Since Zend Studio costs money, as a newbie to my new company, I didn't see a lot of Zend Studio's installed.  In fact, I saw few IDE's.  Most of the edits were done on a Linux server running Vim. This seemed a little archaic to me.  I wanted to set up my beloved work environment, back to open-source.

Naturally, I downloaded Eclipse PDT based on the Helios release, on which Zend Studio is built.  I had used Eclipse before Zend Studio, and so this was pretty close to home.  All the menus and functionality, except for some of the Zend Studio features, are the same.

In the process of configuring Eclipse, I, of course, started messing with preferences.  Anyone who has used Eclipse understands what a nightmare the Eclipse preferences are.  It takes you quite a bit of time to initially configure preferences.  So you don't have to reconfigure then again, you export your preferences and import them to the new Eclipse environments.

I did an import of my Zend Studio preferences and then started changing some setting, and I had a hiccup.  The hiccup was Eclipse balked at some setting I set, and blew away my entire workspace.  I'm guessing Zend Studio preferences have problems with importing to Eclipse.  I had to reload everything including re-configuring my preferences.  What a nightmare.

When things like this happen, I get pissed, and go looking for new tools.  After a preliminary search showed that Netbeans had good reviews, I decided to give it a try.  I had tried Netbeans before, and found it wanting for PHP development, but that was four years ago.  It deserved another look.

NetBeans Initial Start Up Screen

Netbeans is a Java application and requires Java to run, which is probably already loaded on your computer.  The Netbeans license is owned by Oracle from its acquisition of Sun, but it is a free and open source IDE.

Since PHP is now an object-oriented language, like Java, NetBeans has incorporated PHP into its editor.  You have a choice to install NetBeans with just the PHP bundle, which is what I did, since I do not do a lot of Java work.

The Netbeans 7.1 download and install was seamless. The installer downloads 46.6 Mb, which grows to 152.5 Mb on install.  By the way, my Eclipse Helios folder checks in at 390 Mb. The installation took about 5 minutes and NetBeans came up quickly and easily.

NetBeans with various Windows open

If you do a feature by feature analysis of Eclipse and Netbeans, you'll find that both IDE's pretty much have the same features and functionality.  You'll find several good articles on the web about this, so I won't go into individual features here.

NetBeans main editor window with other windows closed

If your doing Java development, Netbeans should be your IDE of choice, since it was built with Java development in mind.  What surprised me was how far Netbeans has come as a PHP development environment.  If your a PHP Developer, NetBeans has integrated support for Git, Debugging, PHPUnit testing, PHPDoc, Smarty templates, Symfony Framework, and the Zend framework. Need I say more.

NetBeans PHP preference screen

If both IDE's pretty much have the same functionality, what is the difference between the two?  Well, it comes down to the feel of the IDE as your using them.

I thought about good analogies and similes for the two editors.   Here's my take.  Eclipse is like an old car that you keep fixing up, it's serviceable and runs good, but every once in a while, you get irritated, because something doesn't work right.  Netbeans seems like a new BMW sports car.  If Eclipse is a house built with a series of additions, Netbeans is a house built from the ground up by an architect.  Eclipse feels bloated.  Netbeans feels integrated, not like your bringing up a separate application every time you go to a new area of the IDE.

One major weakness in Eclipse is setting preferences on how you want the editor to work.  Each plugin added to Eclipse has its own preferences, every section of Eclipse has it own preferences.  What that means is setting preferences is a nightmare.  Not only that, if you set a preference in one area, it might not be set in another, and may collide with another preference, sometime throwing errors, or shutting down the editor.  I've had all of this happen.

In contrast, NetBeans preferences are a pleasure.  Colors and fonts are configured in one tab, PHP in another tab.  You can set all colors and fonts for all languages at once, not like Eclipse.

NetBeans Fonts and Colors Preference Screen

In all fairness to Eclipse, I'm comparing this to Eclipse Helios PDT.  I downloaded the Eclipse Indigo 64bit and added the PDT plugin, and I find this version quicker,  and much more stable.  I would recommend Eclipse PDT users uninstall Helios, download Indigo, and add PDT.  I think you'll like it  better, if you stay with Eclipse.

In conclusion, because of problems I've had configuring colors with Eclipse, even using the Eclipse Color Theme Plugin I wrote about in another post, I find myself using NetBeans to write my code.

I highly recommend you download and try NetBeans.  You can have both IDE's running at the same time without conflicts.  If you don't like NetBeans, you can stay with Eclipse, but in the process of using both, I think you'll find yourself gradually moving to NetBeans as your IDE of choice.

The NetBeans Icon

DarkRoom

Just to be clear, we're talking text editors here, not word processors with all their extra formatting codes embedded in the text.

The reason there are so many text editors is everyone thinks they can build a better mousetrap with features that no other editor has. Things are getting so specialized that it's normal to have several text editors installed on your computer that you use for different things. Besides the standard Window's text editors of Wordpad and Notepad, which comes with the Microsoft operating system, that I rarely see anybody use, I count five other text editors currently on my system.

