Archive for microsoft
Bing vs. Google
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Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine debuted June 1st with lots of fanfare. I decided to give it a try as I’ve been pretty pleased with the improvements Microsoft has been making, especially with their Small Business and Live products. I gave the old ‘Live’ search a try many times and was usually disappointed. I would type in the same search terms in the Live box and then in the Google search box and Google gave me what I was looking for. Not so with Live.
So how’s Bing done in taking away marketshare the past 3 weeks? According to an article by Ziff Davis’ Nicholas Kolakowski, Microsoft has overtaken Yahoo as the number 2 search engine and marketshare points have increased by 3 to 16.7% in the last week. People are checking it out. I’ll be watching the numbers with interest.
Aesthetically, the Bing home page is much prettier than Google’s starkness. Each day presents with a new and impressive photo, but that’s not one of the metrics we’ll look at. Let’s start with the best feature of Bing (IMHO):
Preview and Search
With Bing, type your search terms in the box and when the results are returned, hover your mouse over one of the results. Over to the right, you’ll see a vertical line with a small orange dot in the middle. Roll your mouse over to it and a preview of the site will appear without you having to leave the search page. I like this feature as it will quickly eliminate what you don’t want. Nice time and effort saver.
Bing has an added feature to present upon performing a search that Google doesn’t have. Type in your search term and in addition to the results cascading down the page, Bing also presents a separate list over to the left side of the screen. This list presents you with related searches that may be of interest. I like that. The graphic also shows that Bing shows you recent search history.
Image Search
Bing surpasses Google in this area. Click on ‘Image’ to be taken to an image search and type in your term and you’ll see rows of images without the clutter. By this I mean only images are displayed on the page – no text identifiers on each picture – much less distracting. Just hover your mouse over any image and that information will appear for you. But wait, there’s more!
Along the left, you can choose to filter your results by size, layout, color, style and people. Click the ‘+’ to expand and make your choice on how to sort and navigate through your choices. This can be handy when looking for a certain type, style, color or size of graphic.
Shopping & Local
Bing has a free rewards program you can sign up for with your Windows Live ID. Then, simply use Bing when you do your shopping comparison and you’ll be shown the cash back you earn by shopping at stores like Tiger Direct, New Egg, Home Depot and even Sears. We’re talking from 1-7% back on your purchases!
Bing already knew my location and when I typed in ‘traffic’ it gave me the Oklahoma City traffic conditions and a map. Not so with Google. I got traffic in LA and the east coast.
Extras
Over at the top and right of your screen, there’s an ‘extras’ drop down. Select ‘Webmaster Tools’ and you’ll be able to enter in your various websites and let Microsoft run some tools. You will have to verify your site by putting some code on your website page.
Conclusion
I’ve got my home page set to be Bing right now and so far, I’m pretty happy with search results, the preview, the images and the shopping. Please leave your comments and impressions.
Windows 7 Review
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s been a week since I installed Windows 7, RC (release candidate), on our Dell Dimension 9100, (circa 2005) computer with 2 GB ram and a spacious hard drive. I thought I’d share my experience as you might find it helpful.
We’d been running XP Home since 2005 and it was fine, but I was ready for a change. I like to do a reformat every year or so just to clean out the cruft. So I backed up my data and got my free Windows 7 RC download and key. I also found this advisor from Microsoft. It’s a quick download and install and will tell you if your system is ready or if you may have compatibility issues. Here are a set of short videos from Microsoft that give you a tour of what you’ll get. If you want really detailed information, i.e. upgrade from Vista, clean install from XP or Vista visit Microsoft TechNet for the hand-holding version.
With XP, you will need to do a clean install – which means you’re reformatting your drive. I thought about using Microsoft’s free Virtual PC software, and run XP and Windows 7, but alas, the wizard said it wasn’t compatible with my machine.
The install was actually pretty quick and painless and when it was finished, I first visited Microsoft Security to get any updates I might need. I was looking at updates and getting my preferences set, anti-virus software downloaded, updating Windows Defender, etc. when I realized that all my drivers had been loaded for me! I had no idea Windows 7 would take care of this tedious and sometimes frustrating chore. This feature/benefit alone makes me recommend doing the upgrade. I think there are a lot of people out there who hesitate doing a reinstall of their OS because of making sure all the drivers are reinstalled.
