OK, so I'm sure hundreds of thousands of other bloggers with more insightful comments than me will be posting about this, but I'll still put in a quick shot. Google Wave http://wave.google.com is creating a major buzz following a recent developer demo. The video makes it look pretty good, with the most significant emphasis on the real-time interaction and open extensibility.
Wave promises to re-define the paradigms of email, instant messaging, wiki and other collaboration models by incorporating them all in a unified protocol. The prototype client-side tools run entirely in the web browser but behave much more like a native desktop application. Conversations can occur in character-by-character real time, eliminating standard "Suzie is typing..." lag times. Documents can be edited collaboratively in real time with color-coded highlights as they are typed. Everything is re-play-able in a timeline so you can see how the work progressed.
I think there's a lot of potential here. Will Wave supersede all these other forms of communication? Hard to tell. There's certainly a lot of inertia to overcome, or at least accommodate. With the open APIs, it should be possible to integrate Wave technology and build interfaces to existing systems like SMTP and Jabber. I'll also be interested to hear more about how the new Wave protocol addresses things like trust relationships and spam prevention.
Regardless of whether it revolutionizes the world or not, I have to give props to the google team for taking a shot at innovating and changing the way we think about communication. It's also very commendable that they're pursuing this project with as much openness as they can, taking the extra step to allow interoperability and even direct competition in a way that still encourages connectedness across the entire system. Keep up the good work, guys.
I just discovered the mapmotive app on facebook ... very cool!
Am I a true trekkie? Probably not, I don't even have the pajamas. :-) But I'll admit to being a long-time fan, from the original TV series through most of the spin-offs and movies. I had a blast at the new Star Trek film last night. It's very well done, intense, clever, campy, with plenty of insider references, but still a fun ride even for the uninitiated. The theater we went too had actually over-shot the number of screens they needed to schedule, so the room was not crowded at all, but that didn't diminish the fun of sharing the experience with others. I was with a group of a half-dozen guys and we all had a good time. Some were long-time fans, others had no frame of reference, and everyone enjoyed the show.
The actors did a great job of portraying the classic characters in their full personality, extrapolated back to their prequel younger selves. The writers deftly avoided any nit-picking quibbles about historical consistency with the other shows and movies by neatly packaging everything in an alternate reality, courtesy of meddling time-travelers. Some might see that as a cop-out, but I found it to be a relief, in that I didn't have to waste energy trying to figure out if everything made sense in context with everything else. The plot wasn't very deep, but it provided enough of a framework to get us from point A to point B with plenty of action along the way.
Definitely a thumbs-up for me.
OK, this blog has sat dormant for too long. Like many, I've been doing a lot more with facebook and twitter lately, and it's great to be able to do more frequent, shorter posts. Still, I need to be doing more substantial writing sometimes too. It's been a wild ride the past several months.
The biggest recent news is that we bought a townhouse, just across town from where we've been the past several years. The market is really in a perfect storm right now for buyers; prices are down, interest rates are down, and as long as you have a decent credit score there are loans to be had.
Plenty more to write about, hopefully I'll get more consistent. Also testing automatic status updates with this post, so it should get linked via pingvine through ping.fm to facebook, twitter, linkedin, identica. We'll see.
Some of my friends have asked me to let you know of any opportunities to see/hear me playing music at local venues. Here's a chance to catch some good live jazz and support a worthy cause. Mark Klein is a friend of mine and a very talented pianist. He's put together a core trio (piano/bass/drums) and has invited several vocal and instrumental soloists to join him for a fun evening of eclectic music. I'll be playing EWI on a few songs. I'd love to have your support and encouragement. Details on the flyer. Feel free to contact me with questions.
update: Here's a photo from the gig:
Last year I wrote about reading the whole Bible in a year. The BibleInAYear website doesn't seem to exist anymore, but I recently completed a second full read, this time using OneYearBible.net with the paraphrase version "The Message".
OneYearBible doesn't send daily emails like BibleInAYear did, but instead it provides a website login with calendar tracking. OneYearBible also offers a sequence that lets you read some Old Testament, some New Testament, some Psalms, and some Proverbs, every day.
Last weekend my family and I bicycled about six miles in our cycling for schools event. That seemed like a pretty good accomplishment, but then again, my sister is running a full marathon tomorrow. She has run in one before, but she wasn't allowed to finish because they shut the race down due to extreme heat. I have a lot of respect for her determination and discipline. Go Lindy! Go Lindy!
I turned 40 today. Kinda sobering that I'll never be thirtysomething again, and for the next few months my wife and I will be living in different decades (so to speak) but all in all, it's been a good, enjoyable day. My son scored his first run in little league (got walked to get on base, stole 2nd & 3rd, then ran in on the next hit - he is FAST). My daughter & wife baked me a pineapple upside-down cake. A few friends came over for the evening and we enjoyed good food, some games and hang-out time. I actually feel quite a bit better about myself right now than I did a few years ago, so I'd have to say at least for the moment 40 isn't bad, not bad at all.
Windows shareware to-do list manager Tudumo has officially launched with it's 1.0 release.
I've been using alpha and beta versions of Tudumo and have become quite addicted. I have over 400 active action items, but with Tudumo I can slice and dice the list using tags, headings, status and dates so that I can always get the most important stuff into the spotlight and give it the attention it needs. Smart keyboard shortcuts and quick find-as-you-type searching make navigation a breeze.
Congratulations, Richard, on a successful product launch.
Congrats! :) read more
on Bible in a Year