Filed under: Internet, Macintosh, Productivity, Social Software, Beta, web 2.0

Do you have Gmail perma-tabbed in your browser window? Are you a Google Docs devotee? Is Facebook bookmarked as your home page?

If you nodded your head to any of the above questions (or blushed in embarrassment from your web 2.0 addictions), then Fluid is something you should take a look at.

Fluid, a beta download for Mac OS X Leopard, creates Site Specific Browsers that run as independent desktop applications. In other words, you can put a Gmail browser page on your desktop, complete with its own customizable dock icon and standard menu bar. The best thing is, if Firefox (or any web browser) should happen to crash, your desktop application is untouched.

So how does it work?

Launch Fluid to see a small display window where you can specify the URL of the webapp, give the window a name, and choose a customized or default icon (there’s even a whole Flickr group of downloadable high-res icons). Click “create,” and then launch your application. That’s all there is to it.

Fluid gets its inspiration from Prism, a project by Mozilla labs. However, because Fluid is Mac only, and is based on Safari’s WebKit rendering engine, it claims a more native look and feel over Prism.

Fluid is currently in beta (version 0.6), and requires Leopard.

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Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Windows Mobile, Productivity, Freeware, BlackBerry, iPhone

NewsGator, the Denver based company behind ever-popular RSS readers such as NetNewsWire for Mac and FeedDemon for Windows, announced updates for these award-winning products. The full list of the updated products include FeedDemon 2.6 (for Windows), NetNewsWire 3.1 (for the Mac), NewsGator Go! (for mobile platforms), and Inbox (a Microsoft Outlook plug-in). According to NewsGator, users will see improvements in peformance, usability, and relavance improvements.

The second part of NewsGator’s announcment is the most exciting - all these products are available for free! Yes, you read that correctly - start downloading away.

NewsGator products’ built-in selling point their ability to sync with Newsgator’s internet based servers. That is, if you use NetNewsWire at home and FeedDemon at work, you won’t have duplicate items to read between the two applications.

Why did NewsGator set these products free? They are obviously shifting gears add corporate resources to monetize their Enterprise offerings such as the NewsGator Enterprise Server. NewsGator wants to take the success they’ve enjoyed in the consumer market and apply it to the Enterprise environment.

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Filed under: Business, Security, Utilities, Productivity, Freeware

How do you plan for business IT disaster? Your business has Heimlich maneuver posters displayed, signs for first aid on the wall, evacuation routes for fire prominent near the doors and took out damage insurance coverage on your notebook computers. You just missed one small piece of the puzzle: business recovery. Without it, a small business cannot withstand even one natural or employee-induced catastrophe. It’s estimated that 25% of all small businesses cannot withstand a natural disaster. Is yours one of them?

Here are five disaster situations and what you “coulda shoulda” do to plan for them.

FIRE EARTHQUAKE TERRORISM FLOOD WATER DAMAGE TORNADO: Are you scared yet? Do you have the backup hardware in place to survive and be up and running within 30 days? In the late 90s, 5 buildings went up in a frightening blaze in a nearby city and I pulled up-to-the-minute financials off a smoldering server via dialup (we got ‘em, but it was harrowing). Is your backup drive in place and tested? Do you have a readable tape backup from yesterday in an off-site location that you know about? If not, make sure you have (a) good data backup systems and (b) a backup drive and 7 tapes (one to keep off-site) and are paying someone to be in charge of rotating them daily.

Hints:

• Backup to a second drive, NOT to your computer’s hard drive. Good software will not allow same-drive backups.
• Shut down Outlook at night or your email will not be backed up.
• Burn the data on the tapes or portable drive to a DVD once in a while.
• Windows Vista SP1 lets you create a recovery disk. Create several and store in different places.
• If your CDs or DVDs are damaged, use CD Recovery Toolbox instead of drinking hemlock .

Continue reading Five Ways to Manage Disaster

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Filed under: Internet, E-mail, Productivity, Google

Gmail Insert HTML Signature 2.0 - inserts up to 2 of your HTML signatures into a Gmail message.

Enhance Gmail - integrates Google Calendar, and Google Chat within Gmail. Removes the annoying invites box, Google user id from the top bar, and the footer.

Gmail Account Multi-Login - the dream script you’ve been looking for. Allows you to toggle between your Gmail accounts without siging out. Saweet.

FB Gmail - for the Facebook user. Now you can get your FB notifications in Gmail.

Gmail Attachment Reminder - nice Doh! prevention. Reminds you to attach a file to your Gmail if it appears that you have not, based on whether you have the word attach(ed, ment, etc) in the body.

That’s our top 5, but you can check out the 12 other useful scripts to make your Gmail experience richer and more productive. Now, if only there was a script to precisely and artfully select the important stuff from the junk. But on second thought, that would pose the much bigger problem of figuring out what to do with all the extra time that would free up while at work.

On third thought, culling through enormous quantities of the good, the bad and the ugly makes us seem so much more productive and oh, the satisfaction you get when emptying your trash.

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Filed under: International markets, Forecasts, Competitive strategy, General Motors (GM), Marketing and advertising, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM)

This morning, Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) posted a rise of 6% for its global group sales to a total of 9.37 million vehicles last year. The company’s results put increased pressure on General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) for the title of the world’s largest automaker.

General Motor hasn’t announced yet its annual sales results, but analysts expect the company show 2007 sales of 9.3 million vehicles. As we can see, the sales numbers suggest a tight race in the company’s fight for the biggest automaker in global sales.

The recent surge in oil prices helped Toyota to increase sales of its more fuel efficient cars, such as the Camry sedan and the Prius gas-electric hybrid models. General Motors has been able to keep the top industry spot for the past 76 years.

