Want to get a few people in side-by-side video chat, but don't want to set everybody up with Skype, video conference software, or a Google+ Hangout? Head to Meetings.io, create a room, and give your people the look. In seconds, you're all chatting live in a simple side-by-side setup.

Meetings.io does all the stuff you want—video, audio, chat, notes—and doesn't ask for hardly anything at all. Coming soon are screen sharing and file sharing, but given the live chat and notepad capabilities, it's not too hard to link out your files through another service (like Dropbox). The creator of the meeting room can invite and approve people one by one, or make the room public. There are even buttons to email or SMS meeting recipients to give them the link. Google+ Hangouts definitely have the edge in a few areas, including audio control and Docs integration, but if video chat is the thing you want, Meetings.io does it quite well, with no overhead.

Meetings.io requires Flash, and will ask you to approve peer-to-peer something or other, along with the standard video/audio sharing options. It didn't work for me on Linux, but worked like a charm for Whitson and I on Mac systems. It's free to use, and signing up gets you your own permanent meeting room address, along with a few more controls.

Meetings.io | via TechCrunch

Remember Google Wave? We still do, and depending on who you ask, it was either a collaboration tool that was ahead of its time, or a complicated tool with no single defined purpose. Either way, if you miss the unique, real-time collaboration features that Google Wave offered, Co-Meeting is a new web service that brings a lot of them back, including real-time, as-you're-typing conversations, document storage, in-line to-dos, notes, and meeting minutes, and more.

Co-Meeting borrows a lot of tricks from Google Wave, most notably the ability to have up to 30 people in one workspace at the same time, all typing and interacting with one another, updating documents, starting and answering comments and posts and threads, and in general just working together. As everyone talks, one click turns any posted comment into a to-do item or a progress update to an existing to-do. We can see people working on remote teams using the tool to stay in touch with each other and have separate conversations when a simple top-to-bottom chat won't do. The service even keeps track of where you left a conversation so you can get up to speed quickly when you return.

It's important to note that while Co-Meeting is inspired by Google Wave, it doesn't dive as deep as Wave did, which allows it to keeps its focus squarely on improving meetings and group projects when your team or coworkers aren't in the same room. If you're a remote worker, freelancer with multiple clients, or a project manager who doesn't want to drag everyone into yet another meeting, Co-Meeting is worth a look. Plus, it's free, at least while it's in public beta. Plus, if you're still sore that Google Wave has gone read-only, Co-Meeting even allows you to import your waves so you can pick up where you left off.

Co-Meeting

Meetings are the bane of many an office worker's existence. They suck up time, and because everyone inevitably forgets what happened, they lead to follow-up meetings to discuss the same things. Well, with the right meeting minutes and management tool, you can make your meetings fast, productive, and perhaps most importantly-effective. This week we want to know which tools you—or your company—uses to make sure the only meetings you have are useful ones.

The worst meetings are time-wasting ego sessions where you wind up spending more time talking about work than you would spend actually doing it. If you lead meetings or know someone who does, there are tools that can make sure that everyone comes into a meeting with an agenda and walks out with a copy of what was discussed and what action items everyone has to do, even the people who skipped the meeting—that way everyone's happy. If you have a preferred tool for managing your meetings and meeting minutes, we want to hear it in the comments below.

The call for contenders is now closed! To see which of your nominations made the top five, head over to the five best meeting minutes services to cast a vote for your favorite and discuss the contenders!

Hive Five nominations take place in the comments, where you post your favorite tool for the job. We get hundreds of comments, so to make your nomination clear, please include it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: BEST MEETING MINUTES SERVICE. Please don't include your vote in a reply to another commenter. Instead, make your vote and reply separate comments. If you don't follow this format, we may not count your vote. To prevent tampering with the results, votes from first-time commenters may not be counted. After you've made your nomination, let us know what makes it stand out from the competition.

About the Hive Five: The Hive Five feature series asks readers to answer the most frequently asked question we get: "Which tool is the best?" Once a week we'll put out a call for contenders looking for the best solution to a certain problem, then YOU tell us your favorite tools to get the job done. Every weekend, we'll report back with the top five recommendations and give you a chance to vote on which is best. For an example, check out last week's five best productivity techniques.

Title image remixed from CKstockphoto (Shutterstock).

Before you buy a spice blend in a bottle, look at the label. If you have a reasonably well stocked pantry, most of what comes in a pre-packaged spice blend can be reproduced with what you have. Try blending your own, or at least putting those spices you love cooking with next to one another in a "spice kit" you can reach for easily to add some flavor to your food.

The goal of the spice kit is twofold: first, thinking ahead about which spices you'd like to use together helps you put together a flavor profile in your head that can go well with just about anything. If you like spicy things, make a spicy blend with chipotle powder, red pepper flake, or cayenne pepper. If you prefer savory, maybe a little adobo, black pepper, and paprika are good to keep together. Second, assembling the kit makes you more likely to use the spices, and your cooking will benefit as a result. You can mix your favorites into a "special seasoning" that only you know the recipe for, or you can just assemble the spices in proximity to one another so they're all in easy reach when you start cooking.

The folks at Serious Eats suggest you pick up a masala dabba for your spice mix, which makes it even easier to use (although it definitely takes up some space) or even re-use a cookie tin to keep your collection intact and in reach. The end result is you'll have a mix for whatever flavor you want, and you don't have to root through your spice cabinet every night when you start cooking.

Do you keep your spices together, or make your own spice mixes? How do you store them? Share your suggestions in the comments below.

Spice Hunting: Make Spice Kits for Fast, Creative Cooking | Serious Eats