Posted by Steve Chazin on Wed, Mar 26, 2008 @ 01:40 PM
Blog post by Saurav Mohapatra
The first version of Dimdim was (and the conference server part of the current version still is) a java web application running in Tomcat. We’ve slowly been moving towards more native components in our server stack on a case by case basis. Not to be drawn into Java vs. Other server tech debates, this move is a part of a growing consensus about leveraging the OS provided capabilities to the fullest to achieve high throughput, optimal performance while balancing that out with development cost / learning curve.
For our latest feature, the Screen share capability, we switched to a C++ based FastCGI application behind the NGINX webserver.
The move was done after a lot of thought and exploration. For the traffic pattern of something like desktop sharing, the current java technologies simply did not add up. A typical screenshare traffic pattern transmits around 1-2 mb of data for a 1280 X 1024 for per minute of share for something “heavy” like Powerpoint slide show or Full screen image viewing. Thus we switched to a robust native technology server. The app was written using FastCGI technology and first version ran behind the lighttpd server. As we continued testing, we found better performance especially for longer duration shares with the NGINX web server and thus that was chosen finally as the front server for the desktop screencasting application.
We built on top of the tried and trusted RFB protocol of VNC adding HTTP/S communication layer using libcurl for publishing the desktop stream.
The viewer was adapted from FVNC code base from OSFlash and we added tight encoding to it along with HTTP/S communication layer.
The point I’m trying to make here is that we built on top of existing robust components and application and were able to achieve significant progress in a shorter duration than if we’d have developed the whole thing from scratch.
Now this whole exercise kind of paraphrases and proves what I have always believed about open source. It is an organic philosophy, perhaps one of the best displays of the most positive sides of human nature. You build something based on stuff that someone has been built before and others after you will use the stuff you’ve developed to build their own.
It is a really wonderful philosophy and in this geek’s opinion perhaps one of the best ways to live life.
Posted by Steve Chazin on Fri, Mar 07, 2008 @ 12:56 AM
Blog post from Tuhin Sengupta:
So can customer satisfaction actually lead to job satisfaction? Let me tell you how this thought got planted in my head. My job at Dimdim is to talk to customers, inform them about our product and eventually sell it. Recently, I was reading stuff on job satisfaction. So at that moment I asked myself, " Am I getting job satisfaction at Dimdim? Am I really happy working these long hours talking to customers ?" The first thought that came to my mind was not the compensation and benefits, not the working conditions, not the leadership which normally are the factors that would determine the concept of job satisfaction. What was it then? Was it the job itself? The challenges? So as I thought through more clearly I asked myself another question, " what is it that brings a smile to my face when I am working at Dimdim? What is it that keeps me going ?" The answer was the innumerous times my customers said, " thank you" or "we love working with your guys" or " I appreciate the quick turnaround" . It was actually these notes of appreciation which made me think aloud that customer satisfaction = job satisfaction.
Now some of you may not buy this point of mine, however, think real deep and you will see that whatever positive step is being taken by you in your job has an impact on somebody out there. If I can strike the right connection with my customers and they feel they can depend on me it simply gives me joy which cannot be measured . Nothing can make Dimdim more happy to know that their customer's crucial business deals depends on them. So let me share with you a particular line, from an email which our CEO had sent some time back, when a client of ours generously appreciated our product and services.
" Team,
Awesome!!!
Well done!!!
Pure music. Better than Beethoven's Moonlight Piano Sonata & Bhimsen Joshi's Ramkali.
I love these moments!!! I live for them. "
Reading the above, I can see the reality in the thought Customer Satisfaction = Job Satisfaction. Can you?
Tuhin