Their slogan, “Collaboration made simple“, comes into play here. Sure, net meetings are all the rage, but let’s face it- you have to dumb it down or Mel in the mailroom isn’t going to be there.With HyperMeeting, easy to use conferencing on the web comes to the HyperOffice suite (online business collaboration and email solution).

There’s a trend toward keeping your valuable employees in their cubes. The traditional meeting involved actually getting up from your chair, at least climbing a few steps and heaven forbid maybe even driving somewhere. This old-school way of doing things really interferes with our understandable drive to sit comfortably all day and work on adding a few more pounds to our huge butts.

Sure, there are other virtual meeting offerings:
* Facilitate  has Virtual Meeting.
* RTZ Software  has one (Windows or Mac).
* GoToMeeting  now offeres VoIP (anyone remember conference calls?)
* WebEx
* Others to numerous to mention…

The nice thing here is that HyperOffice already does so much - why use a third party when you can just add functions to what you already use?

Says Dr Tapp (CEO of Clinic Aid Research Management):

“HyperMeeting integrates easily with HyperOffice. We are already using it for internal and external training, and for executive management meetings. It’s especially useful for new sales - instead of flying, we now conduct webinars and meetings via HyperMeeting“

You can see the entire press release here.
And the free trial is here.

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None Found

Enterprise content integration (ECI) is admittedly an essential element for website functionality. Now, in the spirit of more is better, EntropySoft  announces the creation of Interwoven WorkSite connector. EntropySoft is focused on the integration of unstructured data and is a pure-player in the ECI global market (Enterprise Content Integration).

Yippee or Yawn?
Depends. Depends on if you are using (or looking to use) EntropySoft’s connector portfolio. This release adds to their already huge line of connectors.

From their press release:

This connector is part of EntropySoft’s connectors portfolio, which consists of more than 25 bidirectional connectors, the biggest offer for connectors on the market.
The plug and play connectors are designed for major applications such as Alfresco, EMC Documentum, FileNET P8, Open Text LiveLink, IBM DB2 Content Manager On Demand, Xerox Docushare, Microsoft Sharepoint, Lotus Quickplace and others.

So this might be just the widget you need. Or it might be one you file away for your next gig. The one thing it does demonstrate is that the folks at Entropy Soft aren’t just chilling out and resting on their butts, eating Doritos. This connector adds to their line of enterprise software and continues the search for the holy grail- Stuff That Works.

Read more about this here.

What EntropySoft does well:

1. Content Connectors: normalize access to content repositories. (software editors)
2. Content Federation: content integration in business apps.
3. Content ETL: for system integrators and organizations who want to easily migrate, archive or publish contents.

The bottom line- you got stuff? Stuff from third parties, variable formats and whatever your boss is currently in love with?
Check out EntropySoft and their products.

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• SMACKDOWN :: Who are the Open Source Content Management System (CMS) market leaders in 2008?
• A rising star: Elgg, the content management system and social network creator
• Tikiwiki CMS launches the version 2.0, release candidate 4

Because there are many users of these content management and blog systems - Drupal, Joomla! and Wordpress - the team behind the free open source ad server solution OpenX  started to develop plugins for them.
This will help the users to get the most out of OpenX, ultimately making more money from online advertising.And recently (August 15) the team released those three plugins! Below you have a small description of each of them (according to their blog post).

OpenX for Drupal

The module was developed for Drupal 5.x and 6.x and supports OpenX 2.6 and later (you need to have OpenX installed on your server to take advantage from this module). This is a working protoptype and developers can help improve it. More details here.

Download the modules:
- Drupal 5.x
- Drupal 6.x

Installation
To install and configure the module:

1. Unzip the relevant Zip file (according to which version of drupal you are using) into your Drupal/modules folder.
2. Login to your Drupal admin console and go to Home > Administer > Site building
3. You should now see the OpenX module listed. Enable it
4. You need to setup your zones in Home > Administer > Site configuration > OpenX AdServing
5. If you have an account on the hosted version of OpenX, you only need to put the zone ID’s into the table (you can also give the zones meaningful names here).
6. If you want to serve ads from your existing OpenX installation, expand the “Don’t have a hosted account?” section and enter the delivery URL to your OpenX installation
7. You can then add the blocks to your layout in Home > Administer > Site building > Blocks

They have prepared also a FAQ for you in case you have more questions.
And, of course, you can always get support on their forum.

OpenX for Joomla!

The module (working prototype) was developed for Joomla! version 1.5.x and requires OpenX 2.4 and later (and also the hoted version of OpenX). As in Drupal case, you need to have OpenX installed before taking advantage of this module. More here.

