Choosing software to make our lives easier is getting much more complex. Doesn’t make much since, right? Microsoft has always assured us in having an amazing easy suite of applications; Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, etc. All of a sudden, suites start popping up online everywhere. Internet search-giant Google has come to market with a reliable and low cost suite of web-based tools: word processing, spreadsheets, calendar, e-mail, and more, all packaged as Google Apps. There are then the rest of the gang following behind such as Zoho, ThinkFree, and Corel’s new WordPerfect Lightning; not to mention the handful of open-source applications such as OpenOffice and StarOffice. All of these feature the ability to do word processing, spreadsheets, and more. However, which do you choose? What will give you the most for your money or is less really more?

There are pros and cons to each service, but for the money and feature set, I would choose between Google Apps and Office 2007. Basic versions of Google Apps are free and feature-packed, if you don’t mind limited storage capability and customer support. If you want more, there is always the premium option with most service like these. Premium packages cost all of $50 a year.

“Johnson says SF Bay spends about $1,200 a year for Google Apps Premier, a fraction of the roughly $10,000 it would have cost to install software from Microsoft. He says he looked at other Web-based software, but decided Google’s size and reputation makes it the safest bet.”

Google stresses ease of use and downfalls of not using their services: “Sign up and you will never have to face another Microsoft upgrade or crash…” A feature that I like is the ability to access your stuff from any computer with an Internet connection. There are no downloads, backups, or new hardware to deal with.

I have used Google Apps before and love it. It is simple and easy to use. However, being a frequent Office user (Year 2000 and beyond) I have learned and grown accustom to certain keystrokes, tips, tricks, and just so much more comfortable with Office. In addition, if you are not online, Google Apps cannot be used. For a while, I have heard rumors that they are coming out with a desktop application to fix this, but I have yet to see anything yet. Editing Office documents in Google Apps is strictly a cut-and-paste affair. I am not a worrier like some, but I am somewhat concerned with the security. Although stated to be “secure,” I fear anyone is able to read and mess with my documents.

Office is cool, especially Office 2007. I have been using Office since I was in middle school and until this day, find it to be my main application suite. When I purchase a new computer, I also get Office. Office is also available for Mac also, so my Mac is equipped with the Office suite as well. If you gather up your money for the full version of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and run it on a new PC or Mac with at least two gigs of memory and a 1.8 GHz processor, you will be rewarded with an array of features. The really neat thing I love about Office is the ability to integrate with other software on my system. My calendar information can be incorporated into emails (and vice versa) and I can blog on Word and place some statistics from Excel and send over a fax to Tom. There is just a variety of cool things you can do with Office. Just like Google Apps, there are some cons: It can be hard to find why Office’s extensive feature set is the way it is. In Outlook, your “contacts” are different from your “business contacts.” Outlook “lists” sometimes flow into Business Contact Manager, which is annoying. Microsoft does not support Adobe formats such as PDF and Acrobat. In addition, Office is rather pricey, sometimes costing well over $500! They are little things that cause the biggest frustrations sometimes.

So which one? Which will benefit you mostly? I enjoy using both. Each has something I like more or less, but to put it in a different perspective, if money is not an issue and you need to turn out dazzling presentations and spreadsheets, go with Office 2007. If group effort is important to your business and you don’t need to produce slick documents or do complex financial analysis, try the far less expensive Google Apps.

For some, it is a little easier to make that decision due to the popularity of the products. Not many people have heard much of the “Office” alternatives, so Office is first choice. But when these other applications suites start getting bigger and better – and they will – it’ll be a little harder to choose. If Google plans on being the next Office and something worth choosing over Office in most cases, it is clear that they are going to have to woo the millions of Office user out there. With Google’s strong software development team and their dedication, it will not be too long before the decision between the two giants become crystal clear, only reiterating less is actually more.

One of the best parts about writing for the brief is that I get the opportunity to try out all kinds of stuff. Another good part is then if I like it I can say so, and if I don’t like it I can say that too. However there are times when it is a little tough, specially when you look at a site that does almost the same exact thing as other sites out there do. But enough about my personal problems and on to the review.

Ubernote is yet another offering in the task management, note taking website area similar to Remember the Milk and other such sites. However I like these sites, so I like Ubernote as well. Plus it just has a real neat name and the starting of a community, which is actually where the biggest difference exists in Ubernote. It seems that today almost everyone wants to start a website, and more often than not those websites copy another website, but while Ubernote does provide a very similar service to other sites, it has a very active forum area that shows that there is more to Ubernote than its function. If there is a reason to use Ubernote over other similar offerings it is the fact it has a fledgling community. I hope they encourage this community and use it as a way to really make Ubernote a unique place to visit.

