Top ten web applications I use daily
More and more I’m migrating desktop (offline) work to the Internet or the Cloud. I’m still not there, but I hope to be using only web apps in a few years. Technologies like Google Gears and Adobe’s AIR will make it possible to take your online (Internet-based) applications offline. Micro Persuasion wrote a great (but technical) article on how to create your own PPNC (Portable Personal Nerve Center). TechCrunch has two interesting articles on bridging Desktop and Web Applications — see part 1 and part 2. In these articles the author also refers to site-specific browser products like Mozilla’s Prism, Bubbles and Fluid for the Mac. These products allow one to encapsulate a web application into a self contained desktop application. Now for my list of most used web applications.The following is a list of the top ten web applications I use on a daily basis:
- Gmail: I use Apple’s Mail app as my primary email application, however I read all my email into Gmail as a backup and also in case I don’t have my trusty MacBook Pro with me. I use labels and filters to tag each email with the name of the email account.
- Google Reader: I use Google Reader as my primary RSS feed reader. If I use FireFox on the Mac I can also view blog posts offline using Google Gears.
- WordPress: My blogging platform. I think it’s the best.
- Mint.com: I use Mint for my personal finances. After the initial setup it will categorize your transactions while you sleep — cool! Well, actually you still have to do some re-categorization and renaming, however it gets pretty smart after a month or two.
- Del.icio.us: I use this funny-name-that-I-always-misspell site to save and manage my bookmarks.
- Zoho: I started with Zoho CRM, and now use Zoho Creator and Zoho Meeting. Zoho Creator is a great app to quickly develop a simple web application for data capture — EXCEL on steroids. Zoho Meeting is a FREE version of Webex.
- SiteKreator.com: SiteKreator is one of many online website creation tools. I like SiteKreator because of the low monthly fees, professional themes and great support. I hope you’ll agree that my Beyond438 site looks very professional.
- Google Docs: Google Docs is not going to replace MS Office or Apple’s iWork anytime some, however it’s very useful to quickly create and share documents.
- GrandCentral: Google acquired GrandCentral in 2007. Your GrandCentral phone number is positioned as your one phone number for life. It also has very powerful voicemail features.
- DotMac: I use Apple’s .Mac service to host and manage my personal website. Very easy to use and manage your digital life online.
April 9, 2008 update:
See PCWorld’s list of top nine list of online apps.
This is my list. Do you agree? What do you use?
Most influential South African VC – Roelof Botha
Roelof Frederik Botha is a partner at Sequoia Capital, one of the most influential VC firms in the world. Sequoia has the highest rating on TheFunded website of 3.9. Here is his bio from the Sequoia website:
Roelof Botha is a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital focusing on services and software investments. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2003, Roelof served as the Chief Financial Officer of PayPal (EBAY). Earlier, he worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. Roelof is a certified actuary (Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries), and has a BS in Actuarial Science, Economics, and Statistics from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Botha is the grandson of Pik Botha (not to be confused with PW Botha), South Africa’s former minister of foreign affairs. He was born in South Africa and completed his Actuarial Science degree at the University of Cape Town. Botha also graduated with an MBA from the Stanford Business School in 2000. He received 3 MBA awards including the Henry Ford II award for being the top scholar.
Elon Musk, then CEO of Paypal, hired Botha in 2001 and 7 months before Paypal’s IPO he became its CFO. After Paypal’s acquisition by eBay for a cool $1.5bn he joined Sequoia Capital. According to the Mercury News Botha is one of a few VCs to turn its first deal into a billion dollar deal. That’s exactly what Botha did with Sequoia’s small investment in YouTube in 2006. The following SiliconBeat Q&A with Botha provides insight regarding YouTube before the Google acquisition.Botha is #22 on the 2008 Forbes Midas List, moving up one position from 2007. The Midas List chronicles the top deal makers in the world. He is also listed as one of the PayPal Mafia in a 2007 Fortune article.
