Week 10 - Head in the Clouds

As someone who is constantly using different computers with different (allegedly compatible...) versions of Microsoft Office on, this week's Things have been a bit of a revelation! Firstly, Google Docs. Nice and easy, accessible anywhere with internet, and even easier to access given that iGoogle is my homepage - it's so handy having all the Google options in one place, they're taking over my virtual world!


The word processing option looked so lovely and familiar - no need to learn a new package, this is basically a simplified version of Word. The collaborative options are very exciting; no messing about reformatting when you switch from one machine to another, everyone can work on and see exactly the same document, and involving others is very simple. I would definitely recommend Google Docs for anyone needing a simple (free!) word processing package that they can use anywhere and can collaborate with others with.

Next up, ThinkFree. From what I've manged to see of it, there does seem to be added functionality - I got a quick look at the note templates and was very impressed. However, it kept telling me that I needed to install Java Runtime Environment which I did successfully the first time, then it took ages to load, and when I finally used it was very slow. Still, I figured I'd come back to it later but to no avail! Whenever I try to create a new document it tells me I still need to install JRE, and when I do it won't install (probably because the stupid thing is already there, arghh!!). Anyway, I have now given up in a huff, but this hasn't put me off cloud computing, I'll just be sticking to the simplicity of Google Docs thank you very much!