GDocs vs. ThinkFree vs. Zoho vs. MS Office 226
CWmike writes "Web-based productivity suites, once almost a contradiction in terms, have become real challengers to desktop applications. Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho, have all made major improvements in recent months. They're becoming both broader, with more applications, and deeper, with more features and functionality in existing apps. The question is: Are these three applications really ready to take on a desktop-based heavy hitter like Microsoft Office?"
No (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you honestly think a business is going to allow its private correspondence to be handled over the Internet by one of these programs? Unless the company has nothing it would like to hide from its competitors, this isn't going to happen. There is too much fear of corporate spying.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
"There are a lot more things the businesses have to and should worry about than a reputable company (Google) being hacked or broken into by a competitor."
Yeah yeah, but the real world doesn't run on 'should'. The reality is lots of executive types won't be thrilled with the idea sensitive data being hosted on a website.
My objection exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Same objection I always had with GMail.
Google is then in charge of your data.
I don't care if google is staffed exclusively by Ophanim (closest rank of angels to god), I'm not willing to trust a third party with my stuff, and neither should any self respecting company.
Is your data *that* invaluable? Really?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Get real. Difference between you and "self respecting companies" is that they don't have a stash of porn they're trying hide.
"Self respecting companies" usually have a CFO whose job it is to make sure that money gets spent wisely. Let's consider having you or some other geek team manage my corporate data vs. doing it at Google:
Security:
Geek: encrypts stuff, holds me hostage
Google: Google datacenter security [google.com]
Risk:
Geek: let's face it, would sell his mother (never mind the customer d
Re: (Score:2)
I don't have a stash of porn either. In fact I have nothing to hide. That doesn't mean I want to share all of my information with third parties, even if they swear blind they won't look at it.
Security:
The data never leaves the company network
vs
it travels over the net and then gets stored by people I don't know
Risk:
The data never leaves the company network
vs
it travels over the net and then gets stored by people I don't know
"Unlike your employer, they just manage that risk."
You have no idea who I work for but
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not willing to trust a third party with my stuff, and neither should any self respecting company.
Like Microsoft ?
MS Word could be FTP-ing your docs to Redmond every night for all you know.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd see the traffic. As would other people. That wouldn't stay secret very long.
Re: (Score:2)
I can use it offline and store my files locally.
I'm not relying on a third party to transport and store my confidential data.
These are different levels of trust.
Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No - SaaS is here to stay (Score:2)
Absolutely I "honestly think a business is going to allow its private correspondence to be handled over the Internet ...?"
Only it's not "one of these programs" but a whole cornucopia of online office 'sweets' [healyourch...ebsite.com] that are otherwise known Software as a Service [wikipedia.org] or SaaS for short.
And they're doing it in huge ways, just look at the dominance SalesForce [salelsforce.com] has in the area of CRM applications, or the online offerings by 37 Signals [37signals.com]."
Fact is, the cross-platform, concurrent collaboration qualities of these SaaS based offic
No.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, which is it? Never, or not for a while? :)
I'll go up the middle. There are clearly people using Google Docs right now (me for instance, but I am not in a situation that requires me to do either a lot of documents or spreadsheet work).
I work with several small companies and whenever they send me either Excel or Word documents I load them into Docs (if I feel the need to save them at all) and so far I haven't run into any problems.
Re:No.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, which is it? Never, or not for a while? :)
Well, 10 years ago we couldn't imagine anything like YouTube, and the idea of streaming media was almost laughable back when most people had dial-up. The very idea of a browser on a cell phone would have been seen as impossible, and a phone that would be driven purely by a touch screen was the stuff of science fiction and would have cost $1000 easily. 10 years ago, Linux on the desktop seemed like something that was impossible. 10 years ago, a $200 desktop or a $300 laptop would have been looked at as if it was a scam. Yet today just about everyone visits YouTube, uses streaming media, and nearly every phone has a browser, and the iPhone has been a success and now only costs $200 (well more if you count in what expensive plan AT&T tries to put you on). Linux is pre-installed on many laptops and desktops today, and we have the $200 gPC and a $300 EEE PC. So, when I say, for a while, it means that today it sounds impossible, but 5-10 years from now, we might all be using it.
