Open With: We’ve talked about Open With before. When you have a file with an extension you know it’s a great place to search to determine what program made the file and what open source programs there are there might be able to open it for you. Sure it has it’s faults, it might not always have the right programs type associated for with your extension but thats usually because more than one program might use that extension type. Usually when this happens it tends to be the case that the two programs are completely different so you can determine which one you are looking for.

Alternative to: Open with is great for just determining the file type, but what if you are just looking for an alternative to a particular program, say Photoshop. Well Alternative To is a site for finding alternative to many popular software packages. Simply go to the site, type in your software and click search to be presented with a list of alternative products that perform the same function. It’s list both free and open source alternatives to the program. Can be quite useful for getting some ideas of what to look for.

Wikipedia’s List of Open Source: Yes you should never use Wikipedia as a serious source of research for a college project but when it comes to information about the various different open source packages out there, you cant go far wrong. It’s always been updated by numerous contributors and the links then to always be the latest versions.

Downloadpedia’s Alternative’s to Commercial Software: Another often updated list. Broken down into sections and then in alphabetical order, the commercial software is listed with it’s alternatives beneath.

OSalt: For a long time OSalt has been my go to place for finding open source alternatives to commercial software. It might not be as pretty as Alternative to but it has an open source slant. Like Alternative to it shows commercial alternatives along with open source but unlike Alternative to the open source ones appear at the top of the page. It also makes it easy to tell which are paid for software and which are open source by colour coded dots (red for paid, green for open source). It’s an easy site to use and it’s given me many useful additions to my software library over the years.

Where do you go to find these alternative programs?

An Open Source and Open Standards Action Plan was unveiled that said the Government would do the following:

• Ensure that the Government adopts open standards and uses these to communicate with the citizens and businesses that have adopted open source solutions

• Ensure that systems integrators and proprietary software suppliers demonstrate the same flexibility and ability to re-use their solutions and products as is inherent in open source.

• Embed an open source culture of sharing, re-use and collaborative development across Government and its suppliers

• Ensure that open source solutions are considered properly and, where they deliver best value for money are selected for Government business solutions

• Strengthen the skills, experience and capabilities within Government and in its suppliers to use open source to greatest advantage

I feel that this is a good move by the Government, moving away from the locked in thinking that is usually associated with them. Hopefully such high profile users will ecourage yet more development and further contributors to the Open Soruce movement. This in turn will hopefully stimulate more from the big software companies as they fight to keep ahead and to push new boundries.

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.

Postbox is based on the same code as Thunderbird and to be honest, from my experience it still feels a lot like using Thunderbird but with a lot of added features. It looks cleaner than Thunderbird, it still has a message list and a message preview but it breaks down separate mail boxes showing only the folders specific to the highlighted mail box.

Here are some of the added features you get with Postbox:

• Advanced Search – You don’t just get the search box at the top right to fill in, you can bring up a pop up menu where you can search specific fields in a message like sender email address or contact name.

• Conversation View – Messages with the same topic are grouped together, much like they are in gmail’s web interface, meaning you can see a whole conversation (both received and sent) in one view making it much easier to keep track of whats being said.

• Introspective Pane – When a message is clicked all images, links and addresses are shown on a pane (much like attachments are) to the side allowing you to easily see anything you might need.

• Email Tagging – Emails can be tagged to particular topics, even to multiple ones allowing you to quickly find all related emails. Kind of like filtering on the fly.

• Tabbed Browsing – Open up different folders in different windows then swtich between tabs just like you would in Firefox.

• To Do List – Hold you to do list in your inbox, mark emails as to do as well.

• List Attachments/Links/Images – With postbox you can list search through your folders and produce a list of all attachments, web links or images included in them. Can be quite useful if you know you received a certain file but cant remember the sender.

The main downside for me is that it doesn’t currently have a calendar and as it doesn’t support adds (like Thunderbird does) you can’t install the Lightening add on to get around this. It’s still in beta so there is the possiblity that this may be added yet.

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.

