Zoho CRM Goes Enterprise

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The recent release of Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition is a step toward making the software-as-a-service application a good choice for handling sales and customers for a business.

A few of the key features added in this release include SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) security, the ability to manage access and security based on customized user roles, and integration with the Zoho Sheet spreadsheet application.

I was able to take a quick first look at the Enterprise Edition of Zoho CRM and came away impressed with its usability and core feature set. While it may not compete with Salesforce.com and other applications in high-end requirements or the ability to run very large companies, Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition looks to be a valid option for many small and midsize businesses.

Berkman Center for Internet & Society Turns 10

The Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society is about to celebrate its tenth anniversary. What, you don't know about the Berkman Center?

Well, if you don't know about the Berkman Center itself you almost certainly know about some of the major technology initiatives that have sprung from the center, such as Creative Commons and Chilling Effects. And there's also a good chance that you know of some of their noted alumni and current staff, including Lawrence Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain.

I recently had a chance to speak with John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center, law professor at the Harvard Law School and himself a noted cyber law expert (Palfrey is currently finishing up a book on digital natives or what is also called the millennial generation).

We had a chance to speak about some of the past accomplishments of the Center and also look forward to what they think the key issues of the Internet will be in the next ten years.

WordPress 2.5 Is Top Choice for Blogging

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With the recent release of WordPress 2.5, the popular open-source blogging application has greatly improved its already good administration and blogging management interface and has made it much easier for bloggers to add widgets and do extensive customizations of their blogs. That's right, the best blogging platform just got better.

WordPress 2.5 represents the first major overhaul of the administration interface in a long time and while I never hated the old interface, I have to admit that this new one is a major improvement. Based on the improvements in this release, on top of the already very strong capabilities of WordPress, it's become even clearer that for anyone planning to start a new blog or looking to change platforms, WordPress should be the first choice.

To test WordPress 2.5 I launched brand new blogs and also upgraded existing WordPress installations to the new version. For clean installations everything went very smoothly and the blogging platform continued to live up to the promise of its 5-minute installation process.

Searching for More Traffic?

There's a saying in baseball circles that a good manager doesn't win games, but a bad manager can lose games. The idea being that a good manager lays the groundwork to give the players the chance to win, but a bad manager's poor decisions can lead directly to a loss.

Whether you believe this or not, it is still an interesting idea and one that often can be seen in places outside of sports. In fact, there's one thing that I've been covering a lot lately--that definitely hurts when done poorly but can only take you so far when done very well.

This is search engine optimization, or SEO. The main idea behind SEO is that by following certain practices and procedures, a Web site can become highly rated by popular search engines such as Google. This increased search engine visibility will lead to increased Web traffic and increased product sales or advertising revenue.

RIA War Is Brewing

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There's a war brewing on the Web today--a war to decide how Web applications and content will be developed and how users will consume the content of the future Web.

But this isn't the latest round in the browser wars. No, the war I'm talking about is over the RIA (rich Internet application), a type of Web application that can run independently of browsers, can run on any operating system and, in many ways, works like a traditional desktop application.

Of course, RIAs aren't new. They can be traced back to earlier efforts such as Macromedia's Shockwave, Java applets and the ubiquitous Flash format.

But recent developments--including the growth of powerful Web development technologies such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and improved standards support in the latest Web browsers--have boosted RIAs' potential reach and capabilities.

Adobe Media Player Takes Web Video Offline

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If I had to make a list of things that the Internet doesn't need right now, more media players would be high on the list. So when I heard that Adobe had released their very own media player, I have to admit that I was pretty far from being excited.

But while I'm still pretty sure that we don't need more media players, I do have to admit that they may be onto something with the Adobe Media Player 1.0 that was released this week.

The Adobe Media Player is a good example of a rich internet application, in fact, it was built using Adobe's AIR platform. And like all good RIAs the Adobe Media Player is both a desktop and Internet application.

And by far the biggest benefit of the Adobe Media Player is its ability to take online video content and deliver it for offline use. With the Adobe Media Player users can select video content, download it, and then watch it at their leisure at moments when they may not have Internet access, such as when flying.