Re: (Score:2)
I modded you redundant by mistake; I meant 'insightful'.
Re: (Score:2)
I think one of the biggest reasons is Database access.. I know where I work, and many other places, Excell has become less of a calculation tool, and more of a reporting tool.
Re: (Score:2)
can have a ported version of OOo or Office to them with a customized interface to work well with each device while the web-based app doesn't cut it because it is too small
Will all these bugs be ironed out in the next 5-10 years
Seriously? That long? They can make a version of OOo and Office for each new small device in less than a year, but making a customized version of web clients takes 5-10 years?
This is a trivial problem. The thing that web clients are made to do is work well at different resolutions.
well (Score:5, Interesting)
I spent a decent amount of time today reproducing an OO.o spreadsheet in Google Docs - still a long way to go there before it is a threat. The gDocs spreadsheet does some cool things for a web app - and I was impressed with some of the features (for a web app - see how I have to keep qualifying?) but it still doesn't come close to the desktop app.
Are web apps the new cross-platform darling? (Score:5, Interesting)
And because you work in a Web browser, they're cross-platform applications by default:
At work we are going through some issues because Apple decided to deprecate Quicktime for Java and now we are scrambling to find a replacement that will work on Windows and Macs. However, honestly writing cross-platform apps that play movies and deal with databases and lots of networked files isn't trivial to make cross platform, but it might be pretty easy if we went to the web. Is this the future direction for "cross-platform" applications?
You should try flex (Score:2)
If you don't need it to be Java.
Re: (Score:2)
Are we serious here ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, it would be probably better with a newer computer, but I feel sad that an application which is recognised as being a hog such as MS Office runs better on my computer than Google Docs. (I took a glance at TFA, and it seems to imply that Google Docs is the fastest solution of all 3).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And the performance of any RIA will depend on your browser's javascript implementation. That's why I use Webkit as much as possible.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm posting this right now on an hp pavilion ze4430us bought in early 2003. It was $990 at the time from Circuit City (close to bottom of the line) with 512mb ram and a "mobile AMD Athlon(tm) XP2400+" (so says cat /proc/cpuinfo).
We run a google spreadsheet with 5 tabs and a few hundred rows in each tab (and some longrunning calculations on the front page) and it never has any performance issues with google docs, even with 3 of us editing at the same time. This is in firefox3 on ubuntu hoary something 8.04
Re: (Score:2)
The ability to collaborate in a very natural fashion is a strength of GDocs (and I assume the other web-based suites) that is going to be very hard for MS Office, OOo, or any other PC based office suite to match.
OTOH, the local desktop office suite is likely to stay around for a long time. It has strengths with regard to customization of the user interface, macros, templates, boilerplate insertions, and tie-ins to local databases or datastreams that will not be easily duplicated by the online tools.
Perf
Re: (Score:2)
The ability to collaborate in a very natural fashion is a strength of GDocs (and I assume the other web-based suites) that is going to be very hard for MS Office, OOo, or any other PC based office suite to match.
Why? What magical power do you think web browsers have to transfer your data quickly and accurately from one place to another that other applications cannot implement? Do you think shifting all that data via a third party is going to give you more bandwidth just because that third party is "teh Google" or something?!
People have been using things like IRC and instant messaging on the Internet for decades, and they are a heck of a lot more efficient at transferring data in real time than anything based on HTT
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, I'll feed the troll a bit. Others might enjoy watching.
Why? What magical power do you think web browsers have to transfer your data quickly and accurately from one place to another that other applications cannot implement?
I don't expect that of the browser at all. I expect the browser to do exactly and only what it is intended to do: function as a client.
