I was disappointed to discover from the public minutes a few days ago, that the W3C BPWG had to give up the quest to establish standards for Content Transformation Proxies. It would seem that they just didn’t get enough implementations to conclude that the specification was ready for prime-time, and it’s now going to be consigned to Note status. After all the work that they put into this effort, this really is an ignominious end. I’m sure the casual observer will be debating the possible causes for this, including perhaps:
The providers of CT solutions can’t/won’t comply.
The CT providers have moved on to other things and don’t care about the CTG.
CT proxies are becoming less relevant as [click title to read more…]
If history teaches us anything, it’s this: we’ve seen it all before, we’ll see it all again. I’ve been pondering the “app vs Web” tug o’ war for quite some time, and since my early days with computers (some 30 years ago, as I write this) there have been constant cycles of centralisation and decentralisation.
Short history lesson
It started long before I got involved. This is one case where we know whether it was chicken or egg. In the absence of anything like a working network, computing solutions were centralised. As late as the 1970s, computers were designed for just one task each (a single app on a single computer). You might look at this as “on-device applications”. Computers [click title to read more…]
A friend at work suggested I try out a free online storage facility as an off-site personal backup and for sharing files with friends. He suggested DropBox, who offer 2Gb free, plus more if you pursue their viral marketing strategy. I have not tried it yet, but I notice that free storage is quite a popular service these days. My home ISP gives me 5Gb of storage free. BT and Sky in the UK both offer the same, including to non-customers. In fact, all three of these carrier-based free services are implemented by Casero, who can also boast other customers such as Bell, Cox, Telus and more.
In addition to ISPs, many other companies/organisations provide online storage. Specialist services such as [click title to read more…]