Meebo's web-based Instant Messaging platform
For those of you running Citrix or MS Terminal Services and struggling with a unified Instant Messaging client that is compatible with this platform, consider using a solution like Meebo's web-based service. Yeah, ok so this is another one of my SaaS/mashup rants, but bear with me. I'm sure some of you are already on the Meebo bandwagon (James), but for those of you who haven't discovered it yet, there are some immediate benefits.
First, it's web-based so there is no client to install. If you can run a browser in your terminal session, you can give users IM access.
Secondly, it supports simultaneous login to all of the major IM platforms including AIM, Yahoo, Google and MSN, ICQ and Jabber, as well as it's own Meebo IM platform. There is also support for iPhone and iPOD Touch mobile access to the IM client. Additionally, there is a Firefox extension to show Meebo in a Firefox sidebar.
For enhanced functionality you can elect to sign into a Meebo Room and you'll be able to have audio and video IM sessions as well as sharing files and web clips from Youtube and the like. Meebo Room sessions can be moderated as well to control content if the need arises. This would be a potential alternative to using Webex for a multi-session presentation or training with video/audio, especially within a company where you wanted an open forum for discussion about the presentation material.
Another very cool feature of Meebo is the Meebo Me widget that can be embedded into a web page to give you presence awareness to your page viewers, blog readers, etc. and allow them to IM you from the Meebo widget.
As an alternative to the popular installation-required multi-IM products like Pidgin, Trillian, Digsby and Miranda, it's one less application to deal with on the desktop.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Hosted Wikis
Social website tools
I think it's a safe assumption that at some point in time you have used Wikipedia if only out of curiosity. The power of Wikipedia has been the crowd sourcing and community editing functionality, allowing group collaboration to monitor, edit and update the data on an ongoing basis. There is a growing list of sites that offer hosted wikis with increasing levels of functionality and rapid development and deployment tools.
One of the new entries in this arena is Wetpaint, calling their service "hosted social media". What is compelling about Wetpaint is their Wetpaint Injected, a widget-ized version of their service that can be embedded into your blog, MySpace, Facebook, etc. website. Wetpaint has some very easy to use tools for creating a professional-looking media rich social website. Another entry in this space is the former Jotspot, purchased by Google that has re-emerged as Google Sites. The current drawback to Google Sites is the requirement to have a qualified domain name in order to register for the service, and in effect Google is targeting the business community with Sites instead of individual users. *Update note: 5/22 - after this post, Google announced that Sites was accessible to individual users via their Google Apps login.
Wikis are emerging as a web-based, hosted alternative to MS Sharepoint or Lotus Quickr tools for team and group collaboration. Other popular hosted personal wiki services are PBwiki, Scribblewiki and Zoho Wiki just to name a few.
Sites like Socialtext and CentralDesktop are targeted at business users with pricing starting at around $10/user per month.
I think it's a safe assumption that at some point in time you have used Wikipedia if only out of curiosity. The power of Wikipedia has been the crowd sourcing and community editing functionality, allowing group collaboration to monitor, edit and update the data on an ongoing basis. There is a growing list of sites that offer hosted wikis with increasing levels of functionality and rapid development and deployment tools.
One of the new entries in this arena is Wetpaint, calling their service "hosted social media". What is compelling about Wetpaint is their Wetpaint Injected, a widget-ized version of their service that can be embedded into your blog, MySpace, Facebook, etc. website. Wetpaint has some very easy to use tools for creating a professional-looking media rich social website. Another entry in this space is the former Jotspot, purchased by Google that has re-emerged as Google Sites. The current drawback to Google Sites is the requirement to have a qualified domain name in order to register for the service, and in effect Google is targeting the business community with Sites instead of individual users. *Update note: 5/22 - after this post, Google announced that Sites was accessible to individual users via their Google Apps login.
Wikis are emerging as a web-based, hosted alternative to MS Sharepoint or Lotus Quickr tools for team and group collaboration. Other popular hosted personal wiki services are PBwiki, Scribblewiki and Zoho Wiki just to name a few.
Sites like Socialtext and CentralDesktop are targeted at business users with pricing starting at around $10/user per month.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Prep'ing for Hurricane Season
Satellite Internet, Solar powered devices and more...
As we close in on June 1st and the official start of hurricane season here in south Mississippi, we begin to review again our disaster recovery plans. I was with a customer recently that was installing a satellite communications system from Skycasters, replacing an older model dish from another provider. I soon discovered that Skycasters offered broadband speed wireless with VPN and VoIP compatible service, in fact with speeds from 1.5Mbps to 4Mbps download speeds, and 384kbps to 1.5Mbps upload speeds. Now this is not a high availability solution for a primary site with multi-megabit trunks, but to be able to communicate in times of disaster satellite is second to none. As we experienced in the aftermath of Katrina, cellular networks were down for weeks, land lines for months in some cases, internet connectivity non-existent and roadways impassible. Skycasters is compatible with Vonage, Packet8 and Shoretel Voice over IP services, so you could set up an account with a VoIP carrier to be able to communicate to the outside world in the first few hours or days after a disaster. Also, since it's VPN compatible as well there is the opportunity to establish secure remote access links to a hosted site. Now all of this assumes you've already taken care of your power needs with a reliable generator solution and have enough fuel to get you through.
This is also a good solution for those remote locations where you can only get a dial-up connection from the local rural phone carrier and DSL, T1 or cable is not available. I'm sure you can think of other uses for this as well, but if you were looking for options to maintain data connectivity to the outside world during the upcoming hurricane season, check into Skycasters.
Also, don't forget about handheld communication options. Head over to GlobalCom and check out the solutions available from Iridium, Globalstar, Thuraya, and Inmarsat. There are rental options for the handheld phones and purchase plans with pre-paid minute plans available with discounts or pay-as-you-go plans. A recent addition to Globalcom's lineup is a portable solar charger for their handheld satellite phone solutions. It has a cigarette lighter female adapter end on the output line that could potentially be used to charge other devices - I have a call into them to look into this and will let you know more later.
While I'm on this rant, don't forget about some of the other options out there that you need to consider. Amazon has a nice selection of solar ovens, and Sundance Solar has everything from cellphone/iPOD solar rechargers to solar flashlights, radios and lanterns and reasonably priced DC inverter kits and battery arrays to power some higher wattage basic items. You can also head over to ETA Engineering and check out DC power refrigerators, and even SolarChill evaporative coolers (think window A/C unit). I'm particularly keen on their solar water/pool pump solutions as well.
One last thought, it was easier to find propane after Katrina than gasoline or diesel, and there are propane and natural gas powered generators available as well as conversion kits for existing gasoline generators at USCarb.
I know I've probably left a few things out (like MREs), so send me your lists of all the things you've done to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season and I'll post a compiled planning list link.
As we close in on June 1st and the official start of hurricane season here in south Mississippi, we begin to review again our disaster recovery plans. I was with a customer recently that was installing a satellite communications system from Skycasters, replacing an older model dish from another provider. I soon discovered that Skycasters offered broadband speed wireless with VPN and VoIP compatible service, in fact with speeds from 1.5Mbps to 4Mbps download speeds, and 384kbps to 1.5Mbps upload speeds. Now this is not a high availability solution for a primary site with multi-megabit trunks, but to be able to communicate in times of disaster satellite is second to none. As we experienced in the aftermath of Katrina, cellular networks were down for weeks, land lines for months in some cases, internet connectivity non-existent and roadways impassible. Skycasters is compatible with Vonage, Packet8 and Shoretel Voice over IP services, so you could set up an account with a VoIP carrier to be able to communicate to the outside world in the first few hours or days after a disaster. Also, since it's VPN compatible as well there is the opportunity to establish secure remote access links to a hosted site. Now all of this assumes you've already taken care of your power needs with a reliable generator solution and have enough fuel to get you through.
This is also a good solution for those remote locations where you can only get a dial-up connection from the local rural phone carrier and DSL, T1 or cable is not available. I'm sure you can think of other uses for this as well, but if you were looking for options to maintain data connectivity to the outside world during the upcoming hurricane season, check into Skycasters.
Also, don't forget about handheld communication options. Head over to GlobalCom and check out the solutions available from Iridium, Globalstar, Thuraya, and Inmarsat. There are rental options for the handheld phones and purchase plans with pre-paid minute plans available with discounts or pay-as-you-go plans. A recent addition to Globalcom's lineup is a portable solar charger for their handheld satellite phone solutions. It has a cigarette lighter female adapter end on the output line that could potentially be used to charge other devices - I have a call into them to look into this and will let you know more later.
