This thing has been around for a while, but it seems that it’s been updated since the launch of the DVD/Blu-Ray. It’s pretty awesome, there’s the original features from the video above, along with a new ship launcher and flight game!

Basically a 3D model of the Enterprise is shown on top of an image taken from your web cam and you can interact with it by clicking buttons and moving the DVD case or a print-off. Seems to work best in Internet Explorer, but it’s worth it!

You’ll need:

Computer with a broadband connection

Internet Explorer 9may work on other browsers

web cam

The Star Trek DVD/Blu-Ray case or a print off available from the site.

www.experience-the-enterprise.com

This website lets you search and find web 2.0 Apps.

If you have tons of time for exploration try: http://classic.go2web20.net/ and scroll down the list to see the breadth of ideas and design. Maybe the idea you have for a web 2.0 app is already implemented.

If you are pressed on time try: http://www.go2web20.net/#tag:most-popular and explore this set of applications.

If you are a repeat visitor just try their search. One of the interested things I discovered were penny auctions on the internet. Try Searching!!

Posterous is something I use solely for day to day, fun and carefree postings to my personal blog and I’ll demonstrate why I love it through the following six points.

Simplicity
A lot of web apps and social sites now have ways to update content via texting, MMS and/or email, in addition to their mobile sites, mobile apps, and updating the old fashioned way, from a browser. Posterous also embodies simplicity with their minimalist layout templates. Posterous is probably much more inviting to a first time blogger than trying to tackle WordPress all at once.

Hidden bonus features
Selective syncing is probably one of my favorite features of Posterous at the moment, because I’ve segmented my content and brands (chelseapearl & hellaPR) online and I like that this is a feature that you don’t even have to learn unless you want to. Plain and simple: everything to the left of the email address will go to those networks (post = all, Posterous = Posterous only, twitter+posterous = Twitter & Posterous only, etc). Honorable mentions go to easy tagging (just get the correct syntax down) and auto-linking (a commonly overlooked time saver).

Non-compressed media
While your iPhone can only attach five images per email, photos uploaded to Posterous aren’t compressed into a lower quality and resolution image, à la Facebook mobile uploads. You don’t have to compromise your Facebook galleries either… look to the next point.

Synchronization
With the point above, when you email those photos off to post@posterous.com, and your Facebook account is synced, you’ll automatically have another photo album (titled “Posterous Photos”) created on Facebook so all your friends can see. The post title and shortened URL will be the caption. Two uploads in one! Additionally, Posterous of course autoposts to Twitter, FriendFeed, and all the other major social sites, so your posts can simultaneously be blasted out to all those networks, just with one email.

Integration
On Posterous’s FAQ page, I read there’s a way to backwards integrate your current blog, which I think is an awesome feature if you’re looking to put all your things in one simple place. If I had an all-purpose blog, I think I would import my content. Otherwise for the purposes of hellaPR, my home will remain WordPress because I enjoy their robust dashboard. Great feature that I might find a use for in personal blogging soon.

Progressive attitude
In a time of economic instability, free things are rarely completely free, however this is not the case with Posterous. Their attitude is “Hey, here’s 100GB of space for personal use. Post everything and don’t think about space.” They even invite you to ask them for more! Do you think Google would give you more free space if you asked? The team is confident Posterous is the best, and they already have me convinced.

I encourage you all to check out Posterous and get postin’!

Who better to hear from on application development than from someone who (like me) has no real marketable app dev skills? I appreciate that rich irony but I’m going to forge ahead anyway.

My interest here is not the nitty details of programming languages but rather each app’s usability, interface, the way it integrates with and contributes to the overall Zoho brand. (I don’t know the recipe for Coca Cola either, but there should be a similar discussion about Coke’s products relating to the Coke brand. And those bottles!)

Let’s start with a look at the universe of applications available. Check out again the apps shown in this image at right.

How cool is that? This is the rare moment where less isn’t more. In fact, for years Microsoft and its partner PC makers have front-loaded new PCs with lots of applications that most consumers wouldn’t use. It only got annoying when brands like AOL and Quicken used the PC desktop as a shopping mall to push consumers to buy software they didn’t know they needed.

But what is the best muli-application scenario for Zoho?

Zoho is creating a complete, portable office suite of most applications that most consumers and business user will need. In fact, Zoho anticipated by several years Google’s push for a fully web-based computing platform in its Chrome OS.

Why have a PC at all? This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just consumer choice. Remember France’s Minitel? I do remember as a kid seeing all the magazine ads in high school French class which said at the end “Composez le XX-XX-XX sur votre Minitel”. I thought it was the coolest.

How should Zoho bring in new apps and get consumers’ attention?

I note the thoughtful comment from Raju on the multitude of Zoho apps:

Having multiple entry points for Zoho is a deliberate design. Given the number of apps we have, not many people use all apps. A CRM user or example doesn’t care about the navigation on the left as he doesn’t care about other apps.

Yes, I can imagine most users would not use most apps. I’m sure that I won’t use all of them. But consumer choice is a more powerful force than most of us remember (in my own business too, it’s easy to forget the power of offering choices). So if all these applications are available to the user, what do they all have in common? I’ve already burned up enough pixels on branding, interface and user consistency. This time let’s look at the physical space in which apps are created.

Another comment gives us some insight into how applications are developed at Zoho:

We let the individual apps mature first before integrating them. If you have been following us, we focused on launching several apps in the first 2 years and we let them mature individually and then we started integrating our apps. Integrating not-so-mature apps will slow down the entire development effort. So we tend to let individual apps mature before we integrate them.

It’s a skunkworks: It should allow the developers flexibility to grow apps without worrying who is looking over their shoulder. This grow-the-tree-first-then-trim-it model has a proven track record – just look at that app list again above.

