Nikoport

I am not quite an “early adapter”, according to the scheme of Seth Godin - i belong to the “early majority” (guys who get not state of the art technology, but when it is already being used by some innovators).

Looking at the first versions of anything i see so many troubles because software/product was not being properly tested and was rushed out in order to comply with the promised release dates/dead lines. My idea of any product is that 1.01 or 1.02 are the best place to start. I won’t install Vista SP1 until i see that it is really compatible with existing software/drivers and there are no more data losses, as well as only now i am considering upgrading to Leopard, after 2 patches have been released.

I think it was at User Friendly that i have seen quite funny cartoon some 5 years ago, about star trek ship not being able to shoot because of the beta software installed. Pity can’t find it in archives. =O(

Using the first release makes you a beta tester, and if i need something to work properly without troubles - i have no luxury of using a beta product. When i have time( time, what is it ?), i may take a look at a beta version (i check out new versions of GIMP and Inkscape on regular basis, because i can easily fall back to the final release/stable one). Being excited about a product that can easy your daily life can take you into beta testing (1.0 included).

p.s. take a look at one of Seth Godin books, for example Purple Cow to understand what i am talking about.

p.p.s. Joomla has recently launched Joomla 1.5, after many month of testing and developing, and a couple of days later appeared 1.5.1, the same situation happened with Drupal 6.0 (6.1 was in 2 weeks here) which once again prove, that first version is always a beta version.

Besides launching today a page for a friend of mine, who gives explications of geography, i am working on a big project, which will be hopefully launched in March. It is a quite a big site for environmental community, written completely in Drupal with a big number of modules.

At the moment we are close to start beta testing and there are just several functionalities that are not quite optimized, that i am refining. Besides normal modules, there are some areas where online payment is going to be used, so it will be probably one of the biggest project based on Drupal that i have done untill now, so i am very excited about finishing this one. =O)

A couple of days ago Apple has launched a new version of their Operating System OS X 10.5 codename Leopard.

Apple has presented more 300 of new features in Leopard. I would highlight some of the features, which i consider relevant:
- Bootcamp (allows Windows to be installed in parallel with OS X on Intel-based Macs)
- Time Machine (deleted files restoring, multiple version system)
- Finder (iTunes-like preview of different file types)
- Spaces (Unix-like virtual desktops)
- Safari (new version)
- Parental controls (the name speaks for itself, doesn’t it ?)
- Desktop enhancements (stacks of files on your dock)

One of the more important changes in Leopard is finally dropped support of the old Mac OS code. Apple has officially “burried” OS 9 about 6 years ago, in an official ceremony, but only with this release the support has been finally removed. I think it is a good thing, because evolution requires old stuff to be renewed or be removed. This is one of the problems that Windows has faced - some of the elder code of Windows 3.11 still could be found in XP, though Microsoft claims that Vista is finally fee of it.

Being an OS X user since a couple of months, i do not see a lot of reasons doing upgrade to Leopard right now. Do not get me wrong, i will move to Leopard in the coming months, and i do think that the new version of OS X was worth developing and it brings a lot of good features (some of them like Time Machine almost revolutionary), but at the moment i see this upgrade as unnecessary.

My first argument is “rush” - no doubt that Leopard was rushed, in order to be launched at the promised date - (Ocotober), some features like a wireless net backup with a Time Machine were surprisingly removed at the last moment, Sun’s ZFS is still not being enabled by default and resolution independent feature still appears to be in development. There is an old good saying that one should never buy a 1.0 system, cause it is always a beta version of what is to come. I am used to follow this idea and so far it has been always true.

The second argument against doing an immediate upgrade is the fact, the some of the features are available for the Tiger (especially the Bootcamp) and some other are just of no use for me personally ( No additional hard drive for Time Machine on my MacBook Pro =O) ). =O) Other feature is Safari 3 which is available for download (a beta version at this moment). Though i have to admit that i have some second thoughts - will new Bootcamp versions be available for TIger and will the final release of Safari ever come to it as well for example.

Everything else is just as it is needed. I love the idea of the “ITunes”-like changes to the Finder, the automatic preview feature is something that i was hoping that someone would implement. I find it ignorant, that i have to open all possible types of programs in order to preview the content of different files. I attribute success of such programs like ACDSee to the fact, that their just previewed almost any type of the graphical file.

Leopard is an amazing operating system, with a lot of the features, that the well-known Redmond software company is going to copy and represent in a couple of years in their next operating system. It is quite a step into the future, but it is more evolutionary update, then a revolutionary upgrade.

A new project is under development, it is called “SiteRouter“. SiteRouter is a system for managing RSS, Sitemaps between other things - judging by the name, one can easily imagine some of the things that this software hopefully will have. The SiteRouter is being developed as an easy plugable system - this means that with some easy adjustmentes everyone will be able to integrate it into already existing or developing project. The first version is being written in PHP 4, but if it will pass the tests with success, the version in ASP.NET will come right after the first stable release. MySQL is the choice for the database, but there are plans for PostgreSQL as well. At the moment I am looking into releasing it under GPL.

SiteRouter will have a plugin system some day, this will help other databases and action modules integration, development and upgrade. As for the visual part there are some icons that i have found on the net, but which will be eventually replaced in the nearest future.

I am still not sure, when the first version available to the public in general will be available, but i hope, that at some point in October it will reach this stage.

Today, Sun has officially turned Java open source, they have given the source code to the Open JDK Community. This is the next step (and a very important one) in a series of changes in Java licensing structure. In 2006 Sun has promised to turn Java into open source and now, after more then a half year they finally did it.

