Zoho the creators of the online productivity suite have just announced that Zoho Calendar has moved out of beta stage. Zoho Calendar is packed with features and also supports third-party calendars such as Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook.

The new features in Zoho Calendar include:

• Support for multiple calendars and integration with other Zoho Apps
• Calendar sharing feature supports multiple access levels, from viewing free/busy times to creating and editing events
• Calendar subscriptions provide bi-directional support with Google Calendar and other third-party calendars
• Calendar embedding options with templates support is added for public calendars

Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist said: "Several Zoho Apps need calendaring functionality. We wanted to create a calendar that is one of the best in the market first, and then integrate that with other Zoho Apps. We believe we created a solid application now. We’ve added a number of integration points to Zoho Calendar, so users with multiple online calendars can gain a single, unified view of their overall schedule with Zoho Calendar".

Zoho Calendar packs in a lot of interesting features which allow users to Import calendar, embed them on other websites and also synchronize them with Microsoft Outlook and more. Zoho Calendar also supports natural languages, which means that you can simply type "Lunch meeting today at 2PM" and it will create an event for you in your calendar. Here is a list of all the features included in Zoho Calendar.

• Multiple Calendars Users can create and manage multiple calendars that are automatically color coded
• Share calendar Users can share their calendars with other users, granting them different levels of access, including the ability to view free/busy times, view calendar events with details, and create and edit events.
• Subscribe to calendar Users can subscribe to calendars from other Zoho applications as well as third-party calendars, including Google Calendar. As a result, events on those calendars will display in Zoho Calendar. Subscription (iCal) support is bi-directional, so users may display Zoho Calendar events in third-party calendars. Zoho Calendar also has built-in holiday calendars for 30 countries which users can subscribe to.
• Import calendar Users can import calendars from specific URLs such as sports or entertainment calendars. By copying and pasting the URL for the calendar file into Zoho Calendar, the associated events will display in Zoho Calendar.
• Embed calendar Users can embed their calendar in multiple sites. Zoho Calendar includes several, customizable templates that let a user display a modified version of his or her calendar on a website or blog.
• Agendaview In addition to day, week, work week, and month views, Zoho Calendar offers users an agenda view which lists all events for the current quarter. Users can also scroll through past and future quarters.
• Plugin for Microsoft Office The Zoho Calendar Plugin for Microsoft Office establishes bi-directional synchronization of events in multiple Microsoft Outlook calendars and in Zoho Calendar.
• Mobile Access Zoho Calendar is optimized for all standard mobile browsers.
• Natural Language Processing Zoho Calendar allows users to create events by typing in natural language. The Calendar is smart in processing the text and adding the event automatically. Ex: Typing an event like Dinner tomorrow at 7pm’ will add an event in your calendar automatically.

Users can sign up for a free account with Zoho Calendar by visiting this link.

No, Zoho is not releasing a desktop version of its applications. But, the folks at ManageEngine – a Zoho Corp division, have developed a pretty desktop-like user interface for Zoho products.

In many ways My Zoho PC (MyZPC) is a natural extension of the Zoho Office Suite. Most of the tasks performed by Zoho apps are tasks which have been traditionally performed by desktop application. MyZPC mimics your desktop and provides an experience similar to that offered by offline Office Suites.

Besides the cool factor, the biggest advantage of My Zoho PC is that it makes working with multiple apps more intuitive. Not only are you able to access apps faster, but you can work with different apps within the same browser tab. Until now switching between multiple apps within a single browser tab was possible only with a Zoho Business account.

Techie Buzz Verdict

Zoho is undoubtedly one of the most powerful and complete web-based office suites available. Thanks to the sheer quality of their products, Zoho has managed to stay competitive in a niche which is populated by offerings from both Google and Microsoft. My Zoho PC may be an unofficial product, but it does a pretty good job at extending and improving the Zoho experience. Not everyone will find this useful; MyZPC is especially pointless if you use only one or two Zoho services. But, even then you will probably want try it at least once, simply because it is nifty.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)

[ Visit My Zoho PC ]

The developer behind Google Notebook have announced that they will be stopping active development on the product, and many users are wondering if they should continue using Google Notebook or simply switch to something else.

