One of Orb's best features is the OrbLive iPhone application which connects with your home computer over the internet to provide access to your media library of audio, video, and photos. Through the mobile application, you can access any of your media files and play stream them over either a Wi-Fi or 3G connection. In the Windows version of the software, PC's with TV tuner cards can also connect you to live, streaming TV in addition to the other shared media saved on the PC's hard drive.

To some extent, Orb competes with Apple's own offerings since it provides access to music and video from either a desktop computer or an iPhone. That's why it was somewhat surprising that Apple ever approved the company's iPhone application to begin with. Even more surprising is that they allowed it to function over 3G when similar products - like Slingbox's SlingPlayer for iPhone, another live TV streaming app - are restricted to Wi-Fi only.

No Live TV for Mac Users Yet

Unfortunately, the Mac version is debuting without the live TV streaming functionality. According to Joe Costello, CEO of Orb Networks, support for live TV support will be added in subsequent versions. In the meantime, however, Mac users can install the Orb software to stream music, photos, videos, home movies and webcam feeds stored in iTunes to their iPhones or to any other internet-connected device including netbooks, notebooks, media players, game consoles and more. All that's needed is the new Mac OS X desktop software (works on OS X Intel 10.5 or later).

Those interested in trying out the new Mac version can grab the installer from here: orb.com/en/download_orb. For now, the Mac software is available in English only.

Do You Need This?

Some people may think that backing up their cloud-stored documents is a somewhat unnecessary step to take. After all, the cloud, especially a service as robust as Google Docs, is often already being used as the trustworthy backup location for the local files created on your computer. However, those who use Google Docs as their only location for creating and storing files may be feeling that it's "better safe than sorry."

Although arguably safer than storing files on your own PC's hard drive, using just one cloud service for critical files can still be seen as a "single point of failure," to use I.T.-speak. Besides, considering what we saw occur with Twittergate (the attack on Twitter HQ where a hacker gained access to the company's private documents hosted on Google Docs), there's always the possibility that a malicious individual could gain access to your account and do terrible things...like wipe out your important documents just for fun or perhaps even hold them hostage for ransom! Maybe that's being overly paranoid, but if your files are really that critical, it's better to take the extra precaution just in case.

Of course, you could certainly perform this type of backup procedure yourself, but Gladinet saves you the time by automating the process. Plus, since it runs on pre-configured intervals, you don't have to remember to do it.

The new Google Docs backup feature is available in the Professional and soon-to-launch Premium edition of the software available for download here. Unfortunately, Gladinet is PC-only software at the moment, but the company reports a Mac version is on the roadmap.

For the most part, though, the outrage over the outages and downtimes suffered in cloud computing are overblown. Even when they last for hours, there are few cases where complete data loss has occurred (e.g. Google Docs comes back up, but your data store is wiped clean)...well, unless you count Ma.gnolia.

But Gladinet seems to tap into that primal fear that comes with the loss of control accompanying cloud computing; the fear that your precious data will one day be lost to the ether. O.K. sure, that's not all the software does. It also connects your computers together so you can share files, provides a platform for different cloud services to interact with each other, and provides tools for easily moving your local data to the cloud. Yet, out of all its features, the fact that you can keep PC and cloud in sync - with a local backup for safekeeping - is probably one of the service's biggest selling points.

Is that the future of cloud computing, though? A combined cloud/PC experience? Or will cloud computing eventually make our hard drives, filled with locally stored files, obsolete? With the rise of netbook computing and mobile computing, it seems that the transition has been directly influenced by the number of web/mobile apps that now replace what local software once provided.

So where does that leave a software program like Gladinet? Is it a useful platform for hybrid computing? Or just a transitional piece holding us over until the cloud is all we use?

No one could deny the hardware/software/services giant's place in tech history (their first plant is now almost 100 years old), but what does it have to do with the glassy, streamy, widgety world that tech had become? IBM staff on-site had many answers for that oft-repeated question, which was usually phrased, roughly, "What the hell are you guys doing here?"

So, what is IBM really doing in the social space?

Enter developerWorks, reportedly the largest online technical resource for software developers in the world. Today, half of the world's developers use it; that's around 8 million members.

And today, IBM is launching a social network just for them.

And before you rush to make comparisons, it's nothing like Facebook, LinkedIn, or any of the better known social nets we all know.