Any glitches you may ask? Well, unfortunately I had no sound! My era 2005 SigmaTel audio driver had never been updated by Dell, and in my voluminous research, I found out Dell would be the only one to upgrade this driver. I did find (by a tedious search), that there was a Vista version of the SigmaTel driver made for my machine, but after downloading and installing, it didn’t work. Unfortunate, because I had read that if you had a Vista driver, most likely Windows 7 would be able to use it. I spent way too much time researching, looking at forums, etc. I found others with SigmaTel audio issues along with other brands. The Windows 7 techs would say to either contact the manufacturer, or wait until 7 is officially released. That’s the risk you take.
After speaking to Tim, my tech guy, I decided to get a new sound card. I got an Xtreme 5.1/16 bit Sound Card, went to their site, downloaded the Vista driver, and we had sound!
Paul Thurrott, who blogs regularly about Microsoft products and writes Windows books, has a very detailed review on the beta release and is worth a look if you want to delve into the nooks and crannies of changes, upgrades and how to utilize features.
Takeaways
- Easy to download and install. You will need to burn the download to a DVD. Instructions from Adrian Kingsley-Hughes on ZDNet.
- DO think about consequences if something goes wrong. Make an informed and thoughtful choice of what computer to install the RC on—you probably don’t want to put it on your work computer.
- It is all they say – faster, prettier, UAC not as intrusive, what Vista should have been.
- One issue that I haven’t figured out it is that Adobe Flash Player will not stay installed when we’re using the Firefox browser. It continually says we need to install it, which we have many times (and uninstalled it). Still won’t work, so we use IE in those cases. Java works fine with Firefox.
- If your PC and peripherals are newer, compatibility should not be a problem If you do have driver issues, Windows 7, go to Control Panel and look for the new UI called Printers & Devices and run the troubleshooting.
- Just GET IT! Use it free for a year.
Windows 7 – Release Candidate – Use Free for a Year!
Posted by: | CommentsI thought there was a lot of buzz around Vista pre-release, but it’s nothing compared to the Windows 7 chatter. Have you heard that the Windows 7 Release Candidate is available for free download – from now until the end of July, so get your Windows 7 Release Candidate here. If you already have the beta version of Windows 7 on your computer, they strongly urge you to do a clean install; that is to back up your data and reformat your hard drive.
Your copy of the RC (release candidate), will be free for you to use until June of 2010. However, beginning March 1, 2010, your computer will shut down every 2 hours as a ‘friendly reminder’ that time is running out and you’ll need to buy a copy. Pricing details have not been released and rumors are plentiful with the range of free for those who have Vista Ultimate, up to over $300 for the Ultimate flavor of Windows 7.
I’m only hearing good about this version of Windows. It’s more stable, more lightweight, more compatible, faster and consumes less resources than Vista. It runs well on netbooks with the Atom processor and only 1GB of Ram.
The Windows 7 desktop continues using aero – the see-though desktop. Now, there are more colors, more wallpapers and location themes to choose from. They look beautiful. I’ve heard the graphical interface referred to as “Mac-like”. I’m assuming that’s a compliment :0
There are many enhancements and changes, we’ll just talk about three of them.
The Task Bar
With current versions of windows, we’re accustomed to looking down and seeing both an icon and description of what we have open on our desktops. Not so with Windows 7. There is only a graphical representation of each program open and if your task bar fills up the bottom of the screen, then the icons will flow in a row on your desktop. This could bewilder inexperienced users.
RMS (Remote Media Streaming)
A huge change and improvement is a brand new feature called Remote Media Streaming (RMS), To utilize this feature, all computers involved will have to be running Windows 7. Then, using your Windows Live ID, you can access media from any connected computer to the computer you’re in front of. You can be down the hall or out of town. For example, you’re in your office and you decide you want to hear a particular album, but you don’t have it with you or on your computer. Sign in with your ID and instantly access and play the music. Works for videos, movies, etc. Kind of like having a slingbox.
The new ‘Library’ and better search function
Windows 7 introduces the ‘library’ concept. Here’s what it does. You first start with four main components: pictures, videos, documents and music. Then, new folders can be added to your photo library from another computer. The photos themselves will stay on the other machine, but as long as the computer you’re on can access the remote machine, that data can be accessed.
It’s how Windows Media Player works right now with XP or Vista. When you use WMP, it asks if you want to add folders to the player’s library. You can choose folders from an external drive or another computer and WMP groups them all together for you.
