Projects

Strand 1 works on many types of projects. We’ve done web applicaitons to infrastructure components, commercial applications and research projects. Many of our public projects (particularly services under 9srv) have grown out of our own internal tools.

KaleChips

KaleChips is an online ordering and order tracking system built for City Fresh, north-east Ohio’s first non-proffit Community Supported Agriculture gorup. City Fresh had started off using paper spreadsheets to track current and future orders, and had long since outgrown that. They had tried using an off-the-shelf software system built for CSAs, but some of their unusual requirements, driven by their non-profit mission, made that a poor fit which produced bad results. Strand 1 worked with City Fresh staff and directors to design a system which would meet their needs, improve reliability of orders, and open up new capabilities to staff, volunteers, and customers.

Design work on KaleChips began in 2014, with development beginning shortly thereafter. The system went into production for staff and volunteers with the 2015 season, and customers functionality went live the following year. Work is ongoing.

We have a longer introduction to KaleChips, as well.

9srv.net

9srv is an installation of Plan 9 from Bell Labs offering related public services to the community behind that system. In addition to public general-purpose Plan 9 accounts, 9srv provides a 9p-based text snippet service (similar in spirit to pastebin), venti-based backups and a score submission service, and a public faces(1) database, among other services.

9srv initially launched in 2001 as a set of private community services. Strand 1 took over responsiblity for these services and began offering them publically in 2008.

Minerva

Minerva is a highly flexible web server for Inferno. It offers an unusual balance of features, performance, and footprint.

pq

Pq is the first implicit-relational database. Unlike traditional SQL-like relational databases, the schema defines the relations between data elements, so applications don’t need to. Pq is heavily read-optomized and fits best as a directory system or integration layer. It has been used as the central directory for corporations with hundreds of thousands of users, a routing component in large email installations, and a back-end for custom web development.

Pq was created by Bell Labs, and the core of version 4 was release as Open Source in 2002. Strand 1 has offered an updated version of that release since 2008. The updated release is still available, but development is on hold.

Coop

A social financial ledger. Various versions have been in and out of use for many years; development is currently on hold.