Text editors are easy to try out, and when you come across one that you think has something you like, you download it, and try it. Some last a couple of hours before you remove them, others stick around for months.  What are the features that I like and look for in a text editor?

Free, I'm obviously not going to pay for an editor without trying it out, so everyone offers a trial. Since most of my text editors, don't last, I rarely stay with an editor that I will have to pay to use. Thus I moved on from some fairly good editors, like Ultra Edit and Textpad.

Tabs, I'm always loading multiple files at once. I like tabs that I can jump from one open file to another.

Extreme, and easy configurability, I want to change the editors to the way I want to work, and I want to adjust my colors and font. If I can't configure a feature I've grown to use, or it's difficult to set options, I tend to move on fairly quickly to another editor. Some editors have themes, or pre-set colors. I find these mostly, not what I want, and prefer to adjust individual colors to my liking.

Color syntax highlighting, I like editors that I can adjust the color syntax of different languages.

Fast opening, we're talking text editors here, not Microsoft Word. I want instant open, and I usually use a hot key to do it. See my article on AutoHotKey to see how I do that.

When I need an editor, I need it when I'm in the middle of something else, for example in the middle of editing code in my IDE editor, I want to save a snippet of code, to maybe come back to it later. I pop open my text editor, and paste the code.

Quick, when I'm typing I want the feel that the words are going on the editor screen as fast as I type them.  With some editors there seems to be a slight delay that's very annoying.

Self-contained, I don't want my text editor to affect any other settings. I got rid of PSPad because it changed my Windows settings. It probably was a bug that long ago was corrected, but I've never gone back. I instead just moved on.

Not buggy, and well behaved, if I start finding bugs or quirks in the editor, I usually don't have any patience, and move on. This includes problems with interacting with the Window's desktop.  I want a good citizen.

Explorer window, I like not having to open the "file load" window and leave the editor to load a new file. This is a functionality mostly found in IDE's, not text editors, but some text editors have this. It is not an absolute need, if I have tabs.

I can give you reasons for trying editors, and reasons I've moved on to other editors almost like a history. Let me recall some of the uniqueness I've found in these editors that separates them from the pack.

Intype. I loaded Intype, because they claimed to be close to the premier Mac editor, TextMate. I never have used a Mac, and so I was curious. What made this editor unique was bundles, and a bundle editor, essentially snippets of code from various programming languages that came with the editor that you could just use a hot key to put in your editor text. This editor also had some nice ways to move around your text in the editor. What made me leave this editor is theme colors only, a promise that the editor would be completed shortly that was nothing but abandonment of the editor by the developers.  I got tired of the lack of progress.

Komodo Edit. The promise of easy integration with the Komodo IDE, but I felt this was more like an advertisement to buy their IDE. Komodo edit had an explorer window on the side, but ultimately it proved a little quirky to use and I moved on.

HTML Kit. I used this editor for almost a year. I liked their icons that had pre-configured HTML and CSS code. What got me away from this was they moved on to charging for the editor if you wanted plugins, and its over complicated options settings. Every time I loaded it up on a new computer, it took me awhile to re-learn settings, and set it up the way I wanted, too complicated, and in the end tiring to use. Too many screen options, a couple of quirks, and you had to buy it to stay current.

Bluefish. Was advertised as a cross platform text editor, which I tried and discarded quickly, because of their poor Window's implementation. This was more a Linux editor, than a Window's editor.

Subime

Sublime. Sublime is a fairly new editor with a gimick of having where you are in a long document in a small side window on the right. I found the styling which is theme based limited and did not stay long with the editor.

Gedit. I choose gedit, because it was cross-platform, so I figured I would just use one editor, gedit, no matter what environment, Windows, or Linux, in which I happen to be working. Gedit is the standard editor, like wordpad or notepad, with the Gnome desktop. It's a good editor, but I didn't stay with it on Windows for long. I'm not sure why. When I'm running on a Gnome desktop, its the editor I use.

Which brings me to what editors am I using now, and why.

yWriter5

YWriter5.  YWriter is different. This is the editor you want if you want to write a book with an outline. It separates your work into chapters and scenes. It also integrates characters, items, scene notes, and locations with your main content.  Once you get the hang of it, its easy to use.  You can quickly navigate around your chapters.  Its quick, although the styling could be better.  It's written by an author, who uses it for his books.  It's a special editor.  You may want to check it out if your a would-be author or student writing a thesis.

DarkRoom. I use this to write blog articles. It's simple, and most important takes over the entire screen to eliminate all distractions, with the exception of this article which I'm writing on Notepad++.

Notepad++

Notepad++. This is my go to editor. I've been using it for quite awhile and it replaced UltraEdit in my arsenal. I found the Ultra editor rich with features but over complicated. Notepad++ is just the right mix, loaded with features, but easily configured, including the styles. It has tabs. I like that I can close the editor, re-open it and all the files I was working with are still open and there for use. Most important, its fast. I use a hot key to open it and its lightening quick. I highly recommend this editor, and it is my current favorite.

