Free and Useful Online Resources for Designers and Developers » Open-Source

Infographic: The State Of Open Source Adoption

AN Jay — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:56:21 +0000

The goal of this infographic was to highlight assumptions and myths that the proprietary community might be existing under, namely, that open source was somehow inferior to proprietary software. But if you want to know the truth with facts and statistics so this graphic is for you. This infographic illustrated on the data collected in the surveys on systems management in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 to determine systems management usage trends among IT professionals who attended the USENIX Large Installation System Administration (LISA) conference.

From data collection to execution of this infographic was done by Zenoss. We would love to know what you are thinking while viewing this infographic. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter.

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7 Communication Software That Every Linux User Should Know About

Umar Anjum — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 07:15:54 +0000

Linux is an excellent open source operating system, but the reason why many people hesitate to try it is because of the limited number applications available. Today, we have gathered a list of useful instant messaging clients which every Linux users should try.

You are welcome if you want to share more communication sofware for linux OS that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com, just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and follow us on Diggas well to get updated.

Kopete Instant Messenger

Kopete is a multi network instant messaging client which supports many services including AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise Messenger, and more. Kopete also features tools to enhance your instant messaging experience, such as message encryption, archiving, and many other fun and useful effects.

Empathy

Empathy is a messaging program which supports text, voice, and video chat and file transfers over many different protocols including Google Talk, MSN, IRC, Salut, AIM, Facebook, Yahoo!, Gadu Gadu, Groupwise, ICQ and QQ.

Pidgin

Pidgin is one of my favorite instant messaging clients which allow users to connect to many chat networks including AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk and many more. Other features include file transfers, away messages, buddy icons, custom smilies, and typing notifications. There are numerous plugins available which improves the functionality of the Pidgin.

aMSN

aMSN is an free open source MSN Messenger clone which allow users to connect to MSN and chat with their friends. Other features include Offline Messaging, Voice Clips, display pictures, custom emoticons, multi-language support (around 40 languages currently supported), webcam support, sign in to more than one account at once, full-speed File transfers, group support and much more.

Gwibber

Gwibber is an open source micro-blogging client which helps users connect to all the popular social networking sites including Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and many more. Other feature of Gwibber include URL shortener, spell checking support, multicolumn interface to view different streams and much more.

xChat

xChat is an IRC chat software for Linux which allows you to join multiple chat rooms at the same time, talk publicly, private conversations, file transfers and more.

BitlBee

BitlBee is another excellent open source IM client for Linux which enables users to log in to multiple IM protocols including XMPP/Jabber (including Google Talk), MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM and Twitter.

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The 5 Useful (And Unknown) Operating Systems You Probably Never Heard Of

AN Jay — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 23:12:25 +0000

This is one of the very best list of its kind where you can find out of the box operating systems that you probably never heard of and these would be great enough to bookmark or just for knowledge. I hope everyone of you will like this list, you can try these whether you are an office worker, a manager, a supervisor, a student, a home user, etc. These are really amazing in respect to their features. This is the list of Five Operating Systems You Probably Never Heard Of. Just take a look at them and share your thought’s here.

Jolicloud

Jolicloud is a new operating system for netbooks. The OS provides a beautiful interface, an application directory and a set of social features that make it easy and fun to use.

ReactOS

ReactOSis a free, modern operating system based on the design of Windows XP/2003. Written completely from scratch, it aims to follow the Windows-NT architecture designed by Microsoft from the hardware level right through to the application level. This is not a Linux based system, and shares none of the unix architecture.

PC-BSD

PC-BSD is a complete desktop operating system, which has been designed with the “casual” computer user in mind. It offers the stability and security that only a BSD-based operating system can bring, while at the same time providing a comfortable user experience, allowing you to get the most out of your computing time. With PC-BSD you can spend less time working to fix viruses or spyware and instead have the computer work for you.

openSUSE

openSUSE is a free and Linux-based operating system for your PC, Laptop or Server. You can surf the web, manage your e-mails and photos, do office work, play videos or music and have a lot of fun.

gOS

gOS turns your computer into a desktop full of your favorite widgets, fresh with live, personalized content just for you. Technically gOS is a cut down version of ubuntu 7.10 desktop, who’s focus is online applications like gmail, google news, google maps, youTube, mebo and many more.

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The Lesser Known (But Very Cool) Windows Apps You Might Be Looking For

AN Jay — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:39:52 +0000

There are many Microsoft Windows apps out there, but getting by free and good ones is not that easy. That is why I am sharing The Lesser Known (But Very Cool) Windows Apps You Might Be Looking For. Read each entry in the list and see which tool suits your needs best.