Here is Kara Swisher’s July 2007 interview with Botha at the Sequioa’s offices on Sand Hill Road:
Botha is involved in the following Sequoia investments:
- Gene Security Network,
- Insider Pages – local business reviews,
- Jawbone – cool bluetooth headset,
- Joost – free online TV,
- Mahalo – handcrafted search (I tried a Roelof Botha search and got this — very cool),
- Meebo – online IM site,
- Searchme.com, – visual search, a la, Apple’s Coverflow,
- ThinkCash, – Short term loans,
- TokBox, – web-based video chat,
- Xceive – Single chip RF-to-baseband transceivers (mmm not I know exactly what they do),
- Xoom, international money transfer service and PayPal competitor,
- Adbrite – online internet ad market place,
- Luxim,
- Green Dot Financial Services, and
- Zappos.com – online shoe store.
Not a lot is known about Botha’s personal life. He is married and has two sons aged 2 and 5 years old. He likes to play chess. Here is his LinkedIn profile.
Little-known facts about South Africa
Juluka is a monthly magazine published in the US and according to its editors: a magazine embracing South Africa and her people. Btw, Juluka is a Zulu word and it means, “sweat”. It is also the name of a well-known South African band led by Johnny Clegg.In the March 2008 on Juluka magazine is a list of interesting and little-known facts about South Africa. Here is a partial list:
- The only street is the world to house 2 Nobel Peace Prize winners is in Soweto. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu both have houses in Vilakazi Street in Soweto.
- South Africa is the 2nd largest exporter of fruit.
- South Africa generates 2/3 of Africa’s electricity and has the cheapest electricity in the world.
- GM South Africa will be the only manufacturing site outside of the US to build the Hummer H3.
Do you know any other interesting facts about South Africa?
What do you want to be remembered for?
I’m sure that you’ve noticed by now that I am a big fan of Guy Kawasaki. I really like his practical, let’s get it done attitude. His Art of the Start book is one of the best business books around.Read it!The last chapter of Guy’s book is on being a Mensch or “What do you want to be remembered for?” You can find a Guy’s post on this here and Joe McCarthy’s counter point here. Guy also contributes to Entrepreneur Magazine and in the March 2008 edition he writes about the same topic.Here are his 5 ways:
- Help people who cannot help you. A mensch helps people who cannot ever return the favor. He doesn’t care if the recipient is rich, famous, or powerful. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t help rich, famous, or powerful people (indeed, they may need the most help), but you shouldn’t help only rich, famous, and powerful people.
- Help without the expectation of return. A mensch helps people without the expectation of return–at least in this life. What’s the payoff? Not that there has to be a payoff, but the payoff is the pure satisfaction of helping others. Nothing more, nothing less.
- Help many people. Menschdom is a numbers game: you should help many people, so you don’t hide your generosity under a bushel. (Of course, not even a mensch can help everyone. To try to do so would mean failing to help anyone.)
- Do the right thing the right way. A mensch always does the right thing the right way. She would never cop an attitude like, “We’re not as bad as Enron.” There is a bright, clear line between right and wrong, and a mensch never crosses that line.
- Pay back society. A mensch realizes that he’s blessed. For example, entrepreneurs are blessed with vision and passion plus the ability to recruit, raise money, and change the world. These blessings come with the obligation to pay back society. The baseline is that we owe something to society–we’re not a doing a favor by paying back society.
