New Releases and Get 10% off JumpBox Open Subscriptions until May 16

Hello,

We're happy to announce the production release of the JumpBox for Moodle and to celebrate, we're offering 10% off JumpBox Open Subscriptions. That's 21 JumpBoxes, all for a single price, and the value just keeps growing as we release new applications.

To take advantage of this offer use the following coupon during checkout.

Coupon code: MOODLE-LAUNCH-PROMO

This offer ends at midnight PST on May 16. That's only a few days away.

Moodle is a very popular course management system used by educators around the world to create learning communities for their students. This JumpBox was a popular request so we're thrilled to add it as the newest member of the JumpBox Open Collection.

Now on with our regularly scheduled summary of update activity in the Open Collection.

News

  • The JumpBox Platform 1.1 beta is moving along nicely. With the most recent updates we've moved the underlying operating system to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. This will be the version of Ubuntu that all 1.1 Platform based JumpBoxes will ship with. We're expecting the initial production release of 1.1 based JumpBoxes within a few weeks. If you haven't tried out the new platform now is a great time to visit the Proving Grounds and kick the tires a little. The new platform is a big improvement and you can learn more about what's new in this blog post.

New Production JumpBox

  • JumpBox for Moodle 1.0 (Download)

    This is the first production release of the JumpBox for the Moodle course management system. This JumpBox contains Moodle 1.9. Existing JumpBox Open Subscribers should have already received keys for this JumpBox.

Updated Production JumpBoxes

  • JumpBox for DokuWiki new version 1.0.4 (Download)

    Updated to DokuWiki 2008.05.05

  • JumpBox for Bugzilla new version 1.0.3 (Download)

    Updated to Bugzilla 3.0.4

  • JumpBox for phpBB new version 1.0.1 (Download)

    Updated to phpBB 3.0.1

Updated Beta JumpBoxes in the Proving Grounds

  • JumpBox for Nagios 0.9.3 (Download)

    Updated with latest JumpBox Platform 1.1 beta and fixes for a bug related to backup restoration.

  • JumpBox for MySQL 0.9.1 (Download)

    Updated with latest JumpBox Platform 1.1 beta.

  • JumpBox for SugarCRM 5 0.9.1 (Download)

    Updated with latest JumpBox Platform 1.1 beta and SugarCRM version 5.0.0d.

  • JumpBox for MovableType 0.9.2 (Download)

    Updated with latest JumpBox Platform 1.1 beta.

That's all for this week. Thanks for supporting JumpBox and as always, feel free to send us feedback.

Kimbro Staken

New Releases for 5/01/08

Hello,

This is a summary of recent activity in the JumpBox Open Collection.

News

  • JumpBox updates this time around include a number of application revisions. Most of these are minor, but pretty much all of them address security issues so it's definitely recommended that you get the latest version for any JumpBoxes you may be using.
  • We recently sent out a survey to learn more about your interest in hosting solutions for JumpBoxes. If you already filled out the survey we really appreciate it, and if not we'd still love to hear from you. One thing I'd like to clarify is that we're looking at hosting solutions as an additional option for deploying JumpBoxes. There was some concern that the downloadable option would go away which isn't the case. In fact, a big goal for us is to enable easy migration from a local install to a hosted install so that you can use the JumpBox to build your site locally and then easily push it onto a hosted service for public deployment.Click Here to take the survey
  • A final reminder, we have a number of new JumpBoxes undergoing beta testing in the Proving Grounds. Many of which are based on the 1.1 JumpBox platform. There will be a new 1.1 beta coming within the next week or so and we can definitely use some more feedback to help accelerate the

Have questions, comments or suggestions, please let us know how we can help. And remember, you can also get JumpBox updates on Twitter.

Updated Production JumpBoxes

  • JumpBox for Wordpress new version 1.0.9 (Download)

    Updated to Wordpress 2.5.1 - Minor update but some important security and stability fixes.

  • JumpBox for Joomla! 1.5 new version 1.0.3 (Download)

    Updated to Joomla! 1.5.3 - Minor bugfix and security release.

  • JumpBox for SugarCRM new version 1.0.7 (Download)

    Updated to SugarCRM 4.5.1i - Minor bugfix release.

  • JumpBox for TikiWiki new version 1.0.2 (Download)

    Updated to TikiWiki 1.9.11 - Minor bugfix release.

  • JumpBox for Moin Moin new version 1.0.2 (Download)

    Updated to Moin Moin 1.6.3 - Minor bugfix release.

That's all for this time around. Thanks for supporting JumpBox.

Kimbro

New Releases for 4/15/08

This is a summary of recent activity in the JumpBox Open Collection.

News

  • Get JumpBox updates on Twitter. Along with this email and our blog you can also get updates on new JumpBox releases by following us on Twitter. Twitter will usually be the first place to find out about new JumpBox releases.
  • Google recently announced the Google App Engine scalable hosting service and we found it quite interesting so we put together a free JumpBox for Google App Engine Development. If you're a developer and are wondering what it's like to develop for Google App Engine, the JumpBox is a great way to play around with it.

