Cool Cornering

Tired of regular cornering? Check out Carver's website. There you can read all about the Carver one: "Here is something that will make you go out of your way to find curvy roads: the Carver One! You steer it like a car, but when cornering it banks like a motorcycle while you feel like you are flying a jetfighter. The thrill of this tilting capability combined with the handling of a sports car makes for an exhilarating driving experience unlike any other!"

Cool Online Project Management Webapps III

I finally made up my mind about the online project management webapp I should use to support some of my projects. The decision wasn't easy but at the end it was not so hard at all. One of my prerequisites was the time tracking feature: GoPlan doesn't have it yet, Zoho Projects has it, online Collab doesn't have it yet (offline version has) and Basecamp is the best at it. Although Basecamp is more expensive than Zoho Projects after trying both I chose Basecamp because I'm almost sure my users will prefer the look and feel of Basecamp. If you're looking for something really cheap then you should go for Zoho Projects or Collab.

Cool Open Identity Protocol

At JanRain one can read that: "OpenID is a new way to identify yourself all over the web. With your own personal OpenID you can login to any OpenID-enabled site (there are over 1,000 of them and that number is growing everyday) and identify yourself as you.
It’s one username and one password for all of the sites that you go to. It means no more registration screens on the sites you go to. Most importantly, OpenID is open; its a protocol that has been developed by a diverse community interested in solving the identity problem once-and-for-all. You can use it at any website that is OpenID enabled as if I already had an account. It blurs the lines of where you you have an account, and the question you ask changes from “Do I have an account?” to “Is the site OpenID enabled?”".

I already created my OpenID account at myopenid.com and I am using it with two webapps that support it right now: Basecamp and Gastus. I really hope that this OpenID gets to be popular so we can drop the old password manager apps. One ID to rule them all! :)

Cool Online Project Management Webapps II

Found another interesting Project Management Webapp. It's called Collab and it's the hosted version of the open source collaboration tool Active Collab. This webapp looks great, it's very simple to use and it's really really cheap ($10/month for the richest plan)! It would suit my basic needs if it had a time tracking feature. I sent them an e-mail asking if they are considering it.

They state at their website they are the cost-effective alternative do GoPlan or Basecamp:
"Collab provides a hosted version of the popular activeCollab open source collaboration tool. All you pay is a small monthly fee for hosting and we set up a fresh install of activeCollab complete with plenty of storage space, FTP access, and a customizable URL. If you've looked at other services such as GoPlan and Basecamp, Collab is a cost-effective alternative.".


Meanwhile I found this interesting post: Basecamp, activeCollab, and Goplan compared. This comparison isn't up to date because activeCollab is now also available as a hosted webapp as I mentioned above.

Cool Online Project Management Webapps

I found these cool project management webapps: Basecamp, Goplan and Zoho Projects. They aren't Microsoft Project but I think they are ok for someone doing basic project management.

Basecamp is the most popular of the three and it's probably the best choice, although not the cheapest. Goplan is a Basecamp clone and I say it because it also lookd great and I guess the features are very similar but I'm guessing because their website isn't very clear about features. Zoho projects is perhaps the most basic project management tool one can use but it's cheap and integrates with Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show.

I haven't decided which one I will use for managing my personal projects but it will be a tough call.

Cool Online ERP

If you think your company is ready to embrace something more than an online CRM then perhaps you should check out Netsuite and Workday.

According to Netsuite's website, Netsuite is a "Comprehensive Web-based solution for midsize businesses that integrates Accounting/ERP, CRM, Ecommerce and partner collaboration capabilities.".

"Workday is delivering the first on-demand alternative to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP); a new generation of solutions designed for today's dynamic, global businesses. " as one can read at Workday's website.

Cool Lunar Challenge

X Prize Foundation and Google are sponsoring a private race to the Moon. According to their website:

"The Google Lunar X PRIZE seeks to create a global private race to the Moon that excites and involves people around the world and, accelerates space exploration for the benefit of all humanity. The use of space has dramatically enhanced the quality of life and may ultimately lead to solutions to some of the most pressing environmental problems that we face on earth – energy independence and climate change."

This is a quite interesting challenge. NASA, ESA and all the others space agencies prepare yourselves for private competitors!

Cool People Search Engine II

After making my first post about a cool people search engine called Spock someone told me about Pipl. At their website they explain why their search engine is better than regular search engines if you are searching people:

"How come the best search engines fail so miserably when it comes to people search? The answer lies in a little known but very important part of the web called "the deep web".

Also known as "invisible web", the term "deep web" refers to a vast repository of underlying content, such as documents in online databases that general-purpose web crawlers cannot reach. The deep web content is estimated at 500 times that of the surface web, yet has remained mostly untapped due to the limitations of traditional search engines.
Since most personal profiles, public records and other people-related documents are stored in databases and not on static web pages, most of the higher-quality information about people is simply "invisible" to a regular search engine.".

Thank you for the enlightment! It worths a try and I managed to find my Facebook profile or myLinkedin profile among others using Pipl.com.

Cool Family Tree Builder Webapp

A couple of months ago I found Geni and I created an account. I think Geni is a very cool family tree builder and it is also very simple to use. And it's free! I don't know why more common social or even professional networking tools don't offer this family tree feature.

