From what I am able to determine, Zoho Notebook is another Web 2.0 Tool that is available to help students, adults, or anyone that is doing research or looking for a new online tool.  It seems as if you can create pages, books, enter data, verbally record information, import files, pictures and so much more.  With all of the technology that is available in the newest available programs, this appears to be free of charge for those willing to work with the basic version.

It seems to be a great way to organize and create a network for sourcing and keeping track of progress made during research.  From scanning through and signing up for an account, I was able to check out a few of the features, that also seem to be available in the Word Office Suite and other programs similarly designed for student and adult interaction.

Students that may benefit from this web tool are those with a reading or writing disability.  It is easy to record and manage content without writing, because the system has a built in recorder.  I could see this being an important tool for an extremely slow writer too.  Students that aren’t overly organized may also benefit, as they are easily able to adapt and organize notes at a later date.  The final groups this will probably work well for are those collaborating on group work or projects, as it is able to adapt almost any format written format into it, such as Word, Works, or other web-based tools.  Students can be very creative and create many projects without having the capability to only work in school.

I think one of the best web applications is the Zoho suite of programs.  I established a Zoho account a couple of years ago after reading a review about it in PC World magazine.  However, I have never seriously used the programs for my everyday work.  As I started Moduel 8, I took another look at Zoho.  I did realize that it had been updated, and more applications to the suite had been added. Actually, I am living the situation in which I would recommend this solution to a student and my school in general.  As you all probably know, it is a constant losing battle trying to keep up with operating systems and new versions of software.  Zoho would reduce these problems and expenses a great deal. Also, I continually run into version problems students have between home and school.  A lot of time is wasted trying to sort out these problems and advising students how to cope with these issues.  The other big problem while dealing with about one hundred junior high students is having their files available when needed.  They constantly lose their flash drive, leave it at home, save it on another computer, or don’t know where they save things.  Zoho would be perfect for dealing with these areas.  Finally, Zoho works pretty seamlessly with Microsoft Office applications, so the transition to this solution would be pretty painless.  I know the idea of accessing their files from anywhere would really appeal to my students.  At my grade level there is nothing we do that Zoho could not handle.

Hello, and welcome to our 2nd installment of our Going Green series. The first installment explained the benefits of adopting a paperless system. To catch-up, click here.

When adopting a new system into place, it’s essential to plan out your plan of action – and get a date of when you will switch over to the new system. This obviously differs from company to company – for the larger companies it may take 6 months to a year for switchover to take effect; for smaller businesses and freelancers it make take a few weeks to implement. You may prefer to stagger switchover by saying “at such a date, I will start double-sided printing all documents”. Plan these and make a date for the paper process to cease – liaise with your colleagues as well to get their input on whether they they need more time or not. It is essential that you warn your clients/customers about the switch-over, and liaise with them regarding making alternate arrangements in advance before ‘the big switch’.

So now you’ve decided on a date on when you’ll be switching over to a paperless system, what should you should be having to replace the paper system that you currently have? Instead of printing off lots of documents, you can instantly print them to a PDF file (there are lots of PDF convertors out there for free – you can also print to PDF if you use iWork on a Mac!) – the file size is exactly the same (or, in some cases, smaller!) as a traditional Word document.

But, before you make lots of PDF files, you need to get a good filing system in place. Ensure that the filing system makes sense and you can access files easily. Make files for each client/customer in a centralised place. For example, a filename for a document would read 20091119 going green.pdf – and this would be placed in the “Going Green” file, which is inserted in the main file of “Blog & E-Books”. [this reads to be Blogs & E-Books -> Going Green -> 20091119 going green.pdf]. This makes searching for the file easy and as pain-free as possible. If, for example, you want to have a main ‘index’ file for each year, you can easily do this by creating a year file in the main directory where you save your documents.

If you have a lot of paper documents that you need to convert to PDFs then you can easily scan these in onto the system. Note of warning though – be wary of paper that’s larger than A4 size (this is normally applicable for documents printed via a dot-matrix printer) – you can scan the document in by laying it flat on the print bed. If needed, just cut off the edges with the holes in, making sure you don’t accidentally chop off any important data!

The next stage to implement is replacing your ‘note and pad’ system – this is used when you’re on the phone and you’re jotting down important information. An easy thing to do is create a phone pad database in Access – and you can create a form to enter in new information each time. (I can easily create these for you at a small fee!) What’s more is that you can customise this to your heart’s content – include your company logo if you wish. You can also use a CRM system if you wish – there are lots of free software around; and there’s a simple system that you can use on Zoho that’s online and FREE!

