davenash.com

Well it's finally happening, I've decided to begin developing the next version of the content management system that's kept me firmly planted in-front of my computer for all these years. Aftershock as it's now called has been in development in one way or another since 2002; it began life as a basic page calling and authorisation project with the rather utilitarian name of Task Manager. Since that fateful, and some would say rather misguided day, it has now grown into the version that is powering this website; version 4. Since completing version 4 in early 2005 I've taken a lot of time to understand how people use websites to access data, how designers design them and how future versions of Aftershock should develop.

Yesterday I was directed by [Steve] to the podcasts for the [Carson Workshops Summit] that took place in London on February 8^th; it was interesting listening to the various speakers talk about the Web 2.0 phenomenon and the direction of the internet in general... So interesting in fact that it's got me thinking how I could further develop Aftershock to deal with the more philosophical points of Web 2.0 and not just rounded corners, gradients and AJAX (which might I add, Aftershock 3 has been able to cope with even before the term "Web 2.0" was coined).

It very quickly became clear to me that Aftershock cannot continue in it's current state and a completely new approach was needed to ensure it's not left behind. So with that being said I can proudly announce the development of Aftershock 5.0 (Juno) that will turn Aftershock into a framework which facilitates the development of separate modules and toolkits for different functionality. I'm quite excited by the prospect of developing a lasting system such as Aftershock 5 and I've been doing a lot of reading up on API's and I'm thinking about writing an API handler to receive and return requests so other platforms can make use of Aftershock's functionality too.

So with a new found exuberance in the world of code and programming, I'm also planning on adding more content to my website and perhaps even a development blog for Aftershock to keep any of you that are interested apprised of my progress.

I was sitting at my computer today, like you do, and up popped the little bracketed '1' character next to the Blogs bookmark menu I added to my installation of Safari. So after clicking it I found that my good friend and old landlord [Steve] had published a new post on his blog; the new blog posting started off a little cryptic, after reading the full blog posting I came to the conclusion that he was being sarcastic, after all a Mac advocate such as Steve could never legitimately support the efforts of the competition. His posting also contained a link to this ['The Real Windows Vista'] and after you take a look you can understand why we Mac supporters can afford to be so sarcastic.

On watching the videos on [tauquil.com] it got me thinking to how the prospect of the new version of Windows was being received by the Internet fraternity and it appears that, on the face of it, most people aren't eagerly anticipating it's launch with breath that is baited. I've read many a blog and review complaining about the lack of 'new' features that were originally promised by Microsoft, that a good chunk of the code has been ripped out of Vista and the updates that are being left intact simply don't go far enough which, when all is said and done leaves Microsoft Windows Vista being nothing more than Windows XP Service Pack 3.

With that non-existent endorsement still ringing in my ears I started thinking, 'How long would it take before Microsoft ditched it's crippled framework and move over to a UNIX based Operating System?' I mean UNIX has been around for over 30 years and is as good as it is because it was always designed with security, stability and portability in mind. It's unbelievable to think that even before the likes of Microsoft and Apple were conceived, that systems developers hit the nail so squarely on the head, that they would develop a system that worked so perfectly and could stand up to all that the future of computing would throw at it. I know that the fully fledged UNIX OS as we know it was not written overnight, but it has undergone over 30 years of constant development and tweaking to get it to the level where it performs exactly as we expect a modern OS to perform.

On the other hand Microsoft has been developing it's Windows OS, in it's current format, for around 10 years and in my opinion has a long way to go before it's at the stage where it can be considered to be worthy of the likes of UNIX. The problem is of course that underneath the hood of Windows still lies the remnants of MS-DOS, a basic but ultimately flawed system that was purchased from a systems developer in the heat of the moment after Microsoft had agreed a deal to license their OS to IBM for installation on their PC line of computers. Microsoft after agreeing the deal had to move fast and went to the first place person they could find who was happy to sell their code, a severely limiting move. Since that memorable day Microsoft has tried to constantly make their future Operating Systems to work with all previous versions, this has ultimately been their downfall. There comes a time in all software development when a line must be drawn, where the pros far outweigh the cons for opting for a new framework, where natively supporting previous work simply becomes too costly in time, man-power, security and features; and I have to say I believe Microsoft is long overdue to draw such a line.

Apple Computer, never afraid of change, has undergone two significant changes since it's inception and is now undergoing a third to ensure it can give it's customers the best possible advantage over competing systems. In the early 90s, Apple decided to change from using the Motorola 68000 line of processors to the faster PowerPC line of processors and at the turn of the Millennium rolled out a significantly upgraded UNIX based OS to replace it's aging and somewhat limited OS, and it's now opted to move away from the PowerPC architecture adopted in the 90s to a more up-to-date Intel series of processors. If Apple can undergo such constant change and still keep a loyal base of users then surely the likes of Microsoft can do the same?

Microsoft Windows has had it's day, it was a cracking OS in the 90s when the competition was looking old and tired but in my opinion the last DOS compatible version of Windows should have been Windows 2000. The arrival of Windows XP was pushing the bar a little too far and it seems that Vista is now doing nothing more than playing catch-up with other Operating Systems. If Microsoft did decide to abandon it's beleaguered Windows OS, and opt to enter into a new age by providing it's users with far more sophisticated and stable OS based on UNIX, then their position in the world of computing would be maintained far into the future. However if this isn't the case I see Microsoft users all over the world opting for the sophistication and stability of Mac OS X.

My goodness, it's been ages since I last updated my blog! Well what's been happening with me since the last time I blogged, erm... not a lot really. That always used to be my answer when my Mum used to ask what I had done at school for the day, every time the same answer "Not a lot".

The past couple of weeks has pretty much been filled with work, I've spent a lot of time in front of my Mac updating websites and I've launched a new site too. This week in fact I updated a site with it's Chinese translation, which isn't easy considering I don't speak a word of Chinese and have no idea how the written language is interpreted.

While I've been writing this I've been listening to 'Dum Diddly' by The Black Eyed Peas and 'Is it just me?' by The Darkness, no one can ever accuse me of not having a varied music taste, especially when I have a couple of Frank Sinatra songs in my iTunes playlist.

I'm not really sure what else I can talk about, besides I should really get on with some real work, this posting isn't really anything more than a diversion anyway.