Open Source Software: Transforming Business

Open source is having a huge impact on the software development business, and it is going to continue to have a huge impact on the future of software development. Just as computer hardware has become a commodity over the last couple years as manufacturing and production efficiency have increased, the same thing is going to happen with the software development industry. Many may decry this statement. But it is true and it is happening already. The thing is, we don’t need to fear this commoditization of software.

Open source is changing software development at a fundamental level. Once software developers were highly paid to build specialized software systems. These included things such as databases, interface libraries and other fundamental and foundational software packages. At that time, these tools didn’t exist, so they had to be created. This created a foundation that other people could build on.

When you look at these systems, take databases for example, they may be extremely complex systems, but on a larger scale, they don’t really do anything by themselves. They are a piece, a tool that can be used as a foundation to build a more complex system. A database by itself is nothing. In and of itself a database has little value. It has to be utilized by another system before its true value becomes apparent.

I believe that the commoditization of software is going to create a “Lego” effect. A database or an image manipulation library could be considered “blocks”. They do one thing, it is very specific and they do it well. They are very specialized pieces of code. But like a Lego block, by itself, a single library is rather useless.

The value of having all these specialized open source projects that are out there, means developers have more options. There are more blocks to build with. The fun stuff happens when you take these various blocks and you start bringing all the pieces together. Individual pieces of specialized software can be brought together to form complex systems that will do some amazing things.

At this point, developers become more like architects. They don’t have to worry so much about how and what little pieces of code are doing. They can focus more on the macro level, and making sure the entire system is doing what needs to be done. They focus on putting the blocks together in the right order. When this happens, the important skills for software development are going to change. It will be important to know what packages are available, and to have the programming knowledge and experience to pull everything together into a coherent system.

There, of course, will always be the need for people to build more or specialized “bricks”. But as more and more open source software packages become publicly available, developers will be able to worry less about the nitty-gritty internals and focus more on the wider scope of a their projects.

Nexation (http://www.nexation.com/) is a php web development company. They leverage open source to accelerate software development and build innovative business solutions.

9 Free Webmaster Tools You Can Fall In Love With

Webmasters and developers don’t need a whole lot of money to spend on tools in order to work efficiently and be productive. Here is a list of free tools that help me run my everyday webmaster chores.

Notepad++

Dreamweaver and such designing tools might have become very advanced in the recent years but I am still far from satisfied with them. I prefer to do the coding with a simple text editor and be in total control of the code and not end up with unnecessarily long code. Recently I discoverd Notepad++ which has the few bells and whistles that are desired by hard core programmers such as code highlighting, Regular Expression Search/Replace support, capability to extend functionality with plugins and nice depository of contributed ones. Worth your attention.

Filezilla

If you are like me and don’t use WYSIWYG editors to do your HTML/CSS designs then you are probably need or are already using a standalone FTP client to upload/download files to and from your server. Filezilla is a free tool that I have been using for some time and has not failed me. New version 3 has lots of new features, if you are FTPing stuff often maybe you should check it out.

Xampp

XAMPP is an apache server distribution that integrates php, mysql, phpmyadmin and a bunch of other great open source projects into an easy installation. It can be used on production servers to host one’s sites but I mostly use it locally to code and test my html/css/php projects. Its easier to develop locally because there is no need to upload files on servers everytime, and only upload when your project is complete. It can be installed on Windows/Linux and lots of other platforms and if you are serious about developing you should get it installed in your computer and start playing with it.

Google Analytics

Google analytics is a free website statistics package that anyone can easily integrate into their website in a few minutes. Analytics once installed on your website it gathers data and presents you with reports about which sites your visitors come from, what country they live in, how long they stayed on your site, which pages were more popular and a whole lot of reports that you will likely not need another statistics package for you site. Those statistics are vital to the progress of any site in order to understand a site’s audience and find things that might need to be improved. You can create as many analytics accounts as you like (unlimited number of sites) as long as your total pageviews don’t exceed the monthly allowance of 5 million.

Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is not only a great browser to surf with. Firefox was build with extensibility in mind and has given developers a way to extent its functionality with add-ons. Add-ons can enhance the capabilities of Firefox and enhance the browsing experience. There is a whole lot of add-ons in the Mozilla repository that can help you with task such as bookmarking, searching, social interaction, developing, news reading, downloading to name just a few categories. Some of the following favorite tools of mine are actually Mozilla Add-ons. Its definetelly worth your attention.

