Scribez

Microsoft - $51.12 billion annual revenue as of 2007. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft) It’s the company that every web geek is supposed to hate. But, why? As Clazh points out in this entry,

Sure IE 7 doesn’t have the best support for Web Standards but at least Microsoft is trying. Hey I am web designer and I hate IE. But lets not forget that IE was at one time the most advanced and sophisticated Browser heck IE was the first to implement the concept of AJAX.

!Then comes this news, yup from Microsoft turf… (more…)

18+ social networks, Flickr, Zoomr, Picasa, GMail, the list goes on. If you are like me and have decent cyber-social life (apart from a real-social life), then there is a very good chance that you lose track of what your friends are up2 among these networks…

In comes Spokeo to the rescue. They will take your email address and search for your contacts across the very many networks which are spread across the cyberspace and give you an update anytime, there’s an update on your friends across these networks!!

The folks at Spokeo have done an impressive job. Their list of supported networks is impressive, covering the basic social networks, Flickr, Youtube, the new Friendster and the list continues!! All you do is register with a valid email address from GMail, Yahoo or the likes and in a very little amount of time, Spokeo finds out where your friends have registered themselves and give you an update on their actions!

One of the coolest things about the site is that you can keep browsing through the website, learning its features, while Spokeo does its thing of searching for your friends’ activities in the background. The site is very responsive and is really well setup as far as the layout is concerned. It’s decently intuitive!!

The positives:
+ Excellent setup method
+ Intuitive interface
+ Easy sorting
+ Will help you shave off some browsing time going through each of the networks and addresses
+ Doubles up as an RSS reader

The negatives:
- Conspicuously misses orkut and del.icio.us

Spokeo

Continuing to the Part ][ of the series started by Apple Gazette of the 5 Predictions for Apple in 2007, here are the list of the 5 Predictions for Linux in 2007! Before we look ahead, a small flashback over 2006. This was The year that changed Linux, with Oracle becoming a Linux distributor, Microsoft and Novell partnering to make Linux and Windows more compatible, rift between the Linux core developers and FSF and a lot more happening.

What is really interesting is the fact that the Linux community itself is forking considering that even old-schoolers and pioneers joining hands with proprietary licenses, with reference to ESR joining the Freespire board. It was in ESR’s book itself and as part of the Halloween document 1 discussion that ESR noticed and acknowledged the strongest point of the Linux community being a central control over “no-forking” as forking decreases the amount of glory received as part of the contribution to the community. However, like any human, I love drama and this is exactly why watching the Linux community is going to be really interesting over 2007. Here are a list of things that I am going to be on the lookout for. In no particular order

1. Rise of the Linux “Big Business” Corporates
These include all the Big Business boys who promote Open Source Software and are earning bucks out of the Open Source Business Model. All of them are eyeing to make some $$$, now that Linux has proved itself to be a mission critical trustworthy player. That includes Debian, Novell, Red Hat, and joining the latest into the race signing a deal with Sun, is Canonical [the parent of Ubuntu]

2. Rise/Race of the Desktop Linux
Linux has certainly evolved from a command line “toy” for the green-glowing screen CRTs to a slick desktop, with a lot more interesting eye-candy than Vista or OSX. [Well at least to the eyes of the slightly more than average computer user]. thanks to Compiz, Beryl! Furthermore these effects are to a large extent community support based and independent of the hardware - whether it be a PC or a Mac. Ubuntu Linux is _the_ most popular free Linux that’s being used, in both the PCs and the Macs. What are the other communities going to do? And how is this going to affect the rise of the desktop Linux?

3. What are the FSF policies going to be in GPLv3.0
FSF is against DRM. Vista and OS X.5 [Leopard] have built in support for DRM based working environments. Who’s going to win in this war[???]? Is there going to be scuffle between the big vendors supporting DRM and the FSF community?

4. Any chance of Googubuntu?
There was a rumor that Google was working on a desktop OS that is googlicized [I call this term :D]. Will it be coming true as part of 2007 list of surprises by Google? Will they finally decide to have a “consumer-first” based OS? We’ll have to wait and see

5. How many forks are going to happen as a result of people against GPLv3.0?
Firefox vs IceWeasel, Linux core developers against FSF. Who goes where? Or is there going to be peace and harmony and solid work, which has been the success of Linux rising as a desktop OS today!

All this and more to be looked forward to!! Coming soon to a world near you - 2007!!

This marks an end to our list of predictions of the Windows and Linux community. Wishing you all and happy and fun and prosperous 2007.

