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Gary Edwards

Flash Wars: Adobe Fights for AIR with the Open Screen Project [Part 3 of 3] | AppleInsider - 0 views

  • Two areas where Flash can offer real value is in displaying and packaging video on the web, and in serving as a Java replacement for developing applets. Here's a look at how Adobe is working to defend its strengths in the face of competition, and how its efforts to open the Flash specification in the Open Screen Project play into these efforts.
  • proprietary FLV video container format
  • more advanced and open H.264 video codec
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Apple's ability to disrupt the status quo in video playback is evident in its deal with Google to vend YouTube videos to the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Apple TV as straight H.264 rather than Google's existing mix of a Flash-based player and its archaic GVI file format based upon AVI.
  • As Apple's hardware-based H.264 playback in mobile devices begins to define how to reach affluent customers with content, Flash will increasingly lose any allure on the PC desktop as well, as developers won't want to target PCs and mobiles using two different systems.
  • Adobe seems to be hoping that nobody notices these problems and that its vigilant marketing efforts can entrance the public into thinking that a drawing app extended into an animation tool and then retrofitted into a monstrous hack of a development platform is a superior technology basis for building web apps compared to the use of modern open standards created expressly to promote true interoperability by design rather than retroactively.
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    Part two of the Prince McClean Adobe-Flash history. Excellent history involves Adobe SVG, Microsoft VmL-XAML-Silverlight, Apple WebKit, Sun (Java) as they battle for dominance over web applications and the future of the Web itself.
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Gary Edwards

Bill de hÓra: Plugin pros and cons - 0 views

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    excellent overview of plug-in architectures
Gary Edwards

Is the W3C to Blame for the Breaking of the Web? | Continuing Intermittent In... - 0 views

  • Consider the recent CSS features added by WebKit: transformations, animations, gradients, masks, et cetera. They’ve very nearly _run out_ of standards to implement, so they’re starting to implement the wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if stuff. If I’m not mistaken, this is the exact sort of thing you’re wishing for.
  • Changing the renderer (which is what we’re taking about when we talk about upgrading “the web”) goes hand-in-hand today with upgrading the *rest* of the browser as well, which requires the user to care…and users (to a one) don’t give a flying leap about CSS 2.1 support.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Note to marbux: the browser is the layout/rendering engine for web applications and services. Nothing happens on the web unless and until the browser, or a browser RiA alternative, implements a compliant end user interface. Focus on the browser layout engines, and Web applications will follow.
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    Another article taking up the issue of "Blame the W3C" for what increasingly looks like a proprietary Web future. The author is an Ajax-DOJO supporter, and he tries to defend the W3C by saying it's not their job, they don't have the "power" or the "authority" to push the Web forward. About the best they can do is, at the end of the day, try to corral big vendors into agreement. Meanwhile, the Web has become the wild wild west with browser vendors innovating into their corporate web stacks where vast profits and future monopolies rest. For me, WebKit represents the best effort insisting that the Web remain Open. It's OSS with excellent big vendor support. And they are pushing the envelope. Finally!
Gary Edwards

Google on Google Chrome - comic book - 0 views

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    Google Chrome is Google's browser project based on the extraordinary WebKit portable layout engine. Yes, Google has written their own open source browser. The reasons for Google taking this unusual step are very compelling - as this excellent presentation explains. I also think Chrome will be a game changer. The WebKit engine shows up in Adobe's Apollo RiA and, Apple's SproutCore-Cocoa RiA model. Microsoft of course offers the OOXML-XAML-Silverlight RiA that is based on .NET-WPF proprietary formats, protocols and interfaces. These are RiA efforts can be used as either browser plug-ins or stand alone runtimes. Now Google has entered the RiA fray with both feet coming down hard on a browser based runtime engine. Google RiA isn't a "Plug-in". It's the browser as both a browser and RiA runtime engine. Very cool. Let the battle begin!
Gary Edwards

