Elgg, a popular free and open source web software for social networking, which we have mentioned here, has released its new version 1.7 beta. Access control is one of the most powerful features of Elgg. Everything created in Elgg, be it a blog post, an uploaded file, an element of your profile, etc., can be restricted to as many or few people you want. It’s a prolific open source web software for social networking.
Some of the key changes in Elgg 1.7 include:
Elgg 1.7 enhances security by requiring security tokens on all actions. Plugins that have not been updated to use security tokens will produce a “Form is missing __token or __ts fields” error.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.WordPress for BlackBerry app version 1.0 has been released. It allows you to write posts, upload photos and videos, edit pages, and manage comments. Both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.7 or higher) web sites are supported by this application. You can download the application and start blogging on the go! This application works with most recent BlackBerry devices starting with the 8700, Curve, Pearl, Bold, Storm, Storm2 and Tour.
New features in this version:
You might want to check out a quick video overview of the app with all the latest features. This version of WordPress is also available for download on the BlackBerry App World.
Download WordPress for BlackBerry
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.Recently we reviewed some of the cool WordPress themes at Panda Themes and we also announced a giveaway of three premium themes from Panda Themes to three lucky winners.
And here are the three lucky winners chosen out of the all the entries.
Congratulations! to the lucky winners. We will contact you soon by email and provide you with further details.
We, MyTestBox team, would like to thank Panda Themes for giving us this opportunity to review and giveaway the premium themes.
We are planning for more giveaways soon! So, keep track of the latest updates on MyTestBox.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.ocPortal, one of the upcoming web content management systems has released its new version 4.3 RC 3. This version introduces some new features and a number of bug fixes have been made since the last release. If you haven’t tried ocPortal yet, you might want to check a personal demo here.
New features
New features for developers:
Read more at ocPortal News
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.Feng Office is one of the prolific web office software available that, allows a group of people to collaborate by sharing information over the Internet in an effective way. It’s a complete solution for every organization to create, collaborate, share and publish all its internal and external documents. You can plan and manage all your projects, easily following the status of every task, set milestones, pending tasks, personal notes etc.,
We got an opportunity to interview the CEO of Feng Office to share some thoughts about this intriguing web software.
Following is the interview,
How did it all start, a brief history of Feng OfficeFeng Office (under the name OpenGoo) started as a degree project at the faculty of Engineering of the University of the Republic, Uruguay. The project was presented and championed by Software Engineer Conrado Viña. Software Engineers Marcos Saiz and Ignacio de Soto developed the first prototype as their thesis. Professors Eduardo Fernández and Tomás Laurenzo served as tutors. Conrado, Ignacio and Marcos founded the OpenGoo community and remain active members and core developers. The thesis was approved with the highest score.
Why Feng Office – the key features?Although the technology for many applications needed by Small Businesses (Document Managment, Project Management, Customer Management) was mature enough, we realized businesses still couldn’t access it, because of one main factor: total cost of ownership. Total cost of ownership was comprised by the individual cost of each software package (licenses), installation and set-up fees, and support and maintenance for each package. Not only that, but the business would en up with un-integrated solutions, which in itselfs adds integration costs (wether the integration is manual work, or custom software integration).
Integration among CRM, Project Management, and Document Management applications is a natural business need. We solved the problem by developing a standard package that integrates those applications into a single one. We also got rid of licensing costs and most of the installation costs.
How has been the feedback so far for Feng OfficeThe feedback has been tremendous and most inspiring. We have received, literally, thousands of positive reviews. There have been a few negative reviews, from which we strive to learn and to improve.
The climate at the community is of great enthusiasm. Almost daily people thanks and congratulates the team at the forum. That makes us very proud and cheers us up a lot.
Hardest challenge the Feng Office team had to face so farMarketing and finance management. The founders’ original background is strongly on Engineering. We have been very lucky to have professionals with these backgrounds join the team, but we still have to learn a lot of this stuff on a daily basis.
If you could start over again from scratch, what would you do differentlyHum. Very good question. Right now I am thinking we should have done an effort to position OpenGoo -not Feng Office- differently. But those thoughts change frequently. In terms of the technology used and the vision for the solution, we are very confident on the choices we have made.
Would you mind sharing some pictures of your work place?
