Day Software (SWX: DAYN) (OTCQX: DYIHY), a leading provider of global content management and content infrastructure software, today announced Russell Toris, a second-year college student at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, as the winner of Day’s inaugural JCR Cup 2008. Toris’ innovative JCR-based web clipping application, “Crux,” beat out over 50 entries in Day’s first-ever competition to design a unique software application based on Day CRX, a commercially packaged version of Apache Jackrabbit and Apache Sling.
Toris named his JCR-based application as a play on word of Day’s CRX content infrastructure. Toris’ Crux application provides users a web clipping service so that they can simply surf the web, highlight interesting material on web pages, and then save the content with an URL to the source using standard keyboard Copy and Paste command. Users can then use their web browser to surf or search their web clippings anytime they want. College students like Toris doing online research can then quickly recall useful information from various websites while avoiding bookmarks and having to visit one-by-one individual web pages where the majority of material may be of little use. Said Toris: “The idea with Crux is, you can save the URL of a page, along with the portion of the page content you’re interested in, and ONLY that portion – the crux of the page – in the JCR repository. That way you’re saving only what you need: the URL, the content you’re interested in, and any tags or comments you want to apply. That’s it.”
The power and simplicity of Toris’ innovative idea was seen as a natural complement to the power and simplicity of CRX by Day’s panel of judges. Toris echoed that comment in his JCR Cup submission: “I was surprised how easy it was to get started with JCR, even for a new programmer like me. I know a little bit of Java, but I mainly write Javascript. So I was really, really happy when I saw how much you can do with JCR and Sling just using HTML and Javascript. Basically, if you can write an HTML form, you can create a useful JCR app, because Sling takes care of a lot of server-side stuff and you really don’t need to write Java Server Pages unless you want to. This is a great convenience and makes it possible for programmers of all skill levels to be productive right away with JCR. You don’t have to be a Java expert at all.”
Toris started dabbling in HTML in high school, and eventually began helping with his high school website, getting involved in scripting and “server-side things.” After an introductory course in Java in high school, he continued his study of computer programming at Dickinson College, where he is now a second-year computer science major nurturing his interest in developing Web 2.0 apps. Presently, Toris is a big fan of AJAX and Java technologies, though admittedly “he’s a Javascript person, LOL.”
As the winner of the JCR Cup 2008, Toris was awarded a new MacBook Pro by Day to help him continue his passion with CRX and Web 2.0. When notified of his win, Toris commented, “I didn’t think someone like me could win an honor like this. Most of what I write is Javascript and the entire contest entry was in Javascript. I did use an extremely advanced development tool to write it, namely Wordpad. The good news came and I nearly passed out.”
Toris’ win was clear to the JCR Cup judges, however. According to David Nuescheler, Day’s co-founder and CTO, “Russell’s [Toris’] entry showed brilliance: a useful application, an innovative application – elegantly executing and really showcasing the power and simplicity of CRX. While judging this context was great fun because of the wealth of great ideas exhibited in the submitted applications, Toris’ stood out from the crowd. We knew it was the winner from the start. He underestimates his submission entirely.”
Day Software congratulates Russell Toris, and wishes him well as he completes his computer science degree and continues to build his expertise in Web 2.0, JCR, and CRX. Day’s CRX Developer edition is now available free-of-charge from Day’s website at http://www.day.com .
About JCR Cup 2008
Judges of the Day JCR Cup 2008 were David Nuescheler, Day CTO and spec lead of JSR 170 and JSR 283, Michael Marth, Technology Evangelist, and journalist Joe Ottinger. First prize in the Day JCR Cup 2008 was a 17” MacBook Pro and printer package. Two other entries in the JCR Cup earned honorable mentions: Alexander Mokrushin of Canada for an OpenLaszlo content management application, and Renaud Richardet from France for “Formation,” a drag-and-drop form creation tool. Both Alexander and Renaud each won a $400 Amazon voucher.