7 months after version 2.0, the new PubwichFork 2.1 comes with improved support for responsive mobile layouts and updated social media service classes.

After saving original Pubwich from death, PubwichFork 2.0 was downloaded appr. 350 times, installs from the repository not included, it attracted attention in some weblogs for web developers, PubwichFork powered sites were shown on barcamps and featured in a professional journal.

Now PubwichFork 2.1 comes with some minor but nice improvements.

Download and installation

That’s easy! Just download the PubwichFork 2.1 archive (we provide Zip and Tar), unpack it in your webspace and follow the config instructions from the manual.

Improvements made in PubwichFork 2.1

• Fixed Bugs: correct some strict PHP errors that were shown in some cases
• Added service class for Identi.ca
• Updated service classes: Github, Twitter (1.1 API), Delicious
• Mobile styles included: the default theme now includes responsive mobile styles for smartphones and tablets

Check the changelog for a detailed list of changes.

Links

• Project website
• Demo with more than 19 data sources
• Repository, documentation and issue tracker at Github
• All project updates (subscribeable via feed reader, email, …)
• Screenshots at Flickr

About PubwichFork

PubwichFork aggregates your latest Social Web and Social Media content across multiple service websites, e.g. your Twitter stream or Flickr photos. Then it renders one single website featuring all your content. PubwichFork is written in PHP and licensed Open-Source under a GPL.

PubwichFork was featured in WebResourcesDepot, La Ferme du Web, PHPspot and Hot Scripts Blog. (only to ping that sites about this realease :)

In der aktuellen Ausgabe 15 des Screenguide Magazins wird auch ein Screenshot eines Social Media Newsroom gezeigt, welcher mit PubwichFork realisiert wurde. Leider das freie Softwareprojekt für tot erklärt, was natürlich Quatsch ist. Im Gegensatz zu proprietärer Software kann Software mit freien Lizenzen auch überleben, wenn der Entwickler nicht mehr aktiv ist.

Michael Zinkl von EQS beschreibt im Artikel “Website als Newsroom” Möglichkeiten, um (Firmen-) Aktivitäten innerhalb von Sozialen Netzwerken auch wieder auf der eigenen Webseite zu präsentieren und dadurch auch mehr Möglichkeiten bei der Präsentation dieser Inhalte zu haben. Der im Artikel beschriebene Ansatz beinhaltet das Sammeln der einzelnen Aktivitäten über die von den verschiedenen Social Media Services zur Verfügung gestellten Schnittstellen wie REST-APIs und RSS-Feeds. Auch der Newsroom von Troisdorf, welcher mit PubwichFork realisiert ist, wird als Beispiel im Artikel mit einem Screenshot vorgestellt.

Als softwareseitige Unterstützung zum Aufbau eines eigenen Newsrooms wird unter anderem der Social Media Newsroom der EQS Group vorgestellt. Auch Pubwich wird kurz erwähnt, leider nur mit folgender Aussage, die falsch ist:

Pubwich ist eine Open-Source-Alternative, die kostenlos zur Verfügung steht, jedoch seit 2010 nicht mehr weiterentwickelt wird.

Es ist zwar richtig, dass sich der ursprüngliche Autor und Gründer des Pubwich-Projekts seit 2010 aus der aktiven Entwicklung zurückgezogen hat, deswegen ist Pubwich aber noch lange nicht tot. Seit Mai 2011 gibt es einen Fork von Pubwich, welcher weiterhin aktiv entwickelt wird. PubwichFork steht kurz vor der Veröffentlichung von Version 2.1. Dies hätte man auch leicht über Google oder im Github-Profil von Pubwich herausfinden.

Ich möchte hier niemanden unterstellen, dass die FLOSS-Alternative im Bereich Social-Newsroom-Software für tot erklärt wird, um das eigene proprietäre Produkt besser promoten zu können. Ich gehe eher davon aus, dass leider einfach immer noch nicht die Vorteile von quelloffener Software unter freien Lizenzen verstanden wurden.

Im Gegensatz zu proprietärer Software kann freie Software auch weiterentwickelt werden, wenn der Hersteller oder Hauptautor den Support für die Software eintellt. Proprietäre Software hingegen wäre an dieser Stelle wirklich tot, FreeHand ist dafür ein sehr populäres Beispiel. Nutzer dieser Software haben ein Problem, wenn sie auf die Software angewiesen sind. Im Bereich freier Software ist es dagegen möglich, dass die Software von anderen Parteien übernommen und weiterentwickelt ist, unabhängig wie gut oder schlecht das Projekt geschrieben und dokumentiert ist. Die Möglichkeit ist vorhanden — und wurde im Falle von Pubwich auch genutzt.

