Greetings,

If you have some extra time on your hands and would like to volunteer to 
work with the award-winning Irish designer, Matt Hutchinson (creator of 
www.ijug.org), as part of an effort to develop a really neat Java-powered 
web site for Noumenaut Software?s Open Source Skribe blogging system 
under development, I?d like to invite you to join our web team.

Noumenaut Software isn?t a legal entity, but a collaboration among Java 
enthusiasts who have come together to create useful software for anyone 
who might like to use it. Skribe is our first product, presently in the 
early stages of design. It is one among several future products that we 
hope will allow people to better communicate, organize, and collaborate 
together. Imagine a really souped-up Microsoft NetMeeting or Groove 
Networks? Groove, but web-based, and you?ll have a pretty good idea of 
what we?ve got it mind. We envision a portal providing far broader 
functionality, and building true communities, than what those products 
can do, with the addition of other functions, such as blogging. Our aim 
in building each of them is to create world-class products in their own 
right.

Our early strategy is two-fold. First, we need to create a compelling web 
site, both to disseminate information easily and to allow team members to 
communicate effectively (our intranet). We also want to create a public 
portal (extranet), an entry point into the Skribe system. Second, over 
the course of several quarterly releases, we hope to make Skribe one of 
the best blogging systems anywhere, with robust provisions for security 
(an individual reader sees only that which he has access to see, at the 
sentence (or image, sound, etc.) level, rich content (not only text or 
pictures awkwardly tacked on as afterthoughts to text), and easy 
importation and exportation of all user data in many different formats 
that he can select from. 

Now that I?ve told you a bit about Noumenaut Software and Skribe, I?d 
like to ask for your help. Whether you?re an accomplished JSP/Servlet/web 
developer or just starting out with those technologies and would like to 
learn, we invite you to join us. Matt is our webmaster, and work on our 
web site is now in the organizational stage and will begin implementation 
in approximately one week (around 7 Aug 2002). 

Specifically, we are looking for Java-based web developers to work on 
defining our Internet Architecture requirements and diagram, working on 
implementing the requirements as JSP/Servlets/Beans, and interfacing to 
some PHP legacy systems and external systems as needed. We also seek 
content creators and gifted graphic artists to assist in the effort. 

What we?re aiming for is ambitious and will take a lot of hard work, but 
we?ve put in place several systems, such as the project management tool, 
PHPCollab, in place that will make the process easier. If you?ve got a 
passion for Java and love to break new ground, learn new technologies, 
and most importantly, make new friends and have fun, we invite you to 
explore Noumenaut Software, the Skribe effort, and particularly, to join 
our web team. We?re proud of the work that we?re doing and we also 
believe that this is a great way of enhancing your skills and resume, 
alike. There?s nothing better than being able to sit a prospective future 
employer down, showing that employer something you?ve done, and wowing 
him. :) With your help, we can achieve a lot together! 

Perhaps you?re more interested in blogging than our web efforts. In 
either case, if you can commit one hour a day for any five days of the 
week, want to learn a lot, make new friends, and have fun, we?ve put 
together some web pages that will help you see what we?re all about. If 
you like what you see, please join our mailing lists (see 
www.noumenaut.com) and let?s roll!

Related to Skribe
=================

Roadmap to the Release of Skribe 1.0: 
http://www.noumenaut.com/Extranet/info/roadmap.html

Getting Started: 
http://www.noumenaut.com/Extranet/info/gettingstarted.html

A History of Skribe: http://www.noumenaut.com/Extranet/info/skribe-
history.html

Related to Matt?s Web Architecture at IJUG, a precursor to our pending 
design at Noumenaut
====================================================================

http://www.noumenaut.com/Intranet/web/ijug_ia_diagram1.pdf

http://www.noumenaut.com/Intranet/web/ijug_struct1.pdf

Joining Noumenaut Software
==========================

Please take special note of: 
http://www.noumenaut.com/Extranet/info/joining.html

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me anytime.

Thanks, and Best Wishes,

Steve Jovanovic
Director of Engineering
Noumenaut Software