Popurls has quickly grown to be one of my favorite websites helping me keep track what’s buzzing around the web. It’s a simple site that aggregates popular social services and websites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Flickr, and more. Each site gets its own area on the page listing the latest items and users can hover over items to get a summary. It’s great because it gives you a quick glimpse at what’s buzzing around the web and beats having to subscribe to all of the sites.

It’s clear people like these kind of sites and Popurls has seemed to start a chain or a class of these sites carrying on the concept. I’m not exactly sure what to call these sites as they are basically one page feed aggregators, but I suppose it’s safe to say they present the links, media, and search in a portal like fashion. So, I am going to call these sites “portals” throughout the post rather then saying, “Single Page Aggregator.” Please, if you know of a better name to call these sites, feel free to add your input.

There are two portals that I check up on numerous times a day: Popurls and Digg View. Popurls for the latest buzz and Digg View for an easy to read overview of activity at Digg. Just recently a new portal popped up called Original Signal and Steve Rubel had mentioned in a post on the new portal, “There seems to be a new emerging class of sites like these that aggregate feeds for you.” I started thinking about it and agree that there are quite a bit of these sites now, some covering buzz and others specific topics, and so I decided to take a look around and see what I can find.

After compiling a list of portals, I grouped them into categories and decided to share them with you. Hopefully there will be at least one that will be of interest to you. You can find in my list of portals: Tracking Buzz and News (Digg, Del.icio.us, etc.), Tracking Web 2.0, Specialty Topics (Gaming, Tech Deals, Apple, etc.), Design Related News and Showcase, Media Aggregators, Build Your Own, and lastly, Tag Search Engines.

My Two Top Picks

Popurls: Most of you are probably familiar with this one. Popurls has the goal of bringing you the latest buzz around the web aggregating popular social services and websites and display them all on one page. Viewers can view popular headlines from sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Newsvine, and TailRank as well as keep up on media from Flickr, Youtube, Odeo, iFilm, and more. If your trying to find what’s new and buzzing on the web, Popurls is the place to be and most definitely takes place on my Firefox toolbar.

Digg View: I’m a big fan of Digg and try to keep up with the latest popular headlines as much as possible. I come across many helpful articles because of Digg relating to Web 2.0, web programming, database optimization, and other tech related topics, but I also use Digg to keep up with videos and gaming. However, rather then using Digg’s website to track popular headlines, I use Digg View. Digg View offers a one page overview of the seven Digg categories showing popular headlines during different time-frames of the day. The site makes it very easy to keep up with what’s popular on Digg and also marks stories that you haven’t seen in orange. I love it. I sit here all day refreshing the page over and over waiting for new orange headlines to appear so I can view the latest popular story on Digg.

Tracking Buzz (What’s Hot) and News

The following portals include the latest popular links and news from various social bookmarking sites, blogs, and news sources. You can expect to see these portals aggregating sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit. Personally, I’ll be sticking with Popurls, but maybe you prefer different.

• TheWebList: “A digest of the latest links other web users are visiting right now!” It’s basically the same thing as Popurls, but without the media. It provides bookmarking and search options and summaries when hovering headlines.
• popfeeds: popfeeds is a very clean and simple overview of popular feeds. If it weren’t for Popurls, this would probably be the one I would use because it’s very fast loading and gets straight to the point.
• ViralBabble: Although it isn’t all that pretty, one feature that I like about ViralBabble is archiving. Navigating to the bottom of the page will be a link to an archive section where you can actually view snapshots of previous days. So if you were out of the house yesterday and wanted to see what was buzzing, you can easily do so with ViralBabble.
• PopFeedo: By the makers of Feedo Style and powered by Feedo Style, PopFeedo aggregates and displays six popular feeds including Digg, Del.icio.us, Wired Technology, Reddit, Slashdot, and Yahoo’s Top News.
• 01b (Source): I probably shouldn’t be mentioning this one as it will probably be shutting down any day now, but 01b is Thomas Marben’s first creation that aggregates sites similar to his now popular, Popurls. Except this one aggregates a whole lot more sources, some in German.

Specialty Topics

You may be thinking, “Alright, why are you writing a post about these portals? Don’t they all show the same thing?” No! There are actually portals built for specific topics, such as gaming and photography. If you have an interest in a certain topic, maybe one of these can help you stay on top of relating news. If not, head down to the “Build Your Own,” area of this post.

