Are you trying to build your own social network? Are you at least contemplating the idea in your mind? Than you are looking for Elgg- the open source social network platform. It’s open source, which means it free and customizable. It also means that it gives you a solid foundation to work off of. Elgg supports a variety of different plugins that you will find helpful such as the “Open ID” plugin which essentially gives your social network Open ID support. The invitation tool works like a charm with Elgg, giving your social network the physical capability to spread like a “virus” to many many users. I must say that I recommend Elgg to all as it has worked so well for me and my personal project Realedin.com - a real estate social network.

Fresh out of the box Elgg contains these fundamental facebook like features:

• Find and make friends
• create communities
• upload photos
• Your Profile Page

With some additional features of course:

• Your own blog
• RSS Reader

There are a few plugins I suggest as well. These plugins have worked very well for me in my projects:

• Bookmark tool
• Private Messages
• Suggestions Tool

And my final thought to round it all up. Many people have been throwing up Myspace Clone’s for the past couple of years now to build their own social networks. I cannot emphasize how big of a waste of time that is. Elgg is built on such a better foundation than Myspace ever was. Plus it has more features. Due to the fact that it’s a major open source project you will see exponential growth in the system in the months to come. So if you are serious about creating a social network of your own, than use Elgg. If you are not, and are looking for a stupid quick fix than go ahead and do a Myspace clone like everybody else.

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EyeOS is the open source web desktop which is really really cool. I currently have it running on my Hostmonster shared server and it is working perfectly. An effective and easy to use Web Operating System is something that is evolving in our world and is only going to become more and more prominent. If you don’t know much about Web Operating Systems, you better start learning about them now. Or you are in danger of falling behind the times my friend. To understand more about the concept of EyeOS and the overall idea of a Web Operating System you can read their Concept page which gives some very educational information. Here’s a snapshot of what it looks like in live demonstration:

You might be someone who already uses a bunch of Web Based tools. Google Docs, maybe Google Reader, maybe Zoho as well. You might have a CRM online somewhere. Maybe also a project management tool of some kind. But it’s all scattered. What about having something in one location. Here are some ideas of things you can take advantage of with an EyeOS Web Operating System setup on your web server.

1. Online Documents - Instead of creating and storing documents with online tools such as Google Docs or Zoho Docs, you can use your WebOS to do the same thing.
2. Online Spreadsheets - Same idea. Don’t depend on a 3rd party service for your precious documents and spreadsheets. Store all of this on your own trusted web server where you can make backups as well.
3. Online Presentations - Same thing here. Just with Power Point Presentations.
4. Online Document Management - many people are using robust online document management systems such as KnowledgeTree. No need for those with a Web OS. You store and organize your files just like a regular operating system.
5. CRM (customer relationship manager) - Track all of your contacts within your company/organization on a shared Web OS. Now you have it integrated with everything else. Rather than on it’s own island.
6. RSS Reader - If you like to read your RSS feeds online because of portability, you can do the same thing on your WebOS.
7. Calenders - calendars are oftentimes important to many businesses. You can easily have multiple people sharing one calendar or multiple calendars on a Web OS.
8. Project Management - run a project management application on your Web OS to manage all of your projects if you are a project oriented person/business.

That’s all I can think of for now. I’m currently testing out my EyeOS system by running these same things. Since I do all of them online in different systems already, I figured it will save me a ton of time if I just do it all in 1 area! If you know of any other ideas an EyeOS can help you in business please comment back. I think the guys over at EyeOS as well as a few others are definitely on to something here!!!

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Does anyone know of an open source or free multi level marketing (MLM) system? Even if it’s just a PHP script? It my research, this seems to be something that is currently missing in the open source world. That or I could be horrible at searching the web. Which is definitely a possibility!

I ask this because there are a ton of multi level marketing companies out there, and it seems that if there was an open source project were available that many could benefit from it. It seems that there would be a ton of money that could be contributed to the project because of the sheer size of the market. If you know of any answers to my question above than please leave your comment and share the info you know. It would be neat to contribute to such a project. Thanks!

