24.1.12

Mark Pesce - ideas, while important, take a back seat to people.

The bromance, the betrayal, The Social Network - The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


"Throughout all of those years, I learned that ideas, while important, take a back seat to people. Business is principally the story of people, not ideas. While great ideas are not terrifically common, the ability to translate an idea into reality requires more than just a driven creator. That creator must be able to infect others with their own belief so that the entire creative edifice self-assembles, driven by that belief, with the creator as the burning, electric centre of this process."

If this sounds a bit mystical, that’s because creation is essentially a mystical act. It is an act that requires belief. It’s an active position, a kind of faith, the evidence of things not seen. You believe because you choose to believe.


I am a serial entrepreneur. At various times have I started companies to exploit a whole range of markets.


My exploits included hypertext (this, back in 1986, before most people had even heard of it), home VR entertainment systems (when a VR system cost more than $100,000), web-based interactive 3D computer graphics (before most computers had enough oomph to draw them), and animated webisodic entertainment (half a dozen years before Red vs Blue or Happy Tree Friends burst onto the scene).

All of these ideas were innovative for their time, one was modestly successful, none of them made me rich, though I hope I am in some ways wiser.

Throughout all of those years, I learned that ideas, while important, take a back seat to people. Business is principally the story of people, not ideas. While great ideas are not terrifically common, the ability to translate an idea into reality requires more than just a driven creator. That creator must be able to infect others with their own belief so that the entire creative edifice self-assembles, driven by that belief, with the creator as the burning, electric centre of this process.

If this sounds a bit mystical, that’s because creation is essentially a mystical act. It is an act that requires belief. It’s an active position, a kind of faith, the evidence of things not seen. You believe because you choose to believe.

That choice is at the very core of The Social Network.

Although it disguises itself as a courtroom drama - an area that writer Aaron Sorkin knows very well, having mined in A Few Good Men - The Social Network is at its heart a buddy picture, a tale of a broken bromance than never resolves. The bromantic partners are, of course, Mark Zuckerberg, the well-known founder of Facebook, and Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg’s best friend at Harvard, and the dude Zuck turned to when he had the Big Idea.

The genesis of this Big Idea is the ‘B’ storyline of The Social Network, and the one that Lawrence Lessig spent the better part of a New Republic film review agonising over. Lessig, the intellectual property lawyer, sees the script as a Hollywood propaganda vehicle in defence intellectual property. Did Zuckerberg steal the idea for TheFacebook.com from the twin Winklevoss brothers?  The only original thing that the Winklevoss’ offered was the ‘velvet rope’ - TheFaceBook.com or HarvardConnect or ConnectU would be exclusive to Harvard students. Social networks had been around for a while; six months before Zuckerberg began the late 2003 coding spree that led to the launch of TheFacebook.com, I was happily addicted to the ‘web crack’ of Friendster.com - as were many of my friends. Nothing new there. Exclusivity is an attitude, not a product. Zuckerberg copied nothing. He simply copped the attitude of the Winklevii.

In the logic of The Social Network, the Winklevoss twins are not friends (Zuckerberg doesn’t get beyond the Bike Room of the Porcellian Club), therefore are owed nothing. But Zuckerberg immediately runs to Saverin, his One True Friend, to offer him half of everything. Or, well, nearly half. Thirty percent, and that for just a thousand dollars in servers. Such a deal! All Saverin had to do was believe.

What follows in the next 40 minutes is the essential bromantic core of the film, which parallels more startup stories than I can count: two people who deeply believe in one another’s vision, working day and night to bring it into being. In this case, Zuckerberg wrote the code, while Saverin - well, he just believed in Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg needed someone to believe in him, someone to supply him with the faith that he could translate into raw creative energy.

For a while this dynamo cranks along, but we continually see Saverin being pulled in a different direction - exemplified by the Phoenix Club sliding tempting notes beneath his door. Saverin’s embrace of the material, away from the pure and Platonic realm of code and ideas, can only be seen as backsliding by Zuckerberg, who feverishly focuses on the act of creation, ignoring everything else. Only when the two men receive side-by-side blowjobs in the bathroom stalls of a Cambridge bar do you sense the bond rekindled; like sailors on shore leave, their conquests are meaningful only when shared.

