http://obsessivecollaborator.com/ Collaboration for Everyone Else en Copyright 2008 Sun, 25 May 2008 00:18:52 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
http://www.redmine.org/boards/1/topics/show/950

Still a work in progress but it seemed to work well enough.

Then came time to install Redmine on our production server instead of the test one. Installing Rails wasn't too hard as I found some good tutorials

http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/RailsOnCentos5

I had been running Redmine via lighttpd with fastcgi, but I wanted to go with Mongrel for this install as lighttpd was a bit problematic.

Good instructions on the Redmine wiki and another site
http://www.redmine.org/wiki/redmine/HowTo_run_Redmine_with_a_Mongrel_cluster
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=674598

Figuring out how to fire up Mongrel on boot was harder, but found that eventually too (wish I could remember where I found this one)

mkdir /etc/mongrel_cluster
ln -s /home/redmine/config/mongrel_cluster.yml /etc/mongrel_cluster/redmine.yml
cp /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel_cluster-1.0.5/resources/mongrel_cluster /etc/init.d/
chmod 755 /etc/init.d/mongrel_cluster
chkconfig mongrel_cluster on


Ok. Now the hard part. I knew that there would be some non-technical folks using the site, and I knew that I wanted at least logins secured with ssl. Problem is that Redmine runs under a subdomain, and in fact in this case it was a subdomain of a name based virtual host. I had tried once before to configure certificates to work in this case and failed. But I wanted to try again.

This time I won.

First I had to edit ssl.conf and add in the virtual host (as in the httpd.conf file) and also added this line to take name based virtual hosts
NameVirtualHost *:443

Then I edited openssl.cnf

Under both [usr_cert] AND [ v3_req ]
I added
subjectAltName = @alt_names
and
[alt_names]
DNS.1 = name1.com
DNS.2 = name2.com
DNS.3 = sub.name2.com

where name1.com is the owner's name as well (in the certificates, essentially the FQDN).

Then I found this post that took me through the rest (with the exception of the path to the certificates, which is in /etc/pki/tls in Centos/RHEL 5).

http://nixcraft.com/server-configuration-tutorials/3075-postfix-mail-server-create-self-signed-ssl-certificates-cent-os-redhat-linux.html

Did a little magic with the SVN repository as I had before, and voila it is up and running.]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/05/redmine_up_and_running.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/05/redmine_up_and_running.html Project Management Sun, 25 May 2008 00:18:52 -0500
I had previously looked at Elgg. But I decided to cross Elgg off my list for two reasons. First, it is transitioning to this part framework/part ready-to-run solution, and right now it isn't really either. Second, I think the "classic" version (which is the existing ready-to-run solution) serves as an educational networking space really well, but as a pure social space it fits less well.

I searched around and found several potential candidates. I narrowed it down to Insoshi, Lovdbyless and PeopleAggregator. There are many other solutions out there, but I wanted something that didn't have pluggable components that needed to be upgraded or any particular advanced tools that I don't think this community will need. I also wanted something that was under active development.

Insoshi and Lovdbyless both run on Ruby on Rails. I've been increasing my expertise in deploying RoR apps, but I'm still relatively new so these both took a while to install. PeopleAggregator is a standard LAMP app and took quite a bit less time to install.


Lovdbyless

Lovdbyless took the longest to install. It required quite a number of Ruby gems, not all of which installed in an entirely straightforward way. The biggest problem was rmagick, which is a Ruby library for ImageMagick. I run CentOS 5, which only has ImageMagick 6.2.x, which is not sufficient for the latest version of rmagick. Luckily I found this post on getting the previous release of rmagick to run. I also needed to install the ImageMagick-devel package for it to compile.

The instructions are pretty detailed for Lovdbyless, but they only get you running under WebBrick, which should be considered for testing purposes. In fact they brush over instructions for running this in any kind of production environment. The lack of details on getting this running under other web servers or in a production environment makes it somewhat frustrating. I got close with my existing knowledge, and I'm sure that a more experienced RoR sysadmin could get it going with Apache/mongrel or Lighttpd, but it shouldn't be that hard.

In the end the application was reasonable but pretty bare bones. Blogs and photos.



The administrator capabilities are limited to deleting users, and there was no way (at least in the GUI) to do anything else such as close or partition the community. In the end, I think that Lovdbyless is intended to be a framework for others to build on.


