foomandoonian

Mozilla have a prototype called Prism that lets you turn web applications, like Buzzword or the Aviary suite into stand-alone apps, that still use the browser's engine, but presents the app in a new window. You may not realise that the slick new Google browser, Chrome, lets you easily do the same trick.

Simply navigate to a page that you want to use as a stand-alone app, say Gmail, and select the drop down 'page' icon to the right of the 'omnibar'. Now decide what shortcuts you want created, and boom, you're done. Even if you don't like Chrome as a browser, it does run webapps nice and sharpish, and this is a great way to use your calendar or RSS reader. Of course, with Google Gears support, you can even use some applications offline. Handy.

Last month, the mixtape website Muxtape went down, leaving the understated message: 'Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA.'

Users jumped to the pretty reasonable conclusion that Muxtape is effectively dead, although the official support tumblelog says: 'No artists or labels have complained. The site is not closed indefinitely. Stay tuned.'

Muxtape is dead. Long live Opentape.fm

Dead or not, seemingly the same instant Muxtape went down, Opentape.fm sprung up.

Opentape's creation and design are inspired by Muxtape's success and sleek interface. We were disappointed with its untimely shutdown and wanted the web mixtape movement to continue.

Molly Wood on Buzz Out Loud expressed a theory that 'the RIAA's constant crackdown on sites and services that ought to be fair use is creating cockroach-like, drug-resistant strains... like Opentape'. Speculation aside, Opentape is all the cooler for being open source and easy to install on your own website. The same slick Ajaxy page is all there, except instead of the links to buy music on Amazon, Opentape has a direct link to the MP3. It also has a flash player you can embed elsewhere:

Roundup

• Read Write Web has a good overview, and Lifehacker has the nicest guide to installing Opentape.
• Get more help from the official forums.
• Subscribe to the Opentape tumblelog, and follow them on Twitter.
• And, of course, download Opentape.

Today Google launched a new open-source web browser called Chrome. I'm not going to waste your time with some made up on-the-spot analysis and opinioneering - instead, here is a handy list of the key things you need to know:

• You can download Google Chrome here: http://www.google.com/chrome
  
• It looks simple, uncluttered, minimalistic and very Google-ish (click image to enlarge):

• There is a comic drawn by the legendary Scott McCloud explaining they key principles behind the browser. You can read it here: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/
  

• The official Chromuim blog is here: http://blog.chromium.org/
• You can grab the source code from http://www.chromium.org/
• Only one of these is the official logo:

Twitter has a new rival in town: Identi.ca (although, as I write this the domain resolves to 'hewitt.controlezvous.ca'). This micro-blogging platform has one killer feature - it's open source. If you're so inclined, you can grab the source from Laconi.ca and start your own Twitter competitor today. Not only is the source free, but your content will be too, as you have to agree to the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence to join up. Specific exceptions are made for private data like your, email address, IM address, phone number.

OpenID is supported, as well as OpenMicroBlogging, which seems pretty essential if a service like this is going to be competitive. It is the nature of open source projects to fork, and making the platform compatible with others will allow a much larger community to grow. (Maybe Twitter, Plurk and the others will all work together in the future, but until then I guess we'll have Ping.fm)

So Control Yourself Inc. have provided all the right open credentials, but is Identica any good? And is it a Twitter killer?

Maybe. As I write this, Identica has only been public for two days. It has garnered pretty large numbers and created quite a buzz already, but it still lacks a few essentials. It has been slow and suffering from network timeouts and currently has no replies tab, API or SMS support. In fact, there is a huge bug list pointing all this out, along with many great feature ideas. Twitter has been teetering on the verge of true awesomeness for a while now, so I think it is still possible for a service like Identica to sweep in and take the initiative.



I hate to say it, but my biggest gripe is how bland the design is. I know this is a minor criticism, but they need to add some template love sooner rather than later. Lets have a little personality.

So, Identica is more potential than anything, but that is true of every so-called web 2.0 service. Openness, in this instance at least, gives Identica a real shot at long-term success. Amusingly, this could all lead to a terribly confusing Evan vs. Ev in the great Battle of the Microblogs '08. Bring it on, I guess!

If you join up, why not 'subscribe' to me at identi.ca/foomandoonian?

Muxtape quite simply lets you roll your own mp3 mixtape on the internet to share with others.

As you can see from the main menu on the left, things are kept very simple. Upload your files, rearrange the playlist and rename any tracks you need to, and settings lets you name and caption and associate a colour with your muxtape.

The social networking features are pretty basic too. You can add anyone else's Muxtape to your list of favourites and you can explore a random selection from the front page. Last.fm this is not. Take a look at my muxtape to see the player in action.