Got more, disagree, or just wanna tip us off with more information? Pop in a comment here…

Originally posted by gurupanguji @ Bracketed Bull…

Linux - and free software in general - have been traditionally plagued with one constant concern by the non-users [by that I mean the Windows and the Mac bandwagon] that there are far too many choices. Which Linux flavor to choose? You have Red Hat, Suse, Debian, Gentoo, Fedora, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Unnamedubuntu, and what not. Windows has XP and Mac has OSX. I personally believed [as highlighted here] that it was perfect with the ideology of FSF. Concept of freedom [as in free speech] brings about a related concept of choice. There are many people believing in many ideologies, methods and concepts there. The same is obviously extended to the software developers as well. [They are human for uninitiated] So, you have very many software that are generated.

Saying you have just way too many choices is like saying you have too many choices when you go to buy a pair of running shoes. Or saying you have far too many options when you go to buy a mobile connection. Why should software be any different? You’d expect the user to be aware of the options, and choose or make a mistake just like _any_ consumer market!!

Anyway, Microsoft, with its release of multiple options for Windows Vista may have either finally accepted this or have joined the bandwagon.

Microsoft offers 4 separate versions of Windows Vista - Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Business and Vista Ultimate! Hmm, maybe it’s the year for options after all ;-)!

Does more choice generally mean that it’s better or is it confusing? What do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments section!!

Originally posted by gurupanguji @ Bracketed Bull…

This is an article that stemmed in my head when I was thinking about starting my own web 2.0 based business. Considering the various factors that go into any such business, one of the chief concerns that pop into this is the web-design itself. The typical way this would work is I approach a Web-designer and buy a design / pay him to develop a design for me. And then I buy the design from him. The web-designer, if he’s smart enough would charge for

1. Time for designing
2. The design itself
3. Implementing / Customizing the design for a webpage.

Now, thinking as a smart web-designer, if you think that the Web-site is going to be a hit and will involve evolution of the site itself, you’d swarm the entity [person/firm] who’s enrolled you to create the design into a maintenance contract. This would ensure you that you are paid enough money for enhancing the current design. This could also be offered by you as a designer for a certain amount of money.

Thinking as an smarter web-designer, with a little bit of know-how on the Web2.0 upcoming boom, with enough money slowly being pumped in, you can advertise yourself as a Web2.0 Web-designer [basically pastel shades, with Aqua like alpha, AJAX based interfaces yada yada yada] and what you can actually do, is if you feel that the web-site is going to a tremendous hit, you should try and rope in a “percentage cut model”. IOW, depending on the traffic, you can ask for a cut of the profit that the website is making. More like an investment. Now, depending on your experience you’ll know how to rope in your customers and offer which model ;-)! However, this is just a suggestion that I thought many web-designers may not have thought about.

As a web-designer, what do you think about this particular business model? Is it good/bad/so-so? Lemme know in your comments.

Posted by gurupanguji.

Orkut - one of the most popular social communities out there. Of course nothing beats MySpace [just check out the number of hits we get to the post referring to MySpace :-D]. However, I prefer[red] orkut to the rising community sites of that time [Yeah I enrolled in orkut about 4 years ago] - Hi5. Now, the reason why I chose orkut was a point noted by one of my best friends. Orkut did NOT allow just anyone to join. Consequently, this had reduced/limited the potential possibility of unruly, uncouth people and stuck to the concept of being a truly social community site. You’d invite only your real friends to the site.

However, things have changed now. Orkut is now open - Check out the “Join Now” option at Orkut.com login page! Now, Google has been very good at blocking people with malicious intent in orkut, however, inspite of all that Google tries, orkut still has a lot of flab in terms of porn and other unsocial stuff. Ok, I am never averse to porn, it’s just that I really don’t wanna use a service where in most of my friends/family are present to search and utilize for something like porn :-D! But then again, that’s a personal choice.

Ok, I am digressing! Coming back to the topic - orkut being open and now containing the ability to message communities as a whole, might be the next viral marketing platform. And this extends to any social community based websites. For e.g. since orkut has opened, “agents” have already have started it to communicate about land availability, buildings for sale, LIC insurance options, tax saving investments, and what not? I have already posted about resumes being posted left, right and center in the communities of firms/organizations!

There are some questions you can ask here in terms of - why is Google not stopping that, considering that this is spam? Well, the truth is - these firms with huge investments / returns from the ad-market, would definitely want to capitalize on their investments into the social community pie!! I am saying that orkut is going to be one of the most useful investments that Google made ever. [I am sure that they would know exactly why they invested in orkut. This is nothing but a hypothesis]

Why is orkut going to be useful for Google in the future?

And in a broader sense, why are the major Ad Players raking up on the social communities pie? You have Microsoft with MSN Spaces - Oops, Windows Live Spaces, Yahoo! - with Y! 360 and Google with orkut! What sense does it make for companies like Microsoft to even invest in an ONLINE SOCIAL COMMUNITY?