Insoshi

Insoshi is trying to do just that (build on Lovdbyless). They have developed their own social networking package, but have borrowed some pieces from Lovdbyless. It was a bit easier to install, though I still couldn't get it running just right under anything but WebBrick. Even then I had to jump through some hoops (also true of Lovdbyless) to get it running in production mode. I had to manually start the Ferret search server.

Insoshi shows a lot of promise. It has a good community for its age (which seems to be numbered in weeks or months). But it is even more of a bare bones app than Lovdbyless.




PeopleAggregator I'm still trying to get a handle on the story of PeopleAggregator by Broadband Mechanics, but it is LAMP app with a reasonable (though still not great) community that seems to support it. I found a wiki and some discussion threads for a few of the problems that I had during configuration.

Unlike the RoR apps, it got rolling pretty quickly. I did need one extra domxml php package that was available via yum, and in order for it to spawn extra subdomains (or sub-subdomains in my case) I needed a little DNS magic, but all of that was pretty well explained in the setup section.

PeopleAggregator has a much more robust set of tools. You create different networks (subdomains) that can be made private. Within those you can also create groups . Individual users can create posts of several types (blog, audio, video, photo) and with a simple checkbox they'll appear on the network's home page.



There is a pretty extensive configuration section, but some configurations need to be made in the local_settings file on the server. It would be nice if there were an admin account that configured all of those settings, but I couldn't find it. It did, however, make the first user I created have special configuration powers, but it still couldn't touch all of the settings that could be made by hand.

After some tweaking I was able to make a network private, and in fact I was able to make all networks private by editing some things by hand. That doesn't prevent people from creating accounts on the server, but they can't join any networks. It is notable that PeopleAggregator accepts IDs from other sources (Yahoo etc.) and it also will read status from Facebook, AIM and a few others.

It isn't perfect. But it is pretty good, and I like the ability to svn update to bring in any patches rather than having to download, and transfer settings. For now this is my choice. I'll see what the rest of the people say.

---

Redmine Revisited

I've briefly reviewed Redmine before. But I saw that they updated to a new version recently and in my search for a project management package that spanned technical and non-technical users I thought I'd give it another spin. It is another RoR app. But this one has quite good documentation on getting it installed and running under a number of different servers. That combined with my past experience had me up and running pretty quickly.

Redmine offers a nice suite of tools in a not too complicated package. With the improvements in this new version the usability is quite good. The one thing that I struggled with was integrating SVN. I just couldn't get it to connect. I posted in the Redmine forums (which use Redmine, which is a good sign) and had some suggestions, but nothing worked. But then another user in the forums solved it. With the SVN integration, the package really stands out. News to the front page of a project includes SVN updates and checkin comments, which is great.

The rest of the tools (Wiki, Files, News, Documents and the Forums mentioned above and shown below) are also pretty good.



There are better wikis and I miss being able to submit tickets by email (though there was word of this appearing in the next release). But it is above the minimum in just about every category that I'm looking for and could replace several apps (Wiki, Ticket Manager, SVN viewer, News) in one fell swoop. ]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/05/really_open_social_and_redmine.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/05/really_open_social_and_redmine.html Project Management Social Networking Mon, 05 May 2008 08:04:58 -0500
In terms of features, I think IceCore has the perfect (and I do mean perfect) mix. It is easy to create new groups ("Teams") of users to work on projects, and then provide them with a common set of tools that includes Blogs, Calendar, Discussion, Files, Milestones, Surveys, Tasks and a Wiki. This is great combination of tools



There is tons of ajaxy responsiveness in IceCore (note that the proprietary version goes by "Novel Teaming"). But the UI design needs some work. Threaded discussion take up a lot more space than they need to, and some of the features and layout will not be obvious to novice users.

These shortcomings sent me in search of related projects, when I found Liferay. At first, I couldn't tell the difference between Liferay and IceCore, but then Liferay did an update to version 5.0 and I was able to tell them apart. It turns out that IceCore is built on (the earlier version) of Liferay. Both have a similar portal display that allows you to add lots of widgets (both internal "portlets" as well as external sites and google gadgets).



It does add quite a number of features that facilitate working in teams, but much of the underlying functionality remains. There are numerous bundles of Liferay available, and I chose a bundle with Tomcat 5, which simply required me to run a start script. This uses hsqldb (which is fine for testing) and also installed a lot of sample data (which users on the forums have told me how to get rid of if I choose to continue with Liferay).

