Seeing services with the aim of simple database creation online has always struck my interest. Maybe it is because I work with databases everyday, or maybe just because I find them very useful. I have reviewed Dabble DB (very powerful), TracksLife (simple and more personal), tested ZohoCreator, and now there is a new online database service called Lazybase, that is so simple, it only takes a few clicks to get going. What I like about Lazybase is that its uses are endless and just about anyone can use it. It’s not better then Dabble DB and probably isn’t too good of an option if your looking to store sensative information, but it’s aim wasn’t meant to be. It’s aim was allow anyone to go to Lazyweb, instantly create a database by just entering a name, and record data for whatever you may need, whether it be for recording notes, saving a database of members, or maybe even for simple recording of expenses. What’s more is that you can share them with anyone, stick them on your website, subscribe to RSS feeds, and my favorite feature, creating custom bookmarklets to instantly save data on the go. For the most part, it works great, but there are a few things here and there that could use some work. Lets take a look.

As I have said, getting started is very simple. Just go to Lazybase and fill in a database name on the right along with your email (you can also select a pre-created database if you’d like). Click create, and you good to go. No passwords, confirmations, or anything. Just a “secret” URL for managing and another for sharing. Once you are in your database, you will need to create an item, which is how you make a structure for recording specific data. For example, take a look at the above screenshot. I’ve planned to make an item called Bookmarks for saving interesting bookmarks that I come across that I want to share with a friend. So, I filled in the name “Bookmarks” and added fields that I want to record data to when saving a bookmark. Simple enough, but the one thing that I did not like here was that the Name and Keywords field are automatically created and cannot be renamed or even deleted. Sure, both fields are useful, but I would have prefered the option to manage them.

Once you have created an item, you will then be directed to the overview page showing recent data for your items in the database. Under the item you have just created, you will see a link allowing you to add records. You will notice that all fields you have added when creating your item will be present when adding a record, but the fields may very in function. For example, if you have added a date field, you will see a date selection box and if you added a rating field, you will see five stars that you can click to set the rating. Easy enough.

After adding some data into your item, you can then view your data in a nicely organized table with sorting like you see in the above screenshot. Just go to the main page by clicking on your database name at the top and select “view all” in your item’s area. On this page you will also find a link to an RSS feed that you can subscribe to or share with others that will update as you add records to your item. This is great because say you are managing a book club database. Once you add a record or modify a record, anyone subscribed will be notified. You will also see an option on this page that allows you to actually insert your database on your own website that will remain up to date. Lazybase will give you a few lines of Javascript that you just enter into your page and anyone can then keep track of it right through your site. And lastly, If you want to modify or remove a record, just click on the name of the record you want to manage and you will be given the option to either edit or delete the record.

I have gone through all of the basic functionality of Lazybase with you, but there is one feature that I found to be very helpful, although relatively hard to spot at first glance. This feature is the bookmarklet generator. If you are familiar with using bookmarklets for bookmarking, you will probably like this feature because it allows you to generate a bookmarklet just for adding data to any item in your database on the go. Say you are making a listing of contacts and you are recording the contacts name, email, web address, and a basic description. You can easily create a bookmarklet that when viewing any website and then clicking the bookmarklet will automatically add the information to your database. So, lets make a bookmarklet. Browse to the add page of an item. You will see a tiny link above the form that says, “create a bookmarklet,” along side a link for importing excel data. You will then see a page similar to the above screenshot. You will see a list of each field for your item followed by a drop-down list. For each field, you can select if you want to record the title or address of the site you are viewing, or record any selected text on a site when clicking the bookmarklet. To test, I created a simple bookmarklet for my bookmark item that when clicking the bookmarklet will automatically save the sites title, url, and any text that I had selected on the site. I am sure there are many other uses as well that you can think of.

