WebBand Blog

Microsoft Office has been the standard for productivity suites for many years. There are other packages (Word Perfect, Open Office, Lotus Notes, etc.), but none have the users like Office. But as the age of Web 2.0 continues to grow, what we’ll see is that our “office suites” won’t be tied to a program on our computers, but an application on the web. The first round of these are appearing in a browser near you. Here’s a sample:

docs.google.com
Google is at the cutting edge of online productivity suites. They have launched a full featured word processor and spreadsheet program called Google Docs and Spreadsheets. They are quite powerful and offer many of the same features as Microsoft Word and Excel.

www.zoho.com
Zoho has taken it one step farther. Not only do they have a word processor (Zoho Writer) and spreadsheet (Zoho Sheets), but add to that a presentation program like Microsoft PowerPoint (Zoho Presentation) and a program that puts them all together (Zoho Virtual Office). They have several other applications that are designed to make your online efforts more productive.

www.thinkfree.com
Think Free offers an online office suite that is compatible with Microsoft Office. Programs include Write (word processor), Calc (spreadsheet) and Show (presentation).

The main advantage that these types of applications have is that you can easily share documents among all types of users without using e-mail or disks. Imagine writing a newsletter for your family with their input even through your brother lives in Minneapolis, your sister in Texas and your parents in Arizona, all without sending the document individually. It can happen with these applications.

Other Applications
There are other types of productivity applications available as well. They have more specific purposes and usually are more “family friendly.” Here are just a few:

www.birthdaytime.com: Make a list of your contact’s birthdays and never forget to send them a card or present again!
www.writetomyblog.com: Do you have a blog? Use this tool to write your posts and have them published without going to the blog software.
www.dropboks.com: Online storage that is easy to upload files to and retrieve from. Get your 1GB free account today.

Next week: Music & Video