WordPress – the most used open source blog software
Mar 30, 2008 by Thursday Bram Blog Systems, Tips and Tricks
WordPress blog software has its origin in Michel Valdrighi’s b2 software. In 2003 b2 became the genesis of WordPress www.wordpress.org, a fork project using the b2 source code, which simply had fallen behind web standards and on which no further development was planned. Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, two bloggers, began developing WordPress and were soon joined by Valdrighi. It took a year, but WordPress’ versatility and open source nature, combined with a decision by the developers of Movable Type to radically raise prices for their software, led WordPress to be one of the frontrunners in blogging software.WordPress’ value lies in its easy customization. It seems like there is a plugin for everything: Akismet (akismet.com) catches spam, podPress (podpress.org) turns a WordPress installation into a podcasting platform, etc. And it only takes a little knowledge of PHP to write your own plugin. WordPress is routinely used as a content management system for websites not meant to act as blogs – it can be used to create a directory just as easily as it can be used to post updates to a blog.
There are some video-tutorials for WordPress 2.3, 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7 at the end of the full article. Check them out!
Just What WordPress Needs
To run WordPress, all you need is a server that supports PHP and MySQL. While the WordPress developers recommend Apache or Litespeed web servers for users who plan to subject their WordPress installation to more than typical abuse, it’s not necessary. If you’re planning to install WordPress, you don’t even need the most recent versions of either PHP or MySQL: PHP 4.2 or greater and MySQL 4.0 or greater will work just fine.
Getting WordPress Running
For those individuals without much technical savvy, WordPress can be an ideal CMS for a single simple reason: one-click install. Many web hosts have begun offering accounts with what is essentially an automatic installation process: users simply select WordPress as their CMS of choice and the host takes care of setting it up.
If you’re interested in handling the installation procedure yourself, it’s still not overly complicated – as long as you know a few basics about setting up a website: to start, download the installation package from WordPress (wordpress.org/download/) and unzip it. From there, you’ll need to create a database for WordPress on your web, along with a MySQL user with all privileges (for both accessing and modifying the database). Rename the file “wp-config-sample.php” to “wp-config.php” and open it in the text editor of your choice. Fill in your database details.
At this point, you’ll need to decide if you’d rather have WordPress on the root of your domain or on a subdirectory. To integrate WordPress into the root, move all the files contained in your unzipped installation package (excluding the directory itself) into the root directory of your web server. If you’d rather have your WordPress installation on a subdirectory, move the entire directory into the root directory of your web server (including the directory itself). You can rename the directory if you wish.
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Tags: blog, blog software, open-source, plugins, themes, wordpress
Mambo – the thoroughly simple content management system (CMS)
Mar 25, 2008 by Heather Williamson Content Management
Mambo is an open source content management system which is currently being managed by an Australian non-profit corporation founded in 2005. Although the Mambo Foundation http://mambo-foundation.org didn’t begin the development of Mambo, it has made the support and development of Mambo its primary objective.
Mambo is free software, using PHP and MySQL to create a dynamic web site which supports the organization and creation of documents and other content interesting to your site visitors. Because of the extensibility of Mambo, it can be used to create portals, as well as complex corporate intranets and applications.
Software and Server Requirements
Mambo is quite easy to install, and has simple server requirements. Like most PHP based GNU/GPL open source programs, you simply need a server running Windows, BSD, or Linux with the following options.
It is recommended that you have the GD, Zlib, FTP, XML, IconV, GetText, and MBString extensions as part of your PHP installation.Mambo has been designed to work with any web browser software on any operating system. You will need to test it thoroughly if you make any changes to the base software, and after you have installed any Mambot extensions.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: cms, content management system, mambo, open-source
TikiWiki – a powerful wiki / groupware system
Mar 20, 2008 by Melanie Bremner Wikis
TikiWiki (Tiki) CMS/Groupware is an open source web-based application that you can use to build a website for working collaboratively with others. The content management system at the heart of TikiWiki powers wikis, forums, blogs, map servers, and more. You can configure the various tools and customize the appearance of the website from Admin Pages that are also web-based.
There are some video-tutorials at the end of the review. Check them out!
Wikipedia definition of a Wiki:
A wiki is a software that allows users to easily edit and link pages together. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. Wikipedia is one of the best known wikis.