That means that you will have to upload your data to their servers to be able to use their application. Forgive me if this seems a little strange for someone who talks about open collaboration and how it can help your company, but I have a problem with the inner details of my company being open to a outside source like that. When the data is on your own internal server you are fully aware of the security measures put in place, you know what has been do to stop unauthorised access to your data but once you upload it to the Cloud, once it is on someone else’s server you lose that control. You are reliant upon your chosen provider to maintain security and to have good protocols in place, and as has been shown quite a lot recently not all of these providers take this security as seriously as they should.

It would seem Richard Stallman one of the founders of the GNU OS tends to agree with me. He suggests in the linked article that the Cloud Computing hype is an attempt to lock people into proprietary systems. for instance, Gmail is currently free and its attracting a lot of users but who’s to say it will always be a free application. Maybe once Google have attracted a large section of the email market they will start charging for it. Users of Gmail would be faced with a choice, either loose all the data on the Google server and set up a new email will all the hassle entailed or start to pay on the service they depend upon. It’s an interesting business model and one that has been successful in the past for other companies. Not that I am saying Google intends to do this but it is a risk you take when using a web based application. Now imagine if you were using a web based CRM tool in your business to keep track of your customers. You have all your data in there, all your clients and suddenly the web host takes down the application or starts charging a silly amount for it, that could be quite a problem.

The answer that Richard Stallman advocates and one I am inclined to follow myself is to keep these applications with in your own control where ever possible. Host them on your own internal server rather than depending upon a web host to run your company critical systems. For instance in the example above I mentioned web based CRM. If you have a need for a CRM solution and like my company you have workers that work remotely so need access to the database in a web application format, then find a software solution that is capable of running on your internal server but is web distributable. This solves both problems. The data is still in a security system that you control and you are no longer dependant upon someone else’s server to have access to the software.

If you are looking for a good web based CRM solution then I would suggest Sugar CRM. We use the Open Source version at our office and its a very capable solutions having the majority of the features of something like Sage ACT. Plus as it is Open Source other people are always developing add ons (you can even use a module builder to create your own)

In a time when information exchange is becoming the new currency, keeping control of your own information is key. For this reason a lone I would suggest keeping away from what is consider Cloud Computing where the software is hosted by an outside company.

Second Life (abbreviated as SL) is an Internet-based 3D virtual world launched June 23, 2003 and developed by Linden Research, Inc, which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007. It provides a platform for human interaction with a high degree of naturalness. A free downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called “Residents“, to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade items (virtual property) and services with one another. – Wikipedia Second Life article

Most people who spend a little time online will have heard about Second Life, it’s even made the mainstream media. Second Life is basically an Online Role playing Game (ORPG), people can create accounts and participate in an online world where they can interact with other users. The thing that sets Second Life apart from most other ORPG’s though is the fact that users of the game can create content for the game which they can then “sell” to other users. The game has it’s own in built currency called the Linden Dollar which has an exchange rate with the US Dollar. A user can create something, add it to the game and then sell on for Linden dollars. These dollars can then either be transferred out of the game into real world currency, or used to purchase other in game artifacts. It’s even possible to purchase virtual real estate. In fact some people have made large profits by purchasing a large area of land for a small fee and then selling on that land to others in smaller parts.

The selling of virtual real estate is another side product, the real difference here is that users create the content though. Linden have fallen on to the idea that there are people out there that will do a lot of the work for them. If they did not allow users to create for Second Life they would be forced to hire people internally to do this. By opening up the software to user additions they have effectively out sourced this side of the project with out having the associated costs. The game’s in built currency will even allow users/creators to benifit financially from their work with out Linden having to pay them directly. The additionally content added to the game will enhance the experience of Second Life which will in turn draw more users and more creativity.

If a large enough user base is built then real world businesses can be enticed into the project, paying money for a Second Life presence (this is already happening and has been for a while). Whilst Second Life’s membership may be waining now, there are other project looks to take up the mantel and push the boundries further, some projects are even making the programming of the back end code open source as well (see OpenSim). Even Google are not trying to get in on the act with Lively, allowing users to open vitural chatrooms around every website they visit.

