Google announced its flagship Andriod phone, the Nexus One, a few days ago.  As with all things Google, the announcement generated a lot of buzz in the news.  The above video is a cool overview of the phone.  You can easily tell Google is trying to compete with the iPhone.  

TechCrunch also has a good review of the Nexus One.  

If you have ever used Microsoft Project you know it takes a good bit of time before you understand how it works.  Adding to the difficulty is if you are working on a project with others and they don't have MS Project--it doesn't come standard with Microsoft Office.  

Tom's Planner is a web app that makes it easy to create Gantt Charts and share them with others.  

Tom's Planner boasts a simple drag and drop interface to create schedules and Gantt Charts.   Another interesting features of the software is that the project files are stored locally on your computer which helps to alleviate security concerns with web-based software.  

Tom's Planner is currently in a beta version which means that all accounts are free.  In return they would like you to provide feedback about the service.  The website states that once the software sheds its beta label it plans on giving all beta users one year free access.  

Another great feature is that others can view your Gantt charts for free, without an account.

I doubt that many small businesses utilize more than 30% of the features in  Salesforce.  Most businesses would probably be just as well off with a Contact Management System.  Salesforce has sensed the market opportunity and just released a Contact Manger version of their CRM.

For $9/user/month ($16 less that the next step up) Salesforce provides just the functionality many small businesses need.  

With the Contact Manager Edition users can store contacts, track customers, manage tasks and meetings and integrate the system with popular email applications.  

Even though $9 a month is pretty cheap, Zoho still offers a free version of their CRM.  I think Zoho is really simple to use and usually recommend it to small businesses.  

I would choose Salesforce if you have more complex requirements than Zoho can provide or have more than three users.  

Learn about Zoho CRM. 

Learn more about the Contact Manager Edition of Salesforce

It has been a long time since three major operating systems all released a major update within a few months of each other.  If you read my blog you will know that I am partial to Linux and Macs.  So asking me what operating system you should choose would not result in an unbiased answer.  

Even though I like Linux and Macs I do know it is unreasonable for small businesses to all move away from Windows.  There is just too much software that is Windows dependent... not to mention people know how to use Windows.  

But for those who are interested in considering switching operating systems I've got two reviews to help you make that decision.  The first review compares Windows 7 to Snow Leopard.  The second review looks at Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Linux 9.10.  

Don't have time to read the review?  Here is my one sentence summary:  Everyone knows how to use Windows, Snow Leopard is beautiful and Ubuntu Linux is fast.  

VLC is one of my favorite video players.  In addition to working on Mac, Linux and windows machines, VLC always seems to be able to play video files  other players can't.  VLC also plays videos without slowing the rest of my computer. 

Oh, and did I mention that VLC is completely free?

Download version 1.0 now. 

I've been a loyal Firefox user since 2004, but since I switched to a Mac about three years ago, I was continually frustrated with the buggy nature of Firefox (it was much worse than on a PC). After about 24 hours of using 3.5 I'm a happy Firefox user again; no strange crashes, or the random lockup, and I can tab through website much faster.

Slate has a good review about what makes Firefox 3.5 the best version of Firefox yet.

OffiSync is a startup that allows you to save your files directly from MS Office to online storage with Google Docs. 
The benefits of this are numerous.  First off, if all your documents are stored remotely, then you reduce the risk of loosing any files due to hard drive crashes.  With files stored in the cloud, you will also be able to access your files from any where with an internet connection. 

    OffiSync also makes document collaboration easier.  You can easily assign permissions and share documents with others.  When a version of a document is saved, Google Docs will automatically update the version number and retain the old versions.  This makes it much easier for a team to collectively work on documents.  

    OffiSync recently announced integration with Google Image Search.  This will allow you to search for Google Images directly from Office.  When you see an image you like simply add it to your document. 

    My only complaint is that OffiSync work only on Windows Machines. 

Learn more about OffiSync here. 

Google has recently announced the creation of a site aptly called, "Let's make the web faster."  Google believes that web-pages that load faster will be visited more often (and they say they have data to prove it). 

The new site offers many different tutorials and videos.  Topics range from the more technical, prefetching resources, to simple, optimizing web graphics. 

I know that I have some things that I can do to my site to make it load faster and will be using these resources. 

Fortunately when I used Google's Page Speed Plug-in for Firefox, I found that drupal does a pretty good job of making your website run fast. 

Check out the Google site.

Learn more about the Page Speed plug-in.

I still recommend that many businesses check out Google Applications for their email system. The standard edition (which will meet the needs of almost all businesses) is available free for one hundred users.

Google just announced the ability for Outlook to sync with the Google Apps servers. Unfortunately this is only available to users of the premier edition. So you will have to fork out $50 per user/per year, but for those who can't get away from Outlook, this might be a good alternative to paying for Microsoft Exchange.

Google Outlook Sync has the following features:

- Fast mail sync between Outlook and Google.

- Full calendar sync, including recurrence patterns and attendees.

- Contacts sync for all Outlook fields.

- A Global address list with email auto-complete contacts lookup.

Read more about using Google Apps with Outlook.

There are a number of companies that will charge you to sync your emails and contacts with a smart-phone.  Before you sign up for one of these services I recommend you consider some of the free options. 

Tech Crunch has a nice graph that gives an overview of what options are available, what capabilities they have and what the cost is. 

I say you shouldn't pay for this service because there are many different free options.  For those who use Google Apps (which I highly recommend for small businesses) Google allows you to sync your calendar, email and contacts completely free. 

Another free option is the open source program called Funambol.  I just downloaded this software and am starting to play with it. 

As with so many things software related, I continue to remind people to take a moment and research some free options before paying money for a software product.