Long time since last post, and by then it’s this really on topic link: http://sarien.net/ 
Just had to post it. Brings those old memories back to life. Those where the days, right?
Thanks Martin Kool for bringing it all back 
Stuck in work process I launched Thunderbird to skim through the TYPO3 newslists. Apparently I haven’t checked that one for some time since Thunderbird suggested me to get the latest 500 posts Anyway. There was a really funny, or should I say sad, posting about a Russian rebrand/fork of TYPO3. First he uses a pseudonym posting news about a fork, then he denies ‘borrowing’ TYPO3 code and icons, finaly changing into admiting having to change a few lines of code and some icons.. doh.. – check out the site and judge for yourself.
It’s really sad that people just can’t see the fundamental philosophy of TYPO3 and the intentions of it’s original inventor Kasper Skårhöj, releasing his work as GPL:d open source software – Inspire people to share!
I few days earlier I stumbled upon a swedish fork/overlay work of TYPO3 called TYPO3 magenta. I got the similar feelings over this one as with that Russian guys fork. Though this is a bit more balancing on the edge. The TYPO3 name is still there but with a suffix. It’s open stated to be built on TYPO3. From the website (freely translated from Swedish using google..):
“TYPO3 Magenta is a web-based system to manage, organize and publish content on websites. TYPO3 Magenta is a further development of the publishing tool TYPO3. TYPO3 is based on open source which means significantly lower costs compared with commercial counterparts. TYPO3 Magenta has developed with the user in focus. The primary user group is Swedish small-and medium-sized enterprises.”
It’s sold in a license form with system, hosting and support.
But as I said, I find this solution better – while not good. I’m guessing it’s mostly about a nifty back end skinn. Refactoring TYPO3 this way is like saying “TYPO3 is good but old school. We make it modern and better with our own version”. And the main issue is still – what would a company loose going 100% TYPO3 and sharing improvements rather then trying to be so special?
I will be honest. We started our business with two CMS solutions. CMS made simple and TYPO3. One simple CMS for the simple sites and one advanced for the larger ones. We promoted them as simple and advanced cms. However during time I realized that both we and the solutions themselves would benefit much more exposing TYPO3 as it is, with it’s huge community and existing brand name rather then trying to make it seem more like our own, and so far it’s just been true. I think that the more credibility and reward the community gets for it’s efforts the better TYPO3 will be.
After all, the community is a vital part of TYPO3 together with it’s open source base. Alongside with that TYPO3 is also a very strong brand and should be promoted and empowered so.
Inspire people to share! – it will get us so much further
I’ve been looking at the XING networking platform from time to time, but never put myself into adding an account. However, now I’m there -> https://www.xing.com/profile/David_Smeringe <- and the first impression is quite positive. It feels very business focused as well as having great tools to maintain your network. Sadly there’s not that many swedes afaik. Maybe I just wasn’t looking under the right stone..
So, if your’e a XING user and think you apply to my network pattern (web development, business partners, TYPO3 people, and some more..), please include me in yours!
See my LinkedIn profile as well..
Finally I took a quick test of TYPO3 version 4.3 alpha 1. Read the link for a detailed release info. However I’d like to highlight one update a bit extra for you. The TypoScript editing extension that made life prittier highlightning and helping out with the indentation for the TS code when editing has now got itself a usefull and very nicely implemented code completion function. Look at the image below.
It’s perfect for people like me that just cant get all those object and attribute names to stick in memory.
Now, I’m having a hard time waiting for next alpha or maybe beta so I can test the new front end editing fuzz which at least seems awsome!. Check it out at Jeff Segars blogg.
As soon as Adobe CS4 was released we got our hands on it. Since I’ve been doing quite a lot Flash things lately I was hoping the new version would reveal some greate new features. However after trying it for couple of weeks now, I can only summarize the experience as; grumpy. To begin with Flash crashes for me when opening most of my old cs3 files, doesn’t recognize an old flash project file (.flp), crashes totaly if I’m to fast clicking around (hey.. it’s fun to click around with the mouse). The last behaviour is the same for the other nifty tools such as Illustrator and Fireworks.
They die right in front of me leaving me with a broken (long-time-since-last-save) file. Some say it’s about fonts, some say it’s about somethingelse. I saw someone who solved it by buying a new computer..
I contacted Adobe in for the subject, posted an error report and gave them full dumps of my machines current state.. getting the reply to go through a bunch of help yourself links with twenty steps each! Things like that make me grumby.
Anyway.. I’ve tried reinstalling the entire CS4 premium package (uninstall and install taking for ages) without success.. and yeah. one last thing.. Acrobat reader now crashes if I try to open a pdf link within the (a/any) browser. Thanks..
regards,
A grumpy web developer
Me and my colleague decided to register for the annual TYPO3 conference – t3con08. This year it’s taking place in Berlin, which will be cool as I’ve never been there. But the best part will hopefully be to meet a lot of TYPO3 users and developers – perhaps even one or two from freenode channel #typo3 where I’m hanging around from time to time.
Not only did we register for the conference but also to become association members for Merea, our company, which feels like the right choice to do as we focus our business more and more around TYPO3 services. It’s a good way of giving back something to the product and community as well as taking further engagement with TYPO3.
So, I hope to meet a lot of friendly faces and get loaded with inspiration and knowledge.
It was time to do another of those way to late updates. This time my WordPress installation (powering this blogg) was my target. Techie Buzz supplies a really neat update plugin that makes it safe and easy. Check it out
Although the auto update plugin was easy as a breeze to use, it wouldn’t hurt of having some more user friendly error handling when it gets write permission errors and such. They are handled but you get the feeling of being a bit stranded. I had some file writing permission problems..
I’m normally doing most of my work with or within the TYPO3 environment, and I must say that the clean and “just working” style of WP is a desirable target for the TYPO3 backend (and others) tool. Really neat.
I’m using irc quite often and most of the time I use the ChatZilla client for that. Normally chatzilla is an extension to Firefox (-ish browsers), but it can be quite annoying to have it tied up to your browser. Quitting the browser quits your irc-session.. Now I found the cure for it – XULRunner. It seems to work like a charm and it’s easy to setup.
I did these steps in cmd shell (yes in Windows XP) after downloading XULRunner and solo ChatZilla zip packages:
By this it ends up in it’s own folder in the Firefox structure.