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I somewhat enjoyed The Island. Its exactly the kind of Sci-Fi I like.

However I honestly objected to paying to see the film. After they got out in particular, I don't recall a scene that did not involve me being sold something.

Here in the UK most of our TV adverts are more subtle about trying to push their products that "The Island" was.

Bay claims the made less than a $million in placement, but I don't believe him. Either that or the advertisers got a great deal.

Here's a spreadsheet: http://numsum.com/spreadsheet/show/7807/

I'd like to log all personally identifiable info, ssn, dob, phone, address, email, mother's maiden name, etc that I choose to give to each company in this app. Note: I may not log the REAL values for each item.

The app should also let me create a log of interactions with the company. Whenever I'm on the phone with the company, I should be able to create a Reverse CRM entry to record the outcome. I'd collect date, phone number used, name of customer service rep, time of call, comments, and personal information used.

TOS/EULA collection should also be a feature: I should be able to save a copy of any online or offline agreement that I sign or "click-through" into this app. If it's a paper agreement, I should be able to scan a copy into the app (via PDF or whatever). The agreement will be bound to my Reverse CRM interaction record with the company.

All of this information in this self-created Reverse CRM app should be searchable. All of the data should be encrypted, and bound to this my computer with strong digital rights management (DRM) techniques. This would reduce it's usefulness when a trojan invades and copies all files into the ether.

This application should be created as a Free and Open Source application. It's development should be funded by the credit bureaus. Funding and support should be mandated by a federal law.

Another great online spreadsheet service is Numsum. They are located at http://numsum.com/

I haven't tried out google's spreadsheets yet, but I can tell you why online spreadsheets are the way to go...they allow people to share mathematical ideas and calculations easily.

For example, I created a spreadsheet that compares various hourly rates for contract workers. http://numsum.com/spreadsheet/show/20511 -- its not perfect, but it allows anyone, including someone without any technical knowledge, access to quick and easy information. There are Ebay spreadsheets, Business Spreadsheets, etc, available free of charge. Imagine how powerful that can be!

Another great online spreadsheet service is Numsum. They are located at http://numsum.com/

I haven't tried out google's spreadsheets yet, but I can tell you why online spreadsheets are the way to go...they allow people to share mathematical ideas and calculations easily.

For example, I created a spreadsheet that compares various hourly rates for contract workers. http://numsum.com/spreadsheet/show/20511 -- its not perfect, but it allows anyone, including someone without any technical knowledge, access to quick and easy information. There are Ebay spreadsheets, Business Spreadsheets, etc, available free of charge. Imagine how powerful that can be!

I have been using http://numsum.com/ for a few months now and has worked pretty well for me. We (my wife and I) use it to manage our household expences.

I think this Web 2.0 application right here, which was recently bought by Google, will probably be the best of what the competition has for a solution to your problem. Once again, we see that Microsoft no longer has a monopoly on such ideas. This is why I hope Google continues to improve Writely, and why I hope they'll eventually buy this web app, too. Mark my words, Google is gearing up for a direct assault on Microsoft's "cash cow!" And if Google works on ODF support in Writely, I am willing to wager it will be far more open than Microsoft Office, too. These kinds of developments are PRECISELY why Microsoft wanted to kill Netscape, why they now want to f___ing kill Google, and why they have been so desperately trying to make their new Windows Live portal *THE* platform of the web. In order to maintain their dominance with Windows, they know that they must find some way to make the Internet dependent on their proprietary technologies and platforms, so that they can continue to dominate and lock people in. Time will tell if Google will be able to beat them or not... But mark my words, Microsoft is DOWN, but *NOT* out. They are still a force to be reckoned with, and last time I checked, they still control more than 90% of the desktop OS market, and more than 70% of the web browser market. DO NOT DISCOUNT MICROSOFT.

It's been done...

Num Sum

Stick to standards compliant browsers. That gets you something that works on firefox and safari. You can even distribute a custom XUL app as a front end. That gets you around the browser issue neatly.

You don't write cross-platform applications by making a web site.

You better tell these folks.

And these

And then there are this lot

And then there's a little known crowd called Google. GMail and Google maps are both ajax based.

Oh, and you don't need a web site, just a locally running back end that uses http over the port of your choice. It's no worse than running a database where the DBMS runs in its own process or thead.

Java applications still suck, even on modern systems with scads of RAM.

"Appeal To Suckage". Isn't that a logical fallacy?

Functionality you get for free with native applications is either missing or doesn't behave properly.

I belive that's called "writing buggy software". Its not java's fault if you can't use it correctly. It's not my favourite language either, but I don't blame the language if my programs don't work.

As a developer, when my choice is between "Application for one platform that works beautifully on one platform" and "Application for all platforms that falls short on all of them," I know what my choice will be.

So? No one is going to force you to write cross platform apps. Just because it may increasingly yeild market advantage, that doesn't make it compulsory.

You DID have a better argument here than "I like what I like and everything else sucks" didn't you?

You probably mean C# here... "dotNet" is an incredibly nebulous term,

Um... no. dotNet (or more properly .NET) refers to MS answer to Java. More specifically to the CIL and the .NET runtime. There are a dozen or so langauges that can generate executables for the dotNet runtime. C#, granted, but also C++, Java, VB.NET... even Perl.

If you want to see how elegant cross-platform can be and has been for years, open up Notepad, MSN Messenger, Word, and Internet Explorer. There's not a UI commonality between the lot of them. Notepad is still stuck in the 80s. But they're all supposedly part of the same system.

So you're saying that because MS can't keep a consistent look and feel across multiple apps on a single platform, it therefore follows that no-onecan keep a consistent look-and-feel for a single app across multiple platforms?

What were you saying about crack pipes?

Do you really want every application on your system to be that divergent in terms of UI? That's invariably what happens.

Counter examples: gmail, gaim, firefox.

Eh? I thought the description, as well as Google's other services, would make their Office system a hell of a lot more similar to something like this:

http://www.numsum.com

No downloads or browser plug-ins required.