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GDocs vs. ThinkFree vs. Zoho vs. MS Office
CWmike writes "Web-based productivity suites, once almost a contradiction in terms, have become real challengers to desktop applications. Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho, have all made major improvements in recent months. They're becoming both broader, with more applications, and deeper, with more features and functionality in existing apps. The question is: Are these three applications really ready to take on a desktop-based heavy hitter like Microsoft Office?"
No!
NO SIG
Do you honestly think a business is going to allow its private correspondence to be handled over the Internet by one of these programs? Unless the company has nothing it would like to hide from its competitors, this isn't going to happen. There is too much fear of corporate spying.
I don't think that web apps will ever replace desktop apps for a while. First off, the issue of screen resolution. It is really easy to get OOo to work on my EEE PC even if it wasn't already installed, on the other hand, Google maps shrinks to a tiny little box. And even though decreasing the size in Firefox 3 makes it bigger, the font size becomes too tiny to even read. That's not to mention all the mobile devices that can have a ported version of OOo or Office to them with a customized interface to work well with each device while the web-based app doesn't cut it because it is too small. Will all these bugs be ironed out in the next 5-10 years, I would think so. But for now, no web app is ready to take on the desktop environment until it works well with various screen resolutions. (Google docs doesn't suffer from this problem, but Google maps does and I haven't tried either ThinkFree nor Zoho)
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Emacs
I spent a decent amount of time today reproducing an OO.o spreadsheet in Google Docs - still a long way to go there before it is a threat. The gDocs spreadsheet does some cool things for a web app - and I was impressed with some of the features (for a web app - see how I have to keep qualifying?) but it still doesn't come close to the desktop app.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
But when they merge into SuperGoogleThinkZoho, they can slay the evil Microsoft Office!
From TFA:
And because you work in a Web browser, they're cross-platform applications by default:
At work we are going through some issues because Apple decided to deprecate Quicktime for Java and now we are scrambling to find a replacement that will work on Windows and Macs. However, honestly writing cross-platform apps that play movies and deal with databases and lots of networked files isn't trivial to make cross platform, but it might be pretty easy if we went to the web. Is this the future direction for "cross-platform" applications?
Monstar L
Last time I had to use the Google Docs suite (3 months ago), it was to access a shared spreadsheet: each people had to fill in what food or drink they were bringing in at a party, in order to have some kind of co-ordination. The "shared document" concept is really nice, however the AJAX controls were killing the performance of my laptop from 2004. So I have trouble imagining doing work with such a solution - at least with my configuration.
Of course, it would be probably better with a newer computer, but I feel sad that an application which is recognised as being a hog such as MS Office runs better on my computer than Google Docs. (I took a glance at TFA, and it seems to imply that Google Docs is the fastest solution of all 3).
I havent read TFA, but the biggest hurdle by far which will hinder the adoption of any office suite, web-based or otherwise, would be compatibility with MSoffice file formats.
Oo.o has way more features than any of the web-based suites, but even that cannot beat simply because it isnt sufficiently interoperable with MSoffice.
I'm desperately hoping that things would change in the near future, with ooxml stirring up storms.
The last time I tried the google docs spreadsheet (maybe 6 months ago?), it was ridiculously slow. I was about to post here and point that out, but then I thought I ought to check how the performance was today, in case it had improved. Well, I don't have any real data, but my subjective impression is that they must have made vast improvements in its performance since the last time I tried it. It really seems fine now.
The question in my mind now is how many people are really going to want this.
I teach physics at a community college, and I have a bunch of linux boxes in the lab alongside the windows machines. The linux boxes only have Ooo, and the Windows boxes have both Ooo and Excel. It's been interesting seeing how students react to being presented with a choice between Excel and Ooo. I actually have documentation in the lab manual for Ooo, and none for Excel. Nevertheless, the vast majority don't want to mess with Ooo. Even if they have never used a spreadsheet before in their life, Excel is a brand name they've heard, so that's what they gravitate toward.
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Just give up already, you want to spend the money and buy a nice new Vista PC. Piano black, the ribbon, veterans love it and newbies grok it. It all works together so well it's like a dream. Opens your old documents and saves the new ones in a better than internationally accepted standards way. Worth every penny, $450 for the ultimate OS and $450 for the bestes Office suite, so your computer should not cost much less than $1000. Think of how it will train your children in the skills every office demands. Yeah, now your wallet is moving.