The new release of Liferay (which I assume IceCore will eventually incorporate) makes some welcome changes. For example, this is how threaded discussions appear in Liferay 5.



While this is how it appears in IceCore



Notice the popup frame that I'm sure seemed like a good idea at the time, but it isn't how much discussion forums work. New users like to have familiar functionality.

Similarly, this is how you see Wikis in Liferay.



And this is how you edit them.



These are pretty straightforward. But IceCore adds additional complexity with a Wiki that takes up more space, multiple views that are confusing and popup frames.



But where IceCore shines is in having all of the functionality that is needed in a one step install. Liferay is missing tasks most importantly. These could probably be added with a portlet, though I couldn't find one that was free and easy to integrate. IceCore also makes it really easy to manage teams. Liferay has similar functionality in Communities, but the Teams, along with the spaces that get created for them, are easier from an admin perspective.

I've seen some new UI designs for IceCore in their forums, and if they follow through on those and then build on the new Liferay, I think they'll have a real winner. Still, at this point in time IceCore is one of the best products I've seen. Speaking of which Chronopolys has gone 1.0 final and now includes an easy installer. I've also started looking at the community edition of Alfresco which has some new collaboration features in there. I'll try that next (after I can get it to install - it has been fighting with Liferay).]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/04/collaboration_portals.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/04/collaboration_portals.html Groupware Project Management Social Networking Wikis Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:48:30 -0500 previous review) and eyeOS (mentioned but not reviewed previously) for a spin.

OpenGoo Take 2
The latest version of OpenGoo is vastly improved. OpenGoo is essentially activeCollab (the old open source edition now know as projectpier) with additional document handling. While it may sound minor, it actually is the one place where activeCollab/projectpier fall short, so this addition is quite welcome. The current build of OpenGoo (0.51 as of this writing) has had a lot of UI redesign with many AJAX additions. The result is a much more cohesive set of applications that no longer feel cobbled together. Instead, the design (including a new integrated menu) makes this feel like a top notch product. Combined with the great project management features already in activeCollab/projectpier, this makes for a very viable product. It is a simple and typical LAMP install.



My one concern about OpenGoo right now is the potentially small developer and user community. While it is a highly active project on Sourceforge, there are few if any postings in the forums on the website or on Sourceforge, and the website itself is sparsely updated. I hope this is because they're putting all of their time into development.

EyeOS in Short
The notion of a Web OS is intriguing to me. So far I don't think any products are really there, but the best I've seen is EyeOS, a WebOS you can install yourself.



The idea behind a Web OS is that you can log into a server and have access to all of your typical applications and data, while nothing has to run locally. EyeOS does a reasonable job at this, replicating somewhat of the look and feel of a desktop OS. What would be great is if you could actually access data on the server through the application, but alas it only accesses data from within the Web OS (the next version will allegedly offer a sync application to sync local files to the server). There are some decent applications - basic office apps, meebo for IM, etc. I haven't quite figured out the web browser yet, since you obviously have access to a web browser if you are using Eye OS. At first I thought it might be for privacy, but all of the cookies and cache are still stored locally. Still it has some potential.

Looking Ahead to Icecore
I recently started exploring another collaborative application called IceCore. From what I can gather IceCore was recently acquired by Novell, which bodes well for its future (in terms of resources anyway).

I haven't tried installing the open source version yet, but I tried out the demo online. There are some confusing things about the interface, but it has a great featureset, and once I got the paradigm figured out it was pretty easy and quite flexible.

I'll offer up a more complete review after I try to install it and run it myself.]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/03/more_updates_opengoo_eyeos.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/03/more_updates_opengoo_eyeos.html Project Management Related Technologies Fri, 28 Mar 2008 21:32:50 -0500 bug report) and it was off and running. I renamed the server, which meant further email configuration, but that was it. With Deki Wiki installed I took the chance to play around with it a little. It comes with some very slick skins.



Editing pages via WYSIWYG is very easy. The new version has preliminary support for FCKeditor and TinyMCE in addition to the default editor. The default editor still has the most support for features, and the fewest bugs, but it doesn't work with Safari. I tried the FCKeditor, and it worked fine. The editor floats on the web page, which causes some problems, but it is just experimental for now.

