Zoho Mail: Now With Offline and Mobile Support

It’s tough being a competitor to Gmail. Google has been the first major company to offer virtually unlimited storage for e-mails, and the simplicity of the service, solid spam filtering and good integration with other Google services has made Gmail a favorite for many.

Zoho Mail has been in private beta stage so far and thus it is definitely not as widespread as Gmail, but it has always been a worthy competitor. It’s a slick, feature-rich client that tries to marry Gmail’s simplicity with the overall look and feel of a full featured desktop email client, such as Outlook. Today, they’ve reached an important milestone - Zoho Mail is coming out of private beta, and it has some new features to show off.

First,through Google Gears, Zoho Mail now supports offline mode. To access, it, you must have Google Gears installed in either IE or Firefox, and click on the “Setup Offline” link on the top. Zoho Mail will recognize your connection status and switch between online and offline mode seamlessly. It may not be a killer feature, but it’s useful, and the fact that Gmail has been dabbling with it for quite a while but the official offline mode is still not out there is in Zoho’s favor.

Another important feature is mobile support - oops, did I say mobile? I meant iPhone, since Zoho Mail currently only works with Apple’s phone, and support for other devices is “in the works.” Just login to zoho.com from your iPhone and you’ll find the mobile version of Zoho Mail right there.

These two features, along with some others, for example support for Gmail-style labels as well as Outlook-style folders, and integrated chat, make Zoho Mail an interesting competitor in the Web mail field and a great addition to the already very solid Zoho Office suite.

Courtesy: Mashable

Zoho Mail Gets Offline Support via Google Gears - Ahead of Gmail

Innovative Web Office startup Zoho has beaten Google to the punch again, announcing offline support for the newly public Zoho Mail tonight. Ironically Zoho is using Google Gears to enable offline functionality in Zoho Mail - see the video below by the Google Developer team. Zoho also beat Google to offline support in online word processing, again using Gears, by launching that functionality in November 2007. Google followed up with offline support for Google Docs at the end of March 2008.

We wrote in July about speculation that Google will start rolling out offline support for both Gmail and Google Calendar through Google Gears within the next six weeks. Didn't happen.

However Yahoo Mail did come up with offline functionality in July - it gave offline access to all free and paid Yahoo Mail users through the Yahoo Zimbra Desktop. Earlier this week Yahoo announced further Zimbra integration, this time with its Calendar app.

So Google is well and truly behind the times with offline support for web mail. However the Google white coats are having a fine old time tinkering with mail stuff in their labs - tonight Google Labs announced Advanced IMAP Controls, which lets you "fine-tune your Gmail IMAP experience."

To be fair, Google probably isn't worried about Zoho coming out with offline functionality in its mail product before Gmail has. For one thing Google is so big it can afford to wait until it's good and ready, despite Gmail fans yearning for offline support! But also Google probably sees Zoho less as a competitor at this point (even though Zoho does compete directly against Google Apps) and more as an evangelist for its technology - such as Google Gears.

To access mail offline in Zoho Mail, you'll need Google Gears installed on your browser - at this point IE and Firefox are supported. Chrome and Safari support is coming. According to Zoho's blog, you can also download images and attachments in offline mode. Another cool feature is that Zoho Mail automatically detects your connectivity and switches to online/offline modes. The video is also available on Google Code blog.

Courtesy: TechCrunch

Publish Sweet Looking Blogs OnSugar (Video)

OnSugar is a new blogging platform with a twist. The service has added several functions usually found on other social networking sites so that it feels like a blend of WordPress mixed with Twitter. For example, on the homepage you can view the public timeline which updates with posts from all blogs or just those you follow. You can also follow bloggers and their blogs and send them private messages (just like Direct Messages).

One of the most useful features is the drop down menu that allows you to jump from one of your blogs to another. The other menu item (see right image) displays all of the tasks that you can perform on the blog you’re currently visiting. For example, you can create a new post, edit drafts, change themes, widgets or pages. You can also change your site settings or invite other bloggers to guest blog on your site.

Speaking of themes, you can use existing themes or copy them and change them to make them your own. You can also create your own original theme from scratch if you want.

The Start Following link appears on all blogs and acts like the subscribe to RSS feed option that we see on all blogs these days.

When you create a new post you’re presented with a great deal of choices, which is another thing that makes this blogging platform different than most standard platforms. You can create many different types of blog posts. Besides the standard text post, you can also create polls, question and answer type quizzes, quotes, links and more. As for media, you can upload audio and video files or embed them.

The home page has a cool filtering system that lets you display whatever you want to see. For example, you can choose to see all new posts from all blogs or just the sites you subscribe to.
MP4 / Subscribe for Free!

You can select what kind of posts to view too, such as only posts with audio, video, polls, quizzes, links, etc. It’s a unique way to let users manage and control their blogs and those that they follow.
The service might appeal more to women because of its initial look and feel, but there seems to be a significant amount of men on the service already. The platform is different so we’ll have to see what shakes out when more traditional bloggers give it a try. Is it a good idea to mashup social media services with the blogging platform model? I think it is. WordPress and Blogger have made strides (ever so slowly) to give their users more social media tools and functions. Time will tell how much farther they will go to make their blogging platform more social.

Courtesy: TechCrunch

Zoho Mail: Now With Offline and Mobile Support

It’s tough being a competitor to Gmail. Google has been the first major company to offer virtually unlimited storage for e-mails, and the simplicity of the service, solid spam filtering and good integration with other Google services has made Gmail a favorite for many.

Zoho Mail has been in private beta stage so far and thus it is definitely not as widespread as Gmail, but it has always been a worthy competitor. It’s a slick, feature-rich client that tries to marry Gmail’s simplicity with the overall look and feel of a full featured desktop email client, such as Outlook. Today, they’ve reached an important milestone - Zoho Mail is coming out of private beta, and it has some new features to show off.

First,through Google Gears, Zoho Mail now supports offline mode. To access, it, you must have Google Gears installed in either IE or Firefox, and click on the “Setup Offline” link on the top. Zoho Mail will recognize your connection status and switch between online and offline mode seamlessly. It may not be a killer feature, but it’s useful, and the fact that Gmail has been dabbling with it for quite a while but the official offline mode is still not out there is in Zoho’s favor.

Another important feature is mobile support - oops, did I say mobile? I meant iPhone, since Zoho Mail currently only works with Apple’s phone, and support for other devices is “in the works.” Just login to zoho.com from your iPhone and you’ll find the mobile version of Zoho Mail right there.

These two features, along with some others, for example support for Gmail-style labels as well as Outlook-style folders, and integrated chat, make Zoho Mail an interesting competitor in the Web mail field and a great addition to the already very solid Zoho Office suite.

Courtesy: Mashable

Yahoo Launches Web Analytics Beta

Back in April, Yahoo acquired IndexTools, a provider of analytics software based in Hungary. Today, that service has re-emerged as Yahoo Web Analytics, and is being offered as a limited beta to customers of Yahoo Small Business – the company’s suite of tools for helping small businesses market and sell products online. Additionally, the tool will also be made available to select Yahoo advertisers.

As you might expect, Yahoo Web Analytics includes integration with other Yahoo products. For example, you can analyze the effectiveness of Yahoo search marketing campaigns and track how well individual products within your e-commerce shop are trending. The product will naturally be compared to Google Analytics, the free offering from Google that has similar integration with AdWords.

