Life Support

I'm putting this blog on life support. Not sure if I'll bother posting anything again. Or, if I do, if it will be here. The thought has crossed my mind of starting new, but I'm not sure what I have to say, so I won't bother for now.

In the mean time, I have started a blog of sorts, made up of just random links to various things. Life As A Knot is the new site. Little to no commentary (may be just a note explaining a link). The purpose of this is just to give me a place to store bookmarks for when I'm bored at work, away from my home machine, or I want to share links between my machines.

So, if anyone is actually reading this site, stop. If you really care, let me know and I'll email you if/when I start posting again. sweeneym AT comcast DOT net

Fix MT bookmarklet bug in Safari

Fixing the MT bookmarklet for Safari :: The Daily Journey :: JayAllen.org

The future of software, as told by me

The days of killer apps coming from corporations is dead. The days of new software coming from corporations is dead. The role of corporations, in the software industry, is maintence. They are regulated to the role of adopting technologies developed by other people, and packaging it for the masses. They now live at the whim of hackers, the real developers of the world.

The killer app for mobile computing will not be a new messaging system or a fancy browser or even a new GPS tool. It will be an open platform both at the software and hardware level. Once, the mobile industry hands over the reigns to the masses and lets them do what they want, then mobile computing will work.

On a software level, the OS must be open, with a free, easy to use set of libraries and programing tools. It needs to be a platform that any decent coder can work on and with. If new languages must be developed, then they must be similiar to existing languages. Preferably, they will allow the use of current, populair languages.

On the hardware level, the devices must be open to moding. Any hardware hacker must be able to crack the case open and switch out memory and storage, over clock chipsets, and tinker to their heart's desire.

In short, the hackers of the world must be courted with great zeal. These new devices must be marketed directly to them, selling them on the ability to modify hardware and write applications. By doing this industry will loose control, but will get a window into the world of what people WANT from these devices.

The days of automating or porting tasks to computers is done. We can now do all we want to do. Now, we must be allowed to tweek, to combine at will. We are no longer interested in what you think we want. We now want what we want. We know we can get it, because we get it from out desktops and laptops. We have learned to expect freedom, and we will accept nothing less. Any company that does not learn this lesson, will die.