Open Source Meets Google Summer of Code 2012

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Submitted by Bryan on

Every year, I find it an honor when I'm asked by open source projects to announce that they have entered been accepted as mentoring organizations into Google's Summer of Code program. I'm a big advocate of college education and I also understand the importance of a summer job to keeping those college bills under control. Open source projects and the Google Summer of Code provides this opportinuty for upcoming software developers. The Summer of Code is a "global program sponsored by Google that offers post-secondary student developers ages 18 and older stipends to write code for various open source software projects".

There are several goals to the Google Summer of Code program:

  1. Create and release open source code for the benefit of all
  2. Inspire young developers to begin participating in open source development
  3. Help open source projects identify and bring in new developers and committers
  4. Provide students the opportunity to do work related to their academic pursuits (think "flip bits, not burgers")
  5. Give students more exposure to real-world software development scenarios (e.g., distributed development, software licensing questions, mailing-list etiquette)

The Summer of Code program provides college age students with alternatives to the typical summer employment at the local grocery store or fast food chain with an opportinity to work the code and on projects that inspires them the most. Google will provide a stipend of $5500 USD per accepted student developer, of which $5000 USD goes to the student and $500 USD goes to the mentoring organization.

Create your own ASP.NET CMS with New Book

ASP.NET 3.5 CMS Development is a new book from Packt aimed at helping developers build, manage and extend a Content Management System using ASP.NET and its features. Written by Curt Christianson and Jeff Cochran, this book will help developers set up users and groups within the application and explore management tools.

ASP.NET 3.5 web application framework that allows programmers to create dynamic websites, web applications, and web services. It is equipped with a built-in security system, standard design templates, and easy configurations for database connections, which makes it  an ideal language for building a Content Management System.

Readers will learn different ways to build and customize powerful websites, create valuable content and manage the layout of their site efficiently by using elements like Master Pages, Content Placeholders, Themes/Skins, Regions and Zones. The book explains the concepts of inheritance, site navigation, and website management from a single point using Administrator privileges. Developers will also learn the n-Tier architecture within Content Management Systems.

Using the code snippets and screen images, readers will explore the exciting alternatives to design and develop a Content Management System that allows them to administer Articles, Images and Files section. With the various management tools available, developers will be equipped to face all kinds of challenges that occur during the development process.

ASP.NET developers looking for a fast-paced guide to create their own, powerful Content Management System will find this book useful. This book is available from Packt. For more information, please visit: ASP.NET 3.5 CMS Development

Michael Kaply: Deploying Firefox 2 within the Enterprise

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Submitted by Bryan on

Michael Kaply has been writing a series of articles on how to deploy Firefox 2 within the Enterprise.  I wrote last year that one of the difficulties of deploying Firefox and Thunderbird in the enterprise was the lack of tools Mozilla provided for deploying the software.  I'm happy to say that   Kaply's articles do a fairly good job on providing some solutions for those organizations that need to manage a large network of clients.  Kaply's original intent is to cover the following topics regarding deployment of Firefox 2 within the enterprise:

  1. Building a custom version of Firefox
  2. Adding Enterprise specific customizations to Firefox
  3. Creating a Firefox installer
  4. Setting up your own update server to deploy Firefox patches

Currently most of his articles can be found on Kaply's blog under the "enterprise" category.

Headaches from security updates for Firefox and Thunderbird

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Submitted by Bryan on

Sigh...another round of security updates coming from the folks at Mozilla. It looks like version 1.5.0.7 will be at our doorsteps soon.  Now at home, updating Firefox and Thunderbird on the Windows PC is a snap since it is all automatic. However, updating in a secure enterprise environment is a different matter.

In most enterprises, most users don't have administrative privileges and without those rights Firefox and Thunderbird in most cases will not auto install the new version. What would really help is if Mozilla would provide their software in a MSI package. Until MSI packages are provided by Mozilla, it is difficult for me to accept Firefox and Thunderbird as "enterprise software". In a Windows Server 2003 environment, MSI packages are a must for easy deployment, management, and auditing.