One button to rule them all...

If you read the earlier post about the new browser extension, you will would have realized that we no more have the "Send" and "Save" buttons. The functionality to both share with friends and to save to your activities on Jambool is all available from one button, and one dialog.

There are more changes in the offing -- especially around sharing with friends. Stay tuned.

Toolbar upgrade...

Jambool just released an upgraded version of the Firefox browser extension. For one, it comes with the right Jambool branding. Besides, it is a lot less intrusive than the current one.

When you install the new extension, it will give you the ability to clip your favorite parts of the web, including videos, from the right click menu.



Jambool icon and clip invoker also sits in your status bar at the bottom of the browser, and you can use that to invoke the clipper as well.



Finally, Jambool's extension also lives as an optional button in your browser and you can choose to install this button anywhere you want on your browser toolbar. It is small enough to fit right next to the address bar. This button gives your a drop down menu to jump directly to your destinations on Jambool.

Launched new interface...

We rolled out an updated interface for Jambool activities. Besides a lot of the issues with sections that we fixed, it also helps you publish very professional views of things you do... Check it out!

Jambool is in private beta!

We rolled out to private beta on June 1. If you've used Jambool when we first started testing the basic idea back in November, then you'll recognize a lot of stuff you've written to us about. We've been listening. :)

The response to the new release has been heartening -- there's layers of functionality that I'm sure you'll enjoy discovering. When I look around online, Jambool is the most complete and rich online research and collaboration platform. Sure, there are a lot of things we are still learning, but this will never end -- and I hope it never does.

What's next? We are actively looking for companies to partner with -- people with phyciscally separate teams, or companies who look require an online collaboration tool for their customers or for themselves. We'd love to hear from you -- and we'd love to get a chance to amaze you with Jambool's abilities.

In terms of features -- there's a long roadmap already sketched out. First, the basics. You'll see constant revisions on the site, and notes about them here -- I promise to be more dilligent from now on. We rolled out a simple revision yesterday -- you can now upload your own photo to your profile (or you can choose from a variety of hats). One of the immediate things we are working on is simplifying the interface further, better starting pages and more features around your uploaded images, files and videos. Stay tuned!

P.S. If you're interested in an invite -- please email us at vikas-jamboolinvites@jambool.com.
For all other requests, questions, responses, feedback -- send us an email at vikas@jambool.com.

A couple of simple Rails techniques

The first is to do with making it straightforward to always populate some fields in database tables. I prefer to have most database tables have these two time fields: last_updated_at, and created_at. What you want to do is that last_update_at field is updated every time the database row is updated, and created_at is populated with the current time at the time the row is inserted.

I created a mixin "Database::Table" that defines the methods "#before_create" and "#before_save" to have the desired behaviour. Now, in your ActiveRecord classes, include this mixin, and you're done. Here's the code.

module Database

# This classes updates the timestamps on the database tables, and forces
# all subclassed tables to have created_at and last_updated_at tables
module Table

 def before_create
   self.created_at = Time.now
   self.last_updated_at = Time.now
 end

 def before_save
   self.last_updated_at = Time.now
 end

end

end

And the code that uses it:

require "rubygems"
require "activerecord"
require "database/table"

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
include Database::Table     
# code...
end  

The second technique is to use tables that have the "id" field to be something other than an integer -- the default type. We use another mixin for this: "Database::UuidBase."

require 'database/table'

module Database

# This class allows subclasses to use a guid/uuid based id
# instead of the sequential id used otherwise
module UuidBase

 include Database::Table 

 def before_create
   super
    self.id = uuid if self.id.nil?
 end

 def uuid
   # user your favorite library to generate a UUID
 end

end
end

You now include this mixin into your class to get both the behaviours. There are several reasons why one may want to do this.

Often there is a unique id for a table that we need to be a string, and not an integer. If it is a part of all or most of your search queries and is unique for every row, you can avoid having an additional index by replacing the default "id" column with this string.

If you use an integer field that gets auto_incremented, and you need access to this field after an insert, you have to typically load the row from the database again. This means you need to do a search, and you cannot search on the primary key -- "id." You therefore have to rely on a secondary index -- assuming you have a secondary index. Howevery, by populating a unique number _before_ it is saved into the database, you have access to the "id" field after the insert without the need to reload it from the database.

Jambool is in Alpha

The website is live -- but it is still in private alpha. If you have an account, you are probably already browsing, sharing tasks and sending emails. If you are interested in taking a peek at what Jambool's about, drop me a note at: vikas-jamboolinvites -at- jambool.com.

So what is it all about? In part, it's a way for people to save content and context as they spend time online -- both from the browser and from emails. It's also about organizing content into tasks -- task that this content is relevant for. Jambool attempts to automate as much of it as possible -- it finds the best task for your content, it gives you simple, easy to use tools to move your content around and to start tasks. Jambool, though, is also about collaboration -- collaborate on tasks with others, discuss content with them and more.

Eventually, Jambool's also about search and discovery. Cut short your time to find something useful -- browse things others have discovered for tasks siimilar to yours.

On Long tails and minorities

It sucks to be a part of the long tail.

Of late there's been a quite a bit of talk and coverage about the long tail. Sure, there's huge value in mining the long tail. How can you organize content so that the long tail users can find it? And similar other business mantras. No debate there.

But imagine what it is like to be a part of the long tail. You are a minority that very few people care about. You make so little difference to the democratic system that ignoring you or antagonizing you probably makes little difference to the state of affairs. Here is an example. I recently had to reset the password for my small business online banking account with Bank of America. And I did not remember the one PIN number they needed to be able to reset the password. So I called their custoemr service. I challenge you to connect with the representative who can tell you what to do or who will even say they are the right person to help you. I form a small minority of their customers, and on top of that, my need for small business online banking for the state of California probably is an even more remote edge case for them. And it is no fun to be an edge case.

This is one area where the Web, potentially, can help. Whether you are a part of the long tail, or the thick head, what you are looking for never really seems too far. But is this really true? How many times have you changed your keywords on a search engine to different combinations in order to tweak the results? Can the entire web really be ranked in one order of usefulness for everyone?

Open your eyes!

"Abre los ojos" -- so goes the morning wakeup call in an interesting Spanish movie by the same name. Open your eyes.

Welcome to the first entry of the Jambool blog. Thank you for visiting! and many more thanks for your interest in Jambool.

Just as our home says, Jambool is still in the "coming soon" mode. We are actively developing towards the first alpha release. Stay tuned!

If anything we need at this moment, it's more hours in the day, and an ability to stay awake for that many hours -- better yet, productive. But wait, that part is done!. Now we just need more hours. Till then, bear with us!