Microsoft Web Office – now live
Filed under: Community, Microsoft, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services
Microsoft have gone live with their new free online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
You can access them thorugh your Windows Live desktop after signing in. The files are stored on your linked SkyDrive account and enable you to recall, share or edit files just as if they were on your laptop or PC.
The suite available offers a reduced set of functions from the full set of facilities available in Office 2010, but still includes enough to make creating documents a useful online experience.
We were pleased to see OneNote included. This is a powerful information management and note taking, action list driven tool and is a useful compliment to the other online services available.
Microsoft with Windows Live accounts, the revamped Hotmail and this new suite now offers a useful and intuitive package.
We think the road-warriors on our team will definitely be using it.
You can find our Third Sector Web home page here.
Can you handle a Zettabyte?
Filed under: Conversation, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services
Researchers for the company Cisco have recently published their forecasts on how web traffic will look in the immediate future.
Their findings indicate that all global web traffic will soon exceed half a zettabyte in just four years.
Cisco determine that web traffic will double every two years until 2012. This means that the internet will be 75 times larger in 2012 that it was in 2002.
Cisco also find that web video is an enormous driver for growth in traffic, both now and in the near future. This growth, in the conjoined ‘image and sound’ context of the web will create surprising web usage and reaction.
They don’t know, but it will have massive impact – perhaps more clearly put?
You can read the executive summary of the Cisco findings here.
The numbers related to internet usage and take-up continue to grow. Use the links here to find out what an exabyte or zettabyte is – we didn’t know either.
You can find the Third Sector Web home page here.
Google Docs extended and improved
Filed under: Community, Conversation, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services, google
Google have recently updated the features in Google Docs. Making collaboration easier and more effective, as well as adding a number of individual features in response to user requests.
Docs now has margin rulers and much easier image placement properties. In spreadsheets you can now drag and drop whole columns of data.
This movie gives you more detail into the new Google Docs functionality.
You can find more details of Google Docs development on the Google Docs blog. You can now collaborate with up to 50 people at once on one document and see the changes in the document in real time.
Google have added the latest java script developments into their product, offering faster and more effective ‘cloud’ documents.
You can find the home page of Third Sector Web here.
What’s your agenda?
Filed under: Conversation, New Web Creations, Web services
We thought this new service from MeetingMix was a useful way to automate the subjects to be discussed at meetings.
Letting everyone know what you will be talking about and give them an opportunity to contribute to the proposed debate or business of the day will undoubtedly increase understanding and ownership of projects.
Shorter, faster more tuned in meetings must be right? Even for techies who can talk for weeks on one line of code…surely we don’t have anyone like that here?
MeetingMix lets you track time spent on agenda items, write the notes of the meeting and record the allocated action points.
If the debate wanders, you can even use the online system to ‘park’ items for future meetings.
A paid for service but at ten dollars a month, if like us you generate a lot of meetings, then MeetingMix is a good value, easy to use service. There is a free fourteen day trial offer on the website currently.
You can find the Third Sector Web home page here.
English by mobile – in Bangla
Filed under: Community, Conversation, New Web Creations, Web services
At Third Sector Web we have always delivered our web sites for clients with translation embedded into the pages. Helping to spread news and information across communities in languages other than English.
The BBC World Service recently updated their news on a service that enables Bangla speakers to get English lessons via their mobile phones.
In Bangladesh, the project lead, Sara Chamberlain, was also able to persuade service providers in the country to make the English lessons available at half the pre-existing mobile rates.
The BBC has also created a website, Janala, which means window, so that younger learners can get to grips with English directly from the web.
‘Bangla is one of the world’s great languages. Tagore, the giant of Bengali literature, was the first person from Asia to become a Nobel laureate back in 1913. So it’s not surprising that following independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangla was adopted as the language of instruction in Bangladesh’s schools and colleges.
The unintended consequence has been that English has waned over the last few decades…the vast majority of young people have gone through the education system without picking up the ability to speak or understand spoken English’.
The Janala service has hundreds of short, three minute English lessons available for free, from any web enabled computer. A great use of technology in a learning environment.
You can read Sara Chamberlain’s original post here.
You can find the home page of Third Sector Web here.
Comodo Dragon – browser bites
Filed under: Conversation, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services
Comodo have always delivered highly effective and secure anti-virus and firewall protection.