Wer mithelfen möchte, PubwichFork weiterhin aktiv und lebendig bleibt, ist herzlich eingeladen:

• PubwichFork Webseite
• PubwichFork Repository
• PubwichFork Updates

Ansgar Hein von anatom5 und dem Screenguide-Magazin stellt PubwichFork im Rahmen der Session “Newsroom statt Webseite” beim BrainCamp Cologne 2012 vor.

Er geht dabei auf Vorzüge und Einfachheit der Applikation ein, um auf einfache und schnelle Weise verschiedene Social-Media-Kanäle auf einer Seite zu bündeln. Als Beispiel zeigt er den Newsroom von Troisdorf, welcher mit PubwichFork realisiert wurde.

Mehr Eindrücke vom BrainCamp 2012 in Köln gibt es bei Denkwerk und Netzmilieu, als Nachschlag gibt es die Dokumentation aller Sessions bei BrainCamp Cologne.

Ich war nicht in Köln, freue mich aber, dass “mein” PubwichFork vorgestellt wurde. Wer Interesse an mehr Infos direkt vom Entwickler hat, meldet sich einfach :)

Update: bei PubwichFork ist einiges in der Pipeline, offizieller Twitter-JSON-Support, Mobile-Support im Standardtemplate, etc … und ein offizielles PubwichFork-Demo ist inzwischen auch online.

(Source: facebook.com)

Last two weeks were full of great links and resources, here you are:

Typography

• Linux Libertine is a community driven Open Fonts project, delivering alternative font families and styles to fonts like Times New Roman, Linux Libertine and its tools are released under GPL/OFL licenses. The fonts cover the codepages of Western Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, IPA and many more. Furthermore, typographical features such as ligatures, small capitals, different number styles, scientific symbols, etc. are implemented in this font. Linux Libertine thus contains more than 2000 characters.

Semantic Web & Data

• The ESWC discusses the latest scientific results and technology innovations around semantic technologies, some of the ESWC 2012 video lectures and keynotes are available, around the topics Social Web, Linked Data, Machine Learning, Semantic Web in Use, Natural Language Processing and Information Retrieval.
• The Data Hub is a community-run catalogue of useful sets of data on the Internet. You can collect links here to data from around the web for yourself and others to use, or search for data that others have collected. Depending on the type of data (and its conditions of use), the Data Hub may also be able to store a copy of the data or host it in a database, and provide some basic visualisation tools.

Social Web

• Ryan Barret built some open-sourced bridges of Salmon, ActivityStreams, PortableContacts and Webfinger for Facebook, Twitter and Google+ that don’t implement it themselves.

Web Development

• Jam is a package manager for JavaScript. It manages library dependencies and it supports automatically optimized custom builds of popular libraries.
• Yeoman is a robust and opinionated client-side stack, comprised of tools and frameworks to support you to create web applications. It helps in scaffolding, compiling CoffeeScript & Compass, linting your scripts, image optimization, build processing, JS package management and unit testing. It isn’t released currently but you can enter your email to get notified if it gets available. Paul Irish spoke about it on Google’s IO 2012 conference.
• On YouTube you can find all videos of the talks done at the EuroPython 2012 conference in Italy.
• Motorola published Montage, a framework for building modern HTML5 web apps by providing modular components, real-time two-way data binding, CommonJS dependency management, and more.

Other Tools

• If you need to convert files from one markup format into another, pandoc is your swiss-army knife. It can convert documents in markdown, reStructuredText, textile, HTML, DocBook, or LaTeX to HTML formats, Word processor formats (docx, odt), Epub, DocBook, TeX formats, PDF and Lightweight markup formats.
• The goal of pdf.js is to create a general-purpose, web standards-based platform for parsing and rendering Portable Document Format (PDF) without native code assistance. It is community-driven and supported by Mozilla Labs.
• Some of you read about Svbtle. There is a unofficial Wordpress theme to create the Svbtle feeling on administration/writing and viewing your blog. The theme misses the responsiveness of the original Svbtle layout but as the theme is open source, you can add it and push it back to the project owner.
• Adobe published Brackets, an open source code editor for the web, written in JavaScript, HTML and CSS.

(Source: delicious.com)

As every week I collect here the best resources I have bookmarked during the last week.