Overall, I like Lazybase for its simplicity, instant database creation, and its unique use of bookmarklets. It gets the job done and anyone can use it. Although, it was a little buggy at times and also lacked of a few features that I feel are too important to not have. Specifically, when adding multiple Yes/No fields to an item, it doesn’t function properly allowing for selection from one field only. Another issue that I had was that the Change/Delete types area under Options, it states you can change an item’s fields. So, I assume this means I can edit the name of a field or remove a field, but you can only add to it. I had a typo in one field and I had to delete the whole item and restart just to get it right. Other then that, everything seemed to work fairly well. One feature that I would love to see is the ability to link or connect one item’s field to another item. For example, If I create an item to store members and the another item to store member data, it would be nice to be able to connect the two. Lazybase is not perfect, but it gets the job done and is a simple solution for anyone in need of basic storing of information.

One more thing. If you wanted to see an example of a shared database, here is my public database with some test data.

Lazybase - Instant Online Databases (via Lifehacker)

Introducing the new Solution Watch!

Please, do not take the following quote too seriously. It is a unique shorthand my brother, Tim Benzinger, enjoys using when sending an email to me that I have ironically learned to understand.

“Brian website have. Designed Tim by have good. Look good. Feel good. Good. I have site now. You have site now. Together, we have site now. Viva site.”
- Tim Benzinger

It is hard to believe that the person that wrote the above words, my brother, has actually created this new design of Solution Watch. The words are from the contents of an email he had sent me upon completing the final concept of the new design. Over the years, Tim has developed this shorthand that very few can understand. I am unfortunately one of them. To help you understand, let me translate it for you:

“Brian website have” actually means that this is the new design for the Solution Watch website. “Designed Tim by have good” is how Tim says, I have designed a site I am sure your readers will love. “Look good. Feel good. Good” means, the site was designed to look good, but also function well. Lastly, he writes, “I have site now. You have site now. Together, we have site now. Viva site.” What he is really trying to say is, long live Solution Watch! You now have a site that I hope everyone will enjoy.

As Tim has said, I do hope everyone likes the new design. Once the design was completed, I used my weekend coding it in Web Standards and them created it into a custom WordPress theme. With this release, it really is a breathe of fresh air for me as the old design was really starting to get on my nerve. The old design wasn’t user friendly, rough on the eyes at times, and didn’t provide the flexibility I was wanting. That’s what I get for whipping it up so quick 10 months ago. I feel this new design solves all of the problems that I had with the old design and more. You will notice the layout is wider, high in contrast, involves more white space, and the wide right column allowed me to fit more content and respects in the sidebar.

Side Notes

Side Notes is a new feature that I am excited to release as well with this new version of Solution Watch. Side Notes will act as a small link blog and just an area that I can make small mentions about something. I can’t wait to get started on it because one of the problems I have is that I feel I have set my own “guidelines” when writing and sometimes things I want to mention don’t meet these “guidelines.” So, I present you, Side Notes, a place I can mention other services, things on my mind, and just overall news that I probably wouldn’t normally write here at Solution Watch. You may grab the Side Notes RSS feed if you’d like to keep track of them, but I am not including it directly in the normal feed because I understand some may not like the mix of posts and side notes.

Full-Text Feeds

While on the topic of RSS feeds, if you are a subscriber, you have probably noticed that Solution Watch now runs full-text feeds. It took a while of convincing to do, but I have finally went through with it after receiving numerous requests. I have always had these two feelings with full-text feeds: Why make my feeds full-text when I know the content can be easily stolen and when I would prefer subscribers to visit my site instead of viewing the content through a feed reader? Well, my feelings have changed and I can say that it really has only been of benefit so far. So, I thank my readers for requesting this and also Scoble for mentioning some benefits of full-text.

Miscellaneous Updates

There have also been various improvements around the site in comparison to the last. First, you will find that the commenting area is now clean and organized, seperating the comments from the trackbacks. At times, things got a bit cluttered and reading actual user commentary just became a task when mixed up with the trackbacks. Also, I have added coComment integration to the site so if you are a member of coComment, it will automatically run and fill in the proper information for the post. Another new feature is the “Extra” tab on the headings of posts. You will find that when you click it, a new box will appear displaying related posts and method of bookmarking to various social bookmarking services (may add more sometime soon).

Designed by PARALLEL?