The functions of the site are remarkably task-focused. IBM's demo video sets a stage of goal-oriented techies seeking a specific knowledge or skill set and using My developerWorks' groups, discussion threads, and profiles to determine who has experience or expertise in a particular field. Warning: Demo video works better if you ignore the business stock photography. We know most dude developers don't really have frosted tips.

The most exciting prospect is the possibility for ongoing collaboration. All IBM needs now is to show profiles in other disciplines so that the biz dev, marketing, design, executive, and VC types can get in on the action and boom, you've got a never-ending Startup Weekend.

An IBM rep said via email Wednesday night, "IBM's goal with My developerWorks is to connect the global community of software developers and make it easier for them to create new technologies based on open standards such as Java, Linux and XML. With $4 trillion in global economic stimulus investments on the way for projects such as healthcare modernization, smart grids, and public infrastructure improvements - all of it technology-driven - IBM wants to give developers a seat at the table and help them build skills in hot technology areas including analytics, clean tech, and cloud computing."

And what does IBM stand to gain from a web of millions of registered software developers sharing information, compiling data, building teams, brainstorming ideas, critiquing and refining their work, and creating products on and through their proprietary network?

We didn't receive a comment on that point and have journalistic standards of objectivity to maintain; however, we're sure that the My developerWorks will profit both the individuals and the organizations involved.

Miro is the free, open source, cross-platform online video player that manages queued downloads much like TiVo for the Internet. And although the number of users has tripled to about 1.1 million uniques over the past three months with the release of Miro 2.0, the amount of funds available for nonprofits such as Miro has dramatically dropped. Insert yet another generalization about the crumbling economy here.

Founder Nicholas Reville said,"We're asking users to each support a little part of the program; hopefully, it will add up to our continuing to develop and grow."

Reville also noted that the idea of code adoption, although diminutively delightful, is based on the fundamental idea behind open source software. "The code isn't something that we or anyone owns. The idea of code adoption connects really well to our mission."

Participating users will receive an official adoption page, an image of their very own "line of code" that they can watch grow over the year, a blog or website widget, and credit for their contribution in every downloaded copy of Miro.

Users are encouraged to visit the Miro Adoption Center and adopt a line of code for $4 a month. It's definitely cuter than asking for microdonations; let's hope it's exponentially more effective.

Over the past month, the Evernote team has been cranking out new features left-and-right. If you haven't been following the news, here's what you've missed:

• Clip to Evernote Bookmarklet: the Clip to Evernote bookmarklet was updated to allow you to clip either part of a web page or the whole thing. Plus, you can create a simple quick note without launching Evernote.
• Safari Clipper: Evernote added a Safari version of the Web Clipper which, in addition to the standard features, also lets you save web pages as PDFs. Growl support notifies you of new syncs and clippings.
• Firefox Clipper for Mac: For those who prefer Firefox on Mac, the new Firefox clipper for Mac is tightly integrated with the desktop client.
• Android Client Gets a Makeover: The mobile version for Android was revamped, adding in improved searching and navigation. It also optimized the interface for touch screens, enabled portrait and landscape viewing, and now takes full advantage of the Android browser.

The new Web Clipper

Shoeboxed Integration

Perhaps the biggest and best update, though, is the partnership with scanning service Shoeboxed - a partnership which was announced a little less than a month ago. This service lets you either mail in or email in scans of receipts and business cards. They do the tedious work of scanning them for you and then they post the scanned images online. With the Shoeboxed + Evernote integration, you can now send your Shoeboxed scans directly to your Evernote account.

Finally, if you can't get enough Evernote, the company has also introduced a podcast about their service. The first one, released mid-March, features discussions about the company itself as well as company news and tips. You can get the MP3 here or subscribe in iTunes.

Do you use Evernote? Tell us about it in the comments!

In this release, Xobni has also included additional user controls which will allow users to better customize Xobni's behavior. This feature is designed to help people with "underpowered" computers to take advantage of the plugin. (Can we say netbooks?) The controls let you customize the indexing times and configure a delayed load when Outlook starts, among other things. Although we never did formal tests on the Xobni plugin ourselves besides just using it on our own machines (where it performed just fine), we heard of some anecdotal evidence where people had claimed it slowed Outlook down. For those who reported the slowness issues, these performance enhancements and configuration tools will likely be a great benefit.