Meanwhile, the server-side software of GDocs (for one example) will assure that all collaborators are working with the same version of each tool in the toolkit. When a bug fix or new feature is added, all collaborators benefit immediately. Further, the hardware or OS any collaborator is using has no impact on the
performance seems to have improved; who'll use it? (Score:5, Interesting)
The last time I tried the google docs spreadsheet (maybe 6 months ago?), it was ridiculously slow. I was about to post here and point that out, but then I thought I ought to check how the performance was today, in case it had improved. Well, I don't have any real data, but my subjective impression is that they must have made vast improvements in its performance since the last time I tried it. It really seems fine now.
The question in my mind now is how many people are really going to want this.
I teach physics at a community college, and I have a bunch of linux boxes in the lab alongside the windows machines. The linux boxes only have Ooo, and the Windows boxes have both Ooo and Excel. It's been interesting seeing how students react to being presented with a choice between Excel and Ooo. I actually have documentation in the lab manual for Ooo, and none for Excel. Nevertheless, the vast majority don't want to mess with Ooo. Even if they have never used a spreadsheet before in their life, Excel is a brand name they've heard, so that's what they gravitate toward.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I'm guessing these are entry level physics classes? 111 or 101 perhaps? I don't mean anything bad at all, because the last time i had a physics class no one was using MS Office stuff at all. Pretty much everyone writes stuff up with LaTex.
Just for humor's sake, you should teach a lesson one day about how Microsoft software makes your intelligence fall. I'm sure it's pretty easy to come up with a reasonable formula for it's rate of change. Even better, play the Balmer videos. Everyone loves those. :-P
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, whats the point of learning a popular markup language used in most academic articles while in college.
If you can't read the article without knowing the markup language, then it's not really a good language, is it? Regardless, I've only read 2 academic articles in my life (that can really be called that), and that's because they were assigned by the prof. One was mundane, and the other was ridiculous. They were distributed on paper, so I can't really tell what created them.
We have things called textbooks that are a wealth of knowledge. I suggest you try them out sometime AC. I don't really have a w
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was pissed off enough that she required us to use a program of her choice to generate a PDF that I simply didn't bother to learn.
Seems you completely misunderstood what she was pretending: my guess is that she wanted you to learn another point of view in the field of documents creation.
I just OO.o, same as always, and exported to PDF. The marker didn't know the difference.
Just because she didn't say anything does not mean she didn't know. She knew most of you would not use LaTeX.
This course I've driven a final career project, and convinced the boy to use LyX (I helped him installing it on windows, which is pretty easy by the way). At the beginning it was tricky for him, but after a couple of days he was comfortable. A
Re: (Score:2)
Seems you completely misunderstood what she was pretending: my guess is that she wanted you to learn another point of view in the field of documents creation.
This was a database class. Not a business class. I don't think that document creation is something I should really be concerned with. I quite honestly don't care what program creates the document. When I have to write documentation, it's usually in the form of a wiki, html, or source code comments. I don't think an office document is all that good of a medium for carrying most of the information I want to convey.
Looking through my documents directory on my PC, I see a number of word processor docume
Re: (Score:2)
This was a database class. Not a business class.
The value a professor should transmit to their students is much more than following certain program for certain subject. Think integral!.
Students are sometimes busy and don't like working aside the established program. I understand that. But let me state that ignoring these extra works you lose opportunities to gather knowledge which can be good for your personal formation and which can feed your resume as well.
Workarrounding your teacher requirements is a good point also, because you react an adapt inste
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is way off-topic, but given the series of posts you've made, I think it needs to be said here.
Sometimes, a course of study at a school is designed by people who are actually smart, and they weave general knowledge of the field and awareness of the possibilities carefully throughout the various classes on more specific subjects. When you're taking such a course, almost by definition it is unlikely that you have yet gained the skill and experience to appreciate this.
Your attitude implies that you think y
Re:performance seems to have improved; who'll use (Score:5, Interesting)
Litmus test (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I wrote my resume in Google Docs. Overall, it did a pretty good job, and made it a lot easier to not only track revisions, but also to share it with a few chosen people who were givnig me some assitance in writing it.
