Author Topic: Google docs  (Read 11670 times)

strider3700

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Google docs
« on: August 16, 2012, 08:30:09 PM »
It's far from a secret but I haven't seen it mentioned here.

 If you were thinking of buying Microsoft office anytime  give google docs a try first.  It's free and frankly unless you are an insane power user of excel  or you have some forced compatibility crap with work  it's good enough for most peoples day to day needs.   I've been using it exclusively for a few years now and have not had a single instance of needing office.

docs.google.com/

They recently integrated it with google drive which is a free online storage account they are now offering. 

https://drive.google.com/start#home

I love this setup because my files are always available from anywhere with a PC.   Also since it's online it makes it trivial to share it and you can find api's to easily make your spreadsheet graphs embedded in webpages  or even easier is use googles webpage builder and drop a link in a widget and it just works.   

Having been building software for over a decade and being on PC's for a lot longer then that I'm amazed at what you can get for free these days.

Monkey stache

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #1 on: August 16, 2012, 09:34:04 PM »
I used Google Docs for awhile but found it lacked a lot of functionality of Microsoft word. I now use Zoho writer which is works a lot better while being free and accessible from any computer.

arebelspy

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #2 on: August 16, 2012, 09:40:45 PM »
Libre Office would be my choice of FOSS office software.

With Dropbox to have access to the docs anywhere (and BoxCryptor to encrypt them before they're sync'd).

Though I do use MS Office as I can get it cheap, I would use Libre Office if I could not.

(One example of a missing feature in Google Docs that I use a lot in Excel is XIRR.)
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strider3700

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #3 on: August 16, 2012, 10:02:07 PM »
I used Google Docs for awhile but found it lacked a lot of functionality of Microsoft word. I now use Zoho writer which is works a lot better while being free and accessible from any computer.

I'm curious which functionality that is?   I spend most of my time in the spreadsheets so for regular word type documents I'm most caring auto basic fonts,  and layout options  none of which I've ever found lacking.

Daley

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #4 on: August 16, 2012, 10:22:12 PM »
Libre Office would be my choice of FOSS office software.

With Dropbox to have access to the docs anywhere (and BoxCryptor to encrypt them before they're sync'd).

Though I do use MS Office as I can get it cheap, I would use Libre Office if I could not.

(One example of a missing feature in Google Docs that I use a lot in Excel is XIRR.)

Give SpiderOak a look instead of Dropbox if security is enough of a concern with your documents that you're using BoxCryptor.

Jamesqf

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #5 on: August 16, 2012, 11:58:38 PM »
Have to say I utterly loathe Google Docs.  I have one project where the coordinator insists on weekly progress updates in it, and it just drives me nuts. Nothing seems to work the way it should - sometimes backspace to delete a character winds up deleting everything I've input, other times I think I've made changes, and when I save the doc the changes go away...

Open Office (which I guess is called Libre Office now) is a possible alternative, though I find it ever so much easier just to do everything of that sort in LaTeX.

grantmeaname

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #6 on: August 17, 2012, 08:19:36 AM »
Put me in the LibreOffice camp. I've been using it since early high school when it was OpenOffice.org.

Bonus tips:
1. If you're going between computers and you need to present or print something, use a PDF, not the document file itself. The entire point of the PDF format is that it's portable (that's what the 'P' means). Avoid looking like a total amateur at presentations while you try and monkey with powerpoint compatibility, or be sure that your typesetting work transfers exactly on complicated documents like a resume, especially if you're a university student and you're sharing any sort of academic interaction with me. PDF is an incredible format, and it will always do right by you, so long as you don't need to edit on your destination computer.

2. If LibreOffice just won't open something right, it could be that it's not interpreting the MS office file format correctly, or it could by that it is and the Microsoft program isn't (sadly, this happens). If so, and you're running windows, check out programs like Powerpoint Viewer, a read-only Powerpoint program by Microsoft. (Only a limited capability to do this exists with the notoriously-incompatible Access, which in my opinion is the single worst piece of software ever written. Worse than Stuxnet.)

bak

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #7 on: August 17, 2012, 10:42:03 AM »
Have to say I utterly loathe Google Docs.  I have one project where the coordinator insists on weekly progress updates in it, and it just drives me nuts. Nothing seems to work the way it should - sometimes backspace to delete a character winds up deleting everything I've input, other times I think I've made changes, and when I save the doc the changes go away...

