> Google adds Outlook Sync tool to their Calendar service. Pretty cool, but only allows you to sync a primary calendar (meaning you’re out of luck with those shared calendars).

> Google adds ‘invisible’ feature to gtalk client (meaning I’m online, but you can’t see me suckers).

> I don’t know anyone that actually gets spam in their Gmail inbox, but now you can purchase extra security and filtering through Google’s partnership with Postini.

> Google News adds aggregated local news – just type in the city name or zip code.

> According to a Google Enterprise poll, employees (end-users) are only 25% responsible for their company’s security and compliance. This boring white paper released today tells you where to place the blame and what companies can do to help protect themselves.

Just my first reactions:

Likes:

• facebook webslices, pretty nice. works as long as i stay logged in to fb.
• feels like faster internet!
• love the address bar showing the important part of the URL in strong text.

 Flaws:

• there’s no gtalk in my gmail anymore, do I have to change some settings? 
• I can’t seem to convert an ie page to adobe pdf. there’s an option to, but nothing happens.
• the wordpress dashboard goes blank, can’t seem to access it.

Read more about it: on10.net; readwriteweb; computerworld; zdnet

The above screenshot, with the black background and beta tag, is the before picture and no longer exists – though I liked it more than the newer interface on the right.

Nutsie allows you to access your iTunes music library from any PC with internet access, or from your mobile phone.  As I have yet to try the phone application I’ll mostly stick to discussing the web service.

Likes / Features: 

• Export and Upload your entire iTunes library and playlists to Nutsie with your ‘Library.xml’ file (which is a lot easier to do than it sounds).
• You are not uploading or storing any music files on Nutsie, they save your playlist information and stream from the files already on their own servers. 
• No software to download or install.
• Not only is Nutsie free for you, but the artists receive royalties when you listen to your own songs – the only service I know of that could technically monetize your illegally downloaded music in a good way.
• Great, clear playback quality (well, depending on your speakers too – but I thought it was very good).
• You have access to other people’s playlists and all the music on Nutsie, so you can share your iTunes music with your friends…
• Or you can integrate recommendations and the Nutsie music database with your own songs through something called the “Seredipity Slider” which lets you choose on a scale of 0 to 100% how much you’d like suggested songs vs. your own library.
• “Buy it / Grab it / Hate it” options on songs (similiar to thumbs up or down on Pandora)
• Additional content includes artist information, song lyrics, and tagged YouTube music videos.
• Dave Dederer (of the Presidents of the United States) is a VP at Nutsie’s parent company, Melodeo (a Seattle based company).
• Nutsie also offers an iTunes Sidebar thats still in invite only stage.
• Check out the 2008 Sasquatch Festival playlist that just went up.
• The Nutsie mobile phone application will be the music player of choice for all Blackberry devices, per this article.

Flaws / Possible Drawbacks:

• To keep it legal, they have to keep it like a streaming radio station – which means all your playlists are on shuffle (you can’t play a song on demand) and though you can skip ahead, there is no ‘go back’ option.

• There is a slightly limited music library, which means all of your songs may not be available, though so far I’ve found only a few local and lesser known artists to be missing.

• Some versions are different. For example, my library has the song “To Hell with Good Intentions” by Mclusky – however, Nutsie played the live, full 8 minutes and 44 seconds version from the Mcluskyism Limited Box Set. I was still pretty happy with it.

• If you add new songs to your iTunes library, you’ll have to upload your xml file again or the new songs won’t show up. 

• It may take a while for your music library to be ready the first time you set it up – though for me it was under two minutes.

• All mobile phones are not supported yet, just these.

• As far as I can tell, there’s no desktop player or facebook application yet. I want to listen with my browser closed and just a mini player running – and I want to show my friends what I’m listening to like this with statistics analyzing my usage and share my playlists on my social networks.

• Good odds they will start charging for a subscription service, at least with the cell phone application.

Link: Nutsie.com

Rating:

I am so impressed with this product.  The future of file storage and sharing is right here. We all know Microsoft and Google are working on similiar sync-like products of their own, but that still means nothing if they have nothing comparative available to the public. SugarSync is out there now and works faster than you can even login to Skydrive or say the word Platypus.

