Low Cost Communication with Google Voice and Video Chat

August 30, 2011
Communication
Leave a Comment

I have never really used Google Voice and Video Chat before, but I recently played around with it when I noticed that it was embedded within Gmail.  Google Voice and Video chat is VoiP service offered by Google that is similar to services like Skype.

There are several cool things about Google Voice and Video Chat, including:

  • Ability to make PC to PC calls within Gmail, or iGoogle
  • Your own phone number selected from a pool of numbers in your area code
  • Support for voicemail, conference calls, and call forwarding
  • Supported on both PCs and mobile devices
  • Video calling support (similar to Skype)
The item I like best about Google Voice and Video Chat is the ability to make free outbound calls to domestic landlines and mobile phones.   For some of the other big players, like Skype, domestic calls to landlines and mobile phones still have fees attached to them (still low though).

Using Google Voice within Gmail is very easy.   On the left hand side, under the ‘Mail’ group is the ‘Chat’ group.   Under the ‘Chat’ Group, there is an option called ‘Call phone’ (as shown on the left).

When you click on the ‘Call phone’ option, a another window will pop up with a ten buttons resembling a phone. (shown below)  This is the access point to making your free phone calls.  You must make sure that you have downloaded the Google Voice and Video Chat plug-in.

To make a phone call, simply dial in the number you wish and start talking once somebody answers.   Calls are free for national calls originating in the United States.  For calls destined to international locations, minutes can be purchased from the Google Voice website by clicking on the dollar amount button.

For more information, Wikipedia’s Google Voice entry has more information.   I have not tried using Google Voice on mobile devices, like smartphones or web-enabled digital devices (like the iPod Touch), but I do believe functionality exists for mobile devices.

Google Voice and Video Chat is another great option to add to your toolbox to keep communication costs low.   Please comment if you have more information.

-TW


Favorite Resources for Technology News

August 23, 2011
News & Admin
2 Comments

A big part of maintaining a blog is keeping up with technology news as much as possible.  Since I only work on this blog part-time, I have to be efficient with my intake of technology related news.   As a result, I try to follow blogs, Twitter feeds, and RSS feeds of only a select few resources that I feel give me the best news without overwhelming me with information.

Below is a list of my favorite news related technology blogs that I follow through my RSS feeds (via Google Reader)

GigaOM - Great blog for general tech news.  Covers all the basics with emphasis on Cloud Computing, Mobile, and Social Media, as well as other things like Cleantech and other technology related infrastructure.

Mashable – One of the most popular technology blogs on the web.  Its content is very extensive and covers a very wide range of topics, including Business, Techs and Gadget, Social Media, and Mobile.   If I have any complaint about Mashable, it is that the material and number of posts are so extensive that it is difficult to keep up with all of the news.

ReadWriteWeb - This is probably my favorite of the three.  I personally think that it covers a slightly narrower range of technical news, which I like.  It does cover some of the business aspects of technical startups, but mainly focuses on general technology news around cloud computing, enterprise computing, and mobile computing.

In addition to the above blogs, I also follow several other tech news feeds via Twitter, including; Gizmodo, eWeek, engadget, Techcrunch, AllTouchTablet, and Wired.  All of these are good, but I find that once you start following several of these, you start to see a lot of redundancy.

Another great source for staying up to date with the latest technology news is through the software company blogs. You do have to be careful with company blogs because they are obviously biased towards their own products.  With that said, I have been impressed with the way that many companies have used social media to inform existing and future customers.

I like to stay on top of several company’s news through their blogs and YouTube channels.  Some of the company blogs and YouTube channels I follow include; Box.net, SugarSync, Google,Salesforce.com, Zoho, Microsoft, and Apple.

For this post, I have mainly focused on the large technology news resources. For every large blog, there are several small blogs (such as this one) that provide a wealth of great information.   I would encourage everyone to keep an eye out for these also.  Oftentimes they focus on a niche subject (e.g. Java programming or VBA scripting) and can be very valuable.

Please comment or email if you have other good sources for technology related news and training.

-TW

Organizing Your Online Life with the Zoho Dashboard

August 16, 2011
Cloud Apps & SaaS, Office Suites
Leave a Comment

As many readers know, I’ve talked about the Zoho Office Suite several times here at Techjotter and am a big fan of their service.   In this post, I want to discuss the Zoho Mail Dashboard and how it integrates with the rest of the Zoho Office suite (or other office suites for that matter.)

