The web is changing faster than ever, thanks to the Web 2.0 movement which includes Ruby on Rails, Ajax, sleek design and "hover links with colorful background". Are you up to the task of keeping up with it? In this article you will discover how to use those technologies to improve you life and business starting at no cost. At the moment there are several excellent Web 2.0 applications loosed on the web, but usually they lack several features in order to compete with the big guys. Fortunately with the power of APIs, soon some of those applications will combine into a more robust solution. + Work Area Protopage --------- Bad: Not enough widget applications, no JS support. Does your monitor look like a sunflower at a distance from all the yellow sticky notes? Why don't throw all that into the web? By doing so, you will be able to share it with co-workers and friends and access it form different locations. There're several solutions out there, but the one that excels in usability is ProtoPage. The edge from this London based company is the ability to drag your panels without being constrained into a grid and to resize it. Also, you are able to create several "desktops". One could be for your personal life, the other one for business, etc. The service is great, but it lacks more widgets other than just the Weather. Tip: Since you are not allowed to add a JS script, use the "Iframe tag" with the "src=page_with_your_js.html". This will pull anything you want into your Protopage panel. + Sending Invoice BlinkSale --------- Bad: The user cannot save the products and services to avoid typing again next time. This is a software niche in which the creative and innovative power of the web did not touch for a long time. Consequently, small businesses were confined with proprietary software like QuickBooks, which is expensive and cluttered. BlinkSale is a very nice start to bring the financial industry into the Web 2.0 and hopefully shake things up a bit. The greatest thing about BlinkSale is to have your invoices in XML/RSS rather than a proprietary format. Although, at the moment, BlinkSale is not a replacement for QuickBooks yet due to lack of capabilities such having products and services list, reports and etc. BlinkSale is a basic invoicing solution for small companies, but this is just the beginning of a revolution in this area. Just wait until BlinkSale and Basecamp have their API out and well distributed. That would make several big corporations tremble, or to write fat checks to the owners. + Project Management Basecamp -------- Bad: You cannot set the time for your meetings in the milestone and some drag & drop capabilities would be great. Online collaboration can give you the edge over your competitors by allowing your customers to log in and see how the project is going, add a file or a "to-do" item. Basecamp can be use for a wide range of situations. From a Web Design company to a wedding planning, this is the service to use. You can set up different users to access different projects and so on. This is a great out-of-the-box solution for any occasion, easy to use and open for collaboration. + Calendar Planzo ------ Bad: Design is a little cluttered and RSS feeds are not well tagged. One of the biggest headaches of the modern world is to sync your calendar. Most people have to struggle in organizing themselves among Outlook at work and sticky notes at home. Planzo delivers a nice start towards solving that problem by delivering reminders via email and SMS and connection with iCal. But be careful, sometimes in the attempt of organizing yourself, you'll end up with 10 different accounts in several services and that may worsen the situation. One possible solution is to combine all services through RSS into a "work area" like ProtoPage. Then you can have the invoice list, your calendar, etc., all delivered into one place. |
