Gmail was Evolutionary, Google Wave is Revolutionary

I have always been fan of web-base e-mail, but limited storage was usually a constraint. Then came Gmail, offering 500 X more storage compared to Hotmail at that time. It also brought some innovations, such as grouping messages in one single conversation and other enhancements enabled by AJAX.

I remember very well how desperate I wanted to get my hands on one of the limited invitation-only accounts they offered. I am feeling the same way now for Wave.

Wave is a web application that combines e-mail, IM, collaboration tools and much more.

According to Google:

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

As described on this article from Computerworld:

Wave represents Google's answer to the emergence of streaming, or real-time, internet applications, as evidenced primarily by the rise of social networks.

It might seem ordinary at first, but once you learn more about it, you realize it is really game-changing.  View the video below (a very long one, so you may want to skip some parts) or access the official page to learn more about Wave. According to Google, it will not be available until the end of this year.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ&hl=en&fs=1]

Optimize Firefox on your netbook

As you know, one compromise that netbook users have to make is the screen size. In my case, I have an Eee PC 901, that has 8.9-inches, so making the most out of the screen real state is very important.

There are many ways you can optimize the looks of Firefox. The screen shot you see above represents the way I set up mine, using 5 easy steps:

1 - Download and intall the Compact Menu 2 add-on. This will allow you to get rid of the top menu bar and place its content under an icon on the right hand side, as Chrome does.

2 - Install the Personas add-on to add some color to your browser. In this example, I´m using the Groovy Blue skin.

3 - To improve the looks of the buttons (make them look like the ones from Vista) and don´t interfere with the skin´s colors, install the MonoChrome theme.

4 - Download and install the Hide Navigation Bar add-on. When you press F2, it can hide temporarily the navigation bar. Need to enter a new URL? Press F2 again.

5 - Last, if you use the Eee PC Xandros Linux, click on the arrow on the right to hide the bottom menu bar. If you use XP, choose the option to auto-hide it.

Done. As you can see, the important steps to getting more screen space are steps 1, 4 and 5. 2 and 3 were my choices to improve the looks, but you can try different ones. Feel free to share your choices with other Flyabyte readers.

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Albatron Slimline: yet another elegant and slim netbook

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfZsUAdtTrM&hl=pt-br&fs=1]

The new Albatron netbook is supposedly the slimmest netbook out there. It has similar specs compared to the newest netbooks available (10.2-inch screen, 6-cell battery, Atom N270 CPU, 1Gb RAM), but besides the nice design, one differential compared to other models is the fact that the ethernet and VGA ports are available through an external connector, since your probably won't need these ports on the day-to-day.

Apparently, it is not available in the US yet.

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Creately: free colaborative online tool for diagrams and flowcharts

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTn31irqNCg&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

Visio killer Creately is a free web application that allows you to draw and colaborate on different types of documents, including: Mindmaps, Flowcharts, SWOT diagrams, Organizational Charts, Wiereframes for websites, and much more.

According to their self-description:

You'll find Creately - Online Diagramming and Designs a joy to use. Its designed for simplicity and collaboration. The platform flexes and adapts to the kind of drawing and design you are doing. It takes 'easy' to a whole new level.

A Whole New Level Of Easy - We've put in a ton of great features, but kept the interface simple and neat. Our smart objects and stencils come with contextual features that only appear when you need them. And all this goodness right in your Internet browser.

Instant Collaboration - Comment, Share, Email, Publish and Export your online diagrams and designs right from Creately. And we're not just talking about JPGs here - you can export to PDF or XML to take your data out and more.

Growing Base Of Design Objects - Our smart objects have built-in behaviour and understand why they are on the canvas. With smarts objects for business, design and technical diagrams, you can do more with less.

Diagrams With Smarts - Now your diagrams and designs are not just pictures but data driven visual representations. Enter and export text or data from your designs to bring your designs to life. Update the data in your designs and watch your designs evolve.

Creately is developed by an Australian start-up company called Cinergix.

Start your free account here.

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MediaFire: free unlimited online storage

Yes, you read it correctly. FREE, unlimited online storage. Well, since there is no free lunch, the free version is ad-supported. Still, it seems too good to be true: unlimited bandwidth, downloads and uploads, image galery, and a nice interface.

Once they hook you with this irresistible offer, I guess they will try to push you the MediaPro plan, that goes for USD $6.97 a month (if you pre-pay for a year, they are currently offering 3 months for free), which is also a good deal, and give you the extra features described below:

On one hand, it is great to feel that I can have this free unlimited account. And, honestly, I don't mind the ads at all - in the end, someone have to pay the bill. On the other hand, though, I have this strange feeling that trusting a free service to hold all my files might not be a good idea. Perhaps I still need to adapt to the idea.

Anyaways, it's great to see the industry evolving so fast and strong competition already creating great options for users, as the one provided by MediaFire.

