It’s Sunday evening and people are waiting for the Oscar ceremony to start. And while waiting, I gave some free online translation tools a spin. If you do not understand German, you will not have to much fun in this post, sorry.

Here are the nominations

Yahoo

Bing

Reverso2.com

Google

FreeTranslation.com

WorldLingo

This little experiment is in no way scientific. I just found it funny to see how machines translate my blog header. Some did pretty well (Bing especially, WorldLingo) while other did complete nonsene (like Reverso2.com or Google with a wrong article). Yahoo and WorldLingo need to fix their “e after ä” error.
I think I will give Bing a few more tries in the future. Their translation seems very solid to me.

Related Posts

• Men Playing Or Mine Is Longer
• Are You Qualified for a Job at Google?
• Google Translate: When Will It Get Better?

Teletext
Just a link to the website just does not do it for me. Sorry!

But for the time being, Zattoo is just a player. I really wish Zattoo would start to offer some new feature and maybe gain some attention once more.

Feature Requests

Video Recorder
This is a no-brainer. Why not negotiate contracts with TV stations, that allow the end users to record? There are other Swiss services that allow recordings. Their are basically just online tv recorders without the Zattoo user base. And Beat Knecht and the Zattoo team sure has the contacts to get stations to the table.

HTML 5 / MPEG-4 or OGG Streaming
I really do not like flash, at all. It sucks up energy for nothing. And especially videos are very CPU intense. Why? Can you not go back to MPEG or better OGG streaming? OGG is an open and free audio and video codec. Somehow you already must have created some sort of MPEG-4 streaming. Or how does it work on an iPhone? For sure not with Flash.
Maybe you can even start to offer “direct” links to streams, much like Cablecom on hispeed.ch does. That way I can fire up my regular video player (VLC) and watch TV over it. Yes, you have to show advertisements to make money and pay your infrastructure. Okay, than just offer this for premium customers.

These are all feature requests that come to mind. But I am sure, you have more ideas that could help make Zattoo a better service and experience. Please leave a comment with your idea or requests.

Related Posts

• Zattoo Goes Freemium: Pay For High Quality Channels
• 24: Season 08 iTunes Preview
• Idea: A Better Copy and Paste Function

Related Posts

• Lacie Promotes Wuala with new Hard Drives
• FashionFriends’ Verzweiflungstat?
• Free ExtraFilm.ch/de Voucher for 10 EUR/15 CHF

Die erste grosse Neuerung, die einem beim Login auffällt, ist das neue Captcha System. In meinen Tests handelte es sich dabei immer um deutsche Wörter. Wurden diese korrekt eingegeben, war die neue Xtrazone Welt offen.

Die Oberfläche und Bedienung des System hat sich gegenüber dem ersten Launch vom Oktober 2009 nicht oder nur gering verändert. Es können immer noch Freunde gesucht und hinzugefügt werden. Mit diesen lassen sich dann beliebig viele Xtra-Messages verschicken. Ähnlich funktionert das Nachrichten System auf Facebook (nicht der Chat). Mitglieder erkennen auf einen Blick ihr aktuelles SMS-/MMS-Guthaben. Es wird weiterhin Specials und Wettbewerbe geben. Die grösste Änderung für mich war, als ich festegestellt habe, dass hochgeladene Bilder neu von Menschen verifiziert werden. Gemäss Aussage von Swisscom ist dies leiter nötig geworden, um Missbrauch zu verhindern.

Mehr geändert hat sich jedoch im Hintergrund des Systems. So arbeiten jetzt mehrer Backendserver unter anderem in Bern und Luzern. Das System soll dadurch stabiler funktionieren und nicht unter der Last von tausenden simultanen Benutzerzugriffe zusammenbrechen. In der Betaphase waren jedoch nur wenig Benutzer zugelassen. Wie gut das System nun mit bedeutend mehr Benutzern reagiert wird sich erst nach dem Launch zeigen. Aber hoffentlich hat die Swisscom ihr System dieses mal in grösserem Umfang getestet.

Zusammengefasst kann ich sagen, dass es mich sehr gefreut hat, als Betatester dabei sein zu dürfen. Auch konnte ich einige Details in Erfahrung bringen. Ich hoffe natürlich, die Swisscom erlebt so ein Missgeschick wie beim letzten Launchversuch nicht erneut.

