Textflow is an Adobe AIR-based collaboration app that allows you to incorporate changes from several different people into one Word document. Sending your draft to everyone you're working with, and then manually combining all of their versions is a pain. With Textflow, you can just drop in each person's document and see a side-by-side view of the changes, and then put everything in order with a little bit of dragging. The app is now in public beta.

If you've used track changes in Word, Textflow's "choose or refuse" interface will be familiar to you. But textflow is like track changes on steroids, if you'll pardon a cliché. Besides the ability to handle several sets of changes from several separate Word files at once, it's also a lot easier to tell at a glance who's changed what, and decide which version to use. There's even a scrapboard to store ideas you're not sure about yet. The best part is that your collaborators don't even have to know what Textflow is for you to use it effectively.


[via Go2Web20 Blog]

Hosting documents online is nothing new, and neither is sharing them for collaboration. Right off the bat, you're probably thinking of Google Docs. I was too, until I found EtherPad. It doesn't beat Google Docs at everything, but it does have advantages, like editing in real time, and using highlighting to distinguish who wrote which text. EtherPad is also faster to set up, since it doesn't require an account to use.

Just pass the URL to your collaborators, and everyone is set to start editing. There are stylistic limitations, with no fancy fonts and formatting, but edits happen in real time. There's also a handy chat box in the sidebar, in case you need to discuss your changes. Where you might want to use Google Docs instead is if you're writing something long that needs to be exported to Word or another file format. EtherPad does saving -- and infinite undos for all users, which is quite handy -- but it doesn't do exporting. You'll have to plug your document's URL in to pick up where you left off.

Complaints? Not many. The aforementioned exporting would be nice, and although it's great that you can quick-start with no accounts, they should at least be an option for privacy. And, speaking of privacy, users can see each other's IP addresses in the sidebar. I'm not sure what that adds. A built-in spellchecker would also be a perk, but it's not necessary. What EtherPad has so far is quite impressive, and I hope it continues to improve, while staying fast and easy to use.

Jay recently reviewed MiniTask, an ultra- simple to-do list application built on the Adobe Air platform. If you're like me and would prefer to avoid installing yet another oversized Adobe product on your Windows PC, take a look at To-Do Desklist.

Like MiniTask, you can add an alarm to an item and hotkeys are supported for adding new tasks and showing your to-do items. Desklist also allows you to assign priority and add extended notes to tasks.

Alerts can be displayed in any corner of your screen, and they're fully skinnable. The program comes with light, dark, and sky themes built in, but you're free to set your own background color or image and change the display font. You can also tweak opacity settings for the alerts.

The full task window allows you to filter items by priority. When your list gets lengthy, it's a helpful way to make sure you're focusing on critical tasks.

I'd like to have option to hide alerts (like MiniTask) or collapse task items, but for simple lists, Desklist is still a good option. It's freeware for Windows only.

Deadline is a really great web-based alternative to the standard desktop to-do apps. There are several ways to interact with it and access your to-do list, including via Jabber/Google Talk, through Atom, RSS and iCal feeds, and email. Deadline understands input in natural language, so you can write something like, "call mom on Tuesday," and the web app will schedule it appropriately.

The Deadline UI is well-designed and not distracting, with edit and delete buttons readily accessible next to each item. Inspired by Twitter, to-do items have a 140 character cap to accomodate SMS support (which is forthcoming for Deadline, but not quite there yet). The 140 limitation doesn't have much practical effect, because date, time and location information can be submitted through brief natural language, no fancy syntax involved. There's an XML API, too, if you want to experiment with Deadline yourself.

MiniTask is a basic cross-platform organization app built on Adobe Air. The learning curve on this app is basically nil, and you'll soon be adding, checking off, and setting alarms for to-do items with ease. There aren't a ton of features, so it's not the greatest for the completely neurotic among us, but if you just need a simple, unfussy to-do list, give it a look.

Let's a take a quick look at what MiniTask can do (fortunately, it's not much!). There's just one window, and you can right-click (CTRL-click on a Mac) to add new tasks and new dividers. You can use the dividers however you like, for different days or different categories of tasks. To-do items have three modes: checked off, not checked off, and alarm. Double-click a task to change the name, and double-click an alarm icon to change the time on an alarm. Seriously, that's all there is to it!

