Ray Ozzie, CEO of Groove, has been blogging mostly about blogging and occasionally social software.  His exploration-style writing has attracted a large following, but I doubt his blog has generated sales for Groove.  Until now, that is.  Today, he raved about TeamDirection, a third-party Groove application along with a cool screenshot.

I don't think Ray was trying to do anything other than give an honest opinion about a great piece of software, but I believe the effect on the bottomline will be tremendous.  Most people just don't realize that Groove is an application platform.  The best way to sell an application platform is to do what Ray did today, evangelizing applications.  And don't forget to throw in eye-candies!

Russell writes

"Well, I've spent the last week or so working with Cocoon and I give up. I can't get any real work done with it, so I'm moving on." - Russell Beattie via Marc Canter

Right on the ball.  I played around with Cocoon, but gave up on it eventually.  I find Java still good for server works, but found JSP and Struts to be inappropriate for a lot of applications.  I now discourage my clients from using Java if they don't have a significant Java resources already in place.  Dolts who read a few Java books and passed Java certification tests don't qualify as significant Java resources.  For most applications, going with PHP or Python will get you the same thing for a lot cheaper to create and evolve.  I am warming up to ASP.NET as well.

I visited an accupuncture specialist today to finally fix my stuffy nose.  It was interesting.  The doctor (accupuncturist?) put eight needles on my nose, four on each side.  It didn't hurt much and, after a while, my nose felt numb.  When I looked down, the needles looked like cat's whiskers.  Is my nose fixed now?  Nope, I have nine more visits.  Hey, I am a cat with nine lives to go!

BambooKit packs a good looking responsive GUI toolkit into a 105K jar file that loads in less than a second (0.18 seconds on my laptop).  GUI is specified using XUL-like XML file, making it easy to change and without having to recompile Java code.  While its Look & Feel could use just a bit more polishing (visual quality is uneven across widgets), what you get is vast improvement over generic AWT.

BambooKit runs everywhere Java runs including handheld devices (its certainly small enough to fit into J2ME phones).  It is like a commercial version of Thinlet.  Go check out their online demo (look for the Demos tab which is implemented using BambooKit as well) .  You'll be impressed.

Russell and his fellow mobile gang are going gaga over Nokia 3650.

Believe it or not, I haven't had a cellphone for a year now which probably makes me a modern day caveman to some people.  I don't have a cellphone because it felt like a lifeline wrapped around my neck all the time.  Yes, I could turn it off anytime, but I never did, except in meetings, because I felt paranoid about being out of touch.

Same thing with Internet.  When I am working on something, I disconnect from the Net completely.  I am resisting the temptation of WiFi with all my power.  Connectivity is as addictive as nicotine, folks.  And, frankly, I can live without being hardwired into rest of the world all the time.

Still, I might get Nokia 3650 for development.  Really.  I swear it is for development only.  Argh.  I better call my Connectivity Addicts Anonymous sponsor.  Here it is, 555-1212.