A nice alternative is altertone, which is very slick looking and open source, but lacks the minimalism of Muxtape.

One final note worth mentioning is the official Muxtape blog. There was a short service outage over the last few days and this kept the users very well informed - something that Twitter has only just figured out!

UNIX Airways

Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to the airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece by piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are supposed to be building.

Air DOS

Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and let the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push again, jump on again, and so on...

Mac Airlines

All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look and act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are gently but firmly told that you don't need to know, don't want to know, and everything will be done for you without your ever having to know, so just shut up.

Windows Air

The terminal is pretty and colourful, with friendly stewards, easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.

Windows NT Air

Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.

Windows XP Air

You turn up at the airport,which is under contract to only allow XP Air planes. All the aircraft are identical, brightly coloured and three times as big as they need to be. The signs are huge and all point the same way. Whichever way you go, someone pops up dressed in a cloak and pointed hat insisting you follow him. Your luggage and clothes are taken off you and replaced with an XP Air suit and suitcase identical to everyone around you as this is included in the exorbitant ticket cost. The aircraft will not take off until you have signed a contract. The inflight entertainment promised turns out to be the same Mickey Mouse cartoon repeated over and over again. You have to phone your travel agent before you can have a meal or drink. You are searched regularly throughout the flight. If you go to the toilet twice or more you get charged for a new ticket. No matter what destination you booked you will always end up crash landing at Whistler in Canada.

OSX Air

You enter a white terminal, and all you can see is a woman sitting in the corner behind a white desk, you walk up to get your ticket. She smiles and says "Welcome to OS X Air, please allow us to take your picture", at which point a camera in the wall you didn't notice before takes your picture. "Thank you, here is your ticket" You are handed a minimalistic ticket with your picture at the top, it already has all of your information. A door opens to your right and you walk through. You enter a wide open space with one seat in the middle, you sit, listen to music and watch movies until the end of the flight. You never see any of the other passengers. You land, get off, and you say to yourself "wow, that was really nice, but I feel like something was missing"

Windows Vista Airlines

You enter a good looking terminal with the largest planes you have ever seen. Every 10 feet a security officer appears and asks you if you are "sure" you want to continue walking to your plane and if you would like to cancel. Not sure what cancel would do, you continue walking and ask the agent at the desk why the planes are so big. After the security officer making sure you want to ask the question and you want to hear the answer, the agent replies that they are bigger because it makes customers feel better, but the planes are designed to fly twice as slow. Adding the size helped achieve the slow fly goal.

Once on the plane, every passenger has to be asked individually by the flight attendants if they are sure they want to take this flight. Then it is company policy that the captain asks the passengers collectively the same thing. After answering yes to so many questions, you are punched in the face by some stranger who when he asked "Are you sure you want me to punch you in the face? Cancel or Allow?" you instinctively say "Allow".

After takeoff, the pilots realize that the landing gear driver wasn't updated to work with the new plane. Therefore it is always stuck in the down position. This forces the plane to fly even slower, but the pilots are used to it and continue to fly the planes, hoping that soon the landing gear manufacturer will give out a landing gear driver update.

You arrive at your destination wishing you had used your reward miles with XP airlines rather than trying out this new carrier. A close friend, after hearing your story, mentions that Linux Air is a much better alternative and helps.

Linux Air

Inspired by the possibility of free air travel you decide to fly Linux. You search through hundreds of similar sub-companies. They all claim to be able to get you there quickly and safely, but some airlines don't seem to have been used for years and many just specialise in freight. Almost none offer any in-flight entertainment and lack for any instructions but all claim that the other passengers will know what's going on and you should have no problem finding help.

You select Ubuntu Air and have an enjoyable and speedy journey. You even liked the brown suede décor. However you didn't hear anything through the headsets, even though everyone else seemed to have no problems!

(I know this gets circulated around the internet a lot, but I'm posting it here because the final 'Linux Air' analogy is my own. I posted it in a comment on digg over a year ago.)

One of the software picks on the last Mac Break Weekly was the cool-sounding Tape Deck.

It is just a very simple audio recording/playback app. that mimics the look of a classic tape deck. Open source software developers should consider using this approach where it is applicable - it could do a lot for the perception of 'ease-of-use' of Linux.

(Tape Deck is Mac only and not open source)

[Ars Review]

The BBC are reporting that Windows XP will be shipping as an alternative OS on the One Laptop Per Child. Techcrunch dumbs the story down, typically, but a commenter links to an insightful essay by a former OLPC developer, Ivan Krstić about his anger over the direction the project has taken.

