Idea Overload

---

So these days I'm having a problem that comes and goes for me. It is an idea overload. I have so many different ideas running through my head that I end up not really focusing on any of them. So I'll enumerate them here so that I can at least look back later and see what I did or didn't focus on further.

The ideas I have are broken down between things that I would like to work on personally and things that can benefit the company I work for.

Personally

J2ME Schedule App for JavaOne 2005
Now that I have received my cell phone (still waiting for my number to be ported), I see that it can run J2ME apps. I would love to be able to load all of the sessions for JavaOne 2005 onto the phone. That way I can see where I am supposed to go next, plus have the ability if a session is full to find quickly my next favorite choice or a list of all of the other sessions at that time.

I have never written a J2ME app so this should be interesting with about 18 days to go till JavaOne. I have created some handheld stuff in C# for the .Net Compact Framework, so it will be interesting to see how the Java side compares.


Unified List Server
I would like to see a server application that can encapsulate all of the following into one dataset that can be added to our retrieved in whatever format the user likes:
NNTP - Newsgroups
Mailing List
Web Forums
RSS

Example: I really like the content available at JavaRanch.com, but I really hate going to a website and looking through the web forums to try and find things that are new that I have not read yet. What I would prefer is to retrieve the forums as newsgroups. That way my newsgroup reader presents everything to me in a nice threaded format with an easy way of seeing what is unread for me. I, personally, like newsgroups (thanks to the fantastic Sybase Newsgroups getting me hooked), but others may want it in mailing list format or RSS format with the ability to reply with comments.

I would like to see an app that does all of this but keeps all data in a central repository, so if you receive it in mailing list format, you reply to the message and it gets updated and is viewable by everyone in their respective preferred formats.

I really think that Apache James is the perfect platform for something like this to be built upon since it encapsulates most of those items already.

Open Source OFX Class Implementation in Java
Implement the OFX standard using something like Castor or JAXB and put it out on SourceForge for all to use. I've implemented a subset of the standard by hand (before I learned of tools like Castor) but would like to have the whole standard done.

Work Related

Open Source BizTalk like application
Microsoft's BizTalk while being extremely powerful also comes with an extremely powerful price tag. Sybase also has a similar product but it comes with a similar price tag as well. There is an existing app called BIE (Business Integration Engine), but I'm not sure how well maintained this product is or will be in the future. The forums on their site are fairly dead (of course it is GPL'd so I could maybe run with it and branch and fix myself).

Rules Engines
This is a solution looking for a problem for me. I'm positive this could be incorporated into our business, but just not sure exactly where it would fit. Drools has just released version 2.0 so I'm very interested in checking it out.

BPM (Business Process Management) and Workflow Engines
Another solution in search of a problem. There are a couple of open source products out there (jBPM, Java Workflow Editor, Open WFE) but I need to figure out where they would fit.

JBoss Application Server
JBoss looks pretty interesting and there are a couple of different things they are doing with it, need to see what it has to offer. This is a good question for the Cynergy Systems guys. Have you guys done much with JBoss?

(Sidenote with small plug: Got to meet some of these guys out at TechWave 2004 and have interacted with them in the Sybase newsgroups. They are definitely some sharp individuals and aren't afraid of hard problems, so if you need some consulting or training done you may want to give them a call.)


Oh well that is enough about things I want to work on, how about some neat links.

Very cool applications up at 37Signals.com that take advantage of the new AJAX paradigm (all the cool kids are doing it, why aren't you?). Check it out.

Also if you were just about to get around to registering for the free Sun Certified Java Associate Beta Exam...well, you snooze you lose. They have had enough people register for the exam, so they have closed registration.