The display area on this little 2x20 is only about 1cm high.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Now try an HD video
This is a very small, positive Newhaven display. In this case driven by a dsPIC33FJ256GP710
The display area on this little 2x20 is only about 1cm high.
The display area on this little 2x20 is only about 1cm high.
Monday, August 20, 2012
World Wide Web announced
H/T Jan Wildeboer:
21 years ago: Tim Berners-Lee announced the World Wide Web.
"This project is experimental and of course comes without any warranty
whatsoever. However, it could start a revolution in information access."
Yep, it did.
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/comp.sys.next.announce/avWAjISncfw[1-25]
21 years ago: Tim Berners-Lee announced the World Wide Web.
"This project is experimental and of course comes without any warranty
whatsoever. However, it could start a revolution in information access."
Yep, it did.
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/comp.sys.next.announce/avWAjISncfw[1-25]
Sunday, August 19, 2012
From Phoenix to Mercury
Sigh. The "next Multiply" activities are very discouraging.
First, we have anotherblogspot.com. I have to applaud herbearjc for taking the bull by the horns and making something happen, but I don't think it will last.
He took an existing FOSS application (good plan), put it on a commercial host (for starters, another good plan), and is hacking away at it trying to make it look like Multiply.
Unfortunately, the starting point is a LONG way from Multiply. I doubt very much he will be able to get close enough to make it appealing. There is something about Multiply that makes it so much nicer than Facebook or Blogspot, or Wordpress, or livejournal, and it is hard to put your finger on just what that is.
But there is another problem. The site is already quite slow, and as it develops and gets more users, it will get slower. If it keeps expanding, the bandwidth costs are going to become unmanageable. That's the thing about the off the shelf hosting providers; they are quite affordable for low bandwidth sites, but as you add users and increase the bandwidth demand, the costs explode.
Plus, as basically one individual doing this as a personal project, at some point he is going to get fed up with it. I give it two years, tops.
Paul and Kimberly are going at it from entirely the other direction. They realize they need a business plan so they are working that angle. Now, Kimberly clearly has a LOT on the ball. Paul hasn't really provided me enough data to be able to judge, but there is at least some evidence he hasn't got a clue.
Their problem is that they are convinced they need to build their own datacenter. Not only is this an expensive undertaking, but it entails long term costs that are far more manageable when shared with others through some commercial host or the cloud. The probability of them ever getting off the ground seems slim, although they are at least looking at some of the hard problems.
Their main concern seems to be privacy, which is really kind of worrisome. They have this illusion that if they control the hardware it will be more secure than if a team of experts is adding to their own security. This is a fairly common fantasy among folks with relatively little experience.
If they ever get it off the ground they are going to have to charge big time to support their private infrastructure. I don't see it becoming a reality.
herbearjc may have a more economic model, if he can 1) find some income source and 2) recognize the need to change models over time. He can buy bandwidth and cycles, and at some point move to the cloud or to a large scale provider, perhaps first the cloud and then to an Akami or somebody like that.
But he somehow needs to build a sustainable business structure, and I see no evidence of that happening.
First, we have anotherblogspot.com. I have to applaud herbearjc for taking the bull by the horns and making something happen, but I don't think it will last.
He took an existing FOSS application (good plan), put it on a commercial host (for starters, another good plan), and is hacking away at it trying to make it look like Multiply.
Unfortunately, the starting point is a LONG way from Multiply. I doubt very much he will be able to get close enough to make it appealing. There is something about Multiply that makes it so much nicer than Facebook or Blogspot, or Wordpress, or livejournal, and it is hard to put your finger on just what that is.
But there is another problem. The site is already quite slow, and as it develops and gets more users, it will get slower. If it keeps expanding, the bandwidth costs are going to become unmanageable. That's the thing about the off the shelf hosting providers; they are quite affordable for low bandwidth sites, but as you add users and increase the bandwidth demand, the costs explode.
Plus, as basically one individual doing this as a personal project, at some point he is going to get fed up with it. I give it two years, tops.
Paul and Kimberly are going at it from entirely the other direction. They realize they need a business plan so they are working that angle. Now, Kimberly clearly has a LOT on the ball. Paul hasn't really provided me enough data to be able to judge, but there is at least some evidence he hasn't got a clue.
Their problem is that they are convinced they need to build their own datacenter. Not only is this an expensive undertaking, but it entails long term costs that are far more manageable when shared with others through some commercial host or the cloud. The probability of them ever getting off the ground seems slim, although they are at least looking at some of the hard problems.
Their main concern seems to be privacy, which is really kind of worrisome. They have this illusion that if they control the hardware it will be more secure than if a team of experts is adding to their own security. This is a fairly common fantasy among folks with relatively little experience.
If they ever get it off the ground they are going to have to charge big time to support their private infrastructure. I don't see it becoming a reality.
herbearjc may have a more economic model, if he can 1) find some income source and 2) recognize the need to change models over time. He can buy bandwidth and cycles, and at some point move to the cloud or to a large scale provider, perhaps first the cloud and then to an Akami or somebody like that.
But he somehow needs to build a sustainable business structure, and I see no evidence of that happening.
Monday, August 6, 2012
End of Multiply
Well, like so many others, I am disappointed. Multiply has tended to be more "personal" than other SN sites. Over time I've taken less advantage of that. As much as I enjoy the late night chats, even the debates, they eat too much time that I don't have.
I am on a number of other sites, mostly with some purpose.
Of course, like everyone, I'm on FB, and there I am connected to many of my Multiply friends. I hate all the game stuff, and although I have managed to block all the stupid game requests when I access FB from my PC, those blocks seem to be ignored on my phone. All that noise on the small screen makes the mobile application pretty much useless.
I do blog on LiveJournal from time to time. Mostly that is intended to be Fedora stuff, and lately it has been only cross posts from Multiply of those posts I want to share with my Fedora friends.
http://jjpmcd.livejournal.com/
I'm also on Linkedin, that's mostly Emcomm folks and former co-workers; there's like a bazillion "groups" on Linkedin, but I rarely post on any of them. Seems like most of them are places for headhunters and similar folks to advertise, although there are some groups that seem to be pretty interesting, but to be useful they take too much time.
Oh, and don't forget G+. This is basically FB without the games, and it could be really good except that not a lot of folks are on it.
And of course twitter and identi.ca. These are, of course, a totally different model, but still useful. Admittedly, I don't check either as often as I should.
None of these, tho, comes close to Multiply in the really great combination of features. Is there another similar thing anywhere?
I am on a number of other sites, mostly with some purpose.
Of course, like everyone, I'm on FB, and there I am connected to many of my Multiply friends. I hate all the game stuff, and although I have managed to block all the stupid game requests when I access FB from my PC, those blocks seem to be ignored on my phone. All that noise on the small screen makes the mobile application pretty much useless.
I do blog on LiveJournal from time to time. Mostly that is intended to be Fedora stuff, and lately it has been only cross posts from Multiply of those posts I want to share with my Fedora friends.
http://jjpmcd.livejournal.com/
I'm also on Linkedin, that's mostly Emcomm folks and former co-workers; there's like a bazillion "groups" on Linkedin, but I rarely post on any of them. Seems like most of them are places for headhunters and similar folks to advertise, although there are some groups that seem to be pretty interesting, but to be useful they take too much time.
Oh, and don't forget G+. This is basically FB without the games, and it could be really good except that not a lot of folks are on it.
And of course twitter and identi.ca. These are, of course, a totally different model, but still useful. Admittedly, I don't check either as often as I should.
None of these, tho, comes close to Multiply in the really great combination of features. Is there another similar thing anywhere?
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