I have to admit, I am beginning to wonder if the end of human originality is at an end. I mean every day I look for new and exciting things going on to review and offer to the public at large and for some reason after a while they all begin to look the same. Sure there is the occasional difference in design and occasionally execution, but all in all anymore it seems the internet is full of copy cats, each taking a good idea and trying to use it themselves. Of course this could be just a bit of a thanksgiving hangover that is making me a little on the unenthused side. Whatever the case, I stumbled on Box.net and after looking it over a bit decided it was worth writing up a review on.

The main function of Box.net is to act as a place to store your files online, and by files I mean pretty much any file you want to store be it a pic, a text file, a spreadsheet or even bits of code. Then you can let people who you are working on a project with gain access to the file and they can download it, make changes to it, or simply just read it. While there are a lot of similar services online (google docs, edocr) this site does have some things the others don’t. First with box.net you are not limited to only a few templates as with google docs, and others can make changes to the files unlike edocr. Second it is fairly easy for almost anyone to use and figure out considering that if you want to modify a file you simply download the file make changes on it in its native format and then upload it back on the site.

While really there is little of use to someone who is pretty much a solo act, this would be a great place for teams of people to combine together and work on shared projects together. Also it can have use for a group of friends who all want to keep tabs on each other without using other social networking sites. All in all I have a positive feeling for the site, but honestly don’t feel that it really does anything super unique. However if you are currently considering a place to collaborate online you should give Box.net a try here.

So, after a lengthy, school-induced hiatus from The Tech Brief, I’m back with a long-overdue review of Meemix, another new personalized, Internet radio service. Having come across it shortly after falling head over heels for Pandora, my expectations were high, so Meemix had a lot to live up to.

Like other personalized Internet radio sites, Meemix uses an algorithm to determine what songs it will play for you. The algorithm makes its calculations based on song parameters and information about the user. Each song can be rated from 6 (Hot) to -6 (Not), and Meemix works with the high scored songs while driving the others away. It boasts creating its playlists based on an understanding of personal taste rather than simply finding songs that are similar to the ones you tell it you like. I’m not sure how that works, but that’s what they say.

So how does it actually work? Well after using it for a few weeks, I’m not too impressed. Until today, my first station didn’t deliver anything that I like aside from the song I originally fed it to create the first station and it always starts with a Linkin Park song. It took a few hours today for a string of songs that I actually liked to start playing, and the station always plays songs from several bands that I have repeatedly rated -6 at first. It rarely plays any of the favorites I’ve defined. My second station actually delivered a really great playlist almost immediately. Unfortunately, the interface completely died, so I couldn’t rate or save any of the awesome songs I heard that day. Since then it has frozen up on me repeatedly.

But the very shiny, Web 2.0 Meemix does have it’s good points, without a doubt. It’s easy to use and it makes it extremely easy for you to log and acquire the music that you actually like (so long as a song on that album happens to play). And—of course—it’s free, being ad-supported, and has the community and other features everyone expects from today’s startups. Undoubtedly, Jango will be one of its prime competitors, being another of the younger Internet radio services. I think Meemix has a lot of potential, but I don’t think I’ll switch to using it exclusively, just because I can’t really create stations that are as specific as Pandora’s unless it’s specifically genre based. Playing songs that sound like ones you like may be an old formula, but it works.

Meemix is in private beta at the moment, but you can learn more and request an invite at meemix.com.

Have you ever thought, “Man, it sure would be nice if I could access my phone’s content on my computer”? I haven’t. But if you have, Dashwire may be just the service you’ve been looking for.

Dashwire is a web application that synchronizes itself with your phone so that you can access your mobile’s content from your computer, whether it be photos, text messages, or contacts. With Dashwire you can send text messages from your computer, securely store anything you have saved on your phone, or even transfer favorites and an address from your computer to your phone. I understand the function of Dashwire, but I’m having trouble really grasping the point. I know what its like to live half of life on the computer and the other half on the phone, but not once have I encountered the need or desire to “access and share mobile experiences” via my computer. Isn’t the whole point to having a mobile device the fact that it can be used on the go? Then again, I rarely use my cell phone for anything more than calling people these days. Dashwire may prove to be extremely helpful to those whose phones function as PDAs or PocketPCs, especially with its being free, as automated mirroring is infinitely preferable to manual file transfers.

Dashwire is a product of Seattle-based Dashwire, Inc. for Windows Mobile 5.0 or 6.0 phones and is currently in closed beta testing. Request an invitation at dashwire.com.