While it may be late to the party, Yahoo Web Analytics is apparently a big upgrade for Yahoo Small Business customers. Mashable contributor Sean Aune is a user of the service, and sent along the following screenshot as an example of what the service’s rather archaic reporting looks like today:

If nothing else, if you look at the screenshot below of the new service, it would seem that Yahoo Web Analytics has just received a long overdue upgrade:

Yahoo plans to roll out the service gradually to its Small Business Customers through the end of the year and expand the offering to other users in 2009.

Courtesy: Mashable

Make VoIP Phone Calls Over Email with Momail and Jajah

JAJAH, a VoIP service provider that manages connections for social network users and mobile and non-mobile phones, has teamed up today with Momail, a free mobile mail operator, allowing users to make VoIP phone calls by simply sending an email.

All it takes for Momail users to implement this new option is to register with JAJAH under Momail’s “On Demand” feature page, located within a user’s member page. Once complete, you simply send an email to JAJAH with a phone number you intend to call. JAJAH will subsequently initiate a call to your handset, followed by a call to the intended party.

Momail alone is an interesting invention. Along with popular third-party webmail recognition and push mail for phones - which support the technology - Momail claims to compress data received by users by up to 99 percent its original size. For those operating on metered data plans or simply for phones that cannot consume large file sizes (or whose owners simply don’t have to patience for such transfers), this is handy indeed. Now with JAJAH’s VoIP feature on board, Momail is able to provide extra power with little or no extra investment on the user side.

Note:Momail is still in beta in some countries, including the United States. You’ll have to request a password in order to gain entry.

Courtesy: Mashable

Microsoft’s Next OS To Be Called “Windows 7″. Seriously.

Microsoft has announced that the latest version of Windows, due in the next couple of years, will be called - drumroll please - Windows 7. It’s about time Microsoft adopted a naming system that might actually make some sense to users, but I can’t wait for hordes of customers to start asking if they somehow missed Windows 1 through 6.

Windows has had one of the most ridiculous naming schemes in the history of software. First there were logical (but ugly) version numbers, like the once commonplace “Windows 3.1″. Then with the release of the overhauled Windows 95 the company adopted a naming system based on the year of release, which it continued until Windows 98.

Windows Me (perhaps the worst operating system I’ve ever used), sacrificed the scheme for a chance to be clever (it stood for “me” and the millennium at the same time!) Next up we hit Windows XP, which has served most of us reasonably well since 2001. It sounds sort of cool, it’s catchy, and we have no idea what it means. Fine.

Finally we had Windows Vista, which seemed to stick with the naming convention of “something that sounds sort of cool but didn’t really mean anything”. It had been more than five years since the release of XP, so there was little chance of confusion.

Microsoft is now in a hurry to push out its next operating system after the generally dismal response to Vista. And so we’ve come to Windows 7, which is apparently tied to the build numbers and not the actual releases. The new naming scheme lends itself well to faster, more incremental releases similar to what we’ve seen from Apple (about once every 18 months), but it’s probably going to confuse everyone and couldn’t be more bland.

You can read more at the company’s blog post here.

Courtesy: TechCrunch

Chrome Coming to Android

The browser-bearing world was atwitter yesterday with the announcement of Google’s Chrome browser. Just about overnight, they’ve managed to convince hordes of people that Chrome is the way to browse on your PC. Next step? They’re taking it mobile.

According to an interview with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, the two projects will start working together more closely now that both are approached 1.0 releases, with the Android browser adopting much of Chrome’s inner workings. He also expects the mobile browser to pick up a new name to indicate the relation to it’s bigger, full-blown browsin’ brother.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch

Mozilla Fights Back With New Firefox Benchmarks

The dust hasn’t even settled on Chrome’s release and already Mozilla is feeling the pressure. The company today released a series of benchmarks showing Firefox 3.1 will be faster than anything Google can muster with Chrome.

Chrome is running V8, an open source Javascript engine, which Google claims, is faster than anything currently offered on the Web. And based on our tests of Chrome, we tend to agree.

But in the upcoming release of Firefox 3.1, which should be available by the end of the year, Mozilla will employ TraceMonkey, a new engine that according to one of its coders, Brendan Eich, will easily eclipse even the fastest instance of Chrome.

To prove it, Mozilla tested Firefox running on TraceMonkey and compared it to Google’s Chrome beta using its own benchmarking solution called SunSpider. According to the company, Chrome was 28 percent slower on Windows XP and 16 percent slower on Windows Vista.

Mozilla is quick to point out that TraceMonkey has only been in development for a few months and will only get better before it’s rolled out later this year, but the company has a vested interest in seeing Firefox come out on top in its benchmark testing, so all figures should probably be questioned, to say the least. And the same goes for Google’s five benchmarks.

For now, Chrome is the fastest browser in the market and anyone using both Firefox and Chrome will find that out quickly. But once Firefox 3.1 hits the Web, we’ll find out if Chrome has what it takes to stay on top after TraceMonkey becomes Mozilla’s engine of choice.

Courtesy: TechCrunch

Have The News Come To You With Alerts.com

With Alerts.com service, instead of visiting multiple sites to stay up-to-date with the latest news and and information, you can have the news come to you. You can configure alerts that are relevant to your interests and then have them arrive in the method you choose: SMS, voice, email, IM, or on your desktop via an Adobe Air app.

Types of Alerts

After signing up for the Alerts.com service, you can choose from all sorts of pre-configured alerts. For example, the site offers alerts for things like news, weather, gas prices, flight info, price watches, CraigsList, sports scores, press releases, birthday reminders, horoscopes, Amber Alerts, and so much more.

However, what really appealed to me was that you had the option to configure your own personalized alerts which could be anything you need to remember to do. I'm also excited to see an RSS Feed Alert option, as well. With this alert, you can monitor feeds for keywords and receive messages immediately or on a scheduled basis via email or SMS.

Types of Alerts

Configuring Alerts

You can see an overview of the different alerts you subscribe to on your personalized homepage, a page which somewhat resembles iGoogle and its gadgets. There's also a handy "list view" which presents the alerts in a list so you can easily sort through them and turn them on or off as desired. This page also displays how many alerts have been sent out so far.

Editing an Alert

Business Model

Alerts.com is an ad-supported service. Specific advertising is inserted into the emails, texts, and voice messages sent out. The ads will be relevant to the type of alert requested by the user. This doesn't seem like a bad deal to get this sort of useful tool for free.

The platform is open and an API is currently available so that developers can create unique reminders, alerts, and notifications of their own.

The company is also working with a number of educational institutions around the U.S. to deliver alerts to the enrolled students. Currently, there are 8 million students receiving alerts from the Alerts.com.

You can sign up to start receiving your own alerts today, too. Just click here.

Courtesy: TechCrunch

MySchoolAlerts Keeps Faculty, Parents, and Students Connected in Emergencies

Alerts.com has announced at DEMOfall 08 a free messaging and notification system called MySchoolAlerts that will allow schools to communicate instantly with teachers, parents and students.

This is a perfect solution for sharing information such as school closings due to inclement weather or enabling communication in the event of a campus security threat. Yes, every school has a phone number that parents and staff members can call to find out whether or not their school is open, but most of the time that information can be incorrect or the phone line busy or down. Enabling schools to send current news and alerts instantly to everyone connected to the school will be far more effective and truly appreciated by everyone.

How it works

MySchoolAlerts is free and there’s nothing to download or install for the school or parents. The school simply creates an account and the faculty members, parents and students just subscribe to the service. Everyone has the option to receive the messages any way they prefer because they can be delivered via e-mail, SMS, voice, widget or through a desktop application. Other types of alerts can be added as well, such as child safety alerts, severe weather warnings, gas price alerts and more.