Wikis are used in many businesses to provide affordable and effective Intranets and for knowledge management. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as “the simplest online database that could possibly work.”
WikiWiki is a re-duplication of “wiki“, a Hawaiian word for “fast“. Some suggest that wiki means “What I know Is”. However this is a backronym(a phrase that is constructed “after the fact” from a previously existing word).
TikiWiki CMS/Groupware www.tikiwiki.org was created by the Tiki Wiki Community, and is available for free under the LGPL General Public License. The last release was February 23rd, 2008. Tiki Wiki is a dynamic application and not a static.
You can customize some of the links and URLs that Tiki produces in order to create “search engine friendly” links. Tiki includes a “_htaccess” file that takes advantage of the web-servers re-write rules. If you would like to enable this feature, you simply rename the _htaccess file to .htaccess
Sphere: Related ContentTags: cms software, groupware, mediawiki, tiki, tikiwiki, wiki software
Coppermine – free image / photo gallery software solution
Mar 17, 2008 by Heather Williamson Photo Galleries
Coppermine Photo Gallery is a perfect solution for creating image / photo galleries whether your creating a gallery to share pictures with friends and family, creating a portfolio for your photography business, or creating a community for photography enthusiasts.Coppermine Photo Gallery www.coppermine-gallery.net began as the brainchild of Gregory Demar, although it’s current incarnations the results of a collaboration of 38 developers located around the globe. These developers donate their time working on one of the most feature rich Photo Gallery programs currently available on the Internet licensed under the GNU General Public License.
Directly out of the “box” Coppermine allows you to post photos in categorized galleries, comment upon and rate the photos, merge your photo gallery with a variety of Web bulletin board systems, as well as allow your visitors to send selected photos to others as eCards. As you can see, Coppermine gives you a powerful image gallery for no more cost than the installation time.
Its Free.. But Will My Server Run It?
Coppermine has very minimal server requirements. The latest Coppermine release (version 1.4.16) has tested OK on Apache (vs. 1.3.24 and higher) or IIS server that has MySQL (vs. 3.23.23), PHP (vs. 4.1.0), and GD Library or ImageMagick installed.
Although most servers have these features, you may need to check with your hosting administrator specifically about the GD Library or ImageMagick. These libraries are used to create the image thumbnails which are displayed on the category pages within the gallery.
Don’t worry about your gallery visitors; they can visit your gallery using any of the main stream browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Opera.
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Tags: coppermine, free photo gallery, image, image gallery, open-source
Magento – the newest e-commerce package to hit the market
Mar 14, 2008 by Melanie Bremner E-commerce, New Releases
Magento is a feature-rich, professional open source e-commerce solution that offers merchants complete flexibility and control over the look, content, and functionality of their online store.
Magento’s powerful marketing search engine optimization and catalog management tools give merchants the power to create ecommerce sites that are tailored to their unique business needs. Magento is distributed free under the GNU General Public License OSL license.
Magento is a registered trademark of Irubin Consulting Inc. DBA Varien. It is currently listed as in a preview release mode and not recommended for use in production environments. There are articles written by community members who have tried this new program and available for your benefit at http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/
Update
Magento is actually ready for the prime time! The version 1.1.1 was just launched and it won The Best New Project at 2008 SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards.
Is this software compatible with your server?
Megento can be used on any server that is Linux or UNIX based. It can be run on a Windows based platform but at the moment there are some known issues that are being worked on and it may cause some conflicts, although, there are some documents on the main site to help. You can find some guidelines here
One of the known issues is the image uploads do not work in Windows.
This system is a Linux based software program and was designed with ease of install on a Linux based platform that has PHP 5 installed. This software is a PHP 5 only application and may cause issues if your system only supports PHP 4, although there is a work around solution found here
If you do not have any programming knowledge or skills, this system may not be suitable for you unless you have a technical support team who can assist you.
The server requirements for this software are:
- Linux or another UNIX-compatible operating system
- Apache web server (1x or 2x)
- PHP 5.2
- MySQL 4.1
- A sendmail- compatible Mail Transfer Agent (MTA)- if not Megento connects to SMTP server.
Also recommended is the use of APC as a bytecode cache for performance improvements. You can find it in the PECL archives here: http://pecl.php.net/package/APC
Other bytecode cache systems are not supported at this time.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: e-commerce software, magento review, new release, online store, php
Mantis – bug tracking system made easy
Mar 10, 2008 by Hemil Shah Security Systems
Mantis is a free security web application (bug tracking system) written in PHP. It stores all found bugs in a database.
