Okay, so it’s nearing March. Those new year’s resolutions you made almost two months ago haven’t been sticking. Need a bit of help? Chrometa! Chrometa is “a time tracking app that respects your time.” Because, “tracking time shouldn’t take time.” So, “Chrometa takes care of the details and lets you focus on your work.” I’d say that’s a pretty smart application…
Chrometa has notoriety to claim as well. Inc.com, Law.com, TechnoLawyer and Business Journal have all featured the product. Hey, and check out even more reviews and buzz circulating for Chrometa. They include first-hand experiences noting the app is “kick ass” and “a straightforward solution to a painstaking task.” Lee Rosen, an attorney in North Carolina even claims “Chrometa pays for itself on the first day – before you go to lunch.” That’s some super high ROI, if you ask me.
So what exactly does it do? Chrometa is a program that automatically tracks your time. Find out just how long you’re spending on documents, emails, applications, calls, meetings and everything in between. Recall everything you’ve done and account for billable time and become more productive by automating many tedious tasks. This program is great for lawyers, event planners, graphic designers and other professionals who need to keep track of and account for billed time. Why not try it out for yourself? They offer a free 30-day trial. If you’re already impressed, snatch it up (for $10 less, that’s one entire $Hamilton bill) at SoftwareMedia.com.
A couple of eye-brow raising stats came out recently. The Society for New Communications Research released a study regarding journalists and their use of social media. It’s no shock that the study revealed the “use of social media tools by journalists is surging, growing in double-digit percentages in some cases.” But, as ZDNet points out… there’s interesting insight to how many of the 341 journalists surveyed are not taking advantage of social media sites.
Beck & Lee (Miami) and the Weston Firm (San Diego) filed a class action lawsuit against Yelp yesterday. Why? Well, according to the Yelp Class Action Website, “the lawsuit alleges that Yelp runs an extortion scheme in which the company’s employees call businesses demanding monthly payments, in the guise of ‘advertising contracts,’ in exchange for removing or modifying negative reviews appearing on the website.”
Last year, Kathleen Richards at East Bay Express wrote an article about how several businesses in the Bay Area were contacted by Yelp. John, a restaurant owner in the Bay, was contacted about negative reviews that were featured prominently on his Yelp site. “We can move them,” said the Yelp sales rep. Then came, “Well, for $299 a month.” Ha! What?! Although the article mentions this issue is addressed in the Yelp FAQ, there are a number a local business owners that challenge the statement. Yelp denies the statements addressed in Richards’ article though. The Wall Street Journal did an article on these events.
Beginning March 1st, Google’s tipping over the dominoes and starting the phase-out of Internet Explorer 6. March 1st begins Google’s drop for IE 6 support in regards to Google Docs and Google Sites. “As a result, you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers,” says Google.
March 13th begins (Google-owned) YouTube’s drop of IE6. “The latest YouTube interstitial (messaging) is part of a campaign to encourage users to update their browsers in order to enhance their overall site experience,” notes the YouTube blog. And, as forewarned, Google will also be dropping IE6 support for Gmail and other Google Apps sometime in 2010.
So, what’s a web surfer to do? I channel Beyonce when I say I’m going to “introduce you to some new things and upgrade you, I can up, can I up, let me upgrade you.” Upgrade to a more modern browser! Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox are all great choices. There’s also Opera and Safari.
Yay? Nay? According to Ars Technica, IE6 held 1/5th of the browser market early this year — not too surprising since Windows XP came packaged with the product. This may be largely due to the fact that many IT departments haven’t made that upgrade decision yet. But lots of people, including a numerous web developers and designers, despise the outdated browser and some have even come together via the “Hey IT” group.
Aten Design Group, a Denver-based design company with a sense of humor, will be bidding farewell to IE6 on March 4th. The funeral services will be held at their offices.
Come mix and mingle with Denver’s top IE6 mourners. We’ll have a special time of remembrance, a round of IE6 darts, and plenty of food & drinks.
Alright SND fans, we need your input. With the April 15th Tax deadline looming, we want to know how YOU file your taxes. There are plenty of different ways to get the job done, as outlined in our tax filing guide. But what has your experience been?
Do you prefer one of the boxed software solutions, like the heavily advertised TurboTax by Intuit or the H&R Block At Home series (formerly Tax Cut)? Or do you like the ease of an online-based program such as TaxACT? There are other options, too. OnePriceTaxes is delivered electronically to your email. You could visit a professional tax preparer. Or there’s always the old fashioned paper & pen method.
Do you have a preference? Have you had any bad encounters with a filing method? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think, and be entered to win a $25 SoftwareMedia.com Gift Card.
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You may have already heard: Apple is cleaning out their apps store. They’ve decided “to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store.” It’s definitely not a first for Apple… banning a particular genre of apps. According to PC World, Apple also banned GPS apps that feed the user location-aware ads and Apple-brand competing apps (such as Google Voice and “Flash of Genius” which mentions the Android).
