Author: Mark

Is Java the platform Ajax is most used with?

This week’s SD Times has an article AJAX-Based Web 2.0 Ready for Takeoff. Included within the article is a chart which shows a breakdown of “…what application runtime platform(s) would you be using AJAX with?”.

  • 55.7% said Java / Java EE
  • 44.7% said Microsoft ASP.NET / Atlas
  • 25.9% said PHP
  • 21.8% said Adobe/Flash
  • 12.1% said Ruby on Rails
  • The rest were a mix of Perl, ColdFusion, etc.

These numbers really surprised me. I would have expected to see much higher numbers for PHP and much lower numbers for Java. We work with a lot of enterprise customers and most are using either Microsoft solutions or the LAMP stack. It is actually not that common that we see Java used (and even less common to see Ruby on Rails).

I’m by no means claiming that I expected to see Microsoft running away with it, although the Microsoft numbers do seem to reflect what we see within customers, but the Java and PHP numbers just don’t add up in my opinion.

Wow, who built the AT&T site?

The morning my 9 month old BlackBerry 8800 has decided to die (and no Scott, I’m not buying an iPhone). So I headed on over to AT&T to see what BlackBerry they are offering now just in case I need to buy a replacement.

First I go to att.com and click on the big “Wireless” tab. So far so good From the wireless tab I click the “Personal” button to view the phones:

Nothing happens. So after a few more clicks (maybe it’s broken, right?) I notice that the site opened a new window:

 

So in order for me to look at their products and services I first have to decide if I want to make the AT&T home page Personal Wireless? I would never ever make any claims about being a usability expert, but this is just dumb.

Content made simple – Graffiti CMS

Scott posted a FAQ about Graffiti.

A big goal of our’s with Graffiti – which originated with the purchase of Dozing Dogs CMS – was to build a really simple content platform. One that could be used to both build simple sites as well as providing individuals with a simple blogging platform. Community Server is really for “communities” (as the name implies) and has never been particularly well suited for individuals that need blogging software. Rather, Community Server is for sites that intend to support multiple bloggers or social groups.

A question I’m hearing from a lot of our interested customers is: will it integrate with Community Server? All I can say right now is “wait and see” 🙂 

Graffiti will be awesome for individuals. We can’t wait to share it!

More about Graffiti

We poked fun at viral videos in our first video blog about our new Graffiti product. A new video was posted Monday that provides a bit more detail.

Graffiti is a new, simple CMS (Content Made Simple) tool that’s designed to make it really easy to build beautiful sites. Kevin did a pretty good job at writing up what it’s all about. It includes blogging tools and will actually be a really good blogging solution for people that just want a blog — whereas Community Server will continue to be built and targeted to larger “communities” where multiple blogs and authors work together.

New version of Community Server released

Yesterday we released a new version of Community Server: Community Server 2007.1

This release includes all the bug fixes in Service Packs 1 & 2 as well as new bug fixes since Service Pack 2. More importantly it contains a number of very important security updates and we recommend upgrading as soon as possible.

Upgrade from Community Server 2007

New Installs of Community Server 2007.1

More details:

  • Performance work. This release includes performance changes we’re making for Community Server 2008. Mostly this is SQL and Cache updates and changes. For Community Server 2008 we have some larger plans which include forking the data provider and data layer for our Enterprise Edition to support more distributed scaling.
  • Email updates. We’ve done some clean-up and improvements to how emails are handled (both incoming and outgoing). This also includes better enforcement of options users can set for if they want emails sent through the site or not.
  • Services APIs. Updates to the blog metablog APIs to better support tools such as LiveWriter keywords as well as support for excerpts, read more, auto-discovery, and post names.
  • New Basic Theme. Added the new basic theme which is a really simple theme that can provide an easy starting place for people new to theming a Community Server site.
  • Updates for Reporting. Community Server 2007.1 will support with the new Telligent Enterprise Reports when it is released later this fall.
  • 75+ bug fixes. see the detailed list.

Originally we planned to release this as Service Pack 3. However, because we included more than just bug fixes we’ve decided to call this a “point” release.