Zoho Meeting in free public beta

Last Updated on Tuesday, 19 June 2007 06:30 Written by Steve Tuesday, 19 June 2007 04:11

The online office suite developers over at Zoho have launched their web meeting software into free public beta. I was part of the private beta and the service worked pretty darn well. There were some kinks that appear to have been worked out, and now it seems to be a very solid competitor to the other services out there.

In the public beta period Zoho Meeting is free, so if you want to try it out, now is the time. Meetings can be hosted/attended in just about any browser. The meeting client is available in ActiveX, Java, and Flash, so plenty of options for all potential setups.

One note, the “big three” meeting service we use here at work went away for about a week becuase of a bureaucratic issue on their end, and I was left to find a way to host client meetings on very short notice. I was able to use Zoho Meeting for these customer meetings and it worked great. Install for the customer was a breeze and we got the meetings done.

I don’t know what their pricing scheme will be when they go live, but I suspect it will be one of the lower cost solutions out there. I’m definitely keeping my eye out for their pricing chart as the functionality is just what I need.

Race Report: Cascades Edge Olympic

Last Updated on Wednesday, 20 June 2007 11:26 Written by Steve Sunday, 17 June 2007 04:48

I survived my second Olympic distance triathlon today. And I knocked 27 minutes off my previous time, so I’m pretty pleased.

The race was down in the shadow of Mt. Rainier, and the weather sure felt that way. It was 50 and raining as I set up for the race. I did a warm up run, but didn’t pull the bike out at all ahead of the start. I was planning on doing a full warm up, but bailed because of the weather–I couldn’t face the water before the start!

We ended up having to stand in our wetsuits at the water for 20 minutes as the race director gave instructions, and then launched 3 waves before mine. My wave looked like about 100 guys. What I didn’t realize was that this race was an official qualifier for USAT National championships, so the field was a bit stacked. The start showed the level of competition and it was a bit of a madhouse. I hung back from the initial rush, but there wasn’t any avoiding it. I’m a middle of the pack swimmer, so I ended up in the middle of the pack. Each time we came to a buoy the field pinched down and I was reminded of my basketball days, boxing out underneath.

The water was cold, but I didn’t really notice in the heat of it all. It was almost half a mile before I really got into a groove, and then the swim was half over. I faded a bit at the end, but made it out of the water in 29 minutes, which was about what I had hoped for.

The transition to bike was good. I didn’t have the wobbliness I had last tri and got onto my Felt in just a couple minutes. Then things got cold. It was drizzling, and turns out going 20 miles per hour in cold wet conditions causes your hands to stop working very well. I had trouble eating and drinking on the bike because of it. But, because it was so cold, dehydration wasn’t really an issue.

The bike was awesome! As I predicted, my new wheels subtracted greatly from my time. There were a few points with a headwind where I could tell it would have stopped me dead on my old bike. The bike was perfect–it was a bit hard to shift, but that was because my hand’s didn’t work, not because the bike didn’t!

The transition to run was smooth as well. I tried to put on my running socks, but bailed due to dexterity problems, and headed out for four laps around the lake. It was a bit muddy on the trail, but running through the woods on soft needles was nice. It was strange passing the finish 3 times, but the fourth was sweet, and I had a nice 250 meter kick that made me feel like I had something left.

As I said, my time of 2:33:00 was 27 minutes faster than my last Olympic distance. The courses were different, but I feel like they were pretty comparable, so I’m really stoked. I finished 18th in my age group, but like I said it was a stacked field…

Can’t wait for the next one!

Update: Official results are in.

I finished 87th out of 182 finishers with a total time of 2:35:32.

Rank in age group: 18 out of 25
Swim split: 0:29:40, place of 97th, 1.5K
T1: 3:15
Bike Split: 1:15:32 (19.8 mph), place of 89th, 40K
T2: 2:36
Place after Bike: 94th
Run Split: 0:44:28 (8 min mi), place of 79th, I think this leg was shortened to 9K because of weather…

Father’s Day Tri

Last Updated on Thursday, 14 June 2007 09:41 Written by Steve Thursday, 14 June 2007 09:39

I’ll be racing the Cascades Edge Triathlon on Sunday in lovely Enumclaw, Washington. My first tri this year and my first race on the new wheels. I’m doing the Olympic distance: 1.5k Swim – 40k Bike – 10k Run.

I just do triathlons to have an excuse to step away from the computer…