Posts filed under "software"
Firefox 1.5 has been released and they’ve realigned (nooch!) the website as well. It’s not the biggest change by any stretch of the imagination, but still an upgrade is and upgrade, especially to my favourite application.
It’s only natural for people to be getting sick of the term that’s plastered on the interent EVERY SINGLE DAY. Yes, this post in part will be about the crazy little buzz word, Web 2.0. I hate that term:”(So we’ll not use it again, in the future that word will be replaced with ***** [5 stars])”:
It’s being thrown around the blogosphere like crazy. I guess I’m one of those crazy fools out there that believes in the future, that we won’t be paying for software. There will be an operating system that compliments everything we do, there will be software that will be far more advanced than anything you can buy, and the development will be ongoing, constant and open to everyone. I’m a firm believer in Open Source software.
At this particular moment in time we’ve been caught off guard. The Web applications are fresh and new now, so obviously they’re going to be gaining some momentum and money. In 5 years time (hopefully much less) all of the 37 Signals applications will be available to the end user in the form of an open source project. If people want to have those programs on their systems without paying a monthly fee, they’re more than welcome to do so, and can get at the code and do whatever they want as well. It’s only a matter of time. People will be paying for the work, the service rather than the software. The reason I mention the 37 Signals programs in particular is because I started using Backpack this weekend. I’ve got an account from when it was first released, however I never really got into it. I’ve added yet another project to the stuff I’m working on. This one is with Bryan Veloso and we’re both thinking what the hell took us so long.
5 years ago this collaboration would have been possible, but it wouldn’t have been as easy and clear to follow as it is now, thanks to Backpack. I’m even considering buying a basic account. That’s pretty big thing since I just haven’t gotten into that whole ***** thing. If you’re collaborating on the interent (and you really should it’s an amazing resource to waste on porn) this application will make things more fun for sure.
Now I’m just waiting for the time when we actually can host this on my server. Anyone working on a Backpack alternative (with Whiteboard of course).
I’m really excited about Flock. For those in the dark it’s a new browser that’s intended for bloggers. The program is based off the Mozilla’s Gecko rendering engine, which is what Firefox is based on. In fact the guys and gals behind Flock were part of the development team behing Firefox. Since Firefox is an Open Source program, in the open source world this fork is not an uncommon thing. In fact in most cases it’s inevitable.
There are many examples. The simplest being the hundreds of Linux distros (ubuntu after Debian etc) showing how different people have different thoughts about doing something, and so they fork. Other examples include:
Honestly I could go on. From the above examples what’s clear is that sometimes forks do provide a better product in the end. That’s the beauty of Open Source. I do find it crazy that this would happen so soon, however I can’t wait to see what this application can offer above Firefox. The ‘fox is easily my most used application. In fact when coming onto ANY new PC, the first thing that’s downloaded is Firefox, so it’s going to have to be something special for me to part ways and use the alternative. Any which way you cut it, this will be better for the end user, as the teams will no doubt be feeding off what each other are up to. Is the market oversaturated? Screw that, it’s all about freedom of choice.
On a completely different note, I’ve got to say that I’m seriously loving the Flock logo. I didn’t think anything could top the excellently designed Hick’s Firefox logo, by the Bryan Bell Flock logo is a good contender for the title.
I’ve been waiting for this for a pretty long while. Tristan has finally released his long awaited (at least for likes of Joen, Micheal, Mathias and me) Zenphoto. If you’re interested in a simple program that seems like it’s got a bright future amongst those people not really interested in hosting their photos on a server far far away, then Zenphoto deserves your attention. I’ve only been playing with it for a day now and already I know what I’m going to love using this application.
Setting Up Zenphoto on Dreamhost Before I talk about the program, I’m going to talk a bit about the setting it up since I did have a bit of trouble with that. Not the program’s fault by ANY stretch of the imagination, just me being dim, and Dreamhost being a bit awkward. So this is a public service announcement for anyone on Dreamhost that wants to play around with this program but having a bit of trouble getting over the first hurdle.