SeoQuake

Seoquake is a Mozilla add-on that was created with the SEO professionals in mind. It will help you gather important statistics about a website or web page with the touch of a button. Such statistics include PageRank, indexed pages, google backlinks, Cached date etc. One can also extend it/configure it to gather other important statistics from online services not already included in it.

Firebug

Firebug is yet another Mozilla Add-on; a webmaster tool that can help you understand and debug your javascripts. It has so many bells and whistles that I am thinking of devoting a whole article on it. I will just mention the features that I use myself; Inspecting and editing HTML and CSS on the fly, debugging and running javascript on the fly, monitor network activity but there are many others. Here is a video tutorial I recently found that will help you get started with firebug debugging

Gimp

Gimp is an open source image manipulation package that can help you with photo retouching, image composition, format conversion and animations among other things. Its not likely to replace adobe photoshop any time soon but its a free alternative that has found many followers and through its plugin architecture promises to built the only image manipulation tool you will ever need. Some of its features are presented in a way of a presentation but nothing can convince you better than to actually install it and try it on your own.

Drupal

Drupal is a content management system much like wordpress but a lot more extensible. Wordpress is a good CMS (content management system) for simple sites and even though it has many plugins to extend its capabilities I would not recommend building anything other than a blog with it. Drupal on the other hand was built in such a way to be extensible. A programmer digging in its code will appreciate its flexibility, code quality, and modular design and simplicity for writing a new module. Drupal is was build from the ground up a tool for building community sites, and as a result it has many features to support such sites but it is also capable for supporting standard websites. Its learning curve is quite steep but it pays off in the end. Worth more than a look from you.

Giorgos Kontopoulos is a web consultant from Greece. He is one of the authors of GeoLand.org where he can often be found blogging about issues related to web development and search engine optimization. This article on free webmaster tools was originally posted on GeoLand.org

Choosing A File Manager To Use

Most computer users today are spoiled by the richness of the graphical user interfaces or GUI. In Linux, we have dozens of desktop environments that compete against each other for dominance. Right now, GNOME seems to be winning. However, accessing servers remotely using the same desktop environment puts a heavy demand on the network connection. This is one of the reasons why mastering the command-line interface (CLI) is an added ammo in a system administrator’s arsenal. Frankly, it is a must-have in my book.

Anyway, using the CLI does not necessarily have to be too tedious specially when dealing with file management, e.g. moving files from one subdirectory to another, etc. The task is made simpler by a file manager named Midnight Commander (after the popular DOS utility, Norton Commander).

Installation is as simple as invoking “sudo apt-get install mc”. It should not take that long to download and install. PolishLinux.org has a short walk-through of what you can do with Midnight Commander.

Also, it is useful especially for new Linux users or those who are simply not comfortable using the command-line interface (CLI).

Since I am a CLI-user, I find that Midnight Commander, a Norton Commander look-alike, useful especially when deleting selected files or transferring selected files from one subdirectory to another.

The choice of File Manager is really a personal issue. The selection of a file manager is a highly personal decision. For most users, Midnight Commander is probably the command-line choice that is quickest to learn. Few users will want to use one of the generic file managers unless they are already familiar with it from another Unix-like operating system. Of the modern file managers, Konqueror the most satisfactory, so much so that otherwise dedicated GNOME users have been known to install KDE mainly so that they can use it.

However, for those who have always relied on file managers, the first choice has to be Krusader. Combining the centralized functionality of earlier generations with the look and feel of modern applications, Krusader is by far the most complete of the file managers I’ve mentioned.

Depending on your priorities, you might settle on another choice, but it’s worth taking the time to explore your options. For many users, the choice of a file manager remains nearly as important as the choice of an editor is to a developer. A file manager can’t force you to organize your files, but the right one can help you keep them that way.

The author writes about Linux Tip and blogs at http://www.hackitlinux.com/.

Instant EXE Programming Utility Review

Thought creating your own software programs was reserved for die-hard computer geeks? Think again!

If you have ever considered creating your own computer software, but thought that the time needed to learn a programming language and the cost of the development program were just too much, then you are in for a pleasant surprise.

