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Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine Vol 03 Issue 10
------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine -------
Vol 3, Issue 10
We went out to our local "Hands-On Museum" for a family-oriented
networking event. Lots of fun science exhibits, a scavenger
hunt, and numerous display tables for local tech companies,
including the requisite swag. Kaylie had a great time running
all over the place. Her particular favorite was a little rubber
ball given out by my good friend, Megan Torrance of Torrance
Learning (http://www.torrancelearning.com/). The ball, when
squeezed, would bulge out and turn from a deep blue to a
fluorescent yellow. Cool stuff.
Let it be known that Megan bears no blame for what happened later
that evening. She did warn me.
After the event, we met with some friends at a sidewalk
restaurant. We were having a good old time when we heard the
phrase dreaded by parents everywhere: "Uh-oh!" My darling
daughter had chewed through the outer covering of the ball.
Day-glo yellow liquid had sprayed everywhere. She had it on her
dress, her plate, and running down her face.
Fortunately, everything cleaned up just fine and the little one
is motoring around as fast as ever, none the worse for wear.
Personally, I'm glad my discoveries don't have to come with
fountains of fluorescent yellow paint. Most of mine come through
email or through one of the many blogs I read. I thought I would
talk about a few of those new discoveries this issue.
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In This Issue...
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1. Article: A Few of My Favorite Upgrades
2. Shameless Self-Promotion
3. The Fine Print
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1. Article: A Few of My Favorite Upgrades
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Aside from the perennial updates I see on Facebook (most of which
really don't excite me one way or the other), I'm perpetually
amazed by the folks who are constantly updating the tools and
toys I use on the Web. Being a coder myself, I can understand
their motivation. The systems they build are largely labors of
love. No matter how good it is, we always think we can make
things even better.
So what are some of the tools that I've seen updated recently?
Here's a short list:
1. OpenOffice.org (http://openoffice.org/): This amazing and
free office suite is what I use instead of the Microsoft
offerings. Word processing, spreadsheets, presentations. It has
it all. One of the things it was missing, though, was file
compatibility with Office 2007. Now that more and more people
are getting the newer version, I've been receiving more and more
of these files. Fortunately, the OpenOffice.org 3.0 release now
can open the Office 2007 files directly. It makes my life so
much easier.
2. Google Calendar (http://calendar.google.com/): I've been
using Google Calendar for quite a while now. I've even set up
calendars for some of my clients to be displayed on their
websites. It's got a remarkably easy-to-use interface that's
hard to beat. They recently added task lists to its array of
features. I'll probably take a look at this, but I'm pretty
happy with "Remember the Milk", so the Google task lists are
going to be something really special for me to switch. At first
blush, it feels a little clunky (though that might just be my
lack of familiarity with the feature). It is also missing the
ability to prioritize the items in your list, though you can
apparently rearrange at will. Presumably you could just sort
the items in order of importance by hand.
3. Google Docs (http://docs.google.com/): Google is continuing
to improve its online office suite. The feature set is still a
bit sparse, but being able to share work easily makes it quite
useful in my book. One of the thing that it sports now is an
offline mode. You have to follow some relatively simple
directions to get it set up, but once there, you no longer have
to worry about having access to the Internet if you want to edit
your files. You make all of your edits on your local computer.
When you have an Internet connection again, the system
automatically synchronizes with the online version of the file.
Now they need to get the same feature for their online
spreadsheets. I use them just as often as the Docs, so having
them available offline would be wonderful.
Special additional mention for almost all of Google's online
offerings: Check out the "What's new" links on any of them as
frequently as possible. The Googlers are always adding new
features -- some of which you didn't even know you needed!
I know I'm missing a few of the recent upgrades I've noticed.
Maybe I'll gather those up for review next time. In the
meantime, if one of your favorite tools has been upgraded
recently, please let me know by dropping a line at:
gpeters@cyberdatasolutionsllc.com.
Copyright 2009, Greg Peters
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2. Shameless Self-Promotion
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The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg
Peters, owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data
Solutions. CDS has been helping website designers develop better
web presence for their clients for more than a decade. Visit us
on the Web at www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your
webmaster.
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3. The Fine Print
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