I’ve been thinking about moving some of my older email out of a rather large Outlook PST into GMail, mainly for backup purposes. However, since this is far from a unique idea, I decided to see what others have done to solve this problem.

First I discovered Mark Lyon’s PHP-based Google GMail Loader (GML), which in addition to loading email, it can also be used as a remote to backup tool (I think there’s a 7.5M file limit imposed by Google).

Ray Slakinski put together a wicked little Python application called Nucleus, which will monitor a BitTorrent Tracker RSS file for .torrent files that match a series of keywords.

Once a match is found, the file is queued for download.

Using cron or the Windows Scheduler, you can program Nucleus to fire in the middle of the night downloading while you sleep :-)

In Ray’s example, he is using it to grab TV shows, but I suppose you can use it to grab any .torrent file — assuming of course that your tracker of choice has an RSS feed.

Based on a news.com story and /. thread, it seems like we’re “gonna party like it’s 1999” Again! (remember myWebOS)

However this time IBM may possibly be able to pull this off. I don’t think IBM’s effort will significantly deplete MSFT’s 90% market share of the desktop software market, but perhaps they will carve out enough to make it a viable and cheaper alternative.

From the news.com story: “The new software, part of IBM’s Lotus Workplace strategy, is a bundle that includes e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet and database applications aimed at business users. The package also includes server-based management software, as well as software to run productivity applications on handheld devices.”

Don Park gives a good overview of BitTorrent, but also provides an interesting perspective on how blog software in general could utilize BitTorrent technology.

“In my opinion, flash flood nature of blogs will be well served by BitTorrent. Likewise, link-happy nature of blogs will complement BitTorrent well. Ultimately, I think a tailored variation of BitTorrent should be built into blog clients and servers for download sharing of feeds, images, enclosures, and other blog-related resources. BitTorrent will encourage media-rich blog posts without applying power-law to the bloggers’ wallet. BitTorrent means blog torrents.”

Les Orchard “Now I just have to write a shell that treats URLs as executable commands.”

Jon Udell: “A picture can be worth a thousand words. But a URL can be worth half a dozen pictures. When application behavior is expressed [as a web service], you empower your community of users to share it directly. And Google, which can zero in on URLs and URL fragments in Web pages posted by those users, becomes your tireless and efficient helpdesk assistant.”

From an article in InfoWorld: “The emergence of web services looks to be a life preserver for the ASP business model”

they’re discussed in this article, which is worth a read …

“Forget what you know about Web services. Forget what you know about application service providers. Microsoft and Oracle are quietly building a new software delivery and management model that could dramatically change the way corporations acquire, distribute and use software.”

from: ZDNet Interactive Week

an interesting article detailing how lotus plans to offer it’s collaboration applications as web services:

“The centerpiece of Lotus’ announcements will be a Web services enablement kit that allows developers to take components of Lotus collaboration applications and embed them as Web services in other Lotus applications or in non-Lotus Web applications.”

From: ZDNet: eWEEK: Lotus to offer Web services kit to developers

from slashdot: “Clay Shirky has an interesting article on Hailstorm on OpenP2P.com. He looks especially at how MS mixes decentralization with strong control of third party development and user data. Think of it as an authentication-centric, rather than hardware-centric system.”