Having gone through these editors, I sure would want to know if I missed any good editors in my travels through the editors of the world. I'm always looking for the shangri-la of editors, if any of you have favorite editors, I'm sure I, and my readers are all ears.

It's actually a fun game, and as you get better at it, you find, you amaze your friends with your keyboard virtuosity. They think your really good with a computer, and don't know how you got that web site to pop up with the press of a key. It's magic. It makes you feel good, and more in command of your computer.

To amaze your friends, I found a little unknown program that is indispensable, AutoHotkey for Windows, and yes it works on Windows7.

In a nutshell, the way you use the program is to put it in your start up directory so it will load when you start your computer. The program loads a script, that you edit, more on this in a bit, that you can assign any key combination on your keyboard. If you press that key combination, wahlah, the programs starts, or a long password or user name is added to a field, or a browser is started, or a particular web page is loaded. It's magic.

Actually, it's sort of fun. How do we get started and set everything up? Go to the AutoHotkey web site and download the program. Go to the Download page, and click the first "Installer for AutoHotKey _L". This will download an executable, that you can click on when the program is downloaded, and it will install it on your system.

A green H icon will appear on your desktop. You're all set. To run the program, double click the icon, and nothing will happen. What's going on. Well, you haven't told the program what hot keys you want to set up yet, nor have you pressed any keys. You should see an H icon in your lower right, task bar. Right click on the task bar icon and a menu will appear. The choice you want is "Edit This Script." A text file will appear in Notepad for you to edit to put in your desired keys strokes.

AutoHotkey Right Click Menu

Here's a quick tutorial. I assign my keys in a consistent manner. If I want to start a particular web location, I use the Windows Logo key, Win, followed by a letter. To go to Amazon books, for example, I would type Win-A. That's just two keys. What happens is my default browser opens, and the Amazon books page loads. Cool.

To set this up in my scrip start a new line and type:

#a::Run www.amazon.com/books-used-books-textbooks/b?ie=UTF8&node=283155

What that says is when I hit the Win key, a "#" in the script, followed by a lower case "a", load this page. Notice the "::Run", that's what makes AutoHotkey go, the browser starts, and loads the page you want, after you type Win-a. We can do this with any web site you visit. I have one for the Washington Post, that I use to read the morning paper, like so:

#w::Run www.washingtonpost.com

Easy.

Suppose I want to launch a program on my computer. I always assign programs to the Ctrl-Alt key combination with the letter I want to use to start the program. For example, Ctrl-Alt-O, I use to start Opera. In the AutoHotkey script the Ctrl is a "^", and the Alt is a "!". To start the Opera browser, I would set my script up like this:

^!o::
IfWinExist Untitled - opera
	WinActivate
else
	Run C:\Program Files\opera\opera.exe
return

Ok, I fooled you a bit. What this hunk of code says, if Opera is already running don't reload it.

Copy this code for any program you want to start. Change the first line, the "^!o" to what ever letter combination you want, ^!f, for Firefox, for example. Change the name of the program on the second line. Change where to start your program after the "Run", and your done. By the way, a quick way to find out where the .exe file is to start a program, is to right click on the icon for that program on your desktop, and you will see it in the pop up shortcut window, copy and paste that long file name into the AutoHotkey script, after the "Run" in your script. Don't forget the "::" on the first line that tells AutoHotkey to go.

Do the same set up for any program. Yes, it takes a little bit of work to enter a program in your script, but, now, when I type Ctrl-Alt-O Opera starts. A very good browser, you might want to try, by the way.

And finally something that I really like, it will fill in a long string of text for you with a couple of letters. Set this up in a separate line in your script like so:

::fr::fred.lastname@comcast.com

Simple. When I type "fr" followed by the space bar the following is substituted, "fred.lastname@comcast.com." You can use this with letter endings, usernames, passwords, and a long block of text. This alone is a huge time saver. How often do you have to type your email address into web browser forms followed by a password. You could assign both to hot keys and save yourself a lot of time typing the long form. This alone should make AutoHotkey a must have.

That's about it. Edit your script to your heart's delight. Save the script, and real important, "Reload This Script" in lower task bar right click menu to see it work immediately.

Oh, if you ever forget what keys you assigned to what, just reopen your scritp and take a look.

AutoHotkey can do a lot more, including your mouse click, that you can read about in the documentation on their web site, but this will get you started amazing your friends. Great program.

Adobe Digital Editions has gotten flaky for me, and even if you can get it installed properly, I can no longer recommend it as the way to get your ePubs into your Nook.  There's a better, equally free, program available, that I would like to recommend. That program is Calibre.

Calibre is a unbelievable eReader conversion program.  It can run on Windows, Mac, or a Linux distro.  Calibre has an easy Windows .msi installer to make the installation painless.

Calibre's Main Screen

As a matter of fact, everything about Calibre is easy compared to the now defunct, in my mind, Adobe Digital Editions.

