It’s annoying when you need to open a file that’s been sent to you only to find that you need some expensive piece of software to access it. You know how it is, someone sends you a psd file but you don’t own photoshop. What do you do? It’s happened to us all. But there are places out there that can help: Continue reading »
The UK Government today announced that it would accelerate the use of Open Source software in public services(Story here). According to the article there will be a level playing field between Open Source and proprietary software like Windows. If the Open Source solution offers the best value for money then it would be used. Continue reading »
For the past week or so I’ve been using a new email client. I’ve been a big fan of Thunderbird for a while, I like it’s simplistic style and it’s easy of use. I also like that it’s not made by Microsoft! The biggest draw back I’ve found with Thunderbird is it’s search routines. I find it to not always be reliable for looking for things that I know are in my inbox somewhere. I stumbled across Postbox and thought I would give it a try. Continue reading »
| In this time of credit crunch a lot of companies are trying to cut their costs which is completely understandable. A major source of out goings can be travel costs. Most companies have travelling salesmen, guys who move around from place to place for a one hour or two hour meeting, which basically consists of a short conversation and a demonstration of the software they are trying to sell (obviously I am only talking IT salesmen here). With that in mind one of the most obvious ways to cut the travel costs is to look into doing online demos of the software linked with video conferencing. That way your sales guy can sit in the office and hold demos one after the other, not only cutting travel but also increasing the number of demos possible in one day. |
| There are quite a few payed for offerings out there that allow you to share you screen with multiple people over the web, take for instance Cisco’s WebEx. But if you are like me and don’t want to pay for it there are quite a few open source/free alternatives available if you do a little digging. With this in mind I thought I would look at some of the examples I have found: |
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is something I have talked about before when I talked about the concept of a Web OS. Currently Cloud Computing is the media buzz term, its taken the place of SQL as the thing everyone wants to be able to do. It’s the latest fashion craze of the IT world, everyone wants to do it.
Now I don’t have a problem with Web based applications, they have their place. I have previously talked about Google Calendar and Docs, two web based applications which I use extensively as a business tool. Used correctly they are very useful. The thing I find worrying about the Cloud Computing idea is that if you are going to switch to exclusively web based applications then your data has to be available to these web based applications. Continue reading »
Open source is the way ahead for business. Involving your user base in the development of your project not only cuts down on your research and development costs but making your users feel like they belong and are a part of the project is the best advertising and promotion you can get. A person who feels involved and valued will be more inclined to recommend something to a friend than a person left out in the cold! As I’ve previously stated, the times where a company had to have the best minds in a field working directly for them are long gone (not to mention the fact that it is next to impossible to do so now). For your project to succeed it is a good idea to engage the users, let them bring to bear their creative and technical skills. Their talents can then be put to use in pushing the boundaries. The Open Source model works on this principle, large groups of users join together to create and develop with out much in the way of organisation. This model/practise can be applied to areas outside that of traditional open source with great success though. A good example of this is the game Second Life from Linden Labs. Continue reading »
The changing face of the Internet is have wide reaching effects on the social and economic make up of our way of life, as I’ve have mentioned before these can be very good. The using of Online Collaboration and easy channels of communications like Instant Messaging, Forums and Emails can allow groups of people to come together from all over the world. These groups can then work together on a single project/aim, using the communication channels to keep each other informed of their progress, where they are struggling and talking about where the project is heading next. This distributed workforce is already being widely used by projects such as Linux, Mozilla and IBM. Companies are realising that the old concept that you had to have all the best minds working directly for you in one of your offices no longer works as more and more people over the globe acquire the skills and knowledge to compete.
Continue reading »
In part 1 I talked about how the editable web was making it easier for loosely organised groups of people to work together on projects and tasks even when separated by large distances. This ability to work together is creating a fundamental change in the way consumers are interacting with the products they buy, no longer are they satisfied with merely buying and using a product, they want to be able to be actively involved in the development and continuation of the product.
They want to create their own flavour, there own brand almost. This is happening in all areas, not just software and hardware but the media and toy industry too. This change in the consumer is affecting the way these industries are interact with their customers, some are embracing it and profitting from it. Some like the media industry are fighting it and trying to keep the status quo, almost certain to be a losing battle. Continue reading »
For as long as there has been a society, humans have worked together to achieve goals, the internet is changing the way we collaborate, affecting the way we work together. Making it easier for a larger group of people to co-ordinate their efforts on a project and achieve their goals.
It’s no secret that people like to customise their property some times to improve the product or sometimes to personalise it, look at cars as an example. People customise their cars, they modify the engines in an attempt to increase power. They apply custom paint jobs to make it stand out from the crowd. This same ingenuity is also applied to electronics, there are a lot of people that take electronics as a hobby. They spend their spare time working with different components to build circuits of their own design, not for profit but just for personal interest or the hopes of finding something unique. Continue reading »
Previously I’ve talked about how Peer Production and Collaboration are important elements of the way the open source community works. In Peer Production, a group of people join together in a loose organisation to channel their talents into creating some form of tangible product, but they do so with out the normal trappings of a hierarchical structure common to most businesses today. The direction taken by a project is governed by a consensus of the participants creating it rather than by a decision sent down from on high. I touched on how this could lead to faster product development, because new features can be created without having to be given the go ahead from on high. Allowing others to create separate utilities that integrate with your own, allowing them to talk openly with you and have unrestricted access to your information (API’s in programming terms) can lead to a greater number of additional features that can be beneficial to your own needs as well as that of a partner firm (take the example of Facebook, where opening up their site to allow other developers to build applications that link and actively promoting them has allowed them to grow into one of the strongest Social Networks going)
