FengOffice: A decent office colllaboration Tool

FengOffice


DO you want a central repository for your firm where people can share notes, documents, tasks, deadlines, statuses, etc. on Customers, Project, Corporate policy,etc? Feng Office (formerly OpenGoo) may be an option you could consider. You could listen to their promotional video,try out the free version first, and then decide if you want their premium version.



Feng office runs off Apache and uses MySql. (You could easily have it running on Xampp covered earlier.

While Google docs may be an alternative, you may feel it is more secure to keep you data on a local server. Besides, Feng Office is customized for office collaboration. It allows configuration of email,document upload time tracking and more.

With FengOffice one creates 'Workspaces' like Customers, Projects, etc. Within the workspace, one may keep relevant information like notes, email, tasks, statuses, links, documents and reports. Accoring to the website, Feng office is the most popular collaboration tool. It is certaiinly an option for small to medium sized firms.

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Exploing Wikis: Mediawiki

Mediawiki


The word wiki is derived froma Hawaiian word for 'fast'. A wiki is a collaborative website used by individuals and organizations used for the organization and management of knowledge. A wiki can be easily edited by all those authorized to edit it. Typically wikis make it easy to edit,add new pages, make changes to existing pages or revert to previous versions of pages in the wevbsite. To enable this functionality, Wikis keep track of changes made to them.

Individuals can use wikis for note taking. Students could use a wiki as a collaborative tool. At MIT the project teams I belonged to used Wikis for knowledge,schedule and status management. Organizations use wikis to track projects, maintain manuals, to brainstorm ideas and as a repository to share and access information.

A wiki can have one or more adminstrators who may set the access privileges(read or write) to all those who use the wiki. In these series of articles we will take a look at several tools used to create wikis.
Wikipedia is probably the most well-known wiki. Theoretically it is the
encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The reality is that there are only some authorized to make changes to Wikipedia. Dedicated administrators monitor Wikipedia and act as gatekeepers to its contents. In these series of articles we will look at different tools used to create wikis.

Mediawiki
Do you want to make a wiki out of the same raw-material used to create Wikipedia? You can and you can do it for free. Mediawiki can help you set up the wiki. Earlier we took a look at XAMPP a software application suite that creates a website with the Apache webserver and has it running in minutes. Once you set up your Apache webserver with the MySql database, you can quicky install MediaWiki to it.

When you do install Mediawiki, you have a wiki that has the look and feel of Wikipedia. Lifehacker has a couple of great articles on installing and running Mediawiki. Mediawiki installed on a websever on your home network may be a great way to collaborate with family members and share useful information.

I plan to write about several tools used to build wikis. I'd like to if you have favourite wiki application and if you do what you like about it. Please answer this query in the comments below.
Related articles:
Customize MediaWiki into Your Ultimate Collaborative Web Site
Geek to Live: Set up your personal Wikipedia
Run Your Personal Wikipedia from a USB Stick

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XAMPP: A Running website in minutes

XAMPP
Have you ever considered setting up a website from home? Or have you dreamt of running your blog, you own photo gallery, or the family wiki or any other web based application on your own server or laptop? The good news is that you can, even if you have no real experience in such 'chores'. You can have a bare-bones webserver complete with a built in database and waiting to house your website, blog, photo gallery, music center, collaboration tool or custom tool in minutes. Yes, in minutes with a couple of clicks of your mouse.

If you are a web developer how often have you cursed under your breath trying to configure Apache or worse trying to get Apache working with perk, PHP and MySQL? Well, the folks at ApacheFriends.org have a solution for you that can rid you of those woes. They have created XAMPP to make this sort of installation a breeze.

Just download and install Xampp, carefully following their instructions and most of your work is done. You also have a nice little dashboard to start and stop your website or your database. The folks at PortableApps.com have a 'portable' version of XAMPP that can be run from a thumb drive. The great thing about this version is that you can take it with you and have it run from any computer. This version comes complete with a file server and an optional Tomcat install to host your Java web applications.

So why would you need a web server? Here are a few reasons:

• Install  Mediawiki, the software tool used to build Wikipedia. Use it as a collaborative wiki or to build your own encyclopedia.
• Install gallery2 and run your own Flickr-like photogallery on your own computer.
• Organize your music with Jinzora.
• Install an office collaborative platform, Feng Office.
• Install a professional looking website with almost no prior experience using Drupal or Joomla.
• Host your own blog using Wordpress. 

If you go through the exercise of installing one of the above mentioned applications, you'll realize that installing the others is almost an identical process.

Developers could simply use XAMPP as a sandbox to test out their own custom applications. Whatever your motivation may be, XAMPP gives you a webserver in minutes.

Here is Lifehacker's great how-to on how to install XAMPP portable with Mediawiki on a thumb drive.

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