April 2008 Archives

I’ve written about the return of the client-server model over on the SproutCore blog. When the web started to get big, the Great Enemy was the client-server model. This was the model that dominated in 80’s when every software vendor your purchased from required you to install some special software (the client) to talk to their server.

In many ways, client-server computing was superior to the central-server approach of the web. Software running on your PC is faster, often more friendly, and easier to use. Despite these strengths, the web has largely won out over the last decade because client-server models required you to download and install software while web-sites do not. Only a few client-server apps still make it today, such as Skype.

That is all about to change however. Client-server is poised to make a comeback, surprisingly, perhaps, because of advancements on the web itself. The truth is, web browsers are now powerful enough that we can realistically write entire applications in JavaScript and run them there. This means we can create true “thick” clients with the rich, speedy interfaces of the desktop, but in the browser where they can be run without having to install them first.

Mailroom is alive again!

You may experience some periodic slowness over the next few hours as we are adding all of the day’s email and finishing testing.

The heart of Mailroom is now running on the new duel quad-core processors (we call it the Ocho) with double the RAM. This will help tremendously during hours of heavy usage and big searches.

Thank you again for bearing with us as we work to create a better Mailroom everyday.

As always don’t hesitate to send any questions or comments. We love to hear from you!

Your Friends at Sproutit

Mailroom with be offline Sunday April 13th for upgrades to the servers.

There have been a number issues you all have been writing in about and we want you to know we are listening!

We have already tracked down several things that have cause Mailroom to become a little unstable during the middle of day and we are still on the case. The next step is beefing up the servers which will happen this Sunday during most of the day.

Mailroom will still pool all of the email and deliver it to your accounts as soon as we come back up Sunday night.

Thank for your understanding and we hope you enjoy the increased performance after this weekend.

Your Friends at Sproutit