To get the Zenphoto set up you only need to edit two files.
- .htaccess file. The only thing you’ve got to change is the following:
# !!! Change this to the absolute path !!! RewriteBase /zp
Change it to whatever you want, in my case it was pictures so my file looks like this:# !!! Change this to the absolute path !!! RewriteBase /pictures
- config.php
The config file is found in the zen folder. Everything is pretty bog standard, follow the instructions in here to a T and you shouldn’t have a problem.
If your database isn’t working, make sure you’ve named it properly, that could be because you’ve named the database incorrectly.
Make sure that you actually put the database host name in front of your website url, as shown below.
$conf[‘mysql_host’] = “zenh.brokenkode.com”; // Probably won’t need to change this.
However if you find that your database is working, (by having a look in phpmyadmin, or the fact that ZP actually tells you it’s all ok), but are having trouble actually logging in, that can be attributed to the server paths and how Dreamhost likes you to call up these bits and pieces. Crucially.// The path to zenphoto on the server - e.g. /home/user/public_html/zenphoto. No trailing slash/ $conf[‘serverpath’] = “/home/username/brokenkode.com/pictures”;
Make sure that you actually exchange your REAL username for username, and the full path to where you’ve put ZP on the server.// The URL of zenphoto from the domain root. - e.g. ‘http://www.yoursite.com/zenphoto’ // (or ‘/zenphoto’ in that case). No trailing slash/ $conf[‘webpath’] = ‘/pictures’;
This one actually gave me the grief. Make sure you just put path, not the entire url.
Zenphoto ~ The Pros
I’ve not even been using it for 24 hours and yet I’m pretty impressed with the simplicity of everything. When you do something that’s not really prim and proper, like trying to create a folder without even a single image to upload you get these helpfully coloured system messages (we’re using these in Shuttle btw, Matt and co have been giving them some Ajax love as well).
Uploading images is a very simple process with several options available (JPEG, PNG, GIF and ZIP files, seriously what more do you need?). I like the fact that when you’re in the upload section you have 5 image slots where you can actually use, with the option to increase the number to as many as you want with the click of one button.
The colour scheme of the administration panel by Joen is very soft on the eyes and I’m really loving the thoughts behind the actual program coming through. Simple, yet functional.
Zenphoto ~ Improvements & Future Dev Tristan has got a battle plan. The roadmap can be found here. Things that I’d like to be able to do from the program itself (not sure if it’s possible really).
Delete files - Currently there is no really way to delete images from the admin panel. You need to go via ftp or something. Also I’ve noticed that the number tally of the pictures the admin panel indicates are still in the folder does not update if a file is deleted. We’re still in Beta, so I’m sure little quirks like this will be ironed out for future releases.
Sizing images - It seems that whatever size the file is ZP will stretch it out to fit in the maximum specified width. While that’s pretty ok for anything larger than the desired width (so nothing looks out of whack) the problem then comes into play when you’ve got images lightly smaller than the default, so it would be nice to keep the smaller files at their size in the images section. It could come as a little check box next to when uploading the image?
Support and Documentation - Tristan and co were great trying to solve my problem, however I think (from personal experience) you can do the support thing for a while, because it’s fresh and you want to help people understand what you’re doing, however your enthusiasm will wane. The creator ideally should concentrate on making the program better etc. There are other who can contribute to an open source project in different ways, that are just as crucial and important as coding and bug squashing and theme creating, and that’s offering users support. Tristan’s got a couple of things in the pipeline to help the user out, which in my mind is as essential as files to the program itself.
Final Thought Zenphoto is a joy to use, I know I’ll be using it for a good while to come. If you’re looking for something simple, functional and beautiful, go download it now.
