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Vi, office suite of the future
Through /., I got a link to the keynote of Tim Bray on this page (direct link to the video ogg-file) and I’ve been watching it for a little time now. I just arrived at the part where he starts discussing office suits of the future. It goes like so:
“How many people here in the audience [...] think that you’ll be using five years from now the same office software? … I see one or two hands, you’re using vi, right?
Darn jargon!
This is so true. And not just because it’s the Beeb that’s reporting it :P
Starting with Ruby on Rails
Ok, so I’ve been doing some setup in the last few days (just every once in a while, usually no longer than 15 minutes in a row) to get Ruby on Rails running. Since Bart really likes the concept, I wanted to give it a try. Setting the stuff up wasn’t really difficult, most Ruby on Rails tutorials give you a lot of hints about getting set up. Just a note, to try it “full fledged”, I’ve even set up three different databases; one for production, one for testing and one for development.
I started very simple with an accounts table, like so:
CREATE TABLE `accounts` (
`user_id` VARCHAR( 25 ) NOT NULL ,
`fullname` VARCHAR( 50 ) ,
`email` VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL ,
PRIMARY KEY ( `user_id` )
) TYPE = MYISAM COMMENT = 'The accounts of the website users';
Then in the website root, I typed script/generate scaffold accounts. I tried looking at http://myserver:3000/accounts to see the results, but alas, I got an error. From this tutorial I ‘stole’ the following idea: script/generate model account. Now http://myserver:3000/accounts seems to display something. I can create a new account, but it stubornly leaves out the user_id field. I think I’ve seen in this movies that it’s supposed to behave that way, since fields ending in ‘_id’ are primary keys and supposed to be left out. So I redesigned my first table as follows:
CREATE TABLE `accounts` (
`user_id` smallint(6) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`username` varchar(25) NOT NULL default '',
`fullname` varchar(50) default NULL,
`email` varchar(50) NOT NULL default '',
PRIMARY KEY (`user_id`),
UNIQUE KEY `username` (`username`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COMMENT='The accounts of the website users' ;
Now I rerun script/generate scaffold accounts and answer ‘Y’ (the default) on all questions. Now things look good, I get a view in which I can insert a new account. Nice. So far, so good.
Now the difficult part, I need to build a website out of this and at the same time learn to use Ruby, the programming language. I think it’ll take about 3 months or so to get me really running. But I’ll be taking small steps and work my way through it. Bart suggested I’d look at the Ruby on Rails API documentation, which although probably very thorough, is very difficult to read. But I’ll learn.
I’m content for today. Will look at this again tomorrow. Or tonight ;-)
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Ubuntu Breezy: X not working
I just did an update of my desktop, which is running Ubuntu “Breezy Badger” (5.10) and it appears Xorg is broken. It’s fixed quite easily by manually installing it with apt-get install xserver-xorg and if you need it, a dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg.
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OfflineIMAP man page humor
To run OfflineIMAP, you just have to say offlineimap — it will fire up, ask you for a login password if necessary, synchronize your folders, and exit. See? You can just throw away the rest of this finely-crafted, perfectly-honed manual! Of course, if you want to see how you can make OfflineIMAP FIVE TIMES FASTER FOR JUST $19.95 (err, well, $0), you have to read on!
Gotta love open source manuals :)
Very proud
So today was the intake in earnest. At 15.45h I arrived at the place (again) and spoke to the guy in charge, Harry. We talked a bit about our ideas of dog training and we’re very much on the same level here. Most dog school train with a “reward good behaviour, ignore bad behaviour” paradigm, but I don’t think that’ll work for Aagje, because she’s very dominant. She needs to be put in her place once in a while and she needs it to be done very thouroughly. And that means using corporal punishments.
That may sound harsh but trust me, it isn’t. It’s doggy language. Dogs among themselves punish each other with a bite in the neck or, if the offence is very severe, a bite in the nose. So we mimick that. If she needs to be punished, I pinch her neck. If she keeps on doing it, I pinch her nose. Very simple. Very firm. Very consequent. Very clear.
