Friedbeef’s Tech

Recipes always seem pretty easy when you read it.  When you actually get down to cooking it however, that’s another story altogether.  That’s one of the reasons why I feel video recipe sites are so useful.  With video, you get to see all the details, intricacies of preparation, and because you can track the recipe as it takes its course -  you can compare it with your own work.

Without further ado, here are 3 of my favorite video cooking sites:

Get the best step-by-step walkthrough for any recipe

Rouxbe manages to thread the balance between professional and novice very well.  It provides high quality video recipes, but at the same time provides a ton of help to rookie chefs (like me).  For example, does the video require you to dice onions but you’re not really sure how?  At the sidebar, there will be little drill-down videos which are related to the recipe at hand… so you’ll be able to swing off to a video about the best ways to dice onions , then continue on with the original recipe video. 

Learn from pros and other members in the community

iFoods.tv wants to provide the best of both worlds.  Like Rouxbe, it has professional videos done by top chefs, but this time - it introduces a social network element into the picture.  Community members are encouraged to upload their own videos as well to add to the mix. 

Find the best food videos from major social video networks

FoodTube brings together existing videos from sites like YouTube and Google video for your easy viewing.  Due to the popularity of these sites you can be sure to get a good quantity of recipes to try.  The drawback however is that unlike the 1st two sites, there is little quality control as the videos here are 100% user generated.

Bonus tip: Have leftovers and want to make something good out of it?  Try Leftover Chef, a site that will help you match your leftovers with interesting recipes.

What other good food sites do you know?  Tell us in the comments!

[tags] food, video [/tags]

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The rising costs and complexity of enterprise software are driving small businesses towards web-ware.  This is the market which small business software maker CatalystWeb is trying to capture with the launch of CatalystOffice last week.  I was asked if I could test and give it a full public critique so here goes…

Basically CatalystOffice offers:

• Webmail - which is compatible with your domain
• Online file access
• Online Calendar
• Online Contacts
• Intuitive contacts management
• Enterprise-wide IM

…Which sounds pretty basic, but still important aspects of every small business.  Now to set some benchmarks so I can review Catalyst Web properly, I am comparing it against the Google Apps for Domains service.

Pros:

• Scalable cost - You don’t pay per user - you pay for the amount of space being used (prices are competitive)
• Automated online backup for and version control for documents which are checked in

Neither of these are offered by Google, although the cost are much smaller for Google if you have less than 10 employees.

Cons:

One of the core benefits of having a web based office system is mobility.  This is where CatalystOffice falters big time.

• Doesn’t support Opera… and Internet Explorer (!!!) - only Firefox is supported.  Now if you read this blog long enough, you’ll know I’m the last person which supports IE, but the reality is that most browsers out there are IE based.  Not supporting IE means you won’t be able to hop on to most public terminals - which is a huge blow to mobility.
• Doesn’t support mobile platforms.  Not being able to check email with my mobile is an issue for me.

Here are my other gripes:

• Doesn’t support IMAP email - CatalystOffice supports POP3 email - which is fine - but IMAP is better.
• Unlike Google Apps for domains, CatalystOffice doesn’t come with office document web-ware like spreadsheets, word processors, and presentation creators.  This means you have to buy your own MS-Office software.
• Slow interface.  Running of Java, it really felt clunky throughout my whole testing period, and I was not impressed.

FriedBeef’s Take: 

For a quick and powerful small business solution, CatalystOffice falls short of Google Apps for Domains in my books.  Too few advantages, and too many drawbacks make for a product which I feel isn’t quite ready yet.

If you still want to track this product you can do so via the Catalyst launch blog or get a 3 month free trial to test it for yourself.

Disclaimer: CatalystOffice has paid me to review their service, and to give an honest opinion. Please note that all opinions expressed in this post are completely my own, and have not been influenced by CatalystOffice in any way.

What office webware do you like?  Tell us in the comments!

[tags] office, email [/tags]

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If you want to supercharge the simple act of copying and pasting - Teracopy is just the piece of freeware for you.

Here are 5 key features that stand out the most to me:

1. Copy files faster - Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives
2. Pause and resume file transfers - Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click
3. Error testing - It allows you to run comparison tests on any copy you make, to ensure its integrity
4. Error recovery - In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.  It also shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
5. Windows Explorer Integration - TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy, paste and move functions, allowing you to seamlessly work with files as usual.

The one thing I really love about this program is that I don’t have to make a special effort to use it.  Too many programs are spoiled by the fact that you have to change your workflow to accommodate it.  With Teracopy, everything is business as usual, and it just adds its functionality in the background.

There’s a pro version available with a few extra features - but the free version itself is already spectacular.

(Teracopy)

What other cool windows tricks do you know?  Let us know in the comments!

[tags] windows, freeware [/tags]

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