If you’re addicted to post-it notes, then you may have noticed that there’s a ‘widget’ on newer operating systems (i.e. Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac) where you can have virtual ‘post-it’ notes – it’s very easy to install and you can have as many post-it notes on your screen!

Hopefully, the above has given you food for thought about managing the new paperless system along with some replacements that you can use. If you do have any comments then please say – these are moderated before they appear on the blog. Keep your eye out for the next installment, which tells you how to manage and operate a paperless system in the Accounts office!

______________________

Le Top des applications en ligne

cliquez ici

With the vast internet and all of the many services available the more you know can never hurt you. It is important to know what you want from a type of service before joining, doing some research, and picking the best service to fit your needs.

Sadly in every service I have ever used there are always these people that try to turn that service into something it’s not. If a service is feature rich, they want a lite version…if a service is lite they want more features. Why people don’t pick the service they want in the first place has always baffled me. For me I look for the most simplistic set-up, that is reliable, has a liberal privacy policy, and can load on several different kinds of devices with no issue. In this pursuit I watch dozens of products, join several to test them out, and actually use the ones I like the most. Along the way I try to point my logical path out to others.

Two products for email I have been speaking praises about for those that are looking for a strong feature set are Zenbe and Orgoo. For me these services have too much going on, but I think some people might find them useful. In recent months though I have stepped away from that praise. So a little update:

Zenbe: is still kicking but apparently is a much smaller service than I had thought. Earlier in the year they launched a paid Business service…while at the same time they turned off sign-ups for the free version. Since that time there has been no commitment to the free service from the Zenbe Team and no updates. A team that is so small that it can’t maintain all its products is worrying. I am downgrading Zenbe from a “use” to a “watch”.

Orgoo: This service basically is an amped up email/chat mash-up. It is way more than just email with a chat window. For those people obsessed with chatting in a email window this would be a very exciting service. However, it went offline more than a month ago due to a censorship issue and hasn’t been herd from since. I am down grading Orgoo from a “watch” to a “stay tuned” Ill let you know when or if they will be back up.

One downside to all the many services coming out is that not all of them will make it. The days of having just a couple providers that are very stable are gone.

Well the two services I really liked are basically off the table now. On to some new picks!

1. Zoho Mail: Take the simplicity of Gmails interface, add the ability to have several inboxes to manager multiple accounts (not one universal one, each account gets its own inbox within the same window), no threaded emails like Gmail, unlimited storage, a good user policy, optional add-on services like a notebook and online office editor, built in chat,  a well established company, and you get Zoho Mail. My rating “use it”.

2. Fuser: Collect all your email accounts and social networks in one place. Once there you can reply to emails, social networking content, even send a tweet all from one place instead of a five different websites.  My rating: “try it”

For more on my rating system check out the Rating Page

Over the past few years, Microsoft has had to contend with increasing competition from free, web-based office suites such as Google Docs and Zoho Office. And when I say contend, I mean, maybe start taking notice of. There’s no doubt that MS Office is still the 800 pound gorilla in the word processing, spreadsheet, and database field. But free competitors including those online applications and desktop solutions including IBM’s Lotus Symphony and and the open source OpenOffice.orgcan’t make the folks in Redmond very happy.

So it probably shouldn’t be that surprising that Microsoft Online VP Ron Markezich referred to Zoho, Google Docs, and Zimbra as services that offer “fake Office capabilities.”

What was a bit surprising is how well the Zoho team took that idea and ran with it. Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu wrote a blog post about the topic yesterday. And today the company launchedFakeOffice.org, a site that compares Zoho’s application suite with Microsoft’s.

Not surprisingly, Zoho points out a number of features that it’s products offer that Microsoft’s doesn’t. Clearly, MS Office has a few features up its sleeve that you won’t find in Zoho Office, including 100% compatibility with all those Office documents your friends and colleagues keep sending you. But it’s worth checking out the site for the Fake Office “work online” music video, and the little comments such as the Twitter gadget, which is powered by “Fake MS Access.”

Zoho has actually been an innovator in the online office space for a while, and most of the company’s web apps offer far more features than competing Google Docs. But it’s tough for a company with an unusual name like Zoho to take on the big guys like Microsoft and Google. Maybe Vembu should think about permanently changing Zoho’s name to FakeOffice? It does have a nice ring to it.

Unfortunately FakeOffice.com has already been registered, which is why Zoho had to grab a .org address for their site.

