Robin Good: InFocus.cc is a useful and free web app which allows you to select/highlight any area on any web page, and get a shareable URL for it.
This is very useful for when you need to tell someone where to specifically look on a web page without having to draw a small manual for it.
Here is how it works:
1) You input the URL of the site where you want to highight a section
2) InFocus.cc takes you that web page and it provides you with a trasparent, draggable and resizable selector that you use to define the area to highlight.
3) InFocus.cc provides you with a URL that you can share with anyone to show that specific page/view and the section you have highlighted
Robin Good: Polkast is a free iOS and Android app which allows you to connect directly to your remote computer and instantly access all your files, videos, photos and music you have on it.
Polkast does not use any "cloud storage" type of solution to achieve this, but simply connects your mobile device or Windows 7 PC to your selected "home/work" Mac/PC, and then gives you direct access to all of your files through an organized system.
Robin Good: Cisco Jabber is a multi-platform and multi-device collaboration and communication platform which provides text chat/instant messaging, video-conferencing, telephony and voicemail and which can escalate to full-blown web-conferencing and collaboration sessions.
Cisco Jabber utilizes the XMPP protocol allowing interoperability with other instant messaging systems.
Ciso Jabber is available for Windows, Mac, Web, iOS, Android, Blackberry and Nokia devices.
Robin Good: Board800 is an interactive multi-user (shared) whiteboard web app providing basic drawing and illustration tools.
Key features include:
-> Multi-user shared whiteboard with simultaneous access and drawing capabilities
-> Add as many pages as you need
-> Users can work independently on the pages, and all the pages being accessed are visible to all the users connected to that session
-> Support for Rich Text Editing
-> External images can be added and entire work can be saved as an image (.png)
-> Auto detection of connectivity issues and re-synchronization in case of connectivity failures
-> Save your drawing as a .png file
-> Basic drag drop support of shapes created. The shapes are in layered format, and can be sent to back, brought to front just by right clicking on them
-> Option to lock the toolbox items when selected, such as when using the freehand drawing tool
-> Transparency support for the shapes created, along with color selection for both Rich Text and the shapes created
Free to use.
A server-based version is available for purchase and installation.
Robin Good: Altadyn is a new Facebook prototype app and API which allows you to create, edit, personalize and publish three-dimensional spaces in which to meet, talk and share content with your other people.
Key features include: -- Voice/IP -- Chat -- Desktop Sharing -- Live Feeds on screen -- Manipulate 3D Objects -- Laser pointer -- Auto-animated objects -- User-triggered animations -- Basic physics -- Multi-Functional Avatars -- Import your own 3D Buildings or furniture -- API.
Altadyn is a Platform as a Service on the cloud, and it has been designed for Facebook app developers, who want to create easily accessible sophisticated applications where users enter 3D immersive spaces and socialize virtually with each other.
Source code of the prototype app MyLoft is available free of charge for all registered users of the Development Platform within their free account. App developers can use My Loft source code as a basis for developments to which they add value with:
-- their own content: variety of creative avatars and variety of 3D spaces, -- customization features: enabling creative custom homes, -- their own application purpose: gaming, hangouts, photo viewing, video watching, concerts, dance floors, meetings, events, etc..
Robin Good: Forget Google Drive coming next week. I have just been testing for a few days Bitcasa, which promises unlimited storage for $10/month (free while in Beta) and I must say I have been quite impressed.
Once installed on your Mac or PC, Bitcasa makes itself available to "cloudify" any folder/directory you want with a simple click and then it works in the background to upload and copy all of your files to the your infinite storage drive.
You can sync-up different computers and portable devices and get access to all of your precious files from anyone.
To show how eager Bitcasa really is to receive tons of your files and to backup hundreds of gigabytes of stuff, Bitcasa has installed on my Mac a little utility (with my approval) that automatically offers me, everytime I plug in an external hard disk, to cloudify its contents.
I have already cloudified over 20GB without a hitch and now I can see them from all my computers.
If you need to work or collaborate with othe people, are on the move, and can't carry around a suitcase of hard drives, Bitcasa may provide an ideal solution at a very accessible cost.
I fail to understand something:
Bitcasa offers a solution that claims to be more convenient than the GDrive\Skydrive\Dropbox solution and offers unlimited storage for $10 a month. However, in an interview they admit that most users are not using that much storage.... So why would I chose to pay $120 yearly when I can pay google for example $60 for 100GB????
Moreover, the way Bitcasa is designed, the switching cost between services is not high so in case I need to upgrade my plan with Google to something that costs $120 I can easily switch to Bitcasa or to whomever gives the best plan and convenience.
