Adam Kalsey - Web Office Rockstar!
Adam may not realize it, but he is a Web Office Rockstar!
Adam Kalsey has created a simple Plug-In for MoveableType called Process Tags 1.
Adam may be a Rockstar, but he needs some help with the whole marketing image thing. The title of his first hit needs some work. Dude, you need a friggin a manager. Like that Malcolm McLaren guy who came up with "Forget the Bollocks, These are the Sex Pistols"! God Save the Queen!
Process Tags 1 is huge. It brings the power of plug-ins to the masses.
Web Office is going to be such a huge massive success because it gives bits and pieces of powerful communications tools to non-technical knowledge workers. With Adam's plug-in, any non-technical MovableType user can access plugins through their regular blog interface.
This changes the nature of what a blog can be, adding the ability to drop in interactive tools, like to-do lists, maps, even AJAX powered chat areas on a given topic.
Why is this so important? Not everyone who will end up using Web Office technology will want to get under the covers and understand things like teamplates and MT tags.
Adam's little plug-in in the begining of the set of tools that will mean that Web Office users will never have to actually code - if they don't want to. For example, when Process Tags 1 plug-in is combined with eightbehind software's MTGoogleMaps, and some yet to be invented WYSIWYG map button that runs user through an AJAX powered input screen, it will be trivial for a Web Office blog users to drop a map right into their entry.
Right now, I don't know of something that does all that, but we are close. Instead, today you have to tag a little.
<M_TGoogleMaps
address="560 Mission, San Francisco, CA, 94105"
info="My office is on the
15th floor of 560 Mission"
width="500px" height="500px" zoom="4">
</M_TGoogleMaps> The code above is not exactly right. I put an underline that isn't needed. Just change M_T to MT and you have you map added to your blog post! Here's the map:
Bottom line - Web Office is about empowering users. Not all Innovaiton Creators will want to learn the nuts and bolts of how a blog works - but they will all want access to the latest and greatest plug-ins.
Adam Kalsey's Process Tags 1 plug-in gives them that power in MoveableType.
Comments
I don't know that I'd call it my first hit. The Amazon plugin came out first and was much more popular. Or my related entries mechanisms. Or Simplecomments. Or any of the other couple of dozen plugins I wrote.
In fact, Process Tags was written as a way to allow people to embed Amazon data into their entries using the Amazon plugin.
It's also important to note that there are some serious potential security implications when using this plugin, especially if you have certain other plugins available.
Many MT plugins have some powerful capabilities that are tantamount to allowing fulll shell and FTP access to your server. That's not a problem generally because the only people with access to them are those who can edit templates. Usually people with template editing privledges are a trusted group. But Process Tags allows anyone with authorship privledges to run MT tags. If you have the Perlscript or MySQL plugins installed, you are giving plugin authors the ability to run arbitrary code and SQL statements on your server.
So don't install and use this plugin lightly.
Posted by: Adam Kalsey | December 19, 2005 12:01 PM