What can Calibre do for your eReading experience?  Calibre can translate a large number of formats to any format that will go on an eReader, and I do mean any one.  It is an unbelievably rich, bridge program.  That means you can purchase the Kindle edition from Amazon, and convert the Kindle book to the Nook format and put it on your Nook.  If that doesn't excite you, it will convert pdf book's to your Nook or Kindle's format.

Ebook conversion alone would make Calibre a great program, but it does so much more. It syncs with your device to transfer your Calibre library books to your eReader.  It also will remove books from your eReader, something that is not that easy to do on the Nook.

One gotcha on the Nook, that you should be aware of up front, is it puts your books in the "My Documents" section of the Nook, not the "My B&N Library" section.  You'll have to look in the "My Documents" folder for your books, no biggee.

It manages your library on your computer, and on your eReader.  You can view your library on your computer and on your eReader from inside the program.  It allows you to put tags on your books to help you classify them into groups.

If you double click on a book in your library an eReader pops up that you can use to read your book on your computer.  Speaking of reading, you can download a huge number of magazines and newspapers and then put them on your eReader for reading.

For me the "piece de resistance," for Calibre, is its "Get Books" feature.  This is a built-in price comparison program that will go out on the web to multiple sites and find your eBook along with the price on that site.  Click on the site and you go right to the buy page for that book.  What a time saver.  I'd been going to Amazon for prices and reviews, and then to B&N for the Nook price, one less pain to my eReading experience.

Get Books

And finally, Calibre has a built-in web server which allows you to access your library books from any browser anywhere in the world.

There is a huge number of devices supported, including mobile devices.  Folks, this is liberation.  Buy any eBook from any source, and put it on your eReader, no matter what eReader you have.  Am I gushing?

I would go through the installation and a demo of the program, but Calibre already has that covered.  There's a video on the home page of their web site for you to look at, and a demo version of the program on the site.

You mean you haven't downloaded Calibre yet?  What are you waiting for, get this program, and say good-bye to Adobe Digital Editions.

As of the end of April, let's look at browser popularity, by percent of users using a browser:

Firefox:    42.9%
Chrome:    25.6%
Internet Explorer: 24.3%
Safari: 4.1%
Opera: 2.6%

And what was it six months ago?

Firefox:    44.1%
Internet Explorer: 29.7%
Chrome:    19.2%
Safari: 3.9%
Opera: 2.2%

It looks like Chrome is coming on strong at the expense at Internet Explorer and Firefox.  Chrome is a good browser with good development tools, which is why the Firefox is seeing some small erosion in its role as the browser that developers most want to use.  The new Firefox 4 may stem the Firefox erosion, and I believe, we'll continue to see the Internet Explorer drop in popularity.  I'm wondering if Chrome will pass Firefox down the road.

Let's take a closer look at Interent Explorer, of the 24.3% of users that use Internet Explorer, which Internet Explorer version do they use?
IE 9:      2.1%
IE 8:    14.8%
IE 7:     4.9%
IE 6:    2.5%

And six months ago?
IE 9:      0.4%
IE 8:    17.3%
IE 7:     7.2%
IE 6:    4.8%

IE6 and IE 7 are gradually going the way of old people and retiring, thank goodness, they were both awful, non-web standard, browsers that have caused developers all sorts of problems and headaches, good riddance.  Before commenting further, let's take a look at which Windows operating system people are using.

Windows7: 35.9%
Vista:     7.6%
Win 2003:     0.9%
Win XP:    40.9%

And six months ago?
Windows7: 26.8%
Vista:     9.9%
Win 2003:     1.1%
Win XP:    48.9%
Win2000:   0.3%

Windows 7 is getting good reviews and is slowly replacing XP.  People are upgrading, but at a slow pace, probably the upgrade to Windows 7 is coming from people buying new computers.  XP was, and still is, a very good operating system, that Microsoft is having a tough time replacing.  One of the ploys their using is to prevent users from downloading the Internet Explorer 9 browser unless they have Windows 7.  Thus IE 9 is locked into Windows 7 growth rate, which accounts for it's slower adoption.

What about other operating systems?
Windows: 85.3%
Mac: 8.3%
Linux: 5.1%

And six months before:
Windows: 87%
Mac: 7.6%
Linux: 4.7%

The slow, gradual erosion of Microsoft's dominance is nice to see, but at 85%, I think, Microsoft is fairly safe for a little while.  Users are gradually recognizing that there are other operating systems that are just as good as Windows out there.  The iPad is helping Apple, and maybe, I'm being a little too enthusiastic here, but I do like the gradual rise and acceptance of Linux.

How about search engines?  What are people using to find their content on the Internet?  This comes compliments of SEO Consultants Directory.
Google: 71.59%
Yahoo: 14.28%
Bing: 9.87%
Ask: 2.28%

It looks like SEO Consultants changed their methodology of calculating about five months ago, so we'll use five months:
Google: 72.52%
Yahoo: 14.99%
Bing: 8.81%
Ask: 2.52%

Microsoft is actively trying to move Windows 7 users to Bing by installing it with Windows 7, and claiming Windows 7 is optimized for Bing and IE 9.  What a laugh.  I often wonder if they believe their own bull &**#.

