Wildcat! 7.0 Development Starts this Week!

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After a lengthy research effort, this week we begin the new Wildcat! 7.0 (WC7) development efforts. WC7 will be a long time coming of a re-awaken and modern Wildcat! system with all the current technology and preparing it for the future.

From my research, I found that Wildcat! is still a very strong and powerful framework with ideas and concept that many in the similar industry are just now beginning to recognize and deal with. The basic strategy is to strengthen and enhance the Wildcat! Client/Server framework. This will lay the groundwork for years to come. Our problem has been one of marketing and becoming stagnant with the current strength of the current system, ignoring or not focusing on new trends such as WEB 2.0, RSS, XML I/O, etc.

Well, all that is about to change starting this week. There will more to come with plans and announcements, but one of the first things we already done is to enhance the Developer's Corner at the Santronics Online Support Web Site.

The primarily highlights (subject to change) to look for in Wildcat! 7.0 are:

All Editions (Community, Business, Enterprise)

- XML I/O API support for Wildcat! SDK
- RSS feed support for Mail and File Areas
- BLOG support for Mail and File Areas
- SPRY, FLEX, GWT and APOLLO support
- Audio/Video Support
- New WcNavigator based on Web 2.0 methods
- Open Source WcBASIC (Maybe)

Business Edition and Enterprise Edition

- SQL support for User, Mail and File database
- Clustering Support
- I/O Control Port Support

New editions will be packaged:

- DE Developer Edition
- FE File Exchange Edition
- ME Modem-only Edition
- PE Personal Edition (Free)

and a DEMO version will be made available for download.

Hector Santos/CTO

Playing with iMac!

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Playing with my daughter's iMAC. Wow! Nice Machine. Not as intuitive as "everyone" make its out to be. But Damn! What a nice machine, rich media, video, graphics, all kinds of crap!

Rebranding Wildcat! Navigator Clients as "Web 2.0 Widgets"

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The latest development fad today are "widgets". Google has them, Yahoo has them, Adobe has them, Microsoft has them. Each is doing it in their own ways with their own set of API toolchest:

o Microsoft - ActiveX, .NET and now SilverLight
o Google - A new comer Web Toolkit
o Yahoo - A new comer, Yahoo Widget API
o Adobe - Flash, Flex and now Apollo

For Wildcat! people, Wildcat! Navigator is a perfect example of "widgets" on your desktop. The above are all basically designed under the same idea as was done for over 10 years with your desktop Wildcat! Navigator (WCN) client or your html Wildcat! Web Clients:

• FILE CLIENT
• MAIL CLIENT
• WHO ONLINE CLIENT
• PERSONAL CLIENT
• CHAT CLIENT
• TELNET CLIENT

Each of these WCN client are design with a single source API/SDK system. When using the Web, you can also display the clients in separate pages, making them appear as "widgets."

Widgets, smidgets! Maybe we will start calling Wildcat! Client as Widgets! :-)

The beauty of WCN clients is that under Wildcat! communications framework, the WCN clients can work with any connectivity device; WEB, GUI and TEXT mode!

So for those who believe "Social Networking" and "Widgets" were just recently invented with the Web, think again. This stuff existed for at least 20 years in the BBS world. You should know that the popular ONE ISPCON trade show was once called ONE BBSCON before the Internet exploded.

If you are interested, click on one of the WCN client links to see Wildcat! Client "Widgets" in action.

If you have Wildcat! Navigator (WCNAV) installed, your browser will start the desktop client. If you don't have WCNAV installed, you will see the web client. The chat client under the web, will start a JAVA desktop client. For text, you have to login under Telnet mode or Dialup. (For people who don't have an account on our system, try using the GUEST account - userid: guest pwd: guest).

Anyway, I think we will explore using Apollo/Flex to "glorify" Wildcat! Navigator clients. A technical challenge for us would be to see how we will bridge the Wildcat! RPC (WCRPC) communications framework with the various AJAX stacks and APOLLO for Java-based clients. A XML/RPC bridge might work but I haven't decided which way would be the best. Here is a drawing that illustrates the Wildcat! RPC framework showing some of the current industry considerations for Google Web TookKit, SPRY, Flash, SilverLight on the web side, and Apollo/Flex on the java side of the desktop.