[via Instant Fundas]

I took a closer look at the Zoho Notebook this week and its potential seems fabulous for classroom applications.  I have signed up for a free account and have been playing with the features which so far seem intuitive enough that my middle school students could easily use it.  As I venture into the Read/Write Web with my students, the Zoho Notebook seems to be a terrific way to keep track of all of their (and my) web resources.   It allows my global-thinking students to incorporate video, audio, text, images, and links all in one place.  They can take notes, save pictures, collect relative links, and create or save audio and video segments related to the topic at hand.  I’d love to see an actual page created by a student.  If you have a link, feel free to leave it in the Comments for me to visit.

A good reason to use Zoho or other applications in a city school would be for the use of students outside the classroom.  I know that access to the workshop drives for students are not always available for all schools.  With this reason is a good place where Zoho comes into effect.  Students would be able to save their work on the internet and then be able to have access to it at home. The possibilities are endless as to what they can save.  There are spreadsheets, document files as well as power point and  the ability to instant message as well as email.  All that you need is internet access!  This is a good way for students to do “homework” and actually be able to accomplish their work without having to stay after school to pull up their files.  It also allows students to be creative by adding audio and video to their work.  This is also really nice for students who have to babysit their little brothers/sisters as well as students who are in athletics after school.

Open-source software has been on the rise at many businesses during the extended economic downturn, and one of the areas where it is starting to offer companies a lot of flexibility and cost savings is in cloud computing. Cloud deployments can save money, free businesses from vendor lock-ins that could really sting over time, and offer flexible ways to combine public and private applications. The following are 11 top open-source cloud applications, services, educational resources, support options, general items of interest, and more.

Eucalyptus. Ostatic broke the news about UC Santa Barbara’s open-source cloud project last year. Released as an open-source (under a FreeBSD-style license) infrastructure for cloud computing on clusters that duplicates the functionality of Amazon’s EC2, Eucalyptus directly uses the Amazon command-line tools. Startup Eucalyptus Systems was launched this year with venture funding, and the staff includes original architects from the Eucalyptus project. The company recently released its first major update to the software framework, which is also powering the cloud computing features in the new version of Ubuntu Linux.

Red Hat’s Cloud. Linux-focused open-source player Red Hat has been rapidly expanding its focus on cloud computing. At the end of July, Red Hat held its Open Source Cloud Computing Forum, which included a large number of presentations from movers and shakers focused on open-source cloud initiatives. You can find free webcasts for all the presentations here. The speakers include Rich Wolski (CTO of Eucalyptus Systems), Brian Stevens (CTO of Red Hat), and Mike Olson (CEO of Cloudera). Stevens’ webcast can bring you up to speed on Red Hat’s cloud strategy. Novell is also an open source-focused company that is increasingly focused on cloud computing, and you can read about its strategy here.

Traffic Server. Yahoo this week moved its open-source cloud computing initiatives up a notch with the donation of its Traffic Server product to the Apache Software Foundation. Traffic Server is used in-house at Yahoo to manage its own traffic, and it enables session management, authentication, configuration management, load balancing, and routing for entire cloud computing software stacks. Acting as an overlay to raw cloud computing services, Traffic Server allows IT administrators to allocate resources, including handling thousands of virtualized services concurrently.

Cloudera. The open-source Hadoop software framework is increasingly used in cloud computing deployments due to its flexibility with cluster-based, data-intensive queries and other tasks. It’s overseen by the Apache Software Foundation, and Yahoo has its own time-tested Hadoop distribution. Cloudera is a promising startup focused on providing commercial support for Hadoop. You can read much more about Cloudera here.

Puppet. Virtual servers are on the rise in cloud computing deployments, and Reductive Labs’ open-source software, built upon the legacy of the Cfengine system, is hugely respected by many system administrators for managing them. You can use it to manage large numbers of systems or virtual machines through automated routines, without having to do a lot of complex scripting.

Enomaly. The company’s Elastic Computing Platform (ECP) has its roots in widely used Enomalism open-source provisioning and management software, designed to take much of the complexity out of starting a cloud infrastructure. ECP is a programmable virtual cloud computing infrastructure for small, medium and large businesses, and you can read much more about it here.

Joyent. In January of this year, Joyent purchased Reasonably Smart, a fledgling open-source cloud startup based on JavaScript and Git. Joyent’s cloud hosting infrastructure and cloud management software incorporate many open-source tools for public and private clouds.  The company can also help you optimize a speedy implementation of the open-source MySQL database for cloud use.

Zoho. Many people use Zoho’s huge suite of free, online applications, which is competitive with Google Docs. What lots of folks don’t realize, though, is that Zoho’s core is completely open source — a shining example of how SaaS solutions can work in harmony with open source. You can find many details on how Zoho deploys open-source tools in this interview.

