Open Source Technology News - Latest News, Free Open Source Software

Like playing while working? Try A Gamified CRM - Zurmo

2012-08-27T04:58:00.002-07:00

Can you imagine that you could ever actually play with a CRM (Customer relationship management) application while working? Zurmo is a gamified CRM application, written in PHP and built on three solid frameworks - Yii, RedBeanPHP, and jQuery.

"Our goal with Zurmo is to provide an easy-to-use, easy-to-customize CRM application that can be adapted to any business use case. We have taken special care to think through many different use cases and have designed a system that we believe provides a high degree of flexibility, covering a wide variety of use cases out of the box.

Zurmo is a gamified application, which means it uses game mechanics to reward an individual’s usage of the system and promote best practice behaviour. The goal of a gamification within Zurmo is to address one of the greatest challenges of all business systems, user adoption.

Long-term benefits of documenting interaction with customers are clear; however CRM systems traditionally provide few or no short term incentives for performing the menial tasks of recording our activities. Zurmo rewards users for all actions in the system, allocating the user points which accumulate over time."

Zurmo is an open source CRM application, compatible with all mobile devices (even not yet with all browsers - it seems that Opera does not render the Zurmo application output). Having an intuitive GUI and being easy to customize, it could become a popular CRM tool for many of us. There is plenty of documentation well written on the official application website.

You can test the application, download Zurmo and find out more from here.

Twitter Analytics: Followerwonk

2012-08-23T23:54:00.000-07:00

Followerwonk allows you to dig deeper into Twitter analytics, helping you to explore and grow your social graph. Followerwonk can search Twitter bios to connect with anyone and compare Twitter accounts to find overlaps and target new influencers.

Followerwonk can also match your activities to gains and losses in followers to give your followers what they like best. It also helps you to follow and unfollow in-app to hone your social graph like a razor's edge.

Followerwonk's "Compare Users" tab allows you to plug in any two or three Twitter accounts and see the overlap in followers or following. This is particularly useful as a marketer to answer the age old question, "will it really help if both of us tweet this?"

More Information About Followerwonk

Hide Your Real Name On Google Search: Norton Top Search Result

2012-08-23T00:24:00.000-07:00

Norton Top Search Result is a service from Norton that helps you protect your online reputation by giving you control of your top search result on Google. Norton Top Search Result does this by buying the rights to your name as a Google adword and giving it to you for free. Next time someone Googles your name, you decide what your first impression will be.

Regarding the reasons you should protect your online reputation with Norton Top Search Result, the authors of the application explain: "that 80% of all employers and 50% of all singles google the person they are going to meet, before they meet them in real life. That means people are getting their first impression of each other based on what they find on the Internet.

Still, you can’t control what information they find. The consequence, according to a recent study, is that one out of ten Swedes and every third young Swede (15-22 years) are embarrassed about information that can be found about them online.

Another study shows that every second person would erase everything about them on Internet if given the opportunity, and that every third person has shared something online that they do not want their future employer to see."

Therefore, you should give a try to this simple to use web application available as free online service.

Norton Top Search Result

OpenStack - Free Open Source Cloud Operating System

2012-08-19T02:11:00.001-07:00

OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed through a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.

OpenStack is supported and maintained by a global collaboration of developers and cloud computing technologists producing the ubiquitous open source cloud computing platform for public and private clouds. The project aims to deliver solutions for all types of clouds by being simple to implement, massively scalable, and feature rich.

OpenStack has support for both Object Storage and Block Storage, with many deployment options for each depending on the use case.

Object Storage is ideal for cost effective, scale-out storage. It provides a fully distributed, API-accessible storage platform that can be integrated directly into applications or used for backup, archiving and data retention. Block Storage allows block devices to be exposed and connected to compute instances for expanded storage, better performance and integration with enterprise storage platforms, such as NetApp, Nexenta and SolidFire.

All of the code for OpenStack is freely available under the Apache 2.0 license. Anyone can run it, build on it, or submit changes back to the project. The open development model is the only way to foster badly-needed cloud standards, remove the fear of proprietary lock-in for cloud customers, and create a large ecosystem that spans cloud providers.

More information about OpenStack can be found on its official website.

Backup Your Data - Desktop Computers Will Dissapear

2012-08-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

Cloud computing versus Microsoft Company: "Now they're going to bring down his empire and make a handful of well-positioned investors countless millions. YJeremy Phillips, Chief Technology Officer". Check this out - The classic computers, as we know them could disappear....