Not at all. Above is the team picture is taken at the meeting/board room.
We would like to thank the Feng Office team for the valuable time and sharing thoughts about Feng Office.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.We are currently running two giveaways, Don’t forget to take part in these giveaways. Try and make the most of these giveaways to get hands on a prolific Joomla based book from PACKT and high-quality premium WordPress themes from Panda Themes.
Book Giveaway: Joomla! with Flash Premium WordPress Themes Giveaway from Panda WordPress ThemesVery soon we are giving away more intriguing stuff, so do subscribe to our email updates and get notified via email.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.ImpressPages is an open source content management system which lets you build functional and effective websites in quick time. It’s interface is user friendly and can be adapted to your needs. It’s multilingual, absolutely free and open source.
If you spend lot of time on editing font type, re-sizing pictures, regulating spaces between elements etc., then ImpressPages could be a real time saver for you. It is based on the idea that most functions of CMS could be performed automatically. With ImpressPages, all the information could be administered directly in the website without the need to perform sequential tasks.
System Requirements
To run ImpressPages Content Management System, you need:
ImpressPages is SEO friendly and it caters to your SEO needs.
Specific SEO features of ImpressPages:
Built-in Features
It has built-in features like sitemap, RSS, smart search, newsletter etc., ImpressPages automatically creates sitemaps for you and provides you with custom templates for newsletters so that you can collect and manage your subscriber details.
Administrator Interface
ImpressPages has an easy-to-use back-end interface. It lets you quickly make changes to your site. Each block on the site is provided with options to move it up or down, edit, delete or hide it. This allows you to quickly change the appearance and position of the blocks and elements on your site.
Menu Management
The order of pages and sub pages can be changed quickly. They are made available as a tree structure. So, you can drag and drop the pages and sub-pages to change their order. It also provides you with options to set ‘page properties’ which include meta keywords, description, URL, visibility, date modified etc.,
Configuration
The built-in features like sitemap, RSS, search and newsletter can be configured with just a few clicks from the admin interface. It’s currently available in English and Latin languages.
Conclusion
ImpressPages is an open source, fully functional and light weight content management system. Without much technical skills like CSS or HTML you can quickly get started with it and create your site in no time. It’s back-end is easy to use and gives you full control to make changes to the site. It loads with built-in features like sitemap, newsletters, search etc., which can be used without having to install any further plugins.
It’s new, but seems to be a promising web software to create fantastic websites in short time.
You might want to check out a quick demo of ImpressPages CMS here.
Download ImpressPages CMS
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.We are pleased to inform you that Panda Themes has given us the opportunity to giveaway the following three premium WordPress themes to three lucky winners.
A brief introduction about Panda ThemesPanda Themes specializes in creating WordPress themes for web developers, designers, and other freelancers who would like to have a professional design without having to pay thousands of dollars for an elegant custom web design. All WordPress themes available at Panda Themes for purchase individually in standard service, advanced service and in developer packages.
The three premium themes we are giving away are, Portfolius v.7Portfolio v.7 is an elegant, light and compact WordPress theme with a powerful theme panel and options to customize the style as per your needs.
This theme provides you with many other options to style the theme according to your preferences. It’s powerful and easy-to-use theme panel allows you to,
For setting thumbnails, you need not resize the images. The images will be automatically resized according to the specified dimensions. You can also setup a custom thumbnail if need be. To know more about this theme, you might want to check out some screencasts.
Portfolius v.4Portfolius v.4 is a 3-column WordPress theme feasible for developers and designers who would like to have a portfolio along with a blog.
The additional homepage template allows you to use this theme as a portfolio for the design studio. Switchable layout blocks will enhance the tuning ability of the theme.
This theme sports 10 color schemes and two homepage templates: ‘Blog’ and ‘Business’. It provides you with options to switch layout’s blocks (e.g. Footer) and widgets. Thumbnails for the homepage are created automatically with a built-in script. Other features include, advertisement blocks to display ads with ease, a widget-ready sidebar and built-in lightbox effect to overlay images on the current page.
Businessus v.2This theme is built specifically for designers and artists (individuals or agencies). Businessus v.2 is a stylish WordPress theme which can be installed with ease to showcase your artworks, photographs and designs with content.