I’m so very proud of Aagje. We joined the third lesson tonight (the first two were the last two weeks) and she worked like she’d never done anything else. Over the hedge, through the hoop, sitting on top of a rickety box, climbing two meters on a platform, everything. We’re doing Agility, by the way. The teacher thinks she’ll be doing things perfectly in a few months, because she’s so very driven to work. I love seeing her have fun. And I’m very proud that she was the best of the class :) (Well, I might exaggerate that a bit, but she did very well!) Next lesson is next Wednesday.
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Salesforce review
Technical Overview
- Webbased
- Outsourced, doesn’t run on our own servers, but on their servers
License
This product isn’t Open Source at all. Actually, you need to buy your subscription. It doesn’t run on our own servers, but on their servers. So all data is stored on their servers. This is just sooo scary. Why would a company use such a system? I want control my own information. And my information is private, I don’t want you (yes, that means you) to snoop around in mijn leads or oppertunities, why would I want another company to have access to this information?
I don’t want to use this product. But I came across it after hearing their talk at IT Conversations (actually, I’m listening to that podcast at this moment, the guy is telling me his blog is for his customers only). Not impressed, though.
Interface
Looks a lot like all other CRM systems. Messy and busy. Not impressed.
I’d like to take a moment here to explain what I’m looking for in an interface. Since I used to study Usability and Interface Design, I think I have a right to evaluate design and think about what it should look like. An interface should be easy on the eyes. Compare Squirrelmail screenshots with Hula screenshots and then with GMail’s screenshots. For the record, we deploy a lot of Squirrelmail webmail for companies and it works great and without hassles. But face it, we’re looking forward to Hula’s first really usable release, because that interface is plain better designed. But the optimal interface is GMail’s. “Less is more”, KISS, Occam’s Razor, etc. If you want people to actually use your products, KEEP THEM SIMPLE.
The first thing I thought when seeing Salesforce’s interface was “jee, this looks like SugarCRM”. Figures.
Workflow and Functionality
Can’t say a lot here. Why did I start reviewing this? Bah.
Conclusion
Absolute no-no. I don’t want to store my information somewhere else. I don’t want to use an interface that’s crammed with options.
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Loosely translated
There are only 4,294,967,296 different addresses in IPv4. In IPv6 there are about 340 trillion, trillion, trillion unique addresses. Loosely translated, that’s a whole lot.
Damn right!
Stuff. Just. Works.
I’ve been reading Winn Schwartau’s Mad as Hell series for about 45 minutes now (the appointment with the dog school is tomorrow, not today, doh) and I so wholeheartedly agree with his views.
Just before I started reading it, I upgraded my NewsFireRSS client, since it told me there’s a new version out. Can’t live without my rss aggregator. A few of the feeds I’m subscribed to are password-protected. Since NewsFireRSS is a real Mac OS X app, it stores those passwords in Keychain (scroll down a bit, until you can see the, well, keychain image). After the update, Keychain prompted me with a message (I’m really sorry I didn’t take a screenshot):
NewsFire has been updated. Do you want allow this new installation access to the same information that the previous version had access to?
(Probably not literal, but it amounted to the same thing.) That’s just great. I mean, that’s really great. You know. Stuff. Just. Works.
I’ll have to make sure that I don’t become to religious about this stuff. But it’s really great. Read the Mad as Hell series. I mean it, go read it now.
Dogschool
For more than a year now, Monique and I have been training Aagje ourselves. The last few months, we didn’t really work with her anymore, since my father decided that he didn’t want to use her for breeding. She had to go. After looking for a suitable family for her, my dad and I went talking and I offered to work with her. I’ve always wanted that, because Aagje is my favourite dog these days. She has so much spirit and so much love for working, it’s really adorable to see. But I didn’t want to spend a lot of time at training her if she would go to another family.
After a few weeks of talking, my father decided that I could have her. So we’ll be arranging to transfer her ownership to me for my birthday. Absolutely one of the best presents I can get. I’ll blog more about that later.
But today, in about 25 minutes, we’ll be heading to Honing’s Dogschool for an intake. I really want a school that fits to our needs and that respects the way I handle Aagje, because I’m very sure that I do a lot of things right with her. She’s so smart. One of the most difficult tricks for a dog is to sit during a walk. So that we walk, I tell her to sit, but without paying her any attention, I walk on. That’s very difficult. She did it after twice one hour of training.
