JWChat – Jabber Web Chat
This looks very interesting. An easy way to add web based chat or conferencing to your site. The demo is very easy to use and the install seems pretty straightforward.
Because it web based none of your users need to install anything on their own computers. It’s free and open source so if you are thinking of adding advanced instant messaging and groupchat functionality to your website you have nothing to lose by
Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
An impressive collection of free open source code for visual effects. Ninety six in all. Very cool stuff will keep you entertained for hours.
Because they are open source if you have access to a Flash editor you can download, edit, and publish these effects to your own site.
I have a page on my site with some of my favorite site designs that are showing up on the web. These are not my sites, but they are the kinds of designs that I like in a website. There are different reasons that I picked these site designs, they all look good and are clear and easy to use. The graphics are good, but not overpowering. Sometimes I just like a picture or the name. Some of the sites are not in English and I still know what they are about.
The newest one is called Krysáci and I believe the gentleman’s name is animovaný večerníček. I’m not sure if that is the authors name because I don’t understand one word of this site, but I know what it’s about. It’s a cute stop action cartoon from the Czech Republic. The cartoon is very whimsical and so it the site. The navigation is right on top.
The site uses mootools (a tiny open source JavaScript framework) to get a cool effect for the video on the first page and the images on later pages.
I also like that the video looks like it’s on this site, but it is actually on YouTube. This way it doesn’t use up all of the sites bandwidth if the video gets popular.
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I recommend open source software for most all applications. Many are very good quality and are free. That way you can always try it and then decide if you need a pay for program.
KompoZer (formally NVU) is the open source world’s answer to Macromedia’s Dreamweaver. It’s available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux and I love the fact that it doesn’t even need to be installed, just unzip the files to anywhere in your computer and just run the program from that folder.
KompoZer is a fully featured what-you-see-is-what-you-get web page editor, enabling you to create web pages without having to devote months to learning HTML. KompoZer includes an integrated FTP site manager, a style sheet editor, tabbed workspaces, and all the features you’ve come to expect from expensive fully-featured web page editors. KompoZer also features integrated support for HTML code validation, to help you make your HTML as clean and light-weight as possible.
Because KompoZer is built based on the Gecko rendering engine that also runs the Firefox web browser, you get a live preview: what you see is what you get.
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Trend Micro is a global company, headquartered in Tokyo, that develops software and services to protect against computer viruses, malware, and spam. They are suing Barracuda Networks for its distribution of Clam Antivirus, the popular FOSS (free open source software) antivirus program. Clam is a very good free open source program that I use myself.
Since Barracuda Networks went public about the case last month Trend has claimed that it isn’t about open source, but most open source advocates think that it is. Barracuda has been getting quite a bit of help on the legal and precident front from around the world.
There also seem there is a large boycott Trend movement that is growing by leaps and bounds. I believe that this is a fight that Trend can’t win.
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A new customer asked me the other day “Oh! One more question….so you’re doing my hosting and all that. What happens if you win the lottery and move to Tahiti? Do I only have to find a new host, or what?”
I often wonder why my customers don’t ask that question much more often. After all I am a one man shop. I replied to them.
You have the best!
A free open source platform that will always be available to everyone.
That’s why I insist on it.
This is your site. I suggest that you learn to back up the data yourself.
If you have a backup and you have control of your domain name you can easily move it somewhere else.
That’s one of the reasons that I recommend that all of my customers keep control of their own domain name, use open source software and keep their own backups. If something were to happen to me they could move their site somewhere else and there would be many other people who could easily step in and help them.
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I have had customers ask me about putting audio or podcasts on their site. Most of them are also looking for a good tool to help them with recording or editing of their content.
Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
Audacity can record, import , export, edit and even add special effects. Best of all it’s free, open source and runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and GNU/Linux.
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I have written before about Firefox. It’s my browser of choice and one of the reasons is that because it’s open source there are many other developers who are making cool plugins for it.
Today I was reading a post by Mitch Joel called “Firefox Extensions That Make Me A Better Marketer” on his site Six Pixels of Separation which is about Marketing and Communications.
He offers some good tools to check out and his readers give many more.
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I had lunch with a friend the other day. He is a graphic artist and like me mostly worked for other companies. He has been in business for himself only a couple of years.
I was explaining my love of free open source software to him. I had my computer with me and I showed him how The GIMP and Blender were professional grade programs that he could use in his work and because they are free he could always have the most current versions to use. I told him that these programs because they are open source are constantly being improved by thousands and thousands of developers who’s main goal is only to make the programs better.
My friend who prefers a MAC seemed really thrilled by the fact that most of these programs are available for most any operating system. He said to me that there should be a place where a person could see the best of these programs in one place and I remembered OpenDisk.com.
Open Disk is a site that compiles the best of the best free open source software and back in the days of slow Internet connections and long downloads they would sell you a cd with all of these programs on it. I had a quick look and they are still there picking the best and most popular open source software and compiling it in one place. You can download them all at once or they list links to all of the individual programs so you can just download the ones that you want.
If you are interested in trying out this free open source thing visit the Open Disk site and see what’s available. These programs are not going to add any bad things to your computer. By releasing the source code to these programs everyone is free to look at how the software works and insures that you can’t hide anything bad in the code.
Most of the programs are available for all Operating Systems and best of all they are FREE. So what do you have to lose?
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One of the things that I think and write about in my business Is It Worth It To Give Away Information? It’s one of the things that I believe in, have based my business on and I think that in the end it will also make you the most money. I am a supported of free open source software and using that to make money by selling ancillary services like installation or support.
I have always thought that the music industry just doesn’t get it. I think that having the RIAA sue their customers is what’s hurting their business much more than music downloads. The fact that they are price fixing doesn’t help either.
The band Radiohead is going to allow users to download their next album and then pay whatever they want to pay. Of course some people will pay nothing, but I’m betting that the band will make more from this release than they ever have before. The fact that they are first will help them even more by giving them much more publicity.
They can do this because they have no contract right now and I’m sure that the RIAA and the record companies are sweating bullets on this one because it just may show that their way of doing business is no longer relevant. Maybe if they refuse to change they aren’t either.