You are welcome if you want to share more Mac OS X Apps that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com, just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and follow us on Digg as well to get updated.

DriveImage

DriveImage XML is an easy to use and reliable program for imaging and backing up partitions and logical drives. Image creation uses Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Services (VSS), allowing you to create safe “hot images” even from drives currently in use. Images are stored in XML files, allowing you to process them with 3rd party tools.

Rightload

Rightload is a small program that allows you to quickly upload files directly from a Windows folder to your server. Instead of using complicated software just to upload a few pictures, you just right-click on the files, select the server and target folder and Rightload will do the rest for you. Rightload supports Facebook, Flickr, Tinypic and Imageshack as well as FTP and HTTP servers.

Recuva

Accidentally deleted an important file? Lost something important when your computer crashed? No problem! Recuva recovers files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera card, or MP3 player. Even if you’ve formatted a drive so that it looks blank, Recuva can still find your files on it.

AxCrypt

AxCrypt is free and easy to use open source strong file encryption for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/2008/7, integrated with Windows Explorer. You can encrypt, compress, decrypt, wipe, view and edit with a few mouse clicks.

SyncBack Freeware

SyncBack is a freeware program that helps you easily backup and synchronize your files to: the same drive; a different drive or medium (CDRW, CompactFlash, etc); an FTP server; a Network; or a Zip archive.

ADRC Data Recovery Tool

ADRC Data Recovery Software Tools contains a collection of DIY data recovery tools that supports a wide variety of drives and file systems. The software incorporates extremely simple GUI with novice users in mind. The software zooms in to do only critical recovery functions with minimum complexity so one could recover the data easily. It gives you full control to undelete files, disk image back up, restore a backup image, copy files from hard disk with bad sectors, disk cloning, backup, edit and restore your boot parameters.

Fences

Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop, and can hide your icons when they’re not in use. A “Fence”, a term coined by this program, is an icon group on your desktop. Fences is an add-on to your desktop, not a replacement.

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Take Advantage Of osTicket, A Widely-used Open Source Support Ticket System

Umar Anjum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:08:45 +0000

When there are many department involved in a company, then handling customer complaints can become quite complex. Recording a complaint, then forwarding it to the right department, and checking its status now and then can become very complicated. The best way to go about the issue is through a ticket based system. By assigning each complaint a unique ticket, you can assign it to the right person, and check the issue’s status easily.

Many website operate a ticket based complaints and contact system. If you run such a website then you can surely take advantage of osTicket, a widely-used open source support ticket system.

osTicket is a complete and feature-rich open source support ticket system that easily fits into your website. It can seamlessly integrate inquiries created via email, phone and web-based forms into a simple easy-to-use multi-user web interface.

All that osTicket requires is PHP 4.3 or later and MySQL 4.4 or later. You can follow the installation guide available on osTicket’s website, follow the instructions on it, and set it up.

If you are thinking about going for a paid solution for your web complaints and issue handling, think again. “osTicket is an attractive alternative to higher-cost and complex customer support systems; simple, lightweight, reliable, open source, web-based and easy to setup and use.” It makes the entire process easier for the customer as well as the employees.

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Google And Android Teaming Up To Beat iPhone

Muhammad Faisal — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:38:26 +0000

The Android may still behind in market as compare to iPhone App Stores in terms of quality, beauty and variety, but there is something which needs to be considered about the Android operating system, that it is tightly integrated with existing Google products, and the variety of devices and carriers. No doubt iPhone apps are wonderful and stunningly beautiful, but Android’s smart syncing with existing tools, interesting experiments done by Google labs for Android coming every day, and some tools by its open marketplace model may give a pause to average user of iPhone.

Android is completely open-source, that means the apps can change the functionality and appearance of the OS, well if you allow them to. It can be a safety issue, but it’s great for customization. So, I am not asking you to throw your iPhone and buy Andriod, what I am telling you is, if you want a change from iPhone and you are a die hard fan of Google then you better go for Android. There are four apps from Google for Android I will talk about and you can consider them if they suits your work and mobile lifestyle.

Google Finance

Users who have some deep attachment with stock portfolio 24/7, Google Finance is a useful tool for getting updated, real-time and customized quotes. The Android app syncs directly to your Google Finance portfolios and it streams live and updated data, charts and financial news right into your hands. Right now Android is the only mobile platform with an official Google Finance app.