I just can't see the huge added value of this service.
I am willing to admit that engineering-wise it looks good.
As I see it by going to the Bitcasa website, the service is still "free" for anyone signing up now, plus I consider "infinite" storage decidedly better for anyone who has several hundred gigabytes of stuff that doesn't want to lose easily. The real issue is: how much time does it take to upload all that stuff anyhow?
Robin Good: Back at the end of February Microsoft Research announced IllumiShare a new tool that enables two folks to share any physical or digital object on any surface.
Illumishare utilizes a lamp to light your desktop and a camera-projector right above it enables remote users to see what you are doing on it and vice-versa.
Steve Clayton writes: "IllumiShare uses a camera-projector pair where the camera captures video of the local workspace and sends it to the remote space and the projector projects video of the remote workspace onto the local space.
With IllumiShare people can sketch together using real ink and paper, remote meeting attendees can interact with conference room whiteboards, and children can have remote play dates in which they interact with real toys."
Cnet reports: "Imagine having a real-time card game with a friend thousands of miles away without looking at a computer screen.
Microsoft Research is showing off IllumiShare, a virtual shared whiteboard that works on any surface.
Despite having the innocent appearance of a lamp, the low-cost device actually shares the surface it's illuminating over the Internet.
This means you could sketch a portrait with someone else using real paper, or create a real-time dynamic learning scenario that enables a remote tutor to teach a child much more effectively than ever before.
You could even play a game of Canasta with your grandmother if you wanted to."
Robin Good: YouDazzle is a new online collaboration service which allows you to share files, manage private meeting rooms, do screen sharing and have real-time discussions with your team members.
Key features include:
a minimum of 20 GB of storage
File sharing
Screen-sharing
Unlimited private rooms
Unlimited guests
Analytics
Dropbox Integration
Custom Branding
PCWorld writes: "The company uses third-party public clouds, hosted by Amazon Web Services and DropBox, to not only store files in a cloud, but allow for multiple users to access them during Web meetings.
...
YouDazzle features password protected online "rooms" that store files that can then be shared by a host with invited members to a meeting.
The software also supports screen sharing and a discussion feature that allows for real-time conversations during the online meeting.
The company's software is integrated with Dropbox APIs, which allows for documents that are stored in DropBox to be edited in the application and stored back into the cloud."
...
YouDazzle, which released the product this week, has a free version, allowing one user to host a single meeting. (*Credit card required)
For $20 a month, a user can host an unlimited number of meetings, while for $40 up to three hosts can access the software and for $100 a month up to 10 hosts can start online meetings."
Robin Good: ClickMeeting is a complete webconferencing and webcasting solution, that works across all platforms and browsers, which integrates audio and video-conferencing, screen-sharing, chat and whiteboarding for up to 1000 attendees.
Robin Good: ISL Online, a provider of a great set of "remote support" software tools for all type of computers and mobile devices, has put together an extremely useful comparative table of all services available in this category.
The dynamic table allows you to compare a maximum of two remote support tools against ISL own ISL Light and across a large number of key traits and features.
Robin Good: StartMeeting is a new web service providing a web conferencing and webcasting platform integrating screen-sharing and audio-conferencing functionalities for up to 1000 people.
Key features include:
1) Audio Conferencing - toll and toll-free dial-in numbers which are accessible via fixed, mobile and high-definition (HD) VoIP telephones. See pricing.
2) Screen Sharing - allows hosts to share the entire desktop or selected applications with their meeting participants. Also available: switch presenters, view a list of your participants, chat with your audience, and highlight your content with a variety of drawing tools.
3) Customizable Meeting Page Customize a personal meeting wall to use for your online meetings. With this page you are able to upload pictures, documents, and links to share with your meeting participants. In addition, update each meeting with a title and description, invite participants, provide a schedule of future meetings, set preferences and access dial-in credentials for your online meetings.
4) Free Audio Recording Record your conference calls for free. One GB of storage space is provided free of charge. The host can provide recordings to participants via playback number, podcast or RSS feed.
5) iPad Support
"In terms of the technology, the audio conferencing component features reservationless access for up to 1,000 participants.
Access options include toll, toll-free, and an integrated high-definition VoIP platform. Pricing ranges from .029 to .039 cents per minute for toll-free access.
StartMeeting further provides unlimited use, screen-sharing subscriptions with 50-, 200-, 500- and 1,000-seat options. Monthly pricing falls between $12.95 and $19.95 for a 50-seat license."