Free Opera. As part of Opera’s 10 year Anniversary celebration it’s giving away it’s browser for free. That’s today only people. Read the footnotes. (via designateonline)
My previous windowz fart obviously as it would, started making me thinking about operating systems, and the like. I’ve had a couple of days to mull it over and this is something I’ve been meaning to talk about for a while now. Joen talked about why he wasn’t planning on switching in OSX anytime soon, and in fact was/is pretty happier with Microsoft. Whereas he approached things from a usability point of view, I’m going to talk about if from a completely different angle.
I was faced with this decision last year, when I was shopping around for my newest PC. Do I stay with Windows, do I jump ship and go for Macs, or do I go the hard-geek road and opt for Linux. After much thought and deliberation I decided to stay with Windows. I’m not going to state why I stayed, I’m instead going to talk about why I didn’t go for the other two, and hopefully from there lead to where I think operating systems will go, and in certain cases, should go.
Why not Mac? Do I like the design of the hardware? I absolutely love the metal box, very cool, very hardcore. What about the overall design aesthetics of the company? Damn straight. This is a company that has got the best product designers in the world. I can’t imagine how all these other companies just can’t even compare when it comes to the design aesthetics.
The operating system is said to be extremely stable as it’s been written on a Unix system, compared with the crap Windows is based on. So with all these good things going for it, what’s the problem?
It’s simple, I hate Apple’s marketing strategy. In my humble opinion the company has taken the fact that it has devout followers and decided to rape them for every single penny they’re worth. It’s this incredible cycle where the second they’ve got you in, that’s it you’re stuck. You might be happy there, but I certainly would not be. I’ll try and make some sense. OSX can only be run on an Apple box. That limits you to using only stuff by them. That keeps the price of the box and repairs and whatever under their control. That doesn’t have to be a problem, except I’m not truly keen on putting all my eggs in one basket.
My first and essentially only true Apple experience is my Ipodmini. I do like it but soo many things about it pisses me off like you wouldn’t believe. The main thing that really annoys me is how the accessories are milked to the brim. I also really hate the fact that you pay for the thing and they don’t even have the decency to supply a remote, or docking bay or whatever, and those things are then priced extortionately, or packages with something you really don’t need/want (earphones with the remote for example).
I know they’re a company and that’s what they’re meant to do, milk it for everything it’s worth, however I don’t need to play their game.
If I could buy OSX as a standalone program that operates on another manufacturer’s box, I would probably be one of the first in line to buy it. As it stands, I’m honestly not interested. This might change in the future, but not the immediate one.
Linux I love open source. I really do. I think in many respects it’s the future. However Linux comes across as a complete chore rather than an operating system. It’s only been pretty recently that the guys have copped onto the fact that interface and usability is as important as all the geeky optimization of the system, but it’s just not there for me.
Add to the fact that in order to run many programs I’d have to get a windows emulator, and well, it kind of defeats the object really doesn’t it. I do keep an eye out for new distro releases, and I’m hoping for the ultimate one to come along, but again I’ll have to wait for that one.
Ultimate OS Which kind of leads me to my final point, what is the ultimate OS in my opinion? One that combines the class of OSX with the freedom of Linux. One that provides me with the software options available to windows, without the loss of performance.
I get the sneaking suspicion that Google will eventually provide us all with the first online operating system. 10 years from now we’ll log in and know that everything has been backed up and double backed up. We’ll each have a terrabit of storage available to us, and we’ll never have the need to argue about this…except that honestly I don’t really trust google, but then again I didn’t trust the internet when it first appeared…
WinDirStat Very cool Windows stats program (open source software, which I always have time for).
Haven’t written one of these in a while, but I guess one program I use every day practically and I’m sure other people use a similar program in one form or another is the excellent Xnview.
