CodePlex Foundation

September 13, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

I just announced some Interesting news at the work blog. I am now advising Microsoft on open source software strategy. Microsoft? Open source? Yes. I announced my joining the advisory board of the newly minted CodePlex Foundation that was created by Microsoft last week.

CodePlex Foundation: Microsoft, an Open Source Leader? | MindTouch, Inc Blog

Last week I joined the advisory board of the newly created CodePlex Foundation, which was forged in the bowels of Microsoft. Sounds scary doesn’t it?

CodePlex Foundation logoThe foundation, a 501.c6 non-profit, endeavors to increase participation in open source community projects. The intent is to provide a framework for commercial (proprietary) software companies to more easily contribute to open source projects. Specifically, the CodePlex Foundation wishes to help resolve concerns commonly shared among commercial software companies about contributions downstream; such as implied patents, copyright, licensing, etc.

Posted in Professional. Tags: , . No Comments »

Bing.com Is Growing

July 17, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

While it’s still not even close to being significant relative to Google’s search traffic the traffic from Bing.com continues to grow. What is the most shocking to me is that Bing drives 364% more traffic to MindTouch.com and 10% more traffic ObLOGN.com than Yahoo! search. You read correctly, Bing drives more than three times more traffic than Yahoo! search. Bing.com Search Traffic

Related articles by Zemanta
Posted in Software. Tags: , , , , , . No Comments »

I sound like a total wanker

December 9, 2008 — Aaron Fulkerson

I’m pretty hesitant to post this. This is really really old (in MindTouch time, it’s actually only a year old) and is a throw back to when MindTouch was solely focused on building community and adoption. Well, we nailed that out of the park and have since layered atop our community-centrism a business and sales unit. Nonetheless, these are our roots and I’m sharing this Microsoft produced video against my better judgment, after all I think I sound like a total wanker…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yuhbktv9pYs&hl=en&fs=1]

I should point out that the message in the video about being the best open source wiki is qualitative and stale. In fact, MindTouch is the MOST popular open source enterprise collaboration platform in the world. MindTouch Deki enjoys millions of users and hundreds of thousands of installations…all in less than three years of a public product wow… According to Sourceforge.net (the most active open source repository) MindTouch Deki is the top .001% of all open source projects.

Here is the Bitrock video. I like there video better. :-) Daniel and Erica are wonderful…oh and they have a great product too.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD406t-ffKk&hl=en&fs=1]
UPDATE: For whatever reasons it seems Microsoft took the videos off YouTube. Got me. Here’s another instance of the MindTouch “documentary”.

Posted in Journal, MindTouch. Tags: , , . 6 Comments »

Windows Live Writer

April 3, 2008 — Aaron Fulkerson

2008-04-03_1712 I just read Roy’s blog post about XML-RPC interfaces and client side blog writers. I’ve tried out ScribeFire, which Roy reviews with:

ScribeFire seems *very* *very* unpolished. Their forums are filled with reports, and nobody responding to them. It didn’t seem to work very well with my test Tabulas account, so I’m not exactly filled with hope on that front.

I tried out ScribeFire a few months back and was initially very pleased with it. However, after a couple weeks of fighting with bugs I abandoned the plugin. It was just so damn buggy. Anyway, Roy mentioned Windows Live Writer; so, I downloaded and installed it. This is my first official post with it. Wow! this is frickin’ sweet. This is a really polished product. It’s even elegant, which is a clear indication this product was a Microsoft acquisition. It even has a bunch of useful plugins for things like Flickr, Picasa, paste from Visual Studio with syntax highlighting, and more.

I do have to complain about the install experience. It took forever. I have no idea what it was analyzing, but it "scanned" my computer for minutes. Also, it’s a damn shame Live Writer isn’t still open source as it was prior to the Microsoft acquisition of the company. Why Microsoft felt the need to close source this is beyond me. Doing so only diminishes the value of the product to users and Microsoft. Just idiotic.