Open Office (which I guess is called Libre Office now) is a possible alternative, though I find it ever so much easier just to do everything of that sort in LaTeX.

I have to say I wholeheartedly agree. My first semester I didn't have a Windows (nor a Mac) computer and was straggling by making engineering graphs in google docs. This cost me so many points in homework that the latter investment in a better laptop didn't even make me sorry for it. (in the end everything worked out to an A but it really stressed me out). So I have been hating Google Docs from then on. There are, however, merits to being able to share a documents and edit in real time with other people.

Libre Office has been a huge improvement (not so much in features) in performance from Open Office. However, my University just made an agreement with Microsoft for free MS Office, as such I do use it for assignments. I always used PDF too. Even between a Mac and a PC version of MS Office there where some centences missing. (I don't know why that's so, both versions of the software where the latest respectively)

Ending, I do have to agree that LaTeX is the most beautiful and efficient way to write documents but it's still is complicated and has a steep learning curve. (Knuth is a genius in my opinion)
« Last Edit: August 17, 2012, 10:44:02 AM by bak »

arebelspy

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #8 on: August 17, 2012, 11:12:31 AM »
All the above are fine choices, but inferior.

Emacs.  Nuff said.

(And don't start with that Vi *) 

;)
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strider3700

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #9 on: August 17, 2012, 12:04:16 PM »

Ending, I do have to agree that LaTeX is the most beautiful and efficient way to write documents but it's still is complicated and has a steep learning curve. (Knuth is a genius in my opinion)

If you're using LaTeX you're obviously not your average user cranking out a quick letter to the editor.  It's been years since I've used it but back then it did great work but could take an hour to get a couple of paragraphs on screen and laid out correctly.

My issue with open/libreoffice  may have been corrected now but it was real slow to load on my quite nice machine.   It could just be that the ubuntu build was crap.

jpo

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #10 on: August 17, 2012, 02:06:26 PM »
My issue with open/libreoffice  may have been corrected now but it was real slow to load on my quite nice machine.   It could just be that the ubuntu build was crap.
LibreOffice has supposedly made a lot of back end improvements since forking the OOo code.

bak

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #11 on: August 17, 2012, 02:18:35 PM »
All the above are fine choices, but inferior.

Emacs.  Nuff said.

(And don't start with that Vi *) 

;)

RSI inducing editor. Vim will always be the better choice.

jbhernandez

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #12 on: August 17, 2012, 11:11:45 PM »
Stop talking over our heads. :)

Jamesqf

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #13 on: August 17, 2012, 11:27:10 PM »
All the above are fine choices, but inferior.

Emacs.  Nuff said.

(And don't start with that Vi *) 

;)

Emacs?  I've always thought that was a joke, along the lines of the old obfuscated C contests*, the idea being to construct the worst possible text editor that still worked.  I much prefer THE, which is an open source clone of IBM's Xedit.

*I don't think they're around any longer, since C++ made obfuscatation an inherent feature of the language.

Jamesqf

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #14 on: August 17, 2012, 11:31:14 PM »
. My first semester I didn't have a Windows (nor a Mac) computer and was straggling by making engineering graphs in google docs.

Maybe too late for this, but I'd suggest doing any scientific or engineering graphs with gnuplot.

liquidbanana

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #15 on: August 18, 2012, 02:00:36 PM »
Open Office is another free alternative to Microsoft products.

grantmeaname

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #16 on: August 18, 2012, 02:44:28 PM »
Open Office is another free alternative to Microsoft products.
OOO was a Sun product. Sun was very friendly to the open source community, so it flourished under their leadership. Then Oracle bought Sun, and the entire developer community supporting OOO forked it to LibreOffice in protest of Oracle's (perceived) awful behavior to the open source community.