Well, apart from the fact that they are now becoming an essential part of the Internet package - email/IM/community, they are sitting gold-mines! Rightly predicted in the 2007 Predictions over at Read/Write Web

Expect some shakeups in the online advertising market next year. AdSense will have some competition, in the form of MSN AdCenter and Yahoo’s advertising platform

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/2007_web_predictions.php
- under Search and Online Advertising

Social Community Advantage #1: A sitting gold-mine for advertisement. Companies can post advertisements pertaining to the community. You can bet your life’s savings that people are going to click. And you can put all your eggs saying that that’s going to be the case soon enough.

Social Community Advantage #2: They are consumer-base. People who are using your packages are bound to at least “test” your social community. Make it a success, with enough people and enough contact with people within that community hitch up [ok going too much] but at least meet, you are setting up your consumer base.

Social Community Advantage #3: What better than YOUR community to evangelize your products? Let’s take the latest example - How many orkut users would have decided to give Google Talk a Go - since the tight [almost] integration of orkut and Google Talk. [Btw this was long due for Google, considering that MSN Spaces or is it Live Spaces now? is tightly integrated with Live Messenger and Y! 360 is tightly integrated with Y! Messenger].

The war on Advertising is definitely going to be interesting in 2007. We see that people are already starting to realize the potential of orkut/social communities as a perfect way to reach a niche crowd. For e.g. an insurance salesman could easily target an IT firm and post a message regarding insurance options / tax saving investments. While this is largely beneficial to the salesman and the community, it might be misused!! Are Google and other players taking the necessary precautions to prevent the next generation of spamming through this?

Let us know by your comments and trackbacks, what do _you_ think are the reason for social communities for these big players in the Internet?

Originally Posted by gurupanguji @ Bracketed Bull…

Open Source: The buzz word for the year 2007. From being a bunch of geeks who revolutionized the computing industry, it has grown quite a lot. The world, well at least the computing world, agrees that it’s the next best thing to sliced cheese [and trust me sliced cheese is God sent to the people in the computing world]. I was reading up on the Open Source Business Model, wondering how and what was the money maker of Open Source based companies - web based and stand-alone applications wise. This got me thinking, as a professional software developer, the amount of opportunity and the threats it presents and poses to people like me.

Now, let me define Professional Software Developer: It’s a term that I coined right now to define, and include those developers who write code to make a living, well at least anyone who develops software to make some money out of the process of “coding”.

Now, what is the Open Source Business Model for Software? Traditionally, companies put a lot of value to the actual source code, for a variety of reasons [1]. Now, the code itself is not idolized anymore. How? Well, by providing the source code, free of charge to anyone who wants to use it / understand it / contribute to it, under a variety of “public licenses” - viz. GPL, CC, to name a few. This is a major shift from the “closed source” paradigm.

Under the closed source paradigm, software developers were paid - a lot of money at times - to develop the code base. This had a lot of value, understandably as the company paid quite a hefty amount of money to get it developed, in spite of getting it done real cheap in outsourcing sweatshops in India ;-).

Under the open source paradigm, most of the companies rely on volunteers [a queer word comes into my mind - developer volunteers ???] to develop the code - read Software Developers with a lot of free time??! Now, this cuts down the value of the “source code” to NIL! Save for the laptop sticker (optional), a few T-shirts and due credits given in the “About Us” page ;-), which costs the company practically NOTHING! Now, this also shifts the company’s focus from a traditional software sweatshop to focusing on products, features, service, support, and other value-add services. And it’s these things, which is going to fetch the money to the company anyway, at least in the long run. The software code base itself has no value. Furthermore, it only makes sense for people to contribute to it and have a community based brainstorming for adding features, removing bugs etc.

E.g. Consider the major technologies used in the Web-Applications today - Java, Apache, Linux, MySQL, PHP, etc!! All Open Source, Worthy mentions are of course .Net Web Services, however, let’s not include that here. =D!

P.S. This makes an excellent case for any start-up with limited technology resources to vote and opt - Open Source btw

So, what does this mean to you as a Professional Software Developer? There are two situations you can read from here - Opportunity and Despair.

Let’s tackle the positive one first - Opportunity. One word - NDAs / Contracts. The Closed Source Paradigm typically enforces the software developer cannot use code from his just done / developing project for any of his practical use. Furthermore, majority of the companies for which you will work for, will also have a “Service Agreement” clause, which will not let you work for ANY OTHER COMPANY/product other than for the one you are working, until your contract expires/is revoked by your company. Also, any development you do is NOT your property but is officially the company’s Intellectual Property, for which it gets to file the patents and get the royalty.

