WidgetPad takes the complexity out of creating native applications and eliminates the need to learn platform-specific API sets and tools, by taking advantage of emerging new standards, such as HTML5. Available through the Web via a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, WidgetPad for iPhone allows developers to create fully interactive, media-rich mobile applications. These applications can leverage all of the iPhone’s advanced hardware capabilities (GPS, accelerometer, compass, etc.) by simply accessing WidgetPad.com through standard browsers – Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Some key features of WidgetPad for iPhone include:
- Editing: Source code editing for JavaScript, HTML 5 and CSS (with syntax highlighting)
- Resource management: Uploading of various resources (image, sound, and other JavaScript and CSS files) and project management
- Code Sharing and Forking: Automatic sharing of all public projects
- Secure cross-domain scripting: Easily create mash-up applications with existing Web services accessing Web-service APIs over the domain boundary securely
- Application previewing: Run the application on a PC/Mac browser without the iPhone (Safari compatible)
- Publishing: Developers can choose to publish applications to iPhone either via a generic WidgetPad client (free), or as their own branded applications (free or paid)

WidgetPad Development Environment

For more information about WidgetPad for iPhone and to instantly start developing hybrid applications for the iPhone, visit www.widgetpad.com.

WidgetPad Inc. is a provider of collaborative developer environments for hybrid Web-based mobile applications. The company’s development environment allows Web developers to easily and cost-effectively create hybrid web applications for smartphones and mobile devices, such as iPhone, Palm Pre and Google’s Android devices. The company was founded by Satoshi Nakajima and Yuichiro Masui. Nakajima is the creator of the world’s first CAD application for the personal computer, and a defining force behind the architecture for Microsoft Windows 95 and the creation of Internet Explorer 3.0. Masui is a contributor of various open source projects, such as PukiWiki, and played a leadership role in building Ruby on Rails community in Japan. WidgetPad is based in Bellevue, Wash.

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

WidgetPad Introduces Web-based Open-Source Development Environment for iPhone Widgets

Drupala Theme for Drupal 5.x Drigg Install:
The main theme for our social bookmarking / blog portal / social networking installation profile. This theme is derived from the Drigg base theme, but changes the menu structure to allow for more flexibility in working with taxonomy & views when building portal sites. The Drupala theme is two columns, optimized for APK & Drigg, and cross-browser tested in FF, IE6, IE7, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. Uses bright blue gradients to define blocks & site sections, relatively clean, quick loading & scalable. Open Source / GNU Public License.

Download: http://www.typehost.com/free-downloads
Example site: http://drupala.com
Tutorial for Custom Login: WebDevNews.net

SEO-Mix Theme for Drupal 5.x Drigg Install:
The Drupala and SEO-Mix themes are only different in the color of the top buttons in the GUI, and the SEO-Mix theme uses an “up only” voting button, while the Drupala theme uses a +/- system. Included with the download of the Drupala theme above & part of the Drupala profile. Open Source / GNU Public License.

Example site: http://www.seo-mix.com

Echodemic Theme for Drupal 5.x Drigg Install:
Nice dark blue and white theme with wide main menu for a social bookmarking & blog portal site based on Drigg which includes a set of custom voting icons. This theme is also optimized for an APK install and cross-browser tested. Uses the same WebDevNews tutorial for styling the user log-in block. Sponsored by Echodemic. Released under the Open Source / GNU Public License.

Download: http://www.typehost.com/free-downloads

Important Note:
These themes are intended to be used with a Drigg installation following these instructions:
http://www.drigg-code.org/pages/download_and_install

Both themes also use the Rounded Corners module: http://drupal.org/project/rounded_corners

About TypeHost Web Development:

TypeHost Web Development is a Drupal Solutions Provider of web design, graphic art, custom theme & module programming, project management, site installation & administration, security upgrades, SEO, and other services relating to the deployment of the Drupal community web site architecture over shared, dedicated, and cloud hosting environments. We create unique websites for our clients based on their personal ideas & collective vision, business needs, database & software requirements, registered user community, and target audience. Our clients range from some of the largest companies in the world to NGOs, small businesses, galleries, photographers, and artists.

TypeHost Web Development is a web design company specializing in CMS sites that combine social networking, social bookmarking, blog, wiki, & article publication, forums, ecommerce, and other Web 2.0 features (private messaging, SEO, embedded video, image archives, WYSIWYG editing, user profiles, classifieds, etc.) all built on the Open Source development platform Drupal, contributed modules, and themes. LAMP, CSS, PHP, mySQL, DHTML/XHTML, JavaScript, AJAX, XML, RSS, Atom, RDF, & other Semantic Web microformats supported. TypeHost is now listed on oDesk, Elance, GetAFreelancer, Scriptlance, and other freelance web development sites as a service provider.