OK, I know, what's the big deal? You can download any video you want from bittorrent and then watch it offline on any system you want to.

That's true. But for those who want to stay on the legal side of online video, there haven't been many options for offline video viewing.

The Web Can Save Mobile Apps

As someone who mainly goes to technology conferences focused on traditional software and hardware, I found going to the recent CTIA show was a good reminder of how different the mobile world is from the PC and server world, especially when it comes to applications.

For example, say I go to a traditional PC software show, such as LinuxWorld or Macworld. At the conference, I meet with some application vendors. They show me their cool new product and then they say, "Try it out," handing me a disk or USB drive or giving me a URL from which I can download their app. The whole time I have full confidence that their application will run on my systems and software.

Now compare this with some of the meetings I had with mobile application vendors at CTIA. At the show, I met with some vendors who had some very interesting applications. But if I wanted to try them out myself I was out of luck.

Because instead of just saying, "Here you go, it runs on Linux or Mac OSX, have fun testing it," the mobile application vendor says, "Well, to start off our application will only be available on these two carriers, and it will only be offered on new phones and the only way to get it from these initial carriers will be within a special business application package that they are putting together."

So instead of being able to test or use the vendor's application, I, and most potential users and customers of the application, find that the odds are we will never be able to use that specific application.

That Hacker Could Be You

To most people in the technology community "hacker" is a dirty word. Say hacker and most people instantly think of bad guys spreading viruses or breaking into corporate systems and stealing data.

Of course this is completely wrong. In fact, hacker should be a term of respect. But even more importantly, you should be careful about badmouthing hackers. That's because there is a very good chance that you yourself are a hacker.

I know what you're going to say, "Jim, I can't code to save my life. And anytime I take equipment apart I end up breaking it. There is no way that I'm a hacker."

To which I would reply, guess again, hacking skills can extend well beyond the world of technology.

What got me thinking about this was the recent release of a book that I contributed an essay to. "Jack Bauer for President: Terrorism and Politics in 24" is a collection of essays that looks at the television show "24" through a real-world prism. And the essay I contributed was essentially an argument that the character of Jack Bauer is a classic hacker even though his computer technology skills are relatively modest.

And the more I've thought about this topic, the more I've realized that it applies to lots of people and not just fictional characters on TV shows.

Adobe Photoshop Express Not Yet in Focus

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With the release this week of the beta of Photoshop Express, many amateur photographers will be excited about the possibility of having access to a free, Web-based version of the powerful and popular photo-editing tool from Adobe.

But once they try the beta they may find themselves a little less excited. For while Photoshop Express has some value as a quick and dirty tool for editing and sharing photos online, it is even further from being a true online version of Adobe Photoshop than Google Docs is of being a true online version of Microsoft Word.

In fact, the application that the beta of Photoshop Express is most similar to is Google's free Picasa photo editing and management tool. Like Picasa, Photoshop Express provides only very basic editing features, such as cropping, balancing, red eye removal and simple effects.

All of this said, I was still fairly impressed with the beta of Photoshop Express as an online application. Since it's built on Flash and runs in a browser, it will run on most operating systems and in any Web browser.

Facebook Boosts Privacy Controls

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While I was an early adopter of many social networks, over the last year I've found myself using them less and less, and this has applied especially to Facebook.

One of the big problems I've run into with Facebook is that, while my early use was pretty much limited to friends and family, over the last year I've had more and more business and professional contacts wanting to connect over Facebook. This had made me less likely to use Facebook freely, especially when it came to sending out personal information meant for friends but not for business contacts.

My main solution to this issue had been to lock everyone who wasn't a close friend into my limited profile, giving these Facebook contacts only the most minimal view of my Facebook information. But in many ways this is a pretty blunt instrument as it doesn't allow different levels of access for different levels of professional contacts.

But finally Facebook has updated their service to provide greater control over the levels of access one provides to their variety of friends and contacts. Recently it became possible within Facebook to set different privacy controls based on customer created friend lists.