Thursday, July 17, 2008
Weirdest Spam Ever
I have an email account that has gotten so bad with spam I rarely check it. I was scanning through it today and saw a spam with the subject 'Hidden IFrame'. I rarely click on spam, but I clicked through and saw the following in the email:
Update: Looking through the Ask.com source I see that they are using Really Simply History! Cool!
Staring at it I realized that it was some base64 encoded data, so I jumped to a web-based base64 decoder and decoded it. What it turned out to be blew me away. Here is the data above in this random spam email base64 decoded: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Okay, that's really weird on alot of levels! First, that's one of the files from the Really Simple History project, which is an open source project I started -- that's just strange that its base64 encoded in a spam message to me! Second, it says Ask.com in there -- is Ask.com using Really Simple History?
<!--
Copyright (c) 2005, Brad Neuberg, ***@******* (email removed)
http://codinginparadise.org
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT
OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR
THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
-->
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Ask.com - Local Search</title>
<script language="JavaScript">
function pageLoaded() {
window.parent.dhtmlHistory.iframeLoaded(window.location);
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload="pageLoaded()">
<h1>blank.html - Needed for Internet Explorer's hidden IFrame</h1>
</body>
</html>
Update: Looking through the Ask.com source I see that they are using Really Simply History! Cool!
Labels: rsh
Monday, December 03, 2007
Really Simple History 0.6 Released
Brian Dillard releases Really Simply History 0.6! Congratulations Brian!
(BTW, I'm on the Google Bus for my first day of work; wish me luck)
(BTW, I'm on the Google Bus for my first day of work; wish me luck)
Labels: open source, projects, really simple history, rsh
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Really Simple History 0.6 Beta
I'm really proud of the great work Brian Dillard has been doing on the Really Simple History library. Check out the new beta release he just put out.
Labels: ajax, dhtml, libraries, open source, really simple history, rsh
Friday, September 14, 2007
Really Simple History Finds New Home
Hi everyone! I'm excited to report that Brian Dillard is going to be the new maintainer of the Really Simple History library. Brian's a really sharp guy with a great background; RSH is one of my software babies and I wanted to make sure that it found a great new coder to help move it forward. The last year I've had to focus too much on my business and other open source responsibilities to give RSH the attention it deserves, especially since many people now depend on it, and Brian has a great list of ideas to bring it up to date to the latest round of browsers. Thanks Brian! I can't wait to see what you do with the library.
Labels: ajax, brian dillard, history, open source, rsh
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Moving On: Coworking, Really Simple History, and Flash Storage
Every so often I look back over the projects I'm doing and take stock. I have a little inner thermometer that I check in on from time to time, and if I'm feeling stressed out and not having fun anymore it gives me information and a clue that I need to revisit what I've been doing. When I feel this, I create a Not Do Do List and figure out stuff that I need to let go of. Lately, I've been feeling stressed out and not having as much fun, feeling like there is a monkey on my back, so I've been doing things like morning pages, meditation, visual journaling, and other stuff to see what I need to change.
On a deeper level, I've been looking over what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. It seems my natural role is as an inventor pragmatist. I initially create an idea that is different than what is out there, envisioning something wierd and different, then do the hard work of making it initially pragmatic and real to prove to the world that it should be taken seriously whereas before it was ignored. Then, about a year or two down the line, others show up who have other skills that I am not as good at but are very important at this stage, such as community building, event planning, and more. I'm really good at brainstorming an idea, prototyping it, and then taking it into the initial reality stage with working code that can be used in the real world, in real software. I'm good at release 1 and 1.5, but not as good at release 2 and release 3. I'm not good at organizing groups of people, creating events, or cranking on the same code base once the initial idea and implementation has been proven to the community. I used to beat myself up about this, but I've realized that I just have to focus on what I'm good at and create situations where others can help me at the things I'm not as good at.
I've realized there are a number of projects that I created that have moved beyond this initial phase and are now successful and standing on their own legs, and it's time for me to find new maintainers for them and let them go, put them on my personal Not To Do List so to speak. These are coworking, the Really Simple History library, and Flash-based client-side storage. I need to find new maintainers for some of these projects so I can focus more time and attention on Dojo Offline. Also remember that almost all of the time I spend on these projects is free-time that I don't get paid for, and I only have so many hours in the day to hack on cool new stuff.