Download the module for Joomla 1.5.x

Installation
To install and configure the module:

1. Go to Extensions - Install/Uninstall
2. Upload the Openx module Zip file
3. Go to Extensions - Module manager
4. Find OpenX and click name to open module
5. Enter the delivery URL where you have installed OpenX. If you have set your delivery URL to be different from that of the main installation then place that here. By default the OpenX hosted version is placed here. You need to have an account with OpenX to use this
6. Enter the zone ID which you wish to display in this module
7. Now choose the position in your Joomla! template where you want to display ads
8. Enable the module
9. Your ads should now appear!

To create multiple ads on one page, copy the module and repeat steps 4 - 8.
Read also the FAQ page  and into more support on their forum.

OpenX for WordPress
Because Wordpress is wildly used OpenX had to develop a plugin for this blog system (many times Wordpress is seen also as a content management system too).
Like in the above cases the Wordpress plugin is a working prototype and developer can contribute to make it better. The plugin supports OpenX 2.4 and later as well as the hosted version of OpenX.

Download the plugin for Wordpress 2.5.x

Installation
You need to have OpenX installed before installing this plugin.

To install and configure the plugin:

1. Drop the attached file in the /wp-content/plugins folder of your WordPress installation
2. Enable the plugin in the WordPress administration console.
3. Setup the OpenX server in the OpenX-WP setup page
4. You can now add OpenX banners within your posts using the macro “{openx:NN}” where NN is the OpenX zone ID that you want to display.
5. This plugin also provides a widget which can be added to the WordPress sidebar

More detailed instructions can be found in the attached README.txt file.
Their FAQ section can answer to more questions you might have. Not to mention the forum.

These prototypes were designed with simplicity in mind but the team expects, with the developers help, that these plugins to be developed into feature rich integration tools.

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• OpenX - free open source ad server software solution
• The new OpenX 2.6 ready for download! New features added.
• WordPress - the most used open source blog software
• Joomla community releases the version 1.5.5 (codename: Mamni)
• Is your Wordpress blog hacked? Why not upgrade to the latest version?

On August 13 (hope it won’t be bad luck!) Six Apart  released a new version of its world acclaimed blogging software: Movable Type 4.2.
This new release show, according to Six Apart, where the blogging is going. Being one of the leaders (along Wordpress) who are we to say otherwise :)? Actually, we DO have a saying: when MovableType wasn’t open source WordPress was (still is). And we, the users, embraced WordPress more than MovableType, forcing them to go open-source too :).

So, what is new in this 4.2 release?

Many things, if we look at their blog announcement.
Let’s number some of them here (snippet from their blog):

* 100% Free AntiSpam. TypePad AntiSpam is the best comment spam prevention service on the web. And it’s 100% free no matter how many comments you get, plus it’s open source and Akismet API compatible so it’s easy to hook up to your site. With MT 4.2, it’s also built right in to Movable Type.

* It’s fast. Movable Type’s smart caching only publishes the parts of the page that change, and the core engine’s been radically revamped to make it more efficient. The result? Using your current templates, publishing can be two to three times faster, right out of the box. Some testers have seen results with publishing up to ten times as fast or more.

* Better APIs. OpenID suppport, OAuth libraries, and the ability to add in plugins to connect with the iPhone, Action Streams and more are all built right in. And all of your Movable Type 4 plugins should keep working just fine with this update, or have been updated to work even better in 4.2.

* Templates are super simple. Movable Type has always been designed so you don’t need a ton of plugins to do fancy things with your site’s design. But with all that power, our community told us that we also needed to make sure templates were still easy to understand. So in Movable Type 4.2, templates are vastly simplified, and easier than ever to customize. And live template previews even let you see design changes before they’re published on your site.

* Plus all the power of Movable Type 4. A powerful built-in asset management system. Integrated widget management. The smartest template editor around. The ability, as always, to manage an unlimited number of blogs and authors all in one place. Industry-leading support for new technologies and features. And an absolutely unparalleled community of passionate developers, designers, bloggers, and experts.

On top of these new features of Movable Type version 4.2 the Pro version of Movable Type adds the following (from their blog also):

* Membership. It’s easy to allow anyone on the web to register on your site, or to sign in with Movable Type’s industry-leading OpenID support. Once they’re in, your site’s members get full-fledged customizable profiles, personalized user pictures (avatars), and can follow their friends or other site members they’re interested in.

* Everyone’s invited. You can easily add full-featured forums, community blogs and group blogs to your site, and since Movable Type has always managed an unlimited number of blogs in one interface (like Wordpress MU), you can keep track of all those conversations using a single set of tools.