No calls now, I'm
If you knew more about emacs you would know that you don't need to ssh to quit the program. From within the program just type Control-Z ... then after the Stopped message type "killall -9 emacs"....
I'm guessing these are entry level physics classes? 111 or 101 perhaps? I don't mean anything bad at all, because the last time i had a physics class no one was using MS Office stuff at all. Pretty much everyone writes stuff up with LaTex.
Just for humor's sake, you should teach a lesson one day about how Microsoft software makes your intelligence fall. I'm sure it's pretty easy to come up with a reasonable formula for it's rate of change. Even better, play the Balmer videos. Everyone loves those. :-P
If you don't need it to be Java.
Same objection I always had with GMail.
Google is then in charge of your data.
I don't care if google is staffed exclusively by Ophanim (closest rank of angels to god), I'm not willing to trust a third party with my stuff, and neither should any self respecting company.
Please mod parent up
Google? It's garbage.
Linux? It's shit.
Best stick with MS. Always works.
Someone is throwing chairs out there...
One of my teachers in school required us to submit assignments in LaTex. There was quite nearly a full scale rebellion. I was pissed off enough that she required us to use a program of her choice to generate a PDF that I simply didn't bother to learn. I just OO.o, same as always, and exported to PDF. The marker didn't know the difference.
I should also note that this was a computer science class, not physics. We really just needed to answer questions about Databases, and nothing more complicated that a text based word processor would offer. (Sorry if that's completely inaccurate. As I said, I didn't bother to learn, as it rubbed me the wrong way, and I don't use any word processor enough to learn a new markup language just to submit an assignment.)
The simple litmus test: Would you submit a resume using those tools?
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
For me the major incompatibility is the equation editor. Most of the time I produce all my documents and presentations using TeX, but every once a while I need to work on a project where the documents need to be in MS Word format (that's usually when I do a job for the education department). That's a bit of problem for me, as I run Linux on both my home and office computer. Openoffice is fine for opening an occasional email that somebody clueless sent in a Word format although it really contains nothing but text, but when the document must have bunch of formulas and equations, Openoffice will not do it. I can create equations in Openoffice, and it will even open a Word document with equation objects in it and display them just fine, but an equation object I create in Openoffice will not display correctly in Word. I don't blame Openoffice for this, the problem is that Microsoft and DesignScience created a format that is even more cryptic and less portable than .doc, but the problem is there, and it makes it impossible for me to use Openoffice for these documents.
Do any of the web based wordprocessors have a decent equation editor?
AccountKiller
You might just be using a different browser with a better JavaScript interpreter... both Safari and Firefox have made great strides with JavaScript performance.
That could be. I think I was using ff 2 last time I tried it. I'm using ff 3 now.
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So many companies (particularly smaller ones) don't really know much about computer security, backups etc and what Google provides is probably better than what most mom&pops can do themselves.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Bad article, bad greenlight. Office is way beyond any of the web based 'productivity' apps.
I just visited the home page of each of the three alternatives mentioned, and read their own words about what features their word processors offer. It was hard not to laugh: they actually describe things like being able to save your files and collaborate with others as features. I'm not sure any of them even mentioned a single real word processing feature anywhere on their list. And while some of the on-line features they plug have some merit — though I suspect many of them are really only gimmicks of little real world value — of course being on-line comes with some major downsides in the security and reliability areas.
Then I read TFA. (Yes, really. It's quiet night. ;-)) I think this quote is the most telling:
All three of these word processors are capable of tasks such as formatting the typefaces, placing and sizing graphics, arranging paragraphs, and setting up tables. But only ThinkFree offers the really sophisticated features, such as letting you format a hanging indent.
(Emphasis added)
If adding a hanging indent is sophisticated, these things aren't even glorified text editors, never mind word processors. Where's my real-time word count and spelling checking? My document structuring and organisation tools? My cross-references, footnotes and bibliographies? If they're going to pimp my pages, can I at least have a smart H&J algorithm and use my professional grade OpenType fonts? There is more to a word processor than basic text editing and the occasional picture or table!
I think it's safe to say the guys in Redmond don't need to start throwing chairs. The on-line apps aren't even Word from nearly two decades ago, yet.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Many companies don't even like given internet access to all their employees (which I agree with) so a web-based office solution is less than optimal.