Finally, to help us decide which way we should focus, I took a small quick survey to see how people are connecting to a Wildcat! system or to read mail. It was a stupid question because people who connected via their favorite method indicated as such the device they were currently using - DUH! However, what I found very interesting is that the response was spread across the board - the market is there for all the device type of connection devices.

CATSPRY - Wildcat! SPRY Framework

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Folks, in my continue endeavors to bring you the good things in Wildcat!, I think I found a good AJAX framework called SPRY by Adobe.

Wildcat! already has a similar conceopt with its WCT (Wildcat Template System), but SPRY will help make Wildcat! XML ready.

Check this out this SPRY demonstration.

Soon I will have the CAT SPRYing! Stay Tune!

Web 2.0 - The New Simplicity: Interfacing with users

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To borrow a current catch phrase, "At the end of the day," when it comes to writing computer software products, its success is how it best communicates with the end-user, the people, you are presenting and extracting information from.

Currently, there is a renewal of the old-age battle of what is best for the user: the offline (fat, downloaded software) client versus the online (thin) client.

The beauty of the web was in its simplicity with basic I/O with the user. Today, with video, music and the shifting of the brick and mortar business to the Internet, the explosion of information, requires a new paradigm of both mixed thin and fat clients.

There seems to be a battle between various companies competing for your mindsets in defining what that new "simplicity" is: Microsoft, Adobe, Google and Mozilla. We can include Apple, but they seem to be in a league of their own.

To explain all this, requires research and tabulation of all the various efforts currently available or current in development to define this New Simplicity. It is a mind boggling effort. One day soon, I will finish my research and try to provide a summary report of Web 2.0 efforts.

But in the mean time, here is a short synopsis of the situation:

Google and Mozilla

When it comes to thin client, you have Mozilla (FireFox, Thunderbird) who have defined their own open standard methods of creating presentations. Overall, the "Browser" is the solution to everything. Since Google does not have an operating system like Microsoft, its only method of penetrating the market place is by using its Search dominance as a platform to attract a world-wide community of users to essentially build its own network-based operating system of components called Google widgets. See iGoogle for a example of all this.

But how does Google get their technology? Well, for the most part it all seems to be coming from the open source Mozilla community. In fact, the new FireFox 3.0 currently in development is infested with Google branded.

Microsoft, Adobe (and Sun too)

When it comes to the fat clients, these two gorillas are battling it out for desktop clients. In short, you have to download or install software. Microsoft built its dominance by providing everything they think you need into the Windows Operating Systems. So when you installed Windows or purchased a new PC, it came with Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, and "Junior" or "Trail versions" of their elaborate Office products.

Adobe is an interesting company. I'm not sure when it decided to take over the world, maybe it was in self-defense, but their recent Web 2.0 story probably begins with Sun.

Adobe is most famous today for having captured at least 90% or more of the PC market place when it comes to online Video and Music playing with their Flash and Shockwave stuff. This fact has got Microsoft all stressed out, and that's putting it mildly.

Nonetheless, Flash is a small piece of software called a "plug-in" that users must install with their browser in order to play video and songs. Flash competes with the Microsoft Windows Media Player (WMP) already installed on the computer. But as FireFox became more popular, not everyone could use WMP. WMP is based on ActiveX and ActiveX is a NO-NO in FireFox (for security reasons). Flash really exploded into the market place when the immensely popular YouTube used Flash instead of WMP for its video sharing service.

But that was not enough for Adobe. This is how Sun comes in.

Sun is famous today for its Java Run Time Engine - yet another piece of software you download in order to run Java-Based Applications.

Sun and Microsoft have long battled each other over the Thin vs Fat client market. So much so, that Sun sued Microsoft when Microsoft tried to take over the Java Market with their separate "modified" version. Today, Microsoft no longer supports Java. Instead, they have .NET. Another piece of software you have to download to run .NET based products, however, since Microsoft owns Windows, all Windows versions now have .NET automatically.

So on your PC today, you have essentially three "Run Time Engines" in order to run "fat clients."

- Google/Mozilla with browsers using JavaScript
- Microsoft ActiveX and .NET
- Sun Java

Since ActiveX is part of .NET and required, we can lump it together, leaving us with .NET and Java.