For example, say you added folders of videos from two computers and an external hard drive on your computer. Since these folders are in your library, whenever you do a search for a video, the videos from the remote computers and drive will be shown on the computer you’re on and they will be instantly available to you. Nice!
If youve installed Windows 7, what has been your experience. Please share.
Windows Steady State
Posted by: | CommentsAre you the IT expert for your small business or household? Do you have employees or kids who are not very safety/web/tech conscious and savvy? Have you noticed your home or business computer slowing down, is it collecting a multitude of shortcuts and downloaded programs on the desktop? Perhaps you are in charge of a bank of computers used by the public (at an internet cafe or library) and you need a way to manage them and keep them safe and in a reliable state.
Microsoft developed Windows Steady State as a free service for XP and Vista users to make it as easy as a reboot to get their computers back to healthy again. So, if you have a shared computer, or just want the ability to restore a non-shared computer to its former pristine state with a reboot, then Steady State could be for you.
Wouldn’t it be nice to feel confident about installing a new piece of software, knowing if it didn’t work out, you wouldn’t have to worry about uninstalling it and wondering if it’s completely gone. This is a great, free tool for someone who does software testing. If you’re the person everyone in your family calls when there’s computer trouble, you could install this on their computer and set a few controls and tell them to reboot when something happens!
If you’re going to use Steady State for commercial use, it’s a good idea to get all the computers optimized (deleting temp files, running virus scans, making sure windows is updated, removing unneeded programs, etc.) before installing Steady State. The most important thing to do beforehand, according to Microsoft, is to defrag your hard drive. The point is to get your machines in a ‘like new’ state so that after you reboot, it will be configured the way you need it to be.
When you’re ready, go here to get your computer validated and to download the software. After it’s installed, start it up and you’ll see this welcome screen. Now you’re ready to set up user accounts and specify parameters of what each user is allowed to do. Here are a few of the restrictions you can program (taken from Microsoft’s site):
Start Menu restrictions let you remove items from the Start Menu. This means you can disable user access to items such as:
Shut Down
Control Panel
Command Prompt
Windows Explorer
Drive restrictions determine which drives are visible to the user in My Computer. You can select the option to hide all drives or show some drives. Includes removable storage devices.
Program restrictions let you block a user from running a particular program, such as a system tool, simply by adding that program to the blocked list.
Feature restrictions can stop users from accessing program attributes that might damage or clutter the computer.
Internet restrictions
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Once you have a profile/user account set up to your specifications, you can then use that profile to import to other computers or user accounts. There is an extensive help section to answer your questions and also a section for Advanced Administrators you may find helpful.
If you have special restrictions for each user, take full use of all the possibilities in the control panel of Steady State. Here’s a great place to start getting an overview of what the program can do, complete with some short videos.
When I was setting up my test account, I first set the ‘protect the hard disk’ setting to ‘remove all changes at restart’. I then got a warning that it would take more disk space and resources, but went ahead and did it. I did notice a big drag on my system when I rebooted and logged back into my identity. Then, I changed the setting to ‘remove all changes to a specified time’. I didn’t get the same warning, so I’ll see if that makes things run faster.
I did a little research and it seems others have noticed performance slowdowns as well—mainly during the reboot process. So, I’m going to keep it for awhile and run more tests. Most feel it’s an excellent product and I would certainly have something like this if I were in charge of a bank of computers available to the public.
If you have experience with Steady State, please leave your comments.
Scan Your Computer for Running Processes & Remove Them
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There are many programs (both free and fee-based), out there that will scan your computer and let you know what is running on your computer. The first one we’re looking at today is free and is called Process Scanner, by Uniblu. I like this program because it not only tells me what is running on my computer, it also gives me a link to where I can actually research what a particular process is.
When the report is complete, you can see the results at the top of the page with these categories:
- All processes
- Security
- Network
- Performance
- Autostart
Yikes – I had 99 processes running on my computer. For each process listed, you can click the hyperlink to either assess a threat or get more information on resources being used. I went ahead and clicked for a ‘threat assessment’ on my Evernote program (a great tool I blogged about earlier). Instead of giving me a report, it took me to another Uniblu website for a free spyware scan – not really what I was expecting. Since the site was verified by everyone and their dog, I went ahead and downloaded and ran that program that looked for spyware in my cookies, registry and files. It said my system was clean – with only 4 tracking cookies. I found that if I wanted to remove the cookies, I would have to purchase the spyware cleaner service—which I declined.![clip_image001[4]](http://extremevirtualsupport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/clip-image0014.jpg "clip_image001[4]")
As I mentioned, the helpful thing about this program is that you can actually go and research in their directory exactly what a process and then decide if you could remove it from the list of things that start when your computer boots. This part is free. This feature is available without having to run a scan.