Siding with HTML over XHTML, My Decision to Switch - Monday By Noon - 0 views

  • Publishing content on the Web is in no way limited to professional developers or designers, much of the reason the net is so active is because anyone can make a website. Sure, we (as knowledgeable professionals or hobbyists) all hope to make the Web a better place by doing our part in publishing documents with semantically rich, valid markup, but the reality is that those documents are rare. It’s important to keep in mind the true nature of the Internet; an open platform for information sharing.
  • XHTML2 has some very good ideas that I hope can become part of the web. However, it’s unrealistic to think that all web authors will switch to an XML-based syntax which demands that browsers stop processing the document on the first error. XML’s draconian policy was an attempt to clean up the web. This was done around 1996 when lots of invalid content entered the web. CSS took a different approach: instead of demanding that content isn’t processed, we defined rules for how to handle the undefined. It’s called “forward-compatible parsing” and means we can add new constructs without breaking the old. So, I don’t think XHTML is a realistic option for the masses. HTML 5 is it.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Great quote from CSS expert Hakon Wium Lie.
  • @marbux: Of course i disagree with your interop assessment, but I wondered how it is that you’re missing the point. I think you confuse web applications with legacy desktop – client/server application model. And that confusion leads to the mistake of trying to transfer the desktop document model to one that could adequately service advancing web applications.
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    A CMS expert argues for HTML over XHTML, explaining his reasons for switching. Excellent read! He nails the basics. for similar reasons, we moved from ODF to ePUB and then to CDf and finally to the advanced WebKit document model, where wikiWORD will make it's stand.
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    See also my comment on the same web page that explains why HTML 5 is NOT it for document exchange between web editing applications. .
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    Response to marbux supporting the WebKit layout/document model. Marbux argues that HTML5 is not interoperable, and CSS2 near useless. HTML5 fails regarding the the interop web appplications need. I respond by arguing that the only way to look at web applications is to consider that the browser layout engine is the web application layout engine! Web applications are actually written to the browser layout/document model, OR, to take advantage of browser plug-in capabilities. The interoperability marbux seeks is tied directly to the browser layout engine. In this context, the web format is simply a reflection of that layout engine. If there's an interop problem, it comes from browser madness differentials. The good news is that there are all kinds of efforts to close the browser gap: including WHATWG - HTML5, CSS3, W3C DOM, JavaScript Libraries, Google GWT (Java to JavaScript), Yahoo GUI, and the my favorite; WebKit. The bad news is that the clock is ticking. Microsoft has pulled the trigger and the great migration of MSOffice client/server systems to the MS WebSTack-Mesh architecture has begun. Key to this transition are the WPF-.NET proprietary formats, protocols and interfaces such as XAML, Silverlight, LINQ, and Smart Tags. New business processes are being written, and old legacy desktop bound processes are being transitioned to this emerging platform. The fight for the Open Web is on, with Microsoft threatening to transtion their entire business desktop monopoly to a Web platfomr they own. ~ge~
Gary Edwards

The Future of the Desktop - ReadWriteWeb by Nova Spivak - 0 views

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    Excellent commentary from Nova Spivak; about as well thought out a discussion as i've ever seen concerning the future of the desktop. Nova sees the emergence of a WebOS, most likely based on JavaScript. This article set off a fire storm of controversy and discussion, but was quickly lost in the dark days of late August/September of 2008, where news of the subsequent collapse of the world financial system and the fear filled USA elections dominated everything. Too bad. this is great stuff. ..... "Everything is moving to the cloud. As we enter the third decade of the Web we are seeing an increasing shift from native desktop applications towards Web-hosted clones that run in browsers. For example, a range of products such as Microsoft Office Live, Google Docs, Zoho, ThinkFree, DabbleDB, Basecamp, and many others now provide Web-based alternatives to the full range of familiar desktop office productivity apps. The same is true for an increasing range of enterprise applications, led by companies such as Salesforce.com, and this process seems to be accelerating. In addition, hosted remote storage for individuals and enterprises of all sizes is now widely available and inexpensive. As these trends continue, what will happen to the desktop and where will it live?" .... Is the desktop of the future going to just be a web-hosted version of the same old-fashioned desktop metaphors we have today? ..... The desktop of the future is going to be a hosted web service ..... The Browser is Going to Swallow Up the Desktop ...... The focus of the desktop will shift from information to attention ...... Users are going to shift from acting as librarians to acting as daytraders. ...... The Webtop will be more social and will leverage and integrate collective intelligence ....... The desktop of the future is going to have powerful semantic search and social search capabilities built-in ....... Interactive shared spaces will replace folders ....... The Portable Desktop ........ The Sma
Gary Edwards