As for the funding, the company says the money will be used for continuing development of the product and will help them proceed with work on a premium version of the software, slated for release this summer. The investment from BlackBerry Partners Fund brings the total raised in Xobni's Series B funding to over $10 million and adds BlackBerry Partners Fund Partner, Rick Segal, to Xobni's board of directors. Xobni closed the first part of the Series B in January 2009, led by Cisco Systems ($5 million).

You can download the new version of Xobni here.

In general, I am just not good with physical things, because I am a software person. I've always been fascinated by people who can easily make sense of physical objects, because for me it takes a lot of effort even to put together children's toys. My brain is wired differently, to see patterns in software, not in hardware. But most people are the other way around.

A Brief History of Making Physical Things

Before we dive into the realm of software, let's look briefly at how we got here. Clearly, the history of humanity is the history of hardware. Since the Stone Age, when we invented the hammer, the world around us has been, so to speak, a nail. For the past several thousand years, we figured out how to use physics and chemistry to make physical objects. For a long time, we were craftsmen, until the industrial revolution brought scale and systematic manufacturing.

The main thing we learned is patterns in physical objects. We know that we can bend them under certain conditions. We know that there is friction. We know that things react differently to heat. The millions of facts that occupy our lives have to do with how we interact with the physical world and make physical things. These patterns get wired into our brains and help us live our daily lives.

Software 1.0: Why Computer-Phobia Happened to The Mainstream

Computers have software inside that does not behave like physical objects do. The key thing about software is that it is soft and that the conventional laws of physics do not apply to it. As a result, it's hard for people to picture what is going inside. It is hard for people with brains trained to deal with physical things to understand how software works. Because there are no physical laws we are used to, what are we to expect?

I constantly meet really smart non-technical people -- doctors, lawyers, teachers -- who have no clue how computers work. They treat them as magic black boxes that randomly break and never make sense. Why? Because software is a fundamentally different kind of system. It does not behave like the other things around us that we are used to.

On top of being different, software was really hard to use as recently as 5 years ago. PCs and Windows are to blame for the computer-phobia that still dominates the mainstream. My wife works for a large pharmaceutical company, and her Dell with its Windows 2000 is a monster. I do not blame her for being confused. In addition to being unbearably slow, the computer just makes no sense with its crazy administration scripts, incompatible drivers, annoying popups, endless choices, and daily crashes.

There is nothing in the physical world as complicated or confusing as her computer. All of the systems in our home work with the push of a button; all her daily routines are much simpler than figuring out how to turn off auto-spellcheck in Microsoft Word. Like most people, my wife is perplexed by the complexity of her work computer. But thankfully, things are turning around.

Software 2.0: Apple, Ajax, Video Games, and the New Laws of Physics

We changed our household computer to an Apple in 2004 and later on got one of the first iPhones when they came out. Obviously, my wife has no trouble using Apple products, because they are simple. More important, they, like physical things, behave as expected. Every user action results in a reaction that makes sense. There are way fewer choices, and things do not pop up out of nowhere.

Even better, this new kind of software proves to the user that the digital world can be superior to the physical one. There is no friction; things move around effortlessly; and they do work. This is not happening just with Apple products; it is happening all over the web. With the advent of AJAX, a new breed of web applications is teaching users that software can indeed work better than hardware. And that it can be way more fun.

It's the fun element that is likely going to be the tipping point, because it involves kids, our future. The latest video games are simply stunning. Like Apple software, they feature a lot of physical realism and behave as users expect. But in addition, they add a lot of special behavior only possible in the digital world. And it's not just about flying or instantly transporting from one place to another. Video games are creating a whole new reality that is an intricate blend of physical and digital.

Our kids are growing up native to this new digital world. To them, the new rules of digital physics are what the rules of physical physics are to us. They take these new rules for granted, because that is just how all our brains work.

Techies + Mainstream + Kids = Software Revolution

I never had trouble grasping software. To me, its inner workings and abstractions always made more sense than the physical things around me. But this is not so for many other people. Yet, the shift is on its way. Good software is becoming an integral part of our lives. Apple is one of the first and most visible examples of how software is taking over the hearts and minds of mainstream consumers. Its software is beautiful, simple, it works the way we expect it to, and people are starting to love it.

And this love is the first step to truly getting it, to understanding how something works. Because this new software is simple and fun, people are becoming attached to it and are willing to spend more time with it and, ultimately, to understand it well. This new software has a shot at making people get it, just like they get hardware.

