<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Campware Good Gnewsletter #1</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">2 May 2006</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Welcome to the first issue of the Campware newsletter! We hope to bring you this kind of updates on a quarterly basis to let you know what we've been up to. Please let us know how we can improve it in the future.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">To learn more about Campware, visit our website: https://www.campware.org or subscribe to our RSS feed (See related story below). </font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">In this issue:</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Demo the Campware Software Suite</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Renewed cooperation with Parsons School of Design</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Campsite Status & Roadmap</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* LiveSupport Status & Roadmap</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* LiveSupport in the Field</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Cream and Status & Roadmap</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Dream Status & Roadmap</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Stay Up to Date with the Campware RSS Feed </font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Demo the Campware Software Suite</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">================================</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">All Campware products can now be tried out on our demo servers (no downloads or installation required):</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Campsite: http://campsite-demo.campware.org/admin</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">LiveSupport: http://livesupport-demo.campware.org</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Cream: http://cream-demo.campware.org</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Dream: http://dream-demo.campware.org</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Renewed Cooperation with Parsons School of Design</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">=================================================</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Campware and Parsons School of Design are about to embark on a new round of cooperation from September 2006. The idea, which has been agreed upon in principle on 27 April in New York, will have a group of Parsons graduate students working for two semesters on usability and design of all Campware products as a part of a collaboration studio (course). The concrete program still has to be fleshed out, but get ready for major beautification and functionality enhancements for Campsite, Cream, Dream and Docmint. Head of the Design & Technology Department Colleen Macklin will be coming to Summercamp this year to further refine the plan.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Campsite Status & Roadmap</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">=========================</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Campsite, Campware's content management system for news-media sites, is currently in its 2.5 "Eli" version (released in early April).</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">For details about the new features, see:</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">https://www.campware.org/en/camp/campsite_news/654/</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">You can download the latest version (2.5.1) here:</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=66936</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Interest in Campsite is picking up.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Here's a comparison of the downloads for the past two releases:</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Version 2.3.x:</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> 1358 downloads</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> Time span: 150 days</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> = 9 downloads per day</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Version 2.4.x:</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> 974 downloads</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> Time span: 54 days</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> = 18 downloads per day</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">We hope to keep up this trend by implementing the features that our users ask for and getting the word out about Campsite.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Behind the scenes, Campsite had a major overhaul of its code in the 2.4 release, which is one of the reasons that release cycles are now happening at about 1.5 to 2 month intervals instead of 4-6 month intervals. We have one last major overhaul of the system to do: replace the template parser (the template parser is the part of the system that actually displays the web pages to the subscribers). Replacing it will fix one of the major problems behind Campsite adoption - the difficulty of installation it and finding a hosting provider that allows root access.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">The Campsite roadmap for the next six months:</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Campsite v2.6 (due to release sometime in May)</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Integrated Article Comments and Forum - the integration of Phorum code with Campsite will allow readers to comment on articles and simultaneously create new threads in the forum. This unique feature will enable news-media sites to instantaneously drive the traffic to their forums as well allow a article comments to evolve into forum threads that can outlive the original news item. </font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Increased security for the login screen to prevent scripting attacks</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* "Article Types" will get a major overhaul (Article Types define the</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> structure of your articles in Campsite). You will be able to hide</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> old article types that are no longer in use, rename and translate</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> article types, and even merge them together.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Automated bug reporting ? if there is an error in the Administration</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> interface, you will have the option to automatically send feedback</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> about it to the Campsite team. You will also be able to submit issues</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> directly through the Campsite interface.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Campsite v3.0 (preview release in July, release in August)</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* The C++ template parser will be replaced with a PHP parser. This will</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> allow Campsite to be installed on any platform that supports PHP,</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> which includes Windows.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* A new and improved way for subscribers to search for articles,</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> something more like Google.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* An HTML installer to replace the command-line installer. You will be</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> able to install Campsite through your browser.