Is Google Chrome a dud? Or the second coming? | Google Finally Advertising The Dud Kno... - 0 views

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    Gary Edwards (URL) said: Mar. 05, 8:17 PM +1 Chrome! It's excellent, but not for the reasons most would insist are important. Neither is Chrome a disruptive technology. It's not. The real revolution is underneath Chrome in the open source WebKit engine. An engine shared with iPhone, Android, Safari, Palm Pre, Nokia, Iris, RiMM 's Blackberry Storm and KDE. Crossplatform WebKit IDE's now include QT, 280Atlas and Eclipse. It is the Apple iPhone that put WebKit on the map, demonstrating a revolutionary document/application model capable of leveraging and pushing the Open Web to be competitive with proprietary initiatives from Adobe and Microsoft. The WebKit engine is driving most of the smart devices at the edge of the Web, providing a consistent document rendering and application runtime layer that is highly visual, multi-dimensionally interactive, and fully competitive with the proprietary rich interactive application engines (RiA) provided by Adobe and Microsoft. Near 80% of these edge of the Web devices are based on WebKit.
Gary Edwards

Palm Pre in-depth impressions, video, and huge hands-on gallery - Engadget - 0 views

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    the Palm Pre WebOS is based on Linux, and is in some way an extension of what they've been crafting for a while now, but on top of that Linux core is a display layer that is basically WebKit: all of the apps, including Palms own, are built in HTML, CSS and Javascript, and can make calls deeper into the OS for certain functionalities. That means almost any web developer can build an app for the phone, but there are limitations; like no 3D in this first release. .... excellent review! The Palm Pre is a huge win for the WebKit layout and sugarplum document model (highly advanced, graphical and interactive HTML-CSS-SVG-JS)
Gary Edwards

Mozilla's Bespin project encourages experimentation - Ars Technica, Paul Ryan - 0 views

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    "The Bespin project, which aims to develop a browser-based IDE, has attracted significant attention in the Web development community. Ars looks at some of the buzz around Bespin and the project's innovative use of the HTML canvas element.........." Good stuff here. The Bespin project started off as a JavaScript code editor written in JavaScript, but the really exciting part looks to be the innovative use of the canvas element and the JavaScript API for drawing. There is also the development of using Bespin as a Web page editor using the new canvas text rendering API! One of the advantages Flash has over WebKit is the proliferation of SWF based IDE's. Silverlight will similarly have an excellent collection of IDE's. There are no WebKit - Canvas based IDE's today, but Bespin will perhaps change that. I can also imagine that many of the Flash based IDE's like Swifft tools and my favorite, "SwishMAX", could provide multiple vector graphics; including Canvas! Note that Adobe is scheduled to discontinue all support for SVG this coming March of 2009, moving everything to the proprietary SWF.
Gary Edwards