Our current work involves continued development on the Drupal 5.x platform, particularly for social networking & social bookmarking sites, using Drupal 6.x and Acquia Drupal along with Ubercart for ecommerce, blog publishing, news and information sites. We are developing new themes and installation profiles for Drupal that include database exports of a typical site category structure, taxonomy portal content, pre-programmed Panels, Views, and module configurations for deploying and designing complex sites more quickly. Coming Soon: online demos, file downloads and feedback section, hosted web design solutions, full CMS web design packages, & site customization options.

References:

The Drigg Module: http://drupal.org/project/drigg

Advanced Profile Kit: http://drupal.org/project/advanced_profile

TypeHost Web Development: http://www.typehost.com

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

TypeHost Releases Three Open Source Themes for Drupal – Drigg 5.x

“Linux usage share on client devices has surpassed 1% for the first time in our tracking.  Linux has been successful primarily as a server operating system, but client usage share has not kept pace with server share  Linux has reached this important milestone on the client as Linux-based systems have become more functional, easier to use, and pre-installed on computers from vendors like Dell.”

That pre-installation is important in the spread of desktop Linux is supported by numerous reports as well as common sense. Yet, the bottom line is going to be user experience, stability, and available software vs. dedication to the open source philosophy. For most, buying a machine with the OS set up and running is standard. The increase in popularity of netbooks and the use of Linux as a pre-installed OS on those machines may be leading the trend combined with increased uptake in the education & development communities.

“LINUX HAS MADE headway in Microsoft’s UK heartland, the PC sales channel. The number of machines shipped with Linux preloaded on them has multiplied a whopping 28 times since Microsoft launched its Vista operating system in January 2007. Sounds impressive, but Linux was starting from a rather small base in traditional sales channels: of all PCs sold in the UK last January through indirect channels, a feeble 0.1 per cent had Linux preloaded, according to numbers given to us by market research firm Context. The Linux share of this route to market has edged up ever since the Vista launch. Then it broke the two per cent barrier in May after the latest release of Ubuntu, the strain of Linux most capable of kicking Microsoft in the shins. Microsoft is still be shipped with 93 per cent of all PCs sold through distribution in the UK, according to Context.”

According to the Linux counter there are about 29 million users: http://counter.li.org/

Reaction to this: http://blogs.computerworld.com/linux_use_reached_1_world_yawns

“Linux guru and my compatriot in blogging, Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, believes that Linux may eventually reach 10% to 20% of market share. I think that Steven’s estimate is far off the mark. I’d be shocked if Linux ever came close to approaching even 5% of market share, and I believe even 2% will be a stretch. To understand why, let’s look at how Linux reached that 1% market share. Linux was first created in 1991 — that’s 18 years ago. To reach 1% market share in 18 years is not a particularly difficult task, especially considering that the operating system is available for free.”

Related: http://blogs.computerworld.com/1_linux_99_to_go

There has been frustration over the proprietary software model for years, and open source has never been stronger. The frustration is popular, and has mostly been directed at Microsoft with its 88% market share. Clearly the release of Windows 7 is going to be an important event, but the potential is easily there for Microsoft to increase its popularity yet again with another strong product. Is Linux a product? The fact that it may not be is key to its main appeal, but limits sales if it cannot be sold.

According to distrowatch, here are the top 100 Linux distributions with the number of hits per day:

