Zoho

So you purchased a new computer and finally got around to actually using it. Most computers have Microsoft Works and sometimes a time trial of Microsoft Word which expires within months. Works can not open documents from Word and so it becomes almost useless in the real world because you can not use it for business or school.

There are two free options. OpenOffice.org can provide you with a very robust office suite capable of opening Word documents and more. But then if you move to another computer you have to reinstall in that computer. You also have to transport the document through email or USB. Download then save again then upload or copy. Simply to make a small change. Keep in mind everytime more and more copies are being made which make it easier to loose track of which version is the most current. Then if you want to send the document to someone for editing and maybe to another person to add some graphics or tables, more and more duplicates are being created.

Zoho Writer

Here’s a strategy to simplify everything. Create or upload the document in Zoho writer. Zoho is a free registration web based full suite of applications of which Zoho Writer is one. It has plenty of editing functions to satisfy all, but the most demanding users. You create the document once in the web. It stays there. You can open it like an email at another computer without any difference to the experience. You want to share it with multiple people click on share and type in their email address. Then they have access to view or edit the singular original in the web. Still no copies are being made.

While editing by two or more collaborators the Writer locks part of the document so both users can still work on the same document but on different blocks of data simultaneously in a maximum way to keep integrity. It keeps integrity by locking blocks of the actual content to become read only while that block is being edited and still letting the other user visually see what part of the content is being locked because of the editing being done while still letting you see the edits by the other collaborator. I know hard to follow, but basically its a very intuitive way of working on the same document without bothering the other user.

This allows for every person in the group to have the most up to date view of the most current changes virtually in realtime. Virtually means you see your changes instantly but it takes 0 to 7 seconds on average for the other users to receive your changes depending on the browser chosen. (On my informal test, edits went from Firefox to IE from one editor to another in 3 to 4 seconds from IE to Firefox in 6 to 7.)

While editing, Zoho Writer keeps track of the version so you always have copies in case you want to recover that brilliant paragraph a collaborator deleted yesterday. This copies are basically invisible until you need them. Simply click History to see them.

If you wonder about capability here’s the toolbar:

It may not suffice for elaborate publishings and fliers, but for communication and collaboration of large documents and even less complex fliers Zoho is robust.

Today I wanted to let everyone in on what I’ve been busy with.

Zoho-A full office suite in the cloud

The link above will take you to the start page of the Zoho services site. This is the most robust office suite that is all web-based. This means that you don’t have to install anything on your computer to use it. Just sign up for a free account and you are done.

Now you’ll have access to a full suite of applications that do a great job at editing most MS Office documents. It even saves(exports) to a PDF file if you want. Though it does not let you edit PDF files it does create them for you.

Since I have been really busy lately I won’t be able to go into full depth that this website deserves. I will follow up with some great ideas on how to use the Zoho services in the future, today I just want to go ahead and let you all know about this great tool.

Enjoy your exploration.

Also, I made a very important update to the article on the “USB drives” category. Be sure to check it out if you are relying on U3 encryption to safeguard your data. The update is highlighted in red.

There is much talk about Cloud Computing on the internet this days. There also seems to be confusion as to exactly what it means. Though, there are many different definitions what is important is that it be practical and intuitive. My unassuming definition is simply the example of Gmail. It basically stores all your material online and all you need to work with your email is any computer or electronic device connected to the internet. You can even forget about organizational paradigms. Whatever email you want to find, simply do a quick key word search and your email will pop up. You simply don’t worry about storage much or about owning a computer, you simply need internet access.

Today I am going to walk you through a very practical, but great method to collaborate in any business even if you already have company email.

Google Documents

Google Documents gives you a great cloud computing desktop. Though it won’t replace a full on desktop suite like MS Office. It does give great benefits.

• You can open and edit MS Word docs on any computer, even if the software is not installed.
• You can work on Excel sheets.
• You can also work on basic Power Point Files
• The biggest point is Collaboration.

You can Collaborate with anyone. The reason you want to do this is because of the quickness that originals get duplicated and modified. This creates numerous outdated and conflicting copies of the original. Collaboration with Google Documents is a quick way to view, edit, distribute, and maintain one or more documents. Once you make a change it gets saved and the changes will be viewed next time someone else opens the document.

A Simple Metaphor

A metaphor would be to imagine a hard drive in the internet where you can put documents and spreadsheets in, which you can then edit directly from the net without having to download them. Since the document is online you can share it with only people you know and even allow some to edit the document.

Here’s a video to give you an overview.

So how do you use it? On your Gmail page, once you are logged in. Simply click on Documents near the top of the page. That’s it now you are in the Google Docs desktop. From there you can upload a file or simply create a new one to get started.

Quick Tip: If you receive an email with a document attachment there is an option in Gmail to transfer that doc attachment to Google Docs. Simply click on the link, it will then import it to your Google Documents.