ongoing · What's "Cloud Interop"? - 0 views

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    The question that seems more important than all the rest is "Can I afford to switch vendors?" Let's consider some examples. When printers wear out, you can buy new printers from whoever with little concern for switching cost. If you're unhappy with your current servers, you can replace them with models from lots of vendors (Sun, Dell, HP, IBM, others) without worrying too much about compatibility (well, you may have some racking and cabling pain); the issues are price, performance, and support. If you're grouchy about your OS, you can move between *n*x flavors like Debian, SUSE, and Solaris pretty freely in most (granted, not all) cases; with maybe some deployment and sysadmin pain. If you're unhappy with your desktop environment, well too bad, you're stuck. Your users are too deeply bought into some combination of Outlook calendaring and Excel macros and Sharepoint collab. The price of rebuilding the whole environment is simply too high for most businesses to consider. If you're unhappy with your Oracle licensing charges, you probably have to suck it up and deal with it. SQL is a good technology but a lousy standard, offering near-zero interoperability; the cost of re-tooling your apps so they'll run on someone else's database is probably unthinkable. Like they say, you date your systems vendor but you marry Larry Ellison.
Gary Edwards

ES4 and the fight for the future of the Open Web - By Haavard - 0 views

  • Here, we have no better theory to explain why Microsoft is enthusiastic to spread C# onto the web via Silverlight, but not to give C# a run for its money in the open web standards by supporting ES4 in IE.The fact is, and we've heard this over late night truth-telling meetings between Mozilla principals and friends at Microsoft, that Microsoft does not think the web needs to change much. Or as one insider said to a Mozilla figure earlier this year: "we could improve the web standards, but what's in it for us?"
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    Microsoft opposes the stunning collection of EcmaScript standards improvements to JavaScript ES3 known as "ES4". Brendan Eich, author of JavaScript and lead Mozilla developer claims that Microsoft is stalling the advance of JavaScript to protect their proprietary advantages with Silverlight - WPF technologies. Opera developer "Haavard" asks the question, "Why would Microsoft do this?" Brendan Eich explains: Indeed Microsoft does not desire serious change to ES3, and we heard this inside TG1 in April. The words were (from my notes) more like this: "Microsoft does not think the web needs to change much". Except, of course, via Silverlight and WPF, which if not matched by evolution of the open web standards, will spread far and wide on the Web, as Flash already has. And that change to the Web is apparently just fine and dandy according to Microsoft. First, Microsoft does not think the Web needs to change much, but then they give us Silverlight and WPF? An amazing contradiction if I ever saw one. It is obvious that Microsoft wants to lock the Web to their proprietary technologies again. They want Silverlight, not some new open standard which further threatens their locked-in position. They will use dirty tricks - lies and deception - to convince people that they are in the right. Excellent discussion on how Microsoft participates in open standards groups to delay, stall and dumb down the Open Web formats, protocols and interfaces their competitors use. With their applications and services, Microsoft offers users a Hobbsian choice; use the stalled, limited and dumbed down Open Web standards, or, use rich, fully featured and advanced but proprietary Silverlight-WPF technologies. Some choice.
Gary Edwards

The cross-platform option: Web apps for smartphones | InfoWorld | Analysis | 2009-01-20... - 0 views

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    Tailoring a Web application for iPhone, BlackBerry, and other top devices has many advantages over costly native development, and new techniques and approaches are closing the functionality gap. This article walks through the many different issues confronting Web developers and, the many innovations developers are using to close the gap between the Web and increasingly visual devices. Excellent article! Covers the iPhone WebKit - CSS transformations, iUI and PhoneGAP
Gary Edwards

