Have you tried Google yet?

If you are reading this you are obviously using a computer and if you use a computer on a regular basis this sounds like an awfully silly question. Who doesn't use Google? I'm not talking about the search engine however. The little search engine that could has mushroomed into a multi billion dollar software business and not everyone has noticed.

First the good points.

The first thing that came along was Google Mail. Being involved in the computer business I acquired a Google mail address early in the game when you had to get and "invite" from someone to get an account. After having that account for several years now I have started to actively use it and it is rapidly becoming my primary email account / client of preference.

After using Google Mail for a while I started looking at other "Google applications" that I knew existed but hadn't paid much attention too much as I had ignored Google Mail for so long. Google now has the equivalent of an office suite like Microsoft Office available on line. It includes a word processor, a spread sheet, a calendar and a graphical presentation program. To get the calendar functions in Microsoft Office you have to be using their Outlook mail client for your email, oh and I almost forgot you have to pay Microsoft a boatload of money for the software. With Google if you want the calendar but choose some other email program it still works just fine.

So the next thing I did with my Google account was set up a Google Calendar. It gives me a central place to keep my dates and activities but best of all I can send an "invitation" to friends and family members to "share" my calendar. They set up their own Google calendar and then by simply checking a box they see my entries and events along with their own. It also has the ability to create an "event" and have it repeat on a regular basis like monthly meetings or anything that has a fixed schedule.

Then I moved on to Google Docs. I didn't really think I would find a lot of use for an on line word processor but that has turned out not too be the case. Once again I discovered that some of the things I "write down" on electronic paper have an advantage to being on line. First of all I no longer have to worry about "now where on this 160 gigabyte hard drive did I save that file?" or for that matter on which of my many computers did I save the file. Google documents also gives me the ability to save the same document in different formats. I'm writing this blog entry on a Linux based system and the office suite I use with my Linux machines is Open Office. Open Office also has the ability too read and write several different formats but it defaults to ODT which is the "open source" standard for files that is free for anyone to use as they please.

Microsoft's .DOC format on the other hand is proprietary and subject to change without notice as many people have found out when Microsoft releases a new updated version of Office only to find that they now can't open all of the documents that were created with the older version unless run through some type of conversion program or in some cases not at all which means printing them out in hard copy and retyping them again. This typically doesn't happen with a single version upgrade but many who have stuck with Microsoft Office for long periods of time have found themselves in that situation when finally moving up to the current revision of the application.

Finally as with my calendar I have the ability to share my documents with others. This is something that I didn't really feel that I would have a use for but I'm finding many advantages for sharing my work with family and friends. I'm going to write a similar blog entry for my amateur radio and Linux blog and point out how members of a club could share thoughts on projects and save the combined wisdom of all on a particular topic. Do you have a hobby or organization where it would help if everyone could share ideas on "paper" but you would like something a little more formal than email? One such hobby that comes to mind is genealogy, imagine being able to share what you have learned about your family history with the rest of the clan no matter if they are down the street or in another country. You may give family and friends the ability to simply read your works or to edit and update them. The possibilities as they say are limited only by your imagination.

Of course you also have the normal functions that you would expect from a word processor in terms of formatting text, search and replace and the ability to print your documents. There may be other things that I have not yet explored but I will continue to learn as I use them.

I have never been a heavy user of spread sheets. I started long ago with Louts 123 and then migrated to Microsoft Excel when the corporate world dictated it. At I was using them extensively at work on a project at one time in place of a database but in my normal day to day work I don't manipulate much data with them. Having said that, part of the Google applications include a spread sheet which they haven't, at least at this time, come up with a clever name for. Spread sheets let you enter data into an electronic ledger sheet consisting of rows and columns. Each place a row and column intersect is a cell into which you can place information. In addition to numbers you can put text in the cells to make the sheet more readable. The real power though comes from the fact that you can write a formula into a cell that will take the contents of other cells and perform math operations on them. I'm not going into great detail here as it would be far beyond the scope of a simple blog entry but let's just say that if you have the need to manipulate numbers this is your tool. It has many uses beyond simply being a fancy programmable calculator but you will have to do some reading to find all the potential.

