JumpBox Official Blog

Hello,

We are pleased to introduce the newest addition to JumpBox Open, the JumpBox for Magento eCommerce.

Magento is an open source eCommerce application that allows merchants to build, create, and manage online storefronts. Magento’s customizable solution features tools for site management, marketing promotions, search engine optimization, and catalog management. Winner of ‘08 awards from Infoworld magazine and SourceForge.net, Magento’s open source eCommerce platform is the most flexible eCommerce solution available today. Free from vendor lock in merchants can upgrade features quickly, and add specific functionality as needed. Magento helps you do eCommerce, the JumpBox for Magento helps you do it quickly and easily. With enhanced features like backup and restore, the JumpBox for Magento is the perfect eCommerce solution.

Build, create, and manage online storefronts - Magento is available to JumpBox Open subscribers immediately.

Magento features tools for site management, marketing
promotions, search engine optimization, catalog management, and more. Winner of ‘Best of 2008′ awards from Infoworld magazine and SourceForge.net, Magento is the most highly respected open source ecommerce solution available today.

Here are 3 cool sites from around the world built with Magento:

• Based in London, UKKO is a new luxury menswear brand for fashion conscious golfers both on and off the course. Fore!

• Famed table radio producer Tivoli Audio expands online in the Czech Republic with Magento.

• From the USA, NerdyShirts.com sells unique tee shirts for nerds. Our favorite? Mii Love.

Magento gives you ecommerce. The JumpBox for Magento helps you get started quickly and easily. Take the JumpBox for Magento for a spin and see for yourself!

Setting JumpBoxes Free

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve made a number of changes to the JumpBox web site and in the process made a nice selection of JumpBoxes available as FREE downloads. Currently there are 12 JumpBoxes available on the FREE Downloads page and we’ll be adding more as time goes by. The list of free JumpBoxes currently includes: Joomla 1.5, Movable Type, Moin Moin, TikiWiki, SugarCRM 4.5 and SilverStripe along with several more. Please check out the FREE downloads page for the current list.

Online Trials for Subscriber Only JumpBoxes

Another cool thing we’ve just introduced is a new online trial mechanism that allows anyone to try out the subscriber only JumpBoxes with nothing more than a web browser. Just look for the orange “Try this JumpBox” buttons on the site and you can get a one hour, full function trial of any JumpBox without having to download a thing. We think this feature is pretty cool, but it’s still somewhat experimental so if you try it out, please let us know what you think about it.

Why subscribers love JumpBox Open

If you haven’t subscribed to JumpBox Open, here’s what you’re missing:

• Fast, secure, agile solutions to your problems. JumpBox Open provides award winning applications that deploy in minutes. On top of that, Backup and Restore functionality keeps your data secure and gives you the flexibility to deploy to almost any environment.
• An investment that constantly gains value. JumpBox Open subscribers received an additional 15 applications this year at no added cost. Applications for Human Resource Management, Blogging, Project Management, and more.
• More for less - With growing
  budget constraints, reduced staffing, and less time available, the
  value of JumpBox Open has never been more clear. “Get more done for less.” Less time, less frustration, less cost. Subscribers automatically receive every new application and updated releases over their subscription.

Now is a great time to subscribe to JumpBox Open

Updated JumpBoxes

• JumpBox for Bugzilla 1.1.3 (More Info)

  Bugzilla is a web-based bug tracking system that allow individual or groups of developers to keep track of outstanding bugs in their product. Bugzilla competes with many commercial bug tracking systems and has many features its expensive counterparts lack.

  Updated to Bugzilla 3.0.6 which fixes some security issues. (Bugzilla release notes)

• JumpBox for LAMP Deployment 1.1.3 (More Info)

  The JumpBox for LAMP Deployment is a great utility system that allows you to easily deploy applications where a tailored JumpBox may not exist. It contains MySQL plus PHP, Perl, Ruby and Python along with PHPMyAdmin to help you manage the database. Using the JumpBox for LAMP Deployment you can easily deploy many popular PHP applications as well as CGI based Perl, Ruby and Python applications.

  Minor update. (Release notes)

• JumpBox for Moodle 1.1.5 (More Info)

  Moodle is a course management system that allows educators to create online learning communities for their students. It has an open design with a large developer community creating plugins, themes and modules. It’s used all over the world in environments large and small and is one of the better supported Open Source course management systems. The JumpBox for Moodle is a great way to get up to speed with Moodle and requires a minimal investment in time and money. It’s a production ready installation of Moodle and includes the JumpBox management tools and backup system to help make operations as simple as possible. If you’ve ever wanted to give Moodle a try, the JumpBox is the easiest way to do it.

