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Last year I talked about The Koolaid Point -- the point at which enough users become passionate that others accuse them of "drinking the koolaid." I offered no ideas for what to do when it happens other than "celebrate" and--the focus of yesterday's post--be brave. Don't give in was my main point then. But there is something else we can do when detractors start criticizing our users. Something so simple I was too thick to see it.
Warning: Some of these comics would be considered mature audience.
So I used to think the folks at SourceForge were just overworked and under-appreciated. They've worked really hard recently to show me this is not the case. Sure, it's a "free" service, but it's there to sell their premium services, and they get a lot of exposure being the place to go for open-source development.
They've been having growing pains for a while; a few months ago, they had a major CVS outage. Open-source development the world around ground to a standstill for days while they worked to get hardware up. Since then, they've been planning on transitioning folks to subversion, and to a new CVS infrastructure. Did I mention that in the meantime, the anonymous CVS has been frozen and out-of-date since March? This outage was only "repaired" for developers; user access has been broken all this time.
Adobe Systems is working on software meant to blur the line between the Web and desktop PCs.
The company is working on a project code-named Apollo, which will let applications written for Adobe's Flash presentation software run without a Web browser, Kevin Lynch, chief software architect and senior vice president of Adobe's platform business unit, told CNET News.com.
Now a little part of me is cringing as I write this. Having founded a bookmarking company in 1999 with pretty much the exact same vision as the new crop of services, I’ve got to feel, well, a little stupid. (or angry, or depressed, or whatever). Maybe writing about it will make me feel better and maybe even help me make a point or two about product development.
When we founded Blink.com (no link love, it’s a crappy search site now) the founders and I imagined a self-reinforcing product cycle:
Blank Keys to Type up to 100% Faster
Like on a piano, since there are no keys to look at when typing, your brain will quickly adapt and memorize the key positions. Within a few short weeks users increase their typing accuracy and find themselves typing up to 100% faster.
The Microsoft Virtual Server is a more-refined successor to the "Virtual PC" product I've written about in the past
Global Player is a Flash game designed to test your skills at sorting packages and routing them to their proper destinations. Everything in the game is color coded, which is great unless you are colorblind as there is no provision for colorblindness in this game.
So, provided that you can indeed tell the difference between the colored packages, each level consists of a system of conveyor belts and switches, giving way to multiple destinations where transportation awaits to receive each package and send it on its way. The key is to route each colored package to the vehicle indicated by the same color. Click on the large arrow swiches where the conveyor belts intersect to change the direction the packages pass through.
). try it and let me know.