Microsoft Free Tool
Microsoft offers a free tool that will do the same thing. Download and run Process Monitor to get a report of what’s running on your computer. The website also has links to other Microsoft utilities that might be of interest. Reading through the information on Process Monitor, I couldn’t really tell if they give a way to remove processes or not. I find a lot of the Microsoft KB verbiage seems to be written in programmer-speak, as I sometimes have difficulty understanding it.
Operating System Tools
If you have Vista, you can take a quick look at and end or disable processes running on your computer. To access, go to Control Panel>Performance Information & Tools>Manage Start Up Programs. There are many reports and tools that can be used here to see what’s going on inside your computer. Here’s a great article from CNET that gives the step by step.
CCleaner – Another Alternative
I use this free program about twice a month to clean up and optimize my system. Below is a list of what it can do
Cleans the following
Internet Explorer
Temporary files, history, cookies, Autocomplete form history, index.dat.
Firefox
Temporary files, history, cookies, download history, form history.
Google Chrome
Temporary files, history, cookies, download history, form history.
Opera
Temporary files, history, cookies.
Safari
Temporary files, history, cookies, form history.
Windows
Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
Registry cleaner
Advanced features to remove unused and old entries, including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more… also comes with a comprehensive backup feature.
Third-party applications
Removes temp files and recent file lists (MRUs) from many apps including Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Microsoft Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and many more…
100% Spyware FREE
This software does NOT contain any Spyware, Adware or Viruses.
Conclusion
Give one or several of these programs a try. I’m using CCleaner regularly and I need to delve into the tools already on my computer from Microsoft to cull the list of start-up programs I have. If you don’t want to do a reformat of your computer right now, this should help clean things up and make them faster.
Windows Calendar Sync with Google Calendar/Windows Live Calendar with Outlook
Posted by: | CommentsWe’ve talked several times about calendar syncing and what works with what. We are all looking for the holy grail of calendar syncing and we all have our unique needs and situations.
Today, we’ll talk about two other calendar syncing tools: a 1-way Google to Windows Calendar Sync and 2-way Windows Live Calendar to Outlook 2007 Calendar Sync (includes mail as well).
1-way Google to Windows Calendar Sync
First, let’s define and make clear what I mean by Windows Calendar. Windows Calendar is shipped with the Vista OS, not XP, so if you are an XP user, you can skip this—or read what you’re missing! Windows Calendar is part of a built-in Vista suite of products that replaced the sorry (IMHO) Outlook Express program. There is a calendar and a mail client that can be used if you don’t buy Outlook.
Lots of us already have and use the wildly popular Google calendar, so why not quickly connect your Google calendar with your Windows Calendar – just takes a 
couple of minutes. Here’s how:
1. Go to your Google calendar, click on ‘settings’, ‘calendar’, then click on your name. Scroll down to ‘Google calendar settings. You’ll want to click the ‘ical’ green button and it will open and show some code for your calendar. Copy this text.
2. Next, go back to your Windows Calendar, click on ‘subscribe’ and a box will open like the one below.
Go ahead and paste the code into the box and click on the next button. It will take a few seconds to get it all connected. Choose how frequently you want google to update the Windows calendar and you’re done!
Keep in mind that this will be a 1-way sync only from Google Calendar to Windows Calendar. For example, if I put an appointment on my Google calendar, it will sync to my Windows Calendar. But if I add something to my Windows Calendar, it will never show up on my Google Calendar.
Next, we’ll look at software that will connect your Outlook calendar and mail to your Windows Live Calendar and Mail.
2-way Windows Live Calendar to Outlook 2007 Calendar Sync
The sync here does not include the Outlook 2007 calendar with the Windows Calendar. I could not find that Microsoft has this functionality. Perhaps they don’t because they feel if you have the Outlook calendar, you won’t need to use the built-in Windows Calendar.
So this section deals with bringing your Outlook calendar together with your Windows Live Calendar. I actually blogged about this a couple of months ago. So the instructions are in that post.
