Nerd Heaven

batBack is at heart a syndication system, only that is a little too simple a term. We can make other people's web pages have all sorts of functionality that they didn't have before.

There have been a couple problems so far, however. The first is that my hosting provider should suffer a thousand camels running through their nose. They are letting my applicaiton hang and there is nothing I can do to stop them. Basically if I write a ticket, the app comes back and then they say something like "hey! Looks good to me!" which is code word for "Damn! That problem again! Let's not tell the users, those poor schmucks" The first few times I thought perhaps it was my imagination. Now I know something is up.

But that's an infrastructure issue (and apologies to the current batBack users.) A bigger problem is the lack of batBack widgets (I wonder if there is a better name than widget?) and the difficulty in letting other folks use the engine. Also the default rating system does not appeal to everyone. Several people have said that they don't want any feedback for their blog! While this strikes me as something similar to "I know I suck, but don't tell me" I'm sure there is something else going on.

So version 2.0 will address all of these issues. I don't know how easy I can make widget creation -- I just did an activity diagram of the process and it ain't like writing hello world -- but I'll do my best. I also hope to preview several widgets at the same time for the release. The hosting problem I haven't fixed yet, but I met with a gentleman last week who was interested in syndication and might having some hosting resources available. We'll see.

Meanwhile it's fun with Daniel and the internet today. I've been downloading libraries, researching technology, and updating my Enterprise Architect configuration to handle all sorts of new and strange ideas. Should get even cooler from here on in!