A little soapbox for me to stand on and rant from.
I’ve been meaning to write this bit of software for a while now, its a simple app that dumps out all your playlists in iTunes into .m3u playlist files.
I use it to generate playlists that my HTPC (running Boxee) can play.
It’s a .NET app. You can download it here: PlaylistDumper_v101.zip
If the “dump folder” is the root of your music library then the .m3u file will contain relative paths which is useful for playing across network shares.
Finally got off my butt and packaged up version 1.0.0 of SvnViz. It can be downloaded from sourceforge.
SvnViz builds visualizations of the activity within a Subversion repository. Here is an example of the default visualization run against the project that I am currently working on. Green dots indicate file adds, blue dots are modified files and red dots are deleted files. The greater the activity of the user the higher their score.
SvnViz also provides a framework for creating your own visualizations. Simply extend the FrameViz class and implement the generateFrame method. To run your vizualization class, instead of the default class, just pass the fully qualified name of your class to the application using the -vc parameter.
Source files can be downloaded from here. All code is released under the GPL.
Have fun and drop me a line if you come up with an interesting visualization.
Ok let me start off by saying “I love this application”. It does exactly what it says on the box, it’s fast, easy to use and the results are impressive.
So what is it? Well it’s an application that lets you create mock-ups for websites, desktop apps and even iPhone apps.
For instance here are some mock-ups for the FDD tracking app that I’m working on. It took less then 20 minutes to put these together.
One of the best things about the tool is the “UI controls”. For instance if you drop a grid object on to your page and click on it, you get a text area into which you can type comma separated values. Each line of text becomes a row in the grid and each value becomes a cell. If you type [] you get a checkbox, [x] gives you a checked checkbox, [text] gives you a hyperlink of the word text. It couldn’t be easier.
Check out this video to see it action:
and some more examples.
Balsamiq Mockups is an Adobe Air application so it automatically updates when a new release is available. It also means that it runs on multiple platforms, I have seen it running on Windows and Mac os without issue.
Each screen that is created is stored in a separate XML based file. Most of the UI controls can be set to link to another screen, this along with the full screen mode, allows you to easily walk people through your mock-ups on screen.
You can also export your mock-ups as .png files. Unfortunately it does not export to PDF which would be nice.
The desktop version of the tool is $79 which gives you updates for life, which is not a bad deal at all. There are also versions for JIRA, Confluence and XWiki.
My only gripes are that sometimes it is tricky to select objects when they are layered on top of one another. Also there is no way to build your own smart UI controls although you can draw just about any GUI control using the supplied primitive objects.
If need to do any kind of mock-ups then I cannot reccommend this tool enough. Download an evalution copy and try it for yourself. You won’t be disappointed.
The nice people at Balsamiq have given me a copy of their Mockups tool to review (thanks Valerie).
I’m going to give it a good going over for a few days and then I’ll do a nice long write up. In the mean time here is short video to show you what it’s all about…
Just received an update email from sourceforge which contained the list of the top 25 projects hosted with them for January 09. Some really nice bits of software here:
1. ADempiere ERP Business Suite
ADempiere Business Suite ERP/CRM/MFG/SCM/POS done the Bazaar way in an open and unabated fashion. Focus is on the Community that includes Subject Matter Specialists, Implementors and End-Users. We are a community fork of Compiere.
2. MediaInfo
Get technical information and tags of a lot of multimedia files. Supported formats : – Video : AVI/OGM/MKV/MPG/VOB/MP4/3GP/… – Audio :MP3/OGG/MKA/MP4/AAC/…
3. Notepad++
Notepad++ is a generic source code editor (it tries to be anyway) and Notepad replacement written in c++ with win32 API. The aim of Notepad++ is to offer a slim and efficient binary with a totally customizable GUI.
4. Zenoss Core – Enterprise IT Monitoring
Zenoss Core is an enterprise network and systems management application written in Python/Zope. Zenoss provides an integrated product for monitoring availability, performance, events and configuration across
layers and across platforms.
5. Audacity
A fast multi-track audio editor and recorder for Linux, BSD, Mac OS, and Windows.Supports WAV, AIFF, Ogg, and MP3 formats.Features include envelope editing, mixing, built-in effects and plug-ins, all with unlimited undo.
6. MindTouch Deki (wiki): Collaboration
MindTouch Deki is an enterprise collaboration, wiki and mashup platform. Easily connect people, enterprise systems, web services, and Web 2.0 applications for business automation and superlative wiki collaboration.
