WordPress.com, makes it even easier to publish onto your blog – Post by Email
May 12, 2009 by Srikanth AD MyTestBox News
WordPress.com, one of the most used blog host, now allows users to post text and images by email. If you are at work with Outlook or on the move with a BlackBerry and wanted to publish at quick post, this feature can be extremely useful.
Post by Email, is simple to use.
From the new ‘My Blogs’ menu you can generate special email addresses. You can create as many email addresses as you need, one for each blog you have access to.
You can send email from any email client, whether in a browser, on your desktop, or from your cell phone and as much formatting will be retained as possible.
Your images will be included and automatically converted into thumbnails. If you include multiple images, they’ll be converted into a gallery.
If you’ve purchased the Space Upgrade then MP3 attachments will be displayed using our audio player. If you’ve purchased the VideoPress upgrade then you can also include videos.
Post by Email Features:
- Transcoding of any video files supported by the WordPress video player (mp4, mov, wmv, avi, mpg, and m4v).
- Add your email addresses directly into your address book using downloadable vCards. (You don’t even need to remember the address)
- Automatic notification of a published email post.
- Automatic removal of standard signature blocks, with support for manual removal of other signatures.
- Conversion of YouTube URLs into embedded videos.
You might want to read more about it on ReadWriteWeb and WordPress.com News.
Sphere: Related Content
Tags: blog, images, platform, post by email, software, video, wordpress
osTube 2.5 – the latest video sharing software version from AUVICA
Feb 17, 2009 by Mircea Goia MyTestBox News
AUVICA Gmbh, the german web software company, announced the launch of osTube 2.5, the latest version of its video sharing platform solution (Youtube clone).
One major improvement is the WebTV mode which it is, actually, a complete WebTV portal. This mode is available from the osTube main menu. The “Auto-Fill”-Logic will permanently add related content to the current playlist. Users can comfortably add further videos by browsing the content and choose from there (every user can save, load or send his personal playlist to friends).
The new WebTV-mode offers also the “LightsOff”-mode that darkens the background and a new atmospheric feature, called “ColorMood”, which colorizes the background so that it always matches the mood of the currently playing video.
Other enhancements of this version are:
- • Create, load and/or send personal playlists to friends
• WebTV-mode completely integrated (can be disabled, or run in “WebTV only” mode)
• Easy updater for osTube versions 2.x
• Mediaplayer now supports H.264/AAC (Flash Auto-Update integrated)
• “ColorMood”-mode that automatically colorizes the browser
• Teaser-System to feature certain videos as a layer
• Ad-Integration in WebTV-mode (Pro/ProPlus)
The list of all features of osTube are here and if you want to test-drive the 2.5 version you can do it here (you can get a glimpse of the WebTV mode here).
Sphere: Related ContentTags: auvica, ostube, platform, version, video sharing, youtube clone
Platform virtualization – top 25 providers (software, hardware, combined)
Dec 29, 2008 by Mircea Goia Miscellaneous
In the article about cloud computing/utility computing/grid computing we’ve presented the most important companies which offers cloud computing hosting.In this article we will present the companies which offers means (mainly, the software and hardware) which powers most of the cloud computing hosting providers.
As Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_virtualization puts it:
——————–
In computing, platform virtualization is a term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources. Virtualization hides the physical characteristics of computing resources from their users, be they applications, or end users. The term has been widely used since the 1960s.
Platform virtualization is performed on a given hardware platform by host software (a control program), which creates a simulated computer environment, a virtual machine, for its guest software. The guest software, which is often itself a complete operating system, runs just as if it were installed on a stand-alone hardware platform. Typically, many such virtual machines are simulated on a single physical machine, their number limited only by the host’s hardware resources. Typically there is no requirement for a guest OS to be the same as the host one. The guest system often requires access to specific peripheral devices to function, so the simulation must support the guest’s interfaces to those devices. Trivial examples of such devices are hard disk drive or network interface card.
Virtual machines are used to consolidate many physical servers into fewer servers, which in turn host virtual machines. Each physical server is reflected as a virtual machine “guest” residing on a virtual machine host system. This is also known as Physical-to-Virtual or ‘P2V’ transformation.
Virtual machines can be used in disaster recovery as “hot standby” environments for physical production servers. This changes the classical “backup-and-restore” philosophy, by providing backup images that can “boot” into live virtual machines, capable of taking over workload for a production server experiencing an outage.
