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Does Windows vs Linux really matter any more ?

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Some people might argue that it never mattered, but I think I had a moment of insight the other evening .

With freely available virtualisation technology it’s going to matter less and less what operating system you’re running or which operating system your applications need to run on.

My understanding is that Windows 7 includes “seemless” virtualisation to allow Windows XP applications to run successfully without compatibilty problems.

When Linux is able to use something like VirtualBox to provide similar seemless virtualisation functionality then it really won’t matter in most cases whether your applications have been developed for Windows or Linux.

I’m currently using VirtualBox to do ASP.NET development on an XP guest using Ubuntu 9.10 as the host. XP runs “snappily” on the VirtualBox virtual machine and using Visual Studio / Photoshop is sufficiently like running it natively that it doesn’t matter.

The VirtualBox virtual machine seems to have a very small memory overhead (35Mb last time I checked).

Update: It appears that VirtualBox does provide “seamless” virtualisation. This effect isn’t perfect since even though the Windows XP desktop disappears, the Windows applications are not added to the Linux task bar. It works pretty well, but it’s not (yet) truly seamless.

Posted in Linux, Software Tools | 3 Comments »

11 ways open source software can save you money !

Monday, August 10th, 2009

1. It almost goes without saying, but open source software (OSS) is free.

2. A vast array of high quality open source applications already exist to solve almost every conceivable business problem.

3. OSS is developed from a more efficient programming paradigm which means more applications can be hosted on a given server.

4. It is incredibly cheap to implement. £30 per year will buy a web hosting package from eukhost.com capable of running a content managed website, a CRM system, a customer support forum and a mailing list manager with 24/7 high quality server-level technical support. This kind of cheap web hosting package is conceivably the 10th wonder of the world.

5. If you do need to “scale out” there are no huge licensing costs. You just need more cheap hardware.

6. A multitude of free pre-written extensions mean that many applications can be enhanced and customised with a few clicks

7. The lack of up front costs mean that OSS applications can be up and running in weeks rather than months or even years. Your organisation becomes more agile.

8. OSS is easy to install can be installed by any non-technical person. The biggest barrier to installation is not believing that it could be this easy.

9. You are able to implement systems that would otherwise be outside your budget. This makes you or your organisation more efficient and gives you competitive advantage.

10. Any computer literate person can quickly install and implement a number of open source systems using a Linux web hosting account costing £30 per year. All without the need for special training or highly paid consultants. Seriously.

11. OSS server software is mature, robust and reliable. On going software maintenance costs can be zero or very low cost.

Open source software is not necessarily the best commercial decision in every circumstance but when you need to get something done quickly and on a low budget then it has clear advantages.

///bfamuis8r7

Posted in Content Management, Customer Service, Linux, Marketing, Software Tools, Web Development, Webmaster Tips | No Comments »

Inspirational Online Presentations

Monday, July 13th, 2009

I missed out on going to the 4 day TEDGlobal 2009 conference in Oxford recently largely because I didn’t have the $4500 entrance fee. That doesn’t matter though because TED videos the presentations and puts them online for free.

Here is a great video to get you started, but the rest of the TED site is *well worth* checking out.

This first video presents some very interesting (and positive) global socio-economic data with a fascinating graphing technique. For anyone that works with “data” the video is worth watching for the “information presentation” alone.

Posted in Computer Programming, Human Achievement, Software Tools | No Comments »

Salesforce does content management …

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Salesforce have launched a new product called “Salesforce Sites” which allows Salesforce customers to easily create content managed websites with workflow and full CRM integration. I’ve only seen the demo video (link below) but it looks like it could live up to it’s claim that:

“Salesforce.com will change forever the way businesses build websites”

http://salesforce.vo.llnwd.net/o1/us/us/Sites/sites_techoverview.mov

Posted in Customer Service, Marketing, Software Tools, Technology, Web Development, Webmaster Tips | No Comments »

Google Wave

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

The following is a video demo of “Google Wave” presented at Google IO 2009

Wave is Google’s replacement for email. It is stunning in a number of ways and I think it will revolutionise business communication, collaboration, customer service and of course content management. The user interface alone will reset peoples expectations of what constitutes good or even *usable* software.

The video is 1 hour 20 minutes long. You don’t have to watch it all to get an idea of how ground breaking Google Wave but there are amazing revelations all the way through. I’m not easily impressed but Google Wave is the most impressive piece of software I’ve ever seen.

Google Wave is being developed by the same developers that created Google Maps and is due for release as open source software in Autumn 2009 !

If anyone reading this can see the transformational potential of hooking Wave into a CRM such as Salesforce and would like to sponsor a bit of development, then please contact me.

More information about Google Wave

Posted in Customer Service, Human Achievement, Marketing, Software Tools, Technology | 2 Comments »

Linus Tourvalds on Distributed Source Code Management

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

This video is quite long (1hr) but it will (should) change how you think about source code management.

Linus developed a source code control package called Git because all other version control systems were doing it (badly) wrong. I was sceptical, but having watched the video, I’m convinced there is compelling power in distributed source code management.

If you replace the term source code management with content management and use a bit of imagination then distrbuted source code systems look very similar to what I believe the next generation of Enterprise Content Management systems should look like. (ie source code management and content management are very similar concepts)