Author: matt

Me and Zeldman!

So I was browsing through flickr, and noticed that I had a new contact. Usually, whenever i get a new contact, i check ’em out to see what’s up. Usually, i’ll see that they have some other pug people there. Here’s what I found:

Sure enough, right below me is laserone, from Everybody Loves Riley. What i thought was even cooler was that Jeffrey Zeldman was right next to me. Now, he has nothing to do with this, anyone can just up and add him as a contact, and we’re only next to each other because our flickr id’s start with the letter J.

I still thought it was cool, seeing how I think “Designing with Web Standards” was the last good book i’ve read (although that *WAS* a while ago now. I should read more paper)

The dawn of Web 3.0

  • Web 1.0 – The original couple years of the web, web 1.0 was the initial buildout of what everyone calls “the web”
  • Web 2.0 – A subtle change in how things worked on the web, characterized by the following:
  • “Web 2.0 is [about] making the Internet better for computers.” — Jeff Bezos
  • Applications that talk to each other via standards like XML (SOAP, RSS, etc)
  • Major websites with publicly accessible API’s (Google, Amazon, Ebay, etc) made possible by things like XML/SOAP
  • Sites being more about drawing strength from their users than from publishing content. In other words, user-generated content
  • Tagging — free form keyword association built on top of user communities (Flickr, del.icio.us)
  • Using Firefox to create live bookmarks out of tagged del.icio.us bookmark rss streams — very ‘wow that’s a lot of pieces put together to create that’

And then comes Web 3.0. What? Web 2.0 is barely here, you say. Well, this is partially true, but most of the people in the know already ‘get’ web 2.0. Also, what’s coming really has the potential to change things in a ‘new and different way’

Web 3.0 is actually the embodiment of what everyone thought Web 1.0 would be. Rich web frameworks are here and are getting better rapidly, and they’re going to change things very dramatically. Back in 1999, everyone was claiming that, “The browser is the new application platform.” While ideed, there were many web applications created, they weren’t really doing the things that you normally did on your desktop. “Microsoft Word, but in a web browser” is something that people would have talked about. The problem was, you couldn’t really do it, at least not well.

This brings us to the rich web. Web application frameworks like dojo, rico, backbase, etc. are pushing the envelope of what’s possible to do inside a web browser, making the web more like the desktop application. Why is this revolutionary? Well, first of all, we’ll start to see the promise of ‘the browser as a platform.’ People will be able to get at their applications from wherever they are, just like they’ve been doing with their webmail. This has been possible to do using things like network fileshares and content management systems, but that’s crap. That’s a big bloated solution to get your desktop apps to follow you where you go.

What i’m saying is that the data and the application will FINALLY actually reside on the server, and you’ll just pop open a web browser and do your work from whatever desktop you’re at. I know this has been said many times before, but I actually think there’s real technology to back it up, this time.

But, you know what? I think I’m getting WAY ahead of the curve here. Web 2.0 still has a long way to go, and we’re just in the infancy of the new era of web applications, so there’s still quite some time before the rich web takes real hold of things.

TopJax -Unix Top in a browser.

Are you too lazy to ssh into servers you’re monitoring? Do you not want to set up a slick page with SNMP and/or RRDTool? Or, do these solutions just not fit your needs?

TopJax might be for you.

TopJax is essentially the “top” unix utility ported to the web via Ajax using Sack of Ajax. It provides the ability to view system processes, sort processes by various fields, pause/unpause monitoring, and hide idle processes.

TopJax is released under the GPL.

Note: This is probably highly insecure. I don’t encourage you to run it on a public server.

The permanent address for TopJax is http://emergent.urbanpug.com/topjax

If you’d like to keep up-to-date on the progress of the project, you can subscribe to this site’s RSS feed –

Notes: I’ve separated all styling information from the code, because I know I’m not the best person with CSS. If anyone wants to help by providing alternate stylesheets, I’d be very happy.

If you want to help out by making a small donation, that would be cool.




You could also buy a Threadless shirt using me as a referral.

Ajax Server Administration?

Here’s a concept, one that i’ve been toying around with myself, actually (more to come soon on my end) — It’s WebCmd — It’s an ajax-based command line. It uses perl + libXmlRequest to produce a “remote command line in a browser” — which is something that would have previously been unheard of without using java, say, oh, 2 days ago.

What does this actually get you? Well, alone, you might be able to do some system administration w/o having to use SSH, which might be an “ok” thing — but really, the key concept is really to provide a new way of accessing old applications. I know there are companies out there that have been really pushing hard to get old green screen applications pushed into the present by doing various things like wrapping the old “screens” in HTML, using java to interface w/ the old application, providing a slightly fancier interface to the old app.

Now everyone’s got a new choice for doing this kind of thing. What i’m more interested, being a linux guy, is the ability to do with ajaxified methods some of the basic things i would normally have to do by opening up a shell, logging into a server, and running some commands.

I’m working on a little utility that i myself will find useful, and i hope others will too.

Also, after macromedia’s recent announcement of flash-javascript interoperability, now comes flashjs.

Both of these are added to the Ajax Toolkit and Project List. I think i’m going to start calling it something else — maybe “rich web framework toolkit and project list” — because it doesn’t really cover “just” ajax anymore.

Rico and more

Ok, I understand that Sabre used the word ‘Rico’ to mean that they’ve got a framework for ‘rich applications.’ However, whenever i read or hear about rico, i can’t help but think of one of two things.

  1. Tony Soprano — How many times do you hear the mobsters mention the ‘RICO’ laws?
  2. Rico….. Suave!

Now, I think Rico is exactly what the “Rich Web Application” community needs. Not because of what it is, but because of who is behind it. Sabre is a fairly large company, and they’ve been sponsoring Rico, finally releasing it into the wild. It’s nice that toolkits exist, but you really need an all-encompassing package that supports lots of functionality.

It’s hard to develop an application with lots of little pieces. Prototype is nice, but it doesn’t have all the pieces there. Backbase is great, but it’s not open source, and costs some real money. Dojo will be nice, when/if it gets here. I’m not criticizing, they’re new — they just need time to get everything put together.

For something as complicated as a rich web app framework, you really need some financial backing to put enough people on the project to make it worthwhile. Lone developers go so far, but we need more. I think that’s what we’ve got with Rico. Dojo might have it, i’m not sure how many people from Jot work on Dojo, and how much money Jot has / will have to develop with.

Anyway, I think Sabre’s shown some “enlightened self interest” with releasing Rico, and I think that it’s going to take the web app framework community to new, very good, places.

Oh yes — i’ve added Rico, Drag and Drop w/ Prototype, the Javascript Gamelib, and CPAINT to the ajax toolkits list.