Posted by Peter Armstrong
Sun, 08 Jul 2007 20:46:00 GMT
Dear Adobe,
Please clone Rails in ActionScript. Since AIR puts SQLite on the user’s machine, this should be usable. I don’t have the time to do this—and I probably don’t have the skill! However, if Steve Yegge could do a Rails clone in JavaScript, then a Rails clone in ActionScript should be possible. (Maybe you can persuade Google to open source his code, and use it as the starting point?) This would make AIR the most compelling platform imaginable.
Sincerely,
Peter Armstrong
July 8, 2007
Posted by Peter Armstrong
Sat, 09 Jun 2007 20:06:00 GMT
I just posted a blog post at flexiblerails.com about why Flexible Rails is staying independent, and talking about Books as a Service (BaaS) as an evolution of the Beta Book in technical publishing...
Posted by Peter Armstrong
Wed, 09 May 2007 18:57:00 GMT
I'm going to be hosting a "Flex on Rails" BoF at RailsConf 2007!
See that blog post for more info, time, location, etc...
Posted by Peter Armstrong
Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:45:00 GMT
I'm giving a presentation on Flex + Rails at The Vancouver Flash/Flex Meetup Group on Tuesday, May 8, 2007, 6:00 PM.
Posted by Peter Armstrong
Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:25:00 GMT
I was interviewed for ActionScript.it by a reader of my book. If you like reading about me, now there's more to like I guess :-)
Posted by Peter Armstrong
Thu, 01 Feb 2007 07:17:00 GMT
It's been exactly one year since I registered flexiblerails.com with the idea of eventually writing a book. Usually (i.e. every other time) when I register a domain name for a Really Great Idea, a year goes by with my having not gotten very far with the idea and I need to make the decision whether to let the registration expire or renew the domain name.
Basically, the question usually boils down to: "Am I willing to pay $10 to allow myself to believe that this year (or at some point in the future) I'll get off my butt and finish the project?"
Sometimes that answer is yes, often times no. Before this book, the only success I ever had with ideas that led to my registering domain names was to sell two of the domain names: babelchat.com [years ago] and ritio.us [recently]. You can guess what babelchat.com was going to be (automated translation in IM); ritio.us was going to be http://nut.ritio.us. I decided that since someone else had nutr.itio.us and someone else nutrious.com, the actual value of ritio.us wasn't that much though...
(Aside: years ago when I was a poor university student I saw that santaclaus.com was available. No, I didn't register it ($50 was a big decision then). Yes, I am a total idiot.)
Anyway, enough self-absorbed reflection; time to go back to working on the book...
Posted by Peter Armstrong
Sat, 20 Jan 2007 06:52:00 GMT
A reader of my Flexible Rails book (which is in Beta now, woo hoo!) recently emailed me asking for my advice regarding self-publishing a PDF-only book. These were my suggestions, edited slightly:
Don't do the multiple edition (Individual / Team / Department /
Enterprise) thing like I did if you are doing Alpha / Beta book
releases like I have done. The amount of work to maintain multiple
editions through Alpha and Beta releases just isn't worth the small amount of extra money. These other editions
Regarding the price to choose, my guess is that somewhere between $9 and $29 is good--depending on how large the book is and how niche the topic is. I chose $20 since even though when I released the first version the book was only 1/3 done, I wanted to declare my intent of making it a full book that would easily be worth $20.
Lulu is pretty good for PDF books. (I don't know how good the print
books are yet, since I haven't produced one or purchased one from them yet.) The only real problem I've had so far is that 2 or 3 people who bought my book did not get their email "thank you notes", with the instructions on how
to upgrade their book. (My guess is that the emails got spam filtered.)
The Alpha / Beta process I chose has worked out great. It is quite
a bit of extra work, but it's worth it. If I write another book I'm
going to do the same thing. A few advantages of it have been:
Great technical feedback: When self-publishing a book you don't
have an editor. This way, if your book attracts a community, then it
will serve as kind of an editor and a focus group for you: suggesting topics they are interested in, pointing out large and small errors, etc. (You still need to be very diligent however, since if you are sloppy you will lose
credibility among your early readers!)
Free marketing: If you're self-publishing a book, you don't have
a publisher trying to generate buzz for you. This does that job for
you, if the book is good enough for people to blog about it positively.
Motivation: Writing a book is very, very, very hard--especially
with a full-time job and a toddler in the house. If I hadn't released
it as an Alpha version, there is a very good chance I would have given
up on the project entirely. As soon as people started buying it
though, there was no way I would quit the project: doing so would be
unthinkable since I had taken their money with the promise of a
finished book! Also, many people have sent extremely supportive and
encouraging emails--this has really helped my morale.
A cumulative code example is a good idea in theory, but in practice is hell to maintain since bugfixes need to be propogated through the entire book--not just in the chapter in which the code was created.
Anyway, back to coding and writing. The productivity-killing cold I got over the holidays will just NOT go away (what kind of cold lasts 3 weeks???). Worse yet (for productivity, that is), Europa Universalis III is being released next week... [For those who haven't played it, Europa Universalis II is one of the best games ever.]
Posted in flex, rails
Posted by Peter Armstrong
Sat, 25 Nov 2006 23:52:00 GMT
I love you.
(I'll blog lots more about the Wii later, but I just wanted to say that now.)
Between Wii Sports and my new Bowflex I'm going to lose my gut :-) Well, maybe. At the very least I should be in better shape for snowboarding. It's funny: I actually had more of a sore shoulder after a long session of Wii Sports [that so does not sound good] than I did after working out with the Bowflex.