Globus Nimbus. This open-source toolkit allows businesses to turn clusters into Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds. The Amazon EC2 interface is carried over, but is not the only interface you can choose.

Reservoir. This is the main European research initiative on virtualized infrastructures and cloud computing. It’s a far-reaching project targeted to develop open-source technology for cloud computing, and help businesses avoid vendor lock-in.

OpenNebula. The OpenNebula VM Manager is a core component of Reservoir. It’s an open-source answer to the many virtual machine management offerings from proprietary players, and interfaces easily with cloud infrastructure tools and services. “OpenNebula is an open-source virtual infrastructure engine that enables the dynamic deployment and re-placement of virtual machines on a pool of physical resources,” according to project leads.

It’s good to see open-source tools and resources competing in the cloud computing space. The end result should be more flexibility for organizations that want to customize their approaches. Open-source cloud offerings also have the potential to keep pricing for all competitive services on a level playing field.

Essayez de regarder ce film (01:32) jusqu’à la fin sans rire ! Vous allez comprendre pourquoi Vincent est mon Chief Clown Officer

Également présenté à partir du nouveau site de Zoho (fakeoffice.org). Thanks to @rafficaslam from Zoho.

I can’t begin to tell you how many clients we meet with that say “I want to do more marketing to increase my revenue”…well no kidding!  Too many people are feeling the pressure of a tightening market and the brutal competition that is out there fighting for every last dollar.  There is a lot of attrition with small business right now and we hate to see the pain owners go through with closing their doors and the impact it has on their confidence, families, and ability to rebound.  With that said we have real concern when hearing general statements like the one above.

Let’s work through the basics around marketing which may seem like common sense, but once used and implemented consistently deliver results.  Here we go:

Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?  Otherwise known as Research.  Until you spend the time to find out what is going on around you, who your customers are, where they live, who the competition is, how to best communicate with potential customers, etc, then you will be flying blind.

I am sure you have heard this before and there is a good reason for that…It is Critical to your Success!  Use your customer database to sort out commonality and trends among your customers and if you do not have a customer database…shame on you!  ZoHo is a free online Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool that works very well if you do not already have a program, so there is no excuse.  We have mentioned multiply times that Organization and Teamwork are the two major reasons companies go out of business.  A customer database gives you an organizational tool, a research tool and quick and easy access to conducting sales and marketing campaigns.

Once the hard work of research is done it is time to go full speed into the sexy world of marketing.  First thing first.  What is the look and feel of your business (i.e. brand, image, etc)?  These terms are vague, but we can explain them in an easy and simple way to understand.  Do you have a good friend in your life?

Describe how they look and act…that is image.  When you think of their name or an experience with them, what comes to mind?  That is brand association.  Does their name stand out? Were they memorable? Did you relate to them?  That is brand.  Bring your thinking back to how we relate to each other because that is what you are doing in marketing.  Marketing is connecting/relating your business to an audience.

Once you have the brand ready to rock you need to think about the many things you can do as action steps in getting customers in the door…Marketing Campaigns!  We will talk about the marketing campaigns in tomorrow’s Blog…Get Ready!

You comments on this Blog are welcome.  Please talk about what has worked and not worked for you.

I use Google docs frequently. I have a Microsoft Live account (though I’ve not yet made use of it). I store copies of my photos and other important files online using Skydrive. Web-based applications won’t be for everyone, for example because people are (understandably) concerned with the privacy implications. The trick then is only share online within your comfort zone. If in doubt, don’t do it. Once it’s out there, it’s there to stay.

Anyway, back to web applications. I suspect that these will be used more and more frequently. I no longer use a desktop e-mail program. I simply use gmail and store my e-mails there. I no longer see any point in doing so. If that is the case with e-mail, can word processing, spreadsheets and other documents be heading the same way? So much work takes place within the web browser today. It makes sense that our tools are made around and inside our browsers.

I’m using Zoho to write this and hopefully publish it to my blog. if you can read it, then it’s been successful…..

My daughter is learning about continents and cultures in her Grade 2 French Immersion program.  Her homework this week is to gather images that represent these regions and the people who live there.  She could have started by cutting out images from old National Geographics, but we decided to explore the Panoramio layer in Google Earth first.

After showing her how to navigate the controls for zooming in and out and panning across the continents we toured the globe and identified each of the continents.  She chose to look at images from Asia first and started zooming in until Panaramio’s blue square icons came into view.  Clicking on the icon opened a photograph of people or landmarks.  She then had to decide if the image met the criteria for the assignment.  Clicking on the image a second time opened the image in a web browser.  We created a notebook for her photos in Zoho Notebook and then dragged the image into the notebook using the Zoho Notebook browser extension.  (Side note: I prefer Google Notebook, but they have discontinued support for the browser extension).

