Archive for the ‘Open source’ Category
Danish TV 2 to cut Internet Explorer 6 support
Following in the footsteps of 37 Signals Danish broadcaster TV 2 will cut their support for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 on the tv2.dk website.
TV 2 developer Martin Gausby has announced this in his Twitter stream:
Today we start to inform the users of Internet Explorer 6, that they should upgrade their browsers to IE7 or get Firefox http://xrl.us/osepc
Users of Internet Explorer 6 will see a gray box on the tv2.dk website telling them that their browser is outdated and will no longer be supported. They are told to upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 or switch to Firefox, the open source alternative.
In my view this is a good move by TV 2. IE6 has long been a thorn in the eye of web developers who need to design especially custom CSS for the browser, since it sometimes has its own way of interpreting the code.
Now it'll be interesting to see whether or not other Danish media websites will do the same.
Related postsTags: Browsers, Danish media, Media, Software
Create a link to the lastest Chromium build (using PHP)
You may have heard of Chrome, but have you heard of Chromium?
Chromium is (according to the Google Operating System blog) »the open source project created for Google Chrome«.
As with, for instance, Firefox, Chromium also has nightly builds, which are less stable builds but with bleeding edge features. In Chromium these are labeled 'snapshots'.
In the Google Operating System blog post there's link to where you can download the most recent snapshop/build of the open source browser (for Windows only!). Some kind developer has left a file in the 'chromium-rel-xp' folder called 'LATEST'. All this file contains is the number of the latest build/snapshot.
We can use this number to create a direct URL to the most recent snapshop/build.
For this you use the PHP function called 'file_get_contents' and put the 'LATEST' file in it.
Here's how it looks when it's all done.
If you're curious you can look at the source code behind the 'latest Chromium' page.
Related postsTags: Browsers, chrome, Chromium, Google, Open source, PHP, Software
New in WordPress 2.7 trunk: QuickPress
Just uploaded the recent WordPress trunk version (nightly build) to test it out.
The first thing I discovered is a new feature labeled "QuickPress". It's basically a form which allows you to post (title, body text and tags) directly to your blog from your dashboard.
Click image for larger version:
I'm not too sure what to think about this. I think I preferred the old dashboard with recent comments, incoming links and so on.
Related postsTags: Blogging, Blogs, CMS, Open source, Web 2.0, wordpress, wordpress trunk
WordPress 2.7: Administration interfaces gets new design (again)
The administration interface in open source blogging software WordPress recently got a (much needed, if you ask me) face lift, but now it seems that it's time for a design upgrade once again.
A new feature is the "Inbox" feature, that I have included in this screenshot (you can click the image for larger version):
I haven't been able to find a lot of information on the new inbox feature, but I imagine that it would be a welcome feature in the multi user version of WordPress, WordPress MU, where bloggers can write messages to each other without necessarily revealing their email addresses.
The sections in the menu in the administration interface (which now lives on the left hand side), "Content", "Templates", "Utilities", "Settings", "Plugins" can be collapsed and expanded.
I came across this list of new and interesting features coming in WordPress 2.7. Note that I am in no way sure whether or not these features are finally confirmed.
The write interface in the WordPress 2.7 trunk also appears to get an upgrade to the design (once again: click the image for a larger version):
I found this great post with some more info on some of the updates in the WordPress administration interface.
The screenshots are now in colour, stupid export mishap in my image editing software :-)
Tags: CMS, Open source, wordpress, wordpress trunk
This just out: WordPress MU 2.6, Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1
WordPress MU 2.6
The new version of the multi user version of blogging software WordPress it out, and it now matches the feature of the "standard" WordPress 2.6. Download at mu.wordpress.org | Donncha has more info
Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1
The first alpha in the Firefox 3.1 branch has just been released. New features include a new tab switching interface (which I have already disabled) and »several improvements« to the Awesome Bar, the new address bar introduced in Firefox 3.0. Read more at Mozilla Developer News
Tags: Browsers, Firefox, Firefox 3, firefox 3.1, firefox builds, Mozilla, Open source, Software, wordpre0ss, wordpress mu
WordPress 2.6 is out
Wow, one month ahead of schedule, WordPress 2.6 has been released. More about the new release at the WordPress.org development blog.
Related postsTags: Blogging, CMS, News, Open source, wordpress
WordPress 2.6 Beta 2
No reason to add further words here, head over to Ryan Boren's post.
Related postsTags: beta, Blogging, Blogs, CMS, Open source, wordpress, wordpress trunk
Word count coming in WordPress 2.6
As regular readers of this blog (if they do in fact exist) know, I like to run the latest trunk/build of WordPress - among other reasons because it gives me the ability to spot new features before they make it into the final release.
Today I just spotted a new feature, which will probably make its way into WordPress 2.6: Word count. It delivers no more than it promises: A simple count of how many words your blog entry consists of. It updates every time the post is saved.
You can click the screenshot below to see how it works:
The current version of WordPress is, surprise surprise, 2.5.
Related postsTags: CMS, Open source, wordpress, wordpress trunk
Firefox 3 Download Day hits the Mozilla servers…hard
At this moment the Mozilla servers (including Mozilla.com, Mozilla.org, GetFirefox.com, SpreadFirefox.com) are taking a serious pounding at Firefox 3 Download Day - news service MozillaZine is still up.
The Download Day is an attempt to get Mozilla and the Firefox browser in the Guiness Book of Records.
If you want to follow the development of the Download Day and the server outages, auto updating Twitter search tool Summize is your best friend.
Hint: Firefox 3 can be downloaded at:
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.0/
Tags: Browsers, Firefox, Mozilla, Open source, Software
Lesson of the day: Open source software rocks
As those of you following me on Twitter (I'm larskjensen) may know, we recently launched our WordPress powered blog community.
For those of you who don't know what WordPress is (although you should! :-)) it's the state of the art blogging software - and it's open source and free of cost. For our blog community we use the multi user version of WordPress, the aptly named WordPress MU.
Well, we've had some problems with some of the themes of an older date. The CSS in them acts quite weird - most often in Internet Explorer 7…
Anyhow, I have an email correspondance with one of our bloggers and I tell him that either I'll try to find an update for the theme or otherwise we'll have to phase out the theme. But before I can do anything he has written me another mail telling me that there is an updated version of the theme and he also gives me the link.
So I translate the theme (by adding the _e and __ WordPress translation functions to .php files of the theme) and update my already existing language file with the new theme, upload it and email our most friendly user to tell him that the new theme is now online for him to test.
All this just to point out one thing: Open. Source. Software. Rules. :-)
PS: This blog is running on the single blog version of WordPress - of course.
Related postsTags: Blogging, Blogs, Danish media, Open source, PHP, Social web, wordpress