Sociosophy

Microsoft, the mogul they are, have set up a “Documents Anywhere” solution that allows you to store hundreds of Office documents, edit them, save them, hold previous versions, and share them with others – all from their handy dandy web interface. From what I can tell, OfficeLive is simply “open” SharePoint working with your Windows Live login information.

Of course this is meant to compete with Google Docs, but in my humble opinion – this “solution” is merely an access portal for files that still requires the user to have an office suite installed on the their desktop. That said, this solution, though useful – is ultimately pointless. On the flip side, there is Office Live for Small Businesses. The features are pretty buff, and I can see better use here – but that’s a no brainer, considering Microsoft does have a tendency to cater to their main market share more than simply “consumers”… oh, their market share is mostly business, just in case you had no idea who Microsoft (MSFT) is.

Features (from OfficeLive.com)

• Web Site
  Everything you need to create a professional online presence, including free Web hosting, easy-to-use site design tools, site traffic reports, and more
• Custom Domain and Business E-Mail
  A custom domain and up to 100 business e-mail accounts—free for the first year
• Contact Manager
  Manage sales opportunities, contact information, and track every interaction with customers
• Document manager
  Store and share company documents in one central place for easy access and version control
• Workspaces
  Collaborate and share information with customers, partners, or employees with password-protected online workspaces
• Project Manager
  Plan projects, assign tasks, and monitor your progress
• Resources, advice, and more
  Around-the-clock support, FAQs, community message boards, and an online Resource Center for advice and how-to articles

So, small businesses or even start-ups that can manage to afford the licenses for MSFT products should be able to find this most useful, and could leverage these things for maximum flexability and organization of their stuff.

It is a good effort, to provide a consumer end solution to the day-to-day consumer that is used to MSFT products, and is still using e-mail to store and transport documents, but for the savvy user – there are more valuable file storing utilities out there already, and Google Docs is one of those apps – especially if you don’t have Office installed on your workstation.

Peer-to-peer file sharing, thanks to Torrents have really come around since those days of Napster pre-Metallica (I still don’t like Lars)… Not that I’d promote piracy, to say the least, and blah blah blah, stealing is bad, etc ~ But when used for intended purposes, you know, trading of freely available awesome stuff? Like – Elephants Dream, an open source animated film you may have heard of developed using Blender, and open source 3D animation software solution? Yea… use Tribler for things like that.

“Underground” is so much cooler than conventional box office movies and pop music anyway.

Tribler is a software application with a few interesting features; one of them being that upon opening the application, it begins to search for other Tribler users, and after a few hours, you’ll have a list of thumbnails of what’s available near you… For those of you true peer-to-peer lovers, this application is pretty bad ass, as it allows you to communicate with other users in the trading community, and check out what they’re into as well… So you can compare your porn preferences with your neighbors.

I feel like a “this just in” blogger… As typical as it sounds, my sources (namely their site) tell me that gOS is an open source alternative operating system built to include Google Apps. Which means, of course, that all the web, media, and office software you’ll ever really need is already included:

• Gmail
• Meebo
• Google Calendar
• Google Maps
• Google Docs and Spreadsheets
• Google News
• Blogger
• Youtube
• Wikipedia
• Skype
• Facebook

How they scored a deal with Wal*Mart before their site was finished [link] is as slick as it is mysterious. Bummer thing is, no matter how hard I tried – I couldn’t beat digg folks to the punch on this story, but still. You heard it here … second (maybe).

First the website isn’t quite completed yet, but don’t let that stop you. Just keep in mind these two things:

1. Yes, you can download gOS from the site
2. Yes, this site is THAT new…

The site was actually due to launch about 5 1/2 hours ago (it’s 14:30PST). But regardless, as it says above, the download (ISO) is available, so get it before it gets too ripe!

The word of the day is … Mobility.

Ceedo is seemingly obsessed with ensuring everyone on Earth has the opportunity of accessibility to their workspace, regardless of their location. One of their products, Ceedo Personal, is a portable application that turns any host PC into a virtual workspace that carries your your data, applications and settings wherever you go… Bitchin.

Considering I’ve worked with Citrix in the past, I can’t really get too excited about this concept, considering – even though the delivery method is different… this is all too similar. But, Ceedo Mobile on the other hand… Much cooler concept. From their site:

Rather than having to go back to their PC to access and interact with multimedia content such as music, pictures and video, Ceedo Mobile users can edit, view, playback, upload and download content right from the device.
-  Ceedo Mobile

I’m a fan of mobile devices, and I don’t mean iPods – I’m speaking more in the sense of, I want maximum functionality in maximum portability… Perhaps with Ceedo’s help, we’ll be getting one step closer to that.

For the past 5 or 6 years, I’ve been using WinAmp, and by no means is this a new technology, nor it is a notably awesome Web 2.0 application… in fact, its just a downloadable application that can probably be replaced by hundreds upon hundreds of other options, including iTunes, but hell – the new 5.5 release boasts a new Winamp Remote feature that works great, a new look and feel with the Bento skin (above) and also a slew of other features. Hence the post.

Granted there’s a pay for version, that allows CD Ripping and other neat tools, but all in all, the full version of the application offers up a very clean video player, media library manager, and options for global hot keys, which I use frequently.

Winamp Remote provides a means to stream your playlist over the web, and also allows you to create a shoutcast server… Anyhow, back to the regularly scheduled postings of online goodness.