Google Voice

Google Voice allows you to keep your existing cell number, but it forwards your missed calls and voice mails to a generated Google number so that you can check them on the app or e-mail as convenient. Google voice service automatically generate voicemail transcription and instead of getting a voicemail on your phone, you will receive an email or text message with the transcription. Users can scroll through their messages visually like inbox and stream the audio messages from the mailbox as needed. Right now Google Voice is an invite only service. You can request for an invitation here or look for friends who are already users of Google Voice.
There are no doubt other great voicemail alternatives for the iPhone exists, but the deep integration of Gmail with Google Voice makes it a greate deal to your mobile arsenal of communication tools.

Gmail and Calendar

Android OS has built-in utility of fully integrated Gmail and Calendar app and that must not be missed. Gmail and Google Apps user should go Android because its the handset which will complete the suite for cloud computing productivity tools. The working of Google apps like Gmail, Calendar, and Google Voice are flawless in Android because of the intrinsic link between Android and Google. Whatever you do with your Gmail inbox via web, it will be updated on your Android and same with Calendar, like you updated a birthday reminder on the web calendar, the updated calendar can be seen on Android.

Google Listen

Google Listen is one of its kind app by Google Labs, it functions like a search engine and subscription tool for podcast across the web. If you are on the way to somewhere and realize you have missed to see the latest episode of your favourait daily soap, simply jump on Google Listen, search for it and stream it right way from the source. With Google Listen you dont need to download podcasts or connect to your handset with you PC, and with its builtin subscription option, once you find a show you will never miss an episode while on the move.

If Google apps are most important for you then, the Android handset is the perfect choice for you isn’t it?

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Before You Go Live, Test Your Website Security With Websecurify

Muhammad Usama Alam — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:12:03 +0000

Website security is one of the major concerns of developers and webmasters because when their sites go live, these are in the eyes of several threats. Hence testers put lots of efforts in determining and maintaining website security. Among different techniques used to test the security of websites, testing tools are the most popular. These tools generate security-related test cases and produce in-depth reporting to analyze statistics of the tests performed. None of the tools is 100% perfect, they have their limitations instead.

Websecurify is an automated web application security scanner that scans different security parameters of your website and generates detailed statistical analysis that helps you find security loop holes so as to keep your website safe and secure.

Websecurify is free and open source so that you can extend the functionality as per your needs. It is a cross-platform application developed with JavaScript but most parts can be redeveloped with Java, Python and C.

Key features of Websecurify include:

Improved and easy to navigate user interface.
Engine can be taken out and integrated with other web applications.
Results can be exported in CSV, XML, HTML and JSON.
Supports asynchronous testing so that while it tests, it generates reports.
Support of multiple platforms i.e. Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Provides an integrated browser with the support of multiple sessions. All the browser traffic is recorded and can be easily formulated.
Records sub-transactions as well so as to make it a good choice to test AJAX applications as well.
The design of the application is modular hence it can easily be extended.
Provides an API to support numerous types of commercial and free testing engines.
Support of localization so that results can be translated in multiple languages.

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DotNetNuke Makes It Easier For You To Build Feature-Rich, Interactive Web Sites And Applications

Muhammad Usama Alam — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:58:11 +0000

DotNetNuke Community Edition is a leading free open-source content management system for ASP.NET websites. With DotNetNuke, you can quickly and effectively deploy dynamic web applications with almost no technical knowledge, however if you are an ASP.NET developer, you can customize it in the way you want to fulfill your specific needs. Whether you need to deploy a simple website or a feature-rich dynamic application, DotNetNuke cater your needs in the way you want.

Unlike legacy web applications, you don’t need services of a web developer in order to make changes in your content and locations of different modules. You can easily achieve this task on-the-fly by logging into the administration control panel.

Since DotNetNuke is open-source, you can enhance and extend the functionality of it if you are familiar with ASP.NET programming. In addition to the existing modules in DotNetNuke, you can develop custom modules over it or use from a number of pre-developed modules by different third party vendors to extend the functionality as per your business needs.

DotNetNuke is the world’s most widely adopted framework for building web applications on Microsoft Windows platform. DotNetNuke powers over 500,000 portals, web applications and public web sites. It has a large open-source community to support the development of the system. Furthermore, you can find number of help and support resources and books that help you find solutions to your problems while you work.