(Full disclosure: I own a bit of NTDOY.PK. Well, actually my 2 year old does, since it's in his RESP--which is funded based on the profits from my Nintendo stock sales--so not only will I be a buff Wii Sports / Madden / Zelda playing geek in a few months, my son gets to afford to go to university eventually too! :-)
Update 2006-11-29: Yes, I feel like an idiot for having sold most of it when I did. Damn cowardice^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprofit taking...
Posted by Peter Armstrong
Wed, 01 Nov 2006 06:08:00 GMT
[Disclaimer: this is personal opinion only and NOT investment advice. Don't sue me, and don't run with scissors.]
A friend of mine recently sent me a link about yet another analyst suggesting Microsoft should buy Yahoo.
Now, I don't own any MSFT or YHOO stock, so I don't care. However, it spurred me to write what I've been thinking for a while...
The Problem:
Microsoft is, as always, fighting a multiple-front war. This time, however, its competitors aren't as useless as they normally are:
Google is dominating search.
Google just bought YouTube, so Google Video + YouTube = about 70% of online video. More domination.
Apple is shipping an excellent OS and gaining market share.
Apple's iPod has killed all comers. No, I don't expect the Zune to fare any better--and that's not because I like to stick my waxy headphones in girls' ears, it's because (1) it's not an iPod, (2) no one needs the limited music sharing capabilities and (3) it doesn't work with iTunes etc.
Sony is about to "launch" the PS3 (if you consider about ten units worldwide a launch), but in 2007 as they ship more PS3s and get a few really good exclusive games like Metal Gear Solid 4 it will be a good battle with the Xbox 360.
MySpace has enormous traffic, and they recently partnered with Google instead of Microsoft for ads.
Yep, all those problems would be solved by buying Yahoo.
Riiiiiight.
Right now Yahoo's market cap is $36.38 Billion USD. Assume Microsoft would have to pay a small premium, that would make the price about $40 Billion USD. What would Microsoft get for that?
A second-rate search engine, Flickr and del.icio.us.
Yahooooooooo!!!
Um, right.
Let's say I'm Steve Ballmer and I have $40 Billion USD burning a hole in my pocket. Who should I buy?
Nintendo.
[Full Disclosure: I own a wii bit (ha, ha, that's real original) of Nintendo stock. I'm pretty bullish on it though, so I'm not even sure if I want what I'm writing to happen.]
For one, Nintendo is currently a bit cheaper than Yahoo (its market cap is $29 billion USD). [I would be somewhat surprised if it was still cheaper than Yahoo a year from now.] Assuming that Microsoft would have to pay a fairly good premium to buy Nintendo, since the upcoming Wii launch hype might raise the stock price even further, we can pretend that Microsoft could buy Nintendo for $38 Billion USD. That would leave $2 Billion USD, so spend 1.95 Billion USD [1] to buy Facebook.
What would Nintendo give to Microsoft?
Quite simply, many powerful weapons in fighting Google, Apple, Sony and News Corporation (which includes MySpace).
How would Nintendo help Microsoft fight them?
vs. Apple: When the first version of the Zune doesn't dethrone the iPod, Microsoft could combine the Zune with the Nintendo DS Lite to produce the Zunetendo DS Lite-ish. That's not really catchy, so let's go with just "Zunetendo". It would basically be a slightly thicker Nintendo DS that had the Zune features for music. The only three things I lug with me are my iPod, my DS and my cell phone. I'd love to just carry one thing, but designing a sleek and simple interface for that might be tricky, so I'll settle for carrying a Zunetendo and a cell phone. Once Apple releases its long-rumored iPhone the Zunetendo could add similar phone features.
vs. Google and News Corp. (MySpace): The Zunetendo could include a cell-phone quality camera to take pictures and small movies. It would be seamlessly integrated with ZuneTube (a rebranded version of Soapbox which would compete against YouTube and Google Video). It would bundle a more customized web browser which had nice integration with ZuneTube and ZuneSpaces (a combination of Facebook and Windows Live Spaces which would compete really well against MySpace).
vs. Sony: The Wii has a good chance of propelling Nintendo from third place in the last generation of the console wars to first place in this one. I personally feel it will be enormously successful, which (coupled with the massive success of the DS and DS Lite) is why I bought Nintendo stock. However, eventually (in two or three years, say) HD will start to matter. This is why the next generation of Xbox 360 should be the Xbox Wii60. A sleeker design, even better graphics, bundled HD-DVD and the Wiimote and Nunchuck controllers = gaming bliss. Oh yeah, and a dead Sony. Microsoft could produce a Wii60 which was backward compatible with all Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii games in 2 years, which is probably how long it will take Sony to get the price down on the PS3. But the Wii60 would be a Brand New Thing (and everyone loves brand new things) and Microsoft could use their cash hoard to undercut the PS3 price with the Wii60. Sony would be toast.
Possible Objections:
Nintendo wouldn't want to sell. True, that could be a problem. But $38 Billion USD would be a nice premium.
Antitrust issues. Yeah, those could suck too, but look at it the other way: there's only just over two years left of the Bush administration. Use them wisely!
[1] The remaining $50 million? That goes to me: Peter Armstrong, the new Senior Vice President of Kicking Google, Apple, Sony and News Corporation's ass :-) A $10 million signing bonus would be nice, followed by a $10 million/year annual salary for four years (which should be as long as it would take to pull this off). I live on Vancouver Island, so I would feel right at home in the Seattle rain :-)