1. Ubuntu 2351 <
2. openSUSE 1538 <
3. Mint 1418 <
4. Fedora 1395 >
5. Debian 1194 <
6. Mandriva 1002 >
7. PCLinuxOS 888 <
8. Puppy 733 >
9. Sabayon 710 >
10. MEPIS 681 <
11. CentOS 677 <
12. Arch 629 =
13. Slackware 522 <
14. FreeBSD 512 >
15. Damn Small 468 <
16. Kubuntu 467 <
17. Vector 446 >
18. Dreamlinux 424 <
19. KNOPPIX 406 =
20. gOS 382 =
21. Zenwalk 374 <
22. Gentoo 356 =
23. PC-BSD 331 =
24. OpenSolaris 328 =
25. Ubuntu Studio 319 <
26. TinyMe 309 =
27. Xubuntu 307 <
28. Ultimate 297 >
29. sidux 284 =
30. PC/OS 274 =
31. Slax 242 >
32. CrunchBang 237 >
33. Red Hat 235 =
34. Elive 217 >
35. Parted Magic 212 =
36. SystemRescue 211 >
37. Mythbuntu 210 <
38. BackTrack 209 =
39. Clonezilla 194 =
40. Frugalware 193 =
41. Tiny Core 189 >
42. OpenGEU 172 =
43. GeeXboX 172 <
44. Xandros 165 =
45. Absolute 160 <
46. Linpus 157 <
47. Pardus 146 =
48. Yellow Dog 142 =
49. Wolvix 142 =
50. nUbuntu 139 =
51. Scientific 138 =
52. Novell SLE 138 =
53. DragonFly 136 >
54. OpenBSD 135 <
55. SliTaz 134 =
56. Easy Peasy 134 >
57. CDlinux 123 =
58. ZevenOS 122 >
59. 64 Studio 121 =
60. FreeNAS 119 =
61. Fluxbuntu 119 =
62. iMagic 118 =
63. NetBSD 116 >
64. Foresight 116 =
65. GParted 114 =
66. Musix 113 =
67. linuX-gamers 113 <
68. DesktopBSD 112 =
69. ALT 112 =
70. UbuntuME 107 =
71. Freespire 105 <
72. Comfusion 105 =
73. Berry 100 =
74. CRUX 98 =
75. Nexenta 96 =
76. Solaris 95 =
77. Parsix 95 =
78. Lunar 95 =
79. gNewSense 95 =
80. ClarkConnect 90 =
81. GoblinX 89 =
82. BlankOn 89 >
83. U-lite 88 >
84. RIPLinuX 87 >
85. Granular 87 =
86. LFS 84 =
87. Caos 84 >
88. Linux XP 83 =
89. SME Server 82 =
90. PUD 82 >
91. Kiwi 82 >
92. AUSTRUMI 79 =
93. MidnightBSD 78 =
94. SAM 74 =
95. X/OS 73 =
96. KANOTIX 73 =
97. DARKSTAR 73 =
98. Turbolinux 72 =
99. KateOS 72 =
100. IPCop 72 =

Source: http://distrowatch.com/

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution

http://www.linuxforums.org/reviews/overview_of_the_ten_major_linux_distributions.html

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/linux/articles/21108.aspx

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

OSnews: Linux Officially Reaches 1% of Desktop Market Share

“As the digital economy drives down the marginal costs of technology and a generation of young consumers grow accustomed to giveaways, it’s no longer a question of ‘How can you compete with free?’ but a matter of ‘How can you afford not to compete with free?’”

“At the same time, the current economic crisis is making the need to turn free into cash more critical than ever, and some argue that free is doing more harm than good to content creators who rely on ‘traditional’ business models to pay the bills. The recession has proven that it takes no prisoners, and some companies won’t survive unless they can figure out how to monetize free – and quickly.”

“The Free! Summit addresses these challenges, and the opportunities, in an open and critical way by bringing together leading thinkers and innovators who are embracing the value of free…as well as those who are not. Investors, entrepreneurs, content developers, marketing professionals, analysts and other stakeholders who are at the forefront of the digital revolution.”

“Whether you’re investing in free, trying to sell free, competing with free or just trying to understand what free is all about, you’ll benefit from the insights and connections you will find at The Free! Summit. These days, companies and industries of all types are exploring new business models and searching for better ways to anticipate and meet customer needs.”

What is the business model for Free Open Source Software? Many businesses have adopted it vs. proprietary CMS and CRM software, and it is the basis of most of the internet’s server infrastructure. But where and how do programmers who work on open source software projects get paid? How do businesses like Sun with mySQL cover support and R&D costs? How can websites like Facebook & mySpace cover the costs of offering free services to anyone and everyone on the planet?

These are the issues that are expected to be covered at the Free Summit so anyone interested in their answers will be following the reports to come out of the gathering. It may turn out that the issue is a false one, with open source and free software companies enjoying some of the largest growth rates and expansion of market sector. How this business model works for companies developing FOSS is another topic expected to be debated at the meet.

It looks as if the proprietary kings like Adobe and Microsoft could easily be dethroned by open source software and cloud-based, software applications in the same manner as newspapers lost out to digital media. If a company like Google, for example, with 73% of the search market adopted a version of Linux and marketed it as an open source desktop OS alternative to Windows & Apple, backed up with a suite of free desktop and cloud-based web applications, it could be a huge success.