Posted in Review. Tags: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Microsoft Gatineau you dirty whore

December 6, 2007 — Aaron Fulkerson

Since Google “Upgraded” Google Analytics, or as I like to call it “google anal”, I’ve been dissatisfied with the service. To be sure, I was not overly thrilled about the the previous implementation, but as soon as the service went 100% Flash I really was disappointed. Common tasks take me more clicks. The map overlay sucks because you can’t get an overview as easily, and I can’t use the service from my iPhone. In general, the site usability of the site has suffered severely from the upgrade. Also, since the upgrade I’ve been unable to get the site overlay to work so I have no way of analyzing, visually, visitors traffic patterns.

I want a better web analytics package! Don’t tell me that Google’s “free”. It’s not free. I’m giving Google incredibly detailed and valuable information about visitors to my web properties. That’s worth a lot of money when you consider the traffic. This is why when I heard of Microsoft’s upcoming web analytics service code named: “Gatineau” I signed up for the beta and waited for an invite. This invite arrived today. It reads:

Thanks for expressing interest in our new web analytics service, code named: Microsoft “Gatineau.”

Get started today
Follow these instructions to get started with the Gatineau beta today.

1. Go to: http://adcenter.microsoft.com/?key=cb6ad37b-fcf3-4c69-8c89-5b0e19adef7c
Invite code: cb6ad37b-fcf3-4c69-8c89-5b0e19adef7c
2. Click Sign Up Today and create an adCenter account using this e-mail address.* You’ll be charged a one-time, non-refundable $5 fee to set up an adCenter account.
3. After your account is created, you’ll be directed to the Gatineau beta invite sign up page. Follow the instructions to begin using the beta.

Microsoft AdCenter 0

Wait. What? Let me read this again:

* You’ll be charged a one-time, non-refundable $5 fee to set up an adCenter account.

You want me to pay YOU to test your undoubtedly buggy software? I’ll be running your script on my web properties, slowing down my visitors experience because I’ll surely not drop my Urchin script from Google, and you want me to pay you? Even though I’m going to be giving you incredibly detailed information about my visitors. Moreover, you ask me for a lot information about me and my company including a credit card, which gives you access to all kinds of interesting information. Isn’t this payment enough for me to gain the privilege of testing your buggy software? WTF? You should be paying me $5.

Gatineau, you dirty whore, I shall pass.

Posted in Journal. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

MindTouch Deki Wiki: DekiScript, Mashups, and More…

October 8, 2007 — Aaron Fulkerson

Cross post

I think I’m getting better at making these vids. This one seems pretty natural. :-) I quickly cover DekiScript (barely mention it), show a couple mashups, and intro the Desktop Connector.

Posted in MindTouch. Tags: , , , , , , . Comments Off »

Slashdot | Microsoft Should Abandon Vista?

September 27, 2007 — Aaron Fulkerson

Slashdot | Microsoft Should Abandon Vista?
“An editorial written by Don Reisinger over at CNet’s News.com takes Microsoft to task for the outright failure of Vista. He suggests that Vista may be the downfall of the company as, despite years in development, Vista was delivered to market too early. His suggestion? Support those who are running it, but otherwise ditch Vista and move on. ‘Never before have I seen such an abysmal start to an operating system release. For almost a year, people have been adopting Vista and becoming incensed by how poorly it operates. Not only does it cost too much, it requires more to run than XP, there is still poor driver support … With Mac OS X hot on its tail, Vista is simply not capable of competing at an OS level with some of the best software around. If Microsoft continues down this path, it will be Vista that will bring the software giant to its knees–not Bill Gates’ departure.’”

I’m posting a reference to a post that references the original article with good reason. The comments on this /. post are so damn hilarious, you’ve got to read them.

How fucking dare anyone out there make fun of Vista after all it has been through?

…

LEAVE IT ALONE! You are lucky it even boots you bastards! LEAVE VISTA ALONE!

…

LEAVE VISTA ALONE RIGHT NOW. I MEAN IT.

Anyone that has a problem with it you deal with me, because it is not well right now.

LEAVE IT ALONE!

Oh, and the C|Net piece hurts. Hurts bad. If I were Microsoft. Also, I think it’s probably correct; although, I’m not sure this approach would be in the best interest of Microsoft.

