Open Tech 2005

Cool, a new conference to apply to: Open Tech 2005, in London.

I believe I will finish my speed improvements and then apply to be a presenter. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Deadline June 25th.

Also the INTETAIN Conference in Italy might be good. Deadline July 18th.

First Sun, Now Apple

Now rumours that Apple is interested in DOIP and the platform will be QuickTime...interesting.

Also, what is this that Sun is doing on June 1st?

For years I have wondered why the computer industry has not figured out how to run applications across the Internet very well. I think they are starting to get it now.

I probably should get NewI\O out there for it to have any chance at doing something. For the first time, I feel the window of opportunity closing...

Competitors and NewI\O

All of the competitors to the NewI\O system are sort of, semi-competitors, because nothing exists that is exactly like it. If it already existed, then I would just use it, becuase, I myself am a customer, and want to program for and use it. However, since nothing like it exists, I was forced to make it myself.

Sun Microsystems has one sort of, semi-competitor to NewI/O in Java. This is a competitor in the sense that it is portrayed as a nework application system. It is not a competitor in the sence that it works totally differently from NewI\O. Java downloads virtual code and runs it on the local computer, and so is not really even a network application at all. NewI\O runs applications on a server and displays the result in a browser (similar to a thin client): totally different technologies.

I bring this up because Sun just bought out a company that is another sort of, semi-competitor: Tarantella. This technology is similar in that it runs apps on the server, and displays them on a client, but what is different about this from NewI\O is that it is desktop sharing applciation, like X-Windows or Citrix. In this case my application is different in that it has nothing to do with desktops. My system simply shares an application and leaves your desktop alone.

It also occurs to me that there is one really big difference in strategies between me, and all of these companies. The competitors are all looking at what businesses need, and are trying to develop products for them. I, on the other hand, am looking at what an individual needs, and trying to create something to meet that need. While they are looking at specific business solutions, I seek to set an Internet standard.

For this reason ease of use is critical for me. The above applications are not for the masses. A home computer user is not going to be setting up Tarantella to run some program on the Internet somewhere. It is for this reason that I chose a browser interface. Users are already familiar with it. I can see users easily typing in or even just clicking on a URL to run an application.

I believe that I am shooting higher, and will be able to easily penetrate the business market, if I succeed in setting an Internet standard, so in a way, I am doing an end around on all of these other sort of, semi-competitors.

Dreadnought Browser Status

I am still not satisfied with the performance of the Dreadnought browser, so I have decided to use Bob Pendleton's Fest Event and NET2 libraries which can be found here. This will put networking in its own thread, and also allow me to go from two loops to just one. So far it does not seem too difficult to bolt them on. I have already added them in to the project with clean compiles, but the Dreadnought browser is now broken, until I fix some structural issues like combining the network queue and the event queue, and re-writing parts of my NewRPC protocol.

Alas, this means that documenting the other parts of the system, such as niod and nio_lib will have to wait.

And there are tons of API changes and additions I want to make. And then when that is all done, I really want to start using it myself to write some apps.

The problem is, there are just too many good things to do.

OpenOffice 2.0 Criticized on Use of Java

Here is another article about the controvery about using Java.

Browser Source Code Released

I just posted the source code for the Dreadnought browser publically for the first time. You can get it here. There is already a linux binary available. WARNING: This is VERY alpha.

REST Based Web Apps

I saw this on Miguel de Icaza's web log. It just re-inforces my contention that the web is not the place for Internet applications. We need something purpose built for applications. The I told you so is pretty funny, too.