First, I want to provide a little bit of background about how I manage all of my online services.   I don’t think that I am unlike a lot of people who like to use several services at the same time.   Currently, I have at least 2 email accounts (personal & Techjotter), 2 online file storage systems, an online calendar system, an RSS reader, and several other websites I check on a periodic basis.

A lot of my online life revolves around Google products (Reader, Finance), but I also use several other company’s products, such as Yahoo, Twitter, WordPress, and Zoho.   The big question is how to get all of these services grouped into one area that doesn’t involve a lot of clicking and shifting between browser windows.  What has been working well for me is the Zoho Mail dashboard.

Zoho Mail

Some of the benefits that I believe put Zoho Mail above Google for example include the following:

- A clean and easy to use interface

- Access to the full Zoho Office Suite from the Zoho Mail interface with one click

- Access to multiple email accounts within one browser window

- Ability to customize and hide (if desired) the apps bar

- Ability to add non-Zoho products to the apps bar and have them open within the main Zoho Mail interface

The last item I think is the item that sold me on using Zoho over Google.   Google also has a very nice and clean user interface, but I found that it only works well if you only use Google products.   If you wish to use anything outside of Google (such as Yahoo or Twitter), then you basically have to go to different apps or open new browser windows.

A good example of this is how I can access and use my Box.net within the Zoho Dashboard, as shown in the picture below.   I can even edit files using Google Docs within the Zoho Dashboard.

Zoho Mail and Box.net

Don’t get me wrong, I am still a big fan of Google and I still use their products extensively.   But if you are looking for an online program that can serve as an easy gateway to several different programs, I would consider looking into Zoho.

-TW

Explosive Growth in Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce Conference

August 9, 2011
Cloud Apps & SaaS, News & Admin, Social Media
Leave a Comment

Need evidence that the world of technology is moving to the cloud?  Look no further than the explosive growth that has occurred for Salesforce.com‘s annual conference, called Dreamforce. Salesforce.com is one of the pioneer’s of the cloud computing industry. They have been hosting the Dreamforce conference, which brings together leaders in the industry, since 2003 and it has become the premier cloud computing conference in the world.

The amazing growth of the conference is displayed beautifully in the infographic below developed by the creative companys Jess3 and Eloqua.   I was really surprised to see that in just 9 years the number of attendees has increased nearly 20 fold – from 1,100 in 2003 to over 23,000 in 2010!  I think that the growth of the Dreamforce conference just reinforces how explosive the cloud computing industry is and will continue to be.

Thanks to Jess3 and Eloqua for allowing the great infographic below to be reprinted.

Want to Learn More About the Cloud? Visit Cloud U by SugarSync

August 5, 2011
Cloud Apps & SaaS
Leave a Comment

The cloud storage company SugarSync has recently launched a great site for learning the basics about personal cloud computing, called Cloud U.  Cloud U is a great place to start for people just starting to learn about cloud computing and personal clouds.    They offer both videos and documents to help customers learn more and become engaged in the industry.

Topics covered at Cloud U include; An Overview of the Cloud, the Personal Cloud, Cloud applications for business and consumers, and videos on how to use SugarSync software.  These provide a nice introduction, and along with SugarSync’s blog, provide a great resource for cloud computing.

As expected, Cloud U is geared towards the SugarSync platform, but also gives information on some of the other larger players like Google, Amazon, and Apple.   Not surprisingly I don’t see any mention of Dropbox, Box.net, or ZumoDrive which I consider to be more direct competitors of SugarSync.

I would encourage everyone to check out Cloud U – its a nice resource.

-TW

Google Chrome Web Store – Is it Worth the time?

August 2, 2011
Cloud Apps & SaaS, Miscellaneous
Leave a Comment

The Google Chrome Web Store has been active for several months (it launched in December, 2010) so I thought it would be worth discussing a little about it for the readers.    For anyone that is not familiar with it, the Chrome Web Store is basically and online portal for downloading free and paid applications that run native applications on the Google Chrome web browser.

First Impressions:

My first impressions of the Chrome Web Store are mixed.  It obviously  is trying to capitalize on the explosion of mobile app stores like the Android Market and Apple’s App Store.  The problem is that, unlike the mobile app stores, the Chrome Web Store distributes apps for a web browser which is a much different experience than a mobile device.   For many of the Chrome Apps, the “app” is really nothing more than a shortcut to the standard html website – it’s really just being masked as an “app”.  I’m not really sure if it is worth all of the effort to develop an app which offers no real benefit over just creating my own browser bookmarks or shortcuts.