After it was finished, I found it trivial to save it as a .doc and do last minute formatting in Open Office. Most of the formatting issues were really caused by minor font differences created by the constant changes and revisions. I have since re-uploaded the final version to google docs.
So
Re: (Score:2)
Internet Access (Score:2)
Many companies don't even like given internet access to all their employees (which I agree with) so a web-based office solution is less than optimal.
I'm still holding out for a sleeker version of OpenOffice with an improved UI and improved load times.
I use Zoho for sharing docs (Score:4, Interesting)
Still, if I'm going to type anything for printing I'll use Word. If I'm going to do anything that doesn't need to be continuously shared, I'll use one of the office apps. If I need a spreadsheet of any complexity, I'll use Office.
I'd much rather see Google & Zoho polish the features they do have (Zoho still can't print in Landscape format, has nothing close to WYSIWYG printing, and frequently locks. Google has no locking to prevent users from overwriting each other (last time I tried it...). Don't bloat till you've got the skeleton working.
interoperability more important than many realize (Score:4, Interesting)
I work at a non-profit. While we use Office internally, some of the groups are shifting to Google Docs for community outreach. Why? Because there's no software to buy, information can be shared between remote and local users, updated instantly.
I've tried using Word's version tracking features and they tend to fall down. Google Docs will allow simultaneous editing but it's auto-save feature needs work. It saves every 30 seconds so you can end up with a thousand edits that don't really mean anything. Two features that need to be added: the first feature is a data edit session. If Joe reviews the document, he can open a session, make his changes, and close the session. So when I want to see what Joe did, all I have to do is hit a filter that says "Highlight Joe's last session." Or maybe I could say "highlight all of Joe's changes." The other feature that would be great is versioning. After I finish my first draft, I promote the document to second draft and continue editing. Then I can track changes between draft 1 and draft 2, 3, etc, Joe's contributions between draft 1, 2, etc.
At this point in time, Excel is the only Microsoft application I actually like. Google has a way to go to equal that. But for data aggregation, Google Spreadsheets work just fine. Anyone can open the sheets, enter data, and I can copy and paste into Excel for anything more. Nobody has to own Excel or download anything, they can enter the data from any desktop in the world. Word gets grudging credit as the only good option for funky printing requirements. I haven't tried out OO for this yet, it may be up to snuff now.
Where Word really chaps my ass is that there's been no improvements in what's broken since I first started using it. Styles is borked, formatting is borked, there's little flexibility in layouts, tables are buggy, trying to size ANYTHING becomes an exercise in frustration because you cannot position by pixel but by arbitrary jumps, etc, etc. None of these problem areas are addressed, we're just buying the same old broken code with new turd polish each and every version.
Microsoft is still the king for now but there are dozens of companies and open source projects in the race to smoke their asses. If they keep standing still, they're going to be in it like kippers. Office 2007? Fucker can't even share user resources properly. If I want to share contacts from 2007 to someone with 2003, I have to go onto his fucking machine and add myself in as an alternate mailbox. I have to go into tools, mail servers, exchange, add it in. WTF? And the stupid mail invite that goes out when you invite someone, nevermind getting permissions proper when it does things automagically. Grr!
Re:interoperability more important than many reali (Score:2, Interesting)
I also think that Google Docs is a very good solution for some scenarios such as small non-profits. I work with coffee coops and one of the biggest problems is maintaining machines running because they all want to run Windows OS and Office... from what I've seen, in the international arena Microsoft is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to any real development. Organizations that are strapped for resources spend too much time and money on maintaining their Windows crippled boxes.
One of the things that I ha
collaboration dataloss bugs (Score:5, Informative)
We tested and use Zoho and Google; both had serious collaboration bugs:
* Users could overwrite each other's others changes without knowing it. For example if Amy edits a cell (in the spreadsheet app) or text (in the word processor), and the update doesn't reach Bob in time, Bob could overwrite the same data with his own.
