Back end systems don’t really move at the same pace of the front end (or the pace it thinks it does) and most major developments are less flighty to instigate and adopt, there’s too much at stake and it’s invariably such a mammoth undertaking to totally replace or migrate a full business enterprise platform it’s done only when absolutely necessary, i.e when the back end dies or available system resource restricts adoption of newer enterprise functionality with a resulting impact on cross-business integration and communication.

Microsoft software is renowned for lack of backward compatibility through various revisions which combined with an escalating requirement for more powerful hardware at every incarnation leads reluctance to adopt, this is one reason many NT4 Domain models are still in operation supporting front ends running Windows 2000 (I actually liked Windows 2000, it was stable, it was cheap and it worked well, no nonsense, no fuss). So what if Microsoft have pulled the plug on support and service pack release for their older products, if you’re a struggling small company without the wherewithal to upgrade you won’t, not because you don’t want to but because you simply can’t afford to do so. Cash is hard to come by in 2009 and if you can still send and receive email, surf the net, print and process your orders then fair enough, who needs Vista and the cost of a fancy new computer to run it. Increased favour for browser based application suites is also a consideration, Firefox is free to download and is totally cross platform.

Aside from inter-communication the main problem is that of stability and integrity for your systems, the internet opens up a whole world of possibilities for business and communication however it also brings with it a flip side of increasingly intelligent cyber crime and viruses, in a busy I.T department the predominant workload can quite easily consist of SPAM filtering, system patching and virus prevention rather than enabling development, which leads me on (as usual) to the alternatives.

Here’s a simple question – you’re going to buy a computer, would you prefer one which is prone to viruses, will be out of date in a couple of years, is a mess of cables, confusing to use and pig ugly – but is cheap (and nasty)…or would you be prepared to pay a touch more for a swish computer at the pinnacle of technical design running the worlds most advanced operating system, a computer which doesn’t get viruses or require an extra firewall, is intuitive to use and has double the estimated shelf life (or more) of the other? If so you should be looking at an AppleMac solution.

Admittedly the initial cost of a full Mac based business enterprise platform could be too pricey for corporates in the present climate, the accounts department may not be too happy even if the extra cost was marginal and the factored TCO over the next five years was a fraction of their present mainstream option, a five year vision may not be a consideration with budgets running from year to year, more may still be perceived as more……however, what if a cutting edge upgrade solution was provided free of charge? You’d be interested right?

In the open source world software is free…top to bottom, and stable….you can quite easily run your business on a flavour of Linux and kiss goodbye to both software licences and viruses, a doubly whammy. Linux will also breathe new life into your existing hardware, your computer hardware is fine, it’s only that bloated operating system which is choking it. The vast majority of new uber-cool netbooks run a version of Linux which highlights the innovation process of adoption we’re starting to experience, it’s only a small step from briefcase to desktop and the internet is already there with over 80% of the worlds web servers already presenting pages to us from the now ubiquitous LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Php).

Too Much Green provide LAMP services and offer a business ready Ubuntu desktop build offering comprehensive integration with your existing Microsoft network, if you’d like to know more check out the introduction to Linux or contact us through the solutions page for further information.

Empowered by the (Mark) Shuttleworth Foundation (as it says in the ad) ‘Freedom Toasters‘ are vending machines created by Breadbin.co.za to burn & distribute a variety of free software in countries where a restrictive and sub par communications infrastructure means reliable downloads just aren’t possible (South Africa for example), just turn up with your CD’s and burn……how cool is THAT..!

“The Shuttleworth Foundation drives social and policy innovation in the fields of education and technology through policy dialogue and practical projects that stimulate fresh thinking and add measurable value. The Foundation is at its core an experiment in open philanthropy and uses new technologies and collaborative ways of working to ensure that every initiative receives the best exposure and resources to succeed”

To touch on a bit of background, throughout the 1990′s Mark Shuttleworth was a contributory developer for the Debain based version of Linux, in 2001 he formed the Shuttleworth Foundation and moved on to form Canonical in 2004, self funding the $10 million development of Ubuntu in 2005. As the second ever space tourist he’s most certainly some guy and this is a great example why choosing Ubuntu means you not only get great software for free, increased stability and reduced TCO across the board but you’re taking a step into a world created for the benefit of all by the mega good guys (it DOES exist).