From this point on, The Social Network charts a descent into confusion and toward the inevitable betrayal which forms the pivot of the film. Saverin wants to ‘wreck the party’ by introducing advertising into TheFacebook.com (a business strategy which currently earns Facebook in excess of $1 billion a year), and drags Zuckerberg to meeting after meeting with the New York agencies, whence it becomes clear that Zuckerberg isn’t interested - isn’t even tolerant of the idea - and that Saverin just Doesn’t Get It. While Saverin sees the potential of TheFacebook.com, he doesn’t believe, doesn’t understand how what Mark has done Will Change Everything.

There is one final reprieve: Saverin cuts a check to rent a house in Palo Alto for Zuckerberg and his interns, a final act of faith that reaffirms his connection to Mark, to the project, to the Big Idea. This is the setup for the Judas Kiss: within a few months, Saverin withdraws the funds, essentially saying ‘I have lost faith’. But Zuckerberg has found others who will believe in him, secured a half-million dollars in angel funding, and so discards the worthless, unfaithful Saverin.

If Saverin had stayed true, had gone to California and worked closely with Zuckerberg, this would be a different story, a story about Facebook’s co-founders, and how together they overcame the odds to launch the most successful enterprise of the 21st century. This is not that story. This is a story of bromance spurned, and how that inevitably ended up in the courts. Only when people fail to connect (a recurring theme in The Social Network) do they turn to lawyers. Zuckerberg was always there, anxious for Saverin to connect. Saverin was always looking elsewhere for his opportunities. That’s the tragedy of the story, a story which may not be true in all facts, but which speaks volumes of human truth.

And so a film about entrepreneurs, ideas, and code, a chronicle of theft and betrayal and backstabbing all fades away to reveal a much older tale, of loneliness and faith and brotherhood and heartbreak. We’re wired together, but we’re still exactly the same, punching that refresh button, hoping our status will change.

Mark Pesce is one of the pioneers in Virtual Reality and works as a writer, researcher and teacher.

Mark Pesce

Mark Pesce Mark Pesce is one of the early pioneers in Virtual Reality and works as a writer, researcher and teacher. The co-inventor of VRML, he is the author of five books and numerous papers on the future of technology. He is currently an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Sydney, and is a judge on The New Inventors.

Stories by Mark Pesce



Word for Mac - Asterisks Bug

Word:mac - Asterisks Bug

Word Turned ALL My Text to Asterisks

Article contributed by John McGhie

Word 2011 had a serious bug that turned all the text in a document to asterisks (or sometimes, page numbers). The document text became completely unrecoverable: if you did not have a backup, you lost the entire document.

Fixed!

This bug was fixed in the 14.1.2 Update.

Use Help>Check for Updates to apply ALL the currently-available updates to Word, and this bug will be gone.

Our strong advice is to leave AutoUpdate set to "Automatic" and "Weekly" to ensure you are always up-to-date. Many of the issues people report on the forums can be cured simply by applying updates. When asking us for advice, our first suggestion is always going to be "Is your Office software fully up-to-date?" because we really can't help much with un-updated software, given that the behavior of such software in an operating system that has received updates becomes very unpredictable.

Backups: A Virtue Next to Godliness and Well Ahead of Cleanliness

Word does lose data from time to time. There's no point in sitting there saying "well it shouldn't!". We all know that. Microsoft works very hard to try to provide that. But Word does lose data. When it loses data, YOU do not need to lose any...

  1. Turn on Time Machine, and set it to run as often as possible. If you set Time Machine to backup every hour, you can never lose more than an hour's worth of work.
  2. Save your files before you start typing! Backups can save you only if there is something to back up. If you have not saved the file before you begin, there is no file on the disk to be backed up.
  3. Go to Word>Preferences>Save and turn on "Always create backup". See below for an explanation of this.
  4. Log out at the end of your work each day. This enables OS X to clean up the memory and the temporary files in the system Several users have reported that the asterisks bug has not struck since they began logging out at the end of the day. (Laptop Users: No! Closing the lid is NOT the same thing: you need to log out!).
  5. Shut down the computer at the end of the week. No operating system is perfect: if you leave it running forever, it keeps collecting trash that needs to be cleaned out. If you shut down the computer at the end of the week, and re-start it when you come in on Monday morning, you completely clean out the whole of the insides. The applications will run faster and crash less often: and the asterisks bug is much less likely to happen.

About 'Always Create Backup'

Microsoft Word has two built-in backup mechanisms. The original one is "Always create backup". This causes Word to "rename" the file each time you save. Whenever you pause to think, hit "Command + s" to save your file. When you do, Word re-names the previous version to "Backup of " and leaves it in the same folder, usually just above the file you are working on. It then writes a brand new copy to disk with the original file name.