* Edits sometimes are not updated on other users' sessions quickly enough or, in some cases, at all.
Before you count on it for serious work, beware. It seems like a fundamental issue they should have anticipated on day one.
Yes! Good enough in 90% of the cases (Score:5, Informative)
I run my own one man IT business and all and I really mean ALL of the documentation is handled through Google Docs.
It is great for collaboration purposes. Version management build in and to top it all off, I never have to worry about access or backup! Especially not with Google Gears that ensures access even when the internet is down (Never happens here)
Now google docs is indeed not too great if you want to do Desktop publishing which is what some people seem to think MS Word is for. I do need the odd picture included in my documents but I wrote a little application to streamline that process.
I made it available for free on my Google site of course. My program Pastry will archive every bitmap you copy and allow for easy upload to Google or anywhere else for that matter. Have a look on: http://vandinther.googlepages.com/pastry [googlepages.com]
Re:Yes! Good enough in 90% of the cases (Score:4, Funny)
It's where data originates that matters (Score:2)
A week ago I was booked for flight and hotel by a client's travel service. The e-ticket showed up in one of my Gmail accounts (multiple accounts with +append addresses and thought-through forwarding really does help) along with address info and an expense form. Google's integrated service meant that I was able to move between e-mail, the expense form and the mapping service while all the while auto-formatting/transferring documents between services. It worked very well.
Seriously, it just wasn't worth the
Wua.la (Score:2)
I love the theory, and I think it makes much more sense than the online alternatives.
(I'm not related to Wuala other than being an enthusiastic user)
Webapps (Score:2)
Re:Not alone... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Emacs is never an option. SSH in from another machine and kill it from the command line.
easier way to quit emacs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:easier way to quit emacs (Score:5, Insightful)
... and then remember that you had another emacs session open in another terminal.
Re:easier way to quit emacs (Score:5, Funny)
type "killall -9 emacs"
No. "shutdown -r now" from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I was considering that, but I decided that since a nuke doesn't stop the area from existing, its more like a clean-slate reboot. Of course, if you put emacs in /etc/{init,rc}.d, you deserve what you get.
Re: (Score:2)
How did that strategy work out the last time someone tried it? ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
then after the Stopped message type "killall -9 emacs"....
And then you remember you were running Solaris (damn !)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
sudo rm -f `find / *emacs*`
Nuke it from root. It's the only way to be sure.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Emacs is never an option. SSH in from another machine and kill it from the command line.
Why use another machine? I'm sure EMACS has an SSH client built into it somewhere...
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Emacs is never an option. SSH in from another machine and kill it from the command line.
And then nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.
Re: (Score:2)
Other missing option:
vi
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I LOVE love love Office 2007. But I use Google Docs for team docs that are constantly being worked on and referred to by multiple people.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
simpler isn't always simpler (Score:2)
With an installed application you are subjected to fewer potential problems in my opinion. Even if it is Microsoft's Office suite you're subjected to their EULA and the length of time that they maintain the product and file formats. With an online suite you're subjected to all of those plus connectivity, privacy policy changes, business plans that don't model your own meaning that they may go out of business, and more.
Except that all of these "pitfalls" may add up to much less than the pitfalls of relying o
No indeed (Score:2, Insightful)
Doesn't sound like it (Score:5, Interesting)
I just visited the home page of each of the three alternatives mentioned, and read their own words about what features their word processors offer. It was hard not to laugh: they actually describe things like being able to save your files and collaborate with others as features. I'm not sure any of them even mentioned a single real word processing feature anywhere on their list. And while some of the on-line features they plug have some merit — though I suspect many of them are really only gimmicks of little real world value — of course being on-line comes with some major downsides in the security and reliability areas.
Then I read TFA. (Yes, really. It's quiet night. ;-)) I think this quote is the most telling:
All three of these word processors are capable of tasks such as formatting the typefaces, placing and sizing graphics, arranging paragraphs, and setting up tables. But only ThinkFree offers the really sophisticated features, such as letting you format a hanging indent.