I'm still holding out for a sleeker version of OpenOffice with an improved UI and improved load times.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Ob Single Page Print View Link:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9108799
The convenience of online docs (at least in a school setting where Gmail is blocked, fucking Websense) far outweighs the functionality of desktop docs, especially because I and most people I know won't be using half of that functionality.
I can see a lot of smaller businesses going towards Google Docs, OpenOffice.org and the like. Google Docs has the collaboration stuff built in, but Microsoft has SharePoint, which is a collaboration server/solution kinda thing. It's pretty slick, integrates with Office and Communicator/Messenger and stuff. But it requires a lot more infrastructure and is way overpowered for most small- to medium-sized businesses.
None of them are all that great. Do Google Apps do everything Office does? No, clearly not. But frankly, I think Office is overrated. Granted, my copy is a couple of years old, but I just don't have much use for it. I open most things in OpenOffice, but even then, I'm converting a lot of it to text. I find all office suites ponderous and bloated, more by feature creep than any particular flaw in coding. Send me text, and I'll put it in Scribus or LaTeX.
Google Docs should be thought of as a highly-collaborative text editing environment, not a word processor. It looks exceptionally good when you look at it that way.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Still, if I'm going to type anything for printing I'll use Word. If I'm going to do anything that doesn't need to be continuously shared, I'll use one of the office apps. If I need a spreadsheet of any complexity, I'll use Office.
I'd much rather see Google & Zoho polish the features they do have (Zoho still can't print in Landscape format, has nothing close to WYSIWYG printing, and frequently locks. Google has no locking to prevent users from overwriting each other (last time I tried it...). Don't bloat till you've got the skeleton working.
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
I use Zoho for everything now, office-wise. The developers are great about responding to issues, the apps are at least as usable as MS/Open Office for anything I need, I can access my docs from anywhere, I can work offline with Google Gears and Zoho Writer, and I can save the files to any number of formats if I really need to. I really don't see any need to install an office suite anymore.
Microsoft Word: Not as useful as Latex, and too much of a pig for writing quick ideas. If I want to jot down ideas or write a short story or something informal, I will take TextEdit or Google Docs any day! There is no reason it should take 10 minutes for my word processor to load up. If I need to make a legitimate paper for a journal or symposium Latex is hands down the most superior.
Excel: In general I have no use for spreadsheets. Occasionally I will take jobs where I will fill out time-sheets, and in general Excel works best with these since OO sometimes has some problems properly running the macros.
Powerpoint: According to Edward Tufte this is totally useless anyways. I wish I could say that Latex's beamer is the superior choice... and for some people it might be. But I have never relied too much in a talk (I prefer to use handouts) and a lightweight WYSIWYG editor is nice to have. So Google wins on this one.
All the other things in office like Groove: meh...
I think the general public could easily phase out Microsoft Office, but it is pretty unlikely to happen.
Writing only has value when people read it, aka sharing. Collaborative writing is the primary purpose of physical offices. Google and other online tools are providing the most valuable features any office and word processor could.
If you want things to look good on paper, use LaTex. If that sounds archaic, it's because it is.
M$, because life is too short to type icrosoft frequently.
I propose, web apps are a toolset for doing a better blog.
Web apps are pieces to use in establishing an Internet communication situation.
I have a blog, I plan to put a spreadsheet in it, make the spreadsheet do calculations based on visitor inputs. maybe draw colored circles on a map based on visitor clicks on a map.
Maybe do a narrated slideshow presentation online, again this is where apps can help.
I see that I am beginning to build structures that need another layer to enable description and auditing.
The interesting thing about ZoHo is it looks like they are beginning to assemble the components for building a complete business "system" as a bunch of online components. Way beyond just a blog or just a communication solution made by an individual or small team.
I am using Google Apps Hacks by Philipp Lenssen as an idea book for my communication project. As titled it is mostly about the Google family of applications. The methods for linking are not restricted to google only.
It looks to me that Google will accept links to documents created using ZoHo, EditGrid, Thinkdfree and PbWiki.
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Separately, yes Google spreadsheet did strange things to my data when I deleted columns. For primary data crunching I find Gnumeric has better input data handling. Then I copy the presentation level spreadsheet up to Google docs.