When the asterisks bug strikes, you can simply quit Word. Open the "Backup of..." file, save it under a new name, and off you go again. You will lose only a few seconds work.

The other backup mechanism in Word is the "Save autorecovery every xx minutes" preference. This is next to useless. Best ignored. It does not save a complete file, it simply saves the CHANGES you have made since the previous save. If Word cannot read the original file, the autorecover file is useless. Most of the time when you lose a file, Word can't read the original. So you lose the file. Not a lot of help.

My File Just Blew Up, How Can I Get It Back?

You can't. You had only one copy of the file, and it has now been trashed.

I am sorry, but one of the hardest lessons to learn about computing is "The only thing that is certain is that someday, it WILL fail." Set yourself up to run proper backups now, so you will never again lose work.

22.1.12

iPhone Voice to Text, voice app control - VLingo appr Texting



Uploaded by VlingoVoice on Apr 15, 2010

Vlingo for iPhone provides you with powerful voice recognition for your iPhone to search the web, update your Facebook and Twitter status, call your friends, and send email or sms messages all by simply speaking to your phone.



Uploaded by on Aug 30, 2011

The Vlingo Virtual Assistant makes iPhone voice to text messaging fast and easy when your hands are tied.




Uploaded by VlingoVoice on Mar 24, 2011

Voice dialing your iPhone contacts has never been easier. Voice dialing is just one of the many free features offered by the Vlingo Virtual Assistant. Check out our demos of how quick and simple it is to get things done on the go with Vlingo.



Uploaded by VlingoVoice on Mar 24, 2011

Voice recognition for iPhone is now more useful than ever with the Vlingo Virtual Assistant. Updating your social networking status on Facebook and Twitter is just one of the many great, free features Vlingo offers. Check out our demo video of how Vlingo's voice recognition for your iPhone makes getting things done on the go super fast and simple.



Uploaded by VlingoVoice on Mar 24, 2011

The Vlingo Virtual Assistant makes searching the mobile web faster and easier than ever. With simple voice commands, you can quickly locate businesses and services. Once you found what you need, Vlingo offers one-click calling, reviews and directions as well! No question our Virtual Assistant the best way to do a mobile search on your iPhone.

Voice-to-Text iPhone Apps

12.1.12

How to Turn Off Google's Annoying New Personal Search Results

How to Turn Off Google's Annoying New Personal Search Results

How to Turn Off Google’s Annoying New Personal Search Results

Yesterday Google announced they were integrating Google+ into your search results, and this morning, you may have noticed the change. The problem: It's cluttered, not useful for the bulk of searches you do every day, and enabled by default for all results. Even if you choose to hide personal results, they're turned back on by default with each fresh search. It's annoying, user unfriendly, and you should turn it off. Here's how.

First of all, the "search plus your world" feature is still rolling out, so you might not see this yourself yet. It's definitely starting to do so in mass, however. When you're signed into Google and if you use Google+ or Picasa sharing, you'll see personal results at the top of the web search results page, on the right side, and in the search listings, marked with a blue person icon.

You can toggle the personal results off by clicking the globe icon on the top right of the page, but this can be a pain to keep doing over and over again with each search.

Thankfully, it's easy to disable* the personal results:

  1. How to Turn Off Google's Annoying New Personal Search ResultsClick on the settings cog at the top right of the Google page, then click Search settings.

  2. Under "Personal results" select "Do not use personal results."

* Ed note: Selecting "Do not user personal results" actually doesn't disable personal search results—you can still toggle to show personal results any time. It just makes "hide personal results" the default. The decision to bury this toggle in the settings rather than making your decision sticky, if anything, indicates how aggressively Google is pushing Google+ into their various products, and I, for one, don't like it. It's hostile to the user for the benefit of G+. I'm not under the illusion that Google is always focused on you—they're a massively profitable corporation in the business of making money—but the honor of being your default search engine isn't fixed in stone, and moves like this can easily push users in other directions. I don't think it's a useless feature, but for the majority of my searches, it is, and forcing it as a default is a misstep.

