The term “cloud computing” has been thrown around a lot recently in regards to many different web apps or Internet services. There are a lot of options out there for doing just about anything with cloud computing.
There are plenty of upsides and downsides to using apps in the “cloud” that is the Internet, with many of them being obvious. Though not a perfect substitute for desktop applications, cloud computing can theoretically replace a number of things normally done by computer software. The first and most obvious use of this is with office suites.
In this guide I’ll show you web apps that you can use to move your office to the cloud.
What do you need?
The first thing you need to decide is what exactly you use your office suite for normally. Do you use your office suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, or as a way to just jot down quick notes to yourself?
There are some cloud computing services that specialize in doing only specific aspects of office suites if you only use one of these. There are others, however, that offer the whole range of services that you would normally get if you were a Microsoft Office, iWork, or OpenOffice user.
Specialty services:
Word processing is possibly the most often use of an office suite. There are a number of sites that offer only word processing and/or text editing and that’s it.
gOffice and Edit Pad
Two of these gOffice and Edit Pad offer simply a text box. gOffice has some small formatting options which Edit Pad does not. Both have the option to save your files, gOffice allows you to save files as Word documents, and Edit Pad saves as text files. Neither are particularly mind blowing, but they offer a quick option for writing files without having to open a word processor.
Evernote, Backpack, and Notely
A lot of people, mainly students, tend to use office suites to take notes, whether it’s in a class, or in a meeting there are a few ways cloud computing can help with that. There are three very useful applications for note taking: Evernote, Backpack, and Notely. Notely is specifically targeted at college students, but can be used by anyone; Backpack is targeted at small businesses or those involved in a number of projects; and Evernote is essentially for everyone.
All have the ability to take notes, tag them, and search based on tags. Each also has a sharing feature, so you can share your notes with others who might need or want to see them. Being able to jot down quick notes and view them on any computer through a website is really invaluable.
There’s less frustration with having all your notes on your computer back at the office/home/dorm room, or on the laptop with a dead battery and no charger. Backpack and Evernote have other features which can constitute a separate guide.
Full office suites:
While having specialized applications can be nice, what you really want is a full blown office suite. You want one that doesn’t require a long boot up time, can be accessed anywhere, and is reliable. There are two major players in this area: Google and Zoho. Both offer similar experiences, with slight differences.
Google Docs
Chances are you probably already have a Google account from Gmail, iGoogle, or one of its other services. Google also offers what it calls Google Docs, which can do word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. Like nearly everything else Google does, Docs runs very fast. It autosaves your files every time you stop typing for a few seconds, and stores them all on its servers. Every file can be shared or emailed to anyone, and any changes made to the documents can be recorded in an RSS feed.
Presentations can be shown over the web to others, with a chatroom beside the slideshow so you an discuss what you are showing. All files can be downloaded onto your computer in a number of formats. The main downfalls of using Google Docs are the lack of formatting options for word processing, the boring options for Presentation, and the fact that it’s just one more thing to keep with Google which is bad if you dislike one company holding all of your information.
Zoho
Zoho Suite, as the other major cloud office suite, also does word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. A big draw of Zoho is how full-featured it is compared to software office suites. It’s especially obvious in Zoho Word which can be formatted as easily as and software word processor. All the options are right there as they would be in Microsoft Word; every option visible as an icon. Their spreadsheet is about on par with Google spreadsheets. Presentation lacks the Internet slideshow viewing of Google presentation. Major downfalls are the lack of Safari support for presentation, and it runs a bit slower than Google Docs.
Thoughts on having your office in the cloud
It might be hard right now to replace your office suite software with the cloud computing alternative. Although, as the technology gets better and more the availability of wireless internet increases through 3G, WiMAX and the like it could be much more of a possibility. For now, they are useful, especially if you don’t plan on using them anywhere without Internet access.
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