I work at a non-profit. While we use Office internally, some of the groups are shifting to Google Docs for community outreach. Why? Because there's no software to buy, information can be shared between remote and local users, updated instantly.
I've tried using Word's version tracking features and they tend to fall down. Google Docs will allow simultaneous editing but it's auto-save feature needs work. It saves every 30 seconds so you can end up with a thousand edits that don't really mean anything. Two features that need to be added: the first feature is a data edit session. If Joe reviews the document, he can open a session, make his changes, and close the session. So when I want to see what Joe did, all I have to do is hit a filter that says "Highlight Joe's last session." Or maybe I could say "highlight all of Joe's changes." The other feature that would be great is versioning. After I finish my first draft, I promote the document to second draft and continue editing. Then I can track changes between draft 1 and draft 2, 3, etc, Joe's contributions between draft 1, 2, etc.
At this point in time, Excel is the only Microsoft application I actually like. Google has a way to go to equal that. But for data aggregation, Google Spreadsheets work just fine. Anyone can open the sheets, enter data, and I can copy and paste into Excel for anything more. Nobody has to own Excel or download anything, they can enter the data from any desktop in the world. Word gets grudging credit as the only good option for funky printing requirements. I haven't tried out OO for this yet, it may be up to snuff now.
Where Word really chaps my ass is that there's been no improvements in what's broken since I first started using it. Styles is borked, formatting is borked, there's little flexibility in layouts, tables are buggy, trying to size ANYTHING becomes an exercise in frustration because you cannot position by pixel but by arbitrary jumps, etc, etc. None of these problem areas are addressed, we're just buying the same old broken code with new turd polish each and every version.
Microsoft is still the king for now but there are dozens of companies and open source projects in the race to smoke their asses. If they keep standing still, they're going to be in it like kippers. Office 2007? Fucker can't even share user resources properly. If I want to share contacts from 2007 to someone with 2003, I have to go onto his fucking machine and add myself in as an alternate mailbox. I have to go into tools, mail servers, exchange, add it in. WTF? And the stupid mail invite that goes out when you invite someone, nevermind getting permissions proper when it does things automagically. Grr!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
We tested and use Zoho and Google; both had serious collaboration bugs:
* Users could overwrite each other's others changes without knowing it. For example if Amy edits a cell (in the spreadsheet app) or text (in the word processor), and the update doesn't reach Bob in time, Bob could overwrite the same data with his own.
* Edits sometimes are not updated on other users' sessions quickly enough or, in some cases, at all.
Before you count on it for serious work, beware. It seems like a fundamental issue they should have anticipated on day one.
Uh, except this guy's UID is a lot lower than twitter's. It's probably just someone genuinely agreeing...
All your base are belong to Wii.
Yes, but at some point people will become 'used to using' online tools, as they have become 'used to using' firefox (because its better) and liked I've become 'used to using' GMail because its convenient. Once these two ideas merge why spend money for software when it's convenient and better or equal to use an online app (assuming Johnny's term paper isn't full of corporate secrets, but hey maybe daddy's corporation should make their own online app? licensing...?).
if($pages>1)
{
$link = PRINT_VIEW;
}
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9108799
The cool things is to have windows that bounce up and down like a good tits.
I just got an email from a google developer working on google docs who saw my comment on above, and was happy that someone had noticed the improved performance. He says they started a feature freeze a few months ago, and spent the last few months working exclusively on performance.
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If web-based office apps were any competition at all, then this post would be titled "GDocs is a Real Deal MS Office Killer". Its very obvious from the title itself that there is a lot of catching-up to do. We seen the same kind of posts with respect to Linux desktops vs Windows for years now haven't we?
I run my own one man IT business and all and I really mean ALL of the documentation is handled through Google Docs.
It is great for collaboration purposes. Version management build in and to top it all off, I never have to worry about access or backup! Especially not with Google Gears that ensures access even when the internet is down (Never happens here)
Now google docs is indeed not too great if you want to do Desktop publishing which is what some people seem to think MS Word is for. I do need the odd picture included in my documents but I wrote a little application to streamline that process.
I made it available for free on my Google site of course. My program Pastry will archive every bitmap you copy and allow for easy upload to Google or anywhere else for that matter. Have a look on: http://vandinther.googlepages.com/pastry
Yeah, whats the point of learning a popular markup language used in most academic articles while in college.
