Software : Blab away: Google Babble might unify scattered messaging services

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• Blab away: Google Babble might unify scattered messaging services
• Moxie adds Lync to Spaces
• In Depth: Best free web design software: 10 programs to get the job done

Blab away: Google Babble might unify scattered messaging services Posted: Instant messaging is great, unless the person you want to chat with is using an incompatible service. Google, however, could soon come to the rescue with the ultimate cross-platform solution. A report this week from Geek.com noted that Google may be preparing to expand on its Google Talk instant messaging service by building an all-in-one chat solution from the ground up - one that works across all its messaging platforms. The new service known as Google Babble could debut at this year's Google I/O developer conference in May, although sources were quick to explain the company has yet to pin an actual release date on the calendar. Though Geek.com's report was quick to point out that Google's plan for Babble is to make sure users use it in just the way the company wants it to be used, the quality and performance of the service will standout from the static-filled chat field. Google-flavored unity In addition to chat unity, Google Babble will reportedly combine the best of the search giant's current Google Talk features, which are built on the open-source Jabber (XMPP) protocol. That means support for sending images back and forth, Hangout-style video chats and conversation-style messaging threads users have come to know and love. The service appears aimed at uniting Google's own disparate offerings, which include Talk, Hangout, Voice, Messenger, Chat for Google Drive and even Google+ Talk integration. An app that works across Android and Chrome OS is reportedly part of the plan, though it's unclear how integral that software will be.

Moxie adds Lync to Spaces Posted: Enterprise social software company Moxie has announced the integration of Microsoft's Lync unified communications server into its Spaces customer support tool. The move is designed to support collaboration between workers and for routing customer phone calls and instant messages to the correct person. It follows the integration of Spaces with Microsoft Dynamics CRM last year. Moxie Vice President of Products, Nikhil Govindaraj, said the new integration makes it easier to use Dynamics as "a system of record and your single source of truth". He added: "It enables you to deliver a more customised experience to your customers because when you talk to them you have the full context of them as a customer. You know who they are and how important they are to you. "Companies already have all this great information about customers but it's usually stuck in someone's head or on a Post-It note or in Excel. "You can use Dynamics and Spaces as a knowledge base to put all that information in one place. And with Lync, however your customer wants to engage with you, by chat, email or phone, Moxie's unified agent desktop provides a one stop shop for information, so you can be consistent, predictable and repeatable." Moxie's Phone Spaces technology can route incoming customer calls to the right agent using interactive voice response (IVR - enabling customers to speak their choice from a list of options), something Lync cannot do on its own. It can also pop up relevant information like support scripts and details about the customer's order history on the agent's screen as the call arrives. Moxie Spaces does not offer call recording, but it can capture the IVR information into Dynamics and you can add categories to make it easy for agents to tag a call as a complaint or a billing inquiry and add that to the customer records. Lync integration will be available from April 1and there are plans for Spaces to work with Skype in the future. "There are some interesting things coming down the pipe," Govinderaj said. "Moxie and Microsoft have a vision of making it easy to engage with customers via multiple devices. "Customers have all these channels, all these choices. You could start with a tap that triggers a phone call talking via Lync and escalate that into a video conference." He added that offering customer support via the web is no longer enough because of the popularity of mobile devices.