Everysecond counts

Obviously, this messaging service will become invaluable in the event of campus security threats such as the tragic events that unfolded at schools like Columbine and more recently Virginia Tech. The horrific events were only intensified because school staff members and authorities had no way of communicating with parents or students in a timely manner. In situations like that, every second counts.

Schools are trying to remedy this problem by taking expensive and drastic measures such as providing laptops, cell phones and even iPhones to all students so they can communicate with them instantly. Some schools that have done this are Oklahoma Christian University and Abilene Christain University.

Conclusion

As a parent, I think this is a long overdue solution. I think every school needs to sign up and start communicating with teachers, parents and students in real time. The fact that it’s free and does not require any hardware or software should make this a no-brainer. This kind of solution can also work for other organizations that need to communicate with large numbers of people in a timely manner. Quite frankly, I will be very surprised if this service isn’t embraced immediately across the country by all schools.

Courtesy: Mashable

The OtherInbox Wants to be Your Mailman (Exclusive Invites!)

OtherInbox is a unique new email service that just launched today. It wants to provide a way to manage all of the emails that you don’t really want going to your personal or business email accounts. For example, emails from online shopping vendors, newsletters, news updates, social networking messages and more.

Howdoes it work?
Instead of having all of these emails flooding your inbox, OtherInbox allows you to maintain unlimited email addresses at your own domain name, such as JohnDoe.otherinbox.com.

Thegood news is that you don’t have to create these email addresses ahead of time before you can use them. You can create them on the fly as needed. For example, you can create a new email address amazon@JohnDoe.otherinbox.com for Amazong emails and Facebook@JohnDoe.otherinbox.com for Facebook and so on for all other sites. OtherInbox then sorts everything coming back into the appropriate folders.

Ifanyone sells your email address then you will know exactly who was responsible and you can then Block that one email address so that you’ll never see their emails again. It’s quite handy.

WhatElse can You Do with It?
Besides creating an email address for all websites you shop at, you can also create addresses for events and functions that you attend such as the TechCrunch50@JohnDoe.Otherinbox.com or DemoFall2008@JohnDoe.Otherinbox.com. It’s also handy when it comes to tracking rebates, coupons and shipment tracking information. It’s a powerful new weapon against spammers as well.

Conclusion
Mostof us already own many “other” inboxes on services like Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail to handle these types of emails but OtherInbox can replace them all. It could become SpamCentral Station, if you will. The interface is intuitive and it does make managing your emails much easier.

Youcan find emails a lot quicker as well thanks to the folder system it uses. Yes, some of you are saying “why not just use bloody rules and filters to automatically archives emails according to the sender!” Well, true, rules and filters can do something like that but it still requires a great deal of work on your part that would never end.

Everytime you joined a new site or service you would have to create a new rule or filter to handle it. With the Otherinbox all you have to do is create a new email address on the fly and you’re done.

***INVITES***
Special invites only for Mashable Readers! The first 25 readers can claim their own OtherInbox right now!

Courtesy: Mashable

Need Google Apps on Your Desktop? Try GMDesk.

A new service called GMDesk, according to a report from Cybernet, leverages Adobe AIR to provide Google Apps as desktop versions, with easy shortcut keys for toggling between the desktop and browser-based versions. In all, GMDesk supports Gmail, Google Calendar, Reader, Documents, Maps and Picasa through its service. Helpful for those that want immediate desktop access to their Google apps without having to open up a browser window.

Meanwhile, Google itself seems to be more focused on its Web-based and mobile efforts than rolling out desktop version for those apps that it hasn’t already created a desktop version. With more growth potential on a global scale available with an increased mobile presence, especially with Google Android and a majority of wireless providers on board for partnership deals, it looks like the mobile front is an ongoing point of effort for new offerings to consumers.

Google Launches Mapping Satellite

GeoEye-1 will capture high-resolution earth images for exclusive use on Google Maps.

Google has expanded its reach into space with the successful launch Saturday of a new satellite that will provide the company with exclusive images for its maps.

After an 11:50 a.m. takeoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the GeoEye-1 satellite relayed a downlink signal to a ground station in Norway, confirming that it had separated from its United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket and had begun to initialize its onboard systems.

The satellite launch was coordinated by terrain mapping company GeoEye. "Based upon the data we saw, the satellite is performing properly and ready to begin the next phase towards meeting its mission requirements," said Bill Schuster, GeoEye chief operating officer, in a statement.

GeoEye said the 4,310-pound satellite required calibration and check-out period before the company would sell its images.

Although GeoEye did not mention Google in any of its announcements regarding the satellite, the search engine giant's name appeared on the satellite and company founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page attended the launch, according to reports.

GeoEye said it plans to sell the images to customers around the world, but a Google spokesperson said that Google has exclusive rights to the images for commercial maps.

"The imagery from GeoEye-1 adds to the quantity and quality of that currently provided by our IKONOS satellite, and together this magnificent constellation will enable us to meet world-wide customer demand," Matthew O'Connell, GeoEye CEO, said.

GeoEye-1 is part of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), NextView program, which aims to obtain timely and accurate commercial satellite imagery.

It will collect 0.41-meter ground resolution black and white images and 1.65-meter color images simultaneously. It can show objects as small as 16 inches. U.S. licensing restrictions limit commercial images to a half-meter ground resolution.

The satellite can capture the images from 423 miles above the Earth and travel about 4.5 miles per second.

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in Gilbert, Ariz., built the satellite, while ITT in Rochester, N.Y., developed the imaging system. ITT is building another imaging system for GeoEye-2, which is scheduled to launch in 2011.

GeoEye said it won a $500 million NextView contract four years ago, and it built and launched the satellite with no cost overruns.

Source: Information Week

KoffeePhoto Hits the Heights in Photo Storing Capabilities

A free KoffeePhoto account puts your photo sharing concerns to rest

Looking for a safe place to store your photo haring images? KoffeePhoto has the security you seek. Want a handy desktop utility for organizing and sharing your photos? Or an easy method for ordering prints? You can get it all -- and more -- at KoffeePhoto.

Coffee, tea -- or KoffeePhoto?

KoffeePhoto is a photo-sharing site that was launched in late 2006 by KoffeeWare, a company that has provided online photo services for businesses since 2005. Unlike many other photo sharing sites, KoffeePhoto is software that you download to your desktop to organize your photo sharing images for storing.

At your leisure, you can organize your prized photos into albums using the software. When you're done, your albums are stored online on the KoffeePhoto network. Every album in your photo sharing collection gets its own web page for your visitors to view.

When you send an email notification to your contacts, the software automatically inserts the correct link to the album of your choice.

When the recipient opens the email, a full-screen slide show begins, complete with music. When the show is over, he or she can download and install the free KoffeePhoto software for easy access to your photos.

Your photos are safe on the KoffeePhoto network

If you're looking for a secure place to back up your photos, KoffeePhoto provides terrific security. What's more, you can easily access your secured collection whenever you wish. If your computer crashes, KoffeePhoto can retrieve your entire photo gallery quickly and easily.

While a free photo sharing account comes with plenty of features to suit your needs, a paid account gives you unlimited server storage space.

Microblogging made easy

Every photo you store on KoffeePhoto gets its own microblog. If you don't know what a microblog is, you're not alone. Basically, microblogging allows you and your viewers to comment and chat about photos. This feature makes photo sharing truly interactive and certainly much more fun.

User-friendly

KoffeePhoto is the ideal solution for easily organizing, backing up and sharing photos, both on your computer and on the Internet. The software is highly user-friendly.

You simply let it search your computer and create a list of your photos. Once the search is complete, go through your collection and delete, sort and organize your favorite photos as you wish to store them on the KoffeePhoto network. You can be certain your photos are protected from the elements as well as the ravages of time.