Despite this Microsoft push, their impact is not moving users off of Google that quickly.  Maybe as Windows 7 picks up the XP crowd, we'll see more of a move toward Bing, but Microsoft is so far off, I don't think Bing will come close to taking over the search engine world, especially after it has come to life that Bing uses Google for its search results.

What are the conclusions for the future?  Even though Microsoft is trying to push Bing and IE 9 with Windows 7,  Chrome is, probably, on its way to being the number one browser.   The war here is between Chrome and Firefox.   Google has started pushing Chrome on its search site to counteract Microsoft trying to lock Window 7 users to Bing and IE 9.  The stats show we are in the middle of a browser war with no quarter being given by any side.

At first, the Unity desktop is clunky compared to Gnome's menu set up of Applications, Places, and System.  Having used the Gnome menu system, not having that, initially in Unity, made me feel lost.  How do I find that little used application that you need just when you need it?  With the Gnome menu system, you know exactly where to look for it, for example, Inkscape, for me, with the mouse, was always at Applications>Graphics>Inkscape, quick, easy.  If I'm using GnomeDo, it's Super-space-in.

And here's where things start getting interesting.  If you switched from the Gnome desktop with GnomeDo, you'll find that GnomeDo is still on Unity, but only at start-up.  If you hit Super-space in Unity, you get the Launcher.  You can still use GnomeDo, but you have to change the launch key to another key in GnomeDo preferences at start-up.  Ctrl-space, will do the trick.  GnomeDo now works in Unity.

What about the Unity Desktop navigation?  Unity took over the Super key for starting the Dash and Launcher.  If you press Super key and hold it down, you get the Launcher with numbered icons, hit a number, and the application starts.  If you press the super key once quickly, you get the Dash, press it again, the Dash goes away.  Press the Super key for the Dash, and start typing "ink," hit enter, you start Inkscape.

Applications can be added, or removed, from the Launcher from the right mouse click menu.  You can rearrange icons in the Launcher by dragging them to the desktop and then dragging them back to where you want them.

The Dash

If you bring up the Dash, the screen that takes up half the desktop, and start typing in the search window, applications come up divided into various, but not consistent, rows.  The most used applications are in the top row.  But rows change as you click around, and are not always laid out the same, which is confusing.

If you want to customize Unity, you'll want to install, via the Ubuntu Software Center, CompizConfig, the Compiz Configurations Settings Manager, which can be brought up either through the Dash or in Systems Settings.  After installation, the size of the Launcher icons can be adjusted by going to System Settings from the upper right icon, then CompizConfig Setting Manager under Personal, then clicking on Ubuntu Unity Plugin, and then clicking on the Experimental tab.  But that's only one setting and it seems like settings are all over the place, instead of in one place.

When your in the new Firefox 4, Ubuntu's standard browser, and you go to hit the back key, but go a little too far to the edge with your mouse, the Launcher will appear over top of the back button, which is frustrating.  You have to back away from the edge, wait for the Launcher to go away, and then carefully go to the back button.

The Dash doesn't need to take over that much screen real estate, there should be a way to adjust the Dash size.  My monitor is rather far a way from where I sit in my recliner, so I use large font sizes for better visibility.  When I first saw the Dash, some icons were off screen to the right.  I had to reduce the system font size to get the entire Dash in the window.

And now to the Super key, too much functionality in one key.  If I hold it down steady, the Dash appears, sometimes after an annoying delay, if I don't want the Dash, I wanted to tap the super key and get the Launcher instead, you have to wait for the Dash to disappear to try again.  Of course, you can use Alt-F1 for the Launcher, and by the way Alt-F2 gives you a Command Window, but in general, the Super key is flaky, sometimes it works properly and sometimes, you either key it wrong, or somehow the expected outcome is different and always annoying.

By design, the top menu bar is not there, including in applications.  I can think of one application, the Gimp, where this is downright onerous.  There should be a way to allow the top menu to stay on screen.  There probably is, but I haven't found it yet.

Then there's the difficulty, and lack of configurability of the interface.  I can change some items, but not others.  Canonical needs to have an easier way to configure Unity, with more configuration options, all in one location.

Given I can customize the Launcher, I can see where this would be an easier interface for the mouse user, but for the keyboard user, usually the person doing development, and users that don't like using the mouse, the interface is still too clunky for my liking.  By clunky, I mean the above mentioned quirks.

For the person, and especially heavy keyboard users, who are use to Ubuntu Gnome, who have followed Ubuntu through many releases, to ask these users to stay with the Unity Desktop, to stay with it and stick with Unity, this is a frustrating learning curve.  With GnomeDo installed in Unity with a new start key, it would seem folks would just go ahead and keep using GnomeDo as their Launcher, as they always have.  And if that's the case, why not just stay with Gnome.  Canonical has its work cut out for it, by next release date, if it plans not to give users the ability to switch back to Gnome.