All you need to complete this sync is a windows live ID. A live ID is required before setting up a live or hotmail account. So if you’ve been a live or hotmail user for awhile and also have Outlook, this is a nice tie-in to get both mail streams in one place. You will also need to download Outlook Connector (covered in my previous blog posting).
Microsoft has made giant steps in improving what I like to call, your ‘cloud’ experience in the past six months. We’ll be looking at some of these in this new year.
Microsoft Small Business Live – Open, Share & Save Documents From Your Computer
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Microsoft has been refining and upgrading their ‘Live’ series of offerings the last few months. This article will focus on recently revamped ‘Microsoft Office Live – Small Business’. Just visit the Office Live site and you’ll be introduced to a cornucopia of options. You can set up a website, set up an e-commerce store, purchase a domain name and then set up various e-mail accounts using the new domain name. There is a contact manager, an e-mail marketing feature and newsletter creation and mailing (paid subscription for these).
We will focus on a free and very useful function I found while exploring this site—the ‘Share Documents’ feature. Looks like Microsoft is competing with Google here as they are offering a place to store, share and collaborate on Microsoft Office documents. From the above menu of items, click on the ‘Share Documents’ and you’ll be taken to your Workspace site where you can upload documents for sharing, collaboration or storage. Check this out for full details on everything you can do with your workspace.
I liked the fact that I can upload multiple documents at once by clicking one file, holding the shift and selecting consecutive files. It does not upload folders, however. Once I’ve gotten my documents uploaded, I can create different workspaces to share with different groups (or just a single person). It’s easy to move my documents to new workspaces and flag documents for sharing. As you’re setting up to share, you decide if the recipient will be an owner, editor or viewer. I really like the choice I have to send my invitation to someone and they don’t have to sign in or create an account to view the documents. Don’t you just hate getting something from someone and in order to see it, you have to get your own account!
I like this interface much better than Google Docs. It seems to be more intuitive and just makes more sense, at least to me. Over on the right side of the document screen, you can check out the activity in your space. You can see who has made changes or uploaded any more documents – very handy. Click on the ‘Comment’ box and leave a note for a co-worker.
Microsoft has a collaboration feature they call ‘Shared View’. You can read more about this application, which you can download and use without using the Live Small Business site. Click on the ‘Share’ button and select the option to share your screen with someone. You’ll have to have the app installed on your computer—you’ll be prompted for what to do. After it’s installed, you can initiate a sharing session with anyone right from Word, Excel or PowerPoint – nice.
I’m saving the best for last! The coolest feature and a huge timesaver is that you can save a document directly to your on-line live workspace right from your local Microsoft Office application. This means when you’re working on a document in Word, Excel or PowerPoint, click the save button and you’ll have the option to save either to your local drive or your small business live workspace in the clouds. You do have to install this add-in to be able to do this. It works with Office 2003 & 2007. It’s really great – can’t do that with Google Docs!
I first set up a Windows Live Account before I set up the Small Business portion and I was pleased to discover that I can access either of these areas by going to http://home.live.com/ and signing in. I did notice once I get into the Small Business section and I’m in the documents section, I don’t find a way to navigate myself back to my top level, or home page. This is annoying. I wish they would have some menu items at the top to get me where I want to be!
Next week, we’ll look at the ‘Outlook Connector’ and what that can do.
Microsoft SharedView – File and Collaboration Tool for Small Groups
Posted by: | CommentsIt seems like there are more and more collaboration tools cropping up. Here’s one from Microsoft called Microsoft SharedView. And no, you don’t have to use any Microsoft products in order to use it! Well, except for the OS. There is a small software download that is accessed here. In order to start a session, you need to use your Microsoft Live ID–what– you don’t have one? You’ll need one. The program and the Live ID are both free. You can join a session without an ID.
Using this app, up to 15 people can be invited to see and actually work on a particular document. To start a session, you will open the program and then click on ‘start session’. A pop-up box and a handy button to click on will open an email complete with URL, password, etc. for you to send out to one person or a group. Then you simply click on ‘Share’ and a list of everything open on your computer will pop up. Select the document or anything else on your desktop you want to share and begin sharing.
There is a Personal Mouse Pointer feature to make each participant’s identity visible to everyone. When this feature is turned on, each mouse pointer displays a text identifier to indicate who the mouse pointer belongs to. You can also turn on the tracking feature in Word so you will see who made changes to the document. It is stressed many times to be aware of the fact that when you share whatever is on screen, others in the group can make changes just as if they were sitting at your computer. If you have chosen to share your entire desktop, someone can access anything currently open on your machine and they can even go to your start>programs and get into anything on your computer. It’s nice they point this out, but with everyone else seeing the same thing, it would be pretty evident if someone was up to no good.
