.:justwerks software:.

I was interested by the recent question of ISP control. In the first, it was a well-formed question instead of a complaint regarding internet usage rules. Secondly, there are some good thoughts that I align with in regards to what an ISP should offer as customer packages.

I have been playing with the new beta of the Safari web browser for about 2 weeks now. 3.0.3 I think...

Anyways, it has finally replaced Firefox completely. It works with all the banking sites I use, with my online money things I deal with and with my online pay stub viewing site.

The transition is complete. I can drop Firefox and happily go on Safari on the Mac. I just prefer the integration on the Mac, the speed, and the look n' feel.

Double Speak Disclaimer: This statement may be rendered completely false in the near future when Firefox 3 comes out with it's funky new technique of managing bookmarks but I am pretty sure my "web" of interest is only about 20 sites large these days so managing bookmarks is not a high priority on my list. Also, Firefox 3 may be just cooler than sliced toast so I may start using it again in the future.
There, just to cover myself in case I look foolish in a few months :P

After a nice vacation and an awesome wedding (now hitched folks!) I am back.

It is kind of amusing when you discover that a technique that you were using in 2003/04 now has a name and is "buzz capable". It is even more amusing to consider the fact that I thought I was using something else entirely.

What is this about? Well, AHAH a newly named subset of AJAX. When I was at Epic Data (see the resume for more info) I was happily playing with AJAX (there weren't so many solid libraries back then and I was fairly new to all this stuff) and the page I linked to above looks almost word for word like the code I was using to pull information from our server to the browser front-end.
Here I thought I was using AJAX, which in essence I was, but it turns out that I was actually using the as then unnamed subset of AJAX - AHAH. I loved pulling down information into the innerHTML. It made the experience a little more "magic" and required *much* fewer full page refreshes. As I was totally new to the concepts at the time it also involved a lot of hair pulling.

One could easily argue that the need for AHAH is a bit of an exercise in splitting hairs - AHAH is a complete subset of AJAX...

So, what about collaborating? Well, maybe perhaps if I had gone to more developer meet-ups and participated more frequently in online communities I could have been more aware of what I was actually doing and shortened the gap between the unnamed thing I was doing and AHAH. Sometimes it is hard to get your head out of the work mindset and find time to go talk with fellow imagineers about what "the next big thing" looks like...
Over a beer....

If ever there was a company I want to root for it's Jive. This little company is churning out some great product right now and the most recent developments in their collaborative tool Clearspace make me think this support is not unfounded.

This tool is a light weight wiki/DMS/IM platform that plugs in beautifully with their open source XMPP (GTalk/Jabber if you aren't hip on the lingo) offering - Openfire. It also has plugins to connect to all those nasty proprietary networks as well (MSN, Yahoo, etc).

The applications themselves are well designed, have very clean UI and the admin console is very shiny and usable. The bonus to all of this: they just work. By using clever engineering and good architecture this platform combination will run on practically every Java supporting host known to business. I like that.
In addition the integration of the IM piece with the collaboration piece is well thought out and seamless. You can see who is where and if they are available... presence to the N'th degree here folks.

And it's cheap. Free for less than 5 people and 29$ (US) a year/user for more.

If you have the time/inclination - check it out! You will not be disappointed.