OpenOffice.org was originally created by a German company,  StarDivision, which was then purchased by Sun in August 1999.  Sun, in an effort for the most part, to put a dent in Microsoft's Office marketshare, gave the source code to the world in July, 2000, and continued to develop it, and lead, in creating a robust office suite.  It was released as OpenOffice.org in April, 2002.  Since then several major corporatations, like Google and IBM, have partnered with the OpenOffice.org Community Council to distribute and develop OpenOffice.

And my, has OpenOffice grown over the years.  It has a word processor, spreadsheet, slide presentation program, a draw graphics program, and a database that matches up well with all the applications in Microsoft Office.  It writes and reads Microsoft Office files, is available on Windows, Mac, OS2, and Linux, and supports over 110 languages to give you an idea of its popularity.

However, suddenly, all is not right in the house of OpenOffice.  The catalyst for this unsettling was caused by Oracle's purchase of Sun in April, 2009.

The purchase of Sun by Oracle has caused a number of issues.  Sun previously controlled the licenses for MySQL, Java, and OpenOffice. Oracle wanted MySQL, because of its large users base, and as an entry into their proprietary and expensive database products.  Although Oracle, as part of the Sun agreement, must maintain MySQL as open source until 2015, Oracle has already made changes in the MySQL  functionality available for free, and its licensing, see my article on The Decline of MySQL.

For a number of years, Oracle has despertly wanted an office application to compete with Microsoft, so another key reason for the purchase of Sun was to acquire OpenOffice. Naturally, what worried the OpenOffice.org Community Council was Oracle might take OpenOffice private, and start charging for it.  Just as with MYSQL, a fork, or non-proprietary copy, was made of OpenOffice before Oracle's purchase, in case this might happen, though in the hopes that it would not.

The new fork was called LibreOffice, and the community that will develop and maintain LibreOffice named itself the Document Foundation. As a test of Oracle's intentions, Oracle was invited to become a charter member, donate the OpenOffice brand, and support the Document Foundation to promote LibreOffice as a true open source application.  In essence, Oracle was asked to give up any claims to licensing the software as a product.

Oracle rejected the proposal, and demanded, with a deadline, the resignation of all OpenOffice.org Community Council members, who were members of the new Document Foundation, claiming it was a conflict of interest, thus setting the two camps at odds with one another, instead of joined in a common interest.

With that fell swoop, OpenOffice went proprietary, in my mind, and in the minds of many members of the community.
The only conflict of interest that I see is that Oracle wants to turn OpenOffice into a money making product, which is their right.  However, who in the community of developers wants to spend time writing and improving code for Oracle. In essence OpenOffice is now proprietary.

Like a true fork, we now have two products, OpenOffice and LibreOffice, which started out the same product, but  like the CodeIgniter and Kohana fork, have already started to diverge.

The new 3.3 release of LibreOffice has some features not in OpenOffice: SVG image edit and import, Lotus Word Pro, and MS Works import, an improved WordPerfect import, a dialog box for title pages, document navigator, presenter view in Impress, and color-coded document icons.

What prompted this article is the community has already started to move toward LibreOffice.   OpenOffice will be replaced by LibreOffice in the next Ubuntu desktop release due next month.   Bye, bye, OpenOffice, hello, LibreOffice.

The PDF format, pioneered by Adobe in 1993, has been the defacto standard for document publication and exchange. When Google decided to digitize books, they naturally used the PDF format.  This was before the benefits of the ePub format working with hand-held eReaders came into their own. Google is now starting to also generate ePub formatted material, but by far, the vast majority of their free collection is done in the PDF format, which has been a pain to read.

The PDF format has difficulty in paging, font changing, and font sizing in eReaders, and on computers. It's clunky. That still doesn't change that there are tons of PDF documents, more than any other format available for free on the web.

How do we read PDF formatted documents?  Well, we normally double-click and bring up the Adobe reader, which is dog slow to load, or the Foxit reader which is a little quicker.

The trouble with these PDF readers is their boring, and a pain to use.  They're not fluid and flexible.  You zoom in and out sort of spastically, and you have to scroll back and forth if you increase the zoom size to much.

I ran across something different and unique in PDF readers, called MartView, and I had to write about it.

MartView is strange, free, and at the same time beautiful.  Its interface is different from any other program you've ever used.  It uses a lot of color, unlike the standard PDF readers. It flies against convention and has its own proprietary format, "mart", which oddly you don't mind, because you can convert any PDF to mart easily.

What's so special about MartView? One look at their web site will have you drooling.  The program reads PDF documents like you read a book.  It's reading functionality is unique and colorful.  Colors render beautifully. Magazines look like real magazines in full color. You can flip pages, like using a regular book, you can scroll read horizontally or vertically.  You can jump zoom with the mouse or adjust your zoom with your mouse scroll wheel. If you don't want to scroll read, you can click a button along the side once, and go to the next page.

Flipping Pages with MartView

If your book has an index you can pop that open any time, put a page in the page number  box, click, and you are there.  You can bring up a thumbnail of all the pages, by hitting the "T" key, and click on a page and jump to it, or grab a slider and zoom through the book to your spot.