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7 Operating Systems You Probably Never Heard Of

AN Jay — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:36:01 +0000

This is one of the very best list of its kind where you can find out of the box operating systems that you probably never heard of and these would be great enough to bookmark or just for knowledge. I hope everyone of you will like this list, you can try these whether you are an office worker, a manager, a supervisor, a student, a home user, etc.These are really amazing in respect to their features. This is the list of 7 Operating Systems You Probably Never Heard Of. Just take a look at them and share your thought’s here.

You are welcome if you want to share more unknown operating systems that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter , follow us on Google Buzz and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well.

Slax

Slax is a modern, portable, small and fast Linux operating system with a modular approach and outstanding design. Despite its small size, Slax provides a wide collection of pre-installed software for daily use, including a well organized graphical user interface and useful recovery tools for system administrators.

openSUSE

openSUSE is a free and Linux-based operating system for your PC, Laptop or Server. You can surf the web, manage your e-mails and photos, do office work, play videos or music and have a lot of fun. It includes new versions of GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, the Linux kernel, and many more updates and improvements. In 11.2 you’ll find more than 1,000 open source desktop applications. openSUSE also includes a full suite of server software and a rich selection of open source development tools.

ReactOS

ReactOS® is a free, modern operating system based on the design of Windows® XP/2003. Written completely from scratch, it aims to follow the Windows-NT® architecture designed by Microsoft from the hardware level right through to the application level. This is not a Linux based system, and shares none of the unix architecture. In short, ReactOS is designed to be powerful and lightweight. You can think of the term “lightweight” in the good old fashion of Win95, a consistent user interface and small bundle of very common and useful tools. Although lightweight, ReactOS offers a lot in comparison to Windows 95, with an up-to-date experience as well as built from scratch on a rock solid NT core.

MonaOS

MonaOS is a free operating system. It’s new, small, simple, open source and well structured. So, MonaOS may be suitable for education of operating system and program at school.

FreeDOS

FreeDOS is a free DOS-compatible operating system for IBM-PC compatible systems. FreeDOS is made of up many different, separate programs that act as packages to the overall FreeDOS Project. FreeDOS is distributed under the GNU GPL.

MINIX 3

MINIX 3 is a new open-source operating system designed to be highly reliable, flexible, and secure. It is loosely based somewhat on previous versions of MINIX, but is fundamentally different in many key ways. MINIX 1 and 2 were intended as teaching tools; MINIX 3 adds the new goal of being usable as a serious system on resource-limited and embedded computers and for applications requiring high reliability.

Haiku

Haiku is an open source operating system currently in development that specifically targets personal computing. Inspired by the Be Operating System, Haiku aims to become a fast, efficient, simple to use, easy to learn and yet very powerful system for computer users of all levels.

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Eight Must-Have Open Source Applications

AN Jay — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:42:15 +0000

Today, we are listing The Eight Open Source Applications That Are Absolutely Useful. These would be very helpful for you when you have no budget to purchase commercial software to use in your daily life. You are designer, developer, office worker, manager, supervisor, student, home user, etc but we hope that these are worth checking for all of you. Most of them are not very well known but they are really amazing in respect to their features. Just take a look at them and share your thoughts here.

You are welcome to share more open source applications that will be helpful and our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well.

PDF Split and Merge

PDF Split and Merge is an easy to use tool to merge and split pdf documents. Console and GUI versions are available. The GUI is written in Java Swing and it provides functions to select files and set options. It’s made over the iText library.

TightVNC

TightVNC is an improved version of VNC, great free remote-desktop tool. The improvements include bandwidth-friendly “Tight” encoding, file transfers in the Windows version, enhanced GUI, many bugfixes, and more.

WinSCP

WinSCP is a SFTP client and FTP client for Windows. Its main function is the secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. It uses Secure Shell (SSH) and supports, in addition to Secure FTP, also legacy SCP protocol.

Notepad++

Notepad++, a source code editor and MS Windows Notepad replacement, has the mission to offer a greener environment. By optimizing its routines, it results in reducing CPU power consumption then reducing the world carbon dioxide emissions.

Launchy

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, your desktop icons, and your file manager. Launchy indexes and launches your applications, documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes.

7-Zip

7-Zip is a file archiver with the high compression ratio. The program supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, LZH, CHM, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, ISO, MSI, WIM, NSIS, RPM and DEB formats.

PortableApps

PortableApps.com allows you to carry your favorite computer programs and all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you on a portable device (USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, CD, etc) and use them on any Windows computer.

AxCrypt

AxCrypt is the leading open source file encryption software for Windows. It integrates seamlessly with Windows to compress, encrypt, decrypt, store, send and work with individual files.

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