Android is seen as a first step in this direction, as the OS is built on a Linux base and operates on netbooks as well as mobile phones. The netbook / mobile phone OS and application market is on a huge expansionary track worldwide, so market dominance in this area would make it easier to backport into the desktop OS market. But it doesn’t directly target the FOSS business model, as mobile developers are making income by selling their applications rather than giving them away for free.

Google Linux or Facebook Linux could conceivably surpass Apple’s 10% market share in desktop operating system and provide a real option for the 88% of all computer users who use Windows. At a relatively minimal cost a company could adopt development of a popular Linux distro and promote it publicly in the desktop OS marketplace. Had IBM pursued this strategy from the start we might have a very different computing environment today.

Free Open Source Software is also extremely important in education in the developing world. One Laptop Per Child’s use of Linux on their $100 laptop brought out a perfect example of what could be done with the free, open source model. But no one has yet to crack OLPC’s financial model, which involves giving away a free laptop to every child on the earth.

Most every open source software developer and web designer I know has been working full-time, over-time, and turning down projects even through the last 6 months of the recession. The business model is basically the implementation of custom solutions for clients using open source software as a base. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to cover costs and remain competitive in the global BPO / web development market without a development center in India or partnership with another offshore service provider.

There are many different approaches currently to “commercial open source,” many different companies, niches, business models, and platforms. There may not be “one way” that emerges as dominant, but rather a multiplicity of success and failure stories. Companies like Google, IBM, Novell, Red Hat, Sun, Yahoo and others have already established significant successes in open source commercialization. Others like Microsoft, Adobe, and Apple are more increasingly recognizing the development trend and importing open source elements into their code networks.

For developers and businesses, there is a job to be done, and a coded solution, software & hardware choices. Going with proprietary closed source tools encourages big corporations whereas open source tools facilitate the smaller, independent outsourcing service providers. The turning point continues to be when open source surpasses proprietary in quality, but the point always returns to how free distribution can fund development.

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

FOSS – The Free! Summit – May 11, 2009 – San Mateo, CA

• “87 percent of those surveyed realized the cost savings they expected from open source;
• 92 percent of respondents have had their quality expectations met or exceeded by open-source software. (Try getting anywhere near that number with proprietary solutions);
• The manufacturing sector has been a primary adopter of open-source middleware, while financial services (at least, up until the meltdown) has been fastest off the starting blocks to go to open-source applications;
• Speaking of open-source applications, a significant percentage of the enterprises surveyed have adopted or will adopt the following open-source software within the next 12 months: CRM (67 percent), ESB (47 percent), ECM (66 percent), etc.
• Intriguingly, Forrester also tracked adoption of open source via proprietary applications: a full 72 percent of all surveyed organizations know that much of the proprietary software they license includes open-source components, while 39 percent regularly combine open source and proprietary software to solve business problems.”

Acquia is hosting another report by Forrester – Web Content Management and Open Source, Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, written by Stephen Powers, with Kyle McNabb and Shelby Catino.

In this report, Forrester recommends that companies watch Drupal & Alfresco especially:

“Currently, enterprises interested in open source should keep an eye on two offerings — Alfresco Software and Drupal — because:

• Both have taken pages from the commercial vendors’ playbooks.
• Technologists praise the product architectures.
• Both have strong professional communities.”

Forrester likes the project management team behind Alfresco, which has a corporate / commercial WCM management background, and the fact that Acquia has secured over $7 million USD in financing to develop an enterprise version of Drupal. Both platforms have strong user, developer, and support communities, as well as an abundance of open source code in the form of modules, themes, and other plugins.

When making a decision on an open source solution, Forrester recommend looking at the service provider first – who will be doing the implementation and maintenance, as well as focusing on scalability, security, and the extent of adoption of the platform on the web. An open question is whether or not open source will require more staff to implement the solution and whether this is offset on the savings vs. license fees on proprietary solutions.

Black Duck Software suggests the total savings of open source vs. proprietary software to be $387 billion USD!

“A new study suggests that companies can save $387 billion in development costs by using open-source software.

Talk about a stimulus.

Black Duck Software arrives at the $387 billion number by applying industry cost estimation standards to the available 4.9 billion lines of open-source code. Additionally, the company:

Estimates that 10 percent of IT application development spending is redundant with existing open-source projects, (which means that) U.S. companies could realize savings of more than $22 billion a year through the reuse of (open-source software) in application development.”

In difficult economic times when businesses are doing everything they can to cut and manage costs, open source software has a big advantage, but look for this to continue even more when the economy recovers. In many instances it is not a cost issue driving the implementation of open source solutions – it is quality. Platforms like SugarCRM, Zimbra, Drupal, Alfresco, Liferay, Asterisk, OTRS, and trixbox Pro are all examples of open source programs that outperform their proprietary equivalents.

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

Forrester: 87% of Companies Save Money with Open Source Solutions

The LifeRay Portal is composed of two main sections: the LifeRay Journal and the LifeRay Collaboration Suite. The LifeRay Journal is the content management system of the portal, allowing web publishers to easily post content, manage pages, create hierarchical menus, and site structure. The LifeRay Collaboration Suite is the social networking aspect of the portal, which includes forums, wiki collaboration, blogs, email, calendars, and tagging. Both of these can be extended by open source “portlets” that add increased functionality to the system.

The LifeRay Journal:

LifeRay Journal is LifeRay Portal’s built-in content management system (CMS) ready to deliver portal-based web publishing and document management.

• Web Publishing
• Document Library & Image Gallery
• Java Content Repository
• Image Gallery
• Portal Publishing
• Searchable Pages
• Tagging
• Easy Article Creation

The LifeRay Collaboration Suite:

Forums:

• Message Boards
• Sticky Posts
• Statistics
• Recent Posts
• RSS
• Email-based Subscriptions
• Avatars
• Threads Management
• Permissions

Blogs:

• User Blogs
• RSS Support
• Threaded User List
• Guest Comments
• Email Notifications of Blog Replies
• Tags and Labels
• Entry Rating System
• Social Bookmarking Links
• Blog Aggregator

Wikis:

• Built-in User Management
• LDAP Integration & Permissions
• Multiple Wikis per Installation
• Versioning and Reversion Capabilities

Other Features:

• Mail
• Microformats Support
• Shared Calendaring
• Enterprise Instant
• RSS
• Tagging

Portlets:

• Administration
• Content Management
• Collaboration
• Community
• Entertainment
• Personal Tools
• Shopping Tools
• Developer Tools

There are many benefits to the LifeRay Portal software, first and foremost of which are its open source code base and large community of international users. LifeRay provides an intuitive and collaborative user experience and allows publishers to consolidate, organize and access all their data and applications via a single point of access. It is also a cost effective way to optimize your development costs and adapt to the demands of a changing market.

The LifeRay CMS has one of the most impressive client lists of any open source portal software. From IT, Financial Services, and Retail Companies, to Non-Profits, Educational Groups, and Governmental Agencies, LifeRay CMS has hundreds of thousands of web sites deployed with its architecture. The professionalism, scalability, and affordability of LifeRay make it a wise choice for any web development department.

Online Demo:
An online demo of LifeRay is available at:

http://demo.liferay.net/web/guest/home

Download Page:

http://www.liferay.com/web/guest/downloads/portal

Additional Files:

http://www.liferay.com/web/guest/downloads/additional

Official Plugins:

http://www.liferay.com/web/guest/downloads/official_plugins

Community Plugins:

http://www.liferay.com/web/guest/downloads/community_plugins

Technical Specs:

http://www.liferay.com/web/guest/community/tech_specs

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

LifeRay – Social Networking & CMS Web Publishing

Zimbra is a commercial open source application that is owned and managed by Yahoo.  The main software package is known as Zimbra Collaboration Suite 5.0, and is available in the following versions:

• Open Source Edition
• Consumer Edition
• Business Email Edition
• Standard Edition
• Professional Edition

“Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) 5.0 is a truly modern, innovative messaging and collaboration application. Zimbra is the leading open source solution for enterprise, service provider, education, and government environments; offering administrators and their end-users unmatched benefits.”

Zimbra Collaboration Suite 5.0 – Open Source Edition:

The Zimbra Open Source Edition contains all the core functionality of the product line, including some advanced features not found in the commercial versions.

• Address Book
• Basic search
• Advanced search
• Tags
• Sharing
• Basic/Enterprise Zimlets
• AJAX Calendar
• Conversations
• Resource/group scheduling
• AJAX Documents
• Instant Messaging
• Tasks and Briefcase
• Web/CLI administration
• Integrated Anti-Spam / Anti-Virus
• Multi-domain support
• POP/IMAP

Zimbra Collaboration Suite 5.0 – Consumer Edition:

The Zimbra Consumer Edition is designed for a single user, and does not include the network sharing tools and multi-domain support found on other editions. However, it does include advanced functionality not found in the open source version, such as:

• Online backup/restore
• Clustering/HA
• Storage management
• Rebranding
• Web/phone support
• Advertising Support

Zimbra Collaboration Suite 5.0 – Business Email Edition:

The Zimbra Business Edition does not include the advanced sharing, tagging, search, zimlet, and calendar functionality found in other versions. However it does include the added features of:

• Domain-level administration
• Domain-level branding

Zimbra Collaboration Suite 5.0 – Standard Edition:

The Zimbra Standard Edition is one of the most advanced versions of Zimbra available, with all of the functionality of the Open Source, Consumer and Business editions, with the addition of:

• Attachment search
• Resource/group scheduling
• AJAX Documents
• Tasks and Briefcase
• Zimbra Mobile
• Blackberry support

Zimbra Collaboration Suite 5.0 – Professional Edition:

The Zimbra Professional Edition is the highest version of Zimbra available, with all of the functionality of the Standard editions, with the addition of:

Outlook/MAPI sync
Apple iSync

Zimbra is now used in over 4 million paid email accounts, making it one of the most successful open source messaging applications on the planet. The experience of Yahoo in email management combined with the community development techniques of open source software offer unparalleled benefits for businesses.

Zimbra Demos:

Taking a tour and comparing the features of Zimbra live vs. your current email client is the best way to get to know the system and make a decision before you buy or commit to the platform. The following Flash tours and live demos are produced by Yahoo to give users a thorough introduction to all the advanced messaging and web collaboration features Zimbra offers.

Take a Flash Tour to learn more about Zimbra

Screenshots gallery here

Hands on access with the Live Demo

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

Email Upgrades – Zimbra Collaboration Suite 5.0

For those interested, you can read the Cloud Manifesto in its entirety.

The document begins with a description of media hype:

The buzz around cloud computing has reached a fever pitch. Some believe it is a disruptive trend representing the next stage in the evolution of the Internet. Others believe it is hype, as it uses long established computing technologies. As with any new trend in the IT world, organizations must figure out the benefits and risks of cloud computing and the best way to use this technology.

One thing is clear: The industry needs an objective, straightforward conversation about how this new computing paradigm will impact organizations, how it can be used with existing technologies, and the potential pitfalls of proprietary technologies that can lead to lock-in and limited choice.

This document is intended to initiate a conversation that will bring together the emerging cloud computing community (both cloud users and cloud providers) around a core set of principles. We believe that these core principles are rooted in the belief that cloud computing should be as open as all other IT technologies.

They then seek to define exactly what cloud computing is:

The key characteristics of the cloud are the ability to scale and provision computing power dynamically in a cost efficient way and the ability of the consumer (end user, organization or IT staff) to make the most of that power without having to manage the underlying complexity of the technology. The cloud architecture itself can be private (hosted within an organization’s firewall) or public (hosted on the Internet). These characteristics lead to a set of core value propositions:

• Scalability on Demand
• Streamlining the Data Center
• Improving Business Processes
• Minimizing Startup Costs

The five main challenges that cloud computing must address:

• Security
• Data and Application Interoperability
• Data and Application Portability
• Governance and Management
• Metering and Monitoring

The Goals of an Open Cloud:

• Choice
• Flexibility
• Speed and Agility
• Skills

The Principles of an Open Cloud:

Of course, many clouds will continue to be different in a number of important ways, providing unique value for organizations. It is not our intention to define standards for every capability in the cloud and create a single homogeneous cloud environment. Rather, as cloud computing matures, there are several key principles that must be followed to ensure the cloud is open and delivers the choice, flexibility and agility organizations demand:

1. Cloud providers must work together to ensure that the challenges to cloud adoption (security, integration, portability, interoperability, governance/management, metering/monitoring) are addressed through open collaboration and the appropriate use of standards.
2. Cloud providers must not use their market position to lock customers into their particular platforms and limit their choice of providers.
3. Cloud providers must use and adopt existing standards wherever appropriate. The IT industry has invested heavily in existing standards and standards organizations; there is no need to duplicate or reinvent them.
4. When new standards (or adjustments to existing standards) are needed, we must be judicious and pragmatic to avoid creating too many standards. We must ensure that standards promote innovation and do not inhibit it.
5. Any community effort around the open cloud should be driven by customer needs, not merely the technical needs of cloud providers, and should be tested or verified against real customer requirements.
6. Cloud computing standards organizations, advocacy groups, and communities should work together and stay coordinated, making sure that efforts do not conflict or overlap.