The Grand Convergence: Web + RIA + Widgets + Client/Server - 0 views

  • he architecture of the Widget engine divides the client technology into two parts, the engine and the widgets. The widget engine is usually a pretty large download.
  • The widget engine is really a wonderful architecture that gives you the power of the desktop (via the widget engine) and the management of the Web (via widget downloads).  Widget engines can out-perform RIA solutions and they can store larger data sets. 
  • Fit Client applications can be centrally managed, yet remain resident on the desktop. They can offer access to standard web content (e.g. HTML) without the need of a browser. Fit Clients can leverage the processing power and disc space of the client machine, but they can also offer more restrictive and secure environments than client/server platforms.
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    Excellent overview of where applications are going. Richard Monson-Haefel, (whom i met at the 2008 Web 2.0 Conference) explains the convergence of four emerging application models: Web Clients (Browsers), RiA Clients, Client/Server, and Widget Engines. He comes up with a convergence point called "Fit Client", offering Adobe Air as the leading example. Richard walks through each application model, discussing limitations and advantages. Good stuff, especially this comment: "The widget engine is really a wonderful architecture that gives you the power of the desktop (via the widget engine) and the management of the Web (via widget downloads).  Widget engines can out-perform RIA solutions and they can store larger data sets.    The limitation of Widget engines is not in their architecture, it is that they have been designed for applications with fairly weak capabilities compared to client/server. Widgets tend to be single-purpose applications with limited access to the native operating system. That said, the widget architecture itself - the separation of the platform from the applications - is important. It makes it possible to create applications (widgets) that are portable across operating systems and are packaged for easy download and installation. "
Gary Edwards

Google Chrome: Bad news for Adobe « counternotions - 0 views

  • Agree with much of what Kontra said and disagree with many who mentioned alternatives to JavaScript/Chrome. The main, simplest reason Adobe will be in a losing fight in terms of web platform? The Big Two - Google and Microsoft - will never make themselves dependent on or promote Adobe platform and strategy.
  • Luis, I think that’s already in play with HTML5. As I pointed out in Runtime wars (2): Apple’s answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX, Apple and WHATWG are firmly progressing along those lines. Canvas is at the center of it. The glue language for all this, JavaScript, is getting a potent shot in the arm. The graphics layer, at the level of SVG, needs more work. And so on.
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    "What's good for the Internet is good for Google, and the company says its strategic proposition for the newly introduced Chrome browser is: a better platform is needed to deliver a new generation of online applications......." This is one of the best explanations of why Google had to do Chrome i've seen thus far. Kontra also provided some excellent coverage concerning the Future of the Web in a two part article previously published. Here he nails the RiA space, comparing Google Chrome, Apollo (Adobe AiR/Flex/Flash) and Microsoft Silverlight. Chrome is clearly an Open Web play. Apollo and Sivlerlight are proprietary bound in some way. Although it must be said that Apollo implements the SAME WebKit layout engine / WebKit docuemtn model as Google Chrome, Apple Safari-iPhone, Nokia, RiM and the Iris "Smart Phone" browser. The WebKit model is based on advanced HTML, CSS, SVG and JavaScript. Where Adobe goes proprietary is in replacing SVG with the proprietary SWF. The differences between JavaScript and ActionScript are inconsequential to me, especially given the problems at Ecma. One other point not covered by Kontra is the fact that Apollo and Silverlight can run as either browser plugins or standalone runtimes. Wha tthey can't do though is run as sufing browsers. They are clearly for Web Applications. Chome on the other hand re-invents the browser to handle both surfing mode AND RiA. Plus, a Chrome RiA can also run as a plugin in other browsers (Opera and FireFox). Very cool. The last point is that i wouldn't totally discount Apple RiA. They too use WebKit. The differnece is tha tApple uses the SquirrelFish JavaScript JiT with the SproutCore-Cocoa developers framework. This approach is designed to bridge the gap between the OSX desktop/server Cocoa API, and the WebKit-SproutCore API. Chrome uses the V8 JiT. And Adobe uses Tamarin to compile JavaScript-ActionScript. Tamarin was donated to the Mozilla community. If there is anythin that will s
Paul Merrell

