Box.net today unveiled the latest version of its cloud-based, file-sharing software. The service, which enables Box users to view and collaborate on files, has been rebuilt from the ground up with a greatly simplified UI, as well as offering new collaboration and real-time notification features. Read more »
Zoho, a provider of an extensive suite of 26 web applications, many of which we’ve written about previously, is now offering a bookkeeping and accounting system called Zoho Books. It will compete with online business accounting systems like LessAccounting and QuickBooks Online. Read more »
When you’ve got team members all over the world, you have to have the right tools to keep them all up to speed. Inventure Management works with Brazilian and American employees and found itself in need of a collaboration tool that could cross international barriers easily Read more »
Trunk.ly is a bookmarking app with a twist: It automatically gathers all the links you share online and makes them available via a searchable web interface. It can connect to Twitter, Facebook, Delicious and Pinboard via built-in connectors, and other services through RSS feeds. Read more »
Apple is finally bringing AirPlay to home movies shot on the iPhone or iPod touch in iOS 4.3. I’d like to have some actual videos to show friends and family using the feature. A couple of new apps promise to make those videos more visually interesting. Read more »
Facebook has quietly announced to application developers that third-party apps will be able to access the addresses and mobile phone numbers of Facebook users. The easiest way to avoid making postal addresses and mobile phone numbers available is to not include them in your Facebook profile. Read more »
Apple has posted a downloads countdown page on its site as it approaches 10 billion apps downloaded. This year marks the App Store’s third birthday, so that’s an average of over 3 billion app downloads per year. iTunes took eight years to reach the same milestone. Read more »
It wasn’t consciously a New Year’s resolution, but shortly after Christmas after years of tripping over my guitar cases, I decided it was time to start playing again. Luckily, there’s a healthy stock of iPad amp apps to help me get back on the horse. Read more »
Dealing with our overloaded inboxes takes time; anything that makes the email experience more productive has the potential for considerable savings for businesses. NEO Pro 5.0 is an add-on that promises to make the Outlook experience more organized and productive. Read more »
Users of Instapaper, a service that allows for the saving of articles to read later, should check out ChromaPaper, a Chrome app. It adds some extra features to the Instapaper website, but what makes it really useful is that it provides offline sync. Read more »
VoxOx is a great idea: one program that does phone calls, IM, video chat, Skype messaging, conference calling, even incoming faxing. You can select your own phone number. Unfortunately, with an app that does this much, I suppose it’s inevitable that there will be shortcomings. Read more »
A paper showing how Google’s Priority Inbox feature works shows how the future of the web can evolve to deliver hyper-personalized results to users while relying on a huge sample of people connected through the cloud. Priority Inbox isn’t just good for productivity, it’s the future. Read more »
There have been a number of recent productivity apps to help individuals track where their time goes. TimeDoctor offers to do the same thing for companies, including those with remote teams, by tracking the time that remote employees spend on different tasks. Read more »
LogMeIn Hamachi is one of my favorite tools for creating a VPN to connect to my network remotely. I can create and access secure virtual networks across public and private networks. The new Mac version 2.0 sports a spiffy GUI, plus features that have been Windows-only. Read more »
MemberHub provides a place for group members to connect and communicate, as well as tools for managing those members. Its core features are focused on sharing information and working collaboratively within groups, whether working online or via email. Its new version improves tools for managing larger groups. Read more »
I’ve been looking at Quora to see if it might be valuable for web workers. I’m skeptical that sites powered by the public can provide fast and reliable information. But here are some things you can do to improve exposure for your questions. Read more »
The Mac App Store saw over 1 million downloads in its first day of availability. That’s a terrific number, but pinning down the effect it’s had for individual developers is a little trickier. Evernote, at least, had tremendous success on launch day. Read more »
Now that the online collaboration service Dimdim has been purchased by Salesforce and is being shut down, what alternatives for collaboration, conferencing and screen sharing remain available? Here are a few options that we’ve covered in the past. Prices, features and usability vary greatly. Read more »
Cloud CRM provider Salesforce has announced the acquisition of web conferencing and meeting tools provider Dimdim. Salesforce says that it will use Dimdim’s presence and on-demand meeting and collaboration technologies and development team to add new real-time communication capabilities to its Chatter collaboration platform. Read more »