The Open Source Paradigm caters to the I-want-variety-in-this-boring-existence-of-mine side of the software development. You can go independent and work for any project you want, which is ready to “hire” you for major concerns of development as well as design decisions. Not only that, it also allows you to go independent and put your hand in a variety of projects, some which pay, some which cater to your interest in the world [Ok!! Development world :-P]. So, you can consider this as an opportunity to grow and expand your profile.

Now, if you can write as well, start a blog, which accounts for your daily experience in the programming world. As there are no NDAs with the projects you work on, you can use real life example code for your work, put Adsense and tada - you’re making money out of what you do best and what you really like - developing code. So, that’s so much for opportunity!!

Despair: Now, let’s give some attention to despair - the negative aspect of this. As a software developer, as soon as the company you are working for realizes that the ROI in maintaining closed source is not worth paying the current set of developers in the payroll, you are out of a job. Just as outsourcing was a major job-cutter, Open Source and Ready to work for real cheap money College Students with development experience are going to handle the code! As tough as this may seem, this could be a prediction of the future.

However, things are not so glum. As part of your “career objectives” set in your company, I am sure that one of the clauses would be “Improve Technology Knowledge” or “Update yourself with the latest trends in technology” or something to that effect. Everybody’s been through that. Now, it’s time to actually make use of some company time to actually enforce that particular Responsibility Area. Get involved in the latest Open Source Technologies / trends like PHP, Python, Java, Ruby, Apache, AJAX, yada yada yada. You get what I mean, learn it and make sure that you highlight that you have done justice to that objective in your next appraisal. And when the time comes that the company decides to try out Open Source technologies, you are way up there in the forefront, already having knowledge of the same. A time for promotion?? I think so ;-)!

Note: This situation is applicable ONLY to the general software development companies and it DOES NOT incorporate the niche software development companies like Medical Solutions or Financial Solutions. Although certain aspects of even these applications will be at the very least BASED on Open Source Technologies soon. Companies involved in these have already spent WAY too much money and resources in developing something that’s so highly proprietary that they will not, at least for a very good amount of time, say 10-20 years even consider making the source code of the binaries that earns them MILLIONS of $$$ a year, OPEN!!

Also, there are companies like IBM and Novell, who are neither here, nor fully there, the in-betweens, who are software houses developing Open Source software - Ideal place to work right now for the Open Source oriented Professional Software Developer, eh ;-)!

Footnotes:
[1] Reasons include theft, software / IP patents on the source code, competitors using to reverse engineer the system design, malicious use of the source code for hacking/cracking/gain private information etc.

Sources / Further Reading about Open Source Business Models
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_vs._closed_source
[2] http://www.extropia.com/tutorials/misc/opensourcebiz.html
[3] http://web.corante.com/editorial/archives/2006/07/the_open_source_revenue_model.php

Posted by gurupanguji

Scrybe™ is a groundbreaking online organizer that caters to today’s lifestyle in a cohesive and intuitive way.

We have online photo storage [ala Flickr , Zooomr , Photobucket], Online To-do Lists [ala Ta-Da Lists and countless others], Online Documents and Spreadsheets [of the erstwhile Writely fame and now the Google Docs and Spreadsheets fame, on which this is being edited by wildgrey and gurupanguji btw], and so on and so forth. Well, we are sure you see the trend - else BOOM - here it is - It’s ONLINE folks!! Yup, the future is Web-Apps. And working to conquer the web-traffic are giants and the pillars of the Blue stocks now - Microsoft , Google , Yahoo!

With Google acquiring Writely and managing to spearhead the online collaborative editing of documents and spreadsheets, Microsoft had started on the Microsoft Office Live! Hopefully its answer should be a comprehensive Office package online. Yet, the news today is of Scrybe - a truly innovative Web 2.0 App!! [Yeah it holds a dear place in our hearts, coz we sound similar - not the same feeling that the Elvis’ of the world get, but yeah something along those lines]
Scrybe allows you to create your own personal calendars, lists, notes and allows you to share them with others and/or publish them. So what’s new you may ask [If you didn’t WHOA - Yo!! *shaking u vigorously - and in a slow stoned tone - “Dude, it’s the 21st century…”*]. Let’s see what we got in this genre - there’s Google Calendar, iCal, Microsoft Outlook but none of them have been able to solve the one issue that has plagued web-apps - ’synchronizing both offline and online data’. Trying to bridge the divide - b/w what’s web and what’s not - Scrybe has managed to come out with an excellent solution to the age old problem [or so they claim and we are gonna test that claim]!
OfflineSync™, which arguably is the flagship of this entire Scrybe application, allows you to work with the application both offline and online. Therefore assuming that you are not connected to the internet you could still work with the application by simply choosing the ”Work Offline’ mode available in most of the current browsers, and working the same way you would if you were online. The next time you happen to get connected to the Internet, all the data that you worked while being offline gets synchronized with your online data thereby seamlessly integrating your work - bridging the divide - enabling you to concentrate on your organizing - and not be bothered with the synchronization and other menial tasks!
Before we begin our odessey exploring and testing what Scrybe can do for us, let’s just compare the various so-called - Personal Organizer - applications that you have a choice from as of now