And yet, at what point do you rein in the skunkworks innovators? When does one expect consistency and a clean interface?

At what point should the category-killer design of Zoho Notebook be required to integrate into the rest of the Zoho suite? Should this occur before or after the application is released for public use?

At what point should Zoho Tasks and Planner be combined, or at least encouraged to talk to each other and use the same data? What about Zoho Notes and Notebook – shouldn’t they also share data?

In fact, imagine if Zoho developers were required – from the beginning – to use the same data structure, so that neat little packages of data can bounce freely between all of them: Calendar, Planner, Tasks, Mail, CRM, Projects, and more. Would the consistency and interface issues have popped up in the same way? Perhaps not. Would such a requirement stifle the creativity of the developers? No way.

Ultimately, between the skunkworks innovators and the corporate central planners, who should answer to whom?

I am of course in no place to answer these questions. But consider a push-and-pull between the innovators and the planners; they answer to each other. Their foremost goals might be solid and creative applications, while commercially useful and adding value to the Zoho brand. Even while the brand’s equity is forever intangible, so is the skunkworks’ promise of the next big thing.

Just as Twitter began to tip off in early 2009, when a slew of third party tweet analyzing web apps came out, aggregating content, plotting data points and offering both abstract and concrete social media metrics, figures to help justify time invested in the social web, we’re now seeing some of the same with Foursquare. Some of that same technology is now fueling social butterfly bragging rights as we can now analyze where we’ve been and what we’ve done, beyond the mayorships we’ve earned and the cute profile badges we proudly don.

Where Do You Go gives you a heat map visualization of where you check-in.

Where Do You Go? -- a heat map of my San Francisco Foursquare check-ins

Can you guess where I work? What could you infer from the neighborhoods in which I frequent the most?

I was poking around in the newly open-sourced Etherpad code, and came across this tidbit.

/**
 * Copyright 2009 Google Inc.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS-IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

function assertTruthy(x) {
  if (!x) {
    throw new Error("assertTruthy failure: "+x);
  }
}

That’s trunk/etherpad/src/etherpad/testing/testutils.js by the way. So anyhow, as much as I appreciate that is licensed under the Apache License, is “assertTruthy” really creative enough to be worthy of a copyright?

That aside, I do have some general thoughts about Etherpad:

• Etherpad > Google Wave. Granted, Google Wave has much greater ambitions than Etherpad, but when it comes to the simple purpose of collaborative text editing (e.g. for collective note taking or hashing out the Declaration of Independence). With Etherpad, you don’t need to create an account or get an invite, the interface is simpler, things are faster and more stable, and the scrollbar has not been reinvented.
• Open-Source is Robust. While I understand why Google doesn’t want to have its employees devoting time to a something that partially competes with Wave, I was also super-annoyed when Etherpad.com shut down its public pads. Most web apps are effectively closed source (i.e. you can’t see any of the server-side code) and while there may be good business / security / privacy reasons for doing so, it makes you (as a user) dependent on the man behind the curtain. That man is a single point of failure — if he’s bought, shot, or caught, you’re screwed. With open-source, there are fewer irreplaceable parts. While open-source projects fail all the time, if there’s genuine interest in it, someone else will look through the code and revive it (barring weird copyright and infrastructure issues).
• Server-Side JavaScript is Cool. Etherpad is built on AppJet / Rhino, which uses a Java Virtual Machine to run JavaScript. The Etherpad source is split into two parts — one is the virtualization software written in Java and the other is the actual Etherpad app written in JavaScript. When I poked through their source code, at first I was all “Balls — this is Java. I wish it were Python,” but then I was like “OMG, this is JavaScript! I love JavaScript!”. Seriously, it’s awesome. Unless you’re not a geek, in which case, well, um, hi.

The web has changed our world in so many ways, providing information at our finger tips, giving faster communication, allowing easier exploration of our world and increasing our productivity…unless you are a surfing zombie. If you are then this list may not be for you. This list of the top 10 web applications will introduce you to some web apps that you may not know about. We certainly hope you find a treasure or two. The Internet is full of useful and fun applications and new ones come and go every day. In fact this list will probably be out of date in a month to some degree, but that is what makes the web so exciting. So enjoy this list while it lasts and take time to see how some of these web apps can help you. Think we left off a web app? Let us know in the comments.

10. TiddlyWiki

Everyone knows Wikipedia, the wiki anyone can edit. But wouldn’t it be great if you had your own wiki that only you could edit? Anytime you had some new information, just go on it and enter a topic and write about it. It’s like your brain in a webpage. Well that’s where TiddlyWiki comes in. It lets you do just that. You have full control over what it looks like and how it behaves. Best of all, it’s a single file. Save it as a document and share your knowledge with other people. Put it on a flashdrive and record on-the-go. TiddlyWiki can change your life if you’d only utilize its potential. Best of all, it’s free. Visit http://www.tiddlywiki.com

9. Netvibes

Meet your new homepage. Netvibes will bring you all your favorite RSS feeds, blog posts, news, weather, music, videos, e-mails, anything you name, all in one page. It even updates in real-time, so every time you visit the page you’ll get a whole new dose of information. Very customizable and visually attractive, Netvibes is definitely a home page worth having. Take a look for yourself. Visit http://www.netvibes.com

8. Jott

Have trouble remembering appointments or dates? Just jott it! Or maybe you lose all your sticky notes and index cards and forget to write things down in your planner. But if you’re like most people, you have a cell phone, and that’s always turned on. This is where Jott works its magic. You can program it to send you a text message, or call you and tell you, or even leave you a voice mail. Tell it whatever message you want. It’s your own personal transcription service. Visit http://jott.com