First the java complier, then a hotspot engine and now finally Java is an open source. I think that Sun has chosen good strategy in fight with Microsofts .NET, which has conquered the internet (and intranet) by the storm. There are not too many firms still holding to java and the best way of fighting back is giving the source to the people, so the enthusiasts can hack and improve it. This will give the world a big topic for a discussion as well, which can produce a good word of mouth and more people may consider choosing or coming back to Java’s world.

This announcement comes right in time, so the developers still have time to contribute for the next JDK SE, the seventh one, Codename Dolphin, which should arrive somewhere in 2008. Btw, a good link on this topic is an Wikipedia article about history of Java versions.

Being a lot of years a Java enthusiasts i am just thinking that it would be much better for all of us, if it would have happend some 5 or 6 years ago, but a lot of things has changed since then, and Java is not anymore an internet favorite or open source darling. I hope this step change some things in the future, though there are not much space for maneuver, but we will see - open source community have proven quite a lot of times that there are mountains that can be moved (remember firefox?) … =O)

Silverlight is the name of the newest Flash concurrent. Based on .NET, implemented by Microsoft and supported by the Expression Studio (a product, to produce Silverlight content), with a support for ASP.NET, AJAX and Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) this is a quite serious attempt from Microsoft to enter the web plugins generated content market and to make some concurrence to Adobe’s Flash. During the MIX’07 conference, Microsoft has announced the availability of the the alpha and beta versions of the Silverlight for both Windows and Os X. Time will tell how popular it will get, with a Microsoft marketing machine behind it, there are no doubts, that this year there will be enough Silverlight content around the web.

What is a big difference between Flash and Silverlight for me ? The fact, that supposedly Silverlight supports VB, C#, Python, and Ruby. All of them against ActionScript from Flash, and lets not forget some Javascript and AJAX for both of the plugins. Such a big amount of the programming languages will give a wide choice for web developers to start creating content and logic for Silverlight, without troubles of learning a new language and interface.

Microsoft will probably get support of the open source community, especially those who are implementing MONO for other operating systems, like Linux. Miguel de Icaza, chefe developer of the MONO already thinks about implementation on Linux - should this happened, this may make a lot of things really interesting and different. MONO is expecting to deliver the first beta of Silverlight for Linux late this year (2007). One of the essential parts of flash success is its availability for all major operating systems, and since Silverlight already made a move from Windows to Os X, this is a very big and essential part of conquering the market, because a very big amount of the web developers are working on Os X. A good idea in distribution for them would be inclusion and integration of the Silverlight into the new Microsoft Office for Mac, and i have few doubts that they are already working on that. This way Silverlight distribution will achieve a very high percentage on Macintosh in a very short amount of time.

If it is going to be the way it is written, then Microsoft has found a new way to substitute some of the ActiveX content (in the sense of windows-based content but all other systems to be supported in the future) and a reasonable alternative to offer the market in order to gain some bigger market share.

The other question is will the Flash give up any part of the share to Silverlight, and what will Adobe do - turning Flash open source ? Does it sound like a browser wars from the last century, when Netscape made Navigator free and then open source ? They do not have a lot of options as it seems to me, but they do have quite a big fan base which will see have to face the Microsoft developers fan base, and there will be a lot of heat and discussions on the web, but in the next couple of years i do not believe in any big changes in the current situation.

Wordpress 2.2 has been delayed probably until June, this news come not as a big surprise, even when just 4 months ago, the exact date of 23rd of April was announced.
I confess, that i have had some extremely high hopes, when Wordpress 2.1 came out, but the truth is, the more functionality is to be implemented, the bigger the delay will be, that the reality of the software design and software programming.

Software development is a creative process, which is not easy, and there are always so many things beyond developer’s imagination, so it is really hard to predict an exact date for its end, every developer knows exactly what i am talking about. Every time we push ourself into creating something new, we basically are discovering the unknown, which may take quite a lot of time, even when the developer is very experienced and has a lot of knowledge, there is no guarantee, that he won’t face something, he is incapable to solve in the short period of time.

The new functionalities which are to be introduced in Wordpress 2.2 these are those, which i consider to be the most important and the most interesting:

1. PhpMailer - it will surely improve the performance, especially on those sites, where a lot of emails been sent (new comments, new users, polls, backups, as well as moderations in general)
2. Permalink Redirection - goodbye my beloved redirection plugin ? this functionality is extremely important to me, as if i decide to alter the name of the post, all the links pointing to it, won’t vanish in vain, and no penalty will be cast by the search engines
3. Multiple format comment feeds, including Atom 1.0 - a natural development and support of the current standards, which is important
4. Improved comment editing - this is something interesting to look for, especially for those sites, which have a lot of comments
5. MySQL 4.1 - this is not a new functionality, but those sites, whose providers are still using MySQL versions below 4.1 will face a big problem with upgrade to Wordpress 2.2, but luckily even Wordpress 2.0 will be supported for 2.5 more years.
6. Tagging support - this is one more functionality which may obsolete some of the very popular plugins, but that’s life, and since a lot of people really using and needing this functionality, there is no surprise that it has found its way into the new version of Wordpress
7. Widgets - whole world is so crazy about them - OS X, Windows Vista, Yahoo have them already, the most of the programs are implementing, and now we will have a blogging software widgets. =O)

I think that Wordpress developers has done what is right - delaying publishing online an unfinished software. This way people won’t scream about the bugs, won’t claim that what was promised was never delivered and so on. Take your time guys, do what is necessary, you as well as Apple with its OS X delay are well supported by your users. We have enough time to wait for a good, finalized software.