Freshtech Friday by Steve Guengerich
Sure, it is the new companies with funding that make the headlines in old media. But, among the many great things about Austin is the amazing group of talented people you run across all of the time. Frequently, in addition to their “day jobs,” they are also doing fascinating work to fix the minor annoyances many of us face every day in our digital lives.
I stumbled across one of these amazing people just down the hall a few weeks ago, nGenera’s own Terry Heath. We already knew Terry was a great engineer, but what was neat was learning about just a couple of his side dabbles.
Take, for instance, Big Tweet (or bgtwt). You know how twitter has that annoying 140 character limitation that can really stop you dead in your tracks? Sure, for the twitter purists, the limitation is an absolutist perfection, like the divine right of kings, back in its day.
However, why put up with it when you don’t have to? And that is the beauty of Big Tweet. It lets you send that larger message on twitter, when you really have something to say that’s over 140 characters. And, you don’t have to go backwards from your web 2.0 world to do it.
But what about something even more useful, for you in my hardcore IT readership? Well, Terry’s got another pretty cool service called Locked Envelope.
Locked Envelope lets you send secure messages over the internet, without having to deal with encryption yourself. Say you need to send someone your bank account number and personal ID number, for completing a wire transfer or some other such thing. Well, you want to make darn sure that a bad guy doesn’t get hold of it while the bits are zipping across the cloud.
Locked envelope gives you some peace of mind. No, it’s not a replacement for a full-form e-mail application. But, it is a handy service for those situations where you want the extra assurance.
What other side applications, secret services, and other helpful little web apps have you run across? Please tell us about your favorites. Until next time!