Last but not least is a graphics presentation program. If you are familiar with Microsoft Power Point then I need say no more. If not I will tell you that it allows you to put information together in the form of text, graphics and photos arranged in frames called "slides" which can then be displayed either on a computer screen, on a big screen with a projector or printed on paper as hand outs for a presentation. As with other computer programs this one is just a tool and limited only by your abilities to work with it and your creativity putting it's functions to use.

Not really mentioned with the office suite is Google Photos. It is still under the Google umbrella and will work with the office programs as well as their blog publishing software that produced the entry you are reading now. Again it is free as long as you don't exceed a specified amount of disk space and if you do you can purchase additional space for a fee. It is a great way to share photos between family and friends and again with groups that you may belong too. In addition to sharing you have the option to order prints of your pictures something I haven't tried yet. I normally use Walmart or Wallgreens to get my digital photos printed just because it is convenient to pick up the prints at local locations.

Now the not so good.

Now that I sound like I'm a marketing person for Google let me tell you that all is not perfect in the world of Google applications. I would have to say that the biggest problem with all of the above is that it makes the "network" the computer. If you lose Internet connectivity you are essentially dead in the water. You have no access to your email or your files. For some of us that is not a problem that very often occurs.

I have digital subscriber line service (DSL) at home which means that my computer is connected to the Internet anytime it is turned on. At work I'm even better connected being hooked to the corporate network which in turn gives access to the Internet and the World Wide Web. If on the other hand you use a dial up connection for your Internet access this becomes an entirely different matter. This is yet another good reason to download and install the open source free office suite Open Office. The user interface is somewhat different than Microsoft Office but not enough that you couldn't pick it up in a very short period of time.

This can be somewhat offset by saving your documents, spread sheets and presentations on your local hard drive but that opens yet another can of worms in the form of making sure both sets of files stay in sync. In any case it is something you have to consider in your particular situation.

The next thing to consider is that Microsoft Office has become the de facto standard in the business world and while both Open Office and Google Documents can read and write those formats if you are a power user that wrings every last feature out of Office in your work you may find some things that don't translate. The only place where I have every had a real problem with this so far is where a document includes "macros" or small programs that are based on Microsoft's Visual BASIC language. The only people that I have ever transitioned from Microsoft Word to Open Office Writer that have had any complaints have been heavy duty users in legal offices. I have also heard complaints from heavy spread sheet users that write a lot of macros into their sheets. For the average user I have never seen any problems.

As for the presentation program I haven't used it enough to really render a valid opinion. I'm sure the Microsoft version, Power Point, comes with many more predefined templates which make doing something from scratch easier if you are a novice.

Another thing that you will find is that because Microsoft is the 800 pound gorilla in the computer desktop arena that when you go looking for after market support like books that you are going to have a far greater range of choice in books on Office 2007 than on Open Office. Likewise if you call friends or coworkers looking for help it is far more likely that they will be familiar with Microsoft products than free Open Source software like Open Office. I checked Amazon and there are a number of books on Open Office available to help you along if you need them. Much to my surprise I also searched for "Google apps" on Amazon and there are a number of manuals and books available for the on line suite. Based on that alone I guess I have fallen behind the times in the tech world.

So if you have stuck with me this far I'm sure you are asking what is the point of all this. I just want share the knowledge of what I lean with others. I know that I'm very appreciative when someone "turns me on" to some new widget that either make me more productive and makes life just a little more enjoyable. Many people have invested time and effort to produce Open Source software like Open Office and despite what a behemoth Google has become they are still a very friendly company that tries to do the right thing in the corporate sense. There are some who would refute that argument but that is for another posting at another time. So give it a whirl and see if it works for you and meets your needs.