change your life through folding.

Over at SvN, they posted about Apple turning podcasting mainstream via iTunes 4.9. A lot of comments preached about how this will kill Odeo.

I disagree. I think iTunes 4.9 sets the path for Odeo to succeed.

Who wants to be in a field with no competitors? Sure it looks appealing at first: no price wars, no fighting for market share, etc. Then you realize no competition could mean nobody else believes in the market. Having Apple put their stamp of approval on podcasting basically tells Odeo, "Hey, you're in the right game, stay right here."

It also brings a hell of a lot more visitors to Odeo.

I'm going to make up the following figures, but bear with me for example's sake. Say iTunes has 100,000,000 downloads previous to 4.9 (I don't think it's too far fetched given Firefox just surpassed 75MM, but if someone has more accurate stats, leave a comment). Also say Odeo has 10,000 users previous to 4.9. Now, if 10% of the iTunes users (1,000,000) look further into podcasting, there's a fair chance they'll find Odeo. So, let 25% of those find Odeo - that's 250,000 users. Or a 25x increase in users thanks to iTunes.

What will they use Odeo for? Well, maybe to find some podcasts which don't make their way to iTunes, but that's unlikely. Certainly a lot of them will like the fact that they can keep track of their favorite podcasts while switching computers. A few (myself included) will really enjoy the fact that they don't need additional software (e.g. I won't install iTunes on my work machine). A lot of them will probably really enjoy the upcoming creation tools.

My main point is, if I were Odeo, I wouldn't be scared yet. I'd be finding the best ways to take advantage of iTunes taking their niche mainstream.

I just posted an About Openomy page.

(and if you can't tell, sleep is evading me tonight...)

...The Odeo Blog. Dan at simplebits designed it. Simply stunning.

I just found the Open Rico project. It's an "open-source JavaScript library for creating rich internet applications." That led me to Prototype which led me to script.aculo.us. Hopefully I'll be able to use the code and help contribute to these projects as well.

Getting the server ready was about the most absurd experience I've had in a long time. But, it's done and I'm getting close to the private beta, so sign up to be included at openomy.com.

I've been having so much trouble with file uploads on the web server a friend and I built, that tonight I finally gave up. The problems were mainly in mono, but they appeared under Windows, too (just less frequently and with less severity).

For example, one error I was seeing under mono was that, somehow, the binary data for files was overwriting other variables. Now, I could understand this in C or C++ or any other unmanaged language, but C#?! Come on! If anyone has any clue as to what could be happening, feel free to leave a comment (I'd love it).

But, since I want to launch publicly in beta shortly, I decided it wasn't worth my trouble to continue bug fixing. The backend is portable enough that all I really have to do is make some HTML and map querystrings to functions. Here's where mod_mono saved me. Plus, I'm comfortable in ASP.NET, so hopefully this'll be good.

I'm currently waiting to test, but I have everything installed and ready to go.

One more thing- I'm not giving up on my server. I'm just putting it on the backburner for later. There's so much I can and will improve in Openomy that this will be a serious display of iterative and incremental fixes.

I was searching for my friends home page (to check out his new ride), and I ran into a test version of Google's page. Obviously, I screenshotted it and in Scoble fashion I now bring it to you as soon as possible.

Tabs, eh, Google?


Also, to my friend: if you'd like your name removed, just let me know. Also, let me know the address of your site. :)

Odeo just opened for public beta. It's definitely awesome and definitely buggy.

Odeo was personally my most anticipated startup launch in a long time. Ever since I saw screenshots of the site I couldn't wait to get at it. And, mind you, I've never understood podcasting. It always seemed so lame. But Odeo looked so cool.

Turns out, it's way more deep than looks alone. I really like Odeo. It took me about 5 minutes of digging to understand the value of podcasting. I had an "AHA" moment while listening to The Odeo Channel. Odeo makes it insanely easy to listen to podcasts. I can't wait to see the creation tools - those look fantastic, too!

But, yes, it's buggy. I hope Evan Williams, Noah Glass, or the developers find this post.

I found two issues that really irk me. They're not huge, but they're the type of things that make or break an experience.

First, I want a way to change my "Name." If your email is your login, why can't your name be changeable? In the signup form, you asked for "Name" so I gave you my name. I didn't realize that was really my "username." I'd like to change that. I can't add another account to that email, so I should be able to change my Name.

Second, the logout screen and signup screen have another "bug." I realize it was probably designed for most cases as a "feature," but it's not a feature. If I logout, and then log back in using the JavaScript form in the header (rather than the form given on the page), I don't actually get logged in and I'm given the most ridiculous message ever. I'm logged in, but logged out!?

Similarly, if I'm logged out, click on Sign up, and then log in from the sign up screen, I get the same type of error. At least this time if I click to, say, Listen, I'm actually logged in.

Wouldn't it be nicer to redirect logins in those cases? Those are my problems with Odeo. Go use it. It's really cool.

Use two displays seamlessly across Linux & Windows.

Now I have my two flat-panels next to each other, the left one being a linux box and the right one being a Windows box, hooked together through a KVM and I can simply move my mouse to the other screen and continue working now.

It's time to introduce Openomy. It's far from complete and I have a lot of work left to do, but I want to get feedback as soon as possible, so let's start with the concept:

In short, Openomy is an online file system with an open API anyone can use to develop applications to meet their needs.

I think Openomy can be best described in more detail through the concepts which derived it. I'll break this up into three distinct concepts,

1. Openness and APIs,
   
2. Tagging, and
   
3. AJAX.

Openness and APIs
Third-party APIs have allowed for amazing uses of cool apps. Look no further than Google Maps or Flickr to see what I'm talking about.