But today, Adobe is using Sun's Java as a platform to write their own new "Media Player" and new development platform to define the new "simplicity" with their new Flex and Apollo framework.

Not to be out done by Adobe, Microsoft now has release "SilverLight" which will compete with Flash, Flex and Apollo. As mentioned, Microsoft is really worried about Adobe's Apollo/Flex efforts, so much so, they were forcing SilverLight into every one's desktop with all new security patches and Windows updates. This didn't go over too well with the market place, plus it has Anti-Trust ramifications. So Microsoft has backed off that "Throat Stuffing" SilverLight distribution. It is now optional (Wink Wink).

In the end, we have the following competing forces to define the New Simplicity:

- Microsoft with Internet Explorer
- Google/Mozilla with Firefox browsers
- Microsoft ActiveX and .NET
- Sun Java
- Adobe Apollo/Flex
- Microsoft SilverLight

Wasn't that simple?

And it really doesn't end there. There is so much more in the internal details of all the above. It isn't a pleasant concept to follow.

To most users, possibly none of this really matter doesn't. They will use the browser, and the widgets will use the browser, the .NET and the Flex stuff. If a vendor is forcing or offering a "desktop" component down their throat, most users will use it too. At worst, they will have a bloated machine that will require three Cray mainframes to smoothly run all these stuff.

But for developers, its a living nightmare!!

Microsoft must of read my blog.....

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Maybe they did read my blog regarding SilverLight, most likely they did not, but hey, nevertheless, the concerns were foretold.

Microsoft has announced they will not be forcing SilverLight down people's throats by including it in all future Windows updates.

SilverLight is basically Microsoft answer to Adobe's Flash/Flex technology that is dominate in the video and all those fancy rich animated web sites in the world today.

There is not much to say but one way or another Microsoft will find a way to get SilverLight installed on all machines.

PIW - People Integrated World

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Maybe I am just full of myself at this moment, but I just thought of a new acronym "PIW" for People Integrated World.

The Internet is providing the vehicle for people to be integrated and connected. You know, in the early days, when I was deeply involved in developing mail communications software products such as Silver Xpress, for the early "social networks" then infamously known as BBS (Bulletin Board Systems), I use to (and still do) have a strong incentive about what I was doing and how it effected people which came down to one concept: It made the timid have a voice. It made the weak, stronger, more agressive in participating and getting involved.

Cyberspace without a doubt, have provided everyone a opportunity to have a voice and when done behind a keyboard, where no one can see who you really are, it created a platform for debate, criticism and encouragement.

I say that because I was one of those people. Oh, I wasn't really a shy person, but back in the 80s, I did most of my "talking" with computers and software development. I was a user of my own creations and the rich features in Silver Xpress exemplified all the desires of its users but more importantly, its #1 user, moi. I strongly believe great products ever developed are built when the authors themselves are their #1 users. You get to see everything there is about it. Of course, you can't be blindsided and ignore other viewpoints; that is one reason why sometimes software authors are labeled arrogant and ignorant (to criticism). But the better products are built when all views are considered and carefully implemented from the author's own viewpoint. [One side point to the consumers of products: We software authors are arrogant, but we are not really ignorant. Trust me, we don't like bugs. We all want perfection. What most authors do want is to say report it "politely." ]

In any case, that's a different topic to reflect on. PIW is about how everyone is now more readily sharing their synergies, their mindsets, their views of things, their modus operandi. We see more things not only within ourselves but with others. We see more things not only within our local geographical surroundings, but world wide.

This song by Bob Sinclair "World Hold On" is a beautiful, touching reminder of PIW, how integrated we all are and how fast we are evolving to be one world society of thought and issues - both good and bad.

NoScript For FireFox

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Last month, I discussed the ideas about how to speed up your browser and about Web 2.0 Achilles Heal.

Well, Dianne Marsh gave me this tip about a great FireFox Extension called "NoScript"

This extension is the bomb! Its perfect! It will allow you to safely browse the net in non-javascript mode and it will allow you to selectively turn it on and off for trusted and untrusted sites. It also has auto great "security features." This is a MUST extension for FireFox users!

If anyone tried this NoScript and finds any issues regarding it, post a comment. I would be very interested in hearing what you think.