Considering Google’s earlier deadpool of the popular Google Browser Sync, we would highly suggest users to start moving their notes to a alternative.

If you are looking to transfer your Google Notebooks to Zoho, Amit from Digital Inspiration has put up a small tutorial that will allow you to export/transfer your Google Notebook to Zoho. To make the transfer follow the simple steps.

Step 1: Install the Zoho Plugin for Firefox and then restart your browser.

Step 2: Login to both Zoho Notebook and Google Notebook. If you are not a Zoho user, you can use your existing Google Account or Yahoo ID to log into Zoho Notebook.

Step 3: Now copy-paste chrome://zoho-notebook/content/g2z.html into the Firefox address bar (don’t add http) and start the import wizard. All your Google Notebook notes will become available in Zoho within minutes.

Hack and Mods tip from Digital Inspiration, Transfer Your Google Notebook to Zoho, Quickly & Effortlessly.

Image Credit: Labnol.org

Many times you may receive documents and presentations from friends or colleagues, in order to view those files, you need to have Microsoft Office or one of its alternatives installed on your PC.  But what if you don’t have any softwares installed to view those documents? Or you just simply want to view those files quickly without leaving the browser?

Open It Online is a very useful and handy Firefox extension that will allow you open and view word documents, excel spreadsheets, presentations and images without requiring you to install any additional softwares such as Microsoft Office, Star Office or for that matter any Office applications.

Open It Online uses online document services such as Zoho and Google Docs to display the documents online. You can choose to setup your default viewer after you have installed Open IT Online, you can also make changes to the configuration by using the add-on options.

Overall a pretty nice extension for people who do not want have Office applications installed or for those who just want to save some time by opening the files online.

Download Open IT Online | Open IT Online Homepage

It seems that every few months, a new web-based office suite is born. Since I spend a good deal of my time writing, having a reliable word processor is paramount. Over time, I’ve found myself increasingly frustrated with the size, cost, and inexplicable changes to Microsoft Office. Combined with the failure of Windows Vista, the massive changes to Office 2007 has caused a lot of people to reconsider spending so much on future Microsoft Office releases.

In the past 3-4 years, a lot of companies have introduced web-based office suites to compete directly with Microsoft’s offerings. A little over a year ago, I was just learning my way around Think Free Office, and hitting a point of frustration with Google Docs. Microsoft has recently felt the pressure to bring their office products to the web via Microsoft Office Live. The public has embraced these tools, and it has created stiff competition among these companies. They are all scrambling to bring the public the features they need and want, without the enormous overhead of a desktop office suite. Recently Adobe has taken the plunge into this arena.

Adobe’s office suite currently consists of the following applications:

• Buzzword, a robust wysiwyg word processor
• ConnectNow, a web conferencing application
• Acrobat for PDF creation
• File upload, sharing, and management tools
• An Adobe AIR desktop application

Although this suite was just launched, it has great potential. The file management tools were launched at the beginning, and are not an after thought like they were when Google Docs launched. File upload, sharing, and editing are painless. Everything loads extremely quickly in Firefox and from the desktop AIR application. ConnectNow is an ambitious addition to an Office Suite. None of the competing suites have an application to compete with it. The AIR application also provides a degree of comfort for people who still prefer desktop applications.

I am sure that Adobe plans to add a spreadsheet application and a presentation application in the future. Once these additional applications are added, this suite will force the competition to continue to innovate. Adobe definitely has the edge on the competition from a design perspective, and as these applications are further developed, Google Docs, Think Free Office, Microsoft, and Zoho will have to recognize that this suite is a viable, easy-to-use, aesthetically pleasing, and functional alternative to their offerings.

Zoho the online productivity suite full of office and business applications now allows users to login using Google or Yahoo Accounts.

Now you can login to Zoho with your Google or Yahoo! accounts. Below the Zoho Sign-in section, you now have the option to login with your Google or Yahoo! accounts.

This seems like a interesting move as they also allow you to import your Google and Yahoo contacts into Zoho and easily share your documents with them.