International Digital Publishing Forum (formerly Open eBook Forum) - 0 views

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 May 08 - Cached
  • EPUB Support from list of Publishers An Open Letter from AAP to IDPF
  • What is EPUB, .epub, OPS/OCF & OEB? ".epub" is the file extension of an XML format for reflowable digital books and publications. ".epub" is composed of three open standards, the Open Publication Structure (OPS), Open Packaging Format (OPF) and Open Container Format (OCF), produced by the IDPF. "EPUB" allows publishers to produce and send a single digital publication file through distribution and offers consumers interoperability between software/hardware for unencrypted reflowable digital books and other publications. The Open eBook Publication Structure or "OEB", originally produced in 1999, is the precursor to OPS. For the latest on IDPF standards, sample files and companies who have implemented our specifications, please visit our public forums.  Getting started? Visit our FAQ's.
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    Will ePub be the standard that converges the desktop, the server, devices, and the Web? ePub is an implementation of the W3C Compound Document Formats interoperability framework with excellent packaging, container, and markup components. ePub is also strongly integrated with Daisy XML for accessibility, "talking books," and document structure, hinting at a voice-interactive future for publishing. ePub has been developed as a vendor-neutral standard and is being implemented by a large number of major book publishers globally, a factor that should spur major development of both editing and rendering software and devices.
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Maluvia Haseltine

Giz Explains: Why HTML5 Isn't Going to Save the Internet - HTML5 - Gizmodo - 6 views

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    Excellent article explaining what HTML5 is, and what it isn't - at least not yet. Recommended!
Gary Edwards

Developing a Universal Markup Solution For Web Content - 0 views

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    KODAXIL To Replace XML?

    File this one under the Universal Interoperability label. Very interesting. Especially since XML document formats have proven to fall short on the two primary expectations of users: interoperability and Web ready. Like HTML+ :) Maybe KODAXIL will work?

    The recent Web 2.0 Conference was filled with new web services , portals and wiki efforts trying their best to mash data into document objects. iCloud, MindTouch, AppLogic, 3Tera, Caspio and Gazoodle all deserve attention. although each took a rather different approach towards solving the problem. MindTouch in particular was excellent.

    "A Montreal-based software and research development company has developed a markup solution and language-neutral asset-descriptor that when fully developed, could result in a universal computer language for representing information in databases, web and document contents and business objects."

    "While still at a seminal stage of development, the company Gnoesis, aims to address the problem of data fragmentation caused by semantic differences between developers and users from different linguistic backgrounds."

    Gnoesis, the company that has developed the language called KODAXIL (Knowledge, Object, Data, Action, and eXtensible Interoperable Language), a data and information representation language, says the new language will replace the XML function of consolidating semantically identical data streams from different languages, by creating a common language to do this.

    The extensible semantic markup associated with this language will be understood worldwide and is three times shorter than XML.
Gary Edwards

Cloud computing and the return of the platform wars | The Open Web takes on the Open Cl... - 0 views

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    Excellent article on Cloud Computing and the need for an Open API from Dion Hinchcliffe. Solid analysis, deeply linked, with some good graphics: "....The final outcome of this struggle, as it's been in many earlier platform battles over personal computer hardware, operating systems, databases, and even the Web itself, will be the result of a fairly predictable and oft-repeated cycle of events (see diagram below) for which a small number of large winners are likely to emerge victorious...." "When we look back many years from now, it's probable that cloud computing will be regarded as both a momentous and major change of course in the history of software; many future computing platforms will be created and operated by what seemingly amount to utility companies. While this might seem like a boring future for computing, it's a necessarily pragmatic evolution as the very size and scope of modern software requires new economic models in order to remain cost effective. Virtually any online application these days has to scale to a few million users as quickly and inexpensively as possible....."
Gary Edwards

Standards support for mashups emerge | Hinchcliffe Enterprise Web 2.0 - 0 views

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    Excellent review of evolving Open Web Standards for Cloud Computing. Dion covers OpenSAM, OpenAjax, Smash, and a number of other efforts to standardize the mashup space. "..... mashups have enormous potential to allow more rapid and much less expensive development of online applications by emphasizing assembly over development, economies of scale by enabling high levels of reuse, and the consequent ability to rapidly get software solutions with the right data in the right place at the right time...."
Gary Edwards

The Best Web Services That Can Be Controlled Using Email | Lifehacker Australia - 0 views

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    Excellent collection and review of email based productivity services. I really liked Super.cc! Very cool. Lots of PDF-Conversion based services too. Very interesting.
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