AOLers The Next Generation

Many in the enterprise software world don't know about linux based web hosting and don't trust home-grown web sites hosted entirely on linux sites. They have some sort of bias about their reliability. This is ironical, as some of the biggest entrepreneurs started putting together their sites right from the comfort of their home, by setting up a LAM (Linux Apache Mysql) combination on their Fedora or SUSE installations. This includes people like craigslist.org and digg.com, but the list goes on. Worst of all, these "AOLers", as I call then, don't know how to setup their own sendmail servers and host a domain on it themselves. They all happily flock to large brand name web hosters like Google, Yahoo and seek comfort and solace underneath this new web imperialism.

But the bias is just too strong and stems from ignorance, helplessness and stupidity. I have given up on this new generation of graduates who come from some of our best schools, and don't do back-end programming, have never heard of C++ and haven't written a line of C code. And all they are exposed to is PHP and ASP programming. I should admit they write javascript, and know their HTML and CSS pretty well. But I have my doubts if they really understand C.S.

I have grown-up in a hard-core Unix environment, and have been exposed to all kinds of open source software long before Java even made it's debut. My first debates about this started when I was in school in Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. That's when I realized the power of Unix. Before this, my only background was Pascal, Algol, PL/M. I enjoyed my C programming courses. That's when I learned about the beginnings of a new open source world emerging. Linus Torvalds had not yet unleashed the wave of Linux which was to come years later in 1991, I believe. But we were already writing code and sharing it on the campus with various organizations that included the Math Olympiad.

Since then, I have been passionate about open source. But my ambitions go beyond open source. I believe that a vast majority of the population in the world will likely not be exposed to software, leave alone not being exposed to open source. So what people really need is free tools and apps that work on the web. But I should say, I am not really satisfied with what I see out there. I see a phenomenon of web imperialism. My frustration arose from spending a lot of time on google sites. Although I love some of it's features like hosting email and other apps, the web site hosting part just completely messed my mind. I just don't feel I am in control when all I want to create, is straightforward HTML. There is no way to get to the HEAD section of the page. This is ridiculous. I am now moving my stuff back to my linux boxes. As a hobby, I volunteer some of time helping non-profit organizations that would like to educate people about music. So yes, they don't have a big budget. What good is a tool, when it's only used only for storage and bandwidth management. So you just keep your videos, photos etc on these sites and use them remotely while hosting your domain on your own linux boxes? But what does google get from that?

Highlight any webpage instantly!

Rohit Chandra, who is a serial entrepreneur and a good friend of mine, is now on to his next mega-idea. This time it is a big web 2.0 splash with an interesting twist ... highlight any web page instantly, as if you have a highlighter. So when you send web links to people now you can have them focus on what you want them to read, rather than read a whole web page. In this busy world no one has time to read the whole webpage. What you want is a quick way to tell something that was so much possible in the classical world of pen and paper.

I like his website name:

http://www.roohit.com

This is a derivative of his own name. I know Rohit, ever since I met him in Informix, where I was a web architect for the world's first media project in Java in early 1995 when the web was fresh from the oven. At that time, I was building an SOA startup for network management. And in Rohit, I saw the fire that the entrepreneurs have. He was restless and would never give up thinking how he would change the world. A few years later he launched this startup called ECode which shook the world. It was his original patented idea and a real good one. Since then, I have been very impressed with his zeal and motivation to change the fabric of the web.

So what are you waiting for? Just go ahead and aim your browser at http://www.roohit.com and you will get addicted to this new way of highlighting web pages.

There's something about Rohit, I see him in the right places at the right time. He's got an amazing sense of communication and really stays on top of the fundamental aspects of what users need for the internet of tomorrow.