With that said, I still think there are several nice aspects of the Chrome Web Store that make it a worthwhile effort.   Some of those reasons include:

Several apps are designed specifically for the Chrome browser and the Chrome Operating System (OS).  In many ways it appears that Google developed the Chrome store specifically for Chrome OS.   Three of my favorite native Chrome apps are the New York Times app, the Angry Birds app, and the TweetDeck app.

The Chrome Web Store also is a great medium to search for some of the very cool apps and web tools that are in the market (often times for free) today.   There are literally thousands of apps in the web store that are grouped by common categories such as productivity, games, utilities, news, and entertainment.  It would be very difficult to find all of these apps on your own

I also think it also offers developers another medium to get their products to the market.  With the nice way that Google has integrated the Chrome Web Store into the browser, it makes for a nice experience.    This is yet another way that the Chrome Browser is leaving Internet Explorer and Firefox in the dust in my opinion.

In Conclusion:

I think Google has done a nice job with their Chrome Web Store.  It offers users a chance to explore thousands of new apps with ease and speed and integrates with the Chrome Browser nicely.   I guess only time will tell if the “Browser App”  catches on with users or if something else will come along.

-TW

Google Docs now Integrated within Box.net

July 26, 2011
Cloud Apps & SaaS, Office Suites
Leave a Comment

One of my favorite cloud file storage systems, Box.net, recently added the ability to edit files through Google Docs.  This is a great feature that sets Box.net apart from several of its competitors.   Of the online file systems that I have uses (Dropbox, SugarSync, ZumoDrive, Box.net), Box.net offers the best overall features for editing files.   In addition to having the ability to use Google Docs for editing, Box.net also offers the option to edit files using Zoho Office.  The editing capabilities were fast and efficient when I used Google Docs.

I really like how Box.net continues to expand its platform and continues to make it more user friendly.    Google Docs is part of the Box Apps ecosystem, which is continuing to expand its offerings.  In addition to Google Docs and Zoho, they offer apps that integrate with several popular cloud and social services, such as LinkedIn, Salesforce.com, and eFax.

Overall I continue to be impressed with Box.net’s expanding functionality.   I would recommend that people try out Box.net if they have not already.   The user experience is nice and the apps ecosystem is a nice feature that most other online file storage systems do not offer.

For a better understanding of how it works, check out the video below from Box.net’s YouTube page.

Salesforce.com CEO Speaking on Cloud Computing

July 20, 2011
Cloud Apps & SaaS
Leave a Comment

I stumbled upon this YouTube video of Salesforce.com CEO, Marc Benioff, speaking on Cloud Computing and Saleforce.com’s view of the future.   Salesforce.com is one of the pioneers in the field of cloud computing.    Benioff does a great job providing an overview of cloud computing and how Salesforce.com is pushing forward the market.

The particular video below is about 40 minutes long and takes place at the 2011 Saleforce.com Dreamforce conference.  It you can look beyond the Salesforce.com sales pitch, it’s a great presentation to watch if you are wanting to learn more about cloud computing and how rapid technology is changing our personal and working lives.

4 Low-Cost Web Conferencing Services

July 14, 2011
Cloud Apps & SaaS
1 Comment

Recently I had spent some time researching free or low-cost web conferencing services.   There are several stripped down web conferencing services that are nice alternatives to the large players, like Citrix, GoToMeeting, Cisco WebEx, and Microsoft Live Meeting.

Yugma
Yugma is a nice program that offers lower costs than the big players.    It also offers a free one-on-one web conferencing feature.   Depending up on which option you select, it may have small ads associated with the web-conferencing (in particular the free versions).    They also offer some other features, like whiteboards and other collaboration tools.   Costs are around $100/year for 20 participants and around $350/year for 50 participants.

One thing that I don’t like about Yugma is that it requires a download on each of the participant’s computer.   I prefer to have a 100% web-based system for ease of use.

Mikogo
Mikogo is another nice program that offers completely free web conferencing for multiple participants.   I like this better than Yugma because of the free nature of it. The biggest limitation is that it only supports up to 10 participants.

Like Yugma, it also requires a download on each of the participant’s computer.   If you are looking for a no frills web-conferencing program that is low-cost, look no further than Mikogo.

AnyMeeting
AnyMeeting used to be known as Freebinar.   It works well and supports multiple participants (up to a whopping 200!).   When I used it when it was known as Freebinar, it worked extremely well for me and was easy to use. I cannot verify if it is still the same now that it has been changed to AnyMeeting.

