Category: Open Source Software

Merry Christmas - And A Christmas Present!

It may be quite sad to post to one's website on Christmas Day, but I don't care. Call me sad if you want, but since I haven't done it before now, merry Christmas to all my dear readers at Noelinho.org and on Planet Jedimoose!

Now, since it is traditional to give gifts on Christmas Day, I feel that despite the destinct lack of presents from my adoring website following this Christmas, I should give you all a wonderful present. And so, I present you with...the first snapshot release of Sassenach CMS 1.0.

 Have a play at your leisure - please don't use it for working websites. Even I don't. It is quite incomplete and will still change substantially, but there are significant backend changes - but I will leave explaining those for another day!

Sassenach CMS 0.9 Released

Not a long post, this. I just wanted to alert people to the release of Sassenach CMS 0.9.

This is a first release and is not recommended for use on production websites right now as it's not quite polished. Treat it more as an evaluatory release.

For more information, please take a look at the Sassenach CMS website and Launchpad project pages.

Try it out and let me know what you think, and make sure you read the advice at the bottom before downloading. It's important! Also, please note that there is no documentation with this release, so feel free to ask me questions, and I'll do my best to answer them. I don't have a contact form for nothing, you know!

Sassenach CMS Is Almost Ready!

Having taken a little break from working on Sassenach CMS recently, I've cracked on with it again over the past few days since LUGRadio Live. I have been working on a few other projects recently, and so progress has stalled. However, having spent a couple of days working on different bits of the system, I think I'm happy for the world to see it. I'm labelling it an 0.9a (for alpha) release.

Basically, it is feature-complete, give or take a couple of exceptions. All of the files within the system work now, and, providing you don't do anything wrong, won't throw up a hissy-fit. However, if you do something wrong, they won't necessarily play ball, as my focus over the past couple of days has been finishing the system and not polishing it.

The project is registered at Launchpad, along with the code for the project which is there in its completeness. I using the system on a few websites, including this one, the BUSY website and the Sassenach CMS website, although at the time of writing, the Sassenach CMS website still diverts to another page while I prepare the website!

There are still a few things to do: I need to make a logo for the project, for intance. I need to review all the code, file by file, to make sure it is reasonably secure. I need to alter some of the backend appearnce, but this is just a cosmetic change.

There are, however, three things that are probably most important for me to get finished and polished. The first is to properly implement pluggable themes. These can be changed from the backend, but I want a more complete system where you just click on the theme you want and it works. It probably isn't a great deal of work, it just hasn't been finished quite yet. Secondly, I still need to move some of the code to functions, which I have started to do, but haven't finished quite yet. This is mainly for themes.

Finally, however, I need to write some documentation and create some screencasts, or something similar. This is the most important thing for me to work on.

There are a couple of other things I want to do, like finish my WordPress importer. I have now finished writing the installer. It isn't the prettiest thing you've ever seen, but I have tested it about 25 times now and it works. If the datbase has already been created and files have the correct write access, installation takes about 3 minutes. I think I can settle for that!

I expect I will post more about this during the week, but I think that's all for now!

Sassenach CMS - Another Update

I am slowly realising that I struggle to stick to my own, self-imposed deadlines. Originally, Sassenach CMS was set to launch on 1st June. That was missed, and 1st June turned into 1st July. Well, that was today, and that's been missed too. Let's aim for 1st August, maybe - although I will, helpfully, be away at the time.

Anyway, there are legitimate reasons for the delay, aside from the fact that I'm being a perfectionist and there's always more to do. I am, for a start, still working on an installer for the system. This is, I guess, fairly crucial, although you could just use phpmyadmin. I am also still working on a conversion script to import from WordPress, which is probably about 90% complete, but just needs a little tweaking.

I am also writing a password retrieval system which currently only half-works. I've written the first half of the script, but not the part that actually changes the password.

There are a few scripts that still need a small amount of tidying up, but there are two more parts that I am aiming to complete before Sassenach CMS is ready: templating and database execution of PHP.

The first, templating, will take a while and involves writing functions and designing a system to call those functions without downloading more than is needed at any one time. I have an idea for this, and if it works, I shall post about it further.