7. Peepel

The Peepel Online Office Suite is truly something worth checking out. There’s no need to shell out hundreds of dollars for Microsoft Office, or spend hours trying to desperately find a cheaper alternative. Just go on the site. Or maybe you’re tired of spending money upgrading your office suite software every few months. Maybe Microsoft programs just take too long to start, and you spent all your money on expensive software so you can’t afford a faster computer. Just go to Peepel. With enough features to rival even the most expensive software, you can easily accomplish whatever writing needs you may have on-the-go with Peepel’s word processor. Or maybe you need to make a spreadsheet. Peepel has that too. The best apart of Peepel, besides the fact that it’s free, is that you can open multiple applications and multi-task all in one browser window. Now that’s innovation. Visit http://www.peepel.com

6. Youconvertit

What if you have a major presentation saved on your flashdrive and you desperately try to open it to a team of impatient and grumpy executives? What if the software you used to create it at home isn’t friendly with their fancy, corporate software? What do you do? Just go to Youconvertit. It easily allows you to convert any image, video, document, and even units to virtually any format / type. Fast, easy, and free, Youconvertit is worthy of a bookmark. Visit http://www.youconvertit.com

5. Facebook

If you haven’t heard of Facebook, well that’s just pathetic. Facebook is the number one social networking site and probably the best. First of all, millions of people use it; odds are that everyone you know is probably on it. Facebook makes it easy to find people and connect with them whether it be your best friend or some kid you knew in the third grade. With an extensive and often updated list of applications, Facebook embeds thousands of web apps in itself. Fun, easy-to-use, and practical as well, Facebook may be a time-drainer, but if you absolutely must know what’s going on in all your friends’ lives, it’s a must. Visit htpp://www.facebook.com

4. Cooliris

Cooliris is a browser extension that will make your normal, boring web surfing experience into something fully interactive and cinematic. It turns the pages into an extensive “3D Wall.” You can easily browse thousands of images, videos, and other media quickly and easily. It’s very customizable too– you can change the theme, background, number of rows, angles, slideshow speed, and more. Instead of manually clicking and searching through webpage after webpage, you can simply browse the never-ending wall with total ease and comfort. All you need to do is download, and the download’s free. Visit http://www.cooliris.com

3. Meebo

Meebo is great because it’s a universal messenger that you can access on the web. Meebo basically pioneered web messenging. It’s compatible with AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Myspace, and even its own instant messenging platform: Meebo! Absolutely no installation or downloads are required; just log-in and go. It’s totally secure so you don’t have to worry about any security issues; and plus, it’s free. Visit http://www.meebo.com/

2. Hulu

Hulu has the ability to completely replace your television set. You don’t even have to install any software or make an account. Just go to the website and you’ll instantly see video clips, full TV episodes and seasons, and even feature-length films. It is very easy to use its methodical service; you can either search or browse for your media. They make money off of tiny commercials and sponsored video clips embedded in your viewing. A very small price to pay. You may think of streaming video like youtube-quality, which is nearly unwatchable. But Hulu is nothing like that. In fact, they even have HD channels. All you need is an internet connection. Oh, and it’s free. Visit http://www.hulu.com

1. Pandora

Pandora is your revolutionary radio station. It only plays the music you like. Type in the name of a song and it’ll play it, or if it can’t find it, it’ll play songs similar to it. Type in the name of an artist and it’ll play one of their songs, or bands similar to them. Using an advanced system, it’ll play songs with similar rhythms, beats, and music to whatever you type in. It’s not only a great way to listen to music, but to find music. You can create an account so it’ll keep track of all your personal radio stations. Best of all? It’s free. Visit http://www.pandora.com

Yeah, i know not another “year of Linux” prediction. So lame, but eh, whats the harm really

I have been thinking for a while now that Android is really the up and coming platform. This article about the android market reaching the 20,000 app milestone seems to agree, but is pretty conservative about it. Things it doesn’t consider is that the Android Market is just one place that apps are released. Apps can be made available other ways, such as a simple download available on the web that you then drop onto your device, or accessed directly through specific URL’s.

Also in contrast to native apps there are web apps. Web-apps developed for iPhone’s mobile safari browser also run on other mobile webkit browsers like the one found on Android (and Palm’s WebOS) and vice-versa. There is no count on those that I know of, but they are definitely growing in numbers and I suspect their popularity will be increasing dramatically. Less platform lock in is a big draw for developers. Additionally, existing tools make developing mobile apps relatively easy. For example, Android benefits from already existing tools like JqTouch, xUI, iUI and others

Then there is the fact that Android is starting to show up on things other than phones, like e-readers,  tablets, and amazing looking reader-tablet hybrids

With 2010 just around the corner some people are sure to claim (yet again) that this will be the year for Linux to break out, and they might be right as 2010 is really shaping up to be a big year for Android.

iPhone web apps aren’t being left behind by Apple (s aapl), despite the fact that the App Store has gone onto become such a huge success following its introduction in 2008. In fact, according to John Gruber at Daring Fireball, recent efforts on the Mac maker’s part show a real dedication to improving the platform’s web application experience.

In a lengthy post comparing developing using Cocoa Touch for the App Store vs. developing web applications, Gruber goes over the strengths and limitations of both. In the end, he reveals that a new web app framework would bring the experience of using web apps much closer to that of apps which reside natively on the iPhone. The new framework is apparently called PastryKit, and it’s an official Apple endeavor.

PastryKit brings three really important things to the table for web developers:

• Hides the address bar, without the need to create a home screen shortcut first, which currently allows that.
• Allows for static, fixed position toolbars that don’t scroll along with the rest of the page.
• Allows for scrolling momentum, which allows users to “fling” lengthy lists without causing scroll friction, the way web apps generally do now.

