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customize the dashboard to view the metrics that you want
to see. To make your life easier, Piwik integrates with over
65 content management, ecommerce, and online forum sys-
tems like WordPress, Magneto, Joomla!, and vBulletin using
plugins. With anything else, you just need to add a tracking
code to a page on your site. A number of web hosting firms
offer Piwik as part of their one-click install packages. You can
test drive [15] Piwik or use a hosted version [16].”
Fun fact: Maker of the LulzBot 3D printer, Aleph Objects,
uses Piwik to run their analytics [17].
R
In the era of big data, now may be the time to learn R [18],
which has become the programming language of choice for
data scientists and others interested in statistical computing
and graphics, and is touted by influencers in big data [19] like
Revolution Analytics. In 2015, the R Consortium [20] became
a Linux Foundation Collaborative project, created to provide
support for the development of R-Hub, a new code-hosting
platform for developing and distributing packages for R.
SugarCRM
SugarCRM [21] is the 800-pound gorilla in the open source
customer relationship management space, and has previ-
ously been featured as one of our top 5 CRM tools [22]. The
community edition of SugarCRM can be used out of the box
as a complete solution for organizations hoping to do a bet-
ter job of keeping their contacts manageable, or who want
to turn a list of names into something actionable. Complete
with huge list of features and a pluggable infrastructure that
allows for even more customization, SugarCRM is a great
solution for organizations that want to get a handle on their
contacts. (Editor’s note: SugarCRM 6.5 Community Edition
is the most recent open source version of SugarCRM and is
still widely used. Open source alternatives built on Sugar-
CRM CE are growing in popularity.)
Vagrant
In a nutshell, Vagrant [23] is a command-line tool for launch-
ing and configuring virtual machines. With Vagrant, environ-
ments are reproducible and portable, and the data that de-
fines the environment is stored in text files, making it easy to
version control your environments and manage your virtual
machines just as you would code. Vagrant allows you to set
up development environments on your local machine that
are nearly identical to your production environment, regard-
less of what your host operating system is. Plus, learning
how to get started with Vagrant is easy.
Thanks to Jason Baker for his help on this article.
Links
[1] Apache Spark: http://spark.apache.org/
[2] World record set for 100 TB sort by open source and
public cloud team: https://opensource.com/business/15/1/
apache-spark-new-world-record
[3] Blender: https://www.blender.org/
[4] Opensource.com Blender articles:
https://opensource.com/tags/blender
[5] Blender for Dummies: http://blenderbasics.com/
[6] D3: http://d3js.org/
[7] 8 excellent open source data visualization tools:
https://opensource.com/life/15/6/eight-open-source-da-
ta-visualization-tools
[8] Dolphin: https://userbase.kde.org/Dolphin
[9] A comprehensive guide to Dolphin, a KDE file manager:
https://opensource.com/life/15/8/comprehensive-guide-dol-
phin-file-manager
[10] Git: https://git-scm.com/
[11] What to know before transitioning your team to Git:
https://opensource.com/business/15/7/interview-em-
ma-jane-hogbin-westby-git
[12] 4 open source alternatives to Slack for team chat:
https://opensource.com/business/15/9/alterna-
tives-slack-team-chat
[13] Piwik: http://piwik.org/
[14] Top 3 open source alternatives to Google Analytics:
https://opensource.com/business/14/10/
top-3-open-source-alternatives-google-analytics
[15] Piwik demo: http://demo.piwik.org/index.
php?module=CoreHome&action=index-
&idSite=7&period=day&date=yesterday#/module=-
Dashboard&action=embeddedIndex&idSite=7&period=-
day&date=yesterday&idDashboard=1
[16] Piwik Cloud: http://piwik.org/hosting/
[17] Open ethos powers Aleph Objects’ success:
https://opensource.com/business/15/11/open-ethos-pow-
ers-lulzbots-success
[18] What is R?: https://www.r-project.org/about.html
[19] Why now is the time to learn R: https://opensource.com/
business/14/12/r-open-source-language-data-science
[20] R Consortium: https://www.r-consortium.org/
[21] SugarCRM: https://www.sugarcrm.com/
[22] Top 5 open source customer relationship management
tools: https://opensource.com/business/14/7/top-5-open-
source-crm-tools
[23] Vagrant: A powerful tool for configuring development envi-
ronments: https://opensource.com/business/15/9/ato-inter-
view-seth-vargo
Authors
Jen Wike Huger is Content Manager at Opensource.com, where
she manages the site’s publication calendar, its editing team,
and its community of writers. Follow her on Twitter @jenwike.
Jason Baker is passionate about using technology to make
the world more open. His interests range from software de-
velopment to bringing sunlight to local governments. Jason
is particularly interested in data visualization and analysis,
DIY/maker culture, simulations/modeling, geospatial tech-
nologies, and cloud computing (especially OpenStack).
Follow him on Twitter @jehb.