Posted in Journal. Tags: , , , , . Comments Off »

Racketeering

June 28, 2007 — Aaron Fulkerson

The intellectual property racket must end. Intellectual property laws were designed to promote innovation, not to allow monopolists to stifle it. We have an entire generation that has been taught that new ideas have to be “protectable” to be worthy of consideration. Whatever happened to being faster and better than the competition? Do these companies really need a seventeen year head-start? Does Microsoft really need a government-sanctioned sledge-hammer with which to intimidate smaller companies?

Do we, as a society, still need to grant monopolies to companies in order to promote innovation? I’ve never felt I needed a monopoly to be successful; I just needed to be faster than the other guy. I’m a pedal-to-the-metal kind of guy and I’m convinced that I can move forward faster with my own ideas than anyone else can move in trying to copy me.–Dave Dargo

Hell yeah! Excellent post.

Posted in Journal. Tags: , , . Comments Off »

Poster Child

June 22, 2007 — Aaron Fulkerson

Cross Post

I promised previously to highlight a developer a month. This month I'm highlighting Pete Erickson. I guess this makes Pete our developer of the month. Roy told me he was unwilling to peaceably relinquish his crown. Too bad Roy. It's Pete's turn to shine because he's a superstar and you're old news.

First a little background on Pete. Pete was born and grew up in a teeny tiny village in way northern Minnesota called Roseau.. He attended college at Bethel and then NDSU. He was hired by Great Plains software after school. Pete tells the story of his first week at work. He was informed the company was purchased by Microsoft. He was sufficiently pissed he considered quitting. He didn't though and he continued to work with Microsoft for a couple of years in and out of Redmond, WA. PeteE (as I call him) is passionate about open source and open standards. He enjoys participating in triathlons, biking, hiking, camping, and long walks on the beach with pina coladas. Ok, the last two items I manufactured, but the rest is true.

Open Source Developer Poster Child
 Open Source Developer Poster Child

Pete manages most of our infrastructure stuff. He's probably the best Linux guy we have other than Geoff. He codes mostly in C# although he's recently become adept in PHP. He manages the NOC, all our software packaging, install guides, and upgrade scripts. Mostly recently he's done a lot of work in Hayes on Lucene with search indexing, he wrote the RSS API, and he even wrote a Drupal authentication service for DekiWiki.

Pete was actually the first engineer hired by MindTouch. He was a contractor even before Roy came on as a full time employee. He was introduced to me by his now girlfriend Marianne who was doing some business administration work for MindTouch. Pete literally worked with me out of my windowless basement for a couple of months off and on. Unfortunately Pete still lives in MN. Hopefully his recent surfing expedition in Pacific Beach with Max will entice him to move to San Diego very soon.

Pete blogs on rare occasions too. He's done a nice write-up about the upcoming Hayes Beta2 release. Specifically he highlights:

  • Hayes has a web installer! No @#!t! And PeteE wrote it too.
  • New parser
  • Live data services
  • External Authentication services
  • Extensible storage provider model
  • New indexing service
  • Nicer UI, but I think he means improved presentation layer

Pete's post is a useful read for all you interested Gardeners. Enjoy! Oh, and be sure to click on the photos in this post so you can see the witty Flickr notes I placed on the photos. ;-)

Pete Erickson at OSCON2006

Posted in MindTouch. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Ted:Seadragon and PhotoSynth

May 31, 2007 — Aaron Fulkerson

Seadragon promises:

If this sounds a little vague, consider the following four “promises” of Seadragon:

  1. Speed of navigation is independent of the size or number of objects.
  2. Performance depends only on the ratio of bandwidth to pixels on the screen.
  3. Transitions are smooth as butter.
  4. Scaling is near perfect and rapid for screens of any resolution.

You might already know of PhotoSynth. Perhaps prior to it being called PhotoSynth. PhotoSynth promises to change how we share photos and virtually visit places. Seeing is believing.

If you don’t see the video of the demo above go to the Ted page

.

Stunning. Another spectacular technology that Microsoft will likely never allow the public to benefit from. Meanwhile, you have Google Gears released for the world to Beta.

Useful links:

Posted in Technology. Tags: , . 2 Comments »
« Older posts