J_K9 @ Linux

PC Advisor: Mac, PC or Linux?

When I go on my monthly visit to the local WHSmith’s, I pick up the usual magazines - Linux Format, Linux Magazine and a certain less technology-related magazine. However, I also keep an eye out for any other magazines which may have feature stories on Linux, and this month’s edition of PC Advisor (shown above right) caught my attention so I grabbed a copy, paid and left.

It’s always good to see Linux on the front cover of another magazine, particularly a magazine which focusses primarily on Windows users and is thus more likely to be read by people from this background. Remember the phrase “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”? I think that applies - whether the reviews of Linux are good or bad they will at least educate the public that there is a free alternative and, when they later see this Operating System in action in front of their own eyes, they will sincerely regret having spent £200 on that copy of Windows Vista, or £500+ on a new computer which brings and has hardware powerful enough to run it.

Continue reading PC Advisor: Mac, PC or Linux?…

Mira Groupware: Bring On The Code

Having been almost 3 months since Mira was accepted for hosting on SourceForge, I think it’s time to get the ball rolling. A few friends, developers and I have spent this time wisely, discussing Mira’s architecture and design on the project’s forums, on Skype and elsewhere. I have also spoken to some of the people I see every day, such as a few of my friends (and their friends), to ask them what they would do if they were in my position. Which programming language would they develop a platform like Mira in? Would they choose a client/server model or a centralised server/clients model, and why? How would they change the User Interface if they could? Which Utilities would they like to see become a part of Mira?

I’ve learnt a lot along the way. Building a community for a small project is not too difficult, because development times will be short and as long as the project has a clear and, to potential users, beneficial purpose it will thrive fairly easily, as continues to be the case with HyperGet. However, with a project as large as Mira which will take months, and certainly over a year to reach a state possibly considerable by enterprises and small businesses it is a lot of effort to draw people in and keep them interested along the way, simply because it takes such a long time to see results. With HyperGet, an incomplete but graphically accurate version of the application was available just weeks after its addition to SourceForge. And Mira? It will be a few months before you can build a version of the software which will allow you to see something that looks vaguely like the mockups on your desktop.

The quantity of documentation required before a single line of code is written also rises exponentially. I have been adding to Mira’s Documentation whenever I have been able to, and it is already much larger than the documentation we created before we began developing HyperGet - a 2 page PDF document distributed by email. The problem? It still has a long way to go and a lot of detail to cover before it can be considered ‘ready for primetime’, so to speak, and allow us to begin writing code.

This post is not only to give all of my readers a general idea of how Mira is going - it’s also a call for help. Mira is in need of C++ developers, writers to extend its documentation, software engineers to propose alternative models for features and, as long as you are willing to help, we will almost certainly be able to find a role for you, even if that role is a Spreader of the Word. The Mira Groupware platform will be realised - it’s just a question of how long it takes for that to happen If you’re interested, please contact me or post on Mira’s forums.