The website says it’s got the following features:
- Import about 400 graphic file formats
- Export about 50 graphic file formats
- Multipage TIFF, Animated GIF, Animated ICO support
- Resize
- Copy/Cut/Crop
- Adjust brigthness, contrast…
- Modify number of colors
- Apply filters (blur, average, emboss, …)
- Apply effects (lens, wave, …)
- Fullscreen mode
- Slide show
- Picture browser
- Batch convert
- Thumbnail create
- Screen capture
- Contact Sheet create
- Multi-page file create (TIFF, DCX, LDF)
- TWAIN support (Windows only)
- Print support (Windows only)
- Drag & Drop support (Windows only)
- 44 languages support (Windows only)
Advantages: What I love about it is that it’s light weight. I want a screen shot of something? Bang it’s done, resized, cropped and saved ready to go within minutes.
It’s my weapon of choice when I’m putting something on Broken Kode. I could do it in Photoshop, but this method is so much faster.
The thing I like the most about this program is the fact that it is solidly made. From the icon to the menu system, everything is laid out in a proper order and is very easy to understand.
It also integrates nicely with itself. So that you’ve got the thumbnail view and an explorer like menu, which when a thumb is clicked it takes you to the image. Close the image and you’re back in the explorer menu. This is in contrast to Ifranview for example which is seperated into two programs.
The icons are extension specific. So a png with have a little png note on it, while a gif will be a different colour, that sort of thing. There is a commercial version of the program
It’s nice that it’s skinnable, scores some major points with me as the default is a bit boring.
Disadvantages: It will view my psd files, although for some reason if they’re CMYK it’s completely kill the colours, but that’s a small price to pay to be honest.
When viewing AutoCAD files however It comes up with a stupid popup message that asks me if I want to buy a plugin. No fӣk off.
Although to be honest I’d have liked it more if it would actually have been open source like firefox. It could easily be one of the best tools on the market for this sort of thing. I’d really like to see an open source alternative that rivals how well built this little application is however I haven’t found one, so I’ll be content with this freeware software.
Overview
Continuing my open-source software reviews, I’ve turned my attention to the brilliant Firefox. I’m writing this review for a few reasons, mainly because I’m getting tired of telling people the same thing again and again, in spreading the word on Firefox. This makes my life a whole lot easier.
Easily my favourite and most used application. What’s Firefox? I’m always surprised when people still look at me with a blank stare when I mention Firefox, but I guess you’ve got to be a heavy internet user to know or even care about these things. Most people I know don’t even realise that there are alternatives to Internet Explorer. Microsoft have done their job well in making it all seem that they won the browser war and that there really is only one way to surf the web. Oh but that’s not true. Nothing could be further from the truth. Enter Firefox by the Mozilla Foundation.
There’s a fantastic article on that tells the story behind Firefox and it’s co-creator, Blake Ross. For me Firefox opened my eyes to the world of Open Source code, and what a wonderful thing a community building software can actually be. So let’s get down to why I think Firefox is what you should be using to browse and surf the world wide web. Features No Pop-ups This has been updated for Windows Service Pack 2, however this wasn’t the case before, and Firefox hit that little annoying thing of multiple pop-ups and what not on the head. It’s a simple thing, but essential to browsing, even trusted sites such as www.comicbookresources.com will be prone to using these annoying things. Job done with Firefox, no more of these things.
Tabbed Web Browsing Ah, I can’t live without this feature. Simple idea, but one of the best things about the program. Check out the picture below. Rather than opening 15 IE windows, they’re all housed neatly in one window and I can click quickly to whatever page I want to, without any problems whatsoever.
Password Manager Everything is housed here. All my passwords tucked away safely. I can control which sites I don’t want it to have the passwords, while others I’ll let it have them in there. Full control, which is essential to my usage of something as sensitive as this.
Themes Soo many to choose from. I’ve currently got about 10 downloaded, although I’m using Plastikfox Crystal since it’s a very colourful theme. If you want it to look like an Apple application you’ve got that option as well, and a plethora of other really well put together themes as well.
