Free space

Since a while I have been using Dropbox with great pleasure. 2Gb space for free, easy to use and some nice features like public folders and sharing files. Also the possibility to install Dropbox on your iPhone, Android or PC/Mac is neat.
Despite those advantages, I was curious about alternatives and I had been using SkyDrive from Microsoft a while.
SkyDrive offers you loads of free space (25Gb) but has no application running on your device or PC. Although drag and drop is available on Windows(7). At the other hand you can make use of some native apps like Sorami on your Android.
Other free alternatives are published on: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/internet/16719-Dropbox-alternatives-Cloud-storage-burst.html
Futhermore (I have no idea if Dropbox has disproved this matter) there are some rumors about the vulnerability of Dropbox: http://dereknewton.com/2011/04/dropbox-authentication-static-host-ids/

Navigation for free

Wondering if navigation software could be free, just slashed my mind. Not only is Waze totally free, it also give one the opportunity to participate on its social network enclosed as well.
Tom Tom surprised the world by integrating other users position to avoid traffic jam. Waze goes even further by letting users add e.g. car accidents, roadworks, radarcontrols and even photos certain situations.
But they also added a game element by letting users gaining point by driving on a “candy” or make more miles.
Available on iPhone and Android.

Birthday Open Office

It is already 10 years ago, when Open Office (before StarOffice) became open source (Sun Micr.) and was released.
A serious competitor of Microsoft’s Office suite, yet giving away its source and software.
The new version of Open Office is not so much better or does have better functionallity, at the other hand, I think it is the best free alternative for MS Office products.
Often while explaining that there is a free Office product besides MS, I have been asked why is it free and how do they earn money.
First of all, Oracle is the new owner of OpenOffice, because of the aquisition of Sun Microsystems. So you do not have to worry about their financial position. The initial thought of these kinds of products are related to independant developement and the availability of free software for everyone.
The way they make their money is by commercial support. And that is quit logical. Large enterprises (but also small and mid sized businesses) must serve their internal customers in a proper way and are required to make customized solutions for those same customers.

Looking at the cloud and SaaS trend, and the price models behind that, I think that OpenOffice (but also other Open Source and Free desktop software) must be aware of the fact that people using e.g. Google Apps or Zoho is are fact a real competitors.

Nevertheless let’s celebrate Open Office birthday!

Real cloud from MS

It is now possible to get a free trail version of Microsoft BPOS. As Google Apps must be a real threat for MS, they hit back by providing the most important features within their new cloud propostion. For less than €9 a month, you will get a outlook account, communicator and the possibilty to work with sharepoint. Particularly the SMB market could benefit.

Better than Google Apps?

Sometimes you just get dumpfounded when finding out new features on the web. Last week I found Zoho.com. An online application provider, providing productivity, business and collaboration apps. Almost any common application is provided by Zoho. And Zoho’s pricing for individuals is free, just like Google Apps. The thing is; you get a bunch more of apps comparing to Google. From CRM to a Project app and from a marketplace to a database app. When you are looking for professional edition the pricing method seems fuzzy. For every apps you need to pay a certain amount per user per month. Sudden the cloud apps doesn’t seem to be that cheap.

But for everyone who is looking for an alternative to Google Apps and will be using it for itself it is higly recommendable

Check out; http://www.zoho.com

It has been a while

A new job, but no further excuse. I hope to collect some new date for anyone who’s interested.

A few weeks ago, I couldn’t resist buying the iPhone 3GS. I’ll try not to add too many posts about new features, giving myself already a hard time.

One of the latest applets available is the Dutch Luisterpaal. Before certain (often alternative) albums come out, Luisterpaal is able to publish those albums upfront.

There are around 25-30 albums available through this applet. Streaming is high class btw.

Download for free from the iTunes Appstore (check it out on the blogroll section)

Running

One of my favorite sports is running. Good for me that I can combine IT and sports (while running) with both devices and great sites. As I already made use of a GPS watch for a few years and recently bought a new one (Garmin Forerunner 305), I also wanted to see some results. At motionbased the various aspects of GPS data, sports data, health data and outdoor data are combined.
By uploading your GPS data, motionbased, tracks not only where you have run (google maps, who else) but also what the weather conditions were.
As motionbased is a sort of community, there are more activities to explore, like active forms or training possibilities. But also blogs and setup running groups are possible.
Check out the site and find out where great running (or biking) paths there are to explore.

Virtual Desktop

Last week I was in Hamburg in our European engineering center to have the customer informed about virtual desktop solutions. The concept of virtual desktop is about having nothing installed on the desktop. No information, no technical parts (hard drive, processor) no management, no costs. When customers having trouble to reducing costs on their desktop environment, it is worth considering this concept. By managing thousends of desktops (where ever they are) in most current situations, with this concepts only the back end will have to be managed.
We also noticed that customers see many advantages in security, no information is stored on a virtual desktop. And you have the control about your own back end as well.
Last but not least the energy savings. 4 Watt againt almost 200 Watt of a regular desktop.

Photos and movies

Big chance that you have already made use of this site and its features. But nevertheless for some still interesting to have a look at it.
When you have some pictures at an event and want to share in movie format, this is the ultimate site to do so. Upload your pictures, choose a song or upload your own, and that’s it. Nothing more nothing less.
I assume that you are not going to use it for all your photos, but if you like to share some photos on e.g. Youtube it’s easy, fast and nice to watch.

Have fun, like I did.

Open Eco

How many organisations are currently working on corporate social responsibility (CSR) or using the term “Green” or “Eco friendly”?

I always wonder what they really do regarding sustainability and if so, how they gained their information. Today for the information part, finally a online community has been setup. You can gain information or share it with other companies. And even better, you can compare your self with other companies, even in the same area.

On OpenEco.org a few companies invested in sharing information about how to make your company CSR friendly. That fact seems to be already CSR.

I know that a few customers already are using this site to develop policy regarding CRS and to let their customers see the results.