• WiiNintendo: Nintendo fans, this one is for you. Excited about the new Nintendo Wii? If so, bookmark WiiNintendo to keep up with the latest news from Nintendo, The Wiire, Joystiq, and 1UP as well as videos on Wii from YouTube.
• Mashfot: Mashfot is all about photography. With Mashfot, users can find the latest news and popular links relating to photography and view the latest photographs from various photo sharing websites. View photos from Flickr and 23, news from Digg and Blogs, and links from Del.icious and Blinklist.
• PopDeal: Here is one for all of you tech-savvy individuals that want to save a buck or two on tech hardware. PopDeals brings you the latest tech deals from around the web by aggregating numerous websites specifically meant for deals on products, including DealNews, TechBargains, DealCatcher, and more.
• Don’t Meet Your Heroes: “Compilation of CSS and Web Standards related resources and news feeds from sources around the net.” The site claims to aggregate CSS and Web Standard sites only, although you will see a mix of other sources relating to Web 2.0, programming, Ajax, and more. Nice and simple page.
• xmlhttprequest: If you are a web developer, you can probably guess what this portal is about. Yes, Ajax. Find links to websites and news relating to developing with Ajax, keep up with sites like Ajaxian and ThinkVitamin, and keep up with Google’s JavaScript Newsgroup.
• MacScour: By the makers of Don’t Meet Your Heroes, MacScour scours the web for Apple news and Mac software updates. Keep up with latest news, software updates, rumors, reviews, and more.
• BozPages: Alex Bosworth of SourceLabs has created a neat site that basically allows you to make your own Popurls like page, or as he calls them, “simple one-off pages of RSS feeds.” He also provides some that he has created that aggregates feeds relating to Gaming, Web 2.0, Movies, Ajax, Google, and more. Only problem is that the pages seem to run a bit slow at times.
• Update: Original Signal Gadgets: Just as I published this post, Original Signal has created another site built to aggregate gadget related sites. The site includes Gizmondo, Engadget, CNET’s Gadget Blog, CrunchGear, and more.

Tracking Web 2.0

You’ve probably guessed this category was coming. The following portals aggregate blogs covering Web 2.0. If you like keeping up with all the new startups and products but don’t like subscribing to so many feeds, you may want to keep track of one of these sites. My personal favorite is Original Signal.

• Original Signal: Launched this month, Original Signal aggregates 15 Web 2.0 blogs showing recent posts and summaries. What’s also neat is that if you have visited the site before, new posts will stand out in bold the next time you visit. Original Signal is also by the makers of Digg View.
• Web 2.0 Workgroup: The Web 2.0 Workgroup is a small network of sites covering Web 2.0, which thankfully Solution Watch is a part of, and has a main page that displays each site aggregating three latest posts.
• Web 2.0 Reference: Web 2.0 Reference aggregates feeds relating to Web 2.0 and organizes them neatly on one page where you can sort them by Source or Category.

Design Related News and Showcase

Even though I am a web programmer, I’m definitely a sucker for anything design. I’ve known about a couple of these portals, but I grabbed my brother, Tim Benzinger, who is a graphic designer (also designed this blog), and had him help me gather some more for you.

• Most Inspired: Need inspiration? Check out Most Inspired, a portal that aggregates design galleries and showcases designs by hovering over each headline. I can spend my whole day on this site looking through all of the excellent design work.
• Enure Feeds: Enure includes feeds from popular design sites including k10k, lounge72, australian INfront, News Today, and more. Enure does not necessarily aggregate its sources but includes them using iframes. Nevertheless, it’s a nice portal that has some high profile design sources.
• Design Feeds: Design Feeds is a new one to me and I love it. It has many sources displayed in iframes, some that are galleries with visuals, others that are news relating to design and web development. The owner did a nice job at aggregating each source in individual frames styled to the sources appearance. I’m sure any designer can appreciate this site.
• Linkgrab: Linkgrab is a simple site that allows you to pick three design related websites and retrieve links from each. You can change the feeds at anytime and keep checking back. It would be nice if it allowed you to display more then three on a page.

Media Aggregators

For those of you that are interested in keeping up with popular videos, these portals may be for you. They are one page sites that display popular videos, with thumbnails, from video sharing sites. Warning, it is easy to waste hours of your free time watching videos ;-).