Contact Melanie Pinola:
Related Stories

4.1.12

Mac Mail advanced searches in Leopard :: ASK US, University of Hawaii System

Mac Mail advanced searches in Leopard :: ASK US, University of Hawaii System

Mac Mail advanced searches in Leopard

General Information

Apple's Mac Mail's search feature is limited in it's default view. You can only search for one criteria at a time. This article shows you how to make use of it's more advanced search features. This article only applies to OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Searching with the Search bar

Using Keywords

Mac Mail has a search bar built into the Email client. Doing searches here only searches for mail in your client. The default search is only for one criteria at a time. When you type in a word in the search bar, a menu appears allowing you to refine your search. The options are:

All Mailboxes: Searches through all of your mailboxes
Inbox: Only searches in the Inbox
Entire Message: Searches all fields in the email including Sender, Subject, and Message body.
From: Only searches for senders.
To: Only searches for message recipients.
Subject: Only searches the subject line.
Filename: Searches for specific filename within an email

To use a more advanced search you can structure searches using fields using the following syntax:

keyword1 from:some_user subject:some_word

Example:

agenda from:teresa subject:meeting

This search would filter Email based on the word agenda in the body of the message that is from user teresa with the subject including the word meeting.

Another Example:

To:deannacp From:teresa

This search would look for Emails to deannacp that are from teresa.

Keywords that can be used:

From: Only searches from field, you can use from:firstname, from:lastname
Email: Only searches for Email address for this search you can use it in the form of email:teresa or email:hawaii.edu.
To: Only searches the to field for who the message was sent too.
Subject: Only searches the subject field
Filename: Searches for specific filename within an email

Note: When searching Mac Mail does not use some frequently used wildcard searches. Use of the asterisk * or the syntax teresa@somewhere returns no matches.

Using Boolean Searches

You can also use boolean operators to create even more advanced searches.

The three boolean operators are AND, OR, and NOT.

Example:

cat AND dog This will search Mac Mail for all instances of both words cat and dog.

cat OR dog This search will retrieve any record that contains either (or both) of the terms, thus broadening your search results.

cat NOT dog This will search Mac Mail for the words cat but will exclude the results that include the word dog.

To make these searches more advanced you can combine keywords and boolean operators.

Example:

To:deannacp AND To: Teresa will search mail sent to both deannacp and teresa

You can also combine these with parenthesis:

Example:

spam AND (cats NOT dogs) This search will find all messages that contain both spam and cats, but also contains spam but not dogs.

You can also use boolean expressions in the search box:
A & B yields A AND B
A | B yields A OR B
A ! B yields A NOT B.


Searching Mail with Spotlight

You can do all of the same searches and more with Spotlight in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. See Ask Us article http://www.hawaii.edu/askus/881 for more information.

28c3: The coming war on general computation



Uploaded by on Dec 28, 2011

Download hiqh quality version: http://bit.ly/sTTFyt
Description: http://events.ccc.de/congress/2011/Fahrplan/events/4848.en.html

Cory Doctorow: The coming war on general computation
The copyright war was just the beginning

The last 20 years of Internet policy have been dominated by the copyright war, but the war turns out only to have been a skirmish. The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race.

The problem is twofold: first, there is no known general-purpose computer that can execute all the programs we can think of except the naughty ones; second, general-purpose computers have replaced every other device in our world. There are no airplanes, only computers that fly. There are no cars, only computers we sit in. There are no hearing aids, only computers we put in our ears. There are no 3D printers, only computers that drive peripherals. There are no radios, only computers with fast ADCs and DACs and phased-array antennas. Consequently anything you do to "secure" anything with a computer in it ends up undermining the capabilities and security of every other corner of modern human society.

And general purpose computers can cause harm -- whether it's printing out AR15 components, causing mid-air collisions, or snarling traffic. So the number of parties with legitimate grievances against computers are going to continue to multiply, as will the cries to regulate PCs.

The primary regulatory impulse is to use combinations of code-signing and other "trust" mechanisms to create computers that run programs that users can't inspect or terminate, that run without users' consent or knowledge, and that run even when users don't want them to.

The upshot: a world of ubiquitous malware, where everything we do to make things better only makes it worse, where the tools of liberation become tools of oppression.

Our duty and challenge is to devise systems for mitigating the harm of general purpose computing without recourse to spyware, first to keep ourselves safe, and second to keep computers safe from the regulatory impulse.

Transcript: https://github.com/jwise/28c3-doctorow/blob/master/transcript.md (CC-BY by Joshua Wise)

3.1.12

2011 Mac mini performance tests

2011 Mac mini performance tests

The image below depicts the original 1959 Austin MINI automobile next to the newest MINI concept, the Rocketman. It's a visual metaphor of how far Apple's minimalist Mac mini has come since its first incarnation in January 2005. It's gone from a PowerPC G4 to an Intel Core i5/i7 processor. It's progressed from a Radeon 9200 GPU with 32MB DDR memory to Radeon HD 6630M with 256MB of GDDR5 memory. Instead of an 80GB Ultra ATA HDD, you can get it with a 750GB SATA HDD and a 256GB SATA SSD. Yet it weighs less and is thinner than the 2005 model.

