40Tech

Whether you travel once a week or once a decade, you need to have a Tripit account.  There aren’t many programs that we feel that strongly about — we’re willing to concede that some people may prefer alternatives to Gmail and maybe even Evernote — but Tripit is one of the few applications that has no true competitor.  Let’s take a more in-depth look at what it offers, why you need it, and talk about how you can win a free upgrade for a year of Tripit Pro.

There are many, many, great resources on the web, especially in the area of education. There are thousands of sites dedicated just to teaching languages, for example.  My Life Scoop recently listed a few of the best sites for education, and there are more created every day.  Another startup recently received $1 million in seed funding to “democratize learning on the web.”  Do you think the internet will ever truly replace the classroom, or will it always be a supplement to improve the classroom experience?

You can dutifully sync and backup your files and still not be able to edit your documents when needed, if you are using a computer that doesn’t have the necessary software installed.  Online word processors can help you get around this problem.  Here’s a comparison of four such choices, Microsoft SkyDrive, Google Docs, Zoho Documents, and Box.net.  We’ll tell you the pros and cons of each, and see how they stack up.

It’s become apparent that every service on the web wants us to be better friends.  Why else would so many be pushing the social networking thing?  Back in June, Experian Simmons produced a report detailing trends in social networking.  Its finds were pretty amazing.  Steve Rubel summarized the data and provided some analysis on his blog.  It’s an interesting read and explains why I feel like everyone from my mailman to my middle school principal wants to friend me.  According to the report, most people use social services, and use them quite often.

If you are thinking about buying nearly anything, you can go on-line and compare the attributes, warranties, and reviews of the product or service- apples to apples as they say. Have you ever tried to do this with a share of stock in a company? Tell me, is it a better investment to buy a share of stock in GE, or in Exxon? Which company has made a higher return for its investors, Dunkin Donuts or Home Depot? Even if you can’t answers these questions, you still have to make an investment decision regarding each contribution you make to your 401(k). Do you do what most people do- people pick something and hope? Now there is a better way. You can now take advantage of XBRL data, which is like XML data, but for financial reports.

Do you need a seamless method for translating tweets or Facebook statuses from other languages? Thanks to an enterprising Chrome developer, you now can do so. So, you could find a German who tweets or updates his Facebook status with news on David Hasselhoff’s daily comings and goings, and the extension, Social Translate, will translate the messages for you. Read on for more.

Last week we reviewed Zenbe as a possible replacement for those of you who used and came to love Google Wave. Today we offer our second suggestion. This suggestion isn’t a collaboration site so much as a system to replace Wave. The system to replace Wave is based on using the full-range of Google’s other products. Read on for a look at the Google services that we use, and how we tie it all together into a manageable system.

So you’d like to improve gas mileage because you’ve got a 100 mile round trip commute, gas isn’t getting any cheaper, or you just want to put out less CO2? We have just the car for you. On Monday, Volkswagen premiered the “Bio-Bug” which will run on human sewage. Great idea, or too gross for you?

A few months ago, we compared Springpad to Evernote. In that post, we highlighted Springpad’s many great features, but discussed why we weren’t ready to give up Evernote for Springpad. One of Springpad’s drawbacks is its lack of a desktop app. What about on Android, though? As it turns out, Evernote’s lead on the desktop evaporates on an Android device. Read on for our take.

According to several sources, Verizon and AT&T are working on a partnership to develop contactless payments from your cell phone. The financial website The Motley Fool has more information on the deal. It seems there is no word yet on when this might be rolled out, or how they are going to fill my mailbox with pre-approved cell phone / credit card offers.

So what do you think? Would you use a system like this? Would you trust it?