This is a little off-topic, but I noticed that my Google Alerts search for “Alfresco Content Management” is now returning SPAM messages. It seems that spammers have now figured out a way to get fake posts stuffed with all types of keywords on Google Groups and other places get treated by Google as an “Alert” and get Google’s own infrastructure take care of delivering the message straight to users’ inboxes!
I applaud them for their ingenuity, but that doesn’t prevent me from wishing that all spammers, phishers and their ilk grow warts all over and be forced back to the depths of the abyss from which they came.
May 24th, 2008
As part of a “Built in 60” project, I recently developed a Google OneBox module for the Google Search Appliance using a simple Web Script and an XSL stylesheet. I’ll be posting the code within the next few weeks.
In the meantime, please enjoy the following screenshots:
March 19th, 2008
As some of you may know, we recently celebrated Alfresco’s Community Conference in San Jose, California and are ramping up for another one in Barcelona, Spain at the end of April. What you might not know is that we also held a more “intimate” three-hour technical session the night before. We kept this event deliberately small so as to ensure that every attendee could hear and be heard.
As part of this session, I introduced an Alfresco “developer challenge” I call “Built in 60″. The idea is to conceive and implement simple Alfresco extensions in roughly an hour (not a hard limit, but rather a guideline to limit scope). The response by my team and the attendees was quite encouraging.
As part of this initiative, my fellow Alfresco colleagues implemented a few “Built in 60″ projects including:
- Web Script-based Wiki
- GroovyBean-based Root Scoped Objects for JavaScript
- iPhone UI for Alfresco
- Workflow Inspector
- Apple Dashboard Gadget
We’ll be posting code and implementation details in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, checkout the following presentation which outlines these projects:
March 19th, 2008
I’ve been giving some thought to different technologies and trends that I feel will experience tremendous growth or otherwise positively impact web development during the course of 2008. Naturally, these opinions are my own and not those of my employer. Now, in no particular order, I list some of my top picks:
- Dynamic/Scripting Languages for Java: Particularly Groovy, JRuby, and Rhino (JavaScript). Developers are looking to become more efficient/agile and traditional compiled languages (even Java) tend to get in the way of productivity.
- Server-side JavaScript/ECMAscript: Alfresco uses it for Web Scripts, so does Aptana Jaxer and WSO2’s Mashup Server… A developer at Google even wrote Rhino (JavaScript) on Rails! Expect more of this in ‘08.
- Cloud Computing: Especially from Amazon (EC2, S3, SimpleDB, SQS, and FPS). Though there are some competitors out there with comparable services, Amazon is just about the only place where you can get virtually everything under one roof. Besides, who doesn’t have an Amazon account already? The only thing that would make Amazon AWS better would be a powerful “Control Center” from where I can manage all aspects of my grid environment… Perhaps Enomalism will help?
- Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and Development Tools: In particular Aptana, Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex & Flex Builder, OpenLaszlo, Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and JavaScript libraries (extJS, jquery, etc.) among many other related tools.
Here are some things that I’m excited about but will probably need a little more time to mature. Perhaps by the end of the year or early 2009 we should see some interesting developments from:
- BungeeConnect: While SalesForce dominates the Software as a Service market, Bungee Labs may be able to offer synergistic and perhaps competitive services along with a slick web-based IDE. I’ve been toying with it a bit, and feel it needs a little more baking time in the oven. Keep a lookout for Kapow Technologies and other vendors in this field.
- Grails: Groovy’s answer to Ruby on Rails. It recently became a 1.0 product (which means “Beta” in my book). Now that there’s a startup behind it (read: venture capital), I hope to see rapid improvements and a stronger community form behind it. But it’s probably not going to really make it big until late ‘08 at the earliest. I am a bit concerned about G2One’s business model… Too early to tell.
Finally, here are some things I really dislike:
- JSR 170 (JCR): Many content management vendors (including us) have a JCR-compliant content repository but the spec has lots of failings that its successor will be addressing at least in part. Regardless, it’s biggest Achiles heel is that it’s strictly Java-only… This is a non-starter in my book. In this world of web services (REST, SOAP, AJAX, etc.), we need something that’s cross platform and easy to invoke. JCR ain’t it.
- JavaServer Faces: Ugh! Kill me now! I can’t think of any Java web framework that gets more in the developers’ way than JSF. Many will disagree, but IMHO, it’s totally unproductive.
- Facebook: I got Facebook-fatigue within 3 minutes of signing up… Now, if we could take some of the core concepts and bring them behind the corporate firewall… Project Networks… Oh, wait! I’m talking about Alfresco 3.0!
So… That’s what I think…
What are your thoughts?
February 7th, 2008
Jeff Potts provides us another bit of Alfresco goodness, this time in the form of a Web Scripts tutorial!
Read all about it at:
http://ecmarchitect.com/archives/2007/10/25/777
October 25th, 2007
Jeff Potts from Optaros has published another excellent tutorial, this time on adding custom behaviors to Alfresco to support “rating/scoring” of content.
Link: http://ecmarchitect.com/archives/2007/09/26/770
September 28th, 2007
Here’s the first of four unedited recordings from the Alfresco + Liferay Meetup held on July 18th. In this recording David Caruana and I discuss Alfresco Web Scripts. You can access the slides from this presentation from http://web.meetup.com/44/files.
September 12th, 2007
A few weeks ago, I recorded a “dual-interview” with Sean Tierny, COO and co-founder of JumpBox, a startup specializing in building software appliances of popular open source technologies.
During the first half, Sean interviews me, and then we switch roles and I do the asking.
We have two “cuts” of the show as we each recorded our own copies. There are some minor differences in voice quality, some cuts to cover over some technical glitches, and a different introduction sequence. You can get Sean’s version from Grid7, and mine is attached to this posting.
I also highly recommend that readers/listeners subscribe to Sean’s Grid7 blog, there’s tons of good stuff there especially if you’re a budding entrepreneur.
I hope you enjoy the show.
Standard Podcast [1:26:16m]:
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September 3rd, 2007
Just a quick note to share that PowerPoint slides from the Alfresco + Liferay Meetup are available at: http://web.meetup.com/44/files
August 14th, 2007
I presented a web-based demonstration of Alfresco:
You can also download a higher-quality version (Caution, it’s 200 MB).
August 6th, 2007
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