This theme has a script that allows you to showcase your recent works on your home page. The theme is bundled with a built-in options page to control many features of the theme and is available in 3 color schemes.
Contest RulesThree simple rules to be eligible,
Anyone can participate in the contest and each of the three lucky winners will be rewarded with one of the three premium WordPress themes listed above.
Entries will be accepted till February 10th, 2010.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.Recently we reviewed the book, Joomla with Flash, build stunning, content-rich, and interactive websites with Joomla! 1.5 and Flash CS4.
As indicated in the review, the book, Joomla! with Flash, is aimed at explaining how to use Flash objects with Joomla! content with minimal efforts and maximum output.
We are pleased to inform you that we are giving away an exclusive copy of this book to a lucky winner. Contest RulesThree simple rules to be eligible,
The contest is open for anyone in the United States and one lucky winner will be rewarded with an exclusive copy of Joomla! with Flash book sponsored by PACKT Publishing Ltd.
Entries will be accepted till February 1st, 2010.
Book DetailsLanguage English
Paperback 260 pages [191mm x 235mm]
Release date October 2009
ISBN 1847198244
ISBN 13 978-1-847198-24-2
Author(s) Suhreed Sarkar
Topics and Technologies Content Management, PHP/MySQL, Open Source, Joomla!
This book enables you to build interactive and content-rich web sites with Joomla! 1.5 and Flash CS4.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.Joomla! is an award winning Content Management System(CMS) with a wide range of features. It’s a prolific CMS which is suitable for designing and maintaining any type of websites. Joomla has a modular architecture, providing the users with lots of options for extensibility. Apart from the fabulous modules, it is also well known for strong security, templating system, extensive community support and the authorization framework.
There are many extensions available for Joomla! like plug-ins and modules to extend the functionality of Joomla!. These extensions provide – further options for customization, enhancing the functionality as well as ease of administration.
You might want to integrate technologies such as Flash into Joomla!, as it provides great features for creating stunning graphics, interactive games, animated objects and alike to add a new flavor to your site.
The book, Joomla! with Flash, is aimed at explaining how to use Flash objects with Joomla! content with minimal efforts and maximum output.
Book DetailsLanguage English
Paperback 260 pages [191mm x 235mm]
Release date October 2009
ISBN 1847198244
ISBN 13 978-1-847198-24-2
Author(s) Suhreed Sarkar
Topics and Technologies Content Management, PHP/MySQL, Open Source, Joomla!
This book enables you to build interactive and content-rich web sites with Joomla! 1.5 and Flash CS4.
The book starts with introducing the reader to the different types of Flash objects and various tools that will be helpful for developing web sites based on Flash and Joomla!. Then, the author gives a detailed explanation on how to use Flash-based image slide shows in Joomla and display them at different positions on the site.
By using the ‘random image’ module, you can implement a slide show in no time. The explanation is easily understandable. As, each step is enriched by screenshots, comprehending the text becomes much easier.
Simialarly, you will learn to use the RokSlideShow, one of the popular slideshow modules for Joomla!
This extensions helps you in integrating a slide show with options for dynamic image resizing, captions, loading progressbar, titles and more. Apart from these, you will also be able to set transition and other eye catching effects to further customize your slide show. Chapter 2 also focuses on showing Flash based movies in Joomla! articles/content.
Chapter 3 gives you an introduction to the built-in menus and navigation in Joomla! and then illustrates the use of two extensions, Flash Floating Menu and Super Web Flash for using Flash based menus in Joomla!
The book also covers other related extensions for customizing the flash menus based on your need.
Other intriguing stuff like building photo galleries using Flash into Joomla! based sites, building interactive Flash based maps, and charts, tickers, logos, headers is clearly explained in the book to meet the needs of all kinds of audience. This book also focuses mainly on how to embed Joomla! content into a Flash sites and how to troubleshoot your applications to overcome the most common problems in Joomla!.
What you will learn from this bookThis book is a fast-paced step-by step-guide. It is loaded with examples and lots of illustrations showing configurations and their results on the screen.
Who this book is written forIf you are a Joomla! web developer who wants to integrate Flash into your web sites, then this book is for you. Knowledge of Joomla! and basic knowledge of Flash is assumed.