Though this is a toned down experience of what Cloud Computing means it is a great example and glimpse of what is to come. For now I find it a very practical and useful method to collaborate with anyone.

These are all one thing. These refer to a portable device the size of a your thumb that can hold the equivalent of thousands of floppies of information. They have effectively replaced the floppy. So much so that most new computers and all laptops come without the floppy drive.

This USB drives are the best way to transfer electronic files, including spreadsheets, music mp3’s, pictures, etc, from computer to computer. When you plug one in to a computer it shows up as a new drive in which then you can drag any file to it and even simply use the File Menu | Save As … option.

But there is more ability than simply storing and transferring files. They can also store full applications.

PortableApps.com is a great resource for portable applications. There are programs there which are Free that can replace many commercial programs. These are mainly Open-Source applications which you can use on any computer without having to install them.

Keep in mind that it is recommended that you have at least a 1 Gigabyte drive.

This allows you to put a photo editing program and an office suite on your USB drive and not worry whether your friends computer has the capable software to edit that picture or edit a document you’ve been working on.

There is a suite which installs the basic recommended software including a very functional startmenu which you can use on whatever computer you plug your drive in.

You do have choice if you want it though. You can choose just the platform with the start menu. Then install only software you want, which is what I recommend to save space.

Methodology

Choose platform only and install to USB drive.

From the that start menu click on options | Get more apps

Download the ones you want to install to your desktop. Then click install a new app and point it towards your desktop then your new app. It will then automatically install it to your USB drive.

This is a list of some apps to get your started:

Firefox - Internet Browser

OpenOffice - Office Suite to edit Word documents, etc

Pidgin - universal instant messenger

Gimp - Photo editing software

Security and Encryption

When you install Firefox first thing to do is to go to Tools|Options then the Security tab illustrated with a locked padlock. Set a master password so that whenever you ask it to remember a password it will always be protected by a master password.

The way it works is that if someone finds your USB drive they will be prompted for a password before remembering any of your passwords. For you, it will ask for the master password once on each session. Its convenient and its more secure. Remember the memory on the drive is persistent meaning it won’t erase over time unless you erase it.

Because of its persistent nature always make sure that you don’t have sensitive information stored in the drive unless it is encrypted. An easy way to do this is to use Winrar and set a password for compressed file. Set it to encrypt filenames, this way it will prompt the user for a password before even displaying a file name or directory name stored within the file.

Options in USB Drives

If you are looking to buy your first USB drive you might want to look into U3. This is a great option to keep your information safe. It hides your information and won’t let anyone access the information unless they have the right password.

I recommend it for its ease of use and for being the only technology which will protect the entire USB drive under a password. Only thing is, I recommend you disable all optional software and auto start programs that it comes with. It makes it slow and on slow computers it becomes extremely slow. Like portable apps it does have a start menu. So just uninstall everything and keep only what you do use to keep it lean and quick.

Update & Caution!

Recently I decided to plug in my U3 drive to my Ubuntu Linux laptop. It proceded to open the drive without a hickup, including without asking for a password. I was able to open all my files.

Meaning that the drive was not trully encrypted it seems that Linux can still load the drive bypassing the U3 security measures. This was very unacceptable and so I proceded to uninstall all the U3 software and made it a regular jump drive and used the techniques mentioned above, to encrypt my data. Which, by the way maintains security even when on Linux asking for passwords before I can access my encrypted data.

Hope this has been a good overview of what a USB drive can do.

Rules of thumb
Treat All contests as fake. Treat all emails that promise free things as scams. Delete or report as Spam to block future correspondence.

Email
Email is the de facto standard to communicate in the Internet. Email is the equivalent of a fax machine. It is a very convenient way to send documents without needing the receiving party to be by the phone. They can read the document or message at their leisure in full clear color at virtually no cost.

Power of Three
If you are new to the Internet setup 3 email addresses. If you already
have an email you need to have at least 2 web based email i.e.: Yahoo
or Gmail

1. One email for personal contacts. People you know in real life. This should be your name preferably your full name if you have to, add a memorable number behind it. Sample JohnSmith911@gmail.com

2. Second email is for website registrations. Free website registrations are common and are usually very useful sites. Sometimes though they might build mailing list for Spam or advertisement which you don’t want getting mixed with your personal correspondents. Sample JohnEmail@gmail.com

3. Third email address is for beginners and use this if you don’t know that company your singing up with at all, but you want to get some quick info from them such as they require an email address to check out one page. You’ll probably never go back to the site, but you are curious. Also for experimental memberships, so you can check out a site and if you like it then you can change your email address with them to your secondary email address which you do check often. Sample JohnSurvey@gmail.com

The reason that I recommend web based email is two-fold. You can access it from more places than having to be tied to your computer at home. Most phones let you access web based email. The second reason is simply because in the future you might move and switch internet providers. Having email setup away from your internet provider means you can move and switch and still your email address stays unchanged.