It’s the end of your life…what do you want to be remembered for?[amtap book:isbn=1591840562]
21 Top tips for writing a corporate blog
OK, I assume you know that this is Robert Scobler‘s list of 21 tips for writing a corporate blog. It’s called the The Corporate Weblog Manifesto and he wrote it in February 2003. It’s still valid today. You can download the manifesto from changethis.com. Btw, Scrobleizer launched his new channel, ScobleizerTV today. Guy Kawasaki always provides good advice, and here are his tips after 120 days of blogging.Here are the first ten things to consider when you start a corporate blog (according to Scrobleizer):1) Tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth. If your competitor has a product that’s better than yours, link to it. You might as well. We’ll find it anyway.2) Post fast on good news or bad. Someone say something bad about your product? Link to it — before the second or third site does — and answer its claims as best you can. Same if something good comes out about you. It’s all about building long-term trust. The trick to building trust is to show up! If people are saying things about your product and you don’t answer them, that distrust builds. Plus, if people are saying good things about your product, why not help Google find those pages as well?3) Use a human voice. Don’t get corporate lawyers and PR professionals to cleanse your speech. We can tell, believe me. Plus, you’ll be too slow. If you’re the last one to post, the joke is on you!4) Make sure you support the latest software/web/human standards. If you don’t know what the W3C is, find out. If you don’t know what RSS feeds are, find out. If you don’t know what weblogs.com is, find out. If you don’t know how Google works, find out.5) Have a thick skin. Even if you have Bill Gates’ favorite product people will say bad things about it. That’s part of the process. Don’t try to write a corporate weblog unless you can answer all questions — good and bad — professionally, quickly, and nicely.6) Don’t ignore Slashdot.7) Talk to the grassroots first. Why? Because the main-stream press is cruising weblogs looking for stories and looking for people to use in quotes. If a mainstream reporter can’t find anyone who knows anything about a story, he/she will write a story that looks like a press release instead of something trustworthy. People trust stories that have quotes from many sources. They don’t trust press releases.8) If you screw up, acknowledge it. Fast. And give us a plan for how you’ll unscrew things. Then deliver on your promises.9) Underpromise and over deliver. If you’re going to ship on March 1, say you won’t ship until March 15. Folks will start to trust you if you behave this way. Look at Disneyland. When you’re standing in line you trust their signs. Why? Because the line always goes faster than its says it will (their signs are engineered to say that a line will take about 15% longer than it really will).10) If Doc Searls says it or writes it, believe it. Live it. Enough said.
Free How-to guides for implementing SAP HCM
Nov 2010 update: If you a consultant or consulting manager then check out my iPhone app to calculate consulting rates.Today I stumbled upon Sylvia Chaudoir‘s SAP HCM Expertise website. Sylvia is an ex-SAP HCM Consulting manager and she’s always been very willing to assist others. She’s presenting at the HR2008 conference in Orlando and you can meet her at “Meet the experts”. You can click on the Publications link to get a number of very useful guides to implement and maintain the SAP HCM system.Here are some other resources that you may find useful. Most of these resources are free:
- SearchSAP.com (free): This site has a wealth of information including many articles on the SAP HR/HCM module.
- SAP’s SDN portal (free): Loads of useful implementation information and forums.
- SAP Help Portal (free): This is SAP’s official help documentation portal. Here is the link to the SAP Best Practices for HCM (US version).
- SAP Business Maps (free): SAP Business process/solution maps are very useful as high-level overviews of the SAP solution. You will find the SAP ERP map here and a 2004 HCM map here.
- AdManus (free): AdManus is a group of german SAP HCM consulting companies. The site contains a lot of tips and tricks especially their newsletters archive.
- SAP HR/HCM – one stop resource (free): This blog is not well maintained and contains numerous ads and bad CSS formating. Not too sure if I should list this one…you decide. [Aug 28, ’08 update: Lost of good changes. Clean CSS and less intrusive ads.]
- MIT SAP HR-Payroll project notes (free): These notes are from 2000, however some of it may still be relevant.
- SAPDrill ($$): Self-study materials for SAP in general and SAP HCM.
- HR Expert ($$): Excellent HCM reviewed content. It is pricey, between $895 and $1,295 for an annual subscription. You can download a free sample here.
- SAP HR2008 ($$): This is an excellent conference to network and gain practical knowledge of the SAP HCM system.
- SAP PRESS books ($$): SAP PRESS publishes many books on SAP HCM. They are typically around $7+shipping.
- Blogs (free): I listed a few in a 2007 post.
- HCM Consulting companies (free :-): Some SAP HCM Consulting companies provide free information on their websites, however you’ll usually have to pay steep hourly rates for the good stuff.
- SAP Solution browser tool (free): Browse all the latest and greatest from SAP.
If you know of a good resource that I missed please post a comment.
