Customized software grabbing spotlight at Stamps.com, Boingo.

If recent moves by Los Angeles companies are any indication, personalized software is the way to go. Stamps.com Inc., the custom Internet postage company, has integrated its stamps offering with Adobe Photoshop software packages. The upgrade will allow users to create and edit their stamps on a popular consumer application, printing legal U.S. postage using familiar editing tools. Customers used to have to create their stamps using the company's software on its Web site. The company also announced the launch of Photo-Stamps for businesses, offering high volume ordering-rolls of up to 10,000 stamps. The business stamps program is the first time company logos and advertisements will be permitted on U.S. postage since the 1800s.

An altogether different customization software package is bouncing out of Santa Monica-based Boingo Wireless Inc. that will allow mobile devices to access wireless Internet at public Wi-Fi locations. Boingo is a network of 45,000 wireless "hot spots" around the world--locations such as cafes, airports and hotels--where subscribers can tap into wireless Internet. The Boingo Embedded Wi-Fi Toolkit is an open source software package that will allow developers to program Wi-Fi connectivity into hand-held devices such as mobile phones, portable game consoles, or voice-over-Internet-protocol (Voip) phones. Open source software means the software can be changed and customized to fit the needs of the particular user, and the modifications are then sent back out to the developer community for others to use.

Until now, Boingo users could access Wi-Fi hot spots using their laptops or in some cases their PDAs, but mobile phones and other portable devices were unable to connect.