Sure, this post could be about an open source CRM product, or about the operating system that powers the One Laptop Per Child efforts. Heck, it could  be about a place to ski. Or even a cheap tactic to throw in a cheesy pop video:



But it's not. It's about sugar.

(CH₂O)_n.

Sucrose.

The stuff that makes tea a bearable beverage, and makes a fabulous addition to pizza dough.

Seems that sugar might just end up in our laptops, cell phones and other electronic toys before too long. Unfortunately, as demoed by Sony it only creates enough power for you to listen to bad movie soundtrack music from 1983.

Coming from a geek like me, the question of 'who needs a computer?' might be a bit disingenuous, but hear me out. I may not be ready to give up my silicon on a regular basis, but it just might be possible now to run a company without dedicated computers - as long you have access to cyber cafes.

Google has  been working on making it possible to ditch MS Office in favor of online applications. They bought Writely last year, and it's a pretty decent word processor. I'm not a big fan of spreadsheets, but other than not working with Safari, the Google Spreadsheet seems to do the job that most people will need it to do. Rounding out the suite will be presentation software - though there isn't a release date yet. Google has bought both Zenter and Tonic Systems so I would expect a bit of time will be needed to integrate the two. And, of course, a productivity suite wouldn't be complete without email and calendar functionality, which Google also offers.

Another option comes from Zoho. They came to my attention as a result of having an iPhone app for their services. In addition to having word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps, they also have database, CRM, group collaboration, web conferencing, mail and more. Most of their offerings are free, with some upgraded functionality being fee based. I've just started playing with the site and had one small bug show up when exporting a document, but it looks very promising. I'll dig more deeply and let you know what I think in follow-up posts. They've also just started to add the ability to go offline as well. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

I would be remiss in discussing online office tools if I didn't mention 37 Signals. They don't have an online MS Office replacement, but they do have BaseCamp, a great project management tool and Highrise for CRM, and a few other apps. Definitely worth checking into if you need a bit more robust toolset for a remote or geographically dispersed workgroup.

Last but seemingly not least is Jooce. Why run apps remotely when you can run a whole OS? Interesting concept, though the thought of running an entirely Flash based OS is a bit worrisome. Once they are out of Beta I'll definitely be checking it out. I like the idea of sitting down at any computer and logging in to my own workspace. I thought this would happen via Apple's never/not yet implemented "Home on iPod" feature, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

I came across Blackle last week, and was kind of in awe at their claim that their implementation of Google's search with a black background could save so many watt hours. I thought about redoing the CSS for Social Edge to turn our background black and make our text white. I cringed at the thought, as reading white text on a black background is fine for logos, but not so good for anything more substantial than a tagline. Darkoogle is another site aimed at replacing Google's white background with black, only they've gone all terminal-retro with glowing green text to be more legible. Having been subjected to terminal applications in my past I can't look at green text on a black background without getting a little queasy.

Bill Weihl, Google's Green Energy Czar, points to a couple of studies that refute Blackle's claim. For CRT monitors, the claim holds up, for the most part, but for LCD monitors, the opposite might be true. So we're sticking with a white background for now. He also points out some other ways to save energy, including making sure that new computer purchases are Energy Star 4.0 compliant. I didn't know that there were different versions of Energy Star compliance, so I'm glad to see that the standards have been updated this year to require more efficient power supplies and power management features.

Random thoughts on a Tuesday afternoon:

• On Sunday, Fake Steve Jobs was outed by the New York Times. Fake Muhammad Yunus insists he had nothing to do with the Times' revelation, but does point out that he is now the best known unknown fake famous person.
• Two days later, the real Steve Jobs unveiled new iMacs, along with updated iLife and iWork software. The new Macs are made with aluminum and glass, which are touted as being more easily recycled. The displays are still LCD instead of LED, but progress is progress, right?
• Seth Godin talked about marine iguanas and markets last week. Interesting perspective when seen through a social entrepreneur's lens. "Really big ideas tend to get perfected in the Siberian outposts, the little niches that get ignored (until they get really big)." Just ask Fake Yunus, he'll tell you the same.
• Netvibes was having issues last week, but they've updated their interface. Lost most of my RSS feeds for a couple of days, but it looks like they've fixed things. Still, I downloaded an RSS reader in the interim and started using it instead. Glitches sometimes cause more than temporary inconveniences for your customers. Sometimes they find something else that is more convenient. I am looking forward to testing out some of the new features, especially the podcast player. I will check out the Universes as well, and am especially intrigued by their 'create my own universe (soon)' listing. How soon?
• My netvibes Flickr search brought back this image recently. "Becoming a social entrepreneur is hotter than SEX." Really? Social Entrepreneurs are hotter than Web 2.0, too, but the pictures have fewer rhinestones: