Tools
I've noticed that
IrfanView now includes a third-party "save to web" component called
RIOT with preview and tweaking options similar to Photoshop. Don't forget to download the extended, more recent version of the plugin directly from their website.
TeamDrive NXT 2.0 looks promising. So does
PowerFolder. While both transparently synchronize files on multiple PCs (see
previous blog post), each has its own strengths. TeamDrive is server-centric, aiming towards supporting WebDAV and Amazon S3 as storage backends besides their own online storage (unfortunately, not in the current beta), teamwork on shared folders (and the resulting conflict management) and unlimited file revisions, whereas PowerFolder has the advantage of being Java (available for Mac, Win and Linux, TeamDrive: Win only), and the disadvantage of being Java (in my first limited tests, it seems to take a lot of resources to scan the files on every startup). Peer-to-peer oriented, there's no need for a central server - all clients are equal. Partner clients in the LAN are instantly discovered, and you can use different profiles for different folders (ranging from one-way manual download to automatic sync). It's a pity that they turned away from releasing the program under GPL, but I understand that after years of development,
they finally want to earn some money.
Websites
"
wePapers helps students and others share and expand their knowledge. You can find and download the papers and documents you need in a matter of seconds, discuss them with others, or just mess around."
Any germans, willing to sell their lecture notes? Or buy some? Try
Unidog. On a related note: Another german student job platform,
JobMensa, keeps track of all your side jobs.
RefSeek is a search engine that "aims to make academic information easily accessible to everyone".
(Among others,)
GoGrid offers cloud hosting services similar to Amazon EC2. Finally, after grid computing has been promised
in the last century, the world seems to be ready. If you're interested, also read the
Windows Live announcements from September in case you've missed them.
Tarpipe offers workflows to publish to existing social media platforms easily. They are also supporting
OAuth, an open protocol for desktop and web authorization that, in contrast to OpenID, is supposed to work transparently (
"While OpenID is all about using a single identity to sign into many sites, OAuth is about giving access to your stuff without sharing your identity at all (or its secret parts).")
Dex wants to be the new "Web 2.0" social CRM that "keeps customer relationships vital and prosperous".
Seittest.de analyzes and ranks German websites using "human critera" like readability. Very basic; for example, they do not judge accessibility.
Software Development
I am currently working on a web project based on the Joomla CMS. Many components are being released under GPL, while the developers charge for the download of the sources itself. Provoking thought: If I modify the component, even slightly, and publish it somewhere else without charging for it, does this break the license? Isn't that the basic idea of GPL?
Håkon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera Software, gave a basic talk on Web technologies and emerging standards in HTML5 at the TU Dresden today.
Books: New editions of
Artificial Intelligence and
Windows Internals are expected for December/January.
IBM DeveloperWorks series:
30 game scripts you can write in PHP
Grails is growing up and looks stable now.
1.04 released.
