~Clearspace 2.5 feature list ~

Here is the initial list of features of Clearspace 2.5 Release Candidate.
Admin Console

Sytem/Settings
Phrase Substitutions: We can add rules for phrases substitutions for space/document/discussion/blog against a particular locale & theme

Sytem/Settings
Projects: Enable/Disbale the feature from admin console

Spaces/Settings
Moderation Settings: Lets one add moderators & choose the contentType which needs to be moderated for a particular space.

Spaces/Settings
Abuse Settings: Automatically hide content after a pre-defined Abuse Count.

Blogs/Management
Group Blogs: Gives way to System Blogs.
Blog Migration: Is a new feature. Migrating a blog will move that blog to a new location in the system. The blog and all its posts will move to the new location and be removed from the old location.

People/Management

i) Organisational Relationships is renamed as User Relationships.
ii) Apart from Organisational Relationship, we have new feature called Connections (which is similar to that of Twitter).


People/Settings

Profile & Homepage: System administrators and Community administrators can customize the default personalized homepage.
Status Updates (of users): One can Enable/Disable this feature.
Registration Settings:
i) Any profile fields marked as required are automatically displayed.
ii) One can move the fields in the registration form display.
iii) Add a new field.
iv) Preview the form

Status Level Settings:
i) Completing tasks in a project, you get a point
ii) Default Status level can be easily edited, apart from defining new status levels

User Data Synchronization Settings: Apart from previous attributes, we have few more additions as mentioned below
i) Scheduled sync task: Can now be enabled/disabled
ii) Synchronize profile photo?
iii) Last modified LDAP attribute name

User Relationship Settings: One can manage both the Organisational Chart & Connections.
i) User connections request approval process can be enabled/disabled.
ii) Organisational Settings remain the same.

Customer Console

Basic Customization of Clearspace - choosing a color scheme, changing logo or without logo - is very simple & easy. This option is available as 'Customize Your Site' for System Administrator in Your Stuff section.

Widgets:
1) Status updates - Update and view your current status update.
2) Watch a User - Lists the content created by a user in the system.
3) Connection Activity - Recent activity by people you are following
4) Your Groups - Displays a list of groups for which you are a member.
5) Watah a Tag - Lists the content tagged with the given tag in the system.
6) RSS Feeb - Displays results of an RSS feed from another part of Clearspace or from any web site.
7) Your Projects - A list of projects you are following.
Search: The Global search is enhanced, where the result set is sorted based on , People, Places - Spaces/Content-Type/Group

Groups:

Groups are a great way to establish a community for people who share interests. There are various types of Groups - Open, Members Only, Private, Secret.

Group Types:
i) Open membership is open and non-members can view content and participate.
ii) Members Only membership is open and non-members can view content, but must join to participate.
iii) Private membership is by approval/invitation only and only members can view content and participate.
iv) Secret membership is by invitation only, only members may participate, and the group is not listed in the group directory


Projects:

i) Import/Export Tasks - Select the CSV for your project containing a list of tasks to import, or export a CSV containing a list of tasks.
ii) Project Status - You have a risk-o-meter which lets the owner change the status & others know the current status.

Connections:
i) This feature is similar to that of Twitter, which allows a registered user to follow other user. It also supports to tracking user's content by RSS feed.
ii) Approve & decline functionality for Connections can be enabled/disabled in the Admin Console

~ Youtube: New Visualization ~

Youtube provides a new way to browse related videos. If you had tested the digg site few years ago, something similar was available in the beta phase. This is a very easy way to browse & play around with related videos.

~ Quote of the week ~

'If the API is better, the end product will be more maintainable'

- Bob Lee (Users Vs Programmers)

Thought for the week

'There are only two hard things in CS: cache invalidation and naming things'
- Phil Karlton, via Tim Bray

Miro

After spending just 15 mins with the player, here is my review of Miro a.k.a Democracy Player.

Features:

• Plays all/any kinda video files without any more installers.
• You can subscribe to video channels through RSS, with hourly update.
• Has loads of HD content.
• Download support for some of the popular video sites on the web [youtube, veoh, googlevideos, blip,dailymotion,etc].
• You have 1598 channels for free.
• BitTorrent support.

What i like about Miro:

• Simplicity of the player.
• No more hassles of downloading plugins and software to view different flavors of flash video players.
• Managing downloads has never been so easy, with an option to save or delete the download from u'r HDD.

Got get yourself a Miro and start using now.

Via my daily source of cool stuff.

Quote for the week

'Design, by nature, is a series of trade-offs. Every choice has a good and bad side, and you make your choice in the context of overall criteria defined by necessity. Good and bad are not absolutes, however. A good decision in one context might be bad in another.'

GMail sports new features: Slideshow, FilterAssistant

Google has been very quick to integrate Zenter - their latest acquisition - to support online viewing of Micorsoft Powerpoint application into Gmail. I happened to notice that yesterday evening when one of my friend has sent an powerpoint attachemnt. It was handy because I haven't installed MS Office on the laptop.

a) Snapshot of slideshow feature

b) Snapshot of FilterAssistant feature

Was discussing about 'Slideshow' feature with my friend (who was on the mailing list of the earlier mail) in the morning, but she didn't have feature on her account. But, she spotted another feature called 'Filter Assistant', on her account. Again, this feature wasn't available on my account.

No clue as to why do we need 'Filter Assistant' on every mail you recieve. Looking at the brighter side, the GMail dev-team seems to be constantly introducing new features; unlike their competitors who seem to be resting on their laurels.

Am not sure when these new features will be available to all google accounts.