* Ratings and Recommendations. Any registered user on your site can vote for content they like, making it easy to create “most popular” or “most recommended” lists on your site. You can even create your own voting communities within your site — think “Digg in a box”.

* User-generated content. Any member of your community can, with appropriate permissions, submit content for publishing on your site. Administrators have full ability to review submissions, and submitted posts show up on user profiles right next to their comments and other activity.

Note that Movable Type Pro is free for personal use but it is NOT free for commercial use! Movable Type 4.2 is free for all.

Basically, step by step, this blogging software goes towards a social network software with blogging being on the center stage. You might say “Oh no! Not another social network!”. And you might be right. It adds to the noise which is already there considering that many white label social networking software  already have blog option incorporated in their offer. We have to find a way to manage all that noise.

Now, with all these features I’m wondering if it’s a better platform than WordPress  (which powers this site among hundreds of thousands other sites).

Probably not, because WordPress it’s not just sitting still. They are developing BuddyPress  (BuddyPress was a set of plugins written for WordPress MU - multiuser by a third party and was acquired by WordPress later on).

The new BuddyPress is based on WordPress MU core and still will be a set of plugins (friends, extended user profiles, private messaging, groups, status updates, photo albums and a plugin for a feature which resembles Twitter).

In the end, social networks and blogging converged and will be merging soon like with other software happened. Social networking is everywhere these days.

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• WordPress - the most used open source blog software
• Movable Type – Open-source Blog Software Review
• The OpenX plugins (free ad server) for Drupal, Joomla! and Wordpress have arrived!
• Is your Wordpress blog hacked? Why not upgrade to the latest version?
• Tikiwiki CMS launches the version 2.0, release candidate 4

There are over 50 new features in the latest version of Dimdim, the web meeting software. This open-source web program has always been about letting you host an online meeting where the attendees won’t need to download anything. It has a free version allowing meetings with up to 20 people, and also pro (100 people, custom branding, for $99 a year) and enterprise versions (1000 people, more than one meeting happening simultaneously, $1999 annually).

With this software you can use your computer and webcam to chat, talk, show slides, and share whatever’s on your computer’s desktop with colleagues and co-workers all over the world. It works on Macs and Linux machines as well as Windows. The makers are hoping businesses will take advantage of their service as a way to beat the high cost of sending employees on out-of-town trips.

The new features are too numerous to list. They are based on feedback from Dimdim users.

Here are the highlights:

 

• Recording - Record your meeting, then share the link in the same way you share the latest YouTube video, via link or embedded on your website. Now those who miss your meeting won’t have an excuse for not knowing what was covered.

 

• Multiple presenters - Give any of those in attendance the ability to share their desktop or a presentation, or use the whiteboard or broadcast via webcam. Easy to do at a click of your mouse button.

 

• Teleconferencing - Dimdim uses VoIP technology, so you can use it to make conference calls anytime, with unlimited calling time for free. Or users can dial-in to a meeting via a traditional phone.

 

• Private meetings - Only those who know your meeting room name and have a special meeting key can attend meetings you designate to be private. There is also a lobby feature where those who want to attend can gather, allowing the host to admit them individually. These features make Dimdim more secure than before.

 

• Mac desktop sharing - apparently this feature wasn’t available to Mac users in previous versions, but it is now.

 

• Easier to use - The new menu system and streamlined user interface makes many tasks quick and intuitive. Private chat, inviting others to an on-going meeting, rejoining a meeting if your connection is lost - all of these are accomplished with one or two clicks.

 

• Notification panel - This area alerts the host about important tasks such as admitting new arrivals from the lobby.

 

• Questions from participants - Dimdim already had a “mood” indicator, but they’ve added “Question” as one of the choices so users can quickly let the host know if they want to ask something.

 

• Hide Participants - As the host, you can choose whether participants can see a list of the other attendees. If you want to hold an open sales meeting and don’t want the attendees to know how many participants are there, or you need to keep their identities private, this feature is perfect for you.

 

• 2-way video chat - You can allow participants to share video from their webcams in the pro and enterprise versions of Dimdim, if users have the video chat option turned on.

 

• Still no install - The makers of Dimdim want you to know that you don’t have to install anything to attend or to host a meeting - unless you want to be able to share your desktop with those at the meeting. That feature requires their screencasting plug-in. All other features, including the new ones, are available right from their site. All you need to do is sign up.

You can download the free version here

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• PHPMotion - free open source social networking media platform
• Sharemixer - low cost video sharing solution a la Youtube
• Nucleus - review of a new open source blogging platform
• Open source ASP.NET BlogEngine.NET - a new version has been released: 1.4.5 (just a month after update 1.4)
• Joomla community releases the version 1.5.5 (codename: Mamni)