Thumbnail images of your document pages

Another thing that makes MartView different is you can convert PDF's to the "mart" format. MartView can still read the PDF format, if you don't want to convert, but converting makes everything run smoother, and allows you to upload your document to their repository for others to download.

The library of books on your PC for reading

MartView maintains a huge repository of free Mart documents on their web site.  To get a free document, you have to run MartView, but then a huge library is available for you to download.  Click on the document, and it will be downloaded to the Mart library on your PC. When I first loaded MartView, I found 10 complete computer technical books in their library, downloaded them, and now can read them at my leisure.

Once you convert a PDF document to a mart document, you can upload it to their repository to share with everyone. You can also use MartView as a publishing platform and publish your novel to the MartView repository.

What are MartView's drawbacks?  Well, at the moment, it only works on Windows, a Mac version is forthcoming.  You can move around the book so fast, that occassionally the program gets hung trying to keep up with you, and you'll have to restart the program.  I've been spoiled by my eReader, MartView does not remember where you left off reading.  However, you can zoom to your last place pretty fast with the programs navigation.  And finally, it takes a little bit of time to get use to the program navigation.  Once you do, you'll find the controls intuitive and natural.

Reading a magazine in MartView with the upper menu bar shown

If you would like to change from occasionally reading PDF documents, because they're a pain in the other PDF readers, to a unique, natural, colorful way to read any PDF, I recommend you download MartView, play with it for awhile to get used to their unique menu system, load in one of your PDF's, and enjoy a unique PDF reading experience.  I don't think I'll ever go back to the old readers again.

Much to my surprise, my wife bought me a Barnes and Nobles Nook for a birthday present last week. She knew I had been looking at them, and I had told her I wanted to wait, so I had mixed feelings with the present. One, I thought, what a wonderful wife I had, you know, love and all that good stuff, and on the other hand, I thought, what if I wanted an Amazon Kindle instead.

My wife related that she had read the reviews, and I could take it back. It was nice she could buy it immediately at the local Barnes and Noble store. Last minute presents both from the receiver and giver sometimes benefit from a "bird in hand."

With that, I've spent the weekend exploring my new Nook. You know, I read the comparison reviews between the Kindle and Nook.

First the Kindle and Nook are the two biggest sellers on the market for eReaders, and if I were you, I would limit my choice to one of these two. There are many eReaders out there that range in price from around $100 to $250 depending on features. I will limit this to the Kindle and Nook.

In reading the reviews, the Kindle and Nook come in pretty much even in evaluations. The Kindle navigates with keys, the Nook with a touch screen. Both eReaders, by clicking buttons on the side of the display, flip book pages back and forth quickly enough to make reading pleasurable, and the Nook also lets you swipe your finger across the touch screen to turn the pages.

The Kindle

The Nook actually has two screens, the eReader screen, which is not touch, and a lower smaller touch screen for menus. Because of this the Kindle is a little quicker and responsive, because the keys are always there, and the touch screen in the Nook takes a second to come up. The Kindle has a physical keyboard, the Nook a keyboard in the touch screen. As far as size, the Kindle overall is 8"x5.3" and the Nook is 7.7" x 4.9". However, the eReader screen size for both devices is the same.

The Nook

To me, all this navigation stuff is minor. When reading in the Nook, the touchscreen goes dark eliminating the menu distraction, and that, to me, is worth the slight delay in bringing up the menus. When your reading an eBook, you don't need the menus, only when switching books or getting new books.

Which brings me to E Ink, here's your choice, get a black and white E Ink to read with, or buy an iPad and go with the LCD color, back lit screen. I'm a color guy, if the price were the same for the iPad, which it's not; it is a couple of hundred dollar more, you think I'd go for the color LCD. That was what I was waiting for in the next generation eReader, but now that I have the Nook, I think I'll stay with the E Ink. Here's why. You can't see the LCD back lit display in the sun, you can the E Ink display. That alone makes a difference. I want to take my eReader with 10 or 20 books loaded on vacation, sit in the sun, on the beach, and read. I can't do that with an iPad. Think of E Ink like reading a regular book, you need some light, and you can even use a book light with E Ink if you want. You can read a book in the sun, and you can read E Ink in the sun.

Now to the difference between the Kindle and Nook. The Kindle uses its own proprietary digital format. You have to buy your books from Amazon, and that's it. The Nook supports the Barnes and Noble proprietary format, and ePub books. That's huge, huh?

Let's look at cost. At current writing, the big downer for the Nook, and what made me almost take it back, was that Amazon eBooks are, at this writing, up to 50% cheaper that Barnes and Noble eBooks, for the same book. You can do that comparison yourself. You'll be shocked at B&N's pricing, then I discovered ePub.

ePub is an open source format. It is similar to Adobe's Pdf format, in that is is universally accepted. The Nook can read ePub, the Kindle can not. Both these devices will read a Pdf.

ePub allows you to re-size and change the font in the eReader, so the eBook adjusts to the eReader screen, nice, neatly, and readable. Pdf's do not size well, and usually comes into the eReader very small and difficult to read. They don't page well in the eReader. Pdf's are not a good format for eReaders. EPub books are the way to go for eReaders, and the way of the future. Many Internet book provides offer books in the ePub format with some sites being dedicated to just ePub books.

