Posts Tagged ‘gpl’
May 28th, 2010
WordPress is well known for its ‘Famous 5-Minute Install’; getting up and running with WordPress generally takes five minutes. All that is needed is a hosting account (or a local install with the likes of Xampp), a MySQL database and the WordPress install files.
Well, the great news is that with the new WordPress 3 (WP3) the install now takes about two minutes. Yip, the ‘Famous 5-Minute Install’ is now the ‘Famous 2-Minute Install’. WP3 is just so simple to install and custom passwords can be entered right from the install (in WordPress 2, a changeable password would be assigned on initial install).
Well done to the WordPress 3 developers and community for what looks like an even more awesome WordPress!
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Tags: blogs, gpl, Internet, mysql, open source, Software, WordPress, wordpress 3, xampp | 
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February 14th, 2010
WordPress is awesome (yes, I am a big WordPress CMS fan). One of the huge advantages of GPL software (e.g. Moodle) is that a huge community often contributes code to the core software. In WordPress, the most common form of community contribution is in the form of Plugins and Themes.
I have been ‘playing’ recently with the Constructor theme by Anton Shevchuk. Although there are many good (and some great) WordPress themes (e.g. Theme Hybrid), the Constructor theme has immediately become one of my favorites for it’s vast array of options and ease of use/configuration.
One question about the Constructor theme that I have noticed on a few Sites is how to change the default Constructor Footer text which looks like this:
‘© 2010 [NAME] Blog is proudly powered by WordPress | Constructor Theme
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).’
Well this is how to amend the default footer text:
- Ensure that your Current Theme is set to Constructor.
- Log in to WordPress as an Administrator.
- Go to Appearance ->Customize.
- Click the Footer tab
- Enter the text you want to appear in the Footer (or just enter a space if you don’t want any Footer text)
You’ll notice that the text you entered above has replaced the default footer Text!
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Tags: Anton Shevchuk, blog, gpl, how to, hybrid, moodle, plugins, Software, WordPress, wordpress themes |
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January 29th, 2010
There is so much software out there, some good and some really not great at all. I am however continually amazed that people are prepared to pay for software when there is a better free alternative available. Below is my favourite software that is free to use and provides exceptional productivity gains:
Notepad++
Category: Text Editor, Source Code editor and Notepad replacement
Alternative: Windows Notepad
Getting roughly 500,000 downloads a month this is GPL software at its very best. This notepad replacement is excellent as a basic Word processor as well as having some advanced source code editor features and is available in many languages. Notepad++ is extensible through its multitude of plugins and should be used as a notepad replacement by all Windows users (instructions are given on how to use Notepad++ as a notepad replacement).
FeedReader
Category: RSS Reader
Alternative: RSSOwl
FeedReader is a free, powerful and reliable RSS reader and manager. FeedReader loads when the PC starts and collects new articles in feeds on a set schedule. A little notification icon lights up when a new article is available to read. FeedReader articles may be read Offline and the application includes some clever and useful functionality such as OPML import and export, simple ‘search to RSS’ from Google Blogs, Bing Search, Delicious tags and so on.
WordPress
Category: Content Management System (also Blogging Software)
Alternative: Drupal, Joomla
WordPress originated as Blogging software however has evolved into a powerful and extensible Content Management System (CMS). WordPress has been successful in maintaining its reliability and ease of use whilst extending the possibilities of the software through the availability of thousands of themes and WordPress Plugins. WordPress is used by very large Sites such as CNN as well as small personal Blogs. WordPress.com provides free hosted WordPress implementations similar to Blogger for those who don’t want to host their own WordPress implementation.
Moodle
Category: Learning Management System (LMS)
Alternative: Claroline, ILIAS
Moodle is from Australia and is the most popular of the GPL (free) Learning Management Systems. Moodle is simple to implement however takes a fair amount of configuration (this is because of the extensive capabilities of the software and the differing needs of training organizations). Moodle, like WordPress, is equally capable for large Universities and organizations as well as small limited training providers.
FileZilla
Category: FTP Client
Alternative: FireFTP (Mozilla Firefox FTP Client Add-On)
FileZilla is an extensively used FTP Client. The advantage of FileZilla over many other FTP clients is its ease of use, such as the ‘drag and drop’ file functionality and ease of setup. FileZilla is also often far quicker to use than using Java based and other FTP Clients (e.g. for GoDaddy hosting it is much quicker to transfer files to and from a GoDaddy hosting account than using the GoDaddy file transfer Tools). FileZilla is one of the ten most downloaded SourceForge project applications ever.
An FTP Server is also available which is called FileZilla Server.
