Monday, June 13th, 2005

There was one session I went to last week, that was specifically not under NDA. That was the session that went over new stuff in the .Mac 2.0 SDK. It's supposed to be out in July, but I'll let you know what I remember about it now (maybe I should have taken notes?).

The focus behind this new release is "collaboration". They've made it super easy to add the ability to send bits of data around the net, using a simple messaging protocol built on top of .mac. (It's all standards based if I remember correctly). You add users to your application workspace, and manage permissions and such- and users don't have even have to be subscribed to .mac to use your application (although the "hosting" person does).

And then the demo they gave was really cool.

It went something like this: Computer "A" opened up an application, with 6 picture wells in it. Computer "B" did the same thing, and dropped an image in one of the wells. A couple of seconds later, that same image showed up in computer A's application. Computer A dropped another image in a different well, and that picture showed up on person B's computer. Person A copied an image from one of the wells, into (a modified version of) TextEdit, and then person B updated that image on their computer. It was then updated on A's machine, in both the sample app, and TextEdit.

It's hard to describe, it's one of those things you need to see in person. But what they've done is taken a really hard problem, and made it very easy to do for developers. It was very very cool. If I understand correctly, they use .mac as a sort of homebase, and it's a simple "publish and subscribe" mechanism.

The folks behind the SDK really want to see a new class of apps pop up on the mac using this tech, and I think they are going to get what they want if it's as easy as it looks.

-- posted 5:29 pm

Duncan <a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/x180/sets/444799/"">put up some pics of the weblogger's dinner on Monday. It was a great time, but it needed to last longer because I didn't get to say hi to everyone I wanted to.

And here's two you were not expecting, from inside Buzz's apartment later on that week:

"Howlin" Brent Simmons and groupies.

Gus Mueller, "I only know the blues, pick another song please."

-- posted 3:57 pm