Bit Group Blog

The problem with the bubble metaphor.

Steffan Berelowitz — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:07:23 +0000

Having been a Web consultant since 1995, I have learned a thing or two about bubbles. As the dotcom era of the 1990s transitioned from irrational exuberance to disillusionment, the most important common denominator was the irrationality of both extremes. In recent years, Web 2.0 and social computing have driven a wave of investment with [...]

How to kill your burgeoning business in 5 easy steps

George White — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:15:52 +0000

Say you have a new, wildly successful platform, the new hotness. Everyone wants to buy the hardware and developers can't wait to get on board. You've set up a nifty distribution channel and things are rollig along. So, how do you make it fail?

Why I don’t blog…

Hal Reed — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:05:09 +0000

People sometimes ask me why I don't blog.

The Short Version
I can't produce 'good content'.

The Long Version
Last weekend, a man named Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died. His death (by which I mean his life) has inspired me to explain, in proper context, why I don't blog.

Local vs Remote: Everything in its right place

Alex Mekelburg — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:12:06 +0000

In an optimal world of ubiquitous broadband, how much computing power do we really need to be carrying around with us? Which features should stay localized, and which left on the remote, centralized, powerful computing systems? This follow-up post proposes some details on what these systems may look like... or perhaps just some ideas for a toy I want.

Riding Agility

George White — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:08:01 +0000

We recently completed a project for a new client. The project had a short duration, a mere four weeks. And the budget was fixed. And the client needed an entirely new site up and running, with a significant number of features. How to do it?

Local vs Remote: Diverging Trends in Computing

Alex Mekelburg — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:42:18 +0000

Portable devices are getting better and more powerful. Virtualization technologies and cloud computing are becoming better and more mainstream. Are these trends at odds, and, if so, will one win out over the other? Lets take a closer look at what these mean and how the essential bond between remote access and virtualization lay the groundwork for some interesting possibilities.

Tweet, tweet

George White — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:49:39 +0000

My wife found me a really great old birding book the other day. Perhaps the coolest thing about it was the booklet in the back features an embedded album. There’s a lot that I love about this booklet: the old-school multimedia design, the great type design, the feeling of the paper. It’s great to see this [...]

A note about improvement (vs. deprovement)

Steffan Berelowitz — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:43:18 +0000

Firstly, a note of thanks to colleague Hal Reed for introducing me (and now you?) to the term deprovement. Hal defines deprovement as “a change that is intended to improve something, but in actual practice makes it worse, e.g., harder to adopt, harder to use, or less reliable.” In the world of software or Web [...]

I drink the kool-aid, and it tastes goooood…

George White — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:52:17 +0000

I'm down at the Endeca Discover 08 conference and now I'm all fired up about what's coming in Endeca. And there are some very groovy things on the way.

Web Site Globalization is like a Bowl of Spaghetti

Steffan Berelowitz — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:08:22 +0000

For applications that have not been well structured for internationalization (I18N), the prospect of extracting and then replacing localized strings is a little like removing 30% of the strands of spaghetti in a bowl of pasta and then putting them back where they belong. If that’s not tough enough, each new strand may have [...]