Editing pages, creating links and uploading media is straightforward. I'd put Deki Wiki as my clear choice for Wikis at this point.

Redmine

I've been searching for a project management/trouble ticket system. So far I'm voting for Eventum, which I have configured to manage bugs and features. It accepts incoming requests via email, which is great and it was quite easy to configure. It does one thing and it does it well. But I've been hoping I might find a system that can handle tickets as well as a few additional project management features. Trac is a popular choice, and I'm going to evaluate that further. Redmine is a similar Ruby-based tool, with support for some additional features and multiple projects. I added it to my previous Ruby install following the instructions. Configuration was easy except I never got the external svn repository working. I'm not sure if it was just me or a more fundamental bug. Otherwise, the tool was quite well set up.



But in the end the features of the issue tracking weren't as good as Eventum, and the other features (Documents, Files, Milestones) weren't as good as the best of breed for these tasks. I'd rather have great issue tracking and handle the project management features elsewhere.]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/03/deki_wiki_revisited_and_redmin.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/03/deki_wiki_revisited_and_redmin.html Project Management Wikis Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:48:54 -0500 Chronpolys, a wiki-based project management site. It still doesn't have a 1.0 release, but it is in release candidate phase. It felt a bit more like a beta, but it had a lot of promise.

It calls itself wiki-based project management, but the wiki is really just one part among many. It combines a solid feature set including timelines, versioned documents, email notifications and of course a wiki. It has an attractive Ajax-full interface though it suffers from some organizational challenges and some interface clutter. Much of the success of Project Pier (or its predecessor ActiveCollab or paid counterpart BaseCamp) may be attributed to the simplicity of their interfaces. Chronopolys has them all beat on feature set, and the interface is slick, but it needs some simplification.

Chronopolys comes in a self-contained zip package that allows you to launch it on Windows, Linux or Mac OS by simply launching a script. This made it great for testing. After a quick configuration you can access the overview/dashboard.



Which can be viewed by timeline (above) or by asset type.



From there you can delve into the details of an individual project. This is presented in a useful fashion at first glance. But the interface for adding or manipulating resources is confusing.

It tries to strike a balance between displaying all of the information about your project and keeping a clean interface. But as the number of assets grow the interface begins to get cluttered and could be challenging for users to find the information that they need.

The wiki is based on xwiki, which is really quite good. And in fact having a wiki as a central part of a project management suite seems like a good idea.



Mindquarry tried that, and unfortunately failed. I hope that Chronopolys can succeed. Most of what it needs is a little less rather than a little more. A little refinement and documentation and this could be a great product.

---

Shortly after my recent Elgg review, Elgg announced that they are starting a new codebase and forking the current codebase into Elgg Classic. This new version will be more modular and they will package several configurations for different purposes. The only down side seems to the that setting up a Elgg-based site in the short term is a bit dicey, though they claim the data is portable. The long view is quite positive and worth keeping an eye on. ]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/02/wikibased_project_management.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/02/wikibased_project_management.html Project Management Sat, 16 Feb 2008 20:34:47 -0500 Elgg, an open source social networking package that integrates with a number of other packages, and typically recommended it to those exploring social networking applications. But I have never tried Elgg myself.

This week I've been exploring the possibility of putting together an educational social networking application myself, so I took the plunge and installed Elgg. Installation was fairly easy (typical mysql/php install), with the exception of one required modification that was a bit obscure. The installation instructions recommend modifying the .htaccess file to up the available PHP memory. Since I already had 64M allocation in my php.ini file, I ignored those instructions. It turns out this resulted in a blank page when I tried to access the Elgg site, which was eventually fixed by adding the memory allocation back into the .htaccess file.

When all was set, Elgg fired right up with a clean interface.



It is easy to create a profile and add resources such as a blog.



And sharing files (which it confirms you have "legal rights" to) is also a central element of Elgg. This makes it useful for sharing files created by the community.



There are a number of add on modules, either to integrate into Elgg or to connect with Elgg. I tried a couple that seemed centrally useful to creating an Elgg community. First it was Vanilla Forums. It was pretty easy to integrate simply by uploading the module in the appropriate directory (though it had been checked out from SVN or CVS and contained extraneous files).



Finally it was the Portfolio module. This adds the ability to create Wikis that can be shared across teams, or Portfolios that can be used by individuals. I thought the Wikis would be useful for teams working on projects together. The Wikis are rather simple (just really like the blogs organized in a different way).