Slife - a brilliant activity analysis program - has been available to Mac users for ages. For the past five months, however, their development team has been working almost exclusively on releasing a Windows version of the app.

At last, the waiting is over and PC users can get their hands on version 2.0.

What makes it worth a download? Install Slife, and it runs in the background, unobtrusively monitoring your application use. Create activity groups to track applications by purpose - for example, blogging, coding, or photo editing. Doing so allows you to keep tabs on time spent performing a single task with multiple programs.

Set goals for yourself, and see how you measure up with Slife's charts. You can view analysis by day, application, or group. It's a fantastic way for teleworkers (or anyone that uses a PC for business purposes) to keep tabs on where time is being spent.

There's also a team tracking service that enables group usage analysis. Your first 30 days are free (no credit card required), and it's $10 per team member after that.

Slife is a free download for both Mac and Windows.

Want to check out OpenOffice.org 3.0 but don't want to download the 142MB installer just to see if you like it? No problem. You can run it in a web browser thanks to Ulteo.

Ulteo takes an interesting approach to online desktop and office suites. Unlike other online desktops that offer some storage space and a few simple, browser based apps, Ulteo offers access to a virtual Linux-based operating system complete with a desktop and full Linux apps like OpenOffice.org. In other words, you get a lot more features from Ulteo than you do from Google Docs, Zoho Office, or EyeOS.

On the other hand, Ulteo relies on Java, takes a while to launch, and has a freemium model. You get 1GB of storage space for free, but sessions are limited to 25 minutes. If you want more storage space or more time per session, you have to pony up some cash for a subscription.

I first looked at Ulteo last year when the company began offering access to OpenOffice.org 2.3. While it's nice to see that Ulteo is continuing to develop its technology, some of my initial complaints still stand. It's a bit awkward to switch between program windows. And it takes too long to load. But if you're just looking for a way to check out OpenOffice.org 3.0 before you download it, Ulteo will let you do that. Or if you want to be able to access OpenOffice.org and your saved documents on any computer with a web browser and Java, Ulteo may be for you.

It looks like Microsoft is finally prepared to launch its answer to Google Docs, Zoho Office, and ThinkFree Office. About a year after launching Office Live Workspace, which is really just a service for people to store and share documents created using desktop apps, Microsoft has announced plans to go ahead with true web-based versions of MS Office applications including Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.

The Office Web applications will reportedly be stripped down versions of the desktop apps. And it looks like Microsoft will offer at least two tiers of service, with an ad-supported version and a subscription based option for business customers.

The next version of Microsoft Office for the desktop will include the ability to synchronize documents over the web for access on the go. So Microsoft clearly expects customers to continue paying for the offline version of Office. Somehow I suspect the company will also set aside at least a few special features that are only available in the desktop version.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Earlier this year the developers of online office suite ThinkFree launched a free desktop version of their software designed to run on Windows, Mac, and Linux. ThinkFree Office includes a word processor, spreadheet app and presentations program. ThinkFree users can also synchronize their documents with the online version of ThinkFree Office where registered users will get up to 1GB of storage space for free.

But like most office applications, ThinkFree Office is designed around the assumption that you have have a fairly modern computer with a 1024 x 768 pixel or higher resolution display. Today ThinkFree released a new version designed for netbooks and MIDs, or mobile internet devices, which often have smaller, lower resolution displays.

ThinkFree Mobile has a few features that set it apart from ThinkFree Office. First, it has a simplified start screen for launching applications, opening documents, or syncrhonizing with ThinkFree online. Second, the interface ahs been designed for small screens. When you open an office document, the default interface is a stripped down document viewer without all the toolbars and bells and whistles. In other words, most of what you see on the screen is the document, not the application. If you need to edit the document, just click the edit button and all those extra toolbars will appear.

ThinkFree Mobile is available as a free download, but the software is described as a trial version. You can try to snag a free license by filling out an online survey. But it's not at all clear what exactly a license will get you. I can't find any way to actually purchase a copy of ThinkFree Mobile at the moment, and I don't see a price anywhere.

