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Collanos

by | Sep 8, 2006 | 'Web 2.0', evilzenscientist, Linux, Uncategorized

A colleague from Novell moved to Collanos – I looked at their products – and it’s interesting.

The Collanos Workplace seems to fill several of my needs for working with my team:

– document sharing and management
– team task lists
– discussions
– cross platform

Most importantly – the model is peer-to-peer. That means that none of my ‘corporate data’ ever lives on someone elses server. That was one of the major downsides to using something like Backpack or Basecamp. (Cool – but kinda interesting from a risk and security angle).

By having this ‘built’ and in the web it also means I don’t have to build an internal server, manage it, keep it safe, back it up – and also use VPN to get data in and out of it.

Feedback soon. I’ve sent the team the data – we should be running in a couple of days.

Windows Live Writer

by | Aug 14, 2006 | blogging, evilzenscientist, Uncategorized

Microsoft are renowed for getting ‘usability’ right with their products.

Windows Live Writer is no exception.

Three things I like:

  • 1. Installation is easy.
    • Download, install – then point at this blog url – and it detected I was running WordPress without any problems.
    • No fiddling with the correct url for the XML-RPC side of things. No need to remember that I’m running WordPress. (Remember – this is easy for non-technical people)
  • 2. It looks good.
    • Hey – I can use Textpad, Wordpad, Pico, Joe, VI or just pipe from the shell if I need to. But often it’s a lot easier just to have something that works and works well.
    • It looks a lot like Word – or any other Microsoft Office app.
  • 3. In place preview – with your theme.
    • Oooh – this is a sexy feature. Look at the screen shots.