Soon she was exploring on her own, finding interesting photos and adding them to her notebook.  She noticed that many areas didn’t have photos available which led to a discussion about the natural features like deserts and mountains and why people live closer to water and coastlines.  Afterwards, we looked at her notebook and picked out the photos that best fit the criteria before printing.

I was impressed by how quickly she adapted to the use of the mouse for navigating in Google Earth, her ability to work in multiple applications at once, and her critical thinking skills for selecting appropriate photographs.

As a freelance technical trainer my priority is to look as professional as possible while saving as much money as I can in the process. With this in mind, I discovered an entire suite of free products that can help with education.

Zoho is an online service that allows you do almost anything online that you can do with the Microsoft Office Suite —from creating documents to managing your schedule to setting up presentations – plus collaboration, project-management, chatting, and a numerous other  tasks.

This suite of online web applications effectively increases your productivity and offers effortless communication with students or colleagues. The projects you create can be shared with the public, or anyone you authorize. You can make your project completely public, either via a URL on Zoho’s site or on your blog.

The biggest advantage of Zoho is that all these basic products are free. (Many of them have an affordable upgrade option offering more features.). Another benefit is that Zoho is looks professional and can even be customized with your logo and institution information.

Here are a few of the Zoho applications that I have found most beneficial for teaching:

Zoho Meeting

Zoho Meeting captures some of the important features of WebEx – desktop sharing.  It enables the students to have access to the teacher’s desktop so they are able to view presentations and follow direction during classes.

Each student can view the teacher’s desktop, chat, add participants, email, and view meeting details. Sessions can also be recorded and downloaded by users. If you want to display something remotely, Zoho Meeting can help you accomplish this task.

Zoho Discussion

With Zoho Discussion you can create public or private support forums where students can share comments around a particular discussion topic (much like the discussion area in Blackboard).

Zoho provides easy set up and is filled with useful features. Similar to any forum, Zoho Discussion lets users create threads based on a particular topic. Users can create a profile, follow other users, bookmark particular threads and send private messages to the teachers and other students.

Zoho Challenge

This is application allows an instructor to create online tests. The teacher can easily add students, check on performance and verify who has passed and who has not. The student can schedule their test far in advance, view clearly accessible test results, and view graphs displaying the overall results of tests.

Zoho Wiki

Zoho Wiki provides easy to use WYSIWYG editing. The Wiki is the perfect way to create a virtual classroom so students can stay connected.

The instructor can post assignments and study materials; keep up online schedules with assignment deadlines; host pictures, slide shows, photo galleries and video clips; share articles, videos, useful links, blogs and so much more.

Zoho Chat

With Zoho Chat the user has the ability to connect with others in real time. Nearly every Zoho application has the chat function or it can be used as a standalone.  The user can send files, record chat history, customize themes, and anything else you would find in an IM application.

Zoho Show

Zoho Show is a program, similar to MS PowerPoint, for creating presentations. It is simple and user-friendly. The user can upload PowerPoint files up to 10MB from your PC or the web and export Zoho presentation into PowerPoint; share the presentation remotely through Zoho Meeting; embed into other webpages; and imbed YouTube videos into their presentation. There are multiple ways to share presentations.

For information on all Zoho programs:

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoho_Office_Suite#Zoho_Wiki

To access the programs:

Zoho http://www.zoho.com/

Συνεργασία Zoho project με Google Apps « Productivity

Η online σουίτα εφαρμογών γραφείου Zoho, που ξεχωρίζει για την πολύ καλή webapp διαχείρισης projects που διαθέτει, κυκλοφόρησε το Zoho Projects for Google Apps με το οποίο ξεκινά μια ανεπίσημη, άτυπη «συμμαχία» με την Google.[next]

En el mercado encontramos una amplia gama de procesadores de texto, unos más simples que otros, algunos gratis, otros de pago, y todos con funcionalidades muy parecidas. Acá tenés un link de DonationCoder.com que puede resultarte muy interesante si preferís analizar tus opciones antes de apostar por alguno de ellos. Entre los principales encontramos a OpenOffice (gratuito), Microsoft Word 2007 y WordPerfect X3. Luego disponemos de otros programas como TextMaker, Atlantis, Papyrus WORD, AbiWord, Ability Write, EIOffice, PolyEdit y procesadores “vía web”: GoogleDocs, ThinkFree Office Write y Zoho Write.

