BlogAllAlong » Tools

Teambox Online Project Management Now Available

Bashar — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:20:59 +0000

Teambox is a newly opened to public open source online project management tool built using Ruby on Rails. The service is available for free, and unlike others, with an unlimited number of projects for you to use and collaborate with others.

Features of the tool now are limited to messaging, tasks, and pages, but it’s quite fast and convenient to use, I’d have to say faster than Basecamp.

You can get a branded version for a fee however, or hire them to do custom installation on your servers.

Here is a quick brief video of the service.

and you can learn more about it here.

If you want to get your hands dirty with the code, this is where to get it.

I like how quick it is so far, and the fact that it is free allows me to save few bucks per month. But I end up relying on simpler stuff like Google Tasks for quick todo items, Basecamp (or similar) for tasks that will stick there for sometime. I’m mostly working alone right now so Google Tasks lack of sharing isn’t bothering really.

BumpTop 3D Desktop

Bashar — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:44:40 +0000

I received this via email today, and I promise you, it’s like nothing you’ve seen before (unless ofcourse you’ve already seen this :). Makes me wanna buy new powerful PC now!

Provided by BumpTop in a FREE and a Pro version, It’s Windows only for now and I’d be really eager to pay and try the Pro one. You can subscribe for news alert for Mac and Linux versions however from the Download page. There seems to be something about widgets but I’m still not sure how easy or possible it is to make one.

Experimental Flickr Color Picker

Bashar — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 23:01:27 +0000

The Experimental Flickr Color Picker: Simply, pick the color you like, and get related photos from Flickr :)

Only IE misses up Q8Ba7th design

Bashar — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:20:42 +0000

So I just posted about browsershots, so I thought of putting it to real test over my Q8Ba7th. The design was a FREE ope-source one which I modified then. I managed to get it working properly on all browsers except the mysterious IE7!. Back when Internet Explorer did not give any respect to CSS standards, peopled to make two efforts to support CSS and IE6. Then, they came up with IE7 which is only half-way compatible, so it’s now triple the effort. Anyways, click on the image below to see snapshots of Q8Ba7th from different browsers.

As you can see, only with IE the footer part is to the right. These are not fully %100 accurate results however. I’m not sure why, but with IE6 browser for me it’s always been footer in the middle, and IE7 the footer goes to the left not right. Still however, being the only one among all browsers that is not rendering the page properly, something seriously is wrong with it.

Google Presentation – And Google Office is Ready!

Bashar — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:17:36 +0000

Google Documents now has Presentation as part of its online collaboration tool, and with that, Google almost have a full Office online tool. You can access it from the same New menu for Spreadsheet and Document. I have given it a quick shot. It’s got the main simple functionalities of a presentation tool. Text, image, different fonts, duplicate slide, nice and easy text box movement around the slide. I didn’t see any sound or transition options. The editor is quite easy to use and fast as well. I was impressed. Viewing the presentation took a bit of time with my humble connection, but it’s nice you can see who is joining the presentation online. Give it a shot at Google Docs.

Learn Essential Eclipse Shortcut Keys

Bashar — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 17:08:29 +0000

I’ve been trying to figure out the Eclipse (open source IDE)shortcut keys, mainly the switching between open files (editors) when I came across this post. I thought Eclipse users might find it useful. Though I should note, for me to switch between open editors I had to use CTRL + Shift + Tab, then left and right arrow keys to make my choice. Reason is CTRL + TAB goes first to top menu items and not open editors. The writer seems to be using Mac so maybe this is the reason for the difference. I should note that I am using the RadRails version of Eclipse as well, even though I doubt that makes the difference.

Joe’s Goals – A Site To Track Your Goals

Bashar — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:11:12 +0000

While there are thousands of To Do List tools and online services, and hundreds of line calendar applications, I have never seen such an idea put into practice. Joe’s Goals let’s you, in a very nice fast and easy way, list down your target goals and activities you are supposed to do in a week, then displays your performance based on the points you give to each task, and how frequently you do it during a week. The interface is quite simple, self explanatory, and I find it extremely useful.

While you may already know what you need to do every day, it really helps and encourages you to push your self further and see how well you do when there is a score at the end of the day. It’s pretty much like the difference between simple arcade game, and the same game with a top score to break. Another thing the service does not miss out is the negative attitudes, like missing breakfast. Miss it and you lose say 5 points. I am applying that on me in a hope to push me eat my breakfast more often. So far, it’s not helping :(.

P.S.: Now that’s few points for blogging :)

Web Apps for online project and team management

Bashar — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 08:20:06 +0000

While Basecampe is probably the most famous web app for project management, this article discusses the weakness of this app, and shed the light on other competitors in the market. If you have a team working virtually, or like to keep your information synchronized in one place, try to look at the alternatives they have.

