March update
Whatever happened to project March? Well, I have built a prototype and am working on the user experience, which is quite different from what was originally envisioned. March piggybacks on top of existing workflows and protocols, sort of insinuating itself into everyday work without being obtrusive. Some elements of March are available in high-end products and can be cobbled together, sort of, using pieces of everyday tools. But without unified management or reporting mechanisms for managers and team members to use. Why haven't I pushed it out the door yet? I have talked through all the usability scenarios with friends and colleagues, but need to do a bit of real world testing. So, next month I will be putting it to the test with a client. If it works as expected, I will launch sometime in August or September. Development took a radical turn recently. Originally March was built using Rails, MySQL and a commercial server product that shall remain unnamed. In the last couple weeks, I have been experimenting with a new stack that consists of Ruby (Sinatra and EventMachine), Redis, Nginx and good old fashioned NFS. Sometime next week I should know if this new stack performs as envisioned. If so, it should scale a mile wide and a few inches (rack space?) deep. Don't think its uber cool. It just sprinkles productivity boosts in the right places.