  Fixed an issue with how Unicode was being handled in the database. (Release notes)

• JumpBox for PunBB 1.1.5 (More Info)

  PunBB is a lightweight discussion forum that provides the essential features to host a thriving community without the tedious database, web server and application setup. It may have fewer bells and whistles than other forum applications but it has an intuitive user interface and renders XHTML-compliant output.

  Updated to PunBB 1.3 which adds a number of enhancements. This JumpBox is also now a FREE download. (PunBB release notes)

If you are a JumpBox and Vista user you may have ran into a problem unzipping the JumpBox.  You might have seen an error that pops up a dialog that says:

There is already a file with the same name as the folder name you specified. Specify a different name.

Well, a few weeks ago we sorted this out and most of our JumpBoxes should now unzip just fine on Vista.  There are a few, however, that may still have this problem.  As it turns out, the problem isn’t with our JumpBox zip files, it is actually a bug in Vista.  Check out Microsoft Knowledge Base Article #952249 for details.

If you run into this, you can either install the hotfix provided by Microsoft or you can download a third party zip utility like the Open Source tool 7-zip.

Have Fun!

Austin

“Setting up a blog has never been easier.”

Over a month ago, JumpBox launched the “Powered by JumpBox” service, which helps Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) grow sales by removing the friction associated with deploying server software.

Our Powered by JumpBox service transforms an ISV’s application into a JumpBox. (If you read this blog you probably know already that a JumpBox is a pre-built, pre-configured software application for virtual computing.) Short story: A JumpBox application deploys in less than three minutes, ease of deployment facilitates in-house trials by an ISV’s potential customer and motivates purchase.

We launched Powered by JumpBox by developing Virtual Movable Type for leading blogging software and services company Six Apart.  Using the Powered by JumpBox service, Six Apart allows potential customers of Movable Type to experience the power of Movable Type and realize its value in minutes.  Powered by JumpBox, Virtual Movable Type gave Six Apart a powerful sales tool that enables them to close sales quickly.

Though we knew this service would be a valuable tool for ISV’s, we’re still tickled, and darn proud of reviews like this.

Last weekend, JumpBox helped sponsor the first ever Startup Weekend Phoenix event.

Valley sponsors come together

Roughly 100 people gathered to pitch ideas, form teams and then get busy developing products; all within 48 hours. In addition to a cash sponsorship, JumpBox made its entire JumpBox Open catalog of virtual applications available to each of the Startup Weekend product teams.  When you need Instant Infrastructure to develop your project quickly you know who to call.

Here’s how it’s done, Startup Weekend style

Friday Oct 17th

6-7pm                Meet and greet. Roughly 100 people gathered at Gangplank, a fantastic co-working location, and the launch site for Startup Weekend. People of diverse backgrounds, and attendees from various professions shook hands, many for the first time. Software developers, lawyers, graphic artists, rock climbers, Mac fanatics, Microsoft employees, and more. Web developers, photographers, videographers, and Marketing, public relations, and business development professionals came to take part in this first wild west product development shootout.

Sean Tierney of JumpBox-Pitching SaaS backup aka Reserve Chute (He's standing up, top right waaay back in the white shirt) Yes, if I had a better pic...

7-8pm                Ten to twenty people pitched their ideas for new products and services. If chosen, these products would be developed into production ready products over the next two days. Ideas ranged from healthcare applications, web apps for stay at home parents, and apps to match human personalities to dogs, to SaaS backup services, alternate reality games, and new twitter apps.

8-9pm                Startup Weekend attendees vote for the ideas they’d like to help turn into projects. Teams were formed, a line was drawn. No turning back.

Ideas chosen to move to development:

• Doggie Slobber - Matches you with compatible dogs
• Twitter Rater - Tells you if a keyword is viewed positively or negatively
• Data / IP Escrow - Holds your code ’til you get paid
• GPS Inventory - Realtime tracking of trucks and what they have in them
• SaaS Backup - A way to pull all your data from hosted services (Flickr, Basecamp)
• Alt Reality Game - You play it… it plays back
• Diet Management tool

9-10pm              Groups begin discussing and developing product development strategies. Some stay late into the night.

Doggie Slobber Team at work

Francine Haradaway, Den Mother to the Phoenix startup community. You should answer her "Yes, Ma'am," when addressed.

Saturday Oct 18th

8:30-9:30am       Sponsored breakfast. Mmmn.
9:30-9:40am       JumpBox for Trac/Subversion launched. All groups are given the JumpBox’s IP address and have immediate access to check in code and track bugs.

Sean Tierney of JumpBox-resting after 2 JumpBox launches

9:40-9:50am       JumpBox for Lamp deployed. MySQL plus PHP, Perl, Ruby and Python along with PHPMyAdmin, give devs a crucial head start in development time.

Lamp = Headstart for app devs

Trac= Flawless proj mgmt

10am-10pm        Code.   Develop marketing plans, website graphics, software and web site architectures.  Also, intense sensitivity to daylight.