Related Posts

• Exklusiv: Screenshots der neue Swisscom Xtra-Zone
• [DE] Swisscom Xtra Zone Update
• Idea: Local SMS

For over 15 months I am using BackBlaze as an online backup system. Once installed and configured, it automatically backs up all my data in the background. No matter how many files or how large your backup is, everything is safe. BackBlaze currently backs up 38 GB of data in 634′244 files for me.

Now you might wonder how much BackBlaze costs. All with unlimited space and file storage. It is just $5/month. This price is insanely low.

The system works for Windows and Mac OS X computers. It is very easy to set up and use. Why not give it a quick try? It’s free and if you like it, you already have started your backup strategy!

A feature list:

• Online Backup
• Web Download Restore
• Unlimited Storage
• DVD or USB Drive Restore
• Backup External Drives
• FSCAN Performance
• Automatically Finds Files
• Versioning
• Finer Control Options
• Activity Reports
• Military-Grade Encryption
• 11 Language Interface
• Idle-Time Backup
• Custom Network Throttle
• Scheduled Backup
• Just $5/Month

Screenshots

Settings panel, allows you to set the backup speed, external devices and so on.

Schedule backup or continuously back up your data.

Exclude folder you do not want secured.

Encrypt your files. Set a password and your files are stored with high encryption.

Detailed view of what files you have stored.

Online Restore View

Online Restore Options

Give Backblaze a try. It’s is free and your first step to a satisfying online backup system.

Related Posts

• Breaking the Network: SSH Server as Proxy for Secure Browsing
• Web 2.0 and Open Source in Startups – A Sun Event
• Anti-Wordpress-Hacking Suggestions

In the very first business plan Gabor has shown me, the idea for his startup was completely different. I can not talk about this publicly, because I think this could be something Google might be interested in as well. But if you know Gabor and know how “obsessed” he is with email, you can imagine how cool his initial idea was.

reBoxed

Even before the first version of reMail was available, Gabor made some good press by creating reboxed. Basically it was just a way to learn about the GMail API, fetching emails and displaying them. But what reboxed did, was forcing you to prioritize between two of your GMail contacts. You could select if emails from your boss are more important than emails from your team-leader or girlfriend.

Version 1.x

A month later, on May 11th 2009, version 1.0 of reMail was released. In this first version of reMail, you did not download all your emails to your iPhone. Instead, you had to pay a monthly fee to reMail and your email credentials. reMail then connected via IMAP to your email servers, downloaded all your emails to their servers and started indexing them. The search was extremely fast and smart.

reMail Search doesn’t just search the subject, to, and from – it’s full-text search of your email, on your device.

Even better, reMail Search works offline! You can search your email when you’re driving through a tunnel or when you’re in a plane. Our server syncs emails you’re likely to search for on the device, and you can search them even when you’re offline. When you’re offline, you can search your entire email archives – with older search results coming from reMail’s server.

Maybe you already see the problem: You allow reMail to connect and download your emails. Many people wanted a better email search than what Apple had included in the iPhone’s mail application. But handing out credentials is something very sensible. TechCrunch Jason Kincaid noted:

The biggest issue, though, is privacy. ReMail works by sucking in your messages from your IMAP server and hosting them on its own server, which is optimized for rapid searching. Cselle says that the server is secure and that all messages are encrypted, but acknowledges that ReMail does have access to your Email. The company vows never to access or read any of it, unless they are given written permission to do so in the case of a support issue.

Version 2.x

So instead of connecting and indexing the emails on reMail’s servers, the version 2.x of the application (released in August 2009) downloads all or selected email folders to your iPhone. One of the biggest challenges the team had to overcome, was the limited space on your iPhone. Hundreds of thousands of emails can easily add up to several Gigabytes of data. But they managed it! And 100′000 emails only need 500 MB (5.12 KB/email) if downloaded and indexed. The initial price was $4.99, raising to $9.99 after September 1st.
On September 21st reMail for GMail was launched. It allowed to connect a single GMail account to reMail. The price was $1.99.
The business model of reMail was changed on December 14th 2009 once again. Instead of charging for basic features like GMail connectivity, these features are now free.

