After about a week’s work, the redesign is finally live at Kontactr, the personal contact form service. If you’re a Kontactr user, you should’ve received an email about the redesign and other changes. the redesign makes the site much more user friendly and also offers little more eye candy than the previous design. However, the thing for end users is the redesign of their hosted contact forms. Check out mine here. The main change is that the validation is done through Javascript. For users who have disabled javascript, there is still the normal validation. 

Also, unlike the site itself, the contact forms have a width of about 600px so that they’ll look good on all screen resolutions. But then, why is the site wider ? It was actually a wise decision. The target audience of the site itself are blogger and webmasters, majority of whom will be having 1024×768 or greater resolution. But, the target audience of the contact forms are just the general internet users. So, it includes people who have 800×600 resolutions.

The next is that i’ve created a Twitter account for Kontactr. If you’re on twitter, don’t forget to follow @kontactr. And lastly, there is a new feedback forum for Kontactr now. If you’ve any new ideas/suggestions for Kontactr, head over to the feedback forum and post them right away.

What plans i have in mind ?

• To introduce PRO account with ability to remove “powered by Kontactr”, change the “Sent, thank you” message text and some other features.
• In general, add more features for all users.

If you’ve some ideas in mind, drop them at the feedback forum.

The latest hype around is the internet is all about Opera Unite. For those who don’t know Opera Unite is a service that turns every browser into a webserver. It eliminates the server-client relationship that we are all used to and allows two computers to connect without the need of a web server. Sounds pretty cool ? Don’t decide just yet. First of all, i don’t know what percent of the general, non-tech-savvy users will understand what Opera Unite is (conidering that many do not know what a browser is).

No, lets look into the services that OU has to offer. To start with, Opera has provided 8 services.

File Sharing & Photo Sharing

A simple and safe way to share your files between computers. Safe ? As pointed out on a blog, the URL of the OU is not ever https://. And did i tell you that your computer and Opera should be running always, if you want to access your OU service from any other computer. I’d rather choose better alternatives like SkyDrive, Dropbox etc.

Media Player

“Access your complete home music library from wherever you are” Are you kidding ? I’d rather take my music with me, than keeping my home computer running all the time for me to access its music. Of course it allows you and your friends to listen to music collaboratively. But thats sorta silly.

Web Server

This service is the one that really transforms your browser into a web server. It will come in handy when you want to show off a fancy HTML page to your friend without having to upload it to any server. I don’t see any other practical use of it. Home networks and computers are not suited for hosting websites and that is the reason people pay the hosting providers for. Even if your computer is superman and can run 24/7 without any problems, you should choose better solutions like Ubuntu Server and the like, for hosting websites.

The Lounge

This is the only service that i see some sense in. You can chat with your friends online (which everyone does most of the time) without having to rely on Google, Yahoo, MSN and the like. But i don’t see me (or anyone) replacing the favorite messengers with OU yet. Not to mention, i’m damn sure i can’t convince any of my friends to try OU. The obvious question is “Whats the big difference ?”. For an average use, why does it matter at all whether he communicates directly or via a webserver.

These are just the services that Opera offers, to start with. It provides an API for developers to creates services on. But i doubt any of them will be useful enough to convince people to use Opera Unite. So, the answer to the million dollar question “Does Opera Unite really change anything ?” is probably a negative. To the end user, it doesn’t matter whether his computer communites with a webserver or not. Anyway, we’ll have to wait and see what the developers come up with.

Now, whats your opinion ? Do you think Opera Unite will be of any use to you ?

Two days ago, the Gmail team launched a new Labs feature. But, I read about it only today, on my Reader. Its the "Tasks".

With all the keyboard shortcuts and the "sexy" AJAX interface, Gmail was really the #1 webmail that increases your productivity and saves time. Now, with this new Tasks feature, your can further increase your productivity.

My first impressions on this :

• Its really simple to use
• Doesn’t compromise for the features either. Supports multiple lists.
• Saves time, as usual, with its keyboard shortcuts.

I’ve been using the popular Remember The Milk for my tasks, so far. Apart from that, I also have Stickies on my desktop. So, is it time to dump these ? Well not really. Actually, the Gmail inbox is one window that I have open all the time. So, it is very useful to have my tasks in there rather than a separate website. But, there is something I want to see here. I want to be able to fix my tasks in my sidebar so that they are always visible to me. Thats the real motivation. If I have to click a link to view my tasks, that spoils the purpose of having it.

Now, that being said, I won’t stop using RTM any time soon. However, I’ll stop writing tasks on the Stickes. They will be moved to Gmail Tasks.

So, what about you ? Have you tried Gmail Tasks ? Will it replace your present Tasks manager ? Share your views in the comments.