This system is at the apex of the popular photo storing and photo sharing frenzy. It's easy, convenient, user friendly, and safe. In your search for the right photo sharing option, be sure to check out KoffeePhoto.

Yahoo Shuts Down Mash, 0-4 On Social Networking

First came 360, launched in 2005 as an early attempt to get Yahoo into social networking, was unceremoniously shut down earlier this year. In 2006 Yahoo was unable to close a transaction with Facebook, despite being willing to pay up to $1.62 billion. Nor could they pull the trigger on a $1 billion Bebo deal (Bebo went to AOL for $850 million). Now Yahoo has shut down Mash, which launched less than a year ago and is best known for sporting a Darth Vader playing guitar and eating a banana image when it was in private beta.

Today,Yahoo emailed users notice that Mash will be shutting down on September 29, 2008.

Fifthtime’s a charm they say (right?). Let’s hope the next grand strategy works out better than the first four.

Meanwhile,Yahoo Mash joins the deadpool.

Courtesy: TechCrunch

Zeep Mobile API Gives Site Owners Free SMS… With a Hitch

So you run a website and really like the social software that enables your visitors to interact with things you produce. But you want to take that connection with the crowd to a more mobile position. Perhaps you’d like some sort of arrangement which allows interested parties to send and receive messages to and from your domain, and preferably something that costs you no financial investment to establish. Enter, Zeep Mobile.

What Zeep provides, in short, is an API. Pretty much any developer can implement the API, and do so freely and easily. With “no volume restrictions,” either. How it works is fairly simple.

Everything operates via a five-digit SMS code: 88147. This is used for messages sent out to users of websites and vice versa. The entry of a “website prefix” helps direct inbound communications. And Zeep is said to be able to connect with “all major carriers in the US,” so it’s bound to work for most who fancy the bridge it provides. The only outstanding concern is the cost to receive SMS messages. In the case of site owners, that’s mostly a non-issue. For site users, however, that’s a hurdle that some just won’t jump. Mobile phone users in international reaches may be the beneficiaries of a free-receive promise from their respective carriers, but here in the US, carriers tend to refuse any differentiation between the ins and the outs.

Zeep’sinfluence obviously can only stretch so far, so one will have to take a glass-half-full approach to this. Inasmuch as Zeep serves its first list of clients - website owners - there will be ample cheers for no-pay.

That “free” designation, mind you, has a bit of a condition attached to it. Yes, Zeep’s API is free to use, technically speaking. But that real-world use of the service will work hand-in-hand with something the company calls Zeep Media. That’s where advertisers enter the fold. Zeep states that developers utilizing the API will glean metadata pertaining to SMS-based interaction for the purpose of establishing “an accurate profile of each subscriber’s interests.” It explains to prospective advertisers that this ensures that spots are “always displayed to the right customers.” In other words, “highly targetable campaigns.”

Now,there’s nothing quite so conniving or deceptive about that. Targeting of that sort occurs in many scenarios today. But it is nonetheless good for websites and their creators or managers to keep this in mind when considering an SMS platform to infuse into their operations. I suspect a good portion of Zeep users won’t mind the ads much. Their presence, after all, is only going to increase with time. Still, it won’t taste good to everyone, so it is only appropriate to note.

Courtesy: Mashable

IE 8 Beta 2 ready for download

By: Mary Jo Foley

Mozilla did its best to throw a spoiler into Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) 8 Beta 2 launch on Wednesday. But the new Ubiquity add-in for Firefox doesn’t sound all that different from what Microsoft is doing with the version of its browser due to ship in November.

Starting today, August 27, at 3 p.m. EST, Internet Explorer (IE) 8 Beta 2 became available for download by anyone who wants to give it a whirl.

As expected, there are a lot of new features that were not part of IE Beta 1 which are now available in IE 8 Beta 2. In Private browsing (”porn mode”) and In Private blocking are just two of the many new items that got added to the latest IE beta. Others include crash recovery (I’m installing just for that alone!), a “Diagnose Connection Problem” button, and Compatibility View (for sites that break when viewed in IE 8 — some examples of which are on the Redmond Pie enthusiast site).

(For a list of more of what’s new in Beta 2, check out this report.)

The most interesting — and potentially controversial — new features are those that fall into the Microsoft-designated category of “Reach Beyond the Page.” (That’s the terminology Microsoft is using in its IE 8 Beta 2 Reviewers’ Guide, a copy of which I had a chance to see this week.)

Here’swhat’s on the Reach list:

*Accelerators (the feature formerly known as “Activities” in Beta 1): Technology allowing users to perform tasks like finding a definition of a word, posting a blog entry, mapping an address or posting a blog entry) available on the page they are viewing, instead of on a new page

*Web slices: Brings the user’s favorite data (sports scores, weather reports, stock quotes, etc.) directly into the Favorites Bar. Changes and updates are retrieved and users are visually notified of the updated information status

*Visual search suggestions: In the Instant Search box, as users type a search term, they will receive real-time search suggestions from their chosen search provider, as well as results from the users’s own Favorites and browsing history.

* Suggested sites: These are recommendations about other, related sites that might be of interest. This feature must be enabled by the user; it’s not on by default.

The only one of these four categories that got an update between Betas 1 an 2 were Web slices. But it sounded from my conversation with the Softies that they were expecting a number of testers to look deeply and critically into the Visual search suggestions and suggested sites areas, as well, when putting IE 8 Beta 2 through its paces.

As Mozilla’s Ubiquity announcement demonstrates, Mozilla seems to be thinking the same way as Microsoft’s browser team. As another of my ZDNet colleagues, Ryan Stewart, put it: The Web’s page-based model has been slowly dying. When browsing, users increasingly want to perform specific tasks that often involve mashing up Web sites/destinations/content.

I’mcurious whether these new ways of discovering/promoting content will have any impact on how users search the Web. Will suggested sites or search terms make users any less likely to Google something?

And how will this new functionality impact online advertising? As Microsoft on Directions analyst Matt Rosoff noted, IE 8’s InPrivate blocking feature

“An InPrivate Session will, by default, also block all third-party content from domains that have appeared more than 10 times in your history. In practice, that means a lot of ads served by ad networks could be blocked. I think that’s a great step for privacy, but seems to contradict Microsoft’s own promises in the advertising realm–in particular, Microsoft Advertising has pushed this idea called engagement mapping, which relies on tracking users’ interaction with an advertising campaign over a few days or weeks. I’m not sure how Microsoft can square that circle.”

Do you like the concepts behind Accelerators, slices, visual search suggestions and suggested sites? What about Firefox’s Ubiquity? Do you see any advantages of Microsoft’s approach over Mozilla’s, or vice versa?

Firefox Mobile (Concept Video)

Firefox is coming to mobile. The innovation, usability, and extensibility that has propelled Firefox to 200 million users is set to do the same for Firefox in a mobile setting.

User experience is the most important aspect of having a compelling mobile product. Every bit of interaction and pixel of presentation counts when typing is laborious and screen sizes are minuscule. Many of the standard interaction models, like menus, always-present chrome, and having a cursor, don’t necessarily make sense on mobile. It’s a wickedly exciting opportunity but there are myriad challenges to getting it right.

Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Source: MozillaLabs

Mozilla Labs: Introducing Snowl

 An Experiment with Messaging in the Browser Conversing (a.k.a. messaging) is a common online activity, and a number of desktop and web applications enable it. But with an increasing variety of protocols and providers, it’s getting harder and harder to keep track of all your conversations.
Could the web browser help you follow and participate in online discussions? Snowl is an experiment to answer that question. It’s a prototype Firefox extension that integrates messaging into the browser based on a few key ideas:

It doesn’t matter where messages originate. They’re alike, whether they come from traditional email servers, RSS/Atom feeds, web discussion forums, social networks, or other sources. Some messages are more important than others, and the best interface for actively reading important messages is different from the best one for casually browsing unimportant ones. A search-based interface for message retrieval is more powerful and easier to use than one that makes you organize your messages first to find them later. Browser functionality for navigating web content, like tabs, bookmarks, and history, also works well for navigating messages.

The Initial Prototype

The initial prototype supports two sources of messages: RSS/Atom feeds and Twitter. And it exposes two interfaces for reading them. First, a traditional three-pane “list” view, targeted to active reading of important messages:

Second, a “river of news” view, based on the concept popularized by Dave Winer, designed for casual browsing:

Roadmap

Our next step is to gather feedback on the prototype and the ideas behind it. We want to know if the concept has promise and is worth pursuing further. We’re particularly interested in feedback on how messaging might fit into the browsing experience and if there are other interfaces (or refinements to the two interfaces built into the prototype) that would make it easier for users to have online conversations.

We’re still considering what may come after that, but possible extensions to the Snowl prototype include:

support for additional message sources, e.g. Facebook, AIM, Google Talk, etc.;
an interface for writing and sending messages to enable true two-way conversations;an API to make it easier for developers to build new experimental interfaces, e.g. an instant message view.

Also, last week at the Firefox+ summit there were related discussions about the future of Thunderbird’s user experience, with many ideas that overlap the ideas embedded in Snowl. We expect that some of the Thunderbird ideas will influence Snowl’s future, and that lessons (and possibly code) from Snowl will influence Thunderbird’s future.

Get Snowl for Firefox

Getthe initial prototype: Snowl for Firefox.

Warning: the initial prototype is a primitive implementation with many bugs, and subsequent versions will include changes that break functionality and delete all your messages, making you start over from scratch.

Theprototype code is released under an MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license. Most icons are from the Silk icon set by famfamfam, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. The OPML icon is from the OPML Icon Project, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 license.

GetInvolved

Let us know what you think by posting in the forum, reporting bugs, or conversing with us in the #labs channel on irc.mozilla.org. Or check out the source and submit your bug fixes and enhancements.

Source: MozillLab

Mozilla Announces Ubiquity for Universal Access

Mozilla Labs announced today that it has released a new solution called Ubiquity, which will try to bring a disjointed Web together under the auspices of that one solution.

Ubiquity will try to “connect the Web with language to find new user interfaces that could make it possible for everyone to do common Web tasks more quickly and easily.” More specifically, Ubiquity will try to get users to type what they want to do instead of what they’re trying to find in a search box, enable more mashups to increase the usability of different Web services, and extend browser functionality to make it a hub for online solutions.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

As part of its announcement, Mozilla Labs announced Ubiquity 0.1, which will demonstrate some of Ubiquity’s concepts and its potential. This first release focuses more on the platform itself, which the subsequent release will “explore interfaces that are closer to features that might make it into Firefox.”

Mozilla also said that Ubiquity 0.1 will allow “users to map and insert maps anywhere; translate on-page; search amazon, google, wikipedia, yahoo, youtube, etc.; digg and twitter; look up and insert yelp review; get the weather; syntax highlight any code you find; and a lot more.”

At this point, Ubiquity is obviously a crude version of what could possibly be, but it promises more than it currently offers. And by performing the kind of functions that are simply impossible today (Mozilla mentions the difficulty with which people can work together on mapping), Ubiquity could be the centerpiece of the Web’s evolution. At the very least, Mozilla hopes so.

Source: Mashable

4 Years Later, Google Suggest Finally Goes Primetime

Over the next week, Google will finally be implementing Google Suggest, its auto-complete for searches, on its homepage at Google.com. The service allows users to see the most commonly searched phrases after entering only a few letters, helping users cut back on typing time and check for spelling errors. If you’d like to try the service out now (it isn’t currently activated for everyone) you can find it here.

According to the company’s blog post, the feature has been a long time coming, and has made its way across much of the Google empire already:

“The Google Suggest feature originally started as a 20% project in 2004, and has since expanded to Google Labs, Toolbar, Firefox search box, Maps and Web Search for select countries, the iPhone and BlackBerry, YouTube, and now Google.com.”

Similarsearch autocomplete can be found on a number of major competitors, including Yahoo and recently-launched (and much hyped Cuil).

Courtesy: Techcrunch

10 Tools to Get the Most Out of GTalk

For those of us who are active Google Talk (GTalk) users, sometimes chatting is not enough. Luckily, there are tools to make your GTalk experience more interesting like VOIP, translations, and more. Here are 10 third party tools and special features that will help you get the most out of the service.

Which ones are your favorite? Know any more? Tell us in your comments.

Extended Talk

Extended Talk is a free addon for GTalk that brings in enhanced features such as making your chat windows transparent, changing font colors, message and typing areas, creating text filters, using smileys, and custom images. It also provides shortcuts to insert dates, time, IP address, email, etc. in your messages. Overall, the addon is non obstructive and fits quite well with the GTalk interface, while providing a few handy extra features.

Google Talk Shell

Google Talk Shell is another GTalk addon with some extra features that you might like. Firstly, it allows you to add several avatars and make them rotate in short intervals in your GTalk application. You can auto-hide the GTalk main window so that you have a large work area, or you can configure GTalk to always be on top of the desktop. You can also run several GTalk user names simultaneously using this addon. There is even an anti-boss hotkey to hide the GTalk window quickly.

Translation bots

Translation bots are described by Google as pieces of software that act as chat contacts and provide some fun or useful functionality. Whenever you need to translate any word or sentence from one language to another, you can send that as a message to one of the appropriate Google Chat translation bots. The bot then acts as a translator and replies to the translated version of your message. Of course you need to add the translation bot as your GTalk contact beforehand.

Currently there are 50 bots available in two language pairs. The names of the bots have been made of two letter abbreviations of languages, the English to French translation bot is ‘en2fr.’ To add the bots as contacts, you simple need to add the email of the specific bot in this format: name_of_the_bot@bot.talk.google.com. For example, for English to French bot, it’s ‘en2fr@bot.talk.google.com.’

Transliteration bots

Transliteration bots are somewhat similar to translation bots, but here they convert English sentences to scripts of various Indian languages like Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu. You can add the bots using their names ‘en2hi’.translit, ‘en2kn.translit,’ ‘en2ml.translit,’ ‘en2ta.translit,’ and ‘en2te.translit,’ ending with ‘@bot.talk.google.com’.

Chatback Badge

Chatback badge is a nice little tool from Google that you can use to chat with non-Google users. The badge can be put on your blog, website, or anywhere you can embed an html code, and it will display your online status along with a ‘Chat with me’ message in a nice chat bubble. You can create the chatback badge in different styles as well.

GTalk Sidebar

GTalk Sidebar is a convenient way of chatting with your GTalk contacts using the Firefox sidebar. Every chat window opens in a new tab in the sidebar itself. You can make the GTalk application pop out in a new window if you wish. Although GTalk Sidebar doesn’t provide any additional feature, it can be another nice alternative, just in case you don’t want to open a Gmail window on your browser and don’t have the desktop client installed. An alternative to this addon is to save the GTalk Gadget as your Firefox bookmark and set the bookmark to load in the sidebar.