Coworking
I created coworking about 2 years ago. I had been working for a startup, Rojo, and wanted to go into business for myself as a consultant. However, I somehow wanted the community and structure of a workplace with the independence and freedom of working for myself, so I created coworking. Coworking was a way for independent contractors and workers to have a common space to work from, rather than hacking from home, with a more community minded focus. I rented some funky space from a small non-profit called Spiral Muse and ran it for about 8 months. Through a nice coincidence the Spiral Muse space was where I met my sweetheart, Bekka Fink, at a party months before. We couldn't store permanent stuff at the space, so I had to setup folding card tables every morning when I got there then break them down at the end of the day. For the first month I had no one, and just went to the space and worked there by myself, going through the action of setting up the folding card tables and wondering if anyone would ever show up. Eventually I had a full house, with an eclectic group of folks: a screenplay writer, a computer researcher, an open source hacker rolling his own computer language, and others.
From time to time people would drop by who were interested in the idea of coworking but weren't able to join the Spiral Muse space. I would tell them "if you were to steal this idea and make it your own, what would you do?" They would then wander off, a seed planted.
I had to close the Spiral Muse space after about 8 months since it was hard to grow within it's small size and it was getting hard to staff it; during that time those folks who had dropped by to check out the space started banding together to create an even better space, one that was larger and open more days of the week. This was the Hat Factory space, in San Francisco.
Since then coworking has spread around the world, with spaces already in or forming in New York, Paris, and more. There is an active Google Group with hundreds of members and a very active wiki. Coworking has been covered by Business Week, the New York Post, and more. Chris Messina and Tara Hunt are now the most active leaders of the coworking movement and are instrumental in moving it forward, creating events, organizing, and more. I've stepped out of an organizing role in the coworking movement to focus on other projects and am no longer a member of a space.
Really Simple History
I created the Really Simple History (RSH) library about two years ago. It was one of the first libraries to effectively solve the history and bookmarking issues inherent with Ajax applications. I had two goals with RSH: one, to show that history and bookmarking were important in Ajax applications (most developers at the time thought you could just throw this feature out and ignore that you were working in a browser); and two, that you could achieve this in contemporary web browsers using various browser tricks.
Today, RSH is used by a huge number of websites to solve Ajax bookmarking and history issues; it is also integrated into alot of other open source projects. Members from the Yahoo YUI team and the Google GWT team have told me that the BSD-licensed Really Simple History code base and techniques were instrumental in their own history libraries. RSH has been written up in online articles and books, and is now used by developers in their daily practice. Respecting the back button and creating a bookmark mechanism are now accepted practices in the Ajax industry, so I don't need to beat that drum anymore.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to do any real work on RSH for about 1 1/2 years. Important work remains: doing better QA on Internet Explorer 7, using one of the various Safari history/bookmarking techniques that have been discovered, fixing some bugs that can occur in various edge cases, and more. My focus on Dojo Storage and Dojo Offline have not allowed me to do work on this library; I am constantly getting emails with bug fixes and inquiries, and I feel terrible that I haven't gotten a new release out the door for awhile.
I am looking for a new maintainer for the RSH library. I want to make sure I find someone who will treat it well because alot of folks depend on it, so if you are interested please email me (bkn3 AT AT columbia.edu) and give me your qualifications, open source experience, and where you plan on taking the library.
Flash-Based Client-Side Storage
I've been hacking on the offline web problem for a few years. I knew before I could work on offline access to an application's user-interface, though, I had to figure out how to store data permanently on the client-side, beyond the 4K cookie limit. About 2 1/2 years ago I started searching around for a way to do this, experimenting with giant bookmarklets and other wierd stuff to see if I could find a clever back door. I then realized I could use a hidden Flash applet to store megabytes of info.
I rolled a prototype of this Flash based storage called AMASS (Ajax Massive Storage System) to see if the idea was tenable, and it turned out to work well. I then rolled another version of it and refactored it into Dojo, and got it to work in Safari as well; I also did a bunch of (grotty/interesting) hacks to get it super-fast for storing large datasets.
