Business Model for Open Source

There are a lot of people wondering how open souce technology make money, as they are giving out their most valuable technology to other people. Here are some business model for open source:

1. Support - This is normally how people think open source business is all about. Enterprise user need proffesional support, if not they will not use the technology, they can't afford to have breakdown and can't fix it. Microsoft (proprietary technology) offer support, so does Java.
2. Customization of software - Another form of open source business model is to allow the developer to build customization of the software on top of open source technology. Some user will outsource their development, and it's (normally) cheaper to use open source technology. So, these people that work with open source technology will offer their expertise to build the customized software. Example, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL andPHP)  is used for a lot of web application development.
   
3. Vertical component - Some open source software suite is quite general, it is not suitable for some industry unless there are some plugin or module built speciafically for them. For example, CRM is the general software suite, so the developer can build a specific module for a construction company and sell the solution to these companies.
4. Selling accessories/hardware - There are open source company that offer their sofware as open source and selling the hardware that support it. For example, Digium has created Asterisk (open source PBX system), and sell the hardware.
5. Built then sell it - You built an open source technology with the help of community and attract the big boys to buy it. Yahoo bought Zimbra for $350 millions,  Sun acquire MySQL for $1 billion, Citrix bought XenSource for %500 millions. You can see that are a lot of money involed in open source technology.
6. Get Hired - If you work as open source developer, your chance of getting hired is very high as you has proven yourself.
7. Training - Provide necessary training on how to use or develop open source technology. Some people rather pay for training than use expensive technology and pay for training too. ;-)

There and many more ways you can make money from open source technology. However, I don't think proprietary technology will fade away, there are still a lot of people prefer to use proprietary technology because of the completeness of support, documentation, and ease to use, mainly due to open source is updated more often and this also means that are more version to support. Both of them will coexist for a long time and have their own supporters.

I am sure there more ways to make money from open source, please leave your comment.

How to subscribe and read news from your homepage by using rss?

Sometimes ago, I was aware of RSS or Atom, I know it is kind of a news feed and a lot of people is using it to read news. However, I wasn't sure how to use it to my convenience. Normally I will browse to the news website or blog to read the news.

But there is another easier way, where you can have all the news from different source combine into 1 page.

Here is the step-by-step guide:

1. Log in to www.igoogle.com


2. Sign up or sign in by following screen shot below.




3. Key in your google account username and passoword.




4. Then, it will lead to iGoogle page. Here is the screen shot of my iGoogle homepage.




5. Click to add a new tab by following steps below. Check the box "I'm feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name." if you want Google to search for you all the news related to your tab name.
   



6. Go to your favourite blog or news station. In this case, I use Tun Mahathir Blog as an example. Log in to www.chedet.com.
   
   


7. Scroll down to the page and look for the atom/rss to subsribe.
   
   



8. It will lead you to this page, select Google from the drop down list and click subsribe now.
   
   



9. Select "Add to Google homepage" in this case.
   
   



10. Here is the result that we get. Click on the '+' sign to expand the news.
    
    



11. If you want to subscribe to my blog, click on the "subscribe in reader" as below
    
    

Good luck and have fun.

Photoshop on the web? Splashup

Ever wanted to edit your image when you are using a public computer where your favorite photo editing software is not around?

Have a look on Splashup. Splashup offer an online photo editing tools that mimic photoshop in terms of interface, but of course it offers much less than the powerful photoshop.

You don't need registration to test out the application, just click on the "Jump right In" image on the home page. I expected the Splashup application to take a longer time to load, but it does load quite fast to my surprise.

Here are my result using Splashup and webcam image capture capability offer by them.



Other than the photo editing capabilities, such as basic tools, layering, filter, crop, resize.. etc. Splashup also offer various ways to save your image. Including saving to:

• Your own hard drive
• Picasa
• Flickr
• Facebook
  

The experience of using it is quite fun, I almost forgot that I am using a web application, I feel like I am using a desktop application. The down side of this is it doesn't support right click and keyboard shortcut, but what can you ask more. This can be very useful, especially when I'm on travel and need to upload and edit some photo.

Give it a try!

How to print large image to several paper: DIY your own poster

Let's say you have a large photo and would want to print it to several paper and combine as a poster like this one.




You can go to this website, The Sect of Homokaasu. They offer two choices for you to do that.

1. Online services - You can upload your photo and they will split your file into several pdf, you can then print out to A4 paper can combine it like the poster above. You need to have Macromedia Flash plugin installed.
   
2. Software - They offer a software which is similar to the online services. You can always do it without the internet connection, and of course faster. .NET Framework 1.1 is required.

More importantly, it's FREE !!!

Use your imagination, a lot of creative project has been posted on their website. Here are some example:

Malaysian Own Chat Widget/Shoutbox !!