GTalk Profile

GTalk Profile is an online service that you can use to find other GTalk users from across the globe. You can simply click anywhere on the world map provided at the GTalk Profile site to look for users in that area. You can also look for users using its search box.

Ping.fm

Ping.fm is not an exclusive GTalk application. What it does is update your status on as many as 21 of your social sites including Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Wordpress, Tumbler, Pownce, Blogger, Plurk, Xanga, Friendfeed, etc., and even Mashable, simultaneously. All you need to do is add Ping.fm as a contact in your GTalk application and send it to your status update as a chat message. You also need to create your account at Ping.fm and add your social profiles so that it can do the posting for you.

GTalk to VOIP

GTalk to VOIP offers a number of free and paid VOIP services that you can use with your IM tools including GTalk, Yahoo Messenger, and Live Messenger. These include incoming calls to your IM tools from any mobile, landline phones, or Web services; outgoing calls to SIP phones, Internet radio, video conferencing, offline messaging, IM interoperability, SMS service, etc. Payment can be completed through Paypal.

Inezha

Inezha allows you to use your Gtalk application as a feed reader. Simply send the RSS feed url to the Inezha bot on your GTalk and ask to be notified on all future updates. You can also access you online account at the Inezha site and add the feeds you want to subscribe to. There are also Firefox and Internet Explorer bookmarklets and widgets that you can add to your blog. Inezha also provides a social networking feature where you can add your friends and subscribe to their updates.

Courtsey: Mashable

Verisign’s Personal Identity Portal Is Half Way To Password Bliss

Verisign’s new Personal Identity Portal (PIP from now on) isn’t the sexiest application out there to help you manage passwords. But it has Verisign’s strong reputation for security behind it, and it is a surprisingly easy way to manage website credentials.

PIPis a a single sign in solution that supports both OpenID (you are issued a Verisign OpenID) and direct sign in to a number of supported websites. If a site doesn’t support OpenID, login is handled by populating the username and password fields directly.

Read the Full article here

Konnects Official Launch: Filling the LinkedIn-Facebook Gap

By: Kristen Nicole

Konnects is a social network entering the crowded realm of business social networking, seeking out those users that are caught in limbo between the likes of LinkedIn and Facebook. And while this space is getting more crowded by the day, I think Konnects has a good idea of what it’s targeting in terms of its solutions presented on its site, as well as its ongoing plan of action. Having privately tested its network for the past year, Konnects now boasts 350,000 users taking advantage of its online service upon its public launch, which aims to provide your “traditional” social networking tools in a manner suitable for business use. This goes for both individuals and companies alike.

Sowhat’s this gap between LinkedIn and Facebook that Konnects is trying to bridge? Konnects isn’t as restrictive as LinkedIn, and more business-oriented than Facebook. Instead of having a user profile that looks like a resume, Konnects understands that many recent grads and newcomers don’t have a decade of work experience and would benefit from having a place to discuss and showcase what their current life represents. The same goes for early-stage startups: what projects are they currently working on, and what issues are important to them? Such promotion occurs in features like blogs, photos, etc., which is more reminiscent of the features you’ll find on Facebook.

Even though Facebook lets you organize your friends into various groups now, the whole of Facebook isn’t designed solely for business networking purposes. This may not sound too different from other business networks that have emerged in the past year or so, but Konnects has a couple of other features that bring an interesting mix of Web-based tools into the business-networking realm. For instance, Konnects will not only recommend people you may want to connect with, but it’s also building a recommendation system that will deliver suggested groups, discussions and forums you may want to join, as well as user-generated content (such as blog entries) that you may be interested in viewing.

There are also user-generated groups that can be created as standalone entities, designed for use by companies and professional organizations that would like a place to network. This feature operates more like Ning than a group you can create on a site like Facebook, giving the network admin the capability of creating a walled garden if need be. Similar to Soceeo, end users can join and manage multiple groups from their centralized location.

Other upcoming features will be the inclusion of chat IM and VoIP integration, enabling users to connect with each other in multiple and direct ways. Konnects CEO and co-founder Jim Crabbe explains that all these integrated tools along with the recommendation engine are designed to factor in relevancy and time, so that users can “get to know each other when they meet in person, instead of having to deal with the nitty gritty details of building a relationship.” This means that Konnects is focused on providing as many tools for direct transactions as it can, when connecting its users with each other.

Create a Tour of Web Pages with Agglom

 

Sharing web pages in a conversation shouldn't be as tricky as it is. Sometimes you're on the phone, or speaking to a group of people and there isn't a handy way to bring people along with you from page to page and then let them have easy access to those pages after the conversation is through.

Enter Agglom, a simple little service built by Italian developer Enrico Foschi. It's a Firefox plug-in that will make sharing a list of links far easier than it's been before.

How It Works

Agglom is a remarkably easy way to create a "slide show" of live links that you can share with other people. See the screencast demo we recorded below.
Forthose who prefer to read, there's a text description after the video.

After downloading the plug-in, you can click on the Agglom button at any time. It captures all the URLs from each tab in your browser. After making some admin decisions, including public/private or password protection, you receive one link that you can share with anyone else. They can then follow through the slide show along with you, access it later, get any changes made to it by RSS, leave comments and suggest additional links.

It's simple but looks quite useful.

Presentation Is Powerful

Earlier this month we wrote about five lightweight apps that are useful for web consultants and trainers. If we had known about Agglom then (we just discovered it today via Marjolein Hoekstra's blog CleverClogs) it would have made a great fit there as well.

The web is changing so fast and there's so much information available that providing accessible ways clearly show people what you're talking about is the best way to help friends, family and co-workers wrap their minds around the powerful new tools now available.

Agglom is simple - that's good. It also looks quite useful. That's a sweetspot for applications these days. Can you imagine using it? We can.

Courtesy ReadWriteWeb

Google Won’t Let Search Startups Grow Too Large

Czech search engine, Seznam is on the block for $1 billion, according to reports, and Google may be in the hunt for that country’s most popular search engine. And while it wouldn’t surprise me if Google did acquire Seznam to shore up its international influence, it points to a key issue that shouldn’t be overlooked: Google is so powerful and so rich that the chances of a small search engine growing to challenge its prowess are becoming smaller with each passing day.

There are a variety of search engines in the wild that all offer something new or unique. Some think Quintura will be a major player in the search space one day, while others believe Wikia, Clusty, or even KartOO might have a shot at slaying the Google beast. Each offers something unique and something that many people may be looking for, but do they have the staying power or popularity to grow under Google’s nose like Baidu, and utterly command the search market in one space? I doubt it.

Google is simply too big and too powerful to be challenged by a small firm. That ’s not to say that it’s better than Wikia or even better than Quintura, but it does mean that Google simply won’t let these services get too big before it’s forced to react.

The search engine space is increasingly becoming a three-horse race in the United States and even fewer are finding footing overseas. According to the most recent numbers, Google now controls 70 percent of the US market and Yahoo and Microsoft continue to lose ground. All the while, smaller search engines like Wikia and Quintura are not even included in that discussion. That said, they’re still growing, albeit at a much slower rate than Google.

But that doesn’t matter much anymore. Years ago, search engines would start up and have a fighting chance at reigning supreme. But in today’s consolidated market, there’s no such chance. Instead, the idea of creating a search engine has followed the Web 2.0 mantra that venture capitalists love and egotists that want to rule a market don’t: Make your search engine grow to a level where people take notice, do something unique, and in no time, Google or Microsoft will acquire it to shore up their presence online.

Powerset is a prime example of that idea. Sure, it only lets you search Wikipedia right now, but what it did do was provide a highly-useful way of inputting queries and getting relevant results to be returned. And in the process, Microsoft saw something it liked and acquired it before it became a threat or before Google had the opportunity to do the same.