7. Azureus
Azureus: Vuze is a powerful, full-featured, cross-platform bittorrent client and open content platform.
8. PostBooks ERP, accounting, CRM by xTuple
Free open source ERP, accounting, CRM package for small to midsized businesses. ERP client runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows (built with open source Qt framework). Business logic resides in PostgreSQL database.
International ERP, accounting, and CRM tools.
Openbravo ERP is a Web based ERP for SME, built on proven MVC & MDD framework that facilitate its customization. Already in production, Openbravo ERP encompasses a broad range of functionalities such as finance, supply chain, manufacturing & much more
10. phpMyAdmin
phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web. Currently it can create and drop databases, create/drop/alter tables, delete/edit/add fields, execute any SQL
statement, manage keys on fields.
11. FreeCol
FreeCol is an open version of Colonization. It is a Civilization-like game in which the player has to conquer the new world.
12. MinGW – Minimalist GNU for Windows
MinGW: A native Windows port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), with freely distributable import libraries and header files for building native Windows applications; includes extensions to the MSVC runtime to support C99 functionality.
13. Mumble
Low-latency, high-quality voice communication for gamers. Includes game linking, so voice from other players comes from the direction of their characters, and has echo cancellation so the sound from your loudspeakers won’t be audible to other players.
14. 7-Zip
7-Zip is a file archiver with the high compression ratio. The program supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, LZH, CHM, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, ISO,MSI, WIM, NSIS, RPM and DEB formats.
15. ZK – Simply Ajax and Mobile
ZK is Ajax Java framework without JavaScript. With direct RIA, 200+ Ajax components and markup languages, developing Ajax/RIA as simple as desktop apps and HTML/XUL pages. Support JSF/JSP/JavaEE/Hibernate/.., and Ajax script in Java/Ruby/Groovy/Python/..
16. Ares Galaxy
Filesharing-Bittorrent p2p client connected to TCP supernode/leaf network and UDP DHT network. Ares features a built-in directshow media player, a powerful library manager, shoutcast radio support and can be used to host p2p Chatrooms.
17. webERP web-based ERP Accounting
Integrated accounting ERP system. Multi-language/currency/inventory locations. Full double entry. SO/AR/PO/AP/GL/Bank/Sales Analysis. BOMs/assemblies/kit-sets. Flexible pricing. Emailable pdf reports. Fast PHP created html for any browser.
18. Hyperic HQ Enterprise Monitoring
Enterprise monitoring and management for web apps on Linux, Mac, Unix & Windows. Auto-discovers 70+ technologies incl. hardware, networks, virtualization, and apps. Includes: monitoring, alerts, remote diagnostics, and control actions from web console.
19. ffdshow tryouts
ffdshow is a DirectShow filter and VFW codec for many audio and video formats, such as DivX, Xvid and H.264. Over 70 bugs have been fixed, codecs have been updated, and support for a few new formats has been added in the tryouts. Vista is now supported.
KeePass Password Safe is a free, open source, light-weight and easy-to-use password manager for Windows. You can store your passwords in a highly-encrypted database, which is locked with one master password or key file.
21. OrangeHRM – Human Resource Management
OrangeHRM is an Open Source Human Resource Management System that covers Personnel Information Management, Employee Self Service, Leave, Time & Attendance, Benefits, and Recruitment. Tags: HRM, HRMS, HCM, HRIS, EHRMS, Human Capital Management
22. Firebird
Firebird RDBMS offers many ANSI SQL features & runs on Linux, Windows & several Unix platforms. Features excellent concurrency & performance & powerful stored procedure & trigger language.
23. Webmin
A web-based system administration tool for Unix servers and services.
24. PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB
PortableApps.com allows you to carry your favorite computer programs and all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you on a portable device (USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, CD, etc) and use them on any Windows computer.
25. Tcl
Tool Command Language (Tcl) is an interpreted language and very portable interpreter for that language. Tcl is embeddable and extensible, and has been widely used since its creation in 1988 by John Ousterhout. See
http://www.tcl.tk/ for more info.
Found this great plug in for Photoshop that lets you open and save Windows Icon files (.ico). It’s from Telegraphics and can be found here along with a bunch of other plug ins.
If you don’t have access to Photoshop then try out GIMP and get the ICO plug in for it from whoop.org.
These tools are great for creating favicons for your websites or to spice up your desktop.