This blog.

I've been at AOL for about 2 years now (yoinks, it goes fast). I've been working on revamping our applications and the infrastructure that support them for, well, pretty much that whole time. Its been slower going than I'd like, but we've reached at least the end of the beginning. That is to say, there's a LOT more to do still...

I hope that some of that journey is of interest, so expect to hear more about the what's, why's and how's. This is intended to be an "industry" blog - that is, lots of stuff about work and the industry in general.

To provide some context to future posts, my group shipped (I've been running the desktop applications group), over the last 6 months: AIM Triton 1.0 (www.aim.com), AOL Explorer 1.1 and 1.2 (some technology differences worth discussion there), Internet Access Controls 2.0 (parental web controls for Broadband), Computer Checkup 4.0 (, AOL Connectivity Service 4.0 (our connectivity engine), the AOL Suite 1.0 Preview, AOL AntiSpyware 2.0, and the AOL Security Center 1.0, among very many other things.

Scarily (other than ACS 4.0) its been basically all new code, on an all new foundation that we call the Open Client Platform (OCP). Despite various version numbers on the apps themselves, they're all basically 1.0 applications. By that I mean they share almost no code with previous versions (in any really recognizable form). Not sure its the path I would have, left to my own devices, chosen, but there you have it. As I tell my teams all the time: may not have been smart, but it is impressive. Here I'll share some of the gore :)