More book reviews and what I’ve been up to…

Alan Lord — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:59:51 +0000

I just noticed that I hadn’t posted anything here for what feels like ages – since August the 15th.

So I thought, hmmm, better write something.

But what? A quick update on what’s been going on perhaps? That’ll do…

I’ve been working quite a bit with the brilliant free and open source vtiger CRM recently. Looking at some of the less widely used features and updating our training materials for the recent 5.10 release. I’ve also just submitted a small patch for the Customer Portal feature, to do with its web layout and have been thinking about how best to improve this, and the Webforms modules, to make them easier to customise.

I am also really enjoying using a great little python application called “Getting Things Gnome“. It one of those simple applications which does one job, does it very well and is easy to use. It’s basically an app for jotting down your todo list and making sure you get things done… Here’s what it looks like on my Ubuntu Jaunty desktop:

Getting Things Gnome

I also had a mail from those nice people at Packt Publishing suggesting two new books to look at and review for them, In fact a co-author of one of them actually requested that Packt contact me to do a review Flattery indeed.

So, we now have four books in the pipeline in no particular order:

Joomla! and Virtuemart

Building ecommerce sites with Joomla! and Virtuemart. I haven’t started on this one yet, but if you want to buy it direct from Packt just follow this link and we’ll get a few pennies in commission.

Alfresco 3

My partner-in-crime at The Open Learning Centre, Alan Bell, is reviewing this book on the also brilliant Alfresco ECMS (Enterprise Content Management System). We’ve just set up a 3.2 community install on one of our own servers and the new interface – called Alfresco Share – is really very cool indeed. Once again if you can’t wait we have a link to Packt’s on-line store where you can purchase the book.

FreePBX 2.5

Here’s one of the new ones we’ve been asked to take a look at. FreePBX is a very popular GUI to the even more popular Asterisk telephony platform. I am very much looking forward to reviewing this one and the next book. FreePBX 2.5 is available now from Packt’s on-line store.

The Professional's Guide to Asterisk 1.4

I really like the sound of this one:

Implementing, Administering, and Consulting on Commercial IP Telephony Solutions

Written by four Asterisk Professionals, this book brings their years of experience together in an easy-to-understand guide to working with Asterisk in small, medium and larger Commercial environments

Packed with hints, tips, and best practice – learn to avoid the pitfalls that can hinder an Asterisk implementation

Focused chapters provide thorough, comprehensive, and self-contained instructions on how to deploy Asterisk across different commercial scenarios

This will probably be the first one I read when they arrive next week. It’s hot-off the press, just been released and can be ordered from Packt’s web site here.

My little Asus 1008HA netbook is running very happily with the Alpha build of Ubuntu Karmic Koala. I was at the swimming pool yesterday (not in it but taking my son to his lesson) and using 3G mobile internet to get on line. Battery life is good although not as long as is quoted by Asus. I reckon I get about 3 1/2 to 4hrs of good use. But that is mainly when powering a 3G dongle too – and they get hot. Karmic is shaping up to be a great release I think although to be frank I am really not sure about the new Gwibber interface, and the Empathy IM client hasn’t really floated my boat yet. But hey ho, never mind, at least we have a choice folks.

We are planning some new marketing activities over the coming months, what with the forthcoming release of the best desktop OS of all time and Microsoft releasing their rewrite of Vista, October should be a fun month. Hopefully we’ll have lots of interesting stuff to write about.

In fact I want to share with you a backup script I’ve written in Bash for my home office network and what may well end up being expanded and developed to support some of our commercial systems too. Well I think it’s pretty cool anyway. It wakes up machines in the middle of the night, uses – currently – rsync to back them up, then turns them off again. Configuration is easy and it seems to be working fine. When I get a mo I’ll publish the script source and let you all comment on my terrible bash skills. But I like it…

So there!

The Open Sourcerer » Virtuemart

More book reviews and what I’ve been up to…