If you are a fan of myOSity, you probably know that it runs on top of Microsoft’s excellent Silverlight platform.  We’ve been with Silverlight since version 2.0 and remain committed to it for many reasons which I won’t get into here (plenty of blogs out there with “Silverlight vs. Flash” posts…).

Silverlight 4 (beta 1) brings a host of new enhancements that will, in turn, allows us to add some really cool features to myOSity in the near future.  Check out this list:

• myOSity on your desktop!  Technically we could give this to you now with SL3, but there isn’t really a compelling reason to do so.  With SL4, we’ll be able to add a whole host of new capabilities that we can’t offer in the browser…
• Printing.  SL4 now supports the ability for printing, an oft requested feature from the Silverlight developer community.  Thanks to Microsoft for listening!
• Html support.  We’ll be able to give you a mini web browser/RSS experience in myOSity without hacks and workarounds.
• Local file system access.  You’ll be able to drag and drop your local files right into myOSity, and access them from any other computer if you upload them to your myOSity file system.
• Cross-domain support.  This is a technical term that means we’ll be able to write better mash-up applications, like Twitter clients, Facebook integration, etc.
• Webcam/microphone support.  Voice & Video-chat anyone?  Don’t expect this feature right away, but eventually we’ll be able to let you chat with your friends with voice and video through myOSity.

And much more!  Too many to list really, but you get the idea… good things are coming!  I should also mention that, at this time, Microsoft hasn’t licensed SL4 for public use yet, but rest assured, we’ll be moving quickly to take advantage of the new version as soon as it becomes publicly available.

If you want all the nitty gritty details, you can click here to check out the official announcement regarding SL4 Beta.

First rule of blog-club: Do not write boring blogs.

Oh well, I've never been known as someone who kept a close eye on the rules.  But I will try to keep things as interesting as I can.

This blog, as I'm sure you've already surmised, is dedicated to the myOSity.com project.  myOSity.com, in short, is an effort to bring together the best parts of today's modern operating systems (slick UI's, etc), combined with the best aspects of today's profoundly impactful social networking websites (ala Facebook).

In my view, both of these platforms are suffering for lack of each other.  And so that's what we are attempting to do with this project: bring them together.  Don't get me wrong, I like Facebook, I like it a lot.  But it suffers from limitations of the HTML/Ajax model that prevent it from really becoming something amazing.   I also like Windows, Linux, and MacOS, but again these platforms, with all of their great UI and file management, and application features, only allow the user to interact with their real world in limited ways.

So to summarize, myOSity is 1-part OS, 1-part social networking, and 1-part web-accessible application platform (more on the technicals in future entries).   This project is the culmination of my over 20 years in the technology business, and much of the credit for my ability to do this goes to my many friends and colleagues who have given me the experience and skills to make it happen.  My vision is for myOSity to be THE next iteration of what's happening on the web.  We'll see...

I've actually started this blog a bit late.  myOSity development is well underway, and although I was hoping to this blog into myOSity, it will take a bit of time before I we can introduce such applications into the OS - mainly because of resource/time constraints.  But eventually this blog will be inside of myOSity.

I would like to end this entry on a personal note, by thanking family and in particular my wife Jasna, for their belief in me and this project.  Without their support, none of this would be possible.