Will anyone of them replace MS Office? Not in the short term but watch out for Google with Gears ready for their apps. The ability to work on docs etc. offline will appeal to a lot of people.
It doesn't take 5 minutes to learn LaTex, if you are using the right software that will generate the syntax for you.
If you are a computer science major, I found it difficult to understand why there is a problem with using a simple markup language.
That being said, there is probably a misunderstanding somewhere, as LaTEX isn't a word processor, it is mainly used for typsetting proof and theorems. Try writting a 10 pages mathematical proof in OO.o every single week, now that's painful. Thanksfully, LaTex saved my days.
I was pissed off enough that she required us to use a program of her choice to generate a PDF that I simply didn't bother to learn.
Seems you completely misunderstood what she was pretending: my guess is that she wanted you to learn another point of view in the field of documents creation.
I just OO.o, same as always, and exported to PDF. The marker didn't know the difference.
Just because she didn't say anything does not mean she didn't know. She knew most of you would not use LaTeX.
This course I've driven a final career project, and convinced the boy to use LyX (I helped him installing it on windows, which is pretty easy by the way). At the beginning it was tricky for him, but after a couple of days he was comfortable. At the end he recognizes how much work he has avoided respect writing his work on MsOffice.
The point is that his mates were puzzled about how elegant his work looked like. I've been reviewing some of the works and none come close to LaTeX look -further, there are some horrible looking ones-. Ensuring style consistency is pretty hard at tools so elastic as office packages are.
I have a variety of resumes in different formats (from plain text to Flash depending on where I'm applying to), but for the more sober version, I'm pretty happy with the one I did in Google Docs. It's quite handy to be able to generate a .pdf wherever you are located.
Yeah, whats the point of learning a popular markup language used in most academic articles while in college.
If you can't read the article without knowing the markup language, then it's not really a good language, is it? Regardless, I've only read 2 academic articles in my life (that can really be called that), and that's because they were assigned by the prof. One was mundane, and the other was ridiculous. They were distributed on paper, so I can't really tell what created them.
We have things called textbooks that are a wealth of knowledge. I suggest you try them out sometime AC. I don't really have a whole lot of free time, and they tend to sort out the mundane/ridiculous from the good. (Assuming you purchase a good book, which can usually be discovered by asking your peers)
Please mod exactly two of parent, grandparent, great-grandparent and child up and the other two down.
Seems you completely misunderstood what she was pretending: my guess is that she wanted you to learn another point of view in the field of documents creation.
This was a database class. Not a business class. I don't think that document creation is something I should really be concerned with. I quite honestly don't care what program creates the document. When I have to write documentation, it's usually in the form of a wiki, html, or source code comments. I don't think an office document is all that good of a medium for carrying most of the information I want to convey.
Looking through my documents directory on my PC, I see a number of word processor documents. And do you know what they are? Resumes. Different versions of my resume. And I've NEVER written any sort of office document professionally.
My problem was that it was a completely pointless exercise that had nothing to do with the material being taught in the class (Databases). LaTex might be the most awesome thing since sliced bread. I don't care. It was out of the scope of that class, and if I wanted to learn how to use it, I would do it in my own time. It's a trivial process (as you yourself have stated), but I have absolutely zero use for such a skill. I simply do not write documents, and I resented being forced to learn how to use a program I would never use again.
A week ago I was booked for flight and hotel by a client's travel service. The e-ticket showed up in one of my Gmail accounts (multiple accounts with +append addresses and thought-through forwarding really does help) along with address info and an expense form. Google's integrated service meant that I was able to move between e-mail, the expense form and the mapping service while all the while auto-formatting/transferring documents between services. It worked very well.
Seriously, it just wasn't worth the hassle of doing a Save As ... waiting for Office to fire up, and then attaching the resultant file(s) back into the mail service.
Obviously YMMV, and I wasn't doing anything particularly sophisticated. But I could do everything I wanted in a browser, and that's where the data showed up originally, so why move it anywhere else?
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
I've been trying Wua.la (alpha) they enable P2P disk sharing, so you can actually share and access normal files over a P2P network. It's encrypted, so you shouldn't be exposed to peers reading your data.