If you were to go to Libreoffice today, it would look very familiar. It should, as it's developed by the same people.

liquidbanana

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #17 on: August 18, 2012, 06:18:14 PM »
Ooooh. Ok. I haven't used it in ages. I use google docs actually.

Nina

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #18 on: August 20, 2012, 05:10:22 AM »
Google Docs alternative closest to MS functionality is Teamlab Document Editor.

Looks like that (screenshots)



Still in beta version, can be quickly tried  here - http://html5.teamlab.com/
Creating, Editing, Sharing and Storing features are available.
Free. Goes as a part of Collaborative software - http://www.teamlab.com
« Last Edit: August 20, 2012, 05:36:44 AM by Nina »

bak

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #19 on: August 20, 2012, 03:26:53 PM »
Google Docs alternative closest to MS functionality is Teamlab Document Editor.

Looks like that (screenshots) https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--jqR8JomF_c/UDIZn3a8LDI/AAAAAAAABV4/BtoT80J5-dY/s980/%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%B9+%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80.png

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N5c3UNaV8-Y/UDIZsI6f6PI/AAAAAAAABWA/4Jm9gvVdRhU/s497/11+teamlab+view.png

Still in beta version, can be quickly tried  here - http://html5.teamlab.com/
Creating, Editing, Sharing and Storing features are available.
Free. Goes as a part of Collaborative software - http://www.teamlab.com

The thing is that Google Docs is great for Collaborative work. Almost everyone has a gmail address by now. So what makes this service worth to sign up for. My disagreement with Google Docs doesn't lie on collaboration work (which as I said above works great as such) but as a complete office suit to write documents, take care of finances etc.

Nina

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #20 on: August 21, 2012, 02:06:26 AM »
bak, thanks for your attention and... that's the point!)
Teamlab is a collaborative platform as well and document sharing feature is available.
Thumbs up to Google Docs simultaneous collaborative editing - sure, that's a huge advantage.
Though Teamlab developers promise to implement it in a month. The difference between the services is first of all in the toolset and document identity. Google docs unfortunately doesn't let you print or convert the document without formatting or content loss. Teamlab editor does)

arebelspy

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #21 on: August 21, 2012, 09:39:29 AM »
Do you have any affiliation or connection with Teamlab, Nina.
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
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igthebold

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #22 on: August 21, 2012, 12:13:38 PM »
I'm de facto IT guy of a small private school (read low budget) and just had a discussion with the headmaster about what would work. We ended up here:
- Google Docs for "living" online internal documents. Google Docs is pretty awesome for collaboration, given how hard the problem is.
- MS Office for printed documents. You just can't beat the fact that most of the faculty were productive in Office and it would take a while to get up to speed in another tool.

We get a pretty good discount, though. Since it's BYO Device, we can get Office Standard for $70 per license. Since I value my teachers' time pretty highly it's a good trade.

Personally, though, I'm willing to live with the limitations of Google Docs, so that's what I use.

Jamesqf

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #23 on: August 21, 2012, 12:32:50 PM »
The thing is that Google Docs is great for Collaborative work.

Well, it would be great if it actually worked.  See comments above.

Quote
Almost everyone has a gmail address by now.

But would we if we didn't have project coordinators who insist on us using that non-functional piece of Google crap?

bak

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #24 on: August 21, 2012, 06:27:34 PM »
The thing is that Google Docs is great for Collaborative work.

Well, it would be great if it actually worked.  See comments above.

See what comments? Mine? Because I was the one complaining -although not the only one- about Google Docs.

Quote
Quote
Almost everyone has a gmail address by now.


But would we if we didn't have project coordinators who insist on us using that non-functional piece of Google crap?

Although, there are issues to be raised with gmail, I do not think that gmail by and itself is crap. Email is pretty standard by now, and it isn't going away any time soon, and gmail is a functional piece of software. Now, the only issues that I would raise would be:
  • Privacy concerns.
  • Ownership of content, considering some cases where gmail accounts have been deleted without notification and without any way to backup your emails.