This is good for Microsoft of course, because they get their hooks into a massive emerging market. It's also good for OLPC Foundation, because right or wrong most people still consider Windows to be the only true standard.

I do wonder why OLPC chose to devise a bizarre and unique OS (The Sugar OLPC Human Interface). Matching the UI to the intended target audience sounds like a great idea, but surely emulating a more 'standard' desktop environment, like Gnome or KDE, would have been much more appealing to nations who would see that skills learned would be transferable. Krstić makes a similar point in his post:

Windows is a requirement because enough people grew up with it, not the other way around. If OLPC made a billion people grow up with Linux, Linux would be just dandy for business.

So instead these new users will have to use an operating system that Microsoft is trying to persuade those in the developed world to leave behind. After all, XP isn't going to be available after June... or is it?

Microsoft plans to offer PC makers steep discounts on Windows XP Home Edition to encourage them to use that OS instead of Linux on ultra low-cost PCs (ULPCs). To be eligible, however, the PC vendors that make ULPCs must limit screen sizes to 10.2 inches and hard drives to 80G bytes, and they cannot offer touch-screen PCs.

via PC World

This is exactly why developing nations should want open source software. It is tragic to me that Microsoft are using their clout to force themselves into markets that have been made possible by open source software and free thinking. The Eee PC runs perfectly on Linux, and Asus were able to customise Xandros to make a unique interface, perfectly suited to the limited capabilities of the tiny computer and full of free software. But the current Eee 900 has the option Windows or Linux, and the tragedy is that most retailers will probably sell more Windows machines - because that's what people want.

I'm trying not to sound like some Linux hippy, but it's hard not to be frustrated. I have only been using Linux exclusively on my home PC for six months now and it's pretty clear to me that all Linux needs to be ready for mass market is ... more users. High profile machines like the Eee or OLPC is exactly what free software needs to prove its worth. And, of course, Microsoft knows this.

Right now, I can think of no reason I would want to use a decommissioned operating system on such a small laptop. Web browsing, emailing, word processing and all the other basic software food groups are perfectly well catered for. Linux still falls behind Windows or OSX for some advanced software users, but this isn't an issue here. If you could run Photoshop, I doubt you would want to! The game isn't over here fortunately: the Linux version comes with 20GB of hard disk space, while the Win version has 12GB and is reportedly much slower to boot.

It'll be interesting to see what happens next. I have a feeling that the OLPC project has no soul behind it. Nicholas Negroponte comes off pretty poorly in the Krstić essay:

In fact, I quit when Nicholas told me — and not just me — that learning was never part of the mission. The mission was, in his mind, always getting as many laptops as possible out there; to say anything about learning would be presumptuous, and so he doesn't want OLPC to have a software team, a hardware team, or a deployment team going forward.

The ramifications for Microsoft forcing themselves onto Eee PCs doesn't seem like such a big disaster for the future of humanity. After all, most of us use Windows already - it is only fair for it to be an option.

The truth, as I see it, is this: Free software is the future. Right now, it works and the more people who use it, the better it will get. The takeaway from these stories is that we can't trust businesses to have our best interests at heart, because they are necessarily more interested in the bottom line than progressive ideologies.

We need to do something more to spread the message ourselves.

Jeffro has an interesting article (Un Authorized Syndication) about the pros and cons of allowing readers to subscribe to a full RSS feed, and problem of sploggers.

I weighed in with my perspective:

As a reader, I think full RSS feeds are important. When I stumble across an interesting blog, I add the feed to Google Reader and categorise it. If I notice at this stage that the RSS is truncated, I usually unsubscribe straight away. There is every chance that I will forget all about that site and never return, but if I get a full feed then I will continue to read and occasionally return to the source to make a comment (like now). I also share interesting stories via Reader, which gives the site some additional promotion.
I am sympathetic to the authors, who may want the visits, and I have no answer to the splogger problem (although you have my permission to flog any sploggers that you find!).

Drop on over to the comments and share your opinion.

Open Source has been around in spirit for a long time, but it became what it is today thanks largely to Richard Stallman, hacker, software freedom fighter and beard wearer. RMS wrote the original GPL (GNU General Public License), which outlines the principles of free software. Starting in true geek style with freedom zero:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Linus Torvalds wrote the Linux kernel in 1991. Rebel Code has a pretty good account of this, and also covers the whole history of the open source movement. Worth a read.

The internet has benefited greatly from the so-called LAMP stack, a collection of open source software that makes websites reliable and dynamic. Wikipedia breaks it down as follows:

• Linux, referring to the operating system;
• Apache, the Web server;
• MySQL, the database management system (or database server);
• PHP, the programming language.