Javascript, Responsive Webdesign & CSS to SASS

• Tim Kadlec writes in Media Query & Asset Downloading Results about his research results how images are downloaded when media queries are involved. This may important if you use media queries to provide responsive websites and web application, it simply doesn’t make any sense to fetch images that won’t be show in some devices.
• Addy Osmani collected the sources of his talk Scalable JavaScript Design Patterns, a brief overview, his slides, examples and audience questions. It’s about writing Javascript, decoupled, module managed, task secure and framework agnostic. An interesting read and important for all frontend developers.
• JSHint is a tool that helps you to write better Javascript, it detects errors and potential problems in your code and it supports to enforce coding conventions. JSHint is a fork of JSLint, the tool written and maintained by Douglas Crockford. It has integrations in various plattforms and systems.
• Less and SASS/SCSS are well know CSS pre-processors. Least is a tool that helps you to transform old-fashioned CSS files into Less/SASS syntax. Unfortunately the tool is “only” a webservice, not a local script that could be inserted in your direct working process (e.g. merging CSS changes back to your CSS).

Places and Distributed Networks

• openMarkers describes itself as a free and community-based Google Place for travelers. You can add/search accommodations, pubs, restaurant and more, rated on prices and by other travelers. The best ten results will show up on a map. It’s great that “all places are licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 and the code are licensed under GPL3.” It integrates with Diaspora, too.
• I found a list of Distributed Social Network projects on Wikipedia, so maybe you check them out to get your freedom back, it is always good to be vendor independent :) I will evaluate this list later in a special post. Check back regularly, or maybe subscribe to my RSS feed.

Web Design & Accessibility Guidelines

• HTML5 Bookmarks is an one pager containing daily news and a bulk of bookmarks to HTML5, CSS3, Javascript and application (mobile) frameworks. A great resource and overview about important and recent projects in that field of work.
• The UK Government Digital Services created a set of 10 design principles how to create accessible digital services, extended by examples for each principle.

Diagrams & Videos

• The Interactive blockdiag shell takes your blockdiag description and creates an SVG diagram and a permalink to your blockdiag for you. Simple, fast, effective.
• With AvxSynth we have a new linux port of AviSynth again, what is great. Year ago, when I used MS Windows, I took AviSynth to create and cut video via frame server and scripting engine, there simply was no need for a fancy buggy GUI. I really missed it after I’ve changed to Linux, and the AviSynth 2 project (what was claiming to support Linux) disappeared. Go, AvxSynth, Go!

Social Semantic Web & Linked Data RWW

• My Profile is the brand new public service hub of the MyProfile Project that intends to provide a solution for managing the numerous accounts and profiles that users have on the Internet. Its main purpose is to provide a unified user account, or simply ‘user profile’, which as opposed to current ‘silo’ profiles, would really be under the user’s control, on a device controlled by the user.
• The Linked Data Basic Profile 1.0 specification is a new submission request to the W3C, defining a set of best practices and a simple approach for a read-write Linked Data architecture, based on HTTP access to web resources that describe their state using RDF. Mainly it specifies use cases and requirements for resources and their containers, describing processes how to handle HTTP GET, POST, PUT; DELETE and PATCH requests on them. The goal is to provide some new rules as well as clarifications and extensions to achieve greater interoperability between Linked Data implementations.

PS: I’m on Geekli.st now! Do you need an invite link?

I’ve joined Geekli.st last week, just for fun. “Geekli.st is an achievement-based social portfolio builder where all bad-ass code monkeys around the globe can communicate, brag, build their street cred and get found. It was time for a united front, exclusively for developers, to build tangible credibility in the workplace.” I have an invite link to the beta program for you, just in case. Join (and maybe follow me) at http://geekli.st/haschek

(Source: delicious.com)

If you want to blog but you haven’t an relevant topic, or you simply don’t have enough time to write something what is worthwhile to read, then just try some Geblubber. Important: do not forget essential keywords, e.g. Social Media or Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Hint: Not meant seriously :)

Sometimes you only need a new idea what to write about. This is one alteration of the gnomes’ business plan:

1. Start a weblog.
2. Get some inspiration what to blog about and do it honestly and regularly.
3. Profit! Maybe not, but probably fun, fresh input and some new experiences.

Not each idea from the list is great but some of them are helpfully if you are searching for new topics. Here are my favorites (and todos):

1. Disagree with a popular opinion.
2. Compile a link roundup.
3. Review a book, a product or a service.
4. Report on a conference.
5. Talk about your blunders.
6. Create a regular feature.
7. Write a series.
8. Keyword posts. Done.
9. Resource list.
10. Round up the best of your blog.

It is surely work, maybe a lot of work. But as more readers you got the more motivation you have. So, one important question is: How to keep blogging passionately and being motivated in the first phase when you don’t have interested readers? Any ideas?