Notepad++: Developer’s Best Friend

Bashar — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 14:28:09 +0000

Like old people tend to stick to their old habits, there are many computer geeks who love the classical editors. In my last job interview, the interviewer was excited with my performance so far and wanted to know which tools I use for my development. When I said the word Notepad, his face started changing colors and he didn’t know how to comment. So I took the lead and answered the question on his face. From my experience, other editors are designed for specific tasks only and if used other wise might give unpredictable disastrous results. Forte was the first editor I used for Java, and many had the problem of compilation error times and times until we figured out the problem is with the tool it self, and normal command line compilation does work perfectly. Another worse experience is when I opened my ASP page (Old ASP days!) inside some WYSIWYG web editor, I don’t recall it’s name. Suddenly afterwards my lovely code stopped working and started going crazy. I found out the editor have encoded the ASP opening and ending tags, making ASP pcode non-executable! I had tough time fixing it. From then on, I always prefer to stick to simplest stuff that does not interfere with my work, just makes it clearer. There are some real good editors out there which might be very helpful for certain projects though. Eclipse ofcourse is on top of those editors, being an open source with huge plugins library.

Right now, and for over a year I’ve been using Notepad++. An open source editor that is as light as Notepad, but a lot more powerful. What makes this editor the best choice for me is the following:

Open Source: Just being so means there is continuous improvement and addition to it. Also, availability of plugins gives it a great added value, though I did not utilize it yet.
Auto-Completion: Through the available plugins, you can activate this feature for auto-completion of current language in use based on the set of available APIs.
Tabs: That’s right. Open multiple files under tabs. Open new tab with simply Ctrl+N. Browse the tabs with Ctrl+Tab. Boosts development time a lot.
File Update Alert: Automatically detects if an opened file has been updated or deleted somewhere outside the editor, and gives the option to restore/maintain/close accordingly.
Search: You can search one file, or all open files. Some nice feature when you don’t know where the lines of code you are looking for.
Languages: Based on extension type, highlighting is done automatically for variety of languages, including but not limited to: Java, ASP, Perl, PHP, SQL, Ruby, LISP and many others.
Encoding: Support of different encoding format, with the ability to convert to UNIX or Mac formats as well.
Settings: Rich setting functionality, like changing the tab size. For example, regular tabs are around 4 whitespaces, while Ruby recommends 2 only. You can make your choice.
Zoom: Ability to Zoom in and out of the file.
Recording: I never used that!
Performance: Never it had failed me during my work. So fast and robust. as I said, just like Notepad. That’s why it is meant to be a Notepad replacement.

Notepad2 is another alternative that is so much simpler with no tab feature. Good thing about it though is it does not need installation. So even with no admin rights you can use it. As far as I’m concerned, Notepad++ is the choice for me that has replaced Notepad literally.

Another Google Desktop, another disappointment to me

Bashar — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 07:45:17 +0000

Google have announced their new Google Desktop 5 Beta release today. The updates are mostly in the widgets Google says, alas I don’t use them. I don’t like side applications that disturb my normal PC usage, though it could be very useful for others I know. Other features are in previewing the files from Desktop Search results before opening the whole file. This feature could come in handy when you want to open files in heavy applications. Another thing is Security alert against malicious links.

Nevertheless, my main interest is always in how fast and efficient I can search my files, especially with that Quick Search Box. Unfortunately, as I have posted before with every version of Google Desktop I try on my HP Pavilion PC at home, the Quick Search Box does not show up. This morning, before I went to work I tried the new release, but the results were even more disappointing. After downloading the new Google Desktop, nothing much happened. On this laptop I am using right now, I got the message saying I need to restart for changes to take effect, but for some reason this Google Desktop behaves strangely on my HP Pavilion PC. I have read similar comments from other users as well. For some reason, Google did not respond to the email and post I had about the issue. Maybe they thought it’s too rare and too minor to bother for. Still, it’s a very great tool, I hope most of you guys are able to enjoy it as I am on my laptop, without the Quick Search Box it becomes so much slower to use I avoid it.

How to burn video files to playable DVD

Bashar — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:32:02 +0000

This is a nice article from LifeHacker on how to burn almost any video file type onto a playable DVD using the DVD Flick Open Source. Enjoy.

AJAX powered online tools for you

Bashar — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:02:42 +0000

37signals is a privately-held company which was established back in 1999. The company adapted Ruby language, implemented their own framework for their projects, released the framework to public under the name Ruby On Rails and helped increase public awareness of the Ruby potentials.

37signals have launched three very promising online AJAX based collaboration applications, namely Campfire for real time group chatting and file sharing, Basecamp for online project collaboration and communication, and Backpack to organize your to-dos, notes, schedules and tasks online. All these provide FREE limited user access, and for more features and unlimited usage there is a subscription fee. Site claims over 1 million registered users in their system. The 37signals site is ranked among the first 3,000 sites on Alexa as well.
Take sometime to go through the tour or signup for FREE.

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