If you’ve a spare 20 minutes or so you could do a lot worse than check out the Shuttleworth Foundation and Freedom Toaster websites, then you should download Ubuntu and the self build plans for a Toaster.

Imagine one in every town centre, it would certainly be an interesting alternative to PC World or an Apple store, free sotware from a vending machine? Yeah, why not (“Pick us up a pint of milk and some tea bags could you? Oh and a copy of Ubuntu Server too while you’re on…..)

As an alternative to MobileME I thought I’d evaluate a replacement cloud calendar service, preferably with desktop sync, preferably with a To Do or Task list (I’m a staunch list maker) and preferably both viewable and editable on the iPod Touch (or iPhone), in fact never mind *preferable*, I demand all three, not only that I want them for nothing (If I had to support myself as a user I’d hate me).

Although I don’t have a GMail account Google calendar had to be the starting point, as did the superb open source mail client Thunderbird for my IMAP mail as it’s no big deal integrating the Lightning calendar add-on and getting it to talk to Google, here’s how.

Before we start make sure you’re running T-Bird version 2, I was on the Beta 3 version and had to downgrade for plugin compatibility (bah..!), you lose tabbed browsing but it’s all more or less the same bar a few on screen fonts, oh and before I forget, I’m a Mac OSX user, the procedure may be similar on a PC but I wouldn’t know. So, OK then, download the Mozilla Lightning calendar plugin and install it (LINK HERE), next configure your Google calendar, you do have a Google account yes? If not it’s a no brainer to set one up, really, it’s very straightforward.

Once you have your Google account (and calendar) set up and the Lightning plugin installed you need to set up a new calendar, this is the fun part and I discovered a super quick way of doing this without faffing about with another extra plugin or having to go back into Google (which is the other, longer way). It’s not *that* bad to do but there are a couple of steps involved so I’ll start a new paragraph and treat you to some bullet points -

• Firstly, in Thunderbird open the Calendars section

• From the ‘Calendar‘ drop down menu on the top bar select ‘New Calendar‘ and (obviously) ‘Create a New Calendar‘

• Select ‘On the Network‘

• In the next box select ‘CaliDAV‘, the address you input here will be as follows – https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/YOUR GOOGLE USERNAME/events/ (*IMPORTANT* – Make sure you have the forward slash at the end or else the window won’t let you click to the next section)

• Input your Google password when asked, give the calendar a name, choose a colour, check the email address is correct and finish, your new calendar will appear in the left hand pane.

Functionality isn’t 100% as far as I can see but it’s close, and only lacking in so far is there seems to be a glitch with the alarms, no big deal for me however and I’m going to look into it, I may have overlooked something in my excitement.

Right, tasks (or ‘To Do’s) next then. The Google calendar doesn’t support such a low end requirement (beats me why) so I use the superb (and free) cloud based service ‘Remember the Milk‘, pop on over there and create an account, I’ll see you in a moment.

OK, now you have your RTM user name the next thing to do is to download and install the relevant Lightning Add-On for it, again very easy and available HERE (Register with Mozilla first to access). Once installed it’s the same routine as before (up to a point) -

• Top menu bar > New Calendar > Create New Calendar > On the Network

• This time select ‘Remember the Milk Provider‘

• Input the web address of your RTM account, the format will be as follows – http://www.rememberthemilk.com/home/YOUR USERNAME (No forward slash required this time)

• Name the new calendar (MILK?), choose a colour, check the email address and finish.

You will now have two calendars in your list, one from the Google cloud and one from the RTM cloud, one for Events and one for Tasks, cool, but you’ll be wanting to view them on the iPhone/iPod Touch too of course, no worries, this isn’t a problem and only involves downloading one app (Remember the Milk only offer a chargeable optimised iPhone app, obviously trying to make a few quid to offset their free service, fair enough)

First download the Google Mobile App, install it and fire up the Calendar, fill in your details, save it to the home screen and that’s the calendar done. Access for Remember the Milk is even easier, just open Safari and go here > http://m.rememberthemilk.com – This address takes you to the old skool generic mobile interface, it’s not iPhone-esque but it does the job and it’s really not bad, stick your user-name and password in the boxes, save the page to the home screen and that’s it.

There we have it, another free software solution for you put together from ‘what’s already out there‘ by Too Much Green, not *super* straightforward but certainly a workable solution which I know will only get better with the final release of Thunderbird 3, and of course you have to remember this is a FREE solution, Apples MobileME service will set you back $99 a year.