No software can be bug free. There is a phase in SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) of Testing. Testing is very important phase of any software. It is important to formally maintain bugs. Normally in most of the companies, Bugs are recorded with a bug tracking system and on release of each version, all old bugs are rechecked.
Mantis, BugZilla, Jira are some of the bug tracking system commonly used by the companies.
Mantis is free and open source under GPL license. It can use MySQL, MS SQL Server and PostgreSQL as a database for storing the bugs. It can be installed on Windows, Linux, Mac OS and OS/2. Last but not least, as it is web based application – it is obvious that it needs web server. It can be either IIS or Apache.
Installing Mantis
If I write how to install Mantis, this paper will go on and on… and it is not necessary as it is already well written at mantis official site. I don’t see any point in reinventing wheel. Installation in easy steps is -
- Install prerequisites
- Web Server
- Database
- PHP
- Get Latest version of Mantis
- Configure Mantis
- Login to admin application
- Create project and users
- Assign permissions to users
Features of Mantis
Mantis is very rich in the features and that is what makes it popular amongst companies. There are many features, though I am pointing out some of the key features here.
Tags: bug tracking system, bugzilla, mantis, php, security software, web application
SocialEngine – a PHP based social network platform
Mar 6, 2008 by Veiko Herne Social Networks
Starting to evaluate SocialEngine I was positively surprised how technically open and well programmed it was. It’s expandable with plug-ins and uses Smarty to customize its look and feel.
After the trial download I had Groups, Blog and Photo Album plug-ins included and their website says that Events plug-in is currently available which I was able to look from their website. Social Engine was developed by innovative Californian software company Webligo whose business mission is to brainstorm new innovative ideas to be profitable at early stage and sell those to larger companies who can fully realize their potential. Webligo previous project BlogHoster was sold UK based Splashpress media in 2007 and since 2006 they have worked with SocialEngine (www.socialengine.net). Webligo was founded by Alex Benzer and Charlotte Genevier, who met as Pasadena Polytechnic high school in 2000.
Installation
The installation comes as downloadable compressed file which you should decompress to your server. Files will be extracted starting “files” subdirectory which was little bit odd as I would expect to run my program from the virtual root I created for it.
You will get an email which contains your installation key and attached license.txt file. You should copy this file also to your server application files directory before starting files/admin/install.php otherwise it complains and does not start. That was an odd thing to do but I assume that when purchasing you will get just new license file and not an installation key. The license file was encrypted anyway so I assume they will send me a new license.txt file after a purchase.
Tags: community, php social network, social engine, viral, web 2.0, webligo, white label software
osCommerce – review of a popular e-commerce software solution
Mar 3, 2008 by Melanie Bremner E-commerce
osCommerce www.oscommerce.com is an open source online e-commerce software solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License. osCommerce was started in March 2000 in Germany by project founder and leader Herald Ponce de Leon. Every year the members of the community join forces in designing more add-on features to increase the feasibility and functionality in all areas of development. The new version 3.0 is planned to hit the market and it will have a template feature that will allow users to create a more unique layout for their site.
OsCommerce was designed with a rich set of out of the box online shopping cart functionality that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain their online stores with minimum effort, and no costs, fees, or limitations involved. This software was designed for ease of install and usability for any online store owner from newbie to techno king.
Is this software compatible with your server?
OsCommerce can be used on any web server that has PHP and MySQL installed. Most of the web host providers have included this software for a general automatic install from your account control panel or within the Fantastico control panel, depending on which host provider you have gone with. If you do not have the automatic install capability, the osCommerce software is available from main site for downloading and installing manually.
You will need to know where to access your files, usually under the file manager option in your control panel, to FTP your extracted files into the correct folder. You can use this software as a standalone site, meaning you can choose to install in the root directory of your domain, and have the store as you main index; or you can choose to install in a sub directory as an add on, an example being http://www.yoursite.com/store.
Although the oscommerce is not the “ultimate” e-commerce solution, it is by no means “basic”; with the capabilities of customizing to meet the specific needs of ones own business.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: e-commerce software, fantastico, online store, oscommerce, oscommerce review
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