Glad you asked! You will find that it states “Designed by PARALLEL” in the footer and find logo in the right column. You probably wondering why it says this when I clearly stated above that Tim Benzinger is responsible for the design, so let me explain. Parallel is actually a new creative company that my brother and I, along with a friend, are starting. We specializing in design, usability, and development for websites, print, identity design, and content management. We have been planning on starting this company for years now and the time has finally come. We’ve got big plans for our company, so expect to hear from us again! By the way, if you are in need of some work, head on over to the temporary site and pass us an email.

Thank You and Enjoy!

The past 10 months of Solution Watch’s existence has been excellent and I thank all of you (and the startup companies for giving me something to write about!). I’ve got a lot planned for the future of Solution Watch, so stick around! Also, just a quick thanks to Media Temple for being the best hosting provider I could ever hope for. I switched over from my old host to a dedicated server at Media Temple a few months back and I couldn’t be happier. That about concludes it! Thanks everyone and I hope you like this refresh of Solution Watch!

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.

Zoka, a new site similar to LiveMarks, has been released and is quickly becoming a new favorite of mine. But first, let me explain what LiveMarks is for those of you that don’t know. LiveMarks is a site that lets you watch the activity of del.icio.us in real-time and is a site that I have grown to love and become completely addicted to. Thanks to the creator, Alex Bosworth of Source Labs, it is now a site that many, including myself, visit many times a day watching and waiting for bookmarks from other del.icio.us users to stream in. The site provides a list of popular bookmarks on the left and real-time bookmarks on the right, although at times I have found that I want more with filtering of bookmarks. I want to be able to filter an individual tag and see only those bookmarks associated with that tag to come in.

(Direct link to Zoka)

Introducing, Zoka, a new creation by Alex Bosworth that works much like LiveMarks but with custom “Channels” letting you create, in a way, your own personalized LiveMarks. It is very simple. Just go to Zoka and click on “Join Channel.” Then select an already existing channel or create your own. If you have chosen to view an already existing channel, you should start to see some bookmarks streaming in. You may also join multiple channels, each displaying in a seperate tab along the top of the page. Now, notice how all the bookmarks relate to the topic of the channel you have selected? This is possible because a Channel is actually built off of multiple del.ici.ous feeds for seperate tags that then combines all the associated bookmarks onto the one channels page. For example, maybe you are interested in only seeing bookmarks related to Web 2.0, design, programming, or maybe music. With Zoka, you can easily create any channel, associate any tags with it, and then view a live stream of bookmarks filtered the way you like.

Once you have created a Channel, how do you add tags to it? Just click on the link, “Channel Information” on the right column of a channel page and a new lightbox type window will appear. It will then ask you to add each tag seperately adding a new feed for the channel to syndicate. If tags exist that you would not like in the channel, you can easily remove them from the list shown by clicking on the negative icon next to each tag. One thing that I have noticed was that some channels, usually preexisting (ie: Web2.0), has a password field for when adding and removing tags from a channel. It appears that the channels asking for a password are special channels that are modifiable only by the creator of Zoka, although I am not for certain on that.

One last feature that may not be all that noticeable at first is the channel update notification. Lets say you have created 5 channels. It would be a pain to go through each and every one over and over just to check if new bookmarks have come in, so Zoka makes it easy for you by adding a small line under the channel names along the top. When you view a channel, the line will disappear. If you leave the channel, you will eventually see the line appear again, notifying you that a new bookmark has been shown. Nother major, but very helpful.

That’s about all there is to it and I already love it as I do LiveMarks. There are a few minor adjustments that I think would like though. First, I like how you can create multiple channels in one window and have each syndicate bookmarks simultaneously. Although, I found it annoying how if you close the window and open it again, they are all gone. Now, I would imagine a simple solution to solving this would be to save a session/cookie of each channel the client opens. Then next time the page opens, get the list of channels from the session and open each one. That would make things a whole lot easier and make for a more personalized Zoka page. The next thing I would modify would be to make the “Channel Information” link more visible, maybe like a button or graphic. Also possibly adding another button saying, “Add Tag,” making it easier for one to understand how to add more to a channel. And lastly, some of you may be noticing that not all the Favicons next to the bookmarks appear and show an X graphic instead. Maybe there is a way to tell if the icon exists before displaying the bookmark? If it doesn’t exist, show a default Zoka icon. Other than that, I loved everything about Zoka and am certain it will be a new addiction for myself.

