Productivity and business

I have to start this review by disclosing a gigantic bias: Evernote. I love it. I live in it. I do all my writing in it (I'm doing so now). I also like Evernote CEO Phil Libin. He's an interesting guy and great to hang out with. Ok? Bias.

But--sorry, Phil--Evernote the app is getting big, old, and suffering from some bloat. There are new apps coming along that are pure and elemental. One, Catch, reminds me of an early Evernote. Catch is also trying to go in a different direction from Evernote, with new social features that … Read more

When it comes to sharing ideas and communicating stories, sometimes it's just easier to present your thoughts by drawing them out. Not just for Pictionary, online whiteboards are great collaborative tools to help you visualize your thoughts and brainstorm ideas. These Web apps not only throw out the smelly dry-erase markers, but also add a few tricks to make sharing your works faster and easier than ever.

A Web Whiteboard (AWW), developed by Senko Rasic, was designed to be minimalistic and simple to use like a real whiteboard. Coded in HTML5, AWW not only performs smoothly, but leaves little … Read more

LibreOffice, the project forked from OpenOffice.org, is moving into the modern era with developers working on versions that run in Web browsers and on iOS and Android devices.

The Document Foundation announced the moves today at the LibreOffice Conference, but the work isn't available yet for ordinary folks to try.

"These are not products available to end users, but advanced development projects which will become products sometimes in late 2012 or early 2013," the foundation said today.

Still, the work shows signs that the project, which never seriously threatened the strength of Microsoft Office, is working … Read more

Who uses those receipts for e-mails read? Most people either block sending receipts altogether or ask to be notified before sending a read receipt (a default setting in Microsoft Outlook and other mail clients). So read receipts either don't work at all, or they require acceptance by the recipient--no sure thing.

That doesn't mean that we aren't curious about when the messages we send are opened, and when the links they include are followed. For most organizations, this information can be a valuable asset. The Zendio add-on for Microsoft Outlook tracks the messages you select and records … Read more

Google has officially apologized for this week's Google Docs outage.

On Wednesday, Google Docs--the search giant's productivity suite, featuring a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation app, and drawing service--went down. In a statement, Google said that it was "aware" of the problem, and was working on a resolution. About an hour later, the service was brought back up.

Writing on the company's blog, Google engineering director Alan Warren, said that the company was "very sorry," adding that the service was hit by a "memory management bug" that was exposed following an … Read more

Several free Microsoft apps will be hopping aboard Nokia's Symbian phones by the end of the year.

As described in a blog yesterday, Microsoft and Nokia will deliver the apps in the form of free updates sometime during the fourth quarter. The updates will only be available to owners of phones running Symbian Belle, the latest update to the Symbian OS, or to those who upgrade from Symbian Anna to Belle.

The mobile apps and updates scheduled to roll out this year include:

After 30 months as Yahoo's CEO, Carol Bartz has been ousted from the company. Her interim replacement is former Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse, who joined the company in 2009.

Bartz's appointment as Yahoo CEO was meant to help turn the company around, a task she took on by reorganizing and whittling away under performing products and services. Nonetheless, the company has struggled to produce major new Web properties or regain lost ground on its stock price.

But even before Bartz got there, it's been a rough ride for the Web pioneer. Let's take a look at some of the ups and downs for the company since the original deal from Microsoft in 2008.

January 29, 2008: Yahoo announces a layoff of about 1,000 employees while reporting fourth-quarter earnings. "We're making good progress executing on this strategy, and I'm confident we're heading in the right direction," then CEO Jerry Yang says. "This sort of transformation takes time, but we have the talent and the strong cash flow to succeed."

February 1, 2008: Microsoft publicly announces its $44.6 billion cash-and-stock offer to acquire Yahoo. "Microsoft's consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says in a letter to Yang and Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock. Yahoo's stock surges from a close of $19.18 the day before the offer was made public to close at $28.38.

February 4, 2008: Yahoo axes its music service to coincide with a deal made with Rhapsody.

February 11, 2008: Yahoo rejects Microsoft's offer, saying "Microsoft's proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo." The company would repeat this rationale several times in coming negotiations.

February 12, 2008: Yahoo's layoffs begin. … Read more

The team at Skype recently published an infographic that shows the vast usage numbers associated with its free calling services.

According to the infographic, based on daily stats gathered in July, Skype usage represents more than 255 billion minutes (or 4.25 billion hours) of calls annually, which is roughly four times more than the service saw in 2008.

Despite the tremendous growth in usage, Skype may have as many detractors as it does proponents. Its services have suffered from a number of hiccups over the last few years, including a serious bout of downtime in December 2010.

For many … Read more

Google has added the ability to control who can see and edit specific Web pages in its Google Sites service.

Google Sites hosts Web pages and is available to personal users or those using the Google Apps service. Previously site permissions were an all-or-nothing affair, but yesterday Google enabled the finer-grained controls.

"Using page-level permissions, you can make some pages private for certain users while keeping other pages public for everyone to see," programmer Eric Zhang said in a blog post. "For instance, let's say you have a Google Site that you've shared with your … Read more