Tech for Lunch!

We had an article not very long ago that discussed the importance of introducing your kids to technology at a young age. Parents know very well the importance of their kids’ safety on the internet and products aimed at this task have existed for quite some time. The inherent problem with many of these products, is simply the way that they approach the subject. Usually, a program gets installed on the computer and filters content and destinations using a blacklist which is updated by the product maker. But the internet and its “kid-unfriendly” content grow much faster for these filters to keep up appropriately.

This is where the newly launched Kidzui.com comes in:

“Built just for kids, the revolutionary new KidZui browser makes surfing the Internet fun and engaging for kids from ages 3-12. KidZui has all the sites and games your kids love and tons more. With the KidZui browser, your have access to over 500,000 websites, pictures and videos.” The idea behind this software, and the reason why it presents itself as being different and much more efficient than the others, is that instead of blacklisting the bad websites, it blocks everything and whitelists the good content. Everything gets reviewed by parents and teachers who are on the staff and they are constantly reviewing more based on requests, browser searches and current subjects. Everything is also categorized by age and by topic so kids can just browse through what’s available easily. Parents have the option of allowing sites which are not normally allowed by Kidzui and can also blacklist some sites which are approved by Kidzui if they need to. This could be useful if your kid is using a specific site too much, for example.

Here is a look at the interface which is very nicely done and colorful for kids to enjoy and keep coming back to. They should feel right at home and the browser gives them the opportunity to socialize with other kids who are using kidzui as well. Everything gets ranked and voted on by the kids so the relevant and most popular content will end up on the start page, making them easier to find and get to. Kids can set their own avatars and get points for being online and doing different things so they can show their personality to the world in a safe environment. They can share content with other kids, but no chat is enabled to keep things clean.

The introductory price is $4.95/month, but even at the regular price of $9.95/month, it’s a pretty good deal if you don’t want to have to check your kid’s every move on the internet. This is the only system that I know of which properly enables a safe environment for kids online. Kidzui comes in a PC and a Mac version.  Keep in mind that a lot of the competition is free so you may want to take a look at some other products if a monthly price is not your thing.

I’m always a fan of merging technologies because they are usually a great way to facilitate user tasks and make something available to a broader audience. This one is about a little website that everyone must have heard of: Youtube. Each month there is an average of 66 millions viewers who flock to youtube.com to watch 2.6 billion videos. That’s about 57% of all video viewers on the internet, which is estimated at about 116.7 million according to Nielsen Online.

The second technology involved in this news snippet is another well known broadcaster: TiVo Inc. “Founded in 1997, TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO), a pioneer in home entertainment, created a brand new category of products with the development of the first digital video recorder (DVR).” The company has an approximate 30-40% market share in the DVR market, so it’s a fairly large audience to be able to reach and the TiVo box removes the requirement for a computer to watch Youtube videos.

The basic idea behind this move is to be able to broadcast Youtube videos to a larger audience, by removing - or at least, extending - the boundaries of the internet. Youtube videos are already available on some cell phones and via Apple TV to users who are not sitting in front of a computer. By the end of this year, TiVo users should be able to watch these videos directly on their television. This should be available to users of the TiVo Series 3 boxes, which also includes an HD model.

Although I’m not a TiVo user, I think it’s a pretty cool idea and this technology merge will allow many new users to get busy wasting a LOT of time watching Youtube videos. It’s like an addiction - Once you start watching, you just can’t stop and Youtube keeps suggesting more interesting ones to watch!

I figured that since I was on a streak of writing about online applications, I might as well cover one of the most popular ones in recent news. Mint.com offers online banking and money management services to it’s users, and all of it for free. Only US banks and services are included at the moment.

Eliminate the need to manage multiple Web sites to get a comprehensive view of your personal finances. Mint.com connects securely with more than 5,000 US financial institutions. By adding your bank, credit card and investment accounts to Mint.com, you get a complete perspective of your finances in one, easy to use location. Planning your personal budget just got a lot easier.

You can use this service to manage every account you have in a single place, including your Paypal and E-Trade along with regular bankin, mortgage, loans, or investment accounts. Mint makes money by providing various offers to their users to help them save money, invest better and manage their finances better. They get compensation from the banks and companies who provide the offers.

As I have said before, Online Applications are a very interesting way to go and Mint is one of those applications that just stands out for it’s ease of use, great presentation (all done in javascript, by the way) and it’s free.