You may not realise it, but if you use the internet you have already benefited a great deal from open source.

Although Google doesn't release much open source material directly, it is a big proponent of OSS, and practices what it preaches. Most Google employees run Linux (specifically, a tweaked version of Ubuntu called Goobuntu), and it is often rumoured that A Google Linux distro may be in the works. Although Google denies this, such a big name behind Linux could be just what is needed to move Linux to the mainstream.

And a big name is what Ubuntu has in Mark Shuttleworth. He made his billions in the dot com boom and became the second space tourist (and the first African in space).

The money he has poured into Ubuntu has helped make it one of the most user friendly distros - and certainly the most publicised. Now with it's 'Gutsy Gibbon' release (7.10) it has added flashy 3D effects, desktop search, encryption and other advanced security features.

See also...

• Wikipedia Free Software Portal
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar
• Groklaw - Open Source Software: What Is It and How Does It Work?

Software Picks

The Big Ones - I'm not going to go into much detail on these since they are so well known.

• Mozilla's Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird. Replaces Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and Outlook's calendaring features.
• Open Office. Replaces Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access, with a few extra goodies thrown in. IBM have recently released the new Lotus Symphony suite, which includes a documents, presentation and spreadsheet editor all in one app. I've been using it for a few weeks now, with only minor issues. It'll be in Beta for a while, but mark it down as one to watch. Could wind up being an OOo killer!
• GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
• Alternatively try GIMPshop, a modification of the free/open source graphics program GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP.
• Ubuntu is by no means the only Linux distro out there, but it is currently getting the most press. With Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) hot off the presses it has added some of the glitz and glamour of commercial OSes, like Vista and OSX. Available in many variations and for all platforms, 32 and 64 bit, desktop and server variations, and now super easy to install (or test by running from a live CD), I can honestly see no reason why a basic PC user would need Windows!

Other Cool OSS

• Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
• Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of "press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.
• FileZilla is a free FTP client for Windows, with Mac and Linux versions on the way.
• VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms. It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters.
• Notepad2 is a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry.
• Also Notepad++, another source code editor and Notepad replacement, which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment.
• Password Safe is tool that allows you to have a different password for all the different programs and websites that you deal with, without actually having to remember all those usernames and passwords. KeePass is another alternative.
• Toucan is a small utility allowing you to synchronise, backup and secure your data with more options than the built in suite utilities. It is split up into 5 tabs, allowing you to easily find the function that you want.
  If running applications off a portable hard drive or USB stick is news to you, check out Portable Apps for Toucan, Firefox, Notepad++ and many more OS apps.
• TrueCrypt creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk. It can encrypt an entire hard disk partition or a storage device such as USB flash drive. An essential piece of software to protect sensitive data.
• Miro (formerly the Democracy Player) is a free video platform with a mission to build a more open and diverse world of online video. RSS, BitTorrent, HTTP, HTML, and CSS are all open technologies that they use to create a level playing field for video creators to distribute their work and for viewers to connect to any publisher in the world.
• Media Player Classic (MPC) is a compact free software media player for Microsoft Windows. The application mimics the look and feel of the old, light-weight Windows Media Player 6.4 and uses a completely different codebase, integrating many options and features found in modern media players. (Click the downloads tab and look for Media Player Classic)
• VLC media player (Video Lan Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
  Between MPC and VLC, you should never download a video file you can't play again!
• Juice is the premier podcast receiver, allowing users to capture and listen to podcasts anytime, anywhere.
• HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.
• Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems. A killer app for many, but possibly too complex for the casual movie. It's well worth checking out Elephants Dream, the world’s first open movie, made entirely with open source graphics software such as Blender, and with all production files freely available to use however you please, under a Creative Commons license. (Follow the production of the second project, Peach)

Web Based Open Source - Just a taster

• Vanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web. Anyone who has web-space that meets the requirements can download and use Vanilla for free!
• Wordpress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability - according to the blurb on the frontpage. Basically it's a blogging platform, and it's free.
• Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website.
• For a more complete run-down of open source content management systems, and the option to try them all out, take a look at Open Source CMS.
  
• Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved. The licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work — a “some rights reserved” copyright.
• Open Clip Art Library is an archive of user contributed clip art that can be freely used.
  
• OSWD and Open Source Web Design - Two different sites that offer a large number of hight quality web templates, all released under some open licence.
  

Lists like this are abundant on blogs and frequently pop up un sites like Digg. Do a quick Google and drink from the firehose. Welcome to Open Source Software.

[NOTE: This post was rescued from an older blog I have discontinued, which is why it may seem out of place in this blog. I hope you enjoyed it.]