Writing the Web Way

I've been using Google Docs for a while now and have been happy overall. In the past, at my library I might find myself on any of four or five different desks and my work tended to get spread out. If I wanted to work on a particular project it always took me a minute to figure out which machine or floppy disc I'd stored it on. When we first got USB's, my problem was mostly solved. They hold a lot of data, are small and portable, and can be plugged in to all the machines. But...I still had to remember to unplug it at this machine so that I'd have it handy for the next. And if the PC I was on didn't have the application I needed for my project, then I was out of luck. To add insult to injury, I lost the darn thing (I think I left a pocket on my backpack unzipped!) and there went all my work. Luckily most of it was also backed up on the PC at my desk. Unluckily my updates weren't all as updated as they could be.

Given my experience I decided to give Google Docs a try. Voila! Problems solved - for the most part. Is Google Docs perfect? No. It sometimes has some wonky editing and formatting. And experimenting with the slideshow in this week's coursework made me realize it can freeze up as well (as Pinky said). And transferring back and forth between Google Docs and Word and other applications doesn't always go as smoothly as I'd like (formatting again). The other reservation I have relates to the security. Though I love the ease of access and use, I don't include any documents that are confidential or extremely private. Do I think Google Docs is secure? Sure. But only in as much as anything is secure out there on the big bad web.

But small issues aside, it's been great to have my documents available whichever machine I happen to be on. I like the blending of blogging tools with the word processing. I also appreciate the ability to share documents with co-workers for collaborative projects.

As a final note, may I suggest that those who are new to this Google tool check out some of the other tools also available. I'm regularly using the Google Calendar as well.

And on the Eighth Day, God Created Instant Messaging

I didn't have much luck with Meeboing Me, but was able to successfully chat with a co-worker. Of course our chat went something like this:

Me: hey, I'm chatting with you
Her: cool
Me: look I've changed the color of my font
Her: me too and look I'm typing it with my fav font
Me: cool man i see why people give up on the caps and use lol's

Well, you probably get the picture. First chats are always about as edifying as that, but having practiced a little bit now I can definitely see the benefits of connecting with co-workers or the public using the easy Meebo interface. Madison might use it as a way for the lone reference worker in a branch to get additional assistance for tough questions if the staff at other locations were online in Meebo. For the public it's got a couple of benefits, the first would be the easy access to staff if we started using it. The second could be to use Meebo to cover their chat if they're not able to get into Yahoo or AOL from the public machines (which are usually a mixed bag in terms of the updates).

Good opener for semester 2 and thanks to the Sloganizer for my blog post title.