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Official support of QQ in Gaim

Published on 13 July, 2006 in Chat & E-mail, Editorial and Related elsewhere. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

From Accepted Summer of Code Projects at Gaim.

Tim Ringenbach is mentoring Mark Huetsch on this project to bring QQ support to Gaim. QQ is an extremely popular IM network in China, but doesn’t have much of a foothold in the rest of the world.

This is a big plus for Gaim and QQ users.

“Extremely popular” is not even close to describe the usage of QQ in China. To many Chinese, QQ is the Internet. Many user do not know how to use the web browser but is totally at ease with QQ.

Suffice to say if you are in China and without QQ, you are out of the conversation.

There is already a hack using OpenQ to suport QQ in Gaim for a while. However it is often broken when QQ release a new version. QQ as a proprietary platform make every effort to be as incompatible as possible.

Looking forward to this.

Free development softwares alternatives

Published on 12 July, 2006 in Editorial. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Beside business applications, I will also be looking developers’ softwares are tools. The term developer is use boardly to include not only programmers but also HTML designers, document writers, designers and other related functions.

Since these group of people are typically more savvy, my angle will be more of sharing and exploring ideas, tips and experiences. This is something new I’m trying.

First another quick round up of free softwares that I am using and where the commercial strongholds are still to be broken.

Category Currently using Free? Open Source? Alternative
Programming PHP Y Y
Programming Perl Y Y
Programming Ruby Y Y
Version control SVN Y Y
Version control client TortoiseSVN Y Y
Code editor Vim Y Y
SSH Putty Y Y
SFTP/FTP Filezilla Y Y
IDE Eclipse Y Y
Webserver Apache Y Y
Webserver package XAMPP Y Y
Compare/merging Winmerge Y Y
Design IDE Dreamweaver N N Nvu
Photo/Graphics Gimp Y Y

Anything else I missed?

Free desktop applications roundup

Published on 12 July, 2006 in Editorial. 2 Comments Tags: , .

This is a list that I had complied. A quick round up of free/opensource softwares I am using and where the stronghold of commercial softwares are still to be broken.

If you have any good suggestions for the few unknown (?), please leave a comment.

Category Currently using Free? Open Source? Alternative
Web browser Firefox Y Y  
Instant Messaging Gaim Y Y  
SFTP/FTP client Filezilla Y Y  
Text Editing Notepad 2 Y Y  
Graphic viewer Irfanview Y N ?
Vector graphic Illustrator N N ?
PDF writer PDF Creator Y Y  
CD Writer WinXP builtin N N ?
Password management KeePass Y Y  
Anti-virus ClamWin Y Y  

Welcome to Free Biz Ware

Published on 7 July, 2006 in about Free Biz Ware. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Hello there, thank you for coming by Free Biz Ware. My name is Ken and I am a small business owner. Here I will be sharing my experience in using free and opensource software in the office.

Free Biz Ware is a regular column introducing free and/or open source business softwares. Although the focus is on office softwares, I will also be covering personal productivity softwares and utilities for the desktop.

One feature unique this site is the evaluation of the softwares’ usability in an international, multi-language environment. Since my business is in China, it is a must that softwares support English and Chinese.

Feel free to share any experiences you have too. I’m looking forward to learn from you.