Note: Soon to be added - Microsoft Office Live! I am keeping an eye on that for the simple reason that Live search [http://live.com/] is definitely a search engine worth mentioning :-)! I LOVE their jazzy effects!! I still use Google, but hey eye-candy - call Live!!

Ok - We’ll give you a minute now - Scratch those itching hands and brain - Done?? Ok - here we go!! Presenting…….
SCRYBE….
1. Login:

What you see here is the quintessential Web2.0 login screen. Now there are a couple of things that you need to note here besides the Web2.0 glamor [Yawn, now everything seems so drab - there was a point in time when Wordpress deleted those posts and comments, my mind used to go - WOW!!].

• Enable OfflineSync checkbox: You would wanna check this guy [or girl for the gender equality person]! After all it’s OfflineSync(TM) that we are just waiting to test. Unless you enable this during your login you will not be able to experience the seamless nature of this application as you will not be able to work offline. If you check the box and login, the application will store your online and offline data into a temporary folder in your system.
• Rewrite offline data from scratch checkbox: Assuming some error has occurred with your data (say invalid time zones) ticking this checkbox will ensure your data is created ‘error-free’ for offline purposes. (We recommend this box be checked just to be on the safer side of things)

2. Working Space - It’s all about views folks!

After the loading screen - you reach this page! See anything familiar? Yup - you got that right - that IS a calendar. Even I was searching for something that’s outta the world after all the hype :P. But, then I realised, after all it’s a personal organizer - it better show a calendar!
Work Area: The workspace for this application consists of a main work area where the calendar gets displayed. There are also a couple of other window panes that allow you to work with the various elements of the application.
Views:
There are 4 view modes available for your calendar

1. Day - highlights the day’s events with the timing clearly demarcated and showing what are the times free - what’s occupied etc.
2. Week - Easy view of the busy days - not so busy days etc [helped by clicking on the day to quickly find out in a lil bit more detail if you are busy or not]
3. Month - A 7 column [for the days of the week] arrangement of the dates of the month.[See pic above]
4. Year - All the months arranged

Well, AJAX Flash for shows all its capabilities with the intuitive UI designed by the folks over at Scrybe. Apparently it’s all about the click [wondering if there are keyboard shortcuts for the keyboard oriented people]. What you see is generally by default a month-view [Any options to set default views folks?]. Click on a particular date, and well - it blooms out to a semi expanded view where you can see the events for a particular day with a slightly higher amount of detail.
Intuitive UI [should we be putting a (TM) symbol here?] takes it to the next level. Whenever you want more detail on something - just click on it - it blooms with more detail! We like the effect and appreciate it from Scribez! But warning, it could get pretty choppy at times on slower machines. Furthermore, we might just get tired off it. So well an option to change this might be a good idea. Furthermore, wonder how many people are gonna take notice of this in some time and start considering it as a “time-waster”. Well, Scrybe could also make a quasi-performance booster :P, but slowly decreasing the bloom out time. People wouldn’t realise it and just think that Scrybe is getting faster [Just a suggestion from the devious minds here!!]
Anyhoo - it’s all about the views folks. Want more detail, click on what you wanna get to know more - and it automatically takes you there in a single click [G’bye Double Click in Outlook - which we use generally]

Creating an Event
Creating an event can be done in a couple of ways

1. Clicking on a day from ‘Week Mode’ and entering details into an empty event holder you can get by clicking the ‘Add’ button
2. Navigate to the ‘Day Mode’ and enter you event details across a time slot of your need.

[COOL FEATURE ALERT]
When you add an event in [1] manner - you can type your event details as you would take notes

For e.g. Pickup Honey from airport at 5pm. Scrybe immediately picks up 5pm and allocates the event at that time.

