Sometimes I like these Web 2.0 applications just because… well… they’re just so colorful and cool, just like when you splurged on the awesome chartreuse spiral notebook with the gel cover and extra pockets in middle school.

TextFlow is a document collaboration website. You drag and drop your document into their application, and then you drag other people’s versions. The changes and suggestions from everyone are color coordinated, and they slide out and bookmark themselves in cool ways.

As a professional writer, I’ve really never had much trouble integrating changes from multiple people into one document, so I wouldn’t really need TextFlow, but I’m a sucker for a pretty notebook.

TextFlow offers a fully functional personal edition for free (that includes a watermark “Not for Commercial Use”), or it’s $99 per user per year for the full edition.

Another cool thing…. great storytelling in their promo video.

TextFlow.

I’m a word chick, not a database dame, and the most I can do in Excel is to create filters to see the data I want.

I just watched the 8-minute demo for Dabble DB, and it seems this webware (which is in the running for the 2009 Webware 100 awards from cnet) might solve many of my limitations. You upload your Excel spreadsheets or whatever data you may have, and you can create charts, add fields, sort by time frame… all kinds of fun stuff that will amaze your colleages and increase your productivity.

It’s free to create a public database with up to 100k entries and 15 users, $8 per user per month for private databases. Worth looking into.

Dabble DB – Create an Online Database – Collect, report, and share your data.

I’m not going to say who in my circle of friends and family is guilty, but SOME OF YOU drive me nuts! You forward emails about sick children who just want postcards, friendship poems with angels and hearts, political puffery from your favorite radicals and pictures of cute bunnies and kittens.

StopForwarding.Us is a free service that allows you to send a private, polite and anonymous note to the sender to let her know to think before forwarding. I actually like the bunnies and kittens, but the friendship poems with email angels? Ergh!

Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

Please do not forward chain letters, urban legends, potentially offensive jokes, videos or photos without being asked or first receiving permission.

If you find something that you want to pass on and you genuinely think the recipient will enjoy it then forward it to that person only (not in an email blast to all your friends and family) and include a personal note about why you enjoyed it and why you think they will too.

Nicely done, don’t you think? Please forward this link to everyone you know. (Just kidding).

StopForwarding.Us | Politely and anonymously ask them to stop forwarding you junk email

Ok, I’ll admit it… I’ve contemplated dating an IT guy just to have someone to call when my computer is ailing. But my boyfriend might take exception to that, so I’m very grateful for CrossLoop.

CrossLoop is a network of IT specialists who are standing by to help you. Seriously. All you do is create an account, search for technicians who have experience with your type of computer issue, and let them take over your screen to fix the problem. You pay their hourly rate (which varies by technician), and you can get first-rate advice without having to have dinner.

I used them once and really enjoyed the experience and the results (he couldn’t fix my problem, but that made me happy because I KNEW it was a horrible problem that was beyond repair, and it was!). Highly recommended.

CrossLoop – Simple, secure screen-sharing and trusted experts for computer help.

PDFVue is a web-based tool that lets you upload a PDF, add notes, make changes and share. I played around with it for a few minutes, and I couldn’t get it to actually change the text in one of my client documents, but I loved how I could add notes about the changes I wanted to see.

I also like the ability to create forms, add pictures and links, and generally get something handy for nothing.

PDFVue Beta : Edit, Annotate, and Share PDFs for Free.