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Yesterday, while doing research for hands-free technology (for an article), I discovered that Windows 7 had a speech recognition feature — hidden away in the Control Panel. I tried dictating that article last night and decided that: 1.) the future rocks and 2.) we’re not there yet.

Combining that with Qwiki, will I get one step closer to the future? Here’s the bad video version: (the onscreen actions were performed while both my hands were holding the camera)

So are we there yet? No. I could see the Windows Speech Recognition helping out disabled people — and people like me who were trained in the “fingers-at-the-home-keys” school of typing would find it more … tedious. Here’s hoping the future catches up.

Qwiki is ridonculous. Seriously — add in voice recognition — and we’re that much closer to talking to our computers. (As Mikko says, add in the Paul Bettany voice and you get your own Jarvis.) Here’s a video explaining what exactly it does:

Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt from Qwiki on Vimeo.

Also, (there’s no point in posting this screenshot but anyway:) here’s a screenshot for the Qwiki entry for Coke: (clicking on the image will lead you to the Qwiki page, but if you’re not in the alpha yet, you may not see it.)

The future rawks.

How hrudu works: here are some of the services I use to make my working life infinitely easier — to note, I currently use Rockmelt as my primary browser — some of these are extensions that are available for both Firefox/Chrome (which makes ‘em compatible in Rockmelt as well).

Dropbox – Because I’ve talked about Dropboxin’ before — switching between a netbook and a laptop is made easier when my documents are all synced in Dropbox. It also helps that the recent v.1.0.10 update just improves upon something that was working great already. Another thing is, it just works. (and face it, sooner or later, storage media will FAIL). Available for Windows, Mac, Linux and mobile devices.

Xmarks – Xmarks syncs my bookmarks EVERYWHERE. Works best on fresh installs of a browser. Available for both Firefox/Chrome.

Boomerang – I use a Gmail account as my primary email (which is great) and having Boomerang give me the ability to schedule when my emails are sent? Useful for friends in different timezones. Available for both Firefox/Chrome.

Rapportive – Since we’re talking about how great Gmail is — a tool which is useful (especially for people in my field) is Rapportive. Whenever you get an email from someone you don’t know — just highlight their email address with the mouse, and in a sidebar, you get rich profile information tied to that email. For example, here’s what shows up when I highlight my own email address in Gmail with Raportive installed:

Googledocs – Great for eliminating email attachments, instant on-the-fly collaboration and mainly a free productivity suite available wherever there’s an internet connection.

HootSuite -Social media dashboard. It works with a lot of other social media services, but I mostly use it to manage multiple Twitter accounts, add scheduled tweets and manage team member collaborations.

Evernote – (Notice how I live in The Cloud, basically?) Evernote is like … Dropbox … for notes. It syncs everywhere and it helps me keep track of meeting notes, it helps me organize my research when I’m writing an article, it allows me to note down catchphrases I come up with, it allows me to save notes for quotes that I like, etc. My favorite thing to do with Evernote is: whenever I have just woekn up and in a half-asleep state, I try to write down the details of a dream I just had, send it to my Evernote email address — then I’ll try to piece that together when I’m fully awake. (Hint: most of the time, it’s gibberish.) Available via the site, the desktop client and on mobile devices.

So there — above are the internet things I currently like. Notice the pattern? These all exist EVERYWHERE as long as there’s an internet connection — get me online and I can get a lot of work done. What about you? Any internet services/habits in your daily productivity routine?

Over the weekend, a cousin asked me to reformat her Asus eeePC 900.  It was the perfect opportunity to try out some netbook OSes in there.  At the top of my curiosity list: Jolicloud.

They’re up to v.1.1 now, I believe, but the ISO download led me to v.1.0.  It certainly puts the ‘net’ in ‘netbook.’  By leveraging existing online services in lieu of localized apps, the lesser-powered netbook feels fresh.  Adding apps is easy — just click the big green button on the upperleft, or type in the app you’re looking for in the search bar.

Most of the apps are more or less bookmarks to the site that provides the service, and adding them to the launcher’s pretty easy.

It requires you to login via Facebook Connect the first time ’round, but after that, the netbook will be available for offline use.  And there’s the thing.  I like Jolicloud, say, if I just want an internet device and everywhere I went had WiFi, but that’s not the case all the time, so most of the apps are going to be unavailable outside WiFi range.  Which is my only concern.  Sometimes, I do want to be offline too, and be able to play some games which aren’t bookmarks to online stuff.

It’s pretty good, and I might try it to resuscitate the dead computers with it.

I am looking forward to the day when we can brag about having the bare minimum of storage on our devices — when all that data is in the cloud.  I’ve geeked out about Dropbox before — and for good reason, it’s making that future ever so closer.

If you look up “dropbox” in the App Store, you’ll find the Dropbox app for iPod Touch/iPhones/iPad.  It allows you to login to your Dropbox account and grab some stuff there, or maybe upload documents or photos to your Dropbox.

For now there’s not much I can do with it — other than being able to show friends that you could access files on your portable device — or maybe upload photos you’ve taken (an option I can’t enjoy, since I’m using a 2nd-gen iPod Touch). Or maybe check if your team’s uploaded a file on the Dropbox.  Until I find an office-suite app that could edit the files I use, I’m sticking to the computer-in-front-of-me for work.

