Chris Kelley: Open Source

/pnhtoolbar/

Fri, 25 Apr 2003 07:31:16 GMT

A nice toolbar for Mozilla contains a collection of tools that web developers might find useful. Nice debugging tolls in case you are having problems with your layout. Created as an experiment in XUL+JX, /pnhtoolbar/ is a good example of the useful extensibility of Mozilla.

Rich text editing finally available for Mozilla

Mon, 10 Feb 2003 12:30:54 GMT

This is a big deal. Works great in Mozilla 1.3b Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030204

Open Source software in Libraries

Fri, 10 Jan 2003 07:11:33 GMT

The Nelsonville, Ohio, Public Library gives us a nice list of success stories using the Koha Project for library automation (catalogue and more).

More xml-rpc goodness

Wed, 08 Jan 2003 07:52:29 GMT

I really want to use xml-rpc as a transport mechanism to help me manage a couple of websites. This morning I checked out an xml-rpc request builder that is currently called Konstructor (name change pending). It did a fine job of building the message; unfortunately, it choked on the flood of data from my server. It delivers a biiiiig struct. Next I checked out Scott Andrew's xmlrpc-socket-based test script. Again, this implementation bailed, but in a different manner. Hmmmm - is there a problem in what my Cold Fusion-based xml-rpc server is delivering? Finally, I gave a nice Java Web Start-based application a spin. Aloha's Inspector relies on system.listMethods to prompt the user with a dropdown of mothods to use. Very nice; unfortunately, I was not using this method. Back to the drawing board. Once I whipped up that method, it worked fine! I really do like where Aloha is going on this Java application. And the source code is available!

How do we make Linux ready for the desktop?

Tue, 07 Jan 2003 15:28:58 GMT

Read articles such as Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet and seriously consider their suggestions! Perhaps there is a bit too much choice in distro's at the moment - in RedHat 8, you can work in either Gnome or KDE. Hmmmm - which one should I choose? (Gnome is their default environment, and looks really slick. KDE, especially Konquerer, the KDE file browser, seems to be a bit more robust, IMHO.) It is very annoying that XMMS does not play MP3's by default. Trying to play video's is quite a task or trial and error. And Mozilla Mail does not have a spell checker! (But it is very easy to install...) I believe that Linux on the Desktop works. It just needs to be properly implemented. Decide what applications your workgroup needs (word processing? e-mail? presentations? drawing?) and test it out on a workstation before implementing it for everyone else. Have clear goals as to what staff really need to be doing on their pc's during their 8-9 hours in the office. The fact that Linux does not handle *all* types of mpeg video may not be such a big deal. I've been using Red Hat 8 for a couple of months now, but perhaps I should re-visit my perennial favorite, Mandrake. a nice, short review of Mandrake 9.

Mozilla client for MySQL

Sat, 04 Jan 2003 12:51:20 GMT

Now I'd like one that works with Postgresql...

YASP Software has created some e-commerce online shops with MySQL backends. Our clients are using kind of traditional admin systems to view and amend information. HTML/JavaScript/Forms -- HTTP -- WWW SERVER -- SCRIPTS -- MySQL If we are talking about 1,000+ products selling online I can guess about the speed and usability of such interface. Slow, slow, slow. Especially when we need to provide various complex customizable reports and flexible product management. So well. We are looking for a better solution! XUL/JavaScript -- XPCOM -- MySQL XPCOM shown above is exactly the part we have created. It allows to build MySQL interfaces in pure JavaScript. Right now. Well... if you are able to install it :-)

UW Calendar

Sat, 28 Dec 2002 13:19:41 GMT

A very nice open source calendaring project. Java servlet, iCal support, support for subscriptions planned. The quickstart version even includes its own database. Way to go!

Multi--lingual support in Hancom Office

Sat, 28 Dec 2002 08:41:56 GMT

While checking out this Newsforge/Slashdot article on 2003: the year of Asian Linux, I noticed the nice language support offered by Hancom Office: Chinese (simplified and traditional), Japanese, Arabic, Korean editions and Unicode support. I posted this recently, but it bears mentioning that the Shuttleworth Foundation is working on African-language support. Is there a directory of language support for open source projects? To test out outlining in Radio, I made a small directory on this topic.

Start-up problem with Mozilla

Mon, 23 Dec 2002 12:52:09 GMT

This happened about a week ago, and again this morning. After I start Mozilla, the initial about screen displays, then the program freezes, and my memory is slowly sucked away into the cosmos. Solution found: shot down the Mozilla.exe process, and delete the file"XUL.mfl." It gets corrupted, and needs to go away from time to time...

Open Source in Africa: Mozilla and KOffice Available in Regional Languages

Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:06:58 GMT

Mozilla in Xhosa, Zulu, Venda, Northern Sotho, Siswati and Tswana; KOffice in Xhosa, Zulu and Venda, partly thanks to the Shuttleworth Foundation.

Stupidnet in my backyard

Wed, 11 Dec 2002 15:54:20 GMT

David Isenberg on the stupidnet - This is a great article. Please read it. Who will build the networks of the future? If I understand correctly, stupidnets may be woven by do-it-yourself (DYI) networks, be it by innovative local governments, businesses, or tech citizens. These home-grown networks are going up like gangbusters here in Sofia, Bulgaria. I live in the center of the city - the "downtown," if you can call it that. It is typical for ethernet to be strung from the cybercafe a couple of blocks away to your apartment. (WiFi networks have not caught on yet; however, local entrepreneurs are beaming WiFi from the TV tower. Cool. But IMHO the service is a tad pricey...) What happens when the whole neighborhood interconnects their networks? Will a small company offer telephone connectivity to the network? Will the cable company offer network members a special deal on entertainment?

