Gramlee, online grammar check! Take that MSword

Funny I was talking to a friend about this today. Many employer's most common complaint with fresh hires is the lack of decent business writing skills. Despite b-schools focussing a lot on students writing reports, business plans, memo-to-the-CEOs, and case analyses etc., employers everywhere still see that as the single-most deficient skill in incoming graduates. Softwares can only do so much. MSWord grammar check can be the most frustrating, and certainly not correct more than 50% of the time in my opinion. Yes, humans created language, and humans alone know best how to correct any errors therein. Grammar check is one thing, but easy readability is just completely something else. In comes, Gramlee. Real humans editing and correcting your words. One benefit I see right away - no more embarrassment in having a friend edit things for you. You simply submit your written passage, and for a meager amount, an expert on the other end poedits the mistakes, makes it easier to read and passes it back to you in 24 hours. Sweet! Where was this when I was writing my MBA entrance essays! 

On a related note, take a look at this book too. Its been on my to-do list.

Fast Company hops onto the Social Bus

Not sure why I browsed over to FastCompany.com but once there, I was pleasantly surprised by the new features. Fast Company has gone social. It pitches the idea of becoming a part of the business community, exchanging ideas with other readers on business issues, and engaging in activities like blogging, discussing in forums, answering posted questions etc. Its interesting to see how user based content is getting more and more adopted by websites as a strategy for making websites sticky. My take on this is: its a cross between Blogger/Wordpress, LinkedIn, a business magazine, discussion forum, and slow servers to host the applications.
Well, give it a try and see for yourself if you see the value. Its still quite new, and my test blog there "What's That Again?" showed up in the Featured Blogs section within minutes. It will be quite interesting to see how this latest social effort is faring in a few months. More updates on this coming soon.

Gmail Mail Fetcher: Another deathly stab at Hotmail

I don't have it yet, and I am not happy about it. Any new feature on Gmail, and me not having it leads to an unhappy situation. But okay ignoring this feeling for the moment, the future holds email bliss for me and others like me. Google is going to be able to fetch other emails, yay!! I was waiting for it to be able to do that, i.e., get other POP3 mail, but I am really curious to see if it actually gets Hotmail and Yahoo even if you are not signed up for the premium POP service in Hotmail or Yahoo. Do you know the answer to this? Please leave a comment below and let us all know! I think it's time for me to stop obsessing about email or Gmail.....but I really wish the Mail Fetcher feature works for Hotmail and Yahoo accounts. Hotmail's spam filter is horrendously incapable of filtering out crap, and Gmail's spam filter is horrendously efficient.
Well, if you have Mail Fetcher in your account, here is how you would set it up. (Thanks Rakesh for letting me know all this)

UPDATE (12-12-06): I know now Gmail mail fetcher wont fetch my Hotmail or Yahoo at least as long as I don't pay Hotmail or Y! for the premium POP3 access. :(

Google + Firefox = Free Music Downloads

In case you ever want to find music on Google and want to download the MP3's or videos for free (and of course, as the author mentions, you own the files for sure, but you still want to download the songs and videos etc) then please follow the instructions on this page: Google + Firefox = Free Music Downloads. I am just simply amazed how people figure these simple tricks out. I tried it and yes, its awesome.

Gmail on the go - super fast Gmail app for your phone

Google says it's new and fast - I say it's absolutely smashing! Made my day yesterday when I was browsing through Techcrunch and found the announcement for Gmail App. Quite frankly, it wasn't something I was waiting for or even expecting Google to come up with....in fact, I had not even thought about a Java app that would do email for me. But for those who are still wondering what this Gmail app is, in short, its a Java app that you download from www.gmail.com/app , install it on your phone, and use Gmail. Why is it better than checking Gmail on your browser you ask? Because its FAST!!! Enough said!
Here's what Google says about it:

Download it once, and start accessing Gmail on your phone with just a click or two. You'll also like it because:

• It has the same Gmail interface you know and love
• Your account stays synchronized whether you access it from your computer or the phone
• You can easily view attachments such as photos, documents and .pdf files

Yes, the last bit, I tried. I could view the text in a PDF file I received as an attachment.