Support for Gmail and Google Mail accounts is included for free. You can purchase IMAP support inside the application,by clicking on “Buy reMail Features”. IMAP support costs $3.99:

In November 2009, reMail announced the availability of a $0.99 reMail version for Rackspace customers.

reMail version 2.11 seems to be the last released version of the application before Google bought the small and smart startup. In an interesting move, somebody claims to reverse engineer reMail and release it as open source. Personally I think this is not okay, but I can also understand that people seem to depend on reMail and the possibility to search emails very fast and in an easy way.

Update March 5th 2010: Gabor just informed, that reMail is now Open Source. You can download the source code from Google Code.

I really hope Gabor can fulfill his vision of email at his new job at Google.
All the best, my friend.

Related Posts

• Free Online Website Translation Tools
• Browser Visualization Video
• Tracking Your Feed with Feedburner, Twitter and goo.gl

• r: Reload and fetches new tweets
• j: Jump to the previous tweet (downwards)
• k: Jump to the next tweet (upwards)
• i: Show details about the selected/highlighted tweet, this also includes a translation to English of the tweet
• c: Write a new tweet, cursor is moved to the text area
• v: Opens the first link in a highlighted tweet
• h: Jump back to your home screen

Related Posts

• Brizzly Invitation
• The Twitter Bird is now a Bear/Grizzly
• Tracking Your Feed with Feedburner, Twitter and goo.gl

You can also view the presentation on my SlideShare account.

And if you have any more tips or ideas, please feel free to share them with us. Maybe we can create a better resource and get more Swiss startups covered on US blogs.

“Communicating with US blogs“ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Switzerland License.

Related Posts

• Register for StartupCamp 2010 Switzerland in Basel!
• Startups at the StartupCamp2010 #scs10
• StartupCamp2010 #scs10

Amazee
Amiando
memonic
Procedural
mySwissChocolate
wuala
Doodle
SoBees
GetYourGuide
SuperText
Rahel’s Sweet Temptations
cyon
PolitNetz.ch
FashionFriends
Romazini
Offerten24.ch
razuna
openfactory
GRYPS Offertenportal
Your startup is missing? Please post a comment with name and URL.

The list is in no particular order.

Related Posts

• StartupCamp2010 #scs10
• Register for StartupCamp 2010 Switzerland in Basel!
• Communicating with US Blogs

I will outline the most important points in my opinion (and as a developer, not primarily as a business guy).

Rule 3 Get a business person into the team. This rule goes with Rule 4 “Get a professional bookkeeper”. If you are a techie, you don’t really want to worry about to much business or finance. Dorian also mentioned, that a bookkeeper is really, really important. The bad tax guy can always wait around to corner and have a few surprises for you. And also your investors want to see numbers and crunch them. At the end, your business is sold based on numbers, less on lines of code or design patterns.

Rule 7 Atlassian Starter License, this should make your techie happy. Even if it sounds stupid to have to track all bugs, requests and so forth, this is a really important issue. And of course this is not only valid for startups but also for bigger corporations.

Rule 12 Do online backups! First of all, do backups and backup everything.

Rule 13 Use free stuff. Don’t run your own email server (use Google Apps), don’t run your own webserver (use Metanet). Don’t spend time and money on such things. And the others do this well and it is their core business, not yours.

Rule 20 80% of success is showing up! Attend free events (eg. WebTuesday, WebMonday, BarCamp, StartupCamp …). Present your idea, product, team. Host an event at your offices. If you do not talk about your product, others won’t either!

Of course there are many other rules and points to take care off. Toni has collected all relevant links in a collection on memonic. As soon as the presentation is available online, I will link to it.

Update 15th February: Toni and Dorian put the slides as PDF and the talk as a MP3 file online. Thanks guys!

Related Posts

• Startups at the StartupCamp2010 #scs10
• StartupCamp2010 #scs10
• Register for StartupCamp 2010 Switzerland in Basel!

Things I liked much more than last year

• No keynote speaker: The audience did show little to no interest in the keynote speaker.
• Less rooms: Only four rooms so people either participated in a discussion in a room which very often where full or in smaller groups at the food and drinks corner
• Handmade Swiss Chocolate: mySwissChocolate.ch are very nice and smart guys. Love their idea and product.
• No Poken: Sorry, but that hype is so not hot any more…
• … and finally, I took the right tram and train home

You can find the rest of my coverage on StartupCamp2010 under this link.

