Oh yeah, it’s also a good time to give them a try if you haven’t yet.

Gmail – Our always favorite web mail has made it easier to perform Google searches while you’re reading your email.  Through the Labs technology, you can place a Web Search widget into your sidebar that when searched, does not disrupt emails you might be reading or writing.  Also, new today, Google has made it much easier to import email from older web email services (read Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL).  Now you have no excuse not to move to Google, Jim.

Google Calendar – The Google To-do list function called Tasks which had previously been integrated into Gmail is now also available in Google Calendar.  It’s a good way to create tasks with due dates and be able to see the To-Do items created in Gmail in your calendar.

Zoho – The Zoho office suite continues to develop and evolve, some of the more recent updates include being able to gadgetize (a word?) your Zoho documents and apps and put them in blogs, websites and Facebook.  Zoho is an excellent alternative to Google Docs for a free web office suite plus extras.  It is now spiffily accessible from mobile devices such as the iPhone.

Evernote – The best note-taking, information sharing uber-app around continues to update their product.  Recently they’ve added support for Blackberry mobile devices, the ability to direct your Twitter messages to Evernote account and localization into Russian.  We’re still waiting for Evernote for the Android G1.

MindMeister – This web-based mind mapping tool continues to be spruced up and enhanced.  What’s new includes localizations for German and Japanese, inline images, new formatting and a new widget for embedding your mind maps externally.  Since mind mapping is not a skill that’s in everyone’s repertoire,  playing with Mindmeister is well worth the time.  If you are of us who find it easier to visualize your world rather than just see it as lists, you’ll be surprised to find how intuitive it can be to create a mind map of exactly what’s on your mind.

VLC – While not a web app, VLC, the open source video do-everything is approaching their production 1.0 release with a release candidate.  The RC sports a spiffy new user interface and, as always, VLC is the best and easiest way to view your digital videos.

Good for consumers, Microsoft is going to support the Firefox and Safari browsers in addition to Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer.

The online applications will be available to end-users through the Microsoft Office Live service which has ad-funded and subscription options.

While a survey done on ReadWriteWeb earlier this year showed that the majority of that site’s visitors still used the Microsoft Office desktop application for their word processing and spreadsheet needs, there has been growing online competition to the behemoth office suite from the free online suites by Google and Zoho.

We’ve written about the Google and Zoho offerings repeatedly.  It will be interesting to see whether Microsoft will be able to compete online, in the arena they have owned for so long, with the more nimble Zoho and Google.

via ReadWriteWeb

Related articles

• Microsoft Office Embraces The Browser (Thank You Google)
• Microsoft to Take Office to the Web (Now With Editing!)

Here’s our favorite three:

Sign in with your Yahoo! or Google ID: You don’t need to create a new account to use Zoho-just use a Yahoo! or Google account that you may already have.

Work offline: You can take Zoho offline, so you can do your work even when you don’t have an Internet connection.

Convert files into .docx: Using Zoho, you can convert a variety of files into the new Word 2007 .docx format. (EM Note: this can be very useful for sharing files with your MS Office 2007 colleagues)

Visit careeroverview.com for the complete list of 100.

You’ve probably noticed that here in Enquiring Mimes-land we like Zoho.  They have built a great suite of free web products and they keep offering something new.  They have just plugged one of the largest holes in their productivity suite by releasing Zoho Mail.

With their obvious competition with Google and Google Docs, Zoho need to provide their users the kind of mail support offered by Gmail and in many ways they have bested Gmail, by providing functionality that includes the best of webmail and the best of traditional email readers like Outlook.

In one clear way Zoho has trumped Gmail by being the first to offer offline support for their webmail.  Zoho, ironically, takes advantage of the Google Gears technology to provide offline support.  When you have Gears installed you can configure Zoho Mail for how many messages you’d like to be able to see while offline and Zoho automatically can sense the change in state when you go offline and switch you to offline mode.

In a couple of interesting ways, Zoho Mail has given their users a choice of how they’d like to work with their email:

Folders vs. Labels – Zoho Mail supports both old-style folders for storing and classifying your email – Outlook-style as well as labels Gmail-style.

Threads vs. Lists – In a similar way, Zoho Mail gives you the choice between seeing your messages grouped by conversations – Gmail-style or as a serial list – Outlook-style.

Signup for Zoho Mail by registering a free Zoho user account and you can choose your @zoho.com email address.

Zoho Mail Features

• Intuitive User Interface
• Unlimited Storage
• Support for Multiple Email Accounts
• @zoho.com Email addresses for all Zoho Users
• Zoho Writer, Sheet & Show Integration for opening attachments
• Offline Support
• Zoho Chat Integration
• Folders (hierarchical) & Labels Support
• Conversation & Normal Email Views
• Multiple Search Options
• Search within attachments
• Anti-Virus Checks
• Spam Filtering
• POP Access
• Import Contacts
• Address Book Support
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Multi-language Support
• Font Family & Size customization
• Layout Customization
• Email Archiving Support
• Message Filters Support
• All Mail – View
• Flagging Support
• Signature Options
• Vacation Auto-Reply
• Email Forwarding
• Ask Receipt

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