There has been more press lately about backpackit.com, the latest service from http://www.37signals.com/

Nate first showed me tadalist a long time ago. . Basically just a simple todo list but I have enjoyed using it for those todo items I only need to see when I am online. Its fast and very intuitive.

One of the reasons why Nate was so interested in 37signals is because of their open source web development framework called "ruby on rails". Basically a really easy to use inline scripting language (similar to php but more advanced). Nate and Mark both proved that you could produce a database driven application in short order.

More recently, 37signals have been implementing Ajax, the xml via javascript that gmail has made famous, in their ruby applications.

Backpackit is a interesting application. Its very easy to use, and has a good feel. However, I feel that it is a little more restrictive than most wiki applications. And their pricing model is a little off the mark, basically paying per page.

Really 37signals primary bread and butter is basecamp, their easy to use web based project management app. I have not yet played with it, but it appears to get that the project management problem is one about gathering all communication around a project space, more than just gant management. I think I may be suggesting it for my brother, an architect and general contractor who is faced with managing projects with dispersed office and field employees.

As far as ASP hosted wiki's, I think the one with the most potential is jotspot.com. They take wiki to the level of small "lotus notes" like application development, and there are some big names behind it.

Some similar functionality to backpackit, in that when you sign up you get a subdomain, and then each page has a randomly generated email address that you can use as an alternate method to update the page.

The list of available applications is impressive. I would suggest checking out the advanced tour.

I think the overriding principle driving success with these applications is that people really are drawn to the simple. Mobile users, and those who are fed up with reinstalling operating systems after viruses or other system failures, are growing soft to the concept of completely web based applications. Now that developers are pushing beyond the standards with things like ajax (standards being discussed at w3c even now), there is proof that web application feel can be improved without significant overhead.

Its a race for the best collaboration tool which can marry the "ease of publishing and sharing" found in blogs, wiki's, and social networking sites. Thus the emergence of new big name offerings like MSN MySpace, Yahoo! 360, etc. Should be interesting.

In The Continuing Disappearance of Document Management, James Till, vice president of Marketing for Xythos Software Inc., describes how the advent of Open Standards such as HTTP, SSL and WebDAV have shaken up the traditional Document Management Industry, as well as call to question complicated Enterprise Content Management (ECM) suite approaches to handling content within your organization.

I too have been stepping back from previous declarations of ECM as the solution, only because the implication is that an ECM strategy equals and ECM product. This is not always the case. In the emerging agile architecture environment, simple solutions that act as a bridges between personal productivity software running on desktops and distributed storage and workflow might fit the bill....

Its a bold move, but the responsible thing to do. If something is causing continual security risks, and increased overhead, both in user productivity and customer support costs, alternatives should be pursued. The Chronicle of Higher Education writes:

Worried about persistent security flaws in Microsoft's Internet Explorer, officials at the Pennsylvania State University system have taken the unusual step of recommending that students, professors, and staff members stop using the popular Web browser. "The threats are real, and alternatives exist," the university said in an announcement posted on its Web site this week.

The school, in this Information Technology Services Bulletin, is promoting the use of alternate browsers such as Firefox and Opera.

She cited reports that the new Firefox Web browser, for example, is much less prone than Internet Explorer to download so-called spyware, or programs surreptitiously placed on a computer in order to record confidential information such as passwords.

Well its finally happened, Mozilla Firefox has hit 1.0! Its getting quite a bit of news coverage, so there is probably not a whole lot more to say here. I will say though, it has come a long way... far surpassing its heritage. If you have been along for the Web ride from early on, you will have realized that browsers started off as simple rather efficient tools, but quickly became bloated and yet lacked real innovation. Firefox 1.0 is lean and mean 4.7MB, and a completely different experience from the early Mozilla days, or even the repackaged Netscape 6/7 series. You may remember downloads of the later Netscape series as well surpassing 30MB. Until Firefox, Mozilla's browser code still had fragments of the original Netscape code which was open sourced in 1998...

Once upon a time, there was a little pig who built his house in the meadow out of straw. He did it because he had always built his house out of straw, and so did all the other little pigs in the meadow. Straw wasn't the best building material available, but it was good enough. It was easy to work with. And the labor costs associated with straw were low, because the meadow was filled with animals who were trained in the use of straw. But over time, Big Bad Wolves infiltrated the meadow, and began huffing and puffing and blowing the houses of straw down. Now, the little pig had a big brother, who'd built his house out of brick. The little pig's big brother urged the little pig to re-build his house out of brick, instead of straw. "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin," said the little pig. "The only reason brick appears safer than straw is that so few pigs build their houses out of brick. Big Bad Wolves target straw houses because straw has a monopoly on the building materials market. If brick had the same market share, then the Big Bad Wolves would be huffing and puffing and blowing down brick houses." The little pig's big brother said, "Dude, you can't blow down a brick house. Brick is fundamentally more resistant to huffing and puffing." But the little pig was confident. "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin. You're only saying that because you've been brainwashed by the FUD spread by straw community." The preceding has been a fairy tale with no bearing on the current state of Internet security. By Mitch Wagner Source: Security Pipeline | Trends

Looks like Mozilla Firefox will be hitting 1.0 really soon. In preparation, some of the really great features are being removed for instability and or support reasons. They will no doubt be added back later, but there is one in particular that I will sorely miss. The alternate stylesheet tool, allows you to switch between alternate stylesheets for websites that offer multiples. It seems to work well for me, but a discussion in the developers bugtracking software lead to its removal from the nightly builds. Fortunately, someone has already stepped in to offer an enhancement to his style sheet chooser extension to offer similar functionality. It won't be handled as a graphical element in the bottom left corner of the browser, but I am sure someone else will do that at some point as well. According to the dicsussion the goal would be to add back the functionality in 1.5. The other element that many notebook users enjoy, is offline browsing. This feature allows you to save websites for offline viewing. Apparently there are some issues with it, and it has been removed for 1.0 as well. While these are unfortunate, I am very excited about Firefox hitting 1.0. I have been very pleased to see its progress as I have used it over the last 8 months or so. It is lean and fast, and has some very compelling innovative features. Thunderbird, the mail client, is coming along nicely as well. Recent versions seem more stable. Recently I have switched to it from Evolution, after getting frustrated with a few bugs (hangs etc) and feature deficiencies (SSL LDAP support). So far the only thing I miss is the shortcut bar, to make it easy to switch between inboxes, or important imap folders.