After that, it's a matter of trade-offs. I usually don't like generalizations, if you want to say something just say it, don't expect me to imagine what you have to say about Google or a specific service of that company. Otherwise, your comment holds no value.

Jamesqf

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #25 on: August 22, 2012, 12:05:16 AM »
See what comments? Mine? Because I was the one complaining -although not the only one- about Google Docs.

Nope, my comment, about the 5th or 6th one down.  The thing just doesn't work consistently, and with some browsers not at all.

Quote
Although, there are issues to be raised with gmail, I do not think that gmail by and itself is crap. Email is pretty standard by now, and it isn't going away any time soon, and gmail is a functional piece of software.

Yeah, email is pretty standard.  I have an email address - actually several of them, at least one of which I've had since long before there even WAS a Google.  People I know use these addresses when they want to send me email.  So why should I want to get yet another, just so I could use Google's software, instead of the software I prefer?

Quote
I usually don't like generalizations, if you want to say something just say it, don't expect me to imagine what you have to say about Google or a specific service of that company. Otherwise, your comment holds no value.

I did say something specific, and told you where to look for it.  You don't like generalizations; I don't like unnecessary repetitions.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2012, 01:49:11 PM by Jamesqf »

JJ

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #26 on: August 22, 2012, 03:32:02 AM »
All the above are fine choices, but inferior.

Emacs.  Nuff said.

(And don't start with that Vi *) 

;)

Emacs?  I've always thought that was a joke, along the lines of the old obfuscated C contests*, the idea being to construct the worst possible text editor that still worked.  I much prefer THE, which is an open source clone of IBM's Xedit.

*I don't think they're around any longer, since C++ made obfuscatation an inherent feature of the language.

Vi's still around as Vim.  Pretty cool if you're bored and want to mess with your own head.  A big plus is you don't need a mouse and after you get over a mad learning curve it's very efficient.  Vi's also shipped or easily available on pretty well every computer ever built.  You can probably even get a version for the abacus. There seems to be a strong relationship between super talented software developers and use of vi (certainly among the developers I've hired over the years).  Maybe it exercises the same brain pathways that are needed to understand pointers, multiple inheritance and race conditions. And yes, C++.
:wq!

shadowmoss

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #27 on: August 22, 2012, 11:10:44 AM »
Another free on-line suite is Zoho at zoho.com.  I've used it's email and calendar and played with it's project management software a bit.  I went there when I started being very concerned with Google and it's lack of privacy.  I just don't like having one company having so much of my life on it's servers.

Jamesqf

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #28 on: August 22, 2012, 01:58:10 PM »
Vi's still around as Vim.  Pretty cool if you're bored and want to mess with your own head.

Sure.  It's pretty much the backup I use on other systems (I work in the Linux/Unix world) where I don't have my own preferred (and much customized over a couple of decades) editor available.

Quote
There seems to be a strong relationship between super talented software developers and use of vi (certainly among the developers I've hired over the years).  Maybe it exercises the same brain pathways that are needed to understand pointers, multiple inheritance and race conditions. And yes, C++.

Thank you for that (blush).  Though when it comes to some of that, I find it's less a case of understanding them, than of understanding why it's not a good idea to use them, at least when you're writing performance-oriented code.

Daley

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #29 on: August 22, 2012, 04:53:23 PM »
Another free on-line suite is Zoho at zoho.com.  I've used it's email and calendar and played with it's project management software a bit.  I went there when I started being very concerned with Google and it's lack of privacy.  I just don't like having one company having so much of my life on it's servers.

I've used Zoho for our mail servers for about a year now. It's good stuff. Only thing I can honestly complain about is their older IMAP implementation preventing push updates on our phones... but that's easily dealt with.

jgarn3r

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Re: Google docs
« Reply #30 on: August 29, 2012, 11:17:22 PM »
I believe you can use word, excel, one note and power point for free or internet versions with a Microsoft live account just go to skydrive.live.com it also has 7GB of free storage for pictures etc.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2012, 11:20:15 PM by jgarn3r »

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!