It might sound naive to say that no company will ever really challenge Google, but it may be true. The way I see it, Yahoo is the only company that’s even close right now and it’s in such disarray that it’s not a threat to Eric Schmidt and the rest of his cronies at all. Microsoft is probably the stiffest competition because it has the cash to compete, but let’s not forget that its market share is barely relevant — it has yet to even hit 10 percent.

But that’s also where the smaller search engines come in. Smaller search engines don’t need to play the same game Google and Microsoft do and tend to be more successful when they break the mold and create a real user experience. The Web is littered with the remains of search engines like Lycos, Altavista, and dare I say, AOL, that tried to do the same thing as Google and failed, so why shouldn’t startups try something new and give the big three some ideas?

After using the myriad search engines on the Web, it’s abundantly clear that some — most notably, Wikia and Clusty — have a chance at growing into a search powerhouse. But in today’s environment where both Google and Microsoft make billions each quarter and have all the money they need to stop small search engines from growing too large and threatening their dominance, that’s simply impossible.

Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are probably here to stay for quite some time. And although I’d like to see a new company crop up just as much as the next person, the chances of another Baidu emerging are extremely small — Google or Microsoft would acquire it before that ever happens.

That said, it doesn’t mean innovation is dead and I fully expect Microsoft to lead the way in that regard. After all, if you’re trailing by such a wide margin, wouldn’t you want to try something new and hopefully coax more people to your service?

Courtesy of Mashable!

6 Online Email Aggregators that Do More Than Just Aggregate

 For most of us, Gmail can be the simple answer to aggregating all of our emails together in one place. But for those who are looking for something new with a bit more spice, there are a whole new breed of email aggregators that promise to redefine the way we look at and use our inboxes. Here are 6 online email aggregators that do more than just aggregate.

Zenbe

Zenbe, “designed to be the world’s best email experience,” is the coolest new kid on the block and might just emerge as the big guy soon enough. The advertisement-free service offers you an email program, startup page, calendar, files directory, task list, your Facebook updates, Twitter, a chat application, Delicious, and address book all in one place. While you might be getting many of these features in other email programs, the presentation and flawless execution is what make Zenbe a clear winner.

The calendar, startup page, file directory, and email come in tabs in the center of the page. There is a right-hand sidebar that executes the Twitter, Facebook, chat and to-do list applications. Zenbe can get your emails from other email services like Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, and MSN using POP. What I particularly like about Zenbe is the start-up page titled “ZenPage” that will definitely change the way we look at emails and start-up pages. You can have members at your ZenPage and chat with them live from your account.

Orgoo

Orgoo is similar to Zenbe but in a much simpler form. If you take away Zenbe’s ZenPage, Facebook, Twitter, and a few other features, you are left with Orgoo. The service provides you with an inbox and a chat application on the right-hand sidebar, and aggregates your SMS messages, but what is really striking about Orgoo is its video chat feature. Orgoo’s video chat allows you to use any webcam and start chatting from your account page.

Fuser

Fuser, as the name suggests, simply fuses all your email accounts, including AIM, AOL, Comcast, POP3, IMAP, Gmail, Hotmail, Live, Netscape, Outlook, Yahoo, and more, in one place. Not only that, you can also get and reply to your MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter messages from the Fuser inbox.

TopicR

TopicR is not really about aggregating your emails from all of your other email addresses, but experiencing a whole new way of using email while still retaining your old email addresses. I can bet some of the features in TopicR will make you say “wow.” With TopicR you can send private emails that can’t be forwarded or copied. It also acts a file upload service where you can upload a number of pictures or audio files that your recipients can see online so that their inboxes don’t get clogged. You can mix music and pictures in your attachments and create a slide show. You can also create an RSS feed of your email.

TopicRacts as a social networking platform where you can browse through the publicly shared content and connect with other readers. What I find particularly interesting is the Activity Stream, which in TopicR’s words is “the stream of people’s activities around your email topics and contents.” Talk about the next generation of email - this could be close.

Goowy

Goowy is for the Flash fans out there. It provides you a Flash based webtop that includes features like email, calendar, contact management, a startup page, IM, file storage, and more. You can add your Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail accounts into Goowy using POP3. There are plenty of customization options that you can choose from, including dozens of inbox skins.

Jubii

Jubii not only aggregates your different email accounts but acts as a smart service that adapts according to your usage patterns. For example, it sorts out your incoming emails into your private and public inboxes and highlights important senders. It provides a file storage center with a 10 GB space for the first 1 million beta users and 4 GB per user thereafter that you can use to store any type of files and share easily with your contacts.

Jubii also acts like a social networking platform where you can see who is online and connect with them in real time. Instead of emailing, you can choose to call your contacts on landline and mobile phones using the service. The following countries are supported currently for the online telephony service: US, Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and United Kingdom. Jubii currently allows you to call and talk your contacts for 30 minutes a day or 3 hours per month for free. Jubii also provides an RSS feed reader feature that you might want to check out.

Courtesy of Mashable

HitMeLater: A Snooze Button For Your Email

HitMeLater is simple. Forward any email to 24@hitmelater.com and it will send it back to you 24 hours later, putting it on the top of your inbox pile. You can change the number of hours to anything you like, up to 1,000 hours ahead (3@hitmelater.com sends it back three hours later). Alternatively, put in a day (Wednesday@hitmelater sends it back the next Wednesday). If you send it something it doesn’t understand, HitMeLater sends back a polite email message saying “We’re not sure what you want.”

Google says AOL is a lemon, regretting $1 billion investment

 

According to Google’s 10-Q filing, Google is regretting their $1 billion investment in AOL for 5% of the company. They have determined that AOL looks like a lemon, and they will never see any return on their investment.Basedon our review, we believe our investment in AOL may be impaired. After consideration of the [...]

Windows Live Wave 3: Coming to testers near you soon

The leaks are picking up. Windows Live Wave 3 — the next version of Microsoft’s Windows Live software and services — is finally expected to move into broader beta testing in the coming weeks.

Microsoft is expected to refresh all of its core Windows Live services, plus the common installer, as part of Wave 3. There is a new version of Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery and more that are in the pipeline. Microsoft has hinted that it will be revamping Windows Live Spaces, its blogging/social-networking platform, in a major way as part of the Wave 3 release. In addition, all of the core Windows Live services are expected to get more profile-centric as part of the next wave.

Dell Updates Business Laptops For 'Digital Nomads'

The PCs include a security subsystem to protect data and prevent unauthorized network access, and technology to extend battery life to as much as 19 hours.

By Antone Gonsalves

Dell on Tuesday introduced a new line of business notebooks that reflect the computer maker's shift from building systems that only meet the requirements of IT managers to products that also incorporate nonbusiness features requested by end users.

Under development for the last two years, the seven new Latitude notebooks include a security subsystem to protect data and prevent unauthorized network access. Other new proprietary technology extends battery life to as much as 19 hours, according to Dell, and provides immediate access to e-mail and attachments, calendar information, and the Web without having to boot up the whole system.

Dell executives introduced the new line, along with three Precision mobile workstations, during a San Francisco news conference. In developing the new products, Dell focused on what it called "digital nomads," businesspeople who prefer to take their laptops with them wherever they go.

What Dell hopes will be particularly appealing to travelers is the 12.1-inch Latitude E4200, which starts at 2.2 pounds; and the 13.3-inch E4300, which starts at 3.3 pounds. The ultraportable systems will be available in the "coming weeks." Pricing was not disclosed, but small, full-featured systems in general tend to sell at a premium.