But surprisingly, it's not for the reason you might think -- and there's actually some big money to be made off this drastically under-reported story... By Jeremy Phillips, Chief Technology Officer REDMOND, WA -- After 26 years of redefining how we live, work, play, and think, the first shoe has finally dropped for the company that ushered in the PC age. The once wildly profitable Microsoft just posted its first-ever quarterly loss as a public company -- to the tune of $492 million.

Granted, this was due in large part to taking a $6.2 billion write-down on its failed online ad business, aQuantive... But whether the company's top brass is willing to admit it or not, the writing is most definitely on the wall... in the papers... and even in magazines. Take Vanity Fair, for example. Its brand-new August issue contains a 7,734-word exposé that delves into exactly "how Microsoft lost its mojo," a recent overly hyped company event that turned out to be nothing more than a "low-octane swan song," and what's behind what the author dubbed... "Corporate America's Most Spectacular Decline" Of course, one of the things the article points to is the meteoric rise of social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, as well as the fact that Microsoft is always at least a full step behind Apple when it comes to innovation and new products.

For instance, Microsoft didn't get around to releasing its own digital music player, called Zune, until November 14, 2006. That's five years after Apple released its game-changing iPod -- and just 54 days before Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. Today, the iPhone alone brings in more money than every single product Microsoft has created since 1975 -- $5.3 billion more, to be exact. But as a handful of insiders --including Bill Gates himself -- know, it isn't any one iProduct that will ultimately bring down Microsoft... Instead it's an awe-inspiring 119-year-old development lurking inside the walls of two mysterious warehouses on the Columbia River... Bill Gates first learned of these massive windowless buildings on October 30, 2005.

Shortly thereafter, he sent an urgent memo to Microsoft's top people -- and then quietly retired. And the incredible story behind the secret that could so easily bring down the world's most powerful and profitable company is so compelling that the former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review dropped everything to pen an entire book on the subject. Yet few investors have read it -- and even fewer have been clued into the three easiest ways to profit from Microsoft's dizzying fall from grace.

Click here to continue reading -- and get the full story directly from The Motley Fool's top analysts and technology experts...

New Bing App for Windows 8 Is Fast

2012-08-18T02:36:00.000-07:00

The Bing Team just announced the release of Bing app for Windows 8.

Bing on Windows 8 appears to be faster because is based on the modern design principles of Windows 8 and provides elements like autosuggest, search results, and fluid navigation using tap and swipe.

Visual results and images take center stage letting users to quickly find what you’re looking for, therefore the search process is straightforward taking less time.

User eyes can quickly pick up the differences amongst search results based on smart captions and image previews, so that the first tap or click into a result yields just what you’re looking for.

The Bing Team explained on Search Blog that while user can still rely on the Bing web experience in Internet Explorer, developers optimized the Bing app to run smoother on Windows 8.

Bing is available on almost all of the Windows markets and languages.

Free Download Windows 8 Enterprise - Free Download Windows 8 RTM Evaluation Version

2012-08-18T01:20:00.000-07:00

Microsoft provides a free Windows 8 Enterprise for free download intended for testing purposes and also for developers to build and test Windows 8 applications on the final version of Windows 8 (Windows 8 RTM). This evaluation version of Windows 8 Enterprise provides a 90-day trial of Windows 8 Enterprise edition.

Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available as ISO images in the following languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, English (UK), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish.

In order to use this evaluation, you must register and the product must be activated online with Microsoft-hosted activation and validation services. Microsoft does not provide technical support for this software. People will be able get Windows 8 starting on October 26^th either by upgrading or on a new PC or device.

Windows 8 Enterprise can be downloaded by clicking on the following link:

Windows 8 Enterprise - Free Download Windows 8 RTM Evaluation Version

Facebook for WordPress Plugin Automatically Adds Facebook Open Graph Protocol and Sharing Buttons (Like, Send, Subscribe) Into Wordpress Sites

2012-08-17T02:33:00.002-07:00

Facebook for WordPress plugin integrates Facebook social network sharing and commenting functions without coding in a few clicks.

It also automatically integrates Open Graph Protocol into an existing WordPress site ( WordPress 3.2.1 or higher is required ).

Facebook for WordPress plugin allows you to perform various social sharing actions directly from an existing WordPress application (self-hosted):

Post new WordPress Posts or Pages to a desired Facebook Page.
Like, send, and subscribe buttons can be enabled in a click and are fully customizable.
Display Facebook comments with SEO support (search engines index the comments).
Post to an Author's Facebook Timeline whenever they publish a new WordPress Post or Page.
Mention friends and Facebook Pages. This posts to their Timelines as well as lists them on the WordPress Post or Page.

Facebook for WordPress Developers Page