Once Flash-based storage stabilized, I moved on to the other part of the offline problem, which is finding your user-interface when you are away from the network, and rolled Dojo Offline in partnership with SitePen. Of course, one month after we released Google released Google Gears, a similar offline solution, so we created a partnership with them to port the Dojo Offline APIs on top of Gears. I'm in the middle of coding that port now. The next release of Dojo Offline will include a Dojo SQL module to use SQL-based storage, and a new Dojo Storage provider that uses Gears to store its data. Dojo Offline will no longer be dependent on the Flash Dojo Storage provider or the Firefox 2 Dojo Storage provider, and I would like to find a new maintainer for those. My preference for client-side storage is now to use Dojo Storage in conjunction with Google Gears. There are a number of startup companies that are using the Flash storage provider, however, and many users have told me they want to keep it; there are a number of enterprises that are also using it. I will port the Flash Storage Provider to the new Dojo 0.9 release that is coming out soon, but moving forward I would only like to personally maintain the GearsStorageProvider and the public Dojo Storage API. There are a number of cool performance and bug fixes that folks would like to get into the Flash Storage Provider, and this would be a great way to get your feet wet with the Dojo project. Please email me (bkn3 AT AT columbia.edu) your qualifications, open source experience, and future plans for the Flash Storage Provider if you would like to take this on.
On a deeper level, I've been looking over what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. It seems my natural role is as an inventor pragmatist. I initially create an idea that is different than what is out there, envisioning something wierd and different, then do the hard work of making it initially pragmatic and real to prove to the world that it should be taken seriously whereas before it was ignored. Then, about a year or two down the line, others show up who have other skills that I am not as good at but are very important at this stage, such as community building, event planning, and more. I'm really good at brainstorming an idea, prototyping it, and then taking it into the initial reality stage with working code that can be used in the real world, in real software. I'm good at release 1 and 1.5, but not as good at release 2 and release 3. I'm not good at organizing groups of people, creating events, or cranking on the same code base once the initial idea and implementation has been proven to the community. I used to beat myself up about this, but I've realized that I just have to focus on what I'm good at and create situations where others can help me at the things I'm not as good at.
I've realized there are a number of projects that I created that have moved beyond this initial phase and are now successful and standing on their own legs, and it's time for me to find new maintainers for them and let them go, put them on my personal Not To Do List so to speak. These are coworking, the Really Simple History library, and Flash-based client-side storage. I need to find new maintainers for some of these projects so I can focus more time and attention on Dojo Offline. Also remember that almost all of the time I spend on these projects is free-time that I don't get paid for, and I only have so many hours in the day to hack on cool new stuff.
Coworking
I created coworking about 2 years ago. I had been working for a startup, Rojo, and wanted to go into business for myself as a consultant. However, I somehow wanted the community and structure of a workplace with the independence and freedom of working for myself, so I created coworking. Coworking was a way for independent contractors and workers to have a common space to work from, rather than hacking from home, with a more community minded focus. I rented some funky space from a small non-profit called Spiral Muse and ran it for about 8 months. Through a nice coincidence the Spiral Muse space was where I met my sweetheart, Bekka Fink, at a party months before. We couldn't store permanent stuff at the space, so I had to setup folding card tables every morning when I got there then break them down at the end of the day. For the first month I had no one, and just went to the space and worked there by myself, going through the action of setting up the folding card tables and wondering if anyone would ever show up. Eventually I had a full house, with an eclectic group of folks: a screenplay writer, a computer researcher, an open source hacker rolling his own computer language, and others.
From time to time people would drop by who were interested in the idea of coworking but weren't able to join the Spiral Muse space. I would tell them "if you were to steal this idea and make it your own, what would you do?" They would then wander off, a seed planted.
I had to close the Spiral Muse space after about 8 months since it was hard to grow within it's small size and it was getting hard to staff it; during that time those folks who had dropped by to check out the space started banding together to create an even better space, one that was larger and open more days of the week. This was the Hat Factory space, in San Francisco.