• The Internet TV Charts: “The Internet TV charts tracks the most popular online video clips each week from four leading Internet TV sites. All the best video clips, on one page.” Simple site showing popular Google and YouTube videos as well as links to Digg (video topic) and Videosift.
• vdiddy: Neat site that allows you to view videos from 12 different video sources. You can select a site and then watch the videos directly in vdiddy.
• Magg: Created with recently launched Dapper, Magg aggregates the latest and greatest movies from various video sharing sites. You can also search through the aggregated sites for videos.

Build Your Own!

Haven’t found any portals that caught your interest? Then build your own! I have three methods for you. You can use services offering one page aggregators, use your favorite start page site (ie: Netvibes), or use a simple Tag Search site and bookmark it for later reference.

• One Page Aggregators: I know of two services that can help you make your own portal in a matter of minutes. The first is SpeedyFeed (Example: Popular) and it basically allows you to import your favorite feeds and have them all displayed on one page in a similar format to Popurls. The second option is BozPages, which I had mentioned earlier. Simply head over to the website and add your favorite feeds to get a one page aggregator.
• Start Pages: You can also make your own by using a start page. I personally like to use Netvibes, but any start page will do. 3spots has an extensive list of start pages worth checking out. Also, if you are a Netvibes user, don’t forget about the Netvibes Ecosystem. You can add tabs on various topics to your account in a single click.
• Tag Search: The last method I am aware of is by using tag search sites. Now, it can’t be just any tag search site (well, it can if you want), but one that allows you to bookmark and retrieve results from multiple sources, preferably blog searches and social services. My favorite one is Newzpile. You can also use TagJag and the recently released, TagFetch. Just make a search, bookmark the page, and check back later for more recent headlines.

That concludes my findings! Hope you have found a portal that interests you. If you know of any other similar sites, feel free to comment below. And again, my two top picks are: Popurls and Digg View. Popurls provides me with more then enough of the latest buzz around the web and Digg View compliments Digg so well making it easy to keep up with popular headlines. If I had to choose a third, I would have to go with Most Inspired because it provides tons of inspirational work to browse through.

Like this article? Digg it!

Qunu is a new service, claimed to be the next-generation in expertise matching, that provides users a free and simple solution to find and give real-time support covering any skill. Anyone can make a search on any skill, whether registered as a user or not, and receive a list of experts that are online at that time and are experienced in that skill. You can then choose an expert and request support using Qunu’s web-based Jabber instant messenger bringing you real-time support. Furthermore, if your not looking for help but would rather help others, you can signup and list your skills so you can appear in the expert listing.

You do not have to register with Qunu, although I recommend doing so just so you can create a profile and obtain your own unique Qunu Jabber ID (mines bbenzinger[at]qunu.com). However, if you have a Jabber account for instant messaging already, you may login with that which will get you setup with the service as well. Lastly, if you decide not to register, that is perfectly fine too because you can freely ask questions to experts as a Qunu Guest.

To start, head to the Qunu alpha site and make a search on any skill (ie: PHP, Photoshop, Linux, etc.). It will then connect to the server and find any available experts that are online in that you can request for support. When the list is returned, you click on the expert name and you will be presented with the experts profile, skill set, and amount of experience for each skill. If the expert seems to match what you’re looking for, click on the “Request live help from this expert” button at the bottom of the profile and the expert will have the option to accept or deny the request. If you did not find someone who you are looking for, you can try filtering through the list of experts by selecting more tags relating to your question on the right of the search results.

If you found an expert and the expert accepted your request for help, an instant message window will popup. The window looks very similar to your basic messaging application, so you should have no problem getting comfortable with it. Chat is Ajax powered and in real-time using the Jabber IM Client. Experts that are logged in can optionally use the Qunu web-based interface to chat or they can use their own Jabber client (supported Jabber Clients). The expert will be given the topic of discussion and then you both just have at it. Say your usual, “Hey” and “How’s it going?”, then ask your question. Remember, the experts are normal people that simply like to help, so just act like you usually would, like speaking to a friend. Also, if you’d like to include more users in your discussion, you can do this simply by clicking on invite on the message window and entering the username of your friend/expert into the text box.

When you have finished your discussion and received your answer (or not), you may save your conversation using the save button and when ready, close the instant message window. Once closed, you will then see a new window appear asking you to answer two questions regarding the expert. You rate the experts level of expertise and you say how nice the expert was when you were discussing things. As of now, I’m not sure if you can view these ratings or not, but I’m sure Qunu is planning to do something with them. If not, maybe this is Qunu’s way of moderating experts making sure they’re actually “experts.” Either way, the questions are optional and I was actually happy to see them.