In Depth: Best free web design software: 10 programs to get the job done Posted: Simple WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web design programs make creating basic sites as easy as using a word processor. The next step up combines a WYSIWYG approach with more detailed low-level control of what you're doing, very useful when you're looking to create a more impressive site (although you may have to spend some time learning the basics). There are plenty of high level applications aimed at the more experienced users, who like to be able to focus on the HTML, CSS or scripting code. And of course you may also need tools to create your graphics, analyze the finished site and diagnose any problems. Whatever you're looking for, though, we've found a free tool which can help - just keep reading to discover our pick of the best free software for web design. 1. CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor is the free version of a commercial product, and so missing a few tools (CSS menu design, FTP upload and so on). If you're a beginner, though, this probably won't matter too much. You can use the Open From Web option to open an existing web page, for instance, and tweak this to add your own content. There are plenty of powerful editing tools, a local Help file to walk you through the more complicated parts, and you can also upload your page to CoffeeCup's S-Drive platform, where it will host it for free. 2. Notepad++ Notepad++ is an amazingly powerful source code editor with a vast number of features. Syntax highlighting makes it immediately easier to read and understand your code, for instance. Code folding allows you to collapse some areas while you focus on others. Auto-completion helps you enter code more quickly (and accurately). There's also a powerful search tool, easy document navigation, bookmarking, macro support, and more, all of which is presented in a highly configurable, easy-to-use interface. Go grab a copy immediately. 3. PageBreeze Experienced web designers won't be impressed by the PageBreeze - it's based on old technology, and distinctly short of features - but if you're just looking to create something very simple then it's a different story. This WYSIWYG editor comes with simple templates to help you get started (they're fairly ugly, but you can add your own later). You can add links, images, tables and forms in a click or two. It's easy to see and edit all your site pages, and when you're done a built-in FTP client puts your work online. So while the end results may be basic, the program's simplicity makes it worth a look for the novice. 4. Firebug You've designed your website, but it doesn't quite look or work as you'd expect - and that's where Firebug comes in. This powerful Firefox extension helps you to view HTML and CSS code; adjust your styles and see the results immediately; understand your page layouts; debug and log JavaScript; manage cookies, analyze page load times, examine error messages and more. Clearly there's a lot of power here, but Firebug isn't just for web experts. At first you might only use it for a few basic things, just viewing code perhaps. It'll still be very useful, though, and you can begin to explore other functions at your own pace. 5. Bluefish Editor Bluefish is a programmer's editor which also includes plenty of web-related tools and options. This starts with the usual editing tricks: syntax highlighting (ASP.NET, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, PHP and more are supported), code folding, powerful find and search and replace tools, autocompletion, and more. The program also supports document templates; has wizards to add CSS, forms, tables, forms, audio and video objects; quick tag editing and easy previewing of the current document, amongst many other goodies. 6. Brackets Brackets is an interesting open-source HTML, CSS and JavaScript-based code editor, created and maintained by Adobe. The program deliberately avoids cluttering your workspace with floating toolbars and large icons, instead allowing you to work directly on your code, with plenty of shortcuts to help. Click in an HTML tag, say, press Ctrl+E and you'll see a Quick Edit box with any related CSS rules, just select the one you need and you'll be able to edit it right away. It's just as easy to edit JavaScript code. And a Live Preview feature means that there's no need to refresh your browser each time to see the changes - they're updated right away. Add the growing list of extensions and, while it's still early days, Brackets is looking like an interesting tool for experienced web developers. 7. KompoZer It's not been updated for some time, but KompoZer can still be a useful web editor for beginners. The program works like a simple word processor, so you don't have to know about HTML, CSS, scripting or anything else: just enter your text, format it, and click the various buttons to add links, insert tables, images and more. If you're a little more experienced than KompoZer does have further tools which may help, including an HTML editor. The program is beginning to show its age, though, so more experienced web designers would probably be better off elsewhere. 8. OpenBEXI OpenBEXI is an interesting WYSIWYG HTML editor which allows you to create pages just by dragging and dropping "widgets" - everything from text, links and images, to forms, graphs and flowcharts - and tweaking them to suit your needs. It's also possible to tweak CSS or add scripts to the page, and a built-in FTP client will upload everything when it's done. While this sounds great, there are problems. It's easy to add objects to a page, for instance, but getting them to work as you'd like can take a little while. The browser-based interface has some issues, and the need to use a server might confuse beginners, too. It's still a quality tool, but you'll need some PC (though not web design) experience to make the most of it. 9. GIMP Every web designer needs great graphics tools, and GIMP is one of the best free image editors around. It has impressive photo retouching features, lots of useful special effects, a range of powerful paint tools and more. Strong colour management ensures your images always look at their best. Layer support helps you control which parts of your images are tweaked, and which remain untouched. And it's then easy to save your images for the web. The interface isn't always the best, and with so many options GIMP can seem intimidating at first. Once you've learned the basics, though, you'll find there's very little the program can't do. 10. BlueGriffon BlueGriffon takes a straightforward WYSIWYG approach to web editing, but also manages to include plenty of more powerful features. You could just use it to type text, insert images, tables, audio files, videos and so on. But there's also an SVG editor, form design tools, some CSS support, an accessibility checker, DOM Explorer, and more. One annoying aspect of the program is that several options (even that manual) require commercial add-ons, which means clicking the wrong button will take you to the BlueGriffon site to find out more. You soon learn which options are available, though, and on balance BlueGriffon is a capable and generally easy-to-use tool.

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