xTuple's Collective Brainpower Blog

Regardless of size or industry, all companies that accept credit cards must adhere to the safeguards mandated by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard referred to as the PCI DSS. While most companies are aware of PCI, many are unsure what it means for their businesses. As well, companies that use a third party for clearing and remittance often incorrectly assume that PCI compliance...

With so many ERP solutions on the market, how does the busy business owner, CEO, CFO or senior executive find the time to evaluate them all? The Accounting Software Expo in Atlanta, GA on May 20th is an excellent way to get introduced to the leading ERP solutions for midsize business. This one-of-a kind expo brings together financial management and business technology gurus for your benefit....

We're pleased to announce the final release of xTuple ERP 3.5.0, now available for download from Sourceforge via the all-in-one installers . This is a major new release, with drop ship purchasing for distributors, expanded tooling support for manufacturers, basic time and expense entry for professional services, and much more ( press release , final release notes ).

We're also ready to...

We all expect our favorite gadget vendors to cram more and more functionality into devices. Clipped on just about everyone's hip thesedays are Phones that can send email, play music, socialize, take pictures and record movies. Oh, and they make the occasional phone call.

Sure, it's debatable if they actually do any of these really well.

Are they convienent? Yes.

Would...

CEO's log, Stardate 40110

With the imminent launch of xTuple version 3.5, our eight-year mission is almost over. Our software is 100% free of bugs, and xTuple customers throughout the world are running at peak efficiency. There's nothing left to do.

Maybe I'll get into the music business . That is all.

Stardate 54973.4

It's 2404 and the Open Source community is celebrating the end of proprietary software. It was a difficult battle and many enterprising early adapters had fallen by the wayside. This victory could have been achieved eons earlier if the Open Source Initiative had been organized in 1990.

My mission is to travel back in time to 1990 to organize the movement, so...

Bring the power of the open source development model to your love life, with xHarmony.

Norfolk-based xTuple, maker of acclaimed business software, is directing its talent for creative disruption to the online dating market with the release of xHarmony, a new matchmaking service based on an open-source model. xHarmony, written in the Qt development environment and running on top of a...

It hasn't always been easy being the only empath at xTuple. Often times customers come to me with a mixed bag of overwhelming emotions: anticipation, fear, optimism, anger, joy, surprise, and relief all at once. It's my job to help you work through these feelings and roll out the software with positive results.

I can usually sense the needs of the customer in advance of any meetings or...

We've scrapped that 'bloatware' QT interface for one that most people who remember business computing will appreciate. The new client is called xT3270, and is available on just about any *nix platform (windows requires an emulator).

Here's a screenshot of the new slick xT3270 interface (runnning on linux (unsupported)).

We've also worked closely with...

Today only, xTuple is going to xTend our demo policy beyond free.

Sure you could go to Sourceforge , and get a FREE copy of xTuple ERP PostBooks Edition any time. And yes you could register for a free xTuple Manufacturing Edition hosted demo. But today only (04/01/10), xTuple will throw in a free copy of OpenRPT with any demo download.

To claim your prize, go to the prize...

A team of Australian scientists working with Emperor penguins in the Weddell and Ross Sea regions of Antarctica has developed a Radio-frequency identification (RFID) extension for PostBooks, which they think has real commercial possibilities.

Originally designed for tracking penguins, the RFID package could be used in any livestock environment, according to team leader Stanley...

It took me some time to work out the details for creating a viable development environment on Snow Leopard, and I thought my notes might be useful to others. This is the quick and dirty version.

Macintosh Snow Leopard 64 Bit Development Environment

Install Xcode.

Xcode includes Subversion command line tools, but you'll have to download and install RapidSVN if you use it...

With apologies to the Rolling Stones , and everyone else who's used that headline ...

Here are some details about xTuple's upcoming cloud service , which will be available with the final release of version 3.5.0.

Here's information on other great features in the new release , including drop-ship purchasing, cool new tools for CRM, and much more.

Can't wait? Download...

Few people may realize that, behind the scenes, xTuple ERP 3.4.0 represented a major overhaul to how the software is put together. For that release we didn't just use extension packages to add on to the xTuple core, we converted core functionality into packages. "Huh?" you say...

Beginning with 3.4.0, we turned xTuple ERP Manufacturing Edition into a separate extension package, xtmfg....

Nearly 3 years ago, I was hired by xTuple. It was an exciting time and I couldn't pack up the family truckster and get to VA soon enough. As part of my parting ways with the old company, I had to write up some instructions. I've included a portion of them here as a sad precautionary tale. Keep in mind, this was 3 years ago - 2007. Besides, it's too early for an April Fools. Why I have these...

There's a headline that will wake up a lot of people ;-)

But seriously, we're interested in starting a more active dialog with community members on something that's very close to our hearts as a business: making money. You might even call it a Goal . Yes, we want to make the world a better place for business software users - but we also want to make sure we're striking the right...

The unofficial motto for the United States Postal Service is a tribute to dedication, but may be less appropriate for professions like yours and mine. As you may have heard, we postponed the Power User class that was scheduled earlier this month due to the blizzard that dropped over two feet of snow near our headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia.

As many people planned to drive to the...

Macworld is the annual get together for the Apple and Mac faithful held every year in San Francisco. More than your typical technology conference, it has a long history of being THE event for Apple users (and fans), who come in from literally every corner world. It is traditionally an Apple/Steve Jobs love show. This year, there was a cloud hanging over the show as Apple announced last year...

It's a cliche to say things like, "I liked U2 before they were cool," but sometimes it applies. For example, Dion Hinchcliffe at ZD Net's Enterprise 2.0 blog recently wrote about businesses that are "opening up" their customer relations via collaborative tools. It's no surprise to us that this is a good idea: we've been using the xTuple.org website to engage our users and customers in an open...

Beginning the first of next month, everyone having a support contract with xTuple will begin using our new web-based support ticketing system. This new support front-end is built using Drupal (like the rest of our website), and it will present our customers and partners with an easy-to-use web interface for reporting and managing their support needs. Best of all, the web support portal is...