Overall, I found Qunu to be a unique and helpful system. It’s like a normal instant messaging client, but without the buddy list, and to talk to someone, it’s just a search away. Qunu currently supports Firefox and Internet Explorer with Opera support on it’s way. I had no problems using the interface and everything was pretty straight forward. Also, because of the fact that searching, managing your profile, setting your online status, etc., is all powered by Ajax without redirection, you can still browse the site while having a discussion in an IM window so you won’t mistakingly leave it.

What I like about Qunu so much is that usually if I was in such a need to ask a question, I’d resort to a forum on the topic and wait for a few hours until receiving a reply. With Qunu, it’s support right when I find an expert and in real-time. It definitely saves time! But to answer the question many of you are probably thinking, why would someone be willing to help me, especially when it’s for free? As Qunu says in their FAQ section, “It’s simple. In general, people love to help. They’re doing it already, on forums, email lists and a hundred other places. What we’re doing is giving people a way to help in real time. And get thanked in real time too.” Qunu also says, “It’s community helping community” and I can’t agree more with both statement. Great work, Qunu. I’ll try to help out where I can!

View Qunu Live Support with Web-Based Messaging.

One of the worst things that can happen to a blogger is to wake up one day not only to find that their blog has been down, but to find that their database has been completely erased or corrupted. If your host doesn’t have automated backups or any kind of backup support, your in trouble. Or even worse, what if your host just goes out of business and you lose everything (it’s happened to me before). It’s not uncommon for this to happen and unfortunately not many bloggers know how to backup their blogs or find the time to do it. I try to make backups every now and then for Solution Watch, but it just isn’t enough to please me. Thankfully, BackupMyBlog has taken the initiative to solve this common problem and created a service that will automatically backup your blog everyday at a remote location (two locations, actually) in two different secured servers. BackupMyBlog currently offers 10MB of space and is free only during its beta testing stage. It only backs up databases, although it has been said file backups may be a possibility in the future in an extended plan.

Getting started is very simple, but make sure your blog meets the requirements first. You must have access to the server your blog is hosted on and must support PHP 4.3.0 or later. Your blog’s database also needs to be a MySQL database. If your a WordPress user like myself, everything should be just fine. After confirming your server meets the requirements, you then have to setup BackupMyBlog to backup your database.

You have two options when setting up BackupMyBlog to your server. You can either use their quick and easy Wizard Setup or the Manual Setup. The wizard will take you through a three step process that will ask you for some basic information about your database and FTP. You first enter your FTP information (FTP details will not be saved) and it will display your servers file system. Select the directory where your blog installation exists and it will automatically do the rest for you and upload two files to your server for BackupMyBlog. It’s that simple and your ready to go. However, there was one part that I felt uncomfortable about during this process. When it successfully finds your blogs configuration file, it asks for your MySQL database information, which it should, but what I didn’t really like was how it prefilled all of the MySQL information for me (host, username, password, and database). Maybe it’s just me, but it spooked me a little, specifically because of the password. Anyone else feel the same? Anyways, the manual setup just steps you through making two files that you include in your blogs directory (same files the wizard would setup).

Once everything has been setup, you will be directed back to the management area where you can access your backup history, restore your database from a previous backup, and modify reporting options. Shortly after (around 15 minutes) you will receive your first report, either by RSS feed (available in management area) or by email. Make sure everything looks correct and if there are any problems, submit a support ticket. I haven’t had any issues yet. The history area will show all your database tables and the amount of records in each so you can easily compare differences in the backups, making it easier for you to pick the best date to restore to if your database every does run into problems.

Restoring a database takes only a minute and is a very simple process. If you go into the restore section of BackupMyBlog, you will see a list of your backups sorted by date. Select a backup and then pick a method to restore. You can choose either a PHP script that will perform the database backup for you or an SQL file that you have to run yourself. Either way, you have to download a script and get it on your server, which I much prefer over having a remote service attempt to do it. If you have chosen the PHP script, all you have to do is upload the script to your server and access it. Submit the form when the page loads and all is set. Just make sure to delete the file when you are done so no one can attempt to back it up again.

