OpenCart: ecommerce platform

 

One of the challenges facing both students and teachers (parents too!!), is that of starting projects which might lead them into the real world. This is true especially for students who want to start selling testing and/or new material. They obviously need to communicate with the outside world. They  need to start selling immediately. In most cases students are short of money, hence they don't need to waste a lot of time in looking for solutions, neither to go for expensive solutions. They need to start and run their business online. In other words they need an ecommerce platform. What program one has to use to start selling online?

As usual we resort to free and open source programs which are available/compatible for/with many operating systems. Today we presenting opencart. The second hurdle is: how can one learn the program?

Well, help is always available online. One has to click and go to the suggested links.

Download;

Features;

Demo (how it works in real life);

Showcase (see others how they are using open cart);

Beginner tutorial;

Training;

YouTube tutorial;

MoreSearch;

A free and non-spying Search Engine

One of the tools used by many internet users is surely a search engine. Knowingly or unknowingly we are basing our answers on what others present to us. As educators we should be concerned that a search engine gives us real and true results. The fact that the most popular search engines spy on us, might give rise to the suspicion that the results given are related to our geographical position or previous search results! Others might give us results according to the amount of money paid by a particular company!!

Today we are presenting the duckduckgosearch engine. If one would like to test it, it's here. 

Project Libre

Schools are full of projects. Teachers would like to involve students in projects as these are more in line with today’s society. Students would feel excited about projects as they would show their true colours in working together as a team in order to solve challenges.

All schools run on a very tight budget. They can’t afford to buy more software programs. Besides they don’t want to be closed in a prison ie depending on one company for their products as otherwise they would kill all creativity and students can’t test and experiment as when they have free and open software!

ProjectLibre is the leading open source alternative to Microsoft Project. It has been downloaded over 2,700,000 times in over 200 countries and has won InfoWorld "Best of Open Source" award. ProjectLibre is compatible with Microsoft Project 2003, 2007 and 2010 files. You can simply open them on Linux, Mac OS or Windows. ProjectLibre key features:

• Gantt Chart

• Network Diagram

• WBS/RBS charts

• Earned Value Costing

• Resource Histograms 
• Compatibility with Microsoft Project

If you wish to download it, it’s found here. You tube tutorials are found here. Some information about the people responsible for projectlibre. 

 

GIT

Teachers and students would need to publish or put online various projects in IT department. Other schools would need to download the original version in order to use or to experiment with. A very good solution would be GIT.

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

This version control system has become incredibly popular thanks in part to the growing use of the GitHub service. Companies and projects that use it include Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, LinkedIn, Netflix, Perl, PostgreSQL, Android, Rails, QT, Gnome and Eclipse. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.

Downloads;

Documentation;

Videos;

About;

BibleTime

Some of our readers have asked about religious programs. I’m sure that all of them need the Bible. The Bible is one of the most widely read book of them all, and of all seasons. Surely the religion teacher/student can find all the necessary tools in the bible. Today we are presenting BibleTime which is a completely free Bible study program. It is built for Linux, Windows, FreeBSD and Mac OS X. BibleTime contains over 200 free Bible texts, commentaries, dictionaries and books, provided by the Crosswire Bible Society via the SWORD programming library.

If you need more information, you should go to its website.

Graph Visualization Program

Most teachers and students would like to put their understanding or studies in a graphic mode. It seems to be much easier to remember and/or  to study. We are today presenting another free and open source program for graphics - it's called graphviz.

It has important applications in networking, bio-informatics, software engineering, database and web design, machine learning, and in visual interfaces for other technical domains.

The Graphviz layout programs take descriptions of graphs in a simple text language, and make diagrams in useful formats, such as images and SVG for web pages; PDF or Postscript for inclusion in other documents; or display in an interactive graph browser.

GraphViz lets you use simple text or GXL (a variant of XML) to describe charts, and then it does the drawing work for you. See the Gallery for examples of the types of graphics it can create. Operating Systems: Windows, Linux, OS X.

If you need to download it go here. Documentation is found here. Any discussions are carried out in the forum. The Gallery will show you work which could be done using graphviz.

Libre Desktop Publishing

Most schools do publish a newspaper, magazine or leaflet. Students, Teachers and parents would like to see what’s going on in their son’s or daughter’s school. Students would be proud to publish their achievement. In a few words, school need a program which is suited for this type of printing. We are proudly presenting today – Scribus.

Since its humble beginning in the spring of 2001, Scribus has evolved into one of the premier Open Source desktop applications. Encouraged by professionals and beginners alike, the Scribus Team, with support from a large and growing number of enthusiastic contributors.

Because it’s reliable and Free. Free really means Free with an uppercase F. Free is more than just gratis (which is just a side-effect). It means that you are in control of your data and, if you wish, the code of your desktop publishing tool. That’s what smart individuals and companies prefer. Consequently it is available for windows, macintosh and linux (and other operating systems).

If you need to download it, this is the link. If one needs to tutorials in order to use it well, there several links. There are video links (1) and (2); and there are written links.

Email program: Thunderbird

Email was, is and will still be a powerful program to communicate with others. It’s  important for both students and teachers. They need it not just to send messages but for many other uses.

There are several email programs out there, so why Thunderbird?  First reasons could be  that maybe one needs it to connect with other online email accounts.

One can use a chat mini program inside it if one prefers to use an email program for chatting. One can encrypt the emails too.

One can use this program on several computers whilst receiving emails from the same email account, especially for people who are constantly on the go.

One can order the emails received according to his wishes ie to be put automatically in different folders for easy access.

Thunderbird can become much more powerful than other email programs just because one can add several addons to make it more powerful. One of them is surely the calendar where one can be aware of all coming appointments.

What makes thunderbird so particular? Well there are several reasons but one author has found at least 10 reasons.

Thunderbird is the one for the job. To download it go here. If one has any questions, this is the FAQ page.

Note taking app + more = TagSpaces

We all tend to forget. It’s part of human nature. But can we forget when we have all the technical possibilities of today? Both students and teachers have to keep in mind many things to remember. Is there a technological way to help us remember?

Yes there is! It’s open source and available for various platforms. It’s TagSpaces. One can use it just to write a simple note to remember. TagSpaces is rather unknown but powerful and feature rich app. It's not just a note taking app, but it's much more - it's a complete data management application that you can use to manage and organise the files on your computer. As the name suggests, you can tag all kind of files for quick finding. 

If you want an introduction just click here. If you want to download it, than go here. More information can be found here. If you want to use it on your mobile phone, than go here.

TagSpaces can open all kind of files be it image or PDF. It can also take quick notes. A nice GUI (graphical user interface ie you can clearly see what it does) tops all the features.