Category: Things I think about

Goplan offers competition to bellwether Basecamp

GoPlan Screenshot

GoPlan logoI got an invite from the good folks at WebBreakStuff today to check out Goplan, their latest product beta (but it’s apparently not a beta).

If you’re not on the invite list, you can go check out their Flickr set or mine (very cool to offer that, by the way).

The base feature set includes Notes, Blog, Calendar, Tickets, Tasks, Files and Campfire-like Chat rooms. When creating new Projects, you can select which of these features that you want to include.

I have to say that I love the feel of this app… if they can offer single sign-on with something like OpenID and Microformats, I think I’ll be in love. Or infatuated at least. For a little while.

There are a few quirks (like the Add Event form and date validation) but the biggest problem so far seems to be adding other users… unless it’s a project space of one, this might be the loneliest collaboration software I’ve ever seen! 😉

So bottom line — Basecamp still has the edge, but with competition like this (no word on the pricing model yet), I’m eager to see how these loose pieces coming together can help empower the independents really building the future of the web.

. . .

While I’m at it, I should shout out to Fred and co. for organizing a very successful BarCamp in Portugal. Perhaps the most inspiring result of this event relates directly to Goplan:

The event was a success and made us consider working closer to the portuguese IT market – something we’ve been kinda skeptical about mainly because it always seemed like it wasn’t ready for the kind of services we offer. Check out the event photos over at Flickr.

If BarCamp can bring a tighter focus on local communities outside the valley, that’s a true accomplishment, and a goal that we set for the event from the very beginning.

We are not robots

Max MishaMicrosoft has delivered what looks to be its competitor to iLife, codenamed MicrosoftMax (a codename is kind of like saying “beta”, except that they can change the name and confuse you later on). And by “competitor to iLife”, I’m looking squarely at the Podcasting, Photocasting and SafariRSS features and product.

According to Niall, it features news displayed in a newspaper layout and two-pane interface, a bit different approach than many other aggregators on the market.

Sounds also like an attack on Google’s Reader but what do I know? I can’t install it on my Mac anyway.

Anyway, Flock might also take note, since this technology does indeed, from the outside, look pretty attractive — and hints at more to come in the realm of syndicated content in Vista and beyond.

Oh, and the team building it are not robots, according to their own reports.

Sqreensavers: from the makers of Comic Life

plasq sqreensavers previews

Cris Pearson of (makers of ) showed me a bundle of screensavers he was working on a few weeks ago and are now available free for downloading.

This excellent set includes:

  • A shining – Shafts of light cross each other in a neo-future Scottsman’s kilt.
  • gene – A 3D view of red and blue genes, or energy, or something impressive looking! (responds to audio)
  • glacial – Somewhere between the Arctic lights and Supermans Castle. Antarctica by dusk? Watchable for hours… bbl 🙂
  • LED love – On the stockmarket of society, watch what love and apathy are trading for.
  • pendulum – Rainbows of color warble like warbly things on glass pendulums which overlap into the black nothingness. Pretty.
  • sea qreature – Morphing warping spinning strange life form which hasn’t changed in sixty-hundred bajillion years.
  • security – What is this shape, and why has it been locked away? It sure looks angry. (responds to audio)
  • tasmania – A beautiful panning and never-ending view of Northern Tasmania, Australia
  • tunnel of luv – Well, maybe love in the future. Either that or Tardis travel.
  • urban texture – Star in your own hiphop video clip, with shipping crates, and spashes of paint and graffiti. (responds to audio)

PimpMyHTML

PimpMyHTMLThe Multipack are throwing a Zen Garden-esque contest called . They really should have called it PimpMyMicroformats given that they’re using the follow :

The rules are pretty straight forward, and as I’m a fan of constraints and AJAX+CSS+XHTML, I’m looking forward to the entries:

  • You can’t change the HTML at all.
  • Use Best Practices of both CSS and JavaScript.
  • Limited to a maximum of 20kb of JavaScript.
  • No more than 5 image files can be used. (If you use your noggin, this isn’t much of a problem.)

And as you’re limited in filesize, it might be worth your while to go check out the forthcoming Mootools and read up on some ideas on exploiting CSS instead of using JavaScript. And while you’re at it, Molly has two articles on microformats definitely worth a gander.

OmniWeb 5.5 out, based on WebKit

OmniWeb 5.5

Moving off of outmoded WebCore, has come out with , based on WebKit. In my tests, it still has some bugginess loading certain websites, but on the whole, it’s a solid browser that I find using as my trusty secondary (after Camino, of course).

This release is important because it adds yet another to the growing stable of WebKit browsers in the wild.

It also sets a number or precedents with regards to visual tabs, customizing your surfing experience web-wide or at the individual site level and adds RSS subscriptions to its standard feature set. It’s still not the perfect browser, but it’s certainly a contender (though with a $30 price tag, I’m not sure anyone but Omni fans will be willing to ante up with so many decent competitors out there).

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Have you ever danced with your software?

If Windows, Linux, Ubuntu or Mac OSX were dance partners, how would they dance? Would they lead, or would you?

More importantly, would you accept a second dance if any one of them offered?