A Closer Look
Desk
on the Go
OK, you're at
a cocktail party and suddenly you have this inspiration about
a business presentation. Your host has a computer, but all your
files are on your PC hard drive. What can you do?
Magically Inc., an Internet software
company based in San Francisco, says it has a nifty solution.
The company's new MagicalDesk
(www.magicaldesk.com),
unveiled this week, combines features such as a personal calendar,
address book, e-mail box and Web search. But what makes it novel
is its ability to access and work on Microsoft Word, Excel and
other files that normally reside on your PC's hard drive. And
it is all done via the Web.
A lot of the stuff is fairly
standard -- portals such as Yahoo! and Excite have been delivering
calendars, address books and e-mail free for a while now. But
Magically calls its product a "virtual desktop," and it lets
users do some pretty cool things. Uploading files from a hard
drive is fairly easy and quick -- and you can configure MagicalDesk
to keep some files private. Users can also create an open desk
that can be accessed by others. If you make changes to a document
via MagicalDesk, the company
will save them and download them to your original hard drive.
(And vice versa, although it's complicated and potentially frustrating.)
To get MagicalDesk,
you have to register with the company. Files are protected by
a password. The first five megabytes of memory are free; devoted
users will probably need to buy more. The company says 20 megabytes
cost $5 a month and 50 megabytes cost $10.
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