A quick and easy Social way to install Network on
Linux/BSD System with Elgg
I'm experimenting this days with
Elgg - An Open Source Free Software GPLed
Social Network which enables users to quickly create
Communities.
Elgg is really easy to install and all it requires is a
Linux/BSD or Windows system with
PHP, MySQL and Apache
installed.
Elgg is provided with dozens of nice plugins which for a
short time enables individual to create fully operational
Social
Network <//b> like facebook.
Many people nowdays use facebook without realizing how bad facebook
is how it breaks their privacy.
Facebook is actually a spy network, it stores data and pictures,
likings and user behaviour of million of users around the
world.
This needs to be stopped somehow, maybe if people start using the
free software networks like elgg to build a mini-community which
has profound interests in a certain spheres of work, life and
amusement.
The evil empire of facebook will slowly start to loose it's
position and the small projects networks based on Elgg and the
other Free Software Social Networks which are currently available
will start to rise up.
I'm currently really a novice into Elgg but I'm more
convinced that the guys who develop it and contribute to it in
terms of handy plugins have done really a great job.
It's ultra easy even for non professional middle level user to
setup himself an Elgg install.
The installation procedure is not much harder than a simple
wordpress blog or joomla based website install.
The installation of elgg takes no more than 10 to 20
minutes, the plugin installation and setup time further could take
few days but in the end you have a full featured Social Network!
This is really amazing.
The installation of new plugins in elgg is also fool proof / easy
all you have to do to equip a newly installed elgg with
plugins is to go to it's root directory and look for the mod
directory. The new plugins which needs to be installed, could be
directly downloaded and saved via links, elinks, lynx or even wget
to the elgg installation directory.
Most of the elgg plugins comes in a form of zip files so after
being installed simply executing:
server:/home/elgg/mysocialnetwork/mod# unzip
walltowall.zip
....
The above cmd will for example unzip the WallToWall elgg plugin and
the plugin will be further ready to be enabled via the
administrator user set upped during your elgg installation.
The configurations of elgg are being accomplished via:
Administration -> Tool Administration
I should I'm still experimenting with Elgg social, until this very
moment I've installed the following elgg plugins:
aaudio
akismet
artfolio
blog
bookmarks
buddytalk
captcha
categories
chat
crontrigger
custom_index
custom_profile_fields
default_widgets
diagnostics
elgg-ebuddy
embed
embedvideo
emoticons
externalpages
family
fbconnect
file
file_tree
flyers
forum
friend_request
friends
garbagecollector
groups
htmlawed
invitations
invitefriends
izap_videos
kaltura_video
lastfm
likes
logbrowser
logrotate
lucygames
members
messageboard
messages
milockergames_frameme
noscript_message
notifications
pages
polls
profile
reportedcontent
resume
river_comments
riverdashboard
riverfaces
search
siteaccess
tagcloud
theme_simpleneutral
thewire
tidypics
tidypicsExt
tinymce
twitter
twitterservice
user_contact_list
uservalidationbyemail
walltowall
weather
wp1
zaudio
One very handy feature I truly enjoy about Elgg is that it gives
every user an own blog which or in other words when somebody
registers in Elgg, he automatically gets a personal blog! How cool
this is Yeash ;)
The Elgg photo upload plugin is also another interesting story. The
photo plugin is a way better from my first impressions than
facebook's buggy upload client.
Elgg also uses heavily jquery for it's various operations and the
user experience feels very interactive.
Of course as with all free software things are not perfect some of
the elgg plugins or (mods) as they are called are not
working.
For example I couldn't make by so far the weather plugin which is
supposed to report the weather.
Maybe some tweakening of the not working plugins will easily make
them working. What is really important is that the Elgg basis
system looks and seems to work really good and enpowers the user
with a social network alternatives to the ugly facebook.
In order to experiment with Elgg I've established a small social network
targetting at University College and School Students called
MockATeacher. The idea behind MockATeacher is to help students in
their report writting by providing them with a place where they can
meet other students and share files.
Some other aspects I've planned for MockATeacher is to build
a small community of people who would like to share about idiot
teachers, teacher stupid sayings as well as to mock the idiotic
type of education that we and our children are up to in this
age.
Just to close up, if you're looking for some time to spend in
experimenting in an enjoyable way you definitely need to install
elgg and play with it ;)