——————–
There are several methods of platform virtualization:
- full virtualization
- hardware assisted virtualization
- partial virtualization
- paravirtualization
- operating system-level virtualization
Below we’ll be trying to present most of these platform virtualization and software providers (next page).
Sphere: Related ContentTags: hardware, platform, providers, services, software, virtualization
The team behind Elgg, the free open source social networking software, launches themes option
Oct 21, 2008 by Mircea Goia MyTestBox News
The interface for Elgg v1.0, the free open source social networking platform, underwent a radical overhaul due to the overwhelming users request for theming.
The team has created two basic themes to help those interested in theming get to grips with the components of an Elgg theme. Check them out here!
Elgg themes are developed as plugins which makes them distributable, customizable and powerful (they can also be enabled and disabled easily).
Here’s a short tutorial on how to get started in theme creation.
There’s a dedicated place on Elgg website for theme development and it can be found here.
Elgg is a pretty new free open source social networking software and recently they launched its first version 1.0. It competes with a plethora of other free social networking platforms like Dolphin, PHPFox, PHPizabi, AroundME, WordPress MU+Buddypress and others.
It is PHP/MySQL built and it seems it’s gaining momentum in this crowded space.
Download it for free from here.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: elgg, free, mysql, open-source, php, platform, social networking, software, themes
Magento Commerce continues to gain momentum (450,000+ downloads to date)
Sep 20, 2008 by Mircea Goia MyTestBox News
The latest release of Magento, Version 1.1.6, was released this week and contained updates to the admin, a new design Skin and more. To coincide with the availability of 1.1.6, the Magento Team at Varien also released a new Blank Theme to assist designers in creating new custom themes for Magento.Version 1.1.6 is now available for download and includes a few great updates, along with bug fixes which are listed in the release notes. Version 1.1.6 is a continuation of the Version 1.1.5 release.
Version 1.1.6 includes an update to the category management tool which allows store owners to more efficiently manage a large number of categories. This feature can be tested on our demo admin site. The release also comes with a new skin, Blue Skin, which can be seen on the demo frontend site.
As a reminder, they do not recommend upgrading directly on a live environment. For more information on the release please see their blog announcement.
To coincide with the availability of Magento 1.1.6, we have also made a new Blank Theme available via MagentoConnect.
With ‘Blank Theme‘ the Magento team answers the call of numerous community members out there who’s been inquiring about an extra light theme to use as a basis for theme customization. With this theme we’ve removed all the custom CSS formerly used in Default and Modern Theme, and replaced them with minor typography and positioning CSS assignments.
References to the class names were left in the CSS files to provide a solid starting ground for designers/developers. Markups were also revisited and cleaned up in theme-level.
Download, customize, and enjoy the new ultra light Magento theme!
Sphere: Related ContentTags: ecommerce, magento, open-source, php, platform, software
Magento Commerce strikes again! Winning another prestigious award, and announcing Magento Developer Challenge #1!
Aug 5, 2008 by Mircea Goia MyTestBox News
It seems the Magento e-commerce solution is unstoppable. Besides winning the SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards Best New Project Magento just won another prize: the “Best of Open Source Enterprise Applications (E-Commerce)” at Infoworld’s annual BOSSIE Awards (this award “recognize the best free and open source software the world has to offer to businesses, IT professionals, and productive individuals who rely on computers to get work done”). The 2008 BOSSIE winners include 60 products in eight categories covering business and productivity applications, development tools, middleware, networking, security, and storage.
Other projects selected by InfoWorld’s editorial and test center staff are dotProject (open source project and task manager), Alfresco (open source enterprise content management system), Pentaho (open-source provider of reporting, analysis, dashboard, data mining and workflow capabilities), SugarCRM (open source commercial customer relationship management) and JasperReports (open source report-generating tool).
The company also announced the first of a series of challenges named Magento Developer Challenge (AKA HackGento). The goal is to develop Magento extensions with widespread usage in the community. They will present a challenge to the community every week: the first challenge is integrating Magento with Google Spreadsheet.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: challenge, ecommerce, Google spreadsheet, magento, open-source, php, platform, software
Magento 1.1.1 production release is here. Any users of the new version?
