Technology review has a nice introductory article on the problems with IM in the enterprise.  Says the article:

But today that promise is stymied by IM software packages that use their own proprietary protocols. “The whole IM scene is as factionalized as Afghanistan,” says Rob Batchelder, research director at Gartner, a technology research firm in Stamford, CT.

My main concern is how to use IM behind the firewall with security, logging, etc. at a price that gives an ROI I can see without using a microscope.  I've been playing with jabber lately and have been pretty impressed.  I've haven't even started to consider the interoperability issues.  I guess I don't quite see it yet.  For example:

“Imagine,” says Sonu Aggarwal, CEO of Cordant, a Bellvue, WA maker of IM gateway software, “having a contact in your IM buddy list that represents your Delta flight reservation. Rather than having to call an 800-number and digging up your reservation code, that ‘buddy’ is your ticket, constantly communicating the status of the reservation.”

What I don't get is why I need an IM system to do this for me.  If the airline reservation system is well designed and my reservation has a URI, my aggregator can do that same job without interoperability of IM systems, new ports opened on the firewall, etc.  Maybe I'm high, but I don't see it yet. 

2:56:00 PM    

Speaking of enduring discomfort...this man has a bassoonist in his family! What would Garrison Keillor say?
2:44:49 PM    

So I just found out about XSpaces reading Jon Udell's blog.  XSpaces are free, public key-value pair stores that you read and write using SOAP.  Pretty cool.  They could be used as publically acccessible blackboards (remember blackboard architectures from your AI class?) for sharing information between programs.  Kind of like Internet dead drops. 

The next logical question, at least to me, is: if a SOAP accessible hash table is a good idea, why not other data structures as well?  Could we use a similar stack space, queue space, etc.?  If not, why?  The second question I have is: now that we have reinvented shared memory on an Internet scale, shouldn't we have a companion semaphore service? 

2:30:41 PM    

My organization operates hundreds of servers in several data centers and a network that connects over 250 separate locations.  One of the problems we have is status communication to various interested parties.  Tonight I decided we should have a system status blog that uses categories with separate RSS feeds for various severity levels and systems.  For the low price of $40/year we could have:

• One easy spot to post status announcements, which would be ordered in exactly the right way.
• A web-based record of status.
• Multiple RSS feeds of the various systems and severity levels.
• Easy integration into the personalization feature of our intranet;  RSS feeds would show up as gadget boxes for people who want them.
• The ability to easily subscribe to RSS feeds and digest them in various ways for people with special needs. 

How could you not like that? 

2:28:56 PM    

REST and Hyperlinks.

Back in May, Jon Udell wrote a column in Infoworld called "Hyperlinks Matter."  I was fascinated by the column and that is really what led me to start a BLOG (OK, so I get sidetracked easily). 

I just finished reading the two xml.com articles by Paul Prescod [1] [2] on REST and the light has finally gone on about why I liked the "Hyperlinks Matter" column.  REST proponents make a powerful argument about why the web works and why we shouldn't be so quick to give up on some important concepts (like URIs) that have served so well. 

I think that's why I like WSIL so much compared to UDDI: its in tune with the web.   Its easy to understand, easy to implement, and uses existing tools and techniques.  There's nothing to say that the URI representing the WSIL description couldn't be machine generated.  That's the great thing about a URI. 

I think the other thing I like about REST is the notion that programming on the Internet is fundamentally different than programming on a single machine or even tightly connected collection of machines and we ought to recognize that.  RPC-like mechanisms try to absract the network away. 

[Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]

2:12:48 PM    

Jim McGee writes:

So, here's a gedanken experiment for you. Setup each incoming Ph.D. or Master's candidate with a weblog at the beginning of their program. Coach them to use the weblog as a lab notebook of their developing intellectual capital. Use your own weblog to comment on their work and their thinking. Where do you think these students will be after several years of sustained and steady writing? How many will have already started to establish reputations as serious thinkers?

I teach a course on enterprise computing.  I used Slash last year on the course homepage and loved it.  I've always required students to keep a bound lab book.  I think we don't teach computer science students enough about keeping a record of what you do. 

As soon as I started blogging, I had the same idea that Jim had: give each student a blog for the course and let that be their lab notebook.  Having each student's lab notebook available for others to read and comment on is a cool thing.  There's also a very good exercise there: have them set up their own ftp server, overlapping their http server (they all manage their own machine as part of the course) and use HTTP authentication to keep all but myself and TA out of one category in their blog where they post completed assignments.  So, would Userland be willing to donate 50 copies of Radio for the duration of the course? 

2:10:36 PM    

• The Young Dubliners
• Seven Nations
• Great Big Sea

1:39:48 PM