Jos Kirps's Popular Science and Technology Blog

First information on the new Trident API

May 20, 2013

Today I can share first details concerning our third API that is part of our Trident strategy (2013-2015).

We have a name, we have a logo, we have a software design and we have working prototype code. I can't reveal any further information now, but I can say that I'm really looking forward to bring this out as I'm really happy with the first prototype results.

All I can say is that there are three major goals we'd like to achieve with this technology:

1) It shall be a new experimental framework that can be used to integrate and test new technologies (now that CIOS is quite stable and should no longer be used for any kind of experiments).

2) It shall be a development toolset for all three APIs (including CorneliOS and CIOS), which also means that this functionality will be removed from the Joopita IBS to make the latter production ready (I'd like to see that goal achieved by the end of the year).

3) It shall be a re-implementation of former technologies that are now defunct or that have never been realized. We'll talk about that at a later point of time.

This year we'll only experiment with the internal prototypes, a first public prototype shall become available in 2014 and we plan to release the beta in 2015, while the final release shall be ready at the end of the Trident development cycle (late 2015 or early 2016).

Stay tuned!

C'mon Apple...

March 04, 2013

I've been an Apple user since 1994, that's almost 20 years now. I started with System 7.1.2 on a PowerMac, using Photoshop and Illustrator. In 1998 I started using Logic (an Emagic product back then), and I also got Final Cut as soon as it came out. The Mac got better with each OS update (okay, I didn't like OS9 that much...) and with MacOS X I was finally able to even move my entire software development to the Mac platform (while Linux still remained the primary target platform).

OSX, Logic and Final Cut got better with each release, and along with the Adobe Creative Suite they turned the Mac into an awesome production tool for pros for about 10 years. With each update I was able to increase productivity and I was quite happy about that.

But now it looks all this is going to change. OSX Lion was the worst Apple OS update I've seen so far. Lion was horrible, Mountain Lion may be a bit better but it's still far from being okay. All of this may be cool for kids, maybe it's even okay for pro-sumers, but it's a terrible downgrade for all pro users. I still use Snow Leopard on all of my production computers, and I think it's an awesome OS. I hope I won't have to get any new hardware in the near future as just don't want to work on this Lion thing.

OSX (Mountain) Lion is terrible if you're working with professional audio, video or graphics software. It sucks. It's even unusable if you're just moving around files. Everything's just slower than it has ever been before. Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro allows me to do things faster than Mountain Lion does on our Mac Pro. That's just weird.

But the problem doesn't end there. Will I get the latest Final Cut update? Maybe, if I ignore all of the negative reviews. What about Logic? Anything? Okay, Tim Cook said there will be a new version soon, but I'm not sure what it will be like. I have one major Logic project that will be completed next year, and now I'm thinking about moving to ProTools afterwards. So it looks like I'll abandon Logic after having been a loyal customer for about 15 years...

To me it looks like Apple doesn't care about the pro Mac users anymore. iOS kiddies may be cooler, and Apple now earns most of its money with them. But I think that's a big mistake, as Android becomes stronger and the iOS hype won't last forever. It was the pro community that allowed Apple to survive during the hard times in the late 1990s, and maybe Apple will have to reply on the pro community once again in some not so distant future.

So please Apple, please change direction now!

CorneliOS/CIOS 3 now available

January 08, 2013

Today we've released CorneliOS 3, including the latest CIOS framework updates.

CorneliOS/CIOS will remain our core technology for the next few years, and we've now reached a level where we can easily use it to create new platforms and projects within very little time. There will be a lot of CIOS fine-tuning this year, and some further custom APIs shall be added to the core framework.

CorneliOS 3 is the most important update ever. CorneliOS will remain an experimental technology, although the new version will be cleaned up and will be much better suited for end users. Until today CIOS fully relied on CorneliOS while CorneliOS itself remained a standalone product - this will change with CorneliOS 3, as some original CorneliOS features will be "virtualized" by using more advanced CIOS features, making the entire software even faster and easier to maintain.

At the same time we'll use the same technology to create a third API/Framework. I won't reveal any further information about this project yet, but I can already say that we've got some test code and this will help us to implement some of the "missing" stuff we'll need for future projects. I'm sure people will be quite surprised when we release this thing...

Introducing Trident (2013-2015)

January 07, 2013

Today I'd like to announce that we're now moving on to the third generation of the Joopita Agile Framework, which describes the way we conceive, develop, maintain and market our projects.

The first two generations of the Joopita Agile Framework have both been great successes. The first generation (G1 "Unicorn", 2007-2009) lead to the development of CorneliOS, Galaxiki, the Jamplifier CMS and our recording studio. Using the second generation framework (G2 "Duality", 2010-2012) we developed and promoted the CIOS framework, Galaxiki 2.x and Morzino/oli.lu.

The new Joopita Agile Framework (G3 "Trident") will allow us to progress even faster within the next three years. Trident will affect all of our technologies, all of our projects and of course the way we work and develop things.

During the past few years we were mostly doing software development. This will change a lot with Trident, as there will now be three major domains we'll focus on: 1) research & development (software & platforms), 2) media (audio, video and print) and 3) the promotion of our projects. This means that we will spend less time on software development, but on the other hand our new development techniques will make sure that the output will remain the same and code quality will even be increased, reducing development and maintenance costs.

Trident will lead to a big change for the CorneliOS/CIOS framework. CorneliOS started as a CMS/API under G1 "Unicorn", while G2 "Duality" turned the software into a platform by adding the CIOS framework which was build on top of CorneliOS (asymmetric design). Trident will allow CorneliOS to connect to the CIOS API (symmetric design) and it will also add a new, third API that will add some "missing features". I cannot yet talk about the third API, as this is a top secret project.

Within the upcoming three years we'll also release a number of new software projects and community platforms. In January the Project5 website will be officially launched, this is the first CIOS based platform we developed for another non-profit organization. We will release at least one more new platform this year, and our goal is to develop one or two new major projects a year in future.

The final version of the Morzino/oli.lu project will follow in H2/2013, which will also include a standalone Open Source version of the software as well as one more major feature. We'll offer some more free content and we also plan to start promoting all of this on an international scale. The long awaited Galaxiki 3.0 will also finally become available this year.

As mentioned above we'll focus a lot more on media from now on. We have several projects that may become ready for release within the next months, but I can't reveal any details yet. These projects all require lots of time and resources and this makes it difficult to tell when they'll be ready. I can already confirm that we'll do at least one new music related project in 2013, although you'll have to wait till 2014 for the "big" things to come.

Morzino BETA 2.0

November 20, 2012

Yesterday we launched Morzino BETA 2.0, including the new School Web Manager as well as updated versions of our most popular tools for schools.

During the next 12 months we'll finetune the platform and we hope the final release will be ready in mid or late 2013. Special thanks to all of those who sent suggestions and feedback.

Within the next few weeks Project5 will be officially released, it's the first CorneliOS/CIOS powered community platform we've developed for another non-profit organisation.

We'll probably release a few more new platforms in 2013, as Project5 demonstrated that we can build larger community sites rather quickly using our latest development techniques and frameworks.

This leads us to our software strategy, which will also see a major update next year. The CorneliOS project had been started in 2006/2007, with a first major update three years later in 2010 (CorneliOS/CIOS, codename "Duality"). The next iteration, codenamed "Trident", is due in 2013, although we won't reveal any details yet.

That's all for now, hope I'll fine some more time to write in future, these are busy times...

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