dyohanan.com

YamiPod is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod under Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation. Take a look at the feature list to find out what it can do and feel free to suggest anything that might be missing.

# Here’s a brief description of the features in YamiPod: stand alone program, no installation required||
# iPod is automatically recognized
# mp3 and AAC files can be copied to/from iPod
# read/write access to mp3 id3 and AAC infos
# playlist support (On-The-Go included)
# playlists import (PLS,M3U)
# playlists export (PLS,M3U)
# full unicode support
# auto-download new versions
# advanced song import/export settings
# 2 restore features
# built in music player
# iPod informations
# 2 search features
# remove duplicated tracks
# find lost music files
# easy ratings edit
# PC to iPod synchronization
# create and edit notes (with unicode support)
# automatically update song playcounts
# News RSS and podcasts to iPod upload
# Growl support (Apple only)
# export song lists to HTML or plain text files
# multiple iPods support
# Last.fm support

# All iPod generations (except iPhone and iPod touch) were reported to be working under:   
# Mac OS 10.3 or newer
# Windows 98SE or newer
# Any linux distribution with GTK 2.0

YamiPod for Windows

YamiPod for Linux (GTK 2.0)

YamiPod for MacOS X (universal binary)

Here you have the list of the best applications for PCs in this ending 2008.

Mozilla Firefox

Made tabbed browsing mainstream and redefined the browser wars. The easiest browser on the market to customize, the huge user-developed plug-in database makes it supremely powerful, but that’s not the only reason to use it. Specialized versions like Flock and Songbird emphasize social networking and music obsessions, but that’s not why you need it, either. A JavaScript debugger is standard, and Firefox displays the page-source code in a new window, using indents and color-coded tags like an HTML editor. Again, not enough–on its own.

Even the built-in pop-up blocker, antiphishing protections, and enhanced extension security aren’t enough of a reason for using Firefox. Being one of the fastest browsers on the market? Aren’t they all? But add together all those things under one roof, and you’ve got a full-featured, safe browsing experience with a nearly infinite level of customization.

Read more…

Know that open source software is given to people at no charge with the source code intact as to encourage independent developers to make it better and change things as they wish.

Realize that the general philosophy of open source software is that the company who distributes the code freely can still reap income from viral marketing and other tactics. Not only that, it more importantly helps to progress code to evolve, adapt, and make itself better because so many people are allowed to tinker with it.

Understand there are rules for a piece of software or code to be considered officially "open source". For one, it needs to be freely distributed. You cannot charge someone by modifying open source code and selling it as your own product. It, however, can be sold as PART of a commercial product, it just cannot be the product itself.

Know that the source code must always be included with the software, modified or not, as to encourage learning from the code and to promote making it better. Not including the source code implies that you yourself created it, and that you probably have the intentions of selling it. This not only is unfair, it is illegal to take open source and sell it as if you created it yourself. Don’t try it!

For more information go to:Open Source.

The internet is chock full of sites that can provide a platform for your blog. There are advantages and disadvantages to all of them, so research carefully before deciding which will work best for you.

WordPress— WordPress can either be a hosted platform or one you use on your own server. Basic access to Wordpress is free of charge and there are a wide variety of templates available for customization. It also comes with some attractive features like spam blocking and integrated stats as well as numerous plugins you can add yourself.

Blogger— Blogger is a free, hosted blogging platform. While Blogger might lack some of the usability that other platforms have, it makes up for it with features like the Audioblogger service which allows you to create audio recordings for your blog using your phone. Blogger is also useful in that you can upload it to your own website, meaning visitors to your site won’t even know you’re using it as a platform.

Read more…

URL: www.joomla.org

Marquee nonprofit clients:

Al Gore’s website
Women’s Edge Coalition
United Nations Regional Information Centre

Joomla strives for power in simplicity. Its programmers believe that anyone with a bit of technical know-how should have no problem setting up and maintaining a website. They have created a tool that is friendly, comparatively easy to get started with, and prioritizes ease of use.

Screenshot:  A website that uses Joomla in a state not too far from out-of-the-box

Screenshot: Editing this site in Joomla

Joomla is designed to work just fine in basic shared hosting environments (the least expensive, most common web hosting package). Its installer looks much like the simple installers used for common desktop software, and the administrative interface that content editors use looks much like a desktop program as well. There are few barriers to entry with Joomla, which means it should not take a web developer much time to get you up and running, and if you’re technically savvy you may be able to do it yourself.

If you need to extend Joomla in a way not covered by its extensions—which happen to be beautifully documented and easy to find at extensions.joomla.org—you should not have to pay too much for a programmer, because Joomla is written in PHP, a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development.

As is usually true, this ease of getting started comes with a tradeoff. Joomla can be a great choice to build a sophisticated website with hundreds of pages, solid navigation, and common content types such as news items or events. However, it has limited out-of- the box functionality for dealing with sophisticated dynamic content structures. For instance, the site navigation is limited to no more than two levels of hierarchy, and you can only link one page to another (for a “you might also be interested in” type of structure) based on free-form page tags, rather than more rigorous metadata and rules.

The next major release of Joomla, version 1.5, should be out by year-end. This version will be a rewrite of the underlying code, in order to make it easier for programmers to extend certain functionality and organize underlying frameworks, but it is not expected to change the way that content editors interact with Joomla. Site visitors should have no idea that anything has changed.

Joomla is fully integrated with CiviCRM and integrates well with common packages like DemocracyInAction and GetActive.