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Debian packages</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">LiveSupport Status & Roadmap</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">============================</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">The LiveSupport development continues at a brisk pace, heading toward the</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">release of the eagerly-awaited 1.1 version in June. LiveSupport 1.1 will</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">include a number of new features, most notably the ability for radio</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">stations to share program content among themselves, either online or</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">offline.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Planned features in the 1.1.0 "Freetown" release include:</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Import and export of playlists for sharing with other LiveSupport</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> stations, either on- or off-line, and in either SMIL or native</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> LiveSupport playlist formats.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Ability to save playlists to a single sound file for podcasting.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* A new file upload and download status window for viewing the network</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> traffic.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Combined local and network search, in which a station employee can</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> search their station's archive as well as the network archive.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Numerous user interface improvements, including drag and drop in the</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> LiveSupport Studio's Live Mode window.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* LiveSupport Studio will have a 'Preferences' palette that includes such</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> items as easy sound card configuration, server locations, and storage</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif"> server backup.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* A new Live CD based on Ubuntu 6.06 ?Dapper?</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">The 1.1 release will be the first release to use detailed use case</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">scenarios for developers and project managers. You can review these use</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">cases at this address:</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">https://www.campware.org/projects/livesupport/wiki/UseCases</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">LiveSupport in the Field</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">========================</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Pilot implementations of LiveSupport are underway in community radio stations in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa (home of the Kruger National Park, among other things). The pilot implementations are now in the phase where LiveSupport is installed and stations are testing it for full-time broadcasts for a limited period. Feedback will then be collected and passed on to the LiveSupport developers.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">To support these and similar implementations in environments where there is little or no connectivity, developer Sebastian Goebel has created a CD ISO file containing every package and library LiveSupport needs. In normal circumstances, users can simply add the LiveSupport repository, but the CD can help in less-connected situations.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">CAMP is planning a number of real-world implementations of LiveSupport</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">following the 1.1 release: Freetown, Sierra Leone; Yerevan, Armenia;</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Jakarta, Indonesia; Mpumalanga Province, South Africa; Belgrade,</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Serbia and Montenegro.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">The first of these is an implementation in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where LiveSupport will power a network of radio stations run by the Cornet community radio consortium. Because the technical infrastructure in Sierra Leone is far from ideal, we are building in a number of features that reflect the situation on the ground ? for example, even if the stations' Internet connections are down, they</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">should be able to share files by burning them to CD/DVD and delivering</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">them.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">The LiveSupport team also took part in MDLF's Media Forum 2005 in November, broadcasting interviews with participants in the event, which brings together MDLF clients from around the world. The broadcasts used a single PC connected to a low-power FM transmitter, with inexpensive portable FM radios distributed to nearly 200 forum participants.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Cream Status & Roadmap</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">======================</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Cream 2.0 "Sofija" was released on 11 August 2005 and included a number of useful features, including:</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Ability to send HTML newsletters to customers, as well as ability to receive email from your customers.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* A what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor for composing email.</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Greatly improved Windows compatibility and documentation</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">* Improvements to the user interface</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">The upcoming 2.1 release of Cream will feature an XML-RPC interface to</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">allow it to communicate with other applications and a port to the MySQL database. The MySQL port will enable Cream to share the same database with Campsite and thereby take over subscriber management and interaction. The 2.1 release is expected in June and will be followed by implementations among some of the clients of the Media on the Web project in the former Yugoslavia.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Dream Status & Roadmap</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">======================</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">The current version of Campware's print newspaper circulation tracker Dream is 1.0.1. The version is an update of the 1.0 release that brought localization support to the application user interface. </font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Further releases of Dream will move the application to the Cream 2.1 framework as well as improve the communication features of the application.</font>
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<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Stay Up to Date with the Campware RSS Feed</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">==========================================</font>
<br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">To keep up to date with the latest Campware news, subscribe to our RSS feed. If you are using Firefox or other advanced web browsers, you can add a live bookmark directly from your browser. If you prefer to use your favorite RSS feed reader, add the following link: https://www.campware.org/en/camp/rss</font>
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