Companies and organizations that currently support the open cloud manifesto are listed as:

AT&T, Abiquo, Accario, Akamai, ALTIC. Org, AMD, Aptana, Appistry, Arista Networks, Barcelona Supercomputing Center Blend digital, Boomi, Business Logic, Cast Iron, Cisco, CSC, Dilgenter, the Eclipse Foundation, Elastra, EMC, Enomaly, Engine Yard, enStratus, F5, Global Media Solutions, GoGrid, Heroku, Hyperic, IBM, In Cloud Company SL, Juniper, LongJump, Luminis Innovation Consulting, ManualsMania, Metadot, MyCube9.com, newScale, Northwest A&F University (Shanxi, China), North Carolina State University, Nirvanix, Novell, the Object Management Group, Okuri Ventures, Open Cloud Consortium, Open-XChange, Prgmr.com, PointStar, QuadraForte, Rackspace, Rails Machine, Red Hat, Tech4Quant, Terremark Worldwide, the Hot Air Channel, the Reservoir Project, Trend Micro, RightScale, rPath, Saasmania, S3 Graphics, Soasta, Sogeti, Sun, Synapses, Technical University of Catalonia, Telefonica, the Open Group, Velneo SA, Venue Software, Veredas, VMware, Voxeo, VPS.net and Zenoss.

The Open Cloud Manifesto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

For more information: http://opencloudmanifesto.org/supporters.htm

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

IBM leads IT Companies in Proclaiming “Open Cloud Manifesto”

Ajax Animation:

http://antimatter15.110mb.com/ajaxanimator/build/

There are numerous projects involving command line tools, compilers, and format converters at OSFlash, as well as Eclipse plug-ins, ActionScript libraries, and frameworks for Flex, Flash, and ActionScript. To see the full list, including Flash applications and utilities, visit:

OSFlash:

http://osflash.org/open_source_flash_projects

One of the more interesting applications is SILEX, an Open Source Flash CMS which is described as a “mix between editing software and wiki software”. The software allows you to use a WYSIWYG editor to produce complete Flash websites for Flash 7,8, & 9 as well as rich internet and touch screen applications. It also has built in SEO features and multi-lingual support. If you are looking for a complete framework for developing new Flash sites, SILEX is definitely a good place to start.

SILEX Demo & Information:

http://silex-ria.org/#open.source.flash.cms/silex/a.propos/fonctionnalites/logiciel.ria.open.source.et.gratuit.details

SILEX User Guide:

http://silex-ria.org/#help/documentation/home

For video chat and video conferencing using Flash Media Server, there are two excellent plug-ins called FlashVid available at:

FlashVid:

http://lkcl.net/videoconf/

These include Video Publish and Video Receive with streaming, volume control, bandwidth settings, user identification, and picture quality controls among other settings and configurations. An example of these plug-ins in action can be found at:
http://partyliveonline.com/

Animation Package is “an ActionScript library compatible to Flash Player 6 and above. It helps you to create powerful, maintainable animations and primitive shapes in an efficient and easy way, resulting in small file sizes.” The package is available in versions designed for Flash 6, 8, & 9 and can be downloaded at this site:

Animation Package:

http://www.alex-uhlmann.de/flash/animationpackage/

FlashDevelop is an ActionScript 2 & 3 library and development environment compatible with both Flash and Flex. It also supports Swfmill and Mtasc integration with tools for authoring, debugging, and documentation. More information on this project, with links to the Sourceforge files, can be found at:

FlashDevelop:

http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/viewtopic.php?t=23

Gaia is another Rich Internet Application framework which promises to reduce your authoring time for Flash websites to 10 minutes! It uses Agile methods to streamline development, automates repetitive tasks, and has built in libraries of animations, as well as SEO enhancements. The download page for Gaia is found at:

Gaia Flash Framework:

http://www.gaiaflashframework.com/downloads/update.html

The Gaia Wiki can be accessed at:
http://www.gaiaflashframework.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

While these examples represent only a fraction of the projects hosted at OSFlash, they are good examples of the advances and innovations in Open Source Software being made within the Flash & Flex development platforms. Check out OSFlash and bookmark it for future reference, and save yourself a lot of time and expense in Flash development by taking advantage of the many resources available in its archive.

For more information, visit:
http://osflash.org/

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

OSFlash – Open Source Flash Development

The top 10 Open Source Content Management Systems:

1. Drupal
2. WordPress
3. Joomla
4. Media Wiki
5. Liferay
6. TYPO3
7. Moodle
8. Dolphin
9. Pligg
10. Movable Type

Honorable Mention:
Xoops, Geeklog, e107, Mambo, Nucleus

1. Drupal:

Drupal gets the top nod because of its ease of use, vast number of modules, great user, developer, and support community.
License: GPL
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: core CMS, Views, CCK, Organic Groups, & huge library of contributed modules.
Disadvantages: complex, needs more top quality themes, frequent security upgrades.
Outlook: Huge potential to continue growth and expansion on this platform over time.
Website: http://www.drupal.org/