Procesadores de texto: Descargas

Check out my guest post on DigitalOrgs.net about the online collaboration tool, Zoho.

Cheers,

Rikke

Una suite Office online (chiamata anche online productivity suite) è un tipo di pacchetti applicativi offerti da alcuni siti web sotto forma o di software come servizio. Queste suite possono essere utilizzate online da qualsiasi strumento connesso a Internet e con qualsiasi sistema operativo. Tutto ciò permette agli utenti di lavorare assieme, in qualsiasi parte del mondo siano e a qualsiasi ora, realizzando la collaborazione sul web e una squadra di lavoro virtuale. Solitamente le versioni base sono offerte gratuitamente e per quelle più avanzate (più spazio d’archiviazione, maggiori servizi, elementi specifici) è richiesta una quota da pagare. Le applicazioni Office online sono spesso sviluppate secondo i paradigmi del Web 2.0 e quindi parliamo anche di vere e proprie community. I produttori di suite office online sono sia aziende commerciali (con prodotti a pagamento) e open source (comunità di software libero e/o gratuito). I grandi vantaggi di queste suite Office online è che non serve installare nulla, non c’è problema di versione, perché basta solamente il browser per internet, molte persone possono lavorare in gruppo, in contemporanea, le licenze individuali d’uso dei programmi sono facili da gestire. Uno svantaggio consiste nella necessità di avere sempre la connessione internet, sia per lavorare che per recuperare i documenti prodotti.
Ma vediamo meglio quali e quante suite Office online ci sono a disposizione dell’utente ma, in primo luogo, è bene chiarire che gran parte (o tutti) gli applicativi sono in lingua inglese, ma chiari. Infine, è sempre necessario registrarsi – gratuitamente – per crearsi il proprio spazio utente.

• Adobe Buzzword. Buzzword è l’ultimo nato nell’insieme di applicativi online. Come dice il nome, è esclusivamente un editor di testo, creato dalla Adobe, la stessa che ha inventato il formato Pdf. Buzzword si presenta con una schermata elegante e di colore scuro e si rivela assai efficace e pratico: è possibile svolgere tutte le operazioni, anche di editing complesso, inserire immagini, tabelle (ma non formule numeriche), commenti e rivedere le versioni prodotte fino a quel momento, condividere il testo con altri utenti, stabilendo i vari permessi e livelli di modifica che gli utenti possono svolgere. Abbastanza rapido e gradevole nell’uso.
• Google DOCS. La suite d’ufficio del colosso di Mountain View, comprendente l’editor di testo, presentazioni e foglio di calcolo. Si integra benissimo con qualsiasi browser, può esportare i documenti prodotti nei formati standard (MS Word/Powerpoint/Excel, ma anche in formato HTML (cioè in linguaggio web) e modificare i file ulteriormente. La conversione nei formati soliti non è del tutto esatta, ma qualche dettaglio può perdersi per strada, senza troppi sconvolgimenti. Anche Docs permette di condividere i file prodotti e stabilire i livelli di modifica a disposizione. Buona e ampia la scelta di modelli (Template).
• Live Documents è un servizio relativamente recente, che offre uno spazio gratuito di 100 Mb per i propri documenti (al solito: testi, fogli di calcolo e presentazioni). Basta registrarsi e lavorare su una schermata abbastanza elegante, chiara. L’aspetto negativo è l’estrema lentezza nell’apertura dei file e del proprio spazio di lavoro virtuale, perché sfrutta il linguaggio Flash e Adobe AIR. Non molto funzionale (visti i ritardi), ma l’apparato di strumenti per la creazione e la modifica dei testi è molto vicino a quello di un software di word-processor standard e quindi buono.
• Microsoft Office Live dichiara subito cosa offre: attraverso un account Live (o MSN), è possibile aprire e salvare attraverso il proprio browser i classici formati di Microsoft Office, oltre OneNote.Office Live permette di caricare e o lavorare da qualsiasi posizione su file di dimensioni fino a 5 Gb, u
  sare le applicazioni Web Office ovunque e in qualsiasi momento, da qualsiasi computer su Internet. L’integrazione con eventuali file di Office su altri computer è totale e l’uso è piuttosto rapido ed efficace.
• Peepel è l’insieme di vari servizi che includono l’editor di testi, presentazioni, foglio di calcolo, uno spazio di archiaviazione virtuale, ecc., ma può presentare qualche problema di visualizzazione a secondo del browser in uso.
• SoloDox sembra nascere in Cina (l’altra lingua disponibile, a parte l’inglese, è proprio il cinese) e assomiglia molto a un programma per sistema Windows, anche se funzione relativamente bene anche con altri sistemi. Comprende i tre applicativi di base: testo, presentazioni e foglio di calcolo. I modelli a disposizione sembrano abbastanza basilari, ma lo spazio per l’archiviazione non è piccolo.
• ThinkFree è un’ottima scelta, sia per le possibilità di editing (di modifica documenti), sia per la grande varietà di documenti presenti nella community di utenti. ThinkFree offre la creazione e modifica di testi, fogli di calcolo e presentazioni. La varietà di modelli non è grande e il design è perlopiù essenziale, ma l’esportazione in altri formati è rapida ed efficace, visto che la compatibilità con Microsoft Office è al 100%. A differenza degli altri servizi prima descritti, TF permette una buona auto-correzione dei testi o file su cui si lavora, tabulazione, unione celle, ecc. Infine, è possibile caricare immagini da Flickr o documenti nel blog proprio.
  Ulteo è un servizio complesso, che offre sia una suite opensource come OpenOffice (e tutti i vantaggi che essa comporta), sia un intero sistema operativo virtuale che ricorda un misto di Linux e Microsoft Windows, senza però installare un software ulteriore per la virtualizzazione, cosa che di solito è invece necessaria. Ulteo OpenOffice permette di interagire con il formato OpenDocument, quindi accettato in tutta Europa e altrove, la piena trasferibilità a Windows Office, all’OpenOffice eventualmente installato come software vero e proprio sul pc, il salvataggio in formato Pdf, e tanto altro. L’aspetto positivo di Ulteo OpenOffice è che può lavorare in lingua italiana, caso unico in questa rassegna, dopo avere stabilito i parametri adeguati.
• Zoho Office Suite potrebbe essere la seconda scelta, anche se il caricamento dei documenti è rapido, la scelta dei modelli a disposizione è ampia e varia, c’è lo spelling (correzione parole, grafia, ecc.). A parte il word-processor, il foglio di calcolo e presentazioni Zoho presenta una vasta gamma di servizi e tutti utili: Project management software, presentation software, database manager, notazione pagine web, memo/notes organizer (agenda), raggruppamento membri, calendario and e-mail client, chat e software wiki.