Instant EXE is a software development program that allows just about anyone to create their own Windows-based computer programs. Want a utility to store your recipes? Need a tool to monitor a device on your network? Need to automate a process you do over and over again? Then Instant EXE just may be the solution for you.

There are two things that really make Instant EXE the ideal development tool for programming beginners as well as veterans. First, there really is no programing language to learn.

You see, instead of learning a complicated language Instant EXE (or jut IX for short) has a set of 50 highly customizable commands. Simply double-click the command from the list and it is inserted into your program, or script as they are called.

But, don’t let the fact that the program is easy to use make you believe that IX is not a robust development environment. Each of the commands is highly customizable using a graphical window for each. You do not need to remember or even type any routines yourself. Simply change the settings in the dialog box to change the command’s behavior.

IX’s completely graphical interface makes creating your own software much quicker and easier than other development utilities. Furthermore, there are hundreds of variables and formulas that you can choose from, giving you access to every property and setting imaginable.

The second attractive feature is that Instant EXE is completely free. You can create, compile, and distribute your own software without paying for the development environment or paying any royalties at all. This feature alone makes IX a great choice for hobbyists, network administrators, school and computer user groups, or anyone that wants to write their own software.

How can the company that produces IX support itself you ask? IX comes in 2 flavors. The standard flavor, which is sufficient for most people, doesn’t cost anything. However, if you want to unlock even more features you can upgrade to a low-cost paid version and even add in one of the growing number of plug-ins.

The plug-ins extend IX’s abilities even further. The database plug-in, for example, allows you to manipulate databases in the popular Microsoft Access format. The Browser plug-in allows you to include a web browser interface in your programs and even interact with those web pages. You could for example, automatically submit web searches using this plug-in.

Finally, IX has a very avid user group and forum where people exchange ideas and help each other out. If you’re looking to create a computer program of your own, then Instant EXE is definitely worth checking out.

James Pearson is the creator of the website http://www.freesoftwarecreator.com where you can find a robust programming utility that allows you to create real software programs without learning a programming language and a step-by-step video tutorial series.

Email Forms – a Tough Task for Wannabe Programmers

Adding a simple email form or contact form to a website can often be a tough task for a first-time programmer or small business website. A lot of people who start a website or a small internet business use simple templates to put a website online while having little or almost no knowledge of HTML programming.

Creating a functional email form or contact form, as simple as the form itself may be, is almost impossible for an inexperienced programmer that doesn’t have more advanced knowledge of PHP and HTML programming. Many beginning programmers or small business websites simply include a clickable link using a “mailto” tag that pulls up the user’s email client software so that the user can simply send a regular email to the webmaster.

So, what does a programmer have to do to install an email form on their website? First, the form itself must be created using HTML. That’s the easy part. After that, the programmer must create a very complicated and lengthy PHP file to process the form and email the answers to the form back to the website owner. The name of the file that is most commonly used to process email forms is “Formmail.” Formmail has been used to process and email the results of web forms for over nine years. Since 1997, it has been downloaded more than two million times.

In creating this PHP file (often referred to as “formmail.php”), the programmer should include code that blocks spammers from using the email form to send spam through the form. Many times, inexperienced programmers will put a form on their website that does not include code to prevent spammers from utilizing the form to send spam to hundreds or even thousands of people. As a result, the owners of these websites often have to endure an unfortunate consequence – the web hosting company cancels their account once those who’ve been spammed complain to their internet service provider, who then directs the complaint to the hosting company that handles your website. This can be a huge problem.

All of this can be very complicated for a first-time programmer, but there are now many companies around the internet that have sprung up to help programmers add an email form or other more complicated HTML form to their website. These companies usually provide the HTML code for the form, which the programmer must insert into his/her webpage, but the PHP code that processes the form remains on the server of the company that provides the HTML code and the form is thus processed remotely. Simply input the words “email form” into any major search engine and you will be able to locate a plethora of resources and companies that make email forms easy. The most popular website that provides this service is freedback.com, which receives as many as 300,000 hits per day, but there are many other reliable services out there that provide this service, but usually for a monthly fee if the form is going to be used frequently. However, there are many online tutorials available that teach programmers how to build a form from scratch and install the script to process it.

Jim Pretin is the proprietor of a network of websites which includes http://www.forms4free.com, a service that provides all the code necessary for an inexperienced programmer to add a simple email form to their website in only 2 minutes