While I'm on this rant, don't forget about some of the other options out there that you need to consider. Amazon has a nice selection of solar ovens, and Sundance Solar has everything from cellphone/iPOD solar rechargers to solar flashlights, radios and lanterns and reasonably priced DC inverter kits and battery arrays to power some higher wattage basic items. You can also head over to ETA Engineering and check out DC power refrigerators, and even SolarChill evaporative coolers (think window A/C unit). I'm particularly keen on their solar water/pool pump solutions as well.
One last thought, it was easier to find propane after Katrina than gasoline or diesel, and there are propane and natural gas powered generators available as well as conversion kits for existing gasoline generators at USCarb.
I know I've probably left a few things out (like MREs), so send me your lists of all the things you've done to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season and I'll post a compiled planning list link.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Sprout's widget wizard
Using Sproutbuilder to publish a Google Form (and more)
Sprout is a web-based flash builder toolkit with which you can build, publish and manage widgets, mini-sites, banners, mashups and other rich media Web content in three easy steps. I was looking for a way to help a customer publish a form online and came across Sprout as I was looking into using Google's new forms option in the Google Docs spreadsheet. I created the sample entry form below using Google Docs and then used Sprout to create the widget.
First, go to Google and log into your Google Docs account - if you don't have one yet, welcome back from your cryogenic coma and get busy (it's free). Then, select New, Spreadsheet. Enter the form fields in the A1, A2, etc. row. If you haven't turned autosave on, Google Docs will prompt you. Once you've entered your field headings, go to the Share tab and on the next screen, select Invite People and click the radio button the "fill out a form". On the next screen you're prompted to invite users, you can skip this step. Copy the URL link in the right panel.
Now, go create a Sprout account (www.sproutbuilder.com), and yes you'll have to check your email account and enter a validation code on the Sprout site that has been emailed to you. Then, select launch Sproutbuilder, select a project type (blank) and name the project. Use the Google Forms widget builder and follow the directions on the Sprout site - it's as simple as pasting the URL link to the Google form into the widgetbuilder.
Once you select publish, Sprout will build an Adobe Flash widget with the Google form embedded that you can then publish on your web page, blog, Myspace or whatever.
Example
I think the mini-sites options are incredible tools as well for building embeddable advertisements (see the Sheryl Crow example). There are options to include a music player and MP3 files, video files, a counter widget and many more features. Give it a try and send me links to some of the creative ways you figure out to use this tool.
Google Form not embedded in a Flash Widget
Sprout is a web-based flash builder toolkit with which you can build, publish and manage widgets, mini-sites, banners, mashups and other rich media Web content in three easy steps. I was looking for a way to help a customer publish a form online and came across Sprout as I was looking into using Google's new forms option in the Google Docs spreadsheet. I created the sample entry form below using Google Docs and then used Sprout to create the widget.
First, go to Google and log into your Google Docs account - if you don't have one yet, welcome back from your cryogenic coma and get busy (it's free). Then, select New, Spreadsheet. Enter the form fields in the A1, A2, etc. row. If you haven't turned autosave on, Google Docs will prompt you. Once you've entered your field headings, go to the Share tab and on the next screen, select Invite People and click the radio button the "fill out a form". On the next screen you're prompted to invite users, you can skip this step. Copy the URL link in the right panel.
Now, go create a Sprout account (www.sproutbuilder.com), and yes you'll have to check your email account and enter a validation code on the Sprout site that has been emailed to you. Then, select launch Sproutbuilder, select a project type (blank) and name the project. Use the Google Forms widget builder and follow the directions on the Sprout site - it's as simple as pasting the URL link to the Google form into the widgetbuilder.
Once you select publish, Sprout will build an Adobe Flash widget with the Google form embedded that you can then publish on your web page, blog, Myspace or whatever.
Example
I think the mini-sites options are incredible tools as well for building embeddable advertisements (see the Sheryl Crow example). There are options to include a music player and MP3 files, video files, a counter widget and many more features. Give it a try and send me links to some of the creative ways you figure out to use this tool.
Google Form not embedded in a Flash Widget
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