Hand2B.com

Hand2B friezed because of winter

2010-01-13T17:53:00.002+02:00

Nobody are interested in, potential investors was silent like mouses, they sit still while we started working and waited till we friezed. I don't care and don't mind. There is still much to do, but with new project that will be started differently this time:

http://beta.owely.com

Some sort of handy geek tool that I will use my self even if nobody won't.

Happy New Year and Marry Christmas :)

Last fixes

2009-09-01T13:42:00.002+03:00

Sorry for troubles with lines and blocks, now everything is fixed and quick blocks are working perfect. Also we fixed IE tab problem. On block creation you can start editing text right away without going to edit mode, this will short down time of diagram building. We still working on improvements to make things work smoothly, new updates coming next week. Thank you for feedback.

New phase of Hand2B

2009-08-20T01:39:00.002+03:00

Now Hand2B have more that new fancy menu upon each component, we move further: new diagram block can be created just with one click.
Also drawing tool have build-up drawing mode with special for easy drawing.
There is much things that is hidden inside and we will probably do the some features tour page to highlight each new way of making mind maps, drawing schemes and just collaborating.
Wait for more news

and my first mind map look that this:

p.s. drawing tool upgrade killed all old drawings, we are very sorry, but there was no other way to do this. we won't make such things again, promise

We are still working on

2009-07-20T18:46:00.003+03:00

If you first came to Hand2B and tasted it, wait for a second and feel the smell of freedom doing what you want. We know that your teamwork is unique and you need more things to do with it, but we just started and continue working. Basically we are developing project from feedbacks of our friends, colleges and you. So please write down all your ideas and fill free to submit them in Feedback page or send to
support @ hand2b.com

Preparing before launch

2009-07-19T15:36:00.004+03:00

It's quite hot here, my laptop is heating like space rocket but I hope it won't launch before Hand2B. We did Free Subscription registration which basically give ability to invite one friend on one paper and upload 20Mb of images and files for work. I think this would be enough to test all features and decide do you need it or not. Also if somebody want to be a beta-tester apply here please : http://hand2b.com/upgrade
Our Beta is on the launch yard and waiting to fly high as it is possible.

Weekend flew away

2009-07-13T09:47:00.002+03:00

After reading how Apple was born and t-shirts 90 hrs/wk I believe that we are moving similar direction. May be we should print same t-shirts.

Weekend ended with full object refactoring, opened new possibilities to expand structure and optimization of memory use. I'm glad the we made it. Andrey and Oksana did good job, while I was preparing website.
As always there is a lot of small things to finish and make everything work perfect.

Collab or not collab

2009-07-04T12:17:00.006+03:00

Shakespeare’s quandary for a team.

There is one good investigation of collaboration tools, starting from ordinary IMs and ending up with 3D offices where you can really live:

Collaboration tools research

Say "wow" to a new way of collaboration and scream while you can do it, because in a week you will regret it. It's really hard to force somebody to use "a brand new way of ...” That’s why new Web products become a “Swiss-knife”.

Almost all collaborative tools have chats, VoIPs, even Video conversation opportunities. Some of them have comments and "bloggy" things and all this exists just to make a client focus on the main target to get people together in order to work at something. So I've decided to create a list of my "I don't want to…" as a client of these tools:

1. don't really want to use integrated chats, I have Skype for this
2. don't want to draw something on my diagram blocks
3. don't want to share link of my draft with someone
4. don't want to change colors of each line, block and change the shadow below them.
5. don't really want to have files tab, comments tab, bla-bla tab all over the screen, so an application is load of crap even if you use a full screen mode.
6. don't want to make collaboration on principle "one person is making a demonstration, everybody is listening to"; it's not a collaborative man!

So, basically only "10%" of all features are used for cooperative work and the other "90%" goes for marketing "wow"s. Nevertheless, I am concerned about that "90%” which makes me feel it is inconvenient to use these features in business. I don't want to waste my time learning how to use a new modern wheel when I'm using the old one on 80%.

I am absolutely convinced that those 37 signals, the guys described well how it ought to work in "Getting Real" book, having divided your features list into 2 parts. Or, if you are a fan of the project, you could divide it into 3. According to my experience I just want to say: "Feel the reality, use your own tool for business." Only if you use it day-by-day 100% yourselves can the product be sold to other people. That's why all the team has been using Hand2B for the project‘s structure description and keeping working files there. We haven't even used the drawing tool; perhaps we will have to remove it?! :)

Starting our website

2009-07-03T18:34:00.003+03:00

Visit: http://hand2b.com

It was a hard time for two days, I really forgot how to make websites look good. I realized that design is not my strongest point, however I was really trying to make it clear, easy to use and to look good. There were a lot of small things which caused me to spend much more time than I had planned. As a result, I can say that now this website is fully operational.
Furthermore, there is a subscription form on the right-side of the home page, where you can incude your email to keep track of news.

Marketing fun

2008-06-19T14:48:00.002+03:00

it's good that nobody heard about it