I spend my day working with Salesforce, a very, very feature-rich CRM that you pay big money to use. Salesforce is the opposite of OpenSource and the many features are expensive. Salesforce business model is based on this and on the lock-in effect. If your company invested in implementing Salesforce, they’ll likely pay a lot to keep it.
So what does an alternative look like? Let’s have a look at Twenty, an OpenSource CRM that recently reached the magic 1.0 version.
I am a HUGE fan of matrix. It allows me to organize my chats in a sensible way, it works with multiple identities and completly anonymous if I want it to. Spaces made Matrix my favourite messenger by far. Yet, there is one feature I have been missing: Disappearing messages!
Regarding the security and usability, only Signal is comparable to matrix. But: Signal offers the possibilty to define disappearing messages for groups and direct messages ranging from 30 seconds to 4 weeks. No Matrix client (to my knowledge) offers this functionality. Nevertheless, it is possible to configure matrix rooms to have the same feature. This needs a special server configuration and the sending of a special event in the room. This post tries to show both steps. If you do not administer a server you can probably skip to Room configuration
Following the quickstart documentation I tried to add cactus comments to this blog. I currently rely on infrastructure by cactus.chat as I do not host a private synapse server.
I currently implemented this as a shortcode with hard-coded site title and a variable room name.
There is a registration system, that ensures that you are moderater in your comment section(s). I order to register your site you have to send a message to @cactusbot:cactus.chat . First try help to ensure that the bot answers you, then register your site e.g. register hyteck. The bot should inform you of success and add you to a moderation room.
I recently installed an Owncast server and wanted to share my experience. Here it is:
Owncast is a streaming server that you can selfhost, a Twicht in a box as the developers call it. You host owncast on your server (a small VM with good downlink is enough) and can stream your own own content like you would do on Twicht, YouTube etc…
It has a chat, a admin panel for customization and thats it! You don’t need more to e.g. stream while you are playing minecraft or want to share a talk.