First experience seems to show that Elgg could be a solid basis for a community. It certainly has idiosyncrasies (e.g. search functions don't search the modules), but the community is active and it shows a lot of promise.]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/01/elgg_open_source_social_networ.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/01/elgg_open_source_social_networ.html Social Networking Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:23:47 -0500
Xwiki
I went back to the Wikimatrix in search of another good open source WYSIWYG wiki and found Xwiki.

Xwiki had an easy to use self-contained version that I was able to quickly and easily install on my server. It turns out that a few days later that version was updated, and updating that version is not straightforward. I had to take the new zip version and copy out the necessary directories to avoid writing over my previous data. But after that I was updated. Then I went and added the start script to my startup scripts, added some Apache rules, and all was well.

Xwiki is a good looking Wiki with useful WYSIWYG editing functions and very access, group and user control.



I found the access control particular straightforward and well implemented.



The WYSIYWG editing isn't particularly fancy, it is just an adapted version of TinyMCE, but it works well enough. The only incident I had was when adding some Flash to a page via HTML. It lost the HTML when I went back and forth from Wikicode to WYSIWYG.

But in most other ways Xwiki performed just fine. It allowed comments and attachments with ease.



Xwiki seems to have a reasonable community, but not the development that DekiWiki has going on. I was also disappointed to find only a mailing list (with archives) for Xwiki and no forum. The archives are fine for searching for particular problems, but less easy to just browse to learn more as a newbie to the system. Still, one of the better wikis for novices that I have found, and one that I'll be continuing to test. ]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/01/xwiki.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/01/xwiki.html Wikis Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:09:07 -0500
Zimbra 5.0.1 I have been using Zimbra for over a year now. Zimbra's purchase by Yahoo hasn't had a noticeable impact on the product (if you discount the "accidental" inclusion of a Yahoo search feature in one of the new skins). I use the FOSS version of Zimbra on a RHEL 4 VMware virtual machine at home, and the commercial version on a RHEL4 server at work. Both are great, and this update actually brings the functionality of the commercial and FOSS versions closer together.

Version 5.0 introduces many new features. Most notable among them are full-fledged CalDav support, a briefcase that provides a useful interface to online documents, much more flexible sharing, IM, tasks and a totally reworked infrastructure that feels a lot snappier. The interface itself has some more polish, but is fairly similar to 4.5, with the exception of the inclusion of an iPhone/iPod Touch interface that is fantastic.

From a Mac User's perspective I think the biggest update is great CalDav integration with iCal for Mac OS X 10.5. When I first fired up my Mac after updating the server to 5.0.1, iCal somehow detected that I was connected to CalDav server (presumably through my email client settings) and just set up the CalDav client. I thought that all my old events had been duplicated with the iSync conduit, but in fact they were there twice because the old iSync calendar was turned on as was the new CalDav version. Subsequently I have turned off the iSync conduit for calendar and only use it with Address Book.

There are still quite a number of small bugs, judging by the traffic on the forums. I ran into one that threw me for a loop for a few hours after upgrading both servers. The major change in architecture (from Tomcat to Jetty) seems to have resulted in a change in the way that certificates are handled, and migrating certificates from 4.5.X to 5.0 and 5.0.1 has not gone well. I ran into this problem as well. It turned out I needed to destroy my old certificates for all to work well in the end. But the forums are very active and it didn't take long to figure that out.

Outlook still requires the Exchange substitute that comes with the commercial version (though there are works on progress providing CalDav support in Outlook). Though on Windows one could use the Sunbird calendar. There is also a beta of a plugin for Evolution on Linux.

Overall Zimbra is top notch for a mail and calendar server and seems to be the most platform agnostic of any I have found.


Deki Wiki I'm still in the early stages of experimenting with DekiWiki. Deki Wiki is the most novice-friendly wiki that I've found. It is very polished, provides a WYSIWYG interface for editing, supports attachments, and sophisticated permissions. While there are a number of "WYSIWYG" wikis, most of them feel like (probably because they are) grafts of WYSIWYG editors onto standard wiki format text boxes. This is not the case for Deki Wiki where WYSIWYG feels central.

The architecture for Deki Wiki is a bit unusual. It is your standard LAMP (WAMP) with the additional requirement of Mono/.Net 2.0. This is a very strange thing to do IMHO. It means that it isn't quite at home on either Linux or Windows. I had stayed away from it for this reason for some time. But now they make an easy to install and update VMware image that you can just drop in. I thought that was my opportunity to give it a whirl.