As most people will be aware of from the news, there have been more and more cases where the police in multiple countries have worked together to bust rings of drug dealers and child sex offenders. Just like people with good intentions are finding each other across the web, so too are the ones with darker intentions. criminals from every country are using the web to forge contacts world wide that can help them further their aims. Whether that be finding someone to supply something to them, or finding someone to sell their ‘product’ on to. Using the same communications channels as the open source community they can work together, a criminal in one country creating the product to ship on to another else where. Even making the transport arrangements over the web, or transferring over the web if the product is electronic. Also, because to some extent communications over the Internet are viewed as anonymous people that might normally avoid criminal acts will be tempted to engage in them (take file sharing, some would argue that it encouraged people who would not commit theft in ‘normal’ life to ’steal’ copyrighted music, not an argument I want to get into here though).

Just like every other tool the human race has created over its history, there are ways and means to corrupt this advancement. For every invention that man creates there will always be another person that can take it and apply it to a dishonorable use. Does this mean that we should avoid, even destory the tools we create? Not at all, it just means that we must be vigilant, we must watch for others using these things for a bad purpose and put a stop to them.

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.

What do I mean when I say consumers want to intertact with the products they buy? Well take a look at media. For a long time the media has been dominated by the press. The papers are the big boys, they set the tone, they decide what is classed as news and what isnt, what makes it to the press and what doesn’t. They even decide to tone (or spin) with which it is reported. An ordinary person couldn’t really compete with them, the resources required to produce on a large enough scale to be anywhere near successful were beyond the means of most people. But with the rise of blogs and the ease with which a person can get their own web space the balance of power in the press is shifting. Now a person with an opinion can create a blog, record a podcast, post to a forum. They can get their opinions out there and get their voice heard with relative ease. No longer do people have to only relay upon the articles presented by the newspapers which all too often are coloured by the political views of their editors. Now they can take a consensus of opinions from the various people who will write articles on their blogs about most subjects that will make the news. Bloggers are beginning to make a serious impact upon the advertising revenue of newspapers and this is starting to get them to take notice.

Changes like this are taking place across the various sectors of industry, sometimes on a small scale but they are happening. Some are embracing this change and profitting greatly from it. A great example of this is Lego Mindstorm. Mindstorm takes the basic Lego blocks and adds in some programable sensors and motors, allowing the end user to create or model a real life system such as an elevator in Lego. Orignally this was a closed product, various models were released by lego with instructions on how to build them and produce the code to make the models run. As has always been the case with Lego though, the end users soon started building models to their own creation. Moving on from the basic Lego ones and adapting the plans to create even better models. At first Lego fought against this movement, thinking it would detract from their sales and harm the product. As groups sprang up on the internet to show off their creations and share the code with others,

Lego wanted to keep people from ‘diluting’ their product as they saw it. This struggle was one that ultimately they could not win though, its hard to stop a group of people so widely spread (just as the RIAA). It could easily have lead to the death of the product. But then Lego began to embrace the community growing around their product. They began to take notice of the creative talent of their consumers rather than taking “We know best” approach. Once they started to accept the fact that their customers wanted to help them to improve their product they begin to incorporate their ideas and designs, they began to actively push the interaction of their customers, making it one of the selling points of the product. Lego now run a thriving website for the Mindstorm product range, they hold competitions to encourage more inovation by their customers. Infact they recently even involved some of the most active and popular contributors to be involved in the design process.

Online collaboration is re-inventing the way businesses interact with their customers. Its shifting the balance of power and allowing the user to have more control and influence. The businesses that react best to this shift are likely to make better use of this change, those that make best use of this change are sure to see an increase in their productivity

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.

There are people out there that spend time pouring over software and hardware products in order to modify them for their own means. Again as with cars and electronics, they are looking for ways to improve and personalise the software. Some of them like to write their own customer programs while others like to play with the settings of existing ones to improve them (just look at the way people customise their desktops). We humans are a proud species as well though, once we have made these changes we like to show them off. With cars and electronics people used to gather together and show them off, a group of people gathered in a supermarket car park on a Friday night each in their custom car is a good example, or a convention of enthusiasts. But these gatherings where not always easy to find an not always attended by that many.

