Reminisence...

[S W Dickson]

I'm not bein maudlin, or down, but I was fiddlin with the internets over the last hour or so, trying to get the bleedin polls to work, and trying to uncover what secrets PHPBB has that makes it randomly get upset with Google Chrome - It works consistently with the bloated behemoth of Firefox (It's become what it was trying to rebel against...) but every so often Chrome refuses to post with a weird "post mode not specified" error - whacky.

Anyways, whilst tinkering (to no avail so far sadly) I was reminded of the last board I took an active concern in, and it was strangely similar to this project, though with slightly less noble ideals.

A group of us from all over the world, who met at the (now purely mac-apologist) site, MaCNN. With a handful of ideas and dissatisfaction at the direction many software products were being produced at the time (ridiculous software bloat, eighteen packages running simultaneously to keep in touch etc.) - we decided to start our own wee company to do what was needed. This was back in 2001 or thereabouts.

We called oureselves "Bloatpigs" - a nod to the idea of becoming bloated capitalist pigs, chomping on hundred dollar cigars and wearing top-hats. Kinda post-ironic wit.

Anyways, we initially began work on a tentatively titled app called "iCollaborate" (everything had an "i" at the beginning in 2001) - a tool to bring together webcam, IM, BB, e-mail, Flickr and all that with a plan to integrate something like Google Wave for online document editing. Surprisingly we got quite far, and it was actually initially conceived to get around the problems to produce our initial concept of an online "digital lifestyle" guide. That's all besides the point, as a couple of months down the line I found myself redundantisised (if that's a word) and along with a total Powerbook G4 failure, I was without access to internets for a wee while - got a quick borrow of a PC and made me apologies to the guys that no GUI art would be being made for a wee whilst I got my own immediate occupation problems solved.

Once back on track a couple of months down the line I found that the project had pretty much lost direction (hey, I must be the motivator!) and a couple of key guys had moved on. It was all a bit pants and disappointing - but hey that's the nature of the times we live in. Anyways with that, I ended up gaining a contact with O'reilly and contributed some iLifestyle pieces for one of their guides which I ended up getting a wee bonus for - which was all well and good, as i had already begun the research and stuff for some of it with Bloatpig (we never got to the stage of actually registering anything, so everyone was free to take away their own stuff)

Back on track - it was just a wee reminder over the last week or so of how quiet the boards can get when there's "other things on". It's very early days, so I'd urge all of our fellow "...here be dragons" members to recruit as many of your contacts as possible. Enthusiasm for a project can wane quite quickly in my experience, so having a fresh input of ideas and enthusiasm on a regular basis would be great.

The really bad news is we that we only ever created semi-functioning builds of "iCollaborate" - and as I'm not a programmer, all the source is with them - it'd be really handy to have for this!

[SpaceMonkey]

Yep I’ve noticed a dip in activity. I haven’t contributed in awhile as I have been a bit busy. But as you stated before it’s that time of year. So do not take the dip in activity to heart but yes I agree WE need to make a concerted effort to keep the project going. The way to do that is by getting more people involved. You have to reach that critical mass of participants to make the forum self generating. The way to get more people involved is to tell more people about the project. I think we should post on other gaming sites and forums that the project is happening.

So for my part I put a little post on Board Game Geek to spread the word.
http://boardgamegeek.com/article/4435664#4435664
Oz Painters
http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2881

[sucramreverse]

Firefox has come down a bit in bloat these last couple versions, but yes it has grown to be quite large...still the one I use even though I have chrome and opera. Mainly because of all the add-on tools I use for web development. (I am using a firefox theme that makes it look like chrome though, because the design is brilliant.)

Anyways; I'm still here, checking in every couple days. I'd have really liked to finish enough of the website to give you guys control so something could be done there, but I really had no idea I'd be flown out 2 timezones away to visit family. I'll be back in a couple weeks and knock out the last of the website first thing.

Also, it's funny because I attempted something quite similar to your project, attempting a website that would bridge all the various aspects of internet usage. Got pretty far, but the core group broke apart due to some disputes. And I lost the code, which was over a year of work, in a laptop crash.

Strangely all the 'various aspects of the internet' are bridging themselves...with myspace adding IM and e-mail, and other companies doing similar. Too bad myspace sucks (read poorly coded and produced by a company known for fraud and scams) and all the different companies are more focused on competing rather than integrating and allowing each to do what they are best at.

Give it a couple years though and computers and the internet will be called "google" collectively. Especially since they are making an OS already...

[S W Dickson]

Shame it's Google at all though. I dunno, they just make me think "bleh". No soul. Like Microsoft back in the day (I hate to admit, but some parts of MS are beginning to be interesting) and the way Apple have been heading.

Reminds me of the whole reason why I got fed up with computer geekery in general. Too many people wanting a slice of consumer pie. Proprietary. I hate that word. What kinda "standard" is USB? HDMI, Blu-Ray etc. Gimme a break!

Whatever happened to consumer power? We are able to choose to not buy things, but it seems we all just wanna consume the next big thing, no matter how quickly it breaks down. XBox 360? New iMac? Exploding iphone? Photoshop CSwhatever...

Rant excuse - Been working on a so called modern PC with recent Photoshop and big ass multilayered files - coulda done it in a quarter of the time twelve years ago. Bring back Freehand 5.5, Photoshop 4 and Mac OS 7!

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