After you’ve installed the program, you can launch it from Windows Live Messenger or Office applications, such as Word. I think I saw there’s even a Firefox Add-in to make things easier.I found SharedView pretty intuitive, although there is a help section here if you need assistance in a particular area.
There is a nice IM chat feature included, which is handy for short comments. No audio with this program — you’ll need to dial in to speak to one another.
If you are the organizer of the meeting, you’ll have the ability to add new people to the group, eject someone from the group, stop sharing a particular document and post handouts others can download to their machines.
Besides using this for document collaboration, think of other uses:
- software training/demo – get a conference call number and invite up to 15 people for a demonstration of new software
- Have a meeting! Instead of traveling, invite your far-flung colleagues via e-mail and present from your own office
- Computer troubleshooting – send an invite to a client having computer problems and they give you control and you can fix the problem or walk them through how to fix the problem
- Fun/leisure activities – show pictures or share home movies, youtube videos, etc. with your friends and family
Windows Live Folder Share is here!
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Microsoft released in March their updated (and beta) version of FolderShare.
FolderShare is a free piece of downloadable software. Install it and log in. There are three components – a Personal Library, a Shared Library and a Remote Access section. Pretty simple – the personal section contains files and folders that only you will have access to. Shared folders and be shared with one or a number of people. Click the “create library” button and navigate to the folder on your computer you want to share and select it. Then you will designate the person’s email you want to share with and FolderShare will send them an email. You can share a document, a folder of pictures, think of the possibilities!
The remote access allows you to login and work on files from anywhere you might be. You can also set up remote access with a colleague or client. Use it to keep shared files and folders you use for collaboration. I think it’s easier and faster to get to than using Google Docs. It is useful for me in my virtual assistance business.
So you’re wondering about security. Here’s how they secure data (taken from the Microsoft site): FolderShare help:
Yes, FolderShare works with the Mac too! There is a Mac client for download at the Microsoft site. You can share folders between PCs and Macs. From a couple blogs I’ve read, they play and share very nicely together!
OpenOffice.org vs. Google Apps
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I blogged way last summer about Microsoft Office type replacements (see May & June, 2007 posts). Back then we discussed ThinkFree and Google Apps. Now I have a reason to really look at OpenOffice.org. I just ordered the extremely small and sweet Asus EEE computer and it comes loaded with OpenOffice.org. I’m very happy to be ‘forced’ to use both Linux and OpenOffice software! Now Microsoft still has a place in my life – on my business laptop!
Version 2.4 was released just last week and offers many enhancements to make working in the OpenOffice.org environment more robust and well, more Microsoft-y! You can read the release notes here: Reading through them, it seems that if you are a pretty experienced Office user (as I am), then you may think to yourself, “well, that’s nice that they’ve added a page down feature from within the print preview menu, but I think I’d expect that”. I’m not trying to belittle the enhancements – I’m sure my perspective would be different without my Microsoft background.
Since OpenOffice.org has been around for about 20 years now, there is an extensive and comprehensive help section complete with forums and user manuals. If you’re a group, you can even talk to them about coming to train your people.
Thinking of some differences between Google and Openoffice:
- Google apps is on-line – Openoffice isn’t. Advantage OpenOffice! (footnote:Google just announced they will have a way for users to download and work on documents offline. Only for docs – not the other apps)
- There’s a lag time when opening docs on-line vs. on your hard drive. Advantage OpenOffice
- Google docs are great for uploading and sharing in real time with someone else – not OpenOffice. Advantage Google Apps
- Google docs are available to you anywhere you have an internet connection. Not so for OpenOffice (unless you have off-site storage)
Suite Features:
OpenOffice Google Apps
Writer Docs
Calc Spreadsheet
Impress Presenter
Draw (drawings, flowcharts, etc.)
Base (database program)
There are so many comparisons that could be made. It comes down to what it is YOU need. If you don’t collaborate, you probably don’t need Google Apps. If you have some old computers around and would like to be able to do some word processing or calculating, OpenOffice.org would be perfect for that. OpenOffice also has a couple more packages than Google. However, neither of them have calendaring/email built right in and all in the same place.
I’ll post more after I get my EEE computer!
