New version of Springdoo

Finally I had the chance to test the renewed Springdoo service. I had problems with the keyboard of my MacBook so I had to test it in a PC with a 6 years old web cam.
The results: great!
I think Springdoo is getting closer to the users. At least this is how I feel because they have solved problems I've been talking about and I'm sure many users as well.
Before I had a user account with 1GB of storage and now the same users only can store 250MB. I find that an inconvenience and a mistake from them to not even send me a message notifying on that change. Anyway I had the 1GB because of some tests I was doing on the past and they granted me that capacity for those reasons.
What is new?

• Now you don't need to wait for transferring the video to their servers.
• Now is possible to post a video you record directly in your Blog.
• Their web site works much faster.

I also found that Springdoo was acquired by CityBlock. I hope they will open their company for more investors and that their representatives will start answering emails of interested or curious persons like me. (so if you work in Springdoo... just contact me).

Use Springdoo to communicate more effectively. If you have family or friends far from you this is a great way to let them know you care about them. It is easy for them to listen to you or to see your video. Make the experiment... there is no risk!

The future of the TV from the BBC

The BBC's on demand TV service, the BBC iPlayer, will launch to the public on 27 July, the corporation has revealed.

Text to speech

I found on Silke's blog a post about an interesting tool that can transform text into speech. It's name is TextAloud. It can work also with AT&T Natural Voices: http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/

A great browser, Safari, now for Windows

Just today Apple launched a public Beta of the new Safari. It is available for Mac users and Windows users.
One important step from Mac to get more of the market share Microsoft enjoys.
Check more in: http://www.apple.com/safari/

How to make CTRL + ALT + DEL from a remote desktop?

I think that will be useful for many persons managing a server remotely. Or maybe I was the only one without any clue :)
The scenario is when what is needed is to reset the password of the administrator of that server. If you press CTRL ALT DEL from the remote desktop you will see the screen from your local computer, not from the server. To solve that problem you need to press:
CTRL ALT END.

Good luck!

A new idea: Mobile companion

Against what many people thought like first reaction, the new Palm Foleo is a very innovative concept. It is not designed to be used like a notebook or a PC. It is more an extension of a mobile device like a smart phone.
Why is it interesting for me? because it is useful for the most common tasks people tend to do when away from the office: browsing the web and reading email. All of them tasks that a phone can't make well because of it constraints of size and ergonomics.
If mobile phones can work like mobile computers I think a mobile companion can really improve the way we get advantage of that technology.
The Foleo is the first version of this technology and I'm sure the next versions will include improvements in usability and features.
Some months ago in a chat with Boris is asked: why the Palm organizers are uncapable to connect to a VGA screen? why can't we use them to show images or information to a multimedia projector? Might be that Palm is getting closer to the answer.

Pandora internet radio service

Pandora is on my experience the best radio service on the web. Actually it is more than a radio because is the user who decides which kind of music to play. The users can build radio stations and the streaming quality is great.
But as I write I can't use Pandora anymore because of some law restrictions limited Pandora to offer their service outside of US! veeery bad.
Check at the following video to learn more:

Translations

Today I had an interesting experience; I was managing some new participants for my SBS group in Xing but I had an inconvenience because one of the persons requesting to be part of the group was writing in Russian, and I don't know to read cirilic characters. I'm living in Slovenia and here the language is slavic as Russian so I hoed one of the members of my team would be able to understand something. Then Boris told me to use babel fish to translate the text... amazing! in a few seconds I understood that his company is also a small business specilist.

Microsoft Popfly

Microsoft Popfly is one interesting application for building web pages using different web services available on the Internet. For example: Flickr or Google Maps.

That means that popfly can get data directly from Flickr and show it in your web site as you wish. It is still not released but I found that is possible to subscribe for a beta test. Click here to go to Popfly web site. You will need to sign in using your Live or Passport account (the same than your hotmail). On the web site you will find also interesting information.

And if you wish to see a video demonstration from Cnet News.com just click here.

Small Business Specialists

Microsoft created a program to recognize the ability of some of their partners to attend and fulfill the needs of small business. The name of that program is Microsoft Small Business Specialists.
B4Contact, where I'm working, is one of them and because of that we are building a group of Small Business Specialists(SBS). So if you are one of them, no mater from which country, your are invited to participate. Just visit the home page of the group: https://www.xing.com/net/smallbs/