Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Online Productivity, Part 2

I just discovered that Zoho Writer offers a way to type a letter, or document, without having to create an account.

http://writer.zoho.com/editor.im

This may be a good way for some patrons to type a quick letter or resume.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Online Productivity

This is particularly difficult blog entry for me. It shouldn't be, because I've certainly used Google Docs and Spreadsheets plenty of times. So why is it hard? I guess because I'll have to start fresh with my feelings on Google Docs (and other online productivity options).

Here's what I like:

1. It's easy to keep documents private and secure, and be able to access them from any computer with internet access.

2. It's easy to share documents that you want to collaborate with someone on.

3. It's easy to publish documents to the web for others to view.

Here's what I don't like:

1. The formatting is not as sophisticated as Word. While this may be good for some users, for most it is prohibitive of creating a nice looking online document.

2. That Google Docs is a replacement for other programs, such as Word, on the library's public computers. Maybe some day soon this will be okay, but until we reach the day when it is just as easy to use as Word, we will be underserving patrons. Setting up an account is too difficult for some people, especially as you must have an active email account to set up a Google Docs account. For those who just need to type a letter and will never use the program again, this is a big hurdle.