(Emphasis added)
If adding a hanging indent is sophisticated, these things aren't even glorified text editors, never mind word processors. Where's my real-time word count and spelling checking? My document structuring and organisation tools? My cross-references, footnotes and bibliographies? If they're going to pimp my pages, can I at least have a smart H&J algorithm and use my professional grade OpenType fonts? There is more to a word processor than basic text editing and the occasional picture or table!
I think it's safe to say the guys in Redmond don't need to start throwing chairs. The on-line apps aren't even Word from nearly two decades ago, yet.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If it was a document I really cared about, I wouldn't use Word either. It has horrible typography.
For stuff that I really want to look beautiful, I use Latex, and for very technical documents that need to be really precise, DocBook/XML.
Rich.
Re: (Score:2)
I never said Word's typography was good. :-)
But if they want to beat it and are going to try and do so on the basis of better-looking documents, it would be nice if they at least did a couple of the obvious things Word doesn't.
And yes, for some types of document LaTeX does a much better job; personally, I use XeLaTeX more these days, so I can use those OpenType fonts. But LaTeX is not without its fundamental flaws: it has an unhealthy obsession with messing up vertical spacing, and its control of floats is
Re: (Score:2)
My point wasn't that collaboration was bad. On the contrary, good collaboration tools are very useful in modern offices, as you point out yourself. But I can already save files, and share documents with others by saving them to a common disk. Doing it using someone else's disk across the web doesn't get me anything I couldn't do already. None of the three alternatives made any comments about review and version tracking features, nor about being designed to make their documents look good on-screen, either.
Re: (Score:2)
You are not the centre of the world.
These online suites are in their infancy, and already they're as or more useful than the old-school suites for many purposes. They'll only get better.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure if you knew this or not, but Word actually has had "Track Changes" feature for quite a while - I agree it's not the greatest of implementations, but it does the job - especially in smaller office situations like you describe above.
Also, if you have your document on a shared drive and someone else is editing it, you have the option of letting Word notify you when the document is available again.
That might help your boss next time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Agreed. Nothing which is remotely hosted, unless it's hosted on your own server, will ever be a serious office application.
Proprietary information is only proprietary as long as access is controlled.
Anyone who thinks a web-based office application is a good idea does not understand TANSTAAFL.
Office is da bomb. (Score:4, Funny)
Just give up already, you want to spend the money and buy a nice new Vista PC. Piano black, the ribbon, veterans love it and newbies grok it. It all works together so well it's like a dream. Opens your old documents and saves the new ones in a better than internationally accepted standards way. Worth every penny, $450 for the ultimate OS and $450 for the bestes Office suite, so your computer should not cost much less than $1000. Think of how it will train your children in the skills every office demands [slashdot.org]. Yeah, now your wallet is moving.
Re: (Score:2)
Think you got the prices wrong.
Office Ultimate here in Australia is $1,200.
A drop in the pond compared to the $8,000 computer you need to run it. :)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This article/discussion is not Open Office vs MS Office. It's about whether web based apps are ready for prime time. I know /. commenters are expected to go off the headline only, then spout their opinions without regard to validity, but come on. At least keep your fanboi comments related to discussions that pertain to Open Office. (BTW, I use it, I just don't think it's better than MS Office, only cheaper.) This isn't even open vs. closed discussioin. It's web 2.0 vs locally installed software. Weba
Re:eh (Score:4, Insightful)
The only problem I have with web based apps, and one of its major stumbling blocks, is it is useless without an internet connection. Lose your connection, lose your productivity. No amount of portability can make up for that simple fact.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Google has tried to get around this with Google Gears. When installed, it lets you use Google Docs offline. Sadly, it doesn't support all browsers (I know that it works in Firefox, not sure about IE or Opera, pretty sure that it doesn't work in Safari).
While not an ideal situation, it works. You do have a point, though, in that if you don't have an internet connection you are pretty screwed if you need to access your data that is only stored online.
Hopefully as Wi-Fi becomes more ubiquitous this will be les
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
LOL...