I love the theory, and I think it makes much more sense than the online alternatives.
(I'm not related to Wuala other than being an enthusiastic user)
Show a man some news, distract him for an hour. Show a man some mod points, distract him for the rest of his life.
Absolutely I "honestly think a business is going to allow its private correspondence to be handled over the Internet ...?"
Only it's not "one of these programs" but a whole cornucopia of online office 'sweets' that are otherwise known Software as a Service or SaaS for short.
And they're doing it in huge ways, just look at the dominance SalesForce has in the area of CRM applications, or the online offerings by 37 Signals."
Fact is, the cross-platform, concurrent collaboration qualities of these SaaS based office tools are also making huge gains in moving the corporate world away from the office space and into the web space.
Case in point, everyone who doesn't have a gmail account, please raise your hand? Yeah, I didn't think so.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
I also think that Google Docs is a very good solution for some scenarios such as small non-profits. I work with coffee coops and one of the biggest problems is maintaining machines running because they all want to run Windows OS and Office... from what I've seen, in the international arena Microsoft is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to any real development. Organizations that are strapped for resources spend too much time and money on maintaining their Windows crippled boxes.
One of the things that I have done is to convince a few of them that they need to shift to Ubuntu, and to start using Google Docs (OO if not connected to the internet).
So far one of the complaints I've heard is that the machines running ubuntu make them nervous because they are not crashing regularly... as if that was a bad thing. Also, by using Google Docs they have their vital documents backed up and not at risk of getting lost if the machine they are using gets damaged or stolen (there have been significant flooding in the last few weeks... at least the data is safe).
Most of the world does not have the unlimited resources that US companies seem to have. Coffee growers in the global South have incomes that are well below the $4 bucks people spend for a Venti Caramel Machiatto (whatever that is... ), sharing their meager incomes with Microsoft should be considered a crime against humanity.
So with this in mind, I think that any solution that is open source and improves the day to day experience people like the farmers I am working with, is the best route to take (I have not dealt with crashes now in a few weeks, nor do we have problems with viruses, malware, etc.)
Have you tried latex2rtf? I don't know what it does with equations though...
sigfault. core dumped.
This was a database class. Not a business class.
The value a professor should transmit to their students is much more than following certain program for certain subject. Think integral!.
Students are sometimes busy and don't like working aside the established program. I understand that. But let me state that ignoring these extra works you lose opportunities to gather knowledge which can be good for your personal formation and which can feed your resume as well.
Workarrounding your teacher requirements is a good point also, because you react an adapt instead of crying and complaining. Just hope you don't always do that way...
We use Office automation a lot at work. There's nothing else that comes close to matching.
End of story (for us at least).
With an installed application you are subjected to fewer potential problems in my opinion. Even if it is Microsoft's Office suite you're subjected to their EULA and the length of time that they maintain the product and file formats. With an online suite you're subjected to all of those plus connectivity, privacy policy changes, business plans that don't model your own meaning that they may go out of business, and more.
Except that all of these "pitfalls" may add up to much less than the pitfalls of relying on a local office suite and operating system. If you could be relatively certain that you can save documents such that if (when?) your Windows system crashes, you can reliably recover your data, would you call that a plus or a minus?
If you can instantly coordinate the activity of people in several counties on a website, do you have a net loss since you don't also control the website?
Combining a solid company with a strong contract can be very, very reliable when providing a technical solution.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Do any of the web based wordprocessors have a decent equation editor?
Zoho writer has an equation editor which is usable - you should try it and see if you think it's "decent". The author of the software seems to be a Latex enthusiast.
Get real. Difference between you and "self respecting companies" is that they don't have a stash of porn they're trying hide.
"Self respecting companies" usually have a CFO whose job it is to make sure that money gets spent wisely. Let's consider having you or some other geek team manage my corporate data vs. doing it at Google:
Security:
Geek: encrypts stuff, holds me hostage
Google: Google datacenter security
Risk:
Geek: let's face it, would sell his mother (never mind the customer database) to get laid
Google: Google approach to risk management
Litigation & discovery:
Geek: will send lawyers whatever he's been asked to by his boss, and maybe a bit extra "by mistake"
Google: Will respond to specific and valid legal requests
Service cost:
Geek: can never have enough (hardware, salary, perks, etc.) can't bother to come in wearing a clean t-shirt
Google: $50 a year. Regardless of volume or usage. Upgraded continually.