The showing off might have happened in reasonable sized groups but the actually work tended to be done in small groups of one-two or at a push three. Working in private in their own home with no one seeing the end result until it was revealed. The collaborative nature of the web is changing this though. The ability to dedicate a web page to your chosen pursuit and open it up to the world is making it easy for this enthusiasts to first find each other and then communicate with easy other. Social media websites have made this communication even easier, allowing groups of people with similar interests that are not technically minded to find each other and form social groups even if there is a large distance between them. The rise of the editable web is also making it easier for they to showcase their work. A hobby programmer can easily put up his own web site or host his files on one of the many download sites out there and allow people to see his product. Some one who has applied a fancy paint job to their car can post pictures to one of the many sites dedicated to this hobby or start their own group on a site like Facebook..

The editable web is making it easier for larger groups to form and interact with each other, they can post messages to a board keeping each other informed as to where the poject is at, they can post updates of the software. The more people collaborate like this the more people are finding that they like the easy with which they can work with others this way. The growth of open collaborative projects that are making big news is an indicator of the way this new medium is channeling human creativity, take the mozilla project as an example. A large group of people have been drawn together and formed into a group of people creating software, the group is distibuted all over the world, most of them will never meet, never even talk on the phone with each other. But they work together, communicate their progress, they build different parts of the same program and these parts work together forming one of the most popular web browsers out there.

Buisness needs to take notice of the way people are working together, figure out how to tap into this pool of talent that they can make use of to increase their own products.

Part 2 here

Peer Production and Open Collaboration have allowed projects like Linux to become strong in their field. But do the these principles only work in respect to software? Or can they be transferred into other areas of industry in order to strengthen or increase the products they create? Could opening up a company’s intellectual property to outsiders increase that company’s worth? The short answer is yes.

In the past companies hired their staff from a small pool of talent, they were limited by goegraphically location and the willingness of an individual to tie themselves to the company for a period of time. There was also a limited number of people in the world with the require skills/knowledge to accomplish the tasked the comany needed. With the growth of technically expertise in areas such as India and China this second problem has deminished in size, both countries are investing heavily in the education of their large population base and are beginning to turn out the high class engineers and scientists that the technical world needs.

With this increase in the number of people out there with the required skill set it is ludicrous to believe that it is possible to hire and retain all the best staff in a given field with in your own organisation. More and more companies are waking up to the realisation that they don’t need to have the best minds tied into working only for them. With high speed internet making the transfer of large amounts of information and the near instant communication of ideas possible through technologies such as IM a person no longer has to be physically present in your office to be an integral part of your team. Disciplines such as chemistry and physics are using these tools to allow large groups of scientist and engineers to collaborate on projects and advance our understanding of world. Take the Human Genome Project, scientists from various countries worked together on a US Department of Energy/National Institutes of Health project to identify and map out the Human Genome. With out the cooperation of so many minds from all over the world the 13 year project might now have produced any major results for a much longer period. With out the ability to share ideas and intellectual properties openly it would have been a much harder task. The US government opened up their own information in this project, in fact as the HGP history page states that the governments commitment to licensing its own research for use by private industry was one of the catalysts for the project.

True science has always been a collaborative area of expertise. But other areas are following this example now and by opening up their problems and technologies to outsiders, companies are finding solutions to their problems from unlikely sources quite often from out side of their own industry. Sites like Innocentive are allowing companies to tap into the enquiring minds that they might not normally reach. The idea behind Innocentive is relatively simple. Companies (Called Seekers) post their problems to the website, opening up their current research knowledge on the subject to outside individuals (known as Solvers). The Seekers offer a cash reward for a solution to the problem. The Solvers attracted to a problem may no necessarily come from a field related to the Seekers but this can be a benefit, they can approach the problem from a different view point and see solutions that someone tied to traditional thinking in that field might well miss.

By opening up their research to outsiders companys can make more money from their Intellectul Property. Others may well be able to take their work and apply it to fields outside of that companies own domain, finding a use for it that normally the company would not encounter. Once a use is found a company can license these other parties to use their research. Similarly by being open and sharing information companies can gain access to research done by others that they can apply to their own industry and generate profit from.