.::REALITYRECALL::.

The Toronto Blue Jays fired general manager J.P. Ricciardi on Saturday morning, saying it was time for a change.

With the drop of a pink slip, Alex Anthopoulos has gone from virtual obscurity to one of the youngest general managers in Major League Baseball.

You’ve probably heard about a hard-to-get, hugely new service called Google Wave. Lest ye forget, there are plenty of web-based collaboration tools that don’t require learning a new way of speaking. Here are a few of our (mostly free) favorites.

Photo by woodleywonderworks.

10. Cc:Betty

This email-organizing service is openly pitching itself to those left out of the first round of Wave preview accounts, and not entirely without reason. It doesn’t do half the things that Wave claims to do, but it does free your coworkers from having to read through freakishly long “RE: FWD: FWD:” letters just to understand what the original question or discussion was. Add CC:Betty to your cc: list on a topic you want to get started, and the webapp does the work of organizing each person’s contributions, different attachment types, chronology, and who’s been left out of the chain. Even if everybody doesn’t bother to check in at the Betty page for the discussion, the person trying to make sense of it all will be glad they can do so. (Original post)

9. MediaWiki

It is, of course, the software that powers Wikipedia, and might seem a bit dated in the light-speed-paced world of webapps. Still, MediaWiki’s power lies in how easy it is for multiple people to make and commit changes to a document, link inside and out of other pages, create page structures and hierarchies on the fly, and work from pretty much any browser on Earth. Nobody needs to sign into any account unless mandated by the administrator, and everybody gets the information they need without having to fiddle any knobs. (Original post)

8. TimeBridge

This meeting facilitator aims to eliminate the mess of emails and mass confusion over whether it was meeting room 130 at 2pm, or room 230 at 1pm. Create an account, plug in your coworkers’ emails or SMS numbers, plug in a few times that work for you, and TimeBridge takes on the work of contacting them all and asking which of those times work, then presenting the results for your consideration. The webapp also reminds participants of the details by email or SMS, and a just-released iPhone app helps you keep things moving along with an agenda and details view. (Original post)

7. Google Groups

“Isn’t that the thing that Google turned Usenet into?” Yes, but Groups lets a, um, group of like-minded folks hash out arguments, answer questions, and point to helpful resources without software or constraints. Users of a group can rate posts for helpfulness, search out answers across their own groups or other similar-themed topics, and get their answers and responses delivered from an easily filtered email source. It’s an oft-overlooked tool in an age of fancy-pants social tools, but it gets everyone hooked up and talking pretty quickly. (Original post)

6. TextFlow

It’s easy to ask everyone’s take on a piece of text, but much harder to actually incorporate their ideas, revisions, and word choices without spending twice as much time as on the original. TextFlow, a free Adobe Air app that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, takes in all the documents spawned from an original, analyzes the changes, and presents them to you to show what’s different, accept what you want to change, and make it easy to see how far you’ve moved off the original draft. For a certain kind of work, it’s a real time saver, and it makes it easy to respond when your collaborators ask why their masterful lead-in sentence didn’t make the cut. (Original post)

5. DimDim

Makers of “webinar” software are feverishly pitching the idea of at-your-desk conferences as a money-saving alternative to travel these days. DimDim, an open-source meeting platform, offers web users a truly money-saving experience, with up to 20 users able to view a presentation, three of them with microphone access, with no software installations required. It’s a nice step up if you need something a little more professional than a social video chat room, and is surprisingly responsive on freehand drawing, text, audio, and even screencasting across a variety of connection speeds. (Original post)

4. MindMeister

How many 10-minute verbal explanations would have worked much better as a one-minute cocktail napkin sketch? Plenty of them, we’d suspect. For ideas and projects where drawing a line through your thoughts helps keep them together, MindMeister is a great helper. Not only does their web-based design tool allow for easy branching, notating, and organization, but if you just want to jam in a few ideas to be molded into shape later, it allows for email additions. You can, of course, share, publish, and collaborate on your mental diagrams, and doing so might just save you a really unnecessary phone call or stop-and-chat. (Original post)

3. present.io

File-sharing service Drop.io is really convenient because it lets you store up to 100 MB of files without a sign-up, password, or software. Present.io, a group-focused tangent, lets you gather a team of chatters around a set of images, text, audio, or even video files and let them tell you what rocks and what stinks about them. Those away from a computer can call in mid-stream and leave MP3 voicemails for all to hear or join in a phone conference call. Meanwhile, the "drop" administrator keeps the show moving by queuing up new files on viewers' screens, and nobody has to log in or be accepted to join in—they just need the right URL. (Original post)

2. Campfire

Not that we aren’t at least thinking of holding our Lifehacker chat and brainstorming sessions in Wave, but for the time being, Campfire does a remarkably good job of letting multiple people yak it out and learn from each other. It’s searchable, it makes uploading files to everyone easy, it can be a walled garden or open to those you link in, and it sits nicely in a browser tab, changing its page title when new chats arrive. There’s a fair number of third-party clients and input tools available for 37Signals’ collaborative chat platform, but it works just fine as a quiet spot to talk. (Original post)

1. Zoho

It’s hard to jump in and describe the best features about Zoho’s vast suite of online editing and group organization tools, because so much changes on a week-to-week basis. That said, if you find Google Docs to be impressive for a single user, but not a great back-and-forth facilitator, Zoho is where you should look next. It’s able to handle both the lower-level tasks of group editing, document sharing, and other work, as well as the milestone tracking, group chat, invoice creation, and other tasks needed by teams that aren’t sitting right next to each other. It’s good stuff, and it’s free. (Original post)

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Aside from the obvious entry, what did we leave off the list that helps you work with others and not want to strangle both them and your mouse? Tell us what you’re using to collaborate in the comments.

