Openfire has the highest feature score at jabber.org.
“Openfire (formerly Wildfire) is a real time collaboration (RTC) server dual-licensed under
the Open Source GPL and commercially.
It uses the only widely adopted open protocol for instant messaging, XMPP
(also called Jabber). Openfire is incredibly easy to setup and administer, but offers
rock-solid security and performance.”
Its one of the most amazing jabber servers out there, if you can run java on your server. It provides a plugin system, that allows you to integrate more functionality into it and they have a vivid community.
I am running it locally aswell, to test jabber implememtation for my software projects.
Give it a shot.
Cheers
Alexander
As a developer we daily look for oportunities to sell ourselfs and our products. We seek new frontiers by advancing our skills and constantly looking at new technologies. We work on new innovative products, that we hope will conquer the world. The question always remains, are we actually producing and advancing for our clients? Do clients really need all the functionality and options they purchase. On the desktop market it has been known for a long time, that products present more functionality than the common customer will ever need.
Why
The problem with products is, that we want to target a broad range of customers. We are producing one single product that satisfies as many potential customers as possible. So even if a customer does not need a set of features, another might just be looking for those. Another reason is the constant competition feature set, we are being compared against. If one provides an innovative feature, we have to provide that and another feature to set us apart. Feature sets are just like the “GHz run”, we had on the pc hardware market for years. The customer
So where is the customer in all this? Well he sits on the outside, facing the fact, that it is getting more more difficult to make any conclusive decisions in a short period of time. When evaluating options for a project, it gets difficult to find a perfect fit. Customers take the options that fit their target goals as close as possible, living with the fact that many of the features they paid for are not required at this stage of their project. At this stage :), well some of those features might actually become handy in the following phases, evolution of the project.
So where does that leave us as developers ? Well the classic product is not dead, as many customers just accept the fact that they pay and get more than they currently need.
If you are a customer with a set budget, its a complete different ball of wax. You would want to get the most out of that money. In that case the classic product is of no use.
Custom package
The goal is to provide the customer with a custom package that provides only the required set of functionality. For us developers this means building custom reusable blocks, that represent one or a combined set of functionality. These blocks would be combined to a package, that represents the project requirements. This means faster development, easier scheduling and to the point budgeting. You build once, reuse again and again. Especially with so many new and converging technologies, its easier to streamline each functionality into a solid block. As soon as your toolbox is filled, you can build anything with ease.
The solution
Still having the technology out of a toolbox, does not make it a solution. As a developer you are forced to think more and more like a consultant, wisely providing your customer with the right set of functionality.
This makes development alot more interresting for me, than providing the classic product ;)
Classic product development is not dead, but under the surface those products are often repackaged blocks, streamlining the invested development time for more than one product.
Such toolboxes are often advertised as frameworks or application development platforms, which abstract common functionality.
Cheers
Alexander
If you are looking for a simple feature rich unicode development editor, you might like to take a look at PSPad.
The development site is finally back. After the reopeneing of the main portalZINE site, this is the 2nd site that goes back online. I will have the complete portalZINE triangle back together soon :)
Starting next week, I will be sharing some more inside into my daily work and the puzzles I am facing.
Once all sites are back in shape, I will also be sharing some old & new developments of mine again.
Cheers
Alexander
Design concepts for the Dell / MyWay homepage. This was preinstalled on Dell computers that shipped in the US / Canada and UK.
Prepared different color schemes & layouts in 3 design rounds for Ask Jeeves
“Ask.com (originally known as Ask Jeeves) is a question answering-focused web search engine founded in 1995 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California.”
Script Connector® was a startup I founded with a good friend in Mexico City. Here the closing comment about it.
“Script Connector® WebOS – In simple terms, Script Connector® is the equivalent to your computer operating system only for the Web, that’s why we call it Script Connector® WebOS.
Like any Operating System it handles all low level and back end interactions transparently without you needing to worry about the details of how to retrieve pages, render pages, create or manage sessions, users, groups, permissions, languages, data base access, input handling, plugins, hooks, wizards, databoxes, security, statistical services, web services, email services, protocol handling like FTP, WDDX, LDAP, WebDav, and more.
It is also a connecting platform that turns these formerly called data islands, into continents of collaboration where data flows freely, efficiently, and productively.”
“Script Connector® Fenix – PHP Content Management System / Framework”
“Script Connector® CastleKart – is an online shop e-commerce solution. It allows you to set up, run, and maintain an online store with minimal effort and no real overhead costs or license fees. It combines open source software to provide a free and open e-commerce platform, which includes PHP, Apache, and MySQL. “
Company of Alexanders father, a flour mill.
“Yes I actually worked with my bare hands as well and not only my brains.
I established a new quality management system, handled quality control, marketing, network setups and worked in many other areas.
That sure was a long time ago :), but was the foundation for my own entrepreneurship and many things to come!
I also worked in my fathers inventions company vibronet and helped testdrive new products and ideas.
vibronet stands for innovative high quality products for tempering and all internal online controls of modern cereal and bulk solids processing since 1992.”