Free Biz Ware » Hosted Applications http://freebizware.com Free and Open Source Business Softwares Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:46:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Still Looking for that Integrated Contact, Calendar and ToDo Tool http://freebizware.com/61/still-looking-for-that-integrated-contact-calendar-and-todo-tool/ http://freebizware.com/61/still-looking-for-that-integrated-contact-calendar-and-todo-tool/#comments Sat, 29 Sep 2007 06:39:44 +0000 Ken http://freebizware.com/61/still-looking-for-that-integrated-contact-calendar-and-todo-tool/ One of the tools that has eluded me all these year is a nicely integrated suite of Contact Management, Scheduler/Calendar/Organizer and a ToDolist.

Having tried many tools – from standalone applications to hosted applications, none of them lasted a month. I’m using some tools of course but I’m not settled down with them (like the way I switched to Open Office and never look back).

My requirements are really simple

  • Open Source or Free would be perfect
  • Would also consider hosted application and pay a small fee
  • Integrated, for example
    • a date (like birthday) in the contact list would appear in the calendar and could also be a todo (send birthday card)
    • a schedule like “Meet with XYZ” will link to XYZ contact information
    • similarly a todo like “Call XYZ” will link to XYZ mobile number
  • Able to import and export to some standard formats
  • Must support Chinese character input

So help me. If you know THAT tool, leave a comment.

And if you still have time, read on for a chronicle of tools I had tried.

The one application that I enjoyed using was Palm Desktop, 7 years ago. Since then I lost my Palm, changed PC, reinstalled OS while Palm Desktop became a bloat. I never went back, not sure how it fare now.

MSD Organizer has a freeware version that has an excellent set of features. It wasn’t very stable with Vista and I didn’t install it again when I reinstall Vista. Nevertheless it is worth looking at if you are looking for an integrated suite.

When I got an O2 Stealth a few months ago, I defected briefly to Outlook since there was no easy way to sync between the Windows Mobile smart phone and the desktop. But it was not to last when I lost the phone weeks after. Certainly it would be a while before I get another smartphone.

For a long time I was really looking forward to Sunbird. But Sunbird wasn’t developed as fast as Firefox and I moved from Thunderbird to GMail. As of this writing, Sunbird is still not ready for prime time.

So for now, GMail just takes care my email contact list and that it. Someone at Google should really look at improving the usability of the GMail contact list. I still have plenty of data stuck at Yahoo Mail’s contact list, which by the way, is much more usable than GMail’s. Maybe I’ll go back to Yahoo.

More dates and schedules are starting to get into Google Calendar but it just doesn’t encourage me to use it often. It takes a lot of effort just to remember, open it, enter the details. Part of the problem is also because I have a few GMail accounts for personal, work and others, so it gets messy to switch between user and or to use one as default.

My latest Todo tool is Todoist. Todoist is clean and easy to use and I like the simplicity of it all. But it is not as integrated as I hope a ToDo list would be. I should mention that there is a GMail integration though and it is a very handy feature.

The Web2.0 era introduced many interesting tools, among which Zoho looks like a serious contender to Google Apps.

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]]> http://freebizware.com/61/still-looking-for-that-integrated-contact-calendar-and-todo-tool/feed/ 7 Google offers Free Hosted Applications http://freebizware.com/37/google-offers-free-hosted-applications/ http://freebizware.com/37/google-offers-free-hosted-applications/#comments Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:11:00 +0000 Ken http://freebizware.com/37/google-offers-free-hosted-applications/ Red Herring reported that Google is Offering Productivity Apps. I know for a fact that this is not new since I have been using “GMail for your domain” on one of my domain for some time now. The new addition to the suite is Page Creator.

Google Apps for Your Domain is what is known as hosted applications. Hosted application is a new trend that is gaining attention and acceptance in the software arena.

Besides free and opensource softwares that you can download run on your own computers, free hosted applications is also another source of softwares that small business can turn to.

Free web email is probably the most common hosted application – GMail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, 163, Sina.

GMail - send mail asI personally find GMail has an edge over the rest for the business user as it can send email as another address.

Using this feature you can send email as if it comes from your company’s domain.

Not only that, if you have a few emails from different domains, you can manage all of them in a single GMail account.

Google Apps for Your Domain goes one step further to make the service customizable with your branding and color scheme.

This service is in beta and could become a paid service but “Organizations accepted by Google during the Google Apps for Your Domain beta period are eligible for free service for their approved beta users even beyond the end of the beta period, as described in the Terms of Service.”

But before you run to sign up, check out the privacy notice. Om Malik of GigaOM is apparently concerned about the privacy disclosure.

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