PastryKit has already been deployed in its iPhone User Guide web page, though you can only see the effects if you’re visiting the site on an iPhone. They are all JavaScript implementations, and so should be usable by any web developer. MacRumors points out that performance issues attached to the new features could arise on older-generation iPhone models, since these are known to have trouble with JavaScript in mobile Safari.

There’s little doubt that Apple is keeping its eye on the mobile web space, which is poised to explode thanks to recent developments in web tech like HTML5, CSS and others. There are some things that the App Store is no doubt better for, including advanced 3-D games like the kind released by Gameloft, ngmoco and EA, but for other apps, an improved web interface could be just what the doctor ordered.

If Apple can get smaller developers who are creating apps with limited or light functionality to take their business to the web instead of routing through the App Store, it’ll be able to eliminate a lot of the static and chatter that currently gums up the review process and no doubt costs Cupertino a not-insignificant amount of overhead. It may lose revenue, too, but the more lucrative titles will likely remain as dedicated apps, being the aforementioned games from major publishers I mentioned above.

layanan ini hanya dapat digunakan selama 90 hari. mungkin setelah sebuah halaman web postingan beberapa hari baru diposting , kemudian ingin melakukan tester,sebelum memasang layanan secure yang lebih baik:

http://www.instantssl.com/ssl-certificate-products/free-ssl-certificate.html

Free SSL Certificate 90 days

Step 1: Provide your CSR
You must generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) on your webserver. Click here for help generating your CSR. When you have created your CSR you may continue with the enrollment.

NOTE: Please ensure that the Common Name (CN) in your CSR is ONE of the following:

* your Fully Qualified Domain Name (e.g. “secure.yourdomain.com”)
* the Full Server Name of your internal server (e.g. “techserver”)
* your Private IP address (e.g. “192.168.0.1″)

After you have generated a CSR using your server software copy and paste the CSR text using an ASCII text editor into the CSR box below. Your CSR should look something like this:

—–BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST—–
MIIDUDCCArkCAQAwdTEWMBQGA1UEAxMNdGVzdC50ZXN0LmNvbTESMBAGA1UECxMJ
TWFya2V0aW5nMREwDwYDVQQKEwhUZXN0IE9yZzESMBAGA1UEBxMJVGVzdCBDaXR5
(more encoded data)…….
Rq+blLr5X5iQdzyF1pLqP1Mck5Ve1eCz0R9/OekGSRno7ow4TVyxAF6J6ozDaw7e
GisfZw40VLT0/6IGvK2jX0i+t58RFQ8WYTOcTRlPnkG8B/uV
—–END CERTIFICATE REQUEST—–

When I heard about the release of Google’s Chrome OS, I thought to myself it was great for netbooks, and awesome for competition, but the basic notion of it is that a user will store most of her information online, and I didn’t see the practicality for Chrome OS on a normal laptop or desktop.

I think I’m beginning to see it now.

If I’m on my computer, no matter what I am doing, nine times out of ten I have Google Chrome or Firefox open. Multitasking is the name of the game for tech freaks and/or people who just have too much time on their hand and use their computer a lot.

I mean, I could use Microsoft Outlook and Windows Calendar on my laptop and not install any other software. Mozilla Thunderbird has made my life for my non-primary GMail accounts, and Remember the Milk looks to be a great tool for whenever I have don’t have my planner on me, just my phone.

Such apps are a wet dream for the gadget elite with the smart phones. I hope to be among those ranks one day soon.

I know I’m behind on all this stuff, but it’s just so fascinating to me. The shift from computer based software to internet apps is something that is happening right before our eyes, and I can’t imagine that any of the forerunners of the Internet expected anything of this.

It’s a fun time to be a geek.

Jekyll & Hyde

Over the years I have come across companies who end up with a huge reliance on spreadsheets to manage critical functions of their business. Unfortunately spreadsheets were never intended as a replacement for properly designed database systems yet it doesn’t stop people trying. It is common to see spreadsheets being used in the budgeting & forecasting process as well as time recording, invoicing, resource & capacity management and so on.

It is understandable that this happens, it is very easy to start a new spreadsheet and in no time at all someone has what looks like a good system. It is a quick fix but people love it because it solves an immediate need. Very quickly a department or team come to rely on the spreadsheet and overtime more people add new functionality to it because it is so easy to do.

Then it starts to get ugly. Within no time at all there are multiple “versions” of the spreadsheet but no control, no security, no support, no documentation and no change control. Worse still there are often individual spreadsheets per week, per client, per team and suddenly all the information the business needs is spun across hundreds of spreadsheets. It only when someone starts to look for a report that trends the information over time or filter it for a particular project that people realise that they just can’t do it. 

Inevitably the whole “system” has grown into a monster, too large for anyone to understand it or maintain it. Comprehensive reporting (or Business Intelligence), if even possible, is very difficult to do due to the multiple versions, different structures and inconsistencies between spreadsheets.

Another major issue with using spreadsheets this way is the significant reliability problem. Research studies (Stephen G. Powell, Kenneth R. Baker, Barry Lawson (2007-12-01)) estimate that 94% of spreadsheets deployed in the field contain errors. I have seen spreadsheet “systems” that were used to determine weekly payroll commissions and bonuses which were far from accurate. Sometimes an employees bonus had another nice unexpected bonus on top of it. But it was impossible to diagnose the system issue when it involves hundreds of spreadsheets all with their own formulae and equations. Worse still, the employee who was the spreadsheet wizard and had originally built all the spreadsheets had since left the company.