Those who know me already find me extremely annoying for it, but I have been saying for quite some time that the future of software is definitely in web-based applications. Many different variations on the terms have been used such as Software-as-a-Service(SaaS), web-based, or even subscription-based applications. The trend is easy to notice and more and more users are leaving standard software to move to the web.

Microsoft has announced that they will be expanding their online services to integrate many new products in a beta phase. New online services being tested include Exchange Server and Office SharePoint Server software handling tasks such as email, schedule calendars and online conferencing. Of course, you need to go to the beta web site to register and get a chance to try the products before they go live. Microsoft has targeted the second half of this year to make the products available to the public.

The Office suite has always been a foundation in Microsoft’s revenue and they are being careful not to break that income stream too fast. Google, Oracle and quite a few others have started offering online services which are slowly eating away at the market share so Microsoft is not taking any chances. Bill Gates mentioned that users should expect to see this kind of choice and flexibility in all of Microsoft’s products in the future.

There are some problems to this approach for the moment such as slow or unreliable internet connections or the unwillingness to change. Security is sometimes a concern as well because all your information keeps going back and forth on the internet. Naturally, none of these problems are really any more important than the ones users currently face with standard desktop applications. There is always a way to get to your valuable information if someone really wants it ;-)

The bottom line is that software on the web will be more and more a reality for everyone and this will most definitely be something I will keep and eye on to cover again in the future as it develops.

Google is very well known as a search engine, but avid fans also know that there is a lot more to Google than searching. One of the most interesting trends in the past year or so is certainly the migration of desktop applications to online versions of the same applications. Google released their web version of the familiar Office suite, including a word processor and spreadsheet, but completely web-based, meaning that it never needs to be installed on your computer. Everything runs in your web browser.

The most recent release in this series, is the the new Google Sites. Seen as a clear competitor to Microsoft’s Sharepoint, Google Sites offers its users a team website publishing service. You can create an intranet portal, team project management page, calendar, share all kinds of documents to name only a few. A”team” does not need to be for work; it could be a school, a classroom or anything that represents a group of people needing to share some common information and communicate through a central location.

Every other Google service, such as Youtube, searching and calendars, is integrated as well so you can use any previous information you entered and can add relevant content more quickly and easily.

The great advantage of a service like this one over a product like Sharepoint is the ease of use and installation. No need for dedicated hardware and no need for a system administrator to manage everything. The users have complete control over what is displayed in your portal and no HTML or coding is required. You can use permissions to determine who has access to what and maintain a certain control.

Depending on the type of solution or portal you need, this may be quite an excellent way to go.

This is perhaps more of interest for the developers out there, but it can be a very nice thing to know about if you are looking for a framework to build a new application. Version 2 was already fairly mature, but this new version removes many bugs and kinks to make for an excellent development platform.

“Adobe Flex is a highly productive, free open source framework for building and maintaining expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops, and operating systems.”

So what this means in english is that you can build an application with Flex, which generates a Flash output. Flash always looks the same from one platform to the other, so you only need to build your application once, no need to re-code or port. The great difference between simply using Flash to build your application is that Flex already contains all the standard “Windows-like” controls we are all used to. Your application, which will run in any browser that supports Flash, can contain windows, data grids, buttons, input boxes, sliders, color pickers, etc… You can take a look at many of the available components here.

Adobe Flex Builder 3 comes in two versions: Standard and Professional. The standard edition includes many new features such as the integrated CSS styling, improved skinning and generates smaller SWF files than before. The professional edition adds the memory and performance profilers and other components like charting and the advanced datagrid.

The Adobe website is the best place to start looking into this product and you can see many sample applications to better understand the possibilities and power of this development platform. There are already a number of big players using Flex on the web and you will be able to see a growing list of these applications on the adobe website.

Adobe Air has also become available during the same launch event. Flex applications can run on any platform whether it’s Windows, Mac or Unix, but still require a Flash capable browser. This is where Adobe Air comes in. With the very same code that you created in Flex, Adobe Air can convert that application to run as a standard desktop application. Your application will not need a browser to run and will have it’s very own window. This extends the reach and usability of applications because they can be taken offline, on the road to keep working. You may need to change a few things to make sure your data gets synchronized when the application comes back online, but that’s a small price to pay to have your application available at startup with all the other ones. Your users would not need to go online to use your application anymore!

The Adobe Flex SDK is free to download and use so you could build complete applications for free, but it’s just so much easier with the Builder!