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.

Apple’s press event wrapped up not too many hours ago announcing the official release of its tablet device: the iPad! Before Business Insider, Gizmodo, Engadget or any other tech blogs got a hold of the rumors, could you believe that MadTV was the first? Check out the 2006 episode below. Be forewarned that this is not a clip for the conservative viewer…

Okay, tell me that ad won’t run through your head every time you hear “iPad” from now on?! iPad is a HORRIBLE name!! But the product itself is pretty snazzy, I admit.

Continue reading about the Apple tablet and its features >>

As rumors and suspicions prove true, the Google Nexus One phone was announced today at the Android event. Already available sans service or with T-Mobile (but both seemingly unlocked), it will also soon be available for CDMA carriers (Verizon Wireless in the United States and Vodafone in Europe) in Spring 2010. AT&T users are able to use the unlocked Nexus One phone, but will not be able to use the radio feature trhough AT&T’s 3G network.

The Nexus One, closely designed in partnership with HTC, resembles an iPhone. Okay, maybe it looks a lot more like the DROID ERIS by HTC…

Continue reading more about the Nexus One >>

Leave it to the Japanese to create the most intriguing and advanced technology. Behold, the Yotaro baby simulator.

Created at the University of Tsukuba, a city about an hour outside of Tokyo where research reigns supreme, the Yotaro baby doesn’t quite look like a baby at all… But rather, it mimics actions true-to-life  to that of a baby. According to the University of Tsukuba website, Yotaro even holds a body temperature!

Continue reading about Yotaro, the simulated baby >>

Are you feeling the economic squeeze around your bank account? Are you feeling the polluted air contaminating your lungs? Are you feeling the fat build on your body?

Stop paying for that car. Stop contributing to carbon emissions. Stop letting those calories store into fat. And start commuting more economically. Start doing more for the environment. Start burning off those undeniable cravings. Start bicycling!

And do it with style by utilizing the latest technology… The Copenhagen Wheel, a product designed by MIT’s Senseable City Lab, was presented at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change yesterday. A device that adds a boost to your ride, the product could be thought of as a hit of nitrous mounted to your back bicycle wheel. It’s the latest in the Biking 2.0 revolution, a movement to customize  bikes through electronic mods.  Carlo Ratti, director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, explains, “[The Copenhagen Wheel] can be plugged into any bike without requiring additional electronics or wires.”

Watch a video demonstration and continue reading about the Wheel >>

Despite being one of the world’s most profitable companies, Microsoft is about to report its first decline in annual revenue in its 23 year public history. One could argue that this decline in sales revenue comes as a result of the slumping economy. While it’s true that many companies are putting off software purchases and upgrades as a way to cut costs and tighten their own belts, there is also an underlying shift in the software world that is beginning to gain some traction: the shift to online alternatives and software as a service (SaaS).

Computers now take on many different forms. Devices like the iPhone and netbooks are allowing the world ways to access software like never before. The Internet now lives in your pocket, and the applications running on these small devices are increasingly based in the cloud. The era of stand-alone PC’s installed with individual software programs is coming to an end. For a company like Microsoft that makes it’s money on selling up-front licenses to its proprietary programs, this shift is disconcerting to say the least.

So what is Microsoft doing to adapt to the changing landscape of personal and business computing? Unlike what it’s down for the past 10 years, Microsoft is going to be venturing into new areas with original ideas. Recent products like the Zune were aimed at simply playing catch-up with already successful products in the marketplace. Most of the time this will result in a massive financial loss. So, this time around, the new leaders in Redmond are exploring ways to stay ahead of the curve.

Microsoft is currently testing the waters in the SaaS market by offering Exchange and SharePoint as a monthly subscription service to businesses. This lowers costs to the end user by eliminating the need for expensive servers, IT workers, and maintenance. It also reduces their up-front costs by not having to shell out for a software license all at once, not to mention the hardware savings. In turn, Microsoft stands to make more money off these SaaS services by providing a complete solution that will cost more than a simple software license. It’s challenge is to find a price point that will work for both parties.

Hosting the software and providing constant support to end users is a monumental task, considering the shear number of companies running Microsoft software. These SaaS services will also increase Microsoft’s costs and reduce its profit margins, despite the fact that it will pull in a larger amount of money on the whole.

Microsoft is also adding new features to the upcoming Office 2010 suites. Applications like Word and Powerpoint will be more web-friendly than ever before. New tools will be unveiled that will allow document collaboration between multiple users, at the same time. Instead of emailing a draft of a document back and forth between members of a team, users will be able to work on different parts of a document at the same time.

There is no doubt that future editions of Office will explore this idea of software plus services even further. It will have to keep evolving in order to keep up with free services like Google Docs and OpenOffice.

Microsoft is not going away anytime soon. Windows still commands an enormous lead in the operating system market. It’s business software division, with titles like Office, Exchange, and Windows Server, is pulling in ridiculous amounts of money. However, in ten years the world of software will be completely changed, and Microsoft is planning its evolution to adapt to those changes.

For further reading, check out these great articles from Business Week:
Microsoft: Beyond ‘Software Plus Services’
Microsoft Defends Its Empire

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This week the 5th annual O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference is taking place in San Jose, California. This gathering brings together some of the newest technologies that utilize location aware software and hardware. Web applications, mobile devices, and laptops are increasingly integrating location information to customize user experiences, and the Where 2.0 conference gives us a glimpse at what’s next in this industry.

