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30 Boxes: Calendar meets social network

I covered the 30 Boxes online calendar briefly last September (see story). But the world's changed a bit since then, and 30 Boxes has as well, so I recently took another look at this interesting (and experimental) app.

The easy part first: 30 Boxes is a nice little online calendar. It's got a special trick, in that instead of clicking on days and times to enter appointments, you can type in its single entry box something like, "Lunch, noon Friday with Frank," and it will create the appointment based on that. (Related: Stikkit.)

But 30 Boxes is more than an events calendar with a rudimentary understanding of scheduling grammar. It's also an aggregation service for time-based updates from your social sites and for those of your friends. For example, 30 Boxes will put your blog updates, Twitter messages, Upcoming.org calendar items, and Flickr photos on your calendar, as well as those from your friends. Facebook integration is coming soon. 30 Boxes reminds me Jaiku (review), another personal feed aggregator, except it's oriented around the calendar scheme rather than the discussion-based scheme Jaiku is based on.

Everyone who uses 30 Boxes, and everyone who is added into a 30 Boxes stream, gets their own profile page (here's mine). All you need to know is a person's e-mail address to add them in to your calendar. The system will find their updates on Twitter and other services, and add them to your calendar. They'll also get an invitation to join 30 Boxes, of course, and if they do they can have more control over what information that's associated with their e-mail address.

Things to put on your head

Remember when you were in fourth grade and wanted to stop other kids from copying your stuff? You'd erect a fortress of open books around your paper, blocking it from prying eyes and creating a little courtyard in the middle for your work.

That's what the "Office Collar" essentially wants to do for your head, except in reverse: It's basically a horse blinder for humans, aimed at keeping you from getting distracted by your surroundings. Textually.org notes that this self-imposed isolation device, the brainchild of designer Simone Brewster, could also be used to help … Read more

Box.net updates widget for group file sharing

Box.net, the online storage service, has updated their embeddable widget with a new group sharing feature for members with premium and professional accounts. Users can password protect a shared folder, which can then be accessed privately by others with the code. Storage owners can opt-in to allow user uploading, which lets anyone with access add files. The company is gearing it at businesses, whereas its previous widget incarnation was aimed at users with social networking profiles.

For group users to keep track of updates to shared folders, each share gets its own RSS feed. Once subscribed, the name and … Read more

Office 2.0: Open for Business

This group of presenters at Under the Radar is focused on tools that let regular people (read: not coders) create Web sites and tools to make things easy for site visitors and customers.

My Payment Network provides small-businesses and education payment systems aimed at cutting administrative costs and the hassle of paper checks. For schools, it's a chance to add an online payment system for things like sports enrollment fees, and equipment costs. For small businesses, it's another way to handle payment processing. My Payment Network is comparable to PayPal, but offers customizable controls for those in charge … Read more

Web update roundup: Box.net, MySpace, PreFound, Netvibes

Box.net gets new design. Box.net has gotten a face-lift that shows more files and menu choices in the same amount of space. They've also completely gotten rid of the sidebar (which once housed navigation options), and added some neat previews for any photos that have been stored. There's also the option to send any file that's on there to one of your Box.net widgets without having to leave the page. Previous Box.net coverage here.

MySpace partners with Bodog. Online sports gambling, TV, and music service Bodog has partnered with MySpace to tweak the … Read more

Apple TV now shipping

At long last, it looks like Apple TV is available for purchase. The Apple Web site on Tuesday morning listed the set-top box as available for shipment in three to five business days.

Calls to New York- and San Francisco-area Apple stores confirmed that the box, which is meant to deliver content between a TV and a PC, is so far only available online. A San Francisco Apple store employee said they expect to have Apple TV "any day now."

First announced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in September under the name iTV, CEO Steve Jobs formally unveiled the device … Read more

Steekr: Another virtual drive service

Steekr is a new online storage service with automated backup software for both Windows and Mac. Users get a gigabyte to store whatever they want. Steekr is a sibling product to SteekUp, parent company Agematis' business-centric backup service that gives customers 100GB with a paid subscription. The new service is designed for casual users who want to automate file backups or move large files between locations without optical media.

The software installation is needed only for people who want to automate file backups. If you want to stick to the Web, you can still back up anything you want with … Read more

A car cam for Paris Hilton?

It's official: Crave has a link to Paris Hilton. A couple of weeks ago we panned the idea of this car-board black box device for any number of reasons. But today we read on GeekSugar that Kathy and Rick Hilton expressed interest in the Gadget Universe product for their ubiquitous daughter to keep tabs on paparazzi and other media hounds. We're not sure what to make of this latest development, but we do agree with GeekSugar's trenchant observation: "Personally I wonder if Paris really needs any more cameras around her than she already has."

Mosoto turns Facebook into a live chat service

Mosoto is a Web-based app for Facebook, giving you a virtual desktop with chat, music, and file sharing built right in. Mosoto allows you to chat with other Facebook friends and swap photos, music, and videos using a shared storage folder from Box.net. As a service, Mosoto is meant to replace desktop applications for chatting and music.

The music player's user interface takes a design cue from iTunes. Double-clicking a song starts playing it instantly, almost like it's running off your hard drive--a good use of streaming. You also can quickly make playlists with simple drag-and-drop functions. … Read more

The forgotten online backup utility: Titanize

I wanted to revisit some of the products that didn't work for me yesterday, since my personal demo demon seems to have moved on.

I'll start with Titanize, the unknown online backup product. Titanize competes with services like Mozy and Carbonite. But it offers features that the others don't, and it is worth serious consideration if you're looking for an over-the-Net backup service.

For basic backups, it's much like Mozy and Carbonite. It's easy to set up, and it runs in the background, sending your new and changed files to its secure servers. But … Read more