Download SugarSync onto your computer (on as many computers as you’d like, though you only need one), set which folders you’d like to have synced, and you’re set. It’s so easy to use and such a great resource. No more emailing files to myself on gmail, no more flash drives or burning files to disks, no more waiting for files to upload or browsing to find the files with online storage sites…

Likes:

• No need to upload anything, everything is automatic and real-time.
• Supports everything from office files to calendar, contacts, media, or playlists.
• Offers management tools like a contact database and a photo gallery. And your photos are automatically organized into online albums you can immediatly share with others by emailing select contacts a link and/or making the album public. Other people don’t need to have sugarsync accounts to view your shared items. RSS feed shared albums. Anyone can leave comments on photos.
• Synced files are organized with name, date and time modified, file size, and file type. View in list style, gallery, or slideshow. Zip/Compress your files. Download multiple files at once.
• Access and edit a file on another computer, save your work, and the original document on your hardrive where the file was first saved is automatically updated.
• Unlike remote desktop programs, you can access files from a computer that is turned off or offline. Updates will be made instantly to the original documents the next time that computer goes online.
• The desktop/website/mobile phone sync is only the beginning of what Sharecast plans to offer (think social network syncing and television-pc linking).
• Very secure servers. 128 bit AES encryption and SSL file transfer.
• 1GB of free data with option to purchase more. During beta stage, sign up for up to 11GB for free.
• Just launched a version that works on Mac computers.
• With SugarSync Mobile (m.sugarsync.com), all your pictures you take on your phone are automatically synced to your computer, backed up and organized.
• The “magic briefcase” feature: a folder that automatically appears on all your computers and stays fully synced.
• Web Archive. Move files here if you don’t want them synced and want to delete the original from your computer to free up hard drive space.
• Totally Ad-free.

Flaws:

• Not unlimited storage. I’m torn on this because I can definetly justify paying for additional storage, but any competitor that comes out with a similar product and unlimited storage would have an incredible advantage.  
• Will they start charging for use when it goes public?
• Does it take up a lot of memory or computer resources? I don’t know these things, I’m just wondering. 

I’m trying hard to come up with flaws and I’m out.  I can’t wait to see this product – and the field of synchronization as a whole – develop further.

Link: SugarSync

Rating:

Likes:

• Auto-fill in for Airports, i.e. start typing Bangok and BKK Airport in Thailand will appear as a choice.
• Saved search history visible when you first login.
• Search as many times as you want without limits.
• Saves (a little) time.
• Built with AIR (always a plus in my book).

Flaws:

• A few sites (Orbitz, Priceline) will open in a new window, while others open in the same browser. How about some consistency (preferably in browser)?
• Two of the main search sites (Kayak and Sidestep) will only work if you have your internet configured to low security settings (with IE 7 at least).
• The Hotwire link didn’t transfer any search criteria, which defeats the purpose of AirDig.
• The Southwest link has been disable lately with an error message saying that southwest does not serve the area I chose, although I know they do.
• Would be cool if we could search multiple sites at once, or filter search results on lowest/best price, or add other websites to search and save our preferences, or include searches for discounts and hot deals….

Link: AirDig

Rating:  

ManagedQ boasts Instant Find, and both partial/full match results.

“Now in all Managed Results (that’s the preview you see when you click a result), simply start typing and we will Instant Find matches inside the document…We both do full matches as well as partial word matches.  So type in “Jay Leno” and you’ll find all the instances of “Mr Leno” “Jay” and every other possibility….

This, I understand. But this is over my head…

For the Techies out there, we’ve added Regular Expression support to Instant Find.  Simply begin your expression like /expr/ and you’ll be greping your results (omit modifiers like ‘i’ or ‘g’, we auto append them).”

That just sounds like a waste of time. While it’s currently too cluttered and overwhelming for my taste or everyday use, it definitly speaks to the state of search and how people are looking for a change - I just don’t think visual previews of websites are the way to go (unless its activated on hover of the link and doesnt effect the speed or quality of my search). I also don’t need my results ‘managed’ or organized. I just want to find exactly what I’m looking for and fast. And in a very simple user interface with little distractions.

Someone tell me if ManagedQ has done anything to improve the future of search, because I just don’t see the benefits or understand the technical enough.  I don’t need another layer between me and my Google.

Link: ManagedQ

Rating:  

Upload your music to Musana, and listen to it anywhere. Instant streaming back with no need to download the music again. Create and save playlists. Very easy to use drag and drop feature.