Though there’s still a flaw with accessing your photos on the Dropbox — when trying to save them, it doesn’t download the file, but more or less saves a lower-res(?) version of the previewed image on the iPod.  A little tweak there, maybe copy how the Photobucket app has an option to download the file itself to the device, and we’re set.

The beauty of the thing is, in the future, it can totally be possible for gadgets/mobile devices to sync a person’s data anywhere.  With services like these, we’re getting closer.

Since DROSSEL, the Acer Aspire laptop has been returned here at home, fixed and better than ever, I’ve had to do a burn-in test.  There was the weekend’s worth of StarCraft 2, the downloading, the leaving it on playing movies and, well, for the working week, I’ve decided to use it as my primary workstation for the week.

Since I do need some files from the u230, I’ve had to turn it on/leave it on to copy files through the network, plug-in the USB drive to copy the larger files, and basically have to run back and forth from downstairs (since the u230 is up here in the room) and then back again.

Decided to install Dropbox — which is essentially software that syncs files across computers via online storage.  What’s cool about it is, once installed on a computer, whatever files you “drop” into a specific folder gets synced to an account’s online storage, and then synced yet again if another computer opens that account.  If a computer doesn’t have the software installed, one may still be able to access the files via browser.

This is especially useful for me, the office-less wonder — I can basically do my job from anywhere, with or without the netbook, or the laptop.  As long as there’s internet connection, I have access to my files.  (I have all my current work documents synced in there)

Sharing folders is even easier, just invite someone (via email address) to access a folder and they have permission to view/add files in that folder.

2GB accounts are basically FREE, but when you do certain things, that capacity may increase.  Inviting friends may net you up to 8GB FREE online storage.  Even following the “Getting Started” checklist will give you +250MB more of space.

I am impressed at how easy it is — it replaces my habit of emailing files to myself when I need to print something, or maybe lugging around a USB drive (that I might leave at the internet cafe) only to have certain files available to me.

Imagine the possibilites: drop your work documents in that Dropbox and have access to them at home, or maybe make collaboration with a team easier by providing a universal space for all work asset.  Check out Dropbox!

[UPDATE: This is what it looks like when people sign up:]

Are you using Firefox 3.5 yet?  Ever notice that new Chrome-ish feature?  When dragging and moving tabs (and sometimes when not) and you drag it over or just below the tab bar level, it moves that tab to a new window and closes the tab from the old one?

It’s pretty annoying when it happens unintentionally, and even more so, when the tab you’ve just moved is loading, say, a form, or maybe a buffering video.  As of yet, there’s no option to turn it off — so for now, you’ll just have to settle for this nifty little addon: bug489729.

What it does after install is, it gives you the option to turn off detach tabs.

Just go to Tools > Add-ons > bug489729 > Options and put a click on the “Disable detach tab” checkbox — now you’re all set!  Enjoy!

Two months with Chrome has been … different.  Not that it’d take you two months to realize how important some of the Firefox-only plug-ins are, or that flash video players suck the lifeforce out of your system’s resources with it — its just that you start wishing Chrome was a little more like Firefox, fast, plus the extra added fat of add-ons.

Enter Firefox Minefield — the currently-in-development browser follow-up from Mozilla.  Featuring what is said to be the fastest javascript engine in a browser, (reportedly 10% faster than Chrome!) it gives Firefox a fighting chance against Chrome adopters.  (Competition is healthy.)

The only downside is, it’s still in pre-release, so there’s none of the extra fatty add-ons that you and I hoped for.  So if you’re feeling brave (it is slightly faster than your average firefox, it is a bomb, after all) — get it here.  If you can wait just a bit, might as well look forward to Shiretoko.

Does being add-on-less make browsing faster?  Regardless of which flavor your browser is?

September 30, 2008 – Yahoo! Philippines organized a little introduction for Yahoo!’s Open Strategy (Y!OS) at the National Sports Grill in Greenbelt — with Jojo Anonuevo (General Manager of Yahoo! Philippines), Sau Sheong Chang (Head of Engineering for Yahoo! Southeast Asia) and Andrei Navarro (Yahoo! Open Hack Day 2008 Philippine Representative) heading the discussion.

What is Yahoo! Open Strategy? In a nutshell, Yahoo! Is letting developers see the wires behind some of their services, making APIs/SDKs available directly from them while following OpenSocial standards.

This is in keeping with their “new direction” plan from last year. (From this blog entry: “Deliver open, industry-leading platforms that attract the most publishers and developers.”)

Which is exactly the way to go — we’re now in an age where we don’t refer to sites as ‘websites’ anymore, we’re on a closer first-name basis. (I’ll Digg your YouTubes.) Now that the web is having a more direct impact on user’s lives, it has to be more personal, customizable and social than ever. (Listen to Tom Serling winging it in “August.”)

Plus, since I’ve made the reference: my cousin isn’t merely a developer — much like Josh Sterling from Landshark (search it) — he makes something where yesterday there was nothing.  (Like SOME of the fictional parts in my thesis, back in college.)

So why isn’t there a LARGE developer network here yet? (A la-Silicon Valley?) Maybe I should’ve asked that question. (The answer that excludes money and passion issues.)

As a bonus, I DID get to discuss bits of social media — well, not in front of everyone, but still, that was nice.

[Album here.]

[ABS-CBN News version]