Firefox
Category: Internet Browser
Alternative: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Apple Safari
Mozilla Firefox is the choice of Online Content and Web Page creators. Firefox subscribes to Web Standards and best-practice and is enhanced through its 3rd party add-ons. Firefox is also the second most popular of the Web Browsers after Internet Explorer and is considered the most secure browser (Firefox has integration with Internet Site blacklists by StopBadWare.org). The latest version of Firefox includes Google-based location-aware browsing (geolocation).
Google Picasa
Category: Digital Photo Software
Alternative: Paint.net, Windows Live Photo Gallery
Picasa is a free Google digital photo organizer and editor. Some cool features in Picasa are the face recognition and tagging which make searching very quick and the ability to upload photos for remote printing (e.g. Snapfish) from Picasa itself. Picasa does not create duplicate copies of photos as some software does but rather updates the original photos with tags or other amendments made.
XAMPP
Category: Apache Web Server, MYSQL, Perl and PHP
Alternative: Server2Go
XAMPP is a simple to install and use Apache, MYSQL, PHP and Perl package. Within minutes it is possible to have a fully functioning Web Server which may host the likes of WordPress and Moodle or any other Web application reliant on Apache. Many people have an XAMPP install on their PC or Mac as their test or demonstration Server and then host the live Website or Application at a dedicated host. The days of battling to install Apache, PHP and MYSQL are over thanks to XAMPP.
Windows Live Mail
Category: Email Reader
Alternative: Mozilla Thunderbird
As far as free Email readers with Online calendaring goes, few can beat Windows Live Mail from Microsoft. Windows Live Mail is a small application which is able to send and receive from multiple Email accounts including Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and a multitude of other free and paid email accounts. This application is simple to use and has a great Graphical User Interface (GUI). Mail is available when offline and calendars may be shared.
Microsoft Security Essentials
Category: Anti-Virus Software
Alternative: AVG Anti-virus Free
Free anti-virus and malware protection is now just as good, if not better, than the paid-for alternatives. Microsoft Security Essentials leads the pack in terms of free Online security software with AVG Anti-virus Free coming in a very close second. Either of these two software products are highly recommended.
P.S. I’m fully aware that there are some noticeable omissions from my list such as Linux, OpenOffice and Google Docs 
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Tags: anti-virus, apache, claroline, content management system, feedreader, filezilla, firefox, freeware, google, gpl, lms, malware, moodle, php, picasa, rss reader, Software, sourceforge, WordPress, xampp |
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October 2nd, 2009
FreeMind has been around for awhile and has a very loyal following for good reason; it is an excellent software product! FreeMind is free (it’s GNU General Public License software) which adds to it’s appeal however is a far better product than many of the licensed mind map software products. It is written in Java and runs on the Java platform therefore making it platform independent (i.e. use it on Windows, Mac OS, Linux etc.).
What is FreeMind
FreeMind is mind mapping software that is simple to use yet very powerful. Wherever you’d normally use a mindmap FreeMind can be used. For example I use this software to map the structure of websites to present to customers; this allows for a simple sitemap which is easily readable. It is also great to use in brainstorming sessions as the hierarchical nature of mindmaps is ideal for categorizing topics.
FreeMind Features
FreeMind has some very clever features. For example, if you create a mindmap in FreeMind then copy it and paste into Word you’ll get an ordered and hierarchical list of the diagram. Also, if you copy an ordered list from a Web Page (e.g. a sitemap) and paste into FreeMind a mindmap will be instantly created from the list!!! There are very many other cool features however my favourites are the ability to export the diagrams in many formats (e.g. PDF, Javascript, HTML, XHTML, PNG, JPEG … ) and the ease of inserting hyperlinks into nodes of the mindmap.
Above all however, the FreeMind team have managed to keep the software very simple to use and extremely reliable even although there are many advanced features available. FreeMind is an excellent product.
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Tags: FreeMind, GNU, gpl, mind mapping software, mindmap, mindmaps, Software, sourceforge |
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April 27th, 2009
Sun Microsystems has been acquired by Oracle Corporation (after it looked like Sun would be part of the IBM stable). Of particular interest to many bloggers and corporate Internet Application developers is what will happen with MySQL, the GNU General Public License (GPL) database engine.
A Bit about MySQL
MySQL was acquired by Sun in February 2008 which basically gave the rights of MySQL intellectual property (e.g. documentation) to Sun (which has now been procured by Oracle). MySQL is distribute under GPL therefore is available to download, install and use without financial cost.
MySQL is very widely used particularly for Internet Applications including search engines, content management systems and blogging platforms. High-traffic sites such as WordPress, Google, Wikipedia and Read the rest of this entry »