We begin our coverage of the 2011 Mac mini's performance with some basic benchmarks comparing four different 2011 models. Since we consider the MacBook Air the other minimalistic Mac, we included three of those models in the graphs.

MAXON CINEBENCH 11.5
Though it appears to be just another artificial benchmark, Cinebench uses code from a real world 3D modeling app, Cinema 4D. The numbers in the two graphs represent a rating that Cinebench gives. Higher is better. The
RED bar represents the fastest.

GRAPH LEGEND
Server i7 2GHz = 2011 Mac mini Server 2.0GHz Quad-Core i7
Core i7 2.7GHz
= 2011 "Mac mini"* 2.7GHz Dual-Core i7
Core i5 2.5GHz
= 2011 Mac mini 2.5GHz Dual-Core i5
Core i5 2.3GHz
= 2011 Mac mini 2.3GHz Dual-Core i5
MBA 1.8 2011 = 2011 MacBook Air 1.8GHz dual-Core i7
MBA 1.7 2011 = 2011 MacBook Air 1.7GHz dual-Core i5
MBA 1.6 2011 = 2011 MacBook Air 1.6GHz dual-Core i5

(*NOTE: We didn't have a 2011 Dual-Core i7 2.7GHz Mac mini to test so we used the CPU results from the 2011 Dual-Core i7 2.7GHz MacBook Pro. We should have the "real" 2.7 mini results soon.)

PRIMATE LABS GEEKBENCH 2.1.13** (64-bit)
The overall score combines the integer, floating point, and two memory tests into one overall score. (
LONGER bar means faster rating.) Note we used the 64-bit version.
The RED bar represents the fastest.

(**NOTE: There are two versions of Geekbench that produce different results -- especially Floating Point and Memory Bandwidth ratings. Above are the results of Shareware version 2.1.13 which is downloadable from the Primate Labs website. Below are the results for the 2.2.2 version which is downloadable from the Apple App Store ($9.99). As you can see, the relative performance is the same.)



INSIGHTS
Why a Mac mini? For some it's about price. It's the lowest priced Mac you can buy in 2011 (assuming you already have a display, keyboard, and mouse). For some it's about the small footprint as illustrated in the picture above.

As expected, it's faster than a MacBook Air but slower than a Quad-Core i7 MacBook Pro or Quad-Core i7 iMac.

One interesting feature of the top Mac mini models (2.5GHz Core i5 and 2.7GHz Core i7) is the AMD Radeon HD 6630M dedicated GPU which allows it to run graphics intensive functions much faster than the low-end 2.3GHz model with the Intel HD 3000 integrated GPU. It's also much faster than all models of MacBook Air as well as the 13" MacBook Pro. Take a look at the Portal and Motion graphs below.

So, even though the 2011 mini server may have a quad-core i7, it will lag behind the 2011 mini with dual-core i5 or i7 when it comes to graphics intensive tasks.


1.1.12

Strategic and Technical Consulting | Knowledge Management Solutions - MindTouch, Inc.

Strategic and Technical Consulting | Knowledge Management Solutions - MindTouch, Inc.

MindTouch > solutions

Strategic and Technical Consulting

MindTouch has unparalleled experience building highly engaging product help communities, social intranets, and social knowledge management solutions. Our customers often ask us to help them:

  • Maximize the value of their online product help content
  • Create compelling destinations for their community of users to visit, participate and return to
  • Encourage users of their products to learn more from each other and rely more on each other for help
  • Assist in deploying, managing and evolving their community solutions over time

We have worked with some of the world’s leading brands to deliver social knowledge base solutions that are used by millions every day. To expedite the process and ensure quality of building purpose-built, enterprise product support software and document management solutions, we’ve developed a 6 step process to efficiently execute a services engagement. Let's get started.

