WebSide Ventures | Web Start-ups and Breaking Tech News

Google Calendar has just released the much-requested tool that will allow you to sync with Microsoft Outlook. You decide the information flow: 2-way (sync back and forth with each other) or 1-way.  You can also set how often the sync occurs. The program runs in your system tray, so you can check the icon to see when it’s syncing up. Google Calendar Sync is available via a free download here.

Managing property can be a complicated process filled with high management fees, paperwork and bad service. Streetfolio is trying to streamline the process by providing simple tools that allow you to manage your own properties. The interface allows you to manage your mortgage, insurance, contacts and cashflow and track your lease history and rent increases. Here is an example of the cash flow analytics view:

Streetfolio has pricing plans that start at free and go up to $10 for 5 properties, plus $1 for each additional.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Tersus, a service that allows you to build quick ajax web apps visually by using flow diagrams. But what if you want to make the process even simpler? WaveMaker’s Visual Ajax Studio allows you drag and drop widgets onto a form for dead simple ajax development. WaveMaker’s Studio reduces the time and cost of delivering new business applications. Customers have accelerated the development of applications by as much as 67% and cut the lines of code written by 98%.  Here are the key features:

• Drag & Drop Assembly
• LiveLayout™
• Push to Deploy™: One-touch application deployment
• Visual Data Binding
• SOAP, REST and RSS web services
• Leverage existing CSS, HTML and Java
• Deploys a standard Java .war file
• Free

Piwik is an open-source web analytics platform that aims to be a direct competitor to Google Analytics, although as it exists, it’s not exactly a good replacement. The cool thing is anyone can develop plug-ins under the GPL license. You can customize your analytics interface based on your needs, by adding or removing plug-ins - this is where they are differentiating from Google Analytics. Another differentiator is that you “own your own data,” meaning that Piwik is installed on your server and not hosted somewhere else. You can retrieve your statistics from using the open API, which publishes the data in all popular formats including JSON, XML and PHP.

Piwik is available via a free download. Or, you can try out the online demo.

Boulder, Colorado based RareShare.org is a new initiative that aims to connect those who share the same rare disorders. Each community will offer tools for people to share experiences, explore treatment options and find support among others affected by the same, or similar, disorders. This is an underserved market because a relative small number of people suffer from these disorders.  The site claims that a combined 30 million people suffer from these rare disorders in the U.S. and Europe, with some 1,500 orphan diseases in the U.S. alone.

RareShare is currently in a closed alpha (invite only). It is privately held and self-funded.

Google is ready to test out it’s Health portal with the Cleveland Clinic, according to CNN. The pilot is said to involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients who have volunteered to make their health records available through Google’s service. The Clinic already stores patients’ medical records online through a proprietary system called MyCharts, so the transfer is supposed to be pretty seamless. There are many concerns about the new service, including the fact that the stored medical records aren’t protected by HIPAA.

 A screenshot from Google Blogoscoped shows what the interface could look like:

Google hasn’t yet made an announcement on the planned pilot launch. Google’s announcement is here.

AOL has given their Home portal a new look, with 5 main sections — decorating, entertaining, green, organize/clean and do-it-yourself. It aims to be your resource for running your home “stylishly and efficiently.” According to CenterNetworks, the content will come from magazines including: GoodHousekeeping.com, Redbookmag.com, CountryLiving.com, HouseBeautiful.com, RealSimple and This Old House. Here’s the pitch:

AOL Home is your resource for running your home efficiently and stylishly. AOL Home offers advice, time-saving tips, tried-and-true techniques, and boundless bright ideas. Find inspiration and guidelines to recreate your living space. Get organizing and cleaning tips and tricks from the pros. Watch step-by-step instructions for useful do-it-yourself projects. Browse and search countless clever ideas for entertaining in your home. Learn how to make your home environmentally-friendly. You’ll find all this and more on AOL

LinkBlip is a simple service that generates a trackable link for you to send. When the recipient clicks on the link, you are automatically notified by email. If you have ever sent an email telling someone to check out a link, then never heard back, you might see the value in this. At least you’ll know that the person saw what you sent.

It’s like sending a read receipt, except it’s less annoying and you don’t know it’s happening. The notification also tells you what city and state the clicker was in.

LinkBlip was coded using CakePHP in 4 hours by web designer and developer Matthew Inman, co-founder of SEOmoz.

One Llama is a music discovery site not unlike Pandora internet radio. By typing in an artist or song title, you are given a list of similar songs, thereby discovering new music and music videos. Each person in the community is a “llama,” and they’ve created a social network where llamas can share their playlists with the community or find playlists from other llamas.

One Llama uses a combination of collaborative filtering and audio similarity to find the right match for your search request. They also harvest social networking information about each track resulting in better recommendations. An iTunes plugin (free download) allows you to discover and create playlists directly in iTunes.

One Llama is backed by IllinoisVENTURES and is located in Champaign, Illinois.

Israeli based Tersus offers a unique service that allows you to visually diagram a rich AJAX web application. Simply draw up some flow diagrams and Tersus will execute them and bring your application to life. No scripting or coding is needed — the interface is 100% visual.  

Tersus is available via a free download and is open source.