That’s about all there is to it. I have ran multiple tests and everything seemed to work great without problem. I first setup a fresh installation of WordPress for our company that we hope to blog at soon. I wanted to do a fresh database rather then jumping at Solution Watch and find an error occur, just to be safe. Everything went through perfectly though. I collected a few days worth of backups. Added test posts to the blog here and there and restored the database a couple times. Once I knew things were working well, I have setup BackupMyBlog on Solution Watch and the backups are being made. Hopefully, I wont have to use them, but atleast I have them and don’t have to worry about making backups on my own.

Overall, I found BackupMyBlog to be a great service that can definitely help many bloggers out there. Many servers, especially on shared servers, do have some kind of backup system already, but those of you that don’t may want to look into BackupMyBlog. It would have also made things a whole lot quicker when switching my hosting for Solution Watch to Media Temple. It took some time to get the database over then, but I imagine it would only take a matter of minutes with BackupMyBlog.

BackupMyBlog is a service by Doug Martin who is also the owner of LookLater, one of my favorite bookmarking tools. I could not find a price at BackupMyBlog for when it’s out of the free beta stage, but a post over at Mark Allen’s states that it may be $20/3 months of daily backups. Not bad at all, but no word on official pricing as of yet.

View BackupMyBlog - Automatic Remote Backups for Blogs. (via LookLater)

I admit, I do not use online file management or asset managers for my files. I’m quite comfortable the way I manage them on my computer’s file system. Although, after testing out Fluxiom, a new digital asset manager, I am starting to second think my methods of management and may hang onto Fluxiom. Fluxiom, to me, is basically a glorified online file manager with simple organization techniques, great effects, multiple users, and user and email file sharing. What I like about Fluxiom the most is the sure simplicity of the service. I’ve tried asset managers before and never ended up using them because there would be too many features, all these advanced options, and just things that I do not need. I feel Fluxiom see’s that less is more and gave what their service says it offers, digital asset management. I don’t need much more then that. However, there were a few things here and there that I felt could use some improvement, but lets go over the services offerings first.

Fluxiom’s interface is very pleasing to the eye and gets right to the point, your assets. Appearing much like a basic computer systems folder, you have icons for each file listed one by one in a multiple row fashion with thumnails of graphics shown depending on the file type. You can select multiple files at once with a drag of a box or by using keyboard shortcuts that you normally would use on a computer, easily sort through the files with the real-time search and tag filtering, and you can also use the slider bar on the top right to easily zoom in and out on your files.

Now lets take a step back and discuss the uploading of files for Fluxiom. You can upload any type of file you may have and support is provided for over 100 image formats, including ESP and PSD (Photoshop) files, which will be shown as a thumbnail of the image itself in the manager. Also, when uploading documents like PDF’s and Microsoft Word files, Fluxiom will index the files and can perform full-text searching of their contents so you can easily find what you are looking for (pro and deluxe plans only). Now, the uploading of files is fairly basic allowing you to upload files individually or by uploading a Zip file of multiple files, also allowing you to assign tags to the files. Works great, though I personally feel the upload form needs some improvement. First, I would like to be able to upload multiple files at once without needing to create a zip file on my computer of them. Secondly, it would be nice if we can create tags as well as select tags when adding a file. It is a pain to go to the tags section and add a tag for one file and then upload when it could be as simple as typing in a tag when uploading the file.

Once you’ve got your files uploaded, you will then be able to view all the files in the assets area, which I talked about briefly above. You can sort through your files by tags, allowing you to select one tag or multiple tags at a time by simply clicking on a tag to filter and clicking it again to disable it’s filtering. You can filter files uploaded on the current day or during the last week as well as filter by file type (documents or images), files downloaded, and files shared. Also, as I have said earlier, your files are shown in an interface much like a basic folder on your computer with icons but you may also view the files in a detail list view for making it easier for you when dealing with a large amount of files.

Next, taking a look at the bottom of the Assets section of Fluxiom, you are given some options for managing your files: Edit, preview (if an image format), tag, download, share, delete, and details. What I like about it is that you can perform these options when selecting one or more files so you can easily make changes and view multiple files at once. The above screenshot shows the details option. You simply select a file and it will provide you with some basic information about the file, when it was added, how many times it’s been downloaded, and so on. The preview option will enable if the files that are selected are graphics and when clicking will open up a new window in that you can get a preview of the image. However, there is one thing I think would be a great addition to the preview option. When selecting an image, it will open in a new window at a set size, but I think it would be great if it uses the files dimensions to determine the size of the preview window because as of now it stretches the images. And last option I want to mention is tagging. You simply select the files and click the option and a box will slide up letting you select tags. But like the uploading of files, I would like to have the ability of adding tags while assigning them instead of going to the tags section and making them first.

