We’ve mentioned in the past that we’re no longer supporting or developing Strip on the PalmOS platform. Even so, people still ask about looking at the code and making updates. Strip for Palm OS is free and open-source software, so we’ve pushed the code up to Github to facilitate any further development others may wish to do. It’s the beauty of open source – feel free to fork it, hack it, send pull requests, or release your own version. Fair warning – the code was written a long time ago on an ancient (in relative terms) platform so it might leave something to desired if you’re used to more modern toolkits!

It’s been in the news for a few days: two of the MySQL execs, Martin Mickos and Monty Widenus, are leaving Sun Microsystems, Sun having bought and absorbed MySQL AB.

I’ve always been a Sun fan (Solaris FTW), but it’s a well-known joke that being bought-out by Sun is the kiss of death. So what happens to MySQL now, and what happens in the open-source database space? Drizzle, an open-source and derivative project led by Brian Aker, doesn’t seem to have clearly defined its space (“the cloud?”), with people wondering if it’s really just a SQLite competitor (alternative might be a better turn of phrase because it’s got a long way to go before it could “compete” with SQLite). Speculation aside, what is known is that it drops many of the features that make MySQL a full-featured relational database.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think that we have a winner, the elephant in the room: PostgreSQL. Somebody’s gotta say it. Sorry to gloat. PostgreSQL is and has been “the most advanced open-source database,” long before these MySQL upstarts came along.

In the end, MySQL was never a completely open project. MySQL AB offered a GPL version but only included code that they owned the copyright to. Contributing developers wouldn’t see changes included in the core unless they were rewritten by MySQL AB or donated (read sign over their IP) to the company. It’s pretty heinous to tout such a model as an open-source success story, and it looks like the opposite is now true: MySQL is clearly floundering.

It’s a been a little while since I’ve given any kind of update on our progress with STRIP for the iPhone platform. We’ve been hammering away at our data model and at this point I think we’ve arrived at a fairly stable first implementation and work-flow for the app. After changing it what seems a billion times, I think we’ve got it. For now.

There are still some tweaks we need to make before we start the beta of the initial version. Also of note: wireless backup and sync won’t be available in the initial version. It will be done, oh yes, and it will be done well, but not in time for the first release. We want to at least get this out there for Strip fans to test it out and make sure we’re going in the right direction here. This feature is really important to us, as it’s one of the features that really made the previous versions of Strip stand out, and we’re committed to its implementation.

We’ve put together a mailing list just for Strip (low volume, announcement only) for those of you who want to be alerted directly when we’re ready to do the beta. Sign up for it over on the Strip page.

We still need to put together an export tool for old Palm OS Strip users who want to migrate to various systems, and a means to import that export into the iPhone version. We intend to have that piece in place by the end of the beta, before we go live, but I can’t commit to a time-frame just yet.

Thanks again for your patience as we work hard to get this right.

On the 37Signals blog today there was some talk about Axl Rose and Frank Sinatra, two musicians I love to gab about:

Sinatra’s one take style produced classics. Axl’s dithering produced a pile of mush. We can all learn something from that. It’s easy to fall into a trap of nitpicking over things that don’t really matter. Instead, focus on the essence of what you’re doing. Press record, get it done, and get it out there.

Lately I’ve taken our first takes on demos for the new band, or just scrapping them and coming back to it when the time is right. Sometimes that means a different approach, sometimes a better room sound. I almost always go for a first take on a guitar solo, if I don’t double it with another one for maximum shred \m/.

With that in mind, an update on our progress with Strip should be forthcoming.

Something is apparently cooking over at unspace, the people who’s brainchild was the RubyFringe conference last Summer.

I’d been thinking of trying to put together some kind of geek talent show or battle of the band geeks or what have you, and talking to some other hackers about it (as in Zed and Hampton), and this is bringing the idea back into my head. (I’m a bit of a ham, so I’m inclined to do these sorts of things.)

Zed’s Freehacker’s Union (FU) is a really cool group/grouping/idea and he’s pretty into doing technology and instrument hacking and the idea of putting together regular presentations or performances. I had been thinking of just trying to find the various Rubyists and hackers in the amorphous community who have bands or performance projects and get them all to play some show together in tandem with a conference like RubyFringe or as some kind of accompanying nighttime event. There seems to be interest in this sort of thing. Hampton had mentioned he was looking to put together some kind of website or page presenting hacker music projects (or maybe mixtapes??? just occurred to me now).

Anyway, enough thinking out loud from me, there’s work to be done.

July 9-12: the nerds are planning something!