What happens when an awesome office suite and the cloud get mixed together? Docs.com. Docs.com is a website that has Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint in the form of Web Apps. And It does this without the loss of many features.

In Word, you still have your normal options such as highlighting, headings, spell check, etc. except the only difference is that you can write your documents in your web browser. This can come as a big plus for people with multiple computers or people who don’t have sufficient disc space for a large office suite. The same is with Excel and Powerpoint.

Docs.com also comes packed with some features that interact with your Facebook profile. This includes making resumes using your profile info, putting info from your friends such as age and gender into charts, and a feature called “Photo Show” which lets you take photos and put them in different frames and templates. Also, every time you make a new document using the Facebook features, it posts it on your wall, however you are able to customize the privacy of the document.

Overall, Docs.com is a great alternative to Google Docs for people who love Microsoft or love the atmosphere of Microsoft Office.

David – Senior Editor

Google Wave, a web app which allowed for real-time communication and collaboration, is no longer being developed as of today by Google. On a blog post, Google said, “We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects.”

Firefox has for me, always been my browser choice behind Safari on a Mac or Chrome on Windows. It’s always fast and it just feels right. I have some strong feelings about the latest beta release of Firefox 4 and I would like to share them with our readers with a review. This release has a lot of changes, especially when interface comes in play.

One of the first things I noticed when I started it up, is that the tabs are on top of navigation bar, and the tools menu has been replaced with an orange button that has “Firefox” written on it. The “Firefox” button does stand out quite a bit, though it hasn’t really bothered me, I do wish Mozilla did what Google did with Chrome and put a tools button next to the navigation bar. Hopefully in the final release, it will take place of the “Feedback” button. There is a whole video explaining their reasoning for putting tabs on top, so I’m not really going to get into that. One of the new features I absolutely hate is the way Firefox groups tabs into the taskbar on Windows 7. This was a “feature” in Opera that I disabled. I’ve never really understood the purpose for this in Opera and I don’t get the purpose in Firefox. I primarily use the taskbar to switch to applications, not switch to elements within an application. Isn’t one of the main purposes of tabs to replace windows? If the tabs act like windows, then really, what’s the point of even having tabs? Imagine how obnoxious it would be  if you’re trying to switch to a specific window in Windows Explorer, and it showed you a bunch of different previews for items like Computer, Documents, etc.. I’ve seen a lot of bad feedback on the Mozilla site for this and I hope they get rid of it in the final release.

I don’t want this review to be only about interface, so now I’m going to talk about something just as important as interface: speed. I could tell this is one of the things that Mozilla really focused on when making this build of Firefox because this thing really is speedy. In a Windows 7 virtual machine on my Mac Mini, this was able to load Google faster than running Safari natively on my Snow Leopard partition. It feels a lot like Opera in terms of performance and looks. It’s a whole different experience from previous versions of Firefox. In fact, It feels a little too much like Opera. Both browsers have tabs on top, their “New Tab” buttons look very similar, the way the tools are grouped at the top of the window is the same, and tabs are grouped in the taskbar on both browsers. It’s all very suspicious.

So the final verdict:

PROS:

• very fast
• new interface is very appealing to the eye
• surprisingly stable, even at a beta release
• nice aero integration

CONS:

• Mozilla seems to have copied Opera in a lot of ways
• tab grouping in the Windows 7 taskbar can get annoying
• navigation and search bar should be unified like in Google Chrome
• orange “Firefox” stands out too much, should be integrated in the navigation bar

David – Senior Editor

The open source movement has caught on to many an industry – software, hardware, information, text, etc. Most of these efforts are headed by Creative Commons.

But we haven’t changed what currently goes on in the music industry, yet.

Of course, there are public-domain sounds, tracks, and whatnot, but what I’m here to talk about is mainly musical compositions. The problem that we’re facing is two-fold:

• Music composition is very private: music isn’t really written in big groups. Instead, one person or a few (in the case of a band) write the music.
• Publishing is also very corporate: most compositions right now are published by big publishers, without an open Creative Commons alternative. Not only does this put huge restrictions on what can be done with published works and how they can be modified (assuming that they are corporately published), this also completely shuts out the additional community creativity that arises from open-source creation.

Wouldn’t you like to be able to work with other people to create music?

