Testing Google Apps

For a long time I've been interested in Google apps, I work on three computers two of them have two different operating systems, which makes Google apps a perfect solution for me. Typing is quite straight forward so I decided to try out Google's spreadsheet. Nothing better then checking the change in percentage of the different operating systems, I took the raw data form W3Schools site and started working I summed up the percentage for each operating system each month between March 2003 to November 2009, I divided it in to three groups, Windows, Mac O.S and Linux. It wasn't a problem  with Mac and Linux, but in Windows there were different versions each month so I just summed them up, for example in March 2003 Windows consists out of Win XP, Win 2000, Win 98, Win NT and Win 95, in November 2009 Windows consists out of Win 7, Vista, Win 2003, Win XP and Win 2000. And here are the results (reading from right to left):

  No big discovers Windows still controls the market with 88.5% after it comes Mac O.S. with 6.7% and finishing with Linux with 4.3%. Windows started with 93.2% and is going down, it had a steep and short climb 2.5 years ago but since then Windows is losing it's share in the o.s market, the fastest climbing o.s is Mac, from 1.8% to 6.7% in six years. Linux is also climbing but in a slower rate it started from 2.2%. As a Ubuntu fan this is promising, but thats for another time.
As for Google apps, or more specific Google's spreadsheet, I tested it in 4 parameters, speed, options ,user interface and working offline:

1. Speed - not bad, I accepted it to be much slower, since we are talking about a web app, they tend to be slower and some time they get jammed , for example when I pressed ctrl+s it save the worksheet  immediately it felt as I was in a desktop app. The menus open the second I pushed the mouse's button, I was quite impressed.
2. Options - It's not Microsoft's Office Excel, it's not even Open Office's Spreadsheet, it's poor, simple things like adding a trend line do not exist, I couldn't change the direction of the horizontal axis, you can't copy a value of a cell with a formula in it, you have to copy the formula. This are just a part of the problems I encountered while using Google Spreadsheet.
3. User Interface - Well it's not that different from Microsoft's Office or Open Office, it's the basic universal model of office apps, nothing new here.
4. Working Off line - As appose to other office web apps like Zoho, Google apps can work off line which make ideal for users that work on different computers or different o.s., the only problem I had was opening a new document, when working off line I could only work on documents that were already save before.   

For conclusion, Google is working and working very hard to match it's main adversary, Microsoft, It's not only in the field of office apps but part of a bigger battle. Where will we work in the future, on a desktop and with desktops apps or on the web with it's apps, as you can see Microsoft's conception still controls the market (the last graph), but no one can tell what the future holds.    

All You Need is Love

I just found out about this video, it was taken on December 7 th at 1:30 GMT, people from 156 countries sang "All you need is love" at the same time. They did it to raise the awareness of AIDS in Africa. When you finish watching this video go to Starbucks site and add you voice, for every voice added they will contribute 5 US cent. Enjoy !!!

Interesting on the web

Muziic is a new music web app based on YouTube music videos, you can make your own playlists, listen to a whole album, there is even a desk top app for windows, all of those with no kind of any limitations, no copy rights issues involved (At least until now), no big record labels making a fuss.Muziic is the work of a 15 year old teenager  ,David Nelson, which makes it quite impressive. But from my point of view the best feature is not having to access the web from the U.S. or Europe, music or video likeHulu, Pandora and Vevo (a new service, smiler to Muziic, a YouTube and the record labels cooperation) are restricted to the U.S. and BBC iPlayer and Spotify are restricted to the U.K. and Europe. It's nice having a service that works out side the U.S., the U.K. or Europe. You can always use a proxy server, but it doesn't always work and it's a big headache.

Another new web app is Seesmic it's a new twitter client very smiler to TwitDeck but wokrs on a web browser, no installations needed. It has all the basic functions that all Twitter clients posses.

One more site is Give away of the day, every day you can download an application, the download is a full licensed version and not a trial or limited edition.

You download SoftMaker donates

SoftMaker is giving out free and full versions of SoftMafer office 2008 for Windows, Linux and Mac.......
For every download they donate 0.10 Euro to charity and development worldwide.
SofeMaker office is a nice alternative for M$ Office and for OpenOffice. Try it out...

Google Wave Invitations

After having Google Wave for a few weeks I must say I have hardly used it, I check out what I can do with Google's new tool, after playing with it for a day or two I had enough.

When I need to connect some one through the web I use one of following.

1. E-mail, in my case Gmail.
2. Instant messaging, again Google Talk in my case, some times I use the one in skype.
   
3. Skype, when I need to talk.
   

I have a few friends who also have Google Wave, but same like me they hardly use it, everyone is already used to use e-mail and I.M.

More then that all of them use Gmail, they prefer their e-mail, then heir new way of communication, meaning Google Wave. Another problem with Google Wave is that you can only use it to communicate with friends who have Goolge accounts, as apposed to e-mail which can be used a lot wider to communicate people with accounts in other places.  By creating G-mail Google had prevented from most users to change their way of thinking and start communicating in a new way.

On the other hand I must say that a lot Google's experiments have ended in very good products like G-mail, Google Calender, Google Reader and Google maps and there is rumor that they are working now on a new web protocol, "spty" which is 50% faster then "http".

If you are still interested in trying Google Wave for your self I have some invitations left, you can leave me a comment with your mail and I'll send you an invitation.

Google Chrome OS

Finally it came out the Google Chrome OS, I installed it in a virtual machine (virtual box) and gave it a test drive. Here are some of my thoughts:

• It's A browser  and you can't change to any other browser.
• You can't logon or work when you're offline.
• You can only surf the web.
  
• When you look under the hood, you find something familiar.

To make things short until now all I see is Chromium on Ubuntu.

No Internet No OS

Look's like Chrom the browser

The applications tab, all web applications

It's not the browser it's the operating system

This is what you happens when you want to get in "Microsoft Live Office" when using Ubuntu, you are asked to install I.E. or Firefox, the only problem is that I am running it through Firefox. The problem isn't the browser it's the operating system, Microsoft can't tolerate competition.