ConnectNow

It's been available for a little while but we've only just started using Adobe's ConnectNow service in anger very recently and I thought it was worth a blog post.

Essentially, it's a desktop sharing tool with some additional collaboration features around it but it's very slick and the best one I have personally used for quite some time - and considering I was commissioned to do a study of such tools for a large bank a year or so ago, I'd say it's doing well. One of the beauties of ConnectNow is that there's no installation required - the browser is the client - and another is that you don't need to have an account to use it. You need one to set a meeting up, but not if you've simply been invited - this makes ad hoc meetings that much easier, especially if you want to invite anyone outside of your organisation.

Additionally, it offers built-in video and audio conferencing facilities (I'm not sure about numbers here), shared chat and shared notes, and the standard control sharing - a good set of collaboration tools. What would be nice is a facility for recording the session - or at least the audio conference - but most such tools don't offer it and none do it particularly well.

Go have a play around with it - it's free - and see what you think.

Aspect sponsor Chris Dymond

That's right; Aspect have gone motor racing, the FIA GT3 Touring Car Championship to be exact. We now have a deal in place to sponsor Chris's Jaguar XKR for the final race of this season and the whole of next season.

The final race of this season, in Dubai, has just passed with Chris, and his team mate Stuart Hall, finishing a very commendable 17th from 32 cars. Unfortunately, just as they seemed to be getting up some momentum, Race Two was abandoned on the Saturday due to extremely heavy rain. Even so, roll on next season!

We hope to have some photos up from the race soon.

Adobe and Synbiotix on board

In what's been a manic couple of months, we've taken on contracts galore, the big ones being Adobe and Synbiotix. Unfortunately the Adobe project is under wraps at the moment but Synbiotix, technology supplier to the NHS, have us working on an internal system to manage surveys at their hospitals in the South East.