And kids, of course, are already there. For them, all of this novelty is effortless and natural. It's a ton of fun, and they do not think twice about which buttons to press; they just know. So, with techies, the mainstream, and kids on board, we are poised to enter this brave new world dominated by software. The impact of this new world is going to be huge because, whether we like it or not, we will no longer be the same. Our brains, while never forgetting the laws of physics, will increasingly adapt to the laws of this new, digital physics.

We asked seven members of the ReadWriteWeb team to list apps they discovered about a month ago and that they still find useful today. The resulting list was 22 services long, with consensus around a few in particular. Whether you're a long-time early adopter or just discovering many of the apps that the new web has to offer, we think you'll find some things on this list that you'll really appreciate well into the future too.

Marshall Kirkpatrick

Some of the apps I've tested and decided were keepers lately include:

GCal plug-in is an experimental Firefox extension that I read about on Download Squad last month and have grown to really love. It puts a little calender icon in the bottom of your browser, click it and your Google Calendar will appear in a pop-up lightbox on top of whatever page you're visiting on the web. Click outside the lightbox and it closes. So handy!

URLBarExt is another experimental Firefox add-on that I found via Lifehacker and wrote about here. It adds a bunch of cool little functions to your browser's address bar, but the ones I use all day are one-click URL shortening with Bit.ly and one click copy to paste. Works great with Twitter.

MultiClutch is a Macbook Pro app that lets you assign keystroke functions to 3 fingered swipe motions on your mousepad. It's awesome. Right now I've got 3 fingered swipe down as "close tab/window," swipe right as "change tabs in Firefox," swipe right as back arrow in the browser and swipe up as "undo" in any app. I love it! No more tab overload and really quick navigation. Thanks is due to David Recordon for showing me this one.

The Jobwire Crew

The content team for the new ReadWriteWeb Jobwire, our just launched site about new hires in tech and new media, were very happy to provide a list of their favorite apps from the last month as well.

All three said that they had just discovered point and click RSS feed building app Dapper.net and that it is a big winner. It was also just one month ago that the Jobwire crew discovered feed filtering service AideRSS/PostRank. That's a big favorite for the whole RWW family.

Jobwire writer Doug Coleman says that a month after starting to use them he's still loving browser super-extension Greasemonkey (see our recent post Start Using Greasemonkey in Under 5 Minutes) and web page archiving service Iterasi (our review). Jobwire's Dionne Fox named super easy screencast recording app Jing as her most valued recent discovery and writer Nate DiNiro says that Twitter client Tweetdeck and video special effects software Camtwist are fast joining the list of tried and true apps for him.

Frederic Lardinois
RWW writer Frederic Lardinois says he's sticking with newly relaunched music search and streaming site lala (his write up of the service) and web based screen sharing service Yuuguu (here's our latest coverage of Yuuguu). He's also finding multi-service publishing tool Pixelpipe useful but suspects that he may soon replace it with the recently reviewed Tarpipe.

Rick Turoczy

Night time news beat writer Rick Turoczy added page collating service Agglom (see our screencast tour of Agglom). He's also very happy that he's taken the time to figure out Dapper in recent months.

Sarah Perez

Sarah Perez has a whole different list of recent discoveries that have stuck with her. She still likes image enhancing browser plug-in Cooliris, Google's browser Chrome (check out this video of Sarah "unboxing" chrome), AIR Tumbleblogging app Tumbleweed, news ticker Snackr, handsome social start page Feedly, Microsoft's super ambitious Live Mesh and the FFHolic Sidebar for FriendFeed.

That's our list! How about yours? What apps have you found lately that have proven themselves to be more than just a flash in the pan? We all love shiny new things but it's a relief to report that a good number of these apps we've looked at are proving to be more than just cool - they are downright useful.

Here at ReadWriteWeb, we'll be honest with you - we love our computers. Not just the web. In that spirit we thought we'd offer readers some short video tours of the apps we use every day. You may discover some things you want to try out for yourself.

I recently got my baby back from the Mac shop and am so thankful! We kept these tours of our computers under five minutes, so they move pretty fast and don't include everything. Following this video is a list of links to the apps discussed, followed by a video of Sarah Perez's Windows computer.

Click these images to open the 5 minute videos full size in a new browser window.

