Ajax Girl

Time Management as a distributed concept is not new, from long corporate training days with free lunches (the lunch often being the highlight) through to earlier software packages, and even through to today, with a wealth of Web 2.0 options focusing on providing the user with the tools to better manage their own time and that of team members.

Whilst I’ve been a user of a number of packages over the years, notably Basecamp more recently, the structure of these offerings are mostly reliant on manual user input: in the pursuit of more efficiently managing your own time you’re actually using this time to input what you are doing, and in my case thats often only resulted in one thing: that I don’t have enough time to input the data and use the time or project management tool.

Seattle based Rescue Time actually tackles the issue of having to input data into a time management tool for the time poor head on by offering a web based personal time management service that takes its input via software that tracks what you are doing on your computer at any given time, then uploads the data to the service for later review.

Tony Wright from Rescue Time, now on his third startup, having sold Jobby to Jobster in 2006, told me that core mission of Rescue Time is to allow information workers to understand how they spend their time in an easy way. “We feel that the knowledge of how you spend your time will make you more productive and will nudge you in the direction of spending your time more deliberately and thoughtfully”.

He asks a very good rhetorical question, one I know many readers will relate to: “Every information worker has finished a day saying, “Where the heck did my day go? I got a lot less done than I thought!”, Rescue Time gives users the ability to understand where the day went.

The service is more than just activity tracking. Goal setting is built in with the ability for the system to send alerts, both based on excessive use defined by a user in one area, or conversely improved use, for example if I was spending too much time browsing Fark one week, and the next week that time dropped, an automated pat on the back can be generated.

Collaboratively, users are able to compare their time management skills with others, for example developers might like to see how they compare on average with other developers.

Whilst I find personal interest in the individual time tracking functionality, Rescue Time also comes in a corporate flavor: RescueTime for Groups and Business. The tracking software can be rolled out across a business or team with data centralized for group tracking. It sounds a little Big Brotherish, however I’m told that focus is not to track individual time usage, but overall team tracking, a good tool in being able to measure work place policies and even Change Management by providing feedback to Management on the net affect of their business decisions.

The backend runs on Ruby on Rails and SQL, with an open API platform currently in development. The site is currently in closed Alpha testing but will be open to the public later this month.

As a business idea, it makes a lot of sense. The promise that technology will make our lives easier has never held true, most of us are more time poor than ever before and the marketplace reflects this: site such as LifeHacker gain their popularity off the back of a global desire to be able to do things more efficiently, simply and better. Rescue Time holds a great deal of promise in becoming a must have tool in the never ending quest to better manage our time.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114286659/

Rumors surfaced today that Google is in discussions to acquire job search engine Simply Hired. Trip Chowdry, a research analyst at Global Equity Research first spoke about it, and the story was then picked up by Alarm:Clock.

I spoke with Simply Hired president Dion Lim, who confirmed that there is “lots of interest in us” from a number of parties but would not comment directly on the rumored deal.

Simply Hired recently raised $13.5 million from NewsCorp on a rumored sub-$40 million post money valuation. The company has raised a total of $17.7 million. Lim says that NewsCorp cannot block a third party acquisition.

Simply Hired competes directly with Indeed, another job search engine funded partially by the New York Times.

Comscore suggests that Indeed is much larger than Simply Hired, with 2.3 million monthly uniques v. Simply Hired’s 500,000. However, traffic from Simply Hired’s two main distribution deals, with MySpace and LinkedIn, are not reflected in Comscore traffic numbers. Chart is below.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114262095/

I just want to make it clear that we didn’t really acquire FuckedCompany last month. It was just an April Fools joke. I thought making statements like “there just isn’t anything left to invent” would be a sign that we weren’t serious, but we continue to get emails asking how the deal is coming along, and today we noticed that the merger is starting to pop up in various legitimate venture database like VentureDeal (see below).

A few days after the “announcement” I updated the post with a clear statement that it was a joke, but it was missed by some people. Thus the need for an additional clarification.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114244172/

If you’re like most people, you’ve probably had your fair share of bad managers and misdirected corporate initiatives, leading to grumbling around the office. It’s hard to tell the person signing your check that their the problem and not all of us can garner the same press attention as Brad Garlinghouse’s Peanut Butter memo.

Y Combinator startup OverHear.us wants to change that by providing a company specific anonymous forum for employees to dish the straight dope on what they really think about those TPS reports. OverHear.us creates company specific forums based on their email’s domain name, and yes that means there can be a company forum where you can bitch about Gmail. You sign up by just entering your email address, which send you a verification link to assure you’re the addresses owner. This also means you can invite coworkers by just entering their addresses. Once verified, you can stay logged in via cookie, or sign up for an account user name and password to manage your activity for multiple corporate domains.

The message boards are dead simple. You’re allowed to post to and read the threaded message board corresponding to your domain. No user ids are stored with the messages, even for internal purposes. They hope the anonymity will make people more at home airing their real concerns and frustrations. Since anonymity can also lead to abuse, the boards are also community moderated. Users to vote comments and threads up and down the list, the idea being that the cream will rise to the top.

OverHear.us sees a business model hidden in all this muck raking. Aside from being a useful source for HR departments and management at large, they think management will also like to clear the air about misconceptions or react to criticism. By buying an account (price TBA), your corporate overlords won’t be able to moderate the board, but buy a privileged spot for their posts, moving them to the top and having them specially highlighted for easy reading.