I won't even mention the fact that you already trust a number of companies with your data - unless of course you've dug your own ditch and laid your own fibre between offices.
Google is staffed by asswipes like every other company. Unlike your employer, they just manage that risk.
Is good and getting better. M$ has reason for concern. The article doesn't mention M$'s latest online offering to compete with these other services...I think that alone is an indication that they are being effected by them.
This is way off-topic, but given the series of posts you've made, I think it needs to be said here.
Sometimes, a course of study at a school is designed by people who are actually smart, and they weave general knowledge of the field and awareness of the possibilities carefully throughout the various classes on more specific subjects. When you're taking such a course, almost by definition it is unlikely that you have yet gained the skill and experience to appreciate this.
Your attitude implies that you think you know better than your teachers, and that you insist on making your own judgements on the merits of what they teach. While both self-driven learning and healthy scepticism can be good things, you might like to stop occasionally and ask whether you are missing something that someone more experienced is trying to show you. From your posts here, it will be very clear to many of us who do work professionally that you have missed an opportunity to learn several useful things here: not only LaTeX, a widely used tool in its own right in some fields you might work in later, but also the experience that learning a new tool often doesn't take as long as you think, for example, and perhaps a few practical skills for preparing a good formal document. And you have given all this up just because instead of taking the enormous 5–10 minutes required to learn a new tool recommended by your teacher, you have stubbornly insisted on doing something your own way. If that is your mindset, you are pretty much doomed in any future career you might wish to pursue in the computing field.
You do not know everything. Suck it up, learn a bit of humility, and make the most of opportunities to learn about stuff, because you will probably never have the same kind of opportunity again and you will regret it if you don't. And please don't think I'm writing this just to patronise you. I used to be like you, and so probably did a lot of the other posters here, and I bet every one of us would take a different approach if we could do it again.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I don't have a stash of porn either. In fact I have nothing to hide. That doesn't mean I want to share all of my information with third parties, even if they swear blind they won't look at it.
Security:
The data never leaves the company network
vs
it travels over the net and then gets stored by people I don't know
Risk:
The data never leaves the company network
vs
it travels over the net and then gets stored by people I don't know
"Unlike your employer, they just manage that risk."
You have no idea who I work for but I'll tell you this, it ain't Bub's Computer shack in South Buttfuck, Nowhere. Even if it was, it doesn't matter. trusting other companies to look after data is a bad plan from start to finish. Just look at all the leaks and losses.
I know this is google and you'd fellate every last employee of theirs if you could, but that doesn't make it either a good idea or a solved problem.
Initally I found it easy to think that web apps would displace desktop applications like Office. But the truth is, these solutions depend greatly on wireless technology. I need to be able to be connected to my documents everywhere. This is the reason thin clients just don't work... yet. I always picture the typical scenario of being on a plane. Until I have fast, broadband speed internet on a plane, these will not gain any footing on Office of OpenOffice.
... and maybe have a good laugh then.
S.
1. keeping data on a hosting services provider - is a small company *really* more trusthworthy than Google, who actually has to care for their name? Can they get bribed, subpoeaned, bought-out more easy than Google?
2. keeping data at home - is your home *really* better protected than Google's datacenters? From lightnings, tornadoes, floods, fires, thieves?
most (including google docs) already have a offline+synv feature. still bulky but improving.
Seems the meme is about to morph from "Is This Teh Year of Teh Lunix On Teh Desktop?"... into "Is This Teh Year of Teh FOSS in Teh Office?".
I have the feeling both will meet the same fate. Like Rick Flair said, "To be The Man, you have to beat The Man". And it doesn't appear anyone has what it takes to beat The Man... especially when there isn't even a financial incentive to do so.
There is a group of people who already do the majority of their publishing with a non-office like program. Many scientists write using LaTex or a variant. We do large collaborative projects with people scattered throughout the world at different institutions, we travel often, and our work need not (at least for those of us at public institutions) be kept very secure. Since Google docs started I've been writing them email begging for a Latex processor to be included. There are some online LaTex processors up and running, and while interesting they still have some problems which I had hoped google would try to fix.