2. WordPress:

WordPress is a simple and elegant CMS, perfect for single user blogs, with a large number of themes and modules available online.
License: GPL
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: Easiest CMS to use, customize, and extend.
Disadvantages: Lacks many of the social networking functions, ecommerce, forums, wikis, etc. used on more expansive sites.
Outlook: Best for personal publishing, huge user community, will continue to be the preferred choice of bloggers for years.
Website: http://www.wordpress.org/

3. Joomla:

Joomla has one of the largest user communities of any CMS, everything you need and more to develop social networks, ecommerce, & archive sites.
License: GPL
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: Professional standards, internationalization, customization.
Disadvantages: too many commercial products for Open Source development, difficult to learn.
Outlook: Strong challenger for the top CMS spot, commercialization of extensions should continue to provide many income opportunities for 3rd party developers.
Website: http://www.joomla.org/

4. Media Wiki:

Media Wiki invented a whole new way of working on the web, and is a CMS for collective authoring of documents, used to power the one of the largest and most popular sites on the internet, Wikipedia.
License: GPL
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: If you need a wiki, it is the best.
Disadvantages: Does not include many other functions / extensions of other CMS platforms, doesn’t theme well, most sites look the same.
Outlook: Follows the model to success of doing one thing extremely well, has the support of the Wikipedia Foundation, very popular authoring model.
Website: http://www.mediawiki.org/

5. Liferay:

Liferay is a popular new CMS that is great for building portals, and offers a professional look and feel that sets it apart from the other platforms.
License: MIT
Programming Language: Java, PHP, Ruby
Main advantages: collaboration, calendars, internationalization, design.
Disadvantages: More closely tied to a commercial outlook / corporate structure than most Open Source projects.
Outlook: Not as well known or implemented as some of the other CMS platforms, but nice design & features to set your sites apart from the crowd.
Website: http://www.liferay.com/

6. TYPO3:

One of the most complex and professional CMS platforms out of the box, TYPO3 is popular for business websites, especially with European companies.
License: GNU
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: design, extensions, customizations, flexibility, professionalism.
Disadvantages: too difficult to learn for most, too many proprietary conventions.
Outlook: Strong CMS for web development, sure to continue with a core of specialized developers and corporate clients, but loosing support and market share to other platforms.
Website: http://www.typo3.com/

7. Moodle:

Moodle is one of the most unique CMS platforms on this list, designed specifically for Course Management and Education, and used for online learning platforms.
License: GNU
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: Huge user and development community, online education, no real competitors or similar products, extremely powerful.
Disadvantages: not really applicable for most web design purposes.
Outlook: Look for this “Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment” to continue to be the standard online operating system for education and spawn many interesting mashups with other CMS platforms as well as many more modules & extensions.
Website: http://www.moodle.org/

8. Dolphin:

Boonex Dolphin is popular among web designers who want the latest in social networking, with an industry standard look and all of the features of the popular online communities out of the box.
License: Creative Commons
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: Plug-n-Play user community with all the bells & whistles.
Disadvantages: not really Open Source, must pay to remove ads, requires specific hosting requirements, difficult to install, buggy.
Outlook: Look for Dolphin to continue to be a popular choice for social networking, though its “cookie cutter” design runs the risk of becoming stale with too many sites implementing the same design.
Website: http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/

9. Pligg:

Pligg is a Digg clone that provides social bookmarking functionality for websites, allowing users to post links, vote them up or down, and leave comments.
License: GPL
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: Best for Social Bookmarking, can be themed and extended to build top quality sites like Mixx, Redditt, Del.icio.us, etc.
Disadvantages: difficult to install, mod rewrite problems, poor support on community boards, questionable Open Source future.
Outlook: With the 1.0 release of Pligg upcoming within a couple of months, look for a big surge of use back to this platform but watch out for increased commercialization.
Website: http://www.pligg.com/

10. Movable Type:

Movable Type is the main challenger to WordPress for a personal blog platform, and supports multiple users, Themes, and Tags.
License: GNU
Programming Language: Perl
Main advantages: Blogs
Disadvantages: Too closely tied to commercial products and services compared to most Open Source communities, Perl.
Outlook: Look for MT to fall off the list as other of the blogging platforms below increase in popularity, but sustain development as PR for the company’s commercial offerings.
Website: http://movabletype.org/

Honorable Mention:
Xoops, Geeklog, e107, Mambo, Nucleus

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

The Top 10 Open Source Content Management Systems