Openomy takes APIs and openness to the extreme. Consider Openomy to be a super-glorified online file storage application. Except, don't. Instead, think of it as a super-glorified online file system. At its core it allows you to store and retrieve files from anywhere in the world with any available internet connection. But it's so much more powerful than that. With the APIs you can create any application you want. Piggy back on it for your company, if you'd like. Create a script to make it actually mimic a local filesystem so you can seamlessly save files from any application. Whatever you'd like, the choice is yours. Openomy's openness and APIs turn old school online file storage into a new school online file system.

Openomy's APIs are standard REST style APIs. That means, as a developer, all you'll need to do is create a vanilla HTTP request in the language of your choice and Openomy will return the data you requested (whether that be a file, information about a tag, a response to a tag creation, etc).

AJAX
The popularity, power, creativity, and overall awesomeness of AJAX has created the opportunity for so many traditionally desktop based apps to move online. I really don't see this stopping anytime soon. The power and creativity of developers will continue to fuel this revolution in web apps for a long time, I think.

Without any applications to showcase the power of the file system behind Openomy, not many people would use it (or, at least, that was my expectation). But with AJAX making web apps so innovative, I thought it'd be cool to showcase the power of Openomy using a small bit of creative JavaScript/AJAX. So I'm creating a mini-word processor. Oh, and when I say "mini," I really mean "mini." Basically it will take input from a WYSIWYG (JavaScript) input box, produce HTML (take that for an open format, Microsoft!) and will save to the user's account on the file system.

Tagging
Tagging has given rise to a completely new structure and hierarchy within so many different areas (photos, bookmarks, blogs, etc). The file system is the next logical place for tagging (in my mind). Why be constrained to holding a file in one folder? Why not just tag it with an arbitrary number of tags? Why not allow other users the rights to read or write to certain tags or files that you own?

The structure of the file system of Openomy is not at all based on folders. It's based on nothing but tags. And the ability to share files with other users based on tags is built right in.

Summary
I hope the idea of Openomy has been conveyed through the concepts that drove it to be created, but for those of us learn better through images, here's a bit of a diagram:


The "Openomy desktop" will be a small page where you can get to different applications for Openomy. Ideally this page will be totally customizable by the user (add your own links, add a search box to Google if you'd like, etc.), but right now it's just going to link to the file manager and the word processor. It'll also contain a "quick upload" box, where you can upload files without having to go to the file manager.

Future Plans
In a nutshell, that's Openomy. I have plans for a lot of different apps, including:

• Spreadsheet application
• Better word processing
• RSS feed creator (tag any file with a tag of your choice and it will automatically be added to an RSS feed. Great for blogging, podcasting, etc.)
• Script to mount Openomy as a Linux file system (similar to what GmailFS has done).
• And more...

Hopefully my description of Openomy makes sense. I'd really like to hear all your opinions so please leave comments. As more and more apps go online, the opportunity to use Openomy increases exponentially.

The Joel On Software forums think no ruse occurred with the SidePilot/Copilot name change.

It's true, they gave away what the product actually does, but they created a lot of buzz doing it. And now that they changed the name, they're creating more buzz. I consider that either fooling the public, damn good creative marketing, or stupidity that turned lucky.

Did you know that you are 560% more likely to eat potato salad today compared to any other day? Thank you, Seattle news stations for bringing the most important news right to my fingertips.

Consider this the obligatory about me page.

Basics: My name is Ian Sefferman. I was born 4/13/84 (that makes me 21 at the time I'm typing this).

Education: I'll be graduating from The University of Chicago in June, 2006. I will be earning a bachelors in Computer Science.

Work Experience: Some of the organizations I've worked with include The Office of College Admissions at The University of Chicago, Nodorm, and presently (Summer, '05) I'm interning with Amazon. At College Admissions, I run a lot of the internet related things (the main collegeadmissions site, some mini-sites, email campaigns, etc). I'm a founder of Nodorm (along with 5 other awesome guys) and I work with one other (a very good friend of mine) on all the programming. I'm also working on a project called Openomy which is a big part of this blog, if you read around. I hope to launch that by Fall '05.

Other: I'll probably update this entry infrequently and randomly, so if anyone actually cares, check it every once in a while.

So in order for Openomy to work in an easy way, I had to add file uploading to the web server I wrote (named CGServer). Now, while parsing in general can be a huge pain, the RFC (RFC 1867) for HTML File Upload is the absolute worst RFC I've ever seen.

I am so glad to have "finished" file uploading, you have no idea. I say "finished" because technically it should work but I haven't run a lot of test cases on it yet. I'll do that work when I don't feel so gross about the system.

At least now I can get back to developing the actual Openomy project.

(I guess this post is a pretty large hint as to what Openomy will be.)

Can I just say I find it absolutely hilarious that the Fog Creek interns manage to outwit the blogosphere and trick virtually everyone.

Apparently, they intentionally leaked their project as being called "Sidepilot" and now have officially announced it as being calld "Copilot." The greatest is they even made a web site for Sidepilot. Hilarious.

Great job, guys-- I love the fact that you beat the blogosphere.

Unless, of course, you didn't expect to be found under Sidepilot, so you changed the name after it was leaked. In that case, I give you no credit and consider you lame. :)

I'm pretty impressed with their project, overall. Whether or not the product sucks or is great, they still created quite the buzz for both themselves and Fog Creek. Moreover, having a demo ready this quickly, I think, is very impressive.