract things from the blog instead of (or in addition to…both could co-exist) your blog feeding the services.

Now what if you are a developer…working on some projects. You can just post to your blog like normal and (depending on the category perhaps), your posts will get pulled into your software management site (todo lists/meeting dates/bug replies/etc). When you join another project, you just enter your blog address (and category perhaps) in the software management agregator and off you go.

Your blog could be like a free-form database and source feed into several of the systems you use elsewhere. Imagine flickr pulling photos from your blog instead of you posting them to your blog and flickr.

Then, instead of bits of me spread all over these different systems…it is in one place, but accessible by all of those systems.

Posted in Ideas, Tools | No Comments »

Java Solution Needed

May 6, 2005

Spring just got a new look. I don’t really like it (not the point, but thought I’d throw it out there). I do appreciate the need to move to a CMS…or should I say AMS (Article Management Site…I feel a lot of tools mis-label themselves CMS). When I read that they were using Drupal, I reeled. Not because I don’t like drupal…its OK (I settled on PhpWebsite for the community site I do…it was just fit better for me…but I’m sure drupal has a larger developer community and it is certainly prettier). I reeled because the springframework guys…guys I respect for great java code/ideas/contribution, have settled on a PHP-based tool for their website/cms tool.

This isn’t new in the java world…I’ve heard similar gripes about many other java sites. Why does this happen? A short list of reasons:

Java Hosting is more expensive
There are already good php and perl solutions in this space
There isn’t a good, open-source java cms out there (nukes on jboss is pretty much the only one I know of)

Argument #1 is becoming less and less an issue (compared to what it used to be anyway)…but it still isn’t low enough for the average-joe tinkerpage. However, I think it is reasonable for a significant community site or Open Source project.

Then again, if you have something people want…but its java…people will probably look for (or write!) a php/perl solution for it first…just because it is still far cheaper to host php/perl apps. Which leads into Argument #2. My only answer for this is that we’ve seen what php and perl have done in this space…now lets see what open source java can do. We may wind up with a tool that is slick enough to warrant paying the higher hosting prices (which in turn would lower the hosting prices because of increased popularity/familiarity/competition). Ultimately leading to a boom in java-based solutions for average web pages (sounds ridiculous…but could happen…eventually).

Finally argument #3…kind of because of the previous arguments…there are not many java solutions in this space. The only one I know of is nukes for jboss…and I pretty much hate php-nuke. Even in the php world, there are many better solutions (like drupal and phpwebsite) I would never have made any kind of decision to mimic that system in java. This DOES need to be remedied.

We need a java-based solution to emerge on to the scene…if only to make me feel better.

Update: Found a few here. Guess I just haven’t looked very hard From what I’ve read (generically) none of them compare with the ease of use that the php ones have evolved into…I’ll have to look into that.

Posted in Ideas, Random | 4 Comments »

Tiger

May 5, 2005

Tiger finally arrived. I installed it in the ol’ powerbook and got j2se 1.5, eclipse + webtools, tomcat, and firefox all installed. Then whipped up a simple web project and ‘deployed’ it to tomcat (via the servers in eclipse). Bit of a glitch at first but got it working not sure what went wrong…wasn’t compiling jsps. I basically just restarted tomcat and all was well.

I may have a follow up post with a walk-through on getting it setup the way I did.

Posted in Random | 2 Comments »

About the Powerbook

May 2, 2005

So, as you may have noticed…I got a powerbook finally! Some quick things on it:

The battery life is not that great. Granted, I’m used to having 2 batteries (in all the time) making my old battery life around 7 hours. Now it is just over 2 hours. I’ll probably be getting another battery.
The trackpad jumps (sometimes) when I tap it to click. This happens about 1 in every 5 clicks. It can be pretty damn annoying when you are clicking a link that is above another link…like a save link that is above a delete link…oh yeah, you’ll click delete. I already hesitate when clicking…I see myself actually using the trackpad button for clicks.

Other than that I love the thing. Well…the little I’ve done with it so far anyway. I can’t really dig in until I get Tiger (the new OS for you non-mac folks). That should be in the mailbox today.

Posted in Wants | No Comments »

I am a Moron

May 2, 2005

I posted this here too…just felt it necessary to duplicate.

Sunday, Slashdot had a post about the Serenity screening
that I’d sent an email around about last week. I had no idea at the
time, but I must have caught the promo right around when it started.
There were still tickets available when I looked (then). I just thought
it was something that had been known for awhile…I could have got
tickets. I am a moron.

Update: looks like I missed it again…sigh.

Posted in Random | No Comments »

itsalleasy