Wrapping your design Interface with more wrappers!

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In my mist of researching how we will improved the Wildcat! application designs, one of the most critical discoveries I found is that it is really a big frigging mess out there!

Folks, we been down this road before and I am not quite sure how the industry got blindsided with such a vast array and mixture of new methods that basically attempt to do the same thing - creating input and output in all kinds of crazy ways!

We got Adobe, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla and a bunch of other Unix wienies based systems all duplicating work and doing the same thing! It is astronomically confusing and anyone who claims to be expert in understanding it all is basically full of it. Google seems to be teaming up with Mozilla, Adobe wants to be king, and Microsoft is adapting with its own set of methods. Its really going to be just a M cubed world - Microsoft, MacroMedia and Mozilla!

It makes me wonder what got us to this point where XML is now a frigging PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE! It also seems that many who had a hard problem with that wrote even more cryptic XML derivative or some other lame string syntax like LSON and the dozen of others. Folks this is insane - we have wrappers languages for wrappers language for wrappers languages!

Whatever happen to just a simple concept?

PRINT "HELLO WORLD"

Could you not just single source this?

Don't get me wrong. Life isn't that simple, but there seems to be no end in sight, and there only seems to be one solution for us - Write another Wildcat! wrapper for these wrappers, written for wrappers, written for wrappers

Social Networks are BBSes!

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You know the saying, “The more things change, the more it remains the same.”

Today’s “web communities” is nothing more than yesterdays “BBS” system, providing all the basic interactive and connectivity and the sharing of information, be it files, images, music, chatting, etc. The only difference today is the “GUI”, the presentation, the higher bandwidth and the wider user access (# of users that can reach you). But truth be told - Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and all simple that - GIGANTIC BBSes!

Wildcat! is basically the “Last Mohican” of the traditional BBS system - Wildcat! Interactive Net Server, the most successful BBS of all time. When I purchased from Jim Harrer (Mustang Software) in 1998, many were skeptical of the purchase and the future. But My vision was clear - we were all headed toward the day where each one of us will have a “Personal BBS” installed on our personal computers and connected as well.

Social Networks, Communities, call it what you want - there are all Bulletin Board Systems A.K.A BBS!

But the evolution is not complete! There is more to come!

Letterman's tribute to Bill Gates and Microsoft

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This is a classic!

New Twist to Sharing Videos

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TU TUBO (YouTube) has developed an interesting new twist to sharing videos called Active Sharing.

The idea is simple:

You watch videos, and it shows all the names of people watching the video at the same time. All the other people will see your name watching the same video.

Sounds spiffy.

It also sounds like the beginning of sharing TV SHOWS as well, when networks begin to show "TV" shows on the internet. For example, recently I got a subscription to MLB.COM to watch baseball games via the internet. It is fantastic stuff, expensive, but great!

However, I am too sure MLB.COM will be happy if I begin to share my viewing with others at the same time.

Gran Paradiso - Google's new web browser

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Oh my gawd, Google is now in the web browser business! This is going to be very interesting - No wonder Microsoft is pissing in its pant!

Oh where do you find it?

Well, its code name is Gran Paradiso, its official name is FIREFOX 3.0!!

I downloaded it this morning, and so far, at face value, it isn't that much different than FireFox 2.0. But what is so annoying and what prompted to write this is that this version makes it almost impossible to change the behavior of the search engine. It always displays the FireFox search page which just happen to be off Google at http://www.google.com/firefox.

But when you look at all the new internal stuff, you can see clearly where these people are headed too - with GOOGLE right smack in the middle of its design with all kinds of GOOGLE related technology and methods BURNED into this new FireFox 3.0 browser.

So go figure!

Microsoft to fuse .Net with Silverlight

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As I predicted, Microsoft has embedded LIVE connectivity in the OS and will force P2P communications. See the article regarding how they are burning SilverLight into .NET.

What does this mean? Well, read what I posted in 2005, about the Pandora box Microsoft has opened and read what I recently posted about the Dangerous patterns in this industry.

Microsoft, true to their industry behavior, when it comes to introducing technology, they do things that is generally viewed as a ENGINEERING TABOO but will takes small steps in this direction to minimize protest. When the protest subsides, they take another small step and repeat this process until it is too late.