Even the free version is on our recommended list because of its effectiveness and ability to inform the web user of what is happening to their machine as they travel the web.
The company has now entered the free browser market. You can now download a copy of their new Dragon browser.
Comodo claim to have built upon the Chromium Open Source base that browsers like Google’s Chrome deploy but also offer…
Privacy enhancements that surpass those in Chromium’s technology
Has Domain Validation technology that identifies and segregates superior SSL certificates from inferior ones
Stops cookies and other Web spies
Prevents all Browser download tracking to ensure your privacy
The download and install is quick, and all the features will be very familiar to users of Chrome.
We’ll run with the Dragon for a while to see how the under the hood specifications affect performance and security claims.
Slightly out of kilter with the privacy pitch is the registration of a lifetime license on Comodo servers, involving the generation of a unique identifier when you install?
However, it comes from a good family, is fast and renders web pages well as you would expect.
You can visit the home page of Third Sector Web here.
Using Apture on our blogs
Filed under: Conversation, New Web Creations, Web services
As a partnership we have cultivated over time a family of blogs to add extra value to our web pages and musings, including Dolphinbooksellers, and our partnership blog Changethinking.
We have been using the Apture service for a while now and particularly like the way that using it to link to Wikipedia articles opens up a wealth of new information around topics that readers can explore.
Did you notice the small summary icon in the top left of the Apture window, which opens when you hover your mouse over the link ‘little book’ icon next to our links?
You can click this and expand the detail of the Wikipedia page you have in view to see a full contents summary of the article related to the specific Thirdsector Tech link you are viewing.
We really love this service – a great way to dip into the pool of published knowledge as deep as you want to go, directly from our blog post.
You can find the home page of Third Sector Web here.
Apple iPad – can anything touch it?
Filed under: Apple, Conversation, New Web Creations, New technology
The Apple iPad has been revealed. Is it good? Yes it is. The video below shows how the machine works and how the innovative display is truly an advance on the laptop.
We were a minute or two into the presentation and beginning to be a little uncomfortable with the plethora of greats and fantastics (we are cynical here) – then you see the book store that just flips out from behind the book you are e-reading.
The calendar, maps and email functions look good and the battery life and movie experience on the iPad look great too.
‘How can something so thin and so light be so capable’ says a person in the film. We could become converted to Apple in our PC production world on the strength of this presentation.
For more detail you can find the press release about the iPad from Apple UK here.
Enjoy this movie from cnet.
You can find the home page of Third Sector Web here.
Google Docs – 250Mb file size support
Losing your files and data can be disastrous. We recommend always having multiple back-ups or file stores active to make sure your precious data is not lost.
Cleaving to the old axiom that data does not exist until it is stored in two places (at least) is a great way to avoid disaster.
Google Docs now supports files of up to 250 megabyte in size. You can store your documents remotely on Google servers, and if you are a subscriber to Google Apps Premier Edition, you can upload multiple files and sync them to your desktop too.
You can read the roll out blog message from Google here.
You can of course use the Mozy home service, featured on our blog before, to back up your files – offering 2 gigabyte of data storage at no cost. Business users can access the Mozy Pro business service for multiple users.
We also like Box.net as a solution for the individual user, who needs access to remote backup while traveling for example. You can share, manage and access your information from any web enabled computer.
Store it, before you lose it – a few moments of effort you’ll never regret when you hard drive fails or your network connections go down.
You can visit the home page of Third Sector Web here.
Unite with Opera
Filed under: Conversation, New Web Creations, Web services
The Norwegian technologists at Opera have delivered the latest version of the Opera browser – 10.10
This latest revamp does not look dramatically different from the last version, but there has been some tweaking under the hood.
We like Opera. Fast, secure and with the ability to handle email, newsfeeds and to see our current web sites in the Speed Dial display. Opera Turbo also allows you to boost browsing speed on slower connections by delivering page compression.
You can also access the Unite service. This facility turns your desk top machine into a server – you can stream media, share files or access your media library remotely.
Some of the newer functions do not yet have password control, which for the very security conscious might be an issue when allowing even trusted colleagues to access your hard drive.
However, for speed, display times, clarity of presentation and innovative thinking – you should check out Opera version 10.10.
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About our business
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We use Apture
Our Thirdsector Tech blog uses the Apture service to add extra content to our posts.
You can hover your mouse over the 'little book' or 'mini-page' icons next to our links to access the additional information.