I has been informed by some SaltOS users that some times the application waits more time that the normal to process requests. I revised some parts of the code and I detected some issues that affects the semaphore_acquire function and the default timeout set to 10 seconds. Now, the semaphore_acquire function is called with the coherent timeouts that prevent to wait long time in some cases. The main responsable of this spurious bug, is the cache_gc routine (the garbage collector) that is executed in all requests and only 1% of the times, acquire the semaphore to execute the real garbage collector and clear all non needed files. In some days, I publish a new release of SaltOS that join all new issues and corrections.

To all who give me encouragement to continue developing SaltOS and RhinOS, I wish you a Merry Christmas. You pass the festivity very well!!!

I added to the download section the download statistics of Sourceforge. The data is grouped by project (SaltOS and RhinOS), by country and by operating systems.

Introduction:   POP (Post Office Protocol) and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) are two protocols that allow access to mail folders incoming mail server (not allow sending mail). We can refer to POP with POP3 (latest version) and IMAP with IMAP4. These protocols are supported by most existing mail servers.   Advantages and disadvantages of POP3 vs. IMAP4:   The number of transactions is low, which is efficient. No correlation between the mailing list with the identifiers…

• As always, the libraries that SaltOS uses have been updated to the latest release.
  • jQuery 1.6.4
  • jQuery-UI 1.8.16
  • CKEditor 3.6.2
  • And many more ... (see the about section of the application)
• They have incorporated the following libraries:
  • jQuery Columnizer: used in the help zone
  • TCPDF: This library is a fork of the old FPDF with many improvements including:
    • Integration of all the scripts that SaltOS should use as extras
    • Native support for UTF-8
    • Support for PNG images with transparency
    • Updates and much greater support from the author.
  • pdf.js: used in the PDF viewer, allows viewing of any PDF from the online viewer that integrates SaltOS.
    • This enhancement allows you to enable this option without the use of technologies in the server as pdfinfo and convert.
  • Archive: allows to generate files in ZIP, TAR, TAR+GZIP and TAR+BZIP2 formats
  • jQuery Favicon: for notifications on the icon area (favicon)
  • jQuery Player: to play the audio voice notifications
  • jQuery Autogrow-textarea: to set the height of textareas depending on the content
• They have remove the following libraries:
  • jQuery Layout: now, the SaltOS layout is generated using traditional techniques (without plugins)
  • jQtouch: support for mobile devices is made directly using jQuery-UI
  • FPDF: has been replaced by his fork called TCPDF
  • PCLZip: has been replaced by the Archive library that allows more options.
  • jQuery Mousewheel: has been removed for not be used in SaltOS now
• New layout: now the SaltOS interface is designed to only use one scroll.
  • The lists uses all height of the screen
  • Items such as iframes, textareas and ckeditors, adjust the height to the content.
  • Thus, the application will only have one scroll: the page itself
• New language: added the French language by Francis Dionne.
• Improved installation process:
  • The installation wizard lets you define additional parameters such as PATH, LANG
  • the GROUP_CONCAT of SQL is validated to a correct work
  • You can further customize the installation and the system.
• Improved self-installation package PHP format:
  • It includes everything you need to decompress the package without the need for external commands.
  • It is optimized for systems without large memory resources.
• Efficiency improvements:
  • Queries to the database have been optimized to reduce latency and CPU consumption.
  • Less transfers transactions are made because the images are included directly in the CSS (inline mode image)
  • Repetitive executions are stored in cache to avoid unnecessary use of CPU
  • They have rewritten some transactions to be executed via AJAX to speed up the rendering process
  • Icons are now using the sprite technique, which reduces the number of requests and transfers to the server
• New features:
  • Managing Folders:
    • Any content can be linked to folders that are managed by each user
    • It has enabled drag-and-drop to drag any record of any list to a folder in the menu area
    • In all details, have a tab that allows you to modify the relationship between content and folders
  • Calculator:
    • Thanks to this mini-application, while working with SaltOS, you can use an online calculator
    • Use the calc command inside the server
  • Translator and spell checker:
    • If the server has installed aspell and apertium, we shall have this mini-application
    • Make corrections and translations from SaltOS
    • No need for third party services (like Google Translate or others)
  • Voice notifications:
    • We need that server has installed festival and the needed voices
    • SaltOS can read the subjects of the emails and the feeds titles
    • Too, can read all the notices that are displayed in the interface of SaltOS
    • Useful if you're in another window and want to be aware of all emails and feeds to be downloaded
  • Integrated desktop notifications:
    • For now only available with Google Chrome browsers
    • Allows to launch SaltOS notifications
    • And even if we have another window in front or minimized the browser
  • Notices on the icon of the application:
    • This feature allows the icon make a move and report new mail and downloaded feeds
    • Useful if you're in another window as quickly, looking at the icon of the TAB, we know what's new in SaltOS
  • Improvements in the downloads from SaltOS:
    • If we are in a record that has associated files, you can download all (or those I select)
    • The formats supported are ZIP, TAR, TAR+GZIP or TAR+BZIP2
• New drivers for communication with databases:
  • Until now, SaltOS only allowed to work with PDO drivers
  • Now, this has changed for the better and enable drivers to use more
  • Using SQLite as a binary wrapper (bin_sqlite):
    • Thanks to this driver, SaltOS can be used directly to access the sqlite3 binary to use the database and modify it
    • This is especially useful if you want to use SaltOS in hostings where sqlite3 driver (pdo_sqlite) is old
    • It is also useful if you fail the pdo_sqlite check requirements of the wizard - Improved MySQL (mysqli):
    • This is an enhanced version of the MySQL native driver
    • I recommend pdo_mysql because internally implements a cache which greatly improves the efficiency
• Fix bugs:
  • Fixed many bugs in queries to the database
  • Renamed the file jquery.cookies.js by jquery.kookies.js to avoid problems with some hostings
• Added support for displaying online help (need someone to finish writing!)