Configuration for running on a LAN was a breeze. It was essentially a wizard setup. Follow a few prompts and log in to the DHCP assigned address. The End. Turning this into an Internet accessible server, was then a bit of a chore. Some command line tools to change to a static IP which was well documented on the site. I also used an additional pointer from the forums. I didn't want to use up a real IP address, so I set about learning Apache Proxy (and reverse proxy) procedures. I found this tutorial and this one really helpful. This got me 90% of the way there, but some links weren't being rewritten correctly, until I found documentation on ProxyHTMLLinks, which was missing.

Success! At least for most operations. I'm still troubleshooting and experimenting and will try to offer a more complete review soon.]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/01/zimbra_50_and_dekiwiki.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2008/01/zimbra_50_and_dekiwiki.html Groupware Wikis Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:32:58 -0500 a lot of comments on it. Most people ask "what is that?" Not looking just for the brand but what the device even is. This is of course fun (though it can get old after a while) but it also serves one of the purposes of the device - to not look like I'm working and checking email on my computer. So far it serves that job quite well.

One thing that the U810 (and the U1010, which is the Asian equivalent) have been criticized for is a very high DPI. The 1024x600 screen is certainly very high density at only 5.6", but I wouldn't want any lower resolution. This resolution permits the use of almost any application. Lowering the horizontal resolution to 800 pixels just wouldn't work.

I'm getting pretty decent on the keyboard (though this is being tapped out on my full-sized MacbookPro keyboard). For most tasks that I use it for (email, light document editing, note taking) it is entirely sufficient. My inking skills are also improving, as most quick one-line responses are easier to write out than open the keyboard for.

The fan whines a bit, but that is really only noticeable in a very quiet room. And XP tablet has been very predictable, and particularly good at suspend and resume. You can suspend or resume in a matter of seconds, which is essential for a device of this type.

---

News is less rosy over at Mindquarry, an online wiki and document fcoused collaboration environment with a lot of promise. After a number of delays with their 1.2 release, they have announced that their commercial hosting branch has closed, and moved entirely to an open source model. It may be perplexing that I lament the closing of the commercial part of Mindquarry, and lament the commercial focus of ActiveCollab, so I'll try to explain.

I think that most open source ventures can be much better supported if they have a commercial component as well, whether that be through support services, hosting, or additional features. However, I also think it is important to growth, adoption, extension, and certainly use by small organizations, that a free "host your own" model exists in parallel. ActiveCollab is now entirely closed. Though it looks like a relatively inexpensive and attractive option, I suspect it will struggle in the face of very large competitors under this model. Mindquarry has pushed their release date out even further (another month). I am still hopefully for this next release, and will certainly try it when it becomes available, but I'm afraid this latest turn of events doesn't bode well. I think they tried their commercial venture too early. The product just wasn't ready to attract a commercial audience - yet. Perhaps it will surprise and become a successful open source venture.

---

I finally got my invite to try DimDim, the hosted version. I first tried it on my Mac and found that I wasn't able to host anything more than a whiteboard. On my PC (the abovementioned U810) it worked just fine. It turns out that the Mac can't be a full fledged participant yet, due to a Windows only Firefox plugin that is required. Still the project had a lot of polish and was very slick. I may test it out a bit more, but will wait for a full test when it becomes cross platform (which has been promised in the future). Of course one of the more interesting aspects of DimDim is that you can host your own through their open source version.]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/10/updates_u810_mindquarry_dimdim.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/10/updates_u810_mindquarry_dimdim.html Related Technologies Fri, 05 Oct 2007 21:44:53 -0500
Thus my quest for a new mobile device. I've read about UMPCs like the OQO, Samsung Q1 or even the expensive Sony models, but they all lacked some sort of reasonable keyboard. What is a reasonable keyboard? One which I could type this blog entry om without going nuts.

With that in mind, I'm writing this on a new Fujitsu U810. Fujitsu calls the U810 s mini-laptop instead of a UMPC, partially to highlight the keyboard, and partially to distance themselves from UMPCs.