Secondly, I realised that sometimes it is useful to be able to execute PHP from a database. Unfortunately, TinyMCE strips PHP automatically, so I need to create an interesting way around this problem. Again, I have ideas, but I'll wait to see if they work before writing about them.

So, Sassenach CMS is almost there, but not quite. About the same as last month really! It might be ready by August - just don't expect the documentation!

Firefox 3: Another View

Following Cheezy's review of Firefox 3, I thought I'd get in on the act. I've used Firefox for a long time and, quite frankly, there's no better browser out there. Opera is over-rated; I.E. is best ignored. Konqueror has always been very fast, but not widely compatible with all websites, is KDE-baed and has a file manager that gets in the way; Epiphany is a great GNOME-based lightweight browser, but isn't available on other platforms. Safari is a very good browser, but it takes an age to start up and doesn't use standard buttons, which is frustrating when you aren't using OSX.

Firefox. on the other hand, has always been very reliable, fast, if needing a lot of memory, compatible with most of the Internet since it started to get more widely adopted and is generally very good, with the slight drawbacks of an on-going memory leak and a tendency to crash. However, with version 3, these issues have been rectified.

The first thing I notice about Firefox 3 is that it runs incredibly fast. It starts almost instantly and is much more responsive. It looks a little different, but that's no real problem - you can alwayd theme it yourself. The new folders for your most visited links are not a great help to me, but I'm sure they are to lots of people. However, like Cheezy, the new form the address bar takes is a real disappointment. I don't want Firefox to start searching everything when I'm clearly typing in the start of an address. It makes the rest of the address impossible to find when you don't know the exact address and there are 50 other very similar addresses that Firefox has found. There should be an option to turn that off.

Other than that, Firefox 3 is very good. It's certainly more sturdy than it has been before, and its speed evokes more confidence, but that fricking address bar is incredibly frustrating.

Portable Applications

It's funny how things work out - only this morning I was thinking about writing about Portable Applications and what do you know - mrBen puts a link to PortableApps.com in his "recent links" section (which is much better than mine, as mine doesn't always have anything in it - and hopefully the link is now working).

So, what are portable applications and why are they useful? Well, what a good question...

Portable applications are programs which don't require you to install them on to your computer. This is handy if, for example, you don't have the rights to install a program on Windows but are able to execute files (though being able to execute files not installed by an administrator does pose a security risk, but I'm ignoring that). Alternatively, if you go away often, or work at multiple computers, you might want to take your data with you rather than have to set it up multiple times.

Personally, I use three applications on a regular basis - Firefox Portable, GAIM Portable and Filezilla Portable. If I go on a merry jaunt, e.g. to Scotland, Wales, London, Hertfordshire, or even down to the University, I don't have access to my desktop. Trouble is, most people don't use the same applications I do - I'm lucky if someone uses Firefox, let alone either of the other two (GAIM, so you know, is for instant messaging and is far more flexible than MSN Messenger; Filezilla is an FTP client for managing files on websites). Anyway, when I go down to the University library, I don't want to use Internet Explorer or Windows Messenger (yes, not even MSN Messenger is there). As for FTP options - Windows' connect to network" feature can be temperamental at times, so I try to use other things. So, I just take my trusty USB drive and run the programs.

The advantages: GAIM - I can take the same message logs and conversations with different people are appended to the same log rather than on a different file on different people's computers.*

Filezilla - FTP settings remembered so I don't have to fill them in on each individual computer or shared network of computers; I also don't have to remember to delete the network connection once I've finished using it, which I would normally have to do using the Windows "connect to network" feature.

Firefox - I don't have to remember my passwords everywhere I go because they are stored locally. I am automatically kept logged in to websites and I can run Firefox extensions.

ALL - I don't have to clutter people's computers with unwanted programs (even if they should use Firefox - I'd never buy anything online using Internet Explorer).

The best bit is that I can just run all the programs as if they were on my local PC. The only drawback is that I can't synchronise the data with my local installs (ok, technically speaking I could, but I can't do it automatically and to do it manually would be aggravating).

In short, portable applications are very practical - and not just for the technically minded (who are, unfortunately, probably the only people reading this sentence. Alas, perhaps instead of giving away the fact that this post was about anything to do with computers, I should have labelled it "free sex!!!" and placed my points in between other, "more interesting" things. No, I don't really think that's a good idea either...**

*Please note, GAIM is now called Pidgin.