From the last week, I have problems of spam on the forum and I have solved the incidence with some improvements of the captcha (using sinusoidal deformations) and adding a spam filter (I will not explain for security reasons) in the logic add comments. Let's see if we avoid the white noise!.

• Replaced the FPDF library by the TCPDF library
• Periodical updates of JQuery, JQuery-UI, CKEditor and many other libraries
• New layout that uses the full height of the screen
• Plugins such as calculators and spell / translator
• New French language.
• Improved performance and compatibility
• New database interfaces for SQLite and MySQL.
• Improvements in the installation process.
• And more...

MariaDB (the new MySQL really free) is one of the management systems relational databases known in the world of free software (in fact, is used to indicate LAMP for Linux + Apache + MariaDB (MySQL) + PHP). SQLite3 is another management system databases, but oriented embedded applications, used in applications like Firefox, Thunderbird, Android, i and to complete a long list of programs that use it. The differences are basically that MariaDB (MySQL) is a server that services requests to be made…

A problem with the daemon to update the DNSs of the subdomains that give access to the demos of SaltOS and RhinOS has made ​​are offline for 12 hours approx. Already restored service and give back to work perfectly.

This release includes updates of JQuery, JQuery-UI, CKEditor and other plugins. Fixes some bugs reported by users. It also presents the functionality of folders, which allows to use folders to contain any applications content such as emails, documents, projects or other content.

The error caused that sometimes (very few) were added some spaces to decode a q-encoded string. Almost always affects the Subjects of the mails. Thanks to Manuel Lemos for their quick intervention.

After the appearance of Firefox 4, that is going extremely well, Google Chrome again struck with the beta 11, which adds support for speech recognition. SaltOS could not wait and this benefit was added to the text boxes to make work more enjoyable. You can test this feature in the demos now.

Sections have been reorganized, have added features for usability and RSS tracking. We also have a moderator called Jordi Company that will ensure that the forum is current.

You can see organizing the thanks section depending if is a project that we use for our purpose or is a partnership / partner.

SaltOS appears in the publication of March, number 124, of the journal Todo Linux. The article is called "SaltOS: CRM and ERP opensource", written by Arturo Fernandez and leaves us pretty well (see the article online).

Detected a vulnerability that affects only the MSWindows server. This release fix the vulnerability.

This update (SaltOS r3685 y RhinOS r1113) apply the update of some libraries as cssmin, ckeditor, jquery-ui and more.

I'm happy to announce, after more than one month of stops jobs, the continuation of the SaltOS and RhinOS projects. I encourage all people who want to collaborate with these projects and their evolution to contact with  saltos.net.