Productivity

SpringSource enhances product differentiation with enterprise maintenance upgrade

In a bid to provide additional value to paid subscribers and to better differentiate community versus Enterprise releases of the popular Spring framework, SpringSource has announced an upgrade to its Enterprise maintenance policy:

Customers who are using SpringSource Enterprise, available under a subscription, will receive maintenance releases for three years from the general availability of a major new version. These customers receive ongoing, rapid patches as well as regular maintenance releases to address bugs, security vulnerabilities and usability issues, making SpringSource Enterprise the best option for production systems.

After a new major version of Spring is released, community maintenance updates … Read more

Vyew's Web collaboration goodness goes 3.0

This week Vyew released version 3 of its browser-based collaboration tool. Freshly added are really useful things for online meetings like a push-to-talk VoIP system and Webcam support to take some of the chatter away from text and the corresponding telephone-based conference call. More importantly, there's now an API, meaning others can develop special applications that run within the service, expanding what Vyew's own developers are able to create.

One of those new applications is a built-in poll creator, where you can set up something for a vote and have others in the meeting choose which of the options they want. For something like a 10-person meeting this is a far better solution than clogging up the conference call or chat box with extra clamor.

There's also a new status menu where you can interrupt a meeting without actually interrupting it with a virtual "slow down" or applause message that will pop up for the presenter to see. You can use the same status message to tell other people you're temporarily away.

The smartest addition of version 3 is actually one of the most subtle. Users can now leave little text or voice notes on documents that sit both on the document and on the side. You can toggle which view you'd like to see, but either way it performs like some of the asynchronous collaboration tools we've seen like ConceptShare and ProofHQ. Others can then come back to the hosted documents and both see and leave their own feedback.

The company is pitching this as an alternative to sending attachments around the office, or to a client, and to a certain degree it's great for that, although missing is the option to view a timeline of revisions, which is where similar tools shine.

I still think Vyew is one of the simplest screen-sharing tools out there. The fact that it only requires you to have Java installed on your machine to make that happen is a much smarter way to go about compatibility than requiring a special proprietary plug-in or download. Vyew's Todd Lane goes over some of the new features in a YouTube video, which I've embedded after the break. You can also go make your own room and play around with them by clicking here.… Read more

Roundup: Altec Lansing reveals new logo, audio products

In case you missed it, Altec Lansing has undergone a corporate makeover and is showing off a new logo along with several new products, including a pair of funky-looking PC speakers and a couple of sleek iPod speaker systems. We'll be getting review units in soon, and will actually have a full review of the new Orbit posting shortly.

Here's the rundown--and some links--for easy reading:

Two new inMotion iPod speakers from Altec Lansing

PC speaker-design alert: Altec Lansing goes mod with Expressionist Bass

Second Orbit: Altec Lansing's new iPod speaker

Postbox brings more Webmail flavor to your software in-box

Postbox is a new cross platform e-mail client for Windows and Mac computers. It's an alternative to Microsoft Outlook, and manages to bring some of the benefits of Web e-mail to a desktop application.

Things like a conversation view, tagging, and search that indexes both mail and attachments are all features Gmail users have been enjoying for years. The problem is, those features and several others have not gone over to the desktop side of things without additional software plug-ins from third-party providers.

Postbox answers that by taking many of these single features sought after by other third-party developers and blending them into a standalone client. For example, if it sees an address it will pull up a quick map link complete with business information. When you're offline you still get this information.

As some of the session judges at the TechCrunch50 conference noted, some of the things this product does would be much better suited as an extension to the software e-mail client you're already using. I'd certainly love the photo browsing client and conversation view in my Outlook, but I definitely can't ditch it until this product gets rock solid Microsoft Exchange support with a built-in calendar (a feature the product does not have).

Postbox currently works with IMAP, POP, and SMTP protocols, letting you tie in your Web mail accounts. Unless your business is running off Google apps this probably won't be a good companion for anything besides your personal accounts. That said, compared with something like Apple's Mail application, it looks like a nice step up.

Update: Postbox will be available for download in "a few weeks" time. Only the sign-ups were opened up today. I've also thrown in another screenshot after the jump.… Read more

OtherInbox's dirty little secret: It comes with free bacn

One of the downfalls of conferences where you're scrambling to cover things live is that you don't actually get to test out the products you're writing about. Between the spotty Internet connection and end of day fatigue, one company that I think deserved a little more of a look was OtherInbox, the service that helps you fight both bacn and spam from services you've sign up for.

A day later I've already run into one somewhat serious problem: upon sign-up, it automatically sets you up to receive daily notifications of your in-box status, even if … Read more

OtherInbox saves your e-mail from bacn, spam at same time

OtherInbox is a service that helps with one of the growing problems of using Web services: e-mail overload. More specifically, services that take your information and sell it to third parties--thus filling up your in-box with decentralized junk.

OtherInbox works by giving you a special address you can use when you sign up for things and it helps you filter them in a central location with tags and layout akin to Apple's Mail application. Each "subscription" reads like its own in-box.

The service may be most useful for figuring out what services are selling out your e-mail … Read more

Two smart productivity tools from the TC50 demo pit: Snipd and 2pad

Several of the companies from the TechCrunch50 demo pit are brand-new and have some really neat products to show off. For one reason or another they were not chosen to be among those pitching to the crowd--either out of editorial selection or not being able to meet the day-of-the-conference launch requirement.

Two products I wanted to highlight are of interest because they do some handy things that many other start-ups have attempted with the use of software or browser-specific extensions. In both cases the below products (Snipd and 2pad) manage to do just about the same thing without software. Let'… Read more

New models from Asia and the best student laptops: The week in laptops

Given the Democratic and Republican conventions and the Labor Day holiday stealing everyone's attention, I expected this week to be a quiet one when it came to product announcements. But those distractions really only apply to folks in the States, and overseas manufacturers pushed out plenty of new laptop models to keep us busy.

Samsung threw down a challenge to the MacBook Air by announcing the 13-inch, 2.8-pound Samsung X360. MSI came out with three new laptop models, the 14-inch VR440 and GX400, and the 17-inch GX720. Asus announced the G50V and G71V, gaming systems built on Core … Read more

Is Google becoming Microsoft with Android?

There's more than a whiff of truth to The VAR Guy's suggestion that Google's Android antics make it seem like the Microsoft of yore: heavy on marketing and light on substance. In particular, I'm equally dismayed by Google's "vaporware" announcements:

Throughout the 1990s and even today, Microsoft often pre-announces products to engage and excite ISVs (independent software vendors). Win the ISV battle, and you'll win the resulting product wars. It's a smart strategy, and Google adopted it when the company announced the path to Android. ( Check out this preview video of Android devices.) … Read more