Note: Zoka appears to only work in Firefox and partially Safari at this time. Seems to fail in Internet Explorer. Also just a warning that Zoka and LiveMarks can both be very addicting!

View Channel Del.icio.us Bookmarking Live with Zoka (via LiveMarks).

Lately, I have been testing Gliffy, a service that lets you create diagrams and flow charts online. I applied to beta test months ago and have been excited about it because flow charts, wireframes, and basic diagrams usually are created offline with expensive applications, but Gliffy offers the same basic functionality online using Flash. Not only that but Gliffy is also a collaborative application letting you create a diagram, share it with others, work on it together, and publish when complete. So, I’ve put it to the test, attempted to duplicate some flow charts I’ve come across online, and found that it accomplishes the task of creating diagrams very easily with great results.

First off, I have tested Gliffy by trying to recreate some diagrams that I’ve come across online. The diagram in the above screenshot is my attempted recreation of Poocs.net - The Adventures of Scaling diagram. It appeared to be a nice diagram to try making with Gliffy, so I gave it a shot.

Above is a screenshot of the Gliffy interface. Everything is entirely web-based and built using Flash so you can access and create diagrams anytime, anywhere. I was found it great how the look and feel of the interface is much like a normal offline application, making it very easy for one to get comfortable working with Gliffy. Along the top is the menu and tool selection, on the left are shape and symbol selections that you can use when creating a diagram, and on the right is your properties palette where you can change various options for specific objects and revision selection to view previous versions of a diagram. But the most important area, of course, is the workspace where you create the diagram itself.

Creating a diagram is very simple with Gliffy because of the preset symbols and drag and drop functionality. First, you specify the size of the document in the properties. You can add a background color and activate the grid as well, which helps you line up the objects in the diagram. Next, just click and drag a symbol on the left into the workspace. You can now select it, resize, add a border, drop shadow, background color, and even gradients to the symbol, much like your basic flow chart application. Then add some text using the text tool on the top. Next, just to give you an idea, you can select all the elements on the page and copy/paste to duplicate it. Place them near the other symbol and then select the connector tool, which is the icon on the top that has two points on the ends of a jagged line. You will see that corners will appear on the symbols and you can now click on one corner and draw a line to the other symbol, making a direct connection of the two. Congratulations, you’ve now got a two symbol diagram.

Now, maybe you want to get additional users working with you on a diagram. Simply select Share and then Collaborate from the top menu and send an invite to your friends that you would like to help with the diagram. As they make changes and save, you will see revisions to appear on the right column of Gliffy. You can select each revision, see who made the changes, and go back to any revision at any time if you wanted to start over on a past version. Once you and your collaborators have finished the diagram, publish it. Publishing will actually save your diagram as an image that you can easily pass to your friends. Although I have found that publishing isn’t the best in quality, it does work and allows for multiple shapes and sizes. Also, when using the dynamic url for the published image, any time a diagram is updated, the image will update as well. To get an example of a published diagram, you may take a look at the published test diagram I worked on.

Overall, Gliffy was not only very helpful for creating diagrams, but I also found it being a lot of fun to use. You get all of your basic functionality that you would in an offline diagram application but with a few extra bonuses like working online collaboratively and dynamic publishing of diagrams. I did run into some issues at times with modifying symbols and I also woudl like to see the connector tool allowing smooth diagonals instead of only straight lines because at times, the lines overlap and get mixed around a bit. For the most part though, everything functioned well and I was able to create some great diagrams and flow charts.

Be sure to checkout the Examples section at the Gliffy website to see what you can accomplish. Some of the diagrams are quite impressive like the above floor plan diagram.

View Gliffy - Draw and Share Diagrams Online.