Je viens de tomber sur cet article ou l’auteur compare les trois suites. Il fait 9 pages donc il y a un peu de lecture.

Ce que j’en ai retenu, comme pouvait le dire ce précédent article du NY times zoho offre un meilleur rendu des fichiers office et ses fonctionnalités sont un peu plus avancées pour certaines. Par contre il y a un net avantage, semble-t-il, pour la future suite en ligne de Microsoft. Elle devrait être un vrai portage en ligne des outils desktop de Microsoft. Cependant, comme le note l’auteur, Microsoft serait un peu moins généreux sur les possibilités offertes dans la version gratuite que ses deux autres rivaux.

Je fais souvent des articles sur zoho, car je reconnais leurs qualités et leur politique tarifaire est très généreuses mais leur handicap par rapport à Google est qu’il n’ont pas Gmail. Je confesse que même si google est moins bon que zoho, c’est plus simple de cliquer sur le lien “Documents” de Gmail que d’aller sur le site de Zoho. Par contre pour une PME la suite office en ligne de zoho est vraiment un bon outils. Pour la suite de Microsoft, je suis sûr qu’elle sera trés bien par contre il faudra voir ce que l’onpourra vraiment faire avec.

I remember the day when i almost  jumped out of  the chair, after i created site in geocities. Editing HTML was so easy it was like child play,except the annoying ad widget.  Although i have two yahoo ids now, one which was created because my full name as yahoo id was available.

When i say Google the new yahoos, not in a negative way, but the number of services they offer are tantamount to what yahoo used to offer. Think of the gamut of services beyond Mail. Documents, Sites, Reader,Maps,etc. All these would have been in yahoo’s roadmap more or less.

Other companies like Microsoft and Zoho are offering similar services, but GMAIL is the pivotal product after search engine , which made users stick to it. Like your neighbourhood grocery store, where you would wait to get favourite Cheese even though its available at the  next store at a discounted price. Its all with the familiarity.

Gmail shutdown has been sore point oflately, but not a major concern.  I beginning to notice the offline feature for most of the Google services. Hip hip hurrah for that. Gmail, GDocs, GReader all have it with the support of Google Gears. Its a good and proactive to go beyond SaaS , but offering a desktop solution is Nah Nah for me and for most of you.  But i would like to get my hands dirty, because i trust my neighbourhood store man. He always delivers.

