Suggestions for FLOS biketour IC tools
Add your recommendations and comments on the possible FLOS communication tools below:
The aim of this page is to collect a list of possible libre and open-source information and communication technology tools for Biketour purposes.
General arguments about why ecotopiabiketour aims to use and promote FLOS, can be found here.
Currently: mostly Mr G :( But not the lists - these are run by Ecobytes :)
Preferences: To ensure communication from "outside" and "within" the Biketour Organisers collective. Something that is secure, private, does not steal our data; and will possible filter our messages by subject; keep our lovely name@ecotopiabiketour addresses; with unlimited or lots of 'labels';
Known Alternatives:
- Round-cube
- Squirrel Mail
- Mail services from tech collectives, such as Riseup, Nodo50, Nadir, So36, N-1, ...
- Thunderbird
- Use one of the many free email addresses that often come along with a web hosting contract: If any association or person rents a webspace and registres a domai such as www.myname.net or www.nicepeople.org, sometimes up to 50 email addresses can be installed easily, using the ending @myname.net or @nicepeople.org. If you organise yourself with 50 friends, pay 10eur per month of hosting fees and give everyone an email address, then this would be 20cents per month per person. For email in you own hands, without helping a big corporation making more profit, without advertisement and sometimes even much more ecological.
Calendar
Currently use Gcal :(
Preference: For Diary Planning. For arranging meetings. Within the email service or not.
Known Alternatives:
- Dudle
- Paper and pen
Website & Blog
Currently: wordpress-based, privately hosted website through the very cool Ecobytes :)
Voice over IP
Currently: mostly private Skype accounts :(
Preferences: Voice and or video meetings.
Known Alternatives:
- Mumble
- Pigion
- Adium (for Mac OS)
Collaborative working on texts / documents / archive
Currently: mediawiki wiki - but its not 'secure'
Preferences: Getting organised / handover / archive / storage / public space with private options
Known Alternatives
- Crabgrass
Collaborative Mapping
Previously: Gmaps and Street maps
Preferences: Decentrally collecting tips for places to visit, lay out routes, mark interesting regions, overlap with other interesting thematical maps/layers (e.g. from other tours or bike maps)
Known Alternatives:
- Street Map
- http://open.mapquest.co.uk/
- a typical example how big corporations (mis-)use open source data for their own purposes: mapquest is a company of AOL.
- http://osmtools.de/easymap/
- takes a little while to get used to it, but pretty self-explaining. unfortunately not suitable for collaboration, since the map has to be locally saved (and then transferred on a web site) each time.
- this map was made with easymap: http://www.memfarado.org/projects/ecotopiabiketour/2013/route/map/map.html
Examples
- http://vivirbien.mediavirus.org : collaborative mapping of solidarity economy
File hosting / File sharing
Preferences: Anyone being able to easily provide larger files for exchange (photos, maps, ...) which are too big for mailing lists and might not interest everyone on a list.
Known Alternatives:
- wiki (not secure and not really the purpose of it, but possible)
- FTP as the technology; FTP clients (like filezilla) as the tool
- Fengu (?)
- EyeOS (?)
Social Networking
Currently we have a facebook page with 1000's of likes :(
Preferences: Something that does not track our friends or circles for suspicious behavior when we think it is a closed network ... it is not. Something that connects us as a 'bridge' to the mainstream - so we do not constantly talk within the same circles... our 'outreach' of you will.
Known Alternatives:
- Diaspora
- we.riseup.net (based on the crabgrass software; not mainstream)
- Identica
- "simple, good old" forums:
- Ecotopia Forum from the website ??? would probably not have the same 'reach'
Micro Blogging
Currently we have a Twitter account but do not use it :)
Preferences: Same as above
Known Alternatives:
- Identica
Question: is this really essential communication????
Web > tel : Bridging
Currently use expensive sms mobile phones :(
Preferences: Cheap way of providing (short) info (sms style) to global phone networks from the web (for example when we are on the road or others are on the road to join us)
Known Alternatives:
- Not sending them
- Web phone ???
Graphics Tools
Preferences: To make things look cool with a conscience...
Know Alternatives:
- Lightworks (video editing)
- Blender (animation)
- Gimp (vector designs and 2d artwork)
- inkscape (vector images): our logo was made with this!
Photo Sharing
Currently an internal gallery & private flickr accounts :(
Preferences: To share our beautiful experiences as images and slide shows
Know Alternatives:
- Pingu
Other Tools ????
Tools we are not yet aware of???
Preferences: That will make our online lives a better place - maybe a personal project? :)
Know Alternatives:
- Cool Tool 1
- Cool Tool 2
- Cool Tool 3 ...