tech

Isomorphic SmartClient: Now Open Source

Isomorphic SmartClient: Now Open Source:

Isomorphic has made a leap of faith to a new opensource business model today. They have freed up their SmartClient Ajax platform by releasing it under the LGPL license.

The piece that has been opensourced “includes the typical set of Ajax UI components that are now available from several vendors, but goes beyond the standard offering with support for very large datasets, metadata management, advanced skinning and branding, WSDL/SOA binding, and many other features

Extensions to SmartClient LGPL, including the SmartClient Java Server, the SmartClient Visual Builder tool, and several industry-specific optional modules, continue to be available for purchase.”

It is interesting to see that the market almost seems to require that you are opensource, else the barrier to playing around is too high.

[I’m not so sure that last paragraph is true…]
Source: Ajaxian

MIT sues Frank Gehry

MIT sues Frank Gehry: stata-center.jpgI don’t know much about this developing story, but it’s interesting on its face… M.I.T. Sues Architect Frank Gehry – New York Times (and here’s a longer piece in the NYT):

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is suing renowned architect Frank Gehry, alleging serious design flaws in the Stata Center, a building celebrated for its unconventional walls and radical angles.

The school asserts that the center, completed in spring 2004, has persistent leaks, drainage problems and mold growing on its brick exterior. It says accumulations of snow and ice have fallen dangerously from window boxes and other areas of its roofs, blocking emergency exits and causing damage.

Maybe unfair, but one interpretation: award-winning “radical” designs aren’t great if they can’t keep snow off the emergency exit.

[There are all sorts of stories about famous architects and there rejoinders to complaints about leaky roofs… Frank Lloyd Wright they claim told one client who was complaining about a roof leak dripping on his chair to move his chair. Another comment was that you wouldn’t know it was a roof if it didn’t leak. It’s simple really, it’s just a question of priority. If you want something that amazes by its design and look it’s going to require trying new materials and techniques. If you’re trying to build stuff you haven’t built before, there is going to be a learning curve, and unexpected results. It’s the same thing that makes so many software projects “grow”, or “late”, or “overbudget”. Stick with stuff that’s been done many times before and it won’t leak or drop melting ice in front of doorways. But it won’t inspire or delight except in its utility. Fine if that’s what you want, but you don’t hire Gehry for that.]
Source: Good Experience Blog

An Introduction to JRuby

Intro…:JRuby: An Introduction is a fresh new article by Chris Duckett that presents a practical, code-driven introduction to JRuby, a Java implementation of Ruby. It’s the perfect introduction for people who, perhaps, have an idea of what JRuby is, but who haven’t yet tried out any of the Java connectivity. The first page looks at interacting with basic Java libraries / classes, with the second moving on to building a basic Swing-powered GUI app using Java APIs from Ruby code.
[Hmmm.]
Source: Ruby Inside

OpenSocial Hacked Again

OpenSocial Hacked Again: He’s pulled up Ning co-founder Marc Andreessen’s friend list to prove his point, and shared part of it with me. I won’t be publishing it here, but it shows that he got access to the application.

Total time to hack iLike on Ning: 20 minutes.

As with the RockYou/Plaxo hack, no real damage has been done, but it shows that in the rush to get applications out the door quickly, attention to security may have fallen by the side of the road. [Oops]
Source: TechCrunch

The Mythical Gphone

The Mythical Gphone:

Did we get a Google phone? No.

What we got instead was a press release, a conference call, some self-indulgent videos, and a memo from Andy Rubin, the putative designer of the mythical phone (and hero of an adoring profile in The New York Times over the weekend), confirming what the naysayers have been saying all along: Google is not and will not be in the business of building phones.

What it’s offering — and trying to sell to the people who actually build the phones — is an operating system and some tools for writing cellphone applications. It’s a worthy enterprise and I wish them well. What it is not — as they are the first to say — is a Gphone.

[Roight. Vapor s’all. Shameless vapor.]
Source: FORTUNE: Apple 2.0

NBC vs. Apple: SNL’s iPhone’Sketch

NBC vs. Apple: SNL’s iPhone Sketch: Either way, you must sit through a 15-second TV-style commercial before you get to the clip — a chilling vision of what the Internet would look like if it had been invented by the folks who run broadcast television. [Yeah… I know ads are big business, but no one is interested in interruption based ads anymore, if they ever were. The entrenched thinking that is forcing ads into the process (again) is wrong. The question is not “how can we shove ads down their throats, we love ads” it’s “how can we make money from this now that the ‘network’ is not relevant.” An example old school ads that work are product placement. Work defined as, I may or may not care what phone, car, cereal, shoes, etc. folks in the movie are wearing, but I may, so especially in an online download, make sure that metadata is there, and feel free to track the click, and make some money from it.]
Source: FORTUNE: Apple 2.0