Needless to say, any book at Barnes and Nobles, or Amazon, for that matter, is available for purchase from another seller on the Internet in the ePub format, bye, bye, Barnes and Noble. They are losing a lot of sales, at least, from me, because of their decision to price their eBooks high. Not to worry, the Nook works fine with all ePub books, and you can get a good range of pricing on any particular book on the market, maybe not from Amazon though .

One other thing, there are a lot of free books out there that you can get in ePub format that no longer have a copyright. Most books printed before 1923 fit this category. So all your old classics from authors like: Dickens, Austin, and Shakespeare are available for free for your eReader.

I will admit it took me a couple of hours to figure all this out, you have to dig for the information, as Barnes and Nobles wants to try to keep you locked to their site, I'll talk about this in another post.

The one last doubt in my mind, was I thought I'd like having a book in my hand, and I wouldn't like an eReader. I was wrong. I like reading with the eReader. I might miss turning the page of a book, that feel of the paper, but I don't like either dog earring pages, or constantly moving my book marker back and forth every time I stop and start reading, nor the book falling and my losing my place. That goes away with an eReader. When you stop reading you simply put the eReader down, it goes off automatically, when you return, you press a button on the eReader, and your right back where you left off. I must admit that makes up for not having the actual book, and in just using the eReader this weekend to read the start of a book, I find I like the eReader better. I seem to move through a book faster with the eReader.

I'm happy. My wife made the right choice, and having started reading a book on the Nook, I like the device. The Nook is the way to go, because of it's ability to download and read ePub books, which the Kindle can not. That feature alone, for me, gives the nod to the Nook.

The older MySQL Administrator and the accompanying MySQL Query Browser were tools that were much beloved, that you kept going back to, and using over and over again,  like a nice fitting driving gloves, comfortable, useful, and empowering.  Since I started working with MySQL, I can't remember not having them on my desktop, ready at a moments notice.

Because of that, I have looked upon MySQL Workbench with much suspicion and doubt. And indeed before this release, I would say the MySQL Workbench could not replace the previous Administrator and Query Browser. Now, I'm not too sure. With this release that has changed. Workbench includes the integration of MySQL Administrator, and MySQL Query Browser into an integrated environment, with much potential for growth through plug-ins, much like Eclipse, although don't get me started on the integration of Eclipse plug-ins, another topic.

Workbench is like the French three-pronged fleur-de-lis, three separate tool areas open from a central core, Workbench Central.

Workbench Central

Workbench makes heavy use of "breadcrumb" like menus without tabs. Menus run horizontally across different windows in the Workbench, and clicking on the name brings you to the next screen. It took a second to get use to, but once I did, I liked the layout and the way workbench integrated.

You go back to Workbench Central by clicking "Home" in the upper left. If you click on any of your db connections, or menus across the top,  you enter into one of the three program areas: SQL Development with Query Browser, Data Modeling, and Server Administrator. It is obvious that each of these three sections is its own program, as they each take awhile to open at first.

Before MySQL Workbench folks were using DBDesigner to model their databases and do their EER diagrams. The Data Modeling section probably needs a little clean up and streamlining, as it opens rather "clunkily," but once open works well.

Workbench Data Modeling

The administrator works well, but needs a little configuring as it checks your connections, and let's you know if your missing an ini file or config setting.     You can configure multiple database connections to multiple servers, and reach each database with a click of the mouse.  The Administrator includes a series of graphs along the top of the window, which look nice, but I'm not sure are that useful.   The Administrator is laid out horizontally in keeping with the overall layout template of the Workbench, but I think I like the original Administrators vertical menus a little better.

Workbench Administrator

You can tell the Development Team has put some time into the Query Browser, and it shows.  You'll find that the Query Browser is an improvement over the previous independent version. A red error x pops up as you type a query if you have the syntax wrong, this is immediate, instead of waiting until after you execute the query, very nice.  Query's form a horizontal s menu along the top of the window as you make them, yes, the older version had this, but this is more automatic. Errors are reported when you execute the query, the same as the old version, with an obtuse error number.  My only gripe, which has nothing to do with the current Workbench, as the same was true of the previous version, is I wish the error messages were a tad more verbose.

Workbench Query Browser

MySQL Workbench is coming into its own and is starting to show the promise in its developer's eyes.  The Developers Tools Team should be applauded for their dedication and persistence to get it right, and the outcome of this dedication is that MySQL Workbench is getting better and better.   I would look for the official release to follow closely after this RC 3 release.  I recommend you not wait for the official release,  go ahead, and get this release now, and start using it.  There is much to discover as you integrate Workbench into your databases, and begin working with it.  Enjoy.