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Morganize: set of simple online tools for team collaboration

Moreganize is a set of tools that aim to empower teams to easily interact through the following 4 modules:

Schedule events - find the ideal date via a simple scheduling poll.

Make Choice (please see screenshot above, deciding on what type of movie to go) - make the ideal choice by asking people their opinion.

Conduct Survey - conduct an anonymous opinion survey.

Create to-do lists - work efficiently with a shared ToDo-list.

The sign-up is extremely easy and the interface is beautiful and effective. The Swiss company also claims that takes care of data with extreme care, so users don't need to worry about using Moreganize as a corporate tool.

According to their website:

Moreganize is especially useful for groups of people who do not have access to a personal electronic date book/calendar (i.e. Outlook).

I do think the tool goes beyond that, since the other 3 modules are not offered by Outlook and might be very useful for teams of different sizes.

Moreganize is free. Try it here.

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Samsung NC20: is 12-inches a good display size for netbooks?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtTw7kLIDZQ&hl=pt-br&fs=1]

A few weeks ago we reported on a new trend indicating that the next generation of netbooks would come with 12-inches displays. The Samsung NC20 is one of the first of its size to hit the Market. According to Samsung, the NC20:

Provides a full screen resolution compared to small mini notebooks with a 12.1" LED wide screen display, supporting a WXGA (1280 x 800) resolution that is exactly the same as a normal 12.1" notebook.

The keyboard is also larger, with 97% size of a full keyboard. The other difference compared to the newest netbooks, is the new Via Nano 64-bit ULV Processor (1.3 GHz). The NC 20 comes pre-loaded with Windows XP SP3, 6-cell battery, 1.3 megapixel webcam, multi-card reader and a 160 Gb HD.

I have mixed feelings about this new size. Although the larger screen is always welcome, it feels to me that the compromise it makes to portability might not be worth it. I feel the sweetspot for netbooks is still the 10-inch screen size, but I may be wrong.

You can buy the new NC20 at Newegg for USD $549,99.

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Shutterb.org: minimalistic word processor and html editor

With good products out there such as Google Docs, Zoho and Thinkfree, one could think that there is not much to innovate as a free Online Word Processing. Shutterb.org takes a different approach and brings an interesting alternative. As per their self-description:

Shutterborg is a free word processor that runs entirely in your web browser. Instead of using expensive desktop software, Shutterborg makes life easy by allowing you to edit documents online for free. It's easy to get started - just click an option from the list on the right.

Shutterb.org doesn't offer colaboration features nor storage for your files. However, there are 2 things I liked about it:

1 - Its simplistic, pleasant design. It is just simple and elegant. In a few second you are using it. No sign-ups involved. Also, the buttons are beautiful and bring intuitive functionalities.

2 - You can open and edit a web page simply by typing its URL. This might be a very handy solution for many occasions, since you can save the page later as HTML, DOC or PDF, or switch to the "code" view and copy the edited HTML code.

The option to upload a file, although offered, brings a message that it is still under development.

If you are looking for a nice and simple alternative to create your next word document, you should definetly try Shutterb.org.

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Schmedley: personal startpage with an OS feel

For a long time I was an unconditional fan of iGoogle as my personal start page. A few weeks ago I decided to try Netvibes and thought it was as nice as iGoogle, but with a better design. A few minutes ago I came across Shmedley, and I just decided what will be my start page moving forward.

Schmedley is not really a Web OS (since you can't upload files and work on them), but it really looks like I'm taking my iMac with me on the web. According to their self-description:

What began as just a startpage with widgets has morphed into a personalized launch pad, where every tool you need to communicate, catch up with your interests, share digital content and express yourself online is organized into one convenient place - all your email accounts, social networks, instant messaging, applications and more - accessible from any computer, anywhere in the world.

And because you can create multiple “desktops”, each one can have a unique and different purpose. Use one for catching up with friends by loading up schmidgets for Facebook and Twitter along with a few email accounts. Use another for news items - RSS feeds, current weather forecast, and NASDAQ stock market data for example. And maybe another for games and entertainment. schmedley has lots of schmidgets (widgets) to enhance your daily, personal productivity, and we will always be adding more.

I'll play with it a lot more, but so far I'm loving Schmedley. Create your own page here.

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MindMeTo: let Twitter remind you of your tasks

MindMeTo is a handy service that allows you to use Twitter to create new tasks and also to send you a private reminder at the time of your task.

The service is very simple, as described below from their site:

1. Follow mindmeto on Twitter. We will quickly follow you back.
2. Add a reminder by tweeting: @mindmeto buy some milk tomorrow or, for private reminders, DM: d mindmeto buy some milk tomorrow This will add "Buy some milk" to tomorrow's schedule.
3. Then, at the scheduled time, we'll send you a private direct message to "buy some milk".

The service is free. Try MindMeTo here.

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