More about Geni from their website:

"Geni lets you create a family tree through our fun simple interface. You can expand your tree by adding relatives' email addresses. They will be invited to join your tree and can add other relatives. Your tree will continue to grow as relatives invite other relatives.

Each family member has a profile which can be viewed by clicking their name in the tree. This helps family members learn more about each other and stay in touch. Family members can also share photos and work together to build profiles for common ancestors.".

Although it's very cool and everything I didn't found it very useful once I built my family tree. Well, I got birthday reminders... Great!

Check out Geni's video demo.

Cool People Search Engine

I found this cool personal search engine. While you can use Google to search for anything Spock was built to find people. I found it very interesting.

"Spock is the online leader in personal search, helping users find and discover people. With over one hundred million people already indexed and millions added every day, Spock is building the broadest and deepest people specific search engine." as they claim at their website.

Cool Idea Application Webapp by Salesforce.com

Yesterday Salesforce.com introduced its Salesforce Ideas.

"Salesforce Ideas is the world's first on-demand application that enables the wisdom of crowds to drive business innovation. Based on the idea popularized by the consumer Web on the power of the collective ideas of a group, salesforce.com launched its own live community called IdeaExchange a year ago, sparking a new era of transparent community collaboration. Salesforce.com's IdeaExchange has changed the face of product development by empowering the salesforce.com customer and partner community to shape future product releases through an ongoing, live public debate. To date, more than 5,000 ideas have been posted, with 92,000 promotions, and numerous ideas have been incorporated into salesforce.com and partner applications."

Now they have made it available to their customers.

"Now salesforce.com is bringing this same power of community-based innovation to its customers with Salesforce Ideas, enabling them to build their own on-demand communities with their employees, customers, partners or prospects. Every company has internal and external communities that know the business, generate ideas, and can serve as a company's innovation engine. Salesforce Ideas allows companies to unleash the power of these communities to improve their business and to deepen valued relationships. For the first time, companies can tap into customers, employees and partners across divisions, organizations, and boundaries to drive the best ideas and innovations for their business."

I am a big fan of the wisdom of crowds as an innovation process input among others.

You can read the CNN Money article here.

Cool Business Plan Webapp

Although I didn't test it properly I thought I should share another cool webapp such as PlanHQ. In a nutshell and quoting their website PlanHQ helps you: " Bring your Business Plan to life - Make a plan, make it happen and track your progress". It looks cool and useful (for US purposes). I will test it when I have the chance to do it.

Cool Online CRM Webapps

Being a CRM enthusiast I am curious about everything that is CRM related. Nowadays every piece of software is going towards the Software as a Service (SaaS) approach. So it was no surprise for me when Microsoft announced they will directly offer their Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a service (SaaS). As far as I know Salesforce works just like that and now it will be followed by Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I don't know if Siebel is going this way or not. They play in a different league, at least for now.

But what has surprised me the most was these three cool CRM webapps that I have found: Zoho CRM, Highrise and Etelos CRM. From the three I have to say that for me the only one that can be called a true CRM is Zoho CRM because it has a lot of features that one expects to found in a CRM application (Sales & Marketing, Inventory Management, Customer Support & Service, Reports & Dashboards, Outlook Plugin). And guess what? The first three users are free and you only have to pay from the 4th user and up. I think this is a great marketing move from Zoho.

Highrise tracks contacts, communications, tasks and calendar and its design is really very stylish and user friendly (as I see it).

I have to be honest, I didn't explore Etelos CRM but I took a pick at their website and I found the most interesting feature about this wannabe CRM: iGoogle integration. They also integrate it with Windows Live. This is a very cool feature because I'm still expecting for Google to come up with a real contact management tool (perhaps when it integrates Gmail with orkut). Unfortunetly Google hasn't decided to come up with a CRM tool from their own. It would fit the Google Apps portfolio for sure!

Cool Google Earth Easter Egg: Flight Simulator

Yes, it's true that Google introduced a simple flight simulator with Google Earth 4.2 release. You can read about here: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/08/google-earth-easter-egg-flight.html. Have fun and be careful or you'll crash the plane!

Cool Google Docs & Spreadsheets Alternatives

I have been using Google Docs & Spreadsheets for a while but I think it lacks a lot of features and it's quite slow. I recognize though that it's great for real-time online collaboration. There is still a lot of work to be done so I can forget MS Office or OpenOffice office suites.

One of these days I decided to try Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet and I was very impressed about it. It offers more features than Google Docs & Spreadsheets and it has a MS Office like environment with which I felt very familiarized. Now check this out: they have this Zoho plugin for MSOffice that lets you open your Zoho-online-stored documents inside MSOffice Word and Excel! And the changes you make while using MSOffice are reflected to your Zoho-online-stored documents. That is great and it actually worked because I have tried it!

When I thought I had seen them all I found ThinkFree. Their slogan or perhaps their vision goes like this: "the best online office on earth". It sounded promising and I signed up to try it. I chose to create a new word document and when I realized I thought I was inside MSOffice Word because the webapp interface was just like it! Remarkable stuff! However while using Thinkfree dashboard (folders and files management) I found some glitches which help me remind they are still offering their online office suite under beta stage.