Oct
17
Alfresco - The Open Source SharePoint
Filed Under Open Source, Work | 3 Comments
I ran accross an interesting project last night that I’m quite excited about. I’ve been trying to find a good open source alternative to MS SharePoint for about a year now, and I think I’ve finally found one that is almost as good, and has the potential to be better than SharePoint. The project is called Alfresco. It took me about 1/2 hour to install it on my laptop (on the Windows side).
Alfresco is Java based, and runs on top of Tomcat of JBoss frameworks. It includes team collaboration spaces, version handling, wizards for administration, content handling, in-line editing of web content, desktop integration for launching and saving of content (done via windows file sharing or WebDav.
Because it is an opensource project there is not the same level of vendor lock-in. Take a flash tour of the software if you are interested. You can download here. Technorati Profile
Oct
16
Hackfest Access 2005
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It was a good hackfest day! I was involved in the Preservation through Redundant, Distributed and Indifferent Filespace project. We didn’t write any code in the end (it is a huge project), but we did identify what features we would like to see in a software project of this type, along with some of the potential problems that need to be addressed. We found two project that partially met the needs we found. They are DIBS (Distributed Internet Backup System), and OceanStore. It is interesting to note that both of these projects come out of Berkeley.
To be clear, we were looking for software that uses a peer to peer model for distributed backups in an untrusted environment. For example I would install the client software on my computer, and would tell it how much data I want to backup (50 GB for example). The software would then ask me how much redundancy I want (1,2,3,4… copies of the backup). Then it would tell me that for that particular level of backup I would need to make 150MB available on my hard drive for other people to store their backups. The backups would be digitally signed and encrypted for privacy and integrity purposes. This selection of backup computers on the internet would be done automatically by default, or manually if desired.
I’ve installed DIBS on my laptop (on the linux side of my laptop), but have not installed it on another computer. I hope to try it out when I get home. It was also written in Python (which is a language that I’m trying to use more right now), so that is another reason for me to try to get involved on some level in this project.
Oct
13
I’ve been using my free download of Google Desktop for about a month now, and have been very impressed with how quickly I’ve been able to find documents I’ve needed. Instead of searching around all the files in my "My Documents" folder and sub folders, I’ve just quickly typed in a key word, and in seconds have the information I need. It has been WONDERFUL! I’ve saved myself a lot of time needlessly searching for information that should be at my finger tips.
Currently the Google Desktop will search for key words in the following documents and programs:
Gmail
Outlook contacts
Outlook appointments
Outlook tasks
Outlook notes
Outlook journal
Outlook Email
Outlook Express
Word
Excel
Powerpoint
Internet Explorer
AOL Instant Messenger
Netscape Mail/Thunderbird
Netscape / Firefox / Mozilla
PDF
Music
Video
Images
A fairly complete list of applications and file types. This got me thinking… for an individual or small office, why pay thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars for a Knowledge Management system, when you will probably be using it primarily for key word searches to find documents? Google Desktop will do 90% of what you need it to do for your knowledge management needs. So unless that 10% is really important you can save yourself a lot of cash.
You may be concerned about privacy, and the ability of Google, or anyone else, accessing the data on your computer. Google takes pains to point out that none of your indexed information ever leaves your computer. You can read more about Google Desktop’s privacy policy on the Web site.
I highly recommend Google Desktop. Now we just need to see the linux version of Google Desktop and I’ll be really happy!
Oct
11
Virtual Host Mail Server
Filed Under Open Source, Work | Leave a Comment
Here is a great how-to that shows you the step by step process to setup a Virtual Host Mail Server with Postfix, MySql, Courier & Quota. I havn’t tried it yet, but it is something that I am looking forward to doing before Christmas.
http://www.howtoforge.com/virtual_postfix_mysql_quota_courier
Oct
8
LTSP Saves Schools Big
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I ran across an interesting article on the Linux Terminal Server Project in schools. A school in Utah reports annual savings of $24,000 by having moved to linux terminal server away from Microsoft workstations. Those savings include software licencing costs, hardware upgrades, and support costs.
From the article:
Grace Lutheran’s installation stats:
- >60 Pentium 1 and Pentium II computers for 250 total students
- One computer lab of 25 computers
- 9 classrooms with an average of four computers in each classroom
- Actual cost of Linux thin client conversion for all 60 computers: under $15,000
- Estimated annual maintenance cost: $3,600
- Comparable cost of PC/Windows installation: $50,000
- Estimated annual maintenance cost of a PC/Windows solution: $24,000
- Net yearly savings, based on four-year replacement cycle: $29,150
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT3124052951.html