Like ThinkFree Office, ThinkFree Mobile is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. The Windows version eats up about 110MB of disk space, which is less than OpenOffice.org, but not exactly light weight. If you've got a netbook or MID with a small amount of storage space, you might want to check out open source, cross-platform office applications like AbiWord for word processing or Gnumeric for spreadsheets.

The developers behind open source office suite OpenOffice.org plan to officially push the next major release on Monday. But if you just can't wait to get your hands on the first stable, post-beta, post-release candidate copy of OpenOffice.org 3.0 you can download it today.

That's because the OpenOffice.org team has already sent out the files to a long list of mirror sites. Just pick one in your region, navigate to the folder marked "stable and grab the appropriate files for your operating system from the "3.0.0" folder.

If you're looking for the Windows version you can also download it today from FileHippo, SoftPedia, or MajorGeeks.

[via gHacks]

MindJet's MindManager is a mind mapping tool that is built to both mimic Microsoft Office applications, and integrate comfortably with them. Mind mapping, for the uninitiated, is a brainstorming tool that allows users to capture thoughts and ideas very quickly, then just as quickly start organizing them into something more meaningful. Typically mind maps can be exported as outlines, though there are many other useful ways to use mind maps.

While there are lots of different mind mapping options available, Mind Manager is definitely the best one available. Unfortunately, MindJet, the creator of Mind Manager, has positioned it as a premium tool with a price point of $399 for a new license. While I'm sure there is a market for the product at this price point, it's too bad that this remarkable tool is not more accessible. Also, beware when visiting MindJet's website, as it starts playing obnoxious music automatically as part of the animation on the main page.

If you've ever sent an unfortunate email after having imbibed a few too many quality alcoholic beverages -- or even just when you were too tired or upset to think straight -- Google Mail Goggles might be the thing for you. It gives you a handful of simple math problems to answer before letting you send a message from your Gmail account. By default, it's set only for weekend late-nights, so it won't be a hassle for your important daytime business communications. but it might save you from accidentally sending that angry screed to an uncooperative client.

You can turn on the Mail Goggles feature in general settings, and pick the days and times you want it active. Although it sounds like another one of Google Labs' famous April Fools stunts, like the time they introduced a feature to let you send emails "back in time", this one is for real. I hope I don't end up needing it too often!

There's good news and no news from the OpenOffice.org camp. First the good news, OpenOffice.org 3.0 RC4 is out, which no doubt features some new bug fixes and tweaks and not a whole lot of new features that were absent from RC3. I can't be more specific than that, because while the developers have done a bang up job of creating an open source office suite, they really need to do a better job of documenting the updates in each release.

The release notes page for OpenOffice.org 3.0 RC4 looks an awful lot like the release notes page for RC3. And both are virtually unreadable, because there's no section that highlights the major differences. Rather, each includes roughly a zillion little feature updates and bug fixes that set OpenOffice.org 3.0 apart from OpenOffice.org 2.4.1, the most recent stable build.

With that in mind, there are a few important differences between OpenOffice.org 3.0 and OpenOffice.org 2.4.1, including:

• OOo 3.0 includes native support for OS X
• Support for Office 2007 documents
• New multi-page view in Writer
• Multiple users can edit spreadsheets simultaneously
• Ability to add MS Access databases to Writer

OpenOffice.org 3.0 RC4 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Need to put together a quick list or data table, but can't be bothered with the bloat of a full spreadsheet application?

List² is a minimalist (32kb) application that can do just that. Its uncomplicated interface allows you to quickly assign names to columns and start entering your data.

What can List² do with such a small footprint? Import and export tabbed data files, import CSV, export to HTML, and perform simple search and replace operations. Columns and rows can be moved around and inserted with ease, and List² even supports column sorting.

Though the .zip download contains a .reg file, I was able to extract only the executable itself and run it on my MSI Wind with no trouble at all. With it on my flash drive I've got a tiny, incredibly simple way to maintain lists on the go - regardless of who's computer I'm using.

I've been using Excel for jobs like this for ages, which just doesn't make any sense. List² is much lighter, and does everything I need it to do. It's freeware, Windows only.