So, if you’re still reading, wondering how to make a lot of money simply by blogging nonsense keyword posts about trending topics like Social Media and cheap Facebook Timeline profit: just try the right keywords! (closing a circle)

• Free Your Android!: While a lot of people try to get control of the most stuff on their desktops and notebooks, we tend to give away lot of control and freedom when it comes to smartphones. This campaign can help you to regain control of your Android device and your data. It collects information about running an Android system as free as possible and tries to coordinate the efforts in this area.
• PubwichFork 2.0: I’m a little proud that I didn’t miss my own deadline for the final 2.0 release of PubwichFork. It is a PHP application that aggregates your Social Web and Social Media content, to publish it on one single page. You could use it to create a personal profile page or professional nameplate site.
• Black/White vintage logos: A Flickr set of digitized company logos published by The Trade Mark Title Company, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1910-1913. These volumes are in the public domain, and they are great as source for inspiration.
• Booktype: Booktype is a free, open source platform that produces beautiful, engaging books formatted for print, Amazon, iBooks and almost any ereader within minutes. Create books on your own or with others via an easy-to-use web interface. Build a community around your content with social tools and use the reach of mobile, tablet and ebook technology to engage new audiences. You can use Booktype as SaaS, or you download the application to install it on your own server.

I promised that I release the final PubwichFork 2.0 version while CLT2012 (Chemnitzer Linuxtage) and even if the CLT2012 is almost finished (the last sessions just ended): PubwichFork 2.0 is here!

What is PubwichFork?

PubwichFork is a PHP web application that aggregates your latest Social Web & Social Media content across multiple service websites (e.g. your Twitter stream or Flickr photos), and it renders one single website featuring all your content. You can create your own themes, add new services (or just use the built-in services) and it is possible to add filters on data streams. I already wrote about PubwichFork earlier here.

How to install?

That’s easy! Just download the latest PubwichFork archive (we provide Zip and Tar), unpack it in your webspace and follow the config instructions from the manual.

Upcoming development

As PubwichFork 2.0 is currently an original Pubwich + bugfixes + stable feed import + data stream filters, there is room for improvements and enhancements planned for upcoming versions:

Pubwich 2.5 (planned for end 2012)

• Activity stream service: merging various social media service sources to one merged stream, useable additionally to the single service boxes.
• Google+: adding a service class aggregating your Google+ stream
• Improve theming: adding regions to template, improve grouping of service boxes
• Change license to GPL2+: currently Pubwich and PubwichFork are licensed under GPL2, I hope that I can convince other developers to provide their code under GPL2+ which would bring some advantages

Pubwich 3.0 (planned for 2013)

• New project structure: new folder organisation, separate core components, libraries and user extensions.
• Improved configuration process
• Enabling multi sites in PubwichFork

Links & Resources

• Project website
• Repository, documentation and issue tracker at Github

Pingback and Trackback are linkback methods, both they are very important to the blogger community and to the development and history of the social web as well. With the “Trackback ‘em All” script you can use them even with your Tumblr blog.

Usually ping- and trackback are used to inform other blog authors (or more general: owners of other web resources) that their posts are linked (or their content is referenced in some way) in other posts written by other people. Pingbacks working a little bit different than trackbacks, but in the end the result is an exchanged linkback.

This way it is possible that discussions about one topic can be spread over various independent weblogs, readers can see the links and backlinks, using them to dig deeper into the subject. Second, by exchanging linkbacks blogs can support each other in search engine optimizations (unfortunately this is the reason for spam linkbacks, too). Together, all these links, linkbacks and references are responsible for the Blogosphere. Yes, this is the thing you have heard so much about before Twitter, Facebook and other social media stuff. Unfortunately Tumblr do not support ping- or trackbacks, neither sending nor receiving. Until now (better: until 2007 :) ).

Trackback ‘em All — feeds to linksbacks

“Trackback ‘em All” is not a new Metallica album but a very handy Python script written by Scott Yang. It simply scans added RSS feeds for new entries, extracts the links, checks linked resources for provided linkback methods and if possible it sends pingbacks/trackbacks. Of course this requires a full RSS stream to work properly.

To use it with your Tumblr blog, download the latest version of tball.py, save it to your disc, mark it executable and use your command line:

$ cd placewheretballislocated/
$ ./tball.py -A http://example.tumblr.com/rss
$ ./tball.py

The tball.py script is released as FLOSS under a GPL2+ license, check Scotts tball resources for more info:

• “Trackback ‘em All” project website including manual
• Fork tball.py on Github