Have questions, comments or suggestions, please let us know how we can help.

Updated Production JumpBoxes

  • JumpBox for Wordpress new version 1.0.8 (Download)

    Updated to Wordpress 2.5 - This is a fairly significant update to Wordpress that brings a heavily refined administration interface.

  • JumpBox for OTRS new version 1.0.2 (Download)

    Updated to OTRS 2.2.6 - Minor bugfix release.

  • JumpBox for Moin Moin new version 1.0.1 (Download)

    Updated to Moin Moin 1.6.2 - Minor bugfix release.

New Beta JumpBoxes added to the Proving Grounds

  • JumpBox for LAMP Deployment 0.9 (Download)

    This JumpBox provides a simple way to deploy PHP, Perl, Python or Ruby web applications. It's great for staging, local deployment and for a jump start on deploying apps where no dedicated JumpBox exists. We have lots of interesting plans for this, this initial release is fairly basic.

  • JumpBox for Movable Type version 0.9 (Download)

    Initial release with Movable Type 4.1, based on the JumpBox Platform 1.1 beta.

  • JumpBox for SugarCRM 5 version 0.9 (Download)

    Initial release with SugarCRM 5.0.0b, based on the JumpBox Platform 1.1 beta.

Updated Beta JumpBoxes in the Proving Grounds

  • JumpBox for Drupal 6 version 0.9.1 (Download)

    Fixed a bug with the setting of Time Zones in Drupal.

  • JumpBox for Redmine 0.6.3 (Download)

    Fixed some critical issues that prevented subversion from working.

Coming Soon

Some updates that are almost ready for release.

  • The JumpBox for SilverStripe will be updated to the JumpBox Platform 1.1 beta and a new version of SilverStripe. This will make this JumpBox much more usable.

That's all for this week. Thanks for supporting JumpBox.

Kimbro Staken

A fun JumpBox to play with the Google App Engine SDK

Google recently announced a new cloud based application deployment system called Google App Engine. We found this to be a pretty interesting system and since the SDK they released is Open Source we decided to put together a JumpBox for it.

It's a great solution if you want to play with the Google App Engine SDK without really installing it on your system. It's also perfect as an integration point for a small team working together on a Google App Engine project.

Google made it possible to build applications for App Engine using several different mechanisms and the JumpBox comes with CGI, Google Webapp and Django environments setup and ready for development. It's also a really great way to just kick the tires of the different frameworks before committing to development.

Also, since this is a JumpBox our backup system is included which allows you to backup your source code and development data to network shares or Amazon S3.

The JumpBox for Google App Engine Development is just something we put together because it looked interesting, if people find it useful we'll continue developing it and tracking Google's SDK releases. I think there are a lot of things we could add to it to make it a really useful tool for developing apps. If you have any suggestions definitely let me know.

Get more information and download the JumpBox

What's new in the JumpBox Platform 1.1 Beta

With the recent release of the JumpBox for Redmine, the JumpBox Platform 1.1 Beta made its first public appearance. Since this is the first time we've publicly released the 1.1 Platform I wanted to provide a quick overview so that you can see the great stuff we've added.

Redmine is the first application released on this Platform version, but there will be many others following over the next few months as we stabilize things and get the rest of the library updated. If you have feedback to offer on the 1.1 Platform, please post it in the Proving Grounds.

So let's dive in.

First off, we've updated to a newer version of Ubuntu Linux. Platform 1.0 JumpBoxes are based on Ubuntu 6.06 while Platform 1.1 is based on Ubuntu 7.10. This means there have been a large number of changes under the covers as many core tools have been updated to newer versions. Most of these changes won't be visible to the average JumpBox user, but some of the 6.06 tools were getting a little long in the tooth making it problematic to add some applications.

Now, let's take a look at some of the new features added to the JumpBox administration interface. Our goal for the administration interface is to provide a basic set of tools to handle the common tasks that every application needs. Toward that end we've added a few new features to the admin interface and extended some of the existing features to have new options. I think there's some pretty interesting new capabilities opened up by the changes.

Note: most of these features require a license key.

This is a screenshot showing the new admin interface. It looks more or less the same, but has picked up a few new icons.

A very common problem with 1.0 JumpBoxes has been getting them to send email. In many cases it just works out of the box, but at other times it can be restricted by the network on which the JumpBox is running. In those cases adding a relay host is a common fix so we added a very simple tool to help you do that. Nothing fancy about this, but we expect it to help a lot of people.

