matt | Emergent Properties

Where will the browser appear as a platform first? — The Enterprise

Here’s a thought from the future:

The browser is the platform.
Microsoft has embraced this and has released Office as an ASP.NET 2.0 Ajax application for enterprises.
Microsoft is continuing its push into ‘Software as a Service’
You can now rent Office XML Application Server for Windows Server 2007
All of your enterprise users, using IE7.0, Firefox 2.1, Opera 16, or Safari can now access all their office applications from their desktop. (No, IE8.0 still won’t be out, but Firefox will be at 25% marketshare, and I’m not even going to guess at what Firefox will be alled then — how about ‘Burning Rabbit’ ?)
Here’s the catch — When users click on that ‘Microsoft Word’ button (or any of the office apps), a local application doesnt load. It loads a rich web application that closely mimics what we now think of as word.
All of the users have their own document storage on your Windows Server
All of the users have access to their documents seamlessly through existing methods (the remote storage automatically shows up in a user’s ‘my documents’ subfolder, apple’s finder/searchlight, etc)
Users can specify permissions on these centrally stored files, and they are easily shared — people don’t have to navigate to a random person’s desktop to get a document they shared, and a person doesn’t have to email it to them. The documents on the server are all searchable by the user’s local desktop (depending on permissions).
When it’s time to upgrade to a new version of Office XML Application Server, the upgrade is done on the server, once, and all clients automatically have their update.

I know some of this isn’t new OR likely, but it’s fun to take an old idea that was once pure ‘out there’ thinking and bring it down into the realm of “I see how this is possible even if it’s not either soon or likely”

Also, who knows if it will even be microsoft who does this? Maybe it’s SUN, maybe this will all play out on linux desktops first, with “OpenOffice Network Server” — who knows. I think the day of the browser as a platform IS coming, and I think we’re going to see REAL productivity applications created this way, and I think it’s going to come to the enterprise first.

They’re the ones who can see the real cost savings and increased productivity — through ease of deployment and upgrades for the former and ease of collaboration in the latter.

A new way of thinking about rich web applications — Lightweight Plugins

I’m not sure exactly where I got this idea, but I know it’s not my own, so I cede the creativity of the idea to someone else. Actually, I think it was Bill Scott with Sabre / OpenRico on his blog, but again, I’m not sure.

Anyway, to the idea. If you stop thinking of javascript as a way to enhance a webpage and start thinking of it as more of an actual language you can use to build a small application inside of a webpage, it sorta “changes everything.” With the popularity of ajax and the rise of advanced widget systems (like script.aculo.us/) and rich web application frameworks, it’s becoming more and more apparent that you *can* build very functional applications on the web. And, for that matter, you can do it all inside a single webpage.

So, you can build a mini application, so what? Well, how about building a “Lightweight Plugin.” Here’s the flow of things:

Browser downloads page with little markup, but much javascript
Javascript loads a data file from server
Javascript parses data file and displays to user
User can interact with the javascript display to edit data or view new data

See, it’s just like having an acrobat reader or flash, but you’ve got ZERO downloads, and you can have it do whatever you want, completely customized to your way of doing things.

But wait, the thing about plugins is that there are only a few of them that people have, so everyone has to stick to using the big ones — acrobat reader & flash. We don’t have to stick to that anymore, since there’s no installation of software to worry about. I keep coming back to “The browser is the platform” — Once you’ve got the idea of the lightweight plugin, it becomes apparent that anyone can just build whatever lightweight plugin they want, and the browser just becomes the platform for running and distributing the application.

The browser is the platform.
The browser is the platform.
The browser is the platform.

We’re not getting rid of regular apps anytime soon, but we’re going to start seeing the web become a very different place, full of big and small applications.

Getting Things Done? How about “Getting Something Done”

There’s a lot of talk about GTD around the net — one of the sites i check often is 43folders, a great site for productivity discussion .. er.. obsession.

I’m realizing the one strategy I’m forced to use quite often, for good or bad, isn’t really a self-monitoring strategy like those promoted by the GTD crowd. It’s more of a philosophy in approaching a problem or project. I really believe in getting SOMETHING done.

See, GTD is more of a way to organize yourself to make sure you get everything done that needs to get done. GSD (Getting Something Done) is about forcing something productive to come out of what you’re working on. For some reason, I find that meetings about a specific task become brainstorming sessions about topic B, when they need to be about how to best accomplish one of topic B’s subgoals.

I find that a really good strategy is to attempt to bring focus back on the desired, smaller, subgoal. In other words, “Ok, all those ideas are nice, let’s talk about how we get this done”

Sometimes, I’m confronted with the enemy of “Getting Something Done” – the idea that it has to be done right the first time. Of course, for some tasks, you do them right once, the first time. However, software projects without a definite spec really can’t be done that way. Yes, it’s a very good thing to have a spec for some projects, but for a lot of things, you don’t get that — even in ideal situations. For example, when developing a new product that’s NOT a cookie-cutter business application, you’ve got a lot of features in the group’s collective head, and you’ve got TONS of ways of putting the pieces together.

I find that throwing everything aside and just getting SOMETHING done is a really good tactic. It gets you something people can see and use, and you get real feedback, rather than ideas tossed around in a meeting.

I guess, in the software world, what i’m saying is that early semi-functional prototypes are good, because you can iterate on them. And, even if you throw everything away, you’ve got a MUCH better idea about 1) what you actually want done and 2) how to do it.

Generalized, this idea becomes Getting SOMETHING Done, because something is better than nothing.

TopJax 0.2

I’ve released a new version of my little Ajax system utility, TopJax The new release displays a bit more information to the user than the last.

If you don’t know, TopJax is basically the unix Top command ported to the web with Ajax techniques. It’s basically a, “hey let me do something that gets my feet wet w/ Ajax while also doing something potentially useful”

Mappr Beta!

I found this neat little wapp on the del.icio.us makemagazine rss feed, it’s called Mappr, and it superimposes pictures tagged with a keyword of choice on top of a map of the united states.

It uses other tags to place the images.

For example, i’ve tagged some of my images on flickr, which happen to be tagged with pug, ALSO with the keyword of neworleans. Mappr can then associate ‘neworleans’ with a location on the map. In essence, it’s inferring location from tags, which is neat.

To see it in action, check out this link