Let’s take an example. One person, who I’ll call Adam, wants to write, let’s say, a march. He has already thought up a few motifs, so he begins planning out the form. After beginning to notate some parts of the piece, he creates an open-source project, uploads his plan and his current score, and shares it with the world. Someone else comes along: his name is Bob. Bob finds the open-source project, checks it out, and wants to add to the piece. He uses the documents Adam uploaded to add more notation, which he then submits as a “patch”. Adam sees the submission, looks it over, and accepts the inclusion.

I think Creative Commons seriously needs to look into this field. Here’s how I think it should be organized:

• Open format: MusicXML is proprietary, maybe create something very open called MML or MusicML(Music Markup Language)? There should then be converters from other proprietary formats (e.g. Sibeliusfiles, Finale files, the aforementioned MusicXML, etc.)
• Subversion/Github-based revision-tracking systems: Changes need to be kept track of, so that people can submit their additions to the music, these additions can be accepted, and every change is recorded. If something goes wrong, you can always go back to an older version!

The whole version control idea would be great, but how do you segment music creation and composition into “parts”/revisions? I think this should be approached the same way as it works in the software development field: each task of adding or changing something is inputed in separate check-ins, using common sense.

Of course, there may be some copyright problems. Arrangements of non-open-source musical works would probably be a no-no, but compositions are OK. Each work would be placed under the copyright of the originator or originating group and licensed under a Creative Commons license. Arrangements of this new music would be derivative works.

We can go so many places with this, just as was done with open-sourced software. Next: an online collection of user-submitted motifs, all open-source, as well as a system resembling Google Code for version control and project hosting.

This post was originally published on Absolutely2Nothing, the author’s blog.

Maxim – Editor

Just a few days back, Google announced Google Buzz. An new competitor in the social networking “game.”

Essentially, Google Buzz is like Twitter and Facebook, combined and, very much like FriendFeed. Like these three sites, it’s meant for anybody interested in the Web 2.0 environment and in social networking.
Like a lot of other networking sites, privacy does become quite a bit of an issue, so Google is letting you choose whether you want to post to thousands of people, across the globe, or just your a couple of your friends. But, even with these 2 choices, I would still not recommend entering private information since the system is probably prone to bugs.
What appears different from Twitter is the ability to post photos, videos and links, directly. The problem with that though, is that Facebook and FriendFeed already have the ability to do so.

The appearence of Google Buzz does vary. After all, it’s tied into your Gmail account. If enabled, Google Buzz will have a navigational button on the left sidebar. The button opens up a Gmail-like window, where you can see updates from the people you follow.

A major problem with Google Buzz is, if somebody comments or likes a status you have posted, you will recieve a notification in your Gmail inbox. As of right now, I’m unable to change whether or not I get notifications.
But, if you can deal with the emails and, you’re a person who likes trying new things, Google Buzz is definatly worth a try.

Lev – Lead Writer

Email Me: lev@techreevu.com

Follow my Buzz: morontown@gmail .com

As you may know, I released a Google Voice application a few months back. Well, after reading some suggestions on the Google Voice forum, I decided that it was time to make a new update (and a new name as well). So, I worked on the program, which is now titled VoiceHub, for a few hours and I finished with a program that fulfills all the suggestions that users gave me. Though I haven’t really worked on the way the VoiceHub looks, I did make a few improvements to the interface. A few being buttons that can be hidden on demand and important buttons where you need them. One thing that numerous users wanted was AutoRefresh. I am happy to say that I have added this feature, though it may not always work correctly because I am still experimenting with this and constantly improving it. I hope that you enjoy this program and I am still accepting suggestions. So keep commenting! – Download it Here!

David – Senior Editor, Techreevu.com

If you’ve watched TV, or gone on YouTube, for that matter, any time recently, you’ve no doubt seen at least one iPhone ad, and possibly even a T-Mobile MyTouch 3G (Android) one. Well, if not, they’re below for your viewing pleasure (um, maybe not).

David’s Google Voice Application has been updated! Featuring a new Send SMS button and, a bug fix. Download it HERE!

Since, I won’t be posting updates on the front page anymore, catch any new information in the Release Notes or at the Downloads Page.

I’m not the only tired with annoying ads on sites, such as: GET BRIGHTER TEETH! But now, those ads are getting more deviate….. INTRODUCING! FAKE NEWS SITES!

This Ad is located at news6today.com

Now, it’s been taken too far! In other words, this site is promoting something that is completely untrue! And how is this site hosted? YOUR MONEY! Through this scam, they are making enough money to host realistic looking sites. The only 3 ways to tell that this site is fake is by looking carefully.