Details Window PaneFor every event created certain details pertaining to it will get populated in the Details Window pane - a small window on the upper right corner of the screen. The pane has neatly organized tab like links discussed below:
a. General

• Shows general information about a particular event.
• You may change a created task from one date to another by simply choosing another date and clicking Update
• A text field called “Where” allows you to denote where the event will take place. This will be displayed when you hover the mouse over a particular event.
• You can add labels to an event. You may even choose to associate certain colors with certain labels. Currently there are only 4 colors available - Beige, Pink ,Lavender and Green. But it might just be a matter of time before they include customizable colors for labels.
• The only problem we noticed was with the delete. It did not ask for a confirmation for that action which we believe is necessary - especially with crazy touch sensitive touchpads coming with the laptops.

b. Reminder

• This will send you a reminder concerning an event that was created.
• Reminders can be send to a email address or email address of a mobile phone(via text message). Indeed a very welcome feature for those times when getting online is just out of the question [*wink wink*]. However, only a few providers are listed as of now. We sincerely hope and pray that the list expands soon.

c. Repeat

• Will schedule an event for repeat daily/weekly/monthly/yearly. Pretty much the same for all the calendar users.

d. Notes

• You can add notes to a particular event.
• Link field - Probably to associate link to another event?

e. Sharing
Coming soon! Evaluating Formats iCal,hCal,RSS,SSE,Email.
f. Publish
Coming soon! Private/Public Shared. Provision to export and import.

3. Timezone - Synch it across multiple sites across the world
Working across multiple sites spread, rather scattered here and there. Your developers are in a remote corner in India? You are globetrotting with your laptop and your Treo? Your language translator is huddled up in Geneva? And the product Configuration Management is in the air-conditioned walls of New York? Well, then this feature just might help you to synch it across with all of them.
This is one one cool feature of Scrybe, which shall be useful when the Sharing feature becomes live. When an event is created the time associated with it is based on the time zone of the creator, and it gets synched to the time zone of the party with whom it’s shared.
A globe icon in the details window pane takes you to a timezone screen [Awesome UI here btw]. Here you can view various timezones and the difference in timings from each other as well as GMT. There is also a provision for you to view other time zones by dragging the clock available. Your timezone gets configured during the initial setup of the account. You may choose to modify your primary timezone by clicking on the time line displayed on the left of the screen. You can also select secondary timezones to know what the equivalent time is in another time zone :-)! So you can check to see that the developer in India is not going to be stuck on the notorious Hosur Road, when you are calling to talk to him about the latest design changes and remind him of the impending deadlines. [Not that this is gonna change that :P]
Pros:

• You can drag the clock for time to be displayed in Ajax Timeline similarity. As you drag the clock along you will notice the needles of the clock moving in clockwise or anti-clockwise direction depending on if you pulled it right or left. This level of attention to detail in every aspect of the application is just mind blowing.
• Drag to desired timezone and clock on nation to add it to you recently used time zone list.
• Ability to view multiple time zones (Secondary Time Zones) in day/week view.

Cons:

• Inablity to select a timezone for use by clicking the icon from the Details pane . One has to do that from Day/Week view.
• We also found out that this takes away an offsite consultant’s excuse to say that the time was wrong in the event calendar and we strongly protest against it!

4. Lists window pane
Aah the task list. When Microsoft Outlook, came out with this, one of the those people who was thrilled by this was Guru’s dad. Well, we use the feature once in a while. Nothing new about it, except for one thing you get to look out for
- Amazing intuition, where in you just paste a set of lines and it automatically creates a list out from that for you.
Features Review:

• This pane allows you to create something called list
• Imagine lists as a folder of your various ‘things to do’
• Detail pane changes to reflect actions that can be performed with a created list
  • General
    • Share with - Coming Soon
    • Personal Note - Coming Soon
    • Include task in email
  • Notes
    • Allows you to add notes for a particular task
    • Allows you to add tasks to a particular list
• Once a task is added Detail pane reflects actions that can be performed on the tasks
  • General
    • Allows you to attach a label to a task i.e assigning which list this task belongs to
    • Requires textfiled enables you to add anything in particular that needs to be to accomplish this task(can add only one such item -con)
    • Assign to - Coming Soon
    • You may set the date and time for this task (Shifting between AM and PM very hard. Multiple clicks required - possible buggy interface)
    • Remind me - should most probably be used to send you a reminder. Must have multiple ways to do it 1) Email me 2)Send me a text message(speculating at this point) because checking the textbox still keeps that drop down box an non-editable)
  • Notes
    • Lets you add notes for a task
    • Small checkable box adjacent to the task lets you mark it off as finished
    • Ability to star a task - activates the date/time and remind me option
  • Added tasks get displayed on day view pane
  • Ability to add multiple tasks at once(definite plus point)
  • Tasks marked as finished automatically get sorted to the bottom of lists while other remain on top
  • Ability to select multiple tasks at once (another plus)
  • You can also filter tasks based on labels,dates,required,and status

5. Themes
You can customize the theme the way you would like it to be by tweaking color,saturation and brightness (reminds us of our old televison sets).