Joomla with Flash, build stunning, content-rich, and interactive websites with Joomla! 1.5 and Flash CS4 is definitely a must have if, you are planning to build and enhance you Joomla! based web site with Flash.
Check out Joomla! with Flash at PACKT Publishing
Note: Keep track of this blog to get a chance to grab an exclusive copy of this book.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.Recently we reviewed some of the cool WordPress themes at WPZOOM and we also announced a giveaway of three premium themes from WPZOOM to three lucky winners.
And here are the three lucky winners chosen out of the all the entries.
Congratulations! to the lucky winners. We will contact you soon by email and provide you with further details.
We, MyTestBox team, would like to thank WPZOOM for giving us this opportunity to review and giveaway the premium themes.
We are planning for more giveaways soon! So, keep track of the latest updates on MyTestBox.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.OpenGoo, a prolific web office software, which we have reviewd here is now Feng Office. In brief, OpenGoo is a web office software that allows a group of people to collaborate by sharing information over the Internet. It is a complete solution for every organization to create, collaborate, share and publish all its internal and external documents. You can plan and manage all your projects, easily following the status of every task, set milestones, pending tasks, personal notes etc.,
Following is the press release,
The company decided to unify under one brand all versions of its web office to provide greater value to their users. The open source version becomes Feng Office Collaboration Platform.
Feng Office, a company expert in developing IT solutions under the SaaS mode, announced the addition of the open source version of its web office to its principal brand. Thus, the well-known OpenGoo was renamed as Feng Office Collaboration Platform – The announcement was made in the corporate blog.
Under the Feng Office’s umbrella brand, this change allows to give greater unity to the set of solutions offered by the company. It also seeks to provide increased value to users. In this way, the company has three different versions of its web office, which are adapted to different user profiles that require this type of application:
Also, the company continues to announce enhancements to its product. Recently, it has released version 1.6.1, which includes new features, mainly, in the e-mail module and in the word processor.
Finally, Marcos Saiz, Director of Marketing, announced the addition of new means of payment for SMEs and those users who do not use PayPal to facilitate access to the platform . In this sense, the company will add other media such as credit cards and bank drafts.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.We are pleased to inform you that WPZOOM has given us the opportunity to giveaway the following three premium themes to three lucky winners.
WPZOOM develops fabulous themes in wide range of topics for the WordPress community. Each theme is SEO optimized, comes with detailed documentation and excellent support.
Following are some of the fabulous themes showcased on WPZOOM.
The three premium themes we are giving away are, MonographMonograph is a magazine style WordPress theme with many intriguing features. It sports an elegant JavaScript slider to showcase important stuff on your blog. Monograph has three easily controllable featured categories for the homepage. The theme comes in 4 color styles – green, red, blue and pink. Social network icons are built-in the theme, without having to install any plug-ins. It provides you an option to split long posts to multiple pages. It also has built-in support for threaded comments and a multi-level drop down menu to showcase pages, categories and sub categories.
You might want to check out a live demo of the theme here.
Zenko MagazineZenko Magazine is a coloful and elegant theme particularly designed for those who want to launch a magazine or blog. It has a flexible layout that allows you to easily adapt your content to the theme. Some of the unique features in this theme are,
The theme automatically pulls images from the content of your post for thumbnail display. This makes it easy for you to manage thumbnail images for posts, as you need not edit ‘custom fields’ for every post on your blog. Zenko Magazine theme also contain places where you can insert 468×60 or 300×250px size banners. Apart from the above the other useful features are – built-in widgets, drop-down menu for pages and categories and featured content section.
You might want to check out a live demo of the theme here.
Yamidoo MagazineYamidoo is another magazine-style theme for WordPress. It’s an easy fit for any type of informative website. It has a simple layout and can be customized to suit your blog needs. This theme sports a featured content section, built-in widgets, banner management, drop-down menu and is Google Analytics and FeedBurner ready. Just paste your code in the theme options to get started.
You might want to check out a live demo of the theme here.
Contest RulesThree simple rules to be eligible,
Anyone can participate in the contest and each of the three lucky winners will be rewarded with one of the three premium WordPress themes from WPZOOM listed above.