Robin Good: Saba has just announced the availability of its new breakthrough real-time web conferencing and collaboration platform SabaMeeting.
The new web-based service integrates high-quality HD videoconferencing, VoIP, text chat, presentations support and full support for mobile devices.
After a brief initial test, I discovered that SabaMeeting has a cool, well designed interface, providign easy to operate commands and many useful functions to manage both the event and participants to be invited.
Key features include:
- HD video conferencing for up to 20-25 people (in Beta free period)
- Supprot for 8 simultaneous video feeds
- Browser-based - no software to download/install
- Support for PC, Mac and Linux
- VoIP
- Content sharing
- Multiple presenters
- Preview of slides to be shown
- Optimized for Mobile (native iPhone/iPad apps)
- IM Chat
- Video recordings (downloadable and viewable offline)
From the official site: "As surprising as it sounds, there's currently no easy and effective way to transfer a file to a friend via Facebook. Pipe has taken a common feature of communication - attaching a file - and turned it into something simple and fun to use.
Privacy is guaranteed as it's a direct connection from one device to the other, between friends.
Pipe creates a direct, real-time connection between two devices with no intermediary server.
Pipe starts as an application on Facebook, and is then migrating to mobile devices and tablets.
Support for any file format, up to 1GB
Only the sender needs to be on Pipe
Invite a friend to Pipe with a simple file transfer
Robin Good: Facebook has just announced that it is enabling across all accounts a "file sharing" feature inside Facebook Groups.
From the original article: "The social network has revealed to Mashable that all Groups will now offer the ability to send files.
This update rolls out to a small percentage of groups Thursday, and will become available to others during the following days. If you don’t have the feature already, Facebook wants you to know you’ll have it “soon.”
Facebook Groups for Schools, launched last month, incorporated the file-sharing feature — but you needed a .edu address to use it.
Users can upload most file types up to 25MB — the same file size limit as Gmail. The exceptions: music files (sorry, old-school Napster fans) and executable (.exe) files (sorry, hackers). But e-books, comics, music videos and other small movies are fair game."
Robin Good: The Online Meeting Tools Review is a web-based service which allows you to compare side-by-side over 35 web conferencing and webinar tools.
The free version allows you to access individual reviews and to compare up to four tools on a set of basic criteria with not much detail.
The Pro version is a downloadable PDF that includes comparison of whatever number of tools you have selected across 80 different features.
Price starts at $19 for in-depth comparison of 4 tools. Each additional tool added to the report is $4 more.
P.S.: I have looked at some of the reviews and I have found them not to be as detailed and insightful as I would have expected. The data is there, but in some cases key advantages of a certain tool or technology over another are not highlighted at all.
Well organized idea for an in-demand need, but information quality is not as good as it should be. 6/10
Nice shot of current status. I just would like to mention Anymeeting which you probably curated some months ago.
Free and paid services. Complete of several useful functionalities. E.g. recording, sharing, after-meeting surveys, private or public access.
Robin Good: Here's is a good and well illustrated step-by-step tutorial on how you can record a full Google Hangout video collaboration session (from a Mac).
Robin Good: Google Drive is finally out and readfdy to be used.
The service moves Google Docs to a whole new level by providing full integration between cloud storage and the apps and files you have in your computer.
"Google Drive lets you do more than just store your files. Share files with exactly who you want and edit them together, from any device.
In Google Drive, you can create new documents, spreadsheets and presentations instantly. Work together at the same time, on the same doc, and see changes as they appear."
Key features include:
Google Drive gives you instant access to Google Docs, a suite of editing tools that makes working together better—even when your teammates are miles away.
Say goodbye to bulky email attachments. Send a link from Google Drive in Gmail and everyone has the same file, same version—automatically.
Your videos and pictures in Google Drive are instantly available in Google+, so you’re never more than one click away from sharing with your circles.
Google Drive helps you get to your files faster. Search for content by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Google Drive can even recognize objects in your images and text in scanned documents.
Open over 30 file types right in your browser—including HD video, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop—even if you don’t have the program installed on your computer.
You can share files or folders with anyone, and choose whether they can view, edit or comment on your stuff.
Create and reply to comments to get feedback and make files more collaborative.
Go back in time. Google Drive tracks every change you make—so when you hit the save button, a new revision is saved. You can look back as far as 30 days automatically, or choose a revision to save forever.
Free to use.
Get started with 5 GB of free space. Upgrade to 25 GB for less than $2.50 a month.