Blogging directly from Mozilla

Thu, 28 Nov 2002 15:33:23 GMT

I've been trying to blog within Mozilla via mozblog; however, I can't even get the darn thang installed on Moz 1.2. Now that the Mozilla Calendar project has shown me that you can do some pretty nice things by extending Mozilla, I'm turning my attention to blogging via Mozilla. Since mozBlog is not working (yet), I checking out some other paths. Following pearfear's advice, I have installed protozilla and will check out his very cool demo of RSS goodness within a browser. I also need to slightly grok XUL. Here's where I'm heading: since the Calendar project already demonstrates the concept of creating/editing multiple items, sorting them in several views (day/week/month), saving this data locally, and posting them remotely, wouldn't it be possible to hack the Calendar code to create a nice blogging tool? Would a calendar-based user interface work for blogging?

LEAF Bering 1.0 Released!

Wed, 20 Nov 2002 14:52:19 GMT

I have been using LEAF Bering Linux distro for my firewall/bridge for a couple of months. Instead of taking the easy road and using a switch, I'm using the bridging capabilities of Linux to enable my workstations/server/cable modem to connect. (Yeah, I could have bought a $25 hub, but where's the fun in that? Plus, it's cheaper to buy the nics than buy a switch.) I just added a new workstation to the fray, so I had to update some of the modules to accomodate the new NIC. While browsing the docs on Bering, I noticed that Bering v1.0-stable has been released. I plan to test it out real soon...

Calendaring in Mozilla

Tue, 19 Nov 2002 09:47:39 GMT

Lately I have been turning my interests to improving the tools available for sharing information for the web. At the moment I am testing the process of posting events to a website. Mozilla has a Calendar project that is beginning to show promise. It is a nice example of open source software development. The calendar does your basic local calendar operations - recurring events, alarms, day/week/month views, but it is buggy and a tad slow. But it's free and is being actively developed. And most importantly, I am able (fairly easily) to post a calendar file to my website to which other Mozilla calendar users may subscribe. I have published a help file for publishing calendar events (via FTP) to a website. Right now this process publishes only an XML-formatted file; next I will research transforming this data to html. (horde's kronolith seems to be ready to do such a thing in pHp.) If you are using Mozilla calendar, you may subscribe to my public calendar.

The Avalon Project

Fri, 25 Oct 2002 17:02:53 GMT

Avalon Project - "The Avalon project is an effort to create, design, develop and maintain a common framework and set of components for applications written using the Java language." The Component Lifecycle bit is very interesting - links to OOP best practices, patterns, and other good stuff. Disciplined programming!

Building a Tivo clone

Thu, 24 Oct 2002 17:29:57 GMT

Article on Slashdot, Could CDRW Disks Replace Videotapes? kindled interest in building my own PVR. After scannning the Slashdot articles, here are some useful links:

MythTV.org - "Yes, I could have just bought a TiVo, but I wanted to have more than just a PVR -- I want a webbrowser built in, a mail client, maybe some games. Basically, I want the mythical convergence box that's been talked about for a few years now."
dvd::rip - "a full featured DVD copy program written in Perl."

XML::Comma

Wed, 16 Oct 2002 08:46:39 GMT

While checking out Allafrica.com's website, I noticed that it is powered by a perl-based open source content management system called XML::Comma. Content is created and stored as XML files, and then indexed by a relational database such as mysql. Nice approach that is quick and easy to maintain. And it's perl!

AllAfrica.com's RDF/RSS Headline Modules

Wed, 16 Oct 2002 08:32:58 GMT

This is a wonderful service - RSS modules of news feeds from AllAfrica.com. This is a pretty good news service - About AllAfrica.com: "posting over 700 stories daily in English and French and offering a diversity of multi-lingual streaming programming as well as a 400,000-article searchable archive (which includes the archive of Africa News Service dating from 1997)." They offer over 80 different feeds, also in French. Be sure to follow their RDF/RSS Headline Modules instructions to get the correct URL. For example, if you are interested in an RSS feed for news about Mali, the URL would be:

http://allafrica.com/tools/headlines/rdf/mali/headlines.rdf

or you could find the link from NewsIsFree, which massages the URL into several useful forms.

Indian Government Goes For Free Software

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 09:37:49 GMT

During my travels in India, I have been amazed at the dominance of Microsoft. Nice to read that the government is putting some support behind Linux in India. And it makes sense to deploy this software in their local languages - Most of my Indian colleagues peak a minumum of three Indian languages, in addition to English. Now where's my Simputer?

I like Mozilla!

Tue, 08 Oct 2002 19:20:33 GMT

I am using the daily builds of Mozilla 1.2b - currently the 20020930 build. They have made tabbed browsing even better - you can easily close individual tabs and create new ones with a nifty icon. Because tabbed browsing is now baked (better) into Mozilla builds, I have not felt compelled to re-install MultiZilla, which deserves major props for creating the tabbed interface for Mozilla. I am now using Mozilla for 90% of my web browsing - I only use IE for compatability checks on web development projects and for one website - a financial website - that refuses to play with anything non IE. I'm pretty amazed at how easy it has been to get used to using Mozilla. The only thing I really miss now is Cntl+return in the location bar to add www. and .com to a website name, which IE does quite nicely.