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Coolness is one of the highest plaudits one can bestow on technologies. And what company is cooler than Google. Therefore, I thought I'd try out Google Docs, a web based word processing application.
Wow. This program is awesome, period. My observations: * Features for day-day word processing are solid.
* You can save files in a number of formats, i.e. Word, PDF, HTML, OpenOffice.
* Files are saved/accessed online so you don't have to put documents on a PDA/flashdrive when traveling.
* The Revision function is very useful when you write long documents and realize your earlier ideas are better than those you ended up with:)
* The Collaboration function makes good use of the Internet's decentralized communications capabilities.
* You can publish your writing onto the Google.com domain.
* HTML Editing lets you view HTML tags- this is helpful if you publish on sites that allow HTML formatting but force you to manually type the tag signifiers rather than use automated macros. Now you can write in Google docs using its editing buttons, click on the HTML editing icon to expose HTML tags, then copy/paste your content. I also downloaded FireFox to leverage its tabbed browsing with Google Docs. Now, when drawing from multiple research sources, I just flip browser tabs to get between my resources and composition area. My widescreen TabletPC is good for viewing multiple windows, but the enhanced usability of combining tabbed browsing and online word processing into one interface has a natural feel and is a lot more efficient than having to open/close separate programs.
To officially mark my transition from Microsoft Word to Google Docs, I created a Docs quick launch button on my FireFox and Internet Explorer toolbars. I'm not ditching Microsoft Word entirely, but Google Docs is now my main word processing program. And as Google rolls out new productivity apps, I'm definitely giving them a spin...
posted by Noel Le @ 5:20 PM | General
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