Easey peasy right? No, but get it done, or be an..

Sunday Oct 19th

9am-6pm            More design, more teamwork, faster!

Alt Reality Game Team at work

7-8pm                 Presentations

A few of the projects that emerged:

Twitrratr: Twitter opinion tracking app. Search keywords and discover the tone of what’s being said about it on Twitter. Distinguish negative from positive tweets surrounding a brand, product, person or topic.

Reserve Chute (formerly, SaaS Backup): An open source web application that fetches data from online applications and stores a local copy. Back that SaaS up; Reserve Chute currently supports Basecamp, Gmail, Delicious, Bloglines, Google Contacts & Calendar and Yahoo Contacts & Calendar.

My Shelter Helper: Lets shelters and other animal organizations create a presence on the internet for no cost.

JumpBox is a proud sponsor of Startup Weekend.

We pulled it off in Phoenix, see it on Flickr, read it on Twitter, Watch videos on YouTube

Then do it yourself

Thanks and congrats to all who came together.

Update: Startup weekend Phoenix featured on Techcrunch!

Naysayers hate, Sean Tierney throws the smackdown!

If you’re in education and you’re in the Bay Area, come by the Innovative Learning Conference at the San Jose Convetion Center. Steve and I will be there until Thursday at booth #400.  This is the inaugural year of the ILC which is essentially a revival of the CUE event. It’s a 3-day conference centered around furthering the use of technology in education. We’re proud to be an exhibitor and to be helping make OSS applications more accessible to schools and teachers. Come by and say hello if you’re attending the conference. And mention this blog post and we’ll give you one of our brand new t-shirts.

Sean and Steve staffing booth 400 at the ILC

Hi, I’m Austin Godber.  You may remember me from such JumpBox films as “The Amazing JumpBox Forums”, “JumpBox Support Squad”, and everyone’s favorite “JumpBox Platform Release Notes”.

I will be out in the world teaching a class this Friday, October 10th, at the Ohio Linux Fest University.  The classes are put on by the League of Professional System Administrators or LOPSA.  My topic of choice, of course virtualization related, is “An Introduction to Virtualization on Linux using KVM“:

This short course will provide an introduction to virtualization as well as discussion of the following topics:
* Overview of the state of virtualization on Linux.
* DIY virtualization options for Linux, concentrating on KVM.
* Innovations based on virtualization to keep your mind wandering through the rest of OLF.
This course is intended for those new to virtualization while some of the innovation material may be interesting to the not-so-new.

I will be around at the main event on Saturday the 11th as well.  Any one in the Columbus, Ohio area should come down and check it out.  The schedule is packed with all sorts of Linux goodness.

Hope to see you there!

Austin

We love to read stories like this one where a DIY-minded person was able to capitalize on the JumpBox technology and put it to work in a new and inventive way.  In this particular case a teacher divided his class of 75 students into small groups and gave each its own Joomla instance for a hands-on learning experience.  

You can read Josh’s explanation of how he used Xen Open Source and the JumpBox for Joomla to conduct a virtualized learning lab and teach his students how to use this popular CMS.  Way to go Josh! You’ll be getting a t-shirt from us shortly for sharing a great story. 

Do you have a story of your own of how you’ve used a JumpBox in a new or creative way to solve a problem?

We’ve been quite busy over the last few weeks and today everything finally comes together so I have a bunch of things to share.

JumpBox for Openfire

First there is a new addition to JumpBox Open, the JumpBox for OpenFire. OpenFire is a real-time collaboration server (better known as instant messaging) based around the open Jabber XMPP protocol. It provides private and public instant messaging and group chat with support for any client that supports Jabber. It’s a really great system that we believe provides a nice addition to JumpBox Open. This release is available to all JumpBox Open subscribers and existing subscribers should have already received a download link and license keys. If you are a JumpBox Open subscriber and did not receive your key please contact us.

Powered by JumpBox

Next we’re very happy to be announcing a new service from JumpBox targeted at Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). This service is called “Powered by JumpBox” and allows ISVs to work with us on the creation of JumpBoxes for commercial applications. This allows us to share the expertise and quick to deploy experience we’ve developed for our Open Source based JumpBoxes with other developers and to bring greatly simplified deployment to their applications. This also brings more JumpBoxes into the world and while the applications won’t be part of JumpBox Open they will retain the common set of features that make up a JumpBox. This new service will also drive improvements to the JumpBox Platform that will find their way back into JumpBox Open.

Six Apart is the first customer for Powered by JumpBox

We’re also very excited to be announcing that Six Apart is the first customer for “Powered by JumpBox”. Over the past few months we’ve been working with them on simplifying the deployment of Movable Type and this has resulted in a number of exciting developments.

