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10 best Firefox extensions of 2007

Somebody schooled in zen philosophy once said that there are as many Firefox extensions as there are grains of sand on the beach. Well, we're going to focus on those grains of sand and pick out the 10 best grains, I mean extensions, of the year.

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Predictions for 2008: Sharepoint will disappoint, Google will seek omnipotence

CMS Watch makes 12 predictions for 2008, two of which stand out based on things I've covered on this blog. The first has to do with Sharepoint, that lightweight Microsoft portal and content repository that seeks to lock enterprises once and for all into Microsoft. CMS Watch predicts a backlash:

The backlash will be two-fold. First larger enterprises will exhibit major compliance and litigation discovery issues across numerous unmanaged and unaccountable SharePoint locations. You will also see a backlash against sizable development costs and times to build maintainable applications in the MOSS environment. With the more complex SharePoint projects struggling to launch, customers are realizing a disconnect between Redmond's heavy promotion and the realities of a product that is significantly less out-of-the-box than most expect.

But we expect this from Microsoft and eventually from its customers. The more frightening prediction concerns Google, the data-hungry "do no evil" company that CMS Watch predicts will find new ways to pull users into its cloud:… Read more

Gadgettes 71: The Indulge or Be Punished Episode

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Print, fax, copy, and scan for $59.99 shipped

All-in-one printers are insanely handy to have around. Consider: you can make copies--color copies--without having to run out to Kinko's. You can send faxes on those rare occasions when e-mail won't do. You can scan documents for electronic storage. Oh, and you can print.

Most of these multifunction wonders start at around $100, but Buy.com is offering the Lexmark X8350 for $59.99, shipped, after a $50 mail-in rebate.

The specs look pretty typical for an all-in-one, but with a few highlights. First, you can connect your digital camera or pop in its memory card, preview photos … Read more

LinkedIn opens up to developers...mostly

I use LinkedIn quite a bit. I've found that it serves a very effective purpose (something that can't always be said for more chatty social-networking sites like MySpace): recruiting. I've done all my Alfresco recruiting through LinkedIn, and have ended up with excellent employees and no recruiter fees. Zippo.

Now LinkedIn in opening up its platform to outside developers, in an effort to compete with Facebook. The timing couldn't be more opportune, as LinkedIn offers something that the other social-networking sites don't: a place for professionals to get work done, rather than throw poo at each others' "walls," as the New York Times reports:

The move is one of several LinkedIn is making, including launching a beta version of a redesigned home page, to keep its less flashy but more business-minded contacts network site vibrant alongside rivals MySpace and Facebook. LinkedIn said it wants to be a hub for business information.… Read more

Office Live Workspace (almost) brings Office 2007 online

Microsoft is stepping closer to providing anywhere access to Office files. The free Office Live Workspace (more here), which lets people share work in Word, Excel and PowerPoint online, is expanding today to invite more beta testers.

You can sign up to try the work in progress at OfficeLive.com, although access may not be immediate. A final version is set for next spring.

When Office 2007 debuted nearly a year ago, it seemed curious that Microsoft offered no easy, one-click option for accessing work from the Web. Meanwhile, Zoho built an add-in for Office 2007, as Google Docs & Spreadsheets and other tools allowed people to share as well as compose work within a browser.

The free, ad-supported Office Live Workspace is a bridge to Office software, not a browser-based replica. Workspace synchronizes changes made to files stored both on a desktop and at Office Live's servers, including Outlook contacts and events. It works with Windows XP SP2, 2003 Server, or Vista with Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox 2 or higher (required for users of Mac OS 10.2 and up).

The online tools preview Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files as well as PDFs, PNGs, and JPGs. Workspace is meant to work in tandem with Word, Excel and PowerPoint XP, 2003, or 2007 running locally on a PC. You can preview, not edit, documents from a browser. Web Notes, on the other hand, do enable the creation and formatting of small text documents online.

Office Live Workspace emphasizes collaboration rather than composition. To share documents with other people, you can send them a secure URL without requiring them to sign in with a Windows Live ID. Everyone with access to the workspace can make and view each others' comments.

Those invited for editing can make changes to the work, as long as they have Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on their hard drive. Office Live Workspace handily preserves the Track Changes feature from Office apps while also keeping five histories of a file. And the Share View screen allows control of another user's PC.

Another desktop component of this service is the Office Live Add-In for Microsoft Office. This is a quick download, although you'll have to restart the system afterward. Once it's installed, a Save to Office Live option will appear under the Office button within Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, with the subsequent dialog box showing your available workspaces.

Workspaces are collections of documents. Ten templates are built to manage a classroom, sports team, travels, job search, household, and so forth. For example, a travel workspace will include an expense report spreadsheet with Word files for an itinerary, packing list, and personal data. You can store a maximum of 500 workspaces containing 500 documents each for a total of 500 MB per account and 25 MB per file.

Office users who learn about these tools are likely to come to depend upon them to stash their work online with a few, quick clicks. Workplaces that use Microsoft's staple software will probably find Workspace a fine collaboration tool that makes it easy to take work away from the office.

This is a well-designed service, but I'd still like something not only to store work, but to let me make edits without opening local applications. What if you only want to correct a misspelled byline in a 20 MB report? You'll have to open Word, since Office Live Workspace doesn't even allow light, text only edits within a browser. I'll continue to lean on Google Docs for that.

Office Live Workspace, by the way, is not to be confused with Office Live Small Business, which offers a free domain name and Web design templates.

Please see more images after the jump.… Read more

LinkedIn debuts developer platform, revamps home page

Business social network LinkedIn has given itself a New Year's makeover a few weeks early: the site has announced a home page redesign and new features, and has simultaneously launched a developer program that it calls "InApps."

For LinkedIn, which says that it recently passed 17 million user accounts, this move comes at a time when some observers are saying that business social networks are about to take off in a big way. The redesigned home page has not gone fully live, but is now accessible to logged-in LinkedIn members on a beta page. Included among the … Read more

An unexpected convergence device: the lantern

Technology may be making everyday objects smarter all the time, but one of the least likely examples has come in form of something that practically defines low tech: the camping lantern.

The "Intelligent Lantern" would come in handy for emergencies as well as outdoors recreation because it includes a digital clock, built-in speakers, and an AM/FM radio with local NOAA weatherband, as well as a hookup for an MP3 player. And unlike other combo devices we've seen, it doesn't abandon its primary mission: Its lights can be seen as far as a mile away and … Read more

Ecotality charging up for something new?

Ecotality plans to acquire Minit-Charger, a subsidiary of publicly traded Edison International, for $3 million in cash and stock, both companies announced Thursday.

Minit-Charger makes chargers for rechargeable lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries that can be used in electric light construction vehicles like forklifts. The Irvine, Calif.-based company includes Home Depot, Costco Wholesale, and Toyota Motor among its customers.

"It's the charging system, very complex, that allows batteries to be charged to maximum charge on minimum time. It has a complex electrical system that adjusts once every 300 times per minute for variances," Ecotality CEO Jonathan Read … Read more