1
Discovery - Perform Needs Assessment
At the outset of the project we begin with a benchmark assessment, which will provide a framework for moving forward. We leverage data from hundreds of leading community based product documentation solutions to assist our customers in understanding the “art of the possible”, creating a compelling overall strategy.
2
Definition - Establish Your Ladder of Engagement
MindTouch helps to define the appropriate methods of engagement – including badges and gamification, question and answers, forums, content scoring, integration, workflows, etc. – that will allow your community to thrive. Together, each level of engagement builds on its predecessor, thus escalating your users up the ladder of engagement.
3
Design - Fit, Finish, and Polish
Our primary objective is to turn your casual visitors into engaged community members that thrive with your products. The design phase will translate the direction provided by the Discovery and Definition phases with two goals in mind: Fit your branding requirements and Reduce impediments to user engagement.
4
Development & QA - Programming, Testing and Deployment
All of our social help center and product documentation solutions are built upon MindTouch TCS. This product offers an exceptional out-of-the-box social knowledge base, but is also an innovative framework for development that speeds time to market and lowers costs. We built it, we know it well. Our professional services organization will manage the development and delivery of your project on time and on budget. Developing on our proven platform means that deployments typically launch in a matter of weeks, not months.
5
Launch Assistance
When we take our customers' communities live, we do so only after rigorous user acceptance testing and training. But you can’t predict all behaviors. That’s why we closely track your goals and engage with your community managers and support personnel to increase awareness and encourage adoption of your purpose-built solution. If changes are needed to drive your users further up the ladder of engagement, we're there to help implement.
6
Support and Growth
All of our customers' solutions are supported by the MindTouch Customer Support team, which can include 24x7 coverage, ensuring the highest levels of availability and performance. Our relationship with our customers often continues well after launch as we regularly meet with them to consult on new advances that may apply to their particular product help community.

Whether it’s integration, deployment or customizations, we can help any business accelerate their community-building objectives with MindTouch. We pull out all the stops to guarantee an exceptional experience, for both you and your customers.

Please contact us for a free needs assessment. From knowledge base solutions to document management solutions, we live to help.

MindTouch, Inc. (formerly Deki Wiki)

MindTouch, Inc. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MindTouch, Inc.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



video platform video management video solutions video player
MindTouch, Inc.
Type Private
Founded January 2005
Headquarters San Diego., USA
Key people Aaron Roe Fulkerson (CEO)
Steve G. Bjorg (CTO)
Byoung Lee (COO)
Mike Puterbaugh (VP Marketing)
Products MindTouch TCS, MindTouch Platform v10, MindTouch Core v10
Website www.mindtouch.com
MindTouch, Inc., an open-source software-development company based in San Diego, California, USA, started in January, 2005 with offices in Saint Paul, Minnesota and Bellevue, Washington. It merged all its offices in San Diego in February 2007.

Contents

[hide]

[edit] History

MindTouch initially based its development work on MediaWiki, the open source wiki program used for the Wikimedia Foundation sites. The first public software release took place at OSCON, the open-source conference in Portland, OR, July 25, 2006 at which time MindTouch also launched the MindTouch Developer Community (once named OpenGarden.org). This initial release, a MediaWiki fork called Deki Wiki "Gooseberry", differed by including a WYSIWYG editor on XHTML and providing enhanced search capabilities that also indexed files, page-level file attachments, enhanced permissioning and more. MindTouch also released a distributed REST application management framework called MindTouch Dream in July 2006.

At DEMOFall in September 2006, MindTouch released its first commercial product, the DekiBox smart hardware appliance. In January 2006, MindTouch quickly migrated the wikis hosted at Wiki.com to "Wik.is" before the former site was taken down due to domain ownership issues.

A year after the initial MindTouch Deki Wiki product release, timed for OSCON 2007, MindTouch released a rewrite of the initial Deki Wiki product that consisted of a decoupled wiki interface to a composition of heterogeneous web-services and a web-service orchestration engine. The new platform allows users to integrate Web services and external applications to extend MindTouch Deki Wiki with remote application behavior and enables data and application mashups.

In June, 2008 MindTouch dropped the "wiki" part of the product name; thereby renaming the product to MindTouch Core (free and open source) and MindTouch Platform (commercial version). MindTouch CEO, Aaron Fulkerson, cited in the June Corporate Newsletter a motivation to more accurately communicate the capabilities of the product and the fact the wiki is only a component in the business collaboration and integration platform's overall feature set.

[edit] Technology as of 2010

MindTouch Core consists of an open-source wiki developed in C# on Mono and PHP, with all components available under either version 2 of the GNU General Public License or version 2.1 of the GNU Lesser General Public License; this makes it the first commercial open-source virtualized wiki[citation needed]. The DREAM framework makes it possible to extend MindTouch using any programming language compatible with web services. The application's logic is implemented in C# and the presentation layer in PHP, which makes it relatively simple to modify the user interface.

[edit] Public websites using MindTouch

[edit] External links

[edit] See also