Google Docs is Not a Shipping Company

Well, you know, as frustrating as Zoho was, it's a lot cooler looking than Google Docs, but it already knew who I was when I opened the site because I have a gmail account and I had already logged in there today.

There are some similar features but the interface is not in your face. That is good and bad. The view is less cluttered so may be less daunting to some, but you have to look behind tabs and drop downs to find some features.

You can insert comments in a variety of colors but they seem to be more intrusive; they don't disappear into a small icon when you finish. But neither do they duplicate themselves when you press enter and start a new line which is what happened to me in Zoho for some reason. There's no tagging.

You can track changes made to the document from the Revision tab. I didn't see this in Zoho, but I didn't look for it either. In both programs you can get contextual menus by right clicking. This is useful. You can collaborate on a document with others, and post to your blog from Google Docs as well as publish the document on the web for others to see, as in Zoho.

I had to search further to find the document settings and change the default font.

I think someone who wants very basic functionality and gets confused by too many options might like this better, but might get frustrated trying to find the document settings. The fact that the active document and the home page with saved files are in two seperate tabs may bother some. I like the way Zoho has it all on one screen.

Well That Worked

So, now I know that those tags in Zoho turn into Technorati tags (and you can't use two-word tags like in Blogger) and if you change colors they don't always look well on your blog background.

The Great Blog Shift

Okay. I am testing to see if i can post to my blog from Zoho.
Is this Abandon hope all ye who enter here
or God bless all who sail in her?

Technorati Tags productivity,word,Zoho,Blogger,processing

#18 Wasting Time With Online Productivity

These apps hold a lot of interest for me since they have the potential of helping me edit a chapter whatever (Internet enabled) computer I am on.

Zoho sounds simple till you get there and have a whole array of menu items to consider. *takes deep breath and plunges in*

I like that you can tag docs as opposed to putting them in folders. I'm not sure that I am so fancy in my blogging needs that I need the extra features there to post here, but you never know. The sharing capability would be useful for work groups editing a document together. The comments feature is pretty cool (except why did it duplicate the comment when I pressed enter after it). The templates are pretty boring, though.

I found Zoho a little frustrating out of the gate. It changed font on me when I hit enter to start a new paragraph but seemed reluctant to stop using bold and underline, and the highlighting feature wasn't acting quite like I expected. I guess, like anything, you have to get used to its quirks.

Yikes! It decided to freeze in mid-edit as I tried to look at a comment. I had to refresh the page then I thought I had lost my information since I hadn't saved it yet. That would be very irritating if it was an important document. It turns out it must save automatically because I found it in an untitled doc when I started a new untitled doc.

I was able to import a file from my PC successfully.

Okay, I guess I could use this but it might take some getting used to. It seems a little buggy.

#17 MD Wiki

Well, it took me a few minutes to figure out how to add my blog to the favorite blog list on the Maryland Libraries Wiki but I guessed it before I finally found the instructions on one of those videos. Just to be cheeky, I also added a photo; something no one else has done on that page.

I think there should be clearer written instructions on how to proceed with this task because a lot of people are sticking their blogs on the front page and not on the favorite blogs page, and others are adding their favorite things to the comments and not editing the appropriate favorites page.

Aren't I fussy?

I made my own page on the wiki--Annette's Evil Laboratory--and I added a couple of creepy movie trailers. The editing is very much like editing this blog. Not hard after the initial stage of figuring out where everything is.

I had fun looking at some of the other pages. Some people caught on and got fancier than others. I added a couple of comments to some of the sites.

#16 WIKI WAKI WOO

I find Wikipedia a great source for pop information--ultra-current information but also pop culture of the past. If I want to find out what has happened to a pop star of the past, I go to Wikipedia and start there. If I want a definition of a current slang term, I find Wikipedia a great place to look. Since it is edited by all and sundry, however, I tend to verify facts in other sources if I need total veracity. I think it is a great informational springboard, however. There's even a Wikipedia article about me! But it has some misinformation. Maybe I'll register and add some information as part of this learning experience. Hmmmmm! There's a thought.

I haven't explored other wikis as much. We have a community wiki for my town but not much was going on there the last I looked. I think it would be a good source of local information if more people contributed. I would like to share information about contractors and handymen, for instance, but the references there are old. New recommendations from neighbors would be very useful. Of course, how do you know it it's not the tradesmen themselves or their friends who are posting good plugs? That's the sort of thing a local library could partner with their community on.

Wikis would make it easier for more staff to contribute to updating library Intranet pages instead of it falling to a small set of people with the right log-in and knowledge.

I like the use of wikis for book lists and subject guides--at least open to staff to edit. It might be interesting to pilot opening it up to the public and see what happens. Time has to alloted for someone to monitor the site, however.

Some wikis seem to have problems with spammers inserting links to their ads. Any library who uses wikis needs to figure out how to block those and have someone on spam patrol. The Library Instruction Wiki I looked at, Library 2.0 in 15 minutes a day, was totally infested with spam. I'm glad to see from the Princeton Public library BookLoversWiki that not all wikis need have that generic Wikipedia look.

What surprised me about the Bull Run Library wiki was that it was created by a patron and not associated with the library. Can they do that? Anyway--news flash for library patron--when I checked the "add features" tab it said your wiki subscription has run out and you owe the wiki people money.

#15 continued

Things I agree with from reading articles on Libraries 2.0:

• 2.0 technology offers great ways of removing barriers between our patrons and our information by making processes user friendly.

• We need to find new ways to bring our services to patrons rather than insisting that they come to us—whether physically or virtually. This means placing our content and links in places other than the library Web Page and being a presence on the Web in places other than our own site.

• The 2.0 librarian uses Instant Messaging to meet users in their space online, builds blogs and wikis as resources to further the mission of the library, and mashes up content via Application Program Interfaces to build useful Web sites.

• questions to ask when planning for technology. Does it meet the users need in a new or improved way? Does it create a useful service for putting users together with the information and experience they seek?

• Users will create their own mash ups, remixes and original expressions and should be able to do so at the library or via the library’s resources.

• Libraries should welcome the submission of reviews, assignment of keywords (“tagging”), addition of scholarly commentary, and other forms of user participation.

For me, Library 2.0 means I get to play with cool things at work and make them relevant to what I do, and, in turn relevant to our patrons' needs.