According to a statement from the Japanese automaker, Toyota’s group companies posted a growth of 10% for vehicles sold overseas during the last year, rising up to 7.1 million. The results offset a 4% drop in sales in Japan to 2.26 million vehicles. The sales numbers show that Toyota beat GM in profitability. Let’s remember that over the recent years, General Motors had to face a difficult period when it had to close plants, reduce plans for truck production and cut jobs.

Some of Toyota’s executives admit they are nervous about becoming the world’s biggest automaker as they are afraid to invoke a U.S. backlash similar to the “Japan-bashing” in the 1980s and 90s. Nonetheless, Toyota announced last month it plans to hit a target of 9.85 million vehicles sales worldwide this year, up 5% from last year.

The auto industry competition becomes even stronger as new rivals appear in China, Russia, South America and other regions. Analysts had also predicted weaker car sales for Toyota as U.S. growth slows and a growing gap in Japan’s socioeconomic classes.

Looking ahead, Toyota plans to gain ground in new markets by setting up new overseas plants. The automaker aims to increase its production by 5% next year to 9.95 million vehicles. Despite strong competition, the company’s projects seem encouraging for many analysts who believe it’s just a matter of time before Toyota beats GM to become the biggest automaker in global sales.

In other automotive news, be sure to read up on the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, which Tata Motors (NYSE: TTM) has just unveiled for under $2,500.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the online investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Apple Inc (AAPL), Marketing and advertising, Options

Akamai Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), offering services for accelerating content and business processes online, is recently down $1.85 to $27.34. AKAM is down on a rumor that the company’s relationship with Apple Computer (NASDAQ: AAPL) is going to end.

AKAM call option volume of 17,109 contracts compares to put volume of 32,385 contracts. AKAM January 25 straddle is at $3.70. AKAM February option implied volatility of 80 is above its 26-week average of 53 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price fluctuations.

Options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Marketing and advertising

In Rainbows, the media scrutinized album by Radiohead, first released online last October, finally achieved a number one chart position in the band’s home country of England earlier this week. The album also scored a number one position in the Billboard 200 chart, after entering at #156 last week due to early releases. The release last week brings to a close the three months that media outlets have scrutinized the band’s decision to release the album online to fans at pay-their-own-prices, and demonstrates the “traditional” success possible after such a gimmick.

According to Billboard, the top position in Britain is the fifth time Radiohead has enjoyed such success. The band’s first number one album was 1997’s OK Computer, followed by 2000’s Kid A, 2001’s Amnesiac, and 2003’s Hail to the Thief. A new single off In Rainbows, “Jigsaw Falling into Place,” is set to be released in the United Kingdom next week, which will surely enjoy success on its own as well as promoting the album further.

Neither the band nor its management has released any viable information elaborating on the success of the band’s decision to release the album online, and the physical release — the “discbox” — which the band released alongside the download was unavailable to enter charts when it finally hit streets in early December. While it is impossible to determine what kind of precedent the download release and the new CD version will set for the music industry, Radiohead has enjoyed similar success in the past. Both 2000’s Kid A and 2003’s Hail to the Thief saw online leaks before being released and eventually enjoyed major chart success, a number one and number three in the Billboard 200 respectively.

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Apple Inc (AAPL), Marketing and advertising, Sony Corp ADR (SNE)

With the monumental changes the music industry experienced in 2007, this year has large shoes to fill in order to see if the developments will continue or stall. One of the biggest developments that will likely continue to change is the place of anti-piracy technology, namely the use of Digital Rights Management software (DRM). It’s been quite a while since EMI Group plc (ADR) (OTC: EMIPY) decided to halt its use of the technology (last April) and since then the other majors have been slow to adopt similar stances, while EMI has changed hands (literally) becoming a part of European-based private equity firm Terra Firma.

Sony BMG, a merger between Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) and Germany based BMG, have recently debuted “MP3 cards” which will enable consumers to buy DRM-free albums from stores versus buying the tracks strictly from an online store. The program is intended to “bring digital stores into the physical retail space” with Sony BMG using the website MusicPass.com to allow buyers to retrieve albums. In essence, Sony hopes that the program will expand both the digital and physical markets. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)’s iTunes Store debuted a similar program with Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) last autumn, but the new program will see a larger market due to the retail stores chosen to stock the cards.

Finally, the other major development is the band’s Radiohead online-only decision to initially release an album without label involvement. Although this kind of move will likely not be repeated across the board, some bands have mentioned intentions to follow the direction and offer new music in a similar method. The problem with this method is that Radiohead is a firmly established act with a large fan base. New acts and smaller groups will still need to rely on the music industry to further their names unfortunately. It is unlikely that this method will ever be viable for a band unless they are firmly established and can foot the bill without label money. Of course, Radiohead itself has labeled the release an “official” leak, which means that it conforms to similar patterns that album releases face, albeit one from the band itself and not fans getting material out illegally before the CD is released.

It seems that the future of the music industry will rely on these kinds of developments, even if they are not successful. The benefit they bring to the industry is a new level of excitement and interest peaked in changing business practices and models.

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Filed under: Microsoft (MSFT), Marketing and advertising, Next big thing, Videos

Finally, a business parody worth featuring. Several videos have laid claim to the throne, there was … uhhhh … hmmmm and uhhhhh … okay; maybe this is the first laugh-out-loud business parody, and it comes from none other than William Henry Gates III of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) from Redmond, WA:

You want some market predictions, here you go: Bill Gates is the next YouTube superstar!

Timothy Sykes writes the blog timothysykes.com, is a former hedge fund manager, the star of the TV show Wall Street Warriors and author of the book, An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund

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