

Pusher - Realtime client push service powered by websockets - dctanner
http://pusherapp.com

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Tawheed
This is really awesome; except as an app developer, I really rather get a
library that I own and have on my own infrastructure than a SaaS model,
especially for something so critical to my application.

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petercooper
If you just want the raw "back end WebSocket-compatible multiplexing daemon"
functionality, that's not hard to code/devise. You can use something like:
<http://github.com/gimite/web-socket-ruby> \- What services like Pusher
provide is all the API stuff on the front, maintaining the servers, keeping
those daemons running, and, well, just making it super easy to get going
without worrying about the back end so much.

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Tawheed
All the API stuff on the front I'd pay for. However, I'm already paying for
"maintaining servers, keeping them running, and worrying about the backend" --
so I don't want to pay for it again.

This might just be MY preference, and others might beg to differ.

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dctanner
Luke Redpath has also published an interesting post: Pushing events to your
iPhone using WebSockets and Pusher [http://lukeredpath.co.uk/blog/pushing-
events-to-your-iphone-...](http://lukeredpath.co.uk/blog/pushing-events-to-
your-iphone-using-websockets-and-pusher.html)

~~~
Splines
I've been using notifo to notify myself of the completion long-running
computing tasks.

Growl could probably do the same thing, but I already have notifo working and
I'm a cheapskate. (Plus, IIRC if I want to use Prowl I need to have Growl
running on a PC somewhere).

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Rauchg
Try Socket.IO: <http://labs.rosepad.com/socket.io/>

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andr
It's usually writing a good server that is the pain point here.

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Rauchg
<http://github.com/Rosepad/Socket.IO-node/> powered by Node.JS, check out the
basic chat app in 10 LoC

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a-priori
Oh, fun :) I'm just about to launch a similar service, called Zeropoll. It
seems you're pushing the event-handling logic to the client side, whereas
Zeropoll generates Javascript on the server (ala RJS) and pushes that to the
client.

Your demo apps are great, by the way. Just curious, what's your business model
going to be?

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dctanner
When we're out of beta we will be offering several plans, probably limiting
the max clients. There will always be a free plan though :)

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andr
This is great, I was thinking about making a similar app, but never got around
to it.

I'd love a simple ACL for channels. For example, you could do S3-style
channel+timestamp+hash authentication, with the hash generated on the server
with a secret key. Then for every channel I'd have channel17@r for read-only
access, channel17@w for write-only, and channel17 for rw access (default). The
way I understand the current system once I have the key for a channel I have
unlimited access to it forever.

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aaronblohowiak
I am working on something exactly like this, but as an open-source NodeJS
project.. it lets you define a parameter (by default, session_id) and then
checks a memcache instance for that key, and uses that to get access to
channels with a specific prefix (by default "user:")... so you can have a
channel "user:34343". This shoves authentication back into your app with the
only dependency being a memcache instance shared by the NodeJS server and the
web server. All of the other communication is similarly RESTful. if you want
an email when i've got more to show, let me know.

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krobertson
This sounds very interesting, but since it is a SaaS model and you are relying
on their infrastructure, what exactly are they looking at as their business
model? Freemium? Any idea of pricing?

It is something I could use in an app I'm working on right now, but I'm just
building a simple free tool and would be interested what their plan is for the
service before I get myself tied to it.

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sev
Looking good! One question: As I was checking out the "theater booking" demo,
I opened two windows, and in one window I checked out 2 seats. It required an
actual refresh on the other window to show the updated seating chart; however,
on the other app I tried (to-do list), that was not necessary.

Was this done on purpose?

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maxthelion
Sounds like a bit of a bug.

There may be minor glitches in the demo apps. They haven't been where we've
been focussing the majority of our energy :)

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Raphael
Great! Exactly what I need to supplement Google App Engine.