With the launch of the Mac App Store earlier today, you might be eager to find out what Mac games are available to waste your precious time. While the choices right now are quite limited, there are still some gems out there worthy of attention. Read more »
Email spam is, of course, a continuing problem, even if the total amount has fallen recently. So Google has responded by adding some new spam-fighting tools to Google Apps. Administrators can now enable DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). This technology is intended to prevent “spoofing” of messages. Read more »
Task Ave is a new iPhone app that makes use of Apple’s recent background location API to notify you when you approach a venue where you need to get or do something. It’s a good use of the tech, especially for the extremely absent-minded like myself. Read more »
One of the fun things about writing here is that I get to experiment with a bunch of apps and devices. Here’s a list of the products I tried in 2010 that have made their way into my everyday work life. Read more »
Don’t want to be glued to the TV when the New Year officially begins? There’s a free app for your iPhone (or Android device) that lets you watch the ball drop live in Times Square so you can be glued to your mobile screen instead! Read more »
Contact pages on websites are usually boring. But Formsly gives your visitors detailed information about your business — the sort of information that you might find on Yelp or Google Places — but that information is embedded in your website, and you can control its format and content. Read more »
icloud, a “web operating system” with a growing selection of apps that can be included in a customizable virtual workspace, is now offering mobile apps for iOS and Android that include access to files, document viewing, and uploading of photos, along with an updated mobile website. Read more »
Qwiki presents search results in a montage of images, video, animations and other visual resources, and overlays it with real-time narration, using text-to-speech technology. The result is information as a watchable experience. For me, the experience of watching the content is eerie and unsettling. Read more »
Making a truly good third-party browser for the iPhone or iPad is difficult because of Apple’s iOS development restrictions. You basically have to create a Safari clone, with some extras thrown in. Cyberspace is a new contender that manages to set itself apart from the crowd. Read more »
With apps being sold at an average price of less then $2.50 each, what could possibly be driving speculation that app sales could be a $35 billion industry by 2014? If you have an iOS device, then the answer is you. Read more »
If you find that the busy interfaces of standard word processors detract from your ability to concentrate, there are several options for “distraction-free writing,” including WriteRoom, OmmWriter and DarkRoom. Now there’s a web app called QuietWrite that tries to create a similar environment. Read more »
Some Gmail users are seeing ads below messages. Gmail has long displayed ads in its web interface, to the right of incoming messages. But some are complaining that the new placement makes it more likely that people will click on ads accidentally. Read more »
Sleipnir Mobile and the 360 Browser have joined a growing group of alternatives to Mobile Safari, the web browser that comes with the iPhone and iPod touch. Tabs, data sync with Firefox, download management, and access to Flash content highlight the features these browsers offer. Read more »
GDocsOpen is a software program for Windows that makes it easy to edit and sync local documents directly to Google Documents. I found its small size and simple installation appealing, but it can’t be used without an active internet connection, which limits its usefulness. Read more »
The holidays aren’t yet over, and that means you probably still have some time off on your hands. What better way to spend that time than with some engrossing, in-depth RPG gaming? Your iPhone can deliver that experience thanks to a few awesome apps. Read more »
With a new year comes new projects, and with new projects comes plans to execute them. These plans may work — or not. The key is to find the right model, or combination of models, that can help you schedule your projects more effectively. Read more »
AnyMessages, an online service designed to replace those pink “While You Were Out” messages, allows coworkers to send an email or text with a caller’s message and contact information. The service is easy to set up and use, but still has some kinks to work out. Read more »
Realizing there is no chance of getting your traditional paper-based holiday card out this year, your only recourse is to explore electronic options. You may find just what you are looking for in one of the following three iOS app-based solutions. Read more »
Looking for a full-featured tool to create mind maps tool to use on the go? Popular iPhone mind mapping app MindMeister, which previously cost $6.99, is free for a limited time over the holidays. It works well as a mobile companion for the web app. Read more »
The soon-to-be-defunct Google Wave has a huge number of available gadgets, which enable users to add useful collaborative tools to their waves. The good news is many of the more useful Wave gadgets will now live on in Shared Spaces, a Google Labs project. Read more »
BusyToDo, a new to-do app for iPhone, aims to bring the most obvious omission from MobileMe to subcribers of the cloud services package from Apple. It does this without much flair, and it has a fairly high asking price. So is it worth it? Read more »
