Cool Products & Hot Companies

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2

A few months ago I started having problems with IE 6. It would crash, was slow and gave me major problems. After reading Microsoft's recommendation that I should completely reinstall Windows XP since there is no easy uninstall and resinstall of IE by itself I started using Firefox. 

Firefox is a pretty cool browser - RSS feeds, tabbed browsing (which I don't think is that useful) and a few other features (along with the fact that it wasn't crashing on me) made it my browser of choice. There were a few problems: websites didn't always render correctly, I couldn't view MSNBC video content (Microsoft requires IE to view their content), but for the most part it worked well.

Don't get me wrong - I'm no fan of Microsoft and I understand why people support Firefox. That said, I use the best solution I can find, and I'm glad that the Firefox guys are forcing Microsoft to get their act together.

This week I got brave and decided to install Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 to see if it would solve my IE crashing problems. I'm happy to say that it was an easy install and did solve the crashing. And along with that it turns out I really like what it has to offer.

What I've found so far:

• Performance seems very snappy
• HTML rendering has worked correctly on all the pages I have checked
• The new mechanism for managing RSS feeds and favorites is very cool - simple and fast to use
• The interface is streamlined and VERY simple (this is NOT what I expected from Microsoft) :-)
• Integrated search with your choice of search engines is nice - I can now get rid of the Google toolbar. Microsoft even kept Google as my default for me.
• Correct printing of Internet pages is quite nice
• I like being able to zoom in and out on pages
• Built-in support for anti-phishing and managing IE add-ons is useful
• The research toolbar is very useful - search Encarta, dictionaries, company profiles, etc (though you will never find the toolbar because it isn't obvious at all)

The two things I don't like:

• It is harder to immediately see the status of pages being loaded
• The refresh page button is in the upper right corner - if it were in the upper left corner by the forward and back button it would be more intuitive

Competition is a GOOD thing, I can't wait to see what the Firefox guys do to one-up Microsoft!

Yousendit: Large email attachments

Sending large email attachments easily

Ever have a problem sending large attachments in your emails? Yousendit is the answer. It allows you to upload files up to 1GB, emailing the file recipients and providing them with a link to download. Up to 100 people can download the file, and it remains up for seven days.

Best of all, the basic service described above is completely FREE. There is also an enhanced service for only $4.99 per month.

Google's Sketchup

I've never been much of an artist, let alone had the ability to draw anything in 3D. That is, until I downloaded Google's new free Sketchup tool.

Sketchup is designed to let mere mortals create 3D designs. It has a very interesting interface (an Instructor window teaches you each tool as you go) that I found was easy to learn on the fly (though there are online tutorials as well).

Sketchup automatically connects the ends of lines and midpoints when you are drawing (something I wish I could do in PowerPoint.) Adding 3D effects is easy, and you can rotate your picture around to change the perspective, add textures and patterns, break apart walls and do all kinds of things with it.

One of the most interesting aspects of Sketchup is the interaction with the web. You can save your drawings online for others to see and use, and you can pull down drawings to use as a starting point. Imagine having a huge free  library of 3D images that you can open and transform into anything you want.

And of course, the price is right: FREE

Ad Supported Applications

Accomplice (www.accomplice.com) is a hot, new company, that not only has an innovative product, but also an innovative business model. Accomplice makes a client based organizer and is “your partner in time.” It provides a single place to organize all of your todo’s - both work and personal. Further, it synchs with Outlook, PDAs and other Accomplice users who you invite into your network. So it makes it very easy to coordinate and see status of tasks across different groups. Of course, this also makes it very viral.

But most interesting of all is that Accomplice plans to distribute a free version that is advertising supported. Accomplice will serve up small text adds similar to Google that are context and time sensitive. Thus, it will deliver ads relevant to what you are doing when you are doing it. For example if you have a todo that says “plan summer trip to Italy” you will see travel related ads. If you had a work todo to “print launch brochure” you would see ads relating to print services. If, however, you happen to be meeting your friend Pam Anderson for lunch, I do not want to think about the ads that might show-up on your desktop. Hopefully Accomplice will also add a content filter feature to their ad server.

Still, I am very intrigued by the thought of advertising supported applications.

bypass registration with BugMeNot

I recently needed to access a newspaper article and was reminded of a site that is one of my favorites: www.bugmenot.com . BugMeNot lets users share logins for websites that have compulsory registration. The concept is quite simple, type in a URL and it will return user names and passwords for the site that other BugMeNot users have registered. Each user name and password lets you record “yes” or “no” on whether it worked. This way, passwords that are inactive drop to the bottom of the list.

Clocky Will Get You Going

In the "what will they think of next" department comes Clocky(TM) .

Clocky is a cross between a small furry pet and a relentless alarm clock. If you love furry things and are one of those people who needs a little extra help to get up in the morning, Clocky may be the answer.

Clocky was created by Gauri Nanda,a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.

Clocky is a small fur covered alarm clock on wheels. It runs away and hides if you don't get out of bed on time. If you press snooze when the alarm sounds  Clocky will roll off of the bedside table, fall to the floor, and wheel away, bumping mindlessly into objects until it finds a spot to rest. When the alarm sounds again, you have get up and search for it to turn it off. 

Clocky is in beta, but the web site is accepting advance orders. Check it out.

For more info visit: www.clocky.net

Google acquires Writely

Big news today as a very cool product, writely.com (owned by Upstartle LLC) gets acquired by Google (http://writely.blogspot.com/2006/03/google-yep-google.html).  Google now owns an extremely well implemented web 2.0 based word processor. Writely has many uses but one of writely’s powerful capabilities is letting users collaborate on the same document in real time.  Now you can maintain one source of truth when taking meeting notes over a teleconference. Writely helps keep everyone on the same page (pun fully intended.) 

There will be lots of talk about Google pushing into Microsoft’s space.  But I think the most exciting possibilities is if Google makes writely available for mash-ups.  How nice if you can have a collaborative word processing environment to embed in other web applications. Tie this in with Gtalk and cool things start to happen.

Wetpaint joins the WIKI wars

Wetpaint announced their new WIKI product this week. I've been a fan of JotSpot and Socialtext since they first came out. Wetpaints appears to have two differentiators: ease of content creation for users and (according to their home page) it is free. Should be interesting to see how this market sorts itself out.

Plogs--Blogging Meets Smart Marketing

Do you have a blog? Do you have the hottest blogs on your watch list?

Well, it's time to step up to the next level...plogs!

I came upon plogs on Amazon's web site. A plog is a marriage of "blog" and "personalized marketing content".

For Amazon this means you see items that are likely to have high relevance for you, based on your browsing and purchase behavior. As the site states, "Posts in your plog come from many sources, including authors of books you have purchased on Amazon.com. In the future, your plog also will help you discover products that have just been released, track changes to your orders and much more."

You will see your plog when you access Amazon's site with your own sign in. Generic info can be seen at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/16385881/sr=53-1/sr=53-1/qid=1141701899/ref=tr_284821/103-2067258-0909418

I can only imagine how the the next wave ofconsumer oriented "plogs" will play out.
For me, I look forward to my Nordstrom shoe plog!

iKarma: eBay-style reputations on the web

iKarma is working on a cool new idea. It allows a service provider to set up an account and create an online reputation (much like a seller or buyer's reputation on eBay). Imagine if you you were going to do some work on your house and you could look up your contractor and see what kind of a reputation he has with previous customers. Or your doctor or dentist.

Not sure if they'll get critical mass to make this viable, but it's an interesting idea.