I’ve participated in the construction of web apps off and on for at least a dozen years. But now – assuming that app refers to a robust, non-trivial business application – I’m beginning to question whether the web is an appropriate platform for developing and deploying them.

In theory, building a server-based application without a dedicated fat client seems to be a Really Good Idea. About ten years ago, I wrote an unpublished paper extolling the virtues of the web browser as a ubiquitous generic client.  A that time, Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) was a hot topic as enterprises struggled to ensure that employees were using the right versions of desktop software, especially dedicated clients; recent experience at a former employer indicates that ESD is still an issue. The ability to transform a generic client into the latest version of a particular client on the fly, simply by connecting it to a particular server-based app, had obvious appeal.

Read more »»

Tableizer is a free online tool for converting spreadsheet data to an HTML table. I tried it out on some Excel data I had for making a divider used on woodworking projects to lay out dimensions based on the Golden Ratio.

Read more »»

It’s amazing how bloggers who use mobile devices extrapolate from that experience to the use of computers in general. They also infer from the simplicity of some mobile device apps (nearly always iProducts) that people who use them suffer from equivalent simplicity of mind – excluding the bloggers themselves, of course.

I recently commented on a premature obituary of the PC – done in by cell phones that can search Google. Now we learn from Dustin Curtis that not only are real computers dead, but the files stored on them are just as dead. For example, Curtis tells us that

Mere mortals don’t think of things on their computers as “files.” People think about digital representations of things the same way they think about real physical things: they think about photos, videos, text documents, articles, and people. A “file” on a computer is just a universal container for one of those things.

Read more »»

As most readers know, Facebook has adopted a strategy of aggressively exposing – and marketing – its users’ information. Rather than seeking users’ permission to share their information, FB has generally assumed permission and left users who wish to protect their privacy to find their way through FB’s labyrinth of menus and options. The path through this byzantine maze inspired one commentator to label FB’s privacy settings an “evil interface”.

Read more »»

Steve Jobs’ decision to bar Adobe Flash from his iProfit kingdom has triggered all kinds of silly commentary. Much of it centers around the standards-based Utopia that mostly Apple-centric pundits hope will be ushered in by HTML 5. Few of these commentators seem fazed by the fact that waiting for HTML5 to bring rich internet applications (RIAs) to the whole Web is like waiting for the Cubs to bring a World Series championship to Chicago. While north-siders were waiting for deliverance, the White Sox delivered.*  The problem (summarized here) is that HTML 5 – as promising as it is – can’t deliver.

Read more »»