In this post Dave writes about desktop web servers. I think that desktop web servers are a great idea. Actually web servers are great anywhere. Quite often we have solved complex integration problems simply inserting a little web server (quite often Radio UserLand) in the mix to collect, manage and relay. A little web server integrated to a scripting environment can do magic.

The challenge with distributed little web servers is where to store the data. I think that one of the main issues with Radio UserLand is that ultimately the user has to manage an ever growing database on his computer. While advanced users know how to deal with little problems, do backups and know that databases (and hard disks) tend to get corrupted, break or get lost, regular users don't and they often end up loosing their stuff.

What I would love to have today is a system where I can deal with the data I have to manage locally with all the advantages of running a local highly integrated application, but where all the real database management is done by a pro somewhere else, where it cannot get corrupted, broken or lost.

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Technorati Tags: DaveWiner, DesktopWebServers

One year ago today I had just ordered iLife 05. The new version of Garage Band was a true 2.0 and iPhoto promised to be faster and my photo archive had reached the breaking point.

iLife 06 is not as interesting as version 05 was imho: I'm not interested in all the podcasting features of Garage Band, iWeb might be interesting but I already have a blog, I will end up buying the package only to get a faster iPhoto since I'm stuck again with my photo archive.

This seems to be a pattern: every January I get a iPhoto update, for some months everything works fine, then I get to the point when nothing moves anymore and I need another update. I'm wondering if I'm really taking pictures faster than allowed by Moore's law or if there's some sneaky code which start degrading iPhoto's performances in September making it totally unusable by December.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iLife