6. Terms Of Service
Make sure you take a look through this not-so-conventional jargon before proceeding through with anything.
7. Keyboard Shorcuts
Ever since Gmail came out with this (thats the first place we saw it) everyone seems to be adding this handy little feature and Scrybe has its fair share. Useful if your the kind of person who loves to buy a keyboard every 3 months. Speaking about keyboards, check this baby out :drool
8. Coming Soon

• FluidContext
• GlobalTimez
• ListTransfer
• JumpContext
• PaperSync
• ThoughtPad
• Bookmarks

And to think we were thrilled with just the current set of features!! Bring it on Scrybe!
9. Upcoming modules
Now this is a tricky one. We’re yet to figure out the real purpose of this page. What we speculate is some sort of customization? perhaps? Its currently just a blank page so we’ll just have to wait and see what this little section is all about
10. Time Maps
Time Maps enable you to understand how busy you are for a certain day. This is indicated by a line with different shades depending on how busy you are. This in turn allows to have a quick glance at that schedule and know is you can spare a little time or not.
Now just when you thought it was all over heres some more.
12) PaperSync™
We are kinda thrilled about this and can’t wait for Monday to come and check out this nifty feature. Sounds cool though with the various formats available all aimed at the final end use :-)! Now, with PaperSync, if only they also developed a way by which they actually convert whatever changes we have made on to the paper back onto Scrybe ;-)!
Anyhoo, more about PaperSync, this allows you to print your lists and events into any one of the following formats

a. Classic

• Prints traditional calendar views, i.e. Year, Month, Week or Day, depending on the current selection.
• The Classic format, also allows you to print your task lists with the selected calendar view.

b. Booklet

• A 2-fold format that prints your calendar and lists on the top half of the printed paper. The remaining half contains empty lines for scribbling your notes.
• The size of the document, once folded, is roughly about that of a booklet. You can simply carry it in your folders, books, files, bags or brief cases.
• The Booklet print can be folded in less than 20 seconds, and requires no cuts, glue, or stapling on the printed paper.

c. Pocket

• A 3-fold format that prints your data in 3 sections. When you look at this document on a flat paper, the top section displayed to be printed upside-down. However, once you fold this document, it appears on top correctly, in the right direction, containing empty lines for scribbling your notes.
• The size of the document, once folded, is roughly about that of a wallet. You can simply carry it in your pockets, or wallets.
• The Pocket print can be folded in less than 30 seconds and requires no cuts, glue, or stapling on the printed paper.

Conclusion:
Aah the ending - we can take a nice nap now!! *YAWN* In conclusion to this sleep-obstructing post, here’s the dig!
Scrybe
Pros:

• Amazing idea
• OfflineSync™
• TimeMap
• Excellent UI
• PaperSync™
• Interesting features ahead
• Indians explaining the features in a Youtube video - promo for Scribez

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u3ekzwnYxw]
Cons:

• Non-resizable windows
• We don’t get to use time zones as excuses anymore with our managers *sigh*

Posted by wildgrey and gurupanguji

Technorati tags: Internet, Technology, Applications, Business, Web2.0, Videos, YouTube, India, Startups, News

This post is meant to be a continuation to the previous post entitled ‘Web2.0 or Web 3.0′ only this time with more focus on the Indian Web2.0 scene.

Oct 8, 19:22:

UPDATE:

India is all set to give its entrepreneurs a boost. PROTO is the brain child of TKF[The Knowledge Foundation]. The whole idea behind this initiative is to showcase the various fascinating ideas being developed by various Indian companies, along with working prototypes and pre-releases, both to the public and the Venture Capitalist circles. You can read all about it in the PROTO blog. They also have a website Proto.in. [No content there as of now.There is no direct link to the blog from the website.]

PROTO2006* is all set to happen on 20th and 21st of January,2007(Hence the star next to PROTO2006) in Chennai. TKF team consists of the same guys that hosted the highly acclaimed Blogcamp. Therefore this, most certainly, is set to be another extremely sucessful, and much needed, event. Keep monitoring they’re blog and site for updates.

P.S: The splash for Proto.in was designed by our very own bluesaze. I have been insisting, for quite some time, that he add a ‘Portfolio‘ section to his website but he seems to be very lazy to do so. Im not just saying this, but one has to check out the rest of his works too!

Oct 8,17:00:

Having heard a lot about Web2.0 and even having written a post or two in it i asked myself “What Indian Web2.0 companies are there?”. I mainly had to ask myself this question because so much has been said about the Indian IT industry and yet i had not heard of any Web2.0 company except Zoho. And thus began my quest for some of the best Indian Web2.0 companies out there. And in this post you will find what I found.

