Rodent Regatta

Twenty four 8 1/2in. x 5 1/2in. pages hold my web passwords. Firefox manages passwords fairly well, but the pages are beyond dog-eared due to frequent references required to log into a news service, software forum or web site.

Three questions remain unanswered in the whole arena of web 2.0, hosted, software-by-subscription, software-on-demand, utility computing, web apps…you get it. I talked about those questions earlier. Here’s the quick reminder:

• Who has my data and can I get a copy of it that is useful?
• What do I do when you—my web app provider—go away?
• Can you really survive the bubble?

Now, a far more eloquent essay about the matter exists. Joel Dueck has written The Nuclear Proliferation of Little Rails Apps. He hits on all the concerns, but with a more immediate focus on whether or not we are really more effective with dozens of specialized “little Rails apps.”

This one is drop-everything-read-it-right-now good.