You can also setup multiple user accounts with Fluxiom, each with set permissions and access priveledges (basic, pro, or deluxe plans only) so multiple users can add and manage files. This turns this asset manager into a great business solution where a coworker can upload files and other workers can easily find and download them, tag, and share. The users section is also nicely laid out and uses some nice effects which makes it very appealing, but at the same time put into good use when it comes to assigning access. To assign access to a member, you simply click on the bottom blocks and drag them on the users account and it will be assigned to them. Probably would be easier to add access while filling out the members information, but it’s nice and different.

Overall, I feel Fluxiom is a great product and is a great solution for companies, although not as much independent users. It is a little pricey, I’ll admit, but if you are are working with a lot of files and need a simple way to manage them, Fluxiom may be what you are looking for. When combined with multiple users and use of tagging, it turns into a very useful system. I am picturing it for Parallel where our work can all be uploaded and tagged by client name and project where our employees can simply login, find, and download all the files they need for a project. Employees can subscribe to an RSS feed to keep up to date on files, can upload and email files to clients, and can download multiple files at once in zip format instead of each file individually. Its storage for companies made simple and can really help keeping organized. I currently use a cluttered file system on Windows and I am definitely thinking about making a switch for work (Fluxiom supports SSL as well for pro and deluxe plans). If you are interested, you can signup to Fluxiom’s free trial, but get your credit card ready because you must have one to test it out. Don’t worry though, you wont get charged if you cancel your subscription by the time the 30 day trial is over. I’m thinking of sticking with it and giving it a try for the company and see how things go. It’s just a lot easier to use then other asset managers I have used to the point where anyone can get in and find value. Nice work to the Wollzelle and congratulations on the launch.

View Fluxiom Digital Assets Manager.

AjaxWrite is a new service offering a free version, of what is being compared to, Microsoft Word. AjaxWrite was released yesterday and was introduced by Michael Robertson who started things off saying, “What if there was alternative for Microsoft Word that would install and open in 6 seconds, read and write Microsoft Word .doc files and run on Macintosh, Microsoft Windows or Linux computers? And oh yeah, it was FREE so consumers didn’t have to pay $499 for Microsoft Office. I’m excited to announce that day is here.” The buzz has been amazing and the service has been having server issues on and off all day because of the amount of attention it has been receiving. But the question remains, can an online word processor really be a threat to a company like Microsoft? Michael Arrington seems to think so, and I agree with him. I agree that Microsoft will probably be creating there own online rendition of Microsoft Word, and it would definitely be wise to. Competition is growing and we now have Writely, ZohoWriter, and now AjaxWrite, all offering the ability to create documents online for free.

AjaxWrite is very simple, but works great. The style feels much like a normal word processor making it comfortable to work with and all of your basic formatting options are present. I feel that the strong point with AjaxWriter though is that you can open and save any Word, RTF, Text, and even PDF documents online without needing any additional software and for free. It is that which seperates it from your usual online WYSIWYG editor. Another feature that I really find helpful is that the documents don’t open in seperate windows, but in seperate tabs. This makes using AjaxWrite very quick and easy.

AjaxWrite is definitely moving things a step further, but it is far from becoming a full fledged word processor. At this point, I am agreeing with Alec Saunders that AjaxWrite is more like an online WordPad that comes free with any Windows installation. Above is a simple comparison of the AjaxWrite interface and Microsoft Word. For the most part, a lot of the basic functionality is there, or atleast of what is visible on the front interface. It lacks features like spell checking, paragraph spacing, object formatting, etc.. In the screenshot, I have opened up an old document from a few months ago (a college paper) in both AjaxWrite and Word. It’s just a simple essay format, but AjaxWrite did have a little trouble with it. To some, this may not be much of a problem, but it wont cut it in the business world just yet. I deal with documents everyday for work and I must see exactly what my boss is to send me and my boss needs to see exactly what I send him they way it should appear. I’ll test around with a few other document types and see how things go. One thing that it’s got Microsoft Word beat on though is the saving as a PDF document (possible on a Mac, but not on Windows without an extension software). It will be interesting to see how it progresses.

Note: AjaxWrite is only compatible with Firefox.

Online Word Processing with AjaxWrite.