I've just installed a shoutbox on my blog. It's called shoutmix, and more importantly it's a Award Winning Malaysian made widget.

I've been selecting among few chat widget to install, namely meebo, cbox, shoutmix, plugoo, zoho chat.

• cbox - this is the first one that I found, the website looks too simple to me. So I proceed to find the next alternative.
• plugoo - I thinks it looks promising, because it can link to my IM, I installed with linked to my gtalk. But after I tested, it's more a IM than shoutbox, I wanted the message to left on my blog instead.
• zoho chat - So, I move on to the next this one. Anyway, I don't like it because it needs visitor to put in their name first before posting and looking at previous post. I prefer those allow direct put in name and chat.
• meebo & shoutmix - meebo and shoutmix is the last two options for me. I choose shoutmix mainly because it's made by Malaysian, but it does offer all the features that I need. Simple interface, shoutbox (that stored previous message), fast loading time.

So, please leave your message there, I will definitely reply you.

Alert!! Your daily news is arriving

Imagine this, you are following the news of Earthquake in China, and every morning when you open up your email, there are latest news/blogs of your choice arriving.

You want to know the latest release of Justin Timberlake, and you got your mail instantly once there are latest news and press release on him.

You are studying the technology of Ruby on Rails, and you get the summary of what's happening with the technology everyday. You are updated with the truly latest happening news, blogs, opinions related to this technology.

Below are the screen shot taken from my GMail - showing the news on Ruby on Rails.

Sometimes, you might found that some company is hiring peoples to work with the technology, and sometimes you get free ebook recommended in some blogs. Yeah, it's a lot of fun and rewards!!

So, you want to setup you personalized daily or instant news alert?
Follow these simple steps:

1. Go to Google Alert website.
2. Put in the search term. That means the keywords of your news. Eg: "Andy Roddicks"
3. Choose the type (of the alerts). Choose "comprehensive" for maximum coverage.
4. Choose how often you want to received it.
5. Finally key in your email address. The alerts will be sent to this email.
   

Are you powered by Google?

How much do you know about Google free service? Please help me complete this survey. Just 2 question. The result will be share out.

Some of you might have already know Google Docs, where you can create words document and excel spreadsheet and share it for free. However, instead of inviting your friends or colleagues to collaborate and write on a topics, you can create a survey forms and ask the public answer it. The answer will be stored into the spreadsheet and can be edited or downloaded. Just like what I did with this.

Here is a screen shot of how you can create a new form.


This can be a marketing tools to collect the data you need. For example, you are going to launch a new product, and you not sure what is the right price. So, create a simple survey form and email to all your customer and collect the data so that you can make the best decision.

Tips: Keep your survey short and simple. Most people won't spend more than 10 minutes to complete it. They will just browse away. Keep it to less than 5 question with at least 3 question on MCQ instead of asking them to write.

Form are great to collect data, it's not just used in survey. For instance, you and your groups is doing a research on collecting website that are related to pets, and you want to categorize your collection into groups such as Dogs, Cats, Bird, Fish, Turtle and others. What you can do is create a form with 2 questions,

1. Enter the website (text)
   
2. Groups (Multiple choice or choose from list)
   
• Dogs
• Cats
• Bird
• Fish

Thus, everyone in your groups can key in the data once they found the a website related to pets.

By using this form, you can collaborate with your group member instantly instead of combining data after that. Moreover, you do not need to key in each entry manually, because you can just click on the multiple choice answer or choose from the drop down list. collaboration

It's very easy to create the form, what you need is a Google Account, and then click on this link spreadsheets.google.com/newform.

Introducing Sandy, my new personal assistant.

Dear friends, please meet my personal assistant Ms. Sandy. Now, I can afford to have my own personal assistant to help me organizing my schedule, contact, reminding me for appointment.. etc.

Look at the following scenario.

=====================
To: someone@email.com
CC: ms-sandy

Dear Someone,

We shall discuss the matter over the lunch on next Monday. See you then!

Regards,

Leow Tze Wei

ps:
Sandy, please remind me the meeting with Mr. Someone on next monday 1pm.
=====================

Thus, Sandy got my mail and she will remind me about this meeting through email, sms or twitter.

Cool! How much do I pay for her services? Free. Yes, it's free.
How can you have it? Just shout "I Want Sandy!!" and log on to iwantsandy.com

The concept is simple, I just need to email to her and ask her to remind or remember for me. More example how Sandy can help me organizing.

Reminder:

• Remind me about yoga class on Friday at 8am
• Remember to pick up dry cleaning in 3 days

Contact:

• Remember Jack's number is 012-012012021 and address is 3-1, Jln Malaysia, Tmn Malaysia.

Birthday:

• Remember Jeff's birthday 8 June @birthday

Make a list:

• remember groceries @weekly
  * eggs
  * milk
  * bread

and a lot of interesting stuff... find out more at iwantsandy.com