Features

Clipperz

Details: www.clipperz.com
Type: Registration utility

Remembering the login details for all your favourite websites is never easy. You can set the sites to remember your login details, but that works only if you use the same PC all the time. If you access the site from another computer, you'll have to enter your username and password again. The future of online registration undoubtedly belongs to services such as Open ID (openid.net), which enables you to use a single username and password to access all your favourite websites.

Until then, there's Clipperz. This web tool securely keeps track of all your registration information. It's not just for online data, either - you could also include the code of your locker at the gym, for example.

The system stores your information on cards. You can add details to these manually, but it's easier and more convenient to use the Bookmarklet application to grab login information as you visit sites. Bookmarklet is a one-click tool that contains a script. You can bookmark the application as you would a web page, and run it by selecting it from your Favorites menu. Do this on any site where you want to save your login details, and copy the code that the Bookmarklet generates into the card details on the Clipperz website.

The card's content is encrypted locally, based on a 128-bit encryption algorithm, before it is uploaded to Clipperz. This isn't a service you would want to use to store login details for sites such as online banking. However, when you think about how many sites you visit that require a username and password, it makes sense to keep all this information in one place where you can access it no matter what computer you are using.

Basecamp

Details: www.basecamphq.com
Type: Project management

Although it could never be described as fully featured, 37 Signal's Basecamp is a project management application that thrives because it is so easy to use. As it is web-based, there are no concerns about compatibility or location. Simply add the names of your team members and allocate their access rights when you start a project.

Individual project windows display late and upcoming project milestones above a list of completed tasks. You assign each milestone a due date and a person who's responsible for it. If you need to change a milestone's due date, Basecamp will automatically adjust the date of subsequent milestones to take account of the delay.

Each milestone is assigned to a user. As well as appearing in list form, milestones can appear on a calendar. You can filter the calendar's view to show, for example, forthcoming milestones for all users, or only those that belong to a particular user. You can import the calendar data into an external calendaring application, and subscribe to a project's RSS feed to keep up-to-date with changes.

The application also works as a task manager through to-do lists, which are linked with milestones. When you complete to-do items, Basecamp keeps a record of the date and the person who signed it off.

You can post messages and collaborate on text files. Writeboard, a document editing tool, is included.

Ask Oxford

Details: www.askoxford.com
Type: Dictionary

Ask Oxford is a fantastic free dictionary reference tool. It allows you to search the entire contents of the 145,000-entry Compact Oxford Dictionary, one of the foremost language resources in the world.

This website isn't just a dry point of reference, though. It provides a host of other goodies, such as the intriguing 'word of the day' feature, which will help you bolster your vocabulary with a host of unusual words. But arguably its most illuminating feature is its 'Ask the Expert' section. This answers with equal aplomb common grammatical queries and unreserved trivia, such as an explanation of whether a banana is a fruit or a herb (the answer is both).

The site also includes sound advice on improving your writing style, as well as word games such as crosswords that you can fill in online, and a ludicrously addictive version of Hangman.

1 Zoho Office Suite Details: www.zoho.com Type: Office application Zoho's online Office Suite is one of the most comprehensive online business tools around. While it's not a fully featured alternative to Microsoft Office, it is certainly a worthy replacement for most uses. Along with a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tools, this suite offers a range of elements, from planning programs to chat tools. For features alone, it's well ahead of rivals such as Google Docs & Spreadsheets (www.docs.google.com). Zoho's word-processing application, Writer, can work with Microsoft Word documents, but its main selling point is that it enables you to share documents online with others. It lacks Office's Track Changes feature, but the ability to store and compare document revisions is a good alternative. There are other restrictions, such as a limited font selection, but other features, including a word count, are included. There's no lag when typing, as there can be with other web applications. Zoho Sheet is a polished spreadsheet application that can import and export native Excel files. It has a couple of big advantages over other spreadsheet applications, both offline and online. Multiple people can work on a worksheet simultaneously, and you can synchronise data from websites. Sheet supports live resizing of rows and columns, so any changes you make to them appear onscreen immediately without the need to refresh the browser window. Unlike Google Spreadsheets, Sheet can also import and work with charts. Zoho's presentation tool, Show, lacks PowerPoint's high-end features, such as the ability to rehearse timings or record narrations, and can't yet perform transitions. PowerPoint presentations will lose such effects when imported into Zoho Show, but they will run. The most interesting addition to the suite is Zoho Notebook, a web application that lets you gather different media content on a page, from Writer and Sheet files to songs, images and videos. As with other Zoho elements, two or more people can edit a document at once.

2 ThinkFree Online Details: www.thinkfree.com Type: Office application ThinkFree Online is another Office alternative, although it looks and feels more like its desktop equivalent than Zoho does. ThinkFree calls its main window a webtop. From here you access the word processor, spreadsheet and presentation elements, and it shows recently edited documents for quick access. You can open documents in one of two edit modes. There is a quick edit mode, which loads speedily but lacks most layout tools, and a Java-based Power Edit mode. Power Edit comes with extras, such as access to system fonts and a spellchecker that flags up misspelled words as you type. The word processor, ThinkFree Write, has a word count tool, and handles drop caps and tables. ThinkFree Calc lacks Excel's advanced features such as macro support and pivot tables, but for most tasks it's a good alternative. The presentation tool, Show, is a clunky but otherwise worthy PowerPoint alternative. Some of PowerPoint's features, such as the ability to embed movies in a presentation, are absent. All three modules will open native Office files. ThinkFree is another of the new breed of web application that will have you believing you're using a desktop application. The only hint of its online upbringing is when you're in Power Edit mode, where it can take a few seconds to load each module the first time. It's much faster on subsequent visits, though. One strong feature of ThinkFree, which includes 1GB of web space, is its collaborative tools. You can share documents by email simply by clicking on the Share button at the top of the Edit window. It's also possible to publish documents, assigning them a URL that others can access through their web browser. As with Zoho Office Suite, it is possible for two or more people to edit a document at the same time. ThinkFree isn't a complete replacement for Office. There's no database module for starters. It's free to use but you have to put up with advertisements. However, you can hide the banner ads when editing documents.