It is important that we understand when to use spreadsheets but more importantly when to stop using them before you hit the problems outlined above. Spreadsheets are great for end-user data analysis and to an extent for prototyping new systems. But just keep an eye out for the tell tale signs that you are beginning to see the start of the spreadsheet monster. It is possible to replace spreadsheets with a proper database system and it is something I would strongly recommend.

Is the iPhone Boom a Business Boon?

We all know how the iPhone frenzy has grabbed popular imagination since it was first announced in Jan 2007. With its cool feature set, slick appearance, powerful computing capabilities, beautiful display and intuitive touch navigation, this poster boy of the mobile generation has captured the imagination of gizmo freaks and tech phobics alike. To get some measure of iPhone’s success, one only needs refer to Tim Cook’s (Apple’s COO) recent statement at a conference – he said that the company had “really good confidence” the company would hit 10 million iPhones sold by the end of 2008.

According to a research from IDC, 70 percent of those polled who own, or plan to purchase an iPhone in the next year, consider it to be for both personal and business use.

Considering the vast proliferation of iPhones in such a short span, it is natural that all those who own a iPhone would want to extend its use to business as well. And it is no joy carrying around a Blackberry and iPhone in either pocket. All that does is to exert extra downward pressure on the belt. It is no wonder then, that iPhone’s usability in a business context is a raging debate nowadays. That is still a secondary question, because the fact remains that present and future end users of iPhone see is as something they want to use for business.

The Bad News

Unfortunately for corporates, iPhone was created mainly for the meatier consumer market, and never really meant to be a business tool.

What Obstructs “iPhone for Business”

-   It’s mainly a PIM

-   Third party applications not supported

-   Lack of Exchange Support

Mainly a PIM – iPhone mainly has PIM(personal information manager) capabilities (email, contacts, calendars, calendars, notes) and not meant to be used for team collaboration, which requires the ability to share and work togather on information.

Sorry Third Party Developers – iPhone runs on a custom built operating system called the “iPhone OS”, and at this point does not allow third party applications to be built & installed on this native OS. Users are restricted to applications prebuilt into the system (mail, sms,  calendar, photos, etc). This meant no special business centric applications could be created to make use of iPhone’s computing & display capabilities and internet-ability.  

No Exchange Support – The gravest ommision was a lack of support for MS Exchange, which meant that users could not view even the most most elementary business information – business mail, contacts, tasks, and calendars, on their iPhones, what to speak of advanced collaboration. The only way to achieve this was complicated and unreliable workarounds.

The Good News

iPhone’s Business Friendly Features

-   Rich Safari Browser

-   Web 2.0 Applications Allowed

-   Internet Friendly

-   Recent Apple Announcements

Hurray for Web 2.0 – The good news is that they allowed a small window, through which an elephant could be pushed. Soon after its launch, Apple announced that it would allow third party web applications supporting web 2.0 standards, to run on iPhone though its rich Safari browser. This effectively meant that iPhone could be part of the web 2.0 revolution, and access all the rich applications therein.

The Safari Browser – iPhones web browser Safari, is a full web browser with the works. It is light years ahead of the custom made web browsers of traditional corporate handhelds like Palm’s Blazer browser, Blackberry browser, etc. It is not just comparable to a desktop browser, but is a desktop browser. This allows iPhone to ride high on the current web 2.0 wave, rather than just being a bystander.

According to AT&T and Google, iPhone generated 50 times more search requests than any other mobile handset.

Internet-ability- iPhone allows internet access through wi-fi or wide area EDGE networks. One important prerequisite for a mobile to be an effective remote collaboration tool is the willingness and comfort level of users to use the device for web access. With no little thanks to the large display & the safari browser, the iPhone has been a huge success as a device for web access. The iPhone increased the average wireless data usage as much as 30 times higher than on other phones.

Apple finally Awakens from its Slumber – Only lately has Apple has woken up to the previously ignored aspect of business usage. This was largely caused by the hue and cry raised by the media and users over its frustrating lack of business friendlyness. Even as I write, there is news of iPhone finally offering Exchange support, and an iPhone SDK (software development kit) which will allow programmers to develop applications specifically to be installed on the iPhone.

But these new developments are not just in their infancy, but even foetal stage. It will be some time before these new applications find their feet, an truly provide trouble free functionality to businesses.

Exchange support at this time is issue riddled and works only for companies that support Exchange 2007 or Direct Push on Exchange 2003. Moreover, this and the launch of installed applications for iPhone wont take place until a firmware update slated for June 2008.

Webapps to the Rescue : HyperOffice as a case in study

Amongst the first companies to regonise the oppurtunity presented by iPhone for rich business applications was HyperOffice. Already well experienced in the web based business collaboration domain, they developed HyperOffice for iPhone, an iPhone specific version of their flagship product, HyperOffice.

This allowed business users to use almost the entire feature set HyperOffice right from their iPhones. Rather than an isolated personal information manager, HyperOffice allowed iPhone to be used as a dynamic collaboration tool through which users could access the company intranet, share contacts and calendars, plan projects, share and edit documents, schedule meetings, & many other things.

They also realised early on that a major pain point for users looking to use iPhone for business was a lack of Exchange support. HyperOffice allows users to get past this hurdle easily by acting as a bridge between Exchange and iPhone. It allows users to receive information directly from Exchange, or access Outlook information (mail, contacts, calendars, tasks) right on iPhone, with or without Exchange. No matter where users access mail and other information – Outlook, iPhone’s email client or on any other web device, information is automatically synched. Users always get updated information.

 

TeuxDeux (@TeuxDeux) brings us a refined, simple, and still thoroughly satisfying experience with their web-based to-do list app. The name is a refreshing change from the Web 2.0 names we’re so accustomed to, with omitted vowels or double consonants. It’s a play on both the spelling and pronunciation of the French word for “two”, deux. After five years of French, I can fully appreciate the pun.

