I have been looking at the new Google Documents facility and it looks really useful if you need to work on documents together with other people. At the moment most of us who collaborate on editing a document (e.g. magazine article) will pass drafts backwards and forwards until we agree on a finished version. One big problem with this as that multiple copies can exist at any one time and no one is quite sure which is the most up to date. The new application avoids this problem by keeping only one master copy, this being maintained on an online server. Anyone who wants to work on the document can sign in and work online - hey presto the online version is always up to date. Document types include text (like Word) spreadsheet and presentations and you can create folders to keep everything tidy. It is also possible to download some software which allows documents created on your own computer to be uploaded and then kept in sync every time you connect. Docs created with commonly used applications can be converted. There is a good video on Google's site which explains it all. The idea is part of the so-called 'cloud computing' technique and I think we are going to be hearing a lot more about this in the future.
Well, this seems like a great new idea and could prove useful to some U3A people. It will be interesting to see where it goes. Perhaps we should not throw all our office application software out just yet but who knows what the future may hold.
Rick
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Saturday, June 7, 2008
June is busting out
Poor Rick seems to be doing all the blogging. He's put up some useful tips which I have copied into a word file and will study more closely when I go "off-line". If you want to do the same - just highlight what you want to copy, copy (onto the clipboard) open a word programme and paste. The clipboard holds stuff from one file to another.
Back from holiday and now caught up on most of the jobs weekends can be devoted to some computing - it's cheapest at weekends. Using the help from Rick I am trying to put together a sort of instruction sheet to go into the book I am assembling to show others what we have achieved as a group this year.
As none of you have "posted" yet, is that you haven't read the blog since we left Age Concern? If you have read it but have got lost off somewhere do give me a ring on 384496. If I can't help, it will be back to the ever-patient Rick.
Someone else talk to us, please.
Sandy
Back from holiday and now caught up on most of the jobs weekends can be devoted to some computing - it's cheapest at weekends. Using the help from Rick I am trying to put together a sort of instruction sheet to go into the book I am assembling to show others what we have achieved as a group this year.
As none of you have "posted" yet, is that you haven't read the blog since we left Age Concern? If you have read it but have got lost off somewhere do give me a ring on 384496. If I can't help, it will be back to the ever-patient Rick.
Someone else talk to us, please.
Sandy
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Try, try again.
This blog is being posted using a screenheaded South Durham u3a Computing on Sunday 1st June. Will also try sending one from Blackwell Bodgers - a blog I set up for fun last week for Malcolm and I but which has nothing posted on it .... yet
Sandy
Sandy
Mashups
Hi,
Well, I promised to post a bit more often so thought I had best start as I mean to go on. This post is about a rather useful class of application which I have been looking at recently.
When you open the Google start page or the Yahoo start page you may not have realised that you can customise this page to show items which may be of special interest to you. In the case of Google this goes under the name of iGoogle and is accessed by clicking on the iGoogle link at the top right of the page. This will load up a page which brings together various applets showing news, weather, horoscope etc. etc. There are many to chose from and you can alter the layout by moving them round, deleting some etc. to suit your own preference. In this way, you build your own homepage. To save this setup so that it shows each time you go to the site you need to have a Google account and be logged in (but then you need one to post to this blog under your own name anyway!). If you use Yahoo as your home page and would prefer to customise this then use the My Yahoo link at the top right of the initial Yahoo page. This will offer the same type of applets and customisation options and I think you may be able to save this without needing a Yahoo account (but will probably need renewing if you erase all cookies).
This is only a very quick introduction (the final of the IPL T20 competition is about to start!). If anyone would like to know more post a comment to this post or send me an email.
Rick
Well, I promised to post a bit more often so thought I had best start as I mean to go on. This post is about a rather useful class of application which I have been looking at recently.
When you open the Google start page or the Yahoo start page you may not have realised that you can customise this page to show items which may be of special interest to you. In the case of Google this goes under the name of iGoogle and is accessed by clicking on the iGoogle link at the top right of the page. This will load up a page which brings together various applets showing news, weather, horoscope etc. etc. There are many to chose from and you can alter the layout by moving them round, deleting some etc. to suit your own preference. In this way, you build your own homepage. To save this setup so that it shows each time you go to the site you need to have a Google account and be logged in (but then you need one to post to this blog under your own name anyway!). If you use Yahoo as your home page and would prefer to customise this then use the My Yahoo link at the top right of the initial Yahoo page. This will offer the same type of applets and customisation options and I think you may be able to save this without needing a Yahoo account (but will probably need renewing if you erase all cookies).
This is only a very quick introduction (the final of the IPL T20 competition is about to start!). If anyone would like to know more post a comment to this post or send me an email.
Rick
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)