I’m really expecting a lot from the dog school. I hope they fit the bill. Wish me luck!
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Back online
If you’re reading this, you’ve seen my unexpected transition from the old site to this new one. Has to do with suexec not allowing php-cgi from user directories, so I made myself a subdomein for my personal stuff. Sorry about the error-messages in your rss aggregators and the like ;-)
Bad Behavior
Because of the Spam problems I’ve had recently on this blog, I’ve decided to try some preventive measures. The first one is Bad Behavior (which looks wierd to me, since I’m constantly correcting my spelling… Somehow I think it should’ve been “Behaviour”?), since I’ve seen it on Seb’s blog. Let’s hope this works. Looks promising, though.
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SugarCRM Review
Technical Overview
- Webbased
- PHP, which runs great on our servers
- MySQL support
License
Like SourceTap, this product is dual licensed. The company offers several products that are extensions or appliances based on the SugarCRM suite. They say they have an Open Source version, but the license (called SPL) is modelled after the MPL, with one major addition:
This License does not grant any rights to use the trademarks “SugarCRM” and the “SugarCRM” logos even if such marks are included in the Original Code or Modifications.
However, in addition to the other notice obligations, all copies of the Covered Code in Executable and Source Code form distributed must, as a form of attribution of the original author, include on each user interface screen (i) the “Powered by SugarCRM” logo and (ii) the copyright notice in the same form as the latest version of the Covered Code distributed by SugarCRM, Inc. at the time of distribution of such copy. In addition, the “Powered by SugarCRM” logo must be visible to all users and be located at the very bottom center of each user interface screen. Notwithstanding the above, the dimensions of the “Powered By SugarCRM” logo must be at least 106 x 23 pixels. When users click on the “Powered by SugarCRM” logo it must direct them back to http://www.sugarforge.org. In addition, the copyright notice must remain visible to all users at all times at the bottom of the user interface screen. When users click on the copyright notice, it must direct them back to http://www.sugarcrm.com
This addition makes the whole license not Open Source imho. I’ll still take a look at it, though. But I added vTiger to my list of “CRMs to look at”.
Interface
I like the interface much better than the interface from the previous product I look at. Even though it’s still very busy, it’s better organised and I no longer need to scroll horizontally (although I do still get the horizontal scrollbar at several pages, but only the edges seem to fall of the visible real estate). The menu’s are clean and simple, only contain the items that need to be in there and are worded very clearly.
The default theme is quite plain, but not bad looking. There are some opportunities left behind though, especially if they would start using AJAX.
Workflow
The workflow is very open. There are no really specified paths to follow, although if you wouldn’t make some rules about the usage, things could get messy pretty soon. Also, the CRM seems constructed for a programming company, since it includes Bug Tracking. It feels made for programmers, too, but that could be my imagination (it’s late, after all).
They allow for a lot of non-concrete data though (% of chance that an opportunity will work out, for example). First thing I’d change is do away with those ‘gut-feelings’. I’m not saying they’re not important, but they should be noted in the textfield, if you feel like supplying them. Nothing’s more of a turn-off than seeing lots of empty fields. And they will be empty, because hardly anyone will feel the need to actually fill those in. When you do, it seems like you can forcast my magical means or something. Not happy with that.
Functionality
Customer overview looks fine. It seems to be able to classify and archive emails, which would be a nice feature. I do hope it’s something automated that reads IMAP folders or something. There seems to be a lot of possibilities to interface with other programs, but I’m not sure if these possibilities are provided for. It would mean a lot of work.
Overall I’m quite okay with the functionality.
Conclusion
Not an option, because it’s not Open Source. Looks okay, though. I’m not heavily impressed by it, I must say.
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You scored as agnosticism. You are an agnostic. Though it is generally taken that agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God, it is possible to be a theist or atheist in addition to an agnostic. Agnostics don’t believe it is possible to prove the existence of God (nor lack thereof).
Agnosticism is a philosophy that God’s existence cannot be proven. Some say it is possible to be agnostic and follow a religion; however, one cannot be a devout believer if he or she does not truly believe.
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Which religion is the right one for you? (new version)
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