If you’ve hung around me for more than 20 minutes, you’ll notice I’m constantly pulling out my iPhone to stay on track with my scatterbrained note and to-do list apps that are never in sync with one another, or shuffling through a small spiral-bound notepad full of random thoughts, grocery lists and who owes me money for concert tickets. The word ‘agenda’ alone calms my nerves. To-do lists are my ritualistic behavior that make me feel I have more control of the chaos that surrounds me. I’ve been a fan of them since college, but it wasn’t until I interned at a PR agency that I discovered that to-do lists are a way of life.

With the minimalist design, journal-like functionality, TeuxDeux seems to have generated some positive buzz on the web right now. It offers  the most simplified way to make and publish a to-do list, unlike Google Calendar or Outlook.

Each date has a small field below in which you can type in your tasks and hit enter for it to show up in the list. The drag-and-drop functionality runs smoothly across the calendar and crossing out as well as deleting items is even easier with a single, satisfying click. Just like in real life, incomplete tasks usually are followed through the next day, so TeuxDeux takes that step for you by automatically rolling items over to the next date’s list. This is probably my favorite feature of all because I hate going into work and retracing where I’ve left off because I over-summarized and notes get lost in the clutter. Also, if you miss days at a time, you can still drag tasks into the past and cross them off so you can still have an account of when items were completed.

Lastly, there is a “Someday” section where you can list off ambitions or upcoming tasks with no tie to a particular date, all of which can be either as vague or as realistic as you want. As you can see, mine are pretty broad and only about half could realistically be accomplished in 2010 on my budget!

Looking ahead, I imagine companies can use this as another way to engage in social media by showing what they’re up to. Individuals committed to online personal branding likewise can use it to show how they’re committed professionally but also weave in as much personality as they please by their hobbies, talent, fears and dreams they mention in their list. Even bloggers can use it as an editorial calendar.

Lastly, I’m a fan of capitalizing on ‘chelsea’ anywhere available, so I’m glad to have secured it early on. You can see what I’m up to at http://www.TeuxDeux.com/chelsea.

Webhooks. User-defined callbacks on the web. Yes. YES! Wait, what does that even mean? That stupid website doesn’t seem to explain them at all!

Let’s explore this through an analogy. This analogy uses stockbrokers! Yay! (?)

Consider, before the web, before email, how people would interact with their stockbroker: the telephone. Whenever you wanted to manage your investments and find out what’s really going on in the market, you would call your stockbroker. It’s similar to how you might use your browser to visit Twitter to update your status and find out what’s going on with your friends, right? This is the basis of the analogy. Bear with me.

Imagine in this story your phone is a browser, a phone call is a web request, and the broker is a web application, like Twitter.

It’s 1989 and you like to think of yourself as a big time stock trader with an impressive portfolio. Good for you. You got to this point by staying in close touch with your stockbroker. You’d call her (!) to find out what was happening in the market, discuss whether buying certain stock was a good idea, and maybe put in an order. You were able to get information out of the system and put orders into the system by picking up your phone and calling your broker.

The problem is that you can only react to events in the market as quickly as you get the information. This means you’d have to call your broker quite a bit to stay on top of a fast moving, highly volatile market. A programmer might try to automate this with a script. You take a similar approach: you hire an assistant to deal with your stockbroker. Perhaps this is unheard of in reality, but stay with me.

Now an assistant is not unlike a computer program in theory. You can give them instructions and based on certain conditions and input, they’ll do as you say. For example, maybe you instruct your assistant to buy a certain type of stock after it behaves a certain way, and if there’s not enough money to buy the amount that you told them, they can transfer the money from your savings account after a quick confirmation phone call with you. In today’s world, that sort of thing is not terribly out of the question to automate with a script using the web APIs and programmatic infrastructure available to us now.

Again, in order to react to events in the market in a timely manner, it requires lots of phone calls to your stockbroker. Sure, your assistant can handle it, but it’s a lot of work and wastes a lot of time. In fact, it wastes you money because you pay for your assistant by the hour! If you were a programmer, your script would have to constantly poll the broker API requiring a touchy cron setup or a long running process that gets more inefficient the closer to real-time you want it to be. Not to mention it’s just more work than you should have to deal with. If only there was some way for your assistant or script to be notified when things happen so they could simply react.

One day, your stockbroker says they’re providing a new service they describe as callbacks. You give them a phone number, and they’ll call it whenever something interesting happens regarding stocks relevant to you. Wow! Well, you could give them your number, but there are two problems. First, it’s 1989 and you don’t happen to have a cell phone. You can’t always be reached. Second, even if you could, you’d still want your assistant to handle the events because they have been instructed with how to deal with them and will do a lot of the legwork for you. Luckily, your assistant has a cell phone and is always available, so you give the broker their number.

Now your assistant is working very efficiently making you lots of money. Their job is so much easier because they don’t have to do anything until they get a call from either you or, more importantly, the broker. They can finally react to events as they happen, without a lot of nonsense trying to stay on top of things. What’s more is they will automatically take care of whatever situations you’ve told them.

What a cool feature, this callbacks thing. Thanks, broker!

If you haven’t guessed, the callback feature in this story is the exact mechanics of webhooks. Webhooks would allow you to tell the web apps that you use to “callback” scripts you have online. These scripts will deal with whatever events that web app produces. These callbacks use the same protocol you use to talk to them and that you both know how to use: web requests. Putting your script online at a URL is analogous to your assistant that has a cell phone: it’s always available for direct connection at a persistent “phone number,” unlike you, with dynamic IPs and NATs and turning off your computer. And just like an assistant, the script can do a lot of interesting things for you that you wouldn’t necessarily want to do, most of which is a sort glue work of making different systems work together given some logic. For example, transferring money from your savings account to the broker account when there isn’t enough.