Since then coworking has spread around the world, with spaces already in or forming in New York, Paris, and more. There is an active Google Group with hundreds of members and a very active wiki. Coworking has been covered by Business Week, the New York Post, and more. Chris Messina and Tara Hunt are now the most active leaders of the coworking movement and are instrumental in moving it forward, creating events, organizing, and more. I've stepped out of an organizing role in the coworking movement to focus on other projects and am no longer a member of a space.
Really Simple History
I created the Really Simple History (RSH) library about two years ago. It was one of the first libraries to effectively solve the history and bookmarking issues inherent with Ajax applications. I had two goals with RSH: one, to show that history and bookmarking were important in Ajax applications (most developers at the time thought you could just throw this feature out and ignore that you were working in a browser); and two, that you could achieve this in contemporary web browsers using various browser tricks.
Today, RSH is used by a huge number of websites to solve Ajax bookmarking and history issues; it is also integrated into alot of other open source projects. Members from the Yahoo YUI team and the Google GWT team have told me that the BSD-licensed Really Simple History code base and techniques were instrumental in their own history libraries. RSH has been written up in online articles and books, and is now used by developers in their daily practice. Respecting the back button and creating a bookmark mechanism are now accepted practices in the Ajax industry, so I don't need to beat that drum anymore.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to do any real work on RSH for about 1 1/2 years. Important work remains: doing better QA on Internet Explorer 7, using one of the various Safari history/bookmarking techniques that have been discovered, fixing some bugs that can occur in various edge cases, and more. My focus on Dojo Storage and Dojo Offline have not allowed me to do work on this library; I am constantly getting emails with bug fixes and inquiries, and I feel terrible that I haven't gotten a new release out the door for awhile.
I am looking for a new maintainer for the RSH library. I want to make sure I find someone who will treat it well because alot of folks depend on it, so if you are interested please email me (bkn3 AT AT columbia.edu) and give me your qualifications, open source experience, and where you plan on taking the library.
Flash-Based Client-Side Storage
I've been hacking on the offline web problem for a few years. I knew before I could work on offline access to an application's user-interface, though, I had to figure out how to store data permanently on the client-side, beyond the 4K cookie limit. About 2 1/2 years ago I started searching around for a way to do this, experimenting with giant bookmarklets and other wierd stuff to see if I could find a clever back door. I then realized I could use a hidden Flash applet to store megabytes of info.
I rolled a prototype of this Flash based storage called AMASS (Ajax Massive Storage System) to see if the idea was tenable, and it turned out to work well. I then rolled another version of it and refactored it into Dojo, and got it to work in Safari as well; I also did a bunch of (grotty/interesting) hacks to get it super-fast for storing large datasets.
Once Flash-based storage stabilized, I moved on to the other part of the offline problem, which is finding your user-interface when you are away from the network, and rolled Dojo Offline in partnership with SitePen. Of course, one month after we released Google released Google Gears, a similar offline solution, so we created a partnership with them to port the Dojo Offline APIs on top of Gears. I'm in the middle of coding that port now. The next release of Dojo Offline will include a Dojo SQL module to use SQL-based storage, and a new Dojo Storage provider that uses Gears to store its data. Dojo Offline will no longer be dependent on the Flash Dojo Storage provider or the Firefox 2 Dojo Storage provider, and I would like to find a new maintainer for those. My preference for client-side storage is now to use Dojo Storage in conjunction with Google Gears. There are a number of startup companies that are using the Flash storage provider, however, and many users have told me they want to keep it; there are a number of enterprises that are also using it. I will port the Flash Storage Provider to the new Dojo 0.9 release that is coming out soon, but moving forward I would only like to personally maintain the GearsStorageProvider and the public Dojo Storage API. There are a number of cool performance and bug fixes that folks would like to get into the Flash Storage Provider, and this would be a great way to get your feet wet with the Dojo project. Please email me (bkn3 AT AT columbia.edu) your qualifications, open source experience, and future plans for the Flash Storage Provider if you would like to take this on.
Labels: ajax, coworking, dojo offline toolkit, dojo storage, flash, flash storage provider, personal, projects, rsh, storage
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