Internet-based communication is changing so quickly these days that there seems to be an endless stream of beta releases. Yesterday, Simon wrote about some of the latest browser betas; let’s look at a few products and services for interacting with social networks, Twitter and instant messaging.
I don’t generally like living on the bleeding edge, but some betas are very usable, and I’ve already incorporated them into my daily workflow. Others look promising, but are not stable or are lacking too many features right now. But all of the following are worth trying, and watching as they develop. We’ll review them more thoroughly as they mature. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: adium, adobe air, beta, brizzly, Email, Facebook, facebook chat, file sharing, fluid, Google Reader, imo.im, myspace, seesmic, sms, socialite, tweetdeck, tweetminer, twitter, video, voxox
These days, there seems to be a new product aimed at managing projects every week. Just in the last month or so, WWD has reviewed MissingLink Project Center, Zen, Zoho Projects and EasyProjects.net. Joining this parade is WizeHive, which has just released a new beta with several upgraded features.
I find a project management system indispensable. Like a lot of web workers, I’m always juggling multiple projects and clients, and such systems are the only way for me to easily track deadlines, time spent, and progress. So I’m always interested in new options, although my three-person company has been generally happy with ActiveCollab.
Thus, when I look at a product like WizeHive, I confess that I have some preconceived ideas as to how a project management system should operate. I’m not entirely sure that WizeHive would work for me, but it does include some good ideas, and the latest update offers some nice features: Read the rest of this entry »
The practice of wireframing is common to most web production professionals. Oddly, there’s no clear market leader or category-defining product in this space; even solutions such as Adobe’s Creative Suite lack dedicated wireframing or rapid prototyping tools.
There are, however, a number of useful smaller options. Late last year, Mike Gunderloy evaluated the popular Balsamiq Mockups and its deliberately sketchy wireframes. I recently discovered FlairBuilder, another up-and-coming wireframing tool which, like Balsamiq, is based on the Adobe AIR platform.
While lacking Balsamiq’s cutesy, sketchy style, FlairBuilder has a number of interesting features useful for wireframing: Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook only just announced that it would be making its stream API public, and now it’s following up with the launch of a new Adobe AIR desktop app that takes advantage of those capabilities. Yes, it’s an AIR app, which makes it slightly icky right away, but native desktop clients will no doubt follow in short order.
AIR app or not, the real question is: Will this bring Facebook back into my daily professional life? Read the rest of this entry »
Google has recently opened up its API for Google Analytics, which promises to usher in lots of useful applications and widgets for those of us who rely on it for monitoring site traffic metrics. One of the first of these, Polaris, is an easy to use widget that you can keep right on your Windows, Mac or Linux desktop for slicing and dicing Google Analytics data. I installed it in less than five minutes and although it doesn’t add new statistics to the metrics Google supplies, it’s very easy to flip in and out of, and handy to have.
Read the rest of this entry »
At this point, regular WWD readers might now about my distaste for all things Adobe Air, but I try to look past my personal platform preferences and focus on the function of productivity apps, instead of the form they choose to take. Over a year ago, we previewed an app called KonoLive that aimed to bring collaboration to Getting Things Done (GTD) software. Now that it’s finally available to the general public, we wanted to take a look and see what it brings to the table. And I promise to put aside my Air prejudice for the time being.
First, KonoLive does require registration, so if you’re partial to services that are more pick-up-and-play, it might not be your first choice. One nice thing about the sign-up process is that it automatically signs you up for a box.net account if you don’t have one, since you need it in order to use KonoLive’s services. As a consequence, however, whenever you start KonoLive, it redirects you to the box.net homepage to sign in. I’d really appreciate an option to save my login and do this step automatically. Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
