Thursday 30 April 2009

openmolar update and a plea for sanity

2 weeks ago I switched off our commercially provided uber expensive crapware for the last time, and moved 100% to using my own solution "openMolar".

openMolar is a multi-client/single server application. Presently I have 2 linux clients, 3 windows clients running my software and a linux mysql server.
(I also have the full front-end and backend application running on my dell-mini9, but that's another story...)

The development of this application has been quite a trip, but proves that even someone with my limited coding skills can knock up a professional quality app using only open source tools.

And the bandwagon keeps on rolling.
Bryan Harris from the US and Mehmet nur Olcay from Turkey have joined in on the launchpad site, and are working on packaging the app for ubuntu and (more interestingly) Pardus linux. I look forward to making the code accessible for language translation purposes.

Richard Querin has again exceeded all expectations by providing an alternative logo focusing on the freedom aspect of the software. I intend to get some embroidered t-shirts for the practice staff to wear when we attend the British Dental Association Conference in 4 weeks time.


But before folks get too carried away, a reminder. This bandwagon needs the brakes applying somewhat.

My focus has always been (and will for the medium term at least) to have this software working in the practice.
The interest that is being shown from the dental profession and open source movement alike is quite humbling but a little frightening. It goes to show that there is demand for open source solutions, however, please let nobody be under the impression that this product is finished.
I am wary that if others take my code and push it out at this stage it could get it a reputation from which it will never recover. I am also fully aware that there are many companies who would love to see this project fail. I beg the open source community not to play a part in making this happen.

Here is a page of screenshots and explanations for those who would like to know more.

The project can be found on launchpad.

Thursday 16 April 2009

logos, launchpad and bizarre experiences

Three things.
  1. I am overjoyed with Richard Querin's first draft of a logo for openMolar.

  2. My code is up on launchpad.net at http://launchpad.net/openmolar.
  3. The python versioning control system Bzr is working well. I hope. thanks to "thumper" in #launchpad on freenode for his guidance. I have made 3 pushes already. Awesome.

Wednesday 8 April 2009

openmolar - new tarball


another test tarball for interested folks to install and try.

Still immature software, but a fair few new features.

Many thanks to all who sucessfully installed the 1st version despite a few errors in my README file!
Hopefully those bugs are now ironed out.

please note, you will need to refresh to the new database if you installed 0.0.3 version.

BTW - hopefully I will get the hang of bzr / launchpad for future releases... meantime, the tarball can be found HERE .