There are only two models of the U810, only differing in the OS - Windows Vista Home Premium vs Vista Business. I opted for the latter, primarily because I noticed the fine print which said that this model also shipped with an XP Tablet 2005 CD and drivers. Vista has had a number of problems causing Microsoft to extend the XP downgrade policy on all PCs another six months, and this is even more important for resource constrained devices like this one.

The U810 has a 800MHz Intel A110 processor running on the Intel 945 chipset. It has 1gb of RAM a 40gb hard drive, and a 1024x600 5.6" touchscreen. I tried it briefly with Vista but quickly installed XP. Vista had issues with the 3d graphics drivers in OpenGL, and also used up almost an extra 10gb of hard drive space which is 25% of this one. I've also read that Vista doesn't sleep and resume as well as XP which again is really important on this device.

The device is a fantastic size. Here it is next to my trusty 15" Macbook Pro.



As some other points of comparison, here it is next to my xv6700 phone, here it is heightwise next to the Macbook Pro, and here it is underneath my Macbook Pro's extra batter which is almost the same size and weight, and yet only provides about half the battery life (I get 2-2.5 hours out of a Macbook Pro battery and this unit is rated at 5.5 hrs). Finally here it is next to my trusty HP calculator.

So far it has lived up to expectations. The keyboard is very usable. I can "hunt and peck" quite well, and I'm experimenting with variations on touch typing. Full 10 fingered touch typing is out of the question. But I'm trying some 6 fingered variations which show some positive signs. The screen certainly takes some getting used to at 3x normal screen density, but with some adjustments and at close range I find it suitable to look at for extended periods. My Macbook Pros screen looks huge now.

The processor seems just fine for most tasks, I've done plenty of web browsing and email. I've read some documents and installed lots of software. It isn't great at multitasking, but I've even thrown 2d OpenGL at it and it worked.

It has ample tablet functionality, though with a hard touch screen. You need to use a stylus on it, but it doesn't do the nifty hovering thing that full tablets do, Oh well, I'm enjoying the touch screen, and the tablet apps. Jotting a quick response to an email in handwriting that gets converted to text works just fine.

Then there is the reason I got this machine - Onenote. It is an awesome note taking app. It combines inking and text and even audio. I need to get into using it more thoroughly but it looks like it fits the bill.

The device isn't perfect. Some of they keyboard decisions make things a challenge, like having to hit function before the arrow keys or the tab key. And even things like the fact that the 1 key is above the w key instead of the q key makes typing a challenge. But I'm getting better even as I type this.

The other great thing about this machine is that it is just under $1000. While that is not a trivial amount of money, it is in the range where this can be thought of as a second device. It isn't going to replace my Macbook Pro, but it can be the machine I cart away to meetings during the day, or even on short trips.

It is quite useful to have a mobile device that you know will run whatever it needs to in a pinch.]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/09/collaborating_anywhere_fujitsu.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/09/collaborating_anywhere_fujitsu.html Related Technologies Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:23:34 -0500 so slow. I did a little research on using Rails with Apache and one of the first hits was this article, which explained that the best solution (as of a year and a half ago) was to proxy Apache to lighttpd. I thought for a low volume server that the difference would be minor. I got Rails running with lighttpd and fast cgi, and wow, there was a huge difference. Apache was forcing pauses of one to three seconds, and lighttpd was nearly instantaneous. This difference made the difference between feeling like a web app and feel like a real app. There are apache improvements and there is a lot of buzz about Mongrel, but for now the lighttpd solution is a marked improvement.]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/09/fast_and_light.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/09/fast_and_light.html Related Technologies Sun, 23 Sep 2007 20:25:48 -0500 OpenGoo, which was built on activeCollab 0.7.1 and now will be built on the activeCollab fork ProjectPier. The mission of OpenGoo seems ambitious, to take on the Google platform - docs, collaboration, etc. They're trying to build up from existing tools and glue them together. I think that can work to an extent, but it does put them in the precarious position of relying on many other projects, along with their updates, security, and timelines. The case of activeCollab eludes to this vulnerability, but I guess it also shows that there is some resilience in that they are adapting to another project.

At this point OpenGoo is essentially activeCollab 0.7.1 with several FCKeditor based document editors including a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation system. While this may sound mundane, it actually makes up for one of the most serious deficiencies in activeCollab, the ability to generate documents from within. Basecamp has Writeboards, and activeCollab needed something equivalent. In many ways, these tools could advance the project well beyond Basecamp.