I'm not saying it is a bad system--it's the best webmail out there--but give me my imap accounts and thunderbird any day. I would use it as an on-the-go system for checking my accounts but a lot of its great benefits are lost (the whole label/tag paradigm doesn't really jive with thunderbird although it would be a nice future direction).
Bottles.
I keep looking at Google Docs, but so far the answer is no; it doesn't even replace WordPad. The main defect is that it doesn't support paragraph spacing. How they can claim it's a word processor without paragraph support is beyond me.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Perhaps your prof was under the assumption that some/many of you would like to continue as postgraduates, in which case LaTeX is very useful indeed. From your opinion of the academic articles that you have read I guess that this is not terribly likely, but the AC is right that if you had wanted to continue in academia, or indeed if you had a long final report to write or similar, you would have likely found some knowledge of LaTeX very useful. Most of the major comp sci conferences prefer articles to be written using LaTeX and provide templates for this purpose, though some are kind enough to provide equivalent templates in MS Word that are nearly as effective, except that they are generally a pain in the backside to use because Word has its own ideas about everything.
Still, as you say, you don't write documents and it is not a useful skill for you, which is fair enough. But it is a skill that could usefully be taught as part of a degree in CS, or physics, or other science in which LaTeX is widely used, so I can understand why your professor might have come to the conclusion that it is a reasonable thing to expect.
If I can ever replace Microsoft Visio, I would say completely goodbye to Windows. I would love if Google, Sun or anyone else would release a Visio type application on the Web.
The best killer Visio application was Netviz, but after it was purchased by Computer Associates, I lost track of the product.
Here is to hoping that someone is listening.
In New York City, there are a bunch of things happening every weekend. My girlfriend and I put together a "cheat sheet" with the parties we know about, and our predictions about what will be cool. We then share it with 100 or so of our closest friends friends. They can add more information if they like. Very convenient! Everyone seems to like this system. p.s. Social geek with girlfriend? This is not a troll, I promise
Yes, I am very stubborn. Yes, I can be pig-headed. But I might lack humility. It really depends on who I'm talking to I think. I've had many teachers that I've looked up to, and did their extra work without complaint. This one in particular bothered the hell out of me. She was very stuck on processes and procedure. Drawing outside of the lines is something that I personally find real value in, and in her class, things had to be done her way or no way at all. I didn't appreciate that, and made it a point to subvert the process whenever possible.
Do I regret not learning LaTex? A little. As you've mentioned, it really doesn't hurt to learn something new. I am a naturally inquisitive person, and I know a great deal of things that I will never use again, simply because they interested me. But I have a really bad taste in my mouth about LaTex, given that it was presented to me in such a way. If she had recommended its usage, I probably would have checked it out. But by requiring it, and telling us that assignments would not be graded if they weren't submitted with LaTex? That just challenged me to defy her. I took the alternate route, and generated them in OpenOffice, then altered the metadata to say they were generated with tex2pdf (or whatever the tool was called).
Ah yeah, I can see that. There was really never much possibility of me going on to grad school. That's just a huge time commitment with very little payoff in the real world. I did take an extra year on my undergraduate degree to get a coop degree (I took 3 semesters back to back). And I think that was invaluable for preparing me for the real world. But I don't have much use for a Master's Degree, other than the cool sounding title.
And I agree, it probably should be taught in computer science. But as I mentioned in another post a little down from here, my main problem with her teaching it to us was her presentation. I disliked being forced to use a tool of her choice. It was probably more difficult to defy her than simply learning the tool (I had to modify metadata with a hex editor). But I very much dislike it when a prof insists on a specific method of getting to a correct solution. The best profs that I've ever had will recommend a method, but if something works better for you, then they don't discourage that. (I'm not saying that every solution is created equal, or that a prof should allow a student to submit every assignment in assembly. But oftentimes there are many just-as-good solutions to a problem.)
ThinkFree allows you to host the server yourself. You can make it available only via VPN or SSL if you like.
Ok, so this whole "twitter" thing is just bullshit then... Was wondering about that. Do you really think twitter signed up early enough to get an uid that low?
Indeed, I am not twitter. Thanks for noticing ;)
(One may also check my posting history to see that I'm not)
If you keep your documents and correspondence on a 3rd-party documents, what happens if at some time the regime declares your interests illegal and the service provider is persuaded (or eager) to support a fishing expedition?