An empire like Google is sure to find itself faced with many admirers, copy cats, and wannabes. Google’s creations are typically forward-thinking and revolutionary (for instance, Google Wave)—it’s only natural that someone would want to try to come up with a bigger, better version of the technology.

SAP (known for providing software such as Business Objects) is working on an application called “Constellation”. Constellation uses some of the principles of Wave to bring the real-time environment to business users for collaboration. One of the features being discussed is the ability to publish collaboration efforts to other platforms such as SharePoint, wikis, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

I read somewhere that the purpose of technology is to “improve the way of life”. I believe this assessment to be true. If you think about any piece of technology—fork, shovel, computer, internet—all of those things are designed to improve life and make it easier. If technology is created with that in mind, why so often do we find that technology companies or IT departments muddy up their processes with unnecessary tasks or too many people involved? Isn’t a large part of technology principles to make life more efficient?

In general, it’s good to have checks and balances in any process. You want to make sure things are done accurately as well as efficiently. Unfortunately, many companies take the checks and balances to the extreme. There is such a thing as “too many cooks in the kitchen”. I’m sure many of you know exactly what I mean. Read the rest of this entry »

We all have a technology toolkit—our “go-to” items, software, or websites that feed our inner geek. For those that don’t believe they have an inner geek: Do you find yourself feeling claustrophobic if you don’t check Twitter 5 times a day? Do you feel naked if you accidentally leave your mobile phone at home (and does it cause you to go back and get it)? These are things that you rely on every day, and yes they feed your inner geek. Here’s a little peak into my technology toolkit and what about the tools make them my “go-to” items. Read the rest of this entry »

If you have a Google Wave account (and you’re like me), you’re obsessed with the app. I’ve been looking for something that I can use to alert me when new waves come in, without having to be glued to the browser. Firefox has solved this issue for me.

They have a Google Wave Add-on that stores your account information and allows you to set how often you want Firefox to check your inbox. When you have a Firefox window open a little Wave icon will show up in the lower right corner of the screen. If a new wave arrives in your inbox, a number will show up next to the Wave icon indicating the number of new waves in your inbox. Genius! Now I don’t have to have Google Wave minimized all day while I’m working on other things.

I recommend downloading the add-on. You’ll be happy you did.

Tuesday morning Waveboard (a Google Wave client) became available for iPhone. Around mid-October the Waveboard crew announced they would be submitting an iPhone app to iTunes that would run Google Wave. Since then I’ve been tracking Waveboard’s movements, hoping the app would soon become available. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when you were a kid and you couldn’t sleep in anticipation of Christmas morning? You would lay in bed, tossing and turning, just hoping that you’d fall asleep so when you opened your eyes it would be morning and would only have felt like moments. That’s exactly how I felt Tuesday night in anticipation of my Google Wave invite.

I woke up in the middle of the night to take my dog outside and I grabbed my phone to check emails (which I usually do). To my surprise – there it was all shiny, bold, and new! A google wave invite just for me! I was ecstatic. Couldn’t wait to get online to check it out. I logged in at 3:30 in the morning (yes some would call that crazy, but I call it excited) and what I found was astonishing.

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