News of a possible H1N1 virus, or “Swine Flu,” pandemic is causing many commercial firms and government agencies to examine their Continuity of Operations (COOP) plans so business can soldier on during the crisis. The threat of an H1N1 outbreak is even prompting the United States Centers for Disease Control to recommend that small businesses have telework and business continuity plans in place.

This could place even organizations with well developed telecommuting programs in a challenging position, because a major virus outbreak may mean that their remote worker needs exceed their current capacity.

On the flip side, there are organizations that are far from telecommuting-friendly, which face even more challenges because they aren’t set up for remote working. In order to keep their business running in such a crisis they are going to need to buy or build an infrastructure to meet a new model of working.

At WebWorkerDaily, we get a chance to review some of the best office productivity, social media, online collaboration, project management, and Web 2.0 tools that in a worst case scenario — like a pandemic outbreak — can help an organization maintain some semblance of operations and communications, even though its employees and contractors are working from home during the crisis.

Perhaps your organization already has a well-honed telecommuting policy, however it is prudent to look for chinks in your telecommuting plans before the worst case scenario happens. Here is a look at some tools and services you can use to keep business operations running.

Office Suites
While Microsoft Office (s msft) is probably your corporate standard, an extreme scenario like a pandemic outbreak could place your newly minted web workers on their home PCs or on a limited number of organization owned notebook PCs — there might not be enough Office licenses to cope with this scenario. This means you may need to consider web office solutions to make up the shortfall. Good choices include:

• Google Apps is a good choice for augmenting your corporate standard Office suite, even though it is not as feature-rich. There are fee-based and free versions available.

• Zoho Business is another ready solution, with a wider variety of applications that Google Apps.

• Simon and I recently covered the impending rollout of  Office Web Apps. While it isn’t available yet, the model it promises is ideal for a scenario like this, because it can offer users remote access to their important Microsoft Office files with a familiar interface.

Web office suites can help you keep your work accessible online, which is especially handy if all your workers don’t have remote access to your corporate network.

Social Media
Whether or not your organization has embraced social media behind the firewall, suddenly becoming a home-based organization means that employees are largely cut off from each other. Social networking tools can help them stay in touch with each other and the organization as a whole.

Some corporate-grade social media tools that might fit the bill include:

• Socialtext, a corporate social networking and collaboration tool that we’ve covered previously.
• Yammer, a Twitter clone, is another option for injecting social media into your organizational communications (see our previous coverage).

Each solution has fee-based and free versions.

Project Management

Putting your project management tools online is a prudent move, even before a crisis — but it could become a necessity in light of maintaining corporate operations in the midst of an H1N1 outbreak. However, Microsoft Project maintains its crown as the most popular — albeit mostly desktop-bound — corporate project management solution. Here are some good online project management tools:

• Basecamp is a the most well-known of all of the online PM tools  — we’ve written about it many times previously.
• Zoho Projects is an economical and innovative project management solution that Doriano previously covered for WWD.
• Charles reviewed Team Effect which garnered some mixed comments but is worthy a trial.
• PBWorks (formerly PBWiki) is another online project management option and according to Simon’s review it is definitely worth considering

Each of these solutions have fee-based and free versions.

Instant Messaging
Keeping your team in touch with each other even if they are all stuck at home is vital. If your organization isn’t already using instant messaging, then you need to consider it as part of your contingency plan.

Some instant messaging solutions you should consider include:

• Open source clients like Pidgin and Adium which let you encrypt chat sessions over commercial IM networks including AIM, GTalk, Windows Live, and Yahoo (s yhoo).
• Microsoft Office Communications Server also offers web-based access to its IM client. If your organization is running it, take steps to ensure your staff has access to it from home.

Web Conferencing & Collaboration
Today’s web conferencing and collaboration tools are ideal for keeping your team working together even though they’re not all working from the same office. Here are some options for web conferencing:

• Acrobat.com includes ConnectNow. Thursday covered Acrobat.com coming out of beta. It has free and fee-based versions and includes online collaboration features.
• Dimdim, which we’ve covered before, is an excellent low-cost teleconferencing tool
• Simon covered the beta launch of Team Apart, a free online collaboration tool that offers white board, video conferencing, and file sharing. Depending on the progress of the beta, it might be worth considering.

Crises and Web Working
Whether you are building out or just augmenting your communications infrastructure in light of the H1N1 threat, I recommend checking out these  applications now and not on the eve of a crisis. You should also make sure that employees know how to use these applications and how to access them well in advance of having to actually implement your crisis plan..

How is your organization preparing to continue operations during an H1N1 virus outbreak?

Image by mzacha from stock.xchng.