A concrete example of a story made possible from webhooks that might be a useful scenario for many of you involves Twitter. Let’s say Twitter supported webhook callbacks for when somebody follows you. Right now you get an email, and from there you can decide what to do manually: follow them back, block them, or do nothing. I used to go out of my way to block users that I knew were spam bots, but now there’s so many it’s not worth the time. And of course I also generally follow back people that I actually know. If Twitter would simply call a script of mine whenever somebody followed me passing along the user ID, I could very easily run this logic in a PHP script or a simple App Engine app. Or perhaps I’d use Scriptlets (ahem, which was made exactly for these kinds of web scripts). It would work like this:

First, use the Twitter API to look up the user from the ID, and grab their name. Then use the Facebook API to check if that name shows up in my list of friends on Facebook. If so, use the Twitter API to follow them back. Otherwise, if they’re following over 1000 users and that number is more than twice the number that’s following them (which is roughly the heuristic I use manually), use the Twitter API to block them. All automatic.

If you could do this, not only would you have glued together Facebook and Twitter in an interesting and useful way, but you’ve sort of extended the net functionality Twitter provides you. You could imagine perhaps someday Twitter releasing features that would do exactly what you just did. But they won’t. In fact, they’ll never release features that are so specific to you (who says my spam algorithm is the algorithm everybody should use?). This is how webhooks make the web more about you. You can start extending web applications and gluing them together just the way you want.

This is a win-win for web application users and developers. Users get more functionality. Developers can implement less.

Coming back to the stockbroker analogy, there is a type of order called a limit order where you say to buy or sell when it’s at a certain price. With webhooks (or the broker “callback” service), this is merely a convenience because you could easily set that up outside of their system. Speaking of that example, when I mentioned your assistant transferring money between accounts, that reminds me, you know that feature banks have called overdraft protection? If banks had webhooks, all banks could have overdraft protection. Wow, right? That would have been nice for me when I had Washington Mutual, a bank known for its lack of overdraft protection.

What else could you do in a world with webhooks? Basically everything would have a common event-driven infrastructure, allowing you, with just a little bit of scripting glue, to accomplish so much more and make the systems you use better, and more personal.

HootSuite last night came out with it’s anticipated iphone app.  If you don’t know what HootSuite is, go check out my review of it.  HootSuite took the main ideas of the web app and put it into the iphone app.  You can have multiple Twitter accounts on the app.  HootSuite also has their own url shortener as well, which you can put a url into and they will automatically shorten it for you.  One of the nice things about this is that HootSuite keeps stats on these url’s so that you can see who is clicking your urls.  They only keep stats for the ones that HootSuite shortens, not any other service.  Other than that you can search and see trends within Twitter.  That is basically about it.

Right now it is on sale in the app store for $1.99 till Dec. 17th, http://bit.ly/7USCNJ.  I don’t know if I would pay full price for it, but so far it is a good app.  I think it will get better if it can integrate Facebook and Linked In into the iphone app, similar to how they do that for the web app.  Below are some screenshots of the app itself.  Feel free to leave comments.

http://kl.am/5uu6

Google is in the early-stage of a research project called SPDY (“speedy”). Researchers at Google are unhappy with the performance of the venerable hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and think they can do better. We need a faster protocol between servers and browsers and this is exactly what SPDY aims to deliver. SPDY still complies with the rules of http such as headers, methods etc. Benefits that SPDY can bring are the time reductions it takes to load websites, multiple HTTP requests enabled which run across a single TCP session and bandwidth reduction.

If SPDY was to become widely adopted, web servers and web browsers would need significant changes. Any network based on strict request-reply, synchronous behaviour would need major changes to core protocol handling systems for SPDY to work. Apart from Google Chrome, every other browser would need to be reconfigured to handle the SPDY protocol. Although SPDY looks like a promising protocol, like any emerging trend it will take a while for it to become adopted as standard, and alot of effort.

http://kl.am/5o4t

In today’s look at Zoho, let’s go to the starting point: the interface. By “interface” I don’t mean the specific features of each Zoho app but rather the overall navigation between them – the thing that ties it all together.

This is a singularly critical point for an office solution like Zoho, because the interface brings together all of the apps’ functionality and keeps them in the same sandbox under the Zoho brand. The “front door” of any web app – or any consumer brand at all – is where impressions count. Here is what I’ll call Facebook’s front door:

This is Zoho’s front door:

This page appears after I log onto www.zoho.com.

In an earlier post I alluded to my discomfort about Zoho and its interface inconsistency. It implies somehow that Zoho lacks a solid foundation where I can safely store my data, reliably share it with partners, and know it will be there in the future when I need it.

This sandbox is more like a leaky sieve rather than a strong wall that differentiates My Stuff from the Big Bad Web. Let’s look in detail at some elements of the Zoho interface before the sand leaks out.

The ubiquitous Facebook navbar is so reliable, simple and clean that thousands of Facebook denizens are quick to panic and complain whenever it changes.  Facebook is a fair comparison with Zoho in that they both host large numbers of users and offer a wide variety of applications. It’s easy to get lost in the shopping mall of web toys that is Facebook, and this navbar is a comforting guidepost.

The next screenshot is www.zoho.com after I’ve logged in. From here I can jump to an application or to the Personal page. Remember this layout, because you won’t see it again. I wouldn’t mind not seeing that page again, because I like this one much better:

Zoho Sheet Version 1: Accessed through Zoho Personal

Check out the navbar on the left. How cool is that? It doesn’t take up a lot of screen real estate, and on smaller screens it shows fewer apps plus the “More” button at bottom. Perfect for my netbook.