**To be honest, if I was trying to get to the top of the Google rankings, the phrase "Free Sex" would probably give me, to forgive the rather obvious pun, some "stiff" competition.

Evolution

Apologies for the lack of posting recently, but you should know by now that I'm rarely in one place long enough to sit down over the summer period, let alone to actually write anything on here.

Anyway, coming around to what I wiish to write about this afternoon, Evolution (nice looking website, by the way). Evolution is a program that provides integrated mail, addressbook and calendaring functionality to users of the GNOME desktop on Linux.

For the whole time I've used Linux, I've used Mozilla Thunderbird, which is a very good mail client for Windows, Mac and Linux. However, as a GNOME user, there's always been the option of using Evolution, although I hadn't actually ever used it until this summer, mainly because I'd used Thunderbird on Windows and been very happy with it.

Apparently, Evolution is designed to look and behave very much like Microsoft's Outlook, though I can't say I know if it is, having never used Outlook. Still, I've been very pleased with the way it operates. One thing I have noticed which is handy is that you can set up more than one outgoing server address, which is very handy. In Thunderbird, you can only use one outgonig smtp address, but that's not always ideal if you have multiple email addresses and want to send emails from more than one account. In Evolution, each account has a seperate incoming and outgoing address. Excellent :)

Furthermore, Evolution has a calendar function which integrates very nicely with the GNOME panel in the top-right-hand corner of my screen. Very useful! When I used Thunderbird, I had to use Sunbird for my calendar function with it - which, although very good, meant having two programs open at once. It's much easier when it's all in the one program. It also has a to-hand memo and task section, which beats leaving text files full of tasks all over my desktop.

When I get back to Sheffield, I think I'll switch to Evolution. Now if only Gmail would support IMAP...

Guardian Article On OpenOffice

The following article is a thread which I have posted at the LUGRadio forums.

The Technology section of the Guardian had an article today about the OpenOffice suite, and the way it 'illustrates the limitations of open source as a way of producing software'. The article is quite interesting, but I also had a few thoughts about the article:

The writer says that there is a false assumption that 'even if not all users can fix a bug, they can help find them. They can't. Most users just think: "The computer isn't doing what I want." '. I'd challenge that - to make a generalisation, people who use OpenOffice generally know more about computers than others - if you don't know much about computers, you won't generally know of OpenOffice, lest of all use it (generally). I'd expect that most users of OpenOffice would recognise a bug when they see it, and know how to report a bug (though they may not bother, admittedly). However, most users of MS Office I know wouldn't have a clue what a bug report is, although by default XP asks if you want to submit a bug report on a crash.

Secondly, the writer says programmers of software like MS Office have an extra incentive to get their coding right and rid it of bugs because if they don't, they 'lose from user dissatisfaction in a way open source software doesn't'. Fair enough, but what about the vested interest that open source coders have - the one where they want to use this software when it's made? Surely that is incentive enough, isn't it? Or are open source coders not really bothered about debugging the code they write and then want to use?

Finally (I could raise other points, but want to stick to three), he mentions 'hugely irritating bugs'. One of these is that 'spaces typed at the end of a line won't show'. Well darn it, what an oversight! Surely that is just merely a different implementation of presentation? Does it really matter? I for one prefer it that way.

It's Free, But Is It Any Good?

To be honest, I am dubious of open source software. Yes, Microsoft products can be a pain in the backside, and they have their flaws, but you know, you can usually get around them in the end. Windows isn't perfect and nor is Internet Explorer, but they do the job in the end.

A couple of years ago, I decided that open source software was worth a try, so I tried Easy Office. It was anything but easy: bloody useless would be a better way of putting it. It had an awful interface and seemed completely incompatible with everything else I used. So I gave up on it.

Later on, I tried Open Office. It was all right, and did have the added ability of saving in pdf format, but still, I preferred Microsoft Office, so I kept using that.

Now, however, Open Office 2.0 is around the corner, and I figured that it is worth another go. It certainly looks a lot more polished than the previous version, but I guess only time will tell whether it's enough to take me away from Microsoft's grasp.