I too would like to echo the sentiments that already have been expressed here. I remember discovering nginx through his blog post about how to easily set up rails with it. I had issues with backgroundrb and he was so kind to help me out over irc and countless other moments. I also remember him bringing Redis to my attention I think he did so for a large number of us. I followed his work as I had a deep respect and admiration for him as a person. So tragic to hear this news. Really gutted. I will never forget him.
Never had a chance to meet him in person so Thank you Ezra.
Same here. I had tried out campfire but wasn't overwhelmed with it. I love the extensibility of Talker. Almost every other day I'm writing a plugin (https://github.com/saimonmoore/talker-plugins) in javascript to enhance my chatting with my team members.