TechCrunch uncovered this recent no-no after developed Jon Atherton, Wooble iBoobs, received a letter from iPhone App Review. Then there was the letter from Apple, that didn’t explain much. And today, a few guidelines have been uncovered through Atherton’s blog, ChilliFresh, regarding his app.
No images of women in bikinis
No images of men in bikinis
No skin
No silhouettes that indicate that Wobble can be used for wobbling boobs
What can I say? It’s a Friday… the week has finally dragged on and there isn’t much longer until the weekend officially starts. Rather than writing on one topic, I thought I’d share the best of what was going on today, in the world of tech and software at least…
Chinese Schools Spurred Online Hacking Remember the series of cyber attacks not too long after Google first threatened to pull out of China? Although it was never proven at the time, China was highly suspected of launching those attacks. It’s recently been discovered that two schools in China may have been responsibly. According to the New York Times, “a series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military.”
“F*ck You, Google” ran viral through the tech world not too long ago. And Google (smartly) responded in haste. Have you read the post? Have you heard the chatter? It seems like the original blog post from author Harriet Jacobs has been made private, but Gizmodo has a copy.
Did you hear about the problems Google Buzz had when it first released? In a nutshell, privacy wasn’t a strong suit (pun not intended — har har har). In Harriet’s case, her abusive ex-husband (amongst many others) was automatically granted access to her Google Reader information. Since she had never created a Google profile or Buzz profile, there were no blocking options. Not cool, Google.
Well, the story spread quickly. Techmeme picked it up, as did many other popular tech news sites. It wasn’t much later that Google responded to Harriet’s outrage saying “her report helped us discover one bug and one product issue in Google Reader.” Read more of their response at Business Insider. Lifehacker also reported today that as “recently promised, Google has updated Gmail to include a ‘Buzz’ tab.” Users are now able to disable Google Buzz and banish it from sight (or site — har har har, I’m on a roll today!) of Gmail.
So, the latest news regarding all this hubbub? A local class action lawsuit has been filed in San Jose federal court against Google. Filed just yesterday on behalf of Florida woman Eva Hibnick, the complaint alleges Google “broke the law when its controversial Google Buzz service shared personal data without the consent of users,” according to the SFGate. Since Hibnick is filing on behalf of all Gmail users that were linked to Buzz, that could mean 31.2 million people against Google. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984 is served up as an example of one law Google broke in regards to the complaint.
Google doesn’t really have much to comment yet. “We haven’t yet been served, so we can’t comment on the suit until we’ve had a chance to review it.”
According to AdWeek, the ads will be running throughout the month of February. If you watched NBC’s Olympic coverage of the men’s figure skating last night, Kristi Yamaguchi was trying to deduct her costumes on TurboTax rather than provide commentary on the skating. Okay, okay, it was a commercial. But, it’s obvious Intuit is feeding off NBC’s domination of the Vancouver Games to promote their TurboTax software — even though that wasn’t the first time Kristi’s ad aired.
They probably haven’t convinced me to do my taxes just yet, but the commercials are a riot (and I do like the GPS-like navigation feature they’ve been hyping). It was difficult to find any of the above mentioned spots, but here’s (an equally funny) one of Days of Our Lives star Alison Sweeney…
If you’re all ready to do your taxes, SoftwareMedia.com has a handy dandy Tax Filing Guide and all sorts of TurboTax and Intuit products. Make sure to also put those deductions from the “free” business software you acquired.
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Research in Motion (RIM) announced its free server software today, BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express. Basically, the software syncs your BlackBerry smartphone with Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Windows Small Business Server. Mike Lazaridis, President and co-CEO of RIM, explains, ” In a marketplace where smartphones are becoming ubiquitous, BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express significantly raises the bar by providing a cost-effective solution that allows companies of all sizes to support enterprise-grade mobile connectivity for all employees without compromising security or manageability.” Although not as fancy as the pay version, BESX users will be able to:
Wirelessly sync email, calendar, contacts, notes and tasks
Manage email folders and search email remotely
Book meetings and appointments
Set up out-of-office replies
Edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files with Documents to Go
Access files stored on the company network
User mobile apps to access business systems behind the firewall
BESX releases in March. Visit the site to learn more about BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express features in the meantime though… While BESX has “the same robust security architecture found in BlackBerry Enterprise Server,” BESX only features 35 “IT controls and policies” whereas, the full BlackBerry Enterprise Server version has over 450 tools. But those 400+ features come at a price… If you are unsure whether or not BESX will suit your needs, check out RIM’s spiffy BlackBerry Comparison Chart.
Okay, so it’s nearing March. Those new year’s resolutions you made almost two months ago haven’t been sticking. Need a bit of help? Chrometa! Chrometa is “a time tracking app that respects your time.” Because, “tracking time shouldn’t take time.” So, “Chrometa takes care of the details and lets you focus on your work.” I’d say that’s a pretty smart application…
Remember the series of cyber attacks not too long after 