One thing you need to be aware of is that AnyMeeting is ad-supported, which may not be desirable  if you are trying to portray a professional image.   The ads are frequent and big.    One thing I do like about it though is that it is fully web-based, so no downloads are required on either end (host or participant.)  This is a nice option if you don’t care about the large ads.

Vyew
I’ve added Vyew to this list, even though I don’t have much experience with it.   From what little experience I do have with it, it seems like it may have the most potential out of any of the services listed in this post.  It appears to offer more options.    I belive it is free of ads also, but that should be verified.

Like AnyMeeting, this is also fully web-based (no downloads) which is very attractive.    If anyone is in the market for a web conferencing service, I would definitely add this to the list to try out.

In Conclusion
As you can see, there are several web conferencing options available to those that are looking to keep their costs.  Yugma is nice, low-cost option that offers functionality that is similar to big players.  Mikogo is a good option if you are conducting web conferencing sessions with less than 10 participants.   Anymeeting is nice and easy to use, but has some big ads associated with it and doesn’t look as professional.   Vyew.com might have the best potential, but I haven’t used it so it will require more testing.

-TW

Cloud Storage – 3 Free Options for Web-Based File Hosting

May 30, 2011
Cloud Apps & SaaS
Leave a Comment

Conducting a quick Google search on “Cloud-based file hosting” provides several results.   For anyone that has been watching the world of computing shift to the “cloud”, one obvious question is which hosting service is best and what do they offer?   I’ve recently compiled some notes on 3 popular cloud-based hosting services, DropBox, Box.net, and SugarSync.

Dropbox
Dropbox is one of the more popular web file hosting services out there today.  It is a really nice product that has some great features.   The first 2GB of storage are free, which is pretty standard for web-based file hosting services.  Dropbox requires that you download a program that is installed on each computer that you plan on using.   Once installed, it is quite easy to use – just place your files and folders in your “Dropbox” folder on your local computer and it is automatically synced to your web account as well as synced across all of your computers.

This is a great system that is easy to use and has a large user base.   My only gripe about it is that you cannot define your own local folders to sync using the free version (at the time of this writing.)   It may have this functionality with the paid version, which I did not try out.

Pros:  Ease of use, Syncing of Files across web and multiple computers, Supports several platforms
Cons:  Only 2 GB of free storage, Inability to specify custom folders on local drive for syncing in free version

Box.net
Like Dropbox, Box.net is also very popular and has garnered much press for its features and interface.  A very nice feature of Box.net is the 5GB of storage available with the free version.   One major downfall of the free version of Box.net is the lack of support for syncing across multiple computers – this is only available with the “Pro” paid version.

Some other nice features included with Box.net include the ability to share and link files on the web to anyone, as well as the ability to edit spreadsheet and word processing files using their embedded web-based software.  Currently they partner with Zoho to allow the editing of spreadsheets and word processing.  Box.net has a very nice interface and the ability to shares and edit files across an organization.  I mainly use my box.net to post files that I wish to shares with others.

Pros:  Ability to edit files using Zoho, File sharing capabilities, 5GB free storage, no download required to use
Cons:  File syncing across computers and the web only allowed in “Pro” version

SugarSync
SugarSync has been my cloud storage platform of choice.  I currently use it back up all of my person data.   It currently includes 5GB of free storage.   It does require a download to all computers that you wish to be synced, but after setting it up, it has worked perfectly.   Whenever I update a file on one computer, it is automatically updated online and on all other synced computers.

Unlike Box.net, it does not have the ability to edit files easily across the web.  They do have something call “websync” that allows a user to download from the web, edit it offline, and then sync back up to the web.  It is a little clunky though.  My thought is that if you are desire to store and edit online, use a web-based office application like Google Docs or Zoho Office. They also have this funny thing called “The Magic Briefcase” – its basically just a stock folder that is created on your local computer where you can sync files easily without having to set up custom folders.

If you are looking for a no frills cloud storage platform that works well and is easy to set up, I would recommend SugarSync.

Pros: Ability to sync user specified files across multiple computers, 5GB of free storage
Cons:  Does not have web-based editing tools, smaller user base than Box.net or Dropbox

In conclusion
This post just scratches the surface of cloud storage.  There are several types and levels of storage available depending upon one’s needs and budget.   The 3 platforms discussed here represent ones that I have had success with.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 60 other followers