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I am now welcoming advertisers for this website for web development and web design firms who have experience in working with the various open source web based tools that are out there. I get many requests for web development and web design work from this blog each month. And although these requests come much appreciated, I am turning more of my time away from doing web development to spend more time on this blog and other open source projects that I contribute too to help further the open source cause.

If you are a web development or web design firm with experience working with any open source scripts, and are looking to get more new customers, advertising on this blog is the thing for you. Send me an email at chase@evolveapproach.com if you are interested in information concerning advertisement opportunities. Thank You!

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My wife and I started a web development company back in June of this past year 2007. In doing so we sought out using open source applications to help us run our business from the beginning to help us save money. Using open source software rather than proprietary software would enable us to keep as low of an overhead as possible. In searching for alternatives to open source software (paid software) that could actually benefit our business and what we are doing, it was striking to find out how much money we could have been spending. I won’t waste my time and explain to you the paid software applications we were interested in purchasing. But rather, I will share with you what open source applications we have been able to use instead saving us an estimated about of $100,000 and counting. I say counting because unfortunately most paid software programs find a way to come out with new versions every year so that you can be charged yet again.

The List Looks Like This

For our website = Drupal Content Management System

For our Documentation = MediaWiki

For our Operating Systems = Fedora Linux Operating System

For our Weblog = Wordpress

For our Email Clients = Mozilla Thunderbird

For our Calendars = Mozilla Sunbird

For our Shopping Cart = Zen Cart

For our CRM = Sugar CRM

For our Accounting = GnuCash

For our Social Network = Elgg

For our Web Based Email = Squirrel Mail

For our Helpdesk = Cerberus

For our Document Mgmt. = KnowledgeTree

For our Timeclock = PHP Timeclock

For our office productivity = OpenOffice

The last thing we configured in was our web hosting costs. Because of open source software our Bluehost account is only costing us $6.95/month for 1,500 GB of hosting space and 15 TB of transfer. This alone, because we are a web business is saving us a ton of money!

Through costs of software, and also development costs to build some of these tools, we estimated that our company was able to save $100,000 because of these open source applications. Can you say Wow! I am in no way counting in what these applications have made for us thus far. That would be an entirely different number. This is just money saved. That’s it.

How is this possible? It’s possible because of all the good people out there who believe that open source should exist. What’s surprising to me is that many companies still continue to live in ignorance of these wonderful tools. I want to know how much money you have saved due to open source! Please leave your comment and share with us your numbers. Thanks

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“I need a simple shopping cart” is a simple yet complicated demand that hear often from many of my clients. “Simple, just need to be able to sell a couple of products on my website.” If only they knew how difficult such a “simple” thing can be. What to do? Setup Zencart? OS Commerce? Just build my own from scratch? Having just a simple shopping cart can be quite the task for a developer when a business has such a demand, yet such a small budget. I have been battling this dilemma for over 2 years now.

A good place to start is with a content management system, then find a way for a small shopping cart plugin to integrate into it. That way it’s not a big cart system like Zencart, and it’s still content manageable unlike the custom one you might be considering building. But two of the most popular CMS systems don’t have great shopping cart plugins that fully integrate with the CMS system itself. Joomla and Wordpress! Sure there are many plugins available, but not any that truly integrate with the CMS itslef.

That’s where Drupal CMS has the advantage. With the Ubercart plugin for Drupal, you get a simple shopping cart setup that integrates perfectly with your drupal CMS system. I have found this to work perfectly for me. Using the drupal “node” system, you can create a specefic node for each individual product. This allows you to setup a smaller number of products, and get the huge SEO benefits that come from the Drupal system. Things like URL Aliases and so forth. Now, because of Drupal you can have a CMS, blog, newsletter, shopping cart, and much much more all integrated seamlessly into the same site. I can tell you from personal experience that Joomla and Wordpress do not come close to providing this integrated combination as well as Drupal.

And for you developers out there, the drupal template system is way better than Zen Cart and OS Commerce combined. The admin interface is easier to learn. And you can create individual product pages, create a product catalog, or do both. You are not tied to one, unlike Zen Cart and the other major e-commerce systems. So the next time you are in need of a simple shopping cart solution, try giving Drupal a try along with the drupal Ubercart plugin. It won’t let you down.

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