There is plenty of new software being showcased at this year’s Where 2.0 Conference. The main goal of many companies presenting this years seems to be seamlessly integrating geo-data into our everyday lives. Just a few years ago, location aware technology was mostly the stuff of GPS devices and mapping applications. Now, with the recent explosion of mobile applications on smartphones, location aware software has broken into the mainstream. If you have an iPhone, you probably have noticed just how many applications ask you if they can access your current location when you first run the program.

One of the coolest new applications unveiled this year is called Glympse. This mobile application software is a new way to share your current location with anyone you choose, for a specified period of time. For instance, you could share your location with your friends for a night out in the city so that they could find you, no matter where you decide to go that night. You could then set your location tracking to expire when you head home for the night, maintaining your privacy.

This software could also be used to let clients know your whereabouts on your way to a meeting, or for a teenagers to let their parents know they’ve arrived at their road-trip destination. The first public beta of Glympse was released for the G1 phone, but it will soon be available on the iPhone and Blackberry.

As geo-tracking technology becomes easier and easier to implement with tools like the the Google Maps API, we will be seeing more software applications that customize the user experience in unique and creative ways. The number of location-aware software companies has exploded this year, creating cutting edge tools and innovative technologies. The real question is, what types of software will we be seeing at the 10th annual Where 2.0 Conference?

You can keep up with all of the latest coference news by following the News & Coverage page on the O’Reilly website, or you can subscribe to their Twitter feed @where20.

MagCloud is a new on-demand publishing website that lets anyone create a full color, high quality magazine. This revolutionary software is still in beta testing, but the results shown so far have been amazing.

MagCloud allows anyone to upload their magazine in PDF format, for free, via their web application. It then costs only 20 cents per page to get your magazine printed and bound in brilliant full color on 80lb paper. You also have to cover shipping costs, but you can have your own 40-page magazine printed for less than $10 an issue!

Magazine publishers can also make money off the sale of their magazines with MagCloud. You set a purchase price for your magazine, and you get to keep all profits over the 20 cents per page base price. It has never been so easy to enter the world of publishing. There are no overhead costs, and you make money off of every issue printed.

MagCloud has the potential to be truly revolutionary thanks to the technology behind the scenes. The software is powered by HP Labs, which uses its amazing Indigo printers to create amazing looking pages that will make your magazine become a work of art.

MagCloud is still in its beta testing phase, and they are offering free draft printing so publishers can get their pages looking great before they are release to the public. All you have to do is pay shipping to receive your first issue. This offer won’t be around once MagCloud moves into its final version, so you should take advantage of this while you can.

Signing up to be a publisher is quick and easy. Once you do, they will give you complete instructions on creating print-ready PDFs. For instance, you want to use a resolution of 300 DPI with a page size of 8.5″ x 11″. The bleed is 0.125″ on top and bottom, and 0.25″ on the outside edge. Magazines must also be made in page multiples of 4 (12, 16, 20, etc.).

I would recommend using a quality layout program like Adobe InDesign, which has all the tools you need to create magazine quality PDFs. For a look behind the scenes of MagCloud, check out Derek Powazek’s blog. The NY Times also did a great slideshow audio piece on MagCloud with a look at the publishing process by some students at Cal.

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Toady a ran across an article on ComputerWorld from a week ago about a Windows guru that had to use a Mac for 2 weeks as part of an assignment. Preston Gralla has used and written about PC’s since the 80’s, but he’s never spent any significant time with a Mac. This article chronicles his time with the new MacBook Air as well as his first impressions with Mac OS X and various other software programs.

This is a great read because it shows exactly the frustrations and joys a person would have with using a Mac for the first time after using PC’s for decades. It’s interesting to see the small things he struggled with as well as the many great features of the MacBook Air. For instance, before he discovered the Expose shortcut in Mac OS X, he struggled with figuring out which of his programs were actually running. However, once he used Expose, he found it superior to any alternative ever offered in Windows.

In the end, Preston reluctantly states that Mac OS X is a superior operating suystem to any version of Windows. He is probably one of the last people you would expect to come to that conclusion, but it shows just how innovative and user-friendly Apple products can be.

He also comments on the high price of the MacBook Air compared to similar PC’s, but he ultimately buys a MacBook Air for himself! This is in addition to three PC’s that run Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. He states, “This isn’t about productivity or getting work done; it’s pure machine lust.” I think that pretty much sums up any Apple product.

Check out his entire article; it’s a great read if you ever thought about switching from a PC to a Mac.

Today, Adobe announced it is extending its Flash platform to digital devices in your living room like internet-ready televisions, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and more. This means services like Hulu and Netflix will soon be available for streaming straight to your TV.

Simulated Flash television content, courtesy Adobe

Flash support for televisions will mean interactive viewing experiences and the ability to switch between web content and standard television programming. So, if there is nothing on TV at the moment, just switch over to Hulu or Netflix and stream whatever you feel like. This could be a major change in the way home entertainment is presented to the consumer.

Flash for your TV is just the latest development in what will be the proliferation of Flash technology into your everyday life. Flash is already installed on 98% of all internet enabled computers, and as I reported last month, Flash will soon be invading your mobile phone. This is great for content providers and consumers alike. It give consumers more freedom and customization in their television experience, and allows content providers to interact and retain their viewers with greater ease. I just hope this doesn’t devolve into pop up ads on your television, but I’m sure that will be one eventual side-effect.

Adobe also announced partnerships with content providers like Disney, Netflix, Comcast, and Atlantic Records, as well as partnerships with chipmakerse like Intel and Sigma Designs. Partnerships with TV manufacturers are expected soon.

New devices with support for Flash will be available starting in the second half of 2009, so you will have to be patient for a little while longer before Hulu is integrated into your new HD flatscreen.