For companies looking for a basic business notebook to reduce costs, Dell unveiled the 14.1-inch E5400, which starts at $839, and the 15.4-inch E5500, which starts at $869. The systems were available Tuesday.

For mainstream desktop replacements, often found in docking stations in corporate cubicles, Dell introduced the 14.1-inch E6400 and the 15.4-inch E6500, which start at $1,139 and $1,169, respectively. Both were also available as of Tuesday.

For fieldworkers in more rugged environments, such as construction sites or military operations, Dell unveiled the 14.l-inch semirugged E6400 ATG, which starts at $2,399. The system is expected to be available next week.

While the new systems introduce some attractive proprietary technology, the bigger innovation is the change in how Dell decides what goes in its new products. Dell is listening as much to the requests of people who use its customer-feedback site IdeaStorm as to corporate IT managers.

"That's one of the key differences of these new commercial notebooks," Richard Shim, analyst for IDC, told InformationWeek. "This is dramatically different for Dell. They're responding more to what the end user is saying, in addition to what the IT manager wants."

As a result, Dell is making the notebooks available in colors other than corporate black, such as "regatta blue," "regal red," and "quartz pink." In addition, the systems are available with embedded Webcams and microphones. "People are traveling more and want Webcams to video chat with families at night," Shim said. read more ...

Microsoft sees end of Windows era

Microsoft has kicked off a research project to create software that will take over when it retires Windows.

Called Midori, the cut-down operating system is radically different to Microsoft's older programs.

It is centred on the internet and does away with the dependencies that tie Windows to a single PC.

It is seen as Microsoft's answer to rivals' use of "virtualisation" as a way to solve many of the problems of modern-day computing.

Tie breaking

Although Midori has been heard about before now, more details have now been published by Software Development Times after viewing internal Microsoft documents describing the technology.

Midori is believed to be under development because Windows is unlikely to be able to cope with the pace of change in future technology and the way people use it.

Windows worked well in an age when most people used one machine to do all their work. The operating system acted as the holder for the common elements Windows programs needed to call on.

"If you think about how an operating system is loaded," said Dave Austin, European director of products at Citrix, "it's loaded onto a hard disk physically located on that machine.

"The operating system is tied very tightly to that hardware," he said.

That, he said, created all kinds of dependencies that arose out of the collection of hardware in a particular machine.

read more

NBC Launches On-Demand Olympic Coverage In HD

NBChas launched its online video hub for the 2008 Olympics, which features free on-demand video for over 20 sports. In order to maximize quality, the videos are available as downloads (you can start watching before the download finishes) and will be in “up to HD” quality. Unfortunately, the video downloads will only be available on Windows machines running Windows Media Center - once again Mac users are left in the cold, likely because of DRM issues (and the fact that Lenovo and Microsoft are sponsors).

Whilethe Olympic ceremonies don’t kick off until August 8, NBC has already posted footage of Olympic trials. Once the games begin, NBC expects to have the footage available around 12 hours after each competition (which shouldn’t be too annoying given the time difference).

Microsoftis participating in the partnership, so access to the videos will be integrated into Media Center’s main panel. Users can also visit this TVTonic page, and the content will be available directly from NBCOlympics.com beginning next week. You can read more about the service at the TVTonic blog post here.

Create a Windows Live ID or Microsoft Passport ID with Your Non Hotmail or Windows Live E-mail Address

How to register your e-mail address that is not a Hotmail or Windows Live e-mail address with Windows Live ID or Microsoft Passport ID. Doing this enables you to chat with friends on Live Messenger using your non Hotmail or Windows Live e-mail address.

This guide shows you how to register your e-mail address that is not a Hotmail or Windows Live e-mail address with Windows Live ID or Microsoft Passport ID.  Doing this enables you to chat with friends on Live Messenger using your non Hotmail or Windows Live e-mail address.

Create Credentials

The first thing you need to do is sign your non Hotmail or Windows Live e-mail address up with Microsoft’s Passport Network so that e-mail address has the proper credentials.

Visit Microsoft’s Create Credentials website to start the process.

Follow the instructions on the Create Credentials page to sign up your non Hotmail or Windows Live e-mail address with Microsoft’s Passport Network.

Verify Your E-mail Address

It is very important that you verify your e-mail address after signing up with Microsoft’s Passport Network by clicking the link that is e-mailed to you shortly after you sign up.

20+ Video Tutorials for Open Source Applications

 

There are tons of open source applications out there, from operating systems to word processors to graphics programs and more. But, it’s often hard to find manuals or other documentation beyond what the developers have written (which, while technically correct, doesn’t always cover the nuances of actually using the program). Here are more than 20 video tutorials to get you going with four of the most popular open source programs out there: Gimp, Linux, Open Office, and Nvu.

Whichtutorials are most helpful for you?

Gimp Video Tutorials

 

GimpTutorial: Pop Art - This tutorial shows how to take a regular photograph and turn it into a graphic piece of pop art.

The User Interface - This tutorial will give you a basic overview of Gimp’s user interface.

How to Change Hair Color - Ever wanted to try out a new hair color without actually dying your hair? Well, just use this Gimp tutorial to change your hair color in a photo.

Creating a Sketch Effect Using the Gimp - This tutorial goes over the basics of making a photo look like a hand-drawn sketch.

Transparent Glass Lettering - It’s great to know how to create transparent glass letters for website headers and banners, and to give your creations a more web 2.0 look.

 

Creating a Graduated Neutral Density Filter - Neutral density filters are a great tool for photography, and this tutorial will show you how to create the same effect in Gimp after you’ve taken the photo.

Full Flare Control with The Gimp - Flares can often be annoying in a photo, but sometimes they add that little extra something. This tutorial shows you how to take full control of flare creation.

Creating Water Drops - Adding water droplets to a leaf or a flower can be a cool effect in a photo, but is tricky to do. This tutorial explains exactly how to create realistic water droplets.

How to Create a Web 2.0 Logo Using the Gimp - Everyone needs a good web 2.0 logo, and this video will show you how.

Pr eparing an Image for the Web - This tutorial is the first in a series, and covers rotating, cropping, downscaling, pushing the colors, and sharpening an image.

LinuxVideo Tutorials

Using Multiple Workspaces in Puppy Linux - This tutorial shows how to configure Puppy Linux to have multiple workspaces.

Run Linux Under Windows - This tutorial shows how to run Linux or another operating system as a virtual system under your Windows operating system.

Install Ubuntu Linux 7.10 - This tutorial spells out exactly how to install Ubuntu Linux on your PC.

Backup Linux Mandriva 2008 - Learn how to back up your users and system configuration with this video tutorial.

(Very) Basic CD Burning Linux Mint Tutorial - Here’s a really basic tutorial on how to burn CDs using Linux Mint.

OpenOffice Video Tutorials

< br>OpenOfficeTutorial - This tutorial is very complete, and covers installing, configuring and using OpenOffice.

Hidden Star Wars Game - This tutorial shows you how to access the hidden Star Wars game in OpenOffice.

How to Create a PDF with Open Office - This video shows how to create a PDF file from an OpenOffice file.

Open Office on Ubuntu Linux - This tutorial shows how to use Open Office on an Ubuntu Linux platform.

NvuVideo Tutorials

Howto Modify a Website Template Using Nvu - This video tutorial shows how to customize a website template to meet your needs.

Installing Free Editor Nvu - This tutorial shows you how to get Nvu up and running on your computer.

Getting Started with Nvu - This video covers the basics of using Nvu for designing web pages.

Using Tables in Nvu - This tutorial shows how to create tables using Nvu.