Bookmarks Manager Such a nice way of moving things up and down, add separators, but them in folders, all from any view you want. Either while it’s as a sidebar, or from it’s own window manager area. I remember the days of IE where I would HAVE to go to the special bookmarks window and sorting them out was not very simple.
Extensions One of the things that makes Firefox so powerful is the fact that there is a massive community out there, make extensions to better the functionality of the core code. What this brings is an absolutely EMMENSE amount of extensions that cater to just about every single need you might have, to customise this browser to whatever you want it to do. These are just the extensions I use on a regular basis. Going to the extensions library shows you just how small a slither these one are, but just to get you started here’s a couple:
Web Development When designing and testing a website, this extension is something I can’t do without. It’s simple it’s effective and gives me a much better appreciation of the design of the website. It’s got everything from div highlights, size of the actual divs, CSS markup, names the images, and oh so much more. I’ve not even scratched the surface of all the features but it’s a very powerful addition to anyone playing around with web design in any capacity. Download Web Developer extension here.
AdBlock Simple idea, as with most things in Firefox. Go around to all your favourite websites. Chances are there are ads. Don’t like them? Fine, right click, BLOCK AD. Oh look at that the ad’s disappeared. Continue to a few more websites, by the end of the week, any website you visit won’t have any ads since they come from roughly the same place. Hell it even takes care of the Flash ads if you really want! Details can be found here.
Gmail Notifier Well for those in the dark, Gmail, is Google’s e-mail service. It’s got a massive 1G storage space capacity, so seriously you never need to bloody delete any e-mails, ever. It looks ugly as sin, but hey it makes sending e-mail more fun. This little extension sits at the top next to everything else and once you’ve clicked it and logged in, will basically act as your watchdog for any new mail you might receive. Download Gmail notifier here.
Sage RSS reader My most used extension. RSS is a system where this little application will check all your favourite websites and see if they’ve updated since the last time that you visited. Not all websites have and RSS feed, however it’s something that is slowly but surely getting picked up by the major websites more and more. Again it’s fully customisable as with all other managers in Firefox. Download the Sage extension here.
Scrapbook This is a fantastic extension. I stumbled on it via Scripty Goddess. What we have here is a truly useful little addition, where if you find a particular page with content you’d like to keep, like online receipts, embedded quicktime movies etc, all you have to do is right click ‘Capture page’ and it simply saves the entire page AS IT IS onto a designated area on your hard disc. It then catalogues it and you get to sort everything out as the bookmark manager. I can’t live without this addition now, as I’ve collected some serious internet gems because of this. Download the Scrapbook extension here.
ColorZilla Trust me I hate spelling it that way, but anyway. This little addition sits in the bottom left hand corner of your browser. If you see a colour on screen you’d like the details of click and point the crosshair on the colour and bam you’ve got the exact colour details. Download it here.
Rating: 6/5. That’s how highly I rate this application.
Pros - So many. Apart from all the things I mentioned above, add that the development on this is constant and ongoing. It’s not like IE which hasn’t been updated in a few years. It’s completely compliant with Web Standards. The extensions keep coming from the community and are keep getting better and better. It’s got a great icon and it’s all COMPLETELY free. What’s not to like?
Cons - Trying hard to think of what I don’t like about Firefox. My only thought is the fact that it can’t search text fields. Having said that I can live with that. Honestly I really can.
Okay so it’s NOT open source, and you’ve got to download it from the Microsoft website, however you’ll love me forever for this little nugget of a software. I found out about it via DIGIT magazine. Of course something like Computer Arts should also be saying something, however they’re corporate whores that obviously get paid by companies to pimp their software and their rubbish culture (yeah sorry I’m on a bit of an attack on CA right now).
So back to Expression. As far as I can tell, it would seem Microsoft bought this software, didn’t know what to do with it, so they released it as a preview for everyone to do whatever they want. I can’t live without this program at work, as we don’t have enough Illustrator licenses, this freeware software is ideal.
