Moving To Open Source at the Office

The question is this: can I do what I need to do on the computer using only
open source software? Right now, the answer is a resounding No. Here's why,
at work:

• HTML editing: We use Dreamweaver, which is an excellent program. The
  best open source HTML editors I know of are the Mozilla/Netscape Composer
  (which isn't that great) and OpenOffice, which is also lacking. There's nothing
  that I know of that offers comparable site management tools.


• Finances: QuickBooks. Perhaps GnuCash might be able to do the trick,
  but I doubt it. QuickBooks is so integral to the business that I'd be reluctant
  to change even to another Windows-based finance program.


• Remote Administration: pcAnywhere. Although I've been moving over to
  VNC to work with our internal servers, pcAnywhere's security and file transfer
  features make it the only viable option to connect to our remote servers.
  The only way around this, I think, is to set up a VPN connection. In this
  instance, we are transferring the cost of a secure connection from software
  (pcAnywhere) to hardware (a pair of VPN-enabled firewalls).
  
  

posted by Neil @ 7:01 PM 0 comments

Blogger Pro offers some cool new features, but only works with MSIE. Bummer.

posted by Neil @ 2:26 AM 0 comments

Blog Ideas

I'd like to set up a group blog for the family, and one or more for Cadent.
Maybe after using blogs for a while, we might be able to incorporate them
into our client communications. The thing about blogs is that they don't
push the information into people's inbox. You have to visit the blog to see
what's going on. So I think it's a good way to publish a record, but how
do you let people know that there's new material?

posted by Neil @ 1:57 AM 0 comments

On-Line Composition Tools

I used Dreamweaver to write HTML, but don't forget the Mozilla/Netscape composer.
My only gripe with Mozilla composer is that it inserts the <br> tag
at the end of a paragraph, and not a <p> tag. At least, I'm not aware
of any way to fix or change this. I think it's not a problem for blogging and email, though.

posted by Neil @ 6:33 PM 0 comments

Groupware and Open Source

I went to the Open Source Directory's
page on href="http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Groupware/Open_Source/">Open
Source Groupware and found Grant
Bowman's terrific listing of href="http://www.grantbow.com/groupware.html">Collaborative Groupware
Software. Mr. Bowman also edits the href="http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Groupware/Open_Source/">Open
Source Groupware page. After reviewing these links, I went to the href="http://www.mozilla.org/start/1.0/addons.html">Mozilla Add-ons
page and learned about the MozBlog
add-on. This led me to set up my own blog, here. Also, learn about href="http://www.blogroots.com/chapters.blog/id/4"
title="Read the article">Using Blogs in Business from href="http://www.blogroots.com/" title="Go to the Blogroots home page">Blogroots.

posted by Neil @ 6:09 PM 0 comments