On the bottom left is a nice looking set of links that acts like a system tray, linking to contacts and notifications. It might be even nicer if that system tray had more options, but I’m not going to quibble.

By clicking on the navbar tabs, I can bounce over to whichever app I need, although there is sometimes a delay and a weird flash of the login page. But what if I wanted to go directly into Zoho Sheet (the “Excel”-like application) by either typing sheet.zoho.com or clicking on the “Sheet” link from the Zoho’s front door (above )?

I end up here.

Zoho Sheet Version 2: Direct access without Zoho Personal

See the difference? Let’s look closely at Versions 1 and 2 of Zoho Sheet. Version 1 has the familiar navbar on the left. There’s the familiar system tray at bottom left, and a simple control panel and universal settings menu at top right. Those items sit comfortably there as I switch between apps.

In Version 2, the navbar is gone, as are the system tray and the universal menus at top. Instead, there is a curious set of other menus at top. “Switch to” is the menu that allows me to switch between apps. In this screenshot I’ve hovered over the link in order to illustrate the Javascript drop-down menu that shows each app. But wait! Here are further points where Version 2 differs (and not for the better) from Version 1:

• Each new application accessed from “Switch To” opens in a new tab. Before I know it, I could open a half dozen tabs just in Zoho alone.
• Each application’s “Switch To” menu has a different layout, different fonts, background colors, menu dividers and placement.
• Some applications in Version 2 have a “products links” menu (not sure what that means) and a multiple languages menu (very cool).
• In some applications (but not all) the system tray is in fact there.

Other oddities:

In Version 1, I can click on yet another navbar (this one horizontal and underneath the universal settings links; follow me so far?) which gives me the options for “Compose – Document – Sheet – Presentation – Task – Note – Link”. While a little redundant, it is useful in that it directly opens up a blank document in that respective Zoho app. However, it opens up that blank document in Version 2, not Version 1.

Confused? Imagine I’m working on my spreadsheet as in Version 1, above, with the great navbar. I realize that I need to start working on my slide presentation, so I click on “Presentation” which should take me to Zoho Show and open up a new file for me to start making my slides. I actually end up here:

I’m in Zoho Show sure enough, but it’s Version 2. No navbar, no system tray, it’s in a new tab, and there’s that “Switch To” menu again – in a different color, no less.

Good Fences

These are minor but meaningful quirks in the Zoho solution that make me wonder what is going on and where I am. It’s disorienting, and disorientation is something the user wants to avoid while trying to gain comfort with posting personal documents in the cloud.

From what we’ve looked at in this post, there is not just one front door into the Zoho Universe, but rather there are several side doors leading all over. Zoho would benefit from stronger boundaries and firmer walls, which might ironically help it relate better with the world outside. In any context, good fences make good neighbors.

Here is my guess: Version 2 came first, and Version 1 is the new, more consistent approach to a single Zoho entity that covers all the apps. If so then I applaud that approach and hope that Zoho does away with Version 2 faster than you can click on your browser’s “new tab” button.

Next: The application development pipeline

The amount of free resources available to entrepreneurs is truly remarkable when compared to the business world of the 90s. The growing popularity of web apps – and in particular free web apps – is allowing small business owners to benefit from tools and technology which used to come with a hefty price tag.

Some of the most useful web apps available today are those concerning search and networking. Regardless of your industry, finding quality leads or prospects is one of the most important elements in growing your business.

In this video, we’ve searched the internet for the top web apps around. These six businesses tell us how they’ve used web applications and online networking to get in touch with the right type of prospect for their business.

Arguably, Zoho is a competitor of Google’s (s goog), since both include web-based document creation and editing tools among their product offerings. That hasn’t stopped Zoho from offering integration with Google products in the past, and today it introduces full Google Docs compatibility, a move which shows it puts customer needs ahead of all other concerns, if you ask me.

Zoho CRM, Zoho Mail and Zoho Docs all get new abilities to interact with and use documents from Google Docs, which should be welcome news for anyone wanting to try out the Zoho alternative without either starting from scratch or going through an arduous migration process with their existing library of docs.

Zoho CRM

Attach files directly from your associated Google Docs account to Leads, Accounts, and Cases within Zoho CRM. All you have to do is authenticate using your Google credentials when prompted, and voila, your Docs should appear for you to choose from, in addition to your Zoho Docs and files on your desktop.

Zoho Mail

Adding an attachment when you’re composing an email is as easy as clicking on the little arrow next to the “Attach” link, and selecting Google Docs from the list of sources. If you haven’t done so already, Zoho will send you to Google to authenticate, and then your files will appear in a list with checkboxes next to them so you can select multiple attachments at a time. Zoho also allows you to filter your Docs, so that you can view only text, spreadsheet, or presentation files.

Zoho Docs and Projects

The same interface is used to get documents directly from your Google Docs account to both Zoho Docs and Projects, although you might want to note that with Zoho Docs, uploading directly from Google is supported only in the dashboard view. Trying to do so from the dedicated Docs window only allows you to import from Google Docs files you’ve downloaded to your desktop.

I’ve always been a Google user myself, but upon revisiting Zoho’s offerings for the purposes of this piece, I find myself wondering why. I’m not a Gmail or Google Calendar guy, and short of forthcoming integration with Google Wave, which I’m not crazy about anyway, there’s really no reason I should stick with Google when the competition is clearly much more obliging. For now, I’m going to test the Zoho waters and see how things turn out.

Does Google Docs integration give you a reason to give Zoho a try?