OpenID 2.0 support

In my earlier post about OpenId, I mentioned that IdPrism implementation was easy and straight-forward to use. However, they don't support OpenId 2.0 specification, and their website is inaccessible since long... I guess they flew away! So, I switched to OpenId4Java implementation for better support. Frankly speaking, I was amazed at its simplicity & documentation, and it was a breeze to make the switch. My webapp (Saywit) now supports both OpenId-1.x and OpenId-2.0 standards.

Garden in a Box

I was fascinated when I first heard the concept of an EarthBox. It is a high-tech growing system in a controlled environment that doubles the yield of a conventional garden, and requires less fertilizer, less water and virtually no effort. They claim that the results has been proven in the lab and on the farm. In simple words, its just a plastic box in which you can grow your garden.

Early this month, Google participated in The Growing Connection by planting several EarthBoxes in its garden at MountainView campus. The Garden was planned in cooperation with the Chefs at Google. This is a great initiative to give a boost to the EarthBox campaign, and benefit from it as well. Check out the video...



I'm not sure about how affordable it is... but it is a viable option for our backyard.

The making of Saywit

Below is brief story on how Saywit was made...

Several months ago, I was pondering on what kind of a web2.0 application to create. I wanted to stay away from the "Me-Too" model of existence, and provide a substantial value to my users.

While having this in mind, I came across a few interesting blog posts related to Creativity on Lifehack. The following points were key to the forming of the base idea.
# Become a whole-brain thinker.
# The final tool for developing your creativity is imaginary dialogue.

These articles essentially answered my question "What value should I provide to my users?". Also inspired from the humor & wit filled posts at Ouch-My-Toe, I decided the central theme of my webapp would be to share the wit and creativity in people.

I did more research, and short-listed 6 channels. This concept is much different from Q&A sites whose focus is on knowledge (not creativity). This is sure refreshing and vitalizing!

Having got the business plan laid out, its now all about implementation. OpenId came to my rescue in providing an easy way for users to login and interact. I used Spring framework and Hibernate along with MySql to build the application.

The site incorporates several web2.0 concepts like REST-API, Widgets, RSS-feeds and Tags. After several months of hard-work on weekends all by myself, it was finally good to go. I formally launched Saywit on May 5, 2007 (my mom's birthday).

Launching 'Saywit'

Today is the day... I'm launching my ambitious web2.0 application 'Saywit'. It is a social webapp to express our creative abilities of problem-solving and out-of-box thinking. Saywit is a unique & first of its kind social experiment. As the tagline states, we love Creative minds and Cognitive Brains!

It has 6 channels to start with.

* Witty Chat: Snippets of conversations
* Epigram: Define or Explain in style
* Imagine: Fiction everywhere
* Brainstorm: Innovative ways to do stuff
* Algorithm: Treat for Software Developers
* Puzzle: Logic filled brain-teasers

Users can create scenarios for any of the 6 channels, and/or make creative entries for any scenario in Saywit. Check it out, and let me know if you like it. More enhancements will be made in a couple of days... Have fun!