Google Drive is available for:
PC and MaciPhone and iPad (coming soon) Android devices
Robin Good: If you are tempted to use a collaborative wiki, to let your team, colleagues or fans participate and contribute to a common project, but have been reluctant to use one because of the difficulty of getting on-board people who were not familiar with this technology, your wait is over.
HackPad is a very user-friendly wiki platform which allows you to co-work and co-edit text documents containing images and videos with maximum ease and least effort.
Key features include:
- Authorship colors show you who wrote what. Easy sharing.
- Invite by name or email, or just share the URL.
- Linking immediacy. Just type '@' and you're creating links or new pages.
- Changes are emailed to everyone. Email reply to update pages quickly.
- Keep track of all your plans using task lists.
- Find pages instantly from your desktop with the taskbar app for OSX.
- Private instance. Safe and secure.
- Choose your own address: https://yourcompany.hackpad.com.
- Import your existing MediaWiki or Google Sites Wiki.
Robin Good: Meetings.io is a new videoconferencing service which allows you to meet up with to 5 people in your own branded and persistent collaboration room.
There is no software to download or install as Meetings.io is completely web-based.
Meetings.io also include other key collaboration features such as:
Robin Good: Co-meeting is a real-time text-based group discussion tool.
The key features of Co-meeting are:
1) Live-Typing Chat Your text entry will be shown on screen character by character to the participants, so a text-based communication just like an actual verbal conversation is possible.
2) Multi-Threaded Discussion Not only can multiple discussions be held concurrently, it is also possible for participants who join in midway and absentees to have the same level of discussion as participants.
3) Notes of real-time share By simultaneously debating and sharing the minutes of the proceedings and preliminary information, additional work for information sharing is dramatically reduced.
From Lifehacker: "Remember Google Wave?
...Co-Meeting is a new web service that brings a lot of them back, including real-time, as-you're-typing conversations, document storage, in-line to-dos, notes, and meeting minutes, and more.
Co-Meeting borrows a lot of tricks from Google Wave, most notably the ability to have up to 30 people in one workspace at the same time, all typing and interacting with one another, updating documents, starting and answering comments and posts and threads, and in general just working together.
As everyone talks, one click turns any posted comment into a to-do item or a progress update to an existing to-do.
...The service even keeps track of where you left a conversation so you can get up to speed quickly when you return."
Robin Good: Eyeris is a new hosted videoconferencing system which provides HD lifesize quality video even with low-bandwidth Internet connectivity.
Eyeris can work both in standard and HD videoconferencng modes, accommodating both standard (384Kbps) and high-definition (1.7Mbps) viewing.
"Eyeris offers an affordable package by removing the capital expenditure investment and complimenting it with low-cost bandwidth solutions such as Vox's Fishbone."
Key features:
True high-definition life-size communication
Real-time document/presentation sharing
Legacy system support
Hosted IP bridge, enabling multi-point, multi-access video conferencing
Single-user desktop facility
Unprecedented bandwidth efficiency
Share presentations and group documents
3 year extended hardware and software warranty
High-level 24/7/365 support
On-site servicing and repairs
Supports linking of older ISDN solutions to newer IP solutions and vice versa
Home- and mobile-user video conferencing support
Single view (1 screen), dual view (2 screen) or no screen (customer supplys their own).
Robin Good: The ConferenceCam is the latest Logitech webcam, an all-in-one audio and video device capable of merging a full HD webcam alongside a high-quality omni-directional full-duplex speakerphone.
The ConferenceCam plugs into your computer or notebook via USB, and it integrates a full HD webcam with motorized pan, tilt and zoom capabilities.
The ConferenceCam can be controlled from a control pad on the device or using a convenient remote control. In addition, the control pad or the remote will be able to answer calls, end calls, adjust the volume and mute the microphone.
Key features: - wide 78-degree field of view
- 180-degree video pan
- support for 1080p 30fps HD - fully featured speakerphone.
The Logitech BCC950 ConferenceCam is expected to cost around $250 and it will be available in May.
Robin Good: Thanks to Nick Peachey for uncovering this simple and effective free scree-sharing solution that works seamlessly across PCs and Macs.
Key features:
Two-click instant screen sharing for first time users
One-click instant screen sharing for visitors who have previously granted permission to our applet
No accounts required
No application install to view a screen
Works on any connected mobile or tablet device with a browser
The basic version is Free, and always will be
Screenleap works by using Java and by providing you with a unique URL which you then send or share with your invitees. As soon as they go that URL they start seeing your screen.
"With Screenleap, there’s nothing to install, provided Java is already present on the host’s computer, and sessions can be viewed from any device with a browser, including smartphones and tablets." (Source: http://blog.screenleap.com/)
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