What makes Expression unique is the fact that it blends raster manipulation tools with vector graphics. It was originally intended from the direction it took as an illustrator’s tool really, trying hard to bring the traditional artist to the digital realm.
Importing and Exporting You can import bitmaps, so the list includes, tiff, bmp, jpgs, gifs and even psd (photoshop files).
You can export directly as illustrator files, Flash files, pdfs and EPS files.
Main Features The main feature about expression are the fact that it actually brings in brushes into the vector realm. If you want vector graphics that look like they’re water colours you’ll find it hard to do that in Illustrator (although I’m not sure about plugins etc).
Another great feature is just how ‘lightweight’ it is. Loading this program up is soo simple with any power of computer. One of the reasons I don’t use Illustrator is because it’s soo heavy and doesn’t react to my commands as fast as I’d like, however the expression engine really does hammer through what I need without any grief.
No problems with fonts, CMYK and RGB colour schemes. This is in direct contrast to Adobe’s Photoshop Elements. It’s very verstaile to be used as a Desk Top Publishing (DTP) program, for SINGLE PAGES. So if you want to quickly deal with a pdf for someone that’s printable and you want to get the colours right you could do a lot worse than this awesome program.
Downfalls. The shortcuts aren’t customisable, so I’ve got to use the s-key to get the arrow rather than the common v-key in most programs.
This is not an open source program, and there doesn’t seem to be much development being happening into it, which is a terrible shame, as it really is worth it. I wish microsoft would just release the code as open source so that people could do something meaningful with it. I think if that were the case this could become a serious contender for Freehand etc. I mean they’re not doing anything with it, or at least not as far as I know of. If anyone’s got any other news then that would be pretty cool to hear about.
Rating: 4/5 only because it’s not open source code. However it’s such a joy to use I’ll let it slide.
Conclusion. Expression is a great light weight program, that although not open source is freeware right now. It’s greatly versatile and combines raster and vector techniques, that bring about a more ‘painters’ tool than anything else. One of my favourite finds of 2004, it was a godsend in many respects.
I’m going to start posting reviews on software you might not know about that you really should be using, or could greatly benefit from using. There’s like 10 I’ve got in mind right now, but I’m really hoping that the list will actually increase as time goes by, since I love to use and support open source projects. Every once in a while however I’ll stumble on some freeware (but doesn’t operate under a GPL license) that deserves a mention, so you can put that into this list as well. It’s crazy what you can find on the internet.
Overview So we’ll get the first one underway with Notepad2. I originally thought it wasn’t open source however after digging a little deeper, ie in the text file, you see the following magic words:
Source Code Notepad2 is based on the Scintilla source code editing component: http://www.scintilla.org The full Notepad2 source code is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License and can be found at: http://www.flos-freeware.ch
I can’t stop using this little application. I use it at work as much as I use it at home and that’s really due to it’s extreme versatility.
Features: So how does Notepad2 differ from Notepad found on all Windows machines? There are a number of great features that make it different. Here’s a brief list of what I find the most useful:
- No matter what type of file you open (well there are exceptions of course), it’s probably built in with a colour coding syntax, so it’s easier to read through
- A great feature is that if you’ve got Notepad2 open, you can just drag and drop the required file into the edit area and it will automatically load the file, without having to go through the hassle, open file > etc etc.
- Simple functions like, line wraping, auto indent and zoom functions.
- It remains lightweight, for quick access, and quick edits to any file. So it’ll load up even if you’re on a slow machine
- Very customisable, adding a great deal of flexibility to file editing.
Rating:4/5
Pros - Lightweight, customisable, open source code. Cons - No spell check and no plans for tabbed browsing (great little feature to have). While this would be a great feature I understand what the thinking behind Notepad2 is:
Feature requests are always welcome, but please keep in mind that Notepad2 has been designed as a compact Notepad replacement.