Wonderful concept, I’ve been waiting for something like this for a long time.  I can think of better scenarios – like if Windows Live SkyDrive had a built in music player to instantly stream your music, or if your iTunes music was stored virtually and you could login anywhere to listen to your own songs without having to even download the player – but these scenarios don’t even exist yet. Many people stream from Pandora, but thats not your own music.  I’d like to hear your thoughts – what’s comparable to Musana? As far as I can tell, this is the best thing out there.

Likes:

• Each MP3 can be up to 15mb
• Unlimited Storage, upload as many MP3s as you want.
• I don’t know the specifics, but the streamback quality sounds decent to me.
• There’s a sample playlist with full Radiohead, Phoenix, and the Police albums. That’s a good sign.  
• Soon you’ll be able to share your music with your friends and “discover” new music. I imagine something like Pandora suggestions based on current interests? Or maybe being able to recommend music to other people?
• Capabilities to stream from your mobile phone.
• Automatic album art and correct song title retrieval / display.

Flaws: 

• Only 1902 accounts left? I don’t know if it’s just this stage or forever, but act fast!
• How are there no ads? How is this free? Is this legal? I feel like there should be a catch.

Okay, so those flaws aren’t really flaws. I’m in love with Musana.

*It’s invite only, but I found an invitation code on a french website that any quick search will turn up. The invitation code still works, but when it asks you to complete your registration with the activation code, ask it to send you a new email and you’re golden.

*Just came across this TechCrunch review and they don’t have much to say about it, but do offer some alternative music lockers that I’ve never heard of and will have to check out someday. and TC might have some invites left.

Links: Musana 

Rating:   

Goes live February 5th, but you can get a sneak peak here courtesy of this TechCrunch UK article.

Likes:

• The iubo team consists of two university kids still in school, Joe the developer and Lynne the administrator, and is very much a work in progress. I won’t be using this beta anytime soon, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on it.

Flaws:

• Can’t tag data on the web or desktop? Would be great if you could right click on something and ‘send to iubo’.
• Can’t import anything, no integration to link third party applications (though this could be in the works in the future).
• No uploads. Needs URLs. *Tried to add a picture and it didn’t work.
• Word is they’re planning to add ads and the option for a premium account.

* 

Links: Iubo

Rating: 

“Get all your IM accounts organized in one buddy list, Get all your email accounts in one inbox, or organized in separate folders, Create your own video chat rooms and invite your contacts to talk (no registration required!), Instantly reply to emails with IM, Combine saved IMs with important emails and share them with anyone, Find anything with Orgoo Search: emails, IMs, video chats, contacts, buddylists and more…”

Likes:

• Integration, integration, integration.
• POP and IMAP support 
• 3GB of Storage
• View instant maps when you hover over any address
• See more list of features above, from their welcome email.
• Immediate support – you can IM a buddy called ‘support’ for help, or call a feedback hotline, or reach them by email.

Flaws:

• Ads in the email you send! Its just a little bothersome tag that reads: “Sent from Orgoo. Get your free account. All your IM & email accounts, video chat, SMS and more in one location online.”  Still, it’s unnacceptable. Ad-free messages should be the standard and not the exception.
• The IM buddy list is not customizable yet. I want to be able to create groups, move my buddies around, have nicknames for my friends, link the same buddies from multiple IM clients under one nickname, (i love pidgin).
• Right now, they only support Hotmail/Windows Live plus and premium accounts – though they do mention that standard support is coming soon.
• Setting up all your accounts the first time is time consuming (load time on gmail (through IMAP) took awhile). The iframe design when you add accounts or contacts is a bit akward to scroll around in. The first time you add an IM account it doesn’t sign you on immediatly or ask if you want to – you have to sign in on the side panel.’
• No themes yet, give me my customization!

Final thoughts: Orgoo has a good grasp of what people are looking for, and executed it well – though there’s still some room for improvement. Add more integration! I want my social networks linked, with RSS readers and calendars and photo applications, and widgets! I want it all, and free, and with no adds – is that too much to ask?

It seems to me Orgoo’s biggest competitor would still be Google, but I wonder how other clients stack up (Meebo perhaps)?

*Orgoo was just chosen to be one of thirty-two presenters at the Under the Radar 2008 conference at the Microsoft California campus this March*

Links: Orgoo

Rating: 

use code “hnl” and if that runs out, I have twenty to email.

Links: Hobnoblover

Rating: