planning

Coordinatr turns small parties into small effort

Coordinatr is a new events communication service that's been designed for creating spontaneous get-togethers among tight knit groups of friends. The setup is similar to MyPunchbowl and Crusher, with just a few form fields that need to be filled out to create an event. What makes the service particularly useful is its integration with high profile media sharing sites and a great mobile service that lets you send quick distributed messages to the rest of your party friends.

While MyPunchBowl was one of the first of these services to really embrace that people using these services share their party … Read more

Sprint raises stakes in the $99.99 unlimited battle

Sprint Nextel upped the ante in the $99.99 all-you-can-eat rate plan battle Thursday by introducing a service that includes unlimited voice as well as unlimited data and slew of premium services.

Called "Simply Everything," the plan will give customers unlimited voice as well as unlimited data, text, e-mail, Web-surfing, Sprint TV, Sprint Music, GPS Navigation, and push-to-talk service for $99.99 a month. The company made the announcement during its fourth-quarter earnings call, in which the company also announced heavy financial and customer losses.

The new pricing plan is available to existing and new customers on both … Read more

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile implement unlimited calling plans

It's official: As of today, all four major national carriers now offer unlimited calling plans. Two weeks ago, Sprint announced a $119.99 a month Unlimited Access Pack available in select markets, but today Verizon, AT&T, and now T-Mobile have all matched it with an astounding triple-whammy announcement that all three will offer nationwide unlimited calling plans for only $99.99 a month. Verizon kicked it off this morning with its unlimited plan announcement, followed by AT&T a few hours later, and T-Mobile finishing it off a few hours after that. We won't be … Read more

Verizon Wireless goes flat-rate

It's not necessarily cheap, but $99 a month is at least predictable. Verizon Wireless is hoping that the flat-rate, unlimited-calling plan will also prove attractive to high-end customers. While other carriers have already launched flat-rate plans of limited scope, Verizon is making its offer available nationwide.

Read more at CNNMoney: "Verizon Wireless Unveils Unlimited Calling Plan"

Which gadgets just keep on ticking?

CNET is all about the newest gadgets around, but looking around my home office, one beloved dinosaur stands out among the new devices. I still use the first laser printer I ever bought, a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 5MP. I remember studying reviews in the spring of 1996 and sweating the extra $100 I kicked in to buy the HP printer rather than the slightly less fancy Apple model I was considering. That was an investment that was well-worth the marginal cost.

It's been almost 12 years and that HP LaserJet has produced all the drafts needed for one Ph. D. … Read more

Voyant tells you when you can't retire

Although the Demo 2008 pitch came off a bit like an infomercial, Voyant At Home looks like an important and useful Web application for consumers. It's a personal financial planner that understands the impact of life events--children being born, college starting, retirement starting, and so on. You tell it your income and assets and when the life events will happen, and it tells you what your economic picture looks like. If you want to run some what-if questions, you can drag dates around (when you're buying that car, for example), or enter in alternate financial data--send the kid … Read more

When to hire a consultant

I became a consultant in 2003, but not without some trepidation about leaving the safety net of the corporate world. It was hard to break away. I had worked in the tech industry for 23 years and, despite my reputation, a surprising number of apparently misguided companies wanted to hire me.

Still, my mind was made up. As one executive recruiter put it, you could put a fork in me; I was done.

So I told John Bourgoin, CEO of MIPS Technologies, that I would love to consult for him, but wasn't interested in joining the company.

John said he wouldn't hire me as a consultant.… Read more

Tripit pulls a Dopplr, adds location-based friend alerts

Tripit, which I mentioned in an earlier post about Planjam, is a do-it-all travel service that helps people organize their travel plans (flight numbers, car rental info, accommodations, etc.) in one central location that can be updated and accessed on the go. Today they're launching a new feature called "closeness" alerts.

Much like Dopplr, which we peeked at last month, the whole idea behind the alerts is to let you know when your buddies (Tripit calls them "colleagues") will be in town or traveling in or around the same place at the same time. The … Read more

Planjam does date planning/bachelor parties for nerds

If you've ever been put in charge of a guys night out, there's a new app for you. Personally I just go out and see what happens, but I know people who like to make itineraries, and they need tools. Planjam is such a tool.

The easiest way to describe it is like the Yellow Pages combined with Tripit's itinerary planner. All you have to do to create a plan is plug in your ZIP code, and pick from a selection of landmarks, restaurants, and local attractions that have been categorized by what scene you're into. … Read more

SAP's business user organization to move to Business Objects

SAP on Tuesday sent out a notice to employees that the deck chairs will be realigned following its megamerger with Business Objects, according to sources close to the company.

SAP's business user organization, which is responsible for information worker and organizational performance applications, will be moved over to Business Objects, the sources said.

In some ways, that should come as no surprise.

SAP, as part of its $6.8 billion Business Objects merger announcement in October, said Doug Merritt, the head of its Business User Development and a corporate officer, would join the Business Objects group and report to … Read more