BitTorrent weblog TorrentFreak reports that Google has removed the front page of popular BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay from their search results due to a DMCA takedown request, regardless of the fact that there are no torrents available to download on TPB’s front page.

Megan Fox may have been sexy enough to use the 3K resolution Red Epic video camera to shoot with, but the sexiest woman alive needs 5K. Kate Beckinsale is an extra 2K sexier than Megan Fox.

It's technologically interesting since, with both the 3K and the 5K Red cameras, they're able to take video and strategically take out frames to use as stills. This makes it a lot easier on the photographer since he doesn't need to know, intuitively, when the best few seconds are to snap a stream of shots—he can just point the thing and tell Kate to be sexy.

It’s too bad for Kate though, because in order to crown a new Sexiest Woman Alive next year, Esquire will have to have her put down. [Esquire]

Canada has some of the poorest-quality broadband among advanced countries, according to a study of global internet infrastructure.

Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie confirmed Wednesday he won’t appeal Judge Redfield T. Baum’s decision to reject both bids for the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes.

General Motors Co. is phasing out its Saturn division and its 340-member dealer network after talks to sell the unit to retailer Penske Automotive Group Inc.

Mats Sundin announced his retirement from hockey on Wednesday, ending a professional career that spanned nearly 20 years.

CNET’s Josh Lowensohn used his own mug as a standard to measure the facial recognition prowess of iPhoto, Windows Live Gallery, and newcomer face-finder Picasa 3.5. The verdict? Picasa 3.5, because it’s all about the workflow of approving or denying face matches, which Picasa makes easiest. Do you see face-to-face with Lowensohn’s assessment? How accurate is your own photo organizer at recognizing your features? [CNET]

Mike Keenan — despite many, many, many off-season requests from Calgary media — held his tongue this summer.

Refusing to talk, of course, is his right. In Keenan's case, however, it had been an uncharacteristic stretch of silence.

Tuesday, though, Iron Mike finally cleared his throat, choosing a Toronto radio station for his coming-out.

The FAN 960 replayed clips of his excuses, I mean, explanations.

For what it's worth, here's a couple of them:

* Did Keenan think he'd be fired after two seasons in Calgary? "No, I didn't, particularly when you look at the context of the season. We had more wins than Vancouver, two points short. In the last 10 games, we played shorthanded. As everyone knows, we ran into cap problems and a plethora of injuries, particularly on defence with Regehr, Giordano, Sarich, and Phaneuf in the playoffs. Bourque was a big injury for us in the playoffs as well. To answer your question, though, I didn't think it would go to that extent because of those extenuating circumstances. Particularly (when we were) vying for that first place in our division with a shorthanded roster. A little impatient. They gave Bowman four years to get a Cup in Detroit . . . but we only had two years and I didn't know it."

* About being fired? "The business part of it is unexplainable at times. That's what you do — you take your medicine, you move on, you try to dust yourself off, and away you go."

* About Dion Phaneuf's performance in 2009-08? "Phaneuf adds a lot to that hockey club. Even though it's perceived that he had a bad year, if I had to identify problems or people that didn't have great years, Phaneuf wouldn't be the first guy I'd point out."

So there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In July we mentioned that Google Wave would open up to 100,000 new users tomorrow, September 30th. Despite reports that those 100,000 invites go out today, Google confirms on their blog and via email that tomorrow’s still the big day.

We’ve contacted Google for clarification, and they’ve assured us that reports that invites are going out today are simply misunderstandings, and that invitations won’t go out until tomorrow. Either way, if you want to get up to speed on Wave in hope that you’re on the short list for tomorrow, check out our Google Wave highlight reel and Wave QnA.

Beyond that, stick around tomorrow for an even fuller examination of what you can expect if you’re lucky enough to get in on the limited Wave preview. If you don’t get an invite in the first go-round, you’re not entirely out of luck. Google says they’ll “ask some of these early users to nominate people they know also to receive early invitations.” In the meantime, if you happen to get an invite before tomorrow, let us know in the comments.

Windows only: We took a first look at Microsoft Security Essentials, the free antivirus application from Microsoft, back in June, but today Microsoft Security Essentials has left beta and is ready for your PC.

The application hasn’t really changed much since we took our first look from what we can tell, meaning this release is most likely filled with bug fixes and stability improvements rather than new features.

We’ve been impressed with Security Essentials so far, though it may not be enough of an improvement or change that’ll make it worth switching to from your current favorite antivirus application. If you’ve been testing it out since the beta release, or you’ve just played around with it a little this morning, let’s hear what you think of it in the comments.

At last, here’s a GPU-accelerated Flash player. That means two things: One, my laptop won’t melt every time I run freaking Hulu. Two, since almost every Nvidia GPU is supported, even smartphones will be able to play HD Flash video.

Nvidia has been demonstrating builds of the GPU-accelerated Flash player around, and it’s making an announcement on October 5. According to those who have seen it, it provides ultra-smooth high definition video playback, even on portable Tegra platforms.

About time. [Notebookjournal.de via Hexus]

ComputerWorld is reporting that online retailer Newegg.com has unveiled Windows 7 OEM pricing. Newegg.com has priced the OEM version of Windows 7 Home Premium at $99.99 which is a price reduction of 50% down from the recommended retail price of $199.99. Other savings are available for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate at $134.99 and $174.99, respectively. This is a saving of approximately 50% on each version from the list price. OEM editions are priced lower as you typically do not get retail packaging, little official support and you're not able to transfer the operating system license from one PC to another.

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