OverHear.us is currently angel funded and a product of the same team that made a similar site for posting secrets called SocialMoth. There is an existing company in this space called Anonymous Employee.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114246374/

After a frenzied morning of hype and speculation around a rumored $50 billion merger between Microsoft and Yahoo, the WSJ is now saying (its fifth article today on the topic) that the deal isn’t happening, largely because of Yahoo disinterest. The article also contains good comparison stats of the three companies:

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114235001/

Yellow Bot is a local search solution that cries Web 2.0.

You have map mashups everywhere, including on the search results.

The project makes a heavy use of Ajax technologies. View source to see YUI, jQuery, thickbox, and much much more.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/yellow-bot-local-search

Ira Glass on Storytelling

This American Life host explains how to weave a good yarn.

Twittered director’s commentary

“Drive” director Greg Yaitanes twitters live director’s commentary during show. Sample entry: “bad directing moment: shuttle is taking off and no one is watching it as alex runs away.”

The small-is-beautiful movement

“Our society’s been based on excess for so long, it’s still a somewhat novel idea to live simply…I can’t say what the definition of a small house is. Maybe it’s 4,000 square feet, if that’s what it takes to suit their needs. The idea is that the house is being well-used. Some people need more space than others.”

Work-for-hire model broken?

Jim Coudal: “We don’t think that is a particularly equitable way to do our business. The whole work-for-hire thing in design and advertising, where the client owns everything outright, is a broken model.”

Wikipedia popularity soaring

“Eight percent of American Web users visited Wikipedia during a typical day this winter—a higher proportion than those who made an online purchase, visited a dating site or chat room during a typical day…Wikipedia isn’t replacing the professionals; it’s just quickly and efficiently harnessing their work.”

Tips on raising money for a startup

“The business of getting funded is only about the business you’re trying to build and nothing more…Don’t confuse perseverance and a poor plan…Go as far as you can as fast as you can before you raise your first dollar…Raising money is about people not money.”

PeepCode "Javascript with Prototype.js" screencast

“The Prototype.js library makes Javascript nearly painless. It extends native objects with extra functionality and makes it easy to organize your code or even extend built-in objects. This 90 minute screencast shows you the basics of Javascript and walks through a few simple

Matt Haughey's Fortuitous

“I’m a hobbyist turned designer turned developer that eventually got to quit my day job and support myself with my projects. Along the way, my business life has gotten increasingly complicated and I’ve had to spend hours researching accounting, the law, and usage patterns on my sites. I intend to post a new essay about some aspect of my experiences every Monday.”

Coda not so hot?

“It’s like buying your dream car, only to find out that the seats are kind of uncomfortable and there’s no heater. Coda comes so close to being great that its shortcomings are especially annoying. Having tried this way of working, I’m loath to return to having four apps open all the time – and yet I keep running into issues that irritate me almost enough to give it up.”

Pro retouching goes mainstream

“Now, Web sites are selling professional retouching services. For $20 to $200 or more, anyone can get a tighter stomach, smoother skin and brighter teeth — at least in an image.”

Digital hardware usually comes with shitty software

“Why is the software that ships with digital hardware so frequently bad? When you buy a scanner or a printer, for instance, the software included in the box that allows you to interface with that hardware is, virtually without exception, some of the most poorly designed and difficult to be found anywhere.”

Interview with Seth Godin

“Microsoft ‘quit’ the MP3 player market when they identified the wrong Dip. They picked the obvious, ‘safe’ one—the one committees of people could live with, but one that is so big and so steep that even Microsoft doesn’t have the money to get through it. Microsoft has a long history of sticking through Dips, and a long history of quitting dead ends. I have no idea what they’re thinking when it comes to the Zune, but it’s a dead end, through and through.”

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/406-sunspots-the-perseverance-edition

The NY Post has the exclusive story this morning: Microsoft has once again approached Yahoo!, asking the Sunnyvale based search portal and content destination to come to the table and negotiate a friendly takeover by Microsoft.

The same report values Yahoo! at $50 billion; the interest by Microsoft is said to be serious to the point that world renowned bankers Goldman Sachs are advising Microsoft on the deal.

If the deal comes to fruition, the takeover would be one of the largest corporate takeovers in American corporate history, and likely the largest ever in the Tech sector.

It’s also interesting to observe the continued attempts by the any one but Google crowd attempts to win marketshare, from Ask’s bizarre viral marketing efforts (The Algorithm advertises above urinals), country specific deals such as Testra’s tie up with Microsoft’s NineMSN destination in Australia, to even this story now. It certainly is a strange time when Microsoft accuses Google of anti-competitive behaviour one day, then activily seeks to acquire a leading competitor for the sole purpose of trying to compete with Mountain View based uber company the next.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114138942/

Mindframe is a new Ajax framework that builds on top of Prototype and ZParse.

Mindframe is inspired by Adobe Spry, and gives you:

• xml dataset & simple array database
• region binding & controlling
• Data utility methods: sorting, filtering, selection
• drag&drop, trade zones, data export import between regions
• developer API for extensions

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/mindframe-an-adobe-spry-like-ajax-framework

When a large company migrates to open source, it takes time to setup the infrastructure for the project. TIBCO GI 3.4 has been released, and although there are many new features, the most important update is arguably the new home for the product.

The open source home page features the full downloadable source online (SVN and SVN Web), an online bug tracking system (JIRA), and build tools to make it far easier for you to extend GI and create optimized GI libraries for your Ajax application projects.

Download the latest release, or view the releast notes (pdf).

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/tibco-gi-34-open-source-home