Hasso Plattner (ex-SAP CEO) Ventures launches $45mm VC fund in South Africa
I’ve mentioned Hasso Plattner a number of times in my blog. He is the colorful co-founder and former CEO of SAP AG. He is also the father of SAP’s client-server 3-tiered product called R/3.This week Hasso Plattner launch HP Ventures Africa (Hasso Plattner — not to be confused with Hewlett Packard) in Cape Town, South Africa. Vendorprisey mentioned it in his blog. HPV is also active in Europe. Jeff Nolan used to work for SAP Ventures and he had blogged about his first meeting with Hasso Plattner.I quote from this week’s BusinessWeek article:
Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa will be targeted mainly at companies in telecom, mobile applications, media, software, renewable energy, and energy-saving technologies.
and from the SAgoodnews.co.za website:
A new R350 million venture capital fund has been launched to give innovators in South Africa a leg up into the global technology arena.The Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa, named after the co-founder of software giant SAP, aims to invest in and manage a portfolio of investments that have a unique innovative offering either based on the business model, product offering or underlying technology.Focusing predominantly on activities in South Africa and later in other emerging African markets, the technology investments will concentrate on telecommunications, mobile applications, media and software as well as clean technology investments such as renewable energy, energy-saving concepts and similar business segments in early stages of their development.Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa aims to identify companies that have the potential to succeed on an international level and will provide access to an international network of leading companies, venture capital firms and institutions in the technology arena, according to Andrea Böhmert, who is going to head the fund.”In the past SA technology companies have found it almost impossible to get funding from international groups outside of South Africa,” said Böhmert.“All start up businesses know, that it is extremely important not only to get investment funding but also assistance in accessing global markets. This is where our fund can score. Prof. Plattner and co-funders MAN Ferrostaal will be able to `open doors´ for start ups that would never be accessible otherwise across the IT industry as well as in the industrial solutions sector.”
C|Net talks about the fund’s Green focus.And finally you can click here, to submit a proposal to the Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa Fund. Good luck!
Youtube for documents
OM Malik’s post on Scribd’s iPaper prompted me to try this service and so far I am very intrigued by the possibilities. It’s easy to sign up and the viewer works great. Here is NOT an example of an embedded document. I couldn’t get it to work on my blog (It may be an issue with my template…any suggestions why it’s not working?).It works great on my website, Beyond438.com.While doing research for this post I found that Techcrunch has a lot to say about Scribd and similar technologies including: Docstoc, and edocr.Issuu is a Danish company with a VERY cool pdf viewer. This one also messes with my blog layout (I think I have a problem with my blog template). See an example here on my website, Beyond438.com (scroll to the bottom of the page). Seems like Scoble and Webware both got this story before Techcrunch. Funny!Scribd and Issuu are two tools and sources that I’m adding to my Entrepreneurs JIT toolkit.
The 2007 A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index
In my previous post I documented South Africa’s Ease of doing business rating. The A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index (GSLI) compares 50 global offshore locations and it contains very interesting information about different offshore and nearshore locations. You can download the pdf here. Quoted from the A.T.Kearney website:
Findings in the 2007 A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index reveal that the relative cost advantage of the leading offshore destinations has declined almost universally. Nearly every country in the Index, even those that fell in the rankings, improved their absolute scores, thus confirming that competition among low-cost countries is intensifying. Increasingly, simply maintaining current performance levels is no longer sufficient for countries that want to attract (and retain) the fast-growing remote services business. In addition, this year’s findings suggest that while the wage advantage of offshore locations will continue for 20 or more years, this advantage will diminish as demand for skilled workers increases in offshore locations around the globe.
In 2007 South Africa is ranked # 31 (moving up a few places since 2005), behind Ghana, Lithuania and Pakistan. Here is the top ten:
- India
- China
- Malaysia
- Thailand
- Brazil
- Indonesia
- Chile
- Phillipines
- Bulgaria
- Mexico.
Interesting reading. I don’t think anyone uses this for real decision making.
It’s easier to do business in Saudi Arabia than in South Africa
The World Bank has very interesting indicators regarding doing business in different countries. Use this interactive Google Map to slice and dice indicators like Starting a Business, Taxes, Dealing with licenses and much more.The top ten countries according to the World Bank regarding “Ease of Doing Business Rank” are:
- Singapore
- New Zealand
- US
- Hong Kong
- Denmark
- UK
- Canada
- Ireland
- Australia
- Iceland
…and South Africa is ranked 35 behind Saudi Arabia at number 23.Update 2/20/2008: I also found the World Economic Forum‘s Global Competiveness Report for 2007-2008. On this list South Africa is #44 and Saudi Arabia is number 35.What’s your view on this?
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