A big compliment goes to Dania, Patrick, Ansgar, Daniel, MatthiasS and the rest of the organizational team. Also a big thank you to Oona, Carola, Soojung, Fredy, MathiasM, Michael and all the other volunteers! And I promise to help more in the preparations next time. But they all did a great job! And of course a big thank you to all the sponsors: i-net Basel, FHNW Basel, acceleris, Oracle, CTI Invest, De Vigier Foundation, amiando, amazee.

Photos of the event can be found on Flickr, tweets should be tagged with #scs10 and blog posts can be found on Google’s Blogsearch.

Thanks for coming and giving us a little of your time and sharing your ideas and thoughts! It was great!

Related Posts

• Startups at the StartupCamp2010 #scs10
• Register for StartupCamp 2010 Switzerland in Basel!
• Communicating with US Blogs

What you should have:

• a university degree in computer science or a closely related field
• strong software-engineering skills
• fluency in English or German
• rockstar potential

Pluses are experience in building Web applications, knowledge of architecture and design patterns, as well as mastery of Java.

If you think you are perfect fit for the Doodle team, drop them an email to work@doodle.com and don’t forget to include your CV, letters and the usual stuff. A little more information can be found on their website and the pdf document.

Please also let them know you find the job offer on this blog. Don’t worry, I don’t get payed

Related Posts

• Project Participation Offer: Web Developer in Zurich
• Webtuesday Job Board
• Doodle now has over three million users worldwide

No matter if you are looking for a job as PHP or Ruby On Rails developer or as a system administrator in a Linux environment, chances are good some swiss startup is looking for a highly talented person.

Or if yourself are looking for talent, add your positions to the wiki and I am sure, people will contact you.

Related Posts

• Job Offer: Doodle, Software Engineer
• Lacie Promotes Wuala with new Hard Drives
• Project Participation Offer: Web Developer in Zurich

The process is simple: You follow the Twitter account @cablecomwebcare and the team will follow you back. Once this has happened you can send them a direct message with your contact details and your problem and they will contact you.
I also strongly suggest they are actively tracking and searching the Twittersphere for problems. And maybe use the account for very important news or updates.

The next logical step would be to search for problems and directly contact the person. This might be a little tricky, but would for sure create some feedback and reactions among their twittering customers.

Related Posts

• How To Correctly Inform Your Customers, @slideshare
• Brizzly Keyboard Shortcuts
• Tracking Your Feed with Feedburner, Twitter and goo.gl

The first StartupCamp in Switzerland took place in January 2009 and brought together young and future entrepreneurs in Switzerland in the process of building or planning a business in the high-tech, Web or life-science industry. The StartupCamp 2009 was such a success that the organization team clearly decided to organize another camp in 2010!

The StartupCamp aims to transfer knowledge and know how in the relaxed atmosphere of a Barcamp and to demonstrate the various possibilities to get help on your way to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Tracks can include writing a business plan, fundraising, building the right team, startup support agencies in Switzerland, web technologies, marketing & PR and much more. The attendees learn from each other and expand their network with new interesting contacts. Thanks to all sponsors this event is free for all attendees.
The sponsors are Acceleris, FHNW Basel, i-net BASEL, CTI Invest, Oracle, SUN Microsystems, DeVigier Stiftung, Amiando and Amazee.

Date & venue

The StartupCamp Switzerland 2010 will take place in Basel on Saturday, 13 February 2010 from 10am to 5pm at the same place as last year: University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz FHNW), right at the main train station, Peter-Merian-Strasse 86, 4002 Basel. The registration opens at 9am and an after-party is planned for the evening, so reserve the whole day and evening!

Registration is now open

Registration for the StartupCamp Switzerland 2010 is now open at http://www.amazee.com/startupcamp-switzerland-0
For registering you just need to click „I’m attending“ on the front page of the project magazine.
If you RSVP “I’m attending” and later decide that you will not attend the StartupCamp, please remove your name from the list as soon as possible as space is limited.

Spread the word!

Please give others the chance to find out about this event by talking and writing about it. Help us spread the word and make the StartupCamp 2010 a great event!

The StartupCamp Switzerland Team
Ansgar Wollnik, Dania Gerhardt, Patrick Liechti, Matthias Sala, Carola Ettenreich, Daniel Ebneter

Related Posts

• Communicating with US Blogs
• Startups at the StartupCamp2010 #scs10
• StartupCamp2010 #scs10