Zoho Business Overview

As a side story to my current Overview of Zoho series of posts, I am posting this video of the current private beta of Zoho Business. This is merely an overview of the current private beta as of this writing. It in no way reflects the final product, as there is still a lack of integration with some of Zoho's other services. Also, a slight error in encoding means this video is best viewed in full-screen mode. I have added comments to the video so you can tell what is going on. More on this later.

----------------
Now playing on iTunes: Freddie Mercury - Let's Turn It On
via FoxyTunes

Test of Texty

----------------
Now playing on iTunes: Jimi Hendrix - Red House (Live)
via FoxyTunes

Overview of Zoho pt. 1

Here is my overview of Zoho's basic office services, more to come in later posts. Note, that it is hosted on Zoho itself, through their Zoho viewer service:


----------------
Now playing on iTunes: Jimi Hendrix - Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)
via FoxyTunes

Jott Blog Post

This is my test of Jott, a speech-to-text service that currently offers integration with several blog services. Just call the number they give you, speak what you want, and it is automatically transcribed to speech and sent to either you, a contact of yours, or as this shows, a blog.

Testing Jott links(?).
Click here to listen

Powered by Jott.com - Try it at 1 (866) JOTT123 -

DinoDave: Walking for a change. Touch a Life, Touch the World

I would like to direct your attention to my friend David. He and his pal Nick, are going on a walk across the continental United States of America in order to raise general awareness, especially towards children in need. This particular walk goes out to a very special child, in need of surgery to operate tumors he has. So any contribution is appreciated. For more information, visit his website

Lifehack.org: 11+ Advice for Students

Lifehack.org has an interesting article which highlights some very important things every new student should keep in mind:

* Get organized! Pretty self-explanatory, that one. But here’s a few things you an do to make that vague advice a little more practical:

* Write everything down. Get a Moleskine notebook and a packet of Post-It “Durable Tabs”. Divide the notebook into sections for your todo list, projects (stuff that takes more than a step or two to finish, e.g. research papers, club activities, etc.), and notes. Stick that and a nice pen or mechanical pencil in your pocket, purse, or backpack. Carry it everywhere. Use it. Religiously. Write down assignments, appointments, trips to the library, shopping lists, phone numbers, classroom numbers, everything and anything that crosses your mind. I keep todos on the right-hand page and notes on the back of the left-hand page. Or figure out some other system — use index cards, a DayPlanner, a PDA, whatever works, but use it.

* Know your professor. Check out your professors’ bios on their departments’ websites. Google their names. (Use “firstname lastname” in quotes, then try “lastname, firstname”, also in quotes. Try with and without their middle initial, if you know it.) Look them up in whatever research databases your school’s library makes available to you. Look them up on Amazon. Pop in for a chat during their office hours. You don’t have to get creepy — don’t go through their garbage or anything like that. Just find out something about their work, what their research interests are, what sort of stuff they’ve written, what their teaching philosophy is (many profs post that kind of stuff). Find out where your interests intersect with theirs, and what they have to offer you that might be outside the scope of whatever class you’re taking.

An excellent resource for getting organized is Notely.net

Why Feedburner is trouble (Scripting News)

Here is an interesting article, funny I should blog about it on a Blogger Blog :D But it does make you think. Does Google know too much for one single company? I share the sentiment Mr Dave Winer has, however I do use several google products, not all of them, because there are other companies out there which in my opinion have a better service. Recently Google integrated some nice statistic to go along with their word count in Google Docs. Honestly features like that are inconsequential to me, as I am firmly a Zoho user in that department. For all the bad things that can come from such a free market, the same in which Google can do these acquisitions, there are also companies like Zoho, which offer great alternatives.

Why Feedburner is trouble
Saturday, July 21, 2007 by Dave Winer.


When Feedburner first came online I warned that there was danger in giving so much power to one company. They argued that they were just a little company, struggling to make a go of it, and no one should fear them. Some of them even took the predictable political tactic of trashing the personality of the person raising the question. I held my ground. I've been around this business a long time, and I was sure their strategy was to sell to a bigger company, and I don't trust big companies. Permalink to this paragraphPeople at big companies often are underpaid, with stock options going nowhere, and feel unappreciated by their colleagues, and when they look outside their company they see lots of people who look happy and successful, making more money than they are, without the political troubles and strategy taxes, and they feel like they're doing all the work. (Of course we look at them and see much the same thing, the grass is always greener over there.) Permalink to this paragraphSo now someone at Google "owns" Feedburner and all their feeds. And they could, if they wanted to, change the feeds to another format, overnight, without asking anyone. Reader software might have trouble working with it. They would say "Oh but the new feeds work better with Google Reader, and that's the one most people use." And by the way, more and more that's true these days. But what about other feed suppliers? Do they have to change to work with Google Reader? They will say no, but there may turn out to be practical reasons why they must. Permalink to this paragraphPeople at Microsoft used to say that Windows isn't ready to ship until Lotus doesn't run. That's not a typo. You'd think it would be the other way around, that a popular operating system would never hold the users of a popular spreadsheet hostage. But it could happen when they have their own spreadsheet and want you to switch. Or if they want everyone to put ads in their feeds. Who would miss a few blogs here and there, don't we all use Blogger anyway (that's one area where they haven't taken over, btw, thankfully). Permalink to this paragraphI would have been concerned no matter who bought Feedburner, had it been Microsoft or Yahoo, or Fox or even Cisco, or if they hadn't sold out at all. Little companies can sometimes do desperate things when new management comes in. Permalink to this paragraphThese technologies work best when there's lots of competition and lots of choice, and when users are alert and don't trust companies that don't deserve their trust. But I can't say I've ever seen that happen for any sustained period, but I still have hope it could happen someday. Permalink to this paragraph© Copyright 1994-2007 Dave Winer Mailto icon.

Why Feedburner is trouble (Scripting News)

Blogged with Flock