Apps Discussed

JingProject Related: Screencasts Rock: Here's Who's Rocking Them Now
FFFFound See also: 3 Cool Sites to Bookmark Your Favorite Images on the Web
Iterasi See our latest write up
Agglom See our review
URLBarExt See our review
StumbleUpon Check out our latest coverage
Greasemonkey See also start using greasemonkey in 5 minutes
GreasedLightbox
HeadUp See our review
Smultron
FluidApp Marvel at an awesome use case
AirFoil
Snackr Here's our review
Skitch Here's every time we've mentioned Skitch here
Adium Our latest coverage
Yuuguu Our Yuuguu mentions
Screenflow
Screensteps Here's our review
CamTwist
JungleDisk
Tweetdeck
Songbird
Automator - Comes with your Mac, I'd never learned to use it until just a few weeks ago and it is awesome! I ran out of time to describe it in this video but I'll include a screenshot of one of its functions below just to give you an idea what it does and how easy it is.
Multiclutch - didn't get a chance to describe this, but if you have a Macbook Pro, just go try it! It's awesome!

Below: the Automator

Sarah's PC

Sarah Perez says of her Windows machine: "It's a pink Dell. I love pink. I know, I know...I'm such a cliche! I'm dying to replace it with a netbook that fits in my purse." Her computer is almost entirely unlike mine. I thought it was a lot of fun to see!

Again, click on the image below for a full screen video and check out the links below.

Software Discussed

Firefox
Twhirl
Windows Live Writer (Windows Live Download)
Skype
iTunes
FileZilla
Google Chrome (for Google Calendar) See our coverage
RocketDock
Tumbleweed See 10 Adobe AIR Apps Bloggers Will Love
Digsby All our mentions of Digsby
Snackr
TweetDeck
Pando
Doomi See 6 Adobe AIR Apps to Check Out
TrayEverything
Live Mesh See our review

What About You?

Are we missing out on anything that we really should try? Have you got a screencast of your computer laying around someplace? :) Let us know in comments and we can all learn from each others' computing experiences. We love web apps, but you still need a computer to use them!

iLovePhotos is desktop software for the Mac only (Windows version coming...well...maybe one day). Designed to compete primarily with iPhoto , iLovePhotos aims to make it easier to organize and share your photos with family and friends.

According to the company, the software "automatically detects the faces of individuals in each picture." That's true to a point, but that statement implies that the software is recognizing faces and associating names to go along with them after an initial bit of training. At least, that's what we think "facial recognition" should mean. But that is not the case with iLovePhotos.

Instead, iLovePhotos recognizes the faces of various people in a photo and draws a box around them. Then, in a special view (the "tagger" view) which displays just the faces, you can identify a face as belonging to a name and then quickly tag the rest of the faces that are of that same person. But get this straight - it's you that's doing the tagging, not iLovePhotos. The software just has an interface that makes that process less painful than before.

Facial Recognition in iLovePhotos

Besides people's names, photos can be tagged with other words, too, like "vacation," "beach," "dogs," "party," "wedding," etc., just as you would any photo on flickr. Tagged collections of photos are represented with an image of your choosing and display in the right sidebar of the app. After you've tagged your photos, you can easily pull up all the photos associated with that tag by dragging and dropping the photo representing that tag into the toolbar at the top of the app. Drag other tags alongside it to narrow your results. For example, drag a tag for a person and a tag for an event into the toolbar and the app displays all the photos of that person at the event.

But Sharing Is Automatic!

The tagging aspect to iLovePhotos is easier than in some other applications, but it's not ideal. Automatic facial recognition would be so much better. They tell us that they hope to include that in a later release, though.

Something that is automatic about the app is its sharing feature. You can specify that all photos with a particular tag are automatically emailed - you don't have to do anything beyond the initial configuration. Now that's an automated feature we like.

Setting Up Sharing

Slideshows Are Automatic, Too...And Smart

Finally, the software creates personalized "intelligent" slideshows which can be embedded on any site or watched on your iPhone, iPod, or AppleTV. These slideshows use an algorithm to determine what photos you haven't seen lately and displays them for you. If you have just uploaded new photos, you may see those in the slideshow, but even if your collection has been static for a while, the app knows to show you those photos you haven't seen for some time.

Would You Use It?

Because your computer is often the midway point between camera and cloud, desktop software for organizing your photos can still be a useful tool. But does iLovePhotos offer enough features to make it something you would want to try? Let us know what you think.