Entries will be accepted till January 1st, 2010.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.WordPress, one of the popular open source blog software has announced the release of its new version 2.9 (’Carmen’). You can quickly upgrade to this new version right from your Dashboard by going to Tools > Upgrade.
Following are some of the interesting stuff released from a user’s end in this new version of WordPress,
You might want to read more about the other updates in this release here.
Source: WordPress blog
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.SiteExecutive web content management system(CMS) now sports a layout editor and developer edition. The enhancement pack 6 for SiteExecutive CMS introduced a new application layout editor, an event calendar application and developer edition as well as other enhancements to a number of other SiteExecutive components.
New Applications
Application layout editor: The new application layout editor provides you with a graphical user interface for organizing and styling dynamic content. This allows you to define and apply CSS values to various content elements using reserve classes. The layout editor would be of great advantage to designers, providing better control and flexibility, while speeding the development of complex, dynamic websites.
Event calender application: The new event calendar application extends the existing SiteExecutive event calendar module. It addresses client requests for enhanced event and calendar management, search and display capabilities, including:
Enhanced Developer Support
With Enhancement Pack 6, Systems Alliance has introduced enhancements to the SiteExecutive API which will accelerate development of custom applications, modules and integration with third-party applications and data sources.
Other Enhancements
Enhancement Pack 6 includes a number of additional client requested enhancements, including:
You might want to check out a demo of the SiteExecutive web content management system here.
Source: SiteExecutive press releases
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.OpenGoo, an easy to use open source web office software, which we have reviewed here, has recently released its final version of 1.6.
In brief, OpenGoo is a web office software that allows a group of people to collaborate by sharing information over the Internet. It is a complete solution for every organization to create, collaborate, share and publish all its internal and external documents. You can plan and manage all your projects, easily following the status of every task, set milestones, pending tasks, personal notes etc.,
This is the final release of OpenGoo version 1.6. Following are the new features in this release,
Archive objects and workspaces
When you no longer need an object or workspace you can archive it to remove it from your every day views, while its still searchable and accessible via the “Archived Objects” workspace.
Mark as read/unread for all types of objects
Until now the read/unread functionality was available only for emails. Now it is also available for all other types of content objects. If an object was modified since your last view it will be marked in bold for you to quickly notice that it has changes. Once you view the object it will be marked as read.
Improvements to the email module
Document editor upgraded: The new version loads much faster on all browsers. Functionality and cross-browser compatibility has been improved. You can insert images into a document, from your PC or from OpenGoo.
Other improvements
Read more on the OpenGoo blog
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.Automattic, the team behind WordPress has just announced that WordPress for iPhone 2.1 is available now for download on the App Store.
What’s New in version 2.1:
Source: WordPress for iPhone blog [Image source]
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.Recently we reviewed Artisteer which is a fabulous web design automation product that helps you create fantastic custom website templates and blog themes with ease. We also announced a giveaway of 2 licenses for Artisteer – Home and Academic Edition.
And here are the two lucky winners chosen out of the all the entries.
Congratulations! to the lucky winners. We will contact you soon by email and provide you with further details.
We, MyTestBox team, would like to thank Artisteer for giving us this opportunity to review and giveaway the premium licenses.
We are planning for more giveaways soon! So, keep track of the latest updates on MyTestBox.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.BuddyPress 1.1.3 has been released. This new release fixes a number of issues with the 1.1.2 release of BuddyPress.
Briefly, BuddyPress is a set of plugins and themes, which can be used to extend the functionality of Wordpress MU and bring social networking features to a new or existing installation. These suite of plugins can be used either independently or cumulatively to create a complete social network. Some specific plugins could also be used to add desirable features to your existing blog network.
Following are the list of changes made since BuddyPress 1.1.2
Source: BuddyPress community blog
Download BuddyPress here.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.ocPortal, one of the upcoming web content management systems has released its new version 4.3 RC 1. This release has huge number of new features and bug fixes. If you haven’t tried ocPortal yet, you might want to check a personal demo here.
This version is a feature release that introduces a number of bug fixes since the last release and some performance improvements and features.
Performance improvements:
Usability improvements:
New features:
Dropped features:
Bug fixes:
Check out other features about the ocPortal version 4.3 RC1 here.
©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.
.