Jul 29, 2008 by Mircea Goia MyTestBox News
Magento team released the production version 1.1.1 several days ago. This is a major release of this e-commerce software and it is focused on expanding Magento’s product configuration options, increasing the flexibility of the core tax module to allow for Canadian and EU tax rules, streamlining integration between strategic Magento modules and external applications and boosting the overall performance of the Magento platform.
Magento has been downloaded over 400,000 times and this gives it a strong presence on the ecommerce market (it has strong competition though, among them are well known names from the open source world). But as this e-commerce platform matures it will be a very good contender in this space (especially with the Web2.0 features it has on the backend).
What did they add or improve in this new version?
Well, here’s the short list (taken from their blog):
* Create more product-types
Merchandisers can now create a few new product types:
- Bundles (most commonly used in kitting or in the built-to-order product model)
- Virtual Products – products that don’t require shipping information
* More ways to configure products
- Custom Product Options – allow merchants to designate a SKU to a base item and add attributes instead of having to create a unique SKU for every combination of options (simple products).
- Personalized Products – a new product configuration feature in Magento 1.1 that allows customers to personalize products by adding text, such as embroideries, engravings, etc.
* Integrate with any application via Web Services
Magento 1.1 features a new Webservices API with methods for easy integration between Magento’s Catalog, Customer and Sales modules and any third party application. More about the Magento API here.
* Speeding up the process(ing)
One of the main goals for Magento 1.1 was to examine bottlenecks in the platform and improve performance. In the production release of Magento 1.1 performance was improved by as much as 40% in the catalog and sales modules, and by optimizing when and how data loads, responsiveness of the Admin UI was also increased significantly.
View full list of features in Magento 1.1
Upgrading an existing Magento version
(take their advice seriously! Especially regarding using the new version on your live environment.)
It’s now possible to upgrade your existing Magento installation to 1.1 through the Magento Connect Manager extension.
Here’s how to do it:
* Do NOT use your live or production site. We suggest making a copy of your site and upgrading that copy first.
* Log into your Magento Connect Manager.
* Select the ‘Setting’ tab.
* Change the Preferred State to ‘Stable’, and save settings.
* For the Mage_All_Latest package select upgrade.
* Click on the ‘Commit Changes’ button. The upgrade should start.
* After upgrade is complete click on the ‘Refresh’ button.
* You should now have Magento 1.1 installed.
Read also the users’ comments on their blog! You might find useful tips for installation and upgrading from those who already tested the new version.
There is a wiki post available detailing how to upgrade your Magento theme to take advantage of the new release.
Download the latest version here! (registration required)
By the way, congratulations to Magento team for winning the “Best New Open Source Project” at 2008 SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards!
Sphere: Related ContentTags: ecommerce, magento, open-source, php, platform, software
Magento ecommerce among the finalists on Sourceforget.net
Jul 16, 2008 by Mircea Goia MyTestBox News
Magento e-commerce platform has been selected as a finalist for the 2008 SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards.
It was chosen in the following categories:
* Best Project for the Enterprise
* Most Likely to Be the Next $1B Acquisition
* Most Likely to Change the World
* Best New Project
That’s quite an achievement for a relatively young enterprise ecommerce platform (and young as a company). Congratulations for them! (more here )
Sourceforge will be present also at OSCON 2008 in Portland on July 21-25, where they’ll be hosting their awards party on July 24th at the Jupiter Hotel. Doors open at 6pm.
You can vote for Magento here, if you wish! (you need to register first)
Sphere: Related ContentTags: ecommerce, finalist, magento, platform, software, sourceforge
osTube – a new social networking media platform
Apr 21, 2008 by Veiko Herne Social Networks, Video sharing
osTube www.ostube.de is a social networking media platform allowing the sharing of music, video, pictures and documents. It has been developed by AUVICA GmbH in Munich, Germany. Their other product lines are MyRadio, Reisepanne, and VIMP.
osTube is available by three product editions: Community, Professional and Enterprise. Community edition is free but you can’t run any ads and social networking communities with it. The Professional edition allows banner and video (priced differently) ads as Enterprise edition is a not priced solution for commercial projects which can include Live Streaming, Mobile payments, etc.
Professional edition costs $149 to manage Google AdSense ads with some extra templates and you should spend $299 when you want to run video ads and have more templates included.
Sphere: Related Content
Tags: community, documents, media, ostube, pictures, platform, social network, video sharing
Get News by RSS feed