Firefox 3.5
Firefox 3.5 is not as fast as I have expected but faster than Firefox 3.0. Especially the Javascript to DOM bridge is still not fast. I am sure they will clear the bits of lagging parts in updates.
Follow latest NeuroKernel Development News On Twitter
You can now follow latest NeuroKernel development conveniently on Twitter.
NeuroKernel as a Linux Desktop
NeuroKernel has reached to a state that it can be used as a Linux desktop. A XULRunner based NeuroKernel Linux desktop is planned in a near feature. Especially porting AjaxTerm to NeuroKernel made this innovative idea fired up.
AjaxTerm for NeuroKernel
We have been porting AjaxTerm by Antony Lesuisse to NeuroKernel. The NeuroKernel’s native terminal is not a VT terminal. It is only designed to support NeuroKernel Applications. AjaxTerm is a good VT terminal with a cross platform backend. We will make a port of AjaxTerm available to NeuroKernel. We are rewriting the javascript part. AjaxTerm uses python for its backend server which will be communicated via a NeuroKernel service so that it can scale to multiple servers.
We will also add a special extension to the terminal for NeuroKernel protocol which will open the way to run standalone NeuroKernel applications at server.
NConnect based on XULRunner is complete
Our XULRunner based NConnect, NeuroKernel Connection management tool, is complete. We will continue to provide the Firefox and Seamonkey NConnect extensions.
Innovating on Marvell SheevaPlug Development Kit
Wow! I am shocked to see where we are with the current technological advancements. The Marvell SheevaPlug wall pluggable computer in the size of a cell phone adapter has just dropped my jaw. It has 1.2GHz arm compatible CPU plently of flash disk and memory, USB 2.0 and Gigabit ethernet. All that is for $100 and the price tag will probably go down further. I will order one this week but do not except to receive it until July because they are backlogged with orders. I am particularly interested with this product because It runs Linux and will run NeuroKernel.
Mobile browsers and NeuroKernel
Although NeuroKernel renders %100 on all latest embedded browsers (WebKit based, IE 6 mobile, Mozilla Fennec), the event handling in these browsers are very different than their desktop counterparts. We will have to handle events differently for each mobile browser, plus we have to limit the number of mobile browsers officially supported. Because of this, we have decided to not officially support mobile browsers in NeuroKernel 2.0.
On the other hand, we will design a mobile NeuroKernel desktop which will fit the available mobile browser area. Mobile desktop will not have draggable windows. Hopefully, after getting valuable customer and community feedback, we can come up with an excellent mobile support.
We will leave NeuroKernel full desktop available to mobile browsers and try to put some limited mobile event support to the final v2.0 but do not expect too much.
NeuroKernel and Terracotta Server
We have removed a lot of clutter and made a lot of improvements in the last 2 months. We have improved our Server Runtime Context greatly since then. We want NeuroKernel to successfully run on Terracotta server because it meets all our expections on a large NeuroKernel server runtime deployment. NeuroKernel can run applications at server context even when running in client context(Java plugin) in version 2.0. This increases the value of clustering over a networked attached memory which Terracotta offers. Terracotta option will be available to all scalable NeuroKernel editions which can be turned on/off from the admin console.
A commercial license will be needed from Terracotta inc. to make this work for commercial usage. Unfortunately, we have no existing plans to offer a NeuroKernel edition bundled with a Terracotta server for now.
NConnect using XULRunner
NConnect, standalone NeuroKernel connection program, will also be shipped with XULRunner versions for PC, Mac and Linux. NConnect is already available in an IE based package. XULRunner is a great option for NConnect.
We will also offer Qt based packages in the future for WebKit option. We are awaiting Qt webkit library to start supporting Java Applets. It is already possible to create an NConnect like application using Qt 4.5.1 framework. However, it will only work in Server Runtime Mode. We will on the other hand create NConnect Server Runtime only packages for Embedded devices in a near future using Qt such as for Nokia S60.
In addition, new Mozilla technology called Prism can also be used to create NeuroKernel connection links to your desktop. We will open source our NConnect implementations so that developers can come up with their own ideas or rebrand for their own NeuroKernel use. Who knows in a near future we can see NeuroKernel Terminals like those X Terminals ;).
Outstanding Performance with NeuroKernel v2.0
NeuroKernel v2.0 has now outstanding performance in both Client Runtime Mode and Server Runtime Mode. It is easily the fastest web based platform on earth. The stability has been made rock solid in the first round of tests. We are now getting into second round of tests which also include stress tests. We will also test TerraCotta Server and fix the incompatible parts on our object tree. We will continue to profile NeuroKernel in terms of memory and CPU utilization in the second test phase.