I’ve finally gotten around to fully open source my various applications, factoring and debugging the code, commenting and applying all the necessary licenses and other miscellaneous logistical duties to get my two AIR applications up and out there.

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Practical Desktop

Practical Desktop appears to be a simple timekeeping application, though in reality it’s an open source widget framework that allows pretty much anyone to build a deployable block of functionality that can start interacting with other widgets. The wrapper’s there for you, go nuts. The source is here

From a personal perspective, I use it as a beta and explorative sandbox, because there are a lot of interesting things coming out in the near future that I’d like to offer some guidance on development best practice, and to do so I will have to figure it out myself first. Rest assured that the widgets I build will be functionally complete, though perhaps limited in feature support.

Pandora

The Pandora Desktop application is really just a customized webkit browser that’s hardwired to the Pandora mini player. I’ve fixed the application so minimization works in Windows, and expanded it to include the player’s html wrapper as well. The reason I did this is because Pandora’s a free service, and I’d like to make sure that I’m not ripping them off by stripping out the ads. Optimally I’d like to help them convert their existing player to AIR, but until I have free time (or they pay me ) that won’t happen.

So there I was, hacking away at AIR, and my iPod runs out of batteries. I was in that rare coding zen where you really need the audio to lock you out from the rest of the world, so I was fairly annoyed that the random conversation here at Apropos suddenly started to interfere with my productivity. No worries though, I could always resort to Pandora, right?

Now, I’m not a big fan of Pandora. Don’t get me wrong, I love what they’re doing and have found some phenomenal music there, but the fact that I always have to keep a browser window open to make use of their service has kindof annoyed me, and now was no different. I could deal with it though for the sake of productivity…. until I realized that AIR came with its own embedded WebKit browser.

Part of the builder’s mentality is a certain can-do attitude: There’s no challenge that cannot be surmounted, no problem that cannot be solved, no issue that cannot be resolved through some creative application of talents. This is actually the easiest way to figure out if you’re talking to a Builder. If you give him a problem, the first question will be : "How do I solve it", rather than "Why should I solve that". It doesn’t matter whether it’s a good idea, whether there’s any use to it, or whether anyone wants it (which is why we have CRM’s): If you get one inspired he’ll find a solution come hell or high water, and God help you if you try to put on the brakes.

My coworker Tommy and I are builders. We go to lunch regularly and we think of neat things to do. In our conversations we talk about new tech, and since neither one of us shy’s away from learning a new language or fiddling with a new toy, the ideas of what is possible just fly. In course of this conversation we come up with some pretty viable business concepts and application ideas. We’ve imagined iPhone applications, conventions that would appeal to a specific demographic, everything from creating the Starbucks of milk bars to reasonably plausible ways of taking over the world.

Our dilemma though is this: What do you work on? There are only so many hours in the day, and the demands of everyday life continue to suck away at grand dreams and visions. Prioritization is important, but with so many interesting things to pursue it’s often hard to put an impassioned new discovery aside in favor of something previously deemed more important. Would you rather explore a new business concept, or… do laundry? A difficult decision, and one I’ve struggled with on my own on many occasions.