In todays global financial meltdown we’ve never been as aware of our cashflow, I’m certainly more on the case than I’ve ever been although do suspect moving from a regular job with a regular wage dropping in month in month out to a more *interesting* income stream may have contributed somewhat, in fact yes, most definitely.

Online Banking is the norm these days but if you’re like me you may also keep your own separate tally (I’m the sort of guy who keeps all his ATM slips for weekly input into my own records). There’s a whole shedload of personal finance packages out there with the apparent best ones obviously to pay for if you want to install them onto your computer (“Quicken” for example, admittedly free online but only US based as they request a ZIP code, plus it’s all listed in $) however me being me and this being Too Much Green I do of course have a really nice free alternative from the cloud (where else), this post will not only save you money it will help you to keep track of the cash you already have.

I use an online (cloud) service called ‘Moneytrackin‘ which is clean, simple and intuitive, however it’s other big pull for me is it’s total anonymity (depending on how you configure it). You can set yourself up as Yogi Bear if you wanted with an account named “Yogis Picnic Basket Fund”, it doesn’t matter as you’re only keeping a tally of numbers, it’s simple and effective (to coin a phrase).

You can set up as many accounts as you like in multiple currencies (Boo Boo’s college fund or Ranger Smiths Retirement), you can add tags and categories, view graphs and expenditure forecasts, set up periodic transactions, transfer between accounts and projects, set monthly limits and both export and import data in CSV or XLS format, the service also provides a public API should you wish to link in with third party applications.

I really like it, it’s free, it’s cloud based and there’s an iPhone/iPod Touch app, what more could you want.

It’s just a shame the Picnic Basket Fund isn’t doing as well as it was, ING emailed this morning with their new interest rate – a whopping 1%, jesus, this time last year I was pulling 6.5, mind you that was from an Icelandic institution, what fun I had when that all went tits up.

This was mentioned briefly in the Linux section however it’s such an incredibly cool and inspiring story I felt it most definitely warranted further expansion with a dedicated post.

I was highlighting cost savings in relation to software licensing against an open standards platform as adopted by the French ‘Gendarmarie Nationale‘ (National Police Force) over the past few years, the results are literally amazing.

The Gendarmarie accountant was becoming somewhat ‘ennuyé’ at continually having to shell out for MS Office licenses so decided to give Open Office a spin, he liked what he found and it all started there. Open Office was rolled out first followed by planned migration of the desktop OS from XP to Ubuntu. Combined inception of a web based core system meant local platform specifics at workstation level were opened up to anything with a browser and of course they chose Firefox, matched with Thunderbird e-mail (obviously) for their IMAP mail platform, ideal. To date only 5,000 of the Gendarmaries 90,000 computers have been ‘open sourced’ with an estimated 15,000 tagged for migration by the end of this year, even so since 2004 they’ve racked up savings of  around €50 MILLION from previously expansive licensing and support costs, project that onto the full 90,000 units and  it’s quite something n’est-ce pas?

Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Guimard (cool name) of the Gendarmarie recently presented a keynote speach at the annual  NOiV conference for open source standards in Utrecht, amongst an extensive breakdown of decisions for (and roadmap to) their adoption of open standards are some classic no brainers for anyone contemplating a similar strategy. Reassuring and obvious comments (aside from the quite staggering cost savings) which should prompt anyone not to look too deeply into technicalities, sometimes the most simple observations are the most poignant, in the words of Xavier himself -

“Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority.”

“Previously, one of us would be travelling all year just to install a new version of some anti virus application on the desktops in the Gendarmerie’s outposts on the islands in French Polynesia. A similar operation now is finished within two weeks and does not require travelling.”

“This year the IT budget will be reduced by 70 percent. This will not affect our IT systems.”

“Users need no training to use a web browser.”

Classic lines. In the evolving world of browser based application delivery from the cloud Linux is the cost effective King and a decision to adopt it will without a doubt reduce your IT expenditure, the bigger you are the more you’ll save, it’s a no brainer. Amidst the financial chaos of 2009 everyone is looking for ways to save money which is why examples like this are welcome, reassuring, inspiring and why I write about them.

*LINK* – For anyone fluent in French the man Xavier’s full report is viewable in PDF format HERE.

*LINK* – Story as reported by OSOR.EU HERE.