Trick And Treat

For our Halloween edition, we thought we would focus on some neat software tricks… and the treats they provide. We have three offerings for business (presumably), one for your off-hours.

The Trick: Voice commands on your phone.

The Treat: Smartphone based voice commands have been around for some time now; it has only been recently that the processing power in a smartphone has been adequate for the very processor-intensive task. Google announced its voice command capability in August of 2010, and Apple followed suit with Siri in October of 2011. The advantage to being first in the market is clear; you’re there first, and everyone oohs and ahhhs at what you’ve created. The advantage to arriving later is that you get to improve on what’s been done. Siri does this by introducing some Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the mix; rather than memorizing a voice command, Siri can respond to the same question asked in a number of different ways. This is well in keeping with Apple’s modus operandi , bringing some very technical things to non-technical people.

This is not meant to be a comparison of which is better; people will lean to whatever they consider the most appealing platform. Not only that, but the most advanced technology available will change, probably within a few months of this writing; then it will change again. The great thing about competition is that it drives innovation – and the consumer is the winner. If you’re interested, Google’s explanation of their voice command service is here, while Apple’s Siri product information is here.

The Trick: Playing new games on your crappy old computer

The Treat: Virtualization and remote desktop technologies have been around for some time for business applications, but onlive.com seems to be the most successful at bringing the technologies to the gaming community. You have a crappy old computer and want to play Red Faction:Armageddon? No problem.  Just make sure that your internet provider can keep up. Here’s what they recommend:

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

• Internet Connection: 2 Mbps wired or Wi-Fi connection
• Operating System: Windows 7 or Vista (32 or 64-bit) or XP SP3 (32-bit), Mac® OS X 10.5.8 or later
• Computer: Most PCs and netbooks, all Intel-based Macs
• Screen Resolution: 1024x576

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

• Internet Connection: 5 Mbps wired or Wi-Fi connection
• Operating System: Windows® 7 or Vista (32 or 64-bit) or XP SP3 (32-bit), Mac® OS X 10.6 or later
• Computer: Dual-core PCs, all Intel-based Macs
• Screen Resolution: 1280x720

I found the gameplay on my laptop to be a bit choppy, but it may well be because of the internet link I was on. Overall, the experience was a good one. They have a number of plans, ranging from trying out a game for 3 days, 5 days, or purchasing it; or you can subscribe to their 100+ list of bundled “PlayPack” games for about $10 a month. Give it a try!

The Trick: Syncing and Sharing Files

The Treat: A rapidly growing sector of providers

I have been preaching about the wonders of Dropbox for some time now. I am still very impressed with the simplicity of their product and the awesome utility it provides. If you haven’t heard about me rave about them, click here.

Dropbox makes sharing your files easy. Simply save them in your Dropbox folder (or a folder inside your Dropbox folder) and it will sync. You can have up to five machines syncing with the same Dropbox account, or you can share folders with outside people; they can either use a free Dropbox account (2GB) or pay for one; $9.99 per month for 50GB of space, while 100GB of space will run $19.99. There’s also a Dropbox for Teams service, offering 350GB for up to 5 unique users starting at $795 per year. This way, you can give or revoke access rights to specific shared folders.

SpiderOak also operates in this space. It is a little more complicated to set up; once you do you can synchronize, back up or share files. The cost is $10 per month per 100GB increment; that works out to roughly half of Dropbox’s price. SpiderOak, like Dropbox, supports Linux.

SugarSync, like SpiderOak, does a little more than Dropbox – offering such things as backup along with their sync and sharing service. Interestingly, their service includes the ability to set access permissions on any share and share it with whomever you choose. Also like SpiderOak, you can choose ANY folder to be your sync folder, not just things in your ‘Dropbox’ folder. All of this comes to you for $4.99 / month for 30GB of space – up to $24.99 / month for 250GB of space. It does seem to be easier to configure than SpiderOak, but does not seem to have a Linux offering. Interestingly, there is a plugin for Microsoft Outlook that will sync large attachments with SugarSync and writing the link to the email. This effectively removes the file size limitation in email systems; you send the recipient a link to the file instead of the actual file. They click the link and download it via their web browser. Simple!

The space is exploding with providers; choose one that has the features and price you like.

The Trick: Rewarding Your Customers for Loyalty

The Treat: There’s a number of tools out there designed to get you better connected with your clients. Foursquare and Gowalla rank among the top, providing a new platform for companies to connect with their customers; both offer incentives to their users for ‘checking in’ at a location. A relative newcomer, Basno, has an interesting take on this process; rather than being a location based service it gives you, the business or organization, the ability to offer rewards to clients for positive activities - like showing brand loyalty. It’s a very interesting service, and can be found here.

These are a few tricks and treats we've found... What have you found?