The JumpBox Backup system has gotten a big over haul in this release. In 1.0 you could backup to NFS and Windows file shares and in 1.1 you can still do that but we also added a few more options. First is a direct download option so that you just generate the backup and then save it to disk without configuring any kind of file share. That becomes a very easy way to grab the state of the JumpBox without having to set up any other infrastructure. The second new option is the ability to save backups into Amazon S3. This is a feature that we're really excited about, Amazon S3 is a great service where you pay by the GB to store data on Amazon's systems. It's very inexpensive and in just a few clicks you now have an option to backup your JumpBox to an offsite location. Very handy and a great addition to the JumpBox Backup system.

So seeing what's added for backups, it should be obvious that the restore system adds the mechanisms to do similar things in reverse. So you can restore from a file that you downloaded and you can restore from Amazon S3 as you would expect, however the restore system also gained another feature. You can import data directly from another JumpBox. This exists to make it easier to update to a new version of the JumpBox. Simply fire up the new JumpBox, point it at the old one and import the latest state. That makes the whole process much easier.

A completely new feature we added in 1.1 is an easy mechanism to enable SSL for the JumpBox. This is a great feature that allows you to setup encrypted connections using a self-signed certificate with just a couple clicks. Plus, it also gives you everything you need to get a properly signed certificate if you want to go through the extra steps. To use that option you'll need to get the certificate signed by a third party certificate authority, but the JumpBox does its best to help you along the way.

Since JumpBoxes pretty much always have web applications installed, it's a natural thing to want to see statistics for the web traffic that they're serving. So we made that easy. One click will activate the web stats package and show you how many people are using your JumpBox.

There are also a few other nice capabilities like maintenance mode that allows you to turn the application off for maintenance, some nicer error messages for things like 404 errors and some general security and stability improvements behind the scenes.

That's the quick overview of what's new in the JumpBox Platform 1.1. This is currently available in the JumpBox for Redmine and will be making it's way into JumpBoxes for other apps over the next few months. Of course this is a beta and we can really use some feedback, so if you try it out please share your experiences in the Proving Grounds.

Latest application updates.

It's been a busy few weeks around the JumpBox offices. With the recent launch of 6 new JumpBoxes, something that we haven't talked much about is the issuing of a bunch of updated JumpBoxes. So here's the list.

We also just released a greatly updated JumpBox for Redmine which contains the latest Redmine release, but is also the first public beta of the JumpBox Runtime version 1.1. This adds a number of handy new features to the JumpBox toolset. These changes will find their way into all the other JumpBoxes once we consider the 1.1 Runtime stable. Another post will coming to talk a little more about what's new in the 1.1 Runtime.

The $19.99 JumpBox Blowout is Back

It was hugely popular when we ran it in October, it's been eagerly awaited and now it's back. The $19.99 JumpBox Blowout. Yep, all JumpBoxes are just $19.99 per instance. And this time around it's better than ever as we have twenty different JumpBoxes to choose from. All with the same time saving JumpBox ease of use and built in management tools.

So if there's been a JumpBox you've had your eye on, now's the time to grab it. Or better grab two or three or ten, I'm sure we won't mind. But hurry, this is only going to be around until Feb 29 at midnight MST and who knows when we'll be crazy enough to do it again.

JumpBoxes are available for a great collection of applications and we're adding more all the time.

Six new production JumpBoxes and now there are 20

We crossed a big milestone today with the release of 6 new production JumpBoxes.

With the addition of these applications there are now 20 different applications available as production JumpBoxes.

Drupal, SugarCRM, Wordpress and PunBB updated

We just released new JumpBoxes for Drupal 5.3, SugarCRM 4.5.1h, Wordpress 2.3.1 and PunBB 1.2.16. In all cases the main changes in the apps revolve around security and general bug fixes so upgrading is recommended for all users.

Eight new JumpBoxes available with the launch of the Proving Grounds

We just launched the JumpBox Proving Grounds, our new private community for JumpBox users where you can get early access to beta and experimental JumpBoxes. Eight new beta JumpBoxes are currently available for free through the Proving Grounds, but you have to be a member to get them so request your invitation today.





We created the Proving Grounds so that we can more rapidly release new JumpBoxes and to give us a bit of a playground where we can release things that are more experimental in nature. This will allow us to release JumpBoxes for applications that look promising, but may not be quite mature enough that we're prepared to support them as production quality.

Our goal is to place new JumpBoxes in the Proving Grounds for a month or so and then have them graduate to become fully supported members of the JumpBox family. A big part of being a member of the Proving Grounds is giving us feedback on what does and doesn't work with these JumpBoxes.

Also, to celebrate the launch of the Proving Grounds we're running a $29.99 special on Basic registrations for a limited time.

Here's what's available in the Proving Grounds today, and we have a number of other apps coming over the next few weeks.


The Alfresco Enterprise Document Management System

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Joomla Content Management System version 1.5

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OTRS Open source Ticket Request System

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Bugzilla bug tracking system

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Mantis bug tracking system

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Silverstripe Content Management System

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Project Pier project management software

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OpenLDAP LDAP directory software

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To become a member of the Proving Grounds you have to request an invitation, it's open to all JumpBox users and once you're in you gain the power to invite your friends.

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