Assuming that you (the AC) are WillyHill, you are becoming as disturbing of a thought as Twitter himself is.
The links above are circumstantial evidence of the ownership of each account.
WTF?
Epic shill threads
FTW?
Due to trolling, this journal entry has comments disabled. If you would like to report a new account, just post on one of my open JEs
TFW?!
Are you building a civil case over this? Or are you going to start a Not-For-Profit Twitter Reduction Organization, Or are you just trying to invoke some sort of Slashdot method to delimitate user accounts, perhaps a mandatory subscription? Is there a newsgroup, or a website in the making?
You can't stop "Twitters" by imposing more rules, you just make them more devious, and by cr
Re:eh (Score:5, Funny)
I, the President of the Twitter Reduction Organization, request that you cease the unnecessary and vulgar bandmouthing of our organization. We provide a valuable service, and as of July 100% of all proceeds go directly towards Twitter suppression activities.
We accept Pay-Pal.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Twitter has a long way to go to be the most infamous poster on slashdot. The worst and hence most infamous trolls on slashdot are the paid to post losers. If you pay attention to them you can even start to readily recognise the different sources. Generally the better ones are sitting in tech company offices posting whilst at work with a distinct bias to their place of work. Next up are a swag of US government propagandist, from better to worse, US government intelligence agencies (NSA>FBI and bottom of t
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Twitter has a long way to go to be the most infamous poster on slashdot. The worst and hence most infamous trolls on slashdot are the paid to post losers.
How do you know they are paid by the Uncle Sam/Israel/RIAA/CIA/FBI/Microsoft etc?
I often defend all of those organizations (and much worse ones) just for shits and giggles.
No one pays me a cent.
The thing is.... (Score:5, Interesting)
None of them are all that great. Do Google Apps do everything Office does? No, clearly not. But frankly, I think Office is overrated. Granted, my copy is a couple of years old, but I just don't have much use for it. I open most things in OpenOffice, but even then, I'm converting a lot of it to text. I find all office suites ponderous and bloated, more by feature creep than any particular flaw in coding. Send me text, and I'll put it in Scribus or LaTeX.
Google Docs should be thought of as a highly-collaborative text editing environment, not a word processor. It looks exceptionally good when you look at it that way.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
None of them are all that great. Do Google Apps do everything Office does? No, clearly not. But frankly, I think Office is overrated.
The point of Microsoft Office isn't that it's the greatest Office suite ever, it's that in a Microsoft setting, it's easy to integrate with a lot of other things so that everything ends up as Word documents or Excel sheets (or starts that way and ends up being something else).
As a standalone suite, pretty much anything will do the job unless you're always locked into Microsoft land (especially with huge Excel macros).
Re: (Score:2)
Re:File format!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
because it isnt sufficiently interoperable with MSoffice.
Wait a second... Lets see, I can save an item in OOo and I can open it up in Office and still get all the text just fine. I can use a saved file from Office and open it up in OOo and still get all the text just fine. However, I can take a saved file from Office 2003 and open it up in Office XP which should be compatible, but wait... The file from Office 2003 looks totally different on Office XP! But aha! I have Office 2003 installed on my laptop... But wait! It looks different on there then on the Office 2003 at work!
Face it. Even Office isn't good at being sufficiently interoperable with Office. But that hasn't killed Office... Yet.
Re:File format! (Equation editor) (Score:2)
For me the major incompatibility is the equation editor. Most of the time I produce all my documents and presentations using TeX, but every once a while I need to work on a project where the documents need to be in MS Word format (that's usually when I do a job for the education department). That's a bit of problem for me, as I run Linux on both my home and office computer. Openoffice is fine for opening an occasional email that somebody clueless sent in a Word format although it really contains nothing
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I tried it my job (I also emailed the file to myself just in case)
The funny thing is, I can access gmail just fine at work, but google docs is blocked as a personal storage sever.
Sorry to tell you, but Websense will most likely follow you to your next job as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)