1. A new JumpBox for the commercial version of Movable Type. This is being released today under the name “Virtual Movable Type Pro by JumpBox” and is available directly from movabletype.com.
2. The current JumpBox for Movable Type Open Source is now available completely free through the JumpBox web site.
3. The JumpBox for Movable Type is now an official distribution format for the Open Source version of Movable Type as well as for Movable Type Pro.

If you’re not familiar with Six Apart and Movable Type, here’s the summary.

Movable Type is Six Apart’s flagship blog software product, launched in 2001. Today, this robust social publishing platform powers the websites and blogs of many of the world’s largest media companies, Fortune 100 businesses, small and medium sized businesses, and power bloggers. Movable Type is a fully integrated, scalable, proven social publishing platform upon which to build highly interactive websites, blogs and social networks.

JumpBox participates in VMware Ready program

And one final announcement, this week we also participated with VMware in the launch of the VMware Ready verification program for virtual appliances. This is of primary benefit to customers of Powered by JumpBox, but since all JumpBoxes share a common base any improvements we release will be inherited by everything in JumpBox Open. You can find out more about VMware Ready here.

Find me at VMworld and get a JumpBox T-Shirt

OK, just one more thing, this week I’m at VMworld in Las Vegas and will be wearing the new JumpBox t-shirt around. Steven debuted it on the blog earlier this week, but I’m carrying some extras with me so if you happen to be attending VMworld and see me walking around, feel free to stop me. I’d love to talk with some JumpBox users while I’m here.

Updated JumpBoxes

Wow, that’s quite a lot of news, no wonder we’re so exhausted, but there is more. We also have a bunch of JumpBox updates to share.

• JumpBox for Joomla 1.5.x 1.1.4 (Download)

  Joomla! is arguably the world’s most popular open source content management system for public facing web sites. Joomla 1.5 is a ground-up rework of the Joomla 1.0 code base moving it to a true MVC architecture.

  Updated to Joomla 1.5.7 which is a security release with a number of important fixes. (Joomla 1.5.x release notes)

• JumpBox for OTRS 1.1.3 (Download)

  OTRS is an Open source Ticket Request System (also well known as trouble ticket system) with many features to manage customer telephone calls and e-mails. The system is built to allow your support, sales, pre-sales, billing, internal IT, helpdesk, etc. department to react quickly to inbound inquiries.

  OTRS has been updated to 2.3.2. (OTRS release notes)

• JumpBox for Movable Type 1.1.3 (Download)

  Movable Type is Six Apart’s flagship blog software product, launched in 2001. Today, this robust social publishing platform powers the websites and blogs of many of the world’s largest media companies, Fortune 100 businesses, small and medium sized businesses, and power bloggers. Movable Type is a fully integrated, scalable, proven social publishing platform upon which to build highly interactive websites, blogs and social networks.

  Updated to Movable Type 4.21 and made free. (Movable Type Release)

• JumpBox for PunBB 1.1.3 (Download)

  PunBB is a lightweight discussion forum that provides the essential features to host a thriving community without the tedious database, web server and application setup. It may have fewer bells and whistles than other forum applications but it has an intuitive user interface and renders XHTML-compliant output.

  Updated to PunBB 1.2.20 which fixes a cross site scripting security problem. (PunBB release notes)

We get suggestions every day for open source applications that people would like to see turned into JumpBoxes. Until now we’ve been tracking these suggestions internally on a private Scuttle instance (of course running as a JumpBox).  Austin made an interesting suggestion last week though and we’ve decided to take a page from Chris Pirillo’s “Freedbacking” concept and expose this list in a decentralized and transparent manner.  

So, in a bit of an experiment, we’ve assembled what may be the most comprehensive list of valuable open source server applications on the planet in such a way that allows anyone to suggest, rate or view the submissions.  It uses the delicious bookmarking service and here’s how it works:

For any application that you’d like to see JumpBoxed, simply tag its main page with “newjumpbox” in delicious.  We monitor the RSS feed of that tag and the more bookmarks an app gets, the more attention we’ll pay to that project (and consequently the greater likelihood that it will be next in line to become a JumpBox). 

For now that page is seeded with over 130 candidate applications that have been suggested to us over many months. We’ve screened the ones that don’t seem appropriate so that list is the culmination of many hours of vetting and input from hundreds of avid open source fans. If there’s an app missing that you’d like to see, take a sec and bookmark it.  You’re of course welcome to continue sending us suggestions via the contact form on our site or by posting in the forums or comments on this blog, but we’ll be looking to that delicious tag as a main source of input on what apps should be converted to JumpBoxes next. 

What do you think of this experiment? How about the Freedbacking concept in general?  

And by the way I don’t know if anyone’s ever delicious’d a delicious page itself but I just did it and I think I may have briefly warped the spacetime continuum. My bad.