03 Nov Music, mail, databases and printing from a technologist’s desk
I frequently wish for more hours in the day so I can get more done (like most of you, I’m guessing). Once a year, that wish comes true. We “fall back” into standard time and get another hour. But what do we do with the extra hour?
I decided to clean my desk, which I always promise to do when I have more time. In the process, I found several odds and ends that I’ve wanted to share in this column. Here they are, in no particular order, except for the order in which they were excavated from my desk.
Over the last month, I have tested three very nice products together: the Rave-MP MP3 player from GoVideo, which rescued and resurrected the Rio technology from Sonic Blue; the newest noise-isolating headsets from Etymotic Research; and the AudioFeast subscription music service. The three products make a great combination. At $99, the Rave-MP player delivers great sound in a sleek package. The listening experience is made better by the Etymotic 6isolater ear phones. You’ll pay more for them ($149) than for the MP3 player. Still, they are versatile, compact and offer great sound. The AudioFeast service is just building up steam since its September launch at DEMOmobile. It offers a broad range of downloadable audio, from popular music to NPR programming, and it manages rights issues gracefully.
I’ve been keeping my eye on Scalix because I think they are the next great challenger to Microsoft Exchange. Last week, the company shipped version 9.1 of its software, which delivers desktop-like mail and calendaring via Mozilla and Firefox browsers. I saw a very early demo of this a few months ago, and the functionality is outstanding. You can download evaluation software here.
Amid HP’s onslaught of the latest and greatest printers early last month, the company also announced its HP Mobile Print Driver, which, in effect, is a universal print driver for Windows, and a must-have for road warriors who are tired of the print driver tango. It’s free, and you can download it from this HP site.
Very quietly over the weekend, Intuit rolled out its latest (and I think greatest) upgrade to Quickbase, quite possibly the least well recognized and best Web-based database application development tool (although Intuit wouldn’t want me to call it that). Quickbase is extremely flexible and amazingly approachable — so much so that I use it for all my database applications. If you haven’t explored this application, you should.
There, that gets a few items off my desk. Now to just keep it clean.
Launch at DEMO@15!
The DEMO Conference will celebrate 15 years of launching innovative products into the technology markets. Will you be a part of this proud tradition? If your company is preparing a product for an early 2005 market introduction, there is no better place to launch it than the DEMO Conference. For more information and to apply, go to www.demo.com/apply.
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Chris Shipley is the executive producer of NetworkWorld’s DEMO Conferences, Editor of DEMOletter and a technology industry analyst for nearly 20 years. She can be reached at chris@demo.com. Shipley, has covered the personal technology business since 1984 and is regarded as one of the top analysts covering the technology industry today. Shipley has worked as a writer and editor for variety of technology consumer magazines, including PC Week, PC Magazine, PC/Computing, and InfoWorld, US Magazine and Working Woman. She has written two books on communications and Internet technology, has won numerous awards for journalistic excellence, and was named the #1 newsletter editor by Marketing Computers for two years in a row. To subscribe to DEMOletter please visit: http://www.idgexecforums.com/demoletter/index.html.
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