I have to say at this point that although I found quite a lot of them listed on various sites very few managed to make an impression. Those that did I have listed here and the rest you can find in the posts mentioned under Sources at the bottom of this post. So lets begin.

1. Taazza:

A fresh perspective for news from the Indian subcontinent!

Although their website currently says “We are launching soon!” and i didn’t get a chance to explore it, the site in itself made me want to be part of it. So i decided to dig around for people were saying about Tazza and this is what i found.

Bothack’s review on Taazza and Adle’s Taazza review.

After reading these reviews its fair to see why Taazza is so widely anticipated.

On the same trail i was sidetrack to some other Web2.0 websites that i would like to mention.

2.SimpleDesi: A very neatly presented site, with articles on the latest News, Business, Showbiz and much more.

3.Shunya.in: The site’s title says ‘Connecting the Indian Technocrats’

Welcome to shunya.in the only community news site in India where you can express your opinion on news and issues that affect you

Its clear enough from the name what this site is all about and after spending a few minutes at this site it was plain to see that the site actually lived up to its rather strong statements.

4.India47: This is an Indian News feed Aggregator which picks up news from a number of news services.

5. Neobiniaries: This is my personal favourite. This site has got what I would say a very impressive listing (a good 57 pages!) of pretty much everything Web2.0. And i have to say that I believe it just might have more on its list than Go2Web20. You can also add in your Web2.0 application, that is if you have one.

6. Ourmedia:

Ourmedia focuses on both sharing knowledge, media and tools in a community environment.

That pretty much sums up everything that you can do if you choose to participate in this site.

7.ForumsofIndia: This is Digg styled forum with its content Indian Oriented. This is a very impressive site and I’m sure you would spend quite some time here exploring and interacting.

8.GuruLib:

GuruLib is a free web service to help organize home libraries. Catalog your books, DVDs, music CDs, games and software online using a book shelf metaphor.

This is very unique site with respect to the fact that it not only gives you a control over your repository of things but also alerts you on certain events like when the price of an item that you want falls below a certain prize range. Quite interesting indeed, i must say!

9. ClearTrip: ClearTrip helps you organize your trip by helping you plan out your entire trip and also finding out the hotels in that area. What is worth mentioning about this site is something called SmallWorld which gives you all the information you would need (from a tourist’s perspective) about a particular location.

10. OnYoMo: This is a listing site that allows you to search for Outlets and businesses in a particular locality. Although its in its initial stages the site looks all set to deliver a lot. Oh and OnYoMo actually stands for ‘On Your Move’. Pretty Neat!

11.Terrawiz: Terrawiz claims to be the ‘Indian Search Engine‘.

One of the “true crawler based search engines” for India and India related content. Our patent pending algorithm automatically identifies India related content on the web and organizes in such a way that you get the most relevant results fast.

And fast it is! Ive tried it out myself. However at this point i must add that i am a little skeptical as to the results that were thrown up.

12 Complore: With a tag line of ‘Come Xplore‘ (the name is coined from these words), this website enables you to

• Share articles, bookmarks, events.
• Organize your work.
• Search research work submitted by others.
• Grow your network among research community.

Darn i wish this was up and running a long time ago!

13.IndianPad:

IndianPad is a social bookmarking and blogging site. That’s just a complicated way of saying that our USERS rule!

Its really nice when a company banks so much on its users. You can explore stories, audio. There is also something called Livecast which in my initial impression was a take on DiggSpy.

The following ones are really awesome.

14. Webyantra:

Webyantra is a tech blog that profiles Indian web products & services. It is ‘ground zero’ for Indian web startups, ecommerce websites and internet based businesses..

One of the unique ones on our list today, these guys profile some of the coolest things out there. The latest app that theyve mentioned is called SlideShare. Well like the name suggests, make your slides and share them!

“Its much more complicated than that!”

15. Startups.in: This is the by far the only one that really got my nerves tingling next to Neobinaries. The folks at this place have everything you would like to know about the latest and hottest startups from the land of India. This is defintely worth a moment of your time, that is if you are intersted in the subject.

Well although there are many many more Web2.0 companies that could be talked about here i am afraid this is the list of all that impressed me today. I would surely love to hear about any more impressive Indian Web2.0 companies so do drop in a line.

Sources:

1.Web 2.0 activities in India

2.India’s Web2.0 Entrepreneurs

3.Web 2.0 companies in India

4.Numsum spreadsheet list of Indian Companies - has Web2.0 and others too.

5. India Web2.0 not yet.

Technorati tags: Web2.0, India, Business, Startups