Roboform

Seemingly unrelated:
Vista got its bad name in no small part because of the messages requiring your clicks every step of the way.
Web apps login is just like that. It is very annoying.
Logins as we know them work for two situations.
If you log in once, use for 30 min, log out and leave for today, it is ok.
If you have only one computer, which is solely yours,
never upgrade your browser,
never try another browser, and replace your computer every 3 years then you make your browser remember your passwords and you are ok.
If you switch between browsers or computers, work with 30 web apps (web sites) you need Roboform.

I use Roboform on two of my machines.
These are my main working machines.
I can’t image not having it on a main machine of mine.

Roboform is a browser plugin that fills up login data.
Your passwords are encrypted, and you only have to enter master password once.
Firefox, for example, can store passwords, but Roboform shares them across my IE and Firefox,
and I can copy them to another computer and use there.

I can even copy them onto my HTC smartphone which has pocket Roboform installed.

I have grown to be dependent on Roboform very much.
Google Chrome, which was very good in version 1.0 was no go for me, because it did not have plug-ins, hence no Roboform.
Google Chrome 2 has “extensions”. I am waiting for Roboform extension.
Then I’ll be able to make Chrome my primary browsing platform.
I can live without every other Firefox add-on. Roboform I can’t live without.
Fortunately Roboform vendor works on Google Chrome’s extension mentioning alpha in 2009

I have two gripes about Roboform. One is that to synchronize my passwords on two computers I have to copy “passkard” files.
I would expect some kind of web service, a central repository with which I’d synchronize.

Two, I don’t like it costs money. It worth the money all right. But why such thing is not free?
There is a lot of great free add-ons. Why not Roboform knock off?
Primary free alternative is KeePass (http://keepass.info).
I did not try it recently, but every 6-9 months I make a quick search, and so far, no, there is no alternative to Roboform.

The key factor is one-clickness. It is almost as smooth as letting browser remember your password.
You pay the small price of extra click for password portability.

Buy Roboform for every machine you use, hope for Server sync product from them and home that KeyPass people will get serious about copycatting Roboform excellent user experience.

Techcrunch and Webware blogs and scalability

I love reading other people blogs. Of technical blogs, techcrunch and webware were two of my favorite.  That was back then. Now I don’t read them as often. And the reason is not because I don’t like how Michael and Rafe write. It is because most of the writing is now done by other people.

Personally provided service is not scalable. You start being a service provider. Be it a freelance software developer (me) or a blog writer (Michael Arrington). If you are good, people want your service, they order you software projects or read your blogs.  You finish projects, they give you more projects. You upper your per hour rate, they pay. You write more, they read. You organize conferences, they attend. And all of a sudden you can’t grow your business without hiring other people. 

This is a turning point. You hire other people and they are not as good as you or not as experienced as you or not as connected as you. Because if they were, they would open their own service or blog. So you have to delegate part of your work to people who will not do it as good as you could. Granted, you invest your time in the people you hired, you help them grow and with time they’ll make you proud. May be.  And they will possibly leave and open a competing service. And even if they stick with you, it is all still very painful and slow process.

You may decide you don’t want to delute the quality of your service. That is why I like TWiT  podcast so much. Leo was good back in the day, and he is every inch as good now. He still does all of his stuff himself. But then your service will coverage will reach plateau. Some people are ok with that. Either way, a human service is not scalable.

So that is a decision I has made early. I will provide software development services to finance product development. Software products are infinitely scalable. You can make million copies as easily as one.

Reviving this blog under new name

I have started blogging some time ago only to test the medium. I was not a good blogger. I published seldomly.  I guess the reason is that there was no single subject which I felt passionate about enough to create a meaningful thread of articles about. It has recently changed.

This blog is now about Web Applications also known as Web Apps or web apps or webware. There are many other blogs covering this very thing. What is going to be different?

I guess it is the degree to which I myself am now a user of  web apps.  For over half year I do not open Microsoft Office or Visio or Project if I can help it. I do everything with Google Docs, or Gliffy or gGnattic (which is my own project management web app that uses Google Spreadsheets as the backend).  I use Spreadsheets as bug tracker and as a feedback gathering system. I use gmail and Google Calendar instead of Outlook. I am as pure Office 2.0 worrior as they come.

As such I think know where web apps suck.  And I want to write about it to help make them suck less.

Big push for Web Apps in 2010

Here is my prediction – Web Apps usage will get a big boost in early 2010. The reason is Windows 7. Let me explain.

With all the nice Web Apps out there, they require a modern browser to shine. They need Ajax capability, good DOM manipulation, fast Javascript engine, good CSS support. Those are available in the best and newest browsers, especially Google Chrome 2 and Firefox 3.5. They are available in IE7 and IE8.

These crucial features are missing in IE6. Why is that important?

Because coprorate use is critical to the success of the productivity Web Applications, to Office 2.0. And IE6 is strong there. Today I was listening to Buzz Out Loud podcast (http://bol.cnet.com/) eposode 965, and they discussed how disproportionally high the IE6 usage numbers are in the corporate world. The number is 60%.

It contrasts with general browsers market share. According to the current state of Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Web_browser_usage_share.svg), IE is 66%, and of those only 17% is IE6. So IE6 is about 11% in general not 60%. No, wait, 11% is the aggregate result, so in non-corporate IE6 is even lower.

IE6 was released just before Windows XP. It is the default on Windows XP. That explains to me the phenomena. Corporate users don’t upgrade. Corporate IT departements don’t upgrade until they must.

Windows 7 will be released in October 2009. Microsoft claimed it is early 2010, util somebody leaked Windows preinstalled on a new laptop available for orders in October 2010. So now we know. IE8 will be (already is on my Windows 7 RC1 machine) the default browser.

Those in the corporate world who skipped Vista and stuck to Windows XP wait for Windows 7. (see for example http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24596745/).
Windows shipping in late 2009 means rollout will begin in earnest in early 2010.
And IE6 market share will nosedive. And the era of Office 2.0 will finaly dawn.

Google Docs will be used by 30% (or 6%) a year from now

Google does not publish usage statistics of its Docs suite of applications. So it became a guessing game. The best summary I was able to find is
http://www.dullest.com/blog/google-docs-marketshare/
Matt Cutts compares data from 3 sources: compete.com, ClickStream, and Wakoopa .
Wakoopa cought my eye because the way Matt used it allows periodical re-gathering of numbers. One could plot a trend line here.

So I did. I have quickly written such calculator and followed numbers for about a week. In november 2008, as Matt reported, it was 5%. In May, I calculated it was 15%.
From one week of observations of how the numbers change, the numbers suggest it will be 30% a year from now, following the same measuring technique.
The results are published by me using, obviously, Google Spreadsheet:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rvaDvIdh6E8qqluzLDpo5yw&gid=0

Matt compared the numbers from 3 sources and they differ. The reasons are in measurement methodology and audience of choice. ClickStream numbers were fifth of Wakoopa’s. Preserving this ratio will mean that in a year from now ClickStream would report 6% market share for Google Docs.

My take: 6% or 30%, it is a lot. Watching Wakoopa numbers convinced me that online office is arriving fast.