The word processor is the most mature of the applications. It is really just an FCKeditor form, and that works quite well. The spreadsheet is very rudimentary, and the presentation system (see below) while ambitious is really just a proof of concept. I can't see actually using this tool to make a presentation, and there doesn't seem to be a way to upload Powerpoint documents and edit them in OpenGoo, or conversely download existing documents as Powerpoint. The same goes for the other editors. This will need to be addressed at some point to become a viable option.



OpenGoo has a long way to go. I had a number of difficulties getting started. First, FCKeditor is set to use asp by default. Given that activeCollab is in PHP, it seems odd to leave this as the default. It took some time to diagnose this as the source of the problem (OK, it should have been obvious when I started getting error messages about asp scripts on my Linux server). Further modifications were required to allow FCKeditor to upload files, and additional directory permissions needed to be set to allow files to be saved (initially when I tried to save files I got a message that I later translated as the Spanish equivalent to "document saved" but it didn't actually save anything).

What OpenGoo really needs is some testing and documentation, but it shows a lot of promise. If they can get out some of the rough edges, while it may not replace Google docs, it could be a viable project management and collaboration tool in the near future.]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/09/opengoo.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/09/opengoo.html Project Management Sat, 22 Sep 2007 18:15:09 -0500 activeCollab. The last beta (alpha) of the "then free" project was a solid alternative to Basecamp. They've been undergoing closed revisions and modifications for quite some time, and it was clear that they were moving at least in part to a paid business model. However, it seems from the latest pricing information that activeCollab has moved entirely to a paid model (or will move when it is finally released). That is unfortunate. I'm all for having paid options, but having a free alternative for "non-commercial" use would have been great. Perhaps it will still happen.

I did see in the comments, that ProjectPier seems to have forked the open source activeCollab and continues to develop that option. I also happened to stumble upon OpenGoo which was using activeCollab (and now will use ProjectPier). OpenGoo looks to attempt to be an open source version of Google Docs and other services. That will be interesting to keep an eye on. ]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/09/activecollab_goes_unfree.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/09/activecollab_goes_unfree.html Project Management Sat, 22 Sep 2007 00:15:59 -0500 Remember the Milk quite a bit, but I've been inclined to explore the GTD way of, well getting things done.

I heard good things about Tracks, an open source GTD web application. I'm no stranger to installing web applications, but this one had a new requirement for me- Ruby on Rails. I've avoided web applications that require Ruby on Rails, primarily because of the overhead in getting Rails installed before even getting to the applications, but this time I decided to take the plunge.

I'm running CentOS 5. Ruby was already installed and running via an RPM. But for whatever reason (maturity?) the Rails part has a more complex installation path. Before getting to Rails, you need to get Gem going. Gem is sort of like a Ruby package manager. But it too needs to be installed, and usually from source. Adding to the complications are the http interface that Rails will connect with. Rails can use the built in Webrick. Many people use it with lighttpd. But it can also be used with Apache, which I already had running. Problem is that this seemed to be the least well documented path. Anyway, away I went...

I started with the documentation on the ruby on rails site for RHEL. It got me started but some parts fell short. I supplemented with some information from Redhat. Gem install and ran without a hitch, but I couldn't get the mysql component to work. After searching on the error I was getting, I found this site. No, I don't speak any Chinese variants, but fortunately I do speak Linux and the line of code was understandable. I did need to translate it to 64 bit language, and point it at the 64 bit mysql libraries, which are in a slightly different place. I found some supplementary information back on the ruby on rails site and another site with a bit more searching and then ruby on rails seemed to be ok.

Since a lot of what I read pointed towards lighttpd, I got that going too, running it on a different port than apache.

Back to the Tracks site for installation instructions, and the supplementary information for "other servers" (which included apache and lighttpd).

The Tracks install was quite easy, and after looking at the specified README, it turned out that using apache involved simply adding a virtual host to httpd.conf. That was clearly the easiest way to get Tracks deployed, and my short struggle with lighttpd was for nothing.

Tracks itself is a well done, Ajax-driven, minimalistic application.



I'll hold off further judgment until I better understand GTD, but I may stick with it. I'll put it on my "to do".

In the mean time I now have ruby on rails up and ready for testing future web applications.]]> http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/09/the_rails_trail.html http://obsessivecollaborator.com/2007/09/the_rails_trail.html Related Technologies Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:41:45 -0500