In conclusion, never enter any of the emails you’ve setup unless you were already planning to do so. Never email passwords or sensitive information to anyone. Never respond to advertisements, not even to tell them to stop sending you information, just mark them as Spam.

Always be aware that sending an email is very unsecure. It is the equivalent of screaming your message across the net and so expect little privacy.

Often I get the question of what book do you recommend to learn to use a computer. My advice is go to GCFLearnFree.org This site teaches you just like a book and also has great video lessons!

Link to a free and great computer lessons site

This site does require a registration, but is well worth signing up for. Its essentially the equivalent of an online class.

Web based email is the most convenient email, because you can access it anywhere you have an Internet connection. It is also the easiest to sign up for. Here are the two places I highly recommend for reasons I’ll explain in another section.

Both sign ups are only one page long and easy to complete. Best of all both are totally free!

Yahoo! Email

Gmail from Google

Both offer so much space that you need not ever erase an email, but you can if its unimportant to you.

The most important reason to use web based email is that you can keep your email address for life. If you decide to change internet providers you don’t have to change your email address. If you move out of state you can still use the same email address. Ok, you get the idea.

Here’s a list of things to do some research in, if you are new to the internet.

Google.com - This is the best search engine bar none

Gmail.com - Free webbased email

Yahoo Mail - Free webbased email easy to use for beginners, just make sure you use the classic interface. They have the best tutorial section.

Yahoo! is great for people who are starting out. Explore as much as you can. After you setup your email with them you can use that user name to customize My.Yahoo.com this is a great way to customize your internet sources. You can setup RSS feeds which is a way to get news about subjects you are into. A quick way of doing this is:

1. make sure you have signed in to your email then
2. go to news.yahoo.com
3. locate the Search all news field
4. type in a subject you are interested in: NFL Falcons
5. find the: and click on it.
6. you’ll get dialog confirming that you want it added to your personal page

This personal page is just like your own personal newspaper. You can add pages and sections. Add a Sports page. A National news page. Even an Entertainment page. Its a great morning paper.

Well explore and enjoy.

On my quick tips I mention a way to send links to online articles for later viewing and archiving. This strategy is good for the short term. The scrapbook strategy I’m about to discuss takes it a bit farther. It preserves the article for the extreme long term.

Gmail as a scrapbook of the internet.

Ever found a great article on a subject that you want to save complete with pictures. And you want to save it for the long term. You can build your own personal library with Gmail and the Google toolbar.

Yes a toolbar. The Google toolbar has many uses, but to keep it simple we’ll focus on one feature. A powerful feature that sometimes gets lost in the jungle of options. So here it goes.

Optional

If you don’t like the Google Toolbar and want to end up with a clean interface follow the following steps:
The following example of course deals with Firefox, like most of my articles.

1. Install the Google Toolbar. Click on View Menu | Toolbars | Customize
2. Instead of using the Customize Toolbar dialog, direct your attention to the Google Toolbar and locate the “send to” icon
3. Drag this icon to be a part of your links Toolbar.
4. Then close the dialog. Click on View Menu | Toolbars and uncheck the Google Toolbar. Now you have a clean system again with the exception of the new send to icon.

Usage

Now when you see anything on any webpage you want to save.

1. Highlight and click the icon.
2. Select Gmail.
3. Put your email address.
4. Click send

That is it. Now you have a permanent copy in your massive Gmail account quickly searchable for your convenience.

You can also skip the highlight and simply click on the “send to” icon and send the whole page.

Advanced (optional)

What I do is create a filter which activates any time an email contains aStar or astar. It then archives, labels it as an “a Article” and adds a star to it. Reason for “a” is a strategy I use to sort labels not only alphabetically, but also by attention priority. My top labels have an “a” in front with a space. When I’m done reading the article I take off the star.

Convenience

You can archive more than just the Internet this way. You can email yourself pictures you take on the road business cards and the like. Just tag them as you email them. Not only with the “astar” operator but with key words such as “John Smith Business card.” If you forget to tag, reply to that picture with the key words as body or subject. That will create a conversation which is searchable.

Key Word surfing like AOL with Google.

Are you knew to the internet?

If so the first thing to learn is how to do a Google search. If you are not new still read this quick tip there is something new here for most people.

1. Type in Google.com in the address bar.
2. Type in cnn on the search field.
3. Click “I’m Feeling Lucky”

Notice what happened. You didn’t get a search results list. You got CNN.com. Go back and try MTV, Yahoo, AOL. What you are getting is the best result for the keywords. You can even try “Yahoo Mail”. Using the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on Google.com is a great shortcut that seems to be underused.

Alright, hope this was new to you and see how simple the web can be.